LORD STRABOLGI'S MAGAZINE ARTICLE.

HL Deb 01 October 1942 vol 124 cc461-511

LORD LOVAT had given Notice that he would ask His Majesty's Government, whether the censor passed for publication an article purporting to be by the Lord Strabolgi and entitled "What's wrong with the British Army?" which is stated to have been cabled from London and appears in Collier's magazine dated 22nd August, 1942; and also move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have raised this question because I feel that a blow has been dealt in the United States against the faith that they may possess in our Generals and in our competence as a fighting race. The article entitled "What's wrong with the British Army?" is not of itself of vast importance, and I add to what publicity it has already received only because I regard it as a point of view expressed at home and abroad far too frequently to-day. The publication is a random and ill-reasoned piece of journalism. Nobody can call it constructive. It is an article which is confused. I venture to say that it is perhaps best described by picturing the noble Lord who wrote it mounted on a variety of political hobby horses careering, "a Knight or Peer errant his pen between his teeth across a full page of Collier's magazine."

Still, from the confusion there emerge two objectionable facts, the first of style, the second of matter. The first of style. It is this. The article is over-burdened with sentences which lend themselves to be quoted out of their context and used with little or no distortion as British-made ammunition for the enemy's propaganda guns. I will quote an example: The British Army has only chronicled a dismal record of failures. Its leaders are brave, public-spirited men, but they have not grasped either the technique or the nature of the present war. Brought up in the Imperialist school, out of touch with the common current of popular feeling and opinion, they have been quite incapable either in Whitehall or on the battle front of understanding a modern totalitarian war. Surely the noble Lord was aware when he penned these resounding phrases of the danger which they would cause at the other end. Surely the Censorship, versed one hopes in the art of propaganda, realized the danger when this offensive literature—I cannot call it more than that—was cabled across the Atlantic Ocean.

The article says that "the British Army … has not shown up well in this war." If the Daily Worker had published similar remarks they would have caused a sensation in this country. Published in the name of the noble Lord, who is both a Peer and a recent Lieut.-Commander in the Royal Navy, they have been taken more or else as accepted facts. I should just like to read an extract from a speech made by the Minister of Information as recently as March 26, 1942, in the House of Commons. Speaking of the Censorship he said: The rules, I regret to say, proved not altogether adequate for the protection of certain essential interests of this country abroad, where on several occasions the true position here has been gravely misrepresented, and stories emanating from London have been published which could only foment ill-feeling between ourselves and our Allies or neutral countries. In future censors will be empowered to exercise a stricter control with a view to stopping any Press message calculated to create ill-feeling between the United Nations.… I think that that extract from a recent speech more or less speaks for itself. I can only suggest that the Minister of Information is either wasting his time or else he is sadly out of contact with public feeling on the question of the Censorship in this country to-day. Bloomsbury seems to be drawing rapidly nearer to Fleet Street.

More serious is the matter and manner of attack made by the noble Lord on our military leadership. What is the essence of this attack? Stripped of political adornment, it is more or less this—our military defeats are due to lack of faith in our Generals; there is no faith in our Generals because they are bad Generals, and they are bad Generals because they are professional soldiers. Bunkum! Apprenticeship in a technical trade then appears to be a waste of time. Tell that to the A.E.U. Lord Strabolgi alleges that our professional soldiers are drawn from a clique, from what he terms a clique of British Junkers, from a class within a class. I quote again: To-day there is in the British Army no officer above the rank of Brigadier commanding any sort of fighting formation who is not a member of the small professional Officers' Corps of the pre-war Regular Army. More democratic in the eyes of the writer is the German method of promotion of von Brauchwitsch, von Kleist, von Runstedt, von Manstein, von Bock, von Leeb and von Keitel. Of all the vons and Freiherrs of the German General Staff there is not a mention. Why?

Yet Field-Marshal Erwin Rommel has been produced by the noble Lord as a white rabbit is produced by a conjuror out of his pocket, to confuse the issue. Clearly the noble Lord has not taken sufficient trouble to check up his facts about Field-Marshal Rommel. When I speak to the House I take the trouble to go fairly carefully into details beforehand. It is my duty as a soldier, even in a junior capacity, to know something about my opponent and I have taken the trouble to find out that the suggestion made by Lord Strabolgi about Rommel being a type of man who would never have got on in a British regiment, a man who would have quarrelled with his sergeants and junior officers, is altogether false. I should like to ask my noble friend why he says that Rommel is an aggressive type of man who would have remained a corporal or a sergeant in the British Army? I venture to suggest that I have had more recent contacts than the noble Lord with the German Forces, and I can assure him that their discipline is every bit as good as ours. As soon as that dicipline goes, the German Army will go just in the same way as the French collapsed because of no discipline.

I should like to tell the House some more facts about Field-Marshal Rommel. Rommel's father was an officer. That is something that is not generally known. His father, it is true, subsequently became a schoolmaser, but after the outbreak of the last war he returned to the German Army and commanded a fairly considerable depot during the whole of the war. These facts have been carefully left out in this argument. Rommel himself is now said to be the most successful professional soldier in the German Army. He joined it at the age of eighteen in 1910, served through the last war as a subaltern, and was not promoted to the rank of Captain until after the war in 1918. From then on he has continued to succeed, working his way slowly through the arduous process that eventually brings a man to the top and makes him a Field-Marshal. He has now thirty-two years of uninterrupted service in the German Army behind him. Reading Collier's magazine one would assume that after a whiff of grapeshot he was given a baton. That is very far from being the case. I should like to ram that point home.

Perhaps, by "democratic Army," the noble Lord means a political Army. What else does he mean? I suggest that he changes his tune or his conclusions will be regarded as a prelude to class warfare. I should like him to come down one day and make sense out of some of his views to my Commandos. I have the honour to command men representing 58 British regiments. They are men in whom there is simple faith—they have no politics. Theirs is the faith which made our forebears feared and respected on every foreign battlefield on which they fought. If any tub-thumping politician came round to these men to raise any question about their leaders there would be only one answer—the nearest horse trough. But if the prickings of this free-lance are more irritating than dangerous, the sentiment which inspired them is not. It is the sentiment of an irresponsible politician making cheap capital out of men in His Majesty's Forces who are unable, except through an unworthy mouthpiece like myself, to make suitable reply. It is the mocking of men who have given their lives for their country. It is the ridiculing of His Majesty's Forces for lack of experience, when that experience, and, I may add, arms and equipment also, were denied them by the parsimony of peace-time Governments—Governments which said: "Peace at any price." It is an inexcusable attempt to mix politics with soldiering. This is a free country, my Lords. If Lord Strabolgi wishes to slander the British Army he may do so here in safety, but to send his defamations across the Atlantic Ocean and have them circulated through the length and breadth of the United States is an unworthy act that has brought upon him the contempt of his fellow-countrymen. I beg to move for Papers.

LORD WEDGWOOD

My Lords, the great Lord Chesterfield once remarked that exceptional merit was displayed by those who supported their friends—when they were in the wrong. On this occasion I cannot claim that vicarious merit, for I believe Lord Strabolgi to be thoroughly justified both in gross and in detail. The detail I shall leave to him. I have read his article, and it does not seem to me to be at all unsuitable criticism at the present time. But in gross this whole debate raises two very important questions. The first is whether criticism of public servants or of the Government serves a useful purpose in war-time; the second is whether we should treat America as being as ourselves or as being a separate country. I shall deal with that latter point first.

I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, would have brought this question up had this article been published in an English paper; yet those of us who realize that this is a completely united struggle on the part of England and America against the forces of evil, know that sooner or later we shall have to treat the Americans with perfect frankness, and that they must treat us in the same way, if we are to hold together through these years of war and to live together in the years which follow. It is remarkable that during this last year we have had from the public men of America more resounding moral inspiration than we have had from our own statesmen. With the exception of our Prime Minister and, the other day, of the Primate of the English Church, we have had nothing from public men in this country to compare with what has come from Americans like Mr. Cordell Hull, Mr. Harold Ickes, Mr. Winant, President Roosevelt himself, and the Vice-President, Mr. Henry Wallace. One of Mr. Henry Wallace's speeches which struck me most was made about three months ago, and in it he said that this was a war between a slave world and a free world. My first contention is that all of us who are fighting for a free world are one and undivided in sentiment, and that the more we treat each other completely as comrades in arms the better it will be for our mutual relations. I will say quite frankly that there is nothing published in this country that I would not see also published in America, and vice versa. It is perfectly true that there are some things said in this country which would annoy the Americans. There are many things said in this country which annoy Scotsmen, and many things said by Scotsmen which annoy Englishmen; but we should not dream of preventing those things being said, knowing perfectly well that it is only by real intimacy of that sort that common aims and common ends can be achieved.

I think that the same applies also to Russia. Our admiration for Russia is a thing of recent growth, but is extremely strong, and I think that there is everything to be said for that admiration. I only wish that the Russian admiration for us was equally great, and I hope that it will be. It will become so much more readily if we do not try to conceal anything from the Russians, and if we do not try to prevent anything that the Rusisans say about us which may seem unpleasant from being heard and read in this country. Confidence is the keynote to that union which alone can secure victory.

I now come to the other question the question of whether criticism of public servants and of the Government is useful in war-time. I take it that the noble Lord who brought this question up will agree that public criticism of the Government is useful in war-time, as long as it is constructive and not simply destructive criticism. I think that we must extend that to civil servants and to the Fighting Services also. After all, the essence of Parliament, the raison d'être of Parliament, is the criticism of the public services, the redress of grievances, but the grievances not of ourselves, and in our case not even of our constituents, but of the rank and file of the country, as well as of the Army. That is our business. Parliament is not a machine for making laws; that is true of Congress in the United States, but not of us. We are a machine for stopping the Government from making laws, and I wish we did it more thoroughly! At any rate, we can prevent the Government exercising their powers to the detriment of the country's liberties and of the country's chances in war.

This question of criticism is of enormous importance. The noble Lord, looking at this criticism, says "You are criticizing the Generals." Yes, but we must not consider the feelings of the Generals; the whole question is whether criticism does good to our war effort. I think there is no doubt that the criticism which we have had during the last three years in this country has done an enormous amount to improve the efficiency of our fighting machine. As for the Departments of State, such as the Home Office, and even the Ministry of Information, nothing has been so useful as the criticism which they have received in both Houses of Parliament, and I only wish that they had had more. The noble Lord would not object to that criticism. Must we pick out the Fighting Services and say that they are above criticism? I do not think so; I think that it would be fatal to do so.

