INDIA (ARMY ADMINISTRATION).

HL Deb 01 August 1905 vol 150 cc1075-129

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

rose to call attention to two Papers recently presented on the subject of Indian Army Administration, and to move for further Papers. The noble Marquess said: My Lords, I rise to draw attention to a question of very great importance, because it relates to nothing less than proposals calculated fundamentally to alter the present administrative arrangements of the Government of India, and, indeed, as it seems to me, the constitution of that Government itself. Perhaps, before I proceed to discuss the Papers to which I am anxious to draw your Lordships' attention, it would be better that I should very briefly explain the nature of the Government of India at the present time, at least in respect to the matters to which these Papers refer The Government of India at the present moment consists of the Viceroy in Council, and his Council consists now of six ordinary members after the Act of last year was passed, who are placed in charge, to use the technical term, of various Departments of the Government. One of those members is a military man, who is in charge of the Military Department of the Government of India; that is to say, all business which relates to Army administration as distinct from Army command. The Commander-in-Chief is also, if the Secretary of State thinks well to appoint him, an extraordinary member of the Council, but the law leaves it entirely to the discretion of the Secretary of State whether he chooses to appoint any particular Commander-in-Chief to that position or not. There are two other extraordinary members of Council who under certain circumstances are entitled to take their places on the Council. They are the Governors of Madras and Bombay, and when the Council meets within the limits of their respective Presidencies they are, under the law, entitled to serve upon it as extraordinary members.

These proposals relate to a fundamental alteration in the distribution of business in that Council. The Papers themselves evidently have been preceded by some other communications, official or unofficial, and they rather enter into the matter in medias res. I make no complaint of that. The first despatch asks for the opinion of the Government of India as regards the present arrangements for the military administration, and it points out that objection has been taken to those arrangements, and that demands have been made, especially by the present Commander-in-Chief, Lord Kitchener, for an alteration of those arrangements. To that despatch the Government of India replied in a despatch which was signed by the Viceroy and by every other member of that Government except the Commander-in-Chief, in which they expressed their desire that the existing arrangements should not be altered, but should remain as they are at the present time. To that despatch Lord Kitchener appended a long and full expression of his own opinion, and his opinion was that the present arrangements should be changed, that he (the Commander-in-Chief) should be put in charge of the whole work of the Military Department, that there should be no Military Member, but that the Commander-in-Chief should take over, in addition to the executive duties, the whole of the administrative duties connected with the Army. Mr. Brodrick considered those Papers and came to that half and half sort of thing which is generally called a compromise; he made certain proposals not entirely in accordance with either the wishes of the Viceroy or of the Commander-in-Chief.

In considering those proposals I should like, in the first place, to remind your Lordships that this is not a new question at all. It is a very old question. It is a question which has been discussed in India and in this country officially for many a long year. It has been considered by successive Secretaries of State at home, whose consideration has always up to the present time ended by maintaining the existing arrangements. I will not take your Lordships back to the famous quarrel between Lord Dalhousie and Sir Charles Napier, which ended in the resignation of the latter; but in order to show you how old this question is, and what great authorities there are against an alteration of the existing arrangements, I will ask you to allow me to refer to the views of the late Lord Lawrence as contained in a private letter addressed by him to Sir Charles Wood, and published in Mr. Bosworth Smith's excellent "Life of Lord Lawrence." It appears that at that time there was a great deal of friction, as the wording goes, between the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief—between Sir John Lawrence and Sir Hugh Rose; and one of the modes of escape from this friction appears to have been suggestions of the same kind as those which are being made at the present time. This is what Sir John Lawrence gave as his opinion upon the proposal to abolish the Military Member and to leave the Commander-in-Chief as the only military officer on the Governor-General's Council. Sir John Lawrence wrote thus— By the combination of the two powers"—the Military. Member and the Commander-in- Chief—"the authority of the military element would overshadow and paralyse that of the civil power. As Commander-in-Chief the War Minister would have the same staff to enable him to carry on the struggle with the Governor-General whenever his views were not admitted. My remedy for the present state of things is that in the first place the Commander-in-Chief should not have a seat in Council, He should be a high executive officer distinctly subordinate to the Governor-General in Council. His views and arguments would then all, as circumstances dictated, be put on record and would go home bearing the authority and influence which they deserved. In the meantime he would be required to obey the orders he might receive. I see no other change which will prove beneficial. We all know the great authority of any opinion of Sir John Lawrence on Indian affairs, but I have referred to that mainly for the purpose of showing you how old are these supposed difficulties, and how often this friction, which we hear so much about, has been found to arise.

These difficulties were in reality personal difficulties between the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief. Lord Lawrence felt great difficulty in his communications with Sir Hugh Rose. Those of your Lordships who have looked at the interesting volumes containing the life of Sir Henry Durand will have seen that when Sir Hugh Rose was succeeded by the late Lord Sandhurst those difficulties passed away and comparative facility of communication was restored. You will perhaps ask me, as I have had the honour to occupy the position of Viceroy of India, what was my personal experience in the matter. My Lords, it is my duty to give it to you, and it is this. I never knew, during the four and a-half years I was Viceroy of India, any differences of opinion which deserved the name of friction either between the Commander in-Chief and the Military Member or between the Commander-in-Chief and the Viceroy. Differences of opinion there always will be. I have even heard of differences of opinion in Cabinets, and have sometimes been told that friction occurs in those distinguished assemblies; but I venture to say that practically no friction existed on military matters in the Government of India at the time I had the honour to be at its head. There were differences of opinion, but nothing in the nature of friction or serious difficulty.

I admit that my evidence on this point is perhaps not the most complete, because I was singularly fortunate in the man whom I had for Commander-in-Chief during the greater part of my time. Anybody who knew the late Sir Donald Stewart would know that if there are to be two parties to a quarrel nobody could quarrel with Sir Donald Stewart. He was a man of such admirable temper, with great experience both of civil and military matters connected with India, that it was not likely that any substantial friction could arise with him. But that was the case not because we were not dealing at that time with important matters. That Government had to deal with the proposals of Sir Ashley Eden's Commission for the entire reorganisation of the Indian Army; that Government met from time to time to discuss these questions, and discussed them without difficulty and without friction; and, again, we had to despatch the Indian portion of the expedition which went to Egypt at the time of the campaign of Tel-el-Kebir, and in the preparation of that expedition Sir Donald Stewart performed an amount of labour and displayed an amount of ability for which I think he never had adequate credit. It is a profound mistake if anybody supposes that a reasonable Viceroy does not constantly communicate with the Commander-in-Chief. I never dreamt of taking any important step relating to military matters in any way without consulting the Commander-in-Chief, without the most free and frequent communications between us, and that resulted, as I have said, in the most perfect harmony during the whole time I had the honour to be Viceroy.

The truth of the matter is that this is much more a question of persons than of things. It is much more a question of personal feelings than it is a question of administrative principles. These Papers from the first to the last are full of personal idiosyncrasies and individual character, and it is not, in my judgment, wise to deal with a great question of this description, not upon the broad general principles of what is the best form of administration, but in regard to the accidental circumstances of a particular time. I have read the Papers with the greatest care. I am bound to say that the published arguments for this great change appear to be very weak. Lord Kitchener adduces in his Minute certain instances in which he is not satisfied with the reception which his proposals have met with from the Military Department. Sir Edmund Elles, in his Minute, replies upon those questions. When I read Sir Edmund Elles's Minute I thought his reply was very good. To me it seemed complete, but then I said I must wait to see what Lord Kitchener has to say on the other side. But when I turned to Lord Kitchener's Minute I found no reply at all. I found nothing but a lofty declaration that he would not reply, and that he knew he was quite right. In a controversy of this description I am always a little inclined to think that a person who takes that line and refuses to reply in that tone does so because he cannot reply, because he has no answer to what his opponent has said

You will see that so far as I am personally concerned I agree—I have no hesitation in saying so—with the views expressed on this subject by the Government of India. Lord Curzon's Minute is a very able Minute. He argues the case very well, and in my judgment his arguments are very conclusive. I see that the Secretary of State in his despatch seems to think that there are some expressions in Lord Curzon's Minute which bear an exaggerated tone, but when I remember the language which was used by Lord Lawrence in the extract I have just read, when I recollect and refer to the language which is to be found in these Papers from Lord Dufferin, I think it cannot be said that Lord Curzon has used language which is not borne out by many of those who preceded him. For on page 53 of the Bluebook, towards the bottom of the page, I find it said that Lord Dufferin expressed this opinion— The Viceroy would be" (if the Military Member were taken away) "without any adviser save the representative of the Army, who would be more specially interested in pressing proposals involving expenditure or changes in organisation. The revenues of the country would be at the mercy of the Commander-in-Chief. If there is any exaggeration in the language which has been used on this subject I think it will be found there. I do not profess to say that I believe that the revenues of India would be at the mercy of the Commander-in-Chief, but I do believe that the proposed alteration would greatly increase the influence of the military element in the Viceroy's Council, and to that I, for one, entertain a most serious objection.

There are two main branches of this subject. The one relates to the proposal for making the Commander-in-Chief the Member in charge of the Military Department, and the other relates to the results which would follow from that in so far as it would tend to deprive the Viceroy of a second military adviser; and, my Lords, with regard to the first of those proposals, I wish to point out to your Lordships, though I shall have to allude to it again, that this is a proposal which ought not to be, which I venture to say cannot be, forced upon the Viceroy of India. The distribution of business in the Viceroy's Council is placed by statute unfettered in the Viceroy's hands, and I do not believe that any Secretary of State ought, with due consideration to the interests of India, to compel the Viceroy by the only means which he can compel him—because his privilege in this matter is statutory—to adopt a distribution of business of which he does not approve. But, my Lords, beyond that it seems to me that to put upon the Commander-in-Chief not only his own proper business, that which he has to perform at the present time, but a vast amount of other business of great detail which would follow from his being placed in charge of the whole military administration, would be to throw upon him far too great a burden. The Commander-in-Chief has great and important duties to perform, duties which take him away, and which must take him away, for a considerable length of time from the seat of the Viceroy's Council. Those duties have of late years been increased by the abolition of the Commander-in-Chiefships at Madras and Bombay—a step of which I highly approve. You have thrown upon him an extra degree of responsibility for the Army in those two Presidencies. Your Lordships will find, on page 44 of this Paper, an opinion of the late Lord Sandhurst on that subject. Lord Sandhurst said— I conceive that the evil of divesting the head of the Government of India of its chief and responsible military adviser can hardly be exaggerated; yet if that responsible military adviser is to be at the same time an executive Commander-in-Chief, who is ever engaged in traversing the country on tours of inspection in times of peace, or at the head of the active Army in time of war, it is utterly impossible for him to be in his place at the side of the Governor-General, except at rare intervals of time. Military feeling is so strong, and the prizes of war are so great, that no Commander-in-Chief in India can resist the temptation of putting himself at the head of an army in the field, if he has an opportunity. In like manner, for the maintenance, of discipline, to gain a knowledge of the Army, of the manner in which it is housed, cared for, and handled, it is absolutely necessary that a Commander-in-Chief should be ever on the move in peaceful times. Therefore, as said before, the constant presence of the Commander-in-Chief in India in his place as a member of the Supreme Government, and the recognised responsible adviser of the Governor-General in Council, is an impossibility under the present system. That was the opinion of Sir William Mansford, afterwards Lord Sandhurst, a man of great distinction and great authority, a man who knew well the whole working of the Government of India, because he took great interest, not merely in the military side, but in many subjects connected with civil administration. He had a thorough grasp of the questions on both sides, and that was his deliberate opinion delivered at the time the duties of the Commander-in Chief were less extensive than they are to-day.

