COMMITTEE. [Progress 1st May.] (Hansard, 8 May 1879)

§ MR. J. BROWN
moved, in page 5, to leave out line 15. The words proposed to be omitted were those which made breaking out of barracks, camp, or quarters, an offence for which not only the rank and file, but also officers would be punishable. This was the first time he had ever heard of such an offence on the part of an officer. This offence should come under miscellaneous offences, and should, be more defined. This line was too vague in its moaning.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
said, he was not in a position to concur in the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman; and he pointed out that the breaking of barracks had always been called a military offence.

MAJOR, NOLAN
asked whether the Committee was disposed to enact what would really be a new offence, so far as the officers of the Army were concerned? He felt quite certain that many officers would not have entered the Army if they had thought that such a provision would become a part of the military law. He wished to know whether it was intended that the offence of breaking out of barracks and the penalty named in the clause were to be applied to officers?

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
said, he wished to put the same question to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War. He also wished to draw the attention of the Committee to the nature of the Bill, which was supposed to be merely a consolidation of the old Act of Parliament; but which, among other things, proposed to class soldiers and officers together for punishment by imprisonment, just as if they were to be regarded as on the same footing. Such a thing as the imprisonment of an officer for a military offence had never been heard of before. 1969 Officers were cashiered if they were found guilty of any offence against the military law, and not imprisoned. The only case in which an officer could be subjected to imprisonment was where he was convicted of felony; but that was a matter for a civil tribunal. An officer was not regarded as in the same position as a private soldier; and he certainly could not understand what was meant by an officer breaking out of barracks.

§ COLONEL MURE
said, hon. Gentlemen seemed inclined to object to changes in the Bill, because they were not in the old Act and Articles of War; but he would point out that in Committee of the Whole House they had to look at each clause, and see whether they considered it likely to be useful. But he should like to ask the Judge Advocate General and the military authorities in that House, whether, when a regiment was ordered to be confined to barracks for some specific purpose, at a time of apprehended disturbance, an officer going out of barracks without leave would be considered as breaking out of barracks, and would put himself within the penal operation of this clause? He hoped the Committee would realize the fact that this liability—if it were applicable to officers—to punishment for an offence which had never in their case been known before, was a distinct innovation, and a very serious one.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
said, he could not sympathize with the hon. and gallant Member (Sir Alexander Gordon). He thought that it would be satisfactory to the Army to feel that soldiers and officers were put upon the same footing with regard to the liability to punishment for specific offences; besides, if it were true that an officer could not break out of barracks, the clause could not apply to him. The clause included four distinct offences, and an officer might be guilty of the first, second, and third; but if he could not be guilty of the fourth, he would be exempt from the operation of the clause.

§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCK
said, the liability of an officer would depend on the orders given to him. If he disobeyed orders, he would be liable. These penalties had been inserted at his request, because the offence of breaking out of barracks had become so common that it was considered expedient to make it a specific offence.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFUR
regretted to find in the Bill the definition of a new crime on the part of an officer. It was well known that if an officer disobeyed his orders to remain in his quarters or barracks, he could be then brought before a court martial, and was liable to be cashiered; but the idea of an officer breaking out of barracks had never been heard of before. He thought that without any information being furnished to the Committee as to what cases had occurred to render such a clause necessary, they had a right to complain of the introduction of that part of the clause which was under consideration. He appealed to every hon. Member of that House, who had been in the Army, as to whether they ought, by the insertion of the 4th sub-section of this clause, to make an offence of that which no officer had ever been considered to be capable of committing before? He trusted that the opinion of the Committee would be taken as to whether such an innovation should be permitted.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
wished to say a word or two in consequence of what had fallen from the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. E. Jenkins), who did not sympathize with him (Sir Alexander Gordon). It was very likely that the hon. Gentleman did not sympathize with him, inasmuch as he did not know the feelings of the officers of the Army. It was necessary, for disciplinary purposes, to confine soldiers to barracks after a certain hour; but no such restriction was ever imposed on the officers, unless circumstances occurred which led to an order of the commanding officer that the officers should remain in barracks; and in that case, if an officer disobeyed orders, he would be liable, under the Articles of "War, to be tried for disobedience.

§ COLONEL ALEXANDER
hoped the line objected to would be modified. The proposal to subject officers to imprisonment had never been heard of during the time he had been connected with the Army. Later on, he should have to deal with cases of imprisonment.

§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN
thought there had been a little misapprehension as to this clause. It said— Every person subject to military law who commits any of the following offences … shall on conviction by court martial he liable, 1971 if an officer, to be cashiered, or to suffer such less punishment as is in this Act mentioned. An officer could not suffer imprisonment, because it was not within the term "such less punishment" as mentioned in the clause. In Clause 44 there was a scale of punishments applicable to officers and men, and in that applicable to officers they had—first, death; second, penal servitude; third, imprisonment; fourth, cashiering; fifth, dismissal; sixth, forfeiture; and seventh, reprimand. This was the order of the gravity of the punishments to be awarded; but, in the present clause, it said an officer should be liable to be cashiered, or to suffer any less punishment that might be inflicted; therefore, it was impossible he could suffer imprisonment or any greater punishment. He should like to ask what was the meaning which the Government attached to Sub-section 4—"Breaks out of barracks, camp, or quarters?" This was an offence dealt with under the 105th Article, known as "the Devil's Article;" and he thought it desirable to bring all the miscellaneous offences, as much as possible, into one explicit enactment. There was, first, the breaking out of barracks after tattoo, and then there was breaking out of barracks after orders that the men should be confined thereto. Now, these were two very different offences. Breaking out after tattoo might be a mere freak or a "lark," and, therefore, a matter of very little gravity; but breaking out of barracks when ordered to be confined thereto was a very serious thing, and he wished to know whether any distinction was to be drawn between these two cases, and whether it would not be better to draw such distinction formally, in order to assist the officers who would have to draw up the charges against offenders? As to any officer being imprisoned under the operation of the clause, he thought that that was impossible.

§ COLONEL MURE
said, he did not think there was anything to be apprehended in the nature of imprisonment; the point was, whether a new offence was to be made of breaking barracks on the part of an officer? As the clause stood, it introduced what was in reality a new punishment. He regarded it as an absolute insult to the officers of the Army. He hoped his right hon. and 1972 gallant Friend (Colonel Stanley) would give way. It should be remembered that this was a Bill for all time to come; it was intended to create a model law for the regulation of the Army; and, consequently, the Committee ought to be most particular in the consideration of every clause, especially when it was proposed to award punishment for things that had never been regarded as offences before.

§ COLONEL ARBUTHNOT
said, he noticed that in Clause 44 imprisonment was mentioned as coming before cashiering, and the imprisonment was regarded as the more serious punishment of the two; but he had always understood that no officer could be imprisoned until he had been cashiered. He thought, therefore, that the Committee should bear this in mind in considering the point under discussion. It seemed to him, however, that line 15 was not the point that had been elicited by the conversation that had gone on—the whole question was really whether an officer should be subject to punishment for breaking out of barracks? The fact was, that the line only applied to offences which officers did not commit; and it did not seem to him to be of much importance whether it remained in the clause or was cut out. For his own part, he should be prepared to support whatever judgment the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War and his advisers might come to, after hearing the opinions expressed by the Committee.

§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCK
agreed with those who had pointed out that there was not such a crime on the part of an officer as breaking out of barracks. If it should so happen that an officer, as one of the whole military body who were under the obligation, for military reasons, to remain in barracks, should disobey the order given, then it would become a totally different matter. He was of opinion that Sub-section 4 had evidently been introduced under some misapprehension; therefore, without asking the Secretary of State for War to concede any principle, or make any change in the clause, he merely put himself in the position of one who drew attention to an inaccuracy that had crept in by mistake, seeing that they could not charge an officer with a crime which it was not possible for him to commit. 1973 He thought that the crimes commitable by officers should be brought within one I clause.

§ COLONEL ALEXANDER
said, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stirling (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) seemed to think that there was a difference in gravity between the crimes of breaking out of barracks after tattoo, and breaking out of barracks after being ordered to be confined therein. But the fact was, that no distinction was over drawn in the Army between the two offences. The hon. Gentleman had spoken of breaking out of barracks after tattoo as a mere freak; but it was, in reality, a very dangerous freak, and one that might lead to considerable inconvenience; because, under ordinary circumstances, there were only the ordinary number of sentries; but if there were many cases of breaking out of barracks by getting over the wall the sentries had to be strengthened, and this threw extra duty on the comrades of the men who committed the offence. When the men were in the habit of breaking barracks, this plan of increasing the sentries was the best that could be adopted, for the men did not like it at all; and the imposition of the extra duty often had the effect of stopping the practice, which was mostly prevalent between the tattoo and the reveillé.

§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN
said, he had merely pointed out that breaking out of barracks after tattoo, and breaking out of barracks when ordered to be confined there, were dealt with under the Articles of War as two distinct offences.

§ COLONEL ALEXANDER
said, it was merely a different form of charge; one offence might happen in the day, and the other might happen at night, between the tattoo and the reveillé.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
said, an officer who broke out of barracks was to be rendered liable to punishment just the same as a soldier under this clause. He wished to remind the Committee that he had drawn attention to the general way in which imprisonment was to be made the punishment of the officer as well as of the soldier. He should like to ask the Secretary of State for War, was an officer to remain in the Army after he had suffered imprisonment? Was it intended that he should come out of prison and go back to his 1974 duty? The custom hitherto had been that an officer who had been sent to prison by the civil power had afterwards to leave the Army.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
said, if the hon. and gallant Member would look at Clause 44, page 19, he would find that under Sub-sections 2 and 3— An officer shall be sentenced to be cashiered before he is sentenced to penal servitude or imprisonment," and "an officer when cashiered shall he incapable of again serving Her Majesty in any capacity, military or civil. With regard to what had been said about Sub-section 4 of this clause, he doubted very much whether it would apply to an officer, so far as the breaking out of barracks was concerned; but punishment would attach to disobedience of orders; and he did not suppose that anyone would contend that an officer should escape punishment if he refused to obey orders. It might be that the clause might be better worded; and if, on consideration, he found that it could be, he would bring up the altered wording on the Report. He wished to have the Bill as well worded as possible; and had no objection to accept Amendments that would contribute towards this object, and that would otherwise improve the measure, provided they did not interfere with its principle.

COLONEL JERVIS
wished to know whether in the clause the word "officer" included non-commissioned officer?

§ COLONEL STANLEY
No.

§ MR. A. H. BROWN
said, that Clause 180, page 104, in its definition of the word officer, included— A person, whether retired or not, who, by virtue of his commission or otherwise, is legally entitled to the style and rank of an officer of Her Majesty's said Forces, or of any arm, branch, or part thereof. Therefore, he understood that it was competent to the commanding officer to give an order to a retired officer not to break out of barracks. This, at least, would be the effect of the clause.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
thought that the offence of breaking out of barracks was a serious one. All over the rest of Europe soldiers were more strictly confined to barracks than was the case in this country; and he believed that the portion of the clause by which officers were included in the question of breaking out of barracks had got into the Bill because the Judge Advocate Ge- 1975 neral, and those in his Office, had a wish to make the Bill symmetrical, The Judge Advocate General wished to have the sub-section left in, because he desired to have the same law for the soldier as for the officer; but this, in many instances, was absolutely impossible. He was as anxious as any hon. Member of that House that the soldier should be fairly treated; and he had an Amendment on the Paper that went in this direction. The strongest argument against the sub-section under consideration was that any commanding officer could, if it were made a part of the Act, make a new crime on the part of the officers under his command. By this clause they might be introducing a great deal of trouble, both for the commanding officer and for the officers themselves. It was one of the inconveniences of this new clause, not merely that the commanding officer might be a tyrant and have very strong notions on particular points, but that anyone else would be able to set the machinery of the clause in motion. Any person might say he did not like to see officers about at 12 o'clock at night, and ask why they were not confined to barracks, when there was a clause in the Act which made it a crime for them to be out after a certain hour. That might be said at any moment, and might put the commanding officer in a very unpleasant position; and it would be very inconvenient to the officers if they were not allowed to be out of their quarters after 10 or 11 o'clock. If it was not intended that the rule should be enforced, it was surely very absurd to put it in the Bill, and it might be found highly inconvenient at many stations. Supposing a commanding officer were to put it in force on a foreign station, it would cause a great deal of trouble before it could be brought under the notice of the Commander-in-Chief; and even then he did not see how the Commander-in-Chief was to interfere. If the clause were inserted, he did not see how the Commander-in-Chief was to say they were to treat it as a nullity. He thought it would be much better if the clause were left out altogether, and if the Secretary of State for War were to bring up a new clause relating only to breaking out of barracks, and confined to non-commissioned officers and men.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
said, he thought he could save the time of the Committee by at once proposing to put in two or three words, by which the clause would be brought into harmony with the rest of the Bill. He quite admitted that soldiers did break out of barracks, and officers did not. The first part only of the clause applied to officers, and not the latter part; and if the words were inserted, "being a soldier," he thought they would meet the difficulty.

§ SIR HENRY JAMES
wished to ask his hon. and learned Friend the Judge Advocate General what penalty would fall upon non-commissioned officers under any of these four sub-sections; because, although anyone being an officer, and anyone being a soldier, might suffer certain punishment, no mention was made of anyone being a non-commissioned officer. Under these clauses, it appeared to him that a non-commissioned officer could commit any of these offences, and have no punishment at all.

§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCK
replied, that the 173rd section and the 180th section should be taken together. However, no doubt, the matter required to be made more clear, and that would have to be done. He would also refer the hon. and learned Gentleman to the 101st section.

§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCK
said, he was bound to say that, if that was the explanation of the section, it was the most clumsy and roundabout thing he ever heard. He objected to having to go through the whole Act to find the meaning of a particular clause; and the difficulty which had been pointed out occurred in 50 places.

§ COLONEL NORTH
inquired what was the meaning and object of putting in the words "being of inferior rank?" No matter what rank the officer held, he ought to have the power of confining the man who had broken out of barracks. He thought it would be much better, if the words "non-commissioned officer" were inserted in the clause.

§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN
thought the consequences which had arisen from the absence of "non-commissioned officers" from this clause not only extended to those who had to be punished, but also to those in authority, whose power it was intended to protect. He presumed that a non-commissioned officer could put a man under arrest, 1977 and he ought to be covered by the same protection as an officer in the execution of his duty. That showed that a great deal depended upon the 180th clause, in which they defined the terms of the Bill. He agreed entirely with his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon) in thinking that they ought to go into the matter of the definitions, and limitations, before they proceeded to any other part of the Bill; but, on the other hand, there might be this advantage—that they could make the definitions fit in with what they had done in the way of altering the Bill. It must be borne in mind that in such a case as the one now before the Committee, the non-commissioned officer was entirely left out in the cold, not only as to his liabilities, but also as to the support which his authority was to receive.

COLONEL JERVIS
suggested that the words "being of inferior rank" should be omitted, and other words inserted. Otherwise, the non-commissioned officer in charge of a patrol might meet a man in the street, and would not have power to order him back to barracks, but would have to send for an officer to do it.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
said, it would save the time of the Committee if the Secretary of State for War would withdraw the clause for the present, and re-cast it. The clause followed the one before it, almost in terms. It was true, the word "other" had been left out; but it was also clear that the non-commissioned officer had not been provided for at all. Just now, in reply to a question, the Secretary of State for War replied that it was not intended that a non-commissioned officer should order an officer into arrest; but it would be seen that if that was so, and if the law did not give that power to the non-commissioned officer, it gave him no power at all. The whole difficulty had arisen out of muddling up officers and soldiers together; and, no doubt, if the clause were withdrawn, it might be re-cast in a satisfactory shape.

