Chapter XXVII: Part 27

That variation occurs in the plastic matter of the organism, while the formative process is taking place, is a truism, for no two noses or fingers, or other parts, have been seen so much alike as not to be distinguishable from one another; nay, it is not supposable that any two should be found precisely similar. Perfect identity in structures of such complexity is indeed hardly conceivable, unless many facts known in connection with tissue formation are utterly ignored. But, on the other hand, it is equally inconceivable that capacity for variability should be manifested in such a manner and to such an extent as to lead to the production of a proboscis in place of a nose, or of a talon in lieu of a finger. Hence, therefore, we must admit that this capacity works within certain, though at this time not to be accurately defined, limits. When, therefore, Mr. Darwin maintains that similarity of pattern between the flipper of the seal, the wing of the bat, the hand of the man, &c., is due to divergence in structure during gradual descent from a common progenitor, does he not beg the question at issue, and by implication assume an extent of variation far exceeding that which is possible within the period of time which he is disposed to think may have elapsed during which the hundreds or thousands of transitional forms have been slowly progressing towards perfection of type? Undoubtedly, if he could show one or two gradations between the paw of the bear and the flipper of the seal, or between the foot of the mole and the wing of the bat, he would have a powerful argument indeed. But the mind fails to realize the possibility of the transitional forms whose existence is assumed by the hypothesis. A thing half bear and half seal, or half mole and half bat, would be an incongruity which we have no right to assume ever existed in the flesh, if indeed it is not absurd to suppose it possible. If such a creature were born, it would die, and the very law of natural selection supposed to operate in favour of its development would render certain its destruction without offspring.

Variation in the living world seems to be indeed infinite, but nevertheless, so to say, restrained within limits. When we come to study variation in any particular species, we marvel at the extraordinary extent of change to be observed without any approach being recognized towards the nearest allied species. The human face may vary, we may say, infinitely, but without in the slightest degree approximating the face of a monkey or any other animal. The animal face and features may vary infinitely within the animal limits without manifesting the slightest approach to the human countenance, or even to that of any other species of animal. Any species of monkey might become modified in many different directions without making any approach to the human form. The ass might change for ages, and yet be something very different from a horse, and so on in other cases. The most degraded savage exhibits no approach to the ape, any more than the most highly developed species of monkey exhibits any nearer approach to man than the very lowest member of its class. There are human variations, monkey variations, ass variations, &c., without end, but there is no evidence of any variations occurring in one species which tend to show that it possesses any intimate relationship with any different species. The facts hitherto discovered, and considered by Mr. Darwin to support the view that we have descended or ascended from monkeys appear to us, therefore, to be very inconclusive and unsatisfactory. We are quite ready to consider patiently every argument that evolutionists can adduce, and if we think the case proved, we are fully prepared to admit it, but when told that we _must_ accept the doctrine, we distrust our would-be teachers. In the suggestion of the alternative, 'accept this hypothesis or none,' there is the suspicion of a threat which ought to be received with indignation. The world may be wanting in scientific knowledge and acumen, but it will never submit to dictatorial science. The world is quite ready to be taught, and to learn, but it will not endure a tyranny enforced by persons who choose to call themselves, philosophers, and who claim to be scientifically infallible. The world knows something of the history of scientific controversies, and will listen with caution, but it rejects upon principle the application of scientific tests, and refuses point blank to subscribe to any articles of scientific belief, or to acknowledge an infallible scientific head.

After all that can be said against evolution has been uttered, there remains the defence that the hypothesis _rests upon a vast array of facts_--anatomical, physiological, geological--and 'it is scarcely fair,' it may be urged, 'to expect that a generalization which explains so much, should fully account for every slight divergence of structure that can be rendered evident by exquisitely minute and careful investigation.' But surely a view of such wide general application as this is held to be by its supporters ought not to fail when tested by particular facts of general observation. Unfortunately, Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is not adequately supported by the very facts upon which he relies for proof; for out of the multitudes of living beings now existing upon the earth, he cannot select any two species whose differences and resemblances can be fully accounted for by the hypothesis which he holds to be universally applicable, and to account for the origin of every species from the monad to man. What must be the ultimate verdict passed upon a doctrine aspiring to universal application, which seems satisfactory only when vaguely applied, and which utterly fails when tested by the individual particulars that are comprised in the generalities? We may be like the savage, as Mr. Darwin suggests, but we are by no means convinced by the arguments adduced by him that man is the co-descendant, with other mammals, of a common progenitor, nor can we admit that certain structural peculiarities of man's bodily frame are to be looked upon as 'the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.'

