§ MR. BECKETT (Yorkshire, N. R., Whitby),in moving the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, viz., "the alarming deficiency in the drafts required for India and South Africa, and the confusion and uncertainty now prevailing in the War Office and the Army owing to the prolonged delay in the announcement of a definite scheme of Army reorganisation,"said:—In proposing this Motion I hope I may not have to make too large a claim upon the indulgence of the House, as I do not rise to discuss the Report of the War Office Reconstitution Committee, or the Report of the Militia and Volunteers Commission, or to attack or defend any particular scheme of Army reform, but only to deplore the absence of any such scheme, and to implore the Government to put an end to the doubt and uncertainty now prevailing which has produced a state almost of chaos and paralysis in the War Office and the Army, and to present their scheme to the public with as little delay as possible. I do not make this demand prompted by an idle curiosity. The Government cannot fail to be aware that there is on the part of 1478 the House and the nation a universally felt and generally expressed desire that we should know, and know quickly, what is going to be done with our Army, and if I may venture to do so I would warn them, in no unfriendly spirit, that they cannot thwart or set aside this desire without serious consequences to themselves.
The state of our Army is an urgent and pressing question, a question which, at the present moment, far transcends in its urgency any other question that is before the public, and which is causing the gravest possible anxiety to those who are behind the scenes. It is a question that cannot be trifled with or ignored, or postponed to a more convenient season. It is not a question like that of Tariff Reform which can be ruled out during the present Parliament, it cannot be pigeonholed like a Resolution or massacred like a Bill. It is a matter of the first importance which clamours for immediate settlement. I think I do not use language too strong when I assert that this deficiency in our drafts for India is alarming. Of course the recruiting difficulty is the fons et origo mali, and is the cause of this alarming deficiency. Last year my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for India boasted of the number of recruits he was obtaining, looked forward to the future with hope and confidence, and cheerfully anticipated that the necessary numbers would be forthcoming. He recognised that the Army, whether organised on his system or upon any system, was dependent on its recruits not only for its efficiency, but for its very existence, and no one knew better than he that if at least 45,000 recruits were not obtained annually his scheme would entirely break down. To protect himself against this possible breakdown he changed the terms of enlistment from seven years with the colours and five with the Reserve, to three with the colours and nine with the Reserve. He was warned most emphatically again and again that unless a certain proportion, stated by some at 70 per cent, and by himself at 50 per cent, a year, agreed to extend their term of service that the armies of India and South Africa could not be kept up to the strength below which they could not fall without danger to our position and 1479 authority in those vast dominions of the Empire. He believed that by raising the pay of our soldiers from 1s. to 1s. 6d. he would be offering a pecuniary inducement sufficient to secure the re-engagement of the percentage he wanted. Last year I pointed out that the fate of the British Army was a gamble on the sixpence.
Now, Sir, what has happened? The number of recruits for our Army has fallen from 51,000 to 29,324. There has been a reduction in the infantry of the Line of 18,709, notwithstanding the fact that mounted corps have been closed, and that recruits wishing to enlist had practically only the infantry open to them. Moreover, as the Inspector-General for Recruiting points out, "it is very unsatisfactory to notice a considerable increase of the percentage rejected for various ailments. The percentage is higher than it has been for nine years." And these disturbing figures are all the more remarkable because there has been a slackness in trade with an inevitable increase in the number of unemployed, which hitherto has always meant a corresponding increase in the number of recruits. Now, Sir, I ask the House to look at the very serious state of affairs that is revealed. The Secretary of State for India, reckoning upon an annual supply of recruits amounting to at least 45,000, told us that if his short-service system was to succeed, not less than 50 per cent, out of the 45,000 must agree to extend their term of service, that is to say, he wanted at least 22,500 men per annum to reengage, -whereas it is unfortunately the fact that only 13 per cent, have consented to reengage. Now 13 per cent, of 45,000 amounts to about 6,000 men, so that here we have a shortage of about 16,000 men. But we must remember we have not got our 45,000 recruits, we have only 30,000, and 13 per cent, of that number does not amount to much more than 4,000 men, a number totally and ridiculously inadequate for the purpose of supplying drafts to India and South Africa. I ask the House to look at the figures given in the Answers to Questions yesterday, from which it appears that the number of men in the infantry of the United Kingdom who have extended their service to complete eight years is only 1,405. Surely, I think that 1480 everyone will agree that this is a definite matter of urgent public importance.
The War Office are doing the best they can to meet this desperate situation. They are sending out men to India who have not ten months to serve, and men to South Africa who have not six months to serve, which is a most expensive arrangement, waiting, like Mr. Micawber, "for something to turn up," and hoping that they may be able to persuade men by bribes and doles to reengage in numbers large enough to save them from military bankruptcy. We must all condole with my right hon. friend the Secretary for War in the difficulties with which he is confronted. He is not responsible, he has merely to try and work an unworkable system. He has been set to make bricks without straw, and I feel sure that everyone must extend to him their heartiest sympathy.
What is to be done? We must revert at once to our old system of enlistment. Under that old system we secured annually from 250,000 to 280,000 years of service. Under the new system we secure annually barely 90,000 years of service, leaving a deficiency of nearly 200,000 years, so that each of the 1,405 would have to serve more than 100 years if that deficiency is to be made up. Is not this statement enough in itself to show us our peril and make us prefer the old system to the new. The old system, with all its defects, gave us at a much smaller cost an Army that could supply the drafts we required for service abroad. It also gave us an efficient Reserve, so efficient that the Secretary for India adopted the short-service system largely because he wanted to fill up his depleted Reserve as rapidly as possible. Under the new system we have failed to get the drafts we require in the attempt to recreate a Reserve, and, if the House will allow me, I will once again quote the very remarkable prediction of Lord Roberts made twenty years ago, which exactly anticipates our present dangerous predicament. He said—
We are sacrificing our Army to obtain a Reserve. Any attempt to make the Foreign Service Army subservient to the Reserve must end in failure, and, I confidently predict, in disgrace and disaster.The force of these words must come home to us painfully at the present moment, far more so than when I quoted 1481 them a year and a half ago. We are indeed sacrificing our Army to obtain a Reserve, and the attempt has ended in failure, but I hope with all my heart that the disgrace and disaster confidently predicted by Lord Roberts may still be averted. Something might be said for this sacrifice if by it we obtained such a Reserve as was built up before the war, and which did such splendid work and proved so invaluable to us during the war. But a Reserve composed of men who have served seven years with the colours is a very different thing to a Reserve composed of men who have served three with the colours. In the one case we get trained, hardy, experienced soldiers thoroughly imbued with the military spirit, who know and take kindly to their work. Can the same be said of three-years men? They become civilians almost as soon as they have learned to be soldiers. They re-enter civil life when they are still very young, and before long would hardly regard themselves as soldiers at all. The knowledge of their military duties stored up during three years would soon be forgotten, and in the event of war we should find that the percentage of men who presented themselves was much smaller, and that the quality and military efficiency of those who did come forward was decidedly inferior to what they have been. And there is this further disadvantage, not to say danger, in the short-service system. We must have the men, for drafts, and if the bribe of an extra sixpence is not sufficient we are inevitably tempted, if not compelled, to increase the bribe, so that practically our Army may be at the mercy of the men whom we place almost in the position of being able to make their own terms. Is this a safe or dignified position for the country to occupy, to say nothing of the expense in which we should be involved? In the Question I put on the Paper yesterday, I asked my right hon. friend if the number of those who had agreed to extend their term of service was sufficient to supply the necessary drafts for India and South Africa for the next twelve months. To that Question he made no reply, and the inference is obvious. I wish to make no attack on my right hon. friend. I have great confidence in his judgment and experience, and few men have rendered such 1482 signal services to the cause of Army reform as he has done. I feel sure he would like to act and act quickly, as no one is better aware than he that this condition of doubt and uncertainty into which the hesitation and indecision of the Government have plunged the Army and the country is having a very bad effect upon the Army itself. It feels it has been thrown into the melting-pot, and Ministers and Committees sit round it with long sticks all anxious to give it a stir, and each one trying to tilt the pot, so as to pour it out into his own particular mould. No Army in the world could long stand such a process as this, and I feel I need no justification for making this Motion as a means of applying to the Government the force and pressure of public opinion. Surely the Government have had time to make up their minds, or is it that they are so permeated with the policy of unsettled convictions that they have no minds to make up? It has come to be considered in some quarters that the highest achievement in politics is to halt gracefully between two opinions, and that the true test of statesmanship is to serve God and Mammon at the same time without declaring yourself on the side of either. However well this may answer in some matters, it is fatal as regards the Army.What is the position? We fought a great war, out of which, after many reverses, after much tribulation, after a great sacrifice of life, after an immense dissipation of our national resources, from the effects of which we are suffering grievously to-day, we emerged victorious. During the course and progress of the war, the Army was reorganised by my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for India upon a German basis, and, with a loud fanfare of trumpets, six Army Corps came into being. They flourished in the Army List, and figured in the Estimates, but, after a brief and troubled existence, they came to an untimely end, and might claim as their own the well-known epitaph—
