§ Report of Amendments received.
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHmoved to amend Clause 1, Subsection (5), by deleting all the words after the words "Houses of Parliament." The sub section, as amended, would read—
All schemes made in pursuance of this Part of this Act shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament.> He explained that it had been thought more convenient to have all the pro- visions as to the laying of schemes as well as Orders in Council before Parliament in Clause 36.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 3, line 13, to leave out from the word 'Parliament' to the end of Subsection (5)."—(The Earl of Portsmouth.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ EARL FORTESCUEmoved to add a new subsection:— "(7) The chairman of the Association may receive such 812 remuneration as the Association think reasonable." This subsection was, he explained, taken from the Municipal Corporations Act, which was also incorporated by reference in the County Councils Act of 1888. He thought the County Associations which were to be set up in the future ought to have the same powers, if they thought fit to use them, of giving remuneration to their chairmen as municipal corporations and county councils possessed. It was well known that these powers had been sparingly exercised by town councils, and even more sparingly by county councils. It was equally well known that a good many gentlemen had been at one time or another appointed to the position of mayor partly owing to their possessing private means, and that many qualified persons had been obliged to decline the honour through lack of private income. It was most desirable, from the national point of view, that the best man should be obtained to fill the office of chairman of the Association, and he thought it was possible that in some cases the man best qualified for the purpose might already have a great deal to do and be obliged to say that he could only undertake the work by giving up a directorship or by employing another clerk, and that though he was willing enough to give his time he could not afford to give his money as well, and therefore could not undertake this office unless he was put in the same position monetarily as he would be in if he did not fill it, The Associations should not be prevented from obtaining the services of a gentleman of that character through the lack of power to pay remuneration. If the may or of, say, Poplar or West Ham made a mess of things, only the borough concerned suffered: but if, owing to any lack of efficiency in the County Association of, say, Sussex, an enemy succeeded in landing upon our shores, the whole country would suffer. He therefore hoped the Government would accept the Amendment.
§
Amendment moved:—
In page 3, line 29, after the word ' volunteers' to insert the following new subsection: '(7) The chairman of the Association may receive such remuneration as the Association think reasonable.' "—(Earl Fortescue.)
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHwas unable to accept the Amendment, which, in the opinion of the Government, ran counter to the whole spirit of the scheme. The Government had never contemplated paying salaries to any member of the Association except the secretary, who would probably require several paid clerks under him. The whole conception of the Associations was that all the members should give their services voluntarily, and the Government had every reason to believe that a sufficient number of gentlemen would consent to serve upon the Associations. It was really essential to the efficiency of the Territorial Army that all the expenses not directly connected with the maintenance of the Force should be kept down to the lowest level, and it was the intention of the Army Council that the expenses of the Associations should not be allowed to exceed what was absolutely necessary to meet what was required of them. The worst possible service the Associations could do to the Territorial Army would be to divert from the funds handed to them by Parliament more than was absolutely necessary for the economical working of the Associations. He hoped the noble Earl would not press the Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT ESHERmoved to amend Clause 2, Paragraph (/)—
(f) Establishing or assisting cadet battalions and corps and also rifle clubs,by adding the words—provided that no financial assistance out of money voted by Parliament shall be given by an association in respect of any person in a battalion or corps in a school in receipt of a Parliamentary grant until such person has attained the age of sixteen.In moving this Amendment, he hoped the noble Earl the Under-Secretary would not think him discourteous if he appealed, not to His Majesty's Government, but to the majority of their Lordships, who on a recent occasion voted for this subsection as it now stood. It was unnecessary and it would be unbecoming in him to attempt to recall to their Lordships the arguments which were so forcibly and so conclusively put by his noble and gallant friend Lord 814 Methuen in favour of leaving to the associations which were about to be set up under the Bill the power to train boys under the age of sixteen. Their Lordships would remember that by the clause as it stood in the Bill as it came up to their Lordships' House any such assistance was illegal and impossible. Yet, when Lord Methuen proposed to amend the clause, no arguments, if he might venture to say so, were brought forward by His Majesty's Government to controvert those which his noble and gallant friend used. It was true that the noble Earl the Under-Secretary urged the plea of privilege, and the point he took was that the privileges of the other House were infringed by the action of Lord Methuen. He did not propose to say anything on that point, which he did not think was one which carried very much weight with their Lordships. Another argument was used. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack appeared to be very much influenced by the fact that the special representatives of the working classes in the House of Commons were opposed to the training of young boys to arms. On that he would like to say, with great deference, that even if they admitted that the working classes were of one mind on this point, which he ventured to ask their Lordships to believe could only be asserted with some degree of doubt, it was not always that the working classes were themselves the best judges of their own interests. The Factory Acts, for instance, were strongly opposed by the representatives of the working classes both in the House of Commons and in the country. That was not a point which he desired to press, but he could not refrain from alluding to it, owing to its having been raised by so eminent an authority as the Lord Chancellor. He did not deny that in dealing with moneys under their control the House of Commons could make their own terms. This Amendment as now proposed admitted to the full this contention. But the Amendment was based upon other considerations. If the Bill went down as it stood to the House of Commons it was very unlikely that this subsection in its present form would be agreed to. One of two things must happen, either the point of privilege would be raised, 815 in which case the subsection in its present form, would, he imagined, not be put, and the Bill would return to their Lordships in its original shape; or the Speaker would allow their Lordships' Amendment to be put. In the latter case it did not require a great stretch of imagination to conceive that in all probability the Amendment would be rejected and the Bill returned to their Lordships in the shape in which it was originally presented to them. He hoped his noble and gallant friend and their Lordships would feel that this would be a serious mischance, and a matter of grave regret to all who, like himself, strongly sympathise with Lord Methuen and the majority of the House on this question. He hoped, therefore, that their Lordships would agree to the Amendment. It met, he ventured to think, all reasonable objection on the part of the House of Commons. It provided what was only just and fair— that the associations should be empowered to apply moneys which accrued to them from private sources to the use of cadet corps should they think fit to do so. That was surely not an unreasonable demand. No one's hands were tied. Neither the County Associations nor the Board of Education were bound by this Amendment. It carried out what he believed was the intention of the House of Commons, and it went a long way to meet the aspirations and demands of his noble and gallant friend Lord Methuen. He reminded the House that the provision was only permissive, and expressed the hope that the Amendment would not only be accepted by their Lordships but also in the other House.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 4, line 23, after the word 'clubs' to insert the words 'provided that no financial assistance out of money voted by Parliament shall be given by an association in respect of any person in a battalion or corps in a school in receipt of a Parliamentary grant until such person has attained the age of sixteen.' "-— (Viscount Esher.)
*THE EARL OF MEATHexpressed regret that he was unable, when the Bill was in Committee, to move the Amendment he had placed on the Paper, and he desired to thank his noble and gallant friend Lord Methuen for fathering the Amend- 816 ment for him, and also those noble Lords who supported it and carried it to such a triumphant conclusion. They now heard the noble Viscount who had just sat down urging their Lordships nine days afterwards to alter completely the decision to which they came by the large majority of ninety-nine, and the arguments he had used were by no means conclusive. If their Lordships were to alter their decision within nine days they would be doing something very like stultifying themselves, especially in the face of the strong expression of opinion given. The country would consider that their Lordships had very little confidence in their own opinion if they now changed the whole complexion of their decision, as was proposed by the noble Viscount. The Amendment was aimed at what to his mind was the most important part of the Bill as originally introduced in the House of Commons. It was important that the youth of this country should be trained to the use of arms out of State funds; under the Amendment, on the other hand, they, as private individuals, would have to subscribe to what ought to be a national work. The very thing which they approved of in this Bill as originally introduced was that the State recognised the fact that every citizen should do his duty and should learn it in youth at the cost of the State; but now they were asked to put their hands into their pockets and subscribe towards the defence of the country. Unless their Lordships desired to stultify themselves, they ought to adhere to the decision at which they arrived in Committee, and which he was perfectly confident was the right decision. When Mr. Haldane originally introduced his Bill he said he wanted the youth of the nation to undergo training so that they could keep the reservoir always full. The Secretary of State said they wanted to work the cadet corps into a more important position, and by so doing they would, Mr. Haldane said, allay fear and give people a sense of security which they had not hitherto had. That was what all their Lordships desired. Mr. Haldane went on to say that from every point of view cadet corps were things to be encouraged in the interest of the nation. But now they were asked to reverse all this. They were told 817 that it was absolutely wicked, and that they ought to be ashamed to teach young lads how to shoot; they would go and shoot their grandmothers. He knew that the Under-secretary had repudiated the doctrine that it would encourage militarism. He was thankful to hear that statement, and he hoped there were many of the noble Earl's followers who believed him. But while admitting that it would not introduce militarism, the noble Earl had stated that what the Government wanted was to increase the lighting forces of the country, and that this proposal would not help them, be-cause it had reference only to the training of lads. While not advocating conscription, he (Lord Meath) held that every lad should be trained to arms, and that it was the duty of every man to be able to defend his country if called upon to do so. That was the position originally taken up by Mr. Haldane. Why did he recede from it? It was not for him to say what the right hon. Gentleman's motives were, but it was most extraordinary that within so short a time he should absolutely reverse the opinion he had publicly expressed in regard to the necessity of training the nation in arms. The phrase "nation in arms" originated, he believed, with Mr. Haldane. Well, why did he suddenly change? A deputation of men, some of them, doubtless, having great influence in the country, but not very numerous, called upon the right hon. Gentleman and pointed out the dangers of militarism which the Under-secretary had repudiated; the great argument they used against the proposal was that it would advance militarism. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to have fallen flat on his face before the deputation; he apparently agreed to everything they asked, and his colleagues elsewhere had to follow suit and declare it was all a mistake. This was not the first time that they had had members of His Majesty's Government saying one thing one day and saying absolutely another a few days afterwards; and they had, therefore, got rather accustomed to it. But he hoped that their Lordships would not support the action of the Government in altering so fundamental a provision in their Bill. The Bill as it came up to their Lordships would have made it absolutely 818 illegal for any County Association to give money towards the training of lads under sixteen. It was perfectly true that the Amendment now proposed by the noble Viscount would, if passed, so far relieve the situation that the associations could accept private money given to them for this training; but private individuals could give money now for this purpose, and there was no need to send it to the County Associations. They lived in a free country still, think God! and could give money if they liked towards the maintenance of cadet corps. Mr. Haldane had said he wanted to till the reservoir by training lads so as to create a nation in arms. When danger threatened, these trained lads, by that time grown into men, would — not be compelled to serve out of the country— but be available for its service. Had they forgotten the lesson of the South African War, when we lost thousands and thousands of valuable lives, because those men who went out could neither ride nor shoot, nor do anything else but offer their bodies as targets to the enemy? Let them do what they could to avoid such a lamentable result again by training boys in time. The Secretary of State was doing his very best to make the success of his Bill impossible. Its object was to increase the forces of the country; they would not do that unless they trained their lads in early youth. Very few Volunteers joined after the age of eighteen. At seventeen a lad ceased to be a cadet and became a Volunteer, obtaining his grant. Therefore, if they wished to encourage cadet corps they must train lads before the age of sixteen, or they would not get them at all. The years immediately after sixteen were the spring-time of a young man's life, and they knew that in spring a young man's fancy lightly turned to thoughts of love. The young woman was the great enemy at that age. A young man would not lock himself up in a drill hall, unless he was compelled to, when he had a young woman waiting for him round the corner. After sixteen a young man had either become a confirmed loafer or had made up his mind what his profession was going to be, and was rightly intent upon that profession. The great majority were in the latter position, and they were not going— this was what they would say 819 — to waste their time drilling when they got no encouragement and when everything was done to handicap the man who gave up his time, money, and pleasure for patriotic duty. There was not only business and the young woman round the corner, but another thing to be considered— at that age a young man had just broken loose from all the trammels of school and of authority, and he was not going voluntarily to put himself under authority again. He therefore went off, and they did not get him. If they had the lads trained in early youth, they got over that drudgery and "barrack-square" routine which prevented many adults who had a notion that they were not dignified from enlisting or from joining the Volunteer force. He could not understand this terrible timidity, this continual yielding to the cries of hostile sections of their Party, on the part of a Government supported by the largest majority they had seen for centuries. Even if all the hostile sections in the other House were to combine, the Government would still possess an overwhelming majority. The noble Earl the Under-Secretary smiled. He was afraid the noble Earl did not recognise the value of that majority as much as he ought. There could be, in his mind, no more effective guarantee for the peace of the world than a citizen Army. They had been told that this "nation in arms" would be a danger; that if they trained the nation to arms they would want to fight. That was a perfect fallacy. When a man had to do his own fighting he was much less ready to quarrel. There was a great deal of truth in the opinion held on the continent that there was no country so ready to go to war as this country, and foreigners attributed this to the fact that there were large masses in this country who had never known what it was to suffer in their own persons and were quite unfamiliar with the horrors, the terrors, and the privations of war. By having a hired soldiery the people of this country could shelter themselves behind those men and clamour for war. Until the nation was trained to arms they could rest assured that they would ever have these continual panics and continual dreads. However powerful might be our Fleet, and however well trained our Sailors, no one could say that some 820 horrible chance might not overtake this country and for a short period of forty-eight hours leave us unprepared. This was too great a country, the people were too patriotic a people, our Empire was too great an Empire, to run any risks. To his mind it was a most extraordinary fact that the people who were most opposed to a citizen Army in this country were those whose political feeling leaned towards radicalism and democracy. He could not understand the true democrat being opposed to a citizen Army. The true democrat everywhere else was in favour of a citizen Army; they could not point to any country in the world where the true democrat was not in favour of such an Army. Our Colonies had led the way, and there was not a single British Colony, except, perhaps, the new ones, which would follow suit shortly, which had not gone in for the systematic training of lads at school. Switzerland had for ages and ages had its citizen Army. Yet, forsooth, the democracy in this country said, "Give us a hired Army, but for goodness sake do not give us a citizen Army." It was the irony of fate that" it should be left to their Lordships' House to defend what ought to be defended by every democrat who was true to his colours. His own desire was to see some really practical steps taken towards making this country safe by the universal military training— not conscription— of all British subjects.
§ *EARL ROBERTSthought the alteration in the clause as it came from the other House would, if it was maintained, do more to injure Mr. Haldane's idea of a Territorial Army on a voluntary basis than anything else. He should continue to urge it was essential that our boys should get an early training, but he was inclined to think that half a loaf was better than no bread, and as he understood that, if the Bill were passed in the form in which it came to that House, the County Associations would have been prohibited from making use even of privately-subscribed funds for the training of boys in cadet corps, he would vote for the Amendment, It was most important that we should do all in our power to train our boys, and he thought the best thing they could do, until the 821 other House had, if he might say so, seen the error of its ways, was to accept the noble Viscount's Amendment, and hope that the necessary funds would be forthcoming for the purpose.
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHsaid he did not know that it was necessary for him to say much upon this Amendment. All he could say, speaking for the Government, was that they would support the proviso, but it had nothing to do with those on the Government Bench.
§ LORD NEWTONasked whether the noble Earl meant that he washed his hands of the Amendment. Could not the Government give any undertaking to get it accepted in another place? They were responsible for this Bill, and the noble Earl was not entitled to assume an attitude of complete indifference towards changes in a Bill of this character. After the noble Earl's statement, he hoped the House would not agree to the Amendment, but would maintain their original attitude. At any rate, the Amendment should not be accepted without some statement by a responsible Member of the Government that the Government would do their best to secure its acceptance in another place.
§ THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHIt would be impossible for me to say what would be done in another place. But we shall give our friendly support to the proviso. We cannot go further.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEMy Lords, the attitude of the noble Earl who has charge of this Bill, not for the first time, has excited a certain amount of surprise. Here is a proposal of the very first importance, which has twice been discussed at great length— a proposal which evidently greatly in-interests and moves many noble Lords; and yet the noble Earl in charge of the Bill tells us that he is quite unable to give the House any assistance.
§ THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHI said that the Government would support the Amendment, but I could not speak for the whole body of the House of Commons.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEThe noble Earl has now advanced one step further. We did not gather a moment ago that His Majesty's Government were prepared, as I now understand they are, to support the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Esher with all the authority which they know they possess in another place. To my mind that makes the whole difference. As to the merits of the Amendment, I should like for one moment to remind your Lordships that there was nothing in the Bill as it stood when it was introduced to make it obligatory on the County Associations to assist these cadet corps and rifle clubs. I dwell upon that, because I think the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Meath, was rather based upon the assumption that the Amendment would take away from the Bill a provision which would have enabled us to obtain what he and others have described as "a nation in arms." The Bill never contained any provision of the sort. The clause is a purely permissive one, and it is only a permissive clause which we should lose if this Amendment were to be made. I caught an observation by Lord Esher in his opening remarks to which I wish for a moment to call attention. I understood him to say, in moving his Amendment that he admitted to the full the contention that the Amendment inserted by your Lordships in Committee the other evening was ultra vires as a breach of the privilege of the House of Commons.
§ *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEAt any rate I desire to say that if I vote for the Amendment I shall certainly not do so with any idea of admitting that the original Amendment was a breach of the privilege of the House of Commons. I remain absolutely unconvinced upon that point, and I desire to guard myself against such admission. What does the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Esher do? It is clear that these County Associations will dispose of funds derived from two different sources. There will be funds received from the Government in the shape of a 823 block-grant which we understand is to be made by the War Office to these associations, and there will be other funds contributed from different sources. As the Bill stood when it came up to this House, the County Associations found themselves absolutely precluded from spending any money, no matter from what sources derived, upon these cadet corps and rifle clubs. The Amendment of my noble friend Lord Esher will at any rate to some extent cure that defect, because it makes it clear that the only disability imposed on the County Associations has reference to money received from Government sources. It seems to me, therefore, that the Amendment does very considerably relieve the situation. I am bound to add that the more we consider the position and duties of these County Associations, the more evident does it become that the expenditure which their operations will necessitate will be an enormous expenditure. We are quite unable to arrive at any conjecture as to the extent to which that expenditure may reach, and therefore I feel a certain misgiving at the idea of adding to the responsibilities, or to the possible responsibilities, of the associations, a responsibility for the great number of cadet battalions and rifle clubs which exist or may spring up in great numbers all over the country. On the whole, therefore, I am disposed to accept the compromise— for it is a compromise— which my noble friend Lord Esher has proposed; but if I am to give my vote for him, should we go to a division, I do desire to be assured, and I hope we shall be assured in the most specific terms, that the Amendment will be supported by His Majesty's Government in another place, and that we are not likely to have the Bill sent back to us with neither the original Amendment nor the Amendment now proposed by Lord Esher.
*THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Earl of CREWE)My Lords, I merely desire to make two observations. In the first place, I confirm, so far as I am able to do so, the impression which is in the noble Marquess's mind as to the difference which the insertion of this provision would make in the 824 Bill as it came up to your Lordships' House. I quite agree that under the Bill as it came up it would not have been competent for an association to spend any money, however derived, on these cadet corps; and I think the noble Earl, Lord Meath, was in error in imagining that in any case that would have been possible. The second observation I have to make is that it undoubtedly is the case that in another place His Majesty's Government will do their best to see that this provision becomes part of the final provisions of the Bill.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ *VISCOUNT MIDLETONmoved to insert words converting the duty of the association as to safe custody of arms and equipment into a duty to provide accommodation for that safe custody. When this question was raised in Committee, the noble Earl the Under-Secretary undertook to bring up words on Report which would deal with the point; and the noble Earl had now informed him that he was willing to accept this Amendment.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 4, line 26, before the word 'the' to insert the words 'providing accommodation for.' "— (Viscount Midleton.)
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHI accept the Amendment.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ *VISCOUNT MIDLETONmoved another Amendment to provide that the requirements on mobilisation, to be supplied by the County Associations, should be embodied, where practicable, in the regulations. This question was raised by Lord Lovat in Committee, and the noble Earl the Under-Secretary then undertook to consider to what extent he could pledge the Government that these regulations would be so laid down. The noble Earl now informed him that he would be willing to agree to the insertion after paragraph (i)—
(i) The supply of the requirements on mobilisation of the units of the Territorial Force within the county, in so far as those. 825 requirements are directed by the Army Council to be met locally.of the words—Such requirements, where practicable, to be embodied in Regulations.This did not carry out the whole desire of Lord Lovat, who wished that the scheme should be laid down on the passing of the Act. This was, however, an administrative question, and he understood that it had received the careful consideration of the Secretary of State, and that his view was that it would not be practicable, immediately on the passing of the Act, to frame requirements on mobilisation with regard to the whole of the Territorial Army, and that all he was able to do was to embody the requirements in the regulations where-ever practicable. He begged to move.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 4, line 30, after the word 'locally' to insert, the words 'such requirements, where practicable, to be embodied in regulations.' "— (Viscount Midleton.)
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHI accept the Amendment.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ LORD BLYTHSWOODmoved to insert the following subsection: "The members of an association shall not be under any pecuniary liability for any act done by them in their capacity as members of such association in carrying out the provisions of this Act." In moving this Amendment he hoped it would be understood that he did so entirely in the interests of the Bill. He was convinced that in default of such a provision, it would not be possible to induce men to serve on the associations and incur an unlimited liability. They could not force people to serve, and they had the dictum of the Lord President that if the money given by Parliament to the associations was not sufficient to carry out the work, the associations would be liable. Therefore they would not get these gentlemen to serve. It was very difficult to see where, in his county, they were going to get the members from. Most of the gentlemen who were qualified were already on the county council and the other bodies, the work of which was 826 exceedingly onerous; and it was unreasonable to expect them to come forward and undertake further work if they were to be liable for expenses incurred under the Act. In his own county there were three strong battalions of Volunteers— in all some thirty-nine companies. At £75 per company the association would receive £2,925. Would that sum in any way cover the expenses which the County Association would have to face under the Bill?
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHsaid he did not wish to interrupt the noble Lord; but he thought it might perhaps save time if he stated that the Government would be pleased to accept the Amendment.
§ LORD BLYTHSWOODsaid that, in those circumstances, he would not say more, but would move the Amendment.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 5, line 29, after the word 'Treasury' to insert the following new subsection:— '(7) The members of an association shall not be under any pecuniary liability for any act done by them in their capacity as members of such association in carrying out the provisions of this Act."— (Lord Blythswood.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ EARL FORTESCUEin Clause 5 (Raising and Maintenance of Force) moved the insertion of a new subsection. He said the words were taken almost verbatim from the County Councils Act, and as he understood the Government accepted the Amendment he would move it without further explanation.
§
Amendment moved—
In page C, line 33, after the word ' made ' to insert the following new subsection:— '(4) — (a) Any County Associations may from time to time join in appointing out of their respective bodies a joint committee for any purpose in respect of which they are jointly interested; (b) Any Association appointing a joint committee under this subsection may delegate to it any power which such Association might exercise for the purpose for which the committee is appointed;(c) Subject to the terms of delegation any such joint committee shall in respect of any matter delegated to it have the same power in all respects as the Associations appointing it; (d) The costs of a joint committee shall be defrayed by the Associations by whom it has been appointed, in such proportion as may be agreed between.
827
them, and the accounts of such joint committees and their officers shall for the purposes of the provisions of this Act be deemed to be accounts of the Associations appointing them and of their officers.' "—(Earl Fortescue.)
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHsaid the Government would accept the Amendment, but he thought it would be better that it should come in as a new clause to follow Clause 4.
§ EARL FORTESCUEsaid he would move the Amendment in the shape of a new clause.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to, and new clause added to the Bill.
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH,in Clause 6 (Government, discipline, and pay), moved an Amendment in the second subsection providing that an Order may be issued providing for the constitution of a permanent staff, including adjutants and staff sergeants, who "may" (instead of "shall," as in the Bill) be members of the Regular Forces, and may regulate the appointment, rank, duties, and numbers of the officers and non-commissioned officers of the Territorial Force. It was to be remembered that the contemplated change would not be made all at once, but would be deferred until the training machinery of the Territorial Army was in working order and training units had been established. The Army Council had gone very carefully into this question and made most careful inquiries, and they had come to the conclusion that it would be for the ultimate benefit of the Territorial Army if Regular assistance in training the men was dispensed with in future, and commanding officers realised that they were themselves solely responsible for the training of the men as well as the need of bringing their officers to regard themselves as the only instructors of the men under their charge. Formerly the adjutant of a regiment or battalion was looked upon as its chief instructor, and far too great reliance was placed on his knowledge and experience. In the future it was considered desirable that the adjutant's energy should be concentrated on the administrative duties connected with his unit, while assistance in training matters would be provided by the training battalions which were to be called into 828 being to supply it. In connection with the disappearance of the Regular adjutants there was no desire to effect any petty economy at the ultimate expense of the Territorial Army. They had been guided in this matter by the advice of the general staff who had been engaged in discovering the best possible system of training. They had also fortified their opinion by reports from those possessing practical experience, and these had unmistakably, and almost without exception, shown that the presence of a Regular adjutant had often tended to produce on the part of the officers of the Auxiliary Forces a lack of energy in training units. At least one commanding officer assured them that he had done without the assistance of a Regular adjutant for some years with marked advantage, and that on no account would he revert to the system which was now generally in vogue. There was another practical difficulty. He did not think it had been appreciated what the effect of leaving in the word "shall" would be. One very important result would be that from the moment the Bill passed every Volunteer battalion must either have a Regular adjutant or no adjutant at all, so that if no Regular adjutant were available it would have to employ someone as acting adjutant without pay. What an important change this would effect would be obvious when he told their Lordships that in March last there were some twenty-seven paid acting adjutants attached to Volunteer battalions. For these reasons he hoped their Lordships would agree to substitute the word "may" for the more imperative word "shall."
§
Amendment moved—
In page 7, line 18. to leave out the word 'shall' and to insert the word ' may.' "—(The Earl of Portsmouth.)
§ THE EARL OF ERROLLsaid that he looked upon it as being a point of vital importance that the adjutant of the Auxiliary Forces should belong to the Regular Army. He had considerable experience with the Yeomanry, and he knew from that experience how necessary it was that the adjutant should be a member of the Regular Army. If the commanding officers were able to devote the whole of their time to the training of 829 the men, perhaps the services of the adjutant would not be necessary; but a great many of them were busy men whose time was occupied with private affairs, and it was impossible that they should be able to devote sufficient time to instruct their men thoroughly. It was thus necessary that there should be at least one officer in the regiment who was actually up to date and in touch with modern ideas, and the only way to attain this end was to employ an officer of the Regular Forces. He hoped that the Amendment would not be accepted.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYstrongly opposed the Amendment. It was said that a colonel who had a Regular adjutant was inclined to lean too much upon the adjutant and leave the whole burden of training to him. If that were so, it was the fault of the higher military authorities for permitting it. No commanding officer of an Auxiliary unit who was fit for his post ought to rely upon the adjutant entirely. Therefore their Lordships must not accept the argument of the crutch. Then it was contended the adjutant might interfere with the scheme of training which had been circulated. He could not see why the presence of a Regular adjutant should interfere with that scheme of training. On the contrary, the presence of the adjutant would greatly assist the work of those Regular officers who would have to go round inspecting. By far the most important point in any scheme of Army reform was the number of Regular officers. We could not extemporise trained Regular officers, and in the stress of a great war the country would give anything to have Regular officers to send to the front. According to estimates for this year the present establishment of Regular officers was 8,360, but after the changes which the Secretary of State contemplated in his scheme we should only have a total of 7,970. Although trained Regular officers were of vital importance to the country, under the administration of the present Secretary of State we should be short of the present establishment by 300 or 400. He hoped their Lordships would adhere to the Bill as it stood and not pass the Amendment. If they kept the Bill as it was, they left the adjutants 830 as quartermasters in the Territorial Force, and there would be scarcely any diminution in the number of officers. If the Amendment were carried, it would mean a considerable loss of officers of the Regular Army.
§ LORD RIBBLESDALEsaid he understood the noble Earl to say that one of the Government's reasons for developing the drilling aptitude of officers of the Territorial regiments was that the adjutants should have more time to devote to administrative duties. He remembered very well that when he was in the Army adjutants were divided into two sorts— the adjutants who lived in the orderly room and the adjutants who lived in the barrack square. If a smart regiment was wanted they were always more likely to get it from the adjutant who spent his time in the barrack square. He would like to know whether by administrative duties it was meant that the adjutants were to devote their time entirely to office work and correspondence, and that the whole of the drilling and smartening of the regiments was to be done by the regimental officers.
LORD ZOUCHE OF HARYNGWORTHhoped the House would pause before accepting the Amendment, which seemed to him to go to the very root of the whole question of the efficiency of the Territorial Forces. It was difficult to understand what had led to this change on the part of His Majesty's Government, because the words as they originally stood—
§ *THE EARL OF CREWEI beg the noble Lord's pardon. The words were inserted as an Amendment from his own side of the House.
LORD ZOUCHE OF HARYNGWORTHcontended that, whatever the origin or source of the provision, the word "shall" should remain in the Bill. The Territorial Forces, more especially as regarded the Volunteers, had only limited opportunities when they could drill and make themselves efficient. They started knowing very little, and it was of the utmost importance that they should have the advantages of competent instructors. The assistance which a 831 Regular adjutant could give a battalion was of the greatest value. The Amendment would deal not only with adjutants but with staff sergeants. If the expression staff sergeants meant the ordinary company drill instructors, then he ventured to say a fatal blow would be struck at the efficient training of the Territorial Army should they be withdrawn. The art of teaching drill to men who previously knew nothing about it required special training in itself, and in nine cases out of ten instruction could not be efficiently given by a person who had not himself received that technical training which membership of His Majesty's Regular Forces would give him.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUsaid that, having been responsible for the insertion of the original Amendment, he wished to say two or three words on the subject. As a Volunteer he should prefer to have Regular adjutants, but, after reading the Secretary of State's Paper, he thought that Regular adjutants might not be necessary under the new system of training. He asked the Government to give an undertaking that the Regular adjutants should not be withdrawn until experience had shown whether the Territorial scheme was satisfactory or not.
§ THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLANDagreed that a Militia officer, who had a considerable amount of experience, ought to be independent of his adjutant. But it was almost impossible for a Volunteer officer to acquire that knowledge of military matters which would enable him to do without the help of an adjutant. It was not so much a question of drill as of military discipline. Military discipline was a habit; it could not be learned from books. He had himself watched from year to year the discipline of a regiment gradually improving, because of the steady effect of a proper and wise exercise of discipline upon them. They learned unconsciously the habit of discipline. It was on exactly this point that the Volunteer commanding officer was extremely ignorant, and he was liable to be either too lax or too severe. These were faults which the Volunteer commanding officer learned to avoid from the experience of a Regular adjutant. 832 It might, perhaps, be true that this placed the commanding officer in the position of having a crutch, but he was convinced that in this matter of military discipline the assistance of the Regular adjutant was absolutely essential.
