Sitting of 22 May 1871

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Contractors Act, appointed.
Twenty-third, Report—Public Petitions.
Report—Turnpike Acts Continuance [No. 214].
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Intoxicating Liquors (New Licences) * [157]; Land Drainage Supplemental * [158].
Second Reading—Pier and Harbour Orders Confirmation * (No. 3) * [153]; India (Local Legislatures) * [154]; Norwich Voters Disfranchisement * [155]; House of Commons (Witnesses) * [156].
Committee—Army Regulation [39]—R.P.
Committee—Report—Public Health (Scotland) Act (1867) Amendment * [02]; Local Government Supplemental (No. 2) * [115].
Third Reading—Dogs * [149]; Marriage Law (Ireland) Amendment * [93], and passed.

IRELAND—DEATH OF BERNARD YOUNG.—QUESTION.
MR. W. JOHNSTONasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether any inquiry has taken place into the circumstances attending the death of Bernard Young, on the 3rd of March 1870, on his way from Belfast Gaol to the Glencree Reformatory; whether such death occurred in consequence of his exposure to the severity of the weather without sufficient clothing; and, whether any, and, if so, what proceedings are about to be instituted in the matter?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, in reply, that a very full inquiry was instituted soon after the occurrence into the circumstances attending the death of Bernard Young, on his way from Belfast Gaol to the Glencree Reformatory. The death occurred in consequence of exposure to the severity of the weather without sufficient clothing. As the hon. Member was aware, the circumstances were very peculiar; but the investigation did show that there had been a want of sufficient care and attention
1110
on the part of several of the officers, and those officers, or some of them, received a severe reprimand from the Government. Measures have been taken by which the recurrence of a similar misfortune would, it was hoped, be prevented. It was not, however, in contemplation to take any further proceeding in the matter.

POST OFFICE—COMPENSATION TO TELEGRAPH CLERKS.—QUESTION.
MR. CHARLEYasked the Postmaster General, Whether any, and if any what, impediment exists to the payment of the balance of the purchase and compensation moneys which became due from the Government on their taking possession of the undertakings of the various Telegraph Companies, and to settling the amount of the annuities payable to the officers and clerks of those Companies under the provisions of the Telegraph Act, 1868?
MR. MONSELL, in reply, said, a certain portion of the purchase money had been retained by the Post Office authorities until all the outstanding questions of account between it and the companies had been settled. The whole sum payable for compensation in the case of the British and Irish Magnetic amounted to £1,243,000, and out of that a sum of £29,000 had been retained. There was paid £562,000 to the United Kingdom Telegraph Company, out of which £20,000 had been retained. With regard to pensions to discharged officers of the companies, several questions had arisen which it had been found necessary to refer to the Law Officers of the Crown, and as soon as their opinions had been obtained the cases of those persons which stood over for the present would be considered, but in the meantime payment would be made on account; 171 claims had been made for pensions and 147 had had payments made to them.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION ACT—INSPECTORS OF SCHOOLS.—QUESTION.
MR. DIXONasked the Vice President of the Council, How many Inspectors of Schools have been appointed since the passing of the Elementary Education Act, and to what denomination they are supposed to belong?
MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, that Earl de Grey, with whom rested the appointment of inspectors, had appointed 12 permanent inspectors since the passing of the Elementary Education Act. The offices of two inspectors had been made permanent, and ten fresh appointments had been made. It was true that the notifications had only lately been issued; but the names had been fixed upon prior to Lord de Grey's leaving England. With regard to the latter portion of the hon. Member's Question, it was almost impossible for him to answer it. He had not been informed to what denomination these gentlemen belonged, nor did he believe it was his business to try and find out. Before the passing of the Elementary Education Act it was necessary to find out, because we then had denominational inspection. That was, however, no longer the case, and he did not feel justified in asking these gentlemen what their religious opinions were. If it was the fact that none of them were Dissenters, it was not owing to that circumstance, but solely to their educational qualifications, that they had been appointed by Lord de Grey.

ARMY—ROYAL TYRONE FUSILIERS.

  QUESTIONS.
  MR. SERJEANT SHERLOCKasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether his attention has been called to the recent promotion of a junior Captain in the Royal Tyrone Fusiliers to the rank of Major in that regiment, this junior Captain having never served in the Army and only ten years in the Militia, whilst three Captains were passed over, including the senior Captain, who had served for five years in the Army, chiefly on Foreign Service?
  COLONEL STUART KNOXsaid, that he would put a Question as an addition to that of his hon. and learned Friend, because the forms of the House prevented his making a statement on the subject. He, however, wished to be allowed to state that the present Lord Lieutenant of Tyrone disposed of his patronage, whether civil or military, fairly, honestly, and impartially, and to the satisfaction of all parties. He begged to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether the officer who has been promoted to a Majority in the Royal
  1112
  Tyrone Fusiliers has not specially qualified himself for promotion by having obtained a first class certificate at Hythe; and, whether his intelligence and zeal have not caused the authorities to take the unusual step of appointing him (after his promotion as a Field Officer) to the post of Musketry Instructor to his regiment?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, in reply, that the officer referred to (Major M'Clintock) was recommended for his majority in this regiment by the lieutenant colonel of the regiment and the Lord Lieutenant of the county. The latter stated in his recommendation that he was not the senior captain, but there were reasons for believing that the promotion would conduce to the interests of the service. It was true that he passed over the head of an officer who had previously served in the Army, but it was 16 years since the officer so passed over had left the service, in which he had never risen above the rank of lieutenant. It was also true that the officer promoted was in possession of a second-class certificate from Hythe, and though it was not necessary that officer should obtain this certificate, its possession showed zeal and some military qualifications. It was also true that he was at present engaged in performing the duties of Musketry Instructor to the regiment. As hon. Members were aware, it was sometimes extremely desirable that gentlemen of rank and position in connection with the county should be promoted to vacant majorities, and, as far as he had been able to ascertain, the qualifications of Major M'Clintock were accompanied by an entire fitness for the post.

IRELAND—JURY PANELS OF MONAGHAN.—QUESTION.
MR. CALLANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the Mr. Mitchell whose name appears as sub-sheriff of the county of Monaghan for the present year, is the same Mr. Mitchell who was found by the "Triers" at the Spring Assizes of 1869, for that county, to have unfairly and improperly framed the Jury Panel of said county, and for retaining whom as sub-sheriff Captain Coote was dismissed from the office of high sheriff in July 1869; and, if so, is the Irish executive prepared to

1113
sanction his continuance in an office wherein he can "constitute further panels for the county of Monaghan?"
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, in reply, that the Mr. Mitchell who had been appointed sub-sheriff of Monaghan was the same person as was found by the "Triers" at the Spring Assizes of 1869 to have improperly framed the jury panel of Monaghan. When his appointment as sub-sheriff became known to the Irish Government, the Lord Lieutenant communicated with the high sheriff, called his attention to the occurrence of 1869, and pointed out the necessity of his exercising careful personal supervision over the preparation of the jury panel. The high sheriff had replied undertaking to do so, and under the circumstances, although it was to be regretted the appointment had been made, the Government thought there was not sufficient reason for further objecting to it, but that it would be better to trust to the sense of honour and impartiality of the sheriff, who, he had no doubt, would not give occasion for further complaints.

ARMY—ANGLESEY MILITIA.

  QUESTION.
  MR. RAIKESasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether any steps have been taken to appoint any Officer to the command of a Company in the Anglesey Militia, which has been without a Captain who could take part in the training of the Regiment for the last three years; whether it is the fact that a Captain in the Army on half-pay, who was lately Adjutant of his Regiment, applied for the vacant Company in March last, with the approval of the Colonel commanding the Regiment, and was refused; and, whether he is prepared to justify the course followed in this case by the Lord Lieutenant of Anglesey?
  MR. CARDWELL: Sir, the formal resignation by which the vacancy has been made was sent to the War Office by the Lord Lieutenant on the 17th of April. The Lord Lieutenant made an alternative recommendation, either of the officer referred to in the Question or of the senior lieutenant. The reply from the War Office has been to direct that the senior lieutenant shall be examined, and if found properly qualified he will be promoted. I am not aware of anything which should lead me to express
  1114
  an opinion adverse to the course which in the exercise of the discretion reposed in him by law the Lord Lieutenant has thought it proper to pursue.
  MR. OWEN STANLEYsaid, that if the hon. Member before putting this Question had communicated with him, (the Lord Lieutenant), he would have convinced him it was unnecessary to do so. It was the most unusual course for an hon. Member to attempt by putting a Question to obtain a censure from the Secretary of State for War on the conduct of the Lord Lieutenant in such a case without previously communicating with him. That an officer was allowed to retain his appointment without having taken part in the duties of the regiment for three years rested with the lieutenant colonel of the regiment. Acting as Lord Lieutenant, he had privately requested that officer, Captain Roberts, to send in his resignation, and he did so; but the lieutenant colonel declined to accept it. But in order that there should be no doubt upon the question, he had requested the Secretary of State for War to institute all necessary inquiries to see whether he was in any way deserving of censure.

