ADJOURNED DEBATE.

HC Deb 13 March 1871 vol 204 cc1877-967

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [6th March], "That the Bill be now read a second time;" and which Amendment was, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "in the opinion of this House, the expenditure necessary for the national defences and the other demands on the Exchequer do not at present justify any Vote of Public Money for the extinction of Purchase in the Army,"—(Colonel Loyd Lindsay,) —instead thereof.

Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

Debate resumed.

SIR JOHN PAKINGTON

Sir, it is with extreme regret I find, after giving the most dispassionate consideration in my power to this measure, that I can regard it only with increased feelings of disapprobation and disappointment. At the commencement of the Session my right hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) said he was prepared to give the fairest consideration and, if possible, support to Her Majesty's Government in any measure which they might bring forward with the view of carrying out the declared desire of the country that our national defences should be placed on a more satisfactory footing. Now, in speaking for myself, I believe I am speaking for every hon. Gentleman on this side of the House when I say that we are, one and all, prepared to receive favourably, and honestly to support, if we could do so, any measure which the Government might bring forward with regard to this most important question. But I am sorry to say that the result has been very different from what we expected. The Government have now laid before us their plan—and what do we find? We find, as the head and front of this most important measure, a costly, party, crochety project—a sop to democracy—a measure which, when combined and considered with the remainder of the plan of the Government as developed in this Bill, I cannot bring myself to believe will contribute one iota to the national defences of the country. I wish, in the first place, to call the attention of the House to the somewhat extraordinary statement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary for War when he brought forward, I admit most candidly and most fairly, the plan of the Government. He told us that he and his Colleagues had come to the decision to do away with the system of purchase in the Army; and then I anxiously listened to know with what argument and what reason he was about to assail that system. But he gave us none. He only made this statement, with which I shall be prepared to deal before I sit down — he said that it would, in the opinion of the Government, be impossible to amalgamate the Reserve forces with the Line, and reorganize our Army system satisfactorily, unless the system of purchase was done away with. He then proceeded to make another statement which, as far as I can judge, was the most strange one ever made to a British Parliament. He stated that no doubt there were strong reasons in favour of retaining the purchase system, and immediately proceeded to adopt a plan under which we shall impose on the taxpayers of the country a burden, as he says, of £8,000,000 of money. And for what?—to abolish that system which, by his own admission, there are strong reasons for retaining. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey), speaking subsequently, went still further. He stated broadly and distinctly the general arguments in favour of the system of purchase, and went on to show the House why, in his opinion, it was a good system; adding the remarkable words, which are perfectly true, that, under the system of purchase, the non-purchase were better off than the purchase officers. Yet, notwithstanding that declaration, the right hon. Baronet proceeded to state that he, too, was willing to saddle the taxpayers of this country with the payment of millions of money in order to abolish that system. These are, in my opinion, extraordinary statements; and the Government, in bringing forward their proposal, were, I think, bound, under the circumstances, to adduce stronger reasons in support of their policy than any which we have yet heard. I hope the House will now allow me to refer for a moment to the position held by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government in connection with this subject. Little more than two years have passed away since the right hon. Gentleman, in the progress which he made through Lancashire, denounced in no measured terms the wasteful and extravagant expenditure of his predecessors in office, and of my humble self in particular. I cannot help thinking, however, that I ought to find ample consolation for the imputations made against me by the right hon. Gentleman in the events of the last two years. In a letter written by Earl Russell he speaks of my right hon. Friend the Secretary for War as having been appointed to his present office for the purpose of effecting retrenchment, and that he had retrenched. That is perfectly true, for within the first 18 months after the last change of Government 20,000 men were struck off the numbers of the Army as I had left it, and the Estimates were reduced in proportion. But what do I find after those 18 months have passed away? I find the strength of our Army restored to within a few thousand men of the strength at which I left it in 1868, while the Estimates have been brought back to within a few thousands of those very Estimates which had been denounced by the Prime Minister as so wasteful and extravagant. Now, I am making no complaint of this increase of the Estimates—on that score I find no fault with the Government—it is with their denunciations of our supposed extravagance that I think I have just reason to quarrel. And you may judge my profound astonishment when I see a Ministry who placed economy and retrenchment in the very forefront of their policy, and who denounced the late Government as extravagant, coming down to the House of Commons and proposing to us to sanction a scheme which, as was said by my noble Friend the Member for Haddingtonshire a few evenings ago, is one of the most wantonly extravagant and wasteful proposals that have ever been made to Parliament. The Secretary of State, in making his statement the other day, asked us frankly and fairly three questions. Are you prepared, he said, to meet these three objections? Are you prepared to sacrifice a very large sum of money? Are you prepared to deal with the question of retirement? And are you prepared to adopt the principle of selection? Now, I am bound to answer all these questions in the negative. I am not prepared to consent to an enormous sacrifice of public money, unless the Government can show that this sacrifice is for adequate reasons. I am not prepared to plunge into the unknown cost of a scheme of retirement until that scheme is explained. Nor am I prepared to encounter the well-known and proved difficulties of selection. It is to be regretted that the system of purchase in the Army is very imperfectly understood. The Secretary of State led us to think last year that he did not understand it; but it is clear he has now mastered the subject, because he has told us how very strong are the arguments it its favour. Many hon. Members, however, have shown that they do not understand it, and out-of-doors it is understood still less. Gentlemen, including the hon. Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan), have been riding their hobbies rather hard, and have been going about the country throwing dust into the eyes of the people upon this subject. In my opinion, therefore, it is at this moment of serious national importance that we should endeavour to arrive at a right understanding of the real merits of the question. I was sorry, a few days ago, to read the language addressed by the hon. and learned Solicitor General to his constituents at Exeter. The hon. and learned Member, though distinguished in his own profession, yet not probably knowing much about purchase in the Army, said that under it "rich and incompetent men" buy the right "to destroy regiments and to lose battles." On the part of such a man as the Solicitor General we have a right to expect that, even when addressing his constituents, he should not speak on a subject of such importance with this levity. But the hon. and learned Gentleman went further, and condescended to repeat the trash which I thought was now dismissed from the mind of every intelligent man in this country—always excepting the hon. Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan)—that the officers of the British Army are a peculiar and a privileged class. It is deeply to be regretted that this misrepresentation should go abroad; and I want to impress upon the House and the country that, in arriving at a judgment upon this question, which has assumed now a national importance, it is most desirable that opinion should be based not upon partizan statements from either side of the House, but upon authenticated means, which we have at our command. We have the information arrived at after an able, impartial, judicial inquiry by the Royal Commission of 1857, which discussed the purchase system with an ability and a fairness leaving nothing to be desired. I hope I shall not be thought to waste the time of the House if I invite attention to the decision of this Commission. Let me remind the House, in the first place, of whom that Commission was composed. It had at its head the Duke of Somerset, Lord Stanley—now the Earl of Derby—Mr. Sidney Herbert, Sir De Lacy Evans, Sir Harry Jones, and Mr. Carr Glynn—now Lord Wolverton. It will be seen from the composition of the Commission that it had no unfair bias; that it would not lean unduly to aristocratic influence in the Army, nor to any views unfairly opposed to those of the present Government. The Royal Commission, after hearing evidence, wrote a most careful and able Report—and what was their decision? They did not recommend any abolition of purchase in the Army under the rank of major, but they recommended its abolitition above that grade, in order that the command of regiments should no longer be subject to purchase. It is now 14 years since that Report was issued. The Government of Lord Palmerston made up their minds to adopt the Report; but when they tried to give practical effect to it they found the difficulties so great that they abandoned the project; and from 1857 to the present moment no attempt has been made to carry out the recommendation of the Commissioners. In two short sentences the Royal Commission summed up the arguments for and against purchase in the Army. They said— To comprise in a few words the evils of the purchase system, it is said to restrict the number of those from whom officers can in the first instance be obtained; it deadens the feelings of emulation and the eagerness to acquire military knowledge; and it renders men eligible for the highest command without taking any security that they are fitted for such a position. The chief advantages of the system are said to be that it facilitates the retirement of officers, and thereby accelerates promotion in the Army, which would otherwise stagnate during a period of continual peace; also, it is said to afford to officers a security against the influence of favour, enabling each officer to obtain his advancement by his own means, without being dependent on the good will of the Government, or on the patronage of higher authorities. A moment's consideration of these two statements will show that the objections to purchase are objections of theory, while the arguments in its favour are practical. As to the objections to the system, I was struck by what fell from the Secretary of State this evening. He has told us that at this moment there are 500 gentlemen who have passed their examination and are waiting for a commission. We may dismiss, therefore, all uneasiness as to "the number of those from whom officers can in the first instance be obtained." As to the objection that purchase deadens emulation and the eagerness of officers to acquire a knowledge of their profession, there is an obvious remedy for such an evil if it exists. A stroke of the pen will correct it; the Commander-in-Chief, and those at the head of the Army, have only to prescribe any regulations they choose for increasing the acquirements of officers in the Army. The remaining objection is the most serious—that under the existing system men may be appointed to the highest command, there being no security as to their fitness for such a position. Now, if the facts are examined, I believe it will be found there are in practice very few such cases, and that where they occur they may be dealt with by the exercise of the veto which the Commander-in-Chief possesses. The Royal Commissioners, referring to the constitution of our regiments, and to the fact that each regiment contained only two majors, and a number of captains and subaltern officers, drew this distinction:—"Here," they said, "the purchase system operates favourably for the public service," on account of the officers who retire by the sale of their commissions. Here is the deliberate opinion of an impartial Commission that the purchase system operates for the public advantage. The Commissioners say— In the preceding pages we have endeavoured to show that if the purchase system be abolished it will become indispensable, for the purpose of maintaining the efficiency of the British Army, to adopt a new system of retirement and promotion—namely, to make retirement, after a fixed age or period of service compulsory, and to give promotion by selection. For the present I shall postpone my observations as to promotion by selection, wishing now to examine the substitute proposed by the Government for the system of purchase. In the first place, I will touch upon a subject which has not, I think, been alluded to by any previous speaker. We have heard a great deal of how men are to get out of the Army, and what is to be the system of retirement; but I do not remember to have heard a word as to how young men are to get into the Army. I ask the House to consider whether this question is not immediately and closely connected with the plan of the Government. There are now three modes of getting into the Army. Young men may compete and obtain commissions at Sandhurst without purchase; non-commissioned officers are in a certain ratio raised from the ranks to the position of commissioned officers; and the third mode is the purchase system, by which young men are allowed to enter their names in the list of the Military Secretary, and purchase their commissions. The practical result is, as far as I can judge, that about two-thirds, or between two-thirds and three-fourths, of the young men who enter the Army enter by purchase, and about one-third or one-fourth enter without purchase. The point I wish to press upon the House is that under this system we are free from patronage and favour, jobbing and political influence. A young man gets his name put down for purchase, and when his turn comes round he is brought up for examination—which is most fairly conducted, for in my own personal experience I have known cases where men of very humble position have come out at the top of the list, and where the sons of noblemen have either been at the bottom or, failing altogether, have been unable to make the Army their profession. This is no mean consideration. It is, indeed, a matter of extreme importance. Now, what are the modes of entering the Army which the right hon. Gentleman adopts? Of course, he properly continues the mode of letting men enter the Army by competition and examination at Sandhurst. He also continues the plan of raising men from the ranks, and he is perfectly right in doing so—with the limitation that the practice should not be much farther increased. I do not believe it would be for the good of the Army that the system of raising men from the ranks to commissions should be extended to a greater extent than it exists at present. The right hon. Gentleman next explained his two substitutes for purchase. One is the admission into the Line of Militia officers after two years' training, and the other is the adoption of the cadet system. Now here we must be cautious what we are doing—because we are here going back to favour and patronage. I do not wish to show the slightest disrespect to the eminent and distinguished men who fill the offices of Lords Lieutenant of counties, but, even supposing them to be free from the action, you will expose them to the suspicion of jobbing these appointments. Two of these Lords Lieutenant have told me recently that they have already received from 20 to 30 applications to put down young men who wished to take advantage of this arrangement to enter the Army. We all know what is now said—I do not say justly—with respect to the selection of magistrates by Lords Lieutenant, and the imputations cast on them out-of-doors in respect to that matter; but what would be the case when they shall have the power of selecting from among their own friends those who are to be passed into the Army on such easy terms? Would not such a system be open to the suspicion, at least, of favouritism and jobbery? With regard to the adoption of the cadet system, I wish to be further informed as to the intentions of the Secretary of War. The hon. and gallant Member for Colchester, (Colonel Learmonth), who spoke the other night with such, great ability and knowledge of the subject, expressed an opinion very much in favour of that system, and I was not surprised to hear that that gallant Officer took at first sight a favourable view of it. It has, however, been my fate to know a good deal of the Admiralty, and in that Department I had ample experience of what kind of thing the cadet system is. I want to know who is to nominate to these cadetships? At the Admiralty the duty of selection was constantly involving us in the suspicion of favouritism at least. No man could have been First Lord without having his table covered with numerous applications such as this—"I have always supported Conservative or Liberal candidates" (as the case might be), "and I have a very nice boy, nine years old, whom I want to be a cadet." Such are the applications which the First Lord receives day after day. A similar result, I apprehend, will attend this proposal of cadets for the Army. Then I want to know at what age are these cadets to be admitted; at what age are they to commence their career? I say that we have now a system which is free from favour and from the suspicion of political jobbing, and I warn and entreat the Government most solemnly that in their earnest desire to adopt this democratic system—for that is what the abolition of purchase really amounts to—they should beware, lest in trying to avoid the evils which exist, they should incur others of even greater magnitude and importance.

And now let me touch on a subject which has been much discussed, and which, I hope, will receive still more discussion—I mean the question how men are to get out of the Army. What is to be your system of retirement? Here, I think, we have some right to complain of the conduct of the Government, for this is a question of enormous magnitude, closely and immediately affecting the expenditure of the country and the efficiency of our Army, and I think the Government are bound to show what the system of retirement is to be, and what effect it is likely to have on the efficiency of the Army. We are in manifest danger; either you will have the dead routine of seniority, fatal to the efficiency of the Army, or you will have an enormous expenditure to provide for. This is a difficult question, the importance of which it is impossible to overrate. And there is another question germane to it—What are you going to do about the artillery? This question is pressing upon us very strongly. Four years ago the right hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) presided over a Committee, which entered into arrangements for providing retirements for artillery officers. As long as I was in office, he was constantly asking me whether we were going to adopt these arrangements; but my answer was always the same—"The scheme is too costly; I will not adopt it, and will wait until you are in office, when you can adopt it yourself." But it never has been adopted. Last year the evil was still pressing on the Royal Artillery, and a small departmental committee was appointed by my right hon. Friend at the War Office, consisting of the hon. and gallant Member for Truro (Captain Vivian), and only two other persons. That committee gave considerable care to the inquiry, and they produced a Report, which was laid upon the Table of this House. I want to know is that Report going to be carried out, or is the suggested plan deemed too expensive? This very morning I received a letter from the father of two young officers in the artillery, complaining in the most bitter terms of the stagnation of their prospects; and I have received several other letters to the same effect within the last few days. One of these letters, which I received this morning, even went to the length of saying—"Do not suppose we can be satisfied with the Report which was cooked up at the War Office last year." Have we not here, in the condition of the Royal Artillery at this moment, and in their prospects, a grave warning against extending these difficulties to the whole Army? What would be the number of officers to be provided for under your system of retirement? Recollect the warning advice given by that fairly constituted Commission. Under the present system the whole thing is provided for. The officers sell their commissions and retire; but, under the new system, nothing will be provided for. I very much fear that the evils in front of you are such that you will find it very difficult to overcome them.

Let me now advert to another very grave consideration in connection with the Government plan—I mean the question of selection in the Army. The difficulties here are even greater than those in respect of retirement; and let me remind you again of the warning voice which we have received from the Royal Commission. The Commissioners alluded to their own recommendation that selection should be exercised in reference to the command of regiments; but they went on to say that the feeling against selection was so strong that the highest military authorities would take refuge in seniority, and if they could not choose the senior major of the regiment they would select the senior major in that arm of the service. My own belief is that, if you adopt the principle of selection in the Army, you will find in time of peace there will be, for the most part, a sort of average degree of merit pervading an immense number of officers to such an extent as to make it almost impossible for any man, however honestly disposed, satisfactorily to select out of that body of officers. What, then, would be the obvious course to adopt? To retire on seniority. The Commissioners say— To abolish the purchase system, and to leave promotion to be made by seniority as the future rule of advancement, would, in our opinion, be a course of proceeding most injurious to the efficiency of the British Army. I believe that every dispassionate man will concur in that opinion; and here, again, let me appeal to a precedent which is within my own knowledge—the precedent of the Navy. Have we heard no complaints of selection in the Navy? Has any man ever held the office of First Lord of the Admiralty without experiencing a painful feeling that, right or wrong, however anxious he might be to do justice, he could not select a man to command a ship without excluding many other deserving men? And we know the result is that the man who makes the selection must be content to submit to all sorts of imputations. The result has been practically to confirm the language of the Purchase Commissioners that, for the most part, the authorities at the Admiralty, in order to take refuge from these imputations, have had to come down to selection from seniority. Commands to ships are conferred to a large extent by seniority from the impossibility of making selections from such a number of officers. Then there is another argument on this question which, we ought not to disregard. The Commander-in-Chief of the British Army has at this time—and has for some time had—to appoint by selection to one appointment, and to one only—that is, to the honorary colonelcies of our regiments. I see my hon. Friend the Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan) in his place, and I must say that I read with deep regret among many misstatements which disfigure the pages he has published on this subject one most painful imputation on His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, to the effect that in making these selections for honorary colonelcies he has been guided by social rank and personal interest. A more unjust imputation never was made. I speak in the presence of my right hon. Friend opposite the Secretary of State, whose experience I have no doubt has been the same as my own. For nearly two years I was a party to every selection made by His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief. There was no appointment made without my consent. Sometimes His Royal Highness has consulted me by letter, but more frequently I went with him down the Army List, and over and over again I have known him pass over men of high social class and distinction, and pick out some officer solely on account of his professional merits. Is not this enough to show the difficulties of the system of selection? While I am vindicating, as I feel I ought to vindicate, His Royal Highness from these injurious and unjust imputations, I desire to disclaim on my own part any defence of the system of these honorary colonelcies, for I think the system is not a good one, and that it might very easily be improved.