Even Mr. Brodrick in one of these Papers admits the importance of the inspectional duties of the Commander-in-Chief. There are two dangers. One danger is that the Commander-in-Chief will be very frequently absent, and that he will not be there to control, by his personal presence, the detailed administration of the Military Department. The other danger is the opposite one, that he will neglect the inspectional duty, that he will neglect those duties of his executive functions which ought to take him away from the seat of Government, and will devote himself mainly to the duties attaching to his position in charge of this Department. Either of those would be a very great evil. Lord Kitchener admits that objections of that sort did weigh with him. He said he had thought them serious, but then he says "Oh, but there are telegraphs" My Lords, telegraphic communication is a very good method of transmitting commands. I have had some experience of administration at the end a telegraph, and I do not think that it is a very good way of conducting an argument, or of convincing a person whom you want to bring round to your opinions. Therefore, I do not believe that in the absence of the Commander-in-Chief, let us say at the extremity of Madras, communication by telegraph upon important matters would be found a good means of administering the Army Department. What will happen? There will be a Secretary in the Military Department. I shall have something to say upon his position in a minute or two. He would be the person to represent the Commander-in-Chief. He would be the person to bring up the papers and lay them before the Viceroy. I do not think that in practice that would be found a satisfactory method of proceeding in the absence of the Commander-in-Chief, and lam fully convinced that you would only exchange one occasion of friction for another. You would get rid of the Military Member, of a high officer of military reputation, but you would place in a position of yet more friction the secretary of the Military Department.

Take the case of war. I observe that the Secretary of State very wisely takes no notice of the suggestions of Lord Kitchener on military organisation in case of war. Those suggestions are impracticable. I do not believe they could be legally carried out. They could not be carried out in practice. At the same time, you ought to have faced that difficulty. You ought to have considered what would be your arrangements if war broke out. You ought to have been ready to say what would be done in such a contingency. I am quite sure of this, that Lord Kitchener is the last man who, if war broke out, would consent to remain at Simla and send somebody else in command in the field. That I take to be certain. That is the position in which the late Lord Lytton desired to place the Commander-in-Chief. I do not think it is a position in which he ought to be placed. I think if he wishes to take command, he is entitled to do so, and I think that if he does take command all the arrangements which you are now setting up will immediately break to pieces. I have read the language that was used by Lord Dufferin as to the increase of military influence and military authority. I hope that my noble and gallant friend on the cross benches (Earl Roberts) will not quarrel with me when I say that I hold that it is of supreme importance to maintain the full authority of the Civil Government in India, and I do believe that a change of this kind, placing such enormous power in the hands 01 the Commander-in-Chief, would raise him into a position which would not be consistent with the absolute supremacy of the Viceroy in Council.

But then, my Lords, we are told that the present position is anomalous. Well, I am one of those people who are not very much afraid of anomalies, There are plenty of anomalies in our Constitution, there are plenty of anomalies in our daily practice, yet we are most of us not anxious to sweep them away. But if you want to get rid of this anomaly there are two ways of doing it. You may get rid of the Military Member, or you may remove the Commander-in-Chief from Council. The latter proposal has high authority in its favour. It has the authority, as we have seen, of Lord Lawrence and of Sir Ashley Eden's Commission; and it has last, but by no means least, the authority of Sir Donald Stewart. I will not take upon myself the responsibility of recommending that change. I do not know how it would be taken by the Army. It is a very great change, and one which I am not here for the purpose of enforcing. I prefer to maintain the anomaly and to leave the Commander-in-Chief in his present position. But you must recollect that the law, by giving a special discretion to the Secretary of State as to whether he will place a given Commander-in-Chief in Council or not, distinctly shows that it does not consider the presence of the Commander-in-Chief to be an essential element; and it is a change which, if it should ever be desired to be made, could be made on a fitting occasion without any alteration in the law. But I do not recommend it. I do not think that it would be a safe or an advisable change to make at the present time. All that I ask is that things should be left as they have been during the last half century.

The so-called compromise, the arrangement which has been offered to Lord Curzon, and which he has with some modifications accepted, does not touch this question of the alteration in the position of the Commander-in-Chief. What it does deal with is the question of how a second military opinion is to be given to the Viceroy. To that Lord Curzon attaches the very highest importance, and I quite agree with him. It is not from any distrust in the great men who have filled the office of Commander-in-Chief, but it is because there are peculiar circumstances in India which make it an absolute necessity that the Viceroy, who, after all, is the head of the Government and responsible for military as well as for civil matters, should have the fullest and most complete advice on the many difficult questions of military administration and military organisation. It is impossible to contend that it is not of the first importance that that sort of information should be readily at the disposal of the Viceroy. My noble friend opposite, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in regard to these particular questions that I am alluding to, questions particularly relating to the Indian Army, did not so greatly need other expert advice because he had my noble and gallant friend on the cross benches as his Commander-in-Chief, and no man was more qualified to advise on all questions relating to the native Army than Lord Roberts.

But you may have again, as you have to-day, a Commander-in-Chief who, however distinguished and however able, has little practical knowledge of the native Army or of its prejudices and its fears; and it is absolutely necessary, if you are to avoid the tremendous difficulties that may arise from a mistake on questions of that kind, that you should have someone to give the Viceroy responsible advice. There are questions which relate to the prejudices of the native Army; there are questions which relate to the policy which was deliberately adopted in regard to military matters after the Mutiny. You will find in these Papers one instance in regard to the employment of native troops upon certain works. I do not say that that would have raised any difficulty. I have not the information to enable me to say so; but it is exactly the question which might raise a difficulty. It is exactly the question which might affect prejudices, perhaps caste prejudices and others, and on which the advice of a man who had been trained in the native Army, who had been a regimental officer of an native regiment, is absolutely required to enable the Viceroy to properly judge of the questions which come before him. Therefore, I have the most entire sympathy with Lord Curzon in his demand that he should not be deprived of the opportunity of referring to some person who has this kind of military experience. I mention questions springing out of the memories of that terrible catastrophe of nearly fifty years ago. There were principles of policy laid down then relating to such matters as the question of native field artillery, the composition of corps d'armée or divisions of brigades, as to the proportion of European and native troops to be maintained in the Army at large and in each of its component parts. There were questions of policy then laid down which it would be dangerous to overthrow, and which ought to be taken into the fullest consideration by the Viceroy in any questions that he may have to determine, and, therefore, I say that there could not be a more dangerous thing than to deprive the Viceroy of the means of having the best possible second advice in regard to all these matters.

The Secretary of State speaks rather slightingly of those who have filled the office of Military Member; he speaks of them as men of less standing and reputation than Commanders-in-Chief. These Military Members have been men of quite as high standing and reputation as many Commanders-in-Chief. They have been men like Sir Henry Norman, like Sir Donald Stewart, like Lord Napier of Magdala, and they were men who would have given the wisest possible advice to the Viceroy on matters of this kind. Lord Napier of Magdala and Sir Donald Stewart became Commanders-in-Chief themselves. They were exactly of the same calibre as Commanders-in-Chief. There may have been Military Members not of such standing as these. I hope it is not disrespectful to say that there have been Commanders-in-Chief of not such high military standing as my noble and gallant friend on the cross benches and Lord Kitchener; but the endeavour has always been to obtain those who were able to give the best military advice to the Viceroy. Under the old system it was the duty of the Military Member to make himself acquainted with all military proposals, and to bring before the Viceroy anything which he thought required special consideration by him. That will not be so now.

I understand that the Supply Member is to be free to give advice if called upon to do so, but he is not to see the papers on their way to the Viceroy, and whether he is consulted or not will depend on whether the Viceroy thinks it necessary that he should consult him. That will work, I daresay, very fairly with Lord Curzon, because Lord Curzon is a Viceroy of unusual experience. He has been in India a longer time than any recent Viceroy, and he does know a great deal about all these questions. But take a new Viceroy going out for the first time, having little or no acquaintance with Indian matters, an English statesman sent out there without any special knowledge. I think my noble and gallant friend will not contradict me when I say that there may very well be questions coming before him which look very small and of little importance, but which, after all, may contain the germs of very serious matters, and upon which a Viceroy, not well understanding questions of that kind, might not think it necessary to consult the Supply Member. I also am not quite sure, when you have taken away from the Supply Member all the really military portion of the administration, when you have left to him nothing but what would be just as well administered by a civilian of good business habits—I am not quite sure whether, when that is his daily work, when that is to be his special official purpose, you will get men of the same calibre, men of the same military position to take up that office as you have happily been able to get for the position of Military Member in the past. There is a cryptic sentence in Mr. Brodrick's despatch, to be found on page 63, in which he says— Until recent years it was the practice of the head of the Department to sink his military status on all occasions, and to adopt the civil role which appertains to the powers which he wields. If that means, as I suppose it docs, that of late years Military Members have been taking too much upon themselves, if I may be pardoned for the expression, if it means that there has been any encroachment upon the proper duties of the Commander-in-Chief, then I say let it be amended. There have been circumstances in India during the last few years in reference to the chief command in that country which make it possible that such encroachments may have grown up. I do not know whether they have or not. I have been told, for instance, that the Military Member is now in the habit of attending Council in uniform. It may seem a very small matter to your Lordships, but it is a matter of importance. It is a symbol of assuming a position which he ought not to assume. It is a proceeding to which I could quite understand the Commander-in-Chief objecting; but that is a thing which could be stopped in a moment you need not root up the whole of your military arrangements for the purpose of stopping things of that kind. All that you have got to do is to say that it is to be stopped, and stopped, of course, it will be. If there have been any such encroachments, let them be brought to an end.

