The Express.
London, England, 1863-06-11 00:00:00

THE VOLUNTEER BILL.

Tb,s Bill is still awaiting the final consideration
of the House of Commons. The objectionable
clauses which the House adopted last Thursday
evening may yet be amended; commanding officers
may yet be relieved from the exercise of absolute
and arbitrary authority, and the country may yet
be saved from a measure imperilling the very
existence of that Volunteer Army of which it has
been so long and so reasonably proud. One or two
unforeseen delays and lengthy debates have given
breathing time to the independent Volunteers by
whom certain clauses in the Bill have been most
naturally opposed, and we understand that
when next the Bill makes its appearance the
general feeling of the Volunteers throughout the
country will at least be represented, and the atten-
tion of Parliament will be called to the extreme
danger which waits upon the contemplated legisla-
tion. The principal clause objected to in the Bill
is that which invests commanding officers with the
power of dismissing from the service, for any real
or imaginary offence, any gentleman occupying the
position of a private in their corps. As the Bill
was originally framed, even commisaioned officers
were liable to the exercise of this-extraordinary
prerogative ; and that this was not • mistake, but
the deliberate intention of the authors of the Bill,
is proved by the fact that not one only, but several
of the clauses have had to be amended in order to
exempt those gentlemen from the caprices of
their superiors in command. But the private
Volunteer, who has made perhaps as great
• sacrifice of time and money without receiving
the honour of • commission, is still left without
the slightest protection at the mercy of one
man. This power of mammary dismissal is
coupled with the right of inserting a libel in •
privileged communication, by publishing the name
and supposed offence of the person dismissed in
I the Regimental Orders of the corps. Such an
arrangement is calculated to sow the seeds of per-
petual dissension between officers and men, and
to lead rapidly to the entire disorganization of
all corps except those in which the privates are
the social dependents of the officers, which will
then form the only remains of our once splendid
Volunteer army. We can only hope that either
some fortunate accident, or the prudence of Per-
ißement, will avert such a result

Mr. Berkeley's motion on the ballot comes on for
discussion in the Home of Commons on Tuesday, the 16th
init.

The Rey. Herman Douglas, late minister is
Victoria Docks, sad originator of the fund for " Landow?'
over the Border," has been appointed to the living of New.
borough, in Northamptonshire.

Mr. John Henry Parker, the well-known pub-
Haar, bee just retired from businses in favour of his son,
Yr. Parker (says the Reader) has for some time peat been
the editor, or one of the editors, of the Geßaemati's Mace-
sine. Hie "Library of Anglo-Catholic Divines" is sow
completed by the publication of "Bishop Wilson's Life,"
writtea by the venerable anther of "The Christian Year,"
and 'Amide to 87 volumes. His "Glossary of Ambits°
lure," "Account of Domestic Architecture in England "
a work commenced originally jointly with the late Mr.
Bodeen Turner—and his improved edition of Rickman's
" Gothic Architecture," to which he added a most valu-
able appendix, are all the fruits of learned leisure snatched
from the more responsible ditties attaching to his business
both at Oxford and in London.