Lords Sitting of 25 July 1879

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Turnpike Acts Continuance * (163).
Second Reading—Conveyancing and Land Transfer (Scotland) Act (1874) Amendment* (141).
Committee—Report—Slave Trade (East African Courts) * (147).
Third Reading—Commons Act (1876) Amendment* (152), and passed.

ARMY ORGANIZATION—SHORT SERVICE—THE ZULU CAMPAIGN.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD STRATHNAIRNrose to call attention to the unsatisfactory state of the Army owing to the substitution of short service without pension for long
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  service with pension; also to the neglect of the first and elementary rules of the art of war exhibited in the recent operations in South Africa. The noble and gallant Lord said: My Lords, I will not now say a word which will not be in harmony with the general joy, in which no one shares more sincerely than myself, caused by the good news of the important success in South Africa, gained by a skilfully-combined plan of operations, in spite of serious difficulties of ground and transport, which does great credit to the general officer in command. The importance of the military question to which I solicited your Lordships' attention on the 30th of May, and which I now submit, cannot be exaggerated. For it is the failure—the break down—of the great experiment, the fundamental change of Army organization, the short-service system without pension, and its adjuncts, introduced by the Army Enlistment Act of 1870 by the civil Head of the Army. The military Peers, the Peers with military interests, and nearly the totality of the most experienced officers of the Army, predicted this failure from the first on account of the inherent defects of this system, and of which the chief one is its false and impracticable foundation. A knowledge of the two services, long and short, will facilitate the solution of the question. I beg to submit, therefore, their short history. The Act allowed long service with pensions to continue its recruiting; but it empowered the War Office to regulate the recruiting for both services. The military Head of the Army differed from his civil Colleague in the terms I stated to your Lordships on the 30th of May last. But the Under Secretary of State for War engaged that the short service should not interfere with, but assist, long service. The illustrious Duke the Commander-in-Chief accepted the engagement, saying that provided short service went pari passu with long service he would vote for the second reading of the Bill. Your Lordships will see from the sequel, and regret with me, I am persuaded, the impolicy and want of gratitude with which the long service Army with pension, and the patriotic lower classes who have always recruited it, have been treated—classes whom the Sovereign, both Houses of Parliament, and the Commander-in-Chief, have so often and

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  so sincerely thanked for good and gallant service in every quarter of the globe. The Recruiting Department reported, in 1871, to the War Office that the long service with pension was so popular that it was altogether outstripping short service without pension, which would thus be discredited and swamped. The War Office, on this, in spite of their engagement to the Commander-in-Chief, suspended till further orders the recruiting for long service. This act created serious dissatisfaction and complaints in your Lordships' House, and the long service was released from suspension, but fettered with vexatious restrictions as to the right of the soldier to pensions, which—coupled with the suspension and the unfavourable feeling to pension displayed in Government speeches—shook the confidence of the recruiting classes in the validity of pension and in the good faith of the Government with regard to it. This mistrust was increased by a reduction of the recruiting for the pension service to 25 per cent, and by subjecting the right of the soldier to pension to a double veto, one from his commanding officer and another from the War Office. The opponents of pension did not deny that pension was the best guarantee of the soldier's discipline, but justified the raid on the soldier's pension by the necessity of diminishing the immense cost of the Army. But the truth was, as I said in Parliament at the time without contradiction, that the soldier's retiring pension was sacrificed to pay the officers' retirement, abolished with purchase, and which the Government would have had to pay. Thus encompassed and discredited by its own authorities, it was not possible that a pension Army could continue, and as such it has virtually come to an end. I solicit your Lordships' special attention to the impolicy of shunting a very efficient and successful pension Army, and leaving England and her foreign policy under the guardianship of a short-service Army, which not only has never been tested, but has given proof of unsound foundation by unparalleled desertions, immensely expensive and inefficient reliefs for India, and then afterwards breaking down at home and in South Africa, as is proved officially by despatches, endless Returns, and facts. In the interests of an efficient successor to the present Army organization, I beg to ask your Lordships
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  to listen to the description of the admirable groundwork and principles of the long-service system which short service does not possess. The groundwork is pension—which the united opinion of the officers and the men of the British Army declare to be the best guarantee of the soldier's discipline, good conduct, and esprit de corps. The principles are, firstly, as regards the physique of the recruit. No Company, however great and prosperous, can give a retiring pension to their servants. The Government alone can give a retiring pension to their soldiers; and the pension which saves the soldier from the workhouse has not only rendered recruiting from ancient time popular and a household word in this country, but enables the Government to obtain in the labour market the recruit with the best physique for war and its hardships. The English people, as generous as they are just, have never begrudged the soldier his pension. Secondly, as regards the morale of the recruit—pension has the advantage of obtaining the recruit with enterprizing spirit who prefers a soldier's life to a life of labour, and whom discipline makes a capital soldier; and, for this reason, foreign officers consider that an English Army is the most military one in the world. Thirdly, pension and long service lessen the objection of 18 years, our enlisting age, as the recruits can be husbanded for two years till 20, the age of medical efficiency, and be capable of 8 or 10 years' service, according to the terms of their enlistment, in the prime of life. The old pensioner—who is worth all the recruiting sergeants—speaking with the authority of his long experience, tells the adventurous spirit of the village or family who prefers a life of adventure to a life of labour to do as his forefathers did—enlist, make the regiment his home, follow its fortunes wherever they lead him, obey and respect his officers, who, if he be a good soldier, will be his friends as well as his superiors, to hesitate before no sacrifice of his life and health; and tells him that if he should be spared from the casualties of war he will return to home with pension and independence from the workhouse, and with a double welcome from his belongings, one for his return, and the other for his war medals and regimental certificate of good conduct—proofs of the gratitude of his Sovereign and the generosity of his

