MILITARY EDUCATION.

HL Deb 17 July 1902 vol 111 cc470-505

*LORD MONKSWELL

My Lords, I rise, in accordance with the notice standing in my name on your Lordships' Paper, to call attention to the Report of the Committee on Military Education, to ask His Majesty's Government what steps they propose to take to carry the recommendations of the Committee into effect, and to move that in the opinion of this House immediate steps should be taken with a view to remedy the deplorable state of things disclosed in the Report, and in particular that an Inspector-General of Military Education, with an adequate staff, should be at once appointed in accordance with the recommendations of the Report. Three mouths ago the public were very disagreeably startled by the Report of the Committee appointed by His Majesty's Government to inquire into this subject. The Report, as is well known, condemned in scathing terms the present system of military education. I do not want to be unduly pessimistic, nor to use language of exaggeration. I am perfectly aware that successive Governments have done their best to deal with this subject, and I say at once that I think the results of the labours of the Committees and Commissions that have sat and reported on the subject have not been altogether fruitless. There can be no doubt that the subject of military education has made much progress within the last forty or fifty years. Things were very different from what they are now in the time of what one of the witnesses described as the early Victorian Major, who knew nothing himself, and did not see why anybody else should know anything. But just now the subject is in a backwater. I have received a letter today from perhaps the most distinguished of Army coaches, who writes to say, that at this moment, owing to the inertia of the War Office, things are worse than ever. He states that there is no military training worthy of the name at Aldershot or at any other station; that the ordinary general education of officers is going from bad to worse, and that it is a public scandal that young officers sent to India have to be taught arithmetic by the regimental schoolmasters. I venture to think that everybody will agree that the Report of the Committee on military education is worthy of the respect and attention of the public and of this House. The Committee was presided over by a Cabinet Minister—Mr. Akers Douglas. There were six other members on the Committee, three of whom were civilians. Of the three civilians, two—Dr. Warre and Mr. F. W. Walker—are headmasters of great public schools, viz., Eton and St. Pauls, the other being Sir Michael F. Foster, a. distinguished scientist and a Member of Parliament. The other three members were the present Governor of the Royal Military Academy (Major General Jelf), Captain A. H. Lee, M.P., and Lieutenant-Colonel F. Hammersley, who are all well-known educational experts. There are two aspects of military education—education as regards the efficiency of the Army, and education as regards the status of the officer at home and abroad. I am perfectly ready to admit that in the late war, as in previous wars, it has been shown that it is quite possible for an officer to be extremely illiterate and yet an excellent soldier. But we have not only to look at military efficiency. If the officers of the British Army have not the ordinary education of an English gentleman, their status in this country and in other countries will be greatly reduced. I have met with men not Pedants nor particularly addicted to culture who have spoken in contemptuous terms of officers in the Army because they are so extremely ignorant. In this connection I should like to say that the chief complaint on the score of education, which is repeated over and over again in the evidence — and it is an extremely important one from a military point of view—is that a very large number of officers are unable to write an intelligent report.

THE EARL OF CORK

Many of them cannot even write a letter.

*LORD MONKSWELL

At all events; a large number of them cannot write a report which is intelligible. That is very serious from the point of view of military efficiency. At the present time it is more than ever necessary that a British officer should be sufficiently intelligent—I do not say that it is absolutely necessary that he should know much about grammar—but that he should have sufficient powers of observation and be sufficiently intelligent and sufficiently master of the English language to write a report that can be understood by those to whom it is sent. In former days, under the old system of artillery and rifles of very short range, the commander in the field of battle had a great many of the operations under his own immediate supervision, and was not so dependent on reports from officers as he is now, when, owing to the vast range of artillery and rifles, it is impossible for a commander to know all that is going on. The one bright spot in the Committee's Report is the evidence of the excellence of the officers who come from the Universities. Probably the reason why these officers are so popular in military circles is that they have that general education of an English gentleman which, I am sorry to say, some officers from Sandhurst appear to lack. The Committee mention in their Report what they consider to be the principal cause of this ignorance, and it is quite sufficient to account for everything. They state that there is absolutely no incentive to learning at Sandhurst. It seems to me, as a civilian, to be a perfectly astounding state of things that absolutely no notice is taken of superior merit in the various examinations at Sandhurst. We all know that there is an entrance examination for Sandhurst, that there is an examination out of Sandhurst, and also examinations to qualify for promotion; but the unanimous verdict of the service members who were witnesses before this Committee was that absolutely no account whatever is taken of whether a man just scrapes through his examination or passes with distinction. The remedy proposed by the Committee is promotion by selection in all ranks of the Army, but the Commander-in-Chief takes a different view, and thinks that in the lower ranks promotion should be by seniority. That is a very grave divergence of opinion. I am not at all sure, speaking for myself, that the Commander-in-Chief is not right if human nature is not equal to the task of honest selection by merit. Not very long ago the Secretary of State for War said he would never be influenced in the slightest extent by social considerations. Those are brave words, and I hope the Secretary of State will always act up to them, but is he quite certain that other people will never be influenced by such considerations? It all depends upon this: Does a system of promotion by selection mean promotion by merit or promotion by favouritism? If it means promotion by favouritism, then promotion by favouritism tempered by seniority is better than promotion by favouritism tempered by nothing at all. I put it to noble Lords opposite whether it is not possible that there should be a working compromise between the view of the Commander-in-Chief and the view of the Committee on that extremely important point? Is it not possible to introduce into the Army the system that works so well in the Navy, by which officers who pass well out of the "Britannia," and also well in the examination for the rank of lieutenant, gain automatically about three years' seniority over those who are last on the list, without any suspicion of favouritism at all? I suggest that perhaps that compromise might be a solution of this very great difficulty.

