Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/631

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608
UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND


Regular Army, Pay and Allowances...... £8,733,000
Special Reserve............ 833,000
Territorial Force........... 2,660,000
Medical Services.......... 452,000
Educational Establishments......... 147,000
Quartering, Transport, Remounts....... 1,589,000
Supplies, Clothing........... 4,397,000
Stores and Ordnance Establishment...... 533,000
Armament and Engineer Stores....... 1,482,000
Works, Buildings and Land, &c......... 2,598,000
War Office and Miscellaneous......... 503,000
Pensions, &c............. 3,833,000
  £27,760,000

The pay of the soldiers has increased since the South African War. Without allowances of any kind, it was in 1910 as follows: Warrant officer, 5s. to 6s. per day; quartermaster-sergeants, colour-sergeants, &c., 3s. 4d. to 4s. 6d.; sergeants, 2s. 4d. to 3s. 4d.; corporals, 1s. 8d. to 2s. 8d.; lance-corporals, 1s. 3d. to 1s. 9d.; privates 1s. 1d. to 1s. 9d.; boys, 8d. In addition, all receive a messing allowance of 3d. per day, 2d. for upkeep of kit, and most receive “service” or “proficiency” pay at 3d.-6d. a day; and engineers, A.S.C. and R.A.M.C. specialist pay at various rates. Officers' pay, without allowances, is for second lieutenants 5s. 3d. to 7s. 8d.; lieutenants, 6s. 5d. to 8s. 10d.; captains, 11s. 7d. to 15s.; majors, 13s. 7d. to 18s. 6d.; and lieutenant-colonels, 18s. to 24s. 9d.

Indian Army.—The forces in India consist of the British army on the Indian establishment and the Indian native army with its dependent local militias, feudatories, contingents, &c. In addition there is a force of European and Eurasian volunteers, drawn largely from railway employés. The Indian army consists of 138 battalions of infantry, 10 regiments of cavalry, 16 mountain batteries, 1 garrison artillery company, 32 sapper and miner companies (2 railways companies included). The proportion between British and Indian troops observed since the Mutiny is roughly one British to two native, the Indian army being about 162,000 men. In addition the native army includes supply and transport corps, the medical service, and the veterinary service, officered in the higher ranks by officers of the A.S.C, R.A.M.C. and A.V.C. respectively.

The Indian army is recruited from Mahommedans and Hindus of various tribes and sects, and with some exceptions (chiefly in the Madras infantry) companies, sometimes regiments, are composed exclusively of men of one class. The official F.S. Pocket Book 1908 gives the following particulars: Mahommedans (Pathans of the frontier tribes, Hazaras Baluchis, Moplahs, Punjabi Mahommedans, &c.), 350 infantry companies, 76 squadrons· 35% of the army). Hindus (Sikhs, Gurkhas, Rajputs, Jats, Dogras, Mahrattas, Tamils, Brahmans, Bhils, Garhwalis, &c.), 727 companies, 79 squadrons (63·3%).

Enlistment is entirely voluntary, and the army enjoys the highest prestige. Service is for three years, but in practice the native soldier makes the army his career and he is allowed to extend up to 32 years. The native cavalry is almost entirely Silahdar, in which the trooper mounts and clothes himself, and practically serves without pay. In the infantry, too, the old system of paying men and requiring them to equip, clothe and feed themselves, is in vogue to some extent. There is a reserve of the native army, numbering some 35,000 men. But it is rather a draft to replace wastage than a means of bringing the army up to a war footing in the European way. Indeed, a cardinal principle of the Indian forces, British and native alike, is that the units are maintained in peace at full war effective, often a little above their field strength. Part of the army, nearest the north-west frontier, has even its transport practically in readiness to move at once. The command is in the hands of British officers assisted by native officers, promoted from the ranks. The number of native officers in a unit is equal to that of the British officers.

