§ (In the Committee.)
§ (1.) £256,500, Medical Establishments and Services.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary of State for War, whether the Vote included any charge on account of Hospital services in connection with the brigade of Guards? He might mention, by way of explanation, that whilst discussing the previous Vote, before the right hon. and gallant Gentleman came into his present position, the then Secretary of State for War stated that a portion of the Stock Purse Fund only was put down in Vote I. under certain headings, and that the remaining portion of the Fund was distributed throughout the other Votes. He (Mr. Parnell) was anxious to know in what Votes the remaining portion of the Stock Purse Fund appeared, as lie had not been able to trace it?
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that that portion of it which related to medical purposes such as Hospital expenses was included in the present Vote; but he could not at that moment recollect under 1434 what heads the remaining portion of the Fund appeared.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, the precise information he wanted was this—whether the Vote included any charge on account of Hospital service in the brigade of Guards?
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he would endeavour to answer the question. He believed that the Stock Purse defrayed all the medical charges of the Guards; but whether the actual surgeons doing duty there were included he was not able to say. His impression, however, was that they were.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman did not seem to be aware that the original Stock Purse Fund, known as such, had been broken up into portions and distributed amongst certain items in the Votes. He had been successful in tracing two items in Vote I., and, perhaps, he might be allowed to refer to them, as they might be a guide to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. In Vote I., there were, according to page 16, three portions of this Stock Purse Fund included—namely, £2,610 for contingent allowances, &c.; £700 for allowances in aid of band expenses; and £6,910 for the profits of the field officers of the Foot Guards, in the shape of extra pay. Perhaps it would be better to take the items in order as they appeared in the Vote. The first was Infantry and Foot Guards' profits of the field officers, in the shape of extra pay, £6,910; then, under the head of contingent allowances, deducting stoppage for repair of arms, £2,610; and then, under the head of allowances for band expenses, came the sum of £700. These were all the items which stood opposite an entry under the head of Infantry and Foot Guards, and it was found out, in the course of the discussion of Vote I., that these items were paid out of the Stock Purse Fund. The right hon. Gentleman the then Secretary of State for War further informed the Committee that the remnants of the Stock Purse Fund, which amounted to considerably more than these three items—the total amount of the Fund being £13,190—were distributed among the rest of the Votes. According to a Return, which had been produced at the instance of the hon. Member for Clonmel (Mr. A. Moore), he found that the remainder of the Fund was applied to Hospitals and recruiting purposes. The 1435 sum of £8,929 was applied to Hospital purposes for the brigade of Guards, and the sum of £145 was applied to recruiting purposes for the same brigade of Guards—making a total of £9,074. He had been very anxious to trace this Vote and to find out what had become of the different items of this Stock Purse Fund, and he would have been able to obtain information, no doubt, if the former Secretary for War had been still in Office. At present, he would direct the attention of the Secretary for War to page 29, which referred to the present Vote—Vote IV. He found, under the head of allowance to private medical practitioners and medical bills under sub-head C for home purposes, an item of £5,340; and for Colonial purposes, £5,840. There was an increase in the item for home purposes for last year of something like £2,300, and an increase in the item for last year for Colonial purposes of something considerably more than that. He could understand that the Vote for Colonial purposes would be still more increased by the War at the Cape; but he could not understand the reason for the other increase; and, in any case, he could not account for the sum proposed to be applied. In the Return produced at the instance of the hon. Member for Clonmel, there was a sum of £3,000 odd, which was stated to be taken for Hospitals in connection with the Guards. He wished to know what had become of the sum applied to the Hospitals of the Guards?
§ COLONEL STANLEYwas afraid that he was not able offhand to trace that particular item. If he had been in the House when the previous discussion took place, his attention would have been directed to the subject probably; but, unfortunately, he was not. He thought the hon. Member would find that provision was taken for part of this Vote in the shape of Hospital services in one Vote, and in other shapes in regard to the other Votes. [Mr. PARNELL: Which Votes?] The hon. Member would see that provision was taken for Medical Services in Vote IV., and so on, in regard to the other Votes. He was unable to give more precise information at the present moment; but if the hon. Gentleman would put the question on the Report, he would then be able to give him every information in regard to the matter. He believed the way in which the 1436 Vote was applied was traceable, though in the form in which it originally stood in Vote I., it was, unquestionably, open to some doubt. He would repeat the answer he had given to a previous question—that his impression was that the Hospital services of the year were recorded in the Vote about to be taken.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, the difficulty he found himself in was this—that the whole of the Stock Purse Fund had been broken up. It was originally in one lump sum of £13,190, and a Return was moved for by his hon. Friend the Member for Clonmel (Mr. A. Moore), asking for further details as to the appropriation of the Fund and the application of the money. When the Return appeared, it was found that it only accounted for a very small portion of that sum of £13,190—in point of fact, it only accounted for £502 18s. 4d., for pay and allowances, apartments for the field major, fuel and light, recruiting, proceedings at courts martial, &c. Altogether there were five items, and they amounted to £502 18s. 4d. But the vast bulk of the sum of £13,000 was not accounted for at all, and was still put down as the Stock Purse Fund; so that, as far as any information to be obtained from the Return was concerned, they might just as well have been without it. In consequence of the futility of the Return, his hon. Friend moved for another. The second Return went much more into detail, but did not clear up this extraordinary matter, which was of a very complicated character, and very much required to be cleared up, and with regard to which he would suggest by-and-bye a way of clearing it up. In the second Return obtained by the hon. Member for Clonmel, he found that this sum of £11,000 and odd, not accounted for in the preceding Return, was accounted for in the following manner:—The Hospital services of the Guards were to get £8,929, recruiting services £145, band expenses £1,360; in addition to which there was an item of £970 for Staff allowances to noncommissioned officers, and an item of £6,708 5s. 6d. for average profits of field officers and captains. It was not his present purpose to object to these large profits of field officers and captains, though he thought they should be done away with after the present officers ceased is hold their offices. He 1437 wished more particularly to direct the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the Hospital branch. They had there the expenses of hospitals, and a number of contingencies—wages, washing, fuel, light, repairs, &c., amounting altogether to a sum of £8,029. Now, that amount had been stowed away somewhere, and he did not know where. It was not in Vote I., because they had accounted for the item, and he thought that a considerable portion of it must be in Vote IV. The difficulty he felt was this—that when the Report was brought on, it was always difficult to discuss a question of this sort, because the Report itself was not brought up until very late. He would suggest to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that, if he were unable to point out in this Vote for medical establishment and services what portion of the sum of £8,000 and odd was included, he should postpone the Vote until some future day.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he could not accept the suggestion. He had already endeavoured to explain, though, he was afraid, without success, to the hon. Member, that, so far as he was aware, charges which were made upon the Stock Purse Fund, except those which were included in Vote I., already voted, were distributed among the separate Votes of the Estimates—that was to say, in the Hospital Vote. The item for provisions, light, forage, fuel, and so forth, belonged to the Stock Purse Fund. He was not able to say precisely the amount of the charge included in each Vote; but if the hon. Member would be good enough to repeat his question on Report, he should be glad to give every information. In the meantime, he had endeavoured to answer the question, by stating that, to the best of his belief, the medical officers were included in the previous Vote—that was to say, that the medical expenses were included in the present Vote; and that the rest of the Stock Purse charges, such as fuel, light, &c., were to be found in the other Votes.
§ COLONEL ARBUTHNOTsaid, he had intended to raise a question touching the Medical Department upon this Vote; but when he saw a matter brought forward in such a cavilling spirit, he had changed his mind, and abstained from occupying the time of the Committee with the subject. He was anxious to do 1438 all he could to forward the Estimates; but he reserved to himself the right of using an independent Member's day for the purpose of calling attention to the state of the Medical Department. He wished his right hon. and gallant Friend to regard this intimation as made in a friendly, and not in an unfriendly, spirit. He had no wish to interfere with any of the steps that were now being taken for the re-organization of the Department. His only object was to improve the present state of things.
§ LORD ELCHOsaid, he had listened to what had been brought forward by the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell), and he could not help agreeing that the question was a very important one. On the other hand, it was not desirable that they should unduly interrupt the Supply. It appeared to him that the question had been fairly met by the offer of the Secretary of State for War. He would, therefore, suggest to the hon. Member for Meath that he should allow the Vote to pass, on the understanding that the information would be given on the Report.
§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, the hon. Member for Meath had a perfect right to ask for information. It was certainly within his (Sir George Balfour's) own knowledge, that the origin of all the evil was allowing the Guards to conduct their own hospitals out of funds levied from the soldier. In point of fact, the Guards had been allowed, from time immemorial, to manage their own services in connection with the recruiting and hospitals. The personal allowances given to the officers of the Guards for being on duty in London, or liable to be on duty, was wrong. If the London duty was undertaken by a battalion of the Line, then the officers were also entitled to allowances; but these were fixed and regularly paid out of the voted monies, whereby the Guards raised funds under the old and objectionable form by stoppages from the pay of the men, and the consequence had been a confusion of accounts, as well as a suspicion that these were doings which could not be laid open to the country. The Secretary of State for War had now, with the honesty that was his characteristic, proposed to give all the information asked for, and he thought the hon. Member for Meath ought not further to oppose the Vote.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, the only reason why he appeared to hesitate about accepting the offer of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was, because he very much feared, from what he had previously seen in regard to the question, that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would not be able to give him the information he required. The subject was really in such a ravel and a tangle, that until a new arrangement was made to place the officers of the Guards on the same footing as the officers of the rest of the Army, it would be impossible to make head or tail out of this question of the Stock Purse Fund. This last attempt of the Government to distribute the items among the other Votes, instead of making them one bulk sum, only made confusion worse confounded. In point of fact, he did not think the right hon. Gentleman knew very well what he was talking about, when he answered the question in the first instance. The money was obviously hidden away, and where, as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman himself admitted, he did not know.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, the difficulty that was found in connection with all these Votes was this. The hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who had charge of the different Departments were almost all new to their particular positions, and were quite as destitute of information as the House itself. He did not wish to make any specific charge against the Government on this question, because he was disposed to make every allowance for the Secretary of State for War; but it was a very serious position to find themselves placed in—that on all occasions when a question was asked in reference to different Departments they should receive the same answer from the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen in charge of them. The evil was that they came into Office since the Estimates were framed, and that they did not know anything about them. Whenever information was asked for, the practice was to say—"I really don't know anything about it; but, if you will postpone the question until the Report, then I will give you the information required." When the Report came on, if they repeated the question, they were told that it would be wasting time to discuss it, and that the only time for raising the question was when the Vote 1440 itself was brought forward. He would suggest to the Government that it would be well to postpone all these Votes, until the heads of the different Departments got to know something about the subjects they had to bring before the Committee. As the matter existed at present, there was a frightful waste of time involved, because the Committee were unable to get any information; and at the same time, the non-official Members, who really knew a good deal more about these matters than the heads of the Departments, did not wish to press too hardly upon Gentlemen who were new to their Offices. At the same time, he really did think that that system of asking time after time for the postponement of questions until the Report, when it was well known there could be no opportunity for discussing the question, was most objectionable, and ought to be given up.