*LORD LUCASsaid that one or two of the speeches that had been delivered by noble Lords opposite were made under the impression that the two alternatives before the House were either to continue the present system of having Regular adjutants, or go back to the system of having no adjutants at all. That was not the case. As had been already made abundantly plain by the Secretary of State, this proposed change, if it was made, would be made gradually. It was certainly not until the new training machinery was in working order that any step would be taken to abolish the Regular adjutants. The new machinery was the result of careful consideration of the problem of training. It was the view of the General Staff that they would be able to get a better form of instruction by this method. As to the point raised by the noble Lord opposite, Lord Zouche, with regard to staff-sergeants, those sergeants stood in a different category from Regular adjutants. The staff-sergeant had to drill the men night after night, and that was a thing which no officer of the Territorial Force could do. He understood there was no intention of doing away with the Regular sergeant-instructors who would continue to be attached, as at present, to the units of the Territorial Force. With regard to the argument of the crutch, everybody knew that Lord Salisbury was a commanding officer who required assistance from no one, but the noble Marquess had been a commanding officer so long that he had probably forgotten what the feelings of the younger officers were. It did not develop the power of command in a young officer to have a Regular officer who was ready to tell him what to do whenever he was in doubt, and who literally acted as a crutch to him. What did give a man confidence was to have a knowledge of his subject. In the ordinary Volunteer regiment, unless a man gave a great deal of time to it, there was no method by which he could really learn his work. 833 The result was that an officer went on parade not knowing how to command. If this new scheme worked out as they hoped, they would be able to give real instruction to their officers and non commissioned officers. Surely that would develop in them the power to command. He agreed that it was of the greatest importance to maintain the connection between the Regular Army and the Territorial Army, but these men ought to provide just as good a link as the Volunteer adjutant did at present. As to administration, the Regular adjutant up to the present had been the administrative and training authority. When the now scheme came into force training would not be in the hands of the Regular adjutant, who would be simply an administrative officer. He thought it would be impossible to give a pledge that the change should not take place within a definite time, but it would probably be two or three years before it was begun.
§ EARL BROWNLOWsuggested as an alternative to the Amendment that after the word "shall" the words "as far as possible" should be inserted. The provision would then read—
and may provide for the constitution of a permanent staff, including adjutants and staff sergeants who shall as far as possible be members of His Majesty's Regular Forces.It was desirable that Regular officers should be appointed as adjutants, but there had been times when it was impossible to get Regular officers to take up these duties. At the outbreak of the South African War he had the honour of commanding a Volunteer brigade, and his brigade-major and one of his adjutants were taken away. The result was that he had to go on for two years with a Volunteer brigade-major and a Volunteer adjutant, and as brigadier he greatly missed the presence of the Regular brigade-major, although he was bound to admit that the Volunteer officer, who had had great experience in the Volunteers, performed the duties temporarily to his entire satisfaction. If such a contingency should occur again it would be absolutely necessary to appoint a Volunteer. Although he most cordially endorsed what had been said by Volunteer 834 officers that evening as to the desirability of having Regular officers in these posts, still the insertion of the words he suggested would leave a loophole for appointing Volunteers in cases where it was impossible to get Regular officers.
LORD LOVATsaid their Lordships would have to make up their mind whether they were going to follow the advice of the General Staff or of noble Lords who commanded units and who had addressed them that evening. To his mind the whole question of Volunteer service turned on the question of discipline, and discipline could only be got by having some authority in a regiment who not only knew his work, but who was known by the whole of the regiment to know it. He was one of those who believed in the training of officers, but why should they throw away the adjutants who were a stand-by to many a battalion? He would not enter into the crutch question, but it had been demonstrated that under this scheme voluntary contributions would be expected to a fairly large extent, and therefore they could not expect commanding officers of units to be appointed to that position through efficiency alone; the power of their purse and the question of seniority would play important parts. If the selection of the commanding officers of the Territorial units was to be by qualification alone, the Regular adjutants might be allowed to go, but not other wise. They really must have some assurance from His Majesty's Government that the great bulk of these men were going to be Regular soldiers. They had no such assurance now, because Lord Lucas had practically admitted that after a short time there would be no Regular officers. He was sure every Volunteer ' officer would regard that with great concern. It had been stated that there was some idea of employing senior Militia officers in this capacity. There was a certain jealousy between Volunteer and Militia officers, and he knew that the Volunteers would be very much opposed o the idea of Militia officers, who, after all, were only Volunteer officers and had not received much more training, being appointed to these posts. Then there was the question of numbers. They had not got such a number of officers in the Regular Army as would make it likely 835 that the Government would strain a point in order to keep these Regular officers going, for there was at present a shortage of 4,139. All the Amendments that had been made to this Bill in their Lordships' House had been designed with the purpose of wholeheartedly backing up Mr. Haldane's scheme, and in resisting the Amendment now before the House their Lordships would be consistent in their efforts to promote efficiency.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMOREexpressed regret that the Government had given no indication of their view towards the far too liberal compromise, from their point of view, which had been offered by the noble Earl Lord Brownlow. He hoped they would hear something from the Government on that point, although, in his opinion, the compromise went a good deal further than their Lordships could with safety accept. He was not in the least frightened by the bogey of the General Staff. They were told that the General Staff were satisfied, and, therefore, their Lordships ought to be satisfied; but, personally, though no one had a higher respect for the General Staff than he had, he thought it would be safer to be guided by the advice of experienced Volunteer officers. At all events, he thought their Lordships should hesitate before they cast aside their practically unanimous advice in favour of the dictum that the General Staff were satisfied. He presumed that they might take it that Lord Lucas spoke the mind of the War Office on the point of the staff sergeants, that it was not the intention of the Government to substitute Volunteer staff sergeants. There was no intention of making this change at present, for the new system of training was experimental. But when the change was made it would be one of a far-reaching and most important character. Was it not right, in these circumstances, that Parliament should be consulted when that change was made? If their Lord ships insisted upon the Amendment remaining in the Bill they would in no way prejudice the Government of the day three or four years hence coming and saying, "We want to make this change now." Their Lordships would be able to judge of the case as it was presented to them then. The only authorisation for this change was that they must assume that the new scheme of training was to be a success. He was quite ready to admit that if the 836 system of training was an unqualified success they might be able to do away with the Regular adjutants. But it was very doubtful whether it would be a success. He did not himself trust the Government with this power. He thought their Lordships ought to keep the matter in their own hands until it was proved to their satisfaction that the new system of training was a success. He could not congratulate Lord Lucas on the strength of his argument that the staff sergeants could keep up the connection with the Regular Army.
LORD LUCASsaid he did not mean that the staff sergeants would keep the connection, but the officers from the training battalions who would be in perpetual touch with the officers of the Territorial Force.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMOREthought the connection would be kept better by an officer attached permanently to the battalion, as would be the case with the Regular adjutant. No answer whatever had been given to the argument of Lord Salisbury that by this arrangement 390 officers' places were going to be lost to the Regular Army. When it was proved that under the new system of training the Territorial Army was more efficient they would be ready to discuss the matter, but they had at present no such guarantee, and he hoped their Lordships would hesitate before voting with the Under-Secretary in favour of this Amendment.
THE EARL OF MOUNT-EDGCUMBEsaid that several noble Lords had spoken on behalf of the Yeomanry, but what was true of the Yeomanry was still more true of the Volunteers. He was quite sure that there were a great many Volunteer officers who were very efficient and had a good knowledge of drill and discipline, but the position of a colonel of Volunteers who had not one man with a knowledge of drill and discipline who could give his whole time to these matters would be a very ungrateful one.
§ *EARL ROBERTS,speaking of his own experience, said he had never heard any commanding officer of Yeomanry, Volunteers, or Militia ask for anything but a Regular officer as adjutant. He sincerely hoped that this change would not be 837 allowed to be made. Considering the extraordinary number of officers that were needed, not less, as he had previously pointed out in this House, than 7,000 on mobilisation, including the requirements of India, he could not conceive any-thing more detrimental to the interests and position of the Army, especially in India, than to reduce the number of British officers.
§ *THE EARL OF CREWEMy Lords, I am very anxious not to enter further than I can help into what I may call the purely technical side of this question. My own connection with the Auxiliary Force closed, I am sorry to say, some years ago, and when I was a member of it I think most Auxiliary corps leant more heavily on the crutch, both the colonel commanding and the other officers, than is the case at present. I am quite willing to admit that there has been a very marked and considerable change in that respect. At the same time I do not see how it can possibly be denied that the presence of a purely professional soldier as adjutant in any Territorial or Auxiliary battalion must do something in many cases to check the growth of the spirit of self-reliance among the officers. I am quite certain that that would not apply to the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury. He, by common repute, is an exceedingly efficient officer, and from all I know of him I am quite certain that all the adjutants in England would not be able to interfere with him to any extent beyond which he wished that interference to go; but I think he has done what people are very apt to do, that is to argue somewhat too exclusively from his own experience. The noble Marquess said, "Why not institute your training battalions if you will, and keep your Regular adjutants still?" I take it there are two answers to that. In the first place, it would involve very considerable extra cost; and, secondly, in the opinion of the military advisers of my right hon. friend the Secretary of State, it would be difficult to define the relations as regards training, supposing the adjutant, was still to remain the training officer, between the adjutant and the training battalion. As regards what fell from other noble Lords, it seemed to be assumed that, when the Regular adjutant disappeared, no one was going to take his place. Nothing 838 was said by Lord Zouche or even by the noble and gallant Field Marshal who spoke last about the training battalions. This part of the scheme may be a bad or a good one, but it is not the abandonment of the old practice without the substitution of something in its place. I am afraid that the Government cannot accept Lord Brownlow's suggestion to insert the words "as far as possible," because it would not allow of the gradual substitution of Auxiliary officers in these posts if the system of training battalions succeeds. In order to make it clear that the operation is to be gradual, we would be quite willing to insert after the word "shall" the words "until otherwise decided by the Army Council." But on the whole question of the discussion of this Bill, I desire to make an appeal to noble Lords opposite. It does seem to me a most unusual thing that noble Lords, some of whom are very competent to speak on the merits of the new training scheme, but some of whom, like myself, are no more competent to express an opinion upon it than I am on a question of Chinese grammar, should yet be prepared to give a vote which would upset the carefully-planned and carefully thought-out scheme of those who at present are the military advisers of the Crown. My noble friend Lord Donough-more said he wanted to leave this to Parliament. I do not think that the Members of this House or the other House are the people who are competent to pronounce technical opinions of that kind. No one pretends that my right hon. friend the Secretary of State has not ascertained the opinions of those who are entitled, as many of your Lordships are, to speak for the Auxiliary Forces; and it is not a wise thing, in the course of a merely casual debate, almost to set aside and really interfere to a serious extent with a scheme at which the military advisers of the Crown have deliberately arrived, and for the success or failure of which His Majesty's Government must, of course, take the responsibility.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEMy Lords, I had intended to suggest to the House that we might diminish the rigidity of the section as it now stands by adding after the word "shall" the words suggested by my noble friend Lord Brownlow, "so far as possible," or some words of the same description. Perhaps 839 a better formula would have been "except in special circumstances certified by the general officer commanding." But I gather from what has just fallen from the noble Earl who at this moment leads the House that His Majesty's Government are not prepared to accept any compromise of that kind. Let me assure the noble Earl that our desire is, as his desire no doubt is, to render this Territorial Force as efficient as possible, and we ask ourselves whether we are likely to render it more efficient by adhering to the old practice of taking adjutants and drill instructors from the Regular Army, or by relying upon the new race of adjutants and drill instructors who are to be the product of this new scheme of training, which, of course, has not yet come into existence. That it is really what we are asked to do. "We are asked to give up what we have got for something which we may or may not get as events develop. I was struck by the observation of my noble friend Lord Lucas, who, in reply, I think, to a suggestion from the bench behind me, said we might go on with Regular adjutants for a limited period of years. He expressed an anticipation of his own that it might be possible to continue them for a certain number of years, but he distinctly declined to give the House any pledge upon the subject.
§ *THE EARL OF CREWEWhat I think my noble friend said, or at any rate intended to convey, was that the existing state of things would last until it was proved to the satisfaction of the military authorities that the new scheme was succeeding.
§ *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEBut he told the House that His Majesty's Government were not able to give a pledge.
§ *THE EARL OF CREWEThat was for a fixed term of years.
§ *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEThen I come to the suggestion which was made by the noble Earl the Lord President. He told us, I think, that His Majesty's Government were ready to 840 insert after the word "shall" the words "until otherwise decided by the Army Council." Now that does not quite satisfy the objection which we feel. We desire some more specific security than that, and if the noble Earl will allow the insertion of the words "until otherwise decided by Parliament" we should probably be able to come to terms with him. I desire, before I sit down, merely to add this observation. I have been greatly struck, as I think the House was greatly struck, by the main point in the argument of my noble friend Lord Salisbury, that by getting rid of these adjutants nearly 400 Regular officers will be lost to the Army. That seems to me a very serious matter indeed. The more we consider this question the more we must be impressed by the fact that the shortage in Regular officers is the greatest of all our military difficulties. It was said— and I do not think it was contradicted— that at this moment there was a shortage of something like 4,000 officers. This represents the difference between the strength and the establishment. That is a very serious matter, and the point has been enforced with all the weight which belongs to him by my noble and gallant friend Lord Roberts. Let us remember that for India this question of officers is a vital one. I had the honour of serving in India with the noble and gallant Field Marshal, and I well remember how often he used to impress upon me that with our great Native Army and with its comparatively small allowance of British officers it was absolutely necessary that we should have in reserve as many officers as possible. I believe I am right in saying that the number of officers commissioned every year is somewhere about 800. How many had we to commission at the outset of the South African war? In the first year of the war it was found necessary to commission somewhere about 4,000 British officers. In the face of those facts, I for one, view with the greatest reluctance and apprehension any proposal which will have the effect of diminishing by several hundreds the number of British officers on the establishment. I shall, therefore, vote against the proposal of the Undersecretary.
