to a higher grade only after they have passed a
satisfactory examination. No political influence, nor even royal
partiality, can interfere with this rule.

Even in the arbitrary monarchies of Austria and Russia it is deemed
necessary to subject all military appointments and promotions, in the
peace establishments, to certain fixed rules. In the Austrian army all
sub-lieutenants must be taken from the military schools, or the
specially-instructed corps of cadets and imperial guards; from this
grade to that of captain all promotions are made by the commandants of
regiments and corps on the advice of the other superior officers. Above
the grade of captain all nominations for promotion are made to the
emperor by the Aulic Council, in the order of seniority of rank, except
the claims of superior merit interfere. "In the Russian army," says
Haillot, "no one, not even a prince of the imperial family, can reach
the grade of officer till he has satisfactorily passed his several
examinations, or finished the severe novitiate to which the cadets in
the corps are subjected." Promotion below the grade of colonel is made
partly by seniority, and partly by merit; above that grade, by selection
alone.

In the British service, rank in the line of the army is obtained by
purchase, and the higher grades are in this way filled with young men of
energy and enterprise; but this efficiency is gained by injustice to the
poor man, who is without the means of purchasing rank. In some respects
it is preferable to our ruinous system of exclusive seniority and
executive favoritism, but far more objectionable than that based on
merit. Wellington has recently said that the system of exclusive
seniority would soon utterly destroy the efficiency of the army, by
preventing young men from reaching the higher grades. "At first," says
an officer of some distinction in the British navy, in speaking of
promotions in that arm of service, "it certainly looks very hard to see
old stagers grumbling away their existence in disappointed hopes; yet
there can be little doubt that the navy, and, of course, the country at
large, are essentially better served by the present system of employing
active, young, and cheerful-minded officers, than they ever could be by
any imaginable system by seniority. It must not be forgotten, indeed,
that at a certain stage of the profession, the arrangement by which
officers are promoted in turn is already made the rule, and has long