COMMITTEE. [Progress 8th May.]

HC Deb 10 June 1879 vol 246 cc1563-604

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Punishments.

Clause 44 (Scale of punishments by court martial).

SIR ALEXANDER GORDON

said, the object of the Amendment, standing in his name, was to include in the scale all the punishments which could be inflicted by courts martial. If hon. Members would turn to page 146 of the Blue Book laid before the House, they would find that the Bill presented to the Committee contained in the scale of punishments those which he now proposed to add to the present Bill. He thought the Committee ought to be informed why the Secretary of State for War had departed from the arrangement which was laid before the Select Committee, and which was approved by the Commissioners. It was only yesterday he had read in the leading journal, that after the very careful manner in which this Bill had been considered and approved by the Select Committee, it was unnecessary further to discuss it. But if the Committee would compare the two Bills, they would find that that which was now under discussion had been almost entirely altered and redrafted; and although he was a Member of the Committee, and had paid great attention to the Bill laid before it, he was hardly able to find his way through the present measure, on account of the alterations which he had mentioned. The scale of punishments had been altered in this way. The former scale was made by enactment of the House of Commons, which declared the leading punishment which courts martial were to have the power to award; but by the Bill now before the Committee, Parliament did not enact all the punishments which were to be awarded by courts martial. The Bill only enacted some of the punishments, while others were put down in the form of a Proviso, or left to be awarded under Royal Warrant. This proceeding, which was an entire departure from established practice, was, to his mind, perfectly unintelligible; and, inasmuch as the Mutiny Act had always laid down the punishments which courts martial could award, he could see no reason why that course should be departed from. He, therefore, moved, in page 19, after line 7, to insert, "n. Forfeitures, fines, and stoppages," to restore the scale of punishments to be awarded on conviction by court martial to its original form—the form that was included in the Bill of last year, and the form in which he contended it should always remain. He also wished to remark that the mode of inserting the Provisos relating to exemptions, which, in the present case, were as important as the clause itself, was a departure from the course instituted by Parliament.

COLONEL STANLEY

said, perhaps the hon. and gallant Member (Sir Alexander Gordon) had not heard that he had said the word "agreed" across the Table of the House. The term "stoppages" might be open to the technical objection that it was not, perhaps, the right word, inasmuch as the punishment indicated was a matter of course; while the restoration, which often took place, was an act of grace. With that reservation, he accepted the words of the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

MAJOR NOLAN

said, with reference to the new punishment of reduction to a lower grade in the case of soldiers and non-commissioned officers, that its insertion was not a question of drafting, but of principle. He was not quite certain as to the meaning of the word "soldier," as employed in this Bill, The Secretary of State for War had introduced the punishment of reduction to a lower rank in the ease of non-commissioned officers in a subsequent clause. It was left out of its proper place at the time the Bill was drafted; and he had some little fear that, unless the present clause was amended, they might be precluded from providing for that punishment later on.

COLONEL STANLEY

said, the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Member was, he believed, already noted and, in effect, agreed to. He apprehended that it would be safer to insert the punishment at the part of the Bill now reached; but would confer with those who were competent to give an opinion on the subject.

SIR WILLIAM CUNINGHAME

hoped his right hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary of State for War would say "agreed," as he had done in the case of the last Amendment, to that which he now begged to submit to the consideration of the Committee; in which event, he begged to assure him he would give great satisfaction. He ventured to point out what, to his mind, appeared a strong objection to this clause, which was that it enacted that— All officers when cashiered shall be incapable of again serving Her Majesty in any capacity, military or civil. The sub-section 3, therefore, which made this provision, he proposed to omit, on the ground that the Proviso was novel and unreasonable as well as unnecessary. First, with regard to its novelty. He ventured to point out that reference was made in the margin of the Bill to two sections—Nos. 76 and 87—of the Mutiny Act. Now, one of these two sections, he admitted, did refer to a similar Proviso which existed under the old Act; but it had only reference to the case of an officer who sheltered someone under his command from being brought before the civil power; but in the case of the other section, he begged to point out to the Committee that it had no reference whatever to the subject of the 3rd sub-section of the present measure. Again, as far as his recollection went, he had no knowledge that the disability to serve Her Majesty in any capacity ever did follow the sentence of cashiering by court martial; and for these reasons it appeared to him that the proposal that it should henceforward follow was en- tirely novel. He maintained that officers of the Army had been managed hitherto by the simple punishment of being removed from the Service, and by no other; and he could not understand why it was now considered necessary to institute a more severe punishment for the purpose of keeping them in order; and he could not, for his own part, avoid expressing his surprise that a soldier in the position of the Secretary of State for War, who had passed a long time in the Service, should have concurred in casting this slur upon officers of the Army. Again, with regard to the unreasonableness of this Proviso. He considered there was no offence which an officer could commit of a non-military character, save one, which it would be reasonable to visit with such severe punishment as that provided for by this sub-section, and that was treason, which all hon. Members would agree could not be punished too severely. But the punishment now proposed was a civil disability. He, for one, would have had no objection to it had it been dependent upon sentence of court martial; and he was certain the officers of the Army had such confidence in the justice of the sentences of courts martial that they would not object to this power being conferred upon them; but against the disability as it stood in the Bill there was the very strongest objection. It would, of course, be said that the sentence would not be imposed except in very grave cases, and in cases in which it was deserved. For his part, he thought it unfortunate that the Bill should prescribe the two sentences of cashiering and of dismissal from Her Majesty's Service. To his mind, cashiering was the only sentence possible in former times by sentence of court martial; but it appeared that this punishment was now to be regarded as something more than dismissal—it was dismissal from the Service with ignominy. He contended that the word "cashiering" ought to be omitted in all the other sections of the Bill, which could not possibly justify such punishment, if it was a fact that the sentence would only be passed in cases of great gravity. For instance, in Clause 19 it was provided that cashiering might be inflicted for the simple offence of drunkenness; but he could not admit that any case of drunkenness should be of such an aggravated character as to render a man who might be guilty of the offence liable not only to be turned out of the Service, but to be made incapable of serving Her Majesty in any civil or military capacity. Again, the section relating to suicide showed the propriety of omitting the word "cashiering," inasmuch as the offence contemplated could not justify the disability to serve Her Majesty in a civil capacity. The Secretary of State for War, he trusted, would favourably consider this proposed Amendment, which, in his opinion, was of great importance to the Service, an opinion which he thought was greatly borne out by the way in which his proposal had been received by the Committee. Another argument in favour of the Amendment was, no such punishment was possible in the case of privates and non-commissioned officers. The Committee had heard a great deal about the officers being affected by the Bill in the same way as the men; but, as a matter of fact, the latter could be dismissed from the Army without being rendered incapable of serving Her Majesty. It was further to be remembered that if an officer committed a crime of such a character as to render it right that a court martial should prevent him in future from serving Her Majesty in any capacity, either civil or military, there would be very little opportunity for his obtaining any such employment; therefore, the sub-section did not add to the real gravity of the punishment. But it was not the less objection able on that account, because it was quite conceivable that an officer might be seriously affected, who had not committed an act of so grave a character. Further, it was quite possible that an officer of Militia or Volunteers might be brought up for an offence of a purely military character, and, for the sake of discipline, it might be found necessary to cashier him, the result of which would be that he would find himself prevented from serving Her Majesty in any capacity for the future, and that merely for a purely military offence. Having now shown that, in his opinion, sub-section 3 was both novel and unreasonable, as well as unnecessary, he begged to move that it be omitted from the Bill, and to express a hope that the Secretary of State for War would consider his Amendment in a favourable sense.

GENERAL SHUTE

was satisfied that hon. Members would not feel that his right hon. and gallant Friend the Secre- tary of State for War had, with reference to this sub-section, cast any slur upon the officers of the Army. It was to be remembered that, until recently, when an officer was cashiered from the Army, he was most fearfully fined as well; and it was formerly no joke for a man commanding a Cavalry regiment, for instance, to lose £15,000, as well as to be dismissed. With regard to the applicability of the Proviso to cases of drunkenness, he maintained that an officer who was offensive or misconducted himself under the influence of liquor was guilty of conduct unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman, and should be proceeded against in that light. It was not desirable to open the door to the possibility of an inferior accusing his superior officer of having, for instance, left the mess table drunk, or even a servant going to the colonel and stating that his master had gone to bed intoxicated, and demanding his trial on the plea that all ranks should be treated alike. The greatest distinction, he maintained, should be observed in every respect between the officer and the soldier. He maintained that discipline in the Army had been, in a great degree, the result of the strongest and the most marked social distinction, upon which was founded the respect which a lower class felt toward a superior class; and when this ceased, there was an end at once of what he might call natural discipline. The French Army, since it had got rid of social distinctions, had never maintained with the same facility its discipline in the field. An old soldier in the English Army would feel respect for the youngest cornet, because he looked upon him as a superior, and well educated, and would obey him with greater readiness than he would one of the oldest and most distinguished of his comrades who had been promoted from the ranks.

