This system has been attacked on the ground that it breeds loss of
self-reliance and initiative. As a matter of fact, the result is
almost exactly the opposite. Under its operation a soldier rapidly
acquires the art of placing himself under the command of his nearest
superior in rank; but at the same time he learns with equal rapidity
to take command himself if no superior be present--no bad thing in
times of battle and sudden death, when shrapnel is whistling, and
promotion is taking place with grim and unceasing automaticity.
This principle is extended, too, to the enforcement of law and order.
If Private M'Sumph is insubordinate or riotous, there is never any
question of informal correction or summary justice. News of the
incident wends its way upward, by a series of properly regulated
channels, to the officer in command. Presently, by the same route, an
order comes back, and in a twinkling the offender finds himself taken
under arrest and marched off to the guard-room by two of his own
immediate associates. (One of them may be his own rear-rank man.) But
no officer or non-commissioned officer ever lays a finger on him. The
penalty for striking a superior officer is so severe that the law
decrees, very wisely, that a soldier must on no account ever be
arrested by any save men of his own rank. If Private M'Sumph, while
being removed in custody, strikes Private Tosh upon the nose and kicks
Private Cosh upon the shin, to the effusion of blood, no great harm is
done--except to the lacerated Cosh and Tosh; but if he had smitten an
intruding officer in the eye, his punishment would have been dire and
grim.
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