§ EARL GREYthen, pursuant to notice, asked the noble Lord the Under Secretary for War when the Report of the Militia Commission would be presented, and whether his noble Friend was prepared to state whether it was the intention of the Govern- 238 ment to introduce any changes into the present organization of that branch of the service before the Commission had reported.
§ VISCOUNT HARDINGEsaid, that the Commission in question was appointed on the 8th July, and met on the 16th of the same month. Its members then delegated to a sub-committee the task of drawing up confidential queries, which had been sent to every regiment, on every important branch of the inquiry. They also had before them several comprehensive plans for the reorganization of the militia of the United Kingdom, which they had duly weighed and considered. On reassembling, after a short recess, they next proceeded to take evidence; had sat in all seventeen days, and had examined twenty-one witnesses; but, although a considerable amount of evidence had been taken, the inquiry was still incomplete; and as a large number of witnesses still remained to be examined, he feared it would be difficult, if not possible, to give the noble Earl a definite answer as to the precise period when the Report would be laid upon the table of the House. If the Commissioners were now to close their doors against any further evidence, and their Report were to be drawn up with any undue haste or precipitancy, the noble Earl might say that the investigation had not been properly conducted. He might, however, assure the noble Earl that the Commissioners had spared no labour in dealing with the subject which had been submitted to them for inquiry; and in reference to the question whether the Government were prepared to propose the introduction of any change into our present militia system before the Report of the Commission was received, he should merely state that it was one to which, in his opinion, the noble Earl could hardly expect that an answer could be returned. He might add that, whatever might be the merits or the demerits of that system, the militia had, both during the Crimean war and throughout the recent mutiny in India, rendered invaluable service to the country. He should, moreover, appeal to the illustrious Duke whom he saw sitting upon the cross benches (the Duke of Cambridge) who, he felt assured, would be prepared to corroborate the statement that the militia regiments now embodied were, in many instances, fully equal to those of the line. One militia regiment, indeed—the Donegal—had made better rifle practice at Hythe than any regiment of the line, and the head of the School of Musketry there could 239 bear testimony to the great efficiency of the militia officers generally whom he had under his instruction. He had simply to say, in conclusion, so far as the Commission to which the question of the noble Earl referred was concerned, that if he had neglected to state anything with respect to its labours which ought to have been mentioned to their Lordships, the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond) who so ably presided over its deliberations, could supply the omission.
§ EARL GREYsaid, he regretted to perceive from the answer of the noble Viscount that there was so distant a prospect of any effective reform in the system of the militia. Now, he would remind their Lordships that in June last there was a discussion on this subject, and an almost universal opinion was expressed, that in many respects our militia system was exceedingly defective. His noble Friend, a noble Duke not now present (the Duke of Cleveland), who took great interest in this subject, and who commanded a militia regiment, stated most truly that the first subject of inquiry ought to be with what objects and intentions the militia was to be kept up. This suggestion, however, seemed not to have been attended to, which accounted for many of the inconsistencies now existing. This was not the time to go fully into the defects of the present arrangements; but after what has fallen from the noble Viscount, he might be permitted very shortly to remind their Lordships of some of their faults in the system which appeared hardly to have been denied. In the first place, the noble Viscount alleged that the embodied militia had performed very good service, and that some of the embodied regiments had been brought into a condition of very great efficiency. No doubt that was so; but when a militia regiment had been embodied for a certain time, there was no reason why it should not be nearly as efficient as a regiment of the line. It was composed of the same materials, it cost fully as much money, and he (Earl Grey) knew of no reason why it should not be almost as efficient as a line regiment. But still that it should be altogether as efficient could hardly be, for the officers did not and could not, in general, have received the same complete instruction in their profession as officers of the line; and besides this, the most enterprising officers and men—all those who were most fitted for and had the greatest love for the pro- 240 fession of arms—were constantly seeking to enter the line. It was therefore impossible that an embodied militia regiment should be as efficient as the line, and it was infinitely less available. A militia regiment could not be employed in many of those services in which the line were brought into requisition; and, therefore, while it cost during the time it was embodied quite as much money as a line regiment of equal strength, the country did not derive the same advantage from expense incurred upon it. Moreover, it was an injustice to the regular army if, of the sum to be expended on the military service of the country a large portion was to be devoted to regiments that were never to be sent abroad, because in consequence the regiments of the line must have less of home service than was their due. It was unjust, also, to the militia regiments that they should be kept embodied so long, since this rendered it impossible for the officers and men to engage in any other vocation or profession, while at the same time they did not enjoy those legitimate advantages which men who devoted themselves to the profession of arms had a right to expect. Such were the objections to the system as regarded the militia regiments which were kept permanently embodied; and, on the other hand, it was notorious that the disembodied militia force was not so efficient as it ought to be. Officers commanding regiments complained that the time allowed for training was not sufficient. Further, their Lordships knew that the expectation of regiments being permanently embodied drove out of the militia a great many country gentlemen, and persons who had other avocations, which prevented them