BETTING ADVERTISEMENTS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. ANDERSONasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been called to the prevalence of Betting Advertisements in Newspapers; and, whether such incitements to betting are legal or illegal; and, if illegal, whether he is prepared to take any steps to put them down?
  MR. BRUCE: Sir, I am well aware that a great number of these advertisements appear in newspapers, especially in sporting newspapers. Some of them are not necessarily illegal under the Act which regulates such matters—namely, the 16 & 17 Vict.; but some of them would be illegal if the Bill now before the other House of Parliament, a measure prosecuted by Her Majesty's Government, had become law, inasmuch as it extends the law which relates to England to Scotland and other places. Many of the advertisements to which the Question of the hon. Member refers appear in the Scotch papers, and therefore are not now subject to prosecution. Others remain, which are probably illegal.

  1115
  Where those occur within the jurisdiction of the metropolitan police, due attention is given to them, and I may say a great effect has been produced by the efforts of the police to remedy this evil of betting houses. But where they occur beyond their jurisdiction, the local authorities have been left to deal with the matter. This has been done in Manchester and Liverpool very successfully; and I have no doubt the same result has followed in other places where the attention of the local authorities has been called to the subject.

INCOME TAX ON RETIRED PAY OF INDIAN OFFICERS.—QUESTION.
COLONEL SYKESasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether under the 104th section of the Income Tax Act, (5 and 6 Vic. c. 35,) it is either legal or just to charge Income Tax upon permanent deductions made from the retired pay or furlough allowance of Indian Officers for Military Fund or Widows and Orphan Funds, as is at present done by the Bank of England and the India Office, instead of charging Income Tax upon their net pay?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, in reply, said, he believed it was legal to deduct income tax from the gross pay of officers retired or on furlough, without making allowance for permanent deduction on account of Military Fund or Widows and Orphan Funds. Whether it was just was another question. The Orphan Fund was entirely for the benefit of the orphans, and the subscribers did not in any way participate in it; and it was questionable whether income tax should be charged on the deduction. In the case of the Military Fund the subscribers benefited; but the cases were sufficiently analogous to make them both proper subjects for consideration.

CONVICTION OF CHILDREN AT ALDERSHOT.—QUESTION.
MR. STRAIGHTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he has made inquiries as to a charge of wilful damage, to the amount of 2s., heard before the magistrates at the Aldershot Petty Sessions on Thursday the 11th instant, against six children, named and aged respectively as follows: John George, 8; Matthew
1116
Wiltshire, 7; James Burgess, 8; Arthur Wells 9; Jane Luff, 9; and Mary Ann Warren, 9; upon which they were all convicted, and severally sent to prison for a period of two months; and, whether, having regard to the ages of the defendants, the circumstances of the case, and the severity of the sentence, he will interfere?
MR. BRUCEsaid, in reply, that there was, in this case, the usual discrepancy as to age between the statement made on the part of the magistrates and that which had appeared in the newspapers. According to the former, the age of the youngest child was nine, and that of the eldest 14 years. For many years past, and especially during the last three years, the butts had been constantly torn down for the purpose of taking away the bullets fired into them. Children were usually sent there by their parents, who lived upon the plunder, and they hovered about while shooting was going on, in order that they might rush in upon the butts directly the soldiers retired, and great risk to life arose from this practice. During the last three years no fewer than 33 children had been sentenced to different terms of imprisonment, with a view to their being deterred from committing the offence. Generally, they were found, to be children of the same family. In the present instance three of the children belonged to the same family, and they had previously been punished. Some time ago Captain Chapman, the Instructor in Musketry, brought the circumstances of the case prominently before the magistrates. He suggested that additional policemen should be employed to deter children from exposing their lives and from injuring public property. They had been repeatedly warned, but in vain; and Captain Chapman recommended strongly, in the interest of the public and of the children themselves, the offenders should be apprehended and severely punished. In order that the House might the more clearly understand how very difficult were the circumstances with which the magistrates had to deal, the right hon. Gentleman read the Report of Captain Chapman, which was in accordance with his own observations. In conclusion, he stated to the House that he did not feel justified in interfering with the decision of the magistrates, except that he had made one suggestion—namely, that

1117
a distinction should be made between those children who had been previously convicted or warned and those who had not, when the magistrate proceeded to punish them.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES ACT REPEAL BILL.—QUESTION.
MR. CHARLEYasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he considers that the Select Committee on the Ecclesiastical Titles Act Repeal Bill is fairly constituted, considering that of the eleven Members only two, and of the seven legal Members only one, object on principle to the repeal of the Act, and that all the honourable Members who voted or paired against the Bill have been excluded from the Committee?
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, in reply, that he did not hold himself responsible for the constitution of the Committee on that Bill as a whole, but merely for the suggestion, subject to the pleasure of the House, of the names of those of its Members generally who sat on that (the Ministerial) side of the House. There were only five Gentlemen sitting on that side who voted in the minority on the second reading of the Bill; and one of them—the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone (Mr. T. Chambers)—was a gentleman who had taken a leading part on the subject, but he declined to serve on the Committee when asked to do so, as did also the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Bouverie). Considering the extremely small number of those who voted in that sense, he did not think it was the duty of the Government to take any further step in the matter. He felt bound, however, to say he did not see that any great blame was to be attached to anyone in regard to the formation of that Committee. The object of the Commitee was not to fight the principle of the Bill, but to consider its language when its principle had been affirmed. The numbers voting on the question that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee were, 73 for it and 10 against it. As a Committee ought to be constituted so as to represent the feeling of the House, he did not think there was any good ground of complaint against the constitution of this one; but he would remind the hon. and learned Member that the proper time for questioning the fairness of its composition was when the names were proposed.

BANK HOLIDAYS BILL.—QUESTION.
MR. M'LARENasked, Whether it is in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House that the Bank Holidays Bill should have been brought down with Amendments from the House of Lords late last Friday night or early on Saturday morning, and that their Minutes should state that the Lords' Amendments were to be considered forthwith, and that they were considered and agreed to? That was all the information they had about the matter. He had had no notice of it, though he was in the House till half-past one on Saturday morning. The result was that the Lords had made that Bill applicable to Scotland in certain particulars in respect to which it was not so made applicable by the House of Commons, and that new holidays had been appointed, of which the people of Scotland had had no notice whatever.
MR. SPEAKERwas understood to say the rule was that the Lords' Amendments on public Bills should be appointed to be considered on a future day unless the House should order them to be considered forthwith. In the present case it was directed that the Lords' Amendments should be considered forthwith.

ARMY REGULATION BILL— [BILL 39.]
(Mr. Secretary Cardwell, Sir Henry Knight Storks, Captain Vivian, The Judge Advocate.)
COMMITTEE. [Progress 18 th May.]
Bill considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Clause 2 (Sale of commissions prohibited after a certain day).
SIR GEORGE JENKINSONsaid, he wished, before the question of exchanges was finally disposed of, to move an Amendment on this clause, which, if adopted, would prevent the great hardship upon officers which would result from the operation of the Bill as it stood. Accordingly, he proposed to insert in a Schedule the cases in which exchanges should be allowed, and he was willing that all such exchanges should be subject to the approval not only of the Commander-in-Chief, but of the Secretary of State for War. He proposed that the following cases should be specified in the Schedule—namely,

