RESOLUTION.

HC Deb 06 August 1877 vol 236 cc472-521

MR. TREVELYAN,

in rising to move, as an Amendment to the Question, a Resolution— That this House, while fully prepared to consider the question of Retirement, with a view to secure a sufficient flow of Promotion in the Army, cannot, at this late period of the Session, proceed to sanction a scheme which demands mature and careful examination, inasmuch as it entails a large increase of expenditure on the English and Indian Exchequers, and materially affects the future of our Military system, said, that if he appeared to treat the question with more earnestness than seemed to be called for by an administrative subject, his excuse was to be found in the extraordinary position in which the House was placed.. It was now six years since Purchase in the Army was abolished, and that step was taken only after long and mature consideration. Many would think that the question was rather over-discussed in this House; but it was in its consequences by far the greatest question of an administrative nature ever submitted to Parliament. The noble Lord (Viscount Cardwell) who, as Secretary of State for War, introduced the scheme for the abolition of Purchase, and other Gentlemen who argued in favour of it, always told the House, that if we were to abolish Purchase we should then be able to introduce some extremely important alterations in our military system which would add greatly to the efficiency of the Army. They also said that we should be able to re-organize and recast certain great branches of military expenditure which had grown up to meet the exigencies of the Purchase system. He was not going to say a word to-night to excite Party feeling, and he must ask hon. Gentleman to lay Party feeling aside; but this he would say, that no Party in this House, nor any majority in this House, would have ever saddled the country with a burden of £8,000,000 to abolish Purchase, unless they had been assured upon the authority of a responsible Minister that we should be able to make a re-organization of the Army and a reduction of expenditure. Well, six years had passed, and that re-organization had not been undertaken, and that reduction had not been obtained. And now at the end of that period—at the end of the last month of the Session, and almost at the end of the last week in which such a Report could be presented, the Government had come down to the House and laid on the Table a scheme containing provisions founded on certain very vital and, to his mind, very dubious principles— a scheme which proposed to stereotype a most faulty Army organization and to lay an enormous burden on the taxpayer. After the answer which had been given by the Under Secretary for India to the Question of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett), he asked the House not to be deceived by the smallness of the burden to be laid upon India, or upon England, under the present Estimates. He would not say that they would be deceived if, on Saturday morning, they looked at the State Paper presented to them—a State Paper which in its brevity and obscurity was the most alarming which had ever been laid before Parliament since he had a seat in that House. It contained an Estimate, not so much of the cost of the scheme, as of the ultimate addition to the burdens to be laid upon the taxpayer. It made three different Estimates for that purpose. The first stated that there would be an ultimate annual increase, as far as the Estimates were concerned, of £719,000 by the adoption of the new Regulation as compared with the existing system. As far as he could see that would be the additional burden, if no pensions were capitalized; but if pensions were capitalized, and if existing payments were capitalized, the additional charge under the new Regulations would be £430,000 a-year. He had made a calculation of his own which he would not submit as authoritative, but which was upon the basis of the Commissioners' promotion and retirement scheme, and he made out that the ultimate additional expenditure would be £480,000 a-year. He was not, however, going to use his own figures, but those given by the Government, which showed, as he had said, an increase of £430,000 to the end of time. The third calculations—the calculation adopted by the Government—placed the increased charge at £320,000 a-year. Now, was the House justified at this period of the Session in sanctioning a scheme which would lay £320,000 for ever on the backs of our countrymen? An hon. and gallant Friend of his, the Member for Galway (Captain Nolan), than whom no Member of the House was more competent to inquire minutely into the details of anything concerning the Army, had told him that he had given a full fortnight's continuous work to it before he could master the aspects of the Report of the Commission on Promotion and Retirement, especially of the former. The Secretary of State for War might say that Members had had the Report of the Commission before them for a year and a-half, and might, therefore, have spared a fortnight for its consideration; but Members who were engaged in the active Business of the House could not be expected to have on their fingers' ends the Report of every Commission; and he submitted that it was not treating the House properly to ask it to consider a scheme of this importance within a few days of the close of the Session. For himself, not having had time to compare the scheme and the estimate with the evidence laid before the Commission, he laboured under this disadvantage—that he stood opposed to one of the very first debaters in the House, who by prolonged leisure had been armed at all points, and beside whom were seated two Gentlemen (Mr. F. Stanley and Lord Eustace Cecil) who were not only able administrators, but excellent officers. Upon one point all were agreed, that we must take measures to have an adequate flow of promotion. We wanted a contented and efficient body of officers; we wanted our subalterns of an age when they still retained their dash, and our field officers of an age when they still retained their vigour. The country was willing to make any requisite sacrifice of money for that object; but that sacrifice must be so large that, while dealing handsomely with the officers, we should not ask the country for an unnecessary penny. His right hon. Friend the Secretary for War in 1874 appointed a Commission for the purpose of enlightening not only the House, but himself and his Colleagues. It was one of the best Commissions ever appointed; it was admirably compounded of the civil and military elements, and in addition it contained among its Members Mr. Welby, than whom in the Public Offices there did not exist a gentleman better acquainted with practical financial administration. This Commission took the evidence of about 25 distinguished military men, and with very few exceptions—exceptions which only proved the rule—these military men urged that the scheme of organization adopted by the Government was most expensive — unnecessarily expensive, and from a military point of view radically bad. The cause of the slowness of promotion in the Army was the immense proportion of the lower to the higher ranks of officers. In a battalion as at present constituted there were one lieutenant-colonel, one or two majors, according as the battalion was in England or India, eight captains, not including the depot, and either 14 or 18 subalterns, according as the battalion was in England or India. Every well-conducted subaltern ought to have a chance of rising to be major, while he was still in the prime of life: but if we took two linked battalions with three majors' commissions, there were 56 officers who ought to have the hope of rising to the rank of majors. It was too evident that with our present organization the only means of making promotion rapid was by retiring officers from the lower ranks, and that was the method adopted in the scheme of the Government. That meant taking a man in the prime of life and offering him a bribe to deprive the country of his services exactly when he became most valuable. The real meaning of the Warrant was that subalterns were to be tempted to leave the Service at 33 or 36 years of age, and captains at 33 or 38. If the officers refused the inducements held out by that Warrant, they might, in course of time, be forced to leave, whether they liked it or not. The dullards and "bad bargains" of the Army would not accept those terms; but they would influence the best and most active men, who would take the opportunity of bettering themselves, were not afraid to face the world, and to whom a lump sum paid down would be a nest egg with which to begin a new career. The scheme, in short, would weed out of the Army, not the tares, but the prime of the wheat. No doubt, the precedent of the Navy would be largely relied on. A scheme somewhat similar had been adopted for the Navy by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers). He had no doubt the Navy had been greatly relieved by the operation of that scheme; but there was very little analogy in this respect between the two Services. In the Navy there were very few officers employed in the higher ranks as compared with the lower; but that was not the case with the Army, and all the most eminent Army men who were examined before the Commission declared that our battalions ought to be organized on another system, by which the plan of early retirement would be unnecessary, and which would do away in a great measure with the enormous burden which this scheme proposed to entail upon the country. Almost all the ablest officers had recommended that the battalion should consist, not of eight small companies, but of four large ones, with twice as many men each as at present. There would be then in each double battalion 24 officers succeeding to eight majors' commissions, instead of 56 as now, and the chance of promotion would be as one to four. Thus the position of an officer of the Army of the future would be a most enviable one, and both he and the country would gain pecuniarily—the country, because the pay would be somewhat lower; and the officer, because he would not discount the price of his commission. One excellent result of this scheme would be that there would be fewer subalterns than at present and as many captains; and the majors, being utilized, would be relieved from their present anomalous position. Lord Sandhurst had said that as things were the majors did very little, and that their only use was to succeed the commanding officer, if he fell—and it was clear that on a field of battle they fulfilled no other purpose. That was also the opinion of many of the most rising and best-educated young officers, who, if large companies were unsuited to modern warfare would never have urged their adoption; but almost all the officers examined before the Commission had given it as their opinion that they were not only not unsuited to, but actually demanded by the requirements of modern warfare. It was to be noticed, also, that every great military Nation on the Continent had adopted the system of large companies. In support of that system he would refer the House to the opinions of some of the leading officers in the British Army. The gist of all Lord Strathnairn's answers before the Commission was, that it was desirable to connect the two battalions on the field of battle. Sir Lintorn Simmons had also thoroughly approved the measure for tactical reasons, which, after all, were, in a matter like the present, the most valid; and General Adye had given his evidence in favour of the scheme both for military and for pecuniary reasons, and had said that the existing number of subalterns was a bar to the proper flow of promotion. Lord Strathnairn, speaking from the purely military aspect of the case, had declared that the change would be very beneficial; and the writer of a very able letter to The Times had described the helpless position in which our Army, with its small battalions, would find itself if ever it were situated as the Prussians were at Gravelotte. Now, whose was the evidence against the scheme? It was that of His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief and Lord Airey; it was, in effect, the evidence of the Horse Guards. He wished to speak of the Horse Guards with all respect; but if the country had waited until the Horse Guards ceased to fiercely oppose military reforms, we should still have had flogging in the Army and the Purchase system, and we should not have had linked battalions, nor short service, nor promotion by selection, nor everything which constituted the essence of our modern military system. His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief stated before the Commissioners that he strongly objected to this new organization, because under it field officers might be called upon to perform derogatory duties, and he called attention, by way of analogy, to the Indian Staff Corps. He (Mr. Trevelyan) must, however, beg hon. Members to observe the entire incorrectness of this analogy, which was the only thing on which his Royal Highness relied as rebutting the evidence given by other eminent officers. Hon. Members need not be afraid of being convinced by the evidence laid before the Royal Commission, because the Commis- sioners were themselves convinced by it. If the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had had other advisers, he should have arranged so as to lay their evidence before a Royal Commission so as to guide the opinion of civilians upon the subject, because it was only to such information that they could look for advice on the subject. It was evident that if the Royal Commission could have reported in favour of a new system of organization, they would have done so, as was plain from their Report, and have thereby obviated this enormous cost for obtaining a reasonable flow of promotion.

