§ LORD ELCHOsaid, that he was reluctant again to obtrude himself on the notice of the House on the Army question, and the more so as he should stand between the House and Supply. The present Government had not abused the power of their majority by taking away, as the late Government had done, the time-honoured privilege of bringing forward 650 grievances on Supply, and he thought, therefore, that Members should be chary in its exercise. His right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, speaking of his (Lord Elcho's) former Motion, said, that although it was of national importance, it was not urgent. He ventured to think that if the Army was in an unsatisfactory condition, it was a matter of urgency to endeavour to set it right, and the "scare" that had since then occurred, and which had set all Europe and our Foreign Office in a tremour, justified this view. We could not afford to wait for the uncertain results of an uncertain future for the 80,000 Reserve men whom the hon. Member for the Stirling Burghs (Mr. Campbell-Banner-man) had told them they would have, under the Brigade depot system, in 10 or 12 years. 10 or 12 years! He would be a bold man who would say what will then be the form of the map of Europe, or who would, in the present state of European armaments and feeling, be content to wait and do nothing with our Army as it was. He therefore should submit to the House a Motion which naturally followed from the facts elicited in the discussions they had had on Army matters; but before doing so he would shortly summarize those facts, as it was only by statement, re-statement, repetition, and so-called "damnable iteration," that these things could be dinned into the mind and heart and conscience of the nation; and in bringing these matters before the public he was doing good service to the Government by preparing the public mind for measures which, though disagreeable, were inevitable if the Army was to be put on a proper footing. What, then, were the facts that had been thus elicited in debate? 1st. As to the Artillery, instead of having, as was stated, 336—horse-artillery and field-guns fully manned and horsed—it had been shown that we had only men and horses enough for 120 on a war establishment, and that 5,000 more artillerymen and 8,000 horses would be required to complete the remainder; that as regarded the Infantry, we had on the Home establishment 10,000 men less for the current year than we had in 1853, while the Army Estimates had increased during the last 22 years from £9,000,000 to £13,500,000. Our regiments now, instead of being solid, homogeneous bodies of men as they were in 1853, containing a minimum of 850 651 and a maximum of 1,200 rank and file, were mere skeletons having a minimum of 520, and a maximum of 820 in India; thus the minimum of 1853 was greater than the maximum of 1875. To fill up these skeleton battalions to an effective war strength, it had been shown that we had not much more in reserve than half of the number of the men required, and that of these three-fourths were half-trained Militia. It had further been shown that if we deducted lads under 20, and one-fifth for casualties—a very small reduction, as he knew that Lord Raglan used to say that they considered themselves lucky in Spain when they could turn out three-fourths of their total nominal strength—we could only bring 30,000 bayonets into the field for home defence and for the re-inforcement of our Indian and Colonial establishments. Lastly, it had been shown that the Recruiting Reports when read without the qualifying sentences revealed a most unsatisfactory state of things, and that the Inspector General of Recruiting looked with alarm to the time, rapidly approaching, when the full strain of the short-service system would be felt. But the most important fact elicited as yet was the admission of the Secretary of State for War that 30 per cent of our Infantry were "very unsatisfactory." [Mr. GATHOKNE HARDY: I said of the recruits.] He was certainly reported and understood to say of the Infantry; but in any case the number of boys and very unsatisfactory men now serving was admitted to be very large. Now, it was with these that his Resolution proposed to deal. It was as follows:—
That, while expressing no opinion as to the necessity or expediency of enlisting or training immature lads for the service of the Grown, with a view to their ultimate development into efficient manhood, this House is of opinion that no youth under twenty years of age should be reckoned an effective soldier and borne, as such, on the Army Estimates; and this House is further of opinion that the number of youths under twenty years of age enlisted, and serving in each arm of the Service, should be annually and separately stated in the Estimates.The House would observe that his Resolution dealt with two branches of the subject, that of recruiting and that of efficiency. With regard to the first of those questions, he observed that a gallant General opposite (Sir George Balfour) had given Notice of an Amendment to the effect that before adopting his 652 (Lord Elcho's) Resolution certain things recommended by the Royal Commission of 1866 should be tried. When recently at Aldershot an officer had said to him—" I see Sir George Balfour is going to fire a lot of small shot into you," his reply was—" That small shot was a very good thing at times, that without it one could not kill snipes; and the gallant General appeared to think that without his Amendment they could not bag small boys." He had no objection whatever to the Amendment, except that it in no way touched his Motion, for he invited no opinion as to the age at which lads should be enlisted. His own opinion, however, was, as he had stated on a former occasion, that it was a most extravagant system to enlist boys of 16, 17, and 18 years of age, who, by the time they had grown up into effective soldiers, would have cost the country an enormous sum. But if the Secretary of State for War, in the present condition of the labour market, thought it necessary to maintain nurseries and training-schools for soldiers, he could only enter his protest against the system as being a very expensive one. It was, then, to the second part of his Resolution that he wished specially to direct the attention of hon. Members, and on that part of it he should ask the House to pronounce an opinion.
§ MR. SPEAKERreminded the noble Lord that as the House had negatived the previous Amendment, no division on the present Resolution could be taken.
§ LORD ELCHOregretted that the Forms of the House would not permit a division to be taken on the question, as many hon. Members had expressed their intention of supporting the Motion, and he had himself said that if he could get anyone to accompany him into the Lobby he would divide the House upon it. As it was, he gave Notice that if alive and in the House next year he would again bring this question forward, unless he found, as he hoped would be the case, that the Secretary of State would accept the principle of his Resolution. It was, in fact, only an extension of that which the House had unanimously adopted in 1871, when it was agreed, on the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Fins-bury (Mr. Torrens), that no soldier under 20 years of age should be sent upon foreign service. He now asked the House—for the sake of the boys themselves, 653 for the sake of humanity, for the sake of the Army, and for the security of the Empire—to declare that no boy under 20 should be regarded as an effective soldier at home. All authorities, military, medical, lay, foreign as well as English, agreed that until he had attained the age of 20, a lad was not fit to be classed as an effective soldier. He should not trouble the House with quotations upon this point, his hon. Friend the Member for Finsbury having gone so fully into the physiology of the question in 1871, and again the other night, when he so eloquently and pathetically described his visit to the museum at Netley Hospital, where he saw the gristly—for they were not osseous—skeletons of the immature soldier-lads whom our system had sent to a premature grave. All that he would say further upon this point was that Dr. Parks, of Netley, in his work on Military Hygiene, said that soldiers under 20 years were not fit even for the heavy duties of peace; that he had met Sir William Fergusson, the celebrated London surgeon, the other day, and asked him at what age an English lad was well-grown and fit for hard work, and his reply was—"He did not think there was much wrong with the old English law which fixed maturity at 21." He also held in his hand a letter from the late Chaplain General, Mr. Gleig, whose name could nowhere be mentioned without honour, whose experience of soldiers in war under the Duke of Wellington, and whose life since had been so long and usefully spent in their midst, gave the greatest value to his words. Mr. Gleig said—
You did not hazard a statement upon the constitution of the Army to which I do not entirely subscribe. It is nonsense to talk of the necessity of enlisting boys—otherwise we should have no Army at all. Bettor be without an Army than run the risk of being involved in war with a force at our disposal that would melt away through sickness and the inability of the men to carry their packs and ammunition, without giving the enemy the trouble to beat us in the field.Instead, however, of pursuing the military argument further, he would rather refer to every man's daily experience in ordinary life as to the physical capabilities of youth and manhood. He was addressing an Assembly where possibly some who heard him might have pulled in the University boat-race. Now, he 654 was no betting man; but had he been so, he would not have minded betting that no youth under 20 had pulled in that race, or that nine-tenths of those who had done so were over 20. The Secretary of State for War was reported to have said, the other night, that the labour of a lad of 18 was worth as much as the labour of a full-grown man; but, as the right hon. Gentleman shook his head, there was no doubt some mistake in the report. He would, however, confidently appeal to any Member of the House acquainted with mining, shipbuilding, agricultural labour, or factory work—in short, any occupation requiring much physical labour—to say whether a man was ever regarded as full-grown, or obtained a full-grown man's wages, till he was 20 or 21 at least. Why, an apprentice was bound until he was 21. A right hon. and gallant Admiral (Sir John Hay) cheered that statement, and that reminded him of the Arctic Expedition. He should like to know how many lads under 20 were going there as able seamen? Not one, he felt sure. Similar considerations prevailed with regard to animals. Who would think, for instance, of running a two-year-old against the Derby three-year-olds? The hon. Members for Mid Lincoln (Mr. Chaplin) and Dorset (Mr. Sturt) differing upon other points connected with horses, would, at any rate, be agreed upon that point; and if his hon. Friend the Member for Dorset were to become a more successful breeder of horses than by his own account he appeared to have been, and were to run a two-year-old against a three-year-old, it was he that in such case would not dare to look his mares in the face. Who would think of riding a three-year-old across country, or putting one in the ranks of our Cavalry? In Germany Cavalry horses were not thought effective until they were five years old; and in a recent work, the Remontirung of the German Army, it appeared that the horses under six years of age had lasted only a short time in the late war. Finally, let him refer to game preserving. There were doubtless many game preservers who heard him; he asked them would they hire lads of 17, 18, 19 as watchers to keep off poachers and preserve their pheasants? Now, he might go on thus multiplying examples from ordinary daily life as to the comparative inefficiency of immature 655 and full-grown creatures; but he would be satisfied by asking whether they would continue to treat their soldier boys differently from what they did their horses, and be satisfied to protect their Empire by means which they would not consider sufficient for the protection of their pheasants? It would, however, be well that he should anticipate one or two arguments that were likely to be brought against the position he had taken up. On the very morning after he had given his Notice an article appeared in The Times denouncing it as a monstrous Motion. No doubt, it was a high compliment to him that, almost before the ink with which the reporter recorded the Notice was dry, a leading article was penned with regard to it. This showed how his shot had told. The article drew attention to the Motion "as a specimen, voluntarily offered by its author, of the accuracy and the spirit of such attacks as were made the other night upon the present state of the Army;" and it added that some patience was required in dealing with such criticisms. It stated that a Return had recently been laid on the Table of the House showing that the average age of the Infantry recruits was 19 years and nine months; and this, it said—Was within throe months of the very 20 years for which Lord Elcho contended. We have surely a right to ask with some urgency on what principle assertions are thus persistently reiterated which are inconsistent with the plain facts and figures officially and responsibly placed before us.Now, anything more misleading than all this had never been published by a leading journal. This was no question whatever of an average. The question was whether the age of 20 ought not to be absolutely the age under which no recruit should be reckoned as effective, and when taken to task, as it had been, by The Pall Mall Gazette, The Times tried to back out by saying that—The only objection to the conclusiveness of their reply can be that an average may be composed of extremes, and that it is possible a few of the recruits may be too old and a great number of them too young.But he had no fear that either the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War or any other Member of the House would take The Times' view of averages, which had nothing whatever to do with the question at issue. There was, however, a graver matter to which he wished 656 to call attention—namely, a remarkable speech of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge delivered on a remarkable occasion. The occasion was a dinner at Willis's Rooms, given by his hon. and gallant Friend the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works (Sir James Hogg), to celebrate the excellence of his administration, and at which, to bear testimony to