§ (Mr. Secretary Stanley, Mr. Secretary Cross, Mr. William Henry Smith, The Judge Advocate General.)
§ COMMITTEE. [Progress 24th June.]
§ Bill considered in Committee.
§ (In the Committee.)
§ Clause 76 (Reckoning and forfeiture of service).
§ Amendment proposed, in page 41, line 14, to leave out from the word " attestation " to the end of the Clause.—(Mr. O'Donnell.)
731§ Question proposed, "That the words 'but when a soldier of the regular forces has been guilty of any of the following offences,' stand part of the Clause."
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, that the special reason which he had for objecting to the c section was its unvarying severity. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for "War had consented to take out sub-sections c and d, referring to the offence of being taken prisoner of war under certain conditions, and of not rejoining the regiment when released under certain circumstances. But he (Mr. O'Donnell) ventured to think that the clause would be much more improved by leaving out sub-section b also; not that the crime of fraudulent enlistment was not a very considerable one, but that this crime, as well as that of desertion, ought to be treated under a separate clause altogether. Desertion was a crime which varied very much in itself. In one case a man might desert under very bad circumstances, and fully deserve to have all his previous service forfeited; and in another case he might desert under very different circumstances—might not be absent long, and might soon return to his corps—and yet he would find himself forced to forfeit all his previous service. He must suffer punishment, without any option on the part of his judges, although, in fact, he did not belong to the worst category of deserters. Again, it was quite possible that a case of fraudulent enlistment might occur without any very serious moral delinquency on the part of the offender. Suppose a case of fraudulent enlistment, where a man enlisted in a second regiment—say, for the purpose of serving with an old comrade, or some other reason of the kind; he concealed the fact of his being already a soldier, and, undoubtedly, deceived the country and cheated it out of a certain sum of money; yet it appeared to him (Mr. O'Donnell) that a man who committed this crime in order to serve along with an old comrade, or a village friend, was not so bad as the man who, according to an American expression, was a regular "bounty jumper." But, under the Act, he would be declared to forfeit all his previous service, if his offence should be discovered. He thought it ought to be left more particularly to the court martial to say whether or not such a case should carry with it forfeiture of 732 all previous service. By denying to the court martial this power its dignity was lowered; while, at the same time, it was prevented from properly discriminating offences. It was true that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War proposed to amend the clause, to the effect that where a deserter served unexceptionally for five years he would be allowed to recover his former service; but that by no means met the difficulties of the case, which, as he (Mr. O'Donnell) had before pointed out, consisted in the very great difference in guilt between deserter and deserter. Surely, a court martial, which was intrusted with the power of flogging, ought also to be trusted with the power of discriminating whether a deserter should forfeit the whole of his previous service, or whether he should be let off with a light sentence.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, the clause was opposed to the principle introduced when the system of short service was established. What was the punishment proposed by the clause? It was that a soldier guilty of desertion should serve longer in the Army. Was it wise to hold out to a soldier that service in the Army was to be a punishment? It appeared to him (Mr. Parnell) that in framing the Bill there had been too much desire to keep to the old models. In addition to the sentences of imprisonment and forfeiture, it was put to the soldier, as a further punishment, that he should serve longer in the Army. It was well known that a thing, when represented as disagreeable, and used as a punishment, became obnoxious; as in old times, when going to church was made a sort of punishment for children. If, therefore, a longer period of service was held out as a punishment to soldiers, the Army would be made objectionable to those persons desirous of enlisting. He thought it would be well to strike out the four sub-sections a, b, c, d.
§ MR. O'DONNELLasked permission to withdraw his Amendment, as the same points were raised by the Amendment of the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell).
§ Question put, " That the Amendment be, by leave, withdrawn."
§ MR. BIGGARconsidered the arguments very strong in favour of striking out the sub-sections a and b, which 733 dealt with desertion and fraudulent enlistment, and made it imperative upon the court martial to punish all offenders, great or small, no matter whether their time of service was long or short. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had very properly said that some soldiers deserted and re-deserted time after time, and that the result was they were the greater part of their lives in gaol. The argument of those who opposed the clause did not apply to men of that stamp, who would have nothing in consequence to forfeit in point of service. But the punishment of forfeiture would fall very heavily upon the well-conducted soldier, who had little recorded against him; but who, for some reason or other, deserted nearly at the end of his term of service. Such a man might easily be absent for a time without leave, and through a number of circumstances, which daily occurred, might be prevented from returning to his regiment, and the court martial might find him guilty of desertion and punish him; but the clause laid it down that in addition to the punishment to be awarded he should suffer a further very severe penalty in the loss of all his previous service. Again, with regard to fraudulent enlistment, a recruit of 17 went before the justices and swore he was 18 years of age; at the end of seven years, perhaps, when he had become a good and useful soldier, he was found out, and the court martial might award him punishment for having fraudulently enlisted. He (Mr. Biggar) thought it would be proper that the court martial should have the option of making a soldier forfeit his service or not. But to say first that the court martial should inflict punishment for desertion, and then to impose the additional punishment of forfeiture, was monstrous.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, the clause was one which he must ask the Committee to pass in the form in which it was left on Monday last. The hon. and gallant Member for Cork (Colonel Colthurst) had very truly reminded the Committee that it should not allow sympathy for the soldiers who were under punishment to extend so far as to diminish the respect for the good soldiers who were serving in the Army. He proposed to take out sub-sections c and d; but with regard to desertion from Her Majesty's Service and fraudulent enlist- 734 ment, these were crimes which could not but be perpetrated by the soldier himself, and which could not in any way be forced upon him; he therefore felt bound to retain the sub-sections a and b. With reference to the case of men who were supposed to desert in order to join friends in other regiments, he had almost said it was nonsense to talk about such cases; for he believed, when good grounds existed, there was no difficulty whatever in a man being allowed to enter another regiment. But, be that as it might, he did not think any man had a right to be at liberty to transfer himself whenever he pleased. Such a man had entered into an engagement by the terms of which he must abide. He had already pointed out how great a blot upon the Army was desertion; while fraudulent enlistment amounted to a regular trade; and he quite admitted that the Government wanted to deal with those crimes more severely than had been the case hitherto; and it was felt necessary, while relieving the soldier of the consequences of some minor offences, to hit him harder for crimes committed not only against the State, but against his comrades. As the matter stood, a soldier guilty of desertion from Her Majesty's Service, or of fraudulent enlistment, ipso facto, would forfeit his service; he chose to break his engagement and incur this penalty, and the State was right in considering him as entering into an engagement de novo. He did not think that, in view of the present short service in the Army, it was at all unreasonable to ask the Committee to assent to the clause as amended.
§ SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLwished to see words inserted in the clause to enable commanding officers, in some cases, to reduce the forfeiture of service to a shorter period than the whole time of service. He put the case of a man who had served 10 years, and borne a high character, who, being sent to a bad station, suffered in his health, and for some reason or other, in a moment of weakness, deserted. The commanding officer, although he might wish to punish the man by, say, two years' forfeiture, would be absolutely compelled by law to forfeit the whole 10 years' service. He thought some provision should be made in the clause to meet cases of that kind.
§ COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, he wished to bring under the notice of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War the fact that the present Bill, unlike the old Mutiny-Act, did not contain any power to punish a man who confessed himself to be in the Militia at the time of his enlistment in the Army.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, as well as all military men, laid great stress upon the fact of the soldier entering into a contract, and deserving no mercy if he voluntarily broke it. That would be quite true with regard to a contract entered into under ordinary civil conditions; but it must be borne in mind that when a minor entered into a contract, in order to make it binding upon him, he must re-consent to it when ho came of age. But, in this case, not only to the detriment of the principles of civil right, but to the detriment of the efficiency of the Army, the State took into its service boys who were legally incapable of binding themselves by contract. The contract referred to by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was no reason why these boys should be bound down to what might be the folly of their youth at 18 or 19; nor was it a reason for treating them as deserters, just as if they were men of full age. It was necessary to do one of two things; either to insist that no one should enter the Army who was not of full age, or to draw a distinction between the contract entered into by a boy, and the contract entered into by a man of full age. Let men of full age, if necessary, be treated with severity; but he maintained that there was a great deal of room for mercy to be shown to lads of 18 or 19, whom it would be a violation of the rules of civil life to bind down to the engagements of their minority.
§ MR. RYLANDS,while he entirely agreed with the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War as to the gravity of the offences of desertion and fraudulent enlistment, and while he agreed that those offences should be punished and prevented, was bound to express his great doubt as to the necessity of this clause. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had spoken of it as one which would remove certain difficulties of account; but he (Mr. Rylands) was quite unable to see how it 736 could do so. Then, if it were a question of punishing deserters and men who enlisted fraudulently, surely the 12th and 13th clauses of the Bill provided ample punishments for such persons. Was the object of the clause to add to the punishment already existing in the Bill, or was it to retain men in the Army for a longer period than that of their original enlistment? But the right hon. and gallant Gentleman knew a great deal better than he (Mr. Rylands) that to retain men of bad character, after two or three fraudulent enlistments, would be the greatest possible disadvantage to the Service. The great difficulty to be contended with was that boys were taken into the Service without any reference to their character. They took a lad who, perhaps, having got into some difficulty, and being morally and physically unfitted for the Service as well, rushed to the recruiting sergeant and enlisted in the Army, from which, after a year or two, he probably deserted, adding to the difficulties of Army regulation by becoming a worthless, but expensive, unit in the number of their soldiers. He could not see the good of retaining this clause, for, in his opinion, the best thing to do with a bad fellow who deserted once or twice was to punish him and get rid of him from the Army as soon as possible; otherwise, he believed, there would always remain a great deal of difficulty with regard to desertion. It also appeared to him that greater care should be taken to get young men as recruits of tolerably good character; but having provided in Clauses 12 and 13 for the punishment of desertion and fraudulent enlistment he doubted whether it was necessary to resort to the power proposed to be given by the clause under discussion.
§ MR. HOPWOODsaid, the object of the clause was expressed in the words "the whole of his prior service shall be forfeited." He objected that the Committee should put into an Act of Parliament a second punishment as a consequence of another sentence, and give the court no option of modifying it, or relieving the prisoner in regard to it. There was a very strong objection to such undue severity in enactments which were intended to operate for the repression of crime, and mere irregularity, or offences. Who were the people to be affected by this clause, and who was it the whole of whose prior service should 737 be forfeited? First, the soldier who deserted; secondly, the soldier who fraudulently enlisted. Now, the latter, he assumed, might be a grave case. But the Bill did exactly the same for the man who confessed himself to be a deserter, and with regard to whom the authorities had taken so lenient a view that they dispensed with his trial by court martial, as it did for the man who fraudulently enlisted. Did the Committee intend to rank together these two classes —those who were condemned by court martial, and those who were lesser offenders? He understood the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to say he was going to take out the words "if having been committed as a deserter by a court of summary jurisdiction;" in his (Mr. Hopwood's) opinion it would also be well to take out the other words "or having confessed the offence he is liable to be tried," because the offenders were both on a par as to the degree of their crime; one having been condemned by court martial—in regard to whom the case, perhaps, was not so strong—and the trial of the other having been dispensed with by competent authority. Then the right hon. and gallant Gentleman said that a great deal of book-keeping was to be saved by the adoption of the clause. But was it the argument of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that that was to be effected at the expense of justice? Then, he had told the Committee that desertion and fraudulent enlistment were crimes which a man could not be forced to commit. What crimes could a man be forced to commit? The crimes which a man was forced to commit, he (Mr. Hopwood) apprehended ceased to be crimes at all. Take the case of a man under a non-commissioned officer, who treated him with brutality and bullied him; such cases were by no means uncommon, and many a man had been morally compelled to desert by the pressure put upon him in that way. Was that to be ranked with the crime of fraudulent enlistment, which had ever been, and must always be, a much more voluntary act than desertion? It ought not to be stereotyped in the Act of Parliament which the Committee were about to pass, that neither the court nor the authorities should have any option in the matter of forfeiture of service merely to save a few columns of bookkeeping.
§ COLONEL ALEXANDERsaid, at present, a soldier who had deserted and been tried by court martial forfeited the whole of his previous service; but, if he kept clear of the regimental defaulters' book, he, at the end of five years, appeared before the commanding officer, and requested that his service might be restored. The commanding officer forwarded the application to the Secretary of State for War, who, as a matter of course, agreed to the restoration of service. He (Colonel Alexander) wished to point out that restoration after five years, under the present system of service, was rather too long deferred. The period of five years was all very well under the old system; but now, when a man had to serve six years with the Colours and six years with the Reserve, it was too much to expect that he should have to serve five years more in order to obtain restoration of service. He had already expressed his opinion upon this point, in reply to a Circular from the War Office, that the time should be reduced to two years, which he still thought would be sufficient under the present system of enlistment for six years.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ COLONEL STANLEYmoved the omission of sub-section d, which provided that the whole of the prior service of a soldier should be forfeited, if he should be convicted of the offence of not having, when released as a prisoner of war, rejoined his regiment as soon as he could and ought to have done.
§ Amendment agreed to; sub-section omitted accordingly.
§ COLONEL STANLEYmoved the omission of the words " by a court of summary jurisdiction," in lines 27 and 28, observing, that although a man might be convicted as a deserter by a court of summary jurisdiction, he might be restored by the proper military authority.
§ Amendment agreed to; words struck out accordingly.
§ MR. HOPWOODmoved, as an Amendment, in page 41, line 31, to leave out the words " the whole of his previous service shall be forfeited," in order to insert the words— 739
He shall forfeit such portion of his previous service as the court martial before which he shall be tried or the said authority may declare.Amendment proposed,In page 41, line 31, to leave out the words "the whole of his previous service shall be forfeited," in order to insert the words " he shall forfeit such portion of his previous service as the court martial before which he shall be tried or the said authority may declare."—[Mr. Sop-wood.)Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ COLONEL STANLEYobjected to the Amendment, on the ground that it would re-introduce the old system of making forfeiture part of the punishment awarded by court martial. It was quite true that forfeitures had been awarded by sentence of court martial; still, the Government had endeavoured to limit, as far as possible, contingent punishment of that land in addition to the sentences passed, and to limit the sentences of courts martial to the words specified by the Act. The Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) would, he thought, confer extraordinary powers upon courts martial, and the same objection applied to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. J. Brown). For those reasons, he was unable to accept the Amendment proposed.
§ MAJOR NOLANthought the Amendment ought to be accepted. A man was often convicted of desertion by court martial when there was no moral certainty of his guilt. It was very difficult to distinguish between desertion and absence without leave; so that a court often found itself obliged to find a man technically guilty of desertion when, at the same time, it was not sure that the offence had been committed. The court could, in certain cases, never be sure of this, for the man himself did not know whether he was guilty of desertion or absence without leave. From the very nature of the crimes, it was absolutely impossible to distinguish between them. This was the reason why the court should not be obliged to award a severe penalty; or, rather, why it should not be obliged to find a man guilty of an offence which entailed a less penalty. Forfeiture of service was, of course, nothing to a man of a 740 few months' service only; but, in the case of one of 15 or 16 years' service, the forfeiture of the whole period was a very great drawback, especially if that long period had been spent in a hot climate, in which case his constitution would probably have been much tried. He could not help thinking that the matter should be left to the discretion of the Court; and would suggest that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War should draw up a clause to the effect that the service could not be forfeited, unless the court specially so recommended. By that means his object would be gained, and forfeiture would follow as a matter of course, unless the court specially recommended to the contrary. He could not see any reason why the court should not have the power suggested.
