ance, and now we rather speak of the absorption or extinction of the Indian army than of anything more remote from the actual fact. Nothing, indeed, can have been more significant than the course which the so-called inquiry took. There was at first some show of an investigation with respect to the best means of reconstructing the old local army of India, but this soon shaded off into an examination of the question of amalgamation or no amalgamation; and that settled upon the most approved Horse Guards principle, the inquiry, after considerable loss of time, reached the point at which, with such foregone conclusions, it might have legitimately commenced, namely, a consideration of the best means of absorbing the local army of India into the Line-of swallowing up the old establishment of the Company. Fortunately for the promoters of this great scheme of extinction, an event occurred, at an opportune moment, which greatly strengthened their hands. By the mismanagement of the authorities, on the transfer of the old Company's army to the Crown, just cause of offence was given to the European soldiery of the local regiments, and they stood for their rights with a tenacity which was considered more demonstrative of their resolution as men than of their discipline as soldiers. It is generally acknowledged nowadays that they had very much the best of the argument; and indeed it may be said that the justice of their claims has since been practically acknowledged by the course which has now been adopted on the extinction of the local army. But there is no doubt that this logical assertion of the rights of the old Company's Europeans hastened the downfall of the local army. Whatever the real feelings which were entertained, the real conclusions which were arrived at, there were many who were glad to cite what they called the European mutiny as an evidence of the

necessity of maintaining only a single army, subject to one undivided authority. The tendency of the argument, as we demonstrated in a former paper, was altogether in an opposite direction. But there was something plausible in the pretext, and many who were in search of an excuse for shifting their ground, who had declared against the expediency of amalgamation, and subsequently found the inconvenience of the declaration, saw in this outbreak an apology for tergiversation, and ratted without remorse. From that time all doubt as to the fate of the local army was at an end. A bill was hurried through Parliament nominally for the suspension of enlistment; and a committee of officers was appointed to consider the best means of carrying out the scheme of amalgamation. Then the India Office took the matter in hand. The members of the Indian Council declared their views; and some at least are known to have drawn up protests, weighty in fact and solid in argument, against the extinction of the local character of the Indian army. But as far as practical results were concerned, they might as well have endeavoured to resuscitate the East India Company itself. Secretary of State sent out his orders to the Governor-General of India, giving that authority certain powers of modification and adaptation; and the Governor-General, calling in the aid of a special committee of experienced officers with as little delay as could reasonably be expected, perfected and published the scheme.

The

Little as we can see to justify the measure as a whole, we cheerfully admit that all possible praise is due to those who have been charged with the duty of carrying out its details. People spoke at one time somewhat loosely of the "amalgamation scheme," as though the business were as easily accomplished as the amalgamation of water and whisky in a glass of toddy. But the ex

perienced few knew well the difficulties of the task, and the result has shown that they have not been exaggerated. That those difficulties have been even partially surmounted is highly creditable to the executive. Indeed, there is a general disposition on all sides to admit that, the measure having been once decreed by the Imperial Parliament, the Indian authorities both in England and India did their best to carry it out in the manner most beneficial to the State, and least injurious to individual interests. But it was not possible to carry it out in such a manner as to give satisfaction to all persons interested in the scheme, and we are prepared to hear that many have been injuriously affected by its application to their particular circumstances and positions.

Indeed, as we proceed to sketch out a rough outline of the scheme, it will be apparent to every reader that this was almost a necessity. The question of the soldiers was disposed of with comparative ease. There was a large reduction of the native army, and the European soldiery of the local army were invited to volunteer into the line, bounty-money being paid to them as the price of the transfer. Of course, the greater number were only too glad to receive this bonus, and to live in a continual state of intoxication until it was all spent; the rest were content to take their discharge. It cannot be said, then, that any injustice was done to them. With respect to the native troops, the great bulk of them in the Bengal army provided for themselves by mutinying. In Madras and Bombay the strength of the native armies has been considerably reduced; but as every regiment, as soon as enlistment is supended, very rapidly reduces itself, and as pains have been taken in every case of disbandment to render it as little injurious as possible to the discharged sepoy, we may hope that the amount of injury inflicted upon

deserving men has been very small. But the case of the officers of the old local army of India is of a much more complicated character. To realise the idea of body of effective officers, you must presuppose the existence of a sufficient number of regiments to provide commands of different degrees for them. But here the regiments were gone, and for a large number of the officers there was actually no employment. How, then, were they to be provided for? The great difficulty of "amalgamation" lay in the solution of that question.

