The Sun.
London, England, 1854-02-25 00:00:00

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

BRISTOL AND EXETER..

promotion from one class to another should be by merit,
and by merit alone. (Hear, hear.) I had no doubt that
this would keep up a high state of efficiency, the hope of
appreciation and reward being in this, as in other profes-
sions, the best stimulus to exertion. (Hear, hear.) I need
not say that the result of this school system has as yet
been extremely good, and that the army has derived great
advantage from its introduction. The house will perhaps
recollect—in reference to the education of officers, to which
I propose now to advert—that some few years ago the late
Duke of Wellington issued an order that no candidate for
a commission in the army should receive one, unless he had
passed a certain standard examination. (Hear.) The Duke
of Wellington also stated that it was his wish that no offi-
cer of the army should be promoted from a subaltirn rank
to a company, unless be had passed an examination proving
him fit for the transition. The duke then said, that in the
first examination all you need wish to obtain was the know-
ledge that the young man had had the education of a gentle-
man, and that he possessed the abilities to take full advan-
tage of that education. But of the second examination his
grace spoke differently ; and he said that it should show not
merely that the candidate had had a liberal education, but
that he had applied it by turning his mind to military
studies, and to an acquaintance with the theory of his pro-
fession. The present examination for the first commission
is conducted at Sendhurst ; and about it I do not wish
to enter into details ; but my impression is that the edu-
cation there is too limited, and within its limits too severe.
It is too narrow, because certain text books only al e pub-
lished, a certain prescribed course only required, and the
young man who has not the best memory but the quickest
memory is most successful ; the consequence of which is,
that young men are sometimes rejected for not knowing
things which it is almost ridiculoue to expect them to
know. (Hear.) My own impression is, that that is not a
fair or a desirable system, and that it might be thus im-
proved : By allowing a young man who had had a fair
liberal education to be examined in what is stated he had
learned, by making that the test of his fitness as regarded
sufficiency of instruction, and by on y considering further
his ability to take advantage of the education, the liberal
education, which he had received. This is all you want in
the first examination. In the second it is different. You
then want a professional examination ; you want to know
that, in addition to his gentlemanly education, your officer
has applied his mind to mathematical and strategetical
studies, to such studies as will render him efficient as an.
officer. I know there is an objection, which I consider fal-
lacious, to this examination, that, by it, you will get men
who are book-worms instead of getting the active spirits you
require. There is this answer to that, that if the officer
who has studied his profession is the worse for his studies,
then you must admit that the whole body of the Artillery
and Engineei s are unfit fur their profession ; and that I
am sure you will not do. (Hear.) There remains, how-
ever, this difficulty—a more reasonable one, to my mind—
that the means of study given to different officers would
not be the same, and that they would, on the contrary, vary
extremely with the localities in which they wore quartered.
For instance, the officer quartered in England had 'access
to all the best and newest books, while he who is quar-
tered in the backwoods of Canada, or elsewhere, was, of
course, isolated from all access of the kind. It is proposed,
by way of removing this difference of opportunities, to
establish at the head-quarters of certain districts an officer
whom you may call " Captain of Instruction," or what
you please, who will be known as professor of military
studies in that district ; and on whom it will be arranged
that every subaltern officer shall get leave to attend. Thus
every such officer would be able to go through a course of
instruction before he became a lieutenant, and through a
course of instruction before he became a captain. It is
intended that there shall le an examination on both these
occasions; but, of course, great care must be taken,, and
will he taken, at first, not to make these examinations too
high. With regard to the instruction and education of
the men, I need only say that one proof of the degree to
which that insti uction is popular among them is shown in
the increasing number of volumes which they use. The
number of books, 5,000 when the libraries were established,
is now 118,000, and the number of men subscribing is be-
tween 15,000 and 16,000. (Hear.) It was suggested by
the gallant officer (General Evans) that there is not at pre-
sent any sufficient means of education for the post of army
surgeon. (Hear.) With especial reference to this ques-
tion, I have made inquiries both at Paris and Vienna as to
the training provided for those who are candidates for
employment in their armies as medical officers. At Paris
I find they have gone into an extreme which works very
ill. They take medical students and educate them exclu-
sively for military surgeons, entirely forgetting that in
nine cases out of ten a military surgeon's duties differed in
no way from those of an ordinary surgeon. (Hear, hear.)
