2017年6月9日 星期五

In the case of the rank and file of our army

The pay of junior or subaltern officers is so meagre that it cannot, by any possibility, cover the expenses which Government insists upon their incurring. Captains, majors, and lieutenant-colonels are paid much less than the wages of foremen or sub-managers in any important industrial undertaking. Even for those who attain the most brilliant success in their careers, there are no prizes which will stand comparison for a moment with a very moderate degree of prosperity in the world of trade or finance. They cannot even be compared with the prizes open to the bar or the medical profession nuskin hong kong.

Hitherto we have obtained our officers largely owing to a firmly rooted tradition among the country gentlemen and the military families—neither as a rule rich men, or even very easy in their circumstances as things go nowadays—many of them very poor—a tradition so strong that it is not cant, but plain truth, to call it sense of duty. There are other motives, of course, which may lead a boy to choose this profession—love of adventure, comparative freedom from indoor life, pleasant comradeship, and in the case of the middle classes, recently risen to affluence, social aspirations. But even in the last there is far more good than harm; though in anti-militarist circles it is the unworthy aim which is usually dwelt upon with {392} a sneering emphasis. For very often, when a man has risen from humble circumstances to a fortune, he rejoices that his sons should serve the state, since it is in his power to make provision. The example of his neighbours, whose ancestors have been living on their acres since the days of the Plantagenets or the Tudors, is a noble example; and he is wise to follow it Elevit.

a contract for a term of years (with obligations continuing for a further term of years) is entered into, and signed, under the circumstances which have already been considered. We are faced here with a phenomenon which seems strange in an Age which has conceded the right to 'down tools,' even though by so doing a solemn engagement is broken—in an Age which has become very fastidious about hiring agreements of most kinds, very suspicious of anything suggestive of 'servile conditions' or 'forced labour,' and which deprecates the idea of penalising breach of contract, on the part of a workman, even by process in the civil courts dermes vs medilase.

As regards a private soldier in the British army, however, the Age apparently has no such compunctions. His contract has been made under duress. Its obligations last for a long period of years. The pay is below the ordinary market rates. Everything in fact which, in equity, would favour a revision, pleads in favour of the soldier who demands to be released. But let him plead and threaten as he please, he is not released. It is not a case of suing him for damages in the civil courts, but of dealing with him under discipline and mutiny acts, the terms of which are simple and drastic—in {393} peace time imprisonment, in war time death. Without these means of enforcing the 'voluntary' system the British people would not feel themselves safe.