§ MAJOR NOLANwas sorry that the hon. and gallant Member for Hereford (Colonel Arbuthnot) had not brought the question of medical officers before the Committee. He also regretted that the Members of the Medical Profession who were also Members of the House, and who sat principally on the Opposition Benches, were not present when that Vote was under discussion. In their absence, he desired to bring forward a question which considerably affected the interests of medical officers, and which had been a subject of comment during the last two or three years, It was alluded to very recently in a letter that appeared in the newspapers from Dr. Corrigan. The question he referred to was that of providing a supply of surgeons for the Army. It was a question in which great interest was taken by the Medical Profession generally, and particularly by what might be called the Medical Schools. The Irish Members had a good deal of interest in the matter, because a large proportion of the surgeons of the Army came from Ireland. The letter he referred to really summed up the whole subject. It showed that there was at present a great want of medical officers in the Army, and it put forward as the chief reason, not the want of pay, or of material advantages, but the fact that the medical officers in the Army were not properly treated. One grievance was that they were required to cease to 1441 be members of regiments and members of messes, this being carried out by an Order of the Secretary of State for War. Personally, he (Major Nolan) had taken great pains at various times to put the question to various Army surgeons he had been brought into contact with, and he certainly found that all the younger members were unanimous. The older members of the Army Medical Profession took the same view, although perhaps not so strongly. All the younger medical men, however, felt very strongly indeed upon the fact that at the present moment they were not members of regiments, and had no locus standi. They found that when they went into a mess they had, as it were, no home. An ordinary officer had his home and his mess, to which he could ask his friends, but the Army medical officers were only there on sufferance, and could ask no friends. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would read the very important letter to which he had referred, which fully summed up the views of the surgeons in the Army. He (Major Nolan) had no doubt that it was a real grievance, and the effect of it was witnessed by the diminished number of candidates for appointments in the Army. He believed that if it went on much longer, the Army Medical Department would drift into a state of hopeless inefficiency. He was satisfied that the condition of the Medical Profession in the Army would be much different if the Government would adopt measures for improving the present status of the Medical Profession. If something of this kind were not done, the Army itself would suffer in the end; because, if the country went into war, the Medical Department would certainly break down. It would be of no use then for Her Majesty's Ministers to say it was not their fault; that they were anxious to employ the men, if they could procure them. It would be the fault of the Government entirely, if they did not take proper precautions to secure an efficient establishment in a time of peace. It was impossible to get an efficient Staff in a time of war, because it required a certain amount of discipline; and civilian practitioners, obtained on the spur of the moment, would require considerable time and training before they could be rendered efficient. He believed that the application of the regimental system, as far as medical officers were concerned, 1442 would be wise economy in the end. The hard work entailed by the business of an efficient Staff told hardly upon the private soldier as well as upon the surgeons themselves. At present, there were not a sufficient number of medical officers to enable them to obtain proper leave, and the whole of the Profession was in consequence greatly dissatisfied. He was sorry that his hon. Friend the Member for Galway (Dr. Ward) was not present, because he knew that he was anxious to bring the question forward. In the absence of his hon. Friend, he (Major Nolan) had ventured to introduce the question; and he would only add that, in regard to the medical officers themselves, they were all of them unanimous upon the subject. He wished to ask what steps the Government intended to take in the matter?
§ After a pause—
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, that unless he obtained an answer to his question, he would feel it necessary to move that the Chairman report Progress.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he had no wish to leave the hon. and gallant Member without an answer. He had only waited to see whether any other hon. Member was desirous of continuing the discussion. The House was already aware that his noble Friend and Predecessor (Viscount Cranbrook) had already referred to a small Committee the very important case of the medical officers of the Army, and had issued general instructions to that Committee to confer with all the large medical centres, with eminent physicians, and the principal medical councils, so as to ascertain really what in the eyes of the Profession were the practical difficulties in the way of obtaining a sufficient supply of medical officers for the Army. Of course, they all had a certain bias in the matter, and however carefully they might endeavour to weigh the question, they would have a prejudicial feeling either one way or the other. It must be borne in mind that the present system was adopted after very careful consideration. It was adopted mainly in consequence of the action taken by a number of the members of the Profession in the view of what they regarded as their grievances. His Predecessor in the Office of Secretary of State for War after weighing fully the representations of the Profession and 1443 considering how their grievances could best be met, came to the conclusion that they were only to be met by the rearrangement of the Medical Service on a basis very distinct from that which had hitherto obtained. Whatever merits might attach to the regimental medical services, Lord Cranbrook considered that it was not absolutely perfect with regard to the position of the officers in the regiment. Therefore, all these things had to be very carefully considered and weighed, in reference to how they would press in particular cases. He feared that it would never be possible so to deal with the matter as to do away altogether with complaints of grievances; but he should hail any opportunity that might arise of putting the gentlemen in the Army Medical Service on a satisfactory footing. At present he was speaking in the dark, because the position of medical men both in the Army and the Navy was changing from day to day, and he had not as yet had opportunity for consulting as many authorities as he should like to consult on such a subject before coming to a decisive opinion upon it. No one could have a more earnest desire for the amelioration of the service than he had, and he hoped he should receive such assistance as would enable him to put his hand upon any blot or defect in the system with a view to its removal; but, at the present moment, he did not think he would be justified in prejudging the question to any extent; at the same time, he was most anxious to consider it.
§ LORD ELCHOsaid, he wished to refer to a question affecting the health of the troops in India. A correspondence was going on between a general officer who had seen much service in India, the Medical Department, and the Commander-in-Chief, with reference to the hour at which dinner should be served to the troops serving in India. The general officer said he had found that by postponing the hour from 1 o'clock until 4—a cooler part of the day—the regiment under his command had not suffered, to any great extent, from the complaints to which other European regiments serving in India were subject. He hoped the question would be carefully considered by the authorities.
§ COLONEL ARBUTHNOTsaid, he should like to know, whether the Committee which had sat to inquire into the subject were likely to report shortly, and 1444 whether the Report was likely to be published, or whether the inquiry was merely a departmental one?
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he could not answer the question of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, because it would depend upon the form and not upon the substance of the answers given by the medical witnesses, whether their evidence could be made public. If it should appear that the evidence was not of a strictly confidential character, he should be happy to produce the Report.
§ Vote agreed to.
§ (2.) £535,400, Pay and Allowances of the Militia, including Militia Reserve.
§ MR. HAYTERcalled attention to the large and increasing number of men absent without leave. In the year 1875 the number was 10,860; in 1876 it was 11,291; and in last year it was 15,007. The exact figures for this year were not yet available, but there had been an alarming increase already as compared with 1875.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, he thought the apparent increase was due to the fact that the Returns had in late years been made out in a different way as far as the permanent Staff was concerned.
§ MAJOR O'BEIRNEwished to make a suggestion with regard to the fund which had accumulated, in the shape of fines for drunkenness, and which now amounted to about £4,000. He thought it would be well to expend this sum in the purchase of newspapers and periodicals, and in providing other forms of recreation, in order, as far as possible, to keep the men out of the public-houses during their periods of training.
COLONEL LOYD LINDSAYsaid, the difficulty had been how to allot so small a sum as £4,000, so as to produce any real and practical benefit. A Departmental Committee was appointed to consider the matter, and it was determined on their Report to dispose of the money in the shape of small indulgences to militiamen during their periods of service.
§ LORD ELCHOreferred to the debate which had taken place earlier in the evening upon the state of the Militia, and to the remarks which were then made by the Secretary of State for War. His contention was that the Militia establishment, when it was fixed in 1852 1445 by the Government of that day, was fixed at a standard which was not believed to be a war standard, but the proper standard for the Militia of this country to be maintained at for our home defence. He hoped the strength of the Militia would be kept up, and that the present Secretary of State for War would not shirk his responsibility, as some of his Predecessors had done, but would ask Parliament either for more money, or for compulsory power to enrol men in the Militia. At the time to which he had referred, Mr. Walpole, the then Home Secretary, said the number of the Militia necessary for home defence was 80,000, and that if the number was obtained by voluntary enlistment, the Bill had been so drawn that there would be no necessity to resort to the compulsory clauses.
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONpointed out what he deemed to be a great injustice—namely, that money drawn from the fines paid for drunkenness by the Militia was distributed in the shape of gratuities to men in the Regular Army. This was a course likely to cause much dissatisfaction in the Militia, and it was a course, moreover, which, if he was correctly informed, had not received the sanction of the Treasury.
§ COLONEL ARBUTHNOTthought greater consideration should be shown to non-commissioned officers in the Militia when they were called upon to serve with the Regular Army. At present they only drew the pay of privates, although some of them were very valuable non-commissioned officers. He thought that, after a short period of probation, they should be allowed to receive the full pay of their respective ranks.
§ MR. PARNELLasked for some information as to the fact that there appeared to be a decrease of about 3,000 in the rank and file of the Militia as compared with last year?