All naturalists will agree in believing that there is some truth in the doctrine which Mr. Darwin has so thoroughly espoused, but there will be the greatest difference of opinion concerning the acceptance of many of his propositions; while it must be confessed that the more minutely and carefully we analyze the data upon which some of his conclusions rest, the less satisfied are we that they should be relied upon. Indeed, there is reason to think that at least one of his subordinate hypotheses, Pangenesis, will certainly have to be abandoned as untenable. As we have before remarked in this article, neither Mr. Darwin nor those who think with him appear to realize the illimitable possible additions to scientific knowledge, and consequently the continued change in scientific opinion, the abandonment of old hypotheses, and the development of new ones. Never in the history of science have such startling hypotheses been successively advanced as during the last twenty years. Few have stood the test of one quinquennial period, and not one has been retained in its original form. The sentiment, as expressed by Mr. Darwin, 'We are not concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth,' is a favourite one with scientific men, but the truth has not yet been arrived at. Is scientific truth ever to be reached? The nearer we seem to get to actual scientific truth, the more quickly does it recede from us; and it has happened but too often that when we thought to have grasped it, we find it far away, and that what in youth we thought to be scientific truth, afterwards, but long before we have reached old age, is proved to be scientific error.

In conclusion, therefore, we must remark, that while the hypothesis fails in individual cases to which it has been applied, it is incompetent to explain numerous facts known in connection with every particular plant or animal in existence. But, further, the general facts ascertained by careful and more minute investigation into the anatomy and physiology of any two closely allied species, such, for example, as the hare and the rabbit, the rat and the squirrel, the Guinea pig, or the hyla and common frog, are inexplicable upon the doctrine of natural selection, even if the time were extended far beyond the limits which upon other grounds it is not permissible to suppose it to stretch. Nay, the series of changes believed to occur during the formation of species by natural selection cannot be conceived by the imagination, unless multitudes of facts which have been demonstrated and can be confirmed by anyone who will take the trouble to do so are completely ignored. That man is like an ape, bone for bone, muscle for muscle, &c., is only a flourish of rhetoric unworthy of anyone who professes himself to be an observer of nature.

The remarks which have been made in respect to animals apply with marvellously greater force to man himself, for no matter how the evolutionists may strain the force of the analogies existing between man and animals, there are transcendent differences which no sophistry can explain away. We may allow Mr. Darwin and his friends to draw on time as largely as they may desire, we will permit them to strain to any extent they like the argument that the ape differs in far greater degree from the lower animals than he does from man himself, and we could yet succeed in exposing the improbability of the favoured hypothesis by discussing with its advocates its insufficiency to account for one single characteristic, such, for example, as the possession by man of the power of expressing his ideas. It is surely not likely that the attempt to found a general argument on the nature, mode of origin, and formation of all living beings, upon the points in which they exhibit some resemblance to one another, without showing in what manner the argument in question would be affected by the characters in which these same beings differ from one another, will much longer be regarded as a triumph of inductive reasoning, or considered to be in accordance with the spirit of science or true philosophy.

FOOTNOTES:

[63] 'But the time will, _before long_, come when it will be thought wonderful that naturalists, who were well acquainted with the comparative structure and development of man and other mammals, should have believed that each was the work of a separate act of creation.'--Vol. i. page 33.

[64] An evolutionist who reads these lines may, perhaps, exclaim, 'What, then, do you maintain that the frog, toad, newt, and green tree-frog, were each the work of a separate creative act?' To which question we reply, 'By no means; but, nevertheless, the minute structure of the tissues does not permit the inference that these creatures have community of descent.' It is very curious that Mr. Darwin and many of his supporters seem to think that all men who do not support evolution must believe in separate creations.

[65] 'Proceedings of the Royal Society,' vol. xv., p. 433 (_Philosophical Magazine_, vol. xxxiv., 1867, p. 144); _Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science_, vol. ix., 1869, pp. 43 and 358; _Monthly Microscopical Journal, vol. iii., 1870, p. 299; Quarterly Journal of Science_, new ser., vol. i., 1870, p. 64.

ART. VIII.--_The Session._

The wearisome assertion that the last session of Parliament has been a 'barren' one, has become a sort of political axiom among a large section of the community. Writers and speakers innumerable assume it as a self-evident fact, which no sane person would dream of disputing. It is, nevertheless, our serious intention to dispute it, and, moreover, to prove that the session, so far from being utterly barren, has produced a legislative harvest of more than average fruitfulness. Putting aside the last two sessions, and that which witnessed the triumph of free trade, we have no hesitation in saying that no session since the first Reform Bill has produced so many measures of equal importance as the last session. It would not be difficult to point to session after session during that period which, for any good the country has derived from their labours, might as well have never been. But no one can say that with truth of the session that has just gone by. On the contrary, we believe that it will be regarded a few years hence as one of the most important sessions of this century. To those who choose to echo an unreasoning cry, rather than take the trouble to think for themselves, this will, no doubt, appear a wild assertion. But what are the facts? The present Parliament was elected chiefly for the purpose of settling the Irish question, and the sessions of 1869-1870 were devoted almost exclusively to the affairs of Ireland. The Irish Church Bill and the Land Bill, however, having been settled, there seemed to be a kind of general understanding that the session of 1871 should be given up to the consideration of English, or at least imperial interests. Ireland accordingly hardly occupied any place in the programme of the session. And yet, in the very region where it was expected, as a matter of course, to be peculiarly barren, the session of 1871 has borne a crop of goodly fruit. Let us glance at a few of the Irish measures of the session.

