§ VISCOUNT TEMPLETOWNasked the Under Secretary for War, Whether the Report on the Army Retirement scheme would be brought before the House sufficiently early to admit of a full discussion of details before the close of the Session? He was satisfied that whatever might be their individual objections, officers would more readily receive as a settlement of the question any scheme which would be approved by Parliament after a full discussion.
§ EARL CADOGANsaid, that he had some difficulty in answering the Question of the noble and gallant Viscount. He rather thought that the noble and gallant Viscount had in some manner confounded two Reports which were entirely different the one from the other. The one was the Report of a Royal Commission issued last year; the other was that of a War Office Committee appointed to examine into various questions connected with Militia and Brigade Depôts. The Report of the Royal Commission had been brought before the House in the only way it could have been brought before them. He laid it on the Table on the 7th of August last, and he understood that it was in the hands of their Lordships on the 14th of the same month. Ever since it was issued, the Secretary of State for War had been maturing and revising a scheme of promotion and retirement founded on the recommenda- 192 tions of the Commission. The subject was a difficult and intricate one, involving various calculations and requiring anxious consideration. The proposals of the Secretary of State were, however, in an advanced state of preparation; but he could not say when the work would be completed. As soon as the scheme was finally arranged and had received the approval of the other Departments interested in it, the Secretary of State would lay it before the other House of Parliament. As it would deal with matters of finance it was necessary that it should be introduced in the other House; but, he (Earl Cadogan) would at the same time take the earliest opportunity of explaining it to their Lordships.
§ House adjourned at half-past Five o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter before Five o'clock.