§ MR. J. BROWNapproved the words "the whole of his prior service shall be forfeited;" but he intended to move an Amendment at the proper moment, the object of which was to prevent the infliction of double punishment by courts martial composed of young officers, who might forget that prior service was forfeited as a matter of course.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, that at present the punishment of a soldier was left indefinite to a great extent, except in the case of the extra punishments awarded by this clause. They had not gone on the principle of limiting courts martial in their choice of punishments; but had rather left it to courts martial to choose from a variety of punishments which they would inflict. He had neard no reason offered why they should deprive courts martial of the power of deciding upon the choice of punishment for the particular offences with which this clause dealt. In all other cases, they had left it to courts martial to choose the punishment, and he thought the same should be done in this case. Surely, there was no principle involved which could induce the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War to adhere with so much firmness to his decision in this matter. It would be fair to leave a court martial to discriminate as to the extent of the punishment that should be inflicted upon a prisoner for this offence. Let them be merciful, rather than severe. It might be true that soldiers were difficult to manage; but he thought no harm would be done by some little miti- 741 gation in their favour in the present case. He was quite sure that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for "War did not wish to be severe upon soldiers, and that he was really resisting his own convictions in insisting upon this clause. He would ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to be a little merciful upon this occasion, and to yield to his own good feelings in the matter. Although it might be a very good thing to follow the advice of the military authorities by whom he was advised, yet they knew that those gentlemen were much too fond of red tape; and it was for them, sitting there as legislators, not to let their judgment be warped from what they thought right, merely because those authorities were in favour of severe punishment.
§ MR. O'DONNELLventured to say that this proposed penalty must act directly contrary to the desire of the Government. If a soldier deserted under the influence of some passing fancy, but afterwards repented, and wished to come back into the Army, a punishment was here enacted which would deter him from going back, and would punish him for repenting. After having confessed his offence, he was liable to be tried and to lose all his service, simply because he might have been a few weeks, or two months, away from his duty. The effect of the clause was to prevent a man who was disposed to go back doing so; and it would rather induce him to be- take himself to America or the Colonies, for ho would find that if he went back, this Act of Parliament absolutely forfeited to him all his prior service. In the whole course of his life he had never seen—not even in legislation for Ireland—a more absurd clause. He ventured, respectfully, to urge upon the attention of hon. Members of the Committee that this clause was putting a premium upon desertion. He should be very happy to hear any reason to alter his opinion; but, so far as most of them could see, the only effect of this clause was to punish a man for going back to his duty.
§ COLONEL STANLEYobserved, that the effect of the clause was not what had been attributed to it by hon. Members. If a man came back he was tried; but his return would be taken as an extenuating circumstance, under Clause 56, by which a prisoner charged 742 before a court martial with desertion might be found guilty of the minor offence of being absent without leave.
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONsaid, that formerly it was necessary for every soldier to be sentenced to forfeit his service. A power was given at one time to sentence a soldier to forfeit his further service as well; but that power was subsequently taken away, as it was held to be wrong. They were only going back now to what was the custom 20 or 25 years ago. Perhaps it would meet some of the objections that had been raised to enact that if a man voluntarily came back he should not necessarily forfeit his former service, but, at the option of the court, might be allowed to count his service up to the time of desertion. He thought that a power of that kind in the hands of the court martial would be instrumental in inducing men to return to their duty.
§ MR. PARNELLthought that the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) had made a very good point, when he said that this clause gave the military authorities power to dispose, without trial, of the case of a soldier who had deserted and returned, and to punish him for this offence without trying him. The competent military authorities were given power to sentence a soldier without trial, and to inflict the punishment upon him of forfeiture of his services, without having ascertained that he was guilty of the offence at all. That seemed to him to be a very extraordinary proposal, and he did not think that the working of the clause was generally understood. The clause gave the military authorities power to dispose of a case without trial, and to sentence a man, and to punish him for an offence of which he might not be guilty. In his opinion, it would be a very fair course to postpone this clause, until the Government should see that the position they were taking up was indefensible.
§ COLONEL STANLEYhoped that hon. Gentlemen would not think him guilty of discourtesy in saying that he thought it would be very hard upon the Committee to postpone the clause. He begged to point out to the Committee that if this clause had been made more stringent, yet benefits had been extended to the soldier by the Bill in other directions. He had thought it undesirable that these two very serious 743 crimes of desertion and fraudulent enlistment should be placed with the other crimes, and that a man should be allowed to reckon his service prior to the commission of the offence. In the case of these two crimes, he had considered that forfeiture of past service should be a part of the sentence. He might be right, or he might be wrong, in that view; but that was the view he held. "With regard to these two very serious crimes, his opinion was that, ipso facto, a soldier should forfeit his previous service. With regard to the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon), they were entitled to very great respect; but the hon. and gallant Member must remember that, at the time he spoke of, courts martial could not find a man charged with desertion guilty of any lesser offence.
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONexpressed dissent from that view.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that now, under Clause 56, the court might find a man, who was charged with desertion, guilty of the lesser crime of absence without leave. There was, moreover, power in the Act to restore a man's service. He hoped that the Committee would now take a division upon the Amendment.
§ MAJOR NOLANbegged to differ from the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War in what he had said. If his (Major Nolan's) recollection served him right, there were between 2,000 and 3,000 men convicted every year of the offence of desertion— that was to say, there were about 5,000 deserters, and between 2,000 and 3,000 that were apprehended. They should remember that in dealing with this crime they were enormously increasing the punishment for an offence which existed to a very large extent, and were adopting a course which, in dealing with civilians, would not be tolerated. The clause provided that where a soldier of the Regular Forces was found guilty of any of the following offences, desertion from Her Majesty's Service, &c.:—
Then either upon his conviction by court martial of the offence, or (if having been committed as a deserter by a court of summary jurisdiction, or having confessed the offence, he is liable to be tried), upon his trial being dispensed with by order of the competent military authority, the whole of his prior service shall be forfeited, and he shall be liable to serve as a 744 soldier of the regular forces for the term of his original enlistment, reckoned from the date of such conviction or such order dispensing with trial, in like manner as if he had been originally attested at that date.The Committee would thus see what a very severe punishment that was; the whole prior service of a man was forfeited, and a man who had served 14 or 15 years would have to commence his service over again. It was very hard upon old soldiers, amongst whom there were some hundreds of desertions every year. The punishment was too heavy, unless some power of mitigating it was given to the court martial. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War said that he would accept his (Major Nolan's) Amendment, he should be content not to divide upon the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood). He would suggest that the clause should be amended in this way—by saying that the whole of a man's prior service should be forfeitedUnless a court of competent millitary authority specifically orders only a portion of the soldier's service to be forfeited, in which case only the portion of the service so ordered to be forfeited shall be forfeited.That would leave it to the court before whom a deserter was tried to mitigate the punishment. The clause, as it was drawn, was very harsh indeed; he would not complain of the drafting: but he thought something more should have been done on the side of mercy. It ought to be left to a court martial, or to the military authorities, to dispense, in such cases as they should think it right, with the forfeiture of the whole or any portion of the service. But, under the clause, if a man who had been 21 days absent, and was found in plain clothes when apprehended, he had to be tried and found guilty of desertion, and then this very severe punishment was imposed.
AN HON. MEMBERthought the longer a man had served the greater was his punishment under this clause, and it seemed to him that its operation would be very unjust and hard. He was in favour of leaving the sentence, as much as possible, in the discretion of courts martial. If a soldier deserved a hard sentence, probably a court martial would give it to him; but if he did not deserve a severe sentence, then he thought that a court martial should have power to treat him with mercy.
§ MR. RYLANDSdid hope that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would not for a moment suppose that the opposition to this clause was being pressed from any motives of obstruction; he (Mr. Rylands) entirely repudiated any such motives in his opposition to it. He rose for the purpose of saying that, as they went through the Bill, they continually met with evidence that, although keeping to the old Articles of War and the old Mutiny Act, yet, in every direction, there was a greater severity in respect of punishments, and a withdrawal of those elements of merciful consideration which ran through previous Regulations of the Army. No Article of War which he could find approached in severity this clause with respect to forfeiture of service. If he were wrong in that, he should he very glad, for he spoke on this subject with very great hesitation. But he would repeat, that he could find nothing in those Articles of War which justified the extreme severity of the clause now placed before the Committee. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman, he trusted, would give a promise—which, if he did, he (Mr. Rylands) was sure he would fulfil—that the merciful provisions found in the Articles of War, by which service was given back to deserters under certain conditions, and on proof of subsequent good conduct, should be introduced into this measure. Those merciful provisions, which were found in the Articles of War, were entirely left out in this Bill; and he should be glad, before the clause passed, if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would state the conclusions at which he had arrived with respect to the 169th Article of War. He most emphatically protested against the Committee being pressed to pass this clause in the shape in which it stood, and he trusted that some concessions would be made by the Government.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that if the Committee would once more give him their attention he would endeavour to lay the matter before them. Under the present rules, if a man were absent more than five days, and he was found guilty of desertion, his previous service was forfeited. And not only were a man's service forfeited if he were found guilty of desertion, but also if he were convicted of being absent without leave for 746 longer than that period. Under this measure, the forfeiture of previous service was limited to the two serious crimes of desertion and fraudulent enlistment; and hon. Members would, therefore, see that a change was made in the direction of leniency. But another and a greater change had been made. As the clause was drawn, a man who had been convicted and imprisoned no longer forfeited the time which he passed in prison. At present, a man forfeited all the time that he passed in prison; and the effect was this—that a soldier who had served a great deal of his time in prison practically went on renewing his engagement. That rule was now made to cease altogether. He hoped that the operation of that change would be that a number of men whom it was very desirable not to retain in the Army, and who passed a great part of their time in prison, would be gradually weeded from it. He fully admitted that for those two crimes the punishment was made somewhat more severe than before. But if the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Rylands) and others would look at the clauses further on, and take into consideration the various loopholes that had now been given to men to return to the Service, in respect of the consequences of the minor crimes, they would find that, on the whole, the changes which had been made were merciful. If they took into consideration the provision by which men sentenced to a short term of imprisonment were now drafted abroad and enabled to have another chance, instead of being confined in prison; if all these things were taken into consideration, and the balance struck, he did hop9 that the Committee would see that there had been an endeavour, in framing this Bill, to be as merciful as was consistent with the due maintenance of discipline. SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL wished to draw attention to sub-section b, and to point out that the offence of fraudulent enlistment was dealt with, not only in that clause, but under sub-section 7 of Clause 80. It seemed to him hardly possible that those provisions for fraudulent enlistment should be concurrent, and should remain in the Bill together. He hoped that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would explain how this came about. With regard to the offence of desertion, it was, no doubt, very common, and it was necessary to 747 hold something in terrorem over soldiers to check the crime; at the same time, he thought it was right that there should be ample power to remit the sentence of forfeiture to any extent and to any period.
§ MR. O'DONNELLhad listened very carefully to everything that had fallen from the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, and it did not seem to him that he had answered the objections which had been raised to the clause. He did not think he should be doing an injustice to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman if he stated that his argument was altogether wrong. He proposed to deprive a soldier, under an Act of Parliament, of all benefit of his previous good service with the Colours, and, by way of recompense, gave him the benefit of his service on the tread-mill, or in gaol. He did not think that he was misrepresenting the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's argument in saying that. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman actually refused to listen to experienced Members on his own side of the House; and when they suggested a proper punishment for the offence, he still insisted upon forfeiture, under the clause, of all the previous good service of the deserter, although he allowed the man to count as service the number of years that he spent in gaol. That seemed to him the most extraordinary manner of which he had heard of for meeting an argument. He ventured to say that, considering the thinness of the Committee and the importance of this clause, he felt that he ought to move to report Progress, until the House was more fairly filled. This was a clause of the very first importance, and required the fullest consideration. This clause proposed to punish a deserter who had confessed his crime by the forfeiture of all his previous service. They contended that this was directed against expediency, and was contrary to the public service. It tempted a temporary deserter to become a permanent one; and the recompense that was proposed for the injustice inflicted was to allow the soldier to count as good service the months or years that he had spent in gaol. He was sure that the argument which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had put forward did not emanate from himself; but had been instilled into his mind from some mischievous quarter to which 748 he was bound to pay reverence from official reason. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman also said that the court martial, before whom a deserter was brought, could convict a man of only having been absent without leave instead of convicting him of desertion. That was an extraordinary way out of the difficulty. A deserter who wished to give himself back to the Service ought to be treated more leniently; but he had been undoubtedly guilty of desertion, and it was actually suggested by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that a court martial should find him guilty of another crime. Such a suggestion as that aimed directly at the reputation of courts martial. The suggestion was, that in order to get out of this very barbarous clause a court martial should find a man guilty, not of the offence which he had actually committed, but of an offence which he had not committed. A man, when guilty of desertion, ought to be punished for desertion, and not, as had been suggested, for an offence which he had not committed of a minor character. There was a story of an Irish jury before whom a man was placed on a charge of murder. There was not a tittle of evidence against him on the charge of murder, and the Judge charged the jury directly against his conviction; but, notwithstanding that, the jury found him guilty of murder. The Judge expressed his surprise at such a course; but the jury answered calmly that the man was not guilty of murder, but that he was a notorious horse-stealer. That was the kind of morality which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman sought to inculcate upon courts martial. He thought, under the circumstances, he should be justified in moving to report Progress, in order that a full House might understand the casuistry which Pascal never approached, and by which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman attempted to get out of the difficulty.
§ MR. O'DONNELLNo, Sir.
§ MAJOR NOLANcould see no reason why the rig-lit hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War should not accept some Amendment upon the clause. The more he read the clause the more strongly was he opposed to the Committee giving such sweeping 749 powers as were contained in it. He would draw the attention of hon. Members to Clause 80, which enforced this clause—
Where a soldier of the regular forces has been guilty of the offence of desertion from Her Majesty's service or of fraudulent enlistment, and has either been convicted of the same by a court martial, or having confessed the offence, or been committed by a court of summary jurisdiction as a deserter, is liable to be tried, but his trial has been dispensed with by order of the competent military authority such soldier shall be liable to general service, and may from time to time be transferred to such corps of the regular forces as the competent military authority may from time to time order.The same power was given if a man had been sentenced by a court martial, for any offence, to a punishment of not less than four months' imprisonment. Those two clauses, taken together, amounted to this—that a man who had four years' service to put in was really made to serve for two years longer. A man might have joined with the idea that he was to spend all his time in England; but a power was taken to send him abroad to the Colonies, if sentenced to a short term of imprisonment. He was not objecting to a man being sent away for foreign service, instead of being kept in gaol; but the effect of the provision was very much like transporting a man for six years—it was very nearly the same punishment as the old sentence of transportation for seven years. Such a power as that was greater than was placed in the hands of the Judges; and it seemed to him that in some cases it would cause great injustice. A man might be sent to a good station in India, but it was quite likely that he might be sent to a bad station; and the difference between his condition and that of convicts under the old transportation system would not be very great. When the power was taken to send a deserter out to India, it was not worth while to send him out for two years and to bring him back at the end of the period; but what the Bill did was to say—" We will start afresh with six years' service, and send him out for that period." When such sweeping changes as those were made, there ought to be some power either in the Secretary of State or a competent military authority, in extreme cases, to remit or reduce the sentence. It was not right that in all cases a court should be obliged 750 to ignore all the past services of the criminal, and that it should be left in the power of the Secretary of State for War by general rules to send a man out of the country for six years. Unless some modification in this clause were made, he thought that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would probably find that great opposition would be raised to Clause 80. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would accept either his Amendment or any other embodying the same principle he should be quite content.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 62; Noes 42: Majority 20. — (Div. List, No. 134.)