If I was so soon to be done for,I wonder what I was begun for.We all wonder that now. But let us proceed with our story. In fulfilment of pledges, reluctantly given by the Government to stave off criticism while the war was going on, at the conclusion of the 1483 war a Committee was appointed on 11th October, 1902, to sit and inquire into the military preparations and other matters connected with the war in South Africa. They ended their labours and reported on 9th July, 1903. During that period they collected an immense mass of useful information, and, founded upon that information, they presented a Report, which, though couched in the most careful and moderate language, has been generally accepted by the public as reflecting severely upon much that preceded the war, and upon many things that took place during the war, and as forming a weighty indictment of our existing system of Army organisation. The publication of that Report threw the public into a state of great uneasiness, which would have probably been far more pronounced and acute, had not the Tariff Reform agitation diverted their minds into other channels. But that Report, and the evidence in support of it, still remained for the consideration of the Government, and no Government worthy of the name could have refused to give it their most earnest and serious attention. For nearly a year that Report has been under the eyes of the Prime Minister, of the Cabinet, of the Defence Committee, and of the War Office, and surely they have had ample time for the digestion and assimilation of its contents and conclusions. But that is not all. The Prime Minister, and the Cabinet, and the Defence Committee, and the War Office did not venture to rely on their own unassisted wisdom. Apparently this was a matter that was too hard for them, so they called into counsel a Committee of Three, and from them sought enlightenment and instruction. This was a brilliant idea on the part of the Government, for if the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and the Defence Committee and the War Office were enable to make up their minds, the Committee of Three had no doubt whatever about theirs, and went to work in the most slashing and business-like style, so much so that some of the remarks, with which they accompanied their most valuable recommendations, rather reminded me of the concluding chapter of Revelations in which the most dreadful penalties are invoked upon those who might be presumptuous enough to add to 1484 or take away aught from what was written therein. Surely with these textbooks before them, written in such clean strong, straightforward language and containing such a clean-cut plan and system of Army reorganisation one would have thought that the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, the Defence Committee, and the War Office could have laid their heads together and produced a scheme. From information which I have received, I am led to believe that they did lay their heads together with the result that it was found that there were almost as many schemes as there were heads. The Prime Minister had his scheme, the Defence Committee had its scheme, the War Office had its scheme or its several schemes. The Cabinet was the only body that did not produce a scheme, but I daresay each member of it would have modestly produced his scheme had he been individually consulted in the matter. We are told that in the multitude of counsellors there is safety, but Solomon never told us what would happen if they all counselled different things. But I think we could tell Solomon confusion happens, and doubt, and uncertainty, producing paralysis and almost chaos, where order and method should reign and hearty co-operation for a recognised object.One cause of confusion is that so many new men occupy old places. That may be a good or bad thing, and of course they take a little time to settle down to their work, but it is impossible for them to work with advantage or effect unless they work upon some plan and system—I don't want to exaggerate my case. Men are drilling in the Long Valley as usual, and clerks are writing in the War Office as usual, and officials are inditing despatches as usual, and heads of departments are sending long minutes as usual, and money is being spent like water as usual, but all this is no proof that "huge confusion and dismay" does not exist in the War Office and the Army. If I were at liberty to repeat half the statements that have been made to me I should have to detain the House till midnight. But I might sum them up by saying that they all point to much profitless work and much preventable waste. If the Government were not able to work out the details of their scheme 1485 they might at least have laid down the broad lines and principles upon which others were to work. But here again there is confusion and uncertainty. To take an illustration. The Norfolk Commission received a communication which they were told was the authoritative expression of the views of the Secretary of State. Two minutes later they were told it was not authoritative, and in reply to their repeated inquiries on this very important question of what forces were required for home defence they were told to work on a basis that was hypothetical and was liable to be changed later on. By their own confession the lack of decided direction greatly hampered and impaired their work. We were led to expect by the Prime Minister that a definite statement would be made on Thursday, 16th June. That statement was postponed, and judging by the reply made by the Prime Minister yesterday to the Leader of the Opposition, we are left entirely in the dark as to when this statement will be made, or whether it will be made at all during the present session. Had the Prime Minister given a pledge that the statement would be made within a reasonable time I would not have moved the Adjournment of the House. But from information that has reached me, I am led to believe that the Government are still casting about for a scheme—much of my information is confidential, but this I am permitted to divulge, that on a certain Wednesday a communication was made to the War Office that a scheme of Army reorganisation was to be produced on Saturday. Certain gentlemen in the War Office were immediately set to work in order to formulate a scheme by Saturday. They tackled this almost impossible task with the utmost zeal and ability, extending their deliberations far into the night, and, wonderful to relate, by Saturday a scheme was forthcoming, and was sent in to the Government. The Government, however, would not accept this scheme, and returned it saying that another scheme was to be produced by Monday. This was too much for the hard-worked gentlemen at the War Office; and having the fear of the Lord's Day Rest Association before their eyes, they declined the task. However, I am given to understand 1486 that on Monday they resumed their labours and for aught I know, they are still engaged in hatching schemes. If the matter were not so serious, it would afford material for comedy, but as it is. I am afraid that tragedy is more likely to be the result. The danger is now that we may be served with a hash and hotch-pot of schemes, instead of a scheme carefully thought out in all its details and coherent in all its parts. But I hope for the best, and I rely on my right hon. friend, as I do not think he would remain in office unless he had to administer what he considered a sound and workable scheme.
But, Sir, if ever there was a matter of urgent public importance, this must undoubtedly be so described. I do not know what line my right hon. friend will take to-night. I only hope he will not take the line adopted by his predecessor in the defence of his Army Corps, and produce an array of statements and figures which serve to obscure the facts of the case, and to hide the real gravity of the situation from the public. I cannot help thinking that if War Ministers had the courage to tell the public the truth about the Army, they would gain a far larger measure of support than they imagine. The British public is a good-natured public. It is never extreme to mark what is done amiss; and I feel convinced it would do its best to help an embarrassed Minister in an embarrassing situation, if only he would frankly take it into his confidence; but as it is, it has a not unfounded suspicion that the Secretary of State for War is apt to make out a case to suit the Parliamentary situation, and to stave off Parliamentary criticism, which does not correspond with the actual state of the Army. It is true that the problem is a difficult one, but it is not impossible of solution. The more I study it with the aid of those who have all the complicated points at their fingers' ends, the more I am convinced that for £25,000,000 you can get a thoroughly well-trained and efficient Army, able to do the work which it is expected to do both at home and abroad. But to get this Army you must go the right way to work, and must consult the sentiments and ideas of the Army itself, and the feelings and 1487 opinion of the public. The thing can be done, and it should be done. At present we are working upon the rags and tatters of a discarded scheme, and none of us know where we are. But almost any scheme is better than none; and it is because under this present lack of system the necessary recruits are not forthcoming, and the necessary cohesion and organisation are entirely wanting, that I have taken this step, in the hope that the Government may be stimulated thereby to terminate this period of confusion and uncertainty, and to produce their scheme of Army reorganisation, which I sincerely trust may meet with a better fate, and enjoy a more successful career, than any of its predecessors. I may be told that this Motion is an obstructive Motion. I regret it should bear that character, but in any case I am not alarmed by the charge. I believe that the present state of the Army is a danger to the country. I may be mistaken. I really hope so, but I do not think I am. My heart is wrapped up in this question. I have studied it closely. I have pondered over it long, and I declare to you frankly that the continuance of this or that Party in office is as nothing to me compared with the welfare of the Army. You can give days to the discussion of your Licensing Bills, of your Aliens Bills, of your Education Bills, and it would be monstrous if you grudged three hours for the discussion of the most important question that at the present time can engage the attention of the country. You may condemn me here on these Benches, but I appeal to a larger and more generous public outside and by them I do not believe I shall be condemned. I beg to move.
