§ Order for Committee read.
§ *THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. GEORGE WYNDHAM,) DoverBefore moving that the Speaker do now leave the Chair, I have decided to make the general statement on the Army policy of the Government, which is sometimes made upon that Motion, and sometimes upon the Vote for men. I do this in the hope that it may prove convenient to honourable Members to know, before they proceeded to criticism, exactly what progress has been made with the programme explained last year to this House by my right honourable Friend the present Under Secretary of 1060 State for Foreign Affairs, in a memorable speech. I may perhaps remind honourable Members that by taking this course I do not in any way restrict the scope of discussion upon the Vote for men when we come to it. I shall also attempt to show what modifications—and they are very slight—in that programme have been sanctioned by my noble Friend the Secretary,' of State for War, and the additions to it. I may say at once that we propose no heroic changes in that programme. The reforms of 1897 and of 1898 are to have a fair trial, so that the task before me is a modest one, but one which I cannot hope to accomplish unless the House gives me a double measure of indulgence. My task is merely to point out how far we have got in shaping those changes then accepted towards the ends which were then in view. And, Mr. Speaker, unless we keep those ends constantly in view, it is well-nigh impossible to make a defence, or even an explanation, of our Army policy and system intelligible. There are features in our system which seem, on the face of them, open to attack. Some of our critics insist upon the youth of our men in our home battalions; the drafting of men out of one unit into another; upon the obscuring, in certain cases, of some ancient traditions; or, again, perhaps, upon the reduction of some of our six-gun batteries to four-gun batteries. Now, all these features, if considered in themselves, and apart from the purposes for which the whole of our forces are raised, may seem somewhat irrational. But that would seem true of the features of any human contrivance if you did not take into account, the purpose which it was contrived to effect. I should despair of justifying the shape of a corkscrew to the man who had never seen a bottle. The British Army is raised under certain limitations to effect certain purposes. The limitations are that our Army must be a voluntary Army, and that it must not be extravagantly dear. The purposes are four in number. They have been recited before, but I must ask leave of the House to name them once again in the order, perhaps, not of their import- 1061 ance, but of their imminence and their likelihood. In the first place, we are bound to provide a British Army for India, which, since India pays for it, must be up to the standard of efficiency for which she contracts. In the second place, we are bound to provide garrisons for some of our Colonies, for some foreign States that we happen to occupy for our coaling stations and our naval bases. In the third place, we must have at our command a small force to dispatch whenever a small war arises out of the impact of our civilisation with barbarism. And, lastly, in the fourth place, we must be ready against the chances of a great war involving the risk of invasion. This last purpose, unlike the others, is a remote—I hope and believe a very remote—contingency, and yet it is a contingency so dire that our Army, framed in the first place to discharge the three normal and, I might almost say, annual purposes for which it exists, must also be susceptible of adaptation to meet even that dire contingency should it at any time arise. So that we must have a Field Army adequate for home defence, and, when the command of the sea has been assured, adequate also to deliver a counter attack. Sir, I propose to take the three arms—Artillery, Cavalry, and Infantry—and the other corps which are necessary to keep those three in the field, and to try to show how far they may be fitted to discharge their fourfold object. And, first, Sir, I will take the Artillery. I think it should have the post of honour this afternoon, because it seems probable that it will bear the brunt of the attack. The right honourable Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean, quite in accordance with the most modern theory of warfare, of which he is a past master, is prepared to begin this engagement with an Artillery duel. Now, taking our Artillery, we provide for India 11 batteries of Horse Artillery, 42 batteries of Field Artillery, eight batteries of Mountain Artillery, and 27 companies of Garrison Artillery. We provide for our Colonies four batteries of Field Artillery, one battery of Mountain Artillery, and 37 companies of Garrison Artillery. Now, Sir, I have no reason to believe that more Artillery units are required for these two purposes in India and the Colonies, except in the case of Garrison Artillery. But to meet that 1062 need, in the programme of 1897, an increase of the establishment was sanctioned of 11 companies of Garrison Artillery. Eight of those companies have already been raised, and upon the Estimates now put before the House we hope to raise and complete the other three companies of Garrison Artillery. Nor is it urged, so far as I know, that we have not sufficient Artillery at our command for any small war. But in the case of home defence it is otherwise. I know that some honourable Members of this House are not quite easy in their minds on that point. For home defence we aim at having a Field Army composed of three Army Corps and four Cavalry Brigades. Taking the Horse Artillery first, each of these four Cavalry brigades requires one battery of Horse Artillery, and