Lords Sitting of 12 August 1885

EGYPT—SOUDAN EXPEDITION— VOTE OF THANKS TO HER MAJESTY'S MILITARY AND NAVAL FORCES.—RESOLUTION.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY,in rising, according to Notice, to move that the Thanks of the House be given to General Lord Wolseley, General Sir Gerald Graham, Lord John Hay, and all the other Officers and Men of the Army and Navy, for the skill, courage, and ability with which they have conducted the operations in the Soudan, said: My Lords, in rising to perform this, to me, agreeable duty, I feel assured that I may call upon your Lordships to render that tribute which you always willingly give to those who have risked much, and have borne much, in circumstances of great emergency in the service of their Queen and country. I believe that there is no honour which Her Majesty's Forces value so much as the thanks of the two Houses of Parliament; and I am sure that there has been no condition, no set of circumstances, in which they have better deserved such a guerdon at your Lordships' hands. And in considering their merits you must keep out of sight altogether the precise results and outcome of the labours which they have gone through and the dangers which they have incurred. Of course, my Lords, this is not the moment at which I should revive any controversial topics, and I only wish to say that you must look upon this fact—that they failed to fulfil the main purpose for which they were sent out through no fault of their own. The prize of success was taken from them, as it were, by an overmastering destiny; by the action of causes, whatever their nature, over which they themselves had no more control than they would have over a tempest or an earthquake; and the duty
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which they were sent to perform was one of singular difficulty and great danger, and surrounded by circumstances strange to the experience of the British Army, and calling forth some of the greatest qualities which that Army has or could ever display. The generalship displayed by Lord Wolseley in that Campaign along the Nile has won the tribute of many high authorities among the most military nations of Europe; and while the work was going on it was watched with mingled solicitude and admiration by spectators from foreign countries and under every Government; and everybody must have felt that Lord Wolseley displayed singular and unusual qualities in fighting against the strange and unaccustomed difficulties with which he had to contend, and those qualities were more than emulated and seconded by the officers and men under his command. He had to send an Expedition more than 1,400 miles, mainly along a river torn with cataracts, among deserts in which neither food nor water was to be had, and in the face of enemies fighting in their own country, skilled in their own warfare, and animated by that formidable mixture of religious fanaticism and military spirit which the religion of Islam seems alone to have the secret of conferring upon its votaries. This tremendous task he performed in an incredibly short space of time, and, considering what he had to go through, with singularly little loss of life, and with preparations which seldom, if ever, failed in their object. And the men, whether they were forcing their boats up cataracts, or whether they were engaged in the unpleasant and unaccustomed duty of conducting camel convoys across the Desert, or whether they were engaged in fighting with Arabs, whose like they had never met before, showed throughout the peculiar qualities for which British soldiers have always been celebrated. It was a campaign which must have been very trying to the spirit of any army; but it made a special appeal to what may be called especial British qualities. There are many armies which show as much, it may be even greater, fire and impulse in the middle of battle, in the inspiriting charge, in fighting a pitched conflict, when foes are ranged together face to face in the battle field; but there is no