it, he had secured the presence of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge. Now, he (Lord Elcho) had the honour of submitting his Motion on the Army to the House of Commons on the 20th April, and this dinner took place on the 24th. His Royal Highness was reported to have said—I must confess I have been somewhat staggered by many of the assertions which have been brought to my notice, and on this point I may be permitted, very cursorily, to remark that yesterday, in the course of my professional duties, I had an opportunity of going to see as much as I could of the troops at Aldershot, and all I can say is that, while deprecating war and hoping the necessity may not arise, I am perfectly prepared to-morrow, at five minutes' notice, to take every man of that force with me and to go anywhere, without seeing any reason why they should not perform their duty just as well as the British Army has ever done in times past.This passage was printed in italics in a leader in The Times newspaper, and was followed by this remark—That, it appears to us, is a very strong declaration. It recalls some famous military phrases, and His Royal Highness must have well understood its significance.The famous military phrases here alluded to must necessarily have meant the famous saying of the Duke of Wellington, who, speaking of the army he had in Spain, said that with it "he could have gone anywhere and done anything." Now, this passage in the Duke of Cambridge's speech was so important that he (Lord Elcho) wished to analyze the force that was reviewed by His Royal Highness at Aldershot. In so doing he would speak with the utmost respect of the Duke of Cambridge. He had the honour of knowing His Royal Highness, who had always been very kind to him. There was no man for whom he entertained a higher respect; there was no man whom the country more highly esteemed. His Royal Highness was ever forward in the cause of charity, and whenever he appeared before a Committee or Commission on Army matters, it was admitted by all that no man was 657 so conversant with all the details of the Army as His Royal Highness. The Pope had recently said that the nations required a lamp, as those did who visited the Catacombs, and that he held a lamp to give light to the world. He (Lord Elcho) thought that a visitor to Alder-shot also required a lamp. This he held in his hand in the form of the Aldershot Field-state, and he proposed to turn its light upon His Royal Highness's speech. It was no doubt somewhat difficult to obtain information upon these subjects, as His Royal Highness had told the officers at Aldershot that they should "wash their dirty linen at home," as he expressed it. He (Lord Elcho) might also mention that, as one of the Council of the United Service Institution, he, after the recent three days' discussion they had there on recruiting, was summoned to consider a message from the Duke of Cambridge, their President, to the effect that, in his opinion, it was desirable that the discussions at the Institution should be confined to scientific subjects. But the Council, thinking in a free country free speech should not be discouraged, dissented from His Royal Highness's view, and unanimously agreed that the discussions should continue as heretofore, controlled only by the Chairman of each meeting. But let him first, in these days of selection, state that his information was not obtained from any official. He got it from a gentleman who knew as much as any official upon these matters, and that was the "man in the street." There was only one person who knew more about these things, and that was the Prussian military Attaché. Therefore, let it not be said that he (Lord Elcho) was telling tales out of school. Foreign nations knew every gun, every horse, and every man in the service of this country, what was efficient, and what was not; the only person ignorant of these things was the British taxpayer. He now came to the state of things at Aldershot, and he would read some extracts from the Field-state of the 23rd April. He had headed these extracts "His Royal Highness's Five Minutes' Army." The total on parade—all ranks—was 7,208 men; the casualties, which included sick, on guard, and other duties, were 3,046; that made a total of 10,254. The 7,028 on parade included Artillery, Cavalry, Engineers, Military Train, &c. He would take the 658 Artillery first. There were six batteries, one of them being a horse battery and the other five field-batteries, making a total of 36 guns. The war establishment of one horse and five field-batteries at 230 men and 250 horses for a horse-battery, and 269 men and 253 horses for a field-battery, would require 1,575 men and 1,515 horses. There were on parade 571 men and 510 horses. This Army, therefore, which was prepared to go anywhere and do anything at five minutes' notice, required 1,004 men, or, including 378 casualties, 626 men and 967 horses, including 38 casuals, to complete the 36 guns to a war establishment; and we had, it should be remembered, no reserve of men or horses in the Artillery, which was now considerably below its peace establishment. The total of the Cavalry on parade was 877 men, the number of the casualties was 767, making a total of 1,644 men for three regiments. The horses on parade were 820, casuals 181—total, 1,001, which gave 543 men without horses. In the Cavalry also we had no reserves of men or horses. On the last occasion when he had the honour of addressing the House on these matters he said that Infantry was the substance of an Army; he would now show its state on parade at Aldershot. The total Infantry of all ranks that paraded before His Royal Highness on this occasion was 5,332. There were three brigades made up of 11 regiments; seven of those regiments had depot companies attached to them; including casualties, 1,603, the total of the Infantry was 6,935 of all ranks. Having a detailed state of the 3rd Brigade, he found that the total of all ranks was 1,947. The field officers were 8, the company officers 70, regimental staff 4, sergeants 115, band, drummers, and pioneers 316, making a total of 513, or about one-fourth, to be deducted from the 1,947 of all ranks to get the number of rank and file, which was thus found to be 1,434, including depot companies attached to three of the regiments. If, then, he deducted one-fourth for officers, non-commissioned officers, band, &c, from the 5,332 of all ranks on parade, and if he further deducted 420 men for the seven depôt companies, calculated at 60 men per depot—a very moderate calculation, as the proper strength of a depôt was 140 of all ranks—and if he further deducted 20 per cent for men 659 under 20 years or unsatisfactory, making 730, the total of 5,332 men of all ranks on parade was thus reduced to 2,954 effective bayonets, or an average for 11 regiments of 267 men per regiment. Such then was, when fairly analyzed, the actual state of the Army with which, at five minutes' notice, His Royal Highness was prepared to go anywhere. He had every respect for His Royal High-ness's courage; but he could not entertain a like respect, under the circumstances, for his discretion, and he should be sorry to see him embark on so forlorn a business. It might, perhaps, be said that the calculations he had given the House were those of a civilian, and not to be trusted; but he held in his hand the statement of a General Officer of great experience. He dared not give his name in these days of general selection, otherwise his name would give great weight to his statement. He sent this field-state to him and asked his candid opinion in regard to His Royal Highness's Aldershot Army, and here was his reply—The Infantry seen by His Royal Highness at Aldershot was composed of 11 battalions, with seven depôts of affiliated regiments, which, when the depôt centre system is in full operation, would be at their respective centres. Yet, notwithstanding these accidental additions, the 11 battalions, which, with one added, should make four brigades for service, made up scarcely more than one and a-half. Each of these battalions at Aldershot (and they would be presumably first for service) requires about 600 men to complete it to the fixed war establishment. The process of so doing is as follows:—Each battalion should have 24 drivers, with 48 draught horses, to take charge of 17 carts and waggons. These 24 men have to be selected and instructed, and this was imperfectly done in about six weeks before the Autumn Manœuvres, and not with satisfactory results. The 30 per cent of men described by the Secretary of State as being very 'unsatisfactory' would then have to be turned over to some depot, and men from the Reserves would have to be found, allotted to different battalions, and orders sent them to join their regiments from all parts of the country. There being only 7,829 men in the First Reserve, recourse must be had to the half-trained Militia Reserves. These exhausted, volunteering would have to be resorted to, there being no power to transfer men arbitrarily from one regiment to another. The regiments loft behind will be absolutely broken up, leaving scarcely sufficient to begin organizing new battalions upon. Simultaneously with this delay in getting together the personnel will be the issue of all the materials necessary for war—some having to be drawn from one place, some from another, but chiefly from Woolwich Arsenal, fully occupied in fitting out artillery. Now could all this be done in 24 hours, and done at the same time for the Cavalry, 660 Artillery, Engineers, Supply, Transport, and Medical Departments? Or is there any reasonable assurance that even the 11 battalions at Aldershot could be brought to a war footing in six weeks or two months? Preparations for the Autumn Manœuvres took twice that time, and preparations are now making for the Manœuvres in September.He thought the light he had thus ventured to throw on the Aldershot Force would show that the Army in its present condition could not inspire the country with confidence. It would indeed be well if our Foreign Office were to let the Government of Belgium know that, while prepared at all times to fulfil our Treaty obligations, and maintain the integrity of their kingdom, we must be allowed to do so in the only way we now could, and that was with our Navy; for in the present transition state of the Army we could not undertake to send them any help on land. We could not risk another Walcheren. He now passed to another part of His Royal Highness's speech. He was further reported to have said—It would be very acceptable to me, as to all military men, to see the ranks better filled; but this is a question which rests with the House of Commons.So much for His Royal Highness's feeling and opinion as to numbers; now as to age—We have heard a good deal lately of our recruits.… Now I freely admit that I decidedly prefer men of 20 years of age as recruits to younger men. There cannot be two opinions on that point.… In former times.…we had 30 or 40 men as recruits where now we have 100 or I50, because we have short service.… I should very much prefer to see a regiment composed entirely of old seasoned men.Now, here they had an apparent discrepancy between the first and the second parts of His Royal Highness's speech. Which of these two views were they to take as the real view of His Royal Highness? The Spectator had been writing lately of "double-barrelled brains." All men, it was said, had two brains, separate and distinct; one on one side of the head, and the other on the other. These two did not always work in harmony and unison, and sometimes one brain did not work at all. Now it appeared to him that His Royal Highness was like many sportsmen—better with his second barrel than his first; and he preferred to take the second part of His Royal Highness's speech as the true real expression of his mind. He would accept it as the true version of the state of the Army. There remained two other 661 points on which objection to his Motion might be taken. It might be said that if they drew the line at 20, there would be a difficulty in getting at the real ages of the men; but this difficulty was met by a suggestion that had been made to him by a staff-surgeon of great experience in recruiting—namely, that the inspecting surgeon should be left to decide as to the age and fitness of recruits to be borne on the effective strength of the Army, taking as his standard what a well-grown English lad of 20 ought to be. Thus, there might be cases of well-grown youths of 19 being admitted to the effective list, and of undeveloped lads of 20 being still kept on the non-effective roll. The last possible objection he had to touch upon was, that if his Resolution were to be adopted it would break down the whole system of the Army, and it would be necessary to resort to some other. That was not his business; all he wanted was to have an effective Army, and induce those who were responsible for these matters to endeavour to put things on a better and sounder principle. He had now done. He did not invite the House to affirm any difficult or abstract proposition. It was a simple common-sense matter. What he asked was that soldiers to be effective should be effective men. They were supposed to be so, for if they went to war, they would have to do men's work, and to contend against full-grown men. He asked, then, that this Empire, its honour and its interests, should be entrusted to the keeping of its manhood only, and not to its boyhood, who would have to contend against the manhood of other nations. He did not ask them to interfere with the system of recruiting; he did not ask them to touch the brigade depôts, that tender plant which the hon. Member for the Stirling Burghs (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) so poetically told them, the other night, was springing up and would soon bear fruit, and which he so pathetically implored them not to root up and destroy. He did not ask them in any way to fix what the strength of our Army should be; that was a matter for the Ministry alone. All he asked was that none but effective men should be borne on the effective list, and they should be separately stated in the Estimates. True, they now could, by searching in Blue Books and Parliamentary Returns, get at the number of men under 662 20; but it would greatly simplify matters if these were to be, as he proposed, separately borne on the Estimates, as colts in training. This, he thought was an absolutely reasonable request, and he believed it would be the first step to improvement. His anxious wish was to make the Army, whatever might be its strength, really effective and reliable. What he wanted was a real, not a paper Army—a reality, not a sham.