Coming, now, to the second part of his argument, the abolition of Purchase had afforded an opportunity of re-organizing our Army in the right direction, and of reducing at the same time our very large military expenditure. The Commissioners ascertained that we now paid no less than £590,000 a-year for retirement; £91,000 went for unattached pay to generals, and £203,000 for honorary colonelcies. In addition, there was the Staff pay of the generals; but he would pass over that as he was now dealing only with the question of retirement. Since our establishment of generals was responsible for half the money paid for retirement, it was obvious that it ought to be considered when a new scheme was under consideration. He should class as generals only those officers who were paid as such, excluding those who merely held the rank of general. In time of peace the armies of Prussia and Saxony consisted of 300,000 men, and they had 150 generals; but our Army consisted, speaking roughly, of 200,000 men in time of peace, while we had very nearly 400 generals. With this immense list it was impossible to say whether any particular officer was retired or on active service. The old and the young, the vigorous and the disabled, were all jumbled together in inextricable confusion. This was a consequence of our losing sight of two great principles—first, that rank should mean service, and that when a man was made a general in rank and pay, he should at the same time be appointed to certain definite duties; and, secondly, that a man should receive nothing except in the shape of salary for the work he was doing or a pension for the work he had done. The new scheme did not answer these conditions. His calculation was that in time of peace 90 generals at the utmost were employed during the year, and that 20 of these were in reality not generals at all, but brigadiers. In his opinion, every general in the British Army ought to be in actual employment with a small reserve in time of war. There could be few better men than colonels promoted for good service; but a succession of colonels to the rank of general by seniority must be the ruin of any Army, and he thought the War Minister ought to insist that the Commander-in-Chief should have the courage and firmness to select as generals the most competent officers who came anywhere within a reasonable sphere of promotion. There should be no promotion by seniority or favouritism, nor anyone promoted who was unable to discharge the duties he would have to perform. The views and principles which he had been endeavouring, with the weak authority of a civilian, to recommend to the House, were now endorsed by many of the most distinguished officers in the Service, as appeared by the evidence. And what, he asked, was the cause of so immense a list of generals? It was the Purchase system. The size of the list had been distinctly attributed by the Duke of Wellington to that cause. When, then, Purchase was abolished, the opportunity for reducing the list of generals was furnished. But how did his right hon. Friend the Secretary for War propose to avail himself of that opportunity? Did he propose to reduce the list of generals to working size? If hon. Members would look into the Papers which had been laid before the House they would find that, in order to perform the duty of 90 men, there were —setting aside the Ordnance Corps— 200 generals from the Guards and the Line alone. If his right hon. Friend had to deal with the administration of justice, was it conceivable that he would appoint no less than four County Court Judges for everyone that sat; or that if he were Minister of Education, he would have four School Inspectors for everyone that went the round? The Chancellor of the Exchequer, he might add, had given up several afternoons for the purpose of making arrangements for the progress of Irish Law Business and the modifying of the positions of two Irish Judges and a Master. Was it right, then, seeing that we had three or four times as many generals as we required, that the question as affecting the list of generals should be dealt with in a single afternoon in the last week of the Session? But that was not all. His right hon. Friend proposed to retire all the generals over the age of 70. To that he (Mr. Trevelyan) had no objection, but the consequence would be, that he would at once reduce the present list of 275 generals for the Guards and Line to about 200. Then, instead of keeping it at a size which, after all, was extremely generous and liberal, he proposed at once to raise the list again to 275, and gradually to reduce it back to 200. That was an extraordinary proposition, and one which, to use a homely phrase, afforded "a nice look-out" for the Army of the future. What was to be the position of the officers of the Army during the time when his right hon. Friend and his Successors were engaged in reducing the list of generals from 275 to 200? His own belief was that there would be a complete block of promotion, that a great many valuable men would, be obliged to leave the Profession; or else, which was more probable, that there would be a clamour at so great a reduction that it would never be made, and that we should still be saddled with the enormous list of 275 generals. Now, there was no more honourable and disinterested man than his right hon. Friend, but he could not help thinking that he had had at first, second, or third hand offered to him, in some shape or other, very questionable advice. He intended to say it in the country, and he would therefore state in that House, that the proposal to reduce the overgrown list of generals and then to raise it again and again reduce it amounted to as flagrant a postponement of public to private interests as had ever occurred in this or any other country. His conviction on the point was strong, because of a single line in the scheme of his right hon. Friend, which said that a general officer retiring at the age of 70 should retain his tenure of or succession to an honorary colonelcy—the most anomalous post which any man ever knew or could conceive. These honorary colonelcies must be regarded in the light either of salaries or pensions. If an honorary colonelcy was a pension, was an officer, he would ask, to hold that pension when he got active employment, or would he give it up, or at least as much of it as was covered, by his income, as in the case of more than one Cabinet Minister? These honorary colonelcies, if held by men actually receiving incomes, were public offices. Yet there were Adjutants General and Commanders-in-Chief and Military Secretaries, not only retaining the incomes, but the pensions too. It might, however, be argued that honorary colonelcies were not to be regarded, as pensions, but as salaries; but a salary was given for the performance of certain duties, and a great many men who held those colonelcies were incapable of performing any duties whatever. He would not, however, continue his argument on the present occasion with respect to honorary colonelcies. The House had heard a good deal about them in the past, and he promised his right hon. Friend he would hear a great deal about them in the future. The time for dealing with honorary colonelcies had clearly come, for the motive for their creation and continuance had gone. The Great Duke had said as clearly as possible that they were the necessary concomitant of Purchase; but if the opportunity of abolishing arose, who, he would ask, would maintain that they were good in themselves? Certainly not the Predecessors in office of his right hon. Friend, for Sir John Pakington had declared the system to be an anomaly, and Lord Cardwell had held a similar view. Yet a questionable system which the House of Commons did not love, and of which the nation hated the very name, was sanctioned and perpetuated by his right hon. Friend at a moment when it was thought it would be abandoned for ever. Upon these grounds he was prepared to give his unqualified opposition to the retrograde and extravagant scheme which was brought forward by the Government at a period of the Session when the country had no time to understand it. It might, indeed, be argued that, although the matter was of great importance, yet the Army was not under the control of Parliament, but of the Crown, and it was a gracious act of the Crown to lay the Royal Warrant before the House of Commons when its only concern in the question was to pay the bill. If that argument was not used in words it was used in deeds. But in what other Department of the Government except the Army would the Government on a money question have debated the matter in the House of Lords before the Estimate was laid on the Table of the Lower House? The Minister laid on the Table his plans on the 26th of July; the Estimate was issued on the 4th of August; and now, on the 6th of August, they were asked practically to vote an unknown number of millions. He would no doubt be told that they were following the precedent of the abolition of Purchase by Royal Warrant. The two cases were not parallel. There never was a question debated at so much length as the question of the abolition of Purchase. The present question had never been laid before the House of Commons at all in a speech by a Minister. The House of Commons spent no fewer than 23 days on the question of Purchase; but they were now asked to deal with this question— more important and much more costly than Purchase—at the fag-end of the Session! They were told that if they opposed this proposal they would be responsible for the consequences; but the officers were not so void of understanding as not to see who would really be answerable for delay. The excuse which the Government gave for the great delay which had taken place was that the question was important—that it required mature consideration; but if that was an excuse for their tardiness, there was the less reason for calling upon the House of Commons to sanction without the fullest and most deliberate discussion the scheme which they had at length brought forward, involving as it did a heavy burden upon the national Exchequer until the end of time. The Government had been repeatedly urged to afford the House a reasonable opportunity of discussing the question, and if they attempted to fix upon the House or any private Member the odium of the delay that had occurred, they would be chargeable with what they had hitherto been free from —namely, a disposition to shift upon others a responsibility which properly rested upon their own shoulders. The hon. Member concluded by moving his Resolution.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words " this House, while fully prepared to consider the question of Retirement with a view to secure a sufficient flow of Promotion in the Army, can-not, at this late period of the Session, proceed to sanction a scheme which demands mature and careful examination, inasmuch as it entails a large increase of expenditure on the English and Indian Exchequers, and materially affects the future of our Military system,"—(Mr. Trevelyan,)

—instead thereof.

