THE ARMY.—MOTION FOR INQUIRY.

HL Deb 18 May 1909 vol 1 cc971-1052

* THE DUKE OF BEDFORD

My Lords, I rise to call attention to (1) the reductions in the Regular Army and in the Regular Reserve; (2) the deficiency of officers now serving in the Regular Army and in the Special Reserve; (3) the state of the Special Reserve; and to move "That in the opinion of the House, a special inquiry should be instituted into the condition of the Special Reserve, and as to the extent to which officers, non-commissioned officers and men of that force are fitted to discharge the duties of the Regular Reserve which devolve upon them in time of war."

We cannot understand what the Government really mean by the Special Reserve or the purpose for which it is created, unless we consider their recent dealings with the Regular Army and the Regular Reserve. The numbers of the Regular Reserve on mobilisation for the South African war failed to complete all the Regiments required for service to war strength. Many, therefore, embarked short of their full establishment. At the conclusion of the war the first care of the noble Viscount, Lord Midleton, then at the War Office, was to guard against the recurrence of any such deficiency in the future by at once establishing an amply sufficient Regular Reserve. The Government certainly have good reason to be thankful to the noble Viscount for his success. It is the existence of Lord Midleton's Reserve, now numbering 135,000 men, which alone justifies the present Secretary of State for War in his assertion that by his superior organisation, whilst reducing the Regular Army, he can yet place a stronger force in the field than any of his predecessors. The policy adopted by the noble Viscount was completely successful in creating an ample Regular Reserve. But the periods of service, which suited the formation of a strong Regular Reserve, were not equally suited for the provision of drafts for India.

The noble Viscount's successor, Mr. Arnold-Forster, endeavoured to solve the double problem of creating an ample Reserve and at the same time of supplying the Indian drafts by establishing concurrent long and short service enlistment in the Regular Army. His Majesty's Government abolished that system without allowing it a trial. For them the double problem does not exist, because they do not want a large Regular Reserve. They have succeeded to one which to their thinking was unduly inflated. All they had to do was to revert to the same system which, as experience proved, furnished an insufficient Reserve in war, but met the difficulty of the Indian drafts. First, the Government exhibits with pride a Regular Reserve which they have inherited but had not created. Then they reduce its numbers, and end, as I will show you, by substituting for the matured soldiers of the Regular Reserve, immature seventeen-year old boys whose military training consists of six months of squad drill at the depôt, and whom they describe as Special Reservists. The term "Special" is aptly chosen, for never before have seventeen-year old boys been numbered among the Reserve of a foreign service Army.

As your Lordships are aware, nine Reserve-creating cadres of the Regular Army have been disbanded. The number of men actually serving in the home battalions has been diminished giving a diminished Reserve-creating power in the cadre and necessitating an increased number of Reservists to complete Regiments on mobilisation. Then the immaturity of the men serving with the Colours has been augmented owing to boys of seventeen being passed into the Army through the Special Reserve. This means more boys unfit for service, and, again, more men needed from the Reserve on mobilisation. The Army Council must know the ultimate result of disbanding nine Reserve-creating cadres of the Regular Infantry, of decreasing the Reserve-making power of the Army, and of increasing the immaturity of the boys with the Colours. They must know that to substitute the Special Reserve for the Regular Reserve is to rely on untrained boys in the first fighting line in place of trained soldiers. But, regardless of the future, they have given this policy their united and unqualified support.

In 1906, it was rumoured that the Government intended to first reduce the Regular Army in order to create new Auxiliary Forces. The soundness of that policy was questioned, and on March 8, 1906, in explaining the Army Estimates, the Secretary of State for War said— There was a rumour the other day in the papers that I had decided to recommend the abolition of ten home battalions of the Line, and I tried to I describe that rumour correctly as a nidus equinus, I which is a polite and classic way of calling it a mare's-nest. If I had decided to do anything of that kind it would have been in military eyes tantamount to insanity. A few months passed, and, with the full approval of the Army Council, eight battalions of the Line and one of the Guards were disbanded, and the 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards sent to Egypt pending disbandment. More recently, last November, in referring to the reductions in the Regular Army, the Secretary of State for War, speaking at Guildford, is reported to have said— So far from the Regular Army having been cut down, we are to-day 90,000 stronger than we were three years ago, and yet the Army cost two and a-half millions less. That number of 90,000 represents the total establishment of all branches, combatant and non-combatant, of the Special Reserve. I propose to show your Lordships that these 90,000 men are not there, and that, even if the numbers were there, in no sense ought Special Reservists to be counted as equivalent to Regular Reservists.

It has been represented that the Special Reserve is the Militia under another name. It is nothing of the kind. To represent it as such was a fiction useful at the moment for the purpose of reconciling Militia officers to the destruction of their force, and of persuading them to transfer to the new force, and to bring their men over with them. Since 1905, the year previous to the commencement of these changes, some 500 officers and 30,000 men have left the Militia Infantry. The partial transfer of the remainder of the Infantry Militia has taken place at a cost of £75,000 in bounties to the men. The purpose served, the fiction is abandoned. The Secretary of State for War, in introducing the Army Estimates this year announces that— Of course the Militia has gone. The total abolition of the Militia, always intended, is at length acknowledged. The Special Reserve was from the very first meant to be a substitute for the reductions in the Reserve of the Regular Army. A. very sorry substitute for the Reserve of the Regular Army it may be, but it can never carry out the duties of the old Militia force abolished. The Militia has gone, and whatever use the Militia system has been to the country in the past, this is lost now and evermore.

The Secretary of State for War, in explaining the Army Estimates this year, informs us— Of course the Regular Reserve will come down when we reach the normal, but on the other hand the Special Reserve will go up, and you will get over 200,000. We know that the Regular Army has been reduced by 22,000 men, and we see, according to the last Returns, that the Regular Reserve will be diminished by about 20,000 men. As to the amount of the future reductions in the Regular Reserve, I must call your Lordships' attention to the fact that calculations made by the War Office concerning the future strength of the Reserve give very contradictory and very extraordinary results. Their calculation in 1905 made 156 battalions with an establishment of 750 men produce a total Reserve of 55,645. Their calculation in 1907 gave the Reserve produced by 148 battalions with an establishment of 720 as 63,370—an excess of product of the smaller number of units with the smaller establishment over the larger number of units with the larger establishment of 7,725 men. I believe that the Army Council can easily prove, in calculating the Army Reserve, that the less is more than equal to the greater, but I am not open to conviction on this point. Bearing in mind the extent to which the Reserve-creating power of the Army has been diminished I fear that the future decrease in the Regular Reserve will be much greater than the Government anticipate—namely, 20,000 men. Anyhow, the Special Reserve are to make good 22,000 men gone from the Colours of the Army and all reductions in the Regular Reserve, plus the total loss of the Militia system. The compensation is most misleading. Even if all branches of the Special Reserve stood at their full establishment nothing like that number of men would be available to undertake the duties of the Regular Reservists whom we have lost. In the Regular Reserve every man has completed his term of Colour service, and consequently must be of an age to serve abroad. In the Special Reserve, on the contrary, boys of 17 are enlisted and are returned from the date of enlistment as being of the same value and efficiency as the matured Regular Reservists for active service abroad. Now let us consider the present and the future conditions of this new substitute for the Regular Infantry Reserve. Up to October 1 last less than 4,000 recruits had been obtained for the Special Reserve Infantry. So the Army Council decided to make a special appeal—they are always making special appeals to somebody—in this case not to the employer but to the unemployed, setting forth the advantages of the Special Reserve as a winter refuge for men out of work. The appeal was published in the Press on October 31, 1908. For instance, in the Daily Mail a notice appeared that the War Office wished through the Daily Mail to call attention to the advantages which the Special Reserve offered. The terms of service were then set out, but neither in that notice nor in any other which appeared at that moment is any mention made of the liability of Special Reservists to be drafted abroad to any Regiment of the Line—by far the most serious liability which is put on them.

Then followed the conditions of pay. I was astonished at reading in the notice to which I refer that pay varies from 7s. to 13s. 9½d. per week, and it is expressly stated that the War Office have made this amount clear pocket money. I do not know the class of soldier who is going to get 13s. 9½d. a week clear, so I do not consider him, but he is a useful man for advertisement purposes. As a matter of fact, the rate of pay in the Infantry is not 7s. but 4s. 11½d. clear per week. Even so, I think that the terms offered by the Government to the unemployed are very generous. The man serves for twenty-four weeks at 4s. 11½d. a week and receives £6. At the end of his twenty-four weeks he receives, in addition, a bounty of 30s., which makes £7 10s. The Army Council then say, "We have fed you, and housed you, and tended you for six winter months. If you hand us back 60s. out of the 150s. which we have given to you, we will give you your discharge. You are a free man to go your way rejoicing with £4 10s. in your pocket, a walking advertisement of our generosity to the unemployed at the taxpayers' expense and of the success of our plan for using regimental depôts as temporary asylums for the destitute."

In connection with this new semi-military force there are several other points which call for careful inquiry, and which have received none. Enlistment into the Special Reserve enables a man to desert his wife and family and leave them a charge on the rates. It frees him from the burden of supporting his parents. It lends itself readily and safely to fraudulent enlistment. It promises to create a class of men who will go from depôt to depôt doing six months when they cannot otherwise avoid starvation, loafing for the rest of the year, and effecting many separate enlistments in different parts of the United Kingdom, adding thereby to the paper strength of the Special Reserve. These special opportunities of these Special Reservists are bad for the good name of the Army among the working classes.

The state of the Special Reserve Infantry on February 1 last was given by the Secretary of State for War as follows: Establishment, 58 500; total strength on February 1, 1909, 55,301. According to the Return—but the Return does not prove itself—that number is made up of 37,799 men who have transferred from the Militia Infantry and of 25,488 recruits enlisted up to February 1 last. Observe that those 25,488 recruits are reckoned for active service as the equal of Regular Reservists who have done seven years Colour service. In practice this is the way in which the plan worked out last year. Of these 25,488,recruits, 6,150 passed to the Navy or Regular Army and did not remain in the Special Reserve. Of the remaining 19,338, there were discharged as unfit and for other reasons 2,287. There remain 17,051; of these 11,055 were still under training at the depôts on February 1, each recruit counting as a Regular Reservist. The number of Special Infantry Reservists dismissed to their homes on completion of five or six months training in the first year of the Special Reserve is 7,681. This figure represents one year's intake into the Special Reserve. Some of these 7,681 men have been rejected as physically unfit in time of peace for the Army of which they are to be the backbone in time of war. The question is how many?

When the scheme of the Special Reserve was first explained some two years ago, critics, and among them the late Mr. Arnold-Forster, pointed out that the Special Reserve would be largely composed of rejections from the Line. Until June, 1908, all Special Reserve recruits were re-measured on completion of their six months drill on enlistment. On the attestation form of every Special Reserve recruit there were comparative columns, the one giving the height, weight, and chest measurement on enlistment, the other after six months service and gymnastic course. In July, 1908, a War Office letter was issued notifying that— The Army Council no longer consider the measurement of Special Reserve recruits on conclusion of six months drill necessary. I asked the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War before Easter how many of the 7,681 men who had passed to the Special Reserve had previously been rejected for the Line. The noble Lord was not able to give me an answer, because of the cancelling of the remeasurement of recruits on completion of six months drill on enlistment. But at the same time the noble Lord kindly said he would inquire if any information on the point was available. As a result of those inquiries, for which I am very much obliged, he gives me as an approximate figure, but approximate only, the number of 744. Now I should have given as an approximate figure 3,840 or fifty per cent. If the contention that the Special Reserve is largely composed of men physically unfit for the Regular Army is correct, then the unsoundness of such a Reserve system for our first line needs no further demonstration. On the other hand, if the critics are wrong, why do the Army Council deprive themselves of the means of proving these critics beyond all question to be in error?

There is a lower standard of physical fitness for the Special Reserve than for the Regular Army. For the Army the age is eighteen years. During last winter, height 5 feet 3 inches, chest, 34½ inches. For the Special Reserve, age seventeen, height 5 feet 2 inches, chest 32½ inches. The standard has just been raised for both forces by one inch. Now on the attestation form of Special Reserve recruits there is a certificate of medical examination which certifies the recruit "to be fit for the Army Reserve." No mention is made of Special Reserve; the words used are Army Reserve. You cannot get away from the fact that you are rejecting men as unfit for the Line in time of peace, and yet certifying them fit in time of war.

On the point of age, I am not in a position to give the exact number of these 7,681 men who are under twenty years of age, and, therefore, not fit for foreign service. But a very good line can be obtained by referring to the Army Annual Return for the previous year—that is, 1908. A return is there shown of 15,267 Special Infantry Reserve recruits, among whom 2,458 were twenty years of age and over. By a proportion sum the 7,681 recruits passed to the Special Reserve up to February last would give 1,236 men of an age for foreign service. Allowing for absentees and physical unfitness, the total year's recruiting for the Special Infantry Reserve represents 1,000 men of an age and physically fit for immediate service in the Regular Reserve, provided you are prepared to accept six months squad drill at a depôt as sufficient training for a reserve soldier of the Regular Army.

Special Reserve recruits will not be fit for foreign service for some four years after the date of first enlistment. I say about four years, because it is necessary to remember that the boy who is accepted for the Army will develop physically much quicker than the boy who is rejected for the Line and consequently is left in the Special Reserve. The Special Reservist is of inferior physique to start with, and is dismissed from barracks at the end of six months to contend with cold, hunger, and want in the midst of unsanitary surroundings, whereas the boy in the Line is fed, tended, and cared for, and lives under the eye of the surgeon. You enlist boys for a period of six years, and for upwards of four of those years humanity prevents you from using them for the only purpose for which you have enlisted them—namely foreign service. The 11,055 recruits who were drilling at the depôts on February 1 are indeed invaluable as paper soldiers. Every one of them from the first moment he enlists into the Special Reserve whether he ends by going to the Army or Navy, or is discharged as medically unfit, or passes to the Special Reserve four years before he is of age to go abroad, is counted as equal to a Regular Reservist for the purposes of war.

Moreover, every man who passes through the Special Reserve into the Regular Army records two separate enlistments and is counted twice over. The manager of a stage army could learn a good deal from the Army Council in the art of making one man appear as several. For instance, by the Army Order of December, 1907, men were told that they could enlist into the Special Reserve, pass on into the Line at the end of three months, and receive a bounty of 30s. on transfer. On account of the bounty this was becoming a very popular way of joining the Line. That order was cancelled last March. Men who joined on and after January 1 must now do six months drill before being allowed to pass into the Line. This is the object of the change. A great many Special Reserve battalions train in June. The Army Council will now be able to show all those boys who are really Line recruits and who joined on the promise of being transferred to the Army at the end of three months with a bounty training this summer as Special Reservists. Thus some 10,000 men will be shown training with the Special Reserve battalions who never meant to serve in the Special Reserve at all. When these 10,000 men are transferred to the Line we shall have a paper return of 20,000 men, 10,000 training in the Special Reserve battalions and 10,000 joining the Line. But they are the same men twice counted. Methods of this kind may serve to obscure the true state of the Special Reserve during this summer, but they cannot conceal it permanently.

I now pass to the 37,799 Militiamen upon whom you have spent £75,000 in order to induce them to transfer to the Special Reserve. Of this number 9,709 will be time-expired by September, 1910. The annual transfer from the Militia to the Army used to be upwards of 12,000 men. But all those Militiamen who took the bounty of £2 to transfer to the Special Reserve were not allowed to enlist in the Army for one year. The Army Council, in short, spent £20,000 in keeping 10,000 out of the Regular Army for one year, just to show what a substantial force the Special Reserve really was. Of course, these men are only waiting to join the Army as soon as they are free to do so. Thus we must count on 10,000 men transferring to the Army and 9,709 becoming time-expired by September year, total 19,709. Further, we must allow for men purchasing their discharge. This they could not do in 1908, except by refunding the £2 bounty, which of course they had spent, and that made purchase impossible for them for the time. During this year they will be able to purchase and a good many will do so. In addition there is the unavoidable loss due to death, invaliding, desertion, and emigration. You cannot put the waste from all these causes at less than 3,000 men. Thus, by September year at least 22,000 transferred Militiamen will be lost to the Special Reserve—that is, more than half the balance of the men transferred gone.

The last of the transferred Militiamen will not become time-expired till 1913. But the collapse of the Special Reserve Infantry will occur from 1911 to 1912. By then, 20,000 transferred Militiamen will have become time-expired and 10,000 will have transferred to the Army, and all the ordinary causes of waste suspended as far as possible by Army Order for the first year, will have been in operation. The remainder of the transferred Militia will be a negligible quantity. You have, therefore, become dependent entirely upon recruits. Of these, at the present annual rate of intake—namely, 7,600 men—you will have passed 30,000 into the Special Reserve. That number represents your gross income for four years. But it is not your net income. Your balance must be subject to waste during these four years, and will not stand at more than 25,000. Again, at the end of four years, as boys of seventeen are enlisted, only a proportion of the first year's intake of 7,681, say 4,000, will have matured and become of an age fit for foreign service. In 1913, then, the Special Infantry Reserve will consist of less than 5,000 men fit for foreign service.

