ARMY ORGANISATION.

HL Deb 25 June 1901 vol 95 cc1350-86

[FIRST DAY'S DEBATE.]

*THE DUKE OF BEDFORD

My Lords, in asking your Lordships to consider the intentions of the Government with reference to their military forces, I am calling attention to proposals presumably the outcome of our recent experience of actual warfare. It is counted an easy matter to be wise after the event. Yet the proposals of the Government ignore the three principal lessons of the war. There are no attempts to create a real Reserve. All our Reserves are in the first fighting line. When that first line requires reinforcement we shall have to fall back in the future, just as we have done in the immediate past, on a medley of Militia, Volunteers, Yeomanry, and civilians. There are no efforts to provide a body of 30,000 men who can be embarked at a day's notice without recalling men from civilian life to take the place of boys serving with the colours, thus disorganising every unit on the eve of embarkation. There are no indications of any determination on the part of the Government to found, on the reorganisation of our military system and on the patriotic devotion of our colonies, a well-considered scheme of Imperial defence. The Government seem to have but little faith in their own proposals for providing an Army. Indeed, the Secretary of State for War appears to regard them as a half-way house to conscription. Now, in this matter of conscription I agree with the views expressed by the noble Marquess the Prime Minister in your Lordships' House last year. There are two varieties of conscription—universal and modified. Universal conscription for home service would bring us many millions of men for purposes for which they are not required. Universal conscription for foreign service is impossible. Modified conscription means the enforcement of the Militia ballot. It is an historical fact that the great French wars were fought, not on voluntary enlistment, but on the Militia ballot and the pressgang, but social conditions a century ago were widely different. The Militia ballot to-day could recognise no substitutes and tolerate no exemptions. It is generally contended that all Volunteers should be exempted from the Militia ballot. I do not think that that would be possible; if it were, we should all join the Volunteers and all refuse to go to drill. When apprehended we should consult our lawyers, revive the Hertfordshire case, and obtain substantial damages by bringing actions against our commanding officers. Thus we should avoid the Militia ballot, serve our country or not as we preferred, and put some money in our pockets at the same time. So rare a combination of advantages would make service in the Volunteers irresistibly attractive.

The existence of the Regular Army turns upon recruiting, I cannot believe that the Army is the solitary exception to those influences which always have governed, and still govern, the labour market of the whole world—namely, wages. In theory, the Government doubts whether increased pay in the Regular Army will give any increase in number commensurate with the additional expenditure. In practice, when they want men for foreign service, they offer civilians, absolutely without any knowledge of the trade, any sum from five to ten times the daily pay of a trained soldier. Service in the Army is like all other kinds of labour, a question of terms between employers and employed, such as the daily rate of pay, the value of the situation, and, when men have left the trade, the prospects of employment and pension. In this bargain the principal item is the soldier's pay—I deal only with the infantry soldier of the Line. It is believed throughout the country that a soldier gets 1s. per day, and is lodged and fed and clothed. That such should be the popular belief is not extraordinary, because it is based on official promises. The Financial Secretary of the War Office, speaking before Easter in Lancashire, represented the attractions of the Army as 1s. per day and all found. I will now show your Lordships that men enlisting under that belief are grossly imposed upon. A recruit, until he is nineteen years old, gets twelvepence a day; he subsequently gets fifteenpence a day. The increase of 3d. is due to the so-called "messing" allowance. This term "messing" allowance is most confusing. It seems to have been successfully devised by the War Office to delude recruits, to confuse the colour-sergeants, to puzzle the public and bowl over their Financial Secretary. It is much clearer to drop the term "messing" allowance altogether, and state the case thus—the recruit gets 12d. and the soldier 15d.; but no matter what the man's rate of pay may be, he is stopped, all his service through, by the Government, 3d. per diem for his groceries, and groceries includes vegetables.

The soldier's food provided in kind by the Government is miserably insufficient. It consists of 1 lb. of bread and ¾ lb. of raw meat, including bone. All the rest of the soldier's food is paid for out of the soldier's own pocket as follows:—3d. per diem is stopped from the soldier's pay for tea, coffee, and other groceries and vegetables. This stoppage of 3d. per diem by the Government is absolutely inadequate to feed the soldier properly, and another 3d. per diem is required. The Government get this indirectly out of the men. They do a retail trade with the men in beer in the canteen. The Government buy beer, say, at 1s. per gallon, and retail it at 1s. 3d. to the men. Hence a profit accrues, which may be used at the discretion of the commanding officer, or, if it is a big garrison canteen, according to the wish of the general; for the entertainment of the soldier's mind or the nourishment of his body, but in all cases it is the soldier who has found the money. As it is, even with the Government ration and the stoppage of 3d. a day and the profit derived from canteens divided amongst the messing of the battalion, the men generally spend 2d. a day on their food, except they spend it on drink. I believe if the soldier was better fed, he would spend much less money on drink. In the evening the soldier feels, as well he may, a vacuum in his interior economy, and to replace that dismal sense of emptiness by one of genial repletion strong beer and strong tobacco are employed; also, strong beer and tobacco taken in sufficient quantities the night before lessen the temptation to spend money on breakfast at six o'clock the next morning. But alcohol and tobacco are evil substitutes for solid food. A free kit is given to the recruit. After enlistment, as a pleasant surprise he is made to buy a set of cleaning materials at a cost of 4s. to himself. This is called by the men a cleaning kit, and consists of miscellaneous articles, such cleaning bag, pipe-clay, bath-brick, polishing paste, harness composition, blacking, a lace rubber, and soap. The first issue of shirts and socks the recruit gets free, but, if he is ambitious of under clothing for his nether limbs, he has to purchase those necessary articles of apparel at 3s. 5d. per pair. He must, however, keep up and renew his underclothing and kit at his own expense. The annual cost extended over the seven years of service amounts to about 30s. a year, including the two or three extra pairs of trousers the men are bound to buy during their service, the Government issue not being sufficient.

The small and vexatious stoppages of pay to which soldiers are liable are often referred to. Vexatious they certainly are, but small they are not in comparison to the soldier's income. The Government pay the men so little, that every penny, every halfpenny, becomes a big fraction of the soldier's miserable pittance. Such charges are ½d. a day for washing, 1d. a month for hair-cutting, 2d. per month for recreation room and library, 2d. per month for cricket and football clubs. At least it is supposed that a soldier is lodged free of charge, but even that is not the case. The men are charged 2d. a month for barrack damages—that is, wear and tear to their quarters. This charge is greatly increased whenever a regiment changes stations. If a man goes to hospital when not on service, he is stopped 7d. a day. In the event of a recruit being sent to hospital in consequence of vaccination, he will be stopped 7d. a day. He is compelled to be vaccinated, he is ordered to go to the hospital, and he is stopped 7d. a day to teach him not to go to hospital without some good reason. When lads enlist under the belief that they get are to get 1s. a day and be clothed and lodged and fed, they find that they have been done, and that they have got no redress. They start their service under a burning sense of injustice, which is a fruitful source of discontent and desertion. In order to gauge the extent to which recruits for the Regular Army are disillusioned by experience, I would ask the Undersecretary the number of deserters, the number of men who have been tried for desertion, and the number of men who have purchased their discharge during the first two years of their service on an average of five years, say from 1894 to 1898. I have always advocated an increase of pay for the Army, but if the Government could say to the men with absolute truth, which is very far from being the case now, you are to have 1s. a day, "all found, and well found," that would mean twice as much money in the men's pockets. I would urge an increase of pay in the direction of good conduct pay and pay for skill in marksmanship. The Government in the Army is the only employer of labour who in the payment of their workmen makes no distinction between skill and inefficiency. At present, first rate marksmen, a few score of whom might change the fortunes of a fight, are paid just the same as men who would never hit an average-sized cathedral at a thousand yards, and there are plenty of these in the Army.

