§ Bill considered in Committee.
§ (In the Committee.)
§ Clauses 1 to 4, inclusive, agreed to.
§ Clause 5 (Amendment of s. 88. of 44 and 45 Vict. c. 58, as to the form of proclamation for continuing soldiers in Army service).
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
768§ COLONEL NOLANasked whether by this clause it was intended to take any new power?
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)explained that no new power was taken. The object of the clause was merely to assimilate the mode of proceeding under the 88th section of the Army Act with that under the 12th section of the Reserve Forces Act.
§ COLONEL NOLANobjected to assimilation, because it was generally found that when things were assimilated the facts were entirely changed. What he really wished to know was whether, under the present clause, the Secretary of State for War could keep a certain number of soldiers, entitled to be transferred to the Reserve, with the Colours, without keeping them all? At present the clause read in this way—
It shall be lawful for Her Majesty by any such proclamation to order a Secretary of State from time to time to give, and when given to revoke or vary, such directions as may seem necessary or proper for causing all or any of the soldiers mentioned in the proclamation to continue in Army service.He did not think that was the idea of a Reserve; it was certainly not the idea of any of the great Continental Reserves. The impression was that the whole number of men, practically the whole class, could be called out; but that it was impossible for the State to keep any individual soldier. Here, however, the authorities were taking power to keep Reserve soldiers in particular regiments, and he thought that was a very dangerous power. He did not think that men who entered the Reserve ever meant that that power should be given to the Government. He had not got any clear answer, as yet, from the Judge Advocate General whether the power he (Colonel Nolan) complained of was not given under this clause.
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)said, the object of the clause was to empower the authorities to call out all the men, or such number of them as might be considered desirable.
§ COLONEL NOLANsaid, it was not the belief of the soldier that the authorities could call out a portion of the men. Unless he was re-assured on this point he should move to leave out the words 769 "or any." It would then be impossible to call out a few of the men.
§ MR. HOPWOODsaid, he thought his right hon. and learned Friend the Judge Advocate General should give them some full information as to the meaning of this clause. The hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Nolan) was entitled to ask for an explanation, because he was under the impression that some new power was being taken. The right hon. and learned Gentleman ought to tell the Committee candidly what was the meaning of the clause—what was the present state of things, what was the mischief to be cured, what was the effect of these words.
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)said, that if his hon. Friends would only compare the wording of Section 88 of the Army Act with the wording of Section 12 of the Reserve Forces Act, they would see at once what the object of the Amendment was. The powers given by the Reserve Forces Act were different to the powers given by the Army Act. By the present Bill it was proposed to put the two Acts upon the same footing.
§ COLONEL NOLANsaid, it would be very dangerous to give the Government power to call out a portion and not the whole of the men. The question had not been argued at all by the Government; indeed, this was only another instance of the inconvenience of the way in which the Army Bill was passed This Bill was treated in a very different way to any measure brought before the House. As the Bill was printed very differently to any other, a little latitude must be allowed to Members if they did not understand this clause. As he understood, there had been several Amendments introduced quietly into this Bill because Members did not take any notice of it. He would not divide the Committee; but he invited hon. Members to take up the Bill and see if they could, owing to the peculiar way in which it was printed, understand a single word of it.
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONsaid, he had endeavoured to trace some of the changes made since the Army Act of 1879. He found that words were introduced in the way now proposed, and that owing to the way the Bill was printed it was most difficult to check the alteration. Small words which hon. 770 Members did not follow had been introduced, and the result was that most important changes had been made.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clause 6 (Amendment of s. 171. of 44 & 45 Vict. c. 58, as to the exercise of powers vested in holder of military office).
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
§ COLONEL NOLANwished to point out to the Committee the slipshod way in which previous legislation upon Army matters had been carried out. Formerly, the House was very jealous of amending the Mutiny Act, because the whole position of the Standing Army depended upon that Act. This clause, however, showed the sort of power they were asked to continue and even to enlarge. Section 171, which it was now proposed to amend, provided that—
Any power or jurisdiction given to, or any act or thing to be done by, to, or before any person holding any military office may be exercised by, or done by, to, or before any other person for the time being authorised in that behalf according to the custom of the Service.He was quite satisfied that not half-a-dozen Members of the Committee had the slightest idea of what that meant, or what they were now asked to do. This section of the Act of 1881 gave enormous powers to the Army Authorities. They could cashier an officer if he did not send in a Report, and there was not a single officer who did not fail to do that occasionally. Indeed, it gave gigantic powers, and it was now proposed by the present Bill to permit those enormous powers to be delegated to other individuals. The Army Act gave tremendous and even frightful powers to a court martial; and not content with the powers already given, they were now going to delegate those powers a second time, for the clause now under consideration really involved a system of double delegation. The clause of the Army Act declared that any power or jurisdiction given to any person holding military office might be exercised by any person for the time being authorized according to the custom of the Service, and the effect of that provision was to give very large powers to the officers in the Army, and to delegate them to 771 other persons authorized by the "custom of the Service." The only safeguard was contained in the words "according to the custom of the Service," and that was the only restriction upon this most tremendous delegation of power. But it was now proposed in the present clause to add the following provision:—And whereas doubts have arisen as to the application of the said section in certain cases, and it is expedient to remove such doubts; Be it therefore enacted as follows:—In section one hundred and seventy-one of the Army Act, 1881, there shall be added at the end thereof the words or according to rules made under section seventy of this Act.'The meaning of this Amendment was that the powers already delegated to certain officers were in future to be delegated by such officers to other persons. They were not going to tie a court martial down to the "custom of the Service," but the Commander-in-Chief or the Military Authorities were in future to be able to make any new rule they liked, and then to hand over the whole power of administering it to somebody else. He was afraid that no one reacting the clause in the Bill as it stood would be able to make out what the Government were driving at or what the whole thing was about. He must confess that personally he objected to the clause altogether, and unless he got a clear explanation from the Judge Advocate General as to what it meant, and why these extraordinary powers were to be delegated, he should certainly divide the Committee against the clause.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, he did not entirely agree with the criticism of his hon. and gallant Friend. The clause, as it stood, in specifying that the power or jurisdiction might be exercised by any other person authorised according to the custom of the Service, was extremely vague and undetermined, and wherever the law was left vague and undetermined in matters of this kind difficulties would be sure to arise. By providing that something should be laid down in the shape of rules—something definite and determined—they would have something more clear to act upon, and he therefore thought it was desirable that this provision, which secured precision, should be introduced.