By the end of 1913 the Reserve of all arms of the Regular Army is given in the Return of March 31 as 106,372. Will the Under-Secretary of State for War explain, in face of those facts, the statement that as the Regular Reserve diminishes so the Special Reserve will increase till finally you have a Reserve Army of 200,000 men. If that is going to become true, then in 1913 you will need a Special Reserve of 95,000 men, every man of an age and physically fit to serve abroad. The whole establishment of the Special Reserve of all branches is shown on the Estimates as 91,952, but as boys of seventeen are enlisted a great proportion cannot be fit to serve abroad. At present, in round numbers, you have a total strength of 70,000 Special Reserve of all ranks, out of which 20,000 are too young for foreign service. The immaturity of the Special Reserve will increase as the balance of transferred Militiamen become time-expired. Except the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War is pre pared to show us where these 95,000 matured men, not boys, are to come from, the Reserve Army of 200,000 is a paper Army and nothing more. So much for the quantity of the Special Reserve. Let us now look at its quality.

The Secretary of State for War, in introducing the Army Estimates, commented upon the— good work which had been done in bringing up the training of the new force, that is the Special Reserve, to the pitch of efficiency he believed it had attained. What does that pitch of efficiency really mean? In the first place, the Special Reserve has never yet done a training. Secondly, the new short rifle has only been issued to the Special Reserve last month; therefore the transferred men have never yet fired with the rifle they are to carry on service. Thirdly, the Line officers transferred to the Special Reserve have never yet seen their men. Militiamen are very different from Linesmen, and the line officers are as yet complete strangers to the Militiamen. Fourthly, the greater part of the recruits have not yet fired a recruit's course of musketry owing to lack of range accommodation. Fifthly, few of the recruits are of an age fit for foreign service, the only purpose for which they are enlisted, and will not be fit for some four years from now. Sixthly, a proportion have been rejected as unfit for the Line in time of peace, and therefore more unfit in time of war; and, finally, the Force is 1,360 subalterns short of its establishment. It is most interesting to know that the military members of the Army Council have advised the Secretary of State for War that he may express himself as thoroughly satisfied with this pitch of efficiency in his new force.

In the last Report of the Director of Recruiting the recruits of the Special Reserve are very favourably reported upon as being of a superior class to Militia recruits. But the fact that in round numbers you have discharged 2,000 recruits as medically unfit out of 25,000 in the first few months of their service tells a very different story. From all I know, and from all I have heard from others well qualified to judge, the Special Reserve recruits impress the ordinary observer, not with feelings of pride, but of pity. I perceive that the Army Council judges the Special Reserve by special standards. But the Special Reserve is an important part of our first line, and I will ask your Lordships to judge it not by special standards but by common sense.

The Special Reserve is intended by the Government to be the backbone of the British Army on the field of battle. To understand the fighting efficiency of the Special Reserve it is necessary to follow the story of a lad from the day he joins that general drafting pool till the moment when he takes his place in the line of battle. He enlists at seventeen or younger, not because he is anxious to make soldiering his profession, but because he is hungry and cold, and a "dead-beat" in civilian life. He joins a depôt during the winter and commences squad drill. There is no possibility of forming a class of progressive instruction, because recruits come dribbling in at different intervals all the year round, and consequently there will be many squads composed of boys some of whom have been at the depôt two days and some four months. It is precisely the same as if you tried to carry on a school or college without having any fixed term time. If you look at a squad of Special Reserve recruits when they are beginning arm drill, you will notice many cannot hold the rifle to the shoulder without the muzzle dipping down and the whole body of the boy dropping forward from sheer weakness. These boys, and of such are composed the recruits of the Special Reserve, are too feeble to do military training for at least three months after coming into barracks. The first three months must be devoted to physical training, which is admirable but it is not soldiering. Now, a lad who does his last three months of recruit training in November, December, or January will do so under very adverse circumstances. The number of possible outdoor working days are few, and the hours of daylight short; and as for musketry instruction on the range, if there happens to be one available, which, by the way, is not always the case, that is impossible. At the end of his six months a boy will remain in the Special Reserve for two reasons—first, because he is physically unfit for the Line; and, secondly, because although he cannot buy his discharge he hates soldiering so much that he will not join the Army. At the end of his six months drill on enlistment he is discharged into the street more hopelessly out of touch than ever with civilian employment and all physical and moral benefit he may have received must rapidly vanish. He does an annual training including musketry, of twenty days, five of which must be non-working days. If the commanding officer gets four clear days for company and battalion training he may consider himself a lucky man. Such, then, will be the peace preparation for the ordeal of war of the new Special Reserve.

The Special Reservist is a first Line soldier and enlisted for foreign service. Let us, therefore, consider him for a moment when sent on active service abroad. He has spent six months in barracks some years previous to mobilisation under officers and non-commissioned officers whom he will never see on service. Some weeks after the Expeditionary Force has taken the field abroad a draft of 300 Special Reservists are sent to reinforce a regiment at the front. They are drawn from the general drafting pool and collected from twenty different depôts. They are strangers to each other, strangers to their non-commissioned officers and to their officers. The only time they have been together will be the time spent on board ship. They land and are sent up by rail to the front. No modern Army can maintain itself remote from the rail head. Within forty-eight hours of disembarkation the draft joins the regiment, which they have never seen, and of which they do not even know the name, when it is in actual contact with the enemy. The unfortunate commanding officer who must take over this draft knows only too well the risk entailed by the arrival of this reinforcement. He cannot refuse to accept it, and the moment it joins his command he, and not the eminent soldiers who invented the Special Reserve, is solely responsible for any subsequent disaster. Battles are fought not by machines but by men, in whom the human element in the theatre of war plays an all-important part, a fact which the Government in creating the Special Reserve appear entirely to ignore. Men will die for a regiment and all that the regiment means and stands for to the soldier. Can you expect them to sacrifice their lives for the sake of a dreary depôt, where they once spent six melancholy months, and for the sake of a regiment of which they have scarcely had time to learn the name?

In the Special Infantry Reserve there are twenty-seven fourth battalions known as Extra Special Reserve Battalions. We were always assured by the Government that these fourth battalions, although subject to the same regulations as the general drafting pool, would be used for the purpose of the expansion of the Line abroad by battalion units. A Return showing the strength of these twenty-seven battalions was laid upon the Table before Easter. From that Return I perceive that there would be four battalions out of the twenty-seven of over 500 strong for foreign service, eliminating men under twenty and deducting fifteen per cent. on account of medical unfitness. We must remember that if a force is recruited from rejections from the Line in time of peace the percentage of unfit for foreign service in time of war will be extraordinarily high. I see that these four battalions would each form a half battalion of about 500 men for foreign service if they had officers to take them abroad, but they have not. I note that one of these battalions has only fourteen officers out of an establishment of twenty-eight, a second has four subalterns out of nineteen required, a third has five subalterns out of nineteen required, a fourth—a long way the best—has ten subalterns out of nineteen required.

The remainder of these twenty-seven battalions are numerically so weak after the necessary deductions for active service that it would be useless to send them abroad, especially as they have no Reserve. They would not be battalions at all, but would represent parties of 300 or 400 men greatly under-officered. Fourteen battalions out of the twenty-seven would, after making the necessary deductions, be 300 strong and under for foreign service. One would be 187. Of course they are available for the general drafting pool, but the duties assigned to them by the Government—namely, those of relieving Line regiments in foreign garrisons and doing duty on lines of communication—they can never perform. The strength of these battalions will shortly decrease, because men who transferred from the Militia were not allowed to join the Army without refunding £2 bounty, nor could they purchase their discharge for a year except for £5. They will be free to join the Army at the end of this summer and to purchase their discharge at the ordinary rate, and there will be a two years outflow in the next twelve months. More than 1,500 men are in their last year of service. Transferred Militiamen are not likely to re-engage at the end of their present term of service. They were obtained by the bounty of £2. No bounty is offered on re-engagement; on the contrary, they will get a less annual training bounty than they do now, and the conditions of service on re-engagement as regards general drafting will be much more distasteful to them than the ones under which they now serve.

As regards officers, 108—that is, fifty-four captains and fifty-four subalterns—should have been transferred to these twenty-seven Extra Special Reserve battalions, a year and a-half ago, from the Line by the Army Order of December, 1907. Up to the present only twenty-seven Regular officers have been transferred out of 108 due. That is a shortage of eighty-one Regular officers. We see then that the Regular officers whose presence was going to make such a difference to the efficiency of these battalions are not there. In addition to the shortage of eighty-one Regular officers, there is a shortage of 371 Special Reserve officers, making a total of 452 officers short in twenty-seven battalions. Six of these battalions, which are reckoned as available to relieve Line battalions at a moment's notice, have no senior lieutenants. Three battalions have no junior lieutenants, and six battalions have only two subalterns apiece. We were distinctly told that these twenty-seven battalions would expand the Line abroad in time of war, but they can only do so in imagination. There is no force now which can give expansion by units abroad to our reduced Regular Army.

The officers of the Special Reserve constitute a perfect puzzle. How are they to rank with Line officers? By the Army Order of December 23, 1907, all Special Reserve officers were at first to be always junior of their rank. But as it was found that Militia officers would not readily transfer on those terms to the Special Reserve, and that if the officers would not transfer the men would not do so, they were allowed to rank with the Line officers at the depôt and during training according to the dates of their commissions. The real difficulty arises on service. I cannot see how any officers from the Special Reserve can be brought into a Line regiment in any other place except at the bottom of the list, the same as a recruit officer on first joining, without interfering with promotion. This is a matter upon which the Line officers feel very strongly. On service when regular Officers, and especially junior officers, hope for rapid advancement, are they to find their promotion blocked by officers brought in from the Special Reserve over their heads, and filling places into which they ought to have stepped? If so, there is an end of the Regular Army as a profession.

Take this case as an illustration. Two boys go up for the Army examination, one able and industrious and the other idle and stupid. The able boy passes a good examinaton and goes to Sandhurst. He does well at Sandhurst, passes all his examinations, goes through many courses of instruction, and serves at home and abroad, and qualifies in the Line for the rank of captain. Meantime the other boy having failed for the Army, lapses into the Special Reserve and manages to attain the rank of captain in that force whilst his competitor in the first Army examination is yet a subaltern in the Line with active service to his credit. As a Special Reserve captain he takes out a draft and joins the Line regiment on service. For a short time he is supernumerary captain, but the command of a company becoming vacant, he steps in and gets the company over the head of the Line subaltern. That is to say, that a man who was not able to pass into the Army, and has spent an occasional fortnight in camp, ends by depriving in the field an able and experienced officer in the Line of the promotion due to him—an arrangement which cannot be acceptable to Regular officers. For the efficiency of the Line and from the point of view of fairness to Line officers, Special Reserve officers must join on service at the bottom of the list of officers, whether they are captains or subalterns, and there they must stay, because the moment you put them over the head of a Line officer you block promotion. The difficulty is that on those terms officers will not join the Special Reserve, but that is part of the impracticability inseparable from the whole scheme of the Special Reserve.

The Special Infantry Reserve as a whole is at present in sorry case as regards officers. By the Army Order of December 23, 1907, 772 Regular officers ought to have been transferred from the Line to the Special Reserve Infantry battalions; 150 more should be found from the reserve of officers on mobilisation. But whether they are likely to be available or not we are forbidden to inquire, as it is a question affecting mobilisation. Before Easter, the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War informed me that 107 officers had been transferred from the Line to the Special Reserve battalions. If you look at the Army List you will find that the names of those officers appear as serving both with the Line battalion and with the Special Reserve battalion. Their names, with the exception of those of adjutants of Special Reserve battalions are not printed in italics, which denotes the seconded officer. They are counted both with the Line battalions and Special Reserve battalions of their regiments in the Army List. They are included in the grand total of officers now serving in the Regular Army and again in the total of officers now serving in the Special Infantry Reserve. It is clear that if you take 772 officers from the first and second battalions and transfer them to the third and fourth, you must either appoint 772 extra officers from the Line or there will be a shortage. Where are these 772 extra officers for the Line to come from?

For that we must look to the supply of Army candidates. There seems to be a lack of qualified candidates for commissions in the Army. In June, 1908, the names of 232 candidates were published as having passed the qualification examination for the Army; there were only eighty-one who failed to qualify. But all these failures were taken with the successful into Sandhurst in September, 1908. The admission of the failures was made without further examination or publicity. Again, in November, 1908, the names of 135 successful candidates were published, and again fifty-five, who had failed to qualify, were, without further examination or publicity, taken with the successful into Sandhurst in February, 1909. The practice seems to be to announce some months before the examination that there will be so many vacancies offered but invariably to state a much smaller number of vacancies than it is the intention to fill after the examination, the object being to be in a position to say, "We have never had more commissions to offer than qualified candidates to fill them." I believe it is admitted that there have been occasions when there were more cavalry commissions offered than candidates to fill them. Again, is it not the case that you have not transferred the 772 officers from the Line to the Special Reserve Infantry because if you did so you would not have got the candidates, qualified or unqualified, to fill the vacant places in the Line? It is certain that you will never get a better class of Army candidates by merely raising the standard of the examination and then quietly letting in the failures. If you want candidates superior in quality and quantity you must offer better pay and better professional prospects. You will certainly not do the latter by blocking promotion of the junior ranks when on service by bringing in Special Reserve officers over their heads.

For the Special Infantry Reserve fifty subalterns have been obtained since its formation up to Easter. Of these, thirty-two are candidates for commissions in the Army and eighteen intend to remain in the Special Reserve so we have a deficiency of 1,360 subalterns and an intake of eighteen. Practically, all the junior subalterns who transferred from the Militia to the Special Reserve did so because they were Army candidates. They intend passing out of the Special Reserve as soon as they can. That is all right for the Army? But it shows the impossibility of getting permanent officers for the Special Reserve. At the examination held last October for commissions in the Army from the Special Reserve and Yeomanry, eighty commissions were offered and sixty-six candidates presented themselves for competition, so that the competition is not severe.

The Government, however, are confident of meeting this appalling deficiency of officers in the course of this summer by means of a mysterious body lately summoned into existence and called the "Officers' Training Corps." It seems that the Volunteer Corps of many Universities and the Cadet Corps of many large public schools have their names changed from Volunteers and Cadet Corps to "Officers' Training Corps." The Government have thus, by a stroke of the pen, created an Officers' Training Corps of some 20,000 members, but they are precisely the same as the University Volunteer Corps and the Public Schools Cadet Corps whom we have had with us for so long. I cannot understand why this change of name should induce lads to join our military forces from the University and School Corps in any greater numbers in the future than they have done in the past, except that I believe they are to receive a solatium of —35 if they pass some military examination. If they do so then the Special Reserve officer from the public school Cadet Corps and the University Rifle Corps is to be attached to a Line regiment for four months, and after that he goes out for a fortnight each year with a Special Reserve battalion. How can these Spacial Reserve officers have any knowedge of the duties which fall upon officers in peace and war with an experience of a Colour service of four months after leaving school, and of two weeks in camp each year? Do you ask us to believe that when war breaks out these officers will be fit to lead and command men and train non-commissioned officers, and at a moment's notice to discharge all the duties of a first Line officer on service?

On the point of numbers, however, leaving out of sight efficiency, can the Under-Secretary of State for War give any information as to the number of officers we may expect from the Officers' Training Corps this summer? Will any train with the Special Reserve this year? I notice that the Secretary of State for War, in answer to a Question addressed to him, has expressed himself as satisfied with the recruiting of Special Reserve officers— Because he is not dependent wholly upon officers of the old class, but upon contingents from the new Officers' Training Corps, the fruits of which will begin to be seen this summer. Can the Under-Secretary of State for War tell us how many of these 20,000 members of the Officers' Training Corps have entered into any engagement to join the Special Reserve? I read in a speech made by the Secretary of State for War in London on May 1 that— The way in which the young Territorial Engineer officers and the young Special Reserve officers were taking to their work and coming forward in large numbers resembled only the way in which young ducklings from the egg took to the water. The Special Reserve officers are then coming forward in large numbers. Is any information available as to their magnitude, because you want officers not by the hundred but by the thousand. The total deficiency of officers for the Special Reserve is 2,220.

I know it is always said the Militia was short of officers. It was deficient of 600 officers on the outbreak of the South African war, but then its establishment was much higher than that of the Special Reserve. The position to-day is that you have got rid of 500 Infantry Militia officers since 1905, that you should, unless the great Army Order of December, 1907, was never meant to have any meaning, have drawn on the Line for 772 officers who ought to have been replaced at once, but this it is not possible to do. In the end you show a total deficit of 1,360 subalterns in the Special Infantry Reserve. I hope the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War will explain the advantages of the present position.

Now, as regards the non-commissioned officers of the Special Reserve. Is it the intention to put the non-commissioned officers of the Special Reserve on their arrival at the front in charge of old soldiers with actual field experience, of which the Special Reserve non-commissioned officesr are totally devoid? That amounts to putting the untrained and inexperienced in command of the trained and experienced, a proceeding which in the presence of the enemy can have but one result. Are you going to say to the future non-commissioned officers of the Special Reserve that they must rank as privates when on service? That would be sound, but loss of rank and pay when on service would be a great deterrent to men trying to qualify in peace time as non-commissioned officers for your Special Reserve. How do you propose to find non-commissioned officers for your Special Reserve? I know what will be done in peace time. You will sew stripes on to the sleeves of private soldiers and call them non-commissioned officers, but that is not the solution of the problem.

