§ LORD STRATHNAIRNsaid, he rose to call attention to the statement made by the Under Secretary of State for War on the 20th of June, that desertions had fallen to 2,000 a-year under the short-service system, whilst a War Office Return laid before the House on the 19th of February 1880, gives the following result:—In 1874 there were 5,572 desertions, in 1875 there were 4,382, in 1876 there were 4,878, in 1877 there were 5,058, and in 1878 there were 5,406. These figures showed an annual average of 5,059 desertions, or more than 300 per cent than had been stated by the noble Earl.
THE EARL OF MORLEYsaid, he thought he might save the noble and gallant Lord trouble by at once stating that what he had said on the occasion referred to, as the noble and gallant Lord had, unintentionally, no doubt, 1636 completely misrepresented him. The words he used were—
In five years of long service, from 1866 to 1870, inclusive, deducting those who rejoined, the desertions averaged 2,158, and in an equal period of short service they averaged 2,460, being a yearly increase of 302.
§ LORD STRATHNAIRNsaid, that direct desertions from regiments had been always considered a very serious crime and dangerous, and an indication of bad discipline and feeling, want of esprit de corps when it became extensive. But it was not astonishing, for all officers of regimental experience, not the experience of officers who had served on the Staff only, and authors of one-sided articles in periodicals, but the officers who had studied and knew the feelings of their men, their weak points, and their good points, had all along predicted that short service—that was, general service, which changed the soldiers continually from regiment to regiment, which offered no military future, but only 6d. a day for six years, with no prospect but a very uncertain civil employment, and then left them on the pavé with nothing at all—could engender nothing but distaste for the Service. All the commandants of depôts that he had seen concurred in saying, speaking from their own experience and that of their recruiting staff, that the Service and recruiting had no worse enemies than the short service and Reserve discharged soldiers, and used language respecting both which would not bear repetition. But while these authorities gave these opinions as to short-service soldiers, they held very different opinions of the old pensioners, who, they said, were the best recruiting sergeants, because they advised the adventurous spirits of their districts and villages who they knew would make the best soldiers to enlist and serve the Queen faithfully in all those varied climes and countries where the English soldiers' lot led them, to obey their officers, and do their duty to their Queen and country, and before the enemy at any sacrifice; and then, if spared from death by climate or war, to return to their homes to independence from the workhouse given them by a generous country and grateful Sovereign. The second class of desertions was that from one regiment to another, and to many other regiments. But the worst remained to be told, and that was the 1637 most dangerous—fraudulent enlistment. Statisticians said it applied to no less than one-third of the Army. He referred to recruits who were that they were of the proper recruiting age when they were under that age. What chance had our youthful Army enlisting at 18 years of age, and then deluged up to one-third of their strength by perjured boys from 18 to 15, whose strength, when heavily loaded, was certain to collapse in marches and operations of war, and with it their moral powers and their courage? They had reinforced the Army by a Reserve which was not to fight except in wars with a foreign Power or in distant India. In either of these cases civil employment, the means of the existence of this Reserve, disappeared, and with it the Reserve. They had given the officers of the Army an education half military, half civil, and the half civil tainted by the competitive study of immoral and debasing literature—an education which he had repeatedly told their Lordships no honest Englishman would give his children.
THE EARL OF MORLEYsaid, it was unnecessary to answer the speech of the noble and gallant Lord, inasmuch as it was based upon an unintentional misinterpretation of a speech which he made in their Lordships' House a few days ago. The point in which the noble and gallant Lord had misunderstood him in speaking of desertions was in reference to the men who, having deserted, had rejoined the Service in other branches. He had not used the words "to other branches," which would obviously be inapplicable. What he said was that in five years preceding the short service, deducting those men who rejoined the Army, the average annual number of desertions was 2,158, and since the period of the short service 2,460, making an increase of 302. These figures were absolutely correct. It was, if he might say so, absurd to talk of waste in the Army without taking into account the total number of deserters who rejoined.