from serving permanently; and it was also notorious to everybody that the system afforded the utmost facilities to men who entered regiments, received the bounty, and were not forthcoming when required. He believed he was not exaggerating when he said that there were hundreds and thousands of cases in which men enrolled themselves in two, three, or even a dozen regiments. These men received the bounty, and while nominally, therefore, you had a large force upon paper it would not appear when its services were called for. This was especially the case in counties where the rate of wages was high. In his own county there was a regiment of militia which was called out after having been disembodied 241 since the war, and which showed a very large deficiency indeed in the number of men who ought to have appeared for training. If, therefore, we look to our disembodied militia as forming an effective reserve in case of a sudden emergency we were trusting to a broken reed. He had no doubt that if war broke out, and if the services of the militia were required, we should have in three months a very efficient force. But this was not what was wanted. What we required was a reserve available at a moment's notice to meet a pressing danger. if a war should unfortunately break out our real season of danger would be the first fortnight, and during that fortnight, under existing arrangements, the militia would not prove a reserve to which we could look with confidence. We were, therefore, keeping up as a reserve a force which did not answer the purpose for which it was intended; and then consider what it cost us. It appeared from the Estimates laid before Parliament that for the current year the embodied and disembodied militia was expected to cost £660,000, independently of provisions and of some other items for the embodied militia, which were mixed up with the expenditure upon the regular army. He contended that this was too large a sum to spend without deriving any adequate advantage in return. The expenditure, too, was continuing daily; and he thought, therefore, that Parliament and the country might fairly have expected that after the discussion of last year the Government, upon the reassembling of Parliament in the present Session, would have been prepared to announce measures by which either the expense of maintaining the militia would be very largely reduced, or this force would be made efficient in proportion to the burden which it entailed on the country. Neither of these courses appeared to have been pursued; and after the noble Viscount's speech it was perfectly clear that the prospect of any change for the better was indefinitely remote. Meanwhile, not only did the expenditure continue, but it appeared from a statement recently made by the Secretary of State for War that that expenditure was likely to be increased, because it was stated by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (General Peel) that some of the regiments now embodied were to be disembodied, and others embodied in their place. Now, that change could not be carried into ef- 242 fect without considerable expense, not only to the country but to the officers—an expense which nobody would grudge if the system were to be placed on a proper footing, and if really efficient regiments were the result, but which he could not help considering highly objectionable while the militia remained in its present state. He thought there was some reason to complain of the delay which had taken place in dealing with this subject, and that delay seemed to him the natural and necessary consequence of the manner in which the question had been treated. Commissions of inquiry were, he would admit, very efficient instruments fur assisting the Government to effect reforms of various kinds in the laws and the administration of the country. These Commissions properly constituted, and where their assistance might legitimately be invoked, had been the means of effecting important reforms which otherwise would have been impracticable. But Commissions required to be used with judgment, and it did appear to him that in the present instance the object of a Commission and the proper mode of using it had been to a great extent lest sight of. It might have been of advantage to the Government to have obtained the report of a Commission on the subject of the militia. If two or three gentlemen of experience who could have devoted their whole time to the work, had been appointed last summer to collect information, the necessary materials for forming a judgment as to what ought to be done might very soon have been obtained. But that was not the course pursued. A numerous Commission had been appointed, consisting of members of this and the other House of Parliament, colonels of militia regiments, gentlemen who had other avocations, and whom it was difficult, to bring together: and who found it still more difficult to agree upon any definite recommendation, when they did get together. Now, he did not see how any one could possibly expect that a Commission so constituted, could lead to any satisfactory result; and he must say that this did not appear to be the only instance in which Commissions of this cumbrous sort had been improperly made use of. For the last year or two it seemed to be becoming the practice to depute everything to Commissions. We had a Commission upon the construction of the Indian army, another upon the manning of the navy, another on barracks, a fourth upon the medical service of the army, 243 another upon the commissariat, another upon education, and he did not know how many more Commissions were at this moment prosecuting their inquiries. These were important inquiries, and no doubt some of them might with great advantage be entrusted to Commissioners, but he must say, that for others the Government itself was the proper Commission. What was the Government? It was a standing Commission for looking into these matters of administration, and the course now pursued was neither more nor less than putting the Government into commission, and producing the appearance of great activity and energy in promoting reforms, while in point of fact. everything was postponed and deferred till a later period. For one, he felt extremely dissatisfied with the statement made by the noble Viscount opposite, and he remained convinced that there was nothing in the composition of the militia which could have made it at all difficult for the Government, with the assistance they might have commanded, to have looked into this subject long before the present time. Their Lordships had a right to expect that, when Parliament re-assembled, the Government would have been prepared to state to the House their views on the subject, and to propose such measures as they might have deemed necessary.
§ THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, that he was always ready to listen with great respect to anything the noble Earl stated on a subject to which he had devoted great attention, but he had not expected from the noble Earl's notice merely to ask a Question, that the noble Earl would have entered into a discussion as to the reasons for referring matters to standing Commissions generally, and as to the whole constitution of the militia, or that the noble Earl would, on the present occasion, repeat arguments the natural conclusion from which was, that the noble Earl wished to get rid of the militia altogether, and have no force of that kind. Now, whatever objections there might be to the reference of matters of every description to Commissions of inquiry, the noble Earl could hardly object to the course pursued in the present instance, because, if he recollected rightly, in the course of last Session, when this question was under discussion, the noble Earl himself expressed in their Lordships' House great gratification that this particular subject was about to be referred to an inquiry by Commission, and only regretted that the inquiry was not 244 to have a wider and more extensive range than was proposed by the Government. Again, the noble Earl said—and he valued the admission—that inquiries by Commission were the most valuable means of obtaining useful information for the guidance of future legislation. He must say, that that general principle was strangely at variance with the general complaint now made by the noble Earl against the appointment of Commissions; and the declaration made last year by the noble Earl was equally at variance with his present condemnation of the appointment of a Commission in this particular case. He was not now about to enter into a discussion respecting the merits or demerits of the militia; but he would venture to say, that in the hour of difficulty and danger which this country had passed through, the militia had been found to be a most powerful auxiliary to the army and to the defence of the country. If the noble Earl was right in his argument, this country ought at all times to have a force ready at a moment's notice, even when there was no probability of war, for the defence of the country; it was quite clear that in that case the militia system must be abandoned; and there must be, whether it was wanted or not, a large increase of the regular army, sufficient to meet a sudden and unexpected emergency. Their Lordships need not be told that at present a very unusual proportion of the army was engaged in India. He was speaking in the presence of the illustrious Duke (the Commander-in-Chief), when he stated that there were at this moment seventy-three or seventy-five battalions of European infantry in India, and altogether the Europeans acting in arms in India amounted to between 90,000 and 100,000 men. If, therefore, the principle were sound that it was necessary to maintain a sufficient army at home to meet any sudden demand that might be made by what he considered the most improbable of all contingencies, an unexpected invasion of the country, and at the same time to provide the requisite reliefs, Parliament must be prepared to abandon the militia and enormously to increase the regular army. The present discussion had come on quite unexpectedly, and he might quite irregularly, as there was no question before the House, and no one could have expected from the noble Earl's notice that it would have arisen; but he must say, in reference to the complaints made by the noble Earl to the effect that 245 there were to be no improvements, and no measure brought forward by the Government, that that was a most gratuitous assumption. The Militia Commission was only appointed at the latter end of last Session. If a Commission had been appointed, as the noble Earl had suggested, composed of two or three individuals, and if they had proceeded, in the absence of any evidence, to express their own opinions, and offer their own recommendations, such a course would have been liable to more just reproaches than those levelled by the noble Earl against the course pursued. What was the course taken by the Government? They did not desire to do away with the militia. If they had, a Commission of this kind would not have been the proper mode of proceeding. But what the Government desired to obtain was information from practical men, as to the practical defects of the present system, the means of improving the militia, and a practical way of making the staff of the disembodied militia more available than it was at present. The Government also wanted an inquiry relative to the frequency of desertions from the militia, and the frequency of re-enlistments; and there was not one of the subjects referred to by the noble Earl which had not been referred to the Commission for their inquiry and report thereon. That Commission was composed, not of some three or four persons, wholly unconnected and unacquainted with the subject, as, perhaps, the noble Earl would have recommended, but comprised officers of high standing and distinction of the regular forces, and all the most experienced colonels of militia regiments, whose knowledge of the system would enable them to give the most valable assistance and advice. That was the course which the Government thought fit to take, and for which, until the present moment, he flattered himself that the Government had the sanction of the noble Earl's high authority. The Commission had inquired into all those points on which the noble Earl thought the system at present deficient, and he did not think that the noble Earl was justified in assuming that the Commission would take a long time to make its report. Their Lordships would, indeed, have a right to complain if the Governments, after appointing a Commission, and when its report was expected in six week or two months' time, had brought forward measures of their own devising, without waiting for the result of 246 the deliberations of the Commission which had been appointed—whether rightly or wrongly—for the special purpose of inquiring into this subject. He trusted, then, that their Lordships would not think that either in the appointment or instructions, or composition of the Commission, the Government had been guilty of any dereliction of duty; but they would have been guilty of very great dereliction of duty if they had proceeded to do as the noble Earl had suggested, and had proceeded to legislate without more perfect information than they possessed last year, and at a moment when they had the near prospect of receiving information of the amplest sort as the result of the inquiries which had been carried on by the Commission.
