§ LORD ELCHOasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he will lay upon the Table the Reports of the Officers of the Regular Army who commanded Volunteer Brigades at the last Brighton 704 field-day on Easter Monday? The Report of the General in command has been given; but he understood that the Reports of the Brigadiers were favourable, and as it has been stated publicly that the Volunteer Force is not worth the paper on which the Estimate was written, he thought that in justice to the Volunteers these Reports should be produced.
§ MR. CARDWELLSir, the usual course has been pursued in this matter. The Report of the General Officer who commanded at Brighton has been laid on the Table, and it certainly gives no encouragement to the idea that the Volunteers are "not worth the paper on which the Estimate is written." Nothing which has been said by any official authority in this House or elsewhere in the least degree favours any such impression. But the production of the Reports made by the subordinate officers is not usual; it would not be agreeable to the general practice approved by military authorities that I should produce them; and if such documents were produced they could not in future be written as freely as all these Reports should be written.