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, the apparent decrease was, in fact, no decrease at all, and was due to the partial absorption of the regular Staff of the Militia into brigade depôts. As had been already stated, the amount of money received in the shape of fines for drunkenness had, on the recommendation of a Committee, been applied in the direction of recreation for the men by whom the fines had been paid. A Committee had just completed the consideration of 1446 the question as to the best means of utilizing the services of half-pay officers. The question was a very complicated one, and he had not at present had time to master the details of the Report. The matter should have his immediate attention, for he was anxious to hit upon some plan by which half-pay officers could be utilized in time of war.
Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; Committee counted, and 40 Members being found present,
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he thought the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War must have misunderstood the question which he had put to him with reference to the diminution in the rank and file of the Militia. That diminution amounted to 3,000 men, consisting of corporals and privates. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had referred him to page 132 of the Appendix, which contained an account of all the different brigade depôts at home and abroad; but he found, on consulting it, that the strength of the Militia in those depôts was only 64 men, and it was obvious that the withdrawal of 64 men from their regiments to brigade depôts would not account for the deficiency in the number of the Force for this year and last year, to which he had called the attention of the Committee.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he was unable, at the present moment, to enter into any further details in explanation of the discrepancy to which the hon. Gentleman alluded, beyond the information which he had already given to the Committee.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, it was somewhat remarkable that while the number of the rank and file of the Militia had been reduced by 3,000 men last year, there was an increase from £181,000 to £207,000 this year in the amount asked for for bounties and new enrolments. Another very curious point connected with the matter was, that according to the statement set forth in page 48, which gave the details of the charges for clothing, the sum required for the purpose this year was put down as only £117,955, as against £212,555 last year; so that, with a Force smaller by 3,000, there was an increase for bounties and enrolment of £26,000, while the charge for clothing was less. He was afraid the 1447 Estimates had been very carelessly drawn. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman was not, of course, responsible for them, inasmuch as they had been framed long before he entered upon the duties of his present Office. On looking over them, however, he discovered traces of carelessness in almost every page, due, perhaps, to the system which prevailed at the War Office, which, no doubt, required re-organization. It was quite clear, at all events, that if the Estimates had been framed with that attention which ought to have been bestowed upon them, he would not have been able to point out such extraordinary anomalies as those to which he had just called attention.
§ COLONEL STANLEYexplained, that the payments in the shape of bounties had been increased, and that, as clothing was not served out every year to the men, there was a variation in the quantity supplied, which accounted for the charge under that head being less one year than another.
§ Vote agreed to.
§
(3.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £74,400, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge for Yeomanry Cavalry Pay and Allowances, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1879.
§ MAJOR O'BEIRNEcalled attention to the fact that several officers of the Regular Army were serving as adjutants to the Yeomanry at home, while their brother officers were employed with their regiments abroad, running all the risks which resulted from bad climates and other causes. Those adjutants, too, derived all the advantages in the way of promotion which they would be entitled to if they had gone on foreign service, and in that way he thought a great injustice was done to those who had to bear the brunt of the Service.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, his noble Friend who had preceded him in the Office which he had the honour to hold considered that it would be very advantageous to apply to the Yeomanry the rule which had already been applied by Lord Cardwell to the Infantry—namely, to appoint as adjutants to the Force officers on full pay in the Regular Army, who would be entitled to hold those 1448 appointments only for five years. That was regarded as a fair line so far as the rest of the Service was concerned, and as not being so long as to render it probable that an officer would become rusty for the performance of his regular duties.
§ MAJOR O'BEIRNEsaid, he thought the answer of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was so unsatisfactory, that he should feel it his duty to take a division on the Vote. He, therefore, begged to move that it be reduced by the sum of £5,960, the pay of Yeomanry adjutants. He strongly objected to having an officer getting from £200 to £350 in one of those appointments, who had, perhaps, never served one day abroad. There was a rule, he might add, that the adjutantcy of a Yeomanry regiment should not be given to an officer with less than two years' service; but that rule had been very recently set aside in the case of the Royal Dragoons and the Carbineers.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £68,440, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge for Yeomanry Cavalry Pay and Allowances, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1879." —(Major O' Beirne.)
§ MR. BIGGARwas also of opinion that the answer of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War was most unsatisfactory. The Vote appeared to him to be one which was liable to be applied in a direction to which he strongly objected—namely, that of undue favouritism. The practical result would be that the appointment in question would be conferred upon officers who happened to have political or other influence at their command, and who desired to be able to put in their time in England instead of taking foreign service in the same rotation as their brother officers. Besides, young officers would be far more likely to acquire a knowledge of their profession if they were to go with their regiments when sent abroad, than if they were to stay at home in positions, which, after all, were nothing more than semi-sinecures. For those reasons, he hoped his hon. and gallant Friend would press his Motion for the reduction of the Vote to a division.
§ Question put, and negatived.
§ Original Question put, and agreed to.
1449
§
(4.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £485,300, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge for Volunteer Corps Pay and Allowances, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1879.
§ MR. O'CLERYsaid, when he gave Notice of his Motion for the reduction of the Vote, it was his intention that it should be reduced by the sum of £16,663, the amount of increase in the present Estimate over the sum provided for last year; but he found that by so doing he should still be under the responsibility of sanctioning the payment for English and Scotch Volunteer Corps, while his countrymen in Ireland were debarred from the right of enrolling themselves as Volunteers. Of the sum of £485,300 required for the English and Scotch Volunteer Corps, it appeared that as nearly as possible the proportion of one-sixth part, or about £80,000, would have to be paid by Ireland. In view, therefore, of this contribution to Imperial taxation for the purpose of the Volunteer Service, in which the people of Ireland were not allowed to participate, and in order to secure to Ireland an immunity from this payment in the future, he was now compelled to move the reduction of the Vote by about six times the amount he originally intended—namely, £80,000—which would still leave Ireland under a very unfair amount of taxation. It appeared that the Vote asked for was made up as follows:—Pay to adjutants of Volunteer Corps, £61,000; sergeant instructors, £63,000; Capitation grants, £335,438; miscellaneous charges, £25,900; in all, £485,338. He did not object to the establishment of Volunteer Corps—on the contrary, he was strongly in favour of the claim of England and Scotland to possess them; and he held that it was the right of every free citizen of a free country to be trained to arms, a right that had been exercised and encouraged in England from time immemorial. He was also bound to admit, that since their establishment, not with standing the fact that every year a number of trained officers had found it absolutely necessary to throw up their commissions, the Volunteer Forces had continued to increase both in England and Scotland. 1450 The sum demanded annually for the Volunteers was constantly increasing. The Captitation Grant did away with the expense to the Volunteer individually, inasmuch as the Government paid his corps a sum which enabled the administrative of that corps to give him his training and outfit practically free of charge, provided he was at all efficient. But why were the Irish people debarred from sharing the advantages of a military training, while they were called upon to contribute a large sum annually for Volunteer purposes in this country? He believed that no charge of inefficiency had ever been made against those of his countrymen who had enrolled themselves as Volunteers in England and Scotland; on the contrary, it was admitted by competent authorities that two of the most efficient corps in this country were the Liverpool Irish Brigade and the London Irish Volunteer Corps; and he ventured to say that, as far as marching was concerned, those Irish Volunteer Brigades were not to be surpassed by any regiment in Her Majesty's Service, while he was sure their officers would resent any charge made against their personal bravery or devotion. He found no difference whatever existed in these respects as between his countrymen who were serving in England and Scotland, and those who remained in Ireland. On what grounds, then, should the Irish, living in Ireland, be deprived of the privilege of raising Volunteer Corps—a privilege which was of more importance to them than to the English or Scotch, because they were a more martial race? The latter, although a great commercial people, did not take to the pursuit of arms with the readiness of the Irish; and he would say, for the information of any officer, be he Irish, Scotch, or English, that the Irish Volunteer would learn his drill in a far shorter time than the English Volunteer. His sense of duty and discipline was higher than that of the ordinary English soldier taken from any county in this country. When it was found that the people of Ireland had the desire to be trained to arms, when it was seen that this natural desire was discouraged in every possible way, he was forced to the conclusion that a corresponding feeling of disgust at being thus debarred would arise in the minds of the Irish people; and he questioned whether it was to the 1451 interest of the State that such a feeling should be excited. The Irish Militia regiments had always shown themselves to be perfectly efficient and loyal, and it was to be remembered that they were, to a certain extent, recruited from a stratum of the people socially lower than the ordinary Volunteers, and that the Volunteers who were likely to come forward and offer their services in Ireland would be of the same standard as the Irish Constabulary Force, whose loyalty had been over and over again the subject of compliment—one hon. and gallant Gentleman having said that this Force, taken from the ranks of the people, was at that present moment, man for man, almost the finest in Europe. It was found from year to year that by their training and discipline they were becoming practically a military Force; and, at the present time, they were actually so in Ireland. The military taste of the Irish people was manifested by that body of horse police, and he would add that the police of this country would require a good deal of training before it attained to the efficiency of the Irish Constabulary. Why, then, should they not allow a Volunteer Force to be created in Ireland? He had devoted attention last year to the subject of the establishment of Volunteer Corps in Ireland, and by the permission of the House he had introduced a Bill for that purpose, modelled upon the Volunteer Bill passed in 1859–60, by which every restriction contained in the latter was to apply to the Irish Volunteers; but, as in the case of all Irish measures, he had found it impossible to bring this Bill to the stage of a second reading, and therefore allowed it to drop, with the intention of again bringing forward the subject in the form of a Resolution to the effect "that it was desirable to establish Volunteer Corps in Ireland." That, however, might not have been listened to, and it now seemed to him that the best way was to direct attention to the question in that Vote, because it must in that way receive the attention of the House, and there