Let me now say a few words as to the social position and general merits of our officers—but they shall be very few, ample justice having been done to them by previous speakers. The idea that our officers are selected with reference to their rank has, I think, been completely exploded; and though the hon. Member for the Border Burghs has clung to that idea until he has brought himself to believe it, I think he is the only man who entertains the idea that there is anything like what he calls a "class monopoly" in favour of the officers of the British Army. The names of Clive and Havelock have been mentioned. Why, Sir, there is an officer at this moment holding the high and distinguished rank of Field Marshal in the British Army, who is the son of a tradesman of this City of London. I mention this to the honour of the man, to the honour of the system, and to the discomfiture of those who pretend for a moment that the officers of our Army are selected from a privileged class. What have been the services of our Army? In this debate I think we have not made enough of the fact that for 200 years the British Army has been officered under this system of purchase; and what have been its results? Have we not gained all our triumphant successes under that system; and has it not been under that system that our Army has placed this kingdom in the position of power and eminence which it now enjoys? I believe there is no Army in the world where the officers are more deserving of credit than the British Army, or where there is a better feeling between the officers and men. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Trevelyan) would have the Army officered in a more professional manner. But I say that is in your own power. By a stroke of the pen you may prescribe any system of training you like, and make your officers what you please; but the system of purchase has nothing to do with it, one way or the other.

Now, Sir, I come to that more serious question, what is to be the cost of the Government plan? The hon. Member for the Border Burghs has made an extraordinary mistake on this point. He has told us that the cost of doing away with purchase would be, at regulation prices, £2,355,000, or at extra-regulation prices, £3,140,000. That is one of the many inaccuracies into which my hon. Friend has allowed his zeal on this question to hurry him. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State comes down to the House and tells us that it will cost from £7,500,000 to £8,500,000—and I doubt the accuracy even of that estimate. I say this, of course, not only subject to correction, but inviting correction. I do not place implicit faith in the Paper which has been laid before us as the result of the actuary's calculation. I want to know, in the first place, what is the basis of that calculation. Before we can judge of its correctness we ought to know on what basis it is founded. In the Appendix to the Report of the Royal Commission of 1867, there is a most elaborate statement of the prices paid in every regiment, and the regulation sums to which officers of the Army would be entitled. The Army was not then so large as it is now, but the value of the regulation price at that time is shown to be upwards of £7,100,000; to which you have to add £3,000,000 as the value of the over-regulation price; so that I am forced to the conclusion that it would be impossible to carry out the intentions of the right hon. Gentleman and buy up the commissions of the Army at the over-regulation prices at a less cost than from £10,000,000 to £11,000,000. This is a question of fact, on which the right hon. Gentleman will be able to answer me. I have given the reason why I doubt the accuracy of the calculation that we can get rid of purchase in the Army for the amount of £8,000,000. But suppose we could do so, is there any evil in the system, or is there any advantage to be gained by doing away with it, which would justify this House in calling upon the taxpayers of England to provide that large sum of money? What is the answer of the Government? Their answer is "Yes." They say—"We cannot connect the Reserves with the Army—we cannot re-organize the Army—so long as this system of purchase stands in our way." With great deference to the high authorities who sit opposite to me I venture to question that statement. At all events I say you are bound to give us some better reason than we have yet received. I listened with great attention and great pleasure to the able speech of my right hon. Friend the Surveyor General of the Ordnance (Sir Henry Storks). I was glad to hear him address the House in so able a manner; but I must question one part of his statement. My hon. Friend gave us what I can only call a very vague reason for doing away with purchase. He said—"When we come to re-organize the Army the question of purchase meets us at every point." When my right hon. Friend has occupied a seat in this House for a little longer time I think he will learn that in discussing subjects of great national importance opinion cannot be changed by vague declarations. We want something a little more specific—we want to be told what are those points. We want to know where they arise and what is their nature, and in what way they meet us at every point. My right hon. Friend did go on to give us one of his points; and, with great submission to him, I venture to say there is nothing in it. The point he gave us was the question of cornet and ensign. What is the history of the question? It is a change which I suggested at the War Office, and in which my right hon. Friend the present Secretary of State concurred. He proceeded to effect it afterwards; and when he came to carry it out it is perfectly true that he was met by difficulties connected with the over-regulation prices, and found that it was not to be so easily arranged as he had supposed. He therefore appointed a Commission to consider the over-regulation prices. That Commission has reported, and my right hon. Friend is prepared to act upon their Report. I know of no reason whatever to prevent his carrying into effect that change with regard to cornets and ensigns at this moment without the slightest difficulty, or without proceeding in any way to destroy the purchase system. There was another reason assigned. I see my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Truro (Captain Vivian) in his place, and I hope he will not be very angry with me if I say that in trying to tell us what one of those points was that met them at every turn, he made a statement which, if it had come from some young Member of this House making a maiden speech upon Army affairs which he did not understand, I should not have been surprised at; but coming as it did from my hon. and gallant Friend, when I heard it I could hardly believe my ears, and when I read it I could hardly believe my eyes. The statement was this— It was, however, proposed that officers of the Militia should, under certain conditions, get commissions in the Line; and he should like to know how it would be possible to take officers under the non-purchase system, and place them side by side with officers in the Army, each of whom had paid £450 for his commission. Is it possible that my hon. and gallant Friend gravely put that question to the House of Commons? Has he forgotten the Militia officers who passed into the Line in the Crimea, and who were all placed side by side with officers who had given £450 for their commissions? Has he forgotten that from day to day Sandhurst officers are passed into the Army without having paid a single shilling for their commissions?

CAPTAIN VIVIAN

I rise to explain. What I said was, that the only officers who could go to the Line from the Militia were officers who could afford to do so under the present expensive purchase system.

SIR JOHN PAKINGTON

I should like to know, Sir, whether my hon. and gallant Friend has forgotten the men who have been raised from the ranks and placed with officers who have come in under the purchase system. I do not wish to be severe upon my hon. and gallant Friend, with whom I have been so long associated on friendly terms, when I say that if he makes a slip of this kind he must take the consequences. But all I want to state is, that so far as the Government has yet informed us there is absolutely nothing in their arguments to support the pretence that you cannot re-organize the Army unless you do away with the purchase system.

I cannot, however, conclude my remarks upon this immensely important subject without taking some notice of what has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman opposite with regard to our Reserves and our Militia. On the subject of the Militia, I am sorry to be obliged to say that the statement of my right hon. Friend was not very distinct. He had a very complicated and long statement to make, and so far as I have been able to follow it, I really cannot understand what his intentions with regard to the Militia are. I find that his Estimates do not correspond with the right hon. Gentleman's speech, and that one part of his speech does not correspond with another. The Estimates show the full quota of Militia to be 128,000. In his speech he speaks of their number as being 139,000, and further of 45,000 men which were at some future time to be added. I hope when the proper time arrives that he will give us an explanation of how these apparent discrepancies arise. But my main point is that, in my humble opinion, the Militia of this country is the force on which we ought to rely as our best, surest, and cheapest Reserves—the force from which we ought to derive the military strength that may be necessary over and above the force of the Regular Army. I think we cannot attach too much importance to the proper strength of our Militia; and I must say that I am disappointed that the Government have not told us in their Army scheme of the present year that they intend to raise the Militia to a considerably larger amount than we have any intimation of at present.

After having indulged in so much criticism, I am glad that there are points upon which I am able to concur in the views of Her Majesty's Government. I entirely concur with Her Majesty's Government in the views which they have stated with regard to compulsory service. I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that there exists at present in the country much objection to this principle; but, on the other hand, I think that the Government are entirely right in retaining the power of compulsory service. It has long been the constitutional rule of this country with regard to the organization of our Militia, and I should blame the Government most severely if they did not retain that power. Whether my Friends on this side of the House are with me on another point, I know not; but certainly I do not agree with the proposals of my right hon. Friend and the statement of the Bill on the subject of substitutes for the Militia. [Mr. CARDWELL: No substitutes are allowed.] No substitutes are allowed; and I cannot conceive why you should not allow them. The object of the Ballot, whenever you resort to it, is to get the best men to serve the Queen; and supposing the lot falls upon a man who, in consequence of his position in life and the various calls upon him, is unable to serve, if he will give money to another man to serve for him, I believe such an arrangement would be to the advantage of both parties and also to the advantage of the State. In the general principles of the Government in reference to compulsory service, however, I entirely agree; and I am disposed to agree with them with regard to the proposal to do away with the power of Lords Lieutenant. I think they are right to bring under one authority all the forces that serve with the Queen's Commission. As to the training centres which the right hon. Gentleman proposes to establish, I know not what his plan will be. We shall require to be informed how he proposes to arrange for the disposal of the troops when they are assembled at those training centres. I hope to hear where these training centres are to be; and I dwell on the matter with some stress, on account of the power which is proposed to be given by the Bill to magistrates at quarter sessions to levy local rates for the purpose of building barracks for the Militia. The subject has been talked over a good deal in this House, and if the Government depend upon the willingness of the local magistrates of this country to impose upon the rates the burden of building barracks for the Militia, deeply sensible as we all are of the evils of the billeting system, I very much doubt whether my right hon. Friend will find many counties—if I may judge from my own neighbourhood—ready to come forward to incur that expense. If we are to have training centres, where bodies of 15,000 or 20,000 men will be assembled, it is absolutely necessary that adequate provision should be made for their accommodation. Well, I ask when considering the question of the Reserve Forces, what are the changes which render the abolition of the purchase system necessary? I cannot find them. Several modes have occurred to my mind, by which subalterns could be passed from the Militia into the Line with advantage to both services, and without rendering abolition of purchase necessary. The proposal for a combined system of drill does not make it necessary to do away with purchase. The only remaining point where the right hon. Gentleman proposed to fuse the Militia with the Line was in regard to lending officers from the Line to the Militia. I think that is a very good proposal; but what has that to do with the abolition of purchase? Nothing whatever.

There remains only to be touched upon the serious matter of our Reserve forces. If I rightly understand the plan of the Government, as proposed by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Truro (Captain Vivian), we are to trust entirely to the new system of short enlistments to supply our Reserves, by which means it is calculated that, in the course of 14 or 15 years, we shall obtain an adequate Reserve. Well, Sir, I do not think we can afford to wait so long. Some more prompt and decisive measure is necessary, and I am disappointed that the Government have not brought before us some plan connecting more directly the Militia with the Line, and thus enable us in that direction to obtain our Reserves. I am disappointed, further, that the Government have given us no suggestion for utilizing half-pay and retired officers in connection with our Reserves; and I am also disappointed at the obstinate silence of the Government on that which is one of the most essential conditions of the re-organization of the Army—I mean the absence of provision with regard to equipment and transport of troops; to the civil branches of the service; above all, to the artillery—in fact, all those arrangements without which it would be absolutely impossible in face of any national emergency for these large bodies of troops to take the field. I deeply regret that the Government have thought it right—unnecessarily as I think—to mix up the question of the re-organization of the Army with the controverted question of purchase. In my opinion they would have acted far more wisely if they had abstained from any reference at this moment to the purchase system. I wish they had given us a well-prepared scheme for strengthening the defences of the country, and then, if they had found practically in working out their scheme that purchase in the Army actually stood in the way of improvement, they could have come down to this House with far stronger reasons than they can adduce now for asking Parliament to do away with that system. But in proposing this crude scheme, with abolition of purchase as the head, and front of their measure, they lead to the unavoidable suspicion that some political motive is at the root of it.

I am bound to say before I sit down that I agree very much with what fell from my noble Friend the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) the other evening, with regard to the Amendment that has been moved by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Berkshire (Colonel Loyd Lindsay). I am sorry he has directed his Amendment to one part only of this measure, instead of making it rest upon a wider foundation. On the other hand, I am entirely unable to agree with my noble Friend with respect to the vote he proposes to give—or rather which he proposes not to give—on this Amendment. So far as that Amendment goes, I fully agree with it, and if my hon. and gallant Friend proceeds to a Division he shall have my cordial support. But, Sir, I should hope it would be the opinion of all who share my views upon this subject, that whatever may be the decision of the House on the Amendment of my hon. and gallant Friend, this great question cannot rest there. I trust it will be discussed and re-discussed, and dealt with in every shape and form; for I cannot for a moment believe that, when it has been thoroughly debated, Parliament will agree to the adoption of what I believe to be the most extravagant proposal ever submitted to the House of Commons.

MR. TREVELYAN

^*: Sir, I must apologize for interposing between the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Osborne) and his audience; but the hon. Member can always make a full House, while I am anxious to take advantage of finding one, in order to lay before it a few facts and figures which have been somewhat left out of sight during the course of this debate. The right hon. Baronet (Sir John Pakington) who has just sat down has been intimately connected with the War Office, but he has also thrown his protection over the other great spending Department which he has administered in his day, and has made a speech not so much against abolishing purchase in the Army as in favour of instituting it in the Navy. But it would have been as well if he had confined himself to the services, and left me alone, for in the course of this discussion far too much has already been said about my personal relation to this question. One speaker after another has accused me in general terms of making misstatements. Of these charges the most definite is that brought by the right hon. Baronet—that I underrated at Edinburgh the amount required for the compensation of officers who had purchased. But on the occasion referred to I distinctly stated that I took the last available calculation made on the responsibility of the War Office. And where did that calculation see the light? Why, in the War Office Report, consequent on the very Blue Book which the right hon. Baronet has been thrusting down our throats for the last hour, telling us to listen to what he calls its solemn warnings. Then the right hon. and gallant Member for South Shropshire (Major General Sir Percy Herbert) complains that I talked of putting up commissions for sale to the highest bidder—the identical form of words, by the way, that was adopted by the Secretary of State for War. The hon. and gallant Member says— The hon. Member for the Border Burghs had made a statement to that effect, not in the heat of debate, but deliberately in a speech, which he had subsequently printed and published in the form of a pamphlet. That was a total misconception of the purchase system as it was now in force. The truth was, that the senior officer on the list, whether he were captain or lieutenant, could not be passed over by any junior officer, provided he was possessed of the regulation price, if he chose to enforce his right. Does the hon. Member, after the refutations of his statement made by the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread), and by the Judge Advocate General, continue to maintain that officers are in the habit of insisting upon their claim to promotion without being prepared to pay more than the regulation price? If you want military evidence to the contrary, take what General Sir John Macdonald, when Adjutant General, deposed before a Royal Commission— There is no member of a regimental society so unpopular as he who proclaims his determination not to exceed the regulated price, thereby standing as an obstacle to promotion by purchase in the regiment to which he belongs. And Sir Edward Lugard last year expressed his full concurrence in that view. If, then, officers insist on their nominal right, what becomes of that pleasant esprit de corps of which we have heard so much lately? But there is not a military man inside the House, or out of it, who is not perfectly well aware that, in stating that such a right existed only in name, I was stating the precise truth. The right hon. and gallant Member for South Shropshire has made an exception to the kind and moderate manner in which, on the whole, I have been treated by hon. and gallant Gentlemen. He is reported in the newspapers—and has not been at the pains to deny it—to have referred to me at a large meeting of his neighbours as a political adventurer, who abused the Commander-in-Chief in order to get office. The right hon. and gallant Member held a place about the Court during the late Administration. I suppose he wished to prove to the editor of the Financial Reform Tracts that the office was not a sinecure. But His Royal Highness is too kindly and worthy a gentleman to be grateful to the hon. Member for employing such weapons in his defence. A great deal has been said by the right hon. Baronet and others as to my allegation that the command of the Army is, to a great extent, a monopoly. A noble Lord twitted me with talking "aristocratic rubbish," while the right hon. Baronet took me to task for calling purchase an aristocratic system, and then, almost in the same breath, condemned the abolition of it as a democratic notion. But Lord Palmerston who always weighed his words, said in Parliament that it was— Desirable to connect the higher classes of society with the Army, and he did not know any more effective method of connecting them than by allowing members of high families to get on with greater rapidity than they would by mere seniority. The right hon. Baronet cited the cases of Lord Clyde and Sir Henry Havelock as men of the people who had risen to high command under the purchase system; but it is quite unjustifiable to quote such men as witnesses against their own opinions. Havelock, in his 56th year, was still writing thus— I was purchased over, I used to say, by three sots and two fools, so that I presume I must persuade myself that it is a pleasant variety to be superseded by a man of sense and gentlemanly habits. Be this as it may, the honour of an old soldier on the point of having his juniors put over him is so sensitive, that, if I had no family to support, and the right of choice in my own hands, I would not serve one hour longer. Fortunately for his country, Havelock had a family to support. Lord Clyde's experience of the purchase system may be gathered from his evidence before the Commission of 1856. When, asked— Do you think that the system of promotion by purchase has an injurious effect upon the Army, by dispiriting many excellent officers who find themselves passed over?" he replies: "As regards those individuals who have been passed over, certainly. I have known very many estimable men, having higher qualities as officers than usual, men of real promise and merit, and well educated, but who could not purchase; when such men were purchased over, their ardour cooled, and they frequently left the service, or, when they continued, it was from necessity, and not from any love of the profession. When purchase is abolished, we shall get many more Clydes and Havelocks, and we shall get them in the full vigour of their years. Thus, when brought to the proof, this indefinite volume of accusations of misstatement and misrepresentation resolves itself into three charges, as to all of which I have, I think sufficiently justified myself.

But now I pass to a more interesting question—the method by which the Government proposes to extinguish purchase. As regards the amount of money that will be required, many and very various statements have been floating about the House. It may safely be said that there never was a more stupendous fabric of financial assertion founded on a more frail basis of financial fact. The hon. and gallant Member for Tipperary, in the course of one and the same speech, put the expense of abolishing purchase at £8,000,000, £9,000,000, £10,000,000, and £14,000,000.

COLONEL WHITE

I simply explained that it was extremely possible that the money might amount to £14,000,000.

