The Press. — London, England, 1855-03-10 00:00:00

MARCH 10, 1855. have been a sufferer, conjointly with my whole family, through the operation of one of the se (according to my experience) worthless figments called " local commissions," I may, perhaps, be pardoned for this attempt to obtain an examination into their intrinsic merits in general, by laying a particular case before you, and by urging you, for humanity's sake, to open the subject for public consideration; requiring, as it does, free and candid investigation, in order to remedy its evils, or, if that be not possible, at least to secure men from accepting them in the delusion that they thereby secure the social advantages they indicate. I will condense, as much as may be, the facts I personally know as to their practical value to the individual on whom they may be conferred, as well now as during the last war, and leave you, sir, and the country to judge whether what I shall state has been " A fee grief due to a single breast," or whether it constitutes but a type of a general in justice, and I will add indignity, for it is an indignity to confer o n a brave, well-informed man, for his heroic qualities in action, a mere empty distinction that will neither avail him to take the position it should entitle him to during his life, nor secure his widow and family, in the event of his death, from absolute indi gence. Briefly then, sir, the writer's father had such a com mission conferred upon him during the last American war, for distinguished bravery and inte lli g ence, with which .he was empowered and directed to arm and discipline the Cherokee Indians to act in favour of Britain and themselves against the Americans, then fighting under General Jackson, on the bord ers of the Mississippi, afterwards made the boundary of Ameri can rule, owing to the energetic resistance then made by troops under British leaders on its banks. So effectually did the man intrusted with this, to him, fatal commission execute the tas k assi g ned to him byincessantly harassing the troops of General Jack son, that that o3mmander offered a reward for his life ; and so critical and peculiar were the circumstances and the men he had to act with an d command that I will venture to say nothing short of high military genius and rare intelligence could have accomplished results favorable to the interests of his country, or creditable to himself from them. Yet the commis sion conferred on this brave and zealous soldier and well-endowed man, was, as far as concerned himself, and after his death his bereaved family, a worthless figment ! At the conclusion of peace between this country and America he was ordered home, and on his return he was advised (i.e. commanded) to retire on a pension of 501. per annum, his commission being retained officially for confirmation in the event of his services being again required. I will not depict his life of yearning for that event, nor descant on his anomalous social position consequent upon his hybrid rank. No colouring could be too sombre for the melancholy of such reminiscences, and I do not wish to seem to colour where the simple felt needs no exaggeration. Suffice it, that he at length saw, or thought he saw, a chance of realising his life's hope (he was little more than twenty when he re turned from America) by joining an expedition proceeding to Africa in 1831 under command of an officer of the corps to which he belonged. He died, nine months after landing, of the fatal fever which infest those shores—his rank still unconfirmed —in his thirty-ninth year. His widow and children were in their turn long held in the trammels of the delu sive hope that he was really a commissioned officer, entitled to the privileges of his class, and capable of bequeathing them to his family. A narrative of their sufferings and struggles for succour wou ing, therefore I refrain from giving it, Th e answer to theirprayer was ever the same—" The commission was local; you. have no claim." A petition, pre sented to Parliament in 1853, printed in the appendix to the twenty-first report on public petitions, p. .182, was the last step taken, with no result. The widow stilllives (now aged and intim), and is still unprcroided for; and all through the chapter the so-called distinc Lion conferred upon a brave man has proved what I have designated it—a worthless figmen t! In again breaking up this, to me, horn -bearing ground, 1 am actuated by no hope of personal or relative advantage ; but 1 do hope, sir, that your clear sense of justice will induce you to make the sad ex perience of one family, in regard to th e value of a " local commissi on, " the means of securing the brave men whose recent deeds have immortalised the name of " Englishman," against a continuance of such in jury and indignity, under the name of distinction, as I have described. Whatever maylbe the cry against ar i s t oc racy, do not let it be said that patr ic ian officers shrink from seeing the rights of the brave fellows who win distincti on under their own eyes (often, too, by timely succour to those of their own order whose knightly ardour may have led th . em into the jaws of lbstruction)—do not let it be said they care not whe ther the honours bestowed upon such men be sub stantial or not. The "patient merit" of Englishmen, evinced with such constancy of late in the army, combined with their awful courage, should claim for the lowliest THE PRESS. soldier a nation's respect. Let it therefore respect them as they are, whatever be their rank, rather than mock them with unsubsta /aka honours now, only to lead them to future despair• I shall be happy to furnish any private confirma tion of the truth of this letter should you require it, and I devoutly trust it may be the means of directing attention to a grevious evi) if you can accord it a place in your columns.