§ Colonel YATEI wish to draw attention to one or two matters connected with Army administration. Not long ago I brought to the notice of the War Office the question of the deduction of officers' pay in regard to regimental bands, and the reply I 563 received was that a band is maintained by the voluntary subscriptions of officers and by a contribution from public funds. I was told that the question of assisting the officers in the upkeep of the band by an increased grant had been fully considered, and that there is no intention of making any change. I will not now enter into the question of the voluntary subscriptions of the officers, although there are different opinions upon that point. When we are talking of assisting officers in the upkeep of a band I think we ought to ask, is not a band a regular part of the regiment? The members of the band are all enlisted men, and surely the upkeep of the band should be borne by the Government, and by the State alone. This question of bands applies to all the Regular regiments as well as the Territorial regiments, and I would invite the Under-Secretary for War to consider this important question. We have heard in various discussions of other matters in regard to which officers have been asked to bear charges which ought legitimately to be borne by the Government. Only the other day we had the question raised of providing range finders for the Territorial battalion, and we were told that one range finder is supplied per battalion, and that it was not known to what extent this was supplemented by private purchases. Why should this be supplemented by private purchases at all? I invite the War Office to give special consideration to these points. The spirit shown by officers throughout the Service in maintaining the efficiency of their regiments is to be praised in every possible way, but it should not be drawn upon too far, and I think all these charges should be borne by the State. There are many minor expenses to which officers are put. Soldiers have furniture provided for their barracks, but no furniture is provided for the officers' quarters. Married officers are put to a great deal of expense owing to no married quarters being provided in those places where regiments are stationed. They have to rent houses for their wives and families, sometimes having to take them on considerable leases. They are then moved on, and that house is left on their hands. I heard of a case the other day where an officer had three houses on his hands at the same time, owing to his constant removal. Then there is the question of sashes. I myself have had no less than three sashes. I commenced with a red sash round the shoulders, next I had to get a gold and red sash for the shoulders, 564 then a red sash for the waist, and I suppose if I had still been in the Service I should have had to have had the new sash recently ordered. All these things show a want of consideration which I trust will be altered in future. Take the case of a married subaltern on 6s. 6d. a day, which, after all, is the pay of a good old' busdriver. He is constantly ordered off to some new quarter, and he cannot afford to have all these various houses on his hands. What is the cause of the desire among officers to become Adjutants in the Territorial Force? Is it not that they may have a settled home for three or four years? I would beg the Government as far as possible before next year's Estimates are issued to see whether greater consideration cannot be given to officers in these small matters.
§ Colonel SEELYI will deal briefly with the points of which my hon. and gallant Friend kindly gave me notice, but I would point out that, in regard to some of them, it is too late now to provide out of public funds for services in the direction indicated. With regard to bands it is quite true that there is a special subscription in case of Reserve Officers. I fully admit the value of the band, but you cannot expect the State to keep it up at the very high standard which in some cases is deemed desirable. A lot of money is provided for the upkeep of bands, but it is thought that the officers should add to the fund in order to secure a better band. With regard to training grounds, I do not know of any case in which an officer has been called upon to find money out of his own pocket in order to provide such a ground. If there should be such a case I should be glad to have the particulars. I think it would be most improper for any such charge to be imposed upon any officer. As to range-finders it is true that in the Territorial Force there is only one to each batalion, but in the Regular Forces they are adopting a new one—the mekometer—and consequently there will be more range-finders available for distribution to the Territorial Forces, and I trust it will not be necessary in the future for officers to buy range-finders. It is clearly an unjustifiable expense to be put upon them.
The question as to married quarters is more difficult. There are two classes of officers—those who are entitled to quarters and those who are not so entitled. The difficulty lie" with those who are not entitled, and it is no doubt a great hardship in a few cases, such as Salisbury Plain, 565 where there are no married quarters and no civilian houses available. But we cannot admit that it is our duty to provide quarters for all married officers. It is true that if an officer is quartered in a place far removed from civilian lodgings he is put to great expense. We are considering how far we can adopt a system by which houses may be built by contractors and leased to officers. But there is some difficulty in regard to that, because houses so built might be much more expensive than the houses available at a greater distance. The next point is as to the expense to which officers are put by transfers. It is quite true the inconvenience may be minimised by a careful arrangement which avoids unnecessary movements, and, indeed, there has been a great improvement in that respect during the past few years. I can promise my hon. and gallant Friend that every effort will be made to avoid inflicting expense upon officers by too frequent removals from one place to another. This is a question which I have discussed with the Secretary of State, who fully sympathises with the idea that an officer should not be debarred the Service simply because he has not considerable private means. It is clear we have not yet arrived at finality in this matter, and something should be done to make it easier for a poor man to be an officer in the Army. The Secretary of State has told me that he proposes to take the most expert advice on this point with a view to meeting admitted grievances and to make it more easy for officers to live upon their pay.
§ Mr. ROWLAND HUNTThe President of the Local Government Board said it was the business of his Department to deal with disease wherever it could be found, and I wish to prevent the landing in this country of a disease of the eyes which is brought in by aliens. A very serious statement was made a few days ago by Dr. Eason, the senior ophthalmic surgeon of Guy's Hospital. He said that a great deal of the eye disease in this country was due to trachoma, and he also said that more than 50 per cent. of it last year was most distinctly preventible. He said that this disease of trachoma was brought in owing to alien immigration, and he further stated that once the men got into this country there were no means of getting them out, and they remained in the East End and spread the disease among our own people until our hospitals cured them sufficiently for them to go to the Western 566 hemisphere. He said that he was very sorry that the detections of cases of trachoma showed a decrease, and that in one year they were not more than a quarter of those in the preceding year. He could not think that that was due to the decrease in the number of aliens or the improvement of their health, but he was afraid it was attributable to some relaxation of the examination by officials in this country. I believe that this doctor is a great authority on the eye, and he thinks, and it certainly does appear, that the regulations in regard to aliens coming into this country have been relaxed, and, as a consequence, they have come in amongst our own people and spread this disease of trachoma, which is a very serious one.
I think, therefore, that the Under-Secretary to the Home Office who has the management of the Aliens Act is really very much to blame in this matter. I might say that he is probably responsible for some people being afflicted with blindness here because of his relaxation of the restrictions imposed, or, at all events, which could be imposed under the Aliens Act if it was properly administered. I think it is very hard on the people of this country that they should have diseases imported, and that that is allowed to take place because the Aliens Act is not strictly enforced. It is a different question from small-pox, because there is no doubt that it is the alien who brings it to this country. We are very particular, we have heard, about introducing diseases of animals into this country, and it really means that we give more consideration to the health of animals than of our own people. Surely if there was a country where animals suffered from a known disease like foot-and-mouth, animals would be prevented altogether from being imported from that country. In the case of countries where it is known they suffer very severely from trachoma, you not only do not increase but you so relax the restrictions on their coming to this country that they get in here, and they give our people a terrible disease which in many cases causes total blindness. As the Department are great hunters of disease, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will, if he can, as soon as possible, turn his attention to this question. If my information is correct, it is a thing which wants doing very badly indeed, because I have heard for many years now that the aliens did bring a disease into this country which was hardly known here. I hope the right hon. Gentleman 567 will do his very best to keep aliens out of this country who are suffering from this very severe disease of the eye.