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army which shows in an equal degree the qualities of patient endurance, of steady discipline, and of determination through long and exhausting and anxious service, to do all, to bear all, to dare all, rather than to fail for an instant to fulfil the extreme demands of military fidelity and duty. This is the peculiar glory of the British Army; and I venture to say that, though the scale of its warfare on this occasion may not have been large, at no time in its history has it shown those merits in a more conspicuous degree. Of the Army on the Coast of the Red Sea the same may be said. As in the case of its sister Army in the Valley of the Nile, the results of the Campaign were small; but the dangers which that force faced were not small, the enemy was by no means contemptible. Probably during the two years in which Lieutenant General Graham led his Forces against the Arabs and Osman Digna, he had to encounter enemies more determined and dangers more serious, perils demanding more from the courage of his troops, than even those which were encountered by Lord Wolseley in the Valley of the Nile. The service done was conspicuous in both Campaigns, and it was shared by all the British officers and men. The Navy, as a Navy, did not take any great share in these transactions; but the naval officers and sailors who were employed displayed their accustomed resource and courage. Probably there is no incident which has taken so much hold of the popular imagination as that of Lord Charles Beresford and his gallant sailors mending their boilers under the fire of the enemy's guns, when they were going up the Nile at the last moment to relieve General Gordon. But this Campaign, in addition to proving once again the gallantry both of our soldiers and sailors, has fortunately shown the great and world-wide resources of the British Empire. It is a remarkable circumstance that it was a Campaign in the land of the Pharaohs in which were gathered together side by side, to fight the hosts of the Mahommedan followers of the False Prophet, Canadian boatmen from the extreme confines of the Dominion of Canada, Indian troops from the hills of Nepaul, and Australian volunteers who came forward in a gallant spirit, in an emergency of the Mother Country, to bear their share of the Imperial burden.
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It was, in that respect, a splendid sight, and the thanks of the two Houses of Parliament are due quite as much to them as to our own immediate countrymen for the gallantry and determination with which they bore their part in this warfare, and in carrying out the Imperial policy. But the great qualities to which I have referred were not displayed without incurring terrible losses, which we can only now recognize and mourn for and honour with the sympathy and deep admiration which in this country are always called forth by a soldier's death. With regard to Sir Herbert Stewart, it is well known that in him were lost the hopes and promises on which the mind of the British Army was fixed. He was a man who seemed to be destined to become a great General and a great leader of the British Army in the future, and with justice, as in an incredibly short time—I believe in eight years—he passed from a captaincy in the Staff College at Sandhurst to be one of the most conspicuous leaders of this Expedition. He carried with him to the grave the deep attachment and admiration of all who knew him. Not less was the deep affection which accompanied Major General William Earle, who was able to inspire his men to a degree which few Generals have ever surpassed with the intense confidence and daring of his own sanguine disposition; and he fell at last, hardly from the ordinary dangers of war, but from the extreme gallantry, verging on rashness, with which he exposed himself to all the perils and dangers to which the commonest of his soldiers might be exposed. But the great loss of all was the loss of him for whom this Expedition was undertaken—the loss of General Charles Gordon. There is no figure during our generation to which the popular feeling and sympathy were so much attached for some time past as to General Gordon. He united in himself such strange contrasts, such a wonderful mixture of admirable qualities! You see in him the stern professional soldier, devoted to his duty himself, almost reckless in the expenditure of life when that was necessary for the performance of the service to which he was commissioned, hard, apparently, in his resolution in dealing with other men, but much harder in dealing with himself; devoted in all he undertook, and mixing, with

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the most precise and self-abandoning obedience to the orders of those under whom he served, that high spiritual feeling which ran through his whole life, showing that in every act and every word there was interwoven a religious devotion, an intense sense of the reality of spiritual things which, when it is given to any man, appeals in no common degree to the love, the affection, and the veneration of mankind. He has left a story which none in the future will be able to read without feelings of sorrow and almost of indignation. He has left an example of military courage mixed with religious devotion which, I believe, has done much to ennoble the generation to which he belonged, and which will raise the standard of self-devotion as well as of religious zeal among numbers of those who have followed his career and sorrowed for his fate. My Lords, with such grand examples before us, we must feel that this Campaign, whatever else may be said of it, has not been without results. I believe it has added to the military fame of this country; I believe it has added also to the attachment with which the soldiers regard each other, and with which they are devoted to the service of their country. I believe that it holds up many bright examples which, when the passing circumstances and politics of the day are forgotten, will still be sure to inspire and animate others to do their duty to their country and their Queen.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, in the unavoidable absence of my noble Friend (Earl Granville), I rise, with great respect, to second the Motion of the noble Marquess. It would be unbecoming of me to add a single word to what the noble Marquess has said in praise of our gallant troops, and those words of his will go straight to the heart of every Englishman. In view of the Colonial appointment in which I shall shortly have the honour to be entrusted to serve Her Majesty, the House, I hope, will allow me to refer with extreme pride to the promptitude and patriotic zeal with which the Colony of New South Wales came forward in an emergency to take its part in bearing the burdens of the defence of our Empire.
Moved to resolve,
"1. That the Thanks of this House be given to General Lord Wolseley, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., for the distinguished skill and ability with which
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he planned and conducted the Expedition of 1884–85 by the Nile to the Soudan;
"2. That the Thanks of this House be given to Lieutenant-General Sir Gerald Graham, K.C.B., V.C., for the distinguished skill and ability with which he conducted the Expeditions of 1884 and 1885 in the Eastern Soudan, which resulted in the repeated defeat of the Arab forces under Osman Digna;
"3. That the Thanks of this House be given to Admiral Lord John Hay, K.C.B.; to Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Charles Arthur Stephenson, K.C.B.; and to Vice-Admiral Sir William Nathan Wrighte Hewett, K.C.B., K.C.S.I., V.C., for the support and assistance they afforded to the forces employed in the operations in the Soudan; and to the Officers and Warrant Officers of the Navy, Army, and Royal Marines, including Her Majesty's Indian Forces, European and Native, for the energy and gallantry with which they executed the services in the Soudan Campaigns of 1884 and 1885, which they were called upon to perform;
"4. That the Thanks of this House be given to the Officers, Warrant Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, and Men of the Forces of New South Wales for the gallantry and zeal with which they co-operated in the Eastern Soudan with Her Majesty's British and Indian Forces employed there; and also to the Canadian boatmen and their officers for the valuable assistance rendered by them to the Expedition;
"5. That this House doth acknowledge and highly approve the gallantry, discipline, and good conduct displayed by the Petty Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, and Men of the Navy, Army, and Royal Marines, and of the New South Wales Contingent, and of Her Majesty's Indian Forces, European and Native, and by the Canadian boatmen; and this House doth also acknowledge the cordial good feeling which animated the United Force;
"6. That this House doth acknowledge and highly approve the zeal and gallantry with which the troops of His Highness the Khedive have co-operated in the Soudan with Her Majesty's Forces there employed;
"7. That this House doth acknowledge with admiration the distinguished valour, devotion, and conduct of—

