MILITIA TRANSFER BILL. (Hansard, 14 August 1807)

Lord Sidmouth

said, there were a few points to which he was desirous of adverting previous to their lordships' final decision upon this bill. It had been acknowledged on a former day by the noble secretary of state (lord Hawkesbury), that his majesty's ministers, after having determined upon the expediency of augmenting our military force, had balanced between the present measure, and the renewal of the Army of Reserve. He had himself made such a comparison, but, for reasons which he had before stated, he had come to a different conclusion. He indeed recollected, and with great satisfaction, that all the members of his majesty's present government, whether in, or out of office, in the years 1803 and 1804, had supported the measure which he now preferred: and in the spring of 1804, when, in consequence of the high rate of bounties occasioned by the number of men (195,000, exclusive of volunteers) raised within 13 months, he proposed only a suspension of this measure, that proposition was resisted by a large minority of the house of commons, and particularly by a right hon. gent. now unhappily no more (Mr. Pitt), who declared that he should recommend the compulsory principle of that bill as the basis of a plan for the increase of our domestic force, and for the permanent supply of the army. This intention was indeed afterwards abandoned, under circumstances, into which, for reasons which, he trusted, were obvious, he did not now wish to enter. But even after this change of intention, the army of reserve was highly and continually applauded, and he was convinced that if the life of the distinguished person to whom he had alluded had been spared, that he would himself have recommended it to the adoption of parliament.—But the noble baron (lord Hawkesbury) had stated, that the chief objection to the renewal of this measure, was founded upon the remission of the 1226 by the lords commissioners, the members separated.—Thus ended the first session of the fourth parliament of the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

fines in those places, where the required quota of men for the army of reserve had not been raised. This, he begged leave to say, was not accurate either in reasoning, or in statement. If such an example was injurious in its tendency, which he acknowledged it to be, however unavoidable in the particular case, the argument was as strong against a ballot for the militia, as for the army of reserve; as the remission of the fines afforded the same encouragement to neglect in one case, as in the other. But, in fact, the observation did not fairly apply to the army of reserve at all. It was true that under the act by which that force was to be constituted, penalties were to be levied where the number of men required to be raised by ballot, had not been procured; but by Mr. Pitt's Additional Force bill those penalties were transferred to a failure in procuring a number of men (equal to the deficiencies in the army of reserve), not by ballot, as under the Army of Reserve bill, but by voluntary recruiting, through the agency of parish officers for a limited bounty; and it was one of the numerous objections to that measure, that it inflicted punishment in cases where there might have been no neglect. This injustice had been illustrated at the time, by comparing it to that of directing a person, when wheat was 7s. 6d. per bushel, to purchase that quantity for 5s., and to fine him if he could not procure it at such a price. And what in fact had been the operation of that bill? Of the intended and expected number a small part only had been raised, and of that part not a moiety by the means required by the bill, notwithstanding the official exhortations of the noble baron (lord H.), which had the obvious and recorded effect of checking the ordinary recruiting service, for the purpose of giving ostensible success to this favoured measure. It failed however in all respects; and it would have been the height of injustice to levy penalties where there had been no misconduct, and where the fault was not in the agents but in the measure itself. The remission of the fines must therefore be admitted to afford a striking comment on 1227 the inefficacy and injustice of the Additional Force bill, but no argument whatever against the renewal of the army of reserve. But the noble lord had laid great stress on the advantages which would arise from the possession of a large body of militia upon the restoration of peace; as in that event all who had served 5 years would be disbanded. This, however, has a contingent benefit: if the war continued 5 years longer, it would not occur; and the reasoning, upon which it was founded, went the length of asserting, that such a measure as the present, with all the inconveniences attending it, ought always to be resorted to, when hostilities had been of four or 1228 five years continuance; and that the country would be made weaker for a time during war, for the chance of being rendered somewhat stronger, than it would otherwise be, on the restoration of peace. This argument, however, appeared to him to be a feeble attempt to support an exceptionable measure, the execution of which, even if successful, would, by disturbing and unsettling the militia, impair, in the first instance, our actual means of defence, and afterwards afford an augmentation ill suited and inadequate to the present exigency, and to the perilous situation of the country.