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

SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT

said, he could not complain of the speech of the hon. Member for the Border Boroughs. No one could for a moment deny that the House was placed in a very awkward position in having to deal with a scheme of this great magnitude at the very close of the Session. But, at the same time, it was to be borne in mind that the present scheme was substantially the scheme of the Royal Commission, and that that scheme was propounded a year ago, and had since been canvassed from one end of the country to the other. It was not too much to say, therefore, that everyone who wished to acquaint himself with its details had had an ample opportunity of doing so. Another circumstance to be taken into account was, that the Government, after having resolved upon the adoption of a scheme, had had to consult the Treasury and the India Office—so that, after all, it was not surprising that little time should have been left for the discussion of the subject this Session. Looking merely to the magnitude of the scheme, one might easily conclude that it was unwise to bring it on at this period of the Session; but then there was the important consideration which the hon. Member for the Border Boroughs had altogether left out of sight—namely, whether the Army, which had been waiting six years for some scheme of promotion and retirement, should be kept in suspense a year longer? A proper and speedy settlement of the question was absolutely essential to the well-being of the Army. Why, one of the first statements the Commissioners made was, that whereas in the time of Purchase a captaincy could be obtained in nine years, it could not now be reached in less than 16, and that a majority took 29 years instead of 19, and a lieutenant-colonelcy 33 years instead of 23, It was evidently a matter of immense importance that a scheme of promotion and retirement should be speedily adopted; and, though he regretted that they had got into a corner, they must face the difficulty. As for the question of reorganization, it was totally distinct, and ought not to be mixed up with the other. The question was, whether the scheme which the hon. Member for the Border Boroughs had foreshadowed, which practically was a re-organization scheme, would be a cheaper scheme than that of the Secretary of State? He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) thought the hon. Gentleman would find that, on the contrary, he would have to pay a larger sum to attain the same object. It was a difficult question, but it was one that must be faced, whether the present organization did not in many respects suit this country, with its manifold colonies and dependencies, better than the re-organization scheme shadowed out by the hon. Gentleman, and would anyone who knew the numbers and the constitution of our Army say that we could do with one less fighting officer than we now had? Why, the new system of drill required more officers than under the old system. Let the House compare the non-commissioned officers of the German Army with our own. He did not wish to say a word against the non-commissioned officers of the British Army; but everyone knew that under a system of conscription they had every opportunity of picking out a superior class of men for non-commissioned officers than we had under our system. We could not, like Germany, employ non-commissioned officers instead of officers. On the other hand, if there was one person whom an English soldier would follow, it was an English gentleman who gallantly and honestly led his men into action. The hon. Member for the Border Boroughs had talked about the abolition of Purchase—and he (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) did not say that when Purchase was in existence there was not as a rule a good flow of promotion. He saw around him, however, many hon. and gallant Officers who must know what used constantly to happen in the olden days—that many a young man who was picked out as the most promising and best officer of his regiment, and who rose rapidly and attained a certain position, would then find that one or two men above him would not move, and retired in consequence disappointed from the Service. He had known instances of regiments where a senior captain had lodged the regulation money and would not allow anyone in the regiment to be put over his head. He thought the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had done everything in his power to induce men to retire voluntarily rather than to bring upon them the iron hand of compulsion. Now that Purchase had been abolished, the great question was, how a fair flow of promotion was to be obtained in the Army? It was impossible to rest where they were. The only means was by liberal treatment to induce a voluntary retirement, and then, failing that, there must be a compulsory retirement. He wished that a compulsory retirement were unnecessary; but failing a voluntary retirement, it was the only means left to them. It was impossible to perpetuate the system which prevailed in the Royal Artillery and other non-Purchase corps. The War Office scheme might not be perfect, and he could put his finger on one or two details that might be amended. He would especially call attention to the case of the 12 Indian regiments—nine of Infantry and three of Cavalry—the younger officers in which would suffer materially through not being dealt with in the Warrant. He hoped that the scheme would be amended so far as they were concerned. It should be remembered that the Secretary of State did not mean this scheme to last for all time. He would, of course, amend it as circumstances might arise. What the Army wanted was a scheme of retirement for the present time, and they could well afford to wait until a scheme of re-organization was ready, when the whole matter might be fully discussed. His main object in rising was to say that, although the time was short, the House would not, he hoped, think itself badly treated, because it was pressed to agree to this scheme; and it must be borne in mind that he and others had constantly pressed on the right hon. Gentleman to bring forward a scheme as quickly as possible, and he now fully believed that his right hon. Friend had, at any rate, lost no time. As to its being discussed in "another place," the Secretary of State had laid the Warrant on the Table in both Houses simultaneously, and that House had lost nothing by a delay which had enabled it to hear what had been said so temperately, so moderately, and so ably in "another place." Lord Cardwell, in his temperate speech, had shown clearly and decisively that the Government were bound to propose some such scheme. For himself, he heartily supported the scheme to which the House was now asked to agree.

CAPTAIN O'BEIRNE

said, he had so many faults to find with the principle and details of the scheme that he agreed with his hon. Friend the Member for the Border Boroughs (Mr. Trevelyan) that it ought to be deferred to another Session. In some cases it was unjust and illiberal, while in others it was most extravagant—it was unjust and illiberal to the officers, and it appeared to him most extravagant to the taxpayers. But the greatest difficulty was in the case of regiments where the colonel had purchased his commission as compared with those where the colonel had been appointed since Purchase had been abolished. For the former a greater flow of promotion was provided, than for those who had obtained that rank since the abolition of Purchase. It was not right that there should be this distinction between Purchase and non-Purchase officers. Then, again, no difference was made in the matter of pensions between officers who had spent most of their time abroad and officers who had been but a short time, if at all, out of this country. There ought in such cases to be a difference of at least £50 in favour of the former. It should be remembered that there were four regiments entirely exempt from foreign service; he said nothing about the Household troops, who ought, of course, to remain at home to be in attendance when required on the Sovereign; but ought there, he asked, to be no distinction drawn between the officers of the regiments who never went abroad and the officers of those who spent many years of their service in India? Again, if the terms offered were intended as an inducement to Cavalry officers to leave the Service, he did not believe there was a single case in which the officer would accept them. Now, there were in the Cavalry seven Purchase colonels and 201 Purchase captains, and in the Infantry 46 Purchase colonels and 314 Purchase captains, and the prospects of those captains were simply hopeless if the colonels were allowed to hold their commands as long as they desired. In considering the whole subject, the fact he had mentioned ought not to be lost sight of.

GENERAL SHUTE

observed that though he had believed that it was unfortunate that it could not be postponed for the more careful consideration of some of its clauses by this House, yet he was now convinced that it was of absolute importance to see that the Promotion and Retirement Warrant should receive the sanction of Parliament during the present Session. For six years it had been anxiously awaited, and it would be grossly unjust to inflict further delay—he therefore would not be the one to protract the settlement by a long speech. Of all men in the world, his hon. Friend the Member for the Border Boroughs was, he thought, the last who should put any obstruction in the way of the sanctioning of the "Warrant. His hon. Friend should recollect that he it was who created the existing difficulty. Some people had even been so unkind as to say that it was so valuable a piece of political claptrap that the wind was taken out of his hon. Friend's sails by the late Government. Be that as it might, he could not but wonder that hon. Gentlemen opposite spoke of the difficulty as if they at that side had created it. They had not. They were only paying the bill incurred by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and he hoped that it would be honestly and honourably paid. With respect to the organization of the Army, he could assure the House that they had not one officer in the lower ranks of the Army more than they absolutely required. In fact, they had not a sufficient number of those officers. Having been. Adjutant General of the Cavalry division in the Crimea from the battle of Inkerman to the termination of the war, he had the daily states in his possession, showing how seriously short our regiments were of officers. He also took a regiment he commanded to India just before the termination of the Mutiny, and though it left England with a larger establishment of officers than was now allowed, it had not been six months abroad before it was short of subalterns. Indeed, the field states of Cavalry regiments for years past showed them to be short of officers. There were many considerations which showed that we could not put our Army into comparison with the Armies of France, Austria, and Germany. Our officers were called upon to serve in our Colonies and dependencies —frequently in small detachments—and were exposed to the chances of climate and accident, which did not occur to the officers of Continental Armies. But even at Aldershot, where they were not liable to the casualties of war or climate, the establishment of officers was so inefficient that about a third of the post, which at field manœuvre should be held by officers, had, at every field-day, to be entrusted to non-commissioned officers. The hon. and gallant Member who last spoke talked of four Cavalry regiments of the Line as entirely exempt from foreign service. He (General Shute) denied that any regiments of the Line were so exempt. Our only four regiments of really heavy Cavalry were kept, as to numbers of men and horses, specially ready for foreign service in case of a European war; it was true that they were exempt from Indian service, where so powerful a description of Cavalry was not required, even if they could be mounted. The Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars so convinced the German military authorities that a good proportion of extra-powerful Cavalry was still necessary in European warfare, that have since increased their proportion of cuirassed Cavalry. He earnestly hoped there would be no unnecessary delay in the sanctioning by the House of the Warrant before them, though it might be in some respects faulty, as the Army could not in common justice be kept longer in suspense.

CAPTAIN NOLAN

said, his hon. Friend the Member for the Border Boroughs had stated in respect of him, that he had taken a fortnight to master the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman; but he might have added that at the end of that time, he had not mastered it. He was utterly bewildered by the figures placed before them by the Secretary of State— it was impossible to make them agree— and that notwithstanding the valuable balance-sheet the right hon. Gentleman had furnished them with. His main objection to the scheme was, that it would take a large sum annually out of the pockets of the producing classes, and would put the amount into the pockets not of the officers, but of the class from which the officers were drawn—but he had a further objection, that it would deprofessionalize the Army. Three schemes of promotion had been drawn up by the War Department, and they might be called the quick, the mean, and the slow rates. The first two were, in his opinion, based upon fallacious calculations, and he had no doubt that it would be found necessary eventually to fall back upon the last-named plan. Taking the different considerations entering into the calculations involved in the slow rate of promotion, he thought the figures showed the estimated cost of £1,313,000 to be a complete fallacy—they showed, he thought, that the scheme would cost some £1,700,000. He did not, however, maintain that this £1,700,000 would appear entirely as an increase upon the Estimates, which, making allowance for certain deductions amounting to £500,000, would leave the extra charge to be met £1,200,000, instead of the £800,000 which appeared in the figures of the War Office. Passing to the second part of the scheme, he wished to know whether the Government had in their possession any calculations showing the number of men likely to commute, and how much money was likely to be saved? According to the calculation of the Commissioners, the estimated cost of commutation was £335,000. For his own part, he thought the best way of calculating the number of men likely to commute was to go upon the number which had commuted hitherto. Now, adopting that as the basis of his calculations, he did not anticipate that more than one-tenth of the men would commute; in which case the Government would not save more than £30,000 or £40,000, instead of the large sum anticipated by the Commissioners. He acknowledged that the word used by the Government was not commutation, but capitalization; but, in any case, he did not see that there would be any great gain. He did not think it was unreasonable, when he said that it was perfectly impossible to know what the cost of the scheme would be, unless we accepted the figures of the Commissioners to be correct. He believed that some £500,000 or £600,000 would be paid for this scheme, and what should we get? We should get an accelerated flow of promotion, which was a great good, but he believed it might be got in other ways. We should get nearly 13,000 officers on the Retired List; or, in other words, for every 100 officers in active service, we should have 156 retired officers, a higher proportion than in other Armies. In Austria, they had 9,300 retired officers to 11,900 in active service; and in Germany, there were only 5,000 on the Retired List to 13,180 active officers. The fact was, we should not by the new scheme, in the slightest degree, improve the prospects of officers entering the Service. According to his calculations, there would be a difference of not less than £2,000 between the capitalized value of the prospects of a captain and a major, and there was no such sudden jump or variation under the old system. That difference would make men very anxious to get their step, if only on account of its money value. Again, much injustice would be done to the civil profession of Engineers, if the military Engineers were to retire after 20 years' service. The clever Engineer who thus retired under this scheme would dislike his retirement, and would have a direct temptation held out to him to improve his pension of £200 a-year, by competition with those who followed the civil side of his profession. He had thought it his duty to bring these figures before the House. The sum itself was a small one; but it involved more than £1,000,000 per annum, and the question was, whether or not the House would sanction that expenditure.

