Lords Sitting of 23 June 1910

Preamble
The Lord BERWICK The Lord BERWICK—Took the Oath.
LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY BILL.
Report from His Majesty's Attorney General received, and ordered to lie on the Table.
LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY BILL.
Read 2a, and committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
SLOUGH WATER BILL.
Read 2a, and committed.
SAINT JUST-IN-ROSELAND DOCKS BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.
SHIREBROOK AND DISTRICT GAS BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.
STANDING ORDERS OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
Ordered, That the Standing Orders as amended be printed. (No. 61.)
HOUSE OF LORDS MANUSCRIPTS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Calendar of the Manuscripts of the House of Lords, Volume V. (New Series), in continuation of the volumes issued under the authority of the Historical Manuscripts Commission: The same was ordered to be printed. (No. 62.)

RURAL EDUCATION CONFERENCE.
1. Minute, dated 4th February, 1910, of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Board of Education constituting a Rural Education Conference;

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2. Further Minute, dated 20th June, 1910, of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Board of Education constituting a Rural Education Conference:

Laid before the House (pursuant to Order of Monday last), and to be printed. (No. 63.)

SMALL DWELLING-HOUSES IN BURGHS LETTING (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, this Bill to which I am going to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading is a Bill devised for the purpose of meeting two grievances which have been mentioned very frequently in Parliament in previous years, and which exist in some of the burghs and particularly in some of the larger burghs of Scotland. One of them is that which is known as letting houses by means of "missives." That being explained is this. In the month of January, or thereabouts, it has for a long time been the custom of house factors and house owners to issue to tenants of houses what is called a missive, which the tenant is required to sign and return. The purport of it is that the tenant undertakes to take the house for a year from the Whitsunday following the January in which the missive is sent to him. Your Lordships will at once see that for a labourer, whose employment may be intermittent, to be required to take a house practically for fifteen months to come without any certainty that his employment will last during that time is prima facie a hardship. The hardship is not so great in the smaller towns, where, as a rule, the various kinds of employment are much the same in quantity, and persons live in the same houses, generally speaking, for a considerable time. Where the grievance has been mostly felt is in large towns, especially in the City of Glasgow and in other towns where shipbuilding is the principal occupation, because shipbuilding varies very greatly indeed from time to time, and if your Lordships take the last two years you will see in what a very bad state that business has been.
This Bill, so far as the letting of small dwelling-houses in Scotland is concerned —and this is the only subject except that

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of hypothec with which the Bill deals—is precisely in the same terms as the measure which was before your Lordships' House last year. The Bill proposes to deal with this matter in this way. Clause 2 defines as a "small dwelling-house" a house entered on the valuation roll at a yearly rent of £10 or under in a burgh of under 20,000 population; of £15 in burghs up to 50,000; and £21 in burghs over 50,000 population. I do not think it is necessary to go at length into those figures, because they were largely discussed, and I believe agreed upon, at the end of the last session of Parliament. Then the Bill provides in Clause 4 that no agreement, whether verbal or written, for the let of a small dwelling-house shall be binding if the same has been made more than two months prior to the commencement of such let. Then the Bill continues, in Clause 6, to say that at certain dates which are given cither the owner or the occupier is to have a right to terminate the tenancy. By Clause 9, if an occupier of a small dwelling-house is in arrear with his rent for a period of seven days the owner is entitled to give him forty-eight hours' notice of removal. And then in Clause 13 there is a provision that, where the population of the burgh does not exceed 10,000, this Bill is not to come into force in that burgh until it has been adopted by resolution of the town council. That is the whole part of the Bill which relates to the letting of small dwelling-houses.
This Bill, of course, has been given very careful consideration by a variety of the public authorities concerned, and especially by those authorities who will, if this Bill becomes law, become the authorities to administer the law. I may say that the Bill, which is in large part due to the efforts and the legal knowledge of Mr. Scott Dickson and Mr. Clyde, has been approved, first of all, by the Parliamentary Committee of the City of Glasgow by a very large majority—by thirteen to two—as the proper way of dealing with this business. It was confirmed by the Glasgow Corporation, and, out of the whole body of eighty, only five voted against it. It has been approved by the Convention of Royal Burghs, from whom I have presented a Petition to the House; and it has also been approved by the Association of Burgh Officials, a body of men who, of necessity, take great interest in this proposal. The one or two smaller burghs
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which have considered the Bill themselves have approved of it. I have presented to your Lordships a Petition from the Burgh of Partick, and the words used in their Petition convey so completely the contents of this measure that perhaps your Lordships will allow me to read them. They say—
"The main purpose of this Bill is to remove the grievance presently complained of by occupiers, that missives of let of small dwelling-houses are issued by owners and factors to occupiers early in each year and the return of such missives is demanded several months before the following term of Whitsunday. Your Petitioners are satisfied that the said Bill, which does not raise any difficulties as to rating and franchise, will effectually deal with the objections to the present missive system, and be of great public utility if passed into law."
I cannot use any stronger words than those, or words which will explain more clearly what I believe this Bill contains.
There is another matter—a comparatively small one—which is dealt with in the Bill, and that is what is known as the right of urban hypothec—the right which a landlord in Scotland has to sell up the goods of a very small tenant. Your Lordships will see, in Clause 12, how that matter is dealt with. The Clause runs—
"All bedding material as well as all tools and implements of trade used or to be used by the occupier of a small dwelling-house or any member of his family, as the means of his, her, or their livelihood, which are in the dwelling-house, and furniture and plenishing in a small dwelling-house to the value according to the sheriff officer's inventory, of ten pounds, shall be wholly exempt from the right of hypothec of the landlord."
This right of hypothec was abolished in the case of the country a good many years ago, and in reality, if you look into the matter, there were better reasons for retaining this right of hypothec in that case than there is in the case of urban districts. This Bill proposes, as has often been proposed before, to abolish that hypothec. I have now dealt with the contents of the Bill.
But perhaps it is right that I should call your Lordships' attention to a matter which is not part of this Bill, but which may be said to be connected with it—the collection of rates. During the last year the Corporation of the City of Glasgow tried as an experiment collecting rates at shorter periods than the year, and that experiment has been an enormous success. It has been highly approved of by the ratepayers, and the Corporation itself found it a very convenient system of proceeding.

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Therefore this matter, too, has been the subject of a good deal of discussion among corporations and others in Scotland, and I shall propose to introduce a Bill into this House legalising the collection of rates at shorter periods than the law at present allows. In Glasgow they claim to have a legal right at the present time to collect rates at shorter periods, but at all events other burghs have not, and I think that that is a matter which ought to be put in the shape of a Bill if for no other reason than that it will enable all the burghs individually to look at it and express their opinion with regard to it. And your Lordships will all agree that the right way of proceeding when you are endeavouring to alter such matters as the system of collecting rates is to work in harmony with the officials who will have hereafter to administer the law and not to introduce proposals of your own without any knowledge of how far those proposals will meet with the general approval of the officials concerned in their administration. I may say that if your Lordships see fit to read this Bill a second time and it makes further progress, I should propose then to stop the Bill until the terms of this second Bill which I have mentioned are finally settled. I should then introduce that Bill into this House, so that your Lordships would have the plan as a whole before you. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (LORD PENTLAND): My Lords, I thought that some of your Lordships might wish to address to the House some remarks on the proposal of the noble Earl to obtain a Second Reading for this Bill. I confess I hardly think that your Lordships' memory can be so short as must be assumed by the noble Earl who has introduced this Bill. It deals with a subject which was before this House on no less than seven occasions last year, and the noble Earl has, I think, in his introduction of the subject to your Lordships this afternoon, somewhat ignored the real heart of the controversy which made so large an encroachment upon the time of your Lordships last year.
The noble Earl proposes to obtain a Second Reading for a Bill which deals
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with the letting of small dwelling-houses in burghs in Scotland. The history of this question is that since the year 1895 something like nine or ten Private Members' Bills have been introduced in the House of Commons to deal with this question. In 1906 the Government of that day appointed a Committee to inquire into the whole question. No charge was ever made that that Committee was otherwise than a well-constituted, impartial, experienced, and capable body. They inquired into this question at great length, and examined witnesses from various parts of the country, and after their Report had been presented the Government introduced the Bill of last session. The noble Earl's Bill deals with part of the grievance, but it does not attempt to deal with one part of the grievance which I shall mention. It is this. In Scotland, differing from England in this practice, the rating law exacts from working-men such as those to whom the noble Earl alluded, payment of their rates in one annual sum in the winter—a time which is the most inconvenient period of the year, when work is slack, if ever during the year it is slack. This is a burden, therefore, which they feel acutely. That was part of the grievance presented to the Committee.
The Government, in attempting to frame proposals on this subject, could not ignore that part of the grievance, and they therefore included in their Bill proposals dealing with the rating question in conjunction with their other proposals. The noble Earl has admitted this afternoon, by his announcement that he proposes to introduce a supplementary Bill, the intimate connection between the rating problem and the measure which he has laid before your Lordships to-day; and I confess that it would be much more satisfactory to your Lordships, or to any deliberative assembly, that you should see the whole scheme of the noble Earl before pronouncing upon it. The essence of the difficulty of this question lies in the rating—
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: No, no.
LORD PENTLAND: All the friction which exists between local authorities, burgh authorities, parish authorities, house factors, owners and tenants—the whole of the friction and difficulty comes from the rating problem, and to attempt to deal