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, that he had to propose that the following Amendment should be made in the clause:—To insert in page 41, line 31, after the words "the whole of his prior service shall be forfeited," the words—
Unless the court or some competent military authority specifically orders that only a portion of the soldier's service be forfeited, in which case such portion of his service shall be forfeited.This alteration would simply leave the court martial or the competent military authority power in special cases, which they might exercise once in 20 times, to award any less punishment than forfeiture of the whole of the man's previous service.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that he had some words to propose as an Amendment to the clause, which he thought would meet the views of the Committee. He only wished to make it quite clear that forfeiture of service was one thing, and restoration of previous service was another. He proposed to add to the clause—
The Secretary of State may restore the whole or any portion of the service forfeited under this clause to any soldier who has performed good and faithful service up to the time of such restoration, if he be recommended to do so by the court martial before whom the trial takes place.
MAJOR, NOLANsaid, he was willing to withdraw his Amendment in favour of that of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War.
§ Amendment {Major Nolan), by leave, withdrawn.
751§ Amendment {Colonel Stanley) agreed to; words inserted accordingly.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Proceedings for Enlistment.
§ Clause 77 (Proceedings for enlistment).
§ MR. O'DONNELLmoved the omission of the words in page 41, lines 40 and 41, "for the time being authorized by a Secretary of State," for the purpose of inserting in lieu of them the words, "hereafter annexed." In important cases, such as those to which the clause related, it was, he said, in his opinion, extremely desirable that the form stating the general requirements of attestation should be set forth in the Bill itself. That would be a much better mode of proceeding than to leave the form to be decided upon by the Secretary of State; because there might not be always at the head of the War Department a man who would act so reasonably, and in whom such reliance could be placed, as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who at present occupied that position. If a proper form of attestation were inserted in the Bill, specifying all the essential obligations into which a soldier entered on joining the Army, then all doubt in the matter would be removed. After all that had been said, in the course of the discussions of the Bill, as to a contract being made between soldiers and the Government, it was but fair, he maintained, that there should be a statement of the conditions on which that contract was based; and with all the experience possessed by the Horse Guards of the requirements of the Service, there ought to be no difficuly in introducing a regular form of attestation by way of annex to the Bill, instead of leaving it to be "for the time being authorized by a Secretary of State." The Committee had now an opportunity of deciding exactly what they thought ought to be done in the matter, and what it was that, in their opinion, ought to be required of a recruit; but if they allowed that opportunity to pass, it might be very difficult to amend the Act once it had become law.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that if the hon. Gentleman would consider a little more carefully the nature of his Amendment, he would find that its adoption 752 would defeat the object which he had in view in moving it. Although he (Colonel Stanley) did not suppose there was anything like finality about any measure, still he hoped, and thought, that the present Bill might fairly be regarded as a permanent settlement of the questions with which it dealt. He quite concurred with the hon. Gentleman in the opinion that it was desirable recruits should know the nature of the contract into which they entered when they joined the Army, and what the obligations were to which they made themselves liable. But that was a different thing from stereotyping the form of attestation, which was, he thought, open to very great objection. Suppose a man enlisted for six years, and that at the end of three years it was deemed desirable to pass him into the Reserve, the military authorities might find their hands tied by the Act, if the Amendment were accepted. He quite understood what the object was which the hon. Gentleman sought to carry out; but he was of opinion that it could be more satisfactorily attained by making the terms of attestation known to a recruit, and duly setting them forth in the small account-book with which he was furnished.
§ MR. BRISTOWEhoped the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) would not persevere with his Amendment, and said it was extremely inconvenient that, upon a technical question such as that to which it related, an Amendment should be proposed without any previous Notice. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War was, he thought, quite right in saying that it was not desirable that the form of attestation should be stereotyped in the Bill. It was really much better that a certain latitude in the matter should be left to the Executive; and, entertaining that opinion, he should certainly vote against the Amendment if it were pressed to a division.
§ MAJOR NOLANthought the mode of enlistment prescribed by the clause was an improvement on the old system. Under the old system, if a man agreed to enlist he had to pay £1 if he wanted to get off his engagement; and it very often happened that he had not the pound, so that he was obliged to enter the Army against his will. That system 753 being abolished, enlistment would be effected in accordance with the forms of a legal proceeding, which, in his opinion, would be a great advantage to the recruit.
§ MR. BIGGARwas very much disposed to agree with the hon. and learned Member for Newark (Mr. Bristowe), that it was very inconvenient, generally speaking, that Amendments should be moved without Notice. In the present instance, however, it was very easy to understand what the Amendment before the Committee meant. He should certainly support the Amendment; because he was strongly opposed to delegating the powers which the clause would confer to the military authorities. The House might deem the rules laid down in the form authorized by the Secretary of State unreasonable; and even suppose it were provided that the rules for attestation should be laid on the Table of the House, it would require, if any hon. Member objected to them, that he should give Notice of Motion on the subject, and take the opinion of the House upon them before they could be changed. But for an independent Member it would be practically impossible to succeed in effecting such a change; and as nothing could be more easy than that the form of attestation should be inserted in the Bill itself, he hoped the Committee would agree to the Amendment.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he had always been of opinion that it was dangerous for the House of Commons to give such large powers to the Secretary of State as the clause before the Committee would confer upon him. There had been a variety of Acts passed in modern times, giving the Secretary of State similar powers, and in nearly every instance the result had been exceedingly unsatisfactory. The Committee had already assented to a clause which would enable the Secretary of State for War to frame rules; and now again they were asked to confer upon him the power to draw up a notice stating the general requirements of attestation in such form as he might think fit, and which he might alter from time to time as he pleased. If the clause were passed in its present shape, the Committee would, he contended, have no means of knowing that the notice would fulfil the conditions which they desired. What they desired was, that the recruit should be guarded 754 against making any mistake; but that object might not to be secured by such a notice as the Secretary of State might deem it desirable to authorize. The notice, as authorized by him, would be drawn up for the convenience of the military authorities, and not for the protection of the soldier; and the Committee ought not, he thought, to be too much led away by a deference to the views of the military authorities, especially as they had no little opportunity of knowing what were the views on the subject of the class that would, in reality, be most affected by the legislation on which they were now engaged. The soldier, as a matter of fact, was entirely precluded from giving his opinion on questions in which he was so deeply interested. He was not represented in that House. He had no vote, and was entirely unprotected, so far as the legislation which was initiated by the House was concerned. It was exceedingly necessary, therefore, that when power to make rules or to draw up forms was given to the Secretary of State, it should be defined, if possible, in some sort of way, and that could best be done in the present case by inserting the form of attestation in the Bill. What reasonable objection, he should like to know, could be urged against the Amendment? When the Committee saw the form, they would be able to judge whether it was in accordance with their notions on the subject or not, and some opportunity might be afforded, also, of ascertaining the opinion of the soldier with respect to it. But if the clause were agreed to in its present shape, the Committee would be left all in the dark. Of course, they might be told that, if they liked, they could see the form; but they could not be sure that, after the Bill had passed, an entirely new set of regulations might not be drawn up with regard to enlistment. He, for one, strongly objected to having such vague powers conferred upon a Secretary of State; because he never knew a Secretary of State yet who did not abuse the authority which was intrusted to him in so vague and general a way. As the Committee were aware, it was a course very frequently adopted to provide that rules and regulations with respect to certain matters should be laid on the Table of the House for 40 days; and that, at least, should be done, 755 he thought, in the case of the form of attestation, so that it might he in the power of any hon. Member to object to it, if he should think fit. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War declined to assent to some arrangement of the kind, he hoped the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) would press his Amendment to a division.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he had already explained to the Committee why it was that he objected to the Amendment. He would now point out that the Secretary of State had no means of ascertaining beforehand what might be the requirements of the Service in regard to the number of recruits. Last year the Establishment was, at one time, 5,000 over the number; while, at another time, it was 3,000 under. Owing to so much fluctuation in the numbers there was great difficulty in regulating the number of recruits; and the Secretary of State being the person responsible in the matter, it was necessary that ho should be able to exorcise some discretion as to the number of men who should be enlisted, either for long or short service. But if a stereotyped attestation form were inserted in the Bill, the Secretary of State would be tied down, no matter what the circumstances of the Army, to one mode of enlistment, and that, in his opinion, would be far from advantageous. He, at the same time, quite agreed with the hon Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) that it was desirable a recruit should know what it was he contracted to do when he entered the Service; and he proposed that that object should be effected not in the way which the hon. Gentleman proposed by his Amendment—because that would not only be useless, but worse than useless—but by regulation, in accordance with which the terms of enlistment would be made known to the recruit, and a copy of the attestation paper furnished to him in the small account-book relating to various matters with which he was supplied. In that way, effect would be given to what he understood to be the intention of the hon. Member in moving his Amendment.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he quite recognized the force of the objections to the Amendment which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of 756 State for War had urged; but his object was to tie the hands of the Secretary of State by means of what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman called a stereotyped form, so that if it should hereafter become necessary to alter the general conditions of enlistment for the Army, the Secretary of State should be obliged to come down to that House and apply for direct power to make the change. But the right hon. and gallant Gentleman seemed to think that if the Secretary of State had not authority to alter the form of attestation, as he might from time to time think fit, recruiting, in regard to which there were so many fluctuations in the supply and the demand, would be injuriously affected. For his own part, however, he (Mr. O'Donnell) could not see how stereotyping the form of attestation could at all interfere with the efficiency of the public service in that respect. He presumed the Secretary of State would know how many recruits he wanted at a particular time, and that he would issue instructions for the enlistment of 10,000 or 5,000 men, as the case might be. That was a proceeding in which the question of numbers simply was involved; and he could not see how that question could be affected by stereotyping the conditions of service.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that a great number of men might present themselves for admission into the Army, all of whom might not be required for long service, and a certain portion of whom it would be desirable to enlist for shorter service, with the view of passing them, as speedily as possible, into the Reserve.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, it surely must be very easy to meet fluctuations and variations such as those to which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War referred. If it was deemed desirable to fix the period of service for a longer or a shorter time, in accordance with the requirements of the Army, there ought to be no difficulty in carrying out that object. But the clause was open to the objection, that under its operation there would be no security that the form of attestation would fully explain to the recruit the nature of the contract into which he was about to enter, and the conditions on which he engaged to serve. Now, it was, in his opinion, exceedingly desirable that that should be done, especially 757 as the recruits who now joined the Army were, in so many instances, very young and ignorant. The Committee might, therefore, he thought, very fairly ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War to assent to such a modification of the clause as would settle that point. The clause seemed to be drawn up not so much in the interest of the soldier, as for the sake of the military authorities; but he (Mr. Parnell) desired to see the soldier protected, and the clause did not provide those safeguards on which the Committee had, in his opinion, a right to insist. He had read the clause over very carefully, and he strongly objected to the vague way in which it was drawn. A great deal of time would, he thought, be saved, if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Stanley) would make a concession in the matter which, after all, would not be very great, by agreeing to the insertion of the form of attestation in the Bill itself. Parliament, otherwise, would know nothing about it. He hoped the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would not think that those who asked him to make this concession were pressing him unfairly; and he could assure him that he (Mr. Parnell), for one, wished the Bill to pass, believing, as he did, that it would effect a great improvement in the existing state of things. He might mention that he had something like 10.5 Amendments drafted, which he intended to move on the Bill; but that he had restrained himself from putting them down on the Notice Paper, which was sufficient evidence, he thought, that it was not his intention to try to defeat a measure which he was really desirous should become law. Still, there were points in the Bill in regard to which he was very anxious, and in respect to which, if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would consent to make some concessions, the proceedings in Committee might get on more smoothly.
MR. O'CONNOR POWERsaid, there was one point in connection with the conditions laid down for recruiting for the Army with respect to which he should like to get from the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War some explanation. Some time ago complaints were made that posters were put up in certain places 758 to which were affixed placards offering to recruits terms which were of a very dishonourable character. Men, it appeared, were incited to join the ranks of the Army by having the prospect of plunder held out to them, and all that sort of thing, and he was not aware that the reports on the subject had been contradicted, nor had he any reason to believe that they were unfounded. Whatever might be the conditions of service which would be authorized by the present Secretary of State for War, he was sure they would not be of a dishonourable character; but it must be borne in mind that the powers of recruiting were delegated to a number of persons who were in a very different position. If certain means and conditions of recruiting were presented in the attestation form, and an assurance were given by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War that no attempt would be made to enlist men by having recourse to promises which could not be carried into effect without dishonour, some of the objections which were entertained to the clause by his hon. Friend the Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) might be removed.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he knew something of the circumstance to which the hon. Gentleman who spoke last (Mr. O'Connor Power) referred. The hon. Gentleman seemed, however, to labour under a slight misconception as to the real nature of what actually occurred. It was true, he was sorry to say, that a placard of a very indefensible character had appeared, which was first brought under the notice of his hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Boord), to whom it was sent. But that placard had been issued, not by Royal authority; and it had been issued in one of the Colonies by an inferior officer. Steps had since been taken to have the terms cancelled, and the officer who issued the placard censured.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, that although the clause provided that the Justice should read, or cause to be read, to a recruit the questions set forth in the attestation paper, they might be read so rapidly that it would be impossible for him to catch their exact meaning. In that way a recruit would often be asked to agree to conditions of which he knew little or nothing; and he ought, he (Mr. Biggar) thought, to be afforded a reasonable 759 opportunity of making himself acquainted with those conditions.
MR. O'CONNOR POWERsaid, it was provided by the clause that—
The fee for the attestation of a recruit, and for all acts and things incidental thereto, shall he one shilling and no more;but no provision seemed to be made for paying anything to the "recruiter." Now, he need scarcely point out to the Committee that, in carrying out the system of enlistment, a great deal depended on the character of the recruiting sergeant.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he had an Amendment to propose, which was a very simple one. Ho begged to move the insertion in page 41, line 42, after the word "attestation," of the words "and the general conditions of the contract to be entered into by the recruit." The Amendment bore upon the question, which the Committee had been for some time discussing, of the desirability of affording the recruit an opportunity of understanding the terms of enlistment.
