Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/36

30 sions which require either a capital to start with, or a prolonged support until independence is reached. Even in India it has almost ceased to be possible for the subaltern of a British regiment to live on his pay. This is partly due to the general rise of prices in that country, partly to the more expensive habit of living amongst the English middle classes, which has found its way to India, and partly also perhaps to the greater development of field sports, which is a characteristic of Indian as well as of English life, and which, oddly enough, can be distinctly traced to the extension of railways. So far, then, from being more of a profession, in the sense of its providing a permanent and respectable livelihood, the army has become even less so than it used to be. In old days, if the poor officer could not purchase promotion, he could at least hold on to his regiment for as long as he pleased; but now this fixity of tenure is exchanged for the prospect of early compulsory retirement. Notice of the change, however, came too late to avert the disaster which has already overtaken so many officers, and still awaits so many more in the future, of being cast adrift with a mere pittance in the very prime of life.

The new rules which regulate compulsory retirement are the outcome of the report of Lord Penzance's Commission of 1876, the recommendations of which were subsequently embodied in the great Royal Warrant of 1877. This Commission, as may be remembered, was appointed to consider and report how Lord Cardwell's pledge might be redeemed, that promotion in the army, after the abolition of purchase, should be at least as rapid as it had been under the purchase system. Their recommendation was briefly to the effect that, in order to ensure this condition, it would be necessary to provide that regimental promotion should be secured by producing vacancies laterally as well as at one end in the junior as in the senior ranks, so that, as they put it, the stream of promotion should not flow only through the narrow neck of the bottle. Accordingly, limiting ages were fixed for each rank, on reaching which the officer is compulsorily retired. These ages were fixed at forty years for captains, forty-seven for majors, fifty-two for lieutenant-colonels, and fifty-five for colonels; while, in order to minimise the hardship these measures would involve, the right to pensions on optional retirement, heretofore limited to only very senior officers, was extended to all officers of twenty years' service and upwards, with lump-sum gratuities for junior officers retiring voluntarily.

The effect of these new regulations has been a tremendous clearance of senior officers and a corresponding amount of hardship. It is true that all the retirements were not compulsory: some were the result of pensions being for the first time available in the lower grades; and a good many officers have taken pensions and bonuses simply because, looking ahead, they saw that their turn would come very shortly to be put on the shelf. This, however, was merely anticipating compulsion. Practically, some of the best officers in the army have been lost to it in this way. The middle-aged captain or major is often the most valuable officer in a regiment. These men, if they have given up the ambitious expectations with which they set out, are at any rate reconciled to their lot. They have got to make a home of their regiments,