was no chance of its being shelved. This question of establishing Volunteer Corps in Ireland was one of very great importance. There had been a time when the Empire had on hand a great European war, such as was perhaps now before it, when the requirements of England were so pressing that she was compelled to withdraw 1452 all the troops from Ireland. At this time the Privy Council and the Parliament permitted the Irish to enrol Volunteers. The result was, although no Catholics could be officers in the Force, that in a single year, and at a time when the population of Ireland amounted to but 4,000,000, 100,000 men sprang to arms; and, looking at that percentage, he considered that it afforded fair evidence of the desire of the Irish people to come forward in defence of their country. The great reliance of the Irish Parliament was on that Volunteer Force, which would have continued to exist had not the English Minister, in his designs on the Parliament of Ireland, and with the intention of destroying the Irish Constitution, sapped its foundations, putting every obstacle in the way of its working, until the year 1796, when the Yeomanry Force was established instead, and the Ministerial plan was carried out. A state of mistrust then ensued; there were no Volunteer Corps in the country, and the Parliament by bribery and corruption sanctioned the measure by which Ireland lost her Constitution. At that moment the Irish regiments were true to their oaths and colours, and from that period to the present no Irish soldier in Her Majesty's Service had ever flinched in the time of danger. He would not say that had always been the case with English soldiers. Two or three years ago the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrew shire (Colonel Mure) publicly stated in that House that on the morning of the assault on the Redan, there were many recruits who flung themselves down in the trenches, and had to be twitted into something like manhood by Irish sergeants. It was, no doubt, a disagreeable thing to hear; but he must say that no Irish soldiers had ever to be so treated. He would now look at this question as affecting the defence of the Empire. For a considerable time past every English patriot had been thinking how best to make England present a very bold front before Europe, going even to the extent of bringing Indian troops to Malta; but all this time a very important portion of the Empire was left practically defenceless. That fact alone clearly showed where the danger to the Empire lay, and where was the vulnerable point of her armour. A Power hostile to this Kingdom would 1453 find in Ireland a people deprived of arms, denied their use in every possible way, and treated in a manner that would almost throw them into the arms of an enemy. He questioned whether this was a state of things to be passed over lightly. It had been often said that one reason why Volunteer Corps could not be allowed in Ireland as in England and Scotland, was the possibility of religious differences; but he had not found that the embodiment of the old Irish Volunteers led to any differences of this kind, nor did he doubt that precautions could easily be taken to prevent their occurrence in the future. It was true there were some districts in Ireland that had been disgraced by the manner in which the population observed certain anniversaries; but that was no reason why all Ireland should be denied the privilege of forming Volunteer Corps; but he thought it would be a good arrangement, if the districts in which these disturbances had occurred, were denied this privilege until they could show themselves worthy of it. He would now look at the case of a foreign State. In the year 1849, the same system was practised towards the ancient Kingdom of Hungary as was applied to Ireland in 1796–1797. The Hungarians took up arms, and the result of the struggle was that, when peace was established, the Hungarian corps were disbanded. Everybody who studied the question would know that those regiments were, by the very nature of things, more or less dissatisfied with the denial of their ancient right to serve with the National Forces, and the Austrian Government afterwards saw the necessity of restoring more or less nationality to Hungary. With what effect? At this moment, Hungary, which a few years ago was treated so contemptuously by the Austrian Government, was the bulwark of the Empire, and the power of all others looked to as a defence against Russia; and he ventured to think that if His Majesty's Forces were actually called into the field, it would not be thought that the security of the Army would be lessened by its having Hungarian regiments on its side. Again, in the case of Norway and Sweden—the Norwegian law allowed the levy of a National Militia in the country, and, by the very fact of their being trusted, the Norwegians have always stood by Sweden honestly 1454 and faithfully. In the event of these two countries being menaced by any foreign Power, Norway could not be looked upon as the weak point of the Swedish-Norwegian Monarchy, neither could Hungary be so regarded with reference to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Ireland, however, must be considered as the weak point of the three Kingdoms, generally known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Every enemy of England must be aware that the mistrust engendered by the denial to Irishmen of the rights enjoyed by the English and Scotch people must recoil upon this country. He believed a movement had been set on foot quite recently, with the object of endeavouring to raise a Volunteer Force in Ireland on a footing different to that which existed in England, and he understood this movement to be so far advanced that the promoters were in a position to communicate with the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who had consented to receive next day a, deputation on the subject. He thought it right to state that in his opinion the basis of this movement was a false one, because the gentlemen who were promoting it asked for the enrolment of Volunteers on a much narrower basis than that which existed in England. The promoters were quite content that no man should be allowed to join the Volunteer Service throughout Ireland without the strictest investigation being made into his character, and at the same time they were willing that obstacles of every kind should be put in the way of the Volunteer. The rule was different in England, where anyone who was ready to do his duty simply came forward, and after satisfying the officers that he was a fit and proper man, was admitted without any regard being paid to his religious opinions. In England it was in the interest of the officers to keep a man who was worthy of the Corps; but in Ireland the system, put forward by the gentlemen to whom he had referred, would be but a system of national espionage, and would lead to evils greater than it was intended to remedy; and would, moreover, practically result in arming the Orangemen of the North to the exclusion of the rest of the population. In his opinion, a system which provided for the arming of a section only of the Irish people would be much worse than the 1455 present system, of disarming the whole population. It was his duty to state that he felt as strongly upon this question of voting money on the part of his countrymen towards the maintenance of English and Scotch Volunteer Corps as if it were a question of education. He objected to the voting of any money for the English Volunteer Service until he heard from the Secretary of State for War, who was best entitled to speak on the subject, a full and satisfactory explanation of the reason why the system was not extended to Ireland. The only satisfactory solution of the question would be to establish in Ireland Volunteer Corps on exactly the same basis as those in England, and with no other restrictions or conditions in reference to their members. He would now move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £485,280.
§ MR. O'CLERYsaid, that was his proposition. The reason he did not move to reduce the Vote by £80,000, the amount Ireland contributed, was that that reduction would be distributed over England and Scotland as well as Ireland, and therefore the latter country would still contribute towards the Volunteer charges of England and Scotland.
THE CHAIRMANThe Vote is for £485,300, and I understand the hon. Member proposes to reduce it by £485,280, which will leave the Vote at £20.
§ MR. O'CLERYsaid, that was his proposal.
THE CHAIRMANThe practice of the Committee in such cases is to move to reject the whole Vote, there being no object or reason for leaving £20 to be voted.
§ MR. O'CLERYsaid, he would have moved the rejection of the Vote; but he understood an hon. Member wished to propose its reduction by the amount in excess of last year's charge. He asked the opinion of the Chairman whether his moving the rejection of the whole Vote would prevent any other hon. Member moving its reduction?
THE CHAIRMANAny hon. Member would be in Order in proposing the reduction of the Vote, and the proposition for reduction would be taken first.
THE CHAIRMANThe course which the hon. Member proposes to take is contrary to the practice of the Committee. The reduction he mentions is tantamount to the rejection of the whole Vote. The order of Business is either to put the rejection of the whole Vote, if it is moved, or such reduction as can reasonably be distinguished from the whole Vote.
§ MR. O'CLERYsaid, in that case he would move the rejection of the Vote.
§ MR. PARNELLasked, whether it was not competent for an hon. Member to move the reduction of a Vote by any sum he thought right?
THE CHAIRMANThe practice which has prevailed has been to move to reduce a Vote by a reasonable amount. But it is impossible to draw a distinction between such an Amendment as the hon. Member proposes to submit and the rejection of the whole Vote; and it is, therefore, my duty to put the Question on the whole Vote.
§ MR. HAYTERasked the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, whether it was his intention to make public the Report of the Departmental Committee now sitting at the War Office, considering the whole question of the Volunteer Force? All commanding officers of Volunteer regiments had had a series of questions submitted to them by that Committee, and replies had been forwarded. Of course, those answers would be laid before the Departmental Committee, and he should be glad to know if the Government would make their Report public? There was one decrease in the Volunteer Estimates which could hardly be regarded as satisfactory—he meant the reduction in the allowance for Volunteer officers attending Schools of Instruction. Last year, £1,300 was granted for the purpose; this year, only £1,000 was asked for. He hoped this did not indicate a falling-off of the desire on the part of Volunteer officers to attend such schools, the instruction at which was of so much value, and attendance at which should be encouraged as much as possible. There was a question raised by the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Worcestershire (Mr. Knight) at the early part of the Session, which he regarded as being of considerable importance—he referred to the retiring allowances to adjutants appointed 1457 previous to the present arrangements, whereby captains of the Line were appointed for five years as adjutants of Volunteer regiments. Lord Cranbrook, when questioned on the subject, said he could not entertain the idea of reviewing the decision arrived at, which was that adjutants appointed previous to the present arrangement should not have more than £ 100 a-year retiring pension, and the honorary rank of major. The Secretary of State for War must be aware that these old officers, who had served their country for lengthened periods, now had £275 a-year, with allowances for lodgings and forage, and if they were not to receive retiring allowances which they considered adequate to the services they had performed, it would be impossible to get rid of them, although they might, by old age, become somewhat incapable. Speaking from personal intercourse with Volunteer adjutants, he could say they considered they were suffering under a very serious grievance, and he considered if they were to be got rid of, the process should be carried out with something like liberality. The argument of Lord Cranbrook, that nothing more could be given these officers, as they took the positions on the terms now set forth, would not hold good; because, as the Secretary of State for War well knew, the officers who entered the Army under the Purchase-system had no claim whatever to compensation on the abolition of Purchase, and yet they were paid the over-regulation money. Hence, he hoped the old adjutants would be treated properly by the Government.
§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTdid not find fault with the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. O'Clery) for having brought forward the question of Volunteer Corps for Ireland. But had the hon. Gentleman confined himself to that matter, he would have done much more good for the cause he advocated. Instead of that, however, he had gone out of his way to accuse English recruits of cowardice, and had said that they had behaved badly in the face of the enemy at the Redan.
§ MR. O'CLERYdesired to explain. The hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure) had stated that at the Redan the English recruits had to be kept at their posts by Irishmen.