To take one small matter which comes to my mind, let us take the case of those idiotic blockhouses which were put up with portholes that a man could put his head through and with many of the portholes facing walls—convenient only to the enemy. Those things were criticized, and they have been abolished. I do not know how many thousands of them were put up, but substitutes have been provided for them or they have been camouflaged. That is a small matter. The criticism of the rank and file as voiced in the House of Commons has been of great importance—the criticism after Dunkirk, for example. All that has been useful. Criticism of the Generals, however, has not been made public. I quite agree with the noble Lord that criticism of our General Officers had better be made by the Government than by private members, but I think that it should have been made long ago. I am thinking of one particular feature which we all have at the back of our minds, the surrenders which were not what we should have expected of the British Army.

I had the good fortune to fight in that picnic which we call the Boer War. It was made disgraceful by surrender! You just handed over your rifle or your boots before they packed you off home with a packet of Quaker oats and said to you "Come and see us again soon." That went on for two and a half years. There was no public censure of it. On the other hand there was a train captured north of Bloemfontein by General de Wet, and there was on board a Captain of the Guards, Captain Vandaleur, who thought that to hold up his hands and take off his boots was conduct not consonant with the honour of a captain of His Majesty's Guards, and he was straightway shot. That of course, if the Government had been properly criticized, would have been stated in the Orders of the Day and the man would have received a posthumous V.C. Nothing was said about it because it was felt that it might look like a reflection on other people who had surrendered. General Tucker, meeting a subaltern of one of our regiments in the Bloemfontein Club, said to him, "Been hoisting the bloody national flag again, have you? Get out!" Of course, that went round in that little coterie—you cannot help that. But in this war if the Government had let it be known after La Falaise that for a General to surrender his Army was a disgraceful thing we should not have had the surrenders at Hong Kong and Tobruk and Singapore. It all depends upon whether people understand what is expected of them. There was the crew of the "Rawalpindi," knowing what must happen to them, charging the enemy and going to the bottom. No captain of a British ship would ever dream of striking his flag.

In the last war, if your Lordships will forgive me for being personal, I had command of two armoured cars and was in the Naval service. We were advised by the Admiralty to give our armoured cars names and to carry the Union Jack—an excellent thing. I wish the modern tanks were treated in the same way. You get a sort of devotion to a car with a name; you cannot surrender, you cannot strike your flag. I remember the Admiralty supplied us with the list of names that had been used under the white ensign, and I selected for my two cars the names of two prizes, the "Vengeur" and the "Ca ira." Presently the Admiralty tumbled to the fact that they had got a red officer, and they told me that "Ca ira" would lead to misconception and changed it to "Cécile," the name of another French prize—associated, however, with what I may call Conservative doctrine. And I need hardly tell my right honourable friend the Leader of the House that the "Cécile" never surrendered—and never apologized.

But these cars were under the Navy, where certain traditions held good, and it is of the utmost importance that we should now establish similar traditions in the British Army. It is not difficult. They are publishing now day after day records of magnificent examples of courage, which I presume are being circulated throughout the Army—I hope so. Many of them are Air Force people, but it does not matter: what you want is to advertize British courage, not in order to influence the Axis Powers, but in order to establish your own morale. Let men in the Army and Navy and Air Force realize that they are expected by their fellow countrymen to act as the heroes have done, then indeed they will act in that manner. We all behave in war, more even than in peace, as other people expect us to. That is what public opinion is. Everybody noticed it in the air raids. One or two people showing no sign of discomfort immediately stiffen the back and restore the courage of everybody. It is perfectly well known in war, and it is also true in peace. One of our difficulties in war is that you take people away from those they respect, their parents and families, and you transfer them to another milieu. It is very bad for the morale. You might say that the failure of morale in war-time is due to the absence of a sufficient number of maiden aunts. All of us are susceptible to what other people expect us to do. And that is the main advantage of publicity.

If you could make your criticism effective without publicity it would be some good. If only the War Office would act without having to make public the scandal against which they are acting, that would do, but it would not be so good as the publicity which comes from open criticism in Parliament. Open criticism is the safeguard for democracy, in war as in peace. It is the means of focusing the right public opinion upon people who are liable to err. And I beg your Lordships by your actions and votes to-day not to do anything that will tend to stop the amount of criticism of the whole of the administration in all its parts during war-time. Do remember that much of this criticism comes from the rank and file of the Army itself, that much of this criticism is ill-founded, and that it cannot be disposed of except by the criticism being made and publicly answered. We on these Benches are to make the criticisms; you on those Benches are to answer the criticisms, in so far as you can; the Government are to take advantage of that criticism to force upon the Services the necessary action to remedy what has been criticised. I apologize to your Lordships for taking up so much of your time, but I am perfectly certain that this debate is of importance to the success of the war. Both so far as this country is concerned and so far as our relations with America are concerned, let us rely upon publicity, truth, and the refutation of falsehood.

THE EARL OF GLASGOW

My Lords, on a point of order, is it in order for members of this House or anyone else to speak of citizens of the United States as Americans? If there were a citizen of Brazil in this Gallery to-day he would, I am certain, strongly object.

LORD GIFFORD

My Lords, if I may intervene for one moment, I should like as a naval officer to say how very much I resent the courage of the Army being criticised in comparison with that of the Navy, and I hope I shall never hear it done again in this House.

THE EARL OF GLASGOW

Can I have an answer to my point of order?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SIMON)

As the noble Earl will appreciate, there is no one in this House who can deal with a point of order. In extreme cases it is done by the House as a whole. The noble Earl's point has doubtless been noted by those who are going to speak later in the debate.

LORD DENMAN

My Lords, there is one pleasant feature of this debate this afternoon in the fact that it has been initiated by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Lovat, who has recently earned great distinction in Commando raids on the French coast. Some of us in this House of an older generation hold his father in affectionate memory, and it is a real pleasure to us to read, as we have done lately, of his son's exploits—exploits which, it is fair to say, have added renewed lustre to an historic name. In the speech which the noble and gallant Lord has made this afternoon he has shown that he is just as efficient in debate in this House as he is in leading raids against the enemy.

There is a less pleasant feature of the debate this afternoon in that we are discussing an article written by a well-known member of your Lordships' House, Lord Strabolgi, in an American magazine which, I understand, has a great sale in the United States. As your Lordships are all aware, Lord Strabolgi is a frequent participator in debates in this House. He is a student of warfare. As an informed critic he has taken part in discussions on Service matters in this House, and I remember that in the earlier years of the war, when the Home Guard was a subject of frequent debate, the noble Lord made what I thought were useful and valuable suggestions. I am therefore the more surprised that my noble friend should have written an article in the American Press which, although he gives high praise to the bravery and courage of our soldiers, presents, in my view at all events, a most damaging impression of the efficiency—or rather want of efficiency—of our Army as a whole. I have a copy of the noble Lord's article from which I shall read one or two extracts so that those of your Lordships who have not read it may be able to judge for yourselves.

I see that in this magazine there is an introductory notice about the noble Lord which reads as follows: Lord Strabolgi, at 56, is one of England's most colorful figures. As Commander Kenworthy he saw duty in the last war, he won a boxing championship in the Navy, he is active in the House of Lords to-day, he has written many political and military books, and he makes a practice of tearing old school ties into small pieces. Possibly it is the noble Lord's obsession about old school ties that induced him to write this rather extraordinary article.

LORD STRABOLGI

The noble Lord is, of course, aware that I had nothing to do with that introduction. It is the first I have heard of it. I have not seen the article in print myself.

LORD DENMAN

I was not suggesting that the noble Lord wrote that himself. The title of the article does not seem to me a very happy one. Lord Lovat has mentioned it: it is "What's wrong with the British Army?" I shall now go on to quote one or two extracts from it. The noble Lord wrote this: The British Army, apart from many individual acts of bravery, has not shown up well in this war. Wherever it has fought on the mainland of Europe, whether in France, Norway, or Greece, it has been decisively defeated. Is it quite fair to the Army to hold it entirely responsible for these defeats? In France, when the Belgians broke on our left and the French gave way on our right, the British Army was forced to retire, and it fought a gallant rearguard action to the coast. It can hardly be held responsible for that defeat. As to Norway and Greece, we know now, looking back, that these were both forlorn hopes, undertaken without adequate air support, if, indeed, with any air support at all. It has been proved conclusively in this war, beyond a doubt, that if an Army has not air cover it is quite certain to be defeated by an enemy possessing a powerful Air Force, and the same thing is true of a Battle Fleet to-day. The article goes on: If we leave out of account minor expeditions against the Vichy French, the British Army has two victories to its credit against the Italians. I should have thought it would have been more accurate to say that there were two campaigns with a series of victories against a numerically superior enemy.

The noble Lord goes on, and I think Lord Lovat quoted this passage: With these exceptions, against both Japanese and Germans, the British Army has only chronicled a dismal record of failures. Is that quite fair to the British Army? Was the Burma campaign, for instance, a dismal failure? It seems to me that General Alexander, who displayed great qualities of leadership, extricated our Army in a most remarkable manner from a very difficult situation. Was the recent campaign in Libya a dismal failure when, as your Lordships will remember, after a severe initial reverse the Eighth Army fought Rommel and the picked troops of Germany and Italy to a standstill? I do not think that was a failure. Have the Commando raids on the French coast been failures? The article continues: Why is the prestige of the British Navy and Air Force so high and that of the British Army, to put it bluntly, so low? Again I think the noble Lord is not quite accurate. It may be that the prestige of our Army does not stand so high as that of the Air Force or the Navy, but wherever our Army has had adequate air support, and wherever it has had modern weapons of tanks and guns equal to the enemy, it has fought magnificently.

I really do not think it is wise to say these things, as the noble Lord did say them, to the American public. A good deal of the article which the noble Lord wrote deals with the question of Army officers. I think there is something to be said, perhaps there is a good deal to be said, for the view that the officering of our Army is not entirely satisfactory. It would be remarkable if it were so. After all, if you extend a Regular Army of 150,000, to an Army of several millions the question of officering this Army is bound to present difficulty. You cannot make an efficient regimental officer in a few months, and of course a Staff officer takes still longer to train. I think it is true that after the last war when the Army was cut to the bone, as your Lordships will remember, many of the best men left the Service and in consequence safe men got rapid promotion, and it may be—I do not say it is, but it may well be—that some of these men occupy key posts to-day for which they are not well fitted. It may be that our system of promotion does not give scope for the best men in ranks lower down in the scale.