SIR HENRY JAMES

said, one result of the operation of the sub-section would be that if an officer were cashiered he would for life be prevented from being made a Justice of the Peace. A young man of 20 who had committed a practical joke might, by the means of this sub-section, be made incapable for the remainder of his life of filling any position in Her Majesty's Service; and a man who had been represented to have committed a great fault might, at a later period, be found to have committed one of a venial character only. But if the sub-section were adopted, the Crown would never have the power of exercising its discretion in such a case.

COLONEL ALEXANDER

intended to support the Motion of his hon. Friend (Sir William Cuninghame). He found that in 1811 a certain officer was sentenced to be cashiered; but being recommended to mercy, His Royal Highness the Prince Regent remarked that it was not expedient to give effect to the recommendation any further than to mitigate the sentence into one of dismissal, which showed that dismissal was not so severe a punishment as cashiering. Cashiering really meant "breaking," and an officer sentenced thereto suffered social ostracism. Again, in 1816, an officer was sentenced to be cashiered and rendered incapable of ever serving His Majesty in any capacity, either civil or military. Only that part of the sentence involving cashiering was carried out, and the court was informed that it was ultra vires to sentence a prisoner to incapacity to serve His Majesty. Another case was that of Lord George Sackville, who, after the battle of Minden, was tried by court martial for having disobeyed the orders of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, and judged unfit to serve His Majesty in any military capacity; yet, subsequently, as Lord George Germain, he filled the office of Secretary of State. The whole of the present measure erred on the side of excessive severity; and although hon. Members were told that it was merely a consolidating Bill, it was, in fact, very much more. He did not say that the increased severity was in accord with the ideas of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, who was only obeying the behests of Sir Henry Thring, whose finger was apparent in every clause of the Bill; and although that gentleman might be a good draftsman, he knew nothing whatever about the feelings of the officers of the Army. He (Colonel Alexander) was sure that the Articles of War would be found to give the Secretary of State for War as many opportunities for exercising severity as he could desire, and therefore hoped that the Motion of his hon. Friend would be agreed to.

COLONEL STANLEY

said, that he had done his best to declare the law as he considered it to exist. So far as he understood the authorities quoted by his hon. and gallant Friend, they showed that there had always been a distinction between dismissal and cashiering; and if he could point to a single case where an officer who had been cashiered had again been employed in a military or a civil capacity by the Crown, he (Colonel Stanley) would be willing to omit this section. It seemed to him that the matter cut both ways; for there was a great deal in what had fallen from the hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James), to the effect that what was proposed would interfere with the right of the Crown to bring any person back to its Service. Still more than that, it was plain that it might occur that an officer early in life was cashiered for some fault, and it was hard that he should not have any locus pœnitentiœ. He hoped that the Committee would understand his difficulty, and permit him to withdraw this section.

Amendment agreed to.

Sub-section 3 struck out.

CAPTAIN MILNE-HOME moved, in page 19, line 19, after sub-section 3, to add— An officer who joined the Army before the abolition of purchase, when sentenced to he cashiered, shall not forfeit any portion of any sum of money to which he may be entitled from the Purchase Commissioners, unless the sentence of the court otherwise directs. The object of the Amendment, he stated, was to give to courts martial, when sentencing Purchase officers to be cashiered, a discretionary power to add to their sentence deprivation of commission money. In no authority had he been able to find that cashiering inflicted forfeiture of commission money. He knew this had been the practice in the Purchase days, and he did not wish to complain of that; because then all officers, whether they had paid for their commissions or not, served on equal terms. But in these days, circumstances were altered. For in the same regiment were men who had paid hundreds, if not thousands, for their commissions, serving side by side with others who had paid nothing; and thus one man might be fined heavily for committing an offence, while another for the same, if not a more flagrant crime, would get off scot free. To place both classes of officers on the same footing, it would seem natural to assent to the proposal of the hon. and gallant Member for Leitrim (Major O'Beirne) in the Committee upstairs, which accorded to Purchase officers, on all such occasions, their purchase money. But he (Captain Home) did not altogether concur in this view; because a court martial might consider the gravity of the offence warranted their depriving the officer of his money. On the other hand, it must be recollected there were—there had been—introduced into this Bill several venial offences, for which an officer might be cashiered, and for which it would be hard to mulct him of his money. He need not multiply instances, but would simply refer to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James), the whole of which was in favour of this Amendment. He would allude to the crime of drunkenness off duty; and, without going back on the discussion over Clause 19, it was clear that that offence must often be of a venial character. He was the last person to palliate the crime of drunkenness in anyone calling himself an officer and a gentleman; but he felt there might be cases where the court might be glad to have the opportunity of acting leniently. They might, moreover, consider it best for the interests of the Service to dismiss the officer; but might pause before passing such a sentence if they felt they would be in this way depriving the man of all means of livelihood. There was one other method of placing the two classes on the same terms—namely, to fine the non-Purchase officer a sum equal to what his commission would have cost, had he bought it. But he (Captain Home) feared this proposition would not be entertained; and, therefore, he suggested his Amendment as a fair compromise. One of the principles of the Bill was the definition of Military Law, and he contended the Amendment met that view, and it was, therefore, not inimical to the principle of the Bill: whereas, if it were not passed, the accurate meaning of the word "cashiered" must remain in its present obscurity.

MAJOR O'BEIRNE

cordially supported the Amendment. In the 141 battalions now in the Service, there were 4,178 combatant officers, of whom 2,674 were Purchase officers. Considering, therefore, how large a percentage they formed of the officers of the Army at the present time, he did not think it would be either wise or just to disregard their feelings in this matter. To show under what circumstances an officer went into action at the present day, he would state that the money lost at the battle of Isandlana by eight officers of the 24th Regiment being killed in action there, was£13,500. That would give a pretty good idea of the value of the money in question in regard to those 2,674 Purchase officers now in the Army. They were liable to forfeit the money to which they were otherwise entitled by the sentence of a court martial. The injustice of the matter was evidenced by what took place at the Criminal Court at Guildford, when Colonel Valentine Baker was tried and found guilty of an offence. In addition to his imprisonment, he was fined, by the Judge who tried him £500; but beyond that, the authorities of the Horse Guards thought fit to fine him £4,500 more. The law of England was that no man should be punished twice for the same offence; and he was sure that when Mr. Justice Brett, who tried Colonel Baker, sentenced him to pay a fine of£500, he had not the slightest idea that the authorities at the Horse Guards would impose any further fine upon him. Indeed, in sentencing Colonel Baker, the Judge said that, having regard to the high character which he had received, and for the sake of his family and children, he would be allowed an opportunity of continuing to serve Her Majesty, and he did not believe that the fine would have been inflicted if the Judge had known that Colonel Baker was to be cashiered. The injustice of the present state of things was that a purchase officer was punished much more severely in being deprived of his commission than a non-Purchase officer; and that, in point of fact, his wife and family were punished as well as himself. For these reasons, he thought there should be some difference made between Purchase and non-Purchase officers in punishing them for offences, and that one class should not be punished so much more severely than the other.

COLONEL STANLEY

was not able to accede to the Amendment. He would ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman to consider how the matter stood. He had no intention to follow the hon. and gal- lant Member who had last spoken into Colonel Baker's case, and of the loss by the Purchase officers at Isandlana, which he thought had nothing to do with this matter. The Army Regulation Bill of Lord Cardwell dealt with the matter in this way—it put the State into the position of the officer who formerly purchased a commission from another. They could no longer have an officer as the purchaser of the commission; but the State stepped in, and paid the value of the commission. Therefore, an officer had not now a saleable commission; and what happened was that the State stepped in and said that he should have the sum of money which he could have obtained from his brother officer in former times. When the officer was cashiered in former times, the step went as a matter of course, and no officer paid for it. They must remember that the State had simply taken the place of the officer who formerly purchased the step. There was not the slightest difference made in the manner in which Purchase and non-Purchase officers served side by side. One had paid money for his commission, and the other had not. Not the slightest difference had been made in the position of the Purchase officer, except, that whereas in former times, under certain circumstances, he was entitled to the value of his commission from his brother officer, now he was entitled to be paid that money by the State. What was now asked to be done was, that the commission of a Purchase officer, which was not saleable informer times, and for which he received nothing, should now be paid for by the State.

