Lords Sitting of 13 February 1902

LORD NEWBOROUGH.
Ordered and Directed, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, that a Certificate be sent by the Clerk of the Parliaments to the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland, stating that the Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom has reported to the House of Lords that the right of the Lord New borough to vote at the elections of Representative Peers for Ireland has been established to the satisfaction of him the said Lord Chancellor; and that the House of Lords has ordered such Report to be sent to the said Clerk of the Crown in Ireland; and it is hereby also Ordered that the said Report of the said Lord Chancellor be sent to the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland.
VISCOUNT TAAFFE.
Report from the Lord Chancellor, that in the opinion of the Lord Chancellor the claim of Henry Edward Mary Taaffe, Viscount Taaffe of Corren, to vote at the elections of Representative Peers for Ireland is of such a nature that it ought to be referred to a Committee for privileges read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
OFFICE OF LORD GREAT CHAMBERLAIN.
Petition of Gilbert Henry Earl of An caster, Lord Willoughby de Eresby that he may be permitted to refer at the hearing of his claim to the office of Lord Great Chamberlain of England to the printed evidence adduced in support of the petition of his late mother Clementina Elizabeth Dowager Lady Aveland, presented on the 5th of June, 1871, praying that the abeyance of the said Barony of Willoughby de Eresby might be terminated in her favour; read, and referred to the Committee for privileges.
THE LORD CHURSTON
Took the oath.
THE MARQUESS OF ANGLESEY
Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with—
Scarborough Tramways,
Halifax Corporation,
Wrexham District Tramways,
And that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with—

NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE TRAMWAYS [H.L.]

  CENTRAL ARGENTINE AND ROSARIA RAILWAY [H.L.]
  DONEGAL RAILWAY [H.L.]
  RHYMNEY RAILWAY [H.L.]
  WREXHAM WATER [H.L.]
  TAFF VALE RAILWAY [H.L.]
  The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

  STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE.
  Report from, That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the
  Charing Cross, Euston, and Hampstead Railway (No. 2) Bill [H.L.]
  ought to be dispensed with, provided that the powers to make Railways Nos. 2, 3, and 4 be struck out of the Bill.
  That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the following Bills—
  Central Argentine and Rosario Railway [H.L.]
  Saddle worth, Springhead, and Lees Tramways [H.L.]
  ought to be dispensed with and the Bills allowed to proceed.
  That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the
  Sheffield, Rotherham, and Bawtry Railway Bill
  ought to be dispensed with.
  That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the
  West Ham Corporation Bill
  ought to be dispensed with, provided

  1167
  that subsection 6 of section 21 be struck out of the Bill.
  Read, and agreed to.

  PICCADILLY AND CITY RAILWAY (No 2.) BILL [H.L.]
  A petition of Messrs. Dyson and Company, of 9, Great George Street, Westminster, Parliamentary agents, praying for leave to present a petition of Nathan Salaman and others, praying to be heard by counsel against the Bill, although the time limited by Standing Order No. 92 for presenting such petition has expired; read, and ordered to lie on the Table; and Standing Order No. 92 to be considered tomorrow, in order to its being dispensed with in respect of the said petition.
  WATERFORD AND BISHOP FOY ENDOWED SCHOOLS BILL [H.L.]
  Report of His Majesty's Attorney General for Ireland received, and ordered to lie on the Table.
  CONSETT WATER BILL [H.L.]
  To be read 2a on Tuesday next.
  DONEGAL RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
  To be read 2a on Friday the 21st instant.
  HASTINGS HARBOUR DISTRICT RAILWAY (EXTENSION OF TIME) BILL [H.L.]
  To be read 2a on Friday the 21st instant.
  NATIONAL TELEPHONE COMPANY (KINGSTON-UPON-HULL) BILL [H.L.]
  To be read 2a on Monday the 24th instant.
  NATIONAL TELEPHONE COMPANY (MANCHESTER AREA) BILL [H.L.]
  To be read 2a on Monday the 24th instant.
  SWINDON UNITED GAS BILL [H.L.]
  To be read 2a on Monday the 24th instant.
  ISLE OF WIGHT CENTRAL RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
  To be read 2a on Friday the 28th instant.
  NEWCASTLE AND GATESHEAD WATER BILL [H.L.]
  To be read 2a on Friday the 28th instant.
  ABERTILLERY URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE AND DUKINFIELD CORPORATIONS (ALMA BRIDGE, ETC.) BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION WATER BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  BRADFORD CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  BRYNAMAN AND NEATH RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  BUXTON URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  CITY AND CRYSTAL PALACE RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  CITY AND NORTH-EAST SUBURBAN ELECTRIC RAILWAY(No. 2) BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  DARLEY DALE WATER BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  DEVONPORT CORPORATION (GENERAL POWERS) BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  DEVONPORT CORPORATION (WATER) BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  DOVER HARBOUR BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  FELIXSTOWE AND WALTON IMPROVEMENT BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  LANCASHIRE COUNTY (LUNATIC ASYLUMS) BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  LEICESTER CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  LONDON UNITED ELECTRIC RAILWAYS BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  MEDWAY AND THAMES CANAL BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  MENAI BRIDGE URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  NORTH AND SOUTH SHIELDS ELECTRIC RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  NORTH-EAST LONDON RAILWAY (No. 2) BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  NOTTINGHAM CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  PICCADILLY AND CITY RAILWAY (No. 2) BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  RHONDDA URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL TRAMWAYS BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  TYNE IMPROVEMENT COMMISSION BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  WIGAN CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  YSTRADFELLTE WATER BILL [H.L.]
  Committed; the Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
  LIVERPOOL GRAIN STORAGE AND TRANSIT COMPANY BILL [H.L.]
  Read 2a.
  NORTH-WEST LONDON RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
  Read 2a.
  WATERFORD AND BISHOP FOY ENDOWED SCHOOLS BILL [H.L.]
  Read 2a (according to order).

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the following Papers having been commanded to be presented to this House by His Majesty, had been so presented on the following dates by delivery to the Clerk of the Parliaments, pursuant to Order of the House of the 17th February, 1896, viz.:

1. Japan, No. 1. (1902)—Despatch to His Majesty's Minister at Tôkiô, forwarding Agreement between Great Britain and Japan, of 30th January, 1902. (February 11);

2. Dieting of Pauper Lunatics—

(a.) Report on dieting of pauper lunatics in asylums and lunatic wards of poorhouses in Scotland;

(b.) Supplement to the Forty-third Annual Report of the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland. (February 11);

3. Telegraph Money Orders (United Kingdom—Egypt)—Additional Articles to the Money Order Agreement, dated the 6th–15th of December, 1873, between the General Post Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,

1171
and the General Post Office of Egypt. (February 11);

4. South Africa—Further correspondence relative to the treatment of natives by the Boers. (February 12);

5. Railway and Canal Traffic Acts, 1854–1894—Thirteenth Annual Report of the Railway and Canal Commission; with Appendix. (February 12.)

The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
Code of regulations for day schools, 1902.
ARMY.
Return of all appointments during the last seven years to be military knights of Windsor.
First Report of the Inter-departmental Committee on cable communications.
MINES AND QUARRIES (GENERAL REPORT AND STATISTICS FOR 1900. PART IV. COLONIAL AND FOREIGN STATISTICS).
Statistics relating to persons employed, output, and accidents, at mines and quarries in the British Colonies and in foreign countries.
TRADE (BRITISH FIRMS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES).
Memorandum respecting the position of industrial and commercial establishments owned or managed by British subjects or companies in foreign countries:

TRADE REPORTS—MISCELLANEOUS SERIES.
No. 573. Supplementary Report on chemical instruction and chemical industries in Germany.
Presented [by Command], and ordered to lie on the Table.

COMMITTALS (IRELAND).
Returns from the clerks of the Crown and peace of the number of persons committed for trial, 1901.

FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACT, 1901 (VENTILATION OF HUMID TEXTILE FACTORIES OTHER THAN COTTON CLOTH FACTORIES).
Order, dated 4th February, 1902, made by the Secretary of State for the Home
1172
Department, in pursuance of section 7 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, prescribing a standard of ventilation for certain humid textile factories other than cotton cloth factories.

SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1884.
Treasury Minute, dated 5th February, 1902, declaring that Edward Wells, labourer, Royal Laboratory, War Office, was appointed without a civil service certificate through inadvertence on the part of the head of his department.
Laid before the House [pursuant to Act], and ordered to lie on the Table.

PETITIONS.
  PUBLIC HOUSES HOURS OF CLOSING (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
  Petitions in favour of; of Annie land Gospel Temperance Association; Temperance Committee of Scottish Congregational Union; Trinity United Free Church Gospel Temperance Society; Shawlands Hall Band of Hope; and persons signing (3); read, and ordered to lie on the Table
  PUBLIC HOUSES HOURS OF CLOSING (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
  Petition against; of Edinburgh and Leith Licensed Grocers' Association; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

ANGLO-JAPANESE AGREEMENT.
EARL SPENCER: My Lords, I have given private notice to the noble Marquess opposite of my intention to ask a Question on a matter of large importance to the country. We have had within the last few days some very important Papers presented to us with regard to an Agreement or Treaty between His Majesty's Government and Japan. I notice that in another place the Government have a good many Questions addressed to them on the subject, and I think it is only right that your Lordships' House should have some information about the matter. I desire at once to say that I address the noble Marquess without the slightest desire to throw any doubt as to the importance of Japan, or of our relations with that country. I happen to be exceedingly friendly with

1173
Japan, owing to certain circumstances when I had the privilege of being there, and I have the highest opinion of the capabilities and power of the country, and I desire this nation to be on the most friendly terms possible with it. At the same time, it is a question of very great importance; and it strikes me we ought to have very good reasons, strong reasons, why we should depart from what has been, certainly of late years, the policy of this country—namely, that of avoiding what are called offensive and defensive alliances. I am not going into that question; I am not going to pronounce in any way myself against alliances of this sort; but I feel strongly that we should not enter into such alliances unless there are very strong and urgent reasons for doing so. Now, I am not aware that in anything which has been said, even in the very lucid and able despatch of the noble Marquess which has been laid on the Table, anything has been said to prove why it is so essentially necessary to do this with regard to Japan. I fully share what has been so well said by the noble Marquess as to the identity of our interests in the East with those of Japan. I do not think this could have been expressed in better terms than those used in one paragraph of the noble Marquess' despatch. At the same time, it may involve very serious considerations for this country, not only in regard to other countries, but very largely with regard to ourselves in the future.
Upon one point particularly I wish to ask for explanation. It is this. As I understand the Agreement, it is that, in the case of one Power being hostile and attacking the interests of Japan, we are bound to neutrality, but if more than one Power should do the same thing, then we are bound, so far as I understand, to take an active part in co-operating, even in war, with Japan. That requires some explanation, for I do not at once see the distinction between the two cases. The one Power may be a very powerful one, more powerful than two or three others. Is it on account of the ability of Japan to repel the attack from one Power, rather than the justice of the cause, which is to make us take an active or a neutral part in the matter? I only allude to
1174
this to ask for explanation, for I think the country will desire to be more fully informed on this and other parts, of this important Agreement before they entirely endorse the policy of His Majesty's Government. The only other point I will now refer to, and I will not enter upon it at length in this preface to my Question—but I should also like to know whether the noble Marquess will be prepared to put on the Table of the House further Papers explaining and elucidating this Agreement. No doubt there must have been communications with other Powers interested in this question, who probably would enter into agreement—for instance, the United States of America—and,of course, there are other Powers deeply interested. I will say no more at the present time, but merely ask the Question I have sent to my noble friend—to call attention to the Agreement, or Treaty, recently made between His Majesty's Government and Japan, and to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for an explanation on certain parts of the Agreement, and to ask whether he will lay on the Table further Papers in relation to this subject.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE): My Lords, I will at once answer the Question with which the statement of the noble Earl concluded when he asked whether I would lay on the Table Papers relating to this Agreement other than those already in your Lordships' hands. The answer to that Question is in the negative. The Agreement speaks for itself, and I do not know that it greatly needed even the short explanatory despatch which accompanied it and forms part of the Papers your lordships have already seen. I do not think the noble Earl would be entitled to ask from us information—documentary information—as to negotiations between this country and Japan which led to the conclusion of this Agreement. These communications must obviously have been of a preliminary and most confidential character; and I do not think it would be in accordance with sound tradition to lay Papers of that kind on the Table of the House. The noble Earl has an idea, as I gather from his remarks, that we have in our possession Papers showing that

