§ THE EARL OF WEMYSSMy Lords, I rise to call attention to an order issued from the Horse Guards, commanding the sergeant-instructors of the Volunteer Force to recruit for the Army and Militia, under penalty of dismissal unless this order is zealously obeyed. To enable your Lordships to clearly understand the position, it is necessary that I should go back to the state of things existing when Volunteering first began in 1859. The only inducement to Volunteering then was that if a volunteer 566 serving under the old Act of George III. lost a leg or an arm, he had the benefit of Chelsea Hospital, and if he was killed there was a pension for his wife. Your Lordships will recognise the wholesome element of patriotism which animated the Volunteer Force in the early days of the movement. Volunteers patiently bore expenses of all kinds, including the cost of uniform, accoutrements, drill sergeants, drill grounds, ranges, targets, armouries, armour, headquarters, advertising, postage, stationery, and travelling expenses. The State did little or nothing for the Volunteers, except give them the rifle of the day—the Snider—and from private sources no less a sum than £1,500,000 had been expended patriotically by the Volunteers and their friends in aid of the public service. The state of our defences was such that we all felt the desirability of something stronger being done. The subject was raised in the House of Commons in 1861, and a Commission appointed. The Commission reported in favour of help being given to the Volunteer Force, this help taking the form of a capitation grant and the payment of sergeants. These sergeants were appointed solely for the service of the Volunteers, and their number was in proportion to the men with whom they had to deal and to drill. What has happened? If it is true that the Order to which I refer in my question has been issued, and that these sergeants are employed in recruiting for the Army and Militia, all I can say is that assuredly such employment had not been present to the mind of the authorities of the War Office when the duties of these officers were first imposed. Under what power this Order is issued I do not know. When the Act of 1863 was passed, the Noble Duke the Lord President of the Council was Secretary of State for War, and it was clearly understood then that these men were appointed for the Volunteer Service, and the Act contained nothing which was intended in any way to interfere with the position or status of that force. But this Order has gone out, and remonstrances have been made against it. It has been pointed out that the Volunteer staff at present is insufficient in many cases to discharge its proper duty. The Volunteer Force under these circumstances naturally suffers in its efficiency. I have a letter here from the Commander-in-Chief, 567 in which it is stated that recruiting for the Army and Militia forms an integral part, and a very important part, of the duty of these sergeants. I venture to say, my Lords, that to make recruiting an integral part of the duty of these sergeant-instructors is a perversion of the intention of Parliament. The letter from the Commander-in-Chief continues:
If the Staff-sergeants fail in obtaining recruits, Lord Wolseley is prepared to take steps for their removal, and their replacement by others who will at least make every effort compatible with their other duties to raise recruits. The Commander-in-Chief will also look to the Adjutants of these corps in future taking a larger part in enforcing and stimulating this operation.A question was asked as to which of the duties were to have priority, and if the sergeants were to do double duty—their duty as sergeants of the Volunteer force and their duty as recruiting officers. The answer was that no priority of importance could be assigned to the duties attached to non - commissioned officers of the permanent staff.
§ * THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE)From what is the noble Lord quoting?
§ THE EARL OF WEMYSSI am quoting from one of these letters.
§ * THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEOne of which letters? Who signed that letter?
§ THE, EARL OF WEMYSSThe letter is signed by Colonel Fludyer, commanding the Home District. I can assure the noble Marquess that it is all right. My noble friend does not appear to like it. Then it was asked whether the instructors were to recruit from the Volunteers, and the answer was that they were not to recruit from their own regiments. A case was brought under my notice where a sergeant who ought to have been on parade was away, having been ordered to go to a district five miles off to recruit for the Army and Militia. When these staff-sergeants were appointed they were appointed for the benefit of the Volunteers, and I wish to give the House only a short and simple statement of facts without comment. In the view of a great military authority—not the Commander-in-Chief—the Volunteers are acting con- 568 trary to discipline in bringing their grievances before Parliament. But to take that view is to ignore the whole principle of Volunteering, which is, that the Volunteers, when not on military duty, retain all their civil rights. I have always held that when Volunteers are no longer on military duty they retain their civil rights, one of which my noble friend tried to take from them by a Bill last year or the year before. I therefore feel quite justified in bringing before the House a matter materially affecting the force with which I have been so long connected, and to which I am proud still to belong.
§ * THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEMy Lords, I am afraid that what the noble Earl on the cross benches calls a short and simple statement of facts requires a good deal of correction. It is quite evident from the tenor of his speech that he is under the impression that some entirely new departure has been made in regard to the employment of these sergeant-instructors of Volunteers on recruiting.
§ THE EARL OF WEMYSSA departure from the original intention.
§ * THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEI think the noble Earl hinted that the change had been made during my administration.
§ THE EARL OF WEMYSSNo.
§ * THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEI will tell the House what are the present Volunteer regulations on this subject, and I will show how little they differ from the regulations to which the noble Earl has been accustomed for a great many years past. Under the present regulations, dated 1896, it is laid down that the principal duty of an instructor is to attend to the drill and instruction of the corps to which he is posted. That deals with the question of priority of duty, upon which the noble Earl waxed so eloquent. It is also laid down that sergeant-instructors will be required to perform such military duties as may be directed by the district officer commanding; and that every sergeant-instructor is to have it explained to him that he is liable for duties of this kind. The noble Earl thinks this is a recent invention.
§ THE EARL OF WEMYSSComparatively.
§ * THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEI do not know what the noble Earl's idea of a comparatively recent invention may be, but I am sure he recollects the Committee presided over by Sir Patrick MacDougall, who prepared the mobilization scheme when His Royal Highness was in chief command of the Army. That Committee sat in 1872, and it was proposed by the Committee that—
The Colonel of any sub-district will superintend and direct ….. the recruiting service for the Line and Militia Battalions of his brigade ….. and for such service he will direct the employment of the officers and N.C.O.'s of the depot ….. as well as of the adjutants and sergeant-instructors of Rifle Volunteers, within the sub-district, as he may see fit.That was the recommendation of the MacDougall Committee, and in the following year—1873—general regulations were issued to all officers commanding regimental districts, under which the officer commanding the brigade depôt was to have at his disposal for recruiting purposes, amongst others, the adjutants and sergeant-instructors of Rifle Volunteers. How, with his knowledge of the Volunteer force and its history, the noble Earl can find it possible to say that the idea of employing those instructors in this way never entered into the heads of the War Office passes my comprehension.
§ THE EARL OF WEMYSSI said it never entered into the heads of those who first appointed these instructors.
§ * THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEI must remind the noble Lord that the regulations to which he has referred have been in force for more than twenty-five years, and I believe they have never been objected to until to-day by the noble Lord, with all his knowledge of the Volunteer force. Now what are the facts? The Inspector-General of Recruiting observed that in the Home District, or rather a part of the Home District—the London portion of it—there was almost a complete failure of these sergeant-instructors to obtain recruits. The figures are so remarkable that I will state them to your Lordships. In this part of the Home District, there are 135 of these sergeant-instructors, and they produced among them last year the magnificent total of 570 36 recruits. Of these 19 were collected by a single sergeant, so that 17 recruits were gained by 134 sergeants-instructors, whose duty it was, under the Volunteer Regulations, to assist in recruiting. The Inspector-General of Recruiting called, very properly, the attention of the General Officer Commanding the District to this matter, so that inquiries might be made on the subject, and I think a more legitimate course of proceeding could not possibly be followed. In reply to that, the commanding officer stated very clearly and frankly the objections of colonels of Volunteer battalions to having their sergeants employed as recruiters. They said it took them away from their work and made them mix with a class of the population from which the recruits for the Regular Army wore drawn, and a class which it was undesirable they should enter amongst. The Inspector-General of Recruiting replied that if these arguments were to prevail, no recruits could be obtained in any part of the United Kingdom by the members of the permanent staff of the Volunteers, which at present raises every year something like from 4,000 to 6,000 recruits. We certainly are not prepared to forego that source of supply merely because the work of recruiting happens to be a little unpopular with these sergeants in the London District. The General Officer Commanding the Home District was told that if the sergeant-instructors could not succeed in getting a better average than one-eighth of a recruit apiece the Commander-in-Chief would endeavour to find other