§ MR. HOPWOODsaid, he was afraid that the matter was not rendered much more definite by the proposed clause 772 than it was by the Act of 1881. The Army Act made use of the words "by the custom of the Service." That expression still remained, and, therefore, the vagueness insisted upon by the hon. Gentleman still existed; and added to that were the words—
Or according to rules made under section seventy of this Act.So that, instead of securing precision, they were only intensifying the mischief which was done by the Army Act. He was afraid that there was a constant endeavour on the part of the Military Authorities at the Horse Guards, or in command, to arrogate to themselves additional powers which could not be gauged by any precise or definite words in the Act. He would, therefore, ask his right hon. and learned Friend the Judge Advocate General in this case to be a little more frank, and if there was any necessity for these powers to let the Committee know the reason. What was the mischief that had arisen? What was the right hon. and learned Gentleman afraid, of; and what was it that he desired to correct?
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)said, that his hon. and learned Friend must know that cases constantly arose in which orders were required to be signed by a superior officer, where it was exceedingly inconvenient that there should not be some power under which such orders might be signed by other persons properly deputed to sign them. The Act of 1881 recognized the necessity for some such power of delegation, and the 171st section provided that the power should exist in cases where it was authorized by the custom of the Service. But under the clause, as it now stood in the Army Act, all kinds of questions arose as to what the custom of the Service was. For instance, the custom of the Service in this country was one thing, while the custom of the Service in India might be another; and it was to put an end to any sort of ambiguity that it was proposed to insert this clause. The result would be that some things which were now left to custom would be regulated by rules; but those rules were always laid before Parliament. He trusted that the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) would not put the Committee to the trouble of a division. He could as- 773 sure the Committee that the object of the Government in framing the Bill was simply to remove the doubt and ambiguity which now existed, and it was hoped that by this clause they would be removed.
§ MR. MOLLOYasked if the rules dealt with by the clause were in existence and were printed?
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)No; but they will be laid on the Table when framed.
§ MR. MOLLOYWhen?
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)As speedily as possible.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he was inclined to think they ought not to pass this clause. It was certainly desirable that they should see what the rules were before they delegated the power of putting them in force to anybody. He was afraid that the object of drawing up the clause in its present shape was to prevent adverse criticism upon it; and he must say that the right hon. and learned Gentleman in charge of the Bill was pressing it through the House in a cumbrous and roundabout way. If he understood the right hon. and learned Gentleman rightly, some inconvenience had arisen under the 17 1st section of the Army Act, and a doubt now prevailed as to what the custom of the Service was, and, therefore, according to the view of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, it was expedient that they should tack on to the custom of the Service all kinds of rules which might be made under Section 70 of the Act. Now, it seemed to him (Mr. Warton), putting altogether aside any question as to the desirability of the change, that if the object of the right hon. and learned Gentleman was to give to precedents already established in the Army the force of regulations "according to the custom of the Service," that was all very well; but if it was necessary to give effect to any new rules or changes, it was desirable that the Committee should first understand what those new rules or changes would be. It was quite evident that, as the Act now stood, all rules in accordance with the custom of the Service were provided for, and that a general power of action was reserved under the custom of the Service. But what they were now asked to do 774 was to give the force and sanction of law to rules that were not now in accordance with the custom of the Service. He would ask the Committee to refer to the Act itself. It was exceedingly difficult to understand the effect of the proposed Amendment without looking back to several sections. Section 70 related to the convening and constitution of courts martial; to the mode of proceeding adopted in trials by court martial; in confirmation of the sentence of a court martial; the manner in which the sentence of a court martial was to be carried into effect; together with the forms and orders of a court martial involving penal servitude or imprisonment. It would, therefore, be seen that various matters had to be prescribed. In getting rid of the Mutiny Act, and substituting the Army Act, they had gone through a considerable number of provisions in order to frame a comprehensive and carefully-considered measure, and yet every year they found it necessary to vary the Act by making alterations and amendments. The effect of the present clause would be to make all those matters which were the most important that could possibly arise in connection with the discipline of the Army, subject to rules which might hereafter be made from time to time. What security had they as to the satisfactory character of those rules? The only security they had for their being brought to the knowledge of Parliament at all was that they were to be contained in a Proclamation issued while Parliament was sitting, or, if Parliament was not sitting, as soon after as practicable. He thought it was a scandalous defect that important rules, having the full force of law, which were required to be laid before Parliament, should not be laid upon the Table of the House and printed in advance, so that hon. Members might have a full opportunity of considering them before they assumed the force of law. So long as the present unsystematic and slovenly method was pursued, there would not be the slightest security that Parliament would ever be really made acquainted with Papers laid upon the Table of the House while Parliament was sitting; and, of course, with regard to Papers presented when Parliament was not sitting, there could not be any security that they would ever receive discusssion at all. He would 775 always raise his voice against so vicious a principle. He was afraid that Government Departments were too lazy to see that what ought to be done really was done, and he feared that there would be hereafter the same indifference displayed as heretofore, and that rules would be passed vitally affecting the interests of the Army without being laid upon the Table of the House when Parliament was sitting. This was a most important matter, because it involved questions in which the lives and liberties of their soldiers were at stake. He thought the Government could not be too careful how they amended the existing law, and certainly the Committee would do well to pause before consenting to the introduction into the Army Act of such loose and slipshod words as "according to rules made under such and such an Act." He should be glad to learn whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman in charge of the Bill had any idea of the extent and effect of the custom of the Service? The right hon. and learned Gentleman either had or he had not. If he had, let him consolidate those customs, and give to them, if they were reasonable, the force of law; but if he did not know what they were, it would be better, in the interests of the soldier, to leave the matter as it stood, rather than aggravate it by adding words that were still more vague and indefinite.
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONconfessed that he could not understand the object of the Amendment. In 1879, after a long discussion, the House gave Her Majesty discretion to frame rules, if those rules were signed by the Secretary of State for War, or one of the Secretaries of State, and on being so signed they were to have all the force of an Act of Parliament. It was then provided in the 1st clause of the Act that anything done, or power given, or jurisdiction conferred by any Act to any person holding a military position, or to any other person exercising power in connection with the Service, should have the force of law. Was it necessary then to say that rules might be made for conducting the Military Service when Parliament had already provided that there should be power to make rules, if those rules were signed by the Secretary of State? He could not understand what further authority was necessary for making such rules. The power was 776 given in 1879, and was re-enacted in 1881, so that it had already the full force of law, and he did not see why it was necessary to add any further provision upon the matter.