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with this question without dealing with the rating problem is to court disaster and to create new injustices. The noble Earl, in introducing the Bill, intimated to your Lordships that it owed its existence largely to the efforts of two distinguished Scottish Members of Parliament and lawyers, Mr. Scott-Dickson and Mr. Clyde, and I am glad to think that they have given attention to this question. But, as a matter of fact, with the exception of one clause, which contains the limits of rental and which in those limits differs from the Government Bill, the clauses which this Bill contains are word for word the clauses in the Government Bill of last session so far as they go.
The noble Earl went on to enumerate a list of local authorities who had given their support to this Bill. I remember, on one of the earlier occasions when your Lordships discussed this subject last year, the noble Earl announcing to the House a number of authorities who had expressed themselves entirely in favour of the scheme which he then produced; and I shared his disappointment when, on the next occasion, he was obliged to announce that he found there was considerable opposition to the proposals, and he desired to replace them by an entirely new scheme of Amendments. It may be perfectly true—I do not doubt it for a moment—that the authorities whom the noble Earl has mentioned have expressed themselves in favour of this Bill, but they are all burgh authorities dealing with the burgh rate. They have no responsibility for the collection of the poor rate, which is the largest rate in Scotland and amounts to 38 per cent. of the whole money collected in rates. He leaves out of sight entirely another very important interest in this matter—the interest of house-owners. Therefore, out of three large interests, not to speak of the tenants, who must be really the foundation of any scheme of consideration—of the three other large interests, namely, the burgh authorities; the parish authorities, who are responsible, as I have said, for two-fifths of the whole rating assessments in Scotland; and the house-owners, the noble Earl can only bring forward evidence—and that, I think, not complete evidence—from one set of authorities who undoubtedly would be benefited by the provisions in his Bill. And how would they be benefited? They would be benefited because it would be in their power to
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adopt the provisions of the Burgh Police Act in regard to rates, and so to carry on, as far as their rate is concerned, a system of short lets with a system of short collection of rates.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: They have the power now to adopt those clauses.
LORD PENTLAND: I know; but they have never exercised it, because it would be a perfectly unworkable system. Surely the experience of years and years must go for something in this matter. Surely, also, the experience of England must go for something. This whole question was considered in England after the Franchise Act of 1868, and Parliament had immediately to set to work, in 1869, and revise what it did in the Franchise Act. The result is that you have in England now a flexible system of collection of rates, and a flexible system of short lets adapted to the needs of modern industry, which require that workmen must be enabled, without real damage to their own interests, to remove from one house to another. Your Lordships, with those facts before you last year, rejected a Bill which came before you with practically the unanimous consent of the Members of the other House representing Scotland.
I really cannot understand quite how to deal with the situation which the noble Earl presents to us on this occasion. The Government, and the noble Earl himself, if I may be allowed to say so, during the discussions of last year came under certain obligations to the house-owners. Your Lordships' House, too, came under a certain obligation to the house-owners, who are an interest to be considered in this matter. Though your Lordships were not willing to consider the Government's proposal of an allowance to house-owners, you consented to the justice of house-owners having an allowance if they were obliged to collect the rates. Are you going back upon that? Are you going to accept a scheme which gives no allowance? Or is that to be part of the second Bill which the noble Earl is going to introduce? I hesitate to trouble your Lordships further on this question. The attitude of the Government is quite clear. Their attitude remains as it was as embodied in the Bill which came to your Lordships' House last year with the support of the Scottish Members after they had given it very full consideration,

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and which in that form, I make bold to say, had a very large measure of support. I think it satisfied, if not completely, yet in its main lines—and slight amendment would have been quite possible—opinion in Scotland with regard to this question.
This is a very intricate question. Your Lordships, I am sure, will believe that nine or ten Private Members' Bills could not be introduced, and that the labours of a competent Committee could not take place without showing evidence that this is a very complicated and difficult question. It was said last year that the Government had some reserved motive, some concealed motive, in bringing this forward; that they wished to tamper with the franchise. I have repeatedly disavowed that statement in this House; and I make bold to say that any Government or any individual—the noble Earl himself is an instance of it—who takes up this question and cries to deal with it cannot do so without dealing or attempting to deal with the rating problem. We are compelled to deal with it by the necessities of the situation, and the Government gave their best efforts last year to arrive at a solution. The noble Earl brings this forward at a time when, by common consent and by the speeches of the Government itself, it is not possible really to entertain any substantial hopes that this measure can be treated as non-controversial. I am a new member of this House, but I should have thought it was highly unusual to initiate rating legislation in this House. That, however, is not a matter to be determined by myself, and therefore I simply make that remark.
But I do regret that, as the noble Earl has seen fit to bring forward this question, he has not brought it forward in a way and with proposals which should put before your Lordships the whole bearings of the case to enable you to form a sound judgment upon it. I do not think I am entitled, considering how much time the House gave to this question last session, to follow the noble Earl into the details which he enumerated of the provisions of his Bill. I will only say that it has been a bitter disappointment to those interested in Scotland who are concerned in this question that your Lordships did not see your way to give a more indulgent consideration last session to the proposals which the Government then laid before you.
LORD CLINTON: My Lords, the noble Lord the Secretary for Scotland has reminded your Lordships that this subject was before the House on no less than seven occasions last year, and I am certain that none of us who are interested in this particular question can have forgotten anything about the lengthy discussions which then took place. We must also remember the very great vicissitudes through which the Bill of last year passed both in this House and in another place, and it is now before your Lordships, as to the whole of this Bill, in the same form in which the agreed portion of the Bill of last year eventually emerged from discussion. Although it does not do the whole of what the Government included in their Bill, yet it does carry out the remedying of those great grievances which the Government put forward as the real and main object of the Bill they introduced last year. These grievances have been thoroughly put before your Lordships on this occasion by Lord Camperdown.
The Secretary for Scotland, so far as the particular matters of short letting and doing away with the missive are concerned, will realise that this Bill has actually reached all points. The noble Lord shakes his head; but the Bill lays down, in exactly the same form as the Government laid down, remedies for those grievances. The point of controversy does and must arise at the point where this Bill comes to an end. The Secretary for Scotland objects to this Bill, not for anything that is in the Bill, but for what there is not in the Bill. He objects to it because it does not do that which it never ever thought of setting out to do. It is not a rating Bill. It does not alter the system of rating as we have it now in Scotland. Nor is that an essential part of the measure. I do not believe it is in the least bit necessary, purely for the purpose of doing away with certain grievances, to deal with a matter which those grievances themselves do not touch.
It is obvious that you cannot alter a system of letting without touching a system of rating. I am prepared to agree that when you alter your system of letting from a long to a short occupation, when you give liberty to a tenant to determine his holding at short notice, varying, I think, from five to forty days, it is convenient and advisable that you should so alter the