The pay of non-commissioned officers should be substantially increased, and their clerical work, especially in reference to pay sheets and accounts, greatly diminished. The career of a non-commissioned officer should be made one of a character calculated to attract a better class of men to the Army. It is no use to talk to the recruit of the baton of the field marshal; that is too remote, but let him see that on becoming a non-commissioned officer he may have his foot well on the ladder of an honourable and profitable career which will provide for his old age. The Government say that they are going to try every means of encouraging enlistment, which would imply some additional attractions; but when we ask what these attractions are, we find they consist of a hint of providing, at some future time, cubicles, and lessening garrison duties. On the question of cubicles, opinion is much divided in the Army. I am constrained to think that the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages. Less fatigues and less sentry-go are, no doubt, excellent, but I protest against the present War Office administration claiming the change as an original idea. It is a concession, far too long delayed, to the repeated protests of commanding officers against useless garrison duties. Protests in this direction would have been far more persistent from commanding officers if they had not been warned that complaints against the wisdom of the authorities were of no avail, and that orders are to be obeyed and not cavilled at. I am persuaded that we shall never have a Regular Army equal to the demands of the Empire unless we are prepared to face the expenditure necessary to provide 1s. a day all found and well found, increased pay for good conduct and skill in marksmanship, in creased pay for non-commissioned officers, and pensions for non-commissioned officers and men after long service in the Army, in the Reserve, and in the Militia. If this additional expenditure is excessive, then by all means reduce the quantity of our military forces, and begin the reduction with those forces not under the complete control of the War Office. Improved barrack accommodation is needed, also better quarters for married non-commissioned officers and married men; better arrangements for messing—soldiers eat their dinner in their sleeping rooms in discomfort—and better arrangements for washing. The barrack bathhouse on a dark, cold winter's morning is altogether beyond the courage of humanity.

Men should be made reasonably secure of employment on leaving the Army. A Committee inquired into this matter in 1895. A Return was made in 1899, by which it appears that there are about 100,000 places under Government available for old soldiers. All these posts should be reserved for old soldiers only, a measure which might be unpopular in Government Departments, but which is essential for the welfare of the Army. The employment of men after they leave the service is a most important point, and I would ask the Under Secretary of State for War if, anyhow, a large proportion of these 100,000 places could not be reserved for old soldiers only. The return shows only 11,700 old soldiers in Government employ. Men should serve two years at home and four years abroad, and be quite certain that, except at their own request or during time of war, they will never be kept abroad more than four years. This arrangement would promote recruiting by removing the objections which parents entertain to long service abroad. Men should serve one year at home previous to their discharge, to enable them to get back into touch with their friends and civil employment before leaving the Army. I know that this arrangement would entail inconvenience on the War Office, but its utility is obvious. No sufficient Army for foreign service will ever be obtained unless the public makes the War Office understand that they are paid to study, not their own convenience, but the convenience and the welfare of the private soldier. The soldiers' pay and recruiting are inseparable subjects. I will quote to your Lordships the opinion of the Secretary of State for War on these points. The right hon. Gentleman, speaking before Whitsuntide, said— However anxious one may feel as to the future, can I come to the House and say there has been a breakdown in recruiting? Can I honestly say I am in great straits? We have had bumper recruiting this last year. The popularity of the Army, at all events in time of war, has been established. Every regiment in South Africa is, I believe, at this moment over its strength, and it needs a strong incentive for any Secretary of State to come down and ask the House to add three or four millions pay under conditions of this kind. Recruits, then, are so easy to obtain that the Government is not justified in offering better terms. In contrast to that view I must refer your Lordships to the Report of the Inspector General of Recruiting for 1901, in which he says:— Recruiting in the United Kingdom has improved during the year, with the exception of Ireland. But the situation from a recruiting point of view cannot, as a whole, be considered satisfactory. In spite of the war, recruiting for the Infantry has not met the demand. It is a regrettable fact that in some districts enlistment is not looked upon with favour by the parents of a certain class of men most suited for a successful career in the Army. The problem still remains of how a sufficient number of recruits for the maintenance of the establishment of the Regular Army in time of peace is to be obtained. It appears from the same Report that in 1900 the number of recruits for the Infantry of the Line was 271 less than in 1899, and that, my Lords, in spite of an increased number of Infantry battalions in the Army and a decrease in the standard of height and physical development and the impetus given to recruiting by the war. It is not for me to attempt to reconcile the views of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War with the Report of the Inspector General of Recruiting.

Recruiting governs the existence of the Regular Army, and on it is dependent also the growth of the Reserve, which for many years to come must be very slow. We must in the first place deduct from the Army Reserve 30,000 men belonging to the Militia Reserve, which is now abolished. In the second place, we must allow for the prompt disappearance from the Reserve of a considerable number of men whose transfer to the Reserve is now long over-due, and who are completing their term of Reserve service with the colours; and lastly, we must remember that although the establishment of the Line has been increased, the number of recruits obtained has diminished. I should like to ask the Under Secretary of State for a Return showing the number of men retained in the Army for an extra year of service, and the number of men due for transfer to the Reserve, but retained with the colours. The latter are, I believe, reckoned on the strength of the colours, although they have begun the term of their Reserve service. As your Lordships are aware, the outflow from the Army and Militia is at present stopped, but it will go with a rush at the end of the war, and empty the ranks of both Army and Militia. It is not every recruit who ends his service in the Reserve, and it would be interesting to learn the proportion of Reservists to enlistments from 1894 to 1899. Meanwhile nothing has been done to make the Reserve attractive, and much has happened to make it repulsive. When the Reserve and short service were established it was not contemplated that the Reserve should form the first fighting line. Reservists certainly did not anticipate that they, and not the so-called men with the colours, would be the first sent abroad, or that they would be required to remain abroad for some two years. Owing to the nature of the Reserve, most of the men are married and in good employment. Employers may be able to keep the Reservists' places open for them for a few months, but it is impossible that they should do so for a few years. Then there is the question of the men's families. The first act of the noble and gallant Earl the present Commander-in-Chief, after his appointment, was an appeal to private charity to support the families of Reservists. The noble Earl was quite right in his action. Funds were needed, and there were no other means of raising them. But it is neither right nor creditable that our first fighting line should depend upon charity for the support of their families. We have got to the bottom of private charity in this respect, and soon there will be little left for the Reservists' families beyond the separation allowance from the Government. Service in the Reserve would be cruel, indeed impossible, unless the men's families were guarded, not only from starvation, but from great loss owing to the absence of the breadwinners. That duty should be discharged, and liberally discharged, by the State from taxation. Again, it is unfortunate that the Government have refused to make any allowance for the wives of Reservists who have married on returning from the war, no doubt relying on the Government representations last autumn that the war was concluded, but have been recalled to the front for the second time. The decision to make no provision for the widows of men married without leave who have lost their lives in the campaign may be discipline, but it is neither charitable nor politic. Surely the man's death in the service of his country might have atoned for the offence of having married without leave. With an Army depending on voluntary enlistment such decisions are penny wise and pound foolish.

