§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE,) HaddingtonI should like on this occasion to have made some statement to the House of the progress that has been made with the carrying out of the plans which Parliament sanctioned last session, but if I were to attempt anything of the sort you, Sir, would apply the strict rules which govern occasions such as this, and which confine the speaker to the subject matter of the Supplementary Estimates and the Votes concerned, and I shall bear these rules in mind. The purpose of the Supplementary Estimate may be expressed very shortly. Last session Parliament sanctioned the plan of giving an organisation to the Volunteer and Yeomanry force so as to make it a territorial or citizen force, organised in brigades and divisions, with staffs in a fashion that it had not been before. For the purpose of that organisation it was necessary that some of the existing units should be disbanded, and in all cases transformed into units of a different character—fewer battalions, but of a larger strength and with a more perfect organisation. And it is proposed that that organisation should be carried out as rapidly as possible, and it has been arranged that it should take place within this financial year, because it was, obviously, to the general convenience to prevent two systems of finance running in the same year. For that purpose it is necessary to disband the existing corps and to convert them into corps of a 1439 different order under a different Statute, and that operation is to take place by 31st March. One of the defects of the old Volunteer Force was that it had no proper financial arrangement. The colonels of the battalions were practically responsible for the whole of the finance. They contracted the debt and the result was that it was hardly possible for anyone who was not a rich man to be an officer of a Volunteer corps. Of the very essence of the scheme there was this, that the administration of its finances should be placed in the hands of County Associations who should take the burden of administering the money and administer it in respect of a smaller number of units and deal with them not separately but together. It was hoped in that way not only to get financial control but to get greater economy, and that was the scheme which was sanctioned last session. For that purpose it was essential that in disbanding the old corps or in converting them into the new organisation we should relieve them of the load of debt which hung round their necks. That is not so formidable an operation from the financial point of view as it seems, for the whole of the money with which these debts were paid used to be provided by Parliament, and all we propose to do is to take the new method of finance whereby the means which Parliament places at present at the disposal of the Volunteer corps should be put at the disposal of the County Associations so as to meet the requirements in a different fashion, but with the same results. Therefore, in asking Parliament to pay off these debts, I am not asking Parliament to take up any burden of a new order. Under the old system the money would have had to be raised all the same, only it would have been raised in a different form, but it is necessary in order to give the new system a start to clear off the debts of these corps so that under the new arrangements the Associations may not have to apply money or to ask Parliament for money for paying off old debts. Last year I moved a Supplementary Estimate in respect of the mortagages which affected Volunteer and Yeomanry property, and that Estimate incurred a certain amount of criticism. I did not agree with the criticism, though I appreciated the 1440 point of it, which was that instead of applying the money which had been saved to the mortgages it would have gone in the natural course into the new financial year. Whether that criticism is good or bad—and I doubt whether the hon. Members for the City and I will ever agree upon that—I have not to discuss now, because I think I can show the Committee that strictly and absolutely what we are doing now belongs to the present financial year. It must be remembered that this comes under the decision which Parliament has already given of having to be wound up by 31st March this year. They have to be cleared of their debts, therefore the debts are strictly payable within the financial year. Indeed, they are debts which are due and in the ordinary course ought to have been paid within the year, but by the old practice would have been continued until the next year if the corps had gone on. But as the corps are not going on it is obviously only an act of justice as well as a convenient course to discharge the debts within the year to which they belong, and, therefore, I am taking the only course I could take in asking for a Supplementary Estimate. It would not have been right to put money on the Estimates of next year, even if I could have done it, which belongs to a past state of things.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN (Worcestershire, E.)Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say the old Volunteer companies would have been bound to pay off these debts within this financial year?
§ MR. HALDANENo. The old Volunteer companies were always in debt. They used to put off the payment of their obligation and Parliament furnished them in the next year with money to discharge their bank balances and pay their bills. But as the old corps are coming to an end, and the colonels who are personally responsible in many of these cases will cease to be colonels of these corps, it is only right that the matter should be wound up, and the corps freed from the debts before they are disbanded. Therefore, it comes strictly into the financial year, and I do not see that even the greatest financial 1441 purists would have any objection to the process. It is quite a different case even from last year. Now I come to the mode in which this is to be done. During the year the policy of the Government has been a policy of the strictest economy and of the observance of the obligations of frugality. As we have gone on we have found a certain number of economies possible with efficiency, and the result of that is, I am glad to say, that I have not to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give me any money out of his general surplus, but we have been able to save on the Army Estimates last year enough to make this operation financially possible without adding a penny to the old Estimates. That is always a satisfactory state of things. I do not think we could have estimated for less. We brought down the Estimates more than £2,000,000 last year, and I thought it was as close as I could get, but in working along a number of small items were found on which by prudent and careful administration it has been possible to effect economies. I will give the Committee an example. I do not want to go into the matter in detail though I will answer questions fully. We found a great number of lawsuits and claims which had been brought against the War Office in connection with the war. They had gone dragging on their course, as lawsuits sometimes do, and, perhaps because I have had more experience of lawsuits than the average War Secretary, I dislike them particularly. Consequently a very searching examination was made. If I may say so metaphorically, I doffed my cocked hat and resumed my full-bottomed wig, and the result was that, with the assistance of the Solicitor to the Treasury, a number of these things were brought to an end, a considerable saving being effected. Then in the course of last year we have been able to go into a number of matters very carefully. For instance, in North China there used to be kept an Indian battalion as well as half a British battalion. With the consent of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, the War Office determined to substitute one complete British battalion for the half battalion and the Indian battalion. Consequently something has been saved on the cost of trans- 1442 port. These savings make up a sum sufficient to meet this Supplementary Estimate.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINasked how much the modifications amounted to.
§ MR. HALDANEThe plan put forward last year for forming a reserve of officers has been worked out and is ready to be put in operation. As a matter of fact, I doubt whether I have spent a penny of the £50,000 I took last year for this purpose. When one comes to investigate a new conception closely, one finds a number of points in which it can be improved, and it is only a few weeks ago that the plan became a complete one. Then there is the Army Reserve. Last year when I moved the Estimates, I made the proposition that Section A., which consists of Regulars, should be brought up to 13,000 from 5,000. That would have meant a very large sum, and it was found that some of the services for which the increase was wanted were services not of an exclusively military character, such as transport, medical, and ammunition column services, and the result was that before the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act passed through Parliament, we had a Committee which, with the General Staff, made a considerable modification, which will be found in Section 32 of the Act of last session. Under that modification only 6,000 men are raised as Regulars, and 4,000 are taken from the Special Reserve. They had good hope they would get the 6,000, but from the experience of the last few months we have not much hope of getting more. We have somewhat relaxed the conditions enabling men to enter. We have taken the period of two years since leaving the colours, instead of one year, and we hope to get the 6,000. We, therefore, obtained 4,000 more from the Special Reserve, which is a very much less expensive way of raising them. Then there is also a small sum of £8,000 for the expenditure of the County Associations up to 31st March, when the new system comes into operation. The Associations will be furnished with money for their establishments, but before 31st March they have a very serious piece of work to do, and that is the conversion 1443 of the force. Consequently, we have given them the money they have asked for—an allowance for secretary, clerical work, and so on, for which we have taken £8,000 on the Supplementary Estimate, which is covered by the figure we are asking the House to authorise us to take out of our savings. The only other observation I have to made in conclusion is this. Hon. Members may say: "Why did you not put this sum in your Estimates last year?" That is a very legitimate question, and there is an equally legitimate answer. I could not do so. The Estimates were brought in in February, and the new Act passed on 2nd August. Many modifications were made in the plan, some by agreement between the two Front Benches; and the result was that the scheme emerged from the House a good deal changed, and, I think, a good deal improved by the very satisfactory discussion which took place across the floor of the House. It was, however, impossible to tell at the time the Estimates were brought in whether the plan would go through. But now there are Associations in every county in England and Scotland. They were doing their business most satisfactorily and with great credit to themselves, and I do not think the House will grudge the very small sum which it is necessary to provide for their expenses if they are to discharge their duties properly in connection with the conversion which will take place between now and 31st March.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1908, for additional Expenditure in respect of the following Army Services, viz.—
§ Vote 5. Volunteer Corps, Pay, Allowances, etc.:—
| £ | |
| E. (a) Grants for the Extinction of Debts | 350,000 |
| E. (b) Expenses of County Associations | 8,000 |
| 358,000 | |
| Less Surpluses on other Votes | 357,900 |
| 100 |
§ MR. VICTOR CAVENDISH (Derbyshire, W.)Upon this occasion the right hon. Gentleman has been able to base his reasons for asking the Committee to vote a considerable addition to the Army Estimates on rather different grounds from those he gave last year. I should like to remind the Committee of what actually did occur in connection with this transaction of relieving officers of the debts upon their corps and drill halls. Last year the Committee in a revised Supplementary Estimate was asked to vote £435,000, and we were mainly induced to do that on the plea put forward by the right hon. Gentleman that he was contemplating great changes in our military organisation, to carry out which it was necessary to place the Territorial Army on a more satisfactory basis, and to relieve them of many of these obligations which were pressing so heavily upon them. We said then, as we say now, that the policy of taking over these debts which pressed upon individual corps was one for which there was much to be said. Personally I believe Parliament was right in relieving those gentlemen and those corps of those responsibilities, but what we protest against is the method by which this transfer has been carried out. Last year we asked what was the urgency of carrying out that change in the way the Government adopted, namely, by the money which ought to have gone to the redemption of debt under the old sinking fund. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman will say that this money will eventually go to the reduction of debt, but I wish to impress upon him that the more regular course to have taken would have been to make it form part of the scheme of the reorganisation of the armed forces of this country. I now come to what happened last year. The right hon. Gentleman passed a Bill of very considerable magnitude, which had far-reaching effects. It must be perfectly obvious that it will be a long time before the Act will be actually in operation, but there were various changes to be carried out immediately after its passage. We have a right to say that when the Act was being discussed, provision ought to have been made for immediately carrying out some of its purposes, and at any rate, we should not now in 1445 the form of a Supplementary Estimate be asked to vote money which ought to have gone to the reduction of debt, for the purpose of carrying out matters which must have been clearly foreseen, and in regard to which it was perfectly obvious a very considerable sum would have to be spent to carry the Act into effect. I do not wish to make too many references to previous debates in connection with Supplementary Estimates, but I do wish to point out that, however good a policy may be in itself, the method of proceeding to deal with it by Supplementary Estimates is one to which we ought to offer a very stern opposition. I have had a fairly long connection with the Public Accounts Committee, and I know that there has never been any change in the opinion of that Committee as to the undesirability of these Supplementary Estimates. I should like to quote a few sentences from a speech made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster upon Supplementary Estimates in general.
