§
Motion made and Question proposed—
That a Supplementary Sum not exceeding £885,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1899, for Additional Expenditure in respect of the following Army Services, viz.:—
| £ | |
| Vote 5. Volunteer Corps, Pay and Allowances | 261,000 |
| Vote 6. Transport and Remounts | 169,000 |
| Vote 8. Clothing Establishments and Services | 208,000 |
| Vote 9. Warlike and other Stores | 630,000 |
| Vote 10. Works, etc. | 97,000 |
| Total | 1,365,000 |
| Appropriations-in-Aid (Votes 1, 9, 10) | 480,000 |
| Total | £885,000 " |
§ MR. J. MORLEY (Montrose Burghs)said: I had rather hoped that the Under Secretary would have been able by now to give me the figures he was good enough to promise me the other day. He gave me privately an explanation to show that there would be a difficulty, but I did not at all understand, nor do I understand now, that it is a difficulty of an insuperable character.
*THE UNDER SECRETART OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. WTNDHAM,) DoverDo I understand the right honourable Gentleman would like to have those figures before addressing the Committee?
§ MR. J. MORLEYI should have liked but I will not press it, to have had the cost to this country of the Nile Expedition, which could easily be got by taking the Estimate of the past year, of the financial year of 1898, and adding it to the Supplementary Estimate.
§ *MR. WYNDHAMIf it would be any assistance to the right honourable Gentleman I think I could explain this to him in a very few moments. I must first of all ask him and the Committee to distinguish between money spent on this expedition for Egypt and money spent of which we have derived the benefit, although the orders given may have been given at the same time that orders were given in respect of the Soudan Expedition. Having said that, I will give the following figures: —In the original Estimate for 1897–8 there was a sum of £77,800, which is covered by saving on the Estimates of that year. Then there is a further sum of £313,200 of extra expenditure. The total amount which is credited to Egypt is the sum of £215,000 and the difference is represented by benefits which this country, and not Egypt, has received— namely, facilities of transport, which I can explain in detail, and stores and clothing which we now possess for our own use in our own army.
§ MR. J. MORLEYWill the honourable Gentleman give the Committee a plain figure? There must be a method of keeping all these accounts.
§ *MR. WYNDHAMPerhaps I may put it in this way. The total amount of 458 money which has been expended in connection with this expedition, although some of the goods purchased by that money were not used in the expedition, was £391,000; £215,000 is the benefit, which Egypt derived, while £176,000 is the benefit we derived by being able to carry troops to Crete, and by having now in our depot clothing and stores which were not expended on the expedition.
§ MR. J. MORLEYI am afraid it is not quite clear as to what is to be given out of the British taxpayer's pocket for the current year for the purpose of the Nile Expedition.
§ *THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH,) Bristol, W.I think my honourable Friend made it quite clear. May I remind the right honourable Gentleman of what I said last Session? I stated then that if Egypt were forgiven a debt of about £800,000 which she had contracted to us for the expedition to Dongola and for the cost if construction of the Abu Hanied Railway, in that case she would be able to provide all the cost for the British as well as the Egyptian force in the advance to Khartoum. She has done so by repaying the War Office £215,000, which has been spent by the War Office for that purpose. The other expenditure to which my honourable Friend has referred was spent by the War Office practically on English purposes—for purposes apart from that expedition, namely, the transport of troops to Crete, and the purchase of stores and ammunition which are still in hand. We have paid nothing for the Soudan expedition.
§ MR. J. MORLEYWe shall, I think, want to know at another period what the cost of this expedition has been to Egypt.
§ *THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERThe accounts are not yet made up.
§ MR. J. MORLEYThat will be a matter for discussion at another period, and a great many observations may be made. Now, Sir, apart from the cost to the British Exchequer, I should like, with the permission of the Committee, to make 459 some general observations upon the result that has followed from this Nile Expedition, for which we are now asked to vote a sum of money. I do not propose, nor am I inclined, to make any remarks upon the question that has been raised as to the military conduct of the expedition. There is no doubt, whatever we may think of the policy of that expedition, that it was conducted with great skill and great success. I must, however, be allowed to say that I think in some quarters, not altogether on that side of the House, rather exaggerated language was used as to the nature of that success, and epithets have been applied to the General in command which leave me no adjective, if ever I should want one, to describe a Napoleon Bonaparte, an Alexander the Great, or a Duke of Wellington. As to the success of the troops, as to which something may be said on another Vote, I will only make this observation. If you employ, as you did on this expedition, large numbers of black Soudanese, you may be perfectly sure that, in the excitement of an engagement and actuated by tierce tribal passions, they will fall into excesses which are perfectly natural to our fellow-creatures who are in a lower stags of moral and intellectual progress than, happily, we are ourselves. As to the question of the Mahdi's body, we shall have an opportunity later on, I suppose, when we get fuller information, of making whatever remarks are necessary upon that lamentable affair. I can only say that that act strikes me as one revolting in itself, and as one which, doing no honour to either the good sense or right feeling of the authority, whoever it may prove to have been, who gave the order, inflicts rather a blot upon our national character. Now, I have no desire whatever to tell an old story over again. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, for example, has called me a false prophet.
§ *THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERI think you were.
§ MR. J. MORLEYBefore I sit down I shall have some reason to think that the right honourable Gentleman is the last person who ought to talk about false prophecies. We remember something from the right honourable Gentleman 460 last year of which I shall presently remind him. I have no desire to shirk one word that I ever said in this House, either upon this expedition or upon any part of the Soudan policy since it unhappily came into view 13 or 14 years ago. I do not pretend to be infallible, but I am impenitent. I over-rated to some extent, no doubt, the military difficulties of the expedition. Those difficulties, happily, have been more easily overcome—though at considerable cost and great danger and peril—than we at that time anticipated. My right honourable Friend the Leader of the Opposition, in his speech on the first night of this Session, used language which, I believe, slightly strengthened, represents the views of persons like myself. He said—
There are many of us here who, while quite ready to see even great responsibilities undertaken when necessity compels it, are somewhat bewildered when we contemplate what is before us in the subjugation and in the defence of this vast tropical region. We expressed our doubts freely three years ago, and no subsequent military successes, however brilliant, have removed or can remove those doubts.I listened to that statement of my right honourable Friend with great satisfaction. I should like to strengthen the word "doubts." I think the First Lord of the Treasury, who is an expert in doubts, will bear me out when I say that when a doubt has lasted for three years, and when the Gentleman in whose mind that doubt exists says it can never be removed, that doubt is not far removed from a settled conviction. I take it my right honourable Friend agrees with me, as a matter not of doubt or of contingency, but of settled conviction, that the views Ave held three years ago, and to which we gave distinctive expression in the Vote against the grant of money, are still held by my right honourable Friend and those who acted with him. Now, Sir, upon Egypt itself I should like to say one word, because I understand that there are a great many on both sides of the House who rather deprecate my view of this expedition and of the policy of the Soudan advance. They say: "How do you reconcile your resistance to this policy while you are not prepared at the moment to urge the evacuation of Egypt?" I remember very well in the 461 year 1896 the honourable Member for Lambeth, whose experience with Africa is so profound, said—This expedition, if successful, will tend to relieve ail of you who are partisans for Egyptian evacuation of what you regard as a "burden which the country will be well rid of.I did not think so at the moment, and still less do I think so now. But that is not the point on which I want to argue to-night. So assume, if you like, that the British Government is going to take a stronger position in Egypt. I will not use such a word as protectorate or annexation; let us suppose that the occupation of Egypt is to remain for an indefinite time. What is the effects of the Soudan advance upon that policy? Lord Salisbury, by approving of Sir Drummond Wolff's language about our continued presence in Egypt ten or twelve years ago, committed himself to this view— that, in time of war, the occupation of Egypt will have been a weak point, involving a perpetual drain on our resources. Then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, only two years ago, said—I do not hesitate to say that, in the interests of England, I wish we were not in Egypt. Egypt throws upon us responsibilities which, in very conceivable circumstances, might become very grave indeed.Now, the only observation I want to make upon that aspect of the Soudan policy, in face of our position in Egypt, is this: Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or any Gentleman on that Bench, get up and say that, while the burden, the responsibilities, the risks, entailed by the occupation of Egypt are heavy, they are not made much heavier by your having undertaken the responsibility of a considerable empire, if not a great empire, in Central Africa? Can anybody in this House conceal from himself that Egypt may, in conceivable circumstances, be a heavy load upon our shoulders, and that Egypt, with the Soudan superadded, is, of course, a double burden? That seems to me to be a point that cannot be doubted or disputed. As to the contention that the Egyptian frontier was in danger in 1896, we heard various spurious pleas adduced at that time, but that particular danger was not seriously pressed by Lord Curzon, nor, I believe, by any Gentleman now sitting 462 on that Bench. There is another character known in the religious world besides the prophet, and that is the anxious inquirer, and it is rather in the character of the anxious inquirer that I present myself here to-night. I want to put certain questions to the Government, which I hope they will find fair and legitimate, and the answers to which will shed a great light upon the extraordinary position in which we stand and on the momentous step which has been taken by this new arrangement in the Soudan. I should like to make one point, which, perhaps, belongs more to the Foreign Office than the Army Estimates, but which, I think, is relative and germane to my general argument. From first to last, I should say, we have never known precisely on what ground we were standing. The position that we took three years ago was this—that the great lessons for all Europeans engaged in Africa were the necessity of concentration, and of a defensive policy. That was our broad position. The Government argued—the Chancellor of the Exchequer repeated the argument, and the right honourable Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies used the same argument at Manchester a short time ago—that all these operations were undertaken to vindicate the claims of Egypt, and to meet the interests and requirements of Egypt. Well, this mask, if I may say so, has now been dropped, and we now find ourselves not at all on the claims of Egypt, but on objects, interests, and rights of our own. We have announced to the world that our title is not an Egyptian title, but a title by conquest, and, further, we announced to the world and ourselves that a new and vast territory has been added to our dominions, over which the Queen is to be directly Sovereign, and for the good administration of which the Queen's Government is to be directly responsible. The other day, in another place, the Prime Minister dealt in a rather perfunctory way, as it appeared to me, with this question of your change of base—to use a military name—from Egyptian title to conquest. Surely, in this House, not a word has been said upon that most important subject, and I believe the House of Commons would be neglecting its most important duty if it did not ask the Government—not in another place, but here—to throw a full light upon the 463 motives and circumstances which have led to this great change. The diplomatic and international effect is inevitably very important and far-reaching. Is it the view of the Government that the change of title from prior possession by Egypt, of whom we are the trustees, to conquest, alters the geographical area over which the paramount influence of Great Britain, as the trustee of Egypt, is to be asserted and maintained? I hope the Government will tell us that. I come now to a more immediate question. A most momentous step has, as I have said, been taken as the result of the expedition for which the Committee are now asked to vote money. This is the language which was used the other day at Khartoum by Lord Cromer, in the presence of Lord Kitchener, to the natives of the Soudan—Yon see both the British and the Egyptian flag floating over this house. That is an indication that for the future you will be governed by the Queen of England and the Khedive of Egypt. The sole representative in this house of both the British and Egyptian Governments will be the Sirdar. No attempt will be made to govern the country from Cairo, still less from London. You must look to the Sirdar alone for justice and good government.I quote these words because I venture to predict that they will be one of the historic passages of the century which is now closing. They mark an absolute change of policy from any we have heard of before. Until now Parliament has had scarcely any information at all as to the conditions and particulars under which this extraordinary movement has been made, and it seems to me that there is no subject of current affairs upon which the House would more clearly prove itself to have given up its control over national policy than this, unless it insists on the Government stating clearly how we stand. There are a few legitimate questions I should like to ask, not for the purpose of controversy, but for information. What is the exact position under this new arrangement which Lord Cromer has described of Lord Kitchener to the Government of Egypt? Secondly, what is the form and nature of control to which Lord Kitchener is to be subjected—if any at all—from the Government of the Queen, of whom he is now declared to be the representative? Thirdly, to what Department will Lord 464 Kitchener in his capacity of dictator of the Soudan belong, and with what Department will he report and correspond? The fourth question is, From what instrument does Lord Kitchener derive his authority? I presume it is derived from some kind of instrument, for no agent of the Queen is to be found in any portion of her dominions who does not exercise the authority entrusted to him from some instrument. My last question is—Has Lord Kitchener in his new capacity any instructions? When General Gordon went out to Khartoum, he had very close and very definite instructions.
§ SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT (Sheffield, Ecclesall)No; very meagre instructions.
§ MR. J. MORLEYI ask whether Lord Kitchener has any instructions, meagre or otherwise. Whatever is to be said on the point, the Government will admit that this new announcement by Lord Cromer forces upon Lord Kitchener the most extraordinary position. I have looked through most of the infinitely varied and elastic forms under which our Imperial administration is carried on all over the face of the globe, and I can find no form which is at all corresponding to, or analogous to, or parallel with, the position which Lord Cromer's announcement places Lord Kitchener in. I hope, therefore, the Government will fully and frankly tell us how the matter stands. I now turn to what is the more immediate business of this Committee—the question of finance. The Queen of England is now declared to be a sort of conjoint Sovereign over these territories with the Khedive. There is to be no attempt to govern the Soudan from Cairo. If this British Administrator is to do what he likes—I am not quarrelling with the arrangement; I only want to understand it—I presume he is to spend what money he likes. Are the resources of Egypt to bear the cost of these civilising and humanising operations which the good people of this country of all politics console themselves with hoping for after the carnage which took place? Good government, especially of backward races like those in Egypt, costs money. Many people think, for instance, that the administration of India is extravagant in view of the poverty of the country. It is inevitable. But 465 what Great Britain will insist upon is that the administration of this new country shall be good and effective. If it is good and effective, it will inevitably be dear, and I want to know who is to provide the funds. No one expects that the Soudan will be able for many generations to come to produce out of its own revenue funds to meet the cost of its own administration. I shall put an elementary question now. What is the Soudan? I do not ask for a delimitation of boundaries; but will the Government be so good as to tell us with some precision what is the area designated the Soudan over which the Queen is to exercise an effective sovereignty with the Khedive? I now come to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Last year the right honourable Gentleman said—
We do not contemplate undertaking any further military operations on a large scale, or involving any considerable expense for the recovery of the provinces south of Khartoum.The right honourable Gentleman went on to say that a gunboat flotilla will be sufficient to keep the waterway clear, but beyond that no military operation south of Khartoum was anticipated by the Government.
§ *THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERThat is exactly what we have done.
§ MR. J. MORLEYYes; but when I heard those words last year I was not disposed to rejoice, because I knew perfectly well what would happen, and what has happened—namely, that, having set up this government, having made this claim of sovereignty, you have placed yourself in a position in which circumstances will draw you on inevitably to the provinces south of Khartoum. [Opposition and Ministerial cheers.] Your own supporters cheer it. [Renewed Ministerial cheers.] Now, will the Chancellor of the Exchequer say, with those rampant cheers ringing in his ears, that this time next year no steps will be taken south of Khartoum?
§ *THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERI did not say it last year, and I do not say it now.
§ MR. J. MORLEYI read the right honourable gentleman's words, but what 466 will really happen will happen quite independently of the right honourable Gentleman's prophetic powers. I ask, with the experience of India before you, do you suppose for one moment that you will be able to keep your dominions as if they were enclosed in a ring fence? We have all been reading within the last few days about the movements of the Khalifa. You will see that circumstances make it almost impossible for you to remain within your ring fence. It is no secret that there are powerful men in more than one quarter who announce that they would like to go south of Khartoum. It is no secret that there are some who would like to go as far as Uganda. [Ministerial cheers, and cries of "To Cape Town!"] Yes, that is excellent! I notice the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not cheer and barely smiles. If you suffer a good deal from a Forward Party in India, do you suppose you are not going to have a Forward Party in Africa? You have it now. I should like to remind these Gentlemen who are looking forward with such enthusiasm to going to Uganda and to carrying the Queen's dominions there, that we shall be responsible for the administration of Uganda. They say—"If we have done well in India, why should we not do equally well in Africa?" [Ministerial cheers.] Those cheers show how necessary it is for even responsible politicians to discriminate. I would like to point out three distinct differences between India and this new Empire that you propose to set up at the Equator. You have not a strong natural frontier as^ India has. I do not quite know whether we shall be told what the Government reckons their frontier to be, but I will undertake to say it is not a strong natural frontier such as India possesses. You have not, in the second place, a comparatively civilised and settled population, but you have vast hordes of savages; and, thirdly, your dominions would be coterminous at point after point with Powers who may or may not be your friends. You will have the most difficult of tasks in keeping the peace on your boundaries and frontiers, and everybody who gives the slightest consideration to it will perceive that the conditions under which the Government of India subsists and carries on its beneficent work are not one of them realised in the case of the 467 new India you are going to set up at the Equator. You take Uganda. You are going to undertake responsibilities for Uganda. As for that transaction I have not the slightest desire to avoid my own share, for it was done by the Cabinet of which I had the honour to be a Member. But what has happened? At this moment there is an Estimate before the House for £500,000, or something like that, for Uganda. Do you suppose that next year you will not be coming down with another Supplementary Estimate for the trouble—if you are going to pay for it—in your newly acquired dominion? Our experience in Uganda and the experience of the King of the Belgians in the Congo State show that all these anticipations that you will have quiet in your ring fence in civilising and humanising these wretched savages is a dream of the most fatuous kind. I am going to quote from the Chancellor of the Exchequer a passage as to which I am in profound accord with him—
I think we shall be wiser if we attempt rather to develop what we have already acquired than to attempt to add still further to the extent of our Empire. Every extension of our Empire means an extension of our Army and possibly of our Navy. Our Navy may be increased indefinitely, subject to the supply of seamen, but our Army is not capable under our present system of indefinite extension. Therefore, we are endeavouring, as far as we can, to utilise our subject races. That is an excellent and successful policy, but it is not a policy which is capable of indefinite expansion, because it will be a bad day for this country if we trust for the maintenance of our Empire and our power to foreign mercenaries rather than to our own troops.That was a speech delivered a day or two before this new annexation, and I quote the Chancellor of the Exchequer not in any way to annoy him, but because lie says better and with more authority than I have exactly what I think. I wonder what we are doing in Uganda? Are those British troops? They are our own troops in one sense, but are they not exactly the kind of troops the right honourable Gentleman meant when he spoke of "foreign mercenaries"? I consider that will be, indeed, a bad day, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer said. Even those who know less history than the Chancellor of the Exchequer does are aware that if there is one lesson that history teaches more constantly and more impressively than another it is that when 468 an empire or kingdom relies, not upon its own people, but on bands of foreign mercenaries, its decline and fall may not be rapid, but it is sure. There is one other remark I should like to make touching a similar point, and I do not think it is unworthy the attention of such a practical body as the House of Commons is. Is it good to extend these areas of your dominion which are only capable of being governed by despotic rulers? I cannot think that it is good. It cannot be good for the ruler; it cannot be good for national character; it cannot be good for the maxims and principles of free government. When you annex this great new territory you must recognise the fact that you cannot set up a Parliament in the Soudan. You must govern it by a ruler practically despotic, though, I hope, with pretty firm and stiff instructions and supervision from this country. But however all this may be, by the step that you have taken, depending as it does upon despotic rule, calling as it does for enormous expenditure, involving as it does the use of troops which are not British, you are unconsciously—and history will mark us as having done it—transforming the faces and conditions of your Empire. There is one other point. Last night the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs addressed a, political gathering. He said that in 1896 the Opposition was entirely against Soudan advance, but that now, with few exceptions, the Opposition joined the Government in regard to the effects of that advance. I am not so sure of that. Then the right honourable Gentleman vent on to say—What the members of such a club as he was addressing could well do in the constituencies was to make the people understand that Imperialism could not be run on the cheap.I would say that these sixty gentlemen who constitute the club in question could probably do no more foolish or unwise thing in the world than go down to the constituencies and tell them they had a Government which was an Imperialist Government, but that they were to understand it was not to be run on the cheap. I would venture to say that the sixty gentlemen would not have to work very hard, because the tax collector is a more telling missionary of that gospel, and they will learn from the tax collector, before 469 they are much older, that Imperialism cannot be run on cheap lines. The right honourable Gentleman in the same speech said—If we pay for it now, we might depend upon it that posterity would reap the benefit.I am quite sure if the sixty gentlemen should go to the constituencies with the lesson which the right honourable Gentleman has put into their lips, they will return to London in a much less festive humour than they were in, apparently, last night. Political friends of my own are constantly discussing what is to be the issue at the next election. Some say it will be on the Irish question, others on the House of Lords, and others on Protestantism. My own idea is becoming very clear that it will be expenditure. I have had some trouble in finding a definition of a jingo, but I would not be surprised if at the next election a jingo appears to the constituencies to be a statesman whose policy cannot be carried out under an expenditure of less than £50,000,000 a year for the military services of the country in a time of profound European peace. Well, Sir, I apologise to the Committee for detaining them so long, but I have done so because, in my view, the policy of the Soudan advance has been an error from the first, and is now drawing us on rapidly to new responsibilities, new entanglements and fresh outlays. Therefore, I renew my protest—more necessary now than it was then—which I made three years ago, and I move the reduction of this Vote by £300—and I intend to tarry it to a Division, in order to give the Committee an opportunity of recording its protest.
§ *MR. BRODRICKMr. Lowther, the right honourable Gentleman has made a courageous speech to-night—courageous, but, at the same time, a consistent speech. I call it a courageous speech, because it is a speech almost at direct variance with a very large number of opinions we have heard from his own side in the country during the last few months. I call it also consistent because he has followed up, by a protest to-night, a variety of prophecies which he has made in past years, every one of which has been falsified by events.
§ MR. J. MORLEYI should say, if I were speaking impartially, that every one has been fulfilled.