But because there may be misfits at the top and misfits lower down I really do not think it is right to make sweeping charges as the noble Lord has done in the American Press. It seems to me that if such charges are to be made they should be made on the floor of this House or in the Press of this country. I do not think it is quite fair that the noble Lord should state his own views as facts, for they no doubt will be regarded as facts by many of the citizens of the United States of America. The noble Lord complains that our officers belong to a clique within a class. If there is any truth in that, surely it applies with much greater force to naval officers and to the Navy than to the Army to-day. The noble Lord also has a tilt at the landed gentry because in the past, he says, they have supplied the officer class of the Army. Well, if they have done so, I should think that is rather to their credit. Near the end of his article he reassures American readers that power is slipping from the hands of a decadent section of the British ruling class. I suppose Lord Strabolgi in that would include all of your Lordships, with the possible exception of noble Lords on the Labour Benches.

There are, I think, two grave objections to the article that he has written. One of them, I think, was alluded to by Lord Lovat, that it will not conduce to the discipline of the Army that these things are written and published about their officers, and the second, which I think is even more serious, concerns our relations with the United States Army. The officers of the United States Army will no doubt read this article, and will form a low opinion of their colleagues in the British Army. I ask your Lordships to consider what effect articles of this kind may have on our Military Mission in Washington, and what will be the result if and when a Second Front is formed. The brunt of the fighting in that case must fall on United States, on British and on Canadian troops. I have noticed, and I have been very glad to notice lately, the cordial relations that appear to exist between the officers of the United States Air Force and the officers of the Royal Air Force, and I have also noted how generously United States Air Force officers have acknowledged the advice and assistance which they have received from the Royal Air Force here.

If an invasion of Europe takes place it will necessarily follow, I think, that most of the planning will have to be done by British Staff officers because, after all, they will have knowledge of the terrain and they have had experience now for some three years of fighting Germans. Will the United States Army officers be prone to take advice from a British Army officer if they read articles of this kind? articles, it seems to me, which are calculated to bring our Service into disrepute and to sow seeds of mistrust and dissension between the two Services. In my view Lord Strabolgi has rendered a grave disservice to our war effort in publishing, as he has done, this article in this magazine in the United States.

There is only one other word I would say in conclusion. I understand, but I am not quite sure about it, that this article did pass the censor. Of course there may be, there must be, difficulty with regard to censorship because different individuals may take a different view of the same article. If this article has been censored I hope it will be brought home to the responsible individual, and I hope that some other form of national service will be provided for him such as, for example, filling sandbags or peeling potatoes or something which will not unduly strain his mental attainments.

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON

My Lords, in supporting Lord Lovat's Motion I would like to remark that I whole-heartedly agree with everything my noble friend has said. I do not understand what Lord Strabolgi means by a Citizen Army or a People's Army. Does he suggest that it would have been more satisfactory to discard the small professional Army and Territorial Army of peace-time as useless appendages of a primeval age and try to make an Army from people who could chiefly only claim the virtues of untried courage? The noble Lord must indeed have great faith in his own special military theories if he imagines that courage, however genuine, in war is sufficient. I have for seven years been a very junior member of the well-meaning class so despised by Lord Strabolgi—the professional soldier. Serving with the King's African Rifles in Kenya before this present war I had the honour to serve in the brilliant Abyssinian campaign under professional soldiers, General Dickinson and General Cunningham, and even his Lordship should admit that it was one of the most successful campaigns in our military history. The expansion in the King's African Rifles was extremely great and rapid, and certainly by the end of it the majority of local officers had been promoted from the rank of sergeant, the lowest British rank in the King's African Rifles, to a Commission largely for qualities of intelligence and disciplined aggressiveness so much admired by the noble Lord.

Disciplined aggressiveness is, I think, better described as initiative. The mere quality of aggressiveness is not of great value unless it is sufficiently directed. Discipline is the foundation and strength of an Army. Without discipline a battalion of soldiers becomes an armed mob. What can one describe as a democratic Army? What perhaps his Lordship means is that when a Commander has, with the aid of his Staff, made a plan, this should be put to the vote of the men serving under him to see whether they approve of the plan or not. Let me assure Lord Strabolgi that war is not so slow-moving as to allow such cumbrous political theories to operate in the Army. The average man might be forgiven for thinking that someone who has studied the science of war for some twenty years or more and fought in various campaigns in different parts of the world should know considerably more about warfare than some enthusiastic amateur who sees himself a General in his daydreams.

Lord Strabolgi seems to have supported the dreamer, the amateur dilettante. There seems to be a sinister similarity between Herr Hitler's insults to the British Army and what the noble Lord wrote in this publication in the United States of America. At this time of crisis one would expect a public man and a Peer of the Realm to do everything in his power to bind the nation together in a common front against the enemy, irrespective of class or creed, but, no, he must write to an American publication suggesting that the British Army is inferior to her sister Services because the leaders are professional, experienced soldiers instead of the amateurs in whom his Lordship would appear to have more confidence.

As the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, has told your Lordships, the reason for the lack of success on some of the fronts on which the British Army has fought in this war goes back a long way. The blame can be laid partially on the wishful thinkers of the past who depended on collective security and the shadow League of Nations—in fact, on any method which would avoid spending an extra penny on our small, ill-equipped, peace-time Army. Blame must fall again on those fanatics and their followers who called the British Army persecutors of the proletariat and lackeys of the capitalists, and who did all in their power to throw despite on and reduce the Armed Forces of the Crown. It is of these men that your Lordships should think when you remember Dunkirk and Singapore. Our soldiers are paying for our own sins in the blood of our men in France and elsewhere. A nation which is the heart of the world's greatest Empire must indeed have been misguided if it imagined that it could live on the reputation of its more courageous sires.

LORD TYRRELL

My Lords, I apologize for intervening in this debate as a civilian, but I was very much struck by the lucid speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, and there was one statement in it which tempted me to intervene. He referred to the pernicious propaganda effect of this article abroad. I was also very much struck by the statement of the noble Lord, Lord Denman, when he expressed the opinion that this article would not promote or help our war effort. It seems to me that a great many speeches are made and articles are written nowadays in which not sufficient account is taken of the one over-ruling factor that should inspire us, which is always to ask: Will what I say or write promote the war effort? I was also struck by a statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Wedgwood, when he maintained that criticism was of the essence of our democratic form of government. I think, if he will allow me to say so, that that almost amounts to a truism. But I noticed that he never once used an adjective when he talked of criticism. I suppose he assumed and meant by criticism well-informed criticism, because in the absence of well-informed criticism ill-informed criticism may do a great deal to impair—

LORD WEDGWOOD

Will the noble Lord forgive me for interrupting him? I think even ill-informed criticism is useful, because it gives an opportunity for refuting it which otherwise would not occur. If you get ill-informed criticism passing secretly around there is no chance of refuting it.

LORD TYRRELL

The noble Lord reminds me of the days—I am sorry they are a long way off—when that kind of argument was very popular in the Union Society at Oxford or in our college debating societies. My point is that this article, which in the opinion of all the speakers who have preceded me, with the exception of the noble Lord, Lord Wedgwood, is not well informed—let me put it that way—is a very dangerous article to appear in the United States. My experience has been that the general ignorance of England in the United States is great and is only equalled here by our ignorance of the United States. There is a very keen competition between the two countries as to which is the more ignorant of the other. It is to that that I trace back many of the misunderstandings that exist. It is for that reason that I have always been a critic of any attempt to pursue propaganda in the United States on our behalf. The American fights shy of propaganda, but he welcomes publicity. The difference between propaganda and publicity, I may say, is that propaganda is an attempt to persuade people to adopt your point of view and your opinions, whereas publicity consists in giving other countries facts and knowledge about yourself on the strength of which they can form their own opinions. Taking human beings as they are it is far more acceptable to the average human being to accept from you facts, if he believes you, and if you do not try and obtrude on him your opinions.

I think we all suffer from a national inclination—a failure almost—to what is called fouling our own nest. It comes from that inferiority complex which we all profess. We think we can afford to do it. I venture to say, having had something to do with the conduct of our foreign policy for some years, that in peace-time that has been a very great handicap, coupled with the strong tendency on our part to tell other people how to manage their own affairs. Now in war-time it is my opinion that it is not helping the war effort for us to spread abroad wrong opinions about ourselves. You are not appealing there to a well-informed public. We have many thousands of friends in the United States—and never forget they are critical friends, though very affectionate friends—but you also have a very large community there that is not friendly to this country and the ammunition you give them, when you either speak or publish articles that are ill-informed and give them wrong facts, will be used against you. It is for that reason that I was struck by the statement made by Lord Denman when he condemned this article on the ground that it would not assist our war effort.

LORD SALTOUN

My Lords, I wish to associate myself very warmly with everything that my noble and gallant kinsman has said in moving this Motion. I have listened with great attention to the expressions of opinion which noble Lords have contributed to this debate, and particularly to the very forcible and well-phrased contribution of the noble and gallant Duke, the Duke of Wellington. I hope that this will only be the first of many contributions that he will make to the debates in your Lordships' House. I particularly admired also the gallantry and loyalty of the noble Lord, Lord Wedgwood, who defended his colleague on the supposition, apparently, that the article complained of was spoken in your Lordships' House.

But I would like to come to the actual words of the Motion which state that its purpose is to ask His Majesty's Government whether the censor passed this article for publication. That is really the point before your Lordships to-day and, in considering the censor's attitude in the matter, I think it is only right that your Lordships should consider the influences to which the censor was exposed from very high quarters. For the last three years we have been fighting an enemy who brings to the practice of war an enormous gusto and who submits himself to the severe discipline and restraints imposed by war in order that when victory is won he may indulge the foulest and most disgraceful passions that have ever engulfed the soul of man. I do not see how we are to fight such an enemy unless we are prepared to bring the same enthusiasm to the task that has been laid upon us, to look upon it as a noble and great task and are willing to submit ourselves to the necessary restraints and discipline. And yet for three years—and indeed for a great deal more—in Parliament and in the Press and out of the mouths of those who claim to have more brains than most of us, we have been persistently criticizing our Army and especially our officers in what, I am sorry to say, seems to me a very virulent and ignorant manner.

As it is essential to my point to say something about discipline, I will first explain what I mean by the term. I mean by military discipline a habit ingrained by training which, when the noises and discomfort and menace of war have suffused the mind with emotion, makes correct conduct a habit. What I have to say is, I think, much better said by one who like myself has never undergone the severe training to which the British Army, especially its officers, have been subjected from time immemorial. In the British Army relations between officers and men are warmer and closer and more cordial than in, any other Army in the world. These relations are the real weapon which has kept that Army undefeated for centuries. This could be established by the record for over 150 years, probably for 300 years. It has been sentimentalized by novelists from Sterne onwards and copiously illustrated by Fortescue. As a matter of fact it is not sentiment at all. It is the most truly democratic bond of union in the world, because it has its roots in mutual self-sacrifice, and if we win the war it will be by reason of this discipline and for no other reason.

