Purchase into Service

Purchase into Service, the primary system by which the manpower requirements of the Benacian Union Defence Force, the Honourable Company, the civil administration under the control of the Humanist Movement, and the Guilds of Benacia, are met. It is also, by far, the most common means by which juveniles in the Benacian Union attain status as meritorious subjects upon attaining adulthood at the age of fifteen. Those not purchased into service, whether through direct recruitment or auction, face a life lived as subjects without merit, experienced as bondsmen or worse.

History

The Guilds of Benacia actively managed the recruitment and training of future artisans through its apprenticeship programmes. Each year, the Guilds participated in municipal auctions where graduates from schools were auctioned off to prospective employers. This system ensured a steady influx of skilled labour into the economy, thereby maintaining the influence and control of the guilds over their respective industrial and commercial sectors.

The Sathrati Consolidated Company, established in 1722 AN, was limited to three hundred and sixty members, being gentlemen of good standing who undertook, by virtue of paying an agreed bond to the Society for Benevolent Investment, pledged themselves and their children to the service of the Company for a period of twenty-five years during which time they would be entitled to the payment of an annual salary, paid in Benacian sovereigns according to an agreed table of grades and ranks within the Company augmented by interest payments made by the Company based on the value of the member's initial bond purchase.

The finishing schools were, as of 1724 AN, further directed to maintain lists of promising pupils who would be suitable for direct purchase into the service of the Women's Auxiliary Service.

The 1729 Benacian Union impressment campaign, commencing from Roqpin of that year, was an effort of the High Presidium of the Benacian Union to generate deployable manpower reserves for the period 1730 AN – 1734 AN, a time of perceived greater risk for the Union-State. As an alternative to conscription, recruitment agents of the Benacian Union Defence Force, the Honourable Company, and the Humanist Vanguard of the N&H national sector parties of the Benacian Union, were directed to purchase into service the entirety of graduating cohorts of the Benacian gymnasia, exempting only the physically and mentally defective, for a mandatory period of four years service.