THE SOLDIER'S PAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 96, 20 October 1937, Page 23

THE SOLDIER'S PAY

ITS CURIOUS HISTORY

WHEN COLONELS OWNED CORPS

OLD-TIME SCANDALS

Overhaul of pay-rates and conditions of service in the Army is being advocated as a remedy for shortage of rejruits. In the "Daily Telegraph" Reginald Hargreaves describes how the British Army was raised and paid tn earlier times, and historic changes in th lot of those who took the King's shilling. ! Never in the whole history of the British Army has an exact balance beci. struck between the needs of the "Common soldier" and the service demanded of him from the State, writes Mr. Hargreaves. Changing circumstances and fashions in military service have always contrived to leave the question of pay s vexev* one. Each successive system has hcd to devise its own method of finance. England's original defence force, inaugurated by Alfred the Great and known as the fyrd, was nothing more or less than a militia system, with a territorial organisation based upon a strictly regional foundation. The recruit—or conscript—reported for duty, bringing with him certain specified arms of his own providing; his service was for two months in the year, and his pay was one penny a day —equal in spending value to about Is of our presentrday money. As time went on, however, the recruit who was in a position to do so was permitted to tender a money payment in lieu of personal service; with these contributions a fund vvas provided for the hire of mercenaries." ARCHER AS SPECIALIST. With feudalism's decline the tendency was to revert to a modified form of the original fyrd. Each shire provided its quota of men, supplying the recruit with the sum of 10s for his outfitting and subsistence until such time as he could report to his depot and his upkeep could be taken over by responsible authority. In this early instance of "coat and conduct money," as it was termed, we find the genesis of the later King's shilling, which was given to the recruit as "earnest money" to bind him to enlistment. The archer, as the only full-time professional soldier employed, was the first "expert" to exact specialist rates of pay; sixpence for the mounted and threepence for the dismounted man be» ing acceptel as the normal standard. An entirely new system of providing, the Crcwn with the necessary armed force was inaugurated by Edward 11. This consisted of the issue of contracts, o. indents, as they were called, placed within the Kingdom and concluded between the Sovereign and certain men of position, whereby the latter bound themselves to serve the King "with a force of fixed strength, during a fixed term, at a fixed rate of wages." With certain modifications, this system was continued well into the first quarter of- the nineteenth Century; it accounted for the proprietorial relationship between the Colonel and his regiment which was the source of such in.finite inefficiency and peculation throughout five centuries. OFFICERS' PROFITEERING. Parliament's "New Model," in the time of Fairfax and Cromwell, although partly conscripted, was well found, strictly disciplined, provided with the first standardised uniform ever worn by the. British soldier, and paid with fair regularity if with no particular generosity. The wage of the Foot averaged 8d a day, that of the Dragoons Is 6d, ahd that of the Horse 2s, with.the usual deductions for subJudged by contemporary, and even later, standards, : Marlborough's concern and care for his soldiery was considerably in advance of his time. Rates of pay were still low, however, running from the "Private Centinal's" 5d a day to the Is 6d of the Corporal of Horse; and in addition there existed a complicated Table of Stoppages and "oil reckonings," which left but a copper or so for the soldier to jingle in his pocket. "Stoppages" on a wholesale scale were natural enough so long as the Colonel owned their regiment and expected to make what he could from it. Subordinate commissions were purchasable only at considerable cost; and amongst the officers one and all were intent upon securing as profitable a return for their outlay as was permitted by their obilgation to bring their men into the field properly fed, clothed, and equipped. While some officers were content with the ratio of profit they could legitimately exact without penalising their commands, others, not so scrupulous, plundered the soldier at every turn; and it is on record that! one commander whose profiteering had been so blatant that to overlook it was no longer possible, was cashiered for dressing his battalion in the cast-oft uniforms of another regiment. If excuse exists for this deplorable conduct on the part of a certain proportion of the officers, it must be found in the fact that their own pay, as that of the men's, was often months, if not years, in arrear. SHORT OF RECRUITS. With such conditions, added to the dread of service overseas in circumstances which left the soldier less than 25 per cent, chance of survival, it is easy to appreciate that recruiting new blood into the ranks offered no easy problem. An attempt at remedy was made by the offer of "bounties" on enlistment, both to the recruit himself and to anyone who might "bring him in." But in the result, for the most part, this only put a premium upon the trafficking in "livestock" whose military worth was so negligible as to lower the general quality of the soldier. Recruiting sergeants, too, were entirely unscrupulous in their methods; and many a country lad awakened from a drunken stupor to discover his hat adorned with a bunch of gailycoloured ribbons and his breeches pocket enriched by an unaccountable coin, which he was soon to learn was "the King's shilling," unwitting acceptance of which had committed him to "go for a soldier" past any hope of redemption other than the payment of a sum in "smart money" entirely beyond his means. It was not until the end of the Napoleonic Wars that the unremitting efforts of Sir John Moore and Frederick Duke of York to better the lot of the soldier showed signs of bearing fruit. RATIONS AND QUARTERS. The administration of the units by their colonels had gradually been brought under sterner scrutiny; clothing, equipment, and subsistence were on a much higher level; pay, if still inadequate—after deductions, that of the private soldier totalled a bare £12 per annum—was forthcoming with reasonable promptitude; and, greatest amelioration of all, barrack accommodation had at last replaced the unpopular "billeting at quarters." As the result of a Bill sponsored by Palmerston in 1855, the "ownership" of regiments by their colonels command-