Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/38

32 dation of rank has been a great mistake.

The immediate effect of the Warrant of 1877 was thus a great rush of promotion. But this rush must inevitably be followed by a period of stagnation. When officers have no incentive to retire, they will hold on until their turn comes to be compulsorily retired, and we may expect that the flow of promotion in the future will be regulated solely by the action of the compulsory retirement rules. But the seniors in each grade are now so comparatively young, that their turn to be placed on the shelf is still far off. Thus the unduly rapid promotion of the present is laying up a store of bad promotion for the young officers now entering the army. The authorities at the War Office, however, have at last discovered that promotion is going too fast, and, alarmed at the increased burden thrown on the pension list, are now putting on the drag. An officer is not to be allowed to retire on a pension or gratuity unless the juniors who get the step have completed a certain amount of service. It is a great pity that this condition was not applied sooner. Or, had the rule originally been to offer optional retirements at the present rates to those who liked to take them, while leaving out the obligatory clauses for compulsory retirement at certain ages in certain grades, promotion would have been quite fast enough, and a great deal of hardship would have been avoided, as well as the inevitable block impending in the future. The great object of the regulations should be to ensure an equable flow of promotion, and not promotion by fits and starts.

The regulations governing the command of regiments have also undergone fluctuations. First, the tenure of a lieutenant-colonel was limited to five years, as proposed by Lord Penzance's Commission, and if there is to be a fixed limit, this term appears suitable. But then, when a second lieutenant colonel was added to each battalion in 1881, the result followed that either the junior might never succeed on the command at all, or, if he was to have a full term of command, that ten years might be spent in passing through that grade. It was accordingly ruled that the tenure of the rank of lieutenant-colonel should be limited to six years, and that the time passed in command should not exceed four, the result being that a lieutenant-colonel might possibly get only a two years' slice of the command. It appears very questionable whether all or any of these complicated conditions for governing promotion in the different ranks are necessary. It is certainly desirable to have a maximum limit of age in the higher ranks, but should not that condition suffice for all the requirements of the case? In the French army there is one fixed rule: no officer can remain on the effective list after the age of sixty-two, and certainly no general officer ought to be older than this. We, on the other hand, have a sliding scale; the higher the rank the older the man may be. A lieutenant-general may hold on till sixty-seven; a major-general must not exceed sixty-two, nor a colonel fifty-five. But if there is to be any difference in the limit of age for the different ranks, the arrangement should be reversed, because the higher the rank, the more necessary is the possession of vigour and activity by the officer. The demand on the vigour and endurance of a general officer in the field is far greater than that made on the battalion commander.