§ SIR J. DICKSON-POYNDER (Wiltshire, Chippenham)said he rose with pleasure to second the Motion, because he believed that his hon. friend in moving it was discharging in the truest sense, and by no means for the first time, a great public duty. His hon. friends near him cheered when the word "obstructive" was mentioned. Whatever his hon. friends might think with regard to the Motion, he felt confident that the people in the country would not regard it in the same 1488 way. He believed the time had arrived when the country should have a clear and definite statement of the Army policy of the Government. What was the position to-day? They knew hardly anything, and the little they knew caused the greatest anxiety and apprehension. It was not his intention to utter a word of attack against his right hon. friend the Secretary for War. This Motion, whether his hon friends considered it obstructive or not, was not a hostile Motion. Its sole object was to elicit a clear and definite statement from the Minister responsible for the Army Department. Questions upon this subject had been put in the House and the Answers which had been given to them had only confirmed that grave anxiety and apprehension. The time had now arrived when some immediate steps should be taken to remedy the evils which undoubtedly existed. It was common knowledge that confusion and chaos reigned at the War Office. Nor was it to be wondered at, for they now had an old scheme, which had been wholly condemned and partially abandoned and partially retained, switched on to a new scheme, which was incomplete and had been brought to an abrupt conclusion. What they wanted to know was when the old condemned scheme was to be removed from the purview of Army organisation, and when the new scheme, so abruptly brought to a conclusion, was to be developed in its entirety. The authors of the new scheme have only guaranteed its success if taken en bloc. The reply which had been given to a recent Question showed that there was cause for apprehension. The trooping season had not begun this year, and yet we saw that in the past year 2,400 drafts had been sent out to India whose service would expire any time between now and two years hence. He did not think it was unreasonable to anictipate that a very small proportion of men would rejoin under the present inducements offered. He wondered what was the expense to the State of sending these soldiers to India and bringing them back again, because this was a matter which the House and the country should take clear note of. There were hundreds and possibly thousands of men going to be sent out to India and the Colonies, each 1489 of whom must cost the State anything between£20 and£40.
§ CAPTAIN NORTON (Newington, W.)£120.
§ SIR J. DICKSON-POYNDERsaid they must cost the State£20, £40, or£50 more than the normal cost, and that money was wasted if they refused after a short while to re-engage. How in these conditions were we to get the men necessary to supply the establishment in India and the Colonies? We had to supply 70,000 men in India and 20,000in South Africa. While nothing had been done in the way of a new scheme, a serious indication of the tendency was furnished by the proposal that had been made with regard to the reduction of the establishment of the Imperial Yeomanry in this country. Speaking as a member of the Imperial Yeomanry he greatly deplored that reduction.
§ MR. SPEAKERIt will not be in order for the hon. Member to discuss that question upon this Motion.
§ SIR J. DICKSON-POYNDERsaid he only pointed out this matter in connection with the Imperial Yeomanry as an indication of the tendency of the new scheme, which was going in the direction of a reduction of a very important and what he regarded as an integral part of the Army in the future. The time had come when the House and the country should have a clear statement of the policy of the Government in regard to the provision of troops for the Indian Empire and the Colonial garrison. It was a grave question, and one which bristled with difficultie, but it was one which must be confronted, and it was with that object that his hon. friend had moved this Motion.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Beckett.)
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER, Belfast, W.)Mr. Speaker, the very terms of the Motion before the House indicate that this debate has a double character. The two portions of the Motion are very dis- 1490 similar, and I cannot find any very strict logical connection between them. I do not complain of the fact, but I note it. Possibly the debate also may have a double character. I am inclined to divide hon. Members to whom I desire to reply into two classes. There are those who to some extent agree with me as to the proper methods of treating our great Army problems, and there are those who differ from me. To both those sections I shall endeavour to reply. It is possible that there is a remaining section which will be inclined to discuss this matter from the altogether alien standpoint of Party advantage, and to them I will not address myself. The question of the Army is a sufficiently serious one for us to deal with it on its merits, without reference to any other question. The speech of my hon. friend the Member for Whitby contained a few lapses which I regret, but which I do not think had much to do with the Army; but I am certainly not going to impute to him or the hon. Member who seconded his Motion any motives other than those which they assigned themselves. My hon. friend is an ardent student of problems in which both he and I take an interest, and I shall endeavour to reply to his speech in the same tone in which he has addressed the House.
I propose to deal first with the question of drafts. The hon. Member who proposed and the hon. Member who seconded this Motion have pointed out that the adoption of the three-years system of enlistment has had a most prejudicial effect in connection with the drafts for our Army across the sea. It would be idle for me to pretend that that system has been to the advantage of our service of drafts to India and the Colonies. I agree with my hon. friend that this matter is a very grave and a very important one. I do not want to say more about the origin of this proposal than that it was one which was absolutely forced on the Government, at the time, by the circumstances which existed at the time. The Government had to deal with a falling market, and my right hon. friend had to consider by what immediate step he could provide for the necessities of the nation. He has, I think, not been rewarded in 1491 one sense, but he has been rewarded in another. My hon. friend the Member for Whitby suggested that the result of the change had been that recruiting for the Army had largely fallen off. That is an error. My hon. friend was quoting from a document the figures in which were for nine months only. It is not a fact that the recruiting of the Army has fallen off. It has been steadily maintained. I think it is very much owing to the steps taken by my right hon. friend that the recruiting has not continued to fall off, as at one time it threatened to do. We have got the recruits, but we have not retained the recruits, and that has been the danger of the situation. The danger I have been the first to admit, and, in view of the answers I have already given. I do not pretend that this was other than a danger. This year the recruiting is numerically satisfactory; but it is very difficult to exaggerate the seriousness of the position which has been created by the failure of men to respond to the expectations which had been formed with regard to their retention. I do not know whether all hon. Members are as familiar as I am with the exact character of the engagement into which the soldier now enters. He enters into an engagement for three years at a certain rate of pay and on certain terms of service. At the end of two years he is eligible to extend for a longer period of service at an increased rate of pay. Unless he does extend, he has a right at the end of three years to pass into the Reserve. It is a fact with which I have to deal, and which undoubtedly does cause serious anxiety to myself and those who are working with me, that the extensions of the men have not nearly come up to the anticipations which were formed, and that there has been a very great deficiency in the number of the extensions. In the infantry we should require, in addition to the extensions which have taken place, 9,730 men to extend. In the garrison artillery we should require 775 more men to extend.
§ MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL (Oldham)How many men have extended?
§ MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERThe extensions must be divided into two parts. There are the men who have extended 1492 after six months of service; and the men who have extended after two years of service and thereby become eligible to get the increased pay given on extension. The total number of those who have actually extended in the United Kingdom is 900. I am speaking of the infantry. Of course we have to consider also the extensions in India, which are very relevant to this discussion. We have had to send to India a number of men who have not yet extended, and who, in some cases, have only ten months to serve. If it were the case that these men were not willing to extend, we should undoubtedly be put to the expense of bringing them back to this country. The expense is less than my hon. friend suggested.
§ SIR J. DICKSON-POYNDERCan my right hon. friend give us the approximate expense?
§ MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERI think it is about£10 each way and not£150; but whether it be less or more it is, of course, an expense which we ought to endeavour to avoid. Fortunately, the extensions in India have been much more encouraging than the extensions in this country. The extensions in India have been, in cavalry and garrison artillery, perfectly adequate to the needs of the service. I am glad to say the extension of the Royal Artillery at home, and the cavalry also, have been perfectly equal to the needs of the service. There has been a much larger percentage of extensions in India, and the extensions have already reached 54 per cent, of the men who are capable of extending under the two-years rule. But it is a fact that the extensions at home and in South Africa have not reached anything near that point, and that does undoubtedly cause a very serious situation.
Now, if I am asked what is my conclusion upon this matter, I would say that it is that the system is not one which can be continued with advantage. It is perfectly clear to me that when we consider what are the real needs of the Empire, it will be seen that we cannot indefinitely continue a system which exposes us to the least uncertainty in regard to the organisation of our Army; because, be it remarked, the question 1493 of uncertainty is a much more important factor than the actual question of numbers. I have little doubt that a great number of these men will extend; and I am positive of this, that neither I, nor any successor, if I may venture—perhaps I ought not—to speak in the name of any successor, will ever consent to give way to that policy of bribes and doles which my hon. friend has suggested as a remedy for the difficulty in which we find ourselves.
The remedy is a different one. The remedy for the moment is to find the drafts as best we can and to relieve ourselves from the difficulty as well as the circumstances allow. The difficulty has not become acute; but those who are responsible for the administration of the Army have to look ahead and anticipate the day when it will become acute. But it certainly does not enter into the programme of the War Office to hold out any prospect of bribes or doles to the men who serve. We believe that there is another remedy, and that consists in altering this system and substituting for it one more in harmony with the traditions of our Empire. I may point out in passing that this introduction of the three-years' system has had a very peculiar effect on the drafts for India. It will be seen on reflection that if you do not allow a man to make his election until he has been two years in the service, the period of his departure for India is considerably postponed. A great many men who were the requisite age for India, namely, twenty years, used to go out long before they had completed two years service. Now, a man has the option of waiting for two years of his service before he extends; and the result is that, if the trooping season does not coincide—and very often it does not—with the date of the termination of his two years service, his departure is postponed until something like two and a half years after the date of his enlistment. The result of that is that the period of his service in India and the Colonies is decreased, the period in this country is increased, and the number requisite to furnish the drafts is increased in proportion. I think I have met the hon. Member's Question fairly and openly. My reply is that I am as concerned as he can be as to the 1494 possible consequences of the continuance of this system, and I am as convinced as he can be that it is our duty not to attempt to tinker with the system, but to alter it so that we may be free from the uncertainty in advance as to the prolongation of the period of service.