1119
those of officers serving abroad and who were invalided; or whose wives or children might be ill; or whose parents had died in England; or who had acquired property. Such exchanges would cost the country nothing, and ought not to be objected to. He therefore begged to move his Amendment.
Amendment proposed,
In page 1, line 24, after the word "exchanges," to insert the words "except in certain cases to be specified in the Schedule annexed hereto."—(Sir George Jenkinson.)
MR. CARDWELLsaid, that there was every disposition on the part of the Government to consider the question with a view to make reasonable arrangements to facilitate exchanges in such cases as had been referred to; but they could not depart from the principle of not legalizing the payment of money by one officer to another as a consideration for the exchange.
SIR GEORGE JENKINSONremarked that to prohibit money payments in all cases of exchange was to prohibit such exchanges altogether.
COLONEL ANSONremarked that no reason had been urged why money should not pass, and the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War knew better than anyone present that the idea of exchanges from one country to another was absurd without the payment of money. Moreover, when making a vast change like that proposed by the present Bill, the House should be careful that they were not giving men just and moral grounds for discontent.
COLONEL JERVIS, in supporting the Amendment, said, the House ought to be quite satisfied upon its merits before they passed it; he, therefore, drew attention to the statement that had been made the other evening by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Surveyor General of the Ordnance (Sir Henry Storks), to the effect that if an officer were invalided from abroad he could come home and go upon half-pay, and that when he had recovered his health he would be brought into a regiment in his turn. If the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War had made such a statement there might have been some excuse for him; but that the Parliamentary adviser of the head of the Department should do so was somewhat
1120
surprising, and it was natural for those who knew no better to put some trust in his statement. But in a semi-official work recently published by the Solicitor for the War Office, it was clearly stated, without controversy, that an officer had no absolute right to be placed on the half-pay list, or to remain there; and a gallant officer who had served with distinction in the Crimea, in the Indian Mutiny, and in China, in giving evidence before a Committee of that House, known as Mr. Childers' Committee, stated that no invalided officer had a right to go upon half-pay until he had completed his 25 years' service, and that he was merely placed in case of ill-health upon temporary half-pay. This was fully corroborated by His Royal Highness the Field Marshal Commanding in Chief. Then, although the right hon. Gentleman had stated that an officer exchanging would be allowed the expenses of his passage would still continue, this was simply an old regulation, but the practical result of the proposed alteration was that an officer exchanging could not move his family a considerable distance, say Malta, or Canada, on the miserable salary received from the Government, and he therefore hoped the Government would re-consider the point.
SIR HENRY STORKSsaid, he did not know that either he or his hon. Friend were open to the charge of knowing nothing of the subject under discussion. He stated the other night, and would repeat it now, that if an officer was invalided when he arrived home he was inspected by a medical board, and if they recommended that he should retire he was placed temporarily upon half-pay; and at the expiration of that period, if his health was not restored, a further period of half-pay would probably be granted, with the consent of the Treasury, and when he perfectly recovered, he would be replaced on full-pay. That was the regulation. With regard to passage money, that also was governed by the regulations. His right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State had stated that every facility would be given to officers whose health was impaired to effect an exchange. The hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Anson) knew as well as he (Sir Henry Storks) did that exchanges were constantly being made in which there were money transactions. Officers exchanged from half-pay

1121
pay to full-pay, for which exchange they paid large sums; exchanges were made from one regiment to another by means of large payments. Those were the cases to which objection was made, for it was directly contrary to the principle of this Bill to admit any such money transactions.
LORD EUSTACE CECILsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Surveyor General merely spoke of health; but there were other and very good reasons besides that of health why any officer should occasionally desire to go home; for instance, family circumstances, or the health of his wife or of his children might require an officer to go home. The Committee had heard a great deal about the immorality of money passing from officer to officer; and he presumed the Secretary of State for War would explain more fully why he thought such transactions were immoral. For his part, he could not see anything immoral in money passing, neither did he know of any such new commandment in addition to the Decalogue as that—"Thou shalt not allow money to be given from one officer to another officer." In other professions they found that money passed from individual to individual; for instance, it was well known that money passed from one country doctor to another country doctor to establish him in practice; in the same way solicitors gave money one to another; and in the same way, they all knew, Church livings were bought. Why were officers of the Army to be made an exception to the general rule of all other professions?
SIR HARRY VERNEYsaid, his noble Friend (Lord Eustace Cecil) had not mentioned any instance in which money passed from one man to another in the public service, and it was there the difference lay between the two cases. Was it not perfectly true that our public Departments were absolutely free from the suspicion of any pecuniary corruption, and that in that respect we stood alone among the nations of the world? If his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, however, would give a little more explanation as to the mode in which selection and retirement would be carried out, he would do much to reconcile to his scheme many who were now opposed to it; and he might also, if he pleased, state whether there was to be a board of general
1122
officers to assist the Commander-in-Chief. There never would be more honourable, upright, or devoted men to officer our Army than we had at present; and by amalgamating the services, promoting officers from the Regular Army to the Reserve and Militia, they might, at the same time, give a greater scope for the primary education and training of officers of all branches of the Military forces, place the Militia and Reserves under competent men, and do justice to the officers of the Army. In foreign countries civil offices were given to military men; and the same thing might be done with advantage in this country. He also thought, if manœuvres on a large scale were habitually practised, it would enable the chiefs of the Army to ascertain who are the most fit officers for promotion by selection.
MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he agreed with the hon. Baronet the Member for Buckingham (Sir Harry Verney) that it was necessary that the officers of the British Army should be adequately and scientifically educated for their profession, and the hon. Baronet must be aware that their education had already of late years been greatly improved and extended; but he (Mr. Newdegate) could not see that the further improvement of the education of officers was inconsistent either with the system of exchanges, or with that of purchase under adequate supervision; he should gladly see a system introduced by which no officer should become a field officer, or even obtain the command of a troop or a company without having passed a distinct examination; and it would not be easy for any hon. Member to propose a system which he (Mr. Newdegate) would condemn as too severe in these respects. Count Cavour had wisely made the Italian Army the great educational college of his country. The payment for exchanges had been spoken of as a corrupt transaction, and as unknown to the civil branches of the public service; but then there was no other service in which men were dealing with their lives. The security against corruption in the Army was, that men were dealing with their lives; and it was for that reason that the officers ought, either through purchase and the power of exchange, or by some other means, to have a practical voice in the appointment of their comrades. The officers in each regiment of

1123
the Prussian Army had a direct voice in the primary nomination of each cadet to a commission in their regiment practically, and although it was at a subsequent stage, the officers of each English regiment had, through the system of purchase and exchange, indirectly, it was true, but efficaciously, a voice in the appointment of their comrades, and he (Mr. Newdegate) held that there was nothing corrupt in that. In this country there was a large propertied class; it was owing to that fact, and as a means of enlisting that class, that the systems of purchase and exchange had been permitted; and they operated to the advantage both of the wealthier and the poorer officers of the Army: they constituted a system of insurance provided by the wealthier classes for their own convenience, in the benefits of which the less wealthy officers participated, and were intended to participate; he could see nothing corrupt in that, and he desired by continuing the system of purchase and exchange to utilize both the propertied families and their property for the benefit of the State. That had been done through the present system, and he desired to continue it; he could see nothing corrupt in that, When Doctor Keate was Headmaster of Eton, and any boy was very unruly, the Doctor used to say—"You will do for the Blues," meaning he should be placed under discipline; there was nothing corrupt in that. The Government wished to reduce the officers of the Army to the condition of those in the non-purchase corps; now, what was their condition? In the event of the failure of their health, they would be permitted to come upon temporary half-pay, and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Surveyor General (Sir Henry Storks) had said that that half-pay might be renewed by a political officer, who was to change with each change of Government. If a man had risen from the ranks, or had no private fortune, he was to be entirely at the discretion of the Secretary of State for the means of living from year to year. Now, he was unwilling to leave these men to the chance charity of a civilian Secretary for War, for he held that they had earned a provision equivalent to that which, through purchase, the officers of the Army had generally provided for each other.
COLONEL STUART KNOXsaid, that the Committee would be deeply indebted to the hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir Harry Verney), if he succeeded in extracting from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War more explicit statements respecting the Government scheme of retirement. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] He observed that the right hon. Gentleman made a sign in the negative.
MR. GLADSTONE: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite refers to me, I have to say that I made the observation that this clause does not refer to the question of retirement.
COLONEL STUART KNOXsaid, that perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would tell him which clause did; it was the great question of the Bill, though the Government designedly refused to enlighten them on it. He should also be glad to know whether the "consent of the Treasury," to which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Surveyor General of Ordnance had referred as necessary before temporary half-pay could be granted to invalided officers, was ever refused? Because in that case it was obvious that the War Office would often have to say—if the regulated number of officers were already on half-pay—that the Treasury refused to sanction any further payments on that account.
THE EARL OF YARMOUTHhoped the Government would not insist upon prohibiting the passing of money between officers effecting exchanges. Exchanges of the kind were purely commercial transactions between man and man; and if they were not permitted, many officers who would otherwise have become ornaments to the service would be compelled to retire from it.
COLONEL SYKESsaid, the desire of officers to exchange would be put an end to if the Secretary of State would adopt the system under which, in the Indian Army, when an officer fell into ill-health, he was allowed to proceed on sick leave to Europe until, with renewed health, he was restored to his regiment, his place in the regiment not being filled up. In the Royal Army, on the contrary, when an officer abroad fell sick he was sent to Europe, placed upon half-pay, and his place in his regiment was filled up. An outlay of money might obtain for him any change; and influence might restore him to full-pay. The system