§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURobserved, that he was precluded by the Forms of the House from moving the Amendment which he had placed on the Paper, but the object he had in view would be equally as well attained by making remarks on the statements of the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho). He could only assure the House that it was not to fire small shot as the noble Lord had mentioned, for if he had any hostile intent he would use the projectiles which he, as an Artilleryman, would have at his command. So far from hostilities, it was friendly support to the efforts which the noble Lord had made for so many years to render the Army efficient, that he now desired to give. The details and references entered in the Amendment, applied to the Report of the Recruiting Commission of 1866, over which Lord Dalhousie presided, and had in view this one object of proving to the House that every defect in the recruiting of the Army, which the noble Lord's Motion set forth, had been pointed out in the Report of that Commission; and if, therefore, the reforms had not been carried out as recommended, it became the duty of the House to hold the authorities responsible for not having acted. His object was the same as that of the noble Lord: to fix on the military authorities their proper responsibility for allowing defects to exist, which the Commission had then traced out, and were now admitted to exist. He fully agreed with the noble Lord as to the mistaken course followed at present in enrolling as effective soldiers the young lads under 20, who were not fit to bear the fatigues and duties which our soldiers must endure whether in the field or in garrison. He regretted that our ranks were recruited with lads of that description; but unfortunately the immaturity of our soldiers was no new complaint. The Report of the 1866 Commission stated that in 663 the year before the Commission sat, out of 5,600 men sent to India, 2,003 were under 20, and more than one half under 21. The Report strongly urged that no man should be sent abroad under 20, and none unless thoroughly trained as soldiers. It was important, as the noble Lord had stated, on the advice of a medical officer, that the sole criterion for a soldier's fitness should be physical ability to bear fatigues, and not the mere age; but this was a prominent point in the Report of the Commission, and in order to get rid of that fruitful source of deceit, from the limitation as to age, it was urged that the standard of age at 18 should cease to be fixed on for reckoning service. So far from attending to these recommendations, the authorities had disregarded them. He held in his hand a most important Return, signed by the Adjutant General; it was No. 271, of 1871, moved for by the hon. and gallant Member for Oxfordshire (Colonel North), which gave the ages of the men of the 5th Regiment destined for India, which showed 472 of all ranks of non-commissioned officers and men to be under 20 years of age, and one third of the privates under 19 years of age, and more than one-half under 20. And last year it was proved before the East India Finance Committee, that large numbers of recruits had been sent out to India very imperfectly trained, and many with less than one month's training. On these points he and the noble Lord were entirely in harmony, and both had in view the one essential object of fixing responsibility on some one. He well remembered the arrival at Madras, during the Mutiny, of a battalion of Rifles almost entirely composed of boys, and of far less weight and physical powers than the small Madras Sepoy, so that for two or more years they had to be nursed at a great cost. It was, in his opinion, a wise and right step on the part of the noble Lord to raise this question of physical fitness, and he hoped it would result in fixing on some one the responsibility for the efficiency of the recruits. It was useless to deny that of late the number of young men in the ranks of the European Force in India had been increasing, for the medical Reports showed this fact. In 1862, out of a total strength of which the medical Reports treated, there were 2,360 under 20; in 1864, out of 55,083, 664 there were 1,533 under 20; in 1868, out of 47,332, there were 2,258; and these had gradually increased; for out of 52,531 in 1869, there were 3,563 under 20; and out of 49,909 in 1871, there were 4,496; and in 1872, the latest year for which there were Returns, there were 3,467 under 20, out of 49,854. It was, therefore, to be hoped that the later Returns would show more satisfactory results, so far as the mere ago of the men could be used as the standard of fitness. But until they had some responsibility placed on some authority for the entire fitness of men serving in the ranks, as to their physical ability to bear all fatigues, they ought at least to be assured that none should be counted as soldiers under the regulating age of 20. Those proofs established an ample justification for the noble Lord in bringing forward this question; indeed, the public mind was anxious at the present time with regard to the efficiency of the Army, all the more so because such contradictory statements were made about the physique of the men. He could only express a wish that the authorities at the War Office, responsible for this important duty, would come forward with their distinct ideas expressed on paper, so that it might be ascertained to what extent they held themselves responsible. He concurred most fully in what the noble Lord had said as to the extravagant organization of some parts of the Army. At present they had many more Infantry officers—at least 1,000—in excess of the number they had in January, 1854, when they had a larger force of Infantry privates than they had at present. For this smaller strength the Infantry battalions were about 37 in excess of those in 1854, and the number of the companies about 500 more than in that year. The result was that they had battalions and companies mere skeletons, with very inefficient means for filling up the attenuated cadrés in case of need; whilst in peace they had not the means of training officers and men in the efficient manner which strong battalions and strong companies ensured, and in case of war they would take the field with thinned ranks. Until the Army was placed on a more satisfactory formation, the public ought not to be asked that the present large expenditure should be increased. With improved organization, there would be funds 665 available out of the existing large outlay, which would be most useful in making good those defects which all desired to have remedied. The noble Lord's remarks about the deficiencies in men and horses for our field guns—336 in number—were greatly exaggerated. It was monstrous to have 40 horses and 40 men to a gun in our Artillery, when 20 horses and 20 men would be a fair proportion. Napoleon never went beyond 30 horses and 30 men, and Wellington, within a few years after the close of his campaigns, in reviewing the Artillery establishments, denounced the then proposed organization as extravagant, such as even this wealthy country could not stand, and advised, as one mode of lessening the cost of batteries, to form them of eight guns, instead of six guns, as at present. Since then the whole of the Artillery had been re-organized into the expensive form of brigades, whereby senior officers had been multiplied, and other liabilities created, so as to make the present Artillery far more costly than was ever proposed when the Duke of Wellington, as Master General of the Ordnance, opposed the former organization as far too costly for this country. There was great force in what the noble Lord had said as to our deficiency in the number of Infantry privates as compared with the numbers immediately prior to the war with Russia. In the beginning of 1854 there were 98,230 privates of Line Infantry, and 5,510 privates of Infantry of the Guards, and these were exclusive of the privates of Infantry of the East India Army. At present there were only 4,970 privates of Infantry of the Guards, and 94,370 privates of Infantry of the Line; but these included all privates in India, now that the Indian European forces were merged in those of the Home Army. Thus we had more battalions and more companies than in 1854, for nearly 10,000 fewer privates. The noble Lord had said very justly that such a Force as they had was quite insufficient if they were obliged to take the field against Germany. In 1870 they were very near sending a force to the Continent, but he hoped they would never have to do so. Taking the Infantry as the standard by which to measure our means of offence, then our Army was indeed not only small, but scattered, Out of the Infantry privates, 666 there were 6,390 in depôts, 13,390 in the Colonies, 39,000 in India, and 35,680 only at home with their battalions. As these were only the fixed Establishments, there must always be some wanting to complete. Now, the Home battalions being 70 in number, formed, without the depôts, into 360 companies, there was, on an average, only 510 privates in a battalion, or less than 64 in a company. It could not be surprising that, with such attenuated battalions, according to the Establishment, there should be, as the noble Lord had stated, still greater attenuation when these battalions were paraded at Aldershot. The 5,332 Infantry of all ranks that recently paraded, as the noble Lord stated, before His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, would not form 20 companies of German Infantry, instead of 11 battalions, as at Aldershot, with 88 companies. Here was a reform which could be effected in the direction followed in Germany. Nothing could be more beneficial to their Army than that of forming their present battalions, if they retained the number of 141, into strong companies of 150 privates, so as to keep up only 564 companies, instead of 1,028 as at present, exclusive of depôts, and the battalions would then consist of 600 privates, divided into four firing companies. In that way, instead of 168 weak companies in the Colonies there would be 82, and in India 260 companies instead of 400 as at present. In that formation there would be not only great economy, but great efficiency; and he would urge that whatever force they maintained it should from its reduced numbers be in the highest state of efficiency. Every effort should, therefore, be made to raise up their present Infantry force to that highest state of training, and he trusted the speech of the noble Lord would induce the Government to keep up whatever Force they might require, not only in the most efficient but in the most economical manner. It would be found that every Army was efficient in proportion to the economy with which it could be managed; or in other words, as it combined the greatest amount of efficiency with the smallest possible expenditure—it meant that though every want was supplied, yet no waste was permitted. Now, nothing could conduce more to economy than to diminish the present number of officers with battalions, or 667 rather with companies; and instead of increasing them as they had been doing every year, those now kept up should be re-distributed, and it was only by an improved formation of the several branches of the Army that they could attain that economical end which the noble Lord advocated. His object in putting the Amendment on the Paper was not for the purpose of obstructing the efforts of the noble Lord, but simply to show that the measures recommended by the noble Lord had been already suggested, and neglected; in the hope, however, that the noble Lord would give his and in having attention given to these possible economies and improvements, he gladly supported his Motion. The noble Lord had alluded to conscription; but he (Sir George Balfour) trusted they would never have recourse to that hateful system by which Continental Governments dragged men from every employment of the most important character to fill the ranks of the armies, totally disregardless of the losses and injuries thereby occasioned, leaving out of consideration the hideousness of the barbarous practice. Before such a measure was thought of, the utmost attention should be given to attain by civilized arrangements, the results which barbarous force secured on the Continent. One of the conclusions to which the Recruiting Commission, over which Lord Dalhousie presided, came to was, that the steps which they then took for the purpose of obtaining recruits were totally insufficient for keeping up the numbers and quality of men for our Army. The words in the Report were that—
Under the present system the mode of raising recruits for the Army is not calculated either to develope the military resources of the country or to obtain a sufficient number of men from that class of the population which, in former years, used to enter the service, and which it would be most desirable to attract to its ranks.Before thinking of ballot or conscription they ought to place their voluntary system of obtaining men for service on as efficient a footing as they must do if they entertained the notion of taking men by force. The Germans depended on the universality of the obligations; but the French, with their former more limited requirements for men, had systematized their demands by means of their 668 38,000 communes. There every one being enrolled in the register of births and deaths under pain of civil forfeiture of rights could be laid hold of, and forced to try his luck against being conscripted. By this civil agency of a strictly enforced system of record in the civil registers of communes, and by keeping up the history of all from birth to death, the number who evaded the trial were but few, and necessarily of the lowest description, by reason of their forfeiture of civil rights following on the evasion. Now he maintained that they had in existence, in the form to which the Report of the Recruiting Commission referred, a machinery which, by means of their registration of births, deaths, and marriages, would enable them to apportion the country out in a far more perfect manner than was done under their present system of recruiting by depôt centres. Those divisions for recording the condition of the people were peculiarly well suited for obtaining a thorough acquaintance with the available class which entered the Army. The entire area of 77,635,246 statute acres in the United Kingdom was divided into 789 superintending districts, and 4,004 registration sub-districts, and these again were, on the Decennial Census, sub-divided into about as many divisions as there were communes in France. In his opinion, recruiting appeared to be more of a civil than a military act. It was so in France and Germany; and, therefore, it ought to be withdrawn from the control of the the Commander-in-Chief, and placed under that of the Secretary of State for War, who should be responsible for supplying the Commander-in-Chief with the number and quality of men he required. This end could be attained by improving the existing registration, in order to obtain the and which it was capable of being given in obtaining supplies of men. Another recommendation of Lord Dalhousie's Commission was, that in order to carry out the recruiting system more effectually, it would be necessary to provide one or more depôts for the purpose of receiving immature youths, who, by careful training under skilful officers, and by good treatment, might be made fit to join the Army. His own view was, that they should have three of these depôts, containing at least 4,000 youths each, out of which they could transfer 669 to the ranks a number of well-trained and efficient lads fit for service. Those depôts would, no doubt, involve expense; but considering that about one-third of the youths they now obtained for their ranks were physically defective, the depôt system would be found cheaper and better than their present system of having unfits in the ranks. Looking to the number of boys available in various ways, in the reformatories and industrial schools, it would be worth while for the Secretary of State for War to see whether these boys could not be turned to account in aiding to recruit the Army. That measure had been recommended by Mr. M'Gregor, so well known for his travels by sea, river, and lake, but still better known and appreciated for his active exertions in the cause of education, and philanthropic exertions in various ways, in connection with their poorer population, and also as regarded the destitute boys. Lord Dalhousie's Commission also inquired into this source of supply, and in their Report suggested an experiment similar to that tried for the Navy. Now, provided the cost of rearing boys, which in the Navy amounted to £70 per boy supplied to the ships, could be considerably reduced below that rate, the experiment of training boys for the Army might become another useful aid for filling our ranks. Lord Dalhousie's Commission had inquired most fully into the question of recruiting for India, and any one who read the paragraphs of the Report—and every one of its paragraphs was written by Lord Dalhousie himself—would see that service in that country was in great favour. In fact, recruiting for the 60,000 men they had in India could be carried on upon an entirely separate system to that for the Home Army. The House of Commons need never hear of it, nor need the Chancellor of the Exchequer be afraid of any call being made on him for its support. The ranks of the European Army in India were formerly filled up with ease; and it was to be regretted that we failed to use this favourable opening for obtaining men for India. Lord Dalhousie had a high opinion of the Militia as a defensive Force. He had himself formerly entertained doubts on that point. It was too late, however, to consider whether we should abolish this Force. The country had decided, and in his opinion 670 the Secretary of State for War should therefore see that its efficiency was maintained. At present, out of 123,000 privates of which it consisted, one-third at least were absent from the inspection at the annual training. There was one regiment of Militia, commanded by the hon. and gallant Officer the Member for Bedfordshire (Colonel Gilpin), which was very efficient, and came nearer to the Establishment than any other Militia regiment in the service, both in respect to its completeness up to the Establishment, and to its fullness in numbers at training—particularly in giving more volunteers for the Line in proportion to its strength—than any other Militia corps. This was an example that ought to be followed. The necessity of looking carefully into the condition of that Force would be understood when it was known that the expenditure incurred upon the Militia was at least £15 for every man present at inspection, and if that sum were doubled, they could for£30 a man add the same amount of force, which now composed the Militia to the Regular Army. This was a great political question, and it involved the further question whether they were justified in doing away with the Militia altogether, or whether, on the other hand, they should raise that Force to a higher standard. Under any view, it was a wise and prudent course for Government to consider the measures which could give the country more efficient Forces than they at present obtained for the large outlay now incurred on their Military Estimates.