Now, as to the terms of my Motion. The Government will not deny that the state of things, as disclosed by the Report, is deplorable. To show how deplorable that state of things is, I propose to make a few comments on the Report and the evidence. I do not propose to go into the evidence as to Woolwich, because I think Woolwich has come out of the ordeal fairly well; but there are certain considerations which apply both to Woolwich and to Sandhurst. The Committee report that cadets, having no incentive to learn, join more ignorant than they ought to be, and that when they are officers they have no inducement to keep up even the little knowledge they ever possessed. The words of the Committee in paragraph 93 of the Report are— The Committee regret to report that the general condition of education at the Royal Military College is far from satisfactory. In the first place, the cadets cannot be expected to derive much benefit from their instruction at Sandhurst, when it is clearly established that they have absolutely no inducement to work. This inducement is not afforded by the number of marks necessary to qualify for a commission, nor by the fact that those who fail to reach the low qualifying standard demanded, are excluded from the Army. Indeed, there is too much reason to fear that even those cadets who fail to attain this standard have been commissioned none the less. General Sir Ian Hamilton was interrogated by the Committee as to the keenness of the Sandhurst cadets, and he was asked— Have you found in your experience in South Africa that there is a tendency among young officers, after they have joined their unit and have got their commission and passed oft Barrack Square, to think there is nothing more to do for a good many years and to take it easy? Sir Ian Hamilton replied— There is a very lax standard in that way; it is perfectly extraordinary. I was at Hythe the other day, and the Commandant told me what a pleasure it was to him to have a Volunteer and Yeomanry class there. After his lecture the officers would crowd round him and argue and dispute on points, and show the very greatest interest; whereas, on the other hand, Sandhurst boys who had been there did not at all display this interest, and the young officers in the regular Army were chiefly concerned in thinking very much of when the afternoon train went up to London. Sir George Clarke was questioned by Captain Lee on the subject, and he replied that— A naval sub-lieutenant, if he gets at his examination a certain number of stars—that is, first class in certain subjects—is a made man from that time, and he knows it; but as to the Army Promotion Examination, if you scrape through it does not matter whether you do so by the skin of your teeth or whether you get honours. I have never heard of its making the slightest difference. The evidence of Major Edwards, R.E., of the Intelligence Department, was to the same effect. He said— Officers are selected for appointments for various reasons, but not on account of any previous record to be found in papers. The Governor of Sandhurst, Sir E. Markham, said that he had known the case of a cadet removed for misconduct by the Commander-in-Chief being gazetted in five weeks to the Militia and joining the Cavalry within a year. Colonel Lonsdale Hall, a well-known authority on the subject of tactics, aid— There is no incentive to the boy at Sandhurst to work, absolutely no incentive of any kind whatever. With regard to the complaint that there is no inducement to keep up knowledge after joining the Army, I would quote from the evidence of that well-known Army Coach, Lieut.-Col. Moores. He said that his pupils often came to him after they had been some time in the Army, and he was greatly astonished at their want of knowledge in military subjects. Their excuses generally for this falling off had, he said, been— I have never looked at a military work or at the subjects since I joined the regular Army so many years ago; I have forgotten all the military subjects I knew on joining; no person has ever encouraged me to keep up my knowledge of the subjects, and, in fact, if I were to read or talk about reconnaissance, or field work, or strategy, or military history, the senior officers would not be pleased with me, so I fell into the groove of doing only what the others did, which generally was playing billiards or cards, or smoking cigarettes or reading, or talking in the mess or quarters, for some hours daily when not on parade or at the orderly room. Colonel Moores gave an instance. He said— One officer, who made over 1900 marks, and was the second or third from the top of the list at the Militia Competitive Examination about five years ago, came to me for tuition just before the Boer War to enable him to pass the examination for promotion, and his excuse was: 'I have forgotten all the subjects which you taught me so thoroughly; I am in the old groove again, forgetting all I should retain; I wish we had a system of regular professional work. I suppose I shall have to ask your aid again later on to be crammed for the rank of Major.' Colonel Lawley, who is in command of a cavalry regiment, said that he knew of a cavalry officer who had been eight years in the service, and had never during the whole of that time had a favourable report, and yet he still remained in the service. If the cadets have no incentive to learn, it is equally true that the instructors have absolutely no incentive to teach. On that point the Committee say— The weight of evidence, however, leads to the conclusion that an instructional appointment is regarded in the Army generally as a shelf on which an officer may spend a few years comfortably, avoiding the monotonous routine of life in barracks and the constant changes of station, which constitute such a serious tax upon the pocket of the married officer. The Committee go on to say that the year's probation, which every instructor is supposed to undergo, is practically a farce. They state that— In the replies to a series of questions submitted to the Governor by the Committee will be found, in the reply to question 21, the statement that it has never been necessary in recent years to cancel such an appointment or to revert an officer to his regiment at the end of his year's probation. The Committee are, however, unable to share in the Governor's satisfaction with this fact, or with the present method of selecting instructors as described in. his evidence. I can understand that to instructors who merely instruct to obtain a livelihood, and not because they have any special aptitude for teaching, or wish to identify themselves with the teaching profession, the life may be tolerable; but I cannot imagine anything more disheartening than the position of instructors whose duty it is to instruct young men animated by no desire to learn, and who, if by any chance they are successful in making them learn, get no credit for the result. The position of the Assistant-Commandant at Sandhurst would also appear to be by no means a bed of roses, for though he works exceedingly hard he is obliged to administer a system of which he entirely disapproves. He was questioned, for instance, about the-system of teaching cadets to ride. I am not going into the question whether the present system of teaching is a good one or a bad one, but it is condemned by the Assistant-Commandant as an iniquitous system and most injudicious. This does not matter very much, for, as a matter of fact, the cadets have hardly any riding at all at Sandhurst. In the whole course, which has now been cut down to a year, the cadet is only about thirty-five hours in the saddle as contrasted with an hour daily spent in barrack square close-order drill One would suppose that the military authorities would see that good text-books were provided, but the text-books are universally condemned, and Captain Lee, a member of the Committee, observed that the text-book on topography was "probably one of the worst books of its kind in the world."

