§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, he rose to call attention to the manner in which important alterations in the Articles of War, seriously affecting the liberties and increasing the penalties that may be inflicted upon the officers and men of the Army, may be effected without the previous knowledge of the Army, of Parliament, or of the country, and to move that in future it will be desirable that the Articles of War, as intended to be issued, with the alterations proposed to be made in them by the erasure of the old and substitution of the new Articles, in the manner now employed, should be laid upon the Table of the House at the same time as the introduction of the Mutiny Bill. He must complain of the way in which supplementary legislation for the Army was permitted by means of the Articles of War. This House had always kept a jealous care over the constitution and regulations of the Army; and though the nominal command of the Army was placed in the hands of the Crown, that was only as a matter of general convenience, and did not in the least affect the entire subordination of the Army to Parliament. The complaint which he had to make did not relate to the present Secretary for War, but to his predecessor, the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Hartington). In 1865 the 18th Article of War set forth that any officer or soldier who was arrested should not be kept in confinement for 1670 more than eight days previously to being brought to a court martial, and that any officer keeping him longer in confinement should be liable to be cashiered. Since then, however, an alteration had been made in the Articles of War without Parliament, or the public, or the Army knowing anything about it, and the alteration was to the effect that an officer or soldier under arrest should be brought before a court martial or discharged "within a reasonable time." That reasonable time, of course, was left to the discretion of the commanding officer, and no such unlimited power of imprisonment without trial was ever delegated by Parliament to any one, even to the Crown itself. It was a suspension of the Habeas Corpus of the Army without any notice to the public or to the profession. The tendency in official quarters would be, no doubt, to assume that the alteration had been made under the prerogative of the Crown; but he contended that the prerogative of the Crown could only be exercised for the benefit of the people. That had been the acknowledged policy of the country for many years. For instance, take the recent Treaty respecting Luxemburg—though the noble Lord now at the head of the Foreign Office possessed in a larger measure than any of his predecessors the confidence of the country, he was called on to explain the course he intended to take in the recent Conference, and he would not have been justified in committing England to such a treaty without the approval of the House, and without apprising it of the policy that was being pursued. The House ought to have had before them the intentions of the Government and of the Commander-in-Chief with regard to the supplementary: part of this Army legislation, and they should have the Articles of War on the table of this House, in order that they might know what was enacted. The Crown, without the authority of Parliament, had no power to frame the Articles of War, and if they were framed without that power it would be a piece of despotism which this House would be the very first to repudiate. He would not, however, press the Resolution of which he had given notice, and would merely express a hope that Her Majesty's Government would promise to take the matter into consideration.
§ MR. MOWBRAYsaid, his hon. Friend had very properly acquitted the Members of the present Administration connected 1671 with the War Department of the particular change of which he complained, and which, although it in some measure affected the liberties, yet it in no degree affected the penalties which might be inflicted upon officers and soldiers. His hon. Friend had omitted to notice the 77th Article of War, in which provision was made that if any officer in command did not bring an officer or soldier under arrest to trial within a reasonable time, he was liable to be cashiered. The hon. Member's complaint was that the House was not made acquainted with the supplemental legislation which might defeat the Mutiny Act, and which, therefore, ought to be known, but that supplemental legislation was authorized by the Mutiny Act itself. The Articles of War were made in pursuance of the Mutiny Act:—under the 1st section, which authorized Her Majesty to frame those Articles. Indeed, there was a provision to restrict the prerogative of the Crown, there being an express provision that this supplementary legislation should only be legal so far as it was in accordance with the provisions of the Mutiny Act. The House was always acquainted, as soon as it could be, with what was done. If the course recommended by his hon. Friend had been adopted this year, there would have been an Article of War framed in pursuance of the Mutiny Act of last year, and that would have been laid on the table for a certain number of days, and then a revised Article of War, in accordance with the Motion of the hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Otway), would have been framed in the very terms of the clause which this House sanctioned. The truth was that the Articles of War, being under the authority and framed in pursuance of the Mutiny Act, were framed subsequently to that Act. As soon as the Mutiny Bill received the Royal Assent it was laid on the table of the House, and the Articles of War and the Act were bound up together and formed one volume. The prerogative of the Crown was exercised by a Minister responsible to the House, and nothing could be done save what was in accordance with the law.