HC Deb 09 June 1910 vol 17 cc923-33

Resolution reported,

6. "That a sum, not exceeding £372,500, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expenses of the Royal Naval Reserve, the Royal Fleet Reserve (including Seamen Pensioner Reserve), and the Royal Naval Volunteers, etc., which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1911."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

Sir CHARLES DILKE

I wish to ask a question with regard to the short-service men and the Reserve. In the last discussion the right hon. Gentleman gave us some facts, which were supplemented by an answer to a question. From that information we know that the average length of service in the Navy is over ten years. At the time the information was given it was nine years eight months. But that excluded the Coastguards and Marines, which are both long-service branches; so that if you exclude warrant officers, Coastguards, and Marines, you reduce the average very greatly. The average length of service is extraordinarily greater than in any other fleet in the world. The so-called short-service men in our Fleet have a length of service which is nearly double that of 75 per cent. of the men in the German fleet. Three-fourths of the men in the German fleet are three years' men, landsmen, and conscripts. They go into the fleet reserve at the end of their three years, and are the men upon whom Germany would rely in time of war. That is a very remarkable fact. I am a great admirer and supporter of the Navy; therefore I am speaking not from any hostile point of view, but merely from the point of view of a scientific inquirer into facts. Here is a striking fact. Even the remarkable seamen of the French fleet, whose great traditions the Noble Lord (Lord Charles Beresford) will thoroughly appreciate, cannot be put higher than the men in the German fleet.

5.0 P.M.

The German fleet is not composed of such long-service men as the French. Well, we made a small experiment after a great deal of private inquiry, after an enormous amount of evidence was taken, after two reports were issued, and after a very searching examination showing that there was no danger. We made, I say, an experiment in what we call short service, but, like our military short service, our naval short service is what people in other countries call long service. It is five years' service at least. The Fleet Reserve that we are dealing with now is built up with these men.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

No.

Sir CHARLES DILKE

The increase is made up of five years' men.

Mr. McKENNA

Not all.

Sir CHARLES DILKE

Well, that is one question I want to ask, because we do not know exactly the proportion in which it is so built up. This scheme was recommended, I think, by the Grey Committee after a very long inquiry. The scheme recommended was a short five years' service for the creation of a Fleet Reserve. The old Reserve, which is also on this Vote, was explained to us in this House by Mr. Goschen when he was First Lord. Mr. Goschen refused to alter it by creating a new Fleet Reserve; but changed his opinion in the time of his successor. But this new creation, this Fleet Reserve, this five years' service men—probably with occasional renewals of service which will make the men become long-service men—this experiment of 500 men for five years with a view to increasing that number of blue-jackets entered, has been successful we are told, yet the number entered has decreased, and only 300 are entered now. I do not blame the Government in the least for that decrease, because there is not a shortage of men, and there is a sufficient provision in the present reserve for manning the Fleet for war. There is no probability, in my opinion, of any strain upon the number of our men. Still there is the fact that some people, a great many people, who have looked very carefully into the matter, believe that there will be a great strain upon the men in war time. If this view be correct, then, of course, the argument becomes very strong for not decreasing the number of men taken for five years. I have little fear myself, but I should like to ask a second very brief question as to whether the long service of our Fleet is not a little high, apart from the desire to try the short-service experiment? In time of war our sailors would be of an older average age than the French. That their age will be greater than the German Navy I think there can be no doubt. With regard to the American Navy I speak with a great deal of doubt, because the ships of that Navy are so different one from another. They seem to have quite different crews. I should like to ask the First Lord whether he does not feel that there will be a little danger, looking to the fact that you will have to go through a war with the same personnel as at the commencement. Of course other men will come in to fill up the gaps, but in the important positions in the Fleet is the average age not higher than any other Fleets? Is there not a little danger that you may in the time of war have too many older and experienced men in the ships, too large a proportion of these men—excellent and admirable men—and not sufficient younger men?

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

The right hon. Baronet has raised a very important point. The ships' companies in the German Fleet are magnificent men, but they are picked men.

