HL Deb 11 July 1890 vol 346 cc1450-61

Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.

*EARL BROWNLOW

My Lords, this Bill, to which I have to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to-night, is essentially a Financial Bill, and I would remind your Lordships that it has passed through the other House not only without Division but with extraordinarily little Debate. I beg to introduce this measure to the notice of the House—first, on the score of military efficiency; secondly, on the score of the health and comfort of the troops, and of those who are dependent on them—their wives and families; and, thirdly, on the score of economy Up to the present time there has not been put forward any great scheme of concentration or of accommodation for our troops. In times past it appears that barracks have been built from time to time in various parts of the country probably to meet the exigencies of the moment, and the result of this system, or what perhaps I may better call want of system, is that many of these barracks are placed in the centre of towns where there are no facilities for drill or for musketry practice; some of them are unhealthy or unsanitary and dilapidated, whilst others of them are too small to hold a regiment. For the first time a thorough scheme has been prepared by the Quartermaster General for the concentration and for the accommodation of the troops. When I use the word "concentration" I do not only mean the concentration of large bodies of men as in our large camps, but also the concentration of single regiments, and also of several batteries of Artillery. Therefore, when I say concentration of troops, I mean their concentration in barracks sufficiently large to hold one regiment. The Secretary of State has been advised that it is very desirable that the Royal Artillery should be concentrated in groups of not less than two or three batteries. Something has been done in the way of that concentration, and it is hoped that there will be besides Aldershot, provision for concentrations at Newcastle, Colchester, Sheffield, Hilsea, and the Curragh. With regard to Cavalry concentration, that will chiefly consist of the small concentrations that I spoke of before in barracks large enough to contain a whole regiment, where at present a regiment is scattered and divided. The chief concentration of Infantry should, it has been decided, be as it is now at Aldershot. The advantages of many places which have been mentioned have been discussed. Salisbury Plain has been mentioned and Cannock Chase, but on the whole it has been decided that Aldershot has the greatest advantages. In the first place, there is a large space of land there already in the possession of the Government, there is a good soil, and there are various appliances on the ground, and it is also within easy reach of the Metropolis. It has, therefore, been decided to add to the number of troops already encamped at Aldershot one battery of Artillery and six battalions of Infantry. But to carry this into effect it will be absolutely necessary to re-construct the whole of the Camp at Aldershot. The state of the huts is, notorious. The wooden huts there were run up shortly after the Crimean War, and many of them are now 35 years old; the roofs are flattening down; the; walls are bulging; many of them have been propped up for some time; and keeping them in even their existing moderate state of repair costs the country as much as, £7,000 a year. It will be necessary to remove those huts, and in their place to build huts or barracks off permanent materials. Two lines in the North Camp have been already reconstructed, and it remains to re-construct the remainder of the North Camp, enlarging also the hospital and building, some married quarters. The South Camp, will also have to be re-constructed; the permanent barracks will also have to be added to, and further hospital accommodation will have to be supplied also in the South Camp. Besides this, arrangements have been made with the Home Secretary to take over the male prison at Woking, which, with a very inconsiderable outlay, can be made available as a thoroughly good barrack for one Infantry battalion within easy access of Aldershot. What I have said with regard to the huts at Aldershot applies to the huts at the Curragh; some of them are good, some of them very bad; and a great deal of re-construction is necessary there also. At Colchester, too, a good deal will have to be done, and at Shorncliffe the same. At Belfast, it will be necessary to build a new barrack for one Infantry battalion, and to make improvements in the present barracks. It will be necessary there also to build married quarters. There the married men are now entirely lodged out, there are no married quarters at all, and the expense of lodging them out is large, besides which it is bad, as one can easily imagine, for the discipline of the men. In London the only barracks that I need mention as requiring looking to are the Regent's Park Barracks. They are in a perfectly sanitary state as regards the men, but they are very bad barracks as regards the horses. They will require a small outlay to put them into thorough order, and besides that, married quarters will have to be built. The site has not yet been determined upon, but Millbank has been suggested. At Manchester we have barracks in the middle of the town, built up to the very walls, and partly commanded by the windows of the houses in the immediate vicinity. We propose to pull down those barracks and to build another set on some other site which may be convenient for Manchester. That site has not yet been decided upon. At Portsmouth, too, it is well-known that the barracks were unfit. They have been condemned for years, and there have been repeatedly Reports made upon them as being utterly unfit for the accommodation of troops. They are, in fact, now pulled down, and the state of things which has been disclosed has amply justified