Page:The supersession of the colonels of the Royal Army.djvu/8

 high and responsible positions on the Staff, in peace and war.

Whether Mr. Cardwell has shown that desire to redress their wrongs, that regard for the just rights of the members of an honourable and noble profession, which ought to be expected from its temporary head, I leave the public to decide after they have read the following pages. It is not my intention to enter into the history of the supersession, or to discuss the rights and wrongs of the case: a few words of explanation are alone necessary to introduce the subject to my readers, and the reports of the Royal Commissions, War Office Committees, and Select Committees of the House of Commons, which will be quoted further on, will sufficiently prove the fact of a hardship having been inflicted on the Colonels of our Army.

Up to the year 1854 it was an admitted principle that promotion from the rank of Lieutenant Colonel to the higher grades in the Army should proceed pari passu in the Royal Army and in the Army of the late East India Company; and that the Officers of both Armies should be equally considered in a just participation of all advantages of Military rank. Previous to that year various contentions had arisen from occasional supersession, and in 1827 the Duke of Wellington laid down the following principle:—

"'An Officer who has distinguished himself at the head of one of His Majesty's Regiments, and who may thereby have rendered essential service at an important moment, must not"