Major-General Charles George Gordon, C.B.,

Major-General William Earle, C.B., C.S.I.,

Major-General Sir Herbert Stewart, K.C.B.,

and of those other Officers and Men who have perished during the campaign in the Soudan in the service of their Country; and feels deep sympathy with their relatives and friends:"—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE: My Lords, I wish to say a few words with regard to this Resolution which the noble Marquess has so ably brought before us, and which has been so fitly and efficiently seconded by my noble Friend (Lord Carrington) on this side of the House. I venture, from a mili-

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tary standpoint, entirely to agree with the views which have been expressed by the Prime Minister. I consider that the troops of every arm, and under all the circumstances in which they were placed, performed their duty in a manner as creditably, if not even more so, as any of Her Majesty's troops have ever done. Their duties were of a most peculiar kind, as the noble Marquess has pointed out. The hardships—I may say the dangers—which were endured by these troops, without actual fighting—a great proportion of the men not having come into action—were faced in a manner deserving the greatest praise. Courage in the presence of danger is, I hope, one of the incidents of the English character; but to encounter hardships without danger, or apparently without it, is even more trying, as to discipline and many other matters, than when there is actual danger to be faced. The movement of a body of troops up the Nile, to a distance of 1,400 miles from its base, was one of the most singular operations ever performed, because the soldiers had to undertake almost naval duties. They were more engaged in boats than on shore, and they had to do that duty with a rapidity and a regularity on the part of every detachment without which the whole operation might have been brought to a stand. As I said before, the operation was most peculiar, and one even of extreme danger. The rapids are most difficult to contend with, and if it had not been for a great amount of courage and confidence many more boats than was the case would have been destroyed and men drowned. But, as it was, the loss of life amounted almost to nothing. I believe only one officer and 10 men were drowned in this operation, in which a large body of troops with camels and horses were engaged. Then, again, the defence of Khartoum and the advance across the Desert were most remarkable. In a country without water and without food, the troops who took part in that advance suffered much less than might have been expected. That arose not alone from the courage of the men and the care of the officers, but from the manner in which the whole of the operations had been planned and arranged by the General in command and those of his Staff. My Lords, Lord Wolseley
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had the most serious difficulties to contend with; but he performed his duty in a way highly to his credit, as we all expected would be the case; and I know no man feels more strongly than he how ably he was seconded by Sir Redvers Buller, the Chief of the Staff, and other gallant officers. With regard to the operations on the Red Sea at Suakin also, we were in considerable danger. The fanaticism of the Arabs, which the noble Marquess has most justly described, was such that death to them was welcome. They rushed on death; they scoffed danger in the view of future happiness, and the result was that it was impossible to deal with them according to the ordinary circumstances of war. The troops had to prepare themselves so as to be able to take part in arduous and peculiar operations—difficult in themselves and most trying to those engaged in them, the country being covered with brushwood, through which the men could hardly see beyond two or three yards. Their success, however, on every occasion was complete; and I venture to think with the noble Marquess that, as far as the soldiers are concerned, nothing but praise can be awarded to them, and also to those who had the honour of leading them. There are one or two circumstances of a special nature to which I wish to refer—one in particular is to the share taken in the Campaign by the Colonies and India. I believe this to be the first occasion on which a Colonial Force was actually brought to act with Her Majesty's troops out of its own sphere. Whether we look to the Canadian boatmen, to the Kroomen, who came from distant parts of Africa, to the Native troops, who came from India, or to the Australian Contingent, who were very fine men, and were only grieved that they could not perform more arduous duties, we must feel proud that they were brought into line to act in conjunction with Her Majesty's troops. It has been a pleasure to the Army which I represent to see the Colonists in such a position. It would have been the greatest pleasure to us if we in this country could have welcomed our comrades of the Colonies, and I trust that they have only taken the first step towards vigorous co-operation with the Mother Country should the necessity for it again arise. With regard to the Navy, I can only say that though the