And yet I am sorry to say that for historical reasons this relationship has always seemed—I am sure it has only seemed—to incur the jealousy of Parliament. It has been under pretty constant attack during my lifetime, not excepting even the past three years. An examination of the pages of the Official Report will show your Lordships clearly that what I say is true. No long time goes by without some question being asked, or some interjection or speech being made in debate, which tends to suggest that British officers are petty, ignorant tyrants exercising an outworn, stupid, unsympathetic authority. Take one actual instance. The Government may be asked whether a particular battalion commander has stopped a particular man's leave without justification or something of that sort. In such a case, even if the facts are true, nothing but harm can result from the question being put in that way. It tends to make all ranks feel that leave breaking is not a serious offence and to give the impression that one can take action and get good results by getting grievances taken up outside the recognized machinery. Wretched battalion commanders feel as if they have two masters and that there is always a danger that proper and impartial discharge of their duty may be rewarded by this sort of pillory. We all know how cases of chronic leave-breaking cause serious discomfort and discontent to all ranks, and many examples of similar tendency could be culled from the pages of the Official Report.

These cases receive a great deal of publicity and I do not see how the public, or the soldier, can fail to think it is better not to be an officer, and that the loyal comradeship of the ranks is to be preferred. I have as a matter of fact been asked by lads of high character not to bring their names into notice. They are lads of humble origin and they have asked me not to do anything which might bring them into notice as they have definitely determined not to aspire to take Commissions. After all, we are all aware of cases of sergeants refusing Commissions because they are so much better off financially as N.C.Os. than they would be as officers, and they know that Parliament is responsible for it. It is not only the unworthy who get this impression, because on the only occasion when I did disregard the request of a lad not to bring him into notice, he received a report that I have never seen equalled for excellence. In an Army where all promotions are from the ranks, the selection of candidates for Commissions is a task of tremendous difficulty, and not less so because many of the best officers are men who are singularly modest and retiring, and who very often are not likely to put themselves forward for notice, even for stripes. Since towards the end of a war the supply of junior leaders to an Army is one of the most important factors in ensuring victory, anything which makes that task more difficult is not only foolish but suicidal. I think that we ought to take a lesson in this matter from our enemies, who foster leadership by every means in their power.

Then let us take the Press. The censor has to read the newspapers and is subject to the influence of the Press; and the Press take the liberty of discussing all matters affecting the internal discipline of the Army wth the same freedom and confidence that they show in discussing higher strategy. If I may judge by letters written to the newspapers, apparently by private soldiers, the results are even more harmful. Some of your Lordships may have noticed a discussion about a year ago in Cavalcade on the subject of soldier servants. I am told that this correspondence caused great difficulties throughout the Army. It is perfectly obvious that the duty of an officer is to think of his job and of his men. Unless he is properly looked after, he may have to use part of his time in looking after himself, and by just so much does he fail in his real duty. Everything that makes it harder for officers to get good batmen makes it harder to make the Army efficient.

Only a few days ago I saw in Truth an article criticizing some action of the War Office. I was not in the least surprised by the criticism, but I was surprised by the line of argument, which proceeded on the assumption that every officer who had been trained at Sandhurst or at Woolwich was naturally incompetent and ignorant of his business. The article also echoed the jibe about the South African War which appears in the article which is the subject of this debate, although it did so a little more vaguely. I do not see how the censor can be expected to escape altogether from this prevailing influence. The various "Brains Trusts" find an easy path to notoriety along the same lines. I have in my hand a Penguin book—and your Lordships know their wide circulation—published at the beginning of this war, and called Science and War. It is supposed to be a symposium by various scientists on the relation of science to the war effort, and I believe that some of it is very good, but it has four pages on psychology and discipline which seem to me the most ignorant which have ever been written on the subject. The effect of these things on the censor has to be allowed for.

It seems to me that the article which is before your Lordships in effect holds up a mirror in which we can see what we are too apt to do in this country. We are too apt to run down our Army and to attack the close bond between the officer and the soldier. If we continue to do that, we shall do more harm to our Army than any enemy can ever do. As far as the effect in the United States is concerned, I am certain that our Allies will do all they can to minimize it. In regard to what it says about the South African War, they will bid the intelligent American study the work of their own writer, Mahan, who wrote about the South African war what is probably the best short history ever written about a war. As far as what the article says about the last war is concerned, they can point out that when the last war began there were less than a quarter of a million Regular soldiers in the British Army, and that after the First Battle of Ypres the shattered remnants of that Army provided leaders, staffs and instructors for the Armies of three major fronts. As for this war, they will recognize that an Army which had been neglected and starved for twenty years, whose Generals had never handled large bodies of men, and whose whole system had been suddenly and drastically changed on the threshold of war, and the majority of whose hastily-raised units were imperfectly trained and disciplined and then sent straight overseas, was able, after a few months' unremitting inspection and organization by its commanders, to fight a successful retreat like that of May, 1940. I think it is marvellous that so much was achieved. I do not suppose that the Americans will be grateful for having to counteract the effect of this article, but I am quite sure that they will do so as a war service to their own country, although I think that the reputation of the British Army is better left, as it always has been, to its enemies.

It is an encouraging thing for us to reflect that this article has been recognized as being damaging not only in your Lordships' House but throughout the whole country. Almost the whole of the Press have attacked it, and, if it is a mirror to show us what we ourselves have been doing and have been too apt to do, and if it shocks us into sobriety and self-restraint, I think that we may derive some good from it. You cannot, however, slander any institution perpetually without the slander having some ill effect in the end. After all, our Army is like a great sea wall of which the design has been radically altered against the advice of the experts, and whose half-completed structure has become involved in a prolonged and violent storm. I do not think it is too much to ask the members of the harbour board and the town council and their friends to refrain from abstracting material for their own houses from the half-finished work which alone stands between their community and destruction.

LORD TEVIOT

My Lords, I think it is very necessary that this debate should take place. It would have been a dreadful thing if this article had been issued by a member of this House without any comment coming from this House about it. I am going to ask the noble Lord who wrote the article a question. He must have had some motive for writing this article, and in particular for publishing it in America. I will try to presume that he hoped he was going to do some good in regard to the question referred to in the article. I cannot understand how that could be possible, but I am trying to think that that was his motive. I have always felt that those who are stricken with the disease of class consciousness are really the biggest snobs in the world. I can remember that in the last war—and this point has been mentioned by the noble Lord who has just sat down—there were many men whom one wanted to make officers, men of great courage and of good qualities as soldiers, but who did not want to become officers; they did not want to have that extra responsibility.

In my view, and in the view of a great many others, the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has, I am afraid, made a great error of judgment. I believe that he has done a tremendous lot of harm to the prestige of the British Army in the United States. As the noble Lord, Lord Tyrrell, said, we have many friends in the United States, but we must not forget that a very small percentage of the people there are British, that there are many people over there who criticize us, and some, I am afraid, who definitely dislike us. What ammunition this is to them! Already I have noticed that there has been in Canada a very serious and violent attack made upon us by an American citizen and a certain lecture he was going to give was cancelled. That is just the sort of thing that arises out of articles such as the noble Lord has written.

I am an old soldier and of course I am antiquated now, when the ideas of the last war are completely superseded, but I think I know enough about it to know that I know a great deal more about it than the noble Lord who wrote this article. After all, he was never a soldier, and I do not think he was very long a sailor. I am just wondering what he would have said to me if I had written an article like this in the American Press about the Navy. I am quite certain should have been chastised very severely by him. This article, as the noble Lord well knows, has been discussed up and down the country. I have been in touch with a good many soldiers, officers and other ranks, and I have heard nothing but condemnation of it. I am going to make an appeal to the noble Lord. He has made a very great error, he has done a great deal of harm, and I ask him now to make amends by withdrawing what he has said on the plea that he made an error of judgment.

THE EARL OF GLASGOW

My Lords, I shall keep your Lordships a few minutes only, but I want to put on record that I received a letter more than a fortnight ago from a friend in the United States enclosing a copy of the noble Lord's article. She said she and her friends were greatly concerned about it, and she quoted the case of a woman in the Civil War who, after many rebuffs, managed to get into the presence of President Lincoln and told him of certain serious defects in the Northern Army. Those defects were remedied and, according to her, they made all the difference in bringing about the victory of the Northern Army. The implication was that I should force my way into the presence of the Prime Minister—a very difficult thing, I am told—and inform him of the defects of the British Army, as put forward by the noble Lord in his article.

It is difficult to understand how the censors here could pass an article which has evidently caused a feeling of despondency among the citizens of the United States. I am quite sure that if this was the case with this lady and her friends, all citizens of the United States who read that article must have had the same kind of feeling. Surely if the implications of the noble Lord's article were true—we know they are not, but if they were what good could it do to publish the shortcomings of the British Army in a magazine of a great Allied Nation? It could only foment distrust and bad comradeship between two Armies which may one day have to fight alongside each other. As one of the "British Junkers," not only Conservative but allergic to all change and innovation as quoted in the article—I hope also as a sensible citizen of this country—I must say that this article either was an ill-considered blunder or, if intentional, was a stab in the back to the unity of the Forces of the Allied Nations.

LORD VANSITTART

My Lords, I had not intended to intervene in this debate, but there is one point which has not been quite covered and to which I should like to draw attention before the debate ends. We all know that there are in the United States certain people who would probably perish from night starvation if they had not by their bedside a nice tasty snack of something to our detriment, but it is not our business to minister to those pleasures. Only last week we had an example of this type of person, Mr. Theodore Dreiser, who described us—I hope I am quoting him correctly—as "lousy, aristocratic, horse-riding snobs." Well, you will observe that Germanity remains the faithful mistress of the over-statement. I personally had not known that there were so many horses in England, but of course the explanation of my ignorance appears very clearly in one of the paragraphs of the noble Lord's article. I, I am afraid, am the half-educated product of the English public school system, and that is why I did not know.

There was another point also which emerged a little later and that was that the "British Junkers" have got all the best places in the diplomatic service. Well, I hate to admit it in public, but I am the son of a very small Victorian landowner, and I know how I got there, but I think that that particular class would have been very horrified at being described as "Junkers." Really, that is pure Keith Prowse—you know that slogan, "You want the best places, we have them." I do not think that is really very worthy. But before we all allow ourselves to be written off as the victims of horses and all sorts of other vices, I really do think we might express the hope that the Press in the United States will refrain from publishing articles which contribute to bad feeling without making at least an equal contribution to good sense.