§ *MR. BRODRICKNotwithstanding that observation from the right honourable Gentleman, I think I shall be able to point to a few of them in which, at all events, I think he will admit that, if his opinion has not changed, events have shown that they have not run in accordance with his predictions, which have not been verified. I will allude presently to what the right honourable Gentleman said in 1885, but I am not going back to that for this particular purpose, but for another. I quite admit the change of circumstances that has taken place since 1885. In 1891 I recollect the right honourable Gentleman made a most vehement protest in this House against a small advance to be made to Suakin to drive away some of the tribes there. He spoke of it as a fresh entanglement in the Soudan, I likely to cause further trouble, and almost unlimited in the obligations it might entail. Now, what is the fact? The expedition was kept within the limits which were intended; about £30,000 was spent upon it; the tribes were driven back, and for the last eight years we have never had any trouble whatever in the neighbourhood of Suakin. Then, again, we come to 1896. Now, in 1896 the right honourable Gentleman gave full vent to his imaginative feeling's with regard to the Soudan on the advance to Dongola. He said that we were undertaking financial responsibilities which might be unlimited, and would probably be disastrous. He said, with regard to the military points involved, that we should have to make gigantic efforts. He told the Government that they had not properly weighed the situation; that we had started on no principle; and he said our pretexts were empty, and that the best thing they were likely to achieve would probably be to re-establish the Government of Pashas in the Soudan; and he ended by saying that "a Ministry gone mad" would alone have undertaken such a policy. Now, Sir, I want to know, now that we have arrived at Khartoum, whether he agrees or whether he does not agree with our policy. Will the right honourable Gentleman, with the financial facts he 471 has before him, say that financially it has been a disastrous and limitless expedition? I want to know, from a military standpoint, whether he really says now what he said then, that it would require a gigantic effort on the part of this country? Why, the military force—the eight British battalions—employed to carry the arms of the Sirdar to Khartoum were scarcely more numerous than the number of troops which we had to employ in Crete, about which we never heard a word from the right honourable Gentleman. No, Sir, if I may say so without offence, the right honourable Gentleman shines more in the region of criticism than he does in the region of prophecy. But we are accustomed to his prophecies on this side of the House. I think it was at the beginning of this Parliament, while he was telling us that our foreign undertakings, especially in regard to the Soudan, must be disastrous, that he told us at the same time that at home we could accomplish nothing because the way was blocked. Sir, we have come to the House to-night without fear for our foreign policy, which has realised in the Soudan every expectation, and which has been justified by the results. At home, as the House well knows, we are not experiencing undue difficulty in proceeding with our Measures. None the less, the right honourable Gentleman gets up to-night, and as steadfastly as before—but not very cheerfully—continues to prophesy disasters in our foreign affairs which never come off, while promoting in all his speeches in the country home Measures and a programme which will never come on. Well, Sir, the right honourable Gentleman has complained of the reasons that were given for this advance in the Soudan. Sir, he has denied himself tonight one quotation which has pervaded most of his speeches on this subject, to which—as I know his sense of literary finish would always prevent him from undue repetition—he must attach importance. I mean his favourite quotation from Lord Salisbury's observations ten years ago as to the danger and the probable cost of recovering the Soudan. Well, Sir, the march of events is one which even an advanced Radical like the right honourable Gentleman must take some account of. He himself, in 1885, committed himself to the view 472 that it would impossible for this country to take the responsibilities of going to Khartoum, which were beyond our political and military resources. Well, I very much doubt if they were beyond even the political and military resources of Egypt. But, at all events, no one in this House now contends that they are beyond the political and military resources of this House, or of this country. Well, Sir, I do not wish to-night to trouble the House by re-stating the reasons that have been put forward before, but I will ask the House to look at the whole question as it stands now. What change has happened between 1885 and 1898 that makes it impossible to do prudently now what 10 or 15 years ago would have required a gigantic effort? Sir, we all know that the state of Egypt has changed. The state of the Soudan has changed, and the feeling of Great Britain has changed. When the right honourable Gentleman from below the Gangway on his side of the House was acting as a sorrowful comforter to his Friends above the Gangway in 1885, he had plenty of reason then for his fears about Egypt. In the year 1885 Egypt was nearly bankrupt. She could not govern herself, her revenues were in pawn, and the Government which had attempted to introduce all the refinements of the West had done so by means of the refinements of exaction and cruelty which are only known in the East. Anybody could see that to reduce the power of the Mahdi at Khartoum, as Mr. Gladstone put it, standing at this box in 1885, it must be attempted, if at all, not by Egypt, but by this country, and it would be absurd, and, more than that, it would have been futile, to expect Egypt to have undertaken it. What is the position now? Among the questions which the right honourable Gentleman has asked me tonight is a question with regard to the financial position which the Soudan is to occupy with regard to Egypt. Well, Sir, I have already told the House, in answer to a Question, that the cost to Egypt of the Soudan expedition for the coming year is represented by £317,000. I have been asked why we, who are, to some extent, to call the tune in Egypt, are not going to pay the piper. My reply to that is two-fold: first of all, as I will show the Committee in a few moments, Egypt is amply able to pay 473 for the Soudan herself; and, secondly, that the sums we have advanced in the last 10 or 15 years, either in protecting the frontiers of Egypt, or in re-establishing the power of the Khedive jointly with that of the British Government in the Soudan, justify us in calling upon Egypt now to do her share. Now, since 1883–84—I leave out Tel-el-Kebir—when we became responsible for assisting Egypt to protect her own frontiers, the cost to this country has been nearly 10 millions of money. The cost of the Soudan to Egypt will barely amount in the next year to the interest on that sum. If the right honourable Gentleman says that Egypt is unable to bear it, has he considered the changes in Egypt, and, if he has not, I will trouble the Committee to show what the change in Egypt in the last 10 or 15 years has been in this respect. In the first place, the population of Egypt has developed by nearly three millions; that is to say, the population which before was seven millions is now 10 millions. That is not an inconsiderable item in regard to this very matter in the Soudan, because if the estimates which have been taken are correct—and, of course, they are all estimates, for they cannot rest on facts—the population of the Soudan 15 years ago was close upon 16 millions of souls. What that population is now we do not know, but unless Slatin Pasha—whose other items of information have been so remarkably correct and trustworthy—unless we have been misinformed, and Slatin Pasha is entirely at fault, three-fourths of that population, or 75 per cent., according to the knowledge which Slatin Pasha possesses, have fallen within the last 12 years a prey to famine, slaughter, and war. Therefore, it is probable now that the population of the Soudan at present does not amount to more than four or five millions. Therefore, instead of having, as you had 15 years ago, a population of seven millions to conquer and govern, and to occupy and maintain authority over a country which had a population of 16 millions, you have now to consider how a population of 10 millions can deal with a population of less than half that number. That is not an inconsiderable change in the position. Then, when we come to the question of money, how does it stand? The revenue of Egypt has been increased by about a 474 million and a half in the last 10 years, although taxes have been remitted to the extent of about one million. During that time a fund for the redemption of the debt has been built up to the extent of three millions, and there is an extraordinary reserve fund at this moment of nearly four millions, quite apart from the fund from which the whole of the Soudan Expedition expenses have been paid. And all this had been done, although the taxation per head of that population has been reduced 20 per cent., and although, at the same time, public works of magnitude to the extent of two millions for improvements have been carried out, and other contracts, to the amount of between two and three millions more, have been entered into. I will not go into other statistics to show the progress of Egypt, because they would carry me too far to-night; but I believe this: that you may search the world, and you may search the whole period of history, and you will not find in any country in the world at any time so great a progress and so great a change as in the course of the last 10 years has been made in Egypt. I believe I am not going one tittle beyond what is a fair statement—and I am not in any way getting up these statistics in order to make out a case—when I say that I do not think that any man can honestly say that a burden of £317,000—for that is the estimate for the present year, and even that will leave a large surplus to the Egyptian exchequer—is an intolerable one to put upon Egypt for the recovery of her lost provinces. Sir, the right honourable Gentleman said that generations would pass before the Soudan could pay its own way. Well, I am not going to follow the right honourable Gentleman into the region of prophecy—we may sit opposite each other in three or four years' time—but I will say this—that it is the confident expectation of those best qualified to judge that a period of something like five years will see the Soudan paying its own way, unless some very important and unexpected circumstances happen. As I have said, the state of the Soudan has also very much changed in the last 10 years. Well, I do not think that I need labour that point. Everybody knows that 10 years ago the only idea which the Arab 475 in the Soudan had of any rule, or of anything like civilised rule, was derived from the rule of the Pashas, and, undoubtedly, the mass of the Soudanese tribes were hostile to the advance of the British troops in 1884. But is that so now? Every Member of the House knows that for the last 12 or 14 years the Soudanese have groaned under a rule which, in comparison with that of the Pashas, was kindness itself. At all events, the population grew under the Pashas and declined at the latter period, and the evidence which conies before us with Lord Kitchener's advance goes to prove it has been received with acclamation by all the tribes with which he came into contact. One tribe alone has made resistance, and we can, at all events, count on this, that in a few years we shall have the hearty co-operation of all those tribes who were hostile to us in 1884. But there has also been a great change in the opinion of this country. Ten years ago an advance into the Soudan would have meant the undertaking of an unlimited liability, and all the rhetorical powers of the right honourable Gentleman have not succeeded in painting us a picture of unlimited liability to-night. He has vaguely talked about an advance into the desert, with which I will deal in a few moments, but the gist of the whole matter is this—that there was readiness in this country, the time was opportune, and there were the facilities for the advance which the Government decided to make, but I do not want to base the necessity for the advance upon these points. I will not ask the Committee to-night to justify the Government simply on the ground of regaining lost territory, or regaining prestige or the protection of the frontiers of Egypt, What I ask the House and the Committee to consider is this: any Power, whoever it may be, who has responsibility for Egypt, has by necessity, in the last resort, to consider what should be its attitude to the Soudan. Sir, in all these chequered years and dynasties which have succeeded each other in the history of Egypt since the time of the Pharaohs, there has been one very prominent and undisputed fact, and that is that the prosperity of Egypt is bound up and almost entirely depends upon the control of the Nile. The control of the Nile is a matter of great engineering skill, and it is not a matter of a few miles. It 476 is absolutely necessary, whether it is right that we should be in Egypt or whether it is wrong, that the rulers of Egypt, if they can do so, should have permanent and undisputed control of the Valley of the Nile. Of course, for a time, that was lost, under the Mahdi, and in the earlier years of the Khalifa, and it mattered very little if there was a ruler at Khartoum who was strong enough to act as a buffer to prevent the intrusion of other Powers, and who was ignorant enough to be opposed to all progress. But when the Khalifa became weak through his own exactions and cruelty, and his sovereignty could not be assured to him, then it became absolutely certain with the advance of civilisation in the West, and to some extent from the East and also from the South, that the Soudan could not remain permanently an oasis of barbarism in the middle of civilisation. Then it became absolutely certain that the Soudan ultimately would fall into the hands of some controlling Power, and it was equally clear that the controlling Power was bound to be the Power which controlled Egypt. Then, Sir, the right honourable Gentleman does not accept the doctrine of our ascendancy in the Nile Valley. If he does not accept the doctrine of our ascendancy in the Nile Valley, then I want to know how he reconciles his position now with his actions in the late Ministry, of which he was a Member. Where was this feeling with regard to the advance on the Soudan when the honourable Baronet opposite claimed for Egypt and this country the necessity of the control of the valley and the basin of the Nile? The right honourable Gentleman spoke in disparaging terms to-night of the advance on Uganda.
MR. J. MOKLEYThat is not so. What I said was that the results which had followed in Uganda showed that, although we went there with the best possible intentions, they had not been realised.
§ *MR. BRODRICKI think the right honourable Gentleman made it clear to everybody that Uganda was a very sore point with him.
§ MR. J. MORLEYI said the exact opposite.
§ *MR. BRODRICKAt any rate, the right honourable Gentleman used it as an illustration of the dangers of these advances, and I want to know why was [...] that when he was responsible In the Ministry which took the first step with regard to the Uganda Railway, lie did not then object. Undoubtedly the step was decided upon by the Ministry of which he was a Member. The right honourable Gentleman, who is ready to assent to the doctrine of the control over the valley of the Nile while it is an academic question, and to an advance to its head waters by a railway costing two millions, is unwilling to assent to this small expenditure—is willing to wound, yet afraid to strike; and he throws back this across the floor of the House as a reproach to us, when he himself has been responsible, as a Member of the Government, for steps which could only be taken, and which could only be justified by control being necessary in the Soudan, and one of the first things they aid upon the first symptom of trouble in Egypt was to increase the garrisons by 1,000 men. The right honourable Gentleman did not think it necessary to protest then. We have now established the absolute necessity of this advance and the fact that it was well-timed has been proved by the way it was carried out. This the right honourable Gentleman calls an extraordinary and momentous step, and he invites us to state clearly to the Committee what are the answers to the various questions as to the future position of the Sirdar, the Governor-General, and the relations of the Soudan to England. He wants to know is there in the opinion of the Government what he calls the change of title from the title of Egypt to the right of conquest, and whether this has added materially to the territorial responsibilities of the British Government. Sir, undoubtedly what he calls a change of title could not in any respect be so, but it is an accentuation of title. The territory formerly belonged to Egypt, and the Khedive's troops, in conjunction with the British troops, reconquered it. The Khedive's troops could not have undertaken this advance alone. Therefore the old title is revived, and there is the additional title of conquest, which I believe is paramount.
§ MR. J. MORLEYI am sorry to interrupt my light honourable Friend, but that was not quite my point. It was this—whether he considered what he now calls the accentuation of the old title affects at all, and if so how it affects, any territory which is not within the Sirdar's province; I mean the territory lying outside this new dominion of the Queen.
§ *MR. BRODRICKIt is really very difficult for me to understand what the right honourable Gentleman means. Does he mean how it affects Kordofan and Darfur, or how it affects Khartoum itself?
§ MR. J. MORLEYI mean how it affects any territory formerly belonging to Egypt, or claimed by Egypt, which lies outside this new dominion which you have just added by this advance.
§ *MR. BRODRICKThe question with regard to what we have regained is a question which is not yet geographically laid down. What we have regained is undoubtedly what Egypt held, and which the Khalifa, whom we have conquered, wrested from Egypt, and exercised sovereignty over.
§ MR. J. MORLEYOnly that.
§ *MR. BRODRICKI think that is quite clear. Any territory which was formerly in the possession of Egypt, and has been more recently in the possession of the Khalifa, has now been acquired by right of conquest. What are the exact limits of this country are matters of delimitation which are being carefully gone into at the present moment. What steps we shall take to recover those provinces is a matter which exercises the right honourable Gentleman exceedingly. He has flooded the House with quotations from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I think he has gone too far when he invites us to assume that the Chancellor of the Exchequer give himself away last year when he told us that he would not advise any serious military operations south of Khartoum for the recovery of lost provinces. That does not bind us not to go south of Khartoum as occasion demands it. We are not bound by any rule, and the fewer rules we make the better. 479 It is not well to confine too closely your course of action, but undoubtedly the Sirdar will, as opportunity enables him, be able to use those opportunities to re-establish his authority over the region which I have endeavoured to describe a few moments ago. But he is not bound to do so by sending out gigantic expeditions at a moment when there is a large amount of country which he has still to bring into civilisation. We are asked what is the exact position of Lord Kitchener. He was appointed by the Khedive, under the advice of Her Majesty's Consul-General, Lord Cromer. As regards his instructions, the Soudan is at present under military law. Until quietness has been restored, the Governor-General, the Sirdar, is undoubtedly unfettered by any instructions except those of restoring order and the maintenance of the peace. When the time comes for setting up civil institutions further than we can do so at the present moment, the Sirdar will be in constant conference with the Consul-General at Cairo. The present Budget was settled with Lord Cromer; and the Committee will readily understand that the Budget controls the Sirdar's action to a very large extent. We are asked, speaking generally, how the Sirdar will report. Undoubtedly, he will report to London through the Consul-General, who, as everybody knows, is responsible to the Foreign Office; and the control, therefore, will ultimately lie, if necessary, at home; though it is intended—I frankly declare it—to give the Sirdar, under these very difficult circumstances, and especially while the country is under military law, a very free hand in carding out his operations. I do not know that there is any part of the right honourable Gentleman's questions to which I have not alluded.
§ MR. J. MORLEYIs he appointed by any instrument?
§ *MR. BRODRICKAn instrument was signed which is part of the agreement in which his powers are defined. He is given the Governor-Generalship of the Soudan, and his relations with Lord Cromer are explained. The right honourable Gentleman spoke rather strongly about the establishment, under the British Government, of despotic rule. He delivered one of those sentences with 480 regard to free institutions which come very glibly from lips so eloquent as his. But I was wondering why, a few moments before, he had made a comparison between the Soudan and India, because, if ever there was an instance of a country which has gained enormously during the time that we have occupied it by despotic rule, that country is India. And why should we assume that the rule which has been so good for India, and which has given to her a prosperity such as no other Asiatic territory has enjoyed, is to be so subversive of all our free institutions and best hopes in Africa? What is good for the one is good for the other; and, having regained this country, I do not think we ought, because the inhabitants are not fit for free institutions, to be too squeamish about putting them under despotic rule.
§ MR. J. MORLEYI never pretended that you ought to set up free institutions forthwith. But I argued that the effect of extending despotic rule was not good for the rulers.
§ *MR. BRODRICKAre we, at this hour of the 19th century—we, who for 150 years have been bearing the burden of despotic rule over 250 millions in India, to shrink from governing four or five millions of Arabs, because it will be a despotic rule? I submit to the Committee that we have nothing to apologise for, and that we have nothing to explain away in this matter. I was relieved to notice the right honourable Gentleman leaving out of his speech what he has not been so careful to avoid on previous occasions in the country. In some of his speeches he said a great deal about the adverse political effect which this movement would have on our relations with foreign Powers. I think that the events of the last few months have proved that the advance into the Soudan has been regarded, I may say by every foreign Power, as the natural corollary of our position in Egpyt. I say that, so far from weakening our position, it has greatly strengthened our position. So far from the predictions of the right honourable Gentleman that it would lead us into trouble being verified, it has relieved us to a large extent of very great troubles. I do not feel, therefore, inclined to accept the right honourable Gentleman's strictures any more than I can accept his 481 prophecies. He has again been a prophet of woe to-night. He thinks that we have embarked on difficulties which will make us regret our action. But, what I submit to the Committee is that—whatever posterity may say as to the wisdom, or as to the necessity, of the step which has been taken—and the right honourable Gentleman has twitted us with the remark that Imperialism is not cheap—this has been, not only the most legitimate, but the cheapest development of Imperialism which the present century has seen. The right honourable Gentleman is very fond of saying; that all empire is tainted with the lust of gold. I do not think he will pretend that that has anything to do with the advance for which we are challenged to-night. We have expended, some money; but in the last two years we have expended short of one million sterling in regaining that which our predecessors spent nine millions some years ago in losing. I wish that the right honourable Member for West Monmouth were here to-night. He told the House two years ago that the country regarded this advance with great and just alarm, and that, if it had the chance, it would condemn our policy. I never remember a step taken by any Ministry, and carried to its conclusion, which secured so universal a commendation as this advance into the Soudan. By a comparatively slight expenditure, by the prudent management and the administrative genius of Lord Cromer, and by the military genius of Lord Kitchener, we have redeemed vast territories from barbarism, and ransomed five millions of human beings from a cruel tyranny. And the timeliness of the step is shown by this—that it was taken not too soon for us to be welcomed by the population whom we had come to free, and not too late to avoid the complication which might have arisen if this territory had been encroached upon by others. For these reasons, instead of thinking, as the right honourable Gentleman thinks, that it is a matter for explanation and apology, I put it to the Committee that these events have been a bright page in our African history—a page which entitles us to the confidence of the House of Commons, and which, when the consequences are fully developed, will, I believe, secure for us the continued support of the country.
