§ LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY, in asking, If Her Majesty's Government would now reinstate the name of Colonel Valentine Baker in The Army List? said, that he did not know Colonel Baker; but, from all that he had heard, he thought—and he had been told that most of the men and all the women in the country thought—that he had been too hardly used by the removal of his name from The Army List, and by the loss of his commission. He was, however, more concerned for the consistency of the conduct of Her Majesty's Ministers; and he did not see how they could abstain from replacing his name on The Army List, or otherwise removing the slur put upon him by its removal from that List, when they had placed him, or allowed him to be placed, at the head of the new Egyptian Army, when it appeared that they corresponded with him, and that English officers were to be placed in the Egyptian Army under his orders. If the Government were to refuse to reinstate Colonel Baker's name in The Army List, or otherwise do away with the effect of its removal, it would be equivalent to proclaiming that they had one standard for officers in England and another for Egypt, and that men were fit for Egypt who were not fit for England. This would not agree with the Government pretensions of re-organizing Egypt, and this example set in the Military Department might be followed in the Civil Service. But the Government must have thought of these considerations before they selected Colonel Baker for the service in which he was now engaged, and which he could not have obtained except by their recommendation.
THE EARL OF MORLEYMy Lords, my answer to the Question of the noble Lord is that it is not the intention of Her Majesty's Government to reinstate the name of Colonel Valentine Baker in the list of officers in Her Majesty's Service.