VISCOUNT CAMROSE

My Lords, I had not intended to intervene in this debate, and would not have done so but for some words which fell from the lips of the noble Lord, Lord Denman, and I think Lord Tyrrell. They referred to the effect that this miserable article was likely to have in the United States of America, and to what the Press there might say about it. It so happens that it came into my possession owing to a number of statements made about it in the American Press, and I thought, as so much importance is attached to that aspect in this debate, your Lordships might like to hear some extracts from the American Press. I may say that the principal papers have taken no notice of this article, with the exception of the most notorious anti-British papers. The extracts I am going to read are therefore from the smaller papers, papers that have a great deal of influence in the localities which they serve. This is the first of them: Radical expressions regarding the conduct of the war and the British ruling class are not new. But perhaps the most significant and disturbing so far is the article of Lord Strabolgi, Chief Labour Whip of the Labour Party in the House of Lords. There is a distinct Communist trend in the article, for much is said of a Democratic Army, a People's Army. But the essential truth behind the fulminations is that the British caste system is to blame for some of the miserable defeats the Empire has incurred.

LORD WEDGWOOD

What paper?

VISCOUNT CAMROSE

It is from a local paper published in Oklahoma. Here is another one: In a recent issue of Collier's magazine there is an article written by one of the English Lords who really tells the world what is wrong with the British Army. He tells in plain English that the main thing over in England to get a big job in the Army is to be born a Lord or with some other kind of golden spoon in the mouth—in other words, ability counts for nothing. They want these offices so that they can wear a sword and gold braid to make a hit with the ladies. (We can hardly figure out how this guy dared to write an article like that.)

LORD WEDGWOOD

What paper is that?

VISCOUNT CAMROSE

Pollock Progress, South Dakota. There is another of a more serious character from a Minnesota journal: Recently in Collier's, Lord Strabolgi severely took the leaders of the British Army to task. He stated and demonstrated that English Generals were of the landowning aristocratic class who held their positions not because of ability but because of the class system within the English Army. He points out that the Dukes and Lords have tight control over all the top positions. We think there is much truth to his charges. Now, if these same incompetent men were leading only their own men, it might be presumptuous for us to object to the English leadership; but we have thousands of American boys there in England and their lives and fates will be directed by English military leaders. If these incompetent still hold sway it means the lives of many of our boys will be thrown away by these bungling Lords and Dukes. In the discussion to which I have listened this afternoon, a good many of the speakers have done the noble Lord who wrote this article a great deal more credit than he is entitled to. They have debated with him questions of discipline and other matters pertaining to the Army, but what the noble Lord has done in his article is to suggest to the American people that the British Army is rotten to the core, that it is in the hands of a decadent portion of this nation, that it is ruled by a clique within a class, and that the result of it is the "miserable failures" which, he says, we have experienced ever since the war began. He does not justify these failures and, in fact, these failures, based on the procedure he suggests, do not exist.

LORD STRABOLGI

I have had to tolerate misrepresentations in the noble Lord's journal, but I do not need to tolerate them here. Will he quote the words that "the British Army is rotten to the core"?

VISCOUNT CAMROSE I have described the noble Lord's statement in general terms.

LORD STRABOLGI

Untrue

VISCOUNT CAMROSE

What I have quoted here justifies what I have said. As to what the noble Lord has said regarding my journal, I would inform him—what he perhaps already knows—that my journal was the first to call attention to these fulminations. When he wrote and asked for a withdrawal of the statement we made, we flatly refused to give it to him because he was not entitled to it. The only good that has come out of this article has been the flow of perhaps a few hundred dollars to this country. I suggest that it would be a graceful act on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, if he restored those dollars to their original place, and apologize to the people of England for the article which he wrote.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (VISCOUNT CRANBORNE) (Lord Cecil)

My Lords, the very interesting and thoughtful debate we have had to-day, which is now drawing to a close, was initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, in a very forthright and vigorous speech which, I think, greatly pleased your Lordships' House. I should like to say how very warmly we welcome his appearance among us and how much we anticipate hearing him soon again. I should also like to assure him that the Commando spirit is very acceptable to your Lordships.

Though the debate has ranged pretty wide over the substance of the article written by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, the Motion itself is of a more limited character and, in effect, asks only why the censor passed it for transmission to the United States. It would be for the convenience of the House if I answered that limited question first. As your Lordships know, in this country we have a free Press. So far as articles are concerned which are for publication within our own shores, there is no compulsory censorship of Press material before publication. It is true that there has been set up a voluntary censorship of which a large number of authors of articles and other publications take advantage, but they have no absolute obligation to refer their documents to it. I should say, of course, that that does not mean that no action can be taken against anyone who produces something dangerous or unsuitable. After publication, action can be taken against those responsible if the article in question offends against the law—say the law concerning official secrets, or the law concerning treasonable matter. In that case they can be prosecuted. Secondly, supposing a newspaper were to indulge in systematic publication of material which fomented opposition to the war, it could be suppressed, as has been done in several cases. That is the system which obtains here, and which has obtained since the beginning of the war. I mention it to your Lordships because it is a very remarkable thing that, even under the stern circumstances of the war, we should have succeeded in carrying on with so gentle a control. It is an immense tribute both to the Ministry of Information and to the Press that such a system should be able to operate adequately and indeed admirably.

But this system, which is perfectly adequate for this country, was not found adequate in the case of Press material sent from this to other countries. For this, as the House probably knows, much more precise regulations have been drawn up involving compulsory censorship. They were put into force early in the war, and they have now been considerably strengthened. The nature of these regulations was defined by the Minister of Information in another place not very long ago—on March 26 of this year—and it would be appropriate for me to read what he said, because he gives very clearly and concisely the conditions under which the censor can stop an article, and that is very relevant to the debate to-day. My right honourable friend said: Hitherto, the censorship of Press messages going abroad has been confined to the interception of any information that will be likely to be useful to the enemy in a military sense. This is what we mean when we speak of a security censorship. Secondly, it has always been understood that, except in the case of some serious infringement of security by a publication in this country, correspondents are free to dispatch abroad extracts from anything that had once been published at home. These rules have, I regret to say, proved not altogether adequate for the protection of certain essential interests of this country abroad, where on several occasions the true position here has been gravely misrepresented and stories emanating from London have been published which could only foment ill-feeling between ourselves and our Allies or neutral countries. In future censors will be empowered to exercise a stricter control with a view to stopping any Press message calculated to create ill feeling between the United Nations, or between them and a neutral country—a measure which is truly essential in time of war. Moreover"— which is surely essential in time of war— diplomatic exchanges between these countries cannot be allowed to be prejudiced by unauthorized and premature disclosures. Similarly, extracts from home publications which are submitted for cabling abroad will in future be subject to the same rules of censorship as are now to be applied in the case of original material. These were regulations announced in March of this year, and these are the regulations that obtain now; and it was these regulations to which the noble Lord's article was submitted. I think it may well be suggested by noble Lords and others outside this House that under these regulations this particular article should have been stopped by the censor before it left this country. I think it can hardly be argued—I think perhaps the noble Lord himself would hardly say it could—that it was calculated to promote harmony, trust and good feeling between the two countries. The noble Lord, Lord Wedgwood, in a speech he delivered to the House this afternoon, said the two countries should speak quite frankly to each other. But sowing distrust of British Generals and of the British High Command in the United States is really not likely to encourage confidence between the two countries any more than it would have been calculated to improve confidence and create trust between the two peoples if the noble Lord in his article, instead of attacking British Generals, had attacked American Generals, at a time when our two nations have to fight together in close unity.

I have spoken to the Minister of Information about this article, and he authorizes me to say that in his view, in this particular case, the censor's interpretation of the regulations was unduly liberal, and that he regrets the article was passed for issue abroad. But the House will recognize, I think, the immense difficulty under which censors inevitably work. It is no good under-estimating those difficulties. We all have a great anxiety to preserve the freedom of the Press and the freedom of expression of opinion. There must be many borderline cases, and when these border-line cases arise it is inevitable that occasionally an error should be made. But I can now assure the House that it is the intention of the censorship authorities to exercise in future the greatest care in operating these regulations, so that they may be effective in preventing harm being caused in the relations between ourselves and other countries and in reducing mistakes to the very minimum. I think a regrettable error was made in passing this particular article; but we must learn by experience and see that such a thing does not happen again. So much for the immediate question which is raised by the Motion.

As, however, is perhaps natural, the debate has ranged a good deal wider than the terms of the Motion, and has touched upon the subject matter of the article itself. About this I do not propose myself to go in any great detail because it has already been dealt with very powerfully in the speeches of other noble Lords; but perhaps I may be allowed to make a few comments of a detailed character on points where I think the noble Lord, I am sure unintentionally, was actually in error. As I understand it, what has deeply disturbed and indeed shocked members of this House, and not only noble Lords here but people outside, is not that the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, expressed the views he did—for, as I have said, we are a free country, and it is quite open for people to express views even though other people may not agree with them, and indeed also to indulge, as Lord Wedgwood said, in criticism. Even here, however, I think it is important—and I was glad to have the powerful support of Lord Tyrrell on this—that criticism should be balanced and that it should be based on undeniable facts. That is clearly a consideration to which due regard must be paid, though, with all deference to the noble Lord, Lord Wedgwood, perhaps I may say that he himself does not always pay quite due regard to it.

But the point on which I think people both inside this House and outside are at issue with Lord Strabolgi is this. It is not that he expressed the views he did, but that he chose the particular medium he did for expressing them. Lord Strabolgi is a member of your Lordships' House, and he is fortunate in that he always has a platform from which he can expound any thesis he likes or urge any course he likes upon the Government. At any time he can table a Motion, he can bring it forward, and there can be a full discussion by those qualified to speak; and we are fortunate in this House in having experts who are qualified to speak on almost all the subjects of importance of this day. But the noble Lord did not take that course. He preferred to state what he must agree were very controversial opinions, reflecting gravely on the High Command of the British Army, in a magazine of another country where no answer could be given to him and where the readers, an immense body of readers, because this magazine has a very wide circulation, had no personal knowledge of conditions in this country and were quite unable to check the statements which the noble Lord made.