each Army Corps two batteries, making 10 batteries of Horse Artillery in all. We have 10 batteries of Horse Artillery in this country, and a depot. Turning to the Field Artillery, which, I believe, excites greater anxiety in the minds of some honourable Members of this House, each Army Corps until quite recently was held only to need 15 batteries of Field Artillery, making 15 batteries in all for the Field Army, which we are bound to keep to guard against the risk of invasion. We have 41 batteries in all of Field Artillery in the country, besides three batteries of howitzers and two depots. But I ought to tell the House that we are no longer advised that 15 batteries of Field Artillery are enough for an Army Corps) we are advised that 18 batteries are needed, which would make 54 batteries in all for the Field Army, of which I have spoken. We have 44 batteries now, and when the 10 new batteries remaining out of the 15 sanctioned by this House in the programme explained by my right honourable Friend are completed, as they will be, we expect, in two years' time, we shall have 54 batteries. We are raising them at the rate of five in each year, and I am informed by those who are in a position to know, that it is impossible to raise them any faster. But, Sir, although, as I have shown, we have the units for this purpose, I know it is suggested in some quarters that our programme for home defence in respect of Field Artillery is illusory and fictitious; it is said that we have not enough trained horses, and, 1063 secondly, that we have nut enough trained men in service batteries at home. I will take the question of the horses first. No doubt it is true that there were on the 1st of January this year 1,500 fewer trained horses in the Artillery than there were upon the 1st of January in 1879. Well, that is quite true, but it is no news. We have deli berately—or, rather, this House and this Government and its predecessors have deliberately—on the advice of military experts, reduced the establishment for horses in the Artillery by 1,600; so that the fact that there are 1,500 fewer now than then is precisely the fact that you would expect. But that, of course, does not dispose of the question whether that establishment is sufficient, but it does dispose of the impression which I think lurks in some minds that there has been some hocus-pocus over this business, and that we are pretending that we have more horses than we really possess. The fact is that we have 100 more than in our scheme on paper we claim to have. Well, I have gone over this ground, and have shown that in two years we shall have as many batteries of Field Artillery as are necessary for our Field Army and our three Army Corps. But now arises the question—Are there enough horses in each of these batteries? Well, Sir, among the changes authorised from time to time by this House, and which are far too complicated to enter upon in detail, it will suffice to say that the upshot of them was the reduction of the establishment by 1,500 horses, and one change was made in 1878ߝ79, namely, a reduction of 700 in the number of waggon horses. Now, that has not been a gradual reduction, but it was done at one fell swoop in 1879ߝ80. If the right honourable Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean had taken the end of the year 1879 instead of the beginning of it, he would have found the Field Artillery had only two more horses in each four-gun battery than they have now. It is no new discovery, but it is a part of the policy pursued during the last 20 years. Well, Sir, upon this question of waggon horses a new factor has come into the problem be the introduction of what are called quick firing guns. These quick-firing guns expend a great deal more ammunition than those which they are about to supersede, and the whole question of waggon horses 1064 is thereby thrown back into an experimental stage. Our military advisers, therefore, have to ascertain how much ammunition is needed behind the firing line, and they have also to ascertain what new system of disposition and distribution of reserve may be necessary, for they are of the opinion that some new plan of distribution will be necessary. They are now working at that problem, and until they have arrived at their conclusions it is quite impossible to put any accurate figures before the House; but there is no risk or danger, for it is the easiest thing in the world to lay our hands upon horses at the present time. We have now something more than 14,500 horses marked down which we could buy tomorrow if war broke out. It is not thought necessary, by those who are able to advise us, that we should keep those horses in the ranks in time of peace. Sir, there is another of these changes to which I must refer, namely, the introduction of the four-gun battery system; the introduction of lower establishment batteries with four guns instead of with six guns, and in dealing with that I should like to deal not only with the question of trained horses, but at the same time with the question of trained men. It is said that we have not enough trained horses for our service batteries, and also that we have not enough trained men, and that our service batteries have become mere training schools from which to draw men for other batteries abroad. Well, this institution of four-gun batteries is simply an administrative device and nothing more. It is a very good illustration of the system by which we are able to make the number of men voted by Parliament subserve the two classes of purposes for which the Army is raised, to which I referred a few moments ago—namely, that of finding drafts to meet the annual normal demands of India and the Colonies, and also of having a framework for the three Army Corps in the event of a great war involving the risk of invasion. I am quite content to take my stand upon this illustration of our system, namely, the reduction of batteries from six-gun to four-gun establishments. It is easier to train a, number of men with batteries on this establishment.
