§ THE EARL OF STRADBROKE rose to ask the Under-Secretary for War "whether be can give the date at which guns will be supplied to the Territorial Field Artillery to complete their proper number; also, if the guns for the Territorial Field Artillery will be supplied with dial sights 210 in place of the wooden arc sights, and, if so, when."
§ The noble Earl said: My Lords, I have put this Question on the Paper in the hope that the noble Lord the Under-Secretary will take this opportunity of telling us when the guns still required for the Territorial Artillery will be delivered. The howitzer brigades have only received about half the full number of guns. Naturally these brigades are becoming somewhat disheartened, as this will be the third training they have been called upon to carry through with only half their number of guns. The Territorial Artillery has come in for a good deal of criticism, and I, for one, do not regret it at all, because I feel that these criticisms are all made with a view to improving the present state of affairs. But I think the first thing to be done is to provide the Territorial Artillery with the necessary guns to make up their full complement. Those who had experience of the Volunteer Artillery will not dare to hope that the Territorial Artillery will be armed with any more modern guns than the latest cast off from the Regulars. The howitzer brigades are now waiting for the guns to be discarded by the Regulars. That brings out this other point, that while all the Territorial howitzer brigades are short of guns, a corresponding number of Regular batteries are armed with guns which in military circles are considered obsolete. Why there has been this long delay in supplying the howitzer guns I do not know, unless it is that the orders for the new howitzers for the Regulars have only recently been given, or that the guns cannot be turned out in a reasonable time.
§ I hope the noble Lord will also be able to say that the Territorial Artillery will be provided with dial sights in place of the old wooden arc sights, which are inconvenient and tend to make practice in artillery very slow. There is truth in the criticism that the Territorial Artillery are slow. The officers do not have the opportunities that officers in the Regulars have of observation of gun practice, and the horses they have to handle are practically unbroken for the work they have to do. Those are big difficulties that have to be faced. The matter of providing dial sights for the Artillery is not a large item, and I hope the noble Lord will be able to give a favourable answer to that part of my Question and also to the former part.
211THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD LUCAS)My Lords, the unfortunate delay in issuing the full number of guns to the Territorial howitzer batteries is due to the fact that they are waiting for the guns which are at present in use by the Regular Artillery, and which are about to be replaced by the new howitzers. The issue of the new howitzers to the Regular Artillery will begin next month, and as those guns are issued the Regulars will give up their present guns and they will be sent without delay to the Territorial batteries. I am glad to say that there is no Territorial battery with less than two guns, and four batteries have their full complement of four guns. To the same cause is due the fact that the dial sights have not been issued to the Territorial Field Artillery. We intend to issue proper dial sights to them, and the wooden ones they are at present using are only intended to be used until we can issue to them the dial sights at present being used by the Regulars. I hope that before very long the Regular Artillery will be provided with new dial sights, and as soon as that is accomplished the dial sights which they are now using will be handed over to the Territorials. There is always an amount of uncertainty in connection with the manufacture of fine and exceedingly complicated mechanism, and I cannot give the noble Earl any answer as to the actual date when these sights will be delivered. But I can assure him that there will be no delay which can possibly be avoided in equipping the Territorial Artillery in this direction.