HC Deb 05 March 1847 vol 90 cc952-62

On the Question that the House do resolve itself into a Committee of Supply,

COLONEL LINDSAY

rose to submit the Motion of which he had given notice— That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to direct inquiry to be made into the effect that the present Canteen system has upon the Army; and whether it should not be advantageous to discipline and to the moral improvement of Her Majesty's troops, to prevent the sale of spirituous liquors in Canteens within the precincts or proximity of barracks. Upon the manner in which the House would deal with his proposition, depended, he was convinced, much of the comfort of the great body of the members of that profession to which he belonged. The House would find, on looking to page 46 of the Ordnance Estimates, that the sum of 65,739l. was derived by Government from canteens and sheet washing; and that, after deducting about 11,986l. for washing, there remained, as the annual profit on canteens, 53,752l. He would explain to the House the manner in which the system worked. A canteen was rented for three years; at the expiration of that time a new tenant was obtained by calling for tenders. The highest tender was invariably accepted, if after a rigid inquiry into the person's character and condition, they were found satisfactory. The tenant was obliged to find sureties to a large amount for the payment of the yearly and fixed rent; and this rent was a specified sum for the buildings and appurtenances; and, in addition, a further sum, fixed by tender, for every ten men (exclusive of sergeants) who occupied the barracks; and besides this, if the barrack was not occupied to the full extent, in consequence of married soldiers living out of barracks, or men being in hospital, the tenant was also obliged to pay for them at the same rate, so long as the numbers did not exceed what the barrack was calculated to hold. The tenant paid all the taxes, assessments, &c. Therefore the greater number of men in barracks, the greater the profit to the tenant. The rent was always strictly exacted, and as it was also high, and the profit dependent upon the numbers who frequented the canteen, and upon the amount consumed, the effect was, that the tenant was obliged to make exorbitant charges to procure him a profit, and to resort to adulteration of the articles, and to gross extortion. The duty of regulation lay with the Ordnance; but it was impossible to prevent this frequent and gross extortion from the mode in which the canteens were let. The subject which he particularly wished to bring under the notice of Government was, that in these canteens spirits were permitted to be sold, as well as other articles; and that, consequently, they very greatly tended, if unregulated, to produce a general demoralisation of the men. Such a demoralisation did not result from long service. Young recruits, with money in their pockets, were early seduced by the older soldiers, whose funds were long ago exhausted, into the canteen, and that which at first was but a chance visit became a habit. It was his object to forbid the sale of spirits in these places, and thus to remove the temptation. He did not suppose that the evil to which he called attention, had been foreseen. Regiments could not do without suttlers; and the authorities had thought they therefore might as well establish the canteen; and, as some one would profit by the rule, of course it was as acceptable to the Government as to anybody else. He did not deny the use of a canteen; all he asked was, that they should forbid the consumption of spirits. If they did not do so, they would find all their attempted reforms ineffectual. The Secretary at War had issued different warrants for the establishment of normal schools and of savings banks, and for accomplishing other most desirable improvements in the social state of the Army; but if they still granted to the soldier the facilities which now existed for obtaining ardent spirits, they would in vain endeavour to detach him from the canteen and its temptations. With the discontinuance of the sale of spirits, would cease that attraction which was now found in idleness. He could point to instances in which men under the influence of spirits had knocked down their superiors, and that in circumstances which could not have occurred had beer only been sold in the canteens, and had it been necessary to go out of the barracks to procure spirits. He had known the case of a man who, disgusted with the discipline to which he was