§ *MR. WYNDHAMI will come to that in a moment. Although it is not universally, it is generally held that drafts can be better trained with the service batteries at home than they can be in the depôt. Some, I know, think the contrary, but that is the general view, and it is the settled and matured conviction of our military advisers at the War Office. Then I take the other purpose for which our Army is raised, namely, home defence; and in order to make out my case and show that there is nothing wrong with this four-gun system, I will ask the House to take an imaginary case of the most crucial and, let me add, of the most improbable character. I ask the House to suppose that all the drafts trained with those batteries at home have gone to India in the trooping season, and that they have gone without the least suspicion in any man's mind that war was going to break out. Of course, if there were any such suspicion that we were on the eve of a great war, drafts would be kept at home, and the time-expired men in India; but assume that there was no suspicion of war aroused, and no danger anticipated, and then assume that it does break out just at that most unfavourable moment, it would find us not only with all the men who are trained to perform their special function of laying guns, but it would find us with more than 100 non-commissioned officers and men in each of these four-gun field batteries, so that only 70 men from the Reservists in addition would be required in each battery to bring up the first line to war strength. That is the present position, and, of course, it will be materially improved when in a few years' time, with 10 additional batteries, the drafts from each will be less than at present; less than 30 from each battery. Now, with regard to horses, these four-gun batteries have 58 horses in all, of which 38 are trained to draw the guns; that is to say, there are enough horses to draw not four guns, but six guns, and two to spare. For the waggons we count upon the 14,500 registered horses. Even if it were thought desirable to have more than 58 horses with each of these lower establishment batteries, I do not think it would be possible to get the men to train them while we are increasing the establishment—at least, that is the opinion of our military ad- 1066 visers. One would think, from the criticisms made, that this four-gun system is peculiar to this country, but that is not so. In Germany 221 batteries out of 494 are also four-gun batteries. But I think we must agree that a Continental nation must, on the one hand, have its Army for home defence in a much more advanced state of preparation than is necessary in this country; and, on the other hand, they have not to find drafts of troops for an Army abroad. So that in our case there are more reasons for and fewer against adopting the four-gun system in our batteries. I think it is hardly necessary for me to remind the House that these four-gun batteries have their other two guns in existence, and that facilities are given them to exercise their horses with six guns. Each battery is exercised in turn at Okehampton in drill with its six guns. Having said so much in favour of the four-gun system, I will now ask the House to consider the alternative—namely, instead of training our drafts with lower establishment batteries, we were to send them all to the depôts. But in order to find the drafts for India alone it would be necessary to have 1,500 men at the depôt at Woolwich, men who, we are told, would be imperfectly trained for that purpose, and men who would find no place in the scheme for home defence. The depôt does not exist only for India, but it exists to give preliminary drill and training in gymnastics to all the recruits for the whole of the artillery, both for home and foreign service. Well, Sir, we had nearly 3,000 recruits for Field Artillery during last year, and the accommodation at Woolwich did not suffice for that number; 900 recruits had to join the batteries direct because there was not room for them at Woolwich. The practical question is, not whether we should abandon the present system for one involving a far larger depot, but whether it may not be necessary to extend the Woolwich depôt to meet the requirements of the system now in force. I think I ought to apologise to the House for having gone into this question at such length. My excuse, however, must be that while our critics consider this a very weak point in the system now in force, we, on the other hand, think it a very good illustration of the manner in which 1067 our system enables us to fulfil our annual obligations, and at the same time to provide the framework of three Army Corps for home defence. Before leaving the subject of the Artillery, I may tell the House that we propose to divide the mounted from the dismounted branch of this arm of the Service. The scheme has been approved, and is being worked out in detail. I come now to the Cavalry. Again pursuing the same order, during the year we have to find nine Cavalry regiments of the Line for India, and for Africa we have now to find three Cavalry regiments, and so far as I know we are not required to find more. But for our Field Army which we have to provide in order to guard against the risk of invasion, we have to find four Cavalry brigades of three regiments each, and two regiments for each of the three Army Corps. That would mean 12 Cavalry regiments for the four Brigades and six for the three Army Corps, making 18 regiments in all. Well, Sir, towards that at home