ARMY REFORM

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 132, 1 December 1938, Page 10

ARMY REFORM

With his new plan for pay and .promotion of officers Mr. Hore-Belisha may fairly claim to have the task which Cardwell began 67 years ago when he got rid of that great bulwark of class distinction arid property distinction, the purchase system, says the "Manchester Guardian." "In 1871," writes Paul <in "Modern England"), "the officers of the British Army . . ' were so thoroughly penetrated with the spirit of caste that the idea of promotion by merit below f the rank of major-general appeared to them sacrilegious." "Never," declared Wolseley, "was a War Minister at any time so generally hated by the Army and by almost all the old-fashioned and unthinking officers. . " The sale of commissions, like many other corrupt forms, dated from Charles II; it was put down by Dutch William but resumed afterwards, and even the Duke of Wellington endorsed it. Cardwell had all the forces of privilege against him Lord Salisbury declared that "seniority tempered by selection meant stagnation tempered by jobbery." At last GlfHstnne h^rl to! invoke the prerogative to carry through! the reform. » . ■