Sir CHARLES DILKE

It is a moot point whether they are picked men. There is a country not very far from here where the men are not picked for service, but they look as if they had been picked.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

I can assure the right hon. Baronet that the German men are picked. They are not only picked for their physique, but for their education. As to the short service men who were put into the Navy as an experiment, I asked the right hon. Gentleman yesterday whether he would tell us something about them. Personally I do not like them at all. I do not think anybody in the British Service, either officer or man, likes them. I asked the right hon. Gentleman if he could tell us what the report on these men was. He declined, because he said it was confidential. If the report was a good one, I do not think the right hon. Gentleman would object at all to tell us. There must be something in that report. Why should not the House and the country know what is in that report? I say these men are not good. Will the right hon. Gentleman allow the report on these men to be laid on the Table of the House? They are not the class of men we want to join the old service men under the old system in the Fleet. The right hon. Gentleman should tell the House whether that report was in their favour or not. I did not have a single report that they were good during the time I commanded the Fleet. I certainly did speak to one captain, and he told me that he did not think much of these short service men. He sent in a good report, and when I taxed him with it, he replied that he knew better than to send in a report against these men. But I know what he said to me. The right hon. Gentleman smiles, but he was not standing on the quarterdeck listening to that captain. I should not tell that to the House if it were not true. That is what happened in those days. I do not say it happens now. Short service men are not the men we want to join; they are not satisfactory for discipline in the ships. Most of the offences against discipline in the ships are to be found amongst these men, and therefore, neither officers nor men like them. They are not the men I should take out if I had to fight an action; I would rather land them. With regard to the second point mentioned by the right hon. Baronet, will the right hon. Gentleman tell us why he has decreased the number of the men? Will he kindly tell the House whether the Board of Admiralty approve of these short service men as a whole? The right hon. Baronet is perfectly justified in saying that the men who commence a war will be required to go through with it, and that the reserve will fill in the gaps, but we want a larger number of men for a variety of duties. The First Lord of the Admiralty has put it in his Estimate that he was going to join 3,000 men this year. He knows that at the end of the financial year he will have 5,300 or more. At present we are 19,000 men short for present and future requirements. The danger of running short of men is greater than in running short of ships, because it takes six years to make a first-class man in any of the fighting departments of the ships, or even in the engineering department. In view of the false economies we have had we shall have to join 5,300 this year, probably the same number next year, and probably the same number the year after. That proves we were short of men. I shall be very glad if the First Lord of the Admiralty can give a definite answer about the short service men, because I hold that this House and the country should know exactly what value they are considered to be in the Fleet that we are to rely upon in time of war?

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE

I do not think that the First Lord will disagree with me when I say that the nurses trained in the Navy are the best trained nurses in the world—

Mr. McKENNA

That is the Medical Vote.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE

I think I am in order. I am dealing with the question of Naval Reserve, but before I come to my point I should like to make a preliminary remark with regard to the nursing. I should like to take advantage of this opportunity to ask the First Lord whether he does not think that the time has arrived that a reserve of the Royal Naval sick berth staff should be formed at each port, on the same principle as those of the other naval ratings. I venture to think it would be an advantage to the sick-nursing staff. They serve a very long apprenticeship—something like twenty-two years, I think. That is sufficient training, I think, and if it were not considered sufficient their training year by year, after having left the Navy and entered into the Reserve, which, I suggest, should be started at each port would meet the case. This body would prove a very useful nucleus for the Navy.

Mr. McKENNA

Various questions have been asked by by my right hon. Friend the Member for the Forest of Dean (Sir C. Dilke) and the Noble Lord the Member for Portsmouth (Lord C. Beresford) of the very greatest interest upon the topic of our short service men. My right hon. Friend put to me the question whether the period of service was not too long. The average, he reminded the House, is now just under ten years—nine years and eight months. I agree with my right hon. Friend that the average length of service ought not to be longer for the ordinary able seamen than what it is. In the case of the officers and those promoted to the higher ranks it is obvious that a longer period of service is an advantage. With regard to the seamen ratings we have to remember they are rated as seamen at eighteen. I am under the impression—I am quoting from memory, so that I cannot be too sure—that foreign seamen are not as a rule rated until they are twenty-one.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

They are rated ordinary at eighteen.

Mr. McKENNA

Foreign seamen?