MR. TREVELYAN

The hon. and gallant Member, having no confidence in the Government calculation, really took the figures that came uppermost. It is, however, easy to ascertain what the maximum expense would be. A member of the leading firm of Army agents gave the entire sum invested in commissions at £7,668,000 for the regulation price, and £3,577,000 for the over-regulation price; in all, £11,250,000. I have had a careful estimate made out by a most competent authority, which places the amount at £10,871,000. Let us call it £11,000,000. But this £11,000,000 would only have to be paid in case the whole Army were disbanded at once—an absolutely impossible contingency. Large deductions must be made from the capital sum. No officer would get anything who remained on for the sake of the higher promotion, except that, when he became a major-general, he would receive something which would represent the purse which, under the existing state of things, would be made up in the regiment. No one would get anything who retired on full-pay, or who was invalided on half-pay. When we consider that, as an inducement to men to sacrifice the chance of receiving back their capital, the nation already offers annuities to the extent of £500,000 a-year in the shape of different forms of retirement, we shall not be at a loss to account for a difference of £3,000,000 between the gross liabilities of the nation and the actual sum which we shall eventually have to pay, which will be under—as I believe, very much under—£8,000,000. It must be remembered, likewise, that no one will cost us anything who dies, and no one who is killed in action will render us liable to more than the regulation price. It is to be hoped that the Secretary of War will re-consider his determination to limit the annual retirements. We should not keep unwilling officers; and we need not, inasmuch as the number of retirements will limit itself by a self-adjusting process. Every officer who leaves, in all ranks except the lowest, causes promotion which tempts others to stay. There is no reason to fear lest, as has been said, we should wake up one morning and find ourselves with, no Army and no Consolidated Fund. The yearly payments made to officers leaving the Army will probably not exceed the annual £850,000 of the five years past; and, if more is required, we shall recover it by the diminution of our estimates for half-pay and full-pay retirement. I hope to be excused if I pass over what has been said by many who, in this debate, have appeared for the first time in the character of economists, and go straight to the remarks of the hon. Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands) with reference to the extra-regulation prices; the determination to pay which, according to the Government Return, will involve us in liabilities to the ultimate amount of £2,821,000. The House is always inclined to believe what is told them by a man who believes it himself, and listened with deserved attention while the hon. Member described how the over-regulation prices had grown up, and how persistently the nation had tried to check them. He referred to the Royal Warrants of 1720 and 1760, that forbade such payments; to the solemn declaration of non-complicity in the practice exacted from officers in 1784; to the circular letter of 1804; to the successive penal Acts of 1807, 1809, and 1815. He showed the nature and multiplicity of the powers with which the nation had armed the military authorities, and which those authorities have always shrunk from using. It is much to the credit of the present War Minister that, as soon as he took the Army into his own hands, he refused to be a party to this state of things. When once, by subordinating the Commander-in-Chief to the Secretary of State, he had become responsible for the discipline and promotion of the Army, the right hon. Gentleman considered himself likewise responsible for its morality. He determined that the payment of the over-regulation prices should be either legal or criminal; that the law should be either altered or kept. He would not continue that system of collusion with illegality, dignified by the title of official non-recognition, which is now to cost us so dear. That defiance of the law which the Horse Guards, ever since there had been a Horse Guards, had acquiesced in and protected, the plain right feeling of an English statesman refused to tolerate for a day. The hon. Member for Warrington now protests against the taxpayers being called upon to compensate officers who, for their own convenience and interest, had deliberately violated the law. Now, Sir, if we refuse to pay these over-regulation prices, we must adopt one of three courses. The hon. Members for Warrington (Mr. Rylands) and Birmingham (Mr. Muntz) would have us altogether refuse to recognize these prices, either in the way of compensation or of repression. They would allow officers to make pecuniary arrangements among themselves; and, in fact, would permit the continuance of what is commonly known as a bonus system. They are of opinion that you cannot stamp out purchase. But the fact is that it has been stamped out of every other service under the Crown. Our present military system took its origin at a time when every public appointment had its selling value. Those hon. Gentlemen who read their "Pepys" will remember that Pepys was made Clerk of the Acts in 1660, and immediately received a bid of £500. So legitimate did the transaction appear to him that he "prayed to God to direct me what I do herein." Presently a former holder turned up in the person of a Mr. Barlow, An old consumptive man, and fair complexioned. After much talk, I did grant him what he asked—namely, £50 per annum if my salary be not increased, and £100 in case it be £350. A fortnight after, he gets an offer of £1,000, "which made my mouth water." Now, Sir, what is there peculiar about the conditions of military life which forbids us to hope that this bad practice, which was banished by the Revolution of 1688 from the Admiralty, the Law Courts, and the Civil Departments, can be eradicated from the Army? Why has it not been eradicated hitherto? Why have Royal Warrants and Acts of Parliament, circular letters and declarations on honour, denunciations of fine and imprisonment on principals and accessories, been all equally futile? For the simple reason that you were dealing with that which the Government recognized to be the subject of sale and barter. Once allow an article to be merchantable, and you cannot interfere to regulate its current value. You can no more meddle with the commission market than you can with the corn market. But extinguish purchase root and branch, give the officers no reason to think that they have been ill-used, and you will enable the military authorities effectually to employ their means of repression, when once you have enlisted on the side of the law the moral sense of the profession. While we are on the subject of economy, I do claim for Ministers that they are better economists than my hon. Friends the Members for Warrington and Birmingham. Why are we bent on extinguishing purchase? Because the Army is in pawn to its officers, and the nation wishes to get it back into its own hands, in order that officers may be reduced or changed about as economy and the requirements of the service demand. But if we are to recognize a bonus system—and, by considering it as a set-off against the nonpayment by the public of the over-regulation prices, you do so recognize it—you actually leave the service as un-elastic and beyond your own control as ever. We could not transfer officers from the Line to the Militia or Volunteers. We could not diminish the superfluity in one regiment, or fill up the vacuity in another. To deal thus freely would be to disturb the operation of the bonus system, and to cheat the men who had sunk their money under it. Which, then, are the better economists—the Government, which proposes to pay £8,000,000 to get rid of purchase, or my hon. Friends, who propose to pay £5,000,000 to keep it? For my own part, I absolutely refuse to vote not £5,000,000, but a single halfpenny, unless we buy out purchase entirely, at once and for ever. And now, Sir—and here I must ask my hon. Friend carefully to follow me, as I am anxious not to misrepresent him—it appeared as if the hon. Member for Warrington was in a manner carried away by the acceptance his remarks met from the hon. and gallant Gentlemen opposite—an acceptance which arose rather from a liking for a bonus system than from sympathy with his denunciation of the illegality of the over-regulation prices. The hon. Member said that he wished to show justice, and even indulgence, to the Army; and that he was not averse to paying down the regulation prices at once, leaving the over-regulation prices to take care of themselves. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ripon (Sir Henry Storks) has explained with admirable force and clearness how, if this course was adopted, officers who had purchased would keep the promotion which they had bought, while they got back the money wherewith they had bought it. It would result in men eating their cake, and having it, too, on a gigantic scale, and at the expense of the public. Such a measure would likewise involve a complete stagnation in promotion from this day forth. Every officer who received his regulation price would forfeit his claim to retirement on full or half-pay, and would consequently have no conceivable inducement for leaving the Army. The Government scheme preserves to us all the boasted advantages of purchase as far as the present generation of officers are concerned, because it makes retirement from the Army the condition of getting back their money. But if we pay down money now, we shall have a far more serious block than exists in the Ordnance Corps, and we shall at no long time hence be forced to institute a system of special pensions, in order to clear our lists. The full value of the regulation prices is £7,668,000. The Government relies on being able to extinguish both the regulation and the non-regulation prices for something under £8,000,000. So that if we adopt the advice of my hon. Friends, we shall pay down at once very much the same sum which the Government proposes to spread over a quarter of a century, and we shall not get rid of purchase after all. But, if we make up our minds to have nothing to say to the over-regulation prices, a third course remains; and I hope that hon. Members will attend to what I am now going to say, because this is the course that would infallibly be adopted. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands) intends to move that the extra-regulation money should not be paid. I shall vote against him, being unwilling to punish officers for the shortcomings of their superiors. Some people—by no means favourable to the purchase system— hope that this Bill will be lost. My hon. Friend appears to be one of them, for he says that it is— Far better to wait for a good measure than do wrong to carry it. In 1785, a statesman came down to the House and proposed the disfranchisement of 36 boroughs with compensation; but in 1832 a great number of rotten boroughs were disfranchised without any compensation at all. Sir, this is not a fortunate instance to select of the advantages of procrastination. If, during the 47 years which elapsed between 1785 and 1832, there had been sitting in the House of Commons the representatives of 36 large centres of industry, our national history might have been changed; the National Debt might have been half of what it is; and we might be acknowledging at this moment that the £1,000,000 or £1,500,000 spent on buying up those borough interests had been the best investment we had ever made as a nation. We should do ill to wait, I do not say 47 years, but seven years, or even four, in order to reform the Army somewhat more cheaply. Long before 47 years have come to an end we shall have saved, by the abolition of purchase, very much more than as many millions. What is the state of the case? There has been a certain amount of popular interest taken in this question; but—though I am naturally the last to underrate the intensity of that interest—it cannot be denied that public feeling has not yet showed itself strongly enough to force the hands of a reluctant Government. The Ministry has anticipated the tendency of opinion, and for two reasons. It is not advantageous for the discipline of the Army that the officering of that Army should any longer be matter for general and vehement discussion. This consideration is said to have much weight with His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief. In the next place, the Government felt that the pecuniary interests involved in the purchase system were too delicate in their nature to commit to the hazard of a long agitation. The Ministers have in this measure steered carefully between injustice and undue concession; and there is great reason to think that the Army recognize that it is so. They have hit exactly the right time. Before this, the aristocratic element in our Constitution was so strong that the nation would have had to give too much. The popular element is now growing so strong that this is the last chance of our not having to give too little. Suppose the Bill lost—and if lost, it would be by the votes of those who wish to keep up purchase for itself, and not of those who wish to save the money that would be spent in paying for it—we should have every politician in the country eagerly discussing whether or not the command of our Army, with all the honours and emoluments appertaining to it, should be confined to some 6,000 families who can afford to purchase, or should be thrown open to every Englishman, Scotchman, and Irishman, who has education enough to succeed in an open competition. The question would be transferred from the floor of Parliament to the platform, and in times of political excitement we all know what the platform is. Public meetings understand broad and simple principles, but they are not places where you can refine or distinguish. Now, the existence of purchase is a question governed by the most broad, simple, and intelligible considerations; but the compensation for its abolition is, of all problems, the most abstruse and complicated. I doubt whether the most eloquent and precise of speakers—I doubt whether the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) himself—arguing in favour of the recognition of over-regulation prices, would not have his audience carried away from him by anyone who could string three sentences together, and who appealed to his hearers not to reimburse those officers, whose influence in the Legislature had just defeated a Bill which was to make our Army national, one farthing of what they had expended contrary to the express injunctions of the law. Quite apart from the question of purchase, the time must come sooner or later when a Government will be forced to say—"We are responsible for the defence of the country. Even if a Bill expressly abolishing purchase cannot get through Parliament, we still are bound to do what the defence of the country demands. We must ignore purchase, and appoint, promote, and transfer officers according to the exigencies of the time." What, Sir, would be the effect of such a declaration on the commission market? It would be like the City the day that the Gurneys failed—it would be like the Exchange at Liverpool, if a material superseding cotton was discovered a 3d. a-pound. But there is another contingency—the very contingency with a view to which we maintain an Army—a war. We all know the operation of a war upon purchase. In a regiment ordered on active service, no one may sell or go on half-pay. Officers are required in such numbers to replace those who fall or are invalided, that commissions become as plentiful as blackberries, and no one will buy an article which is a drug in the market. If long enough, and serious enough, a war sends the price down almost to nothing. We must expect reverses; and, with public opinion on the question in its present state, the first disaster would break down the purchase system like a pack of cards; and then—whether we gave compensation at the current prices of the day, or whether, in a fit of national wrath and injustice such a great crisis is apt to bring, we refused to pay any compensation at all — those who hate purchase, without ceasing to feel pride in our Army, would reflect with pain that the system had been abolished at the cost of the private fortunes of those men who were actually at that moment defending us in the field. The Secretary of State for War has thought it best to abstain from indicating the scale of pension which he proposes to institute when our Army has become a non-purchase force. I do not challenge the wisdom of keeping silence on this head; but hon. Members have supplied the omission by a series of the most alarming, but, happily, the most diversified prophecies as to the amount of retirement which will henceforward be necessary in order to keep up a due flow of promotion. The expense of a scheme of retirement based on sound principles can, however, be pretty closely ascertained, if only we are agreed upon what those principles are. The first condition of a good system is, that we should have a fixed establishment of officers, from generals downwards, exactly proportioned to the amount of active work that has to be done by each rank, and that we should promote only within that establishment. The next condition is, that no one should be allowed to retire permanently on half-pay, except officers invalided before a certain age—say 20 years' service. With this exception, half-pay should be confined to its legitimate function, that of providing a temporary maintenance for those who for a time are prevented by ill-health from performing their duties. The third condition is, that, when an officer is retired, his career should be closed. From that day forward, his pension should be subject neither to increase or diminution. The expensive anomaly of promoting on the half-pay list should entirely cease. The fourth condition is, that an age should be fixed at which officers may retire at their own pleasure, and another at which they must retire as a matter of course, if the Commander-in-Chief has no further occasion for their services. These are virtually the main principles of that system of naval promotion and retirement devised by the late First Lord of the Admiralty, which has given genuine and wide-spread satisfaction to the working members of the service, and is rapidly rendering our expenditure on pay and pensions endurable and intelligible. A scheme based on the above-named conditions was submitted to the War Office Committee of 1857–8—a Committee which was appointed to examine counter-calculations of Army reformers, and which, therefore, may be supposed to have reported on those calculations, I will not say in a hostile, but in a critical spirit. This Committee, whose conclusions on all other points have been referred to over and over again in this debate as so many revelations from Heaven, found that the retired full-pay for that part of the Army where purchase now exists, exclusive of the Household troops, would be £512,000. The same data were submitted to Dr. Farr, Government statistician and Fellow of the Royal Society, who computed that £359,000 per annum would be required in case all officers came to be major generals, and then retired on £800 a-year—of course an impossible supposition. But if officers who did not remain to succeed to vacancies in the higher ranks went out of the service as captains—the natural result of a system of selection under which no inefficient man could become a field officer—the cost of the scheme, according to Dr. Farr, would still be something under £400,000. Take the Ordnance Corps—the funds appropriated to retirement have hitherto kept the Ordnance Corps in a satisfactory condition. A lieutenant colonel in a purchase regiment serves, on an average, 23 years 8 months before reaching his rank. A lieutenant colonel in the Artillery at present obtains his rank in 23 years. A major in a purchasing regiment spends 18 years in attaining his majority. A first captain in the Artillery gets his rank in 16 years. What, then, is the sum of money expended in producing these results? The full-pay retirement for the two corps amounts to £68,400 per annum. There were some other payments, but the sum total must be within £90,000 a-year. There were, after some deductions, 900 officers whose promotion is kept in a healthy condition by a retirement of £100 a-head—a result fairly borne out by the analogous case of the Royal Marines. Now, the officers of the purchasing portion of the Army borne on the English Estimates are, as near as possible, 4,000. A rule-of-three sum gives us £400,000 a-year as the amount of retirement which these officers would require when their conditions of service were assimilated to those of the Ordnance Corps. Placing these various calculations side by side, we may venture to estimate the probable cost of retirement at a maximum of £500,000—the exact figure given by my hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Loyd Lindsay) who moved the Amendment which we are now discussing.