§ COLONEL NOLANwished to say a word by way of explanation. The hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) seemed to think that it was only a soldier who would suffer under this clause; but he would remind the Committee that in troublous times, such as those which occurred in the Reign of James II., a civilian might be brought under military law, and be legally murdered. In such times martial law might be proclaimed, and that would bring all classes of persons within the power and authority of the military courts whether they happened to be soldiers or civilians. As the law now stood certain powers were conferred upon courts martial; but it was now proposed to delegate those powers even in cases of life and death. With a great deal of trouble they had constituted courts martial after a certain fashion, and they had insisted that officers of a certain rank should sit upon them. They had provided that no person should sit upon a court martial who did not hold a responsible position in Her Majesty's Service. By the amendment already in the Army Act, they had given power to delegate this authority "according to the custom of the Service," and in that way they might in trust a subaltern and two non-commissioned officers with the power of sentencing a man to death. That was bad enough under military law; but as the law now stood they were bound to follow the custom of the Service, and they could only follow precedents already established by the military courts. If, however, they passed the present clause to amend the 171st section of the Army Act, they might have martial law in the country with a subaltern presiding over a court martial with far less responsibility than any senior officer now possessed. The Legislature had already changed the whole power and jurisdiction of the officers of the Army, and had substituted the authority of a subaltern by an amendment already in the Act; but he believed that that amendment had slipped in unnoticed and without its real effect being understood. It was now sought to get rid of the only safeguard left—namely, the custom of the 777 Service. His own opinion was that the custom of the Service did provide a very important safeguard, because no officer acting upon a court martial would be safe in going against the custom of the Service. They were now, however, going to draw up entirely new Military Articles. No doubt the Judge Advocate General would not be prepared to endorse any provision that was positively bad; but he was undoubtedly extending the power of delegation much further, and was allowing any Military Authority either in England or Ireland still further to amend the existing rules and regulations, and whatever rules were framed hereafter nobody would be responsible for them. The House of Commons would have given power to somebody else to draw up rules, and the Military Authorities who had heretofore exercised the right of establishing precedents might now delegate their powers to other officers all over the Empire, and the consequence might be that the most atrocious acts might be perpetrated with impunity. He looked upon the clause as involving a very important and dangerous concession; and he was afraid, that at the present moment, the Government were delegating responsibility in a most insidious manner.
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)said, his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Warton) asked where this power was given. It was given by Section 171, which the Bill sought to amend by authorizing rules which would allow the power to be delegated in cases where it was found desirable to do so. It was now the practice for the Chief of the Staff to act in certain eases for his commanding officer; but doubt had arisen as to whether "the custom of the Service" extended to some of those cases, and the question had presented itself as to whether that doubt should be removed. As to the fear expressed by the hon. Member that the rules might defeat the Act, if he looked at Section 70, he would find a provision that—
No rule shall contain anything contrary to or inconsistent with the provisions of this Act.He would remind the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Nolan) that the object of the Amendment was to prevent the exercise of the very despotic power of which he complained. It should be borne in mind that the case which had 778 been cited from Jamaica occurred, not under military, but under martial law, which was the negation of all law.
§ MR. HOPWOODpointed out that the commanding officer might proceed either under the custom of the Service or under the rules; in other words, he might proceed against the custom of the Service. That was the plain construction of the wording. His right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Osborne Morgan) had proved that in order to put in these words it was necessary to enact them by this Bill. But no one had any doubt about that. What the Committee wanted to have from him was the proof of the necessity for enacting them. As the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Nolan) had pointed out, they wanted to know what safeguard there was to be in giving this enormous power to somebody to frame rules in future after the matter had gone beyond the supervision of the House of Commons. His right hon. and learned Friend said they could not frame rules contrary to the provisions of the Act. There was no question about that; but the proposal was enormously to enlarge the powers of the Act, and it was therefore no safeguard to be told that in the rules nothing could be enacted contrary to the provisions of the Act. If the Committee agreed to the provision in Section 70, he said it would be giving their sanction to a class of legislation of which there had been already a good deal too much—namely, legislation which allowed changes to be made in the rules prescribed by Acts of Parliament so that men who wanted to be governed by the law, as expressed in the Statutes, found that they were not governed in that way. He said that the men should have a copy of these rules, which at present they could not obtain, although they were hinted at in this Bill. He was in favour of his hon. and gallant Friend's proposal to leave out this clause altogether.
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)said, that the rules framed must be laid before Parliament.
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONsaid, "custom of the Service" was a very vague and indefinite term. For instance, the custom of the Service was very different from what it was when he entered the Army. There seemed to him to be some truth in the prediction 779 of Mr. Fox, in 1788, that the Mutiny Act, like Aaron's rod, would swallow all the laws of the country.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the Act as evidence of the fact that besides the Mutiny Act there wore the Articles of War. He appeared to think that the Military Authorities had carte blanche to deal with matters relating to courts martial, penal servitude punishments, and so forth; but, as a matter of fact, all those things had been precisely regulated for many years past by the existing regulations. The comments of the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) were directed against the words of the Bill as they stood, and the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) was intended to remove the very ground of objection which he urged. As the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Sir Alexander Gordon) had just said, there was something very vague in the term "custom of the Service," and while nothing more definite was allowed to be introduced a soldier would frequently be in a state of uncertainty as to what the law could do, and what, as a prisoner, he was liable to; but by making fixed rules and orders his liberty would be protected, by safeguarding the power of officers in a way in which it could not be safeguarded by the words "custom of the Service."
§ MR. HARRINGTONsaid, his hon. Friend was under the impression that this alteration in the clause was necessary for the purpose of safeguarding the soldier and regulating the procedure of commanding officers. The right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Osborne Morgan) said the clause was only meant to deal with specific cases of doubt which might arise; that it was not meant for the purpose of defining the term "custom of the Service," but for pointing out how the custom of the Service might be applied. It seemed to him (Mr. Harrington) that it would only be dealing fairly with the Committee if those specific cases were set forth, and then there would be no discussion except on the specific provisions. But here the Committee were told that because there was some doubt as to whether the wording of the Act applied to a particular case, this clause was introduced. He thought it would be better to embody 780 in the Bill the rules, or at least to point out what were the cases not covered by the original wording.
§ MR. TOMLINSONasked if the rules had been already framed?
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)said, that certain rules had already been framed under the Act, and were to be seen in the Library. They were made under Section 70 of that Act.
§ MR. TOMLINSONasked if the rules referred to by the right hon. and learned Gentleman were still in force; whether all the rules became applicable under Section 171; and whether it was the intention of the Government during the present Session to frame rules and lay them upon the Table of the House at such time as would give an opportunity of discussing their bearing on the position of the soldier?
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONasked if the rules referred to by the right hon. and learned Gentleman had really been laid on the Table of the House?