§ MR. SIDEBOTTOMThough unacquainted with the professional technicalities involved in this subject and unable to claim any special knowledge whatever respecting it, I yet make no apology for trespassing upon the attention of the House with a few very brief observations, because the maintenance of the efficiency of our Forces both by land and sea appears to me to be of such supreme, such vital, and such transcendent consequence, that in comparison with this, most other subjects, however interesting and important they may be, are utterly paled and dwarfed into insignificance, and because it is, in my opinion, the bounden and imperative duty of every Member of this House whether he may sit on this side, or whether he may sit on that, and indeed of 671 every man who bears the name of Englishman, to endeavour to assist in promoting such a great and desirable object. I am sure the House will entirely agree with what has been said by the Prime Minister, that our great object ought to be to render the Army as effective as possible, for it is a most peculiar one, and there is none other in the world like it, whether we consider the vast distances it has to explore, or the immense variety of climate and other conditions upon which health and life depend, it has to encounter. Now anything which on this subject falls from the noble Lord who has moved this Amendment to-night, in such an able and exhaustive speech, must always carry the greatest weight and be received with the utmost consideration and respect both by this House and the Country, and what in substance is the Amendment he asks us to adopt that—
In the opinion of this House no youth under 20 years of age should he reckoned as an effective soldier and borne as such on the Army Estimates?Well, although in the presence of Gentlemen who can speak with so much higher authority, I certainly shrink from the intrusion of my own opinions on the attention of the House in reference to this somewhat technical matter, and wish rather to draw attention to the broader and more general principles as to the expediency and importance of maintaining our Army in an efficient state which I apprehend are involved in this Amendement, I beg, nevertheless, most respectfully, to ask the House whether these boys ought or ought not to be counted as effective soldiers? We heard from an eye-witness, the hon. and gallant Colonel opposite the Member for Renfrewshire, a most vivid description of the catastrophe which befel our arms at the Redan in consequence of our forces being composed mainly of these boys, instead of older and better seasoned soldiers; that description made a most powerful impression on my mind, and if it stood singly and alone, I think it might well cause us to reflect and to reflect seriously upon this important subject; but I submit that we have also the highest authority in the country on the side of this Amendment. The Duke of Cambridge, speaking at a dinner given by the Metropolitan Board of Works on the 24th of last month, paid a welldeserved 672 tribute to the gallantry of the Army, and said he was prepared to take command of the troops at Aldershot immediately and go anywhere; but he also said—I decidedly prefer men of 20 years of age as recruits to younger men. … though these would make very good soldiers after a time.In the course of the same speech he also said—When I see regiments which are not very strong in point of numbers it would he very acceptable to me, as to all military men, to see their ranks better filled. … but this rests with the House of Commons and the electoral constituencies. If they will have the goodness to vote larger Estimates, there will be no great difficulty in providing additional numbers in the Army, and, so far as I am concerned, nothing will give me greater satisfaction.Now, this I humbly submit contains the very germ and essence of the whole matter. The Duke of Cambridge, gallant soldier as he is, is no doubt prepared to take command of the Army in its present state, and to go anywhere; but the question is whether such a man is to be allowed to run the risk involved in such self-sacrificing devotion; and whether the country is to run the risk of another disaster to its Arms such as that at the Redan? As His Royal Highness has so well said, the decision rests with this House, and it appears to me that the primary matter for our consideration is, ought we, or ought we not, to have our regiments filled with older and better seasoned men? If we ought, surely in a country like England, where such stupendous interests are at stake, there need not, and there ought not to be, any impossibility, or indeed much difficulty, in obtaining the men. As an extensive employer, I have often experienced difficulty in obtaining the number of operatives I have required, but the obvious and the usual plan adopted to overcome the difficulty in such cases is to raise wages, and this has generally the desired effect; and so with the Army, granted that you ought to have older, more mature, and better seasoned men, and then most certainly either by increase of pay, or if this be found ineffectual, then by some other means, into the consideration of which I will not weary the House by entering to-night, the men may be and ought to be obtained. At the same time, nothing can be further from my wish than to advocate reckless expenditure or extravagance; on the contrary, 673 I would exercise the most rigid supervision to ensure economy in every Department; but I venture to think that above and beyond even this consideration, our primary and chief object ought to be to obtain real efficiency. Depend upon it the truest and wisest economy is to insure against losses, and can anyone estimate—dare any Gentleman in this House attempt to estimate—what would be our loss, if from any false economy, any ill-judged parsimony, any penny-wise and pound-foolish policy, we neglected to keep up the efficiency of the Army, and sooner or later in consequence suffered some really serious and grave disaster. Such a contingency will not endure reflection. We are the same people who sent forth those armies which first rolled back the tide of conquest and stayed for ever the hitherto resistless march of Napoleon's legions, or which in later times in this very Crimea—ere the men which filled their ranks had been replaced with those puny strip-plings which under our system of recruiting and absence of Reserves alone could be obtained—defended the gorges of Inkerman, against all the hosts of Russia, and carried our arms in triumph up the heights of Alma. Our population, our wealth, our credit, our material resources of all kinds are incomparably greater than ever; but the truth is, our very prosperity occasions our difficulties, for our various manufacturing and industrial occupations are so vast, and conducted on such an extended scale, they have created such a demand for labour, and the price of that labour is consequently so high, that one ceases to wonder at the difficulty exprienced in obtaining recruits, for when in the manufacturing districts a man as an unskilled labourer can earn from 24s. per week upwards, and be amenable to no discipline whatever after the hours of work are over, there is no very great inducement for him to enlist in the Army at the present scale of pay and under present existing conditions. And this fact should not be lost sight of by those who are continually reminding us that our Army is the most expensive in the world, nor should they forget also that it is recruited entirely by voluntary enlistment, whilst in other services there is either the conscription pure and simple, or some other modified form of compulsory service. History teaches us that impatience of taxation 674 and of military service have ever been the characteristics of democratic communities like our own, and affords numerous examples of the disasters to which they have led; but I venture to think that the patriotism and public spirit of the great mass of the English people will lead them willingly to make such sacrifices as may be necessary, and cheerfully to bear such burdens as may be requisite, provided they be satisfied that those sacrifices and those burdens are essential to the efficiency of our Army, and that they will not be made in vain. And though I do not for one moment wish to suggest or to imply that we ought to make any attempt to rival the prodigious armaments of our neighbours, well knowing that, even if desirable, such a thing is impossible, I nevertheless humbly submit that we cannot altogether ignore what is taking place and passing so near us, and if we cast our eyes across the narrow seas which encircle these Islands we shall perceive that we are at this moment confronted on the Continent with such a state of things as was never known before. A very large proportion of the whole able-bodied population of the most powerful nations on the Continent will soon be converted into a mass of trained soldiers, and though those nations are now happily at peace, it seems to me a peace which partakes of the character of the lull before the storm, or of that preternatural calm which so often precedes the outbreak of a mighty tempest, when the very elements seem awed and seem subdued by the prospect of the havoc which is to come. In Italy, in Austria, in Germany, and in Russia, enormous armies are on foot, which by pressing most heavily on the resources, and being a great tax upon the industry of those countries are in themselves a strong predisposing cause of war, whilst France—France, long considered the first and most powerful nation on the Continent—France has been made to bite the dust, and drink to the very dregs the cup of humiliation and disgrace, in a space of time of unexampled brevity. She has beheld the collapse of her long-cherished military power, and the forces of the foe in occupation of her fairest provinces; she has beheld his hostile standards float over the walls of Paris, and been compelled to accept an ignominious and disastrous peace at the dictation of a relentless conqueror, but 675 does anyone suppose it probable, does anyone suppose it possible, that such a nation—a nation with so great a history, so proud of past achievements, so vain of martial prowess, and so apt to be intoxicated with military glory—will thus succumb and confess herself vanquished in one campaign? No, Sir; depend upon it we have as yet seen only the first acts of the great drama; the first was played out at Jena and Auerstadt, the second closed with Metz and Sedan, and it is vain to speculate either when the curtain will rise upon the next, or what may be its issue! it may be, that purified by disaster and refined by adversity the genius of France may once more be in the ascendant, or it may be that German solidity and Saxon steadiness will again prevail, but, however, this may be, though pray heaven we may escape the strife! I cannot forget that we are bound by solemn treaties, that we have international obligations to fulfil, and duties to perform, and though whether under the guidance of the illustrious statesman who at present presides at the Foreign Office, of his not undistinguished Predecessor, or of some future Minister, no effort will, we may rely upon it, be spared to preserve for us the inestimable blessing of peace, circumstances may any day occur, complications may at any time arise by which we shall unavoidably be involved in the conflict, unless prepared to sacrifice dignity, and prestige, and fame, and honour, and all those qualities which Englishmen will ever hold so dear. Depend upon it the surest way of preserving peace is to be prepared for war, Sivis pacem para bellum, and it is, therefore, in the true interests of peace, and the earnest hope that it may be long preserved that I most cordially and sincerely second the Amendment of the noble Lord.
§ MR. J. HOLMSsaid, he wished the House to consider the humiliating position in which it was placed to-night. Ever since 1866 we, as a nation, had been considering proposals for remodelling our Army, and, as yet, we had not even advanced so far as to settle even the first step—namely, the age at which we would take our men; whereas the great Continental Powers were now only considering how best to arm, equip, and put in motion their vast forces, while one of them might be said to have raised the art of war to the 676 position of a science. In 1866, Prussia astonished Europe by carrying her troops to the frontiers of Austria in four or five weeks. In 1870 she accomplished the same feat against Prance in 19 days, and he was informed she was now prepared to perform the same in only 12 days. Surely, this was enough to cause England to awake to a sense of responsibility in connection with the wretched condition of our Army? The question now under discussion was simply how we were to obtain, in the easiest manner, a supply of efficient men. Now, there were but three ways of obtaining men, as far as he was aware. The first was that of voluntary service for 21 years and a pension, commonly called long service; the second was by conscription or some other kind of compulsory service; and the third was voluntary short service, with high deferred pay in the reserve. Everybody who had carefully studied the history of European warfare since 1866 must have arrived at the conclusion that the long-service system was practically dead, and could not be revived. It was wholly unsuited to the requirements of modern warfare; and, moreover, it was so essentially immoral that no civilized country in the world retained it except ourselves. A Reserve system was the only efficient one; and the experience gained since 1866 had shown that the best age for soldiers on active service was from 20 to 32 years. He was glad that the question of conscription or some other form of compulsion had been introduced by the noble Lord to the notice of the House, and of the country. Although he (Mr. Holms) was entirely opposed to compulsion of any kind—because he believed it to be unnecessary—yet, he believed, the more the word "conscription" was used in the House and out of it, the more likely would they be to arouse the attention of the people, and to make them give serious attention to the condition of our Army. He believed that there was great misapprehension as to conscription. It was generally supposed that in Prussia all young men were, at the age of 20, called upon to serve in the Army; but the fact was that only one out of every three youths was so called upon to serve. Of course, in every country where there was compulsion, the first thing the Government considered was how far they could possibly shorten the term of service, 677 and lighten the burden which such service imposed upon the people; but, still, wherever there was compulsion, it pressed very hard upon the nation. In Prussia they kept steadily in view two great principles, which were equally applicable, whether a country adopted voluntary service or compulsory service. Those two principles, which were utterly disregarded in this country, were these—First, that of perfecting the organization after they had obtained the men. He had already indicated how far Prussia had progressed in making her organization very perfect. What was the state of the organization of our Army? Let the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hardy) order 50,000 men of the British Army to concentrate at Dover, or at York, or at Carlisle, giving them a sudden notice, and the greatest amount of confusion would be discovered, and the want of organization laid open to the public view. Prussia took care to establish well-defined responsibility. She left something to the discretion of her generals; but, with us, the general had not even the discretion left to him to spend or to save a shilling. The second of the two great principles to which he had referred was, that wherever a country adopted a compulsory system, it should do everything it possibly could to shorten the period of service, and ease the labour of the soldier. The Prussians were making great progress in that respect, as well as in regard to their organization. That they might quickly turn out good soldiers they thought they ought to have good instructors. The position of the Prussian Army, in relation to its non-commissioned officers, was this—they had five schools established throughout Prussia, to enter which any young man of between 17 and 20 might apply, if he desired to make the Army his profession; and, having been admitted, he might study for three years; but, if he was capable of acquiring all the instruction they wished to give him in two years, instead of three, he might at once enter the service. That exemplified a principle which flowed through the Prussian Army—namely, that a man, by his energy, intelligence, and industry, might shorten processes and get the consequent advantages. If he had been in the school for two or three years, he must serve two years in the Army for 678 each year that he had been in such school, added to the three years of ordinary military service. It followed that the non-commissioned officer would serve for 9 or 12 years in the Army, at the end of which time he had a right to civil employment. Another mode of obtaining non-commissioned officers in Prussia was by allowing men to rise from the ranks after their three years' service; and when they so aspired to the position of non-commissioned officers they were educated in their own barracks, and they were then engaged year by year by their commanding officers. If, during 12 successive years they were retained in the Army, and could show good service and good character, then they might remain in the Army without an annual engagement, or obtain civil employment. Those were the men who, so to speak, manufactured the raw recruits into soldiers. The authorities did not accept a recruit, unless he was capable at once of entering on the heavy work of drill and training, so that the raw material, so to speak, could at once be used. Although the term of service in Prussia was limited to three years, the average time in which they manufactured a soldier was from 20 to 22 months. The Prussians did what they could to raise the soldier—morally, intellectually, and socially—so as to send them homo bettor citizens instead of worse. In truth, they might be said to have no standing Army at all; for all their thoroughly-trained soldiers were at home; the men in barracks were neither more nor less than in a training school. Real short service had never been tried in this country, because, in his judgment, short service meant that which now prevailed in Prussia—namely, 20 months' drill. Put he went further and said that our working population was the best and brightest in Europe; and if Prussia could make Infantry soldiers in 20 months, we could, without exaggeration, make them in 18. Was England, however, to be a mere copyist in this matter, and have no notions of her own by which she could progress? In this country we had short hours for labour, and if it were known throughout the length and breadth of the land that we were willing to take recruits who were, so to speak, self-educated, and who had partly drilled themselves, we might obtain men who could at the end of one year, or even in 679 less time, prove themselves to be good soldiers, in which case he saw no reason why we should not take men on such terms. The next thing that was essentially necessary was to raise the pay of the soldier. They had not to look to an extremely high rate of pay, but should have regard to what was the pay of the ordinary labourer throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland. That he estimated at about 16s. a-week. And what was the pay of an Infantry soldier, including clothing, medical attendance, barracks, &c, per week? Why, only 13s. 5d. Now, one might as well expect to purchase Consols at 90, when the price was higher, as to tempt men from better paid occupations at that rate of wages. To raise the Army to an attractive point, men should be paid £20 a-year, at least, during the four years they were in the Reserve—partly deferred thus—£10 a-year for the first three years, and £50 in the fourth year—we should, then, like Prussia, have a better class of men going back to settle amongst the community with a little capital and a stake in the country, instead of 12,000 or 15,000 deserters a-year between soldiers and militiamen. And, as in Prussia, the man who had served in the Reserve should have the first opportunity of claims to civil appointments. By that process the Army and Militia might be made to work in perfect harmony. There would then be only one system of recruiting, and we should not require more than 32,000 men a-year instead of 50,000. The truth was our whole system was founded on unsound principles. Of 100 men in the Prussian Army between the ages of 20 and 32, 65 were at home on furlough costing the country nothing, while 35 were in barracks being trained and drilled. We, however, had 80 men in barracks being drilled till they were sick of it, eight men at home on furlough, and a dozen in prison, hospital, or playing hide-and-seek in all directions. Now, the one of those systems he called sound and reliable, the other unsound. We should, he might further observe, bear in mind that we had an Indian Army to reform, which seemed to be at present in a very unsatisfactory condition. It was only on the 10th of March last that a letter dated the 12th of February appeared in The Times from its Calcutta Correspondent, which 680 he should recommend hon. Members who took an interest in the subject to read. In that letter the Correspondent stated that the Indian Government could not put more than 30,000 men in the field, and that Scindia and Holkar together could put 50,000 men in the field. Then he made the significant remark that that by no means gave a full measure of the power of Seindia, inasmuch as he understood that he had adopted the short-service system, and was passing his men through the ranks back to the civil community. Thus, it would appear that the Native Princes of India, too, were stepping ahead of us, and acting upon the principle of having short service with a reserve. Under those circumstances, he looked forward with the greatest interest to next Session. It was impossible to disguise from ourselves that something must be done. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War had remarked the other evening in reference to some observations which he had then made, that he thought he was too sanguine in the view which he took as to getting men. Well, he had since taken occasion of one or two batches of as intelligent men as any in London, who had come to him on public business, to make inquiries, and they told him that, under the scheme he proposed, there would be no difficulty in getting men. It would be well, he might add, that the working classes should be consulted on the subject during the Recess, for if they could be brought to co-operate with the military authorities, the difficulty would, he felt satisfied, be solved without much trouble. But be that as it might, as one, in common with others, who had some stake in the country he was most dissatisfied with the state of our Army. Nor would he flinch from maintaining the opinion that our condition in that respect was most dangerous, unwise, and undignified. If we were able to uphold our position in the future as in the past, we might, by a few words of advice, and in preserving peace. He did not desire to see a great Army for the purpose of the acquisition of new territory. What he wished this country to possess was a moderate Army, established on such sound principles as to place us in a position of dignified security, both as regarded these Islands and in respect to India and our Colonies.
