ARMY PROMOTION

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 7, 3 October 1917, Page 3

ARMY PROMOTION

GOVERNMENT ACCEPTS REPOkT OF CHURCHILL'S COMMITTEE. A number of injustices and anomalies in the promotion of officers in the Special Reserve, tlie New Annies, nnd the Territorial Force under war conditions are dealt with in tho report of a committee presided over l>y Mr. Winston Churchill. The most substantial ground of complaint, in the view of the committee, is the imrnecliate loss of acting rank whenever an officer is wounded or invalided home. A subaltern may have been in command of a company in and out of the trenches for two or three months, but at the moment lie is wounded he reverts to the rank of lieutonant.-or second lieutenant, and is dealt with on that basis when he rejoins. Various recommendations are mado in these eases, one being that the War Office must make clear to the Expeditionary Force which they rejoin that tlioy have held acting rant. All officers sould be provided with a small book containing the record of thenservices. Ex-Regular officers of the Reserve of Officers should be allowed to reckon towards seniority all their (previous service l&ss half the time during which they have been unemployed; exRegular officers on the retired: list less the whole time during which they lisve been unemployed. The committee were 6truck by the very large number of officers who liave served during the greater part of the present war nnd aro still second lieutenants. They consider tbnt youny officers should be promoted lieutenants after 18 months' aatisfactory service. It is furttic* recommended that wider facilities should be offered to officers of the New Armies, the Territorial Force Specinl Reserve, and Reserve of Officers to join the Regular Army, and recommend additional appointments- to the Regular Army in excess of establishments. They report that the system qf promotion from tho ranks is already at work upon the largest possible scale. Ihe Army Council liave adopted the recommendations under these and other heads, in the main, but they reserve for -further consideration appointments to the Regular Army in excess of establishments.