§ Amendment agreed to; words inserted accordingly.
§ MR. O'DONNELLmoved, as an Amendment, the insertion in page 42, line 2, after the word "justice," of the words " provided he be of full age." It was now provided, he said, that a recruit was to be bound for life by the terms of his contract, and that he should be made liable to a severe penalty for violating those terms. That being so, he desired to make provision that a person entering into a contract of such extreme importance should be really capable of binding himself in that way. He did not propose to introduce any such considerations into the discussion as the expediency of obtaining the consent of the parents or guardians of a young man who offered himself for enlistment before a magistrate; but those hon. Members who were most warmly attached to the Army must, he thought, agree with him that it would be a great advantage to the Service that recruits should not enter it of immature age—? a state of things which was productive of frequent desertion and of much crime. The whole law of the land proceeded upon the principle that a per- 760 son who entered into a contract of an important character should be capable of doing so; and the public service would, in the present instance, be greatly benefited by the operation of such an Amendment as that which he proposed: because it would have the effect of stopping, in the course of time, the enlistment of immature recruits by fettering the discretion, in the exercise of which raw and weedy youths were now allowed to enter the Service. A very large number of boys, he believed, who passed themselves off as being 18, but who were, in reality, not more than 17, found their way into the Army; and those poor lads very soon broke down under the fatiguing duties of military life, and became useless and a great expense to the country, owing to their having to be discharged from the Army, and their being obliged to drag their feeble bodies from infirmary to infirmary, and from public hospital to public hospital, eventually to become a burden upon the ratepayers. But, apart from that consideration, a due regard to the principles of justice demanded that a man who was required to enter into such heavy engagements as were imposed upon a, soldier should not be a mere hobbledehoy, pretending to be a man. The matter was one with regard to which he should be very happy to enter into any reasonable compromise; but he felt disposed to insist that boys of the age of 17, or 18, or 19, who happened to enter into a contract of the kind, should not be regarded, if they broke it, as being bound by any such obligation as a man who, either being of full age, had entered into a contract, or, being of full age, had subsequently ratified a contract into which he had entered while still a minor. He was not disposed to insist too strongly on the literal wording of his Amendment, if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would only give him an engagement that some such provision as that which he desired should be made. A youth who enlisted under the age of 21 ought to be looked upon, he thought, as being a ward of the Army, and as a minor, who should be held responsible in a less degree for any infringement of his contract than a man who had made himself party to a contract when over 21. He was quite aware of the necessity which existed, in the interest of mili- 761 tary discipline and the public safety, of keeping men to their contracts; but, at the same time, seeing that soldiers were liable to be flogged, to the forfeiture of their periods of service, and to all sorts of accumulated penalties, it was but fair, in his opinion, that a youth who entered into such a contract when a minor should have some consideration shown to him.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir HARDINGE GIFFARD)said, the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) seemed to be under the impression that, in civil life, a person who was under 21 years of age could not enter into a contract. In that view, however, he was entirely mistaken. How frequently, for instance, did minors apprentice themselves to trades? As he understood the object of the Amendment, he might add, it was to secure for a youth who entered the Army, and who might have understated his age, more lenient treatment in the event of his breaking his contract than another who had stated his age truly. It would, he thought, be most undesirable that effect should be given to any such proposal; and he hoped, therefore, the Committee would not agree to the Amendment.
§ MR. RYLANDSsaid, there could be no doubt that the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) was desirous of raising the age at which recruits might be enlisted. That was a very important question—as no one knew better than the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War—and a question which must sooner or later be settled. He was aware, however, that it would be very inconvenient to raise a discussion upon it at the present moment; but when the Committee were dealing with the conditions of enlistment, it was impossible that they could close their eyes to the fact that youths of 17 or 18 years of age might be enlisted, under the operation of the clause as it stood, on terms which many hon. Members believed to be entirely objectionable. He found, from a Return which he held in his hand, that no less than 868 boys under 17 years of age had enlisted in the Army last year; while there were 190 under 18 years, and 7,375 who had enlisted under the age of 19; 5,591 having enlisted between the age of 19 and 20. Now, he had the highest authority for saying that young men 762 between the ages of17or18and 20 or 21 were totally unfitted for the duties and hardships of military service. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War knew very well that he might fortify his argument by the authority of Sir Lintorn Simmons, who, in an address which ho had delivered at the United Service Institution, had laid it down, with all the weight of his experience, that youths of that age were utterly unsuited for hard military service. They were, he might add, placed in a position of considerable difficulty at the present moment, in consequence of their having relied on boys as recruits for their Army. It might not be without interest to the Committee if he were to mention that Sir Lintorn Simmons, in the address to which he had referred, had made a calculation, from which it appeared that a Cavalry soldier, who enlisted at the age of 18, cost £190 by the time he was 21, and an Infantry soldier £126—that was to say, before they were fit for hard work.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he quite concurred with the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Rylands) that the present was not a convenient occasion on which to discuss the question of the age at which recruits should be enlisted. He regretted that the question should have been raised, all the more because he felt himself to be precluded from entering into it by the fact that a Committee had been appointed, under whose consideration it would come. Besides, he did not think it was advisable that a question of such importance should be dealt with in a discussion on a clause such as that before the Committee. He might, however, point out that, probably, the best time for securing the services of recruits was between the ages of 18 and 21, before they went into trade. Men between the ages of 21 and 24 would, of course, be better for the purposes of the Service; but then they could not be obtained without upsetting the labour market, which it was felt it would not be desirable to do. Some young men, no doubt, had been enlisted who were under the age of 18; but that would be, as far as possible, prevented; and if, in the attestation paper, it was required, as a condition of enlistment, that a recruit should be at least 18 years of age, a practical way of dealing with the question would, he 763 thought, be set on foot. Of course, if J the country-was willing to pay £8,000,000 or £10,000,000 a-year more for the Army, it would be much easier to get men for the Service.
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, the fact was, that their soldiers did not receive that amount of wages which could be considered a fair remuneration for the services of grown-up men. They paid them the wages of boys; and they must not be surprised that the grown-up man was sometimes dissatisfied with the remuneration which he was willing as a boy to accept. What he should suggest was that the soldier should be paid id. a-day extra, which would bring his pay up to the average wages which were received by the agricultural labourer in the North of England.
MR. O'CONNOR POWERthought the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Dungarvan (Mr.O'Donnell) was one which would be found to operate very usefully, as testing the question of age. A recruit was allowed to enter the Army at the age of 18; but, so far as the clause was concerned, no provision appeared to be made in it to secure that no one under that age should be enlisted. The age of a recruit, he presumed, constituted one among the qualifications required; and the services of a youth under 18 would not be accepted, just as those of a lame man would be declined. The argument of the hon. and learned Solicitor General (Sir Hardinge Giffard), he might add, did not seem to him to be a sound one; because boys in civil life were not able to enter into contracts of apprenticeship on their own account, and there was usually some adult relative or friend to assist at the operation. Ho should, however, be happy to defer to any well-considered statement of the hon. and learned Gentleman on that point. There ought, ho at the same time thought, to be something like a medical guarantee provided that a recruit was at least 18 years of age, before he was allowed to enlist. After all, the recruiting clauses formed part of the Bill; and he saw no good reason why the Committee, in dealing with them, should be fettered in its action by the fact that there was a Committee on Army Organization sitting upstairs. If the Committee were to be fettered in that way in dealing with the Bill, they could make no progress at all. 764 He hoped something would be done to secure that a recruit was up to the required standard as regarded age.
§ MR. BIGGARwished to point out, in reply to the remarks of the hon. and learned Solicitor General (Sir Hardinge Giffard), that in civil life minors did not enter into contracts, which were always made for them by their parents or guardians. It was not, in his opinion, a very good thing, even on the score of morality, that a minor should be invited to enter into a contract which would be binding on him for several years after he became of age. The proper way of dealing with the matter would be that the boy who made a contract with the military authorities during his minority should be entitled, after he attained the age of 21, to have the opportunity afforded him of confirming it or withdrawing from it.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he must confess that he had been somewhat impressed by the remarks which had been made by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General (Sir Hardinge Giffard) with regard to apprenticeship. He did not like to express dissent from any proposition on a legal point which had been enunciated by a man of the hon. and learned Gentleman's great professional reputation. Some of his hon. Friends near him had, however, been more daring, and had controverted the argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman, so that the point could hardly be regarded as quite settled.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, this was a very important matter, although there had been less said about it than it deserved. The law provided special precautions to prevent persons under age from taking any serious step in life against the wishes of their parents. It did not allow them, for instance, to many. He wished to provide that some care was taken in enlisting young men to ascertain that their parents were satisfied with the step, and that appeared to him a very reasonable thing to ask. What happened very often now? A young man had a dispute with his parents, ran away from home, and enlisted in the Army, taking this very serious step without their knowledge and against their will. They might be people of considerable respectability. They might 765 have intended him for some other Profession. They might even have trained him for some other Profession 'which would fit him to take a higher position than that of a rank-and-file in Her Majesty's Service. Yet this boy could enlist without their knowledge, and against their will, and might, perhaps, be hurried off to India or elsewhere, before they even knew what had become of him. This was a very serious thing, which, it appeared to him, would have been guarded against, but for the fact that this Mutiny Act was framed in barbarous times, and had been maintained ever since, almost as a matter of form, and without alteration. When a boy was apprenticed, they required the consent of his parents or guardians; and why should a recruit be allowed to take this step without a similar safeguard? He would, therefore, propose to add the following words at the bottom of page 41:—
And every person authorized to enlist recruits in the regular forces shall take such steps as shall be necessary, and possible, to inform the parents or guardians of the person enlisted, of the proposed enlistment, where such recruit is under age.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he must deprecate a discussion of the general question of recruiting, which involved many other matters, and was a very difficult thing to deal with. He would ask the hon. Gentleman to consider how the Amendment could be carried out? How was the sergeant to ascertain who were the parents, if the recruit did not tell him, as he probably would not, who they were, and where they lived? Supposing even the sergeant did get the information, how was he to tell that the answer he received was a genuine one? What could be simpler than the present plan? The recruit was taken before a Justice, who asked him if he was of a specified age, and the recruit answered upon oath that he was. What could be simpler or more direct than that? They did not care to look too closely into the motives of men who were recruited. Many were anxious to go abroad, or to see service; while many did not always enlist under their real names. Further, could they possibly hope that such a provision as this would work? Ho believed it would only make confusion worse confounded, and would be of no practical effect. With regard to taking 766 men of greater age, this also raised an important principle. When the happy day came that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could add £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 to the Estimate, and the House of Commons would confirm the grant, they might, perhaps, talk about getting men of from 20 to 24 in the Army. It was merely a question of money; and until they had that increased grant, he did not see why they were to lay down a hard-and-fast line that men should be 21. Many men were just as likely to make good and efficient soldiers at 20 as others were at 22 or 23. He did not think it would be desirable to tie the Government to a hard-and-fast line; and he hoped the hon. Gentleman would see that the practical difficulties in the way of working his proposal were far too great.
§ MR. O'DONNELLremarked that, taking the conditions of the Service into account, they could not, of course, create in a day the citizen Army that they desired. It might be difficult—perhaps practically impossible—to carry out all the conditions imposed on the recruiter by the Amendment; but he thought it would be, therefore, no harm to put into the clause some further safeguard, making sure that when before the Justice the recruit was in full possession of his senses. He would suggest that they should introduce words making certain that the appearance before the Justice would not take place for at least 48 hours after the enlistment. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would introduce words to that effect, he would suggest to his hon. Friend the Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) to accept that as a compromise. If that were done, a man could not, at the time of appearing before a magistrate, be either intoxicated, or be suffering from the effects of intoxication; and it would be a great deal to secure that there was that perfect freedom of choice which it was the object of the Secretary of State for War to provide. He did not think the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would refuse to undertake that the appearance before the Justice should take place 48 hours after enlistment.
§ COLONEL STANLEYthought that the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) could not have been in the House at the time he explained the alterations in the Act. The hon. Gen- 767 tleman did not want anybody brought before the magistrates in an unfit state, nor did he (Colonel Stanley) himself. The hon. Gentleman thought it better to wait 48 hours after the enlistment before the recruit was brought before the magistrate. That was simply the present system, and it was a bad one. He had introduced in this Bill, therefore, certain changes, because he wanted to get rid of the present system. Now, an enlistment sergeant put 1s. into a man's hand and said—" I enlist you to serve the Queen," at the same time giving: him notice where he would have to meet him to go before the magistrate. The recruit had to hang about wherever he could until that time came. Under the old system, when a man was enlisted for a service which might be for 21 years, and latterly was 12, the law rightly interposed to prevent a man making that bargain hurriedly and without due notice, and enacted that he should not be brought before the magistrate to confirm his bargain within less than 24 hours after he made it; nor was he to be kept waiting about for longer than 96. In that time a man could get off his bargain by paying smart-money, as it was called. It was found, however—for there were bad recruiters as well as good ones—that men were sometimes enlisted merely for the sake of the smart-money. Bad recruiters hung about houses which, to say the least, were not of the best character, and took men who were more or less in a state of intoxication. He wanted to sweep all that away, and to make the contract of service a distinct contract. He wanted that a man should go at once before the magistrate, and there make his contract. He took it for granted?— and, indeed, a magistrate would not be doing his duty if he did otherwise—that a magistrate would not enlist a man when suffering from the effects of drink. Under the new system the affirmation was made the first process. A sergeant might give a man, when he enlisted him, anything he liked; but he did it at his own risk: and if the man chose to disappear before the time of attestation came, nobody in the world would interfere with him; but when he had presented himself and made the bargain, then he had entered into a distinct contract, by the terms of which he would be bound. A man, at present, had the privilege of buying himself out 768 by a payment varying from £21 downwards. But this was an indulgence, not a right, and depended upon a variety of circumstances—such as that the regiment was up to its full strength, that the exigencies of the Service permitted it, and so on; the result being that many men had to wait for the permission until long after their money was gone. He proposed to alter that also, and to enact, if at anytime during three months a man did not like the Service, he might go, repaying the State what he had cost it, and he did not think that was an unfair bargain. They could not expect the State to keep a man, and to find him food and lodging for three months for nothing. But, on the other hand, they did give him, within three months after his enlistment, the absolute right to go, except in a time of national emergency, or when the Reserves had been called out. He thought both these were distinct improvements— the making the attestation before the magistrate, the contract of service, and the subsequent change as to buying out. He asked the Committee to look at these two clauses together, for he was not able to go into the matter fully to explain his position. The hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) must see that, by his present proposition, however innocently, he had struck at the very root of what he wanted to avoid.