COLONEL LOYD-LINDSAYsaid, he believed the reason why the recruiting difficulty had been shirked and almost denied, in the face of overwhelming facts proving its existence, was to be found in the extreme unpopularity of the remedies which had been suggested. These remedies were an offer of larger pay and compulsory service for one or two years. The former remedy was a plain and simple one. Throughout the country the magistrates in quarter sessions had found it necessary to increase the pay of police-constables on account of the impossibility of getting men to serve at the old wages. The Town Council of Liverpool had recently raised the pay of the constabulary force in that city to 28s. 10d. per week, and at that scale of pay they employed over 1,000 men. Other large towns had done likewise. These public bodies offered inducements three times as great as those which the Inspector General of Recruiting was able to promise to recruits. Again, the railway companies throughout the kingdom employed 300,000 men, all drawn from the same class as our soldiers. These men were employed in the various capacities of policemen, pointsmen, signalmen, and guards, all of them receiving far larger wages than men could obtain for military service. The same observation held true of men employed in workshops, factories, mills, and yards. In fact, it was now impossible to obtain good soldiers to serve at the present rate of pay. If we did obtain them it would only be at a period of disastrous change in our national circumstances, from prosperity to adversity. The class of persons who found it most easy to obtain employment in this country were men who possessed good character and a fair amount of physical strength. It was a truism to say that; but it was necessary to repeat it to those who still continued to hope that soldiers would be found to serve at really less than half-pay. So long as England remained prosperous and active in all its commercial pursuits, the Army, under the present system, could only be recruited with men rejected from other employments. A proper estimate of the value of our Army was obtained, not by comparing its present with its former condition, but by comparing it with the Armies of other countries. In all those things which 682 money could buy our Army was superior to every other. Our Infantry were better armed and better clothed, our Cavalry better mounted, and our Artillery had better guns. But when we come to physique the comparison was by no means so favourable. The class of men who entered our Army were inferior both in character and bodily strength to those drawn by conscription into the Armies of foreign powers. Taught by the disasters of 1870–71 the French people had adopted conscription. This he believed to be a splendid law, so far as the Army was concerned, because under it you could lay your hand on the best men, and at the best ages—namely, from 20 to 40 years. But for the thousand and one interests which we in this country estimated as highly as that of the Army, it was a mischievous law, and one which he trusted would never be adopted in England. It was not required, because we could defend ourselves from invasion without it, and because we were rich enough to give men sufficient pay to induce them to be soldiers. Cavalry officers bought horses at three years when they could not get them for the regulation price at four years; and so the military authorities, when they found they could not enlist men at 18, took them at 17, and even in some cases, he believed, at 16 years of age, involving a sacrifice in both cases of efficiency, and a heavy extra charge upon the public, without commensurate advantage to the State. His noble Friend (Lord Elcho) proposed to strike off from the effective state of the Army all those under the age of 20; but he (Colonel Loyd-Lindsay) thought each man should be judged according to his own physical strength, and he maintained that many men of 18 were fit for soldiers although they had not reached the magical age of 20 years. He thought they should not fix a hard-and-fast line in this matter. The most successful experiment of modern times for the benefit of the public service had been that adopted by the Admiralty for manning the Navy. Now, the same plan, in his opinion, was no more favourable for providing sailors for the Navy than soldiers in the Army. In the matter of cost, indeed, the plan would work more advantageously for the Army than the Navy. An Act of Parliament enabled the Admiralty to engage boys of from 683 14½ to 16 years of age to enter the service, and to remain for 10 years from the time of attaining the age of 18. By this moans 2,000 boys were passed every year into the Navy, and no difficulty would be experienced in doubling the number. The boys were kept for 15 months in a training ship, from which they were drafted into sea-going ships, and here it was that the treatment of the sailor and the Army recruit would differ. The recruit would not be drawn into any training institution, but be left for two years in his own village, earning his living, but receiving a small sum weekly, rising from 3d. to 6d. a-day. For this he would attend a few drills during the season, and with the number of local Volunteer Corps no difficulty would be experienced in this respect. None but boys of good character would be engaged, and these only with the consent of their parents. What the Army wanted was agricultural labourers in the ranks—men who could use the spade and the pick, and throw up a covert trench like workmen, and this knowledge the new class of recruits would be calculated to bring. They would soon be taught the use of the rifle when they entered the ranks. It might be asked if it was well to pay £30 or more for a man who would come untrained, or scarcely trained, as a soldier. To that he would answer that the Admiralty thought it worth while to spend £65 for every boy who passed out of a training ship into the Navy, and would never consent to abandon a system which secured to the service a class of sailors superior to that which they formerly obtained. The Royal Commission which reported on Recruiting in 1867, among other recommendations, made the following:—
If the experiment (referring to training boys) is to be tried in the Army, some new establishment would be necessary which would be attended with considerable expense in the first instance, but we think that the success which has resulted in the Navy should induce Government to give full consideration to the subject.He thought the experiment might be tried, and better tried, without an establishment, which would involve great expense. It was establishments which ran away with the vast sums expended on our Army, and in no case, much less than in this, would he advocate a further development of establishments. Whatever 684 money was paid for recruiting ought to go direct into the pockets of those they wished to draw into the service. But if the experiment was to be tried successfully, there was also wanted an improvement and extension in the mode of recruiting. When the brigade depôt system was first spoken of in that House, the plan was received with the utmost favour; one Member after another expressed himself highly in favour of the scheme; and the reason why it was so much approved was because it was thought that the military authorities had established a recruiting machinery by which they could penetrate into the rural and agricultural districts, and that the good time so long looked forward to by colonels of regiments was at hand, when the agricultural labourer would enter the ranks of the Army. He would appeal to any Engineer officer in the House whether, during the siege of Sebastopol, the demand was not always for Guardsmen to work in the trenches, because they were men accustomed to the spade and the pick, and the trench-work was done better and quicker by men drawn from agricultural districts than by men of other regiments. But the brigade deôpts had not penetrated in the least into the rural districts, and the Army get scarcely any rustic recruits whatever. The sergeants carried on their operations in the back streets and alleys of large towns, and it was in the public-houses and beer-shops that recruits were found. The area for recruiting should be enlarged and carried into our country villages and parishes, and the recruiting agents should be the squire, the clergyman, the village schoolmaster, and even the farmers. These people had been of no service hitherto, because the class from which recruits were drawn did not come within their influence; but if young boys were taken their influence would be felt, and a class of men would be drawn into the Army who had never looked upon a soldier's life as a profession in which they might engage. It would be in the recollection of hon. Members that many fruitless efforts had been made to secure for soldiers who had served their time suitable employment in civil life. These efforts had failed, with some exceptions, not because the Departments were unwilling to take soldiers, but because the soldiers were unfit for the duties. Without 685 counting the Post Office, the Telegraph Department, and. the other Government offices, employing innumerable clerks and porters, there were thousands of openings on our railways, and under the large employers of labour all over the country where men, even without education, if they had steady characters and habits of obedience such as were acquired in the Army, would find ready employment at high wages. No Government patronage would be needed; natural interest would point out these men as the most proper to be engaged. This certainly was in the minds of those who advocated short service; but it was also an important part of their calculation that a superior class of men would, under short service, come into the Army. This expectation had been disappointed, and instead of getting a better class of men they were getting an inferior class. The short service had failed, not because it was a bad system in itself, but because the first link in the chain by which it was held together was weak. Let this link be strengthened, or, in other words, let measures be taken to obtain a better sort of recruit, and the difficulties which stood in the way would disappear.
§ GENERAL SHUTEsaid, he thought the House was much indebted to his noble Friend (Lord Elcho) for his very interesting and able speech, and for affording an opportunity of entering further into the question of recruiting for the Army. The Army had become a matter of great importance to the country, and he could tell the members of the Peace Society that England's strength meant European peace. The large and wealthy constituencies of this country always took a great interest in our national defences, and that interest, he believed, had been considerably increased by the late unfounded rumours. They felt that their great insurance was in the Army and Navy. They felt that England was not fully assured except her Navy was equal to compete with the combined Navies of any two Great Powers, and except her Army, though not necessarily strong, was thoroughly efficient and capable of expansion. Our constituencies placed no great faith in postprandial military speeches, or in many of the Army Returns, and they were not far wrong. It had been assumed on three or four occasions in this debate that the recruits who joined the 686 Army were at least 18 years of age; but all officers who had command of regiments knew that a vast proportion of the recruits were 16 and 17, and some 15, years of age. He knew a lad of 15 years and 9 months who represented when he enlisted that he was 19, and he was now put down as being 22 years of age. He was the son of a game-keeper in the employ of an acquaintance of his who had a property near the Hog's Back, about six miles from Alder-shot, and this was only one of hundreds of instances. That would give the House some idea how fallacious the Returns were. No one knew better than he did how completely young men broke down in service. Of the many hundreds of fresh-looking boys he saw land at Balaklava, he saw a vast proportion brought back from the front on the Cavalry horses to re-embark, being found utterly useless. He was aware that commanding officers were opposed to short service, because they knew that extreme youth was incompatible with it. He felt quite certain that the proper principle was to have a considerable number of weak battalions provided they were thoroughly efficient and capable of expansion, but he feared that the battalions of this country were neither efficient nor capable of expansion. We found in Bulgaria and in the Crimea that our Infantry could not carry their packs with the same facility as foreign troops from want of practice, and that as to their chacos they simply threw them all away, which proved how necessary it was for troops during peace to be constantly in their fighting dress. So immediately after the war there was an order—and a very good one it was—that at Regimental Brigade and Divisional field days the men should be in complete marching order; but he was sorry to say it had become disused, because, as he believed, many of the boys could not properly carry their accoutrements. Hon. Members might say that the officers grumbled but did not suggest remedies, but he would make one or two suggestions. First of all, he would say, and the sooner the country knew it the better, if they were to have better recruits—men and not boys—it was a question of person or purse. They must either have some form of conscription for the home Army—the Militia, with volunteers for the foreign and colonial Army, or they 687 must pay more largely, not for unformed soldiers, but for skilled labour. The youth, of England, full of courage and love of adventure, would choose the military profession and continue in it if there was anything to look forward to. They would begin with little or no pay if they felt that by zeal and intelligence they might hope to rise, gain social position, and higher emoluments. He would not increase the pay of the recruit; but he would give him what they had promised—namely, free ration, vegetables, and groceries, so as to avoid all those stoppages which were now the great cause of discontent. But that was a serious item and would cost £350,000 a-year. Then, there should be more light in the barrack rooms, so that the men might be able to read and write, They should also have more fuel, so that there might be good ventilation and warmth combined. As a recruit became a formed soldier his pay should be gradually increased, and that additional pay should be reserved pay, put in his name in the savings bank, and he should get it with interest when his service was completed. That would, to a large extent, tend to check desertion. Nothing less than Is. a day should be given to every man who had served the Queen when he attained the age of 60, having a title to that pension one year earlier for every year he had served—that if he had served five years he would get it at the age of 55, if seven years at the age of 53, and so in proportion to the term of service. In that way they would have no old soldiers in town or village sent to the poor house, which did a great deal to discourage recruiting. He would give every soldier going on furlough a return warrant, and he should have his full pay while on furlough. At present the soldier on furlough often arrived among his friends in the condition of a pauper; and when the time for his return came having no money to pay his railway fare he absented himself and often deserted. They were much indebted to Captain Edward Walter for his suggestion that service in the Army should be made the stepping-stone to all minor civil appointments. He hoped that suggestion would be carried out, and that the gate-keepers of our public Parks and the messengers of our public offices, like the Horse Guards and War Office, should not be the superannuated 688 servants of private individuals, but those who had done public service to the State. Prussia had in this set us a good example, the Emperor having no servants about him who were not wearing military decorations. He had spoken of conscription for the Home Army, the Militia. At present we had virtually conscription, but in the form of a most clumsy ballot. The Acts of 22 & 23 Vict. ought to be altered. The present system of exemption gave an unfair advantage to those who should bear the largest share of the burden. Those who had most to protect should contribute most towards its defence. There should be no payment for substitutes, but there should be a sort of income tax exemption descending to a very low scale. For example, a man worth £20 a-year would pay£1 for exemption; if worth £40, he would pay £2; if worth £100, he would pay £5, and so on. With regard to desertion, he thought the magistrates of the country should be able to take cognizance of desertion as well as the military Courts. A great deal of harm was, he felt satisfied, done by having men marched through the country under military escort. On the question of localization, he wished to observe that, in his opinion, our brigade depôts should be established at strategical points—that was to say, as near as possible in each county to the great railway junctions. As to recruiting, he had no faith in the success of brigade depôts, for his experience was that men did not generally enlist in their own neighbourhood, where, perhaps, they happened to have get into some scrape—generally about a woman. One of the best troop sergeant-majors he ever had was a man who had enlisted because it was alleged that he had been too attentive to the clergyman's wife. Such men were not likely to enlist in their own counties. The pomp and circumstance of war were its great attractions to most young men, and they were more likely to enlist by hearing good bands play and seeing dashing field-days than by merely looking on upon men going through the "goose step" at the brigade depôts. The whole question resolved itself into this—would the country increase the military expenditure or have conscription, or have neither? He was very much afraid that the country would do neither; and, if so, our Army must 689 continue to consist of the rubbish, of which it was composed now. Reference had been made to the difficulty of mounting Horse Artillery and Cavalry. He believed that in case of war a sufficient supply of horses could be obtained. Every Cavalry regiment ought to have double the number of men that it had horses. What were called the advance Cavalry regiments mounted about 330 horses, whilst the least advanced mounted 260 or 270. And, in his opinion, they ought not to be used under four years of age. If these remarks, which were of a practical nature, were productive of any good results he should feel perfectly satisfied, and very grateful for the attention which had been paid to them.