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present annual system of collection in Scotland that it should meet the system of these short lets. I believe it would be advantageous to do so, as the noble Lord himself has told us, because there are many objections to an annual system of rating; but it is quite possible, as the noble Earl in charge of this Bill has shown us, that with the addition of a future rating Bill—a perfectly distinct measure from this—we may carry out the full object that we have in view. The system of collection at short intervals is, after all, one of the remedies for the difficulties which the noble Lord the Secretary for Scotland sees, and it was admitted as a possible remedy when the Government first brought in the Bill last year. Collection at short intervals can be adopted without difficulty in Scotland, and it always has been adopted in England, where rates are collected quarterly or half-yearly, and it has been shown that that system can be carried on with advantage to the collecting authority and to the tenant himself, without dragging in that system of "compounding" which every one of us objects to in theory, and which the noble Lord opposite only brought in because in his opinion there is no other way of getting over the difficulty. I do not desire to enter into a discussion upon the theoretical or actual merits of compounding now. When the other promised Bill comes before your Lordships it will be necessary to speak on the subject. But the compounding which the noble Lord the Secretary for Scotland himself so much prefers for the particular objects of this Bill has been shown in England to be really not necessary to those objects.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, after what has fallen from the noble Earl who moved the Second Reading of the Bill and from my noble friend behind me, it is unnecessary for me to occupy more than a couple of minutes of your Lordships' time. The noble Lord the Secretary for Scotland took objection to this Bill because it did not contain the rating clauses of last year's Bill, and he quoted to us the English Acts of 1868 and 1869, under which compounding was first done away with and then re-introduced. But since then the Royal Commission on Local Taxation and the Royal Commission on the Poor Law have both expressed complete disapproval of compounding of rates in England. They object to a man having a vote in the financial expenditure of his
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district without any direct responsibility. I think that clearly deals with the whole of the objections of the noble Lord the Secretary for Scotland in regard to that part of the Bill.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I am not sure that when I listened to the noble Lord the Secretary for Scotland I felt quite certain whether he desired to resist the Second Reading of this Bill or not. I hope he will not resist the Second Reading. I think it is a much more usual course in your Lordships' House that a Bill which in the main seems to deserve the consent of the House should be given a Second Reading. Its subsequent fate, of course, must depend on other circumstances. The noble Lord the Secretary for Scotland spoke in a vague way of the friction which might arise if this Bill were passed without the additional provisions which His Majesty's Government think ought to have been inserted. He did not explain to us exactly how that friction would arise. As far as I understood him, the clauses as they stand have his approval, but he thinks they are dangerous without other clauses which he did not specially particularise. I suppose he referred to the clauses which were in the Bill of last year, but he did not explain to us why the passage of this Bill without those other clauses should cause the friction of which he spoke. It appears that my noble friend and those with whom he acts are proposing to deal with the other matters, to some extent at any rate, in another Bill. What objection can there be to dealing with a complicated subject in two Bills rather than in one? Personally I have always preferred that method of dealing with legislation, and I think the Government themselves would be well advised to accept part of their proposals if those proposals are put forward separately, and then go on with the other parts which are more controversial hereafter. Moreover, there was a certain inconsistency in the noble Lord's attitude. One of the complaints he made was that your Lordships were initiating what he called a rating Bill. Surely, it hardly lay in his mouth to complain that there were not more rating clauses in the Bill! In these circumstances I venture to- hope that your Lordships will agree to the Second Reading, and then we can consider further what possibility there may be of passing the Bill through its subsequent stages.
LORD PENTLAND: I might explain that I resisted the Bill so far as speech is concerned; but, after what occurred last year, it is not, of course, my intention to divide the House against the Bill.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, in replying on the debate I would point out that the noble Lord the Secretary for Scotland, when he commenced his speech, was proposing to criticise the Bill which is before the House. Now the Bill before the House is a Small Dwelling-Houses in Burghs Letting (Scotland) Bill. There is nothing about rating in it. Then the noble Lord left this Bill and proceeded to talk about the Bill of last year, and to go into matters with which the particular Bill which your Lordships are now asked to read a second time has nothing in the world to do. What the noble Lord said was this, that nearly the whole of the difficulty comes from the rating question.
LORD PENTLAND: Hear, hear.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: The noble Lord says "Hear, hear." Does he mean to say, then, that he has no objection to the missive system? Has that nothing to do with the difficulty? Let him do me the honour of reading the Bill—
"No agreement …for the let of a small dwelling-house shall be binding if the same has been made more than two months prior to the commencement of such let."
What is the grievance of these missives? Does not the Bill meet that grievance? Then the noble Lord says this Bill creates a new injustice. I should like to know what that new injustice is. "Creating a new injustice" is one of those round phrases which are so easy to use, and which the noble Lord, if I may say so, is so fond of using in this House. He uses words to which one really cannot attach any particular meaning. I should like to know what new injustice this Bill creates. I do not know of any. I have pointed out that it undoubtedly does away with two grievances. It does away with the grievance of missives; it does away with the grievance of urban hypothec. I wish the noble Lord could point out to me where this new grievance comes in. At all events, he will have an opportunity in Committee of pointing it out to me. The noble Lord has developed a new and sudden affection for the house-owners. He asks, "What will they say?" After we
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have read this Bill a second time we shall know what they say; but, as a matter of fact, I know that they have been considering this Bill in consultation with various of these authorities, and if they wish to say that some of the arrangements proposed in the Bill are not fair they will have an opportunity. The noble Lord talked a great deal about rating, and about his Bill of last year. He described that Bill as a Government Bill. As a matter of fact, it was Mr. Cross's Bill. It was not a Government Bill at all, but, Mr. Cross's Bill which the Government subsequently took up.
LORD PENTLAND: The noble Earl is able to refer to the record.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: I have not the record here. I have only my own recollection, and I was asking the noble Lord whether his recollection agrees with mine. The Bill was Mr. Cross's Bill and not a Government Bill. I am bound to say that when one says that, it recalls the fact that this Government have been in the habit of indulging in a practice which is very inconvenient. They more than once have taken up a private Bill which has gone through the other House, at all events through several of its stages, as a private. Bill, and then they call it a Government Bill. I do not know what the motives of the Government are. The noble Lord said something about their motives being suspected. I merely take their speeches, and I will tell the noble Lord exactly how I construe his speech. He wants to wound, but he is afraid to strike. He does not want to deal with this grievance, but to appeal to a proposal which was inserted in the other House, not by the Government, not in pursuance of the recommendation of Lord Guthrie's Committee, but which was suggested by the Labour Members as—it was frankly stated so—a means of working round the franchise legislation of the country. From the noble Lord's speech I should say he did not care in the least about this missive grievance, which is the real grievance. He says you cannot deal with it unless you deal also with rating. Why not? Pass this Bill by itself and you will have done away with missive and with hypothec. Those are all the words I need trouble your Lordships with at this stage. I shall, of course, give reasonable time before taking the Committee stage, in order that we may

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hear what the house-owners and other persons interested may have to say on the matter.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

POLICE SUPERANNUATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD REAY: My Lords, this is a very simple measure to which I ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading. It makes a slight alteration in the case of pensions as regards constables who come under Section 1 (b) of the principal Act, i.e., retiring under medical certificate as having been incapacitated for duty by infirmity of mind or body, after twenty years approved service. At present such cases come under the general scale, Part I. of First Schedule to the principal Act, i.e., if over twenty and under twenty-one years approved service, an annual sum equal to twenty-sixtieths of annual pay is given them; if completed twenty-one and under twenty-eight years approved service, an annual sum equal to twenty-sixtieths of annual pay, plus one-sixtieth for every year over twenty years; if completed twenty-eight years approved service, an annual sum equal to twenty-eight-sixtieths of annual pay, plus two-sixtieths for every year over twenty-eight years, but not to exceed two-thirds of annual pay.
What is proposed in this Bill is in cases under Section 1 (b) of the principal Act—that is, cases of constables retiring under medical certificate as having been incapacitated for duty by infirmity of mind or body—to substitute, in those cases and in those cases only, the following provision: if completed twenty-one years or over approved service, an annual sum equal to twenty-sixtieths of annual pay, plus two-sixtieths for every year over twenty years, but not to exceed two-thirds of annual pay. This change is of a very limited character and it applies only to a limited class, and even after this Bill has been accepted the position of constables in Scotland will be less favourable than that of constables in England and Wales under the English Police Act of 1890, 53 and 54 Vict., c. 45, s. 1 and First Schedule.
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Besides the slight amendment in the scale of pension, the Bill proposes to embody several sections of the English Police (Superannuation) Act of 1906. Clause 6 of this Bill (Pensions to constables continuing to serve after qualification for pension), Clause 7 (Reckoning of discontinuous service as approved service for pension), Clause 8 (Reckoning of approved service in different forces), Clause 9(Approved service in case of Naval and Army Reservists), Clause 10 (Amendment of 53 and 54 Vict., c. 67, as to forfeiture of pensions), Clause 13 (Age of compulsory retirement), Clause 14 (Amendment of Section 4 of principal Act)—all these are clauses which you will find in the English Act of 1906, and as they have been accepted for England and worked well, it is desirable that the Scottish legislation should be assimilated.
There only remain Clauses 11 and 12. Clause 11 makes a change in the age of appointment and transfer. It extends the age limit for transferred persons, which is intended mainly for special cases and to prevent undue hampering of efficiency by too strict a limit. Clause 12 relates to the investment of the pension fund. I believe my noble friend the Secretary for Scotland has no objection to this Bill, which comes from another place as an agreed Bill, and therefore it is with confidence that I ask your Lordships to give it a Second Reading.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Reay.)
LORD PENTLAND: My Lords, I do not think I need say anything with regard to this Bill, which is in the nature of a compromise between the views of the local authorities and the members of the Police Force. The Government offer no opposition to the measure at this stage.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.

