EDUCATION OF SOLDIERS FOR CIVIL LIFE. (Hansard, 20 May 1901)

LORD MONKSWELL
My Lords, in again venturing to call your Lordships' attention to the education of the soldier for civil life, I have to regret that the subject has not been taken up by some peer of position and influence. I regret it because I consider that this is a question of most vital importance in Army reorganisation, and one which goes absolutely to the root of our Army system. It is perhaps only natural that at the present time a reform of this kind should be overlooked, because it is not a sensational or pretentious reform, and because it no doubt involves a great deal of thought and trouble on the part of those who would have to carry it into execution, and also a certain amount of expense. On the last occasion when I brought this subject before the House, rather more than a year ago, † I stated that in my opinion the education of the soldier for civil life was practically the only alternative to conscription if the desire was to increase the Army. When I stated that, I thought I should be accused on all sides of absurd exaggeration, but I am happy to say that the Weekly Dispatch, one of the three or four papers that circulate among the working classes very largely, entirely agreed with me in that estimate of the importance of this reform. Last year I thought myself obliged to give your Lordships in some detail the evidence upon which I relied in putting forward my proposal. I am happy to say it will not be necessary for me to take that course to-night, because the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who was then Secretary of State for War, endorsed in principle my contention. All he said was that it was not practicable. I need only repeat in the merest outline the arguments I used last year. I called attention, in the first place, to a great meeting of † See Debates, Fourth Series, Vol. lxxix., page 1043. 557 officers which took place at Aldershot in 1899, and which came to the conclusion that it was of the greatest importance that the soldier should be educated for civil life during his time with the colours. At the same time, I drew attention to the Report and the evidence of the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1895, presided over by Sir George Chesney. The reference was to consider the employment of retired sailors and soldiers. That Committee was composed mostly of service Members, and it reported strongly in favour of the principle of giving some sort of training in civil employment to soldiers; particularly, said the Report, was that instruction desirable in the winter months. They made that reservation on the evidence of Sir Charles Wilson, then Director of Military Education, who said that in his opinion it would be quite possible to induce soldiers to avail themselves of this instruction during the winter, but not during the summer. Again, I called attention to a very important matter in connection with this subject, namely, the opinion of the Charity Organisation Society. In the year 1891 that Society appointed a committee to inquire into the question of the homeless poor of London. In the course of that inquiry they found that there were seventy-seven old soldiers, but not a single old sailor, among the homeless poor who had been compelled to seek the shelter of the workhouse or the casual ward; and of these soldiers thirty-six had been discharged with characters marked "very good."
Your Lordships are aware of the strenuous efforts that have been, and are still being made, without, I am afraid, any conspicuous success, to induce employers to give remunerative employment to old soldiers. I would draw the attention of the House to the answer which was given me by the noble Marquess last year. He said— I have always thought it would be of the utmost value to the Army if, while soldiers are serving with the colours, we could give them instruction in the rudiments of a trade, and thereby render them better fitted for civil employment after they leave the colours. The noble Marquess made this important addition— I may add that the views of almost every soldier of experience with whom I have dis- 558 cussed this have been such as those which the noble Lord (Lord Monkswell) quoted. The noble Marquess said he had made several experiments in a small way, with results that were not favourable. He took the Woolwich experiment as an illustration, because, as he very truly said, the experiment could be tried with the greatest facility at Woolwich. He recounted the failure there, which he attributed to the perversity of the soldier in objecting to attend classes for technical instruction. I asked the noble Marquess when these classes began, whether in the summer or the winter, and to my great surprise he was not able to answer my question, yet the period of the year at which they are held is of vital importance to these classes. If you begin them in the summer it is impossible to get soldiers to attend. This answer from the noble Marquess aroused my suspicion as to the amount of interest which the officials concerned had given to this matter, and I at once communicated with Dr. Garnett, the secretary to the Technical Education Board of the London County Council, who is well acquainted with Woolwich, and asked him to give me his report on the matter. As the report is a very important document I propose to read some quotations from it. Dr. Garnett says— I have had an interview with the superintendent of the artificers' classes at Woolwich Dockyard. I believe these classes have been going on for some time, and they are designed to afford technical