MR. M. T. BASSsaid, he thought it had been clearly demonstrated that our recruiting system was very defective, and that we ought to have a thorough reform in that respect, and also that the present condition of our Army was most unsatisfactory. He hoped he should not startle the House if he ventured to suggest that they could not get a perfect remedy for this state of things without having recourse to conscription in one form or another. It had been suggested by the hon. and gallant Member for Brighton (General Shute) that there might be a sort of income tax, contributed by those who were liable for conscription, so as to form a fund which might be distributed advantageously amongst those who would volunteer for such service as might be required of them. He found that the number of men who every year attained the age of 20 in England and Wales was 220,000, the number in Ireland and Scotland being probably 60,000 or 80,000, or in all about 300,000. Now, he saw no reason why they should not be liable to the ballot or conscription of some kind. He was old enough to recollect the employment of the ballot, and he was sure it did not create that degree of alarm and distrust which the mention of it now seemed to excite. Everybody was ready at the time to which he referred to take his turn of service, and he had the honour of serving himself. But to return to the suggestion which he had risen to make, he saw no good reason why each of the 300,000 young men who every year reached the recruiting age should not be made liable to pay, say, his first 690 week's income, and 30,000 eligible recruits, which was all that was annually required, be secured by the due distribution of the money thus obtained.
§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCKsaid, he agreed with what the noble Lord had said about the immature age of recruits; but he could not agree with him in the sweeping condemnation of our Army system generally. Among the statements of the noble Lord to which he took exception was, where he said that we had now 10,000 less Infantry than in 1853. [Lord ELCHO: On the Home establishment.] Now, what were the facts? At the time the Crimean War broke out, between March and September, we were able, with great difficulty, to put into the field 27,160 men. In the following year reinforcements amounting to 16,800 were sent out, and in the second year the number sent out was 16,000, and they were afterwards reinforced by 6,000 more, making in two and a-half years a body of some 66,000 Infantry put into the field.
§ LORD ELCHOsaid, that what he had stated was that, according to the Estimates for 1853 and 1875, we had 10,000 men fewer in the latter than we had in the former year. We had 74,000 in 1853, and the number in 1875 was 64,000.
§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCKThe noble Lord's statement substantially is that we are 10,000 men weaker now than we were at the time of the Crimean War.
§ LORD ELCHOAccording to the Blue Book.
§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCKsaid, that the Crimean War broke out in March, and that between March and September a force of 27,000 was put in the field; but in two years and a-half the strength of the Army in the Crimea was so reinforced as to be brought up to 66,000 men. The men obtained in 1853, however, were only get by discounting the future, and by draining every available regiment in India, the Colonies, and at home. The noble Lord, moreover, judged of the existing system at a time when it had not been fully developed, for not a man had yet passed from the Army into the Reserve. These drafts of men did not begin till next year, and the system would not be in full force until seven years from the present time. At present we had an effective 691 Force at home of 5,000 Guards, 37,390 Infantry, 7,800 men in the depôts—making together, after allowing a deduction of 20 to 25 per cent, 45,000 effective Infantry, and at the back there was a reserve of 6,300 men. Adding the Militia Reserve, with deductions on the same scale, it would be found that we had a grand total of over 74,500 effective Infantry in this country. What did that mean? Why, it meant that if we proposed to put an expeditionary force into the field to-morrow, we could command 50 battalions of 1,000 rank and file each, leaving at the back of that force 23 battalions to fill up the war strength of those that might suffer losses. That was a large Army for this country; but it by no means exhausted our effective strength. In addition to all he had stated we had 22,000 pensioners who had served in one or two campaigns, and who could not be excelled for home and garrison work. But even these considerable numbers did not exhaust our supply. The men who were derived from the 10 years system ought also to be taken into consideration. Between the years 1865 and 1873 there were discharged no fewer than 40,600 men who had served 10 years in the Army, 10,400 men who had served a shorter term, and 26,950 men who had purchased their discharge; making a total of more than 71,900 effective soldiers who during the last 10 years had been passed into the civil population. Even supposing that a very large proportion of these had emigrated, and making all allowance for deaths and casualties, we ought to be able from this source alone to get 20,000 effective soldiers. Briefly, the short-service system might be summed up as embracing short service, localization of the forces, and closer alliance between the Militia and the Line. For himself he thought that the short-service system had vindicated itself. It had not yet properly come into operation, but it had already given us an effective Reserve of of 36,000 men. By the end of 1879 we should get some 19,000 more soldiers added to the Reserve, and three years after that, by which time the system would have reached its full development, no fewer than 41,000 men would have passed through the Regular Army into the Reserve. The noble Lord and hon. Members opposite had depreciated everything that had been done, but had not 692 offered any effective remedy. In addition to the advantages of the short service system, a complete localization of our forces had been going on by means of the brigade depôts. They had been in existence only two years, yet out of 20,000 men who had enlisted, 15,000 had been raised in the brigade depôts. That was a satisfactory result, and if the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War would only develop the system by the means in his power, the results would be all that could be desired. In the Militia, we had the most valuable resource this country could possibly possess, and he differed totally from those who desired to do away with it. If the Militia was properly encouraged, its peculiarities—for it had many—studied, and its weak points strengthened, a very small expenditure of money would give us all we wanted. If the right hon. Gentleman availed himself of the machinery at his disposal and improved its defects, he believed that a smaller sum than £400,000 additional would give us every man this country could want under any circumstances. So far from being a failure the voluntary system had, in his opinion, been a great success. In four years, between the Militia and the Line, the voluntary system had produced, on an average, 48,000 men a-year, and that could hardly be said to have been a failure. There were, however, one or two defects which the noble Lord had pointed out, but which, if traced to their source, would be found to be the remains of the old long service system. The noble Lord had shown that we were in the habit of taking recruits whose age was uncertain, and he would like to have no men counted effective who were not 20 years of age. But if we had every year 20,000 men returned as over 20 years of age, what greater security as to the fact should we have than we had at present? The class from whom we drew our recruits were not in the habit of referring to their baptismal certificates. At present some 10 per cent of the men enlisted in our Infantry would never make efficient soldiers, and it would take two or three years to make an equal number efficient. The simple remedy was not to take men of an inferior stamp, and, instead of looking to returns, we should leave the whole matter to the medical officers. As to the localization of our forces, whereas in 693 1870 we had no system whatever, we had now throughout the country 68 or 69 various centres, forming a framework which, in time of war, he had no doubt would yield us most satisfactory results. But that was a mere question of organization and brains, and, without going to either of the extremes of forced service or a largely increased expenditure of money, a medium could be found in increased payment of the Reserve and greater attention to recruiting.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYSir, I have listened with great attention to this debate from the beginning, and I must remark that I think I have some reason—I will not say to complain—but, rather, to be surprised at the course of it. My noble Friend (Lord Elcho) put upon the Paper a Motion which in its character was of a very limited kind; it was that there should be two lists put upon the Estimates, one of those under 20 years of age, and one of those above. How that was to be carried into effect my noble Friend did not exactly explain, because, as the Estimates are for future services and not for past, it would be difficult to put upon them the men we were going to get according to their ages. It would be impossible to do it. But what my noble Friend seems to require is really done, because he is able at any time to ascertain from the Returns the condition of the Army from year to year. It might be supposed from what my noble Friend said, that there was some hidden law in this which was not anywhere to be discovered. But the facts are given here, and can be ascertained by those who take the trouble. The fact is of late years the number of recruits from 18 to 20 years of age has been gradually diminishing. In 1874 the number of men from 18 to 20 years of age—including the Indian Army—was 19,764; 20 to 25, 59,019; 25 to 30, 38,812; 30 to 35, 31,818. When we get beyond that point I dare say my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney (Mr. Holms) will say we have no serviceable soldiers, but I will give the figures to the end. The number of men between 35 and 40, is 22,548; and from 40 to 50, 5,013. There are, therefore, altogether 176,974, men of whom the portion between 18 and 20 years of age only amounts to 19,764. And yet I am told the Army is in a most deplorable condition—that I am floundering in deep water, and I have my Friends 694 from all quarters of the House assuring me that they are offering me all the help in their power to enable me to reach dry land. They will not allow me to swim by myself or choose my own landing place after I have taken pains to obtain information on these different subjects which I have heard mentioned with great pleasure, because they will in that way be impressed upon me. But I will venture to say that there is not one of these subjects which has not been considered by me during the time I have had the honour to be at the War Office, and I would ask my hon. Friends who are trying to pick me out of the water to leave me some chance of arriving at the shore by myself, lest they should drown me in their efforts to save me. My noble Friend (Lord Elcho) has used his Motion as a peg on which to hang a long speech on the Army generally. He began by speaking of the great extent of the subject he had before him, and therefore he could not have referred merely to this smaller portion of the Army which is younger than many persons would desire; but, at the same time, there are many eminent military and medical authorities who think it extremely desirable that you should catch your recruit at an age as early as 18, as by the time he reaches 20 he is much better fitted for service than a man who is first drawn at that age from the same class, and who has not been so well-fed or so well-cared for. When my noble Friend tells us that you cannot get a good soldier until he has at least had a year's training, surely a recruit, who, at 19, has been a year under your training may be put as a soldier upon the Estimates, even although he has not arrived at this mystical age of 20. But is it an undesirable or new thing to obtain recruits between 18 and 20? Is there any period in history, I would ask, at which recruits were not taken at this age? Many of those who have fought in some of the greatest battles fought by the English nation have been men between 18 and 20, and it is quite clear that it should be so from what happened in the Crimea, and from what must happen when you have such an Army as you had then. My noble Friend said he would prefer old soldiers instead of new men. [Lord ELCHO: I quoted His Royal Highness.] Yes; but my noble Friend quoted it with some exultation as a sentiment in which he 695 concurred, and it was accepted with cheers by the House. What occurred? You had your grand Army. I admit that nothing could be finer in its character or its fitness for the work it had to do; but when it began to be diminished by disease and wounds, and calamities which fell upon it, what followed? You had then to go into those very markets which you complain of now, and to get recruits who, without home preparation, had to be sent at once into the field where, as the General commanding then said, they "died away like flies." Do you wish to repeat that? If you will not have men under training for a certain number of years, you must altogether alter the conditions of your present system, and you must find out some new method of obtaining reserves to supply the inevitable deficiencies which occur in Armies in the field. No proposition, as I understand, has been made for supplying those reserves. I quite admit—I feel it most deeply—that the great object we should have in view when we have these comparatively young men who are not in a condition perhaps during the first year or two to undergo all the fatigues of a long compaign, is to find means of filling up these cadres to a position in which they could go into service. My noble Friend quoted a statement of His Royal Highness the Field Marshal Commanding in Chief that he was ready to go any where at five minutes' notice with the Army he found at Alder-shot, just as it was. I having looked at what the illustrious Duke really said do not read it at all in that way. What he said was that he was ready to take every man of the force. That did not mean that he would go merely with a force which did not pretend to be on a war footing, and which only represented the cadres of regiments, while the Cavalry was on its lowest footing, being the last for service. But the illustrious Duke said, with respect to the men whom he saw there, and examined with his general officers most carefully, that conbining them with others, and putting them on a war footing, he would be ready to take them into action anywhere at any time. So long as you attempt to have short service you must provide reserves to fill them up. I have made no secret of my opinion upon that or any other point with respect to the Army; but I object most strongly to suggestions 696 as to the deplorable condition of our Army, which are not founded upon facts. We have heard the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Holms), as I think, with some want of judgment, saying of the Army of India, as to which we have had no official complaints, that it is not fit for the service in which it is engaged, and comparing it, to its detriment, with