VISCOUNT HARDINGE roseto ask the Under-Secretary of State for War (1) What is the total (a) combatant (b) non-combatant establishment of the Expeditionary Force; what number of officers and men of the Regular Army at present available will be included in this force; (2) what number of officers and men will be drawn from the Special Reserve (a) combatant (b) non-combatant; what number of men, if any, will be sent abroad under twenty years of age; (4) what number of officers and men over twenty years of age at present on the strength of the Regular Army will remain in this country to replace the wastage of war after the Expeditionary Force has left (a) combatant (b) non-combatant; (5) what force could be mobilised at home of men of not less than one year's service after the Expeditionary Force has been despatched, dividing (a) Regulars from (b) Special Reserve, as the existing strength of these forces.
The noble Viscount saidMy Lords, in putting again to the noble Lord who represents the War Office in your Lordships' House the Questions which stand in my name on the Paper, I trust that I may find him in a more communicative mood than on the last occasion. I can assure the noble Lord that in putting these Questions I do not desire him to disclose any mobilisation secrets. What I wish to know is whether 966 we are right in understanding that the strength of the Expeditionary Force is, as has been stated, 160,000 men, and whether these 160,000 men are made up in the following way: 60,000 Regulars serving with the Colours, 70,000 Reservists, and 30,000 Special Reservists; and, if so, whether the noble Lord thinks that in the event of mobilisation this number is likely to be forthcoming complete in every detail. What we want to know is, after the Expeditionary Force has left this country, what would remain in the country for its defence. That, generally, is the main purport of the Questions that I wish to put to the noble Lord. I venture to think that every foreign attaché in London at the present time could give us the information involved in these Questions, and I therefore fail to see why it should be considered against the public interest that a full answer should be given. If, however, we are to infer that it would be contrary to the interests of the War Office that this information should be forthcoming so that the real truth of the matter should be made known, I trust that the noble Lord will tell us that that is so.
* THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD LUCAS)My Lords, I am afraid I have very little to add to what I said last week when the noble Viscount first put these Questions. Since last week we have been very carefully into the matter, and the result of the close investigations which we have made into the question of how far it is desirable to give information of this nature is this. We find that already we give far more information in this country with regard to what our plans would be in case of war than any other country in the world. But even we do not give the information which the noble Viscount asks for in these Questions, and in no country that I can think of would they dream of giving answers to questions of this kind.
We are always prepared to give establishments when they are asked for; and, with regard to establishments, the noble Viscount will find the answer to that part of his first Question in the Government publication known as War Establishments. The rest of these Questions do deal with our position on mobilisation, and if they were fully answered they undoubtedly would reveal our strength on mobilisation 967 and our weaknesses. For I fully admit that until the present scheme has had time to mature, until it has reached the normal, until the men we are proposing to find under the new categories have had time to accumulate, there are certain to be weaknesses. We have always said that it will take a certain number of years before any Army scheme can become anything near perfection. Whilst those gaps which we are filling, and filling rapidly, exist, it would not be expedient to state publicly what they are. For that reason I regret it is impossible to give the noble Viscount the information for which he has asked. I would only repeat the invitation I gave him last week. We have no desire to conceal from noble Lords what the position is, and we shall be only too glad, if the noble Viscount cares to come across to the War Office, to put the figures before him; but we do not propose to make them public.
When I gave this refusal last week the noble Viscount, Lord Midleton, said that I ought to have quoted precedent in this matter. He quoted as a precedent for his point of view the fact that Lord Lansdowne, whose absence to-night we particularly deplore, gave in January, 1900, the strength of the troops that were then in this country; and that he himself gave the strength of the troops forming his six Army Corps. Neither of those cases is any precedent for the giving of the information asked for by Viscount Hardinge. Lord Midleton's Return was in no sense a mobilisation plan. It was simply a statement of the contemporary peace strength of the units concerned, and that is all the world apart from what the noble Viscount is asking for. As the noble Viscount wishes for precedents I will give him two. On March 29, 1900, the noble Earl, Lord Wemyss, asked, in your Lordships' House, for a Return showing the state and organisation of our home defensive force on February 20, 1900; and Lord Lansdowne, in reply, said—
I can assure the noble Earl that I am most anxious not to withhold from him or from your Lordships' House any information upon such points as those which are referred to in the Motion of which the noble Earl has given notice; but I must add that I believe it would be contrary to usage and not in the public interest that the Return should be given, and if the noble Earl moves for it I shall, with much regret, be obliged to ask the House not to give it to him.I can give your Lordships another precedent. On July 17, 1905, Lord Wemyss 968 asked the Under-Secretary of State for War—What is the present district or divisional organisation of the Army Militia and Volunteers in the matter of commands, transport and armaments including big movable guns of position, and as regards their readiness in all ways to take the field and be transported at shortest notice and within what time to the point on the East coast nearest to their district or divisional headquarters.In reply, Lord Donoughmore said—I confess at once that I have some difficulty in understanding this Question, but I gather that the noble Earl wishes a great deal of detailed information as to our present mobilisation scheme. It is obvious that it would not be in the public interest that we should give details of our mobilisation scheme. All the information concerning the organisation of the military forces at home and abroad which it is considered desirable to make public is contained in the monthly Army List.With that sentiment I heartily concur. We are, therefore, following the best precedent in this matter. These details revealing mobilisation plans never have been given in the past, and I hope they never will be given in the future. But, as have said, we are perfectly prepared to give the information to the noble Viscount confidentially if he will apply at the War Office for it.