§ *MR. COURTNEY (Cornwall, Bodmin)I cannot pretend to follow the elaborate and eloquent speech to which we have just listened, but, as on former occasions I have ventured to express an opinion adverse to this policy of advance into the Soudan, I cannot remain silent to-night while I still hold the same views which I formerly entertained. In spite of everything which has been said by my right honourable Friend—and, indeed, confirmed in some respects by his words—my belief is that the step which has been taken, and which, has been crowned by military success, is open to adverse criticism, and is, in my judgment, to be condemned in the interests both of Egypt and of England. I am quite aware that mine may be a solitary voice on this occasion. Nothing succeeds like success, especially military success; and if you can add that the military success has been gained cheaply, you have achieved the crowning glory. But the immediate success of the Sirdar against the forces arrayed against him is not a final fact. I would remind those who are so rejoiced over what has happened that it is admitted by those who took part in the campaign that the battle was not free from peril, but that at a critical point it was exposed to great danger, on which it is not now desirable to enlarge, though everyone conversant with the history of the campaign readily and frankly acknowledges it. The Under Secretary dilated at great length—I do not say at unnecessary length—upon the progress which has been made in Egypt since it came under what may be called our protection. But that progress was accomplished without any advance in the Soudan. It was accomplished under conditions of external peace, which Lord Salisbury enforced as much as Mr. Gladstone; because Lord Salisbury, perhaps more than Mr. Gladstone, opposed the suggestion of any attempt to recapture the Soudan. You have re-established the finances, and you have established just conditions of society in Egypt, whilst you kept your activity within Egypt. And I cannot, in respect of this point, pass away from it without adding this: You have made Egypt financially prosperous; there may have been a great increase—there has been a great increase—in the population; but, in spite of all that you have done, you have failed in 483 this, as all will admit—Egypt is now less capable of standing alone than it was when you first attached her. [Murmurs of dissent.] How can this be questioned? When any suggestion is made of leaving Egypt, it is immediately replied, "Egypt cannot stand alone." She did stand alone before you went in, but under the progress which you have caused her to make she is less capable of standing alone than when you went there. That is a fact that you may accept, because it is a fact that you cannot deny. It is said, and it is a phrase which I have heard before, that whoever knows the history of Egypt knows that the prosperity of Egypt depends entirely upon the command of the Valley of the Nile. What is exactly meant by the command of the Valley of the Nile? My right honourable Friend referred with great knowledge to the history of the country—a history which runs back beyond that of any other nation, for thousands of years. During how many of those thousands of years—3,000, to go no further back—have the rulers in Egypt possessed that control of the Valley of the Nile, of which you now talk? For not one-tenth of that time have the ruling powers in Egypt been possessors, in the sense in which you now employ the phrase, of control over the Valley of the Nile, and never once have they been imperilled in consequence. To say that Egypt is the Nile, and the Nile Egypt, in the sense in which the phrase was used by a noble Lord in the country, is about as rational as to say that England is France, and France England. We have had control over the greater part of France during a period relatively to our common history as great as that during which the rulers of Egypt have had control over the Valley of the Nile. History shows that the necessity for this control is absolutely fictitious, and the progress of this campaign has shown that Egypt itself is in no kind of peril from any advance from that part of the Soudan. You have done it cheaply, but at the same time you have thrown s considerable sum on the finances of Egypt. You have spent £10,000,000 in building up Egypt. You may have no difficulty in meeting the sum you have thrown upon Egyptian finance; but the extraordinary revenue of Egypt is not sufficient to meet the balance of your expenditure. Whatever the sum that Egypt may be called upon to pay—if it 484 is only £300,000, and it will probadly be more—she will have to pay it, without getting one pennyworth of advantage for it; and, therefore, in the interest of Egypt, you have taken a step which is not really to its interest. If Egypt is to have the burden of defending this possession, and of civilising and controlling it, with its undeterminable borders, then I say you have thrown on Egypt in the future a burden from which no compensation whatever will be derived by the fellaheen of the country, and 'one which will be very difficult to meet out of the resources of that country. The Under Secretary has explained the very extraordinary arrangement which has been arrived at in the Soudan. We have what he has announced as an accentuation of title; I should have said we had referred the right of possession to a different cause. At first we heard a good deal about Egypt having had possession of certain provinces, and about her having lost that possession, and then, with the assistance of this country, having resumed those possessions, and it was said that the title to these possessions dated back to the original possession. That argument might do for certain portions of the Soudan. But the extremely southern portions of it had been captured by the emissaries of the Khedive just about five years before they were abandoned, and a claim to these southern-most provinces, based on a title abandoned five years after their capture and then neglected for more than 14 years, is not a very solid one. I rejoice at the statement of the Under Secretary, because it sweeps away all these false pretensions of previous title, and places it upon the solid ground of conquest; and as long as you can keep it you have got a right upon which you can rely. But now that you have got possession, and intend to keep it, how is the country going to be administered? It is a kind of condominium, and a condominium in this extremely singular position, that it will be regulated by one authority, and paid for by another. That, at all events, is the forecast. I doubt whether that forecast will be realised. I think the burden will be distributed, and will have to be shifted from time to time. The Sirdar is a despotic ruler, and, necessarily, as my right honourable Friend said, there must be a despotic ruler. How does he get the appointment? He is 485 appointed by the Khedive, on the advice of the Minister and Agent of Her Majesty's Government. That is to say, practically he is chosen by us. There is no doubt that the Budget of the Soudan for the coming year will be thrown upon Egypt. How is that Budget to be regulated? My right honourable Friend said it was to be regulated and settled by the Consul-General and Agent at Cairo—that is, by us. We, in fact, regulate and prescribe all that shall be done; the man who does it shall be our man, although he holds rank under the Khedive; the Khedive's subjects will have to pay for it, and the Khedive's Ministry will have to assent to everything we order. That is a very curious position, and it is a new position as respects other countries, and as respects our international situation. So much for the situation as regards our people; but looking at it as regards Egypt, who can honestly say that Egypt is benefited by the arrangement? As to getting anything in the way of revenue to pay expenses out of the Soudan, my right honourable Friend might have looked to the experience of the King of the Belgians in the history of the Congo State. It has been continuously said that the Congo State would in a few years pay its way, and yet from the beginning it never has paid its way; in spite of Royal and national subsidies, it has gone on repeating its deficit year after year, and has piled up a debt. The resources of the Congo State are doubtless as good, if not better, than those of the Soudan, and the Congo is free from surrounding difficulties. Internal difficulties there are in plenty, but in the Soudan you have surrounding as well as internal difficulties. The notion that you are going to make anything out of this part of Egypt is, I am persuaded, a most misleading one. You are going to do this and that; you are going to the Cape, and so on; in fact, it is said that we are going to establish a vast India in Africa. As my right honourable Friend observed, the fascination of this picture of another India is considerable. You have not in India, as my right honourable Friend the Under Secretary said in a burst of rhetoric, been for 180 years ruling 250 millions, but, still, there is a great fascination in the government of India. What, however, are the three things which, as my right honourable Friend 486 opposite said, distinguish the position of India? In the first place, it is surrounded by natural boundaries, and, in consequence, there has been no difficulty of interference by other nations; in the next place, you have got a large settled, industrious, and organised population. You can do a great deal with a people like that. You can give them the benefits of peace; you can enable the population to develop; you can secure them the benefits of civilisation, and they will prosper, and you will prosper with them. Is any single one of those conditions satisfied in the Soudan? The people have not the same civilisation, they have not risen to the same height, there is a very deficient agricultural population, and you would get but the smallest possible return in what are called Soudanese goods, which have no real commercial value. Then you come into competition with Abyssinia, and, if you are going on with this dream of getting down to Cape Town, you will encounter Germany, Belgium, and France, not to speak of the native tribes. Is our position in other parts of the world so good that we gain anything by going; in for this enterprise, which we shall have to keep up probably now that we have begun it, in which we lock up our forces, when we might use them to so much better purpose elsewhere? We have heard a good deal during the last two or three years about China. In China you have a country realising in some respects the conditions to which I have referred in respect of India. Is your arm strengthened in China by the fact that you have got these forces locked up in Africa?
§ *SIR E. DURNING-LAWRENCE (Cornwall, Truro)Yes.
§ *MR. COURTNEYIs your arm strengthened in China by the international jealousies which have been aroused by our action in the Soudan? My honourable Friend may probably have an opportunity presently of proving his position. To me it is clear that as we have fought we shall probably have to fight in the near future, in the Soudan. We have fought, and succeeded by a combination of English and Egyptian troops. Do you think you can do without that combination? You talk of making another India, and 487 of making it without the conditions which prevail in India. In India itself you have an army which is not a small one, and you are hound to keep there about one-third of your army in English soldiers? You cannot rest secure if you are going to maintain such a position in the Soudan without having there about the same proportion of your army, and in cases of difficulty you may have to have a larger proportion. You would, therefore, compel yourselves to lock up your army when you may want all your energy, all your power, all your resources to maintain what is absolutely necessary to you elsewhere. That is not to the interest of this country. I, for my part, am impenitent in my opinion as to the impolicy of this expedition. I am not going to shrink from the opinion that I entertained and still hold because, so far, your efforts have been crowned with success. Success is the poorest possible reason for believing in a policy which has not yet been tried except at its beginning. Probably, for many years to come, those who think that the prophecies of the past have been falsified by what has Happened may rejoice in their present convictions. Others would prudently suggest to them to wait until some further development before being quite sure. I am not myself in the least daunted in the conviction which I held three years ago, when this policy was begun. I entertained it strongly then, I entertain it as strongly now, and, entertaining it so strongly, I could not refrain from saying these few words, and expressing the opinions I have.
§ *SIR E. DURNING-LAWRENCE (Cornwall, Truro)I rise, Sir, to contend for a few moments against what I consider to be a fallacy on the part of my right honourable Friend (Mr. Courtney) as to the Nile and Egypt. He says that for 3,000 years the rulers of of Egypt were not dependent for their existence upon holding the Valley of the Nile. He might have said 6,000 years with equal accuracy. The truth of the matter is that a certain factor has arisen which has made it compulsory for us now to recognise that the Nile is Egypt and Egypt is the Nile, and that factor is the advance of engineering skill and scientific knowledge. My right honourable Friend is not an engineer, and it is engineering that has changed the situa- 488 tion. I ventured to say, speaking in March 1896, that it was quite within the powers of a foreign engineer to so divert the waters of the Nile that Egypt should be rendered almost a desert. When I said those words in 1896 there were some people who doubted whether I knew what I was talking about or whether what I had stated was a fallacy. A year later an honourable Member repeated my words, and many French newspapers discussed the question of diverting the waters of the Nile. And after a little more time had passed we found that the French had sent an expedition to Africa, the object of which was to seize the upper sources of the Nile. And those who take the trouble to read Major Marchand's speeches will find that he said that it was in his power to divert the waters of the Nile at the Bahr-el-Ghazal, so that the land there should be fertile while Egypt should be a desert. Was it not worth while that we should spend both time and money in order to prevent an operation such as that which, in the opinion of Major Marchand, would render Egypt a desert? The object of our expedition was, as the right honourable Gentleman has said, to take away the Khalifa's power and secure the Soudan. Not that there was any danger of the Dervishes diverting the waters of the Nile, but as there are no engineering difficulties in the way there was danger that a civilised power might do so. That, I think, answers the objection of the right honourable Gentleman. If Egypt can be rendered a desert by the diversion of the waters of the Nile, then we are bound to help her to obtain possession of those provinces which contain the sources of the Nile. And surely it is not too much to ask that Egypt herself should contribute to that object! My right honourable Friend has said that the battle of Omdurman has increased the difficulties of this country abroad, and that our position in China may be challenged because of the battle of Omdurman. I should imagine that my right honourable Friend is the only man who thinks that that is a fact. I know some thing about China, and I know what the feeling in China is and was, and I know what feeling has been aroused at this moment in every part of the world by the battle of Omdurman. What did the Emperor of Germany say? 489 He said that the battle of Omdurman was not of less importance than the battle of Waterloo. That is the statement of the Emperor of Germany, and he has acted upon that opinion, and he is ready to support us in China. Why? Wholly and solely because of the battle of Omdurman. And it was the battle of Omdurman that settled the pacification of Crete. And thus, so far from increasing the difficulties of this country, that battle has enormously decreased them in every part of the world. My right honourable Friend the Member for Bodmin is a practical man. But the right honourable Gentleman opposite (Mr. Morley) I have always regarded as a philosopher. I consider that a philosopher has no concern with facts, because, if the facts do not suit the philosophy, that is the fault of the facts and not of the philosophy. When I hear the right honourable Gentleman talking of facts I always dream of philosophy. When he quotes history I think that history is one of the most fallacious things in the world, because when the history which he quotes was written, there had not arisen anything approaching the present conditions of modern life and modern scientific knowledge, and things have therefore greatly changed since those classic times. It is such men as the right honourable Gentleman who speak the greatest fallacies, and are likely to commit the greatest follies. The present condition of affairs has justified the action which the Government took in this matter, because their action was taken neither too soon nor too late. Was there any arrière pensée in the action of the Government? Remember, we just advanced in time to save Kassala. Had Abyssinia joined the Khalifa, a knot would have been tied across Africa which would have been difficult to cut. What is the result of our advance at the opportune moment? Abyssinia is now our best friend. But had it happened that Abyssinia had joined hands with the Khalifa I think that the condition of Egypt and the condition of England would have been different from what it is to-day. I think that I have fully answered the fallacies of my right honourable Friend.
§ SIR E. GREY (Northumberland, Berwick)I think it may probably be the frankest and shortest course for me 490 to take by saying at once that there is a difference of opinion existing on this question between myself and my right honourable Friend the Member for Montrose. It is true that in 1896 we both voted in the same lobby on this Question, but we also both made speeches in the same Debate, and, though I do not think it is necessary that anyone should spend too much labour upon justifying their own consistency, I have referred to the speech I made in that Debate in 1896, and I find there are opinions in that speech which make it necessary for me, even on so comparatively insignificant a ground as that of my own consistency, to support the Government on this occasion. I need not labour that point by going into the reasons which I then gave for voting against the movement which the Government proposed to make at that time, because I also dealt in that speech with the larger issues which might arise afterwards, and which would lead me to take a very different course. Those larger issues have arisen, and it seems to me that this expedition into the Soudan, which has always been, in my opinion, sooner or later inevitable, has now been proved to have been not only inevitable, but to have been timely and opportune. Having said so much, I should like to say here that there were one or two things in the speech of my right honourable Friend the Member for Montrose to which I listened with great attention, and in which I think there was a great deal of force. We have lately been indulging in a period of very great expansion. We have also incurred very great expansion of expenditure, and I am inclined to think that my right honourable Friend was perfectly right when, in discussing what might be the probable issue at the next election, he put the question of expenditure in the forefront. I am inclined to think, also, that the right honourable Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer agrees with him on that point. That does not dispose of this question, but it does make it necessary that those of us who have supported certain movements of expansion should be prepared to show, in dealing before the country with this question, that we are men of moderate minds who are aware of the risks and the responsibilities and the expenditure which are entailed. We must be prepared to justify, 491 by moderate language, the expansion which has taken place, and in such a case as this we must be prepared to justify it, I consider, by showing that it was inevitable. Only in that way can we give such guarantees for our prudence in the future as will prevent the country from thinking that all those who advocate Imperial expansion are rash men who would lead us into financial difficulty. It is to that point I propose to address myself. And I would remind the right honourable Gentleman opposite who has spoken that I think it is unwise at this moment to dwell too strongly on how little this expedition has cost. It is quite true that the expedition has been exceedingly efficient and that it has been done at exceedingly small cost, but the end of the expenditure is not yet. In all these cases of extension of territory we have to be prepared to meet an expenditure which, in the long run, exceeds the estimates which have been made for what would be necessary. On the question of prophecy, which is germane to this point of expenditure, I think right honourable Gentlemen opposite have more reason art present to be cautious than my right honourable Friend the Member for Montrose. How far his prophecies may or may not come true is still a matter of opinion, and may still have to be discovered in the future; but there is one prophecy of the right honourable Gentleman opposite which has already-proved to be untrue. That is the prophecy made at the beginning of this policy, that we should not have to pay. I remember, I think it was in 1897, that my right honourable Friend the Member for Montrose, when it was a question of making a loan to Egypt of the money which was required, raised the point of whether in the end it would not be ourselves who would have to pay, and Lord Curzon, who followed him in the Debate, asked him if he really asked that question seriously. I do not know whether my right honourable Friend asked it seriously or not, but it did seriously come true that we had to pay. That is my reason for being cautious in prophecy. Having said so much, I do feel that the difference of opinion between myself and my right honourable Friend, which has existed for some years past, as to the policy of this matter has become a little academic. The country is committed to this policy. In my 492 opinion it has been inevitable that it should be. My right honourable Friend believes it was not inevitable, but I think that even he must think that it has become inevitable. We cannot draw back. It is no longer a new question to us. If that be so, our difference of opinion is one which relates more to the past than I think it can do to the future. Really what becomes interesting at this moment is not the question of difference about policy, as to whether this expedition ought or ought not to have taken place, but what is the settlement that is going to be made in the Soudan? At what pace can we proceed? What will be the boundary limits? I wish we could have more information given to us in regard to these questions, but I sympathise with the difficulties of my right honourable Friend opposite when he was pressed to say exactly what the administration of this territory was to be, as to how far it was to be considered Egyptian, or how far it was to be considered English territory. I sympathise with him because a few years ago, when it was my duty to stand on the other side of the Table, my honourable Friend the Member for Northampton displayed great curiosity upon this point. He wished to know where it was that the boundaries of the British sphere of influence left off, and where it was that the boundaries of Egyptian territory began. I sympathised with him immensely. So much did I sympathise with his desire for that information that it was to me a source of constant distress that I was unable to give it to him. At that time the Khalifa was in occupation of these territories, and it was obviously impossible to say what the final settlement was to be. But one thing I felt from the beginning, and felt always when my honourable Friend addressed questions to me, and that was, whatever the final settlement was, the territory of Egypt and the territory of Great Britain in the Nile Valley must be conterminous. That point is nearer a settlement than it was, but it is a point which cannot be settled yet. It is still too soon for it to be settled. It is a point that may give rise to a diplomatic question, with which the Government of the day alone can deal, and all we can insist upon at the present moment is that those territories must be conterminous. We are, however, obliged to admit that it is still too soon to define 493 the limits distinctly on the respective sides. I cannot, therefore, make the inability of the right honourable Gentleman opposite to give us definite information on that point a reason for not supporting the Government on this particular Vote.
§ MR. LABOUCHERE (Northampton)I do not understand the term "conterminous."