§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT
wished to ask his right hon. and gallant Friend if he would not take time to consider this clause? The real fact was that this clause would be more or less a definition of many other parts of the Bill. It was clear that "non-commissioned officer" ought to be distinctly stated in the clause, but the words were 1978 not mentioned at all; and he was one of those who were anxious to have things I called by their right names, so that they might know what they were about. He did not think the Committee would be able to properly amend the clause at this moment, and he hoped the right, hon. and gallant Gentleman would with-draw it for re-consideration.

§ COLONEL MURE
reminded the Committee that this discussion was a most serious one. Looking through the Bill, he found that in almost all the clauses which the Committee had gone through the point had escaped notice, and noncommissioned officers were left out. In different clauses he found varying definitions of the term "soldier;" but non-commissioned officers were only referred to in a definition which included warrant officers and schoolmasters. That was neither here nor there, because it was only extending the application of the definition without describing it. A soldier was described as— Any person belonging to Her Majesty's Active Reserve, or Artillery Forces, and who may be for the time being subject to military authority, and is not an officer or non-commissioned officer. So that, practically, in this Bill, a "non-commissioned officer" was excluded from every part of it. He thought the matter was so serious that they really ought to defer the Bill. It was a fatal flaw on the whole of the measure. He saw the Secretary to the Admiralty smile at that observation; but, surely, if the hon. Gentleman were to bring in a Mutiny Bill for the Navy, and were to find that warrant officers and petty officers were excluded from its provisions, he would be ready to admit that it was a fatal flaw. He granted that this was not an error of intention, but I only of wording; but the fact remained that non-commissioned officers were entirely excluded, so far as the penal clauses were concerned.

§ MR. MARTEN
thought the 173rd clause supplied an exact answer to the objection which had been raised. It said— This Act shall apply to a non-commissioned officer, in the same manner in all respects as if he were a soldier, subject to the following provisions. Consequently, it would be seen that the case of the non-commissioned officer was entirely provided for. He quite agreed that the 173rd clause did not 1979 apply to the point which had been raised on Clause 10, Sub-section 1; but that was a matter which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would be able to consider on Report, and the clause was not at present before the Committee.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
said, that, so far as he could make himself clear to the Committee, it seemed to him that although there was not the simplicity in the wording which might be attained by bringing the words "non-commissioned officer" into the clause, the principle was extremely simple. The 173rd clause said this Act should apply to non-commissioned officers as well as to officers and soldiers. The 180th clause showed that for certain purposes a non-commissioned officer came under the same definition as a soldier, except where he was otherwise defined; and with regard to a soldier, it further went on to say that the expression "superior officers," in relation to a soldier, included a noncommissioned officer. When he asked the Committee to leave the definitions to the end of the Bill, he did so precisely because he felt that the clauses might require some alteration, and if the definitions were taken at the beginning, it would then be necessary to alter the whole contents of the Bill. For that reason, he ventured to think that the Committee should first go through the Bill; and by the time they came to the Definition Clauses, he would take care to inform himself as to the validity of the criticisms which had been offered, and would be able to amend the clause now in question as might be thought advisable.

§ MR. HERSCHELL
thought it was possible the 173rd clause might have the effect suggested, but was not altogether sure of it. Certainly, a more objectionable draft of a Code, which was to be worked by military men, he could not conceive. One clause upset the wording of another. He thought the most rational plan would be to make the word "soldier" include the noncommissioned officer, as a rule, and to except him where they intended to do so. If that were agreed to, they could deal with the Bill accordingly; but it was very difficult to go on putting down Amendments until they had come to some conclusion on the point. They could not very well go on as at present, leaving in limbo the decision of what the definition of a soldier should be.

§ COLONEL ALEXANDER
suggested that they might get out of the difficulty by adhering to the wording of the present Articles of War—"every officer or soldier shall, if an officer," or "if a non-commissioned officer or soldier."

§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN
was afraid that including the non-commissioned officer in the definition "a soldier" would not meet the difficulty; because they would require another definition that the word "officer" should also include the non-commissioned officer. It was a substantial point which had been raised, and no mere alteration of the definitions would cover it.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
pointed out that it would be possible to regulate this matter in many other clauses dealing with the question. This clause was put in 24 or 25 years ago, and it was against the whole spirit of the law. It was a mere exception to the general law to give an inferior officer power to put a superior officer under arrest; and they ought to be very careful how they extended this power. They already, in fact, gave to the last-made corporal or bombadier, who might be totally unfit to judge, a power which was exceedingly difficult to exercise. For his part, he would not give this power to an acting corporal or bombadier; and he would only put it in the Bill as an exception. It was altogether against the general spirit of military discipline. This might be necessary, but they should look at it very jealously.

COLONEL JERVIS
said, only the other day, some soldiers got into trouble with the police; there was a row, the men were shut up, and a non-commissioned officer came and at once ordered the men off to barracks under arrest. Under that clause, he would be obliged to send for his officer. But at a country station he might be away at dinner, and the men would all escape. This was not merely an affray, it was a case of striking any person. Scarcely a week passed that there was not a skirmish between the police and the soldiers, which was all good-tempered enough, and the officer came with the picket and took them all away. But, under this clause, the officer was perfectly powerless; and, until this was rectified, the clause would be of no use. He hoped his right hon. and gallant Friend would put the clause on one side, and discuss this question about officers breaking out of barracks. Did 1981 they want to keep officers of 30 or 40 in barracks by boys? Were they going to allow their fathers and grandfathers to be kept in barracks by hoys? He trusted the clause would be put on one side.

§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR
remarked, that there was an omission and a contradiction which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman did not seem to understand. He had admitted that under Clause 10 non-commissioned officers might be imprisoned in the same manner as a soldier, because, under Clause 173, this Act was made to apply to a non-commissioned officer in all respects, as if he were a soldier, and under this interpretation, soldier meant non-commissioned officers. He disputed that reading, because the 180th clause contradicted; that, and kept non-commissioned officers separate from soldiers, as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman might have omitted to notice. Before a military man, being a non-commissioned officer, could be imprisoned he must be reduced to the ranks; but under Clause 10, being a soldier, he could be imprisoned, which was a contradiction to Clause 173, which said that a non-commissioned officer before being imprisoned must be reduced to the ranks first. There was thus a fatal contradiction between the punishment to be awarded under the 10th section, and the double punishment to be inflicted under 173. Of course, he contended further that the word "soldier," under the 180th clause, was intended to exclude non-commissioned officers. It was a clause which had far better be sent back to have it properly worked up.

§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCK
thought the Committee was quite evidently in a difficulty over which they would not get very easily, and, therefore, he hoped the Secretary of State for War would take back the clause. No doubt, there was a direct contradiction between Clauses 173 and 180, which would meet them at every step in the Bill. Unless, in some way or other, they got rid of this, and made the Bill uniform, they would have very great difficulties. They were told at the first that this Bill was to be distinguished for its simpleness; but, instead of that, it was being made the very reverse. The simple language to which all military men were accustomed had been abandoned—that language about which there was no possibility of making a mistake. The old Article of War, where a distinction was drawn between the words 1982 "officer" and "soldier," said "noncommissioned officer or soldier." In an attempt to introduce brevity these words had been omitted, and the mistake which had now arisen was the result. He wanted to impress on the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that this was not a difficulty which could be got over by merely passing over this particular clause; because the difficulty was present all through the Bill, and would meet them half-a-dozen times in the next six clauses.

§ MR. MEREWETHER
admitted that there was a difficulty in regard to the Interpretation Clause. But he found that this clause was an exact copy of the Article of War— Who, being concerned in any affray shall refuse to obey any other officer [though of inferior rank]," &c., &c. It also said, "who shall order him into arrest; shall, if an officer be" so and so, and "if a soldier be" so and so. There was not a word in that, or the previous Article of War—the 38th—or in any of the others, of non-commissioned officer or soldier. Therefore, although this might not be a very great difficulty, he ventured to suggest that the clause might, for the present, be withdrawn. He did not think it was fair to say that any alteration had been made in the Articles of War, when it had been precisely followed, in order that the military authorities might have the exact words to which they had been previously accustomed.

§ MR. HOPWOOD
thought that the discussion had considerably cleared up the opinions which some of them had entertained on the subject. First, with regard to the persons who were the subject of the clause, it seemed that every person who committed any of these offences mentioned was subject to the clause—everyone in the Army, whether officer, non-commissioned officer, or soldier. Then, having ascertained who were the persons subject to the clause, he would next inquire what were the offences. "Being concerned in any affray, refuse to obey any officer." It surely could not be contended that that contemplated a non-commissioned officer as the offender refusing. ["No, no!"] It was in accordance with the old Articles of War, and if there was any objection to that, it should be a matter for fair debate; but it was not the fault of the drafting of the clause. Then "refuse to obey any officer." They all 1983 could see what that meant. It surely-meant to exclude the non-commissioned officers. ["No, no!"] But it must be so. No one used the word "officer," as meaning a non-commissioned officer, if he meant the latter he said so expressly. Then came the words, "any officer, though of inferior rank." That meant that a major could be arrested by a captain under the circumstances mentioned in the clause. He must be "concerned in any affray." To constitute the offence, there must be such a breach of order, and such a state of things, that it was necessary that the ordinary rules of discipline and the ordinary understanding of the Army should be set at nought for the time, and the superior be compelled to submit to the inferior. Then came the next words— Strikes or uses, or offers violence to any person, whether subject to military law or not, in whoso custody he is placed, and who is not his superior officer; or resists an escort whose duty it is to apprehend him or to have him in charge; or breaks out of barracks, camp, or quarters, shall, on conviction," &c. Some remarks had been made unfavourable to the draftsman; but really he could not find any justification for them. He could not see the necessity for any alteration or explanation of the whole of the clause, except to leave out the portion as to breaking out of barracks, which was objected to as new, and he hoped the majority of the Committee would agree to it.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
pointed out that this difficulty had arisen out of a matter which had not yet been brought to the notice of the Committee. The Article read by the hon. and gallant Member for Harwich (Colonel Jervis) was not exactly the same in wording as sub-section 1— Being concerned in any fray, refuses to obey any officer (though of inferior rank). Clearly, those words were contended to convey the meaning "officer," and nothing else. That view was confirmed by the fact that, up to the present time, as he was informed, if a soldier were concerned in any affray he was not brought to trial under this clause, but under another. Evidently the confusion had arisen from the endeavour to include in this clause a clause which was intended to affect officers, non-commissioned officers, and men alike. What was really needed was that the clause 1984 should be sent back and thrown into shape, so as to define the offence in the case of a non-commissioned officer and a soldier.

§ COLONEL BARNE
remarked, that if this clause were sent back they must also send back all the clauses hitherto passed. There was no mention made of non-commissioned officers, and, therefore, this clause did not apply to them. The same objection affected most of the clauses they had already passed. If the Secretary of State for War would consent to alter the definition in such a manner as to include non-commissioned officers, the whole of this difficulty would be got over.

§ MR. HOPWOOD
replied, that he did not explain that, because somebody else had just previously pointed out that there was no necessity for mentioning non-commissioned officers at all, because it had been provided in Clause 173 that all provisions of the Act which applied to a soldier should apply to a non-commissioned officer.

MR. ASSHETON CROSS
reminded the Committee that it was wandering from the actual point under discussion. No doubt, some hon. Members wished that in every clause should be inserted the words—"officer, non-commissioned officer, or soldier;" but he could not think that was important to the Bill as at present drafted, because the Definition Clause stated clearly what was stated under the words officer, superior officer, non-commissioned officer, or soldier. If it was necessary to make the meaning clearer, it was easily clone; but that was not the smallest reason for postponing the present clause. Let them come to a conclusion as to what they really wanted to do. The hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Sir Alexander Gordon) wished to confine this clause to soldiers, and wished the last part to read "shall on conviction by court martial be liable, if a soldier," and so on—the word soldier, under the 173rd clause, including a non-commissioned officer.

§ COLONEL MURE
reminded the right hon. Gentleman that Clause 173 was cancelled by Clause 180.

MR. ASSHETON CROSS
asked the Committee to make up its mind, in dealing with each clause, what it intended to do with it; and then, when the end of the Bill was reached, nothing would be easier than to alter it accordingly. 1985 The whole thing would have to be amended on the Report.

§ MR. J. BROWN
pointed out that a soldier was much more likely to come into collision with a non-commissioned officer than with his officer. The difficulty was that while the 173rd clause included a non-commissioned officer in the word soldier, the subsequent clause was exactly contradictory. Read together, they amounted to something like this—"The word soldier includes the word non-commissioned officer; but the word soldier does not include the word non-commissioned officer." It was an anomaly. The word "soldier" should mean non-commissioned officer; but it should not mean commissioned officer. That was, however, a mere drafting difficulty, which could easily be got rid of, and ought to be got rid of, because this Act would have to be read by military men, who were rather more likely to differ about it. If necessary, this could be met by amending either the 173rd or the 180th clause.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
said, the alteration proposed by the Secretary of State for War showed what he wanted about breaking out of barracks. He could not share the difficulty some of his hon. and gallant Friends were in about the words "officer and non-commissioned officer," except as regarded the contradiction between the 173rd and the 180th clauses; but that was a point which could be dealt with afterwards. The Article of War quoted by the hon. and gallant Member for Harwich (Colonel Jervis), applied to both officer and soldier, and the previous Article, the 39th said— (1) Any officer or soldier who shall use…disrespectful words against our Royal Person, or any of our Royal Family, or, (2) who being concerned in any fray, shall refuse to obey any other officer, though of inferior rank, who shall order him into arrest; showing that the 2nd clause was a continuation of the 1st, and meant, also, officer and soldier. He did not share the difficulty about the 173rd and the 180th clauses, as it could be remedied when they got so far; but he would rewind the right hon. and gallant Gentleman of what he had said, that if this Bill had been sent up to a Select Committee a month ago it would have made much better progress.

§ MR. J. BROWN
said, he would not put the Committee to the trouble of 1986 dividing on his Amendment; but the question of reducing a non-commissioned officer to the ranks was one with which they would have to deal by-and-bye.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
wished to ask a question with regard to the ruling of the Chair. Did he understand that it was not competent for any hon. Member to raise a question on any of the first three sub-sections after an Amendment on the 4th sub-section had been discussed? Then, again, Sub-section 2 said that every person subject to military law, who Strikes, or uses, or offers violence to any person, whether subject to military law or not, in whose custody he is placed, and who is not his superior officer. Those words included civil custody; and he wanted to know whether a soldier or an officer who resisted the civil constable, sent to apprehend him for a civil offence, was bound to be tried by a court martial instead of by civil law? If he understood aright, the civil power took possession of him and arrested him; whereas this clause seemed to indicate that he could claim to be tried by martial law.