—l am, sir, respectfully yours, Fruk. BANK FOR THE ARMY. TO TEUS EDITOR OF " TEM PRESS." Sir,—The four evils (enumerated in my last letter) under which the Peninsular army laboured, and more especially the last, were greatly aggravated by a race that sprung up at head-quarters, the pariahs of the camp. They originally appeared as sutlers; came penniless as adventurers, or brought up from the coast their cargoes of " notions" on speculation, and sold them to the army at enormous profit. While their prices were appalling, their wares were most paltry. These also were the persons who gained by cashing the officers' bills in England. Employing for this purpose the dollars which they had acquired in payment for their goods, they thus realised an additional profit of from 33 to more than 00 per cent. But this was not all. Ere long they discovered another mode of investment, more profitable still, but highly damaging to the credit of the British army. I have already spoken of the commissariat bills, often an occasion of so much trouble and difficulty to the native holder. These bills at length the sutlers began to buy up at a discount. Now, this traffic, if conducted on the principles of honourable trade, would have been both unexceptionable in itself and beneficial to all parties concerned. And, doubtless, there were gentlemen at head-quarters who did so conduct it, and who would have scorned a dirty act. But it was not so with all. Carrying out the principle of " buying cheap," the inferior and less reputable class of traders employed every art, practised on the fears and credulity of the native bill-holders, left no deception untried to depreciate British securities held by the native; dealer, and he who could purchase a commissariat bill at the lowest figure was of course considered the smartest trader. To this end, the means sometimes employed were most flagitious. Bills, which in the course of a few days would be paid in full, were represented to the holder as worth only so much paper, purchased for a trifle, carried off in triumph, and ere long presented and cashed. The gallant enemy to whom we were opposed being then, unfortunately, rather low in funds, this circumstance helped the fraud, for the imperial " bons " were latterly worth little or nothing in the market, and this the hapless natives knew by sore experience. It was, therefore, so much the easier to persuade them that an English bill was equally worthless ; and, while with the army in the south of France, I heard some very ugly tales of the frauds thus practised by Eng lish adventurers who hung about head-quarters. In fact, i sometimes wondered that the presence of such a set of scamps was tolerated. Probably, from ser vices which they rendered to the troops in other respects, they were regarded in the light of a neces sary evil. Yet it is easy to see how such doings tended to damage the British name, to impair our credit, and thus to discourage the free supply of pro visions for our troops. Now, sir, the Duke saw to the bottom of every thing ; and the Duke felt the necessity of a head quarters' bank. I venture to say, had such a bank ex isted during the Peninsular campaigns, bad it commenced with adequate resources, and had it been conducted by a competent head, in the large and enlightened spirit of commercial enterprise, all the evils which I have now specified, and some others to boot, would have been greatly diminished, if not entirely kept under. Suppose such a bank established at the head• quarters of an army on actual service. The working would be this. The bank, like any other bank, would receive deposits, and would also issue its own paper, payable on demand. An establishment once opened, where depositors could safely lodge their loose cash, many, depend upon it, would be prompt to avail themselves of such a convenience. The general, the staff officer, the regimental officer, who previously, on receiving his pay, had no option but either to keep the coin, often to his great personal incum brance, or to spend it off-hand (which latter result the incumbrance tended to produce, and often did produce), would be glad enough to place it in safe hands, whence he might draw it out in smaller amounts as occasion required. Those who preferred it might at once, when they paid in cash, take out the whole amount in bank notes. But many, no doubt, would lodge their deposits just as we do in London, taking nothing, and trusting to the character and solvency of the establishment as their security. An Englishman, wherever in the wide world be finds himself, soon falls in with what he has been accus tomed to at horns, 235 It