The great value of the debate was, however, the eliciting from all parts of the House objections to the unsatisfactory state of those Supplementary Estimates …. Mr. Gladstone looked upon a Supplementary Estimate as almost a crime on the part of the department which presented it, and it was no easy task to get over his objections …. The value which he attached to the debate was that it directed attention to the financial unsoundness, the tendency to extravagance, and the diminution of the control of the House of Commons which this growing practice of Supplementary Estimates involved.I believe that on that occasion the Supplementary Estimates were a good deal connected with the war. I think every word said by the right hon. Gentleman on the broad general principle are even more applicable now. Practically a new policy is being introduced. Great changes in the Auxiliary forces are being carried out by the unsatisfactory methods of Supplementary Estimates. More than that, there is no urgency in bringing the subject before the notice of the House. I think we want stronger reasons for not allowing money to go to the old sinking fund, and if such reasons are not given we ought to resist any proposal which the Government make for the purpose of diverting this sum of money from the object for which it was origin- 1446 ally voted by the House of Commons. I have no doubt that if we could get any general assurance that this practice is likely to stop the House would for the present be satisfied. In the last two years the right hon. Gentleman has assumed the rather melancholy role of a gentleman known in Ireland as the "gombeen man"—whatever benevolent objects he may have ultimately in view in the buying up of other people's debts and the fag end of other people's mortgages, I do not know how long the right hon. Gentleman is going to proceed on that line. I hope that the practice followed for the last two years will now cease. However desirable it may be to relieve people from the obligations they have incurred, I hope they will be dealt with when the Estimates for the year are presented and not as now, when practically the House of Commons loses all control and has no means of preventing the money from being voted. I do not know whether I am entitled to ask questions as to what has been done under the reorganisation scheme. I am bound to say I have taken as active a part as I can in connection with the formation of the association in the county with which I am most closely associated, but looking to the voluminous and ample documents placed before the association I have had some difficulty in reconciling my duties as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee with the duty of presiding over the County Association. I have endeavoured to reconcile the two positions although the bodies take rather antagonistic views. I should like to ask on what basis any allowances are now going to be made for the expenditure which the County Association is incurring up to 31st March. I can only mention that in the case of my own association we have not received any sum of money which we are able to deal with in carrying on the necessary and I am afraid rather expensive work which we have hitherto been told to do. We have been confronted with the further difficulty that we do not know on what basis we are to proceed. We have been told that for certain purposes under the Finance Memorandum we were to get the sum of £1,845. These purposes practically include administrative charges. I cannot take this sum as absolutely final. To 1447 meet the services already arranged for the charges on the basis of the average of the last four years would require the sum of £2,984. Being in that position it is a little difficult to see how we are to meet the charges with the sum of £1,845. In the three regiments with which I am principally dealing, namely, one regiment of Yeomanry and two regiments of Volunteers, every care has been taken to keep the charges as low as possible. One of the difficulties we have experienced is that we do not see how it is possible to reduce to any considerable extent, on the information we now have, our present expenditure of £2,984. There is a further difficulty in this connection. I presume it is on the authority of the Army Council that the County Association has been told that not more than 10 per cent. of the £1,845 could be devoted to the salaries and expenses of the secretariat, exclusive of the rent of offices and buildings. I do not know on what information the Army Council framed these regulations, and I shall await with the greatest interest to know how it would be possible in a large and rather inaccessible county like Derbyshire adequately to carry out the intentions of Parliament if the whole of the offices are to be run for £184 10s. a year. We may be able in the light of further information—I hope we shall—to effect such reductions as will enable us to do it, but I would point out that in Derbyshire we have a very representative association of hard-working gentlemen, and no scheme could have a better chance of success; but unless those who have willingly given a great deal of their time and trouble are adequately supplied by money contributions all their zeal will vanish, and it will be impossible to carry out the scheme in a satisfactory manner. Last year many hon. Members thought that the reorganisation scheme was bound to be excessively expensive, and I am afraid that those prophecies are becoming true. So far as Derbyshire is concerned I see no difficulties in carrying out the requirements of the Army Council. I do not wish to make any rash promises, but I think if we get the right men we might be able to do even more if the Army Council thought it desirable. It is absolutely useless to attempt to 1448 carry on the scheme if we are going to be tied in monetary matters, unless we have local enthusiasm behind it, and unless we get proper backing from the Government. Owing to the regulations already issued we are unable to proceed with the very desirable object of at once appointing a secretariat. We have only £184 10s. a year for that purpose and we do not know how far we would be justified in getting a gentleman to undertake the work on what really amounts to an uneconomic wage. If you expect the services of a competent man you should give adequate remuneration. We would like more information on this subject. However desirable and proper the policy of the Government may be, we have every justification in saying that the method by which the right hon. Gentleman is proceeding to obtain the money is one the House of Commons ought to view with the greatest care, and I might almost say with the greatest hesitation. These Estimates are not in the proper sense of the word Supplementary Estimates. They are really new Estimates.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITIT, Fifeshire, E.)It would be respectful to the Committee if I should say a word at this stage. On the first point raised by the right hon. Gentleman he was not only entitled, but was bound as a most efficient Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and from the House of Commons' point of view, to take a very serious view of this question. I entirely agree with him in his two main propositions. In the first place, I consider that prima facie a Supplementary Estimate is an indication of bad finance. I lay that down as a broad general proposition subject to qualifications which I will state in a moment. I think the right hon. Gentleman will find that this year the Government have avoided Supplementary Estimates to an extent to which he will not easily find a parallel within Parliamentary memory. In the second place, I quite agree with him that a saving in the ordinary expenditure for the public service ought not to be diverted from the Old Sinking Fund. When a vote such as that now asked for violates these conditions, it is quite right that an explanation should 1449 be given. I speak from the point of view of the Treasury when I say that prima facie Supplementary Estimates are most objectionable to us and expose us to severe and relentless criticism, although the right hon. Gentleman will understand that we do not resent criticism. The ground on which we feel justified in withdrawing our opposition to a Supplementary Estimate on this occasion is two-fold. I said a moment ago that Supplementary Estimates are bad finance; but there are exceptions. One, if not the only, exception where a Supplementary Estimate is justifiable is where it is for a purpose which could not at all have been foreseen at the time when the original Estimate was made, or when owing to the development of unforeseen circumstances the Estimate has swollen to the present demand on the public expenditure. I think that even so strict an economist as the hon. Member for Norwood will admit that this Supplementary Estimate falls within that category. I think that on the whole it does. At the time when the Estimates were presented last year this scheme depended entirely upon its being embodied in legislation which required the approval of both Houses of Parliament. It was a widely complicated scheme involving very debatable points, and it was absolutely uncertain in what shape it would ultimately emerge—in particular in relation to the Militia and what were formerly called the Auxiliary Forces. At that time the scheme from a Parliamentary point of view was in a hypothetical condition; and I do not see how my right hon. friend could possibly at that stage have put down on paper a definite sum for the particular purpose we are now discussing. But my right hon. friend the Member for West Derbyshire says:—"Why not have done it later or when your scheme did take shape and when you began to feel sure it would take the form you anticipated and receive the assent of Parliament?" It was not till the month of August, I think the 2nd, that the Bill passed, and then it would have been impossible to say that a Supplementary Estimate could have been presented. In point of fact so far as Parliamentary control is concerned the situation is the same as if the Supple- 1450 mentary Estimate had been presented earlier in the financial year. In the second place, the money proposed is for the extinction of debt. These are debts the extinction of which you must admit is part of the bargain; and my right hon. friend has to meet them in the course of the present financial year. Therefore, the money is not going for a new service but for the extinction of capital liabilities which you are bound to discharge. Taking these two considerations together, I think a case has been made out, without relaxing the strictest rules of financial integrity, for this Supplementary Estimate. It does not involve any additional charge, but will enable my right hon. friend out of useful economies he has made on other Votes, to discharge those capital liabilities which for him was an obligation of honour.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN (Worcestershire, E.)The Chancellor of the Exchequer laid down at the opening of his speech the rules which in his opinion should govern the Treasury with regard to Supplementary Estimates, and I think that they are quite orthodox. But when the right hon. Gentleman applied the reasons to this particular Estimate he destroyed the value of the principle. If he extends the exception to cases of this kind, I think it would not be difficult to do so in any case when it suited his convenience. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says that prima facie all Supplementary Estimates are bad finance; and, in the second place, that savings ought not to be diverted from their proper course, viz., the Old Sinking Fund. He makes two exceptions. The first is where the expenditure cannot have been foreseen. That is an exception we all make, and no objection can be taken to it. But I cannot accept its application to the present Estimate. The Secretary of State for War is paying this year, or proposes to pay this year, a charge which would have ordinarily fallen upon the revenue of next year. That charge is one which the War Office, I will undertake to say, could have estimated not perhaps in pounds, shillings and pence, but certainly within a few thousands of pounds—I almost think within a few hundreds of pounds before we had 1451 gone over the year. But I go further. The right hon. Gentleman said that there would be difficulty not only in paying off the charge, but that it could not be paid until the Bill passed both Houses of Parliament. What is the difference between this expenditure and the expenditure which the Secretary of State for War asked us to pass last year as a Supplementary Estimate to the expenditure of the previous year? At that time he asked us to buy up the mortgages on all the Volunteer drill halls. He proposed to do that in preparation for his Army scheme, which was in fact the Army scheme subsequently embodied in his Bill. If it was necessary for him to wait for that Bill before he asked for this expenditure, how was it right for him to proceed with the other expenses for his Army scheme before the Bill was passed? It is quite obvious that this was an explanation invented quite after the fact, although I do not wish to use a phrase offensive to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. When last year the Secretary for War asked for £500,000 for cognate services dependent upon the passage of a Bill not then introduced, it is absurd to say that the right hon. Gentleman could not have presented an Estimate for this purpose quite early last session. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer's exception does not apply to this particular case. I think it was quite possible to estimate this expenditure with sufficient accuracy before the passage of the Bill, because it is an expenditure which has been recurrent, going on year after year, and the War Office had only to look at what it had been doing over a series of years in order to frame a satisfactory Estimate of what the expenditure would be this last year. The Chancellor of the Exchequer thought to justify this Estimate on the ground that it went to the extinction of debt. The blessed word "debt" when used by the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Gentlemen opposite, either covers a multitude of sins or a multitude of meanings. If this money had not been intercepted by the Secretary for War, with the Chancellor of the Exchequer's permission, it would have gone directly to reduce the permanent capital liabilities of the State. What is the debt he is going to reduce now? It 1452 is a charge which would be a natural charge on the Estimates of next year. What the Chancellor of the Exchequer is doing is to divert merely from the payment of National Debt to lighten the charges on the revenue next year. It is that and nothing else. Of course there are all kinds of obligations which fall due next year. The contracts entered into this year for the feeding of the Army and those for coal supplies for the Navy would have to be met out of revenue next year, and the payment of interest on the War Loans. I feel quite as strongly with regard to Supplementary Estimates as the right hon. Gentleman, but if you press the doctrine that you are not to have Supplementary Estimates too far you would exaggerate the Estimates-in-Chief. If either the Treasury or the House of Commons make it too difficult for a Department to make an under-estimate you will always have an over-estimate. When a Department has over-estimated it is very reluctant to see money go to the Exchequer for the reduction of debt; and it may say "We should have a surplus for this purpose or the other." I therefore think that you may easily carry the protest against Supplementary Estimates too far. I am a little heterodox in my views on this subject, as judged by the standard of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and of the Public Accounts Committee. But still I think they ought to be watched and that the attempt to justify these Estimates on the ground put forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer altogether fails. So much for the financial point of view. That leads me to another observation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which has a more serious bearing upon policy than the one on finance. The right hon. Gentleman said he was all the more ready to authorise the expenditure in these cases, because no fresh charge would be put upon the taxpayers, the Secretary of State for War having fortunately been able to make savings sufficient to meet the excess expenditure. Again, the words "savings" and "economies" are words which are used in two entirely distinct senses in this House. They have a technical sense, which means that you have not spent the money, and they have a general and popular sense which means that you did not need to spend the 1453 money; and the two things are quite different. When the Secretary of State says that he has been able to close down law proceedings and has made arrangements for more satisfactory terms than if the arbitration were allowed to go on, he has made a real saving; but when he says that he has been able to postpone the reserve of officers, or when he speaks of the altered position of Section A of the Army Reserve, these are not savings; they are failures to spend this year and involve at any rate as regards the first, an increased liability on future years.
§ MR. HALDANEThe system is only postponed.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThis is work which was to have been done this year, but has not been done, and the money which we voted to enable the right hon. Gentleman to provide the reserve of officers has not been spent, because no reserve of officers has been provided. But that is not an economy. The money is not spent; the service is not performed and as that service, by the confession of the right hon. Gentleman himself and by the common consent of every military critic, and of every one who took part in our Army debates last year, was one of the most important and most urgent questions before the Secretary of State, I can only express my deep regret that there has been this delay in carrying out his intention to establish a reserve.
§ MR. HALDANEOnly of five or six months.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINOnly of five or six months, but five or six months are five or six months, and the peculiarity of the right hon. Gentleman is that while he regards with perfect equanimity the delay of his construction projects, he permits of no delay in any of his work of destruction. As I say, in the opinion of every man interested in this question, there is no more urgent military problem than the increase of the number of officers whom we have, and instead of doing that, if my calculations are right, the right hon. Gentleman has failed to 1454 make even a beginning with that reserve of officers and has cut down the existing number of the Regular Army by over 300, the Militia by some 250, and the Volunteers by about seventy, I think, making in all a total of 634. There has been no economy there. We are worse off in that respect, as we have not done what the right hon. Gentleman intended to do, and we are worse off on this matter of military preparation than we were twelve months ago. Just one word on the similar question of Section A of the Army Reserve. I speak with some diffidence on this subject, because I am a child in these matters. I have done my best, however, during the discussions of last year and in other ways, while I was in office and since, to get some understanding of our military system as it was, as it will be when the right hon. Gentleman has carried out his work of construction, and as it is. I confess that it is a study which is perplexing to a layman; I do not readily master the technical language which is required to describe these forces properly, and I may be misunderstanding the facts; but as I understand the right hon. Gentleman he intended last year to have a force of 13,000 men of this Section A drawn from the Regular Army; men who had spent twelve years with the colours.
§ MR. HALDANESeven years with the colours and who would return to the service with the colours as Regulars.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThey would I understand be men who had spent seven years with the colours and who would return to service with the Regulars. Within nine months of developing that scheme to the House of Commons the right hon. Gentleman has come to the conclusion that it is impracticable and that he cannot get the number—that the prospects which he offered are not attractive enough, and that instead of being able to raise the number of such men from 5,000 to 13,000 as he had intended, the most that he can hope to get is 6,000. That is what I understand, and then help reposes to fill the place of the remaining 7,000 regulars whose services he cannot 1455 secure by 4,000 irregular troops. He described them as being on a militia basis, and I know what he means, troops without regular training. You would have thought that if he could not get the number of Regulars he wanted he would have said, "I must have three of the others in place of two, or five where I proposed to take three," because men who have not trained regularly will not be so valuable as men who have had seven years training. And here is the right hon. Gentleman's amazing proposal: because he cannot get 13,000 regulars we are to be content with 6,000 regulars and 4,000 other men who will not be regulars. That can only be described as a saving if the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to say not merely that he could not get his Regulars, but that he was totally wrong in asking for 13,000 men at all, and also that which he will scarcely say, that the 4,000 places which he is going to fill with men who have been trained on a militia basis will be as good as the Regulars. I do not think he will say that. He says, however, that the character of the work does not require such high training as Regulars receive, but I think everyone will admit that the better a man is trained the better the work will be done. At any rate, I do not call it an economy that the right hon. Gentleman should profess to give us 13,000 Regulars to come back to serve the country at any moment and then save the money by substituting 6,000 Regulars and 4,000 less well trained men for them. One further observation I have to make. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will answer fully and in detail the question of my right hon. friend the Member for Derbyshire. I think there is a strong feeling on the part of most people who have been looking into this Territorial Army that it is going to be a much more costly affair than the right hon. Gentleman has yet admitted to the House. He began by producing an Estimate—
THE CHAIRMANI am afraid I must interrupt the right hon. Gentleman. He seems to be discussing certain savings which appear here as Appropriations-in-Aid, but he cannot discuss the policy of these Appropriations-in-Aid on a Supplementary Estimate.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI have finished what I had to say on that point, Mr. Chairman, but on the point of order, may I ask whether we are not at liberty to discuss the argument which was put forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that as money is saved there is no objection to spending it on these purposes; would it be objectionable to say either that the money was not in fact saved or that it was inexpedient to save it?
THE CHAIRMANThe Chancellor of the Exchequer was perfectly in order in discussing whether the money saved on certain branches of the service could be spent on other branches of the service, but what cannot be discussed is the policy on which the savings are made. They are just the same as Appropriations-in-Aid, and they cannot be discussed in detail as a question of policy.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI will not say a word more on the subject, but what I was asking the Secretary of State was that he would deal fully in connection with these items with the expenses of the County Associations. Many of us think that the expenses have been very much under-estimated in regard to the Territorial Army in this and other respects, and the right hon. Gentleman will, of course, remember that he himself at a very early stage revised the original Estimate presented to the House and introduced a new and much larger one. We are only now beginning to see his scheme at work, and he pledged himself and the Government with the full approval of the House on all sides that there should be no "sending round the hat" in connection with the expenses of this new force, and that the legitimate expenses should be met by grants from the Exchequer. But we have heard on many sides of the narrow squeezing of the County Associations, especially in regard to the payment that may be made for their secretarial and other expenses. It is "sending round the hat" in spirit if not technically if you ask men to give their services for a remuneration which is below their value. You want to get as the secretary of a 1457 County Association the very best man you can, an ex-officer with considerable experience in the Army. If you want men of that kind to give their time and attention to the business of the County Associations, it is absurd to offer them the small amount of remuneration which is stated to be the case in many cases. That is not begging from the county so much, but it is begging from the individual who, like many poor people who are not satisfied with their remuneration, would rather have that than nothing at all. There is a great deal of feeling in the country on the subject, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will relieve the fears that are felt, and will give us the best estimate he can of what the expenses will be. I make this protest on this occasion, because I am as certain as I stand here that in future years this scheme of his, if it remains in force and if he is successful in getting the men and the army that he desires, will be a much more costly one than the House has yet been prepared for, and we ought to have from the right hon. Gentleman a full disclosure of the expenditure which is likely to be incurred, so that when he himself or his successors have to come to the House for that expenditure they may be able to justify themselves by a reference to our debates now, and may not be accused of swelling the Estimates, when in fact they are but endeavouring to meet obligations which the right hon. Gentleman has undertaken.
