BRITISH ARMY.

Western Star, 5 August 1938, Page 3

BRITISH ARMY.

! QUICKER, PROMOTION J AGE LIMIT FOR COLONELS. A highly important communique dealing with the future position of Army officers will shortly be issued by the Army Council, said a special correspon--1 dent of the ‘Daily Telegraph’ and ‘Morning Post,’ on July 6. It will, I understand, contain provisions encouraging senior officers to retire and young men to take commissions. The object is to secure younger leaders of armies in the field, accelerate promotion, and offer greater inducements to young men, to adopt the Army as a profession. ' The main proposals are to reduce a lieutenant-colonel’s command from four to three years, and to ensure that no lieu-tenant-colonel should hold a command beyond 46 or 47 years of age. This step must necessarily have its effect on promotion to colonel. It is understood that under the new scheme no officer wnl he promoted to full colonel over the age cf 50. ' ' To remove the obstacles to promotion, a large number of senior majors are to be invited to retire. It is proposed to increase their pension on retirement from £3OO to £4OO, and it is hoped that this will induce officer's who have no further opportunity of advancement to transfer to the retired list. The pensions of lower ranks are also to be increased, and more commissions will be offered to promising. soldiers in the ranks. There is to be a general grading-down. Under existing conditions, some secondlieutenants and lieutenants have bad to wait 15, 16, and eyen 17 years before reaching the rank of captain. It is now proposed that a secondlieutenant should get his second star m three years, attain the rank of captain in eight years, and get his majority in lb years. Mr Duff Cooper, wheai Secretary for War,, appointed a committee under the chairmanship of the Marquess of Wiiiingdon to investigate why young men ignore the Army as a profession, and to make j-ecommendations for improving the position. After the committee had surveyed the whole position for many months its recommendations were submitted to the Warren Fisher Committee, which was given a much wider field to surrey. It considered how best to thin the senior commissioned ranks of the Army and fill the depleted ranks of the lower grades. This means considering the question of pay, promotion', and pensions. At the moment the Army generally is uneasy about the prospective changes in employment or non-employment, and the situation will not be improved until the long-overdue War Office memorandum is issued tQ commands.