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)said, if the hon. and gallant Gentleman would go into the Library he would find the rules there.
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONsaid, that being in the Library was not the same as their being on the Table of the House.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he should like to hear from the right hon. and learned Gentleman some distinct statement as to the cases which had occurred to warrant this alteration. Wore there two, three, four, or five, or was doubt expressed merely to cover the introduction of the clause?
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN), speaking from memory, mentioned one case in which, in the absence of the Commander-in-Chief in India on an official tour, it was doubted whether, under the custom of the Service, his power to sign an order for removal could be delegated, and much inconvenience had arisen in consequence.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he objected to the provision on the ground that it would allow delegation in every shape and form on every possible occasion.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, the question, which the right hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to have misunderstood, 781 was this—were the rules referred to now in existence, or were they rules to be made hereafter?
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)said, the rules to which the Bill referred had not been made. Like those to which he had before referred as having been already made, they would be framed under the 70th section.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, he had asked his hon. Friend near him, and he said he could not understand from the right hon. and learned Gentlemen's answers whether the rules were to be made or not. He now understood that further rules were to be made under this section of the Bill.
§ COLONEL NOLANsaid, that when the right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke about the power to be given, he said nothing about the jurisdiction which followed immediately upon it. It was on the ground that the constitution of courts martial would be changed that he objected to the powers being changed. He thought the Judge Advocate General might accept his Amendment with some alteration. If the word "jurisdiction" did not apply to courts martial, and was only used for the purpose of convenience, his suggestion would give the Judge Advocate General what he wanted, and, at the same time, provide protection against those rules being made. The future had to be considered in this matter. They had at the present time an excellent Judge Advocate General, who would not allow anything wrong to be done; but in the event of another Ministry coming into Office, under the power to make new rules, they might, perhaps, have the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) introducing a variety of changes.
THE CHAIRMANThe Question is that the clause stand part of the Bill. If there is any Amendment to be proposed, the hon. and gallant Member must bring it forward in the form of a new clause.
§ COLONEL NOLANThe proper course, I suppose, will be to divide against the clause, and then bring up a new clause?
§ MR. HOPWOODWould it not be as well to add the words "Provided that" at the end of the clause? That would give the hon. and gallant Member an opportunity to move his Amendment.
THE CHAIRMANAs I have pointed out to the Committee, the Question now before it is, "That this Clause stand part of the Bill." No Amendment can now be moved to it, and whatever any hon. Member wishes to add must come up in the form of a new clause.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided: —Ayes 43; Noes 23: Majority 20.—(Div. List, No. 82.)
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clause 7 (Amendment of s. 172. of 44 & 45 Vict. c. 58, as to the signing of orders in relation to prisoners).
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he should like to ask a question of the right hon. and learned Gentleman in charge of the Bill as to this clause. If he remembered right, last year, when Amendments to the Army Act were proposed, the sections it was proposed to alter were given in the Paper in extenso. That was done in the case of the last clause, and he should like to know why they did not proceed in the same way right through the whole Bill? It would facilitate the discussion of a measure such as this if one uniform system were pursued. He should like to know why, in the case of the last Amendment, they had set out the whole clause it was proposed to alter, and in the present case had only set out a part of the section?
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)We have adopted this course simply for the sake of brevity. Section 171 is contained in four lines, therefore the whole of it was given; but Section 172 contains between 40 and 50 lines. It was thought advisable to save space by giving the effect, instead of the words, of the latter section.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he could quite understand the object in view in giving merely the substance of some of these sections; but why were not the Government consistent in their endeavours to save printing and space? He saw that they had put down the Parliamentary Elections (Redistribution) Bill on the Paper for Monday—a proceeding which would involve an enormous amount of printing, looking at the many pages of Amendments—when they had promised not to go on with it until after Easter.
§ Clause agreed to.
783§ Clause 8 agreed to.
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONsaid, he wished to move the Amendment standing in his name to amend Section 81 of the Act of 1881. His object was to make recruiting less irksome to the class of people from whom recruits came. Before 1879 the law stood thus. When a recruit enlisted he was not attested or sworn in until the lapse of 21 hours; at the expiration of 24 hours he was taken before a Justice of the Peace, who was not allowed to be an officer of the Army, in order to be sworn in; and, even then, if the recruit changed his mind, he had the privilege of being able to get out of his engagement by paying £1 smart-money. It often happened that a young lad was induced to enlist over a glass or two of beer or some other excitement. It might be he was the main or sole support of aged parents, or of a widowed mother, and that his friends did not wish him to leave. He had the privilege of being able to buy himself off for £ 1. When, however, the law was changed, the Government did away with that privilege and made the law such that when a man enlisted, say in the street, he could be taken into the barracks close by and within half-an-hour sworn in as a soldier, not by a civilian magistrate, but by the Colonel of the regiment—who, of course, would be anxious to get recruits—and then there would be no possibility of his getting off except by paying £10 within the first three months of enlistment. Let the Committee weigh that in their minds, considering also the class of people from whom the recruits came. Recruiting officers had told him that it frequently happened that a young lad came to them and said— "I have £8 or £9; to-morrow is the last day of the three months; I cannot get the remainder; let me off—I do not want to be a soldier." But under the Act the officer had not power to remit a single 1s. If hon. Members would look at the Report with regard to recruiting laid before them within the past few months, they would see that no less than 1,751 lads had last year paid the £10 in the three months following the date of enlistment in order to leave the Army— they would be able to form some opinion from that as to how many would have left if they had been able to obtain the money. Those who would have got 784 away if they could must have been double or treble as many. Since the Act was passed in 1879 no fewer than 7,649 recruits had paid the £10 within the first three months of enlistment to get away from the Army. In this country they prided themselves upon having a Volunteer Army, and thought that a Volunteer Army meant a willing Army. But had all those 1,751 been willing recruits, and if they had been unable to raise the £10, would they have made willing soldiers? He maintained that it was unwise on the part of the Government to compel men to remain in the Army if, directly after entering it, they desired to leave it. He proposed to give those who were dissatisfied greater facilities for leaving by reducing the amount necessary to buy a recruit off from £10 to £5. Even £5 would be a great tax upon the class of people from whom the recruits came. As he had said, another change had been effected in the law. The Act of 1879 had also provided that a military officer should be the authority for swearing in a recruit, and he could not help thinking that that was a very unwise arrangement. However, the matter was a small one, and he did not propose to change the law. He mentioned the point to show the hardship on the class of persons from whom recruits came, in having the recruits sworn in so rapidly and by persons interested in the Army.
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONsaid, it would be for the Committee to fill in the blank.