§ MR. McCRAE (Edinburgh, E.)congratulated the right hon. Gentleman on the speech which he had made on his first appearance as a probable Secretary of State for War, although the first part of his speech was brought to a speedy termination by the intervention of the Chair. A great deal of the criticism of the right hon. Gentleman was based on a complete misapprehension as to what the Minister of War was going to do. It was not the fact as stated by the right hon. Gentleman that Last year the Secretary of State for War had met all the capital liabilities of the Volunteers and that the expenditure now proposed to be met was really of a current nature. What his right hon. friend did last year was to 1458 meet the capital liabilities of the Volunteers so far as those due to the Public Works Loans Commissioners were concerned. The plea his right hon. friend then made was that if his Bill did not pass, and it had not then passed, what would happen would be that the Volunteers in the future, if they were retained, would be indebted to the War Office instead of the Public Works Loans Commissioners. His right hon. friend's proposal only dealt as it were with the indebtedness of the Volunteers to the Public Works Loans Commissioners. The right hon. Gentleman would admit that if we were to adopt a new policy with regard to the Territorial Army the County Associations which were to carry out the policy should start with a perfectly free hand and not be handicapped by the liabilities of their predecessors. Hitherto the liabilities of the Volunteers had been all vested really in the commanding officers. If the Volunteer Force was to take shape in the Territorial Army, then the State was bound to relieve the commanding officers not only of the expenditure for clothing to which they were at present committed, but also of these mortgage liabilities. In his own case his regiment purchased their headquarters. They did not borrow from the Public Works Loans Commissioners because he thought he could do better and borrowed elsewhere at a lower rate of interest. Although he was not one of those who would benefit, because in this particular case the regiment would be able to hand over £3,000 to their successors, so far as his regiment was concerned they had a mortgage on their headquarters from which they should be relieved. In his opinion the Secretary of State for War was doing a wise thing in asking the Committee for the money to wipe out all these liabilities before the new Territorial Army was formed. These debts were of two kinds: the mortgage debt and the charges incurred in respect of clothing which should have been met out of the capitation grants which would have been paid to the present Volunteers on 1st April. What the Secretary of State proposed to do was to wipe off all these liabilities which there could be no doubt the State was bound to meet, so that the County Associations could start 1459 with a free hand with the new force. He did not know that he quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the Supplementary Estimate, because he held rather strong views in that respect. But he thought that if ever there was a case in which a Supplementary Estimate was justified this was the case. If the new Territorial Army was to have any chance at all it ought to start under free and fair conditions, and if these charges were allowed to be transferred and made a charge on the new County Associations it would be very unfortunate. He had always taken a very strict view of any surplus being appropriated to matters which could have been foreseen and placed upon the Estimates, but if his right hon. friend had not taken this money out of his savings he would have been bound to have placed it on his Estimate next year, and the money would have had to be raised by taxation. [OPPOSITION cheers.] He quite appreciated that point, but having regard to all the facts of the case he thought his right hon. friend was perfectly justified in the course he had pursued. He had been much interested in the struggle which had taken place in the bosom of the right hon. Member for Derbyshire, as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and as chairman of one of the County Associations, and to see his desires as an economist give way to his desires for expenditure in his own district. There was no doubt a considerable feeling of difficulty in these County Associations in regard to the limited amount with which they had to meet the salaries of the secretaries and the working expenses. It was represented only to the extent of £8,000 in this Estimate, and that he had no doubt had been sufficient for what had been done in the interregnum. But he joined with his right hon. friend the Member for Derbyshire in saying that this was a matter for consideration. His right hon. friend had not done what he might have done under the power of virement, viz., made this transfer with the sanction of the Treasury without coming to this Committee. That dreadful word virement did not come into this question at all. His right hon. friend had done right when he came to the Committee for sanction for the transfer.
§ COLONEL R. WILLIAMS (Dorsetshire, W.)expressed the opinion that it was a great pity that the right hon. Gentleman had misled—he did not use the term offensively—the country as to the cost which the Territorial Army would involve by asking for a Supplementary Vote of only £100. It would have been much better if the whole amount had been openly stated. Nor did he think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was quite right as to the inability to ascertain the amount last year. So far as he was concerned he at all events could have told the right hon. Gentleman very nearly what would have been the cost last year if he had been asked. Neither did he think the hon. Member who spoke last was quite correct as to the mortgage debts, because the hon. Gentleman would see by the Vote that this was "for the extinction of debts other than those secured upon property." But he rose to ask the Secretary of State about two things—as to one of which he hoped it might be in order, as it affected the future of the Territorial Forces and therefore of the County Associations. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he would soon issue the conditions of the new force. He himself knew of whole districts where the condition of the Volunteer Force was at a standstill. Neither commanding officers nor men knew what was going to be done. The men were thinking and reasoning, and said they would not be caught in a four-years enlistment when they did not know under what conditions they were to serve, and they would not come to drill. If the right hon. Gentleman would issue the conditions of the new force he was sure he would get a good force if the men only knew the conditions under which they were serving. Another thing which he desired to reiterate was that it was impossible to run the secretariat on the sum proposed to be allowed. Four or five years hence when everything had settled down they might not want so much. His own county of Dorset was one with poor communication, and with a small and scattered population, and the secretary would have a great deal of travelling to do. They might very likely find an office in the county building, but with the small sum of £154 it was not possible that they would be able to carry 1461 on the organisation. The very lowest they could pay a secretary was £150—it ought to be £200—and that left £4 for the office and travelling expenses. He quite admitted that £8,000 seemed to be enough to pay the expenses of forty or fifty County Associations for two months, but if it was going to be based on any such calculations as at present existed it was impossible to start or carry on the Associations as they ought to be carried on, and it was not giving the Territorial Army a fair chance of success. The right hon. Gentleman would not find the counties take up the scheme as they ought unless he was able to fulfil his promise not in any way to starve the Territorial Army.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)said he remembered no occasion in his experience of debates in Committee of Supply in which it was so difficult to say what was and what was not in order as in this debate. One or two subjects which he thought were certain to be mentioned had not been mentioned, and several had been mentioned which he would hardly have thought to be in order. The only practical rule one could follow was not the general and admirable principle laid down by the Chairman, because it did not give much help in this case, but to follow other speakers and deal with points which they had been allowed to deal with. He saw no other principle to follow, because it was very difficult to say, when they had the expenses of starting the County Associations in the Estimates, how far they might deal with them and their policy.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINIf the right hon. Gentleman will allow me, this Vote is supplementary to the Votes of the current year, and it is the only mode we have in the present year of discussing the expense of the County Associations. We have always been allowed to discuss an item which appears for the first time.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKEdid not wish to strain the privileges of the House in Committee of Supply. He thought it was safer to confine oneself within very reasonable limits on occasions of this 1462 sort, because it would be opening the floodgates if they discussed the whole of the finance which they had discussed last year in this supplemental Vote. It would be somewhat trying the patience of the Committee, and they would have opportunities when they could fully discuss the finance. There was one matter which had not been dealt with which he mentioned first, though without any desire to deal with it. He mentioned it because he thought people outside the House would be surprised at certain words having been used by the Secretary of State, and at the matter not having been followed up in debate. The right hon. Gentleman had told them that one reason why the Vote was necessary was because regiments would have to be disbanded. He understood what the right hon. Gentleman meant. He did not think he invited them to debate the failure to take advantage of the willing services of persons in all parts of the country, or that they could debate on this occasion the getting rid of particular companies or battalions which did not fit in with the divisions of the scheme. But there was so much feeling on the subject outside the House that if it were in order they ought to discuss it. He thought, however, that the Secretary of State had used the word "disbanded" in a different sense—that the whole Volunteer Force had been disbanded, and that a technical change had been made in the character of the force. They could not properly discuss on this Vote the getting rid by the War Office policy—not the policy of the Territorial Associations—of certain battalions and certain companies. Putting that matter aside, they had before them an anticipation of the Votes of next year, pure and simple. It charged on the Votes of the present year a sum which otherwise would come on the Votes next year. He was not a financial purist, he was not a member of the Public Accounts Committee, and he did not take the detailed interest in the matter that his hon. friend the Member for East Edinburgh did; but there was this to be borne in mind, that those who argued that this force would be infinitely more costly than the House of Commons believed or had been led to 1463 expect were in the position of having to point out that the Estimates of next year for this force were being relieved by this sum, and that an illusory reduction therefore on next year's Estimates was being made at the cost of the Estimates of the present year. As regarded the form in which it was done, the savings were also illusory. The War Office had always over-estimated on many items in order to have money in hand for certain purposes, and he imagined that on this occasion there was some doubt whether it would have been legal to deal with this sum by a mere virement by Treasury consent. Therefore, they came to Parliament for a Supplementary Estimate. But the fact that they always overestimated on purpose had been demonstrated over and over again, and the Public Accounts Committee had had it before them every year. For, he thought, seven years under successive Governments money was taken in the Estimates for keeping up a force of mixed artillery in Lancashire which was never but a third of what it was supposed to be on the Estimates, with no attempt to raise the cadres. That led to a regular saving every year, and was taken with the knowledge that it would be a saving when the Vote was passed. These savings were illusory. It was rather difficult to keep a serious face when they found year by year these additions of two sums, one on one side of the account and the other on the other, coming to exactly the same figure within 6d. or within the imaginary £100, which was the sixpence of financiers. The original author of that kind of finance was Mr. Micawber, who showed that a small sum on a large total made the whole difference between affluence and beggary. This was very imaginary finance. Not being a member of the Public Accounts Committee, he treated it as a mere anticipation of next year's Estimates. It was simply taking so much of next year's Estimates and paying it now. Personally he had no objection to that course, provided the House of Commons thoroughly understood what it was doing. It had been stated by several speakers that the Estimates laid before them last year were a great understatement as regarded cost, and that the force 1464 was likely to be exceedingly costly. The House would have to vote the money with a full sense of its responsibility, not only in the present but in the future, because the Secretary of State admitted that although he hoped to effect some small reductions on the Estimates of the coming financial year, there would be an increase year by year after the first small reduction. He did not propose to go over the whole ground to-night. He did not think it would be fair to do so. He merely uttered this warning note, that those of them who thought the figures of last year were under-stated had every reason to continue to think so, and believed that this was going to be an extremely costly force. In the last speech of the Secretary of State dealing with this question of finance, on Friday last, he said, "My friend, Mr. Buchanan, has provided us with the money." He wished it was their friend the Financial Secretary who had provided the money. He thought he would provide it with great care if left entirely to himself, and he would have great confidence in his judgment. But it was the House of Commons that had the responsibility of providing the money for which the Secretary of State asked. Last year the Financial Secretary in defending the Estimates told them that the Territorial Force in the future would be an improved force at a lesser cost, and that raised in a very sharp form the issue between them. Whatever illusory savings might be shown in the first year, when the system was in full work they were convinced, and they thought the country would come to know it, that the cost of the Territorial Force was not fully shown last year and would be a very great cost indeed, unless the force were starved to such an extent as not to exist at all except on paper. It had been said that the Secretary for War had led them to expect that the Territorial Force would be more costly than the corresponding force had been in the past. He had listened to every speech the right hon. Gentleman had made in the House of Commons, and he could not recall any occasion when that statement was made. The right hon. Gentleman's estimate was laid before them as the maximum estimate of the cost, and they were told that over and over again. The occasions when the 1465 Secretary for War told the House that there would be great reductions were extremely numerous, and he made that assertion in the clearest terms on three or four occasions. He appealed to his hon. friends sitting on the Ministerial side to state whether it was not their impression that there was to be a saving of money upon the Territorial Force. That statement was repeatedly made and the contrary statement was one they could not find and for which they were not prepared. He was, however, content to rest his case upon the words of the Financial Secretary to the War Office who stated that the Government would obtain a better force at a lower cost. In a speech made at Manchester the Secretary for War led them to expect that there would be a trifling reduction on the force the first year, and that afterwards there would be a slight increase. Those who disputed the finance of this question last year were ultimately met by the argument that there would be a larger saving upon the Regular Army than any possible increase in the cost of the Territorial Army including the Militia, and as regarded the future that argument was beginning to be used again. But he would not now discuss that matter as it brought them face to face with the whole system upon which the Army was based. In conclusion he said that those who had looked most carefully into this finance were still under the impression that the country had been misled as to the cost of the Territorial Army, which, he thought, would prove in the end to be far more costly than they anticipated.
