John Herbert Hussey, gent., to be cor., by purchase, vice Dalton; Oct. 22. Lieut. James Cunningham Douglas to be adjt., vice Lieut. P. E. Poppe, promoted; Oct. 22. 8th Hussars - Lieut. Roderick Mackenzie to be capt., by purchase, vice Richard W. Palliser, who retires; Oct. 22. Cor. Edward Henry Green to be lieut., by purchase, vice Mackenzie; Oct. 22. Royal Artillery-Lieut.-Col. and Brev.-Col. Andrew Pellett Scrimshire Green to be col., vice E. Wodehouse, C.B., deceased; Oct. 7. Capt. and Brev.-Maj Charles Maitland Govan to be lieut.-col., vice Brev.-Col. Green; Oct. 7. Sec. Capt. Brymer Francis Schreiber to be capt., vice Brev.-Maj. Govan; Oct. 7. Sec. Capt. Leonard Griffiths, from the Supernumerary List, to be sec. capt., vice Schreiber; Oct. J. Coast Brigade - Lieut. Hugh Marshall to be capt., vice J. Rogan, placed upon half pay; Oct. 22. Master Gunner George Groves to be lieut., vice Marshall; Oct. 22. Royal Engineers - Lieut.-Col. and Brev.-Col. James George Fife (late Bombay) to be col., vice C. Scott, who retires upon full pay; Oct. 17. Capt. Alexander Urquhart Hamilton Finch (late Bombay) to be lieut.-col., vice Brev.-Col. Fife; Oct. 17. Sec. Capt. Walter Manson (late Bombay) to be capt., vice Finch; Oct. 17. Lieut. George Wingate Oldham (late Bombay), on the Seconded List, to be sec. capt.; Oct. 17. Lieut. Henry Doveton (late Bombay) to be sec. capt., vice Manson; Oct. 17. The temporary commissions as lieut. of the undermentioned Officers to be made permanent from July 15, 1868, viz.:-John Collings MacGregor, Henry Pigot Nicholls Nicholls, Mark Henry George Goldie, Adam Bogle, Arthur Thomas Preston, Courtenay Clarke Rawson, Arthur Robert Ford Dorward, George Hastings Turner, Charles Fearon Fuller, John Rouse Merriott Chard, Robert Maxwell Hyslop. The surname of the gent. cadet appointed lieut. with 3rd Foot-Lieut. Edward Charlton Dickson to be capt., by purchase, vice Theophilus Jones, who retires; Oct. 22. ̄ Ens. Henry FitzGerald Stevens to be lieut., by purchase, vice Dickson; Oct. 22. 4th Foot-Capt. James Henry Linton, from half pay, late 44th Foot, to be capt., vice Brev.-Maj. Augustus Nicholas Wilson, who retires upon temporary half pay; Oct. 22. Lieut. Herbert Charles Borrett to be capt., by purchase, vice J. H. Linton, who retires; Oct. 22. Ens. Henry Boyd Sutherland to be lieut., by purchase, vice Borrett; Oct. 22. Lieut. Edward John Lugard to be adjt., vice Borrett; Oct. 22. 28th Foot Captain Charles Frederick Hutton to be maj., without purchase, vice C. R. B. Calcott, promoted half-pay lieut.-col.; Oct. 22. 30th Foot-Lieut. James Thom to be capt., by purchase, vice Pelham Thursby Pelham, who retires; Oct. 22. Ens. Charles B. Charlewood to be lieut., by purchase, vice Thom; Oct. 22. Gent.Cadet Archibald John Arnott Wright, from Royal Military College, to be ens., by purchase, vice Charlewood; Oct. 22. 37th Foot-Ens. James Beverley Lynch to be lieut., by purchase, vice Josiah Philip Crampton Neville, a Probationer for the Indian Staff Corps; Oct. 22. 42nd Foot Ens. Alexander Grant to be lieut., by purchase, vice Arthur Wellesley Warrand, who retires; Oct. 22. Gent.-Cadet William Henry Hallowell Carew Moubray, from the Royal Military College, to be ens. by purchase, vice Grant; Oct. 22. 46th Foot-Ens. Thomas Warde Allatt to be lieut., by purchase, vice George Nunn Thomas, who retires; Oct. 22. 49th Foot-Ens. Mosley Mayne has been permitted to receive the value of his commission on transfer to the Indian Staff Corps; Oct. 22. 54th Foot-Capt. John Evans F. Aylmer, from half pay, late 8th Foot, to be capt., vice Michael O'Brien, who retires upon_temporary half pay; Oct. 22. Lieut. Charles Frederick Colville to be capt., by purchase, vice Aylmer, who retires; Oct. 22. Ens. John Edmund Harpur Crewe to be lieut., by purchase, vice Colville; Oct. 22. 56th Foot-Ens. John Lyons has been permitted to retire from the service by the sale of his commission; Oct. 22. 65th Foot-Staff. Surg. Henry Sherlock to be surg., vice William Alexander Davidson, M.D., who exchanges; Oct. 22. 87th Foot-Arthur Collingwood Denny, gent., to be ens., by purchase, vice the Honourable Eustace Devereux, who retires; Oct. 22. 