§
New Clause—
(Purchase of discharge by recruit.)
Whereas, by section eighty-one of the Army Act, 1881, a recruit who, under certain circum stances therein mentioned, pays a sum not exceeding ten pounds for the use of Her Majesty within months after the date of his attestation, is entitled to be discharged from the Army with all convenient speed.
And whereas it is expedient that recruits who are unwilling to remain in the Army should be able to purchase their discharge without the payment of so large a sum as ten pounds: Be it therefore enacted as follows:—
In section eighty-one of the Army Act, 1881, the word 'five' shall be substituted for the word 'ten' in line 3,"—(Sir Alexander Gordon,)
—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)said, the matter was very fully considered in 1879, and £10 was then decided upon by the Secretary of State for War as a sort of rough estimate of the amount a recruit who left the Service at the end of a mouth or two would have cost the country. As a matter of fact, a recruit who left at the end of three months cost more than that—somewhere about £15. If they allowed recruits to leave the Army on payment of £5 after having been in it three months, they would inflict a loss upon the country of £10 in each case, and would be turning the Army into a huge system of outdoor relief for loafers. It was not desirable that they should enable men to enter the Army for a lark, and allow them to leave it the moment they got tired of it, regardless of the cost they put the country to.
§ COLONEL NOLANsaid, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman's arguments upon legal questions were always sound; but this was not a legal question. It was a question of general policy, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman had not that knowledge of it that he had upon matters of law—to which knowledge hon. Members always bowed. The right hon. and learned Gentleman was such a master of reference that upon legal grounds they could not follow him. The first argument used against the new clause was that a man who was in the Army three months cost the country £ 15. Well, he (Colonel Nolan) denied that this money was lost to the country—that was to say, that the country got no return for it. The country got a good deal out of such a man. It was an advantage to it that there should be an additional man amongst the population with three months' drill. Such a man would always be useful in time of emergency—in the event of an invasion, for instance, or when they were engaged in a great war. What would not Franco have given for a number of such men in her hour of need? The right hon. and learned Gentleman told them that the reduction of this payment would render the Arm}' a huge system of outdoor relief. Did he mean to say that any man who wanted to get outdoor relief would pay £5 and go through the most 786 disagreeable work imaginable? The life of a recruit was by means an enviable one. Standing upon one leg for half-an-hour at a time was not a pleasant operation; and though the duty of an old soldier was not very unpleasant, he doubted whether any Member of the Committee would care about going through the drill to which young recruits were subjected. He thought, therefore, that the arguments of the right hon. and learned Gentleman fell to the ground. He (Colonel Nolan) supported the clause moved by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon), because he believed that if they were to have a Volunteer system of soldiering they should pay the soldier his market price. He had always contended in that House that the soldier was not paid his market price. If they could catch soldiers like Sergeant Pike, no doubt they could get thorn below the market price. Men who joined the Army for a freak or for fancy were not always fit for it, and the Government ought rather to smooth the way for them to come out than to render it difficult. He would not allow them to come out for nothing, but he certainly thought that £5 would be enough to charge them. There was another argument of the Judge Advocate General which deserved notice. ["Oh, oh!"] If hon. Members did not care to sit longer, he was quite prepared to move to report Progress. He wanted to point out that the country was a great deal worse off than it was in 1879, and that it was much harder now for a man to get £5 than to get £10 then. That appeared to him to be a good reason why the sum should be lowered; indeed, there were very many reasons why they should adopt the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon).
§ COLONEL O'BEIRNEpointed out that when a soldier enlisted he understood he was to got free rations and a free kit. He got nothing of the sort. He was required to pay 4d. a-day for rations, a sum which he never expected to have to pay. He (Colonel O'Beirne) thought the State owed the soldier £10, instead of the soldier owing the State that amount. Men did not enlist on the supposition that they would have to pay for their food and their underclothing.
§ MR. HOPWOODsaid, that without wishing to be disrespectful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman in charge of the Bill (Mr. Osborne Morgan), he would venture to appeal to the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War (the Marquess of Hartington) to settle this matter for them. This was not a matter merely of drafting, but of policy. A good many hon. Members thought that £5 was the utmost the country ought to drag out of the family of a scapegrace or a lad who, perhaps, in a moment of pique, was got hold of by the recruiting sergeant, and, for the time, nailed to Her Majesty's Service. Was it to the interest of the country that it should take an unwilling recruit? Imagine a few of such men standing side by side with their real soldiers in the Soudan. What could be expected of them? They hated the Service; they would like to get out of it. Perhaps if they found themselves face to face with the Arabs they would turn out patriotic; but was it not right that the country should ask that her soldiers should be willing ones? Imagine a young man entering the Service for a lark. A young fellow was certainly mistaken if he thought the Service was a lark. The early stages of the drill was anything but a comfortable process; there was a great deal of knocking about and hard work. Even if young fellows did enter the Army for a lark, was not a £5 penalty enough to pay for it? The £5 did not come out of the man's pocket; it was wrung from his relatives who were anxious about him. He (Mr. Hopwood) ventured to submit to the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War that a £5 penalty was sufficiently large to secure the Service against reckless enlistment, while, at the same time, it would secure the Service against unwilling recruits.