These Papers show that my noble and gallant friend on the cross benches had some causes of complaint at times during the Viceroyalty of my noble friend the Marquess of Lansdowne, for on page 60 I find this statement— Changes in procedure were, in consequence, authorised by Lord Lansdowne which satisfied Lord Roberts and secured a more effective working of the system during the remainder of his period of office. Why cannot you do that now? Why is it necessary to make a complete and fundamental change in the constitution of the Government of India for the purpose of arranging disputes of the description which were settled so easily by my noble friend opposite and my noble and gallant friend on the cross benches. Of course, there are men and men. I do not dispute that. But the public service is not framed for the convenience of particular individuals, but is framed for the purpose of conducting the general business of the country in the best and most satisfactory manner.

Now I come to the question of what J is called the Supply Member; that is to say, to the compromise which has been accepted by Lord Curzon. I am bound to say that in my opinion Lord Curzon, in accepting that compromise with very slight alterations, acted with very great moderation. I cannot join in any of the denunciations which have been poured out upon Lord Curzon's head. Perhaps I have a little sympathy with Lord Curzon. I have been in his office, and I know what it is; but, it I may be permitted to say so, I do not think that that compromise can be taken as altogether a satisfactory settlement of the question, because it is an unreal settlement. You are going to appoint a Supply Member, who, I understand and hope, is always to be a military man, but that is not quite clear from anything in these Papers, or anything that has been yet said in Parliament, and I hope His Majesty's Government will tell us distinctly that that Supply Member is to be as regularly a military man as the Military Member has hitherto been. If that is not the case, then the compromise is worth nothing, and nothing has been done to satisfy the demand of the Viceroy for second military advice; and it is only by making that perfectly clear that you can make the compromise of any value at all. What will be the position of the Supply Member? He is to look after a set of duties which, as I have said, might be just as well discharged by a civilian so far as those particular duties are themselves concerned and he is to be allowed to be referred to by the Viceroy. He is to have no original right, as I understand it, to go to the Viceroy upon military matters; he is not to report; he is to do nothing until he is called for; or until the question comes before the Council, when, of course, you cannot prevent him from giving his opinion. I do not think that will be a satisfactory solution of the question. I do not believe it will be a solution which will hold. I do not believe that it will be a solution which can finally be maintained.

I want also to know something about the Secretary to the Military Department. The Secretaries to the Government of India in various Departments are appointed by the Viceroy. Is the Secretary to the Military Department going still to be appointed by the Viceroy? He has been given the local and temporary rank of major-general if his Army rank is below that. I see that Lord Kitchener puts him down as the last name in the staff of his own Department. Is he to be appointed by the Commander-in-Chief or by the Viceroy? As my noble friend knows very well, the Secretary of a Department of the Government of India has a peculiar position. He is entitled to go to the Viceroy if he differs in opinion from the member in charge of the Department, and to claim the privilege of stating his difference to the Head of the Government. Is that to be the case still? Is that to be the position of the Secretary to the Military Department; and, if it is, what about the friction? The Secretary to the Military Department is the Secretary working under the Commander-in-Chief. Is he to go from the Commander-in-Chief, under whom he works, in order to tell the Viceroy his opinion in contradiction to the advice given by the Commander-in-Chief? That seems to me one of the most curious ways of getting rid of friction that I have ever heard of.

I am sorry to say I am compelled to express my great regret at the tone of Mr. Brodrick's despatch. That the Secretary of State should rule in all matters in India which are not settled by law, that he should rule in the final judgment is, of course, necessary in all foreign affairs and in all questions of principle. He should give his opinions and ought to be unhesitatingly obeyed. But if there is one point on which the Secretary of State ought to be very cautious about interfering with the Viceroy it is in the management of the business of the Viceroy's own Council. The final despatch of Mr. Brodrick says—"This has been decided, and that has been decided, and you are to carry it out, and are to have all your arrangements made by October 1st." I venture respectfully to say that that is not the tone in which the Viceroy of India ought to be addressed. I do not believe, my Lords, that since the days of Lord Ellenborough's famous despatch to Lord Canning about the affairs of Oudh, any Government of India has received such a rebuff in the face of India and in the face of the world. Recollect this, that the order issued to Lord Curzon in regard to the distribution of business in his Council deprives him of a discretion which has been given to him by Act of Parliament; and I think that even if that can be justified, which I greatly doubt, it ought at least to have been indicated in gentler terms and in more civil phrases, and that the document in which it was sent to the Viceroy ought not to have been published. Many a Viceroy would have given a very short shrift to a proceeding of that description.

I now come to the last point to which I shall draw your attention, but it is one of very grave nature. The Government, of India is founded on statute. It has always been the policy of the past to base that great Government, the Government of the greatest dependency of the Crown—I might almost say the Government of the greatest dependency of any country in the world—to base that Government upon statute. There is the statute of 1861, which, though it has been altered in some respects, remains the solid foundation of the Government of India, and now you are proposing to alter the practice established by that Act in some important particulars, and you have not condescended in any form whatever to consult Parliament. I know something of the Act of 1861. It fell to my lot to pass it through this House, and, therefore, I am well aware of its provisions. I am well aware of the reasons which actuated the Government that brought it in and passed it. I will ask your Lordships' attention to the 8th section of the Indian Councils Act of 1861. That section is to the following effect— It shall be lawful for the Governor-General from time to time to make Rules and Orders for the more convenient transaction of business in the said Council, and any Order made, or act done, in accordance with such Rules and Orders, except as hereafter provided respecting laws and regulations, shall be deemed to be the Order or act of the Governor-General in Council. It is under that clause that the distribution of business by the Viceroy in Council is carried out. That clause was introduced for the purpose of enabling the Viceroy to carry out the arrangements in Council which now prevail. Before that was passed every paper came into Council and was read there, and no decision was legally binding except it had been actually passed in Council; and you will observe one peculiar thing about the phraseology of that clause. Your Lordships know that nearly always in Acts relating to India the words run "The Governor-General in Council," but the person to whom the power is given to make regulations for the business of the Council is not the Governor-General in Council, but the Governor-General by himself. That is unusual, and it was done for the purpose of placing in the hands of the Viceroy of India the power of making his own regulations for the conduct of business in his Council.

That clause did not attract, as far as I can gather from reference to Hansard. attention in the other House of Parliament, where not unnaturally they were mainly concerned with the powers of the Legislative Council, but when the Bill came up to this House it was very fully considered and discussed. We had then in this House so eminent a man as the late Lord Ellenborough, who had been Governor-General of India. We had in this House Lord Lyveden, who had been President of the Board of Control. We had in this House other men, all of whom took part in this discussion and showed the deepest interest in the clause. Objections were taken to it. Lord Ellenborough preferred that things should be left as they were, but it was explained to him that Lord Dalhousie and Lord Canning had both found that the business had increased so enormously that unless some means of this kind of meeting it were provided it would be difficult to transact it as it ought to be transacted. But the assurance which was given by the Government of that day was that the discretion as to how this business was to be distributed in the Council of the Governor-General was to be left entirely to the Governor-General himself. This is what was said on that occasion by the late Duke of Argyll, who was then a member of the Cabinet— The clause now proposed would authorise the Governor-General from time to time to make such regulations as he thought necessary for the more convenient transaction of business, and if the division of work which he made was found inconvenient, or if his successor disapproved of it, the regulation might be altered or remodelled in a moment according to the views of the Governor-General for the time being. That, my Lords, is the interpretation which was given to that clause by the Government which proposed the Bill; that was the understanding on which the clause was accepted in this House; and I say that language of that kind is wholly inconsistent with forcing the Governor-General to make a distribution of his business which he does not himself desire.

That is a very clear case, to my mind; but I think also that it is contrary to the spirit, at all events, of the statute that you should put the Commander-in-Chief in charge of any Department of Government at all. Those who have hitherto been in charge of those Departments have been ordinary Members of the Governor-General's Council. The Commander-in-Chief is not an ordinary Member, but an extraordinary Member. He may be there, or he may not be there, according to the discretion of the Secretary of State; and I contend that if you, as you do, practically turn him from his position as an extraordinary Member into an ordinary Member, he cannot, under the statute, being an ordinary Member, exercise any military command. About that there can be lib doubt, because the clause says— If a person so appointed shall be in the military service of the Crown, he shall not, during his continuance in office as a Member of Council, hold any military command or be employed in any military duties. That is clear. Of course, it may be said that that does not really preclude the employment upon these duties of an extraordinary Member. That is a very nice legal point which I will not argue. But what I want to point out is this. Mr. Brodrick may write any number of despatches he likes, but he cannot deprive the Secretary of State of the power of putting the Commander-in-Chief on the Council or not at his discretion.

I want to know, supposing a Secretary of State were to omit to appoint the Commander-in-Chief to be an extraordinary Member of the Council, what becomes of your arrangement? It comes toppling down on your heads. He is not in Council and cannot undertake the duties, and it is obvious that the intention of those who framed the statute was that the Commander-in-Chief, being an extraordinary Member and of specially high rank, was not to be put in charge of any Department on that kind. I venture to say that in all the discussions that went on the Bill of 1861 in this House, that idea never entered the head of any man. Do you suppose for a moment that the late Lord Ellenborough would have approved on such a proceeding, that he would not have cried out upon it at once? Why, he told us on that occasion, to our great astonishment I admit, that he himself had written with his own hand every important letter which went from the Military Department. He would not do that if he was alive now, but it shows what was his feeling as to the respective positions of the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief in respect to these matters.

I think we have great ground to complain that in this matter you have not thought fit to consult Parliament. You have, on the contrary, done everything that you could to prevent Parliament from expressing its opinion on this subject. The Papers were laid on the Table of the other House of Parliament forty-eight hours after the debate on the Budget, and there is at the present moment on the Papers of that House a blocking Notice which absolutely precludes the other House of Parliament from considering this question at all. That, my Lords, I hope will be my justification for having detained you so long. I do believe that a more important question in respect to the Government of India has not been raised since the year 1861, and that it is absolutely essential that some notice at least should be taken of this matter in Parliament. I must enter my protest against the course which has been pursued by the Secretary of State. I protest against it, first, because I believe that it will mischievously disorganise the military administration of India and diminish the effective control of the Viceroy in Council over that administration. I protest against it, secondly, because it tends to deprive the Viceroy of that unfettered discretion in regard to the distribution of the business of his Council which has been conferred upon him by Act of Parliament; and I protest against it lastly because it has been adopted without the knowledge or the advice of Parliament, and is altogether inconsistent with the manifest intention of the Government which proposed, and of the Parliament which passed, the statute of 1861.

