There are two methods of partially solving the difficulty: one, which is now mainly in force in the British army, is a graduated scale of compulsory retirements with pensions at certain fixed ages. No doubt it tends to clear the list, and thus to make room for the juniors. But it has great drawbacks; first of all in its excessive cost, and secondly, that it does not in reality discriminate between the efficient and the inefficient. Age alone being the criterion, it often happens that promising officers who have no wish to retire, are compelled to do so--and this is not only a hardship on individuals, but injurious to the State, in depriving it of men who carry away with them into private life valuable experience gained in various parts of the world. It is, in short, a system which, if rigidly enforced, is costly in both senses, without adequate benefit to the army. In 1876 a commission under Lord Penzance investigated and reported on the subject, and it is chiefly on their recommendations that the above arrangements were adopted. There are, however, other ways of meeting the difficulty which would at all events tend to remove some of these objections. In the first place it must be remembered that the duties of the British army are far more varied and severe than is the case with the Continental powers. More than half our troops are always at foreign stations. Many officers, therefore, as they arrive at middle life, and whose health has suffered from tropical climates, find themselves compelled to retire; and a scheme of voluntary, in lieu of compulsory, pensions would meet their cases without injuring capable officers, and without inflicting individual hardships. But there is another and a more efficacious mode of meeting the difficulty; namely, by a careful reorganisation of ranks. Lord Penzance's Commission was quite alive to this alternative, and said that a reorganisation of ranks would meet the question in another way, would be less costly, and would prevent the loss of valuable officers, but that it was beyond their instructions. As I have already mentioned, the present organisation rests on the hypothesis that a fixed proportion of officers is requisite in each rank, with a vast preponderance of juniors. But is this really essential? Now it so happens that of late years considerable modifications have been made in every army in Europe except our own, tending to reduce the disparity. On the Continent the infantry regiments, for instance, are now organised in double companies under mounted officers, and the cavalry in squadrons. It is held that under the modern system of fighting such arrangements are more efficient; and they virtually lead to an increase in the upper, and a diminution in the lower, ranks, which in point of promotion is exactly the remedy wanted. Mr. Childers in 1881 introduced changes with this two-fold object in view, and the following table exemplifies the result in an infantry regiment of two battalions.