we have 16 Cavalry regiments of the Line, and we can count upon one regiment composed out of three regiments of Household troops, making 17 in all. I am ready to admit that we fall short by one of our ideal, namely, to have 18 regiments, but that ideal is a very high one, of having four independent Cavalry brigades to the three Army Corps, and it amply covers all that we have pledged ourselves to effect, namely, to have enough Cavalry for two Army Corps which could be put on board ship to be sent abroad. In the case of the Cavalry, as in the case of the Artillery, it is the mature opinion of our military advisers that drafts are, better trained with regiments that at depôts, and we adhere to that principle all the more firmly because, having now 12 regiments of Cavalry abroad instead of nine, which used to be the number, we should have, I suppose, quite 1,500 recruits imperfectly trained for foreign service at the depôts, and, as in the case of the Artillery, finding no place in the scheme for home defence. But although adhering to that principle, we recognise that there are two difficulties in its application to Cavalry which do not exist to the same extent in its application to Artillery. In the first place, there is but one regiment of Royal Artillery, but there are 28 regiments of Cavalry of the Line, each 1068 with its own traditions of a glorious past; and in the second place, for "shock action" it is held that Reservists are not sufficiently trained. It is held that all the men and all the horses in a regiment which might at very short notice be called upon to take part in war as an integral unit should be trained by that regiment in times of peace. I think I should only weary the House if I went into the details of the general scheme, therefore I will simply give the upshot of it, which I hope will give to honourable Members all the information they seek. The upshot of it is this, that the eight Cavalry regiments on the higher establishment, which, unfortunately, last year were in some cases called upon to provide by volunteering, and even by compulsion, large numbers of men in drafts for India, are next year not to be required to provide any men either by volunteering or compulsion. These eight Cavalry regiments on the higher establishment to which we have to look in case of emergency are to have complete immunity in this respect in the future. We have to provide drafts for the 12 regiments abroad, say about 1,200 men. The existing three depôts for the three regiments in Africa will be maintained, and a fourth depôt will be added to meet an exceptional but temporary strain in India, which will be maintained so long as that exceptional strain continues to exist. For the balance of drafts we shall look to the eight regiments upon the lower establishment, and we shall enable them to train those men with less difficulty than heretofore. Honourable Members will recollect that this was announced in the memorandum of the Secretary of State for War, that we are adding 60 men and 20 horses to each one of these new regiments on the lower establishment. The only other step that we take in order to ease the burden which is imposed on the Cavalry is that the wish expressed by any man upon enlistment to serve in any particular regiment when his training has been completed will be gratified whenever that is possible. I hope that these modifications will go some way towards redressing the grievances from which some Cavalry regiments have certainly suffered during the past year; but they will not go the whole of the way in all cases. We 1069 must, however, face the facts. The new and additional burdens of empire must place new and additional burdens upon the British Army, and the shortening of the period between the apprehension of war and the actual shock of arms, precluding, as it does, the idea of leisurely preparation, has brought into being a new order of things, so that some regiments have now to put up with in each year on a small scale what in the old days some regiments had to put up with now and then on a large scale. Even to meet lesser emergencies than war, it is a mistake to suppose that there ever was a golden age for cavalry in which each regiment was able to depend upon itself and be ready to go abroad without drawing upon other regiments. I have looked up the historical records of some of these regiments from official documents, and I find that one Cavalry regiment, although it had been augmented in preparation for taking its turn in India in the year 1822, when it arrived in India took over 259 men from one of the other regiments there, and 175 from another regiment, or 434 men in all. Well, Sir, that regiment, so transmogrified, was kept in India for 24 years, and covered itself with glory during that time, and yet, when it returned, it was called upon to give up 176 men to another regiment, and it came home with only seven officers and 259 men. It picked up 12 officers and 79 men at the depot, but next year its establishment was reduced, and nine of its officers were forced to go upon half-pay. Well, that was the kind of thing that went on at the beginning of the century merely over going to India and returning, but I am glad to say that the Cavalry has not to put up with anything of that kind now. Now, under the new system, which comes in for a good deal of abuse occasionally, we can keep 12 Cavalry regiments abroad, and we can put 17 Cavalry regiments into the field at home, at the cost of asking eight Cavalry regiments out of 31 to train and supply 100 men each for India. I do not mind saying that, for my own part, I wish we could avoid even that necessity. I yield to no honourable and gallant Member of this House in my admiration for the miracles that are wrought by the esprit de corps which turns