§ On Question, "That the word 'shall' stand part of the clause," their Lordships
| CONTENTS. | ||
| Norfolk, D. (E. Marshal.) | Scarbrough, E. | Desborough, L. |
| Stradbroke, E. | Digby, L. | |
| Argyll, D. | Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.) | Dunboyne, L. |
| Bedford, D. | Waldegrave, E. [Teller.] | Ellenborough, L. |
| Northumberland, D | Westmeath, E. | Elphinstone, L. |
| Wellington, D. | Faber, L. | |
| Churchill, V. [Teller.] | Forester, L. | |
| Bath, M. | Cross. V. | Hindlip, L. |
| Lansdowne. M. | Falmouth, V. | Hylton, L. |
| Salisbury, M. | Halifax, V. | Kenmare, L. (E. Kenmar.) |
| Zetland, M. | Hardinge, V. | Kensington. L. |
| Hill, V. | Killanin, L. | |
| Albermarle, E. | Hutchinson, V. (E. Donough more.) | Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.) |
| Bathurst, E. | Kinnaird, L. | |
| Brownlow, E. | Iveagh, V. | Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.) |
| Cathcart, E. | Knutsford, V. | Lawrence, L. |
| Cawdor, E. | Milner, V. | Leigh, L. |
| Clarendon, E. | Portman, V. | Lovat, L. |
| Dartrey, E. | Tredegar, V. | Monk Bretton, L, |
| Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch | Muskerry, L. | |
| and Queensberry.) | Abinger, L. | Newton, L. |
| Dundonald, E. | Addington, L. | Oriel, L. (V. Massereene.) |
| Egerton. E. | Ardilaun, L. | Oranmore and Browne, L. |
| Essex, E. | Armstrong, L. | Oxenfoord, L. (E. Stair.) |
| Fitzwilliam, E. | Atkinson, L. | Ponsonby, L. (E.Bessborough.) |
| Haddington, E. | Avebury, L. | Raglan. L. |
| Halsbury. E. | Balfour, L. | Ranfurly, L. (E. Ranfurly.) |
| Jersey, E. | Balinhard, L. (E. Southesk.) | Ravensworth, L. |
| Lauderdale. E. | Barrymore, L. | Redesdale, L. |
| Mar and Kellic, E. | Blythswood, L. | St. Levan, L. |
| Mayo. E. | Bowes, L. (E. Strathmore and Kinghorn.) | Saltoun, L. |
| Morley, E. | Sanderson, L. | |
| Morton, E. | Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.) | Shute, L. (V. Barrington.) |
| Mount Edgeumbe, E. | Burton, L. | Stalbridge, L. |
| Orford, E. | Carysfort, L. (E, Carysfort.) | Sudley, L. (E.Arran.) |
| Plymouth, E. | Clinton, L. | Tyrone, L. (M. Waterford.) |
| Powis. E. | Clonbrock, L. | Wynford, L. |
| Roberts, E. | Colchester, L. | Zouche of Haryngworth, L. |
| Romney, E. | De Mauley, L. | |
| NOT-CONTENTS. | ||
| Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor.) | Selby, V. | Granard, L. (E. Granard.) |
| [Teller.] | ||
| Crewe, E. (L. President.) | Aberdare. L. | Hamilton of Dalzell, L. |
| Allendale, L. | Haversham, L. | |
| Abingdon, E. | Armitstead, L. | Headley, L. |
| Beauchamp, E. | Brassey, L. | Joicey, L. |
| Carrington. E. | Burghclere, L. | Lucas, L. |
| Chesterfield, E. | Castletown, L. | Lyveden, L. |
| Chichester, E. | Clifford of Chudleigh, L. | Nunburnholme, L. |
| Craven, E. | Denman. L. [Teller.] | O'Hagan, L. |
| Fortescue, E. | Dunning, L. (L. Rollo.) | Ribblesdale, L. |
| Portsmouth, E. | Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kin- cardine.) | Stanley of Alderley, L. |
| Temple, E. | Weardale, L. | |
| Eversley, L. | Welby, L. | |
| Althorp, V. (L. Chamberlain.) | Glantawe, L. |
§ *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEI now move to insert; after the word "shall" the following qualifying words which I read to the House just now, "except in special circumstances certified by the general officer commanding."
§ divided— Contents, 108; Not-Contents, 38.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 7, line 18, after the word 'shall' to insert the words ' except in special circumstances certified by the general officer commanding.'"—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
§ THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHaccepted the Amendment.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF DUNDONALD,in Clause 7 (First appointments to lowest rank of officers of the Territorial Forces), moved an Amendment providing that such first appointments shall be given to persons recommended by the president of the association for the county "after consultation with the officer commanding the division, whom failing, the officer commanding the brigade to which the unit belongs." He maintained that these officers should be consulted with regard to any vacancy in the units under their command. If the patronage and all the responsibility with regard to appointments of officers were taken out of the hands of high commanders the force would not receive the enthusiastic support of the military element in filling the ranks of officers, and they would not get the right class of officers.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 8, line 23, after the word 'county' to insert the words 'after consultation with the officers commanding the brigade to which the unit belongs.' "—(The Earl of Dundonald.)
§ *EARL ROBERTSI support that Amendment.
§ THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHreminded the House that the appointments with which this Amendment would have to deal were only first commissions, and the Government thought the Amendment was hardly necessary. The importance of consulting the officers suggested would be obvious if previous military training or experience were the question that had to be primarily considered; but, as he had pointed out, the appointments were first commissions, and the president of the Association, together with the officer commanding the unit whom he would normally and the Government supposed ordinarily consult, or would be in the habit of consulting, in view of their local knowledge would be in a perfectly sound position to decide upon the suitability of a candidate for a first commission. That being so, he hoped his noble friend would not consider it necessary to insert the words proposed.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
844§ THE DUKE OF BEDFORDmoved to insert in Clause 8 a new subsection providing that the Territorial soldier should be warned before attestation that he might be asked to serve outside the United Kingdom in time of national emergency, and that his attestation paper should contain a certificate that the attesting officer had explained the same to the recruit. During the Committee stage he gathered it to be the intention of the Government to ask the Territorial Force in case of national emergency to serve abroad. Under these conditions it seemed to be only fair and right that the soldier of the Territorial Force should be warned that that request might be made of him, and the right and most convenient moment for that to be done was, he thought, when the Territorial soldier was attested.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 9, linel 4, after the word 'time' to insert the following new subsection: '(d) Shall be warned before attestation that he may be asked to serve outside the United Kingdom in time of national emergency, and his attestation paper shall contain a certificate that the attesting officer has explained the same to the recruit.— (The Duke of Bedford.)
§ THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHthought the noble Duke was labouring under some misconception as regarded the necessity for a provision of the kind proposed. The Amendment suggested that a recruit for the Territorial Force should be warned before attestation that he might be asked to serve outside the United Kingdom in time of national emergency. It seemed to him to be most inexpedient to insert any such provision in the Bill, nor did it accurately represent what the position of a man in the Territorial Force would be. The Amendment seemed to imply that a man in the Territorial Force could be required to serve outside the United Kingdom. That was not the case. He could only be asked to volunteer to serve outside the United Kingdom, and Clause 12, Subsection (3), expressly provided that a man should not be compelled to make an offer to serve outside the United Kingdom except by his own consent, and that a commanding officer was not to certify any voluntary offer without having previously explained to the person making 845 the offer that it was to be purely voluntary on his part. The Bill as it stood met the objections which the noble Duke under a misconception appeared to think existed. In the opinion of the Government the attestation paper should contain nothing but the legal liabilities implied by attestation, and there was no legal liability in the case of the Territorial Force to serve abroad.
§ THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLANDthought the Amendment raised an important point which ought not to be lightly passed over. Was it to be understood— he would not say that no pressure was to be put upon a member of the Territorial Force, but that he was not to be asked, or incited, or induced to offer to serve abroad in time of national emergency? That was really the question, It had been felt to be a hardship by those who engaged merely to servo within the United Kingdom that, although technically and legally they were not bound to serve elsewhere, yet when emergency arose the question was put before them in such a manner that practically they could not refuse to serve abroad. That had been the case hitherto with the Militia. The Militiaman was attested to serve in this country, and yet whenever an important war broke out he had invariably been asked whether he would not serve abroad, and the matter had been put in such a way that the Militiaman had been unable to refuse without there being cast upon him a stigma which he naturally did not wish to bear. He (the Duke of Northumberland) had always felt that it was extremely unfair to gather men together upon one pretext, and then to put before them another proposal, which although legally they might refuse, morally they were bound to accept. The Government should do one of two things: either they should put distinctly in the Bill that no man was to be asked or induced in any way, unless he came forward perfectly voluntarily, to go on foreign service; or ii they did not like to do that— and he could see plenty of objections to it— they should tell him fairly that he was liable in time of emergency to be asked so to offer himself.
§ *THE EARL OF CREWEI am completely in accord with the noble Duke 846 who has just sat down as to the hardship of what may be called compulsory volunteering. It is clearly unfair and improper to range a number of men in line, calling on them as a body to volunteer, and asking those to fall out who do not wish to go abroad. That is an altogether improper kind of pressure to put upon men. But if the noble Duke will look at Clause 12 he will see that while Subsection (2) provides for the acceptance of the offer on the part of the Territorial Force, Subsection (3) attempts to deal with the difficulty which he has referred to, and I venture to think that the proper time to deal with the difficulty is when the offer is made and not at the time of attestation. It seems to me that the Amendment would have the opposite effect to that which the present state of things may be held to induce. If such a provision were inserted it would lead the recruit to suppose that it was exceedingly probable that he would be called upon to serve abroad.
§ THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLANDIs it not so?
§ *THE EARL OF CREWEI should have thought that the chances of an individual recruit in the Yeomanry or Volunteers having to serve abroad, taking the average of the last hundred years, was exceedingly slight. Therefore, the Amendment of the Duke of Bedford would, in my opinion, have the effect of making it seem probable that these men would be called upon to serve abroad. I confess that when I first saw the Amendment I could not help thinking that it seemed to be almost founded on the class of question that was put to the Chinamen when they were invited to go to South Africa; a series of explanations had to be made under the Ordinance, and I should be sorry to think that recruits in His Majesty's Auxiliary Forces were to be recruited in that manner.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMOREsaid he hesitated to take part in the discussion after the dressing-down which he had been given by the noble Earl opposite, but he could assure him that his desire in joining in the debate was not to force himself upon the noble Earl as a colleague. That was one of the last things 847 he thought of doing. He thought, however, that the moving of the Amendment was amply justified. They had been afraid that it was the intention of the present authorities at the War Office to bring pressure to bear on the members of the Territorial Army in time of national emergency to join the Expeditionary Force. Their fears were partly grounded on a sentence in a memorandum on Army Reform which was presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for War on 30th July, 1906. In that document the right hon. Gentleman, when speaking of the desirability of improving the organisation of the Auxiliary Forces, said—
It is certain that if the mind of the nation is concentrated on the defence of its own interests, it will, if it is made possible for it by adequate preparation to do so, pour out in case of necessity very substantial numbers for the expansion as well as the support of the Expeditionary Army.He thought that sentence justified them in being nervous on the point, but the noble Earl, he would not say had given a pledge, but had expressed the opinion of the Government that they did not regard with favour the system of compulsory volunteering that had existed in the past. He hoped, therefore, the noble Duke would not feel it necessary to press his Amendment to a division.
LORD RAGLANpointed out that the Subsection of Clause 12, on which the War Office appeared to rely to make all things perfectly clear to the intending recruit for the Territorial Army, was practically word for word the orders which had always been sent out whenever the Militia had been called upon to volunteer for foreign service. He would put it to His Majesty's Government whether it was not high time that they were honest with recruits. For a great number of years this country had obtained the bulk of its recruits by fraud — by pretending to get them by voluntary service but practically getting them by compulsion. He had always had a very strong feeling against that method of enlisting men for one special form of service and then asking them to volunteer for another which they had not contemplated at the time of enlistment. He hoped the Government, if they could not 848 see their way to accept the Amendment would at any rate insert words, or in some other way make it clear that a recruit at the time of his enlistment should thoroughly understand the obligations he was taking upon himself.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE EARL OF FORTESCUEmoved to insert in Clause 16 a new subsection, the object of which, he explained, was to enable the Territorial Forces, if embodied, to be billeted otherwise than in public-houses. The present law of billeting dated from the time of the Petition of Rights and the days of Charles II., when it was considered necessary to protect citizens in their households from the brutal and licentious soldiery. Even a good many years after that Dr. Johnson spoke of the billeting of a Life Guardsman upon them as one of the greatest calamities that could befall a household. But things had changed a good deal since then; the character of the Army was very different, and the men of the Territorial Force would differ from the rest of the population only in the fact that they had a rather higher standard of self-sacrifice and patriotism. If the Force was embodied, there would be the proverbial three courses open to the Government of the clay. They could billet the men, as at present, in public-houses, or they could put them under canvas, or they might legislate in a hurry for power to billet them in private houses. The first course could be put aside. The numbers might be anything from 250,000 to 900,000, and it would not be easy to find room for such a number in public-houses even if public-houses were in the places where the men wore wanted. Then to put men under canvas and horses in the open in the winter months was to expose both to unnecessary hardship and to render a good many men and horses ineffective through sickness. The only alternative was to billet them in private houses, and if that course was likely to be forced upon the Government of the day when the time of emergency arose, it was surely better to provide for it in advance and give them time to make arrangements beforehand, because things that were done in a hurry were generally done badly.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 14, line 38, after the word 'force' to insert the following new subsection:— '(4) It shall be lawful when the Territorial Force or any part of it is embodied, to billet the officers, men, and horses belonging to it on other premises than those licensed for the sale of intoxicating liquors.' "—(Earl Fortescue.)
LORD LOVATthought it was quite certain that great evils would occur if the men on embodiment were billeted in public-houses. The question would not arise in time of peace; it would be only during the excitement of war, when the value of the citizen soldier would go up a hundred-fold, and everybody was ready to provide him with either whiskey or beer according to whether he was in England or in Scotland. His own regiment had suffered under the calamity of having to be billeted in the town of Southampton for a few days, and he could assure the noble Earl that there was the greatest difficulty, not in preventing men getting at the drink, but in keeping civilians from giving them drink, especially when they were billeted in public-houses. When the liquor was served in the house where the men were actually staying it was practically an impossibility to keep them from it. As to putting the men under canvas, there were not sufficient tents in Great Britain at the present time to billet the whole of the men if they were called out. Therefore, the only alternative seemed to be to legislate in a hurry, in order that the men might be billeted in private houses. That being so, he thought the Amendment was a most reasonable one.
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHhad no doubt there was a good deal to be said from the temperance point of view against soldiers being billeted in public-houses. He had known many cases in which they had been so billeted and there had been no intemperance or difficulty. It was quite impossible for the Government to accept the Amendment, which raised a very large constitutional question. It practically authorised the billeting of men of the Territorial Fort e in private houses, and that was a proposal which the Government could not accept on the Report stage of a Bill of this kind.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYagreed that the Amendment raised a very important point, and it might be that the noble Earl had not had sufficient time to consider all its bearings. It was a very remarkable condition of the law that they could only billet men in public-houses. It must undoubtedly lead to a very regrettable state of things where men were not of a class who were able to resist the kind of temptation which a public-house held out to them. He had had some little experience in the matter, because during recruit training of a Militia battalion which did not drill upon enlistment, but had preliminary drill, the men were very often lodged in or allocated to various public-houses, and it was not a good arrangement. But he felt the force of the noble Earl's objection, and if he would rather have a little time to reflect upon it he was sure his noble friend would not desire to press the Amendment at that stage.
LORD RAGLANpointed out that the whole pivot on which the training of the Territorial Force would revolve was the six months on the outbreak of war. It was perfectly impossible for the Territorial Force or any considerable portion of it to receive anything like that period of training, as there was nowhere to put the men. The matter from the point of view of billeting was becoming worse every day. The number of public-houses was being largely decreased, and ideas as to cubic space and so forth, which nobody cared anything about a few years ago, had become very important. He remembered the time when the Militia in his county slept two in a bed and the men were crammed in as close as they could get the beds into the room. That sort of thing would not be permitted nowadays. He hoped the Government would give the matter their careful consideration.
THE LORD CHANCELLORI hope, in view of the history of billeting in this country, noble Lords will think twice before they endeavour to insert such a proposal as that contained in the Amendment, under which a military force might be compulsorily billeted in the private houses of the people of this country. In 851 view of the history of billeting and the significance of a proposal of this kind in the Bill under consideration, I hope your Lordships will pause before you accept the Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ THE DUKE OF BEDFORDmoved a new subsection making it lawful for a Secretary of State to call out any portion of the Territorial Army to aid the civil power in the preservation of peace. He explained that he had understood from the noble Earl the Under-Secretary for War that it would be possible for the soldiers of the Territorial Force to be used in aid of the civil power, but he could not find it anywhere stated in the Bill. It seemed to him to be a matter of great importance upon which there should be no doubt. Therefore, he moved the insertion of this subsection.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 14, line 38, after the word ' Force' to insert the following new subsection:— '(4) It shall be lawful for a Secretary of State at any time when occasion appears to require to call out any portion or any of the men belonging to the Territorial Army to aid the civil power in the preservation of peace.' "—(The Duke of Bedford.)