GENERAL SHUTE

believed that the Amendment of his hon. and gallant Friend was thoroughly just and proper. With regard to what had been said as to the loss of money by the deaths at Isandlana, he might say that he knew of some very hard cases which he intended to bring before the House in a Motion which he had entered upon the Paper. He would, however, mention to the Committee one instance of an intimate friend of his, who was of a most generous disposition, and who obtained high promotion upon the death of his colonel, thus obtaining his regiment for nothing. But this gentleman, being a fairly rich man, presented the money he would otherwise have given for the step to the widow of the colonel and brother, for whom he and all under him had a great regard, she being left badly off. He would ask if the State would have done such an act as that?

MR. RYLANDS

was extremely glad that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had refused to entertain the Amendment. He did not hesitate to say that Purchase officers had no reason to complain of any niggardliness on the part of the State; they had been treated in a manner for which, in his opinion, they ought to be extremely grateful. He supposed that the result of the Amendment, if carried, would be this—that if a Purchase officer in the Army were cashiered, he would be put into a much better position than he would have been under the old system of Purchase. And let it be remembered that the Amendment contemplated that an officer so cashiered should receive from the State not only his regulation price, but his over-regulation price. He had no hesitation in saying that the terms granted to the Purchase officers, by which they were placed under the new system in the same position as they occupied before, was a most advantageous arrangement to them, for it gave the sanction of law to what was known to be an indefensible practice on the part of the officers of the Army. The over-regulation price was paid under conditions not creditable to the Army; for every officer had at one period to take a solemn oath that he had not gone through any such transaction. Up to the last day on which the Purchase system existed an officer of the Army had had on his honour to declare that no over-regulation price had been paid. Yet, in spite of that, a constant violation of the law took place; and when the Government agreed to pay over-regulation prices—which he was very sorry they did, for he believed they were thus doing a great injustice to the public generally—they gave terms to the officers of the Army which he thought were perfectly outrageous in the generosity with which they recognized their claims. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman wished to re-open this question, then it would be necessary to consider the whole circumstances of the matter; but, for his part, he should say that it would be best not to disturb this settlement. The effect of the Amendment, if carried, would be that the Purchase officer in the Army would be in a better position, in relation to the value of his commission, than he was when under the old system. The adoption of the Amendment would be a disturbance of the settlement come to by the late Government; and he hoped that the hon. and gallant Gentleman would see that, under the circumstances, it was undesirable to press his Amendment. He was fully in favour of cashiering being made not to have any effect which was not reasonable and proper; but he must say that the present proposal went far beyond that, and would be very unjust.

COLONEL ALEXANDER

wished to point out that the Crown had now a power, if it chose to exercise it, of ordering that an officer sentenced to be cashiered should receive the full value of his commission. In his opinion, the best way would be to leave the matter in its present position.

MR. MUNTZ

considered that it would be unwise to interfere with the arrangements made in 1871. Both sides of the House had now acquiesced in that arrangement, although when under discussion he fought the matter out to the last, and he was sorry that his efforts were unsuccessful. He was convinced that the wisest course was not to interfere with that settlement. What was the condition of officers before the abolition of Purchase? If they were tried by court martial and sentenced to be cashiered, they forfeited both the regulation and the over-regulation prices of their commissions. That was all that happened now, although the Crown had the Prerogative of ordering that they should receive the value of their commission, if it thought proper.

MAJOR O'BEIRNE

observed, that when a soldier was tried by court martial and sentenced to punishment he did not thereby forfeit his money in the savings bank. But this was a reversal of the adage of one law for the rich and another for the poor, for it was one law for the poor and another for the rich. He thought that a Purchase officer ought to receive the money which he had placed in the Military Chest in the shape of his commission, just as much as the soldier received the money which was due to him from the military savings bank.

GENERAL SHUTE

wished to know whether the Crown had the power to say, in case an officer was cashiered, that he should receive the value of his commission—that was to say, the same amount as in the case of his selling out would be awarded by the Purchase Commissioners?

COLONEL STANLEY

was not able to answer the question of the hon. and gallant Gentleman; all he could say was that, so far as there was any existing right, it would not be affected by the Bill. Perhaps he would be better able to answer the question on another occasion.

MR. PARNELL

did not think that this question was looked at in a right way. The Secretary of State for War defended the position he took up in refusing to accept the Amendment on this ground—that formerly, under the old system of Purchase, an officer who was cashiered got nothing, but the step went in the ordinary way in the regiment without purchase, and the same thing now happened. In his opinion, they ought to consider whether that was entirely a just arrangement. It was true that by the Act of 1871 the justice of that plan was acknowledged; but there was no reason why they should not rectify any injustice by the present Bill. If there were any inequality in any respect, or any injustice, he could not see why it should not be rectified. They ought to consider whether it was just or unjust that an officer of the Army, because he had given a considerable sum of money for his position, besides undergoing the sentence of the court martial, should be additionally punished by losing the money he had paid. Under the old system of Purchase, an officer could not receive this sum of money, but lost his commission; and the reason he obtained nothing was that he had no longer any step to sell. That system had now been done away with; and he thought they might fairly modify the inequalities and injustices left, if it were made plain that they existed. He would suggest to the Secretary of State for War, that they might so far modify the Act of 1871 as to give a court martial a discretion to say whether, in the event of an officer being cashiered, he ought to receive the regulation value of his commission. At the present time, a lieutenant who was cashiered was punished much less than a general officer. Why should a lieutenant be punished, irre- spective entirely of the sentence of the court martial and of the magnitude of the offence, in a much less degree than an officer of a higher rank? It might be that the offence for which a general officer was cashiered was of a much less grave nature than that for which a subaltern, under the new system, was cashiered. Yet, from the mere fact of the sentence of cashiering being passed, the power was taken away from the court martial to prevent the Purchase officer losing the money invested in his commission in addition to undergoing the sentence of the court. He should support his hon. and gallant Friend opposite if he went to a division upon this Motion; for he did not see that there was any right to punish a man twice over—first, by the sentence of the court martial, and, again, by the loss of his money. He thought it wrong to punish a man by a sort of Act of Parliament which did not take such a case into its consideration; and, in fact, by an additional sentence, which not only punished the person himself, but, in all probability, his wife and children.

SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT

observed, that a statement had been made that the Crown had the right to give the value of his commission to any officer who had been cashiered. He believed that that right existed; and he thought the wisest course would be to withdraw the Amendment and repeat it again, supposing it might be discovered that the Crown had not that right.

SIR HENRY JAMES

asked for the assistance of the Law Officers of the Crown upon this matter.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir HARDINGE GIFFARD)

stated that he was unacquainted with the subject.

SIR ALEXANDER GORDON

said, that the Crown frequently remitted the punishment of forfeiture of the money. It was not a question admitting of the slightest doubt. The cases which had been put might be further exemplified. A regimental officer who had invested money in his commission, and a Staff officer who had not, might be both sentenced by a court martial for the same offence; but the sentence upon the one was much more severe than upon the other. He was sorry that the Secretary of State for War could not accept the proposal.

