§ THE EARL OF CARDIGANsaid, that he wished to put a question to the noble Lord the Secretary for War with respect to the attack that had been recently made on General Ashburnham. He was, unfortunately, not present yesterday upon the occasion of moving the Address in reply to Her Majesty's gracious Speech, when an incidental discussion arose upon the affairs of China, and the expedition which had been lately sent out to that country. He now wished to bring before their Lordships' consideration the subject of the attacks which had recently been made upon the general officer appointed to command that expedition. He was glad to hear that the noble Lord (Lord Panmure) had made what he (the Earl of Cardigan) could not but consider an excellent suggestion—that those officers who anonymously or otherwise made erroneous statements in the public press against their commanding officers should not be employed by Her Majesty's Government in future. He (the Earl of Cardigan) also understood that the noble Lord the Secretary for War had great difficulty in ascertaining who those officers in the army were who, from time to time, were the authors of those statements. He could not think there would be much difficulty in arriving at the truth and knowledge of who the authors were. But the question he wished to put to the noble Lord was, whether he did not think the present state of things was unreasonable; and, in the case of officers who were the authors of the present calumnies against their superior officers, whether it was not advisable that some system should be adopted by which the noble Lord as Secretary of State for War, in conjunction with the Commander in Chief, might be enabled to bring any such offender to trial in order to test the truth of his assertions; and, if he failed in establishing their truth, that he should be punished in the most summary manner? He had taken this occasion of bringing the subject before the notice of their Lordships, because a case had now arisen in which, the interests of 70 the public service were concerned. The expedition to China was comprised, like every other expedition, of commanding and subordinate officers; and if attacks of this kind upon General Ashburnham were permitted, it was impossible that the subordinate officers and men could feel a proper confidence in their commanding officer. The interests of the public service, however, demanded that such a feeling should prevail among the subordinate officers and men who composed the force. At the same time that he felt deeply the attack that had been made upon General Ashburnham, he did not deny that his statement was somewhat connected with his own position. He had had the honour of addressing their Lordships some time since on this subject, and he was then advised that it would not be desirable to bring the persons who had attacked him to a court-martial, particularly those who had attacked him anonymously. Their Lordships, however, knew that he had suffered under the grossest calumnies, and he felt it to be a great injustice that the officer who had so calumniated him had not been compelled to prove the truth of his assertions. He (the Earl of Cardigan) was not then going to bring his case before their Lordships; but he must say, that unless some check were put upon this system of subordinate officers calumniating their superior officers, the discipline of the army would be destroyed; because, if officers were permitted to calumniate their superiors with impunity, even non-commissioned officers and all the subordinates in the army would do the same, and any man who had a spite against his commanding officer would take this means of revenging himself. He would, therefore, earnestly entreat the noble Lord to consider whether it would not be expedient, in the case where an officer publicly avowed himself to be the author of letters containing attacks upon his military superior—or in any other cases where it was possible to discover who he was—that some steps should be taken to bring him to trial. He repeated that he had himself been grossly calumniated, and that those calumnies had been repeated since he had had the honour of addressing their Lordships on this subject. When he remembered that his services in the Crimea had met with, fortunately, the support and approbation of all his superior officers, both those who were friendly to him and those who were not—that they were acknowledged in the public de- 71 spatches —having met with that approbation and approval, his own conscience was perfectly clear as to his having done anything which deserved in the least degree the attacks which had been made upon him; and he felt perfectly satisfied that upon every one of those occasions upon which his conduct had been impugned he could not, consistently with his duty, have taken any better course than that which he had adopted.
§ LORD PANMUREMy Lords, as the noble Earl has called my attention to this subject, I have no hesitation in saying that, in cases where junior officers, either anonymously or otherwise, make attacks on the conduct of their superior officers, I shall be most happy to give to the Commander in Chief all the assistance in my power in maintaining the discipline of the army by bringing those junior officers to account. But there is some little difference between the case of the noble Earl and that which was the subject of discussion in your Lordships' House yesterday. The officer who attacked the noble Earl has avowed his name as the author of a book which he had published in the first instance anonymously. When the noble Earl brought his case before your Lordships I advised him, as his reputation and his position were uninjured, to treat with the contempt they deserved the insinuations made against his military character in that book; and I told him at the same time, that if he wished a remedy in respect of the charges which had been brought against him, the law of the land was open to him as a means of setting his character right with the public. Moreover, the officer who wrote that book was not under any employ by the Commander in Chief. I do not, however, wish now to renew the discussion on the case of the noble Earl; but, in reference to the debate which took place last night, I am desirous of setting myself right with your Lordships with regard to a part of the observations I made on that occasion, in which, I think, I have been misrepresented. I am charged with denying the right of the public press generally to criticise appointments made by the Executive Government—made, that is to say, not by the present Executive Government only, but by any Executive Government. Now, I never had the folly to make any such assertion; on the contrary, I hold it to be the vocation of the public press to criticise all appointments, made either by this or any other Government, 72 because it is their duty so to do for the guidance of public opinion. But what I did call in question was the manner in which the criticisms against General Ashburnham had been made—by an inferior officer, and directed against the professional character of an officer under whom he had served—and the time at which they had been made. Your Lordships will recollect that those criticisms were made, not during the time when Parliament was sitting, and when an answer could have been given to them in your Lordships' House, or in the other House of Parliament, and not during the three weeks which afterwards elapsed when General Ashburnham was in this country and might have defended himself, but after he had left the country as the commander of the expedition intrusted to him by the Government. I think, my Lords, I did right in making the observations which I addressed to your Lordships yesterday on this subject; but I repeat that I by no means denied, or intended to deny, the right of the public press at large to review any appointment that might be made by the Executive Government.