Before passing on to the Auxiliary forces, let me say a word on the Government proposals for colonial and Mediterranean garrisons. It is proposed to garrison certain stations with Indian troops. I see no objection to this course, provided always that the number is limited. We must not let the Sepoy think that he is indispensable to the British Empire because there are no longer any British soldiers. We must not go too fast along the old Roman road in the matter of mercenary garrisons. In the Reserve battalion what I really do welcome is the re-establishment of the principle of the old-age pension. This is a concession of the principle for which I contend. I believe it is the old-age pension which will make the foreign service army possible. The objection to the old-age pension was the enormous amount of the non-effective Vote. But we have not got rid of the non-effective Vote; we have merely transferred it from one end of the man's life to the other. Instead of giving it to the man in his second childhood, we now give it to him in his first. Last year there were 92,000 soldiers in the Army who were too young for active service abroad. These 92,000 men would cost at least five millions a year. In the days when the Army Estimates did not exceed twelve millions, the non-effective Vote was two millions. Now, when the Estimates amount to thirty millions, the non-effective Vote amounts to five millions. The proportion of one-sixth remains the same. The character of the recipients only is altered. The old-age pension was given to men for service rendered to their country. The nursery Vote is given to boys who are paid as trained soldiers, but who are unfit for service, and many of whom will never be worth a penny. The Secretary of State for War gives the establishment of the Militia at 150,000, and its strength at 100,000. The proposal is to reduce the establishment from 150,000 to 100,000, and to form a Reserve for the Militia of 50,000 men whose training will be limited to a few days' musketry instruction. The Government claim by this means to add 50,000 men to the Militia without adding a single man to the number now serving or calling for a single additional recruit. This sounds like magic. The outcome of the juggle is the actual reduction of the Militia establishment by 50,000 men and the problematical formation of a Reserve for the Militia of 50,000 men. It is certain that these 50,000 men are not now available, and will not be available for many years to come. I should like to ask the Under Secretary of State for War how many years he thinks, under favourable circumstances, it will take to form this Reserve for the Militia. If this Reserve had been in addition to the permanent establishment of the Militia I would have welcomed it gladly. As it is, I am sure your Lordships will agree in deploring the reduction of the permanent establishment of the Militia by 50,000 men. The invaluable service rendered by the Militia during the Peninsular War and at Waterloo, during the Crimea and in the Mutiny, are facts of our military history. To-day the Inspector General of Recruiting says— The present war in South Africa has shown the value of Militia, and the necessity of encouraging the force in every way. And yet the reduction of this force by 50,000 men is one of the reforms of the new Army scheme. Certain extra inducements are offered to men to enlist in the Militia, but clearly the Government do not anticipate that they will attract recruits, else why this reduction?

I note that the Secretary of State for War is at a loss to understand why men leave the Militia on marriage. Yet the explanation is very simple. No married Militiaman can possibly send home an adequate allowance to his family during the annual training. His wife and family, if they depend on his wages, are left to starve. Men are not justified in leaving their families to starve in order that they may attend trainings. If the Government would give married militiamen an adequate separation allowance during the training, they would greatlyadd to the strength of the Militia by making matrimony and the Militia compatible The Militia have always been dwellers in tents, and apparently they are to continue without any adequate barrack accommodation. Nothing is said as to the clothing and equipment of the Militia, yet both are in urgent need of improvement. More is to be required from the officers, hut, unlike the Volunteer officers, Militia officers are not to receive extra pay for extra duty. I would ask the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State if any effort will be made to remedy the scarcity of officers in the Militia, and if he is of opinion that the prospect of extra duty without any corresponding addition to pay and advantages is calculated to attract officers to the force. Many officers and men who have joined the Militia have lately found themselves at a considerable disadvantage by having done so. Militia officers in South Africa found themselves superseded in rank by officers of Yeomanry and Volunteers on whom Army rank was promptly bestowed. The Militia, which is the oldest force in the land, is always relegated to the position of maid of all work. Many Militia subalterns, by being absent on active service in South Africa, have missed two or three examinations for Militia officers for commissions in the Army. I know that very many commissions have been given to Militia officers on the recommendations of the Commanders-in-Chief in South Africa, but this intensifies the soreness amongst those who have not had the luck to be recommended. I should like to ask the Under Secretary if he can make some promise of considering the claims not of a selected few, but of all duly qualified Militia subalterns, for commissions in the Army, who, from having been on active service, have missed the chance of attending the examinations in England.

Then as to the men. Militiamen have been offered 1s. 6d. a day to join the mounted infantry, whereas civilians are given 5s. Thus a man who has served several trainings and has just done a whole year or more of embodied service, and is a trained soldier, gets 1s. 6d. per diem because he belongs to the Militia, whereas if he had done no military training at all he could earn 5s. per diem. I am not very hopeful of the future of the Militia. The Militia has always been used as the milch cow of the Line. It has had for many years to bear the crushing competition of the Volunteers, and now, in addition, of the Yeomanry. The Volunteers are a much more popular force. The Militia appeals far less to the public attention. For instance, there are now thirty battalions of Militia in South Africa, but we hear very little about them. They are not mentioned in despatches. The Volunteers leave amidst a flourish of trumpets, and their smallest doings are chronicled at the fullest length. They return and receive medals. The Militia go abroad in silence and nothing more is heard about them. Unless the position of the Militia force is completely reconsidered, I, for one, do not consider myself justified in persuading either officers or men to join that force, because I often find I have done good fellows an ill-turn by inducing them to belong to the Militia instead of the more favoured Volunteers and Yeomanry. The Militia has been a plant of very hardy growth; moreover it has been rooted in our soil for several hundred years, but I am not prepared to say that it will long survive the competition, cold water, and cutting with which the present War Office Administration are about to treat it. The reform, then, for the Militia is the reduction of the permanent establishment by 50,000 men. For the Regular Army absolutely nothing is going to be done beyond the paltry provision of cubicles and some lessening of fatigue work and guard duties—measures too trifling for serious mention.

My Lords, in new schemes we look for new departures. Well, we have a startling departure here. In the Army scheme the Volunteers and the Yeomanry have the first place, the Regular Army and Militia the second. In reference to the Volunteers, I have but one proposal to make and that is that the force should as soon as possible be restored to its original foundation. The evolution of the Volunteers has resulted in a corps, who, as auxiliaries to the Regular Army, once made a free gift of personal service to the nation, becoming a paid military force entrusted with the main portion of home defence. That is the position now assigned for the first time to the Volunteer force by the Government. The Volunteers are now a State-paid force. Yet are they independent of the control of the War Office? They are Volunteers in this sense, that they come out for the service of the country or stay at home on account of their own affairs as they please. It appears to me that to spend the money of the taxpayer upon a force which is independent of the War Office is unjustifiable. At least, it should be very clearly explained to the country that although they pay the Volunteer it is the Volunteer, not the Secretary of State, who calls the tune. The Secretary of State may call—he did call—for twenty-eight days continuous service. The Volunteers may answer—they did answer—"fourteen days are enough," and to the fourteen days the Government agreed. It is instructive to note the value which the mass of the Volunteer force was to the country last year. The expenditure of large sums of public money upon the Volunteers was always justified by the supposition that they would take the place of the Regular Army, when that Army had been summoned abroad. Last year the trial came. Not only had the whole of the Regular Army been sent abroad, but also a great part of the Militia. Moreover, there were circumstances which made some hostile attempt upon Great Britain to be by no means so absolutely impossible as we should at all times desire it to be. Under these circumstances the Secretary of State called on the Volunteers for twenty-eight days training, a proposal promptly negatived by all those connected with the force. It was said to be impossible for the men to come out for so long, and that, if twenty-eight days were insisted upon, the whole Volunteer force would melt away. The Government and their military advisers did not put any pressure upon the Volunteers. They at once, and most wisely, recognised the impossibility of dealing with them. They set to work to find some other force hitherto un-thought of to undertake the duty which imagination had always assigned to the Volunteers. That force was discovered in the Royal Reserve Battalions. These battalions sprang into existence on an appeal from a beloved Sovereign to her old soldiers. But the inference is clear. The Government and their military advisers did not trust the Volunteers, and that the country was of the same opinion is proved by the feeling of relief which attended the prompt appearance of the Royal Reserve Battalions. And yet with that experience only a year old, it is not the Regular Army and the Militia but the Volunteers which form the backbone of the new Army scheme—the Volunteers, who, when the country was in a tight place—and the country was in a tight place this time last year—could only give fourteen days of consecutive service to the nation with plenty of pay and allowances to help them; the Volunteers, whose place in the scheme of national defence had to be supplemented by the Royal Reserve Battalions raised in panic and at a cost of many millions to the country.

