Page:The supersession of the colonels of the Royal Army.djvu/19

 an expression to our views in the following paragraph—

"'14. Your Committee think it advisable that such a state of things should no longer exist, and they therefore recommend that the action of the Warrant of 1864, so far as it affects the promotion to the rank of Major General, should cease from this date, and that an Amalgamated List of Colonels be at once formed from the British, the Staff Corps, and Indian Local Lists, from which Amalgamated List promotions to the rank of Major General shall be made by seniority, according to the dates of Colonels' commissions.'"

With regard to the latter we adopted the Report of General Egerton's Committee, and recommended the creation of 45 Major Generals.

It was argued by some persons that our first proposal would lead to a breach of the Parliamentary Guarantee of 1858, which provided that all Officers of the late East India Company's Service "shall be entitled to the like pay, pensions, allowances, and privileges, and the like advantages as regards promotion and otherwise, as if they had continued in the service of the Company," But Mr. Lowe stoutly maintained that it was no breach of such guarantee, and he cordially supported the first portion of our Report, promising to use the whole of his influence in the Cabinet to get it carried into effect on the condition that we should not press the last portion of the Report, which advocated the creation of 45 Major Generals.