MUTINY BILL.—COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 9 March 1866)

§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITH
said, he must renew the complaint which he had made in the early part of the evening with respect to the Bill not having been printed before, expressing himself dissatisfied with the official answer which had been given to his question on the subject by the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington).

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, that it was not the custom to print annual Bills, such as those relating to Exchequer Bills and to the Militia, of which the skeleton remained the same. The only exceptions were the Appropriation Bill and the Mutiny Bill, which were now printed. It so happened that some alterations had been introduced into the present Bill, principally in the number of the men, and if the hon. Gentleman wished to call the attention of the House to any of these, every facility would be given to him to do so. But the Mutiny Bill was one which the exigencies of the service made it absolutely necessary should be passed by a certain day, and any loss of time might defeat that object.

§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITH
said, he must again complain of the non-printing of the Bill.

§ COLONEL PERCY HERBERT
said, he hoped that in future the Bill would be printed earlier, to give hon. Members an 1881 opportunity of more fully considering the subject.

§ MR. WHALLEY
said, he wished to ask for some explanation relative to the existence of Fenianism in the army. He was one of those who considered that Fenianism was connected with a particular creed. Roman Catholic recruits had, he believed, decreased within the last three or four years, but in the superior grades of the service Roman Catholicism had been on the increase. Let them remember that the Duke of Wellington had greatly objected to the admission of Roman Catholics into the higher corps of the army, whereas there had of late years been a steady influx of recruits of that creed into those corps. [Cries of "Question!"] He was speaking to the question, because the preamble stated that the Bill was for the maintenance of the safety of the service. He had before called attention to the fact that the libraries of the soldiers were filled with books of a most seditious character, and he attributed the disasters which the British troops had experienced in New Zealand to the organization of the rebel forces by Roman Catholic priests. There were certain facts which he must characterize as dangerous in connection with the discipline of the army, although he admitted the possibility that it might be a delusion on his part.

§ MR. P. A. TAYLOR
said, he wished to call attention to the practice of flogging in the army. The clause authorized a system of discipline of a nature so severe that it could not justly be designated anything but torture. During the year 1862, there were eighteen lashes for every turn administered on the back of the British soldier. He contended that it was a libel on the English character to contend that the average class of Englishmen could not be kept in discipline without the lash. Either we enlisted bad men, or we had incapable officers. He moved the omission of the clause.

§ MR. KINNAIRD
said, the punishment of flogging was, according to the alteration introduced by the late Lord Herbert, only inflicted on soldiers who had been previously degraded. It was rarely inflicted, and only in extreme cases. He should vote for the retention of the clause, believing it to be necessary for the discipline of the army 1882 that such a power should be given, and believing also that it was never at present unnecessarily exercised.

§ MR. LOCKE
said, the punishment ought not to be inflicted on any Englishman. We had secured the Sepoys from corporal punishment, and that punishment ought not to be allowed to remain in our own army. The minority in the House against the punishment had been gadually increasing, and he thought the time had come when it should be abolished. Flogging had been abrogated in England till a few years ago, when it was revived in the case of "garrotters." Ought it, then, to be continued in the case of the soldier? Thieves were not flogged at home. Ought soldiers to be classed with garrotters?

§ SIR JAMES FERGUSSON
said, the punishment of flogging was regarded by every officer in the army with aversion; and was not resorted to except in extreme cases of imperious necessity. No soldier of good character dreaded the punishment; but no good soldier objected to it when it was inflicted on soldiers of the most disreputable character. It was their best protection against the evil doers. He hoped the House would not, by striking out the clause, interfere with the discipline of the army.

§ MR. HADFIELD
said, that flogging had been abolished in many of our prisons without detriment to discipline. Mr. Sheppard, the Governor of the Wakefield Prison, had expressed his opinion that corporal punishment had been a failure. The punishment was a revolting one. The same arguments used now were used in favour of flogging in prisons, but the severity of the punishment was mitigated without the discipline of the prison being affected. Flogging was inconsistent with their notions of civilization, and was a soldier to be the only man subjected to this mode of punishment? The opinion of military gentlemen was not to be relied on. They were so accustomed to the punishment they could not make up their minds to forego it.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, that the late hour of half past one was not the time for entering on the question of corporal punishment, but he wished to express an opinion that the term "barbarous punishment" was only applicable to punishments that failed in their object of reforming the criminal; and such was not the case with flogging in the army. He thought that nonsense enough had been spoken on the subject on the preceding night which had been con- 1883 detuned by two divisions in Committee. Corporal punishment was still inflicted in prisons and in public schools.

MR. OTWAY
said, he had ascertained that flogging was still practised in the Indian army. It had been revived by the late Lord Hardinge.

§ MR. P. A. TAYLOR
said, he moved the rejection of the clause. It was an infamy and a disgrace to the country.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON
said, that the word "branding" which occurred in the Bill must not be interpreted in the ordinary sense of burning. The men were merely tattooed with indelible ink in order that they might be prevented, after being discharged for gross misconduct from a regiment, from re-enlisting over and over again,, to the injury of the army.

§ SIR ROBERT CLIFTON
said, that branding was a most painful operation. He hoped some means would be found for superseding an operation that marked and degraded a man for the remainder of his life.

§ MR. WHALLEY
said, that no answer had been returned to the Question which he had addressed to the noble Marquess the Secretary for War.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON
said, he had given the Committee all the information which he possessed on the subject of Fenianism the other night upon the Army Estimates. He had nothing either to contradict or to add to that statement. As to the suspicion entertained by the hon. Member that the Church of Rome had anything to do with the Fenian movement, he certainly possessed no information leading him to the belief that this assumption 1884 was well founded. The books supplied to soldiers were all authorized by the Council of Military Education. He had promised the hon. Member that their contents should be inquired into, but he really could not promise to read them himself. In the first place, if the hon. Member's account of them was correct, they might have a very prejudicial effect upon his own mind; but, in any case, he had no time for the purpose, even though one of them might bear the attractive title of The Bed, White, and Blue.