Then the Committee comment on rather a singular circumstance connected with the training of cadets. They say in paragraph 101— As an illustration of the system pursued, it appears that the cadets are required to pipe-clay their own buff waistbelts, but that their rifles are cleaned for them. This is remarkable, for while a cadet might acquire a familiarity with the mechanism of the rifle from being required to clean it, the educational value of pipe-claying a belt is extremely slight. Again, my Lords, going back to paragraph 99, the Committee express surprise at learning that the cadets are not instructed in either musketry or revolver shooting at Sandhurst, though range accommodation is available in the immediate neighbourhood. They add— The Committee are still more surprised to learn that such cadets as were able to find time to shoot have to join a club and pay a subscription of £1 a term. This may be contrasted with the system at Woolwich, where, though musketry is impossible owing to there being no range, all cadets are required to shoot with the revolver, and are put through a regular course and provided with free ammunition. There is another matter with which the Committee are not particularly pleased, and that is the question of tipping the servants, about which we heard something the other day. The system of giving gratuities I attribute to the payment of insufficient wages to the servants, and the authorities have set their faces against a system of tipping which they themselves were responsible for setting up. At Woolwich the cadets are told that they must not tip the servants, but it is a well-known fact that they do tip them, and there the matter ends. But with regard to Sandhurst, the authorities have taken a further and a very foolish step. They put before the cadets every month lithographed forms, which they are required to sign, declaring that they have not tipped the servants. The appreciation which the cadets entertain for this document is shown by the fact that they call the paper the "monthly lie." With regard to this "monthly lie," I should like to quote what Dr. Warre said— The point I want to urge is, that there being things of that sort, gives an opportunity for the less scrupulous to formulate a habit which becomes a habit of mind and tradition, and it seems to me it does go dead against the sense of honour and the sense of right. If it is the case, as we have certain reason to believe, that these certificates are not regarded by the cadets as a very serious thing, and are often signed pro forma, then it seems as if it was allowing to grow up in the mind of a young fellow who is to be an officer a very queer notion of honour and right. The whole matter is summed up in the following short sentences in paragraph 131 of the Committee's Report— The Committee are compelled to report that the evidence laid before them has brought out in the strongest light the grave fact that the military education of the junior officers in the Army is in a most unsatisfactory condition…. By no part of the evidence laid before them have the Committee been more impressed than by that which shows, in the clearest manner, the prevalence among the junior commissioned ranks of a lack of technical knowledge and skill, and of any wish to study the science and master the art of their profession. I have carefully gone through all the evidence with a view to finding out whether the scathing Report of the Committee is justified or not. I need not have given myself that trouble; it would have been sufficient to read the evidence of the Commander-in-Chief, who endorses the principal complaints made in the Report, though he differs as to the remedy. In reply to Question No. 8431, the Commander-in-Chief said— I think the general standard of education is not sufficiently high in the Army. Replying to Question No. 8434, he said— Officers when they join very often are unable to make a satisfactory report. Questioned as to the text-books (Question No. 8522), the Commander-in-Chief expressed the opinion that— The text books are susceptible of improvement. Asked in Question No. 8529 whether it was the fact that an officer had no inducement to work, and, if he wanted to work, had no opportunity of getting at books, the Commander-in Chief replied, "That is true." Can there be a more scathing condemnation of the present state of things than that? I quite admit that the responsibility falls to some extent upon previous Governments as well as upon the present Government, but though I may be prejudiced, I think that the present Government are the chief sinners in this matter. Dr. Maguire, the great Army coach, when he was examined, said that military education had been extremely bad since 1897. He drew a great distinction between military education before and after somewhere about that date. I say that the Government were guilty of a retrograde step when, in 1898, the Militia qualifying marks were reduced from 5,000 to 4,500, subsequently increased to 4,600. Since 1895 extra pay for languages has been greatly reduced; and in 1899, before the war, it was decided to reduce the course at Sandhurst from eighteen months to twelve months, and the office of Director General of Military Education, which had existed since 1869, was abolished. Without going into idle recriminations, I think I may be allowed to point out that in July, 1898, I remonstrated against this course, and was told that the abolition of this office was only experimental, and that the experiment would be carefully watched. Considering the deterioration of military education during the last four years while this experiment was being carefully watched, I should have thought that His Majesty's Government might have come to some decision in the matter, even before the Committee reported. I need scarcely say that my remonstrance was justified by the Report of the Committee, and also by the evidence on which the Report was based. I cannot understand how it is that the Government have allowed three months to elapse since the publication of the Report without taking the first and most necessary preliminary step of appointing a high official, with an adequate staff, to supervise the military education of the country. If they are not going to appoint a Director General or an Inspector General of Military Education, the Government will not only be flouting the Report of their own Committee — a thing they have done before—but they will be flouting the strongly expressed opinion of the Commander-in-Chief himself, who condemns the present system of handing over the whole supervision of military education to a Colonel with £800 a year. In answer to Question No. 8509, the Commander-in-Chief explained that there used to be a Director General of Military Education, and added— A few years ago it was altered and put under the Military Secretary's Department with an Assistant Military Secretary for Education. I do not think it is satisfactory. Further questioned, the Commander-in-Chief said (Question No. 8510) that the Military Secretary had absolutely no time to supervise his subordinate, and added — I do not know why it was ever put in the Military Secretary's Department. I agree with you (Mr. Akers Douglas) that he ought to be an officer acting on his own responsibility and of sufficient standing really to supervise education. The Commander-in-Chief also expressed the opinion that the Inspector General must have Assistant Inspectors. The Committee suggest an Advisory Board. I have not made any reference to an Advisory Board in my motion, because I think the first thing to do is to get your Inspector General, and then consult him with regard to the Advisory Board. I cannot understand how, in the face of this evidence, the Government can hesitate for a moment to make this appointment. In Paragraph 141, the Committee say — The Committee must lay stress on the vital importance of making one central authority responsible for the general supervision of the military education of the officers of the Army. The Committee would desire to see the office of Director General of Military Education revived, though they would prefer that this officer should bear the title of Inspector General of Military Education. I do not think I am unreasonable. I do not suggest that the Government should by this time have formulated a complete scheme. All I ask is, that the Government will at once take the one absolutely essential preliminary step in the reform of military education, and appoint someone to supervise that eduation. If anything is to be done, there must be some great official responsible, who, in colloquial language, can be hanged if anything goes wrong. No one is now responsible, and it is unsatisfactory and unfair to hang a subordinate. The Military Secretary has been nominally responsible for four years. But how can we place the responsibility on him when the Cominander-in-Ghief says that the Military Secretary has not a moment to spare for educational duties? Many of your Lordships are soldiers now, many have been soldiers, and every noble Lord takes a great interest in military education; and if the Government is against me, I appeal to this House, not in the interests of Party but in the interests of the Army and of the Empire, to affirm that this state of things shall go on no longer, and that the recommendations of the Committee and of the Commander-in-Chief shall prevail.

Moved," To resolve that, in the opinion of this House, immediate steps should be taken with a view to remedy the deplorable state of things disclosed in the Report of the Committee on Military Education, and in particular that an Inspector General of Military Education, with an adequate staff, should be at once appointed in accordance with the recommendation of the Report."—(Lord Monkswell.)

*LORD HARRIS

My Lords, having had similar experience to that of the noble Lord as Under Secretary for War, I desire to offer a few remarks upon the Report of this Committee. In the first place, I cordially agree with that part of the noble Lord's speech in which he commends in very high terms the work of the Committee and the time and attention they gave to the subject. Having had some experience of the trouble of getting evidence by Departmental Committees, I am sure your Lordships ought to be most grateful to this Committee for the immense time they gave to the subject and the very great pains they took to collect all available evidence. But I am afraid I cannot agree with the final conclusion to which the noble Lord has arrived. Having studied the Report and the evidence, he arrives at the conclusion that what he describes as a deplorable state of affairs can be remedied by the appointment of an Inspector General of Military Education. That is where I cannot agree with him. If he will eliminate the last sentence with reference to the immediate appointment of an Inspector General, I think I can agree with his Resolution. I quite concur with him that the present state of things is deplorable, but I do not think it is going to be remedied by the appointmeut of an Inspector General. I have had experience of this matter, and I must have been less fortunate than the noble Lord opposite, for I cannot conceive of such an Inspector General as I remember doing much to improve the Military Education of the Army. Of course, it depends on the man, and if you can find the right man, I daresay considerable improvement could be introduced in many ways, which I will indicate directly. But when a post has been created, there is always a tendency to put an officer into it who has done good service of some kind or another, and not necessarily the man who is most capable of carrying out the duties of that office. After the experience which I personally had, it would be impossible for me to agree that the first thing that is necessary is to appoint an Inspector General. I think myself that "Director General" would be the more appropriate title, because at the present moment I do not know what there is to inspect.