THE TERRITORIAL FORCE.
THE DUKE OF BEDFORD: My Lords, I rise to call your Lordships' attention to the state and to the musketry training of the Territorial Army according to the Return [Cd. 5018] of April, 1910, and to ask the Under-Secretary of State for War—

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1. If a period of embodiment for training after mobilisation is still considered as an essential feature of the scheme of the Territorial Army, vide Army Memorandum on the Military Forces of the United Kingdom dated 27th February, 1907, or if the Territorial Army is now considered fit for active service at Home at any moment without any such period of embodied training.

2. If some Territorial Infantry battalions during the present summer could devote their fifteen days of training to firing the annual musketry course prescribed by Regulations for a Line battalion.

3. If His Majesty's Government are satisfied that the Territorial Force is prepared to undertake prolonged embodied service in the United Kingdom during the absence of the Regular Army.

The state of the Territorial Army by the Return of April last was as follows. It was 1,488 officers and 32,138 men deficient from an establishment which we must remember the Government, who are responsible for our national security, have told us was the minimum consistent with safety, that establishment being 11,214 officers and 301,363 non-commissioned officers and men. On October 1 last there were 98,306 men under twenty years of age. The ages are only recorded on the 1st of October of each year. It would be accurate to say that in the Territorial Army there would always be 100,000 boys under twenty years of age, some of whom are seventeen years old and many still younger. There are 53,600 men serving on a one-year engagement. These are men who transferred from the old Volunteer Force but would not accept the four year term of engagement, but being in a position to do so, preferred to dictate their own conditions of service to the Army Council. Last year 163,000 men attended camp for fifteen days and some for less periods, but 1,520 officers did not attend camp at all, and 21,980 men followed their example and stayed absent. Such is the state of the Territorial Army according to the Return in April which we have before us.
Now as to its duties. I ask the Government if they are satisfied that the Force, as at present constituted and in its present condition, can be relied upon to fulfil its rôle in time of war. The Force has now been in existence some four years, so
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possibly the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War will not tell me that my inquiry is premature and that it would be more discreet to "wait and see." We were informed in an Army Memorandum on the Military Forces of the United Kingdom, signed by the Secretary of State for War and dated February 27th, 1907, that—
"It, is an essential feature of the scheme that a period of embodiment for training after mobilisation will be necessary before the Territorial Force can be regarded as fit to meet a highly trained and organised enemy."
Exactly a year after—in February, 1908—the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War, in an able and exhaustive paper on the work of County Associations, defined the duties of the Territorial Army as follow—
"In the first place it accepts the whole responsibility for home defence, and in the second place, if there is need for expansion of the Forces in the field, it is asked to volunteer in companies or even in whole units for service at the front."
Both statements assume that a period of embodied training is necessary before the Territorial Army can become fit for service. But this essential feature, subsequently known as the six months of close time, appears to hold good now of the Territorial Artillery only. For field service at home the Territorial Artillery have no horses and no ammunition with their guns. No General Staff, when faced by the realities of war, would do anything so utterly futile as to waste time and labour in transporting ammunition to field guns which they knew and had known for years before would never have any horses. It is certain, therefore, that the Territorial Artillery cannot be mobilised to meet a raid which must be sudden and must be unexpected. When the raid arrives the rôle of the Territorial Artillery must be to remain at home and not block up the roads and railways—in short, to keep out of the way till peace is restored. It is now quite apparent that if the Territorial Artillery is to be of any real value on embodiment they would require now at once and continuously before mobilisation horses, stores for ammunition with their guns, ranges, and a more numerous Permanent Staff of Regular officers and non-commissioned officers. The horses are not, and the Regular officers and non-commissioned officers are not. The ranges are not, and the stores for ammunition with the guns are not. The fact is that nothing short of a large, an

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immediate, and a continuous expenditure of money can make the Territorial Artillery of any value for field service at home within any reasonable time from the date of first embodiment.
Three courses seem open to the Government: First, to recognise their experiment of Territorial Field Artillery as a failure and to abolish that branch of the Force; secondly, to embark upon a large expenditure of money with a view to making the Territorial Field Artillery efficient within a short time after mobilisation; thirdly, to leave the Territorial Artillery in its present state of inefficiency. Now as regards the last course, the one which will probably be followed, we must remember that Sir John French considers the use of the Territorial Artillery to be to supply drafts of men to the Regular Artillery during the progress of a campaign abroad—that and nothing more. But if this is the part, and a very useful one, which they are to play in time of war, then I think it should be explained to the men. It is the same old story of enlisting men for one service and then asking them, under circumstances when a refusal is impossible, to volunteer for another.
With the Infantry the essential feature of the six months close time was laid down by the Secretary of State in 1907. In November, 1908, it was definitely abandoned by the right hon. gentleman when he told us at Cambridge that—
"A swiftly moving central force, consisting of Regulars and Territorials in combination, is held in readiness to meet any invasion."
The noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War explained to us in the House last July that Territorial Infantry recruits of seventeen, who have never completed a trained soldier's course of musketry but have only once in their lives discharged twenty rounds of ball ammunition, would take their places in the firing line of Territorial battalions forming part of this swiftly moving central force designed by the Army Council to crush the raiders. The point of age is of some importance. As you are aware, twenty is the minimum age for field service abroad, but now we see that in event of active service at home the Army Council accept seventeen years and less as sufficient. I have the greatest respect for the opinion of the Army Council, but I do not believe that boys of seventeen, whose average weight is less than 130 lbs.,
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can carry a kit of 60 lbs. on service, It is contrary to common sense to say that they can, and there are 100,000 boys of less than twenty years of age in the Territorial Army. No Continental Power begins to train its recruits until they are twenty years old. It is certain that in no invading force will there be any men who are not well over twenty-two years of age.
As to the musketry efficiency of the Territorial Army, much useful information about this point is contained in the Return of April last. The musketry training of the men in the Territorial Army must largely depend upon the musketry efficiency of their officers. We have no information upon the musketry training of officers in the present Return, although I did ask for it in the first instance. The latest information is that in the Return of last July. There were then 674 officers who had never fired a recruit's course of musketry, and 1,805 officers who had fired the recruit's course but had not fired the trained soldier's course. That is to say, one quarter of the officers then serving were not trained in musketry. Perhaps the Under-Secretary of State for War could say whether he is satisfied with the progress made in the musketry training of the officers of the Territorial Army since last year. As regards men, full information is given in the April Return. The number of recruits who failed to qualify in musketry last year was 39,267. Let me add that the standard which must be attained by recruits before firing a trained soldier's course has recently been lowered. Up to April, 1910, a recruit had to obtain hits of a certain value. If he failed to do so, then he had to make a second visit to the range, and after discharging a certain number of rounds of ball ammunition, with every one of which he may miss the mark, he became thereby qualified to be returned as a Territorial soldier trained in musketry. But this meant a second visit to the range, and the man could not be got to the range a second time. So now by lowering the value of the hits necessary to be obtained, and making the lower standard retrospective, a lot of recruits who had failed to qualify when this Return was issued will in any future Returns be classed as trained soldiers, and that without necessitating a second visit to the range. In addition to recruits not qualified, there must be on the strength

