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

RECRUITI.NG.

A letter in a contemporary says :
Re crui iing 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 Colin within the last few
months. His statements are cheered by the House
of Commons, and despondents and croakers are
thus put to shame. 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 are forced to
confess that their new schemes have been costly
and fruitless, they aria that the difficulties
which exist in obtaining men.rare Ala:Lost insuper-
able, and that they are therefore justified in setting
the rules of arithmetic and political economy at de-
liAnce, and endeavouring to get recruits anyhow
and on any terms. The recent satisfactory decla-
rations of the Minister of War they represent as
having been mere formulm, to which no importance
whatever ought to be attached—dust, as it were,
legitimately cast from time to time by that high
official 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 us with men at the
rate of 4,5001. per I,ooo—viz., 31. per head bounty
and 30s. per head incidental expenses ; while the
East India Company have been collecting their re-
cruits at about 5 per cent, less, their 'standard
lbeing lower than that of the Horse Guards.
The first abnormal expedient to which the War-
office resorted was to offer first commissions for man.
Any person desirous of entering the army was to
be presented with a commission on condition that
ho should collect 100 men. He was to be ex-
empted from the usual educational tests, and from
the usual regulation with regard to age ; and was
to be allowed the same sum, 41. 10s. per head, for
his 100 men as if he had been a recruiting sergeant
or a pensioner. In fact, as the commission given
bina—an augmentation commission—might and
ought to have been sold on account of the public
for its regulation value-4501., this arrangement
practically raised the bounty paid by the Govern-
ment from 41. 10s. to 91. per head. But, as the
officer thus sent into the market by the Minister of
War to hid against his own regular recruiting staff
required precisely the same article as they did, a
considerable portion of this 91. remained in the
young man's pocket. Instead of offering 91. 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. 10s.,
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 with 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. 1n return
for all this the reinstated officer was to raise his re-
giment. This scheme tripled at once the cost of
recruits, 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 Ensigncies
Usual bounty and Expenses

413,
A Parliamentary return moved for by Mr. 500 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 4,5001. allowed him
for bounty and expenses. Recruits got no more
than they bad been getting before—viz., 31. per
head ; the regular recruiting staff got a little more
" bringing money," and did all the work for
strangers, instead of for their own officers, and the
country got no more men for 13,5001. than it would
have dode 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 most 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 245. to 30s. per week, in Wiltshire and in
Dorsetshire it is from 9s. to 10s. It was pretty
clear, therefore, that by going from England to
Canada—from the cheap market to the dear one—
to collect recruits the public would make a bad job
of it. The War-office went, moreover, not only to
a dear market from a cheap one, but from a near