With respect to the Artillery and the Engineer regiments of the three Presidencies, the course of procedure was comparatively easy. It was determined that they should become component parts of the Royal Artillery and Engineers, but that the existing establishments, although reorganised in accordance with the system of the royal army, should be maintained in their integrity, and that promotion should go on as heretofore in the several regimentsevery officer attached to them under the old system retaining his status, but all future appointments being made to the general body of the Royal Artillery or Engineers. The old Indian corps will thus in course of time die out. Meanwhile the tendency of reorganisation on the European model, is to confer on officers of the old Indian Artillery and Engineer regiments some immediate benefits in the way of accelerated promotion; but to entail upon them, by the reduction of the number of higher commands, some deterioration of prospective advantages. On the whole, however, there is not much room for complaint. We are not surprised, therefore, to learn that these regiments have volunteered almost bodily for the royal service; the more especially as we understand that, when ordered to serve out of India, the period of service in Europe or the colonies, or in whatsoever country they may be posted, will "count

for pension" just as if it had been spent in the Indian Presidency.

But with respect to the large body of officers originally attached to the old Company's infantry and cavalry regiments, the difficulty was of a very serious kind. Not only had a considerable number of their regiments been actually swept away, but those which remained were, for the most part, to be reconstructed on a system which contemplated the employment with them only of a much smaller body of officers than had been attached to the regular native corps under the old régime. The local European regiments were to be assimilated to the Line, and absorbed into the regular army of the Crown; but the remaining native regiments were to be fashioned on the Irregular system, and to each of them only six European officers were to be attached. The officering of the new Line regiments absorbed only a small number of field-officers, captains, and subalterns; and for the rest there remained nothing but the Staff or retirement. Now, with respect to the Staff, it is to be noticed that the new scheme of amalgamation contemplated the establishment of a gigantic Staff corps, the royal warrant for which was published some time in advance of the rest of the plan. The officers attached to the new Irregular native regiments were to be accounted as on the Staff-so that the means of absorbing the effective officers of the old Indian army were limited to the new Line regiments, and to the new Staff corps.

Such, in rough outline, is the scheme of what is called amalgamation. We may proceed now to render it more intelligible to the general reader by supplying a few details. Firstly, then, with respect to the new Staff corps; it is to be observed that it was at once the commonest and the loudest complaint against the old Indian army, that its regiments were drained of their officers to supply the numerous Staff appointments, one of which every regi

mental officer was eager to obtain. Who would voluntarily continue to command a company of sepoys in some remote out-station, if he could be invested with almost regal power as political agent at some native court, or could reside in a good house and enjoy good society at Calcutta as a member of some wellsalaried department? The desire to escape from regimental duty was so natural that no one can reasonably condemn it. But the result was not, on that account, the less injurious to the public service. Not that the regiments were thus left under-officered, for we are now about to attach a much smaller proportion of officers to our native corps, but because the Staff system drained the regiments of their best officers, and the remainder were continually hankering after detached employment, and taking little interest in their regimental duties. To obviate this state of things, as well as to provide for a large number of Indian officers, a Staff corps has been established, the members of which will not be borne on the strength of any other regiments, but will rise by length of service in the corps itself. Of this Staff corps the officers of the native regiments are to be members. They are to be selected, on account of especial qualifications, just as the officers of Irregular corps were selected under the old system. Regimental employment with native corps will thus become an object of ambition, and every regiment will henceforth, at all times, be officered up to its appointed strength. This is a manifest improvement upon the old system. Our native regiments did not want many, but they wanted good, officers-men who would take a pride in their corps, and never desire to leave it for other employment; and such men they will have, now that to be attached to a native regiment is to be a Staff officer, with all the honours and emoluments of the Staff.

Besides these, the Staff will in

clude all the different departments heretofore known under that comprehensive title-as the Political Department, the Public Works Department, &c. the corps being divided into three parts, entirely independent of each other, for Bengal, Madras, and Bombay. All present incumbents will have the benefit of such incumbency; and, so far, we have every reason to be satisfied. We believe that nothing could be much fairer than the general administration of patronage in India under the old system, and that the men who now hold offices on the Staff who are in political or civil employment, or attached to Irregular corps-are men who have fairly earned the distinction by their high character and superior attainments. But we cannot say that we have the same confidence with respect to the future. Under the old system, the candidates for Staff employment in India were the protegés of the East India Company, from whom they received their first appointments, and it very rarely happened that the dispensers of patronage in India had any especial interest in them. They went to India to spend their lives in India; they went because an Indian career had been marked out for them not to spend a few years in a lucrative appointment, and then to hurry home again. It was felt that men who bore the burden and heat of the day were those best entitled to share the special advantages of Indian service; and on this and other accounts, appointments on the general Staff, except in specified exceptional instances, were not given to officers of the royal service, who were in India merely as birds of passage.