CAPTAIN MILNE-HOME

said, that perhaps it might he more in accordance with the feelings of the Committee, and certainly with the feelings of hon. Gentlemen upon that side of the House, that he should withdraw his Amendment, pending the reply to the question of which the hon. and gallant Member for Brighton had given Notice. He might say, however, that he knew a great number of officers, not only in that House but out-of-doors, who felt very strongly upon this subject. He did not wish to enter into any of the questions brought forward by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), nor did he wish to say anything with regard to the regulation and the over-regulation prices. What he asked for was simply common justice to the officer who had purchased his commission. He believed, also, that whatever opinion might be held as to purchase or non-purchase of any grade in the Army, that no greater similarity could be brought about between the two classes of officers than by adopting this Amendment. In the meantime, he begged to withdraw his Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. PARNELL moved, in page 19, line 23, to leave out from the word "imprisonment," to the word "punishment," in line 25, inclusive. The hon. Gentleman said, the Amendment was in continuation of the discussion which took place on the last day when the House was in Committee upon this Bill before the holidays, in reference to the question of corporal punishment. The subject was not very fully discussed, or dealt with, on that occasion. They were asked at that time—and it was strongly pressed against them by those who believed in corporal punishment—that there was no alternative for punishing a soldier if he were not flogged. It was said that if a man could not be flogged, the only other punishment that could be given to him was capital punishment. At the time he was not prepared to answer that argument, because he wished to make inquiries amongst military men, who were better acquainted with the details of punishments which could be inflicted under certain circumstances. He had now made inquiries amongst several officers of the Army, and he had been told that there would be no difficulty in punishing a man sufficiently in a simple manner without flogging1 him. He was able to state that there were many punishments which could be inflicted upon a soldier that would tell in a much greater degree upon him than flogging, unless he were of a very degraded character. If a man were caught plundering, or doing any act which was prejudicial to discipline or the conduct of an army in the field, he was now usually punished by the provost marshal by flogging. But he might have his hands tied behind his back, and his rifle slung behind him, and made to carry two or three knapsacks, and the nature and quality of his offence written upon a placard upon his back. In that state he might be made to march along with his comrades in the ranks, pointed out as a black sheep, subject to the derision of everyone who saw him. That would be a sufficient punishment for the offences he had indicated in the field, without flogging having to be resorted to. There were, in fact, 50 ways of temporarily disgracing a soldier and making him an object of derision, which would be far better punishment than flogging him. If the authorities only chose to exert themselves, they would soon find out plenty of means; but it should not be thrown upon civilians to find out a substitute for such a disgraceful and degrading punishment as flogging. It was a punishment which had been abandoned amongst all foreign Armies in Europe. The Prussians did not use it, and the Russians never beat their soldiers. He was aware that Russia had acquired an unenviable reputation for the use of the lash; but he knew perfectly well that Russia never beat her soldiers—she might beat her subjects; but she never beat her soldiers. In France they did not find that the punishment of flogging was ever in use, or was necessary. He hoped that the Secretary of State for War would take one further step in the direction of the abolition of this punishment; and as he had only retained the punishment of flogging for armies in the field, and for troops on board ship not being ships of war, he would abolish it altogether. If he did so, his rule in his present Office would be one which would be looked back upon with satisfaction by everyone who wished well to the British Army. He begged to move his Amendment.

Amendment proposed, In page 19, line 23, to leave out from the word "imprisonment," to the word "punishment," in line 25, inclusive.—(Mr. Parnell.)

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

COLONEL STANLEY

was not quite sure whether the hon. Member saw the effect of the Amendment which he proposed. As regarded corporal punishment, the House considered the subject at some length on a previous occasion, and the necessity of retaining the punishment was affirmed by a very large majority. Even if he were willing to assent to the abolition of the punishment, he could not accept the alteration proposed by the hon. Member. This was not a matter in which he would be in Order in explaining, for the effect of the Amendment proposed would not be to touch the liability of the soldier to corporal punishment. He might still be sentenced to corporal punishment; there would be no power, if the Amendment were adopted, afterwards to discharge him with ignominy from Her Majesty's Service. It would, therefore, be very inconvenient to adopt any such Amendment as that proposed.

MR. RYLANDS

said, that when this question was before the Committee on a former occasion, it was under circumstances which led to a restriction of the opportunities which might have been desired on the part of hon. Members to express their opinions. This was a matter upon which he entertained a very strong opinion. He should be willing to retain the punishment of flogging, or any other punishment, if it could be shown that that punishment was absolutely necessary. But, in this case, he did not think any necessity had been shown for the retention of the punishment. He did not wish to look at this matter as a mere question of sentiment. He regarded it from a much wider and broader point of view. He would ask, how far did the fact that this punishment could be inflicted under certain conditions upon soldiers in the Army affect or prevent any man who wished to enlist from doing so? The matter should be looked at in a practical way. In former times, when flogging was very frequent in the Army, officers generally accustomed to flogging during their military experience were of opinion that the punishment could not be abolished without detriment to the discipline of the Service. He supposed that opinion was not now entertained, for the step taken in the nearly total abolition of flogging in the Army was now admitted to be the wisest thing that could have been done. There had been no evil effects resulting from it, and no detriment had been experienced to the Service; on the contrary, there could be no doubt whatever that the Service had received very great advantage. The advantage to the Service had been in two ways; first, it was clear that if a man were flogged he was degraded; and, secondly, he was made a worse soldier. Consequently, it must be admitted that if flogging were prevalent in the Service, there must be a shrinking on the part of respectable men from joining a Service in which they would be exposed to punishment of that kind. Flogging had been very much diminished; and it might be said, therefore, that they need not trouble themselves about the exceptional cases in which the punishment could now be inflicted. Let hon. Gentlemen remember that the exceptional case might be the one in which a man enlisting could be brought under. Regiments were frequently sent abroad, and they were not always sent in vessels of war; and if a man were sent abroad in a ship not being a vessel of war, he was liable to be flogged; and he thought that the knowledge that he was liable to such a punishment would prevent many a man from enlisting who might otherwise have joined the Service.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he must point out to the hon. Member that the subject to which he was now referring would be more relevant to another clause of the Bill. The question now before the Committee had no reference to the infliction of this sort of punishment. The only question that arose upon the clause was whether a soldier sentenced to corporal punishment might not, in addition, be sentenced to be discharged with ignominy from Her Majesty's Service. He did not think that it was desirable upon this Amendment to consider the question of corporal punishment per se.

MR. RYLANDS

said, that unless this clause were re-modelled with respect to this particular punishment, there would be an inconvenience in the argument of his Amendment to strike out corporal punishment from another clause.

THE CHAIRMAN

wished to point out to the Committee that the sub-section k, in the earlier part of the clause, empowered the infliction of this punishment. When that was under consideration was the proper time for debating the propriety of inflicting corporal punishment. The effect of the Amendment would not be to diminish the power given by the Act to inflict corporal punishment; but only to prevent a soldier, upon whom corporal punishment had been inflicted, being afterwards discharged with ignominy from Her Majesty's Service.

MR. RYLANDS

had no doubt that the Chairman was quite right in his ruling; therefore he should reserve his point, and make the observations which he intended to make when the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) proposed his Amendment.

MR. PARNELL

observed, that the effect of the Amendment would be to prevent a soldier being discharged with ignominy, in addition to receiving corporal punishment. As Mover of the Amendment, he wished to restrict further punishment, and to prevent any punishment being added to corporal punishment. Surely they were entitled to speak of the effect of corporal punishment. That was the way in which the matter occurred to him when he moved his Amendment. He had only risen for the purpose, not of continuing the discussion on the question of corporal punishment, but to point out to the Committee that the arguments made use of against his Amendment did not affect its propriety. It had been said that the effect of his Amendment would be to prevent a soldier who had been flogged being afterwards discharged with ignominy. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War said that that was a consequence which he did not wish to see realized; but he should submit that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had offered no argument in respect of that view. They had been told that it was necessary to punish certain offences in the field quickly and sharply. He would ask, whether the discharge of a soldier with ignominy from Her Majesty's Service was a punishment of that character? If discharging a soldier from Her Majesty's Service with ignominy was a suitable punishment, why was it necessary to score his back with the lash in addition? He thought that the arguments used against it tended strongly in favour of his Amendment. They might flog a soldier because they desired to retain him in the Army; but if it were desired to get rid of him, what was the reason for flogging him?

MR. A. H. BROWN

said, that under this clause they could only inflict corporal punishment upon a soldier when on board ship or on actual service. These two conditions were necessary before corporal punishment could be inflicted. Now, this part of the clause said, that in addition to imprisonment or any other punishment, which might be corporal punishment, a soldier might be discharged with ignominy. The question then arose, first, how could he be discharged with ignominy when on board ship on a voyage? He could not be discharged until the end of the voyage. And, secondly, when on actual service, it seemed to him that that was certainly not a time when a soldier should be discharged with ignominy, but rather that he should be kept in the Service. It was possible that when on actual military service a soldier might want to be discharged; and, therefore, it would be surely undesirable to allow him to be so. Therefore, he thought there would be harm in allowing a soldier to be discharged with ignominy after receiving corporal punishment.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 160; Noes 43: Majority 117.—(Div. List, No. 116.)