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. and gallant Gentleman has asked me a question which it is not difficult to answer. It is, undoubtedly, the practice of the Committee to exclude any Amendment earlier in the clause moved after a later one has been discussed. That has been our practice without variation. The Question now before the Committee is the proposition to withdraw the Amendment of the hon. Member (Mr. J. Brown). It must be withdrawn in order to insert the words proposed by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
said, he believed it was now competent for him to put his second question.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
replied, that he understood, and he was advised, that the clause contained no such obligation as the hon. and gallant Member suggested. In such a case the civil law would take its course.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
moved that the clause be postponed, until the Committee have decided what persons were subject to military law. The words were—"Every person subject to military law who…. neglects to obey any general garrison or other orders." It was perfectly fair to make it applicable to military men, officers and soldiers who were conversant with garrison orders; but it ought not to be made applicable to civilians and non-combatants, who had no opportunity of knowing the orders in the Army. For instance, chaplains were under military law in England and the Colonies; but they had no means of knowing the law, and it bad never been held to apply to them. Again, there were also civilians belonging to certain departments, who were also liable to be attached to the Army, and, when so attached, were liable to military law; but it would be very hard to make them suffer the penalties provided in the clause. There ought to be different punishments for the combatant and the non-combatant branches; and, before they could fix the punishments, they ought to know who were to suffer them. That was one reason why he had wanted to go into Part V. first, before they dealt with the offences. In the Mutiny Act they had always begun by stating who were subject to the law, and they then went on to define the punishments. He held in his hand the Mutiny Act for 1802. In the index, it was stated distinctly who were the persons liable under the Act, either wholly or in part; and then specified the persons to whom the Act was wholly applicable, and those to whom it was only partially applicable. An instance in point was supplied by the Auditor's Report to which he had, on a former occasion, referred, as to who should receive certain allowances. The Auditor General pointed out that certain officers had received higher allowances than they ought to have done as Army officers. The War Office replied that they were not included in the Army Circular. To this the Auditor General retorted by quoting their own Circular, showing that they were included.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
thought the hon. and gallant Member had supplied another reason why he had been right in proposing to take the definitions after the offences. The hon. and gallant Gentleman thought there were persons to whom this clause should not be made to apply. It would then be perfectly open to him by-and-bye to modify the exceptions. But, with regard to this clause, he hoped the Committee would not postpone it. It simply laid down, not unreasonably, that every person subject to military law who neglected to obey garrison, genera], or other orders, should suffer certain punishment. That was a reproduction of Article 75 of the Articles of War—"Any officer or soldier who neglects to obey garrison or other orders." He ventured to think they would not gain by postponing the clause. They could deal with the point raised very easily under the Definition Clauses.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
said, the present clause was not exactly a copy of the Article 75, because that said "any officer or soldier who neglects," &c. But this clause said "every person subject to military law;" and in Clause 166 there were a number of persons subject to military law, who did not come under this Article of War. They were, in fact, extending the operation of the law. Then, again, he did not agree with the proposal of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that everything should be left to the Definition Clauses, and that then they were to exclude certain persons. Surely, when they were dealing with the principle was the proper time to make the exclusion. [Mr. ASSHETON CROSS dissented.] He saw that the Home Secretary shook his head; but how, if he wanted a definition to be workable, could he go on, picking out a bit here and a bit there.

§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT
had no doubt whatever that it was the intention of the Committee that certain persons not included in the Articles of War, and not officers or soldiers, should be brought under the operation of this Act; because they thought it politic to require persons in attendance upon an Army to obey those orders which were necessary to the discipline and the safety of the Army. Therefore, it was intended by them that persons in the position of camp followers and forage men should be affected by the military law. There might, or might not, be particular cases 1989 to winch that principle should not apply; but he could not think that Clause 11 was one. It seemed to him that any person who lived in garrison should, for the safety of the garrison, obey the garrison orders. He might be a sutler, or he might be employed on the transport service, or anything of that kind; but it was equally necessary that that man should obey the garrison and other orders, as much as any other man in the place, and that was the intention of the clause. With reference to what the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. E. Jenkins) had said, that particular persons should be excluded, nothing could be easier than to exclude them in the Definition Clauses, and to say that such persons should be regarded as subject to military law, except so far as clauses so-and-so applied. On general principles, it certainly did seem to him that these camp followers, who were not obliged to be there and might leave when they liked, should be subject to military law.

§ MAJOR O'BEIRNE
wished the clause to be postponed until they knew what regulations were to be made affecting half-pay officers. They were, as he under-stood, to be subject to the same rules as full-pay officers. It was very undesirable to postpone that discussion until they got to the Definition Clauses, for then some of the hon. Members who were now in attendance might not be able to be present.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
reminded the Committee that this really was a very stringent clause, although he admitted that the greater part of it Lad been taken out of the Articles of War. The clause said that— Every person subject to military law…who neglects to obey any general garrison or other orders shall, on conviction by court martial, be liable, if an officer, to be cashiered, or to suitor such loss punishment…and if a soldier, to suffer imprisonment, or such less punishment. That was all very well when the Article of War was passed, for then very few garrison orders were issued, and only on matters of importance. But now-a-days, everything was a garrison order. If a man took horses out for exercise down a road where it had been directed that horses should not go, because some ladies living there did not like it, that was a breach of a garrison order. Or, again, if he went out with his forage 1990 cap on his head before a certain hour, that was a breach of a garrison order. He admitted that the Article had not often been enforced in such cases; but, still, the clause was a very stringent one—too stringent, as he thought—and certainly not one that should apply to camp followers, and other people of that sort. Again, the clause said "any general garrison or other orders." Evidently, a comma was wanted after the word "general;" but he objected very much to the former Article of War being made more stringent by putting in "general orders" in addition. Some people might suppose that they were more important than garrison orders. If they were, they were much less specific, and many people did not even know what they were. He had no hesitation in saying that there was not an officer in the Service who did not disobey a general order once every two or three months, and many of them did it far oftener. Under this Act they would be able to try a man whenever they wished. It was a great deal too stringent; and it was surely folly, when they found an Article so stringent that it wa8 not put in force, to make it still more ridiculously stringent. He was certain if every officer were tried every time a general order was broken, they would very shortly have no officers left to try them.

§ SIR ARTHUR HAYTER
thought a mistake had been made in supposing that camp followers were included under this clause. They were subject to the same rules as soldiers; and under Clause 180 they found that the expression "soldier" included not only persons belonging to the Regular Army, but persons belonging also to the Reserve or Auxiliary Forces. A man must be two things to come under its operation. He must belong either to the Regular Reserve or Auxiliary Forces, or he must be subject to military law. These people would not be liable to any punishment, because it was only to be inflicted on an officer or soldier.

§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT
thought the hon. and gallant Member for Bath (Sir Arthur Hayter) had hit a blot in the Bill. Of course, it was intended that all the persons mentioned in Clause 167, page 94, sub-section 11, should be treated as soldiers. It was meant, no doubt, that they should be subject to the 1991 same law as soldiers. No doubt, when they came to the definitions in Clause 180, the definition of soldier was more narrow than that contained in Clause 167. That ought to be corrected; and, for his part, he thought the best way would be to take the narrow construction as the guiding one.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
had a great objection to extending the clause in this way. An officer or soldier who joined the Army knew, of course, that he was subject to these laws. But how was it possible for a number of savages—like the Kaffirs—to know under what law they came? Yet for the mere neglect of general or garrison orders they were to be brought under the operation of these fixed statutes. He always understood that these cases of sutlers and Army followers were dealt with upon general principles. He did not think they should be subject to anything of this kind which would really bring them within the operation of a law of which it was hardly possible they should ever have heard. Some sort of protest ought to be made against that, and he should divide with his hon. and gallant Friend.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
said, the old words were "Any officer or soldier who shall neglect garrison or other orders." Those words only applied to soldiers, and not to civilians. But now it was proposed to extend the Act, so as to include all persons subject to military law. Under that would then come wag-goners and carters in London and elsewhere, who might suddenly be pressed into service, and marched a number of miles from their homes and then discharged. They were compulsorily attached to the Army; yet if this clause were passed, they would be liable to be tied up and whipped for disobeying an order of which they had never heard. This Bill introduced a novelty never heard of before in this country. Under the order of the Secretary of State, he might in times of emergency—everyone might—be called upon to provide his horses and carriages for a journey of 25 miles, and everyone would be liable, with his servants, to military law, and to be punished under it if they disobeyed orders. That was an innovation of which they had never heard in this country before; and, therefore, they ought to be very careful how they introduced increased severity in the punishment of 1992 the offence of neglecting orders. He felt so strongly upon this subject that he must divide the Committee.

§ COLONEL MURE
said, these were powers which were necessary under certain circumstances. There was nothing in the clause which had not existed and been exercised under the old Mutiny Acts. It merely legalized what was absolutely necessary.

§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR
was decidedly of opinion some important change was required in the Definition Clause. It brought a class of men not accustomed to the minute restrictions to which soldiers must be liable under military courts martial. He should never think of making persons in the Medical Department subject to the same severe law as the soldiers. The proofs would be required of a regular and ordinary kind of acquaintance with the daily orders issued to soldiers, which could not be adduced in the case of the many classes who followed an Army. Unless the Secretary of State for War would make some important change in the definition, the hon. and gallant Gentleman would be quite right in dividing.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
explained that the hon. and gallant Colonel (Colonel Mure) had undesignedly misled the House. The provision he referred to had never been exercised before, because it had never existed before. At present, the Secretary of State for War hired carriages; but if this Bill passed, he would be able, on an emergency, to take them from any gentleman, and did not confine his power to those who kept horses and carriages for hire. When the time came he should propose to amend that clause; but, as it now stood, every gentleman owning a horse and carriage was liable under this clause, if the Secretary of State declared there was an emergency, and took them.

§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT
said, the hon. and gallant Gentleman was under some misapprehension as to this clause, which was the more remarkable as he himself was one of the Committee who considered this matter. They recommended that, under certain circumstances, sutlers and others should be brought under the operation of the Mutiny Act. This was the recommendation of the Committee— The mischief is the same in respect to this class of persons, whatever may be the class to 1993 which they are attached, and it appears to your Committee that they should be affected generally. In consequence, they would find that this was subsequently done, with the concurrence and acquiescence of the hon. and gallant Gentleman. [Sir ALEXANDER GORDON: No, no.] Well, if the hon. and gallant Gentleman objected to it, he was the only one who did. At any rate, Sub-section 11 of Clause 167, at line 11, distinctly limited the operation of this clause, of which he was complaining, to all persons not otherwise subject to military law— Who are followers of or accompany any portion of Her Majesty's Forces consisting partly of Her Majesty's Indian Forces," &c, &c. What the hon. and gallant Gentleman was complaining of could not happen, because the case was limited to beyond the seas.

MR. E.JENKINS
pointedout—["Oh, oh!"]—he would move to report Progress, if the Committee did not wish to go on—that under Sub-section 9, among persons subject to military law were— All persons who are or may be hired to be employed in a corps of Artillery or Engineers. That meant in this country as well as on foreign service. But in the Mutiny Act, Clause 2, they would find that this provision was explicitly confined to persons employed in the Indian Service; so it surely could not have been intended that this clause, which they were at present discussing, should apply to all persons in England who were employed in the Artillery or Engineers. He should like to know whether that was the intention of the Bill?

§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT
admitted that the 2nd section of the Mutiny Act did apply only to India; but the decision of the Committee was that every reason which made it apply there should make it apply to the Army and Navy generally. He was surprised that the hon. and gallant Gentleman should oppose the clause, for he did not remember any point upon which the Committee were more unanimous. They found a provision in the Mutiny Act, making these provisions apply to all Her Majesty's Indian Forces, and enumerating a great many people who were to be considered as followers. They asked themselves why, if it was good for India, it was not also good for the rest of the world? They considered that there was no reason why it should 1994 apply to the Indian Forces, which did not make also in favour of the other Forces; and the Members of the Committee were absolutely unanimous in recommending the change. That being so, it seemed to him that they were wasting time in discussing it.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
said, one reason why it should not apply was the Bill of Rights, which he should have supposed the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would not have forgotten. There might be a strong argument for applying this rule to our Indian Forces and to our Forces on foreign service; but, surely, that House would never agree to make regulations, intended for foreign service in time of war, apply in time of peace in the United Kingdom. Why, in that case, any man employed as an engineer might be brought within the drastic provisions of this Act. It was absurd to place a man who happened to transgress these orders in times of peace in the same position as a man who transgressed them in times of war, or on foreign service.

§ MAJOR O'BEIRNE
remarked, that he was a Member of the Committee, and he was bound to say he by no means assented to all that was done. Others besides himself objected to the way in which the Act was dealt with, and hurried through by the Chairman. A good many important matters were never discussed at all.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
begged to correct the hon. and learned Member (Sir William Harcourt) in the statement that this proposition was carried unanimously, and that he (Sir Alexander Gordon) made no objection. If the hon. and learned Member would turn to page 20 of the Report, he would there find an Amendment moved by him proposing that this part of the Report should be omitted, and for the very reasons for which he was now objecting to it. It was one thing to pass an Act regulating the conduct of Natives in India, and quite another to apply the same Act to the conduct of Englishmen in England. The circumstances were entirely different—the alteration was originally made by a pure oversight. When the two Armies were amalgamated this phrase was included; but it was done by omitting a comma, or a stop, or something of that kind, and it was not enacted by Parliament that these 1995 very stringent rules should apply to Englishmen.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
moved, in page 5, line 22, after the word "any," to leave out the word "general." He thought the Secretary of State for War ought really to accept this Amendment, because the word "general" was not in the original Act, and the clause was ridiculously stringent. People wore, as a rule, totally ignorant of general orders; whereas there was some possibility of knowing the garrison orders.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
explained that the word "general" was inserted because the word "garrison" did not seem applicable to some cases where it had been held hitherto to apply. The old distinction was between Forces in the field and Forces in garrison; but there were places which could hardly be called garrisons—such as Aldershot, the Curragh, and other open camps—and the word had been inserted to meet these cases. If the interpretation of the word "garrison" remained the same, he did not think there was any objection to omitting the word "general;" but it was put in, in order to cover these places. Garrison usually meant a fortified place.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
said, by "general orders," he understood orders issued and circulated among the troops from the Horse Guards, which were not generally read by the officers. He had no objection to Aldershot and these other places being on the same footing as a garrison; but he was thinking of those general orders, which were very numerous, which were very complicated, and which many people did not understand.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
said, there had been some misunderstanding. He understood the Secretary of State for War to say that he accepted the Amendment. Of course, he could not re-argue the question; but he hoped some words would be put in on the Report to show that this word "general" was only intended to apply to places like Aldershot and the Curragh, where the orders could not be fairly called garrison orders, and could not apply to orders issued by the Horse Guards. If that was not done, he himself would move to put in words on the Report.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
thought a small matter of that kind could not find a place in the Bill.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
pointed out that as he read the Bill the law was made more severe than before. It began "deserts or attempts to desert Her Majesty's Service." The words "attempts to desert" had been put in. There was a distinction between deserting and attempting to desert. He should like to know why the clause had been made more severe? He would move to omit those words.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
replied, that attempting to desert had always been visited, deservedly as he thought, with very severe punishment. He was sorry to say that in our Army desertion was one of the most serious crimes with which they had to contend; and he wished the Committee to consider whether the punishment allotted in this clause was, under all the circumstances, excessive? In the 15th Clause of the Mutiny Act, and at the end of the Articles of War, these offences were specified. They had adhered to those provisions, in so far as that when committed on active service they should be punishable by death; but, under other circumstances, the offender should be liable to imprisonment or a less punishment, and for a second offence should be liable to suffer penal servitude, or the lesser punishment mentioned in the Act. He would just take one of the cases with which they had sometimes to contend, not giving the man's name. Enlisted 30th March, 1874. Deserted 4th May. Enlisted 9th May. Deserted 6th June. Imprisoned by civil power for felony on 27th July. Deserted 26th October. Fined and imprisoned October 27th. Released and discharged April 19th, 1875. Two days after re-enlisted; deserted again April 13th, 1876, just a year after. He enlisted again on May 27th, and deserted July 23rd. He enlisted again, all this time at different brigade depots; on August 2nd was imprisoned by the 1997 civil power, struck off the ranks, and discharged June 7th, 1877. He enlisted again July 5th, and deserted August lath, he enlisted again October 24th, was imprisoned by the civil power November 27th; surrendered as a deserter April 26th, 1878. Tried by court martial May 6th; deserted again. Again fined, and finally discharged October 2nd. Now, that man for expenses and for escorts, &c, apart from a great many expenses not reported, cost the country no loss than £40, besides the loss from loss of service. No doubt, this was an exceptionally bad case; but it showed the extent to which desertion might be carried, and why it was necessary to deal very severely with.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
said, he objected to the punishment of death for the offence of "attempting to desert."

§ COLONEL STANLEY
replied, that it was only on active service.

§ SIR. WILLIAM HARCOURT
begged to call the attention of the hon. and gallant Gentleman to the 15th section of the Mutiny Act. That made any person deserting, or attempting to desert, liable to death, whether on active service or not. This Bill modified the old Act, therefore, to a considerable extent. Under the old Act a man could have been put to death for desertion in time of peace. This Bill did not allow that to be done.

