§ MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER (Belfast, W.)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if the Secretary of State will obtain the opinion of counsel as to whether the drafting of soldiers from one Cavalry regiment to another, without their consent, and in time of peace, be legal, or whether it be in contravention of the meaning and intention of section 83 of the Army Act of 1881; and whether, in view of the inability of the private soldier actually serving to enforce his rights against the War Office, the Secretary of State will receive statement of the case of the soldier or submission to counsel before any final opinion be given. I beg also at the same time to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether in the event of it being established that the drafting of Cavalry soldiers from one regiment to another in time of peace and against their will be legal, and that the statutory protection given by section 83 of the Army Act of 1881 can be legally taken away from 17,000 men serving in the Cavalry by means of a Royal Warrant, the War Office can in a similar manner declare the whole of the Infantry of the Line to be a corps within the meaning of the Act, and thereby deprive 136,973 men serving in the Infantry of the right conferred on them 1333 by Parliament; and if such, a step can be lawfully taken in respect of the Cavalry and not in respect of the Infantry, what is the circumstance which differentiates the two cases?
MR. POWELL WILLIAMSThe Secretary of State for War sees no occasion for taking counsel's opinion upon this point, as to which legal advice was taken in 1893. Under section 83 of the Army Act, it is laid down that—
A soldier of the Regular Forces when once appointed to a corps shall serve in that corps for the period of his Army service.But in section 190 (15) a corps is defined as being—Any such military body, whether known as a territorial regiment or by any other name, as may be from time to time declared by Royal Warrant to be a corps for the purpose of this Act.The Household Cavalry, the Dragoons, the Lancers, and the Hussars were respectively declared to be such corps under the Royal Warrant of February 1893, and there is, therefore, no doubt as to the legality of transfers within those corps, nor do such transfers involve the removal of any statutory protection. In the attestation paper signed by every recruit who enters the Cavalry, it is distinctly stated that he is engaged for service with the corps of Dragoons, Lancers, or Hussars, as the case may be. Every recruit is, however, now permitted to select the regiment in which he wishes to serve, and if he is accepted for that regiment he will be allowed to remain with it unless urgent reasons require his transfer to another regiment. This, too, is set out in the attestation paper. There is, so far as I am aware, nothing in the Army Act to debar the Secretary of State from grouping into corps a larger number of battalions than constitute the present regiments of Infantry. But the fact that the Cavalry has been subdivided into four corps does not justify the inference that it would be a reasonable exercise of the powers conferred by the Act to declare the whole of the Infantry of the Line to be a corps.
§ MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERWas not the section of the Act of 1881 speci- 1334 fically passed to secure linked battalions?
MR. POWELL WILLIAMSI believe the answer to that is in the negative, but it is a legal point on which I have no right to give an opinion. If the honourable Member wishes an answer perhaps he will put a Question down.
§ MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERThe point cannot be tested by an action at law because soldiers are under the Mutiny Act; therefore a legal decision is necessary.