On the other hand, here, except at Edinburgh, it
is impossible to get instruction of the peculiar charac-
ter necessary to make a complete military surgeon.
Now, what we propose is not to diminish by any
means the general studies of young men wishing to be-
come military surgeons, but to superadd to those general
studies a course of lectures on military surgery • these to
be given in Edinburgh, Dublin, and London. (Rear.) The
house will be aware that no army in the world requires
this so much as our own. Last year, for instance, in Bar-
badoes, which must be supposed to be most free from it,
the yellow fever broke out, and, notwithstanding all that
the doctors there could do, it did not abate. At last we
were obliged to send out inedicel men from England ; but
what were they? Men who had studied every disease but
this, which they had had no means of studying in Eng-
hoot. It is most necessary that before young men become
army surgeons they should have the opportunity of becom-
ing acquainted with the diseases of tropical climates, as
well as the peculiar diseases incident to the soldi life.
(Hear, hear.) Under these circumstances, and such being
our opinions, we are going to extend professorships to Dub-
lin and Edinburgh, and we hope to makearrangements for
a course of lectures there by next autumn. These lectures,
I believe, will be attended with a doable advantage. Not
only will they be of the greatest value to students-7a great
number of army surgeons also will gladly have recourse to
them for the purpose of adding to the Stock of knowledge
they already possess. (Hear, heer.) Now, sir, let me say
in passing from this subject, let me remark that with this
system I have spoken of —consequent upon it, I believe—
of the education of the soldiers, there has been a very re-
makable improvemeut in their conduct. It was the cus-
tom for many years to govern in the army almost entirely
by the fear of punishment - it has been the custom, for
some years, to govern it by the hope of reward.
(Hear, hear.) The difference, I say, has been very
remarkable. Under the former system the man entered
for life, at least for twenty-one years, during all which
time the best he could hope was not to bqlogged, not to
be imprisoned, and so on. Under the present system he
has not this only motive of the dread of punishment—he
has the immediate hope of reward, by the increase of his
pee, and he has the assurance that ultimately, in the case
of long service, he will obtain an increase of his pension,
supposing his merits to entitle him, Lately, too, we have
made a difference with regard to men who have given
years of good service. The oractice was to give them a media
after their discharge ; but that, however &ratifying to them,
had, for the purposes of example, but little effect. We have
changed that practice, and now we give this medal after 18
years, and he who has earned it Wears it from that time till
the time of his discharge. We have likewise made changes
with regard to the accommodation of troops on board ship.
We have made arrangements witie contract packets, and
the effect of all these changes has been most marked in tee
conduct of the men, the excellence of which increases every
year. This year, I may Mention, if anything were wanting
to prove the greater than ordinary frugality of the men,
that there has been an immense augmentation in the amount
they have inve steel in the savings banks.. (Hear, hear.) In
1844 the number of depositors was 1,890, the amount de-
posited 14,849/. ; in 1853 the number of depositors was
10,723, the amount deposited 124,600/. As to offences, the
number of persons in military prisons is diminishing, but
on this point I will read an extract from the governor of
the prison in Limerick :—" From a force comprising so
many men as that which sends its delinquents to this pri-
son; only 172 have been received during the last year, a
fact which, it is my privilege to say, exhibits a decrease in
the per centage admitted in former years. That this gra-
tifying result is to be attributed exclusively, or even chiefly,
to the dread of military prisons, would not, I think, be a
correct conclusion. Mere punishment, however rigorous
and severe, will not deter the soldier from offending I can-
not, therefore, but regard the decrease of military offences as
in a groat mesa-a:re the haw consequence of that eyetem
of education =di revs Ord rea:ch is now co beneficially ope-
rating upon the soldier, and teaching him to realise the
importance and advantage of respectability and faithful-
ness. The excellent conduct of the troops serving in this
district is additionally gratifying and observable, since
during the past year drunkenness has, I reset to say, very
lamentably increased among the lower orders in this part
of the United Kingdom." Now, sir, having gone through
these heads, let me say that the military authorities, while
paying this attention to the individual comforts of our sol-
diers, and.to the means by which the character of the men
could be formed, have not neglected to take measures for
securing the general efficiency of the forces. (Hear, hear.)