The absurdly exaggerated importance attached to the Volunteers in the proposals of the Government is in some measure due to the services of individual members of that force in South Africa. Now, the performance of some ten per cent. of the Volunteer force in South Africa is no criterion of the value of the mass of the Volunteer force for active service. No complete Volunteer battalion, as such, went abroad under its own officers. A few of the very best men, carefully selected from different regiments, went to South Africa, where, after months of useful training on lines of communication under Regular officers, they went into action and acquitted themselves with credit. They have served their country well and deserve all praise. It is due to them to know the number of British Volunteers killed in action, and what percentage that number is of the whole Volunteer force sent to South Africa. But I cannot agree with the Government that, because these picked men, after months of preparatory field training, have done well in action, therefore whole Volunteer battalions and Volunteer batteries are fit to be put in line to-morrow with Regular troops. Such a conclusion is, I submit, unwarrantable and fraught with danger. The reconstruction of our various military forces is badly needed; but, when we come to reconstruction, we find ourselves faced by the difficulty which beset in days of old the Prophet Nehemiah—"There is much rubbish, so that we are not able to build the wall." There is much rubbish in the Army, rubbish in the Militia, and an enormous amount of rubbish in the Volunteers. For instance, last year the noble Marquess who was then Secretary of State for War, in answer to an inquiry by me, stated that there were 92,000 men of the Regular Army at home, the reason being that they were too young to go abroad.

*THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOE FOREIGN AFFAIRS (the Marquess of LANSDOWNE)

No.

*THE DUKE OF BEDFORD

The official explanation is that these boys, although too young for foreign service, are infant prodigies for home defence. I do not deny that many of these boys will grow up and go to war if the war lasts long enough, and I believe that many of these 92,000 have been sent abroad. Your Lordships must also remember that when a lad is put back in June as too young for foreign service, but is sent abroad on the 1st July, it is not because in one month he has grown from boy to man, but because, as the urgency for drafts increases, their quality diminishes. However, at this time last year we had 92,000 so-called soldiers, who for purposes of the Regular Army and foreign service were rubbish.

*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE

If the noble Duke will refer to the report of what fell from me last year, he will see that I said that those 92,000 men could not be depended upon for service abroad, not because they were all of them too young, but because they were what are known as "details," and without the organisation fitting them to take their place in the field.

*THE DUKE OF BEDFORD

In the Militia matters are even worse in this way. It was never contemplated that the Militia should proceed wholesale on active service abroad, and therefore no regulation as to the age for foreign service existed in the Militia. The War Office, finding that they had not tied their own hands in the matter of age, sent any boys who were accepted for the Militia abroad, in many cases without even having fired a recruit's course of musketry. Stunted, ill-grown boys of sixteen and often fifteen years of age, who have enlisted because, in civil life, they are incapable of earning a full day's wages, who have never had a rifle in their hand, and possess no physical stamina for the hard work of a campaign, are, for the purposes of active service, nothing else but rubbish. But they cost the country just as much to send abroad and to maintain in hospital as good sound material. In the Volunteers the amount of rubbish is enormous and unknown; but the time has come when its extent must be known. The Volunteers have now altered the conditions of their service. They are a State-paid military force, and the taxpayer has a right to know the quality of the article for which he is called upon to pay. It is ill manners to look a gift horse in the mouth, but when there is no question of gift, but of millions of money, then the country has a full right to call in the Army surgeon and be advised as to the quality of the material for which it has to pay. There was no medical examination of any kind for the Volunteers prior to 1896. Many thousands of Volunteers now serving have not been medically examined at all. Unfortunately the capitation grant must tend to the acceptance of recruits not up to standard, for the financial condition of a Volunteer regiment depends upon quantity not quality. I would ask the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State if he would cause the whole Volunteer force to be medically examined, and a Return made of all boys under twenty and of all men unfit for home service. A collection of rubbish is at no time profit able, but when that rubbish costs a much as good sound material then the case is indeed extreme. I see no sign in the Government proposals of recognising the existence of this rubbish, much less of getting rid of it. In addition to all this rubbish there is yet another cause which prevents the solid building up of our wall of military forces. The Army and the Militia have worked together from the times of the great French wars. Then chance, and chance alone, added two more Auxiliary forces to our military system. The Volunteers and Yeomanry are not the result of a carefully considered scheme of defence, but the offspring of chance circumstances. They are there, and therefore must be accepted as part of the material for building our wall of defence. Hence the proposal to build three army corps from four different kinds of material—the Army, Militia, Volunteers, and Yeomanry, each containing a good proportion of rubbish. The result must be, as I think, lath, plaster, and much rubbish.

I do not desire to detain your Lordships by discussing alternative schemes which have no chance of adoption. On the other hand, I do not wish to appear only as a destructive critic of the Government proposals. I therefore sketch, in the barest possible outline, a plan which seems to me to make sounder and more economical provision for home defence. It is the conversion of the Militia into a Militia Field Army, with the Yeomanry as its mounted infantry. This force would be capable of meeting the only form of invasion which, in our insular position, we have reason to fear. That invasion would be a raid by an enemy, who is prepared to be cut off by sea from his base, and who is equally prepared to leave the raiding party prisoners in this country; but who means to open hostilities by a secret and sudden blow landed home on the heart of our Empire. The number of such a force must be limited by the difficulties of transport, but it is sure to be a most carefully-selected force. Every detail will have been thought out. The place of disembarkation, the route to the objective, the possible battlefields, all would be well known to the leaders by previous survey on the spot. In time of peace, when the Regular Army is at home, they should be able to deal with any such raid. In time of war, as the Regular Army proceeds abroad, the Militia Field Army would be permanently embodied in its place. The objective of the raid would have been gained, or the raid would have failed, all within forty-eight hours, long before any Volunteers could be mobilised to meet it. A raid of the character I refer to is almost certain, by some unforeseen accident, to precede the declaration of war. The only chance of success depends on the antecedent secrecy. I am confident that the Volunteers, if warned by the Government of the secret hostility of some apparently friendly Power, would turn out to a man for any period. But no Government can take the whole Volunteer force into its confidence upon such matters.