§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTwas sure no one would be more surprised than his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure) to hear the statement of the hon. Member for Wexford. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had never said the soldiers he was alluding to were Englishmen, Scotchmen, or Irishmen. He might have said they were recruits. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) was quite sure his hon. and gallant Friend had never made such a statement. The hon. Member for Wexford had spoken of a distinction drawn between Irishmen, Scotchmen, and Englishmen. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) was an old soldier, and he was proud to say that in the Army they never made such a distinction, and they were glad to have men from either country in the ranks. It was the last thing in the world that officers would do to draw an invidious comparison between the men from either England, Scotland, or Ireland. Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen, had in the past, and, he was sure, would in the future, serve their country to the best of their ability; and he considered it a most mischievous thing for any hon. Member, be he Irishman, Scotchman, or Englishman, to get up in that House and try to detract from the merits of those who had fought and bled for their country wherever they had been called on to do so. Had the hon. Member for Wexford merely said there was a desire to form a Volunteer Corps in Ireland, and had he asked the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to calmly consider the question, he might have done some service to his country. But the Committee could not forget what was said by hon. Gentlemen who sat on the Benches nearest the hon. Member for Wexford, as to what would happen if Irishmen were called upon to fight. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) was surprised that any man, calling himself what he might, a Nationalist or Home Ruler, should say, that if called on to fight in the interests of the British nation, Irishmen would refuse to defend their Queen and country. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) never believed such a statement; but, still, he could not conceal from himself the fact that the hon. Member for Wexford, when he claimed the right for all Irishmen to carry arms, forgot the statement of 1459 those around him, that they were not to be trusted with arms in the service of their country. He only wished the hon. Member for Wexford had shown that Irishmen, if trusted with arms, would use them as loyally, gallantly, and honestly, as any other men in the United Kingdom. The hon. Member for Wexford had said that, as far as the Volunteer Forces of England and Scotland was concerned, he did not for a moment wish to interfere with the Vote, and yet he moved its absolute rejection. If that was Irish logic, it certainly was not English. Instead of acting in that way, the hon. Member should produce such reasons and such arguments to the House as would induce the Government to establish Volunteer Corps in Ireland, and he would then find the House of Commons as ready to grant money to Ireland as to England or Scotland. The hon. and gallant Member for Bath (Mr. Hayter) had stated there was a Committee now sitting to inquire into the constitution of the Volunteer Force generally. He hoped the result of the deliberations would be to enable his right hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary of State for War to produce a scheme which would have for its object the placing of the Volunteer Corps on an even better footing than at present. Everyone who had watched the Volunteer movement from the commencement must see that that part of the defensive Force of the country was in a very different position now compared with the time it was inaugurated. A great deal had been learned by the Volunteers; their discipline had very much improved; and many battalions had adopted the important point of going into camp annually. This going into camp cost a great deal of money; and, as an illustration, he would take the case of his own battalion. They went into camp every year in Arundel Park, and he was bound to say that one of his captains, the premier Duke stayed in the camp from its formation to the close of the training, and did all in his power to promote the interest of the battalion. But it cost the battalion, over and above what they were allowed by the War Office, something like £560 in hard cash during the time his 600 or 700 men were under canvas. This sum was made up by the extra things they had to provide—such as water, wash-houses, lattrines, extra 1460 tents, and mess tents. This large sum of money was a heavy charge on the officers who went into camp. Seeing that so many Volunteers were willing to go into camp for eight days with a view to learning that which would be of advantage to them if ever called upon to defend their country, he contended that every encouragement ought to be given them, and such sum of money voted as would do away with the heavy tax now regularly placed upon those who spent eight days under canvas. No one could deny that if men could be got into camp, and taught all that men in the Regular Army had to do under such conditions, they would learn more in eight days than they would by four times the number of drills carried on at different parts of the year. He especially hoped the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would consider the question of administrative battalions. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) was quite satisfied that administrative battalions, as such, ought to be abolished, and all battalions consolidated. Then a commanding officer would have more power, greater uniformity would be carried out, and discipline better enforced. It was apparent that a battalion would be far better if commanded absolutely by one man than when made up of corps with several commanding officers. Another question, to which he wished to direct attention required careful consideration, and that was whether Volunteers ought or ought not to be enrolled for a longer period than at present. All sorts of terms had been suggested, and three years, he was told, had been specially considered. But whatever term might be agreed upon, he believed it would be a great advantage to the Volunteer Corps if men were enrolled for a longer time than now. Although he was aware his noble Friend the Member for Hadding-tonshire (Lord Elcho) did not quite agree with him on that point, still he thought it was one which should be fairly considered. As a matter of course, if a term of service was agreed upon, men leaving one locality would be entitled to transfer their services to the regiment in the place they had removed to. He hoped this subject would be brought under the attention of the Departmental Committee which was now sitting. A question, of small importance it might be, also deserved consideration—he referred to the 1461 clothing of Volunteers. Without saying whether it ought to be changed or not, one thing was quite clear—that the Volunteers ought to have the same kind of uniform and accoutrements, and as to the belts which should be supplied them, he considered those made of brown leather would be the best, they being very durable, besides which they would distinguish Volunteers from other soldiers. He was sure he need not press on the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who so worthily filled the Office of Secretary of State for War the importance of seeing all the points to which he had referred fairly and deliberately looked into, and every information and advice given to the Departmental Committee, so that they might consider what was best to be done in the interests of a Force which the country thoroughly appreciated. He also hoped his right hon. and gallant Friend would consider the cases of the Volunteer adjutants. The country would be put to very little expense if they were offered the same terms as were proposed to the Militia adjutants in 1875. Those who would not accept such an arrangement must, of course, go on as at present; but there were some who would embrace the offer, and thus the feeling that they had been hardly dealt with would be dissipated, and the country would have a body of contented servants who really had done a great deal for the Volunteer Force.
§ MR. O'CLERYdesired to say a few words in reply to the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just sat down (Sir Walter B. Barttelot). The hon. Member had said that until he (Mr. O'Clery) could show that Irishmen, if intrusted with arms, would do their duty faithfully and manfully, his desire to establish a Volunteer Corps for Ireland could not be agreed to. He had met that argument by showing that wherever Irishmen were intrusted with arms, not only in Line regiments, but in the Militia, whose ranks were recruited from a lower strata than Volunteers would come from, they had done their duty. In order to give force to his argument, he mentioned the case of the Redan, and although he regretted very much to allude to acts of cowardice, he referred to the remarks made by the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure), when drawing 1462 attention to the class of recruits being taken into the Army. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had regretted that the Irish peasants and Scottish Highlanders were not now joining the Army. The hon. and gallant Member had also said, referring to the disaster at the Redan, that the men who acted the cowards' part were taken from the slums of large towns in England, and men's work could net be expected of them. Irishmen living in large towns in England had quite a different physique, and, that being so, he thought he had fairly made out his argument in favour of Irishmen being allowed to carry arms and form a Volunteer Corps.
§ MR. DODSONasked, if it were the intention of the War Office to arm the Volunteers with Martini-Henry rifles?
§ LORD ELCHOsaid, he was sure the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. O'Clery) had mistaken the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (ColonelMure) in reference to the disaster at the Redan, and he hoped no military question would be brought forward in such a way again. He trusted the Secretary of State for War would endeavour to have the Volunteers armed with the Martini-Henry rifle. The late war had shown how effective a weapon it was, and how inferior any other arms were. The Russians had found this disadvantage around Plevna, and he was sure the Secretary of State for War would not wish English troops to be similarly situated. The hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) had said a great deal about the discipline of Volunteers being very much improved of late. He (Lord Elcho) had before now doubted whether the adverse criticisms on Volunteer discipline were deserved. It had suited a certain portion of the Press of this country to adversely criticize the Volunteer discipline in former times and to allege that the Corps was unnecessary. Now it suited these newspapers to say the Volunteers were necessary. He had been connected with the Volunteer movement since 1859, and he did not believe the men were ever undisciplined. At any rate, he was certain of this, the commanding officers had the power to maintain discipline, and if that did not prevail it was the fault of the commanding officers and them only. The hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex hoped the question of terms of 1463 service would come before the Departmental Committee. He (Lord Elcho) had a strong feeling on the whole question, and, seeing that the Volunteer Corps had grown so steadily in numbers and efficiency, he thought they had better observe the old principle of letting well alone. The same idea was contained in the epitaph—"I was well, I would be better—here I lie," while Lord Melbourne put it still more tersely, when he said—"Damn it, why can't you leave it alone." He hoped these sayings would be in the minds of the Committee in dealing with this matter, and that they would remember that the Volunteer Force was not intended to be a Force ready at once to take the field, but was intended to make this nation an armed nation. The Volunteer Force did not pretend to be in a state of complete efficiency as regarded training; but it rested on the assumption that, existing as it did in large numbers, it would be ready to meet the enemy if it had that sufficient warning which they all anticipated would precede an invasion—a warning which would enable it to be embodied, and to receive that additional training which would be necessary to enable it effectively to meet the enemy. He warned the Committee against endeavouring to draw too closely the bonds by which this Force was held together. Its term of service was 14 days. The men came up of their own free will; they received no pay; they did their duty efficiently and well according to the requirements of the Service; and they were free to go on giving 14 days' notice. The success of the Service depended on that freedom of service, and no greater mistake could be made by those in authority than attempting to make this service more stringent, and to get a greater hold over the Volunteer Force. If that were done, he believed they would run the danger of losing the Force altogether. That danger had taken another form of late. The advice of Talleyrand to his young diplomatists would apply equally well to young Volunteer officers. A great many men had joined lately who had come from the Army, and seeing the defects of the Force, and noticing that it was not quite under command, they were very full of zeal to make it as complete as possible, and bring it up to the level of their own ideas. To these gentlemen, to the Committee, and to the Government, he would 1464 say, with Talleyrand—"Surtout, point de zèle." Too much zeal would lose them the Force altogether, and in no form was it more to be avoided than in the question of what was called volunteering for active service. He knew that the late Secretary of State for War did not look upon the proposal with favour, from communications he had had with him, though he did not think it advisable to say that the services of these Volunteers would not be accepted, because it would damp the zeal of the men in the Force. Even supposing they had a certain number of men, neither in the Army nor in the Militia, their number must be necessarily comparatively few, and as an addition to the Army they must be comparatively worthless and trifling; but, on the other hand, there would be a danger that the Force, instead of being as now, numbered by hundreds of thousands—for upwards of 600,000 had passed through their ranks, besides the 182,000 now serving—would be numbered by tens of thousands on that account. At present, men entered who could not afford to enter the Regular Army, who did not expect to go on foreign service, but who were willing to give their time and service for the defence of their hearths and homes. But, if it were to be supposed that no man was to be considered a zealous Volunteer, and a loyal subject of the Crown who did not enter for foreign service, if there were to be two classes—the men who go abroad and the men who stayed at home—then the latter class would certainly become a reproach; they would be chaffed and sneered at by the others, and this would eventually break up the Corps. He could not conceive a greater error than to encourage this movement. He did not wish to enter into the question of Committees at the War Office; but knowing that this Committee was now sitting, having had to answer a great many questions about it, and as he would probably have to appear before it, he had ventured to speak freely on this subject, in the interest of that Force whose value in these times of danger the public were beginning to appreciate. What would have been the condition of the country now, with the Militia in the state of which they had heard to-night, if there had been no Volunteer Service. They would certainly have had to ballot for men. He trusted that the House and the country, 1465 appreciating the value of this Force, would be content to leave it alone, only giving those things necessary, besides an equipment, for allowing it to go into camp, which most of the regiments were unable to get out of their capitation.