I think Lord Wedgwood, speaking this afternoon, said it was very important that we should speak absolutely frankly to each other and regard Americans as almost members of this country and ourselves almost as members of the United States. That there must be a close connexion between our two peoples is clearly right. We are all in favour of the very closest relations between Great Britain and the United States. I think most of us feel that is the only hope for civilization in the future. But the fact remains that the United States are 3,000 miles away, and in the nature of things it is not possible for a great many people there, who do not know conditions here, to appreciate what importance should be attached to individual statements. For that reason if for no other I think the course which the noble Lord took in publishing these rather provocative remarks and statements in a magazine of the United States, instead of expressing them here, is open to very serious criticism, and I suggest that it is the more regrettable because I do not think, if he will forgive me for saying so, that he stated a full or a balanced case. There were some points on which he did not seem himself to be fully aware of the facts, and there were others on which he seemed to have sources of information that are certainly not available to His Majesty's Government.

Take the remarks which the noble Lord made with regard to General Wavell. He said that only one British General with the necessary mental equipment and other qualities needed for a great leader, General Wavell, had so far managed to win through to a high position against the obstruction of the governing clique. I do not know exactly what the noble Lord meant about obstructions in General Wavell's career. General Wavell's career has been perfectly normal. In 1932 he was Commander of a Brigade, in 1935 he was Commander of his Division, in 1937 he was G.O.C. Palestine, in 1938 he was G.O.C. in C., Southern Command, and in 1939 he was G.O.C. in C., Middle East. He had the ordinary normal career of a great soldier, and there was no opposition that I know of to his rise. Exactly the same thing applies to General Alexander, to whom the noble Lord referred indirectly, and to General Nye, who rose from the ranks and is now, as the noble Lord knows, Vice-Chief of the Imperial General Staff. On that point, therefore, the noble Lord is really under a complete delusion, and I frankly do not know what he had in mind when he talked about opposition to Generals which they are supposed heroically to have overcome. He went on to say of General Wavell that he had his advice disregarded over the Greek episode. I do not know where the noble Lord got that information from. I should be interested to know, because the exact opposite is the fact. General Wavell was always in favour of the Greek episode and there is not the slightest foundation for the statement—I am sure it must have been unintentional—which the noble Lord made in his article that he had his advice disregarded. I think it is only fair that I should say that—fair to the Government and fair to General Wavell.

Then there were the two cases of Mr. Malcolm Dunbar and General Rommel, whose case has already been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Lovat. Apparently the intention of the noble Lord in referring to these two men was to draw a comparison between the German and the British Armies unfavourable to the British Army, in the sense that the one recognized merit and the other did not. Let me take the case of Mr. Dunbar. Speaking about Mr. Dunbar the noble Lord said: In the Spanish Civil War, Malcolm Dunbar rose to be Chief of Staff of the International Brigade, and by his brilliant tactics won the battle of the Ebro. He proved himself a great leader and a brilliant tactician. He joined the British Army at the outbreak of the present war and is still a corporal in the Tank Corps. The impression given by that—I do not know if it was intentional—was that he was prevented from rising in the British Army, prevented from getting commissioned rank. He is not in fact a corporal, but it is true to say he is still a sergeant. It would not, however, be at all true to say that he was not permitted to rise from the ranks. On the contrary, he was in fact recommended for a Commission and recommended for training at an O.C.T.U., for that purpose. But, greatly to Mr. Dunbar's credit, he himself refused to take a Commission because his unit was mobilized for service overseas and he wished to go with it. Mr. Dunbar, who comes, as the noble Lord knows, of a very old military family and who was educated at Repton and at Cambridge, appears to be a typical case of a young independent-minded public school boy who enlisted to fight for his country in the struggle against tyranny. I hope Mr. Dunbar will rise and that he will fill the place to which his ability and experience entitle him. But the point is that the military authorities have not prevented him from getting a Commission, which unfortunately was the impression which the noble Lord gave to the American people.

A good deal has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, about General Rommel, but I would add a further word. Undoubtedly in what Lord Strabolgi said there was a suggestion that he was an ordinary ranker who by ability and hard work forced his personality into notice and eventually became an officer. The fact is that General Rommel became a lieutenant in the German Army at the age of eighteen, the youngest age at which one can become an officer in the German Army. It is perfectly true he went through the ranks, but every German has to do this for a certain formal period. That is the only time he was in the ranks. He came from the ordinary German military caste, and when that formal period was over he became an officer. It is perhaps lucky for the purpose of the noble Lord's article that he did not know this. If he had, it would have entirely ruined the case he was putting to the American public. At the same time, it is clearly important that this matter should be exposed to your Lordships' House this afternoon.

Such examples of inaccuracy might be multiplied again and again in the course of the two pages of the noble Lord's article, but I do not want to weary your Lordships further. In any case to my mind they are not the gravamen of the charge which has been made against Lord Strabolgi this afternoon. Where I suggest he was mainly at fault, if he will forgive my saying so, and I think other noble Lords have taken the same view as I do, is that he entirely omitted in writing his article to mention one vital consideration which must be taken into account in assessing the success or failure of the British Armies in this war. That consideration is, was it or was it not completely equipped? That, it seems to me, is the essential consideration. British Generals are human like other people and are equally liable to make mistakes; but surely it cannot be suggested that the fallibility of British Generals was the only or even the main cause of reverses which we have suffered in this war. I thought that it was universally recognized that the principal cause of our failure to achieve what we might have hoped to achieve was that our Army was not large enough, was not sufficiently trained and was not sufficiently equipped. For this the Generals and the General Staff are certainly not responsible. For years and years no doubt they have been pressing for improvement in equipment. The people who are responsible for this failure to equip the Army properly are the people in this country as a whole and in particular the political Parties represented in Parliament.

With the shining exception of the Prime Minister, who never erred throughout the whole pre-war period, there is no Party leader who has not a certain responsibility to bear. Some have a greater share, some have a less share; but all have a share. What is more, these leaders did undoubtedly represent the overwhelming body of opinion in the electorate. It is no good burking that fact. Even the noble Lord himself, Lord Strabolgi, must take his share of responsibility. For I do not remember in the years before the war his touring the country in a passionate crusade for rearmament and conscription at the only time when it would have been really useful. We had far better face the facts about this matter. The real truth is that, while the Germans were preparing themselves for war and equipping themselves with all the most modern weapons, we and not only we but all peace-loving nations, including the United States of America, had our minds concentrated on other and what we still think more desirable objects—housing, education, improvement of Social Services, all the things that occupied the time of Parliament in pre-war years. So when the battle was eventually joined we were not ready for it and it has taken us two or three years to get up to where Germany started. That is what I thought was universally recognized as being the main cause of the reverses we have suffered. I do think, if I may say so, that it was very wrong of the noble Lord in writing this article entirely to omit all mention of this most important consideration.

I cannot help feeling that the Army would have a very formidable reply to the noble Lord if they were able to give it. But unfortunately serving soldiers are not allowed to rush into print in the American Press. It is for that reason that we should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, for raising this debate this afternoon. It would not have been fair to the British Army if this debate had not been held. What is more, the situation, if it had been left as it was, could only have served to create distrust between Allies who are fighting side by side. The noble Lord's article has had a great deal of publicity. This magazine has an enormous circulation and the article was obviously what is called front-page news. It was splashed across the front cover. As the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, said this afternoon, the article did a great deal of harm to this country among people who were not able to judge for themselves. The noble Lord has therefore a heavy load of responsibility to bear.

Lord Tyrrell, in his very wise speech today, spoke about propaganda. Well, I do not think that this article can be regarded as British propaganda: I do not think it can. On the other hand that does not mean that it is not propaganda at all. It has probably served as very powerful propaganda in the hands of isolationists and other people in the United States who do not wish us well. Indeed, I think it could only serve to assist those people who wish us ill, and could only discourage our friends in that country. That, if I may say so to Lord Strabolgi, is the reason why this article is so deeply regretted, not only in this House but outside, and I very much hope that the next time the noble Lord has another such brainwave as this, he will not submit it to the Press of another country but will put down a Motion in this House, upon which balanced discussion can take place and balanced conclusions can be reached.

LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, I hope your Lordships will allow me to say a few words before the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, exercises his right of reply. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, will feel a little sympathy for me because I have thought it better to wait till the end of the debate, and I may say now that I am very glad that I did so especially as I waited till the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, amongst others, had spoken. But it has been a great strain to sit and listen whilst being taken to task by one noble Lord after another. However, I am sure your Lordships will be willing to hear my side of the case. Indeed, several noble Lords have been good enough to put questions which I will endeavour to answer presently.

May I say first of all, that I feel myself in entire agreement with certain sentences which fell from the lips of the Leader of the House, amongst others. He said, that he welcomes the opportunity of this debate. I also welcome the opportunity very much indeed. When I knew this Motion was coming on, I wrote immediately to Lord Lovat and told him how glad I was that he was bringing it forward, and I took the liberty of sending him a copy of the article because I rather suspected that he was stimulated into putting this Motion down not by the written article, but by the very mendacious account of it and very unfair and unscrupulous use made of it in the organs owned by Lord Camrose which I will deal with in short detail, if your Lordships will permit me. I am very glad to see that Lord Camrose has come here to-day. I thought that he was not responsible in this matter for the editors of his numerous publications.

VISCOUNT CAMROSE

My Lords, may say that I am responsible for one journal, and one journal only, and that is the Daily Telegraph?

LORD STRABOLGI

I think that is enough responsibility for anyone. I see now that the noble Lord has taken full responsibility for the very great injustice which this particular paper has done to me. I would also like to join the Leader of the House in saying how warmly we welcome Lord Lovat and how great is the admiration which we, as his colleagues in this House, feel for the great reputation which he has made in this war and the credit which he has done to British arms.

Now, if I may, I will answer one or two questions which noble Lords have been good enough to put to me. I may comfort Lord Lovat by informing him that no use at all has been made of this article by the German propaganda authorities—at any rate, not in any broadcasts by the German radio. The reason I know that is that we "monitor" all German broadcasts and—as in the case of others of your Lordships—if anything which I have written or said is mentioned in those broadcasts I am at once notified of it. I am glad to say that the German propaganda agents have occasionally picked me out for special attack, but, as I say, no use of any kind has been made of this article so far as the enemy wireless is concerned. And there is a very good reason for that. They could not really make very much out of it, as I shall show in a moment if your Lordships will bear with me. Before doing so, I would like to reassure Lord Lovat that I did not state that these defeats which we have sustained were due to bad leadership in the field. That would be the last thing that I would wish to suggest. I agree with Lord Lovat and with the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, that, there has not been bad leadership in the field, but in the words of Viscount Cranborne, our Army was too small, insufficiently trained and insufficiently equipped.