Last year I took from the estimates a sum for the purpose
of completing au establishment at Hythe, where we could
obtain—wh,tt it was very difficult to obtain— a sufficiently
long range for pi a:lice in shooting. Before ti .e completion
of that establishment the practice of the musket had been
extremely neglected, and in some regiments there was
scarcely any ball-cartridge used in the course of the year.
(Hear, hear.) That state of things is now.remedie d To
that establishment a certain number of privates and non-
commissioned officers go from each regiment in their turn ;
there they obtain practice and insrucietierre;etand
those
en they
co back to their regiments, able to whom
they left behind them. The consequence is that there is
hardly a regiment now not thoroughly masters 'of what
lately WAS so generally neglected. A gentleman, a compel-
emit, judge, came to me the other day, haVing spent a day
at Hythe, where, he told me, he had seen almost more than
be could believe. He saw 77 shots out of 100 put into a
target eight feet high, representing cavalry, at 800 yards.
He saw inen skirmishing, merely guessing their distances,
and not knowing them beforehand at all, and these men
put in 40 out of 50. (Hear.) And now, sir, I come to
the point which was mentioned by the gallant officer who
asked what are the Government's intentions—first, with
regard to the troops to be allotted to the colonies ;
and secondly, with regard to promotions in the army. I
agree entirely with what he said as to the distribution of
troops in the colonies, but I must call his attention to the
fact that the return he has quoted is a misleading return.
The return of the Ist April, 1853, really gives the force
existing in 1852. The next which appears will give the
gallant officer the right figures for 1853, and by it he will
find that the number of troops in the colonies has been
very considerably diminished since the present Govern-
ment came into office. (Hear.) Five thousand men, I
think, have been withdrawn from' the Cape, North Ame-
rica and the West Indies. But you have to put against
these the augmentation that has been made in the garri-
sons of the Mediterranean. During the last year, whilst
reductions have been taking place in Canada, the West
Indies, and the Cape, an addition has been made of up-
' wards of 1,800 men at Malta, Gibraltar, and the lonian
-Islands ; and it is obvious that at the present moment
these three garrisons form the basis of our operations in
the East (Hear, hear.) I agree with the gallant gentle-
man that the Government were right in withdrawing
troops from the West Indies. There have been complaints
of that, though ; but there always are complaints if you
remove troops from any colony. Since the gold discoveries
Australia has maintained a regiment of its own—a regi-
ment which is given only on that condition ; and if they
want any further troops, they will be sent to them on the
same terms, and on the same terms only. In short, the
Government have made considerable reductions so far as re-
gards the gallant officer's first inquiry.
been called
With regard to
clieee;egeinin_gto
the per
his second question, as to the age] of our general
the advancement,
cTeimgoeunrt.,
officers, the attention of the Government. has.
to that, and the Government have decided on issuing a
commission, with a view to its
any measures can be taken
tirement of aged officers, .
oand
fwill I
etsh,i
activity
nLnkord Hard-
occording to fitness, of men
The names of that commission
_, , inspire
confidence. Two great
inge and Lord Raglan; two general
.ffi_
Lieutenant-General
General Cath-
mila auoth_ecne'ti
cart and Lord Seaton ; two colonel: Lieutenant-General
• Buller, and Lieutenant-General Knowles, of the Rifles ;
two ex-Secretaries of State, Earl Grey and Sir J. Faking-
ton, two ex-Secretaries-at-War, Lord Pananure and Mr. L.