COLONEL NORTH

said, that since he had sat in that House he had never spoken on any question with less satisfaction than he did on the present occasion; because the House was called upon to discuss at a moment's notice, and at the very end of the Session, a most important subject, seriously involving the interests of the officers of our Army. He must, however, defend the Government from the charge of delay in laying their scheme before the House. A great deal had been said concerning the Report now under discussion. The hon. Member for the Border Boroughs asserted that it had been in the possession of the War Office for six years. That he believed was not the case. It was true that Purchase was abolished in 1871; but the Royal Commission was not appointed until the 5th of August, 1876, and its Report was in the hands of the Government at the end of last year. It ought also to be borne in mind that that Report had to be considered by five great Departments—namely, the War Office, the Commander-in-Chief, the India Office, the Treasury, and the Admiralty. He had opposed the abolition of Purchase from the very first to the very last. One reason of his opposition was that the question ought not to be dealt with piecemeal. The hon. Member for the Border Boroughs, moreover, had mixed up the Royal Warrant with the question of the re-organization of the Army; but these were two distinct questions. The real question now at issue was, whether we were to be honest to the officers of our Army. No men ever deserved so much credit as was due to them for the patience with which they had waited during six years for a scheme of retirement. Whatever determination the House arrived at in this matter, he hoped that it would not resist the just claims of these officers. He was rather surprised when he heard the hon. Member for the Border Boroughs pleading for the taxpayers of this country; because if the taxpayers owed a debt of gratitude to anyone, it was not to that hon. Member. What was the position of the taxpayers before the abolition of Purchase? Doubtless the Army owed a deep debt of gratitude to Lord Penzance and the Commission for the way in which they had sifted this question, and for the light which they had thrown upon it. Previous to the abolition of Purchase the cost to the country of retirement was just £62,000 a-year for those officers who retired voluntarily on full pay, after 30 years' service, all other retirements being provided for by the officers themselves, and therefore costing the country nothing. The hon. Member for the Border Boroughs must recollect that when the proposal for the abolition of Purchase was before the House, he and his Friends had told him that its cost to the country would be enormous, and therefore that hon. Member should not now be surprised at this proposal being made. For his own part, he should like to know what the ultimate cost to the country of this very questionable proceeding would be? Night after night, when they had been discussing the abolition of Purchase, he had called upon the Government of the day to tell the House what it would cost, and it was only now that the cost was being realized. Previous to the abolition of Purchase, the average number of years in which an officer rose to be captain was nine years; major, 18 years 11 months; and lieutenant-colonel, 23 years 6 months; but the probable future rate would be— for captains 15 years 9 months; majors, 29 years 4 months; and lieutenant-colonels, 33 years 6 months. The average age at which an officer would now reach the following ranks was—captains, 35 years; field officer, 49; and the commanding officer of a regiment, 53 years 6 months. He regretted considerably the provision for compulsory retirement. A colonel was to be retired at 55 years of age. Why a man was in the prime of life then. He was aware that it was a very delicate matter to inquire into the age of a lady, and perhaps he should be treading upon equally tender ground if he were to inquire into the age of the Secretary for War; that right hon. Gentleman, however, must be approaching that age; but was he the less fit, either mentally or bodily, for any duty he might be called upon to perform? From the experience they had had of the right hon. Gentleman in different offices, they would all be satisfied that if he were to retire now the country would thereby sustain a great loss. A large number of colonels at that age were full of energy and life, and were willing to discharge any duty that might be cast upon them, and therefore it was unjust to insist upon their compulsory retirement. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would, in these circumstances, consent to re-consider this part of his scheme. The hon. Member for the Border Boroughs had brought a sweeping charge with respect to the honorary colonelcies of regiments; but, if these were to be abolished, how would it be possible to reward those general officers who had done eminent service to the country? Sir Thomas Steele, who commanded at Aldershot, had informed him that all the officers in that camp were in favour of the retirement scheme being put in force, since anything was better than being kept in a state of suspense, with the exception of that part of it which related to compulsory retirement. Seeing how short a time they had to settle this question, he would not detain the House longer.

MR. RYLANDS

had a Notice on the Paper of an Amendment which the Forms of the House would not allow him to press; but he had thought it right to place it on the Notice Paper in order to afford an opportunity for the expression, apart from military considerations, of the opinions of the Representatives of large constituencies. No hon. Member had risen in the debate without complaining that the House had been called upon to consider on such short notice a scheme of this importance. He agreed with every word that had been uttered with regard to the unusual course taken by the Government in calling on the House to deal with this important scheme. This scheme was the result of the Blue Book which he held in his hand, and which was under the consideration of the Royal Commission for two years. For one year it was under the consideration of the different Departments of the Government, and now the House of Commons, representing the taxpayers of the country, were expected, at the fag-end of a Session, to determine whether this scheme was wise or right, without a consideration of more than 14 days. That was an indecent position for the House to be put in on a matter of such importance by the Government. There was another reason why the course taken by the Government was altogether unjustifiable. The change they were asked to support was dependent on the exercise of the Royal Prerogative by Royal Warrant. Now, he had a great objection to the Royal Prerogative being exercised in a manner to create a burthen on the country. [Cheers.] He understood that cheer. He was in the House of Commons when the contests were going on with regard to the abolition of Purchase, and he recollected when the First Minister of the Crown abolished purchase by Royal Warrant, what an outcry there was from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bucks (Mr. Disraeli) downwards to every active Member of the Conservative Party. Well, he supported the right hon. Member for Greenwich on that occasion—led away by Party feeling. But on consideration, he was bound to say that he thought the course then pursued made a very doubtful precedent. He hoped hon. Gentlemen opposite would not allow Party feelings to make them press this scheme on the House at the present time. There was this justification for the abolition of Purchase by Royal War- rant, that that was a Warrant to prevent the scandalous violation of the law which had been repeated on every transaction of Purchase by the payment of over-regulation prices. The only justification offered for the payment of over-regulation prices was that the authorities had winked at the course of conduct pursued by the officers of the Army, which could not be justified. On the Army Purchase debates he had divided the House against the payment of over-regulation prices; but he was not successful, and the necessity for putting a stop to them was the great excuse for the Royal Warrant. There was, however, no such excuse now. They were asking the House to entail a larger additional burthen on the people, and the fact that they were proceeding by Royal Warrant was a strong reason for not forcing it on the House at this time of the Session. If the Government had proceeded by a Money Bill, it would have been surrounded by many safeguards. On every stage of the Bill there might be repeated discussions, amendments, and divisions. Now, they had no Money Bill, but the right hon. Gentleman came with the Report of a Royal Commission, and presented it at them like a loaded pistol, and commanded them to give up the custody of the national purse-strings without deliberation. He objected to that, and thought the House had a right to object. This was a piecemeal proposal. The Report of the Royal Commission was drawn on very narrow and limited lines. The Royal Commission was instructed to report on promotion and retirement, and their inquiries were restricted to the consideration of that branch of the question alone; they had no right to travel out of that, and they said that they could not meet the necessities of the Army within those limits without asking for more money. That was a piecemeal way of dealing with a great question, in order to satisfy the grumblers of the Army. A retired colonel had said to him the other day, that do what they would they would never satisfy the officers of the Army. The officers of the Army were always asking for more rapid promotion and better pay. Well, they had listened to these complaints, and from time to time had provided largely increased means of promotion and retirement. But what had been the result? We had now such a number of generals and colonels that it had become a public scandal, and we were paying more for our Army, in proportion to its numbers, than was paid for any Army in the world. We had now 636 generals and 2,909 colonels, or 3,545 generals and colonels, or 23 to each regiment in the Army, and 100 over. In his Budget the Chancellor of the Exchequer estimated £12,250,000 for the Effective Services, £2,500,000forthenon-Effective, and Army Purchase £500,000. Now they were asked to increase the non-Effective Charges by £500,000 more. If that went on there would be great dissatisfaction in the country. We were spending this large sum on the Army, and we got from it very inadequate results. He did not believe that if the people were convinced that we had got an efficient Army they would object to pay for it. But the present state of the Army was not satisfactory, and nothing was proposed by the Royal Commission to place it in a satisfactory state. It was affirmed that the scheme had been rendered necessary by a statement of Lord Cardwell, in the Army Purchase debates, to the effect that a reasonable rapidity of promotion would be secured, probably much the same as the average of past years. He denied that Lord Cardwell had ever said anything that rendered this measure necessary in order to maintain the same flow of promotion as before the abolition of Purchase. The Royal Commissioners had calculated that an officer became a lieutenant in 2 years 8 months, a captain in 9 years, a major in 18 years 11 months, a lieutenant colonel in 23 years 6 months—taking the averages of 30 years ending in 1870— and they had urged that similar rates should be maintained under the present system as under the old one. But they forgot that the period of the last 30 years embraced averages which included the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny, which necessarily induced a rapid rate of promotion. Were the House now to be told that they must maintain a rate of promotion equal to that which was caused by these wars? But that was not all. There was another point which he should like to mention to the House. In 1874 there was a Royal Commission on Promotion in the Army, which reported in reference to the point. What did it report three years after the abolition of Purchase? Why, this— Up to the present time, so far as we have been able to ascertain, the rate of promotion has been well sustained since the Act. But now they were told that the rate of promotion was very much slower than before the Act. How was that? A second Commission—the one which had now reported—was issued in 1874 by the present Government, and as it was hoped something favourable would be done, a lot of people kept hanging on. This caused stagnation in promotion, and this stagnation was actually used as an argument in favour of the scheme; but the remedy proposed by the Royal Commission was an extraordinary one. It was one of the most extravagant proposals he had ever heard. He would say nothing of retiring the higher ranks; but in order to carry out their scheme the Royal Commission thought it necessary to retire the lower ranks, which they maintained would be an economical proceeding. Would it not be more business-like if this redundant number of officers were not introduced into the Service? Nothing was said about another promise which Lord Cardwell gave to the country, which had very much influenced the House in the abolition of Purchase. That promise was that, there should be promotion in the Army by selection to a much wider extent than had ever before occurred. Had that promise been kept? Had there been any perceptible difference in the management of the Army in this respect since the abolition of Purchase? He could not say that there had been any improvement, either in organization or efficiency as compared with what existed before the abolition of Purchase. What, then, had they paid all their money for? He was bound to say they had reaped very little advantage from the change; and why? They had retained as the main administrator of this system a very distinguished and illustrious officer with enormous influence, who was against the abolition of Purchase and the reforms contemplated at the time, and who had devoted himself steadily to keeping the Army in the state in which it was. ["No, no!"] The Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief had steadily opposed everything they could get from the abolition of Purchase. He looked with the greatest dislike on anything like selection—the system of selection he regarded as a system of rejection. He disapproved of every attempt to base promotion on the principle of selection. In fact, he said it could not be done. Upon the whole he thought the House had great reason to complain that the Government had not brought forward this scheme at a period of the Session when it would be possible fully and fairly to consider and discuss it. If they had had an opportunity of adopting the alternative scheme, it would have been more satisfactory and less costly. They were told that this scheme would not interfere with any future scheme of organization; but this was what was always said, and when the money had been paid re-organization did not follow. This scheme would leave them in an extremely unsatisfactory position; they would have to answer for the expenditure, and would not be able to show any satisfactory result. He objected to the question being now pressed forward by the Government.