1125
inflicted an injury upon him, which the practice in the Indian Armies avoided. The Committee being in doubt what was the question which the House was considering, he would ask the Chairman what it was, for he had not heard it put?
THE CHAIRMAN: The Question was properly put from the Chair; and if he should be called upon to repeat the Question for the convenience of every hon. Member who had not heard it, he did not think it would be conducive to the progress of business.
LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, it would be satisfactory to the Committee to know how far Her Majesty's Government agreed in the views of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had last spoken (Colonel Sykes). At the same time he could not help thinking that at present the explanations of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State were singularly curt and unsatisfactory.
SIR HENRY STORKSsaid, he would repeat that the practice was for an officer whose health failed on a foreign station to be sent home on sick leave, which was afterwards extended, if necessary; and in case the officer's services were urgently required with his regiment before his health was completely restored, he was placed on temporary half-pay. In reply to the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Knox), he must say that he had never known the Treasury refuse consent to a proposal to put an officer on temporary half-pay under the circumstances to which he had just alluded.
SIR GEORGE JENKINSONsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, who had spoken against his proposition, seemed to forget that it was not the interest of the officers alone which demanded sanction to a system of exchanges such as he desired. This would be perceived from a reference to his Schedule, which proposed to permit exchanges where an officer serving abroad, or his wife or children, were suffering from the climate; where the wife or children of an officer were compelled to remain in England on account of ill-health, or any other valid reason; where the wife of an officer serving abroad should have died at home, and his children required his attention; or in case of the ill-health or death of any member of an officer's family; the bona
1126
fides of every such case to be inquired into by the authorities at the War Office, and no officer so exchanging to have a title on subsequent retirement to compensation in respect of any consideration paid by him for such exchange.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, he valued highly the virtue of courtesy, and, in reply to the observation of the noble Lord the Member for North Leicestershire (Lord John Manners), he should be sorry if anybody could justly charge him with being discourteous. There was, however, courtesy to the House as well as to individuals, and it would be for the Committee to say whether, after the decision that had already been given, and what had been said on both sides, in reference to exchanges being allowed, he ought to be called upon to make long speeches upon the renewal of the question. He appealed to hon. Members whether the arguments which had been used this evening were not a repetition of those that were addressed to the Committee at the last Sitting? If the hon. Baronet the Member for North Wiltshire (Sir George Jenkinson) thought that a juster provision could be made for any class of officers, the Government would consider any proposition that was made to them by him; but it must not involve any pecuniary engagement, because against that the Committee had already decided. [Sir GEORGE JENKINSON said, he would bar that.] He (Mr. Cardwell) thought that would remove one objection; because he must follow the decision of the Committee, and could not therefore insert any pecuniary inducement in the Bill. It must be seen that, if payment for exchanges were legalized, in future no officer would exchange without a payment being made to him. This debate had been protracted by the bringing forward of subjects that had previously been replied to, and that he should discuss them further was neither required by courtesy, nor justified by common sense.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, he was sure his noble Friend (Lord John Manners) had no intention to dispute the courtesy of the right hon. Gentleman, whose speech the noble Lord had said was "curt"—a word which did not imply discourtesy. The right hon. Gentleman complained of the repetition of these matters; but why did that occur? The reason of that repetition

1127
was, because the right hon. Gentleman would not tell the Committee once and for all what it was that the country was about to purchase. Hon. Members like himself could not tell what was to be the future of the Army. The subject was comparatively new to many of them, and what they desired to ascertain was what the country would get in return for the enormous sum that was about to be expended. If the right hon. Gentleman would convince them that upon this Bill there was to be founded an Army organization that would give peace and security to the country, they would willingly pay any amount for it; but they were obliged to ask over and over again for information, because as to the future all was dark; and it might be that by next year the Government would have totally changed that plan of organization which they now had in their minds.
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, he considered this Bill an Army Disorganization Bill. His constituents desired to know whether either the country or the Army wanted this Bill passed, or whether it was brought forward because of the exigencies of the Government and those charlatans who had paraded the country; they also wished to know where it was to land them, and what it would cost? They were told that no money was to pass on an exchange in the Army; but in that House he had seen that when an hon. Member was good enough to vacate his seat to make way for some other Gentleman, the retiring Member was always well provided for. He had been brought up in a service in which purchase prevailed, and he did not consider there was anything immoral about payment on exchange; although the House had agreed to the abolition of purchase, without the slightest guarantee that the country would get a bayonet more by it than it had at present. Until the whole scheme was before the House—until it knew what was to be paid for the abolition of purchase and for increased pay—for increased pay must be given and pensions provided for men when they grew old—the House would be justified in throwing every obstacle in the way of the passing the Bill.
COLONEL NORTHthought it a great misfortune that this Bill could not be discussed free from anything of a party
1128
character. The Committee had been told that an exchange would be allowed in the case of an officer who came home from India in ill-health, and underwent the scrutiny of two medical boards; but the object of exchange was to obviate that, by preventing a man being compelled to remain in a country when he found that his constitution was breaking. He had seen in The Times a statement to the effect that, although promotion in the Army was bought and sold at market price, yet officers repudiated purchase upon their oaths and honours; and he wished to know from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for "War whether officers were ever called upon to make any such statement? In 1822 there was a declaration to that effect; but it had since disappeared from the regulations, and he denied that there was now any such declaration required from an officer who purchased a commission.
COLONEL ANSONsaid, he should like to know whether the right hon. Gentleman had known any instance of injury to the public service in consequence of money passing on account of exchanges?
VISCOUNT ROYSTONsaid, he should like to know how the Government could possibly prevent exchanges for money—how they could prevent private parties from entering into a private contract. Since the amalgamation of the Indian Army, the flow from this country to India had been greater than heretofore. An officer going to India required some compensation, and he wished to know how the Government could prevent exchanges for money? There were many ways in which the regulation could be avoided; for instance, by putting fancy prices on horses sold by the one officer to the other. He had no wish to throw any obstruction in the way of the measures of the Government, but from the course which they had taken they deserved to encounter every species of obstruction, for they had not treated the House or the country with common courtesy.
MR. CARDWELL, in reply to the question which had been put to him by the hon. and gallant Member for Oxfordshire (Colonel North), said that no declaration was required to be taken as to the payment of money in cases of exchange, because, in spite of the stringency

1129
of the words of the declaration, it had been found entirely ineffectual. In reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Bewdley (Colonel Anson) he had to state that the Government did not object to exchanges, but they objected to a special provision for the benefit, not of non-commissioned officers, not of poor officers, but of one man, and one man only, and that was the rich and not the poor officer. When hon. Gentlemen opposite referred to payments made in the Church, they ought not to forget that the law of the Church prohibited such payments, and that it was simony in the Church to do what they wanted to legalize in the Army. Moreover, he thought the House would think it was far from being an ornament to the system. What would the Admiralty think if it were proposed to allow the captain of a ship, in the event of his health failing, to buy the right of exchanging with the captain of some other ship? He did not believe that he had ever stated payments for exchanges to be immoral; but, as the law stood, it prohibited what it was now sought to legalize. In no other service which was supported by public pay, was there also private pecuniary interests. He trusted the House would adhere to the decision to which it came the other night, and say that it was not prepared to sanction the payment of money upon exchange, but that it was prepared to sanction such exchanges as were good in themselves.
VISCOUNT ROYSTONsaid, he must complain that the right hon. Gentleman had not answered the question which had been put to him—How was the Government to prevent the payment of money on exchange by the passing of this Bill?
SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he must also complain that the right hon. Gentleman had not answered the question put by the noble Lord the Member for Cambridgeshire. He deeply lamented the course which had been taken by the Government with regard to the Bill. They seemed to be resolved on irritating the feelings of the officers of the Army, and he (Sir John Pakington) considered it most offensive to attempt to prevent those exchanges which tended to promote the comfort of individuals without at all injuring the public service. The right hon. Gentleman had complained of the protracted discussions on this question,
1130
but these discussions would be still more protracted; and the right hon. Gentleman would have to make up his mind to them, unless he complied with the reasonable and fair demands which had been made to him, that he should show frankly and fully what were the reasons which led him to follow the course he now pursued. He hoped that this Amendment would be pressed, and he should give it his cordial support. The Government must expect very protracted discussions unless they showed more respect for the House of Commons than they had yet done, for he did not shrink from making the avowal that, in his opinion, the Government were treating the House of Commons without that respect which was due to them, so long as they withheld reasonable explanations on three or four points connected with a Bill which made such important and extensive changes in the constitution of the Army.
MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORTsaid, that no expression of opinion on this Bill had yet reached Parliament from the country, therefore the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War was not entiled to be satisfied with the reception the Bill had met with; and he hardly thought it would receive very warm support from the nation when they knew that they would have to pay a great deal more than they did at present for a plan which would not add one gun, or a single soldier, or anything effective to the Army, but which would simply do away with a system which up to the present time had worked admirably.
MR. J. LOWTHER, in reply to the question of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell), what would be thought in the Navy of the transfer of a captain from a healthy to an unhealthy station, said, such matters were arranged by favour and by influence. On what basis would promotion by selection in the Army be founded?
LORD ELCHOsaid, he would challenge the Government to say whether they were so satisfied with the reception of the Bill that, if defeated, they would appeal to the country. He was convinced that they would not dare to do so. Happily the Bill was so framed that almost every line raised the question of purchase, which was not one of sublimated morality, but simply what was good

