QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS. (Hansard, 1 August 1878)

§ LORD TRURO
asked Her Majesty's Government, Whether it was true that a Lieutenant Colonel commanding an administrative battalion of Rifle Volunteers in the Southern district called on his Adjutant to sign a false return in the latter end of 1877; that the Adjutant refused; that the case was reported, and decision given, after a delay of five months; that the Adjutant was held justified, but told he was to be transferred; whether that transfer had taken place; and whether the Lieutenant Colonel still retained his command? The decision of the Committee of the War Office, to which the matter had been referred, was that the Adjutant was to be sustained—whatever that might mean— he supposed it was a new military term —but was to be transferred to another regiment—that was to say, the Adjutant was declared to be right, but in the face of the whole regiment was to be removed to another corps. It seemed to him that the Adjutant had acted honourably in refusing to put his hand to a Return to the War Office which contained a false statement. When the Volunteer Force asked for a Royal Commission to inquire into how these things were dealt with it was refused, and a Departmental Committee was appointed. The Committee was composed of three officers—whose military antecedents showed that they would not be unduly prejudiced in favour of the Volunteers—and of two others, who, in a matter of this kind, were not likely to prove too stubborn.

§ VISCOUNT BURY
was understood to ask who these two Gentlemen were?

§ LORD TRURO
said, he referred to the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State for War and the Financial Secretary to the Department. His complaint against the Departmental Committee was that it did not satisfy Volunteer requirements. The Volunteer Force should be represented on the Committee by men who were thoroughly imbued by the sense of what the 859 men required. As it was, the Volunteer Force thought it was not of such a character as to tend to the development of the Service, or the interests of those composing it. To go back to the subject of his Question. As this Adjutant had been removed to another corps and the Lieutenant Colonel allowed to retain his position, one of two things was clear —either the Lieutenant Colonel was not justified in requiring the Adjutant's signature, or the Adjutant had refused to comply with the order of his commanding officer; but if the Adjutant was right, it passed his comprehension why he should be transferred to another regiment, which was a great indignity to him. He would repeat that the Departmental Committee would not satisfy those requirements which the Volunteer Corps thought to be essentially necessary for a proper development of the interests of the Service; and if it should so turn out that their recommendations were not satisfactory, he should think it his duty to urge for the appointment of a Royal Commission, for the purpose of effecting a complete revision of the conditions on which the Service was administered.

§ VISCOUNT BURY
, replying for the Government, said, he was aware that a considerable degree of indulgence was always extended to noble Lords desirous of bringing subjects before their Lordships' House; but he protested that the noble Lord opposite, having asked his Question—whether it was true that a certain Adjutant had been required by his commanding officer to sign a false Return?—had no right to go off into the entirely irrelevant question of the constitution of a Departmental Committee. He spoke of two Members of that Committee as being distinguished for their pliancy; and when he (Viscount Bury) asked for their names, the noble Lord replied—"The Financial Secretary of the War Office and yourself." He was obliged to the noble Lord for his opinion, but would not at that moment take any further notice of his observation. If the noble Lord chose at some other time to bring the matter before the House, he should be prepared to defend both the Committee and himself against the charge of pliancy, or any other charge.

§ LORD TRURO
said, he did not use the word "pliancy." What he said was 860 that the Members of the Committee referred to were not "too stubborn."