MR. HOPWOOD

said, if his opinions were regulated by the results of divisions in that House, he should be so much discouraged by the one just taken as to fear moving his next Amendment. But he and his Friends were so convinced of the good that was done by the repetition of argument, that they would not hesitate to seize every opportunity to discuss this most cruel, useless, and pernicious punishment. He, therefore, should offer no apology for again pressing this discussion on the Committee; and he could not understand how so many officers of high rank and ripe experience could sit silent and dumb when they must have many arguments in support of this punishment, derived from their own experience, to offer to the Committee. Why did they leave the kind-hearted Secretary of State for War to defend this punishment, and maintain that an Army of his countrymen was made of such materials that they could not be managed in the field, or during transport across the seas, without this excessive and terrific punishment? Yet that was their position at the present time. Englishmen were very Pharisaical. They thanked God that they were not as other men were—not even as those poor Russians. That was the idea which passed through the rather crude and uninformed minds of many gentlemen. They really did not know what was done in Russia; while as to other countries, he was amazed at the levity with which people said—"Oh! they don't flog soldiers in France and Germany; they shoot them." Where was the authority for it? Did anyone mean to tell him that an officer would have a man shot for the same offence for which he gave him 50 lashes? They were always talking about Russia; although lie believed that many of those who talked so glibly about the knout did not know that it had been abolished there for 15 years. In out-of-the-way parts and corners of Russia illegal acts might be done; but flogging was against the law. Therefore, Englishmen might cease comparing themselves in their inflated vanity with other nations in this respect. When he spoke of the severity of the punishment, he was told that he was talking of the good old days when the "cat" flourished. An hon. and learned Friend of his (Mr. Sullivan), on a former occasion, was supposed to have exaggerated in describing the results of the lash, and it was denied that the lash caused blood to flow. But Mr. Buxton, a former Member of that House, stated in one of his speeches, reported in Hansard— At the first blow the blood spurted out some yards; and after he had received 50 lashes his hack, from the neck to the waist, was one stream of blood. The man was disabled, often for many days, sometimes even for weeks, as in the case of a man flogged last autumn at Woolwich. These recitals were painful, but so was the lash; and if they were to have it, do not let them put the consequences on one side with solemn contemptuous in- difference, and throw the blame on the military authorities. He knew there was always a natural jealousy between two Professions as to the interference of one with the other; and an hon. and gallant Gentleman the other night had talked of the tinkerings this law had received from the lawyers. He did doubt, on the other hand, whether the training of an officer was quite the training by which a man best learned the way to keep men to their allegiance, and to make them perform their duty with the smallest amount of suffering and the least need of punishment. It was not the fault of military men, but of their training, that they saw matters from a small and narrow standpoint, and had not the inestimable advantage which a training in law gave—that it taught a man to consider crime and punishment from an entirely different aspect. Therefore, he hoped the military men in that House would not altogether reject the gentle suggestions they might receive from lawyers. Civilians had discarded this punishment of flogging long ago. They tried it for a number of years, and then, with universal execration and by universal consent, they discarded it as not only doing nothing to stop crime, but as doing a great deal to injure the population; and, above all, as inflicting an irreparable injury on those who inflicted it. Though 50 lashes was the talismanic number allowed by this Bill, no Judge, even in the worst cases, now thought of giving more than 20, or at the most 25. Another person, describing a flogging, said— As each was cast off after the punishment, his neck and hack presented to view a belt of livid flesh, about seven or eight inches across, and reaching, as we have said, in a slanting direction from shoulders to waist, so that no part of the back escaped the blows of the lash. Each of the prisoners appeared to suffer in much the same degree in intensity; and each gave indications of the severity of the pain by screams and cries repeated at every stroke. These cries, we are told, continued for some time after the punishment was over; and, indeed, so painful was the scene, and so distressing the cries of the prisoners, that the officials themselves had some difficulty in sustaining it. No doubt, the non-commissioned officers and men who had to look on while their comrade was being flogged must be deeply touched and pained. But such scenes could not be repeated before these men without depriving them of their proper feeling of sensibility. Therefore, he should like to lower this punishment to the lowest possible amount. The Bill said the maximum was to be 50 lashes; but, in reality, it was 450—it was nine times 50, for each lash had nine tails. He was told, also, that the most muscular men in regiments were employed to lay on the lash. The drummers were employed, he was told, because by long practice they had acquired great muscular power of arm and wrist; while in Cavalry regiments the farrier-sergeant was told off to be the degraded executioner. In this continuation of flogging in the Army every Member of the House who did not oppose it was concerned. For that reason, he would protest as long as he was able, and whenever he could get the chance, determined to free himself, at any rate, from having any part or share in the responsibility for its perpetuation. He wished to know why, if 50 lashes were named in the Bill, the instrument by which they were to be inflicted should have nine thongs? Perhaps the Secretary of State for War would be good enough to explain this. Now, as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman asked for 50 lashes which, owing to the construction of the instrument by which they were to be inflicted, meant 450, he (Mr. Hopwood) proposed to give him six, which would, in effect, be 54; and that number he trusted the Committee would present to Her Majesty's Government as being the right number to be inserted in the Act. He, therefore, begged to move, in page 19, line 27, to leave out "fifty," and insert "six," thereby securing discipline, securing order, and securing the repression of crime—if such a punishment could secure these objects—and substituting, in reality, 54 lashes for the 450 which, by a covert falsehood, was represented by this Bill as 50.

COLONEL STANLEY

thought the hon. and learned Member had more than once apologized in the course of his harangue for his ignorance in matters relating to Army discipline; and, although he had no wish to press the point, he could not help remarking that he had just ground for excusing himself on account of that disqualification; because some of the arguments used by him could not in any way apply to the clause before the Committee. The principle of corporal punishment had been fully debated by the House a few days back, when its retention was confirmed by a very large ma- jority, after three hours' discussion. He was obliged to presume that the plan adopted by the hon. and learned Member, of picking holes in this portion of the Bill by the Amendment which stood in his name, was intended to make his arguments hang together with some degree of consistency. The hon. and learned Member went on to say that the prescribed number of lashes should be inflicted "with an instrument or whip of not more than one thong or tail." But it was of no use lingering on those petty points of detail. As the Act was drawn, there was nothing whatever to prevent the use of a whip of steel, or, in short, a much more formidable instrument being prepared than was at present in use. He was not aware whether there was any sealed pattern of the instrument for use in the Army, as in the case of the Navy and prisons, which prevented their being made of any excessive dimensions; but if there were not, he thought it perfectly right that there should be. He was, however, bound to say that there had never been any complaint of excessive punishment; and, so far from there being any desire on the part of the authorities to inflict the punishment more severely than was strictly consistent with what was believed to be their duty, the feeling was quite of a contrary character. It would, therefore, be his duty to oppose all the Amendments of the hon. and learned Member who had just addressed the Committee.

