The Sun.
London, England, 1855-05-11 00:00:00

fate of things would, he thoughts degrade the dignity and
lo ver_theefficiency of the Indian troops. Of course, if the
dun which he then advocated were approved by that house
it would require to be gradually introduced and the changes
should be made with consideration and care. He did not
.vish to disguise from the house that the principle of the
plan which he had ventared to bring forward was no new
'hiricr. It had been brought forward by Lord Grenville in
1813, in one of the most effective statements which had ever
")cen made within the walls of parliament. Many of the
.:harwes foretold in that speech have since come to pass as
ictual facts. Amongst other matters, Lord Grenville went
fully into the question of the amalgamation of the Indian
army with that of the Queen's, and gave it as his opinion
that such an amalgamation ought to take place. But there
was another authority yet stronger on the point. Lord
Grenville was not a military man, and he had never been
in India. But he (Sir E P6rry) would next cite the opiu-
i in of a man who had been in India, and who was acquaint-
ed with military affairs. Lord Cornwallis, on his return
to England round the Cape, in 1791, applied himself for
months to the consideration of the constitution of the
Indian army, and to the best mode of making it available
for the purposes of the state. It came to the knowledge
of the Board of Control that Lord Cornwallis bad consi-
lered the matter ; and, upon his arrival in England, Sir
G. Dundas wrote to him to know what were, the details
'of his plan. Upon that Lord Cornwallis proposed a most
elaborate scheme, at the same time expressing his
opinion that no scheme could be permanently useful
unless, as a preliminary measure, the whole of our
force in India was transferred to the royal service, to be
conducted for the future on the principles which regu-
lated the royal army. At the same time, Lord Corn-
wallis said, it was to be clearly understood that all his
Majesty's troops serving in India were to be perfectly sub-
ordinate to the comp Any's government, and to receive their
orders through the court of directors. To carry on this
thread of authorities, to show how Parliament up to the
present time had dealt with the question, he would read

the opinions which had been given since 1794. In 1813,
Lord Grenville made his great speech on the subject, and
the company presented an able minute protesting against
the. change then proposed, on the ground that if their
army were incorporated with the Queen's they would loss
all prestige and patronage, and become cyphers. ' That
defeated the bill, but in 1833 the question was again raised
before a committee, and the then Secretary to the Board
of Control circulated a number of queries to Indian offi-
cers as to the expediency of the change. A vast body of
evideine was collected, which would be found in the re-
port. He admitted that there were but few great names
to be found amongst the witnesses, ,except Sir J. Mal-
colm, and his views were identical with those
which he (Sir E. Perry) advocated. Mr. Elphinstone
disapproved of the project, but his authority was not so
great as that of Sir J. Malcolm. He now came down to
the last Parliamentary committee that sat on Indian af-
fairs, and, strange enough, in that committee this great
question was not so much as mooted, and for that reason,
he had no recent evidence of which he could avail himself.
He admitted that there were some difficulties surrounding

