candidates for commissions and for subsequent
promotion, although good in themselves, are
powerless for any real good, so long as money
remains a sine quâ non for advancement.

There can be no doubt that if the working of
the purchase system were understood in all its
injustice by the English public, it would no longer
be allowed to disgrace our service. Amongst
such members of the legislature as have never
held commissions, the subject has been very
little understood hitherto. And, strange to say,
there appears to be amongst civilians of all
classes an undefined idea that, if done away
with, promotion by purchase must be replaced by
promotion by favouritism. It is difficult to say
wherefore this notion has got abroad, unless
it be that the general ignorance which exists
regarding military matters in England has led
men to imagine that one evil cannot be abolished
without a still greater one taking its place. Not,
however, that such would be the case if purchase
gave way to selection; for, at the present day,
public opinion has so much to say to the acts of
public men, that any undue act of favouritism in
the promotion of officers would most certainly
meet with exposure.

Why imagine that promotion by selection
must necessarily take the place of promotion
by purchase? There are four large bodies
of English military men, second to none in all
military virtues both in camp and quarters, in
which officers have never yet been promoted
either by purchasing over the heads of their
poorer comrades, or by trusting to the favour of
friends in power. These four are the Royal Artil-
lery, Royal Engineers, Royal Marines, and the
East India Army. In these services—and do more
honourable corps exist in the world?—although
officers are selected to fill staff and other
situations according to their merit, yet no man can
supersede his senior in regular promotion, either
by money at his banker's or interest at the Horse
Guards. Why should this rule not be extended
to the whole English army? If Lieutenant A.,
after seven, eight, or nine years' service, and after
rising to the top of the list of subalterns, is not
fit to be promoted to the rank of captain, be
assured that he is unfit to hold any commission
whatever, and the sooner his services are
dispensed with the better for the public that pays
him. The upholders of promotion by purchase
maintain that the seniority system will keep
officers in the junior ranks, owing to there
not being sufficient inducement held out for the
seniors to retire, until they are too old to be of
any good if called into the field. But can this
be said of any one of the four services enumerated
above? Merely to name these corps is to call
forth memories of wars, and campaigns, and
fights, and battles, and heroic deeds, such as the
world has seldom seen equalled. It would be
impossible to recal an instance in which an
officer of one of these corps has failed in his duty
on account of old age. But the possibility of
such an event would be prevented by obliging all
officers to retire from active service after a certain
age, and to allow them—as would be but fair and
just—an adequate pension after they retire. Nor
would this be a heavy tax upon the public; for,
long after an officer is too old for the more active
duties of his profession, he is quite young enough
to superintend recruiting, to look after barracks,
to perform the duties of garrison adjutant, town
major, or commandant of depôts, most, if not all
of which are duties now performed by young, or
comparatively young, men, who have interest to
obtain such appointments. Of the field officers,
adjutants, and captains now commanding and
doing duty at the depôts in Great Britain
certain never to be sent abroad the great majority
are young, hale men; whereas many officers,
worn down by climate and hard work, are,
and have been for years, doing duty with their
corps in the most unhealthy climates of the
world. Thus, purchase in the English army
does not prevent favouritism existing whenever
it can find a footing in the service.

In a recent debate in the House of Commons
on the subject of promotion by purchase, a
member, speaking in favour of the system, said
that he could hardly conceive a more discordant
body of men in the world than an English body
of officers in which certain members of the corps
had been selected for promotion over the heads
of others. This may be true enough, and the
argument might hold good, if those who, wishing
the purchase system to be abolished,
advocate promotion by selection taking its place.
But, has the honourable member ever lived
—as the writer has, more than once during his
military career—in a regiment, several officers
of which had, for want of means, been super-
seded by their juniors? If so, he will have
some idea to what length hatred, envy,
malice, and all uncharitableness can be carried by
those who, at other times, are on the best of
terms with each other. Moreover, he most
distinctly asserts that he has witnessed amongst
military men more quarrels and ill will caused by
questions of exchange and promotion by
purchase than by any other cause whatever. In one
instance, the junior of his corps purchasing over
the senior major, obtained command of the
regiment, and commanded one who had formerly
commanded him. The senior major was a Waterloo
officer, had fought in Spain under
Wellington, in India under Gough, and at the Cape
under Smith. He had been thirty years in the
service in the same corps, and had more than
once led the regiment into action. But he had
not fourteen hundred pounds at his command.
The junior major who superseded him had been
only ten years in the army, and being but twenty-six
years of age, must have been born four years
after his senior entered the service. But he had
the requisite fourteen hundred pounds.

On another occasion the writer recollects a
corps stationed in India, in which a lieutenant of
seven years' service superseded, by purchasing
over their heads, no fewer than eleven of his