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  country. When the Duke of Wellington I entreated your Lordships' House never to forget the value of old-seasoned soldiers, he had in his mind the pension Army with whom, in a series of immortal victories, he had by the most consummate strategy—a diversion in the Peninsula against Napoleon's universal conquests—saved England and her liberties from invasion, rescued Spain and Portugal from usurpation and military despotism, forced his way through the dangerous passes of the Pyreneean ranges, and established his military power in the South of France in support of the Allied Armies, who, after Russia, by her heroic and patriotic resistance to Napoleon's invasion, had not only expelled his Armies from her soil, but had also enabled united Germany to free herself in 1813 from French conquest and influence by the great victory at Leipsic, and the less important one at Hanau, successes of which the fruits were the invasion of France and the occupation of Paris by the German and Russian Armies. Waterloo, won with the aid of the brave Prussian Army, and the march to Paris, crowned the successes of the Duke of Wellington and of his pension Army. In 1854, the pension Army, under Lord Raglan, in co-operation with our gallant Allies the French, won Alma and the sanguinary battle of Inkerman. In 1857 to 1858 the pension Army, under the unusual hardships and trials of summer and tropical heat, in hard sieges and engagements, saved India. I now venture, my Lords, to consider short service, its groundwork and principles. The groundwork is mixed civil and military employment, in which the civil predominates, with no pension. The principles are—Firstly, short service with the Colours for the first six years, and discharge; secondly, service in the First Class Army Reserve for six years, with a small pay from the Government and wages of civil employment, which the soldier must find to make up the means of existence; and, thirdly, as he has no pension, his future is civil employment for which he has acquired experience and taste. The result is that the short-service non-commissioned officers and privates look on civil service and not the Army as their career and their future. This feeling, the shortness of their service, and the constant transfer of officers and men
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  from their regiments, and more than all, no pension, cause the non-commissioned officers and privates to have no attachment for their officers and regiment, no esprit de corps, and, worse than all, an immense amount of desertion which it was hoped to check by deferred pay—a very questionable attraction, and which has had no effect on the labour market. These military shortcomings naturally engender lukewarmness in the performance of their duties by the non-commissioned officers and men. The non-commissioned officers are generally too young and inexperienced to exercise their authority, and the men generally do not obey with alacrity, but too often with reluctance. It is a dangerous feature of short service that the best men are generally unwilling to be made noncommissioned officers—of which the result is that unfit men are promoted. The noble Viscount (Viscount Cardwell), on the introduction of short service, stated that the Prussian short service lay at the root of all his reforms—that it was his model; but, my Lords, it was an impossibility that he could copy his model and construct English short service on the Prussian model; and at his first start he was stopped by an insurmountable obstacle. The Prussian recruiting is perfectly compulsory and despotic, whilst the English is perfectly voluntary and constitutional; and, therefore, the result is as different as negative and affirmative. The German Government force the whole male population of Germany of 20 years of age to join the Army, and subject them to two searching medical examinations, obtaining thus the flower of the population. But the English Government can only obtain recruits by voluntary enlistment without pension; and therefore, so far from obtaining the flower of the population at 20 years of age, they are forced to take striplings at 18, and literally to take the refuse of the labour market—so much so, that the War Office, to obtain a paper strength, are obliged to shut their eyes to fraudulent enlistment, which crowds the ranks of the Army with boys whom no other employer will engage. The recent official and published Correspondence between Lord Chelmsford, Sir Bartle Frere, and the War Office, proves that the urgent want of the Commander-in-Chief in South Africa was seasoned and well-