COLONEL DRUMMOND MORAY
asked if they could not distinguish in some way between desertion and absence without leave? Except by Clause 70, which provided that after 21 days the Court of Inquiry might assemble, whose declaration should have the effect of a conviction by court martial, there was no mention made of the number of days which should constitute one offence or the other.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
said, the elementary principle of the law was that if a man absented himself without leave, and did not intend to comeback, that was desertion—they could never limit it by the number of days. They could not define it more clearly than that; for a man might be absent 15 or 16 days, and yet be living at home in his uniform, and that would only be "absent without leave." The point must be loft to the opinion of the Court.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
did not think that his object in bringing this 1998 Amendment forward was quite understood. It was quite true that the punishment had been mitigated; but under the Articles of War, if a man only attempted to desert, he was not liable to suffer death; and, therefore, the law was now being made more severe than the Articles of War.

§ MR. J. BROWN
moved, in page 7, to leave out Sub-section 3. This offence was put under desertion, fraudulent enlistment, and absence without leave, not as it ought to come, if anywhere, under the head of miscellaneous offences, as straggling. It had always been treated before as belonging to the 50th Article. A man might be straggling from camp, or going out of bounds; but that did not make him guilty of an offence under this section, of being a deserter or absent without leave. It would be very hard to put soldiers, who had slipped out to see their sweet-hearts, under this clause. Desertion must have the intention not to return.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
said, as this Article at present stood in the Articles of War it was perfectly ridiculous, because they tried a man for being found a mile or upwards from head-quarters. Of course, under some circumstances, it would be extremely unwise for the men to wander over the country. This applied, however, only to men without a pass; and he did not exactly see what words could better express the sense of the matter. To prohibit men from going to any prohibited places might be very restrictive, as a commander might prohibit every place outside the boundary gates. He wanted to show that the place prohibited was not to be too strictly defined in the Act of Parliament; but must be left to the sense and judgment of the commanding officer. He could not, at the present moment, think of any better words; but he should be reluctant to leave these out.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
quite agreed with the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that the present Article was ridiculous. He only knew it put in force once, and then the officer was off his head. Practically, it never had been put in force. If they gave a commanding officer the power of fixing bounds, he could even punish the men for going outside; while even if the bounds were merely fixed too close it was a great practical inconvenience. If a soldier was present at parade and came back to tattoo, he should be free to go about the country. To give the commanding officers power to fix bounds would be throwing a great responsibility on them; for some people would come and tell them that their bounds were too largo, and force them to restrict them, and that, again, would be a very serious inconvenience to the soldier. He did not at all object to the words in the clause "in any place prohibited by any general garrison or other order," because there might be a public-house to which it was not desirable that the men should go. This power of fixing bounds might make the Army very unpopular.

§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCK
trusted the Amendment would not be pressed, because these words were governed by the words in the following line, "fixed by any general garrison or other order." If regiments were stationed in isolated places, where the officer would fix artificial or very restricted bounds, he could understand the value of the limitation; but the words were broadened by the words in the next line. In large garrison towns there would probably be well-defined bounds fixed by the military authorities, outside of which it would not be desirable to extend them. He did not apprehend that the difficulty suggested by his hon. and gallant Friend would arise.

§ GENERAL SHUTE
reminded the Committee that it was absolutely necessary for a commanding officer to have power to prevent the men under his command from entering certain districts, or parts of towns, or even public-houses. Surely, if a commanding officer had power to say that his men should not go into certain districts, he might be given power to fix the limits.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
thought if they were altering the law they ought to make it milder. He saw 2000 no objection to the commanding officer fixing the limits of the camp.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
said, he would formally move his Amendment.

§ SIR ARTHUR HAYTER
gathered from Clause 166 that Volunteer officers were excluded from the application of the words— Every officer who, being subject to military law, commits the following offence: that is to say, behaves in a scandalous manner, unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman. If such were a correct view, it appeared to him most objectionable that a Volunteer officer guilty of such conduct should not be subject to dismissal.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
thought the consideration of this point had better be deferred until the Committee had an opportunity of discussing it under the Clause of the Bill (166), which cited the persons subject to military law to whom the provisions of the Act were intended to apply.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
said, he did not propose to discuss the question raised by the Amendment which he intended to move to this clause in any manner offensive to hon. and gallant Members. He pointed out the advisability of considering whether it would be possible to separate the civil and criminal portions of the Bill from those that were of a purely military character. It was well known that cases were constantly occurring in which officers had committed offences that would be much better decided upon by Civil instead of Military Courts. It would be seen, for instance, that the next section provided that cases of embezzlement and other offences against property were to be treated under military law. He therefore suggested, for the consideration of the Committee, whether it would not be better that all offences of a quasi-civil character 2001 should be referred to the Civil Courts, in exactly the same manner as the Court of Chancery referred questions of fact to be decided upon by the Courts of Law? Within the last few days only, an officer had been put upon his trial for forgery, a charge which involved questions of a kind the most difficult that could be brought before a Civil Court; and he could not help thinking that it was a bad thing that such cases should come before officers for the most part untrained to the laws of evidence, and, as was too often the case, unaided by efficient legal assessors. He therefore suggested that cases of embezzlement and offences of a similar character should be left to a Civil Court, whoso decision would be much more valuable than that of a court martial. He pointed out that it was proposed to embody an Article of War as an Act of Parliament, and that the words made use of for that purpose were of a very general and indistinct character. The clause said that if a man Behaves in a scandalous manner, unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman, he shall on conviction by court martial he liable to suffer imprisonment, words which might mean anything, from shaking a finger at the Commander-in-Chief to slapping his face, or calling him bad names. In short, they might mean anything to which a set of officers on a court martial could apply them; and, therefore, it was a monstrous thing that an officer's character should be made the subject of such vain charges. He submitted an attempt should be made at once to define, by the 16th section of the Bill, the character of the offences which came within the meaning of the words "scandalous manner, and unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman"; and for that purpose he would move, in line 24 of the clause, before the word "shall," to insert the words— Shall be convicted and adjudged guilty in any criminal court of any crime or misdemeanor under the Criminal Law.

§ COLONEL MURE
contended that by this proposal the hon. Member for Dundee was asking the House of Commons to enact that an officer should be tried by court martial for having been convicted elsewhere, and that he should be subject to additional punishment in 2002 consequence. He thought the House was not yet prepared to assent to any such principle.

COLONEL DRUMMOND MORAY
agreed with the hon. Member for Dundee in principle, and had himself given Notice of an Amendment providing that an officer convicted by a Criminal Court should from the day of such conviction cease to belong to Her Majesty's Army. He could not, however, agree that he should be afterwards sentenced to imprisonment by court martial.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
thought that the hon. Member for Dundee had proposed his Amendment by way of alternative to the cashiering of an officer convicted by a Civil Court. He (Sir Alexander Gordon) would not retain the word "misdemeanor," considering the offence of too light a character to deserve the penalty proposed for it. He agreed, of course, with the hon. and gallant Member opposite (Colonel Drummond Moray), that an officer convicted of felony should be cashiered.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
explained that his Amendment did not propose that any imprisonment should be imposed by court martial upon an officer convicted by a Criminal Court. All he asked was that the military authorities should be bound to take cognizance of the fact, and that it should be proved to them that such conviction had taken place. The point was a very important one. Supposing an officer to be charged with felony in the United States, was it contended that he should be cashiered before a court martial had decided that he had been convicted? He (Mr. E. Jenkins) was not proposing that a court martial should try a man for an act committed; but to try the issue whether he had been convicted or not.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
hoped that the word "misdemeanor" would be withdrawn from the Amendment.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
did not think it should be left to the unaided discrimination of the Horse Guards to settle whether a man had, or had not, been convicted of felony in a foreign country. The question would be better decided under the jurisdiction of a court martial; and he was quite certain that this would be satisfactory to the officers of the Army.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
apprehended there would be no difficulty in establish- 2003 ing the fact that an officer had been convicted in a foreign country without appealing to a court martial. He drew attention to the consequences of so doing. Supposing that an officer had to be tried again by court martial, the court would have to assemble in the nearest dependency, or in this country; witnesses to prove the conviction would have to be summoned from considerable distances; and the country would, in consequence, be put to a considerable loss of time and money. If the case were of such a notorious character as that suggested by the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. E. Jenkins), it could be perfectly well proved by ordinary means, available on the spot, and, as the hon. Member himself admitted, there could be no doubt whatever of the moral guilt attaching to the officer. It was agreed by all that an officer, so convicted, would be unworthy to remain in the Army. For the reasons which he had given, therefore, he felt it his duty to oppose the Amendment.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
apprehended that our legislation could not be based upon the decisions of any foreign Courts. He was satisfied that the idea of a second trial would be most repugnant to the feelings of the officers of the Army.

§ SIR ANDREW LUSK,
having had some experience in the administration of Criminal Law, most distinctly objected to the decisions of Civil Courts being reviewed by the military authorities. Such a course would not only be undesirable, but offensive; for no man in this country cared to be convicted without having a fair opportunity of showing his innocence.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
said, he had no wish to force his view upon the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, nor did he wish to put the Committee to the trouble of dividing. He took the opportunity, however, of protesting against a distinction which, by the wording of the clause, was drawn between "scandalous manner" and that which was "unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman."

§ COLONEL ALEXANDER
said, he was at a loss to understand why the punishment of imprisonment was to be added to the moral effects of a conviction for 2004 conduct unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman, notwithstanding that it had been suggested to the Committee of last year by Sir Henry Thring, who, although he was, doubtless, an excellent draftsman, knew nothing about the discipline of the Army. He (Colonel Alexander) submitted that this disqualifying offence should be visited with a disqualifying punishment, and the social ostracism which followed the conviction of an officer of conduct unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman. He moved, in lines 24 and 25, to leave out "liable to suffer imprisonment," and insert "cashiered."

§ COLONEL MURE
quite agreed with the view expressed by the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for South Aryshire (Colonel Alexander). It was most important that the highest punishment for the offence contemplated by the clause should always remain dismissal from the Service—that was to say, dismissal of the officer from the society of gentlemen with whom he had associated.

§ COLONEL ARBUTHNOT
said, it was quite unnecessary to state that he agreed with the hon. and gallant Member for South Aryshire upon this subject. His reason for rising was to point out that the question then before the Committee was more ill the minds of officers of the Army than any other portion of the Bill. He had made inquiries, and had met with nothing but expressions of approval with regard to the Amendment.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
hoped the Secretary of State for War would see the importance of adopting the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member opposite. It was most important that an officer guilty of a scandalous offence should be got rid of from the Army'.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
expressed his willingness to accept a change in the wording of the clause; but suggested that unbecoming conduct should be punished by cashiering, without the alternative of any minor punishment. He was hardly in a position to accept the Amendment until he had heard the opinion of other Members of the House, and of those who were entitled to speak upon it.

§ SIR ANDREW LUSK
contended that no distinction should be made between officers and civilians in the punishment of offences known to the law, and 2005 thought that, in justice to the public, the clause providing for the punishment of officers by imprisonment on conviction of those offences should be retained. Any hon. Gentleman accustomed to sit upon the Bench would know that an opinion prevailed amongst military officers that they should not be imprisoned, but simply cashiered, he could not give his support to the Amendment.

§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT
pointed out that conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman would often go unpunished altogether in the case of a civilian. It would, therefore, in his opinion, be hard to apply the punishment of imprisonment to the conduct of officers in the Army.

§ MAJOR O'BEIRNE
said, it was hard to say what was unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman in the matter of polities. When he stood for his county, he had been informed that his politics were discreditable. It was difficult to decide what politics wove discreditable and what were not. He had been told that the Commander-in-Chief considered his political conduct to be discreditable; and it would be desirable to know what he considered to be political conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. He (Major O'Beirne) hoped to receive from the Secretary of State for War an exact opinion as to his conduct, otherwise he should move to report Progress.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
could not allow an observation which had been made by an hon. Member to pass unnoticed. It was wholly incorrect to say that there existed one law for the rich and another for the poor. If an officer were imprisoned, and cashiered also, he was twice punished. Such a remark as he had referred to ought not to go forth uncontradicted.

§ SIR ANDREW LUSK
pointed out that any gentleman in London sentenced to 14 days' imprisonment for an offence against the law would, in addition to his punishment, be ruined; and therefore, in his opinion, the law should be the same for both officers and civilians.

COLONEL DRUMMOND MORAY
replied, that many of the offences which would be included under the term of conduct unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman did not come within the cognizance of civil law—lying, for instance. A civilian could not be imprisoned for an offence of that sort.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
pointed nut that the law, as at present existing, required that an officer convicted of conduct unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman should be cashiered, and to this punishment there had never been any alternative.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
was willing to accept an Amendment to strike out the whole of the words from "be," in line 24, to the end of the clause, in order to insert the word "cashiered."

§ COLONEL ALEXANDER
agreed to the suggestion of the Secretary of State for War, his object being to keep the law as it then stood.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
moved, in line 24, to leave out from "be" to the end of clause, and insert "cashiered."

§ MAJOR O'BEIRNE
said, he had several times been obliged to allude to the fact that the military authorities were in the habit of interfering with Irish politics, and he would like to be informed whether the practice was to continue? Did the Commander-in-Chief still consider Irish polities to be discreditable? He wished to receive some positive assurance upon that subject.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
had never understood that courts martial experienced any difficulty in defining the term "conduct unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman." With regard to the question of the hon. and gallant Member for Leitrim (Major O'Beirne), he knew nothing of the politics of any hon. Member—that was to say, it was a matter with which the Department he had the honour to preside over had nothing to do. He could only say that, as far as he was aware, the impression of tire hon. and gallant Member was entirely erroneous.

§ MAJOR O'BEIRNE
was quite satisfied with the reply of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. He (Major O'Beirne), however, wished to say that the Predecessor of the Secretary of State for War (Viscount Cranbrook) held a very different opinion.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
moved to insert, in line 33, after the words "by court martial," the words "and not otherwise." He said, that the object of his Amendment was to prevent the occurrence of acts of great injustice, which had already been brought before the notice of the House. The Amendment would prevent the dismissal of an officer who had been charged with serious crimes—namely, those crimes defined in the clause, without trial by a court martial. The clause provided that— Every person subject to military law who commits any of the following offences:—that is to say, being charged with or concerned in the care or distribution of any public or regimental money or goods steals, fraudulently misapplies, or embezzles the same, or is concerned in or connives at the stealing, fraudulent misapplication, or embezzlement thereof, or wilfully damages any such goods, shall, on conviction by court martial, be liable to suffer penal servitude, or such less punishment as is in this Act mentioned. He did not propose to interfere with the Prerogative of the Crown to dismiss officers from the Service; but to insure that when a charge was brought against an officer of a definite, specific character, such as the misapplication of money, he should not be dismissed Her Majesty's Service without trial by his peers. Captain Hawtrey was not brought before a court martial at all, although he was kept under arrest for seven months, and then dismissed Her Majesty's Service. It was said that a Court of Inquiry was held at which Captain Hawtrey was not present; but, for reasons which even up to the present time had never been disclosed to him, he was dismissed the Service. He ventured to think that this was not a right thing to do; and although he did not wish to interfere with the Prerogative of the Crown to dismiss any officer it pleased at any time if it thought fit, yet, on the other hand, he considered that provision should be made that wherever a specific charge had been brought against an officer it should be gone into, or else that officer should remain in the Service. As altered by his Amendment, the clause would therefore run that a person charged with these offences should, on conviction by court martial, and not otherwise, be liable to suffer penal ser- 2008 vitude, or such other punishment as might be mentioned in the Act.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
said, that as he understood the Amendment of the hon. Member, it would give an officer an absolute right to remain in Her Majesty's Service, subject only to the control of a court martial. He fully understood the object that the hon. Member had in view; but he failed to see how the words which he proposed to insert in the clause would carry out that object. He would be quite willing to enter into the matter at the proper time, and to insert an Amendment, if it were necessary, to provide for such exceptional cases as the hon. Member had in view. He must point out, however, that because an officer was not convicted by a court martial, it did not follow that he ought to remain in the Service; for supposing facts were brought out, which were discreditable to him, but that, owing to technical reasons, he was not convicted by the court, the Amendment of the hon. Member would give him a right to remain in the Service. He hesitated to say, where a charge had broken down against an officer by reason of a court martial failing to convict him for technical reasons, that he should in such a case be held to have a right to remain in Her Majesty's Service. He did not think that the Committee would be willing that such a state of things should exist; and he did not see what other effect the Amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Dundee could have. The case of Captain Hawtrey, referred to by the hon. Member, would have occurred just as much if the words proposed to be added were inserted in the clause, as it would in the shape in which the clause stood at present. He would also point out that Captain Hawtrey's services were dispensed with; but he was not punished, strictly speaking, under the terms of the Act.

