ARMY AS A PROFESSION

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2734, 12 February 1910, Page 4 (Supplement)

ARMY AS A PROFESSION

IMPOSSIBLE TO LIVE ON OFFICERS’ PAY.

The maintenance of the high ideal of chivalry alone enables the Army to rank as the noblest of all professions. Deprived of it, it is debased t-o the career of a modernised mercenary. This was the contention of Major A. B. N. Churchill, of the Reserve of Officers, in a paper on “The Army as a Profession,” read at the Royal United Service Institution on Ist December, reports the “Chronicle.” The prospects of an officer’s career he divided into two parts—the monetary aspect and the military aspect. In the army at the present time the opinion was strongly held that the pay was insufficient. The standard should be that formulated by Von der Goltz in the words, “An existence free from care—yet no more than this—should lx 1 secured to officers by the State in its own interest.” At present no young officer could meet the expenses of his position on his pay. Speaking generally, he must have £]oo above his pay to live free from care, and. adding this to pay, we arrive at £2OO as the minimum cost of living in a British infantry regiment. At one time the officer, however poorly paid, had the advantage of some leisure. He no longer possesses this compensation. He now works hard, and lie now expects the State to more nearly requite him for his labor, and to abate in some measure its demand that he should pay for the high privilege of serving if, as he so long and thanklessly. had done. As for military prospects, let an officer work as hard as he could, let him qualify in every way possible, yet he never knew when his prospects would be blighted; not because he was not recognised as deserving, but because some one dropped as from the clouds and had to be provided for. A state of things existed which dissuaded the educated youth of the country from entering the Army, and disappointed the reasonable expectations of those who had embraced the noblest of an professions.