As I say, I agree with them in that, but where I join issue with Viscount Cranborne and Lord Lovat is that cannot put the blame for that on the ordinary rank and file of the populace nor on the civilian leaders of the political Parties. I put the blame on successive Army Councils. They were the people with a very big responsibility. They possess expert knowledge and they should have done no less than Lords of the Admiralty have had to do in the past and resign in a body if they could not get their way. The only sentence Lord Lovat uses upon which I must really correct him is that in which he said that I slandered the British Army. I certainly did not slander it—I did no such thing. If he has studied my article he knows that, on the contrary, I paid the highest tribute to the British Army.

LORD LOVAT

Perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to say that I am in closer touch than he with messes and ante-rooms of the British Army, and the feeling throughout the Army, quite apart from the particular Commando in which I serve, is that he has slandered the British Army and has done it a great injustice. While I am on my feet I would like to repeat my question as to why he says that Rommel is not the type of man who would be popular with junior officers and N.C.Os. of the British Army? That suggestion, I may say, gave rise to the feeling that Lord Strabolgi was encouraging indiscipline in the British Army.

LORD STRABOLGI

Lord Lovat says that gentlemen he knows in Army messes consider that I have slandered the British Army. That is because they have not read my article. It has only just reached this country, and the magazine in which it appears has not a wide circulation here. What they have read no doubt was Lord Camrose's sub-editors' account of the article which was a complete misrepresentation, as I shall show. It dealt simply with extracts—

VISCOUNT CAMROSE

My Lords, may I explain with regard to what Lord Strabolgi has just said? These extracts were not the result of work by sub-editors of the Daily Telegraph. They were extracts put out by Collier's themselves in America.

LORD STRABOLGI

Your Lordships can judge between me and Lord Cam-rose's sub-editors. I must say I admire his loyalty to his subordinates. Lord Lovat says that they feel that I slandered the British Army. They could have read only these extracts which were published here, and which give an entirely false view of what I said. That is the only reason why they could have held that view. Even so, I may say that that view is not universal; even on the basis of the twisted and deliberately misrepresentative sentences printed by Lord Cam-rose's organ I have had a very large correspondence, including a number of letters from serving officers and soldiers, and the great majority supported my views. I have one here from a serving officer, written after it had appeared in the newspapers that Lord Lovat had put down his Motion on the Order Paper. This man is unknown to me, but he writes: "If anything, your article was an understatement of the actual facts, and you deserve nothing but congratulations and praise from all ranks of the Army, and especially from junior officers and those holding emergency Commissions, like myself." I do not say that that man speaks for the whole of the officers of the Army, but neither do the people who have told Lord Lovat that they think I have slandered the Army. I have had a great many letters from serving soldiers agreeing that a great many of the things I have said are perfectly true, and welcoming the fact that I have exposed them.

I said of Rommel that he was an aggressive type who, unless he was serving under an officer who was looking for leaders—and I said in the article there are many such in the Army—was not the type who would ordinarily get on. I am afraid that it is the case in all the public services that, unless those in positions of responsibility are looking for natural talent deliberately—and there are many who do—and trying to pick out men who will make leaders, it is the so-called safe man who gets on and not the rather exceptional, aggressive type. That is what I meant about Rommel. I agree that I was not strictly accurate about Rommel. I wrote in perfectly good faith. I said he came from the middle class and was not of the regular hierarchy of the Prussian Army, and I suggested that he would probably not have been made an officer in this country. I give Lord Lovat that point.

I do not wish to appear discourteous to any noble Lord who has spoken, and I shall endeavour to answer the other questions which have been put. The noble Lord, Lord Denman, took the usual objection that this article should not have been written in an American magazine. I shall deal with that. He said that it might interfere with discipline in the Army. Discipline in the Army, or in any of the other Fighting Services, depends on the officers, and anything that is written in American papers does not affect the discipline either of the American Army or of the British Army. Good officers can always lead their men, and no amount of fulsome praise or flattery will make good officers out of bad officers. If the system of promotion does not result in finding the best officers, the Army will suffer. There has been a great improvement in that respect recently, but until recently our system of selecting and promoting officers has been defective and has not produced the best men. I am afraid that that is true. The United States Army, as Lord Denman knows, will form its own opinion of our Army. The two are coming into closer contact, and I hope that in the future we shall see a great British and American Army fighting together on the Continent of Europe. I am sure the Americans will form a high opinion of the British Army. Many of the defects in the British Army which existed at the beginning of the war have been put right. The noble Lords, Lord Lovat and Lord Cranborne, know that there were many defects in the Army, and that some have been put right and that others are being put right. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Croft, would not deny that this is the case.

What alarmed me about Lord Denman's speech was his suggestion of a political censorship. He encouraged the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, almost to promise that in future there will be a political censorship in this country. I do not want to debate that now; it is so important that it ought to be separately debated.

VISCOUNT GRANBORNE

It ought not even to be said. I said that Parliament had approved certain of these regulations with regard to censorship, and that the censorship authorities intended to carry out those regulations. I did not say anything about a political censorship; I merely said that certain regulations had been laid down and approved by Parliament and that they would be carried out.

LORD STRABOLGI

Both Lord Denman and the noble Viscount suggested this. If you are going to stop an article not because it contains any military secret—and of course my article contained none —but because you do not like the opinions expressed in it, that is political censorship, and it opens a door through which all kinds of evils can flow, evils which brought down our French Ally. The same question of censorship was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Tyrrell. I was surprised that he took me to task on the question of propaganda, because I understand that for many years now he has been the film censor, and all my friends who have been living in Africa and Asia say that a great deal of harm is done to us by the films which Lord Tyrrell has passed.

I should like to be allowed most respectfully to congratulate the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, on his maiden speech, and to echo what the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, said in praise of it. I want to tell the noble Duke that what I mean by a "People's Army" is what I hope our Army is becoming and will be in the future. The closest example at the present time of a People's Army—I do not want to go back to the time of Cromwell—is the present-day Russian Army, which, whatever its defects, and whatever things in it the noble Duke might object to, is the one Army in Europe which has been able to stand up on more or less equal terms to the terrific military machine of the German Reich.

When the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, says that all the Press attacked my article, I must respectively inform the noble Lord that he is entirely wrong. The only papers that attacked me were the Daily Telegraph and others from the same stable—papers which are called the house-trained Government supporters. The noble Lord, Lord Teviot, was good enough to ask me why the article was written. That brings me to the main question with which I wish to deal. If your Lordships will allow me to do so, I wilt explain the genesis of this article and how it came to be written. First of all, with regard to Collier's Weekly, this has a wide influence, as the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, has said. For many years Collier's Weekly has been working, in good times and in bad, for better relationships between the two great English speaking democracies. It has been one of the best friends of this country in the United States, probably a far better friend than the obscure journals, of which no one here has ever heard, referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose. It has been a good friend of the British Empire, and one of the strongest advocates of early American intervention in this war. Incidentally, the present Prime Minister has in the past contributed to it.

I was asked to write this article by Quentin Reynolds, who is well known as a journalist and broadcaster, and as a great friend of this country. Before the United States came into the war, his influence was always on our side and in favour of American aid to the democracies. The noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, will not deny that. Mr. Reynolds was representing Collier's Weekly in London at the time, and he told me that in the United States—and I would beg the noble Viscount the Leader of the House to pay attention to this point, because it is important; personal attacks on me I do not mind, but this is important—there was running right through the country an undercurrent of very unfair criticism of the British Army. I have heard the same thing from other sources, and, if noble Lords will listen to me, they will see that this is not a laughing matter. The Americans were saying that the British had lost their fighting virtues. They were saying—no doubt some of them are still saying it—that the British soldier is not the fighting man that his forebears were. They were instancing regrettable examples in this war of setbacks and defeats and surrenders. That, unfortunately, had been spread very widely in certain circles in the United States, and Mr. Reynolds asked me to write an article putting the matter in its true perspective.

Now, before noble Lords jump to conclusions, let me put this consideration to them. It is no use writing an article with that object in view and saying that everything in the British Army is perfect, and painting a rosy picture; to use an American expression, that cuts no ice whatever. You have got to tell the truth if you want to create an effect. There may have been small inaccuracies in the article, perhaps some exaggeration, but fundamentally I told the truth, and that I will defy anyone to disprove. With regard to Malcolm Dunbar, that was a matter about which I took my information from a colleague in another place, who knows this case and mentioned it in a debate in the House of Commons, and I agree with Lord Cranborne that if he refused a Commission for the reasons stated, they were creditable to him. I would rather like to know when it was offered to him, but he was mentioned in debate this year in the Commons. However, I concede that point to the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne.

And that was my object. I do assure your Lordships it was with that object that Quentin Reynolds, a proved friend of this country, and myself agreed that I should write on the lines I did. I believe it will be found that this article has done a great deal of good, and will do a great deal of good in the future. And the extra notice given to it by the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, will, I believe, do a great service to the Army, of which he is so proud and the soldiers of which I so much admire. A complaint is made that I wrote the article for an American magazine. If any of your Lordships make a speech in the country, or in your Lordships' House, and you say something of interest to the citizens of the United States, that is cabled out to America and appears in all the newspapers there. The noble Lord, Lord Hankey, for example, wrote an article recently in the Sunday Times, and that article was widely quoted in the American papers. There is really no substance in that point at all. I am sure the speech of Lord Lovat, in view of his position in the Army and his great reputation, will go into all the newspapers in America. There is no point in that whatever. As my noble friend Lord Wedgwood has pointed out, and as the Prime Minister had pointed out earlier, our affairs have become intermixed and the two democracies are working very closely together. I believe your Lordships will not be in a position to deny the argument that I put forward, that anything your Lordships say that may be of interest to United States citizens will probably be cabled out immediately and appear in a large number of American journals.

With regard to the tone of the article, to which certain Lords have taken exception, this is what the Daily Telegraph's leading article had to say about it—and this apparently is what stimulated the colleagues and comrades of Lord Lovat to make these complaints about it, and what led him to put down this Motion on the Paper. The Daily Telegraph wrote: Lord Strabolgi has published in an American periodical a mendacious and mischievous attack upon the British Army. Well, this was the first sentence of my article: Fundamentally, nothing is wrong with the British Army. I went on: The rank and file and the great bulk of the officers and non-commissioned officers of all ranks are good material, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice and, whenever they have been well led, have fought with the greatest fortitude and determination. Thus, to take only one example, a little publicized battle was that fought on the Sitting River in the Burma campaign. There the handful of British troops engaged fought under every disadvantage, including trying climatic conditions, with a bravery and tenacity worthy of the traditions of the most famous troops of the past. The Daily Telegraph was careful not to quote those words.

LORD TEVIOT

That was not in the article.

LORD STRABOLGI

Certainly, it was the first sentence of the article. Of course, if Lord Teviot only reads what Lord Cam-rose's paper says about the article he will have the same impression as the poor sergeants and subalterns in Lord Lovat's Commando.

