The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-03 00:00:00

GRANTS TO SCHOOLS.

Mr. ADDERLEY said he had a question on the paper
to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on
Education, whether it was his intention to introduce a
new minute which would remove the distinction between
rural and other schools in the minute of March, 1864, re-
lating to the reduction of grants to schools by the amount
of any endowments, but as he had heard that the Govern-
ment intended to introduce in the course of a few days the
new minutes, he would not proceed with the motion which
stood on the paper in his name that evening.
Sir G. GREY said the right hon. gentleman had heard
what was quite correct. The new minute would be made
known very shortly.
THE OFFICERS OF THE INDIAN ARMY.

Capt. JERVIS rose to call attention to the petitions
presented to that house by the officers of the late Indian
armies, and moved that an humble address be presented to
her Majesty, praying she will be graciously pleased to re-
dress all grievances complained of by them, as wore admitted
by the commission on the memorials of Indian officers to
have arisen by a departure from the assurances given by
by 21 and 22 Vic., c. 106, 23 and 24 Vic., c. 100. The hon.
and gallant gentleman took the opportunity of entering at
some length into the great services performed by the officers
of the Indian army, which, he said, were marked by the
greatest bravery and heroism. He said it was their
gallant deeds alone that had been thought quite sufficient
to amalgamate them into the British army ; but ho felt
there was scarcely a military man in that house who would
now say the Indian officers had been treated in a manner
their great merits deserved. The granting of brevet
rank without pay was not the sort of thing that ought
to have been given to many of those officers. The
granting of brevet rank to an officer for services in the
field was an honour of which the recipients felt the
full weight. They were looked upon by their
comrades as men of mark and undoubted bravery,
but when it was doled out wholesale officers looked upon it
as mere trash. They had a few bits more gold put upon
their collars, for which they had to pay. He felt the house
would take the services of these officers into its considera-
tion, therefore he confidently left their case for its disposal.
He concluded by moving the address of which he had
given notice.
Sir C. WOOD said he quite agreed with all that had been
said by the hon. and gallant gentleman with respect to the
services of the officers of the Indian army ; but so
far from the position of those officers having been in
any way injured, he felt that he should be enabled
to show that quite the contrary was the case, and that
those officers had never been in a better position both with
respect to pay and promotion. A great stress had been laid
on the circumstance that a great many petitions had boon
presented by the officers, praying for a redress of grievances,
but certain cases had come to his knowledge where the
names of officers who did not complain had been attached
to petitions, the prayer of which was the redress of
grievances.

-
Capt. JERVIS wished to know the names of such
officers.

Sir C. WOOD said he would not shrink from giving the
names of the officers. The right hon. gentlemen then read a
letter he had received' from Col. Cherry, of the Madras
Army, the effect of which was that the gallant gentle-
man had received intelligence that his name had been
affixed to a petition for redress of grievances without his
sanction, and that so far from it being his desire that such
should be done, ho was quite satisfied with his position.
The formation of the staff corps was a matter of absolute
necessity. Next came the question of promotion, and the
commission presided over by the noble lord opposite re-
commended that promotions to tho staff corps should be
governed by length of service. That was what the go-
vernment exactly did. They offered to all officers of the
Indian army the option of going into the staff corps, and
they offered the same thing to officers of the line. Nay,
they went one stop further, and thought it right to give
the older officers the benefit of promotion, as if the staff
corps had been formed' at the time they entered the ser-
vice. In justification of the course they had taken, he
might state that the same thing had been done by the East
India Company; and when the hon. and gallant member
behind him (Col. Sykes) had spoken of the " indisputable
rights" of the Indian officers, ho seemed to forgot that on
several occasions the East Indian Company had not ad-
mitted those rights. The government had not in the
slightest degree interfered with regimental seniority. A
cadet who went into the army in December, 1860, and who
never saw a day's service, might rise to the rank of colonel
or general officer just as if no change had been made.
When the Royal Artillery were sent out to India,
the East India Company thought it desirable to promote
all the majors by giving the substantive rank and pay of
lieutenant-colonels. They had done nothing of the kind,
but on the contrary they had issued a positive prohibit ion
against officers being placed in command of a regiment in
which there were senior officers. He would admit, with
the hon. and gallant gentleman, that the simplest course
would have been to cancel all the appointments of the staff
corps; but, with the exception of the hon. and gallant
member, he never heard an officer advocate such a course.
He should have shrunk from depriving those officers of
their rank. From the date of the formation of the staff
corps every officer possessed the same right of seniority he
enjoyed at that time. The report of Sir 11. Rose showed
that the scheme of the government was the most effective
that could be adopted to remedy the alleged grievances.
That being so, he thought it unnecessary to say any more
on the subject. The three cases on which the ccmmission
reported that there was just cause of complaint were in-
directly remedied by the measure which her Majesty's Go-
vernment had taken. In two of the cases the officers them-
selves admitted that the grievances had been remedied, and
in the third case he had shown that a remedy had been ap-
plied. Coming to the last measure which had been taken,
no one would pretend to say that, under the circumstances,
it would not have been the right and the duty of the East
India Company to reduce the Indian army. That right
and that duty equally devolved on her Majesty's Govern-
ment. If it was necessary to reduce the army itself, it was
only following a course always adopted to reduce the num-
ber of colonels. Though 101 regiments had been reduced,
they had not reduced any colonels. They proposed only
to reduce the number of colonel's allowances so as to drop
three out of four. If a reduction was to be effected, and it
was not to be effected by some system of retiring allow-
ances, he did not know how it could be done except by
some system of retarding promotion. Their measure pro-
vided an extraordinary number of retirements. They had
offered the boon of a retirement to three hundred, andthey
had not filled up more than half the lieut.-colonelcies. The
immediate effect of that measure was to give promotion at
once to 49 lieut.-colonels, 87 majors, 128 captains, and 190
lieutenants. He contended, therefore, that they had shown
generous consideration for those gentlemen. He had stated
the amount of increased pay given to the artillery and en-
gineers. The whole increase of promotion, pay, and pen-
sions had had the effect of imposing on the revenues of In-
dia a sum exceeding a quarter of a million of money. He
did not see how, in the face of such an increase, they could
be accused of having shown any niggardly spirit in this
matter. The right honourable gentleman having dwelt on
the increase of pay which had been given to the Indian
army, referred to figures to show how promotion had been
accelerated, and to what an extent the term of service had
been diminished which qualified an officer for the rank of
lieut.-colonel in the Indian army, concluding by claiming
for the measures of the Government great benefit for the
officers, instead of having prejudiced their position, and by
expressing a hope that after his explanation discussions in
that house would cease.