Besides the regular native army there are: (a) various frontier and other levies, such as the Khyber Rifles and the Waziristan Militia; (b) selected contingents from the armies of the native princes, inspected by British officers, numbering about 20,000 and styled “imperial service troops”; (c) the volunteers, about 32,000 strong; and (d) the military police.

The general organization of the forces is into two armies, the northern and the southern, with headquarters at Rawal Pindi and Poona respectively.

Administration.—Under the governor-general in council the commander-in-chief (himself a member of the council) is the executive authority. Under him in the army department, now divided into higher committees and the headquarter staff, the latter comprising (since the abolition of the military staff department under Lord Kitchener's reorganization) the divisions of the chief of the general staff, the adjutant-general and the quartermaster-general. India has her own staff college at Quetta, and can manufacture rifles, ammunition and field artillery equipment except the actual guns.

The cost of the Indian army, and of the British forces on the Indian establishment, borne by the Indian government in 1909 was £20,558,000.

Regulars only. Northern
Army.
Southern
Army.
Total.
 British.... 40,608 34,143 74,751
 Indian Army, white . 1,534 1,512 3,046
native . 85,189 76,772 161,961
  Total . 86,723 78,284 165,007
 Total .... 127,331 112,427 239,758

Forces of the Dominions and Colonies.Lord Kitchener and Sir John French in 1909–1910 paid visits of inspection to Australia and Canada in connexion with the reorganization by the local governments of their military forces, and a beginning was made of a common organization of the forces of the empire in the colonial military conference of 1909. Without infringement of local autonomy and local conditions, a common system of drill, equipment, training and staff administration was agreed on as essential, and to that end the general staff in London was to evolve into an “imperial general staff.” The object to be attained as laid down was twofold; (a) complete organization of the territorial forces of each dominion or colony; (b) evolution of contingents of colonial general-service troops with which the dominion governments might assist the army of Great Britain in wars outside the immediate borders of each dominion. (See British Empire; Australia; Canada.)

UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, or United Methodists, and English Nonconformist community formed in 1907 by the union of the Methodist New Connexion (1797), the Bible Christians (1815), and the United Methodist Free Churches (1857). The act of parliament which enabled this amalgamation received the royal assent on the 26th of July 1907, and authorized the union “to deal with real and personal property belonging to the said three churches or denominations, to provide for the vesting of the said property in trust for the United Church so formed and for the assimilation of the trusts thereof, and for other purposes.” The union was completed on the 16th of September 1907 in Wesley's Chapel, City Road, London. The Church gives power of speech and vote in its meetings to every member of 18 years of age and upwards. Its principal courts are constituted of an equal number of ministers and laymen. The Church had theological colleges at Manchester and Sheffield, boys' schools at Shebbear, in Devonshire, and at Harrogate, and a girls' school at Bideford. It issues a weekly and two monthly journals. In 1908 its statistics showed 2343 chapels with accommodation for 714,793 persons, 848 ministers and 5621 local preachers, 165,463 church members and 332,756 Sunday scholars; there were 55 foreign missionaries, and about 30,000 church members and probationers in the foreign field.

UNITED METHODIST FREE CHURCHES, an English Nonconformist community merged since 1907 in the United Methodist Church (q.v.). The organization was itself formed in 1857 by the amalgamation of the “Wesleyan Association” (which had in 1836 largely absorbed the Protestant Methodists of 1828) and the “Wesleyan Reformers” (dating frorn 1849, when a number of Wesleyan Methodist ministers were expelled on a charge of insubordination).

UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (of Scotland). This Presbyterian organization, merged since 1900 in the United Free Church of Scotland (see above), was formed in 1847 by the union of the United Secession and Relief Churches.

The general causes which led to the first great secession from the Church of Scotland, as by law established in 1688, are United Secession Church.

indicated in the article Scotland, Church of. Its immediate occasion rose out of an act of assembly of 1732, which abolished the last remnant of popular election by enacting that, in cases where patrons