'It is the very ancient privilege of the people of England,' says Edmund Burke, 'that they shall be tried, except in the known exceptions, not by the judges appointed by the Crown, but by their own fellow-subjects.' Trial by jury has probably exercised more influence than any other institution in moulding our national character, and in impressing on it especially that inborn reverence for law which has become proverbial. But with that singular perverseness which has characterized all our dealings with Ireland for centuries, we not only imposed our own institutions on that unhappy country, but we imposed them shorn of all that which made them precious to Englishmen. This is true in an aggravated sense of trial by jury. The very essence of trial by jury is, as Burke has observed, that the accused 'shall be tried, not by the judges appointed by the Crown, but by his own fellow-subjects.' But how did we carry out this principle in Ireland, in the case of political prisoners in particular? By simply ignoring it. We retained the name and the forms of trial by jury, but we so perverted its intention and spirit, that what Englishmen regard as the _palladium_ of their liberty became in Ireland the symbol of every species of injustice and wrong. When it was an object with the authorities of Dublin Castle to secure the conviction of a prisoner, they never hesitated to pack the jury that tried him. Names which ought to have been on the panel were systematically and arbitrarily excluded, and the jury-box was filled with men of whom it might have been predicted with tolerable certainty beforehand that they would bring in a verdict of guilty. Let us illustrate our argument by a typical example. In 1844, the Government of the day succeeded in getting a verdict of guilty against Mr. O'Connell, a man of whom Macaulay has declared truth that 'the place which he held in the estimation of his countrymen was such as no popular leader in our history, I might perhaps say in the history of the world, has ever attained.' If ever there was an occasion when the Government should have been scrupulously careful to administer justice fairly, it was the trial of O'Connell; for the eyes not only of Ireland, but of all Europe, were upon them. But so inveterate had the habit of managing verdicts become in Ireland, that on a crucial occasion, when trial by jury itself might be said to be on its trial, the authorities shamelessly packed the jury which sat in judgment on the great tribune. Twenty-seven names were omitted from the panel which ought to have been on it. And then from 'this mutilated jury-list,' as Macaulay indignantly calls it, forty-eight names were taken by lot. 'And then'--we must tell the rest of the story in Macaulay's burning language--

'And then came the striking. You struck out all the Roman
Catholic names; and you give us your reasons for striking
out these names, reasons which I do not think it worth
while to examine. The real question which you should have
considered was this: Can a great issue between two hostile
religions--for such the issue was--be tried in a manner
above all suspicion by a jury composed exclusively of men
of one of those religions? I know that in striking out the
Roman Catholics you did nothing that was not according to
technical rules. But my great charge against you is that
you have looked on this whole case in a technical point of
view, that you have been attorneys when you should have
been statesmen. The letter of the law was doubtless with
you; but not the noble spirit of the law. The jury _de
medietate linguæ_ is of immemorial antiquity among us.
Suppose that a Dutch sailor at Wapping is accused of
stabbing an Englishman in a brawl. The fate of the culprit
is decided by a mixed body of six Englishmen and six
Dutchmen. Such were the securities which the wisdom and
justice of our ancestors gave to aliens. You are ready
enough to call Mr. O'Connell an alien, when it serves your
purposes to do so. You are ready enough to inflict on the
Irish Roman Catholics all the evils of alienage, but the
one privilege, the one advantage of alienage, you deny him.
In a case which of all cases most required a jury _de
medietate_, in a case which sprang out of the mutual
hostility of races and sects, you pack a jury all of one
race and all of one sect.... Yes, you have obtained a
verdict of Guilty; but you have obtained that verdict from
twelve men brought together by illegal means, and selected
in such a manner that their decision can inspire no
confidence.'--(Macaulay's Speeches, p. 314.)

Now let it be observed that this system, which treated the Roman Catholics of Ireland as aliens in their own country, and at the same time denied them the rights and privileges of aliens, has been in force up to this year. And yet many on this side of the Channel are innocently surprised that the Irish people have no great reverence for English law, and no great love for British institutions; and so they rashly conclude that the only way to govern such a lawless race is by the strong arm of power. But the simple fact is, that the Irish from time immemorial have been remarkable for their love of justice. To this fact their bitterest enemies bear witness. In that category may certainly be reckoned Sir John Davys, Irish Attorney-General under James I.; yet this is the testimony which he bears:--'There is no nation of people under the sun that doth love equal and indifferent justice better than the Irish, or will rest better satisfied with the execution thereof, although it be against themselves, so as they may have the benefit and protection of the law when upon just cause they do desire it.' 'The truth is,' he adds, 'that in time of peace the Irish are more fearful to offend the law than the English, or any other nation whatsoever.' That simple expression, 'in time of peace,' explains the whole matter. English law has unfortunately too often presented itself to the people of Ireland as a cruel enemy, against which it was a duty and a necessity to wage a chronic warfare; and it is no great marvel if they take some time to learn that their enemy of yesterday has suddenly become their friend. We have no faith in sudden political conversions, especially in the case of nations; and we do not despair of Mr. Gladstone's legislation for Ireland, because we find that its healing properties are percolating but slowly through the crust of inevitable prejudice which it had to encounter. We must persevere in the good work, and Mr. Gladstone has shown his earnestness in the ungrateful task of conciliating Ireland by passing last session several measures of great importance to the welfare of that country. Chief and foremost among them is the Juries (Ireland) Bill. It is an elaborate piece of remedial legislation, though it passed through Parliament without exciting attention, and it cannot fail to produce an excellent effect in Ireland, as its character becomes gradually known. It will no longer be possible for the most violent partisan to pack a jury in Ireland, and we may reasonably trust that in process of time Irishmen will learn to appeal to English justice with a confidence to which they have been so long strangers.