subjected, went to the canteen, got drunk, and afterwards struck the non-commissioned officer by whom he was drilled, for which, of course, he was sent to prison: this occurred in Canada, not in England. It might be said that the same things occurred among the operatives of this country; but it should be recollected that if a civilian did knock down a policeman when drunk, it involved no more than punishment by fine; but it was different in the Army, and the House ought to recollect the frightful consequences that were entailed on the soldier when he was guilty of drunkenness and insubordination. It appeared from a return which he had in his hand, that the principal crimes committed in the Army were drunkenness and insubordination, and that the latter seldom happened without being caused by the former. It appeared also that the greatest number of men guilty of insubordination committed the crime in barracks; and that the acts of insubordination chiefly took place on parade, or at the evening roll-call; and, what was a very extraordinary thing was, that the regiments which came from the East or West Indies, or from the Cape of Good Hope and other places, were more notorious for drunkenness and more violent than those at home, and that among them the number of capital punishments was greater than in other regiments. It was notorious that in the West Indies the soldiers had been known to add Cayenne pepper to the spirits which they drank, because they were not strong enough. It had come under his notice that the spirits sold in canteens had a more violent effect on the men who drank them than the spirits sold out of the barracks. He believed that the keepers of canteens often mixed their spirits with vitriol and other injurious ingredients, and the consequence was that they produced a greater amount of frenzy when drunk than did those taken out of the canteen. Such statements as these, he thought it was the duty of the Government seriously to consider, and, even at the loss of some slight income, to alter a system which was productive of so much injury. Supposing his Motion were to be carried out, he did not by any means expect that much immediate good would result from it; but he thought they might confidently look forward to a general improvement in progress of time. They would to a great extent protect the young soldier, and render it more difficult for the confirmed drunkard to get opportunities of seducing him into habits of intoxication. He believed it would be found that the present system of canteens was the cause of some expense to the country; for the habitual drunkard before he had served twenty-one years, generally became inefficient; and, according to the system still in practice—for the new regulations had not yet come into operation—the invalided man, whether he was a good or bad character, got more than the man who was discharged at his own request on a pension of 10d. a day. The constitutions of drunkards were undermined; they became a burden to the country, and many a good man was unable to get his discharge in consequence, though he might have well deserved it. He believed it would not be difficult to show, that though an habitual drunkard and an habitual drinker were two different things, the one was as great an expense to the country as the other. There were men who never got drunk, yet who were always taking their glass; and he believed the constitutions of these men failed sooner than those of habitual drunkards. Many of these men were discharged on pensions, and in this way cost money to the country. It might be urged that the canteen system had the effect of keeping men in barracks; but he thought, if they were to look to the moral character of the soldiery as the point to be attained, the evils produced would greatly counterbalance any good that was derived from such a system. In 1836 a military commission was appointed, and they heard a good deal of evidence with regard to the system of punishments. The witnesses examined before that commission, were generally asked whether they were able —"to suggest any means of reclaiming or eradicating the propensity of drunkenness so prevalent among the soldiery, and confessedly the parent of the majority of military crimes? The majority of the answers to this question entered into the first part of it; and a variety of proposals were made, such as a reduction of pay, confinement, &c.; but very few entered on the subject of canteens, though one or two certainly did. Among these was the present Governor General of India, who