COMMENDED ESSAY, 1899. 
431 
answer is, that it would at least be as well off as it is now, and war 
is not declared at a moment’s notice. 
Epitome of Before summing up it will be well to epitomise the 
Advantages. advantages of the proposed new scheme : — 
Every officer would have six months’ solid instruction put into him 
before he joins. 
No young officers would be sent abroad to lose their health and 
pick up bad habits. 
Every officer would be encouraged to make himself a specialist in 
his own subject. 
Extra pay would be put in the reach of every subaltern. 
^he unrecognized specialists of to-day, would be recognized and 
encouraged. 
The specialist of to-day would be made into a more useful and 
efficient officer. 
A company abroad would be made a thing to be sought after rather 
than avoided. 
There would be no paper officers and consequently plenty of leave 
for everybody. 
There would be systematic courses of instruction for companies. 
Specialists would be introduced for identifying ships. 
It will be noticed that all these things tend to increase the pay and 
better the position of the subaltern. It is when a man is a subaltern, 
that his character is formed, and it is during his first few years that he 
has the hardest work to keep his head above water financially, and if 
the service is made attractive to subalterns the other ranks fill up in 
time. A captain is of less importance ; his character is formed and his 
pay is higher. 
popularity of All these advantages could not fail to popularise the 
Artillery. Garrison Artillery, and in many ways this would mean 
that the efficiency would be increased; as if a service is popular, a 
good class of man is attracted to it. There are a few other matters 
which hardly come into the scope of this essay, but which it will not be 
amiss to refer to. 
All arsenal appointments, adjutants of militia and volunteers, would 
be given to captains or subalterns of not less than nine years’ service. 
The Mountain Artillery would be reserved (as indeed it is now) for 
officers of the Garrison Artillery, and their claims would be considered 
whether serving at home, in the colonies, or elsewhere. Mountain 
Battery officers would be mainly recruited from India, as the service in 
the land forts there is less attractive and less up-to-date than service 
on the sea fronts, but everyone should have a chance, and because 
a man is sent, perhaps against his will to the West Indies, he should 
not be cut off from service in a Mountain Battery, a service for which, 
perhaps he is well fitted. Again, the practice of shipping off slack or 
undesirable officers to out-of-the-way stations, must be very wrong. 
Surely such a man should be kept under the eye of authority at a big 
station, till he improves or leaves the service. 