The Report of this Committee deals with two entirely different subject—with the education of the young gentleman who is going to adopt the Army as his profession, and with his education at one or two Military Institutions like Sandhurst or Woolwich which precedes his getting his commission. It also deals—and this is more important still—with the education of the officer after he has obtained his commission. What is the Inspector General going to inspect with regard to that? I think the noble Lord could easily count on his fingers the number of educational establishments in the Army for young officers. I suppose that nearly every officer goes to Hythe, that every Artillery officer goes to Shoeburyness, and every Engineering officer to the School at Chatham. There are also the signalling classes, but there is not room at those classes for all the officers of the Army. As regards Chatham and Woolwich, they are, of course, technical schools. There is nothing similar for the line officer, or the cavalry officer, to enable him to carry on his education after he has got into the Army. That is, I submit, why it would be difficult for an inspector-general to find anything to inspect, and therefore I think the title of director-general is more appropriate. The noble Lord referred to the fact that University candidates are more appreciated because they show sounder education; but then, they have had a longer education before they go into the Army. They are older men, for one thing, and they have had greater opportunities of study, and I should think that the general effect of a University education is also more likely to encourage them to work at their profession than what we know to be the case at Sandhurst. That is merely an opinion; but Sir Evelyn Wood, in his Paper, on page 129, which I am sure the noble Lord has read, refers to a very important point. He compares the length of the course which the officer of the American Army goes through with that which the officer of the British Army is required to undergo, and he refers to the United States Military Academy at West Point as an ideal cadet school. But the course at West Point extends over four years. Sir Evelyn Wood therefore strongly endorses what the noble Lord said with regard to the length of the course at Sandhurst, but the length of that course is largely affected by the demand for officers in the Army. If there is a sudden demand for a larger number of officers they have to be got through somehow or other, and the result is a pressure on the military authorities to reduce the length of the course at Sandhurst or Woolwich, as the case may be. That was, no doubt, the reason which induced the noble Marquess to consent to the reduction of the course at Sandhurst, which I agree with the noble Lord opposite was most undesirable. But he knows, as well as I do, that it is impossible to extend the living accommodation at Sandhurst suddenly, and, therefore, when there is a sudden demand for officers, I suppose the only alternative is to reduce the length of the course there.

The noble Lord, as far as I could gather, paid more attention in his speech to the education of the cadet at Sandhurst and Woolwich than to the chances of education which the officer gets after he has entered the Army. I, on the other hand, attach far more importance to the education of the officer after he has entered the Army, and, as regards that, I cordially agree with the noble Lord opposite that the present state of things is deplorable, but I cannot agree with him that an inspector general is going to rectify it. You have to create the educational institutions at which the young officer can receive this education. It has, I confess, hurt me, and I should think it must have hurt a good many of your Lordships, to read for some weeks, if not months past, in the daily press the opinions passed upon the British officer. During the war the greatest responsibilities were thrown on our young officers, who had frequently to lead their men in the face of certain death, to set an example to the men by being the first to rush into danger, to help the men to learn a new condition of warfare; and when I have read the criticisms to which these brave young officers have been subjected, I frankly say that my blood has boiled with indignation. If the young officer has not shown all the intelligence he might have, if he is not possessed of the best education he ought to have received, it is the system which is at fault and not the officer. I note the cheers of noble Lords opposite, but I am afraid I cannot agree with the noble Lord who moved the Motion now before your Lordships that a greater meed of blame is to be attached to the present Government than to the Government which preceded it. I do not think the system now in vogue is very different from what it was when the noble Lord was at the War Office. So far as the chances of education, after the young gentleman has got into the Army, are concerned, the system is the same now as when the noble Lord was Under Secretary of State for War. I am, however, quite ready to take my share of responsibility for not having done more while I was at the War Office for the education of the young officer.

What I want to show is that the young officer has no chance of going on from that stage of education at which he has arrived when he enters the Army, and of improving himself. Dr. Maguire, the Army coach, to whose opinion much value must be attached, states emphatically, on Page 77 of the evidence in the Blue-book that this is so. Elsewhere in the evidence it is pointed out that there are no textbooks. Therefore, how the young officer is to learn I do not know. Dr. Maguire says that the text-books should never be allowed to run out of print, as has been the case lately, but I do not know that that is a serious matter, because some officers have described the text-book as valueless. Dr. Maguire concluded— There is at present no pretence to a proper system of education in the Army. That, I agree, is most deplorable. As there are no text-books opportunities for theoretical study are wanting, and the evidence of Sir Evelyn Wood (Pages 124 and 125) clearly shows that the young officer has little opportunity, when once he has got into the Army, of practical study. Asked whether he thought sufficient steps were taken to encourage young officers to continue their studios, Sir Evelyn Wood replied that there were no adequate steps taken, nor was there any possibility of their continuing their studies. This evidence must be borne in mind when reading the somewhat scathing remarks of some officers with reference to the young officer. As regards text-books, General Ian Hamilton admits that there are no text-books on the subject of military history; that a blue pencil had to be freely used to make the text-book on topography useful, and that there should be official text-books on all these subjects. On the subject of the education of the officer I will quote the opinion of Lord Roberts, who said— It is true that the officer of the present day, although he may pass a competitive examination, has no inducement to work, and, if he wants to work, no opportunity of doing so. So that it is really not the fault of the young officer if he does not get on.

This is a question altogether above Party, and if the noble Lord opposite would put his Motion in another form I should be very glad to vote with him. It is a very serious matter to think that our young officers should have no opportunity of improving themselves in the profession they have taken up, but I cannot admit, as I have said, that an Inspector General is the person to effect a very great change. It requires a great deal more than that. After the young officer has got into the Army, Dr. Maguire tells us that he should have text-books to study theory and ground on which to be able to apply that theory to practice. Sir Evelyn Wood tells us that in many of the stations there is no ground on which they can carry out practice. It is a serious affair, and I urge that pressure should be brought upon the Treasury for more money, not only for educational purposes, but in order to acquire more ground, so that the officers can be adequately trained in the business of their profession. All this will cost money. You cannot set up schools of instruction for young officers without its costing money, and you cannot draw young officers away from their regiments for the purpose of instructing them without having more officers. At present officers dislike going away to schools of instruction because they know the amount of labour which their departure throws on their brother officers. Therefore, more officers will be required, and also a great deal of money, for the acquisition of more ground upon which to train them.

I quite admit that the Government is doing a great deal. It has obtained several good training grounds, but there are many stations in England where the troops cannot move off the road. How can a cavalry officer learn the important duties of reconnaissance — and the Report admits that these are the most important duties that can fall on a British officer at the present time—without the opportunity of crossing country over which manœuvre rights have been obtained? I submit that the pressure that ought to be brought to bear on the Government is not to appoint an officer with a high-sounding title, who may or may not be competent for the position, but to acquire more ground in the neighbourhood of military stations for officers and men to learn the business of their profession; and if my noble and gallant friend below me was personally responsible, I would take the liberty of asking him not to be afraid of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I remember the noble Marquess, whose departure from the high position of Prime Minister and Leader of this House we all deplore, making a speech early in the war in which, I will not say he complained of, but in which he described the power that the Treasury had in recent years obtained over all Departments. I should like to quote a case within my own memory in which a Secretary of State for War was too strong for a Chancellor of the Exchequer. I refer to Mr. W. H. Smith, who, when Secretary of State for War, successfully carried his point against so strong a Chancellor of the Exchequer as Lord Randolph Churchill, and, by sticking to his guns, obtained the money necessary for the efficiency of the Army. I do venture to suggest that in the present state of affairs, which, I agree with the noble Lord opposite, is deplorable, it is essential, for the proper education of the young officer after he has joined the service, that proper opportunities should be given him of studying the profession which he has taken up; and in order to enable him to do so, an increase of educational establishments is necessary, as well as more ground for training purposes.