89th Foot Lieut. Montagu Fawkes to be capt., by purchase, vice Ramsay Steuart, who retires; Oct. 22. 94th Foot-Lieut. Frederick Buckley Campbell to be capt., by purchase, vice Brev.-Maj. H. F. Brooke, promoted half pay maj.; Oct. 22. Ens. Wadham Locke to be lieut., by purchase, vice Campbell; Oct. 22. 99th Foot--Lieut. Robert George Davis Tosswill to be instruc. of musk., vice Lieut. K. D. Tauner, promoted; Sept. 28. 106th Foot-Staff-Surg. James Kelly to be surg., vice William Ferguson, appointed to the Staff; Oct. 22. Control Department - Supply and Transport Sub-Department, Dep.-Commis. D. Gibbons to be commis., vice Super. of Stores R. R. Pringle, retired; Oct. 1; Assist. Com mis. Augustus Hillier to be Dep.-Commis., vice Gibbons; Oct. 1. Medical Department StaffSurg. Robert M'Nab, M.D., having completed twenty years' full-pay service, to be Staff Surg.-Maj. under the provisions of the Royal Warrant of April 1, 1867; Sept. 24. Surg. William Alexander Davidson, M.D., from the 65th Foot, to be Staff-Surg. William Ferguson, from the 106th Foot, to be staff-surg., vice James Kelly, appointed to the 106th Foot; Oct. 20. Chaplain's Department-Chap. of the Fourth Class the Rev. J. Brown Wilson to be chap. of the third class; Sept. 18. Garrisons-Lieut.-Col. and Brev. Col. George Bryan Milman, halfpay late 5th Foot, to be Major of the Tower of London, vice Lieut.Col. and Brev.-Col. Frederick Amelius Whimper, half pay Unattached, who has resigned the appointment; August 29. The above appointment to be in substitution of that published by the Lord Chamberlain in the Gazette of Sept. 14. Half-pay-Maj. Richard Henry Travess, from the 24th Foot, to be lieut.-col., without purchase; April 1. BREVET. Col. Charles Scott, retired full pay, Royal (late Bombay) Engi neers, to be maj.-gen., the rank being honorary only; Oct. 17. Honorary Assist.-Surg. Thomas Murray, M.D., Civil Surg., Ajmere, to have the honorary rank of surg.; Oct. 22. The undermentioned officers of Royal Artillery having completed the qualifying service in the rank of lieut.-cols. to be cols. in the Army, under the provisions of the Royal Warrant of Feb. 3, 1866, viz.:-Lieut.-Col. John Clements Hailes (late Bombay); Aug. 3. Lieut.-Col. Trenchard Haggard (late Bombay); Aug. 3. Lieut.Col. Robert Alexander Morss (late Bombay); Aug. 3. Lieut.-Col. Henry Augustus Smyth); Aug. 31. Lieut.-Col. Greenhill Anderson (late Bombay); Sept. 14 THE ABYSSINIAN COMMITTEE. Dec. 1876 This Committee was appointed in the spring of 1869, and the appointment was renewed in February of this year, to inquire into the causes of the great excess of cost in prosecuting the war with Abyssinia over the estimate submitted to Parliament. We have already* offered a few remarks on the portion of the evidence taken before the Committee during the Session of 1869, we will now state our views on the evidence taken during the last Session, and on the report of the Committee, which purports to be based on that evidence. It will be remembered that the Committee was nominated at the instigation of Mr. Candlish, and that it was composed of about an equal number of members from both sides of the House. It will also be remembered that on the Ministerial side were several members connected with the Mercantile community-Mr. Mundella, Mr. White, Mr. Baxter, Mr. Seely, and others-and that from the outset a strong bias was shown in favour of the commercial, as distinguished from the Government view of the matter. This feeling is more clearly displayed in the evidence contained in the immense Blue Book which has recently been issued, containing the report and the minutes of evidence. These members appear to have been under the impression that the war might have been waged on commercial rather than on military principles, and that the pounds-shillings-and-pence view of the question should have been taken instead of the powdershot-and-shell view,-in fact, that the generals, governors, and heads of departments should have set to work and carried out the campaign as systematically and economically as the principals of a house of business would have arranged for the exportation