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of every Force recently-joined recruits who have never fired at all. I presume these are included in the Returns in the number of 35,456 who are mentioned as "never having been tested." As regards trained men who have been tested, 25,570 have failed to qualify, which means that they refuse to make a second attendance on the range for the purpose of discharging the necessary number of rounds. As a result we find that, out of 269,000 men now serving, in round numbers 100,000 men have either failed to qualify in musketry or have not fired at all.
The trained Territorial soldier's course is twenty-three rounds a year, which can be easily fired in an hour. No man is of any fighting value with his rifle in the field unless he has some idea of judging distance. In the Territorial Army there is little if any judging distance practice. Men who have never been taught to notice the varying appearance of objects under different conditions of atmosphere, and townsmen to whom the features of the country are wholly unfamiliar and who do not know if an object is 200 or 400, 500 or 1,000 yards away, whose annual training on the range, and that not always carried out, is the discharge of twenty-three rounds of ball ammunition, are to meet and are expected by the Army Council to defeat the highly-trained rifle shots of a Continental Army. I do not for my own part believe that the trained Territorial soldier whose annual musketry course is one hour when he fires twenty-three rounds, and who is not taught to judge distance, would be of any more value as a marksman in the day of battle than the recruit who has once fired twenty rounds. Again, from my own experience, I am confident that the recruit who has once fired his twenty rounds is of no more value than a man who has never fired at all, and that is precisely the value of the mass of 169,000 so-called trained Territorial soldiers as riflemen in action at the present moment. It is just as reasonable to assume that a military Power would do anything so foolish as to take the risk and the trouble of landing an Infantry force in this country containing a big percentage of one-legged men as to assume that they will bring over a force containing many men whom they know to be useless as rifle shots. No wonder, then, that General Sir Henry Brackenbury, who has an intimate knowledge of our Army and of the
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Armies of the Continental Powers, and who, fortunately, is in a position to express an entirely independent opinion, wrote last January as follows—
"I do not doubt the spirit that actuates the officers and men of the Territorial Army, but I say, with Lord Roberts and Colonel Lonsdale Hale, that it is, through no fault of its own, utterly unfit for the task that would be imposed upon it, and I hold that it would be little short of murder to put those untrained men and inexperienced officers into the field against a skilled army."
We have been told in your Lordships' House before Easter that seven battalions did not fire this annual course of twenty-three rounds last year.
What, then, is it that has paralysed the Territorial Army in its musketry training? I read in the Regulations of the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act that—
"The Inspecting Officers are to forward for the final decision of the General Officer Commanding a statement saying if any part of a grant should be withheld on the score of non- efficiency in any unit."
This particular Regulation raises the point of how can untrained men and the untrained battalions mentioned by the Under-Secretary of State for War, who have not fired this year, be returned as efficient and so earn their grant, because if they do not get their grant by hook or by crook, it means the collapse of the seven battalions, and that is a serious matter for all concerned—I mean for the battalions and for the Staff and for the Inspecting Officer and for the authors of the scheme of the new model Army. The answer to this perplexing question seems to be that although you cannot return these battalions as efficient in musketry, yet you can return them as qualified. But qualified to do what? Well, qualified to earn the grant, of course. They are not wanted to be qualified to do anything else. The War Office letter dated April 14 substitutes "qualified" for "efficient," and as a despairing effort to twist the meaning of the King's English it is, I think, worthy of quotation. It runs as follows—
"The terms 'efficient' and 'qualified,' as applied to the Territorial Force, have recently been the subject of consideration. It is thought that the term 'efficient' is somewhat anomalous and misleading, and seeing that it is not used in its true sense in the Regulations for the Territorial Force, but is generally intended to convey the meaning of qualification for the purpose of earning financial grants, travelling expenses, ammunition, and other allowances, it has been decided to substitute for it the term 'qualified' in the new revise of these Regulations. The word 'efficient' will, therefore,

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where it occurs in the revised Territorial Force Regulations, only be interpreted in its true literal meaning. As, however, the term 'qualified' will be utilised for the purpose of earning grants and allowances it will be necessary to eliminate from Musketry Regulations, Part I, the term in so far as it applies to 'qualification' in the Standard Tests. So far as musketry is concerned, 'qualified' will, therefore, imply that the conditions for obtaining travelling allowance and for expenditure of ammunition have been complied with, while ' passed ' will mean the passing of the Standard Tests."
We are told that these seven battalions have missed going to the range through no fault of their own. The General Officers are satisfied that this complete omission of musketry training was not wilful, but due to circumstances over which they have no control; and so it comes to pass that these men are returned as qualified to draw their efficiency grant as though they were skilled marksmen and everyone will be pleased and contented, and the story will end happily for all concerned. But I am not quite sure if that will be the case. At least, if it is some of the Territorial battalions are a long-suffering lot. Because I read in The Times newspaper of April 12—
"Summons against Territorial soldiers. At Bromley (Kent) Petty Sessions yesterday a number of members of the Territorial Force were summoned for failing to fulfil the conditions of annual training in the 5th Battalion Royal West Kent Regiment. By failing to attend the prescribed drills, camp, and musketry practice the defendants had lost to the County Association the Government grant per man towards clothing of twenty-three shillings. These being the first summonses against the defendants, the Bench imposed only a fine equal to the amount of the grant lost by the Association."
Why are these men of Kent brought before the local authority and made to pay up 23 s. as inefficient, when the men of seven other Battalions are all excused and described as officially qualified to draw the grant though never having fired at all?
In connection with this point of drawing grants for efficiency, we see that there are 21,980 men who never attended camp, and that there are 25,570 men who failed to qualify in musketry. These are not separate headings; I mean that in the number of men who never attended camp are no doubt included some men who have not qualified in musketry, and vice versa. The question I ask is, How long do you mean to retain on the strength of the Territorial Army and return as efficient for the purposes of drawing grants, a man
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not qualified in musketry and a man who never attends camp, and men who fail to do both? These men would no doubt welcome discharge from the Territorial Force, but without having to pay the necessary £5 for their freedom. The County Association has the power to discharge such men under Paragraph 95 of the Territorial Force Regulations as "not likely to become an efficient soldier." But if you discharge them, either they get off scot free, or possibly by paying fines which in the aggregate are far less than the £5 necessary to purchase their discharge. If you retain them—and this seems to have been done pretty freely from the number at present in the Force—they certainly ought not to be considered as effectives. I suggest that they should be retained on the strength, because I do not see how they can be discharged and so allowed to escape paying the £5 penalty, but they should be shown as men not trained. They would always remain liable for embodied service, when they would, whether they liked it or not, be compelled to serve and train. In the days of the Volunteer Force, if a Volunteer did not fire he did not earn the Government grant. He was returned as non-efficient, and the total number of non-efficient Volunteers always appeared in the Army Annual Return, and there was an end of the matter.
We were told when the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act was passed that there would be an end of all old Volunteer shams. We were told also that a system of payment by results would be established, and that thus efficiency would be ensured. No General Officer Commanding would sanction the expenditure of sixpence of public money upon an untrained or inefficient unit. We were deeply impressed with the prospect of maintaining this rigid standard of efficiency, which has resulted in the Army Council expunging the word "efficient" from the revised Territorial Force Musketry Regulations. There was far less sham about the Volunteer musketry of the past than there is about that of the Territorial Army of to-day. Yet the Volunteers were more numerous than the Territorials, and the ranges were fewer. Why then were there no cases of whole battalions not firing a shot on the rifle range and requiring a special order to allow them to draw Government grants when they had not fired? The reason is not far to seek. Target practice on the range—that was,