COLONEL ALEXANDER

said, no doubt they had paid a great deal for Purchase, and would have to pay a great deal more. He should cheerfully give his vote for the scheme of the Government—because it was the best they were likely to obtain, and because he desired that justice should be done to those officers on whose behalf such an eloquent plea had been made. He could not agree with the reason urged for the postponement of the Vote—namely, the necessity for re-organization—the reorganization of the Army would be brought about, he thought, somewhere about the Greek Kalends. He thought the House would agree with His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief that it would not be prudent to defer the question until re-organization had been undertaken. The hon. Member for the Border Boroughs (Mr. Trevelyan) advocated the double company system as it existed in Germany; but that was impracticable here—it would be in a high degree imprudent to dispense with the present number of officers. The officers in favour of that system were doubtless eminent. Sir Lintorn Simmons would be likely to command an army in the East; but he was an Engineer, and the second officer mentioned was an Artillery officer. They were, therefore, scarcely the persons to whom the matter should be referred. Lord Sandhurst's attention had of late been confined to the Staff, rather than to Infantry tactics. Lord Strathnairn did not seem to have made up his mind as to the advantages or otherwise of introducing the double company system; but he was not by any means bent on reducing the number of officers in the Army. And that was the opinion of other distinguished men. It was said by the advocates of the change that it would be good in the interests both of promotion and of Army efficiency. He denied both those propositions. The Duke of Cambridge, speaking of the proposition, said— I have the strongest possible objection to it. I think it would be deplorable if any large additions were to be made to the field officers of the Army. The consequence of it would be that many of these field officers would be required to perform duties now performed by men of inferior rank. And Lord Airey described the block of promotion likely to result from the plans proposed for re-organization as "a lot of majors in a bottle, with a lieutenant-colonel sticking in the neck." The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Trevelyan) and those who worked with him desired to Prussianize the Army; but he must remind the House that there was a very serious hesitation in Prussia whether the double company system was a good one. The system could never be introduced into our Army with safety. In the Prussian Army there was only one man over 250; but under the tremendous fire of the present day one person could not take charge of that number. There was another reason why the Prussian system would not do in this country. The Prussian officers had almost nothing whatever to do with the accounts, which were managed by paymasters, whereas in the British Army one-half of a captain's work was accounts. Therefore he contended that it would not be desirable to adopt this system of re-organization in our Army. With regard to the number of subalterns, he contended that rather more than less than at present were necessary. He agreed with the hon. and gallant Member for Oxfordshire (Colonel North) that the blot in the scheme was the compulsory retirement of captains after 21 years' service. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman would consider whether voluntary inducements would not be sufficient without having recourse to this odious com- pulsory system. Any young man who entered the Army subject to this scheme would enter it, so to say, with a millstone round his neck. No young man of spirit would enter the Army subject to the possibility of retiring on £200 a-year at the age of 40. As to the retirement of general officers, he was afraid it was inevitable; but he should like to see it made more elastic. Under this rule they would have lost the services of the Duke of Wellington, of Lord Airey, and Sir John Michel, Commander of the Forces in Ireland, who, although over 70 years of age, was quite as good as many a man of 50. The work of general officers in times of peace was not so hard as the work of statesmen and judges; and he would remind the House that the present Prime Minister, as well as two Chiefs of our Law Courts, exceeded 70 years of age. He thought there might be some graduated scheme adopted whereby a major-general should retire at 65, a lieutenant-general at 70, and a full general at 75. He, in common with almost every officer in the Army, objected to the rule under which the command of a regiment was vacated at the end of five years, on the ground that it would clog the Half-pay List. He should like to substitute for it a system of retirement by age—say, the substitution of a rule enforcing retirement from the command of a regiment at the age of 52. He hoped the Government would consider the expediency of making some alterations in the scheme before it was embodied in the Warrant. He trusted, however, the House would not refuse the Vote, and so continue the cruel, though perhaps inevitable, disappointment of the hopes of the officers.