Another Irish measure of great importance which received the sanction of the Legislature last session is the Local Government (Ireland) Act. Its clauses are thirty-two in number, and its object is to amend the law relating to the local government of towns and populous places in Ireland. It is not necessary to go through its provisions, but we may say that their general effect is to make all illegality and corruption in municipal elections and in the elections of local commissioners impossible, or at least perilous; to put a stop to anything like jobbing or any corrupt expenditure of public money by the governing bodies of towns; to extend to Ireland, with the necessary modifications, the provisions with regard to the public health which prevail in England; and to empower the governing bodies and ratepayers of all towns in Ireland to obtain lands at a cheap rate, to unite or separate districts, and to alter rates. Another clause of the bill empowers the Lord Lieutenant, with the approval of the Treasury, to create a new Local Government Department of the Chief Secretary's office, 'the salaries of such persons to be paid out of the moneys to be provided by Parliament for such purpose.' The tendency of the whole bill is to develop the faculty of self-government throughout Ireland, and to give the country 'home rule' in the only sense in which that boon would be practicable or beneficial. What is needful above all things is to instil into the minds of the Irish people habits of self-reliance and a respect for English law; and the two bills which have elicited these observations are most valuable contributions to that result. Viewing them in all their bearings, we are bold to say that if the session had produced nothing else, these two bills alone would have redeemed it from the reproach of being a 'barren' session. In the election campaign of 1868, Mr. Gladstone described Protestant ascendancy in Ireland as a great upas tree which was casting its baleful shadow over the whole land; and ever since he has been in office he has set himself vigorously and with unwearied patience not merely to cut down the wide-spreading branches of that fatal tree, but to root up one by one the noxious growths which flourished beneath its friendly shade. The Jury Bill and the Local Government Act are the natural fruits of the Church Bill and the Land Bill. It would have been impossible to pass them while Protestant ascendancy existed. Other Irish bills have been passed this session which, though of less importance than those we have named, have a very practical bearing on the well-being and conciliation of Ireland. Yet all these measures have been simply ignored in the various criticisms of the session which have come under our notice. As if, forsooth! the prosperity and contentment of Ireland were not of the last consequence to the empire at large.

So much for the work of the Government in the field of Irish legislation. Let us now turn to its tale of successful measures in matters of English and imperial policy.

The Army Bill demands, of course, the first and chief place in our review; and we must remark, _in limine_, on the singular ill-luck which overtook the Government in introducing it. During the autumn and winter of last year, the country very generally, and even passionately, demanded a large scheme of army reorganization. Radicals and Conservatives differed, no doubt, in their views of what was desirable in a good scheme of army reform. The latter wished merely to supplement and improve the existing system, which they considered as near perfection as could reasonably be expected. The former were not quite agreed among themselves. Some had a hankering after the Prussian system, and some preferred the Swiss. But Conservatives, Whigs, and Liberals were all agreed on one point, namely, that Mr. Cardwell's scheme ought to be a large and comprehensive one, and that a large and comprehensive scheme involved expense. The Conservatives wished that expense to go towards the enlargement and perfecting of the old system. On the other hand, the Liberals, as a body, demanded the abolition of the purchase system, and the development of a new system in its place. But all admitted the necessity of a considerable expenditure, and there was a general acquiescence throughout the country in the prospect of an increased income-tax. Meanwhile Bourbaki made his fatal march to the frontier, Chanzy's army was defeated and scattered, and Paris was obliged to capitulate. The preliminaries of peace were agreed upon soon afterwards, and the Eastern question, which Prince Gortschakoff had reopened in so insolent a manner, was in a fair way to a pacific solution.

