HC Deb 23 March 1860 vol 157 cc1156-62
MR. ELLICE (Coventry)

said, he rose to put a question on a subject which had been brought forward by the hon. and gallant Member for Berkshire (Captain L. Vernon). He saw in the newspapers of Saturday that— Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel J. E. Thackwell, unattached, succeeds Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel James Connolly, as Assistant-Adjutant-General of the South-West District. Colonel Connolly proceeds to Canada as Assistant-Adjutant-General of the Forces in that colony. Colonel Connolly had before this been Brigade-Major at Portsmouth. Now, the recommendation of the Committee on this subject was that officers should hold Staff appointments for only a limited time, as a matter of fairness to other officers, whose turn would thus come round. He wished, therefore, to know on what grounds Colonel Connolly had been promoted three times from one Staff appointment to another?

SIR DE LACY EVANS

said, he thought that the system of continuing the same officers on staff appointments for an unlimited period was unjust to the public service, and towards the Commander-in-Chief, who was deprived of the means of ascertaining who were the most competent officers for Staff appointments. There appeared to be a sort of life-tenure of those offices, particularly of those well-salaried offices at the Horse Guards. Those appointments seemed to be limited to some thirty or forty gentle- men in the whole army; and even when a change was made, those who were dispossessed were comforted by other nice appointments. From a reply he received to a question put the other night, he understood there would be no objection to furnish the particulars of salaries of the ambassadorial and diplomatic Staff in the Chinese seas, and he had consequently put a formal Motion on the paper for Returns. He now understood that, though there would be no objection to give the particulars in regard to Mr. Bruce and Mr. Alcock, there was an objection to giving any such particulars in regard to the Earl of Elgin. He was inclined to believe from the tenor of the noble Lord's (Lord John Russell's) statement the other night that we were about to have two Plenipotentiaries in China, and two sets of salaries. He hoped some information would be afforded upon this point.

COLONEL NORTH

said, he did not seek to defend a system of life tenure in staff appointments, but he thought the proposition to limit the tenure to five years was worthy of a few remarks. Many officers holding staff appointments had been commanders of regiments or regimental field officers, from which appointments they could not be removed save for misconduct. By a rule of the service no regimental field officer could hold an active Staff appointment and remain on full pay in his regiment, and it was not likely that any man in his senses would give up a full pay appointment, from which he could not be removed, and perhaps the command of a regiment to go upon the Staff, if he was to be removed as a matter of Dowse, in five years, and then to be placed on half-pay without any compensation. He would take the opportunity of asking for some explanation from the right hon. Gentleman as to a statement made by a noble Earl, the Under Secretary for War, in "another place," as to its not being the intention of the Government to continue the Militia Act for another year. Many persons imagined, from that statement, that it was intended to disband the Militia altogether, but he imagined that it referred merely to the Act of 1857, which enabled Her Majesty to embody certain Militia regiments, to supply the places of portions of the regular army sent to India in consequence of the mutiny, and which Act had been by a subsequent enactment continued until 1861. He could not help thinking, that though the cause for which that power was given had ceased to exist, yet considering the present critical state of Europe, it would be unadvisable to deprive Her Majesty of the powers which that Act conferred, of calling out the Militia on the shortest notice. No doubt the Volunteers were a very fine body of men, and the movement reflected the highest credit upon the patriotism of the nation. But however useful such a force might be in case of emergency, it could not be regarded as an actual auxiliary to the Militia or the regular army. In conclusion, he would refer to a circumstance mentioned in the papers that four volunteers on Wimbledon Common had amused themselves with shooting a lady's dog, and very nearly shooting the lady herself. He thought an immediate example should be made of those persons if they could be discovered, and that they should be deprived of the right to carry arms. He felt so much respect for the body of Volunteers that he would desire to see such incidents prevented in future.

COLONEL DICKSON

said, he merely rose to corroborate the statement of the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Maguire). Similar complaints had been forwarded to himself, but as the regiment which he had the honour to command was one of those marked out for disembodiment, for obvious reasons he had declined to take the matter up. It was perfectly true, as the hon. Gentleman had stated, that the lieutenant-colonel of the regiment in question did occupy a house in the Phœnix Park rent free, and no doubt he did desire to keep the regiment embodied. However, his complaint was that in disembodying the Militia regiments no attention whatever was paid to the wishes of those who had done their duty so creditably, and more especially that the younger officers had met with such little encouragement. Such conduct tended to impair the feelings of loyalty and patriotism which the Militia had always evinced up to that time. He would ask why it was that clothing had not been issued to the regiments disembodied as well as to those still embodied? Surely it was not intended to renounce the services of those regiments altogether.