§ MR. HALDANEsaid the speech of the right hon. Baronet was only the last of a series of speeches which he had made on this subject, in which he had attacked the plan which it had been his duty to place before Parliament. His consolation was that the attacks of the right hon. Gentleman were not confined to himself. No Secretary for War, or, indeed, no secretary for anything, had put forward plans which the right hon. Gentleman had not attacked. What they had been waiting for from him was something constructive, but they had waited in vain.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid he offered a suggestion in the last debate they had—a scheme of General Miles.
§ MR. HALDANEYes, the right hon. Gentleman had said he was in favour of a short-service army in addition to a long-service army—two armies. They knew what the expense of that was. As three-quarters of the right hon. Gentleman's speech was out of order, and only permitted by indulgence of the Chair, it was impossible for him to discuss the matter without having the Estimates for the year relating to this new force before Parliament. They would be before the House very shortly and that would be the time to deal with the question. All he asserted was that his task had been to produce a bettor army at a less cost, and when it was nearer completion he would leave it to the House to judge whether he had done so or not. In the meantime it was not, to say the least, fair to raise an issue which was wholly foreign to this debate, and for which there were no materials before the House to form a judgment. Assertion was not argument. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer raised the question as to whether they would not have done rightly in bringing this matter of the debts of Volunteers into the original Estimates last year. That was impossible for a very simple reason. In the discussions on this question it was not only an issue whether these debts should be paid, but when they should be paid. They were to be paid upon the disbandment of the corps under the old system and the creation of the now ones. But there was no certainty at the time when the Estimates were presented last year when that disbandment would take place. In the case of the Militia it was contemplated to treat them pari passu with the rest of the force, but it had to be postponed until after the next summer's training. A plea was also put in that the Volunteers and Yeomanry should be treated on the same footing, and therefore it was impossible to contemplate the present operations as falling within the present financial year. That was the conclusive reason why they could not possibly have taken the course suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire. Another point was raised by the Member for Derbyshire as to the allowances and expenses of the County Associations. What they had done they had based on an examination of a large number of cases. They might not be right, but 1467 their minds were not closed, and he would be very glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman of any particular difficulties caused by the allowances suggested in the case of his own county.
§ MR. VICTOR CAVENDISHsaid they sent up to ask how £1,845 was going to meet the expenditure of £2,984, and they had had no answer.
§ MR. HALDANEsaid the answer depended upon their examination of the headquarters accounts of the battalion. They had occasionally found some very curious expenses put into headquarters accounts. There had been a committee on the subject of contributions for prizes, which laid down limits which were very seriously considered in this case; it was the same with bands and the same with refreshments. Their minds, however, were not closed, and the matter was at this moment under consideration.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINHas the right hon. Gentleman any idea as to what he intends to allow Associations to pay a secretary? My right hon. friend was forbidden to spend more than 10 per cent. on certain things, including the salary of a secretary. That only works out at £180.
§ MR. HALDANEsaid they had not limited the Associations strictly under heads, but had given them freedom. They said 10 per cent. was a proper amount to spend on certain things, but added the warning that, if they did run short of money, taking all things together, the War Office would be bound to comment upon their proceedings. Some counties did not require to spend anything like as much as others, and, therefore, they had been left a large latitude to work out their own finance. All the War Office wished to do was to get this matter put on a proper footing, and he was quite certain the House of Commons would not grudge anything to make the Territorial Force a good and efficient one, both on the administrative and on the combatant side. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking of Section A, had rather reproached him for not taking the whole of the men on the Regular basis, but he was not sure that for transport work—for work to be done by waggoners, farriers, and so on—the less trained 1468 man was not a more handy man than the Regular soldier who had been trained from the military point of view. Anyhow, it was very much more economical to get a force as far as they possibly can—
THE CHAIRMANpointed out that the right hon. Gentleman was now going into a matter which was not raised by the Supplementary Estimate.
§ MR. HALDANEsaid he would pass to another matter. One comment which had been made was that the reduction in the matter of paying off the debts of the Volunteer Force was illusory, because it would appear in future Estimates. Obviously that was not the case. They were paying off the debts of the Volunteer Force once and for all; they would not appear in any future Estimates, and, therefore, if the reduction belonged to this year, and if it was right that it should be dealt with this year, there could be no hesitation about treating it in that fashion. He thought he had answered most of the points which had been put. If any other question should arise the Financial Secretary would deal with it.
§ COLONEL KENYON-SLANEY (Shropshire, Newport)said he would like to speak from the soldier's rather than the financier's point of view. He was very glad indeed that the Volunteer corps were to be handed over to the County Associations clear of debt, and if to attain that end it had been necessary to strain the practice with respect to Supplementary Estimates, he would not be inclined to blame the right hon. Gentleman. He understood the difficulties which the new County Associations would have to face, and it would be a great thing for them not to be burdened with the debts which at present rested on the Volunteer Force. From the Army point of view, he wished first of all to join issue with the right hon. Gentleman for having made the fatal mistake—it ran through all the Army policy—of thinking that any sort of man was as useful as a trained one.
§ COLONEL KENYON-SLANEYthough he was in order in following the course which had been hitherto followed in the debate. If he could not go into that matter, the right hon. Gentleman would be able to escape some of the criticisms which otherwise might have been offered. He hoped he would not be out of order in commenting on the expenditure of the secretariat, and the equipment of the County Associations. The right hon. Gentleman must by this time be aware of the very strong feeling throughout the County Associations in regard to the great difficulty which they had over the question as to how they were adequately to supply the salary of the secretary on whom the efficiency of organisation would depend. Pressure was being put on certain Associations not to take the best men available, but to take only soldiers who were drawing small pensions. He put it to the right hon. Gentleman that that could not make for efficiency. It was not fair to bring that pressure to bear. His duty to the Army was to say that this work must be done by absolutely efficient men. If the work was fairly and honourably worth such and such a salary, he should find that salary. He might base it on the number of corps to be maintained in a county, or on the number of thousands of men. He must have a basis for the calculation, and the remuneration for the work which the men had to perform must be reasonable. It might be, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that the intense stress of the work would be got over in the first four or five years, and it might be fair to say: "We will give so and so for the first four years, but we reserve the right to reduce it in future when there is less work to be done." He was encouraged to urge that point on the right hon. Gentleman by the words he himself had used. The right hon. Gentleman had said that he would see that there was a proper, just, and sufficient allowance. He thought the right hon. Gentleman would agree with him that it would be neither dignified nor right for the Department or the country to avail itself of the services of some poor officer whose pecuniary circumstances were such as to force him to take up the work on a salary which he knew to be inadequate. It was conceivable that the salary 1470 offered here and there might be £80 a year, and that a poor officer might be tempted to accept the appointment, knowing that he had no opportunity of earning anything in any other direction. Surely that was not the basis on which the salary should be paid. He pleaded with the right hon. Gentleman to establish a standard of the remuneration for the work which these men were to be asked to do. That was the only way in which the question could be adequately adjusted. To say that it was to be left to the counties and that these men were to get what was over when other expenses had been paid was not right. He did not ask extravagant salaries, but they should be adequate for the work to be done. If the right hon. Gentleman would do that, he would put an end to a great deal of trouble and difficulty in the County Associations. What was the use of saying that a County Association could get a secretary at 10 per cent. of the expenditure? It was impossible. Unless the right hon. Gentleman guided the County Associations in the direction of putting their forces in the hands of capable and experienced administrators whose interest it would be to keep the general expenditure down, he would find that he was pursuing an extravagant instead of an economical policy, and ha would seriously disappoint those who were trying to work with him. He was pretty confident that after two years experience the right hon. Gentleman would find that the total expenditure on the Army would be greater than it would have been if the administration of the County Associations had been entrusted to capable and properly paid men. He further asked the right hon. Gentleman to lay it down primarily that he would not allow the Territorial Army to be founded on any private subscription basis whatever. The right hon. Gentleman knew that in many cases corps could not be maintained unless such and such privileges were provided for out of private purses. If the Territorial Army was to be a reliable Force for all the purposes which the right hon. Gentleman hoped it would fulfil, he should practically refuse to accept private money for any of the purposes which ought to be provided for out of public funds. These were points which were already 1471 beginning to corrupt the administration of the Territorial Army. [Cries of dissent.] The right hon. Gentleman would pardon him for saying so. The new Army should be clear of all suspicion of being paid for out of private pockets. He could assure "the right hon. Gentleman that there was that danger, and it would be better to calculate on a fair basis the amount which the Treasury should pay, and that all private subscriptions should cease. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see that those mistakes were nipped in good time to prevent mischief being done.