§ MR. BIGGARpointed out that the speech of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman wandered a good deal from the Amendment, which proposed that if a minor wished to enter as a soldier his relatives, guardians, or parents, should have notice that he proposed to do so. He thought it was a very reasonable proposition. It did not give a right of veto; but merely would afford the parents an opportunity to confer with the recruit, and to use all the arguments they pleased in order to persuade him not to join. With reference to the last remarks of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, he greatly doubted if it would not be very much better to pay their soldiers more, and so to get a higher class of men. They were told that a boy of 18, before he was fit for service, cost something like £120, and that in the case of a horse soldier he cost twice as much. Would it not be better to give the men a little better pay, and so get better men, who would go into the Reserve more quickly? He did 769 not profess, of course, to be well up in military topics; but be thought this would be the better plan, as by it they would have but a comparatively small number of men on active service, yet men who would be ready to go anywhere. But he believed that the present state of things was very dear. As to the Amendment, he certainly considered that it was unreasonable to ask a boy thoroughly unfit to understand the question, and probably on the spree, or something of that sort, whether he was of the right age, and so to induce him to enter a Service which involved his personal liberty for the best part of his life.
§ MR. PARNELLthought his Amendment might be made workable; but he admitted that it was not so in its present shape, and thought it would be better for him to re-consider the whole question, and to draft a new clause on the subject. He would place that on the Paper, and the Government would have time to consider it between that time and the time when they reached the new clauses. It certainly was of the greatest importance that they should have some means of preventing children running away from home and depriving their parents of any knowledge of their whereabouts. He, therefore, proposed to withdraw his Amendment. He would first ask the Secretary of State for War whether, instead of the old system of an interval not less than 24 hours, and not exceeding 96, he did not now intend to have any interval at all between the time of enlistment and the time of his appearing before the magistrate?
§ COLONEL STANLEY,in reply, said, that the time when the man went before the magistrate was the time from which he proposed to make the whole contract commence. The advantage of that was, it took the man out of the disreputable surroundings in which be had formerly to wait, and enlisted him at once.
§ MR. WHITWELLthought the Amendment was a step in the right direction. Under the old law, the instant a man received the shilling he was bound to pay smart-money to get off his bargain; but now, if he was enlisted in the evening, he was open during the whole of the night to the entreaties of his friends and relatives to withdraw from his conditional assent, and he could do so if he chose. Then, if he did not, he went freely before the magistrate. He thought 770 the Amendment was a very important and satisfactory one, and a very great improvement on the previous system.
§ MR. PARNELLthought that a middle course must be steered by the Committee, so that a magistrate might have power to give time to the man to make up his mind. The proposed system allowed no time for consideration.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, that precautions should be taken that a man should not be in a state of intoxication at the time he was enlisted before the magistrate; it was, therefore, in his opinion, advisable to put words into the Bill, directing the magistrate not to enlist men in that condition. It was notorious that soldiers had been enlisted and attested when drunk; but, at the present time, they were never attested while in that state. He, therefore, moved to insert in line 5, page 42, after the word " enlisted," the words "or if, in the opinion of the justice, he is under the influence of intoxicating liquor."
§ COLONEL STANLEYobserved, that before the Chairman put the Question be should like to point out that he had already expressly stated that the magistrate would be liable to censure if it were proved that he had enlisted a man while he was intoxicated. He would, however, consult the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary as to whether the proposed Amendment would cast any slur upon the magistrates.
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, a great many Justices enlisted men who were but slightly intoxicated. There was, of course, no objection to the recruiting sergeant giving a man a few glasses. He considered that the words proposed would be an improvement in the Act.
§ COLONEL STANLEYthought the words were quite unnecessary. He had already put in the words "and shall take care that such person understands the question so read," which did not appear in the Mutiny Act.
MR. O'CONNOR POWERsaid, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman should ask himself whether the theory which he had put forward at an earlier part of the discussion, with reference to the enlistment of recruits, was carried out in practice? He (Mr. O'Connor Power), had been informed by an hon. Friend who had both had occasion to pass recruits for the 771 Army and to enlist men in his capacity of Justice of the Peace, that recruits, which he had rejected, had been passed subsequently by another Justice of the Peace, who appeared to take a very free and easy view of the responsibility resting upon him in that capacity. A great many desertions from the Army arose from the fact that numbers of the recruits, having joined it hastily, only looked for the best opportunity to run away. He (Mr. O'Connor Power) would say that if anything could be done to enable the recruit to realize the conditions of the contract he was called upon to enter into, the public would stand upon safer ground than in allowing him to be under any misapprehension with regard to them. Perhaps the most effectual Amendment to the clause would be to require that two Justices should assent to the attestation. There would be a considerable advantage in this plan, for if one of the Justices was unable to see whether the recruit was in a state of drunkenness, it was at least to be hoped that the other would be in a position to form a clearer judgment. He pointed out with reference to the observations of the hon. Member for Kendal (Mr. Whit-well) that the recruiting sergeant knew exactly when he could catch his man. The sergeant would go down to the place where the man happened to be, and if he found him favourable, he would exactly measure the time necessary to get to the next Justice of the Peace; so that, if it were possible, he would get the whole matter over in five minutes, because he received a certain advantage for every recruit he enlisted.
§ MR. PARNELLpointed out that although the first part of the clause gave the recruit plenty of time to consider his position, it would most likely happen that the recruiting sergeant would hurry him off to the magistrate, and enlist him, so to speak, before he knew where he was. The present Bill showed an advantage over the old clauses, yet to the vast majority of recruits it did no service at all, for the recruiting sergeant had still a great facility for carrying them off and having them enlisted on the spot. The Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan) asked that the magistrate should not be allowed to enlist a man under the influence of liquor. That was a very fair proposal, indeed; but the hon. and 772 gallant Baronet the Member for Sunderland (Sir Henry Havelock) thought the evil was guarded against in the clause. The clause, however, only guarded against it, by saying that—
The justice of the peace shall be satisfied that the recruit understands each question so read.And it was very well known that a recruit might be under the influence of liquor, and yet understand the questions read to him. But a man should be in his right mind; he should be himself when he took such a serious step as to engage himself to serve under the Colours and in the Reserve for a period of 12 years. The words proposed to be introduced could not, as had been suggested, cast any slur upon the Justices. He (Mr. Parnell) did not agree with the view expressed by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for "War, that it was sufficient that the recruit should understand the questions read to him. Hon. Members who approved this Amendment held that a man should be himself, and that he should be free from all extraneous influence whatever, whether of liquor or anything else, at the time of taking such a serious step as enlistment. He suggested that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman should agree to the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway, and that if, after consultation, he found that it was objectionable, he should strike it out on Report. This was a much better plan than that of postponing the Amendment which, in all probability, would be lost sight of when the Report came on. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had urged no argument against the Amendment; he said only that, while agreeing with the spirit of it, he should be obliged to consult the Secretary of State for the Home Department as to whether it would cast any slur upon the magistrates. He (Mr. Parnell) felt quite sure that the magistrates would not look upon the matter in that light, and he trusted, therefore, that the Amendment would be agreed to.
§ MR. BIGGARcould not imagine a more reasonable Amendment than that proposed by the hon. and gallant Member for Galway(Major Nolan). It was very unreasonable to imagine that a boy could be in a proper state to enter into a contract, when his imagination was excited with 773 liquor; on the contrary, he maintained that the recruit should have every opportunity to consider, in his sober moments, the serious step he was about to take. If this opportunity were given him, he would, if he entered into the contract, after proper consideration, remain; but if he was enlisted in a state of intoxication, and found out afterwards that he had made a bad bargain, he would most probably desert, and the whole expense incurred by the Government on his account would be lost to the country. "With regard to the contention that the proposal would cast a slur upon the magistrates, he could not conceive that anything of the sort would be felt. Of course, no magistrate would like a recruit to make a declaration when he was tipsy; but, still, it might be thought by some that there was no harm in his doing so, when he was more or less excited by liquor. For these reasons, he certainly thought it would be desirable to put into the Act of Parliament some words requiring that the recruit should be sober.
§ MR. PARNELL,referring to the reply of the Secretary of State for War, that " he wished to consult with the Secretary of State for the Home Department as to whether this Amendment would be considered to be a slur on the magistrates," desired to ask that right hon. Gentleman, who was now in his place, for his opinion upon that point? He put the question to the right hon. Gentleman, with the object of saving a Division; and, in doing so, pointed out that if he was of opinion that the Amendment would be a slur upon the magistrates, the ground would be cut from under the feet of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan) and his supporters; while, on the other hand, if he expressed his opinion to the contrary, the ground would be cut from under the feet of the Secretary of State for War. He was very willing that the Secretary of State for the Home Department should be arbiter. The hon. and gallant Member for Galway and himself were both magistrates, and neither of them thought that the Amendment would be any slur upon their characters; therefore, they confidently left the point to the decision of the right hon. Gentleman.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, that after looking at the wording of the 774 clause he was bound to state that, in his opinion, no magistrate having right before his eyes could possibly allow an intoxicated man to make a declaration.
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, it then became a question whether there should be a slur upon the soldiers, or upon the magistrates. It was an old taunt to say that the Army enlisted soldiers when they were drunk; but his Amendment would make it impossible to make use of this taunt in future. It was, no doubt, the fact that men used to be enlisted, although not attested, when they were intoxicated.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, there were great variations in the magisterial ranks. He did not mean to say anything derogatory to the magistrates in general; but, speaking from his own knowledge of a few individuals, he was quite sure that, taking the whole body of the magistracy, it would be found to include several pleasant, jovial old gentlemen who would think it very little harm to overlook a slight amount of tipsiness on the part of the recruit at a time when a Tory Government was in want of soldiers. It was all very well to talk about casting slurs upon the magistrates; but he was perfectly sure that under the present arrangements there was a rather larger proportion of bad and indifferent men amongst them than there would he under a different system of selection. There could be no slur whatever cast upon a body of public servants, by merely taking the precaution to prevent their erring in the discharge of their duties.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clause 78 (Power of recruit to purchase discharge).
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, that this clause introduced a very good improvement into the present system. It was provided by the clause that within three months after joining any recruit could obtain his discharge by paying to the use of Her Majesty the sum of £10. In the course of his remarks some time back, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War referred to this subject; and if the clause only corresponded with the description he gave of it, it would be quite unexcep- 775 tionable. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman said that the Government had determined to go upon the principle of giving a recruit three months' time to make up his mind, and if he decided in that time to leave the Army, he should be allowed to do so, only being charged what his maintenance in the Army had cost the country. Government had fixed that sum at £10, and it was to be presumed that that was the cost of his maintenance and clothing for three months. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War must at once perceive that if a' recruit changed his mind a fortnight after joining, it would not be fair to charge him £10, for he would not then have cost the country that sum. In point of fact, a man who had been only a fortnight in the Service would have cost much less, and he ought to be allowed to go, when he had paid what he had really cost the country. He trusted that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would give some undertaking to make some alteration in this matter upon Report.
§ MR. O'DONNELLbegged to move, as an Amendment, in page 43, line 2, to leave out the words "ten pounds," in order to insert "two pounds."
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that the Amendment would not do, because the country would be put to a very considerable amount of expense if a certain number of young men were allowed to join, and then to leave in this way; for the result would be that they obtained food and clothing at an almost nominal price. There were very great expenses which a recruit caused—roughly speaking, it might be said that it was £10 for three months; but it certainly was not £3 6s. 8d. for each month. There were a great many expenses, such as cost of clothing and necessaries, and so forth, which the recruit required as much for one day's service as for three months. His object in putting down this sum of £10 was simply to prevent the country losing the money, and he had endeavoured to adjust the scale, so as not to make the recruit pay more than what was fair. He would confess that he was very much in the hands of the Committee; but unless the country was to lose money he thought that the balance was 776 very well struck at £10. He thought that the better plan would be to allow the clause to remain in its present state.
§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCKsaid, that this was one of those clauses which was calculated to establish the principle which he had always endeavoured to inculcate for many years past—that service in the Army should be made a perfectly free contract, both on the part of the man who engaged himself and of the country who retained his services. The proposition which the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) had made was absurd, for it only amounted to allowing men to obtain food and necessaries from the country almost free of expense.
§ MR. O'DONNELLrose to save the virtuous indignation of the hon. and gallant Member for Sunderland (Sir Henry Havelock), and to state that he had misunderstood his meaning.
§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCKremarked, that what the hon. Member wished to establish in the Army was a system of unlimited out-door relief for loafers. That would be the effect of any such proposal as this; and he considered that the proposition of the Government was very much more practicable, while it yet would establish the principle that enlistment was a perfectly free contract. He had been endeavouring for many years to obtain the institution of some provision of this kind, by which a soldier who did not like the Service might go away. The clause now proposed was in the right direction, and he was thoroughly in its favour. He did not think that the proposition of the hon. Member for Dungarvan ought to be accepted by the Committee.
§ MR. PARNELLconsidered the proposition of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War a very fair one; and he thought that if he would insert the words "not exceeding" £10 in the clause it might very fairly be left as it stood.
§ MR. O'DONNELLobserved, that he merely proposed the insertion of £2 in the clause for the purpose of raising the question. He begged permission to withdraw his Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
777§ COLONEL STANLEYthen moved to insert the words "not exceeding" before the words "ten pounds."
§ Amendment agreed to; words inserted accordingly.
§ MR. PARNELLthought that the wording of the clause was somewhat faulty. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman looked into it, he (Mr. Parnell) thought he would see that it would enable the authorities to keep a man 12 months after he had paid his money for his discharge. He was sure that that was not the intention of the Government; and he should therefore move to insert in page 42, line 8, the words " after payment of a certain sum not exceeding ten pounds."
§ COLONEL STANLEYdid not see that the clause was open to the objection which the hon. Member took. If the clause were altered, as proposed, it would have a detrimental effect, for this reason. Whilst he was in command of a battalion the relatives of soldiers frequently deposited their money in his hands to await the discharge of the soldier. There could be no objection to that practice; but the insertion of the Amendment of the hon. Member would make it impossible.
§ MR. HOPWOODthought that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for "War was under a misapprehension as to the meaning of the Amendment. The Amendment provided that payment should be made at the moment that a soldier required his discharge, and it would not interfere with the relatives placing money in the hands of the commanding officer to await his discharge. The object of the Amendment was this—to prevent a man who had paid his money being detained for some time afterwards, unless, as provided by the clause, he claimed his discharge at a time when Her Majesty required his services. He could not think that it was the intention of the Government to keep a man after he had paid the money. [Colonel STANLEY: NO, no!] That being the case, it was very necessary that the clause should properly carry out the intentions of the Government; and he thought that it ought to be made clear that the legal obligation to pay the money was only to arise at the moment of discharge.
§ COLONEL STANLEYinquired, whether he rightly understood the object of the Amendment not to be to prevent the colonel of a regiment having the money deposited in his hands available for the discharge?
§ MR. HOPWOODdid not think that the Amendment would interfere with such a case as that; the words would simply provide that until the moment of discharge there was no legal obligation to pay the money to the authorities.
§ Clause amended, by inserting after the words "ten pounds," "then on payment of the said sum he shall be discharged."
