§ I think that some people have been rather carried away, and have founded on the one question of remounts an assumption of the collapse of our whole military system. We have examples from very prominent sources. Lord Rosebery, who speaks with great authority, went the length of saying that the scandals which were now occurring would not occur if the temper of Parliament was what it was when Mr. Roebuck moved for the Crimean Committee. The temper of Parliament is not what it was then, because the circumstances are not the same. Does any man in his senses really mean to pretend that the scandals which in the days of the Crimean Committee showed before the eye of the whole world that an Army of 50,000 at the beginning, which had been allowed to dwindle down to 20,000, and which was practically without clothes, without food, without shelter, and without horses, though within seven miles of an excellent harbour controlled and dominated by our own Fleet—could anyone pretend that the condition of that Array is to be compared with an Army nearly 230,000 strong, provided in every single respect, and in regard to which I can say here today that since I spoke last not one remonstrance on any single subject connected with Supply has been addressed to me by the General in command? I look upon that statement as being not merely unfair to the Government—that is a small matter—but as being exceedingly dangerous to this country. Lord Rosebery is a statesman as well as a politician; and an ex-Prime Minister cannot undertake to speak on a subject like this merely for the benefit of one great Party. I say that to make statements like this, which are quoted all over the world as being the opinion of a great political Party on the condition of our Army, is not the work of a statesman. It is neither statesmanlike nor politic. Let us consider what has happened on previous expeditions. We have had three great calls upon our strength in the last century the Peninsular War, the 374 Crimean War, and the present war, which has lasted two years. In the Peninsular War we had 240,000 men on the lists, and never at any single time—such was our organisation—were we able to give the Duke of Wellington the support of more than 60,000 or 70,000 men. At Waterloo, in a year in which Parliament voted 214,000 men, the utmost that went to Flanders was 44,000 men. In the Crimea you have the same story. In that war, 216,000 men were voted by Parliament in the second year, and at no time until the last day of the war, when our troops were paraded, were there more than 52,000 men in the field. In each of those cases, of all the men nominally on the list not one in four was present with the regiment. In the present case, when war broke out, the effectives in our Army, leaving out India, but including the Reserves, were 240,000 men all told. From the time when the first great body of reinforcements was sent to South Africa we have had very consistently something like 150,000 men, apart from our colonial troops, Militia, Volunteers, and Yeomanry who subsequently left, and we have in thirty months landed in South Africa 230,000 Regular soldiers, of whom 220,000 came from this country. Figures like these touch the mind of the people very little at the present moment, when we have become inured to big totals, but I venture to say that if three years ago I had told the House that we could send 150,000 men and maintain them for two years in full strength, I should not have been believed, and there would have been a doubt in accepting such statements. T well remember, when my right hon. friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland moved this Estimate two years ago, the thrill that went round the House when he said that within two months we should have 189,000 men in South Africa, and I remember also remarking to my colleague that for the manipulation of the figures my right hon. friend had gone much quicker in his knowledge of the War Department than anybody who had ever represented it in this House. I could not believe it possible at that moment; but even in the last year, apart from the newly enlisted Yeomanry, the drafts we have sent out number 53,000 men, more than equal to the whole Army in the Crimea, and double the number of the Army sent with considerable difficulty to Egypt in 1882. 375 At this moment we are feeding over 300,000 men, including the attendants of the Army as well as the fighting Army in South Africa, chiefly from this country, and 243,000 horses and mules are having forage drawn for them at this moment in South Africa. I think these figures are not unworthy of the attention of the House among the recorded events of the past year.