§ MR. HAROLD COX (Preston)said that this form of finance was utterly indefensible, and he moved the reduction of the vote by £50. Nearly four years ago the whole of the hon. Members representing the Liberal Parly protested strongly by their votes and in almost every speech they made in the House against this kind of finance. He admitted that on that occasion the crime was a more serious one. [OPPOSITION cries of "No."] That represented the difference between the two Parties. They were then dealing with millions, now they were dealing with only a few hundreds of thousands. They were now asked to vote £100, but they were really voting £385,000 for the right hon. Gentleman's Territorial Army. His hon. friend the Member for East Edinburgh attempted to defend the vote by the use of a French word, meaning that it was not quite so bad as it appeared, but he did not think it prudent to disguise a vice by the use of a foreign term. In effect the transaction was a misapplication of public funds in order to relieve future estimates of the charge which ought to lie upon them. He agreed with the right hon. Member for East Worcestershire that money which had been obtained by economies on other Votes and ought to have been used towards paying off the National Debt was being intercepted to pay off a purely Army debt. The effect would be that the Army would appear to cost less in future years than it did actually cost, and that the public would not see it. The appropriation of economies should, in the course 1472 of strict finance, have gone to pay off the National debt. Next year the right hon. Gentleman could have done either of two things. First, he could have asked for a capital sum to pay off these Volunteer debts; or secondly, he could have fallen back on the example of the late Government and raised a national fund by loan and then charged the Estimates with the sinking fund. Either method would have been sound finance; but the right hon. Gentleman had done neither—he had paid off an Army debt, and the result would be that the Army Estimates would apparently be reduced. He went further. The right hon. Gentleman must have known that these Volunteer debts were in existence, and why did he not tell the House that the cost of the Territorial Army would be, because of them, so much more? Hon. Members opposite said that the new Territorial Army was going to cost more and more. Hon. Members on that side of the House not long ago were breathing fire and brimstone against the Government for increasing the Army expenditure, but he saw none of those Gentlemen present when there was before the Committee a definite question of preventing the Secretary for War misapplying money which ought to go to pay off debt in order to use it for purely Army purposes. He wished to point out in passing that the purpose for which the right ton. Gentleman was asking this money was to pay, not for a fighting force, but for a non-fighting force, because as long as the Navy kept the sea none of the members of that force would be used for fighting. He was one of those Members pledged to public economy in all departments of government; but he had not yet had the satisfaction of seeing that economy realised. Whilst it was important that economy should be carried out throughout all the branches of the public service, it was still more important to prevent extravagance being imposed upon the Committee by what was virtually a misapplication of funds. He begged to move.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £50, be granted for the said Service."—(Mr. Harold Cox.)
1473§ SIR F. BANBURY (City of London)said that the hon. Member for East Edinburgh had endeavoured to defend the Secretary for War, but he unintentionally let the cat out of the bag when he admitted that this was practically voting something which ought to be made a charge upon next year's Estimates. One of the principal charges brought against the late Government was that they had failed to reduce the expenditure and the public Debt. When the Party opposite came into office they declared that they were going to reduce the Debt, and that they would not meet what ought to be current expenditure out of capital account. The action of the Secretary for War violated both those promises. The right hon. Gentleman was going to take money which ought to go to the reduction of the National Debt to pay off charges which ought to be voted as annual expenditure. The right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean did not allude to the way the money was to be found; he was not a financial purist; but there were many Members on that side of the House who did not go so far as the right hon. Gentleman when he accused the late Government of swelling the expenditure, but who still thought that the National Debt ought to be reduced. Therefore it was with great sorrow they saw the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War persisting in the error he began last year. It was quite true that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had laid down two very excellent maxims—that no Supplementary Estimate was right, and that money devoted to the Old Sinking Fund should not be diverted from that purpose. But then the right hon. Gentleman proceeded to say that this was an exceptional case, and that the money was going to pay off a debt due by the Volunteers. But this was a debt, he insisted, which ought to be paid off by the ordinary Estimates of the year. He was glad to see the right hon. the Member for Wolverhampton in his place. His speeches were always excellent, and any little knowledge he had of the rules of finance had been acquired from reading the speeches of the right hon. Member. On 22nd February, 1904, when dealing with 1474 Supplementary Estimates which arose out of the War, the right hon. Gentleman made a speech in which he said—
The great value of the debate was, however, the eliciting from all parts of the House objections to the unsatisfactory state of those Supplementary Estimates. There were two Leaders in this House who did a great deal to destroy that practice. They were Mr. W. H. Smith and Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone set his face like flint against it, and in his Cabinet too.Had the right hon. Gentleman set his face like flint against this Supplementary Estimate?—And no such remarks could have then been made as were made by the penultimate Chancellor of the Exchequer last year with reference to the support in the Cabinet of the Prime Minister. Mr. Gladstone looked on a Supplementary Estimate as almost a crime on the part of the Department which presented it, and it was no easy task to get over his objections.And then the right hon. Gentleman went on to say—They were all agreed that the Cabinet should put down its foot with regard to these Estimates.He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be able to tell the Committee that he had carried out his excellent intention, because they all knew that he had the courage of his opinions. They also knew that there were rumours of dissensions in the Cabinet which arose from his setting his face like flint against Supplementary Estimates which did not arise from circumstances which could not have been foreseen. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh seemed lost in admiration of the policy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in regard to ear-marking, but the hon. Member knew perfectly well that the Treasury would never sanction the transfer from one sub-head to another, unless there was the other sub-head to transfer it to. There was not this special sub-head last year, and therefore, when the breast of the hon. Gentleman was filled with admiration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for his statement as to ear-marking, he must have known that he could not ear-mark the money.
§ MR. McCRAEsaid the last Government transferred an item of £10,000,000 from a sub-head to another sub-head which did not exist.
§ SIR F. BANBURYreplied that the late Government might have done all sorts of things but that had nothing to do with the question, as two wrongs did not make a right, and his point was that the right hon. Gentleman could not have obtained the sanction of the Treasury, because the sub-head did not exist. But did the hon. Gentleman tell him that the late Government transferred an item of £10,000,000 from one sub-head to another which did not exist? If the hon. Gentleman told him that, he would admit that he was wrong. If not he should contend that he was right.
§ MR. McCRAEreplied in the affirmative, and said that not only did the late Government do so but they did so without the consent of the House of Commons.
§ SIR F. BANBURYinquired if the hon. Gentleman would give him the instance he referred to.
§ MR. McCRAEsaid it occurred while the war was going on. The late Secretary of State for War, with the consent of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, spent £10,000,000 of money allocated to a particular purpose on a purpose for which it was not voted and which did not exist when it was voted, and by doing that avoided the necessity of calling Parliament back for an Autumn session.
§ SIR F. BANBURYsaid the hon. Gentleman had not met his point, because the item to which the £10,000,000 was transferred was in the Estimates.
§ MR. McCRAEsaid the item to which the £10,000,000 was transferred was the carrying on of the war, but the item for which the money was voted was for a different purpose altogether.
§ SIR F. BANBURYinsisted that the hon. Gentleman had not answered his objection. They knew perfectly well that the Treasury did allow and it had been customary for Parliament to allow money saved on one item to be spent on another, with the consent of the Treasury. His point was that in this particular case the second item did not exist; it was not 1476 in the Estimates: whereas in the case to which the hon. Gentleman alluded, both items were in the Estimates and nothing irregular was done. He had endeavoured to show that the right hon. Gentleman had not taken to heart the lesson which they tried to give him last Session, but was again breaking all the traditions of sound finance and all the traditions upon which his Party were returned to power at the last election. He could quite see why this particular course was pursued. It was much easier to have a Supplementary Vote which would not be noticed in the country, than to increase the Estimates next year and have attention called to the matter. But whatever the reason for it might be, he did not think it was sound finance, and he should vote for the Amendment of his hon. friend the Member for Preston, who had the courage of his convictions and was consistent in what he said.