the Armies of Scindia and other Indian Princes. I say he is doing dishonour to the British arms. Now, I should not like to follow my noble Friend further in the words of the illustrious Duke to which he referred, which he had got, I know not where, from the "man in the street." Those statements are not to be found in any printed form; and I think it is a little hard upon the illustrious Duke to repeat statements of that kind when he is not present, and has no opportunity of making any explanation. So far as I am concerned I cannot notice them. [Lord ELCHO: I referred to a published report.] But my noble Friend referred to other statements said to have been made by the illustrious Duke, and as I have no record of them, and do not know what were the exact words, it would not be right for me to make any comment on them. When my noble Friend spoke of the state of the Infantry he omitted all mention of the Guards; and although I will put them no higher than 5,000 men that would make a very considerable difference. With respect to the question of age, does the noble Lord propose that men under 20 are to receive a lower rate of pay than those above that age? [Lord ELCHO: Yes.] Well, it would certainly be a very extraordinary thing to have men serving in the same ranks, doing the same duty, and receiving different rates of pay. The hon. and gallant General opposite (Sir George Balfour) has stated that there were many suggestions of the Royal Commission on recruiting which have not been carried into effect. Now, I find that a great number of their suggestions have been carried into effect; but I certainly do not find among them one that the Secretary of State should take up the recruiting himself. The Commission recommended that there should be an Inspector General of Recruiting and that recommendation has been carried out. The hon. and gallant General opposite said that we were not prepared to 697 send our recruits to Germany, and he also said, to my great astonishment, that it was very probable that we should have had to send an Army to Germany in 1870. The right hon. Gentleman who was at the head of the late Government will doubtless be much surprised at the statement of the hon. and gallant General, and I am certain that the people of this country never awoke to the fact which the hon. and gallant General now announces for the first time. But it has been said to-night that we shall never be able to send an Army to the assistance of our allies of the Continent in case of emergency. Now, I am not prepared to admit the accuracy of that statement, although, of course, its truth would depend upon the number of troops we were expected to send. The hon. Member for Hackney tells us that we do not pay any attention to our military organization; but I can assure him that he is mistaken on that point, because the organization of our Army occupies a very large portion of our attention, so that provision should be made, so far as is possible, for such duties as it may be called on to perform. Again, it is an ingenious aspersion upon the War Department, as well as derogatory to this great country, to suggest that we do not contemplate a possibility of our being called upon, under certain circumstances, to assist our allies in case of need. I am quite satisfied that if I were not to take that possibility—I hope not probability—into consideration, I should be greatly neglecting the duty I have to discharge. I am, of course, aware that in making that statement hon. Members may differ from me as to the size of the Armies that we might have to send to the assistance of our allies; but on that point I must take my own view as to the number of troops that may be necessary for home defences, as well as of the number we may have to send abroad. Hon. Members have not to-night told us with sufficient clearness in what our military deficiency consists. I am aware that a small portion of our recruits may deceive us as to their age when they enlist, and certainly the hon. and gallant Member behind me (General Shute) gave us a most extraordinary instance of a boy of 15 years and 9 months enlisting. The singular part of the affair, however, is that that boy is now, 698 at the age of 22, a sergeant, having obtained rapid promotion in consequence of his efficiency; and the probability is that had he waited until he was 20 before he enlisted he would not have attained the high rank in the service which he now holds.
§ COLONEL NORTHsaid, that if the young man in question had gone into the field he would probably have broken down.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYI quite admit that the hon. and gallant Member has guarded himself both as regards his horses and his men, but the argument remains the same notwithstanding. Turning to the arguments of the hon. Member for Hackney, as I gather them both from his speeches and his writings, he appears to take a totally different view of our military situation from any other hon. Member in this House. I do not know any hon. Member except the hon. Member for Hackney who advocates the separation of our Army into three portions—a Colonial Army, an Indian Army, and a Home Army.
§ MR J. HOLMSexplained that his proposition was that the Army should be one, but divided into two classes as regarded enlistment in time of peace—that for home service and that for foreign service.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYI think that the hon. Member in his writings proposes to make a difference between the Indian and the Colonial Army; but I will take it that he proposes that our Army should be divided into two, a Home and a Foreign Army, and that he further proposes that the Home Army should be abolished and should be supplanted by the Militia.
§ MR. J. HOLMSsaid, he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would not misunderstand his proposition. It was that there should be an enlistment for seven years for India and the Colonies which should be continuous, and that there should be a similar enlistment for seven years for home defence, which should be broken or suspended at the end of three years, the men being liable for service, if necessary, until the end of their term.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYI think I understand the hon. Member to propose that the Home Army shall not serve abroad except in case of emergency—that is to say, to place them in the 699 same position as the Militia are at present, who are not called upon to serve abroad unless they are embodied and in cases of emergency. In any case there would be, at all events, a separation in the recruiting for the Home Army and for the Indian and Colonial Army. That would introduce a very considerable change in the position of our Home Army, which would no longer receive that training in active service in India which so largely conduces, under our present system, to its efficiency and its discipline. The hon. Member for Hackney says that in the Army all is wrong, and that the ages of men entering the Army are unsettled. There has been no time when men between the ages of 18 and 35 have not been taken for the Army. He says that long service is absolutely effete; but I find that long service has yet many advocates, and I should say that the contest between the hon. Member for Hackney and the friends of long service is not yet over, and I think he will have many formidable opponents to meet on this question. The hon. Member says that he is opposed to conscription in every shape and form, and that it is absolutely unnecessary. I think that is inconsistent with the statement he made about the Prussian Army, which he held up so much to admiration, and in which the Government has the power of putting its hands on 300,000 young men every year. The hon. Member says that his remedy for our military deficiency is the establishment of a short service system far shorter than that of Prussia—as short even as one year. That is all very well, but you have first to get the men who are to pass through this short service. The whole thing, in the opinion of the hon. Member, resolves itself into a question of money. The hon. Member goes from conscription to money, and says that by means of money we shall get recruits from all parts, and he puts the price to be offered at 16s. a-week. But is there a necessity for our adopting the proposal of the hon. Member? We are now suffering from the consequences of the great pressure in recruiting that was brought to bear in 1870, when 18,000 young men were suddenly thrown into the Army; and as long as the present system of sending abroad our oldest and most seasoned soldiers and of keeping our youngest men at home exists, so long will our Army appear to be composed 700 of an undue proportion of young soldiers. Now, we are told that it is possible for us to obtain a higher class of recruits. I have made every possible inquiry as to the character of the present recruits, and I find that the oldest officers and those who are most conversant with the subject are of opinion they are, on the whole, of the same class as formerly. In the Cavalry they are better; and with reference to some of the Infantry regiments and to districts where it would hardly be expected, I have heard officers say that, both physically and intellectually, the recruits are superior to what they used to be. I was surprised to see it attributed to me that I had said that 30 per cent of the Army was unsatisfactory. What I said was that 30 per cent of the recruits, at the outside, was stated in Returns before the House not to be satisfactory. What the hon. Member for Hackney came to at last was a question of payments. Taking into account the advantages the soldier has, he estimated the pay that he received at 13s. 5d. a-week. I think it should be estimated somewhat higher. As to the advantages, it is very difficult to set a money value on them, for they are of a kind to which a working man is altogether a stranger. As to the Cavalry, I think the pay might be taken to be at a very much higher rate. Indeed, I have heard it put at 23s. a-week. But, assuming the figure given by the hon. Member for Hackney to be correct, am I to understand that he proposes we should at once add 2s. 6d. to the pay of the soldier? It seems to me this would be rather a dangerous proceeding to take where men have been satisfied to come in at the lower rate, and are coming in at present in sufficient numbers to supply the ranks. And has the hon. Gentleman calculated the cost of what he proposes with regard to the Reserves? I am not one who would shrink from submitting sufficient Estimates for the Army; but I think it would be most unwise, in a time of peace, to impose suddenly a large additional charge upon the country. The financial suggestions of the hon. Member are such, I think, as would somewhat alarm the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
§ MR. J. HOLMSexplained that while he desired to see a large Reserve the the Regular Army would become a training school rather than a Standing 701 Army; and, under these conditions, the Estimates would fall very considerably.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYThe hon. Member proposes that there should be a large Reserve, paid at a high rate, with the object of reducing what is called the Standing Army. I do not pretend to be so well-informed on military matters as some of my Friends; but I have always understood that very small cadres were very inefficient, especially when the reduction was beyond a certain point, because the cadres would not then afford the opportunity of the men getting sufficient training. The hon. Gentleman has really not given us a complete statement of his case. He has not stated what the great change he proposes would cost. And it would certainly be a great change. Now I cannot help calling the attention of the House to the great changes which have been going on in the Army in recent years—changes so great that I should tremble to make others which were not absolutely necessary, because of the feeling of dissatisfaction which must be expected to exist in the Army if there is a continual uncertainty as to what may happen. So dangerous do I think these frequent changes that I must be excused for moving somewhat more slowly than some of my Friends may desire. I trust, however, that credit will be given me for an anxious desire to remove any defects there may be in the existing system. No doubt there are defects. There may be a great necessity—I am inclined to admit there is a necessity—that we should expedite the means of filling up the cadres in the case of urgent need. I think that my noble Predecessor (Viscount Cardwell), though he estimated the number that would come in every year, yet he fell into error from not making sufficient allowance for reductions that will inevitably occur. When we are dealing with the Indian Army as well as with that in England, it should be borne in mind that we must occasionally of necessity detain men longer from the Reserve than they would otherwise be kept; and therefore you must not calculate on that rapidity of increase in the Reserve which superficially would appear from maintaining it upon the footing on which it now stands. When the Militia is talked of as the foundation 702 of our recruiting system, I cannot but feel that there is great difficulty in dealing with the Militia upon that footing; because there will always be a desire to maintain a regiment of Militia that has been got together with great care and anxiety: and there may naturally be wanting an earnest and keen desire upon the part of its commanders to pass their best men into the Army. Notwithstanding all this, however, I yet believe that the best way of supplying our Army with recruits will be through the Militia. I am aware that a distinguished officer has expressed the opinion that with that object it would be a good thing to abolish the existing recruiting establishments entirely. This, however, is a subject which requires great consideration. Then as to what has been said by the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. M. T. Bass), I believe that many years ago he told me of that scheme which he had. It is very much like a system of substitutes; for you are to give the money to buy one, though you do not provide one yourself; for rich men would find themselves practically in the same position as if they were to provide substitutes. With respect to the ballot for the Militia, there is no doubt that the law is at present in an unsatisfactory state. I have this year brought in a Bill which I hope the House will allow to pass without much amendment, it being a mere Consolidation Bill of what may be called the Voluntary Militia Law, except in so far as there are some amendments proposed which have become necessary owing to the Militia having been brought under the War Office instead of being under the Lord Lieutenant. If that Bill is passed, we shall then have before us in a convenient shape the whole of the law relating to the Volunteer Militia. There are difficulties connected with the ballot, and yet it is quite obvious that whoever has to do with the management of the War Department in this country must contemplate the possibility of having to call into action the ballot system of the Militia. It remains as a sheathed sword which it may become necessary to draw. I do not think it would be wise to draw it unnecessarily; but if the necessity should arise, I am sure no Minister with a due sense of duty would shrink from availing himself of it. After the discussion we have had, I hope the House will now permit us to go into Committee 703 on the Militia Vote; the only Vote which it is intended to propose to-night.