MR. SIDNEY HERBERT

said, that in answer to the question put by the hon. and gallant Member for Berkshire (Captain L. Vernon) he had to state that it was true that Committees and Commissions had for some years recommended that Staff appointments, both at home and abroad, should be limited to five years, and that no exception should be made in this respect to the Headquarters Staff of the Horse Guards. A short time ago he (Mr. S. Herbert) made a proposal that the exception should be discontinued in compliance with that recommendation, and the Commander-in-Chief agreeing, it was arranged that the Staff appointments at the Horse Guards should rest upon the same rule as other Staff appointments. When he made his statement on the Army Estimates he added that it was only fair that the officers at the Horse Guards who had accepted their appointments under a totally different regulation, and regarded them as for life, and many of them having filled their offices for a great number of years—indeed, one Quartermaster General had filled his for nearly forty years—that those officers, on their removal, should be immediately reappointed to other Staff employments. He considered such a course was both just to those officers, and politic as regarded the service—for if they made arbitrary regulations without in some degree consulting the feelings of those who were affected by them, it would be impossible to carry them out satisfactorily. With respect to the re-appointment of officers, he should observe that it was not the fact that all were re appointed, as was exemplified by the case of General Sir G. Brown, who had obtained a new appointment in Ireland, in the room of Lord Seaton. Lord G. Paget, who had been chosen to command the Cavalry at Aldershot, also, it should be recollected, had not held a command since he had been employed, with much credit to himself, in the Crimean war. Then there were also General Cameron and General Dalzell, who had been appointed for the first time. But it was quite obvious there must be re-appointments—for they could not tie up the hands of the Commander-in-Chief by any fixed rule, if they desired to maintain the efficiency of the service. Take the three recent appointments in India. Sir Hugh Rose had held a divisional command in that country, and was now promoted to the chief command in Bengal. No one would say that was an improper appointment. The same might be said of the promotion of General Mansfield, who had been appointed to the chief command in Bombay, and Sir Hope Grant, who had been appointed to the chief command in Madras. They were all experienced officers who had seen much service in India, and were peculiarly fitted for the appointments to which they had been promoted. The case of Colonel Connolly had been mentioned. He did not know the exact circumstances of that case but he understood that that officer, so far from having served his full time of five years on the Staff, has not served above a year, and is desirous of taking foreign service, and some consideration was due to him in that respect. With regard to Lord W. Paulet, he had commanded a brigade at Aldershot, and that being rather a school for Staff officers, the Commander-in-Chief said with justice that those who distinguished themselves in commands and had showed capacity there, had a just claim to Staff appointments as they became vacant. He fully concurred, however, with the spirit of the observations made by his right hon. Friend the gallant Officer opposite, that the one object to be kept in view was that the Staff offices should be open to as great a succession of officers as possible. At the same time, as he had already observed, they could not lay down a fixed rule that no man should be eligible for reappointment who had completed the period of service.

The next Question he had to answer had reference to the disembodiment of the 2nd Staffordshire Militia, and was put to him by the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Maguire). The hon. Member made a double complaint as to the disembodiment of the Militia. It was, according to him, a hard thing for the English regiments to be kept embodied; and it was a hard thing for the Irish regiments to be disembodied. He would tell the hon. Member what the facts were. The Government began by taking the regiments to be disembodied in the order in which they had been embodied, and of the first five it so happened that four were Irish regiments. When, however, they came to the 2nd Staffordshire, though he had no communication with the colonel of the regiment, he received a communication from the Lord-lieutenant of the county, who was the father of the colonel, in which he had not at all expressed his disapproval of the disembodiment of the regiment, but had stated that as there was some uneasiness in the iron district in that quarter the regiment might as well not, if it were a matter of no great importance to adopt a contrary course, at once be disembodied. He (Mr. S. Herbert) had not, however, rested satisfied with that communication, but had laid the statement in question before his right hon. Friend the Secretary for the Home Department, who concurred in the expediency of acting upon the advice which the Lord-lieutenant of the county had conveyed. That being so, and it being matter of no importance whether the regiment were disembodied in April or in May, he had not disembodied the 2nd Staffordshire, but had placed both the Staffordshire regiments in the second class to be disembodied. He trusted this explanation would be sufficient to show that no injustice had been dune to either the Irish or the English regiments.

With regard to the Question of the hon. and gallant Member for Harwich (Captain Jervis), as to whether the Government intended to raise only one of the two brigades of Artillery announced in the Army Estimates, all he could say was, that at the time that announcement was made the Government had understood from Earl Canning that there was no probability that any British Queen's regiments then serving in India could be spared to be sent home for some time. He (Mr. S. Herbert) had consequently to meet the deficiency in the army at home by the augmentation stated. Since the Estimates were laid on the table, however, he had received despatches from Earl Canning to the effect that owing to the improved state of India there was every reason to expect that he would be enabled to send home three battalions of infantry immediately, three more battalions somewhat later, and another regiment of cavalry forthwith. This was, of course, welcome news to him (Mr. S. Herbert), as it enabled him to keep up the force at home with much less difficulty than by an augmentation which would have to be put down hereafter. They would, therefore, be enabled to disembody the militia regiments gradually, keeping up a certain number until the troops from India arrived in this country. It was also true that the contemplated addition to the Engineers was to be abandoned, but there was to be a small addition to the brigade at the depots, and also an addition of 100 men to the Coast Artillery. He had stated before, the view the Government took of the impolicy of employing a military force in time of peace. It was far better to have a regular soldier with a militiaman behind him than a militiaman with no regular soldier at all. They were stronger if they had the reserve behind the regular force to resort to in case of an emergency, than they were if they should employ that reserve when it was not absolutely necessary, and have nothing to fall back upon when the emergency arose. The Militia would never answer its purpose until it was distinctly understood that it was a force not to be embodied except in case of war.

MR. ADDERLEY

said, he wished to ask whether, as the North Staffordshire Militia were to be disembodied within a month or two, the clothing for the year 1860–61 would be issued to that regiment?

MR. SIDNEY HERBERT

replied, that every regiment of Militia disembodied subsequent to the 1st of April would get their clothing or compensation, but those disembodied before that date would not.