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he only wished to point out to the Committee that the arguments by which this clause had been supported were perfectly inconsistent, or, rather, no one who had supported the clause had done so on the same ground on which it was proposed by the hon. and gallant Member (Sir Alexander Gordon). The hon. and gallant Gentleman proposed the clause on the ground that, in his opinion, many men enlisted when they were under the influence of drink and did not 788 know what they were really doing, or, at any rate, at a moment of excitement, and that, therefore, £10 was a great deal too much to be paid for their discharge. If what the hon. and gallant Gentleman stated were a fact, he (the Marquess of Hartington) thought that not only £10, but £5, would be too much to pay for a discharge. Anyone who would take the trouble to investigate the process which was to be gone through in order to make an enlistment binding would find that a man had plenty of time to realize what he was doing. When a man had been in the Service a few months he had certainly cost the country £10; and why, simply because he found he had made a mistake and he preferred some other profession, should the country lose that amount? It appeared to him (the Marquess of Hartington) that if a man desired to change hi3 profession after he had been some time in the Service, he ought to be called upon to pay something approaching the sum he had cost the country before he got his discharge.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, it appeared to him the proposition was none the worse because it could be supported with good arguments from a number of different points of view. It was true that hon. Members were in favour of the proposal of the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir Alexander Gordon) for different reasons; but one reason had not been mentioned by anyone who had addressed the Committee, and it appeared to him a very good one. It was that one of the most palpable effects of the present system of recruiting was to retain unwilling soldiers in the ranks and to increase immensely the number of desertions, especially in the first three months of service. It was perfectly well known that of the men who rejoined after desertion in the first three months hardly one of them made a good soldier. He questioned very much whether it was an economical proceeding to retain in the ranks unwilling soldiers. When a soldier was discontented, and found himself, as he considered, entrapped in the Service under false pretences, he got into bad books. Every entry in the Regimental Defaulters' Book delayed his good conduct pay, and from the outset he became a man whose whole prospect in the regiment was blighted. There used to be a system of making a 789 man pay smart-money, if after enlistment he wanted to withdraw within 72 hours. The amount was £1, and he could not see why that penalty should not be continued. He quite agreed with the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington) that if £10 was too much, £5 was also too much; that the same argument which could be urged against £10 could be urged against £5. He (Mr. A. O'Connor) would even do away with a £5 penalty. The records of courts martial, which the Judge Advocate General (Mr. Osborne Morgan) would have had in his hand, showed that a very large number of the men tried by court martial were men who had got into trouble in the first throe months of the service. If hon. Members turned to the Annual Statement of the British Army, they found a very large proportion indeed—the great majority—of desertions occurred in the first three months of service. It was perfectly hopeless to make a decent soldier of a man who got into bad books almost immediately he joined the Army. He (Mr. A. O'Connor) was, therefore, favourable to the sum payable on discharge being fixed at £2. Home years ago, when the sum to be paid was £20, a most ridiculous system existed. Formerly, the parents or relatives would pay the £20, and then if the man took it into his head to re-enlist half the amount was given to him. That had been altered, and now the person who paid the liberation money got half of it back if the man re-enlisted. It must be borne in mind that the fine very seldom came out of the pocket of the soldier himself; generally it came out of the pocket of some woman—the man's mother, or the woman to whom he was engaged to be married. He (Mr. A. O'Connor) was quite certain the Service was all the better for being free of unwilling recruits.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War (the Marquess of Hartington) rather made it a subject of reproach against those who supported this proposal that their arguments were not identical. He did not think the arguments of the Judge Advocate General (Mr. Osborne Morgan) and the noble Marquess were so identical as to entitle the latter to reproach the supporters of the proposed clause with the variety of their arguments. Indeed, the arguments of the 790 Judge Advocate General were neither identical or consistent with each other, because he said that people should not be allowed to join the Army for a lark, and then he said the Army should not be made a place or resort for loafers. Those people who perpetrated larks were of a very different class to loafers, and, generally speaking, men were not disposed to pay so high a price for a lark as the price of a discharge from the Army. What attraction had the Army for a loafer? There was plenty of drill and hard work. It was said a recruit cost the country in the first three months a certain sum of money. It was well, however, he (Mr. Sexton) should remind the Committee that the process of enlistment was a very brief one. A young fellow who had got into trouble, or who had a fit of drinking, or who was under the influence of passion, or who had fallen out with his people at home, could easily go through the process of enlistment in half-an-hour. Surely the noble Marquess would admit that a man might do in half-an-hour many things he might regret afterwards. Upon the economical point of view, the objection he had to take to the speech of the noble Marquess was that he did what was a very common thing in argument —namely, took an exceptionally extreme case. The noble Marquess said that in three months a recruit cost the country about £10. Surely a recruit who changed his mind did so long before three months had elapsed. The probability was that the man who was dissatisfied with the Service would want to get out of it within a week; his family would certainly make an effort to induce him to leave the Service before a fortnight was at an end; so that, instead of the State having spent £5 or £10 on him, the extent of the outlay was not more than 10,s. or 15s. On what principle did the Authorities wish to get recruits for the Army? Did they want men who were unwilling soldiers, or did they want men who joined the Service in the exercise of their better judgment? He should certainly support the proposal of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon); indeed, he would support any Motion for the reduction of the payment on discharge, because he maintained that as long as they continued the law as at present, it was a 791 farce to call their system one of voluntary enlistment.
§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONsaid, that at present a man might be walked into barracks, and within half-an-hour sworn in as a soldier. From that moment he could not obtain his release without paying £10. The noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War (the Marquess of Hartington) spoke of the cost of a recruit to the country in pay and allowances during the first three months. He (Sir Alexander Gordon) did not complain of the estimate made, but he did complain that the smart of £1 within 24 hours had been taken away since 1879. He wanted something like an equivalent to be given back. He did not now say whether the payment on discharge should be a small sum for a short time and a larger sum for a long time; but he hoped that the noble Marquess would consider the question before the next Army Act, with a view, if possible, of restoring that which was for a whole century the privilege of the people of the country — namely, the privilege of paying a smart of £1 within 24 hours in order to obtain their release from Army service.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, that although the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War said that this proposal had been supported on different grounds, he did not take the pains to specify those grounds; probably they had already escaped his memory. Now, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Queen's County (Mr. A. O'Connor) had advanced a very powerful argument which had not yet been met by anyone on the Treasury Bench, and that was that in many cases desertion was the result of too high a figure for discharge. He (Mr. Warton) had not the honour to be a soldier; but another argument suggested itself to his mind, and it was that if there was a low sum for discharge many men would enter the Army to see whether they cared for it as a profession. Many men, no doubt, would find they were fit for the Army, and therefore the Service would actually gain. In his opinion, many good men were lost to the Service on account of the figure of discharge being too high. His suggestion appeared to him a very rational one, and he would like to know whether there was any answer to it?
§ MR. KENNYsaid, he thought the Committee would generally recognize that the attitude of Her Majesty's Government in the matter was extremely unreasonable and exceedingly obstinate. A good case had been made out by the hon. and gallant Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon), whose knowledge upon matters of this kind was second to that of no hon. Member of the House. The proposal of the hon. and gallant Member was also supported by every military man in the House, and by everyone who had had the slightest experience of the Army. Surely, then, the circumstances were such as to deserve the fullest consideration at the hands of the Government. Even if they wore not prepared to accept, in full, the Amendment proposed by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, some modification of it might be entertained. The argument of the Government seemed to be this—that at the end of three months' service a man who enlisted into the Army had cost the country something like £10. If that were so, there was an easy way of meeting the matter. If a man repented within two months after having enlisted and wished to leave the Army, he ought at least to be allowed to obtain his discharge on the payment of the sum of £5. There could be no objection to a provision of that nature. He was afraid that at that hour of the morning (2.45) Her Majesty's Government wore not in a position to consider the subject dispassionately. They seemed to be to a greater or less extent piqued at the attention which the provisions of the Bill had received at the hands of the Committee; and the consideration which had been raised by hon. Members, most of them possessing a wide experience of Army questions, did not appear to commend itself to the Treasury Bench, or to be met in anything like a conciliatory spirit. He did not know whether the suggestion he had made would receive the approval of the Government, or even of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had moved the Amendment; but he certainly thought that it was one which deserved consideration; and in order to give the Government time to consider it in connection with the Amendment moved by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, he would move to report Progress. There could be no advantage to the 793 country in retaining an unwilling and discontented recruit in the ranks of the Army.
§ Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again,"—(Mr. Kenny,) —put, and negatived.
§ Question put, "That the Clause be read a second time."
§ The Committee divided: —Ayes 22; Noes 42: Majority 20.—(Div. List, No. 83.)
§ MR. SEXTONmoved the following new clause: —
Whereas it is important that the liability of a soldier or marine to maintain his wife and children should be real and better defined, and it is expedient to provide for the same; Be it therefore enacted as follows:—That section one hundred and forty-five of the Army Act, 1881, shall be construed as though all the words after the words' commanding officer of such soldier,' in sub-section three, were omitted.The hon. Member said, that a few words would suffice to explain the clause, which was not brought forward now for the first time. The object of it was to make more clear the liability of a soldier to maintain his wife and children. The Army Act of 1881 said that the liability should be the same as if he were not a soldier; but the rest of the Act entirely falsified that assumption by the exceptional provisions which it laid down. An Amendment was consented to by the Government, at his instance, two years ago, the Secretary of State having consented, in the case of a sergeant, to make an allowance up to 6d. a-day, and in the case of a private up to 3d. a-day; but it was also within the power of the Secretary of State to reduce the allowance to the very smallest coin of the Realm, even as low as ½d. per day. He did not propose, however, to press any objection now upon that point; but he would be content to trust to the method in which the Secretary of State was prepared to administer the clause. Perhaps, next year, if he found that the administration was unsatisfactory, he would move an Amendment. The immediate object of the clause was to make the liability of the soldier to provide for his wife and children to be what the clause declared it to be—namely, the same as if the man were not a soldier. At present, when a woman went before the Board of Guardians, in order 794 to obtain support from her husband, if he happened to be a soldier, however poor she was, she was required to deposit a sum of money sufficient to pay for the removal of the soldier from the place at which he was quartered to the place of hearing and back again. Sometimes the sum required to be so deposited amounted to £2 or £3, and was such a sum as a poor woman, in a state of poverty and distress, was not in a position to provide. If the case were that of a civilian, all that would be necessary would be simply to serve a summons, and the defendant, wherever he happened to be, would be required to answer the charge against him, and to pay his own expenses to the Court. If he failed to do that, a warrant would be issued for his arrest. It could not, therefore, be contended that a soldier was treated in the same way as a civilian, when he was able, in numerous instances, owing to the impossibility of the deposit money being raised by the woman, to evade the charge against him. It was certainly absurd to require a woman, who was in an abject state of penury, to forward to the regiment a sum of money sufficient to cover the soldier's expenses to the place of hearing and back again. He might be quartered, at the time, at the most distant military station in Ireland, and the retention of this provision simply meant that the equity of the woman's claim was not to be investigated. Seeing that the country was spending many millions a-year upon the Army, the additional cost involved in his proposal would be an inappreciable trifle. If the claim made by the woman turned out to be an improper one, the Board of Guardians, at whose instance the summons would be issued, would have to pay the costs in the ordinary way, so that no real loss would fall upon the Public Exchequer. In the ordinary case of a civilian, the accused was required to appear in Court and answer the summons, paying out of his own pocket the expenses that were necessary to take him there. All that he asked of the Government was that they would make the clause what it professed to be—namely, that the liability of the man should be the same as if he were not a soldier. He did not think that even a possibility of being ordered out of the country for foreign service should be allowed to prevent the man from answering the 795 charge. He was aware that the present was not a favourable moment for making this claim; but right and justice ought to be exactly the same, whether there was the prospect of a foreign war or not. He believed that, on the average, about 800 of these orders were made in the course of the year, so that there was no probability of the compulsory attendance of the soldier at the Court of hearing, affecting the fighting efficiency of the Army. When such a claim was made—and it must be borne in mind that it would have to be investigated, in the first instance, by the Board of Guardians—the soldier ought to be required to meet it. No civilian was allowed to plead any other engagement, no matter what urgent or important duties he might have undertaken, either for the Queen or the Realm. No other engagement was allowed to stand in the way, but he was bound to answer the summons; and all that he (Mr. Sexton) asked was that the soldier should be compelled to obey the summons also, and that not even orders for foreign service should enable him to evade his liability. If Her Majesty's Government insisted now upon retaining the clause in its present shape, it was very certain that in the next Parliament, when the new franchise came into operation, they would not be able to maintain it.
§
New Clause,—
(Liability of soldier to maintain wife and children.)
Whereas it is important that the liability of a soldier or marine to maintain his wife and children should be real and better defined, and it is expedient to provide for the same; Be it therefore enacted as follows:—
That section one hundred and forty-five of the Army Act, 1881, shall be construed as though all the words after the words 'commanding officer of such soldier,' in sub-section three, were omitted,"—(Mr. Sexton,)
—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)said, the hon. Member had stated very fairly that a married soldier had certain duties to perform to his wife and family; but he had also certain duties to perform to the country and the Queen, and the difficulty was to reconcile these conflicting duties. Under the old Mutiny Act, no soldier leav- 796 ing his wife and children was subject to any liability at all. That state of things was altered by Lord Cardwell in 1873, and two years ago a further Amendment was introduced by himself, at the instance of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton). It was not correct to say that the Amendment was illusory, for, as a matter of fact, whenever a competent Court decided that a soldier was liable to maintain his wife and children, the Secretary of State always arranged that a certain portion of his pay should be stopped and set aside for the use of the wife and children.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, the knowledge that that was the fact was the reason why he had not moved an Amendment to that effect.
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)said, the present Amendment of the hon. Member would not touch that point at all; and he thought the hon. Member had somewhat misapprehended the effect the Amendment would have. Under this section of the Army Act there were two cases in which a reduction of the soldier's pay could be made. In the first place, where a maintenance order was made by a magistrate; and, secondly, where the Secretary of State was satisfied that he had deserted, without reasonable cause, his wife or legitimate children under 14 years of age. The Amendment would have no application to the second provision, under which the Secretary of State always acted in the case of a wife and legitimate children. But the Act of Parliament required that, before the soldier could be called upon to answer an affiliation summons, a sum of money sufficient to take him to the place at which the summons was to be heard and to bring him back again should be deposited. It was that provision which the hon. Member proposed to strike out of the clause. He was unable to agree to the proposal of the hon. Member for two reasons—first, because of the danger of collusion between the soldier and the woman, if the money was provided by the State; and, secondly, because of the hardship which would be inflicted on the man if, through his inability to appear for want of means, an ex parte order was made against him on a possibly trumped-up charge. The case of the soldier differed entirely from that of a civilian, for whereas a civilian 797 was a free agent, and could reside where he liked, the soldier was bound to go wheresoever he was ordered. On those grounds, which were not now put forward for the first time, he could not agree to the proposal of the hon. Member.
