OBSERVATIONS. (Hansard, 9 June 1876)

§ SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL
—who had given Notice of his intention to move— That in the circumstances of the Country, it is necessary that sufficient provision should be made for two classes of soldiers, viz., men to enter the reserve after a short service at home, and long term men for general service including India, said, that the Rules of the House would not allow him to move his Resolution, but he wished again to refer to the subject in the hope that he might receive a satisfactory answer from the Secretary of State for War. The right hon. Gentle- 1631 man told him on a former occasion that he (Sir George Campbell) had brought the question forward several times before, and he confessed that he had done so, for the reason that he could not get any answer to his question from the right hon. Gentleman. He was satisfied from the inquiries that he had made that the present made of enlisting men for the Service was not successful. The right hon. Gentleman formerly said the subject was under consideration; and he (Sir George Campbell) hoped that some satisfactory conclusion had by this time been arrived at. The present made of recruiting was not successful, and was not likely to be successful, either for the purpose of obtaining an efficient Home Army and Reserve or for providing an efficient Army for India and the Colonies. The Home Army was not, either in regard to number or quality, what the country would wish to see it. Next year the short-service men would begin to go out of the Army, and there would then be a double flow from its ranks with an increased demand for men, and he did not see where the supply was to come from. He was told, and he believed truly, that they would not get a sufficient flow of men into the Home service, and thence into the Reserve, if they were liable to be sent to India. That point deserved the careful consideration of the Government. Another question was, whether the present system would supply a sufficient number of men to answer the requirements of the Indian Army. He was of opinion that it would not. He thought he was, under the circumstances, right in saying that the service of each individual soldier in India under the six years' enlistment system would not, on an average, exceed three years, which was not by any means a sufficient time to acclimatize him or to supply the wants of our Indian Empire. The fact was, that the six years' system was, he believed, good neither for the Home nor for the Indian Army, and that, besides men for Home service, sufficient inducements must be held out to men who were willing to make the Army their profession, which it was abundantly proved by official documents, were not now offered. A supply of long-service men was necessary for the purposes of India, and he thought India both ought and could bear the expenses which might be required in consequence. He hoped, there- 1632 fore, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War would be able to inform the House that he was prepared to carry out that which was set forth in his own Regulations, which directed that one-half of those who were recruited for the Army should be long-service men, and to explain how it was that he proposed to obtain long-service men for India. He (Sir George Campbell) had found the system the right hon. Gentleman was so anxious to recommend was neither more nor less than that already set forth in the Army Regulations, although he regretted to say they were not acted on, and that they were practically a dead letter. He had questioned his constituents as to whether they would be able to get artizans and men of that class, to join the Army under the existing system, and they always replied in the negative; but it might be possible to do so if men might enlist for Home service only.

MR. GATHORNE HARDY
said, he was not at all surprised that the hon. Gentleman should have reverted to the subject of his remarks, for it was one of great interest. He himself had already informed the hon. Gentleman that he was quite aware that it was extremely desirable that there should be a longer service in India than could generally be procured from short-service men. It was a subject which was under discussion between the War and India Offices, but he did not think he should be justified in stating at present what were the propositions which he had made with respect to it to the latter Department, although they were such as would, he believed, secure an adequate service of men who went to India. The object sought, he thought, would be obtained by the following provision—that those men who had already enlisted would not, of course, be held to any bargain but that into which they had entered, but there might be a system under which no man should serve less than five years in India, and as a general rule not more than eight; for medical evidence was emphatic on the point that that was as long as a man ought to be kept there if he were to be fit for the Reserve when he returned to this country. The hon. Gentleman, as an outsider, thought he saw more of the game than those who were immediately mixed up in it, and, indeed, almost everybody was ready to furnish him with a plan to make an Army; but he 1633 could not see how a long-service Army for India was to be provided from a short-service Army for England. He believed the connection between the Army in England and the Army in India was essential to the character of both, and assisted mainly in keeping up the glorious associations of the Service, in which sentiment was found to have very great effect. The hon. Gentleman had spoken of the Army of boys they were getting, and he (Mr. Hardy) could only say he was extremely glad to get them. He should be very glad to get a superior class of men, but he could not get them by compulsion; he could only get them by their volunteering, and they did not volunteer, and he was afraid they would not get very much for the Army except from the class which did usually volunteer. They might call them boys; but, looking back to the description given by the Duke of Wellington, they would find that they were no worse, at all events, than those the noble Duke described. Indeed, they were much better, if reference was made to the Duke's letter to Earl Bathurst. But having, in the discussion of the Estimates, arrived at the Vote for matériel, it was, perhaps, a little incongruous that they should revert again to the men. He could only assure the hon. Gentleman, who was as sensitive on this question as he himself was, that, having taken great pains to arrive at a proper conclusion with reference to India in this matter by a system of longer service, he had submitted to his noble Friend a plan which he trusted would be satisfactory. He was, however, not prepared to give up the Reserves, but he was about to test them almost immediately, though he could not say with what result. Surely he could not give them up without testing them, and he would do it in perfect fairness, not with the view of bolstering up a system which was not his, but to bring it to the test of real efficiency; and if he found it fail, he would be prepared to act accordingly, for his object was to have an efficient Army.