instruction to the members of the Royal Artillery in the various trades to which they belong, and which they practise as part of their military duty. The Red Book enclosed herewith gives some account of the special duties of the members of each trade, and a syllabus of the instruction provided in the classes in connection with several of the trades. Dr. Garnett goes on to explain the teaching, and then says— It appears that in the early part of last year it was announced to one of the Middlesex regiments on parade that the men might volunteer to receive technical instruction in connection with these classes, and some twenty-eight men offered themselves. I believe that almost without exception these men were entirely ignorant of any trade, but they were nevertheless drafted in March of last year into the artificers' classes referred to in the hand-book. In the course of a month half of them had deserted, and by the end of three months there was only one man left. I believe he was a 559 joiner, who had some previous knowledge of his trade, and he kept up his attendances and did excellent work until recently, when he was sent to the front. Thus ended an experiment which appears to me, from an educational point of view, to have been attempted on about as unsound a basis as was possible. Now, my Lords, the first objection that Dr. Garnett takes to the scheme is that these men were offered, in consideration of attending these classes, no relaxation of their military duties. I agree with Dr. Garnett that some relaxation might and ought to be granted. As this is a controversial subject I will not press it, but if you have summer classes for technical instruction soldiers will not attend them unless there is some relaxation of their military duties. Therefore, in the first place, these classes were started at a time when it was absurd to hope for success. The second objection which Dr. Garnett takes is this— The work done in the class, judging only by the hand-book, while forming undoubtedly a good foundation for the knowledge of any trade, has undoubtedly an extremely military bias, and one could easily imagine that the theory would be started that the War Department in inviting the men to undertake these classes was to subsequently make use of their knowledge for military purposes, and that the War Department was not influenced by a pure desire to benefit the men after the expiration of their term of service. If the specimens of the work carried out in the classes had been of a more domestic and less military nature, this argument could not be used in the same way. He gives a further objection, which is fatal to the whole scheme. He says— Men having absolutely no technical knowledge, and recruited from the ranks of unskilled labour, appear to have been drafted into classes to work by the side of fairly skilled artisans, and although I have not been able to ascertain the details of the instruction provided it seems to me scarcely possible, in conjunction with such an institution as the classes in question, for teaching to have been organised on the extremely elementary lines required by those absolutely untrained soldiers. I have given the history of the experiment which was specially selected by the noble Marquess as showing that soldiers will not submit to technical instruction. I would ask the House whether an experiment begun at a time when it was well known that such an experiment ought not to have been made, conducted on lines running totally contrary to the prejudices of the soldier, and having no reference at all to the state of his know- 560 ledge and capacity, can be quoted as proof of anything else than an absolute-want of the elements of common-sense on the part of the officials who tried the experiment. I should like to ask the noble Lord the Under Secretary whether all the other experiments were conducted on the same lines.
My Lords, the Government's army reorganisation scheme is, I believe, in the opinion of nearly everybody outside the Government, a pretentious sham, and, for this reason, that you cannot get the men. On this point I would merely quote two things. In 1898 the noble Marquess who was then Secretary of State for War came down to the House and said he was unable to get the 25,000 men that he required for his Army scheme of that day, and on Friday last the present Secretary for War said that the normal number of recruits who would be required for his scheme was 45,000 a year, and that up to 1898—before the war—they had come in at the rate of 35,000 a year. When you are first setting up this scheme you will require more than 45,000 recruits; at any rate, for the first year or two. Nothing helps recruiting more than that recruits should know that when they return to civil life they will have a good prospect of employment. It is conceded that at the present time the prospect of employment for discharged soldiers is very bad indeed. We have a number of recruits from the skilled classes, but what inducement do we offer them to join the Army? On this point I would quote the opinion of the present Commander-in-Chief, who said, in effect, that the mechanic or artisan who goes into the Army does so under a most tremendous penalty—the penalty not only of losing money when he leaves, but of losing cast and of taking that enormous step down in the social scale which separates the skilled from the unskilled labourer. That is a grievous-degradation to subject any man to, and the object of my motion is that no man, if possible, shall be subjected to it. If we do not do something of this kind we shall never improve the class of recruits.