Those hon. Members who have followed my hon. and gallant Friend in support of his Amendment, have been content to accept his estimate of £500,000 as the future cost of retirement, with the exception of the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) who prefers to place it at double the sum. But this debate has been characterized by an omission so glaring as almost to amount to a phenomenon. Hon. Gentlemen, at the same time that they complain that the abolition of purchase will saddle us with a retirement of £500,000, entirely ignore the fact that we are actually paying at least £500,000 for retirement every year of our lives. At this very moment we, or our Indian fellow-subjects, are spending upwards of £160,000 on the honorary colonelcies, which are nothing more or less than pensions arranged on an inequitable, clumsy, and extravagant system. Between £60,000 and £70,000 a-year goes to unemployed general officers of the purchasing corps. £66,000 a-year falls to the share of the same branch of the Army for full-pay retirement; £20,000 for distinguished services; and about £190,000 for half-pay. During the transition period the two systems may overlap, and cause a temporary increase of liabilities; but, as a matter of course, we shall utilize under the new state of things the funds provided for the retiring list of the old. What have the opponents of the Government to put against these arguments of indisputable analogy, except certain awful financial warnings uttered by the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire? But the measure of that noble Lord, as a financier, has been taken by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Truro (Captain Vivian), who told us the results of a comparison between the Government scheme of Reserves and that advocated by the noble Lord. It appears, according to high actuarial authority, that by the seventh year the Government plan would have produced 61,000 trained men, while the noble Lord's plan would have produced none; which is pretty well for an alarmist, who urges that, in these days of European capitals being occupied, everything except the immediate provision of men is a secondary question. The Government Reserve, when full, would cost something over £1,250,000 a-year. The noble Lord's would cost considerably over £2,500,000. The Government plan would involve us in a liability for pensions of £882,000 a-year, as against £1,300,000 a-year, which we now pay; while the noble Lord's plan would cover the country with over 500,000 pensioners, costing—if we treated them with a rigour bordering upon stinginess—hard upon £9,500,000 per annum. The noble Lord would produce a more permanent effect upon the legislation of this country if he would spend over his figures of arithmetic some of the time which he now devotes to his figures of rhetoric. If his computations of the expense of abolishing the purchase system were of a piece with the economical side of his Reserve scheme, it is not to be wondered at that he succeeded in frightening those unhappy miners who, at every political crisis, are trotted out to protest against the liberal questions of the day. But I will venture to say that these working men will succeed no better in saving purchase than in averting household suffrage. The first portion of the noble Lord's speech was listened to by the House with the pleasure which men always feel in hearing what they all think smartly put. The noble Lord divided us in classes, according to our opinions on foreign policy, and then proceeded to detail the deficiencies of our present Army system. In his remarks on this head we were all disposed to acquiesce. We were agreed about the utter want of relation between military expenditure and military performance. We were agreed about the unfortunate distinctions which exist between the Royal Army, the constitutional Militia, and the national Volunteers, with all the consequent absence of combined action and organization. We agreed to a great extent with his remarks about our system of supply, and to a very great extent, indeed, with the desire which he expressed for the localization of our Army—a measure which would solve the difficulties of recruitment, of the exchange of officers, of commissariat, and, in my opinion, of promotion. But many of us go farther than the noble Lord. We see that the country has spent £300,000,000 on her military armaments in the last 20 years: that the average of our military budget has risen from £8,000,000 to £15,000,000. We see the various classes of our community vying to throw upon each other's shoulders the burden of taxation. We see the taxpayer, after making unheard-of efforts, taunted with being defenceless, and accused of niggardly parsimony by the sworn adherents of that very system under which we have spent more money, with less to show for it, than any nation in this world's history. And, before spending any more, we resolved to lay the whole case before classes which have hitherto taken little or no interest in their own Army; to appeal from the few to the many; to make the question of our defences not, indeed, a party, but a political question; to persuade the country to take stock of its military resources, and, when it has looked the matter fairly in the face, to try and knock out a better system for itself. The Government has placed itself at the head of this movement; and, as I have told the noble Lord how far I agree with him, I will now tell him where I begin to disagree. I have more confidence than he in the judgment of the Government in believing the abolition of purchase to be a necessary preliminary to Army re-organization. When purchase is once abolished, I have more confidence than he in the intentions of the Government with regard to that reorganization. And I have much more confidence that the state of Europe will give the Government time to carry out those intentions. The noble Lord has been very great on his division of military questions into primary and secondary, and told us that one of the secondary questions was the tenure of the Command-in-Chief. If that view of the operation of the virtually permanent tenure which I had the honour of laying before the House on Tuesday fortnight was correct, it can hardly be called a matter of second-rate importance whether, in the event of war or invasion, the fortunes of the country were intrusted to an officer such as the Duke of Wellington was in 1815, or to an officer such as he was in 1850. On this head the noble Lord entertained us with an anecdote respecting a young Army reformer, who wanted to get rid of the Duke of Cambridge because he had shown such minute acquaintance with every point of military detail, and because he was too powerful; and his reason was— Because, under our Constitution, we are liable to have a Secretary of State who is not very well versed in military affairs, and therefore he becomes a mere tool in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief. Whoever this Army reformer was, he might have defended his opinion by the authority of the Duke of Wellington. On the occasion of the consolidation of the War Office, in 1838, the Duke wrote thus to Lord Melbourne— It is not uncommon to see the command of the armies of other countries intrusted to the Ministre de la Guerre. But these countries are each governed by a despotism. The Ministre de la Guerre is responsible for his acts not to a House of Commons, but to the Sovereign himself. The concentration of all the authority in one hand is convenient, and gives strength and security to the Government of the Sovereign. But in our case, the concentration of authority is in the hands of an officer of account, responsible not to the Sovereign, but to the House of Commons. It is evident from this passage that the objection of the Duke to the subordination of the Commander-in-Chief to the Secretary of State is a political, and not an administrative objection. The noble Lord thinks the salary of the Military Secretary at the Horse Guards a secondary question. Sir, it is because questions of this nature have been made secondary questions, that, while our efficiency is standing still, our expenditure is growing from 10 years to 10 years at a rate that is rapidly disgusting the people with the very name of an Army. It may be a vulgar sentiment, but I hold it to be absolutely wrong that—at a time when we are discharging hundreds of clerks and thousands of artizans, who ask for nothing better than to be permitted to go on working—we should be paying £3,000 a-year to a public servant who, according to the official description of his duties, is an amanuensis and a mouthpiece; and that another public servant, in addition to a handsome salary, should, between the ages of 32 and 52, have drawn £40,000 from a source, the existence of which is defended on the ground that it affords pensions to old and meritorious officers. The noble Lord will have it that purchase is a secondary question, and asks whether anyone would think of abolishing purchase in the event of a crisis such as France has been passing through within the last six months. But this consideration tells equally against all re-organization whatsover. According to General Trochu, what were the faults which lay at the root of the French disasters? The age, venality, and intemperance of a large part of the reengaged men; the depressing effect produced on the mass of the Army by the existence of the corps d'élite; and the luxury and personal ambition of the officers, fostered by the tone and habits of the Empire. But when war was declared, and Germany was mustering behind the frontier, who would have dreamed of choosing that moment to dismiss all the vieux grognards, break up the Imperial Guard, and set about recalling the officers to a spirit of Spartan hardihood and self-sacrifice? There is a time for all things; and that was not the season for France to attempt eradicating the inherent vices of her military system. But no one, except those who dislike reason and economy, would deny that we have ample leisure to re-arrange our Army on a rational and economical basis. In order to effect this result, purchase must first be got out of the way. The question of the effect of that institution upon the character of our officers has been so threshed out both in this House and in the country, that I will leave it to the chance of an incidental notice, and will pass on at once to show how nothing short of the abolition of purchase will facilitate, and in some cases render possible, the reforms in our military organization which the changed conditions of warfare demand. To begin with, the whole island should be re-divided into military districts. The present districts were arranged in days when our danger lay in one quarter only; and consequently the South of England is minutely subdivided, while vast regions in the North, with their enormous manufacturing population, are embraced under a single command. Each district should be the seat of an Army corps, with a general at its head, charged not only with the discipline, but with the entire equipment, supply, and finance of his command. The local staff should be responsible for the issue of stores, and for all contracts that can be made advantageously within the district; while the functions of the central office of Control should be confined to keeping the local magazines full, and to a general economical supervision. Thus, and thus only, should we be enabled to introduce the much-admired Prussian system of supply. But how are we to get generals willing and able to undertake these severe and intricate duties, and how are we to surround them with competent subordinates? Mr. Fonblanque, on this point a weighty authority, says in his treatise on the British Army— So rarely, indeed, are military officers found to possess the requisite knowledge of finance and account, that it is usual, in large operations, to attach a commissariat officer to the head quarters of the Army in the field, to perform this part of the military secretary's duties, and to relieve him and the general commanding from a responsibility which, partly from their time and attention being absorbed by their more immediate duties, and partly from want of the requisite training, they are seldom in a position to meet. The exigencies of the time demand from military men continuous, laborious, and most diversified services. The modern officer should be a professional man in the sense that a surgeon or a civil engineer is professional. But the Army can never be a profession, in the true sense of the word, as long as the purchase system exists. The essential conditions of a profession are, that a man should live by it, and should look forward to rising by exerting himself in it, and by displaying professional knowledge and professional capacity. Does the most ardent supporter of purchase maintain that these conditions exist in our Army as at present constituted? The great change which has come over the conduct of war has given increased importance to scientific training; and this holds good in no Army so much as in our own. Whatever results may arise from the adoption of short service, and the bettering of the condition of our private soldiers, we still can never hope to receive as plentiful a supply of recruits as is possible in countries where conscription exists; and we must, therefore, make up for being weak in the number of our men, by being strong in the scientific acquirements of our officers. But such acquirements it is simply impossible to demand from men who have sunk large sums of money in their commissions at an interest so small that no sane man would regard the transaction as a profitable investment. But, if we cannot obtain captains and administrators of the right stamp by purchase, may we hope to get them by seniority, whether with a bonus system or without it? The Pall Mall Gazette, a journal which has consistently for years past pressed for radical changes in our Army, remarks that, out of 12 important commands in the United Kingdom, only one is given to a general of the scientific corps. I candidly own that at first sight this struck me as an instance of favouritism; but, on inquiry, I was satisfied that the cause lay in the advanced age of the general officers in the Ordnance Corps. Nor would a bonus quicken promotion to the extent of providing us with young commanders, as was proved in the old Indian Army by the selection of men of the lower ranks to lead brigades, and even armies, at a pinch. Herbert Edwardes won battles as a lieutenant, and Nicholson — if recollection does not deceive me—died a captain. If seniority and purchase fail to provide us with what we want, resort must be had to selection, on the plan sketched out by the Secretary of State in his speech on the first reading of the Bill — a plan which is virtually in accord with Prussian practice. There the relative merit of every officer, from highest to lowest, is known to the general Staff at Berlin by confidential reports. The fit men are promoted; and the man who finds himself repeatedly passed over retires. The promotion of the junior officers is regimental; and an officer who shows marked ability is pushed on very rapidly. And yet we are for ever having it thrown in our teeth, that General Blumenthal said to Dr. Russell, of The Times, that he would gladly, if it were possible, see purchase introduced into the Prussian Army. And we are told by the hon. and gallant Member for Berkshire, that the French Marshals in the Crimea were in the habit of congratulating him on belonging to a country which possessed so valuable an institution. The French military authorities have now an opportunity of giving practical effect to their opinions. They have to re-make their Army. The ground is clear, and they may lay what foundations they like. We shall see within the next twelvemonth to what extent the compliments which they paid my hon. and gallant Friend on his purchase system were due to their national courtesy. Sir, these foreigners fool us to the top of our bent. We shall hear next that the Prussians are minded to borrow our Army agents, at an annual cost of 250,000 thalers a-year, and to pay 20,000 thalers to a Military Secretary for acting as mouthpiece and amanuensis to General Von Moltke. We have had the successes of the German arms referred to triumphantly as an illustration of the advantages of having an Army officered by aristocrats; and this argument is employed in defence of purchase by the very same Gentlemen who can find no words strong enough to express their disapprobation of me for calling purchase an aristocratic institution. But the truth is, that there is very little in common between German aristocrats and the sort of plutocracy which officers our armies. The hon. Member for the Elgin Burghs (Mr. Grant Duff), in an apothegm which was much in men's mouths during the autumn, told us that Prussia possessed an upper class barbarous enough to esteem the Army the only calling that became a gentleman, and poor enough to work at it as in a profession. Sir Charles Napier expressed the same idea in characteristic phraseology, when he affirmed that the best officer was a needy gentleman. In fact, though brilliant exceptions are not far to seek, mere wealth is the very worst average test of the qualifications for a laborious calling. When appointments are given by open competition, wealth will retain its one legitimate privilege—that of handicapping its possessors with the advantage of the best education that money can buy.

Sir, the discussion that has been going on during the last six months in every journal throughout Great Britain practically resolves itself into this question—"What is the cheapest way of getting the country defended in such a manner as to guarantee us against panic?" Under the present system, that end could only be obtained by an annual expenditure so enormous as to render the change of system a foregone conclusion. The solution of the problem lies in the conversion of our Militia into a reliable force. For this purpose each regiment of the Line should be attached to a particular neighbourhood, and the Militia of that neighbourhood should be incorporated with it as a second or third battalion. According to the Estimates of the forthcoming year, a force of 130,000 Militia is to cost us £950,000. If efficient, it would be cheap at twice the sum; and, to make it efficient, every battalion should be officered in part by officers of the Regular Army, and in part by young men of the locality who were willing to earn their commissions by devoting at least a year of continuous work to learning their business under the teaching of their professional colleagues. That once accomplished, the nation would demand of them, and pay them for, nothing beyond their services in time of war, or during the annual manœuvres. Hon. Gentlemen who defend purchase dwell with frequency, and it must be owned with some justice, on the allegation that it gives us a rapid succession of young men with dash and courage, who, though they lack the scientific training requisite for high commands, for the most part leave the Army before reaching the rank for which that training is an indispensable qualification. Under such a system as I have described, we should get officers of exactly the class which purchase professes to give us, and with this in addition—that we should get them for next to nothing, instead of having to pay for them as if they were educated up to the highest Woolwich standard. It is true that this pay does not go into their own pockets. So much money is invested in commissions that the average income of purchasing officers in the infantry is under £50 a-year; while a lieutenant colonel not only serves for nothing, but pays £15 a-year for the honour of commanding a regiment. But if our officers get little, they had best cost little. At present, under the inexorable demands of purchase, the pay of our commissioned ranks is blest neither to the country that gives nor to the officer who is conventionally supposed to receive. The impossibility of demanding more than a certain quantity and quality of service from men who have purchased the right to serve, has led to our Army being largely over-officered. In a Prussian regiment on a war footing, the officers are to the men as 1 in 45; in France, as 1 to 50; in Russia, as 1 to 40; in Austria, as 1 to 52; and in Italy, as 1 to 38. England has no recognized war complement; but in a battalion going on Indian service, our officers are to our men as 1 to 31. Abolish purchase, and every battalion of the Guards and the Line could spare enough captains and subalterns to suffice for the complement of Army officers in a regiment of Militia. Let hon. Members think what the expense would be of enrolling seven or eight fresh officers for every battalion of our Militia, instead of drawing them gratis from the almost inexhaustible magazine of the Line and the half-pay list. Perhaps a rough calculation will assist them. The average pay and allowances of an officer of the Line amounts to £244; of the Guards, £310; of the Cavalry, £305; of the Horse Guards, £325. Let us take £260 as the figure. To provide seven Army officers for 120 battalions of Militia would cost the country £218,400 a-year. But if you deduct five of every seven from a battalion of the Line, and transfer two from the half-pay list, you will perform the same operation for nothing, and under this single head you would make a saving that would go far to pay the cost of extinguishing purchase, extra-regulation prices and all. But at present the authorities are unable to transfer a Linesman, and still less a Guardsman, into a Militia regiment, without inflicting on him a fine to the full value of his commission; unless we are prepared to disburse on every successive occasion the customary value of the interest which we are disturbing — a policy by which we should, in the course of not very many years, have paid by driblets the sum now proposed to be paid once for all, with nothing to show for it except a system of purchase more inveterate and more hopelessly complicated than ever. While purchase lasts, it is practically impossible to consult the interests of the public service, because they are more often than not at variance with the pecuniary interests of the individual. You cannot remove an incompetent lieutenant colonel without mulcting him heavily in addition to the loss of his position; and a corps may be allowed to deteriorate because the authorities cannot find the heart to confiscate the property of a well-meaning man who has not been endowed by Providence with tact or wisdom. But abolish purchase, and without spending a farthing, we may equip every Militia battalion with a permanent complement of professional officers; and then, if embodied at the first alarm of a war, by the time an invasion comes we shall have an auxiliary force in every respect fit to stand shoulder to shoulder with our Regulars in the field. Sir, it is not necessary to spend time in arguing for the adoption of short service in our home Army. That the life of barracks and the camp is favourable to the health of the young, but eminently unsuited to men somewhat advanced in life, is shown indisputably by the tables of mortality. In civil life, between the ages of 20 and 25, 8 persons die yearly in 1,000; and in military life 5. When we come to those between the ages of 35 and 40, 11 in 1,000 die yearly among civilians, and among soldiers 15 in 1,000. Between 20 and 25, 22 per cent of the population are married men; and between 35 and 40, 81 per cent—a strong argument in favour of sending back your soldier to the life of a citizen before the age when a sensible man thinks of marrying. The heaviest remediable cause of expense on our Estimates is the pension list for the non-commissioned ranks. At present we spend £1,300,000 a-year on an item which, under a wiser system, would show half that amount; and before many years are out we shall be saddled with pensions to the amount of upwards of £2,000,000, on account of the great number of old soldiers who were encouraged to re-engage some time back under the inspiration of a fit of military bigotry. Since, then, short service is demanded alike by physical, moral, economic, and military considerations; we shall require officers who not only know their business, but who are ready to spend their whole time in turning into soldiers successive batches of recruits. But a captain of light cavalry, or a lieutenant colonel in the Guards, has paid his £5,000 or £8,500 in order to secure far different work under much pleasanter circumstances. In altering the duties imposed on officers, we lower the value of their commissions. And therefore in order to guarantee them against a certain loss, the Government places itself towards the holder of the commission in the position now occupied by his brother officers, and undertakes to buy the article at its present value whenever he thinks fit to sell it, however much the price may have fallen in the interval in consequence of the changed conditions of service which the Government has enforced.

The existence of purchase is a practical bar to promotion from the ranks. The noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire will have it that the war on the Continent has taught me—to use his own expression — that promotion from the ranks "won't wash." It is highly undesirable that elderly sergeants should look forward to a commission as the sure reward of a respectable career; but it would be much to the advantage of the service and the country that young men of spirit, who had mastered their calling, and proved themselves capable of command, should not find themselves excluded from rising in their career, because they had begun that career in the ranks. We are told that, if such men become officers, their soldiers will not follow them in battle; but we are not bound to believe that Englishmen are brave because they are commanded by officers who have purchased their commissions, any more than that they are religious because they are preached to by clergymen who have purchased their livings. But the noble Lord, while condemning promotion from the ranks, claims as one attribute of the purchase system that it freely admits of such promotion, and, in support of his assertion, quotes me as having said that 100 commissions were given to non-commissioned officers during the Crimean War. From the first year of the Crimean War to the last year of the Indian Mutiny, not 100, but 483 commissions were so given. But during time of war purchase breaks down, and the noble Lord's argument with it. In the year 1855 purchase reached its lowest point. Only one-fourth of the commissions went by sale. In that year 148 soldiers were promoted from the ranks. In the years 1861 and 1862, purchase reached its highest point, and three-fourths of the commissions went by sale. In those two years the promotions from the ranks numbered respectively three and four. These figures prove, beyond all question, first, that purchase tends virtually to exclude private soldiers from advancing in their profession; and, next, that the theory of our troops not following officers selected from the ranks does not wash in the hour of stress and danger. Then the noble Lord tells us that purchase is not incompatible with a large resort to appointment by open competition. I should like to see the effect that would be produced if, without abolishing purchase, the authorities threw open, year by year, half of the 400 or 500 first commissions to open competition. It would affect existing officers precisely as the holders of any article whatsoever would be affected by the falling off of half the demand. I cannot understand how hon. and gallant Gentlemen can, without consternation, hear the noble Lord encouraging the Government to deluge the service with men who do not intend to buy. But we have a practical test in the events of the last 18 months. The Royal Commission on Military Education is decidedly of opinion that the competitive examination for entrance at Sandhurst should be as free as it now is at Woolwich. Why was not this recommendation adopted by the Minister of War? Evidently because he could not carry it out in justice to established interests until he had previously abolished purchase. The hon. and gallant Member for Berkshire thinks the entrance examination at present existing a sufficient guarantee against incompetency. But the experience of every civilized nation has proved that any examination not rigidly competitive soon degenerates into a mere form. Mr. John Stuart Mill tells us that a mere pass examination never, in the long run, does more than exclude absolute dunces, and explains, as clearly as he explains everything, the steps by which a fixed standard of proficiency "gradually sinks to something contemptible." The hon. and gallant Member insists much on the approval of the Commander-in-Chief being required before an officer obtains his promotion by purchase; and the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire proposes to withdraw the letter of service of that high official if he fails to exercise his duty of rejection. Mr. Fonblanque truly says that the regulation is a mere form. Certificates of fitness are given as a matter of course, and it is to be doubted whether there is an instance on record of an officer, in a condition to comply with the ordinary conditions of purchase, being refused promotion on the grounds of incapacity. This, perhaps, puts the case somewhat too strongly; but it is quite certain that the military authorities cannot spoil the market of the selling officer by looking too closely into the qualifications of the individual who wishes to buy. You cannot introduce moral and intellectual considerations into the traffic in commissions any more than into transactions in piece-goods and pig-iron. The hon. and gallant Member for Berkshire urges that there are qualities required in an officer which no examiner could bring to light, and fears lest we should shut out the very men we want by judging all by one uniform standard of bookwork. But we must judge them by something; and all the talk we have heard about bookworms, and having a good seat across country, comes to this, that in the opinion of those who indulge in it the possession of a great deal of cash is a better test of capacity for action than success in a competitive examination. I protest against the notion that courage, decision, and self-control, and mental and bodily activity, are more likely to coexist with wealth and backstairs' influence than with industry, intelligence, and acquirements. I have hardly ever known a time when the sixth form at Harrow and Rugby did not contain more than its due proportion of the cricket and foot-ball elevens. A great deal too much has been said about the word "gentleman;" and in harping so long on this string, hon. and gallant Gentlemen have given an unjust idea of the tone which prevails in the profession that they undertake to represent. The first characteristic of a gentleman is that he never troubles his head as is whether he is a gentleman or not; and the second, that he scorns to gauge worth by money, and to say that the man who becomes a good soldier, because he is rich enough to make it worth his while to enter a profession in which the good things go by sale, is more likely to be a gentleman than the man who comes in by the gate of open competition. It is not the influence of purchase on the regimental system that binds our officers together. It is the national character, which never fails to breed fraternity and fidelity in danger. Speaking of our countrymen, Emerson says—"In war and in politics they hold together by hooks of steel;" and, whether in ship, battery, or regiment, men of British race will always be loyal to their comrades and their duty. The hon. and gallant Member for Berkshire is very much afraid that, when purchase is gone, an officer may be driven to induce his friends "to hang about the lobbies of the Commander-in-Chief, or, worse still, to intrigue among political Members of this House." Sir, I do not see much to choose between haunting the lobby or the broker's office. Nothing can well be worse than a system which diverts the attention of our young officers from the study of their profession, and directs it towards what my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford. (Mr. Whitbread) calls "the low, paltry considerations of abominable money questions." And, with regard to apprehensions of political intrigue, let hon. Members consider what is now passing in the United States. What is the crying evil of the American Constitution—the root of all that is bad in the present, and ominous for the future? Why, the corruption of the public service from top to bottom, owing to the all-pervading influence of political jobbery. Ever since, in an evil hour, a newly-elected President proclaimed that the spoils were for the victors, efficiency, public spirit—even, it is to be feared, honesty itself began rapidly to disappear from Department after Department. And what is the remedy which meets almost universal favour in the eyes of Americans who love their country better than their party? Why, open competition. That, and that alone, cuts off the supply of the materials for jobbery, by admitting men into the service of the public on their own merit, and not in the capacity of constituents, or of the sons and nephews of Ministers. In one American Department only, in the Census Office, is political influence unknown; and Census clerks have for a long time back been appointed strictly by open competition. Hon. Members, especially those who are afraid of our institutions being Americanized, would do well to read an article on Civil Service Reform in the January number of the North American Review. They will find that, as our Constitution becomes more popular, we recede from instead of approaching nearer to the special evils of American administration, and that according to the confession of Americans themselves. The very able author of this review, speaking of the proposal to introduce free competition, says distinctly— There should be no attempt to disguise the fact that it is the purpose of this theory of administration to prevent the public service from being used in any manner or to any extent as a means of party success. He quotes, with envy and admiration, the declaration of our present Chancellor of the Exchequer, made last autumn at Elgin, with reference to the great change in the mode of appointing to clerkships— We have thrown open," says the right hon. Gentleman, "the whole of the public service not to the more priviledged classes, but to the nation at large. I do not say that competition will point out the best person. But it has this advantage, that it excludes an enormous quantity of incapacity which has hitherto found its way into the public service. I think the greatest benefit of this measure is that we have withdrawn patronage from the dominion of party, and have given it to the people, and it will be the people's own fault if they do not keep it for themselves now they have got it. The Government now propose, with regard to the Army, to withdraw patronage from the dominion of wealth, an influence which is not one whit less demoralizing or less conducive to good administration than the influence of party. We have been told that an officer will be hurt and sore at seeing another promoted over his head on the ground of merit; but that no one feels offended when passed over on the score of his own poverty. But, Sir, I deny that poor officers are fairly represented in Parliament. Constituted as this House is constituted, we shall always hear much of the views held by those who profit by purchase, and little or nothing of the views of those who lose by it. Within the last six months I have received 70 or 80 letters from officers still serving or recently retired, which incontestably prove that the purchase system bears very hard upon many of our best and most zealous servants, some of whom are still hoping on against hope, while others have broken down in the struggle, and have thrown up a career which they love as well as the wealthiest of their comrades. After the great indulgence which the House has shown, I dare not enter upon an enumeration of the vast economies which the abolition of purchase will render possible, and the demand for which no Government will henceforward be able to resist. The Army agents, with their £40,000 a-year—in itself more than the interest of one of your millions—must disappear from the Estimates when the only pretext of their public recognition is removed. The special pay and allowances of the Household regiments, which at present cannot be touched, from their connection with the exceptional prices of commissions in those regiments, will very nearly account for the interest of another million. But savings on a much larger scale will result when we are enabled to fix working establishments of officers throughout every rank of the Army. The evidence of the Duke of Wellington before the Select Committee on Army and Navy appointments of 1833 clearly brings out the fact that the inflation of our lists in the higher grades directly results from the operation of purchase, which robs the rich of their money, and the poor of their promotion, and burdens the public to indemnify both. In the item of "Generals" alone, we may fairly expect to save £180,000 a-year. Every hon. Gentleman who votes for the second reading of this Bill will help to lay the foundation of a system under which the nation will at length get its worth for its money, and will do as much as in him lies out of the nettle panic to pluck the flowers of retrenchment and reform.