the Reports that were continually being sent in about them. Then abroad, in the Colonies, the barracks both in Bermuda and Gibraltar are reported as being in a bad state, and some money will have to be spent upon them to prevent the recurrence of enteric fever. At Cape Town, also, the barracks are reported to be in a bad state. For Malta there is a very large scheme proposed which I need not enter into now; but the garrison has been considerably increased there of late years, the troops are greatly crowded, and it will be absolutely necessary to considerably increase the barrack accommodation. My Lords, I have not attempted to go into details; I have merely gone generally through the list. There are, of course, other matters in the Bill, but it would only weary the House for me to speak of them. At the same time, I trust I have said enough to persuade the House that it is high time this very large and important question was taken up and thoroughly gone into. However, there are one or two small questions of detail which I should like to enter into before I sit down. It is only fair and just to Her Majesty's Government that the country at large should be thoroughly satisfied that this large sum of money which is proposed to be spent will be properly and rightly expended, so that the country will have its money's worth. The Secretary of State has called in to advise him several gentlemen who are complete outsiders, and in no way connected with the War Office; Mr. Creed, the surveyor to the Land Commissioners; Mr. Pilkington, a well-known architect, who has had enormous experience in the erection of industrial and workmen's dwellings, also Mr. Roger Field, who is well-known as a distinguished sanitary engineer. All those gentlemen have given him excellent advice. But the Secretary of State depends even more upon the resuscitation of the Army Sanitary Committee. That was a body which was first brought into existence by one who has left behind him a greater name than any other Secretary of State for War, I mean Lord Herbert of Lea. But that Committee has lain of late years entirely dormant, and the Secretary of State has determined to resuscitate it. The President of the Committee will be the Quartermaster General; and I think the name of Sir Redvers Buller is in itself a guarantee of energy and thoroughness. He will be assisted in his work by the Deputy Inspector of Barracks, Colonel Locock; in the Army Medical Department by the Surgeon General and an experienced Army surgeon, and there will also be another member appointed by the India Office. The instructions of this Committee are very wide indeed. The Committee has to report upon all sites and upon all plans of buildings; it is also to visit the buildings while they are being erected; it has to consider the Sanitary Reports from all Home and Colonial Stations: it has to receive all the Sanitary Reports from India; and, in fact, the instructions given to them generally are of the widest possible nature. I may tell your Lordships that the gentlemen forming this Committee have accepted this responsibility with great cheerfulness and with perfect confidence, and it is hoped that their cooperation may be of the greatest possible value. One word I should like to add, and that is upon the subject of Soldiers' Institutes. It is proposed in building new barracks and re-organising old barracks to form where it is possible institutes instead of the ordinary canteens. In doing this we propose to follow the system which has been adopted with very great success by the Commander-in-Chief in India. Sir Frederick Roberts. His system has been to separate the liquor-bar, which answers to our canteen, from the coffee-shop, or refreshment, or supper room, which would answer to what we should call in England the grocery shop and coffee room, and to separate that again entirely from the recreation department. We propose in those respects to follow the lines which have been so successfully followed by Sir Frederick Roberts. But we have one little difficulty which I will mention. In India, Sir Frederick Roberts has gone upon the system of handing over the temperance room entirely to the Army Temperance Society. But in England there are a great many Temperance Societies, and it is impossible for the "War Office to hand over these rooms to any Society which is not entirely undenominational and unsectarian; but we trust that the various Temperance Societies in England will combine to form one Army Temperance Society, as there is in India, to which we may be able to hand over these Institutions. As regards the married quarters, I am quite sure that your Lordships who have cottages of your own for the condition of which you care will be the first to admit that of late years there have been enormous strides made in the housing of the working classes; and I am quite sure you will agree with me that the wives of our soldiers should have at least those comforts which they would have had if they had married civilians in that class of life from which our Army is recruited. It is, I know, said that England is on a level with other nations in the matter of housing her troops. That may be so, or it may not; but from an excellent Report which we have lately received through the courtesy of the German Government I should venture to doubt it—at least as far as that particular nation is concerned. Even if other nations choose to house their troops badly, that is no reason why we should follow their example. Other nations have their Armies supplied by the conscription; we, on the other hand, depend for our Army upon the system of voluntary enlistment; and I am sure your Lordships will agree that the men who enlist into Her Majesty's Army and agree to serve the State should receive every consideration from the Government. My Lords, I ask you to give a Second Reading to this Bill, on the threefold ground of military efficiency, the health and comfort of the troops, and economy.

Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Earl Brownlow.)

LORD SANDHURST

The noble Earl has said that this is in its character a Financial Bill, and that is, no doubt, the fact; but the consequences of the Bill will be of enormous interest not only to our soldiers themselves, but to all those who take an interest in Army matters. I can assure the noble Earl I do not rise in any way for the purpose of impeding the passage of this Bill, because I think he and his friends have grappled with a very difficult subject in a very bold and comprehensive manner, and I therefore most cordially welcome the Bill. I may mention that I have had some experience of the huts to which my noble Friend has referred, for I was quartered once at Shorncliffe in the winter time, and that experience is that as far as my particular hut went every device had, it always seemed to me, been made use of which could ensure as great an access of wind through it as possible, and nothing of any kind was ever done to exclude it. Now, if that was the case in an officer's hut, I am quite sure it was the same, if not worse, in the men's huts. Though I cannot say it did us any bodily harm, it gave rise to inconvenience and discomfort, and I think if that was the case with the officers it must have been ten times more so in regard to the men. In Dublin there are two barracks in particular, the Royal and the Richmond, parts of which are in a very unhealthy state; but besides those barracks there are one or two others, and the one which most predominates in my mind is the Linen Hall Barracks. I was therein 1886, and I was told they were very healthy; but, at the same time, they were in such a state that it was a positive slur and disgrace to, the Department that they should have housed soldiers in them. I hope that we shall now be able to do without those barracks, or at any rate, if it is necessary to have soldiers in that part of the town, that the buildings will be re-constructed. There is, perhaps, one point in this scheme put forward by my noble Friend upon which it is possible a difference of opinion might arise, and that is in regard to the massing of a very large number of troops at Aldershot out of the drill season. No one can exaggerate the importance of Aldershot as a place for exercising troops in the drill season. They have the great advantage there of obtaining some experience of camp life, and being exercised in the duties of camp life, both men and officers; and it also gives the senior grades of officers opportunities of commanding large bodies of men. But there is this point which suggests itself to my mind: whether, in massing a large number of troops at Aldershot, there may not be a redistribution made of such a nature as will cause the Regulars to lose touch in some degree with the Auxiliary Forces and thereby lessen the interest which is taken in the Army by the public, and thereby endanger the success of recruiting. With regard to the quarters for the married soldiers, I am extremely glad that has not been lost sight of. The life of a soldier who has to live out of barracks with his wife is one of great poverty; they have very likely to live amongst unpleasant surroundings, and in extremely unhealthy houses. It has always been one of the greatest surprises to me during my experience of soldiering how the men could have managed to turn out as smartly as they did. One point is that the number of married soldiers has decreased considerably ever since the introduction of the short service system, and it may be worth the while of the noble Earl and his friends to take into consideration whether the sum that is set apart for providing married quarters may not be excessive. Upon the point as to the massing of Artillery I do not offer any opinion, and I have only ventured to make these remarks upon the two points I have mentioned rather to guard myself, because I have no doubt the noble Earl is acting in complete harmony with the military advisers of the War Office, against whose opinion I should be sorry for a moment to put my own. I am extremely glad to hear of the resolution, which has been come to on the part of the authorities as to the Soldiers' Institutes, for I think that establishing those Institutes will tend to encourage sobriety among the younger soldiers. The re-appointment of the Sanitary Committee, too, is a matter upon which I have to congratulate the noble Earl, and also his announcement that the opinion of outside architects is to be taken. I should like also to impress upon him that when the contracts are made for the erection of the buildings the Director of Contracts should be enabled to see that the very best skill and materials are employed in carrying out the very great undertaking which the Government will then have in hand. With those few remarks I cordially support the Second Reading of the Bill.

*EARL FORTESCUE

Having more than 30 years ago had the honour of carrying through the House of Commons Resolutions affirming the expediency on grounds of true economy, and with a view to the greater efficiency of the Army, not less than of justice and humanity, of improving the sanitary state of our soldiers' barracks, and making better provision for the decent accommodation of our troops, I rejoice to hear from my noble Friend the admirable scheme, as it seems to me to be, which the Government are intending to carry out for the purpose of improving the barracks still further, and on a comprehensive scale. A great deal was done in this matter many years ago under the auspices of the lamented Mr. Sydney Herbert, but a great deal remained to be done. I particularly rejoice that more attention is to be paid to the accommodation of the married soldiers. I remember, among the great number of barracks that I visited, being shocked at finding the soldiers' wives divided in their quarters from a long dormitory full of young men, in many instances by nothing more substantial than a flimsy curtain. Nothing could be more miserably crowded and unsuitable than the accommodation for married soldiers which I remember seeing not in one but in many barracks which I inspected years ago. I rejoice heartily that the huts are to be superseded. I remember describing them to my constituents at Maryle-bone as combining the opposite disadvantages of permanent barracks and a flying camp, having the makeshift and uncomfortable character of the one, with the immobility and to a considerable extent—I may now say indeed to at least the full extent—the expensiveness incident to permanent barracks. I feel sure, not only as regards the comfort of the soldiers, but as regards real economy, the Government are well- advised in very largely substituting for the huts permanent and well-planned barracks. Years ago, also, when I was at Malta and Gibraltar, I took occasion to visit all the barracks in those garrisons of ours, and I was satisfied there was plenty of room for very great improvement in them. I heartily congratulate my noble Friend on the gratifying statement he is charged to make, and on the clearness with which he has made that statement to the House.