1131
for the service. That was the way it had seen put by the hon. and gallant Member for Truro, who knew as much of the service as anyone. He (Lord Elcho) would reply to the "poor man's argument" of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, by supposing a case in which a man of weak health, with a family, escaped going out to India by paying money to a poor man, unmarried and in good health; and he would ask whether such an arrangement was not advantageous to the public service and beneficial in all respects to the parties concerned? He would also ask that right hon. Gentleman whether he was aware that adjutancies in the Reserve forces were sold for as much as £2,000, and would appeal to the hon. Baronet the Member for Buckingham (Sir Harry Verney) to explain how it was that the system of exchanges, which had prevailed so long in the Army, could be, as he said, absolutely fatal to its interests?
SIR LAWRENCE PALKremarked that hitherto the debate had only taken one turn—namely, with regard to the interests of the officers of the Army as against the wishes of the Government. There was a far greater question behind—namely, the interests of the people and of the ratepayers and taxpayers of the country. The reason why arguments were reiterated night after night was because hon. Members were not in a position to tell their constituents what the schemes and plans and ulterior aims of the Government were. He would call upon the Government, if they really had a plan, to submit it. If they had none, then the measure was one of the most dangerous that could be presented, because it proposed to pull down everything which had served the country hitherto without devising even the commencement of a system to replace it. He maintained that the Government were not only bound to submit a plan, but to show the House that it was an economical one, and that it would be for the advantage of the country. For his own part he was prepared to remain in the House to oppose the Bill as long as any other Member would stay, until the House was placed in possession of the fullest information.
SIR HARRY VERNEYsaid, his answer to the question of the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord
1132
Elcho) was, that if a young officer was worth his salt he would be charmed to go to India or anywhere else. The greater the danger the more delighted he would be to go.
MR. GILPINsaid, that having neither spoken nor voted on this question, he wished, as an independet Member, to say a few words. Up to this time the course the discussion had taken was not what was good for the service, but what was best for the pecuniary advantage of the officers. Now, many officers of the Army were excellent men—heknewmany of them as personal friends; but, for the good of the country, there were too many of them in that House, their personal interests being directly involved in this great national question, and he had not heard one of them get up and say in what manner these changes would act as regarded the interests of the non-commissioned officers and privates, whose interests appeared to be wholly overlooked. It had been asked how they were to prevent money being paid for exchanges. Well, how did they prevent the picking of pockets? By passing a law against it, and punishing those who broke that law. Then, what was wanted was, that Parliament should pass such law, and if it did he thought the gentlemen of England would not disobey it. He could not help thinking a very large expenditure was proposed for what there had not yet been shown adequate reason. He had not, therefore, been able to go into the same lobby with the Government; but when he heard the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) and the noble Lord (Viscount Royston) avow what was very like a factious opposition, he thought the effect of such conduct must be to induce those who had not yet voted for the measure heartily to support it. He was for the abolition of purchase; but he believed his constituents would have wished some better reason to have been given why at this time, in this way, and at such cost, this change should be made.
MR. GREENE, like the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Gilpin), said, he had never troubled the House upon this question, and had no interest in the Army except the general desire they all had to see it really efficient; but, having watched the course of the discussion, he was prepared to say that the Government had failed to prove their case, and

1133
that they were needlessly endangering a system which had hitherto worked well in the country. Why had the Government brought forward the measure? If it was to afford the hon. Members for Ripon (Sir Henry Storks), Truro (Captain Vivian), and the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan), an opportunity of distinguishing themselves, he would ask why those three hon. Members should be selected, and who else, in any important matter, would select them? He had talked with officers of the Army upon this question—["Hear!"]—and he thought no men were more capable of giving an opinion than they were; and, although he had never heard them find fault with the manner in which the Government proposed to pay them, they one and all patriotically and conscientiously declared against the measure, because they believed it would be injurious to the service. He would say that nothing would have induced him to oppose the Government on a great question such as this, unless it was that his opinion of the merits of the course proposed was identical with that put forward by them. He had never condescended to make capital out of the poor man and the taxpayer, but he contended that this was a taxpayers' question, inasmuch as the country was being called upon to pay a large sum of money for a bad article. So far as he was personally concerned, he should use every means in his power to prevent the Bill from passing, in order that the country might have an opportunity of considering it. He should be sorry to see the Government out of office; but, if they thought the country was with them on this question, they were wofully mistaken. England did not desire to be a military nation. They were a commercial people, who could afford to pay for a good standing Army, officered as it had hitherto been: and that pointed to the direction in which legislation should tend.
THE CHAIRMANrose to call attention to the words of the Amendment, and observed that many of the speeches that had been delivered had wandered away from the subject.
COLONEL STUART KNOXsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War misled the House when he stated that the opponents of the Bill proposed to legalize exchanges; all they
1134
asked was to have the question of exchanges omitted from the Bill.
SIR GEORGE JENKINSON, in reply, denied the accuracy of the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, that the Amendment under consideration was solely in favour of the rich officer.
Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 168; Noes 211: Majority 43.
Question again proposed, "That Clause 2 stand part of the Bill."
LORD GARLIESsaid, he was aware that, in proposing the Amendment of which he had given Notice, he was leading a forlorn hope; but he should not be deterred on that account from discharging what he believed to be a duty. His desire was to challenge the abolition of purchase. Having spent 15 years in Her Majesty's Service, one-third of which time he had passed on the Staff of the Army, he had enjoyed unusual opportunities of ascertaining the feeling not only of officers, but of the non-commissioned officers and rank and file; and he believed that, if the Army were polled to-morrow, 95 per cent of the officers and 99 per cent of the non-commissioned officers and the rank and file would be in favour of retaining the present system. ["Hear, hear!"] Notwithstanding the derisive taunts of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War, who seemed to doubt whether any genuine love of economy existed on the Opposition side of the House, he declared that he objected to this clause on the one ground of expense to the British taxpayer. Two reasons alone had been given in favour of abolishing purchase: one was, that it was necessary for the amalgamation of the Regular and Auxiliary forces; he could not, however, see that the existence of purchase had anything to do with such an amalgamation. He came, in the next place, to a more serious reason, which was urged by the Government in favour of the abolition of purchase, and he had, he must say, listened with great regret to the terms in which the British officer had been spoken of by two right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury bench. When, he should like to know from them, had the British officer ever failed in his duty? When had

1135
he failed in pluck, in obedience, or in endurance? When had he failed in securing the confidence of those under his charge? Never; and, therefore, to allude to our officers in language calculated to lead the House and the country to suppose that they were incompetent was unworthy of any Member of the Government. It was not the fact, as the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War had insinuated, that they made their profession a mere amusement; and hundreds of letters could, he had no doubt, be procured from officers equally distinguished as Colonel Cameron—whose authority had been quoted by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Surveyor General of the Ordnance, on the second reading of the Bill, to show that their profession was regarded by the junior officers as a bore—taking an entirely contrary view. As one who had served consecutively three years at Alder-shot, and had seen every branch of the service, he (Lord Garlies), at all events, must contend that the impression which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman sought, in that respect, to convey to the House was entirely erroneous, and it appeared to him rather hard that the British officer should be spoken of in that way. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman, in reading Colonel Cameron's letter, and then rendering such a tribute as he had done to the officers of the Army, seemed to have pursued that course for the purpose of turning the letter into utter contempt. It should be noticed, in passing, that during these debates not a word had been said on the subject of giving commissions to noncommissioned officers, which was one of the points upon which the hon. Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan) had previously laid much stress. It had been declared that the Government regarded selection as a necessary adjunct to the abolition of purchase; that something had been said of "seniority tempered by selection." Now, this latter system had been pursued to a large extent for at least 15 years in the Army; and therefore it was all moonshine for the Government to put forward their proposition as a novelty. Upon the second reading, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman announced that as far as the rank of captain the system of regimental promotion would be applied; and that above that rank there would be what he
1136
called "Army promotion." He had never, however, explained what he meant by that, though it was probable that after an officer became a captain, he was eligible to be promoted to any other regiment. If that was a true interpretation, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had evidently since the time when he made that statement modified his ideas; and it was a matter of happy augury that he was beginning to see that such changes did not tend towards the good of the service. He (Lord Garlies) must express his gratification at finding that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had given up the notion of sheer selection. Then, the conduct of the Government with reference to the cost of the retirement scheme had been more remarkable than anything that had ever occurred in the annals of the British Parliament. In 1868, the present Financial Secretary to the War Department (Captain Vivian), being then untrammelled by office, went fully into the details of the subject, and, supported by the authority of Mr. O'Dowd, assured the House that, in addition to the expense of the immediate abolition of purchase, an annual outlay of £1,000,000 would be incurred; he thought, therefore, it would have been far better had the hon. and gallant Gentleman stated that he had seen reason to change his opinion instead of taking the course he had adopted of declaring, after attaining to the dignified office of Minister of Military Finance, that he had no opinion whatever upon the subject. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Surveyor General of the Ordnance had told the House that this Bill pretended to do nothing further than to lay down great principles; and added that it was impossible for the Government to submit schemes for organization and retirement until the Bill had passed; yet the Government, while admitting that this Bill would not be sufficient in itself, refused to give any information as to the scheme by which it must be supplemented. About a fortnight ago, at a late hour of the evening, after one or two Adjournments of the House had been moved unsuccessfully, an hon. Member remarked that if the Government would state what the cost of their scheme would be, opposition of that kind would cease. Thereupon the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister made what was a most remarkable declaration, when it was remembered