And now, Sir, I will recapitulate the leading points of that reform which the abolition of purchase will enable the Government to effect. The re-division of the country into districts, and the institution of local recruitment and local military administration. The amalgamation of the Line and the Militia, and the formation in each Militia battalion of a solid nucleus of professional Army officers. The establishment of short service as the rule in our Army. The extension of the command of that Army to the nation at large by means of free competition. The restriction of each grade to a fixed number of working officers, and the arrangement of a certain and impartial, and therefore economical, system of retirement. If these results follow, we may in coming years look back upon the Vote of next Thursday with satisfaction proportioned to our tenderness for the national pocket. But if the Government does not utilize their opportunity in the direction, and to something like the extent, indicated—I had rather put what I have to say in the form of a promise—I can assure right hon. Gentlemen opposite that there is not one in fifty of those who have advocated, or approved of, the abolition of purchase who will not do his best to give them a chance of trying their hands at military administration. When my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tipperary (Colonel White) rallied Ministers for shaping their policy with reference to the action taken by individuals, he was of course joking, though he was joking well, and with a certain verisimilitude. But putting that notion aside, I fully agree with the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) that this Bill is not framed as a concession to any section of any party whatsoever. It is evident to all who have closely watched the Secretary of State for War during the last two years, reading his conduct by the light which this measure throws upon it, that from an early period of his tenure of office he has entertained a growing belief that the abolition of purchase was a necessary prelude to any change for the better in our Army. And, while the subject was in his mind, the events which took place on the Continent during the autumn and winter, and the public opinion consequent on those events, afforded him at once a motive and an opportunity. The considerations which actuate Ministers are doubtless such as can only come home to men intimately acquainted with the principles which should govern administrative organization; but when the Government announced its determination to act on those principles, the announcement met with a response from the common sense of the people of this country, who had long ago arrived at the conclusion that no good could come out of a system under which a public trust was bought and sold. The price to pay is heavy; but it is the price at which the nation buys back her own Army. There are hon. Gentlemen who would have us spend this sum upon the materials of war—on guns, powder, and earthworks, instead of sinking it in an alteration of our institutions. But guns rust, and earthworks crumble away, while institutions endure for ever. The materials of war are necessary, but perish in the using, and the expense of replacing them is of annual recurrence; but here the cost is once for all, and the benefit will never cease until the day when Britain is no longer worth defending. The necessity of paying these millions will procure us one result, if no other—that the nation will be driven to take the matter into its own hands; and, as we come to deal successively with first appointment and promotion, and with military government and military expenditure, it will, in the person of us, its Representatives, take good care that the great sacrifice which it is now called upon to make shall not have been made in vain.

COLONEL RUGGLES-BRISE

said, it was not his intention to reply to the arguments of the hon. Gentleman, as they had been already answered by previous speakers; but he wished to elicit some information as regarded certain points, and to say a few words on the Reserve forces. In former years the great evil of the service, both as to officers and men, was want of occupation, he was therefore glad to hear that, in addition to a reasonable degree of information in respect to professional subjects, in future, candidates for promotion would be required to possess proficiency in foreign languages. For himself, he did not believe that the abolition of purchase would give us a better class of officer; indeed, he very much questioned whether it would give as good. The Army was officered now not as had been said by the aristocracy and wealth of the country, but by a happy amalgamation of the aristocracy and the middle class of the country. He believed the system recommended by the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down would be a failure. It would be impossible to equalize regiments, for there would be always more esprit de corps and better discipline in one regiment than in another. His right hon. and gallant Friend the Surveyor General of Ordnance (Sir Henry Storks) seemed to desire a material change in our officers, and wished to see the middle and professional class more numerously represented; but he saw no reason why the sons of our aristocracy, who entered the Army, should not be as well educated as any other class of the community. The proposition of the Government was to do away with both regulation and over-regulation prices, and he could not believe such a proposition would be acceptable to the country generally. The proposal had been stigmatized as contemptible and unworthy of this great country. He did not go so far as that; but he should like to see the principle carried out whereby every officer would be paid down what was fairly owing him; or the commission might be valued and compounded for, the Government paying a small interest till the officer realized his commission. His feeling was, that it would be better not to pay the over-regulation at all; but simply pay no more than the regulation sum. It was improbable that the country would pay so many millions of money for carrying out a private arrangement between officers. At any rate, he had heard nothing from the War Minister as to the reason why it was necessary to pay over-regulation in order to amalgamate the Militia and the Line. He did not see so great an evil in selection as many of his right hon. Friends appeared to do. At any rate, seniority must be the rule, and selection the exception. In his own regiment of Militia he had over and over again had to select officers for promotion, sometimes over the heads of others, but always with the approbation of the whole regiment. The Minister at War, too, had a hold of the Lord Lieutenant of the county, and demanded an inquiry where officers were passed over in the service. Officers would not be passed over without good and sufficient reason. He did not believe that the scheme set forth by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan) was at all in unison with that of the Government. The Militia, during the past few years, had been much criticized; its officers were but slightly esteemed, and the men were denounced as the waifs and strays of society. The Volunteer force, of which he spoke with all respect, for he appreciated their patriotism and self-sacrifice—the great Volunteer force had been basking in the sun while the Militia were consigned to the shade. He did not wish to depreciate the wisdom of any former Secretary at War; but he must say no Minister had ever studied more zealously the interests of the Militia than the present Secretary of State, and he tendered the right hon. Gentleman his best acknowledgments. He did not like this Bill altogether. He liked the speech of the right hon. Gentleman better than his Bill. He wanted to know why so much of the Bill was taken up with conscription — a system which the country did not want, and which was, moreover, highly inexpedient. They did not want conscription for the Militia, certainly not that plan proposed by the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho); if it were adopted it would certainly impair the Militia, and trample out of it every spark of vitality. If it were necessary to resort to conscription in order to obtain the number of men required in an emergency he would recommend the plan adopted in 1808, when the country was divided into districts, and if the Militia for the district did not produce its quota of men, then the Ballot was enforced to make up the number; but if it did, the Ballot was not resorted to in that district. There was no great hardship in making a man serve his country in his own county, practically without taking him away from his home and family. To conscription for the regular Militia, without substitutes, he did not believe the country would submit; and if we amalgamated the regular Militia with the Regular Army, how could we have conscription for the Militia and not for the Army? If, in 1852, Lord Russell had accepted the suggestion of Lord Palmerston and had given up the word "local," and inserted the word "regular" in his Militia Bill, his Government would not have been upset as it was in that year. That was a Bill for calling out the Militia; this was a Conscription Bill; and therefore he would now suggest the substitution of the word "local" for the word "regular." We did not want conscription for the Militia at all, for we could get as many men as we wanted. The men were well paid, and well satisfied with their pay, which might be fairly estimated at 15s. a-week as compared with 13s. a-week in the Army. If 26,000 men had been enlisted into the Army since last Midsummer, as he had been informed, he feared that 12,000 or 14,000 had been taken from the Militia, for he had given 150 men leave to enlist from his own regiment, and 126 of them had been accepted, 24 being rejected as medically unfit. If this proportion were true of other regiments, the ranks of the Militia would have been largely reduced by the success of the Army enlistment. He agreed with the plan of 28 days' drill; but he would have the training period for recruits fixed for the winter months, because the want of employment at that period would swell the ranks, especially in the agricultural districts. He did not approve of drilling recruits with the Line, and would prefer to drill them at head quarters, because a recruit required to be gently handled to make him a soldier, and, if he were handled too roughly at first, he might be fatally prejudiced against the Regular Army. In his own county bad characters had been weeded out of the Militia, and he wished the same had been done throughout the Army. He was sorry to see that no proposal had been made for the increase of the Militia artillery. There should be a certain number of guns and men told off to work them in every regiment. The system had been introduced with good effect in the Indian Army. The withdrawal of the patronage, as far as promotion went, from the Lords Lieutenant was wise; their retaining the appointment to first commissions would give us good useful officers who would be an ornament to the service. Almost every Bill introduced into Parliament fixed additional charges upon counties, and he hoped the matter would be fully re-considered by the Government. He did not like the Bill as it stood; he did not believe that it was understood by the country; the Army did not approve of it, nor did the House; and he trusted that in Committee it would be so amended as to make it a real Army Organization Bill.

MR. GOURLEY

said, that in his opinion, to have introduced the Ballot into the measure would have been to revive the pressgang throughout the country. It was utterly unnecessary to resort to such a course, inasmuch as there was ample material in the country from which the Army could be recruited, without recourse being had to such an extreme step. He believed the Secretary for War had struck at the root of the evil that existed in our present military system by proposing to abolish the system of purchase—because, when that impediment to the amalgamation of our various forces had been removed, it would be replaced by a spirit of competition, men of thought and intelligence would take their places in the rank and file and; the Army would become a national, instead of an exclusive force. However, although he approved the proposal to abolish this objectionable system, he objected to the mode in which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to effect that object. Either the purchase system should be allowed to die a natural death, or else it should be abolished at once and for ever. If the system was so objectionable that it was absolutely necessary that it should be swept away, why should it be allowed to linger on for years, as would be the case if the Government plan were adopted? The system ought to be got rid of as soon as possible, and he did not think the country would object to pay the money required to buy up the commissions. He further objected to the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman to substitute the system of promotion by selection in the place of that which now existed, as calculated to lead to patronage and political jobbery. Before asking the people to expend the enormous sum of money the Government plan would require to be spent, the right hon. Gentleman ought to satisfy them that some large and comprehensive plan had been framed for securing the defence of this country—he ought to assure them that the Navy would be re-organized, and that small iron-clad turret-ships, manned by the Coastguard and the Naval Reserve, would be ready to defend our coasts and harbours. They should further be convinced that, in the case of our first line of defence being broken, our land forces would be placed in such a state of efficiency as to enable them to be prepared for any emergency. But he denied that this had been done: notwithstanding the interest that had been excited in this country during the last seven months on the subject of our military affairs, the War Office had brought forward no tangible plan which would serve as a guide in attempting to re-organize the Army. If the War Office had been itself efficient, the country would not have been left in the distracted state in which it now was with reference to the steps to be taken for its defence. What was required was that our various forces should be so equipped, organized, and arranged that they would be prepared to enter on an actual campaign at any moment. Only recently a singular illustration had been offered of the inefficiency of the present system, in the delay which had taken place in supplying clothing, and other equipments, to portions of our troops. If that were to happen, what would be the case were we suddenly brought face to face with an enemy? With all the experience we had gained in the Crimean and the Abyssinian Campaigns, the head of the War Office, he thought, ought at least to see that our various forces were placed in such a condition as to be able to take the field for actual campaign service. No system would be sufficient, or would be such as the country demanded, unless our various forces were put in a position to do that. To accomplish that object, it would be well if the War Office could so arrange our various forces as to place before the public during the ensuing summer, in different parts of the country, a certain number of the Regular Army in connection with a certain number of the Militia and the Volunteers, as though they were going into actual campaign service. When they had placed before them such a combination, the country would be satisfied that there was at least some ground for expecting efficiency in actual service. But until that was done, the public would never be convinced that the War Office was doing its duty.