COLONEL DRUMMOND-MORAYmoved that the clause be left out of the Bill. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had said that he did not want the country to be put to any cost by the discharge of a recruit at the end of three months; but, in his (Colonel Drummond-Moray's) opinion, it would be found that a recruit who had been three months in the Service would cost the country more like £15 than £10. Besides the cost of his clothing and necessaries, there was the instruction which was given to the recruit, and the trouble that he occasioned from time to time. Beyond all that, there was another point which should not be lost sight of. The first three months of a soldier's life were, in all probability, the most unpleasant he had. Perhaps he had seen the regiment together, and had been attracted by the uniform, or the band, and had thought that he should like to enlist. No doubt, the recruiting sergeant had confirmed him in his views of the pleasant life which he would lead. But after he had enlisted, he would, probably, be sent off with a number of others to the brigade depot of his regiment, where he would find nothing but young soldiers like himself, with a few old ones to look after them; his whole time would be spent hard at work under the drill corporal, and he would soon get home-sick, and send to his friends to find £10 to buy him out. If they had the money, they would be sure to do so; and he would then buy his discharge, and go back to his native place, and abuse the Service up hill and down dale to. all the young men of his acquaintance, telling them that soldiering was abominable, and that the life of a soldier was of the hardest possible description; although, 779 in reality, he knew nothing whatever about it. He (Colonel Drummond-Moray) really thought that if the clause were passed as it stood, many a young fellow who, if he had stayed in the Service would have been a credit to his regiment, would get disgusted with it before he had given it a fair trial, and would leave at the end of the three months.
§ MR. WHITWELLremarked that the clause had been introduced by the Government in order to popularize the Army, and to prevent unwilling men being retained in the ranks. He was, therefore, strongly in its favour; and should advocate it on the very ground upon which the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Drummond-Moray) moved its rejection.
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, that the hon. and gallant Member who had moved the rejection of the clause (Colonel Drummond-Moray) forgot that if a man went back to his native place, and gave a bad account of soldiering, his own case would, at all events, show how easy it was to get out of it.
§ GENERAL SHUTEwas in favour of the rejection of the clause altogether; and more particularly from the influence which it would have upon the Cavalry and the Household troops. Every Cavalry recruit cost the country between £20 and £30 during the first three months of his service; and if the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Drummond-Moray) were true as to the hard work of an Infantry soldier at the beginning of his service, they applied in a much stronger manner to a Cavalry recruit, who was worked much more severely at the commencement of his service. There was much more likelihood that a Cavalry recruit would get somewhat disgusted with the service, and weary of his duties. Moreover, the expense of the outfit of a Cavalry soldier was great; and especially was that the case in the Household Cavalry. But he had a few words to say upon this point in a military sense. It had been a matter of observation that the Cavalry suffered more than the Infantry from men leaving in a short time after joining. He had recently had a conversation with a General lately in command of the Cavalry at Aldershot, and with others well acquainted with the subject. They fully confirmed his experience that whenever any young fellow quarrelled 780 with his friends, and wished to enlist, nine times out of ten he went to the Cavalry, knowing perfectly well that his relations would in the end buy his discharge; in fact, having no intention, from the first, to serve for any length of time. Therefore, if the clause were adopted, the Cavalry would be a greater sufferer than ever. And in the Cavalry an immense amount of trouble was bestowed on the recruit; first, they had to be taught all the foot drill of an Infantry soldier, then the riding drill, the use of three arms; and after all this trouble had been spent on a man he was to be entitled to his discharge when he was just beginning to understand his duties. He would like to move for a Return of the number of men who had paid for their discharge from the Cavalry. Even at the present time, it was a most serious inconvenience; and so much so, that he had intended to press an Amendment of the clause, in order to provide that when a man had served nine months without returning his name for discharge he should not be entitled to it for two years, excepting at double the present rate; so that the Government should get some compensation for the cost and trouble of his instruction. Financially speaking, the clause would be unfair to the taxpayer; and, with regard to the Cavalry in particular, it would do very serious mischief, and tend further to reduce the age and efficiency of our regiments, besides discouraging enlistment, as the men obtaining discharge within three months would have experienced only the drudgery of recruits' drill.
§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCKsaid, that, no doubt, there was great weight in the objections of the hon. and gallant Members for Perthshire (Colonel Drummond-Moray) and Brighton (General Shute). What the Government desired to do was to make the presumption of advantage in enlistment in favour of the soldier. They wished that service in the Army should be voluntary; and that the inducement to enlist, and the advantage from so doing, should be in favour of the recruit. He believed that the advantage was now in favour of the recruit; but it was desired to make it more apparent that it was so. The more apparent they made it that the advantage of joining the Service was in favour of the recruit, the more popular would the 781 Service become. Under the provisions of the clause, the financial balances would be rather in favour of, than against, the recruit. He would be allowed to go away at the end of three months on payment of £10, though, if he pleased, he might have saved £3 in hard cash, besides having had his keep free. The country, perhaps, would be the loser by the transaction; but what it lost was nothing as compared to the gain in the establishment of the principle enforced by the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. J. Holms). They did not want unwilling men in the Service. Let them establish that principle, and they would be in the position which existed in the Indian Service, where, instead of having to seek for men, there were numbers of applicants waiting to enter the Service. He maintained that the clause was a step in the right direction; and that they were, in reality, declaring that they did not want unwilling men. By doing that, they would soon put the balance in favour of the country; and, although there might be some slight financial loss at first, the country would be the eventual gainer.
§ MAJOR O'BEIRNEremarked that it was surely preferable to allow a man to buy himself out of the Service than to make him desert. The question of desertion was a very serious one, for 6,000 or 7,000 men deserted yearly, and the object of this clause was to check that desertion.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Appointment to Corps and Transfers.
§ Clause 79 (Enlistment for general service and appointment to corps).
§ MAJOR O'BEIRNEsaid, that since the introduction of the brigade-depot system, soldiers who had enlisted into a regiment were enlisted for service in either battalion, which might either be for home or for foreign service. Some men enlisted for the purpose of remaining at home for the time of their service, and then getting transferred to the Reserve. But it was the custom very frequently, after six months' service, to send these men to the brigade depot, where they would get drafted off to India or the Colonies contrary to their intention when they entered the Service. He thought there was something to complain of in this arrangement; and he would, there- 782 fore, move as an Amendment, in page 43, line 12, after "regular forces," to insert—
And shall not be transferred without his consent from the depot of a regiment on service in the United Kingdom to the depot of a regiment on foreign service.
§ COLONEL STANLEYhoped that the hon. and gallant Member for Leitrim (Major O'Beirne) would not press his Amendment. If he looked closer into the matter, he would find that all men who had enlisted since the 1st of April, 1873, were enlisted not for a particular regiment, but for a brigade, and were interchangeable amongst the battalions composing that brigade. Men were passed from one battalion to another, and were absolutely transferable, according to the terms of their engagement. Men who had enlisted before the date he had mentioned, although in a regiment which might form a constituent part of the brigade, were, by the terms of their enlistment, only liable to be transferred to another battalion by their own consent. He fully agreed with the hon. and gallant Gentleman that it was not desirable to transfer men unless they wished it; but the interests of the Service were such that they were sometimes obliged to do it. The system of brigade depots was deliberately adopted by Parliament, and it was a portion of that system that all men enlisting were liable to be transferred to any of the regiments forming part of the brigade depot.
§ MAJOR O'BEIRNEthought that when a man enlisted he ought to be informed that part of the regiment which he was entering was at home, and part was abroad; and that, consequently, he might be sent to serve either at home or abroad. Many men enlisted for the sole purpose of serving in England for the six years of their service; but they might find themselves transferred to the depot of the regiment, and sent to India, which was entirely contrary to their intention. Where a man intended only to enlist for England, it was a fraud upon him to put him under a liability to be transferred to a portion of his regiment abroad, unless he was informed of that liability at the time of entering the Service. He considered that this liability to transfer ought to be clearly stated in the attestation paper.
§ COLONEL STANLEYagreed in principle with the observations of the hon. 783 and gallant Member (Major O'Beirne); but the system which they now adopted was not to enlist men for any one battalion, but to enlist generally for the brigade, with a liability of being transferred to any regiment forming a part of it.
§ MR. PARNELLwished to know, whether a recruit was informed that he was enlisted for general service, or allowed to believe that his enlistment was for the particular service of a battalion—was a recruit told, when he enlisted, that he would be enlisted for one particular battalion, or was he informed that his enlistment was really for general service? There was a very important point involved in this matter, and he should particularly wish to have some information as to whether a man was distinctly enlisted for general purposes?
§ COLONEL STANLEY,in reply, said, that no man was enlisted for general service. Every man was enlisted for a brigade, consisting of two battalions. When they were linked regiments, the battalions formed but one brigade. All the officers and all the men who were attached to the brigade had been, since the 1st of April, 1873, interchangeable among the various battalions or regiments composing it. A man was now enlisted for a brigade, and it was clearly explained to him that he was liable to be transferred from one battalion to another. It was impossible to state in an attestation paper that one battalion was at home and another was abroad, because the stations of battalions were being continually changed.
§ MAJOR NOLANwished to point out that a man might be enlisted for general service; and in sub-section 5 of the next clause it was provided that where a man who had been enlisted to serve part of the term of his original enlistment in the Reserve was on service beyond the seas and at the time of his corps, or the part thereof in which he was serving, being ordered to another station, or to return home, had more than two years of his Army service in the terms of his original enlistment unexpired, then he might be transferred to any corps of the same branch which was on service beyond the seas. Thus a man who had been enlisted for one regiment might be transferred to any other regiment in the Service. It was not fair that there should be such a sweeping provision as that, There- 784 fore, if a recruit were to ask whether he would have any chance of serving his whole time in one particular regiment, no other answer could be given him than that the chance was two to one against him.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, that there was really a very important point involved in this matter. He wished to know what was the difference between being enlisted for service in a particular corps and being enlisted in a particular corps?
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that a man could only be transferred to another brigade when he had enlisted for service generally. His impression was that no man could be enlisted for general service, unless the brigade to which he applied for enlistment was full. What was practically done was this—they told the man that he might enlist; but that if he did enlist, it would be for general service in any corps to which he might be sent.
§ MR. PARNELLsupposed that that was made quite clear to the recruit in the attestation paper. Of course, the arrangement was perfectly right, if it were made clear to the recruit that one battalion was at homo and another was abroad, and that he was liable to serve in either.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that a man was liable for service abroad at any time; but it was impossible to state in the attestation paper whether a battalion of the brigade was at home or abroad.
§ MR. PARNELLasked, whether it could not be made clear to the recruit, by the attestation paper, that he was liable for service in either battalion of the brigade? Could they not tell him in the attestation paper where the battalions were?
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that they could not tell the recruit where the battalions were; it was quite impossible.
§ MR. PARNELLasked, if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would have any objection to say how, if it was not stated in the attestation paper where the battalions were, it was made perfectly clear to the recruit that ho was liable to serve in either battalion either abroad or at home?
MR. O'CONNOR POWERthought that the object the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) had in view was a very proper one. A raw recruit had a paper put into his hands, and it ought 785 to show him exactly what his liabilities were.
§ SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, that our Army must be composed of two classes of men; those enlisted for a short, and those enlisted for a long period—it being necessary to have long service men to serve in India and abroad. No doubt, some soldiers wished only to enlist for short service in this country, in order that they might go into the Reserve: while others were willing to serve in any part of the globe. It seemed to him to be extremely desirable to encourage soldiers who were willing to adopt the long service, so that it was made perfectly clear to the soldier when he enlisted what he was doing. He hoped that the Government would take care that it was made clear to the recruit whether he was enlisting for a long period of general service, so that he was liable to be sent abroad or to serve in any corps, or whether his liability was for a short period of service, so that, practically, he could not be sent abroad.
§ MAJOR O'BEIRNEsaid, that it was simply a fraud upon the recruit to entrap him into enlisting in a regiment which was serving at home, and then to transfer him to a regiment either serving, or about to be sent, abroad.
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONsaid, that before the Amendment was put from the Chair, he must protest against Amendments being placed upon the Paper by hon. Members who did not know the A B C of the military Profession. The Amendment referred to two depots of a regiment; whereas, in fact, there was only one. To place such an Amendment upon the Paper was only misleading the Committee and wasting time; and it showed great ignorance of the Service.
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, that although there might be a verbal error in the Amendment, yet the fact still remained that this system of transferring men from one regiment to another was being acted upon daily.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that there was no power to transfer a soldier from one regiment to another, when he had enlisted for a particular regiment. The matter would, however, receive consideration.
§ MR. RYLANDSsaid, that it struck him as being a matter of extreme importance that the recruit should be made 786 acquainted with all the conditions of his service on enlisting. He understood the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War to say that the matter would receive his consideration.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, that what was asked was that the Regulations of the Army should be so framed that every recruit should know where the regiment was serving for which he was enlisting. If he did not enlist for a particular regiment, but a brigade, the recruit should be able to ascertain where the battalions forming that brigade were serving. He hoped that the Secretary of State for War would take care that that knowledge should be communicated to the recruits.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he was quite willing to give that undertaking; but, at the same time, he wished to point out that it was quite possible to go too far in the direction of giving information to the recruit, and, from an excess of caution, actually to mislead him.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, that there could be no danger of misleading the recruit when he enlisted for a particular battalion.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, that it was this practice of transferring men from one regiment to another which induced them to desert. It appeared to him that, under the present system, a fraud was perpetrated upon the recruit, and the result was that when he wished to join a particular regiment, he deserted from the one he had been transferred to and re-enlisted in the one he desired to serve in. Thus, when a man found himself transferred to a regiment ordered abroad, he deserted and re-enlisted in a home-serving battalion. He did not think that the practice of recruits enlisting for general service should be kept up. It would be very much better for the soldiers to join particular regiments and to remain in them, unless they themselves volunteered for foreign service. As far as possible, the soldiers ought to know their own officers, and the officers their men.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clause 80 (Effect of appointment to a corps and provision for transfers).
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONsaid, he would move to amend the clause, by 787 adding, after the word " seas," in page 44, line 15, the following words:—
Provided, That the power of transfer given by sub-sections four and five of Clause eighty of this Act shall not apply to any man who enlists for the whole of the period of twelve years in Army service, or to any man who, having enlisted for a portion of the said period in Army service, has extended his Army service for the residue unexpired of his term of twelve years, or to any man who has re-engaged.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he had no objection to the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Baronet.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, that he had a previous Amendment on this clause which was not upon the Paper.