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ships had little to do, we had a very considerable Naval Contingent with most excellent officers up the Nile. Lord Charles Beresford and others, who had the honour and many of the duties connected with the navigation of the boats up that river, did their work on every occasion most creditably, and in a manner most acceptable to their gallant friends of the Army, who always rejoiced to see their comrades of the Navy side by side with them. I quite agree with the noble Marquess that the losses we have sustained, though not so great as might have been feared, are quite great enough and deeply to be deplored, especially the loss of those distinguished men whose names the noble Marquess has mentioned. In General Gordon we have lost one of the finest officers and noblest men ever born into the world. Gallant in himself, religious to a high degree, and singularly conscientious in the performance of duty, he was, no doubt, a great leader of men, particularly of men of the Eastern nations, whoso qualities he appreciated and with whom he had so much to do. Then, in General Sir Herbert Stewart we have lost a most efficient officer. He fell in the performance of a duty which, no doubt, would have been perfectly successful under him, as it was under those who succeeded him; and I will go further, and say that, should any emergency have arisen in the future, I have no doubt General Stewart would have been brought to the front and led troops, and perhaps armies, in which event he would probably have succeeded in any duty that might have been imposed upon him if his life had been prolonged. As regards General Earle, no finer or more gallant soldier ever existed. He was beloved by all, highly respected by all who knew him, and, as a soldier should, he died a soldier's death. There are many others whose names might be mentioned. But I will simply refer to that of Colonel Stewart. He went out originally with General Gordon, and shared with him all the dangers, all the difficulties, and all the anxieties of that prolonged stay at Khartoum of which we have all read. He was sent by General Gordon to try to communicate with Lord Wolseley, and in that endeavour, as your Lordships know, he lost his life. Although he could not be named in the Vote of Thanks, I think it right to take this
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opportunity of bringing his name specially forward. I am not aware that there is anything else that I need touch upon at this time. But I feel gratified that the opportunity should have been offered to your Lordships of passing this Vote of Thanks, and for this reason—that I know well that the officers and men of the Army highly and naturally appreciate the good opinion of their countrymen. The mode in which that opinion is most particularly acceptable to them is the expression, not only of Her Majesty's approbation, but the approbation of both Houses of Parliament on such occasions as these. My Lords, I have nothing more to add than to say that I cordially support the Vote of Thanks.
The said Resolutions severally agreed to, nemine dissentiente.
Ordered, That the Lord Chancellor do communicate the said Resolutions to General Lord Wolseley, Admiral Lord John Hay, the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, respectively, and that they he requested by the Lord Chancellor to communicate the same to the several Officers referred to therein.

ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY— CONSTITUTION OF THE COMMISSION.

  PERSONAL EXPLANATION.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (The Earl of IDDESLEIGH): My Lords, before your Lordships adjourn, I wish to refer to a matter about which there may be some mistake. There appears in the newspapers this morning a short correspondence between Mr. Broadhurst and myself with regard to a suggestion made by me that he should serve on the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the Depression of Trade. From Mr. Broadhurst's answer, it would appear that he considers that I had delayed the consideration of the question of labour representation until everything else had been settled. That, however, is not the case, and, in order that there may be no mistake in the matter, I wish to state that as soon as the communications with Mr. Shaw Lefevre and other Members of the late Government were concluded, I, for the first time, sent out a letter inviting other Gentlemen to join the Commission; and in the number that were asked were two

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  Representatives from the working men. One was Mr. Birtwhistle, who represents the Lancashire weavers, who accepted; and the other was Mr. Burnett, Secretary of the Amalgamated Engineers, who declined. I did not take any further steps for some time, because I was anxious to see what Representatives I could get from the Party opposite; and until I had done that I did not like to make any other proposals. I mentioned, from the first, that I had invited two Representatives of the working men to take part in the Commission; and, therefore, I am not liable to the charge which Mr. Broadhurst makes in his letter.
  House adjourned during pleasure, at 2.45 P.M.
  House resumed at 7 P.M.
  The Lord KINTORE—Chosen Speaker in the absence of the Lord Chancellor and the Lords Commissioners.
  The following Bills were returned from the Commons with Amendments, and with Reasons for disagreeing to some of the Amendments made by their Lordships:—Housing of the Working Classes (England) Bill; Labourers (Ireland) (No. 2) Bill; and Poor Law Unions' Officers (Ireland) Bill.
  On the Motion of The Lord HARRIS, the said Amendments and Reasons ordered to be printed, and to be considered To-morrow.
  House adjourned at Seven o'clock, till To-morrow, Two o'clock.