THE ARMY AS A PROFESSION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 290, 11 August 1855, Page 3

THE ARMY AS A PROFESSION.

If the army is to be turned into a profession, it must be a profession by which people can live. This point, however self-evident when thus expressed, has, we apprehend, been overlooked by most of those who have speculated on the subject. Seeing how expedient it is that our ranks should be recruited by men having some higher notion of enjoyment in life than the pleasures of the public-house, and some higher end than a pension of ninepence a-day or Chelsea Hospital, our military reformers have been anxious to secure to deserving privates promotion from the ranks, without sufficiently attending to the miseries and privations involved in the position to which they are elevated. It seems never to have occurred to these well-meaning friends of the soldier that, paid as the rank of ensign is, a rise to it may involve positive and heavy loss —a loss by no means compensated by the opportunity of effecting a purchase, for which the funds are utterly wanting.

The pay of an ensign is only 365. 9d. a-week, and this pittance is subject to many and heavy deductions. Fifty days' pay are deducted for the mess and band expenses, and 30s.—that is, upwards of five days' pay—for the stamp on tb e

commission. The recipient of this pittance is expected to keep up the appearnnce of a gentleman, and to enter into the society of young men, of that class. The promoted soldier is generally a married man, and is expected to support his family upon his pay without their being able to contribute to the common fund by any of those resources of honest industry which are open to the Wife of a corpoial, or even of a sergeant. Compare with this rate of pay that of some inferior grades, and it will plainly appear that there are instances in which a soldier may not be able to afford the honour of promotion.to the rank of ensign, and would be infinitely wiser to reject the temptation of an apparent rise, to be compensated by a real fall in his circumstances. The pay of a corporal in the Sappers and miners is £l 17s. a-week, or threepence more than that of an ensign. That of a sergeant in the same corps is £2 ss. a-week, or Bs. 3d. more than that of an ensign. That of a colour sergeant is £2 Bs. 6d. a week, and that of a sergeant-majov in the Sappers and Miners is £2 16s. aweek, or 19s. 3d. more than the pay of an ensign. Can any one imagine a greater unkindness than a promotion which strips the soldier at once of nearly £50 a-year, while it increases his expenses and raises the style of living required from him ? Might not the victim of such an unfortunate piece of generosity adopt for his motto the pathetic complaint which Gibbon tells us was emblazoned on the shield of the noble house of Lascaris, —" Übi lapsus quid feciP" These are the effects of the futile and ridiculous attempt to put new cloth into an old garment, and introduce sound and reasonable principles into the working of a system essentially rotten. When such an attempt is made our efforts are not only impotent for good, but often result in the very evil which we are honestly but unskilfully seeking to avoid. The remedy must go deeper than the surface ; it must search into the very secrets of the system, if it be intended to be either efficacious or satisfactory. If we are to promote merit,- if we are to turn the army into a profession, like any other profession, capable of supporting its votaries in decent competence, and leading them on, step by step, towards its prizes and its honours, we must be content to pay a just price for the article we require, and to dismiss the notion of gratuitous service, as utterly inconsistent with justice to the private soldier, or efficiency, zeal,and scientific training in the officer. We must not only bridge over the gulf that separates the ranks from their leaders, but we must provide men with adequate temptation and inducement to cross that gulf. We must not allow that which was intended for a reward to become, through our devotion to the interests of wealth and aristocracy, a protracted torture and humiliation. How many of those brave men recently promoted amid the acclamations of the country, as a reward for their valour and good conduct, are destined to endure in their new situation all the humiliations and miseries which Sir Walter Scott so pathetically describes as for ever waiting on the heir of the ruined house of Ravenswood ! To what struggles, in order to avoid the appearance of poverty and efface the traces of misery—to what inventions, to what expedients, to what subterfuges, to what meannesses, are.we not condemning men whose fortunes we fancy we have made by raising them to the rank of ensign ! Viewed with reference to the existing system of purchase, the demand made upon an ensign, that he should keep up the appearance of a soldier and a gentleman, subscribe to the mess and the band, and maintain his place amid the society of his fellows on ss. 3d. a-day, may not be considered so very exorbitant. The man, or rather boy, who enters the army by the portal of the Horse Guards is, by that supposition, a person possessed of a competent amount of money. By investing a portion of his funds in a commission he obtains the means of increasing that|investment as circumstances offer, and thus, by investing more and more capital in the concern, of purchasing a lottery ticket, which may either turn up a prize in the shape of a military government, the command of a district, or some other staff appointment, or may replace the expenditure by the sale of his commission for the value he gave for it, or may turn out a blank by his death in action or in peace, before he has the opportunity of realizing. Such a career cannot be called in any sense a professional one. It is an investment of money spread over a long period of time, and payable by instalments, which make it easier to procure, and it. has that amount of .risk and uncertainty

about it which stimulates the imagination and rouses that spirit of adventure which is latent\n the most lethargic.persons. But into this temple of fame let no one think to enter who has not propitiated, by a large pecuniary offering, the favour of the presiding goddess. The plan is made for men of money, and for men of money alone. Poor men are all very well in their own place and in their own way, but that place is not in her Majesty's army, and that way is not the way that leads to promotion therein. The system is not made for them. To make a man an ensign for merit is only to teach him in the most forcible manner possible that lie has entered on a profession in which merit is not considered. Either we must persevere in ouv old system of exclusion, in which case we may keep our officers, rich, brave, and generous, but must surrender the hope of having them as a body either intelligent or scientific, or we must break down that system of exclusion altogether, and, not content with bridging over the gulf that separates a sergeant from an ensign, must demolish the equally insuperable barriers which divide the ensign from the lieutenant, the lieutenant from the captain, the captain from the major, and the major from the lieutenant-colo-nel. It will not avail to do things by halves. That which begins from the bottom must go through to the top, and every succeeding step must be founded on the same principles as the first. We are no advocates for giving a fixed number of commissions to the ranks. There is a cant of democracy as well as of aristocracy, and merit, the only true criterion, is as little satisfied by promoting a man because lie is poor as because he is^rich,—becanse he is of low descent as because he is of high degree. What we desire is—first, that a place in the army shall be open to every one whose bravery and intelligence qualify him to fill it; and, secondly, that that place shall not he a cul de sac from which there is neither egress nor regress, not a position involving privation and misery, but a fair competence, with a prospect of higher honours as the reward of a career of intelligent exertion, on the one hand, or, in case of failure of health, a fair and reasonable provision for retirement, on the other.— lbid.