may, however, be said, " After all, you suggest a remedy for evils which have no existence. A head•quarter's bank may have been highly desirable during the Peninsular campaigns, but in the case of our troops in the East no such arrangement is needed." I reply, " Heaven grant it never may be ! Heaven grant that our Crimean army, in addition to all the atrocious sufferings already inflicted on it by official improvidence and incapacity, may never know those protracted agonies of perpetual bankruptcy which their countrymen of a former generation had to endure in the Peninsula." But, sir, in the communications which reach us from the seat of war, we may already observe one symptom of a deranged circulation. True, neither " Our Own Correspondents " nor " Our Special Cor respondents " have yet thought it necessary to give us much light upon such points as the following : What kinds of money circulate in the camp ; what is the head-quarters' rate of exchange; how often and in what coin do the troops receive their pay ; what becomes of it all? Let us hope that, for the present at least, all matters of military finance are going on tolerably well. The newspaper correspondence, how ever, does on one point supply us with information, and that is the very important one of prices. These, it appears, have been enormous : boots, cooking utensils, shaving-brushes, hams, and hinders, have been selling at rates perfectly astounding. Upon this subject I beg leave in conclusion to offer a few remark*. I call this high rate of prices a symptom of de ranged circulation, because, though an intelligent journal could lead us to think that the evil is due to an extraordinary and unaccountable backwardness on the part of our merchants to ship goods for Bala- Maya which they freely consign to all parts of the world besides, a moment's reflection will discover that there must be some bidden cause, or our mer chants would not be backward. If they consign to other quarters with the prospect of but moderate gains, nay, with the possibility of finding an over stocked market, why not to a market which promises returns so ample? Balaklava, as matters now stand i ng a market for the speculator and the adventurer; it is not a market for the regular trader. Tho very rate of prices, run up to fabulous amounts, expressively indicates an ab normal state of the currency. The steady-going merchant, therefore, keeps his distance, repelled by the self-same aspect of things which attracts the speculative dealer ; for experience and common sense combine to teach him that every market where the sales are at enormous rates is liable to sudden vicissi tudes, and that profits which range unnaturally high involve, of necessity, the contingency of commensu rate losses. But, sir, only let the genius of British commerce establish at our head-quarters in the East its prime agent and regulator, a bank, let money thus become easy and the circulation natural, let there be security for the depositor, and cash for the bill-holder, a safe channel for remittance, and accommodation for solvent enterprise--then will there soon be a market for the regular dealer, then will legitimate trade soon raise its honest front, then will there be a continuous and adequate supply of all things which officers and soldiers need, the demand being uniform, and the prices equitable. Then, also, will many grave evils be obviated—evils otherwise unavoidable, and certain ere long to appear—where large sums, as soon as issued and distributed, are lavishly spent, scrambled for, and absorbed; where one day every pocket is bursting with specie, and another nobody has a stiver ; where there is none but a metallic currency, no paper currency to cushion it ; where, with every facility for spending, there is none whatever for de positing ; where ruinous profusion takes the place of current outlay ; and where the trader's object is, not to drive a steady business with fair returns, but to make a bit, and be off with the proceeds. I have already ve ntured to offe r the suggestion that the proposed bank, if it is to succeed, must be alto gether a private speculation, conducted on the ordi nary principles of banking establishments, not in any measure or degree a Government concern. Govern ment must absolutely have no hand in it. Govern ment interference would infallibly swamp it ; the least rag of red-tape would be strangulation. Still be it borne in mind, the undertaking would of course need th e countenance and favour of bead-quarters' autho rities. This, however, would be a matter of . no practical difficulty. Only let the firm, beanag respectability and solvency written on its front, go to work in a businesslike style, mind its own concerns and keep to its own province ; let it ever be ready to show, when applied to in time of need, how substan tially commercial resources can aid the fisca all l opera tions of a campaign; let it evince, on just occasions, that it knows what is handsome, and can do it—then never fear. There can be no reason to doubt that the services thus rendered will be duly appreciated, otglineiusedfulnesaso! gir th e , " y h o e ur ad- c q o u n arte staa rs t bank "fully re c andandse _i m reader and most *obedient se ll v 4 O rant, LD PUDIKLAR.