The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-18 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST IS, 1864.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—A recent despatch from Sir ,Charles
Wood to the Governor-General of India has led to
the infliction of a very great hardship upon a num-
ber of officers holding civil appointments. All those

officers of the late Indian Army who have been ad-
mitted to civil employment since January, 1862, are
suddenly informed that they will have to passe severe
examination at three, or at the most nine, months'
interval, upon peril of losing their appointments and
being remanded to military service. Now, when we
state that most of these men have abandoned their
prospects of military advancement, have already
submitted to severe examinations before admission to
the Civil Service, and are now engaged in the most
arduous and absorbing duties, it will at once be seen
what a severe hardship this order inflicts on them.
It is, indeed, difficult to believe that it can ever have
been intended to operate in such a way, or that the
authorities from whom it issues can have been in
the least aware of its effect. It is in the belief,
therefore, that it is only necessary to bring the hard.
ship to light in order to procure its remedy that we
draw attention to it. The matter begins with that
inevitable staff corps which seems destined for a
time to throw everything into a muddle. All officers
employed otherwise than with their own regiments
are now formed into one large corps, which has its
own tests of admission and its own course of pro-
motion. If, therefore, any officer wishes to obtain
civil or political, or irregular military employment,
it is necessary for him to become a member of this
corps, and to pass therefore the necessary examina-
tions. On the 25th of March last Sir Charles Wood
sent out a despatch determining what qualifi-
cations should be necessary for employment in the
civil and political departments of the corps. These
tests appear, so far as we can judge, to be very rea-
sonable and necessary. The despatch commences
by pointing out the great importance of the appoint-
ments in question. It observes that there is no
employment which requires so large a knowledge
of the languages, the institutions, the customs, the
habits, and the feelings of the people ; and the test
of qualification for such posts should consequently
be high, and that all candidates should be subjected
to a period of probation. Accordingly the despatch
provides that every officer who applies for such ap-
pointments should, in the first place, be attached
for at least a year to a native regiment, so that he
may acquire some knowledge of the native sol-
diery and of the classes from which they are drawn.
He is then to be submitted to a year of " depart.
mental probation," and to certain special tests of
qualification, and at the end of the two years he
is to undergo a final examination. Having passed
this, he will be admitted to permanent em.
ployment. Lastly, the despatch directs that these
rules shall be epplicable, " not only to officers who
may have joined the Staff Corps, but equally to
officers of the late Indian Army who have been de-
clared eligible and who may be selected for employ-
ment." Now, as far as these rules prescribe great
strictness in admitting officers to civil and political
employ, no one, we imagine, will find fault with
them. Many young officers serving in civil and
political posts in India are diplomatists or judges on
a large scale, and great caution ought to be used in
their selection. But every one who reads this de-
spatch would imagine that its operation was to be
prospective, and that it referred to officers who,
after its receipt, should be appointed to
civil and political posts. No one would suppose
that, contrary to all custom in such cases, it was
to unsettle the existing civil servants of the
Government; to break the conditions upon which
they entered the service, and to place them between
the alternatives of either an amount of labour which
must be fatal to their duties or the break up of all
their prospects. Yet such is the interpretation
which has been placed upon it. In the first instance
it was ordered that" all officers already in civil and
political employ" should declare their intention of
joining the Staff Corps, and should present them-
selves for examination in October, failing to do
which, or to pass the examination, they would be
remanded to military service. This was an act of
sweeping injustice which it would not be easy to
parallel. Imagine all the officers of the late Com-
pany's service now in civil or political employment,
many of them having served for years, and dis-
tinguished for their ability and knowledge, sum■
moned, at the peril of forfeiting all the claims
of their service, to recur to their studies
of five, ten, or twenty years back, and present
themselves line schoolboys for examination. It
would be something like requiring halt' the Bishops,
Deans, Archdeacons, and clergymen in England to
present themselves at the next theological exami-
nation at the University and take honours upon
pain of losing their benefices. It is difficult to
understand how such an Order can ever have ap-
peared in an official Gazette. Accordingly, a fort.
night afterwards, on the oth of June, a short Order
appeared cancelling this extraordinary requirement
in the case of all officers actually in civil or poli-
tical employ on or before January 1, 1862. By
this very exception, however, the demand still con-
tinues in the case of those who have joined since
that dete. A subsequent Order has made another
relaxation in the case of these officers; they are no
longer required to join the Staff Corps; but they
are expected under the same penalty to pass the
final examination required of all Staff officers,
either in October or, at the latest, in April next.