§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR
thought that the dismissal of Captain Hawtrey, without an open and a public trial, and merely under a letter from the Commander-in-Chief, was a most unwise measure. No trial having taken place before a court martial, on charges properly drawn up of specific acts done, was a great mistake. The hon. and gallant Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon) had read a letter from the Commander-in-Chief with respect to this case, in such terms 2009 as implied supreme power over the commission of this officer; and he must deny the right of the Commander-in-Chief to issue such a letter as that. The sole person responsible for the conduct of the Army was the Secretary of State for War; and the Commander-in-Chief had no right to the authority which he assumed in the letter as read. The Order in Council of 1870 did not give the Commander-in-Chief the power which he assumed; it could be only exercised by the Secretary of State for War, as the responsible Minister of the Crown, and he alone was responsible for the Army. He saw no chance of preventing cases like Captain Hawtrey's occurring, unless the opinion of the House of Commons was loudly expressed, to the effect that the Commander-in-Chief had no such power as in the letter read he assumed in that case to dispense with this officer's services. While, however, recognizing to the full the good intentions of the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. E. Jenkins), he felt bound to admit that the Amendment proposed by him would not, in his opinion, prevent the abuse of authority. The only protection against abuse was by making public opinion in accord with the decisions of this House, to prevent the large powers required for a military Force from being perverted.

MR. STAVELEY HILL
wished to point out to the hon. Member for Dundee that his Amendment would have the effect of taking persons subject to military law from the operation of the laws affecting the rest of Her Majesty's subjects. An officer or a soldier would by his Amendment be liable to suffer penal servitude, or less punishment, in no case, unless convicted by a court martial, and he could not, therefore, be sentenced if convicted by a Civil Court.

MR. ASSHETON CROSS
I should certainly object to that happening.

§ COLONEL MURE
quite admitted that there was some confusion, if he might call it so, between the Secretary of State for War and the Commander-in-Chief; but he was bound to say in Captain Hawtrey's case there were quite as many people who believed that he had been too leniently dealt with as those who did not think him guilty of the offence with which he was charged. For his part, he must object to that case being brought before the Committee. It seemed to him that if the words pro- 2010 posed were added to the clause, an officer charged with embezzlement would be put in a better position than an officer against whom no charge was made. At present, Her Majesty's Government had the power to surrender the services of any officer; but if one were charged with embezzlement, there would be no power to give up his services, unless he was convicted by a court martial. That would be an absurd result; and he, therefore, must oppose the Amendment. At the same time, however, he must express his opinion that in cases of embezzlement, where there were questions of fact which could readily be tried, there might to be a court martial held.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
thought the power of the Crown to dismiss an officer from the Service should be cautiously used by the Secretary of State, more particularly' after a court martial had acquitted an officer of the offence with which he was charged. The Secretary of State really injured the reputation of the Crown by not letting the reasons on which he acted be known in all cases where the name of the Crown was used. He did not think that they were true Advisers of the Monarchy who would put it into such a position. Formerly, all the officers upon a court martial were distinctly sworn to do justice between the Crown and the prisoner; but in 1774 that oath was abolished. Since that time the Crown, through the Secretary of State for War and the military authorities, had assumed the right to act as Judge, and to dismiss and to punish an officer or soldier, although acquitted by a court martial. The prosecution was made in the name of the Crown as prosecutor, while the Crown was also the Judge. This double function was not according to English law. Formerly, the Prerogative of the Crown was rather to mitigate the severity of the court martial; but of late its influence had been exerted to increase the severity of military law, while the civil law was progressing on the side of mercy and leniency. He did not believe that the object of the hon. Member for Dundee would effect the object in view. At the same time, if they adopted his Amendment, they would preclude the cases of embezzlement being tried by the civil law, which was a most important consideration. The civil law would often punish these cases, when military 2011 law would fail to do so. He was sorry that the case of Captain Hawtrey had been brought forward, as he did not think this the proper time to discuss it. He would, however, put a Question on the Paper, which would enable his right hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary of State for War to answer the observations which had been made in a legitimate manner.

§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCK
was unable to vote in favour of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dundee. The Resolution which he had the honour to move declared— That any officer accused of any military offence should be entitled to trial by general court martial, instead of having his case dealt with by a Court of Inquiry. It did not appear at first sight that the Amendment of his hon. Friend did anything different; but, on further examination, it would be seen that there was a clear distinction between the effect of the t we proposals. It was a distinction of the greatest importance; for, supposing any officer to be accused of embezzlement, his Resolution provided that he should be tried by a general court martial; but if the evidence led to the conclusion that he was guilty, although through some technicality the court martial was bound to acquit him, the right of the Crown to dismiss the officer from the Service would remain unimpaired. On the other hand, if the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dundee were carried, it would be impossible for the Crown in such a case to take any action at all. He thought that it was desirable that the Prerogative of the Crown should be retained, although, no doubt, it ought only to be very justly and wisely exercised.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
wished to say that if the rules for regulating the procedure of courts martial were properly drawn up, it was hardly possible for any technicality to lead to a failure of justice. At the present moment, courts martial were, unhappily, mere barbarous courts, badly conducted and administered by men knowing nothing about law or the rules of evidence, and even sometimes ignorant of the military law which they had to administer. It was possible to draw up a series of clauses under this Act which should provide that courts martial should become courts of justice, and courts that could be relied upon to do complete justice, so that an acquittal on 2012 technical grounds could not take place. Under the present system, it was hardly possible in the Supreme Court for any serious technicality to frustrate perfect justice being done; so that it was possible that the same thing might be effected with courts martial. They could be made such courts that the chances of a wrong decision would be reduced to a minimum. He apprehended that the difference between his proposal and that of his hon. and gallant Friend was, in reality, that his hon. and gallant Friend wished to retain the power of the Crown to dismiss officers from the Service who had been acquitted by courts martial. But he did not think that that was any answer to the Amendment he now proposed. It would be seen that unless it were provided that an officer charged with embezzlement should be tried by a court martial, they reverted to the system of holding Courts of Inquiry, which the hon. and gallant Gentleman disliked. There was no doubt that an officer should be dismissed if they were sure that he had committed the offence with which he was charged. When, however, he had been brought to trial and acquitted, there was no reason to say that he was guilty, if the decision of the court martial was to be worth anything. At the same time, his intention in proposing the Amendment had only been to bring the matter to the attention of the Committee; and as opinions adverse to his proposal had been expressed he begged leave to withdraw his Amendment.

§ MR. J. BROWN
moved that the word "felonious" should be left out of Sub-section 5, so that that particular subsection should provide for the punishment of any other offences of a fraudulent nature not before particularly specified in the Act, or for any other disgraceful conduct of an indecent or unnatural kind. He thought that to introduce felonious offences in that clause was not necessary. Felonious was an expression not defined and not understood by the common soldier.

§ COLONEL ALEXANDER
moved, in page 8, line 26, to leave out from "if" to "soldier," in line 28, inclusive. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said, that the clause, as it stood, made an officer convicted of drunkenness, whether on duty or not on duty, on conviction by a court martial, liable to be cashiered, or to suffer such less punishment as was in the Act mentioned; while in the case of a soldier he was made liable to suffer imprisonment, or such less punishment as in the Act mentioned, or, in addition to or in substitution for any other punishment, to pay a fine not exceeding £1. He did not see that there was any reason for making the punishment for drunkenness more stringent in the one case than in the other; and be thought the matter perfectly dealt with by the law as it at present stood. He proposed also to insert, in line 28, after "mentioned," Every officer who, being subject to military law, commits the following offence, that is to say, the offence of drunkenness on duty, shall, on conviction by court martial, be cashiered, and.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
said, that he would tell the Committee the reason why the clause was altered. On the one hand, it was thought that to make the punishment of officers being cashiered absolute on conviction for drunkenness when not on duty was too severe. At the same time, it detracted from the severity of the punishment of an officer for being drunk while on duty. Therefore, it was thought better to leave an officer only liable to be cashiered.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
said, that this was a very important clause of the Bill, and an immense number of cases took place in which it was brought into operation. He did not want to have practically one law for the officer and another for the soldier. He thought it necessary to say that before proposing his Amendment. He proposed to leave out from the clause the words "whether on duty or not on duty." he did not think that the heavy penalties imposed by the clause ought to be inflicted alike when an officer or soldier was drunk on duty and off duty. To understand the subject, it was absolutely necessary to give a slight review of the present law with respect to drunkenness. He believed that in actual practice, both as to 2014 soldiers and non-commissioned officers, in be per cent of the cases occurring the present law worked very well. The system worked well as it was practically enforced. The first time a man was I drunk off duty he was simply admonished; the second time, if it happened within six months—he would not be precise as to the exact number of months—the man was fined 2s. 6d.;if again drunk off duty within three: months he was fined 5s.; and there was also a 7s. 6d. and a 10s. stage, and in working the matter was some-what complicated. But a man knew exactly the fine that be would get for a particular act of drunkenness, and the commanding officer was bound to impose the fine; although he might, in addition, award any extra punishment. In practice, he did not do so, unless there were aggravated circumstances—as, for instance, a man getting drunk on duty. But if the man for six months was clear of drunkenness he started fair again. The present rubs with regard to drunkenness were, in his opinion, sensible and rational up to a certain point. But after a man had committed his fourth offence within six months, and had been fined 10s., the system became very uncertain. The man was liable to imprisonment for not less than 56 days, and even for a longer period; but the extraordinary part of the matter was that if he once reached the fifth, or the 15th, time after the 10s. had been reached, the regulations with regard to imprisonment were excessively uncertain. If a man had shifted from one station to another, he knew that he would be imprisoned for some time; but he did not know what his punishment would be. The uncertainty of the punishment was very great, for everything depended upon the officer before whom he was brought, and he might have a long imprisonment, or none at all. His proposal was that greater certainty should be introduced into the system after the fourth commission of the offence of drunkenness. He proposed that the maximum should be raised to six limes in one year, up to which the sliding scale of fines should be applicable; and that after that point had been reached the man should be sent for trial before a court martial for habitual drunkenness. Up to the year 1871 there was no punishment whatever for drunk- 2015 enness; but in that year it was thought right that habitual drunkenness should be abolished; and although a man was not heavily punished for one act of drunkenness, when drunk four times in a year he was made liable to heavy punishment. As he had said before, if drunk now more than four times in a year, he was liable to not less than 56 days' or more than 112 days' imprisonment. Some commanding officers, it was true, kept up a tradition of sending men before courts martial if they got drunk more than four times in the year. But the tradition had become dim; and he ventured to say that the system varied very much. A commanding officer had a great difficulty in knowing how to punish a man when he had exhausted the sliding scale of fines. What he proposed by the Amendment which he intended to move later was to continue the sliding scale of fines up to the sixth offence, as it had been found to work extremely well, and to punish habitual drunkards by trial before courts martial. He thought it extremely important that some principle should be established by which men were to be tried and punished when the limit of the scale of fines had been reached. So much for the case with regard to the men; but noncommissioned officers had always been very hardly treated. At the present moment he could hardly say what part of the Bill covered the case of non-commissioned officers; for whether they were intended to be included in the term "soldier," or in the word "officer," was not clear. He had always pointed out that a non-commissioned officer was placed in a very bad position with regard to these small crimes. He was to be tried by a court martial, and all that it could do was to reduce him to the ranks, whether for a grave offence, or for a small crime like drunkenness. In his opinion, for such an offence as drunkenness there ought to be some less punishment than reduction to the ranks. He believed the Government had made some proposal of that kind; but it did not meet with his approval. The case of the non-commissioned officers was peculiarly difficult, because it had been laid down that a non-commissioned officer was always on duty; and when this fact was taken in connection with the offence of drunken-ness, it was particularly unfair. He would point out that the Queen's Re- 2016 gulations, in making a non-commissioned officer always on duty, in point of fact, over-rode all that the Mutiny Act and the Articles of War said. Coming to the case of the officers, the present state of the law was that an officer must be cashiered if found guilty of drunkenness while under arms. It was best to put it, as was done in the clause of the Bill, that he should only be liable to be cashiered; for it might be that such an offence as this might be committed under very extenuating circumstances. At the present moment, if an officer got drunk off duty there was no punishment for the simple act of drunkenness; but if he were in the habit of getting drunk, he could be tried for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. If he were drunk at 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon, for instance, or behaved himself in any manner discreditable to a gentleman, it was considered he should be punished very severely; and that was done by trying him for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. The clause before the Committee modified this rule, so far as to make any act of drunkenness when off duty a military crime in an officer, and to make him liable to very heavy punishment indeed. For his part, he totally objected to this provision, and for this reason many people were anxious to encourage sobriety by all possible means; but hon. Members should recollect that the civil definition of drunkenness in a person was being dangerous to himself and liable to injure other people. That was the usual civil definition; and he thought that the present state of the law with regard to drunkenness in officers entirely met that case. But the military idea of drunkenness was very much more serious as a general rule. If a man were unable to perform any duty he should be put upon, he was considered drunk. He did not suppose that, after taking t we or three glasses of champagne, a man would like to go through a very difficult mathematical problem; and he believed that a man who could not be considered at all drunk, according to the civil law, might in a court martial be held to be guilty of drunkenness. The military idea of drunkenness varied as much with the kind of witness as with the state of the man himself. Most officers were very reluctant to pronounce a man drunk; but if t we or three officers declared a 2017 soldier to be drunk, he did not think that there could be any doubt that he was so. But coming to non-commissioned officers, their opinion of drunkenness was very much stricter; and they would often swear that a man was drunk, when others would say that he was not totally incapable. Then, the provost-sergeant's idea of what constituted military drunkenness was very strict, indeed. He believed that if this change were introduced into the law, it would totally change the relations of officers between themselves from what they had hitherto been, and it would also change their relations to the men. It was said that commanding officers were the only persons to act, and that they would not necessarily try an officer for once upon a time taking too much wine. He wished to point out that this Bill was not intended for the present commanding officers only, but would probably survive all the commanding officers in existence. It should be remembered, therefore, that the Bill was to provide for a future race of men, as well as those now in existence. Undoubtedly, commanding officers were made up of every class of men, and they entertained very different ideas on the same matter. A very dangerous class were those men who were afraid of responsibility, and afraid of people saying that they were too lenient. He would like to know what would be the state of the Army if this law were brought into effect? A very radical change would be made. And if any officer was drunk in a military sense, was it intended to try him by court martial? If that were the intention, a very considerable change in the habit of the Army would have to take place, he was sure that officers, as a class, were much more sober than civilians; but he would ask any hon. Member whether, if a man dined out in London, or went down to Greenwich, if immediately after dinner he would be capable of performing any military duty? It would be perfectly hypocritical to say that every man in such circumstances was perfectly sober in a military point of view. In fact, if the provost-sergeant were stationed at the Greenwich Railway Station he would, no doubt, swear that many men in a good position, going home after dinner, were drunk, in the same sense that many private soldiers were considered to be so. On the 2018 other hand, believing, as he did, that this law, even if passed, could not be enforced, what would be the consequence? One man would not be tried by court martial for being drunk; but when another man was tried he would consider himself hardly dealt with, and would think that he had been tried not for getting drunk, but because he was obnoxious, or because of some prejudice against him. Again, there was this great danger—would the commanding officer be able to resist pressure, and refuse to put the law into force? And yet if he did not put the law into force, he would be overlooking a military crime when the offence was brought to his knowledge. On the other hand, if he did put the law into force, for one offence of drunkenness an officer was to be cashiered. If a man were drunk once, he would only be admonished for the first few offences. That would be fair. At the present moment, if an officer took much wine on several occasions he would be told that he must not do it again, on pain of being brought before a court martial for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. But the greatest difficulty would be found in putting such a hard and iniquitous law as this would be into force. If the majority of cases were overlooked, the first man that was tried and convicted would think himself hardly treated. He should like to see the law left in its present state, as it was not in the least unfair to private soldiers. He begged to move an Amendment to leave out the words "whether on duty or not on duty;" and he thought he might fairly divide the Committee upon it. He should afterwards propose an Amendment in the form he had mentioned, to the effect that the sliding scale of fines was to be extended to the sixth commission of the offence of drunkenness in one year by a private soldier; and that after that he should be punished with some more certainty, but not more severely than at present.