said, that before he left the Board of Ordnance —"he had in contemplation a minute recommending that a portion of the canteen rent, which is a species of tax levied upon the soldier, should be applied to his recreation in the barrack-yard. Now, if, as Lord Hardinge remarked, the canteen rents were a species of tax upon the soldier, he thought that the tax should be used for his improvement, not for his demoralisation. The present Adjutant General (Sir J. Macdonald) certainly took another view of the case. He thought that the soldier, by having the canteen at hand to resort to, even when he was in the very act of drinking, was in some measure in the trammels of military discipline. Sir E. Blakeney thought canteens should be let upon lower terms, and better regulated. Sir C. Smyth considered that canteens should sell malt liquors only, not spirits, and stated, that "if he had authority, not a single glass of rum should enter the barrack-yard." Sir Colin Campbell thought the sale of spirits should be prohibited in canteens. Another officer strongly urged the prohibition of the sale of spirits in canteens; and stated his belief that in nine cases out of ten, men would not take the trouble to dress themselves to seek it out of barracks. Another witness whose evidence he would refer to, was one whose authority the House would respect. He had served in every quarter of the globe—in one or two of them in a military capacity, but in all of them in a civil capacity; and he had served both under the last and the present Government—he meant Sir George Arthur. That officer said— We encourage a soldier to drink a small quantity of spirits, and we punish him for drinking a large quantity, though we know that a small quantity disarms him of caution as to the danger, and that the daily habit creates a physical necessity, which the utmost fortitude cannot successfully struggle against. A medical officer of great experience and authority, Dr. Ferguson, late Inspector General of Military Hospitals, who had served both at home and abroad, in a work published by him some years ago, said— A ration of spirits, as an article of daily diet, ever engenders a craving for more, so imperious and irresistible, there is no crime the soldier would not commit, no abomination he would not practise, for its gratification. Punishment, when put in competition, has then no terrors, and the fear of death is set at nought. He would drink, though the king of terrors stared him in the face, and rather than go without it, he would take that drink out of a jakes, or from the most disgusting vehicles hnman imagination can conceive. If the system of canteens excited this propensity in the soldier, and if spirits tended thus to injure his constitution, and to disqualify him for the service upon which he had entered, it ought to be put out of his power to indulge in this propensity, instead of his being tempted to give way to it. Dr. Ferguson went on:— The army canteens have ever been institutions of drunkenness; and it is difficult to believe how an abuse so monstrous, and a nuisance so palpable, could have been tolerated so long and to such an extent. It shows the difficulty, in our service, of carrying even the most obvious reforms into effect, when anything in the shape of improvement comes to be proposed to the disturbance of existing interests, or even bad habits of any kind. If kept up at all, it must have been from the high rent that was paid to the barrack department. But how these authorities could reconcile the gains thus obtained at so much deadly cost to their consciences, must remain a problem. Supported by these great authorities, he was justified in saying that the use of spirits in canteens was not only a nuisance and injurious to discipline, as well as prejudicial to the health of the soldier, but that it was also expensive to the country by causing the early annihilation of his constitution; and therefore he thought he did right in bringing the matter before the House. And when it was known that much power had been taken away from commanding officers, and that corporal punishment had been reduced, and when all sorts of improvements were being introduced into the Army, he thought he was justified in calling upon the Board of Ordnance and the Government even to yield up some of the income of the State which was derived from this source, in order to get rid of this evil, whereby they would raise the character of the service, improve the moral condition of the soldier, and conduce to the efficiency of the Army.

