THE BRITISH FLAG AND THE BRITISH FLOG. "FLOGGING in the
Navy" again! Honourable and gallant gentlemen are much piqued at the pertinacity with which the question of flogging is renewed ; but by this time they ought to know that it is renewed because professional practice and public opinion are not in accord. The question never will be set at rest until that which is pronounced bad, even by professional men, is no longer kept up as indispensable. It never will be set at rest by such discussions as that on Tues- day night, when Mr. Hume moved for returns of flogging in the Navy. Everybody disagreed with everybody else. Mr. Goulburn taunted the Admiralty with not knowing its own mind ; but the taunt was applicable all round. Even Sir Robert Peel, who is for abolishing the practice as soon as it can be done, doubts whether it is expedient to let the Legislature know ex- plicitly what is done to the British subject under the flogging- laws. We agree with Lord John Russell, however, that there can be no advantage in secrecy. If there are merits in the prac- tice, it is only a better knowledge which can bring them forth to light : if it will not bear scrutiny, the sooner that fact is known the better.
Some persons, indeed, seem to think the merits of the cat are so very recondite and mystical that laymen cannot understand them. That is always the way with people of confused ideas : conscious that they have their own impressions—unable to set them forth distinctly—unable also to see clearly the bearing of your counter- impressions—certain only of the one obvious fact, that they have an empirical knowledge which you have not—they rush to the easy conclusion that the difference of opinion is all due to your "ignorance." So Irish landlords think that the reason why you do not perceive the justice of their mendicancy is your "ignorance
of Ireland," your" want of local knowledge." So the young lady, who applauded a singer and was told that he had gone out of the key—about which she knew nothing—replied, "I ought to know, for I have been in Italy."
Those who insist on the absolute necessity for flogging are an- swered by two broad facts,—they have not given full trial to any well-considered substitute of a totally different kind ; the ends which they propose to attain by flogging are attained by different means, in the case of officers.
The plea is, discipline. The discipline of officers is of a much higher degree than that of privates, though produced by other agencies. 'What are the different circumstances which make the different agent so efficacious in their case ? They are mainly a higher style of social breeding ; the existence of high prizes which give the officer a great stake in his position ; and the arbitrary cultivation of a chivalrous habit, which is the joint effect of per- severing indoctrination and generous trust to the strength of that habit. The result is, that the utmost licences of the barrack sel- dom tempt the most unruly to faults which are "unofficer-like " ; that contumacy is rarer than any kind of Draconian law could make it ; and that the lowest kind of military insubordination, cowardice, is nearly unknown. There have been repeated in- stances in which the officers of a regiment have advanced to death alone, their men shrinking back. It could be no expecta- tion of promotion or emolument that made them advance to certain death : such instances illustrate the difference between rushing forward in chivalrous devotion to the British flag, and the mere calculating hesitation between the dangers of the foe or the cat— the enemy before or the enemy behind. Now it is not impossible to apply such principles as those which regulate the discipline of officers to the discipline of a whole soldiery. First improve the materials of your army, by the joint process of better selection and education. To evoke the mo- tives of hope, it suffices that prizes exist, though there be not many enough for all. A beginning has been made, by the pro- motion of noncommissioned officers. These prizes might be mul- tiplied, and also made more effective by further promotions. But the influence of every single prize might be indefinitely extended through another plan which has been suggested. Let a class be formed of soldiers whose conduct is irreproachably good—regular, , manly, and " officer-like.". Let those soldiers be held up as pat- terns—employed in little services of trust, sent ta the post of dan- ger; let them be treated with respect by their superiors, as all officers are,—for instance, let them always be addressed with the "Mr." or the" Sir " ; and let all selections for promotion be drawn from this class of picked privates and noncommissioned officers. Two broad and striking effects might be expected from such a re- gulation: every man in the picked corps would regard himself as being an officer in posse, and would have the ambitious self-vigil- ance which is the great motive to " officer-like " conduct ; but as the men would still be privates and in the ranks, a leaven of higher feeling would be introduced into the great body of the army. We regard the institution of some such humble chivalry as more likely to elevate the character of the soldier than any amount of "good conduct money," or pensions, or any other mere pecuniary emolument, good as that is in its way. Still there might be wanting the screw—the terrible arbitrary power possessing, within itself at the moment of danger the faculty of outdoing and bearing down contumacy. Let that be the same that is used in the case of officers—death. It is not brutalizing, it is not degrading; and powerful as humiliation may be, there is gross impolicy in making the soldierfumiliar with de- gradation. Ordinary arguments against capital punishment are lost in a profession whose very business is death. And death has the one quality needed in the extreme case supposed—death is always terrible. Place death behind—glory, really and tangibly accessible, in front—and your men will follow their officers.
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