1175
communications have passed between His Majesty's Government and other Governments who, he supposes, might have been associated with us in this Agreement. There are no such Papers. I may say at once that, in our view, this compact is one which concerns Great Britain and Japan in the first instance to an extent to which it concerns no other Power. I do not think it can be said for an instant that any other Power has interests in the Far East at all comparable to those of Great Britain and Japan; and therefore it is that this Agreement is made between this country and Japan alone. The noble Earl suggested that the matter was one of very great importance, and I do not differ from him in that view. He said in particular that it was of importance because it involves a new departure—a departure from the traditional policy of this country, which he said had until now been a policy of isolation. I think it is true that in recent years international agreements involving assistance on the part of this country to other Powers have been generally regarded with considerable suspicion and misgiving; but I say frankly we are not going to be deterred by these considerations, or to admit for a moment that because this Agreement does involve a new departure it is therefore open to adverse criticism.
I do not think that any one can have watched the recent course of events in different parts of the world without realising that many of the arguments which a generation ago might have been adduced in support of a policy of isolation have ceased to be entitled to the same consideration now. What do we see on all sides? We observe a tendency on the part of the great Powers to form groups. We observe a tendency to ever-increasing naval and military armaments involving ever-increasing burdens upon the people for the defence of whose countries these armaments are accumulated. There is also this—that in these days war breaks out with a suddenness which was unknown in former days, when nations were not, as they are now, armed to the teeth and ready to enter on hostilities at any moment. When we consider these features of the international situation, we must surely feel that that country would indeed be endowed with an extraordinary amount of what I might call self-sufficiency which took upon itself to say that it would accept,
1176
without question, without reservation, the doctrine that all foreign alliances were to be avoided as necessarily embarrassing and objectionable. Therefore I would entreat your Lordships to look at this matter strictly on its merits, and not to allow your judgment to be swayed by any musty formulas or old-fashioned superstitions as to the desirability of pursuing a policy of isolation for this country. If considered on its merits, I venture to suggest that what you have to take into account in regard to an alliance of this kind is, first, whether the ally is a desirable ally, and in the next place whether the objects of the alliance are commendable, and last, but not least, whether the price you pay for the alliance is greater than you ought to pay. If these questions can be satisfactorily answered, then I say the alliance is not a bad thing for the country, but, on the contrary, is a good thing; for prima facie if there be no countervailing objections, the country which has the good fortune to possess allies is more to be envied than the country which is without them. I will not take up the time of the House to show that as an ally Japan is desirable. I well remember that in one of our debates last year the noble Earl himself referred in the warmest terms to Japan, and I am sure he will not withdraw a word of what he said on that occasion. He said—
"Japan is a Power of great commercial and political influence. It has a strong Army and an even stronger Navy. I do not, of course, say that we should have an offensive and defensive alliance with Japan if we have no such alliance elsewhere, but I do say that it is of great importance to this country that we should have thoroughly good and cordial relations with Japan."
EARL SPENCER: Hear, hear!
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Those words, I think, will be generally accepted as an indication of the feeling of the House. Then as to the objects of the alliance. They are stated very clearly on the face of the Agreement. They are, in the first place, the maintenance of the status quo in the Far East; in the second place, they are the maintenance of that commercial policy which is for convenience usually described as the policy of the "open door"; and I think I may say that the third object of the Agreement is the maintenance of that which

1177
seems to me to be a very valuable interest to us indeed—the maintenance of peace in that part of the world to which the Agreement applies. These are not objects desired by this country alone. I believe I shall be correct when I say, speaking in general terms, that the whole of the great Powers with whom we have been in constant communication in the last few years in regard to the affairs of China, that all of these Powers have at one time or another given their adhesion to the policy of the status quo and the policy of equal commercial opportunities for all countries in the Far East.
There is, therefore, nothing in this Agreement that does violence to the policy which has been accepted by the other great Powers. Then is it the case that we are paying an excessive price for this alliance? I understood the noble Earl to say that he well understood our feelings towards Japan, but that he was unable to understand why it was necessary to resort to an international agreement of this description in order to give effect to our policy. Well, my Lords, I venture to say that if it is indeed our policy to support Japan, to protect Japan against the danger of a coalition of other Powers, I do not think we can avow it too frankly or too distinctly; and, to my mind, there is a much greater danger in leaving important questions of international policy of this kind to vague and hazy understandings than there is in embodying them explicitly in an Agreement, the purport of which cannot possibly be misunderstood by those concerned. The noble Earl asked us a question, the answer to which seemed to me to be an obvious one. He said, "Why under this Agreement do you undertake to protect Japan if she be attacked, in the defence of the interests which are recognized under the Agreement, by two Powers, whereas you do not undertake to come to her assistance if she be attacked by only one Power?"
EARL SPENCER: One very strong Power.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: By a very strong Power. The answer to that is obvious. We desire to protect
1178
Japan against what we conceive to be the greatest peril which might menace her and that would certainly he a coalition of other Powers. Japan has a strong Navy and a strong Army, and might very fairly expect to hold her own in a single-handed encounter with any other Power; but if she were to be threatened with an attack by more than one Power she would undoubtedly be in imminent peril; and it is in that imminent peril that we desire to come to her succour. The Agreement suggests many other topics; but as the noble Earl has not touched upon them, I do not conceive that I am called upon to discuss them this evening. Your Lordships have only had a few hours in which to consider the question; but I express my confident hope that the more you consider it, the more you will realise that this Agreement is not one which you need regard with any misgiving, but that it is an Agreement which will serve to uphold British interests, the importance of which no one has ventured to dispute. On the other hand it will compel us in certain carefully defined circumstances to come to the rescue of a friendly country, the obliteration of which, by a coalition of Powers, we could not in any circumstances tolerate. It is an Agreement which will make for the maintenance of the peace of the world, and should that peace unfortunately be broken, its effect will be to restrict the area within which hostilities are likely to take place.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: My Lords, I fully echo the opinion expressed by the noble Marquess in his concluding remarks that this is not a time at which we can take a clear, definite, or conclusive view of this Agreement. We have not had time to consider it in all its bearings, and they are far more numerous than have been expressed from either side of the House to-night. Therefore, I only rise for the purpose of asking two or three questions. Let me say at the outset that my first impression, "without prejudice," if I may say so, is favourable to the treaty, and that so far as I can see we may congratulate the noble Marquess and the Government upon it. I can only express my surprise, as I have often said in the course of the last two or three years, that His Majesty's Government

1179
have not thought fit, long before this, to enter into closer relations with Japan, in view of the complications that have taken place in China; for we should then have been saved from some of the disagreeable effects, and some even of the humiliation and vacillation, which have resulted from the want of such an understanding. On one point, however, let us be clear before we attempt to make up our minds on this treaty. It is not a treaty the effect of which will only be felt in the Far East. It will be felt in every part of Europe and the civilized world. That is why it is so large and pregnant a departure. That is why, I think, those of us who are deficient in the information that is at the disposal of His Majesty's Government, and who wish to weigh well their opinion before they give effect to it, will do well to hold their peace with regard to this Agreement. I want, however, to ask one or two questions which arise in regard to it, in order to facilitate our understanding of it. For example, the phrase "territorial integrity of China"—does that comprehend Manchuria? The noble Marquess very rightly pointed out the advantage of having a clear and definite understanding on points of this kind; and, as we know in the case of the Anglo-German Treaty, there was an ambiguity with regard to that which has led to some unfortunate conflict of view.
The next question I want to ask is this—Has the change of policy of the Government with regard to Wei-Hai-Wei been in any way connected with the conclusion of this Agreement? If so, it might throw light on that somewhat mysterious proceeding. The third point is this. I see that in the noble Marquess's despatch he says the Agreement has been—
"Concluded purely as a measure of precaution to be invoked, should occasion arise, in the defence of important British interests."
Should not this be—
"In the defence of important common interests?"
I think if you let it go out that this Agreement is for the defence of purely British interests, that will not reconcile opinion in Japan to the treaty. I am quite sure that can only be a misprint, and, in view of its importance, I think it well to call attention to it.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: So far as His Majesty's Government are
1180
concerned, we have never doubted that Manchuria formed part of the Chinese Empire, and the reference to the territorial integrity of the Chinese Empire which is contained in the treaty must, therefore, be taken, as referring to Manchuria as well as to other parts ofthe Chinese Empire. The noble Earl's second question was whether the conclusion of this Agreement and the modification of our intentions with regard to the fortification of Wei-Hai-Wei might be considered as in any way connected with one another. I am not aware of any such connection; but the decision of His Majesty's Government with regard to both matters took place about the same time, and I will not undertake to say that some of my colleagues may not have been, consciously or unconsciously, influenced by the knowledge that both of these events were impending. Then the noble Earl made a criticism as to the language of my despatch in the penultimate paragraph, and expressed his doubt whether the Agreement could be properly described as one in defence of British interests. The expression "British interests" is a somewhat vague one; but, of course, we throughout contend that the maintenance of the independence of China and the protection of those regions in Korea which adjoin Japan are of the utmost importance to us as well as to Japan; and, therefore, although the expression is, perhaps, a somewhat loose one, I am not prepared to admit that it is inaccurate, I think moreover, although I cannot put my finger on the passage at this moment, that the noble Earl will find that elsewhere in the despatch we refer to the same interests as the common interests of the two Powers.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: My objection is not that it is a loose phrase, but rather that it is unduly tight. Will the noble Marquess consider the construction of the sentence—
"It has been concluded purely as a measure of precaution to be invoked, should occasion arise, in the defence of important British interests."
That might give a false impression, which can be avoided by the use of the word "common."
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Even if there is an ambiguity in the despatch, it is obvious that the document which is the prevailing document is the Agreement itself concluded between this country and Japan, and not my covering despatch.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: But the noble Marquess must be able to describe his own treaty.
Subsequently, just before the adjournment of the House—
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEsaid: Lord Rosebery is no longer in the House, but I desire to add one word of explanation in regard to a passage in my despatch covering the Japanese Agreement to which the noble Earl called your Lordships' attention. The noble Earl took exception to my having stated that the agreement had been "concluded purely as a measure of precaution to be invoked, should occasion arise, in the defence of important British interests." But in the immediately following sentences occur these words:—
"On the contrary, that part of it which renders either of the high contracting parties liable to be called upon by the other for assistance can operate only when one of the allies has found himself obliged to go to war in defence of interests which are common to both," &c.
I suggest to your Lordships that these words are qualifications of the preceding sentence, and make the meaning of the despatch clear.

RECTORS OF CITY PARISHES.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, I beg to ask the Lord Bishop of London if he has sanctioned the arrangements by which the rectors of St. Olave, of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, and of St. Vedast, live outside their respective parishes, and whether he will state to the House the reasons for his decisions. In putting this Question I do not propose to detain you at any length, because in a House chiefly composed of landlords it will be unnecessary to expatiate on the evils of absenteeism. I should be satisfied if I could obtain an assurance that the right rev. Prelate does not intend to reverse the policy of his predecessors and to encourage the clergy of the City of London to live outside the boundaries
1182
of their parishes. With regard to St. Olave's, Hart-street, I understand that less than a year ago the Rev. A. Boyd-Carpenter, the present incumbent, in answering the advertisement, expressed his willingness to live in the rectory house. Since then, however, the right rev. Prelate has excused him from his residence there on the ground that the house is insanitary. On the other hand, the excuse which is put forward by the incumbent himself is that there is not sufficient accommodation for the servants. I am not an expert as to the amount of accommodation that may be necessary for the servants of a rector, but I presume that is a defect that could easily be remedied. With regard to St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, it is true that the incumbent lives within a very short distance of the parish, but I think we have a right to know, in this case, as well as in that of St. Olave, what is being done with the rent derived from the letting of the rectory houses. The parish of St. Vedast has a rectory house in Finsbury Square which was specially built in 1885 for that purpose, but is now let for offices. When the time comes to renew the licences, I hope that the right rev. Prelate will give special attention to these cases, and not, without further examination, allow the licences permitting these clergymen to live outside their parishes to be renewed. I conclude by inviting an expression of opinion from the right Rev. Prelate that it is not desirable that the clergy should live outside their parishes.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON: My Lords, before answering this Question, I desire to thank the noble Earl for so courteously consulting my convenience as to the time on which he should ask it; but, at the same time, I am told, by those who best know the traditions and customs of this House, to make it clear that I answer it rather as a favour which it is a pleasure to me to confer, than a right which can be demanded as a matter of course. It is thought that, if any Member of your Lordships' House could ask a Bishop any question relating to the administration of his diocese and demand an answer, it would become an undue burden upon the Bishops, would not, of necessity, be