§ MR. H. SAMUELSONalso wished to press the Secretary of State for War to make some allowance for small regimental camps of instruction. He had heard complaints in his constituency of the expenses the men—mostly poor men—were put to in these camps, and he knew it was a very great pressure upon both officers and men. In some corps they actually charged gate-money for admission into the camp, in order to eke out the very small allowance they received. The admittance of a crowd of spectators must necessarily interfere with the drill and efficiency of the men, and he thought it should be discouraged. It was not every corps which was so lucky as to be commanded by the hon. and gallant Baronet opposite (Sir Walter B. Barttelot), who had a Duke for one of his captains, and Arundel Park in which to camp out. Some of the corps, on the contrary, had to pay for the hire of the land on which they camped. Englishmen had a national privilege of grumbling; but none were less ready to grumble than Volunteers, and they were always ready to give up their time, which was often their money. If the Secretary of State for War could do anything for them, he would earn the gratitude of a body of men whose gratitude was certainly worth having. At the present moment, especially, the Government ought to feel kindly towards the Volunteers, for if they had not been in existence they certainly could not have carried out their policy on the Eastern Question.
§ MR. DILLWYNdid not wish the debate to close without enforcing, as strongly as he could, the remarks of his noble Friend the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho). He did not know what the Committee, of which so much had been said, would do; but he feared that its tendency was to increase the stringency of the discipline of the Volunteers, and he felt that there was very great danger in that. If the Force were worth having at all, it should be worked as it was at present. He had taken an active part in the Volunteer 1466 movement since 1859, as the commander of a corps, and he had always succeeded in maintaining and enforcing the rules with the present system. In his opinion, the power they at present possessed was quite enough, and it would be very unwise and dangerous to strain the conditions under which Volunteers enlisted, and to make the discipline more stringent. Further, he thought it would create an unwillingness to serve on the part of men who had already passed through the ranks. He hoped what had been said would have some weight with the Secretary of State for War, more especially as he had heard it said that the Committee was likely to report adversely to his view.
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, the debate had been turned aside a little from the point raised by the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. O'Clery), and Irish Members could not join in a discussion of the details of the Volunteer Force, because they were not allowed to have Volunteers in Ireland. He was glad his hon. Friend the Member for Wexford had brought this subject forward, and he considered it was a reproach to Irish Members that the subject had not been discussed before. They tried to do so, however, last year, when they could not get a day; and, even now, he was sorry it was not brought forward as a Bill or a Resolution, instead of in the form of a protest against Englishmen having Volunteers. However, this was the only course left open to them, although he fully recognized the great value of the English and Scotch Volunteers, and believed they got full return for the money they spent on them. But Ireland did not get full value for her share of the money; and, therefore, he could not support this Vote, which was in reality a reproach to Ireland. The hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) said that Ireland must show that she was good and faithful before she could be trusted with arms. How splendidly that argument would have come from a Turkish Pasha to some Christians, who asked for arms to defend themselves. But the Irish were worse off than the Christians of Turkey, for they were not allowed, even though they were Protestants, to enter the Army until the Irishmen who fought for France altered the views of Englishmen. Was it in accordance with Irish self-respect 1467 to insist on this difference? Of course, they would be out-voted, and they would get a very bad vote, because many Irish Members had not yet returned; but they would get a better vote next year if the Ministry did not give way. Why should not this boon be granted to them? The Government would get 30,000 or 40,000 more Volunteers; and it was impossible to say there could be any danger, unless they believed the statement which his hon. Friend had quoted from the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure), and which he did not accept, that the Irish troops were so very much better than the English. He believed the Volunteer movement was an exceedingly useful one; but he was compelled, entirely against his professional prejudices, to go into the Lobby for this reduction, because he believed the refusal of Volunteer Corps to Ireland was a very great wrong.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he understood the hon. Member to move the reduction of the Vote as a protest, and not as a serious objection to the Volunteer Force; and, therefore, he did not think it necessary to follow him through all his speech, though he might point out that the Hungarian Honveds were Militia rather than Volunteers. Nor would he follow him in his remarks about Irish gallantry and the smartness of Irish regiments, because all that he took to be admitted on both sides of the House. On the question of Volunteers for Ireland, he hoped he might be excused if he spoke with considerable reserve. He had not long had the War Office under his control, and he therefore spoke on this matter rather from a military than from a general point of view. He was bound in all candour to say, from a military point of view, and leaving all other considerations aside, that he had never been able entirely to see a reason why some step should not be taken in the direction which the hon. Gentleman indicated. He was saying that as his personal opinion, based on military grounds alone; but the question must be dealt with not as a matter of sentiment, but as a matter of business, and points must be considered, which he had then neither the time nor the ability to discuss. The events of the last few months had left very little time for matters other than those of immediate 1468 importance to the State, and he had not had time for consultation with his Colleagues upon the matter, and therefore he did not feel justified in expressing anything more than his individual view. It must be considered, too, that in the formation of any new Force, there were many local considerations to be dealt with, which would render the establishment of any such Force liable to be conducted under very different arrangements from that under which the Volunteers at present were. The locality of the mode of concentration had to be regarded from a military point of view. If the Corps were to be re-formed in England a great many points would have to be re-considered, and if Corps were formed in Ireland, he did not say that matters could be arranged precisely upon the same lines as in this country. In all these matters, too, he thought Party feeling and Party distinctions should be laid aside, and the Volunteer should only remember that he was the servant of the Crown and the country. As to what had been said in the discussion, it was far from the fact that Volunteers were taken into these Corps without inquiry. In all regiments—certainly all good ones—a very careful inquiry was made into the character of every man, and in some Corps the candidate had even to be proposed and seconded as in a club. Therefore, the observation of his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) would apply to Irish Volunteers in the same way that it did to English and Scotch. Of course, he could not accept the Amendment; and, after this expression of his personal views, he might perhaps be permitted to pass to other questions. He saw no reason why the Report of the Committee now sitting should not be made public. If these things were to stand at all, they must stand ventilation, and, so far as he was concerned, he had no desire whatever to withhold any information. With regard to the question of the adjutants, that was now under consideration before that very Committee, and he did not therefore wish to express any opinion on it, further than that he was bound, in honour and allegiance to his Predecessor and late Superior, to say that in the refusal which he had given year after year upon the question he had been fully borne out by the facts. With regard to the question raised by the hon. and gallant 1469 Member for Bath (Mr. Hayter) as to the adjutants, he believed that some representations had been made to the War Office; and he had authority for saying that if the hon. and gallant Member wished to bring the matter before the Committee, he would have ample opportunity for doing so, and that the Committee would be very much obliged for any information he could give them. He was sorry to be obliged to give an indefinite answer upon the point; but, pendente lite, he did not like to express even an individual opinion. As regarded camp allowances, that had become one of the most prominent questions connected with volunteering; but he had to ask Volunteer officers and others who heard him to bear in mind that there was a very wide difference between a necessary expenditure, and the actual amount of which Volunteer officers and others camping out were out of pocket. He only mentioned that in order that there should be no possible room for misapprehension. Well, then, with respect to the clothing and discipline, he was not at the moment in a position to know what recommendations the Committee were likely to make. All he could say was that his hon. Friend had an inkling of what was going on in the Committee, and knew what their Report was likely to be—in fact, a great deal more than he (Colonel Stanley) himself, or even any Member of the Commitee.
§ LORD ELCHOsaid, that what he wanted to know was not the tendency of the Report, but of the Inquiry.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that what he had seen had led him to the conclusion that the inquiry was of as general a character as possible, though undoubtedly there might be certain questions which would be matters of argument, and if stress had been laid upon certain of the questions which were put, those questions had really been asked with the view of eliciting the widest possible range of information, and encouraging those officers to whom they had been addressed to answer them as fully as possible, and to give all the information which they possessed. With regard to the question as to the Martini-Henry rifle, he was sorry he could not give his right hon. Friend (Mr. Dodson), who had put the question, an answer which would be satisfactory to him. At the present time they did not deem it to be 1470 advisable to place in the hands of the Auxiliary Forces the arms which they had in store until the store, which was now being largely drawn upon, was very considerably developed. He did not, therefore, see his way to issuing those arms to Volunteers. At the same time, he need hardly say that they had the most earnest desire as soon as a legitimate opportunity might occur, to place that which they believed to be the best possible arm in the hands of the Auxiliary Forces as well as those of the Regulars. As regarded the accustoming of the Auxiliary Forces to the use of that arm, he believed it was the intention of his noble Friend to issue such a number of them—about 2,000–—as would suffice for a very efficient training of Volunteers at Wimbledon. He thought that he had now answered all the questions which had been put to him.