§ EARL GRANVILLEsaid, he did not perceive the inconsistency alleged by the noble Earl opposite in the argument of the noble Earl near him (Earl Grey) whose opinion as to the inefficiency of the militia as a military force was a matter well known to the House. The noble Earl stated that in the discussion last year, Members on both sides of the House, including the Government, admitted to a great extent the evils in the militia, and also that a Commission properly constituted would be a valuable organ for collecting facts before the matter should be dealt with, and what he complained of was, that the Commission had not been properly constituted with a view to arriving early at a result; and after the statement of the noble Viscount it was clear that though the Commission had been appointed nine months there was still an enormous mass of business remaining in their hands. Objection had been taken to so many questions of this kind being referred to Commissions, and he thought it would be found that the appointments of Commissions for these questions by the present Government were enormous. There were six or seven in the War and Navy Offices. With respect to the Colonial Office the only difficult point at present had reference to the Ionian Islands, and in a manner hardly legal, and if legal, yet in an extraordinary way, a Commissioner had been appointed inrespect to that matter, who had extensive powers from the Government; so much so that the noble Earl at the head of the Government, when applied to for information on the subject, said he should leave the matter entirely in the hands of the gentleman who had been appointed Commissioner, who, when he came back, 247 would explain all the steps he had taken. It was the sincere desire of the country to transfer the Government of India to the Crown, but as had been already mentioned, the question of the future organization of the Indian army had likewise been referred to a Commission. He believed that a subject connected with the Home Office, which the late Government thought might be satisfactorily disposed of by the Secretary and Under-Secretary, had been referred to a Commission, and that upon the shoulders of the same Commission had been thrown nearly half the business of the Home Department. He confessed, however, that he did not find so much fault with this practice of referring subjects to Commissions as his noble Friend, because his confidence in the present Government was not such as to lead him to believe that they did not require all the extraneous assistance they could possibly obtain. He believed the country would derive considerable advantage from the fact recently stated by a friend of his, that, in matters of public business, there were few Members of Parliament who had not a greater responsibility than Her Majesty's Government.
§ The DUKE OF RICHMONDsaid, that as Chairman of the Commission he wished to state that the assembling of a large number of the embodied regiments of militia in the autumn had made it utterly useless for the Commissioners to sit hour after hour in Great George Street during a great portion of the recess. Latterly, however, they had sat from day to day, and not minding hard work himself he should be happy to continue sitting day by day. But he now rose for the purpose of suggesting to his noble Friend (Earl Grey) that he should permit him (the Duke of Richmond) to summons him as a witness before the Commission, and to call upon him not to deprive the Commissioners of the great benefit of his knowledge and experience on this subject. Let his noble Friend come forward and give his evidence, and he promised him that he should not be detained at the utmost above one or two days.
§ EARL GREYsaid, the noble Duke had taken a somewhat unusual course in summoning him across the table to give evidence before the Commission. He should be happy, however, to give them any information in his power at any moment they might require. He would not prolong the discussion further than to re- 248 mind their Lordships that the discussion on the militia last year arose on a precisely similar notice to the present, and that that notice was given by the noble Duke who had just addressed the House.
§ House adjourned at a quarter-past Six o'clock, to Monday next Eleven o'clock.