1183
for the public advantage, and would certainly be, as I fear it will prove to be this afternoon, somewhat wearying to your Lordships. But with this proviso, it is a pleasure to give as full and as satisfactory an answer as possible to the noble Earl's Question. As to the first part of his Question—
"Did I sanction the arrangements by which the rectors of St. Olave, of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, and of St. Vedast, live outside their respective parishes?"
the answer is slightly different with regard to each of the three churches. With regard to the first, I sanctioned the arrangement on my own responsibility, and so strongly do I feel on the importance, as a rule, of vicars and rectors living in their parishes that this is the only case of non-residence which I have sanctioned in the whole diocese of 560 parishes since I have been Bishop of London. With regard to St. Vedast, I redeemed formally a promise already informally given by my predecessor; and in the case of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey the arrangements were fully made before I became Bishop, though I may say that they have my full approval.
The second part of the Question is, whether I will state to the House the reasons for my decisions. It is clear that I can only do so in full with regard to the first church—St. Olave, Hart Street; and with regard to the other two, I can only state the possible grounds which guided my predecessor in his decision. I will take first the case of St. Olave. Your Lordships must remember that it is very difficult to provide freehold houses as residences for the clergy in the City. The ground has become enormously valuable, and is continually increasing in value. And, again, the streets are very narrow and the warehouses very lofty, so that some of the existing houses have become untenable. As a matter of fact, not more than about 20,000 persons sleep in the53 parishes of the City of London, and they are chiefly caretakers and the young men and women of the warehouses. The caretakers generally sleep at the top of the warehouses, with plenty of light and air. As a rule, the City presents few opportunities for residential houses. It was, however,
1184
the wish of the new rector of St. Olave to live in the parish, and, if possible, in the former rectory. The question put to him by the Trustees was—
"Are you willing, if appointed (as far as you lawfully may), to come under compact with the trustees to reside in the rectory house, or elsewhere in the parish, or near there, to the satisfaction of the Trustees for the time being?"
It was to this choice of reasonable alternatives that he pledged himself. The doubts respecting the possibility of the former rectory house as a residence arose out of the fact that the late rector, Dr. Povah, had been obliged to leave it 20 years ago as unfit, and it had been since used as a place of business. The late caretaker also suffered in health from living there. Dr. Povah, who was much beloved and esteemed by his parishioners, lived as far off as South Kensington, and there was never the slightest whisper of neglect of duties. He was an exemplary parish priest, and was also Rural Dean of the East City. The new rector had the house surveyed, as he wished, if possible, to live there. The report was wholly unfavourable. Among other adverse statements, the architects said that—
"The basement—the only place for the servants—is very dark and low, and contains only a small kitchen and scullery, lighted by a grid above the pavement, and without any area to prevent the soil being in direct contact with the external wall."
And again—
"We consider that the house labours under many disadvantages for residential purposes. The aspect of the principal rooms is due north and very cheerless; and, from the tower of other buildings being so near to the back of the house, very few rays of sun reach the rectory. The domestic accommodation is wholly inadequate. The only room for servants is a small low basement kitchen, without any pantry, proper larder, or other offices. The only bedrooms for servants are two lofts, unventilated, ill-lighted, and only suitable for box-rooms."
Under these circumstances the best scheme seemed to be to dispose of the rectory, and secure, if possible, some fitting residence in or near the parish. But the area of the parish is so exceedingly minute, and it is so difficult to obtain sites in the City, that this would necessarily mean time. The College of St. Mary Magdalene, Cambridge, was

1185
for many years looking for a site for a residence for the neighbouring parish of St. Katharine Cree. It was obtained at last, not in that parish but in the Minories. Some of the most active of the City clergy live in Finsbury Square, and others in Trinity Square. Many are compelled to live away, and come in daily for the work of their parishes, like the million of business-men who come into the City every day and sleep elsewhere. When these facts are made known all parties interested in St. Olave and its welfare expressed their approval of the plan.
Such were the circumstances under which the rector was reluctantly compelled for the present to abandon his wish to reside in the rectory-house, and to place himself, much to his own inconvenience, in a flat in Southampton Row. That flat, however, is close to one of the stations of the Tube Railway, from which it only takes six minutes to reach the bank station; and from the bank station it is only a walk of six minutes to St. Olave's. The great majority of the clergy of the Church of England do not reach the whole of their parishioners so easily. That the parish is being fitly and earnestly worked will be apparent from the following facts. Besides visiting his 360 people frequently, the rector has fixed hours when he can be seen at the church; he has made arrangements by which he can be summoned in case of need by any of his parishioners at any hour of the day or night; he has started a club for men, and a lending library, and has been making efforts to secure a room for a mothers' meeting and other parochial work. The late Dr. Povah's curate did not live in the parish as was alleged, but at Clapham. Before he took a single step to find a residence outside the parish, the rector not only made search within it but asked the trustees to meet him, and laid all the facts before them, leaving himself entirely in their hands. The Rev. Archibald Boyd-Carpenter is a clergyman as to the integrity of whose motives and the sincerity of whose conduct your Lordships need not have the smallest suspicion. He is the worthy brother of a very eminent prelate. He has for 14 years held with great credit the important parish of St. George,
1186
Bloomsbury, where he has done admirable work, and has an enthusiastic congregation. He is in the prime of life and energy. He is living close to his people, and his are the last hands in which their spiritual interests would be likely to suffer.
I pass on to the case of St. Nicholas, Cole Abbey. This is a very minute parish, with 300 inhabitants, chiefly caretakers and persons living in warehouses near Queen Victoria Street. Some 30 years ago the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's built a rectory-house on the only available ground. The house is very dark, and has been pronounced unhealthy. The late rector, Mr. Shuttleworth, lived here, and died prematurely of blood poisoning. It is impossible to say where the disease was contracted, but there is no doubt that his constitution was impaired by the want of light and air at the rectory. The present rector, the Rev. C. N. Kelly, for many years Minor Canon of St. Paul's, is only technically non-resident. He does not live in the little parish, but he occupies a house not 500 yards from his church. The Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, in their great regret for the death of Mr. Shuttleworth, and recognising that the rectory-house was unhealthy, begged Mr. Kelly to continue occupying the house in Amen Court, in which he lived as Minor Canon. They also appointed him hon. Minor Canon, and he frequently takes part in the services of St. Paul's Cathedral. The arrangement for his residence had the full sanction of the late Bishop Creighton. The unhealthy rectory-house is let for business purposes and enables Mr. Kelly to pay his rent. Mr. Kelly is a most zealous and conscientious clergyman, and carries on all the late Mr. Shuttleworth's admirable social and religious work. His church is one of the most popular in the City of London, and, though it has more seats than there are souls in the parish, it attracts many worshippers.
St. Vedast is another very minute parish, with not more than 50 inhabitants, who are, as in most other city parishes, caretakers and persons living in warehouses. The population has greatly decreased of late years in the four little united parishes which St. Vedast represents. The rectory-house is

1187
No. 17, Finsbury Square. It was built in 1885 on the union with St. Matthew's, Friday Street, by Queen Anne's Bounty, but has proved unsuitable. The late Dr. Sparrow Simpson, formerly Minor Canon and Librarian of St. Paul's Cathedral, who held the parish for 40 years (since 1857), having his own house in Amen Court, let it for offices at £150 a year. Dr. Simpson lived in Amen Court with the full approval of Bishop Tait, Bishop Jackson, and Bishop Temple. The church was a great favourite all through Dr. Simpson's time, and attracted many worshippers from beyond the parish. No parish priest was ever more conscientious than Dr. Simpson. His successor was Prebendary Harry Jones, known for his work at St. Luke's, Berwick Street, and St. George's-in-the-East. He lived at his own house, York Gate, Regent's Park, on the Metropolitan Railway, and could reach his parish in less than half-an-hour. But there is almost absolutely nothing to do there. The church is too far hidden away in narrow lanes for midday services, and it is within a stone's throw of two very popular churches—St. Botolph, Aldersgate, and St. Mary-le-Bone, Cheapside. If any of the 50 parishioners were suddenly taken ill the rector would immediately be sent for; and, meantime, the rector of Christ Church, Newgate Street, the Rev. E. H. Pearce, a young, active, and willing parish priest, who lives a few yards off in a convenient rectory house in King Edward Street, would act for him. The present rector of St. Vedast, Prebendary Snowden, was appointed by the late Bishop Creighton, after a long and useful career, as Vicar of Hammersmith and Rural Dean of Fulham. He built a magnificent Parish Church for Hammersmith, and is an earnest and faithful worker of the highest character. Finding the house in Finsbury Square let for offices, he received Bishop Creighton's permission to live at Carlton Hill, Putney, reaching the City either by the South-Western or the District Railway. It would be better if he could live nearer, but it is always exceedingly difficult to get a suitable residence near the City, where the warehouses are encroaching every year more and more on the dwelling-houses. In
1188
the case of such an empty parish as St. Vedast, access is of more importance than residence in the limits. Indeed, if your Lordships would walk down Foster Lane and Wood Street, out of Cheapside, you would see how absolutely impossible residence would be. The noble Earl may rest assured that the interest of no single soul is prejudiced by the fact that the rector is compelled to live a short railway journey's distance from his church. His whole record proves him a man of earnest and conscientious zeal. The City parishes are, to a great extent, an anomaly, and they cannot be bound by ordinary rules. They are necessarily attended by anomalies, which one may regret but cannot help. I may add, in conclusion, that every year the incomes of the City livings are being distributed among poor parishes in East London and in the growing suburbs; and St. Olave, Hart Street, is alone contributing a large annual income to three poor parishes.

SOUTH AFRICAN WAR—STATISTICAL RETURN OF BOER PRISONERS.
VISCOUNT FRANKFORT DE MONTMORENCY: My Lords, I think such a Return as I am asking for is necessary in order to arrive at a conclusion as to the time South Africa will take to settle down after the last shot has been fired. Some people consider that that will take a long time, but the period greatly depends on the number of burgher prisoners and the manner in which they are sent back to South Africa. I think that if the Government supplied the information asked for in the Return, it would show that the number of prisoners would not disturb the tranquillity of South Africa when they returned and settled down. I presume that the foreigners would be sent back to their respective countries as "undesirables."
Moved, that an humble Address be presented to His Majesty for a Return of all Boer prisoners in our hands from the commencement of the war to 31st January, 1902, showing—
1. The number of Transvaal and Orange Free State burghers; (2) the number of Cape Colony and Natal rebels who were serving in the Boer army; (3) the number of foreigners now prisoners, who were living in the

1189
Transvaal and Orange Free State previous to the war; (4) the number of foreigners, now prisoners, who have joined the Boer army during the war from Europe or elsewhere.—(Viscount Frankfort de Montmorency.)
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Lord RAGLAN): My Lords, our latest Return is dated the 18th of last January. It stated that the grand total of prisoners of war, including those who had died and those released on parole, was 28,033. The number now approaches 29,000. The detailed information which the noble Lord asks for is not at present available. Steps are being taken by the Colonial Authorities to obtain, as far as possible, detailed particulars with regard to all prisoners of war. But, at any rate, it is not likely that this information will be completed for some time, and I am afraid we can give no information as to when it will be laid before Parliament. There is great difficulty in collecting statistics, because a large number of the prisoners are unwilling to give the requisite information.
VISCOUNT FRANKFORT DE MONTMORENCY: After the statement of the noble Lord I beg to withdraw the Motion.
Motion (by leave of the House) withdrawn.

Remounts—Yeomanry Committee's Report—New Inquiry.
LORD TWEEDMOUTH: My Lords, I rise to call attention to the Report of the Committee on Horse Purchase in Austro-Hungary; and to ask His Majesty's Government whether, in pursuance of the course adopted with respect to that inquiry, they will order inquiries to beheld into the circumstances attendant on the purchase of horses in other parts of the world and in the United Kingdom, for remounts for British troops in South Africa. I am very sensible that a good deal of the freshness and interest of this Report has vanished, for it has already been the subject of a twice-told tale in the other House, and has been discussed in all the newspapers in the country; but it is not my fault, but the fault of the brief and intermittent sittings of the House that
1190
the subject has not been brought up earlier. Still, I think the Report is one of great importance. It contains disclosures which I do not think should be allowed to pass absolutely without comment in this Chamber, especially as the facts to which it alludes occurred at a time when a Member of your Lordships' House—the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Lansdowne)—was in charge of the War Office, and, therefore, directly responsible for all the arrangements made for the supply of horses before and after the war, and also because several members of the Yeomanry Committee, who are affected also, hold seats in your Lordships' House.
The facts disclosed by this Report are very simple. There have been altogether 23,956 horses obtained from Hungary. This Report refers to 16,146 of them, of which 3,800 were purchased through the Yeomanry Committee and 12,346 by the War Office direct, leaving 7,810 horses from Hungary of which no mention is made in this Report. I should like to ask at what price and from whom these 7,810 horses were obtained—whether they were purchased by the War Office directly or through the agency of Mr. Hauser. The facts with regard to the purchase of the 3,800 horses by the Imperial Yeomanry Committee are very striking. Colonel St. Quintin gives a provisional contract for 1,000 cobs at £35 a-piece to one Ranucci, soon after Captain Hartigan, an old Army veterinary surgeon who left the service in 1881,calls on him asking for employment; he says he has none to give, but enters into a conversation about his want of Hungarian horses. Hartigan leaves the office, meets one Lewison, a Newmarket trainer and ex-travelling showman in the Haymarket, tells him of his interview with Colonel St. Quintin. Lewison says he can supply Hungarian horses. Hartigan returns to Colonel St. Quintin, saying he has found a man to provide horses from Hungary who knows all about that country. You may bring him to me, says Colonel St. Quintin. Hartigan strikes a bargain with Lewison that he is to receive 2½per cent. commission on all receipts of Lewison's from the Yeomanry Committee, and brings Lewison to Colonel St. Quintin. Colonel St. Quintin eventually arranges with Lewison for 1,500