But henceforth the Staff corps is to be open to the whole British army. The conditions of an appointment are, that the officer must have served three years with a regiment, two of which must have been in India; and that he must have passed the prescribed examination

in Hindoostani. The selection of officers for the Staff will rest with the Governments of India; but "no officer serving with any regiment" is to be detached without the permission of the Commander-in-Chief. The language of the general order announcing the formation of the Staff corps, leaves us in some doubt as to whether such appointments are to be restricted to officers whose regiments are in India at the time of appointment. If this be the intention, as it clearly ought to be, it is not set forth in the clauses (Nos. 79-80 et seq.) of the general order prescribing the conditions of appointment to the Staff corps. As far as we can see, there is nothing to prevent an officer who may have served two years in India at any former period of his career, and who has got up the necessary "cram" in Hindoostani, from slipping out of Aldershott or the Curragh into some responsible office in India. It is true that, in the first instance, his appointment to the Staff corps is only on "probation;" that he serves, as it were, experimentally, and that, if the experiment be not satisfactory to his employers, he may be remanded to his regiment, on the strength of which he is still to be borne during this year of probation. But we apprehend that it is only in cases of very signal incapacity or glaring misconduct that authority of this kind will be exercised by Government. And even if the officer from Aldershott or the Curragh should be a man of striking capacity, we should still look upon his appointment as highly objectionable; not merely because he would be wanting in local knowledge and experience, but because his nomination to the Staff would dishearten those who have been endeavouring to earn promotion of this kind by service on the spot. Under any circumstances, we are never likely to see again, in India, men like the officers of the old Company's army

with no thought beyond India,

proud of their Indian service, and desiring no better inheritance for their children; men who laid their bones in the soil, or perhaps lived to welcome their grandsons to the scenes of their own triumphs. But there is hope still that, unless the army should become even a more aristocratic profession than it now is, there may grow up in time a class of working officers, whose ambition it will be to be attached to regiments serving in India, and who will endeavour to qualify themselves, by hard service on the spot, for employment on the Staff; and, having been once appointed to the Staff corps, will look upon their duties as the profession of their lives, and will not suffer any home-sickness to mar their utility as public servants. There is hope of this, we say, if the avenue to Staff employment in India be strictly guarded. But if officers not serving in India are eligible for such employment, because at some former period of their lives they may have served two years in India-if interest at home, in such a case, is ever permitted to do more for a man than service in India-we may be sure that all heart and hope will be crushed out of the working officers, and that they will never develop into an enduring class; indeed, that when the present stock has died out, there will never again be such a thing as a genuine Indian officer. These remarks apply with equal force, mutatis mutandis, to the Indian Civil Service, which is fast following the army to the tomb. No injurious effects may result from throwing open all the civil and military appointments in the gift of the Indian Governments to the general community of the British Isles, if there be any substantial guarantee for the nomination to such appointments of persons possessing the required amount of local knowledge and experience. As this sheet is passing through the press, the means of imposing due limitations and restrictions upon the

future distribution of Indian civil patronage is being considered in the House of Commons; and inasmuch as the area of selection is larger, and the general body of candidates likely to be of a hungrier order, the subject of such restrictions appears to us to be more important in its bearing upon the civil than upon the military patronage of the Indian Governments. We have seen what the limitations are in the latter case; but we must add that there is a further check upon the real administration of Indian patronage, that every appointment to the Staff corps is to be confirmed by the Secretary of State for India in Council, and that, unless confirmed within a certain time, it is not to take effect. The intent of this is sufficiently good; but it is one of those checks which is more commendable in principle than effective in practice. We believe that it is quite sufficient to prevent any gross job, but not to secure the general efficiency of the Staff.

The Staff corps having absorbed a considerable number of Indian officers, the absorption by the new Line regiments is next to be considered. Three regiments of light dragoons are to be added to the British cavalry, and nine regiments of foot are to be added to the British infantry. These are, of course, to be general-service corps, officered from the old local army. The number of officers thus provided with regimental duty will be between 400 and 500. The strength of the Staff, including officers of the new native regiments, we do not exactly know; but when every post is filled, and the new European regiments provided for, there must still be a considerable residue of unemployed officers. Now, the hope is that a large proportion of these may be induced to retire. To strengthen the inducements previously existing, the home Government, some months ago, offered a bonus for prompt retirement. But they did not bid high enough. The offer was