AND WAR SALARIES. 173 



Objections to the system of employing military men in 

 civilian technical capacities would miss a strong collateral 

 illustration, were omission made of the circumstance much 

 commented upon, and now pretty generally admitted, that 

 the late Bengal army was demoralised, and that the Indian 

 mutiny was precipitated, through the withdrawal of military 

 officers to perform surveying, administrative, and other civilian 

 duties. In India, under circumstances as they existed, the 

 result of this misappropriation of military talent was demoral- 

 isation of the army, referable in part to paucity of officers. 

 There need be no apprehension that the scientific military 

 branches will suffer demoralisation through the operation of 

 any similar cause; for the reason that, whilst there is redund- 

 ancy of competition, the performance of military duties can 

 always be secured by the expedient of paying double; but 

 this necessity of paying double is, as will be remembered, one 

 of the objections alleged against the system to which refer- 

 ence is made. 



Passing now to the second part of the subject, namely, 

 the installation of military men upon technical committees, it 

 will be found that the practice is chargeable with abuses, at 

 least equal to, if not greater than, such as those already 

 alleged against the practice of constituting military men the 

 chiefs of manufacturing establishments. First in order, no 

 less than in importance, in the list of technical committees 

 bearing upon matters of naval and military import, was the 

 late Ordnance Select Committee. The Ordnance Select Com- 

 mittee was one, the origin of which extends a long way back, 

 though, as will presently appear, the organisation of it under- 

 went a profound alteration a few years ago, contemporaneously 

 with the passing of Sir William Armstrong's breech-loading 

 ordnance into the British service. It may be as well, indeed, 

 to state what that modification consisted in, and why it came 

 about, now as later. 



Every member of the Ordnance Select Committee in its 



