Though the first scale is nominally the Regulation, there is not one commission in twenty sold for that price, except when, in the event of an officer's death, another is brought in from the half-pay for the purpose of selling, or when an officer is forced to leave for misconduct. In these cases, and they are rare indeed, the commission may be had at that price by the officer senior for purchase.

The average prices of commissions in Cavalry is even considerably above what we have specified in the second Scale, and we understand at present amount to about 10,000l. for a lieutenant-colonelcy, 70007. for a majority, 4500l. to 5000l. for a troop, and 2000l. for a lieutenancy; the cornetcy always sells for the regulation price. Of course the above sums are not openly given for these commissions, but the difference above the regulation is handed over on the purchaser being gazetted.

Without calculating upon these extra prices, then, it appears that even if the sums stated in the second Scale are paid for Cavalry commissions, all the officers but the subalterns would absolutely receive more from an insurance company in the shape of an annuity for the price, than the pay of the rank which they have purchased; consequently most of them are not only giving their services gratuitously to the State, but are absolutely paying considerable sums annually for the privilege of serving.

The expense a cavalry officer is put to in providing himself with horses should properly have formed a deduction from his pay, as these are kept entirely at his own risk, and he merely receives forage for the number corresponding to his rank, paying std. a day for each ration; but as it might be difficult to estimate this exactly, and we have already made the smallness of the remuneration to this class of officers sufficiently obvious without including this portion of his expenses, we shall proceed to institute a similar comparison of the pay and prices of commissions in Infantry corps, the result of which will be seen in the two following Scales:

SCALE I.-Supposing the Regulation Price merely has been paid.

In Infantry as well as Cavalry, promotion can seldom be had for the regulation prices in Scale I., though instances of it are no doubt much more common in the former service than in the latter. The prices in Scale II. may be taken as a pretty fair average of the sums which are paid in most regiments for the respective commissions, except the ensigncy, which is now invariably sold for the regulation price.

Assuming this scale then as the criterion, it appears that the pay of both field-officers is considerably less than the annuity they would receive for the price of their commissions: thus they absolutely sacrifice a considerable sum annually for the honour of serving, and that too frequently in the worst of climates, and under the most trying of circumstances; while in the other ranks the pay received for serving, after deducting the annuity purchasable with the price of the commissions, barely amounts on an average to the wages of a common labourer. It does not affect our argument in the least to maintain, as perhaps some will be disposed to do, that an officer possessing the privilege of selling out in the event of advanced age or bad health, which the annuitant does not, it is scarce fair to consider their income on the same footing. For it must be recollected that our estimate of the mortality among British officers, upon which the above annuities are calculated, includes only those who, notwithstanding the facility of retirement thus afforded them, actually died on full pay. Had it included those who died subsequent to retirement as well as on actual service, this objection would no doubt have been a valid one; but in that case, as the mortality would have increased, the annuity purchaseable with the price of each commission would have increased also in a corresponding ratio, and the results have appeared much more unfavourable to the purchaser than we have represented them.

The only benefit enjoyed by officers in addition to their pay, and which, as it is not convertible into coin, we cannot well bring into the scale, is the allowance of free quarters, viz.: an empty room or two, with fuel and candle corresponding. These advantages, however, it can easily be imagined, are not so very weighty as to turn the balance materially in their favour.

In the purchase of unattached rank, where the officer is allowed to remain permanently on the half-pay list without lodging the difference, a case now of very rare occurrence, the bargain is equally disadvantageous to him, as will appear from the following Scale, which is applicable whether the purchaser be from infantry or cavalry, it being always the half-pay of infantry only which is sold :

In this scale there is no deduction for mess or band fees, as the officer is not attached to any regiment, neither have we made any addition to the rate of annuity for the risk of colonial service, as the officer does not require to go abroad. There are no allowances besides the pay, nor are any services demandable from him till he is brought on full pay; so that in fact he purchases an annuity with a certain rank attached, for which, as has been shown, he pays dearly, besides sacrificing all his former service.

Large as were the prices thus paid for promotion, yet the honourable Member for Middlesex seemed to think them insufficient; for, with a pertinacity worthy of a better cause, he four times called the attention of Parliament to the sale of unattached commissions, which he denounced as tending to burden the country with an enormous expense, by the substitution of young lives on the half-pay list instead of old ones, never taking into consideration that as a large proportion of the purchasers immediately exchanged back to full pay with officers fully as old as the original sellers, the only loss which could accrue must be on the remainder; but which loss, as we shall hereafter show, was more than counterbalanced by the advantages attendant on the measure.