§ COLONEL ALEXANDER
wanted to say one or t we words with reference 2019 to what had fallen from the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan). It was quite true that a very considerable alteration took place in the law in 1869, when the system of fines was introduced. The charge of habitual drunkenness was abandoned then, as well as the charges of drunkenness on duty under arms and drunkenness on duty not under arms. For the first of these offences 1d.a-day of the offenders' pay for any period not exceeding 60 days, and for the second the same amount for any period not exceeding 30 days, might be stopped. The system of fines had worked exceedingly well. With regard to what had been said about young soldiers, he was certain, from his experience, that a man might get drunk any number of times without being fined. He never in his life brought a man to trial for simple drunkenness; and the only case he ever had was where a man appealed from his decision, and insisted on being tried himself. That, he believed, was the system which obtained throughout the greater part of the Army. What happened was that the man committed some other offence—he was insubordinate, or absent without leave, or something of that kind—and he was then tried for drunkenness also, because, otherwise, the offence of drunkenness would not be recorded against him. The object was not to give the man a heavier punishment, but to have the charge recorded against him.

§ COLONEL MURE
thought it would be convenient at this point to call attention to his Amendment, which proposed to leave out the clause, and substitute another. He did not want to put officers and men in the same category as regarded drunkenness. If soldiers got drunk discipline could not be kept up; while drunkenness among officers was not so serious an offence. It was almost impossible to treat it in the same way in the mess-room as in the barracks. At the same time, he did not wish it recorded in the Act that the soldier was to be punished for drunkenness off duty, and that the officer was not. He should prefer to have it that every officer drunk off duty should be liable to be tried under Clause 16; while, if drunk on duty, he should be tried by general court martial. The hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Alexander) 2020 had said that soldiers were rarely tried for drunkenness alone; but that some other offence was usually combined with it. He was afraid that hardly held good with the rest of the Army, although he knew it was the case in the Guards. He would also limit the punishment for drunkenness to six months alone; because he knew, as an absolute fact, that there were men at this moment in prison for one year and two years for drunkenness and absence only. ["No, no!"] If hon. Gentlemen would take up the Report of the Military Prisons, they would find instances of punishments of 12 months, or 366 days, for mere dissipation, for mere drunkenness. That was a tremendous punishment. He saw hon. Gentlemen shaking their heads; but he knew it was the case, because he had inquired into these instances, and had means of ascertaining about them far beyond the information contained in Colonel Du Cane's Report. They were, perhaps, men of dissipated character, who had been often tried before; but, still, they were not bad characters, or they would have been turned out of the Army. These men had only enlisted for six years; and out of that six years they were condemned to spend a whole year—spring, summer, autumn, and winter—in prison for mere dissipation. Honestly, he thought this was very startling. He had made inquiries about the German Army of a very distinguished German officer, well-known in London society, and asked him how they managed in his own country? He replied that they turned men of bad character out of the Army; but that for cases of persistent dissipation, the outside punishment was six months. Even that, he said, was exceedingly rare. They put a man under surveillance, partly military and partly medicinal; and if his drunkenness went on, they turned him out as a useless fellow. But the man who habitually got drunk was often a roystering fellow, who liked company, was addicted to going to public-houses, and was physically incapable of keeping away from drink. Now, he asked the Committee, as men of common-sense, if such cases ought to be punished with a year's imprisonment out of a period of only six years' service? Even although it might be found that, in addition, there was absence without leave, was not that a 2021 period of imprisonment which was almost an outrage upon practical common sense? He knew, of course, that ever since they had done away with the punishment of flogging they were, practically, reduced to one punishment—imprisonment. There was, of course, very little variety; but as they had been obliged, by the pressure of public opinion, to got rid of the punishment of Hogging, he did ask his right hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Stanley) whether he would not inquire into the matter, and find some more ingenious method of punishing men than by locking them up in prison, and keeping them there for months? Of course, he knew very well that they could not compare the scales of punishment in military and in civil life, and that they must judge from a totally different stand-point. Nevertheless, the difference here was so enormous that he felt compelled to draw some distinction. What crimes might not a man commit in civilized life, and yet not be imprisoned for more than that time. A man might almost murder his wife; he might commit all sorts of scandalous, cruel, and indecent crimes; and he would not receive an imprisonment anything like that which these very young men received for what was, in ordinary life, a mere venial offence. He was not proposing to reduce the punishment; but, still, he did maintain that if they could not cure a man of drunkenness by six months' imprisonment, they certainly would not cure him by imprisonment for a year. He should not divide the Committee; but in those days of short service some other means ought to be found of curing drunkenness than locking these men up. He did not think, either, that these long punishments were of the least effect in curing drunkenness. He admitted that something had been done in the present Bill by drafting men into other regiments instead of keeping them in prison, and he hoped it would work; but, at the same time, he hoped that something else would be done.

§ COLONEL ARBUTHNOT
quite agreed with the statement of his hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Alexander). So far as his experience of 23 years went, he could only say exactly the same thing. Since the time when the crime of habitual drunkenness was done away with, and fines were introduced instead, he could only say that his experience 2022 was identically the same as that of his hon. and gallant Friend. He never knew a case, either in the regiment in which he served, or in the regiment which he commanded, of a man being tried simply and solely for drunkenness, unaccompanied by some other crime. His hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Galway (Major Nolan) spoke of 244 cases as a very large number.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
explained, that he had made a mis-quotation. The number really was 892, men marked in the Report as military prisoners for drunkenness. It was the second crime in importance, drunkenness being the first.

§ COLONEL ARBUTHNOT
thought 244 a very moderate allowance, considering the extent of the Army. He could not believe that this number of 892 was for simple drunkenness. There must have been some other crime. The hon. and gallant Member opposite (Colonel Mure) talked of men imprisoned for a year, 366 days, for simple drunkenness. He was sure there was some mistake; for no commanding officer would think of allowing such a sentence for mere drunkenness.

§ COLONEL MURE
explained that he said not drunkenness, but dissipation, which meant drunkenness, and absence without leave, not desertion. In Colonel Du Cane's Report these cases were marked "drunkenness;" but, of course, he knew that meant drunkenness with absence—such as staying out of barracks. He did not think, however, there was any great moral difference between absence and desertion. He had seen men tried for absence who should have been tried for desertion, and vice versâ.

§ MR. MORGAN LLOYD
was of opinion that the severity of the clause tended to defeat its object. It provided that the offence of drunkenness, while on or off duty, might be punished in the case of an officer by cashiering, or by imprisonment, which involved cashiering. He thought it would be far more effectual if the clause read in this way—"The offence of drunkenness on duty shall, on conviction by court martial, be punished, if committed by an officer, by cashiering;" while in line 28 he would add, "if an officer not on duty or a soldier," to suffer imprisonment, &c, thus making a distinction between the offence of drunkenness on duty and not on duty. It was certainly a most serious military 2023 offence for an officer to be drunk on duty; if drunk when not on duty, the offence, though less serious, ought not to be disregarded altogether, but should be punished in a much less severe manner.

§ MAJOR O'BEIRNE
said, he had an Amendment proposing to add at the end of the clause the words "absence from tattoo in garrison or quarters not to be treated as a drunken offence." If a man was absent from tattoo with another man who had been often fined for drunkenness, he was fined for drunkenness also. It was very unfair, and he had known it give rise to desertion. If a man, unfortunately, enlisted in a regiment of which the commanding officer was a total abstainer, that officer would be certain, in his zeal for temperance, to treat every absence from tattoo as a case of drunkenness, and to punish it accordingly. He thought everything which tended, in the most indirect manner, to encourage desertion should be avoided.

§ COLONEL BARNE
entirely agreed with the Amendment. He thought it would be very hard to punish an officer for being drunk off duty once; while if he was often drunk, and grossly misbehaved himself, he could be dealt with under the 16th clause.

§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCK
thought there must be some misapprehension as to the working of this clause. He listened with considerable astonishment and surprise to the remarks of his hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Mure); but they seemed to be entirely contradicted by those of his hon. and gallant Friends opposite (Colonel Alexander and Colonel Arbuthnot); and he could only say that, during a fairly long military experience, he had never met with anything approaching the severity of which the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Mure) had spoken. It seemed to him another illustration of the saying that figures might be made to prove anything. In the old days, when several convictions for drunkenness constituted the crime of habitual drunkenness, he had known men in 15 or 16 years suffer some 30 punishments, which might amount in all to 12 months' imprisonment. The present practice in the Army was to limit it to 56 or 68 days, or some term like that; but such a sentence as 12 months he never heard of. These cases must be complicated by long absence without leave, or by offensive language, or by insubordination. 2024 The figures must have got mixed up wrongly somehow. He entirely agreed with the spirit of the Amendment, that imprisonment for drunkenness should be limited to six months; but he thought it was entirely unnecessary, because in the actual practice in the Army the punishment was very much within that limit. As regarded drunkenness on the part of an officer, either on or off duty, he did not at all sympathize with the remarks of his hon. and gallant Friends. One distinctive feature of the English Army was the high tone and character always maintained by the officers; and part of that was due to the feeling that drunkenness, whenever and wherever it occurred, was not a thing of which a man of good position would be guilty.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
said, his objection to the clause was that it assimilated drunkenness on and off duty. Under the present law an officer drunk on duty under arms, on conviction before a court martial, must be sentenced to be cashiered. The punishment was in no way optional, and the court could do nothing but that. By this Bill it was proposed to make drunkenness not on duty equal to drunkenness on duty under arms a crime, on which the safety of an Army might depend, and than which there could be no offence more grave. An officer went to a race meeting, a luncheon, or a party, and got too much to drink, and that offence was to be punished in the same way as if he got drunk on guard. He hoped the Secretary of State for War would withdraw the words, as otherwise an impression might get abroad that drunkenness on duty was not a heinous offence, and that would be a very dangerous impression to produce. Again, by Clause 6 of the Bill, a sentinel drunk at his post was liable to death, while there was no penalty to an officer of that nature, and an officer drunk in charge of a guard was only liable to a reprimand. The whole clause seemed to him to be drafted in total misapprehension of the wants of the Army.

MR. STAVELEY HILL
pointed out that in the Navy the position of officers was the same, whether they were on or off duty. The 27th clause of the Naval Discipline Act of 1866—the Act now in force—provided that every person subject to that Act might, for similar misconduct, be dismissed from Her Majesty's 2025 Service. He really could not understand why the same rule should not prevail in the Army.

§ COLONEL MURE
said, as the correctness of his figures had been called in question, he hoped his right hon. and learned Friend the Judge Advocate General would give him a Return on the subject, showing where men were imprisoned for simple drunkenness and when other crimes were included, both in India and at home.

§ MR. A. H. BROWN
wished to call attention to the construction of this clause. As it stood, a fine could be imposed for drunkenness on the conviction of a court martial. Another clause would give the right of the commanding officer, as, under existing circumstances, to fine a man any sum not exceeding 10s. He wished, also, to call attention to the case of the Volunteers who might be brought under the operation of this clause. He quite agreed that the best way of stopping drunkenness was by fine; but in the Army they could recover the fine by stopping the soldier's pay. They could not do that with the Volunteer, because he had no pay, and they would have to take something out of nothing. He might be told that the man could be convicted by court martial or by a commanding officer, and sentenced to imprisonment. In that case, Volunteers would be punished in a way which was condemned in the Army. He would ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman whether some means ought not to be provided for recovering this money by civil process?

MR. ASSHETON CROSS
wished to ask the military Members of the Committee a question, as they had taken up the case of the officers so warmly. He had not heard a single hon. Gentleman get up and say that there ought to be a distinction made in the case of the soldier drunk on duty and the soldier drunk off duty. If that was so, how could they justify their claim to the public and say that there was not one law for the officer and another for the soldier? If it was an offence for a soldier to be drunk off duty, which rendered him liable to the same punishment as the soldier drunk on duty, although, of course, the court would differentiate the punishment, how could they maintain that the same should not be the case with the officer drunk off duty? The court, in deciding the case, 2026 would know perfectly well that there was a difference; and when they came to distribute the punishments, the officer drunk on duty would get a very severe punishment, while the officer drunk off duty would not. It struck him that throughout the debate he had never heard one single word said for the soldier drunk off duty. It was the officer who had simply been out to dinner or luncheon and got drunk that they were defending. But that was the case with the soldier also, and he wanted to know why they were to have one law for the rich and another for the poor?

§ MAJOR NOLAN
replied, that that was just what he and his Friends wanted, and he feared the right hon. Gentleman was not in the House when he went into this matter. They wanted a law equally fair for both parties. If a soldier was drunk off duty, he was simply admonished. This did not stop his promotion for more than a few months, it took nothing out of his pocket, and it made no practical difference to him, unless in after years he wanted to get a good conduct medal. But the officer was to be tried by court martial, and it was a tremendous punishment. The fine for drunkenness was 2s. 6d.; and if the officer for the same offence was fined two days' pay that would be very simple. He was not at all proposing one law for the officer and another for the man; but he did object to the Bill, for it made the law much more severe for the officer. He wanted to alter the clause; so that although a man might be imprisoned for being drunk, yet for that offence alone he should be simply admonished, unless it happened more than six times in the year; while if the officer were drunk more than six times in the year, he ought to be got out of the Service somehow. Unless the clause were altered in some way, this would be a very harsh and cruel law. They were doing an injustice—a palpable and a gross injustice—merely to keep up a certain appearance of symmetry in the Bill.

COLONEL JERVIS
said, he had heard with great surprise the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department say that those who were in favour of the Amendment wanted to pass one law for the rich and another for the poor. But what was the punishment of the soldier who was drunk on duty? Death. What was the punishment 2027 of the soldier drunk off duty? A fine of £1. What was the punishment for the officer drunk on duty? Cashiering, which was worse than death to a gentleman. For being drunk off duty, the punishment was the same—cashiering. When they talked about drunkenness, too, people had different ideas on the subject. He had seen hon. Members in that House whom he thought would have been better at home; but they, no doubt, thought differently. He knew, also, that many commanding officers had very strict notions. There were many teetotallers now in the Army, who were very strict, who did not like to see strangers in the mess-room after dinner, and who were always inspecting their men to see whether they could walk straight or not. He knew some officers who had their men paraded at night, in order to see whether they were quite all right; while others had the good sense to allow them to go straight to their barrack-rooms. If they passed this clause, they would create an amount of ill-feeling which was totally unwarranted, and would do no good credit whatever.