The return of calm after so violent a storm in the political firmament soon began to tell on English nerves; the panic which prompted, during the bewildering achievements of the German armies, the cry for an efficient scheme of army reform subsided by degrees as the danger of war receded from our shores, and even 'The Battle of Dorking' failed to impress the British taxpayer with any fear of an imminent invasion. The consequence was, that by the time Mr. Cardwell laid his scheme before Parliament, the enthusiasm for army reorganization had cooled down to the temperate, and among some philosophical Radicals, even to the frigid zone. The measure of the Government was admitted on all hands to be thorough and comprehensive, and it received the cordial acquiescence of the country. But the panic was over, and, as a consequence, there was an absence of that enthusiastic support which enables a minister to defeat summarily anything like an attempt at an organized system of factious opposition. Had the Franco-German war ended two months earlier than it did, it is questionable whether the Government would have received sufficient encouragement to attack the purchase system, considering the expense which its abolition entailed on the country. There can be no question that if Mr. Gladstone had taken up the subject and made it his own, as he did the Irish Church Bill and the Land Bill, he could at any time have commanded such support from the country as would have carried all opposition before it. One or two rousing speeches from him, exposing the manifold evils of the purchase system, and explaining the plan of the Government, would have done the thing. But the misfortune of Mr. Cardwell was that he elaborated and matured his scheme at a time when the country was prepared for almost any expense that would give us an army which would secure the safety of the empire, and enable us to hold our proper place in the councils of Europe; and that he propounded his scheme when the looming spectre of increased taxation appeared a more tangible evil than the danger of a foreign invasion. The Opposition availed itself adroitly, if not very patriotically, of the turn of the tide, and wooed the aid of the extreme Radicals by the cry of extravagant expenditure. Nor did it cry altogether in vain. There are a few Radicals in the House of Commons who cannot forgive Mr. Gladstone for being a Christian. That a man of his commanding genius and varied acquirements should still retain the faith of his childhood is an enigma to them. But that he should ever presume to baulk their efforts to sap and overthrow its foundations is an offence to them; and, if the truth must be told, they would far rather have a leader of the Epicurean type of Lord Palmerston or Mr. Disraeli. One or two of these pseudo-Liberals have been practically in opposition all through the session, and we shall be curious to see how they defend themselves before their constituents when the day of reckoning comes. One fact at all events is certain: it was in a great measure through the help which they gave to the Opposition that the session has not been more fruitful than it has been. Whenever the Opposition wished to waste a night in purposeless debate, the manoeuvre was sure to be seconded by this handful of Voltairean Radicals below the gangway.

Such are the circumstances under which the Government introduced their Army Bill. But it is impossible to appreciate the importance of that bill, or to understand the virulence of the opposition which it encountered, without glancing at the evil which it sought to remedy. When the Government resolved to ask the assent of Parliament to a large scheme of army reform, they found themselves hampered and fettered on all sides by the purchase system. The army was enclosed in a network of vested interests which it was found impossible to break through for the purpose of effecting even so slight a reform as the abolition of the ranks of ensign and cornet. It had, in fact, ceased to be the property of the nation, and was no longer under the control of the sovereign. It had become mortgaged to the officers, and it was absolutely necessary to get it out of pawn before it could be effectually dealt with. In short, the purchase system must cease to exist, or all ideas of army reorganization must be abandoned. Does anyone think this too strong a statement of the case? Let him consider the history of the purchase system, and he will think so no longer.

We have been told _ad nauseam_ that the purchase system has been the mainstay of the British army. The bravery of our officers, their well-bred manners, their discipline, even their patriotism and loyalty, have all been ascribed to the magic of the purchase system, and so has the _esprit de corps_ of the men. Now it seems to us that there is a hitch in this style of reasoning, inasmuch as it implies that the things which happen to exist together are necessarily related to each other as cause and effect. The officers of the British army may be all that their admirers declare them to be,--on that point we shall have something to say presently--but it by no means follows that the purchase system is the cause of their excellence. Nearly all the merits which are claimed for the purchase system were conspicuous in the German army in the last war; yet the purchase system is unknown in the German army, and, in fact, in every army in the civilized world, England alone excepted. Nor, indeed, does it embrace the whole of the English army. The navy and the marines, the artillery and the engineers know it not. Its advocates are therefore forced to this dilemma: they must deny to the navy and to the non-purchase corps of the army all those qualities which they claim as resulting from the purchase system, or they are bound to admit that those qualities are independent of the purchase system, and may continue to exist without it. For our own part, we have no doubt whatever that the many admirable qualities of the British officer are not only independent of the purchase system, but that they remain in spite of it; for the purchase system, as it has been in practice among us, is essentially a demoralizing system. We say as it has been in practice among us, because the purchase system and the illegal custom of paying more than the regulation price for the value of commissions have been proved to be inseparable. This has been demonstrated by the Royal Commission which examined into the subject last year. The payment of over-regulation prices has been forbidden in every variety of form for more than a century, but it has grown and prospered on its prohibitions. On a revision of the prices of commissions, in 1766, by a board of general officers, a royal warrant was issued, which contains the following stringent order with respect to over-regulation prices:--'We having approved of the same (_i. e._, the prices recommended by the board), our will and pleasure is, that _in all cases where we shall permit any of the commissions specified therein to be sold_,[66] the sum to be paid for the same shall not exceed the prices set down in the said report. And all colonels, agents and others, our military officers, are hereby required and directed to conform strictly and carefully to the regulation hereby laid down and established, upon pain of our highest displeasure.' In 1772 and 1773, some other royal warrants were issued, prohibiting over-regulation prices in equally peremptory terms. Still the unlawful traffic went on unchecked, and in 1783 another step was taken to put a stop to it. A general order was issued by the Commander-in-Chief requiring every officer, in sending his application for leave to dispose of his commission at the regulated price, 'solemnly to declare, on the word and honour of an officer and a gentleman, that nothing beyond the price limited by his Majesty's regulations was stipulated or promised, directly or indirectly, and that no other mode of compensation or gratuity was in contemplation of the parties, or should be given or accepted in respect of such sale or purchase.' A similar declaration was required of the officer desiring to purchase. He 'expressly pledged his word and honour as an officer and a gentleman that he would not, either then, or at any future time, give, by any means or in any shape whatever, directly or indirectly, anymore than the regulated price.' The commanding officer of the regiment was further required to declare that he verily believed the established regulation with regard to price was intended to be strictly complied with, and that no clandestine bargain subsisted between the parties concerned. This prohibition was extended to cases of exchange from half-pay to full-pay, and from one corps to another. The commanding officer was at the same time ordered to transmit the names of such officers in the regiment as were willing to purchase in succession; and in cases where the commanding officer recommended a junior for promotion over a senior's head, he was to give his reasons for such recommendation. It appears, therefore, that in establishing the rule of seniority, tempered by selection, in regimental promotion, Mr. Cardwell has simply revived an item of military reform attempted about ninety years ago. But not to dwell on that, the general order from which we have been quoting went on to clench its prohibition of over-regulation prices in the following explicit language:--

