5 FEBRUARY 1859, Page 16

"THE PRIVILEGES OF THE GUARDS."

UNDER this title we have -recently had a good deal of discussion in the columns of the morning press, chiefly in those of the Times. Sir John Trelawny opened the ball with a letter of in-

dictment against the so-called privileges of the Guards. Lord Rokeby, Major-General, replied on one point, and from the lan- guage he used left it doubtful whether the Guards have any privileges at all ; nay, whether that petted body, the officers of the Line, are not the really privileged set. "A Liner," "a Guardsman," and others, struck into the fray; and the iember for TavistoCk replied upon the whole case. The discussion is one of considerable importance. It lies at the root of the greater question of Army Organization. Our present organization is based on favouritism and purchase and sale of oommissions, tempered with occasional instances of a happy appli- cation of the principle of honest selection. The corps of Guards is and has been the stronghold of favouritism. No sane man would deny that the Guards are a favoured corps. They are exempt from colonial duty ; they are stationed either an the metropolis, or at Windsor, or in Dublin. They therefore see none of that hard, tedious, and often deadly service which is performed by the Line. These are privileges. The officers are not nominated, as the Line officers are, by the Commander-in-Chief, but by the three Colo- nels. When a young man starts in life as a Guardsman he does not, like his "comrade of the Line," start a an Ensign;he starts as a Lieutenant. Nor is that his sole rank : he is a Lieutenant in the Guards and a Captain in the Army. When he becomes a cap- tain in the regiment, he becomes at once a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army ; whereas his comrade of the Line, if he has bought his i

way up, s still a simple regimental Captain with no army rank at. all. In his turn, our Captain-Lieutenant-Colonel becomes a mounted officer, virtually a Major commanding a battalion ; and in five years he is a full Colonel; while the Linesman if he has become a Major, is graciously permitted to count all Linesman, periods, exceeding one month? during which he commands his battalion. Moreover your Captain-Lieutenant-Colonel may, if he can, by the judicious employment of money, exchange places with a Lieuten- ant-Colonel of the Line. While the Linesman is marching and sailing round the world, far from the Court and the Horse-Guards, the Guardsman parades under the windows of both, nay commands the sentries at the doors of both. The Guardsman, strong in his political alliances, strong in his official military connexions, is sure to snap up no end of staff-appointments, while the Liner is wasting under an Asiatic sun or freezing beneath a Canadian winter sky. The Guardsman becomes a General while the Lines- man is still wandering over the earth.

This is an old story, but its age has not made it less accurate. The Guards, we are told, have been placed under great disadvan- tages by recent warrants, but the poor injured corps is not yet quite reduced to an equality with the Line. Compare the careers of the two men—the service-seeing Linesman, and the home- keeping Guardsman, always a step in advance of his "comrade," as Lord Rokeby politely styles the Line officer—and say whether the Guards are persecuted or privileged. So far we have only considered the question as it affects the in- terests of individuals—the Line officers. But there is another party to the suit—there is the Public. If it could be shown that the officers of the privileged Guards made the best soldiers, fittest to lead and command in battle ; fittest for the great work of pre-

serving in a campaign the l number of men in the highest condition for battle ; fittest toaiXtrum

and to execute campaigns then

they would deserve their privileges, and would be rightfully— what they now are wrongfully—the aristocracy of the Army. But no such claim can be justified on behalf of the Guards, or of any other corps, unless it can be shown that a gay and easy life in great cities is a better school for war than a life ot hard service in every quarter of the globe. Then, it is averred, but not above the speaker's breath, that the Guards are a political institution like the state coach and the beefeaters. If that be so, then let the Guards be political. Let them be solely Guards ; let their promotion go on in their own corps ; let the Division have its own Generals and Brigadiers, and its own Guards' List ; and let it be kept exclusively for the political duty of guarding and defenOing the Sovereign. That would not snit either the Guards or the public, and hence we have the Guards, with their special privileges, competing for the prizes of the service with the officers of the Line who have no privileges at all. The real fact is that the institution of the Guards is a composite institution, partly political and partly military—political, in its vast privileges and social advantages ; military, in so far as it does the ordinary duty of a soldier in peace or war.

One fact alone shows the injustice done to the public by the existing system. It is this—that the corps whose location, duties, and opportunities are the worst of any corps in the Army, for training good officers and apt and enduring soldiers, is that which supplies a contingent to the staff out of all proportion to the num- bers, service, or efficiency of that corps as compared with the Line.

We have not entered into the disputed points of the warrants of 1854 and 1858. Granting that Lord Rokeby is right on a technical point, it is clear that his lordship has not even attempted to answer the main allegations of the Member for Tavistock. It is an inveterate official habit to take a weak part of a ease, tri- umphantly expose that, and claim a victory on all other points. But the main positions of Sir John Trelawny have not, we repeat, been touched by his military opponent. Now we are not enemies of the Guards as Guards. Very little is required to place them in a position of equality with the Line, and therefore in circumstances better fitted to do their duty as officers and soldiers to the state. All that is needed is to take away from the Guards their Army rank, and either to abolish the rank of ensign altogether—not a bad step--or to introduce it in the Guards. Take away from the Colonels the privilege of nomi- nation, and let officers of the Guards be nominated like their "comrades of the Line." Finally, let the battalions of the Guards' regiments take their turn in colonial service after the manner of their comrades of the Line. London and Windsor need never be without Guards, since only one of the two batta- lions in each regiment need be absent abroad. In short, root out the sectional interests that have grown up in the Guards, and thus justice will be done at once to the Line and the people of England.