Moved, "That an Humble Address be presented to His Majesty for Minute of Sir Donald Stewart in June, 1898, on the subject of Indian Army Administration, recorded in the India Office."—(The Marquess of Ripon.)

EARL ROBERTS

I venture to say a few words on the important subject which the noble Lord has brought forward, because I have had considerable personal experience of Indian Army administration. I was at Army headquarters from time to time during the Viceroyships of Lord Canning, Lord Elgin, Lord Lawrence, Lord Mayo, Lord Northbrook, Lord Lytton, Lord Dufterin, and Lord Lansdowne; and for seven and a-half years I was Commander-in-Chief in India, the greater part of which time the last-named nobleman was Viceroy. I think, therefore, my Lords, I can claim to speak with some authority on a question which has given rise to a good deal of correspondence during the last two years, and regarding which there still is very considerable feeling in India. I mean whether the Commander-in-Chief should be the sole military representative on the Council of the Viceroy, or whether there should be two military advisers—one the Commander-in-Chief, the other an official in charge of what I may call the spending departments of the Army.

I have no hesitation in saying that, in my opinion, it is essential to the security of India that the Viceroy should not be dependent on the advice of a single soldier, however eminent and distinguished he may be. Even if he were an Indian officer and his experience had been entirely Indian, as was the case with myself, I consider it would be advantageous for the Viceroy to have at his side a second adviser not directly connected with the Army. But when the Commander-in-Chief is, as in the present instance, a complete stranger to India, I consider it would be a positive danger to our hold over that country that he should be the only one to advise the Viceroy on military matters; for, with the sole exception of Lord Lawrence, every Viceroy has also been a stranger to India since the days of Lord Clive.

I would remind you, my Lords, that the Indian Army has its political as well as its financial and military aspect. It is, besides, scattered over a vast area, and no one man is capable of making himself thoroughly acquainted with the military side and at the same time exercising general control over the civil departments of the Army. The one requires him to be frequently absent from headquarters; the other necessitates his whole attention being given to office work. I cannot believe that any man would venture to under take the arduous position of Viceroy of India under such conditions. The argument that the Commander-in-Chief would always have on his staff a certain proportion of officers of Indian experience, whose intimate acquaintance with the Indian Army would prevent his making any serious mistakes with regard to that Army, does not, in my opinion, carry much weight. These officers would be directly subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief, and could not express opinions to the Viceroy in opposition to those held by their immediate chief. To do so would be subversive of all military discipline. It is essential that the Viceroy should have on his Council an officer—he need not be a great soldier—intimately acquainted with India, especially with the native Army, its feelings, and idiosyncrasies.

If I regarded this question solely from the soldier's point of view, I should certainly advocate the Commander-in-Chief's position being made as powerful as possible, but I have been too long in India and have had too much experience of the difficulties which beset the Government of that country not to appreciate those difficulties at their full value. The native Army is by far the most difficult and delicate part of the problem with which the Government has to deal, and, unless this is constantly borne in mind, I foresee that troubles will assuredly rise in the future as they have done in the past. I do not deny, my Lords, that differences of opinion have from time to I time arisen between the Commander-in-Chief and the Military Member of Council. It would be strange indeed if this did not occur between men of strong opinions; but this is the Viceroy's safety, in that he can have different views laid before him on any military subject. I can quite understand that, for reasons into which I need not enter, more power has fallen into the hands of the Military Member than is desirable or customary, and it is this, I cannot help thinking, that has, in a great measure, given rise to the friction which we all deplore. But it only proves that it was the procedure, and not the system, which was at fault; and I hope that the great soldier at present at the head of the Army in India, to whose hearty co-operation during the war in South Africa I myself was so deeply indebted, will now recognise that this was the case, and that in accepting the decision of the Government he will feel that the right course has been adopted.

I suppose it was unavoidable, when the question at issue reached such a pitch, that it had to be submitted to the Government at home for decision; but I cannot say how much I regret that the action of the Viceroy and his colleagues should have been the subject of criticism in this country—a criticism in many cases made by people who have little or no knowledge of India or of the peculiar nature of its government. The Viceroy of India is a great personage in the eyes of the natives of that country. He is to them not only the Governor-General of India, but His Majesty the King's representative; and it is most undesirable that anything should be said or done here which could possibly tend to lessen. the Viceroy's dignity or power, or lower him in the estimation of the natives of India.

THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (The Marquess of BATH)

I venture at the outset of my remarks to assure the noble Marquess that I fully recognise not only his right to bring this subject before your Lordships' attention, but I also recognise the propriety of his doing so. I should like to add, if I may, that I appreciate that the motive of the noble Marquess in so doing has been entirely for the public good. I recognise the authority of his experience both in India and at home, and although he has alluded with some warmth to certain portions of the policy which has actuated the despatch, and to the despatch itself, I venture to thank him for the manner in which he has brought this subject before the notice of your Lordships. I remember also that there is a noble Lord, who has his place upon the benches opposite, who has served in the office of Viceroy with the highest distinction. Your Lordships have, moreover, been addressed by the noble and gallant Earl on the Cross Benches, to whom not only the Indian Army, but the British Army, owes so much for the glory of their achievements. I have further to remember that there sits behind me my noble friend the Leader of the House, whose years of office as Viceroy of India are gratefully remembered as amongst the most valuable and valued in the annals of the Indian Empire. The House will appreciate that in approaching the subject which is now before us I am over weighted by the reflection that my critics—if they my critics—are certainly not lacking in personal knowledge or experience of the matters under review.

The noble Marquess who brought this subject forward did full justice to its antiquity, and he reminded us that this controversy is not only not of recent growth, but is of very long standing. And, my Lords, he was able to speak with the authority of his experience on the question as it presented itself even before the Report of the Ashley Eden Commission, which sat over a quarter of a century ago. I would remind the House that really ever since that time this question has from time to time been more or less acute in its eruptions. But, my Lords, when at length two eminent public servants in India—the Governor-General and his Commander-in-Chief—entered the lists to take part in this controversy they naturally became the protagonists in the fray. They are both masterful men—they are masterful in mind, they are masterful in action—and they both possess a masterful vocabulary; and thus it came to pass that matters reached a crisis when in the interests of the Army in India, in the interests of the Government of India, aye, and in the interests of the Empire at large, it became necessary for the Government at home to seek some means to solve this vexed problem, the put an end to this dispute, and to remove the causes of friction and of combustion, and if possible to settle what has been so long unsettled and to decide what has been so long uncertain.

I do not think that I should be doing either of the great controversialists any injustice, or be minimising the importance of this subject, if I venture to sum up the question as it presents itself to my mind. The Commander-in-Chief threw down the gauntlet by saying "Everything is wrong," and the Viceroy promptly replied "All's well." Well, my Lords, between these two wholly antagonistic assertions and contentions it was necessary to find out the exact facts. Both of these statements could not be correct; was either of them absolutely correct? So far from the home Government having started the question, this controversy was forced upon them because someone had to decide. The noble Marquess opposite appeared to me to deal principally in his speech with the supposition that the result of the decision of the Secretary of State would be that Lord Kitchener's proposals as contained in his Minute had been accepted.

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

Yes, as regards the Army Department.

THE MARQUESS OF BATH

I am speaking not only as regards the Army, hut also as regards the position of his colleague.

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

I said it would be so as regarded the Army Department.

THE MARQUESS OF BATH

The noble Marquess, I think, also threw some scorn upon what he called the compromise. I shall venture to allude to that question again in a few moments, but I ask the House to remember that Lord Kitchener based the proposals in his Minute upon Imperial as well as upon Indian grounds, and I suggest, without at this moment expressing any opinion, upon it, that those proposals could not be thrust aside without examination or by a mere negation. The noble Marquess has drawn a picture of what would occur supposing the Commander-in-Chief was absent conducting military operations at the front, and therefore unable to be by the side of the Governor-General and his Council. But surely the answer to that supposition and to that contention is that the Commander-in-Chief is not allowed to leave the country, and, in fact, I do not think I am stating it at all too strongly when I say that he is not allowed to take command of active operations in war, without the leave of the Secretary of State. I cannot help feeling that that portion of the argument which deals with the fear, and perhaps the natural fear, expressed by the Government of India scarcely took that prohibition into account. It is perfectly true that the Commander-in-Chief will have to perform inspection duties. I speak, of course, with great hesitation on a matter of this nature, but what I venture to suggest is that his inspections should be those of great importance and not too frequent, and that the inspection of the minor units should be left to his subordinate officers. I venture to suggest that the place, and the proper place, for the Commander-in-Chief at inspection time is at the great camps of exercise, and at the very large military centres. Therefore, I again venture to suggest that the fear that has been held out of the Commander-in-Chief being very I frequently away from the centre of Government will not prove that bar to the efficient conduct of the business which it is proposed to place more fully in his hands.

I do also think, if I may venture to say so with all respect, that the conditions have considerably changed since the days when those eminent authorities expressed the strong opinions they did, and which the noble Marquess quoted, with regard to the inadvisability of the Commander-in-Chief being away from the central Government. After all, telegraphs have, in spite of what the noble Marquess says, largely improved since those days. It should also be borne in mind that the conditions of travel and of communication, even by other means than telegraphs, have vastly improved, and I do think that the inconveniences arising from the absence of the Commander-in-Chief will not prove nearly so serious now as they did in the days to which the noble Marquess has referred.

The noble Marquess dealt with the second military adviser who, he said, was being taken away from the Governor-General in Council—and I cannot help feeling that the whole of his speech was strongly influenced by that apprehension—and he also alluded to the native and political questions that would arise, and which were constantly arising; and he made a point of the fact that by the scheme, as decided upon by the Secretary of State, the Viceroy would be entirely deprived of a second military opinion. Surely, the noble Marquess has forgotten that in the scheme as decided upon by my right hon. friend express provision is made for dealing with these native and political questions by means of the Mobilisation Committee, which is a Committee upon which both the Commander-in-Chief and the Military Supply Member will have their seats. So far as the second military adviser is concerned, I would venture to remind him that it is not proposed to withdraw him from his seat on the Council.

The noble Marquess seemed to become somewhat indignant in regard to a passage in the despatch of the Secretary of State, in which he alluded to the fact that the Military Member,—or may I use what is perhaps a more correct expression, the Member in Charge of the Military Department—

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

It is certainly longer.