'His Majesty has, by the advice of his board of general
officers, been further pleased to declare his determination
that any officer who shall be found to have given, or to
have stipulated, or promised, directly or indirectly, to
give anything beyond the regulated price, in disobedience
to these his Majesty's orders, or by any subterfuge or
equivocation to have evaded the same, _and to have thereby
shamefully forfeited his honour as an officer and a
gentleman, shall be dismissed from his Majesty's service_.'

Still the evil went on. Officers found means of evading the law and escaping punishment, apparently without any prejudice to their honour as officers and gentlemen in the eyes of the profession. Three years later, therefore, that is, in 1786, another attempt was made to compel British officers to keep their solemn and plighted word of honour; for it came to that. A circular letter was addressed by the Secretary of War to colonels of regiments, forbidding officers about to retire to make any stipulation as to their successors, and insisting that they should sell out or exchange 'in favour of such persons as his Majesty should think fit to approve.' For it was discovered that by leaving officers at liberty to select their successors they found means to elude the strict orders prohibiting over-regulation prices.

In 1804, two circulars were issued by the Commander-in-Chief, one addressed to army agents against the secret traffic in respect to commissions, carried on with officers of the army; the other to commanding officers of regiments, giving them precise directions, which were to be strictly observed, in the purchase and sale of all commissions. This paper states that 'his Majesty's regulations in regard to the sums to be given and received for commissions in the army,' had 'in various instances been disregarded.' The previous orders on the subject are therefore repeated, and then 'the Commander-in-Chief thinks proper to declare that any officer who shall be found to have given, directly or indirectly, anything beyond the regulated prices, in disobedience to his Majesty's orders, or to have attempted to evade the regulations in any manner whatever, will be reported by the Commander-in-Chief to his Majesty, in order that he may be removed from the service.' Up to this time, and for three years more, the prohibition of payments in excess of the regulation price rested entirely on royal warrants and regulations. In 1807, however, a clause was inserted in the Mutiny Act, making it a misdemeanor for any agents to traffic in the sale of commissions, since 'great inconvenience had arisen to his Majesty's service,' from the fact that 'much larger sums than are allowed by his Majesty's regulations are often given and received for commissions, and great frauds committed.' This is the first Parliamentary condemnation of over-regulation prices, and it will be observed that the enactment applies to army agents only; officers are not included. But in the year 1809, an Act was passed for the 'Further Prevention of the Sale and Brokerage of Offices,' and in that Act Parliamentary sanction is given for the first time to the various prohibitions of over-regulation prices by royal warrant. Not only was an officer to be immediately cashiered who paid, received, or connived at the payment of over-regulation prices, but further, 'as an encouragement for the detection of such practices, such commission so forfeited shall be sold, and half the regulated value (not exceeding £500) shall be paid to the informer.'

It is not necessary to follow the various alterations which the Mutiny Act underwent in 1815-1829, for they are of no great importance. But it is time that we should take stock of our inquiry thus far, and endeavour to gauge the influence of the purchase system on the character of the officers affected by it, as attested by competent witnesses. It is obvious that up to the period at which we have now arrived, that is, up to the year 1829, the payment of over-regulation prices was found to be practically inseparable from the purchase system. Nothing could have been done to stop it which was not done, except the detection and condign punishment of the offenders. The Sovereign, the Commander-in-Chief, the War Secretary, and Parliament, all set their faces against the illegal traffic, and fulminated threats and penal enactments against it; but all their efforts proved unavailing, because there was an evident conspiracy among the general body of officers to defeat the law, and, it is sad to add, to dishonour their own word. For let it be remembered that the officer who sold, and the officer who bought, and the commanding officer of the regiment in which the transaction took place, were all required 'solemnly to declare,' and did 'solemnly declare on the word and honour of an officer and a gentleman,' that, 'neither directly nor indirectly,' had anything been paid or stipulated for beyond the regulated price. And yet it was notorious that officers were constantly in the habit of evading all their engagements 'by subterfuge or equivocation,' and were thereby habitually violating their plighted word, or, to quote again the language of the royal warrant, 'had thereby shamefully forfeited their honour as officers and gentlemen.'