1137
what the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War had already said on the subject. The Prime Minister observed that the cost of retirement was not a matter of fact, but a matter of opinion; and then he went on to say that he had an opinion of the cost, and that the Secretary of State for War also had an opinion as to the cost of a retirement scheme. It would not do for the Government to plead ignorance after such an announcement; and the only conclusion he could come to was that the Surveyor General of the Ordnance had imparted his secret to the Prime Minister, who had thought well to keep it from the Secretary of State. That was the only way in which he could account for the Secretary for War having declared that he had no opinion on the matter. Two nights before the production of the first Budget he (Lord Garlies), in addressing the House, expressed his conviction that the cost of the abolition of purchase, together with a retirement scheme, would amount to £1,200,000 a-year, and it was a remarkable fact that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer afterwards named precisely the same sum—thus confirming his computation. When the Estimates were before the House the Government asked them to pass the Estimates and reserve their remarks on causes of expenditure; but the moment an examination of this Bill was commenced they were asked—"What is the good of discussing a measure when you have already voted the money and the men?" He held that it was the duty of hon. Members to discuss the question fully. The cost of retirement in the artillery would supply the Government with a basis for a calculation as to the expense of their scheme; and he trusted that they would, in common decency, give the House some information on the point. He would wish to remind the House that the right hon. Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey) had already stated that the evidence taken by the Commission appointed to inquire into the working of the purchase system, of which he was Chairman, went to prove that if purchase were abolished to-day, it would revive to-morrow. He emphatically denied that the country wished for the proposed change, for what the country wanted was that there should be good means of transport and supply for the
1138
Regular Army, and better military instruction for the Auxiliary forces. Those excellent institutions, the schools of instruction at the different barracks, were a step in the right direction, and he thanked the Government for providing them. He thought this Bill showed a desire to pander to the lamentable credulity and expensive superstition of the hon. Member for the Border Burghs. In addressing his constituents, the hon. Member, so far from telling them that this would be an expensive change, actually tried to show, by extraordinary figures of his own, that in the end it would be a saving to the country. At present the people of this country were apathetic upon this subject, because they did not understand the Bill; and until they did understand what such a measure involved, hon. Members opposed to its provisions might endeavour in vain to convince them that a Government, acceding to office on principles of economy and retrenchment could so far have deceived them as to bring in a Bill which did nothing towards strengthening the bulwarks of the country, but simply involved an enormous cost to the nation, without securing any equivalent. Speaking on behalf of many hon. Members on that side of the House he maintained that in opposing the Bill they were actuated by no factious motive, but purely from a strong sense of duty to their constituents, who objected to being taxed in this ridiculous and extravagant manner. Prompted by this feeling, they were determined, though unfortunately in a minority, to oppose the Bill clause by clause. He had no hesitation in saying that, leaving party feeling out of the question, if the true conviction of every hon. Member were obtained, such would be the weight of testimony against the whole measure, that the Army Regulation Bill would find a resting-place in purgatory.
MR. WHALLEYsaid, he was determined to aid hon. Members on either side of the House in offering every practicable opposition to the Bill. When the hon. Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan) became eloquent on the abolition of purchase, he (Mr. Whalley), for one, was carried away with his arguments; but now that he had considered the subject, he was appalled at the cost such a proceeding would involve. Objecting altogether to a standing Army as mercenary and panic-creating

1139
and expensive, he recalled the attention of the House to "first principles" on the subject, quoting from former Mutiny Acts, in which three reasons were stated for the maintenance of a standing Army—namely, "For the defence of our shores, for the defence of our colonial possessions, and for the balance of power in Europe." He would proceed to consider those reasons, when
THE CHAIRMANruled that the hon. Member was out of Order in not approaching the question before the Committee.
MR. WHALLEYsaid, he had the question in his mind.
THE CHAIRMANinvited the hon. Member to bring it before the mind of the Committee.
MR. WHALLEYwent on to say that the only reason he had heard in support of this costly scheme of retirement was that it afforded the means of placing the Army on an efficient footing; and what he wished to show was that a standing Army was really a source of weakness, not of strength, and that it ought to be done away with. In Switzerland, a man of 21 found himself thoroughly qualified to act as a soldier and defend his country; and this state of things was brought about by the system of education in use in the schools there, and it was the most valuable part of their school education. Why should not England adopt a like system? ["Question."] It was the question, for the question related to the standing Army.
MR. CANDLISH: No; the question was, whether England, having a standing Army, should abolish the system of purchase? What had the state of education in Switzerland to do with the question before the House?
THE CHAIRMAN: The question is, whether the clause relating to the sale of commissions should stand part of the Bill? I have already desired the hon. Member to confine himself as much as he can to the subject before the Committee.
MR. WHALLEYproceeded with his remarks. He had travelled in Germany, and although he found that something like conscription prevailed, the system of education was nearly that of Switzerland. He might say the same thing with regard to the Channel Islands. The results of the purchase system were
1140
obvious to any hon. Gentleman who had ever followed the career of an officer in the Army. A young gentleman entered the Army, and for four or five years, the novelty having passed off, the acquisition of a knowledge of military habits occupied his mind. He then endeavoured to relieve himself of the habits he had acquired of laborious idleness. Other young men desired to go through the like curriculum, and what was more natural than for those who had purchased their position in the Army—the pay for which formed only the interest of their capital invested in the purchase of their commissions—to desire to receive back that capital? Gentlemen who had spent thousands of pounds wished to receive their money back. Why should they not receive it from their successors? What was the indirect result of these gentlemen entering the Army? Having nothing to do—and the country desired that they should have nothing to do—they had nevertheless acquired an education which would serve their country in the event of danger, and which gave them an enlightened patriotism much to the advantage of the country, and they would save the country the expense and danger of an entirely professional Army. He intended to offer every opposition in his power, both directly and indirectly, to the passing of the Bill.
MR. WHEELHOUSEsaid, he was extremely glad that the issue was raised upon this clause, because it involved a question to which they were bound to give their best attention. He was no soldier, and he knew nothing about the Army; but, nevertheless, the question before them was one which came fully home to his mind as the representative of a large tax-paying community, and he wanted to find out, if possible, what was to be the cost which his constituents, in common with all the other constituencies of the country, would have to pay for the enactment of this measure. They had been told that they must prepare for the payment of £600,000, which would be asked for at once; and in the next year for double that amount—namely £1,200,000; and a permanent annual sum of £1,000,000 additional for many years afterwards. Now, he hoped that the Committee, before assenting to this large expenditure, would insist upon ascertaining the quid pro quo. Was it

1141
shown that the Army at present was inefficient and worked badly? As far as he was capable of understanding the matter, it appeared to him that the best military authorities had shown that, for the number of the forces, our Army, so far as its officers were concerned, was as effective as it was possible for it to be. In the year 1840 a Commission on Naval and Military Promotion, of which the Duke of Wellington, and other distinguished men were members, reported that the practical advantages of the purchase system had been proved by its effects during 24 years of peace. But 24 years of peace were really nothing—the system had existed for two centuries, as he was told; and was it to be said that a system which had worked well for so long a time was to be abolished at an enormous, an unknown, nay, he might almost venture to say an unfathomable cost to the taxpayers of the country? The Commission of 1870 reported that—
"Experience had shown that the most complete prohibition and the most stringent regulations had utterly failed to prevent, or even check, the practice of paying over-regulation prices."
Could the country, then, expect that it would be checked in future? Unless that could be effected, it would be useless to impose upon the taxpayers of this country the large expenditure which was contemplated by this Bill. It might be said that civilians could know very little about the bearings of this question; but if hon. Members would go among the large constituencies of the North of England, and tell them that the Government scheme would cost £600,000 this year, £1,200,000 next year, and after that £1,000,000 per annum for years hereafter, there would be an immediate demand to know for what purpose the taxpayers were asked to make so large an outlay. Could the abolition of the purchase system affect the wage-earning class of the population whose sons did not become officers? To men of that position tax-paying had become almost intolerable, and they would not desire the abolition of purchase at the cost which would be involved by this Bill. Moreover, the Government had thought it necessary to propose to deal with the incidence of local ratepaying, yet they also introduced this measure, which would involve taxation without limit. The whole system of retirement, an indispensable requisite connected with it, had not been
1142
placed before the House because the Government feared if that were disclosed the country would be so appalled that the Bill must be rejected. The Government had been asked whether they dared to go to the country upon this Bill; but whether they would or would not, the nation ought not to be saddled with an unknown expenditure. There need be no hurry to abolish the purchase system, which had lasted a century or longer; and it would be much more satisfactory if the Government took time to consider the details of the question and let the people become thoroughly cognizant of the subject. Instead of gentlemen going through the country and addressing meetings of persons who knew nothing of the matter except that which was there told them, the Government ought to let the country know every phase in which this subject could be presented. The wage and salary-earning classes ought not to be taxed to an unreasonable amount because it was desired to interfere with a system of which they had made no manifest complaint, and by the abolition of which they could not be benefited. Should purchase be abolished, as proposed, he thought a dead stop would be put to promotion, as an old officer would not, under the new system, be got to retire as at present, and the Army, in place of a younger officer, might thereby be compelled to put up with an officer utterly inefficient. When hon. Members knew thoroughly the scheme of retirement and its cost they would be prepared to legislate; but until then they ought not to be asked to vote in the dark on such a momentous question. He would venture to hope then, for these reasons, that the 2nd clause would be omitted from the Bill.
MR. R N. FOWLERremarked that this 2nd clause involved the whole principle of the Bill, its object being the abolition of purchase. In its place there might be adopted either a system of seniority or a system of selection; but the result of a system of pure seniority would be to hand over the command of the Army to men physically incapable of going through the fatigue and labour involved, and selection resolved itself into a system of political jobbery; and though he was not insensible to the theoretical objections to purchase, yet he was not prepared to substitute for it a system which would hand the