§ SIR ANDREW LUSK
did not want to prolong the debate, which he hoped would not take much longer; but he was surprised to hear the strong defence of drunkenness. He thought the clause a very reasonable and fair one, and that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Assheton Cross) was not far wrong in what he said. He wanted gentlemen in the Army to understand that they must be subject to law, the same as other people. The Army was an imperium in imperio, and the officers possessed many privileges which other people had not got; but they must not, therefore, try and ride rough-shod over the law, and imagine they were not subject to it. Englishmen were proud, and justly proud, of their Army; and if the House made stringent laws affecting them, the officers should not complain. Drunkenness, in his opinion, was not an offence which an officer and a gentleman should commit, whether on duty or off it.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
thought the remarks of the Home Secretary would necessitate at least another hour's debate ["No, no!"], for they were most injurious to the welfare of the Army and the country. This assertion, that the debate had arisen from the desire of the officers to put themselves on a 2028 different footing with the men, was quite incorrect. It was quite the contrary. He objected to this clause that it did not deal with sufficient harshness with the case of the officer drunk on duty. His hon. and gallant Friend opposite (Colonel Alexander) had moved to amend the clause. [Colonel ALEXANDER: It is withdrawn.] Then he would move that Amendment himself, unless, indeed, the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Mure) moved to omit the clause.

§ MR. J. BROWN
thought the Amendment would meet the object he had in view, which was to find out the position of Militia officers, who would only be under arms one month in the year. It would certainly have been very detrimental to the Service, if for the other 11 months they were to be held liable under this clause.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
said, his Amendment, as it stood on the Paper, related exclusively to the soldier, and as it was consequential upon the former Amendment being passed, he should have to change the wording, superseding it by these words—"if the offence has been committed on duty," and then, putting the words as they presented themselves to his mind, "if the offence is committed when not on duty every soldier who commits the offence of drunkenness," and so on. The effect of this would be to leave the Bill as it then stood, so far as the offence committed on duty was concerned, but somewhat modified it in respect of private soldiers, who committed it when off duty. There were 100,000 cases of admonitions for drunkenness in the course of the year. He wished to point out that up to a certain point the law, as it stood, worked very well; but after that point very badly. Every soldier guilty of the offence for the first time, while on duty, was admonished, and for the second offence he was fined 2s. 6d., for the third offence, if committed within three months, 5s. Up to that point the law was reasonable. But after that it was bad, for a man might be sentenced to a term of imprisonment sometimes of 104 days or less. The well-known Report from the 2029 Military Prisons, which he held in his hand, stated that there were 952 cases of imprisonment for drunkenness in the course of the year, and his experience fully confirmed the correctness of the Report. Some of the sentences were very heavy; four of them for upwards of 12 months, and 16 for 160 to 170 days. But it was not the length of imprisonment that he complained of, his objection was to the irregularity with which it was awarded. He, therefore, proposed that when the offence was committed off duty the soldier should not be subject to imprisonment, unless he committed the offence six times within one year. The offence of drunkenness was, in his opinion, but a slight one in a soldier, and not too serious a crime in an officer; although, of course, it was worse in the case of the latter. He moved to add the following words:— If the offence is committed when not on duty every soldier who commits the offence six times in one year shall on conviction by court martial be liable to suffer imprisonment.

§ COLONEL STANLEY,
having considered the case very carefully, was a good deal disposed in favour of the arguments advanced by the hon. and gallant Member for Galway. He was, however, obliged to inform him of the difficulty which he felt in accepting the Amendment precisely as it stood. It was necessary to make further inquiry into further points of detail, and as to whether it was wise to limit the period of imprisonment. He wished the hon. and gallant Member to understand that the Amendment was accepted in principle, and would be glad if he would confer with him, when, no doubt, a clause could be framed that would be perfectly satisfactory.

§ MR. MORGAN LLOYD
said, that the Government, having now heard the opinion of hon. Members with respect to the clause, would, perhaps, promise the Committee to re-consider the whole clause, with a view to its improvement, and bring up a new one on Report. The clause, as it stood, was full of imperfections, which could be easily amended.

§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCK
said, the hon. and gallant Member for Galway had expressed himself satisfied with the 2030 clause, after hearing the remarks of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. This appeared to be rather in contradiction of the view entertained by him at an earlier part of the evening. If it was intended to limit the punishment of drunkenness off duty, he (Sir Henry Havelock) would suggest that the substantial justice of the case would be met by a return to the old rule, under which, the amount of imprisonment not being limited, very severe sentences were sometimes inflicted. It might, perhaps, be well to limit the number of offences to four instead of six in one year, and to limit the term of imprisonment also to four months.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
confessed himself opposed to any limitation until he had further considered the subject, and examined more closely the figures quoted by the hon. and gallant Member for Galway. Although he cast no doubt upon the authority from which the Return had emanated, it was possible that cases of drunkenness on duty might have been mixed up with others of quite a different character. There certainly appeared to be a very large number of long sentences of imprisonment.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
moved to add to the clause the words— Provided always, That any officer convicted by court martial of having been drunk on duty under arms shall be cashiered, in order to make the provisions of the Bill the same as the existing law, and in order that the Government might not, by the passing of this measure, release officers from the duties at present imposed upon them, or make the law more lenient than it was at present. He had no doubt that the Secretary of State for War would be able to vote for this Amendment, which contained nothing new, and merely expressed the law which had existed for many years.

THE CHAIRMAN
pointed out that the words of the clause, as adopted by the Committee, were— The offence of drunkenness, whether on duty or not on duty, shall on conviction by court martial be liable, if an officer, to be cashiered, or to suffer such less punishment as is in this Act mentioned. It would, therefore, appear that the rider proposed to be added by the hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeenshire was, in effect, precisely the same.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
replied that the words "on duty under arms" were not in the clause. The present Mutiny Act drew a distinction between the offence when committed on duty under arms, and the offence committed when not under arms. The former, which was not included in the Bill, had always been considered a most serious crime; and he therefore imagined he was right in making a distinct Proviso with regard to it.

§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT
explained that the clause, as proposed to be amended by the hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeenshire, would not really differ from the clause as it then stood, in a lawyer's sense of the term; because the clause, as it stood, provided for "the offence of drunkenness whether on duty or not on duty," and therefore included duty under arms or not under arms. Did the hon. and gallant Member intend, by his Amendment, to withdraw from the court martial any option whatever of mitigating the sentence which might be imposed? [Sir ALEXANDER GORDON: Yes.] But was it desirable to remove that power? No doubt, if a court martial thought fit, it could punish the offence by cashiering; and he (Sir William Harcourt) would imagine that the opinion of all military men would be that an officer drunk under arms should be cashiered; but it was possible that circumstances of an extenuating character might occur which, in the view of the court martial, might not justify the infliction of the extreme penalty. What harm, then, could there be in leaving a discretionary power to the court? The clause provided for a severe penalty; but it left it open to the court martial to apply a mitigated penalty to cases in which they might think leniency could be shown. If the hon. and gallant Member was satisfied with that, the clause, as it then stood, was sufficient.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
agreed that the court martial could always give a lenient punishment; but he desired strongly to point out that if the Committee passed the clause in its present form it would go out to the world, that drunkenness under arms was not so great an offence as it really was. The Committee could, of course, agree to the clause if it thought fit; but he felt bound to protest against it.

§ GENERAL SHUTE
thought the addition of the words unnecessary, inasmuch as he could not conceive that a court martial would do anything but cashier an officer convicted of drunkenness under arms.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
suggested that words should be inserted to ensure the recovery of fines imposed by court martial on persons who, although not in receipt of pay, were subject to military law. As the case stood at present there was, of course, no opportunity of stopping the amount of the fines from any money due to them.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
would endeavour to answer the question raised by the hon. and gallant Member accurately when he had had an opportunity of further consideration; but he might mention his belief that means of recovery existed already under most of the approved Volunteer regulations. He apprehended that where the fines were recoverable proceedings could be taken in civil courts; but a Volunteer officer, before acting under the rules to which he had referred, would, doubtless, take into consideration the circumstances of the case.

§ MR. J. BROWN
moved, in page 9, line 1, after "escape," to insert "or get drunk." It was a common offence, and provided for in the Queen's Regulations. It was a crime constantly committed in Militia regiments, and, therefore, should be provided for here.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
objected to the Amendment, on the ground that it would be rather too severe upon the person in charge of a prisoner.

§ COLONEL ALEXANDER,
in moving, in page 9, lines 4 and 5, to leave out "penal servitude," and insert "imprisonment," said, that the 75th Article of War provided that any officer or soldier who wilfully or negligently allowed a prisoner to escape should be liable to suffer the punishment of imprisonment; while the 20th clause of 2033 the Bill before the Committee imposed penal servitude, or such less punishment as in the Act was mentioned. He had understood the Bill to be a consolidating measure, and not one for the purpose of rendering military punishments more severe than they were at present. The application of penal servitude to the offence contemplated by the clause appeared to him to be a very much more severe punishment than was necessary. He, therefore, begged to move his Amendment.

§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT
said, the hon. and gallant Member for Ayrshire (Colonel Alexander) would find, under the 73rd Article of War, that noncommissioned officers and soldiers were subject to conviction for the offence described in the 20th clause of the present Bill, to "any such punishment as a general district or other court martial shall award." The rule followed in this Bill was to include such maximum punishments as could be awarded under the Articles of War. Now, a general court martial could award penal servitude in the case of a soldier. But it was different in the case of an officer. The clause, therefore, made the Bill more severe with regard to officers, but not with regard to soldiers. He entirely agreed with the opinion expressed by the Home Secretary, that it was undesirable, on the face of the Bill, to lead to the belief that one rule existed for the officers and another for the soldiers. The offence in question might, by taking only sub-section 2, seem to be comparatively light; but it appeared a very serious one when looked at in sub-section 1. The intention was not that penal servitude should always be administered, but that it might be administered, for the court martial could inflict any less punishment. The object of the clause was to fix the maximum of punishment to be inflicted by court martial.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
said, that this clause, as it stood in the Bill, would operate very hardly upon noncommissioned officers and soldiers. The present Articles of War stated that— Any officer who unnecessarily detained a prisoner in confinement without bringing him to trial 2034 should be liable to the punishments mentioned. But supposing any officer in the Army, who was responsible for detaining a prisoner without bringing him to trial, were to report the matter to the commanding officer or to the Commander-in-Chief, the responsibility would be removed from him. Such an officer, under the clause, would have forwarded the case to the proper authority for investigation, and his responsibility would have ceased. After that had been done, there was no reason why the case should not remain before the proper authorities for months, as had actually happened on many occasions, without any step being taken. Therefore, he thought it better to retain such responsibility is the Articles of War at present imposed upon officers by making them liable for the detention of prisoners without bringing them to trial. He moved, in page 9, lines 9 and 10, to leave out "his case before the proper authority for investigation," and insert "him for trial."

§ COLONEL STANLEY
did not think that the hon. and gallant Gentleman would be satisfied with the effect of his Amendment, even if the words he proposed were inserted in the Bill. It did not follow that a person charged with the duty of the detention of a prisoner under arrest or confinement was the proper person to bring him to trial. But that was the effect of his Amendment. When they came, further on in the Bill, to Clause 43—the clause relating to the redress of wrongs—the hon. and gallant Gentleman would see that they had extended the power of the soldier applying for a redress of wrong. Formerly, the power had been limited to certain particular matters; but it had been thought fit to extend that power very much indeed.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
wished to point out that the clause dealing with this offence, as it stood in the Articles of War, did not specify that the act of detention need be by the officer who put the soldier under arrest, but might extend from that officer up to the Commander-in-Chief himself, who, under the Articles of War, would undoubtedly be liable if he detained a man under arrest without bringing him to trial. The effect of this clause was, undoubtedly, intended to and did increase the chance of the person who was under arrest, for it compelled the Commander-in-Chief to bring him to a speedy trial. 2035 According to the clause as now introduced into the Bill, the responsibility was for detaining a prisoner in custody unnecessarily when his case had been brought before the proper authority for investigation. But supposing that proper authority to be the Commander-in-Chief, the clause excluded him from its operation, and, no doubt, it was intended to do so, for there had been some cases of very illegal and unjust detention of officers who ought to have been brought to trial. The case of Captain Roberts was brought by him before the notice of the House. He was kept under arrest for six weeks without being brought to trial. ["No, no!"] The Judge Advocate General might say "No, no;" but he thought it would be found on inquiry that he had been kept under arrest nearly six weeks, and would have had no chance of being brought to trial even at that time had not a Question been put in that House to the Secretary of State for War with regard to the matter. Then the military authorities, as the Americans would say, began to be very spry about the case. He trusted the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would take this matter into his very serious consideration, as he appeared willing to do.

§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDON
protested against the statement of the Secretary of State for War. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had been guilty, no doubt unintentionally, of misleading the Committee, when he stated that the person who was responsible for bringing an officer to trial was the commanding officer. He surely knew that the commanding officer was bound to send the charge to the General commanding the district or to the Commander-in-Chief, and that the matter was then out of his hands. With respect to what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had said as to the great difficulty of adopting the words he had proposed, he did not think that was the case, because those very words had been used in the Articles of War for hundreds of years, and no difficulty had occurred. To tell the Committee that there would be difficulty in adopting words that had been used from time immemorial was quite incomprehensible. He hoped the Committee would leave matters as they now existed; and that such protection as they afforded to officers and soldiers against unneces- 2036 sary detention would be continued. Formerly, no person could be kept in confinement more than eight days without being brought to trial; but since that alteration had been made, case after case had occurred of officers being kept in confinement without being brought to trial. He must strongly protest against any change in the direction contemplated by the Bill.

MR. STAVELEY HILL
wished to draw the attention of the Committee to the 5th sub-section of the 45th clause, which was as follows:— The charge made against every person taken into military custody shall without unnecessary delay be investigated by the proper military authority, and, as soon as may be, either proceedings shall be taken for punishing the offence, or such person shall be discharged from custody.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
said, that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Staffordshire had quoted the clause to which he also wished to call attention, and which, he thought, met the objections which had been raised. He did not wish to enter into any arguments, but only to correct the error into which the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir Alexander Gordon) had fallen into in quoting his words. He had said nothing about commanding officer; but what he did say was that it did not necessarily follow that a person charged with the arrest of a prisoner was the person charged with bringing him to trial.

§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCK
thought that this was one of the most important clauses in the Act, for it went to the root of the principles for the administration of justice in the Army. Although the 5th section of the 45th clause provided that every person in military custody should have his case investigated as soon as might be, yet there was a great distinction between that and the Amendment proposed by his hon. and gallant Friend. The one recognised the right, to a certain extent, of every prisoner in military custody to have his case dealt with as soon as possible; but it did not make it compulsory on any person to bring him to trial, or make anyone responsible for not doing so. The principle for which the hon. and gallant Member was contending was that someone should be responsible for not bringing prisoners to trial. It was a most important principle; it was of the 2037 greatest importance, both to officers and soldiers, that the responsibility of bringing them speedily to trial should be fixed upon someone, and that no undue delay in bringing them to trial should exist. That principle ought to pervade the military administration; and he must remind the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War that of late years widely extended powers had been given with respect to the detention of military prisoners. For 150 years the rule had been that no man should be detained in military custody without being brought to trial for more than eight days. But that rule had been done away with. Now, the period during which a man might be detained was, practically, unlimited; and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman seemed disposed to take away the slight responsibility for the detention of prisoners which now existed. He know a case where the detention had been three times as long as that of Captain Roberts, which had been referred to. Those cases could not have occurred if someone had been responsible for bringing the accused to trial within a certain time, and he thought the provision should be introduced into the Bill.