THE MARQUESS OF BATH

Yes, it is longer, but think that the short title has tended to produce serious misconceptions in the general consideration of the matter—the noble Marquess appeared I say, to be indignant because the Secretary of State alluded to this official as being in an inferior position to the Commander-in-Chief. I think the correct words are "Another expert of less standing and reputation than himself." But surely the very instances which the noble Marquess quoted show conclusively that this Military Member must necessarily be of less standing and reputation than the Commander-in-Chief. You must surely compare things with the present, and you must compare each Military Member with his contemporary Commander-in-Chief It is not for me, my Lords, to pass any comment or to express any views upon the distinguished officers who have held posts of Commander - in - Chief and Military Member. It is quite possible that some Military Members have been of far superior attainments to some of the Commanders-in-Chief, but I do submit—and especially in the instances which the noble Marquess gave us of the two distinguished officers who eventually became Commander-in-Chief—that the officer, whoever he may be, who holds the office of Military Member must necessarily be of less standing and reputation than the then existing Commander-in-Chief.

One other point to which the noble Marquess referred was the fact that the Military Member—I use the short title in spite of what I said—would be debarred from going to the Viceroe on his own account. Surely the nobly Marquess is mistaken, because it is still competent for any Member of the Viceroy's Council to go and consult the Viceroy on his own initiative.

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

I hate to interrupt, and I am sorry to say that to interrupt is a growing habit in both Houses of Parliament. I must, however, state that what I did say was that the Military Member would not see by the papers passing under his eyes what was going on, and that unless the Viceroy sent for him he would not be able to know what was going on in the other branch of the military administration. I did not say anything more than that.

THE MARQUESS OP BATH

I was going on to the point that he would not have access to the papers. Of course I speak under a disadvantage in discussing this matter with the noble Marquess, but I believe the Members of the Council can call for papers.

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

If they want them.

THE MARQUESS OF BATH

Yes, if they want them. But, after all, may I venture to remind the noble Lord that I think the general impression left on one's mind by those Papers which have been presented to Parliament is that both Sir Edmund Elles and the Viceroy in his Minute and despatch were afraid that the questions affecting the Indian Army, and political matters, would not receive the consideration which their importance deserved. But, my Lords, those questions will all go before the Mobilisation Committee, they will be discussed from their proper aspect by the two branches of the Army administration, and those questions are all necessarily bound to come up before the Viceroy, who will have the whole of this expert advice to fall back upon. The noble Marquess asked the Government one Question with regard to the appointment of that new official, the Secretary. My impression is that he will be appointed like the other officers, and that is by the Viceroy.

Perhaps I may be permitted to say one word on a matter upon which the noble Marquess laid some stress, and I approach it with a good deal of diffidence, because I have not had that legal training which enables one to deal with such a subject with rapidity and with accuracy, but I may tell the noble Marquess that we are advised, and it is a strong opinion held by the India Office and the Secretary of State, that the provisions of the Act of 1861 have not been contravened in any respect. I beg to remind your Lordships that the Act of 1861 is also governed by the Act of 1833, and in that Act it is distinctly land down— That the said Board shall have and be invested with full power and authority to superintend, direct, and control all acts, operations, and concerns of the said company which in any wise relate to or concern the government or revenues of the said territories, or the property hereby Vested in the said company in trust as aforesaid, and all grants of salaries, gratuities, and allowances, and all other payments and charges whatever, out of or upon the said revenues and property respectively, except as hereinafter is mentioned. I submit that that section governs the provisions of the Act of 1861. I do not deny that the Governor-General, by Section 8, can lawfully make his own rules and regulations for the more convenient transaction of business. It has been the custom, and it has happened that the Home Government have issued their decisions—because they are decisions, and I think the noble Marquess will acknowledge that—to the Governor-General, and have left him to frame the rules and to carry them out.

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

Yes, in regard to the arrangements in his own Council.

THE MARQUESS OF BATH

I think I can give the noble Marquess an instance which comes to my mind. In the year 1888 it became necessary in the opinion of the Home Government to reorganise the duties of the Finance Member. The matter was discussed between the Government of India and the India Office, and it was my noble friend Lord Cross, who was in the House at the beginning of this debate, who himself sent that decision out to Lord Dufferin, who was then Governor-General, leaving it to hint to make any modifications in the existing rules for the conduct of business which might be required to give effect to those instructions.

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

Yes, he left it to him.

THE MARQUESS OF BATH

Yes, the rules were made by Lord Dufferin, and it fell to the lot of my noble friend behind me (Lord Lansdowne) when he went out to India to refer those rules home to the Secretary of State for his knowledge and approval. There is nothing, so far as I know, in any Act of Parliament to prevent the Governor-General—it may be at the suggestion of the Secretary of State—from allocating any duties to the extraordinary Member of the Council that he chooses just in the same way as he allocates duties for the convenience of the conduct of business in India to the ordinary Members of his Council. The noble Marquess drew another picture of a future Secretary of State declining to place a future Commander-in-Chief on this Board as an extraordinary Member. I will only say in regard to that contention that if the present decisions have successful results, and if it turns out that the working of the military side of the Indian Government is freed from those difficulties which it has experienced in the past, then I do not think that we need fear that any future Secretary of State will be bold enough to upset an arrangement which we hope and believe we have placed upon a satisfactory basis.

The only other matter to which I have to refer arising out of the speech of the noble Marquess is that he criticised with some severity the Secretary of State's despatch, and he criticised it especially because it conveyed the orders and the decisions of the Secretary of State in a rather unnecessarily harsh manner. I believe, my Lords, that it is an open secret that, while this question as a whole is of very long standing, this particular phase, this acute phase, has been going on also for a comparatively long time. Even when Lord Curzon was over here last summer it was then in progress, and the home authorities were able to consult with his Excellency and to settle the manner in which the question should be brought up. It was brought up by the despatch of the Secretary of State, and it was therefore, I venture to suggest, clear that both the despatch and the decision of the Government could not have been so un- expected as I think the noble Marquess tried to make out.

The Papers which were laid upon the Table were laid, I know, forty-eight hours after the debate which took place in another place, but as a matter of fact I wish to assure the noble Marquess that their presentation was hurried on owing to that debate. They were hurried on in order to make Members of this House and Members of Parliament generally acquainted with these matters before that particular debate came on. There was every desire on the part of the Secretary of State to meet the convenience of Parliament, and there has been no desire on his part to keep anything back.

As I said before, it is a fact that these papers were presented certainly several days in advance of the time at which they naturally would have been presented, and this was done in order to endeavour to place them on the Table, if possible, in time for the debate in another place.

Now I desire to say a few words upon another matter to which the noble Marquess opposite did not refer, and, may I say, to his honour he did not refer. Standing here as I do, and defending, as I hope I am doing, the decision of the Government with regard to this vexed question, I cannot allow the suggestions which have been made in very many quarters with regard to the action of the Secretary of State to pass unchallenged. It has been suggested that the Secretary of State has taken in this matter the side of Lord Kitchener, and that he has against him the Governor-General and the whole of his Council. Against that suggestion I beg to temind your Lordships that for the last twenty-five years at least—whatever may have been the numerous and various recommendations which have been made to solve the difficulty, and which show to my mind the extent of the difficulty—I shall not be exaggerating when I say that every one of the distinguished officers who has held the post of Commander-in-Chief has chafed with varying degrees of irritation against the ever-growing assumptions of the Military Department of control over the Commander-in-Chief. This irritation assumed the form of an open sore when Lord Kitchener appeared upon the scene. I do not deny it. Does the Secretary of State stand alone? His decision, long and carefully considered, was arrived at not as his own autocratic judgment, but as the matured conclusion of the Cabinet. He was supported, and his decision was approved, by those distinguished Members of the Indian Council who have themselves had the widest experience, both civil and military, in India before they took their seats upon the Council Board at home. The facts and the history of events were submitted for advice to distinguished officers who have held the positions both of Commander-in-Chief and Military Member in India, and thus fortified, thus instructed, and thus supported, the Secretary of State came to his decision. The Secretary of State has not taken sides either for or against any individual. He is not biassed, but, if I may say so with all respect, he has with great industry, with absolute honesty, and with a single-minded determination sought out the truth, searched for the facts, and aimed at a decision which, no matter whom it pleased or displeased, should secure the safety and the well-being of the Indian Army and the Empire as a whole.

The noble Marquess said that if it was merely a question of the assumption of power in the Military Department it could be settled in a moment. The Secretary of State came to the conclusion that the existing condition of affairs could not go on with safety to the State, and every military authority he consulted was and is of that opinion. Between the antagonistic assertions of the Viceroy on the one hand and the Governor-General on the other, the Secretary of State sought, it is true, a via media. I stand here and claim that the Secretary of State has found that via media. The Governor-General on July 6th made certain representations as to modifications in the Secretary of State's despatch of May 31st, and he appended to that communication the satisfactory and significant statement—"the Commander-in-Chief entirely concurs in these proposals." Thereupon the Secretary of State practically adopts these proposals in detail. There, I venture to suggest, the controversy might have closed. Stripped of personal jealousies, stripped of masterful rhetoric, free from the heat engendered. by past friction, surely it is fair to say that this problem has been solved in the interests of the State, and not for the exaltation or humiliation of any particular individual. What the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief have agreed upon, and what the Secretary of State and the Home Government have accepted, ought at least to be given a fair trial before it is condemned, and it ought at least to be put to the test before the controversy begins again. I suggest to your Lordships that there can be no end to any dispute if the disputants are to be free to begin their fight all over again before the ink on the paper on which the settlement is written is dry.

I have refrained purposely from commenting upon the language of the Minutes of Lord Curzon, Lord Kitchener, and Sir Edmund Elles, because I do not think any commentary of that kind would serve any useful purpose. The Government and this House are not concerned with dialectical triumphs; what we are concerned with is the safety of the State, with the fortunes of the Empire, and with the efficiency of the Army. In recent years, as I think the noble Marquess himself suggested, the position of the Member in charge of the Military Department has, owing to an exceptional state of affairs, tended to pass from being that of a civil administrator to that of a purely expert military adviser. This position has been condemned by high military authority and also by eminent Indian administrators. I think it is only fair to say that Lord Kitchener, however strong and extreme some of his proposals may have been, has insisted all along on the retention of the military supremacy of the Governor-General.

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

Of course he has.