§ MR. PARNELLdid not wish to suggest to his hon. Friend the Member for Wexford (Mr. O'Clery) any course which he should take on the occasion; because, whether he took a division on the Vote or not, there had been so much attention given to it, that he thought that they, as Irish Members, ought to be satisfied with whatever course the hon. Member took. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had expressed his opinion on Irish Volunteers as an individual. He did not understand him to speak as a Minister, when expressing his opinion in favour of some extension of the principle of volunteering to Ireland; and so far, of course, his utterances had not had that authority which they could have wished them to have under the circumstances. But neither did those utterances come up to what they had a right to expect. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had said that Volunteers must exist under different conditions from those in England. He had said that a certificate of character would be necessary, and had also pointed out that a certificate of character was necessary for admission into English Volunteer regiments. But he very much feared that if the conditions—he would not say the conditions which he had named—but he very much feared that in any scheme for Volunteers in Ireland, conditions would be attached which would result in allowing only a section, and a very small section—in fact, the minority of the people—to join 1471 the Volunteer regiments. If the system of volunteering were to be used for the purpose of continuing partizanship and keeping up Party spirit; if it were to be confined to a certain section of the people of Ireland; and if certificates were not to be given to all Irishmen of good character, then, he said, that they, as Irish Members, ought not to accept such an offer; and therefore it was that he looted with considerable doubt at the utterances of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War. But he had been sorry to see the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex reply with so much heat to the very temperate speech of the hon. Member for Wexford. His hon. Friend had not intended to impute any want of courage to the English soldiers when he said that the English recruits had behaved badly during the Crimean War. It was a common saying amongst soldiers that when an English Army went into action the Irish regiments went first to break the line, the Scotch regiments came next to take the prisoners, and that the English regiments came last to secure the booty—a very good operation, which had resulted in the English gaining so much more wealth than the Irish or the Scotch. But why should England deny to Ireland that which she herself possessed? She had Volunteers herself, and she refused them to Ireland. If there were to be a war the next day—and he was glad to remind the Committee that the origin of raising Volunteers was the necessity of defending Ireland from the French—while they denied to Ireland the privilege of defending herself, they insisted upon her paying them for the purpose of defending themselves. How long were they going on like that? How long were they going to give it out to foreign nations that they had a disaffected people in their midst? He had merely suggested these considerations to the Secretary of State for War, as he understood that a proposition was going to be made with reference to the formation of Volunteer Corps in Ireland, and he hoped that if it were acceded to those corps might be formed in such a way as to please and satisfy all sections and all classes in Ireland.
§ GENERAL SHUTEsaid, he had often heard complaints with regard to the numerous speeches they heard, that 1472 there had been generally a great want of the Irish wit that was so much talked about, and of which he had seen so much; but with reference to the assertion which had just been made by the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) as to what sort of feeling existed in the Army, he must say that it had astonished him. Both the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for West Sussex and himself had been in the Union Brigade of Cavalry, and he could therefore bear him out when he assured the hon. Member opposite that no such feeling ever existed in the English Army. English, Scotch, and Irish, had always fought together like true Britons whenever there was a chance, and always would. With regard to the Volunteer question, he had always taken an interest in the movement. He had been in Ireland for 12 years, and he would honestly state that there would be a great difficulty in finding in Ireland a class of men similar to that from which they drew their Volunteers in England. He did not believe that that especial class actually existed in Ireland. With regard to character, good character as to loyalty and respect for law and order was essential, not only for men but for officers; and he confessed in the present state of affairs he did not think that Irish Members who took an interest in Ireland would honestly and truly advocate at the present moment the formation of a Volunteer Force in Ireland.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, that the hon. and gallant Member for Brighton (General Shute) had raised the point that they could not produce in Ireland the same class as that from which the Volunteers were taken in England. Now, he had heard it stated that the English Volunteers were shopmen with soldiers' coats on. But they in Ireland could produce a better class than that—namely, farmers' sons, and in that point he thought they could fairly compete with the English Volunteers as they existed. Now, upon the question of Irish Volunteers several points had been raised, and one was the form in which the Amendment had been put before the Committee. Now, they all knew it was not competent for a private Member to move to increase the Vote. Of course, if it had been so, the proper way would have been to move to increase the number of Volunteers in Ireland to that in England 1473 but, as matters stood, the only way was to vote against the sum altogether. Now his hon. Friend had decided upon the system of moving to reject the Vote altogether, and in that he thought he was perfectly right. On the question of Volunteers for England, Scotland, and Ireland, he thought the Irish had suffered great injustice; because, after all, the system of volunteering really meant that gentlemen were only playing at soldiers, because it was never intended that they should fight except in a contingency, which they did not expect to see in their life-time—namely, the invasion of England. Now, if they were only to put on soldiers' clothes and do nothing else, he thought that £485,000 was so much money thrown away. But if it had been understood that a large proportion of these Volunteers would volunteer for active service, he thought there would then be some practical argument in favour of the system of English volunteering, and from that point of view he thought the Irish were very hardly treated. For these reasons, he felt thoroughly justified in moving to reject the whole of the Vote; because, unless these men were intended for soldiers, he did not know what they were intended for.
§ MR. O'CLERYsaid, he must admit that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had spoken as a soldier, and not as a Member of the Government; and, therefore, there had practically been no answer to the desirability of forming Volunteer Corps in Ireland. He supposed it was only right to say there that they all felt that England really feared to in-trust Irish people with arms. They had deprived Ireland of its own Parliament; but when it had its own Parliament it was able to maintain 100,000 Volunteers. Now they had endeavoured to govern the country themselves, and the result was that they were not able to intrust the Irish people with arms. He thought that was a very dangerous state of things as regarded foreign countries. It was not nice year after year to have coercion laws passed nominally against crime in Ireland, but really to perpetuate English rule and to keep the people from their natural military tastes. He had brought that Motion on as a protest, and he did not think he should be giving sufficient emphasis to the protest if he did not divide; and he at the same 1474 time hoped that he should find an opportunity of bringing the question on in the form of a Motion, when he and his Colleagues would be prepared to bear testimony to the right of the Irish people to carry arms.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 126; Noes 7: Majority 119.—(Div. List, No. 171.)
§ Original Question put, and agreed to.
§
(5.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £185,500, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge for the Pay, Allowances, &c. of a number of Army Reserve First Class, not exceeding 19,000, and of the Army Reserve Second Class, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1879.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he wished to direct the attention of the Secretary of State for War to this Vote. It appeared to him that the Estimate of this Vote rather came in the same category as some of those other Votes to which he had directed the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's attention. He found that there was no sort of proportion to be observed during a series of years between the actual expenditure and the Estimate of expenditure, and he could not at all see why that should be so. For instance, he found that in 1875–6, the number of men estimated for the First Class Reserve was 10,000, and the estimated expenditure was £121,000, but only £99,000 was spent. In 1876–7, there was the same number of men estimated, and the total estimated expenditure was £ 122,000. In that year, again, only £94,000 was spent. Then, in the year 1877–8, the number of men estimated was 15,000, and the expenditure estimated and taken was£132,000; but there were no Returns with respect to that sum. This year, the number of men estimated was 19,000, and £185,000 was estimated for the expenses of those men. It appeared to him, in view of the fact that the Army Reserve had been called out now for some time, and that in all probability it would remain out for some time longer, and that, consequently, the charge for the Army Reserve was not now, and would not be, in this Vote while it was called out, that a very much less sum of money than £185,000 would be sufficient to 1475 cover the expenditure. In no year during the years he had mentioned had the War Office spent nearly the amount of money that had been voted. In 1875 the expenditure was £22,000 short of the sum voted, and in 1876 it was £28,000. He really did not see why these exaggerated Estimates should be necessary. He would suggest to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that the sum of £185,000, for which he asked, was entirely too much. Looking at the figures which he had quoted, he could not see how the expenditure could possibly exceed much more than, say, the amount of £90,000 or £95,000. Therefore, he begged to reduce the Vote by the sum of £90,000.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £95,500, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge for the Pay, Allowances, &c. of a number of Army Reserve First Class, not exceeding 19,000, and of the Army Reserve Second Class, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1879."—(Mr. Parnell.)
§ COLONEL ALEXANDERremarked, that there was one subject in connection with this Vote which he should like to bring to the notice of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. He would ask him to consider the propriety of instituting a periodical medical examination of the men of the First Class Army Reserve when not serving with the colours, and he would shortly state the reason why he made this request. When lately these men responded, as had been stated that evening, with great alacrity and patriotism, to the call which their country made upon them, a certain proportion, though not a very large proportion, of the men were found to be medically unfit for service, and this had caused considerable inconvenience and expense to the public. But what was much worse was, that he believed that several of the men who were pronounced as medically unfit for military service had been obliged to abandon lucrative civil employment. He thought that if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would take into consideration the question of instituting periodically such an examination as he had suggested when the men were not serving with the colours, the inconvenience and also the hardship which he had pointed out might be obviated.
