GENERAL SIR FREDERICK FITZ-WYGRAM (Hants, Fareham)said, he wished to bring under the attention of the House one or two subjects, one of?which had reference to recruiting. He thought young men would be more inclined to enter the Army if it could be shown to them that it was to their advantage to do so, and this could not be done in any better way than by increasing the pay of the junior noncommissioned officers. It was quite true that they gave promotion from the ranks; but those who had earned that honourable distinction had long since left the locality in which they were born, and the fact, therefore, did not come before the eyes of the people of the locality. If they gave 2s. a day to a corporal he thought it would have a great effect in stimulating recruiting, and for this reason: The rank of lance-corporal was attained by a bright young man in a couple of years. He then would go back on leave to his native village with the stripes on his arm and with 2s. a day, and he (Sir F. Fitz-Wygram) believed he would set all the lads of the village on fire to join the Military Service. But he would ask them to go a step further, and increase the pay of the sergeants to 3s. a day, or 21s. a week. If a corporal could go back to his village at the end of two years, a sergeant would be able to go back at the end of four years, and they would find it would have a most remarkable effect. Not only would the young men be on fire, but their mothers and fathers—when they saw that a young man after four years' service was in a better position than the agricultural labourer who was the best paid man on the farm, and who was not likely to get more than 18s. a week after 30 or 40 years' service—would be urging them to join the Army. Other proposals had been made to encourage recruiting which he thought inexpedient and unnecessary. One was to increase the pay of the soldier all round 2d. per day, which would cost the country about £200,000 a year. Another proposal was to give free rations and increase the amount of meat to 1 lb.; but that, it was estimated, would cost £250,000 a year. Another proposal made the other night was to make entirely free the whole of 1746 the messing of the Army, which was calculated to cost £650,000 a year. The proposal he made was a comparatively small additional expense, but it would be of immediate effect, as it would place at once before the eyes of recruits the advantages of joining the Army. They might place the bird in the bush before their eyes; but his belief was that the recruit looked more to the bird in the hand than to the two in the bush; his belief was that if they gave these immediate attractions to recruits, they would never want for the best class of men to reinforce the ranks of the Army. Do not let it be supposed he wished to say anything against an increase of pay to the older non-commissioned officers, but that was not the question he was now speaking about; he was only speaking on the question of recruiting. There was also another question concerning the recruiting he wished to call attention to, and that was the advisability of granting to their soldiers some employment during the time they were in the ranks. If they looked to their Reserve and talked to them as he had done, they would find the general complaint was not their treatment whilst in the Army, but that when they got into the Reserves they had no employment, the reason being that they had no trade to fall back upon, having joined the Army before they had learned a trade. He believed that complaint was perfectly true, because he had noticed that almost all the loafers amongst the Reserves came from the Infantry. He belonged to a Cavalry regiment himself, and he found very few Cavalry men loafing about the streets, the reason being that during their service they had not only been kept at work, but had learned a trade; so that they readily got employment about horses and stables, and as carmen; very seldom indeed was a Cavalry man seen loafing about. He did not place any particular virtue in the Cavalry man over the Infantry man, but, as he had said, the one had learned a business, and the other had not. In the same way, he seldom found a Royal Artillery man loafing about, because he had learned a trade; the same with the Royal Engineers, the Commissariat and Transport Service, all of whom, more or less, had learned a trade. He wished to ask the Secretary of State for War to do something to promote 1747 industrial employment. He might be told a. man joined the Army because he wished to be idle. He knew there was a good deal in that, but the proposal he had made was one worthy of attention. They had a corps called pioneers in the Infantry regiments; they were supposed to be workmen, but he did not think they had much employment. What he wished to ask the Secretary for War was to extend the pioneers of the regiment and make five pioneers in every company— total, 40, and send them to be trained at Chatham, so that they would be handy at all military trades. This, he believed, would be found to be useful in war as well as at home. For instance, if they sent out a company of Infantry, he doubted if they would have any of the men who knew how to throw up temporary entrenchments to secure themselves; therefore, it would be most advantageous to have five men properly trained who should go out with every company. He might be asked how he was going to employ these men at home. He should like to hand over to the pioneers of the regiment the whole of the barrack repairs as long as the regiment remained in barracks. He would start such a proposal in this way: Having sent the men to Chatham to be trained he would divide them into three classes, paying them 8d., 1s., and 1s. 6d. a day respectively; he would place them under a subaltern officer who was fond of that sort of Work, and give him 2s. a day, and let him take charge of these men, to be employed at such times as they were not wanted for other duties. They might tell him there would be a difficulty in taking them away from parades and other duties. For his part, he did not believe in endless and everlasting drill and marching past in barracks. In the Cavalry and Artillery corps the men gave four or five hours a day to exercising and cleaning the horses, and he maintained that in smartness of appearance, drill, and that sort of thing, the Cavalry would compare not unfavourably with the Infantry; and if the Cavalry could spare five hours a day, surely the Infantry might spare four hours every other day; that was to say, he would set them to work every other day for an eight hours day. Then, as to payment. He would allow squads or gangs to undertake particular work, but 1748 he would make this proviso: that the payment for all barrack work should never, under any circumstances, exceed half of what was paid now to civil contractors, and for the reason