1191
cobs at £33 16s. 8d., stipulating that Lewison must settle with Ranucci. Lewison buys out Ranucci for £7,000 then makes a sub-contract with a Mr. Hauser to supply the horses at £22 a-piece, later a further contract is given to Lewison for 2,300 cobs at £26 a-piece. The result of the whole transaction is that out of some£111,000 paid by the Committee for these horses, nearly £45,000 clear profit went into the pockets of four gentlemen—£20,000 to Mr. Hauser, £15,000 to Mr. Lewison, £7,000 to Mr. Ranucci, and £2,700 to Captain Hartigan. The official defence is that it is all the fault of the Yeomanry Committee, and on them the blame must rest. Well, my Lords, I must say that I think it is rather a shabby defence. I should have thought that the War Office would have accepted the responsibility, considering that, at a time of stress, when it could not carry out the work itself, it handed it over to others to do it for them. But, apart from that, it is clear that the War Office was implicated—deeply implicated—in the original contract made by the Imperial Yeomanry Committee, and that, moreover, by its subsequent contracts entered into direct with Mr. Hauser, it—to use a Scottish expression—homologated the action of the Yeomanry Committee with regard to the first contracts.
Let us take the first point. The Imperial Yeomanry Committee was appointed by an Army Order on January 2nd, 1900, and, so far as I am able to understand, in the first instance the idea was that the purchase of horses would be carried out to a large extent by a Member of your Lordships' House—by the Earl of Lonsdale, than whom I do not suppose any man has bought more horses or is a better judge of horses. It would be interesting to know why the noble Earl disappeared from the scene and did not continue buying horses for the Imperial Yeomanry. What eventually happened was that Colonel St. Quintin was appointed by the Yeomanry Committee to do this part of their work. In my opinion, that was a very reasonable appointment. Colonel St. Quintin had served for many years in the 10th Hussars, had commanded the 8th
1192
Hussars, and had been at the head of a Government Remount establishment. What was Colonel St. Quintin's first action when he entered upon his new duty? The first step he took was to go straight to the Inspector General of Remounts at the War Office, and consult him as to where he could get horses. He says in evidence—
"General Truman asked me not to touch the Argentine, or America, or Australia. He was buying all over the world, and also buying all over England. England and Ireland were practically exhausted. Therefore I went to Hungary."
It is clear that General Truman excluded him from any other place, and drove him to Hungary as the only country left. Colonel St. Quintin also consulted Colonel Tollner, who was in the Remount Department under General Truman. Colonel Tollner was able to give his experience of Hungarian horses in the past, and he said they were apt to suffer from fever in the feet. Curiously enough, he also told Colonel St. Quintin that the price he ought to pay for horses in Hungary was£35. In his evidence Colonel St. Quintin said—
"I was told by Colonel Tollner that the price paid by the Austrian Government was £35, and that that was the price I ought to pay."
So that not only did Colonel St. Quintin receive advice to go to Hungary, but he had named to him by the Remount Department of the War Office the price it was proper for him to pay for the horses. Even there Colonel St. Quintin did not drop his precautions. He thought it wise to telegraph to Colonel Wardrop, our Military Attaché at Vienna. But here comes in Colonel St. Quintin's mistake, for the telegram, either through his neglect or that of his subordinate, was not signed. However, Colonel Wardrop was struck by the telegram, and took it to our Ambassador at Vienna, through whom he sent an answer stating how many horses he could get and the price. That telegram was sent to the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office sent it to the War Office, who forwarded it to the Remount Department, and in spite of the fact that Colonel St. Quintin had had these conversations with General Truman and Colonel Tollner, it was allowed to remain in the Remount Department and was never sent on to the Yeomanry Committee.

1193
I think what I have stated proves that the Remount Department were largely implicated in the initiation of these contracts by Colonel St. Quintin. The 3,800 horses were purchased in the months of January, February, and March 1900, when the business in Hungary of the Yeomanry Committee came to an end. But immediately after wards the Remount Department of the War Office came to the conclusion that they would themselves buy horses in Hungary. One would have imagined that even then they might have remembered the telegram which had been received through the Ambassador from Colonel Wardrop, and might have consulted our Military Attachéon the subject. In the meantime, many other offers of horses had been made, both to the Yeomanry Committee and to the War Office direct from other persons in Hungary; and I myself have in my possession a formal offer by one set of gentlemen to supply 20,000 horses at £20 apiece at this very time. But, so far as I understand, the Remount Department made no further inquiries at all. They did not refer to the Military Attachéand they took no action on the other offers, but went direct and solely to the man who had been sent out by the Yeomanry Committee to examine the horses and pass them—Colonel Maclean. Colonel Maclean said that Mr. Hauser, who had supplied these horses, was a very good and capable man, and so, without any further inquiry whatever, the War Office entered into contracts with Mr. Hauser for the supply of 2,000 artillery horses at £35 each, 5,000 cavalry horses at£30 each, and 5,346 cobs at£20 each. I think Colonel St. Quintin must have felt rather gratified that the person who had supplied him with horses should have been taken over by the Remount Department and given a contract direct.
It must be admitted that on the Committee whose Report is now before us the War Office was extremely well represented, for it had as a member Sir Charles Welby, who had been private secretary to two Secretaries of State and had been appointed an unpaid Assistant Secretary to help the War Office at a time of stress; it had upon it the brother-in-law of the Secretary of
1194
State for War himself; and the private secretary to the Financial Secretary Lord Stanley, Mr. Ward, was also the secretary of the Committee. The substance of the Report must therefore have been well known to the War Office authorities, but no step whatever was taken in consequence of the facts disclosed in this Report, which was signed in August of last year, until after it had been presented to Parliament 12 days or a fortnight ago, and had created great excitement in the House of Commons. Surely, if the facts disclosed are true, and if the Government are justified in taking any action against any of the persons connected with these contracts, they ought to have taken it seven months ago. But the only person on whom the Government have fallen with a heavy hand is the sort of odd man of the situation, Captain Hartigan. It seems to me that Captain Hartigan's part of the proceeding is the one least open to reprobation of all. He was the introducer of Mr. Lewison to Colonel St. Quintin, and Mr. Lewison gave him a commission of 2½per cent. as a reward of the introduction, not on each of the horses he passed, but on the total amount received from the Government in payment of the contract. Captain Hartigan was not in the service of the Government. He went out to Hungary with Mr. Lewison in order to assist in examining the horses on Mr. Lewison's behalf, for which he was paid two guineas a day and his expenses. Towards the end of the time—I suppose in the beginning of March—Captain Webb, who was examining veterinary surgeon under Colonel Maclean, was called back and had to go to South Africa, Colonel Maclean then suggested that it was not necessary to send another man out to examine the remnant of the horses, as Captain Hartigan was there and would be able to do the work satisfactorily and well. Colonel Maclean knew exactly the relations that existed between Mr. Lewison and Captain Hartigan. When Captain Hartigan was approached on the subject, he explained what his relations to Mr. Lewison were, and before he undertook the work of examining horses on behalf of Colonel Maclean he severed his connection with Mr. Lewison.
It may be perfectly true that it was

1195
not a very tactful thing on Captain Hartigan's part to undertake this work, but surely if blame was attachable to anybody it was to Colonel Maclean, who, knowing the exact relationship existing between these people, still recommended and chose Captain Hartigan to assist him. I do think that the hand of punishment has fallen a little too heavily on Captain Hartigan, if what is displayed in this Report is the whole amount of his guilt. From curious side lights in the evidence, I rather suspect that the whole truth has not come out. There are references in the Report to happy evenings spent at the hotel at Szabadka by Colonel Maclean, Captain Webb, Mr. Lewison, Captain Hartigan, and Mr. Hauser, who appear to have thoroughly enjoyed themselves together, drinking the best of champagne, and smoking the finest brands of cigars largely at Mr. Hauser's expense. I do not think that was a very satisfactory state of affairs to be going on. It comes out perfectly clear that when the pressure came for horses, the Remount Department neither had the knowledge where to get them, nor the power to get them; and, as usually happens in cases of emergency of that sort, they resorted to a dealer, and while the dealer sold well, the Government and its representatives bought badly. Take the case of the cobs to begin with. I do not care whether you paid £33 each, as you did for the first lot, £26 each for the second, or£20 each for the third, in every case you paid a great deal more than they were worth. The amount paid for them in the open market was from£8 to£12. Whether buying through the Yeomanry Committee or through the War Office, the price paid by the Government was infinitely too high, and an immense amount of money ought to have been saved in that respect alone. I think the best proof of that is Colonel Wardrop's description of the result of these purchases on Mr. Hauser himself. Colonel Wardrop was asked—
"What sort of position does Mr. Hauser hold in the horse-dealing world of Hungary? Is he one of the leading men?"
and his answer was—
"I do not think he was then, but he is now. Money commands position there, like everything else. They say that he has made enormous sums. That is his business. I do not blame him for that."
1196
As a matter of fact, we know perfectly well that Mr. Hauser was an extremely small man in Hungary.
LORD RAGLAN: No, no.
LORD TWEEDMOUTH: And that he has now become an extremely big man, owing to these Government contracts.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Where does the noble Lord get the evidence that Hauser was a small man?
LORD TWEEDMOUTH: That is the general drift of the evidence. I turn for a moment to the question of the quality of these cobs. It is a little difficult, of course, to obtain evidence on that point, but Lord Kitchener, speaking of some of the later purchases, described them as "flat-catchers." Mr. Lewison brought what he considered four of the best of these cobs to England in the spring of 1900. Three of them have gone the way of all weak horseflesh, and have broken down; the fourth is in the possession of a friend of mine at Newmarket, and can be seen by any noble Lord who has the curiosity to inspect it. The strongest evidence I have to offer as to what the horses were like is to be found in Colonel Wardrop's description of them. I will read four questions which were asked, and the replies given by Colonel Wardrop—
"You saw a particular shipment of cobs leave Fiume, did you not?—Yes.
"Do you remember what ship it was?—Yes, the 'Iona.'
"You saw the cobs, I suppose, before they were put on board?—Yes, I saw every one, and I looked at them fairly closely.
"Can you say what impression the lot, as a whole, made upon you?—As a lot, I would say they were a nice lot of a sort, but my opinion is they were not of the right sort. I think, for the money, you could have got better horses—more adapted for the work they had to do. They were too light boned and too-light fetlocked. The majority of them, taking them all through, were more of the ladies' class of phaeton pony, than animals for a rough country. Granted that they had the quality, they were not, to my mind, the mounted infantry stamp of cob."
I think we may take it that these horses were by no means the best class for army work to be found in Hungary. The Austrian Government pay£28 for

1197
their remounts, and it is not likely that the British Government could obtain for £8 to £10 animals up to the mark of cavalry remounts. I do not wish to go deeply into the question of transport, which is a matter of very great importance. I only wish to notice this fact, which seems to me rather curious, that in the case of these horses shipped from Fiume, the cost of transport was £26 3s. 4d., which, added to the £33 16s. 8d. paid for the horses, brings the total to £60 per horse landed in South Africa, which rather looks as if the transport authorities and the horse contract authorities in Hungary were working together on similar lines.
The point I wish to insist upon is this, that what has been shown to be the case with remounts in Austria-Hungary has existed largely throughout the world. Wherever the Government have gone to buy horses, similar facts could be elicited if a proper inquiry was instituted. I do not mean to say that no good contracts have been entered into. I know, myself, of one by which 650 excellent animals were procured from Australia and delivered per at Cape-town for £33 odd a-piece; but that is not what generally took place. It is a matter of notoriety that in America three or four young Englishmen, with good connections out there, have made a very profitable thing, indeed, of buying up horses throughout the States and passing them on, at highly advanced prices, to the British Government. A gentleman with a large business in Buenos Ayres told me only last night that the contracts made there are the subject of scandal and ridicule to the whole of the British Colony. He says it is a notorious fact that very high prices were paid by the Government, with the result that enormous profits were secured by those who sold ponies. The manner in which the horses were inspected by the Government Inspectors was most curious. They were paraded in a circle, and those which were rejected at first were worked in again, and eventually passed. Then there is the notable case of Italy. A very capable person got a contract for 1,000 horses from Italy at £35 a head. I believe that contract was carried out extremely well, but the contractor himself admitted that each horse he passed on
1198
to the British Government cost him under £20, so that he made a profit of £15 for every horse he supplied. In Ireland things have been found to be sufficiently scandalous for the War Office itself to start legal proceedings; while in every part of England men will be found who have made large profits from the selling of horses to the Government, and who have, in many cases, been able to retire from business in consequence.
Facts like these form a good prima facie case for inquiry. The Government admit the justice of the demand, but say the inquiry they will give us is an inquiry into General Truman's management of the Remount Department now, and into other things, at the end of the war. I venture to say that that will not be satisfactory, and I hope the subject will be reconsidered. We do not want merely to know the excellence or the badness of the management of General Truman. What we want to know is the capacity of the Remount Department itself—whether it is properly equipped, properly informed, properly supplied with funds, and what is its knowledge of foreign and colonial markets. It is proposed to hold a military inquiry into General Truman's management. What is a military inquiry? It is a very limited inquiry. The Court is composed of officers of the Army, who report to the person summoning the inquiry. The members are not able to give any verdict themselves, but it is on their report that the verdict is given by the officer who has called the inquiry. I do not think that is very satisfactory. If what the man in the street says is true, then the inquiry in this particular case is an extremely improper one. It is said that General Truman has been asked to retire, and that he has done so under protest. If that rumour is true, what is the effect of referring the action of General Truman to a military inquiry? It is this. The Commander-in-Chief, who has considered that General Truman's action has been such that he is warranted in calling upon him to retire, summons an inquiry into the General's action. He directs the exact points to which the inquiry is to be limited, and then, when the Court presents its report, he has to give a verdict on the officer's conduct