SIR HENRY HAVELOCK,

who had placed on the Paper the following Amendment:— That, inasmuch as the proposed warrant for the appointment, promotion, and retirement of officers entails a future expenditure of between eight and nine millions of money, while the proposed mode of obtaining a flow of promotion by compulsory retirement in the lower grades at certain fixed ages has no regard to individual capacity or merit, and affords no guarantee that the country will secure the services of the best officers; therefore, so large and important a measure, involving the whole future efficiency of the army, should not be adopted without more mature consideration than it can receive at so late a period of the Session"— said, he deeply regretted that he was prevented by the Forms of the House from moving the Amendment of which he had given Notice; but he desired to offer a few observations in support of the views he had therein expressed. Of those who had spoken, or were about to speak, there was no one who could regret more than he did to be obliged to do anything that must appear to have the effect of delaying—even for one additional day—the carrying out of the measure for furthering promotion and retirement for which the Officers of the Army had so long been on the watch; and he could not even touch upon this subject without bearing his humble testimony to the exemplary patience and forbearance the officers had displayed in the matter. In no Army in the world could that patience and forbearance be surpassed. He said without hesitation that the patience they had shown during six long years of waiting—since November, 1871—was unequalled in the world, and was honourable alike to their high character and discipline. It was, however the duty of the people's Representatives, as custodians of the public purse, to obtain the best possible expenditure of the public money, and therefore they were bound to see that the vast expenditure which this scheme would entail—according to his calculations some £8,000,000 or £9,000,000— would afford some adequate result. It must, however, be recollected, injustice to those who felt that they were conscientiously obliged to oppose the scheme, that if delay occurred now it was not their fault—it was the fault of the Government, who had brought on a measure of this importance—a measure involving such vast interests, as well as such large expenditure—at a time of the Session when there was no possibility of its being properly discussed. He did not blame the Secretary of State for War, for he had been most anxious to get this measure through. But what had the Government been about that they could not decide earlier what to do? They had had the Report of the Royal Commission in their hands complete since the 5th of August, 1876— more than a twelvemonth. The Secretary of State for War had told the House that the scheme was sent from him to the Treasury in April last. Surely Downing Street and the India Office, and even the War Office, were not so far apart that it took a twelvemonth to pass a Paper between them, even two or three times. Let it he recollected that this scheme of promotion and retirement was only the other half— the supplement—of the abolition of Purchase proposed at the beginning of the Session of 1871. It was brought on first on the 1st of March; six, and even seven, nights were given to its discussion. It ran, in fact, over the greater part of that Session, and received, as it required, the most complete and exhaustive examination. This scheme, however, which was to give effect to the abolition of Purchase, and was to settle the principles on which the promotion of the Army was to proceed, not for a few years, but for all future time— surely, at least this scheme was as important as the other. And yet the Government, on the 6th day of August, had simply thrown before the House a sketchy Memorandum—the mere outline of a scheme of which all details were withheld and asked the country to accept it practically without examination. He protested against this indecent haste. He protested against such a vital question being hurried through the House as if it were a Provisional Confirmation Order for a petty parish. But, notwithstanding all this, he had said that it was not his object to delay their scheme by a single day. On the contrary, he wished to see it passed as early as possible, both in order that the suspense of the officers might at once come to an end, and that the flow of promotion, so long deferred—and without which no army could be in an efficient or a healthy state—might be immediately set going again. He desired to make no factious opposition, but he did desire to secure a future constitution to our Army somewhat in proportion to the great pecuniary sacrifice which the people of this country were now called upon to make to maintain it. Having said that, he did not want to delay this measure, but to improve it. He must express the utter disappointment—the almost dismay—with which he had read the Memorandum on which the Warrant was based. When Purchase was abolished, the taxpayers of this country consented to a prospective outlay of about £8,000,000, with a full knowledge that that was not a complete measure of the expense to be incurred, but that to complete the matter, it would probably require a Retirement scheme, which might possibly cost half as much more. Well, that aggregate of £12,000,000 was about the estimate, prospectively, on which the House was called to vote to-day. First and last, these schemes combined would cost about £12,000,000, or, it might be, £16,000,000, spread over a term of years. Well, he did not object to even this vast expenditure if we got an adequate result for it. But they had not only no guarantee that this scheme would at all improve the Army—that was, raise the professional standard of instruction of its officers—but they had, under this defective and totally abominable principle of compulsory retirement for age in the grade of captain and lieutenant, the absolute certainty that every year a certain number—it might be a very considerable number—of our very best officers would be turned adrift out of the Service, and be debarred from further usefulness to the country just at a time when they were in their very prime. The country certainly did not consent to spend either £12,000,000 or £16,000,000 for any such miserable, meagre, unjust, senseless, and totally suicidal purpose as this. It agreed to this change—the abolition of Purchase—in order to buy back the Army from the officers — a significant phrase, though an incorrect one, for it was the Government made the Purchase system, not the officers—it was forced on them. It did so in order to open a free career to talent and merit; to make it certain that the country should have the very best available capacity and ability at its disposal in the Army. It certainly did not contemplate a system that would thwart all ability, deaden all energy, and reject capacity just when, after being trained at the expense of the country, those qualities had reached their very fullest climax and development. Compulsory retirement for captains at 38 years of age, in the very flower and prime of vigorous life and manhood! He would show not only that this was the basis of the scheme, but that the idea was as wholly unnecessary, as it was absurd. To illustrate how it would work, he would take the case of the three senior captains in a regiment. The first he would suppose was an able man, an excellent officer, well qualified to succeed to command. He had, however, now, in August, 1877, just 17 years' service. In January, 1881, he would have 20 years and six months service. Therefore, then, away he must go. The next was a first-rate officer, in all respects known as the most capable man in the regiment. He had now 16 years and nine months' service. Therefore, he also on the 1st of January, 1881, must retire, though his loss to the Service was acknowledged. Next came the third, an incompetent, apathetic man, but just able to scrape through the qualifying test. He had now but 14 years' service. Therefore, his two first-rate seniors having been got out of his way by compulsory retirement for length of service, about March, 1881, he would succeed triumphantly to the majority, though he might be the veriest dolt that ever clubbed a regiment. Were they going to confide the promotion of the Army to such blind accidents of chance as that? They must do so, if they persisted in compulsory retirement for 20 years' service and had not the moral courage to substitute for it compulsory retirement for inefficiency. The Commission came to the conclusion that compulsory retirement in the lower ranks was necessary. But it did so, as it expressly said— Because it was precluded from considering the larger question of the re-organization of ranks, which, if considered, would very possibly have made such compulsion unnecessary. That question went to the root and bottom of the whole inquiry—was compulsory retirement necessary? Some of the best military authorities maintained strenuously that a re-organization, in order to make double companies the fighting unit, was an absolute tactical necessity. Yet this, the Commission were by their Instructions precluded from examining. No wonder the result of their inquiry was unsatisfactory. And this prohibition was continued in the face of a strong primâ facie argument, supported by figures ably worked out, and by the evidence of Sir John Adye, Sir Lintorn Simmons, and of Lord Sandhurst, that such a re-organization would not only secure a great economy, amounting to about £32,000 a-year, but would entirely obviate the necessity for compulsory retirement in the rank of captain. Who, he asked, was responsible for the Instructions to the Commission? The question of the re-organization of the different ranks was at the root of all economical reform, and yet the Commissioners had left it on one side in accordance with the Instructions they received. The tactical principle was so essential that the Germans gained their victories of 1866 and 1870 principally from having recognized the value of it earlier; the Austrians adopted it immediately after their defeat at Sadowa in 1866; the French adopted it in 1871, immediately after their disasters; Russia adopted it at the same time; so that England stood alone, in the face of all Europe, as persisting, without any reason shown, but merely from blind routine, in holding to an organization that was universally condemned as costly, inefficient, and tactically useless. Would it be believed that, with all the costly and extravagantly-paid Staff that this country maintained in order to manage and instruct our small handful of troops, it was only on the 3rd of this month—seven years after the Franco-German War—that we at last tardily got an improved system of attack such as all other nations had had in full force and working order for at least five years? Well, this great change of a larger tactical unit was still more needed on economical grounds. The Commission themselves admitted that if carried out it "would quite possibly" do away with the necessity for any compulsory retirement at all. Who, he asked, was responsible for the limitation of the Reference to the Commission? Why was the country asked to vote such large sums on a scheme which would admittedly check energy and competition by driving away annually some of the best officers in the Service? There was a great and wholesome contempt for the man who criticized the defects of the plans of others without attempting to propose a remedy himself. He would, therefore, indicate what appeared to him the remedy to be applied. The grand blot of the proposed scheme was that it did not contain a word as to getting improved efficiency. Who was responsible for this grave omission? The remedy was not promotion by selection only—which on a large scale was invidious and perhaps impossible—but the elimination of unfit men by careful rejection, instead of by seniority, and thus by a process of natural selection, by the "survival of the fittest," to get good men to the top. This was perfectly feasible. Any commanding officer of experience would say, that it was a practice which, if he exercised his power and authority aright, he was carrying on every day of his life with regard to the non-commissioned officers and men, and that it was equally possible with a little moral courage and a little tact and judgment with the officers also. If the Commander-in-Chief did not like to accept this responsibility, he would suggest that there should be appointed for the purpose a well-selected Board of General Officers, who should give an unbiased judgment upon the qualifications of candidates—such judgment to be given solely in the interest of the Service. A system of the kind had worked well in France and Germany, and would, he believed, work well in this country. Had the Forms of the House allowed him so to do, he should have liked to have moved— 1. That inasmuch as the promotion of the whole Army has been delayed since the 1st of November, 1871, awaiting the promulgation of a scheme of retirement, it is expedient that the Memorandum now submitted to the House be adopted as the basis of a temporary Warrant to be in force until the beginning of the Session of 1878 only, in order to allow all those officers who wish to retire to do so, and thus no longer retard promotion. 2. But that as the present proposals cannot be accepted as a satisfactory permanent scheme, during the Recess the Royal Commission be re-assembled to examine the whole question, as to whether by a re-organization of the different ranks compulsory retirement for age cannot be avoided, or reduced to a minimum. 3. And that a sub-committee of officers of recent practical experience in command be appointed to aid the said Commission in determining a set of regulations, by which such compulsory retirement as may be found absolutely necessary may be applied and confined solely to officers the least efficient in their respective grades, and who have been proved to be unfit for higher command, instead of the forced retirement (at certain ages arbitrarily fixed) of officers in the prime of life who may otherwise be the most efficient and capable in their respective ranks. The battle of Plevna showed that when a man was placed in a high position of command, not only hundreds of millions of money, but the lives of hundreds of thousands of men were committed to his charge, so that it was not possible to have any degree of human capacity too high to fill such a position adequately. He hoped, therefore, the House would not hastily adopt a principle which would render it certain for the future that the best men would avoid the military Service of the country.

MR. GATHORNE HARDY

said, he regretted very much that, from the manner in which the discussion had originated, he had not had the opportunity of addressing the House before the debate commenced, so that he might have laid before the House an outline of the scheme proposed by the Government; but inasmuch as upon a recent occasion his noble Friend the Under Secretary for India had been stopped in making a Statement before going into Committee, he had thought it better to allow the hon. Member for the Border Boroughs to move his Amendment before taking part in the debate. With respect to the question how it was that the scheme had come under the consideration of the House at so late a period, the facts were very plain and simple. After the abolition of Purchase, there were a good many of what might be termed private grievances of officers which were pressed on the Secretary for War, and his Predecessor in office appointed a Commission to inquire into those grievances. That Commission made recommendations, some of which would have had a certain influence on the question of promotion, but that part of their Report would have led to very considerable expenditure without being productive of any great results. After he had himself proposed some remedies which had been proposed by the Commission, and which were, he believed, cordially approved by the House, there still remained the great question that had been left open by his Predecessor. At the time of the abolition of Purchase continual requests were made on the part of those who were opposing or watching that measure, that the Secretary of State for War would give some indication of what he meant to do in order to obtain an adequate flow of promotion. Nothing was done at that time, except that which would in time provide a certain amount of promotion, as far as it went—namely, the five years' rule which was applied to colonels. But it must not be forgotten that Lord Cardwell stated in that House, and it was repeated by him in the House of Lords and in the letter to Mr. Vivian, that there should be a reasonable rapidity of promotion, and that by a reasonable rapidity was meant some such rapidity as existed under the Purchase system. That must be taken as the solemn promise of the Government by which, and through which, they carried the abolition of Purchase. A Liberal Government had carried the abolition of Purchase, on the understanding that if the means of promotion were taken out of the hands of the officers which they formerly enjoyed, they would be compensated by some other method equal in efficiency being applied to them. That promise was certainly made by the late Government. And having made it, what did that Government do? It did absolutely nothing in the pass which followed, during which they remained in office. Such being the case, it had become necessary for him to take the step he had done. Stagnation was becoming more intensified every day, and he felt constrained in consequence to take steps to carry into effect the recommendations of the Royal Commission. And what had occurred was this—The Commission which was appointed to investigate the subject, and which no one would deny was an admirable Commission, bestowed great pains upon the inquiry, and arrived at a conclusion which in its main principles appeared at once satisfactory to the Army and to the country. They, after two years' investigation, placed their Report in his hands in the month of August, 1876. The Report was necessarily sent to the India Office. The hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) had that evening asked whether the proposals which were hereafter to be embodied in the Warrant were submitted to the Governor in Council or to the authorities in India, and his noble Friend (Lord George Hamilton) stated that that was not the case, but that the Report had been circulated through all the Presidencies, and that the principle laid down in it had received general concurrence from military and civil officers in all the Presidencies. That being so, his noble Friend at the head of the India Office was able to enter upon an investigation with his Council of the scheme he (Mr. Hardy) had proposed, in order to come to a conclusion upon the question whether or not the Indian Government would accept the scheme. Now, all these things took time, and he would venture to say that since the Report had been in his hands not a day tad been lost in endeavouring to bring the subject before the House. He deeply regretted that he had not been able to bring the scheme earlier before the House. He found no fault whatever with his Colleagues at the Treasury and India Office — the scheme was discussed by them with great consideration. But what was the result? That the scheme came out from all that investigation and all that careful elaboration upon the lines which were laid down by the Royal Commission. Therefore, though the House had not had the scheme before it, and though the hon. Member for the Border Boroughs said the House had not had the advantage of having both the Report and the scheme before them, yet everyone must have observed how thoroughly acquainted the hon. Member was with all the details; and it was quite obvious that those who had given themselves the trouble to enter upon an investigation of the details were thoroughly prepared to discuss the scheme which was now before them. He could not pass by some of the difficulties in this scheme, and they had been alluded to by the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Captain Nolan) in a speech of very great ability upon the expenditure part of this question. He (Mr. Hardy) could not, standing there, omit to say very strongly what he felt as to the enormous labours which had been imposed upon the actuaries with regard to the calculations connected with this subject. He believed that hon. Members who looked at the result had very little idea of the enormous difficulties which had to be encountered in making calculations of this description, and more especially when the scheme was necessarily complicated by a system of mixed voluntary and compulsory retirement. He quite agreed with the hon. and gallant Member for Galway that a calculation made upon the mean between 8 years and 20 years could not bring out a real and true result. Therefore they had taken in these Estimates the normal term, and that would not be arrived at for nearly 60 years. He thought they might confine their attention to that which more immediately concerned them. Before 60 years had expired some Secretaries for War would probably make proposals to the House on the subject, and he thought hon. Members need not go far into detail on it. As to the charge of £320,000 a-year, £110,000 belonged to the Indian Government, —that was to say, 35 per cent in round numbers would be charged on the Indian Government. What, therefore, was charged to this country on the whole range of time included in this Warrant would practically be £210,000 a-year. He proposed to deal with this question as recommended by the Commissioners, and he trusted that the House would go with him in that view. Nothing had struck him so much since he had the honour of holding the office he now held as the fact that a Royal Warrant seemed to have been supposed to be unchangeable, and that if you had once laid down a principle in a Royal Warrant you were to be bound by it, and that you could never move from it without giving compensation. Now he wanted to put a stop to that. He proposed, therefore, in issuing the Warrant they should do practically what was recommended by the Commission—namely, create no new vested interests or moral claims, but leave the Warrant open to change and variation, according to the needs of the Service. The hon. and gallant Member for Sunderland (Sir Henry Havelock) had said that the noble Lord who was then Secretary of State for War (Viscount Cardwell) had stated somewhere that promotion by selection was to prevail for officers of every kind. Selection did obtain in the case of majors and lieutenant-colonels, and that was all that his noble Predecessor ventured to suggest.