A Militia Field Army would take the place of the Volunteers, and dispense with the necessity for raising Royal Reserve Battalions to give that confidence which the Volunteers failed to inspire. One more point. The absence of the whole regular Army implies times of stress and strain and great popular excitement. During such a moment it might be necessary to use some military force in aid of the civil power. It would be possible to use a permanently embodied Militia for that most difficult duty. To attempt to use the Volunteers for that purpose would be criminal folly. The strength of the Militia Field Army would be determined, I presume, by the Committee of National Defence. The recruiting area for the Militia Field Army should correspond to a local Government area. In the country, county councils and the lord-lieutenant, in towns, the borough councils and the mayors, acting in every case within the regimental district. According to the number of the population a certain number of men would be required from each district for the Militia Battalions belonging to that district. If that number were not forthcoming, the district should be fined for each man deficient, with a special rate of fine for lord-lieutenants. Thus no district would escape its share of national defence. The moment negligence in recruiting touches the pocket of the local ratepayers no means will be spared to produce the recruits necessary. The whole district would try to make service in the Militia easy instead of difficult. The conversion of the Militia into a field army with the Yeomanry for mounted infantry, and the reversion of the Volunteers to their original foundation of an unpaid force, with liberty to do whatever they liked, is the only way I can see of getting rid of the heterogeneous mass of troops now paraded on paper for home defence, who will be each year a heavier tax on the military budget, and the greater part of whom are not under the control of the War Office. There is no reconstruction amongst the Government proposals, the four separate forces—Army, Militia, Volunteers, and Yeomanry—remaining the same, except that the Yeomanry are to be called "Imperial," and have their numbers augmented. The reorganisation consisted, as we were told in the first instance, of six army corps under six generals. It now consists of six bodies of troops provided for six generals on their return from South Africa. It was of course obvious from the first that the army corps principle was not adapted to the exigencies of this country. The essence of that principle is that a certain body of troops are always trained and commended by a certain body of officers, the only change being the arrival of recruits. In our Army, owing to constant change of quarters and foreign service, it is impossible to keep the same staff and the same troops together. As an illustration, we will say the Commander-in-Chief inspects the army corps at York, and has reason to find fault with some brigade. He summons the brigadier and tells him, "Your brigade is the worst I have ever seen." The brigadier answers: "I quite agree; it is the worst that I have ever seen; but allow me to tell you that I never saw the brigade till last week. One regiment came from Ireland, a second from Alder-shot, and a third from abroad, all within the last few days." No doubt the provision of these six bodies of troops will be acceptable to the six generals. But whether you call them army corps or anything else, they require a training ground. I note that Colchester is to be the headquarters of the Sixth Army Corps; but at Colchester there are not 200 acres available for the purposes of tactical instruction. Is the army corps stationed at Colchester to have no training ground, or is one to be provided at an enormous outlay? Not only is a training ground requisite, but a certain period of time for training. This period is limited as far as three army corps are concerned to thirteen days, for that is the extent of time given by the Volunteers, who are to be the backbone of these three home army corps. Out of thirteen days one must be a Sunday, so we are reduced to twelve working days. We may, therefore, sum up the Colchester army corps as follows:—Four separate sorts of forces, each with a different standard of training, discipline, and efficiency, are sent to a place where there is no training ground for twelve working days, and we are expected to reverence the result as a trained army corps which has found salvation by decentralisation from Pall Mall.

If, my Lords, these army corps for home defence are not the strong point of the Government programme, they are not the weakest. The weakest point by far is the proposal to garrison South Africa with twelve infantry battalions. Until twelve battalions are sufficient garrison for South Africa, the whole Government scheme is out of gear. I have already urged in this House that in the circumstances which now exist, and in all probability will exist for some years to come, South Africa ought to be one of the real centres of our military system. It is the central meeting place of our Empire, the best available training ground for an Imperial army, and the pivot on which should hinge any large and comprehensive scheme for Imperial defence. I recognise that Imperial defence cannot be organised till our military system has been itself reorganised. But I trust that that problem has not been lost sight of. If it has been lost sight of and nothing is done, a really great opportunity will be most miserably missed. Meanwhile, without recruits we can have no army. Without recruits proposals and counterproposals for army re-organisation are mere waste of time. The Government are silent on the great difficulty of the situation how to maintain the establishment of the Army. I therefore beg to move the motion standing in my name.

Moved, to resolve, That, in the opinion of this House, the terms now offered to recruits are not sufficient to fulfil the requirements involved in the proposals for the reorganisation of the Military Forces.—(The Duke of Bedford.)

*LORD HALIBURTON

My Lords, I desire to address a few words to your Lordships on the question of the terms offered to recruits. Some few years ago I served on a Committee, under the noble Lord whose loss recently we all deplore, on this very question, and we took a mass of evidence, which is still available. The question is—how does the pay which is given to our soldiers compare with that of the unskilled labourer? The soldier, after he has paid all the numerous stoppages to which the noble Duke has referred, has, at the end of the week, without counting his good-conduct pay or his deferred pay, 5s. 10d. to devote to his own pleasure. It is said that we ought to increase the pay of the soldier after prolonged service. That already is done in the case of the good soldier. The good soldier at the end of two years gets an additional twopence a day good conduct pay, at the end of another period he gets a further twopence a day, and subsequently sixpence. Therefore the ordinary soldier receives a pay which is considerably above that of the ordinary labourer in the country, and it must be remembered that the soldier gets his pay every day he is in the Army, whether he is sick or well, whether it is wet or dry. It has been calculated in a Return issued by the Board of Trade that the nominal pay of the labouring classes must be reduced by sixteen per cent. on account of the number of days they are out of work apart from the days when they are sick. There is no doubt that it would be a very foolish thing to try to buy a penny bun for a halfpenny, but it would be more foolish to go into the market and insist upon giving twopence for a penny bun with the idea that you were going to get a better or a different article. The proper rate of pay is a question for detailed inquiry, and it was exhaustively inquired into ten years ago. There may have been changes in the rate of wages since then, but I believe that at the present moment we pay the soldier as much as he is entitled to, and that any addition to that pay would not bring us better or different men. A private soldier, named Spratt, who gave evidence before the Committee, told us that he had been a boot-finisher, and had received as much as 30s. a week. He thought that if he could get continuous employment in the Army he would be much better off, but when he enlisted and found that he only received eight pence a day clear, he was very much disappointed. When he was asked if he would like to have his discharge he replied in the negative, and said he thought that would require some consideration, and he expressed the opinion that if the men got their full rations free and one shilling a day clear, their principal grievance would be gone. Since then the Government have given additional allowances, and the soldier now practically gets a shilling a day clear. Of course he has to pay for his hair-cutting—I presume everyone who has hair has to do the same—but that is scarcely a hardship; and he also has to subscribe to his cricket and other clubs. The question is whether we should get more men or different men if we paid more money, and on that point I took down a few extracts from the evidence of a recruiting officer who had the longest experience in London on this subject. He said— With the increase in the number of recruits of recent years I find no deterioration in quality. The cause and motive for enlistment are unaltered. I do not think comparatively that there is any difference between the recruits of the present day and those of 1865. The great bulk of the recruits required for the Army are from eighteen to twenty years of age. I doubt whether any change in the inducements held out is desirable.… It would not be desirable to hold out any large monetary inducements for the purpose of getting men over twenty. You would frequently get very undesirable men. Any gain to be secured in physical development would be more than counterbalanced by deteriorated moral adaptability. Under twenty both body and mind are flexible and amenable to the good influences of military drill and discipline; over twenty, recruits are now drawn from the strata of poor workmen, dissipated idlers, and rolling stones. It would not be desirable to hold out any large monetary inducements for the purpose of getting men over twenty; if you dip into that stratum you would frequently get very undesirable men. His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, who was then Commander-in-Chief, said— When you take men on enlistment you must take them when you can catch them, and when they have nothing special to do. It is only boys from sixteen to twenty who have no special occupation. A man who enlists after twenty is not so good in the long run as the boy. I would infinitely prefer the boy although he is less fit immediately for hard work…I do not think it would be wise to add to the soldier's pay. It would be a doubtful benefit, and it is better to avoid it if we can.' A military Committee, presided over by Lord Airey, recommended that if increased pay were given it should be in the shape of deferred pay. Soldiers have plenty of money for their personal wants and amusements while serving, and any increase would only be squandered, but, if given on their discharge, the money might be of service in assisting them to start in some civil employment.