1199
by the light of the inquiry, having already condemned him by requiring him to retire. If this rumour has truth in it, then I say that by such an inquiry a considerable injustice would be done to the Court, to the Commander-in-Chief, and to the person whose conduct is affected.
It seems to me that the only satisfactory inquiry which could be offered in respect to General Truman is an open and unfettered inquiry by a Committee of Parliament or a Commission. We are promised an inquiry into the circumstances attendant on the purchase of horses in all parts of the world at the end of the war. I am afraid that is putting it off till the Greek kalends. But even if the inquiry could be commenced 18 months hence, you would, by then, have lost the opportunity of getting the evidence necessary to prove whether the statements to which I have alluded are true or not. The only way to get a satisfactory and full inquiry is to follow the exact precedent of the inquiry in regard to Austro-Hungary, which amply justified the charges made by Sir Blundell Maple in another place. We say that we have every reason to believe that scandals, similar to those brought to light by the inquiry into the purchase of Hungarian horses, are to be found in other parts of the world; and we demand as a right that as full and satisfactory an inquiry should be held at once into these as was conducted by the Committee on horse purchase in Austro-Hungary. I beg to ask the Question standing in my name.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, having lately returned from the Antipodes, I can assure the noble Lord that, so far as I have heard, there are no such scandals as he has referred to in connection with the purchase of Australian horses. It is true that the Imperial authorities paid slightly higher rates than were paid by the Colonial authorities, but that was only to be expected. Where one officer has to cover a vast extent of country, it is absolutely necessary that he should employ a middleman, who naturally does charge more than would have to be paid if the horses were bought direct. With regard to the statement of the noble Lord that the
1200
same horses were trotted round and round, and that those which were, in the first instance, rejected by the inspecting officer were ultimately passed, I would point out that it would take a very clever man to always recognise horses straight from the bush, which he might previously have refused to pass, after they had been kept for a couple of days and properly fed. I can assure the House that the officers who have been entrusted with this work in Australia have been doing the utmost in their power to secure the best horses at the cheapest possible prices.
THE EARL OF MAYO: The noble Lord who spoke from the Front Opposition Bench made a great point of the prices paid for these horses, but everybody knows that when you want things in a hurry you have to pay more for them. Lord Kitchener may have described some of the cobs as "flat-catchers," but Lord Valentia's evidence was quite to the contrary. Lord Valentia stated that—
"When they arrived, Colonel Birkbeck said they were by a great deal the best remounts he had seen come out."
If that be so, it was worth while paying a good price for them. I can give your Lordships a piece of independent evidence, which is not in the Blue book. I am authorised by Colonel St. Leger Moore, who commanded a regiment in Rhodesia, to say that of over 2,000 horses which he had in the paddocks, the 700 Hungarian cobs, one of which he rode himself, were undoubtedly the best. The strongest indictment of the War Office is contained in the report of this Committee, who state that—
"The case of the Government Remount Department is different. In that case the decision to resort to Hungary as a field for obtaining remounts was not, apparently, come to as the result of a sudden emergency. We feel bound to express the surprise with which we have learnt that before the decision to purchase for the Government in Hungary was actually come to in April 1900, no steps bad apparently been taken, since 1884, to ascertain the best sources of supply in that country, the best methods of tapping those sources, or the most reliable people to employ. The war bad by that time been in progress six months, and it must have been obvious that a heavy drain on our remounting resources was inevitable."
Quite apart from the matter of these particular purchases, there is sufficient

1201
disclosed in the Blue-book to lead us to hope that, instead of seeking to excuse themselves for unfortunate lapses, the War Office are steadily making preparations for the future in regard to remounts.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, a great deal of loose talk and loose writing have been indulged in with regard to this matter. I was greatly surprised to see the other day, in a letter to a newspaper, a statement supposed to have been made by a friend of the writer's who had been an officer on board a horse ship, that the horses were in such a bad condition when they were put on board that 92 per cent. died on the voyage. I need not say that that is an extraordinary exaggeration, and that if the percentage had been the otherway—if 8 per cent had died—that young gentleman would have heard a great deal about it. I have soon the statement that the profits of the contractors might be estimated by millions. I have every respect for the business capacity and smartness of the horse dealer, but I decline altogether to believe that it is possible for any man to make a profit of several millions out of a contract for £100,000.
The noble Lord opposite asked if the War Office accepted responsibility for the proceedings of the Yeomanry Committee. There is only one answer to that question. The Yeomanry Committee was a delegation of the War Office, and, of course, the War Office accepts the fullest responsibility for its proceedings. It may be convenient if I explain the reasons which led to the formation of this Committee. In December, 1899, after the reverses which had occurred, it was suggested by certain Yeomanry officers—and the suggestion was accepted by the War Office—that a force of Yeomanry should be raised for service in South Africa. The original idea was that this force should consist of men actually belonging to the Yeomanry regiments, who would naturally bring their own horses and saddlery. But it was soon recognised that a much larger recruiting area could be tapped for a force of this description, and it at once became apparent that a large number of horses would have to be purchased, either in this country or abroad. In the meantime a Committee had been appointed of Yeo-
1202
manry officers to superintend the raising of the force and to assist the War Office with regard to its equipment, and to that Committee was joined Colonel St. Quintin, who was responsible for remounts. Colonel St. Quintin had had considerable experience, and I do not believe there is a better judge of horse flesh living.
When the first contract was made between Colonel St. Quintin and Mr. Lewison, two officers—Colonel Maclean and Captain Webb—who were known to be excellent judges, were sent out to Hungary to pass the horses. The first contract was for 1,500 horses at £33 16s 8d. each. The reports of Colonel Maclean on these horses were good, but Colonel St. Quintin considered that the contract price was too high, and the next contract was made for 2,300 horses at £26 each. Something has been said by the noble Lord of convivial meetings at the hotel in Szabadha between Colonel Maclean, Captain Webb, Mr. Lewison, Captain Hartigan, and Mr. Hauser. Upon this, I think it is right that I should explain that there was only one hotel at Szabadha in which they could have stayed, that there was only one room in that hotel in which they could have had their meals, and that there was only one table in that room, to that all the guests dined together. At least, that is what I am told. The noble Lord seemed to think that Captain Hartigan had been harshly dealt with. There is considerable conflict in the evidence, on two important points, between Captain Hartigan and Colonel Maclean. The former declares that he made a clean breast to Colonel Maclean of his position with regard to his commission, but Colonel Maclean says he know nothing about it. Again, with regard to the horses which were passed by Captain Hartigan, Colonel Maclean said they numbered a few hundred, while Captain Hartigan said he passed several thousands. The noble Lord made an attack on Mr. Hauser.
LORD TWEEDMOUTH: I beg the noble Lord's pardon. I made no attack on Mr. Hauser. He was a horse dealer who, in the course of his business, made as much profit as he could. What I said was that I was sorry the Government were such donkeys as to buy so badly from him.
LORD RAGLAN: The noble Lord said Mr. Hauser was a very small man when he secured this contract, but was now a big man owing to the money which he had taken out of the pockets of the British taxpayers. We have it in evidence that Mr. Hauser bought largely for export to foreign countries, and had between 3,000 and 4,000 stalls at Szabadha. He is a dealer with a considerable business, and having many large contracts. Now I come to the question of the price of the horses. The Remount Department, on the advice of the Yeomanry Committee, made a new contract with Mr. Hauser, paying £32 10s. for the large horses, with which every satisfaction was expressed, and £26 for the cobs. Then there appeared on the scene, in the light of a contractor, a Mr. Von Folgár, who appears to be a large landed proprietor in Hungary. He was a director of a Hungarian company, the object of which was to push the products of that country. He said—
"You are paying a ridiculous price for these horses, and are not getting good animals. I can supply you with a great deal better horses at a cheaper rate."
A contract was given to Mr. Von Folgár for 260 cobs at £20 apiece, and in his evidence he stated that he had lost £1,500 on this contract. Further asked what he would have charged per cob if he had taken up the contract as a business transaction, he replied £25 or £26. Therefore, £26 for a Hungarian cob cannot be considered excessive. As soon as Mr. Von Folgár got this contract, he did exactly what he blamed others for doing—he went to a Jewish horse dealer to carry it out for him. He said in his evidence—
"You are obliged to go to these people. You cannot do anything in Hungary without them."
In the not result the prices paid show that to the extent of £10,000 or £12,000, too much money was paid for the horses under the earlier contract. The noble Lord mentioned the names of several of the members of Sir Charles Welby's Committee, but he did not mention Mr. Hobhouse, M.P.—a Member of the Opposition, and therefore not
1204
favourably disposed to the Government—andColonel Kenyon-Slaney, M. P., than whom no fairer man ever lived, and who, I am sure, would not put his name to a report in which he did not thoroughly believe. Therefore, to call it a whitewashing Committee, by which name it was described in another place, is untrue and most unfair.
LORD TWEEDMOUTH: My point was that the War Office must have been well informed, both publicly and privately, of what was in the report, and ought to have taken action earlier.
LORD RAGLAN: The three officers who were found fault with in the report have now left the army.
LORD TWEEDMOUTH: Yes, eight months after.
LORD RAGLAN: I now come to the question of the value of these horses, and I would remind your Lordships that there is a great difference between price and value. The question is not the actual price of these horses, whether bought in Hungary or elsewhere, but their value to you when you get them to South Africa. Mr. Von Folgár says they were exceedingly bad horses, while, on the other hand, Colonel Maclean states that they were very good horses. I do not think I should go for an unbiassed opinion to either of these gentlemen. Colonel Maclean is not likely to say that the horses he passed were bad, and Mr. Von Folgár, who represents the Hungarian horse dealers from whom we did not buy horses, is not likely to say that the horses supplied by a rival were good ones.
The only evidence we can get that is of any value is the evidence from South Africa of the people who have had to make use of the horses. That is extremely difficult to obtain, but, on the whole, the reports from South Africa are favourable. The Hungarian horses stood the voyage remarkably well, the percentage of losses being less to them than among the horses sent from this country, or from Australia and the United States. Therefore they could not have been in the deplorable condition

1205
described when they were put on board. Your Lordships smiled just now when I said there was a great difference between price and value. The value of a thing depends upon whether you get it exactly when you want it. I ask your Lordships' attention while I read a short extract from a despatch by the Duke of Wellington, who, in writing to explain a failure, said—
"The people of England, so happy as they are in every respect, so rich in resources of every description, having the use of such excellent roads, will not readily believe that important results here depend on 50 or 60 mules, more or less, and a bundle of straw to feed them."
May I venture to use a homely illustration? We will imagine that there is a house on fire and a man at the top window. Another man comes along with a ladder, puts it up to the window, and the occupant of the burning house is rescued. The price of the ladder may have been only 25s., but the value of it to the man at the window was considerably more. If the owner of the ladder had said "This is a very expensive ladder. I cannot use this one, but I have a friend round the corner who thinks he knows a place where you can obtain one for 15s., and if you will wait a minute I will go round and see if I can arrange it," the language that would have been used by the man at the window can be better imagined than described. The Government could not be expected to say to their agents in a time of crisis—and I do not think any noble Lord will forget the dark days of December 1899, and January 1900—that they were to take time to make good bargains. If they had done that, the country would have rung with indignation, and the Government would have deserved to be turned out of office.
The noble Lord asks why we cannot hold a complete inquiry at once, similar to the inquiry which has been held with regard to the purchases made by the Yeomanry Committee. My answer to that is, that the purchases of the Yeomanry Committee constituted a transaction complete in itself. The book, as it were, was closed. The actors all through were in this country, and available for examination before a
1206
Committee. Any inquiry into the question of remounts, to be worth anything, must be thorough and searching, and to be thorough and searching it must take considerable time and be carried out with care. At this moment the officers of the Army are fairly well employed. There are very few that one could lay one's hands on who are not employed. It is impossible to withdraw from the countries in which they are the officers who are engaged in the work of purchasing remounts, and even if it were possible to withdraw them, we should have to send others to replace them, who, however good they might be, would take a certain time to learn the work, and for that time would be, to a certain extent, inefficient. I do not see how any Committee or Commission could go to Australia, to the Argentine, to America, and, most important of all, to South Africa, to take evidence. In the present state of things that would be absolutely impossible. The Remount Department has plenty to do. It is up to its eyes in work, and the work is by no means so easy as a great many people appear to imagine. It is a very pleasant form of amusement to occupy an afternoon buying a horse at a dealer's, but to spend many hours a day, month after month, and year after year, feeling the legs and punching the necks of horses, and haggling with horse dealers in foreign countries, is not the pleasant life that many people at first blush appear to think it is. I have heard the statement made that the desirable positions on board horse ships were given to officers because of their social position. If anybody thinks for a moment that the position of an officer in charge of a horse ship is either a desirable, comfortable, or pleasant one, I hope he will take a trip in one of them. I will do my best to get him a passage, and I think that, after he had spent a day and a night in a gale he would considerably modify his opinion.
Whether the purchases of the Remount Department have been done well or ill, the Department has been able in a time of stress to do a hundred per cent. more work than it was constructed to do. General Truman has applied for a Court of Inquiry into his conduct, which does not seem to meet the views of the noble Lord opposite. This Court of Inquiry