Now, we should be inclined to say, _à priori_, that a system which encouraged and enabled officers in the army to 'shamefully forfeit their honour as officers and gentlemen,' could not fail to have a vicious and demoralizing influence, not only on their professional character as officers, but on their whole ἦθος as men. The Duke of Wellington has often been quoted in recent debates as having said that he had an army 'which could go anywhere and do anything.' No doubt the Duke of Wellington succeeded, by dint of hard fighting, and the rare qualities which he possessed as a commander, to manufacture such an army out of the materials that came to his hand; but that was by no means the kind of army which the purchase system gave him. On the contrary, he was continually complaining, up to Waterloo, of the ignorance, the stupidity, the insubordination, and, in short, the general inefficiency of his officers. He could trust them in nothing, he said; for they either could not understand and execute his commands, or they deliberately disobeyed them. And in some cases he found them shirking their duties, and asking permission to return to England on trivial pleas. But it will be better to let the Duke speak for himself. On the 15th of May, 1811, he wrote to the Earl of Liverpool a letter, in which he expresses great vexation at the escape of 1,400 of the enemy, although he had 'employed two divisions and a brigade to prevent their escape,' and 'had done everything that could be done in the way of order and instruction.' And then he goes on to add:--

'I certainly feel every day more and more the difficulty of
the situation in which I am placed. I am obliged to be
everywhere, and if absent from any operation something goes
wrong. It is to be hoped that the general and other
officers of the army will at last acquire that experience
which will teach them that success can be attained only by
attention to the most minute details, and by tracing every
part of every operation from its origin to its conclusion,
point by point, and ascertaining that the whole is
understood by those who are to execute it.'

In another letter to the Earl of Liverpool, dated July 20, 1811, he recommends

'the adoption of the rule which I have made in respect to
staff appointments attached to the British army, viz., that
those who hold them shall receive no emolument on account
of them if absent from their duty on account of their
health for a greater length of time than two months, unless
their absence should have been occasioned by wounds.'

He thinks that this rule will probably be considered harsh, but he insists on it as necessary, on account of 'the abuse of sick certificates.' In a letter dated 29th September, 1811, and also addressed to the Earl of Liverpool, he uses the following strong language:--

'I must also observe that British officers require to be
kept in order, as well as the soldiers under their command,
particularly in a foreign service. The experience which I
have had of their conduct in the Portuguese service has
shown me that there must be an authority, and that a strong
one, to keep them within due bounds; otherwise they would
only disgust the soldiers over whom they should be placed,
the officers whom they should be destined to assist, and
the country in whose service they should be employed.'

Again:--

'The ignorance of their duty of the officers of the army
who are every day arriving in this country, and the general
inattention and disobedience to orders by many of those who
have been long here, increase the details of the duty to
such an extent as to render it almost impracticable to
carry it on; and owing to this disobedience and neglect, I
can depend upon nothing, however well regulated and
ordered.'--_Letter to Lieut.-General Hill, Oct. 13, 1811._

At Freneda, on the 19th of February, 1813, he issued the following general order:--

'The commander of the forces is concerned to be obliged to
notice such repeated disobedience to orders _on every
subject_. It might have been expected that in a case in
which the convenience of the officers themselves was the
object of the orders issued, they would have been obeyed;
but the general officers and commanding officers of
regiments may depend upon it that until they enforce
obedience to every order, and see that the officers under
them understand and recollect what is ordered, those
subjects of complaint must exist.'

The following letter shows what the Duke meant when he said that he had an army that would 'go anywhere and do anything.' In the rank and file he had splendid material, but here is his description of the kind of officers which the purchase system gave him:--

'I have received your letter of the 5th, and I am sorry
that I cannot recommend ---- for promotion, because I have
had him in arrest since the battle for disobeying an order
given to him by me verbally. The fact is, that if
discipline means habits of obedience to orders, as well as
military instruction, we have but little of it in the army.
Nobody ever thinks of obeying an order; and all the
regulations of the Horse Guards, as well as of the War
Office, and all the orders of the army applicable to this
peculiar service, are so much waste paper. It is, however,
an unrivalled army for fighting, if the soldiers can only
be kept in their ranks during the battle; but it wants some
of those qualities which are indispensable to enable a
general to bring them into the field in the order in which
an army ought to be to meet an enemy, or to take all the
advantage to be derived from a victory; and the cause of
these defects is the want of habits of obedience and
attention to orders by the inferior officers; and indeed, I
might add, by all. They never attend to an order with an
intention to obey it, or sufficiently to understand it, be
it ever so clear, and therefore never obey it when
obedience becomes troublesome, or difficult, or
important.'--_Letter to Colonel Torrens, dated July 18,
1813._

Two more extracts from the Duke of Wellington's correspondence must suffice for this part of our survey:--

'I really believe that, with the exception of my old
Spanish infantry, I have got not only the worst troops, but
the worst equipped army, with the worst staff, that was
ever brought together.'--_Letter to Earl Bathurst, dated
June 25, 1815._

In the same letter he goes on to complain of an officer who 'knows no more of his business than a child, and I am obliged to do it for him; and, after all, I cannot get him to do what I order him.'