the loafer into a hero and 1070 enables boys in their teens to lead men whom some of us would consider unruly citizens. But I do not see how we can avoid that necessity, unless we are prepared to take one of two courses—either to curtail our Empire, or else to ask the taxpayers of this country for an insurance out of all proportion to the remoteness of the risk of invasion. Sir, I come now to the infantry. We have to supply India with 52 battalions of Infantry, and we supply the Colonies with 29 Line battalions and one battalion of Guards, which makes, in all, 82 battalions of Infantry abroad. Now, we should have in difficulty in providing for a small war except, perhaps, in the matter of clothing. In times past it has been difficult to get the clothing suited to the tropical climate ready on the spur of the moment, when we wished to dispatch a force to such a climate; therefore, we are asking in these Estimates for £20,000, so that clothing suitable for tropical climates shall be ready for a small force on the same principle as we keep mobilisation clothing ready at a moment's notice to be distributed at its proper centres. Then, at home, for the field Army of three Army Corps we should require 75 battalions of Infantry—25 for each. We have at home seven battalions of Guards and 64 Line battalions, or 71 in all, so that we are apparently short by four battalions of the ideal at which we aim. But, Sir, the House, last year and in 1897, authorised an increase of our Army by nine battalions. Five of these new battalions have been raised, and we do not anticipate any difficulty in raising the other four in a very short period of time; so that, in a very short time, with those additional four battalions, our 71 will have become 75, which is the figure at which we aim for home defence. In the meanwhile, we are able to improvise four battalions, which, I am fully persuaded, will render a very good account of themselves. For each of the four in that case we should take the double depôt of a regiment with both battalions abroad, the Reservists of the two battalions, and the affiliated Militia. In the case of the Infantry, particularly bearing in mind the speech of my right honourable Friend, which he delivered last year, I feel that there is no occasion for me to labour the argument in favour of drafting from units 1071 instead of keeping all our drafts for India and the Colonies at the depots. We have 81 Line battalions abroad, each of them requiring an average draft of 160 men in a year, and that would mean 13,000 men, in round numbers; but since we cannot send men to India until they are 20 years of age, and since we must allow for waste, the depot system would mean that we should have to keep a very much higher number to feed our Army abroad, who would have no place in the scheme for home defence. I think my right honourable Friend put it at 30,000 men in his speech last year. In the case of Infantry, as in the case of Cavalry and Artillery, we must use the same material for our normal annual task of finding drafts for abroad, and for providing against the remote contingency of invasion. It is an absolute necessity; but, recognising that necessity—I can almost say that the Army now recognises it also—we are not, therefore, blind to the inestimable value of regimental tradition. When the two battalions now forming a regiment were once two separate regiments, we are always ready, wherever it is possible, without introducing anything prejudicial to this system, to do anything to save and preserve every symbol of the glorious past of any regiment; we are always ready to do so. Something was done a short time ago in respect of regimental badges in every case where the two regiments have been able to agree. The case of facings, however, is a more difficult one; we have to consider questions of manufacture and supply, and also the question whether, by granting the facings asked for by one regiment, we might not be offending another; but I may say that if all the battalions of one regiment made united representations, asking for facings once worn, the Secretary of State would be willing to consider such an application on its merits. Our military advisers do not believe that any feeling of the kind exists, and no representations have reached us from the Army. But, in any case, if such a concession were given it would only apply to the tunics and not to the frock, which would be the garment worn on mobilisation, because there it is absolutely essential that we should preserve the existing elasticity. Before I leave the question of men serving with 1072 the colours I must, in view of the Estimates which we have to submit, say a word or two about our Colonial forces. As the House is probably aware, there are of our coloured Colonial forces officered by white officers over 21,000 men who are not under the War Office, but who are under the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office. We have now under the War Office exactly 6,565 men. That includes the 3rd Battalion West India, Regiment which was raised upon the programme of 1897, and we are now raising and asking for funds in this Estimate to raise a West African regiment, a Central African regiment, and a. Chinese regiment. That will mean an addition of 3,258 men, which will give us a total of 9,823 men under the War Office, and which will bring up the total of our coloured regiments to about 31,000 men. That is not a very large figure—certainly not large enough, in my humble opinion, to justify the gloomy forebodings indulged in the other day by the right honourable Gentleman the Member for Montrose Burghs. I do not think that anyone will be able to see any sign of our decline and fall in the fact that we have 31,000 native troops as against 140,000 British