1207
will take evidence on oath, and give a decision which will, no doubt, be the one the Commander-in-Chief will act upon. The War Office in this matter has no wish to conceal anything. We have no desire whatever to shield misconduct, or pass over incompetence. The noble Lord referred to a pending trial with regard to the purchase of horses in Ireland. That inquiry was ordered as long ago as December, 1900, and it is not our fault that it has not yet taken place. Whatever the Secretary of State for War can be accused of, I do not think he can be charged with ever hesitating to deal adequately with cases where offences have been committed. If it is proved that there has been dishonesty in the purchase of horses, it shall be punished; and if it is proved that there has been incompetence or carelessness, the persons concerned will be properly dealt with. The whole question of the Remounts is being most carefully considered, and an inquiry such as we intend to hold at the end of the war cannot possibly take place now, for it would stop the flow of Remounts to South Africa and would impair most seriously the efficiency of the British Army, on which the safety of the country depends.
THE EARL OF LONSDALE: My Lords, I do not intend to detain your Lordships for many minutes, but as I have been referred to by the noble Lord who brought this subject forward, I desire to make a statement concerning my relations with the Remount Department. On December 18th, 1899, I was asked if I would undertake the purchase of certain horses, and I was requested to state by the 19th whether I could produce 1,700 horses. As your Lordships know, I have been all my life very closely connected with horses and the horse trade, not only in this country but abroad. I immediately placed myself in communication with the proper sources of supply in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and I sent 23 telegrams in all. I then communicated with the Ambassador at Vienna, and with other gentlemen in that country. As a result of my inquiries, I undertook to produce 1,200 horses ready for shipment at Liverpool or Southampton by January 2, 1900. I guaranteed this, and the horses were
1208
delivered in time. With what happened afterwards I have nothing to do; but it is a fact that those horses, some of which arrived on Christmas evening, remained unshipped until March, costing the country three shillings a day. At the time I was in communication with Austria, I absolutely entered into a preliminary contract with a gentleman named Spencer to deliver at Liverpool horses similar to those eventually supplied for the sum of £33. I also had an offer to deliver horses, either at the Cape or at Liverpool, for £45, another for delivery at £50, and a fourth and fifth offer to deliver at prices varying from £35 to £40.
As to the prices of horses in Austria, which every man who knows anything about Austrian horses will tell you range from £12 to £15 for animals of that height, it seems to me remarkable that the authorities were unable to find out in many years experience what I was able to find out in 48 hours. I went off on December 25th, to Harborough to inspect horses, and before going I asked the Committee for warrants to justify my purchases, as the price depended, to a great extent, on immediate payment. By January 2nd, I had entirely fulfilled my promise, but a telegram was then received, not by myself, but by my servant—
"In future take your orders, not from Lord Lonsdale, but from me only—(Signed) Colonel St. Quintin, Director General of Remounts, Imperial Yeomanry."
That was the only intimation I had that I was to dissociate myself from the Remount Department. I did my best. I produced from 1,200 to 1,500 horses within a few days, and I was prepared to supply any amount of horses at the proper price. There my responsibility ceased, and I had nothing more to do with the matter beyond telling Colonel St. Quintin of the transactions that had passed. I am perfectly aware that Colonel St. Quintin, when he succeeded me was not in the same position to deal as I was, for the simple reason that an Army Order had been issued, distinctly giving the price of the horses as £40. Therefore Colonel St. Quintin's hands were, to a great extent, tied. I know that many people have blamed the Imperial Yeomanry for what has hap-

1209
pened, but that is unfair when Colonel St. Quintin—I have never yet learned why I was suspended—was employed to do this work.
The Remount Department has for many years been the laughing stock of the world, and it will remain so as long as the present system lasts. There is no Department out of which so much amusement is to be gained. A year ago the Inspector-General of Remounts sent to examine five horses the property of a master of hounds in the North of England. Four of these horses were registered, three at £80 and one at £100. The officer sent down carefully examined every horse in the stable and selected four, three at £80 and one at £100. This sagacious officer had selected four horses which were just being sent off to a big market in the north as absolutely useless. They were to have been put up as the "property of a gentleman," because the owner hardly liked to put his name to them. These horses were put into an open truck, and the offer of the master of hounds to supply rugs to cover them refused. They were conveyed in the open truck, without clothing, in frosty weather, to Aldershot, where one of them died from a severe cold. I feel that I am justified in explaining my position with regard to remounts. I have asked for the minutes of the meeting at which I was superseded, but I have always been told they were unobtainable. I accuse nobody of any malpractice, but I do think it is a very remarkable thing that the members of the Remount Department should think it necessary to give at least four times its value for a horse, and a third more for transport than was necessary.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: My Lords, I will not detain the House more than a few minutes. It would be a pity to attenuate in any degree the effect produced by the very remarkable and straightforward statement to which we have just listened from an expert I am one of those who listen to the Under Secretary's answers in this House with the greatest pleasure. If I had a Department, I should certainly wish him to answer for it, because his genial rhetoric puts every one in a good humour. But I am bound to say that
1210
if he had risen after the noble Earl who has just sat down, he would have found it difficult to justify his contention that inquiry was superfluous, if not impossible, and could be postponed until the end of the present warlike operations. Now that is the point before us. My noble friend behind me went into the details of the purchase of horses with such minuteness that it is unnecessary to recapitulate them. It is all very well for the noble Lord the Under Secretary to bring forward the metaphor of a man in a fire taking the first ladder in order to escape. That, after all, is not the point. If I may correct his metaphor, it is this, that the gentleman who wanted to get out of the window with, perhaps, some special hurry, deliberately chose the greenest, the rottenest, and the most expensive ladder offered to him. No one who has listened to the speeches of my noble friend and the noble Earl can fail to believe that there has been a grave scandal in this matter. It is not confined to the case of General Truman. His evidence has not displayed him as a very perspicacious or businesslike officer.
The point is whether, not only in Hungary, but all over the world, you have not been plundered by your agents. The Under-Secretary very genially threw ridicule on the statements of those who indicated that there had been anything in the nature of improper dealing or corruption between Mr. Hauser and the agents sent out. Dealing with the agents sent out, the noble Lord said there was only one room, with only one table, in which those unfortunate individuals were obliged to "pig it" together in a wayside inn. I do not attach much importance to that point; but since the noble Lord spoke, an affidavit has been put into my hands which I will read to the House. It is from the head waiter of the one inn in the place where the horses were bought. I am glad that the circumstance of the deponent's being a head waiter causes so much amusement in the House. The affidavit says that at the beginning the members of the commission fulfilled their obligations with strict conscientiousness and exercised severe control in regard to the horses presented for inspection, so that in the first week out of 1,000 horses presented only 150 were purchased. However, already in the second week the control of the commission had been lax

1211
and negligent, and it was frequently represented by one or two members at the most. The horses which had been previously presented and rejected, about 800 in number, were later presented again for inspection, were found to be good and suitable by the commission, and were purchased for the British Government, payment being made to Mr. Hauser. The prices ranged from 90 to 100 florins, or about £10, per horse—at most 150 florins, but in numerous cases only80 florins were paid. For the most part of the day, the deponent says, the commissioners contented themselves with eating and drinking and driving out. Early in the morning at breakfast their table was supplied with champagne, whisky, and cigars. These princely breakfasts, which were served in great style, as well as four or five carriages, were always paid for by Mr. Hauser, together with the rooms at the hotel. Mr. Hauser also paid for telegrams sent to the War Office in London. The Englishmen themselves, the affidavit says, only rarely paid some small bills.
VISCOUNT GALWAY: What is the nationality of the deponent?
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: The deposition is in German. It was made at Budapest, and therefore I presume he is a Hungarian. Of course I cannot myself endorse or support the statements in the affidavit.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Will the noble Earl tell us at whose instance the affidavit is taken and forwarded to him?
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: The affidavit was handed to me by Sir Blundell Maple, to whom the country owes a debt of gratitude in this matter of the remounts. As to the affidavit, I cannot tell whether a word of it is true or not. It is sworn on oath, and the depositions in the Blue-book are not. All this shows that there is a case for inquiry, and for immediate inquiry. There are things you cannot very well pass over in a scandal of this description. Who was Lewison? How did Lewison get the contract? Captain Hartigan goes to the Yeomanry Committee, who not unnaturally—and we ought to make
1212
allowances for them—were somewhat flurried by the duties laid, upon them, and solicits employment. I do not know whether he got employment or not; but he wanders away to the Haymarket and there he meets Mr. Lewison; and in an instant a compact is apparently struck between them involving the payment of two-and-a-half per cent. The Remounts Committee did not show the slightest curiosity to find out particulars about this agreement. But if we may judge the character of Mr. Lewison from the fact that he endeavoured to resist by an action at law the claim of Hartigan, we may take it a contract was made, stamped, signed, sealed, and delivered in the neighbourhood of the Haymarket before Hartigan took Lewison to the War Office. And what were the qualifications of Lewison? Hartigan seems to have said to the Yeomanry Committee, "Here is a man who will tell you all about horses in Hungary," and the Yeomanry Committee seem to have fallen upon his neck, with the exception of one more suspicious member, who, taking Hartigan aside, asked him whether Lewison had not something to do with the turf, as if that disqualified a man from knowing anything about horses. A bargain was struck and concluded.
Now, I do not care whether the War Office is responsible for this or not. I do not impute the slightest malfeasance to any member of the Yeomanry Committee, though I think they treated the noble Earl opposite with but scant courtesy as one of their members. But here we have the statement of the man Lewison that he paid two-and-a-half per cent. on the whole contract that was made for the horses on this occasion; that he bought another contract for a sum of £7,000 or £8,000 from Runucci; that he had another contract still; and that these horses, on the statement of the Committee itself—the report of which I think was on the whole favourable to the War Office—were bought at from £8 to £12 apiece. My noble friend behind me [Lord Tweedmouth] stated that the Yeomanry Committee were tied up into buying Hungarian horses, because they were told that they must not go to America, Australia, or Argentina. There was another part of the world to which they might have addressed themselves with advantage for the purchase of their horses—a place from which there are great complaints at

1213
the present moment—the Dominion of Canada, which claims for its horses that they are better than those of the United States. Yet you have bought from the United States 77,000, and from Canada only 11,300. We hear a great deal of the Imperialism of the Government. I wish they would show a little practical Imperialism in their dealings with regard to horses. It is not true that the Imperial Yeomanry Committee were shut up to buying horses in Hungary by the decision of General Truman, that they were not to attempt to buy either in Argentina, America, or Australia. Now what is the value of these Hungarian horses? One significant part of the evidence laid before the Committee was General Truman's extreme want of curiosity on that subject, and the Committee shared in it. General Truman seems never to have taken the slightest pains to find out whether the Hungarian horses sent out to South Africa were satisfactory. But he offered to the Committee to procure that information, which one would have thought the Remounts Department would particularly have wished to possess, which the Committee of inquiry would have wished to secure, but which the Remounts Department do not seem to have yet obtained, and which, at least, the Under Secretary has not communicated to the House.
I wonder how many of these Hungarian horses are in the ranks at this moment? What reports as to the efficiency of these horses have really been received by the War Office? Are the Government prepared to lay on the Table of the House the reports they have received with regard to these Hungarian horses? No, they are not prepared. The only evidence we have as to their fitness is that Lord Kitchener declared that they were "flat-catchers." The Government—if I may say so unofficially—are, after their electoral campaign, good judges of what "flat-catchers" are. But we have no evidence whatever to tell us what has become of those horses, or how far they have satisfied the authorities in South Africa. I have heard—I know not if the statement be true—that they were tried some time ago, both in England and Egypt, and found to be wanting, and were rejected for the future by the Remount Department of this country. I give that for what it is worth. There is another story which is somewhat illustrative of the character of these horses. I will tell it
1214
to the House, but I cannot vouch for it any more than for the affidavit. A gentleman was travelling not long ago in Hungary and was perfectly delighted with what he saw. He said to a Hungarian friend, "I am delighted with this place; I have not seen a bad horse since I have been in the country." "No," said the Hungarian gentleman in reply, "they have been all sold to the British Government." I do not know if that story be a parable or a fact; but at least it conveys to your Lordships the general impression in Hungary as to the nature of the purchases which the Government have made there.
There are two general considerations which I would urge upon your Lordships before I sit down. I say that this gross carelessness about the remounts which has been detailed in evidence is only a part of the policy of the Government throughout. From the time when they particularly requested the colonies not to furnish them with mounted men down to the time of the purchase of these remounts, they have shown themselves strangely indifferent or blind to the true character of the war in South Africa. I do not believe there is a military authority worth one row of pins who will not tell you that, if you had mounted men in sufficient numbers and well mounted, the war might have been over before now. That being so, this question of the remounts assumes an aspect far more important than the mere reputation of General Truman, which the Government propose to make the Subject of an inquiry by a military Court. The fact is that it is one of the largest and most pressing questions connected with the war. The noble Lord the Under Secretary for War say all this happened a long time ago. In that remark, "a long time ago," relating to the events of the war, I quite agree with him. But it will be a very long time, according to the most sanguine estimate, before the war is completed. But I do hold that if there is one point which has been brought out by every particle and scrap of the evidence, whether it be on behalf or against the Government, it is that this should be made a matter of instant and pressing inquiry. Mr. Balfour said the other day in the House of Commons that it could not be made a matter of inquiry, because the officers were scattered all over