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  trained soldiers, and that as the same want of seasoned and well-trained soldiers existed in England, for the War Department were compelled to send 1,000 men of the Sea Forces to re-inforce the Land Forces in South Africa. Under these circumstances, the reflection—than which nothing can be more serious—irresistibly presents itself, that if England had gone to war, two years ago, in defence of British rights, the exposure in Turkey of our military inefficiency, and the lamentable consequences which have occurred in South Africa, would have been the most fatal blow to our military and political influence that has ever occurred. The facts stated in my speech of the 30th May respecting the defects of short service have never been answered. I have now, my Lords, arrived at an aspect of the military question which is a very delicate one; but its importance supersedes its delicacy. It is the attitude of Her Majesty's Government, and more particularly of its most distinguished Premier, from an early date, with regard to short and long service. My noble Friend, together with other Members of both Houses, first supported long service with pension, and then suddenly and unexpectedly made a speech in the House of Commons against it. Others of Her Majesty's Ministers adopted the military policy of their Predecessors on coming into Office. They stated as reasons for doing so that it was necessary to try so expensive and so extensive a scheme. Others said that, having spent so much money, there was nothing for it but to make the best of it. On the other hand, I must observe that the Ministry went farther than that; for they proposed to extend the short service to Cavalry and Artillery, of which other Peers and myself showed the impossibility. But it is common justice that I should say that several of Her Majesty's Ministers are said—and I believe it is so—to be opposed to short service. I do not wish to develop further this delicate subject than to say that I think your Lordships will agree with me that it would be extremely desirable that my noble Friend at the head of Her Majesty's Government should, in the interests of the all-important question now before your Lordships' House, state whether they have retained or modified their present opinion, or returned to their former opinion
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  as to long service with pension and short service without pension.
  LORD ELLEN BOROUGHfully concurred with the noble and gallant Lord in thinking that short service had been in many respects injurious to the Army; although, no doubt, if a scheme of retirement was properly carried out, it would have the advantage of creating an efficient body of Reserves. He could not speak too strongly in favour of a system of pensions. The loyalty, combined with efficiency, of the Madras Army during the late Mutiny was to be attributed, in a very great degree, to the system of pensions that existed in that Presidency of the Empire in India. He believed that all but the youngest and most inexperienced officers—namely, those on whose opinions commanding officers had been told in "another place" to base their opinions—were agreed that it was absolutely necessary to have a system of pensions concurrently with a certain duration of service, and to continue such a system in respect to both European as well as East and West Indian soldiers, of all ranks, in either Army.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEcomplained of the manner in which the noble and gallant Lord (Lord Strathnairn) had departed from the Notices which had for some time stood in his name on the Paper. The Notice, as it first stood, was—
  "To call attention to the lamentable consequences resulting from the neglect of the first and elementary rules of military tactics and strategy lately exhibited in the recent operations of Her Majesty's Forces in South Africa; and to ask Her Majesty's Government when the recommendation of the Joint Committee of the War Office and the Civil Service Commissioners appointed to consider the question whether the present literary examinations for the Army should be supplemented by physical competition will he acted upon?"
  The noble and gallant Lord had kept on the Notices a wholesale indictment against those responsible for the conduct of the recent operations in South Africa. He allowed that Notice to remain upon the Paper up to the last moment, and then withdrew it, and delivered a lengthy statement on a subject which he had only put on the Paper that morning. The Notice, as it appeared on the Papers delivered to their Lordships that morning, was divided into two. The first Question related to the question of examinations for commissions, and the second to short