THE MARQUESS OF BATH

He has all along repudiated any idea of establishing a military autocracy. At all events he is entitled to the credit of meaning what he says; but lest the result of these changes which we have proposed should by any chance have that tendency, the Governor-General submitted certain proposals which the Commander-in-Chief accepted, and of which the Secretary of State and the Home Government approved. My Lords, I suggest that both loyalty and common sense demand that this decision should be respected.

It is clear, I think, that the dispute and the real point at issue between the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief was that, on the one hand, the Governor-General was afraid lest the Commander-in-Chief's intention was to establish a military autocracy and to subvert the authority of the Governor-General, as it has existed ever since the Government of India has been under this country; and, on the other hand, the Commander-in-Chief was afraid that the Military Member, had assumed, and was assuming, a position which gave him a control over the military conduct of purely military affairs which he was never intended to possess, and which would be fatal to the successful conduct of military matters, for which, I suggest, the Commander-in-Chief could and should alone be responsible to the Governor-General. On the one hand, the Secretary of State laid down that the military supremacy of the Governor-General should remain, and that that eminent public servant should retain all the powers he had hitherto possessed in that direction. He laid down that the power of veto should rest exclusively with the Governor-General in Council. So much for the fear of the subversion of the military supremacy of the Viceroy. In the second place he decided that, whilst the second military adviser should not be withdrawn from the Council, that Member should be relegated to the position which he was originally intended to occupy, and that he should no longer possess that power of veto, without reference to the Governor-General in Council which he had hitherto exercised, and that his functions should be more those of a civil administrator with military knowledge and experience, in accordance with the original intention. If, as I trust, I have made this point clear, I have at all events fulfilled the object for which I rose in reply to the speech of the noble Marques opposite.

LORD SANDHURST

I so seldom intervene in discussions in your Lordships' House that possibly I may be excused on this occasion for asking your indulgence, because I happen to have had the honour of administering the Government of one of the Presidencies of India, and therefore this question is one of absorbing interest to me. At the same time, those who are conversant with our complex system of government in India may very well suggest that it is out of place for me, having been a Presidency Governor, to interfere in this discussion because these matters have to do principally, if not wholly, with the Government of India. At the same time I think that while it is natural to suppose that a man should give what he may consider his best energies to the duties that fall upon him within his own Presidency, it is natural also, I think, that he should extend his purview somewhat, and observe and form opinions upon matters which, although they are beyond his personal ken as an administrator, no doubt have to do with the development, and therefore with the happiness, of the people of India. The noble Marquess below me, and the noble and gallant Lord on the cross benches, have gone with great detail, owing to the wealth and knowledge of their experience, into the various subjects connected with this question. I do not propose to follow them in that detail. I may say that I agree with the noble Marquess below me, and I should like to add this particular remark to what he said. Of course I know that no matter which side one speaks from it is very difficult indeed to entirely dissociate from the minds of some people that there must be a political bias in the action that one may take in criticising the action of the Government of the day. But I can assure your Lordships that no such feeling as that actuates me in the slightest degree whatever, and I should deem it a very great misfortune if any large section of the public in India, or the public officers in India, thought they could appeal with success from one great political Party m England to the other.

I listened with great pleasure to the statement of the noble Marquess who has just addressed us, and I could not help regretting that it had not been the duty of the noble Marquess either to draft or supervise the despatch of May 31st, especially when I listened to the conciliatory sentences in which he addressed your Lordships. I shall say more about that despatch before I Sit down. In the course of his speech the noble Marquess certainly drew an interesting picture of what a happy family the officials at the India Office must be when they hear all about these strong controversies and rhetoric and so forth. But surely this is not quite a sufficient reason for changing the whole principle upon which the Government of India was founded so many years ago. As regards the Commander-in-Chief and his power of inspection, it seems that we are dangerously approaching the position that if we do not take care we shall have neither a Military Member of Council nor a Commander-in-Chief, because when that great functionary should be at the side of the Viceroy he will be going about the country inspecting, and when he ought to be inspecting he will be required by the side of the Viceroy. I heard the noble Marquess say that the inspection of the Commander-in-Chief should be confined, for example, say, to such great camps as Delhi and elsewhere. Now I have had some acquaintance with the Commander-in-Chief, and I must say that being a Commander-in-Chief and a Member of the Council his inspection duties took him continually away from the seat of Government wherever that might happen to be.

I do not propose to call before your Lordships the names of those two great functionaries between whom this controversy has taken place, and who have been the very centre of it. With all submission, I say that it does not seem to me to be a question either of Lord Curzon on the one hand or Lord Kitchener on the other. The service of the Viceroy in India is nearly concluded, and the Commander-in-Chief has, I believe, completed about half his term; therefore it appears to me that this question goes far beyond the individual controversies of two or three or half-a-dozen individuals, however high their functions may be. It is, on the one hand, the case of a great soldier in charge of a service who by the time he reaches the end of his service in that exalted position will have spent the best years and very nearly the whole of his responsible life in the service of his country. Of course from the very nature of the case he has immediately under his eye the Army and the interests of that Army, and it would be very strange if it were otherwise. On the other hand, the great statesman who is sent out from this country as Viceroy must naturally be anxious to do his be got to meet the demands of his military advisers, and meet as far as he can the military needs, but at the same time he must also keep his eye upon, and fulfil the requirements, of the various civil services which are under his control and supervision. I must say that upon that point I agree with the noble Marquess who brought in this Motion.

When I, like other students, take the Blue-book in my hands, I feel bound to say without any hesitation whatever, that not only is the weight of evidence, but also the weight of argument, in my opinion, in favour of the system as it existed a short time ago in preference to the system which has now been brought about. Some of this strong language which has been flying about is very much like what we are accustomed to call in India semiofficial letters, and though it may be extremely spicy reading, at the same time I feel bound to say that the despatch of the Government of India signed by the whole of the Government and the Minutes signed by the Viceroy himself are Papers of dignity and moderation. I was pleased to hear the noble Marquess remark that he had behind him the whole of the Indian Council. He says he has the Viceroy and the whole of his Council behind him, and I do not for one moment doubt that assertion. I may say, however, that I have searched about to find men of experience who have passed a great many years both in military and civilian life is India—I do not mean merely arm-chair politicians and so forth, but men who think a great deal and have the interests of India at heart—and I have never been able to find one person who agrees with the view taken by the Government. The noble Marquess says the Secretary of State's Council is in favour of it, and of course there is an end of that matter as regards them.

There was, however, another point I should like to refer to which was touched upon by the noble Marquess. It has been pointed out how heavy the duties of the Commander-in-Chief are, and I think that remark applies to every official, whether military or civilian, throughout the whole Dependency of India. No doubt these proposals will increase his work, and that work will have to be carried on when he is travelling about or upon his tours of inspection. The noble Marquess the Leader of the House, the noble Marquess upon this side, and others who have had to do with Indian administration, know what a very serious matter it is when your papers and boxes have to catch you up, and that after the active work you may be pursuing, either as a soldier or as one engaged upon famine relief works, at the end of the day when you. come in you have had quite enough to do without finding the whole of your boxes waiting for you and without being obliged to sit down and tackle them at once. That is a very serious matter to the Commander-in-Chief, however strong and willing he may be, to undertake at the end of a long day's inspection. It was pointed out by the noble Marquess opposite that you have the telegraph. So you have, and I agree with the noble Marquess that the telegraph is an admirable thing if you want to say "Yes" or "No" or issue an order, and have it promptly carried out. But, after all, the telegraph renders people liable to many mistakes and misapprehensions if you have to carry on important business by telegram.

Then, again, we cannot get away from the fact that important as it is the Army is only one of the services of India. There are a great many other services which the Viceroy and various other high officials have to control. They are, of course, not of the same enormous importance as the Army, but they nevertheless have their place in the government of the country. Take irrigation, education, the railways, and so forth, and other matters many of which are necessary for the preservation of life and for the development of the resources of India. I look upon these proposals and these arrangements which have been carried out with mistrust for this reason. I have had only a slight acquaintance with Lord Kitchener, and he may be a man who takes a broad view of the government of India, and is willing to agree that certain proportions of the funds and so forth must be set aside for other purposes. But supposing that you import into the Commander-in-Chief ship in India first of all an inexperienced officer as regards India; I will not further dilate upon that point, because it was so clearly put by the noble and gallant Earl on the cross benches. Supposing he obtains a preponderating influence with the Viceroy, what becomes of the other services? It is perfectly true that in the last few years Lord Curzon has been so fortunate as to have at his command surpluses from which he has been able to ladle out money with both hands to the Military Department and also to the other services of the State. But when I had the honour to be in India for five years I can assure your Lordships that for four out of those five years money was extremely scarce, and those who have had to do with India know perfectly well how hard it is to carry on administration for the development of any Indian province, or to improve your administration, when you I have no funds whatever to do it with, and that is where I am afraid the danger may come in with the Military Department, who might get an undue proportion of the funds at the disposal of the Viceroy.

Suppose for a moment that you have a determined Viceroy and a determined Commander-in-Chief. Things may be at a deadlock, and then we come back to the telegraph of which we have heard so much and we find that the unfortunate Secretary of State has to spend a great deal of time telegraphing to smooth over both these high officials and remove the friction between them. Instead of removing obstacles, we shall be creating fresh difficulties by this course. One of the points raised in one of Lord Kitchener's Minutes was that the system was so slow.

I do not wish in any way to defend dilatoriness or slowness, but those of us who have had to work in the East know that in India of all places everything, from the very nature of the country must be slow. There is no getting out of that fact. I believe that one of the reasons of our success in governing India is that there has been slow and sure and careful administration, and this has ensured efficiency, and has produced a just administration.

I regret that in the Minute the organisation of the Army of India was somewhat belittled, if not in words certainly by insinuation, by the Commander-in-Chief, and I hope recruiting for the native Army will not suffer in consequence. After all is said and done, we have observed how quickly troops have been sent from India, in one instance to Natal, which by some authorities are said to have saved Natal at the outbreak of the South African War. We also know how Indian troops were sent to China, and we have had recent experience of the value of Indian troops in the Tirah Campaign. We know that officers in our Army are by no means slow to criticise arrangements which they consider to be faulty, but, so far as my own experience goes, I never heard anything but praise of the way the Tirah Expedition was carried out from start to finish.

