The Sun.
London, England, 1858-08-02 00:00:00

_RECRUITING.

A letter in a contemporary says :-
1 Recruiting is an important subject just now. We
want more men to send to India, and we are likely
to want many more for the same purpose for some
time to come. It is very difficult to ascertain from
the military authorities how recruiting is going on.
When challenged on the subject the Minister of
War invariably declares in his place in Parliament
that it is going on most satisfactorily ; he enume-
rates, with honest pride, the thousands and tens
of thousands that have been enlisted, trained, and
sent off to reinforce Sir Cohn within the last few
months. His sta'ements are cheered by the House
of Commons, and despondents and croakers are
thus put to sliaine. But when a few days after-
wards some abortive expedients for obtaining re-
cruits in some abnormal manner are brought to
light, and our military authorities arc forced to
coefes.s
.that their new schemes have been costly
and fruitless, they coolly affirm that the difficulties
which theist in obtainingeSiai-tare --a best iusuper="
able, and that they are therefore justified in Eetting
the rules of arAlanetic and political economy at de-
fiance, and endeavouring to got recruits anyhow
and on any terms. The recent satisfactory decla-
rntions of the Minister of War they represent as
having been mere formulae, to which no importance
whatever ought to be a•tached—dust, as it were,
legitimately cast from time to timo by that high
oflic'al into the eyes of a too anxious and inquisitive
public.
During the last six months we have seen three of
these notable expedients break down.
The usual mode of Government recruiting,
through the regular recruiting staff and the pen-
sioners, has hitherto supplied ns with men at the
rate of 4,5001. per I,ooo—viz., 31. per head bounty
flad 30s. I..er head incidental expenses ; while the
East India Unnpauy have been collecting their re-
cruits at about 5 per cent. less, their istandard
beivg lower than that of the Horse Guards.
The first abnormal expedient to which the War-
office resorted was to off r first commissions for men.
Any person desirous of entering the army was to
be presented with a commission on cuidition that
he should collect 100 men. He was to be ex-
empted from the usual educational teAs, and from
the umal regulation with regard to age; and was
to be allowe I the same sum, 41. 103. per head, for
his 100 men as if he had been a recruiting sergeant
or a pensioner. In fact, as the commission given
him—an augmentation commission—might and
ought to have been sold on account of the public
for its regulation value-450/., this arrangement
practically raised the bounty paid by the Govern-
ment from 41. 10s. to 9/. per head. But, as the
officer thus sent into the market by the Minister of
War to bid against his own regular recruiting staff
required precisely the same article as they did, a
considerable portion of this 9/. remained in the
young man's pocket. Instead of offering 9/. per
man bounty, he offered, say, 21. per head to our
own recruiting sergeants and pensioners if they
would serve him in preference to serving their own
officers, and they, knowing that as long as he was
in the market outbidding them their trade must
stop, naturally and wisely accepted his offer. So
the result of this first experiment was that the pub-
lic paid double the price for men they bad been
paying before, but did not get men any faster than
they would have done had they paid but 41. I(s.,
and got worse educated and older officers to com-
mand them.
The War-office next bethought them of raising
contract battalions. They brought a retired offi-
cer back into the service, presenting him wi h a
Lieut.-Colonel's commission gratis. They placed
at his disposal ten Ensigncies, and they gave him
the 4,5001. which they would have paid their own
recruiting staff for collecting 1,000 men. In return
for all this the reinstated officer was to raise his re-
giment. This scheme tripled at once the cost of
recruit., and filled the Lieut.-Colonel's pocket ;
but it did not bring a single additional fish to the
net. Thus :
Regulation price of a Lieut.• Colonelcy £4,500
Ditto ten Easigncies
Usual bounty and Expenses

,C 13,500
A Parliamentary return moved for by 111 r. Bag-
well shows how excellent a bargain this was for
the contracting Colonel, and how bad a bar-
gain it was for the public. From that return it
appears that the 1,000 men of whom each of these
contract battalions was composed were provided
by the 10 ensigns who each received a commission
worth 4501. on bringing in 100 men ; so that the
Lieut.-Col, not only got his Lieut.-Colonelcy for
nothing, but actually pocketed, if not the whole,
at least the major part of the 4,500/, allowed him
for bounty and expenses. Recruits got no more
than they had been getting bef 3/, per
head ; the rerrular recruiting staff got a little more
" biiuging money," and did all the work for
stranvrs, instead of for their own officers, and the
country got no more men for 13,5001. than it would
have dodo had 4,5001. been expended in the usual
manner.

A fourth experiment has just been brought to
light, which has undoubtedly provided the country
with the services of 1,000 men whose services we
should not have had unless the experiment had
been tried ; but at a cost which, at the must mo-
derate computation, would have collected at least
6,000 men in this country in the usual manner.
A regiment has been raised in Canada—the 100th
of the line. In Canada the price of unskilled labour
is from 24a. to 30s. per week, in W'ltsYrc,
Dorsetsliire it is Lola ii.,. to lOs. It was pretty
char, therefore, that by going from England to
Canada—from the cheap market to the dear ouo
to collect recruits the public would urtke a badjob
of it. The War-o Ace went, moreover, not only to
K dear market from a cheap one, but from a near