MR. G. TREVELYAN ON PURCHASE. T HE only defect in Mr.
Trevelyan's speech in favour of abolishing the Purchase System is that it is premature. The country is not awake as yet to the need of Army Reform, still less to the need of applying Liberal doctrines to the Army, and until it is the wealthier classes will not surrender their monopoly. Sir John Pakington and Lord Hartington made of course the regular official defence, alleging that the Army fought well, that alteration would be expensive, that " men " liked to be commanded by " gentlemen,' and so on, but the real excuse in their minds was a very different one. They know that if Purchase is abolished the entire system must be revised, and without a strong Parliamentary demand they have not the force to revise it. There is no such demand, and until a catastrophe occurs, such as the cessation of Recruit- ing, there probably will not be, the system of confining com- missions to those who can pay for them being still in accord with the social instincts of the country. We alone in Europe 'sell the cure of souls. We alone in Europe still to this day confine the office of administering ordinary justice in counties to men with landed property. The immense majority of existing electors still think the sale of advowsons quite reason- able, and that the squire is the "natural " judge of his village, and see, therefore, no particular harm in thepurchase of commis- sions. There is a good deal to be said, too, for the official re- luctance to moveinthe matter. The wholesystemhangs together till it is almost useless to single out any one abuse and abolish that. If money is not to be the first qualification of an officer, there must be some other means of selecting among candi- dates, and what is it to be V That cannot be decided till we know whether the Army is to be governed by a Cabinet Minister, or an irresponsible agent of the Crown, or a perma- nent but removable officer like the Commander-in-Chief in India,—an alternative which has much to be said in its favour. The same radical difficulty renders ordinary modes of promotion all but impracticable. If the supreme authority in the future is to be a Minister of War, he will promote the relatives of Parliamentary personages, or the scions of Peers, or popular favourites, and make the Army as discontented as the Navy. If he is to be a Crown agent, he will promote his favourites, or Court favourites, or the relatives of great nobles, with the same evil result. If he is to be permanent, but removable, he may indeed be trusted, because, while it will be his interest to avoid serious censure, it will not be worth his while to conciliate individuals; no such system has yet been adopted, or will be, till te catastrophe has occurred. As things stand, the abolition of Purchase would either mean promotion by seniority, that is, inefficiency in the higher ranks, or jobs done by the Court, the Minister, and "public opinion " all at once. It is quite possible, we believe, with a succession of honest chiefs, of men, that is, who desire only the efficiency of the Army, to make seniority compatible with effectiveness, every success in actual warfare or regimental administration counting as so many years of service, but we have not that succession, and are not looking for it. Mr. Stanley wants a large proportion of officers from the ranks, and Mr. Stanley is right ; but then we must make the service such a career as will attract men fit to be officers, must abolish flogging, pay men so fairly that dismissal shall be a penalty, and abrogate the law which cashiers an officer for associating with his men, the most wonderful bit of caste legis- lation now existing in Europe. None of those things will be done yet, and until they are done the abolition of Purchase will not do much good. Mr. Trevelyan wants officers to be able to command per force of brain and knowledge of their business, instead of by the aid of social position, and so do we, but then the officers must be decently paid, which at present they are not. To abolish Purchase as the Army stands would be simply to incur considerable expense without achieving any result worth the outlay, unless, indeed, a great increase in the opportunities of favouritism can be called a result. The basis of the military system needs remodelling, and not a detail, which after all has this advantage, that an officer is always something besides an officer, is not a member of a caste, but has wide interests and many links with the civil population. Purchase, as a system of promotion, will end whenever we cannot get men into die, Army without making it a career ; it will burst up from below-, not be pulverized from above. Mr. Trevelyan stated his case fairly and forcibly, though he should not have ridden his father's hobby, competitive exami- nation, quite so hard ; but after all, what aroment can be so strong as the one patent to everybody, that it comot be expedient to limit the military career to men posseioad of some thousands of pounds The aristocratic limitafUons still kept up in some countries have at least this partial justification, that the aristocratic tone of mind is a very good military tone, but mere wealth is a claim absolutely incapable of intellectual defence. We might as well confine authorship to the rich as soldiership. The single possible palliation for the system is that it works well, and this is the one which is used, and which will be successful till the nation sees that it works ill. They may be induced to see it by argument, as Mr. Trevelyan hopes, but the experience of politicians is that in such matters nothing opens English eyes except a startling fact. A defeat, or a mutiny, or a stoppage of recruiting, would teach them in a day more than Sir Charles Trevelyan, with all his official knowledge and all his logical force, has been able to teach them in twenty years. Meanwhile, it is useful and praiseworthy to keep hammering the truth into Parliament, and Mr. Trevelyan has adopted by instinct the right way of hammering. He divides. Without a division his speech would have been a young member's display, with it, it compelled politicians at least to reflect on the fact that in the British Army Napoleon could not have risen without a fortune to waste.
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