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHwas glad to have the opportunity of removing a misunderstanding which seemed to have arisen in regard to this matter. He did not know exactly how the wrong impression arose. All he knew was that several Questions were asked him from different parts of the House, and it was just possible that in replying to a double Question he might have given an affirmative reply in regard to this matter which he really meant to apply to another part of the Question. It never had been and it never could 1 e the intention of the Government to render the Territorial Force liable as a force— that was the point— to be called out in aid of the civil power. Their intention was that the force in this respect should be on exactly the same footing as the Volunteers. The expediency of employing not fully disciplined troops in the suppression of riot, which, of course, would result from this Amendment, was in the view of 852 the Government open to very grave doubt. If the Territorial Force ought to be used, or could be used, or if it was the intention of the Government themselves that it should be used for that purpose, it must in their opinion be made subject to military law whilst being so used. [A NOBLE LORD: Hear, hear!] But the Amendment of the noble Duke did not effect that. Moreover, if the men of the Territorial Force were to be called out for the suppression of riot, the duty of calling them out would from the very necessity of the case have to be entrusted to magistrates and not to the Secretary of State. That again was a power which he thought they ought to guard with extreme jealousy. The mischief might have been wrought long before the Secretary of State could be communicated with or his orders communicated to the members of the force. The Bill in making no provision with respect to this matter placed the Territorial Force in precisely the same position with respect to the suppression of riots as that in which the Volunteers were placed under the law as it now stood. Under the existing law the Volunteers, like any other citizens, could individually be called upon to aid the civil power in the suppression of riot, but they could not be used as a military body for that purpose unless possibly they happened at the time to be called out on active service or were otherwise subject to military law. The Government were firmly convinced that that was the only satisfactory course to pursue. For these reasons it was impossible to accept the Amendment.
THE EARL OF SCARBROUGHreminded the noble Earl that the Yeomanry under present conditions were allowed to volunteer their services to aid the civil power if required, and he asked whether that liberty would be withdrawn from the cavalry of the Territorial Force.
THE LORD CHANCELLORMay I be allowed to say that every one is entitled to support the civil power? The position of a soldier is precisely the same as that of any other person in this country with regard to supporting the 853 civil power. If your Lordships desire to read an interesting statement of the law on that subject you will find it in the Report on the Featherstone riots.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ LORD MONTAGU of BEAULIEUmoved an Amendment to Clause 22 providing that field officers of the Territorial Army should not be required to serve in the office of High Sheriff. He said that the matter was referred to on the Committee stage, and as the Government promised to look into the question, perhaps the Lord President could now state the decision they had arrived at.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 17, line 11, after the word 'jury' to insert the words 'and field officers of the Territorial Army shall not be required to serve in the office of high sheriff.' "— (Lord Montagu of Beaulieu.)
§ *THE EARL OF CREWEI am glad to be able to meet the noble Lord upon this point. He desires that field officers of the Territorial Army should not be required to serve in the office of High Sheriff. The Government are quite prepared to agree to that. Of course, the noble Lord understands that it only applies to officers of substantive rank who arc actually employed, and that honorary officers and officers of brevet rank are not included.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUI quite understand that.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHmoved an Amendment to Clause 27 providing that every such Order in Council as was therein referred to should be laid before both Houses of Parliament. He explained that Clause 36 appeared to apply only to Orders in Council required by this Act to be laid before Parliament, and during the Committee stage the Earl of Donough more suggested that as Parliament ought to have an opportunity of considering Orders in Council made under this clause, the insertion of these words was necessary, and a pledge was given in regard to the matter. In order to give effect to that 854 pledge, he now moved the insertion of these words.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 20, line 7, after the word 'Volunteers,' to insert the words, 'and every such Order in Council shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament.' "—(The Earl of Portsmouth.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHmoved to omit from Clause 28 the following paragraph:— "For continuing to any person or the holder of any office previously entitled thereto the right of recommending for first appointments or any other special privilege enjoyed as respects any unit dealt with by the Order." He explained that it was a technical matter, the object of the paragraph being to provide for the preservation of certain rights of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. As, however, the Militia under the new scheme would not be transferred to the Territorial Force the paragraph was no longer necessary and would only be misleading.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 21, line 20, to leave out Paragraph (f).— (The Earl of Portsmouth).
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHmoved to leave out from Subsection 4, which ran as follows: "Every Order in Council made under this section shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament as soon as may be after it is made," the words "as soon as may be after it is made." He explained that it was necessary that the words should be left out, inasmuch as Clause 36 specified the time within which Orders in Council were to be laid before Parliament.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 21, lines 29 and 30, to leave out the words 'as soon as may be after it is made.' "(The Earl of Portsmouth).
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ THE DUKE OF BEDFORDmoved to insert in Clause 29 the following new sub section:— "(1) The application of the provisions of Part III. of this Act to the 855 Militia shall be deferred for a period of two years." This Amendment, he said, embodied a suggestion which he ventured to make to His Majesty's Government during the Committee stage of the Bill, namely, to exempt the Militia from the operation of the Bill for a short period. He now suggested that the period in question should be two years. The object of his Amendment was to avoid the disadvantages which were inseparable from a simultaneous derangement of all the existing Auxiliary Forces at the same moment. The Amendment, if accepted, would leave the Militia system intact and would continue the Militia force as a military force in being, while the Territorial Army was in process of formation. Our Militia system had never failed the country in the hour of need, and it offered a sound and solid foundation for construction. At one time His Majesty's Government were rather inclined to build on that foundation, but they finally decided in favour of the Territorial Army. If that Territorial Army was to be the success which all their Lordships desired, it would certainly require the whole attention of the Army Council during the next few years. It was true that by a stroke of the pen they could change the name of the Volunteer Force into Territorial Army, but no feat of penmanship would enable them, first to fill, the ranks of that army with officers and men, and secondly, to create the County Associations save in imagination and on paper. The officers and men, the infantry and artillery, of the Territorial Army were to be derived in the first instance from the Volunteer forces. He would like to draw the attention of their Lordships to the present condition of the Volunteer Forces. In the last annual Return for the year 1906, the strength of the force— the number of men actually serving— was given at 255,854. The Territorial Army, excluding cavalry, would require 275,000, and for that number 9,528 officers would be required. There were at present, however, only 8,369 officers in the Volunteer Forces. Therefore, if every officer in the Volunteer Forces were to transfer to the Territorial Army, they would require 1,159 officers and 19,146 men to make up the establishment of the infantry and artillery for the Territorial Army. 856 That was by no means all, for out of the 255,854 Volunteers, 8,782 were returned as non-efficient. In 1905, a partial medical examination of the Volunteer Forces showed that 30,000 men were medically unfit for service. As there were some 30,000 men medically unfit for service, some 9,000 non-efficient, and also 19,000 deficient, they reached a total of 58,000 men who would be required to complete the establishment of the Territorial Army. He would remind their Lordships, however, that all the Volunteer officers and all the Volunteers now serving were not at all likely to transfer to the Territorial Army. He thought it was not making too big an estimate to say that about 25,000 men would drop out on transfer, so that they really arrived at a figure of 83,000 required for the Territorial Army. As there was a shortage of 1,159 officers in the Volunteers, even if all transferred, he thought they might assume that 1,500 officers and 83,000 men would be required to bring the existing Volunteer force up to the requirement of the Territorial Army. Was His Majesty's Government going to hold the Associations responsible for finding these officers and men? He quoted the figure of 25,000 men as being a probable number who would drop out on transfer, but as a matter of fact 15,698 had already gone since last year. He had asked his Majesty's Government if they could lay on the Table of the House a Return showing the strength of the Volunteers in the month of July. Unfortunately they were not able to do that, but they had supplied him with the strength for the month of April last, and the figures showed a decrease in numbers of 15,698. He would like to know if it was still impossible for the noble Earl the Under-Secretary for War to say anything as to the strength of the Volunteer force during the present month. His own impression was that the returns must be in the War Office, and with the present Bill before the country he should have thought that those returns might have been rather interesting reading. He was quite sure that all connected with the County Associations would do their very best to make them a success, but all the same, if they had to start to make up 1,500 officers and 83,000 men it would be 857 a pretty hard task. It was not a thing which could be done in a few months, but it would take a few years. That His Majesty's Government should consider that these associations were capable of that achievement showed what a high opinion they had formed of the bodies to whom they proposed to delegate the responsibility. Perhaps, however, they were going a little too fast. These associations were not yet created. It would take some little time to create them and to start them with their work. In large and populous counties, such as Lancashire, Yorkshire, Midlothian, or Middlesex, it would be a matter of very great complexity. The War Office had no experience in dealing with county and borough councils, and any undue hustling of the local authorities might lead to friction which, if the scheme was to be a success, ought, if possible, to be carefully avoided. As regards the War Office itself, it would have plenty to do if it was efficiently to maintain the Army as it was to-day; but if there was to be added to that the formation of these associations and the creation of the Territorial Army, and in addition to that the recasting of the whole Militia, the task would be an overwhelming one and they would run a very great risk of failure. With regard to the Militia, he had put a large number of Questions to the representatives of His Majesty's Government in their Lordships' House during the last fortnight, and the absolute inability of His Majesty's Government to give the House any very satisfactory explanations or Answers had been seen. He was sure that the Army Council had not yet had time to consider the Militia and the special service section at all. He did not think they had any idea of how they were going to deal with it, and on that point alone he thought there was a, good plea for a little delay. But His Majesty's Government were organising, so far as he understood, for war at any moment and not for peace at any price. Should the calamity of war come upon us in the course of the next two years, when the associations were in a chaotic condition and when the Territorial Army was but a mere paper expression, if His Majesty's Government had left the Militia system intact, if they had left the Militia force in being, then at any rate the Militia could render them the 858 same service that it did during the South African War, when its numerical contribution to the purposes of the war was in excess of that made by the Yeomanry, the Volunteers, and the over-seas contingents together. On the point of the promptitude with which the Militia could he utilised for foreign service, he would remind their Lordships that the South African War began during the second week in October and before the last week in November the 3rd Loyal North Lancashire Regiment was on its way to Malta, whence it was sent on to South Africa. If His Majesty's Government put the Militia Force into the melting pot there must be a clear time when there would be no organisation, no officers, and no men. He anticipated that the objection on the part of His Majesty's Government to leaving the Militia as it was, would be that since the Militia were not now enlisted in exactly the form for foreign service which the War Office required the force was useless and ought to be removed. He submitted that there was no force whatsoever in that argument, because, if the calamity of war came upon us in the next two years, of course the men in the Militia would accept any special form of drafting which the circumstances of the moment demanded and was likely to add to the safety of the country. His Majesty's Government had got the men now: Why should they not leave them as they were? He admitted at once that if they could transfer the whole of the Militia by Army Order to the Army Reserve he would have nothing more to say. But that was precisely what His Majesty's Government could not do. To attempt to do it in a hurry, to force the men against their will into the Special Reserve would, he was sure, end in disaster. They would not get the men. He thought they would get the 20,000 boys, but they were no good for the purpose for which the Government wanted men— that was for foreign service. The War Office, he believed, would run the risk— as a matter of fact the thing was almost a certainty — of losing about 70,000 men. He thought that the Regular Army would suffer greatly from the formation of this special service branch. He found that in 1906 the waste from the Army was 46,414. The number of recruits 859 was 36,465 only, and of those 12,409 came from the Militia. The proposal now was to give all the Militiamen £2 to transfer to the Special Reserve, and then they were not to join the colours for the space of one year. If that had been done in 1906 His Majesty's Government would have had the waste from the Army of 46,414 men, and an intake of only 24,056 men, showing a deficit of 23,000 recruits, because they would have got no recruits at all from the Militia. This would really be the case next year if His Majesty's Government formed this Special Reserve; and if a deficiency of 23,000 recruits did not upset the Regular Army, he did not know what would do. It was known that many of the Militia would be averse to accepting precisely the same forms of service which they found pressed hardly on them— and in their opinion unfairly— during the South African War, and which he feared, in too many cases, proved their ruin when they came back to civil life. In addition to that, there was the element of breaking faith with all the men in the Militia force. His Majesty's Government had a perfect right to discharge any man in the Militia, because he always enlisted for six years or for so long as his services were required; but it was a very different thing if His Majesty's Government took that power and used it to break the conditions of service of the men in the Militia. Last year certain experiments were conducted in regard to training in the Militia. He himself made a special appeal to the patriotism of his county and got a most satisfactory answer. A good lot of recruits were forthcoming, and all those men joined, as they believed, for six years under certain conditions as regarded enlistment, pay, and training. He himself had always considered that those conditions were just as much binding on the Government as they were on the men, but now it was found that the whole of those conditions were to be suddenly and violently changed. Men were to be asked to undertake conditions of service far more serious than they had ever contemplated, and for less remuneration. That was an object lesson which, he was afraid, the men would take to heart, and he feared that after it the men would be very shy in future of entering into any new contract of service. The Government 860 pinned their faith on the magic of the £2 bounty. He knew well the value of bounties from a recruiting point of view. But he hated the system, because in plain language it meant that they went with money in their hand to a man, in this case a poor man, and tempted him to accept conditions of service from which they know he would keep free, and, if he was the sole breadwinner of his family, ought to keep free, were it not for the bribe with which they tempted him under the name of bounty. His Majesty's Government had determined that they must organise on two lines instead of three. His suggestion was that they should wait until their first line was ready to take the place of their second line. It was not ready now and it could not be ready for several years. In the meantime they should leave their second line, their Militia organisation, as at present, and under the Militia Act of 1882, for a period of two years. During those two years they should by all means enlist the Militia for foreign service or embodiment, but they should not deprive the men of that immunity from drafting which was theirs by Act of Parliament and to which they attached special importance. They should certainly during that period go on amalgamating those Militia battalions which they wanted to amalgama'e, and finally lead up to the solution of the problem of drafting individual men into the line in time of war. If they gave the Militia more control over their recruiting he was sure that the force would not melt away in the interval of two years, but it was absolutely essential that it should be left under the Act of 1882. In conclusion, this was what he understood: His Majesty's Government had reduced the Regular Army by 20,000 men, and 1,000 non-commissioned officers and several hundred officers. They proposed to destroy absolutely and entirely the whole-Militia system which had been so useful in the past. They might retain 20,000 boys at a cost of £40,000, but, even if they did, these boys would be of no use for the purpose for which men were wanted immediately, and His Majesty's Government would run the risk, amounting almost to a certainty, of losing 70,000 men. The whole situation was to be saved by the Territorial Army, which did 861 not yet exist, and for which he calculated His Majesty's Government would require about 1,500 officers and 83,000 men. These were to be supplied by the County Associations which were not yet created. The fact of the matter was there was a great deal of destruction in the scheme of His Majesty's Government, but the construction was excessively vague. Possibly their Lordships would remember a scene in Shakespeare's play, "King Henry IV.," representing a council of war held at Bangor to plan an invasion of England, The Welsh prince, Owen Glendower, was greatly pressed by his colleagues to reveal to them his military resources. He declined to do that, but military resources were no trouble to him, because he announced to the company that he could always summon spirits from the vasty deep. There was present, however, one Hotspur, who was not a very tractable man, and his reply was: "So can I, and so can any man, but will they come when you call them?" His Majesty's Government might summon territorial forces from the void, but would they come when called? His Majesty's Government were responsible that they should. They hoped they would, but whilst waiting he trusted that the Government would agree that they would do well to retain the Militia system of service intact and the Militia as a military force in being for the brief period of two years.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 21, at the beginning of line 33, to insert as a. new subsection, '(1) The application of the provisions of Part III. of this Act to the Militia shall be deferred for a period of two years.'"—(The Duke of Bedford.)
