MOTION FOR PAPERS. (Hansard, 13 March 1885)

§ VISCOUNT BURY,
in rising to move for the following Returns:— (1) Return of the titles of the Acts of Parliament at present in force for the regulation of 1056 matters connected with the Army; showing the clauses of each Act which have been repealed by subsequent legislation; (2) a list of the Orders in Council now in force for the government of the Army; (3) a list, with dates, of the several volumes of Royal Warrants and of Regulations issued by authority of the Secretary of State for the administration of the Army and now in force; (4) a list of the Reports of Royal Commissions or of special Committees on Army matters which have been presented to Parliament since the year 1872; (5) Returns of the terms for enlistment, discharge, extension of service with or without pension, transfer to the Reserve, extension of reserve service, or re-engagement for the reserve that existed in 1879 at the time of Lord Airey's Committee, and the terms in force at the present time for the same—namely, the enlistment, discharge, transfer to the reserve, extension of reserve service or re-engagement for the reserve; periods of service that give title to pension, and the amount of such pension; also the provision made for the families of reserve soldiers when their husbands are with the colours; and if any persons are charged with the duty of affording assistance to the families of reserve soldiers in case of need during the absence of their husbands, said, that he was placed in a position of some difficulty. The Motion for the first four of these Returns had been placed on the Paper by himself, and he could speak about them; but the others were moved by the noble and gallant Lord (Lord Napier of Magdala), who was now unable through indisposition to be present. The Motions had been joined because the discussion of them would otherwise have been separated by several other subjects. The Motion which he himself now brought forward was necessitated, because from 1871 down to the present time there had been a constant succession of changes in the constitution of the Army, which had left it, he did not say now whether in a worse or in a better position than it was before, but certainly in a totally different position. Prom 1871, when Lord Cardwell began his reforms in the Army, almost all the changes that were made were embodied in Acts of Parliament, in Royal Warrants, and in General Orders. Large sums of money were spent in abolishing purchase, and in establishing depôt centres. Lord Cardwell's changes involved the absolute destruction of the system which they superseded. Each successive War Minister was compelled, whether he liked it or not, to develop the new plan, some parts of which were found not easily workable. It was impossible for any Minister, whatever his opinions might be, to resist the plea that the new system 1057 required time to prove its effects, or to induce his Colleagues to sacrifice the more than £3,500,000 that were expended on the depot centres, or to face any new succession of organic changes in the constitution of the Army. At no time was it possible after 1872 to go back to the old Army system, which was entirely destroyed—its bones, so to speak, having been buried. When Lord Cardwell introduced this scheme in 1872 he had been fortified by the Localization Committee, which dealt with two classes of subjects—the one destructive, the other constructive. The destructive parts of the scheme had been entirely successful—that was to say, the existing Army system was wholly demolished. The constructive parts of the scheme were not so effective, hardly any of them having yet been carried out. Lord Cardwell took care to embody all his changes in Acts of Parliament, and successive Secretaries of State had since then had no choice but to obey the law. Each of them had tried to make the system work, and had taken certain steps which, whether they were right or wrong, were absolutely irrevocable. Each of them might, in fact, be said to have broken up the ground behind him. Before Lord Cardwell's changes, or in 1871, the Votes for the Army amounted to about £16,000,000 per annum. The Army Estimates had remained at pretty much the same sum ever since. At that time enlistment was for 21 years, at the end of which term a pension was obtained; recruiting was found to be difficult, hardly sufficient men coming in to make up for the waste in the Army. In fact, even lowering the standard and giving large bounties scarcely enabled them to get enough men for the Service. Therefore, it must be acknowledged that the state of the Army in Lord Cardwell's time was very unsatisfactory, and it was quite right to apply some strong and even drastic remedy to it. There was no Reserve. Lord Cardwell's plan was to abolish purchase, to secure the necessary flow of promotion by the compulsory retirement of officers, and to give promotion by seniority, tempered by selection. Pension to the rank and file was entirely done away with, an endeavour was made to create a Reserve by passing men after three years' service in the ranks into the 1058 Reserve, and the main feature of the scheme was to localize the Army and to establish what was now called the Depot Brigade system—to identify regiments with various localities for recruiting and training, connecting the Regulars, the Auxiliaries, and the Reserves with the Forces actually serving under the standard. That system was based on the number of battalions—namely, 141, which then happened to exist in the Army; and its smooth working depended on the possibility of retaining exactly 71 battalions always in England and 70 abroad, any disturbance of that proportion involving the complete dislocation of the scheme. Now, on no occasion since then had that proportion been kept up; and Lord Cardwell's original scheme, from beginning to end, though nominally adopted, had never been really carried out. The scheme was embodied first in the Regulation of the Forces Bill of 1871, which was three times remodelled before it passed. First, the whole Bill, except as to the abolition of purchase was withdrawn. Then the abolition of purchase clauses were thrown out in their Lordships' House. Then those clauses were carried into effect by Royal Warrant, and in the same month of 1871 the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond and Gordon) moved a Resolution declaring that the amended Bill was read the second time only on account of the clauses securing compensation to officers; and that Bill was at last carried only in the shape of clauses giving compensation to officers. Shortly afterwards came what was called the Localization Committee, which presented three successive Reports, and subsequently the Localization Act was passed, £3,500,000 sterling being granted for the building of barracks at the various depot centres. In that year also a General Order was issued to the Army giving effect to the recommendation of the Localization Committee, and containing instructions for the officers appointed to command in connection with the localization of the Forces. In 1874 there was a change of Government. At that time there were in active operation the Army and Militia Reserve Act of 1867, the Regulation of the Forces Act of 1871, the Localization Act of 1872, and the General Order of 1873. In 1875 Mr. Gathorne Hardy appointed the well-known Militia Committee of which Lord Stanley was Chair- 1059 man. That Committee propounded a scheme similar in many respects to that adopted by Mr. Childers. Mr. Hardy also appointed Sir Daniel Lysons's Committee to examine the brigade depots; and in the same year, when preparations were made in prospect of the war with Russia, a Committee was appointed on the mobilization of the Army. In 1878 Mr. Hardy appointed General Armstrong's Committee on the short-service system. On the recommendation of that Committee, the whole system of rewards and punishments had been framed to meet the requirements of the old long-service system, which were set aside and remodelled in order to suit the circumstances of the new system of Mr. Card-well. In 1879 Colonel Stanley succeeded Mr. Hardy, and he appointed Lord Airey's Committee in consequence of the difficulties which had been found in the working of the short-service system. That Committee might be said to represent the military opinion of the day. Their recommendations were not presented to Parliament for a considerable time—in fact, they were not presented until Mr. Childers had matured and laid before Parliament his new scheme in March, 1882, while moving the Army Estimates. He need not enter into an examination of that scheme, because it was the scheme upon which the Army was at present regulated. His object in giving this brief history of the Army changes from 1871 until the present time was to show their Lordships that there were a series of Acts of Parliament, of General Orders, of Royal Warrants, and of Orders in Council which overlapped each other to such an extent that no one could make head or tail of the mass. Officers did not know how they stood, nor under what Regulations they came. There might be a mass of books for them to consult; but it was nearly impossible for them to find out whether a certain Royal Warrant or General Order had been wholly or partially repealed by some subsequent legislation, and, indeed, unless in the case of such experts as his noble Friend the Under Secretary of State for War, no officer could exactly say under what Regulations the Army at present existed. It was necessary, therefore, that there should be laid before their Lordships such information as that he had indicated, and that there should be in the possession of 1060 officers of the Army a single Return from which they and others interested in the administration of the Army might gather the exact position of legislative enactments by which the Army was controlled. If the Returns for which he asked, as well as the Return asked for by his noble and gallant Friend the Field Marshal, were granted, as he hoped they would be, there would be in the hands of officers in the Army and of those interested in its government a compendious book of reference by which the actual condition of affairs might be thoroughly known.

