THE VALUE OF HONOURS.
PERHAPS it is premature to ask how we are going to reward our Army when the war is finished. Yet the list of New Year honours is so meagre as to make us fancy
that the authorities have already began to save up their titles and ribbons until the close of the war brings home claimants in scores. However that may be, there is no doubt that the country will be ready to give decorations with no niggardly hand to those who are fighting in South Africa.
It is now everywhere recognised that the soldier is best paid for doing his duty with a strip of ribbon, a pecuniarily valueless medal, or a glittering star. The decoration has replaced the donative. Even in the United States, where decorations are unknown in theory, it is generally felt that a land with an active army must repair such a vital omission from its Con. stitution. The kisses which were said to be showered upon Lieutenant Hobson—doubtless quite erroneously—and the sword of honour given to Admiral Dewey, represent the gradual triumph of the theory that a grateful people can best repay military service by such honours. In the earliest days the successfnl soldier ensured a rich reward by the simple process of helping himself. The Roman con- queror was nominally satisfied with a triumph, and was then expected to return to his farm, like Cincinnatue. In fact, he was usually more inclined to imitate Lucullus, and take a fortune from his foes as well as fame from the Senate. But the legislators who decreed the proces- sion along the Sacred Way, lined with its shouting thousands, saw that the principle of rewarding the soldier mainly by honours was extremely sound. Every schoolboy knows how many of the troubles of the Republic came from the system of parcelling out the "cornland that was of public right " among the troops, and the whole history of the Empire swarms with examples of the fatal results of a system of donatives, inducing a Pretorian Guard to put up the Imperial power to the highest bidder. The name of " mercenary " has never been flattering to any soldier. Nor is it ever true that the man fights best who fights for money as his reward—thou gh of course the soldier must have his fair living wage. There is universal truth in Horace's tale of the soldier who was foremost in an assault, and gained the general's purse in reward. Next day the man who had been so brave hung in the safe and un- honoured rear. The leader urged him to emulate his former exploits. " No," said the soldier ; " send some one who has lost his purse." If the general had mentioned him in despatches he would have been striving next day to have " Twice mentioned in despatches " added to his name. When, in the Greek and Asiatic campaigns, Rome's citizen soldiers began to think that personal plunder was the main object of a battle, the spread of cowardice became speedily notorious. Even Caesar, though he seemed to act with wisdom in parcelling out the public land among his legion- aries, and restoring to productive industry the citizen who had been taken away as a recruit, was thus preparing the way for the gravest troubles of the Empire which he founded. All history goes to show that it is essentially bad policy to think that efficient military service can be best secured by a lavish, and so enervating, system of pecuniary reward.
We have just had a remarkable example of the fact that the thirst for honours is a far stronger incentive to courageous
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action than money can possibly be. In the admirably picturesque letters from Mr. Winston Churchill which the Morning Post published on Monday there was an anecdote which may well be laid to heart by those who are wondering how our troops are to be rewarded. The driver of the armoured train was slightly wounded by an unexpected shell :—" His face was cut open by a splinter, and he com- plained in bitter futile indignation. He was a civilian. What did they think he was paid for ? To be killed by bombshells? Not he. He would not stay another minute. It looked as if his excitement and misery would prevent him from working the engine further, and as only he understood the machinery all chances of escape seemed to be cut off. Yet when this man, who certainly exhibited lively symptoms of terror, was told that if he continued to stay at his post he would be mentioned for distinguished gallantry in action, he pulled himself together, wiped the blood off his face, climbed back into the cab of his engine, and thereafter during the one-sided combat did his duty bravely and faithfully,—so strong is the desire for honour and repute in the human breast." It is hardly necessary to point out that the offer of a bank-note would have had no such effect upon the engine-driver ; only in China does the love of money beget contempt of death. The pedant may declare that the engine-driver was no more to be commended for conquering the natural transports of his fear at the call of honour than on the offer of money. But the average man will always, and with perfect justice, make a considerable distinction between the two. Human