Though scarcely excusable in the honourable Member, thus sweepingly to condemn a measure, all the bearings of which he seems neither to have understood nor investigated, we should not have deemed it necessary to notice his having done so, were it not that when called upon by the Committee on Army and Navy Appointments in 1833, to state the grounds on which he maintained so great a loss was likely to fall on the public, he exhibited some calculations relative to the value of half-pay at different ages, so excessively erroneous both in principle and result, as to betray a total ignorance of the first rudiments of that science on which he was professing to enlighten the public.

Though we by no means conceive it a necessary qualification for an M.P. to be perfectly conversant with the intricate subject of annuities, yet when he has four times called on Parliament to investigate into the great loss the public was sustaining, it is certainly somewhat ridi culous, to find this imaginary loss to have been over-stated nearly a million and a quarter beyond the true result deducible from his own data. The ground on which he proceeded to estimate this supposed loss to the public, arising from the sale of unattached-commissions, was as follows:

Between April, 1825, and April, 1826, 24 lieutenant-colonels, who were annuitants on the half-pay list, sold out. Their average service was 32 years, consequently their average age about 50. The average service of the 24 purchasers was 20 years each, consequently average age 38. The difference between the age of seller and purchaser was, therefore, 12 years. Thus far his data was right; but mark his deduction. Hence, says he, there is an extra charge against the public of 12 years' half-pay to these 24 lieutenant-colonels, at 2001. 15s. each, yearly, making in all a total loss to the public of 55,407.

Whereas, had he merely been at the trouble of looking at a table of the price of annuities before he troubled Parliament on the subject, he would have seen, that the difference in value between an annuity on the life of a man of 50, and one of 38, even supposing interest at the low rate of 3 per cent., was not twelve times, but only about thrice the amount of the annuity, or 14,454. Thus reducing the real loss in this

own powers the years 1825 and 1826, as calculated by Mr. Hume; and contrasted with the real loss ascertained from the same data, upon the correct prinsustained by the public on the sale of unattached-commissions during M. P., when his conclusions rest upon no better foundation than his require to be in giving implicit credit even to the hallowed dicta of an Just in order to show our readers how excessively cautious they of calculation, we subjoin the following estimate of the loss

making a difference of 40,9531. portion of the unattached-sales to about three fourths of his estimate,

ciples of annuity calculations:

So that instead of the loss being 1,513,0657., it only turns out to b", even on Mr. Hume's own data, 326,0047.; thus showing an error, in calculation alone, of 1,187,0617.

Both the above estimates, however, are calculated on the supposition that those who thus purchased remained always on full pay. Whereas, on the contrary, we find it stated in the Reports of the Committee on Military Appointments in 1833, page 162, that of the above, all the subalterns, about four-fifths of the captains, and a half of the majors and lieutenant-colonels, subsequently exchanged back to full pay, with officers fully as old as the original sellers.

This reduces the actual charge on the public for the remaining fifth of the captains, in round numbers, to about

For the remaining half of the majors

For the remaining half of the lieutenant-colonels.

30,500

40,000

25,500

Total 96,000

But as most of the officers who sold out received only the old regulation prices of their commissions, while the purchasers paid the new rate, there was carried to the credit of the half-pay fund, in this way, about

80,000

Leaving a balance of £16,000 As a set off against this balance it must, however, be remarked, that there was upwards of 20,000l. paid for fees of 2570 commissions in these two years, in consequence of promotions resulting from the sale of unattached-rank; and, as those fees went towards payment of salaries, which otherwise must have been defrayed by Government, that amount may fairly be held to have been carried to the credit of the public.

There was an additional charge on the public, to the extent of about 1500., resulting from the sales of unattached-rank during the above period; as in some cases the officers selling out were only in receipt of the old rate of half-pay: whereas, the purchasers, in every case, were entitled to the new rate; but this additional charge was much more than counterbalanced by the great number of lieutenants in receipt of 7s. 6d. a-day, who thus obtained an opportunity of purchasing either regimentally or unattached, and whose successors would only receive 6s. 6d. a-day for the first seven years of service in that grade; thereby saving a shilling a day to the public for each lieutenant thus promoted. Though we are not able to state the full extent of this saving, owing to the want of any document showing the period each officer served as lieutenant prior to being promoted, yet there can be no doubt it was at least treble the additional charge on the public, arising from the difference between the old and new rate of half-p f-pay.

Thus, independent altogether of the contingent saving of pensions to the wives, and compassionate allowances to the children of several hundred officers, who sold out or retired, receiving the difference, it appears that instead of costing the public upwards of a million and a half in these two years, as stated by Mr. Hume, the sale of unattachedrank was ultimately attended with no loss whatever, while it forwarded the promotion of many deserving officers, besides giving to those who