PROMOTION OF OFFICERS. (Hansard, 18 May 1915)

§ Sir H. CRAIK
I wish to call attention to a matter which was raised at Question Time to-day, and which is of very considerable importance, not only to those who are personally concerned, but to the Army at large. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State for War will not think that I am raising this question in any controversial or critical spirit, and that he will listen with that courtesy and that attention which he has always shown in the Debates and criticisms we bring before him. I have never personally brought forward any case without finding that he has treated it with great consideration, and, as far as possible, favourably. I think when I have shown the circumstances of the case which were referred to to-day, he will admit that there is something which requires investigation, consideration, and, if possible, alteration. I refer to the question of promotion amongst officers of different classes of the Reserve, and the young officers who join the Army from Sandhurst. There is considerable objection on the part of those older officers. I do not think that the question relates simply to their case alone, and I think I shall be able to show that the evils extend somewhat further, and attach to the whole Army. I want, first of all, to explain exactly the circumstances which we think call for some reconsideration. There are three classes of the Reserve—the General Reserve, the Special Reserve attached to particular regiments, and the Special Reserve No. 2, consisting of men of more advanced age, of experience in 2290 other ranks of life, and who, since the War, have joined the Army, trained with assiduity and care, and attained a good deal of efficiency.
In regard to the General Reserve, I have in mind the case of a man who left the Army in 1909, having four years' experience, and rejoined immediately on the outbreak of War. He has been to the front, and has had no promotion. The second case is that of officers attached to the Special Reserve of particular regiments. I have in mind the case of a man of well-known position, of considerable knowledge of the world, of special capacity, who had been trained in the Special Reserve, and had been several times in the annual training; he has indeed been at the front with his regiment since November, but has not been promoted from the rank of second lieutenant, although it has been repeatedly asked for by his brigadier and officer commanding. This case itself would be a complete disproof of any allegation that social influence has anything to do with the matter, as this is a man of considerable social influence, and yet he has been passed over in consequence of this hard-and-fast rule. The third class are officers who also have gone through assiduous training, have been at the front, and have found themselves in the question of promotion set behind young officers coming fresh from Sandhurst. I would not say one word against these young officers coming from Sandhurst. I know the excellence of their training, I know how promising they are, and I have every confidence that they will make excellent officers. I have the best means of judging, because for a long series of years I have sat on the Selection Committee. Since the opening of the War we have selected, not by dozens, but by hundreds. They have been excellent young men, and I have the greatest hope of what they will become as officers in the future. But I have myself frequently successfully urged on that Selection Board the selection of promising young fellows who were scarcely seventeen years of age. They left the room in which the Selection Board sat, perhaps at seven o'clock at night, they joined Sandhurst at nine or ten o'clock the next morning, and then they had three or four months' training. They have not the full training at Sandhurst, which is in ordinary times extended to two years, and they have not passed any examination of the kind to 2291 which the right hon. Gentleman referred. I do not see that that changes them, although I have had to do with education all my life I have no very great trust in competitive examinations.
They are excellent men I have no doubt, and in good time, after they have had experience, they will make as good officers on the whole as those who have passed through the position. We have seen that they are. We have talked to them. We have seen their physique. We have had the reports of their school-masters and the reports of the commanders-in-chief of their training corps, and I am sure they will in future years, if they are spared through the terrible ordeal which we have now with us, made an admirable body of officers in the Army. I want to compare the two cases, and show the wrong done to the older men who have had experience, it may be, of some years in their regiments. Though they left them for the moment, since the War begun they have been going there training with their regiments, and have been at the front. The older men who relinquished business, with full experience of the world, and with the ability to handle men, are the proper persons to be taken. Is it not rather hard that when there is a vacancy for them to find a young man from Sandhurst who has been admitted at seventeen years of age, a few months later finding himself a second lieutenant—for these older men to find these boys preferred before them?
I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will see that I am speaking in no captious spirit, and that this is a very considerable grievance of the older men; that it is a grievance also of the young men themselves, for could anything be worse than that these promising, excellent boys fresh from school should find themselves suddenly put into a position of responsibility where they cannot be held in that proper respect which is due from experienced non-commissioned officers? It is like a boy from the lower school at Eton who suddenly finds himself elected to be captain of the school. It is utterly absurd that this should be done. You do a wrong to the young men, because they begin their career in the wrong way by facing a responsibility before they have the power to accept that responsibility. Coming especially in the terrible crisis in which we are now, a wrong is done to both old and to young men, and the wrong rankles 2292 in the breasts of the older men. All this is done merely because of a hard and fast rule which somebody in some department of the War Office considers should be carried out. A wrong is done to the regiment in which these ill-judged promotions occur. The men of the rank and file feel the matter too, and it is after their interests that are to be looked after more than the interests of the others. They cannot believe that the promotion of these young boys, their untimely promotion, is a good thing, and a wrong is done to the company too, by placing this heavy responsibility on these young men. The danger it incurs is one the extent of which we can hardly measure, where you find those boys put in charge over the heads of older and more experienced men who have been serving at the front.
I am quite sure the right hon. Gentleman will believe me that I am speaking in all sincerity when I say that I do not believe this to be any part of the policy of the War Office. I believe this somewhat hard and fast rule has got to prevail in some little section of the War Office. Some person who sits in a little room, perhaps shut up by himself, administering some petty code of rules which he thinks he only can interpret, has put upon it a dry, hard, and narrow interpretation, and has not looked at it in the light of common sense and knowledge of the world. I myself have a good deal of experience as an old official with some of the officials of the War Office. I have the greatest respect for the military officials of the War Office, but they have one weakness, and that is that they are more easily dominated by red-tape and rules than the ordinary civilian in the rest of the public offices. They are not accustomed to it, and the moment they get a rule they interpret it with a rigidity and a complete superstition which would very soon be got rid of in the ordinary civil Departments of the State.
I believe the right hon. Gentleman would not interpret the spirit of the rule in this way, but it prevails in some sections of the Department. It has been administered until a widespread discontent—I can vouch for it—has been caused, and considerable uneasiness has been created—not only the personal feeling of wrong by the older officers, but the feeling amongst the general rank and file that the safety and interest of the regiment are not properly safeguarded by the administration of such a rule. I believe it has 2293 caused this ill-will and ill-feeling, and I am quite sure it will be considered by the right hon. Gentleman and by his official colleagues, with their wide outlook, and that they will relieve us of this hard and fast, rigid, and narrow interpretation of the rule, and will see that a man of older years and larger and more mature experience, and who has really had the best of all experience in serving for many months, is a more fit person to promote to a position of responsibility than one of these lads, however promising, who has been selected for Sandhurst, been kept there for four or five months, and has spent the rest of his time over here at the depot, and finds himself gazetted for first lieutenant, while these older men remain in the position of second lieutenants. I hope the right hon. Gentleman does not think I have pressed this upon him in anything but a fair and reasonable manner, and I would leave it to him and his colleagues at the War Office to try and reconsider the position and introduce a better state of things.