For the following extract we are indebted to an able pamphlet entitled 'The Purchase System,' by the author of 'The Second Armada:'--

'Our officer is a gentleman.... Indeed, we carry this
principle of the gentleman, and the objection of
intercourse with those under his command, so far, as that,
in my opinion, the duty of a subaltern officer, as done in
a foreign army, is not done at all in the cavalry or the
British infantry of the line. It is done in the Guards by
the sergeants. Then our gentleman-officer, however
admirable his conduct in the field, however honourable to
himself, however glorious and advantageous to his country,
is but a poor creature in disciplining his company, in
camp, quarters or cantonments.'--_Letter of Duke of
Wellington, dated April 22, 1829._

Our inquiry has now led us to this result. The purchase system and the abuse of over-regulation prices have been found to be so bound up together that all efforts to destroy the one while retaining the other have always ended in the most signal failure; and the demoralizing influence of the whole system was such that the officers of the British army were in the habit of 'shamefully forfeiting their honour as officers and gentlemen,' and were utterly incompetent, the Duke of Wellington being witness, to fill the most ordinary duties of their profession. In none of the extracts, however, which we have quoted from the Duke of Wellington's published despatches does he directly attribute the evils of which he complains to the purchase system, with its inseparable concomitant, the payment of over-regulation prices. His mind was too much occupied with the daily labour of correcting the faults of his officers to find time to analyze the causes of which those faults were the natural offspring. Here and there, however, we find indications that the inefficiency of his officers and the system of purchase were in his mind intimately connected. This, at all events, is the sense in which we read the following extract from a letter to the Commissary-in-Chief, dated November 6, 1810:--

'I may be wrong, but I have objections to all those rules
which prevent the promotion of officers of merit. It is the
abuse of the unlimited power of promotion which ought to be
prevented; but the power itself ought not to be taken, by
regulation, from the Crown, or from those who do the
business of the Crown. By these regulations we are
undermining as fast as possible the efficiency of the
Government. There is no power anywhere of rewarding
extraordinary services or extraordinary merit; and, under
circumstances which require unwearied attention in every
branch and department of our military system, we appear to
be framing regulations to prevent ourselves from
commanding it by the only stimulus--the honourable reward
of merit.'

It is plain that this criticism strikes at the very root and essence of the purchase system; nor is it the only criticism of the kind that the Duke of Wellington has left on record. In March, 1824, the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of York, submitted to the Duke of Wellington, then Master of the Ordnance, three plans of military reform which he had in contemplation. Those plans, unfortunately, are not given, but we gather from the correspondence between the Duke and Major-General Sir Herbert Taylor, that it was proposed, among other things, 'to stop all regimental promotion by purchase, and on the retirement of an officer the successor to be selected by the Commander-in-Chief from the general mass.' It is impossible, without having the whole correspondence before us, clearly to make out what the Duke's views were on this point; but it is obvious that this part of the scheme is in the fullest accord with the opinions expressed by him in the passage last quoted; and we may therefore presume that, if he could have seen his way to any fair and practicable plan for abolishing purchase, he would have given it his support. But, however that may be, one thing is beyond all doubt--the Duke of Wellington condemned absolutely and peremptorily the payment of over-regulation prices. Witness the following passage in his letter to Sir Herbert Taylor, dated 'London, 17th March, 1824:'--

'I would forbid any brokers to interfere, and would declare
the determination of the Commander-in-Chief to recommend to
his Majesty to cancel the grant of any commission granted
in consequence of any negotiation with them. I would
likewise recommend to his Royal Highness to declare to the
army his determination to recommend to his Majesty to
cancel any commission granted for which it shall appear
that the officer appointed to it has paid more than the
regulated price, and to dismiss from his Majesty's service
any colonel or commanding officer of a regiment who may
appear to have forwarded or recommended such appointment,
knowing that more than the regulated price had been, or was
to be, paid for it.'

'I am afraid,' he adds despondingly, 'that much of what I above proposed is difficult to carry into execution, and, as I have above stated, it may be impossible to prevent the evil altogether.' In his reply, Sir Herbert Taylor reminded the Duke that the payment of over-regulation prices was already forbidden by Act of Parliament, and that the prohibition was sanctioned by the imposition of penalties which were, in fact, severer than those suggested by the Duke. 'But in either case the difficulty is to establish the proof, without which the promotion could not be cancelled, nor the officer himself, or those parties to the transaction, dismissed the service.' What stronger proof could we have that the illegal and immoral traffic in over-regulation prices clung, as an inseparable parasite, to the purchase system, and could be destroyed only by cutting down the trunk which supported it?