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bullseye shooting—was a popular pastime with the Volunteers. It was the rifle range and rifle meetings which inspired the old Volunteer movement. It is the summer camp, now at some great training centre, now at some pleasant seaside resort, with its pay and its allowances and its pastimes, which appeals to the Territorial soldier. Distinguished persons, civil and military, visit these great summer camps and deliver soul-stirring orations; the Press chronicles the daily exploits of the Territorial Army on manœuvres, and so on and so forth. None of these distinguished persons, to whom we confide our national security, go to see the musketry practice of the Territorial Army, nor do they attach the least importance to it. When, however, the matter is forced upon their attention—and there was some discussion upon it in the House before Easter—they dispose of all difficulties by lowering the standard of recruit qualification, making that lower standard retrospective, and changing the term "efficient" for that of "qualified," measures which I quite see will make the next musketry return of the Territorial Army read very differently from the present one. In the next return there will be a sudden accession of efficiency, and that without inflicting live minutes more training on any member of the Force.
The fact that the musketry of the Territorial Force is in such an unsatisfactory condition, and the fact that rifle shooting under present service conditions on the range is so unpopular with the men that they simply will not do it—witness the thousands not trained—demands an inquiry into the whole subject. But as I am not hopeful of obtaining any searching and independent inquiry—and to an inquiry by Departmental Committee I attach no value—I make the following suggestion. It is this, that during this summer, instead of going to manœuvres, let as many Territorial battalions as possible be put through the musketry course of the Line under the supervision of the Musketry Staff of the Regular Army. The results of firing by the Territorial battalions of the Regular Army musketry course should be published in comparison with those of the Line. Then, but not till then, the country will know what kind of riflemen the mass of the Territorial Infantry really are as compared with trained soldiers, and it is against the very best of trained soldiers that the Territorial Infantry is to be matched, not against
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men with bows and arrows. The test I suggest is easy and simple, and it will reveal the truth. There is no mistake about that. Is it not better to learn the truth, however disagreeable, in time of peace, than have it taught to us in time of war? The annual musketry course of the Line takes twelve days, so that the fifteen days' camp of a Territorial battalion will be ample time for the purpose.
The second duty which must devolve upon the Territorial Army in time of war is that of prolonged embodied service when the Regular Army is abroad. The Territorial Force has, of course, inherited, and to a great extent carries on, the traditions of the Volunteers. Now there was no tradition in the Volunteer Force of permanent service. It was a form of service the Volunteers had never contemplated, and consequently had never undertaken to render. The dominant idea of the Volunteer Force lad always been a sudden call to arms, followed at once by a brief and thrilling campaign concluded in a few weeks, during which all civil business in the country would have given way to military considerations. That is a very different form of service from a year or so of dull garrison duty, causing prolonged absence from home, and entailing great loss of employment and private means. We know that the Volunteers, when asked during the South African war, could not give even two months of consecutive service on account of their civilian employments. As far as I can ascertain from members of the Territorial Force with whom I have discussed the point, they look on embodied service as just as impossible now, alike for officers and men, in the Territorial Army as it was for the Volunteers. Before the passing of the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act it was open to the Government, with the sanction of Parliament, to call out the Army Reserve in the first place, to embody the Militia in the second place, and then to consider what should be done in reference to the third line, the Volunteers. Now by the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act the moment the whole of the Regular Reserve are called out the Territorial Army is automatically embodied. This will be a great hindrance in the future to calling out the Regular Reserve owing to the apprehension throughout the country of dislocation of business entailed by embodying the Territorial Army. If the Territorial

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Army had been in the past as they now are, our only second line, they would have been embodied five times in the last fifty-five years, and on not one of these occasions was there any question of attack upon our shores by a naval Power. It is not a question of what the Army Council think that the Territorial Army ought to do, but what the Territorial Force honestly consider they can undertake to do. It is certain that inability on the part of our second line to give permanent service means the breakdown of the whole of the new military machine. The Regular Army would be confined indefinitely to home defence, and all power of offensive action overseas lost. I therefore ask the Under-Secretary of State for War if he can give us any information upon this point, the ability of the Territorial Army to render embodied service, which I presume has been discussed by the Army Council with members of the Territorial Force.
The third duty expected from the Territorial Army will be to find drafts for foreign service, and that they should do so is no new suggestion. As long ago as July, 1906, the Secretary of State for War said—
"Some of them (the Volunteers or Territorial Army) would have to form that big national reserve out of which an army must be fed and expanded when the great emergencies come in a national crisis."
The Inspector-General of the Forces, Sir John French, has told us—
"The second line has to meet the waste of war, and to furnish reinforcements after the war has gone on for some time."
This year definite effect has been given to this policy by the creation of a Reserve, and by asking officers and men of the Territorial Army to accept the liability for foreign service on mobilisation, and to be distinguished from their comrades by wearing a metal badge. The number who have accepted the liability, according to the statement of the Secretary of State for War on April 16, is 624 officers and 9,721 men. We have been informed by the Secretary of State for War that men from a Territorial Force Reserve would fill the places of those going abroad in drafts to the Regular Army. We were told a year ago by the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War, that a Reserve for the Territorial Army was in process of formation. On May 23 last an Army Memorandum appeared containing
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provisional regulations for that newest and latest branch of our Forces. The establishment is to be 100,000. The Memorandum divides this new Reserve into three branches—the Territorial Force Reserve, the Technical Reserve, and the Veteran Reserve. They are the most recent hatch of new forces by the Army Council. The Memorandum proceeds to define the attitude of the Army Council towards cadet corps and rifle clubs.
When the Government decided, for various reasons, not to allow any expenditure of public money upon cadet corps and not to allow them to form any part of the Territorial Army scheme, they, in my humble opinion, knocked the bottom out of the whole of their plan for a national Army. They now assume a benevolent attitude towards cadet corps, but one strictly limited to the expression of good wishes and without any prospect of provision of that financial assistance which is so essential. They regard rifle clubs with some suspicion as likely to be prejudicial to the interest of the Territorial Army—that is, I presume, to interfere with recruiting for that Force. No doubt men who like rifle shooting as a pastime will join rifle clubs in preference to the Territorial Army. There is a third body of a non-military character which has just made its appearance, and which appeals, I venture to think, most deservedly to the generosity of the public—namely, the boy scouts. His Majesty's Government can hardly expect in the present circumstances that persons supporting financially rifle clubs, cadet corps, and boy scouts, will in addition pour money into the laps of the County Associations for the Territorial Army.
The Territorial soldier on passing to the Territorial Force Reserve never need do any more military training of any sort or kind during his period of Reserve service which is limited to four years. He may, however, if he thinks a change of scene will do him good, attend a pleasant seaside camp and draw full pay and allowances and enjoy the advantages of sea bathing. If the weather is not favourable for that pastime, or if he gets bored or dislikes his commanding officer in camp, he is free to go home at any moment he wishes. He must be recommended by his commanding officer for transfer to the Reserve, and he must have had four years service. There

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is no qualification as regards musketry. The reason can easily be seen. I have described with considerable detail the standard of efficiency in musketry training required by the Army Council from the men serving with the colours in the Territorial Army. Now as that standard for the purpose of a firing line in action opposed to the men of a Regular Army may be correctly represented by zero, the men in the Territorial Reserve are not likely to fall far behind it, and consequently need not be trained at all. The Army Council recognise this point, because they do not allow the men of the Territorial Force Reserve to have any rifles of their own. They share rifles with the men serving with the colours—an admirable arrangement in time of peace, but a little inconvenient when the men in the foreign service section, whose places the Reservists are to fill, go abroad and take their rifles with them. I suppose that the Territorial Reservist will then find some gun of his own. We know that in the mounted branches an essential feature of the mobilisation of the Territorial Army is that several men are to ride one horse, I presume in turns. The Army Council extend this principle to the Infantry, and we now come to several men shooting with one rifle in turns.
It was inevitable from the moment the Militia was abolished and the Territorial Army put in its place that these questions of embodied service, of foreign service, and of supplying drafts to the Regular Army overseas should arise. They were very clearly foreshadowed by the Secretary of State for War, and cannot come as a surprise to the Territorial Force. The Government consider their new reorganisation on two lines an unqualified success. If it is so, then they must mean to use the Territorial Army for the duties I have mentioned. Well, if they mean this, why not tell us that this is their intention? It will be interesting to see what the Territorial Army thinks of such an announcement. I beg to ask the Questions standing in my name.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD LUCAS): My Lords, I am sure we on our side cannot complain of any lack of interest in the progress of the Territorial Force, especially on the part of the noble Duke. Perhaps he will allow me to say that his interest is somewhat
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spasmodic, because a large part of his speech was devoted to asking the same questions and dealing with the very topics which we discussed, and, I venture to say, answered in a debate which took place in this House only a couple of months ago, dealing with the whole question of musketry. My complaint against the noble Duke, so far as I have any complaint at all, is that he displays a certain amount of impatience, and is too fond of pulling up the plant by the roots to see how it is growing. I think, perhaps, in his impatience he has lost count of time. He says that the Territorial Force has been in existence four years, but I would remind him that it has only been in existence just over two-years; and when he proceeds to make deductions from the state of the Force last October and from the figures we have supplied with regard to last October, and to deduce that that is going to be the normal condition of the Territorial Force on such points as the age of the men, and so on, he is forgetting that the Force was in those days only eighteen months old. It is quite true that last October there were, out of a total strength of 260,000 odd men, 98,000 under twenty years of age; but considering that during the eighteen months the Territorial Force had been in existence no fewer than 172,000 recruits had joined—that is to say, 172,000 out of a total of 260,000 were men who had joined since April 1, 1908—it is not surprising that you should find that 98,000 were under twenty years of age.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: Were those all men who had not served in the Volunteers before?
LORD LUCAS: The great majority of them were men who had not served, but there was a certain number who left the Volunteer Force at the time of transition, when the Volunteers ceased to exist, and who subsequently joined the Territorial Force. It was not a large number, and the greater part of the 172,000 men referred to were recruits in the fullest sense of the term. Therefore it is, of course, perfectly obvious, when you come to consider that the minimum period for which a man can join the Territorial Force is four years, and that we have every reason to suppose that the average period of service will be more like five years—any way it will be well over four years—that it is impossible to deduce with any correctness that the

