HC Deb 08 August 1916 vol 85 cc1013-20

11.0 P.M.

Mr. ASHLEY

I wish to draw attention to a matter which deserves attention, as it affects a pledge given by a Minister in this House on Tuesday of last week. By Private Notice I asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he could see his way, on behalf of the War Office, to withdraw the prohibition of week-end leave which had appeared in the newspapers, and which was going to prevent any soldiers at all receiving weekend leave on the 5th and 6th of this month, which I consider to be a very great hardship; considering that not not more than 5 per cent. of the soldiers are allowed to be away at a time. Most of the men affected are shortly going on active service, and they wish to go home to see their wives and children and also to attend to their businesses. The hon. Gentleman met me in a very fair way, and pledged himself that instructions would be sent at once to the various commands instructing the general officers commanding-in-chief that the week-end leave should be allowed as heretofore, namely, that a proportion of the men should be allowed to go away on leave. I thanked him for his kindness. When it came to my knowledge on Thursday that, in one command at any rate, the men could not go away on leave, I spoke to the Financial Secretary to the War Office, and he was naturally surprised that his order had not been sent. I know that the hon. Gentleman took every step he could to see that this pledge, given by a member of the Army Council, should be carried out. His attention was again drawn to it on Friday, and even on Saturday morning, I believe, communications were sent to the War Office pointing out that no order had been received—at any rate, I know of one command—that the men should be allowed away. To make a long story short, at all events, in one command, as I said, the only one of which I have knowledge, it being where I live, no men were allowed away. This did not affect only the English troops, it also affected 600 or 800 Australians who had come to fight for this country, and had put in for the usual leave, but were stopped. I submit that it is not a very favourable way to treat Colonial troops—that, for no reason whatever, when there is an order that they be allowed leave, they should be stopped from going. I have not the slightest complaint to make against the hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary for War, or against the Noble Earl the Under-Secretary of State for War, who both, I understand, agreed to this leave being given, and who were only too anxious that the pledge should be carried out. I am getting rather tired of the flouting of the Parliamentary authorities by military officers. It is perfectly true that during war very full power should be given to the military—we are all agreed about that—but I do submit that in the circumstances in which the pledge was given in this House, if this House says that a certain thing should be done, that thing must be done, because it concerns the honour of this House, which is the ruler of the country, and we must see—if there is not a reaction to come after the war against the naval and military forces—that if anybody disregards the orders given by the representative in Parliament of any Government Department, it should be brought home. I ask the hon. Gentleman if he will ascertain who is responsible, and if he is found, that the officer be reprimanded.

Major HAMILTON

I would like to support what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, though not because my own week-end leave was stopped, because that does not much concern me. I can try to come up and attend this House, and in that way I can get up to London if I wish. But it is not for myself or my brother officers that I want to speak; it is entirely for the private soldier who is in training—very strenuous training—for fourteen or fifteen weeks in the battalion to which I have the honour to belong, and is then sent out to France. In the past only 5 per cent. of these men have been allowed to go away on week-end leave. By week-end leave I should like the House clearly to understand that I do not mean furlough or parade. Therefore all that I ask is that those men should get away after their military duties on Saturday until midnight on Sunday night. Only 5 per cent. of them, or one week-end in twenty, get the chance of that short rest from camp and strenuous life in huts, and in that way a man gets the opportunity of seeing his wife and children and to look after any business which he may have been compelled to leave behind. That being so I do submit that after the undertaking given to my hon. Friend last Tuesday by a member of the Army Council and of course published in the annals of this House and repeated in all the leading newspapers of this country was that all ranks in the Army, from senior officers down to bugle boys, know that an hon. member of the Army Council had given that undertaking that the old order that no soldier should travel during a time of Bank holiday, of rejoicing, was not to hold good during this Bank holiday period, and that the Army Council had at last found that soldiers should be allowed to get away from Saturday at one o'clock p.m. to Sunday night, although there might be trippers who wanted to travel in the early morning of Saturday and come back on Monday, and that that would not interfere with railway traffic.

