§ MR. PALKsaid, he would take advantage of the Motion for the adjournment of the House to repeat a question, which he had already twice put to the Government, with respect to the report of Sir John M'Neill and Colonel Tulloch. The reply given to it on the first occasion by the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for War conveyed to the House even less information than they usually obtained from that hon. Gentleman's answer. He then gave notice of a Motion to refer the Report to a Committee, but the Government soon afterwards advised Her Majesty to appoint a Court of Inquiry. He was at first under the impression that the Court was appointed to inquire into the disasters said to have befallen our army in the Crimea in consequence of insufficiency of shelter, inadequacy of supplies, and the total prostration of the Commissariat; and he was extremely surprised to find that when the President asked for the names of the officers regarded by the Horse Guards as implicated in the Report, the names of four officers were given, neither of whom had anything whatever to do with the Commissariat. He, therefore, again asked the Government whether the Court would inquire into the allegations contained in the Report, and he had to thank the noble Lord the First Minister for the courtesy he had shown in suggesting and answering a question of his own instead of the one put to him. The noble Lord stated that every officer who felt himself aggrieved would have an opportunity of defending his character, a statement that he should never have called upon the noble Lord to make, well knowing that the noble Lord would be the last man to eke out different measures of justice to officers of different ranks. The question he did put to the noble Lord was, whether the statement of Sir John, M'Neil that the strength of 883 the army gave way under excessive labour and privation was to remain uninvestigated, and our army was to be entrusted, on future occasions, to that Commissariat which had so signally broken down? He thought that question ought to have received a fair and straightforward answer, or that the Minister ought to have stated that it would be injurious to the public service to give it an answer. But he must protest against the practice of evading questions put to the Government—a practice which created great dissatisfaction out of doors. If a case of sudden death happened in this country—if even an infant died in consequence of neglect, the law directed that a full inquiry into such death should take place; and therefore, after the Report of Sir John M'Neill and Colonel Tulloch, who were directed especially to inquire into the Commissariat, that 35 per cent of the army present in the Crimea from the 1st of February, 1854, to the 30th of April, 1855, died—not in consequence of anything peculiarly unfavourable in the climate, but from overwork, exposure to wet and cold, improper food, and insufficient shelter from inclement weather—he felt justified in asking whether that Report was to remain unnoticed, or whether it would be the duty of the Court of Inquiry now sitting at Chelsea to examine into the charges he had specified?
§ MR. FREDERICK PEELsaid, whenever a question was put to him he endeavoured to give it as plain and straightforward an answer as possible, and to convey to the House all the information he possessed upon the subject to which it referred. He understood the hon. Gentleman to ask whether it would be the business of the Board of General Officers sitting at Chelsea to inquire into the causes of the disease and mortality which befell our army in the Crimea? He did not conceive that it would be within the province of that Board to initiate any inquiry into the causes of such disease and mortality, except in as far as it might grow out of the case of any officer whose conduct was under investigation. The duties of the Board were defined in the warrant by which it was constituted—they were to receive the statements of any officers who thought themselves aggrieved by the allegations in the Report of the Commissioners. Several officers had announced their intention to go before the Board and make statements in vindication of their conduct, 884 and the cases of those officers were being taken in turn. With regard to the Commissariat, the reply of Mr. Filder to the Report which had been laid before the House had been referred by the Government to the Board, and it was open to the late Commissary General to go before the Board and make any statement he pleased.