THE CHAIRMANsaid, he must point out to the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) that when an Amendment which appeared upon the Paper had been put from the Chair, it was not respectful to the Committee for an hon. Member to get up in his place, and say that he had a previous Amendment which was not written nor upon the Paper, and yet to propose no such Amendment.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he had no wish to delay the progress of this measure; but he desired to point out to the Chairman and to the Committee how the matter stood. The hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir Alexander Gordon) had risen to propose an Amendment which appeared upon the Paper, whereupon he (Mr. Parnell) had risen to propose a previous Amendment which was not on the Paper, on which the hon. and gallant Baronet had given way to him, and he was in possession of the Committee. Just at that moment, the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan) exclaimed that he had an Amendment before his (Mr. Parnell's), whereupon he had sat down, giving way to the hon. and gallant Member for Galway, as the hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir Alexander Gordon) had just given way to him. The hon. and gallant Gentleman (Major Nolan) had then discovered that he was in error, and that his Amendment, instead of preceding his (Mr. Parnell's), was subsequent to it. He was then about to move his Amendment when the Chairman had interrupted him, and had remarked that it was not respectful to the Committee for him to ask permission to move an Amendment which was not upon the Paper, before an Amendment which was upon the Paper. If hon. 788 Members were not to be permitted to move Amendments which were not upon the Paper, the Rules of the House should state so distinctly. He had always understood that hon. Members were permitted to move such Amendments. He could not help feeling that he had been very unfairly treated in this matter, because there were portions of his Amendment which he believed would have been agreed to by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War. Now, however, he was altogether shut out from moving his Amendment, in consequence of that of the hon. and gallant Baronet having been put from the Chair. The effect of the course that had been adopted was to deprive him of the right of moving the Amendment he had actually been in the act of moving when he had given way to the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan). He trusted that the hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir Alexander Gordon) would withdraw his Amendment, so as to enable him (Mr. Parnell) to move his Amendment, which was a most important one.
THE CHAIRMANsaid, that he wished to point out to the Committee that the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) had not stated accurately what had occurred. The Amendment of the hon. and gallant General the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon) standing next upon the Paper, he had called upon him to move it, which he had proceeded to do; and the hon. and gallant General was interrupted in the midst of his observations by the hon. Member for Meath, who said he had a previous Amendment to propose which was not upon the Paper, upon which the hon. and gallant General gave way. As far as he (the Chairman) could gather, the hon. Member for Meath appeared to have no Amendment to propose. The hon. Member did not sit down, it was true; but he appeared to be engaged in conversation with his hon. Friends behind him, with reference, as he (the Chairman) supposed, to the nature of the Amendment he had declared himself about to propose. It appeared to him that such a course was not respectful to the Committee, and he had made a statement to that effect. The hon. Member for Meath was not precluded from moving his Amendment, that of the hon. and gallant General the 789 Member for East Aberdeenshire not having been put to the Committee.
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, that he rose on a point of Order. The difficulty had resulted from a very natural mistake on his own part. Having an Amendment to the clause, in line 15, when he heard the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) say that he had an Amendment in line 21, he naturally concluded that his Amendment preceded that of the hon. Member; whereas, in point of fact, owing to the clause extending into the next page, there were two lines 15 in it, and his (Major Nolan's) Amendment related to a line on the page subsequent to that to which the Amendment of the hon. Member for Meath referred. He hoped that, in these circumstances, the hon. Member for Meath would not be precluded from moving his Amendment in consequence of a misapprehension on his (Major Nolan's) part.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that he did not know whether he was exactly in Order in rising; but he wished to ask whether, as there appeared to have been some slight mistake, owing to the confusion in the numbering of the lines of the clause, it would not be better for the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon) to withdraw his Amendment, in order to give the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) an opportunity of moving his previous Amendment?
THE CHAIRMANsaid, that he wished to point out to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who had last spoken that the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon) was not disposed of; and that, therefore, it was open to the hon. Member for Meath to move his Amendment on the clause, if he desired to do so.
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONsaid, that he also wished to rise on a point of Order. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for "War had agreed to his Amendment, and, therefore, no discussion had taken place with reference to it. The Committee had good reason to complain that after the length of time this Bill had been before the House hon. Members should have neglected to place the Amendments on it which they intended to propose 790 upon the Paper. He begged leave, in the circumstances, to withdraw his Amendment.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, that he begged to move to amend the clause by leaving out sub-section 2, in line 29, in page 43. The sub-section in question was to this effect—
A soldier of the regular forces may at any time with his own consent be transferred, by order of the competent military authority, to any corps of the regular forces.The principle involved in this Amendment was very important, as, doubtless, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would be prepared to admit; and, therefore, the question it raised ought not to be too hastily disposed of. Unfortunately, he had been absent when the clauses were passed which extended the powers of the Government to increase their Forces by enabling the soldiers from the Army Reserve to volunteer for active service. In his opinion, Parliament should look with a great deal of jealousy upon any attempt on the part of the Crown to get facilities for engaging in foreign wars in different parts of the world, without having previously obtained its sanction. It was for that reason that he now begged to move the omission of this sub-section, which gave the Government power to transfer the soldiers from one corps to another, a power which had been very largely used by the War Office during the war with Zululand. He not only objected to the power which the Government had of entering into foreign wars without the consent of Parliament being extended, but he should like to see that which they already possessed abridged. If it had not been for this power of transfer, the Government would have hesitated before they rushed into war with the Zulus, because they would have been unable to have supplemented their Army, or to have called for picked volunteers from every Home regiment. The short-service system was most valuable, as enabling them to obtain an Army for Home defence; but it was still more valuable, inasmuch as it prevented this country from engaging in little wars all over the world. But, by means of this power of transfer, the Government were enabled to convert the short service system into an instrument for obtaining men for foreign wars. 791 When the Army Reserve was called out last year, everyone was pleased to see the way in which the men composing it answered to the call upon them; but if, instead of confining such calling out to times of great national emergency, the principle was extended, the Government would be able at any time to avail themselves of the services of a large body of picked soldiers from all the battalions, who might be induced to volunteer for foreign service by the offer of any extra inducement, such as an additional bounty. In view, therefore, of the recent proceedings of the Government abroad, he begged to move the omission of sub-section 2.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he thought that even if the Amendment of the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) were agreed to by the Committee, it would not by any means accomplish the object he had in view. It would, however, be inconvenient were it to be rendered impossible to transfer a soldier from one corps to another, even with his consent. Thus, in the event of a soldier having a brother in another regiment, it would be hard to debar him from being transferred to such regiment at his own request. The hon. Member would observe that the transfer was only to be made with the consent of the soldier, and by order of the competent military authorities.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, if he was not right in supposing that this was the clause under which Government could call for volunteers for particular corps, ho was, of course, in error. But it would be easy to introduce a clause of very much narrower scope, which would allow the cases of transfer mentioned by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to take place, without having a sub-section, enabling the Government to call for large numbers of volunteers whenever they pleased, to be transferred from one corps to another. It appeared to him that there was no other place in the clause than that which he had selected for inserting his proposed Amendment. Under these circumstances, he did not see how the Government proposed to give any power of limitation. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman said the power existed in another part of the Bill, he should, of course, be silent; otherwise, he must consider that his position had been maintained.
§ SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, the clause, of course, enabled Government to extend service in regiments by volunteers. Under existing regulations, it would be quite impossible to carry on the public service without allowing men to volunteer.
§ MR. PARNELLwould like to know which section the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) alluded to, because he was unable to discover it within the four corners of the Bill? He assumed the Government had the power which they had recently exercised, or else they had committed an oversight in not including it within the Bill.
§ COLONEL STANLEYreplied, that the section referred to was No. 75.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONmoved, as an Amendment, the insertion, after the word "seas" in line 15, page 44, of the words—
Provided, That the power of transfer given by sub-sections four and five of Clause eighty of this Act shall not apply to any man who enlists for the whole of the period of twelve years in Army service, or to any man who, having enlisted for a portion of the said period in Army service, has extended his Army service for the residue unexpired of his term of twelve years, or to any man who has re-engaged.
THE CHAIRMANpointed out to the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon) that in the language of an Act of Parliament, instead of saying "Clause eighty of this Act," the wording would be "this section."
MR. O'CONNOR POWERwished to move an Amendment before the Question was put. By sub-section 2, a soldier might at any time, with his own consent, be transferred, by order of the competent military authority, to any corps of the Regular Forces. He (Mr. O'Connor Power) admitted that he would be transferred with his own consent; but was he transferred with the knowledge of the conditions upon which he would be transferred, or was the transfer made upon conditions by which the authorities might order anything they thought proper? His object was that the soldier should know into what engagement he entered by being transferred; and, therefore, he begged to move that after the word "by" in page 43, line 793 35, be inserted, "arrangement with the soldier so transferred, and by."
§ COLONEL STANLEYthought that the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) was under a misapprehension with regard to this transfer. He would see, by taking the whole section, that the soldier could only vary the general conditions of service. His pay would neither be reduced nor increased by the transfer from one arm or branch of Service to another.
MR. O'CONNOR POWER,after the explanation of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, begged leave to withdraw his Amendment.
§ Amendment (Mr. 0' Connor Power), by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. PARNELLwished to point out to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War that he was entirely wrong in his contention that Clause75enabled him to call for volunteers for transfer from one corps to another. Such a power had been exercised in November last, when a number of volunteers were called for; but it was under sub-section 2 of the present clause to which he was objecting.
§ SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLcould not understand the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon). It appeared to be designed to prevent Her Majesty having the number of long-service soldiers which she might otherwise have. If a man who enlisted for a long period of service, with a view to go to India, broke down in his health, and was obliged to be sent home, it was a very reasonable condition that he should be transferred to another corps. But the Amendment would render this impossible, and, therefore, he asked, what was to become of a man so placed? It might be that he was in a single battalion regiment, or that the other battalions of his regiment were serving abroad; and, therefore, unless he was transferred to another corps, his services would be lost to Her Majesty altogether. It appeared to him that, as regarded sub-section 5, the Amendment involved an impossibility; while it was difficult to understand its object with regard to sub-section 4.
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONhad no wish to trouble the Committee with details; but he might state that the 794 Amendment was word for word in accordance with the existing Act, and its object was to prevent an old soldier who had served in one regiment, invalided and worn out, being sent to a new regiment under fresh circumstances. There was hardly anything which a soldier in that condition disliked more than to have to begin again in a new regiment, where he was wanted neither by his officers, nor by his comrades, because, not being a young man and a smart soldier, he was not likely to bring credit to the regiment.
§ Amendment (Sir Alexander Gordon) amended and agreed to; words inserted accordingly.
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, it was plain that sub-section 5 allowed all soldiers of four years' service to be transferred to any other regiment whatsoever, which would, of course, be disagreeable to a great many soldiers; because, as had been pointed out by the hon. and gallant Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon), the regimental association would be broken up. But it was also objectionable on the ground that a great deal of favouritism might be shown in the selection of the men to be transferred. The commanding officer might weed out the men whom he wished to transfer, and if those men had been presumably all enlisted for a particular corps, it was extremely hard upon them to be put into another against their will. He was not prepared to pass the section altogether; but wanted to have inserted some words which would prevent the colonel of a regiment from showing favouritism or getting rid of particular men. He proposed to insert that—
No soldier shall be so transferred against his will, unless all available soldiers are also transferred from the corps which is ordered home.The effect of which would be that the colonel would not be able to pick and choose the men to be transferred. Nothing could be more unfair than that when a regiment was ordered home, and the colonel was ordered to transfer 200 men, he should select them upon any principle he might choose to adopt—that was to say, selecting the men of good or bad character; or, perhaps, according to fancy, picking out the Scotch, English, or Irish. He thought it was most unfair that men enlisted for abroad 795 should be liable to be picked out in this way. The fairest plan, in his opinion, would be to select for transfer the men of least standing in the regiment. He saw no difficulty as to the working of his Amendment, except, perhaps, as regarded the definition of the word " soldier." There might be a little difficulty about the non-commissioned officers in consequence; but it could be remedied very easily by inserting the words " private soldier."
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, the point raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan) being one of rather large importance, he trusted he should be allowed carefully to look into the proposed wording. Prima facie, it seemed to him there might be a good deal of difficulty in the working of the Amendment, if carried; and, therefore, he asked the hon. and gallant Member to move it again on Report; in the meantime he (Colonel Stanley) undertook that it should receive fair consideration.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MAJOR O'BEIRNEfound that, by sub-section 7, the authorities were to draft men guilty of fraudulent enlistment and desertion, as well as those who had been sentenced to imprisonment for more than four months into regiments in India and elsewhere. This, he wished to point out, was a very great injustice to the officers in those regiments, who ought not to be burdened with all the bad characters from the regiments at home. He was of opinion that the clause ought to mention that not more than a certain percentage of such men should be transferred. This subject was hardly discussed by the Committee upstairs, which he thought should have had before it the Military Codes of France, Germany, and Italy, for the purpose of seeing how those countries dealt with the bad characters in their Armies. The question was a very wide one, and he thought some further information should be supplied in connection with it. He thought that instead of drafting all the bad characters they should be allowed to volunteer, on condition that, after a certain number of years of good service abroad, their service should be restored to them. He begged to move the omission of subsection 7.
§ COLONEL STANLEYpointed out that under the operation of this sub-section a great benefit would be experienced by men who, in the great majority of cases, would be relieved of their penalties, and, instead of spending some years in gaol, would be attached to regiments serving abroad, where they would possibly settle down and make excellent soldiers. There would also be a great saving to the Army by retaining the services of men whose time would otherwise be almost invariably spent in prison. He could not help thinking that the system in operation abroad, to which the hon. and gallant Member for Leitrim (Major O'Beirne) had referred, would be found extremely repugnant to our Service. His own view was that a young soldier should be removed from the possibility of temptation, or rather merged into a regiment, where, having a new chance before him and a fresh start, he might become a good soldier. But there was another point in connection with this section to which he desired to call the attention of the Committee. He was sorry to say that there was in the Army a body of men who were apt to desert just at the moment when their battalion was ordered abroad. A day or two before the battalion was to leave they deserted, or otherwise so committed themselves as to be liable for trial by court martial, and, consequently, to lose their turn abroad. These men, by running the chance of a court martial, thereby not only avoided their own turn abroad, but were the cause of other men being sent out, who would otherwise remain at home. Now, he was very anxious that the designs of these men should not succeed; and therefore he hoped, as part of the general system proposed to be introduced, to give greater freedom to competent military authorities to transfer these men to battalions where they might perform good service to their country, and, at the same time, relieve other good men from the consequences of their default.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaw a good deal in the remarks of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War. It was easy to see that this sub-section might have a beneficial application; but he thought, also, there might be a very considerable increase in the trouble and difficulty experienced by commanding officers abroad through 797 having a number of disorderly persons drafted into their regiments. It was worth while to consider the point referred to by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, that a great many cases of desertion arose from the dislike which many men had to going abroad; and he (Mr. O'Donnell) was not sure that it would not be better to make use of the services of the men in question at home. That consideration reminded him of what had been referred to in the discussion upon the preceding clause— namely, where a man enlisted for one of the linked battalions, without realizing that he was liable for foreign service. It was certainly very hard that a man should find himself liable to serve abroad who had never intended it. No doubt, in many cases, the clause might be worked humanely; but it was certainly calculated to impose additional punishment of an aggravating kind, because, where a deserter was sentenced to a period of punishment at home, under this clause he could, immediately he had completed his term of punishment, be ordered abroad as an additional chastisement for his offence. Upon that point, he would ask the Secretary of State for War to say, whether a deserter who had been sentenced, and who had fulfilled his punishment, could, in virtue of this sub-section, be ordered on foreign service as an aggravation of his punishment?