MR. EASTWICK

said, he hoped he should not be thought discursive, if he did not travel altogether side by side with the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Berkshire. He wished to state his objections generally to the Bill, and some of them referred to matters of far greater importance than the purchase system. But, notwithstanding his objections to the Bill, he wished to speak with the utmost respect of the efforts of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War. No one could deny that the task which devolved upon the right hon. Gentleman was one of immense difficulty; a task, as had been most justly said, perhaps not easier than to build the superstructure of a new military system on a cleared foundation. It was impossible, too, not to admit that there was evidence in the Bill of at least an earnest desire to deal fairly and liberally with the whole question of Army organization. On one point he especially congratulated the right hon. Gentleman—namely, that he had not shown any disposition to sacrifice the public interests, or, indeed, any interests whatever, to false considerations of economy. He would frankly own that he was prepossessed with the idea that the Government were too deeply anchored in economical protestation to be able to swing with the turn of the tide. But if the Bill was unsound, it was not because it was too economical; on the contrary, the objections that had been taken to it were rather of an opposite character. But from the fact that the Bill did not err on the side of economy, he drew the inference—not in a party spirit, but as a general lesson to all parties—that it was an unwise thing for Ministers who valued a reputation for consistency to indulge in unlimited promises of economy; for after, as he believed, a sincere effort to keep pace with their professions, the Government now proposed a Bill which would impose upon the country, at one stroke, a burden equal to the whole cost of the Abyssinian Expedition, a yearly charge of between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000 for the increase of forces, and an uncertain amount for a future retiring fund. He was as warm a friend of economy as any Member of the House; but, of course, he knew that there were considerations which affected the safety and honour of the country which must be paramount to all others, and to which even economy must be postponed. He was glad, therefore, that it had been admitted that our principal object was not so much how to finance a new military system as how to place the military institutions of the country on a basis of permanent security. Still, he held that the most careful calculations should be made as to expense, and that no alterations should be sanctioned but such as could be proved to be worth the cost, and, what was even still more important, not to contain in them the germs of increasing and indefinite expenditure. Looked at from these points of view, the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman — unless there was a great deal behind — and judging only from what they saw, and that was all they could judge by, must be unreservedly condemned. It was an inelastic scheme, which did nothing to increase the strength of the Regular Army, and it was positively mischievous, inasmuch as it tended to induce the country to rely in the greatest emergencies on untried forces, which, from their very constitution, could never have fought a battle until they came to fight in that last struggle on which the fate of the nation would depend. It involved an immense outlay, and held out no guarantee that the state of things for the extinction of which that outlay was made would not recur; and it certainly contained the seeds of increasing and unknown expenditure hereafter. In a word, while infinitely more costly than the old system, it contained all the defects inherent in that system. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell) had laid it down that, before discussing the new military arrangements, it was necessary to decide three important questions—first, whether recruiting should be on the voluntary or the compulsory principle; secondly, whether purchase should be retained or abolished; and, thirdly, whether the commissions in the Reserve forces should be given, as heretofore, by the Lords Lieutenant or by the Crown. He ventured to think there was a question to be considered before all these—a question on which the safety and welfare of the nation depended: that question was—Is England prepared to stake her last stake of all on a Regular Army, or on Irregulars? After this great war which had just passed under their very eyes, were they resolved to follow the example of France, or would they adopt that of Prussia? That was the question which the right hon. Gentleman had undertaken to decide for them; and he now, with the most profound conviction of the fatal nature of the mistake into which he would plunge them, appealed to the House to reverse the decision. In speaking of following the example of Prussia, he did not refer to compulsory military service. He would state in one moment what it was to which he referred; but as the right hon. Gentleman initiated his argument by referring to compulsion, he (Mr. Eastwick) desired, first of all, to say a few words on that head. He was not about to advocate compulsion. He was perhaps as unfriendly to it as the right hon. Gentleman himself, or as that celebrated man before him, who would not even give a reason on compulsion. But he thought that in that discussion the arguments for compulsory military service should be stated fairly and fully, and not in the incomplete and perfunctory manner in which they were alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman. It was not statesmanlike to dismiss the question of compulsory enlistment for the Regular Army with a single remark, and to say that it was a proposition which nobody had ever been bold enough to support. Perhaps nobody had ever been bold enough to support a proposition for adopting that system in England; but it was the system which had been adopted in Prussia, and we had seen the results. If the House and the country wished to come to a full, dispassionate, and safe judgment on that great question they should ponder well those results. Those results proved that the greatest national prosperity which, perhaps, had ever been witnessed in Europe was compatible with compulsory military service. He maintained that the progress of Prussia, both material and moral, was greater even than that of England. The population of Prussia increased more rapidly than that of any country in Europe, except Saxony and Norway. That population was better educated than that of almost any country, and contained upwards of a million of landed proprietors—not mere cottagers, but the majority of them in comfortable circumstances—while here there were but 30,000 landowners with 250,000 tenant-farmers. It was a population in which the poor were but as one to 32, while here they were as one to 22. It was true the average income of Great Britain was about one-third greater than that of Prussia; but Great Britain was three times more heavily taxed, and the charge on account of the National Debt alone was here 16s. 6d. per head of the population, while it was only 2s. 9d. in Prussia. It must be remembered, too, that 44 per cent of the revenue of Prussia was raised from sources independent of taxation. He might add other statistics, but he would not weary the House. Our Secretary of Legation at Berlin, Mr. Harris-Gastrell, in his valuable and elaborate Report on the Land Tenure of Prussia, attempted to account for this astonishing prosperity of a nation of soldiers by saying— Possibly the loss of reproductive labour (owing to the number of soldiers) may be compensated to the nation by the gain in physical and moral qualities of the peasant and the artizan. The villages of the proprietary peasantry in Prussia are usually admitted to be the great nurseries for the Army; and the peasants were said to be "much improved by passing through the service." They were free from the chief vices of the agricultural labourer; and "as soldiers they respect the purse and the watch of their slain enemy." Those who imagined that compulsory military service was injurious to the industrial pursuits of a nation could hardly be aware that out of 1,000 men who come to the age for enlistment in Prussia every year only 96 were taken for the Army, and of these the great majority, after a short service of three years, returned to their industrial pursuits invigorated and, in all respects, improved. The advantages of a compulsory military system, such as existed in Prussia, might be summed up under five heads — First, the certain and regular supply of sufficient recruits for the standing Army, instead of an uncertain and irregular one; second, the binding together all classes of the community by the tie of military companionship; third, the elevation of the tone of the Army by the infusion of a due proportion of educated men; fourth, the improvement of the industrial classes by the physical development and moral discipline acquired in the Army; fifth, the preparation of the most formidable engine of war possible by the formation of an Army not on the absurd principle of the Ballot, but by that of selection, by which the Army would consist, physically and intellectually, of the very flower of the nation. But he thought he need not enlarge upon the question of compulsion, because he understood that the Government intended to adopt the better plan of making the Army an object of attraction rather than of aversion. That was, no doubt, the right course; but then he must remind the House that it implied increased expenditure. But when he spoke of following the example of Prussia, he referred not to compulsory military service, but to that which seemed to be at the root of all real improvement in the Army. In the Prussian system the Reserve forces were the veterans of the Army; but in the scheme before the House they were not far from being the very opposite extreme—the recruits. Let him remind the Secretary for War that in the Roman legion it was the Triarii, or veterans, who formed the third line, and who restored the battle when the young soldiers, the Hastati and Principes, were broken. But in this scheme that principle was reversed, and it was the raw troops, the irregular levies, who were to retrieve the day when the best soldiers were beaten. In accordance with this idea was the proposal to transfer officers after two years' service in the Militia to the Line, a proposal which, in his humble opinion, was the very reverse of what should be adopted. A man who had served seven years—he would say five years, or even three years—in the Regular Army was a soldier, and if he were dismissed to industrial pursuits and called back every year to drill for 28 days, or 100 hours, or any reasonable short period, he would lose little, if any, of his military knowledge—nay, perhaps by the change of occupation, and by educating his mind generally, he would even gain, and would return to military service with increased zeal. He was like a man who had once learned to skate well, and who, however short the season, was always d'aplomb on the ice. But a Militiaman or a Volunteer—he spoke of the masses—would remain a Militiaman or a Volunteer to the end of his days, and would never be able to fight a pitched battle with a regular army of veteran soldiers. But this whole scheme proceeded on the supposition that with a few good soldiers and a great number of imperfect ones, the work which was required to be done by a certain number of good soldiers could be effected. There were now in this country, as far as he could make out, 104,826 Regular soldiers and 329,663 Irregulars, and he admired the faith of the right hon. Gentleman if he really believed that that little leaven would leaven the whole mass. No doubt he saw the difficulty; because they were told that the recruits for the Militia were to be drilled as much as possible with those for the Regular Army, and for a longer period than before. That, of course, meant increased expenditure; but would it answer the purpose? He preferred to reply in the words of Mr. Windham, in his speech of April 3, 1806. He (Mr. Windham) said— We seem to suppose that whenever we have got a set of men together, no matter on what principle combined, have put them in a certain dress, ranged them in a certain order, and taught them certain exercises, that, then, so far as that number goes, we have created an Army; which is about as wise as what we see of children in their sport, who, when they have fixed a piece of stick in the ground, fancy they have planted a tree. What is wanting in either case is the vital principle…… Danger and discipline are the very sap and juices out of which all that has life and action must spring. … This notion, therefore, of a levy in mass, so far as experience has hitherto gone, would seem to be one to which it would be wholly unsafe to trust."—[1 Hansard, vi. 652.] Mr. Windham added— If ever there was a country calculated to be defended by its inhabitants, if ever there were inhabitants qualified to defend a country, it was Switzerland and the Swiss, and yet how little were these people able to do. I cannot possibly conceive that the enemy would desire anything better than that the country should trust its defence to the Volunteer corps."—[Ibid.] Those were the words of Mr. Windham, and they must be endorsed to a great extent even now. For though our present Volunteers were better than any that ever existed before, especially as marksmen, yet, not to speak of the fact that every one of them would be required, in case of serious invasion, to defend the fortified camps at Portsmouth and Plymouth, and those he hoped to see constructed near Liverpool and London and other commercial towns, if the question was one of fighting in the open field, the interval between the Volunteers and the Regular soldiers they might have to encounter would still be maintained. It was idle to disguise from themselves that there had grown up on the Continent a great Army, to which nothing that had ever been seen before could be compared, and the soldiers of which, in the opinion of the best judges, were superior even to those of this country in physique, in intelligence, and in experience, and not inferior in courage. It must be remembered, too, that the system by which the Prussian Army had been brought to such a pitch of perfection would be imitated by the other great military nations of the Continent, and that before many years were over we should see a French Army, a Russian Army, and an Austrian Army, which would have made corresponding progress. Where would this country, then, be, if they relied on this scheme of the right hon. Gentleman—a scheme which consisted in endeavouring to assimilate Irregular forces to Regulars, and which might unhappily end in the reverse issue, and in changing our small but noble Army, which up to this late war had been recognized as la plus redoutable de l'Europe, into a great provincial levy? But a question might be put to him which it was only natural to put to those who criticized and condemned the schemes of others. He might be asked—"What would you do yourself?" He had no hesitation in answering that question. He would begin by re-establishing the local European Army for India. That would relieve this country from all anxiety in that quarter, and would enable the Government to bring home in case of emergency the 32,000 men belonging to the Imperial forces which he should propose still to leave in India. He might appeal, he believed, to the very highest authorities as to the great mistake we had made when we abolished our local European Army in India. But he would not go further into the question on that occasion than to say that the present system could not be maintained without continual financial embarrassment. They could not afford to pay £16,000,000 a-year out of the Indian Revenue for their Army in India, and there were only two ways of diminishing the expenditure of the European part of it—one of which was by reducing the number of officers, and the other by extending the period of service for the men. And that extension of service ought not to be left to the accident of choice after the men had arrived in India; if they wished them to be contented and to look upon that country as their home, they ought to elect to serve for a long period before they quitted England. The next step should be to augment the Regular Army in this country up to something like the figure at which it should stand in proportion to the enormous sums expended upon it. They were told there would be 108,000 men of the Regular Army in this country, and according to his scheme they would bring from India 30,000, and if they added 6,000 more they would have 144,000, or four and a-half complete corps d'armée of 32,000 men each. He contended that by judicious economies they could afford to add 6,000 men, who should all be assigned to the military train, and that even with this addition, and the expense of the men from India, which would no longer be defrayed, from the Indian Exchequer, the Army ought not to cost so much as it did at present. He was quite prepared for the outcry which might perhaps be raised at a suggestion for increasing the Regular Army, and for the dismal looks and objections with which it would be received; but he appealed to any general officer of experience whether, in face of the gigantic armies on the Continent, 144,000 Regular soldiers were too many to keep in this country? It should be borne in mind that his proposal was not so much to increase the number of armed men in England as to substitute Regular soldiers for Irregulars. It was said in that House not many nights ago that it would be impossible for England over to vie with the great military nations of the Continent; but that remark was as mischievous as it was absolutely without foundation. Why was it impossible for England to vie with those nations? Was it on account of the want of men or of money, or of both? Certainly it could not be on account of the want of men, for the population of this country increased so much more rapidly than that of France, for example, that though France had 38,000,000 people, and Great Britain only 31,000,000, yet the latter had actually more men who came to the age for enlistment every year than France. In France there were annually but 330,000 men who came to the age of 20, against 360,000 men in this country. Looking at the stature, strength, and soldier like qualities of our men, as well as their number, we were, in respect of our resources for recruiting our Army, not very far behind united Germany. Well, then, it was not on account of the want of men that it was impossible to vie with the nations on the Continent. Was it, then, on account of the want of money? Here there could not be even the shadow of a doubt, for they were actually paying for their heterogeneous body of 220,000 Militiamen and Regular soldiers £5,000,000 a-year more than the North German Confederation paid for their great Regular Army, and about £1,000,000 a-year more than France paid for 375,000 regular soldiers on a peace establishment. He was astonished that the people of this country did not awake to this fact and demand an explanation of it. They were told that an English soldier costs £100 a-year, while a French soldier costs £40, and a Prussian only £30; but that was the very point into which the House and the country should insist on inquiring. Why were not explanatory comparative statements of the cost of soldiers of different nations laid upon the Table of the House? In this matter we seemed to resemble the sailor who was so determined to spend his prize money that when he found that a gold watch was not to be had, he insisted upon paying as much for a silver one. Would anyone believe that food, arms, and clothing cost more than three times as much in England as they did in Prussia, and more than twice as much as they did in France? No; the whole secret lay in our faulty administration, in our top-heavy service, in our excess of officers to men, and in our inelastic system. He knew that the noble Lord the Member for West Essex (Lord Eustace Cecil) thought differently; but he believed it could be shown from the Statesman's Year-book—and there were other and still more conclusive authorities, that in our infantry we had one officer to every 22 men, while the Prussians had but one to 28; and in our whole Army, including the administrative service, we had one officer to 17 men, while the Prussians had but one to 23. That was on a peace establishment; but on a war establishment there were, in a Prussian corps d'armée, 39,784 noncommissioned officers and men to 975 officers, excluding the administrative and medical service—that was only one officer to nearly 41 men. Moreover, in our Army, the officers in the higher grades, who cost the most money, were greatly in excess as compared with officers of the same grades in the Prussian Army. In every infantry regiment we had two majors to the Prussian one, and ten captains to the Prussian four. It was obvious how much this must increase the expense of the effective service, as well as the amount of the pension and half-pay list. These were vital points, and the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman did not touch them at all; though it was the more incumbent on him to deal with them fully and satisfactorily, because he had decided on the abolition of purchase. He (Mr. Eastwick) declared boldly that, unless the military system was reformed at the same time that purchase was abolished, the country would plunge into a fathomless ocean of expense; and after they had paid away £8,000,000 or £10,000,000, or whatever the sum might be, they would find themselves in a worse position than they were in before—in the Indian difficulty three times aggravated. Begin, he would say, by reducing the number of your company cadres and of your officers to the scale adopted in the Prussian Army, and transfer the 1,036 supernumerary officers you would thus have in the infantry to the Reserve forces. Adopt an elastic system, and divide your 108 regiments of infantry into three battalions each, and then you may mobilize as few of them or as many of them as you please. If you reduce the majors from two to one, and the companies from ten to four, you will have sufficient supernumerary officers, with the 2,074 officers on half-pay, who ought all to be called upon to serve in the Reserves or to retire, and the Militia officers to supply the second and third battalions. In the same way reduce the number of squadrons in the cavalry, but increase their strength, and make the artillery into four corps with 8-gun batteries, each corps being nearly equal to an infantry corps on a war establishment. It was impossible, without better data than any private Member could have, to go into minute details; but it was clear that a scheme might be based on that foundation, which would give three times as many Regular soldiers as we now had, with little increase, perhaps with some diminution of expense. There were already sufficient officers for the Reserves, and if a short service of three years were adopted for two-thirds of the men of the 1st battalions, keeping only one-third old soldiers, and passing the rest through into the 2nd battalions or first Reserve for four years, and then into the 3rd battalion or second Reserve for five years, the time-honoured but effete system of the Militia might gradually be superseded. These Reserves being called out for only eight days in the year, or at most for 14 days, which would be all that was necessary for old soldiers, would cost little more than the Militia, and would be twice as numerous and vastly more efficient. Returning to the question of purchase, it could not be denied that after, at an immense cost, we had bought out purchase, and prohibited in the severest manner—even to the extent of making it penal — any attempt to revive it, even then, unless liberal retiring pensions were provided, and retirement enforced after stated periods of service, the old system would begin to re-appear. It was a weed, if they liked to call it so, that would grow in spite of all that could be done to prevent it, unless it were choked with some more vigorous plant. But then came the question of expense. It would probably be necessary to fix a period of about 12 years for service as a subaltern, and 20, 26, 32, and 38 years as the periods after which an officer should be promoted to the rank of major, lieutenant colonel, colonel, and colonel upon full allowances. But if there were not vacancies sufficient for all the officers arriving at those terms of service, it would be absolutely necessary to cause the supernumeraries to retire on the pensions of their rank, with liability to serve in the Reserves, or in case of invasion. He was quite unable to calculate the yearly charge that this system would entail; but the calculation, no doubt, could be made, and it ought to be made at once. It would, no doubt, be a very expensive system; but it would, at all events, furnish for the Reserve forces an adequate supply of experienced officers. There were only three more points to which he would very briefly refer. No military system could be efficient unless the Army were divided into regular corps d'armées of so many thousand men each, with a due proportion of infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineers, and military train, kept up so as to be able to move at short notice. We had not proceeded as far even as this elementary proposition, for though we had a military unit of 18,000 men, we had not the proper proportion of cavalry, guns, and military train. We had, indeed, 330 field guns, but should require for 144,000 men 430 guns. We had enough artillerymen, but not guns and horses. The House would likewise observe that by fixing on so small a unit as 18,000 men we vastly increased the expense; if we wished to be economical, we should adopt a unit nearer that of the Prussians, which was 42,000. According to the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the corps d'armée ought to be localized; but it was of great importance that the military and civil territorial divisions should be identical, as was the case in France and Germany. The civil registers furnished the information as to the number and ages of the population required for military purposes; but if the civil and military districts did not coincide, it would be difficult to utilize that information. Recruiting, he thought, would be much assisted by detaching parties of officers and men from the Regular Army to the civil sub-districts to drill Volunteers, and, in fact, all comers. This would make the masses better acquainted with military matters, and dispose many to enlist. Lastly, he would urge that the old soldiers should be better paid and pensioned, and it was no less important that the soldier generally should receive all he had to receive in money and rations without any deductions. In conclusion, he hoped the House would go into these questions in the most searching manner, would grudge no time in finding how to diminish expense, while preserving the utmost efficiency in the Army, and would grudge no money that might be really necessary to render the Army not only efficient, but as powerful and as numerous as the great position of England and her unavoidable duties as one of the foremost nations of the world required it should be.