1215
the world, and that it would be a great mistake to disturb them in the performance of their arduous duties. Begin your inquiry. You can begin it with Lewison and the other people at home; take their evidence on oath and wait for the return of the officers from abroad. That is the common sense aspect of the question.
To speak of this as a matter which can be met by the inquiry of a Military Court into the conduct of General Truman, betrays that strange blindness and that want of sense of proportion which have so often distinguished the Government in the course of those operations. Why, my Lords, it is the Government themselves who are to a large extent on their trial in this matter. They are ultimately and immediately responsible. And yet it is they who think of shifting this matter into a Military Court of Inquiry on General Truman. That Court is strictly limited by the Commander-in-Chief to the subject of the inquiry; it has no power of expressing an opinion on the conduct of any officer. It can only report—I do not know whether its report is confidential—to the Commander-in-Chief. Is this the inquiry that will be made into the conduct of all your agents all over the world—in Argentina, in Ireland, and in every other place where you bought horses? I venture to think that no such fruitless proposal, no such fruitlessly delaying proposal, was ever placed before Parliament in reply to a just demand for inquiry. You have other questions besides the question of the buying of horses. You have the question of saddlery and fodder. Unless rumour is more lying than usual, there are scandals in connection with fodder which, if inquired into, would throw grave light on the conduct of the war by the Government. I do not believe the Government can resist meeting the demand for an inquiry by a military inquiry into the case of General Truman. I am quite certain that they could not resist it if Parliament possessed the spirit which animated it at the time of the Crimean War, when it would not burke the inquiry proposed by Mr. Roebuck—though we were in the midst of a great war—into afar more searching and delicate question than the question of remounts and fodder; when it up rose in all its wrath and overturned a powerful Government with a large majority
1216
—overturned it by an overwhelming majority—feeling that their duty as citizens and Members of Parliament would not be fulfilled if they allowed the Government to hush up a gross and flagrant scandal in connection with that war.
LORD HARRIS: My Lords, it was not my intention to intervene in this debate, and I should not have done so but for the fact that reference has been twice made to the business of the Transport Department, with which I was immediately concerned. So far as I understood him, Lord Tweedmouth suggested that the Transport authorities in England were working with the contractors in Hungary.
LORD TWEEDMOUTH: I was referring not to the transport authorities in England, but to those at Fiume. Mr. Van Launcontracted to convey these horses from Fiume to the Cape for £26 3s. 4d. The contract with Mr. Lewison was for £33 16s. 8d., and I pointed out that the two sums together amounted exactly to £60. I expressed the opinion that that looked as if Mr. Lewison and Mr. Van Laun had agreed together as to the total price for horses and transport combined.
LORD HARRIS: As regards the price for transport, I am responsible, and am quite ready to defend the price in the case of every transport taken up by the Imperial Yeomanry Committee. The first thing I did, on being asked to undertake the business of transport for the Imperial Yeomanry, was to obtain the assistance of Sir John Hext, a gentleman who has had considerable marine and naval experience, and I have every reason to believe that we got the most economical price possible. I was astonished to hear the noble Earl (Lord Lonsdale) say that the price paid for transport was at least a third too high; but I prefer to accept the opinion of Sir John Hext on a question of that kind to even the opinion of the noble Earl. The noble Lord may or may not be a good judge in the purchase of horses. Evidently the Yeomanry Committee did not think he was. I was not on the Provisional Committee which the noble Marquess appointed on December 21st; I was not appointed till January 4th, and I do not know what happened in the two weeks during which the noble Earl thought he had—as he may have

1217
had, for all I know—authority to purchase horses. But, apparently, for some reason or other, the Provisional Committee had not sufficient confidence in the noble Earl to suggest to the Secretary of State that he should remain in the position which he had occupied for the first two or three weeks. The noble Earl who spoke last described the purchase of these Austrian horses at the prices named as a great scandal.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: Which price do you mean? I only quoted from the Report of the Committee.
LORD HARRIS: It is a fact, as the noble Lord who represented the War Office pointed out, that Mr. Yon Folgár stated in his evidence that a fair price was £26
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: Does not that shew that you cannot get a proper horse for £8 or £12
LORD HARRIS: There is a difference of opinion as to what is a fair price for these Hungarian horses. Therefore you have to fall back on this—did you get horses worth having? I admit that there is also a difference of opinion about that. At any rate, you have the opinion of Colonel Maclean that the horses were good horses. The noble Earl prefers the word of some German waiter to that of Colonel Maclean. It is not the first time that members of his Party have endeavoured to throw obloquy on British soldiers. Personally, I would prefer the word of the British officer to that of the German waiter. We have the evidence, not of Colonel Maclean alone, but of the remount officer in South Africa, who expressed the opinion that they were first-class horses. I will not go into details. The evidence in this Blue-book is most conflicting. I have no doubt that the Yeomanry Committee made mistakes. Having regard to the pressure, the difficulty of even obtaining apartments in which to do their work and of taking counsel together, they would have been more than human if they had not. But I am Convinced that they did their best at a time of great crisis. It was im-
1218
possible in the time and with the means at disposal to secure that discussion in Committee of every step taken which was desirable. We had to leave a great deal of executive action to the heads of the Departments, who reported to us afterwards. I daresay mistakes were made which would have been avoided if proper discussion had been possible. The question, however, as regards the Yeomanry Committee is, did they, or did they not, deserve well of the State? I never agreed with the then Secretary of State (the Marquess of Lansdowne) about the appointment of that Committee; I believe the work could have been done by expanding the War Office a little and operating directly with the Yeomanry Colonels. What I contend is that the Yeomanry Committee did their best under very difficult circumstances; and if they have made mistakes I am perfectly certain that your Lordships and the country, having regard to the services they performed at a time of very severe crisis, will overlook those mistakes and endorse the extremely handsome compliment which the noble Marquess paid to the Committee before it was dissolved.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I am sure your Lordships will think it natural that I should desire, before this discussion closes, to say a few words about events in which I was personally a good deal concerned, and for some of which I am very largely responsible. Let me at once associate myself with what was said by my noble friend behind me (Lord Raglan) that neither now nor then does the War Office in any way disclaim responsibility for the proceedings of the Yeomanry Committee. On the contrary, having myself been responsible for their appointment, I take in the fullest possible degree the responsibility which belongs to me for the manner in which they performed their task. Of course, I am not going to tell your lordships that for every detailed action of the Committee I am prepared to make myself responsible. I should be inclined to say, after hearing the speeches which have been delivered to-night, that the members of the Yeomanry Committee did not, to use an expression which this debate has made classical, always "homologate" very closely.

1219
The speech made by the noble Earl (Lord Lonsdale) afforded a strong evidence of that fact. With regard to that speech, which made an impression on the House, I find in the original Army Order of January 4th, 1900, which called the Yeomanry Committee into existence, that the noble Earl is described as being in charge of the department of saddlery and horse equipment, and Colonel St. Quintin as having been responsible for the Department of Remounts. I cannot help thinking that when the noble Earl issued, as he appears to have done, large orders, not for saddlery, but for horses, he must have been poaching on the preserve of his colleague.
THE EARL OF LONSDALE: I would remind the noble Marquess of a letter which I received dated December 21st, and that I was sent for by the Under Secretary. I was instructed to buy up to 1,700 horses immediately, and the order was signed by Sir Evelyn Wood, who authorised me to pay for them.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Here is the officially printed Paper, in which the noble Earl is described in the manner I have indicated.
LORD TWEEDMOUTH: May I recall to the recollection of the noble Marquess the fact that on December 23rd, 1899, a paragraph appeared in The Times referring to a Provisional Committee for the Yeomanry to assist in organising the Yeomanry force. Among those forming it were Lord Chesham, Colonel Lucas, and Mr. Walter Long. The Earl of Lonsdale was stated to have promised to assist the Committee in obtaining the horses.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I think that the noble Lord has "homologated" the matter. But a few days afterwards Colonel St. Quintin became responsible, and solely responsible, for the Remount Department. Assuming, however, that the Yeomanry Committee did make occasional mistakes, I suggest to your Lordships that you should never lose sight of the circumstances in which that Committee began its labours. Some of us seem inclined to forget the dark days we passed through at the end of 1899 and at the beginning
1220
of 1900. I, at any rate, am not likely to forget them. Your Lordships have been reminded often that our Army system, which had been accepted by successive Governments, contemplated that we should in the event of a foreign war send out of this country two Army Corps, or about 70,000 men. It was generally understood that we should probably send out one Army Corps at the outset of the campaign, and that as time went on we should endeavour to send out a second. What happened in 1899? Between the beginning of the war and the end of the year we had already embarked 90,000 men, equivalent to the whole of the two Army Corps and 20,000 men besides. It was evident to every one who watched events in South Africa that we were only at the beginning of our troubles. You have probably been told that in 1900 we embarked for South Africa 140,000 men and 113,000 horses; in the following year we embarked 78,000 men and 130,000 horses. In these figures I do not include the troops which were raised in South Africa or the large numbers of horses and mules collected in that country. That was the situation at the beginning of 1900. We had sent out of the country a large part of our available troops, including the greater part of our cavalry, and we had to provide large quantities of extra troops to keep the campaign going. It was obvious by that time that the troops we should require would have to be to a great extent mounted men. The noble Earl below the gangway (Lord Rosebery) has once again paraded before your Lordships that venerable assertion that on the outbreak of the war the Government had discouraged the colonies from sending mounted troops. It is put in this way—that the Colonies offered mounted troops, and that we snubbed them and said that we did not want any. That story is repeated in every military debate. I ask your permission once again to remind the House of the actual facts as they occurred. We sent out with the first troops that went to South Africa more than the usual proportion of cavalry. We also arranged that with each battalion of infantry there should be a company of mounted infantry,

1221
and when the question of making use of the Colonial troops came up we began by accepting the services of three small bodies of Colonial mounted infantry. That in itself is a proof that we did not set our faces against the employment of Colonial mounted troops. Then came the moment when from all over the Colonies offers of assistance, mostly in general terms, were received by the War Office. It was necessary to send some kind of answer to the Colonies at once. We consulted the general who was to have the chief command in the field, Sir Redvers Buller, and in consultation with him it was determined that we should inform the Colonies, who were at that moment offering in some cases cavalry, in others artillery, and in others infantry, that at that particular moment infantry would be most serviceable and cavalry least serviceable. Cavalry and mounted infantry are different things. The reason infantry were asked for was that it was proposed that we should attach small bodies of Colonial soldiers to the units of Imperial soldiers already at the Cape. It was a proposal very much approved at the time by the Colonies, and it was a reasonable one. At that time we were dealing altogether with a force of not more than 1,500 Colonial troops. A short time after, when the question of larger colonial contingents was being discussed, I find that we took 4,700 mounted men from the Colonies, as against 2,400 unmounted men. It is, to say the least, a gross exaggeration to represent the then War Office as having repudiated the offers of mounted troops from the Colonies.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: I quoted from the speech of a Colonial Prime Minister. The statement was that they offered mounted men, and that the Department said they did not want them.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: At one moment, with reference to this small body—about 1,500 troops—we said that we preferred infantry to cavalry and artillery.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: I only give the authority of the colonial Prime Minister.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I want the House to understand this—
1222
that it is upon that slender, infinitesimal foundation that this charge of crass ignorance, stupidity, and obstinacy has been built up, and thrown again and again at the War Office. Well, my Lords, it was at that moment of stress and difficulty that we became aware that commanding officers of the Yeomanry were prepared to give us their assistance, and we appointed that committee of which so much has been said tonight. I welcomed the proposal. The noble Lord behind me (Lord Harris) suggested that it might have been as well to dispense with a Committee and operate through the officials of the War Office. I hailed the assistance of the Committee with delight for two reasons. In the first place it afforded a very great relief to a number of men who were overworked at that time to an extent which can only be realized by those who were, as I was, behind the scenes. In the next place it was so constantly dinned into my ears that nothing could be well or intelligently done by any one inside the War Office, that they were so hidebound, so tied up in bandages of red tape, that it seemed to me not a bad thing to make an experiment and see what results could be obtained by delegating some of this business to persons who were not under the suspicion of being saturated with the evil traditions of the War Office, I have often thought that some day or other an essay might be written on the question of red tape. I have myself a strong belief that without red tape in moderation no public business can be satisfactorily transacted. But I do admit that we have sometimes rather too much of it, and a shrewd observer once said to me that the worst variety of red tape with which he was familiar was the red tape which was stiffened by military pipe clay. I think that there is some truth in that; at any rate, here was a grand opportunity of emancipating ourselves from red tape. I hold that the Yeomanry Committee did a very great service to the country. It may have paid too much for some of these horses, but it procured, before dissolving, 11,000 soldiers, of whom I will take leave to say in the presence of the Commander-in-Chief that they formed a very valuable accession of strength to

