§ LORD DORCHESTERasked the Under Secretary of State for War, Whether the following paragraph still appeared in the Queen's Regulations and Orders for the Army:—
Furthermore, officers and soldiers are forbidden to give publicity to their individual opinions in any manner tending to prejudge questions that may at the time he undergoing investigation by the military authorities.A paper, he explained, had recently appeared in The Nineteenth Century, cri- 1914 ticizing the condition of non-commissioned officers and of the Army generally. In the article to which he referred, the gallant author (Sir Garnet Wolseley), who described the officers as affected with aMilitary disease of chronic grumbling and whining pessimism—the same yesterday, today, and will be so for ever,said that non-commissioned officers were very badly remunerated, and were not provided with as good accommodation as they deserved. For his part, he believed that the condition of non-commissioned officers had been materially improved of late years. He did not wish to disparage the military merit of the gallant author of the article in question; but he could not refrain from expressing the opinion that had that article been written by an officer of low rank it would have been very severely commented on.
THE EARL OF MORLEY, in reply, said, that a similar Question had been asked in "another place." He could only say that the Regulation quoted by the noble Lord had for many years been honoured more in the breach than in the observance. There was no doubt that it had been the habit of officers to discuss, both in speeches and in writing, a great many important questions connected with the organization of the Army; but the Secretary of State for War did not intend to take notice of the article referred to, or of similar articles, at the present time.