The Times publishes a number of letters from the Marines,
which, if they can be considered representative letters, indicate an extreme degree of discontent in that valuable force. The special occasion is the alleged neglect of Sir Garnet Wolseley to honour their services in any way—one letter complains of this in terms of genuine pathos—but the discontent evidently lies much deeper, one cause at least being the refusal of commissions to non-commissioned officers. Only one man out of 14,000 has -received a commission in five years, and it is most difficult to in- -dues the privates to fill vacancies among the non-commissioned. -The writers further complain that they are "nobody's children," -the Admiralty not caring about them, while the War Office, of -course, disregards them, and are so angry that they petition for the total disbandment of the corps. Men with grievances are common enough, but from the tone of these letters we should suspect the existence of a feeling which the new First Lord should -attend to, and at once.
Previous page