MR. AUBERON HERBERT

said, one of the arguments advanced by those who defended the purchase system was, that it helped to give us efficiency in our officers; but if that argument was worth anything, it ought to go further and establish that the officers in the infantry and cavalry regiments were more efficient than officers in those branches of the service—the Engineers, the Artillery, the Marines, and the Navy—where purchase did not prevail. Our officers, no doubt, had shown great bravery and self-devotion whenever they were called upon; but Captain Hozier had shown that a different meaning was to be attached to the words. He had stated, in his evidence, that Prussian officers were very much superior in tactical skill to our own, and that in times of war they showed, themselves to be better educated, and possessed of greater professional knowledge than English officers, and he came to the conclusion that that was, in a great measure, owing to the fact that young officers in the English Army had a great deal to do in the way of amusements, such as hunting, shooting, and the like, which were far more pleasant and agreeable than receiving instruction in military science in time of peace. He ventured to suggest a study of the whole of Captain Hozier's evidence to his military friends in that House. Another defence for the purchase system was, that it prevented stagnation; but it was hardly fair to defend it on that ground, the answer being contained in one phrase—that there was a retiring list. The answer to the charge that its abolition would introduce favouritism was fallacious; because, by a system of competition on the entrance into the service, and again before attaining the rank of captain, and by afterwards placing the selection in the hands of a Board specially appointed for that purpose, it ought to be possible to prevent all suspicion of favouritism. The strongest plea that had been urged in favour of purchase was the plea made on behalf of the regimental system. It had its advantages, no doubt, as well as its disadvantages; and one of the latter was, that an officer often found that he had not sufficient freedom, and that habits of extravagance were forced upon him which it was difficult for a young officer not to conform to. He appealed to gentlemen who, after leaving college, had entered the Army, whether it was not true that there was much greater freedom for a man to follow the bent of his own individual mind when at college, for study and living economically if he chose to do so, than he would have subsequently when he had obtained a commission in the Army? Those who opposed the principle of selection on account of the regimental system, ought also, to be consistent, to object to the system of exchange. For if an officer was allowed for his own interest to exchange from one regiment to another, surely they might exchange officers from one regiment to another for the common interest and good of the service. Referring next to the system of over-regulation prices, he would remark that it was in the face of the repeated protests and efforts, on the part of the Government, that the over-regulation prices had grown up, and continued to exist, because of the culpable negligence of the Horse Guards ["No."] It never could have gone on unless the officer who retired had been allowed to appoint his successor in all the various steps; and if the Horse Guards had exercised the power it possessed, of throwing great uncertainty in the way of a successor, the fabulous over-regulation prices could never have gone on increasing as they had done. It was, no doubt, unpleasant to say so; but the fact was, that the expense to which the country would be put had arisen partly from the negligence of the Horse Guards. [An hon. MEMBER: The Treasury.] Those prices had very much increased of late years, and it had been possible that such a transaction as he would name might have taken place—but he would not say that it had. A colonel entered a regiment, and made himself very disagreeable. At the end of 15 or 18 months he might intimate his willingness to retire. He did so at 20 or 30 per cent over the regulation price, because the other officers were too ready to subscribe the sum demanded to get rid of a disagreeable commanding officer. ["Oh!"] Surely hon. Members did not mean to say they had never heard of such a thing. There would be a strong feeling in the country that in paying men the over-regulation price they were paying men who had purchased at their own risk, and had thereby deliberately broken the law of the country. It would be an unpleasant task to perform not to pay them, because some officers would lose their money; but it appeared to him that to do so would be wrong and unjust towards the taxpayers—still, he was of opinion that some part of the money ought to be paid. Passing on to a consideration of the other parts of the Bill, he thanked the right hon. Gentleman for having dealt with this great and difficult subject; but he felt the Bill was not quite adequate to the occasion. It fell very short in the way of re-organization. In order to consider what was necessary, he would ask the House to remember the position of the country. It should be borne in mind that we had, as it were, two separate wants. We were members both of the great European and of the Asiatic families. Our wants for India, and our other external requirements, might be put down at 80,000 soldiers; but when they considered what was required for our own country, he ventured to say the question would be answered by the country in a manner which would very much surprise some hon. Members. It would be answered by the inquiry, whether a standing Army was required at all. ["Oh!"] He expected that remark would cause some surprise; but he was afraid that this was not the only institution that was very familiar to them, but which he should not like to name, that might have some day to undergo a change. Great changes had taken place during the last three or four years in the art of war. Nations now no longer sent armies into the field—nations themselves became armies. It was seen in America, and again in Germany; and if they watched what was taking place in Russia and Austria, they would find their military systems were being re-organized on that principle: and he thought they would shortly see it adopted by France also. Under the system of employing the whole of the male population in the defence of their country, they brought a better quality of soldiers into the ranks than we got under our system. The weapons now placed in the hands of troops were of such a kind that they required some moral qualities on the part of the soldiers who had to use them. Von Moltke was reported to have said that the breech-loader had destroyed all the armies in Europe except two, and they were the German and English armies; and the reason that he gave for that statement was that there were no other troops in Europe who were sufficiently calm, resolute, and self-possessed to use it efficiently. However much they might be inclined to give credit to that great General for the German successes in this war, he ventured to give it as his opinion, with very great deference, but still with a strong conviction, that the victories of the Germans were really owing to the individual character of the men—that it was the intelligence of the men, their resolution and patriotism, that decided those great battles; because the German soldiers were the most resolute in advancing and the steadiest in firing. An engagement in the present day had resolved itself into a long line of skirmishers. The mere mechanical position of regiments had lost its value to a great extent, and the individual character of the men had gained by it, for the men were now away from their officers' eye and control, and a great deal depended on what they did and what they were themselves. A professional standing Army offered neither of those two things—numbers or quality. He believed that great impatience would be manifested by the people of this country, and rightly so, if a standing Army of 100,000 men were maintained; and when they came to examine the state of our Army, and tested it by the number of men who were admitted into our military prisons and hospitals, we could hardly help feeling that good as Englishmen might be, and bravely as they had fought, they were not the class of men who could be said to be the flower of the Army. He asked whether the state of things he had referred to was satisfactory? According to the Estimates the country would, during the current year, spend £29,000 for punishing the Army; £46,000 for preaching to it; £250,000 in doctoring it; and yet, having done this, could we say that we had an Army that could compare with that of Germany, or with any other really national Army? No man who had seen a real national Army would ever believe again in a standing or professional Army. The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself had said that we had heard in the recent war the knell of standing armies. He (Mr. A. Herbert) did not think the country ought to bear with a standing Army. Neither did he think it would approve of the German system. He confidently recommended the country to accept the Swiss system; which, while being efficient and cheap, would, at the same time, prove an instrument of the highest value in the moral and intellectual training of the troops. Under that system the whole male population of the country was drilled and trained in military manœuvres from school upwards. First, they were taught a very careful drill at school; this was followed by three months' service for the mass of the army, and a longer training for the scientific branches. That much might be done in a short time in the way of preparing men for warfare he could testify from what he had seen of the Mobiles in Paris, who by the end of the siege had become as fine a body of men as an officer could wish to command. And, in the event of invasion, we should be able to fall back upon some such system as this; but without the advantage of preparation. The handful of a standing Army would soon be used up, and then we must depend upon untrained men. A separate provision must, of course, be made for training the scientific branches of the service; but, so far as the mere fighting men were concerned, the Swiss system was perfect in the results which it produced. In order to carry out a system of universal drill, and so do away with the necessity for a standing Army, the Home and Indian Armies must be entirely separated; and, in the second place, this country must enter upon a new set of relations with Ireland. One of the principal reasons for having to maintain a standing Army was the Irish difficulty. That was a very discreditable fact, and he would therefore advise that Ireland should be put under the same system as that which prevailed in England. Let us pass the Irish people through a short, stern, compulsory service, and we should hear no more of England dictating to Ireland. He was perfectly certain that England's safety in the future would be best assured by relying not upon this or that particular line of defence, but upon every Englishman being compelled to fit himself to take an efficient part in her defence should the occasion unhappily arise.

LORD EUSTACE CECIL

said, it was unfortunate that the present discussion should have been confined to what he considered a secondary point, and should have degenerated into a mere purchase squabble. He did not hesitate to blame the Government for this circumstance. First, they had declined to divide the subject at the request of the hon. and gallant Member for Bewdley (Major Anson); and next, they had put the purchase question prominently forward in the Bill, every speaker who had got up from the Treasury Bench reiterating the cry that the pith and substance of the Bill was abolition of purchase. Last year the country asked the Government two questions—whether they were prepared to defend our shores and to maintain our treaty obligations and allies. In response to that appeal the Government had brought in a Bill for the abolition of purchase at a cost of £8,000,000. In his opinion this was worse than trifling with a great question, because it was proposed to spend upon a secondary object vast resources, which might be applied to much better purposes. At a time when the great Powers of Europe were reconstituting their military system, we were bidden to be satisfied with a small Regular Army composed of regiments, but deficient in artillery, cavalry, and Reserves; with an ill-trained Militia, only half-officered, and with a Yeomanry force, which was much better fitted to take part in the operations of a field-day than to engage in the work of a campaign. In a word, we had neither a sufficient amount of men, ammunition, artillery, Reserves, nor organization. Was this the position which a great country like England, which owned the largest and richest commerce in the world, which possessed a greater extent of Colonies than any other nation, and which up to the other day had a prestige second to none, ought to occupy? Now that peace had been concluded no one could tell how soon the whole state of European affairs would be altered by some unforeseen event, and in that case how would England be prepared to hold her own against troops such as Prussia had recently put into the field with the raw levies—boys of 16 and 18—which his noble Friend (Lord Elcho) described the other day as forming a very large proportion of her Army. Then, with reference to our Reserves. The Financial Secretary of the War Department (Captain Vivian) said, in his speech a few days ago, that it was impossible to improvise Reserve forces out of the ground; in answer to which he (Lord Eustace Cecil) would venture to tell the hon. and gallant Gentleman that, in his opinion and that of many military men, it would be equally impossible to improvise Reserves out of the Bill before the House. He was an admirer of the short-service system; but he feared recent recruits did not approve of it, and we should only be able to rely upon one-sixth of our force of Reserves. He would not go at any length into the questions of artillery and ammunition, which had been dealt with by the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho), but he wished to know whether the Secretary of State thought 336 guns were sufficient for 170,000 auxiliary and regular forces? When we knew that in the Prussian Army there were six guns to 1,000 men, we were put off with just two-thirds of a gun to 1,000 men. Our deficiency in cavalry was truly lamentable. We had 12,952 regular cavalry, and 14,000 yeomanry, making a total of 26,952 to a force of 470,717 men. Thus we had one cavalry soldier in every 17. The proportion in Prussia, on a peace footing, was one to six; in Austria, one to seven; in Italy, one to twelve; and in the United States, one to seven. The right hon. Gentleman had added 5,000 horses to the Estimates, yet we had only one horse to eight men of our Regular forces, while in Prussia they had one horse to four men; or to put the whole result of these calculations shortly, Continental nations had three times the amount of cavalry in proportion to infantry as we had, and twice as many horses. With regard to organization, he wished to know whether we could put into the field a corps d'armée, brigade, or regiment, with the amount of transport and commissariat necessary to constitute a well-appointed body of men? He could state with confidence that no attempt had been made to make our regiments independent and self-supporting in this respect. He then came to the question of finance. The hon. Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan), when he was at Edinburgh last autumn said that the compensation under the plan for the abolition of purchase would cost £2,100,000; but some months afterwards he stated in the daily papers that it would cost £5,500,000. But whatever the cost would be—whether £8,000,000, £10,000,000, £12,000,000, or £14,000,000—he wished to know whether hon. Members were prepared to consent to such enormous expenditure without having the de-tails of what was to follow submitted to them. He was surprised that hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway on the Ministerial side of the House, who usually advocated economy, could listen without wry faces to the large figures mentioned by the Secretary of State the other day. The hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) told the House at an early part of the Session that the Gentlemen on the Opposition Benches were a war party, and were for incurring extravagant expenses; and the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) carped a good deal at the very moderate dowry to the Princess Louise. Such hon. Members as those seemed ready to strain at a gnat, but were perfectly prepared to swallow a camel. It seemed to him that this proposal of the Government was a most useless and wasteful expenditure of the public money. He should prefer to see this amount expended upon Irish railways, or in the reduction of the National Debt. If, however, it were determined to spend this money upon the national defences, he would suggest several better modes of dealing with it than in abolishing the purchase system. Well, in the first place, we might have an increase of our artillery and cavalry. In the next place, we might carry out the recommendations of the Committee of Defence of 1859—namely, improve the defences of our dockyards, fortify Spithead, and other similar places, complete the defences of Portsmouth, and other harbours; Spit-head and the Thames might be made secure; something, too, might be done towards fortifying the Irish coast and harbours, which were almost unprotected. Camps of instruction might be provided; Malta and Gibraltar might be completely armed; or an additional ironclad fleet for the Mediterranean might have been provided. In any of those ways he contended that this sum of money might have been far better expended than in the way proposed by the Government. Now as to the terms of retirement. He would take this test as showing the expense which would have to be incurred by the country. In respect to the officers of the Royal Marines, the retirement fund was more liberal in every respect than that of the Ordnance Corps. The amount charged for the retirement of Marine officers in the Estimates for 1871–2 was £60,226 for 545 officers, including Staff, and by working a simple rule-of-three sum you would ascertain what the retirement of the officers of the whole Army would cost. He calculated that in England, including the Staff, there were about 6,000 officers. Add a moiety of that number for the officers in India, and you would find that, according to the cost provided in the Estimates for retiring 545 officers of Marines, £900,000 would be a moderate estimate for the retiring officers in England and India. Now, those figures could not be too often stated for the information of hon. Members, particularly of those below the Gangway; and it was desirable that the country and the constituencies, as well as that House, should thoroughly know the amount of the Bill they would have to pay. He now came to the still more vexed question of purchase; and, whilst upon this part of the subject, he could not avoid remarking upon the marvellous skill with which his right hon. Friend the Secretary for War, in his opening statement of the Army Estimates, had skipped over the long period of time which, occurred between the dates to which he had referred. His right hon. Friend seemed to forget the fact that for some 40 years past the question of purchase had occupied a good deal of public attention. In 1833 a Committee on Army Appointments was appointed. The deliberations of that Committee acquired more than ordinary weight and importance from the Memorandum submitted to it by the late Duke of Wellington. In that document the illustrious Duke wrote as follows:— It is this system of promotion by purchase that brings to the service men of fortune and education—men who have some connection with the interest and fortunes of the country, besides the commissions they hold. It is this circumstance which exempts the British Army from the character of being a mere mercenary Army. Well, a Royal Commission on this subject sat in 1840. It was presided over by the Duke of Wellington, and was composed of 14 of the most eminent naval and military men of the day. That Commission, as the result of their inquiries and deliberations, reported unanimously in favour of the system of purchase. Passing over a Committee of the House of Commons which sat in 1850, which, though it did not report directly upon purchase, reported indirectly in its favour, inasmuch as it reported against the system prevailing in the Ordnance Corps, he came to the Royal Commission of 1856. That Commission consisted of 10 members, who were presided over by the Duke of Somerset. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War, in referring to it, neglected to state certain details connected with that Commission which tended to deprive its Report of that force and authority which it would have possessed had its recommendations been the result of unanimity among its members. Only six signed the Report, three dissented, and one of those who did sign it—Sir De Lacy Evans—qualified his assent. Therefore, its Report might be said to have come out with only half of its members favourable to it. As his right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) remarked, it had reported in favour of the purchase system up to the rank of major, and it recommended that the system of selection from the rank of major to that of commander of a regiment should be introduced most cautiously, and more as an experiment than as a rule. That Report led to a remarkable debate in this House four years afterwards. On the 6th of March, 1860, on a Motion of Sir De Lacy Evans for an Address to the Crown to abolish purchase in the Army, a debate arose in which 13 speakers took part. Ten of those speakers were in favour of purchase, and only three against it. Amongst those 10 were three officers of the Ordnance Corps—Captain Leicester Vernon, Sir Frederick Smith, the hon. and gallant Member for Harwich (Colonel Jervis), and Mr. Sidney Herbert, Lord Stanley, and Mr. Ellice. What did Mr. Sidney Herbert say—a Gentleman than whom no one understood the wants of the Army, and the feelings of the officers, better? The right hon. Gentleman said— I view with apprehension and alarm any proposal for the entire abolition of purchase. I do not see what there is to replace it. I have looked carefully at the plan of Sir Charles Trevelyan, but I think his proposals would weigh hard upon the officers of the Army, and throw a very heavy burden on the Government. His plan on paper shows a great saving; but practically I do not think that it would prove so. And he added— Beyond the point to which I see my way I will not move an inch. This great machine, the English Army, is not a thing to play with."—[3 Hansard, clvii. 58.] What was the verdict given on that occasion by the House of Commons? It wisely followed the advice given by Mr. Sidney Herbert, and rejected the proposal of Sir De Lacy Evans by a majority of 4 to 1. In the majority he found the names of the right hon. Edward Cardwell, the right hon. Chichester Fortescue, Sir Charles Wood, and Henry Austin Bruce, all Members of the present Cabinet. Well, but what has happened in the last 10 years to alter the opinions of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War and the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department on this question? He should be sorry to pain his right hon. Friends opposite; but he could not avoid coming to the same conclusion as that arrived at by the hon. and gallant Member for Tipperary (Colonel White) — namely, that their present proposal was but a sop to the Radical exigencies of the hon. Members below the Gangway. Nor was he singular in that opinion. Earl Grey had been referred to by his right hon. Friend in his opening statement when he observed that the noble Lord, in his reply to the Duke of Somerset on the purchase system, said that the wisest course he could pursue in regard to that system was to let it alone, until he could abolish it altogether—his right hon. Friend thereby leading the House to believe that Earl Grey was in favour of the abolition of purchase; but such was not the fact, as it subsequently turned out. What were Earl Grey's opinions upon that matter? In the course of a debate on the 23rd of February, Earl Grey said— I remain of the opinion I have long held, that, in spite of objections to it, the purchase system has not worked badly.…. Even if all the benefits anticipated from the abolition of purchase should be realized, it is not a subject of pressing importance, for our regimental system has supplied us on the whole, with an admirable body of regimental officers.…. But, unfortunately, in deciding upon their measure, popularity—and popularity alone—is the guide of our Government."—[3 Hansard, cciv. 744.] He (Lord Eustace Cecil) complained that the War Office and the Treasury Departments had played fast and loose with this question. He complained that, whilst refusing to discourage the ignorant cry against the system of purchase, they had at the same time done everything in their power to make the system stink in the nostrils of the poorer officers of the Army. They had done this, first of all, by squandering the reserve fund, and giving pensions to officers of non-purchase corps out of it; and, secondly, by confiscating appointments in regiments without purchase that should have gone regimentally and been the legitimate prizes of those poor officers. Again they had done so by a most oppressive regulation which required from those who were desirous of retiring from the service a medical certificate that they were suffering from no mortal disease before they were allowed to sell their commissions; thus in many cases depriving them of the only provision they had for their wives and families, after, perhaps, years of service in tropical climates, and of sufferings from wounds and disease. This was the way in which poor officers had been deprived of their property by Government confiscation. When they talked of the abuses of the purchase system, these were the real abuses of the purchase system, caused by the systematic system of confiscation pursued by the Government. He would now come to the arguments that had been used against the purchase system. He had heard it stated that purchase was an anomaly and could not be defended. He did not doubt that it was an anomaly, but he said that it could be defended. There were many other anomalies in the State, and, indeed, he could see plenty of them in that House. Were there no anomalies in our political system? Why should there be 658 Members to represent 30,000,000 of people? Was it no anomaly that the county population, which was larger than the town population, should avowedly have fewer representatives? And if he went further into social life and looked at the various professions that existed, he saw there anomalies without end. Take, for instance, a doctor's practice. A medical practitioner, it was well known, when he wanted to leave, could sell his practice to the first comer; but the patients were never consulted whether his successor was most qualified to kill or cure. There were plenty of other trades and professions that were the subject of barter and sale more or less in this country; and why, therefore, should this purchase system in the Army be the only anomaly worth abolishing at the cost of £8,000,000. To him this would have been incomprehensible but for the reason that there was an extraordinary delusion that the purchase system and the aristocracy were intimately connected. The other reason which was given by his right hon. Friend the Secretary for War was that it was absolutely necessary that there should be an amalgamation of the Regular Army and the Militia, and that the purchase system blocked, the way. The fact that it would be necessary to provide Militia subalterns with commissions had been already dealt with by his right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich; but he must say that he should have hiked the Secretary for War to have explained how the amalgamation was to work. He could not understand whether the officers of the Regular force were to be allowed to exchange with the officers of Militia regiments; whether a colonel commanding a Yeomanry regiment might become the colonel of a Lancer regiment; whether the officers of the Line were to be forced into the Militia, or whether they were to be obliged to serve Her Majesty for one month's pay instead of twelve. If this was the proposal of the Government, he did not think that it was properly understood by the country. He also did not think that it was understood that the Militia force was to be a portion of the Regular Army. The right hon. Gentleman said that he could not put regular officers into the Militia when he wanted them, and that he had no control over them when they were there. But could he not put officers on half-pay into the Militia, or induce officers to sell out, and then appoint them to the Militia? The right hon. Gentleman must know that this had been done over and over again. There was one part of the scheme that excited his (Lord Eustace Cecil's) astonishment, and that was the proposal of the Government that purchase should not be extinguished for 35 years. If it were true that our auxiliary forces could not be efficient unless an amalgamation of forces should at once take place, he wanted to know why this efficiency should be put off for 35 years. This was a point which required explanation, for it was one which, in the right hon. Gentleman's language, "No fellow could understand." It seemed to him that the right hon. Gentleman was blowing hot and cold. He said that we must have an efficient force, and to have it at once we must abolish the purchase system; but at the same time he propounded a scheme by which the purchase system could not be abolished for over 40 years. He need not say much upon the question of selection, although it was a very important subject, but he did wish to say this, that it had been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Surveyor General of the Ordnance (Sir Henry Storks) that the scheme of the Government was generally looked upon by the Army as a very liberal and generous proposal. He did not say that the right hon. Gentleman used those words, but that was the sense of what he said. He would correct him (Lord Eustace Cecil) if he were wrong.