MR. F. MAULE

was not going to defend the system which had been pursued in canteens to a great extent, or to enter into the details which had been referred to at so much length by the hon. and gallant Officer who had just sat down; but he must say that the remedy he proposed by his resolution, although founded on the best of principles, might not be very easily carried out by a distinct vote of the House. But it would not be perhaps disagreeable to the hon. and gallant Officer to learn that the minds of the authorities had been already turned to this question—and that they were considering at this moment how the canteens could be put on a better footing, so as to form part of that general amelioration of the whole state of the soldier, which both the authorities at the Horse Guards and Her Majesty's Government had sincerely at heart. The hon. and gallant Officer would remember that the canteens, though attended with considerable inconvenience when they were allowed to be put to improper uses, were of great advantage to the soldiers in barracks. There were many articles to be obtained in those canteens, which it would be inconvenient on many occasions for the soldier to have to seek without the walls or without the precincts of the barracks. And even with reference to the sale of spirits itself, the canteen was so immediately under the control of the commanding officer, that if he were to exer- cise his proper authority, there could be no doubt that with vigilance—common vigilance—many of those evils which the hon. and gallant Officer alluded to, would, in ordinary cases, be prevented. But he was free to confess that it was not easy for a commanding officer to exert all the authority he possessed; there were difficulties in his way; and he was ready to admit, that a commanding officer should not be put in the responsible situation of either ordering the canteens to be closed altogether, or else to submit to evils, which, under the circumstances, were beyond his control. He would not detain the House by going into any of the cases which the hon. and gallant Officer had referred to. He admitted at once, that under many circumstances the sale of spirits in canteens led to evil; but in answer to that, he begged also to state that the total absence of the sale of spirits in canteens might likewise lead to evils in another direction. The hon. and gallant Officer did not trace the original establishment of canteens. He believed they were originally established for the sale of spirits exclusively in barracks, and were afterwards extended to other articles; but they were originally established for the sale of spirits exclusively, for this reason, that an order in that day existed that no spirits should be introduced into barracks, and the spirits introduced there were all smuggled in, and in such a way that it was impossible for the utmost vigilance to prevent it; and it was thought better to establish the sale of spirits by a recognised authority in a place within the barracks, over which the commanding officer would have entire control, and to do away with that practice which formed a serious military crime, namely, connivance in smuggling spirits for the use of the soldiers in the barracks. He had no doubt it might be possible, by a strict regulation, so to restrain the sale of spirits in canteens, without the necessity of banishing it altogether, that it should not lead to evils such as the hon. and gallant Officer had described as applicable to it. He perfectly agreed with the hon. and gallant Officer, there was nothing from which they ought to protect the soldier so much as the seduction of the confirmed—he would not say drunkard, but—hard-drinking man; a man so accustomed to spirits as to carry off, without effect on him, that which would make ten recruits utterly unfit to appear on duty. Those were the sort of men who led away the younger troops of the Army; and by placing the canteens under proper regulations, so that those men should not have the means of seducing the young recruits into them, they would do a great deal to put an end to the evil. He could inform the hon. and gallant Officer, that the whole system of canteens was about to undergo careful consideration, and would be put on that footing that, while the canteens afforded the soldier in barracks all the convenience they were intended to give, it would be next to impossible they should in any way whatever conduce to the deterioration of the soldier's morals, or in any way render him unfit to perform the duties which he engaged to do when he enlisted in the service. With these observations he should conclude, and he trusted the hon. and gallant Officer would not press his Motion to a division.

SIR HOWARD DOUGLAS

was rejoiced to learn from the right hon. Gentleman that the Government were disposed to take up this question, and to inquire into the whole of the canteen system with a view to put it on a better footing. Much of the canteen system of the present day was the remains of ancient abuses. There was a time when the great profits accruing from the consumption of liquor by soldiers in canteens, were applied to make messes cheaper to the officer. In a command held by himself not a long time ago, he found that the mess allowance of wine allowed to the officers, was paid out of a fund which was created by advancing the price of liquor on the subalterns. He immediately put an end to it. That fund was now appropriated less objectionably; but he would tell the right hon. Gentleman that the canteen system could never be put on a wholesome or on a moral footing adapted to the improvement of the soldier, until the Government and the canteener ceased to receive a profit from the tax payable on what the soldiers consumed. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman would take into his consideration whether the canteen might not be made a most convenient and desirable and moral adjunct to the barracks, to be resorted to by the soldier for other purposes than those of intemperance; and if any profit should be allowed to accrue from the sale of beer—for certainly he would exclude spirits altogether—he should propose that that profit, instead of going to the credit of the Government, or into the pocket of the canteener, should be applied to the benefit of the soldier; and if to the canteen, to induce the soldier to resort to those establishments for moral and intellectual purposes, as well as for refreshment. He would propose that there should be attached to every regiment a canteener, on the terms that he should derive no profit from the consumption of liquor; that a sufficient salary should be given to him; that he be induced to take an interest in the moral advancement of the soldier, and endeavour to put an end to those pernicious influences which, to his (Sir H. Douglas's) own knowledge, and to his regret, he had long seen and deeply lamented.