1223
the South African Army; and the same organisation, a part of which survived after the Yeomanry Committee was dissolved, was instrumental in obtaining for us 25,000 more Yeomanry, most of whom, though a few might not have been quite up to the mark, were excellent and valuable troops.
What is the charge against the Yeomanry Committee? It is that they paid too much—that when they paid £33 a head for these Hungarian horses they made a very bad bargain for the country. On the face of it, the amount has nothing extravagant about it. The price of an Austrian remount is £35. But the great complaint is that these transactions put a large sum of money into the pockets of the middleman. It is easy to overrate the importance of that argument. The middleman always comes in for a great deal of abuse, but he is a very necessary person, and you cannot get on without him, particularly at moments of great pressure and stress. It would have been absolutely impossible for the War Office to send out agents to travel all over Austria-Hungary and to buy horses direct from the breeders. I submit to the House that the only possible thing was to find a good middleman or middlemen, and to make the best bargain you could with them. Of course, when you are in a hurry to buy—and, I take it, that will be confirmed by the experience of any of your Lordships who have had transactions in horseflesh—you have to pay dear, and the middleman makes his profit out of you. The real question, however, seems to me to be, not so much whether we paid too much for them, but whether they were bad or good animals. As to that, there, is a very great conflict of evidence, I confess that the evidence against the horses seems to me to be much more open to suspicion than the evidence in favour of the horses.
What is the evidence against the horses? There are produced testimonials from rival dealers, from disappointed sellers—letters, written after the event, saying that they saw in So and-So's stable a very badly broken-down animal, and that they believed it was sold to the Government. That is
1224
evidence which must be received, I think, with a good many grains of salt, and so must the evidence of a gentleman like the other middleman, Mr. Von Folgár. Of course, Mr. Von Folgár, and all the Folgár gang, will be ready to condemn the horses supplied by Mr. Hauser and his friends. That, I take it, is obvious. And then, to crown the edifice, we have the affidavit of the waiter. I do not believe that in any Parliamentary debate a more extraordinary piece of evidence has ever been tendered. How that wonderful document was procured, and who paid for it, we are not privileged to know. But where is this to end? If we are to have an affidavit from the waiter, some one may put in a counter affidavit from the boots, and then there will be a rebutter from the chambermaid. I really do not know to what length this extraordinary testimony is to be carried. I own I attach much more importance to the evidence of a man like Colonel Maclean, and certainly to the evidence of a witness like Lord Valentia, who was examined by the Committee, and who testified that when those horses arrived Colonel Birkbeck—Colonel Birkbeck was the remount officer in South Africa, and the kind of person from whom the noble Earl opposite wishes to get reports as to the quality of these remounts—stated that these Austrian horses were by a great deal the best remounts he had seen come out. I say a bit of evidence like that to my mind outweighs all the evidence of the disappointed horse dealers, the waiters, and the other people.
I wish to say one word about the Remount Department, which, of course, is a separate matter from that of the Imperial Yeomanry Committee. I must say I do not think that General Truman's evidence is of a very satisfactory character; but General Truman is, I should say, like many other gallant soldiers, a very bad witness before a Committee. I have known many men who are, when they are confronted by cross-examination, quite unable to do justice to their own case. What I think should be taken into account, when we are considering the alleged delinquencies

1225
of General Truman, is the fact that his Department is one of which it is the duty in an ordinary year to produce an average of 2,500 remounts for the Army, and that that demand was suddenly increased to such an extent that, in the first six months of the year 1900, the Remount Department had to provide no less than 80,000 horses. Of course, the strain on the Department was such that a breakdown of some kind was almost inevitable. But, after all, when it comes to General Truman, and the purchase of the Austrian horses, your Lordships will find that the Committee in the Report which has been so often quoted, testify that they have heard no complaint of this contract, that satisfactory horses seem to have been obtained, and that the profit was not an unreasonable profit when the risk is taken into consideration. I think, therefore, that so far as that transaction is concerned, your Lordships should hesitate before you condemn General Truman for the purchases which he made for His Majesty's Government.
But then the noble Earl complains of us, in strong language, because the Remount Department was insufficiently provided with information as to the sources of horse supply to which we might look, in case of such a crisis as that through which we were passing. The noble Earl referred especially to our alleged failure to buy horses from Canada. I always listen with a great deal of sympathy to anything that is said in favour of the Dominion of Canada, but I do happen to remember that with regard to the possibility of buying Canadian horses, we were told that there was a very great risk in sending horses out in the middle of the Canadian winter, which is one of very extreme severity, to the climate of South Africa, and for that reason it was not desirable to resort to Canadian sources of supply to the extent which might have been desired. As to other sources of supply, it has been constantly assumed in these discussions that the War Office sat with folded arms and took no steps whatever to ascertain where horses and other transport animals could best be obtained. I am able to say that in the month of July, 1899, which was some time before the war broke out, we sent officers to Italy,
1226
Spain, the United States, and to Australia, for the express purpose of marking down and ascertaining where horses and mules could best be obtained.
Then we come to the alleged failure of the Remount Department to make use of the assistance of the Military Attachés. There is the extraordinary story of Colonel St. Quintin's telegram to Colonel Wardrop; but surely the fact that Colonel St. Quintin omitted to sign his telegram puts that argument, so far as this particular affair is concerned, out of Court. The Remount Department by that time had acquired a very considerable amount of information with regard to the best source of horse supply, and was buying horses all over the world at a great rate, and I doubt extremely whether anything would, have been gained by dragging the Military Attachés into the matter. I should certainly be inclined to suggest that it would be impossible to use them as agents for the purchase of horses. I believe that that would be probably and not improperly objected to by the Governments to which they are accredited. The utmost that they could have done for us would have been to give us the names of vendors of horses, and of these vendors, by that time, we had a very considerable number already upon our list. But I fully admit that one of the lessons of this war has been that the Remount Department should be placed upon a footing better adapted to copy with a great emergency, more particularly because in the wars of the future mounted troops are likely to play a more considerable part than they have done in former days.
There is one other thing which I should like to say, and that is to express my belief that a great part of these complaints, as to the bad quality of the remounts which went out to South Africa are attributable to the fact that these wretched horses, when they got there, were not given sufficient time to recover from the effects of the journey before they were sent up to the front. You may choose the finest animals in the world, but if you land them exhausted by a long sea journey and put them to hard work at once they will fail you and will become "flat-catchers," and worthy of any other designation of the kind that you may think fit to attach to them. While that is the case I am bound to say that, so

1227
far as the care of the horses on shipboard is concerned, the War Office authorities have, to my mind, a very good case indeed. They are able to show that out of something like 300,000 horses altogether only 3½ per cent. were lost on the journey to South Africa, and of the large number of mules sent out only 2½ per cent. I dwell on this fact, for I remember distinctly the charges that were made—the "scandals" as they were termed—in relation to the shipment of horses, the rotten forage, and the defective horse-fittings. It was just one of those cases where the word "scandal" was freely buzzed all over the place. These figures, however, I think, show that this part of the work of the Quartermaster-General's Department was done in a very creditable manner indeed. As I said a moment ago, these wretched horses were sent to the front in an exhausted state, and consequently they died in great numbers, and I know nothing to my mind in the story of this campaign more pitiable, or which fills me with deeper compassion, than the thought of the sufferings to which these poor dumb creatures were subjected in their short existence at the seat of war.
There was only one way in which this evil could have been remedied, and that would have been by the accumulation in Cape Colony before the war broke out of a very large reserve of horses and transport animals. So far as our knowledge now goes, I am inclined to say that nothing short of a reserve of some 40,000 or 50,000 would have been of any appreciable use for such a purpose. I do not suppose that anybody will contend that the Government then in power, or any Government, could have accumulated such a reserve of horses in South Africa in the circumstances then existing. Think what would have been said here and elsewhere if we had attempted anything of the kind. What would have been said by the critics who tried continually, in the summer of 1899, to show not only that there was no cause for war but no cause for preparation for war? It is humanly certain that if we had begun to collect a great reserve of horses of this kind the immediate effect would have been to precipitate hostilities, and the invasion
1228
of British territory earlier than it actually occurred.
Then the noble Earl complains that we do not grant an immediate inquiry, but I can assure him there is no desire at the War Office to shield culprits if there be any. He has represented us as trying to put him off with the Court of Inquiry on General Truman. The noble Earl spoke of shifting the matter on to a Military Court of Inquiry, but I can assure him that nothing of the kind is desired by us. The Court of Inquiry on General Truman is not intended as a substitute for the fuller inquiry promised. General Truman asked for a Court of Inquiry, and according to the regulations he has a right to this Court, and will obtain it. But that is not an attempt to elude another and more far-reaching inquiry for which the noble Earl is so anxious. But that larger inquiry could not, in my opinion, take place with advantage at this moment. It would unquestionably involve the summoning of a large number of officers now at the front and others concerned in the management of the Remount Department, and also officers of those corps to which remounts have been attached, and who alone can tell us what the quality of the animals was. The noble Earl asks if we are going to lay on the Table any reports from South Africa, and I am able to tell him we are going to lay reports from South Africa, and that these reports will refer to Hungarian and other kinds of horses. What we most desire is that these matters shall be thoroughly cleared up. If there are culprits let them by all means be punished for their offences, but, to my mind, this is a comparatively small consideration. The important consideration is that we should spare no pains to turn to account our dearly-bought experience, and that the Remount Department for the future shall be placed on a footing which will render it amply competent to deal with any emergency it will hereafter be called upon to meet.
EARL SPENCER: My Lords, this is not a convenient time to enter upon a discussion of a very serious character, and I will not go at length into the subject, but after the speech of the noble Marquess I feel bound to say a few words. The noble Marquess seemed to think that those who were making criticisms on this matter were not doing

1229
justice to the services of the Yeomanry Committee. Now we who are on this side of the House consider that the Yeomanry Committee did very great service. They did good service in bringing forward a class of men, who, no doubt, have been of value in the South African war. They had a large share in the work, and we ought to thank the Committee, and be grateful. At the same time, we hardly think that some of their work was successful. The noble Marquess speaks as if there had been no inquiry and no report on this matter. Of course, he may say that further inquiry should not be made on account of the difficulty of obtaining evidence from officers in the field. He may say that, but he appears to me to disregard the report now before us. I cannot help thinking that this report, a most valuable report, ought to lead to great reform and the stopping of great abuses in connection with this subject of remounts. Now that this Committee has been successful in showing up—it is a word the noble Marquess does not like, but I venture to use it—these great scandals in connection with the purchase of horses, we claim that the same inquiry should be made on a broad basis, independent of this military inquiry.
The subject has been amply discussed, and I will not go over the ground again, but I may mention one thing in regard to those purchases of horses. It is said we were in an emergency and should have been glad to get anything at any price. Now it appears to me that this Committee, or those who went out, had apparently a cut-and-dried plan; they were to buy horses up to a certain price, and the price to be paid in Hungary and elsewhere was such as probably might have been paid in this country. The noble Marques has spoken of middlemen as necessary, and so they may be, but not to such an extent that out of £111,000 a profit of £44,000 should go into their pockets. I conceive there has been a gross scandal, and if anything of the kind has occurred in other places the sooner it is stopped the better. The noble Marquess has quoted two friends of mine and their evidence. Viscount Valentia, as everybody knows, is an admirable judge of horses; he has been master of hounds, and an enormous number of horses have passed through his hands. He does not
1230
entirely commend these Hungarian horses, and there are passages which show that his opinion is not far from the description "flat-catchers." I hardly think that anybody with knowledge of horses will say that the noble Viscount's description is that of a horse that will do heavy work in a rough country. Another friend of mine, Colonel Wardrop, is now military attachéat Vienna, and I agree it would be a bad thing to employ an officer in that position to buy horses; but when he happens to be an expert as Colonel Wardrop is, I think those who had to buy should have obtained information from him. He is a brilliant rider, and one of the best possible judges, and has been resident in Vienna for a long time, and I have no doubt is well acquainted with the classes of horses to be bought. His account is not a flattering or satisfactory one. I cannot help impressing on His Majesty's Government the immense importance of this inquiry, which should be carried out promptly and thoroughly. Such scandals as have been shown to have occurred should be prevented elsewhere. We have a strong case for pressing the Government to insist on further inquiry.
House adjourned at a quarter past Eight o'clock, till to-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.