§ MR. COURTENAY WARNER (Staffordshire, Lichfield)said the hon. Gentleman after swallowing a great many camels which were the property of his own Government was now distressed at swallowing this fly. He must say, however, that the arguments used lent a good deal of colour to the objection to pay money in this way, but he thought he could give reasons why it should be done. They all understood that Supplementary Estimates were bad things, and he quite agreed with what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said about them, and with his view of finance. There was one thing in favour of the explanation of the Secretary of State for War. As the right hon. Gentleman had said, he did not know whether this item was coming this year or next year because he did not know when the termination of the Volunteer corps would take place. It was impossible to say that the Volunteers would come to an end this year, and that this expense would be thrown on the Territorial Army. That was the reason why this expenditure was not put in last year's Estimates, and there was a reason why it should not go into next years. The right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean had said it ought to have been in next year's Estimates, and no doubt, in the ordinary course of things, 1477 if the Volunteers had not been done away with, it would have been in next year's Estimates. But the Volunteers had always been in the habit of getting into debt and then paying what they owed out of their grants in the next year. Under the new scheme they were doing away with the Volunteer system and they should pay ready money, in the same way as in the Army ready money was always paid. Most of this money, however, was for clothing, ammunition, and so on, and it had nothing to do with the mortgages on drill halls which several hon. Gentlemen had spoken of. It was the ordinary course of expenditure for which the Volunteers colonels or associations or whoever looked after the finances of the corps got into debt and paid when they got the grant. Now that that system was being brought to an end and the Volunteers were being wiped out, in order to clear off this debt it had been put in as a Supplementary Estimate this year. He thought it was a debt that ought to be cleared off this year, and that it was rather a good thing to see the end of the Volunteers. Of course, it might be said that to a certain extent it relieved next year's Estimates. So it did, but surely if we ought to pay a thing this year it was sound finance that we should pay it even if it did give the Secretary of State for War an advantage in next year's Estimates. He hoped, however, that the National Debt Commissioners would profit by that advantage and that they might be able to reduce more debt next year. But the great point was that this was not an Army debt. It was a private debt of the Volunteers, which in carrying out the new scheme the Secretary of State for War had to take over.
§ MR. HAROLD COXIt was to be an Army debt.
§ MR. COURTENAY WARNERsaid it was made an Army debt under the new scheme and it had to be taken over. It was stated over and over again that these debts were to be taken over, and it was an understood thing when the scheme was passed that they should be. He considered, therefore, that they should be paid at once, instead of leaving 1478 them as private debts to be paid next year, even though that gave his right hon. friend a slight disadvantage. He hoped the whole scheme would result in economy. He differed from the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean in thinking that there was any specific pledge that this particular part of the new scheme would by itself be an economy. What he understood was that the whole scheme was to be an economy, and he hoped that that would be the case not only this but in future years. The hon. Gentleman for Preston had moved a reduction, but he would point out that this was a token Vote and to vote on the Amendment would have the same effect as dividing on the Vote. He therefore thought this proposal of a nominal reduction was absolutely unnecessary, unless the hon. Member wished to amplify the division list and vote twice over. If, however, the matter was pressed to a division, he hoped the Amendment would be rejected. As to the item of £8,000 which had been spent he quite agreed with the Secretary of State for War, that there ought to be strict supervision of these County Associations, but he also agreed with the right hon. Gentleman who said that the man who was employed as secretary ought to get sufficient pay. There had been extravagance in managing Volunteer corps in some cases, and he thought the Secretary of State for War was quite right in giving County Associations full power over the money as he had done and giving a lump sum instead of saying: "This man is to be paid so much and that man so much." Might he point out one thing that nobody seemed aware of? It was that these secretaries of County Associations would not necessarily be old soldiers. Everybody talked as if the secretaries would be all ex-officers; but this was not soldiers' work; it was more accountants work, and therefore that supposition was inaccurate. He had, however, every good wish for old soldiers and old officers who had served their time in the Army, and hoped that many of them would take these positions. He was glad to see soldiers in touch with the civil work, but he thought it ought to be known that this was civil work and would not necessarily be carried out by old soldiers. 1479 He said this because he knew many officers were looking out for these appointments with the idea that they were something of the same nature as the old adjutants' position in days gone by.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid he wished to ask the Secretary of State for War a question. They had been discussing this Supplementary Vote for some time, but there seemed to be a good deal of doubt as to what it covered. He understood it to be for charges which had recurred in every year's Estimates as long as the Volunteers had existed, for clothing, ammunition, and things of that kind; but the hon. Member for East Edinburgh undertook to correct him and he said was mistaken in that point of view, and that this was in fact for debts on property other than moneys advanced by the Public Works Loans Commissioners. He did not know whether he had made his point clear to the Secretary of State, but he wished to know which of those two ideas was correct. If it was as the hon. Member who last spoke and as he understood it, it would be what had been a recurring charge while the Volunteers continued and would be in fact a recurring charge still though perhaps under a slightly different name, the charge being not for the Volunteers but for the Territorial Army. He wished to know whether in regard to these items for clothing, ammunition and so forth, by the transition of the Territorial Army the right hon. Gentleman put a double charge on this year and left that of the coming year normal.
§ MR. HALDANEsaid the situation was this. There were now, he believed, 217 battalions. In the new Territorial Army there would be considerably fewer battalions, which would be strengthened. The County Associations would receive the money, which would not be appropriated to each battalion or ear-marked in any way, but would be used for the force as a whole. Just now there were, as he had said, 217 battalions the colonels of which had incurred liabilities for what might be, shortly, called tailors' bills and overdrafts. In a sense the Government were paying double this 1480 year, but the reason for that was that it was impossible to get rid of a colonel without liquidating his liabilities. His hon. friend the Member for Edinburgh he thought had the same thing in mind. He had dwelt upon another aspect of the same trouble. But what the right hon. Gentleman had said was strictly true. The Government were in a strict sense paying double this year.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid as he understood there would be the normal charge next year. The Volunteers had hitherto borrowed through the year and had received their payments at the end of the year. The new County Associations were to be kept on a cash basis and the Government would pay out the money to them in the course of the year.
§ MR. HALDANEagreed that that was so. Next year the Government would supply the cash and the Volunteers would pay cash for what they wanted. Next year there would be a single charge.
§ COLONEL SEELY (Liverpool, Abercromby)said he supposed the defence of this Vote, which had not yet been raised, was really a good one, namely, that the people who had paid off nearly £20,000,000 of the National Debt in two years had a better title to divert £380,000 from its proper destination than those who had added £150,000,000 to the National Debt. He, like many others, had devoted most of the recess to these County Associations and their work, and he joined with all those who had advised his right hon. friend to instruct his Department not to dictate to the County Associations, not only with regard to what they were to do with their funds, but as to what their duties were. All who had listened to his right hon. friend knew that he desired to give the fullest responsibility to the County Associations. If it was desired that the work should be properly done full responsibility must be given. The failure of the parish councils was due to the absence of responsibility in them, and if these County Associations were in any way checked in the duties they were desired to perform under the Act 1481 it was quite certain that the enthusiasm which bid fair to make the new Territorial Force a success would die away as quickly as that which animated the people with regard to parish councils. The whole business would then fall back into the control of the War Office and it would be a failure. He wished to impress on his right hon. friend the desirability of impressing his own view upon the War Office. He could assure his right hon. friend as one who had had some connection with the County Association work, so far as it had gone, that it was necessary to get his Department to understand that the power was very largely transferred from the War Office to the County Associations. He also joined with those who thought it unwise to pay the secretary too little, especially if that was to be done by getting an old soldier to give his services practically for nothing. That was a very bad principle in all Departments of the State, and in another walk of life would be called sweating. Nobody could expect a good man to be obtained at less than from £400 to £600 a year, and it would be a great mistake to pin them down to £180. He was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Derbyshire say that what his district would recommend would be £1,800 for what they had hitherto spent £2,900 upon. He thought there must have been some mistake in the figures which the right hon. Gentleman had given to the House. But if it were the case then he did not see how the new force under the name of the Territorial Army could be expected to go on, because to suppose the pay and expenditure of a branch of the force could be reduced by 70 per cent. seemed an impossibility. He would warn the Secretary of State that if it was proposed to make the force efficient by any such reduction he could not hope to make the Territorial Force a success. His right hon. friend should warn his subordinates not to put the Volunteer Force in too narrow a bed. The disbandment of corps could not be discussed conveniently now, but he would counsel his right hon. friend to go slowly and walk warily, not only with regard to disbandment, but also with regard to re-arrangement. They should encourage all if they compelled none. He could not on this occasion support his hon. friend 1482 in the financial proposal he had put before the House.
§ MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY (St. Andrews Burghs)wished to endorse what had been said with regard to the County Associations. Little short of a panic had spread amongst those men who thought they were going to get a billet which they believed they could work well, when they found that they were not to be adequately paid for their services. It was impossible to get good men without paying good money. If the Government had given out that they were going to pay £300 a year he believed they would get good men. There was no doubt that an office and a clerk ought to be supplied to the secretary, and that they ought to be adequately paid. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see to that. In his own county they were all very keen to make the Territorial Army scheme work. Everybody had done his best and was keen to go on, but men were complaining that they did not know how many drills they would have to attend, how many rounds they would have to fire, or how long they would have to be in camp. They were in a state of uncertainty, and the sooner that uncertainty was removed the better. It was now within six weeks of the time when the new Territorial Army would be launched upon its career, and these doubts should be dispelled without delay.
