HC Deb 14 August 1871 vol 208 cc1575-6
COLONEL NORTH

asked permission to make an explanatory statement respecting the colours of the 68th Regiment. In a recent discussion he had expressed surprise how any colonel of a regiment could allow the colours to be taken away without a protest. Since then copies of an official correspondence had been forwarded to him showing clearly that the lieutenant-colonel commanding the regiment had protested to the utmost of his ability, and as far as he believed that his duty enabled him to do. On the receipt of the first letter from the Director of Army Clothing, dated September, 1870, directing him to forward the colours, the lieutenant-colonel wrote to Lord William Paulet, as Adjutant General, soliciting instructions on the subject. In reply he was informed that it was not necessary that the colours themselves should be sent, but that a pattern scroll should be forwarded, which was accordingly done, upon receipt of a second letter from the Director of Army Clothing. In a third letter from the same quarter, however, he was instructed to send the colours without the staff; and believing from the tone of this letter that a communication had passed upon the subject between the Horse Guards and the War Office, the lieutenant-colonel thought he had no course open to him but to comply. He, however, took the precaution of registering the parcel at his own expense, and it appeared to have reached Dublin safely about the 25th of February; but since then it had not been heard, of. The hon. and gallant Gentleman then read portions of the correspondence, in which the lieutenant-colonel, in asking officially for instructions on the point, had conveyed, in plain terms, his own opinion— Respectfully observing that as the colours of a regiment were presented with a religious ceremony, and were always looked upon as a sacred trust reposed in the regiment, he did not consider that they should be transmitted from one part of the kingdom to another in the same manner as if they were a bale of ordinary calico. He thought it only fair to the gallant officer in command to make this statement.