VISCOUNT HARDINGEwished to associate himself with what the Duke of Bedford had said. He desired to express a hope that His Majesty's Government would see their way to come to an agreement of some sort with the proposal indicated in the Amendment of his noble friend, and defer changing the present status of the. Militia for a period of two years, by which time they would be able to know for certain whether or not the Territorial Army was going to come into being, and thereby give the country 862 the force required for home defence Further, they would then be in a better position to know whether the Militia were ready to transfer en bloc and undertake the new obligations. The proposal of his noble friend appeared to him, as it must do to many others, to be the only rational policy to adopt under the circumstances, for he very much doubted if there were any people, or, if any, very few, who really believed that this Territorial or speculative Force would ever develop into that fighting machine which the Secretary of State for War had foreshadowed. Nevertheless, they must not shut their eyes as to what had been done during the time that His Majesty's Government had been in power. What had been done? The Secretary of State for War had greatly reduced the artillery and had wiped off by a stroke of the pen many fine and efficient regiments, thereby considerably reducing the numbers of the Army Reserve. What he would like to know was, how did His Majesty's Government expect to make up this deficiency? It was apparently to be done by transferring that of the Militia battalions to the Special Reserve. To many people such a proposition as that would appear to be an easy solution of a difficult military problem, but he would like to ask whether anybody, be he a Militia commanding officer or a member of the Army Council, could say for certain that the Militia, officers and men, were prepared to undertake the new responsibilities which were demanded of them. As his noble friend Lord Salisbury very rightly said the other day, it was idle to suppose that the men of the Militia were going to undertake these responsibilities, and at the same time be put pecuniarily in a worse position than they had hitherto' occupied. Up to now they had received an annual bounty of £4 10S., and now it was proposed to pay them only £4. For this reason, if for no other, he ventured to think that the proposal as indicated in the Amendment of the noble Duke was a sound and statesmanlike one— far more judicious, in fact, than that of the Secretary for War, who, in his judgment, was taking a leap in the dark. The Undersecretary for War, when making his 863 statement with regard to the Militia the other day, and when relating the so-called concessions to the Militia, carefully avoided reference to the questions put to him by the noble Duke. The first of these questions was: How were His Majesty's Government, having abolished the Militia, in future to get from 15,000 to 20,000 recruits, which for many years past they had got from the Militia, to go into the Regular Army? As the noble Duke very aptly aid, unless the Government could show they had a certain solution for that puzzle this scheme must inevitably fail. He trusted, therefore, that the noble Earl, the Under-Secretary for War, would enlighten the House on these points, for it seemed to him it was impossible to discuss the scheme unless they had that information. There were other points on which they wanted information with regard to the Militia. They were told the other day by the Under-Secretary for War that owing to the recent decision of the Army Council the functions of the third and fourth battalions were to be analogous, but at the same time they were led to believe that the strength of the establishments would be considerably reduced. He would point out that at the present time they had not been told what the establishments of these battalions were to be. Many of them were strong in numbers at the present time, and if they were reduced they ought to know in what manner they were to be reduced to the normal establishment. The concessions proposed for the officers in the Militia, he must admit, were very reasonable, and he thought as regarded many of the commanding officers there was not at the present time any just cause of complaint. But here again the Militia officers required further information, for they had never been told what would be the order of precedence as regarded seniority of the officers of the first and second battalions. Also they had yet to learn what inducement was to be given to officers of the Line to serve in the third and fourth battalions, for they had yet to learn that the Army at the present time was over-officered. After what had been said it passed his comprehension to discover 864 where these officers from the Line battalions were to come from. He did not take part in the debate with regard to Line officers being adjutants to the Volunteer battalions, but he understood Lord Lucas to say it would not be necessary to have these Line officers because the Volunteers would be so well trained at their depots. It seemed to him, however, that in the case of a big county it would be impossible for those officers to look after all the Volunteer battalions, so that he did not see that there was any argument in that as regarded the training battalions. If, however, the Government did not see their way to agree with the noble Duke's Amendment, which was to give them a further grace of two years to tide over the transition period, which must be a period of military weakness to this country, it was absolutely essential that the functions of the Militia, both officers and men, should be more clearly defined than they were at the present time, for they wanted to know what the future really was to be. Whatever that future might be he would most urgently press the point that if the Line was to be dependent on the Militia in time of emergency it was essential that the Militia should be thoroughly trained in musketry. The only way to do that was to give them careful musketry instruction during the recruit training. Then when a trained Militiaman went up for his annual course he must have proper musketry training such as he got now, which was six days' preliminary drill and six days' shooting. That was the only way in his opinion in which a man could get to know the shooting of his rifle. He trusted, therefore, the Army Council would pause before making this drastic change, and would give the Militia the same musketry course as they had at present. In his opinion, and in the opinion of many commanding officers, if they reduced that musketry to six days it would have a disastrous effect on the future efficiency of the Militia. There could be very little doubt that the great uncertainty of the future of the Militia had had a most discouraging effect for many years on that force, and, although people accused some of the Militia regiments of not being so efficient as they might 865 be, he was perfectly sure it was because they had not been properly treated. If better treatment were accorded them than in the past the Militia would readily agree to give loyal support to any scheme which His Majesty's Govern-might produce, provided it was not unduly rash, and that they were definitely told what their duties were to be.
§ VISCOUNT MIDLETONthought that nobody could doubt from the speeches to which they had listened that there was a genuine desire on that side of the House and on the part of Militia officers to make the scheme of His Majesty's Government a success. If he might venture to say so, he differed from some noble Lords who had spoken as if the provisions of the measure relating to the Territorial Army were the most important in the Bill. In his judgment, if the Army remained under the conditions proposed by the Bill, the Militia Force, and not the Territorial Army, was the pivot of the Bill. They had seen in recent years, and allusion had been made to it from the cross benches two or three times that night, a great change in the attitude of the country towards the Regular Army. It had been a matter of grave concern to those who, like himself, were responsible members of the late Government during a period of the South African war to see that the Regular Army had suffered so heavily as it had done owing to the operations of the last two years. The more he reflected on the manner in which the Army had decreased in strength— a decrease he would venture to tell their Lordships, with a full sense of responsibility, which would not enable His Majesty's Government to meet the demands in time of peace for drafts— the more he was concerned, the more concerned in fact must any man be who had given his mind to the problem, as to the condition of the force who were to replace the 20,000 or 30,000 troops. That force was not the Territorial Army, but the Militia Force. It could not be a Party question, it could not be merely a Militia question, as to whether or not they were going to obtain that which the Secretary of State for War desired and was requisite if he was to mobilise the Army at all in case of war. They had two 866 problems put before them. They had the original suggestion of the Government that the Militia should practically disappear and that a new force should be formed in its place. That he thought was happily abandoned in the House of Commons, and they had instead of it the proposal that the Militia cadres should be largely made the substratum of the new force. Then they had the proposal of the noble Duke, who spoke with great authority on this question, and who had pointed out that it was of importance that the Militiaman should agree to accept this new liability. What were they asking the Militiaman to do? He had heard and read so many speeches in the last few weeks in which it was held that some great concession had been made to the Militia in allowing them to engage for foreign service, in allowing them to go into the front line at all instead of putting them back to serve in the Territorial Army, as to make him wonder sometimes if the authorities at the War Office realised what they were asking these men to undertake. They were not asking every man in the Militia to turn out for a month's drill and then to be embodied to defend his own country, not forcing him to move from these shores unless he desired it, but they were asking him to go abroad on the outbreak of war, not even in all cases with his own officers. What were His Majesty's Government giving him for it? They gave the Army Reservist £9 a year to undertake to serve for four years after he had left the colours. If he took on after that they gave him £6 a year. But to the Militiaman, who was a man in regular employment, and very often married, who had to leave everything at the call of His Majesty's Government under the new régime, they offered £2 in one bonus paid down and nothing else for services which might cause him to spend two or three years on garrison duty under a tropical sun in India. So far from looking at it from the point of view of concessions to the Militia, he looked on it in the gravest apprehensions, lest from a nuance of feeling expressed in that House they should make a mistake, because once they put it in the minds of the Militia that the offer was not substantially good, the result would be that instead 867 of having 70,000 or 80,000 men, they might get but 10,000 or 12,000 men to perform the duty. That was why he urged His Majesty's Government most carefully to consider all the points which the noble Duke and the noble Viscount had put before them. From his own personal experience he believed that nothing at all could be done with the Militia except through the colonel and the other officers when they were embodied. He ventured to say that if His Majesty's Government wrote letters to the whole of the Militia tomorrow, asking them to undertake a certain liability, even if the offer was a first rate one, in a larger number of cases they would not get answers. The Militia were not under military law, and they were extremely suspicious. They would not be aware that they were practically to go as a body and with the officers in whom they had confidence and with the comrades whom they knew. He most seriously feared— and he was only repeating the views of men who had spent nearly all their lives in the Militia and some of whom were sitting behind him— that if His Majesty's Government took the steps of practically dissolving the present Militia after this training, and inviting the men to take this new liability without calling them together, they would lose a number of men whose services they would not be able to regain by any means. It was from that standpoint that he approached the Amendment of the noble Duke. His noble friend asked for two years. He (Viscount Midleton) agreed very much with what fell from Viscount Hardinge when he said that the Militia had suffered terribly—cruelly he would say, from the indecision of the last few years. Perhaps they had all had some share in causing that indecision, but, however it might have been brought about, he submitted to the noble Duke whether to keep that indecision going on for another two years would not practically be in itself a blow at the force, and whether he could not attain the end which they all had in view of obtaining from the Militia the largest possible number of men who were willing to serve in the front line of the Army on mobilisation without giving so long a moratorium as two years. A possible outlet had 868 occurred to his mind. Could not His Majesty's Government meet his noble friend on this question? Could they not say: "We recognise that we are not merely proposing to ask the special contingent to serve as a force in its own units and with its own traditions, but are proposing in addition to draw from the force the number of men whom we require to reinforce the line as far as possible in companies with their own officers"? That being so could not His Majesty's Government say, "We will deal with them in the first place in units"? He did not believe that the noble Duke's Amendment providing for a moratorium of two years would hamper the intentions of the Government in regard to the Bill in a single particular. It would not prevent the Secretary of State the day after the. Bill passed, setting to work to amalgamate Militia regiments which were too weak, or which for some other reason he desired to deal with as one battalion instead of two. It would not prevent the enlistment of men under the Bill for the special contingent with the new liabilities, and therefore it would not prevent the Secretary of State ceasing to recruit under the old conditions. All the Amendment did say was that, of the two points of view, the one of acting without regard to the Militia officers and without embodiment and the other of acting in concert with the Militia officers at the time of training as was suggested by the noble Duke, the latter, and as he thought, the more prudent, course should be adopted. Could not the Government, desiring to go forward, adopt the noble Duke's Amendment limiting the period of grace for the Militia to one training instead of to two as he had proposed? It might be that it was not necessary to put words into the Bill to that effect and that a Parliamentary undertaking might be given which would have the full force of anything that His Majesty's Government could put into the Bill. But His Majesty's Government should not run astray concerning the serious dilemma in which they would be involved by supposing that merely by giving the go-by to the advice of the Militia officers, they could obtain something which they would not otherwise be able to do. It was very 869 encouraging that when he (Viscount Midleton) had to endeavour to get the men of the Militia to give a service, the like of which no body of volunteers had been asked to render before, the response was extremely satisfactory. He was referring to the time when, after the first Militia regiments had volunteered for the Transvaal, when in fact they were near the end of the war, when the terms of the service were well understood, and when the long, dull, and wearisome life which the Militia had to lead in the Transvaal was well known, he had to induce twenty or thirty new regiments to go out at the end of 1901 to replace the first regiments. The Government; of the day had released a certain number of regiments which had been embodied and sent them back to their homes. The question arose at the War Office how they were to induce a certain number of the Militia regiments to volunteer. There were no two opinions either among the officers on the headquarters staff or among the Militia officers who were called in to help that if the Government of the day made appeals to any of these men without first embodying them, they would not be so successful as if they dealt with them in a mass and under the influence of their own officers. It was recognised that under such circumstances there would be no chance of persuading the men to take this great liability upon themselves, and for that reason he (Viscount Midleton) sanctioned the Commander-in-Chief's proposal to embody a number of Militia regiments in order to ask them whether they would undertake the liability, the understanding being that if they did not do so, they should be sent back to their homes. That course was only adopted with the object of dealing with the men under conditions which were likely to induce them to take a patriotic line. That was all that he urged on His Majesty's Government that night. Let them undertake that there should be no disturbance of the existing terms until after the next training had enabled the Militia officers to communicate with their own men, and proceed, as far as was necessary, with the formation of the special contingent outside the existing Militia. He assured His Majesty's Government that in advice which was offered them from 870 that side of the House, he and his noble friends had no desire to hamper the scheme.
§ THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHthought that before replying to the appeal made by his noble friend opposite he ought to explain why it was impossible for his Majesty's Government to accept the Amendment in the form in which it was proposed by the noble Duke. He could only endorse very strongly the spirit of the speech of Viscount Midleton, when he said he did not think that in any part of the House there was any desire or intention to act otherwise than in a friendly manner towards the Militia. At the same time, as he said when he moved the Second Reading of the Bill, the first and supreme duty of His Majesty's Government was their responsibility to the Army itself, and they could not possibly accept the Amendment of his noble friend because, practically, the effect of it would be, if it was to extend over a period of two years, that during that time they would have left upon their hands a large body of men— he would take them at their present strength of 90,000— for whom they really would not have any use at all. They could not be employed in the Territorial Force and they could not be employed in the special contingent. He wished it to be clearly understood that His Majesty's Government looked upon the formation of the special contingent as a matter of the most urgent, vital, and pressing importance. They intended to recruit for that contingent at once, and they considered that the contingent was absolutely necessary for the effectiveness of the expeditionary force. He said that because he wished to assure the noble Duke opposite and all who belonged to the Militia that if His Majesty's Government could have done so they would most willingly have accepted the Amendment in the form in which it was proposed. He had now to deal with the suggestion made to him by his noble friend Viscount Midleton, who had asked whether it would not be possible that His Majesty's Government should give their Lordships a Parliamentary undertaking that the existing Militia infantry and engineers should have a moratorium of a year; that was to say, that they should remain in their present position until after 871 next summer. If he had to consider any proposal of that kind seriously, he should only do so on the distinct and definite understanding that the noble Duke and all those who acted with him were really anxious to assist the Government in their scheme, and all they asked was that they should have an opportunity of explaining matters and of being brought into touch with their own men. He was bound to say that the noble Lord had given a definite assurance that he and those who acted with him were really anxious to make the scheme a success. He wanted to be assured that if a moratorium was granted it would not be used in an obstructive way, but with a genuine intention of explaining to their men the new conditions of service. If the Government were to give an undertaking on this matter, it must be on the understanding that this proposal of a moratorium only applied to the 101 battalions which they proposed to transfer to the special contingent. It must also be clearly understood that if an undertaking was given his noble friend would withdraw his Amendment. He was prepared, if it once and for all would settle the position of matters and would be accepted by noble Lords opposite in the spirit in which it was made, to give a Parliamentary undertaking that, in order to enable the Militia commanding officers to explain more fully to their officers and men the new conditions of service in the special contingent, the existing Militia should not be asked to transfer until after the Militia training next summer. It must be clearly understood that recruiting for the Militia would be stopped as soon as the Bill was passed, and that recruits after that date would only be enlisted into the special contingent, which must be started, from the supreme exigencies of our military policy, as soon as the Bill became law.
§ *VISCOUNT MIDLETONWill the recruits of the special contingent drill with the Militia?
