CO885(1-2) — Page 84

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O.

Reference —

885

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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labour market, there could be no possible objection to the troops being so employed. Work performed for railway companies or for individuals, by the troops, would of course be paid for by those who benefited by it. Nor is it to be forgot that in this manner the soldier would receive a species of training hardly less valuable in the event of his being called upon to take the field against an enemy, than even his instruction in the use of arms. Napoleon it was, I think, who said that a good general ought to fight as much with the spade as with the musket; nor can any doubt be entertained of the great advantage which would be enjoyed in actual war by a general commanding an army composed of soldiers all of them accustomed to the use of tools and

to combined labour, and able to execute promptly and efficiently any works, either defensive or offensive, which might be required. How infinitely more rapid and more certain would be the progress which would be made with such an army, than with any other, in opening trenches against a besieged town, in constructing a bridge for the passage of a river, or in throwing up entrenchments for the defence of an important position.

By the adoption of these various measures, which it will be observed are all closely and intimately connected together, I am convinced that the condition of the soldier might be rendered superior to that of the ordinary working man, more especially if proper pains were taken to improve his accommodation in barracks, and to carry much further than bas yet been done the measures that have been taken during the last few years for his benefit, by establishing barrack libraries and savings banks, by forming proper places for recreation and exercise, and providing ample means of religious instruction. The condition of the soldier would be superior to that of an ordinary working man, because he would, during the short period of his military service, be better-fed and clothed than the gene- rality of labourers; would have more money in his pocket without harder work; and would be cared for in sickness, while at the same time he would have perspective advan- tages held out to him of very great value, and would be going through an apprenticeship which, with good con- duct, would be sure to render him independent. Contrast this with his present condition, doomed as he is to what is always an indefinite, too often a perpetual, banishment from his home and his relations-an existence of mono- tonous and uninteresting routine, relieved only by resort- ing to the public-house or canteen, and ending either in premature death in some unhealthy or distant colony, or in his being discharged in what ought, from his time of life, to be still vigorous manhood, with a broken constitu- tion, and unfitted for almost any description of profitable labour, with a pension barely adequate to his support.

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That the value of the change would be appreciated by the population of this country, and that in consequence a military career would soon come to be a popular one, and admission into the army to be considered a decided ad- vantage, I see no reason for doubting; and it is obvious that the moment this feeling can be created, the necessity

for corporal punishment will be done away with. When dismissal from the army shall in itself become a punish- ment, as it then would be, there would be no more need of corporal punishment to maintain its discipline, than there is found to be in the police force. To forward the important object of creating such a feeling, a discharge from the army should cease to be granted as a reward for good conduct, and the opposite principle should be adopted, by refusing to allow any soldier not having good-conduct mark, to continue in the army on the expira- tion of his ten years' service. It is further most important

to remark that the adoption of the measures now recom- mended would involve no increase in our military expend- iture; on the contrary, taken altogether, I believe that this system would upon the whole, lead to a diminution of the existing charge of our army. Some heads of expense would doubtless be considerably increased, but these would be more than met by reductions in others, more especially

in those for maintaining and relieving our colonial garri- sons, and above all in the heavy charge of pensions. The present charge for military pensions, as voted in the Army Estimates for 1846, amounts to no less a sum than £1,191,350, and is more likely for some time to come to increase than to diminish. But if we were to adopt the system of limited service, discharging soldiers without pensions after ten years' service, it is obvious that even with the proposed grant for pensions to men enrolled for service in reserved companies, on their attaining the age of sixty, the amount of this charge must soon be very greatly diminished.

IV. I must however observe, that for the success of

the policy now recommended, it would be indispensable that means should be taken to improve the education and

the habits of the officers, as well as of the men of our army. It is, I fear, a fact beyond all doubt, that, taken

as a body, the officers of our army stand at this moment much lower than they ought, in point of education and of general intelligence, and that their usual mode of life is one of all others least calculated to improve them. From our system it is impossible to expect that this should be otherwise. Young men enter very early in life (long before their education ought to be considered to be com- plete) into the army, and from that moment they have no motive or encouragement held out to them for study or E