I must say a word or two in regard to the despatch of the 31st May, although my noble friend has already alluded to it. I concur with him in the deprecatory terms in which he spoke of that despatch. It almost seems to me that when the Secretary of State penned or agreed to that despatch that he almost forgot to whom he was writing, and, if he did not forget it, he failed to appreciate and realise the position that that high functionary holds in the native mind, not only as the Viceroy of India, but as the direct representative of the Sovereign. I am certain that if the noble Marquess the Under-Secretary of State for India had been entrusted with the supervision of that despatch it would have reached India, if it had been intended for publication, in a very different form than the terms in which it has now been issued. Nobody knows better than the noble Marquess below me, and the noble Marquess opposite, that the Viceroy of India has beyond all laws and regulations a great power, a great moral power for good and for social development, and I very much fear that the natives of India, who are very quick to perceive anything, will think that a slight has been put upon the Viceroy and the whole of his Council by the terms of that despatch.

I will say one word about Lord Curzon. I have had the honour of serving with and under Lord Curzon for some little time. I do not, however, hold any brief for him, and I have never heard from him on this ject at all, indeed I do not correspond with him because experience teaches me that Viceroys have other things to do than to peruse the academic effusions of their friends. But we have had a great many Viceroys extending over an enormous period of years, including the two Marquesses sitting on either side of the Table, who have given the best years of their lives to the service of their country in India and to the service of the people of India. I do not, however, think it is an exaggeration to say that there is not one of the many Viceroys who have served India who has brought greater singleness of mind to bear upon the great office that he holds and on the subjects with which he has to deal and who in spite of delicate health involving much pain, has devoted greater energy to the office which he adorns, or has brought greater capacity to the various subjects which have to come before him, and to whom the Government paid the unique compliment—certainly unique in modern days—of prolonging his tenure of office for a year or two. Then, at the eleventh hour, he is made the public recipient of this despatch, which contains the slight to which I have referred.

I desire, my Lords, in conclusion, to associate myself with the noble Marquess below me in his view as to the contents of this Blue-book. I am certainly persuaded that these proposals have not been attended by any present advantage, and I look at them with some little apprehension as regards the future, because they embody a system which, so far as I have been able to observe, is opposed by the whole of the public opinion of India, and stands almost condemned by the greater part of the men at home who have had experience in India.

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

My Lords, I have listened with pleasure to the warm eulogy which the noble Lord who has just sat down passed on the brilliant services of Lord Curzon as Viceroy of India. That these services are appreciated by His Majesty's Government could not be proved in a more signal manner than by the fact that they have asked him to extend his term in India to a period exceeding in length the term of any of his predecessors, and it is super-fluous for me to assure your Lordships that nothing has been further from our thoughts than by anything we have said or written either to give him personal offence or to derogate from the high position he has held in the face of the people of India.

Even those of us who do not entirely agree with the arguments of the noble Marquess opposite must have noticed with admiration the energy and vigour with which he treated the proposals which have been made by His Majesty's Government and now accepted by the Indian Government. But as the noble Marquess's blows fell fast and furious, I could not help feeling that we might, perhaps, complain of him a little for what I cannot help calling his ingratitude to us in a very essential particular. The noble Marquess found fault with the settlement which has been arrived at, but throughout the whole of his speech I did not catch a single word of acknowledgement of that which, after all, must be regarded by the noble Marquess as no small admission of the principle for which he contends—I mean our absolute refusal to listen to Lord Kitchener's proposal to put an end to the existence of the Military Member of Council. We found ourselves in the position of having to decide between the demand of Lord Kitchener that the office of Military Member should be absolutely put an end to, and the view of the Government of India that it should be preserved, and that he should remain very much in the position which he has always occupied, and we decided against Lord Kitchener.

Let me say at once that I am one of those who are firmly convinced that it is essential that we should have two high officials in those positions, and that their duties should not be concentrated in the person of a single official, however distinguished. In the first place, I do not know of any human shoulders broad enough to bear the double load at present borne by these two men; and I may add to that that, in my belief, the duties of the two offices are really distinct. It may be difficult to define them with scientific precision, but they fall under the two heads which the noble Marquess specified—the duties of Army administration and those of Army command—I may add also to that that, in my belief, it would be unfortunate, if among the ordinary Members of the Council there were not to be always one with some knowledge of military affairs, and able when necessary to give the Viceroy the benefits of his advice. I believe that, for the reason which was given by the noble and gallant Lord who spoke from the cross benches, without such an arrangement you will always be liable to find that particularly in periods of transition between the terms of one Commander-in-Chief and another the Viceroy in Council is deficient in that entire knowledge of the affairs and requirements of the Indian Native Army which is so essential to the Government of India.

We hear our Army in this country spoken of as a delicate organism with which it is hazardous to tamper, but the Indian Army is a much more delicate organism, and I, for one, should deeply regret to see any change which would diminish by one jot the security we now possess that the interests of the Indian Army will be thoroughly understood and thoroughly respected. I may add further that in my belief the system under which the Viceroy has had the advantage of the advice both of the Commander-in-Chief and of a Member of Council with military knowledge and experience has, on the whole, worked well. There have been periods of friction, and such periods of friction have not been entirely unknown to us in this country; but, taking the arrangement as a whole, I believe it is one which is for the interest of the Government of India.

Although, however, we may hold those views, that does not seem to me a reason why we should be precluded from reconsidering and, if necessary, revising the distribution of work as between the Commander-in-Chief and the Military Member of Council. I listened with some surprise to that part of the noble Marquess's argument in which he endeavoured to convince the House that such a redistribution of duties was a breach of the Constitution of India. The noble Marquess relied, if I remember rightly, on the terms of the Act of 1861, and he pointed out that under the eighth clause of that Act it was laid down that it should be lawful for the Governor-General from time to time to make rules and orders for the transaction of business in the Council; and the noble Marquess argued that because this function was given, not to the Governor-General in Council, but to the Governor-General himself, therefore the Governor-General was unfettered in his discretion to deal with these rules and regulations. My Lords, I must say that that is an argument which seems to me to be far-fetched. As I have understood the matter, the Government of India works in subordination to the Secretary of State in Council, and if, as is the case, the Secretary of State has the power of disallowing even the laws and Orders in Council which are made by the Government of India, surely it may be argued a fortiori that he has the right of modifying or challenging the rules and orders made by the Governor-General for the mere transaction of business; and my noble friend the noble Marquess near me was able to point out that, as a matter of fact, the Secretary of State has on various occasions claimed and exercised such a right of supervision over the conduct of the Governor-General in dealing with these rules and orders.

The noble Marquess advanced another argument which also seemed to me extremely far-fetched. He suggested that because the Commander-in-Chief was not an ordinary, but an extraordinary, Member of Council there was some irregularity in giving him the assistance of a secretariat and in other respects placing him somewhat more upon the footing of the ordinary Members of Council. The noble Marquess did not press that argument very strongly; but if he is able to show us in any of the statutes provisions which render it unconstitutional to do what we have done, that is, to assign certain extra duties to the Commander-in-Chief and to give him that clerical and secretarial assistance which he requires in order to perform them adequately, I shall be very grateful to the noble Marquess if he will indicate to me where such provisions are to be found.

The noble Marquess ridiculed what he called the half-and-half arrangement which we had arrived at, which he said was in the nature of a weak compromise. The noble Marquess must have forgotten that this was not by any means the first occasion upon which there has been a redistribution of the duties of the Commander-in-Chief and the Military Member. Within my own experience I remember such a readjustment of duties soon after I arrived in India. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Roberts, was then Commander-in-Chief, and he represented that the procedure which we were then in the habit of following was one which made it impossible for him adequately to perform his duties, and thereupon the rules were revised and a fresh distribution of duties took place which I believe gave satisfaction to those concerned. More lately still, with the consent of Lord Curzon and his Government, there has been a readjustment of work under which the great department of supply and transport was handed over from the Military Member's department to the department of the Commander-in-Chief. I cannot but think that the Papers on the Table of the House contain sufficient evidence to show that upon the present occasion some revision of the old arrangements was absolutely necessary.

The root of the difficulty is not very far to seek. I think it arises from the fact that there is, and necessarily must be, a somewhat ill-defined frontier lit e between those duties which may be described as purely military and those duties which belong more to the department of administration. There are few really important military questions into which financial considerations do not enter, and in India there are few, I would almost say no important military questions into which political considerations do not enter. Take one or two cases which at first sight look as if they were purely military cases—the question of the part of the country in which a fort or cantonment might be placed. That at first sight looks like a purely military question, but the noble Marquess knows as well as I do that political considerations would have to be taken into account. The same is true of matters concerning the recruitment of the native Army, and the manner in which regiments or battalions are constituted from different races. Again, take such a question as schemes of mobilisation—apparently a purely military question. A scheme of mobilisation, admirable on purely military grounds, may have the effect of denuding a particular part of the country entirely of troops, regardless of the condition of that part of the country, regardless of the state of the civil population, and of the dangers to which you might be exposed in the event of the sudden disappearance of the force which has been habitually quartered in its midst. It seems to me that the moral of these things is that we should endeavour to make between these two sets of duties the best division possible in the circumstances, that we should endeavour to bring the two departments as closely as possible together, to induce them if we can to regard themselves as allies rather than as competitors, and that we should provide for them some ready means of composing their differences, should any differences unhappily present themselves. In India the means are ready to hand, because it is always easy either for the Commander-in-Chief or for the Military Member to have recourse either to the Governor-General individually or the Governor-General in Council (which meets once a week throughout the greater part of the year) when a difficult case requires to be discussed and adjusted.

The noble Marquess was somewhat merciless to our proposals. I hope In will allow me to remind him that those proposals were the result of long and anxious consultation of the best Indian authorities, military and civilian, accessible in this country, authorities who included the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Roberts, and other officers of high military experience. The object of those proposals was to arrive at a better and more satisfactory definition of the duties to be assigned to the Commander-in-Chief on the one hand and to the Military Member of Council on the other; in the next place to recognise the undoubted preponderance of the Commander-in-Chief in all those questions which can be described as purely or mainly of a military character. We have; with this object, given the Commander-in-Chief direct access to the Viceroy, we have given him a secretariat of his own, and concurrently with that we have endeavoured to divest the Military Department of that somewhat over-military complexion which it has tended to assume in recent years.

One word only with regard to the despatch of May 31st of which so much has been said. The noble Marquess and the noble Lord on the back bench both took strong exception to the tone and style of that despatch. I do not think either of them singled out any passage, any word containing anything disrespectful or wanting in consideration for the Viceroy, but they pointed out that instead of the Government of India being consulted, the despatch intimated a decision already arrived at. My Lords, the moment had come when a decision was urgently called for. This controversy had been, I will not say raging, but had been going on for many months. The question had been a good deal discussed when Lord Curzon was staying in this country last year, and it was clear from the tone of the Minute recorded in this Blue-book that it was necessary for some one to come with a concrete and definite decision and to put an end to this prolonged controversy.