Do we want to enlist men or boys? The opinion of most soldiers is that the younger we can get the recruit the better. It is impossible to get young recruits and not to have a certain number of men who are too young to go abroad on enlistment. I think the noble Duke exaggerated the case when he said there were 90,000 men who were too young to go abroad, because that number represents more than three years' recruits. They could not all have been unable to go abroad. They grow into good soldiers, and in due time they go abroad. I think the value of our Reserve force has not fully been appreciated until now. I cannot say where we should have been if we had not had that Reserve to reinforce our Army by 80,000 first-rate fighting men, but I am perfectly certain where we should not have been—we should not have been in South Africa. These men are not the Reserve in the ordinary sense of the word, merely meant to replace casualties. They are part of our first line, but they are on furlough. It is a great mistake to talk of a man being discharged to the Reserve. He is only transferred, and is ready at a moment's notice to come back. If you want to have a second Reserve you must have a further increase in the Army. Heretofore we have not thought such a very large Army necessary, and I do not know that we do now. I do not think we can base our future military requirements on the abnormal condition of affairs in South Africa. As to the resolution of the noble Duke, I believe that the inducements that are offered get us the best material for our purpose that the country can produce, and that we get it in sufficient quantity to meet our requirements.

*VISCOUNT FRANKFORT DE MONT-MORENCY

My Lords, I think, as an old soldier, that I should take some part in this debate, but I candidly confess that I do so with some reluctance, as I know that recruiting for the Regular service is a most delicate and difficult subject, and requires greater consideration than I have been able to give it. I am inclined not to act in a hurry, but to move steadily and see what check recruiting receives after the war, and how the various improvements in regard to barracks and other matters which have been suggested will affect recruiting. We are told that by raising the pay we shall fill the ranks at once with older and better men. From what I learned while commanding a regimental district, I have very grave doubts about that. I am afraid you would not get any more men, at any rate but very few. Those who favour an increase of pay do not take into consideration the fact that by the time a man reaches the age of twenty-one or twenty-two he had already been five or six years in civil employment, and if he is worth anything he has an assured future in civil life and a value in the labour market. Therefore it seems to me unlikely in the highest degree that any increase of pay would attract men of this class to join the Army and give up the comparative freedom of civil life for the restrictions of military life in barracks. Undoubtedly we should get the failures in civil life—the loafers and those men who either cannot or will not work. But, my Lords, we can get those now, and any officer commanding a depot will tell you what a trouble such men are. To make good, useful and efficient soldiers men must be enlisted young. I am of opinion that the present rate of pay is sufficient for lads of seventeen or eighteen. The Army might be made more attractive in other ways, but instead of pay being increased, the pensions of men who have made soldiering their profession should be increased.

*THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN

My Lords, I should like to say a few words in support of the motion of my noble friend, but, in doing so, I shall not attempt to criticise in any detail the scheme of the Government. The scheme is an ingenious one, and contains many exceedingly good proposals, but it appears to me to be stultified by the essential defect that it can never become anything more than a scheme. A plan or a scheme it is, and a plan or a scheme it will always continue to be. I do not mean to say that there will be any great difficulty in providing the home Army which is contemplated. You have the Volunteers; you will get the Yeomanry; and the Militia can be brought up to its establishment by and through the ballot. I doubt if it can be done without the ballot being put in force. If you do succeed without it, it will be at the expense of the Regular Army, for a large proportion of the men you would induce to join the Militia would be men who would otherwise have gone into the Army. You will be in the position of the gentleman who, finding his blanket was too short to cover him, cut a piece off the top and tacked it on to the bottom. I feel convinced that if the matter was put to the country there would be no objection to the ballot being used for the Militia. So far as the home Army is concerned, I am of opinion therefore that no difficulty need arise; but the case of the Imperial forces is very different. I do not see how it is possible for His Majesty's Government to imagine that they will be able to find men enough to bring the proposed six army corps up to their full establishment, taking into view the enormous efflux of men from the colours that must take place when the war comes to an end, as well as the fact that there is no force whatever at the back of the Regular Army from which to fill the ranks. It is perfectly true that you are going to create an Imperial Yeomanry, but the word "Imperial" is merely a term. There will be nothing whatever Imperial about them, except the name; they will be a force raised for home defence purely and solely. I see no objection to using the term "Imperial," which has become honourable and creditable from the excellent service performed in the field by the Imperial Yeomanry and the various contingents from the great colonies, but the country should not be led to imagine that because they are to be called Imperial Yeomanry they are Imperial forces. That is a delusion.

It is impossible not to believe that one of the objects of dividing the Militia and Volunteers into two classes—one class which is and the other class which is not fit to be brigaded with the Regular troops—is that the Volunteers and Yeomanry who will be considered fit to be so brigaded will in the case of an emergency be expected to volunteer for foreign service. I think that would place the men in a very painful and disagreeable position. I cannot imagine any more painful dilemma than for an individual, a company, or a section to be placed in the position of either having to refuse to volunteer for active service practically in the face of the enemy, or to volunteer and ruin their prospects in life. I think it would have been better if His Majesty's Government had come straight to the point and had said that one of the lessons learned from the war was the great value the Auxiliary forces could be in the field, and that they wanted to create a permanent force of Imperial Yeomanry, the terms of whose enlistment should be that on an emergency they could be called upon to serve abroad, but who otherwise should be looked upon as ordinary Yeomen and Volunteers. I quite admit that differentiation should take place in the Yeomanry and Volunteers, but I object to the method of differentiation. I think it would have been better if the Government plan had been that certain battalions who were prepared to serve abroad in an emergency, and who had brought themselves up to a high pitch of efficiency, should be brigaded in the three army corps with the Regular troops. I feel confident that, if that course had been adopted, you would have attracted a very superior class of men into the Yeomanry. I believe there are men of independent or nearly independent means in this country and in the great colonies who would never join the Army as a profession because of the drudgery involved, and would who not care to give up their leisure time to make themselves very efficient in a corps in which they could not expect to see active service, except in the problematical case of an invasion, but who would give up their time to make themselves efficient if there was a chance of seeing active service when the country became involved in a great war.