I know I am running grave risk in speaking in criticism of my superiors in the Army as an Army officer in uniform, but I am quite candid about it; I do not care if I am. I have got two duties to perform. My first duty undoubtedly is to obey the orders of my superior officers in the Army, and I do not think any superior in the Army I have served under would accuse me of not obeying any order and not backing up his authority in every possible way. There is another duty I have as a representative of the public in this House of Parliament. I do not know who it was, but I saw the other day that some Member of this House said that Parliament was looked down upon in the country and that this House of Commons was sneered at in the country, and more especially by Army officers. That is not my experience. My experience is that when an undertaking is given, as it was last Tuesday, everybody—rank and file, and officers and senior officers as well, who happen to know me personally in the little circle in which I happen to be as an officer, came and said, "Hamilton, of course you are a Member of Parliament. This undertaking has been given, and I suppose it is all right, and that we can count on our week-end leave." I was fool enough to say that an undertaking given by a mem- ber of the Army Council in Parliament was a solemn pledge, and that nobody, whether he was General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, or whoever he was, could possibly cancel or refuse to obey what I considered an order given to the highest officer in the Army by a member of the Army Council in Parliament. I want to put quite shortly this point. We are not now the ordinary British Army, and as far as I am concerned even if I were cashiered out of the Army for lack of discipline if we are to have the supremacy of Parliament—I have always been a tremendous stickler for the supremacy of Parliament, and I would not like any Member of this House to think that I was not equally a stickler and supporter of the great authority and splendid work of the Army and by the officers in it. I am, and I never allow anybody in the Army to be run down provided that they are doing right. All right-thinking officers whom I have met agree that at a time like this an undertaking given in Parliament is the most sacred order to officers and men in the Army. The Army exists to-day because this House has passed an Act of Parliament compelling the men of this country to go into the Army. That changes its character very much. Although all direct questions of discipline and all actual fighting questions, if I may put it that way, must rest with the generals in the field, such questions as whether there are railway facilities for carrying soldiers on week-end leave in this country surely need not trouble our generals, who are looking after more important matters, and when an undertaking is given in this House it should be held sacred. The Army to-day is not the old Army to which we have been used. To-day we are fighting for our very existence, and my experience is that the Army to-day is not made up of the ordinary soldier. It is the British public. The whole British public are fighting, and the whole British public are interested, directly or indirectly, in the treatment meted out to the soldier. I want to hear the answer to the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool (Mr. Ashley). I should like the Financial Secretary at the same time to give another undertaking. I put the proposition to him quite straightly. In view of the fact that the usual 5 per cent. of our men were not allowed to go away from after parade on Saturday till midnight on Sunday last week in the Winchester district of the Southern Command—no man or officer was allowed to go away; there was a definite order issued which was never cancelled that no soldiers were to be allowed to travel on the railway—will the hon. Gentleman give an undertaking to-night that next week-end 10 per cent. instead of 5 may go away, and so make up for what I am sure was a mistake on the part of some junior officer in the Southern Command or somewhere else. If the matter had been properly represented to the authorities they would never have overridden an undertaking given in this House by a member of the Army Council. I hope the hon. Gentleman, in reply, will be able to give us at any rate that little concession for our men.

Mr. FORSTER

My hon. and gallant Friend has called attention to the fact that, as far as their information goes, the notice that I gave in this House has not been carried out, and they naturally want to know why. Their anxiety is not nearly as great as my own. When my hon. and gallant Friend drew attention to the fact that the Order for granting leave had not reached the Southern Command, I at once made inquiries as to what had occurred. I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that there is not the slightest desire in the War Office or, as far as I know, anywhere else to refrain from carrying out or to frustrate the intentions of any pledge given in this House on behalf of the Army Council. I should like just to state the antecedent facts with regard to the answer given to the question my hon. and gallant Friend had brought to his notice, the fact that leave during the period of the Bank Holiday had been stopped, and, as there was no reason, or at any rate less reason than usual for anticipating great crowds on the railways this holiday, it occurred to him and others that there were not the same occasion for stopping leave as had formerly been the case. Accordingly he gave private notice of the question he was going to ask. I took it up to Lord Derby and the responsible officers at the War Office, and those in authority were perfectly willing to suspend the Order which had been given cancelling the leave. After consultation with them, Lord Derby and I drafted the answer which was given. Before I go further I should like to remind my hon. and gallant Friend what the answer was. It was that "arrangements would be made to carry out this arrangement as to the proportion of men, which will be decided by the military authorities in each command." We pledged ourselves that authority would be given to the general officer in command to grant such proportion as he thought desirable. I wish to be quite frank about the whole affair, because I think I owe it to the House. There was undue delay in communicating to the commands the authority to grant leave. I am sorry to say that that was owing to the fact that the office paper on which the decision was recorded was by some unaccountable mistake sent to the wrong Department. It was sent not by the military officer at all, but, in error, by a civilian. I, therefore, want my hon. and gallant Friend to realise that it is not a question of the military officers trying to interfere with the carrying out of a pledge that has been given by Parliament. It was on that account that this decision to enable the commanding officers to grant leave did not reach the commands till Friday last. I gave the pledge on the Tuesday, and it was not until the Friday that the authority was communicated to the various commands. Meanwhile, the Department which were concerned in the actual provision of the facilities for conveying the men who had been given leave proceeded to deal with the matter, although the Department had not received official directions on the subject. I am anxious to show that there was anxiety on the part of the officers who were responsible that there should be no delay in conveying the men to their stations. My hon. Friend who spoke, if I may say so, with a good deal of warmth, referred to the situation at Winchester only. What the reason may be that leave was not given at Winchester I am sorry that I cannot at the moment say. I have been making inquiries, but up to the time I left the office I had not got the information, and it has not reached me since. I am informed, however, that a very large number of men did proceed on leave from the Southern Command from places other than Winchester. I have not the precise figures, but I am informed that a very large number of men proceeded on leave, and therefore I do not think it would be true to say that the pledge I gave in this House has been disregarded. There may be some special reason which I cannot elucidate at the moment why Winchester received different treatment from other places in the command. I will naturally pursue my inquiries and find out what has occurred, and if my hon. Friend wishes to raise the matter again I shall be quite glad to meet him when I have been able to obtain information.

Mr. STEPHEN WALSH

Ten per cent.

Mr. FORSTER

The hon. and gallant Member asked me to give another undertaking. Naturally, without consultation, I could not give an undertaking of that kind.

Major HAMILTON

Will you endeavour?

Mr. FORSTER

I think I can tell my hon. and gallant Friend that within the last day or two we have been discussing the question of granting leave to a larger proportion of men than the 5 per cent. to which allusion has been made, and I think I am not going too far when I say that everybody I have met in the War Office is favourably disposed.

Mr. ASHLEY

All's well that ends well.

Mr. FORSTER

If my hon. Friend is willing to leave it at that, I am quite content.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-seven minutes after Eleven o'clock.