MR. RYLANDS

rose with the object of considering this question from an entirely different standpoint to that occupied by the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood). He was prepared to look at this matter solely in view of its effect upon the administration of the Army and the good of the Service; and, leaving aside altogether the painful impression caused by this mode of punishment, to proceed upon a broad ground, and ask, was it or was it not desirable that this kind of discipline should be maintained in the Army? He held in his hand an annual Return from the Army, which went back to 1865, in which year he found that corporal punishment in the Army had been inflicted in 600 cases. The number of cases in which this punishment had been inflicted went on decreasing down to the year 1868, when, in fact, there were none, in consequence of the alterations of the Mutiny Act which took place in 1867. Further, by the Mutiny Act of 1868 the punishment was abolished, except upon active service, and on board ships not in commission, and that was the provision which it was intended to continue in the present Army Regulations. As the result of this alteration of the law, between the years 1869 and 1877 there was only one case of infliction of corporal punishment in the Army, according to the Returns. There had, however, very recently been some cases on board ships, to which allusion had been made in the House; but, practically, for several years the punishment had been done away with altogether, and the same change had been made in the Navy. Now, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had stated—and he believed with perfect truth—that in the case of a great number of commanding officers there would be the greatest reluctance to the infliction of this punishment. He (Mr. Rylands) had already stated—and he repeated his belief—that amongst the officers of the Army there were men as humane and as anxious to maintain discipline by kindness as amongst any other class of Her Majesty's Service. But there was no doubt whatever—and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman knew it better than he did—that while this was the general character of the officers of the Army, there were officers of a very different description. There were men who were violent, and who, by their temper, were disposed to impose punishment in a manner which caused a bad impression upon the men under their command, and which was, therefore, detrimental to Her Majesty's Service. Therefore, in looking at this question, they should not set up a standard of character on the part of officers in the Army generally; but they must consider how this particular power might be exercised by men not of very good judgment, and probably by men of infirmity of temper. So far as he was able to judge, the change in the Mutiny Act, under which the administration of corporal punishment had been brought down to a minimum, had effected a great alteration in the administration of the Army, and one which hon. and gallant Gentlemen knew was very much opposed by officers of the Army before that change took place; but it was now plain that it had been altogether beneficial. He had never heard that there had been any objection raised since to the change which had taken place by reason of the limitation of this flogging in the Army. But was it a fact, or was it not, that the power to inflict corporal punishment in certain cases tended to produce a feeling, on the part of the people outside the Service, which would prevent their coming to our regiments? He was quite sure, from his knowledge of the working classes, that the fact of a soldier being liable to this degrading punishment, and the knowledge that when a soldier had been punished in this way his self-respect was reduced, and he was lowered in every way, had a very deterrent effect in preventing men from joining the Army. Now, he should support, during the progress of this Bill, every proposal the effect of which would be to induce a higher class of men to join the Army. In the book which he held in his hand, he found records of crime that were perfectly alarming. He found that the number of men punished for crime in the Army was almost incredible. Until the Return presented to Parliament was examined, one could not imagine there could be found such a large proportion of the men guilty of offences. In 1877 the number of punishments proportioned to offences tried by courts martial was 15,793; the offences themselves, of a serious character, numbering no less than 24,199. In addition to these offences of a serious character, there was a large number punished by the regimental officers; and he found that under that head the number of minor punishments inflicted was something enormous, the total number in 1877 being 282,687; so that what between the major and minor punishments, there existed a state of crime and disorder in the Army which was certainly of a very unsatisfactory character. That state of things, in his opinion, arose, to a great extent, from the fact that under the present condition of the Service the country was obliged to get recruits from the very lowest characters of the population. It was found that men of high character amongst the working classes shrunk from going into the Army. Now, he held that rather than resort to men of low character, men of good character ought to be induced to enlist, and not those of dis- orderly habits. By attracting men of this character, with naturally vicious habits, the Army was rendered a hot-bed for the rearing of men in the constant habit of committing crimes, and who were continually being held to punishment by the decision of their superiors; and this large proportion of men undergoing punishment, as hon. and gallant Members knew perfectly well, very much interfered with the efficiency and available strength of the Army. Therefore, on the grounds of economy, efficiency, and the maintenance of the character of the Service, he held that, if there was the slightest suspicion that the infliction of this punishment, or the knowledge that it could be inflicted, deterred men of the highest character from enlisting, flogging was one of the worst things that could be adopted for the interest of the Army. There was another point which, when the subject of punishment was being dealt with, it was of the greatest possible importance to bear in mind, and that was that punishments should have no reference to the rank of the offender—they should simply regard the enormity of the offence. If it was thought necessary that there should be a particular punishment for certain offences, let it be applied to all ranks in the Army—to the officer, as well as to the private soldier. He would remind hon. Gentlemen that in the days of the First Napoleon a proposal was made to introduce corporal punishment into the French Army. The Emperor resisted that view; but upon pressure from certain officers connected with the Army, he at last consented that a Committee should be appointed to inquire into the propriety of the introduction, with the condition, however, that if it was decided that corporal punishment should be introduced, it should be made to apply to all ranks of the Army alike; and the result was, that the officers who had pressed the matter on the Emperor allowed it to drop, and nothing more was heard of it. He intended to vote in favour of the abolition of this punishment in the British Army, not because he was prepared to take the position that, under no circumstances, could it be beneficial, but with the view of regarding the interest of the Army, and of securing the highest class of recruits; for he maintained that by getting rid of corporal punishment the country would get rid of what, in his opinion, deterred the better class of men from joining our regiments.

MR. BIGGAR

remarked, that the Secretary of State for War had said this was not a pleasant subject; but he had added that no complaints were made against corporal punishment, and that, in fact, the system gave great satisfaction. He (Mr. Biggar) presumed that this was the view of those who had to inflict the punishment, and liked to see it inflicted on others; but he was convinced it could not be the view of those who were liable to it themselves. With regard to the very important point raised by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), as to whether this punishment, in the interests of the Army, should be allowed to continue, it was well known that, at the present time, the recruits were of the very worst description. Over and over again it was stated in the House, and it was notorious out-of-doors, that it was impossible to obtain the proper class of men for recruiting our regiments; the class which now joined being physically and morally unfit for the Service. Did any hon. Member think for a moment that a man of decent character and in fair employment would join the Army, while he ran the risk of having corporal punishment inflicted on him by the whim of an officer? Even, therefore, from the most selfish point of view, so far as the interests of the Army were concerned, the system was inexpedient. It was well known that the Armies of France, Russia, and Germany could hold their own in the field without this system; and not as the British Army had done in Afghanistan, by bribing the heads of the Tribes; while it was equally the fact that, in Zululand, our Army could not make its way at all. He thought the officers of the Army should unite to get rid of the punishment of flogging altogether.

MR. PARNELL

thought the Committee had every reason to complain of the tone which the Secretary of State for War had assumed with regard to the Amendments of the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood), which he affected, to treat as entirely beneath his notice, and unworthy of discusssion. The history of this matter had been that when, upon former occasions, the annual Mutiny Act was passed as a matter of form, and hon. Members had ventured to ask that some attention should be given to the question of flogging in the Army, they were told by the War Office authorities, and by the then Secretary of State for War, that this question, among others, should be inquired into, and receive the attention of a Select Committee, and that afterwards the Government would frame a Bill to deal with the subject. But the result was that, so far from the question of flogging receiving the attention of the Committee upstairs, it received no attention whatever. One of the last things which he (Mr. Parnell) had done on the Committee was to move for further evidence upon the subject, but the Motion was rejected. After this, it was felt that the proceedings of the Committee were of an useless and entirely unsatisfactory character, and that the result was not to be in any way relied upon. It was, therefore, the duty of hon. Members interested in the abolition of this punishment to see that their proceedings on the present occasion were not of the same useless character, and that the question raised by the hon. and learned Member for Stockport should receive proper consideration at the hands of the Secretary of State for War. He (Mr. Parnell) submitted that it was not in accordance with the traditions of the House to go over a series of Amendments and reject them before they had received the consideration of the Committee; it showed a desire, on the part of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, to forestall argument, which would certainly not facilitate the progress of the Bill. The hon. and learned Member for Stockport had asked that if the punishment of flogging could not be done away with altogether it should, at least, be limited in extent of application; and, in so doing, he only went upon the precedent furnished by Government in drawing up the Act, when they showed that there were occasions upon which corporal punishment should not exceed a certain number of lashes; nay, more, they had shown, in many instances, by their practice, that it was not right to inflict this punishment to its fullest extent. He asked why, if never more than 25 lashes were inflicted in the Army, 50 should be inserted in the statute? If officers and surgeons in the Army found 50 lashes too many, why should you put more in the statute than were considered proper by the men who had to execute the law which had been placed in their hands? In other dads there were men who defended the infliction of 2,000 lashes—men of humane character—just as there were at the present day to justify the infliction of 50 lashes. Nevertheless, that punishment of 2,000 lashes had been gradually brought down to 50; and he hoped that the number would be further brought down until none of it remained. Therefore, he trusted the Committee would not dismiss the question too hastily, and without full discussion. The question had its human, as well as its political aspect; and on that ground it demanded the fullest consideration. Again, it was absurd to suppose that they could get a desirable class of men into the Army while the terror of the lash hung over them. From a professional point of view, it should be a matter of delight to a soldier, when war was commenced; but to the English soldier it could be but a matter of apprehension, because he knew that in time of war he was liable to this degrading and brutal punishment of flogging. The Secretary of State for War had told the Committee that it was not his desire to inflict this punishment in a brutal way; but, nevertheless, although it was not his desire, it was inflicted in as brutal a manner as it was possible to inflict it. The strongest man in the regiment was told off for the purpose; that strong man was not supposed to be able to inflict more than 12 strokes at the time; the surgeon stood by, and the sergeant said "one;" the executioner, who stood with the lash in his hands, proceeded with the utmost force to bring it down on the shoulders of the sufferer, bringing it back again to the attitude of "attention." As soon as the sergeant saw that the strong man had had time to prepare himself for another stroke, he gave the order for another lash. Now, if that was not done with the intention of giving as much pain as possible by the punishment, he would like to know what could be? He deprecated the forestalling, in anyway, of the Amendments of the hon. and learned Member for Stockport, as had been attempted by the Secretary of State for War; and, at the same time, trusted that the Committee would mark its sense of the motives of the hon. and learned Member by supporting him in the division.

