THE ARMY IN INDIA. (From the Times, Dec. 25.)

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 318, 16 June 1849, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE ARMY IN INDIA. (From the Times, Dec. 25.)

We acknowledge tha( it has not been without considerable uneasineis that we have perused a pamphlet 11 On the Deficiency of European Officers in the Army of India," by « One of Themselves." We need certainly prefix no introduction, and we need scarcely add any comment to the following facts and figures, which we condense from the statement alluded to. The Royal 'regimenti en the li.d.an eitablishment consist of 25 corps of infa ury and five of cavalry. These thirty regiments have a complement of 1,440 officers. The regular army of the East India Cooik puny comists of 24 regiments of arti'lery, 8 resjimei.ts of engineers, 21 regiments of cavalry, and 161 regiments of infantry. These two hundred and fourteen regiments have a complement of 5,161 European officers, Stated more paticularlyftheproportioa of

48 23 I Theee figures are startling enough, but they do not tell one-half the ttle. In the first place, there are the st«rn necessities of furlough, induced by the climate and distance of India. Nenily all the colonels of regiments, 217 in number, though included in the total of 5,161 above mentioned, are, and have been for many years, absent from their corps. One of them expired since this pamphlet was published— a vttenin who had served under Clive himself, and who was a field-officer when Warren Hastings was d lating upon the woes of the Begums. Nobody can po-sihly object to such an arrangement, but it is proper to Bhuw out of what items thii singular total is compounded. But too many junior officers arc driTen to a prematuie retreat by the contingencies of the seivice, and, indeed, we have repeatrdly advocated the expediency of still fur f hcr facilitating those opportunities of furlough to which we which we now refer. In the next place, from this body of officers are supplied all the civil, military, and political functional ies of the general and regimental staff ; and, lastly, from the same source are sought the requ site Euroi can officers for no fewer than ninety irregular and local regimenti. By a calculation made from the returns of the present year it is found that there are actually on furlough 686 officers, on general staff 1,000; on regimental staff 395; so that 3,080 officers are all, upon the highest computation, who are left for the service of an army of 214 battalions, doing war duty on a field about as large as Europe ! When we come to details, the state of affairs leem still more astounding. There are only 222 officers of artillery for 12 troops and 42 companies kept con* stantly ready for immediate field seivice. For the ten regular cavalry regiments of Beng.tl there are only at this moment available 111 officers, being e'e en officers to a regiment ! and this where the whole essence of the service consists in imparting the advan. tages of Euiopean discip'ine to native troopers,! Leather gloves, sleeves stiff with silver lace, shakos, and bear-skins — all that the Indian holds in aversion, we furnish in abundance, but that guidance and control of which such things are only a symbol, we dole out with the most watchful parsimony. As foi the operation of all these practices on the effective strength if infantry regiments, two simple farts will be more illustrative than any comment. In the latter part of 1846, out of four regiments cantoned together at B'irrackpore there could only be mustered two captains preseut and available for duly; and at tl»i3 veiy moment, unler the walls of Moolmn, there is a regiment from which every single captain and the two senior subalterns also are absent on oilier calls. This requires, perhaps, a little further elucidation, as our readers may be naturally perplexed to conceive how such officers as those which are the boast of our Indian army could ever be found absent from their regiment* in time of action, whatever indulgence they might reasonably require at periods of less rxigence. But the truth v, that they are absent, not on their own affairs, but the affairs of the state. They are detached from their on'glnal duties to du'i s fur the performance of which no p ovi ion has been otherwise made. On inquiry it would veiy probably be found, that the absentees from the regiment encamped under Mooltan were either raising Patan lev ci on the Indus, or commandinij some irregular cor( s in Buunoo,«>r discharging s >rae similar duty in the very war which is supposed to be demanding and receiving their services in another capaciiy. Major Edwnides himself in a conspicuous example of the practice. While he was beating Moo r.ij on his own territory, and giving his superiors an oppoitunity of finishing the war at a blow, his place in his regiment was left to be taken by another. The case is pieciselythe same with those officers who are holding Peshawur and Attock, and keeping Chuttur Singh in check in the Hazareh. When the Sikh corps was formed after our occupation of Lahore two captaius were tequired for it. They were selected from the I lth and 33rd Regiments of Native Infantry, and their appointments left the former corps with only two Ciptdins remaining, and the latter with not one. We are very far from imagining that these arduous and ciitical duties could ever be. better discharged than by (hat class of men to whom they are entrusted at present. The Government and in officeis are alike gainers by the practice; but it mu<t be obvious thai the service, on its present fo tnir, can never support such a demand. Of the alternatives proposed— either that the complement of regimental officers, or that the civil staff, should be immediately and considerably in» creased, we incline at fiist sight to prefer the former ; for, though the general aptitude developed by good military discipline enables a soldier to make an excellent civilian, there is no such reason for anticipating that a civilian could, upon emergency, become a soldier. In one suggestion which this pamphlet revivn vre cordially concur. It is to the effect that the commissions of these officers should cease to be limited "to the East Indies only/ In its principle this scheme is known to have received the sanction of the highest military authority living, who recommended,! nearly half a century ago, that the Company's officers, after attaining a certain rank, should be eligible to serve the British Crown in any part of the world. We cannot afford to lose the advantage of such a sihool a. India. It is true that we secure them to some extent by the turns which the Royal army lakes in this peculiar service ; but what would have been the retult had the Conqueror of Assaye been a Company's officer ? , And why should the rountry be deprived of the eerof any new Sepoy General whose abilities may be developed on the plains of the Punjaub ?

iueen s Cavalry. 2 Lieutenant-Colonels 2 Majors 9 Captains 18 Lieutenants ... 8 Cornets 1 Adjutant ... 1 Quartei master 1 Paymaster .. Company's uavairy. ..1 1 .. 5 8 .. * .. 0 .. o .. o 42 19 [ucen's Infantry. 2 Lieutenant-Colonels 2 Majors 10 Captains 23 Lieut enan's .. 8 Emigns 1 Adjutant ] Quartermaster I Paymaster .. Company's Infantry, .. 1 .. 6 .. 10 .. 5 .. 0 .. 0 .. 0

officer* to a regiment of the Queen't or (he Company 1 ! serrice respectively is as follows :—