*THE LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD

My Lords, I have been for nearly thirty-three years intimately associated with the training of young men for the Army. As head master of Clifton College, I established and developed its military side; as head master of Rugby, it was my duty to organise the military department; and as head of a college at Oxford, I was intimately concerned with the education of a good many young men who were hoping to become officers of the Army. That must be my excuse for venturing to detain your Lordships for a few minutes with some observations on the Report of this Committee. This Committee, I take it, is one of the results of the South African War, and, looking at the very stimulative and in many respects admirable Report which the Committee has presented, I venture to think that it is by no means the least valuable result of the war. But it does not seem to me to demonstrate that anything has occurred in the war to show the defects in the early training of the British officer. And for this reason: The war has been one of an extremely novel character; we have been fighting an unusually brave and determined white race of men, all horsemen and all sportsmen, with a passion for independence; and I anticipate and hope that never again will any of us see a British Army engaged against such a foe as that. The conditions of this war were so novel that for my part I do not believe that any amount of scientific training would have enabled our Army to do better than it has done. If this were the proper time, I should say that the war had rather demonstrated some deficiency in the training of some other parts of our English system, and especially of our politicians; but this is not the time to refer to that. The Report of the Committee lays stress on the need of the preliminary training of candidates for the Army being of a general character. I do not understand how the training of schoolboys is to be anything else but of a general nature, and I feel that the general education of the country in this connection can take care of itself.

The duty of the War Office is not to think of the general education of the boys, but to make it very clear what things the soldier should specially learn—what languages, for instance, what mathematics, what science, what draughts man ship, what geography, what history, and so on—and what physical aptitudes and accomplishments are of the greatest value to him. The curricula of the great military schools should be very carefully drawn, and the preliminary education of the officer subordinated to them. Here we have a great defect. Many of my old pupils have come back to tell me how their time at Woolwich and Sandhurst has been wasted by their being compelled to go over elementary work which they had done long before at school, under instructors who were, to say the least, as good. If there is one thing which is likely to extinguish the zeal of a young man for the profession, it is that kind of early experience; and therefore I say that one of the first things to be considered is the scheme of education at the military colleges. I pass over many interesting minor points, but there is one such valuable suggestion in the Report which deserves to be emphasised, and it is that a far more liberal supply of commissions ought to be offered to the colonies. I venture to think that this is a very valuable suggestion, because our colonies would be likely to contribute some of the finest officers procurable; and, in the second place, I know of nothing that would be more likely to weld together our groups of colonies into one harmonious Empire.

The Report recommends that Woolwich and Sandhurst should be maintained. My experience has led me to a somewhat different conclusion. My view in this matter, which I venture with all humility to put before your Lordships for what it is worth, is that for any real reform of the training of officers it is most important that both Woolwich and Sandhurst should be reconstituted; and my belief is that the best of all possible reforms would be to unite them into one great military school—you may call it your military Eton if you please—governed by a body on which the civilian element should be strongly represented. By way of indicating the sort of civilian element I should like to see on such a body, I would suggest that such representatives as the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, the Warden of All Souls', Oxford, and perhaps a representative of my own profession, might be of service on it. One great national institution such as I have suggested would tend to economy in administration; it would secure better instruction; and it would bring the whole body of cadets together and give them a knowledge of each other which would be of great advantage to them in after life. Moreover, I hold that in such a great institution you would of necessity have to depend to a, considerable extent on that form of self-government which Dr. Arnold did so much to introduce into our great public schools, and by means of that self-government you would introduce into the training of the great body of your cadets an element which some recent incidents at Sandhurst have shown to be lacking. And, again, in the course of the training in such an institution so governed you would find that the best soldiers would come to the front. That is my reason for dwelling with emphasis on the desirability of considering the reconstitution and the uniting of our great schools at Woolwich and Sandhurst.

There is one point which, singularly enough, has not yet been mentioned in this debate—the question of reducing the expenses of officers. Most of your Lordships know the inevitable expenses of a young officer which fall, on his parents. There are, I am sure, no parents who grudge any reasonable expenditure, but my conviction is that we shall never get a real body of working officers until we have very radically reduced the expenses of living that fall upon the young officer. The British Army wants working officers, and not young men with pockets full of money, a strong taste for amusements, and social aspirations. I am convinced that if the life of officers was so re-arranged as to make them working professional men, instead of amateurs, the best officers would come from homes where they have looked from their infancy at the pictures of their fighting ancestors, and they would be moved to devote themselves heart and soul to the work of their profession, with an ambition to do something worthy of their names. That is my feeling with regard to the question of expenses. I think the recommendation of the Committee on this point is far too timid; it only speaks of reducing expenses in cavalry regiments. But there are many infantry regiments in which the expenses of officers are far greater than they ought to be. There is a double waste in this system, for it often keeps out the poor man who might make the best soldier, and diverts the rich man from the pursuit of his profession.

There is another somewhat delicate point, which, to my mind, goes to the root of the whole matter. I refer to the question of promotion by selection, which, I presume, means promotion by merit, instead of by seniority. This is really a question whether officers shall have an open field to rise to lucrative and honourable places in the Army without any help from social influences and connections. I have ventured to say that this goes to the root of the matter, and, so far as I have been able to observe, there is a good deal of truth in the reports which are prevalent that there is no real inducement to a young officer to devote himself to his profession with zeal and industry, because, without family connection and without being known in the higher circles of society, he has not an equal chance of showing what he can do. It is commonly stated—I do not endorse the statement, but it is prevalent both in the Army and outside—that an inordinate proportion of opportunities, and even of distinctions, in the Army go to such favoured regiments as the Guards. If there is any foundation for that complaint, it ought to be met. It is also commonly said that positions on the staff of the Army in a war are given in very large proportion to persons with family connections, and not in due proportion to those working soldiers who, in far-off places in the Empire, have, if there was a system under which their merit was really known, shown that they are preeminently the men to occupy these positions.

If these complaints are well founded, then I venture to say that the remedy is to make the military profession an open profession — as open as the great profession of medicine or of the law. We all turn in our moments of anxiety to the men who have made their names in the great profession of medicine, but in almost every case these men have worked their way to the front without any help whatever beyond their own industry and ability. I turn, again, to the law. The men who come to the front are the men who have fought for and won their positions in the open field. That cannot be said of the military profession. I say nothing of my own profession, because I am not infrequently reminded by those who differ from me that my promotion was due to a political accident. I must confess that I have no liking for the stream of tendency which is turning our freedom-loving, industrial nation into a military empire, with the taint of commercial greed in it; but we must have an Army. Let us, then, make it efficient; and to make it efficient we should make it more democratic. The three reforms—putting aside all the minor recommendations—which are of primary importance are, firstly, the reconstitution of the great, schools of military education in the way I have described; secondly, a reduction in the expenses of the officers of the Army—in other words, that we should close the door resolutely against the influences of plutocracy, so as to get the best working officers; and, thirdly, that we should, by way of self-denying ordinance, insist that through all grades the profession of the officer should be absolutely open. If these three main reforms are set on foot, we may very soon have the best army in the world, as I venture to think we have some of the best material. Failing these reforms, whatever else may be done, our last state may be no better than the first.