SIR HENRY STORKS

explained that the liberality to which he alluded was as regarded the proposals of the Government and not with respect to the Army.

LORD EUSTACE CECIL

said, the officers of the Army were those most interested in the matter, and they might, perhaps, be allowed to express their own opinion. Availing himself of the permission which had been given to officers to communicate their sentiments to private Members of the House, he had sent a circular to every officer commanding a regiment or a depôt in the United Kingdom. At the same time the House would understand that there had been no meeting of officers to the prejudice of military discipline; but that the commanding officers had obtained the opinions of each officer privately. To the 90 circulars he had sent out, he had received between 70 and 80 answers from regiment and individual officers, and had thus collected opinions from 59 regiments. The officers of 56 of these regiments were entirely opposed to the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman, and would rather that things should remain as they were. He thought that this should be understood by the House and the country that thirteen-fourteenths of the officers of the British Army were opposed to the Government scheme. They did not take the view of the right hon. Gentleman that his scheme was liberal and generous, and they had expressed their opinions so well and had put them so shortly and concisely, that he would read out what he was convinced was the opinion of thirteen-fourteenths of the British Army. The objections which they had to the scheme might be thus stated— 1. Because it is a breach of contract, by arbitrarily limiting sales of commissions. 2, Because the non-purchaser under the new system will be receiving a higher rate of pay than the officer remaining in under the old. 3, Because they have the greatest mistrust of the manner in which the Commissioners will adjudicate the amount of over-regulation prices, the customary sum differing at various times even in the same regiment. 4, Because they have great doubts, judging from the state of the Artillery and Engineers, of the liberality of this House in the future in supplying a sufficient retiring fund to prevent stagnation of regimental promotion. 5, Because they believe promotion by selection will destroy all esprit de corps, besides being a breach of contract as far as the present officers of the Army are concerned, who have paid their money in the belief that if they did their duty they would be invariably promoted. For all these reasons there was an almost unanimous opinion, that if it were decided to abolish purchase the officers' money should be returned to them. He believed that the Surveyor General said in his speech that it would be very unfair to return the officers' money to them, because officers who had been purchased over would have a right to complain. He (Lord Eustace Cecil) believed, however, that if the right hon. Gentleman gave himself the trouble to ascertain the opinions of the non-purchase officers who had been purchased over they would one and all be quite content that those who had purchased over them should have their money returned. Officers who had thus purchased over others had invested a large capital in doing so, and they had not received by their higher pay full interest for their money. As to selection, he would only call attention to what his right hon. Friend (the Secretary for War) said in moving the Estimates. He said that he adopted the opinion of the Royal Commissioners of 1856 as regarded the feeling of the Army as to promotion by selection. But what did that Commission really recommend? Instead of supporting the provision of any general scheme of promotion by selection, they showed that it would never be favourably received by officers of the British Army. Now, how would selection work? He would quote another authority. Earl Grey had said that no one dispensed his patronage properly, and to do so he must be a superior being, with full knowledge of men's characters and qualities. When a comparison was drawn between Army promotion and Navy promotion, he thought that the House should recollect that the Navy was a very different service to the Army in this respect. A ship could not be compared with a regiment; a ship might be commissioned to-day and paid off in a week after, but a regiment had traditions of its own, that were looked up to with a veneration that no one could have any idea of who had not served in a regiment. Before concluding, he wished to say one word to hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway. He hoped they would not be led away by the hope of making this a party triumph. He was sorry to say he had seen in some Gentlemen who sat there—he did not say all—a tendency to make this a party affair. Let not hon. Gentlemen suppose that by revolutionizing the system of promotion in the Army they were dealing, a blow at the Conservative party. The officers of the Army were neither party politicians nor Tory aristocrats; by far the larger part of them came from the middle and professional classes, and as such they came to that House and asked them to protect their vested interests. They were not conscious that this system, so much spoken and written against, had ever failed; they connected this system with the glorious annals of the country for 250 years; and they believed that its retention would be for the benefit of the service and for the good of the nation. But, at the same time, if it were the will of the nation that this system should be extirpated root and branch—if it were the will of the House, as representing the nation, that this should take place — the officers of the Army, like good and loyal citizens, would be content to obey—and as he hoped would obey freely and willingly. At the same time he trusted that, as far as their pecuniary interests were concerned, they would not be allowed to go away with a sense of injustice in their hearts, and would not have to say hereafter that for their vested interests they had pleaded in vain for justice to the House of Commons.

CAPTAIN BEAUMONT

thought it was a mistake to ask the decision of the House on the question of purchase, and at the same time on the question of organization. The question before the House was that of purchase; but nine-tenths of the debate had proceeded on Army organization. He wished to confine his observations more especially to the question of Army organization. He thought that all Army reformers must be disappointed that the Bill did so little for re-organization; to him it seemed that this Bill ought to be called an Abolition Bill, rather than an Army Organization Bill. What was wanted in Army organization was a better moulding together of the different branches of the service. Our Reserve Forces were not what they ought to be; and it was to be feared that under pressure our Volunteer Force would melt away like a snowball in the sun, and that the Militia would prove a force on which we could not rely in time of trouble. He thought this was a most important part of the question, and that the Bill did not deal with it satisfactorily. There were many other shortcomings of our military organization with which the Bill did not deal. If our Army were now called upon to take the field, we should undoubtedly be deficient in transport. Then there was the question of telegraphs. Field telegraphs were provided for only a small proportion of the Regular Army. Then, again, what arrangement had we for ambulances? Next to nothing at all. After such an able statement as that made by the Secretary of State of military requirements, it was a cruel disappointment to find that all he did for Army re-organization was to appoint certain colonels to act as go-betweens between the Regular Army and the auxiliary forces, and transfer to the Crown the Militia patronage of the Lords Lieutenant. With respect to the proposal for the appointment of colonels, he thought this was, to a certain extent, a step in the right direction; but he denied that it was a step in Army organization, because these officers would not find any place in actual warfare. Then, as to the privilege of Lords Lieutenant, perhaps it was right and proper that their privileges should cease, and pass into the hands of the Crown; but he denied that this was a great effort of military organization. Both, as he had said, might be steps in the right direction; but both these and the abolition of purchase should have been subordinated to some large proposal for the re-organization of the Army. He agreed with the provisions of the Bill as to the Ballot, though the point was one of secondary importance. The Ballot was already a recognized part of our system; but when the emergency arose, he felt sure that the people of this country would rise as one man in defence of their homes. As to the purchase system, no one could maintain that per se it was right; and if we were beginning with a tabula rasa it was unlikely that it would be instituted, because no person would be so regardless of his own interest as to pay out of his pocket for the privilege of serving the State. It was conceded that the system had given to the service good officers; but he confessed that, with regard to the regimental system, about which a good deal had been said, he was a little in a haze as to what that system was, or what was meant by the statement that it would be upset if purchase were abolished. If by the regimental system they meant anything which was inalienably attached to the question of purchase, he should like to know what it was that was so attached. He had strong grounds for saying that there could not be anything in the regimental system which was inalienably attached to the purchase system. In his opinion, one of the advantages of the purchase system was that it prevented officers from being over; and, on the other hand, one of its disadvantages was that it prevented good officers from being selected. After balancing the advantages and disadvantages of the system, he was, on the whole, inclined to vote for the abolition of purchase. But then having agreed on the abolition of purchase, would it be necessary to adopt in its stead the system of selection? He thought it would; but, at the same time, the purchase system was better than a badly organized system of selection. But a system of selection did not need to be bad. Promotion among the non-commissioned officers was by selection, and the system was generally satisfactory; and though he did not say that there was any direct analogy between the promotion of non-commissioned officers and the system of selection in the case of commissioned officers, he still thought there could be found some way of getting over the difficulties attached to the selection of officers. But these were not by any means the strongest reasons for inducing him to vote for abolition of purchase. There were three reasons more which weighed very forcibly with him, two of which, to his astonishment, had not yet been referred to in the course of the debate. The first was one that had been brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War in his statement on the Army Estimates, that the purchase system stood in the way of reorganization, though the right hon. Gentleman did not go so far as to say that if purchase were not done away with, it would be impossible to proceed with Army re-organization. In fact, it seemed clear to him that the question of the abolition of purchase was subordinate to the question of Army organization, because, whether purchase existed or not, Army organization must go on; but it would be a considerable step towards that end if the difficulties attending the purchase question were removed by the abolition of the system. It should not be forgotten that there was a continual change going on between the purchase and non-purchase corps—he alluded to officers of the English regiments changing with officers of the Indian Staff Corps, in which purchase did not prevail. The next point—and it was one which he had not yet heard mentioned in the course of this debate—was that the abolition of purchase would tend to abolish extravagance among the officers. It was well known that the mess-room doors of the Army were besieged by Jews and money-lenders, who were the curse of young officers. An officer had told him the other day that a young officer, within three months of receiving his commission, had received 70 applications from money - lenders, offering to lend him money. It was needless to point out that this evil would be put an end to by the abolition of purchase, because while the commission was a saleable property in an officer's hand, he had not only a temptation to procure, but the means also of procuring ready money; and this was shown by the number of retirements by young officers after unreasonably short service. The next reason that weighed with him was, that the abolition of purchase was an act of justice to the non-purchase corps, which represented one - fourth of the whole Army. It frequently happened in non-purchase corps, with one of which he himself was connected, that young cadets who went to the Military Academy, where they failed to pass their examination, and were rejected, afterwards entered purchase corps, and commanded in garrison the very corps they had not been considered fit to enter. Every question of this kind must be brought down to the standard of pounds, shillings, and pence; and though it might be thought worth while to pay £8,000,000 to get rid of the system, hon. Members would very greatly modify their opinions if they found they had to pay something nearer the double of that. It had been stated, from the Treasury Bench, that the cost would not exceed £8,000,000; but now it was stated, by the hon. Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan), that it would take £10,000,000; his own impression was that it would cost nearer £16,000,000. The cost of the abolition of purchase divided itself into two parts—in the first place, the actual money they would have to pay to officers for their commissions; and, in the next, the cost for retirements. By the Duke of Somerset's Commission the value of the commissions was calculated at £7,126,000. He did not think this a fair estimate, for it did not include the over-regulation prices, which amounted to £3,500,000; bringing the total up to £10,500,000. But since the date of the Report of that Commission there had been a considerable increase in the numbers of the Army, and the estimate would consequently be increased; and, moreover, many of the commissions that had been given without purchase had, by the lapse of time, acquired a money value. Again, Mr. Hammersley, an efficient authority on that subject, estimated the cost of the commissions at £7,776,000, and the cost of the extra commissions at £3,577,000, making a total of £11,246,000. He (Captain Beaumont) was aware that this estimate was based on the supposition that the payment was to be present instead of future; but making an allowance on that account, the amount might fairly be taken at £10,000,000. Taking all the figures into account, the expense would be £16,000,000. The cost of retirement, judging by the analogy of the retirement of the Ordnance Corps, would be something approaching £500,000 annually. He therefore should not be content to give his vote in favour of the abolition of purchase without some clear and distinct notion of what they were voting for. This was not a subject to be trifled with. He therefore thought he should be justified in asking his right hon. Friend whether £8,000,000 would be sufficient, and what were the mistakes of those who estimated the sum at £10,000,000 or £11,000,000? What was the maximum sum, beyond which he would not call on them to vote for the abolition of purchase? Gentlemen below the Gangway were willing to give their cordial and loyal support to the Secretary of State in his attempt to reorganize the Army; but unless his right hon. Friend gave them a fair estimate of the cost, he, for one, was not prepared to take what he must call a leap in the dark.

COLONEL BARTTELOT

said, that at that late hour he should not detain the House very long. This was a most serious question. It deserved the serious consideration of the House, as it had received the most serious consideration of the country for some time past—the subject had been earnestly debated throughout the land for the last six months. The great war which had taken place on the Continent had brought prominently before us our deficiency in military organization, and he submitted to the House that this was a question that ought not to be dealt with in a party spirit, but that it demanded careful consideration, without which they could not arrivee at a just conclusion. Was the Bill one that would satisfy the requirements of the country? He thought not. Let anyone look at the two great Bills of the Government of last year and the year before, and say whether the minor details which were entered into and provided for with such careful minuteness in those Bills, were to be found similarly provided for in this. This Bill did not attempt to settle the details in the manner attempted by the other two, and without that forethought no Bill of so complicated a character could be satisfactory. The other night the right hon. Gentleman the Surveyor General of Ordnance (Sir Henry Storks) got up and denounced, in no measured terms, the present system; and he read a letter from a gallant officer for whom he (Colonel Barttelot) had a great respect. But the contents of that letter were, after all, only the opinion of an individual, and he (Colonel Barttelot) could bring 10 letters from officers of equal standing that would contradict, word for word, and line for line, the statement of the writer. The House was not to act on the opinion of a single letter-writer—let them take the united opinion of the officers, and see whether those officers agreed in the opinion expressed in that one letter. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir Henry Storks) said that no officer ought to have a pecuniary interest in his commission. But the Government proposal was to leave him with a pecuniary interest in his commission for the next 20 years. If the Government meant to deal with the question, let them deal with it practically, and at once. Did they mean to tell him that if they abolished purchase to-morrow it would not rise again in some form or other? There were 12 non-purchase regiments at present. Did promotion take place in them by purchase or not? Would he at once get rid of this, and say that if purchase were abolished promotion should not take place by purchase? Did not the right hon. Gentleman not know that when an officer joined his regiment what he wanted was to rise as quickly as possible? And the way he attained this was by buying others out. Would the Government admit that this was the fact, or would they not? Was their retirement system so good that they could arrange that there should be no stagnation of promotion? The hon. and gallant Member for Truro (Captain Vivian) said the other evening that the artillery was in an abnormal condition. He (Colonel Barttelot) should like to know what was its normal condition? When he was quartered in Dublin, many years ago, in 1845, as a captain of dragoons, in the same garrison with him was an officer of artillery, who had served in the Peninsula with his (Colonel Barttelot's) father; and that officer and himself exchanged, the officer having entered the Army in 1809, and he (Colonel Barttelot) in 1839. He was told that without a scheme of retirement officers would be 60 years of age before they reached their lieutenant-colonelcy. What were the Government going to pay? And what would they get for the payment? Would it cost £8,000,000 for the abolition of purchase? And would their retirement cost £1,000,000 a-year? He believed that it would cost more than £1,000,000 a-year. Where was the retirement scheme in the Bill? He could not find it; and he did not like taking "a leap in the dark." If they abolished purchase they must show how promotion was to take place, and how selection was to be effected—because it rather oozed out the other day that promotion was to be by seniority, tempered occasionally with a little selection, which he supposed meant favouritism. The Secretary for War had taken powers by the Bill to enlist men for any period from 1 day to 12 years. There was nothing to prevent the right hon. Gentleman from enlisting a man for a day, and then transferring him to the Reserve. He, for one, was not prepared to give him that power, because he knew how long a time it took to make a soldier. During the last year the right hon. Gentleman had got 26,000 recruits; but out of that number little more than 3,000 had been for short service. The whole value of the Government scheme depended upon whether they could get enough men to pass through the ranks, and he believed that it would fail in regard to the short-service men. He was informed, on good authority, that recently, out of 2,000 or 3,000 men in Chichester Barracks who were asked to re-enlist, only three were willing to do so. Supposing the men refused to re-enlist, where would be our Reserve Forces, and where our military organization? It could not be said that the Militia would be re-organized under the Bill, because it only provided that they should undergo 14 additional days' drill. A real re-organization would make the men first pass through the ranks of the Regular Army, then through the Militia, and lastly form part of the local Militia. If neither the Militia nor the Volunteers were effectively re-organized, what would be the position of the nation in the case of a sudden military emergency? Nothing would have been provided for the defence of the country, and any Government that failed adequately to protect us would cease to retain the confidence of any party. The scheme of the right hon. Gentleman failed also to deal with the Militia officers. All knew that some of our colonels were between 80 and 90 years of age; but nothing was done to touch the question, or to deal with the case of adjutants of Militia. In regard to the Volunteers—as they had all heard of the "Man in the Street"—and he might therefore be allowed to say that the "Man in the Street" had told him that at the Cabinet Council held to consider the question one right hon. Gentleman had said—"The Volunteers are troublesome fellows; they do nothing but drum about the streets; they are not much good. Let us get rid of them." But another right hon. Gentleman replied—"Better not do that; a great many Gentlemen in the House and below the Gangway belong to them." Thereupon a third right hon. Gentleman suggested—"Let us put them under the Mutiny Act and they will all resign," which was accordingly done. But if the Secretary for War had known a little about the Volunteers he would have been aware that they were ready to respond to any call that might be made upon them, and that if they had been asked to constitute the third line of Reserve they would cheerfully have done so, for they were anxious to serve and defend their country. Looking at the Bill as a whole it seemed to him that it failed in all essential particulars to reorganize the Army in such a way as to give a promise of security, and save us from the panics of which the right hon. Gentleman spoke the other night. He did not approve the Amendment, but wished its place had been occupied by one much broader, for which all could have voted irrespective of party considerations; but he should vote against the second reading of the Bill, which would not accomplish the object proposed.

VISCOUNT BURY

moved that the debate be now adjourned.

MR. GLADSTONE

hoped it would not be unreasonable to come to an understanding that, as the Bill would on Thursday have occupied a fortnight of the Session, as far as Government time was concerned, an endeavour should be made to bring the debate to a close on Thursday evening. ["No, no!"] He did not in the least degree complain of the time occupied by the debate, for the subject was new and involved many points; but, at the same time, they must endeavour to confine themselves within some limits.

MR. G. BENTINCK

hoped it would be clearly understood that there could be no understanding as to the time when a debate like this was to terminate. The Prime Minister seemed to be under an impression that there were but two Benches in the House—the Ministerial Bench and the front Opposition Bench; but there were 18 other Benches which claimed an equal right to freedom of discussion. There was an old and mischievous practice on the part of the two front Benches, which was called "coming to an understanding," and which amounted to an attempt to suppress all freedom of debate; but in the absence of any good reason for closing this debate on Thursday night, and depriving many hon. Members of the opportunity of speaking, he should enter his protest against any such understanding as had been suggested.

MR. ANDERSON

said, that he entirely agreed with what had just fallen from the hon. Gentleman. It was quite impossible to fix any limit to the present debate. They had sat that night for seven hours, but only five or six Gentlemen had spoken, and on the last occasion only three or four spoke. A large number of hon. Gentlemen doubtless wished to take part in the debate, and he, for one, entirely declined to enter into any arrangement for the conclusion of the debate on Thursday night.

Debate further adjourned till Thursday.