The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-02 00:00:00

GENERAL GREY'S COLON.ELCE

(Fioni the Times.)
The Secretary for War declares that it would
have been " a mean, shabby, cowardly thing," to
refuse General Grey the Colonelcy to which he has
been recently appointed. It seems that we have
all been entirely mistaken about this gallant offi-
cer. So far from being an officer who had been
conspicuous chiefly in Hyde Park, as some of the
public have loosely believed, he is much more like
the Achilles who looks down upon those perambu-
lating heroes. General Grey was not even a
Guardsman—but we never, indeed, heard that he
was. He has been in the Line all his life. Twice
he went on colonial service with his regiment, and
for nine years he 'commanded the 71st Regiment,
and be visited Canada with it. It so happened, in-
deed, that during the whole time that he was in the
army there were only two occasions when there
was a foreign expedition of any kind, and he hap-
pened to take part in both. One of these expedi-
tiens was the military promenade to Portugal, and
the other was to Canada. His cervices were, in
fact, so great that the Duke of Cambridge said to
Secretary for War, " I think General Grey's ser-
vices are such that he ought not to be passed over
any longer." The mere military merits and great
achievements of the General forced themselves so
strongly upon the Commander-in-Chief that he
felt scandalised they should have remained so
long unacknowledged. The Secretary for War
warmly acquiesced. Poor General Grey had suf-
fered long enough for the position which he held
at Court. If he had been plain John Smith with
all these services at his back—that desperate voy-
age to Lisbon, and that possible encounter with the
icebergs and fog banks that make a voyage to
Canada so dangerous—he would have been made a
colonel long ago. Was he to be kept back simply
because he had a place at Court, and because the
public prints would carp at the appointment ? The
Duke said it would be " monstrous," and the Sec-
retary said that it would be " a mean, shabby,
cowardly thing, not to give him a post of this sort
when it fell vacant."

We wish we could go along with the Secretary
for War in this triumphant defence. We wish we
could accept it as an undoubted fact that an officer
who has passed a large portion of his life in the
exemplary fulfilment of garrison duty at home, who
has been two short voyages across the seas, and
who has always creditably discharged his military
duties until within the last eighteen years, when
he was promoted to an office about the person
of the Prince Consort—we wish, we say, we
could accept it as an undoubted fact that such an
officer is entitled as a matter of course to a sine-
eure colonelcy, without reference to his service
at Court. 1% hat a happy race of old men we
should then have in our army There would be
no disappointed veterans, no complaints of gal-
lant deeds unchronicled and great achievements un-
remembered. No man then could show his scars
and make every wound a reproach to his country.
If respectable mediocrity had a right to claim such
a reward, how comfortable must our old fire-eating
campaigners have been previously made ! Mr.
Sidney Herbert does not for a moment suggest that
General Grey ever saw a shot fired in anger, or that
he ever " set a squadron in the field." No doubt,
that is his misfortune. If he had had the oppor-
tunity he would have done like any other British
officer. He would have gone to the Crimea, if they
would have sent him there, and that he would have
distinguished himself there we most sincerely be-
lieve. Unhappily, however, he had not the oppor-
tunity, and others had. Unfortunately, also, we
must measure a soldier's services by what he has
done, and not by what he might, would, could, or
should have done if he had had the chance. if
there be upon the roll of the British Army no officer
who has done more than General Grey has done,
we should say, and the whole country would say,
give him the Colonelcy by all means. But how is
this? If we may trust the uncontradicted testi•
mony of General Evans, there are fourteen officers
senior to General Grey, who have seen a great
deal of service in the field and in the colonies,
some of whom had actually been wounded in
action, not once, but many times. It is diffi-
cult for us to divine how it would have been
" a mean and a cowardly thing" to have
refrained from passing over these worn and
maimed soldiers, and to have given this Colonelcy
to any of them in preference to General Grey.
Again, if we put aside the point of seniority, it
appears that there are generals who have com-
manded brigades, and even divisions, during the
Indian mutiny, and in the Crimea, ho have not
yet received this pillow of repose for tired veterans.
There are older men who have fought and bled in
their country's service, and who have looked to this
sinecure as the object and reward of their labours ;
and there are men as old in years, but junior in
rank, who have earned this reward by brilliant
achievements. Eminent among the examples of
this latter class is General George Bell, who was
instanced in the debate, This old man has a mi-
litary career of half a century. Forty of these
years were were passed in active service. He
has fought in the Peninsula, where he was pre-
sent in the great heroic battles ; he has endured
the climates of the East and West Indies ; he
went through the Canadian rebellion and the Bur-
mese war, and he wound up with that little affair
in the Crimea—being wounded in the trenches be-
fore Sebastopol. Yet Mr. Sydney Herbert stands
up in the House of Commons and triumphantly
declares that it would have been " mean and cow-
ardly". not to have given a military pension—for
that is what a sinecure colonelcy really is—to
General Grey instead of to General Bell.
Let us not be misunderstood in this matter.
We have nothing to say against General Grey.
His conduct as an officer has been unimpeachable ;
his duties as Secretary to the Prince Consort have
been, we doubt not, most meritoriously performed.
After 18 years' service to the Prince, he is entitled
to an increase of income, and he ought to have it—
but not from this source. These sinecare colonelcies
are the bounty of the nation for services rendered
in the field. They are willingly and heartily given,
but they are given for men who have sustained our
national renown, and who have done great deeds!of
arms. They are military prizes. When a man
has won them let him have them. Be he courtier
or be he rustic no one will inquire ; but let him
show his achievements. There are apposite re-
wards for every service. Watt may have deserved
better of his country than Lord Eldon, but no one
would have insisted upon giving Watt the retiring
pension of a Lord Chancellor. Sir John Lawrence
has deserved well of his country, but no one would
wish to see Sir John Lawrence made Archbishop
of Canterbury. General Grey has passed his youth
in the army, and he has got his rank; he has spent
his manhood in a civil office, and he deserves pos-
sibly a civil reward; but every one is scandalised
when he is endowed with an income which ought
to be the reward of a distinguished soldier. Such
a job as this is bad policy, bad expediency. It
does more harm than a hundred demagogues
could do. They who do it cannot know how it
flies about through the nation, and how it is
remembered, and what fruit it bears. They who
defend it are the worst enemies of those
whom they encourage to such a course of action.
It really is not worth the evil it costs. When Mr.
Disraeli rushes to the rescue with an ostentatious
obsequiousness, he is doing an ill office to those he
would propitiate ; there would have been more real
friendship in a little honest expostulation. As to
Mr. Sydney Herbert, he is evidently only covering
a hollow job with fierce words. If it would have
been "a mean, shabby, and cowardly thing" to re-
. fuse this military reward to General Grey, who has
never been in front of a foe, in what terms will he
characterise the refusal of this reward to General
Bell, who has fought in every battle-field where a
• foe has shown himself ?

(From the Daily Icewc.)

It cannot be helped. Fifteen million pounds
a-year for military purposes is inevitable. So says
General Peel, the late War Minister ; and so says
Mr. Sidney Herbert, the present War Minister.
Mr. Gladstone may talk of temporary expenses,
and Mr. Bright may thunder about extravagance,
but they are economical enthusiasts. So long as the
present House of Commons controls our destiny,
waste and apathy must be the order of the day.
There is no man in Parliament who understands
the temper of that assembly better than Mr, Sid-
ney Herbert, and the tone of his speech on Thurs-