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

My Lords, I do not propose to detain your Lordships very long. This subject is one of the most important that could possibly be brought before the House. I very much regret that I am not in a position this afternoon to be able to give the noble Lord the information for which he asks in the question which forms the first part of the Motion on the Paper. The reason why I am not in the position to do so is, very briefly, as follows. There are few things which can be of more importance as regards the efficiency of the Army than the education of the young gentlemen who are candidates for entering the Army as commissioned officers, and also of those young officers who have entered the service of His Majesty. In this country, as in all other countries, there has always been the greatest difficulty in ensuring that the training of the Army does not deteriorate during peace time. In this country the difficulty is enhanced by the fact that we have to keep an enormous proportion of our regular forces scattered about in small garrisons all over the world, many of them in unhealthy climates in which much exertion is apt to bring on illness, and many in small islands in which there is no ground available for manœuvres. In the matter of training, the Army is at a great disadvantage compared with the Navy. The Navy is practically always engaged in war—always at war with the elements. If an officer makes a mistake while in charge of one of His Majesty's ships, the mistake may be fatal both to the safety of the ship and the crew. In peace manœuvres, an officer of the Army may make a mistake, but that mistake, after all, is more or less a matter of opinion. General A may think the officer was acting wrongly, while General B may regard his action as quite right. These are matters which render the question of the education of officers of the Army always more difficult than that of officers of the Navy.

The noble Lord referred to the fact that it is three months since the Report of the Committee, presided over by Mr. Akers Douglas, was issued, and he seemed to think that little or nothing had been clone in the direction which he desires during that period. In the first place, I. would like to point out that those three months have been months of considerable stress at the War Office. Although peace has been declared, I can assure your Lordships from personal experience that the work of the War Office has by no means fallen off to the extent to which people who are not acquainted with what is going on there may imagine. A question so important and so far-reaching as this is not one to be taken up in the few intervals which can be devoted to it during the present time of strain and stress. The whole question is so important that any step which is taken should be most thoroughly and carefully thought out beforehand, and we ought to be quite sure that no step is taken which is not in the right direction. The question must be viewed as a whole. Any false step, any alteration which is not in the right direction, may produce an effect which would be incalculable. I can assure your Lordships that the subject has not been lost sight of by my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for War. It has occupied a very large amount of his attention, and he has been almost daily engaged in discussing these educational matters with those who are best qualified to give him proper advice. It is the intention of the Secretary of State to formulate as soon as he can some scheme which will improve the education of the British officer. With regard to the particular question to which the noble Lord's Motion is directed, I would point out that the subject of the appointment of a Director General of Education cannot be regarded by itself. It must be considered as part of an entire scheme, and I therefore hope the noble Lord will not press his Motion.

LORD DENMAN

My Lords, I should not have ventured to interpose in this debate were I not able to lay claim to some slight knowledge of the subject under discussion. About ten years ago I entered the Royal Military College at Sandhurst as a cadet, and, since passing out, I have spent the greater part of my life in the service. I have, therefore, some slight acquaintance with the educational methods at present in vogue in the Army. The principal defect that a good many officers have noticed in the course of instruction at Sandhurst is that it is of rather too ambitious a character. I will take one instance, namely, that of tactics. In tactics, the cadet is taught the employment of cavalry and trained artillery; he is taught how to handle a division, and how to wield an army corps, how to march his army corps to the front, and how to manœuvre it on coming in contact with the enemy. All this, and a great deal more, forms part of the instruction of cadets at Sandhurst, and the cadet is a little disappointed on joining his regiment when he is put back for three months recruit drill on the barrack square. I think that such an elaborate course of instruction, useful though it may be later in life, is hardly the most suitable for boys just fresh from school, who have probably never set eyes on a battery of artillery in marching order in their lives, and who have probably never seen more horses together in one place than at a meet of their local pack of hounds. I cannot help thinking that it would be more useful to give the cadet thorough instruction in the duties of the ordinary private soldier, and to begin to inculcate into him some of those principles of military discipline which seem lately to have been somewhat lacking at the college.

I think it is a matter for regret that the recommendations of the Committee as regards Sandhurst have not gone a little further in the direction in which they have begun. We are all, I am sure, glad to hear from the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State for War that the War Office is shortly going to take this matter in hand, and I think, therefore, I might deal somewhat in detail with the course which the Committee recommend. They do not really propose to make any very radical alterations in the course of instruction at Sandhurst. What they recommend, roughly, is that there should be more out-of-door work and more riding—a; most excellent recommendation; that the length of the course should be extended to two years, and that musketry and s gnalling should be taught. When I was at Sandhurst, musketry was taught, and I cannot help thinking that signalling is a thing which is equally well learnt with the regiment. At any rate, such a smattering of signalling as can be acquired at Sandhurst will not be sufficient to obviate the necessity of going through the signalling course at Aldershot. The objection against the present course of instruction at Sandhurst is, I think, to be found in the Report itself. The opinion of the Committee was practically unanimous in favour of the University candidate. That amounts practically to this, that the University candidate who joins the service, as a rule with no military I training at all, becomes just as efficient an officer as the man who has had eighteen months technical instruction. I think this is a very curious anomaly, and I do not suppose it exists in any other profession except the British Army.

We see in the Report that a circular was sent to officers commanding regiments to ask for their opinion on the respective merits of the candidates who join through the Militia and the Sandhurst cadets, and the universal opinion was that the Militia candidate made the better officer. I think the reason for that is not far to seek. It is because on joining his regiment the Militia officer knows something of regimental duties. I think this emphasises the point to which, in my opinion, the Committee has hardly sufficiently drawn attention, that the school for the young officer should be his regiment. The objects of military education are, I take it, first of all to turn out a good regimental officer, a secondary object being, I presume, to give him such a groundwork of instruction as to enable him to learn, and later on to take up the duties of a staff officer. I do not think the course at Sandhurst is sufficiently devoted to teaching an officer regimental duties. As the Report points out, when a cadet leaves Sandhurst he is under the impression that, as far as his technical military education is concerned, he has learnt all that will be required of him, and that is probably the case, as he is never likely, unless he chooses to go to the Staff College, to require very much more training than he gets at Sandhurst, in order to pass the examination for promotion which is the only further test to which he is subjected. With regard to Woolwich cadets, who have been on the whole favourably reported upon, the case is somewhat different. The engineer officer has to spend two years after he leaves Woolwich at the Engineering School at Chatham, and the artillery officer is obliged to go through a course at Shoeburyness or the other centre. Therefore, I think that probably some other course will have to be found that goes more thoroughly to the root of the matter than the course recommended by the Committee.