motives are often like certain chemicals; the more you analyse them the worse they smell. No doubt the desire of fame and popular praise can be analysed as only a form of selfishness. Bat some of the finest deeds in history are traceable to it. When Nelson wished for a peerage or Westminster Abbey, he may have been setting his officers a bad example; none the less, he saved England. Cromwell, who is acquitted since Carlyle's time of self-seeking, told his Parliament in no doubtful terms that good service on land and sea was to be encouraged by all possible appeal to the love of fame, and it was thus the Puritans who hit upon the fine idea, long obscured but now accepted, that burial in the Abbey should be the meed of dying for the country. Montaigne points out that the medieval orders of knighthood were partly established with a view to encourage good fighting by instant reward. The humblest man who went into battle under the Plan. tagenets was aware that, if he did his duty valiantly, he might be summoned to receive the coveted accolade on the very field of battle, while his sword clave to his hand, and his feet were still slippery with the blood of the slain. " Verily," adds Montaigne, " it is a most laudable use and profitable custom to find means to reward the worth and acknowledge the valour of rare and excellent men, to satisfy and content them with such payments as in no sort charge the common- wealth, and put the prince to no cost at alL" Such rewards were far dearer to "men of quality" than any which could be measured in money,—the base coin wherewith the service of a groom or dancer, or even "the breath of a lawyer,', might be recompensed. Knighthood has somewhat fallen from that high estate; but the V.C. and the less precious decorations, with the honour of being mentioned in despatches, have taken its place. In spite of Swift's bitter satire on the value which men attached to a few feet of ribbon or a two- penny medal, it is a great consolation in a plutocratic age to know that the soldier who is willing to lay down his life for his country still looks on such signs or badges of honourable action as his beet reward.
We should be sorry to imply that it is merely in hope of winning a decoration that our gallant fellows go gaily to confront Death in his most naked shape. If that were so, we should expect to see such a decline of spirit as was the case in the worst days of the Roman Republic, when generals who were not awarded a triumph by the State went to the Alban Mount in procession on their own account, and it became rather a distinction to have no statue. The moat arduous tasks of war have often to be performed when there is no chance of their bringing distinction. "A man is not always at the top of a breach," says Montaigne, " or at the head of an army in the sight of his general, as upon a platform. He is often surprised between the hedge and the ditch; he must run the hazard of his life against a hen-roost ; he must dis- lodge four rascally musketeers out of a barn; he must prick out single from his party, as necessity arises, and meet ad- ventures alone." The love of fame is a worthy motive enough : it would be an instance of that common cant whic'i Johnson deprecated, to deny it; but the sense of duty which actuates our soldiers is a higher one, and also a far commoner one than is realised by the public or admitted by the shyest people in the world. It is not the love of fame or the desire of adventure that has made our Volunteers respond so nobly to the call for their services, though both may have co-operated with their desire to do something for England and the Queen. The higher spirit which moves our soldiers is finely indicated in Doyle's stirring ballad of The Red Thread of Honour":—
" These were not stirred by anger, Nor yet by lust made bold ;
Renown they thought above them, Nor did they look for gold.
To them their leader's signal Was as the voice of God : Unmoved, and uncomplaining,
The path it showed they trod."
Fame, as Stevenson somewhere says, is too abstract an idea to move people greatly in moments of swift decision and great action. Even in these days of telegraphs and corre- spondents. when war is conducted under the microscope, a commander going into action, a scout searching for the enemy's entrenchments, a gunner taking the place of the last man killed at the quick-firer, have not as a first thought, " What will people say in England?" The happy warrior is still, as in Wellington's and Osesar's days, the man- " Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth, Or he must fall to sleep without his fame,
And leave a dead unprofitable name— Finds comfort in himself and in his cause."
Yet, if fame is not the first thought in the soldier's mind, it is the second, inextricably intermixed with the love of Queen and country. Our men would, no doubt, fight as well if they had no V.C.'s, and D.S.O.'s, and medals, and mentions in despatches. But it is for us who stay at home to see that they get their weed of these uncostly but priceless honours.
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