§ LORD NEWTONMy Lords, I trust that this question will not be allowed to remain where it now stands. As far as I am able to gather, the noble Lord who represents the War Office declines to give the information because he says it is contrary to the public interest to do so. At the same time, any Peer who chooses to take the trouble to go to the War Office will have the information supplied to him. Suppose I go to the War Office and ask the noble Lord for these details, will he give them to me?
§ LORD NEWTONI am extremely flattered at this mark of confidence. At the same time I really do not see why I, or any other member of this House, should be placed in a more advantageous position than any taxpayer in the United Kingdom. The noble Lord has endeavoured to show that there are no precedents for giving this information. The obvious precedent is what occurred during the Boer War, when Lord Lansdowne was Secretary of State for War. On that occasion Lord 969 Lansdowne not only gave the figures as to the men, but volunteered the additional information that those men constituted in no sense a Field Army—that, in other words, they were of very little value. It is no use for the noble Lord to cite the example of foreign countries. The cases are totally different. In any foreign country there are hundreds of thousands of men really and actually at the disposal of their Government, and the whole course of a campaign might possibly be decided by the speed with which these men could be brought into the fighting line and directed upon a given point. It stands to reason that if they were to disclose their plans it would be of considerable advantage to their possible opponents. But our case is totally different.
What on earth is there to conceal? What is there that any human being can fail to understand with regard to our military potentiality. It does not require even a foreign military attaché to discover that behind the Regular Army we have got the Special Reserve and the Territorial Force, and no potential enemy is likely either to be encouraged to attack us or to be dissuaded from that purpose by any information disclosed in answer to these Questions regarding the number of boys who are masquerading as men at the present moment. The only persons who are under any delusion whatever as regards our military position are those simple-minded persons who are still bewildered by what I can only call the blazen claptrap of the present Secretary of State for War. I own that I am a person absolutely devoid of imagination, and all these fine phrases about "clear thinking" and "nations in arms" and all the rest of it make absolutely no impression upon me and do not convey any sort of comfort to me. I look at facts, and the facts that I am able to realise are that the present Secretary of State for War has reduced the Regular Army and its Reserves to an enormous extent, and that he has invented a new name for the old Volunteers and Yeomanry. These are the bare facts of the situation, and no amount of rhetoric ought to divert our attention from them.
It is quite natural that, in these circumstances, the Government should be anxious to conceal the situation as much as possible. You can present a very fine figure as long as you confine yourselves to rhetorical images and to eloquent perorations, and 970 are not obliged to produce statistics in plain black and white. I can well understand the reluctance of the noble Lord opposite to give the information we are endeavouring to obtain. Nevertheless, I hope my noble friend and others who take an interest in this matter will persevere until we get this plain statement of facts out of the Government. And when we do get it we shall realise that our position is in no sense better than it was a few years ago, that the Secretary of State for War's Reserves consist largely of paper soldiers, and even these paper men will turn out in many instances to be merely boys. I hope that my noble friend will not be discouraged by his failure this afternoon, but will persevere until he obtains an answer.
§ VISCOUNT MIDLETONI do not rise to continue this discussion in view of the very important Motion standing in the name of the Duke of Bedford, but I would ask the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he would kindly tell us—and I do not think this would come within the category of excluded subjects—what is the total combatant and non-combatant establishment of the Expeditionary Force. That has already been given by the Secretary of State on various occasions. I understand that it is to be something between 150,000 and 160,000, and we should be glad to know whether the Force is to be maintained at that figure or whether there is any change in the policy of the Government in that particular.
LORD LUCASI have said that the noble Viscount will find that information in the Government publication called War Establishments.
§ VISCOUNT MIDLETONMay I ask whether the intention of sending abroad six divisions is still maintained. [No answer.] I crave pardon, but the whole discussion to be raised by the noble Duke depends on that question. We have had the statement in public that six divisions are intended to be sent abroad. I only ask if there is any change in that intention.
§ THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF CREWE)The noble Viscount's question does not seem to me a reasonable one. Precisely how many divisions will go abroad must depend on the exigencies of the occasion.