1143
Army over to the tender mercies of party. For instance, an officer who had never seen a shot fired in anger might obtain promotion if he were recommended to the Secretary of State for War by a supporter of the Government, while the claims of other officers who had bled for their country would be overlooked if they were recommended by hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition side of the House. Election agents said of his right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) that when he was in office he never did anything for his party, and surely this conduct was highly honourable to him. In like manner the present Secretary of State for War would doubtless act in the most impartial manner, but the right hon. Gentleman might not continue to be connected with the Department for many years, and his successor might deem it his duty so to bestow the patronage of the Army as to promote the interests of the party to which he belonged. Another serious objection to the Bill was that it proposed, in obedience to an ignorant popular clamour, to abolish the regimental system, the one part of our military organization which had never broken down. It was a significant fact that the Bill had not received any independent support from military Members of the House—those Members who were professionally able to give an opinion upon it; and even on the Liberal side of the House the Bill had not received any approval whatever, except from the Treasury bench, while several gallant Gentlemen opposite had strongly opposed it. He would refer to a very distinguised officer—his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Gloucestershire (Colonel Kingscote)—whom he regarded as the model of an officer and a country gentleman, and he had voted against the Government. Knowing his hon. and gallant Friend's attachment to the party of which he was an ornament, he felt that his course was a strong censure on the Bill. It was the duty therefore of every hon. Member to consider whether he would be justified to the country in sanctioning a Bill that would lead to such an enormous expense. The question ought to be distinctly put to the constituencies at a General Election.
COLONEL C. H. LINDSAYsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of
1144
State for War was no doubt anxious that this clause should be allowed to pass without any further discussion, on the ground that everything had been said that could be said on this side of the House. It was natural that he should have arrived at that conclusion after the apparently exhaustive debates that had taken place on both sides of the House, all of which, with two or three exceptions, had been condemnatory of the Bill; but he forgot that there was a good deal more to be said—namely, by himself, which he had not yet told them, before a subject which involved such grave issues could be very well dropped: and as the tide had not yet turned, he might prepare himself for many an echo of these debates, before our death struggle was at hand, unless he replied to the various questions that had been put to him, as to the plan and cost of his scheme for re-organizing the Army. He would wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he had ever paid a visit to that beautiful spot of earth—the Eagle's Nest of Killarney? If he had, no doubt he witnessed the explosion of a cannon, the sound of which was repeated 10 times over, on the principle of the echo; and he must also have witnessed another effect at another spot, which was of quite a different character, and supposed to be rather curious: it was a question which was asked by the guide, and it was this—"Paddy, how are you?" And what was the echo? A reply of a most exhaustive and conclusive character—namely, "Very well, thank you." What was the consequence?—the echo died, and there was an end of the matter, for the question was fully answered. But if they applied that case to their own, how different was the result. Question after question had been put to the Government; but no reply—no echo of a responsive character, for there had been none at all; under which circumstances they had nothing to do but to re-echo their arguments until the answers were given. Now, the more one reflected upon the position into which the Government had led the House upon this question, the greater was the mist which appeared to be surrounding the future welfare of the British Army; and no matter what line one might take, or what arguments were employed, all was darkness and confusion. There had been a positive bouquet of Amendments

1145
and debates upon this vexed question, and they had not yet disposed of the 2nd clause of the Bill; and it was not to be wondered at, considering the difficulty they had in arriving—if they ever did so—at the object they had in view, before they made any satisfactory progress—namely, the plan of the Government, which was to involve so great a cost. The first Amendment was on the second reading, proposed by his hon. and gallant Relative the Member for Berkshire, in direct opposition to the abolition of purchase; the next was proposed by his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bewdley (Colonel Anson), upon going into Committee, and upon the assumption that purchase was doomed, which suggested a compromise between the officers and the State; and the next was by the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz) upon a similar assumption, which also suggested a compromise which was framed upon a more economical basis than that of the Government, and it did not disturb the regimental system. The first of these Amendments was, as they knew, negatived without a division, and the second reading passed in protesting silence: but the next two were defeated by the majority opposite. He voted for them, and in doing so he by no means pledged himself to the principle of the abolition of purchase; but he considered a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, and because he believed that the officers of the Army were satisfied with that compromise. The Government peg seemed to be firmly fixed in the network of reticence, and it would be almost impossible to extract it in order to insure satisfactory progress. That clause had been somewhat severely handled, owing to the Amendments and their consequent debates which had been attached to it, and the Government still declined to accept any compromise or any alteration in its scheme, or to turn to the right or left of the groove into which it had placed itself, so that they would have the same grim spectre crossing their path at every turn—namely, an undue expenditure of public money upon a War Office crotchet which, if ever the Bill became law, would create an inconvenient excrescence, and be no benefit to any interest whatever. Now, the second Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Bewdley, which had reference
1146
to this particular case, spoke for itself, based as it was upon every principle of justice—in favour of the officers of the Army—whose lives were surely as valuable to themselves and to their families as hon. Members' own, and who were called upon to serve in every climate under the sun—being allowed to continue the system of exchange from one regiment to another for various reasons, but especially on the score of ill-health or an unsuitable climate. Well, it was refused by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, who said that it struck at the principle of abolition of purchase—an argument which everyone who had served in the Army knew perfectly well could have nothing to do with the buying and selling of commissions, and should at once be dismissed. It was also objected to by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Surveyor General, who suggested another loop-hole—namely, that officers whose health was impaired by climate could go on temporary half-pay, and who, on restoration to health, would be replaced on full-pay when opportunities offered. Now, that seemed a most disheartening arrangement, for the Government would not allow exchanges to be continued on the existing system, but it would allow them on its own new system, whatever that might be, and yet it did not tell them what that would be, and it obliged an officer, who might be a senior of his rank as a company officer, and who might have done good service to his country, to go on half-pay for an indefinite period, after he had been invalided home and required time to recover his health, which might not have become so broken had he been allowed to make his own arrangements to exchange into a regiment stationed in a more congenial climate; it obliged him to go on half-pay, by which means he would lose his Army position as well as a considerable portion of his pay at the very time, perhaps, when it would be of consequence to him to pay his doctor's bill; whereas he could on the present and well-understood system exchange into another regiment without loss of pay or Army position. Considerable argument had been devoted to this subject. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War declined, as usual, to explain his intentions, for upon the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for

1147
Oxfordshire (Colonel North) asking how exchanges were to be effected without the passing of money, he said "He should not take up the time of the Committee by quoting from the papers which lay before him upon that point," although he owned that he had the plan before him; and when the noble Lord the Member for West Essex (Lord Eustace Cecil) pressed him to say what he meant, he replied that "he had made it clear that exchanges would not be prohibited, but that the passing of money for exchanges would be," and there he left it, as usual, in the densest fog, for the Surveyor General to tell us that although exchanges would not be prohibited, they would virtually be abolished, for it came to that, because he said that temporary half-pay would no doubt be the solution of the problem, which proved, beyond doubt, though he took care not to say so, that such cases as ill-health-vacancies would be met by temporary half-pay, after a certain lapse of time, in order to carry out the scheme of selection, and below the rank of field officer. In short, they were not likely to make any progress that would be satisfactory to the Government, unless the necessary information on that and many other points was given to the Committee. The Bill would, doubtless, advance; but it would be by slow degrees—it would be at funeral pace—and upon the principle of progression by considerable and determined antagonism; because although the power of resistance might be that of a minority, it was obstinate and prolonged, and able to cope with the high pressure that was against it, and without infringing upon the forms of the House. They had a duty to perform in obedience to the sentiments of their constituents, and that was to do their best to check extravagant and useless expenditure, such as was involved in that measure; and they would not be justified in endorsing such a scheme of the Government of which the plans were refused to them. They were just as responsible to those who sent them there, as hon. Members opposite who supported the Government as to how public money was to be spent, if they did not record their protest in every shape and form against such reckless, uncalled-for, and unprofitable expenditure. The gauntlet was thrown at the feet of the right hon. Gentleman the
1148
other evening by the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho), and there it lay for seven or eight hours; but he had not the courage to take it up and fling it back again, with the information that had been so continually asked for and demanded, and the consequence was they were as wise now as ignorance would allow them to be. It should not be a party question; it was essentially an Imperial question; but the refusal on the part of the Government to communicate the necessary information upon so important a subject, and one which was to cost the country millions of money, had unhappily converted what ought to have been "co-operation" into an opposition of an unlimited character. Such being the case, let not the Government and its majority appeal to the generosity of the minority, which it had treated with a disregard which was scarcely warranted. It was therefore time that the country should rouse itself from its apparent apathy or ignorance, he knew not which, and study its own interests more than it did, which, in this instance, meant nothing more or less than its pocket. He asked—what were the various constituencies throughout the country about who were taxpayers, what were they about? Did they not know the privilege which they possessed as electors? Did they think that the only duties they had to perform were to be canvassed, and to vote at General Elections? If not, it was high time that they should feel their helm, and ask their representatives if this extraordinary expenditure was necessary, for it was not only an officer's question, but a financial one of considerable gravity. What were the gentlemen of the United Kingdom about? The great landed proprietors and merchant princes, who had responsibilities and obligations attached to their possessions, were they land, or were they gold? What were the leading tradesmen, the inhabitants, the electors, and working classes of the boroughs about that they did not awake from their lethargy and consult with their representatives, who were supporting, in ignorance, that extravagant policy of the Government? Why did they not ask them a few simple questions upon a matter which so especially concerned their interests?—men who were living by the sweat of their brow, living from hand to mouth, and