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHsaid he was afraid he should not like to give an answer on that point offhand. That was a question of administration and it would have to be considered hereafter. He wished to point out to the noble Duke that if he pressed his Amendment, 872 in all human probability the effect of it upon the Militia Force would be very unsatisfactory, because, as Viscount Midleton had pointed out, it would again leave the whole position of that force in a very unsettled condition. The Militia, in fact, would still be in a state of unrest as to what its duties were to be. He would also remind the noble Duke that if the Amendment were pressed, the War Office would be placed in an extremely difficult position, for they would have thrown upon their hands a large body of men whom they could not utilise in their scheme and the Militia and the special contingent would then exist concurrently. Financial considerations must inevitably prohibit the maintenance of these two forces simultaneously, and under those conditions there could be no possible doubt that the Army Council would decide to foster the special contingent. If the Amendment were pressed, it would probably be found impossible to give the Militia their annual training, and their recruiting would probably also have to be stopped, as leaving it open would only diminish the supply of recruits for the special contingent. As to the bonus, he still thought, although there might be objections on social grounds to the whole principle of bonuses, if the Amendment was pressed, it was extremely probable that the Army Council would find it necessary to invite Militiamen to accept the £2 bonus to transfer to the special contingent. There was another point. The concessions made during the passage of the Bill through Parliament in order to make the transfer of the Militia to the special contingent more in accordance with their traditional feelings were made on the distinct understanding that the Militia would transfer and become the nucleus of the special contingent. But if this was to be postponed for two years that would not happen.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYI do not know whether the noble Earl means to say there was any understanding as far as we, who sit on these benches, are concerned?
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHsaid he only meant an understanding in the minds of His Majesty's Government. 873 He was not aware that there had been any understanding with the Front Bench opposite, but there had been a distinct understanding on the part of His Majesty's Government. As a matter of fact, His Majesty's Government could not have done what they had done unless they had understood that they would have the Militia. If they were to take this suggested period of two years it was almost certain that the Militia would be very largely depleted, because they would have in existence the third battalions of infantry, which they would have to raise for the special contingent, and training brigades of artillery with their own cadres;and Militia officers would, under those circumstances, hardly expect the same consideration as was now allowed to them. If he accepted the suggestion of his noble friend Viscount Midleton, he did so in all good faith and on the understanding which he had mentioned that it was to allow Militia commanding officers time to explain to their men the new conditions of service. Further it must boon the understanding that His Majesty's Government could honourably rely on the assistance of noble Lords opposite who were in command of Militia battalions to help them in meeting the difficulties which always beset any great change.
§ EARL BATHURSTsaid he was sorry to hear that the Under-Secretary of State for War could not accept the Amendment. He spoke as a Militia officer, and as a commanding officer of some years service. He hoped he had had some experience during that time. When it came to the suggestion made by the noble Viscount on the Front Opposition Bench that the two years should be reduced to one year he could not agree with him. So much was this the case, that he would rather the Amendment had referred to three years instead of two. It was quite obvious that any great reforms in the Army could not be carried out all at once. He thought the Secretary for War, when he first started on his scheme, believed that he would be able to draw up one large scheme and carry it through Parliament and make an enormous change in the Army and Reserve Forces. That was not so easy as it appeared. It 874 was a question of time. They could not make these great changes all at once, and he thought it would have been better if the right hon. Gentleman had had his scheme clearly in his head, and had set to work quietly to make these changes gradually. He thought it was for this reason that the noble Duke had proposed his Amendment, so that the changes intended in the Territorial Army might be carried out, but that in the case of any unforseen circumstances the country would still have the Militia force to fall back upon. The Militia had been taunted with the fact that they were short of numbers, and Mr. Haldane's Territorial Army scheme had already had a bad effect in that direction. He knew for certain that there were a great many men at the end of the spring training who refused to re-engage because, they did not know what was going to happen. They did not know whether they would form part of the Territorial Army, or whether they would be amalgamated in the third and fourth battalions. They did not like the uncertainty and so they refused to re-enlist. He believed the whole object of this Bill was to reduce the expenditure on the Auxiliary Forces, and he thought that was the whole object of the annual training being reduced from twenty-seven to fifteen days. He would like his noble friend opposite to put himself in the position of a commanding officer of Militia at the present time. They were told that these battalions wore to be trained for fifteen days, and that they were to do six days musketry, but it was rather uncertain now when the latter would be performed. It had been suggested that the six days should take place in some cases at the beginning and in other cases at the end of the training. In the fifteen days there must be two Sundays, and if there were added six days at the beginning of the training there would be another Sunday. Supposing some men turned up for musketry— and it was not easy to see when they were coming—at the beginning of the training, they would have only four days in which to do their musketry. The same thing applied to those men who stayed till the end of the training; they would have done fifteen days annual training, and they would have in addition 875 these six days for musketry. In those six days another Sunday came in, and a day must be taken off for the men to go home, so that only four days were left for musketry practice. They had heard in the last few years how very necessary it was that the musketry of our Army and Reserve Forces should be improved. How was its efficiency to be increased if only four days' practice were possible? If his noble friend opposite were a commanding officer of Militia how would he regard the point? Supposing he were a keen officer and wished to see his battalion increase in efficiency every year, he would at once see that under this scheme the efficiency would decline.
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHIs the noble Lord speaking to his own Amendment?
§ EARL BATHURSTsaid he was speaking to the Amendment of the noble Duke, and for the reason that he hoped the Militia would be allowed to have two years grace and permitted to go on just the same as they had been doing in the past while the Territorial Army was brought into some kind of order. He was not content with the undertaking given by the Government that the Militia should be allowed one year's grace. He would like to see the undertaking which the noble Earl had proposed put in black and white in the Bill. Nothing less would satisfy him, and for that reason he begged to support the Amendment.
§ *LORD ABINGERsupported the Amendment, and said he was glad to see that at all events the Under-Secretary for War had fully realised the object with which the proposal was put on the Paper, He thought it would be patent to all Militia officers both inside and outside the House that the object of the Amendment was to strengthen the hands of the Government. It had been put on the Paper in order that the why and wherefore of the changes that were to be brought about might be explained to the Militiamen. This was a question for the men and for the men themselves. He recollected that the noble Duke said a few days ago in Committee that the men would require to have the new 876 system of the special contingent explained to them. There were certain things in the Bill which had required some little explanation. They must remember that the Militiamen had not the advantage of the extremely lucid explanations of the Under-Secretary for War. They on that side of the House thought that these two years would go far to strengthen the hands of the Government in that it would allow time to explain to the Militiaman the conditions under which his service would be given in the future. Over the whole of the debate there had hung a sort of shadow and the shadow was that of the Army Council. The representatives of the Government had asked them several times, whether it was a question of the Militia, of the Volunteers, or a good many other things, to trust that splendid body of men the Army Council. All that the Opposition asked His Majesty's Government to do was to trust the Militia officers who were serving to-day. If they were given the opportunity they would explain the conditions to the men who were serving under them. If the Government stopped recruiting for the Militia and immediately brought in this special service contingent system the Militiaman would be suspicious, and the £2 bonus held out as a bait before his eyes would not tempt him to transfer. For this reason he supported the Amendment of the noble Duke as to the two years, believing that that was the minimum period which ought to be allowed.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid the noble Earl the Under-Secretary for War had just now stated that on behalf of the Government he had made concessions upon a certain understanding. He hoped the noble Earl would forgive him for having interrupted when he said that, because if he had not interrupted, many of their Lordships, he thought, would have supposed that there had been some understanding as between the two sides of the House that these concessions of His Majesty's Government were conditional upon a certain attitude on the part of themselves. The noble Earl frankly said at once that there was no such understanding. That was so, and he did not want to argue these matters conditionally. Their patriotism was not conditional. 877 He might tell the noble Earl that, the attitude which they would adopt did not depend in any degree on the attitude of His Majesty's Government. They would be patriotic, he hoped, whatever His Majesty's Government might do. In the same way he rather hoped that the concessions His Majesty's Government had given them had not been conditional. He had rather flattered himself that it was the strong force of their arguments which had convinced His Majesty's Government, and that they had arrived at the conclusion that the concessions had to be made not as a matter of bargain or of arrangement, but because the suggestions they put forward were at any rate in those particulars better than the suggestions which His Majesty's Government themselves had made. That was the point of view from which he approached the consideration of the present Amendment. There were two proposals before the House. There was the proposal made by his noble friend the Duke of Bedford in the Amendment upon the Paper, and there was the suggestion indicated by his noble friend Lord Midleton in the course of his speech. The main difference between these two proposals was the difference of time. The noble Duke proposed that the moratorium should be two years and his noble friend Lord Midleton proposed that it should be one year— that was to say until the end of the next training. If he could show that that was really the only difference between them surely there was an opportunity to come to an agreement, and he thought it was the only difference. Something had been said about recruiting for the special contingent and for the Militia during the next recruiting season. There was no difference between the proposal of his noble friend Viscount Midleton and the proposal of the noble Duke on that head, because there was nothing in the noble Duke's Amendment which affected recruiting one way or the other. The noble Duke had pro- posed that Part III. of the Bill should not apply to the Militia for two years. That would not prevent, even if they passed it exactly in the form in which the noble Duke had proposed it, the Government putting a stop to Militia recruiting and going on with special contingent recruiting. Similarly the proposal made by his 878 hon. friend Lord Midleton did not affect recruiting; it proposed only that so far as existing Militiamen were concerned there should be a moratorium until next year. So that in that respect so far as he had gone he had shown, he thought conclusively, that the only difference between the two proposals was a difference of time. There was, however, one other difference— the difference between having it on the face of the Bill, as it would be if the noble Duke's Amendment were passed, and of having it as an assurance from the Govern- ment, which would be the form it would take supposing the course suggested by Lord Midleton were followed. Was that a distinction which it was worth while spending much time about? He confessed he did not think it was. He did not understand why the Government objected to putting it into the Bill. He had always thought that if a thing was going to be done— he did not doubt the word of the Government on the matter— it should be done formally, and it could not be damaged by putting it on the face of the Bill. It appeared to him however that the Government, by giving an assurance across the Table of the House, would be absolutely pledged as men of honour. Really, the matter was not worth discussing one way or the other so long as they had a perfectly distinct assurance. Let them be perfectly precise as to what would be done supposing Lord Midleton's suggestion were adopted and they received an assurance from the Government that they would carry it out. He understood that supposing that course were adopted the Under-Secretary for War was prepared to say that it should be applied to the 101 battalions. That was very good. To be quite precise, the noble Earl said something about the balance of the Militia battalions', and that it was not to apply to them. He thought that was a mistake. He thought it should apply to them. By all means let the Government, if they wished, amalgamate the weak battalions with the strong as they proposed to do. There was nothing to prevent them from doing that, but there was no reason in the world why a distinction in this respect should be made between men now belonging to the 101 battalions and men belonging to the balance of the battalions. They ought to be treated on the same footing and not to be 879 destroyed until after the next training. There was one other little point on which he was not quite clear. What latitude did the Government take with regard to the men who would be enlisted in the special contingent? The obvious plan was that these men enlisted for the special contingent during the next recruiting season should be attached to the Militia battalions which would be still in being, and should be trained with them until the final moment arrived when the Act came into full force. When the point as to the two years was cleared up they would at any rate have a precise statement on which they could act. There remained this question which did not appear to matter very much: either this arrangement was to be on the face of the Bill or an assurance was to be given by the Government. It was worth this one observation: if they got an assurance from the Government now it could never be retired from; it was absolutely binding. If, however, they placed it on the face of the Bill and the Bill went back to the House of Commons, what would happen to it there it was not for him or anyone sitting with him to say. Whether that would have any effect on his noble friends in coming to a decision he could not say, but he had a rather strong opinion himself as to which would be the better course of the two.
LORD RAGLANregretted that the noble Earl the Under-Secretary for War had not seen his way to carry out a promise which he made on the Committee stage of the Bill, to furnish complete answers to many questions which were addressed to him. There were five or. six questions regarding which he wrote some time ago to the noble Earl, asking if he would be good enough to supply an explanation. As no explanation had yet come from him, the only conclusion he could come to was that the information was not to be found in the War Office.
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHIf the noble Lord refers to a private letter which he addressed to me, I am happy to tell him that I have answers to all the points which he mentioned and I will send them to him to-morrow.
LORD RAGLANwas sorry that the noble Earl had not seen his way to 880 give the information before, as it might have shortened the debate. There was one point in particular on which he wished for an answer, namely, whether these new conditions had yet been put to any Militia battalion, and, if so, what response had been received in regard to them. He was informed that several Militia battalions had been communicated with on the subject, and perhaps the noble Earl the Under-Secretary for War would be able to give the House some information on the point. There was another point to which he wished to draw attention. The noble Earl kept on saying that they had Militiamen whom they could not utilise in any war. He (Lord Raglan) could only reflect on what an amazingly short memory the War Office had. The late Government were able to utilise about 100,000 Militia in the South African war. There was no use, therefore, in going about wringing their hands and asking what were they to do with 90,000 men. Whatever steps His Majesty's Government took, the Militia would be ready to volunteer for foreign service, if they were wanted. The noble Duke, the Duke of Bedford, and others of his noble friends, had explained very fully the extraordinary difficulty— almost the impossibility— of getting from individual Militiamen any answer regarding their willingness to accept the new conditions, unless they were called up for training. He thought it was easy to see why that should be the case. The average Militiaman was not ready with his pen, and to write a letter accepting or refusing conditions of service was a thing absolutely beyond his capabilities. Militiamen, and men of that class of life, were particularly cautious about putting their names to paper at all. They looked very much askance even when asked to sign their accounts. Therefore, the notion that His Majesty's Government could write 90,000 letters and receive 90,000 beautifully written answers by return of post made one think that any person who suggested such a thing could have absolutely no idea of the class of men with whom they were dealing. There was one point that he wished to impress upon His Majesty's Government. It was a very serious thing to break faith with men, and faith had been broken 881 with a large body of Militia submarine miners. These men had been disbanded and the officers had been kept in the Army List as a kind of Engineer reserve. These men had no legal claim against the Government, but they certainly appeared to have the strongest possible moral claim. He had en-endeavoured to enlist some of these men in his own regiment, but they said, "No, thanks; we have had enough, of soldiering after the way in which we have been treated." That, in his opinion, was a very short-sighted way of dealing with men. Those who be longed to the recruiting class were not rapturously attached to the War Office. They were suspicious of changes, and to proceed to disband these men scattered over the coasts in the South of England at a time when it was important that they should not frighten off the recruit-giving class was not a wise thing to do. As regarded the bounty proposed to be given to Militiamen to induce them to transfer, he wished to urge the War Office to consider most carefully whether they could not see their way to alter it. His Majesty's Government were proposing to give men £2 to undertake this liability, and they proposed subsequently to take it away from them by instalments of 10s. a year. It was most extraordinary short-sightedness for the sake of 10s. a year to give a check throughout the recruiting class. If they deprived a man of the 10s. bounty when he thought he ought to get 30s. they would disgust the whole body of men. It was not a large amount, and he most earnestly impressed upon the War Office the vast importance of not altering a sum which the men had been used to for many years. It took a long time for the news of any improvement in the conditions of service, pecuniary or otherwise, to filter through to the recruit-giving class, and if His Majesty's Government altered these conditions for the worse, it would inevitably cause an immense falling off in recruiting. Coming to the noble Duke's Amendment, he could not say how strongly he felt the vast importance of the proposal. His Majesty's Government were going to put our entire military forces into the melting pot. Everybody believed with regard to the Yeomanry that the class 882 of men who joined would alter for the worse, and in all probability the number would be reduced. Nobody had much doubt that the same kind of thing must inevitably happen to the Volunteers, and at the same time His Majesty's Government were going fundamentally to change the principles on which the Militia force was based without giving the Militiamen themselves a fair opportunity of saying whether they would come into the scheme or not. The noble Earl the Under-Secretary for War had used an expression that night which if he had been brought up as a soldier he would not have done. The commanding officers of Militia battalions were asked by him to under take to use their best endeavours to get the men to embrace the new conditions of service. He would point out that as a Militiaman and a soldier, a commanding officer, however much he might approve or disapprove of a measure of this kind, if ordered to put its provisions into effect would feel bound to carry out his instructions as a duty. It was his duty to do what he was told, and he would undoubtedly do it. Militia commanding officers would explain to their men the advantages they would obtain and the liabilities they would be subject to under the new scheme, and he trusted that in some way they would be relieved from the difficulty of asking their men to undertake liabilities that they were not required to undertake themselves, as he looked on that duty with very great dread. These matters, however, affected him personally very little as his time was nearly up. He would complete his extended period of command next February, and he thought after thirty-two years of command in one regiment or another it was time he retired to make room for somebody else. He thought the War Office might take to heart the fact that the Royal Engineer officers, being intelligent men, had been willing to be persuaded by the Militia engineers that it was absolutely essential that the latter should go abroad in their own units and under their own officers. He trusted the War Office would realise that if they wanted Militiamen to transfer into this new force it would have to be done 883 in the way that had been suggested, and therefore the question of the transfer should be deferred until after the period of the next annual training. He ventured to suggest to his noble friend the Duke of Bedford that he should be satisfied with one year of grace, and that the House should receive from the noble Earl the Under-Secretary for War a distinct undertaking that the conditions of the existing Militia force should in no way be changed until after the next training.
