TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PROMOTION—SENIORITY AND CAPACITY.
THAT blind adhesion to the rule of seniority which prevails at the Horse Guards appears to have been a resort from one abuse to another. Formerly there used to be great complaint from veterans in the Army, and still more in the Navy, that "boys were put over their heads "; and the rule of seniority gives at least an ap- pearance of justice, though it is but of a low and mechanical sort. In the tamer departments of the civil service it has been the es- tablished rule ; but even there, although not professedly aban- doned, it is breaking down under the exigencies of the times— under the double screw of economy and increased work to be done. Thus, in one department the newly-appointed secretary is a junior brought from another department and placed "over the heads" of his seniors in official standing. In another, a post is set apart from the routine of seniority, in order that the chief of the department may have the advantage of the most effective service in that post. And more instances might be found among the subordinate grades of public offices where routine is the old rule. The sheer pressure of work is forcing the rule of common sense upon those who have the ordering of such matters.
It appears to us that the special advantage of this newly-intro- duced rule is somewhat misunderstood. It is usually valued as a stimulus to emulation, and is supposed to sharpen the faculties of - all persons who fill the offices that come within its operation : but, unfortunately, the majority of men have not the peculiar facul- ties to be sharpened, and to them the professed application of such a spur is an invidious and vexatious hardship, which causes more discontent and heartburning than anything else. Now, observation will generally attest our conviction, that depressing influences are not conducive to zealous industry. For the level run of ordinary capacity, with average good conduct, the rule of routine is a fair and suitable distribution of justice. We use the words "ordinary capacity "in no disparaging sense; for after all, men of such mould form the staple of our race, and typify that great embodiment of mysterious life, power, and love, which we call "mankind"; they are the brothers of our affection, the posses- sors of our esteem, the prop of our daily reliance. That such are the many, that they come under any term signifying what is "or- dinary," is in itself a blessing to their land. But each one of that wide class only possesses the claims of his class, and they are best recognized by a general rule.
The public advantage of promotion for capacity is of a different kind : it is, not that it forces men of ordinary powers to grow into geniuses, but that it affords opportunity for bringing extra- ordinary powers, where they exist, into active play, and advances them to the most useful posts. It establishes a series of promo- tions distinct from the other, but not incompatible with that. Thus men of ordinary capacity will advance according to the de- velopment of their powers by practice and experience under a common rule, and the staple of the public service will be steadily supplied according to an appropriate law. But men who evince capacity beyond the ordinary, will be advanced by a more rapid series of promotions, with the threefold effect of forwarding such men more rapidly to the most useful posts, of rapidly calling forth and testing the abilities latent in the mass of public servants, and of making vacancies which will favour the entrance of more such men into the service : in that way, by a rule appropriate to their case, a fulle'r supply of extraordinary ability will also be secured for the public. There is nothing in this duplex rule which is inapplicable to the military service : on the contrary, the elaborate reversal of it explains some ant malous phmnomena in the military history of our day. A cry is raised of wanted a General," as if the breed had failed : now, there is no reason to suppose that it has failed; but there is every reason to believe that such an appearance may be accounted for by a duplex rule at the Horse Guards, which seems contrived to shut out men of extraordinary capacity. Everybody knows what a pressure there is for commissions, and how much interest is required to obtain the opportunity of purchasing one. Among so wealthy a nation as ours, the purchasing power is enor- mous: you have only to glance round the newer suburbs in every direction, and at the number of high-rented houses, to perceive the immense money-power : it vastly exceeds the number of vacan- cies in the Army. But money wealth is a qualification which in no respect coincides with the peculiar qualification for military arts : our officers therefore are chosen, almost entirely, by a rule which does not apply to the choice of officers. The rule is li- mited by the pre6mption allowed to family or class interest ; but again that practice has no application to military capacity. Our officers are doubly winnowed from the mass of the population, but by a rule which does not fit : you might as well seek to extract alcohol from wine by passing it through a coal-screen and a cotton-blower ; at the end of the process you would have the less liquid, but stall alcohol diluted as mach as ever. Men thus se- lected are advanced biseniority : the perfectly equal claims of the purchasers hang upon the conscience of the Horse Guards like the "wronged orphan's tears" upon the arm of Sir Giles Overreach ; and to advance one for ability, a whole host must be promoted. Hence our Brevet absurdity. The double effect of this duplex rule, appointment by purchase and seniority, is, to keep out of the service such men at have peculiar bent for mili- tary avocations but cannot show the money qualification, and to Ikeep back such men as do creep into the service. Thus, in the first place, the number of men possessing uncommon faculties is thinned; in the next place, the public, instead of picking out such men as do get in, and using them as soon and as much as possible, is made to wait until they show them- selves in their turn among the mass of common men. The public must not survey the whole Army as it stands, and pick out the best men, but must stand by and wait for them until they show themselves in passing, by single file, the turn-table of the Horse Guards. Does not that account for our want of Generals ?
It is said that we are at peace : but we have not been more so than France, who has a crop of young Generals ready for use- Cavaignac, Lamoriciere, Bedeau, and others. We might have the same supply by using the same rule. We have no lack either of the raw material or of opportunity. France has had her Algerian war ; and whenever a young man shows ability she picks him out for a further test of his faculties, and continues the process of testing him by opportunity, until he finds his highest natural level and France has discovered his utmost ability. We have our East Indian wars, our fleets ever at sea; we have our Edwardeses, Blackfoots, Molesworths, Youngs, and hosts of young officers evincing the highest qualities. It is possible that some of these have already shown all they can do : Edwardes may be no more than we have seen in him already ; but there is a prime, facie case for putting him to the next test. It was, however, thought an immense thing to accompany his "step," in ordinary promotion, with the nominal rank of Brevet Major, and the alphabetical honour of C.B. after his name. We decline to accept the offers of fortune, refuse to push forward our most promising young officers, and wait to find whether an Edwardes can be trained into a General until he squeeze through the turn-table—which will be when he is superannuated. We will not use the testing opportunities of our Indian wars, as France has done those of Algeria ; on the contrary, we exclude the winners of Indian renown from the high post in India, and send out the last man who has been put forth by the turn-table—a man who has never commanded a regiment in active service. And when calamity comes upon us, we have nothing for it but to fall back upon a reluctant old hero, an aged and fatigued Achilles ; or to send out "the Duke." Wellington, by the way, won his Indian renown while he was yet a young man—but then he had a brother. If we will not per- mit the growth of Wellingtons without a high property qualifica- tion and a high qualification in the way of nepotism, we must not complain that we lack Generals; nor decry the breed of offi- cers, if we choose to accept them only in the chronological order of their commissions.
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