that they were employed upon military pay, and should not receive as much as those who were not so employed. At Alder-shot they had an immense variety of work going on, and soldiers might well be employed in the rougher sort of work connected with the building that was going on there, an experience that would be most useful in the event of any future war, when the pick and the shovel would be required. They had £5,000,000 of money voted for barrack-work, and some not inconsiderable portion of that might be well earned by their Infantry soldiers with great advantage to the country, to the recruiting, and with great advantage to their efficiency in war. It might be said that under the present system the Infantry soldier could not possibly spare the time for that sort of work. Well, they had short service in the Cavalry and the Artillery, but they found time for something else besides marching about continually. In truth, there was nothing in the objection of want of time, and he would ask the Secretary of State for War to see if it was not possible to give effect to some such scheme as the one be had roughly sketched. He did not ask them to carry out exactly his proposal, but to do something in that direction, and appoint a Committee of Members of this House with power to call before them as witnesses some of the best and most intelligent of their commanding officers, when they would easily be able to form a scheme that would benefit both the Service and the soldier. Another point he wished to bring forward was in connection with their foreign service. He believed the foreign service of the Infantry was both excessive and unnecessary; they kept their garrisons abroad now the same as they did 50 years ago, when there were nothing but sailing vessels in which to send out their troops. His impression was that in the present day it would be a deal better for the troops of the line if they were kept in reserve at home instead of injuring their health and their morals at so many of their foreign stations. There were several of their foreign stations almost within a stone's throw to 1749 which they could send out reinforcements in a few days, and in which he believed they might decrease the garrisons with advantage. He did not want to run any risks, therefore the fortresses and harbours should be secured against a coup de main. But take the case of Gibraltar, that was only four days' sail from England, and they had there four regiments. He would propose to reduce that garrison by one regiment, and keep it at home at its full foreign strength. Then they had Malta, only about seven days' sail from home. They had six regiments there, and they might reduce that by two regiments which could be brought home. That would give them three more regiments more than they had at home now. Then he looked further ahead, across to the West Indies. That, he admitted, was further off, but those who knew the West Indies knew well enough they had no force in the West Indies that could be defended against a Naval Power; that whatever Naval Power was the strongest would be the owners of those islands, and he saw no sense or reason in keeping a regiment there, and if required they could be sent out in 10 or 12 days. Then there was the Straits Settlement. That was a long way off, and could not be reinforced from home; but it was an unhealthy climate. There were no natives to give trouble, and the settlement ought to be garrisoned by Indian troops, and reinforced by a British regiment from India if necessary. Then there was an island called Ceylon; what on earth they kept a regiment there for he did not know and could not conceive, because it was so near to India, and they had a large naval station at Trincomalee. He did not wish to go much further. Total, six regiments kept in reserve at home instead of abroad. An hon. Member advised the other day that all our garrisons ought to be kept abroad. He differed from the hon. Member on that point, as he considered it very little good to have a garrison abroad if the men were constantly sick. It was said, and the late Lord Mayo was his authority, that the climate at Peshawur used to ruin the health of two British regiments quartered there every season. Lord Mayo told him that the nvaliding from that station was perfectly 1750 horrible, and so it was with regard to some other stations; they ought to be kept on full strength at home. He did not wish to see a single soldier the less, but it would be for the advantage of the soldier and beneficial to the nation if the reserve were at home instead of abroad. The only other point he would refer to was the necessity for better organisation of the Cavalry. In round numbers they had a Cavalry Force at home of 8,500 men, and in that Force he believed they had the best officers, the best non-commissioned officers and men and horses in the world, and there was nothing to prevent its being a most effectiveCavalry Force, except the want of organisation. At present they had not a single Cavalry regiment they could send abroad at once strong enough to maintain itself on a war strain. The cause of that was because they frittered away their 8,500 men in 19 units, none of which were strong enough for purposes of war. They kept six regiments on strength enough to start on a campaign, but they had no reserve and no depot squadron, and therefore could not stand a war strain. Divide the regiments into 12 instead of 19 units, and. the effect would be to have every regiment strong and fit, not only to go abroad, with the depot squadron, but fit to maintain itself whilst abroad. There would be no decrease in the number of officers, non-commissioned officers, or the men, and they would maintain the same proportion as they had now; the only sufferers would be the regimental staff. The cost would be nothing, but the difference would be great. At present they had 19 regiments of which they could not say one was fit for war, and the result of which he proposed would be they would have 12 regiments always fit for war. He held very strongly the opinion that in these days when wars broke out suddenly, and in every part of the world, that every regiment it was worth while to maintain ought to be prepared for war. He could not conceive a system more dangerous than having a regiment in the first line that was not sufficiently strong to stand the campaign. The main objections the Horse Guards had to recommending these alterations was a fear that the lesser number of regiments might afterwards be reduced in strength. Personally he believed there was nothing 1751 to justify this distrust of the House of Commons; every proposal for the better treatment of the men was received with respect and attention by the House, and he thought that no antiquated system ought to prevail, and certainly should not be allowed to stand in the way of the efficiency of the Army.