Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 370, August 1846

It is singular that whilst such remarkable ingenuity has been exhibited in devising punishments for the soldier, so very little should have been displayed in the invention of rewards. Of these latter, the most legitimate and desirable are pensions and promotion. We would add a third – a military order of merit to be bestowed upon men distinguishing themselves by acts of gallantry, or by steady good conduct. Decorations of this kind – we are convinced of it by our observations on various foreign services – act as a strong incentive to the soldier. There exists in this country a prejudice against their adoption, principally because we are accustomed to see such rewards heaped without discrimination, and with a profusion that renders them worthless, upon the soldiers of foreign nations. There seems a natural tendency to the abuse of such institutions, and Napoleon might well shudder were he to rise from his grave and see his "Star of the Brave" dangling from the buttonhole of half the pamphleteers and national guardsmen of the French capital. In other countries the lavish profusion with which stars, crosses, riband-ends, and rosettes are bestowed, is enough to raise a suspicion of collusion between the royal donors and the jewellers and haberdashers of their dominions. But even when largely distributed, we believe them to act as a spur to the soldier. If there is a fear of England's becoming what we find so ridiculous in others, a country where the non-decorated amongst military men are the exception, let great caution be used in the bestowal of such honours. We now refer to an order of merit for the soldiers only. With officers we have at present nothing to do; although we shall be found upon occasion equally ready and willing to support their just claims. But they can plead their own cause, if not effectually, at least perseveringly, as the recent numerous letters in newspapers, and articles in military periodicals, claiming a decoration for Peninsular services, sufficiently prove. Such a decoration was certainly nobly deserved, but, if conceded at all, it should be given quickly, or its existence, it is to be feared, will be very brief. Our present business, however, is with the soldier – the humble private, the deserving non-commissioned officer.

It is not unnatural that when tardy reflection comes to the thoughtless lad who has sold himself to unlimited military bondage, he should be anxious to know what provision is made for him when age or disease shall cause his services to be dispensed with. Inquiry or reference informs him, that should he be discharged after fourteen and under twenty-one years service, so far disabled as to be unable to work – this is a condition – he may be awarded the magnificent sum of from sixpence to eightpence a-day! Discharged under twenty-one years' service, as disabled for the army only, he may get a temporary pension of sixpence a-day for a period varying from one month to five years. Discharged by indulgence after twenty-five years, he may receive sixpence a-day. We have already remarked on the little heed taken by civilians in this country of the treatment and ordinances of the army. These statements will probably be new to most of our non-military readers, many of whom, we doubt not, entertain an absurd notion, that when a man has served his country well and faithfully during twenty-five years, or is dismissed, as unable to work, after fourteen years' servitude, he invariably finds a snug berth ready for him at Chelsea, or at least has a pension awarded to him tolerably adequate to supply him with the bare necessaries of life, and to keep him from begging or crossing-sweeping. As to the savings of soldiers out of their pay, facilitated though they now are by the establishment of savings' banks in the army, they can be but exceedingly small. A soldier's pay varies from thirteen to fifteen pence, according to the time he has served. Deduct from this the cost of his clothing, only a portion of which is supplied to him free of charge, and sixpence a-day for his rations of bread and meat, and what remains will frequently not exceed threepence a-day for tobacco, vegetables, coffee, and other small necessaries. The great difference between the pay, rations, and pensions of soldiers and sailors, is not generally known. Besides receiving rations far more abundant and varied, an able seaman gets thirty-four shillings per month of twenty-eight days, more than double the pay of a soldier under seven years' service. Seamen have a claim of right to be discharged after twenty-one years' service with a pension of one shilling to fourteen pence a-day. And, besides this, it must be remembered that a sailor may enlist for a short time, and at its expiration, or at any time that he is discharged, employment is open to him in the merchant service. But what is the soldier to do when dismissed from the army at forty years of age or upwards? "A very small number of men," says Mr Marshall, "are fit after forty years of age for the arduous duties of the service." Surely it may be claimed for our brave fellows that a more liberal system of pensioning be adopted. We do not lose sight of the necessity of economy in these days of heavy taxation; and before deciding on a plan, the matter should be well sifted and considered. But we have already expressed our conviction that limited service would of itself in various ways produce a pecuniary saving to the government. Adequate pensions would have other beneficial results. Mr Marshall throws out suggestions for a new scale of pensions, and declares his opinion, that no man who has served twenty-one years should receive a smaller allowance than a shilling a-day.

"The more striking," he proceeds to say, "the honourable example of an old soldier enjoying his pension, the more likely is it to contribute to spread a military feeling in the neighbourhood. But to repay the retired soldier by a pension inadequate to his sustenance, must have the effect of consigning him to the workhouse, and of sinking him and the army in the estimation of the working class of the population; destroying all military feeling, and, whilst the soldier is serving, weakening those important aids to discipline – the cheerfulness and satisfaction which the prospect of a pension, after a definite period, inspires."

We now come to a branch of our subject encompassed with peculiar difficulties, and that will be met with many objections; the present system of disposing of commissions in the army is too convenient and agreeable to a large and influential class of the community for it to be otherwise. The most important part of the proposed scheme of rewards is the bestowing of commissions upon sergeants. We are aware that, in the present constitution of the army, much may be urged against such a plan being carried out beyond an exceedingly limited extent. But most of the objections would, we think, be removed by the adoption and consequences of limited service, and by the extinction of corporal punishment. Others would disappear before a greater attention to the education of the soldier, and before some slight reductions in what are now erroneously considered the necessary expenses of officers.

Constituted and regulated as the British army now is, the immediate consequences of enlistment to the young peasant or artisan of previous respectability is a total breach with his family. However good his previous character, the single fact of his entering what ought to be an honourable profession, excludes him from the society and good opinion of his nearest friends. Former associates shun and look coldly upon him, his female relatives are ashamed to be seen walking with him, often the door of his father's cottage or workshop is shut on his approach. The community in general, there is no dissembling the fact, look upon soldiers as a degraded class, and upon the recruit as a man consigned to evil company, to idleness and the alehouse, and perhaps to the ignominy of the lash. To brand an innocent man as criminal is the way to render him so. Avoided and despised, the young soldier, to whom bad example is not wanting, speedily comes to deserve the disreputable character which the mere assumption of a red coat has caused to be fixed upon him. So long as military service stands thus low in the opinion of the people, the army will have to recruit its ranks from the profligate and the utterly destitute, and the supply of respectable volunteers will be as limited as heretofore. At present, most young men of a better class whom a temporary impulse, or a predilection for the service, has induced to enlist, strain every nerve, when they awake to their real position, to raise funds for their discharge. In this their friends often aid them; and we have known instances of incredible sacrifices being made by the poor to snatch a son or brother from what they looked upon as the jaws of destruction. And thus is it that a large proportion of the respectable recruits are bought out after a brief period of service.