DUM-DUM BULLETS. (Hansard, 25 February 1898)

LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY

My Lords, I beg to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will lay on the Table any surgical reports on the wounds 2 of Piper Findlater and others caused by Dum-Dum bullets, so that the country may judge whether these are not contrary to the spirit of the Convention against explosive bullets; and to ask whether Her Majesty's Government sanctioned the issue of Dum-Dum bullets for military purposes. This, my Lords, is not a Service question, but one concerning international law, humanity, and medical science. It is a question of very great importance, because if the use of these bullets is continued, then, no doubt, every Continental army will adopt them, and they will be used against ourselves. In asking whether Her Majesty's Government sanctioned the issue of Dum-Dum bullets, I mean, did the head of the Government individually, or the Ministers collectively, sanction their use? If it is the Secretary of State for India who has sanctioned the use of these bullets, then it becomes a merely departmental affair, and does not pledge the country. If the Secretary of State for India did sanction the issue of Dum-Dum bullets, it is not so bad as some of the things he has done since he came into office. I heard a cynic outside this House say that 3 the Afridis were not protected by the Convention, because they were not parties to it. I am not now so much concerned with the Afridis as I am with our own soldiers. There is a Chinese maxim or proverb which says, "If you throw a tile in the air, it will fall on your own head." That is exactly what King David and King Solomon said about the wicked—namely, that they fell into the pit that they had digged for others; and this is what has happened to ourselves through the issue of Dum-Dum bullets to our troops—bullets which were invented for the shooting of tigers, and which are only fit to be used for tigers. Very shortly after it was known that these bullets had been issued, it was also known that many of our soldiers had been hit by such of these bullets as had come into the possession of the tribesmen. Colonel Wylie, our Envoy to Nipal, wrote a letter to the Pioneer in March of last year, extolling the effects of these bullets on tigers, and very soon after this letter was circulated, along with the advertisements of the manufacturers of these rifles and bullets, and the vendors of them in this country. Colonel Wylie mentions that one of these bullets struck the forearm of a tiger, and smashed the bone to atoms for a length of fully four inches. When explosive bullets were prohibited, nobody cared for their containing an explosive, the importance of condemning them consisted in the wounds they made, and the wounds made by expansive bullets are almost identical. I have been credibly informed of two things—firstly, that the Indian Government have sanctioned the use of these bullets, but that Her Majesty's Government have declined to accept them for the Queen's troops; secondly, that the principal medical officer of the Army was consulted before this bullet was used, and that he gave it as his opinion that it could not be called explosive within the meaning of the Convention. It is not necessary to consult a medical man in order to arrive at the conclusion that "explosive" and "expanding" have not the same meaning, and what is the use of consulting a medical man who has had no experience of the wounds caused by these bullets? Their effect on the human body is almost identical, and since explosive bullets have 4 been condemned, and are as barbarous as the use of poisoned arrows, these expanding bullets ought to be equally condemned, and their use prohibited to all civilised armies. From a military point of view, there is more to be said for explosive than for expansive bullets, since the former may be used for exploding ammunition wagons. It is doubtful whether a musket ball would ignite powder, but I have twice exploded parcels of powder with a Lee-Metford bullet. The Afridis say that we have used poisoned bullets. They consider that the bullets are poisoned in consequence of the very few recoveries from wounds that have been observed by them. And besides the injury done by the shreds of nickel, it is said that the lead becomes so comminuted as to enter into and poison the system. If any of those whose primary duty it is to advance medical and surgical science, have wished for subjects whose position would ensure the greatest attention to their wounds, their desire has been fulfilled in the cases of two of the most popular men wounded in the Frontier War. I refer to the two Gordon pipers. One of these pipers, Milne, was hit by an honest Lee-Metford or spherical bullet, and he has written to the papers to say that he was shot through the chest and through the lungs, but that he would soon be all right. The other piper, Find-later, was shot by a Dum-Dum bullet in both ankles, and it was said that his bones had been reduced to a pulp. It was not certain whether he had not suffered amputation, or might not still be exposed to that calamity. It was the Russian Government which took the lead in convening the Conference which led to the Convention of Brussels against explosive bullets, and in doing so it was following honourable traditions, for a correspondence of Count Joseph de Maistre, Piemontese Minister at St. Petersburg, published under the auspices of Count Cavour, stated that at the end of last century, or at the beginning of this, an inventor sold a conical bullet to the Russian Government; the bullet was laid aside, and the inventor complained, but was told that as he had been paid he had nothing more to say about it. Count Joseph de Maistre adds reflections upon the inutility of military 5 inventions, as they cannot be kept to the inventors, but become the property of all nations, and the Afridis have verified his words. At that time Russia was considered by many to be a barbarous country, and Count Xavier de Maistre, the brother of Count Joseph, had excluded it from civilisation by his definition of civilised countries as those in which Latin is taught. At the present time Latin is learned in Russia. Before passing, my Lords, to the second part of this subject, I hope I may be allowed a digression in order to congratulate Her Majesty's Government upon the acquisition of the Lee-Metford rifle for the use of Her Majesty's troops. Its accuracy is very great. It is very easy to get the range at a thousand yards, and it is only laterally that there is deviation when shooting in a high wind, and bad light from a cloudy sky. My Lords, whilst I was practising I had with me a Christian gentleman—a native of Southern India, not a Portuguese, nor a convert, but a gentleman who had been connected from his birth with the Church of England—and he told me that the Afridis prized their Lee-Metford rifles more than they did their wives. I think this shows the difficulty there would be in attempting to disarm them. I wish now, my Lords, to draw the attention of the Government to the manufacture and sale of bullets for pistols, which are similar to the Dum-Dum bullets, for home or domestic consumption. Tour Lordships must have seen advertisements in the Field and various other newspapers of pistol bullets capable of stopping a fanatic which make wounds three inches wide. The British householder will say to himself, that a burglar requires stopping as much as a fanatic, and will naturally provide himself with this ammunition. If the burglar only received such bullets, there might not be much cause for regret; but what usually happens is, that after the fear of burglars has subsided in any neighbourhood, the householder transfers the pistol from his dressing table drawer to a cupboard or chest, and some member of his family finds it, and, pointing it playfully at somebody, discharges the pistol, and the person is shot. With an ordinary bullet the individual who is shot might escape, but with such bullets as those I am referring to, the shot would 6 be fatal. When I last addressed the House on the unrestricted sale of cheap pistols, it was my good fortune to be answered by the noble Earl who represented the Home Office, Lord Chesterfield, because this compelled me to read over again his predecessor's letters to his son, to find some argument which he could not gainsay. I found nothing which could affect the noble Earl, but I found a passage which applied to Prime Ministers. It was this— Happy is the man who has the power to benefit his fellow creatures; and still happier is he who, having the power, has also the will to exert it. I think a note said that this was taken from Cicero, but except on the score of antiquity, the saying does not derive more weight from him than it does from the great. Lord Chesterfield. This saying relieves me, I think, from the necessity of suggesting to Her Majesty's Government what their conduct ought to be with regard to these very cruel bullets, and I now conclude with a Motion for papers, in case I require a reply.