troops, without counting the Reserve, the Militia, and Volunteers. In this comparison, of course, I leave out India, because we may assume that the proportion of British to native forces in India is all that we may require. I come now to the Reserve, the Militia, and the Volunteers. With regard to these forces, I feel that I need add very little to the Memorandum of my noble Friend, and to the very interesting' report of General Kelly-Kenny. The first-class Army Reserve on the 1st of January of this year stood at 78,798. It was lowered, as the House may know, because of re-transfers from the Reserve to the Line amounting to 4,488, but that lowering was a temporary and, I believe, a perfectly safe expedient, because we are able to reckon that the first-class Army Reserve will, in the course of this year, amount to the total of 83,000 men. I ought to say a word about the new Section A of the Reserve, which formed part of the programme of last year. The House knows that this class of Army Reservists are given 1s. a day, and that they are liable to be called out whenever warlike operations are in preparation or in progress. The 1073 number of men who have taken that additional pay and undertaken that additional obligation was, on the 1st of January, 1,360, and I may say that the figures are increasing; on the 1st of February the number had risen from 1,360 to" 1,750, so that I really think there is very little doubt that we shall reach, with little difficulty, the Limit proposed—namely, 5,000. Well, Sir, I think I will now pass to the Militia, and I cannot disguise the fact that that ancient and most useful force does suffer by being called upon to perform in this country a good deal of work which is done by the Reserves in Continental Armies. There are, in the first place, 30,000 Militiamen in the Militia Reserve, who, to all intents and purposes, are a part of the Army Reserve, and cannot be reckoned both in the Militia and in the Army Reserve. To that we must add the men who undertake the new obligations under the Act passed last year—the men whose obligations will really be heavier than the obligations of the men in the first-class Army Reserve, because they can be called out more frequently and upon lesser occasions, so to speak, than even the men in the first-class Army Reserve. I do not think it is difficult to defend all these devices; on the contrary, I think the fact is, that we must have more elasticity now than was necessary in the old days, when you had months to think it over before you determined whether you would go to war or not. We have to meet nowadays a greater number of contingencies. It is quite possible that at the time last year, when we had an expedition up the Nile and were occupying Crete, if some other burden of a like character had been cast upon our hands in some other part of the world we should have needed more Reservists, either from the first-class Army Reserve or the Militia, in order to go through with these many tasks which fell upon us. But under the old rule you could not get a man without a Royal, Proclamation and the calling of both Houses of Parliament together within 10 days; so that these devices are necessary in order that we may do by voluntary contract with the men what otherwise would have to be clone compulsorily by Royal Proclamation. The strength of the Militia on the last 1074 day of last year, that is, on the 31st of December, was 103,647. That shows a nett decrease of 1,884. But that decrease is not due to any slackness in recruiting; on the contrary, 40,108 joined the Militia last year. Nor is it mainly due to discharges or absenteeism. It is chiefly due to the fact that 15,167 men passed from the Militia into the Line. I do not know whether it will console some honourable and gallant Members behind me when I say that this evil, if it be an evil, of draining the Militia to feed the Army was also common in the early part of the century. Mr. Pitt linked Militia battalions to regiments of the Line, and in the year 1807ߝ8 27,000 Militia passed out of that force into the Regular Army. We have now to put up every year with burdens which, under earlier conditions, had to be borne occasionally on a much larger scale. But that is all the more reason for making the Militia efficient and attractive. In this year's Estimates we are asking for an increase of £41,200 for the British Militia: that excludes a small sum for the Militia Artillery in Bermuda. Of this sum £25,400 will be needed for the new section of Militiamen who are prepared to come out when called upon. The sum of £3,050 has been allocated to giving non-commissioned officers of Militia regiments extra training with regular troops, and £9,000 is taken to give a boon which has long been asked for, namely, field caps for the Militia. And since we know that officers in the Militia have very heavy calls made upon their private means, we set down a small sum of £3,750 to assist officers of corps in maintaining the regimental band. I come now to the Volunteer establishment which, this year, is 264,833, showing an increase of 870. Now first of all as to rifle ranges. I know that on this question a good deal of anxiety exists. Owing to the introduction of the Lee-Metford rifle, as many honourable Members are aware, a good many ranges have been closed. But after all, they are not in such a bad way as I sometimes hear they are. I have been going into the figures, and I find that whereas on the 1st of April, 1894, before the introduction of the new rifle, the Volunteers and Yeomanry had 1,172 ranges: now 667 ranges have been approved, and there are still 350 ranges which are 1075 being inspected, of which a fair proportion, in all probability, will pass muster. There would be very great difficulty in the Government's providing