§ MAJOR NOLANdesired, before the Secretary of State for War rose to reply, to make a suggestion to him with respect to the wives and children of the men of the Reserves who had been called out. It must be obvious to everyone that the allowance which was at present given to the former was wholly inadequate. He had received several letters on the subject. Out of the 3s. 6d. a-week which the wife of a Reserve man now received, she would have to pay 2s. or 2s. 6d. for lodgings, so that there would be 1s. left to provide clothes and food. No doubt some of the women were able to earn money for themselves; but a great many others, owing to various reasons, would not be able so to do, while nearly all the children left behind were of a helpless age. As a rule, the men would have only married after leaving the Army; they would, therefore, have been married, probably, for five or six years, and thus all the children would be of so tender an age as not to be capable of affording any assistance to their mothers. Moreover, if a soldier were ever so careful, he could not save more than 4d. or 5d. a-day, and he believed that generally it would be found that he saved much less. Indeed, it had been admitted in that House that the soldier could only save 3d. When the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) brought forward the question of making soldiers contribute to the support of their wives whom they had deserted, or of their illegitimate children, the late Secretary of State for War maintained—and so, also, did many others on the same side—that 3d. a-day was the most which a soldier could spare to his wife. Therefore, the most a soldier could be reckoned on to spare to his wife would be 1s. 9d. a-week, and that, with the 3s. 6d., was a totally inadequate allowance. He thought the Government ought to do something to mitigate the distress that was at present being caused by the Reserves having been called out. He put a Question the other day to the Under Secretary of State for India, in order to show how differently this matter was treated in that country. The reason for this different treatment was, that there the ordinary conditions of service often necessitated separation between the soldiers and their wives and children, and it was customary to fix a certain monthly allowance. That allowance represented 1477 nearly 6d. a-day to the wife, with a further allowance for the children; but, in addition, they got free quarters and half-rations. They saw, therefore, that where it was the custom to separate wives from their husbands, adequate provision was made for the former. But there the Reserve Forces were an entirely new institution. See what Continental nations had done. When, during the late war, they began to call out men—not only of the age of 20, but of seven, eight, and nine-and-twenty—they made sometimes elaborate distinctions. They first took the bachelors for the Army, leaving the married men at home; they next called out the married men who had no children; and then they took the men who had only one child. They in this country now saw the necessity for making these distinctions. For the first time they were brought face to face with the fact, that there was a large number of soldiers' wives for whom the nation ought to provide an adequate allowance. What could be more cruel than to send soldiers abroad to fight the battles of the country, and leave their wives at home to starve, or very nearly so? In some instances they were worse off than if they had no allowance at all, because the Unions actually made it a ground for refusing to do anything for them. He would remind the Committee that it was rather different with the Reserves in this respect than with the Army. It had never been the policy of the authorities to discourage marriage in the Reserve Forces. On the contrary, the policy had been, as regarded them, to interfere as little as possible with the ordinary population, laws of the Kingdom; and, therefore, when a national emergency arose, and the men were called out, it was somewhat hard and unfair that their wives and children should not be properly cared for.
§ LORD ELCHOsaid, it must be admitted that his hon. and gallant Friend who had just sat down had done his best to procure for the Reserve men and their families the best possible terms. He thought his hon. and gallant Friend had done wisely in this, because no money could, in his opinion, be better spent than that which was devoted to popularizing the Reserve Forces. The whole success of the movement in the future would depend upon the endeavour 1478 which was now made to give, as far as possible, satisfaction to these men and their families. There was one point in connection with the Reserve Force on which he should like to have some information from his right hon. and gallant Friend. When this subject was under discussion before, a question arose as to what would be the probable future strength of the Force, and the then Secretary of State for War, now Lord Cranbrook, said that an expectation had been raised which was not likely to be realized. He understood his noble Friend to have stated that in 1883 it was anticipated that the Reserve Force would amount to 80,000 men, but that he did not think it would number more than 40,000. Some hon. Members understood him to have said 60,000; and he was desirous that any figures which his right hon. and gallant Friend might have in his possession should be given to the Committee in order that they might be in a position to judge as to the probable future success of this Force.
§ COLONEL ARBUTHNOTsaid, he entirely agreed with the noble Lord as to the desirability of popularizing, in every possible way, the Reserve Force. His object in rising was, however, to say a word or two with respect to the subject of the question which he had put to the Secretary of State for War in the earlier part of the Sitting. He should say that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's answer was entirely satisfactory to him. It would be satisfactory, too, to the men of the Reserve to know that the just claims and expectations of those who had entered under certain conditions would be fulfilled to the letter. But the suggestion which he had made raised a point which, he was rather afraid from the tenour of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's answer, was likely to be overlooked. It was, that all the men who behaved themselves well while with the Colours, should be allowed to count their Reserve service towards good conduct pay as well as towards pension. It would only be possible for those men during their six years' service to obtain one more good conduct badge, so that it would only be a question of adding 1d. a-day to their pay, while it would operate as an inducement to men to join the Reserves, and to conduct themselves well while with the Colours during their first six years of service.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that before he proceeded to reply to the points which had been raised, it might be satisfactory to the Committee to know what had been the result of the organization of the Army Reserve Force. The strength of that Force on the 1st of April was 14,154 men. Of those, 13,677 had reported themselves for mobilization, leaving only 477 men who had failed to report themselves. But that was not all. Of those 477 absentees, 132 were accounted for in various ways, leaving only 345 bonâ fide absentees, or less than 2½ per cent on the whole. A good many of those had, however, since turned up, and were even now dropping in. He thought that after the gloomy forebodings which one heard some two years ago, it was only right to give all due credit to Viscount Cardwell, who had instituted the system of Army Reserves. It was a bold experiment; but the success which had attended it had fully justified the confidence of those who were responsible for proposing it. Of course, in connection with the calling out of the Reserves, various questions had arisen; and, undoubtedly, the case of the families of those men was one of considerable difficulty. But he must ask the Committee, in considering this question, to draw a distinction—and it was a very necessary one—between cases of hardship and cases of destitution; because many cases of reported destitution, when they came to be investigated, turned out to be cases of hardship rather than of actual want. Of the latter, there were very few instances, but there were, undoubtedly, some cases of hardship—as, for example, when a man was called out to serve who was in the receipt of good wages; and who, although he might be able to leave his wife a certain amount for her support, yet could not give her that assistance to which she had been accustomed. But, painful as such cases were, and much inconvenience as was thus created, it must be borne in mind by those who were anxious that liberal allowances should be made to the families of our Reserve men, that it should not be taken for granted that they would have to be made only for a period of one, or two, or three months, but that the necessity of continuing them for a considerably longer period would have to be taken into account. There was another point which he must also ask the Committee not to 1480 lose sight of. He regretted to have to use what might seem hard words; but if the allowances were unduly increased, a tendency would be likely to be encouraged, on the part of those who received them, to avoid seeking employment, or in any way endeavouring to support themselves. He was not speaking without book, for he knew some cases in which charitable funds had been expended in relieving the widows of men who had fallen in action, with the result that the mere fact of those women having been in the receipt of sums more than sufficient for their support had not conduced to either their social or moral improvement. He had, he might add, consulted his noble Friend (Lord Eustace Cecil) and his hon. and gallant Friend who sat near him (Colonel Loyd Lindsay) on the subject, and they had informed him that they had heard of no complaints of hardships officially from the persons actually concerned. There had been cases raised by individual members of Boards of Guardians, and he himself had had two instances of considerable inconvenience and hardship brought to his notice; but these were only isolated cases, by which the general principle involved was not affected. The scale of allowances to the wives and families of Reserve men had, he believed, been wisely and not expensively fixed in the first instance; but, as the Committee were already aware, directions had been issued from the War Office that payments should be made in advance, and another step had also been taken which, in his opinion, was a perfectly legitimate one, and which would have a considerable effect in giving indirect relief to those families. They had been placed on the same footing as the families of soldiers, and thereby had conferred upon their children the benefits of a free education where there were Army schools, there being a Warrant under which they obtained for those children the payment of the school fees. That would be a material assistance, and one which would, perhaps, meet the greatest change which had occurred since the Reserve men had entered into their present engagements with the Government. He did not wish to press the question of contract unduly; but it should not be forgotten that those men knew perfectly well what it was they would be entitled to receive, so that if they did not wish to take employment that was a matter 1481 for which the Government could not fairly be held to be responsible. He had been asked why a reduction had not been made in the Vote? That was a matter which he had considered; but he had not deemed it desirable that it should be reduced. There was, he hoped, at all events, a possibility that only a certain portion of the Army Reserve Vote would be required before the end of the financial year. But, whether that turned out to be so or not, in view of the possibility—he might almost say the certainty—of having to apply for another Vote for those men before they could serve with the Army, he did not think that any practical benefit was to be obtained from restoring money on the one hand, while an additional amount would have to be voted on the other. Considerations of general convenience had induced him to come to the conclusion that the Vote should be allowed to stand as it was originally proposed, and any money which might be left unexpended would, of course, be surrendered at the close of the financial year. He had been asked a question with regard to good-conduct pay, and he had to say, in reply, that prior to 1874 the men belonging to Section A of the Army Reserve were entitled to reckon all their previous service, both in the Army and the Reserve, towards good-conduct pay, as well as a pension. In February of that year, however, Viscount Cardwell came to the conclusion that there was no good reason why good-conduct pay should continue when the men were called out for service, and a Warrant was issued which cancelled the Memorandum which previously existed. Unfortunately, there was a printed Paper, on which the men were supposed to rely, promising the continuance of the advantages which they had enjoyed, and he need not say that a few days after they were called out attention was invited to the grievance of which he was speaking; and, acting on the principle that faith must be kept with them, a General Order had been issued, and further modifications were either about to be made, or were actually made at the present moment, in accordance with which the men in Section A would be able to reckon all their previous service in the Army as well as in the Reserve towards good-conduct pay. The men in Sections B and C would be allowed to reckon all 1482 their previous service in the Army, together with their service in the Army Reserve, towards good-conduct pay and pension. By that means good faith would be kept with the men, and the justice of the case would, he believed, be substantially met. He had been asked if he could furnish the Committee with any data to show why the number of the Army Reserve did not come up to that which was originally expected? He was afraid he did not possess any such data in a form in which they could be laid on the Table of the House; but those which had been left him by his noble Friend and Predecessor went to show that, in the first instance, sufficient allowance had not been made for desertions, for the fact that the system of short service tended a good deal in that direction, or for the number of men who purchased their discharge. These were the causes which had been in operation, and, so far as he could gather, the result would be that the number of the Reserve should be fixed at 60,000 instead of 80,000, which was the number originally stated. He gave that calculation for what it was worth; but it would, he believed, be found to be substantially correct.
§ COLONEL ALEXANDERreminded the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, that he had forgotten to answer his question with reference to the medical examinations.
§ COLONEL STANLEYbelieved that measures would shortly be taken to make the medical examination periodical, as well as more stringent. Every attention would be paid to that point.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he had not asked why the Vote had not been reduced, but why it had been very largely increased? At present the Reserves were on another Vote, and he felt perfectly convinced that not more than £100,000 need be spent upon the Army Reserve, although the Committee were called upon to vote a sum of £185,000. Under these circumstances, he must press for the reduction of the Vote.
§ Question put, and negatived.
§ Original Question put, and agreed to.
§ House resumed.
§ Resolutions to be reported To-morrow, at Two of the clock;
§ Committee to sit again To-morrow.