The Sun.
London, England, 1870-01-24 00:00:00

TIIE REDUCTIONS.

Inere will probably be no regiments actually disbanded
after all, but the reduction by two companies of every regi-
ment now on foreign service will very greatly reduce the
army expenditure for the ensuing year. The officers of the
companies reduced, to the number of 156 captains and the
same number of lieutenants, will be borne as supernume-
raries en the strength of their regiments. Consequent on
these reductions we hear that a stop has been
put to all gazetting of ensigns to the line, and
the appointments lately won by successful candidates at
Sandhurst are postponed indefinitely. The regiments
affected by the reduction will be the following :-Ist
(four companies), 2nd, 3td, sth, 6th, 7th, Bth, 9th, 10th,
(four companies), 11th (four companies), 12th, 13th, 14th
(four companies), 15th, 18th, 19th (four companies),
20th, 21st (four companies), 24th (four companies),
25th, 26th, 28th, 29th, 31st, 32nd, 36th, 37th, 33th
39th, 41st, 45th, 48th, 49th, 52nd, 53rd, 55th
58th, 59th, 60th (six companies), 61st, 62nd, 64th, 69th,
71st, 73rd, 74th, 75th, 76th, 77th, 78th, 79th, 83rd, 84th,
85th, 86th, 87th, 88th, 92nd, 95th, 96th, 103rd, 104th,
105th, 106th, 107th, 105th, 109th Rifle Brigade (four com-
panies). The Ist battalion 16th, 82nd, 93rd, and 102nd,
will, of course, on arrival home, be reduced to the home
establishment of ten companies. A number of unattached
lieutenant-colonelcies and majorities will be distributed
when these reductions take place.
The vacancy caused by the death of Admiral Sir George
Seymour, G.C.B. will not, it is expected, be filled up.
Those workmen in the steam factory of Woolwich who
have served fifteen years have been placed on the same
footing as the dockyard men, and have received bonuses
from the Admiralty.

In connection with the reductions the ith and Bth
Hussars have been ordered, by telegraph, home from
India, and will not be relieved, thus reducing the number
of cavalry regiments in India from eleven to nine.
The Royal Artillery, as well as its staff at
the Horse Guards will probably be considerably
reduced, and the Broad Arrow expects that when the
army estimates appear, but poor prospects will be held out
for officers desirous of staff employ. The same paper un-
derstands that the whole of the cavalry depot at Canter-
bury will be abolished in connection with the new system
for Indian depots.
Captain Douglas Calton, the Times states, has been
appointed to the Directorship of Works and Buildings—a
new office under the First Commissioner of Works. The
Assistant Under-Secretaryship of State in the War
Office, at present filled by Captain Galion, will be

The Leeds Mercury's London correspondent gives some
interesting items concerning the proposed reform of the
Civil Service. " There has recently," says the writer, "been
some thought of throwing the whole service open to com-
petition. This, however; would not meet the great
evil. That evil lies in the fact that the
Government have to find work for none but edu-
cated gentlemen, and that the very letters which
pass from one department to another ought to
be copied, and the simplest sums in addition
worked, by young men who either have the ad-
vantage of social position and political influence, or who
have passed a stringent examination before the Civil
Service Commissioners. The plan by which it will at no
distant date be proposed to remedy this evil, and which
already I know finds favour with more than one official of
high position, will be the reduction of the permanent staff
of gentlemen, and the employment of an inferior order of
clerks, as " writers," to do the inferior kind of work.
These writers would be men engaged merely to do certain
work as long as that work was to be done; they would
not be guaranteed permanent employment, and their
numbers could be reduced or increased at pleasure ac-
cording to the pressure of work in the various depart-
ments. The proportion in which "writers" and permenent
staff should, as a rule, be employed has been estimated by
a member of the present Government at about 50 per cent.
of each class—or one-half clerks and one-half writers.
This is, of course, a sweeping change. It is, however, one
which is actually about to be tested experimentally in one
of the Government departments, and from all that I can
see and hear, it is one, I think, which the public will
approve of, and for which the Civil Service ought to pre-
pare itself."