There are and were to be other branches of the Special Reserve besides Infantry—for instance, the Special Reserve Artillery; but this I understand has already been abandoned as unworkable as far as the Special Reserve is concerned, and that the whole question is being reconsidered. I hope I may be able to obtain some information from the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War on this point. There are two Cavalry Regiments in the Special Reserve—the Irish Horse. There is no Territorial Army yet in Ireland, consequently the Irish Yeomanry were transferred to the Special Reserve. The Irish Horse appears on the Return as eleven officers and 370 men short of establishment.

I now come to the non-combatant branch of the Special Reserve. Some time ago this was the great triumph and discovery of the present War Office. The subsidiary services of an army in the field were to be simply revolutionised. There were to be extra Army Service Corps men, extra Army Medical Corps men, vandrivers, engineers, mechanicians, and electricians, and butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers, and a crowd of others, all serving upon a Militia basis. But where are all these people now? It is certain that they are not among the non-combatant branches of the Special Reserve. They form part of the phantom forces of the Army Council? From answers the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War kindly gave me before Easter, I understand that as far as the Army Service Corps Special Reserve is concerned, in category (a) the establishment of men is 1,000 and the strength is fifty; the establishment of officers 134, and the strength two. In category (b) the establishment of men is 2,500 and the strength is five. But, to use the words of the noble Lord when he kindly gave these figures— The thing is not yet in working order. As regards the Veterinary Corps, there should be eighty-six officers and there are none at all. The Army Medical Corps Special Reserve is divided into two categories. In category (a) the establishment is 2,000 according to the Army Estimates, and the strength is 657. In category (b), Army Medical Corps Special Reserve supernumerary, the establishment of men is 3,000 and the strength 183; the establishment of officers 489, and strength twenty-five. This category (b) of the Army Medical Corps Special Reserve supernumerary are officers and men who belong to the Territorial Army but who have undertaken an engagement to serve with the Special Reserve abroad on mobilisation. These figures have an important bearing on the Expeditionary Force about which we have heard so much. According to an Army Memorandum issued in 1907 a full establishment of these non-combatant branches is essential to complete the Expeditionary Force. A note is added to the table saying— The numbers here shown are those required to mobilise the Field Force according to the latest tables, exclusive of any provision for waste in the field or home employment. Well, those numbers are not likely to be there, and it is clear that the Expeditionary Force is not yet complete in some of its most essential parts.

I desire to draw special attention to the fact that the Expeditionary Force, about which we used to hear so much, would, as matters now stand, be sent on service with an insufficient medical equipment. In the South African war, owing to the fact that we put into the field a much larger force than it had ever been contemplated to send abroad, there was an insufficent supply of medical officers and staff. This occasioned much popular indignation. But now we have a case of an Expeditionary Force planned two years ago which has not yet been provided with anything approaching a sufficient medical equipment for its numbers when on active service.

I am well aware that the Special Reserve has the entire approval of the Army Council. I gather from the work on the British Army written by the late Mr. Arnold-Forster that the Army Council advised him, when Secretary of State, that nothing short of two years continuous training with the Colours would fit a man for a first line soldier. Upon that opinion was based the proposal for the short service Army. Now on July 30, 1906, in an Army Memorandum issued by the present Secretary of State for War, the proposed short service Army was condemned on the score of insufficient training in the following terms— The Cardwell system makes the training battalion serve two purposes. It provides drafts in peace, and the same battalion can on mobilisation by means of Reservists be transformed into a first-class fighting unit. Where world-wide duties have to be performed, battalions mobilised in this fashion appear to the great majority of the expert military advisers of the Government to be greatly preferable to the battalions of an independent short service Army composed largely of inexperienced and partially-trained Reservists, who must necessarily be quite inferior to seasoned men who have already gone through a substantial period of service abroad. That condemns, on the authority of the expert military advisers, the proposed short service Army of the late Government on the score that two years of Colour service was an inadequate period for a Regular Reservist's training. But now we have, in 1907, an Army Order issued by the same expert military advisers for the purpose of creating a Special Reserve which is to be a substitute for the Reserve of the Regular Army with six months of squad training at the depôt, and no Colour service at all. I submit, my Lords, that this fluid opinion of the Army Council greatly strengthens the request for a special inquiry. It is clear that the military members of the Army Council conceive their duty to their country as far as the Special Reserve is concerned to be summed up in Tennyson's famous line, "Theirs not to reason why." "Schemes may come and schemes may go, but we sit on for ever."

Finally, we are told in an Army Memorandum dated February 25, 1907, that to supply the waste for the first six months of a war 3,500 officers will be required and 75,000 men from the Special Reserve. We know that you are 2,220 officers deficient in the Special Reserve and that you have 20,000 men too young for foreign service. The question I should like to ascertain by special inquiry is, what is the balance fit for foreign service? This is the position. The Regular Army and its Reserve have been reduced by 40,000 men. The Reserve-making power of the Regular Army has been diminished to an extent which cannot be accurately estimated. The Militia has been absolutely abolished, and nothing has been put in its place. For all compensation we are told to put our trust in the Special Reserve. Are we justified in so doing? I urge an inquiry into that point before and not after the test of war has been applied. You may refuse in time of peace to inquire into the true condition of the Special Reserve upon which you must now rely as a substitute for the Regular Reserve; but remember that nothing can save you from being taught the truth in time of war, when the lesson learnt may mean your country's ruin.

Moved to resolve, "That in the opinion of the House, a special inquiry should be instituted into the condition of the Special Reserve, and as to the extent to which officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of that force are fitted to discharge the duties of the Regular Reserve which devolve upon them in time of war."—(The Duke of Bedford.)

THE EARL OF WEMYSS

My Lords, I have only two words to say. I think your Lordships who have listened to the facts and figures contained in the speech of my noble friend must be fully convinced of the desirability, nay, of the necessity, of the Motion which he has moved. In the course of the debate which took place yesterday on my Motion the noble Viscount, Lord Midleton, also suggested an inquiry, but I gathered from what he said that he wished a general inquiry and not one into the state of the Special Reserve only.

VISCOUNT MIDLETON

I hoped I had made it clear that what I intended was an inquiry into the state of the Special Reserve and the shortage of officers, and that I was averse to a general inquiry, which would necessitate delay.

THE EARL OF WEMYSS

I am glad to hear my noble friend say that. He will probably, therefore, second the Amendment which I propose to move, and which is to add, at the end of the Motion, these words, "And that the said inquiry be confined to the Special Reserve." My noble friend cannot object to that after what he has just said. It is to insure the confining of this inquiry to the Special Reserve. We do not want an inquiry into the Territorial Army. The noble Earl the Leader of the House said last night, in answer to a question from me, that in his opinion the Territorial Force as at present existing did all that my Motion asked for. What did my Motion ask for? It asked that your Lordships should fulfil the I.O.U. that you gave to the nation four years ago, and that the home defence of the country should always be in that state, not that if a nation came you would succeed in driving the invading force away, but that no nation would ever attempt in any form a hostile landing on our shores. My noble friend feels perfectly happy that the Territorial Force will do that, and that no country will ever dream of a hostile landing on our shores. We have in the House to-day two Field-Marshals—Lord Roberts and Lord Grenfell. I should like to know whether they agree with the noble Earl the Leader of the House in his view of the Territorial Force, and that nothing more is required. I believe that a great deal more is required, and that a great deal more should be done. I believe, with my noble and gallant friend Lord Roberts, that you want at least 1,000,000 men to place the country in the state I refer to. I therefore hope that Lord Roberts and Lord Grenfell will state their views to the House. Meanwhile, to make sure that the inquiry is confined to what it professes to be, I propose to add at the end of the Motion the words I have read.

Amendment moved— To add to the Motion the following words, 'and that the inquiry be confined to the Special Reserve.'"—(The Earl of Wemyss.)

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

I rise to a point of order. The Motion of the Duke of Bedford proposes a special inquiry into the condition of the Special Reserve. The Amendment says that the inquiry shall be limited to the Special Reserve. Surely that is the same thing. The Amendment, therefore, is superfluous.

* EARL ROBERTS

My Lords, I am entirely in accord with what the noble Duke has said about the condition of the Special Reserve, and our lamentable want of officers. What the noble Duke has told the House quite corroborates the opinion which I myself expressed in my letter yesterday to Lord Wemyss as to the deplorable condition of our Army generally. I feel utterly amazed at the question of the Army being considered, as it is in both Houses, a party question. Whenever anything about the Army is brought forward one side or the other takes a partisan view of it. I noticed that the Division last night on the Motion of Lord Wemyss was entirely a party division—one side voting in favour of the Motion and the other side against it.

THE EARL OF WEMYSS

They all ran away.

E ARL ROBERTS

I noticed that, too. But I cannot conceive how anybody could suppose that we can have an Army at all if the Army is to be made a party question. The Navy most fortunately, some years ago, was by consent made a non-party question; and thanks to that attitude we have got the Navy up to a certain standard of efficiency. Lately some fear has arisen that the Navy may again become a party question. I earnestly hope that will not be the case. But if we are to have an Army at all, it is essential that it must be one that is believed in by both sides in Parliament and also by the nation. The nation do not believe in the Army in the very least. In the first place they look upon the Regular Army as something with which they have got nothing to do and that the less they see of it the better. They do not like soldiers to come into their neighbourhood. They think that soldiers are only fit to go abroad and fight their battles. That is a most unfortunate mistake on their part, because soldiers nowadays are not what they were fifty or sixty years ago. They are well-conducted men and temperate in all respects. But unfortunately the nation do not think so, and so long as that is the opinion of the nation so long shall we never have an army worthy of the defence of this country.

It is the same with the Territorial Army. They think the Territorial Army is not wanted. They look upon it as a plaything. And I do not wonder at that, for they are told by their leaders that there is no need to be anxious on account of invasion. The people are never taken into the confidence of those who know better. I am well aware that the leaders in both Houses are themselves anxious about the future. But they dare not tell the country so. What is the use of having an army at all when some of. them think—as Lord Crewe says he thinks—that an army of 315,000 men would suffice? What would it suffice for? Would it suffice to prevent a foreign army from invading this country, or would it suffice to meet such an army, if they landed here? I fail to understand the idea of what the Territorial Army is intended for. A noble Lord on the Opposition benches said you must give it a test. But what test? There is no test in the world, but one, and that is war. Are you going to wait till war comes to test the Territorial Army?

It is most extraordinary the position we are in at this moment. We have no Army. The noble Duke has shown that we have no Army. We have neither an Army to send abroad nor an Army to defend the country at home. While we are all sitting here and taking it easily and comfortably the danger is coming nearer and nearer to us every day; and unless you determine to make some inquiry, and not let the people believe they are living in safety and that we have an Army fit to deal with any enemy which may invade us, we shall some day come to such utter grief that you will regret your inaction now. It is to me a perfect marvel how anybody can see what is going on throughout Europe and be content with the condition of the Army. If we were to attempt to send even an Expeditionary Force of four divisions abroad, what would be left? The noble Lord the Under-Secretary for War says it takes some years to make an Army. A few days ago I was talking to a member of the other House, who said— We are so near getting the 315,000 men that we are thinking of proposing to double the number. But what is the use of talking about doubling the number? They cannot even get the limited number they have asked for. Men will not do. Men in numbers are weakness. You must have trained men. No country in the world would attempt to defend itself with the paucity of men and the untrained men which we have got.

I cannot understand how you can all sit quiet and think we are making an Army, when we are doing nothing of the sort. We have men marching before the Lord Mayor of London. But that will not make an Army. War is not a sham, but our Army is a sham, and you will never have a real Army until you take the nation into your confidence and tell them what the danger is. If the nation came forward there would be no difficulty in getting an Army. Men would then have to come and join the Army because the nation would insist upon it. 'But that will not happen so long as you choose to believe that we are going on the right lines and that Mr. Haldane's army must have a longer test. Are we going to wait years for that test? The noble Duke has put the matter clearly before you. We are thousands upon thousands of officers short. I pointed that out in 1905, but nothing has been done to improve matters. These training colleges will not alter it. They existed before under another name. They will make no difference whatever.

The only way to improve the situation is to take into your serious consideration the fact that there is danger in front, and let the country know it. So long as you tell the country there is no danger, or that 315,000 men will suffice, you will never have a proper Army. When I saw the placards on the walls saying, "Men wanted for the Territorial Army," I thought of the passage from Bacon— "Nay, number itself in armies importeth not much where the people is of weak courage; for as Virgil saith, 'It never troubles a wolf how many the sheep be.'" That is exactly what would be the case with an untrained army. You may double the strength of the Territorial Army, but so long as it is untrained and so long as it has not got officers who know their duty, it will be of no use. You must have Regular officers and Regular non-commissioned officers. If you want to get an army sufficient to save the country, and an army with potential reserves to help an expeditionary force which goes abroad, you must adopt other steps.

THE EARL OF CREWE

My Lords, I ought, perhaps, to apologise for intervening in the debate at this stage, but I am anxious to get away to a public engagement of some importance and of long standing. It is impossible not to feel, as one listens to this debate, that of all the thankless offices which a man can fill that of Secretary of State for War in this country is probably the most thankless. My right hon. friend Mr. Haldane has, I think it would be generally agreed, given to the office which he holds a degree of hard work and of thought such as men very seldom give to the work in which they are engaged. But on an occasion of this kind no reference is made or, I suppose, can be made to such facts as those. My right hon. friend is made the target for the very considerable powers of sarcasm of the noble Duke, and the delighted cheers of noble Lords opposite followed each sentence which seemed to show this or that point of the weakness of the armour.

The comment of the noble and gallant Earl who has just sat down is very significant, and, I think, is very true. The Army is made a party question, and nowhere more, I think, than in your Lordships' House. It is a very regrettable fact that it should be so. My right hon. friend, it is true, is not the first Secretary of State who has been made the target for attacks of this kind. Nobody knows better than the noble Viscount who sits opposite how the Secretary of State for War may be attacked. He himself was made the target for a number of attacks, many of which, I venture to think, were not more fair than those which are made on my right hon. friend. Mr. Arnold-Forster was similarly treated, and if we go back to the days of the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, who I am sorry has not yet been able to return to the House, attacks of a very similar kind were made. While I am sure that my right hon. friend, whose shoulders are broad, would desire to profit by any criticism that contains real substance—and I am far from saying that the criticism of the noble Duke was altogether without substance—yet at the same time I think I might venture to claim that criticism on a serious national subject of this kind might be couched in somewhat more businesslike and in rather less ironical terms.

Now, my Lords, we are again confronted by what I ventured to describe yesterday as the somewhat elusive quality of criticism on this subject. The noble Duke introduces what is a perfectly fair subject for argument—namely, whether what he terms the failure of the Special Reserve instituted by my right hon. friend is so complete and abject that after barely two years since the matter was before Parliament a special inquiry is demanded. That Motion is supported and even reduplicated by my noble friend Lord Wemyss. On the other hand, the noble Viscount opposite desires, I think, a somewhat more extended inquiry. He desires—he will, of course, correct me if I am wrong—to inquire into the general shortage of officers as affecting the Regular Army and the Special Reserve, and also, for all that I know, the Territorial Force. Now the noble and gallant Field-Marshal on the Cross-benches takes a different view. I think I am not misrepresenting him when I say that he does not very much care about the inquiry in connection with the Special Reserve. What the noble and gallant Field-Marshal wants, as he has often told us, is compulsory military training.

EARL ROBERTS

I said by all means have an inquiry into the Special Reserve; but I trusted it would not stop there.

THE EARL OF CREWE

I hope I do not misrepresent the noble and gallant Field-Marshal. He would be glad, I gather, to have an inquiry, but we all know what is at the back of my noble friend's mind, and he would not, I think, anticipate that this inquiry, whatever its result, would lead to the placing of the country in what he would consider a position of safety. The noble Duke's Motion is one which, of course deals mainly, as his speech did, with matters of detail, which should be replied to and will be replied to by my noble friend behind me, the Under-Secretary for War. But for a few minutes I should like to draw attention to one or two general principles and facts concerned with the question.

As regards the Special Reserve, upon which the question is mainly concentrated, the noble Duke appears to me to have couched his Motion in a form which is not strictly accurate. He desires his inquiry to deal with the extent to which the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of that force are fitted to discharge the duties of the Regular Reserve—the duties, that is to say, which devolve upon the Regular Reserve in time of war. I do not think the War Office will admit that that is an accurate description of the duties of the Special Reserve. As I understand the position it remains what it always has been since the Cardwell system was first started—that the Regular Reserves fill up the Regular battalions to their war strength, and that for the further purposes of the wastage of war you must always depend, not upon the Regular Reserve, but upon a force which, if I may use the phrase which the noble Duke dislikes, but which is, I think, a generally descriptive phrase, is constituted on a Militia basis. It has never been contemplated, or, if it has been, it was only contemplated once, that it would be possible in this country, first for reasons of expense and then for reasons connected with recruiting, to make your Regular Army a purely self-supporting force—that is to say, to get a system of Reserves which would enable you through a prolonged campaign to fill up the gaps caused by the wastage of war with fully trained men. That has been, I take it, the guiding principle of our military system; and the fact that some system of that kind is the only one suited to our peculiar needs was laid down, as I say, by Lord Cardwell, though not even for the first time by him, because it has always been the actual practice in time of war. It was repeated again by Lord Wantage's Committee, which, if I remember aright, reported about the year 1891, though I am not absolutely certain of the year.