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number of men under twenty years of age last October is likely to be any criterion of what the number will be when the Force reaches the normal.
Then the noble Duke raised the question of the mobilisation of the Artillery. He referred to the fact that we lay it down that when a Reservist goes to camp to take the place of a man in the Territorial Force he should take that man's rifle and equipment, and he cited the fact that there are, as we know, under ordinary training conditions a considerable number of horses that are used by more than one Territorial unit. But I should be insulting the noble Duke's knowledge and intelligence if I thought that he really deduced anything serious from that. If he had done us the honour to read the scheme which we have sent out to County Associations dealing with the method by which we propose to supply horses on mobilisation, he would have seen that it is not right to say that the Artillery will be without horses when mobilised. The fact that under ordinary training conditions each Yeomanry regiment may not have its own horses actually earmarked does not mean that they will not have horses provided for them on mobilisation; and in the matter of rifles a very large reserve is kept which will far more than suffice for equipping Territorial Reservists and all the troops we shall mobilise.
I now come to the question of musketry, which was, I think, one of the principal points the noble Duke raised. That is the question which we discussed very fully on the last occasion. I think had the noble Duke been here then he would not have said what he did, that all that a trained man has to do is to fire twenty-three rounds of ammunition on a range. It is quite true that the actual course by which a man qualifies is twenty-three rounds at an open range, but to give the impression that all he has to do is to fire twenty-three rounds on an open range is erroneous. We issue for each man ninety rounds, and we lay down a course in which he has to fire twenty-three rounds—a course which is in its actual conditions at least as stiff, or stiffer, than the average course which is fired by the Regular soldier of many of the big European armies.
THE DUKE OF BEDFORD: Does the noble Lord mean by open range a full
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distance range of 1,000 yards or a range of 30 yards?
LORD LUCAS: A full distance range up to 500 yards.
THE DUKE OF BEDFORD: But does not the term "open range" include a range of 30 yards?
LORD LUCAS: If it does, I am sorry. I meant a full length range. As I say, this is an extremely stiff test. It is a great deal stiffer than the test that had to be passed in the old Volunteers, and a man who can pass it satisfactorily is at least as good a shot as the average European Regular soldier. If a man is a good shot and he goes straight down to the range and fires his twenty-three rounds and passes, he is up to the standard that we require for the Territorial Force. If he does not, he has not only the rest of the ninety rounds to fire, but he is able under this system, which is economic and elastic, to be further trained with the rounds that are saved out of the ninety issued for those men who are able to pass their course straight away. I hope I make that clear. The result is that already, although this course has only been in existence for one year, our reports go to show that the general standard is improving. The noble Duke talked about the musketry of the Territorial Force being in a state of paralysis. I can assure him that it is nothing of the kind. It is in a very vigorous state. It is in a much more vigorous state than it ever was in the Volunteers, and our great difficulty is, not to waken it out of a state of paralysis, but to find it scope for its energies in the matter of ranges.
This range question has been a great difficulty. It was the lack of range facilities that accounted for the very large number of 35,000 men who were not tested, and it also undoubtedly accounted for the very large number of 39,000 recruits and 25,000 trained men who failed to qualify. With the present course the average man who does not fire straight away has to attend more often at the range than he did before. The ranges, therefore, are more used, there is more congestion on them, and that is the chief reason why this considerable number was not tested, and why there was also a considerable number who failed. We do everything we possibly can in the matter of providing

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ranges. There were seven battalions, as I think I told the House on the last occasion, who could not get on an open range at all last year. We hope to have full length ranges for at any rate five of them this year, and in order to relieve the congestion we are providing a large number of additional ranges. We are spending over £30,000 on a range near Birmingham, and another in Northumberland. We are spending over £20,000 on one in Lancashire, and over £11,000 on one in the West Riding, whilst at Purfleet, in Essex, we hope this year to open what will probably be one of the biggest ranges in this country—a range which has cost us a quarter of a million. Besides that we have sanctioned, I think I may says dozens, of what the noble Duke calls open ranges—that is to say, short ranges on which you can use the Service rifle and Service ammunition—and in the case of every drill-hall that we are sanctioning now, and we are sanctioning a very large number, we are adding a certain amount of money to enable miniature ranges to be erected in them, so that we are making great steps in the provision of range accommodation for the Territorial Force. This year, also, General Officers Commanding, warned by what happened last year, have taken steps to start the musketry earlier in the season. I have every reason to hope that we shall have a more satisfactory musketry report this year than we had last year. There is no question that far more attention is being paid to musketry, that the standard of musketry is rising rapidly, and will, we are convinced, continue to rise in the Territorial Force. I am sure that if the noble Duke knew all the facts he would admit that musketry is one of the matters in connection with which great progress has been made. As to range finding, the whole question of range finding, of judging distance, of visual training, and all that, is difficult and complicated, but we are dealing with it by getting as many Territorial officers as we can to attend the course at Hythe, and by starting local musketry classes for them, in order that they may be able to instruct their men. That is the position with regard to musketry.
I now come to the three Questions which the noble Duke asks. With regard to the first of those Questions, as far as I know we have never said, and never implied, that we regarded the Territorial Force as
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anything but Second Line troops—that is to say, troops who require a further period of embodiment before they can be considered fit for field operations on active service. It is quite true that in the event of general mobilisation they would be at once embodied and would proceed to their war stations. But if we found ourselves at war under conditions which rendered us liable to invasion of any considerable scale on the outbreak of hostilities, the duty of repelling it would at once be shared by part of the Regular Army and by the Special Reservists as well as by the Territorials. I think that makes our position perfectly plain with regard to that.
I am afraid we are not inclined to agree with the suggestion in the noble Duke's second Question. It is true that there are a few battalions which, owing, again, to the lack of range accommodation, will do their ordinary Territorial musketry course during the camp. We do not lay ourselves out in training Second Lino troops to train them in any one particular branch up to the standard of Regular troops, but we give them a certain amount of training to bring them up to a certain standard in each particular branch. Therefore we do not see the point of putting them through the kind of thorough musketry course which a Line Battalion would require. The object of the camp we consider is to enable the force to practice those field exercises for companies, battalions, brigades, and so on, which they have to learn, and we have no reason to suppose that as soon as sufficient range facilities exist the requisite standard of musketry efficiency cannot be reached during the non-camping period.
As to the third Question, I confess I do not understand the noble Duke's point. There is a legal liability on every man of the Territorial Force to come out and be embodied at the time of general mobilisation, and he is bound by that legal liability to remain out as long as he is required. He voluntarily undertakes that liability, and we have no reason whatever to suppose that he is not perfectly prepared to carry it out. Though it is true that when a general mobilisation of the Regular Army and its Reserves is ordered the Territorial Force is automatically embodied, it is not necessary to call it up. It may be embodied and not called up. I am not expressing

