Morning journal and courier., 1880-07-26
Too Many English Generals.
An Evil ina the British Army that Must Soon be Corrected.
 from tha

Soon be Corrected.
 From the London Telegraph.l
 In the House of Commons last night Mir. Trevelyan rose to move sFthat steps should at
 once be taken to reduce the active list of gen erals to the point at which it is adequate and
 no more than adequate to the actual require ments of the service of the country. That
 no appointments should henceforward be
 made to honorary colonelcies, due regard be-
 ing had to the interests of existing officers
 The honorable member commenced by say
 ing that no stronger case than that he had to
 submit was ever laid before the House of
 Commons. Englishmen were not accustom-
 ed to look abroad for instruction, but there
 was one country to which they were never
 ashamed to refer to on matters of military
 administration. That was Prussia. The
 army of Prussia and Saxony in time of war
 OTIS, and they were commanded by 150 gene
 rals. The entire amount of pay and pensions
 expended on those general was 922O, 900
 year. The number ofgenerals, retired and active
 together, was 625 The peace establishment
 of the English army was 13O, ,OOO men, of
 whom 8, 900 were in India. On our war es-
 tablishment we had 70, GOO men of the first
 class reserve and the militia reserve and 13O,-
 GOO men of the army of India. This made
 total of 400. 900, as against 60O,O ,OOO the
 strength of the Prussian and Saxon army.
 These 100000 men were commanded by 215 generals, 169 lieutenant generals, PAP major
 generals. or 636 altogether. That is to say
 the active list of generals commanding the 400, ,OOO of the English army was more than four times great as the list of Prussian generals commanding GOO, GOO. The staff pay of the English establishment was about el9,- 900 year; honorary colonelcies, e2O3, 800 salaries of officers employed in administra- tive duties e25, ,OOO; full pay of general off cers, e13O, ,OO0 share of general officers in distinguished service money e15, ,OOO; retir- ed generals of Royal Artillery and Royal En- gineers, e47, 900; half-pay officers taking rank as generals, but not really generals, e50,0OO. The pay of general officers in the Indian service, but resident in England, in cluding colonels' allowances, might be ap- proximately taken at e24O, 900; the sum paid to general officers, excluding brigadier-gene- rals, in India was e700, ,OO year, making the colossal total of e7S4, 800 year, or three and half times as much as was paid for com manding the mnch larger army of Prussia (Hear, hear.) Now, what did they get for the money? And here he warned honorable members to prepare for the incredible. Counting the commander-in-chiefa as a com bative officer, we had twenty general officers engaged in military commands at home, sew enteen actively employed in India, and twelve in the colonies so that in all but sixty three of our generals were at work at given time That is to say, while Prussian general, ac- lively employed, cost e1 460 8 year, a British general, taking active and retired payments cost SIP. .444 a year. The cause of this truly monstrous state of things was that instead of having list to which men might be promot- ed because there were generals duties for them to perform, and from which they would retire when too old to perform them, they had an enormous agglomeration of officers, old and yonng, effective and non-efective, some of whom were so notoriously incapable that no Minister in his senses would trust them with the command of brigade At this moment there were ninety-seven officers per forming generals duty in different parts of the British Empire. Sixty-three of these be- longed to the list of generals and thirty-four were colonels and heutenant-colonels promot- ed for the time to the rank of general because the regular generals were not fit for duty India and England paid e75O, 900 for the per formance of duties of generals, and was yet rank to perform the service for which the generals were unfit. Clear, hear. The position of general instead of being one of honor was made one simply of rank, with no attribute except that of name and pay. When a vacancy occurred in the list of gene rals they did not choose the Attest man, but simply appointed him who was at the head of the list. Having traced the history of the question from the time of the Crimean war, the honorable member said Lord Cranbrook issued a royal warrant for the appointment, promotion and retirement of cumulative off cers. His Lordship began by fixing the es tablishment of generals for the line and the guards alone at 200, or more than twice as many as the requirements of the entire ser vice demanded. Having so reduced the list His Lordship promoted an enormous num- Der of major-generals, and he announced that the Warofice of the future must reduce