My hon. friend spoke of the desirability of some pronouncement being made by the Government with regard to their intentions in respect to the Army at large. He suggested that it is my duty to propound a remedy for the evils which I, in common with himself, believe exist in the organisation of the Army. I admit the soundness of that proposition, and I agree with his conclusions. I should like to make it quite clear to hon. Members that, whatever they may think about the times and seasons of my statement on the subject, there is no question at all about the indefinite prolongation of the present system. We feel that there are difficulties connected with the present system which can only be met by an alteration. Therefore, I beg hon. Members to dismiss from their minds the belief that there is any conflict of opinion, or can be any conflict of opinion, upon this question at all. What we are face to face with is not having to make up our minds as to whether a change is necessary or desirable. Many things have happened—among other things the Report of the Commission on the War, which my hon. friend most justly said was a pronouncement which was bound to have weight with any responsible Government—many things have happened which have confirmed some of us in the belief, and created the belief in others, that a change in the organisation and administration of our Army is absolutely essential. I do not agree with the general charge that my hon. friend made as to the existence of chaos in the War Office and the Army. The War Office, as responsible for the Army, has undoubtedly had to go through a time of difficulty and trial, but I would ask the House to remember what has been the task imposed on the War Office and on those who are responsible for its direction. By, I believe, an almost universal desire, a change has been made in the constitution of the War Office. That change has involved very drastic alteration in the constitution of 1495 the Department, and those changes have been effected, I believe—despite all that has been said on very slight information and often on no information at all—with the minimum of friction and the maximum of good will.
I have been reproached for adding to this supposed chaos because in the time that has elapsed since this change was decided upon we have not elaborated the whole of the scheme which I believe, and my hon. friend believes, the War Office ought to carry through. I would ask my hon. friend to put himself in my position—[An HON. MEMBER: "No, don't do that," and cheers and counter-cheers]—I would ask my hon. friend to put himself in my place and to ask himself whether he considered it a bad record. He very justly pointed out—and I entirely sympathise with what he said—what must appear to many of us the almost patent absurdity of some correspondence which took place in connection with the Auxiliary Forces Commission. It is true that when the different Departments of this country were called upon to give coherent information as to the real duties of the forces of the country they were not able to give it. Well, but what is the answer? Is that a new state of things? That has been our infernal heritage from years past; and it is because we believe it to be one of the greatest dangers of this country that the first care of the War Office has been to give effect to the principal recommendation of the War Commission and to form a body which, imperfect as it nay be, and imperfect as may be its knowledge, is yet, as I believe, seeking not without success to give an answer to these very problems which my hon. friend truly pointed out were not solved and could not be solved at the time this Commission was appointed. We have reconstituted the whole staff of the War Office, and if hon. Members knew the complexity of this problem I think they would not be to ready to say that we have been dilatory. But I believe that every hon. Member will consider that the most important part of that task has been accomplished in a way which, I believe for many years to come, the War Office and the country will be glad to recognise.
1496 We have also reconstituted and added to the strength of the Intelligence branch of the Army, so as to put it on a level with the wishes of all hon. Members who have felt that we have been lamentably weak in this particular. That is an event only of the day before yesterday; and it may be a couple of months before we are able to go through the necessary preliminaries, to examine the staff of every department, to compare the cost of every change, to obtain the sanction of the Treasury for those changes involving reductions in some cases, and in those which concern the staff, involving an excess of expenditure. I do not believe that the time allotted to us has been long.
We have been blamed because we have not carried out the reorganisation of the Army throughout the United Kingdom. That is true, but we have given an immense amount of attention and care to this matter. It is obvious that, if we are to reorsanise the entire Army on some basis which is more consonant with the ideas of the House with regard to expenditure and the number and efficiency of men, it would be idle for any department of the War Office to come to a final conclusion as to the allocation and distribution of commands in the United Kingdom, until we could say what the commands would be and the number of men that would be desirable. My hon. friend has rebuked the Government and myself for failure to produce, on a definite basis, the scheme which was to be the redemption of the promise which, I fully admit, I have made myself responsible for. It was a promise that I would produce to the House the scheme which I believe was needed by the necessities of our Empire and which was consonant with the views of the House and the country generally in the matter of expenditure and the efficiency and character of the men. I did not redeem that promise on the particular Thursday which the hon. Member desired; but I would most respectfully remind the hon. Member and the House that this problem is one of some complication.
It may be said with some fairness that we have been given a good deal of time, but there have been some new facts imported in the situation which have gone some way to complicate it. As the 1497 Minister responsible for this Department, I say that there have been added difficulties. We have had the guidance of the Committee of Defence, working, as it is now working, practically and vigorously in the direction we wish to see it work. We have their views upon the general problem as to the work the Army has to do outside the United Kingdom, and we have realised that oversea work would be the great demand on our Army. Of all the problems of oversea, the most pressing, the most definite in one sense, the most indefinite in another sense, must be the problem which may arise on the only great land frontier we have. The Indian problem is a very complicated one We have recently had the advntage of having with us a servant of the State who is probably better informed about that problem than any other man in the King's dominions; and we have naturally turned to him to know his opinions on the question. I mean the Viceroy of India.
We have had another element to consider; we have had another addition to the factors of this problem. We have had the Report of the Auxiliary Forces Commission. It would be out of order if I were to discuss that Report now, and I have not the slightest intention of doing so, but I think it should be known to the House that the view of the Government—and I fully share the view of my colleagues on this matter—is that a portion of this Report is impossible of acceptance; I mean the proposal about conscription, which, if adopted, would add enormously to the expense of our Army. It is not one which can be taken seriously into consideration; but there are points in that Report which deserve the serious consideration both of the House and of the country. I have explained to the House what are the kind of difficulties that meet one in dealing with a task of this magnitude. It was my duty to give this Report careful consideration. I set to work, and I analysed its recommendations. I added to everyone of the recommendations my own views on the questions for what they were worth, and I have circulated these recommendations among the authorities most concerned. That is not an operation that can be undertaken in a day, but it has undoubtedly led to this result; when the 1498 effect of these recommendations is examined it is seen that the vast majority of them mean an addition to the expenditure which I believe to be already much too heavy.
These are some of the complications of the problem with which we have had to deal; and I must ask to be dispensed, at any rate in answer to my hon. friend, from the necessity of naming a day. I believe, as has been said, it will be a very great mistake for any one who dares to face this problem to bring it before the House in anything but what he believes to be a complete condition. I agree absolutely with the dictum, that any proposals ought to deal with this question with a knowledge of its intricacies and details and with a clear grasp also of its principles; and until I am able to fulfil all those conditions it will be premature for me to bring forward proposals.
I think the problem is clear. We have got to get an Army suited to the needs of the country and the Empire. We have got to have an efficient Army in the first place. That is an absolutely dominating condition. The second thing is to make very large reductions in our Army expenditure. I believe, when I say that, I am representing the opinions of nine-tenths of the Army Members of this House. I believe there is almost absolute unanimity in this House, and a very large consensus of opinion out of the House, that we must have large reductions in our Army expenditure. The resources of this country are limited. Quite apart from that fact, I believe there is a new and better school of thought dictating the arrangements of our defensive and offensive forces, which would rather contribute any additional expenditure we were able to incur to another branch of the defensive forces rather than the Army. And there is a third problem, which I do not say rises superior to, but to a certain extent dominates the other two. To reduce the cost of the Army you must reduce the strength of the Army; and when you come to reduce the strength of the Army you must reduce A, B, C, D, B, or F—something already existing in the Army; and it is an addition to the problem which I have to attempt to solve that the reductions must 1499 be such as will commend themselves to the general feeling and general acceptance of this House, will make our Army efficient, and at the same time will be consistent with sound economy. I do not despair at all. I believe with my hon. friend that the problem is soluble. If I did not believe that I should not be here. I am quite well aware of the indulgence with which I have been treated, not only by my hon. friends, but by the House. The House may be perfectly sure that I shall not overstay my welcome. I am as convinced as my hon. friend can be that this question of the Army is one of absolutely paramount importance, and that it must be dealt with, and—for the reasons he has given and for many other reasons—drastically and soon. I am sanguine enough to believe that I can suggest a remedy which shall be fully acceptable to the House and the country. If I did not believe that I should certainly not trespass further on the good will of my hon. friend. But I will ask him, if he will give me that indulgence, not to press me unduly, and at any rate to remember that the problem is complex, and, if he finds me fail, to remember that I shall be as conscious of the failure as he can be. I shall, at any rate, not ask him to accept anything which I do not believe to be in the true interests of the Army and which does not conduce in every respect to its best administration.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs)The right hon. Gentleman has spoken throughout in a tone which commands the sympathy and respect of the House. He only said one thing which I wish he had not said—when he implied that there was some section of Members who were treating this as a Party question and bringing it forward for Party purposes. I have known Motions on the Army brought forward for Party purposes and in a Party way, but I can lay my hand on my conscience, wherever it is (Laughter)—no particular organ has ever been pointed as the habitat of the conscience—and assert that I have never said a word which had a Party tendency on the subject, and I have even avoided saying things and bringing forward 1500 matters when I thought it was not my duty to bring the interests of the Army into the Party arena.