sums directly for the purchase of Volunteer ranges. We have always held that Volunteer regiments should—and ecrtainly they have shown great willingness to do so—provide ranges for themselves; but in order to assist them, some changes have been introduced into the travelling allowances for musketry, so that corps living at greater distances than 12 miles from a range may be able to reach it at less cost than was the case before. I ought, perhaps, to remind the House that, under the Loan Act of 1897, we are taking half a million of money to construct 20 new ranges, to which, of course, Volunteers will have every facility of access. We have done a little to assist the officers of Militia regiments, but the tax on the pockets of Volunteer officers, as well as Militia officers, is also very great, and we provide £3,000 to assist them in maintaining their outfit, and £2,000 to Volunteer officers whilst they are attending schools of instruction in the Regular Army. We also put down £5,000 to make a beginning in supplying Volunteer corps with regimental transport. The principle is this: the calculation is based on the scale of three waggons for every 110 men—that is known as the "transport unit." We undertake to pay a grant of £1 for each waggon shown and produced and kept in camp during eight days by any corps which shows a minimum of three waggons, and contracts to supply a maximum of waggons calculated on that scale on mobilisation. Of course, any corps that shows more than three waggons will get a grant up to the maximum limit based upon that scale, that is, three waggons to every 110 men. This brings me now to the general question of transport. Our Field Army would be useless unless it could move. For the three Army Corps composing the Field Army, it is calculated that, in round numbers, we need about 12,000 men in the Army Service Corps. But at this moment, excluding Reservists, we have 3,302 Army Service Corps men at home, so that we are asking in these Estimates for an increase in the Army Service Corps of 40 officers and 1,000 men, and we are putting down this year £34,000, which will enable us to raise 1076 half that force. I should like to remove a misconception which lurks in some minds as to the lessons to be learned from the manœuvres. The problem which we had to solve was to put two Army Corps in the field without calling out our Reservists and our registered horses, neither of which could be used without a Royal Proclamation in case of war. But with the Reservists of the Army Service Corps we have now enough men for the first line of two Army Corps in the field. We have 14,500 registered horses, and we have—which I think is sometimes forgotten—all the waggons and equipment for the mobilisation of two Army Corps. The only reason why we did not make use of them was, in the first place, the wear and tear of the mobilisation equipment; and, in the second place, if you take it away from mobilisation centres it will take some weeks or months to redistribute it again, and during the whole of that time you will not be ready for mobilisation. I have endeavoured to show that the British Army, under the present system, is in a fair way to effect the purposes for which it is raised. But everything turns upon recruiting. Further progress will be impossible unless the people of this country respond to the call made upon them. But I think that they are beginning to respond. If any arm has this year been more pressed by reason of the burdens cast upon it than another it is the Cavalry; yet whereas in 1895, before any of the changes made in the system had been introduced, we got 2,387 recruits, in 1897 we obtained 2,426, and last year 3,778 recruits. The total number of British recruits—I am leaving out the recruits of the Clolonial forces—last year was 38,418, as against 27,809 in the year 1896. The net gain to the Army last year, including Reservists and deserters rejoining, was 9,980 men.
§ CAPTAIN SINCLAIR (Forfar)Can the right honourable Gentleman give us the total number of recruits for the Colonies?
§ *MR. WYNDHAMI do not think I could give that information now, but I will look it up. There is, up to the present, no sign of the flood abating. The figures in General Kelly-Kenny's report go down as far as the end of last year, but in January last, which was not included in that report, the figures show 1077 that it has been a "bumper" month. Excluding 1870, when, probably owing to the Franco-German war, recruits flocked into the Army at the prospects of operations being commenced, last January is the highest total for recruiting of which we have any record at all. No less than 4,854 recruits joined in January last, and if I add to this total the deserters rejoining, and the Reservists, the number was 5,213, making a net gain to the Army for one month of 1,284 men. If anything like that is kept up in the succeeding months, we can accomplish the increase which the House has sanctioned without any difficulty at all. But this number of 38,418 recruits which we are accepting does not, however, give by any means the full measure of the country's response to our demands. I am sorry to say that, of the recruits who presented themselves, 35 per cent, were rejected on medical grounds. I think that is rather an alarming figure. It may give us just cause for apprehension, not only in respect of the welfare of the Army, but of the welfare of the people themselves. A great many of these rejections were due to bad teeth, although more were rejected because they lacked general development. It does occur to me that, in schools largely supported out of the public funds, it might not be impossible to get the children to take some elementary precautions to preserve their teeth, and it might also be a good thing to introduce into the