I should have thought that it might be possible to institute a new college altogether, to which officers, or at any rate a large proportion of the officers in the Army, might go after some two or three years' service, and that then they should learn thoroughly a good deal of what they are now taught at Sandhurst. It would then be possible to cut down the course at Sandhurst to one year, to teach a cadet thoroughly the duties of a private soldier, and to pay a great deal of attention to his physical training. I think that the advantages of such a course of instruction would be great. They would ensure, in the first place, a continuity of education for the young officer. As the noble Lord opposite (Lord Harris) pointed out, it is the education subsequent to his leaving college that is, after all, the most important thing. He would also have technical military instruction at a time when he is better able to appreciate the value of it, and it would foster to a certain extent that spirit of keenness and competition which at present, as all the speakers have agreed, is absent. It would also, I think, in the long run, tend to raise the course of instruction at the Staff College. The disadvantages, of course, would be that it would take away an officer for a year, or a year and a half, from his regiment, and, no doubt, that is always a bad thing, because it puts the regimental duty on the other officers. The other great objection, no doubt, would be the expense. Of course, that is a serious question, and one which meets people who deal with Army questions at every turn. But it is surely not unreasonable to expect that a Government which is going to spend such large sums on the general education of the country, and which is at present devoting so much time and trouble to the piloting of an Education Bill through Parliament, should make some adequate provision for the education of officers in the Army. I think the whole tendency in the Army is to teach men a little of a great many subjects, but to teach them nothing very well. I believe that in most other professions special knowledge is almost a necessity, and it is special knowledge which is, after all, of the utmost value. I will take the case of topography. I do not think our generals in South Africa can have thought very much of the capacity of the officers who served under their command to make maps or sketches, because there were so very few indeed made of the country; and I am afraid that there are not many officers in the Army, either serving with their regiments or on the staff, who would be able to turn out a really accurate road sketch at the pace at which a column is marching. When I was in South Africa, and trekking along roads where columns had been before, I was often obliged to risk valuable lives in finding out information which I ought to have had given me on a map. I hope that when the War Office docs deal with this question they will take a wide and broad-minded view of it, and not content themselves with renovating antiquated methods and tinkering up institutions which are themselves so sadly in need of drastic reform.

LORD RIBBLESDALE

My Lords, I am sure we all desire to congratulate the noble Lord who has just sat down, on his first speech in this House. It was an interesting as well as a useful speech, I am very glad to hear from the noble Lord the Under Secretary for War that this subject has not been lost sight of by the War Office. We all recognise the great amount of work which the War-Office and the noble Lord himself have to do, and it is unreasonable to expect, particularly in this hot weather, that as a means of relaxation they should turn their attention to the carrying out of the recommendations of the Committee on Military Education, Pleasant as the noble Lord's speeches always are in form, I am bound to say that tonight his speech was a little disappointing in substance. I think it is a pity that he is going to resist this Motion, the area of which is, after all, limited to a very small point, on which we are all agreed. I would suggest to my noble friend that in order to secure the acceptance of this Motion, and to save this important debate from ending up in the newspapers with the words "the subject then dropped," he should take out the word "deplorable," and should make the Motion end at the word "report." I cannot agree that the regimental officer is the ignorant person he is made out to be. What you have to remember is that after a certain ago people have to educate themselves. In the journey of life we are divided into people who are inclined to forget and people who are inclined to learn, and I do not think the appointment of an Inspector General would make much difference in that. As has been said, this is not a Party question, and I think that if the noble Lord will amend his Motion in the way I have suggested it will be acceptable to the House.

*THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE)

My Lords, I think the feeling must be general that it would be impossible for us to accept the Motion in the form in which the noble Lord opposite placed it on the Paper. This Report covers an immense deal of ground. It deals not only with the antecedent education received by our officers, and with the intermediate education which they receive at the Royal Military College and the Royal Military Academy, but also with that, as I think, far more important education and training which they receive after obtaining their commissions. It would be out of the question that after the few weeks during which this Report has been in our hands we should at this moment announce to the House in detail the steps that we intend to take in order to give effect to any part of its recommendations. But if the noble Lord will be content to stop at the word "report," as proposed by Lord Ribblesdale, to substitute for the words "immediate steps" some such words as "the earliest possible steps," and to leave out the word "deplorable," then we might very well agree to the Motion. But the speech in which the noble Lord opposite commenced the debate renders it absolutely necessary that I should inflict a few words on your Lordships' House. The noble Lord traced the failure of our system of military education more especially to the fact that in the year 1899, when I had charge of the War Office, we abolished the office of Director General of Military Education. Some of the noble Lord's criticisms show how necessary it is to examine matters of this kind with a little more care than he bestowed on this part of the subject.

What were the facts with regard to the abolition of the office of Director General of Military Education? A vacancy occurred in that office, and it became my duty to consider whether a new appointment should be made. The office had existed for a considerable number of years, and I suggest, for the noble Lord's consideration, that, if during these years military education has been as deficient as he believes it to have been, if Sandhurst has got into a bad way, if the Civil Service examinations are not what they should be, this at any rate shows that the existence of the office of Director General did not afford a guarantee against that deterioration of our educational system in the Army which the noble Lord so much deplores. The position of the Director General was this. He had the charge of the whole of military education, including the Army schools, at which the children of private soldiers are educated, everything from that up to the examinations for promotion to the rank of Field Officer. The Director General was not under the military side of the War Office, but he was an official subordinate to the Secretary for War—an arrangement which, as the Committee point out, had the effect of accentuating the distinction between military training and military education which we all desire to efface as much as possible. To the best of my belief, it was not always possible to discover for that high office an incumbent possessing any special aptitude for dealing with educational problems. I will not put it more strongly than that. I made inquiry into the work conducted in the Director General's office, and I came to the conclusion that a different distribution was desirable. We separated that part of the work which concerns the Army schools from the rest, and we put the education of officers under the Military Secretary, the training of officers being under the Adjutant General. That arrangement had the effect of bringing the training and the education together and placing them both within the immediate ken of the Commander-in-Chief and the high military authorities of the War Office.

In my belief it would have been quite impossible to have found, in or outside the office, any official more competent to take charge of military education than the then Military Secretary, Sir Coleridge Grove, an officer with a brilliant University career, who has seen service in the field, who has filled many important appointments at headquarters, and who enjoyed in the highest degree the confidence of the Commander-in-Chief. We associated with Sir Coleridge Grove a very able officer, Colonel Delavoye, who had for a long time been in special charge of educational question sunder the Director General. I am prepared to say that that arrangement, although it may, perhaps, not have been a perfect arrangement, was a very much better one than the arrangement which it replaced. I think, if the noble Lord will refer to the Report of the Committee, he will see that that is so. In fact, I think it would be correct to say that if at this moment you were to give Colonel Delavoye a step in rank, and associate with him that Advisory Board for which the noble Lord did not particularly press, you would have the arrangement which the Committee desires to see introduced. I believe it was a better arrangement in theory as I believe it was a better arrangement in practice, and I am almost tempted to say that one of the consequences of the change was the appointment of this Committee. I say what I know when I tell your Lordships that Sir Coleridge Grove, after taking stock of the educational arrangements which he found in existence, came to the conclusion, which he recorded in a Minute, that a Committee of this kind on which the public schools and universities would be represented, was necessary in order to get to the bottom of these educational problems; and, although it is possible that my right hon, colleague would have appointed this Committee whether Sir Coleridge Grove recommended it or not, it was certainly from Sir Coleridge Grove that the Motion for the appointment of some such Committee as this first proceeded.