Colonel WHITE
There are just one or two remarks I should like to add to what has been said by my hon. Friend, and they are in respect of the position of those officers who joined at the beginning of the War and are termed Special Reserve officers. I think it was rather unfortunate that the same name was taken for the officers who joined at the commencement of the War and those who were Special Reserve officers before the War. It leads to a certain amount of confusion. But, with regard to these officers who joined at the beginning of the War and are called Special Reserve officers, they were not told at that time they would never get promotion. So far as I can see, if the War goes on for ten years, these officers will remain second-lieutenants. Many come from the Stock Exchange and other walks of life, and at the beginning had no idea perhaps of continuing to remain in the Service. But since then they have got bitten with the life, and a great many are desirous, if allowed to do so, after the War, of remaining in the profession of arms; but they will not stay on after the War if still second-lieutenants, and if boys who had not gone to Sandhurst at the time they joined have been put over their heads. These are points which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will consider, because it is very vital that these officers should not be discouraged after the War from continuing in the Service.

§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Tennant)
I should like to answer these questions before my hon. Friend behind me (Mr. Booth) raises a new point—

§ Mr. SPEAKER
That would not be in Order, but no doubt the House would give the right hon. Gentleman leave to divide his speech.

§ Mr. TENNANT
I recognise the authority with which the hon. Gentleman for the Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities (Sir H. Craik) brings before us this interesting and important question of the promotion of officers, and I take this opportunity of thanking him for the admirable work he has done for the nation by his services on the Selection Board. I need hardly say that he and I are one in being anxious only for the efficiency of the units in the field and of giving such satisfaction and security to the officers themselves as will ensure the efficiency which I am sure the House desires. I am glad to be able to announce that there is an alteration in policy with regard to this question of promotion. Hitherto, I dare say the House is aware, officers who joined the Special Reserve were only promoted by time promotion. Therefore the hon. and gallant Gentleman who spoke last was perfectly correct in his statement that these officers, until they had served their time, were unable to secure the promotion which they very properly may have deserved. There are not only two classes of officers in the Special Reserve which the hon. and gallant Gentleman mentioned, but there is a supplementary list which he did not mention. He is no doubt acquainted with the fact that there are officers on the supplementary list, and they are generally passed to the 1st or 2nd battalion. The supplementary list only have the time promotion. They were only eligible not as vacancies arose, but upon having served their period of time. The other officers were eligible as vacancies arose in the Special Reserve battalion, and not in the unit in which they were serving at the time. Now we have made arrangements by which the supplementary list of officers will be eligible for promotion pari passu with the other officers who have joined the Special Reserve as vacancies arise. Should time promotion benefit them more quickly they will be able to claim promotion after the expiration of that time. They will have two strings to their bow as against the Reserve 2295 officer proper, who will only be able to be promoted to vacancies as they arise. Hitherto Special Reserve officers have only been eligible for promotion as vacancies arise in their own units in the 3rd or 4th battalions. Now we are able to inform the House that commanding officers in the field will be able to promote officers in the Special Reserve whether they belong to the supplementary list or the Reserve or the new unit, which I think is called the second, to the vacancies as they arise in the 2nd or 3rd battalions; in other words, in the units to which they are sent to supply the wastage of war—that is to say, the Regular battalions. Really, I think that meets the point raised by the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. I am very pleased to be able to make the announcement.
With regard to Sandhurst officers, I was pleased to hear what the hon. Gentleman who raised the Debate said about them. I feel sure it would not be proper or right to say in all cases that the young cadet from Sandhurst is inferior to the officer who has been a Special Reserve officer. I tried to make that point at Question Time, although I felt that I was rather kicking against the pricks, and that my view was not universally held or held even by the majority in the House; but, of course, I am perfectly free to admit that trench fighting and the terrible experiences of this War do inculcate officers in the severest school, and that therefore young fellows who join and have had some experience of that kind must necessarily be more experienced officers and, generally speaking, more efficient officers, than those who receive their training at a military camp. I hope and believe that really answers the whole of the points which have been raised by the two hon. Gentlemen, and I can only congratulate them that their propaganda has met with a successful issue.