§ EARL CAWDORthought they were not very far from a compromise on this important question, and that it might be settled without the necessity for a division. He could testify from nearly forty years service in the Militia to the grave difficulty of asking Militiamen to undertake any duty which they did not clearly under stand. That was a difficulty they wanted to avoid. Whether they avoid it by allowing one year or two years grace was to him a matter of absolute indifference so long as they did avoid it. The Under-Secretary for War had told them that if the Government agreed to give them one year's grace they would still be obliged, because of the necessities of the service, to stop Militia recruiting, and at once begin recruiting for the special contingent. He did not question that that might be necessary, but assuming that to be the view of the Army Council could the noble Earl tell them where would those recruits be trained? Were they to be dissevered from their Militia units, or were they to be trained with those units during the next period of training? He would also like to know whether the noble Earl could give them any assurance that during the year's grace there would be no disturbance of the men of the Militia units other than those included in the 101 battalions which had been referred to. Those were two points to which those who had studied the subject attached a good deal of weight, and he thought if they could be cleared up the way would be paved for an amicable settlement. What they really wanted to secure was that time should be allowed for Militia men to have explained to them exactly the terms and conditions of service which 884 it was proposed to impose upon them. He would suggest that one year was sufficient for that, and if they could get an assurance from His Majesty's Government that one year would be allowed he would venture to counsel his noble friends that they had better be satisfied with that rather than strive after two years and perhaps get nothing.
§ *THE EARL OF CREWEI think the House will have been impressed by the very reasonable manner in which the plea for some delay has been urged by the speakers on the other side of the House. It is no doubt perfectly true that it is desirable to have a certain moratorium in order that commanding officers and officers generally may be able to explain to their battalions the changes in the conditions of service contemplated under this Bill. Bearing that in mind we have been glad to endeavour to meet the views expressed by Viscount Midleton. It certainly did seem to us that explanation being the object, one training, as I think was granted by the noble Earl who has just spoken, ought to be sufficient for that purpose. If you cannot explain to the men and they do not understand and do not appreciate or do not agree with what is proposed in the course of one training you are not much more likely I am afraid to impress it on their minds in two. On that ground and with the natural desire we have to set the whole ultimate system starting on its wheels as soon as we can we greatly prefer the proposition of the noble Viscount to that of the noble Duke. I can quite believe after what fell from Lord Raglan and others that they might have preferred the original proposition, yet they would be willing— I will not say to compromise, because the noble Marquess dislikes the word—to come to a decision on those terms. As regards the two questions put to me by the noble Earl who has just sat down, he will understand that I cannot speak as an ex pert and therefore I am only able to give him a somewhat qualified answer—the kind of answer I am afraid which almost always must be given when the responsible Minister is not in the particular House where the answer has to be made. It is undoubtedly the case that it is desirable that the recruiting for the 885 special contingent should begin at once and that after the Bill becomes law there shall be no further recruiting for the Militia as such. As regards the question of training I conceive it to be the desire and intention of my right hon. friend that these men should be trained with the Militia and not apart from them. But I do not want to give an absolute pledge on that point, as noble Lords opposite will understand, because I am not in a position to know whether in some cases there might be military difficulties in doing so. I think however I may say that that is the object my right hon. friend has in view. As regards the other battalions, those not belonging to those battalions, the period of extension does not entirely apply, because these battalions are not going to form part of the special contingent and there is therefore not the same necessity for explaining the situation to them as there is in the case of the other battalions. I conceive therefore that such dispositions in the way of amalgamation as the War Office may desire to make will proceed at once without delay, and that the proceeding? which it has always been understood would take place in regard to these battalions would proceed as contemplated. Those battalions do not form part of the special contingent and therefore no alteration would take place in the original plan contemplated in regard to them.
§ THE DUKE OF BEDFORDDo I understand that His Majesty's Government are prepared to give us a distinct assurance that the provisions of Part III. of this Bill shall not apply to the Militia for a period of one year?
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHYes, until after the next training. That will be one year.
§ THE DUKE OF BEDFORDIf that is so, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ EARL BATHURSTmoved to insert after the word "training" the words "which shall include musketry training." He said that he had put down the 886 Amendment with the object of trying to elicit from the noble Earl the Under-Secretary for War what it was proposed to do in regard to musketry in connection with the annual training of the special reserve. He would like to know if the noble Earl could tell them how the six days were to be occupied, how many rounds were to be fired, and whether he thought that the general efficiency in musketry could be kept up during that short time?
§
Amendment moved—
In page 22, line 11, after the word 'training' to insert the words 'which shall include musketry training.' "—(Earl Bathurst.)
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHsaid the intention was that the Infantry special reserve would annually undergo a course of musketry, but no Amendment was necessary for that purpose, as the word "training" was, they were told, sufficiently wide to include musketry training. The objection he had to the Amendment of his noble friend was that the effect if it were inserted would be that every man of the special contingent who was called out for training would be obliged to undergo a course of musketry every year. The special contingent referred to in the clause would compise a large number of men such as Artillerymen, doctors, members of the Army Service Corps, and others to whom it was not intended to give annual musketry training. He hoped therefore that his noble friend would not press for the insertion of the words, because it would be rather ridiculous to apply it to that class of men, and the words as they stood in the Bill would be quite sufficient to cover the case.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYcould not help thinking his noble friend would be very much disappointed that the Under-Secretary for War had not availed himself of the opportunity to clear up some of the difficulties which surrounded this question. He wished to press two points on the Under-Secretary. He did not contest the objection which the noble Earl had taken to the verbal Amendment. It was quite true that they did not intend to teach all the doctors musketry every year, but that the 887 Infantry Militia, or what would correspond to the Militia, ought to have musketry training every year he did not entertain any doubt whatever. He under stood that His Majesty's Government went that length, and he earnestly hoped that they would think better of their plan of allowing only the very limited period of six days for musketry. Six days was always too short, and might be absolutely ridiculous. It was always too short as they knew from what happened in their own experience. They could not do the present Militia musketry under nine days, even if they violated the rules of the service; that was the shortest possible time that it could be done in. On the occasion of the last training of his regiment he took twelve days. Under the Government's scheme this special contingent was expected to be ready on the outbreak of war to fight in the first line, and he wished to know how it was that they could do that with less annual musketry training than was provided for the ordinary Militia man. Could not the Government see what an. absurd position they would be placed in as regards these men, supposing there were three or possibly six wet days during the musketry training—and there were wet days in England He assured the Government that they must embrace the full logic of the position, and if these were expected to be fit to fight immediately war broke out they must be thoroughly trained in the use of the rifle, the weapon with which they would have to fight. He knew it was said that they were going to have a long preliminary training, in the course of which they would learn musketry. He had nothing to say against a preliminary training of that kind, but—though in some respects it was better—it was not the same thing as an annual training. A long training was better because the men could reach a higher point of proficiency, but it was not the same as an annual training because in a long preliminary training they did not remind a man of the work he had done and refresh his memory each year, as in the case of an annual training. Supposing they enlisted a man for six years and gave him a thoroughly efficient preliminary training at the beginning: if he afterwards re-engaged for two 888 successive periods of four years, how much of the preliminary musketry training would be effective at the end of the four teen years unless in the meantime he had been properly kept up to date? He thought he had said enough to show the Government that the six days was an absurdity. The six days ought not to be separate from the annual training, but ought, on every ground of convenience which could be named, to be part of it. A great deal of time was occupied in the assembling of these forces, and if the Government intended to have musketry training separate from the annual training it would mean a waste of two days. If very bad weather prevailed during the musketry training and it was part of the annual training, time which would otherwise have been devoted to drill, would be absorbed by musketry training, which was the more important of the two. But if the men were only to have six days musketry training, no margin whatever was allowed. That margin, which in the interests of efficiency he believed to be a necessity, could only be got by merging the musketry training in the annual training. He earnestly hoped that His Majesty's Government would not be so unwise as to ignore the views of expert Militia officers as to how musketry training could best be given.
LORD RAGLANsaid that in discussing this matter the question of expense should not be overlooked. It should be clear to everyone that if the musketry training and the annual training were continuous there would be only one journey on the part of the men to be paid for, whereas if the two trainings took place at different periods there would, of course, be two journeys to pay for. Another important point which His Majesty's Government should bear in mind was that a man should, as far as possible, be put through his musketry course by the officers and non-commissioned officers of his own company, under whom the best results were most likely to be achieved. It should also be remembered that an officer got a better knowledge of his men during musketry practice than in any other way. It was of the greatest importance to keep a man up to his annual musketry practice.
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHsaid he could assure their Lordships that them matters which had been brought forward would be most carefully considered, but he was afraid he could not give any definite pledges on the points raised across the floor of the House.
§ Amendment, by leave, with drawn.
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHmoved a new subsection which, he explained, was proposed to meet a point raised by the Marquess of Salisbury.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 22, line 25. after the word 'effect' to insert the following new subsection:—'(5) A special reservist who enlists into the Regular Forces shall upon such enlistment be deemed to be discharged from the Army Reserve.' "—(The Earl of Portsmouth.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 24, line 9, to leave out the word 'Act. 1882,' and to insert the words 'Acts 1882 to 1906.' "—(The Karl of Portsmouth.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYmoved an Amendment to the proviso. He said that he had given the Government private notice of this Amendment and he understood that it would be accepted. At the present time it was left to the officer or man to indicate his objection to the transfer. It had occurred to him that the provision was hardly satisfactory, because it was not at all likely that many of the men would know what was going on at the time and would not be in a position to indicate whether they objected to the transfer or not. In his opinion the burden ought to be placed the other way. and there ought to be no transfer unless a man indicated his assent. He was glad to think that the Government also took that view.
§
Amendment moved—
In line 11, to leave out the word 'if,' and to insert the word 'unless.' In line 12, to leave out the words from 'transfer' to the end of the line, and to insert the words ' indicates his consent to such transfer certified by the commanding officer."—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHI accept this Amendment.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendment moved—
In line 13, after the word 'service' to insert the following new subsection: (3) All Orders in Council made under this station shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament.' "—(The Earl of Portsmouth.)
§ *VISCOUNT MIDLETONrecognised the importance of the step His Majesty's Government had taken in including all orders and schemes under the new Order in Council procedure in Clause 36. He thought when he (Viscount Midleton) spoke in Committee on this subject, the Lord President was under the impression that he proposed something new, but there were distinct precedents which he was able to quote to the House with the result that he thought the Lord President was afterwards aware of the facts. He wished entirely to guard himself from proposing that this should be a precedent generally for Acts of Parliament. The Army had been treated differently from almost any other service in that it had been governed by Acts of Parliament which could not up to the present as a rule be departed from in any way, except by Act of Parliament. The power of the Executive over the Army had been limited by that power of referring to Parliament. Therefore, it seemed reasonable when such very large powers were given to the Executive by this Bill that those powers should be subject to review by Parliament in the shape of Orders in Council. He had pressed His Majesty's Government to adopt that course, and he was glad that they had been good enough to agree to it. It was only due to them to say that there would be no endeavour on that side of the House to make this a general proviso in the case of other Acts of Parliament.
§ THE EARL OF CREWEThe House may possibly remember that when I spoke for the Government on the Committee Stage I took rather strong exception to the form of the Amendment, and am afraid that I somewhat overstated the case in saying that it was unprecedented. It was, I find, not unprecedented, because the same thing occurs in three previous Acts of Parliament, all, however, relating to judicial matters; but it is unprecedented as regards ordinary Acts of 891 administration, The last occasion on which it was applied, I think, was more than thirty years ago, but at the same time I repeat that I did overstate the case in saying that there was no precedent for it. We are quite willing to admit that the case of the Army may also stand on a somewhat different footing from ordinary methods of administration. As the noble Viscount has said, Parliament has always looked with a certain amount of jealousy upon the idea of giving excessive scope to the Executive in matters connected with the Army. I hope and trust it will be clearly under stood, and it ought to be placed on record, that this should not be regarded as any precedent for dealing with future Orders in Council. I am speaking quite as much on behalf of noble Lords opposite as on behalf of His Majesty's Government, because whenever they find their way back to these benches they would be of opinion as we are that the whole system of Orders in Council ought not to be treated as one in which the Orders are liable to be laid on the Table with a view to discussion and possible annulment when once passed. We are anxious to guard against it being supposed that Orders in Council, after having received the sanction of the Sovereign, ought as a rule to be the subject of discussion in Parliament. I am glad that we have come to a perfect agreement in the matter, and I quite recognise the reasonableness of the course which the noble Viscount has pursued.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to,
§
Amendments moved—
In page 24, line 25, after the word 'council' to insert the words 'or scheme.'
In page 24, line 31, to leave out the words' on which the said House shall have sat.'
''In page 24, line 32, to leave out the words 'rule or order,' and to insert the words 'order or scheme.'
In page 24, line 33, after the word 'order' to insert the words ' or scheme.' "—(The Earl of Portsmouth.)
§ On Question, Amendments agreed to.
*THE EARL OF JERSEYmoved a new subsection which he said spoke for itself. He should perhaps explain that the Trophy Tax was a tax which had been levied in the City of London for the purpose of the Royal London Militia 892 Regiment. It had the good fortune of always being cheerfully paid as long as it was used for that particular purpose.
§
Amendment moved—
In page 25, line 29, after the word 'South-hampton' to insert the following new subsection: '(5) Nothing of this Act shall affect the raising and levying of the Trophy Tax as heretofore in the City of London, but the proceeds of the tax so levied may be applied by His Majesty's Commissioners of Lieutenancy for the City of London, if the Royal London Militia Battalion is reconstituted as a battalion of the Army Reserve, for any purposes connected with that battalion, and may also; if His Majesty's Commissioners of Lieutenancy for the City of London in their discretion see fit, be applied for the purposes of any of the powers and duties of the association of the City of London under this Act.'
§ THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHsaid that he accepted the Amendment. On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ Bill to be read 3a on Tuesday next, and to be printed as amended. (No. 122.)