§ MR. W. M. TORRENSsaid, that as his noble Friend who brought forward the Resolution would be unable to reply, he would simply address the House on the subject before it. He did not think that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War had said anything that would dissipate the anxiety that prevailed in reference to the Army. He talked in a disparaging way of the mystical age at which recruits were got; but the right hon. Gentlemen and his Friends ought to have spoken out in 1871 upon the Army Regulation Bill, when he (Mr. Torrens) brought forward a clause to prohibit the sending of men under 20 in the Army out of the country. On an average of 10 years they had had invalided home from India 5,000 men; and of these two-thirds were under 25, and many were under 20 years of age. Of these 5,000 men, 70 percent had pulmonary and heart complaints, and great numbers of them were sent to perish in workhouses. The authorities were sending young men to India every year by thousands who were not fit to serve, and the result was they had to bring them home soon in an exhausted state. That was a practice which was as cruel to the raw lads they enlisted, and as burdensome to the finances of India, as it was injurious to the efficiency of the Army and dangerous to the interests of the Empire; and until it was abandoned our military system could never be brought into a satisfactory state. He believed any medical man of experience, who was free to give an opinion without directions from head-quarters, was capable of giving an opinion as to whether a youth was 16, 17, 18, or 20 years of age.
§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCKsaid, there was a difficulty in ascertaining the age from the statements made to the medical men.
§ MR. W. M. TORRENSsaid, he did not agree as to the impracticability of discovering it. When his noble Friend (Lord Elcho) said that no man in the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race was allowed to row in the race unless he was over 20 years of age, he was caught up by an hon. Member behind him. But he (Mr. Torrens) could state to the House that Professor Skey, who had great hospital practice, used to warn his 704 private patients against allowing their sons who were at College to join the boats crews, because he believed that the great exertion which they would undergo would tend to produce serious consequences, probably disease of the heart. With regard to the class of men which it was desirable to obtain for the Army, if they wanted serviceable men they could have them by paying for them; and if they did not pay for them they did not deserve to have them. With regard to boys in the Navy and boys in the Army, the case was very different. He had a conversation the other day with an experienced authority on the subject, who pointed out to him the difference of the duties and position of boys in those respective services, that of the Navy being the most healthful. He (Mr. Torrens) had heard somewhere that Members of Parliament ought not to criticize what were called Returns in reference to the Army and Navy, and that they deserved to be lectured for meddling in those matters. But let him ask what the business of the House of Commons was? The business of Members of Parliament, whether they were mercantile men or representatives of agricultural interests, was to inquire into those matters; and he hoped he should always be free to make suggestions on the subject, and that he should not be told that it was presumption in Members of Parliament in their places in this House to say that the Army was not in an efficient condition. Members of Parliament were not to be lectured in that way; and let it be borne in mind that Parliament was supreme, and that the House of Commons had a perfect right to express its opinion on a branch of the Service which cost the country £15,000,000 a-year. The country wanted men, and not imitations, and they were labouring under the conviction that the latter was all they got at an expenditure of £3,000,000 annually.
§ CAPTAIN NOLANsaid, this was a very curious debate, being, until the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had spoken, all one-sided. The right hon. Gentleman, however, had in his speech built up "a house of cards" that he might knock it down, and told them that they had had a most satisfactory discussion. There could be no doubt that practically all except the right hon. Gentleman had agreed upon the point that 705 the country did not get a marketable article for the money spent. With regard to the question of the term of service, very great difference of opinion existed; but with respect to the so-called mystical age of 20, there was no difference of opinion. It was well established by military experience as the age under which the soldier could not be efficient. When Napoleon I. had exhausted all his young men of 20, he had to fall back on younger soldiers, and the result was patent in the calamities which befel the French arms in 1813. The truth was, the Secretary for War could not help himself in the present state of things. With respect to the pay of the soldiers, take it with all sorts of advantages, rations, barrack accommodation, &c, it did not amount to more than 14s. 1d. per week; but there were matters which brought it down to 13s. 5d. a-week. Now, 14s. 1d. a-week might be thought sufficient to induce men in the West of Ireland, whose wages were as low as 9s. a-week, to enter the Army; but many of them had better prospects from their relations, who might leave them something, and preferred remaining at home, and if they did leave their homes they expected the market rate of wages in England, in the North of which agricultural labourers got 18s. a-week, which was a greater inducement to them than the pay of a soldier in the Army; so that soldiers were receiving 4s. a-week under the market rate of wages. The hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Holms) had put it down at 3s.; but he (Captain Nolan) said 4s. Thus it might be deduced that soldiers were serving under the market rate of wages. It was not fair to expect men to make such sacrifices. As there would be the strongest opposition to a conscription, they never would have an Army in an efficient state until they were paid a more remunerative price.
§ COLONEL MUREsaid, the debate which had taken place that night was one of the most remarkable in reference to the Army, because no soldier or civilian, with the exception, perhaps, of the Secretary of State for War and his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Sunderland (Sir Henry Havelock), had said that the Army was in a satisfactory condition. In venturing to say a few words, he would, in the first place, remark that they ought to keep faith with the population 706 from whom they obtained their recruits. His opinion was that the difficulties which they had to contend with in obtaining recruits did not emanate so much from an unwilling population as from the discontent which radiated from the barrack square. Not very long ago a Circular was issued from the War Office, which was issued to the recruiting sergeants, and which they were ordered to read to recruits. One of the paragraphs of that Circular was to this effect—that it had been calculated that a prudent soldier could deposit at least 3s. in the savings bank per week, and consequently they would be master of a capital of £50 upon concluding their six years' service. Now, no man with a knowledge of human nature, much more a knowledge of a soldier, could believe that it was possible for a soldier, who would receive, at the outside, only about 6d. per day, to save £50 in six years. As a matter of fact, it was impossible that a soldier could save so much as 6d. a-day, when they took into account the expenses of autumn manœuvres, and the stoppages to which a soldier was subjected for various articles. If a man had all the virtues of the patriarch Joseph, and all the self-denial and practical and theoretical virtues of the hon. Member for Carlisle, and if, besides that, he never did a generous deed, never helped a friend in distress, and never spent a single farthing in any of the ordinary enjoyments of life, he might, by the barest possibility, save £45 in the course of six years. The right hon. Gentleman did not know the Army; he had been brought up to the law, and would no doubt recollect the legal maxim, De minimis non curat lex, according to which maxim the authorities were not justified in exhibiting most exceptional and rare cases as the general rule; and therefore the War Office was not justified in holding out to the recruit that he would be able to realize £50 during the years of his service. When they offered any temptation to young men to enlist, they should not put before him that which was barely possible, but that which was probable and likely. The soldier gave his time and industry, which was his capital, and invested it in the Army, and if he was tempted to enter it on the inducement that he would be able to retire at the end of six years with a saving of 707 £50, he was working on the representations of a false prospectus, as false as any of those issued by Companies of limited liability of which, unfortunately, they every day heard so much. Now, he asked, was it politic to hold out false hopes which dazzled to disappointment and discontent, which, radiating from the barrack square, rendered the service unpopular? Was it creditable that youths often on the verge of starvation should be induced to enlist by false representations, and that non-commissioned officers should be employed to deceive them by deliberate falsehood? He had persistently and thoroughly inquired into this matter, and he never received from quarter-master or non-commissioned officer any other answer than that the representation was absolutely and entirely false. A recruiting sergeant informed him lately that he and his colleagues knew that this representation was false, but that they had to obey their orders. He was perfectly convinced that the right hon. Gentleman, when he issued that Warrant, thought it entirely true; but he must have gone for his information to some actuary or average clerk, for if he had gone to men of experience in the Army they would have told him quite a different tale. In a late debate the right hon. Gentleman had told them of the moral condition of the Army, and to show how high it stood in public estimation stated there was a clergyman's son in one of the regiments. Well, that clergyman's son had been in the Army ever since he knew it. Twenty-five years ago, when he joined the Army, the first night he was at mess he sat beside an enthusiastic ensign—all ensigns were enthusiastic—who said to him—" This is a splendid regiment: we have got a clergyman's son in it." From that moment he conceived a very high idea of the estimation in which that regiment was held, and of the moral condition of the Army. If, instead of quoting stale stories, the right hon. Gentleman would refer to the official records of crime in the Army, he would have to adopt a different tone. Still, looking at the class from which the Army was recruited, it was wonderful their soldiers were not worse behaved than they were. Every moral agency was resorted to for their improvement, and yet during the last three years they had to send out of the Army as many as 6,000 men for bad 708 conduct. During the last year there had been 16,000 courts-martial, and 11,000 separate men had been brought to trial before them. Besides, there had been 235,000 punishments inflicted by the commanding officer, so that it would appear as if the whole Army had been punished once, and 60,000 of it punished twice in the course of last year. There had been, besides, 47,000 fines inflicted for drunkenness. That being the case, he did not wonder that the better class of men did not enlist. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would reply that the Army was no worse now, morally, than it was many years ago; but what did that amount to? Why, merely to this—that the Army was as morally bad then as it was now. Now, looking at the vast improvement which had of late years taken place in all phases of life and in every social sphere, would that answer be satisfactory? For instance, our troops committed terrible excesses in the Peninsular War, at St. Sebastian, and other places. Would we have tolerated such excesses had they been committed two years ago at Coomassie? Unfortunately, this was the only country in Europe where the uniform of a soldier was considered a badge of disgrace. Theatrical managers and steam-packet and railway companies would not allow a man wearing the Queen's livery, unless a commissioned officer, to take his place among civilians. His breast might be covered with medals—proofs of his distinguished gallantry—his uniform might show the high rank he had obtained among non-commissioned officers, and yet he was considered a Pariah in civil life with the Victoria Cross on his breast! The Secretary for War asked for suggestions. He would offer one to the right hon. Gentleman—namely, that it should be made illegal for lessees of theatres and railway and steam-boat companies to exclude any section of Her Majesty's subjects from the full privileges which they all ought equally to enjoy. He had lately been staying in a country house. A friend of his was very enthusiastic about the local gaol, and they went together to inspect it. He (Colonel Mure) had some communication with the gaoler, who was a well-informed and somewhat voluble person. He said, to him—"Now, you must have studied human nature a good deal; what conclusion have you come 709 to?" "I have," said the gaoler, "and I have come to the conclusion that all the prisoners may be divided into two classes, those who have been led into trouble, and those who are naturally bad men." "Do you not try and influence them when they leave you?" asked the hon. and gallant Gentleman. "Certainly," said the gaoler. "To those who have been led away by others I say—' Try and earn your living honestly in however humble a capacity, and don't go back to the district you came from, because they know you there and you will be blown upon.'" "And what do you say to those poor creatures who are naturally bad?" asked the hon. and gallant Gentleman. "I say, 'Go into the Army; go into the Army,' "replied the gaoler. This was the way in which the Army was estimated by the general public, and he sincerely hoped the right hon. Gentleman would endeavour to improve it in this respect. This was probably the last discussion the House would have upon the Army. He (Colonel Mure) had expressed his opinion—an opinion formed on both private and official information of the highest authority—and notwithstanding the halting defence which had been set up by the War Office, he was all the more convinced that matters were far from satisfactory. At the same time he felt certain that the late discussions had been of use, and that, far from embarrassing, they had really strengthened the hands of the War Minister. In conclusion, he begged to acknowledge the invariable courtesy which the right hon. Gentleman had displayed during the late debates, and his sincere belief in his earnestness of purpose and ability to grapple with all the difficulties of his distinguished position.
§ COLONEL BARTTELOTsaid, he thought his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Sunderland had blown hot and cold in reference to this matter. In a speech made some time back, he said that—
He did not wish to disparage unduly the state of the Army, nor to throw a slur upon the ruby-coloured Report which had been made on the recruiting service; but those who were acquainted with the condition of soldiers in this and in other countries must be aware that the securities we were resting on were merely a delusion, full 20 per cent of our Infantry troops not being fit for service. He had asked many officers of experience whether the men they 710 were now getting were equal to those 20 years ago, and his reply was—' Nothing like them; they could not carry their arms, accoutrements, and knapsacks on the march, and we should have to leave many of them behind.' "—[3 Hansard, ccxxii. 1458–9.]
§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCKsaid, the hon. and gallant Gentleman could not have heard his speech that evening, or he would know that, in effect, he had repeated the statements just quoted from his former speech.
§ COLONEL BARTTELOTsaid, he had heard every word of the hon. and gallant Member's speech, and he could not reconcile it with the statement he had just quoted. Further on in the same speech the hon. and gallant Gentleman said that—
They were gradually coming to an emergency which, with their present means, they would not be able to cope with; and sooner or later they must adopt some modified form, not of universal service, but of universal training."—[Ibid. 1460.]The hon. and gallant Gentleman did not, he believed, say anything of that kind to-night. The hon. and gallant Gentleman supported his right hon. Friend, he (Colonel Barttelot) thought, in everything he had done, and showed most conclusively that the Reserves at his disposal were amply sufficient. His right hon. Friend stated that he was perfectly willing to look into them, and he also made this important remark—that there was great necessity to improve the Reserves. He (Colonel Barttelot) had, on a previous occasion, called attention to the Reserves. If they paid no attention to the Reserves, he was quite sure their service must be the greatest delusion. His right hon. Friend also went further—he stated that in case of necessity he would have no objection to adopt the ballot. That would give some satisfaction to his (Colonel Barttelot's) noble Friend who sat on the bench below him. He was quite sure his right hon. Friend would bear in mind the great responsibility he had undertaken, and that next year it would be found he had not been deficient in the performance of his duty.
§ Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.