MR. GOULBURN

congratulated his hon. and gallant Friend who had brought forward the Motion, on the statement which had been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary at War. His hon. and gallant Friend had only in view that the subject should be thoroughly inquired into, and had afforded to the House the benefit of his long experience in the discipline of regiments; and as the Secretary at War had distinctly stated that the whole subject of canteens was at present under the consideration of Government, and that they were prepared to make such arrangements with respect to them as would not impede, but rather assist to promote, the discipline of the Army, and tend to improve the morals and comforts of the men, he thought his hon. and gallant Friend would cordially acquiesce in the withdrawal of the Motion that had been recommended by the right hon. Gentleman. With regard to the lax system that prevailed in some of those canteens, he thought, however difficult it would be to impose restraints on the sale of spirituous liquors, the question whether the Government should make a profit on this liquor, was one of a different character. He was of opinion that canteens might be converted into places where the soldier could enjoy himself by the fireside, without indulging to the extent that would cause intoxication.

COLONEL ANSON

did not think the subject was properly understood, and wished to say a few words with respect to the manner in which these canteens were generally supposed to be managed. He begged to call the attention of the hon. and gallant Officer who brought forward the Motion, to the regulations of the warrant of 1838; and when they recollected that the regulations at the present moment were so extremely stringent, that it entirely rested with the commanding officer himself whether those canteens were well conducted or not, he thought the hon. and gallant Officer had extended his observations further than was necessary. He (Colonel Anson) would, with the permission of the House, read the regulation with respect to canteens: and he thought every hon. Member would agree with him that sufficient powers were vested by it in the commanding officer to see that the very strictest regularity was observed in these places. By that order the canteen keeper was bound to keep regular hours; not to allow persons to become intoxicated; to obey all orders of the Board of Ordnance and commanding officer; and he must obey the instructions given to him on pain of ejection from the canteen. He believed the hon. and gallant Colonel was in the full pay of the service, and where he was in command he had control over the canteens; and he must also add, that if there were any irregularities reported to the Board of Ordnance, they had the power of ejecting the tenant on a week's notice. He would say one word with respect to the way in which canteens were let: they were let by tender, and no person was accepted as tenant unless he could produce sufficient sureties for the amount of rent he had undertaken to pay, and also for his character. He thought it necessary to say thus much upon this subject, as he was afraid it might go forth to the country that there was no regulation with respect to these canteens, and that it was in the power of the canteener to do what he pleased.

SIR DE LACY EVANS

said, it appeared that a great number of commanding officers felt a deep objection to the present system; and if they felt they had such unlimited powers as it would seem they had by this regulation, which had been quoted by the hon. and gallant Colonel, why did they come forward and give this evidence in the face of the military authorities, unless they felt there were difficulties in the case? It was quite certain that if the commanding officers conceived they had the power given by that regulation, they need not look to any higher authority; but it seemed that some regulation was necessary on the part of the Government. He was glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary at War, that the Government had directed their attention to the subject, in connexion with other arrangements that were now carrying on for the improvement of the condition of the soldier. He regretted to see there was some little bias on the part of the right hon. Gentleman as to the inexpediency of prohibiting spirituous liquors in these canteens. He (Sir de Lacy Evans) would not venture to offer any positive opinion upon the subject; but he should wish the Government to try the experiment, for some time, of prohibiting spirituous liquors altogether. He entirely concurred in the proposition of his hon. and gallant Friend opposite, as to the necessity of appointing a canteener; he thought it would tend both to the good of the Army, and the profit of the Excise, if a suitable salary was given to an officer of trust to conduct those establishments, and that no profit whatever should be derived from them.

MR. STUART WORTLEY

said, it appeared to him, from the official experience he had, short as it was, that nine-tenths at least of military offences had their source in intoxication, and that a large portion of those nine-tenths arose from offences springing from the abuse of canteens.

COLONEL LINDSAY

expressed his satisfaction at the announcement made by the right hon. the Secretary at War, and begged to withdraw his Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Question again put.