sergeant-instructors with a greater aptitude for recruiting. The Commander-in-Chief was within his right in giving that warning. I have shown your Lordships that this duty of recruiting has for more than twenty-five years been part of the regular duty of these sergeants; I have shown you that the duty was not adequately performed by the sergeants in the London District; and I must say I think the Inspector-General would have failed in his duty had he not taken notice of this matter. But when I say that, I do not wish for one moment to suggest that we should have any right to take these non-commissioned officers away from the work of the corps to which they are attached, and which, of course, has the first call upon their time. I saw the other day a letter from a well-known colonel of Volunteers, whose language 571 seems to me to very correctly summarise the proper view of this matter. He writes:—
In common with every colonel of Volunteers, I am anxious to do, and to allow the Adjutant and permanent staff to do, anything which is possible to popularise the Regular Army, and to obtain recruits for it, consistently with the interest of the unit committed to one's charge.That is exactly our point of view, and it seems to me a reasonable one. That is all we ask. We recognise that the principal duty of the permanent staff is with their own corps, but we believe it is compatible with the discharge of that duty that they should help the Regular Army to the best of their ability in obtaining recruits.
* THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLANDMy Lords, I had the honour of commanding a Volunteer corps from the year 1866 down to five years ago, and therefore I can remember the state of things which existed before 1872. It is perfectly true that this system of employing non-commissioned officers for recruiting has been in force since the year 1872, but as far as I know it has always been objected to by officers commanding the Volunteers, and what I am saying now applies equally to the Militia. The same policy has been pursued in regard to the Militia, and has been constantly objected to. Although the system dates back to 1872, it was a very different thing then to what it has recently become. The pressure has been gradually greater and greater upon commanding officers to allow their non-commissioned officers of the permanent staff to be employed in recruiting service. Commanding officers find that in order to maintain the efficiency of their corps they require the full time of their non-commissioned officers, and I deprecate, as I have always deprecated, the constant effort of the War Office to try and make one and the same person perform two incompatible duties. It is very cheap; it is no doubt admirable from the recruiting point of view; but it is fatal to the Reserve Forces. If it is the wish of the War Office that either the Militia or the Volunteers should be in a proper state of strength and efficiency, it is, in my judgment, absolutely necessary that they should secure to the command- 572 ing officers of corps the full control of the non-commissioned officers of the permanent staff. It must be admitted, I think, by all who have ever been connected with the Militia or the Volunteers that admirable as no doubt the officers of these corps are, and admirable as is the material of which the private is made, the weak point in them is the Volunteer noncommissioned officer. It is not, I think, his own fault altogether. It is largely owing to the circumstances of the case; but to whatever it may be due, every commanding officer to whom I have spoken has experienced difficulty in coping with Volunteer non-commissioned officers. Therefore it is doubly important that he should have a good and efficient permanent staff under his control. It is upon them he must rely to a very great extent for the efficiency of his battalion. The noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War said it was hardly to be expected that the War Office should modify its regulations because recruiting happened to be unpopular with these officers. But he must remember that if you make the Volunteer or the Militia Service unpopular with the non-commissioned officers of the Army, you will not get the best men for the position, and great difficulty is experienced now in getting the best men from the regiment to join the staffs of the Militia and Volunteers. It has long been my opinion that both the Militia and Volunteer Forces have suffered very severely from this cheese-paring policy of trying to get recruiting service out of men who are really employed, or ought to be employed, on a totally different service, and thereby crippling the efficiency, of the noncommissioned officer, and complicating the whole system. I believe nothing can be done which would more improve the Militia and Volunteer Forces than a reversal of this system.
§ THE EARL OF WEMYSSWe have got from my noble friend, the Secretary of State for War, at any rate a clear expression of opinion that recruiting is a secondary duty. However, I think we ought to show some consideration to my noble friend in this matter, because the War Office are at their wits' end to get men. I find that a boy of 13 enlisted six times in six regiments and is counted in the Estimates as six men.