§ COLONEL MURE
pointed out that the last Medical Reports had omitted to state the number of men in the regiments quartered in India who, owing to youth, and debility arising from youth, were unable to do duty with their regiments in the hotter stations. In all former Reports these statistics had been 1634 given. It must be remembered that we were the only nation in Europe which was obliged to maintain a comparatively large Force on a war footing—namely, our Army in India. It was admitted that for the safety of our Indian Empire every man in the Army in India ought to be prepared to take the field at any moment. That could not be said to be the case, if a large proportion of the rank and file were so young and weak as to be unable to perform the ordinary duty of peace time, and if it was necessary to send them to be nursed in Hill stations. The Report of 1872—the last which had been issued containing this information—showed what a large proportion of some regiments were, for the above causes, absent from their ordinary duty in Hill stations. He trusted that future Reports would give fuller information on this important point, as from it alone could a fair opinion be formed upon the efficiency of our regiments, which, under the short-service system, were necessarily composed of very young soldiers. With regard to short service, he feared they did not sufficiently consider to what a large extent the duties of the Army lay in India and the Colonies. The class from which the Army was drawn, like all mercenary armies raised without conscription, was the poorest class. In Germany and in the French Army there were very few who had not got something, owing to the great division of property; but in our Army the possession of any property, if anything at all, was quite infinitesimal in amount. Their Armies were very rarely called to distant countries, and their Reserves would never be sent out of Europe; whereas the duty of our Armies lying in distant countries and often in pestilential climates, our Reserves would be called out for foreign service and for long periods. The result therefore of calling out a large Reserve of such men as had been in our Army would be to ruin them. The working classes were most improvident, and it would be a most serious thing to call out 10,000 of them for service in India at a short notice. He hoped that the Secretary for War would carefully consider the responsibility which would devolve upon him calling out a large number of men from civil life. He was very glad the right hon. Gentleman, sensible of all the difficulties of the case, was taking into his 1635 careful consideration what was required for the Army in India as well as at home and in the colonies.

§ CAPTAIN NOLAN
said, that we chiefly wanted a short-service system so as to get Reserves. He thought that six years' service was too long for an Army with Reserves, and that the term might be shortened to two or three years. His own opinion was, that in ordinary cases when they sent men to India they must give up all idea of getting them into the Reserve. Men out there should have the option of completing a long service of 15 or 20 years.

§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN
said, according to all the evidence on the subject it was not at all desirable, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Galway seemed to think, that the soldier should remain in India more than nine or ten years at the outside, for if he were to remain longer he would come back an exhausted man, not fit for the Reserve or anything else. What we ought to aim at was to keep the soldier in India such a time as to give us a sufficient service there and to bring him back a useful member of society. His hon. Friend who had brought forward the subject (Sir George Campbell) had misunderstood the present rules with regard to long and short service. His hon. Friend did not understand that there should be a certain proportion of long-service and short-service men in each regiment, the long-service men being intended to act as non-commissioned officers and in other capacities. The reason why so few men had been taken for long-service of late was that there had been no short-service until a few years ago, and it was necessary to enlist for short-service in order to bring the two classes of men to something like a level. What his hon. Friend really proposed was that we should have a separate Army for India. But any one who had to apply principles and theories to such a complicated machine as the British Army must know that there would be the greatest difficulty in altering the constitution of regiments in the way which his hon. Friend's plan would necessitate. For his own part, he would be sorry for the Secretary of State who had to divide the British Army into long-service and short-service regiments, the latter only for this country. Another objection was, that if our Reserve was 1636 to be of any use it should have some experience of India. His hon. Friend had spoken of his interview with his constituents, and had given their opinion as to recruiting; but it should be remembered that his countrymen in the country districts of Scotland were too canny to enlist in the Army in any great numbers. There was a great reluctance amongst the agricultural part of the community to enlist, but he did not think it had anything to do with the long or short-service question. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that the matter was before the Secretary of State for India at present. He was sure it would be satisfactory to the House if some arrangement, such as was indicated in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War in introducing the Army Estimates, could be come to, whereby a man enlisted for short service might be allowed to extend his service in India, while securing to us the benefit of his presence in the Reserve when he returned to his own country.