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  and long service systems and the operations in South Africa. But the noble and gallant Lord never referred to the first, and did not touch upon the second branch of the second Motion—
  LORD STRATHNAIRNobserved, that he had stated his reason for not bringing forward his original Motion, which showed the want of foundation of the criticism of the noble Marquess.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE,in continuation, said, that he should not then discuss the question of long and short service. Their Lordships had had many discussions on the subject, and the conclusion which was arrived at was this—that the country should have an elastic Array—an Army with a Reserve; but in all his criticisms the noble and gallant Lord had never attempted to show how an Army with a second line could be supplied if we reverted to the old system of long service. The question was now under the consideration of a strong Military Commission. If the short-service system required alteration, that alteration would, no doubt, be made; but he thought it was too late to come to their Lordships and propose that we should revert to the old system of long service with pension.
  VISCOUNT BURYsaid, he must confess that he had experienced the same difficulty as the noble Marquess with respect to the Notice of his noble and gallant Friend. Up to that morning, as the noble Marquess stated, the noble and gallant Lord had had a Notice on the Paper—
  "To call attention to the lamentable consequences resulting from the neglect of the first and elementary rules of military tactics and strategy lately exhibited in the recent operations of Her Majesty's Forces in South Africa."
  Now, it would be obvious to the House that a Notice that had been on the Paper for several weeks must be taken to have contained the expression of the deliberate judgment of his noble and gallant Friend; indeed, the Notice they were now discussing ended with words to the same effect and in very much the same terms. That, then, was the deliberate judgment of his noble and gallant Friend upon the conduct of the operations in South Africa; although, in consequence of the success that had attended our arms, he would now say nothing on the subject, but be content to participate in the general satisfaction. He had only one word to say with re-
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  gard to our strategy in South Africa. When the Notice that had been so long on the Paper had first appeared he was at a loss to know how to answer the question, if it arose, and had even imagined that it might, perhaps, be necessary for him to renew his acquaintance with Hamley's Art of War. There was only the assertion of the noble and gallant Lord that the elementary principles of war had been neglected; and it was difficult, on the strength of that simple assertion, for him to defend those who were doing their duty in a distant country. It was hardly fair, it appeared to him, that his noble and gallant Friend should have put such a Notice as he had done on the Paper. The noble and gallant Lord was a man whom the country had delighted to honour; he had won the baton of a Field Marshal, and had obtained as the reward of his services a seat in that House. Words of praise or blame, therefore, coming from such a man carried with them a greater sting and more power to wound than if they had been uttered by a person of less distinction. He was glad, he might add, that the noble and gallant Lord had not, on the present occasion, gone into the details on which he founded his opinion as to the want of military knowledge on the part of our Commanders in South Africa; and he would only say upon that point that their strategy had, at all events, been crowned with success, and that—so far as he knew up to the present moment—the plans which had been formed at the beginning of the campaign had been carried to a triumphal issue and the power of the Zulu Forces broken. Their Lordships would share with the noble and gallant Lord the pleasure which he had expressed at that result; but it should be borne in mind that we did not as yet know all the difficulties which had to be encountered; and, speaking, as it was it his duty to do, on the part of the Government, he must deprecate anything like hasty criticism and pay regard only to the solid results which had been obtained. The rest of the speech of his noble and gallant Friend had been chiefly devoted to passing a panegyric on long, at the expense of short, service. The noble and gallant Lord had entered, in the course of his observations, into a great many details which were, no doubt, highly valuable; but there was a Committee sitting on