§ VISCOUNT BURY
assured the noble Lord that he would be found sufficiently stubborn for all the purposes of those who appointed him to the Committee. Now, in reference to the Question that had been asked, he knew quite well who were the officers to whom the noble Lord referred. They were Adjutant Cope, of the 2nd Hants Administrative Battalion of Rifle Volunteers, and Lieutenant Colonel Gordon, the Commander of the battalion. The two gentlemen had both served in Her Majesty's Regular Army, and might, therefore, be presumed to know what was required of them in their military capacities. The statement of the noble Lord was incorrect in almost every particular. It was true that there had been a quarrel between the two officers, and that it had been pursued by each with considerable acrimony. Neither was entirely in the right, and both had received a certain amount of blame from the War Office. The dispute took a long time to decide; and the only point upon which the noble Lord was correct was that the Adjutant was removed from the battalion. The Adjutant was never asked by his commanding officer to sign a false Return. What happened was this. The Return of efficients made at the end of 1877 was sent in to the War Office in the ordinary way; but it was accompanied by a note from the commanding officer, pointing out that the Adjutant had not included him in the list of efficients. The Adjutant also sent a letter explaining that he had declined to include his commanding officer on the ground that he had not made himself efficient. Therefore, the War Office wrote to Colonel Gordon, asking him if he had attended the requisite number of drills; and what followed arose out of the different constructions placed by the parties on the Volunteer Regulations. By those Regulations, it was laid down that the attendances of a colonel or field officer or non-combatant officer, not being honorary, might include drills of any kind. After an investigation, the War Office decided that the commanding officer ought to have been returned as efficient, and it wrote an authorization to the War Office to that effect. But the Adjutant again refused, stating that he did not believe that Colonel Gordon 861 had attended the requisite number of drills. The War Office replied that, having decided that the commanding officer was efficient, it must require the Adjutant to include him in the Return; but they added that if it hurt his conscience so to do, he might add a rider saying that he inserted the name not on his own responsibility but by authority of the War Office. These were the circumstances up to that point; and it would have been much better if the noble Lord had taken the trouble to ascertain them, instead of coming down to the House and making a flaming speech about an Adjutant having been asked to violate his conscience by making a false Return. But further, notwithstanding that the War Office had a second time commanded the Return to be made, the Adjutant still refused, whereupon the Correspondence was sent down to General Sir John Garvock, commanding the Southern district, with instructions to investigate the whole circumstances. He did so, and examined a number of witnesses on both sides; and in the end he decided that Colonel Gordon had made himself efficient, and ought to be returned as such. Still, the Adjutant remained stubborn; but eventually, after a peremptory order, he did make the Return, accompanying it with a note that it was not done on his own responsibility but by authority of the War Office. In adding that explanation the Adjutant was, no doubt, perfectly right; but he was certainly wrong in putting himself in opposition to the War Office and the other authorities who had communicated with him on the subject. Had the matter stopped there, the conduct of the Adjutant might have been attributed to undue zeal; but he went further, by stating in company that his commanding officer had been guilty of falsehood in declaring himself efficient. That, of course, did not beget a very good feeling between the two officers; and, eventually, they got off speaking terms. At last, the Adjutant so far forgot himself as to refuse to salute his commanding officer in the street, or, indeed, to take any notice of him whatever. What was the War Office to do under such circumstances? Feeling that it was impossible they could serve together in the same regiment, the War Office took the earliest opportunity of transferring the Adjutant to another regiment. That was the full account of 862 what had occurred; and the noble Lord knew quite well that if the same thing happened in the Regular Service the offender would have been tried by court martial, and probably cashiered. The leniency shown in the present case he did not consider altogether wise; but it certainly cut away the suggestion of the noble Lord that there had been any harshness of treatment in the case of the Adjutant. He was sorry the noble Lord should have made himself the mouth-piece of exparte, instead of inquiring for himself into the circumstances, or of communicating with the War Office—it was very difficult to obtain any information but from the War Office—upon the subject.

§ LORD TRURO
said, the positive statement was made to him that the Colonel of the regiment asked the Adjutant to sign a Return which he—the Adjutant— considered to be false. He (Lord Truro) had no account whatever of the War Office having sent down instructions for the investigation of the matter on the spot, and certainly no information that the Adjutant had refused to obey orders or had been guilty of breaches of discipline towards his superior officer. It seemed to him that the War Office was ignoring its own regulations.

§ THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND
rose to Order. The noble Lord had already addressed the House, and, as there was no Motion before it, was not justified in doing so a second time.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
said, if the noble Lord had submitted a Motion he would, according to the practice of the House, be entitled to reply. There fore, without their Lordships' indulgence, he could not speak a second time.