*THE EARL OF DUNDONALD

I only want to offer a very few remarks upon the Bill which the noble Lord has so clearly explained. I think Her Majesty's Government are to be congratulated upon dealing with the barrack question in the thorough manner they are doing. An immense amount of ill-health is caused in our Army by men being quartered in barracks built long before the present era of sanitary reform. With regard to the strategical advantages of massing men in such camps as Aldershot, I do not propose to offer to your Lordships any remarks be yond saying that they must be evident to all who consider how advantageous it is to concentrate your men in central positions, whence they can easily be despatched by railway to any point at which their services may be required. With regard to the statement made by the noble Lord that Lord Herbert of Lea's Sanitary Commission will be re-appointed, I am glad that has been determined on, and I hope their hands will not be tied by any particular and possibly inadequate amount of money being allocated for any particular barracks. I wish that Sanitary Commission had been appointed earlier, because some of the barracks which have been recently erected certainly present defects. I would refer to the Knightsbridge Barracks. There the floors of the barrack-rooms are made of the ordinary deal planking. Being constructed in that way in the ordinary manner, dirt, little pieces of breadcrumbs, and scraps from the men's dinners fall through the interstices, and remain between the boards. The only way of cleaning barrack-rooms beyond brushing them out is to use water for the purpose of scrubbing them out, not as housemaids clean boards with a piece of flannel and a pail, but very often by throwing the water along them. This ought to be very carefully done, but they throw down half a pail of water and swab the room out, and the consequence is that the water percolates through and collects under the boards in places. Very often in the old barracks it brings down the ceilings of the rooms below, and then orders are sent that the rooms are not to be swabbed out any more. That has taken place at the Regent's Park Barracks, and I hope the Sanitary Commission which is to be appointed will insist on the floors of future barracks being made of parquet lined with asphaltum, or some impervious material, so that the rooms can be properly washed out with water without the water percolating down into the rooms below through the boards and ceilings, or remaining between the interstices of the boards. The matter of the married quarters is a most important one, more particularly as affecting the London garrison, for in London married men have to pay much larger rents for their rooms than the men pay in country districts. Soldiers are given permission to marry after a certain number of years' service, upon having obtained certain good conduct badges, and having a certain sum of money in the Savings' Bank. When they are so qualified they are allowed to marry. But there is not sufficient accommodation in the barracks for the families of those soldiers who are allowed to marry under those conditions. Therefore, they are granted by Government a "lodging allowance." The allowance granted to a well-conducted soldier in a. London garrison amounts to 4d. a day. That 4d. a day, I may inform your Lordships, is utterly inadequate to supply a trooper or a man receiving 1s. 9d. a day with a proper lodging for his family; and I do not think it is possible for a man to provide himself with decent accommodation under 6s. or 7s. a week at the least. Therefore, I say if the Government enlist men for long service, and allow those men after they have qualified themselves by good conduct to marry, they should, having placed them on the marriage roll, give them a sufficient allowance to house their families without drawing on their scanty pay. I do not know whether this Bill includes provisions for new ranges for the troops, but I think that matter is of almost more importance than providing for re-construction of the barracks themselves, because with the new rifle it is absolutely necessary that new ranges should be provided throughout many districts in England, as the new weapon carries about twice as far as the old rifle which has been hitherto in use.

*EARL BROWNLOW

One or two questions have been put by the noble Lord opposite, Lord Sandhurst, which I will answer as shortly as possible. He has spoken of the condition of the Royal Barracks at Dublin, and your Lordships can easily imagine that the Royal Barracks there will require entire overhauling and re-construction, and particularly new draining. It is also proposed to build new barracks near the Phoenix Park at Gormans town, and I hope they will be completed towards the end of next year. One word as regards the married soldiers. My noble Friend has pointed out that now we have short service there is a much smaller number of married soldiers than formerly, and that is certainly the case. The whole question was gone into two years ago, and provision has been made in that respect. But the diminution in the number of married soldiers is not quite so great as one might suppose. I have ascertained S3me particulars as to what the numbers of married soldiers are, which, with your Lordships' permission, I will quote. In an ordinary battalion I find there are 2 Warrant Officers, 25 sergeants and Staff sergeants, and 22 rank and file. Of course, the Warrant Officers, and the sergeants, and Staff sergeants, are not short service men. Therefore, I think the difference is not so great as might at first sight be imagined. Then the noble Lord said he hoped the Committee would have a free hand. I can assure him that the Committee will have a very free hand, and I have no doubt they will not hesitate for a moment to place before the Secretary of State any matter which they think ought to be brought before him with regard to the materials or construction of the barracks.

On Question, agreed to.

Bill read 2a accordingly; and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Tuesday next.