§ SIR E. GREYI am afraid the honourable Gentleman is asking the old question again. He wants to know where is the line to be drawn. I am still in the same position that I was before. The question where Egyptian territory leaves off and British territory must begin applies to the whole of the Nile Talley. Now, Sir, as to the reason why this policy has been inevitable. It has been inevitable really on two grounds. It has been inevitable on the ground of the interests of Egypt, and it has been inevitable on the ground of the interests of this country. If it were part of your policy, and if you believed it to be practical to withdraw from Egypt, if you believed it to be practical to withdraw from Uganda, then you might disinterest yourself in the Soudan, and this might be regarded as a policy of a wanton expansion of power. Since when have we had a free choice in this matter? Not for years. We entered Egypt years ago, and when the late Liberal Government came into power, I held that they had no free choice as regards Uganda, because British interests had already gone there, and turned the country upside down, or, at all events, made settlements which it was impossible for us to ignore. That being so, it was impossible to re-open these two questions, so, I think, we were bound to go on to consider this question of the Soudan. Take the interests of Egypt alone. My right honourable Friend the Member for Bodmin makes light of the interests of Egypt in the Nile Valley. He says the idea that Egypt must have control of the Nile is something which is disproved by history, because Egypt never has had for any lengthened period in her history full control of the Nile. As regards the engineering question, my right honourable Friend was answered by the honourable Member who followed him, on that side, in this Debate. The control of the Nile 494 is necessary to Egypt to-day in a way which it never has been before. The possibility of danger to the interests of Egypt in the Nile Valley, rendered possible by engineering science, is such as has never existed before, and the conditions are entirely altered. But I do not base this objection solely on the ground of the danger of the Nile being diverted by engineering power. There is another thing certain to come if the Soudan fell into the hands of another Power not friendly to Egypt, or not directly interested in the prosperity and welfare of Egypt. That Power in the Soudan would have to use the upper waters of the Nile for irrigation purposes, entirely irrespective of Egypt. That would be a most legitimate use of the upper waters of the Nile, but the using of the upper waters of the Nile for the irrigation of the Soudan would have a serious effect upon the possibilities of irrigation in Egypt. I maintain that that question of irrigation alone renders it essentially vital in the interests of Egypt that the control of the Nile, as a whole, should remain in the hands of a Power which is directly interested in the welfare of Egypt itself. Without that we have no security for the industries of Egypt. Now the question which has really arisen is this. The one point remaining in doubt was how long the Khalifa's power was likely to last, how soon would it break up? As long as that question was not answered in the affirmative, so long as it was believed that to crush the Khalifa would have taken a great effort and a great expenditure of money and of time, the question of the Soudan might have been left as it was. But the moment it became apparent to anybody that the Khalifa's power was on the wane, that it could be upset and destroyed easily, then it was perfectly certain that some Power would have to step in and occupy the Soudan. The natural Power to do that was Egypt. Egypt had the resources, Egypt had the money, and, I believe, Egypt desired to do so. We were in possession as Egypt's trustee, and if we had done nothing, after it was once proved that the moment had come, then, I say, we should have been in this position—that, being Egypt's trustee, we should not merely have been responsible by neglect, but we should have been responsible by active interference, in preventing her from entering into that occu- 495 pation which, was necessary to safeguard her own interests. That is the position as regards the interests of Egypt. But, Sir, we have had our own interests in this matter, too; and when I hear that our own interests—I suppose I ought to say our reversionary interests—have nothing to do with the Soudan, I cannot help thinking that the right honourable Gentleman the Member for Montrose has pushed some of his arguments too far. I do not in the least admit that, because the Government of the Congo State was expensive, and in some respects disastrous, therefore British and Egyptian rule in the Soudan would be the same. I refuse to accept that as a precedent as to what may happen in the Soudan. The materials and men and resources in money at our disposal are infinitely greater and superior in amount and quality than those at the disposal of the ruler of the Congo State. The Congo State is a vast territory which has fallen under the control of a Power without, at present, the strength to bring that territory into order or to do more than to carry on exploring expeditions in that colony. The whole position in the Soudan is different. You have guarantees of good order, guarantees of bringing the country under control, which have never existed, and do not at the present moment exist in the Congo State. My right honourable Friend said that India was no analogy to the Soudan. I admit it is not; but some of the arguments which he used were, I think, a little double-edged. He said there were no definite, natural frontiers in the Soudan as in India. That, I believe, is true. He said we should have other Powers as our neighbours in the occupation of the Soudan. That also is true. It may be that that renders the situation in the Soudan less favourable than the situation in India, where, as my right honourable Friend says, we are in a "ring fence." But it is a double-edged argument. Having no definite natural frontiers in the Soudan and having other Powers as neighbours may be drawbacks—and there are drawbacks to everything in this practical world—and may even appear conclusive as to the course that should be taken, until you consider what the drawbacks of the alternative course are. The alternative which underlies the whole speech of my right honourable Friend was that we should not have gone into the Soudan 496 ourselves, and should have prevented Egypt going there. Unless we retire from Egypt, which my right honourable Friend admitted the other day was not to be raised as a practical question at this moment, this question as to whether other Powers are likely to go into the Soudan tells both ways. "Other Powers are in the Soudan, which has no natural frontier." That may be said of nearly the whole of Africa. Is that a reason why we should withdraw and give up all our possessions and refuse entirely to compete in the development of Africa? If it is a reason at all it would carry us that far. That we should give up competition in the development of Africa and give up competition for the possession of territory in Africa simply because it is inevitable that there must be competition, is an intelligible policy, but I do not think it is a practical one. It would be impossible to carry out such a policy in this country. Individual men may hold that it is undesirable that we should enter into this competition for the development of Africa, but that competition exists, and, being a fierce competition, it was inevitable, I think, from our powers, from our tendencies, from our capacities, and from our history that we should take some part in it. We cannot disinterest ourselves in it altogether, we were bound to take a share in it, and the share we have taken in it is one which, I think, we could not have avoided, and the share we have taken in it has not, I think, in recent years been in excess of that which has been taken, by some other Powers. It is no doubt the case that friction in these matters does exist—it has caused friction with one other European Power. But think how much greater the friction would have been if we had embarked on the course of refusing to compete, if we had let things go so far that we saw it was no longer a question of whether we should or should not compete, but a question of our being excluded altogether! I hear sometimes quoted from the Benches behind me figures extracted from the Government as to what has been the result of our exclusion—our voluntary exclusion from Madagascar. These figures are continually used for the purpose of showing how dangerous it is that we should disinterest ourselves too completely in the occupation of these territories. 497 I am convinced that, with what happened in Madagascar before us, this country would have gone out of hand altogether had there been a danger of our being excluded from Africa. We were bound to avert the danger of that exclusion. I admit, however, that it is a question whether we have gone too far or too fast. I think myself that we have gone too fast in Africa, and I have stated so before in this House. But it is not we alone that have gone too fast. The pace has been made for us by other nations. Other Powers have overrun vast tracts of territory in that Continent, and wherever they have gone there was a danger of the exclusion of British trade. The pace, therefore, having been forced for us we were obliged to go fast while it lasted, or to retire altogether from the competition. I am glad to think that the pace has been slackened recently, because we have come to the last of the dominions which can be appropriated. Therefore, when we are called upon to explain before the country why our Imperial expansion is so expensive, we must admit that our hands have been forced by the pace at which other Powers have gone, and that the expenses we have incurred within the last few years, and the expenses we still shall have to incur in the next few years represent an outlay of capital at a faster rate than we should have spent it if we had been left to ourselves. But we shall justify that expenditure when, as I believe, within a few years these great territories become self-supporting. I cannot but believe that the great Continent of Africa, with the vastly increased population it will be capable of holding when it is settled, must lead to a large increase in the volume of our trade. There is one thing I cannot accept, and that is the argument of my right honourable Friend that because in this country we have free institutions, because we have established the highest standard of civilisation that has ever been reached in the history of the world, because it is impossible that these territories, inhabited as they are by savage races, can be governed as we are governed, that therefore we should not touch them at all. I cannot think that the object and end of raising ourselves to the highest degree of free institutions and civilisation is 498 that we become so timid as to refuse to touch races still sunk in barbarism. I admit many things happen when we enter new countries which, though less gross and less cruel than things which happened in years past, still require the close attention not only of the Government, but of this House; and I would give the fullest time necessary for the consideration of those questions; but I cannot believe that our civilisation is such that it runs a danger of being deteriorated in the attempt to govern uncivilised races. I think that if the character of a great nation is in danger of being deteriorated, it is not by accepting the obligations of governing uncivilised peoples; but it is rather by taking too narrow a view of the obligations of its position; it is by losing confidence in its own power to be just and to bring things right in the end, whatever may be the struggles in the beginning, and by refusing to undertake the new responsibilities which are after all inevitable in the case of an Empire like ours.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREI do not think, after listening to the speeches of the right honourable Gentleman the Member for Montrose, and of the honourable Member for Berwick, anybody can say that the differences of opinion between the two are only academic. I heartily congratulate my right honourable Friend the Member for Montrose upon having come out from the Liberal official council, if my honourable Friend the Member for Berwick is really the spokesman of that council. My honourable Friend told us that we were already committed to a certain policy, and that, therefore, we must go on with it. This is the old doctrine of continuity of foreign policy, and it seems that it is necessary that in this matter we should always act in the same way as the Conservatives. I am not inclined to yield to that. But my honourable Friend has admitted that in Africa we have been going too fast. Is he not, however, himself proposing that we should go a bit faster? He wishes us to push on and take all territory between Omdurman and Uganda. Surely that is a policy of pushing on. My right honourable Friend gave us a new reason for this policy, which I do not think has ever before been stated in 499 this House, and I am bound, with all respect to him, to say we have not heard it before because it was so preeminently absurd. My right honourable Friend told us it was absolutely necessary that the Power which holds Egypt should hold the whole valley of the Nile, because he said it is possible that the Nile, near its sources, may be diverted for irrigation purposes to the great detriment of Egypt itself. But we must remember that the Nile has been flowing for thousands and thousands of years uninterfered with, and it is still likely to flow on. Therefore I say that the suggestion is pre-eminently absurd. It should also be remembered that the country in which the Nile rises is one vast dense swamp, and that fact in itself would render it most unlikely that there would be any diversion of the Nile for irrigation purposes. My right honourable Friend told us that we went to the Soudan because we had come to the conclusion that the Khalifa was so weak that he would not be able to resist us. It is evident, however, that although we have already spent a large sum of money the Khalifa is not yet subdued, for he is roaming about with 15,000 or 20,000 men, and we know perfectly well that the Egyptian troops are not able to stand against him and will have to be strengthened with an English force. We have not yet come to the end of the course. But I really do despise this policy of the Government, when we are told that we went to the Soudan because Egypt had once been there, and when we got there we intended to remain, that the Queen was paramount in that country, and yet we were going to pay all the cost out of the Egyptian Treasury. That is not fair to the two partners. The two partners should pay together. The fact is, we went there like the lion and the lamb. We were the lion and Egypt was the lamb. We sat down to the joint and partook of it together, but then told the poor lamb that she must really pay for the whole of it. My right honourable Friend the Member for Montrose asked a question about the area of this country, but we did not get any clear and distinct statement as to what was the area of the country we at present hold, jointly belonging to Egypt and to us. The right honourable 500 Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs said he could not geographically tell us. That is one of my objections to this policy, that you won't tell us what is the precise area of the country. Directly you get to one place you want to go on to another, and you want a free hand to spread yourselves all over Africa if you please. The right honourable Gentleman said he would tell us generally what the area of the country was: it was what had been held by the Khalifa, and that that would be under our joint control. But does the right honourable Gentleman make a distinction—if so, it is the first time that it has been made—between what was held by the Egypt of Ishmael Pasha and what was held by the Khalifa? What really was done was that the Egyptian Government sent a few troops and occupied a few places, and in that way they may be said to have had control of the country. Yet the Khalifa did not hold the whole of it. I do not think that the Khalifa held any part of the Bahr-el-Ghazal. Certainly he did not hold any portion of the western part of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, nor had the Mahdi ever held that portion which we now claim. When we are told that a large territory is annexed to the British Empire, and that the British flag has been hoisted over it, the first thing we ought to know is what is the extent of the territory, and what are its boundaries. Are we only to-have a vague statement that we have got a certain portion of territory, and that if we can manage on the cheap to get a little more we will absorb it and take it. The right honourable Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs twitted my right honourable Friend the Member for the Montrose Burghs as to his action in regard to Uganda. I am bound to say that I did not approve of his action myself, but I made allowances for him. But possibly my right honourable Friend was then occupied with the whole burden of Irish Administration; he devoted himself entirely to the purposes of the Irish occupation—to the Irish Government—and to a certain extent he left foreign affairs to his colleagues. I suppose that was really the explanation of how he voted in favour of the railroad. What I do remember is that the right honourable Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire also voted for 501 that railroad, but ho made one of the most powerful speeches against that line that I ever heard made in my life. I do not know much about the matter, but I suppose that with these lofty Gentlemen it becomes a question of give and take in regard to each other's views. They went to a Cabinet meeting, and the one says to the other, "I object to this, but I won't make a fuss." And so a great deal of harm is done collectively by the Cabinet in matters to which some of the Members objected. But when we are told about the old title of Egypt to the Soudan the right honourable Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs seems to have forgotten what took place when General Gordon went to the Soudan. He issued a proclamation that the Soudan was absolutely independent of Egypt, and was ever to remain independent of Egypt. And if you look back at the dispatches you will find that that proclamation was approved of by our Foreign Office. And so we had given that pledge of absolute independence on the part of ourselves and of Egypt, and on the part, on the other hand, of the Soudan. Then the right honourable Gentleman boasted Ave were so exceptionally good as to go to the Soudan and spend British money there because, as he said, there was no gold there. I do not know whether there is gold in the Soudan or not, but I think it is exceedingly probable that gold companies will soon be promoted in the Soudan. But I am bound to say, looking upon it as a commercial matter, it is too absurd that the right honourable Gentleman has nothing to give us for this burglarious expedition. If I went out as a burglar I would attack the man who could least defend himself and who had some property, and the property he had about him I would take. There was no justification for the boast that because there was no gold in the Soudan therefore we were generous and noble in going there. We have to look at these matters on commercial grounds. I know the doctrine of my honourable Friend near me, the Member for Berwick, who says that we want to open up new markets, and profit by these new markets. I absolutely deny the truth of that doctrine. What we ought to do is to go to the old markets, and spend all our sovereigns in developing these. We ought to go to Eastern Asia, where 502 there is some civilisation, and where there is a certain amount of energy devoted to commercial objects. If all our energies were applied to getting into the old markets I believe the result would be far more advantageous to us. Sir Robert Peel once made an observation which should be respected by honourable Gentlemen opposite. Sir Robert Peel was respected in his day for a very long while by the Conservative Party, though I do not know what the Conservative Party has come to now.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREYes. But what did he say. He said in this House: "I am not against annexations, provided you annex countries where Englishmen can live and thrive." He was against the notion of annexing tropical countries where there is no civilisation and where Englishmen could not colonise. Is the Soudan going to pay, or who is going to pay for its administration? We are told that it will pay in some dim and distant future. General Gordon said it would not pay for many a year, and I suppose that General Gordon did know something of the country. The right honourable Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs did not seem to quite understand the argument of my right honourable Friend in regard to the objection he has of having vast subject races under us. The right honourable Gentleman says: "Look at India; ought we not to increase such possessions?" I say "No," precisely; because we have got hundreds of millions of subject races at the present time; we ought to set a limit to our responsibilities, and ought not to increase them. What do you do now? You employ men of subject races to keep under other subject races. That is following the example of Carthage, but remember that the whole of the subject races rose up against Carthage and destroyed her. And that you will find will always be the case. I believe there is nothing more disastrous than to employ subject races to keep down other subject races. But that is not enough. You have in India not only your own Indian Army, but a very powerful English Army. And what is the object of that English Army? It is to strengthen the Native Army, says one. 503 Yes, but there is another object; it is to prevent rebellion on the part of the Native forces. I remember well the Indian Mutiny, and I remember the complaint at the time was that we had not sufficient British soldiers in India in order to meet a possible rebellion on the part of the Native Army. And since then it has been urged that we should increase that English Army for our defence against possible attacks by the Native Army. My right honourable Friend complains that this system of employing subject races to keep under other subject races is a bad system; that it is injurious both to the governed and the governors that we should establish this system of despotism all over the world. We cannot treat these countries like our self-governing Colonies. That is impossible, and if we make ourselves responsible for these hordes of African savages we can only rule them with a rod of iron. The right honourable Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs says that we have a mission from Heaven—I do not know how it was communicated to him—along with the United States to conquer all tropical countries in Africa and elsewhere for their benefit and for our own benefit. I do not admit for a moment that you have any such mission. And certainly, so far as I am able to understand it, when the right honourable Gentleman takes upon himself to say that this was our mission and that of the United States, the United States have not responded by accepting any portion of this mission. They may take the Philippines, but if you think that the United States is going to draw the chestnuts out of the fire for you in Africa or elsewhere you are making a big mistake. What is the result of all these annexations? The Budget goes up year after year. I see that on the present occasion we are called upon to vote a greater number of men than last year, and possibly next year the number will be still greater. The expenditure has gone up by leaps and bounds, and it is really high time, if we are to support the proposals of the Czar as to increased armaments, that we oppose these increases to our army and the policy which makes them necessary. The right honourable the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs twitted the Liberal Government with not having 504 done anything while in office to withdraw from Egypt. It is a very curious fact that M. Ribot, when Minister for Foreign Affairs in France, made a speech in the French Chamber, and the most important part of that speech was not reported in one single English newspaper. When Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet came in M. Ribot stated Mr. Gladstone had a conversation with M. Waddington, then French Ambassador in England. Mr. Gladstone in that conversation proposed that negotiations in regard to the evacuation of Egypt should be renewed between France and England on the basis of the Wolff Convention. When Mr. Gladstone did this, Lord Rosebery was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and he sent a dispatch or a letter to the English Ambassador at Paris telling him to call on M. Ribot and to tell him that the matter concerned him as Minister for Foreign Affairs, and not to pay any attention to Mr. Gladstone.
§ HONOURABLE MEMBERS on the Ministerial Benches: Hear, hear.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREI dare say honourable Gentlemen opposite are perfectly right to cheer; they must look with contempt on any Cabinet—Liberal or Conservative—which conducted its business on such lines as these. All I want to point out is that there was a difference of opinion in the Cabinet, and that Mr. Gladstone did his best by seeing M. Waddington and discussing the matter with him in regard to some arrangement being come to as to the evacuation of Egypt. That was deliberately and in the most extraordinary fashion—it seems to have even surprised honourable gentlemen opposite—put aside by Lord Rosebery. No allusion has been made to one point—which, if it were the only point, would lead me to vote in favour of the Motion of my right honourable Friend. It is in regard to what took place over the Fashoda incident. I am not going into the question of who had the right to Fashoda—whether France or England or Egypt. I should say that neither had the right to it. Undoubtedly when we get to questions of African titles there is a good deal to be said on one side and another. Well, the French were at Fashoda. I do not say who 505 was right, but I maintain that we ought to have discussed the question with France, and if we could not come to an agreement that we should have proposed some reasonable arbitration. What did the Government do? They sent an ultimatum to France. Why should the Government have absolutely refused even to discuss the matter with France Have honourable Gentlemen opposite considered what an ultimatum means? When you send an ultimatum you must stand to it, and that means that if France was not prepared to withdraw war would ensue. Well, is it possible to conceive anything more monstrous than that two great countries like France and England should go to war on a question of the possession of a miserable place on the Nile? It is all very well to say that if we send an ultimatum the other side will not fight. But that is a very risky business. I believe that in all these disputes we ought never to put ourselves in a position of saying: "If you do not yield to us we will go to war." We should discuss the matter and go to arbitration. War was saved on that occasion by the attitude of France. The French had sense enough to see that their navy was not so strong as ours, and that the matter was not worth fighting for, and, therefore, they yielded. But what of the future? We now have undertaken to build ships against all the world pretty well, but does it not occur to honourable Gentlemen opposite that there will be, some day, a combination against us?
§ Mr. LABOUCHEREWell I admit that I have. It will be said what ought we to do now? Ought we immediately to evacuate Egypt and the Soudan? Sir, I am essentially a practical person in these matters. If you ask me what I should do, I reply that I would immediately enter into negotiations with France on the basis of the Wolff Convention for the evacuation of Egypt and the Soudan. I am so entirely at one with Lord Salisbury as to the danger of our being in Egypt and the Soudan that he might have converted me if I had needed any conversion. I admit that it might not be 506 possible at the present moment to evacuate Egypt. I admit that it would be difficult for us to evacuate the Nile Valley from Wady Halfa up to Sobat. But what I would do is this: I would limit our position there to the Nile Valley. I would not go careering about to Kordofan and Darfur. I would not go to the provinces between Sobat and Uganda. I would endeavour instead of extending our occupation, which seems to be the object of the Government, to limit that occupation as far as possible. I would not go into another miserable partnership with Egypt or have the English flag floating in the Soudan. The Egyptian Government should be made solely responsible, and we should remain in the Soudan only so long as the Egyptian administration was being set up, and then I would retire from the place altogether. You say that we have neighbours in Darfur and Kordofan, and that they would be bad neighbours. We will allow that there are neighbours there and savage neighbours; but there will always be a certain amount of fighting so long as you have a frontier there. In conclusion, I heartily congratulate the right honourable Member for Montrose on having brought forward this Amendment, and on having nailed the flag of anti-jingoism to the mast. We are prepared to fight for that flag. We are not prepared to submit to the dirty Tory rag of a spirited foreign policy. No man can say that I have not the courage of my convictions. I have always protested against the whole system of annexation. This Amendment of my right honourable Friend is a protest against the tortuous and evasive policy by which the annexation of that country was brought about, a protest against the ultimatum to France regarding Fashoda, and a protest against that increase of armaments which must be the result of such annexations.
§ SIR J. FERGUSSON: (Manchester, N.E.)I wish to take notice of a passage in the speech of the right honourable Member for the Montrose Burghs. He began by saying that he did not intend on the present occasion to discuss the question of the campaign on the Nile, and then he proceeded to apply to an act which had been done in the campaign the epithet of revolting, 507 that it was disgraceful to the authorities, and inflicted a blot on our good name. I do not think it becomes a man in the position of the right honourable. Gentleman to condemn in such unmeasured terms the act of a public man in whom the people of this country have placed the greatest confidence. I think it was very lamentable that the right honourable Gentleman should have used such expressions in regard to a matter which he himself said it was premature to discuss. The conduct and character of Lord Kitchener have attracted the greatest admiration in this country; he has added lustre to the Army of this country, he has been entrusted by his own Government and that of Egypt with full powers for the government of the Soudan, and it does not become the right honourable Gentleman to besmirch that distinguished man's character by making premature remarks such as he has made in moving the Amendment.
§ MR. J. MORLEYI did not charge the Sirdar with being responsible for the act.
§ SIR J. FERGUSSONThe right honourable Gentleman laid the blame on those in authority, and the only person m authority in the Soudan was Lord Kitchener. I say that he ought to give credit to the distinguished Englishman in charge of that country, that there was good reason for what was done. The whole tone of the speech of the right honourable Gentleman was marked more by a feeling of regret that his own countrymen were so besotted that they did not take his advice than by any hope of carrying conviction to his audience. In regard to the future of the Soudan we all hope for the best, and that Lord Kitchener will be as successful in his civil administration as he as shown himself to be a great soldier and military organiser. We have been told that the employment of mercenaries had been a misfortune to every nation who used them. What is our position in India? The larger part of the forces which we have in India are native. We strengthen the native army by a leaven of British soldiers. It is the same in Egypt as in India, and it is a contradiction in terms to describe the employment of the natives in a country 508 to keep the peace of that country as au employment of mercenaries, which always has been found prejudicial to any Power which used them. The employment of the people of the country as soldiers and police does tend to popularise our rule, and if there is one feature in our management of affairs that has been more successful than any other it is that we have brought the Egyptian. Army into a thoroughly efficient State, and made the Egyptian and Soudanese soldiers thoroughly reliable under all possible circumstances, even the most trying. We have turned, I hope, a brighter page in the history of the Soudan. We have reconquered the Soudan with distinguished success. Let us place confidence in those who represent us there, and, above all, let us not weaken their hands by lowering them either in the eyes of their fellow-countrymen or of those whom they are called upon to rule.
§ *SIR JOHN LUBBOCK (London Unisity)Sir, we have had some very interesting speeches this evening from both sides of the House as to whether Egypt or England benefited, or are likely to benefit, by this expedition. But there is one aspect of the question which has not been touched upon, and that is the interests of the Soudan itself. There may be, I think, some difference of opinion whether we, as a country, are likely to benefit or to suffer by the policy which has been adopted in relation to Egypt; but there can be no question whatever that the people of the Soudan are sure to gain very greatly by the action that we have taken there. I rise to make that observation because the honourable Member for Northampton characterised our expedition to the Soudan as a burglarious expedition. That seems to have shown that he really has not studied what the conditions of the history of the Soudan have been of late. Sir, we have heard a great deal about the extension of England and of Germany and of France in Africa of late years. But the real people who have made progress and taken the most active Dart in extending their influence throughout Central Africa of late years have not been the English, nor the French, nor the Germans, but the Arabs. The Arabs have really nothing more to do with the Soudan 509 than we have ourselves. They are entirely a foreign people. They have exploited the Soudan and the neighbouring districts entirely in their own interests. They have carried havoc and bloodshed and slavery into regions which were comparatively happy, and have converted many populous and fertile districts almost into deserts. The effect of our going to the Soudan, whatever influence it may have upon ourselves, certainly will be to bring peace and happiness and comfort to the natives therein; and that is an aspect, Sir— which I think we ought not to forget—it is one of which we have reason to be proud. Then we are frequently told that we have subjugated the Soudanese. Sir, I deny it altogether; so far from having subjugated the Soudanese, what we have been really doing is to free them from a terrible tyranny. That, Sir, I think, is an aspect of the case of which an Englishman may very well be proud. The honourable Member for Northampton, we know, is not in favour of our presence in Egypt. He has told us that he would desire to see established a strong and powerful native government. Why, Sir, when has Egypt ever had a native and powerful government? The history of Egypt goes back for many thousands of years, and during the whole of that time Egypt has been dominated by one foreign race after another, who have been governing the country, not in the interests of Egypt, but in their own interests, and getting all they possibly could out of it. And now, for the first time in history, Egypt is governed by a people whose primary object is to govern the country, not for their own advantage, but for the advantage of Egypt. Sir, what we have done for Egypt is one of the brightest pages of our history. It has been generally recognised as such by critics abroad, and I think we may justly refer to it with some national pride. The honourable Member for Northampton spoke of subject races rising in revolt, and he made a reference to the Indian Mutiny. Sir, where should we have been in the Indian Mutiny if the people of India had really risen in revolt? It was a purely military revolt, one in which the people took no part themselves; the industrious and peaceable population of India never did rise against 510 us, and I am sure my right honourable Friend behind me (Sir J. Fergus-son will confirm me in that statement. If we look back oil the history of the world, it has generally been the case that nations who have despotically governed other countries have in the long run suffered from having done so. I believe the reason of their failure has been that they have governed those subject races, not in the interests of those races themselves, but in the interests of the governing country. No doubt we afford an analogy in some respects very similar to those other great countries who have occupied a prominent position in history, because we are doing now very much what the Persians and Assyrians and Romans and other great conquering countries have done; but I am in hopes, Sir, that we shall not find that we experience the same results. I ground this hope on the fact that while they one and all governed their subject races, not for the benefit of those races, but for their own benefit, we are adopting a very different course, and although, no doubt, we have made mistakes, I believe that in our government we have always had it in view to ameliorate the condition of those whose interests have been bound up with our own, and under these circumstances surely we may hope that we shall establish a prosperous and permanent Empire.