After this narrative it can we think hardly be neces-
sary to urge the hardship of this paltry relic of the
vast original demand. Upon what satisfactory rea-
son can the Government exempt officers who have
joined before January, 1862, and not those who
joined, say, in February of that year? If the re-
quirement is a hardship in the one case it is so in
the other. There may be cases, indeed, of officers
only lately admitted to apply for employment, or
not actually at work, upon whom the new regula-
tions might be enforced without much hardship, but
there must obviously be a number of others in pre-
cisely the same position as those who joined before
this arbitrary date. It may be urged that it is neces-
sary to draw the line somewhere between these two
classes of young officers—between those already at
work and those not yet employed, If so, the line is
marked out by this very distinction. But it would
be much better, and much more in accordance with
precedent, not to make this Order in any degree res
trospective, but to keep faith strictly with those who
have abandoned their military prospects upon the
former system. As the Order stands at present, let
us take an instance of its operation which will serve
for a type of many more. A young officer, who has
risen rapidly to th© posts of interpreter and adjutant
of a native regiment, is attracted and invited into a
department of the Civil Service. To the dissatis-
faction of his superiors, he throws up his military
appointments and prepares to qualify himself
im-
mediately for civil employ. In order to do this he
has to pass two examinations, the last a severe one
in languages, history, and law. He passes, however,
with high credit, and is at once appointed Assistant-
Commissioner with the sole charge of a district
extending, perhaps, 60 miles in one direction and
40 in another, and requiring, therefore, all his
energies. He has, however, no Boomer settled him-
self to this work when he is suddenly confronted
with this order, and finds that to the constant labour
of his charge, to the care of public buildings,
gardens, schools, gaols, and roads, and to the weari-
some and exacting duties of five or six hours a day
in a court of justice, he has to add the necessary pre-
parations for a severe examination. He finds that
in the short intervals he can spare from his duties,
and from the studies necessary for rightly discharg-
ing them, he has to "cram," so as to be ready, at
three months' notice, with all the details of Indian
History, Jurisprudence, Political Economy, Indian
Penal Code, Civil Procedure Code, Criminal Code,
llevenue system, and the test of high proficiency in
Oordoo. Is it not evident that one of three things
must suffer—his health, his duties, or his prospects
in the examination, and therefore in life? Could
there be a more unwise or a more inconsiderate pro-
ceeding than thue to overstrain and dishearten a
young man at the commencement of a new course of
duties when he needs all his energies and time to
familiarise himself with them ?
POST.—The a holiday
in the common acceptation of the term. Under the
fete Napoleon is more than
flag of the Empire, and in the heart of the French
nation, it is kept as a precious and splendid souvenir.
The fact which is represented ;n its celebration, the
great name which marks its platee in the calendar,
all the grand reminiscences of a still near past, and
all the magnificence and power of the p:esent, com-
bine to make the fifteenth of August a day,
of only
of universal rejoicing, but of national siguifiennce.
No doubt pleasure was the first thought of the
thousands who rose with the sun on Monday morn-
leg, and were thronging
theharvest moon shone ovetrhae sseterneee streetswhich
P couldar i Paris wohnel when
have been witnessed in one city and amongst one
people in the world. But that there was an idea in
the demonstration, a sentiment inspiring the gaiety,
or dominant principle pervading and swaYilig
the
crowd, everybody who had read the French idio-
syncrasy below its surface must have perceived. If
our neighbours do not always think deeply, they
feel strongly ; and if they sometimes act impulsively
they are guided by impressions which are, in the
main, noble and enerous. The policy of Napoleon
111., and the moderation and firmness of his Go.
vernment, have justified the revolution which re-
stored the Empire . and France, prosperous at
home and powerful abroad, apprehends the worth
of the advantages she has accrued, and looks for-
ward into the future with a confidence which her
actual situation amply warrants. During the last
ten years Europe has not only formally, but prac-
tically recognised a Power that, viewed at first
with extreme jealousy, commanded respect by
the vigorous exercise of its authority, and the
unvarying dignity of its demeanour, The most