THE EARL OF GLASGOW

The noble Lord is quoting perhaps from something which suits him at the moment. If you go on a little further you will read at the bottom of the page: Why is the prestige of the Navy so high and that of the Army so low?

LORD STRABOLGI

I will deal with that, and I will satisfy the noble Earl, I hope. I would like to read a few more sentences, if the noble Earl will permit me. After referring to the expansion of the British Army, I said in my article: But the key positions are still held by men drawn from a narrow circle. Their influence permeates right through to all ranks. These leaders are brave, public-spirited, and mean well. Lord Lovat says that that is patronage, but it was not meant in that spirit at all. I do not want to read the whole of the article to your Lordships but I may be allowed to quote this sentence: Matters are improving. Perhaps I should draw Lord Lovat's attention to this: The framework is there. The British Army has a great asset in its faithful and devoted non-commissioned officers, its sergeants and corporals. They are the true representatives of the old British yeoman class. It has been gradually realized that the mechanically-minded man who understands machines and the handling of them is likely to make a better officer, plus the other qualities, than the half-educated product of the British public school system. The British public school system gives only a half education, as your Lordships know, and I have heard certain of your Lordships say so in this House.

Now with regard to the Navy, does the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, remember what we in the Royal Navy had to undergo in the way of criticism in the last war? In the last war the Royal Navy started with many defects and weaknesses. They were the result, inevitable perhaps, of a hundred years of peace. Much of the leadership was devoted but untrained for prevailing conditions, our doctrines were wrong in many respects, and we had many material defects. As I say in the article, the great asset remains the courage and devotion of the personnel of all ranks. But we made a very bad show in the Navy in the last war on several occasions, and we came under very heavy criticism in Parliament, in the Press and on the public platform. Many of your Lordships will remember it perfectly well, and so will members of another place, and they will remember the heavy criticism we were subjected to. My noble friend and Leader, Lord Addison, remembers it perfectly well; he was a member of the Government which came indirectly under fire. And we made good these defects in personnel and in methods. In this war, from all the information I have, the Navy is most efficient, its material is thoroughly good, and the spirit of the men remains as high as ever it was. Now we really have benefited—and I would like to assure the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, of this—we have benefited in the Navy by criticism; it did us good. It shook up the Admiralty, it led to changes in the higher direction being forced on the Government of the day, and there was a new breath of life right through the whole Service.

After the South African War the Haldane Committee made great reforms in the Army; and now see the result to-day. There has been deterioration. May I refer your Lordships to Lord Gores Dispatches explaining the retreat to Dunkirk? After eight months of war and twenty months after Munich the British Expeditionary Force still had no armour-piercing shells, and was short of ammunition of all categories. Was that the fault of the politician or of the rank and file of the population? If the Army Council did not ask for armour-piercing shells, they did not do their duty. If they did not know, they were incompetent. That was not all. According to Lord Gort, the Army was short of ammunition of all categories—eight months after war had started, twenty months after Munich, three or four years after we were supposed to have begun to rearm. After two days' fighting the fighter strength of the Air component was only fifty machines. We had only 100 infantry tanks armed with machine guns. We still seem to be using tanks as infantry tanks, so far as I can make out, from the pictures of fighting in the Western Desert. Who was responsible for that? I ask Lord Lovat. Everyone knows there were these grave defects in the equipment and training of the Army. They have been referred to as the reason for our setbacks. Who was responsible? The Army hierarchy, the Higher Command, the people thrown up who became members of the Army Council and the heads of the various Staffs.

They were responsible, and they cannot escape from responsibility. They have proved that they were incompetent. They were the military advisers of the Government, they were the people who, two years after the war had begun, were responsible for the fact that we had only 2-pounder guns in our tanks in the big Libyan campaign this summer, when the only tanks with stronger armament were American. We had a 5-inch howitzer mounted on a tank chassis in the last war, and yet we were surprised when Rommel mounted anti-aircraft guns on tank chassis in this war. As for the special landing craft and the tank landing barges, of which we have not enough to-day to begin a real offensive on the Continent, we had these in the last war for operations against the Belgian and French coasts. Who was responsible for this omission? This military hierarchy which I condemn. It is incompetent, it requires thorough reorganizing and re-shaping. We took no steps to provide our troops in Burma with tommy-guns—this campaign was referred to by Lord Cranborne. The tommy-gun was a curiosity in Burma, yet it was all jungle fighting there most suitable for tommy-guns. Who was responsible for that? As Lord Croft knows, we had painful experience of the tommy-gun in the fighting in Ireland in 1920 when the Sinn Feiners got hold of tommy-guns. We learned to have a great respect for them, and yet we started this war without a tommy-gun in the Army—certainly they were not where they were needed. Lord Cranborne speaks of a lack of training. I was amazed to get that confession from him. Whose fault was that? Not the politicians, not the the members of the House of Lords, or the members of the House of Commons. The training of the Army is the responsibility of the Army Council.

VISCOUNT CRANBORNE

I must answer that. I do not agree with a word that the noble Lord has been saying for about ten minutes. Parliament must take responsibility for the provision of armaments for the defence of the country. It is perfectly ludicrous to say that our military advisers are personally responsible. In a democratic country Parliament must take responsibility. So far as training is concerned, what I said was we had not a large enough Army, and clearly if we suddenly expanded the Army at a moment's notice, it would not be adequately trained.

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

My Lords, permit me to add one word of protest against the constitutional doctrine which the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has advanced that the Admirals and the Generals have a duty to resign from the Board of Admiralty or the Army Council if they think that provision for defence is inadequate. That would be to make them the ultimate court of decision as to the extent of national expenditure on armaments and would, in the long run, place Parliament and the electorate under the control of a military caste.

LORD STRABOLGI

We have been under the control of a naval caste, so far as that goes, for 100 years and more. One reason why the Navy was strong enough in years gone by, in spite of Little Englanders, of whom Lord Samuel was a great ornament at one time—

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

That is quite untrue.

LORD STRABOLGI

Well then, a Great Englander—was that the Board of Admiralty threatened to resign and, on one or two occasions I believe, did resign in order to obtain naval requirements. The Army Council could have resigned in the same way, and it would not have put the country under a military caste.

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

It is an extremely bad doctrine that the noble Lord is advancing.

LORD STRABOLGI

Bad doctrines are perhaps better than a hopelessly un-prepared Army in a war of this character. I would rather use a bad doctrine and get a few good guns and tanks and other equipment. I was directing my arguments to the thesis that the military professional officer class, caste, and hierarchy which was responsible for the Army before the war, under the political direction of whoever was Secretary of State for War, failed dismally to prepare the Army for war, and proved itself incompetent accordingly. Not all the blame is to be attached to Parliament. There may have been reasons off tradition and one thing and another, but the fact is that they failed in their duty to prepare the Army for war. Lord Lovat must know that as much as anybody.

LORD TEVIOT

I cannot allow that. Being in the House of Commons in the few years before the war and seeing the way the noble Lord's Party voted at that time, I really cannot allow that. The noble Lord knows perfectly well how his Party voted—with the best intentions in the world, no doubt—but they did everything they could to stop the armaments that were necessary to prepare for war.

LORD STRABOLGI

I do not think that Lord Teviot will get away with the alibi of the Labour Party. It was his friends who dominated the House of Commons from 1931 onwards. The responsibility falls on the Parties who controlled Parliament. We voted for token reductions of the Estimates, but the responsibility lay with the Conservative, Liberal, and National Liberal elements who made up the supporters of the Government.

VISCOUNT CRANBORNE

The noble Lord then admits that responsibility rested with Parliament and not with the Army?

LORD STRABOLGI

I said whatever responsibility rested on Parliament. I said that the technical advice that had been given for many years must have been bad and must have been wrong, or we should not have started this war with so many defects, which, as Lord Lovat said, did not give the British fighting man a fair chance. As regards the gallantry and fortitude of the soldiers, he and I are completely in agreement.

LORD LOVAT

I am in agreement with nothing you have said so far.

LORD STRABOLGI

I do not want to take advantage of Lord Lovat's slip there, because he must agree with what I have said as to the bravery and fortitude of the British fighting man in this war. Wherever he has had a fair chance, his behaviour has been as high as ever. That was made perfectly clear in the article. With regard to General Wavell, I hesitate to cross swords here because I do not want to implicate members of former Governments, but it is the fact that General Wavell was elevated over the heads of about sixty seniors, and in the face of great opposition in the War Office, by the then Secretary of State for War; but he got to the position of commanding a great British Army in a primary theatre of war against the opposition of the ruling hierarchy at the War Office. I am afraid that is a fact which can be very easily proved.

I have been under fire from many of your Lordships for a long time. I hope I have not neglected to answer any of the arguments put forward. I have done my best to answer all of them. I have taken careful note of the whole debate. I withdraw not one single word of the arguments or sentiments behind the article, or the meaning to be read into it. Not one word do I withdraw. Leave out any inaccuracy about Rommel's ancestry—that does not affect the main argument in the article—I do not withdraw one word of it. I believe I was studiously moderate in what I wrote. I rather erred on the side of understatement, and I shall not be intimidated into withdrawal, recantation, apology or anything else. I shall continue to agitate and to urge and argue for a reform of our whole system of military command in the Army and promotion and selection of officers, until it does become a People's Army which will win the great victory to which this country is entitled.

THE EARL OF MANSFIELD

Will the noble Lord be entitled to answer this question? Was he paid for this article and if so, how much?

LORD LOVAT

My Lords, I have very little to say. I do not often come to the House of Lords, and I am no great judge on these matters, but I should like to say, speaking for the Army, which is an inarticulate body, that Lord Strabolgi's apologia is certainly the lamest explanation I have ever had the misfortune to hear in a debate, ranging from a preparatory school upwards. He has made an attempt, I think a clumsy one, to dissociate me from the Generals. I represent the body of the Army. The Generals in the Army Council represent the heads of the Army. The noble Lord has no hesitation in aiming a bullet at their heads. So far as I am concerned, I reject his plea that he had no intention of slandering the Army. I consider that he did slander the Army, because the Generals are a large and important part of it, a General being as much a part of the Army as a lance-corporal. Before I beg leave to withdraw my Motion I should like to take the opportunity of thanking the noble Lord, Lord Denman, for the kind remarks he made about my father, and also the Leader of the House, Lord Cranborne, for the kind things he said about myself. I have had great pleasure in crossing swords with Lord Strabolgi—or shall I say in coming into collision with him this afternoon? I hope he has enjoyed himself as much as I have.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.