CAPTAIN MAXWELL-HERONsaid, he might perhaps be allowed to point out that the hon. Member for Sligo was mixing up in this clause two perfectly distinct questions. If the hon. Member looked into the Act he would see that the portion of it which this new clause proposed to omit embraced two totally different subjects—one, that a sum of money should be deposited in the hands of the commanding officer; the other, that no action against a soldier should be valid if process be served after such soldier was under orders for service beyond the sea. Now, it might be right to dispense with the deposit of money and yet refuse to allow the soldier to be detained on such a plea from the service of the country, because otherwise any man might get up some case against himself. Therefore, if the hon. Member wished to deal with both those provisions, he should frame one clause for the purpose of amending this section so far as the deposit of money was concerned, and another to amend the section so far as it related to the invalidity of a summons served on the soldier after he was under orders to serve his country abroad. Of course, as the Committee was now considering the Motion for the second reading of the clause, he was placed in a somewhat difficult position with regard to this question; but if the clause were read a second time, he hoped the hon. Gentleman would consent to strike out the last part of the Amendment, which ought not to be brought in contact with the other matter under consideration. He wished to know whether it was now in the power of the hon. Gentleman who brought forward the clause to limit it by omitting that portion of it which related to the service of the soldier abroad—an arrangement which would leave the Committee to deal with the question of the deposit— while the hon. Member could raise the other question on a separate clause?
THE CHAIRMANsaid, the hon. and gallant Member was not in Order in proposing any Amendment to the clause until the Committee had decided to read it a second time.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, the clause in the Act declared that the man should stand in this matter in the same position as if he were not a soldier. He proposed to take away two motives for treating him differently, one being the provision relating to foreign service, and the other the provision relating to the deposit of money. But if the Government would consider the matter, he should be willing to withdraw the clause, and bring in one which would deal with the deposit of money only. The noble Marquess might perhaps think the question too small to take any trouble about.
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he was afraid the Government could not agree to the hon. Member's proposal, for the reasons stated by his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Osborne Morgan). It was quite true that the number of cases occurring under the existing law was very small; but his right hon. and learned Friend had shown that the proposal, if agreed to, might open the door to the concoction of charges between soldiers and women, and then the number of cases would greatly increase. Although he recognized the spirit in which the hon. Member had proposed the omission of what he considered to be an unfair arrangement, he felt, in the absence of stronger arguments than they had heard in this discussion, that the Government could not omit the safeguard included in the Bill.
MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYregretted that the Government could not accept the proposal of his hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton). He did not think that any great difficulty could arise from the trumping up of cases which the Judge Advocate General had mentioned. Surely, such cases could not be trumped up to an extent that would make them a source of injury to the Army; and he could hardly suppose that any Board of Guardians would be so stupid as to be made an instrument for enabling soldiers to shirk duty. He was bound to say that the soldier who would trump up a case against himself would be a man whom the Army would be exceedingly well rid of. The Judge Advocate General had referred to the fact that the soldier might be compelled to leave the place where the woman lived; but because a soldier might be taken away by no act of his own, was 799 the woman to be left destitute? He thought they ought to have some consideration for her, because he did not think that they ought to assume that every case in which a woman was left with a child was trumped up for the purpose of shirking duty on the part of the soldier.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, he wished to make a suggestion to the noble Marquess with regard to soldiers under stoppage for the maintenance of their wives and children. There were a great many good-for-nothings in the Army who were under a series of stoppages for barrack damages, loss of articles of kit, and other things, and who were sometimes brought before courts martial and fined for drunkenness. He knew of one man being sentenced to pay 3d. a-day, and who declared his intention of not allowing "the old girl to get anything," because the fines would absorb his pay. Now, the suggestion he had to make was that when a soldier was sentenced to pay anything for the maintenance of his wife and children, that stoppage should be made a preferential stoppage, and should be deducted in full before any others. In that way one object of his hon. Friend would be secured, because the wife would really get the maintenance money which the soldier was sentenced to pay. As the matter now stood, he believed that in many cases where the man was under stoppages the woman never got any of the money she was entitled to. If, therefore, the noble Marquess would make maintenance a preferential stoppage, a great advantage would undoubtedly be gained.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided; —Ayes 15; Noes 43: Majority 28.—(Div. List, No. 84.)
§ COLONEL NOLANsaid, he wished to move another new clause—
No rules made under this Act shall have any force to alter the constitution or procedure of any court martial as defined by the Army Act of 1881.That would not deprive the Judge Advocate General of powers under Clause 6.
§ THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)I can- 800 not accept such a clause off-hand. I will consider the matter before the third reading. I hope the hon. and gallant Member will not move the clause.
§ COLONEL NOLANsaid, that having brought the subject under the notice of the Judge Advocate General, he would not detain the Committee any further upon it.
§ MR. KENNYsaid, he wished to move a new clause in the direction of the clause of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon). The hon. and gallant Member, had endeavoured to reduce the sum to be paid by a recruit on leaving the Service before the expiration of three months from the date of enlistment from £10 to £5. By the present clause he (Mr. Kenny) proposed to reduce the sum to be paid by a recruit for the purchase of his discharge at any time to £3. The clause would run as follows:—
Be it enacted that a recruit may purchase his discharge at any time from the date of his enlistment on the payment of £3.This clause evaded the objection taken to the proposal of the hon. and gallant Member. As well as he could understand the plea of the Judge Advocate General and the noble Marquess, it was that—
§ MR. WARTONI rise to Order. I wish to ask whether it is competent for the hon. Member to move this clause, seeing that it will be enacting something totally inconsistent with the 81st clause of the Act of 1881? It seems to me that the only course open to the hon. Member is to move a clause amending the section of the Act of 1881—following the precedent of the hon. and gallant Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon).
THE CHAIRMANI feel that this clause is out of Order, seeing that the Committee has rejected the proposal to alter the amount to be paid by a recruit for the purchase of his discharge. The hon. Member may endeavour to bring about the alteration he desires on Report or third reading.
§ Bill reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time To-morrow.