The Army can never be a popular service under the present conditions to any but the humblest class or the most adventurous. No doubt one induce- 561 ment to recruiting is that life with the colours should be made as pleasant as possible; but there is another consideration which is of greater importance than that The popularity of the Army depends to some extent on the opinion which the Reservist, when he returns to his village, may have formed of the Army; it depends to a much greater extent on the opinion which the villagers form of the Reservist, when he comes back from the Army. If he is seen by his friends and neighbours to be a better man than when he joined, if he is more resourceful, more intelligent, more obliging, then his neighbours will think the Army is a good service; but if he returns more ignorant, more helpless, and more stupid than when he went, I do not think you can expect the Army to be very popular. I am well aware that what I am asking the Government to do is no easy task, but I say again, as I said last year, that conscription is the alternative, and that we live under the shadow of conscription. To the military mind the failure of voluntary recruiting is a blessing in disguise. What the Service thinks is that conscription is in itself a good thing, and we have heard it attempted to be said, on behalf of the Government, that although, of course, conscription for foreign service is totally out of the question, still we might have conscription for home service. I do not myself believe that that distinction can hold water. What we want is an Army that can go out of the country—a foreign Army. And, again, supposing you did try to make this distinction between home service and foreign service, I believe it would break down under the first serious strain, and that your conscripts, taken only for home defence, would be sent abroad, either by public opinion or by Act of Parliament. I believe there is no half-way house in conscription. If you have conscription at all it will be bound to be conscription for the Regular Army, and conscription for all purposes. Is it not worth while to try some such instruction as may qualify the soldier for employment on his discharge? Military exigencies are such that foreign service might prevent a man going through the proper course of instruction during his term with the colours, but if this was properly thought out, and a good scheme 562 proposed, there would not be many men thus affected. I know the Service as a body is not favourable to this reform, although many distinguished officers support it. The Broad Arrow the other day said that experience had shown the impracticability of carrying such a scheme without affecting the efficiency of the soldier while with the colours. I say that there is nothing to show that any reasonable amount of intelligence has been brought to bear with regard to any practical scheme for teaching the soldier. The one experiment I have mentioned shows what little care and what little forethought was lavished upon it. I know that what the officer says is this: that his duty is fulfilled if he makes the recruit into a good soldier. I think it is not for the soldier but for the State to define what is the duty of an officer, and it is as much the duty of an officer to attract recruits, as to make them into good soldiers when he gets them. Officers enter the Army as a profession, but the rank and file for the most part do not. It is only an episode in their lives, and for them it is of vital importance that they should keep in touch with civil life, and not, on leaving the Army, be compelled to take most ill-paid employment.
Officers are never tired of telling us civilians that it is our duty to learn to drill, to learn to shoot, and to perform other military exercises that will fit us in case of need to become efficient soldiers. I think there ought to be some reciprocity in that doctrine. I think the officer should try to return his men into civil life as good civilians. I do not doubt for a single instant that the noble Marquess when he was Secretary for War was very sincere in his desire to carry the reform I have advocated into effect, but it does seem to me that he accepted somewhat too readily the official version of the failure of experiments of this kind. After all, officials are very much like other people. If an experiment in which they are concerned fails, they try, just like other people do, to shift the blame on to the shoulders of others, and I think the noble Marquess somewhat imperfectly realises the ingenuity and the persistency with which reform which is unpalatable is opposed. I believe this reform will be carried. I believe there is a great struggle 563 between the military element and the civil element. Voluntary recruiting will break down, and the military element will clamour for conscription. I hope the public will ask with equal persistence for education. There is a third course giving an increase of pay—by which you will attract recruits, but that does nothing whatever to diminish the grievous intellectual waste which is going on in our Army. This war has exploded the theory that to drill all intelligence, all initiative, out of a man makes him a good soldier. I object to this Army reform scheme because it is absolutely silent with regard to the one thing needful—the attraction of a better class of recruits. Whatever you think of my motion, I hope your Lordships will give very serious attention to this extremely important matter.

THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Lord RAGLAN)
My Lords, at this late period of the evening I am afraid it would not be wise for me to attempt to cover the whole of the subjects which the noble Lord has brought before the House, but with regard to the particular question of the technical education of the soldier I think I may venture to go somewhat into detail. With regard to the particular experiments conducted in 1899 at Woolwich and elsewhere, I am afraid I am not in a position to give the noble Lord any further information than the fact, which I regret very much, that the experiments were not successful. The question of the technical education of the soldier and of making him better fitted for earning his livelihood when he leaves the colours is one which all interested in the Army must feel deeply. I have always felt very strongly that when a soldier is with the colours your object should be to send him back to civil life a better man in every way than when he joined. But the difficulty 564 is to know what is to be done. There is a considerable difference between teaching a man a trade and affording him opportunities of practising a trade which he has already learned in some degree. In the mounted branches of the Army there is ample opportunity for the exercise of technical skill; but the difficulty of teaching a trade to the bulk of recruits, who are generally unskilled labourers, is enormous. Instruction in a trade to be of any use must be continuous and progressive. That is where the difficulty comes in in regard to teaching the soldier. I do not think even the noble Lord would suggest that we should make attendance at these classes compulsory, and I am certain that, so far as recruiting is concerned, you would not make the difficulty any lighter by compelling soldiers to attend these classes. At Woolwich Arsenal, where there is every facility and where there are skilled instructors, the results of the trials are extremely discouraging. One difficulty to which the noble Lord did not allude was with regard to trades unions. I am afraid in connection with this subject a difficulty with the trades unions is inevitable. Then there is the difficulty of giving technical instruction in certain trades to men who have not been apprenticed to those trades. Another difficulty is that of inspection. The noble Lord quoted from a report by Dr. Garnett with regard to the particular experiment at Woolwich. I do not know that Dr. Garnett has any right to impute motives. I do not know why he should assert that the classes were not meant to succeed.

LORD MONKSWELL
He did not say that.

LORD RAGLAN
I understood that was what he said. I would remind the House that the regimental officer is not the idler many people are apt to imagine. He has very little time to himself, and that time will be still more seriously curtailed in the future. He has not only to be a soldier and be able, to instruct men in shooting and drill, but he must be a bit of a tailor, baker, butcher, and grocer; and if he is in the mounted branches he has to be a veteri- 565 nary surgeon and a farrier, and to know something about saddlery. If the duty is imposed upon him of giving lessons to large classes in all sorts of technical education, I am afraid there will be very little time for him in which to study his real profession—that of a soldier. The noble Lord said this experiment was tried at a very unfavourable time. I acknowledge that the summer does not sound favourable at first blush, but it must be remembered that the furlough season comes in the winter. There is no privilege that the British soldier values more thoroughly than that of furlough, and any attempt at curtailing it would have a most disastrous effect upon recruiting. In mounted corps especially, but even in infantry corps, in many quarters there is even now considerable difficulty in carrying on the duties during the furlough season. Although you have a large number of men away the same amount of work goes on. I do not know whether your Lordships are aware of the very large number of men who are necessarily withdrawn from actual soldiering to do the cooking, cleaning, and so forth, I will give you an instance in point which occurred to myself last year. I was on Salisbury Plain in charge of two companies of engineers. A question arose as to a certain piece of work that was being carried on, and the officer commanding the Royal Engineers came to me and said I was to do so and so. I was unable because I could only provide, out of 170 men, a working party of 80. Therefore, as a regimental officer, I see great difficulties staring me in the face if these classes are started in the furlough season. At present, as your Lordships are aware, the British Army at home is merely engaged in preparing recruits for the Army abroad, but when the end of the war is reached and the whole question comes before the Secretary of State for War and the Commander-in-Chief they will consider most carefully whether anything can be done with regard to imparting technical education to soldiers. I have little doubt that in India much can be done in this way, and that in certain parts of this country, especially where regiments or battalions are quartered by themselves, something can be done. But the 566 tendency in the future will, I hope, be to concentrate troops more largely in camps and to give them more actual instruction, more scouting, and more instruction in shooting. In that case I am afraid the time for technical education will be difficult to discover.

LORD MONKSWELL
I regard the answer of the noble Lord the Under Secretary as fairly sympathetic, and I hope I may take it that he is in favour of this experiment, at all events in principle. [Lord RAGLAN nodded assent.] I was rather astonished to hear the noble Lord say that the Woolwich experiment was discouraging, as it was carried out under conditions which were bound to lead to failure. I beg to withdraw my motion.