382 



COMMISSARIAT 



COMMISSION 



Prayer-book omits this office, but several prayers 

 taken from it are appointed to be said on Ash- 

 Wednesday, at the end of the litany. 



Commissariat is a name for the organised 

 system whereby armies are provided with food, 

 forage, fuel, quarters, and all other necessaries 

 except warlike stores. In feudal times, soldiers 

 were mainly dependent for food on their lords ; 

 but they lived very much by plunder. During, the 

 wars of the Crusades, the commissariat was so 

 utterly neglected that thousands died of starvation. 



The first germ of the modern British commissariat 

 appeared in the office of proviant-master in the time 

 or Queen Elizabeth. Under Charles L, commis- 

 saries were stationed in the different counties. 

 Marlborough's troops were supplied by contract ; 

 he received a percentage, and peculation was very 

 common. After many changes during the 18th 

 century, a commissary-general was appointed in 

 1793 to superintend all contracts for food and forage. 

 The dire experience of the Crimean war showed 

 how inadequate the small existing establishment 

 was to bear the strain of a campaign. In 1858 and 

 1859 the commissariat was newly organised ; and 

 remained, until 1870, a War-office department, 

 under a commissary-general-in-chief. 



In 1870 it was merged with other supply depart- 

 ments in the great ' Control Department,' which, 

 under the Surveyor-general of the Ordnance, per- 

 formed all the civil administrative duties of the 

 army, until its abolition in 1875. The ' Commissariat 

 and Transport Department ' was then formed, and 

 administered by the Director of Supplies, an officer 

 on the staff of the Surveyor-general at the War 

 Office, the supply of warlike stores being placed 

 under the Ordnance Store Department (q.v. ). The 

 reorganisation of the War Office in February 1888, 

 while leaving the duties of these two departments 

 unaltered, has placed them under the Quartermaster- 

 general. In India this has always been the case 

 so far as the commissariat is concerned, which is 

 officered by appointments from the combatant 

 branch. The present British staff consists of 2 com- 

 missaries-general ranking as major-general, 10 

 deputy-commissaries-general with honorary rank 

 of colonel, 62 assistant and 111 deputy-assistant 

 commissaries-general with honorary ranK of major 

 and captain respectively, 40 quartermasters ( hono- 

 rary lieutenants), 3 adjutants, 1 paymaster, and 

 2 riding-masters. Their pay varies from 9s. 6d. 

 a day in the lowest ranks to 1500 a year in the 

 highest. There are 37 companies, having each a 

 peace establishment of 2 officers, 123 of other ranks, 

 63 horses, and 12 wagons. 



The war establishment Laid down in 1888 for 

 a commissariat and transport company with an 

 infantry brigade is 5 officers, 192 non-commissioned 

 officers and men, and 234 horses, and if with the 

 headquarters of a division of infantry, 7 officers, 

 157 of other ranks, and 184 horses. The establish- 

 ment for an Army Corps (q.v.) in the field, with 

 three days' rations for the men, and two days' 

 forage for the horses, is 60 officers, 2494 non-com- 

 missioned officers and men, 2796 horses, and 438 

 carriages. The wagons of the Army Medical and 

 Ordnance Store Departments are horsed by the 

 Transport Department. Camp equipment, fuel, 

 forage, food, &c. are supplied by the commissariat, 

 the actual cooking being done by the regimental 

 cooks. Clothing is supplied by the government 

 factoiy at Pimlico, and, like all other stores, 

 brought to the army, if in the field, by the trans- 

 port branch of this very important department. 



The Indian commissariat is, as indicated above, 

 a local department, varying in strength with the 

 requirements of the moment. There is also a 

 small local staff of 1 commissary, 3 deputies, and 

 1 assistant on the west coast of Africa. 



In the United States the army commissariat is. 

 administered by a commissary-general of sub- 

 sistence, having the rank of brigadier-general ; five- 

 assistant commissary-generals, ranking as colonels 

 and lieutenant-colonels ; eight commissioners of 

 subsistence, ranking as majors, and twelve as 

 captains. Their salaries are from $5500 to $2000. 



Commissary, in general, is any one to whom 

 the power and authority of another is committed. 

 An ecclesiastical commissary is an officer of the 

 bishop, who exercises spiritual jurisdiction in dis- 

 tant parts of the diocese. A military commissary 

 is an officer charged with furnishing provisions and 

 clothes to an army. 



When the papal authority was abolished in Scot- 

 land, a supreme commissary court was established 

 in Edinburgh in 1563, by a grant of Queen Mary. 

 This court had jurisdiction in actions of divorce, 

 declarators of marriage, nullity of marriage, andi 

 all actions which originally belonged to the bishops' 

 ecclesiastical courts. Its powers were gradually- 

 conjoined with those of the Court of Session, and 

 it was finally abolished in 1836, the small remains, 

 of its once important jurisdiction being united in 

 the sheriff of Edinburgh. See Alexander on 

 Practice of the Commissary Courts in Scotland' 

 (1858), and Fraser on Husband and Wife. 



Commission* As a commercial term, com- 

 mission is sometimes taken to be synonymous with 

 Brokerage, but there is a distinction. Brokerage? 

 is the percentage paid to a passive intermediary in 

 a transaction, who incurs no responsibility; com- 

 mission is the percentage paid to an active agent in a, 

 transaction, wno usually does incur some pecuniary 

 and always some moral responsibility. 



A commission as a certificate of rank is granted 

 by the highest authority of a state. All military 

 and naval commissions in Britain must be signed 

 by the sovereign : but in the United States a. 

 commission may be issued by a governor of a state 

 as well as by the president of the republic, com- 

 missions in tlie volunteers ( or militia ) being gener- 

 ally granted by state governors. The appoint- 

 ment of justices of the peace in the United King- 

 dom is also made by a ' commission of the^ 

 peace,' issued under the great seal. The great 

 seal itself is in charge of a Lord -keeper, but is put 

 ' into commission ' when a change of ministers is 

 taking place. This means that certain persons are- 

 appointed to exercise jointly, but without individual 

 powers, the functions of the office. Another in- 

 stance of the functions of a great public officer 

 being delegated to others ' in commission ' is that of 

 the Lord High Admiral, who formerly had control 

 of all naval affairs. This, however, is a permanent 

 commission, although commissioners of Lords of the 

 Admiralty change with every change of the ministry. 



An office in commission is an office in suspense. 

 Yet, curiously enough, the phrase has a directly 

 opposite meaning in naval affairs, for when a ship 

 is ordered to be placed 'in commission,' it means 

 that she shall be fully equipped and prepared for 

 active service. 



Permanent commissions are also constituted, not 

 merely for the delegation of existing duties, but 

 also for the execution of duties with which no per- 

 son had been previously charged. As instances we 

 may take the Civil Service Commission in 1855 

 (see CIVIL SERVICE); the Railway Commission, 

 appointed in 1873 to carry out the act for the 

 better regulation of railways passed in 1854, and 

 to otherwise act as a sort of court of arbitration 

 or appeal in disputes between railway companies j 

 the Irish Land Commission, appointed to carry out 

 some of the provisions regulating the land laws in 

 Ireland ; the Crofters Commission, appointed for 

 five years from 1886 to fix fair rents for the Scotch. 



