§ MAJOR RASCH (Essex, S.E.)On behalf of the hon. Member for West Belfast I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether the attention of the Secretary of State has been called to the statement made in evidence before the War Office Re-Organisation Committee by the Lieutenant-General Commanding at Aldershot to the effect that he thought, and he believed he had sufficiently verified his opinion, that the whole system of reports, regulations, and warrants under which the Army now serves has grown up entirely for the benefit of the War Office clerks, and to find work for the War Office, rather than to provide control over the Army; whether during a period of ten years the officer referred to held a post of Quarter-master-General and Adjutant-General at the War Office, and whether during that period he made any official report respecting the office over which he presided to the same effect as the statement above referred to; and whether the facts are as stated by Sir Redvers Buller; and, if so, whether any, and what, steps have been taken to put an end to such a state of things.
§ MR. WYNDHAMThe Committee on Decentralisation reported to the Secretary of State, and he laid its Report, with the evidence, before Parliament. The sentence quoted formed part only of one reply in the course of a long examination; and an accurate knowledge of Sir Redvers Buller's views can best be gathered by reading the whole of his evidence. In reply to the second paragraph, Sir Redvers Buller did not make any report with respect to the branches of the War Office over which he presided; his views on the clerical staff of the whole office were before the Secretary of State in 1895, when certain changes were under consideration. In reply to the third paragraph, the question is one of opinion and not of fact.