The Press.
London, England, 1855-04-14 00:00:00

APRIL 14, 1855.

lieutenant-colonel, major, or captain wore
transferred at once from a Royal regiment of
the line to a native regiment, he would be
noc only useless as being wholly ignorant of
thu language of the men, but he would most
probably, from ignorance of their prejudices,
ere long create a mutiny. For though no men
can be more loyal than the native troops, there
is not on earth a more fanatical set
if through design or inadvertance their reli-
gious or caste prejudices be aroused. A good-
natured attempt, for instance, to see that the
men's dinners were properly cooked would
probably cause the well-intentioned colonel
to be shot dead on the next parade.

As regards the Company s European regi-
ments the case is different: they are in every
respect, except in being much more under-
officered, on the same footing precisely as the
regiments serving in India belonging to the
Crown. Why the Company should have been
allowed to raise so many of such regiments
for their establishment we never could under-
stand; and we think that nothing could be
better than the transfer of all of them bodily
to the Queen's Army List as infantry regiments
of the line. None of the men would probably
object to this course, but of such as did the
services might be made available in some
other manner, while the officers who declined
to accede to the amalgamation might be trans-
ferred as supernumeraries to the several
native infantry regiments in which they are
bound by their existing engagements to serve.
This would remove a fertile source of jobbery,
and at the same time afford nine more British
regiments of the line opportunities of seeing
war practised on the most extended scale.
Of the artillery in India we should not be
sorry to see the European troops and compa-
nies amalgamated with the Royal regiment of
artillery, and thus made exchangeable from
time to time with troops and companies from
home ; but the European and the native ar-
tillery are so mixed up in India that the sepa-
ration on the instant would be difficult, if not
impossible. We think, therefore, that for the
present all that could be done would be to
abolish Addiscombe and giving a proportionate
extension to Woolwich to send out all future
artillery cadets from the latter college, on the
understanding that they were appointed for
general service, so as to lay the foundation for
that future union of the Indian and the English
artillery which would be most difficult to carry
out just now. All future engineer officers
for India might be similarly appointed from
Woolwich to serve in India as long as might
be deemed requisite but to take rank and
standing according to their position in the
Royal Engineer corps. This and the Royal
Artillery are the corps, it must be remembered,
in which the officers rise entirely by seniority,
as in the Company's army. They do not,
therefore, present that obstacle to a complete
amalgamation which is exhibited in the
system prevailing in the cavalry and infantry
branches of the service in England.
But, while we are of opinion, for the reasons
given, that as regards all but the Com-
pany's European regiments the most that can
be done towards amalgamation at present is
to lay the foundations for carrying out such a
measure at a future period, yet .ve do think
that this should not prevent an immediate
transfer of the chief command of all the Com-
pany's troops to the Commander-in-Chief
appointed for the English army by the Crown :
and we also think that the patronage of all
future East India cadetships should rest with
the same functionary, limited, if any limitation
be thought necessary, by the setting apart a
certain fixed proportion of them to be divided
annually amongst tho sons of deserving
officers, of clergymen, and of distinguished
men of letters ; or to be competed for as
prizes at our public schools. We further are
of opinion that the separate college for the
education of the Company's officers of the
scientific branch should be abolished, and that
Sandhurst and Woolwich should be the acade-
mies for the training up of all : and we also
think that all future appointments to India
should be of gentlemen engaging for general
service, and who might therefore be afterwards
transferred to any other portion of the Royal
army at pleasure. In the meantime officers of
the Indian army might be made eligible for

THE PRESS.

employment equally with those of the British
in any department of home or foreign service
for which their peculiar training may have
rendered them especially fitted. And in the
same way officers of the British army ought
not to remain excluded from the greater part
of the appointments on the staff of the Indian
army as they are at present. General officers
of either army ought to be eligible to com-
mands in either service without the mutual
limitations against their employment now ex-
isting ; and thus, a perfect system of recipro
city being introduced, the officers of both
services would largely benefit. Those of the
British would gain in having free access to the
vast school of staff employment which the
regulations in operation in India preserve now
almost exclusively for the Company's officers,
and those of the Indian army by opening to
their talents the fields of European warfare in
which, after all, the highest honours in the
profession are only to be obtained. Each
army would, in fact, gain precisely what it
wants from the other, and the most per-
fect united service in Europe would be the
result.