How does the Government expect to find the men who will be necessary to bring the new army corps up to their proper establishment? I believe I am right in saying that in ordinary years about 16,000 men pass from the colours to the Reserve, and about 14,000 from the Reserve into civil life. None of those men have joined or left the Reserve during the past two years. There is, therefore, two years' accumulation of men who, the moment the war is over, will leave the colours. How are you going to supply the places of these men? Moreover, the Secretary of State for War has told us that he requires 10,000 men annually in excess of the normal number of recruits at present obtained. I think I am not wrong in stating that we are short in India at the present moment of 11,000 men, and I do not think I shall be exaggerating if I say that we are short in other garrisons by something like 5,000 men. To all those figures must be added the wastage of war, and I shall put that at the moderate figure of 20,000, excluding Reservists. If the war ends to-morrow there will be a depletion in the Army of 107,000 men. I would ask the Under Secretary whether he seriously thinks that such a deficiency can be made up in a reasonable time by giving the men cubicles and the other inducements contained in the scheme. I confess that I think the state of recruiting is anything but satisfactory. The noble Duke read an extract from the Inspector General's report, in which it is stated that in 1900 the number of recruits were some 400 less than in the previous year. That in itself is not a very hopeful sign, and I ask your Lordships to consider the quality of the recruits. The standard of height has been considerably reduced. For personal reasons I do not wish to decry the value of small men, but 5 ft. 3½ in is going down very low indeed. It is very difficult to get at facts, but going back to 1899 I find that 13,788, or 34 per cent., of the enlistments were "specials." Your Lordships know very well what that means. Of those who presented themselves 320 per 1,000 were rejected on medical examination, 15 per 1,000 were invalided out of the Army at the first year, and 17 per 1,000 the second year. Thirty-five per 1,000 purchased their discharge in the first twelve months, and 34 per 1,000 later on, and in 1899 we lost 2,482 men by desertion, 3,327 were discharged as bad characters—and they must have been pretty bad characters for colonels of regiments to discharge them—and 1,756 disappeared for no cause stated. As a matter of fact, it is safe to say that of the men recruited we lose about half in two years. I do not know exactly what the soldier costs the country, but it is obvious that the waste of money involved must be something enormous. And what happened on mobilisation? Why the Reservists had not only to bring their units up to war strength, which is, of course, their proper function, but had also to fill the places of no less than 37½ per cent. of the men with the colours put back as unfit for active service, and these men are returned as on the effective strength. That is not the proper function of a reserve. Recruiting varies very little from year to year in normal times. It rose under the stimulus of war fever; but it is returning to normal, and will certainly sink below normal under natural reaction from the excitement of war. These figures seem to me to point very plainly to the fact that the Army does not attract men up to anything like the physical and moral average of the nation; that our system of accepting almost anything that offers is wasteful in the extreme; and that the stratum of society from which recruits are drawn is small and inelastic. I am proud to admit that the men who remain are undoubtedly unequalled as soldiers, but to obtain them there is an enormous expenditure of money. It is idle to expect that when the war is over the number of men required for the scheme will be obtained unless inducements are offered which will appeal to a wider strata of society than that which now supplies recruits. I do not pretend to be able to say to what extent the pay would have to be increased. My own impression is that it would not require a very large increase of pay. If the suggestion of my noble friend the noble Duke was adopted, and the men really received their present nominal pay, I have very little doubt that that would be sufficient. My objection to the proposals of the Government is that the scheme will never be anything but a scheme—that it will come to nothing, and the danger I see is that the people will think it is a reality and will rest satisfied that the Empire is safe, until they have an awakening of even a ruder character, perhaps, than that which they have experienced during the past year and a half.

*THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Lord RAGLAN)

My Lords, I do not propose to follow the noble Duke who opened this debate Into all the questions which he raised with regard to the pay of the soldier. Whether you make additions to it under the messing allowance, or deductions under the head of stoppages, the pay of the soldier is the money which he actually receives. The main argument of the noble Duke is that unless increased pay is given to the soldier recruiting must break down. But before I deal with that important question I desire, if your Lordships will permit me, to dispose of some minor points in the speech of the noble Duke. The noble Duke has conveyed—I have no doubt unintentionally—an erroneous impression in speaking about the Government making money out of the men through the canteen. The noble Duke is as well aware as I am that the Government, qua Government, make absolutely nothing out of the canteen, and have nothing whatever to do with it. The canteen is a co-operative society formed for the benefit of the men, through which they are enabled to obtain their beer and groceries at far cheaper rates than would be possible otherwise. The noble Duke said, at the commencement of his speech, that he would confine himself to the question of the infantry soldier of the Line, but I do not know any regulation under which infantry soldiers of the line have to buy harness composition, which he said was one of the items of expenditure. The noble Duke complained that there was no force ready for instant embarkation without falling back on the Reserve. The provision of such a force is the most difficult problem with which the military authorities have to deal. In the case of the infantry, in order to have certain battalions ready to be embarked at a moment's notice, one of two things must be done—the present territorial system must be abolished and special battalions enlisted for this instant embarkation; or certain battalions must be increased to unwieldy dimensions, so as to enable them to weed out the unfits, such as recruits, before leaving on active service. The institution some few years ago of the special section of the Army Reserve was designed to meet that particular want, and we have every reason to believe that the section will meet that want. As to the information the noble Duke desires with respect to the men who tried to desert in the first two years of their service, the number during the years 1894 to 1896 was 3,079; but 43 per cent. returned to the Army—that is to say, the men were apprehended, or they voluntarily gave themselves up. The number of men who were tried for desertion during the six years was 1,766. I cannot say what proportion of the deserters were men under two years service, as years of service are not included in the information at my disposal. The noble Duke also said that marksmen were not paid. They are not actually paid, but they receive a gratuity, which comes to very much the same thing. With regard to barrack accommodation, I am glad to say that in the new buildings, day rooms are provided in which the men mess, and I hope that this boon to the men will in time be provided in the old barracks also. Bathrooms are also very much improved in the new pattern barracks.

The noble Duke is, as I have also the honour to be, a commanding officer of a Militia regiment, and I am surprised that he should have blamed the Government for having carried out what is the wish of every single Militia officer I have met in doing away with the Militia Reserve. The noble Duke apprehends that at the end of the war the Army Reserve will promptly disappear. I do not know why the Reserve should disappear at the end of the war any more than at any other period. The men who have finished their time in the Reserve will, of course, disappear, but the men who have still their time to serve in the Reserve will be transferred to it. There is, therefore, no reason why they should disappear at the end of the war; in fact, I should have thought that at the beginning of the war was the period when they would be most likely to disappear. With regard to the question of separation allowances, to which the noble Duke referred, I may point out that since the commencement of the war these allowances to the wives of mobilised Reservists have been increased, and are now 1s. 1d. a day, with an addition of twopence for each child. I do not say that is a princely fortune, but it is such an allowance as we imagine will enable the wife to keep the home together during the absence of the bread-winner. There is no intention, as the noble Duke seems to imagine, to reduce the establishment of the active Militia, as contrasted with the new Militia Reserve. I do not know where he got that idea from, because nothing has been said in either House of Parliament as to any such intention. With regard to the Militia Reserve, which he says is problematical, I am not in a position to state how many years it will take to fill up that Reserve; but I do not doubt that, with the attractions which the Militia Reserve will offer, a considerable number of men will be obtained. As a Militia commanding officer, I look forward with very great pleasure to the Militia Reserve as a means of strengthening my regiment in the event of embodiment. As regards the Yeomanry and Volunteers, of course our scheme is to raise the standard of training. As the noble Duke rightly said, the Volunteer force was for the first time in 1896 subjected to medical examination, and it is of course quite possible that there remain serving in the Volunteers some of those who joined before that year, who are not physically fit for hard work, but I very much question whether there is a large number. I regret I have not the data with which to answer the question of the noble Duke. As to medically examining the Volunteers by Army medical officers, with the pressure which this war has occasioned I am afraid it would be impossible at this moment to comply with that request. As to the question of the employment of old soldiers in Government offices, I can only speak for the Office which I represent. The War Office are doing their best to employ as many old soldiers as possible in the capacity of messengers and clerks, and we are also endeavouring to induce other Government offices, over which, I regret to say, we have no control in this matter, to do the same. A large number of old soldiers have been employed in the Metropolitan Police with, I believe, most successful results.