§ THE EARL OF CARDIGANsaid, he had made no reference whatever to the opinions of the press in the observations he had addressed to the House. What he said had respect to the conduct of junior officers calumniating their superiors, and he contended that unless officers so conducting themselves were brought to account, there would be no way of testing the truth of the accusations they made against others, or of maintaining intact the discipline of the army. In his own case, he must remind the noble Lord that he had had no redress, though he had sought it by the means suggested.
§ THE EARL OF HARDWICKEsaid, this was the case of an officer abused behind his back by an anonymous writer; and the responsibility of the Government for the appointment required them to defend him. He thought, therefore, the noble Lord had done no more than his duty in vindicating the appointment of General Ashburnham to this command. He knew nothing of the attack itself; but he would say that when an officer attacked the character of another in the public prints, it would be the manly and honourable course to sign his name. To make a public attack anonymously was disgraceful. He was not astonished that his noble Friend (the Earl of Cardigan) should call attention to this matter, con- 73 sidering how he had been aspersed himself. The promise of Lord Panmure that he would assist the Commander in Chief in all such cases to take notice by the legal process of court-martial of these attacks, amounted to nothing more than was universally done in the service. That a junior officer was to malign his senior, the two being in the full pay of the Crown, was a thing impossible to admit, unless they were to overthrow military discipline entirely. But when the question arose with regard to an officer on half-pay, or on retirement, who wrote a book, that materially altered the case. The liberty to do so no doubt existed; the propriety of doing so was another question. Governments in olden times used not to be very fond of officers who were fond of writing; and if that course were pursued on all occasions, and if the Government showed a disinclination to have anything to do with officers who were in the habit of writing, they would do a great service. It was not necessary, in a military point of view, that an officer should be a great writer; and if gentlemen retired or on half-pay were to sit down and write abusive books or libels against officers under whom they had served, such a practice must have a tendency to injure military discipline, and the facilities for carrying on the public service. The military law had ceased to have power in such cases, and it must be left to the civil authority of the country to vindicate the character of any officer so attacked. The case then became one of considerable difficulty, as the liberty of the subject might be considered to be connected with it. He thought, himself, that unless both the officers concerned in the transaction were in actual service on full pay, the Crown should not interfere to vindicate the officer who had been calumniated.
§ THE EARL OF CARDIGANsaid, that officers upon half-pay were liable to be recalled to active service at any time, and he thought therefore that the military law as affecting these cases ought to apply to them as well as to officers upon full pay.
THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEsaid, that he had been somewhat misunderstood, in having been supposed to blame the conduct of the press with reference to this subject. He had not intended to impute any such blame, nor had he any objection to the discussion raised by the press other than that which arose from the particular time at which such discussion had taken place. What he objected to was the 74 conduct of officers who used the newspapers as vehicles for attacking their superior officers behind their backs. He thought there ought to be some power on the part of the military authorities to punish such conduct. He must say that, while military officers were generally the very first to complain of the comments of the press which censured or criticised military appointments and actions, whether such comments were fair, or whether they exceeded what might be considered the limits of fairness, those officers appeared, in every instance, when they thought they had a grievance, to be the first to avail themselves of the press for the dissemination of their own views. Now, he did not think they were entitled to take both these courses, though they might adopt either. They ought to object to the interference of the press and avoid it, or they ought to appeal to the press and submit to its criticism. He thought, however, that when an officer whose identity might easily be ascertained came forward, as "M. L." had done, to make charges affecting the credit of another officer of high position, some military tribunal ought to be empowered to call upon the accuser to establish his assertion.