§ House in Committee (according to order).
§ LORD STRATHNAIRN, said, he had had the honour to ask, during the Session, their Lordships' attention to the leading failures, and the great crimes of Short Service and its adjuncts, the First-class Army Reserve, brigade depôts, competitive examination for first commissions, and fraudulent enlistments. He should be very brief on that occasion, for the cases were clear and had been much discussed. With regard to the Reserve, the universal military and civil opinion was that its fundamental principle, and sine quâ non, civil employment, was a false one. It was intended to be a great military economy, and, like the Prussian Short Service Reserve, to reinforce our Army in war. But it broke down in both objects, on account of the worthlessnees of civil employment. The unfortunate taxpayers complained that instead of 2d., which the Government promised the country should be the daily pay of a well-drilled Reserve, they had now to pay three times as much for a Reserve without any drill at all, being nearly half the pay of the Regular Army, for their protection in a national emergency. Such were the exigencies of civil employment that when the Reserve were called to arms for the Russian emergency, the lamen- 809 tations of their distressed families were so just and universal that Her Majesty's Government very properly maintained them, at a great expense to the country, which would have been a permanent expense if the Reserve had joined the Army in the field against Russia. This call to arms of the Reserve, and a subsequent debate in the House of Lords, brought to light the fatal shortcomings of civil employment. The Government, to obviate them, declared in Parliament that the Reserve could only be called out for service in a foreign war. The Reserve, therefore, did not reinforce the Army in South Africa when in their greatest want of mature soldiers, as shown by official despatches; and in their place the Government was compelled to send to South Africa, 3,000 miles off, 1,000 picked Marines, when their services might at any moment have been required in the East. But the worst remained to be told. The alarming fact then became evident that when the Reserves were disembarked— for example, in Turkey—the Reserve, as a system, ceased to exist at home; for no civil employer would think of employing a Reserve man who had his foot in the stirrup to start for Turkey to fill up the casualties of war. Then came the brigade depôts, which were disapproved by the Commander in Chief and Lord Airey's Committee. The new territorial regiment system was on the same principle. All regiments above the 25th were linked in two battalions, while all regiments from the 25th downwards had two battalions. The system was that one battalion on reduced strength was to remain at home and supply its double, or linked battalion, with recruits. This system worked in peace; but when any emergency or war called from home the battalion the system went to pieces. It was a public breakdown. All the world saw the two battalions of the 24th fighting side by side in Zululand, when one battalion ought to have been in England supplying its other battalion with recruits. And so on in endless confusion. For the same reason a just "roster" for foreign service, the best guarantee for officers' and soldiers' contentment, was upset. The last adjunct was competitive examination. On this subject, several years ago, he made a Motion respecting competitive examinations for first commissions, from which he referred to a few extracts. One-half the educa- 810 tion— the better half—was civil, of which a part was immoral and debasing literature, in the style of Chaucer and French novels, which usurped the time and intelligence of the future young officer, vitiating and diverting his taste from an ambition for distinction in the Service of his Sovereign and country. For the good of his country, the Army, and himself the time so spent should have been devoted to the study of the first principles of the art of war. They had paid for this perversion of military education by defeats and humiliations in the operations of war, arising from the neglect of the education which made the successful leader, and the cultivation of another which developed the tendencies of the debauchee. There existed in the Army an extensive, dangerous, systematic, and unpunished crime, one of many results of the short-service system—fraudulent enlistment; recruits swore that they had attained 18 years of age, when, in reality, they were under that age. That fraudulent enlistments were extensive was proved by competent military statisticians, who computed their number at one-third, if not more, of the Army. That fraudulent enlistments were dangerous was proved by the history of all wars, backed by the best medical authorities, which showed that the physical power of under-age soldiers, with the heavy weight of the knapsack, arms, and ammunition, & c, about 60 lbs. altogether, must collapse in the trials and hardships of war, and with it the moral power—their courage. That this crime was systematic appeared from a statement made by the noble Earl the Under Secretary of State for War in debate, who said that it was a great misfortune, but that they—the War Department— had not been able to find a remedy for it. And that this offence, so ruinous to our military reputation, and to our influence in diplomatic negotiations for British rights, and to our success in war, was unpunished was shown by a Return which he obtained from the War Department, and laid on their Lordships' Table on the 6th of February, 1880, stating that not a man had been punished for this offence. If he could have foreseen that fraudulent enlistments, combined with our too youthful regulation recruiting age of 18, were to constitute the greater portion of our Army in Zulu-land and the Transvaal, his despair would have been as unmitigated as that 811 of the inhabitants of Dependencies who had witnessed disaster caused by these immature soldiers, and the mistaken military education of the officers, which neglected the study of the first and indispensable principles of the art of war —reconnoitering, outpost duty, defence of a camp, never to retire except by alternate bodies, and equally important etceteras, the omission of which had cost so many armies their reputation, and the cause which they defended.
§ Bill reported without amendment; and to be read 3a To-morrow.