MR. HOPWOOD

pointed out that it was an error to assume that corporal punishment could be inflicted gently, and asserted that unless it was administered with the greatest possible severity the officer charged with its execution did not do his duty; the lashes must be of the full tale of severity. There must be no blinking of the question; the punishment was of a brutal and beastly kind; if any hon. Member thought it was not, let him stand up and say so. He should like it to be known in the House of Commons what Member would stand up and say that flogging was not a brutal and beastly punishment. But he saw no inclination on the part of any hon. and gallant Member to rise and say even that it was a punishment to be admired for its effectiveness in maintaining discipline in the British Army. It did not quite become the Secretary of State for War to remark that it was not usual to employ a steel whip in the Army; and he could not help thinking that the manner of his reply lost some of its pungency, when he undertook to say that he (Mr. Hopwood) had apologized for his ignorance in discussing this matter. In making the admission referred to, he desired the Secretary of State for War to understand that he had but done what he should do when occupying ground not usually trodden by him. But the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had done more. He had said—"You ought not to go into these matters at all." Well, he was repentant. But why did he not take his hand, as a child's, tenderly, and say—"Your experience is not like mine; let me tell you, you are wrong?" Had he done so, he (Mr. Hopwood) would most certainly have apologized, and said—"I have wronged an hon. and gallant Member; I have overstated my case; I have done an injustice." But the fact was, the Secretary of State for War had hoped, by the use of oratorical artifice, to get rid of his arguments.

SIR HENRY HAVELOCK

was not disposed to listen in silence to charges thrown out against men who, in pursuance of what they believed to be their duty, were prepared to vote in favour of retaining for the present a mode of punishment which they considered to be indispensable to the maintenance of discipline in the Army under circumstances of war. He held that the hon. and learned Gentleman had no practical acquaintance whatever with the circumstances which made this punishment necessary; and had it not been for the challenge thrown out by him, he would not have troubled the Committee with any observations on that occasion. But as the hon. and learned Member had thrown down a challenge, he would tell him that he (Sir Henry Havelock) yielded to him not one inch in his desire to remove corporal punishment from the Army as soon as it was possible to do so with safety. But it was nothing more than a perversion of language and sentiment to say, as the hon. and learned Member had said, that flogging was a disgrace to the Army. The officers of the Army argued, from a melancholy acquaintance with the facts, that in the present circumstances of the Army, and under the temptations amongst which soldiers were thrown in time of war, that the punishment in question was one which it was necessary to maintain. The difference between our Service and that of foreign countries was this—that whereas we were compelled to resort to corporal punishment in the case of certain offences, they, on the other hand, for the like offences, applied, were applying, and would, in his opinion, always in future apply, the punishment of death. Was it the desire of hon. Members, by inflicting the punishment of death, to shut out every chance of retrievement in cases where men now received a punishment which was disgraceful, certainly, but which was for that very reason efficacious? How often did hon. Members require to be told that under no circumstances could the punishment of flogging be given except by court martial? ["No, no!"] [Major NOLAN: The Provost Marshal.] He was not referring to active service. He was glad to hear the hon. and gallant Member for Galway make some remark himself, because he was often contented to act as the instigator of those around him. If the hon. and gallant Member would look at the statistics he would see that in the year 1877, while 30,000 soldiers were on their passage to and from India and the Colonies, not one single instance of corporal punishment had occurred on board ship. Again, although the country had been carrying on war for some months past, he believed that neither in Afghanistan nor in Zululand had corporal punishment yet been inflicted; and he hoped that the latter war would be brought to an end without that necessity arising. Corporal punishment was mainly used during actual warfare, for crimes that were in themselves a disgrace to humanity. It was futile, as well as absurd, to suppose that men of the class of which the British Army was composed—men who were ready to risk anything and to dare anything, who carried their lives daily in their hands, to whom the risk of death and mutilation was a part of the bargain into which they had entered—would be deterred from crime by the mere physical pain of a few lashes. The efficacy of the punishment was entirely due to its disgraceful character. If this punishment was to be done away with in the few cases in which it was retained, what substitute was it proposed to supply? Amongst the various proposals which had been made was the ridiculous suggestion that a card should be hung round the neck of the offender; but he wished to point out to the hon. Member who had made that suggestion (Mr. Parnell), that though this would undoubtedly be ridiculous, the ridicule would justly fall, not on those who suffered, but on those who attempted to apply it. He could assure the Committee that there was no class of men in the world who were more glad to see improvements in the condition of the soldier than were the officers of the Army, who on that occasion had been so much maligned. He sincerely hoped that the time might soon come when corporal punishment would die out, because it was no longer needed; but he was obliged to remark that in such an event the House would owe nothing to the arguments of hon. Members below the Gangway. What monopoly of the feelings of humanity, he desired to know, belonged to those hon. Members? In conclusion, he wished to say that no class of men would rejoice more than the officers of the Army when this punishment could be done away with; but until this occurred the good soldiers knew that they were in perfect security, because there was not the slightest risk that, by any possibility, corporal punishment would be inflicted upon them.

MAJOR NOLAN

said, he was not going to imitate the example of the hon, and gallant Gentleman who had just sat down by endeavouring to obtain a cheer from hon. Members opposite. Notwithstanding that lie had attempted to persuade the Committee that no Hogging was inflicted in the Army except by sentence of court martial, he (Major Nolan) was in a position to state that from three-fourths to nine-tenths of the floggings took place without any court martial whatever. The reason of his remaining silent during the discussion was that he desired to reserve his observations until the Amendment which stood in his name was reached, and which Amendment was intended to afford a guarantee that a man should not be flogged except by order of court martial. The hon, and gallant Member, in his speech, had made a most extraordinary statement in saying that no good soldier was liable to the lash, or could, by any possibility, be flogged; but, on the contrary, he (Major Nolan) maintained that a good soldier was just as likely to be flogged as a bad one, inasmuch as two-thirds of the floggings were for breaches of the most trivial camp rules. If hon. Members doubted his assertion, let them read the last Blue Book issued, and they would find that a number of Zulus gave it as a reason for leaving our Service that they were flogged for breaking camp rules which were not explained to them. Under such circumstances as these, if the hon. and gallant Baronet was in the position of a General commanding in the field, he would see very little flogging going on, and could, therefore, write home and say that there was no flogging in the Army, because it would go on without his knowledge. Without receiving specific orders to flog the soldiers, the provost marshal, in order to carry out the wishes of the General with regard to camp rules, caught the first man who broke them and flogged him; no returns were kept of the number of floggings that took place; and, as he had said before, the best soldier under that system was just as likely to be flogged as a bad one, because he was just as likely to break the camp rules. He had no doubt that upon this principle in Afghanistan and Zululand between 300 and 400 men had been flogged during the wars in those countries. This would be known when the men came home, and would reach the places from which recruits came, by word of mouth, just the same as if it had been published in the newspapers; and the more so, because it was endeavoured to suppress it. He maintained that the class of soldiers must be raised; and one step in that direction was to remove the stigma cast upon them by corporal punishment. And he believed that if the punishment of flogging was kept up, the enthusiasm of the men would be damped when the country entered upon any great war, and that it would be very difficult, indeed, to get men into the ranks. The hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) had said that a soldier should be most pleased when a time of war arrived; but, as matters now stood, he would say—"This is the time for me to be flogged."

SIR ALEXANDER GORDON

briefly pointed out that the discussion had been carried on as if corporal punishment was confined to the Army. It seemed to have been forgotten that it was practised in the Navy, and even to a greater extent than it was in the Army. A captain of a man-of-war could order the punishment to be inflicted if the sentence was approved by two other officers. But this seemed to have been forgotten. ["No, no!"] Yes; it had not been alluded to to-day, nor yet a few days ago, when the hon. and learned Member for Louth (Mr. Sullivan) spoke on the subject. He could not see why the retention of the punishment should be held to be so degrading in the Army and not so in the Navy. The good men of the Army did not object—they knew they were exempt from the punishment; but they also knew it was necessary to retain the punishment as the only means of keeping in order a class of men with whom they had to associate. The hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan) talked of what happened in Abyssinia; but he (Sir Alexander Gordon) had seen larger Armies than were engaged in Abyssinia, and he knew the most important operations of war might be carried on without flogging, if the men knew there was the power to inflict the punishment. The question had been sufficiently discussed; and he only wished to say that the Navy was subject to the same punishment, and to this no objection had been raised in this debate.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, in consequence of the persistent and thorough manner in which military men insisted on retaining the honour of flogging for the private soldiers of the British Army, he gave Notice that in all cases where the flogging was retained for the soldier, he would move on the Report of the Bill that the honour should be extended to the officers of the Army.