The despatch conveying the decision of the Secretary of State did not preclude the Viceroy from making any observations which these proposals might seem to him to call for, and, in fact, Lord Curzon made many observations upon them, and suggested modifications in some important particulars, and those modifications have been accepted. Lord Curzon, I believe, regarded them as involving material concessions and important departures from the original scheme. The Secretary of State believed, on the contrary, that most of those modifications were the natural result of his own proposal and that they could be given readily and without any misgiving. Surely it is not our business to determine who has triumphed in this case, or to decide whether there has been a victory on one side or a surrender upon the other. Is it not rather for us to bear in mind that we were a short time ago face to face with apparently irreconcilable divergences of opinion between these two great and distinguished Indian statesmen, and that these divergences have been reconciled. Though this arrangement may possibly not be perfect, though there is no finality in these things, and a moment may come when it may be necessary to reconsider some of these details, ought we not to congratulate ourselves that this period of tension and difficulty has been put an end to, and that it has been put an end to by a settlement which both sides have accepted, to which both sides are ready to give a fair, full, and loyal trial, and which we, at any rate, hope may be successful in putting an end to some of the inconvenience which has been experienced during the last few years?

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

My Lords, the speech of the noble Marquess who has just sat down has left me in some doubt as to what are the real proposals of His Majesty's Government in respect of the distribution of work between the Commander-in-Chief and the new Supply Member. Judging by Mr. Brodrick's despatch, I think it is clear that, speaking broadly, all the military duties connected with the present Military Department of the Government of India are in future to be placed in charge of the Commander-in-Chief, and that there is to be left to the Supply Member a certain number of duties connected with supply, the manufacturing departments, and other matters of that kind, which are hardly of a military character and might just as well be discharged, if they were his only duties, by a competent civilian. I have some hope, however, that, though it seems to be so from the despatch, that may not be the real intention of the Government, and that there is contemplated some other distribution of work which will give the Military Member for the future something more to do than appears to be indicated by the despatch.

Perhaps the noble Marquess the Under-Secretary of State will excuse me if I venture to offer him my congratulations upon the able speech which he made tonight, a speech full of promise, and showing that he will be able to take a vigorous and valuable part in the administration of public affairs and in the discussions in this House. I asked the noble Marquess— it doubtless escaped his memory— to state clearly, because at present I do not fully understand, whether it was intended that the new Supply Member should be always a military person, or whether it was contemplated that under certain circumstances he might be a civilian. The despatch is not clear on that point. Some of the language used by the Secretary of State in another place in the debate on the Indian Budget pointed very much to the possibility of a civilian being appointed to fill the office. If a civilian were appointed there would be no second military advice for the Governor-General, and there would be a recurrence of the position to which I understand Lord Curzon particularly to object. I do not say that there is any obligation upon the Government to make the Military Member always a soldier, but that has been the invariable practice and it is only a reasonable practice. I hope the noble Marquess will be good enough to tell me exactly what is intended in that respect in the future.

Then the noble Marquess took exception to a view which I expressed with regard to Section 8 of the Act of 1861, and he referred me to the Act of 1833. It was the intention of the Government in 1861 to alter the practice which had existed before that time. The practice had been found inconvenient by the Governor-General, and an alteration of it was particularly desired at the time by Lord Canning, in order that it might be placed upon another and a new footing. I can scarcely suppose that, after the efforts that were made in that direction, the position remained exactly the same as it stood under the Act of 1833. That, after all, is a legal point upon which I am not competent to express an opinion, but I do know what was the intention of the Government. I was not a member of the Cabinet; I was an Under-Secretary; but, as I had charge of the Bill, I do know what was the intention of the Government at the time. I have quoted an extract from a speech of the Duke of Argyll showing what was the intention of the Government then, and I distinctly say that the view I have put forward was the intention of Parliament and of the Government when that Act was passed.

I understand the noble Marquess also to say that some arrangement had been made with respect to the distribution of work in the Finance Department. My noble friend who has just sat down also referred to it. I think it was quoted as an instance of an alteration in the distribution of work in the separate departments having been ordered from home. But that is not the question. The question is not of the work in each separate department. The question raised by this clause is as to "the rules and orders for the more convenient transaction of business in the said Council," and I repeat, as the Duke of Argyll said, that it was intended to leave entirely to the discretion of the Viceroy himself the question of the distribution of work in the Viceroy's Council. I do not for a moment mean that the Secretary of State might not make any suggestions he pleased to the Viceroy on the subject, but I do say that it is inconsistent with the plain intentions of the Government at that time that the Secretary of State should force or order the Viceroy in regard to the distribution of the work within his own Council. I say nothing about departmental arrangements, because the clause does not apply to them; it applies simply and solely to the distribution of work within the Viceroy's Council, and, speaking from my own experience, I cannot conceive how the Viceroy could get on unless he had that complete control given to him personally, and not merely as Viceroy in Council, over the management and transaction of business within his own Council. That is the view I have taken. I have refreshed my memory by reading the debates which took place in this House at the time, and I can say from my own knowledge with the most absolute certainty that that was the intention which we had when the Bill was passing through Parliament, though whether or not we succeeded in carrying it out in the provisions of the Bill is a matter for lawyers to determine.

My noble friend who has just sat down spoke of the various people of great authority who had been consulted by the Secretary of State. I wish we had before us the opinions given by those distinguished persons; they would be very useful for our guidance. I daresay there were consulted by the Secretary of State many people whose opinions would be of the highest value, but they are not before us. I should be glad if the noble Marquess would give us those opinions, but, judging by the expression on his face, I do not think he is likely to do so. But seeing that we know neither who the persons were who gave the opinions nor what the opinions are, I do not think it is quite fair to refer to those opinions and tell us that we ought to yield our own judgment.

I am told by the Under-Secretary of State that the Mobilisation Committee is to be resuscitated and is to deal with all questions relating to the native Army. I am bound to say that I doubt whether any Committee can take the place of the personal advice which can be given by a competent military man on questions of that kind. I do not think that consideration by a Committee can really take the place of personal intercourse between a competent adviser and the Viceroy.

Then I am glad to learn, if I did not mistake what fell from my noble friend, that it is intended that the Viceroy should have the most perfect opportunity of consulting the Supply Member, if that is to be his name, upon any question connected with military administration.

I should like also to refer to an expression which fell from my noble friend who has just sat down which I am sure he did not really mean. He said that the arrangement for the future was to be that the Commander-in-Chief should have the freest access to the Viceroy.

The Commander-in-Chief has the freest access to the Viceroy at the present moment. Did not my noble friend and the noble and gallant Field-Marshal on the cross benches constantly confer upon military questions? I know they did. So did I with the Commanders-in-Chief that I had. Therefore, do not let it be supposed that the present system is one by which the Commander-in-Chief is held at arm's length from the Viceroy. On the contrary, the communication has been constant. While I was in India every military question of any importance was discussed by me with the Commander-in-Chief; I took his oprinion upon such questions for my own instuction and security.

THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE

Perhaps I expressed myself rather elliptically. I meant that he would have direct access instead of through the Military Department.

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

I understand. I was quite sure that my noble friend would not object to my calling attention to that remark, because it might be misunderstood coming from one of his great authority.

I do not know that I have any other comments to make upon what has fallen from noble Lords opposite. I am afraid I cannot change my opinions. I still think that the new arrangements will add to the burden of work of the Commander-in-Chief, and that to place him in charge of any portion of the present business of the Military Department is a mistake. I cannot help thinking that he will not have the time or the means of discharging his proper duties as Commander-in-Chief if you cast these further duties upon him. I am bound to say that, attaching as I do the highest importance to the competent discharge of his duties as Commander-in-Chief, I should be very sorry if he was tempted to neglect those duties for the sake of carrying out his duties as Member in charge of a department of the Council. I believe that he would much better discharge his duties as Commander-in-Chief if they alone belonged to him.

I am very glad we have had this discussion. There was one phrase which fell from my noble friend the Under-Secretary which seemed to indicate that he rather thought it was not a subject which ought to be brought forward after a settlement had been arrived at between the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief.

THE MARQUESS OF BATH

Oh, no.

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

I cannot agree with that view. I think this discussion has been most valuable. Before-the debate ends I should like an assurance from the Government that, as regards advice to the Viceroy, the Supply Member is to be a real Military Member, giving advice to the Viceroy, and defending his own opinion in Council against the Commander-in-Chief if he happens to differ from him. That, I think, is an undoubted improvement upon the arrangement proposed by Lord Kitchener. But I must continue to hold that the distribution and the management of the business of the Viceroy's Council is a matter which ought to be left to the discretion of the Viceroy alone, and that anything that is calculated to-depress the civil side of the Government of India and to elevate the military side is a great political mistake.

THE MARQUESS OF BATH

With your Lordships' indulgence I will reply to the Questions put by the noble-Marquess. Perhaps I may say that, with, regard to Section 8, my contention was this. I understand that under that section the Governor-General allocates the business to the different Members of the Council, for the purpose of conducting the business of the Council, and I instanced a case under Lord Dufferin and Lord Cross, in 1888, as showing that there had been an interference with the absolute discretion of the Governor-General with regard to the principles according to which he allocated his business.

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

Give me the Papers, and then we shall see.

THE MARQUESS OF BATH

With regard to the position of the Military Member, I can only refer the noble Marquess to the supplementary Paper which was issued and to the answer of the Secretary of State there given that we should not be prepared to propose alterations of the law, and that the discretion to appoint a soldier or a civilian to the Governor-General's Council will therefore remain as it is— Paragraph 23 of the despatch clearly indicates that the Member in charge of the Military Supply Department should usually be a soldier, and it is my intention, on the occurrence of an impending vacancy, to advise His Majesty to appoint a soldier. Further than that we must leave it to the Secretary of State at the time to make the next appointment. Then the noble Marquess also asked me a Question with regard to the consultation that the Governor-General might have with the Military Supply Member. That is dealt with in the next paragraph of the same telegram— The Governor-General has a constitutional right to consult any Member of his Council officially or unofficially on any subject, and there is nothing to the contrary in the despatch. The Members in charge of the Army and the Military Supply Departments, like other Members, must advise your Excellency if invited to do so, and the right of every member as established b y law to discuss matters in Council will of course remain unaffected. I have only one other word to say. The noble Marquess has called for the expression of opinion by Sir Donald Stewart which is quoted in the despatch. We shall, of course, present that.

On Question, Motion agreed to; and ordered accordingly.

House adjourned during pleasure; and resumed by the Earl Waldegrave.