The noble Duke asks for information regarding the men retained in the Army whose term of service is now overdue. I am afraid I am not in a position to give your Lordships absolutely accurate figures, but, roughly speaking, there are between 8,000 and 9,000 men who are over twelve years and in their thirteenth year of service; about 4,000 to 5,000 men of section D of the Army Reserve; about 1,000 long-service men who are in their twenty-second year of service; and there are also about 40,000 men who are due for transfer to the Army Reserve; and, besides, there are the mobilised Reservists now serving with the colours, who amount altogether to 66,000 men. In these 66,000 men, however, are included the Reservists who are in their thirteenth year of service, and the section D Reservists who are in their seventeenth year of service. I am not able to differentiate between the men who are mobilised Reservists and men who have been serving all the time with the colours. I find that for the years 1886 to 1890 the average annual number of 29,732 recruits was enlisted, and the transfers to the Reserve eight years later were annually 15,542, but, besides those, there were about 3,500 men who re-engaged and continued their service up to twelve years, so that, as a matter of fact, the net loss during colour service was 10,690, or between 35 and 36 per cent., during the seven or eight years they served with the colours. The noble Duke asked a question as to separation allowances for married Militiamen. No doubt separation allowances would be a great boon and would encourage men to serve on in the Militia, but we have this year largely increased the bounties which we offer to Militiamen and increased the pay to the non-commissioned officers, and we believe that those additional advantages will be of the utmost benefit, and will encourage recruiting in that force. The fact that Militiamen will receive a £3 bounty at periods of two months, and in sums of £1 during the winter at the time when the larger number of men are out of work, will, we think, be a very great boon to the men, and will have this additional advantage, that it will enable us to keep in touch with the men. The disadvantage in the Militia to my mind has always been that for eleven months in the year we hear nothing whatever of the men. The system of paying bounties during the non-training period is a most successful way of killing two birds with one stone; it gives the man money at the time he most wants it, and enables the War Office to keep in touch with him. The question of training officers of the Reserve forces is a most difficult one, and, as I have explained before in this House, the difficulty is not peculiar to this country, but extends to every country on the Continent. The noble Duke will, I am sure, be glad to hear that on 1st June, 1901, there were 3,277 Militia officers, as compared with 2,828 on 1st June, 1899. Though I regret to say there is still a deficit of officers, it has been greatly reduced. On 1st June, 1899, the deficit was 558; it has now been reduced to 108. The noble Duke asked whether we could expect the Militia officer to do extra work without receiving extra remuneration. The noble Duke seems to think that the Militia officer is going to be asked to do a considerable amount of courses without receiving any pay. I would point out to him that in future Militia officers will always receive pay and allowances on going through any of the courses. Every effort will be made to meet the convenience of officers by reducing the compulsory course to the minimum that our military advisers think right for the proper training of the officers, and at the same time a large number of voluntary courses will be offered to which officers can go, and at which they will receive their pay and allowances when they pass the examination.

With regard to the question of commissions, I may tell the noble Duke that since the commencement of the war, in October, 1899, and up to 31st May in the present year, no fewer than 1,401 commissions in the Army have been granted to Militia officers. As to Militia officers in South Africa, every battalion has been given two direct nominatons, making a total of sixty. At the September examinations in 1900 fifty commissions over and above these were assigned to Militia regiments, and in March of the present year a further fifty; while Lord Roberts has nominated thirty and Lord Kitchener thirty-five, and he has not yet exercised all the commissions at his disposal. I will do my best to furnish a correct return of casualties among Volunteers in South Africa, but I regret to tell the noble Duke that it will be extremely difficult to get absolute accuracy, because men are often returned as belonging to territorial battalions and not specially to Volunteer companies. I have been asked by the noble Duke how many boys under twenty are in the Volunteer forces, and from the last Return, issued in November last, it appears there are 78,050 members under twenty enrolled among the Volunteers. The noble Duke then referred to the training ground of the army corps at Colchester. I admit the importance of training grounds, and in these days of long range fire, when the smallest manœuvre requires a large area, the question becomes more complicated. We are fully alive to the necessity of providing adequate grounds. It is not possible to go into details with regard to what can be done at Colchester. I think your Lordships are aware that when it is known that the War Office are endeavouring to buy land, the price goes up in a most remarkable manner. Suitable land cannot always be obtained where it is most required, and it will in future, I think, be found easier to move troops to the training ground than to find ground in immediate proximity to their quarters.

I am afraid I have already detained your Lordships a long time in answering the questions of the noble Duke, but with your permission I will now come to the main question—that of recruiting. Nothing can be more important than the question of recruiting. It is a truism to say that in order to have an army you must obtain recruits. The whole question is one to which a vast amount of attention must be given. It is difficult to form an estimate of results. Because you have so many recruits this month or this year, it is impossible to say you will get the same number next month or next year. Recruits may be divided into three classes—the sons of soldiers, who may be said to have an hereditary military instinct; secondly, the men who enlist out of predilection for a military life, who have what is called the "scarlet fever"; and, lastly, men who enlist because they are out of work. With regard to the last and first classes, no extra inducements, in my opinion, are required to get them to join the Army, and I very much doubt whether you would get more of them even if you increased the pay. The larger proportion of recruits are young, but they provide excellent material for training, and take readily to a soldier's life. At the end of a certain number of months it is impossible to distinguish a "special" from an ordinary recruit. The former is very often ill-fed, but a few months of regular food and out-door work bring about extraordinary results. A friend of mine weighed a hundred recruits when they first came in and also at the end of three and a half months, and found that they had increased in weight to the extent of an average of eight pounds per man. With regard to wastage, the noble Duke and other noble Lords who have spoken seem to think that you can abolish waste by increased pay. This is not so. The wastage has been alluded to as excessive, but I will venture to compare it with the returns of the Metropolitan Police, who are a corps d'elite in the truest sense of the term, being picked men in character and physique. I find that in the first seven years of a recruit's service the wastage in the Army is 35½ per cent., and in the Metropolitan Police it is 28½ per cent., showing that even the most careful selection will not prevent a considerable amount of wastage. With regard to recruiting, in the first five months of 1898, 14,926 recruits enlisted; in the same period of 1899, 14,871 enlisted; in 1900, 24,541 enlisted for the Regular Army and 10,648 for the Imperial Yeomanry, or 35,189 in all. In the first five months of the present year 20,283 men enlisted for the Regular Army, 16,682 for the Imperial Yeomanry, and 6,355 for the South African Constabulary, or a total of 43,320.

We are fully alive to the vital importance of recruiting, and we are carefully watching the returns of recruiting and its results on the Army. Since the commencement of the war the results have been favourable, and continue to be so. But we must manifestly consider the waste of the Army and the probable results of recruiting when the war is over, especially with regard to providing drafts for India and elsewhere. The War Office is working under heavy pressure. We have a huge army in the field, an Army which three years ago would have been considered beyond our wildest dreams, and a great scheme of reorganisation at home for the Army itself and the administration of the Army. It practically comes to this—that we have to reconstruct the engine while the machinery is working not only full time, but while the whole machinery is working overtime. It is easy to pick out points which give rise to anxiety, especially now, when the whole question of the training of troops has been altered by improvements in firearms, and our whole military system is being overhauled. I venture to think that we should not be pressed for any premature announcements. It is impossible to foresee what our needs in this matter may be. I think that some confidence is due to the Government. We have, I think, shown by our proposals that we are determined to grapple with the problems which lay before our Army administration. We fully recognise that it is our duty to provide an efficient Army, and we shall not shrink from that duty. If it should prove that the number of recruits who come forward under present conditions are insufficient for the needs of the Army, we shall have no hesitation in coming to Parliament with such proposals as may seem necessary to ensure a sufficiently large and well-trained Army to protect the interests of the Empire at home and abroad.

On the motion of Lord Monkswell, debate adjourned to Friday next, and to be taken first.

House adjourned at twenty-five-minutes before Eight of the clock, till Thursday next, half-past Ten of the clock.