SIR HENRY HAVELOCK

explained that the expression he used was in the words of His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, "selection by rejection."

MR. GATHORNE HARDY

said, that that meant exactly that certain persons should be rejected as unfit in order that all might get on. And that was to be applicable not to majors and lieutenant-colonels only but to captains also. But that was a system never laid down by his Predecessor, and never dreamt of by him (Mr. Gathorne Hardy). It was a system of promotion of the most objectionable kind, for instead of compulsion with honour it was compulsion with dishonour. And yet that was the kind of compulsion the hon. and gallant Member for Sunderland wished to substitute. The hon. and gallant Member had given a very ingenious illustration of three officers, A B and C. But we could read that A B C in our own way; for we could say that A was the dull man who was excluded, and C the clever man who got on. No doubt there was always a certain amount of chance in the matter; but we had to provide that there should be promotion by compulsion in some way. Hon. Gentlemen opposite said—"We like your scheme, but we don't like compulsion." No one disliked compulsion more than he did, but for three years we should practically have no compulsion, and we should see how it would operate. But to ask him to present to the House a scheme of voluntary secession from the Army as to which he did not know whether it would answer or not was to ask him to propose a measure of which he should be ashamed. The scheme must be complete in itself, and if it did not work voluntarily it must be made to work compulsorily. There must be a knot at the end of the thread, or it would run through the eye of the needle. Hon. Gentlemen said—"If you wish to avoid compulsion nothing is more easy—you must re-organize the Army.'' Hon. Gentlemen talked of re-organization of the Army as if it was the easiest thing in the world. When the hon. Member for the Border Boroughs spoke of going down to the country and making speeches on the re-organization of the Army he only hoped the hon. Gentleman's audience would understand him. The hon. Gentleman said that re-organization had been recommended by several witnesses. Well, no one could hold Sir Lintorn Simmons and Sir John Adye in greater respect, for no one had more benefited by their advice than he had himself, and therefore he would not say one word against their judgment; but this was a matter of opinion, and he must say that he had investigated the subject and had obtained the best advice he could—not only the advice of His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, whose knowledge of the Army the hon. and gallant Member for Sunderland said was unequalled by that of any other man, but that of other distinguished officers, one of whom had been recently in active service, Sir Garnet Wolseley. Sir Garnet Wolseley, in a communication now before him, spoke of his own practical experience, and said that under present circumstances these large companies were impossible to work in the open lines in which they now entered into action—namely, with the short number of officers recommended by the hon. Gentleman; and that even of 100 men spread out in long lines he frequently lost portions, and large numbers of his men were separated from him for hours together. Let the hon. Gentleman inquire whether it did not happen in the Franco-German War that portions of the German Army had so suffered, and whether there were not at one time men of 19 different regiments in one mass endeavouring to resist as best they could without officers to direct them? Then it was said we might see a different result from what was occurring in the East. Now, he had heard to-day that one of the great wants of the attacking force in the battle of Plevna, of which we had heard so much, was the want of officers. He had been informed that these large bodies of from 200 to 250 men, were hopelessly beyond the control of the officers. And then it should be remembered that in the German Army, which was formed by conscription, they had a superior class of non-commissioned officers, and the men also were of a different class from those who composed our Army. In our Army the men were drawn mainly from the lower class, and therefore it was necessary that they should be led by men who went themselves with their soldiers into the midst of danger. Sir Garnet Wolseley himself had said that a field officer could not now exist on horseback in a fighting line; and then he had gone on to say that our system was tactically superior to that of other nations only in having small companies of 100 men. That was the system which it was now sought to abolish, but he earnestly hoped that one point of superiority would not be thrown away at the advice of men who had never led companies in action, and who would sacrifice efficiency to a very false economy. That brought him to the question whether it was our duty, for the sake of economy alone, to enter upon the task of re-organizing the Army? The only object was to make the Army efficient; and for efficiency alone, re-organization should be adopted. The hon. Member for the Border Boroughs had put the necessity for efficiency very strongly —more so, even, than he had himself— and had said—"Take care that your officers be young." The scheme was intended to secure that result, and was a scheme having for its object the efficiency of the Army, as well as the just treatment of the officers. Why did they say that a man should retire after 20 years' service if he had not become in turn a major? Simply because he would then be too old for his majority, and too old for a lieutenant-colonelcy, and because it would be better for him to retire while he still retained vigour to apply to some other pursuit than to hang on waiting for promotion, for which he would not be well qualified. No five years' rule would secure a continual succession of men who would become colonels, and under the present system they would have to wait 13½ years. But it was unprofitable to make men wait for so long a time. With respect to efficiency, some hon. Members had objected to retirement at so early a period of life as 55 years. He could understand the objection—he wished that he was himself as young—but it was not that a man was effete at 55, but it was that he was entering upon a new career, and it was better that he should make way for younger men. The Commission had recommended that more than eight years should not elapse in any case, and the Government had thought it best to carry the principle of compulsory retirement throughout the whole Army, from the general to the subaltern. The hon. Member had spoken with an animosity not unusual to him of the honorary colonelcies, and had described it as ridiculous that men should be on the Retired List and yet be honorary colonels. That, however, was only a fit reward for an honoured career, and was an appropriate dignity to bestow on men who had deserved well of their country; but he granted at once that if they had any active duties in the field, their position would seem rather out of place. Still, everybody knew that they had no such duties, and that an honorary colonelcy was nothing more than a price given for long or high service—so that no one need wish to rob those officers of this solatium for what was, in fact, dignified retirement after long and meritorious services. Speaking of the pecuniary point of view, he could not agree with the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) that the officers clamoured for higher pay. He was not aware that any of them did so, though the junior officers were certainly very ill paid. As for the retiring allowances, the view of them taken by the Committee was that they merely represented deferred pay, according to the calculations of the actuaries, and he would venture to say that from that point of view the retired officers were not too liberally treated. The list of generals was to be reduced eventually to 200; at present it would be filled up to 275, and in the lapse of time those 275 would be reduced to 200. The hon. Member for the Border Boroughs and the hon. Member for Burnley spoke as though he (Mr. Hardy) were endeavouring to force this scheme on the House as part of the Prerogative. So far from this being the case, he had done all he could to submit his proposals to the House. He should have infringed the Prerogative if he had placed the draft Warrant on the Table and asked for it the assent of the House before he had asked that of the Crown; but the Memorandum laid on the Table showed the principles on which he was about to act; and to a certain extent he should modify some small details in accordance with views expressed in the course of the debate—for he did not wish to act contrary to the wishes of the House which would vote the money. The discussion of the subject, in the Reports of Commissions and in the Press, had been going on for two or three years, and in that respect the matter differed from the abolition of Purchase, which was suddenly thrust upon the House; and, if re-organization was the necessary consequence of that abolition, why did not the last Government, during the two or three later years that they remained in office, lay down the lines on which it was to proceed? It had been talked about by the hon. Member for the Border Boroughs, but he had not exercised enough influence with the occupants of the front Opposition bench to induce them to carry out his views while they were in power. The Indian officers were excluded, not through want of consideration for their claims, but because of questions as to their guaranteed rights, and this was a thorny subject, with which it was dangerous to interfere without grave consideration. It was not in the least intended to exclude them, but it was thought better to postpone the consideration of their case because the pressure was great that something should be done with respect to the Army in general. Their case had therefore been adjourned, but not sine die. The communications that had reached him did not indicate that general objection to the scheme which had been represented by the hon. and gallant Member for Leitrim (Captain O'Beirne). He did not say that individual exceptions were not taken to particular proposals, but regarded as a whole, as it ought to be, the scheme was accepted as one that would conduce to the general benefit of the Army and promote a steady flow of promotion. The hon. Member, as a junior officer, wanted compulsion to get rid of Purchase colonels who stood in the way of junior officers; but the colonels would have to go under existing rules under which the appointments were accepted, and it would hardly be fair to make them go under a rule applicable to those who came in after them. Cavalry captains had a fair right to be put upon the same footing as Infantry captains, and he should be able to apply a remedy to what was complained of. The hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Captain Nolan) would not expect him (Mr. Hardy) to go through his whole statement. The hon. and gallant Member went through his statement with great rapidity, and had quoted a great mass of figures, through which he (Mr. Hardy) was utterly incompetent to follow him, and, therefore, all he could do was to adopt the calculations of his own actuaries. He thought he had now run through the principal points of the scheme and the objections to it; but there were one or two points remaining to which he desired to call attention. Some additional provisions that would assist the flow of promotion would appear in the Warrant. One was the appointment of Paymasters, whom a certain number could be obtained by retiring officers from the Army. They would have to pass a strict examination and a severe probation. The number of Army officers in the Commissariat Department would be increased—these changes would constitute a part of the scheme of promotion. He might further state, as part of the scheme, that 10 captains, two majors, and one lieutenant-colonel would retire on half-pay every year, and be brought back again within the year, by which means it would be within the power of the Commander-in-Chief to give immediate promotion to any distinguished officer, and relieve him from compulsory-retirement. These and other arrangements would tend to cheapen the cost, which he did not despise, while doing justice to the officers and promoting the efficiency of the Army. He most sincerely implored the House, for the sake of the Army, to allow the scheme to come into operation. There were, as he had stated, many ways in which the expenditure might be reduced. An experiment would be tried during the first three years which would show what was to he expected from voluntary retirement. A great measure, such as that before the House, must be in its very nature tentative. The House of Commons, inasmuch as it had to vote the supplies, would always have the means of controlling expenditure in the proposed direction, and the Secretary of State would hold in his hands the power of checking the voluntary system of retirement if it should become too great. Having all those checks in their own hands, he must ask the House, when the Army had been waiting so long and so patiently, and seeing that they had not the same means of appealing to the country as men in other positions, to meet their long forbearance with justice, and to give them, at as early a period as possible, the advantages of the Warrant.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