I am very glad that my hon. friend the Member for Whitby has taken the step he did to-night, although it may have laid him open to the animadversions of some of his friends on the other side, because it is already justified by some information which the right hon. Gentleman has given us. The right hon. Gentleman said the Motion was of a double character; it dealt with two questions which were really to a large degree separate from each other. I would go further and say the questions raised are three. There is first of all the question of the failure in the drafts for India, a most serious and urgent matter, and in itself justifying the attention of the House being called in this somewhat irregular way to the circumstances of the hour. There is the question of the reorganisation of the War Office; and there is the question of the reorganisation of the Army, which is a totally different matter, although it is often in the minds of men confused.
I will first say a few words with regard to the failure in the drafts. I think that ought to have been anticipated and indeed expected. The Secretary of State for India introduced the new term of service under the pressure of circumstances, but I think he introduced it merely as an experiment, not being himself perfectly sure what the result would be. For my part, I would say, I have never regarded the result as likely to be good from the first. I have always advocated, from this place and from the other, elasticity of engagement, elasticity of service, and the due admixture of long and short service; but I have always viewed with suspicion and apprehension any attempt to have a secondary engagement—a primary short engagement and then a secondary longer engagement arising out of that. The reverse is the course to take, the course that has been taken with success for years—that you should engage the man for the longer period, but let him away at the conclusion of a shorter period if the circumstances of his battalion or unit, as the phrase is, and his own conduct and the general requirements of the 1501 service admit of it. To engage a man for short service and to do so with the knowledge on his part that you are depending on him for the maintenance of your foreign Army—on his re-engaging for a longer term—is to place yourself at his mercy; and if you find, a great reluctance for any reason—it may be good or it may be bad, it may be the idea that perhaps a bounty may be extorted from the needs of the Administration, or any other motive that you like—that is in itself a fatal condemnation of the system. However, we need not discuss that much longer, because the right hon. Gentleman has admitted that it has not succeeded and that it must be departed from. He has not told us what he proposes to put in its place. That will also be a part of the new organisation of the Army of which we have heard so much.
Now I pass to the other question. The right hon. Gentleman has not carried us much further in what he has said with regard to the organisation either of the Army or of the War Office than where we were left at the beginning of the session. I think he began his recital on that occasion by saying, "Story, God bless you, I have none to tell, Sir." I think "Story, God bless you, I have none to tell, Sir," is very much what he has said to us to-night on the larger question, on which not only this House and the Army, but the country, is impatient to know the decision of the Government. Let me call the attention of the House to the position of the Government in this matter. This is no ordinary Government. This is not a Government which, finding itself in office, and some new subject and new anxieties arising, has to deal with them afresh. This Government came into power, or remained in power, on purpose to reform the Army, declaring to everybody that they were the only people in the world who could reform the Army. Have they had time? Have they been pressed? Has the Opposition, whom they have always treated with scant respect—[MINISTERIAL cries of "No," and "Withdraw"]—I do not mean personal respect, but scant respect looking upon it as an Opposition, regarding it as almost unworthy of their attention—has the Opposition put any impediment in their way? Has it pressed 1502 upon them to come to any premature conclusion? Has it interfered with them in any way? Not at all. They have had ample time. They have had an overwhelming majority in this House. They have had a docile House of Lords. They have had every opportunity, every advantage. Three years have passed, and it is not unnatural that we should expect that they should now be ready with some sort of scheme.
I will not go into the question of the Royal Commission which sat and of the proceedings which followed their Report. But, however it arose, at the beginning of this session we were startled by the most revolutionary proceedings being applied to the War Office. Three gentlemen of great eminence were appointed who were able in a month to produce a new War Office and to lay down, with regard to almost every particular, all the details of the reorganisation of that Office; and, as the hon. Member opposite pointed out, they made it—what is surely unusual on the part of any Committee—a condition that every part of their recommendation should be adopted, otherwise the whole scheme would fall. This was a very startling event. It was a lightning-like revolution followed by action on the part of the Government, who accepted a large part of the recommendations of that Committee at once. I have ventured on many occasions to put before the public what seemed to me to be the comic side of this transaction. I see its comic side very strongly still—the almost unnatural and miraculous rapidity with which this little Committee was able to elaborate a scheme and the action of the Government in accepting a great part of it and proceeding summarily to eject from office in the War Office many of the most experienced and trustworthy men in it, civilian and military, with scant courtesy, I believe [MINISTERIAL cries of "No!" and OPPOSITION cries of "Hear, hear!"] and to replace them by new nominees, entirely new men. I am one who, like the Government, approve of many of the recommendations of the small Committee; I have always been in favour of assimilating the administration of the military and naval forces of the country as far as it can possibly be done; but the two services differ materially in many respects. 1503 I do not see how their organisation can be made anything like identical, but so far as it can be done it ought to be done. There were, however, a great many other things that were open to doubt; and to those of us who had some knowledge of the working of the old system there were proposals which did not give promise of successful and efficient working. But, then, we wanted to know from the Government how much of this system they were going to adopt, and we do not know that to this day. The Committee was incited, or invited, or, at all events, allowed, to publish to the world these summary conclusions in a stand-and-deliver fashion. The Government ought not to have been a party to that proceeding unless prepared within a very short time to say how much of the recommendations they approved and how much they did not. But we do not know to this day what they approve. The right hon. Gentleman says they have no been idle. He says that the day before yesterday—which I think was a Sunday—they appointed a great number of new officers in the Intelligence Department. I am very glad to hear it; but I do not think it is such a wonderful thing to have selected a number of able men to fill these posts. What we want to know is the principles which they have accepted, the principles of organisation to which they have said Aye or No; and we are entirely in the dark to this day on that subject. Notwithstanding the extraordinary haste, as I have said, with which the recommendations were concocted by the Committee and issued to the public, the Government hung fire; and to this day we do not know what they approve and what they do not approve. That is the point on which the right hon. Gentleman ought to have been able to give some more information. He says that they have found the problem very complicated, but that is the problem of the organisation of the Army, and not the problem of the War Office.
The problem of the War Office is a comparatively simple problem. It amuses me to find so much stress laid on the perplexity of the case. The Prime Minister, after studying the question for three or four years and having placed himself at the head of the Imperial Council of Defence because of his interest 1504 in the subject, only discovered between a Tuesday and a Wednesday that this was a very complicated problem, because, when he came to explain that the Secretary of State could not make his statement, he said, "I have to confess to the House that I find it a much more complicated problem than I expected." Well, I should have thought that the complexity was in full degree within his knowledge long before. Yet this day was appointed for the explanation by the right hon. Gentleman of this new Army scheme, and it was only at the last moment that the intention was abandoned. The right hon. Gentleman has told us nothing about it; we are left entirely in doubt and bewilderment as to what the cause of delay can be, because, as I say, the Government have been doing nothing else for the last three or four years but considering Army reform. They were put into power for nothing else, they were put into power to settle affairs in South Africa—I will not go back on the question whether the war was ended—and to reform the Army. Here they have been reforming the Army ever since; but between a Tuesday and a Wednesdays the right hon. Gentleman discovers that it is a very complicated problem. I think there must be some other cause besides that. I am not of a suspicious nature, but my ingenuousness does not carry me so far as to make me think that is the real reason. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War says there is no conflict of opinion at all. I did not understand among whom he meant, because he speaks for so many people. Does he speak as a member of the Army Council, or as a member of the Cabinet, or as a member of the Council of Imperial Defence, when he uses the word "we"? What particular "we" is it he means?
§ MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERI speak for all three.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANThen this is the most remarkable circumstance ever related by a Minister in the House of Commons, when he, belonging to these three separate bodies, who might be expected to take different views on the matter before them, says there is no 1505 conflict of opinion. If there is no conflict of opinion, then we may ask, "Why tarry the wheels of his chariot?" We are not allowed to-day, and it would not be profitable for us to do so, to enter on the merits of this question; I am not going; to say a word as to what I think of any possible scheme that may be adopted for the War Office or the Army; but surely, when all are agreed, we are entitled to be taken into their confidence, and as we have never hurried them—hustled them, I think, is the term used—we ought to be treated a little better than we have been treated. The right hon. Gentleman has not even indicated that some day during what is left of this session, be it long or short, a full statement will be made on this subject. I need not say it will have to be a full statement. The right hon. Gentleman has very properly said he did not wish, and certainly it would not be right, to bring this great question before the House in a partial way; but after three years of cogitation and after having fixed a day for the statement two or three weeks ago what on earth prevents the right hon. Gentleman from naming some approximate time when we may expect to receive the information we require? I think the hon. Member for Whitby is entirely justified, not only by what he has said as to the urgency of the matter, but also because of the nature of the speech we have just heard—entirely justified in the course he has taken in calling the attention of the House to this most important matter.
§ THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.)I do not propose to long detain the House with any reply that requires to be made to the speech just delivered; but some remarks I think I ought to make, and I begin by saying that I think the attack the right hon. Gentleman has made on my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for India in connection with the alterations he made in regard to enlistment was surely made in complete oblivion of the circumstances in which the change was made. We were in the midst of a great conflict in which it was requisite, in which it was absolutely necessary for the interests of the country that recruits should be obtained 1506 for service in the Army. Everybody knows the difficulties under which any country labours which has to raise a large I army by voluntary enlistment, because that necessarily means the country must go into the market and can only obtain the commodity required at market price. My right hon. friend was face to face with the most difficult problems a Minister for War could have to deal with; and in such circumstances—if the House has sufficient historic memory to recollect to what straits the Government of this country was reduced during the Crimean War and to what devices they had to resort before they could obtain, I will not say recruits from England, Scotland, or Ireland, but the services of anybody at all to help them to carry on warlike operations—they will feel that the plan adopted by my right hon. friend in the situation in which he found himself did the highest honour to his constructive ingenuity. Whether it be or be not possible to continue it as part of our permanent system, it at all events got us out of a great national crisis without friction and without dishonour. Those who remember the circumstances in which this change was made will realise the difficulties to be met, and will be forced to do honour to my right hon. friend for the courage he showed. However, this part of the case, if I may judge by the general course of the debate, is not the matter in which the House is chiefly interested to-night. If I may judge from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down what he is anxious about is what I may perhaps, without offence, describe as the Party aspect of this question [MINISTERIAL cries of "Hear, hear!" and OPPOSITION cries of "No, no!"] by which I do not mean, and I hope the House will not think I mean, that the right hon. Gentleman is not earnestly interested in Army matters, genuinely interested apart from any Party purpose in Army matters, but the particular debate to-night has not been for the purpose of advancing an Army discussion; it was not for that the adjournment was moved.
§ MR. BECKETTAfter the speech of the Secretary for War I think the Prime Minister is hardly justified in making that remark.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI do not quite follow my hon. friend's interruption. The Secretary of State for War has made a most interesting contribution to the debate, and my hon. friend may have the whole credit of that speech to himself. I can assure my hon. friend and the House in general that whenever an adjournment of the House is moved I think there will be an interesting speech from this Bench. But I do not think that is an adequate justification for moving the adjournment of the House. If we are to deal with these larger Army problems, I do not think we can do so on a Motion for the adjournment of the House; and I hope my hon. friend will allow me to say that I had no intention of referring to him in the observation which I made as to the motives for a Motion for adjournment—I was alluding to the right hon. Gentleman opposite, quite justifiably in my opinion.[OPPOSITION cries of "He did not move it."] He made a speech on it, a very interesting speech; but I shall venture to observe to the House that it seemed to me quite naturally in the circumstances, not to be so much a contribution to the general solution of the Army problem—
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI was not allowed to enter into the merits of the Army problem. What we have to allude to is the conduct of the Government.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe right hon. Gentleman has, as I should have expected, put what I was endeavouring to say in my stunted fashion in far more pointed language than I aspire to, and has given a complete answer to the hon. Gentlemen behind him. The right hon. Gentleman admits that it is not the Army problem that he called attention to, it is the conduct of the Government. [Cheers and counter-cheers, and OPPOSITION cries of "You are responsible."] I happened to describe that as looking at it from a Party point of view. I do not know whether that is an excessive phrase. When the Leader of the Opposition says he is calling attention to the failings of the Government—which is his duty—that may be described by many epithets, but I think that probably the best description of it is that 1508 he is taking Party view, and that is all I said.
What is this attack which the right hon. Gentleman is making upon the Government? I cannot for the life of me make out whether it is because we have been too quick or because we have been too slow. [OPPOSITION cries of "Both."] How is it possible to please an audience so fastidious? Whatever the particular velocity of your movement may be, it is either too slow for their taste or too quick for them. The right hon. Gentleman tells us that we have been incubating an Army scheme for three years, and therefore we ought to have it ready. Well, Sir, within the last six months there have been two important Reports of two great Commissions, putting the Esher Commission altogether on one side; there have been the Report of the War Commission and the Report of the Commission upon the Auxiliary Forces.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANinterjected a remark which was inaudible in the Gallery.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURMy right hon. friend, who came into office in October, came in immediately after the Report of that Commission was in the hands of the public. I ask, is it reasonable that he should bring forward a scheme which had been in incubation for three years, before he accepted office and before he saw that Report? Is it reasonable that the Government should have time to take into account all these recommendations and all the further information that has come upon us within the last six months? We have never suggested to the House, so far as I know, in the first two-thirds of the years to which the right hon. Gentleman refers, that in our opinion the time had come for a change in a system which, to do him justice, he has systematically and consistently defended from the time when he first had some experience of the War Office. Nor do I think that we should be well advised in recommending to this House any fundamental alteration in that scheme until we have all the available information before us, and until the fullest consideration has been given to the 1509 complicated problem that any such change necessarily involves. Sir, it is possible to reform an old scheme the principles of which are still accepted without very prolonged consideration, or without any very elaborate estimate of the relations between the various parts of the whole instrument on which we rely for Imperial defence. But when once you come to the conclusion that the old system requires something more than mere reform—requires alteration—then I do not think it for the interest of the country that we should unduly hasten our decision, and I do not think it would be for the interests of the House that we should make any premature statement upon the changes that we propose to make.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANMy point is that the right hon. Gentleman named the day. If all that the right hon. Gentleman says is true, why did lie promise to tell the House all about it on 15th June?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI did not notice that that point formed an integral part of the Motion for Adjournment. I am quite ready to deal with it. What is the day of the month? It is a fortnight since this breach of promise was committed. According to the right hon. Gentleman we have been incubating this scheme for three years.
§ MR. KILBRIDE (Kildare, S.)When will you hatch the egg?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURWhen the period of incubation is three years a fortnight makes very little difference.
§ MR. KILBRIDEThe egg is addled then.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURAnd that really is the answer to the right hon. Gentleman. Does it matter either to the House or to the country or to the Army whether a scheme is propounded to the public on 15th June or 15th July? It matters nothing whatever. It his no relation whatever to this year's Estimates. It has no relation to any action which has to be taken by the House during the course of the present session. It is a 1510 general statement of our views, which is as good in the month of July as it is in the month of June, and would be as good in June as it would have been in the month of May. All that this House need take to heart is this. We are doing our very best to deal with a problem the complexity of which I suspect most of the Members I am addressing have very small notion of. It involves something much more serious than a mere slight modification of this or that traditional plan; and the least I think that ought to be granted us is that, provided we can do so while the House is still an effective body, and before it has dissipated itself for the autumn recess, we should produce a scheme which represents our matured reflections upon this difficult subject. I have never suggested for one moment that there were any difficulties in the way of that except the complexity of the problem. The right hon. Gentleman has attacked the Government for a purely imaginary failure. He has fallen, as, perhaps, we are all apt to fall when we are not in the secret, into the illusion that the Cabinet is divided between those who like the old system and those who like the new system, and that it is because they are so divided that the scheme was not propounded on 15th June. I think the mistake is a natural one, and I do not blame the right hon. Gentleman for making the best of it. But it happens to be a mare's nest. Cabinets have often been divided—as the right hon. Gentleman well knows—and they may have been divided upon very fundamental points of policy. This Cabinet is not divided upon any fundamental point of policy connected with the Army, and if it were not outside the terms of the Resolution I would let them into the secret that it is not divided upon any fundamental point whatever. But that is not what is before us now. What is before us is the insinuation or the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman, made no doubt in perfect good faith, that we are divided on the question as to whether the old system should be retained or whether a new system should be substituted for it. We are all of one mind that a new system must be found in accordance with the new situation and the new difficulties which are confronting us at home and abroad. The old system 1511 —I have not a word to say against it—was well suited for the time when it was established and for the military and naval views—military views, at all events—that then prevailed. But that system, in our judgment, is not suited to the new lines and the new views. While that view is taken, certainly by myself and my right hon. friend, I can assure the House and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that it is not on that point that any difference exists in the Cabinet. The difficulties are difficulties of detail and of detail alone; and if it is my unhappy fate to have to tell the House that we shall not be able to make any important disclosures on the subject either in the course of this week or next week, it is not to be taken as showing the smallest question of our power to give to the House a clear account of our genera] views as to Army reorganisation or as in any sense damping the ardour of my right hon. friend, who, I am confident, will at no distant date be able to address the House at length on this topic.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)said that the Prime Minister was under the impression that this Motion was not put down for the purpose of Army reform. Surely his hon. friend the Member for the Whitby Division did not deserve the taunt that this Motion was not brought forward in the interests of Army reform. His hon. friend it was who led the opposition to the Army Corps scheme of the Secretary of State for India. He was supported by a large minority of the House; and that minority was now a majority. All hon. Members now accepted the views which his hon. friend then put forward. His hon. friend was one of many of them who were prepared to give support to the Government in absolutely revolutionising the present military system; and he did not think his hon. friend deserved the taunt of the prime Minister or the cheers with which it was received. When his hon. friend asked leave to move the adjournment there was not a single dissentient voice, which was most unusual.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI said No.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid that Mr. Speaker did not hear any dissentient voice.