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

No, in this country. In foreign countries, where there are conscripts, the age is twenty.

Mr. McKENNA

In our long service training they are rated as boys under eighteen. My right hon. Friend the Member for the Forest of Dean mentioned the case of Germany, and stated that about seventy-five per cent, of the conscripts are not under twenty, and may be twenty-one. Our seamen are rated ordinary at eighteen, and the period to which my right hon. Friend refers as the average length of service is dated from the rating as ordinary seamen at eighteen. The nine years and eight months man has got to be taken as an average from eighteen. The foreign period of three years has got to be reckoned from twenty or twenty-one. We must not overlook this fact. Take the German Navy. In the event of war the German Navy would immediately have to call out the men who are in the first period of their reserve service. The first period is one of four years. It will be found then that as the men go to the reserve at about the age of twenty-four the men of the first period of the reserve run up to twenty-eight years, so that the age of the seamen would vary in degree from twenty or twenty-one to twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Our age would vary from eighteen up to roughly twenty-nine or thirty.

Of course it must be remembered that when we are speaking of the average length of service being nine years and eight months in our Navy in order to get at the average age of our seamen, you must add nine years and eight months to the age of entry. I cannot say without inquiry what the average age of our seamen is, but it is very much under twenty-seven years. So I think you will find that when you compare a foreign navy with its first line of reserve with our active service the difference of age will not be as great as would appear at first sight to be the case.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

Enormously less. We are going to join so many lads this year and next that it will reduce the average of age enormously. These 5,000 will greatly reduce the age in the next three years.

Mr. McKENNA

I am not quite sure I can agree that the effect of the reduction will be what the Noble Lord supposes. It is quite true we have been adding 3,000 this year, but they will not all enter as boys; they include various ratings, so that I do not think there will be such a serious reduction. For the purposes of this calculation they will not be rated until the age of eighteen, so that though no doubt some reduction of the average will ensue, it will not be a very serious reduction. I think, therefore, that it is a fair deduction that although our long service is much longer than in foreign navies, the men actually engaged in war would not be older than those engaged in foreign fleets.

Then we come to the question of the value of the short-service men. Of course, if the Noble Lord desires to prove that the short-service man is not as good, taking him all round, as the long-service man, that is a very easy task.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

I do not want to prove that at all; that would not be very clever. What I said was that the stamp of men who join the short service are not the stamp of men that we want in the Navy.

Mr. McKENNA

I do not say that the short-service man who enters for five years, and is trained in a shorter time than the long-service man, is as good a seaman as the long-service man. No one would suggest that for a moment, because if he were as good, then the long-service system would stand self-condemned; but it is quite another thing to say that the short-service seaman does not answer fully the purposes for which he is enlisted. The Noble Lord quoted a conversation he had with an officer. I could quote conversations I had with a great many officers who have been to see me, and who have personal experience of these short-service men, and my experience differs from that of the Noble Lord. I have heard complaints, and I have had a very generally expressed opinion that they are not as good as the long-service man, but that nevertheless they are good and efficient material and ought to be continued.

I readily admit, if the House of Commons will be so good as to give me unlimited money and if it will have no regard whatever to economy, and if it will allow me to train seamen as long as I like, I admit I could get better men if I trained them for ten or twelve years; but if we are to have some regard to economy this system is one which, so far from being abolished, ought to be extended, and I entirely agree with the arguments of my right hon. Friend the Member for the Forest of Dean that foreign navies have set us an example which we, in the interests of economy, might fairly copy, and that they have achieved results in the short service which we had declared to be impossible.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

Then why reduce the numbers?

