VISCOUNT TEMPLETONMy Lords, in rising to ask the noble Marquess, the Secretary of State for War, whether it is intended to make any 1253 change in the title and position of the officers appointed to succeed Sir W. Anderson as head of the Ordnance Factories, and whether any change in the administration of the Factories is contemplated by Her Majesty's Government, I do not propose to detain your Lordships. I merely say, my Lords, in excuse for bringing forward this question, if any excuse is needed, that the administration of the; Ordnance Factories in this country is of very great importance, and I hope the Secretary of State for War will be able to give your Lordships a satisfactory explanation, and one that will satisfy the aspirations of those who look to him for doing what is best for the service.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WARMy Lords, I very gladly give the noble Viscount the information for which he asks. The present organisation of the Ordnance Factories dates from the year 1887, when the late Mr. Edward Stanhope introduced important reforms into their management. Even those who think, as I do, that the present system requires some further alteration, will acknowledge the great value of those reforms which were made by Mr. Stanhope. In order to establish this proposition, it is only necessary to compare the condition of the factories as Mr. Stanhope found them and as he left them. It is enough to say that before his time the different factories were unconnected, that there was no system of independent inspection, and no proper financial control over their proceedings, while outside the factories the Services had no voice in the selection of the weapons and equipment which were supplied to them. Mr. Stanhope left the factories under the administration of one responsible head, under proper financial control and under independent inspection, and he admitted, for the first time, the valuable principle that the Military and Naval authorities should have the right to a voice in selecting their own stores and equipment, and of accepting and refusing it, according as it succeeded or failed in passing the test of military inspection. The result has been a system under which, whatever its imperfections, there have been no scandals of the kind which attracted so 1254 much attention in Parliament during the years which preceded Mr. Sanhope's reforms, and no complaints that the Services have had forced upon them faulty weapons or imperfect equipment. If we have come to the conclusion that certain further changes are necessary, they will certainly not be in the direction of a departure from the main principles laid down by Mr. Stanhope. It will be convenient that I should describe the present system so far as it affects the principal officials concerned. The whole of the manufacturing departments of the Army are, by an Order in Council, placed under the control of the Financial Secretary. The nature of the control which he is to exercise is not defined, but it was apparently intended to be something more than the ordinary power of financial review which he exercises over the whole of our Military expenditure. The Financial Secretary is, of course, a civilian and a Parliamentary official. Under the Financial Secretary there is the Director-General of Ordnance Factories, a post which, though not necessarily held by a civilian, for the past 10 years has been held by a civilian, the late Sir William Anderson, an officer of very great ability and experience, whose untimely death towards the end of the year was greatly deplored by all who knew him. Under the Director-General there is a Deputy Director-General, a mechanical engineer, who is also a civilian. It will be observed that under this arrangement the Ordnance Factories, so far as these higher posts are concerned, have of late been entirely under civilian control; and I call attention to the fact that the Inspector-General of Ordnance—who, under the Order in Council which governs the constitution of the War Office, is charged with supplying the Army with warlike stores and equipment, with dealing with questions of armament, of patterns, of inventions and designs, and with the duty of advising the Secretary of State on all questions connected with this department—is given no voice whatever in the management of the factories, and no right of giving a single order within them. It does not seem unnatural that, in spite of the undoubted ability of the officials to whom I have referred, in spite of all the pains which they have 1255 taken, there should, under such a system, have been a good deal of friction, and a feeling on the part of the Services that their requirements were not always sufficiently understood or attended to with sufficient promptitude. It is often said that manufacture is better in civilian hands, and should be left entirely to civilians. That is, I think, a statement which requires some qualification. It would be truer to say that manufacture should be in the hands of men who, whether they have begun life as soldiers, sailors, or civilians, have been trained to manufacture, and who are accustomed to the processes and routine of manufacture, and who know how to get the best value out of the man and the machinery which they employ. A soldier may be an extremely able soldier, he may know exactly what kind of weapon the Army wants, but he may be quite unable to make it; and the idea of bringing in a clever soldier, with no experience but that which he has acquired in the Army, for five years, and handing over to hum the management of a great business concern, would be preposterous. Upon the other hand, a soldier or a sailor who is thoroughly-conversant with the design and manufacture of warlike stores—and we know that such soldiers are to be found—has this great advantage, that he not only understands manufacture, but that he is able to understand better than a civilian the requirements and, I would almost venture to say, the prejudices of the Services, while the Services, knowing that this is the case, are inspired with a confidence which they would not