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he did not know what the meaning of Clause 76 was in connection with the clause under notice. It appeared to him that they had done something in Clause 76 they did not intend to do, and that they were going to enact something now which was not intended. In Clause 76, they had enacted that where a soldier had been convicted as a deserter the whole of his previous service should be forfeited. Now, they were asked to make a man liable to be sent abroad, if he had been convicted by a court martial of desertion or fraudulent enlistment, or having confessed the sentence, or being committed by a court of summary jurisdiction as a deserter, was liable to he tried, his trial had been dispensed with by order of the competent military authority. In sub-section (5), they were asked to say that where a person had been sentenced by a court martial for any offence to a punishment not less 798 than imprisonment for a term of four months, then he should also be liable to be sent abroad, and might be from time to time transferred to such corps of the Regular Forces as the competent military authority might order. Without going into the question whether it was righteous to sentence a man to what was equivalent to a term of transportation for five years for any petty offence which might subject him to a term of imprisonment for four months, his desire was to point out that some provisions in this clause were of a most extraordinary character. Without going into the question, he would inquire what was it a court of competent authority could do? They did not limit the power to inflict punishment upon the prisoner; but they gave power to punish him in addition to his sentence by sending him on foreign service. In subsection 8 of the clause, they had this state of affairs—
A soldier of the regular forces committed by a court of summary jurisdiction in any part of Her Majesty's dominions as a deserter shall be liable to be transferred by order of the competent military authority to any corps of the regular forces near to the place where he is committed, or to any other corps to which the competent military authority think it desirable to transfer him, and to serve in the corps to which he is so transferred without prejudice to his subsequent trial and punishment.That was, a soldier who had been convicted by a court of summary jurisdiction in any part of Her Majesty's dominions might be sent to any other part —that was, if at home, he might be sent to India or any of the Colonies. He thought that this clause required very careful consideration, and he was sure the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would not think that he desired to stop the progress of the Bill if he asked to be allowed then to report Progress.
§ COLONEL STANLEYhoped that the hon. Member would not press his Motion. He had not seen any disposition on the part of hon. Members to close the discussion, and he must say that the Bill had made very little progress. He hoped that the Committee would not stop its labours, at all events, until it had passed the clause. As regarded the point to which the hon. Member had alluded, he had already spoken fully upon the clause, and he did not wish to take up the time of the Committee by 799 repeating what he had said. He would remind hon. Members, with regard to sub-section 8, that it was a re-production of the existing sections of the Mutiny Act. Did the hon. Gentlemen know what the effect of the clause was? The effect was this—where a soldier of the Regular Forces had been committed by a court of summary jurisdiction, he was liable to be transferred by the competent military authority to serve in the corps which was nearest to the place where he had been convicted. The corps from which he had deserted might be many miles away, and it was absolutely impossible for the civil authority to sentence him to return to that corps. The most convenient course, under the circumstances, was to transfer a man to the corps nearest to which he was apprehended, and this provision only reproduced Sections 34 and 36 of the Mutiny Act. Battalions served at one time in one place and another time in another, and if deserters had to be sent out under escort to the places where their corps were serving, very great expense would be caused to the country. He did hope that the hon. Gentleman would not press his Motion to report Progress.
THE CHAIRMANsaid, he did not understand that the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) had made any Motion.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, that he made it now; for he thought it was a very reasonable Motion. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had only attempted to deal with one of the points which he had raised, and had not noticed the other matters to which ho had referred. Unless the right hon. and gallant Gentleman could give some satisfactory answer, he must press his Motion. This clause had been drawn in the most abominable fashion, and it required careful re-drafting before the Committee could pass it. It was said that subsection 8 was a reproduction of the old Mutiny Act—and that was all the reason that was offered for it—but, in his opinion, that was sufficient condemnation of the clause. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman said that the corps to which a deserter belonged might be serving abroad, and that he would have to be sent out to that corps. He thought that in order to meet that difficulty there was no necessity for the very excessive powers 800 of this clause. The clause clearly gave a power much in excess of what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman stated that he wished to insist upon. For his part, he (Mr. Parnell) must object to their being required to pass a clause which gave very much more power than the right hon. and gallant Gentleman stated that he required. But what answer had the right hon. and gallant Gentleman given to his observations upon sub-section a and sub-section b? He had said nothing, and had ignored the question entirely. This clause was utterly indefensible—it had been badly and roughly drawn, and required grave consideration. The Committee had now been sitting since a quarter to 4, and he thought had made very satisfactory progress, and had passed a large number of clauses dealing with very important matters indeed. If they judged of their progress by the number of clauses, their work might not look great; but, judged by its importance, the work which they had done had been very satisfactory. He thought that the Government should be satisfied with th9 progress already made, and should not insist upon going on with the clause.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Parnell.)
§ COLONEL STANLEYthought that on closer examination the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) would not find this clause so indefensible as he seemed to think. It was provided by sub-section 8 that a soldier who had been committed by a court of summary jurisdiction as a deserter should be liable to be transferred to any corps near the place where he was committed, or to any other corps as the competent military authority might think desirable. In reply to the hon. Member, he (Colonel Stanley) had pointed out these provisions were in the Mutiny Act, before the hon. Member stated that that was sufficient condemnation for them. But, he would ask, what they were to do if they had not these provisions? Supposing a soldier was convicted in England of desertion from a regiment then in China; the man might be apprehended and convicted in England, and was the country to be put to the expense of sending him out to China under escort at a cost of £200 or 801 £300, when his regiment was coming home next year? The difficulty was met by transferring the man to the nearest regiment. In the same way, if a man were apprehended abroad, and his regiment were at home, he would be made to serve in the regiment at the place where he was apprehended. Under the peculiar circumstances of our Army, those who were responsible for the Bill had endeavoured to meet all the various difficulties under which our soldiers had to serve. In some cases, they had expressed their meaning with more or less plainness, and some of the clauses were longer than he should have wished. At the same time, they could not help the clause being long, and he trusted the Committee would not think it was so bad as it had been made out.
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, that it had always been regarded as a rule that the Committee should not report Progress until it had made some progress with the matter under discussion. This clause had been discussed at very considerable length, and if Progress was reported at that point, all that had been done with regard to this sub-section would be thrown away for they would have to begin again. He hoped, therefore, that the Committee, which appeared very favourably disposed to consider any suggestions or proposals, would proceed, and, at any rate, finish this clause.
§ COLONEL ALEXANDERsaid, that this section had given a rather wide power, in permitting a court martial to sentence a man to imprisonment without knowing whether he would get an additional punishment of being transferred to foreign service. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would omit subsection b, he thought that the clause would then do very well.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he had listened with a good deal of deference to the suggestions of those who had done really hard work upon the Bill that evening, and those observations applied with special force to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War. Everyone, he (Mr. O'Donnell) was sure, was immensely indebted to him for the courtesy and the business capacity that he had shown. But when the noble Lord the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition came down at that festive hour—when 802 he had not bled in his country's cause at an earlier hour of the evening, and addressed such observations as he had to the Committee—he thought those recommendations did not carry very great weight. He felt that he (Mr. O'Donnell) was one of those hon. Members who had worked hard that evening, and he trusted he had not been guilty of any factious opposition. He had given way on two or three occasions, and it had been admitted by Her Majesty's Government that many things in the Bill were not perceived until they were pointed out. He had no doubt that the sense of the Committee would be with those hon. Members who had worked hard that evening at the Bill.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that no one could wish to do anything more than was reasonable. They had spent a good deal of time, and had taken great pains in the discussion on that clause; and, having that discussion fresh in their minds, he thought it a pity if they should adjourn until the clause was finished. It seemed to him that the most practical course would be to finish this clause, and then to proceed no further.
§ MR.RYLANDSthought it was a reasonable suggestion of the Government that if they were able to get through the clause they would not propose to go any further. With regard to sub-section 8, he agreed that it was reasonable, and he saw no objection to it; but he did object to sub-section 7. It was just possible that a little concession on the part of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would put the Committee in a position to settle the clause. Sub-section 7 provided that a man who had been convicted of being a deserter should, in addition to his other punishments, be liable to general service. A soldier might be punished for desertion, in addition to imprisonment, by being sent abroad, and by being transferred from time to time to such corps as were on the rota for foreign service, and might be retained for a number of years. The operation of a portion of sub-section 7 had been very properly animadverted upon by the hon. and gallant Member opposite (Colonel Alexander). It was absurd that because a soldier had been convicted of some offence, as pro 803 vided in sub-section b, for which he had received imprisonment for a term of not less than four months, he should also he liable to this further punishment of being sent abroad as the authorities might order. If he understood the clause accurately, it enabled a commanding officer, or the competent military authority, by transferring this man, to retain him in foreign service for a number of years. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman could amend the clause by limiting the effect of this punishment, he thought that it might meet their views. But, unless the Government were willing to take that course, he did not think it unreasonable that Progress should then be reported.
§ COLONEL STANLEYthought it possible they might arrive at some understanding with regard to the clause. The operation of sub-section b was, no doubt, what had been attributed to it—that when a man had been sentenced by a court martial to imprisonment he might also be compelled to serve abroad. But that was not the intention of the Government. He had said before that their object in this clause was to enable men to serve their country instead of passing their time in prison. He thought that the views, both of the Government and of hon. Members, might be met by inserting on page 44, the third line from the bottom, after the word "liable," words providing that men could choose to accept that liability in commutation of their punishments.
§ MAJOR O'BEIRNEsaid, that the regiments to which bad characters were sent would very much object. Both officers and men of any regiment would strongly object to receiving more than a fair proportion of bad characters. He thought that there ought to be an allotted number of bad characters for each regiment, and that no regiment should have more than a certain number. At present, there was a discretionary power under the clause to transfer any number of these men.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that regulations of that minuteness could not be laid down in an Act of Parliament. It would be impossible to say in an Act how many bad characters should be sent to any regiment. He might, however, say that he did not think that this clause would apply to a man who was a bad character. It was well known that there 804 were a number of high-spirited young men who got into trouble from some cause or other in one regiment. They were now sentenced to imprisonment; and the object of this clause was to give them a fresh chance, without compelling them to pass their time in prison. A man guilty of a serious offence, or of very disgraceful conduct, would not be relieved from his sentence under this clause. For the number of these men who should be transferred to any regiment he could not possibly say, as it was a matter which must be left to the discretion of the authorities. At the same time, he might assure the hon. and gallant Member (Major O'Beirne) that there would not be sent to any regiment any such numbers as would cause disgrace to the corps.
§ COLONEL ALEXANDERthought that the limit at which this option of serving abroad was to be given was somewhat arbitrary. The clause fixed it at imprisonment for a term of four months; but sometimes men got one month, and sometimes four, for the same offence, at the discretion of the officers composing the court martial.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that four months had been fixed as the term, because it seemed to him to be practically the limit for minor offences. A court martial generally sentenced to four months for some small insubordination.
§ COLONEL ARBUTHNOTsaid, the clause was one which would give great satisfaction to officers and men in the Army. He might claim some share in it, as he was instrumental in bringing the subject into notice; and it was his suggestion that it would be better to transfer a man for foreign service than to imprison him.
§ MR. PARNELLwished to point out that what had been stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and by the noble Lord (the Marquess of Hartington), who, having delivered his shot, had left the House, was not the question. These sub-sections were really in the nature of fresh clauses, although they had been put into one large clause. His hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Leitrim (Major O'Beirne) had moved an Amendment to strike out the whole of subsection 7, which included both subsections a and b. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State 805 for War had admitted that it was only when matters were debated that they could be properly understood; and up till ten minutes ago they had not been discussing the effect of this sub-section at all, and he did think it rather unreasonable to ask them to go on with the discussion of a sub-section of this character at that late hour. Some of these subsections involved entirely fresh matter. He would remind the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer of his promise of a few days ago, in which he said that he had no objection to any fair discussion of the principle of the different clauses, and that he was ready to consider any amendment of such clauses. When the Amendment of his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Leitrim had been disposed of, they would meet several other important Amendments. He ventured to say that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had admitted the soundness of his views upon sub-section b, by agreeing to make some modification in the clause. He desired the right hon. and gallant Gentleman now to go further; he wished to mitigate the punishment of imprisonment upon those high-spirited soldiers they had heard of, where their offences were not of a nature discreditable to the military character. It was all very well for the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to wish to mitigate their punishment; but it ought to be left at the option of the prisoners. If the military authorities thought it desirable that soldiers should be given an opportunity of going abroad in order to avoid imprisonment, let this be done. This sub-section, instead of being permissive, was imperative, upon a soldier who had been convicted, and sentenced to four months' imprisonment, to go abroad. A man might have enlisted in order to serve a short time in the Army, and then to enter the Reserve. He thought he had said sufficient to show that these were new questions which they were approaching, and that they should not be expected to enter upon them at 1 o'clock in the morning.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, that there were two classes of men in the Service; there were short-service men and long-service men. It was a very fair and merciful thing to allow a man, who had enlisted for a long period of service, to go upon foreign service, in commutation 806 of his punishment; but, with regard to the short-service man, to send him on foreign service was very much to increase his punishment. He spoke without the slightest desire to have the consideration of this clause postponed; but he felt quite sure that if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War took further time to consider the matter, he would find that he could easily introduce two or three Amendments which would satisfy the opponents of the clause. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had himself said that it was by objections being raised that the real effect of the clause became apparent. He fully agreed, not only with the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, but with the hon. and gallant Colonel (Colonel Arbuthnot), that this was a most excellent clause; but its working ought to be limited in some way. A great part of their objection would be removed, if an undertaking were given by the Goverment to take into consideration the question they had ventured to raise as to the difference between the long and short service men, and the great increase in the hardship upon men who had not intended to spend a long period of their lives abroad. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would consent to make some alteration in these matters upon Report, he (Mr. O'Donnell) did not think it would be asking too much of the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) to request him to withdraw his opposition to the clause.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that he should not like to make any promise, as he might not be able to carry it out. At the same time, he would consider the matters to which allusion had been made between then and the Report.
§ MR. PARNELLdid not think that they would be right in allowing that clause to pass at that hour of the morning, as they would have to assemble at 2 o'clock again that afternoon. He would urge upon the Government to consider these matters. In addition to what the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) had pointed out, he must draw attention to the fact that subsection 8 was very roughly drawn, and that it gave power to transfer deserters to any corps. He thought the difficulty might be met by a slight alteration, and he hoped that the matter would be reconsidered on the Report.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that he would endeavour to mate some alteration, if the hon. Member would give him any suggestion on the matter. He would point out to him, however, that sub-section 8 was not penal.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Amendment (Major O'Beime), by leave, withdrawn.
§ Amendment (Colonel Stanley) agreed to; words inserted accordingly.
§ MR. PARNELLproposed to alter the period of imprisonment, under which a man was liable to foreign service from four months to six months.
§ COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he had no objection to the alteration; but he thought that the practical effect of it would be to leave more men in prison. It might be best to leave the clause as it stood.
§ Amendment agreed to; words substituted accordingly.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, that before the clause was passed, he wished to say that he thought they were making a very great mistake in passing it then. It had been practically passed without discussion, when it was really as important a clause as the provost marshal clause. he did not think a fair opportunity for discussing the clause had been given.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ House resumed.
§ Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow, at Two of the clock.