THE EARL OF MORLEY
said, he was unable to trace any connection between the historical retrospect given by the noble Viscount and the Motion of which he had given Notice. The only object he could conceive the noble Viscount had in making his statement was to show the system was introduced by Lord Cardwell, and to prove that because subsequent War Ministers were unable to depart from it he (Viscount Bury) was to be acquitted from any responsibility in having to carry it out. He had no difficulty in acquitting the noble Viscount of that responsibility. The noble Viscount, towards the conclusion of his speech, complained that there was a good deal of confusion as to the documents, whether General Orders or Acts of Parliament, by which the Army was governed. He had no objection to produce the Returns asked for; indeed, the Motion 1061 had, to some extent, been anticipated, and the documents were in such a forward state of preparation that they would probably be presented to the House in a few days. He thought, however, the noble Lord somewhat exaggerated the confusion to officers and others interested in the Army arising from the number of documents dealing with its administration. He did not seem to be aware that the documents regulating the Army were infinitely more simple in their character than they had been in any former period. With one or two exceptions, the legislation affecting the Army was up to date. It was contained in 12 volumes of Regulations, eight of which were confined to departmental arrangements. It seemed to him, therefore, that the criticisms of the noble Viscount referred more appropriately to the old days, when there was no such thing as the consolidating of Warrants. At present there was no confusion whatever. The Warrants were perfectly clear, consolidation took place from time to time, and every officer could not fail to obtain with very little trouble the information he wanted. There was another volume to which he would like to refer; it was a manual of military law issued on the authority of the War Department. The book had been drawn up by an able legal authority, embodying the Acts of Parliament and dissertations on military law regulating the Army up to date. The price of the book was 2s. 6d., so it was not beyond the reach of noble Lords who were interested. The Returns asked for by the noble and gallant Lord the Field Marshal had already been placed before the House in a very convenient form. The noble Viscount's Motion concluded with a reference to a Return, though in reality it was rather in the nature of a Question, as to the payment which the wives of Reserve soldiers would receive while their husbands were with the Colours. He did not think that that was a subject for a Return; but he would give the noble Viscount what information he could. The wives of Reserve men with the Colours would receive the same allowances as were received by the wives of soldiers serving abroad—namely, 8d. a-day, with 2d. a-day for each child up to a certain age. These sums were calculated on the foreign rate, and not on the home 1062 rate, which was much smaller; and he believed no complaint had been made as to the way in which the wives of Reserve men would be dealt with. There was no such organization as the noble Viscount suggested for relieving the wives and families of Reserve men in case of need; and he failed to see how such an organization could be established. The families of Reserve soldiers were scattered all over the country, and the task of relieving them in case of need must devolve on local administrations in the places where these people resided. In conclusion, the noble Earl said he hoped he should be able shortly to lay upon the Table of the House the Returns for which the noble Viscount had moved.

THE EARL OF GALLOWAY
wanted to know whether it was proposed to give effect to that part of the original scheme which provided that when the two battalions of one regiment were both abroad a third battalion should be formed at home? That part of the scheme had never yet been carried out.

THE EARL OF MORLEY
said, he must protest against the extraordinary irregularity of asking a Question on a Motion with which it had nothing whatever to do; but he had no objection to answer it. When it was thought desirable, no doubt, the depôt could be, and was in several cases, increased in numbers. Of course, the Military Advisers of the Crown were guided by the circumstances in which wars were carried on.

§ THE EARL OF WEMYSS
expressed his satisfaction with the announcement that the Returns moved for by his noble Friend would, as far as possible, be granted.