The fact is that the Militia has always been the feeder of the Regular Army. We only had to sit through the discussion on the Army Bill to know that that side of the Militia duties was always unpalatable to the noble Duke. I think the noble Duke never concealed his distaste for the depletion of the Militia in acting as feeders to the Regular Army. It is true, I think, speaking generally, that if the noble Viscount, Lord Midleton, had been able to carry out to the full his Army scheme the Militia would have been organised on a different plan. The noble Viscount's plan—again he will correct me if I am wrong—was, if I remember aright, a plan for a three-line Army. It was to be a short service Army with an enormous Reserve, and behind that there was to be an interdependent Militia, a second Army, with a Reserve of its own. Behind that, again, there was to be looming a force of Volunteers. That, of course, would commend itself to the noble Duke, and I suppose he would like to see something of the kind re-established. But the noble Viscount's scheme broke down, partly, as I think the noble Duke himself said, in relation to the Indian drafts, but also because if any scheme of that kind were to be carried out the prospect of the cost to the country was one which no Government would wish to face, and further because it is a very difficult thing in this country to recruit for two similar forces of that kind, one fully trained, the foreign service Army, and the other the interdependent Militia army. Consequently the noble Viscount's scheme was not proceeded with, and was not proceeded with, of course, by his own Government.

The noble Duke, in the midst of all his criticism, did not tell us how he conceives that the Special Reserve, and the Special Reserve, of course, in relation to the whole Army, could be improved or amended. He made a great many criticisms of detail with which my noble friend behind me, Lord Lucas, will no doubt endeavour to deal; but he did not state how what he considers to be the shortage of men or the shortage of officers was to be dealt with, except on one point, a point on which we can all, indeed, agree with him—namely, that if you are prepared to pay more either for officers or men you will find it infinitely easier to get what you want. That is almost a truism. I can imagine four or five ways of organising the British Army any one of which might be satisfactory and effective if you had an unlimited purse at your back. But what is the use of blinking the extreme difficulties which surround the whole subject of carry ing out our Imperial duties with a foreign service Army and at the same time keeping up a sufficient and sufficiently well trained force at home? Of course, the panacea of my noble and gallant friend Lord Roberts is a simple one, and might in its way be an effective one, although to be really effective I should have thought also it would entail an enormous cost. But that is not the panacea of noble Lords opposite, and therefore I hope that if they adopt and join in with the criticisms of the noble Duke they will, at any rate, indicate the lines on which they think some improvement in the present system could be conducted.

I will only say one word about the shortage of officers, which, no doubt, is a serious question and not a party question. The noble Duke dealt rather lightly with my right hon. friend's attempts, which I hope will be more successful than the noble Duke seems to indicate, to establish the Officers' Training Corps. I should have thought that the practical difference between the Officers' Training Corps and the former Cadet Corps and University Volunteer battalions with which the noble Duke maintained they were identical was that now a more serious spirit has entered into the training. In former days—I cannot answer for quite recent times—I do not think that either a school or a University rifle corps was taken very seriously; and I should have hoped that the establishment of these Officers' Training Corps, followed, as I hope they will be, and certainly ought to be, by the establishment of courses all over the country at all possible centres for these young officers, would have the desired effect. We all know that it is not possible for a great many of these young men to give a long time to military study, and it is also a fact that even though they may be able to give a considerable time it may have to be given intermittently, but I am sure my right hon. friend and the Army Council are fully aware that every effort must be made to improve and make as serious as possible the training of such of those young officers as join either the Special Reserve or the Territorial Army.

Now, my Lords, only one word on the question of the utility of an inquiry. I am at a disadvantage because the noble Duke did not indicate exactly what kind of inquiry he desired, and I have not, of course, had the advantage of hearing the opinion of noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite. But I confess it does seem to be premature to hold an inquiry into this subject at once. If the noble Duke were able to prove his case, the case which, I think, he desires to make—namely, that the Special Reserve and the Territorial Army together are representing a national going down hill as compared with the Militia and Volunteers—if he were able to prove that case I admit there would be a very strong primâ facie case for an immediate inquiry. But I do not believe that that can for a moment be the case; and, in those circumstances—of course, my noble friend behind me will develop the matter infinitely more in detail than I can—we are unable to say, and I do not think we shall be convinced in the course of the debate, that a case is made out for an inquiry into this system, which, if your Lordships will remember, was authorised, I will not put it higher than that, by your Lordships' House after full consideration.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I must say, my Lords, that we take no responsibility for it.

THE EARL OF CREWE

Of course not. I did not say that; but noble Lords opposite were in a position to throw it out if they chose. I do not say they adopted it, but I think I am entitled to say that noble Lords opposite authorised the inception of the system; and unless in the course of the debate, which I am afraid I shall not hear, some infinitely more cogent reasons are advanced for at once at this very early stage embarking on an inquiry of this kind, the precise objects of which have not been disclosed, and which I confess myself unable to understand, I do not think it could be possible for my noble friend behind me who will represent the Government to agree to the Motion made by the noble Duke.

* LORD GRENFELL

My Lords, I do not intend to detain your Lordships more than a few minutes, but after the appeal of my noble friend Lord Wemyss, and after my long service in the Army, I felt that I could not sit silent while this debate is proceeding. One of the leading questions raised by the noble Duke is the efficiency of officers, and any General Officers who, like myself, have had experience in campaigns must know that on the question of a proper supply of officers to the Army very much depends the success or otherwise of the campaign. You have a constantly diminishing number. You have a very large number of casualties, and when we hear, as we have done from the noble Duke, of the very large number of officers who are now deficient in this force it makes one think very seriously as to the efficiency of the whole force.

I think the experience of the last war in South Africa may have taught many of us how difficult it is to carry out a campaign under these circumstances, not only at the seat of war but also in England. In England we had a large number of young men to train. I know of one case where there were as many as 1,100 recruits and only two officers with them to administer the whole depôt. We have known, at least all of us who have served abroad have known, the sort of difficulties which arise when the efficient officers decrease at the end of a campaign, and though officers are supplied to take their place they are frequently of a very indifferent quality. I remember that at the close of the Zulu war we had the greatest possible difficulty. And not only is it a matter of difficulty for the General commanding; it is a matter of importance for the country also, because the large waste of money and the want of economy in the Army are very frequently caused by officers in the category I have mentioned. I will only name one single instance, which I think will show the curious kind of officers sometimes sent out.

During the war in South Africa I was, unfortunately, Governor in Malta, and was unable to take part in that struggle. I dismissed an officer from his regiment and from the Army, and I thought I should hear no more about him. Well, my Lords, will you believe it the next time I heard of him he was in command of a rather important post in South Africa? That, I think, shows the absolute necessity of having not only a full supply of officers, but officers of the right sort. As regards the Special Reserve, the other question which has been occupying your Lordships, there is no doubt that this Reserve is too young. You cannot form youths of seventeen into soldiers under less than three or even four years to do what this Special Reserve is expected to do immediately—namely, to take the place of the Regular Army at the front. I as an old Inspector-General of Recruiting know how almost impossible it is to provide recruits unless you go down to the low age of seventeen. Unless you catch the man at seventeen you never catch him at all. I know many instances, and I think you will find the same in the Special Reserve, where youths who were supposed to be seventeen were of a very much younger age. When I was Inspector-General of Recruiting I enlisted a youth who proved to be fifteen years of age. General Buller, who was at the War Office, called my attention to this, and I was rather severely dealt with. The youth, of course, was returned to his family, and within two months he had re-enlisted. Then I sent for him to the War Office, and physically he certainly was up to the age of seventeen. That is the case with a large number of recruits that you will find in the Special Reserve.

The noble Earl, Lord Wemyss ,

asked me my opinion as to the whole question. I do not, my Lords, intend to trouble you with that; but there is a report of a short debate which took place in this House last night, and I wish rather to call attention to one sentence in it which was spoken by the noble Lord who represents the War Office. He said— The scheme for home defence has satisfied not only the General Staff and the Army Council, but also the Committee of Imperial Defence. I cannot, of course, speak for the Committee of Imperial Defence or for any officer in the War Office, but when the noble Lord says that the scheme for home defence has satisfied the officers of the General Staff, out of the War Office I conclude he means, I can assure him that the officers of the General Staff who are not employed in the War Office are not, as regards the period of training, satisfied with this scheme. As regards the officers in the War Office, though, of course, I do not speak for them, I think that the fairest thing to say would be that they had accepted the scheme. I cannot believe that they are satisfied with it.

I will not go into the question the noble Earl has asked me, but I am anxious to impress on noble Lords the fact that the scheme when it first appeared was carefully criticised outside the War Office by the officers of the Army. I was commanding in Ireland at that time. The officers of the present day are different as regards their military education from what they were some years ago. Every important question is carefully gone into during the winter months, when officers study these great problems and write essays upon them. I can tell noble Lords what the opinion of the officers of the Army was upon the scheme. Their opinion was that as regards the organisation it was a great advance, a most excellent scheme, and it was hoped that it might be of great advantage to the Army and the country. But I think it was almost entirely the opinion of the officers with whom I was then associated that there were two great blots in the scheme. One was that it would be almost impossible to educate your Horse and Field Artillery in the time given; the other was that the short period of training was a mistake. As a matter of fact it was held by the whole of the officers to be a most impracticable and impossible proposition.

As regards the Artillery, when the scheme first came out I was at the practice camp at a place in Kildare. The new organisation had just arrived, and I consulted the officers of the Artillery. I spoke to the instructors, the commanders of batteries, and even to the intelligent subalterns, and there was not one man of that force who believed that in the time given it would be possible, under any circumstances, to produce real Horse or Field Artillery and drill them into such a state of efficiency that they could possibly hope to meet a foreign foe. An inquiry has been asked for. There has already been an inquiry on very much the same subject. On the Norfolk Commission we took up the question of the want of officers and that of the inefficiency of the men, and I believe that the verdict of that Commission is the only solution for this great question.

* LORD LUCAS

My Lords, the debate on which we are engaged to-night has covered too much ground for me to hope to deal with the whole of it in a single speech, and, therefore, as the hour is growing late, I propose to confine myself entirely to that part of the subject which is dealt with in the Motion of the noble Duke. If I may say so, there seems to be pervading this debate a feeling produced possibly by the idea into which, perhaps, noble Lords opposite have been lulled by the successive schemes of Army reform which have preceded that of my right hon. friend. That feeling is that you have only to put your scheme down on paper and before the printer's ink is dry on it the scheme springs into existence. If that were to be said of any Army reform scheme my only remark about such a scheme would be that it would not be worth the paper on which it was written. When you are dealing with an organisation like an Army, when you have to wait six, twelve, or even sixteen years to get the full effect of any change you make in it—because that is really what happens—it is, of course, perfectly obvious that reforms do not spring into life the instant the scheme is produced, but, on the contrary, are a matter of very slow, steady, and patient growth.

I want to put before your Lordships what our position is in this matter; and though I know it is, after all, the most barren form of political controversy to expatiate on the shortcomings of your predecessors in office, yet I intend to put before you the position when the present Government took office and the difficulties with which we had to contend in grappling with the question of Army reforms. At that time the scheme which held the field was, practically speaking, the scheme known as the Six Army Corps of the noble Viscount on the Front Bench opposite. It was quite true it had undergone certain slight modifications which we need not enter into now, but that was, to all intents and purposes, the scheme which we found. When the noble Viscount introduced that scheme he knew there was only one thing which would make it possible, and that was the three years system. For reasons which, I think, your Lordships know, the three years system had to be given up. It was not done, of course, by the present Government, but by Mr. Balfour's Government. I have here the Paper which the noble Viscount laid on the Table presenting the state of the six Army Corps. Three of them were to be considered, I understand, as an Expeditionary Force, and, roughly speaking, were the equivalent of our six divisions. The other three Army Corps were for home defence.

From the moment the three years system had to be abandoned the Return I am speaking of, as showing what the British Army could do on mobilisation, was not worth the paper it was written on. I say that fully realising the importance of making a statement of that kind. It would only have been possible to have found the necessary men to mobilise all those units if you had the large Reserve it was possible to build up under the partial three years system of service which the noble Viscount inaugurated. There were besides the three Army Corps which were practically entirely composed of Regulars, a certain number of Regulars strengthening the other three. There were, I think, to be fourteen battalions of Infantry and thirty-six batteries of Artillery. Under any system which would provide the drafts for India you might possibly have been able to have mobilised your Infantry battalions; but, especially taking into account the provision of the new gun, I do not believe it would have been possible to have mobilised one of those thirty-six batteries of Artillery. Therefore when it is said that we have so weakened the home defence Army in this country that if we send our six divisions abroad we shall have no Regulars left here, one can only ask when it would have been possible at any other time to have had Regulars in this country after the equivalent of those six divisions had been sent abroad. But there was something more than that. If you had mobilised as much as you could of those six Army Corps you would have employed in doing so practically the whole of your Regular Reserve.

The noble Viscount went out of his way to abolish the Militia Reserve—a very useful force who had proved to the full their efficiency in the South African War. There was nothing to take their place, and, in spite of the chaos which reigned at home during the period of the South African war and the impossibility of giving proper training for drafts, nothing was done to set up any kind of training machinery. After all there were so few drafts to train that perhaps it was not thought worth while to do it. That was the position—a position of absolute and complete breakdown. We have met it chiefly by means of the Special Reserve system. We have from the beginning set before ourselves two objects, and they are so elementary that one feels one ought to apologise to the House for stating that the British Army required these elementary things done for it in the year 1905. The thing we set ourselves to do was simply this—to make it possible to mobilise our service units, a thing which, I say without hesitation, you could never have done before. Our object in the second place, was to build up and train some sort of Reserve for the purpose of maintaining that Army in the field. By degrees we are working towards that, and I will come to details later. We are very far from having succeeded, but we are within measureable distance of completing the first of those two duties, and at the end of the present season the Army Service Corps will be the only big deficiency left.

Now I come to that astounding passage in the speech of the noble Duke in which he dealt with the Regular Reserve. I say astounding, because, if I understood him aright, it seems to me the noble Duke is under a complete misapprehension as to the object and intention of the Cardwell system. As your Lordships know, you have two entirely conflicting things to satisfy in your Army. One is to provide the drafts for India and the other is to build up a reserve. As the result of repeated experiments in all kinds of service you can lay it down as an absolute fact that, broadly speaking, all the Reserve you can build up under the Cardwell system is only sufficient to mobilise the units. I am talking now of the Infantry, because that is the chief question we have to deal with, and the case is plainer with regard to it. It was Lord Erroll, I think, who quite rightly pointed that out in the course of his speech yesterday afternoon. Various expedients have been tried, but, broadly speaking, the Reserve is only just about enough to mobilise the home battalions. Mr. Cardwell knew this, and he laid it down in 1872 that you must have something behind and beyond your Regular Reserve in order to maintain your Army in the field. The noble Duke raises the point about our Regular Reserve. As I say, the only thing you can hope to do is to mobilise your battalions on the peace establishment. Yon may have a few hundred or a few thousand men over, but, practically speaking, in view of the great requirements you have in the matter of wastage, whatever is left over is a negligible quantity.

What, my Lords, is our position in regard to the Reserve? During the period from 1892 to 1898 the average strength of the Reserve was 45,000. In the year 1899, when there was not sufficient Reserve to mobilise the Regular Army for South Africa owing to the fact that the War Office had allowed 4,700 Reservists to rejoin the Colours—in that year sections A, B, and C, which corresponded to sections A and B now, dropped to 37,000. Section D had only been open a very short time and was much below its normal strength. Therefore, as your Lordships will see, the position was very much out of the ordinary. Well, my Lords, to come to the present, our position is that we have an effective strength of 5,000 more than in 1898. We shall have, under sections A and B, 46,000 men; we shall have, under section D, 17,000 men, giving us a total of 63,000. Those are the figures we submitted nearly two years ago to the noble Viscount, Lord Midleton, and I take it, as we have heard nothing more from him on the question, that he acknowledges the correctness of them. The position of the Reserve, as I have stated it to you, enables us to mobilise the Regular Army with a few thousands over. That is, I think you will agree, a highly satisfactory result, and all you can expect from the Cardwell system.

Reference has been made to the reductions. It is perfectly true that reductions have been effected, and it is perfectly true also that as you reduce each of these units so the Reserve which goes to mobilise the units disappears. But I would point out that nothing plays so much mischief with the Regular Reserves as having units the establishments of which are not full. The reduction of establishments has given us much more consistently full units, and our only difficulty at the present time is to keep within the number of men voted by Parliament. Now, my Lords, to refer to what the noble Duke said about a paper Army, I may point out that the actual strength of the Regular Army is absolutely right up to its establishment, although this is the time of the year when there is the most drain upon it. The Special Reserve of Infantry is within 2,000 of its establishment, and the whole of the Special Reserve is within 5,000. That, at any rate, shows that there is something more than a paper Army.