from England to the shores of the Red Sea of a few bales of Manchester goods, or a lot of hardware from Sheffield. It tells The Report itself is merely a statement of a few facts. us that the first estimate submitted to Parliament, by Mr. Disraeli, was for £2,000,000, with the possibility of the expenditure being doubled if the war was carried on until the end of April, 1868; and that the second estimate, presented by Mr. Ward Hunt, was for £5,000,000, on the supposition that the expedition would be successful, and that it left Abyssinia by the end of May. And having thus recited the facts connected with the estimates, the Committee proceed to add that the total net cost of the Expedition, so far as the exact fact had been ascertained by the Treasury up to the 1st of July of the present year, amounted to £1,921,000 spent by the Home Government; £5,578,400 spent in India; £1,300,000 spent in Abyssinia; making a total of £8,000,000, or £5,300,000 in excess of the first estimate, and £3,500,000 in excess of the second. It would further appear that the author of * See the United Service Magazine for November, 1869. U. S. MAG. No. 505, DEC., 1870. I I the first estimate does not himself acknowledge it to have been an estimate at all, for General Jameson (who if anyone) may be said to have prepared the estimates, calls it merely "an attempted approximation of the amount," while Mr. Seccombe, the Financial Secretary at the India Office, describes it as "a memorandum for the information of the Secretary of State." The most important portion of the Report is, however, contained in the last paragraph. "It was also given in evidence by Lord Napier of Magdala, the general in command of the Expedition, by General Sir William Mansfield, the Commander-in Chief in India, and indeed by every military authority whom they consulted on this point, that the nature of the work assigned to the Expedition, and the peculiar circumstances under which we made war in Abyssinia, rendered even an approximate estimate of the cost utterly impossible." Such being the case, it seems to us to have been almost absurd for so many members of the House Commons to have thus wasted their time, and to have so occupied the time of several officers of Government for so long a period; to say nothing of the expense incurred in preparing and printing nearly a thousand pages of uninteresting evidence and elaborate statements, which not more than half a dozen persons will ever read. The principal evidence taken before the Committee, is that of Lerd Napier. It occupied the whole of four days, and fills no less than sixty-nine pages of the appendix to the Report. To give even an analysis of this evidence would require more space than we are disposed to appropriate to it; but we will lay before our readers such portions of it as will enable them to form some opinion of the difficulties which beset the formation of an approximate estimate of the expenditure which would be incurred. Every single quantity, except the force intended to be employed, was an unknown quantity. The coast on which the army was to land, the particular part of the coast on which they were to disembark were unknown, and could only be determined after special enquiry and examination. The first cause of unforeseen expenditure, was the insufficient supply of water by ordinary means, and the consequent necessity of obtaining it by condensation. A second cause was, that the coast was found to be subject to an epidemic disease, which destroyed great numbers of mules and camels. Thirdly, the state of the port, of the coast, and of the climate, were such that it was impossible to incur the liability of detaining such a large force without having the means of re-transmitting them to India or to Europe. What would have been the consequences if a cyclone had dispersed the condensing vessels? The supply of water would have been cut off, and many hundreds of our people would have perished, and yet this portion of the expense of the Expedition has been described over and over again as unecessary and wasteful. The fact is, that people who pronounce opinions on this, as on many other |