the question and those difficulties divided themselves into
two classes—difficulties of principle and difficulties of de-
tail. The difficulties of detail he would pass over, as
being better adapted for discussion in committee upstairs,
but there were two or three difficulties of principle
which must be settled by the legislature. The fact was
the objection raised by Lord Grenville was, that if the
Queen's army were to be the only army serving in India,
it would bo necessary to make the Government, of India
a royal Government. He did not shrink from that
proposition, nor from expressing his opinion that
such a change would be highly beneficial to India.
The legislature had not, however, thought right to
adopt that course, but for twenty years had been
gradually taking away from the company every vestige of
power, and leaving them at last without any function
whatever. But the question had already been tested, for
we had at this moment in India 30,000 Queen's troops
acting under the control of the civil servants of the com-
pany. Therefore if the Government still preserved this
phantom of a company, the lhtter would retain the control
of the army of the Crown. Lord Cornwallis had con-
sidered the difficulty, and had provided for it by suggest•
ing that all despatches should pass through the Board of
Control, and that the Horse Guards should have nothing
whatever to do with the administration of the army in
India. But there was a still more serious difficulty, The
Indian service was apprehensive that if the armies were
fused, Parliamentary and aristocratic influence would
regulate the promotion, and that those officers
who had not high friends in England, would
be passed over for those who had. He could assure
the house that if he believed it likely that such would
be the case, he would not support the proposition for
a moment. Ho did not ,fear the erection of any new
abuse in the distribution of patronage. It was not easy to
eradicate old ones, but we were at that task at present,
and, under such circumstances, to establish any new
abuses, would be a task of such enormous difficulty that no
minister of the Crown would attempt it. But they had in
India the principle established which Parliament
yhstaedm odisf-
covered to be the true one—namely, a mixed
seniority and selection. He admitted that in India the
system of seniority had been carried too far, but recently
selection had been added with the best possible effects.
Such being the case, he believed that the fears which were
entertained in some quarters against his project were per-
fectly chimerical. He had a body of evidence to show the
mixed system as it was carried on in the French navy,
furnished' to him by Admiral de Chabannes, and in this
country it had been most available in providing captains
for the Baltic fleet, A third_ difficulty was one which
had been put to him by some military men—namely,
how would it be possible to amalgamate the com-
pany's. army with the Queen's while purchase was
the system of promotion in the one, and seniority in the
other. The obvious answer to this was, that the two sys-
tems existed in the Queen's service, seniority and purchase,
but there was another answer, and that was, that if the
war continued, purchase would completely disappear.
Any one who studied the Gazette for the last few weeks
would see that, as a military fact, the system of purchase
had alre idy disappeared. One word as to the comparative
effects of the two systems. He had read carefully all the
authorities in favour of pi:motion by purchase, and he
found them all to have one basis, namely, that such a sys-
tem permitted the advancement of young men to positions
of command ; but the Royal Commission deelared that for
this purpose the system of purchase had failed, seeing
that the average age of major-generals in the Queen's ser-
vice was 65 yea's. In India, where the much-dreaded
seniority system prevailed, the average was only 62.
These,_ however, were questious of detail. He thought
ho had shown the house that these were facts which
it was very desirable should be investigated by an
impartial tribunal. Papers had been showered upon them
from both services, much information would be elicited,
and besides, the inquiry he proposed would be perfectly
parliamentary. He felt that he had left many topics, but
they would afford a wide field for the speakers who were
to follow him, but if they should be advocates for the East
India Company, he begged them to remember that during
the last 70 years, whenever a project inimical to the inte-
rests of the company was brought forward, the most plausi-
ble and ingenious arguments were used to deter the house,
and that whenever Parliament, in its wisdom, slighted
these predictions, subsequent experience was sure to prove
them to have been perfectly valueless. He ventured to
predict that, if the house granted him this committee,
such evidence would be offered as would enable Parliament
to add another to their important measures for the amelio-
ration of India. (Cheers.) . The hon. member concluded
by moving the resolution.
Sir D. L. EVANS seconded the motion.
Sir J. FITZGERARD did not see how any amalgama-
tion could be accomplished between the Indian army and
the European army. The expense of removing an army
from, India to the Crimea would be enormous. To induce
the Sepoy to leave India, he must have double pay and dou-
ble batta. But he was perfectly certain that the Sepoys
never would be able to endure the march and the service that
would be required of them. Under all the circumstances,
he saw no possible benefit likely to arise from the appoint-
ment of a committee, and he should therefore oppose the
motion.
Colonel DUNNE said the motion divided itself into
two distinct parts ; first, as to how many troops could be
spared from India to go to the Crimea. That was a ques-
tion for the executive Government to decide. It was a
question of policy to be considered by the Government,
and not one to be submitted to a commit:ee of the House
of Commons. No doubt, if the East India Company
said they could spare 20,000 troops from India for the pur-
pose of prosecuting the war in the Crimea, it would be the
duty of her Majesty's Government to avail themselves of
their services. The second proposition of the hon: gentleman
was to amalgamate the Indian army with the Royal army,
but that was a proposition which had always been strenu-
ously opposed by the East India Company, and until the
whole government:of India was transferred to her Majesty's
Government it would be unadvisable tohave an army paid
by one Government and acting under the authority of
another. The recent appointments of Indian officers to
commands in the East had been greatly detrimental to the
officers of the Royal army, and but little compliment was
paid to her Majesty's officers when they were told officers
from India were to receive commands over their heads in
the Crimea. References had been made by the hon. gen-
tleman to the appointments which had been made to the
Turkish Contingent. He (Colonel Dunne) was, however,
of opinion that a Turkish Contingent would never exist,
because it would be impossible to induce Turkish soldiers
to serve under Christian officers. The officers of the Royal
army had, nevertheless, been passed over in the commands
which had been distributed with respect to foreign troops.
One gallant friend of his, Colonel Chesney, a highly dis-
tinguished officer and a man well acquainted with the
East, had actually been appointed to one of these foreign
legions, and after having received his appointment was
removed to make way for an Indian officer. To make
a rule that the whole of the commands in her Majesty's
service should be thrown open to Indian officers would
hardly be dealing fairly with .officers of the Royal army.
Her Majesty's officers felt proud of the high honour and
chivalrous conduct of their Indian comrades, but did not
think it either just or fair to transfer them to commands
in the Royal army over the heads of the regular officers of
that army. He was acquainted with several officers who
had served through the whole of the Spanish campaign,
but they were only recognised to this moment as civilians,
notwithstanding the distinguished services they might have
performed, and under such circumstances the hon. gentlem an
had no right to complain that the recent order merely con-
ferred upon Indian officers honorary rank. If the proposi-
tions of the hon. gentleman were acceded to, he (Colonel
Dunne) believed that the services of none but officers could
be obtained, because it could not be expected that the
Indian army could be transferred from India and placed in
her Majesty's service. Indeed, most of the Indian troops
would be useless out of their own country. Many of them
objected to cross the sea, and at the siege of Moultan they
refused to work in the trenches. Though admirable troops
in India and admirably commanded, they were not dis-
ciplined like the Royal troops, and they had seldom gained
a victory without having been headed by British officers.
Sir J. W. HOGG said he had listened with great atten-
tion to the suggestions made by his hon. friend (Sir E.
Perry) in introducing the motion, and, having heard his hon.
friend's panegyric upon the Indian army and its efficiency in
every department, he had certainly been somewhat sur-
prised to find that his hon. friend, knowing the authority
under which that army served, had arrived at the conclu-
sion that it ought now to be transferred from the authority
by which it had been organised, and under which it had
gained its present state of efficiency. The hon. gentleman
spoke of some possible diiersion that might be made by
the Indian army in the present war, and then proposed that
a Committee of the House of Commons should sit upon the
question, and arrogate to themselves the functions of the
Government both as to the policy of the war and the mode
in which it was to be conducted. (" No no," from Sir E. 1
Perry.) The hon. gentleman had certainly spoken of expe.
ditions to the Persian Gulf, to the Crimea, and to the val-
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