Now I come to the question of the Special Reserve. When you are estimating the value of the Special Reserve the true thing to compare it with is not necessarily the Militia whose place it has taken, but any other force you can think of which performs the functions that the Special Reserve is called upon to perform; because, after all, the value of any force or any individual entirely depends on what functions you expect that force or individual to perform. Just as one fireman may be more useful to you than two gardeners if your house happens to catch fire, so, in our opinion, the duties we are asking the Special Reserve to undertake are infinitely more valuable to the Army as a whole than the functions which the Militia had to carry out before. I go further and say that even if it could be shown that it is a less efficient body of men—I do not for a moment admit that it is—than the Militia was it would not necessarily prove that we had done a bad thing by converting the Militia into the Special Reserve. After all, the principle of having a Reserve behind the Regular Army to maintain it in the field is one that is accepted and acted upon by every civilised country which has anything that can pretend to be called an Army. You have only to turn to the pages of history to realise that the country which cannot maintain its Army in the field but sees it dwindle after every engagement does not stand a chance against a country which can maintain the fighting strength of its Army. That is what we have done with the Special Reserve. We had to have something to maintain the Regular Army at its fighting strength in the field, and we have converted the Militia into the Special Reserve for that purpose.

The noble Duke spoke as if we were going to replace the Regular Reservists by Special Reservists. That is not our intention at all. We put the Special Reserve into a place which there was nothing to fill before, and therefore, to that extent, you are all to the good. I hope I have made this point plain, because it is the basic principle of the system of reorganisation which we have carried out in the Army. You are adding on something over and above your Regular Reserve, and that Special Reserve is necessary in order to maintain your Army in the field. Your Lordships know that in South Africa if it had not been for the Militia Reserve, since swept away, there would have been nothing behind the Army; and even in that war, which dragged its weary length over a number of years, but in which the casualties, as compared with those of battles on the European scale, were ridiculously small, we had the utmost difficulty in finding the necessary Reserve. With that lesson before us we have set ourselves to work to find a Reserve, and I think we have gone forward on right lines. Then there is the question which the noble Duke went into very deeply as to the kind of man who is coming into the Special Reserve, and the value of the Special Reserve for the duties it is going to be called upon to perform. I will deal with this item by item. First of all, there is the question of the class of man who is coming into the Special Reserve, and that, I think your Lordships will agree, is a matter of some importance. We have had reports from all the recruiting centres, reports, that is to say, from those people who are engaged every day in supervising and training these men, and, with all due deference to the great knowledge the noble Duke has of this question, he cannot, if I may say so, know so much about it as these Regular officers whose work it is to handle these men every day of their lives. On the whole the reports to which I refer are extremely good. The recruits for this force are generally well reported on, and in several instances it is stated that a class of recruit is coming in who would not have enlisted in the Militia. In many districts the standard of education is considered higher than that of the Militia recruit, and Special Reserve recruits are readily availing themselves of the facilities afforded them of attending school at the depôts. We have had a considerable number of reports saying that there is a better class of men coming in; we have had a considerable number saying they do not see very much change; but we have had no reports that there is a worse class of men coming in.

There is another extremely important point, and that is the question of the physical standard of the men. It is a great test of the class of men we are getting for the Special Reserve. I may tell your Lordships in this connection that we have been able to raise the standard of height and chest measurement for the Special Reserve. The standard of height has been raised from five feet two inches, which was the old Militia standard, to five feet three inches, but in one or two cases it has since been brought down. For gunners of the Reserve Field Artillery the standard has been increased from five feet five inches to five feet six inches. Then there is the question, and it is a very important one, of the efficiency of these men, of how far the training they receive adapts them for their duties. The unanimous opinion of everybody who has had to deal with these men is that the system produces better and more efficient men than the old system, and if you consider how well men trained under Militia conditions did when they went out to South Africa in the Militia Reserve I do not see that there is any ground for saying that these men will be incapable of taking their places in the ranks of a seasoned battalion. The reports say that the recruits have reached a marked degree of efficiency, have improved both physically and mentally during their six months, training, and are altogether better than they were before.

As regards other questions relating to efficiency, you have to take into account the very largely increased number of Regular officers we are giving to these units, and that number we hope to fill up shortly to the full total. I can understand the noble Duke's impatience, but he should remember that we cannot do everything by a stroke of the pen. We know quite well that there are units which are short of their officers, but we are adopting speedy methods to provide them, and in due time we expect to have the number complete. I next come to the question of efficiency of the new Special Reserve officer as compared with the old Militia officer. We are asking considerably more from, and imposing a much higher test upon, the new Special Reserve officer than anything that was expected from the old Militia officer. So that you not only have your large establishment of Regular officers there, but you have men who fill the place of the old Militia officer better.

THE DUKE OF BEDFORD

Have you not done away with all educational tests for the Special Reserve officer?

* LORD LUCAS

The scheme under which we are working is only just beginning to come into force. It is not true to say that there will be no educational test. All officers have to possess certificate A and B, and have to do their four months attachment. There is another important question to which I must refer. The noble Duke spoke of the Special Reserve as if it simply acted as a force for passing men into the Line. The first thing you have to consider is the question of recruiting, and I remember that last year the noble Duke foretold a great fall] in recruiting owing to the lack of recruiting officers. That, however, has not been borne out by subsequent events. The Militia recruits during the year 1907 numbered 27,775. Recruiting opened for the Special Reserve on January 16, 1908, and from that date to the last week of the year we took 26,078. If you add the number of Militiamen—1,811—who enlisted between January 1 and January 15, 1908, knowing that they were going to become Special Reservists you get a total of 27,889 as compared with 27,755, or actually more recruits.

The noble Duke raises the question—and I quite agree it is one of the important questions with regard to the Special Reserve—of how many men who join that force are going to manage to arrive at maturity in the Special Reserve, or merely use it as a half-way house to enter the Army. What is the system which has gone on in the Militia and is going on in the Special Reserve? It is this, that every year a considerable number of recruits are taken for this force and a considerable number pass on as soon as they are able to do so into the Regular Army. The result is that a certain sediment—I do not use the word in a disparaging sense—remains. That sediment is what used to be called the true Militiaman type. He joins in order to remain in the Special Reserve. When the system is working in the normal way, your Special Reserve contains six years sediment, and very likely when men re-engage for a further period you have the equivalent of the sediment of eight or possibly ten years. You cannot judge the efficiency of the force, therefore, by the recruits of a single year.

There is this further consideration. The man who simply proposes to use the Special Reserve as a means for getting into the Regular Army is not affected by the kind of conditions imposed on him in the Special Reserve. He knows he will simply pass through it and go into the Regular Army. On the other hand, the man who means to stay in the Special Reserve is very much affected by the conditions which attach to his service. We have experience in every arm and branch of the service that whenever there is a change in the terms of recruiting the first effect of altering the terms of service is to put off the man who is thinking of joining. He is suspicious; he waits; and it is some time before he makes up his mind to come in. I do not know whether the men of the old Militia type are men who read the newspapers, but if they are, I think there has been a great deal said—a great deal, I may add, said in this House—which will make them all the more cautious before they join the Special Reserve.

You cannot, therefore, judge what the percentage of these men is going to be until the thing has gone on for a little time, and until they know the new conditions and get accustomed to them. Then you can judge. But even so, the percentage of men who have transferred from the Special Reserve into the Regular Army has been smaller than it was in the case of the Militia. That is to say, of the recruits joining the average in the Militia who transferred was forty-three per cent. and the average of the Special Reserve from April 1, 1908, to March 31, 1909, was forty-one per cent. I should like to explain that recruiting opened for the Special Reserve at the beginning of January, but no man could transfer into the Regular Army until he had undergone three months training; and recruiting from the Special Reserve into the Regular Army did not begin until April. Therefore we have taken that period as showing the figures. Of course it is quite true that recruiting has been so good all round that we have up to a certain point very slightly affected the total by closing recruiting for some of the men from three months, when they would have been entitled to transfer, up to possibly five or six months, but the number affected by that is inappreciable. If you take the figures, with 10,000 Special Reservists transferring as against 12,000 in the old Militia it means that the percentage of the Militia who used to transfer was 14.7 per cent. and that of the Special Reserve 15.7 per cent., a difference of one per cent. in favour of the Militia. That, I think, is an extremely satisfactory result for the first year, the year of change, the year when undoubtedly the Militia type of man wanted in the Special Reserve has been to a certain extent deterred; and we have every reason to believe that this force, better trained and in which a better quality of man will be obtained, will produce a higher percentage of men of mature age fit and ready to go abroad as drafts.

There is one other point in regard to that Noble Lords have spoken of the Special Reserve as if only the men who were of the age of twenty on the outbreak of war were going to be available. In the first place, we do not require to mobilise a single one of our service units in the field entirely from these Special Reservists. We require them for divisional ammunition columns, for the Royal Army Medical Corps and other purposes, but we do not require them in Regular service. So you will not begin in the case of the fighting arms to send out your Special Reservists until some time has elapsed, and in the meantime you will have a number of men steadily maturing, and you will have the inestimable advantage of a training machine supported by and taking on young recruits.

I come now to the question of officers, and I quite agree that this is, perhaps, one of the most important questions of the whole lot. After all, it is a question the importance of which you can hardly exaggerate. Nor can one fail to be astonished at the way in which we have systematically disregarded what other countries are doing to face the problem, which is just as acute in other countries, of how to get the necessary officers on mobilisation. It is quite true, I think, that there is a certain amount of drying up of the sources of supply, but I do not think it is half so serious as at first sight it seems, and certainly not half so serious as the figures supplied by the noble Duke would convey. I say that for the reason that these cadets have to pass two examinations, first of all the qualifying examination which is taking the place of the old Army preliminary, and then the entrance examination to Sandhurst or Woolwich. We have very much tightened up the Army qualifying examination. The Army preliminary was a very easy first fence. We have now made the first fence stiff and the second easy.

A great number of candidates are thrown out at the Army qualifying examination, and therefore never appear in the figures supplied to the noble Duke as those who come up for the second examination. It is quite true we have to deal with this question of officers. We have to deal with it not from the point of view of whether you are or are not getting sufficient officers to come up for Woolwich or Sandhurst each year, because, as far as we can see, that is a thing for which we are perfectly safe for some years to come. It is a much bigger problem than this. The question is what are you going to do to meet the enormous demand for officers which you have on mobilisation. Every army in the world, I would remind your Lordships, has the same demand. In some cases they have half as many again, and in some cases double the number of officers they have on their peace establishments, when they mobilise. Actually there are countries which have to have two Reserve officers for one serving in peace time. Of course, our requirements are not as big as that, because there is not so much difference between our peace establishment and our war establishment. The figure of 5,000 was quoted some time ago as representing our requirements, but that was a thoroughly Utopian estimate. I must apologise to the noble Viscount opposite because I informed him that it included six months wastage. It included sufficient officers to supply all the requirements for twelve months. In that figure also was contemplated a thing we have never done before but which it was quite conceivable it might be of the highest military necessity to do—that is, to mobilise all our Colonial garrisons; so that the thing was taken from the very highest possible standpoint. Of course, we now have a great deal of that wastage supplied by the Special Reserve, and our present position is that we can, practically speaking, in officers, mobilise the Expeditionary Force, and we have sufficient for six months wastage in the fighting arms. For this we have all the officers on the peace establishment, the reserve of officers, and the officers of the Special Reserve.

We have made an entirely new departure in the matter of finding officers. In what we have done I think we cannot claim to have created the system, but Sir Edward Ward's committee worked out the details and produced a very serviceable Report. Lord Lovat was interested keenly in the matter, and we have to thank him for the assistance he has given us. But, after all, there is nothing particularly novel about it. We are simply doing what other countries do. I may remind your Lordships that Germany has a system closely akin to the system started here. She requires 22,000 out of a total of 45,000 officers on mobilisation from the Special Reserve, and she gets them to a great extent on the lines we propose. I am surprised that the noble Duke should have talked of this thing as a mysterious system of which he and his friends apparently had little or no working knowledge. After all, here is a thing going to be started which will produce the kind of officer that will be wanted for his unit. I should have thought if there was one class of men in, this country who would have made themselves cognisant of the whole details it was those men who are connected with the units of the Special Reserve. I am not going to detain your Lordships with the details of the Officers' Training Corps. It is quite true that they are simply the reorganised Volunteer corps of the schools and the Universities, but a large number of schools and Universities have formed units of the Officers' Training Corps who did not have Volunteer corps before.

Mr. Haldane

was perfectly right in saying that it has been taken up with the utmost keenness in all those big reservoirs of the officer class, our schools and Universities, and that, so far as one can tell at the present moment, the corps has made an extremely good start. After only ten months existence, there are in the corps 16,608 members, of whom 13,480 are in the junior division, and 3,128 in the senior, or University division. We ask them to pass two examinations and to obtain two certificates, A and B, the former being for the examination for a lieutenant, and the latter for a captain. We consider that to qualify an officer ought to put in a year's training with the Regular unit or its equivalent. We take certificate A as an equivalent to four months and B as an equivalent of another four months. We think that normally a boy ought to be two years in his training corps before taking certificate A, but although the corps has only been in existence ten months there are going up this month for the first examination no fewer than 1,500 boys, and I believe the number is approaching 2,000. You cannot predict about these things. If there were a little less prediction in this matter of Army reform I think we should get on better.

This is a movement which, as I say, has taken on in foreign countries and we believe it is going to take on here. You can only wait, watch, and see. To dig up this young and tender plant by a commission of inquiry to see how it is getting on after only ten months existence seems to me to be altogether premature. We hope to complete the establishment of the Special Reserve, and we hope also to have another class of officer—the officer on the supplementary list who will not necessarily belong to a Special Reserve unit but will go out and do his training with the Line battalion of the Territorial regiment which he chooses to join, at any time that suits himself. There is always a difficulty for a man to give up a certain fortnight at a given date. To make it easier for these people we propose that the supplementary class shall be allowed to do it with the Regular unit at any time which suits themselves. We hope that in that way we shall tap a busy class of man who is never quite certain when he is going to get his holidays. At any rate, it is an experiment. There is one other point. The noble Duke gave vent to what I understand was a complaint about the position of the Special Reserve officer and the Regular officer on mobilisation. I think we are following precedent abroad in that matter, and I was surprised to hear the remarks of the noble Duke because I understand it was the decision arrived at by the Committee of which the noble Duke was a distinguished member.

We have been discussing to-night two particular matters. One is the question of the Special Reserve and the other the question of the shortage of officers. I have endeavoured to show that in both we have made a new start, and what promises to be a very real and useful start, in providing something which did not exist in the organisation of the Army before, and therefore I must say I am at a loss to see why these two particular things, which this Government is the very first to tackle, should be singled out for a special inquiry. We are, as regards a Reserve for the Army, all to the good by the Special Reserve. With regard to the Officers' Training Corps, we are all to the good. If we only get two officers—and I have no reason to believe we shall not get 1,000—we are so much to the good. Therefore while you have these two plants growing vigorously I cannot understand why they should be selected for the purpose of inquiry. We know that this commission of inquiry will never sit. I am equally convinced that if it did sit it would be more likely to demand the heads of Ministers of the party opposite, who neglected to provide these two essential requirements, than to censure the Government which has made a very successful attempt to supply them. [The sitting was suspended at eight o'clock, and resumed at half-past nine o'clock.]

* LORD RAGLAN

My Lords, my noble friend who initiated this debate has gone very thoroughly into all the points we have raised with regard to the Special Reserve. Therefore, there is no general question about which I desire to address your Lordships, with the exception of the question of officers' training. The noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War has told us a good deal about the Training Corps, but I cannot help thinking that one fact has been forgotten by those whose business it is to arrange for these matters. It is that the duties of an officer of all things in the world can only be learned by actually performing those duties. It is no use calling boys in a public school Volunteer corps officers, because, however good the examination they may pass, these young gentlemen can by no stretch of the imagination be called officers. The noble Lord has not shown in any way what number of these young gentlemen intend to join any of the new classes of this Special Reserve and how they will do their training.

The whole question of the officering of a force such as the Special Reserve is, to my mind, a very important matter. It is possible within limits to improvise private soldiers, and even to a certain extent, possibly, to improvise non-commissioned officers, although it is not easy; but it is perfectly impossible to improvise officers, and no man can be asked to do the duties of an officer who has never performed them except through the medium of examination. That, to my mind, is one of the most serious points to which the noble Duke drew attention. I said some time ago in this House that I thought the question of officering the Special Reserve was one which the War Office had taken on with a very light heart and was a much greater affair than either the Secretary of State for War or the noble Lord the Under-Secretary seemed to imagine, and I ventured to add that no steps beyond those before taken had been adopted by the War Office. There is no addition to any particular branch of the War Office whose business it is to hunt up these young gentlemen, and I can assure the noble Lord that the work of keeping one regiment tolerably well sup- plied with officers is beyond anything of which he knows. When I commanded a Militia regiment the correspondence I had with young men and their friends and relatives in the course of a year was something extraordinary. Out of forty or fifty applicants perhaps I collected four or five, and if the War Office hope to collect 300 or 400 officers a year, the correspondence and trouble they will be involved in will be something colossal. That is a point which appears never to have been faced by the War Office, the Army Council, or anybody connected with them.