§ *MR. JOSEPH WALTON (Yorks, W.R Barnsley)Questions of foreign policy ought not to be regarded by any means as party questions, and I have no hesitation in congratulating Her Majesty's. Government on the splendid success that has attended their great undertaking in the rescue of the Soudan from the curse of barbarism and the curse of slavery. When we undertook the duty of being the protector of Egypt in 1882 we were bound to take upon ourselves every obligation, and there is no question that the marvellous way in which Egypt has prospered, having had anarchy repressed, and life and property made secure from one end of it to the other—the way in which Egypt has prospered during the 10 years or 12 years that this country has had the protection of it is one of the greatest testimonies to the success and the justice of British rule. I, for one, hope that it may not be long before there is a railway constructed to connect Cairo 511 and the Cape. I can conceive of no more civilising influence that could be brought to bear than the laying down of a railway throughout that great Continent, which would open it up to civilisation and to trade, and give the final death-blow to that cursed system of slavery that has so long disgraced the Dark Continent of Africa, Where we as a nation bring under our government peoples in any part of the world, I venture to think that we have secured to them juster and more beneficial government than they would have if they passed under the rule of any other nation. We have the greatest and grandest example of just and successful government in connection with our great Indian Empire that the world can find. The right honourable Gentleman the Member for Montrose spoke of mercenaries fighting our battles. I cannot think that he referred, at any rate, to those native soldiers of India who have fought for us so splendidly over and over again.
§ MR. J. MORLEYThe Chancellor of the Exchequer said that.
§ *MR. JOSEPH WALTONI beg the right honourable Gentleman's pardon. There is another question, that wherever populations in any part of the world are brought under British rule they have, at any rate, no protective system introduced to their disadvantage. We, having spent our money and shed our blood in the acquisition of our world-wide Empire, throw it open throughout every part equally to the trade of all nations, so that the teeming millions of India can buy whatever they need to import in the best and cheapest market. And those who are interested in the future prosperity of British trade must not forget that by reason of the increased strenuousness of the competition of other nations for the trade of the world, it is a matter of the highest importance that England should secure a full share in the development and opening up and the control of territory in that great continent of Africa; because I think in that way, and in that way alone, shall we have secured to us throughout the portions which we govern equal opportunity to trade in the future along with other nations of the world. I have no hesitation in supporting Her Majesty's Government in their policy in the Soudan, and 512 I venture to say that if they will only take up the same position in China that they have taken up in the Soudan they will deserve still more the congratulations of Members of the Opposition.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs)Mr. Lowther, I do not intend to take any very large part in this discussion, because what I shall have to say will be little more than an amplification of what I have already said to the House, of the opinion I have already expressed to the House on the opening night of the Session, in words which were quoted to-night by my right honourable Friend the Member for Montrose. Sir, I am supposed to be in a position of some perplexity, because my right honourable Friend and my honourable Friend the Member for Berwick have taken somewhat different lines upon this question. My honourable Friend the Member for Berwick has never been able to take exactly the same view of this question from the beginning as commends itself to myself and most of my honourable and right honourable friends. He has to-night made a speech of great ability, as usual, expressing views with the main part of which I find myself in accordance. That is the worst of these questions of foreign policy, because when we treat them in the abstract we are very much in the position of people looking at opposite sides—or not even sides so different as opposite sides might be—of the same shield, and it is only when we come to concrete cases and to details that we find any great reason to differ. Well, Sir, I, for my part, have always viewed with the greatest hesitation and the greatest suspicion the whole of this policy of advancing up the Nile, undertaken as it was under circumstances which very naturally excited doubts in our minds. We all remember what those circumstances were. We opposed it at the time, first of all on the ground that at that moment our resources were largely involved, and might at any day be weakened to a greater degree—involved in different parts of the world—and we were undertaking a new enterprise of an extent that we could not at the time fathom. It therefore seemed to us in that sense inopportune. Then we had such varying accounts given of its motives and intentions that we could not make out what 513 was the real purpose of the Government or the real purpose of the expedition. I will not go back upon that ground. We were also affected—at least, I remember that I was considerably affected—by the report, I think the well-founded report, that the very highest authority on the subject, namely, Lord Cromer himself, was not, to put it gently, a very ardent sympathiser with the policy which was supported by Her Majesty's Government. All this contributed to make us view with dislike the proposal of the Government, and we accordingly voted against it, and we have ever since had a somewhat lurking suspicion and dislike in our minds; I frankly say it. For myself, I am not one of those who think that this matter is a matter with which we have nothing to do. We are in Egypt, and surely it is time, after all these years, that we should be a little more clear in our minds than we sometimes are as to the actual position we occupy in Egypt. For my part, I agree for once with my honourable Friend the Member for Northampton—I am glad to find myself on this occasion in agreement with him —when he says that, situated as we are, it is impossible to think of retiring from Egypt.
§ Mr. LABOUCHEREFor the moment.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANFor the moment, yes. There we are, and we are engaged in a great work there, which I am sure even my honourable Friend would not desire to see hurriedly abandoned and left undone. I have always held—I do not know that I shall have the same acquiescence from my honourable Friend now—that there was a necessity, or, at all events, an expediency, pointing to the influence of Egypt being made supreme in the Valley of the Nile, and that not on account of fantastic reasons connected with Cambyses or any other more or less mythical personage with whom my honourable Friend is so familiar, but simply for the practical reason that it is very undesirable—a practical, and perhaps I might say humble, reason—that it is very undesirable to allow any other European Power to come into the Valley of the Nile and cause fresh disturbance of a position already delicate enough. On these grounds, therefore, I have been, as 514 I say, always opposed to the advance up the Nile, though not regarding it with that strong antipathy which it meets with in some quarters. But my great objection to it was really based upon, this, that the occupation of the Soudan seemed to involve apparently limitless responsibility. I believe that grave apprehensions are entertained upon this ground by men who have no taint whatever of timidity, by men who are quite in favour of the expansion of the Empire, and of the phrases with which we are so familiar, but who at the same time have a strong view upon this point. But the Government have been led on to it, stage by stage, and step after step, every one stage being perfectly natural and plausible, but leading to this stupendous responsibility in tropical Africa. We have the Soudan, we have the Niger district, we have Uganda, all on our hands in tropical Africa. Well, Sir, I trust that there may be, at all events, some consolation to be found in the fact referred to by my honourable Friend the Member for Berwick, that the map is by this time pretty well covered, that the competition to which he referred is pretty nearly at an end. And I earnestly hope that the Government—I feel sure that the Government—are taking every means in their power to advance negotiations and arrangements with France with regard to our frontier with their territory; and once we have that settled in an amicable spirit—and I see no reason why it should not be—there is a prospect of comparative peace and quietness and easy government and administration, even in that vast district for which we have assumed responsibility. That is the consolation that we may have at the present, I think; because if we were to contemplate, as my right honourable Friend and my honourable Friend below the Gangway do, a series, year after year, of these military expeditions, and difficulty after difficulty arising, we might well stand aghast at the prospect before us. We hear a great deal of General Gordon's opinion. Sir, I remember passages in General Gordon's diaries in which he protested against young Englishmen being sent out to the Soudan, on the ground that it was detrimental to their health, both morally and physically. And I think I have read a much more striking passage, in which he said he regarded it 515 as almost impossible for any European Power ever to undertake the Government of the Soudan. Well, Sir, I hope that this is an exaggerated view, and I hope that things may, in the way I have indicated, so settle themselves that we shall have less trouble than otherwise might be expected. These are reasons, Sir, why so many of us cannot join in the exuberance, and, perhaps, to a great degree, thoughtless exultation over the result of the late military operations, of which, as military operations, too high praise cannot be spoken. There is another aspect of the question which has never struck me as furnishing a very forcible argument, and that is the question of markets. I am all in favour of extending the trade of the country, and of finding fresh markets, but what I think is the danger of a good deal of this expansiveness which has been going on of late is this, that it withdraws the energies and the enterprise of our countrymen from markets which they used to control, and which were much more profitable, in the vain pursuit of what is little more than a will-o-the-wisp in many cases, of a market which does not exist, and may not exist for many years to come. No further back than this morning I read, as many honourable Members must have done, an account of what has happened in the island of Crete, where it is reported that already one or two French and German commercial travellers have arrived, speaking Greek fluently, and quite ready to snap up any trade that may be going in the way of selling agricultural implements, and performing other matters of business with the Cretans. Well, not an Englishman has yet got to the country. That is the case all over the world. We have neglected opportunities—we have left undone the things which we ought to have done, and in some cases have done things which we ought not to have done. Well, Sir, but what we have to deal with now is really the fact—we must deal with and recognise the fact—that we are there. My honourable Friend the Member for Northampton—I come back to him and make him, in fact, the foundation of my theory in this matter—he admits, not only that we cannot leave Egypt, but that we cannot leave the Soudan. Well, that being so, we must recognise existing circumstances, and if my right honourable Friend's Motion 516 meant that we were to retrace our steps, to undo what has already been done there, then. I should certainly not have voted for him; but, regarding it as a continued protest against a policy which we have already expressed an adverse opinion upon, I have not any hesitation in supporting it. We are in the Soudan, and the task before us, whether it was reasonably and soberly undertaken, or whether it was undertaken rashly and with the cœur leger which usually precedes disaster, we must face; we must assume the responsibilities we have undertaken. Sir, the discussion to-night will, I believe, have brought out what is, after all, notwithstanding that the Division will show an apparent difference of opinion—what is a substantial agreement as to the immediate policy to be pursued. The right honourable Gentleman has explained, has in some degree given a faint sketch of the nature of the government established under Lord Kitchener in the Soudan. It is too much to expect that that should be an elaborate system of government. For the moment it is governed by military law, and, therefore, of an absolutist and wholly personal character. But a time will soon come, no doubt—and the sooner the better, for if what we hope will happen with regard to our relations with France occurs, there Will be less need for delay—sooner or later a more orderly and regular government will be established, and then I hope that we shall have less reason for regret, after all, than some of us have thought possible, in the condition of the great country for which we have become responsible.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,) Manchester, E.The right honourable Gentleman has possessed one method of keeping up the interest of his speech to the end which I am not fortunate enough to share with him. Everyone knows how I am going to vote, but I will venture to say that not a single Gentleman listening to the right honourable Gentleman's observations knew how he was going to vote until he told us in so many words, and when he did tell us they gave us a shock of dramatic surprise. The right honourable Gentleman' has been by some extraordinary ill-luck more than once during the brief tenure of his present position placed in the most disagreeable position in which 517 I think any person having to announce his policy in this House can be placed—a policy which is of a somewhat shadowy and nebulous kind. The person who pursues that policy appears to be leaning first to one set of supporters and then to another set, and seems to doubt which of the two or three parties into which his followers are divided it is best to rely upon, finally occupying no doubt the most representative position of all— a position exactly in the middle between the two extremes. The right honourable Gentleman told us, I think, that he was opposed to this policy, but had not so strong an antipathy to it as some of the other right honourable Gentlemen sitting near him. So I understand the views of the Opposition with regard to the present expedition may be divided into three classes. There are those who distinctly approve it; they are represented, and most ably represented, by the late Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs. There are those who have a strong antipathy to it, and they are represented by the honourable Gentleman the Member for Northampton and some other honourable Gentlemen near him; and then there is the large middle party— at least it is a middle party, but I do not know how large it is—represented by the Leader of the Opposition, who look upon it with a suspicion, but have not so great an antipathy to it as some other persons. I might occupy the time of the House with regard to the right honourable Gentleman's observations as regards markets, a most important question most ably dealt with by his colleague who sits near him. The right honourable Gentleman told us that we are neglecting markets in Crete, of all places in the world, and elsewhere running after this will-o'-the-wisp of markets in tropical Africa. I believe this to be a complete delusion. I am not defending the want of enterprise on the part of British merchants—if want of enterprise there be—and I do not say that the commercial education of those classes interested in commerce is as highly developed as it is in some foreign countries, and I am not weighing in the balance how much we lose by that inferiority; but to tell me that we fail in Crete because we open markets in the East, South, or West of Africa, or that our energy in China is diminished by the fact that we think 518 more of Africa than we did, is really to ignore the most patent facts before us, and I do not believe there is a word of truth in it. Observe that the markets we secure, as the phrase goes, in these possessions or protectorates are markets open to the German and French commercial traveller who has just landed in Crete quite as much as they are to our own people; and if the right honourable Gentleman was addressing those countries that insist on building a wall of protection round every acre of ground they acquire on other continents, I think he might say to them—
Your best interests do not lie in keeping out foreign competition, but in raising the quality of your manufactures so as to meet foreign competition.Wherever our flag flies, Frenchmen and Germans are allowed to go in on the same terms as our own merchants, and if it be an advantage, as I think it is, that we should protect at all events some part of this great continent of Africa from the effect of these hostile and prohibitory tariffs, then it is a commercial interest of the first importance to this country that we should carry out that policy. But, after all, that is a parenthesis in my speech in answer to one in the speech of the right honourable Gentleman. It is not the issue before us. The issue was placed in the clearest language try the late Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He said that, being in Egypt and haying for the present to stay there, the Soudan question had to be settled sooner or later, and that the time of its settlement depended upon many circumstances, of which perhaps the most important was the possibility of any Power other than Egypt occupying a position in the Nile Valley. It seems perfectly clear to the honourable Gentleman not only that the Soudan had to be dealt with by Egypt, but that this was the time for dealing with it, on account of facts which were present to the mind of every one of his hearers. I wish to put to the Leader of the Opposition these two questions—Does he hold that Egypt can be held by this country, and that if this country can be responsible for the government of Egypt it will permanently ignore the Soudan? [Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN assented.] The right honourable Gentleman agrees with one of the propositions of the 519 honourable Baronet the late Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, that this country cannot be responsible for the government of Egypt and yet be indifferent to the Soudan. Then I will put my second question. Would the right honourable Gentleman have waited until some other Power than Egypt got into the Valley of the Nile before action was taken?
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI answer that also. I said that that was the reason why I thought that the Valley of the Nile should be under the control of Egypt in order to prevent the appearance of a European Power.
THE FIRST LORD OF TUB TREASURYThe right honourable Gentleman agrees with the two premisses of the honourable Baronet, and he differs from their logical inference. He thinks; we are bound to preserve the control of the Valley of the Nile for Egypt, and yet he does not think it appropriate to make an expedition to preserve that valley at a moment, perhaps the last moment, when that expedition could take place without bringing us into direct collision with a great neighbour. The man who can hold the views of the right honourable Gentleman and give the vote that he means to give is in a state which my plain understanding is perfectly unable to fathom or understand. But, after all, it is not my business to criticise the right honourable Gentleman's relations either to this or that wing of his Party, or to discuss in detail the vote he means to give. It is enough for us that the Debate as carried on by both sides of the House has been the most complete vindication of the necessity of the policy which we pursued, and that that policy, necessary as it has turned out to be, has been conducted from beginning to end with complete success, is a sufficient reason for our obtaining to-night a conclusive mark of the continued confidence of the House as to the policy of the Government, and in having behind that expression of the confidence of the House the undiminished belief of the people of the country as to the wisdom of the course we have pursued.
§ *MR. C. P. SCOTT (Lancashire, Leigh)I think that the dilemma which the right honourable Gentleman the 520 Leader of the Opposition has put before the House is no dilemma at all. The right honourable Gentleman has assumed that there is no other means by which we can exclude a foreign nation from taking possession of the Soudan than by ourselves taking possession. I do not believe that for a single moment. Is there no other means of coining to an understanding with a great and friendly nation than by going to war? Would it have been impossible even this year to have come to an understanding with France to have heard from the honourable Member for Northampton the most interesting quotation from the speech of M. Ribot in the French Chamber in January last, a quotation which deserves a great deal more attention than it has received either from the House or from the press of the country. M. Ribot says that when Mr. Gladstone came into office he expressed to M. Waddington his willingness to enter into a discussion of the question of Egypt. But what happened? Lord Rosebery intercepted that friendly communication, and informed M. Ribot through our Ambassador at Paris that Mr. Gladstone had been guilty of an indiscretion, that it was contrary to diplomatic etiquette for him to interfere with the conduct of foreign affairs. Perhaps it was, as a matter of etiquette, but Lord Rosebery took a further step. When M. Ribot afterwards approached him through the French Ambassador to ascertain whether he was prepared to discuss the matter, Lord Rosebery said, "No, not to-day, and not to-morrow, and when I am prepared to discuss it I will let you know." I think that shows pretty clearly that France at that time was absolutely prepared to come to an understanding on a friendly basis with this country, that Mr. Gladstone also was prepared, and that the sole obstacle arose from the action of the British Foreign Secretary. That fact is most important in relation to the dilemma which Mr. Balfour has just placed before us. The whole of our difficulties in Egypt, and in relation to any reasonable settlement of the question of the Soudan, arose from our refusal to enter into negotiations with France. Our fear with regard to the Soudan has been that France would be there before us. It is true that she did send a miserable expedition, a wretched band of half- 521 starved men, who arrived a little before we did. We have had it on the authority of Lord Kitchener himself that if he had been a fortnight later the French expedition would have been eaten up by the Mahdists, and would have had no existence. There was, therefore, really no immediate danger from that expedition, although it excited very strong feeling in this country. If we had chosen even then to go to France and say, "Now, you know perfectly well we cannot allow you to control the headwaters of the Nile, but we are perfectly prepared to discuss the whole situation with you," do you think that France would have declined that proposal? There is not the remotest reason to suppose she would. She has been perfectly prepared, as M. Ribot told the French Chamber, to do so at any time for many years past. Is not that a more rational policy for this country to take than to undertake an expedition which no one on this side of the House wished to undertake for its own sake, for the sake of trade, or for any other sake? We went to the Soudan because it was supposed we had to prevent French interference. There was no reality in that menace. It only needed a little goodwill, a little frankness, a little willingness to net up to the pledges we had given in order to dispose of that menace, and to make a settlement of the Soudan which would secure absolutely and completely every real interest in Egypt, and at the same time save us from undertaking this enormous burden, which is no interest, whatever of ours, in the centre of Africa. I do not think that this House has quite sufficiently realised the magnitude of the change which has come about in our Egyptian policy. The right honourable Gentleman the Member for Montrose, in calling attention to it, pointed out that Lord Salisbury had asserted a different title. It is not a question of title. It is not a technical question at all. It is a difference altogether of tenure. We hold Egypt as the guardian of that country, its government, and its people. We have no property there, no territorial rights. Our flag does not fly there; it flies in the Soudan. That is the difference — an enormous difference. It is all the difference between this country having possessions in that part of the world and having none there at all. I want to know, and the House 522 has a right to know, now that we have virtually annexed the Soudan—for it is now practically the property of this country—whether there is any reaction from that decisive and momentous step upon our policy in Egypt? Do the old pledges stand? Are we to be in permanent occupation in the Soudan, and are we prepared to be only temporary occupants of Egypt? This is a matter of supreme importance to the country. It is not an academic matter, but a question of vital consequence. There never has been a great debate on Egypt without some acknowledgment being made of the fact that our occupation is provisional and temporary, and I wish to know whether this is still the case. I am not talking about evacuation now, to-morrow, or next year, but the straight question to which I wish a straight answer is: Are we ever going to evacuate Egypt?
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEESThat question hardly arises upon a Supplementary Estimate for Army purposes. It is too big a question for that, and ought to be raised either upon the Vote on Account or the Foreign Office Vote.
§ *MR. SCOTTOf course, I submit to the Chairman's ruling, but I think I may be excused for raising the question during this discussion on the ground that there never has been a great Egyptian Debate without its having been dwelt upon. I can only trust that if it has no answer during this Debate we shall have it on no distant occasion. I think I have made good my point that the alternatives are not either to leave the Soudan derelict, to leave it a possible prey to some foreign Power, or to occupy it ourselves. There was an intermediate course, possible at any time during the last 10 years and up to this very day, by which we could have secured the interests of Egypt and have saved ourselves indefinite trouble, expense, and danger, and that is the simple act of entering into friendly negotiations with France.
§
Question put
That the Item for Transport and Remounts be reduced by £100."—(Mr. John Morley.)
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 58; Noes 167.—(Division List No. 17.)
525| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, Wm. (Cork, N. E.) | Duckworth, James | Rickett, J. Compton |
| Asher, Alexander | Farquharson, Dr. Robert | Robertson, Edmund (Dundee) |
| Atherley-Jones, L. | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale- | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. J. B.(Clackm.) | Hazell, Walter | Sinclair, Capt. J. (Forfarshire) |
| Birrell, Augustine | Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H. | Smith, Samuel (Flint) |
| Brunner, Sir Jno. Tomlinson | Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire) | Souttar, Robinson |
| Bryce, Rt. Hon. James | Kay-Shuttleworth, Rt Hn Sir U. | Steadman, William Charles |
| Caldwell, James | Labouchere, Henry | Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath) |
| Cameron, Robert (Durham) | Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cumb'l'd) | Tanner, Charles Kearns |
| Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. | Macaleese, Daniel | Wedderburn, Sir William |
| Causton, Richard Knight | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Weir, James Galloway |
| Channing, Francis Allston | M'Cartan, Michael | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Clark, Dr. G. B. (Caithness-sh.) | M'Dermott, Patrick | Williams, Jn. Carvell (Notts.) |
| Colville, John | M'Ghee, Richard | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.) |
| Commins, Andrew | Maddison, Fred. | Wilson, Jno. (Durham, Mid) |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Morley, Rt. Hn. J. (Montrose) | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Curran, Thomas (Sligo, S.) | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | |
| Daly, James | O'Connor, Arthur (Donegal) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| Davitt, Michael | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) | Mr. Scott and Mr. Lough. |
| Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Pickard, Benjamin | |
| Donelan, Captain A. | Pickersgill, Edward Hare |
| NOES. | ||
| Archdale, Edward Mervyn | Fardell, Sir T. George | Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead) |
| Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis | Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Manc.) | Leese, Sir Jsph. F.(Accrngtn.) |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Field, Admiral (Eastbourne) | Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie |
| Bailey, James (Walworth) | Finch, George H. | Leighton, Stanley |
| Baird, Jno. George Alexander | Finlay, Sir Rbt. Bannatyne | Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J.(M'nch'r) | Fisher, William Hayes | Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Liverpool) |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. Gld. W. (Leeds) | Fison, Frederick William | Lorne, Marquess of |
| Banbury, Frederick George | FitzGerald, Sir Rbt. Penrose- | Lowles, John |
| Barnes, Frederic Gorell | Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond | Loyd, Archie Kirkman |
| Bartley, George C. T. | Fitz Wygram, General Sir F. | Macartney, W. G. Ellison |
| Barton, Dunbar Plunket | Folkestone, Viscount | Macdona, John Cumming |
| Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H.(Bristl.) | Gibbs, Hn. A. G. H. (City Lond.) | M'Arthur, William (Cornwall) |
| Beckett, Ernest William | Giles, Charles Tyrrell | Malcolm, Ian |
| Begg, Ferdinand Faithfull | Gilliat, John Saunders | Middlemore, Jn. Throgmorton |
| Bethell, Commander | Goldsworthy, Major-General | Milner, Sir Frederick George |
| Biddulph, Michael | Gordon, Hon. John Edward | Monckton, Edward Philip |
| Bigwood, James | Gorst, Rt. Hn. Sir Jn. Eldon | Monk, Charles James |
| Bill, Charles | Goschen, Rt Hn. G. J. (St. Geo.'s) | Montagu, Hn. J. Scott (Hants) |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Goschen, George J. (Sussex) | Moon, Edward Robert Pacy |
| Bolitho, Thomas Bedford | Goulding, Edward Alfred | More, R. Jasper (Shropshire) |
| Bond, Edward | Graham, Henry Robert | Morrell, George Herbert |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- | Green, W. D. (Wednesbury) | Morrison, Walter |
| Boulnois, Edmund | Gretton, John | Morton, A. H. A. (Deptford) |
| Bowles, T. Gbsn. (King's Lynn) | Grey, Sir Edward (Berwick) | Murray, Rt. Hn. A. G. (Bute) |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Hamilton, Rt. Hon. Lord George | Murray, Chas. J. (Coventry) |
| Buxton, Sydney Charles | Hatch, Ernest Fredk. George | Murray, Col. Wyndhm. (Bath) |
| Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.) | Heath, James | Nicol, Donald Ninian |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Hertford, East) | Henderson, Alexander | Nussey, Thomas Willans |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Hill, Sir Ed. Stock (Bristol) | Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay |
| Chaloner, Captain R. G. W. | Hobhouse, Henry | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Chamberlain, J. A. (Worc'r.) | Howell, William Tudor | Paulton, James Mellor |
| Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry | Hozier, Hon. James Hy. Cecil | Pease, Herbt. Pike (Darlingtn) |
| Clare, Octavius Leigh | Hutton, John (Yorks. N. R.) | Pilkington, Richard |
| Clarke, Sir Edward (Plymth) | Johnston, William (Belfast) | Plunkett, Rt. Hon. H. Curzon |
| Clough, Walter Owen | Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex) | Pollock, Harry Frederick |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Kearley, Hudson E. | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Kemp, George | Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edw. |
| Cook, Fred. Lucas (Lambeth) | Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir Jn. H | Purvis, Robert |
| Cubitt, Hon. Henry | Kenyon, James | Richards, Henry Charles |
| Curzon, Viscount | Kenyon-Slaney, Col. William | Ridley, Rt. Hn. Sir Matthew W. |
| Davenport, W. Bromley- | Keswick, William | Ritchie, Rt. Hon. C. Thomson |
| Donkin, Richard Sim | Kimber, Henry | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) |
| Doughty, George | King, Sir Henry Seymour | Russell, T. W. (Tyrone) |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Knowles, Lees | Rutherford, John |
| Doxford, William Theodore | Laurie, Lieut.-General | Ryder, Jn. Herbert Dudley |
| Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart | Lawrence, Sir E. Durning-(Corn | Sandys, Lt.-Col. Thos. Myles |
| Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas | Lecky, Rt. Hn. Wm. Edw. H. | Sharpe, William Edward T. |
| Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew) | Thornton, Percy M. | Willox, Sir John Archibald |
| Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks.) | Valentia, Viscount | Wilson, John (Falkirk) |
| Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) | Wallace, Robert (Perth) | Wilson-Todd, W. H. (Yorks.) |
| Stanley, Hon. A. (Ormskirk) | Walton, Jn. Lawson (Leeds, S.) | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn E.R. (Bath) |
| Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset) | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) | Wyndham, George |
| Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) | Wanklyn, James Leslie | Young, Commndr. (Berks, E.) |
| Stevenson, Francis S. | Webster, Sir R. E.(I. of Wight) | |
| Strauss, Arthur | Welby, Lieut.-Col. A. C. E. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— |
| Sutherland, Sir Thomas | Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon- | Sir William Walrond and |
| Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) | Williams, J. Powell- (Birm.) | Mr. Anstruther. |
§ On the return of the CHAIRMAN, after the usual interval,
§ Original Question again proposed.
§
Motion made—
That the Item for Transports and Remounts be reduced by £1,000."—(Captain Norton.)
§ *CAPTAIN NORTON (Newington, W.)Mr. Lowther, the question which I have to bring before the Committee is one which deals with the insufficiency of the transport arrangements in connection with the Soudan campaign. I am prepared to admit that the arrangements near the front were fairly adequate to the situation, but the arrangements, so far as the base of operations were concerned, were distinctively defective. In the first place, I would point out how those arrangements were conducted. The sick and the wounded, after the battle of Omdurman, were conveyed in barges to the nearest temporary hospital at Abadia, some 200 miles distant, and thence by train to Assouan, and by steamer to Cairo. Well, Sir, they were very fairly looked after by means of hospital orderlies as far as Assouan, Assouan being the nearest point at which there were trained nurses; but south of that point there were no trained nurses. Now, Sir, I should like to ask why no trained nurses were sent south of Assouan. I shall probably be told that it was because there was no suitable accommodation. Now, Sir, in the campaign conducted by Lord Wolseley, many years ago—and it will be admitted that transport accommodation has improved since then—nurses went 200 miles farther south, there being a temporary hospital at Wady Halfa. Well, Sir, I contend that, seeing that the lines of communication were so long—some 1,500 miles—a certain proportion of nurses might have been sent in order to accompany the sick and wounded from Omdurman, 526 or from Abadieh, to Cairo and Alexandria. Sir, I now come to the more important point, namely, the way in which the sick and wounded were treated—and I speak more particularly of the sick—at the base of operations, namely, at Cairo and Alexandria. I recently put some questions in the House to the honourable and gallant Gentleman the present Under Secretary of State for War, though, of course, I am well aware that he is in no way responsible for the state of affairs which occurred prior to his coming into office, I asked him whether he could state if an application had been made by the Army Medical Authorities for a hospital ship in connection with the Khartoum expedition in sufficient time for it to have reached Alexandria before the arrival of the sick from the front. Now, Sir, in reply, the honourable and gallant Gentleman said—
An application for a hospital ship was made by the principal medical officer in Egypt to the general officer commanding the army of occupation on June 27th. Both these officers were at that time in London. The general officer commanding sent forward the application unofficially.In the first place, I object to the word "unofficially." I cannot see for what purpose either of these officers—the principal medical officer and the officer commanding—were in London and were in communication with the military authorities if it were not for the purpose of consulting with reference to the campaign. But I will proceed with the honourable and gallant Gentleman's reply—Adding that if on arrival in Egypt the found it necessary he would again apply through Lord Cromer.Now, Sir, as a matter of fact, he afterwards applied to Lord Cromer; but what I want to know is this: In the first instance, when the principal medical officer made this application, was he or 527 was he not loyally supported by the general officer commanding in Egypt? If I can, I want to fix the responsibility upon the right shoulders, and let me say, in order that it may not be supposed that I have any personal interest in this matter, that I have lost no relative or intimate friend in this campaign; and, further, that both Surgeon-General Taylor, the principal medical officer, and Sir Francis Grenfell, the general officer commanding, are both absolutely unknown to me. But I want to know whether the medical officer was loyally supported by the general officer commanding, and then I wish to know whether his application for a hospital ship was refused by the Horse Guards? Sir, I cannot believe that the present authorities—for those who are in office at the present moment are, perhaps, the ablest men we have ever had in that Department, men who themselves have had considerable experience in Egyptian campaigns—would take the responsibility of refusing a hospital ship when asked for it by the medical authorities, more especially when we come to consider that it is distinctly laid down in the regulations which govern the Army Medical department, that when a ship is engaged that ship shall be capable of accommodating 200 beds, or 250 if they are pushed. Let me explain at this juncture that a hospital ship is not merely a ship for the purpose of conveying the sick. A hospital ship is practically a floating hospital at the base of operations. I am prepared to admit that the regulations contain the words "if necessary"; but, Sir, in all cases of expeditions like this, it is always necessary—or very nearly always—to have such a ship at the base of operations. The medical officer, I think, must be exonerated from any culpability in this matter, inasmuch as he asked for the ship. Now, I want to know, first, whether the general officer pressed his claim at the Horse Guards; secondly, whether the Horse Guards refused it; thirdly, whether they refused it on the pressure of the War Office; and, fourthly, on what grounds the War Office refused it? I shall presently show the disastrous consequences of that refusal. The medical officer, I take it, knew the state of affairs that would occur immediately after the battle. He knew the effects of 528 hard work allied with bad water in a country where the germs of enteric fever are always dormant, and, at this season of the year, he knew perfectly well that whatever the effects of the battle were as regards the number of wounded, a large proportion of the European troops would be put back to the base of operations literally saturated with disease. It cannot, therefore, be supposed that he was not aware of the state of affairs which existed at the base of operations. Here I will proceed with the honourable and gallant Gentleman's reply to my question—Pending the receipt of such an official application, the general officer commanding was given full powers to take up passages for the sick and wounded, together with their medical attendants, nurses, etc., on board the P. and O. and other passenger ships passing almost daily through the Suez Canal, supple-meriting in this manner the accommodation afforded by the few Government transports allotted to this service. On the 14th of September the general officer commanding applied officially, by telegraph, for a hospital ship, but, since it would have taken five weeks to fit out and transfer such a ship to Alexandria, it was decided to adhere to the arrangement already made.Now, Sir, the military authorities had due notice from the head of the Army in Egypt that the ship, in his opinion, would be required, he therefore applied again when he found it necessary; but what was the honourable and gallant Gentleman's answer? He said that it would take five weeks to fit out and transfer such a ship. Surely it was the duty of the authorities at home, at any rate, to have had a ship fitted out, in order that, on a second application, that ship might have been forthcoming. No such arrangement was made, but I contend that if the ship had been fitted out and sent forward it would have arrived at the end of September. The greatest mortality, as I shall show shortly, took place in October. But even if it had taken five weeks to have fitted out the ship and sent it to Alexandria, it would even then have arrived in the third week of October, and thus a large number of lives would have been saved. Now, Sir, the reply goes on to say—Four hundred and sixty-five invalids were conveyed by six vessels between 20th September and 30th October, and all arrived in England considerably sooner than would have been the case had the hospital ship been dispatched.529 I have already pointed out that the purpose of the hospital ship was not solely to convey troops to England. No one hospital ship could have conveyed the necessary troops to England; but I want to ask more particularly how many of those 465 invalids who were sent home died on the voyage or before the end of the year. It is a notorious fact that the 1st Grenadier Guards who came to England brought home the germs of disease in their constitutions, and broke down after the campaign to such an extent that more than 100 were in hospital at Rochester Row, and several died. I should like very much to know if the honourable and gallant Gentleman can tell me how many men were lost by sickness and disease from the date of the battle of Omdurman until the end of the year. Now, Sir, I asked another question of the honourable and gallant Gentleman arising out of the answer that he gave me. I asked whether some 60 or 70 officers and men were detained in hospital in Alexandria, with only two nurses, while suffering from enteric fever. I have already stated that the authorities knew very well that a large number of nurses would be necessary. Will it be contended that no nurses were to be obtained? I know from the very best authority than any number of hospital nurses could have been obtained from the Princess Christian Reserve List, and also from volunteers. I want to know why some proportion of these nurses was not sent for. I should like to point out how differently this campaign was managed in this particular respect as compared with a previous campaign which was managed by Lord Wolseley. I will give a case in point. A man with whom I served was employed on the line of communication in South Africa, and was entrusted with the responsibility of the sick and wounded. He took upon himself the responsibility of telegraphing for twelve nurses. Those nurses arrived in due course, but upon their arrival it was found that they were not necessary, as the expected engagement did not take place. This officer received a reprimand for having applied for those nurses. What did he do? He took the reprimand to Lord Wolseley. Lord Wolseley completely absolved him, told him he was perfectly right, and promised to settle the question himself. He did, and no- 530 thing more was heard of the matter. Therefore, if the General Officer commanding in Egypt had taken upon himself the responsibility of telegraphing home for a proper supply of trained nurses, he would not have heard anything about it, even if they had not been required. It may be said, why attach so much importance to trained nurses? I attach importance to trained nurses because it is well known in cases of enteric fever attention night and day is of the very first importance. It is important that hospital nurses should be in attendance in order (1) that they may superintend the patients; (2) that the patients may be supplied frequently with liquid; and (3) that they may receive the requisite treatment when they are suffering from violent perspiration, aggravated as it was by the plague of flies at that time of the year. Well, Sir, I also understand that in the cases of enteric fever which occurred, there were a large number where lowness of temperature took place. It is well known that in such cases trained nursing is of vital importance, because it is only trained nurses who can enter into the sympathetic side of nursing. I do not wish to say one word against the work of the orderlies. These men are admirably tilled for the purpose for which they are trained. They are trained to act as the first line of defence in cases of sickness, and they perform those duties admirably; but to maintain that they have any capacity for the work that trained nurses do is out of the question. I mention that because, in his reply to a question, the honourable and gallant Gentleman said that there were in Alexandria and Cairo 226 men and 10 women trained nurses. Now, I wish to point out to the honourable and gallant Gentleman that that is a misleading reply, because he must know—for these are only the answers which are put into his mouth—that the sick orderly is not a trained nurse, and that there were, therefore, to attend to the immense number of sick at the base of operations only really 10 trained nurses to supervise or be responsible for those 1,080 invalids. Then, in reply to another question, the honourable and gallant Gentleman said—No complaints have reached us to that effect, namely, that there were insufficient nurses.531 Why, Sir, I have it first hand from people on the spot, that there was a very great outcry in Egypt, not only by Army medical officers, but by other officers, with reference to the state of nursing. I am told that the accommodation was insufficient, and that it was necessary to pitch tents in the vicinity of the hospital—just where tents ought not to have been. The state of affairs indeed was so bad that officers of high rank, who were in a position to do so, refused point blank to go into hospital at Cairo owing to the defective accommodation. Now, Sir, the figures, according to another reply which the honourable and gallant Gentleman gave—and I hope the honourable and gallant Gentleman will admit that I am dealing perfectly fairly with him—are as follows—Average number of patients in September at Cairo and Alexandria, 467; in October, 615.Now, I ask the Committee to note that the total number in October was considerably higher than during September. Therefore, had the Government kept a hospital ship in readiness to start, that ship would have arrived at the beginning of October, and a large proportion of those 104 deaths would not have occurred. Furthermore, if the ship had even arrived during the last week in October a certain number of men's lives would undoubtedly have been saved. The total number of patients during the months of September and October at the base of operations was 1,082. I ask the Committee to observe the number of deaths. The deaths in Cairo were 67; the deaths at Alexandria were 37, or a total of 104. I submit that the number of deaths would not have been half as great had the patients been properly nursed. Therefore, I maintain that some 50 men lost their lives through insufficiency of proper accommodation and proper nursing, that is to say, that the medical arrangements in connection with the campaign were defective. Now, Sir, I have grave suspicions that the reason for all this is petty economy, and that it is in order that the country might be told that the campaign had not cost much money. Well, Sir, I think it is a despicable state of things that one of the greatest and richest countries in the world, having undertaken an expedition, should descend to 532 the meanness of attempting to economise where the lives of officers and men are concerned. We have the Prime Minister of this great country going to a great banquet—and I am not going to say one word against the management of the campaign, or against the gallant soldier who conducted that campaign so successfully. My point is this: that either the Medical Department was not loyally supported, or else pressure was put upon them which led to this disastrous state of affairs by the War Office. This country has been, to a great extent, blinded, or rather dazzled, by the brilliancy of this campaign. I do not wish to detract in any way from that brilliancy, but I wish to say that 50 of my fellow countrymen lost their lives through insufficient accommodation and want of proper nursing, and I wish to have the responsibility of those deaths placed upon the right shoulders in order that such a thing may not occur again. We are the only nation in the world which has a voluntary Army, and we expect to find recruits for it. If this wretched cheese-paring policy had not been pursued with reference to the medical arrangements for this campaign, I say that undoubtedly many of the parents of these unfortunate men who lost their lives would have been saved from aching hearts. I know it may be said by some that they are only private soldiers. Well, Sir, that may be the case.
§ AN HONOURABLE MEMBER: The officers suffered as well.
§ *CAPTAIN NORTONI am aware the officers suffered in a like degree, but if a large number of officers had perished, they are more powerful and influential, and there would have been a very much greater fuss about this matter than there is to-day. I am here as a representative of a working-class constituency, and I know this, that the parents of the class from which the private soldier is drawn, though they may be less polished in manners and less polite in speech than those in higher ranks, their hearts beat as kindly towards their offspring as those of the greatest in the land. It is a monstrous state of affairs when we are in the greatest difficulty as regards obtaining an adequate supply of suitable 533 recruits, and you cannot expect young-men to come forward, certainly not with the sanction of their parents, if they know that they are not only to risk their lives in defence of their country in distant portions of the Empire, but in addition to that risk which they run in the campaign they feel that when it is over they may go back to the base of operations, and be allowed, as was said by one of the medical officers in Egypt, to "die like flies." I am given to understand that they died at the rate of six or seven per day. I say it is a great responsibility, and I cast that responsibility upon the Government. I should be glad if the honourable Gentleman can give us some justifiable reason or information as to why this great loss of life occurred. I cannot help feeling that this wretched economy was at the bottom of the whole thing, and I say that if that is the case a gross stain is cast not only upon the authorities, but upon the whole nation. I beg leave to move the reduction of this Vote.
§ *MR. WYNDHAMThe honourable and gallant Member has put forward a very grave charge against the Government. I make no complaint of that. If any doubt exists, and I believe doubt does exist, in the public mind as to whether all was done that ought to have been done to save the lives of our officers and men, then I think the honourable and gallant Member has done no less than his duty in bringing this matter before the Committee. But I hope to be able to rebut that charge, and if I succeed in doing so, I am sure no one will be more pleased than the honourable and gallant Member himself.
§ *CAPTAIN NORTONHear, hear.
§ *MR. WYNDHAMI wish, in the first place, to state that the Government accepts full responsibility in this matter. It has nothing to do with the officer commanding the troops in Egypt at the time, Sir Francis Grenfell. Even if hospital ships had never been heard of before last year, it would have been the duty of this Government to see that troops which they lent to another State went short of nothing, not only in arms and clothing, but still more so in medical comforts and attendance, which might save the lives of the wounded and the sick. I may point out in connection with this subject that no question of 534 cost entered into the matter at all. Egypt was to bear, and Egypt has borne, the cost of this expedition, and in respect of medical attendance she has borne that as far as it can be borne. Egypt has even paid the salaries of civil practitioners whose services were accepted in England in place of medical officers lent to Egypt; so that really the question of cost in this country did not arise at all in respect of provision that we made for attending to the sick and the wounded. We accept the full responsibility, and even if we did not wish to accept it we could not divest ourselves of it. I say the honourable and gallant Member is under a misapprehension in believing that requisitions were made, which were refused owing to pressure. In these matters the military advisers of the War Office tender their advice, and that advice is always and would always be accepted. I am in a position to say that whatever view anyone else had taken, our military advisers themselves would have taken the sole responsibility of insisting that a hospital ship should have been sent had they thought that that would have tended towards the end which the honourable and gallant Member for West Newington and all of us have equally at heart. In the second place, I would ask him to believe that, although it rests with me so far as I can to controvert the charge which he has preferred, that is, the charge that lives have been lost which might have been saved, I am sure, if he will allow me to say so, that I deplore the loss of those lives as deeply as he does, and I sympathise with those who are left to mourn as fully as he does. I think to-morrow he will regret the distinction which he sought to draw between the consideration allowed in the case of the death of officers and the death of soldiers. He and I are political foes, but we have both served in the Army, and I am sure no such distinction has ever been drawn or admitted in the service—
§ *CAPTAIN NORTONI think I have been misunderstood in this matter. I only pointed out that in this case, naturally, there was a larger proportion of men lost than officers, and I wish to point out that we have no difficulty about obtaining officers for the service, but we have a great difficulty in obtaining men, and, therefore, I say that the 535 lives of the men should be taken care of. The officers are quite capable of taking care of themselves.