§ MR. MORTON (Sutherland)said he did not consider this a good opportunity to discuss the whole expenditure of the new Territorial Army, but he certainly considered that it was an occasion that should be taken advantage of to discuss the pledges which hon. Members had given with regard to the question of economy. Economy could certainly not be obtained if the Government proceeded to get money in an irregular and, as he thought, an illegal manner. The main question which ought to be discussed was the means by which this money was to be obtained. In the first place, it was put down as being a Vote for £100, which was incorrect. Whether it was intended or not, such a procedure deceived the taxpayers, because it would 1483 go forth from this House that only £100 had been voted, when in fact £358,000 would have been voted for this purpose. So far as he could understand it this was a much worse case than that which occurred twelve months ago. When nearly half a million was taken a year ago it was at least taken to pay off debt, and the properties came into the possession of the War Office, no doubt a valuable security. Therefore, there was something to be said in favour of that. But there could be no advantage in obtaining a Vote in this way except that of deceiving the taxpayer to some extent in regard to what the Territorial Army cost. It was wrong, and in this case there was not the slightest reason for going out of the ordinary course. As he understood, this surplus had been appropriated and solemnly set apart by Parliament for payment of the National Debt, and they were legally bound to pay this money away for the purpose of reducing the Debt whenever they had any surplus on the Votes. It was very easy, of course, to spend money in this way and might become dangerous. He did not think the hon. Member for East Edinburgh properly appreciated the irregularity of the way in which the money was being taken. He had some recollection of what was taken by the War Department when he was on the Public Accounts Committee. He discovered on one occasion that out of a surplus on one Vote about £400 was taken to pay for a dinner given by a Minister as a dinner given by himself. He was invited, but fortunately he did not go. He remembered another occasion when money was taken from one surplus and went to decorating and repairing a house belonging to one of the departments. Money could, of course, be used for the Army and Navy, with the consent of the Treasury, on other Votes than that which it was voted for. The Government, however, could not have used this money without coming to the House, as it was for a different item altogether. He was sorry that a Liberal Government should have done this, for undoubtedly there was not the slightest occasion to do it at all. It might have come on on the regular Estimates. It was a little curious to 1484 find the Tory Party objecting to this, but it showed what they might do when in opposition and apparently in their right mind. He had no doubt it would appear to some people irresistibly suggestive of the pot calling the kettle black, or Satan rebuking sin, but he was glad to think they were willing to do something in this direction even if it was only when they were in opposition, because if they could only get the principle main-tuned that money was not to be taken in this irregular manner, both Parties by and by would have to abide by it. Let the House imagine what might happen when the Tories come in power, if they ever did. They would say that the Liberals set them the example of taking money which ought to go to the payment of the National Debt and applying it to other purposes, and they, the Tory Party could do the same. They were in another difficulty. It was the House of Commons alone which had the voting of this money. They had no House of Lords to help them in this case or in any way to criticise the Vote, because a mere majority of the House could vote away the money without any other authority having the right to interfere. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had admitted that it was wrong, but seemed to think that there were exceptions sometimes. No body had attempted even to make this an exception or a case of emergency in any way. He did not know whether it was much use voting for the reduction, because a reduction of £50 on an expenditure of £358,000 seemed somewhat ridiculous This money ought to have gone for the payment of debt, and the Government could have asked for what they wanted without laying themselves open to the charge of using the money for one purpose when it had been legally set on one side for another. He did not charge the Government with corruption or even improper expenditure, but he did charge them with a grave error of judgment.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR (City of London)I think our position has been rather a difficult one in this debate. It is very difficult to know how far we may, with propriety, trespass beyond the somewhat 1485 narrow limits of this year's finance. But it seems to me, having listened very carefully to all that has been said, that the points really are narrowed down to two. First, is the Government justified or not in asking for a Supplementary Estimate, or ought they not on the other hand to have allowed the money voted, but not spent, to go to the Old Sinking Fund and asked us for a Vote in the next year for these same services. The second point is the way the Government are actually financing during this year the new Associations which they called into being. I understand it would not be desirable to discuss the general future cost of these Associations or the comparative economy of the Territorial Army in relation to the old Volunteer Forces. Upon the first of these points I do not myself take a very strong view, but I think if we take, not the original speech of the right hon. Gentleman, but his last speech, we have a better case than perhaps some of the speakers in the debate appear to have thought. I confess that when I heard the beginning of the debate, I supposed it was to clear off debt of a permanent kind, which once cleared off would never recur, and I thought the right hon. Gentleman used words which could only bear that interpretation. But as the debate proceeded it appeared that at all events there was a difference of opinion about the point, and that in all probability what the Government are really doing is not dealing with the permanent debts of the corps at all. Not only are they not touching debts secured upon real property, but they are not dealing with the permanent liabilities of the Volunteer Force at all. All they are doing is to put on a cash basis transactions which have hitherto been carried on on a credit basis. I think that is not an unreasonable proceeding, but I do not see that the Government have carried it out consistently. That brings me to the second subject, namely, the manner in which they are treating the new Associations and the financial obligations which the new Associations evidently have incurred and must incur. If the Government's view is that all proceedings connected with the Territorial Army are henceforth to be on a cash basis and not, like the transactions of the old 1486 Volunteer Force, on a credit basis, they ought surely to see that all the cost the Associations have incurred during this financial year shall be paid out of Government grants in this financial year. Otherwise we are relapsing from a cash into the credit basis which this very Vote condemns. There is only £8,000 put down as far as I can see for expenses of the County Associations in the financial year ending 31st March next, but surely the right hon. Gentleman cannot seriously suppose that no more than £8,000 is going to be engaged to be spent. The thing seems to me quite incredible, and though it would be very inconvenient to discuss the Government's financial proposals in regard to these new Associations, surely it must be evident from the whole course of this debate that £8,000 is a mere fractional contribution to the expenses already incurred in by the County Associations. We know indeed that they have not been able to get on with their work in many cases because they have not been able to get a secretary, because the Government will not allow them to spend the necessary money, and therefore, in one sense there has been a delay in carrying out the operations due to friction between them and the controlling powers at the War Office. But, after all, the fact that the County Associations have not got on so fast with their work as they would have done is not a matter on which we ought to express satisfaction, and it is only by the fact that they have not been allowed to get on with their work that this sum of £8,000 can appear with any decency on the Estimates as representing the cost incurred during the last few months of the current financial year. I do not feel as strongly as some of my hon. friends the impropriety of which the Government have been guilty in trying to put the Territorial Army upon a cash basis. What I complain of is that they have not done so consistently and thoroughly. While they are really carrying out their policy of paying off the existing debts of the bodies which are about to be abolished, they are permitting the new bodies to fall into the old and vicious system of entering into pecuniary obligations upon their personal or corporate credit in some 1487 unexplained fashion, and not supplying those funds which are absolutely necessary if their duties within the financial year are to be carried out. I think the right hon. Gentleman is perfectly justified in refusing to attempt any broad survey of the financial results of his Army reorganisation. He is right to delay that till he brings forward the Army Estimates for next year, and I am not going to press him to anticipate the statement he will then make. But I think when we are discussing the manner in which you are to treat the Volunteer or Territorial Army, when we are discussing a question intimately connected with the policy of having it on a cash and not a credit basis, the Government are bound to show us that they are not perpetuating in regard to the new force all the faults into which they admit the House and the country have in the past fallen when dealing with the Volunteer Force, and owing to which alone these debts have had to be incurred by successive colonels of Volunteer regiments. I do not propose to criticise very severely the difference between paying off this money in the present year and putting it on the Estimates for next year. I have not the stern conscience and the unbending virtue of my right hon. friend near me, though I am bound to say he only expressed the unbroken tradition of that Committee over which he so admirably presides. But I do think that, behind all the technical questions of Treasury views and views of the Public Accounts Committee, there he larger questions of policy on which I should have liked to have a much fuller statement than the right hon. Gentleman has yet found it convenient to give.
§ MR. CARLILE (Herefordshire, St. Albans)said he had tried to gather from the right hon. Gentleman's remarks what the total was in this Vote which had any connection with uniforms and other matters. He thought the proposals to allow County Associations to expend 10 per cent. of the total cost of administration in their area upon the remuneration of the Secretary was not an efficient proposal at all. Some areas might be very small and then of course the cost would be proportionately small; 1488 but on the other hand there were areas which might be very large and in which the means of communication were very difficult, and although the total cost in that area might not be very large, the work of administering it might be very serious indeed. The proposal that 10 per cent. should be used for the remuneration of the secretary rested upon an unsound basis. What they wanted to occupy the position of secretaries was a good supply of young men who possessed great capacity and organising skill. This would be essential because they would require from them a large amount of intelligent work. If the amount placed at the disposal of the County Associations was limited in the way suggested, they would be obliged to accept not even first or second rate men, but the best man they could get for the small remuneration placed at their disposal. Reference had also been made to the position which in the future private subscriptions were to occupy. They would all realise that if the Territorial Force was to be made efficient either ample funds must be placed at its disposal or private subscriptions would have to be once more encouraged. It was extremely desirable that the new Territorial Force should not depend in any degree upon voluntary subscriptions. They desired the County Associations to devote themselves closely to their work, and they could not do that if every man felt he would have to pay considerable sums out of his own pocket towards the cost. Reference had been made to the expenses of commanding officers. Many hon. Members had been commanding officers for many years, and they knew that often to ensure a battalion being continued when their command ceased, they had had to put their hands largely into their own pockets in order that their successors might be able to take over the command. He was sure the Secretary of State for War desired that the Territorial Force should be self-supporting or at any rate should be supported entirely by the funds granted under the Act and not from private donations. If the secretaries were to be efficiently paid it was quite clear the right hon. Gentleman must modify his proposal to limit the amount to 10 per cent. or the County Associations would 1489 have to subscribe as individuals to make good what was lacking on the part of the War Office. That seemed to him to be a very undesirable limit, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would deal with the subject in no cheese-paring way, but place sufficient funds at the disposal of the County Associations for this purpose. It was not merely a question of maintaining outside organisations, because County Associations had to provide ranges, and transport for mobilisation and to incur all sorts of expenses which did not obtain in the past. Even now, as the right hon. Member for Derbyshire had pointed out, the County of Derbyshire received far less under the new scheme than it had received hitherto, and if that was so, it was manifest that the Derbyshire force could not undertake new work such as providing and registering transport on mobilisation. If the income under this scheme in any case was less than had hitherto been considered necessary to maintain the force with less detail and less organisation then it was essential that the right hon. Gentleman should give the County Associations more latitude, especially in regard to the remuneration of the organising man who would have to devote his life, energy, and intellect to this work. The secretaries ought to be placed upon such a footing that they would not feel they were being paid in a miserly and cheese-paring manner for the great services which would be required of them.
§ Question put, and negatived.
§ Original Question put, and agreed to.