§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT
also supported the Amendment. The onus of proof, in his opinion, lay upon those who desired to alter the existing law. This clause did alter the existing law, and he confessed that he had heard no arguments in favour of such alteration. The existing law was, that every person should be subject to punishment who unnecessarily detained a prisoner in confinement without bringing him to trial. His hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire wished to retain that provision. The presumption was in his favour, and the onus of proof was on those who desired to displace the present rule. He had heard no reason why these words in the present law should be watered down in the way proposed. Instead of making someone responsible for not bringing a man to trial, they were to be made responsible for not bringing his case before the proper authorities for investigation. That was very vague language, and a very bad substitute for the definition of not bringing to trial. Surely, as a convenient thing, anyone could understand what bringing to trial meant; but bringing 2038 the case before the proper authority for investigation was a very uncertain expression. The case might be often sent to be investigated, and yet the man might not be brought to trial. As he considered the old law was the best, he should support the Amendment.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
said, that he did not wish to controvert the principle which hon. Gentlemen seemed to have in view. If the Committee thought that the words of the clause did not carry out that principle, he would be willing to alter them. He had no desire to waste the time of the Committee; and, subject to the reservation that he should be able to bring up words on the Report to make things clear, he would not press his objection, but accept the Amendment.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
wished to add some words after the word "trial." He thought the clause would be very much better if it ran— Every person subject to military law who commits any of the following offences; that is to say, unnecessarily detains a prisoner in arrest or confinement without bringing him to trial, or fails to bring his case before the proper authority for investigation. That would make the matter perfectly clear.

§ COLONEL MURE
said, he did not intend to move the Amendment which stood in his name.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
said, that he had to move, in page 9, line 16, after "charged," to insert— (3.) Omits to forward to the proper quarter, promptly after receipt, any written remonstrance, charge, or statement sent to him by a prisoner addressed to any superior authority. There was nothing in the Bill at present which provided against such an offence as that. Undoubtedly, the refusing to forward to the proper quarter a letter which had been addressed by a soldier or officer under confinement to the superior authority was an offence which ought to be treated in a very serious manner. There were cases within his knowledge in which letters written by officers and men appealing against their commanding officers had been detained. That ought to be prevented, and those letters ought to be forwarded to the persons to whom they were ad- 2039 dressed. Where letters were of a character to which an officer whose duty it was to forward them objected, that was of no consequence. It should be insisted upon, in order to maintain the right of subordinates in the Army, that the officer whose duty it was to forward those letters was bound to do so.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
observed, that if the hon. Member looked at Clause 43 of the Bill, with reference to the redress of wrongs, he would find that it was provided that— If any soldier thinks himself wronged in any matter by any officer other than his captain, or by any soldier, he may complain thereof to his captain, and if he thinks himself wronged by his captain, either in respect of his complaint not being redressed or in respect of any other matter, he may complain thereof to his commanding officer, and if he thinks himself wronged by his commanding officer, either in respect of his complaint not being redressed or in respect of any other matter, he may complain thereof to the general or other officer commanding the district or station where the soldier is serving; and every officer to whom a complaint is made in pursuance of this section shall cause such complaint to be inquired into, and shall, if on inquiry he is satisfied of the justice of the complaint so made, take such stops as may be necessary for giving full redress to the complainant in respect of the matter complained of. He really thought that the Committee would consider that this provision would be amply sufficient to meet the case. The Amendment of the hon. Member provided that— And any remonstrance, charge, or statement sent to him by a prisoner addressed to any superior authority. should be forwarded. Thus, a man charged with drunkenness, or other small offence, might make a complaint of a very trivial character, and his commanding officer would be bound to forward it to the higher authorities. In the case of any real complaints, he thought that Clause 43 sufficiently provided for them.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
said, that under Clause 43 certain duties were imposed upon commanding officers; and if a commanding officer did not discharge those duties, there ought to be some way for punishing him. Nothing could be more discreditable than that a complaint made by a soldier or prisoner should be allowed to remain in the pocket of his commanding officer without being forwarded. It was said that the clause he proposed was not necessary; but he 2040 thought the Committee should endeavour to fix on every officer, upon whom any duty of forwarding communications devolved, the responsibility of doing so, no matter of what character it might be. If the matter were left to the discretion of an officer to decide whether it was frivolous or not, he thought it would be found, in practice, to be a very awkward matter. If, however, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would undertake to bring in some clause which would be consequent upon the 43rd clause, he should be willing to withdraw his Amendment.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
might state that he proposed to accept, in principle, that knowingly suppressing any document, which it was the duty of an officer to forward, should be punished. While accepting that principle, he did not think that that was the place for its insertion.

§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT
observed, that the insertion of the Amendment of the hon. Member would have defeated the very object that the hon. Member had in view, and would have introduced considerable confusion.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
was sorry to differ from so eminent an authority as his hon. and learned Friend, but it was not so—at least, unless there was a grammar at Oxford superior to that in use at Dundee.

§ SIR ARTHUR HAYTER
wished to ask whether this clause was intended to provide for the case of non-commissioned officers whenever the word "soldier" was used, or when the word "officer" was mentioned?

§ COLONEL STANLEY
said, that a discussion had taken place upon this point at an earlier period in the afternoon, when it was decided that the matter should be left as it was at present. As at present drawn, the Bill in every case included non-commissioned officer under the term "soldier;" but if it were found necessary to introduce the case of non-commissioned officers in a different manner, it would have to be done in every case where it occurred in the Bill, and that would probably be done upon Report.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
moved, in page 9, line 38, after "court martial," to insert "if an officer." Consequent on this would be an Amendment to the effect that if an officer committed any of the offences named in the clause he should be liable to be cashiered, and then to suffer imprisonment or other punishment provided by the Act.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
was not quite certain of the reason for which this Amendment was moved. He confessed that he had thought that if an officer in command of any garrison, fort, or barrack, took advantage of his position to have any corrupt dealings in respect of supplies to the Forces it might, under certain circumstances, become a very serious offence. The proper punishment for that would be imprisonment, and such other punishments as were provided in the Act.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
said, that he thought an officer who was guilty of breach of his duty by committing any of the offences mentioned in the clause should be tried and cashiered. He proposed to move another Amendment, making the offender, whether officer or soldier, also liable to suffer imprisonment.

§ MR. HERSCHELL
said, that if the hon. Member looked at the penal clauses he would see that an officer must be cashiered before any other punishment was inflicted.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
observed, that his object was only to make the cashiering take place first.

§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT
said, the effect of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dundee would be rather to lessen the punishment than increase it. As the clause stood at present, imprisonment came first, then cashiering—the hon. Member wished to reverse the order.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
would not press his Amendment, the object of which was simply to make this clause agree verbally with the 44th clause.

§ MR. A. H. BROWN
moved, in page 10, line I, after "soldier," to insert 2042 "not being a Volunteer, except when on actual military service." The object of his Amendment was to exclude Volunteers from the operation of this clause. The clause provided that a soldier who made away with or injured his arms, clothing, or accoutrements, should suffer imprisonment or any less punishment. He wished to ensure that if a Volunteer committed these offences he should be dealt with under the Volunteer Act, and not by a court martial. The operation of the Volunteer Act with respect to these offences had been perfectly satisfactory both to Volunteers themselves and to their officers; and he thought it better to retain a law which was well known to Volunteers, than to make them liable to punishment by court martial. At the present time, commanding officers were responsible for any stores and uniforms supplied to them; and he saw no reason for bringing them under courts martial. In those cases where Volunteers were in camp and were supplied with certain articles, they were supplied to the commanding officer, not to the Volunteers themselves, and he would be responsible. That being so, the commanding officer would be brought to a court martial for the default of men under his command. On all grounds, he considered it would be desirable to maintain the procedure of the Volunteer Act, as its operation had been satisfactory and was well known.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
could not accept the Amendment in that place, though it was perfectly open to the hon. Gentleman to move afterwards, when they came to the Volunteer clauses, that they should be exempted. The effect of the insertion of the Amendment in that clause would really be to say that a Volunteer, except when on actual military service, could pawn, sell, destroy, or make away with the uniform, arms, and accoutrements given him, and yet not be liable to punishment. With respect to what the hon. Member had said as to the responsibility of the commanding officers of Volunteers in camp disposing of their stores, he apprehended that those officers would very promptly disown such responsibility, and would take steps to find out the men who had committed the offences. He might point out that the clause included any soldier, or any person occupying the 2043 status of a soldier; and if it were thought desirable to exclude anyone from that category, it could be done in the proper place.

§ MR. WHITWELL
thought the Amendment should be reserved until the place was reached where the position of a Volunteer required an exception. There was no harm in saying that a man making away with his arms, uniform, or stores, should be punished, although those articles might, for the time being, be lent to the officers.

§ MR. HOPWOOD
was quite sure that if the Government carried this Bill in its entirety it would have a most detrimental effect on the prospects of the Volunteer Force. If these very stringent provisions were applied to the Volunteers, Her Majesty's Government would find, as a result of their labours, that the men would decline to serve. He hoped, however, that the Amendment would not be pressed, and that the opposition to bringing the Volunteers under the stringent provisions of the Bill would be reserved till the proper time.

§ MR. A. H. BROWN
said, that it was quite proper that when Volunteers were brigaded with the Regulars they should be placed under discipline. That was an intelligible and proper view to take. But he thought it only reasonable that Volunteers should be amenable, in respect of their arms and accoutrements, to the provisions of the Volunteer Act. Under that Act all stores, arms, and accoutrements issued to the Volunteers had been satisfactorily accounted for. Nothing more was wanted, for it was only necessary to maintain the present law, which provided for the cases where arms, clothing, and accoutrements were placed in the power of Volunteers. He had chosen only a few clauses on which to draw attention to the position of Volunteers; but it was open to argue on many clauses that they affected Volunteers in an undesirable manner. As, however, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had informed him that it would be subsequently provided that the clause should only affect Volunteers when brigaded with Regulars, he would withdraw the Amendment. The effect of this Act on the Volunteer Service must be considered; and he thought Volunteers deserved consideration, for they had worked well. In withdrawing the Amendment, he ventured to express 2044 a hope that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would carefully consider the matter.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
said, he had an Amendment to this clause; but he understood that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War was going to bring in a clause to carry it into effect.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
said, he was willing to accept the Amendment with a little alteration. It was proposed by the hon. Member to make it an offence in a person subject to military law Knowingly suppresses or makes away with any document, letter, or writing which, it is his duty to preserve or to produce to any military authority. He thought the words "which it is his duty to preserve" went too far. It was difficult to say what documents, letters, or writings, it was necessary to preserve. He would make it clearer by adding, after the words "document, letter, or writing," the words "with a view to falsification or withholding the same."

§ MR. E. JENKINS
moved, in page 10, line 24, after "shall," to insert "on conviction by court martial or otherwise under this Act."

§ MAJOR NOLAN
wished to draw attention to this clause. By it every person Who refuses or by culpable neglect omits to make or send a report or return which it is his duty to make or send shall be liable, if an officer, to be cashiered, or to receive such less punishment as in this Act mentioned, and if a soldier, to suffer imprisonment, or such less punishment as in this Act mentioned. Anyone acquainted with the Army would know that it was the duty of every commanding officer to send in thousands of reports, at different times, and at all 2045 possible times, and in every possible form. It was quite impossible but that some of those returns or reports might be omitted. It generally happened that the clerks of the subordinate officers made it their duty to send in the returns; and between those clerks and the clerks at the principal office the commanding officers got into disgrace. There was every chance of the subordinate clerk failing in his duty, for every sharp clerk was taken into the superior office. Under this clause, any commanding officer would be liable to be tried by court martial six or eight times a-year. He wished to point out that the old Act, or rather Article of War 84, was pretty strong upon this subject, but that it hedged round in some way, so as to mitigate its rigour. This was done by making certain restrictions govern the words "return or report." It was to this effect— Or shall make or return any report to any superior officer of the state of any regiment, troop, or corps, knowing that the same shall he false. He believed that the words here used would not apply to nine-tenths of the reports sent in. He begged to move that the words of the 2nd sub-section of the clause should be amended as follows:— Refuses or by culpable neglect omits to make or send to his commanding officer a report or return of the state of any regiment, troop, or company garrison or corps under his command which it is his duty to make or send. He also thought that "any officer" should be substituted at the commencement of the clause for "every person," otherwise a private might be tried by court martial under the clause.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
had no objection to the principle of the Amendment proposed, but was not quite sure whether the words proposed would meet all cases. The War Office was anxious, so far as possible, to diminish the volumes of returns that were now made; and anything reasonable in that direction he should not only be willing, but anxious to effect. At the same time, considering that they proposed to do away with the muster form, to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman called attention some time ago, it was necessary, by means of reports, to have some check on the Paymaster's returns; and he was not quite 2046 sure whether the words proposed were sufficient to meet the case of reports sent direct to the War Office. He would, however, accept the Amendment, on the understanding that it were revised and inserted on Report.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
was quite content with the concession made by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. He might say that when these Articles of War were drawn up it was never intended that an officer should be liable to punishment, unless he prevented his commanding officer from knowing the state of the regiment. Now things were changed, and there was a whole mass of returns to be filled up, some of which were of no importance. To cashier an officer for neglecting to send in some of these reports was absurd.

§ MAJOR O'BEIRNE
moved to report Progress.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
hoped that the Committee would go a little further before reporting Progress. When they had gone a little further he would be as anxious as anyone that Progress should be reported. The next few clauses would not cause serious discussion.

§ MAJOR O'BEIRNE
asked at what clause the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would be willing to report Progress?

§ COLONEL STANLEY
At the end of Clause 29, if no unexpected point arises.

§ MAJOR O'BEIRNE
said, he would withdraw his Motion.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
moved, in page 10, line 35, after "officer," to insert "on conviction by court martial."

§ MR. E. JENKINS
moved, in page 10, line 36, after "soldier," to insert "on conviction by court martial, or otherwise."

§ MR. E. JENKINS
moved, in page 11, line 11, after "furlough," to insert— (4.) Being an officer or soldier examined before a military court or commission of inquiry, and not on oath, makes any false or calumnious statement respecting the conduct or affairs of any officer or soldier whose conduct is the subject of such inquiry.

MR. ASSHETON CROSS
objected to the word "calumnious," as being indefinite.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
pointed out that if the word "calumnious" was indefinite, the term must also be applied to the word "scandalous," used in Clause 16 of the Bill, and applied to conduct unbecoming the character of an officer and gentleman. He could conceive nothing more ungentlemanly, or more scandalous, than that a person examined before a Court of Inquiry especially privileged, where witnesses were not upon their oath, and in the absence of the accused, should be guilty of making false and calumnious statements affecting the character of an officer whose conduct might be under investigation. If there were anything that could be conceived as deserving of punishment, it was such conduct as he had described. He doubted whether it would not be less wicked to make those false statements on oath; and was strongly of opinion that a clause should be inserted which would govern statements made before Courts of Inquiry.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
was inclined to think that the word "calumnious" would cover statements which, although they were damaging to the character of the person accused, might be made in perfect good faith.

§ MR. E. JENKINS,
having another Amendment on the Paper with reference to this subject, was willing to withdraw the present Amendment.

§ MR. HERSCHELL
moved, in page 11, line 19, after "oath," to insert "or make a solemn declaration."

§ MR. HERSCHELL
moved, in page 11, line 20, after "taken," to insert "or made."

§ MAJOR O'BEIRNE
moved, in page 11, line 29, after "court martial," to leave out "other than the court in relation to or before whom the offence was committed."

MR. ASSHETON CROSS
hoped the hon. and gallant Member would not press the Amendment.

§ COLONEL ALEXANDER
moved, in page 11, to leave out from line 34, to line 4, page 12, inclusive. In his opinion, this clause conferred upon the court too great powers.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
was ready to consider the question raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Ayrshire; but was for the present obliged to retain the words proposed to be left out.

§ MR. E. JENKINS
moved, in page 12, line 8, after "evidence," to insert— When examined on oath or otherwise before a military court or commission of inquiry shall wilfully make false statements of fact, or untrue or scandalous statements, to the detriment of any officer or soldier. His motive for moving the insertion of these words was the same as in the case of the previous Amendment which he had withdrawn.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
wished the hon. Member to understand that the Government accepted the principle contained in his Amendment, and agreed to consider it on Report.