Colonel SYKES said that when the right hon. baronet
maintained that the condition of the officers, from a cadet
to the highest in the army, was precisely the same as it was
under the East India Company, ho had unfortunately dis-
regarded the one important point—that the cadet rose to
be lieutenant, the lieutenant to be captain and major, until
he got a colonel's allowance to retire upon in his old age.
That was while he was under the East India Company.
What was he now ? He was only on paper. When ho was
With his regiment he was entitled to succeed to the com-
mand, and ultimately to the allowances. Now, his regiment
was converted into an irregular troop, in which any one
might servo who thought fit. That alone was a breach of
the guarantee of the house. The house guaranteed the
continuance of the rights and privileges that were in force
at the time of the passing of the two acts, and the house
was bound in honour to see that its obligations were ful-
filled. The hon. and gallant member then traced the
course of the policy pursued by the Secretary of State for
India during several years past, and cited the results
arrived at by the various committees that had considered
thhs
eh et d
athere
ofw otuhled have been
India f ecwo
Company's
py
sa i
the question. If the staff companies had not been estab-
inntsterteostmtaok eh
rf
Majesty's Government ; for, so far from that Company
wishing to have the officers withdrawn from active service,
one of their last acts while he was chairman was to provide'

that no officer should be withdrawn in the manner that
had since been adopted by her Majesty's Government. Out
of 715 petitions which had been presented to that house,
only one had been proved by the right hon. baronet not to
be genuine. And what did that amount to ? The right
hon. baronet had also alluded to the excessively rapid pro-
motion of individual officers, but that proved nothing as
long as the average rate of promotion was slow. The
creation of the staff corps would lead to an immense accu-
mulation of field officers, as the head officers would not be
got to retire from the service. The result would be they
would have officers of the rank of major and lieutenant-
colonel doing the duties of lieutenants and captains. Was
that judicious—was it economic ?

Mr. SMOLLETT said the recent changes in the con-
stitution of the Indian army had been marked by immense
profusion and great cost to the State. At the same time
they gave no satisfaction to the parties most concerned in
them. A great error had been the formation of a most
exorbitant and most unnecessary staff corps ; but the
greatest mischief of all had been the Amalgamation Act of
1860. That act had annihilated a most admirable service,
and it had been made to do so simply because of a mania
which afflicted the Horse Guards and the Government of
India at the moment. People imagined that India was to
be governed henceforward by a force of 100,000 English
bayonets ; but that plan of governing the country by brute
force broke down from financial considerations. It was
found India could not afford to pay 100,000 Europeans.
Therefore, sounder opinions came to be formed, and at that
moment they had a vast native force in the pay of the In-
dian Government—some 125 regiments ho believed. The
arrangement respecting the staff corps had necessitated a
heavy charge upon the revenue of India, while there was
not the smallest necessity to justify its adoption. The
Government in India then proceeded to form a staff corps,
which consisted of 1400 officers, whose names wore retained
in the cadres of the regiments from which they had been
taken, and they continued to perform no duty. When the
staff corps was formed hundreds of officers in regiments
found themselves superseded by their juniors in the same
regiments, who had been appointed to the staff corps. The
officers of the army, of course, murmured at such whole-
sale supercession, but they could obtain no redress. The
only course now open to the Secretary of State for India
was to give substantive rank to all the officers who had
been superseded in their own regiments pari passu with the
officers promoted to the staff. No doubt that would make
a largo charge upon the revenue of India, but it must
come to that at last.

The house then divided. The numbers were—
For the motion 49
Against it
Majority —l3
The motionwas therefore carried.
BANK NOTES (IRELAND) BILL.

Sir C. O'LOGHLEN moved, in committee of the whole
House, "That the Chairman be directed to move the house
that leave be given to bring in a bill to make Bank of Eng-
land notes a legal tender in Ireland, and to authorise banks
of issue in Ireland to make their notes payable only at the
places in Ireland at which an account of gold and silver
coin held by such bankers is taken by the Commissioners
of Stamps and Taxes."
The motion was agreed to and the house resumed, when
leave was given to introduce the bill, which was subse-
quently read a first time.