§ *MR. WYNDHAMMy recollection is that the honourable and gallant Member drew a distinction between the officers and men.
§ *CAPTAIN NORTONI said "it might be said by some."
§ *MR. WYNDHAMI will not allude further to this, because the main subject-matter at issue is too painful for unnecessary controversy. I pass to a point somewhat connected with it. The honourable and gallant Member referred to the proportion of men who died out of those affected by enteric fever. He argued that the number of men who died proved conclusively that they had not received adequate medical attendance. Now I am bound to say that the number of deaths from enteric fever are always very high. I remember that in one campaign with which I was connected we buried 30 men who were attacked with this fever after the campaign was over; but I am sure we had not anything like 300 men down with enteric fever. This is a fever which is least understood of all. It suddenly springs on troops, and assumes proportions which cannot be estimated beforehand. Some battalions suffer in this respect to a very much greater extent than others. But the point of this charge is that if a hospital ship had been provided lives would have been saved, which, to our universal regret, have been lost. Now I think, in preferring that charge, there is a slight misapprehension as to the object for which hospital ships are chartered. I am not going to pursue the argument that an application was made for this hospital ship and refused. Whether such an application was made or not we are responsible. As a matter of fact there was no insistence on such an application, official or unofficial. The principal medical officer of the Army of occupation in Egypt, who was in London, signified to the General Officer commanding the Egyptian Army, who was also in London, that he wished to have a hospital ship, and that was in June; but the application would have come through the General Officer Com- 536 manding. This question as to whether they should be used, and when and where, is a question which must be decided on its general merits; and it is one, I may explain, of old standing. But no application for a hospital ship was put forward at that time. We were told that if on the return of the Commanding Officer to Egypt the necessity occurred, an application for a hospital ship would be made.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREWhat date was that?
§ *MR. WYNDHAMThat was on the 27th of June. The General Officer thought it might be desirable to have a hospital ship, and he said that he would communicate with us after his return to Egypt, and after consultation with Lord Cromer as to whether it was desirable to provide a hospital ship or not. He undertook to communicate with us, and I cannot admit that that transaction can be treated as an application and a refusal of an application. But even if no application had been made, and it had turned out that a hospital ship should have been provided, then we should stand guilty at the bar of opinion in this House. But, Sir, I would ask the Committee to look at this question from these two points of view: Is a hospital ship to be regarded as a floating hospital, or is to be regarded as a transport to be sent home when full of sick and wounded? I say that the application, when it was made, for a hospital ship, and when it was discussed in the earlier days, was never put before us as a question of additional accommodation for the hospitals. The idea put before us—and I believe this idea has always been put forward in respect to hospital ships—is that hospital ships are to be gradually idled up, and when the full complement are on board, the hospital ship is to become a transport, and ought to go home. But, assuming that the hospital ship ought to be treated as a floating hospital—I am informed by those who are in a position to know that the hospital at Cairo really gave better accommodation for the sick and wounded than any hospital ship could afford. I am informed that the tents gave better accommodation than could be afforded on a hospital ship, if that hospital ship is to be regarded as a hospital at sea 537 instead of on the shore. My own experience bears that out, for I have been for some weeks down with fever on board a ship at Alexandria, and I felt at the time that I should have been much more comfortable in a tent on shore. But I will leave the question of a hospital ship at sea as an alternative for a hospital on shore, and I come now to the question which I think is the real question, namely, whether a hospital ship used as a transport would have relieved the pressure on the beds, and would have got the men home, who, as a matter of fact, died because they were not taken away. I think that is the real charge. I believe that it is an unfounded charge. Now, a hospital ship would have provided accommodation for about 200, and I will suppose, for the sake of argument, that it would have been sent out in June. I waive the whole discussion as to whether we were right or wrong in not sending out that ship in June. Now, supposing it had been sent out in June, it would have been the end of September before it would have been filled up to the extent of 200 men, whereas, under the arrangements which were adopted, 54 were sent home on the 20th of September, 19 on the 25th of September, and 14 on the 2nd of October. It is really extravagant to suppose that the 200 cases would have been ready to be shipped by the end of September. The hospital ship, having once started with its first complement of 200 wounded and sick, could not, of course, have come back to Egypt and Alexandria until a period very much later in the year, whereas, by the arrangements which were adopted, 281 cases were sent out on the 14th of October, in addition to those previously expedited. The ship in which they were sent out was a transport ship, and the whole of one deck was fitted up as a hospital ship, and it carried 281 instead of 200. The honourable and gallant Member the other day asked for additional information, which I was not able to give him at the time, but I may say now that the General Officer Commanding in Egypt, in reply to our telegram, has stated that all cases which the principal medical officer considered urgent were sent off at once by the Peninsular and Oriental line and other steamers. I claim that the arrangements made were not only ade- 538 quate to bring back the whole of the sick and wounded, but the General Officer Commanding in Egypt was given the right of making use of all the accommodation upon every single passenger snip which left Egypt during that time. I have inquired carefully into the amount of such accommodation, and I find that 18 Peninsular and Oriental steamers were available between the 20th of September and the 14th of November, and that they could have carried on board such urgent cases as existed to the extent of 1,000. Of course, in addition to the Peninsular and Oriental line, there were other steamers available. Therefore, we have it on the authority of the General Officer Commanding in Egypt that every urgent case was sent by passenger steamers, and, looking into the accommodation on these ships, we find it was far in excess of the total number of sick and wounded that were brought back to this country. Then, I think, the honourable and gallant Member asked me the other day how long patients waited before they were embarked for this country. Well, those are very difficult figures to arrive at by cable. I have, however, done everything I could to get that information, which I have now very great pleasure in giving to the honourable and gallant Gentleman. The average number of days before embarkation at Cairo, where the cases were not so urgent, was 26 days in September, 29 in October, and 19 in November. The average number of days in the hospital before embarkation at Alexandria was seven days in each of these months for all the cases. But I would ask the Committee to remember that in all these cases are included a great number of cases which could not be considered urgent by any means, such as slight illnesses and temporary sicknesses, which are all included in the calculation upon which these averages are based. There only remains one other point with which I need deal, and that is the question of the nurses. Sir, I cannot accept as pertinent to this motion the distinction which he has drawn between the non-commissioned officers and men of the Army and Medical Corps, and the sisters who assist them. The honourable and gallant Member must know as well as I do that this question has often been discussed by medical officers in the Army, who see 539 difficulties in the way of discipline in the employment of a very large number of sisters in conjunction with the men and non-commissioned officers in the Army Medical Service. Now these men are all trained in nursing. [Captain NORTON: "Oh, no!"] It is felt by many of the medical officers in the Army Medical Corps that it is difficult, from the point of view of discipline, to place men under the orders of sister nurses, and sister nurses under the orders of non-commissioned officers. Therefore, it has been found impossible to make the proportion its high as some of us would wish to make it. That is, perhaps, a question of policy for the future; it is a question for the Army Medical Service to consider, and which cannot be determined now. At the hospital base of our operations in the Soudan there were 226 men nurses and 10 women, all of them trained nurses. That makes a total of 236 trained nurses for an average of 511 patients during the months of September and October, of whom 150 had neither wounds nor enteric fever. I hope the honourable and gallant Member will admit that I have done my host to give him the information which he has asked for, and although I regret as much as he does the number of lives that have been lost, I say that, after the most careful consideration of the matter, I am persuaded that adequate arrangements for the accommodation of the sick and wounded were made, and that everything was done to see that the British soldiers were treated on this occasion as they have always and should always be treated.
§ *CAPTAIN NORTONThe honourable and gallant Gentleman has not dealt with the principal part of my speech. The main point which I put before the Committee was this: That had there been a hospital ship at Alexandria with accommodation for 200 men, and having an entire medical staff with nurses included, the authorities in Egypt could have drawn a certain number of that staff to the hospitals at Alexandria and Cairo, which would have supplemented the deficiency which existed there. As to the question of the Army Medical officers, they would have taken good care to have only sent those cases on board that could best and most suitably have been dealt with there. That hospital ship could have been kept as a relief. Then, 540 again, with reference to the average time that these men were detained at Alexandria and Cairo; I say that in spite of all this transport accommodation that existed on other steamers, we know it is not suitable for invalids. This transport is entirely outside the question. Therefore, they were detained at Cairo and Alexandria, on an average, seven days, and 26 days in the month of September and 19 in October when things improved. Then with reference to the question of the nurses. I may here take exception to what was said on that subject. I say that orderlies can in no sense be considered as trained nurses, and knowing that my honourable Friend was himself a member of the military profession, I hope he will support me with reference to this. I object to this slur being cast upon the Army nursing sisters. These Army nursing sisters have increased in numbers of recent years, showing that they work extremely well. I venture to ask if there has ever been a word breathed against them in the recent campaign? They have been used with complete success, and two of the nurses who were employed at Cairo in this very expedition have been recently decorated with the Royal Red Cross in consequence of their devotion to duty where they remained in the hospital without relief, week after week, without getting a breath of fresh air. I am not at all satisfied with the reply of the honourable Member, and I shall therefore press my Amendment to a Division.
§ *SIR J. FERGUSSONMr. Lowther, this question embraces the medical arrangements for the late campaigns in Egypt, and I do not for a moment agree that any charge can be brought against Her Majesty's Government of not having made adequate provision. But I have had many opportunities of conversing with officers who took part in the last two campaigns, and I am convinced that the system adopted did not always work smoothly, and that in some respects there were glaring defects. In the last Session of Parliament, the Under Secretary for War was asked about the arrangements which were made for the British sick at Atbara, and he denied that the wounded had been left lying for a long time in the sun, and that they were carried in the sun without any shelter for their 541 heads. I have heard several officers say that the wounded did lie for hours in the sun, and that they were carried away without anything to keep the sun from their faces except their own helmets. It was not the fact that no harm came from the Röntgen rays apparatus not having arrived. Again, I am told that a corporal in a Highland Regiment, who was shot in the arm, walked back to camp, and had his wound dressed. That was on the Friday, but the bandage was not taken off until the Monday, when it was found that the arm was mortified and had to be amputated. The man died. At the battle of Omdurman there was a hospital barge provided, but during the battle somebody took it over to the other side of the river, and it was not available. The wounded were put into ammunition barges, with great consequent discomfort. There were large numbers of medical officers present, but according to opinion in the Army they were very much wanting in resource and shift. On the way home, too, much unnecessary suffering was entailed upon the wounded, especially by neglect of them in at least one packet ship.
ADMIRAL FIELD (Sussex, Eastbourne)Mr. Lowther, as a Naval man, I cannot allow this Vote to pass without expressing my sympathy with the remarks of the honourable and gallant Member who moved the Amendment, and with the right honourable Gentleman the Member for Manchester. I have read the letter of Colonel Lonsdale-Hale on the question of nursing, and I have come to the conclusion that he has amply made out his case that there was a great want of foresight on the part of the Military authorities. For the life of me I cannot understand why the hospital ship, for which application was made by the principal medical officer, was not sent. When the expedition was ordered to go to Coomassie, the hospital
§ ship which was sent out to the Gold Coast was found of great value. Passenger ships are not fit to bring home the wounded. They cannot give proper accommodation, and there doctors are unacquainted with the treatment of the wounded. Clearly, a hospital ship was wanted. The Under Secretary has said that if such a ship had been sent, another would have been required while she was absent. Then provide two; the country is rich enough. I entertain much greater respect for the Admiralty than I do for the Military authorities, and I am sure that such a state of things would not have been tolerated by the Admiralty. There has been great laches on the part of the Military authorities. T firmly believe that economy was at the bottom of it all, and there ought to have been no economy in this matter, except the economy in human life. If one ship was wanted it should have been sent, and if one was not sufficient a second ought to have been provided. When the principal medical officer makes a demand, there is no justification for refusing to comply with it.
§ COLONEL BLUNDELL (Lancashire, Ince)There may, Mr. Lowther, have been mismanagement and want of arrangement in the treatment of the sick and wounded on the field, but the hospital ship has nothing whatever to do with it, as any wounded man or sick man would be better off in a hospital on shore or in tents around it, than in a hospital ship. If a hospital ship was moored in the Thames, and I was sick or injured, I would rather go to St. George's Hospital.
§
Question put—
That the Item for Transports and Remounts be reduced by £1,000."—(Captain Norton.)
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 51; Noes 119.—(Division List No. 18.)
543| AYES. | ||
| Allan, William (Gateshead) | Colville, John | Harwood, George |
| Birrell, Augustine | Commins, Andrew | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale- |
| Brunner, Sir Jn. Tomlinson | Crombie, John William | Hazell, Walter |
| Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Curran, Thomas (Sligo, S.) | Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Chas. H. |
| Caldwell, James | Daly, James | Hogan, James Francis |
| Cameron, Robert (Durham) | Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardig'n | Lawson, Sir Wilfrid(Cmblnd.) |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Davitt, Michael | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Dilke, Rt, Hn. Sir Charles | Lloyd-George, David |
| Clark, Dr. G. B.(Caithness-sh.) | Donelan, Captain A. | Macaleese, Daniel |
| Clough, Walter Owen | Duckworth, James | MacNeill, Jn. Gordon Swift |
| M'Arthur, Wm. (Cornwall) | Robson, William Snowdon | Williams, Jn. Carvell (Notts.) |
| M'Dermott, Patrick | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) | Wilson, Hy. J. (York, W. R.) |
| M'Ghee, Richard | Sinclair, Capt. Jn. (Forfarshr.) | Wilson, Jn. (Durham, Mid.) |
| Maddison, Fred. | Souttar, Robinson | |
| Nussey, Thomas Willans | Strachey, Edward | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath) | Captain Norton and Mr. Labouchere. |
| O'Malley, William | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) | |
| Pickersgill, Edward Hare | Weir, James Galloway | |
| Power, Patrick Joseph | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer | |
| NOES. | ||
| Archdale, Edward Mervyn | Fison, Frederick William | Milner, Sir Fredk. George |
| Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis | Fitz Wygram, General Sir F. | Monckton, Edward Philip |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Flower, Ernest | Monk, Charles James |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. G.W. (Leeds) | Folkestone, Viscount | More, R. Jasper (Shropshire) |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Garfit, William | Morrell, George Herbert |
| Barnes, Frederic Gorell | Gibbs, Hn. A. G. H. (City Lond.) | Morrison, Walter |
| Barton, Dunbar Plunket | Giles, Charles Tyrrell | Morton, A. H. A. (Deptford) |
| Beckett, Ernest William | Goldsworthy, Major-General | Murray, Rt. Hn. A. G. (Bute) |
| Begg, Ferdinand Faithfull | Gordon, Hon. John Edward | Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath) |
| Bethell, Commander | Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir J. Eldon | Pease, H. Pike (Darlington) |
| Bigwood, James | Goschen, Rt. Hn. G. J. (St. Geo.'s) | Pilkington, Richard |
| Bill, Charles | Goschen, George J. (Sussex) | Purvis, Robert |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Rentoul, James Alexander |
| Bond, Edward | Graham, Henry Robert | Richards, Henry Charles |
| Boulnois, Edmund | Green, W. D. (Wednesbury) | Ritchie, Rt. Hon. C. Thomson |
| Bowles, T. G. (King's Lynn) | Gretton, John | Robertson, Herbt. (Hackney) |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Hamilton, Rt. Hon. Lord Geo. | Russell, T. W. (Tyrone) |
| Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.) | Hatch, Ernest Fredk. George | Ryder, John Herbt. Dudley |
| Chaloner, Captain R. G. W. | Henderson, Alexander | Sharpe, William Edward T. |
| Chamberlain, J. A. (Worc'r.) | Hermon-Hodge, Robt. Trotter | Simeon, Sir Barrington |
| Clare, Octavius Leigh | Hill, Sir Edw. Stock (Bristol) | Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks.) |
| Clarke, Sir Edw. (Plymouth) | Howell, William Tudor | Smith, Hn. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Hozier, Hon. James Hy. Cecil | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) |
| Coghill, Douglas Harry | Hutton, John (York, N. R.) | Strauss, Arthur |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Johnston, William (Belfast) | Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier |
| Cook, Fred. Lucas (Lambeth) | Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex) | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Cubitt, Hon. Henry | Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Curzon, Viscount | Keswick, William | Valentia, Viscount |
| Davenport, W. Bromley- | King, Sir Henry Seymour | Wanklyn, James Leslie |
| Donkin, Richard Sim | Knowles, Lees | Webster, Sir R. E. (I. of Wight) |
| Doughty, George | Laurie, Lieut.-General | Welby, Lieut,-Col. A. C. E. |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Lawrence, Sir E. Durning-(Corn | Williams, J. Powell-(Birm.) |
| Doxford, William Theodore | Lecky, Rt. Hon. W. Edw. H. | Willox, Sir John Archibald |
| Drage, Geoffrey | Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead) | Wilson, John (Falkirk) |
| Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart | Leigh-Bennett, Hy. Currie | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath) |
| Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas | Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Liverpool) | Wyndham, George |
| Fardell, Sir T. George | Lowles, John | Young, Commandr. (Berks, E.) |
| Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r | Loyd, Archie Kirkman | |
| Finch, George H. | Macartney, W. G. Ellison | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— |
| Finlay, Sir Rbt. Bannatyne | Macdona, John Cumming | Sir William Walrond and |
| Fisher, William Hayes | Middlemore, J. Throgmorton | Mr. Anstruther. |
§ Original Question again proposed.
§
Motion made—
That the Item for Warlike and other Stores be omitted from the proposed Vote."—(Mr. Labouchere.)
§ MR. LABOUCHEREI should like an explanation of this sum in respect of warlike and other stores. We have these Supplemental Estimates coming up every year, and it seems to me that the Heads of the Departments ought to know at the commencement of the year the amount they will require for the year. There is nothing more deceptive 544 than to ask us to vote a certain sum at the commencement of the year for the purposes of the Army during the year, and then to suddenly startle us with a Supplementary Estimate for £630,000. Supplementary Estimates of this character unless explained, seem to partake somewhat of the nature of a financial, I won't say trick, but certainly a financial scheme. It seems to me most probable that this Vote has been brought up because the Government have a surplus on some particular Department, and wish to avoid paying it in towards the repayment of the National Debt.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis)it is undoubtedly most unsatisfactory that we should have Supplementary Estimates for such large sums at the end of the financial year. The Government ought to know approximately the amount they require when framing the Estimates, but these Supplementary Estimates come up every year. It seems to mo that there is a settled determination to conceal from the House the total amount that is to be expended in the year by setting-down only a portion of the total amount in the Estimates, and leaving the rest to be provided for at the end of the year. The result of this is the absolute falsification of the Budget. If the sum now asked for had been put in the Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not have reduced the tobacco duty. The system of accounts and estimates is of such a confusing character, that one cannot help suspecting that the confusion is adopted to prevent showing the public what the real expenditure is. We are entitled to ask why this mistake was made.
§ *MR. WYNDHAMIt was not a mistake.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESMy honourable Friend below me says it was not a mistake. Well, if it was not a mistake, it was a piece of ignorance.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESMy honourable Friend says it is ignorance on my part. Of course it is, because I am dependent upon him for my information. What I complain of is that he has left me in my present state of ignorance for the whole of the year, instead of enlightening me. I think we are entitled to some explanation.
§ *MR. WYNDHAMMr. Lowther, the honourable Member for Northampton has moved this Amendment with the object of getting some explanation as to the amount, but the honourable Gentleman, the Member for King's Lynn, has 546 gone further, and has suggested that we did know last April that we should have to spend this money, but that we deliberately concealed the fact from the House of Commons.
§ *MR. WYNDHAMI should rather describe it as a lack of the gift of prophecy. A great deal of this money has been spent in carrying out undertakings already sanctioned by this House, and which it was quite impossible to foretell at the time the ordinary Estimates were framed. For instance, this House sanctioned an increase in the Field Artillery of 15 batteries, and three reserve batteries, making 18 in all. Having the money, it was only proper that we should proceed to make the necessary guns for the batteries, especially in view of the criticism which is constantly directed against the War Office for not proceeding fast enough with their programme of armaments, and also in face of the fact of the adoption of quick-firing apparatus by other nations. That acceleration of Field Artillery guns accounts for £200,000 of this Vote. It has been often argued that our coaling stations and naval bases should not be left unprotected. A comprehensive scheme for their defence has been drawn out, and £100,000 is being expended on armaments of a higher calibre. The other items are for matters, all of which have received Parliamentary sanction.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREI contend that the system of finance adopted by the Government is not a sound system, and that this money ought to have gone to the reduction of the National Debt. The reason for its having been used in this way is that the Government have endeavoured to conceal in every sort of way the huge expenditure that there is in armament. Well, Sir, that is the system which is pursued. The honourable Gentleman opposite defends it on the ground that it has been done before; but I have observed that almost every year the amount of the Supplementary Estimates has been increasing, and particularly in regard to 547 matters of war. Last year we were told so much was required during the year for the expense of armaments, guns, ammunition, and the like. We might or might not have objected to it. I did myself object to it; but I knew that it was perfectly hopeless to get the House to object to1 it, and, therefore, I do not think I moved a reduction. But, Sir, if the House had known at that time that over a million more was to have been asked for, Members would have been much more careful than they were in inquiring into the Estimates which were proposed. The honourable Gentleman says to me that I seem to have no right to complain now, because I did not complain of the Vote in regard to the Volunteers. Well, really, the honourable Gentleman is very greedy in a discussion on the Estimates. Last year there was a lengthy discussion on the matter. This most improper system was adopted by the House, notwithstanding the most cogent arguments that were brought against it, and I confess I did not think I should be able to change the views of the House upon the matter, and always anxious as I am not to trespass upon the time of the House, I did not upon that occasion take a division. I did not wish upon this occasion to trouble the House with a division if a fair case could be made out. I gave the honourable Gentleman a fair opportunity to state his case. He was brought, if I may venture to call it so, to the bar. He defended himself. His defence is utterly and absolutely worthless, and, under these circumstances I am afraid I must trouble the House with a division, and, therefore, I shall move the Amendment that stands in my name.