schools that system of physical drill advocated by Colonel Fox, which has done so much for the recruits of the British Army. What it has done for the recruits may be gathered from the large percentage of recruits who were under standard, who were called "specials," but who ceased to be "specials," and who attained the standard within a very short time. This is mainly due to these exercises. Of those recruits, re-measured in January, who had joined since October, and that includes some who may have joined within a week, 43 per cent, had reached the standard; and of the "specials" who joined before the 30th June, 73 per cent, had reached the standard. Of the "specials" who had joined before 1895, no less than 90 per cent, had reached the standard, and I may tell the House that some of those "specials" are now, on account 1078 of their abnormal muscular development, teaching gymnastics in our gymnasia. But we must discount a little on the score of recruiting in respect of these "specials," and we must also discount in respect of the 4,488 Army Reservists who rejoined the colours. But these figures of the Army Reservists who have rejoined the colours throw a much needed light on the question of civilian employment for the men who leave the Army. Out of 3,370 Infantry Reservists who rejoined up to October, 2,596 stated that they were in employment at that time; and, of course, we may assume that those who came back to the colours were those who were in straitened circumstances. This, I think, suggests two things—in the first place, it is obvious that our men do find employment on leaving the colours; and it shows, in the second place, that many men who have tried both a military and civilian life find that they prefer a military life, and I must say that I wish we could persuade more people to try the experiment. There are certain classes in this country who seem to hold back from trying what a military life is like. The great bulk of our recruits are men who, so to speak, come from the plough. Of course, they are none the worse for that; their predecessors of a like condition won the battle of Waterloo. But I must believe that a greater number of those pursuing, or wishing to pursue, other avocations, and belonging to other classes, would do well to consider whether they would not be benefited by seven years of constant employment, sanitary lodgings, wholesome food, and opportunities for education, and for obtaining a certain physical and mental alacrity which is of the greatest advantage later on in the struggle for life. Now I think I may claim that some of the recent reforms are entitled to some of the credit for this increase in recruiting, particularly the messing allowance. I think we may take this result to show that the Army is now more popular than it was before, and that we may be encouraged to proceed along the same lines. This year we are asking in the Estimates for £11,400 in order to give ankle-boots to Cavalry soldiers. At present, the Cavalry soldier is given only one pair of ankle-boots, and he is expected to pro- 1079 vide himself with boots during the whole period of his service. We are also asking for £5,200 in order to give the soldiers in the Cavalry and Artillery a frock and an extra pair of serge trousers during the time of their drill, in order that they may, like other Englishmen, change their clothes after exercise, without being out of pocket. We are also asking for £18,500, so that the men, when they return to camp after a day's manœuvres, may take off their dusty boots and slip into easy canvas shoes. These things may seem small, and they are certainly cheap; but everyone who has been in camp knows that they mean a great deal. In this connection I must touch upon a larger matter—I am afraid that I am taxing the patience of the House—which will do move for the comfort of our soldiers and the efficiency of our Army—I mean the provision of better barracks and their location, with a juster regard to the requirements of the training of our troops together. Under the scheme which will be submitted shortly to this House much will, I hope, be done to raise both the standard of decency and comfort in the barracks for our men, and to enable troops to exercise together in large bodies; in infantry divisions, cavalry brigades, and artillery brigade divisions, under the leaders who will command them in time of war. I have just one word more to say. In these Estimates we are asking for £431,000, including an increase of £189,000 on Vote 9, as a first instalment of the money to be spent on arming with modern guns the more important of our military and mercantile ports. This is a matter which we can no longer postpone, and although we ask only for an instalment this year, we shall submit a complete policy based upon the report of a Committee composed of Sir Henry Brackenbury, Sir R. Harrison, and Admiral Beaumont. I thank the House for the very great patience with which it has listened to a long and a dry story. I should be very sorry to adopt a complacent tone in submitting these Army Estimates. Much, I think, has been done in recent years by the soldiers and by the civilians of the War Office, but much remains to do. Still, our Army is numerically stronger now than it has been at any time since 1860. The life of our soldiers is brighter. The op- 1080 portunities for training our units, in the formation and under the conditions which will prevail in a great war, are larger. Thanks to the splendid devotion of all ranks of our Regular, Auxiliary, and Colonial forces, I dare to believe that our small voluntary Army is ready to solve the double and difficult problem of keeping the Queen's peace throughout her wide dominions, and of defending our shores.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."