There is another point with regard to the Special Reserve which, to my mind, is an exceedingly serious matter. The noble Lord tells us that the Special Reserve was founded for two reasons. The first was to provide a force for home defence, and the second to form a means of extension from the Expeditionary Force. What the noble Duke and myself, and others who think with us, believe is that the War Office has not succeeded, and will not succeed, in getting its Special Reserve to perform either of these functions. The old Militia had its faults, and no one knew them better than I did. But the old Militia did provide a force which was comparatively efficient for home defence, and by means of the Militia Reserve it provided a very efficient means of strengthening your Expeditionary Force. Surely if it is only a question of providing men for the Expeditionary Force, it would have been wiser to return to the old system of the Militia Reserve, with all its abuses, rather than to destroy that force and proceed on the off-chance of getting something else. What has been done be the War Office is like burning your house to roast a pig. The Militia was swept away in the hope that something would replace it which is certainly not yet the case.

I come now to the question of the general efficiency of these particular units. You have infinitely fewer officers than you ever had before. You have far fewer non-commissioned officers, and besides the short training must militate most seriously against the efficiency of the Militia non-commissioned officers. The one great difficulty in the old Militia was the question of the non-commissioned officers, and it must stand to reason that men who are non-com missioned officers for only three weeks in the year must be worse than men who were non-commissioned officers for twenty-seven days. And, again, no provision seems to be made to call up non-commissioned officers to do duty and train in musketry with their depôts. As regards the men, I cannot conceive that anybody with any knowledge of training as administered at the depôts can consider that the present force is anything like so good as the old Militia. We all know what happened at the depôts. The Militia recruit was a nuisance, was disliked, and was bullied by everyone to join the Regular Army. If he did not, nobody took any further notice of him; and I cannot understand that you can alter the position of the unhappy man by calling him a Special Reservist, except that he will do fatigue duty for six months, and will be bullied for that length of time instead of for forty-nine days as under the old system. I have had very large numbers of recruits who had been for forty-nine days at the depôts who could not form fours when they joined my regiment. These men had never done any soldiering at all, but only carried coal boxes, and I cannot imagine that the Special Reservists will have any better treatment. The Special Reservists have the further great disadvantage in that they are going to have twenty days training instead of twenty-seven, which the old Militiamen got. That is the only period of the year when you get your units together as a unit, and train them as a unit, and in which the officers and non-commissioned officers can get to know their men and the men can get to know their comrades. Therefore, to my mind, the efficiency of the Special Reserve cannot be very much more than half that of the Old Militia. That is the general question, and now I come to one or two points of detail.

I will first take the question of the Artillery. Last year when we were discussing the question in this House I ventured to express the opinion that the Artillery never would he trained. I think my words have come true; in fact, as far as I can make out, the Artillery have been abolished altogether. The noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War assures us that everything they have done has been so much to the good. Well, the Militia Artillery to all intents and purposes have disappeared, and I should like to ask the noble Lord what arrangement has been made for fulfilling the duties for which this Artillery existed. I will take my own part of the country, South Wales. There were four Militia Artillery regiments in South Wales, all of whom to the best of my knowledge were assigned stations for mobilisation at the forts round Pembroke Dock. These four regiments have, to all intents and purposes, been swept away. What is to happen to the forts at Pembroke Dock? Are there to be no men there?

LORD LUCAS: Territorials.

* LORD RAGLAN

Perhaps the noble Lord will tell me whether they will train at Pembroke Dock? I do not think the regiments will have many men because the training there is conducted at very out-of-the-way places. The noble Earl, Lord Cawdor, who commanded one of these regiments for a very long time, probably knows that after a Territorial regiment has had a short training round these forts there are not likely to be many men another year.

I now come to that Arm of the service with which I was so long connected—namely, the Engineers. I should like to point out the present remarkable state of things with regard to the Special Reserve Engineers. They are apparently not to have six months preliminary training, which is supposed to turn any one into anything, but are to go to war at once, if necessary, after a fortnight's training in the year. It seems to me to be perfectly unimaginable to think that men who have only seen their officers and non-commissioned officers a fortnight in the year are to be sent into trenches, close to the enemy, with rifles they may not have fired for years. It seems to me that is sheer madness combined with murder, and if these men declined to go into the trenches I think they would be perfectly justified. I must appeal once again to the War Office to look facts in the face, and not be led away by thinking that Engineers are a sort of non-combatant force. How can they expect these men to go into trenches and work under the hottest possible fire, armed with rifles they do not know how to use.

The whole question of the Engineers is a most serious one. A very large reduc tion has been made in the number of Regular Engineers. The old bridging battalion has been abolished, and no provision whatever has been made for moving pontoons. My own belief is that the British Army when it goes on the expedition we hear so much about will suffer. While every other country is constantly largely increasing its Engineer force, this country is enormously reducing it, not only in regard to the Regular Forces but also the Special Reserve. Instead of the old Militia Engineers, with 1,600 men, the present Special Reserve, I think, has 1,100. You had a most useful force. For physique there was nothing to touch them, and they have been more than decimated. The noble Lord has alluded to the question of the true Militiaman, for whom those of us who served in that force had so much regard.

It has been effectively arranged that no such thing as the old Militiamen can exist, In the part of the world in which my own regiment was, South Wales, the men consisted almost entirely of miners and iron-workers—men who receive very large wages and who come out for soldiering because they like it. In no conceivable circumstances will these men come out for six months. You can get them for three months because they are glad to get above ground in the summer. But you will not get that class of man for six months of the year. You do not want to get them to begin with, because you have swept away four Artillery regiments and reduced the Infantry and Engineers. Therefore, several thousands of South Wales miners have been deprived of any opportunity of serving their country.

The noble Lord, the Under-Secretary for War, in his eloquent speech adjured us to wait. He said this took time. No one knows better than the noble Duke and those who act with him that these things do take time, and that was one of the chief reasons why those who have served in the Militia implored His Majesty's Government to leave one force intact when putting all the other forces into the melting pot. The noble Lord now says these things take time, and he asks us to wait. He says they hope this, trust that, and believe the other. We have waited a considerable time, and the longer we wait the less we like it. We see the Militia officer disappearing before our very eyes, and also the Militiaman, and we see nothing created to take their place. The noble Lord said. "Oh, but we have the Special Reserve, so much to the front, which nobody ever had before." I cannot follow the noble Lord's arithmetic. His Majesty's Government have reduced the Regular Army and the Army Reserve by something like 40,000 men, and they have abolished the Militia, which, at the very worst times, consisted of 90,000 men—that is 130,000 altogether. As against that they put 90,000 so-called Special Reserves. It is very long since I was at school, and I am not very good at figures, but taking 90,000 from 130,000 appears to me to leave 40,000.

LORD LUCAS

The establishment of the Militia may have been 130,000, but the strength was 82,000.

* LORD RAGLAN

The noble Lord does not follow me. You have reduced the Regular Army and the Army Reserve by 40,000 men, and you have abolished the Militia, which consisted of 90,000 men—that is, 130,000 altogether. Given that you get your 90,000 Special Reservists, you have still got a deficit of 40,000, and our belief is that not only have you got this number less but we know that the men you may get cannot by any possibility be equal to the 40,000 Regulars and Army Reserves, and that they will be infinitely inferior to the old Militia. There is only one other point with which I should like to deal, and that is with regard to the training machine. The noble Lord said that we never had it before, and that the Special Reserve is going to be a specially-trained machine. I was always under the impression that the old Militia did that very well. During the South African war the Militia was mobilised and the details of the Line battalion were attached to the Militia battalion, and I venture to think that the joint result was as efficient as, if not a great deal more efficient than, this new Special Reserve force. I look upon the abolition of the Militia as something which the country will regret in blood and tears, and I look upon the fact that you have no force to replace it and are absolutely unable to get officers as a most serious matter. I trust, therefore, that this inquiry will bring forth some result.

EARL CAWDOR

My Lords, I had no intention of taking part in this debate, and I should not have done so but for one word which fell from the noble Lord the Under-Secretary for War in answer to something that was said by my noble friend. My noble friend who has just sat down asked what had been done with reference to the mobilisation scheme for certain forts in Milford Haven, which used to be the mobilisation station for certain Militia regiments, one of which I had the honour of commanding for many years. The noble Lord's answer across the Table was, "Territorials." I should like to follow that up, because I happen to know the story. The noble Lord says these forts are to be garrisoned by Territorials. In 1907 there were some 2,000 men representing four South Wales regiments of Garrison Artillery, and those 2,000 men were mobilised with modern guns. Those regiments have disappeared. I will not discuss whether they should or should not have been abolished, but the noble Lord said airily that their place has been taken by Territorials.

LORD LUCAS

To be taken. The thing is not yet complete.

EARL CAWDOR

Still, the only provision made for taking the place of these troops, consisting of 2,000 Militiamen, is by the future Territorials. That is exactly the point with which I wish to deal. The Government's scheme of Territorials has been to transform some Infantry regiments into Garrison Artillery, and to form other Garrison Artillery companies to be utilised for mobilisation purposes in those forts. Those forts lie near no centre of population, but are miles away down the Haven, and I should say the nearest place to the nearest of those troops would be from twelve to sixteen miles by sea. Is it credible, or is it supposed to be practicable, that Territorials who are really Volunteers, who must be trained in the evenings after their work, living miles away from those forts, can possibly take the place of troops trained with guns and in those forts? The noble Lord knows perfectly well that it is impossible, and it is proved out of their own mouths. They have asked us to raise in the county of Pembroke four companies of Garrison Artillery, and we have done our best to do so, although I am bound to say without any help from the War Office. We had no help in guns, and, when we had guns, we had no sights and no appliances, and, last of all, we are told that the War Office have grave doubts as to the possibility of making these men efficient. Although the position of affairs has been the same for the last four years, the War Office are now considering whether or not they should disband some of the garrison gunners raised during the past few years. I believe that is correct.

LORD LUCAS

I beg the noble Earl's pardon. All that we are asking you to consider is the disbandment of certain companies which are very much further from those forts than need be, and we are proposing that they should be raised at a near point—at Pembroke Dock itself.

EARL CAWDOR

Where we already have a company, and it is almost impossible to get any more men. But of the four companies that have been raised under instructions from the War Office, it is under consideraton whether two of them should be abolished or raised somewhere else, where there is no population from which they can be raised. These forts are too far distant to be efficiently garrisoned by Territorials. What are the future arrangements? Whereas before you had a force of 2,000 for the garrisoning of these forts, these companies consist of some 400 men. Are you going to try to draw the others from the county of Glamorgan? If so, it is fifty or sixty miles further off the base. Are you going to tell us you propose to mobilise in the future men further off to take the place of men who are nearer the base?

LORD LUCAS

We are anxious to raise these Territorial companies as close as possible to the forts at the mouth of the harbour. It will rest very much upon what the County Association says as to where they can best be raised. Our only object is to raise a Garrison Artillery as close as possible to the forts they have to man.

EARL CAWDOR

Yes, but you are proposing to disband those which are quite close to the Haven in the County of Pembroke and to raise them in Glamorganshire, which is further off. Then, do you propose only 200 men to garrison the forts in lieu of 2,000?

LORD LUCAS

We certainly should not disband men nearer the forts. If it proved impossible to get men we might have to raise men further away, but we certainly should not disband men nearer the forts and raise men further away.

EARL CAWDOR

I was not suggesting that. But you have already suggested that you were going to Glamorganshire for the purpose of raising these men.

LORD LUCAS

I am not so well acquainted with the locality as the noble Earl. It is principally because Pembroke cannot raise the men.

EARL CAWDOR

But we have raised all the men asked for. We have not been asked to raise more men than we are raising, but we are told that even those we have raised are too far away from the base. You cannot raise men nearer than the County of Pembroke, and therefore you would have to take them from a further distance, and so make it impossible to get Territorials to take the place of the men disbanded. I only raise the question because it is one of which I have personal knowledge. For the noble Lord airily to say that the 2,000 men are to be replaced by Territorials is not to set the case fairly before your Lordships, because the system, by the Government's own showing, has absolutely failed.

VISCOUNT HARDINGE

My Lords, I wish to speak in support of the Motion so ably expounded by my noble friend the Duke of Bedford. I think your Lordships will agree that in initiating this debate this afternoon the noble Duke has rendered a service to the national interest by bringing to the notice of your Lordships' House the very serious shortage at the present time in the first line of His Majesty's forces. I think my noble friend has very clearly shown the absolute necessity of a special inquiry into the condition of this new force, which, in my opinion, does not secure in any way the organisation of what it was originally proposed. I have always been led to understand, rightly or wrongly, that the Special Reserve was formed for two purposes—first, in order to supplement on mobilisation His Majesty's Regular Forces, not only as regards men but also as regards officers; and, secondly, to make good wastage in time of war that must necessarily occur among the Regular forces. If I am right in that contention I trust that the noble Lord who will respond for the Government will say if the Army Council have considered whether the Special Reserve meets these requirements. If he cannot do so I can fully understand why the noble Lord who represents the War Office in this House has given an evasive answer with regard to the mobilisation of the Expeditionary Force, a force which your Lordships have been led to believe is the result of clear thinking, and which the general public are told is supposed at the present time to be stronger in numbers and more efficient than has ever been known in this country before—in fact, we are told that it is fit and ready to go anywhere on the pressing of a button.

I believe it is well known that George IV. laboured under the delusion that he was not only at the Battle of Waterloo but that he took a prominent part in it. It has also been related that on a certain occasion His Majesty asked the Duke of Wellington to confirm that assertion, to which the Iron Duke replied, "I have often heard your Majesty say so." Is it possible that the Secretary of State for War may be suffering under a similar delusion, and that this Expeditionary Force is nothing more or less than the army of a dream? I venture to hope your Lordships will agree that from the fact that at the present time I have the honour to command a unit of the Special Reserve and previously commanded a Militia battalion for over ten years, I am entitled to speak with some knowledge of the Special Reserve. If so, I have no hesitation in saying, though I say it most reluctantly, that with everything that has emanated from the Duke of Bedford with regard to the force I agree entirely, for I do not consider it fulfils any of the functions for which it was originally organised—namely, as a Regular Reserve for the Regular Army. In my opinion the Special Reserve at the present time is nothing more or less than a recruiting agency for the line battalion, and for that reason I consider the noble Duke is fully justified in making a plea for a special inquiry which I trust His Majesty's Government will concede.

As the noble Duke and others have so exhaustively touched on many points with regard to the Regular Army, I will, with your indulgence, confine my remarks to that force with which I am closely associated, and to which I have already referred. No one with any knowledge of this force can doubt that the most crucial problem to be solved at the present time is the officer question, more especially in regard to the junior rank, without which no force can be expected to be carried on. It has always appeared to me that what applies to the officer question in the Special Reserve applies equally to the officer question in the Territorial Army, and it has always struck me that one of the great mistakes which men of the County Association make is that they confine their attention far too much to the endeavour to secure men rather than officers and non-commissioned officers. It must be apparent to anyone with any military knowledge that a regiment of men without good officers and non-commissioned officers to instruct and lead them must be useless. Therefore, to recruit men without officers and non-commissioned officers appears to be like putting the cart before the horse.

The difficulty at the present time with regard to obtaining officers for the Special Reserve appears to be due to two causes—first, the length of the probationary period is far too long and therefore far too expensive for the young man starting a military career; secondly, the old privilege of obtaining admission from the Militia into the Army has now been extended, to my mind most injuriously, to the Territorial Army, in which force, as your Lordships are aware, the duties are far lighter. It is quite evident, therefore, that in order to get officers for the Special Reserve a commission for the Special Reserve must carry with it some extra inducement, otherwise it is extremely improbable that Special Reserve officers will be forthcoming. It is upon His Majesty's Government that this duty of finding a solution must eventually devolve. Whatever inducement is found necessary in order to find officers must in some other way apply equally to the non-commissioned officers, upon whom primarily the discipline and the efficiency of the regiment must chiefly depend. One of the greatest difficulties in the Militia, which is now the Special Reserve, is to a very large extent dependent on the fact that if a non-commissioned officer is a really good disciplinarian and does his duty well during the training period, when he goes back to civil life he very often suffers. Therefore I would like to make the suggestion that in order to overcome this difficulty non-commissioned officers of the Special Reserve should be liable to military law in a non-training period. Personally I have little fear that if some scheme could be devised to get good officers and non-commissioned officers for the Special Reserve, really good men would very soon be available, provided, of course, more consideration were shown to that Force than has hitherto been the case.

I agree with the noble Duke that using the Special Reserve as a machine for outdoor relief during the winter months is not a good way to make it popular. When the Special Reserve was first brought into being we were told that officers of different rank were to be transferred to it from the Line battalion. Although many months have elapsed since that order took place the promise has not been wholly carried out, but one of the most extraordinary anomalies during the time I have been in the service is that of officers belonging to two regiments at the same time. I presume that in the event of mobilisation those Regular officers would go back to their Line regiment, and the Special Reserve would be deprived of their services. Who, I ask, is going to fill their place? We are told, I believe, that the Officers' Training Corps will supply their place. If such is the case, is it possible that in the event of mobilisation those officers would be of any use to the Special Reserve or any other force? I regret that the noble Earl the Leader of your Lordships' House could have thought that by introducing this discussion we were introducing anything of a party nature. Personally, whenever I have spoken in a military debate I have always endeavoured to avoid party politics, and, in ventilating any opinions as to the shortcomings of the Special Reserve to-night, I can assure your Lordships I have done so in the best interests, not only of the Regular Army, but of the Special Reserve to which I have the honour to belong.