SIR HENRY HAVELOCK

said, the discussion would soon extinguish itself; hut he desired one word to give the Committee the opportunity of judging of the value of the statements of the hon. and gallant Member for Gal way (Major Nolan). His remarks implied that under the power given by this Act the provost marshal in the field was enabled, almost whenever he liked, to inflict the punishment, and, practically, without supervision. But if he believed that, he could not have read the Bill. If he referred to the Bill he would find among its provisions one that had been in existence almost as long as the British Army, by which this power to inflict corporal punishment was strictly limited to those cases of gross and violent offences in the field of which the provost marshal had been a personal eye-witness. The provost marshal was restricted to this by his commission, which could only he varied by the General commanding. He could only exercise his power in those cases where he had himself witnessed violent or disgraceful offences; in other cases, he had to refer to the decision of the commanding General. Clause 72, on page 40, would show this; and, under the circumstances, he did not think this power of the provost marshal was in excess of the requirements of warfare.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

said, two statements had been made, not very well reconcilable. The hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) had been charged with engaging in a debate upon a subject on which he had no knowledge; and, later on, his hon. and gallant Friend (Major Nolan) had been alluded to as the instigator of certain proceedings in connection with this subject. Whatever want of knowledge there might be on the part of the hon. and learned Member for Stockport was fully made up by the practical experience of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan). Why did the hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir Henry Havelock) allude so positively to the action his hon. and gallant Friend had taken; and what was the meaning of the wild shout from the opposite Benches when the observation was made? The only interpretation he could put upon it was that it was an attempt to intimidate the hon. and gallant Member in the discharge of his duty. It was not the first time that intimations had been made to hon. Gentlemen connected with the Service, who chose to adopt a peculiar line of policy, that they would be marked men. If that was what was intended in the present instance, the sooner it was known and understood in Ireland the better; and he was glad his hon. and gallant Friend had met it in the spirited way he had; and, if the hon. and gallant Baronet expected to limit opposition by his remarks, he had mistaken his man. With reference to this subject of flogging, he did not intend to go over the ground occupied by other hon. Members; but it was surprising to him that when Parliament said that there should be a regulation whip used in the Prisons and in the Navy, that the authorities at the Horse Guards had not adopted a similar regulation in the Army; it was a matter to which the Secretary of State for War would do well to direct his attention. In the case of the prison rules and regulations, it was required that a copy should be laid on the Table of the House. A similar course might be adopted with the Army whip, so that Members might test the weight of the instrument; and, even if so disposed, subject themselves to the discipline, and so get practical knowledge of what the poor fellows suffered whose backs were lacerated. On whom should rest the stigma of calling the Army a collection of scoundrels and blackguards? Certainly not on those who endeavoured to get the punishment of flogging abolished in the Army. This was a most serious subject; and, as they had failed to induce the Government to make the slightest attempt to meet the Amendment, he hoped no division would be taken to-day. He trusted the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would not press this matter any further; but that he should be allowed to adjourn the question until he had more time to give it consideration.

MAJOR NOLAN

said, the hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir Henry Havelock) had impugned his statements, and had referred to Clause 72, which authorized the appointment of provost marshals. But the law with regard to provost marshals was extremely strained, or the facts which he (Major Nolan) had referred to would not have happened. He had been speaking of the law as it actually existed, and not of this Bill. He (Major Nolan) had carefully read the clause in this Bill, and he failed to find what had been stated by the hon. and gallant Baronet. He thought provost marshals might flog men for almost anything under the clause. He wished hon. Members to see this clause, and to examine the powers given under it. Certainly, as to the class of evidence, the clause was terribly stringent; because it said that the provost marshal himself might see the offence committed, or one of his assistants might see it; while the provost marshal could have any number of corporals, or lance corporals, or even private soldiers as his assistants. This provost marshal had it in his power to flog men for the most trivial offences; so that where they found the clause simply protecting the soldier for an offence lie did not commit, then, on the other hand, it allowed the provost marshal, pratically, to flog for almost anything. For instance, the clause said— And the powers of such provost marshals shall be regulated according to the established usages of war. Now, that simply meant that if anyone in the camp said he had known a man to have been flogged for such and such an offence—it might be 20 years before—then that might be construed into a warranty for flogging. In another place it said— The General or other officer commanding the Forces on active service shall cause the provost marshals to exercise the powers intrusted to them in such manner and under such circumstances as he may consider to he best calculated to prevent and instantly to repress offences injurious to the discipline of the Forces under his command and to the Public Service. On the whole, he should say there never was a clause drawn up more expressly to cover every possible case than this clause. But he would turn to the latest and best evidence that could be got—namely, the last Blue Book from Zululand, and he defied the hon. and gallant Baronet to say that the men were not there flogged in large numbers for the most trifling offences. True, they were Zulus, and not European soldiers; but he had himself seen Europeans flogged for very nearly the same things, and they now found that those things were going on at the present moment. He did not see what better evidence they could have than this book, which was published on the authority of the Government. The provost marshal, it seemed, did not keep the returns; but there were statements in this Book which were supposed to be correct. He should like either the hon. and gallant Baronet, or the hon. and gallant General (General Shute)—who had been out with large Armies, and both of whom had had larger Forces under their command, and more experience than himself—to say whether five men, or even 10 men, had not been flogged every day amongst those Forces? Could they say they knew that was not the case? Had they made inquiry to satisfy themselves that in a Force, say, of 20,000 men, that was not the common average? They would not know, perhaps, unless they took the trouble to ascertain the fact. But he believed that in every British Army in the field a very fair amount of flogging usually went on—it was such a very convenient punishment. They had nothing to do but to catch a man and to tie him up to the nearest post, and give him 20 lashes, and say nothing more about it. It need not be reported to anybody, and there the matter ended. He dared say the man would not commit the same offence again. He dared say the punishment was tolerably effectual; but its great merit was that it was so extremely convenient, and because it was convenient it was used, and that was the reason of its retention. He should like to see it abolished altogether, if possible. He acknowledged he did not hope to get it abolished; but he intended to propose such Amendments as would limit it down to what had been stated in that House should be the limit—that was to say, to limit it to cases in which foreign nations used it. That, he thought, would diminish it by 9–10ths.

MR. JACOB BRIGHT

said, a great many references had been made in the course of the debate to the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for Sunder- land (Sir Henry Havelock), and he was not surprised, seeing that his was the only speech which had been made in the debate in favour of the necessity of flogging. Well, he (Mr. Bright) congratulated hon. Gentlemen opposite that they had left to that (the Opposition) side of the House the task of defending that unfortunate institution. But the speech of his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Sunderland had, he thought, entirely failed in convincing anybody that flogging was necessary or desirable. If he (Mr. Bright) had previously been in favour of flogging, he thought he would have been convinced by that speech of the folly of it. Why, the hon. and gallant Baronet made a deliberate statement that in the Zulu and Afghanistan Wars not a single individual had been flogged. There had been no necessity for flogging in those two wars; and he further said that he believed that when the Zulu War had ended, it would then be found that nobody in the Army had been flogged. Surely, he (Mr. Bright) might appeal to the hon. and gallant Baronet, and ask him to give up this wretched rag which still remained, after so much had been removed and reformed. He would ask him to give that up, as we could so well do without it—that we could carry on two wars without any necessity for using the cat. When the question was last debated before the Recess, he remembered the argument relied on by those who defended, flogging was this—it was said it would be impossible on the line of march to find a substitute for it, and that, therefore, they must have flogging on the line of march. Well, the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell), in the course of this debate, had shown, he thought, very clearly that there were other deterring punishments that might be adopted; and although his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Sunderland referred to the speech of the hon. Member for Meath, he did not deal with those substitutions which the hon. Member for Meath suggested. On the contrary, he dealt with only one of those suggestions, which he seemed to think was somewhat ridiculous; but not with the others, which were of more importance. The hon. and gallant Baronet said this was a most disgraceful punishment. Yes, it was disgraceful to the individual who received it, disgraceful to the Army wherein it existed, and, in his opinion, disgraceful to the country which permitted it. He believed this country would stand better before the eyes of foreigners by abandoning this punishment, as they had already abandoned it. He trusted that when the hon. and gallant Baronet reflected a little more on the matter, he would assist those who objected to this disgraceful punishment in getting rid of it. He (Mr. Bright) believed, as the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) had said, that this punishment kept men out of the Army who would otherwise come to it, and that it lowered the standard of the Service.

SIR HENRY HAVELOCK

remarked, that a pointed allusion had been made to him by the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, and for whose opinion he had a just respect. He must compliment his hon. Friend on the very marked contrast between the tone of his moderate speech and that of those very excited speeches which preceded him from hon. Members a little lower down.

It being 10 minutes before Seven of the clock, Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Thursday.

The House suspended its sitting at Seven of the clock.

The House resumed its sitting at a quarter after Nine of the clock.