Mr. McKENNA

I will come to the Noble Lord's point in a moment. The Noble Lord asks, "Did the Admiralty intend to continue the new system?" The answer is "Yes." His next question is, "Do the Admiralty consider the short-service men satisfactory?" The answer is, "Yes, they do." His next question was, "That, inasmuch as a report has been made upon these men, is that report satisfactory?" The answer to that again is "Yes." The Noble Lord then says, "If that report is satisfactory, why not publish it?" I think he meant to suggest that by refusing to publish the report, which is obviously a private report, that refusal can only be based upon the fact that the report is unsatisfactory. I can assure the Noble Lord there is no ground for that supposition. The report very properly points out disadvantages, makes suggestions, and gives, in many respects, a very fair summary of the facts of the case in regard to the short-service men. But it would be impossible to publish every report upon every departmental or Service matter that arises. We have to take confidential communications from officers, which they do not wish to have published, and these reports are received by the Admiralty always upon the understanding that they are not, and that they ought not to be, published, and I repudiate absolutely the suggestion that if the Admiralty do not think it right to publish a report or to publish the whole of a report that that report contains something adverse to the system the Admiralty has adopted. If the Noble Lord's arguments were to receive general acceptance, it would be impossible for the Admiralty to call for a report or to inquire into the working of any system, or if it had to inquire it would never get at the truth. I suggest to the Noble Lord not to convey to others such a notion. If he were at the Admiralty he would not publish every report, and I beg him not to convey to others the idea that because we do not publish reports that necessarily therefore there is something in these reports disadvantageous to the Admiralty.

The policy of the Board of Admiralty must be regarded by results. The Board of Admiralty are continuing to take short-service men. It is quite true this year we are taking a smaller number, but we are taking in as many as I am advised are required at this moment. A great many considerations have to be taken into account in taking short-service men. The needs of the Navy as a whole have to be considered, and if the numbers are, as they are slightly reduced this year, it does not mean necessarily we are always going to reduce them, or that there is any change of policy. I assure the Noble Lord that while the short-service men are admittedly not as good as the long-service men, they answer the purpose that the Admiralty had in view. We desire to build up a complete reserve. The short-service men will add, as time goes on, materially to the numbers of the reserve. They do not constitute anything like the average of the reserve, but they will form a valuable adjunct of the reserve, and I hope the House will accept the system, which is not my system, but which I have inherited, and which, so far as I can perceive, is a valuable system.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE

Will the right hon. Gentleman kindly give some answer to the points which I raised?

Mr. McKENNA

Yes, I will look into the matter. As a matter of fact, I did not refer to the subject now because the Reserves of which he spoke come under another Vote.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE

I think the point I raised comes upon this particular Vote.

Mr. McKENNA

We are not dealing with the nurses at all on this Vote.

Resolution agreed to.

Resolutions reported,

7. "That a sum, not exceeding £459,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of various Miscellaneous Effective Services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1911."

8. "That a sum, not exceeding £924,500, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Half-Pay and Retired Pay to Officers of the Navy and Marines, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1911."

Resolutions agreed to.

Resolution reported,

9. "That a sum not exceeding £1,430,400, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expenses of Naval and Marine Pensions, Gratuities, and Compassionate Allowances, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1911."

Sir CHARLES DILKE

Will the right hon. Gentleman now tell us what he promised yesterday with reference to the pensions given to widows?

Mr. McKENNA

I am happy to be able to inform the House that the gratuities and pensions given to widows and the allowances for children are at least as high in the Navy as in the mercantile marine. The lowest pension that the widow of a seaman killed, or dying of disease contracted in the service of the Crown receives is 5s. a week, with an allowance of 1s. 6d. for each child dependent upon the mother. The minimum is 5s. a week, and it may go up as high as 9s. a week, with an allowance of 2s. for each child dependent upon the mother. I think those figures I will indicate that we are not less generous in the Navy than the shipowners in the mercantile marine.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

As far as death of the individual is concerned, I think the treatment is about the same in the mercantile marine as in the Navy; but when you come to the case of a man incapacitated the allowance is about £30 at first, then £16, and subsequently something like sixpence per day. In the case of men more or less incapacitated by accidents on board ship the gratuity or pension is very I small to support a wife and family. If a I man was incapacitated in action he would get a handsome gratuity, and my point is that a man who is incapacitated on board ship, although not in action, is doing his duty to the country just the same as if the accident happened in action. I ask the First Lord of the Admiralty to look into such cases. I could send him several instances of this kind which I think are very hard upon the men as regards the smallness of the gratuity or the pension.

Resolution agreed to.

Resolution reported,

10. "That a sum, not exceeding £407,500, be granted to His Majesty to defray the Expense of Civil Superannuation, Compensation Allowances, and Gratuities, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1911."

Resolution agreed to.