TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE COMMONS AND THE COLONELS. THE "Colonels," in trying to make legislation, as Mr. Glad- stone said, "a physical impossibility," are doing terrible injury to the Army, to the country, and to the cause of Parlia- mentary Government. They are injuring the Army because they are breaking down both its discipline and its reputation, the two objects which ought to be nearest their hearts. There can be no discipline in an Army in which the officers show themselves virulently opposed to the policy of the State, declare that their obedience is dependent upon their profits, and while insisting on the obligation of general service for their men, demand for themselves the right of avoiding all disagreeable climates. The soldier who refused to proceed to India because India is hot would be sentenced to penal servi- tude, but the Colonels loudly declare that any limitation on the officers' right of exchange for the purpose of avoiding India is a deprivation for which the State must compensate them in money! What can German officers who read our debates think of these discussions, except that the British Army is in its decadence ; that the demon of greed has in England, as in France, invaded its ranks ; that offi- cers not only care for their own interests before those of their men, but are not ashamed to avow that they hold the welfare of the whole State a minor matter compared with their own position as regards their own pecuniary claims I We, say the French Generals, cannot be expected to endure supersession by M. Gambetta's nominees. We, say the English officers, cannot be expected to work contentedly with men who have received their commissions free. The argument from caste we can appreciate, for the respective merit of aristocratic and democratic organizations is an open question ; but for the last ten days this argument has been abandoned, and the officers in Parliament are openly endeavouring by misusing the privi- lege of minorities to extract from the public Treasuryall the cash they can. Now they want money down, and then compensa- tion for the loss of illegal chances of promotion ; and again, descending to still lower depths, they insist on interest for all the time that compensation may be delayed. What could French officers, whom it is just now the fashion to accuse of selfishness, do worse? or how could the interests of the Army be made more avowedly dependent upon the personal claims of a caste ? The officers may be, we believe are, using their "claim "as weapons to resist the Government plan ; but to the public, to foreign Generals, above all to the privates whom they command, they must appear to be saying, "Pay us, and do what you please ; your scheme is utterly bad, but pay us, and we will help you to ruin the organization in which we nevertheless believe." They are fighting, like the Licensed Victuallers, for liberty and their tills. The respect of man- kind is the reward of soldiers, but how is it possible to respect men who declare that their first concern as officers is the value of their commissions, and are indignant because the Govern- ment propose that when ordered to India they should go ? It needs all our memories of the deeds this Army has performed to remind us that much of this talk is unreal, self-depreciatory of purpose, intended for Parliament only, and foreigners with- out those memories will certainly affirm that the spirit of commerce has eaten away all vitality of discipline within the British Array.
The injury to the Army is, however, as nothing to the injury done to the country. The first object of the Bill before Parliament was to enable the War Office to place England in a position of defence, to supersede our large but fluid organiza- tions by efficient corps d'arme'e strictly organized and distributed on scientific principles throughout the United Kingdom. That project, absolutely essential to the safety, honour, and influence of the country, has been so resisted, that the Government has been compelled to withdraw that division of its Bill ; and after a discussion of months, after enormous expenditure, and after pledges which still ring in the ears of the people, Great Britain is left as before, to be defended only by its fleet. The new organization, without which all military reform is useless, and our vast collections of men as powerless as a mob, is abandoned or postponed, because the officers or their repre- sentatives, in the effort to secure cash down for lieutenants and captains, have combined to make legislation a physical impossibility. We shall have added three millions to the estimates and twopence to the income-tax, shall have lowered the standard of recruiting and have revolutionized promotion, in order to leave the home Army an inorganic mass. The officers may say that is all Mr. Cardwell's fault, but. the blame rests exclusively with themselves. One-half the energy which they have displayed in resisting Mr. Cardwell in the interest of their own pockets would have compelled him to keep all his pledges, to organize his "Military Districts" on scientific principles, and to place. these Islands for ever beyond all reach of attack. If England' loses millions by another panic during the Recess, it is thee Colonels on whom the responsibility will rest. And finally, more than the Army, more even than the country, the cause of Parliamentary Government suffers by the Colonels'. proceedings. Mr. Gladstone does not exaggerate when her intimates that if their conduct were often repeated govern- ment by a representative body must of necessity come to an- end. It is the essence of any Parliamentary system that the- minority should have full privilege of discussion, but if that privilege is abused, as it has been in this instance, if the Chairman of Committee is overridden, if every opponent of a Bill after being defeated is to reaffirm ten times over the arguments already rejected, if, in fact, an assembly for the transaction of business is to be turned into a riotous meeting for the obstruction of work, then clearly this mode of legisla- tion is a proved and evident failure. Well or ill, the Queen's Government must be carried on, and it cannot be carried ors when a single interest has power to decree in the teeth of the- Legislature that legislation shall remain for a session stationary; So obvious and so grave is the danger, that a semi-Conservativt. statesman like Sir Roundel' Palmer, a man who at heart believes a majority always wrong, feels compelled to make a grave- appeal to the Opposition on behalf of the Conservative prin- ciples threatened by so wanton a violation of constitutional. methods ; and Radicals like ourselves doubt if the Liberal Cabinet would not do well either to dissolve and so let the- constituencies sentence the Members who have arrested the. march of the Constitution, or to introduce a resolution dis- qualifying officers of the Army from seats in the House of Commons. We detest disqualifications. We have repeatedly- fought for the right of the electors to send up Jews or infi- dels, clergymen or workmen, and have expressed a serious- doubt whether it might not be wise even to admit Peers ; but the interests of the State are above all abstract principles of election, and in those interests it may be needful to eaten& the disqualification now weighing on the Civil Service of the Crown to the military service also. Men like the chiefs of the departments are excluded not by law,. but by prerogative, in spite of the mass of knowledge- they could bring to the aid of the House, because if they were admitted they would diminish or destroy the- authority of the Ministers of the Crown, and the officers of the Army seem bent on showing that this cardinal objections applies to them also in an even greater degree. They do nol. hesitate in speeches read by every soldier to affirm that Government is destroying the Army to meet a popular cry, which cry, however, will be reasonable if officers are properly- rewarded for consenting to the destruction ! They do not try to guide the machine their own way. That would be both justifiable and expedient. They try to lock its action, to drop- little pebbles among its cogwheels, to prevent its cranks from turning. The Colonels should reflect that for military officere openly to criticize, denounce, and deride military reforms- ordered by the Sovereign is in itself a strange anomaly in discipline, tolerable only so long as it tends to the better- working of the machine. The moment it interferes with its movement, it becomes the duty of Government to reconsider. an arrangement which has become inconsistent with the safety of the State and the prosperity of the people, and if needful to appeal to the electorate to decide, not whether Purchase is. good or bad, but whether they will permit their will to be frustrated by their own military servants, whether they do. not prefer to sacrifice some portion of the aid they obtain. from Service experience in Parliamentary debate to the pre- servation of discipline in the Army and dignity in the Legis- lature. The loss would be very great, but it is one which, if this anarchy continues to reign in the House of Commons, the country will be compelled most seriously to face.
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