LORD LOVAT

My Lords, I should like to make a few remarks on the officer question. I do so rather from the point of view of pointing out another side of the question from that which has been dealt with by certain noble Lords who sit on this side of the House. I think it is very important that a scheme like that of the Officers' Training Corps, which has only just started work, should have no undue amount of cold water turned upon it until has been given a trial. If noble Lords had studied a Report made to both Houses they would hardly, I think, have come to the conclusion that the Militia was being merely called by another name, or that no opportunity was given of handling men. The officer scheme, whether good or bad, at all events breaks entirely fresh ground.

Previously at the public schools and Universities men were trained simply as privates. Now regular education and opportunities are given to the masters themselves to qualify for proper instruction. The staff of the Universities has been much increased, and there is a regular sequence which follows the schoolboy from the time he joins his school corps up to the moment he leaves the University. That the scheme is complete I do not say, but that it is a great advance on anything that has gone before I fully believe. What the training is—whether it is considered sufficient or not—will remain a matter of opinion. I can only say that the matter was gone into most thoroughly, not merely by teachers in public schools, but by qualified officers of the Territorial Force and of His Majesty's Regular Army, and the opinion was expressed that the training is expected to be equal to the German and French Reserve of officers by the passing of the qualifying examinations A and B, and by the four months attachment to the Regular Service. Although much progress has been made, I do not for a moment think that all the work that could be done has been done, and I think it is necessary to make certain inquiry to see if the scheme cannot be perfected. I may mention, among other facts, that when the scheme was drawn up the special service section did not exist, and therefore the regulations which were framed for that particular branch of what was the Militia referred to the Militia and not to the special service section. Then, again, the scheme cannot possibly provide the number of men for a period of years, and I think it would certainly be a question worthy of inquiry whether a further extension of the system could not be devised in order to get your men more quickly. Furthermore, there were questions of pay suggested by Sir Edward Ward's Committee which have been cut out by His Majesty's Government. I consider these points must be taken up to make the scheme, which I believe is on the way to being a success, a more rapid success than it would otherwise be.

But there is a further reason for which I would go into the Lobby with the noble Duke. We have been told by the noble Lord the Under-Secretary that we ought not to criticise the Secretary of State's plants, because they are mere tender plants. That hardly corresponds with what Mr. Haldane has been saying throughout the country. He has told us that they are most magnificent plants producing flowers, and it would seem as if beginnings have been exaggerated into actually achieved results. The point is whether—and it is a matter, I think, which this inquiry can take up—these tender plants have had long enough time to grow. It may be said that they have not had time. But are foreign nations going to allow a number of years for these schemes to bear fruit?

LORD ABINGER

My Lords, I venture to claim your attention for a few moments in order to support the Motion of the noble Duke, and I do so perhaps with less reason than the noble Viscount, Lord Hardinge, because I am not a Special Reservist, nor an extra-Special Reservist. Presumably, according to the War Office, I am deceased, for I received a letter from Mr. Haldane when I retired some time ago in which I was informed that I was to report myself on June 1 or otherwise my name would be removed from the Army List. Following the instructions of the noble Lord the Under-Secretary for War I have studied the Army List and cannot find my name in it. I belong to no Reserve, and for one very good reason, because when the time for war does come one who volunteers for service will be accepted; and I do not intend to do subaltern duty in some remount depôt where there are no horses.

I only propose to touch for a moment on the subject of the Special Reserve, and, in doing so, may I congratulate the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War on his fluency in defending what so many of us consider to be rather a bad case. I know the noble Lord has had great experience in expounding the scheme. I remember being at a meeting in Portsmouth at which the noble Lord explained the scheme to the County Association.

LORD LUCAS

That was a different scheme—the Territorial.

LORD ABINGER

But I think the Special Reserve has also a bearing on the whole question, because I believe the noble Lord dealt with it as a whole. The noble Earl who leads the House said this afternoon that we had indicated no remedy for the state of things which we allege against the Special Reserve, and that we had made no suggestions for the betterment of the Special Reserve. I think a plain answer to that is that the policy of the Secretary of State for War and of the noble Lord the Under-Secretary is a destructive policy. They have destroyed the old Militia force, and we deny that the Special Reserve is any efficient substitute for it. The reason for this, I should think, is also plain, for the force which trains for twenty one days cannot be so efficiently trained as one which trains for twenty-eight days. The regiment to which I had the honour to belong trained its recruits during the past two years, before this scheme took root, for six months, and afterwards we had an extended period of training. The officers of the new force cannot know their men in the same way that the Militia officers knew theirs, and the junior officers are only now learning to know their men, and not so well as they did formerly when their period of training was extended. It is said that the period of training is not too short for efficiency. Not too short! In this scheme you have reduced the period of training and economised both in money and in men, and the result claimed is that you have secured increased efficiency. That, my Lords, we deny, and that is why I support the noble Duke in his demand for an inquiry.

*V ISCOUNT MIDLETON

My Lords, I think it must be evident to every one who has listened to this debate that there is a case made out which has not yet been entirely answered by the Government. I recognise fully that in the speeches from the Government Bench to-night we have been favoured more than has been the custom in the past with a real consideration of the gravity of the case which we have endeavoured to present to your Lordships, and I really should be ungrateful if I did not join in what was said by my noble friend behind me a moment ago in thanking the Under-Secretary for the efforts he has made with the most difficult case put before him by the noble Duke who opened the discussion. Now, my Lords, nothing would be easier than to enter at considerable length into the speech of the Under-Secretary. I saw in him that glimmering of the old Parliamentary hand which we were quick to recognise in the attempts to throw us off the present and to take us back to previous schemes, and to induce those of us who had been connected with those previous schemes to enter into a prolonged discussion of them, and so to distract your Lordships' attention from the difficulties in which we now stand. Well, that is an inducement which is a great one to myself. I do not, however, intend to enter upon it. I will only say this, that there are two fallacies which underlie the speech of my noble friend the Under-Secretary. In the first place, he argues the whole of his case without remembering that he and those with whom he is associated have made large reductions in the Regular Army. Large reductions never disturbed him from one single half sentence in the not too lengthy, but still full, oration which he addressed to your. Lordships to-night. When you have lost from 30,000 to 40,000 Regular troops and the Reserves which are incident to them you must give that due weight in your own accounts before you begin to square accounts with those who preceded you. That is the first point.

The second point is one which the noble Lord has made against me on many occasions. It is that with the three years system we could not provide our drafts for India, and therefore he goes on to say we could not mobilise the Army. Now there the noble Lord falls into error. The three years system failed in peace because you could not send your drafts abroad. But it was an absolute safeguard and stand-by in war, because you had a great Reserve on which you could draw for your emergency; and the thing which makes the Guards, who, alas! have been reduced, the dearest force in peace but the cheapest force in war is the very fact which the noble Lord always ignores when he comes to discuss the difference between the two parties and the two policies.

I do feel very strongly that you have in two ways produced this crisis, which the noble Earl the Leader of the House told us it astonished him that we should always be bringing before your Lordships' notice. You have done it by reducing your Regular force and by bringing your Reserve down to a condition which hardly enables you to mobilise what Regular force is left. Your Lordships are bound to consider what you have between that force which you can hardly mobilise and the Territorial Army which alone remains to encounter an Army that may land on these shores. That is really a serious matter. When I am asked why this was not an acute crisis in 1905 I answer, first, because we had more Regulars; and, secondly, because we had a policy which gave a greater Reserve. Moreover the whole substratum on which the undoubted supremacy of our Navy rested has been to a large extent wrought away, by the confession of the Government, in the last few months.

When I come to the question of inquiry I will take two issues which have appeared to-night, neither of which I will undertake to say was known to your Lordships when you came down to this House. Up to this moment we have been led to believe that the Government were in a position to send six divisions abroad. That is a mobilisation policy announced over and over again, and on which every farthing received for the Army Estimates has hitherto depended. It was re-asserted as late as March 4 of this year by the Secretary of State for War in the House of Commons. Mr. Haldane said— In the Estimates for the coming year we make provision for three more service corps than will be sufficient to equip the six divisions of the Expeditionary Force. We were entitled to believe that the six divisions still constituted the policy of His Majesty's Government. When Lord Hardinge addressed his question to the Under-Secretary to-night, you will remember that I endeavoured to extract from the Government whether that which was their policy on March 4 is still their policy, and I may say I failed—though I would gladly at this moment resume my seat if I could obtain it—I failed to obtain corroboration of that policy.

I ask the House, What is the position of this Government? Is there no case for inquiry into the whole question? Apparently, by the confession of His Majesty's Government, if we are organised to send six divisions abroad, we can fulfil what for ten years past has been the accepted policy and creed of the War Office, of the Government, and of the country. If we cannot do so we have fallen back. Why have we fallen back? The answer, if there is an answer, lies in the speech of the noble Duke to-night, that we have not got enough behind these six divisions to enable us to send them out of the country. I feel very deeply on this subject, and I venture to say that, if nothing else has been obtained by this debate, the very fact that that doubt has been made patent and will have to be cleared up is in itself important. A few moments ago the case of Milford Haven was referred to. We were told that Milford Haven had hitherto been defended by Militia Artillery, and the Government were asked what would be the substitute for the Militia Artillery. My noble friend endeavoured to extract an answer from the Under-Secretary, and we were told the Territorial Army. The Territorial Force, as my noble friend proved half an hour ago, is quite incompetent to undertake that particular charge. So far as I could gather from the serious observations which fell from my noble friend, Lord Raglan, the fact was made known to the War Office for the first time. That, again, in a minor degree furnishes a considerable element of doubt.

The noble Earl the Leader of the House endeavoured to drive a wedge in between those who are moving for this inquiry by asking us what was the precise inquiry we desired. He said that Lord Wemyss desired a limited inquiry. He credited him with desiring an inquiry simply into the Special Reserve. He said also that in the speech of Lord Roberts there was evidence that the noble and gallant Field-Marshal looked to an inquiry solely with the view of establishing the necessity for compulsory service. So far as I and those who act with me here are concerned we accept the Duke of Bedford's Motion. We desire to confine the inquiry to the smallest and narrowest possible limit, in order that we may have a reply with as little delay as possible. We want to know whether there are sufficient trained officers for the Regular force; but the mere fact of the enormous deficit, shown by the noble Duke to amount to very nearly 2,000 officers, in the Special Reserve, in itself shows how difficult and dangerous our condition is in case of mobilisation. Therefore we do not desire a long, rambling inquiry. What we ask for is to have in the shortest and most concise manner an inquiry into the military position and the military value of the troops who will remain in this country when the troops whom His Majesty's Government intend to send out of the country have left.

I protest again, as I have protested before in this place, against the language of the Secretary of State when he tells the country that we never shall send our troops abroad unless we are free from the danger of invasion at home. A man might just as well say he will never mount his horse unless he is satisfied there is no danger of an accident. You cannot know, you cannot be certain, and I make this statement with absolute conviction. If there should, unfortunately, be trouble on the Afghan frontier to-morrow and if there should at the same time be unrest in India, His Majesty's present Government, or any Government in office, would send every horse and man they had in this country within the six divisions to reinforce our troops in India. That being so, it is absurd for the Secretary of State to tell the country, it is playing on the credulity of men who have not been trained to think on this subject—that he will never send our troops abroad unless we are clear of all danger of invasion at home. When we ask for this inquiry the question is raised as to why we are not content with the opinion of the Army Council. I feel very deeply the reproach levelled against us that we want to pull up the plants to see how they are growing before they have had time to take root. The noble Earl the Leader of the House asked me how I should have liked that to have been done with regard to the schemes I submitted to Parliament in the year 1901. If I were disposed to repartee, I might say it was done every week, I might almost say every day, and one of my noble friend's most distinguished colleagues spent a whole session pulling up the roots of the scheme and urging that returns should be made, even before the troops had returned from South Africa, in order to show our weakness at home. But these are not the lines on which we are arguing to-night. We do not want to make a party question of this business at all. What we want to point out is that the country has a serious and dangerous difficulty to meet. Why are we not satisfied with the views of the Army Council? It is not we who are responsible for the constant change of the schemes. They have never had any coherence from first to last. There is hardly a point in them that has not been changed since first introduced, and that has been done under the authority and with the consent of the Army Council. The Militia, the Special Reserve as it is now, was originally to be massed with the Volunteers and the Yeomanry. That has been abandoned. The Militia was to be administered by the County Associations. That has been abandoned. The substitution of Militia Artillery for Regular Artillery, which was an absolute tenet, has been abandoned, The statement that they would largely reduce the whole cost of the Army, which was abundantly put forward for the first two years, has been abandoned. The denial that was made of your Lordships' protest as to money being taken from the Regulars, from the professional troops, simply to be used, if I may use the term, for the amateur troops—that denial has been abandoned. The sum of £2,000,000 has been taken off the Regular troops, largely by reductions of men and the remainder by the reduction of troops in South Africa, but not one farthing, so far as I know, by an economy made in the Army by Mr. Haldane. There were reductions of charge; you can always reduce charge by reducing numbers and reducing the service. The sum of £2,000,000 has been taken off the Regulars. Where is that £2,000,000 now? A sum of £170,000 has been devoted to the Special Reserve in excess of the old Militia, although there are 30,000 fewer troops than the old Militia numbered. A sum of £500,000 has been devoted to the Territorial Army in excess of what was spent on the old Yeomanry and Volunteers, although the Territorial Army is 25,000 fewer than those two forces were five years ago. There is also the fact, which I believe will be a matter of astonishment to every member of this House and to every man in the country, because I do not think it has ever been discovered before, that out of that £2,000,000, £500,000 has gone in excess in staffing the War Office and with staffing the commands, the very item of expenditure on which Secretaries of State since the year 1885 have done their best to economise. But £500,000 has gone, raising an Estimate which was about £950,000 in 1904 to £1,450,000 in the present year. This is the Government of economy! This is the War Office which claims—

LORD LUCAS

I can only say the enormous number of gaps left in the organisation have required this money to be spent on them. It is simply filling up the chinks.

* VISCOUNT MIDLETON

I should like to hear the nature of those gaps. I will reply to each one in turn.

LORD LUCAS

The General Staff to begin with.

* VISCOUNT MIDLETON

The noble Lord seems to think that this Government framed the General Staff. It was framed by Mr. Arnold-Forster.

LORD LUCAS

It was not in existence. until this Government came in.

* VISCOUNT MIDLETON

The noble Lord said the Reserve was not in existence a few years ago, and I have yet to learn that he added a single man to that Reserve. He took credit to himself for being able to mobilise troops with a Reserve which was not in existence when we left office. The only thing this Government has done has been to reduce the Reserve. But the point I am on is that they have added very nearly fifty per cent. to the charge for administration, which would have paid for the whole eight battalions of the Line which this Government have abandoned, notwithstanding that they have been demanded by every military authority who sat at the War Office before they came there. We are in some difficulty in accepting the views of the Army Council under these conditions. The Army Council have vouched for every successive change. They vouched first for the Militia being only fit to be classed with the Territorial Force. They equally vouched for men of the same age, same height, same chest measurement, and of the same training as the Militia being used as a Reserve for the Regular Army. They vouched for the efficiency of the forty-two Artillery batteries which were to be reduced as Militia. They now vouch for the necessity of reconstituting those batteries as a Regular force at a very large increase of expenditure and after a number of men who belonged to them have been sent to the Reserve. The Army Council stated in 1905—and this is one of the most remarkable things and one of the things that has shaken my confidence as much as anything else—that the Infantry Reserve, under Mr. Arnold-Forster, from 156 battalions with 750 men each, with seven years service, would produce a Reserve of 55,000 men; and to-night, as also in 1907, the same Army Council vouch that 148 battalions, eight having gone, of 720 men, thirty having gone from each battalion, would produce, after seven years service—the same service—a Reserve of 63,000 men, an increase of 8,000 men by the reduction! I cannot for the life of me reconcile the extraordinary statements of the present Army Council with those of the Councils with whom I personally had the honour to serve; and I cannot help feeling that many of these changes in the Army system savour more of the hasty expedient of the Parliamentarian than of the matured policy of the military man who has to fight the battle with the troops he brings into the field.

I have never more regretted than in these debates the loss of the Commander-in-Chief. The Commander-in-Chief represented the Army before the country. For the last fifty years the Commander-in-Chief has had a seat in this House, until that office was abolished. At a moment of crisis he could be relied upon to inform your Lordships of his real opinion of military matters, and to represent the Army and the views of the Army. We now have the views of the Army Council filtered to us through the Secretary of State. I often wonder whether the noble Lord opposite has ever reversed those views. Will your Lordships allow me to do that for one moment? What soldier will tell you that you are stronger without eight battalions of foot—the kernel of the Army as Lord Wolseley called them—than you were when you had them? What soldier will tell you that to reduce the regiment of Guards, the cheapest in time of war and producing the largest Reserve, adds to your military strength? What soldier will tell you that it is better to have Artillery manned partially by men trained for three months in the year than by men who are trained for the whole year? What soldier will tell you that we are stronger in these days, when, as the Under-Secretary said, some nations abroad have two officers in reserve for every officer employed in the field, by reducing 500 Regular officers, as has been done in the last three years? What soldier will tell you that he goes into the field with a lighter heart when he knows that after we have mobilised the Regular Army we have only partially-trained officers to encounter the best trained troops in the world? I put these questions because I should like to know what member of the Army Council would stand up in your Lordships' House and give his verdict in favour of any one of these changes against the speeches we have heard to-night from Lord Roberts and Lord Grenfell.