There is another result of the change which I should point out. I doubt very much whether, if the old arrangement had remained in force, it would have been possible for the War Office to provide the large extra number of officers of whom we stood in need when the great demand created by the war came upon us. The figures are striking. In 1896, the year in which I went to the War office, there were just over 500 first appointments to the Army; in 1899 the number had risen to 1,000; in 1900 to 2,274 officers. I maintain that, if at that time of stress you had had two different officials, the one responsible for testing the fitness of candidates and the other for appointing and selecting them, it would have been impossible to bring that great number of young officers into the Army as rapidly and as smoothly as we did. The change was, I need not say, not made for economical considerations. These did not enter into our minds at all. It was suggested by the noble Lord that we had economised in the rewards for foreign languages. It is true that the sum taken four or five years ago was £4,000, and that it fell to £1,000. Why? Because the number of officers who came forward to claim these grants was not sufficient to absorb the £4,000. We did what is always done—namely, to include in the Estimates for the coining year a sum corresponding to that which had been actually spent in the past year.

I am not going to enter into the details of the Report of the Committee. It contains a good many statements and recommendations which, in my opinion, require a great deal of careful consideration before we can venture to act upon them. I hope, in regard to what is called antecedent education, that we shall be slow to give up the principle which has hitherto been accepted by successive Governments, that we should endeavour to attract to the Army the best young men from our great public schools. That principle was laid down by Lord Dufferin's Commission many years ago, and we have acted upon it consistently. If the best lads we can get from the public schools are not good enough for us, that suggests to my mind the idea that there is something not quite right with the education given in the public schools themselves; and I trust that the learned headmasters who have given us so much valuable and admirable advice, which we shall take to heart, will turn their eyes towards matters nearer home, and consider whether they cannot do something in their own schools to bring up a race of lads better grounded for the great profession of arms. Certainly in the case of Sandhurst there is a great deal to be done; and I am able to say that long before the incidents which have lately taken place there, my right hon. colleague had fully made up his mind that radical changes, both in the personnel and in the system of Sandhurst were inevitable. There remains the third branch of military education, which seems to me by far the most important of all—I mean the training which the officer receives in his regiment, an education which, to my mind, should never stop from the day he receives his commission, until the day he goes on half-pay. It seems to me that by far the heaviest count in this indictment is that which suggests to us that that particular branch of the officer's education has been grievously neglected. I believe the raw material we get is good enough. If the manufactured article does not turn out as well as it might, I am afraid it is because there is something wrong in the process of manufacture. To my mind the mill in which that manufacture should go on is the regiment; and if it is the case, as we are constantly told, that it is bad form for young officers to pay attention to the details of his profession, if it is true that their brains are allowed to lie fallow between one examination and another, if the indolent and ignorant are advanced and the meritorious are not recognised, and if extravagant habits prevail, I say that the remedy is to be careful in the choice of the men to whom you give the command of regiments, and to be ruthless if you find that they do not do their duty by the fficers under their command.

But I believe that these allegations, so easily and glibly made, are to a great extent exaggerated. With all their faults, my Lords, our young officers at the present day, in point of character, manliness, and good physique, will bear comparison with their predecessors at any period in the history of the Army; and, although there is a great deal of room for improvement, I believe that they take more interest in, and thought for, their profession than was the case twenty or forty years ago. Merit may not always, perhaps, work its way to the front, but it has a much better chance of doing so than it had when it was the power of the purse which bought a man his rank in the Army. If I wanted proof of that I would ask your Lordships to consider how admirably these officers acquit themselves when the opportunity is given to them. I will not repeat what has been said about their behaviour in the South African war, but I ask you to consider what the Indian Army—whose representatives we have been admiring so much lately—owes to the handful of British officers who are placed in charge of every regiment; and what does not the Egyptian Army, regenerated by British officers, owe to them? All over the world, wherever there are irregular levies, military police, and those improvised forces on which we have so often to rely, there you find the young officer who gets a chance rising to the occasion and making an indelible mark on the people placed under him.

One other illustration. I spoke just now of the number of officers now employed extra-regimentally in the Colonies and in different parts of the Empire. If we do not appreciate our officers, other people do. Ten years ago there were only sixty-two British officers on extra regimental employment of this kind. At this moment there are no less than 525, and the demand is continually increasing. It is a demand from people who are not obliged to take these officers, but who come as suppliants to beg for these men, because there is no one else who can do their work so well, and if we are sometimes disappointed, do not let us forget that we expect now a great deal more of every officer in the Army than we ever expected before. The conditions of war in the present day require qualities which were not expected of the old race of officers. I saw lately a most interesting statement to this effect—that at the battle of Waterloo, 68,000 British troops were extended over a front of only three miles, and that at the battle of Diamond Hill a British force of 40,000 men was extended over a front of no less than 23 miles. What does that mean? It means that not only brigade is separated from brigade by a great distance, but battalion from battalion, company from company, section from section, and man from man; and in fighting in these conditions you must have in your officers qualities of decision and self-reliance which were undreamt of in the philosophy of the older race. They are qualities which no examination, and which not even rows of Directors-General, will discover for you. They can be imparted only by men who possess those qualities themselves, and who owe their high position to the fact that they possess them. I believe that such men do exist in the British Army; and if, as the result of this Report, they are given a wider scope and a greater opportunity of making their influence felt, its pages will not have been written in vain.

*LORD MONKSWELL

I am much obliged to the noble Marquess for his suggestion, and I shall the more cheerfully amend my Motion in accordance with that suggestion because he, unlike the noble Lord the Under Secretary, gave me some valuable information as to the attitude the Government are going to adopt in the matter of military education. He said that Colonel Delavoye will probably have a step in rank.

THE MARQUESS OF LANDSDOWNE

I said that if Colonel Delavoye were given a step in rank the arrangement would be very much what the Committee recommends.

LORD MONKSWELL

I hope Colonel Delavoye will be given a step in rank because, as the Committee point out, it is impossible that a colonel should have authority in educational matters over the Governors of Sandhurst and Woolwich. My point is that there should be some central body for education, and the noble Marquess suggests that something in the nature of a Council of Military Education should be set up. But whether that be done or not, I am quite certain that there must be a central body. With regard to the amount given for languages I regret that I was misled, and I accept the noble Marquess's explanation. My Motion, as amended, will read as follows— That, is the opinion of this House, the earliest possibly steps should be taken with a view to remedy the state of things disclosed in the report of the Committee on Military Education.

On Question, resolved in the affirmative.

House adjourned at ten minutes past Seven o'clock, till tomorrow, half-past Ten o'clock.