§ MR. SPEAKERYes, I heard the right hon. Gentleman say No.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid he would withdraw that statement. Neither himself nor hon. Members sitting near him, however, heard any dissentient voice. The Motion related to the terrible deficiency in the Indian and South African drafts and to the urgent necessity for an immediate statement by the Government of their plan. With regard to the Indian drafts, they had no reason to suppose that the present Secretary for War had changed the views he had always expressed, and those were the views of his hon. friend opposite, and the views which the reformers in that House had always entertained. Those were the views which he believed would prevail. The problem, however, had been enormously complicated by the deficiency in the South African drafts, as to which not a word had been vouchsafed. In order to save the finance of South Africa we had ceased to employ there the force of constabulary which had been thought necessary, with the result that the Army at present, to the destruction of its efficiency and discipline, and to the infinite damage of recruiting, was being sent to South Africa to do duties which the constabulary were intended to perform. Those who had opposed the South African War, largely in Imperial interests, because they foresaw what a heavy drain would be made for garrisons after the war, had not foreseen that result. Half a battalion was posted here, in an unhealthy station, and another half battalion there, on the top of mountains; Sir William Butler himself had called South Africa the great recruit-killer of the British Army at the present time.
The Prime Minister had fenced with the Questions of the Leader of the Opposition as to the change of intention on the part of the Government. At the beginning of the session the Prime Minister had volunteered the statement that they should have two considerable debates—one on the creation of the 1513 nucleus of the Committee of Imperial defence, and the other on the Government's Army scheme. Then came the occasion to which the Leader of the Opposition had referred, when the Prime Minister made his announcement, and alleged the Report of the Norfolk Commission as the reason for further delay. Now, the Secretary for War had stated that there were new facts, and had only very gently alleged the Report of the Norfolk Commission, because, of course, they all knew that the nature of that Report was known for months before the Report was made. The right hon. Gentleman had also alleged the presence in this country of the highest authority on India. Lord Curzon. But, with Lord Roberts, Sir William Nicholson, and Sir Ian Hamilton recently at the War Office, there could hardly be much that was new to be learnt from Lord Curzon. They knew that there was a conflict of opinion in the Cabinet. The Secretary for India up to the moment when he left the War Office held one set of views, and the present Secretary for War held a diametrically opposite set of views; and if that conflict was at an end it could only be by those who held the views which the Government held up to last autumn coming round to the views of the present Secretary for War. The Motion for adjournment was amply justified by the speech of the Secretary for War. In another place the Under-Secretary for War was authorised to say that the Government would adopt the suggestions as to the reduction of the Regular Army at home. The Secretary of State had attacked the problem from another side and had spoken of a very large reduction of the charge. Putting these two statements together, it was clear that the Government scheme was ready. The question was whether the whole Cabinet was for the scheme. He could not but think the difficulties were not really Army difficulties, but personal difficulties which prevented the scheme being put before the House. The matter did not involve the War Office alone. It involved the general consideration of the whole problem of national defence. And when the right hon. Gentleman told them that the Cabinet had decided to greatly reduce the cost of the home Regular Army, it meant that the opinion of the Admiralty had 1514 really prevailed over the opinion of the War Office on the question. He thought the Prime Minister was largely to blame for the confusion to which the question of Army reform had been reduced. The right hon. Gentleman at the time the Army Corps scheme was promulgated declared that the problem which had to be met was the invasion of the country. Now the right hon. Gentleman pronounced views of a diametrically opposite nature. If the Government had from the first accepted the view of the Admiralty, that the country was free from the fear of invasion owing to the predominance of the Fleet, this confusion and the cost to the taxpayer of the chopping and changing from system to system would have been avoided.
§ SIR CARNE RASCH (Essex, Chelmsford)said that the difficulty was to obtain the Indian reliefs under the three-years system. They knew perfectly well that if a man with ten months service was sent to India, and then brought back at the end of a year, that the country could not stand the cost. When the soldier had been acclimatised it would be time to bring him home. The man whom the Government wished to re-engage knew his own value, and put up his price to an impossible extent; and, therefore, he had to be brought back. No one could blame the present Secretary of State for War in this matter. It was not his ewe lamb at all. He did not think that the present Secretary of State for India could be blamed either. The right hon. Gentleman found that the three-years service worked well in the Foot Guards. The men re-engaged without bounties; and the right hon. Gentleman naturally thought that he had only to hold up his hand to get as many men as he wanted. He was wrong; but the mistake was a pardonable one. The right hon. Gentleman had, however, forgotten that it was one thing to ask a man in the Foot Guards to re-engage where his duties were at Wellington Barracks or Hyde Park, and another to ask a man to re-engage for service in the tropics. The difficulty could only be met by the scheme which had been propounded again and again by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean—a long-service Army for 1515 India with higher pay, and a short-service Army for this country. Several plans had been propounded as to how the men were to be got. Lord Wolseley the other day said that the men must be paid the average wages of artisans in this country. That was, however, a counsel of perfection. Then the Commission suggested conscription; but he thought that the water was quite hot enough already. There were, however, other plans. The resources of civilisation were not exhausted. It was not at all necessary to pay enormous bounties in order to get the men to re-engage. It would be a great step in the right direction if the soldier serving in India were given to understand that after long service or good conduct he would be absolutely entitled to demand civil employment from the Government. He knew it would be difficult; but he did not see why it could not be done. Again, it ought to be right well rubbed in that the soldier led a decent, clean, and honourable life. Further, all State schools ought to have drill—not necessarily military drill—in order to accustom boys to soldiering in a harmless kind of way. He knew there were objections. For instance, that august body the London County Council—
§ MR. SPEAKERintimated that the hon. and gallant Member was going beyond the Motion on the Paper.
§ SIR CARNE RASCHsaid he would not pursue the matter. Another point was that employers constantly refused to employ men because they were Reservists. He suggested that they should be told that if they continued to do that they would have to shoulder the rifle themselves. The only way to avoid conscription was to make the service popular in these small details. There were two other matters he was almost ashamed to bring before the House, because they were so absolutely trifling in themselves, but they carried great weight with the soldier, viz., "bell-bottoms" and "quiffs." When a man went on furlough, in order to improve his appearance he frequently cut a triangular piece out of the end of the trouser leg so that it would shape over the foot. On his return to the regiment the adjutant would make him either have 1516 a new pair of trousers or get the old ones altered back to their original state, an operation which meant probably a couple of months pay. Why should not the soldier be left alone in regard to these small details? A "quiff" was the fringe of hair worn under the forage cap. It did no harm to anybody, and why should not the colonel allow it to be worn? These were wretched details, but they exercised a considerable influence on recruiting. The Secretary of State for War had a long and hard row to hoe. He had to keep a large Army in the tropics; he had a small Army at home, which, according to many people, left much to be desired; and he had to deal with an unwarlike population. Having to work with these unpromising materials, the right hon. Gentleman deserved all the time the House could afford him and all the consideration he could get.
§ MR. WINSTON CHURCHILLsaid the House had listened to an interesting and pleasant debate. It was satisfactory that the Prime Minister had assured them that the Cabinet were not less united on the subject of Army reform than they were on any other great question now before the country. A pleasing feature of the debate had been the frank and manly speech of the Secretary for War which was admirably calculated to disarm criticism and to produce such an effect on the House that it almost seemed ungracious to press the indictment against the Government. But he did not think that they ought to allow the effect of that speech to blind them to the real issues raised by the Motion. The Secretary for War had not any direct reponsibility for the circumstances that produced the present situation, and he was very glad that the right hon. Gentleman did not attempt to deny how grave those circumstances were. The Motion raised two distinct issues—first, the delay in presenting to the House the new Army scheme, and, secondly, the question of the reliefs for our foreign garrisons. It was surely not unreasonable that the House should be anxious about the production of the Army scheme. They were told at the beginning of the session that the question of the reform of the Army was of such urgency that in order to bring the matter forward with the least possible 1517 delay, officers in high positions had been removed from their appointments; and, moreover, the House was induced to vote Estimates which were practically Estimates in dummy, containing Votes for offices which had been abolished, and for new offices which had been created, but in regard to which no explanation had been forthcoming. The breakdown in the reliefs for India was perhaps even more urgent and important. The supply of drafts for India was the first and most vital duty of the Secretary for War, and it was admitted that there was a grave difficulty in the way of carrying on that supply.