One word more before I sit down as to the loss of officers. The noble Lord has said a great deal about the Officers' Training Corps, but when you have got these officers nobody pretends they will be anything better than supplements for the Regular Army. I will draw one parallel for a moment showing the advantage of a coherent policy as against what the noble Duke called the fluid view of the Army Council. Lord Kitchener went to India at the end of 1902. He found there a deficiency of 600 officers. By his scheme he increased that deficiency from 600 to about 1,000, as he mobilised nine divisions instead of four. That deficiency of officers has been reduced by from 450 to 500 in the last five years. I suggest that the fact that in this country, where our needs have increased, we have reduced our officers by between 500 and 1,000 in the same period is very serious. I do not wish to go into details as to the state of the Special Reserve, but nobody who heard the noble Duke could doubt that while you have taken away from the Army between 30,000 and 40,000 Regulars and the Reserve accompanying them, you will, indeed, be lucky if out of the partially-trained men who have been enlisted as Special Reserves you can even replace those you have taken away, much less get the large number whom the Under-Secretary admitted we require to keep the troops in the field.

The noble Earl the Leader of the House seemed to hold out some hope that, if we could make a sufficient case, he would not turn a deaf ear to our desire that there should be some further re-assurance than we have yet received. I do not think he asked us what kind of inquiry we should like. I would suggest two, neither of which could possibly have the disadvantage of revealing any mobilisation scheme. The Defence Committee of the Cabinet is at this moment engaged in investigating the particular needs of the Navy. Will the noble Lord promise us an inquiry by the Sub-Committee of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet into the arguments which Lord Roberts and others will bring before them as to the military value of this Special Reserve? If he will not do that, I would suggest a course which has been taken over and over again by Secretaries of State. If I may venture to say so, I have done it myself. I have asked three distinguished officers to report to me on the military value or the military effect of a particular measure. I ask the Government to-night to do that. I ask them, for their information, for the information of the Secretary of State, to invite three officers who are not now serving, who are not now involved in all these plans and schemes, to tell them simply whether, when our forces have gone abroad, there is a sufficient military value left in the troops who are to be enlisted under the circumstances mentioned in the Motion of the noble Duke. Surely that is a fair request, and there can be no party colour about a request of that kind.

It is not merely that we have the great authority of Lord Roberts. It is not merely that Lord Grenfell agrees with us. I served with Lord Wolseley and most of those distinguished officers of that band who supported Lord Wolseley and who are still alive. I would like to see Sir Evelyn Wood, Sir Henry Brackenbury, Sir Frederick Maurice, or Sir William Butler, if it could be done, brought to the Bar and asked if they could give an opinion in favour of the military value of that force of which we have heard so much from the noble Duke to-night. That is my case. That is the reason why, with the greatest reluctance and not wishing to make out our position to be weaker than it really is, I am asking the Government to hearken to the warning we address to them, to see, in the words of the noble Field-Marshal, "the writing on the wall," and to endeavour to secure the country against what may be an overwhelming danger.

THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (LORD PENTLAND)

My Lords, I regret that it does not fall to one who could speak with more authority on this subject to address some observations in reply to what has just fallen from the noble Viscount opposite. In this debate opinion of great weight and authority has, I willingly admit, been revealed among critics of the Government. There may, however, be some compensation for not having held the office of Secretary for War or Under-Secretary for War in that I am not tempted to stray, as did the noble Viscount, I think, in spite of his own caution, in defence of any particular scheme of my own.

The noble Viscount covered a very wide ground. His remarks ranged from recruiting to the abolition of the Commander-in-Chief, for which, let me say in passing, this Government, or the party which this Government represents, was not responsible. I will deal, first, with the question of the shortage of officers, which has been criticised by various noble Lords. It is perfectly true that there is a shortage of officers. It is none the less true that there was an equal shortage of officers in the time of the Administration of the noble Viscount opposite. It is none the less true that there is a shortage of officers in every country according to the circumstances. In every country there is a shortage of officers when mobilisation takes place, and I believe that the real sense of the House will be found to be not in accord with the more vehement critics of the Government in this respect, but rather with Lord Lovat, who expressed his belief that time should he given for the trial of the experiment of my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for War in this respect. Whatever may be said against the experiment there is this to be said, that Mr. Haldane is the first Secretary for War who has endeavoured from the bottom to organise an Officers' Training Corps into which shall enter, from the various sources mentioned during this debate, all the youth of the country who wish to take up arms as a profession. I would plead time, not, only for this part of the scheme, but for every part of the whole scheme, which has been in operation but a very short while.

We have been told that the scheme is too rigid, that it does not fit places like Pembroke Dock, and different places and regiments and corps in the country. On the other hand, we are told by other critics that the Secretary of State for War has gone too far in trying to meet the objections to and criticism of his scheme, and he has thereby laid himself open to the charge of having modified, altered, and changed the scheme in various details. As a matter of fact, it is no disparagement of the scheme to say that it has produced difficulties in different parts of the country. I myself am acquainted with a case in Scotland very similar to that brought forward by the noble Earl, Lord Cawdor, in respect of the Corps at Pembroke Dock. But if you are to have an organisation you are bound to meet these difficulties. If you are to introduce an organisation which shall gather up into a connected whole the military forces of the country you are bound to meet in particular instances with difficulties which can be overcome. The real truth is that this was not an organisation which sprang spontaneously from the brain of my right hon. friend or from that of the Government. It was forced upon the Government by circumstances. The first step towards this scheme was taken in the abolition of the Militia Reserve which took place in the time of the late Government, in the time of the noble Viscount opposite. That rendered it imperatively necessary to take the next step, which was the reduction of the period of active service with the Colours to three years. We all know that that scheme, produced in absolute good faith, with every intention that it should work for the good of the country, completely broke down. It is beside the question to compare the present position as if it were a matter of sending an Expeditionary Force abroad or the number of troops you have at home in time of war. The truth is that under that system the Army organisation broke down in time of peace. It could not discharge the functions of our Army in time of peace, because it was not equal to staffing the Indian drafts which have to go every year to make up the battalions and regiments in India.

It therefore became absolutely necessary to reconsider the position, and in reconsidering the position the question was, What scheme should be adopted? The noble and gallant Field-Marshal, Lord Roberts, speaking this afternoon, appealed to your Lordships not to regard this question from a party point of view. He hoped the country, too, would regard this question of Army organisation not from a party point of view. I believe myself that ever since the South African war the feeling in that direction has been strengthened. There is a tendency everywhere to avoid regarding Army matters from a strictly party point of view. When the noble Viscount abolished the Militia Reserve, and when the period of active service with the Colours was reduced, the change was treated from a non-party point of view. The noble Viscount will remember that the Leader of the then Opposition in the House of Commons, who was afterwards Prime Minister, guarding himself only on the question of the Indian drafts, concurred in the change. It was not actively opposed by the party opposite to the noble Viscount on that occasion and my right hon. friend, in carrying out this scheme of organisation now, whether in regard to the Territorial Army, whether in regard to the Special Reserve, or whether in regard to any other part of the scheme, has been at the utmost pains to consult with opinion from every part of the country, and from every class of society. He has done everything, I think, a man could do to bring in counsel with himself on every conceivable subject, not only with regard to the component parts of the forces but with regard to every part of War Office organisation; he has been at the greatest pains, by the appointment of committees, by the appointment of commissions, and by personal conferences and otherwise, to bring together the opinion of the country, and not to regard this question from a party point of view.

I would ask the noble Viscount what he would do if he took office to-morrow. Would he change the scheme? Would he pull up the scheme by the roots? After the experience which the country has gone through in the last ten years, I doubt very much whether any Secretary of State for War coming into office now would have the temerity to pull everything up by the roots, and undo the work of the last two years. The one characteristic which, if I may respectfully say so, I have noticed in this debate is that there has not been one single suggestion. There have been criticisms in plenty, but there has not been one single suggestion of improvement, or any indication of any alternative which might be adopted in one direction or another. It is not enough to disavow party intention. To invite and press the Government to appoint a commission of inquiry is in itself a condemnation of the present condition of the Army. The words of the noble Earl, Lord Roberts, lent colour of a most brilliant description, if any colour were needed, to support that view. What is the object, what can be the object of such criticism of the present system? In the first place, is there any ground for thinking that those who have criticised on this occasion have any alternative to propose? Is there any alternative which can be proposed, save possibly that which may be lurking in the minds of some critics—that of compulsion? I say with regard to compulsion that it is not a question which we could discuss on this occasion, and I will not weary your Lordships by entering into it.

What is the situation? Broadly stated, what grounds are there for shaking the confidence of the country in the present administration of the Army? I do not make any comparison with very recent years, because everybody knows that the South African war was a great disturbance to our Army system. It was a very abnormal occurrence, but it gave the country most signal proof of the soundness of the Cardwell system. The Army organisation stood the strain of the South African war in the number of troops which we wer able to land in South Africa and in other respects in a manner which surprised even its warmest friends. My right hon. friend has taken the Cardwell system a step further, and, by the institution of the Special Reserve, has supplied what was originally a part of the Cardwell system, but what we had never been able to supply to the system before. Therefore, as a matter of fact, our system as a system is stronger than it ever was before. In the first place, the Expeditionary Force in future will have what it never had before to the same degree—the Special Reserve, whose sole function is to provide a second line in support of the Expeditionary Force. When criticisms are made as to the number of men who are now on the establishment of the Army, and the precise number of men five or ten years ago, it must always be taken into consideration that there is now, as there never was before, an organisation which has the duty of providing every Line regiment in time of war with the drafts, officers and men, who are required to keep up the strength in view of the wastage of war. The balance of battalions at home and abroad has been redressed, and steps have been taken to put the Cavalry on the same footing, so that Cavalry regiments abroad on this Expeditionary Force will have Cavalry at home to support them. On all these facts I think it is indisputable that as an organised fighting force the Expeditionary Force now is at a strength it never was before. Then take the question of the Special Reserve. I will not dwell upon that just now, because so much has been said upon it to-night; but the Special Reserve is there as a support to the Regular regiment, and not only are the seventy-four battalions linked and identified with the Regular regiment for this duty, but there are also the battalions of the Special Reserve which are not organised to supply drafts but to go out as units and support the Army in the field.

Then I come to the home defence Army. It certainly is the view of the Government, and I think it may be successfully maintained in argument, that the home defence Army, represented as it is now by the Territorial Force, is organised as it never was before. I do not mean to say that the organisation is complete. It requires time to complete it, and, possibly, variation in detail, but all this is incidental to the completing of any great undertaking, and these are early days, I think, to condemn any part of the new scheme for not showing perfection in all its branches. I maintain, therefore, that the Army of to-day as compared with the military forces of the Crown some years ago is larger as an effective force and more powerful as a striking instrument.

VISCOUNT MIDLETON

What we ask the noble Lord to let us have is the military value of this largeness. That is the point on which we are pressing the noble Lord. Will he quote any military authority on the value of this largeness?

LORD PENTLAND

There is an authority now in the country represented by the Secretary of State for War and the Army Council. Surely they count for something. I cannot go on the hypothesis of the noble Viscount that the Secretary of State for War is neglecting all the best advice in the country. I do not think that can possibly be maintained. I say that this is the best organised and most capable force to be sent abroad that the country has ever had, but I do not take credit to my right hon. friend or to the Government for it. The credit for all this is due, not to one Government, but to several Governments, not to one Secretary of State but to several Secretaries of State for War and to nobody more than the noble Viscount opposite. Nobody has worked harder for the Army than the noble Viscount. Everybody knows that, and I say it most frankly and sincerely. The Army is not only larger; in my opinion it is better. It is formed of much better material—infinitely better material.

The Army has, I think, more than kept pace with the improvement in the condition of our people during the last ten years. The old school of critics of Army reform used to say it was no use raising the pay of the soldier, as we should get the same man whether we gave him a shilling or one shilling and sixpence a day. That state of things has passed away, and ever since the days when Mr. Edward Stanhope was Secretary of State for War there has been a persistent and consistent endeavour to improve the condition, comfort, pay, and surroundings of the soldier, and so appeal to a better class of the population. Army circular after circular has been issued all with the same purpose. The people of this country, however, do not read and do not believe Army circulars. What they do believe is practical experience, and what is beginning to tell in the country, I am informed on good authority, is the actual, visible, tangible, improvement in the condition under which the soldier lives and does his soldiering. He is better paid, more temperate, more thrifty, intelligent, and educated. There are plenty of men in the Army now, as I am told, who do not even spend their five shillings a week, and that is a very long way from the days which some of us can remember, not so very long ago. This all shows that the Army is improving in public esteem and becoming more popular. You are getting into the Army a finer and better class of men. This is working in two ways. In the first place, your recruit is a better man, and at the other end of the scale the wastage is not so considerable from disease, misconduct, desertion, and Court-martial, which always created a great blank that had to be filled by recruits of the next year. Therefore, I believe at both ends the condition of the Army has greatly improved in recent years. If that be so, what possible ground is there for this inquiry? This debate has produced complaints in great number, and the inquiry is put forward as being more reasonable because it is addressed to a limited part of the subject. Any inquiry addressed to the Special Reserve would, I am afraid, lead much further than the limits of the Special Reserve. It would range, as this debate has ranged, over the whole question of Army organisation. The noble Viscount is under some misapprehension if he thinks that the noble Earl who leads the House intended to convey that the Government would favour the notion of any inquiry. For my part, I hope most sincerely that this scheme which, after all, is the only scheme of organisation which at present holds the field, may be allowed to operate, to be worked out, developed, and made as perfect as human hands can make it before there is any attempt to revise or criticise, or, as has been said during this debate, to pull it up by the roots. It is only after prolonged efforts that the country has been brought to support the present scheme of organisation, and I trust nothing may be done by your Lordships' House to shake the confidence of the country in that scheme.

On Question, Amendment agreed to and added to the Motion.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

then put the Motion, as amended— "That in the opinion of the House, a special inquiry should be instituted into the condition of the Special Reserve, and as to the extent to which officers, non-commissioned officers and men of that force are fitted to discharge the duties of the Regular Reserve which devolve upon them in time of war, and that the said inquiry be confined to the Special Reserve."

On Question?—

Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 73; Not-contents, 22.

CONTENTS.
Bedford, D.	Churchill, V. [Teller.]	Hindlip. L.
Devonshire, D.	Falkland, V.	Kenmare, L. (E. Kenmare.)
Northumberland, D.	Falmouth, V.	Kenry, L. (E. Dunraven and Mount-Earl.)
Rutland, D.	Goschen, V.
Wellington, D.	Hood, V.	Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)
	Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)	Knaresborough, L.
Abercorn, M. (D. Abercorn.)		Lawrence, L.
Salisbury, M.	Ridley, V.	Leconfield, L.
		Lovat, L.
Amherst, E.	Abinger, L.	Ludlow, L.
Ancaster, E.	Addington, L.	Manners, L.
Bathurst, E.	Bagot, L.	Newton, L.
Camperdown, E.	Belper, L.	Northcote, L.
Cathcart, E.	Brodrick. L. (V. Midleton.)	Oriel, L. (V. Massereene.)
Cawdor, E.	Clinton, L.	Raglan, L.
Cromer, E.	Colchester, L.	Ranfurly, L. (E. Ranfurly.)
Eldon, E.	Cottesloe, L.	Ravensworth, L.
Halsbury, E.	Crawshaw, L.	Redesdale, L.
Hardwicke, E.	De L'Isle and Dudley, L.	Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)
Leicester, E.	De Mauley, L.	Sinclair, L.
Lovelace, E.	Dunboyne, L.	Somerton, L. (E. Normanton)
Malmesbury, E.	Dunmore, L. (E. Dunmore.)	Stalbridge, L.
Morley, E.	Egerton, L.	Wemyss, L. (E. Wemyss.)
Plymouth, E.	Ellenborough, L.	Zouche of Haryngworth, L.
Powis, E.	Faber, L.
Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)	Fermanagh, L. (E. Erne.)
Waldegrave, E. [Teller.]	Forester, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.
Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor.)	Denman, L. [Teller.]	O'Hagan, L.
	Granard, L. [E. Granard.]	Pentland, L.
Carrington, E.	Hamilton of Dalzell, L.	Pirrie, L.
Liverpool, E.	Haversham, L.	St. Davids, L.
	Herschell, L.	Sandhurst, L.
Allendale, L.	Lucas, L.	Saye and Sele, L.
Castletown, L.	Lyvedon, L.	Weardale, L.
Colebrooke, L. [Teller.]	Mac Donnell, L.	Welby, L.

Resolved in the affirmative.

House adjourned at half-past Eleven o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.