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myself technically, but the embodiment may lie dormant, if that makes it plainer. Either that can be done or the Government can, if it likes, after the embodiment has taken place and after the Territorial Force has been called up, dismiss the men to their homes. The embodiment would still remain in force, and they could be called up again the moment they were wanted. In those circumstances it is difficult to lay down exactly what would or would not happen, but it seems to me that the Government of the day, possessing these powers, might call up the Territorial Force for its period of training on embodiment in order to bring it up to the requisite standard of efficiency. One would imagine, however, that if there was no need of the services of these men after that, the Government would hardly keep them called up, and if invasion was out of the question they would be permitted to return to their homes. When the Act was drawn up the framers had that object in view, so as to enable the Government of the day only to have the Force actually called up when it was required for the safety of the country. I am quite convinced of this, that when it is a question of the safety of the country there is not one single Territorial who will grudge being called up for a period of prolonged training in order to secure that safety.
THE EARL OF DARTMOUTH: My Lords, I do not wish to prolong this debate at any length, but there are one or two points to which I should like to refer. The noble Duke, in dealing with the question of musketry—and I own that as a Territorial myself I think he did well in calling attention to the matter—very naturally pressed the point as to the alteration which has taken place between qualification and efficiency. The noble Lord the Under-Secretary has explained very clearly that owing to the shortage of range accommodation a few entire units and a great many men generally have been unable to fire the necessary number of rounds. Obviously that is no fault of their own, and if the grant to which they would be entitled if they had fired the requisite number of shots, which they were perfectly ready to do, was withdrawn from the County Association, it would place County Associations in a very difficult position indeed. Therefore, speaking as a member of a County Association, I think the Army Council were well advised
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in making that distinction. At the same time we all fully realise that a man who has not fired the proper number of shots is not efficient as a defender of our coasts, and when the proper range accommodation is provided it will be the duty of those who are responsible for the musketry to see that the members of the Territorial Force make themselves efficient in that direction.
The noble Duke referred to the fact that four or five members of a West Kent Regiment were fined because they had not made themselves efficient. Obviously the difference between those members of the Territorial Force and the others to whom reference has been made is that the four or five West Kent men wilfully abstained from performing the duty they had undertaken, at least so I imagine. It is most important that there should be sufficient range accommodation for the whole of the Territorial Force. My noble friend Lord Midleton asked a question as to the proportion of real recruits as distinct from those who had re-engaged from the Volunteers. I have not got the whole of the figures before me, but at the annual training in the year before last, in the case of practically a new battalion with which I am acquainted and which was in camp up to almost its full strength—namely, ninety-nine per cent.—600 of the men were actually recruits as distinct from those who had re-engaged from the Volunteers.
LORD LUCAS: Perhaps I misunderstood the noble Viscount's Question. The noble Earl who is now speaking is referring to the number of men who transferred from the Volunteers to the Territorials and the proportion they bear to the new recruits. I understood, when I said that there were very few, that the noble Viscount was asking what number of men had left the Volunteer Force when it came to an end and had subsequently changed their mind and enlisted in the Territorial Army.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My desire was to know how many of the 172,000 men had been Volunteers, whether they had left the Volunteers or not, and how many were new recruits.
LORD LUCAS: Then I was right.
THE EARL OF DARTMOUTH: I think I was right too. If not, I have answered

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a question which was not asked. Then the noble Duke referred to distinguished persons visiting camps. I should like to say a word on that. The camps of the Territorials have been visited on more than one occasion by distinguished foreigners, and their comments were generally most satisfactory to the Force. I wish that more distinguished persons would visit the camps and see the Territorials at work, because, from my own experience of what they can do, I can assure those who are inclined to cry down the annual training of the Territorials that the work the men are called upon to do in camp is of a very searching character indeed. I have seen battalion after battalion taking its turn to go out night after night on the Welsh hills, sleeping out with nothing but their blanket, and cooking their own rations exactly as they would do on war service. It is a little hard on the Territorials that there should be such a desire on the part of some people to throw ridicule upon them. A visit to the training camps and an experience of the energy with which the men throw themselves into their work would effectively remove erroneous opinions of the Force.
The noble Lord the Under-Secretary referred to the course at Hythe. That is one of the great difficulties with regard to Territorial officers, and I know many cases where officers and non-commissioned officers have at considerable expense and trouble become attached to Regular batteries—I am speaking more particularly of the Artillery—in order to make themselves as efficient as possible in the work they have to do. It is not a satisfactory system, because the Regular batteries have their own work to do; they are themselves very often short of horses and naturally do not want to have a lot of untrained officers and men learning the work at their expense. I think that the Army Council should carefully consider the best means of giving opportunity of training to the various officers in the Territorial Force, especially those in the more technical arms.
The only other point to which I would refer is the question of mobilisation. That, again, is a matter of considerable moment, because we are always being threatened with surprise mobilisations, which, fortunately for the country, have not yet taken place. I ventured some months ago—I think it was early in
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January—to write to the War Office on certain points with regard to mobilisation to find out, as far as I could, what part of the mobilisation requirements would have to be provided by the County Associations, and what part would be provided by the military authorities. No doubt those questions—there were a good many of them—were of rather a technical character, and having had an acknowledgment that the matter would be considered I ventured to write again a few weeks ago, and received a reply that the matter was still being considered. I should like to suggest that it is very important to members of County Associations to know exactly what they will have themselves to provide in case of mobilisation.
LORD SEMPILL: My Lords, the noble Lord the Under-Secretary has assumed that the noble Duke might feel quite at ease as regards the question of the supply of horses on mobilisation. He assumes this on the Circular Memorandum issued by the Army Council, but my recollection is that the County Associations were asked to express their opinion as to the workability of the scheme. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether the replies received from the County Associations were satisfactory. I know that the reply of the Association with which I have to deal was that they did not find the scheme at all workable. It is impossible to carry all these memoranda in one's head, but one of the provisions, I recollect, was that there were to be so many collectors appointed, and that these gentlemen were not to get any remuneration until mobilisation actually took place, when they were to receive three guineas a day. I think it will be admitted that it is a very thankless task to perform this duly and keep the record of horses available up to date, but to wait until mobilisation before receiving any remuneration.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, I do not propose to carry on this discussion this evening, because I understand the noble Earl, Lord Dartmouth, has given notice of a Motion to call attention to the whole position of the Territorial Force. I think your Lordships will be invited to discuss that very shortly. But I should be sorry if from any remarks which fell from Lord Dartmouth it was supposed that there was any desire on this side of the House to detract from the position and training of the Territorial Force. I do not think that

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that is in the slightest degree the idea with which the noble Duke put his Questions on the Paper. Those who know the noble Duke's mind, as your Lordships do from the numerous interesting speeches he has delivered at different times, are aware that he resents as a national misfortune the abolition of the Force which stood between the Volunteers and the Regular Army, and which could be called upon first for a much longer period of training than the Territorial Army is to receive; and I think that on many occasions the noble Duke has given your Lordships reasons for considerable uneasiness as to the change which has taken place—an uneasiness which I must confess, for my own part, is not dispelled by a perusal of the Parliamentary Return to which allusion is made in the noble Duke's Questions.
The noble Lord opposite spoke of the Territorial Army as not being intended to be anything but a Second Line Force. That we quite understand; but events would probably place them in the first line of defence within a very few days on the question of invasion. When we look at this Return and see that eighteen Special Reserve regiments which have at this moment 383 officers are deficient of 373 officers, or fifty per cent., and that the rest of the Special Reserve battalions have a deficit of 970, or thirty-three per cent., I think we must admit that there is some occasion for anxiety as to the military value of the Special Reserve on which we must rely unless we are to put the Territorial Force immediately in the front line. There is not the slightest intention to minimise the admirable character of the Territorial Force, or to deny that their military value is greater than that of the old Volunteers, their organisation having been gradually improved. When the inability of the
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men to attend camp, the insufficiency of the ranges, and the shortage of horses are referred to, these criticisms are intended to show that the Force, having regard to its condition of service, is unable to attain the standard of efficiency desired. For that reason I am glad that the noble Earl has placed a Motion on the Paper to call attention to the present condition of the Territorial Force.
I have risen only for the purpose of asking the noble Lord the Under-Secretary whether, having given us this very important Paper, he would be prepared to supplement the information by giving us a Return which would show the cost of the Volunteers and Yeomanry under the old conditions in any year not touched by the South African War as compared with the cost of the Territorial Army in the year 1909. I think that information will be of great advantage to us when we come to discuss the question. There is a good deal of misapprehension as to the generosity, so to speak, of the Government in regard to the Territorial Force—a misapprehension which it is most important to clear up. The real point in most minds is this: if the Force is to stand where it is it must be made efficient, and if it cannot be made efficient on the present terms we must consider whether Parliament can be induced to grant better terms. At any rate, the public ought to know whether they are now getting better value for their money than under the old conditions.
LORD LUCAS: I think I can say straight away that we shall be very glad to give those figures.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before Seven o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter before Eleven o'clock.