§ *MR. WEIR (Ross and Cromarty)I am one of those who agree with the honourable Member for King's Lynn in thinking that these Estimates are not satisfactorily arranged. A sum of £630,000 over and above the original Estimate I say ought not to be brought up in this manner. We have been told that a specific scheme has been decided upon by the War Office. If a scheme has been decided upon, I should like to know when that scheme was decided upon. The honourable Gentleman tells us that a sum of £200,000 has been expended, I think he said, in quick-firing guns, £100,000 for large guns, and £17,000 for 548 electric flash lights. Now, the sum which my honourable Friend below me seeks to reduce is £630,000, and I have been waiting anxiously for an account of that amount. But the honourable Gentleman opposite has only accounted for £317,000. Where is the balance of £313,000? I should like some information as to that. I am going into the facts and figures.
§ *MR. WYNDHAMI gave the honourable Member that information. A great part of it has been devoted by this House to Egypt. The expenditure for Egypt amounted to a very large figure, which could not have been foreseen.
§ *MR. WEIRI am aware that the honourable Member has said that a good deal has been spent by sanction of the House, but I think we ought to know the amount that has been spent. It is not merely £20,000, or £30,000, or £100,000, but it is £313,000, one half the amount of this item, and it is not a satisfactory explanation to the Committee to come here and say that "a large sum" has been spent on various things. The honourable Gentleman below me says it is in stock; guns and ammunition are stock. Have they been sent to Egypt; or are they still in stock? I think we are entitled to know whether the stock has increased or decreased. I hope the honourable Gentleman will be able to furnish some information upon this point.
§ MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.)I think nobody on this side in any way objects to these extra supplies, but the point raised by the honourable Member for King's Lynn seems to me to be very important. The Under Secretary of State for War has said we have increased the batteries and so on, and that involved, a great deal of expenditure. That was all carefully stated in a Memorandum that was published a great deal more than a year ago, and the point that seems to me to be important is not the amount of money, but that a great part of it has been put under one heading. As to the expenditure for the extra artillery, gun carriages, etc., we certainly were distinctly told last year that we were to have five batteries a year added, and all this expenditure was distinctly known; and it does seem to me that it is not the object of a Supplementary Estimate to make these enormous charges in addition 549 to the general Budget. Supplementary Estimates are supposed to be small items which come in accidentally, and cannot be foreseen, but most of these great items ought to have been foreseen. I think it is not right for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to bring a Budget forward announcing a large surplus, and then reducing taxation, when, with a very little foresight he might have known that a great part of these expenses must come in, and then he would not have been able to take off that part of the Duties which made a great difference in the account. I am quite sure of this, that, when we were on the other side we criticised the Supplementary Estimates very carefully, and always laid down a rule—the Front Bench as well, when they were on the Opposite Bench—that the Supplementary Estimates should not obtain these large proportions, and that expenditure which could hare been foreseen should have been placed in the Budget in the ordinary way.
§ MR. BUCHANAN (Aberdeenshire, E.)The Supplementary Estimates in Vote 9 do not merely contain sums which the honourable Member opposite has said might fairly have been foreseen and provided for in the Budget, but, as far as I can understand, there is also a certain amount of money contained in this Supplementary Estimate which is liable to the same objection which I thought would be taken to the first item—namely, that for the Volunteers. So far as I can understand, there is also contained in this item a certain amount of money—at least £25,000—which is a forestalling of money which does not become due until after the 31st of March of the present year. In the Memorandum of Lord Lansdowne on the Army Estimates, page 6, we have it stated that the net total for the year 1899–1900 amounted to £23,617.000. Then he goes on to say—
But to this must be added the following amounts provided for by Supplementary Estimates during the current financial year in relief of expenditure of the year 1899–1900.And the three items that he gives are, first, the Volunteer Capitation Grant, £201,000; next £75,000 for clothing; and, thirdly, £25,000 for stores. Well, I suppose, after looking carefully through the Supplementary Estimates, that only under Vote 9 is there any Sup- 550 plementary Estimate for stores, and, therefore, I conclude that this £25,000 is included in this sum of £630,000. The honourable Gentleman a short time ago, when he was speaking, said—No one has objected to what we have done under the first item of this Vote.Well, I respectfully demur to that statement, because the honourable Gentleman is well aware that it was owing to the anxiety of the Committee to hear the Question raised in the early part of the evening that this Question was not taken as soon as the Supplementary Estimates came on. It is not merely a departure from good sound finance that has been alluded to by the honourable Members for Nottingham and Edinburgh that we are having year after year large Supplementary Estimates for the Army and the Navy, a great part of which might reasonably have been foreseen at the time the Estimates were compiled, but that we are having introduced another diversion from our proper system of expenditure—viz., that we are putting into the Supplementary Estimates of the present year estimates for money which will not come in course of payment during the year. That is not stated on the face of the account. Of course, the Supplementary Estimate is what will be required during the year ending the 31st March, 1899. It is stated on the paper that the Capitation Grant is not payable until April; and the honourable Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong—I have quoted the Memorandum of Lord Lansdowne—when I say that this sum of £25,000 for stores, and the sum for clothing ought to come within the expenditure on next year's estimates.
§ *MR. WYNDHAMI think I must clear that up. A distinction is drawn between the two points which the honourable Member has put. First, as to the Volunteers, I do not wish to go back upon the Debate of last year. The point which he now puts as to the clothing and stores is that this clothing and stores should be purchased this year, and if they have not been received and purchased this year, they will be next year—
§ MR. BUCHANANIs this £25,000 included in the Supplementary Estimate?
§ *MR. WYNDHAMYes, and we have got the things, or shall have them by the 551 end of March. If we had had the money this year, and could not have obtained the stores this year, we should have spent the money and obtained the stores next year.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESYes; but I do not understand what the argument of the honourable Gentleman is. He says these things could not have been foreseen. The expenses of the Egyptian expedtion could not have been foreseen? Why, Sir, it has been preparing since 1896. He says Crete could not have been foreseen. Crete has been with us several years. Then, he says, part of this expenditure has been increased because, forsooth, we have the money! But you have not the money. You are coming here to us this evening to ask for the money; and, therefore, I do submit that it is no answer to my argument that we ought not to have sprung upon us Supplementary Estimates of this kind—this is for a million and a-quarter; for over a million—Supplementary Estimates which ought to have been provided in last year's Budget, or else left over for this year. Then, he says, they could not have foreseen this expenditure; there was nothing known about Egypt and Crete. I submit, everything was known about Egypt and Crete. I am exceedingly anxious to be enlightened, and I still await enlightenment, for up to this moment I have not received it.
§ MR. BUCHANANThe point is rather different to what has been just put by the honourable Member for King's Lynn. Of course, the War Office has got a certain amount of money in hand, and they have spent it, but the point I wish to raise is somewhat different. The point I want to raise is this. Prom what Lord Lansdowne states in his Memorandum, there is a sum of £25,000 included in this year's account for stores which are not stores for the present year, but for the year to come, and Lord Lansdowne in his Memorandum puts this £25,000 for stores and £75,000 for clothing and one-half the Capitation Grant for Volunteers absolutely on the same footing. Does the Under Secretary for War want to go back upon the Memorandum? He has endeavoured in his reply to me to make a distinction between the forestalling of the account with regard to stores 552 and the forestalling of the account for the Capitation Grant. The Memorandum places them on an equality, but the irregularity, if there is an irregularity, applies to both, and is equal in both cases, and I am at a loss to understand how it is the honourable Gentleman endeavours to distinguish between these two.
SIR H. CAMPBELL BANNERMANI have not intervened in the early part of this discussion, but with regard to this Supplementary Estimate generally—and I think the observation applies to other Supplementary Estimates as well— I have always understood that nothing should be put in a Supplementary Estimate which was capable of being estimated at the beginning of the year. When charges come upon the heads of Departments which require to be provided for in that year which could not have been foreseen, then, indeed, a Supplementary Estimate is justified. I will take a clear case, the Capitation Grant to the Volunteers. There has been a large controversy between many of the officers of the Volunteers—the Volunteer officers generally—and the War Office with regard to the nature of the Capitation Grant. The War Office held that the Capitation Grant was for the service of the coming year, as it were—of the year which was beginning—but it was based upon the statistics and figures of the previous year, because these were the only data upon which the Capitation could be assessed. That led Volunteer officers generally to the notion that it was a grant in respect of the previous year. There was that little controversy, which might be regarded as of somewhat an academic nature. But many Volunteer regiments being very much in want of money, and seeing the great advantage of getting the money paid earlier than the beginning of the year, two or three years ago the War Office determined to make a payment of one half of the Capitation Grant by way of Supplementary Estimate at the end of the year. That, was in 1895–96. In 1895–96 the original Estimate for this Capitation Grant was £493,500—that was for the whole year's grant. Then there was a Supplementary Estimate, to carry out the policy which I have indicated, at the end of that year of £226,500. The next year, although the Government were aware that 553 there would be still a sum of about £500,000 required in the year, for the end of the rear, they only stayed by the original Estimate, and there was a Supplementary Estimate for £249,000. The next year the sum was £266,000 at the beginning and £257,000 at the end of the year. This year again: Original Estimate, £259,000; Supplementary Estimate, £255,000. Now, it seems to me that, according to all the ordinary rules of finance, when it was known that this total sum of about £500,000 would be required either at the beginning or end of the year, it ought to be included in the Vote, instead of being taken, one half on the Original Estimate, and one half on the Supplementary Estimate. I quote that as a strange proceeding, and also as an indication of a certain looseness in dealing with Supplementary Estimates and a departure from what, I believe, was the old, accepted theory, that a Supplementary Estimate can only be admissable when the charge has arisen since the first original Estimate was framed, and for some service which could not have been foreseen at that time.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEESI do not think the discussion on the Capitation Grant can be renewed at this period, because that matter has been passed. One of the rules of Supply is that you cannot go back to a former item. I allowed the right honourable Gentleman to go on, because I understood he was going to use it as an illustration of something which he objected to in Vote nine.
SIR H. CAMPBELL BANNERMANI was quite willing to regard it either as an illustration or as a fact; but, as a matter of fact, I inquired at the Table whether it was possible to go back upon an item, and I was told that it was impossible to take a division upon an item, but that discussion might be carried on although the item was passed. But, I bow to your decision, Sir.
§ *MR. WYNDHAMI am bound to say I understood that the right honourable Gentleman was bringing forward an illustration, and, treated as such, it was such a forcible illustration that I should like to say one word upon it, not on the merits of the case of the Volunteer Vote. Let me, without discussing the merits of 554 it, say that this is the best illustration that could be adduced of the practice which has been attacked, and let me quote a financial authority upon that illustration, which, I am sure, the right honourable Gentleman will be the last person to reject. The financial authority discussing this prepayment—which is the most flagrant form of prepayment, if such pre-payments are flagrant—stated—
—that was that much case to your elbows. He was not surprised that the Government of the day had accelerated matters very greatly. He complimented them, because they had been fortunate enough to do in this year what would not have been very practicable in many previous years, that was, to forestall one half of the Capitation Grant for the Volunteers.He added that—He had not one word to say in deprecation of the policy of doing so.Then, with light regard for financial orthodoxy, he went on to speak of the true and sacred official doctrine. That distinguished authority was the right honourable Gentleman himself.
SIR H. CAMPBELL BANNERMANIf the right honourable Gentleman will allow me to say so, that would give to the House the impression that I spoke on the merits of the policy of dealing with the Capitation Grant. I am not speaking of that at all. Having established that policy, why did not you include the whole sum in your original Estimate? That is my question, and it is another question altogether.
§ *MR. WYNDHAMWhat the right honourable Gentleman pressed was the use of the unspent balance for that purpose. But I pass from his own illustration, upon which he gave his own opinion, not only to-night, but on the 12th March, 1896. As to the other two items to which the honourable Member for Aberdeen has referred, they are much more easily defensible. He referred to the sum of £75,000 down for clothing in this Vote, and he stated that the noble Lord the Secretary of State for War in his Memorandum includes that as a prepayment to ease the Estimates for next year. Well, Sir, that payment covers the distribution of the clothing of our Reserves to the depots of the military 555 districts, and it is really taken, not solely to ease the Estimates of next year, but because the policy of accelerating this decentralisation has been urged in this House over and over again: namely, that as soon as it were possible to take the Reservists' clothing out of the Stores at Pimlico, and to put it where it would be of use in the event of mobilisation in the depôts of the military districts, it should be done. That was done, and that accounts for the great part of this £75,000. The other item to which he referred is the item of £25,000 for stores. Sir, that is for ammunition which was to be delivered in this month of March, and for which we have therefore to pay in this year's expenses.
§ MR. BUCHANANThe honourable Gentleman has misapprehended the point of the few observations I have made. I did not doubt that the £75,000 is for a useful purpose, and the £25,000 as well. I do not know exactly for what purposes they were spent. What I do feel is this, that these two sums, as well as the one-half of the Capitation Grant, are asked for in a Supplementary Estimate for the year ending the 31st March, 1899, whereas they are not for the service of that year, but for the service of the year ending the 31st March, 1900, and the witness I call in support of that statement is the noble Lord the Secretary of State for War in his Memorandum. He says so in so many words. He states it on page 6, when comparing the payments of this year for the Army with the payments of the previous year, "The net total of the Army payments for this year is £23,617,000." But he adds,
To this must be added the following amounts, provided for by Supplementary Estimates during the current financial year, in relief of expenditure of the year 1899–1900.And he gives these three items, the Capitation Grant, £75,000 for clothing, and £25,000 for stores. Well, then, he has got to go into these details to show the true amount of the money that is wanted for the Army Estimates of this year. At another paragraph he says that the same ambiguity and the 556 same doubt was in our Estimates last year; and it makes the case only more flagrant when we have this ambiguity, not introduced now for the first time, but for the second time. What we have to complain of from the financial point of view is, in the first place, that you are taking money on this Vote for services of the present year, which you do not want until next year, and, in the second place, you are making it more and more difficult to compare the expenditure of one year with another, because in past times, if we wanted to find out what the total amount of the expenditure was on the Army, we had simply to look at the Army Estimates and the Supplementary Estimate. We shall have to look at the Supplementary Estimates of the year previous in future, if this system is to go on; in order to ascertain the expenditure of any year, we shall not merely have to look at the Estimates of that year, but also of the Supplementary Estimates of the previous year to see whether any money was voted in the previous year in relief of the expenditure we are inquiring into. That is a grave irregularity in our finance which has been introduced now certainly for the second time, but which we called attention to and objected to last year. I remember that the honourable Member for King's Lynn strenuously objected to it. We did not get a satisfactory answer last year, and I do not think we have got any answer this year. The honourable Gentleman has dwelt on the purposes for which the money is to be expended, but he has not dwelt at all on the financial irregularity which is involved. I think we ought to have got some statement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject. Here we have the same irregularity which was called attention to last year repeated on the present occasion, with the result that a certain confusion is introduced into our finance.
§
Question put—
That the item for Warlike and other Stores be omitted from the proposed Vote."—(Mr. Labouchere.)
§ Committee divided: Ayes 66: Noes 150.—(Division List No. 19.)
559| AYES. | ||
| Allison, Robert Andrew | Grey, Sir Edw. (Berwick) | Palmer, Sir C. M. (Durham) |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale- | Paulton, James Mellor |
| Birrell, Augustine | Hazell, Walter | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Bolton, Thomas Dolling | Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Chas. H. | Price, Robert John |
| Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson | Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.) | Robson, William Snowdon |
| Burt, Thomas | Kay-Shuttleworth, Rt Hn Sir U. | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Caldwell, James | Kearley, Hudson E. | Scott, C. Prestwich (Leigh) |
| Cameron, Robert (Durham) | Lawson, Sir W. (Cumberland) | Sinclair, Capt. J. (Forfarshire) |
| Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. | Leese, Sir Jsph. F. (Accringtn.) | Stevenson, Francis S. |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Lewis, John Herbert | Strachey, Edward |
| Channing, Francis Alliston | Lloyd-George, David | Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath) |
| Clark, Dr. G. B. (Caithness-sh.) | Macaleese, Daniel | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Clough, Walter Owen | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Weir, James Galloway |
| Colville, John | M'Arthur, William (Cornwall) | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Commins, Andrew | M'Cartan, Michael | Williams, Jno. Carvell (Notts.) |
| Crombie, John William | M'Ghee, Richard | Wilson, Hy. J. (York, W.R.) |
| Curran, Thomas (Sligo, S.) | Maddison, Fred. | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.) |
| Daly, James | Molloy, Bernard Charles | Wilson, John (Govan) |
| Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan) | Morgan, W. Pritchard (Merthyr | |
| Davitt, Michael | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| Duckworth, James | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Mr. Labouchere and Mr. Buchanan. |
| Farquharson, Dr. Robert | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert J. | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) | |
| Goddard, Daniel Ford | O'Malley, William |
| NOES. | ||
| Archdale, Edward Mervyn | Fardell, Sir T. George | Knowles, Lees |
| Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis | Fergusson, Rt Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r) | Laurie, Lieut.-General |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Field, Admiral (Eastbourne) | Lawrence, Sir E. Durning-(Corn |
| Bailey, James (Walworth) | Finch, George H. | Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead) |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manch'r.) | Finlay, Sir Rbt. Bannatyne | Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds) | Fisher, William Hayes | Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham) |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Fison, Frederick William | Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Liverpool) |
| Barnes, Frederic Gorell | FitzGerald, Sir Rbt. Penrose- | Lowles, John |
| Bartley, George C. T. | FitzWygram, General Sir F. | Loyd, Archie Kirkman |
| Barton, Dunbar Plunket | Flower, Ernest | Lucas-Shadwell, William |
| Beach, Rt Hn. Sir. M. H. (Bristol) | Folkestone, Viscount | Macartney, W. G. Ellison |
| Beckett, Ernest William | Garfit, William | Macdona, John Cumming |
| Bethell, Commander | Gibbs, Hn. A. G. H.(City Lond.) | Middlemore, J. Throgmorton |
| Bigwood, James | Giles, Charles Tyrrell | Milner, Sir Fredk. George |
| Bill, Charles | Goldsworthy, Major-General | Monckton, Edward Philip |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Gordon, Hon. John Edw. | Monk, Charles James |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- | Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir J. Eldon | Moon, Edward Robert Pacy |
| Boulnois, Edmund | Goschen, Rt Hn G. J.(St. Geo.'s) | More, R. Jasper Shropshire) |
| Bowles, T. G. (King's Lynn) | Goschen, George J. (Sussex) | Morrell, George Herbert |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Morrison, Walter |
| Carlile, William Walter | Graham, Henry Robert | Morton, A. H. A. (Deptford) |
| Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.) | Green, W. D. (Wednesbury) | Murray, Rt. Hn. A. G. (Bute) |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Gretton, John | Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath) |
| Chaloner Captain R. G. W. | Gull, Sir Cameron | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Chamberlain, J. A. (Worc'r.) | Hamilton, Rt. Hon. Lord Geo. | Nicol, Donald Ninian |
| Chelsea, Viscount | Hanson, Sir Reginald | Pease, Hbt. Pike (Darlington) |
| Clare, Octavius Leigh | Hare, Thomas Leigh | Pilkington, Richard |
| Clarke, Sir Edw. (Plymouth) | Hatch, Ernest Fredk. Geo. | Pollock, Harry Frederick |
| Cochrane, Hon. T. H. A. E. | Heath, James | Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward |
| Coghill, Douglas Harry | Henderson, Alexander | Purvis, Robert |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Hermon-Hodge, Robt. Trotter | Rentoul, James Alexander |
| Cook, Fred. Lucas (Lambeth) | Hill, Sir Edw. Stock (Bristol) | Ridley, Rt. Hon. Sir Matt. W. |
| Cubitt, Hon. Henry | Hoare, Samuel (Norwich) | Ritchie, Rt. Hn. C. Thomson |
| Curzon, Viscount | Hobhouse, Henry | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) |
| Davenport, W. Bromley- | Howell, William Tudor | Russell, T. W. (Tyrone) |
| Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Chas. | Hozier, Hon. Jas. Hy. Cecil | Rutherford, John |
| Donkin, Richard Sim | Hutchinson, Capt. G. W. Grice- | Ryder, J. Herbert Dudley |
| Doughty, George | Hutton, John (York. N. R.) | Sharpe, Wm. Edward T. |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Johnston, William (Belfast) | Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew) |
| Doxford, William Theodore | Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex) | Simeon, Sir Barrington |
| Drage, Geoffrey | Kemp, George | Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks) |
| Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart | Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. | Smith, Hn. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton | Kenyon-Slaney, Col. William | Stanley, Hon. A. (Ormskirk) |
| Elliot, Hon. A. R. Douglas | King, Sir Henry Seymour | Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset) |
| Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) | Welby Lieut.-Col. A. C. E. | Wyvill, Marmaduke D'Arcy |
| Strauss, Arthur | Wentworth, B. C. Vernon- | Young, Commander (Berks, E.) |
| Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier | Williams, J. Powell- (Birm.) | |
| Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) | Willox, Sir John Archibald | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— |
| Tollemache, Henry James | Wilson, John (Falkirk) | Sir William Walrond and |
| Valentia, Viscount | Wilson-Todd, W. H. (Yorks.) | Mr. Anstruther. |
| Walton, J. Lawson (Leeds, S.) | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath) | |
| Webster, Sir R. E. (I. of Wight) | Wyndbam, George |