otherwise feel. There is another consideration of which we should not lose sight. The factories are concerned not only with the manufacture of warlike stores, but with the invention and design of such stores, and with the conduct of experiments relating to them. We look to them to carry out for us those modifications in our war material which are constantly required by the ever-varying conditions of the Service. Now I do not think it will be seriously disputed that, in regard to all questions involving the design of warlike material, it is right that the soldiers and sailors by whom that material will be used should have a voice. We arrive, therefore, at this, that in so far as the Ordnance factories 1256 are concerned with design, it is necessary that the Services should have a locus standi within them. Then arises the question whether it is possible to divorce design from manufacture. I believe you cannot, and that the attempt to do so would result in the most lamentable failure. Design and manufacture must go hand in hand. That is certainly the view which prevails in the great private firms upon which we depend to a great extent for our supplies of warlike material. Sir Andrew Noble, the head of the well-known Elswick firm, and a man of unrivalled experience in these matters, writing to me a few days ago, says:—
I say distinctly that in my opinion it would be fatal to separate designing and manufacturing if you desire to make any progress.And you will find that in these works, and in all other great enterprises of the same kind, the closest contact and the most constant intercourse is maintained between persons engaged in design and those by whom the process of manufacture is carried out. We have, in these circumstances, come to the conclusion that steps should be taken in order to bring the Ordnance Factories into closer touch than heretofore with the Services. I say "the Services," because it will not be forgotten that the Navy are as much interested as the Army in this matter. The Navy are customers of the Ordnance Factories to quite as great an extent as the Army; and I am able to say that the views which I am expressing are shared by the Admiralty. The steps which it is proposed to take are these. In the first place, I have appointed, as head of the Ordnance Factories, a soldier—Colonel Bainbridge. He has been for many years past in charge of the Royal Laboratory, and has had under him about 8,000 operatives. Although he is a soldier, he is thoroughly versed in manufacture, and is, I believe, in all respects fit for this promotion. I may add that he is no longer on the active list of the Army, and that his tenure of office is governed by the rules of the Civil Service. It is also proposed to alter the Order in Council so as to make it clear, on the one hand, that the control exercised over the factories by the Financial Secretary is financial control only—that is, I need not say, in 1257 a great industrial enterprise of this kind a very extensive control indeed—and, on the other hand, that the Inspector-General of Ordnance has the right of exercising direction over the factories. It is, of course, not intended that he should take their management out of the hands of the Director-General, but, considering that he is, as I have already said, responsible for supplying the Army with warlike stores and for dealing with the design of such stores, we think it desirable that he should be placed in direct contact with the factories, and that he should have some voice in their affairs. This, of course, does not imply that the factories will be in any sense emancipated from financial control. To that control it is quite clear that they must remain subject, and we have no idea of relaxing it. In order to bring the title of the Inspector-General of Ordnance into closer correspondence with his duties, we propose that he shall be styled Director-General of Ordnance, and, in order to avoid confusion, the head of the factories will have the title of Chief Superintendent of Ordnance Factories. These are the changes which we mean to make. They are intended to bring the Services into closer touch with the factories whose business it is to supply them with their equipment, and to do that without in any way abandoning the idea that the factories must be managed on business principles and kept under strict financial control. I am strengthened in these conclusions by the fact that no less than three Committees and Commissions—viz., the Royal Commission on Warlike Stores, presided over by Sir J. Stephen in 1887: the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments, presided over by Sir Matthew White Ridley in 1887; and the Committee on the Organisation of the Army Manufacturing Departments, presided over by Lord Morley about the same time—recommended that the Ordnance Department and, as part of it, the Ordnance Factories, should be under Military control, and, at a later date, the Royal Commission on the Civil and Professional Administration of the Naval and Military Departments, presided over by the Duke of Devonshire in 1890, called attention to the fact that these recommendations, to which they apparently gave their adhesion, had not, so 1258 far as they concerned the Manufacturing Departments, been acted upon. I ought perhaps to add that there are other questions concerning the internal organisation of the factories upon which I have not touched, because they are still under consideration.
LORD MONKSWELLDo I understand the noble Marquess to say that the office of Head of the Ordnance Factories will, for the future, not be open to civilians?
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WARI did not say anything, I think, which warranted that construction. I pointed out that the office had lately been held by a civilian, and that I had appointed to it a soldier, but the office, so far as our regulations go, is open either to a soldier or to a civilian. In point of fact, the tenant of it who preceded the late Sir William Anderson was a soldier.
§ House adjourned at ten minutes past Five o'clock to Monday next, at a quarter past Four o'clock.