said, he did not think he could find any words more appropriate to describe the position of the House on the present occasion than those which had been used by the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) when he described it as an awkward position, and spoke of the House as having been driven into a corner. Nothing stronger than that need be said, and the words of the hon. and gallant Gentleman only fairly expressed what was the real position of the House in dealing with the question. He entirely concurred, he might add, in what had been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, as to the inconvenience that would result to the Army from having the question any longer postponed. There was, it was true, at present a great stagnation of promotion and considerable dissatisfaction in the Army arising from that cause. That, no doubt, was a state of affairs which required the application of a speedy remedy. Still, it was in his opinion the duty of the House to look at the other side of the question, and to consider whether the inconvenience of dealing with it—great and important question as it was—in so hasty a manner might not ultimately entail evils on the State and the Army far greater than any which would be likely to result from the postponement of a scheme which had already been postponed for six years for an additional six months. He must point out to the House that the overwhelming necessity which was said to exist for the settlement of the question was to a certain extent the creation of the Government itself. The Secretary for War in his historic statement on the subject had said in one respect that which was not quite accurate. He told the House that when he took office, he found that the stagnation in promotion was great. Now, if the right hon. Gentleman would refer to the Report of the Commission which he quoted, he would find that that statement was not quite borne out by the fact. The Commission on the Officers' Memorials reported that promotion up to that date had not been retarded by the abolition of Purchase. The truth was, that the stagnation of promotion had arisen from the action of the Government itself. In deference to the demands of some of the officers of the Army the right hon. Gentleman had been induced to appoint a Commission, and from the moment of that appointment, the natural consequences ensued— no officer was in the meantime willing to retire from the Army, because he wished to know what the Commission would recommend, and what the Government was going to do. Therefore that Parliament was asked, in obedience to an imperious demand, to huddle through a measure of vital importance to the Army at the present period of the Session was not the fault of that House. It was not, he might further observe, easy to understand what was the object of the Government in the appointment of the Commission. It was, no doubt, as had been stated, a Commission composed of very able men; but it did not appear to him to be perfectly clear why the Government appointed a Commission so largely consisting of civilians to consider what was almost entirely a mili- tary question. The Order of Reference, too, did not, in his opinion, put the matter before the Commission in an entirely right light. It put it too much as a question affecting personal and class interests, rather than as what it really was—a question affecting the welfare and efficiency of the Army. If that were not so, why were so large a number of civilians appointed to sit on the Commission? He thought the House would, in those circumstances, desire, if it were in its power, carefully to examine a proposal which came from a Commission so constituted; but that careful examination it was impossible to give at the present period of the Session. For his own part, he did not think the Government should have referred the matter at all to a Commission in the way they did. He could not understand why they could not deal with it themselves, as his right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) had done in the case of the Navy—and the scheme which he promoted had, on the whole, given satisfaction to the Profession. He had no doubt that many of the details of the scheme were of extreme complexity and delicacy. But the principle upon which one would suppose the War Office would have proceeded was, that they should have ascertained first what was the best system of organization for the Army, having regard to the conditions of modern warfare. They might have considered what was the number of officers of a certain rank it was desirable to maintain and the terms of service which were desirable; and having laid down the principle, they might then proceed to consider what measures they should take. The policy, however, which had been acted upon was exactly the reverse. The number of officers existing in the Army at the present moment had been accepted as an unchangeable basis in their calculations, and the main difficulty of the question— the disproportion of the number of officers above and below the rank of Field Officers—had been left without any attempt to escape from it. Then, turning to the higher ranks, the Commission had not inquired, or were not invited to inquire, how many General Officers or colonels were required for service in the Army. They had accepted as an inevitable necessity that there should be continually and for ever a certain num- ber of men passing up to the higher ranks, irrespective altogether of the wants of the Service, and making their way to those higher ranks at an age which was not desirable. Having proceeded upon these somewhat false lines, he was not surprised that the scheme introduced should have met with a good deal of criticism on both sides of the House. The question, however, which they had to consider to-night was what they should do with the scheme under the circumstances in which it had been presented to them. He should have no hesitation whatever, so far as he was concerned, in voting for the Amendment of his hon. Friend. He would vote for that Amendment as a protest against the manner in which this matter had been brought before the House, and the manner in which Parliament had been dealt with in this matter. But if, as he inferred, that Motion was to be resisted and was defeated, he should recommend his hon. Friend and those who thought with him, to abstain from any minute discussion of the details of the scheme —which at the present period of the Session it was perfectly impossible to enter upon. He recommended his hon. Friend to treat the scheme, not as a final measure founded on well-considered principles, and which might be made the basis of future action, but as a temporary expedient to meet a temporary emergency. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War had referred to the question of organization, and some discussion occurred on that subject in "another place;" but it was understood very distinctly that the question of organization and all other questions involved would remain open for discussion. He did not gather from the right hon. Gentleman that he considered these questions as open as his Colleagues in "another place" seemed to have considered them. On the contrary, he entered at considerable length on the question of organization. He (the Marquess of Hartington) would not enter into the details of his argument, but he must say the course he took, for a Member of the Government, was somewhat extraordinary. He met the arguments brought from the Blue Book, based on evidence given by the distinguished officers who appeared before his own Commission, to a very great extent by an off-hand reference to the opinion of Sir Garnet Wolseley, which was not before the House, which none of them had had the opportunity of reading, and which was contained, apparently, in a very long document, only a small portion of which he read. He did not think that the opinions of those distinguished officers were to be altogether overborne by such a reference. They must consider the question of organization, and, indeed, all the questions involved in this scheme, as open questions. It was perfectly impossible to be committed to them. They must consider the question of organization and the establishment of General Officers as open questions; they must consider the question of honorary colonelcies as an open question; and he hoped they would consider the whole scheme as nothing but, as he had said, a temporary expedient intended to meet a temporary emergency. The most satisfactory part of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was that in which he referred to the subject of vested interests. There was no doubt a considerable risk that under this Warrant, as under former Warrants, officers would assume that they had acquired a vested interest in the advantages which were offered to them. It was time that the officers of the Army should fully realize that in these matters the State did not enter into a separate bargain with each individual officer; that when an officer entered the Army there was one bargain and one only, which the State entered into with him—the officer entered with one understanding, that, if competent, he should, within a reasonable time, have a prospect of promotion to superior rank. But supposing that if at any time by a scheme of re-organization, or by any other means, it was found that reasonable promotion was secured to the officers of the Army without having recourse to this system, they ought not to be able to come down and say that "By such an individual Warrant I was entitled to such and such terms, and I claim to have them carried out to the letter." He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would take care that by the words which he proposed to insert in the Warrant any chance of that kind would be effectually barred. The House well knew how "vested interests" which were absolutely illegal, were acquired under a system of over-regulation prices, and that Parliament was compelled to give compensation when those prices were extinguished; but it could not be too clearly understood that bargains of the kind between the State and individuals were to be held to have ceased and determined when the Purchase system was abolished. He could not agree with hon. Members on the other side of the House who had spoken of the abolition of Purchase as if we had not yet obtained any advantage from it. He believed we had already obtained considerable advantage from it, and that we had obtained and were obtaining more and more every day a class of officers in the Service who entered with the intention of making it a Profession, and to devote themselves to it in a manner very different from that in which a former class devoted themselves. He quite admitted that we had not reached all the advantages to be derived from the abolition of Purchase. There was one great advantage which was no doubt to be expected from the Warrant, and that was that they hoped to provide for the necessities which had arisen under the system of the abolition of Purchase. There was a great hesitation on the part of the military authorities to make changes; but there was no doubt that the present condition of modern warfare rendered it necessary that, sooner or later, changes must be made in the organization of the British Army, and in many of its arrangements; but they were now asked to make the changes without the opportunity of considering the individual interests. Under the circumstances, he had no alternative but to vote with his hon. Friend, as a protest against the manner in which the matter had been brought before the House.

SIR ALEXANDER GORDON

said, that it was the condition on which the House had passed the abolition of Purchase, that the Government should introduce a scheme which would give officers a reasonable rate of promotion. The officers had accepted it, and were now offered compulsory retirement. That was the point to which he, and the Army generally, took exception to this scheme. Compulsory retirement did not apply to India, and the English officers only asked for the same justice as the Indian officers enjoyed. He regretted that the Royal Commission had not taken evidence of a more general character on the subject of re-organization than they had done. They had examined 43 witnesses, including 12 officers of the Horse Guards Staff, but only one officer commanding a regiment was examined, and he had only been in command for about a month; and not a single general commanding a division was called, although these were the men who could have given the most valuable information on the subject. He had recently received a letter from a very distinguished General Officer, in which he said—"I am sure anyone who studied your plans would see many advantages. I am quite satisfied it would be condemned by the ignorant, idle, and Conservative portion of the officers, because the regimental system is interfered with. I often find that a 'good regiment' means a good mess and a good band; but I dare not say so." A re-organization of the Army did not necessarily involve a reduction of officers; but he contended that the number of officers during peace should be the same as that maintained in time of war, whereas, at present, the former was much greater in proportion to the number of men. He complained that in opposition to the Report of the Royal Commission the Secretary for War had introduced a provision into the Warrant for the retirement of Infantry officers at the age of 55; and he could see no good reason why the officers of Ordnance should be excepted from the operation of the rule.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 139; Noes 77: Majority 62.—(Div. List, No. 303.)

Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.