How had the difficulty arisen? He had heard with amazement the suggestion of the Prime Minister that the alteration in the system of Army service was made for the purpose of finding men to continue fighting the South African War. He saw the Secretary for India opposite. He did not think the right hon. Gentleman would assert that he made the alteration from seven years to three years colour service with that primary object. If hon. Members would read the speech of the right hon. Gentleman on the introduction of the change, they would find that the war, which had been put forward by the Prime Minister as the one cause of the change, played a very small part, if any, in the right hon. Gentleman's argument. But they knew the rhetorical ability of the Prime Minister, and the case with which he could turn such a point to debating advantage. He had employed it to pass off this great Army change as one of the disorganisations that resulted from the struggle in South Africa. The present situation was the logical and the inevitable result of the Army scheme of 1901. When the scheme was introduced it was prophesied that the men would not be found to fill the cadres. The right hon. Gentleman proposed two great alterations which were the sources of our immediate difficulty—increase of pay and an alteration in the period of service. In so far as any general approval was given to the scheme by unofficial Members, it was extorted by the assurances of the right hon. Gentleman that so far as human 1518 prescience could foretell the men would re-engage when the time came. The actual facts had singularly belied the forecast. Both proposals had been an utter failure. The increase of pay had not brought more or better men into the Army, and the alteration of the period of service had not fulfilled the expectations which had been held out. The House realised at the time the great burden that would be cast on India. The right hon. Gentleman looked at the matter from a very different point of view now. A burden of£700,000 or£800,000 was cast upon the finances of India, and there was now the charge of bringing men home from India frequently within a few months of their arrival. If the administrative deadlock continued he would not be surprised if India were called upon to pay a further bounty to tide over the difficulty.
All these things had been foreseen. A year and a half ago the hon. Member for Whitby described the whole proceeding as a gamble on a sixpence. Last year a proposal was made to reduce the Army by 27,090 men, and the right hon. Gentleman described it as the most reactionary proposal of the last fifteen years. Would he repeat that statement now to the Secretary for War? If so, he imagined the House would shortly be able to estimate the unity of the united Cabinet on Army reform. The responsibility for the difficulty which had arisen lay entirely upon the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for India. Through no fault of his own, the Prime Minister was not present. He did not wish to attack the Prime Minister in his absence, but when they reflected on the contradictory positions which he had repeatedly assumed, when they remembered that at the beginning of the session he sent the Report of the Esher Commission to the papers on account of its urgency and the immediate necessity for considering it, and that now he expressed surprise that anyone should want to discuss it at all, when they considered that last year he resisted all reductions in the strength of the Army and suggested that those who moved it were unpatriotic—when they remembered how he had used menacing language about the threatened invasion of India by a 1519 Power upon its north-west frontier, and before the year closed had defended a much larger reduction of the Army than had been proposed in the Committee—when they reviewed all these contradictory positions, assumed as the exigencies of Party politics dictated, he submitted they were bound to admit that the Prime Minister had no right to pose in the country as an Army reformer. No part of the indictment which could be framed against the present Administration was stronger or more capable of coherent statement than that which related to their Army policy. Rather than admit that the scheme introduced in 1901 was wrong, they had been willing to cast the whole service into the melting-pot, to spend any quantity of public money, and, when occasion required it, even to break generals according to their convenience. There was confusion at the War Office and widespread unrest and uncertainty throughout the Army. Regimental officers hardly dared to embark with care and patience upon the task of training their men, because they were in a state of uncertainty as to whether the whole service would not be changed from top to bottom. He had heard more than one great officer say that he had no certainty that his appointment would not be cancelled if the cancelling were likely to improve the position of the Government in a division in the House of Commons. The phantom Army Corps remained phantom Army Corps; the skeleton units were still unclothed with flesh, although largely increased sums had been spent on the service; the Army was still deficient in artillery and intelligence.
§ MR. SPEAKEROrder, order! The question of Army reform is not before the House. The question is whether or not the Government ought to be ready with a scheme.
§ MR. WINSTON CHURCHILLsaid he was merely endeavouring to justify the Motion, but he had now finished with that part of the case. The cause of the present position was not far to seek. At the very time when the Army needed most of all a period of recuperative repose after the great strain to 1520 which it was subjected in the war it had been made the victim of a number of vast and reckless experiments. He admitted that those experiments were dictated partly by ill-directed zeal for the Empire, and partly by an unfounded apprehension as to the security of the dominions beyond the seas, but they were also dictated by a desire to have something which could be put before Parliament session after session in order to distract attention from administrative shortcomings—experiments rendered possible only by a willingness on the part of the late Secretary for War and the Prime Minister to use, when occasion made it convenient, the interests and the fortunes of the Army as a pawn in the Party game.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BRODRICK,) Surrey, GuildfordI have heard a good many speeches which at different times during this session have made reflections on the policy which I have at different times introduced to the House; and I should not have risen now to reply to the hon. Member for Oldham, who has spoken in so different a strain from that of many who have preceded him, if it had not been for his last accusation against the Government, that changes in the Army which have been called for throughout the country, and called for by nobody more loudly than by the hon. Member himself, have been brought forward solely with the desire to put something before the attention of Parliament—a charge which might perhaps be applied to the speech we have just listened to—and not from any patriotic motives. The hon. Member has singled me out for special comment, but he has left me the minimum of time in which to reply. In the few minutes at my disposal, I may just recall to the House what was the position with which I had to deal when I introduced the three-years system on which the hon. Member has poured so much scorn and contempt. The hon. Member said that it was in order to sustain the inflated armaments that I had urged the House to adopt. There is not a shadow or shred of foundation for that statement. In 1901 I was responsible for the new Army scheme. As far as I know I did not add a single man to the regular 1521 establishment of the Army. The whole of my policy was directed to the troops that were in need of recruiting. I had two problems before me—to maintain a largely increased establishment which, by a succession of War Ministers and by the unanimous call of the House and the country, had been added to the Army, and at the same time to carry on the war. In 1901 and 1902, when I introduced this particular change, we had actually 240,000 men in the field. The ordinary recruiting of the Army amounted to between 30,000 and 40,000 men, taking every "special" we could—30 per cent, of "specials"—up to the time when the war broke out. I had to meet a deficit of 10,000 in the number of recruits which was not of my creation and not due to any scheme of mine, and which was supplemented by the enormous drain of the war. I adopted the three-years system which had long been pressed upon the House by the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean.
§ Sir CHARLES DILKENot in that connection.
§ MR. BRODRICKExcuse me, I cannot give way as I have only two or three minutes in which to speak.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKEBut I must protest against the statement expressed in that form.
§ MR. BRODRICKIt was a system the weakness and dangers of which I had repeatedly pointed out to the House. But I adopted it with the additional advantage of an increase of pay, which enabled the men who re-engaged in 1904 to draw 1s. 6d. against a net 7d. enjoyed by men in the same service at the time I addressed the House. The effect of that change was that in the first year we took 52,000 recruits. In the second year, stopping all "specials," and not recruiting for the cavalry or artillery, which were more than full, we obtained over 1522 40,000; and this year we are more than maintaining the increase. I have not time to complete my case; I hope on a future occasion to refer to the numerous criticisms that have been made, but I point out now that the changes in the terms of enlistment had nothing to do with the Army Corps scheme. They were merely to maintain the establishment of the Army and to provide for the drain of the war. If any hon. Member will consult the newspapers, Lord Kitchener's despatches, or the representations made to me by the military authorities throughout 1901 he will see that it was absolutely impossible to do this under the old system. Whatever defects the present system may have, whatever excellent reasons my right hon. friend, in a time of peace, under different circumstances, and under the necessary review of the military and naval position which the First Lord of the Admiralty and I were the first to bring to the notice of the Prime Minister, may have for making changes, I say that the changes made in 1902 to meet the emergency then existing had the effect they were intended to produce. We had to find the men and we found them to meet an emergency. We had to give them a chance of re-engagement, and if the men have not re-engaged in sufficient numbers my right hon. friend is amply justified in coming before the House with a different scheme.
§ Mr. BECKETTAgainst the valuable speech of my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for War, I am prepared to withdraw the Motion if he will give us a pledge [Cries of "No!" and "Order!"]—
§ Mr. SPEAKEROrder, order! the Clerk will now proceed to read the Orders of the day.
§ And, it being Midnight, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed without Question put.
§ Adjourned at three minutes after Twelve o'clock.