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  the subject, before which all the evidence which could be procured with respect to it was being placed, and he now invited the noble and gallant Lord to lay before that Committee his opinions and views upon the question. No man's evidence could carry with it greater authority; and he might, he thought, with confidence, assure him that the officers who composed the Committee would be only too glad to welcome any contribution to the elucidation of the subject with which they had to deal which the noble and gallant Lord might mate. The noble and gallant Lord said under 20 was not an age at which soldiers should be recruited; and it was, he (Viscount Bury) supposed, granted on all hands that if that it had been won principally by hoys, recruits of maturer years could be secured it would be desirable to obtain them. It should not, however, be forgotten that under our system of recruiting we bad to go into the labour market and to compete with all the various trades in the country, which were glad to employ young and active men. If, therefore, we were not prepared to pay the sum of money which would enable the Government successfully to compete with these trades, the only resource which was open was to catch for the Army the best men we could. How to do so was the very crux of the whole matter which was being discused by the Committee to which he had already referred. The noble and gallant Lord had throughout his speech talked of long and short service; but he, in the same breath, talked of service for 10 years, which, as their Lordships were aware, was not long service. When men were now enlisted for 12 years it was a mere matter of detail whether they remained six years with the Colours and were then passed into the Reserve, or whether they were kept only three years with the Colours. The noble and gallant Lord seemed to think that he had a better plan to recommend; but, if so, why should he not lay that plan before the Committee? His noble and gallant Friend had passed a well-deserved eulogium on the Armies of the Duke of Marlborough and the Duke of Wellington; and he had mentioned battles, such as that of Waterloo, which he seemed to imagine had been won by long-service soldiers. He (Viscount Bury), however, had often heard his
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  own father, who was in that battle, say and that the regiment in which he himself was was composed of boys. So, although the soldiers now in the ranks of our Army might be immature boys, they had yet acquitted themselves like men in Zululand. Of all savage tribes which we had ever had to encounter—he did not, of course, mean to compare them with European Armies—the Zulus seemed to be, by all accounts, incomparably the finest soldiers. Nevertheless, outnumbered many times as they had been, those boys, to whom the noble and gallant Lord seemed to object, had stood steady in the field against an enemy with the prestige of having inflicted on our troops more than one considerable blow, and despite the terror which always accompanied warfare of the kind. They had, moreover, won a victory which proved that, although they might be immature in point of years, they yet had the manhood of Englishmen, and were, in a word, true English soldiers.
  THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGEsaid, he did not propose to enter into any of the questions which had been brought under the notice of their Lordships by his noble and gallant Friend—on whose opinions he set the highest value—because, to discuss these questions at the present moment would, he agreed with the Under Secretary of State for War, be somewhat premature, remembering that it was being investigated by a Committee whose recommendations might lead to great changes. The views of the noble and gallant Lord were, undoubtedly, worthy of great attention; and it certainly appeared to him that his noble Friend the Under Secretary of State for War had made a wise suggestion in advising his noble and gallant Friend to go before the Committee, and he hoped his noble and gallant Friend would act in accordance with that suggestion. He had himself given evidence for two hours that day; and the opinion of the noble and gallant Lord might be taken in the same way. As he had before said, he did not think he would be justified in giving any opinion one way or the other on a question which was at present undergoing, as it were, a judicial investigation. Therefore, he hoped his silence on that subject would not be regarded as disrespectful to his noble and gallant Friend or to the House. He could assure his noble and

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  gallant Friend that nothing had given him greater satisfaction since he entered the House than to hear the generous statement of his noble and gallant Friend that he had struck out the latter part of his Notice of Motion, the pressing of which might have had the appearance of some want of cordiality with the men who were now fighting our battles in Zululand. There was but one sentiment of delight and rejoicing at the great success which our arms had achieved in Zululand, and he was sure that no one entered more cordially into that spirit of satisfaction than his noble and gallant Friend.
  EARL FORTESCUEobserved, that he could not agree that all discussion ought now to be suspended because a Royal Commission had been appointed. It required no Royal Commission to find out that when, as had long notoriously been the case, the mass of recruits enlisted at about 17, if they were passed into the Reserve after six years' service or less, instead of remaining with the Colours for 12 years, a very large proportion of the Army must consist of lads under age, unfit, as the highest medical authorities had repeatedly stated and experience had shown, to face either the fatigue and hardships of a campaign or exposure to tropical climates. The remonstrances of sanitary reformers had obtained a promise that lads under 20 should not be sent out to India. There was more apparent than real economy in the present system; because the expense, not only of bringing back from distant stations men whose term of service had expired, but also of sending out others to replace them, was very considerable. At the same time, it was a great thing to have, at last, created something of a reserve, though at the expense of the present efficiency of the Army, as regarded the general age, not only of the privates, but of the noncommissioned officers, many of whom were now far too young, some of 18 and 19, many of 20 and 21. He was glad a Commission had been appointed; there was much for them to inquire into and consider, and especially the difficult question how our Army could be provided with duly qualified non-commissioned officers and men fitted by age and maturity to undergo the hardships of a campaign or to be sent to tropical climates?

INDIA—CRIMINAL LAW—USE OF TORTURE.—QUESTION.
LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYasked the Secretary of State for India, Whether he would lay upon the Table of the House the judgment of the High Court Judges with respect to the use by Mr. Cox of burning camphor to elicit evidence, Mr. Cox's written statement, and the despatch of the Madras Government on the subject?
VISCOUNT CRANBROOK,in reply, said, a Question on this subject was asked in the other House, and he had no additional information to that given by the Cinder Secretary. There was no doubt Mr. Cox had been guilty of considerable irregularities; but there was no question of torture involved. No order was made by the High Court; but on the facts coming to the notice of the Government Mr. Cox was censured. He had been seven years in the Service, and there had been no previous complaint against him of any kind. Mr. Cox, during the Famine, had been very active, and it was thought by his Grace the Governor that the conduct of Mr. Cox having been condemned nothing more need be done.
House adjourned at a quarter before Seven o'clock, to Monday next, Eleven o'clock.