1149
whose families were mainly dependent upon their ability to labour and to earn for their wives and little ones, and who could ill-afford to have their hard-earned purses, as it were, filched, in order to satisfy the capricious policy of the Government upon a question which, if carried, would entail additional and unnecessary burdens upon those electors who were a large portion of the taxpaying and working classes. It was all very well to have what was called confidence in this or that Government; it was nothing more or less than any other fashion of the day, which came in and went out, had its innings, and when its health was declining was kicked to death by those who had once fondled and cherished it, as a child would a new toy, but which it broke with as little concern as the Government were bent upon destroying the prestige of the British Army. But, whether the constituencies had confidence or not, it was scarcely incumbent upon them to consult their representatives, and ask such simple, straightforward, and such as justified questions—How many millions were really to be saddled upon the taxpayers for the purpose of abolishing purchase in the Army, and providing for a scheme of retirement, which must cost several millions more? In what way would the extra tax, which was to be imposed consequent upon those two issues, benefit them, and in what way would it benefit the country? In what way would this extra burden improve the high tone and quality and efficiency of the officers of the British Army? Was it any concern of the taxpayers whether the officers of the Army bought and sold their commissions which the Government was calling upon them to buy up at the highest price whether they wished to do so or not? Let those questions be asked and answered in the same spirit; let the Whitsuntide holidays, which were fast approaching, be devoted to that business. [Murmurs of dissent.] Yes, he knew what those expressions meant, he knew where the shoe would pinch. Let the Whitsuntide holidays be given up to such business, and if the constituencies could not get more satisfactory answers than hon. Members on that side of the House were able to extract, let them do their duty, and express their disapproval of so reckless, so useless, and so unjust a policy. Reckless, because it was not
1150
required by the taxpayers; useless, because it could benefit no interest; and unjust, because it would impose a severe burden upon the working classes, without conferring the slightest benefit upon them. The electors of the United Kingdom were free agents; but if they were ready and willing, after they had asked for information, to follow in the track of this dangerous policy, the responsibility must lie with them and their party, and not with hon. Members on this side of the House, who had strenuously opposed it. The only semblance that they had had of a statement in reference to the scheme of retirement and selection plainly showed that the right hon. Gentleman had got none, which made matters worse, for what did he say the other evening? He said that—
"The mode in which security is to be afforded to the Army for the impartiality and fairness of promotion is still being carefully considered by some of the most eminent officers of the Army,"—
which meant that those eminent officers, whoever they might be, had not yet completed their researches, or made their Report. Then why not wait until their duties were completed, and their Report laid on the Table of the House? He confessed he was sorry to hear from the hon. and gallant Member for Truro (Captain Vivian) that one of the objects of the Bill was to facilitate promotions from the ranks. Now, what did that mean, but simply to democratize the officer machinery of the Army—to throw open the commissions to a class of men who really preferred their own social sphere, which was naturally more acceptable to them and their comrades, who were the private soldiers, than to be raised above that sphere to another with which they had nothing in common, and which placed them in a false position and with no prospective advantage, such as at present existed, when they retired from the service. Nothing would tend to damage the prestige and esprit de corps more than such a system, and it would therefore tend to loosen that important bond of union, the existence of which was so necessary between officers and men. He would not detain the Committee any longer; but before he sat down he hoped that hon. Members who were against this portion of the Bill would not hesitate to vote for any Amendment which the Government opposed. He intended to support the noble Lord (Lord

1151
Garlies), for the reasons which he had given, for moving the rejection of a clause which, if passed, would put another nail into the coffin of the purchase system, for it would introduce another system of political Army patronage, it would alter the conditions of regimental promotion, and it would therefore destroy the morale of an Army, which had not only never failed to do its duty, but had proved itself to be twice as good for its size as any other Army in the world, a fact which was mainly attributable to three important attributes—namely, English bravery, unfailing discipline, and regimental system—neither of which could avail without the co-operation of the other. The bravery and discipline would, of course, remain; but if that measure became law they would be widowed and deserted, and rendered comparatively ineffective, by the destruction and removal of their hitherto closest and most devoted companion—regimental system.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, there were two questions with which they had to deal—whether purchase should be abolished, and how the money was to be provided for it; and it was with the last question that he, representing a very large constituency, wished particularly to deal. In order to gain that point he would ask three plain questions, to which he wanted three plain answers. Should the Government by some chance be beaten and go to the country, he had not the smallest doubt the constituencies would consider the answers given to his questions. The first question was, what was the cost of the whole measure? His second question was, when was that cost to be paid for—in one year or in a long series of years? The third question was, who was to pay the money? With regard to the cost, he was aware that a sort of estimate had been placed before the House that the cost would be from £8,000,000 to £10,000,000. He supposed that on a question of this kind they were not to be particular as to a million or two, though he recollected that the county he represented was some time ago visited by the present Prime Minister, who made the question of one or two millions of money almost a matter of impeachment against the party then in office, whom he was anxious to supplant. Allowing that for £8,000,000 or £10,000,000 the present officers of
1152
the Army might be bought out, then he wanted to know what would be the future expense of the Army when the new scheme should be established. How much would it cost to maintain the Staff of officers for 100,000 men under the new system, as compared with the existing system? He felt sure that if the Government would only give a plain and satisfactory answer to that question the opposition to the Bill would cease. They were told that in the present year £600,000 would be wanted, and £1,200,000 in the next; and everyone who knew anything about figures must be aware that these figures might mean a great deal more. Was the expense to go on increasing by arithmetical or geometrical progression, for the Government had as yet given the vaguest possible notion of what the cost would be? The next question was, when the money was to be paid? As the proposal of the Government affected the interests of the country not merely for the present, but for the future, he asked whether the money was to be paid in one or two years, or whether the payment was to be spread over a series of years—over 20 or 30 years, for instance—so that the burden on the present generation might be lightened? His third question was a very important one, and it was, who was to pay the cost of the new scheme? The late Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Stansfeld), in a speech delivered some time ago, said that the House must not expect any great reduction in the Civil Service Estimates, and that the only part of the expenditure which the House could look to for the purpose of making reductions was the Army and Navy Estimates, adding, at the same time, that no one could quarrel with the Navy Estimates for the present year; moreover, the right hon. Gentleman said that the Army Estimates constituted the head and front of the offence. Under these circumstances it was natural to suppose that, if they wanted to obtain money by a reduction of Estimates, it was only by cutting down the Army Estimates that they could obtain the money required for paying the cost of the Army Regulation scheme. The matter then came to this—that the re-organization of the Army was to be paid for by the reduction of the Army; or, in other words, the improvement of the Army was to be paid for by the Chancellor of the Exchequer

1153
out of the impoverishment of the Army. He now came to a still more important matter. They had been told by the same right hon. Gentleman that they ought to consider well before they took off any indirect taxation, because when once taken off it could not be put on again. The result of that statement was this—that for any transitional expenditure the only possible resource they had to fall back upon was the income tax or the suspension of the operation for the reduction of the National Debt. But against this latter course the House had decided, and the consequence was that the whole of this transitional expenditure would fall upon the income tax payers, the one class in the community who could the least afford to pay it. If, therefore, they went to an election and this were known—and for his part he wished they might go to an election, the sooner, indeed, the better, for he was convinced that the Government and the country were not at one on this subject—he believed that the nation would decide that a more unjust, a more unwise, and a more impolitic measure could not well be devised. He believed that the nation would decide that the abolition of purchase, if of value at all, was only so because it tended to the good of the whole nation, in which case the cost ought to be defrayed by the whole of the community, instead of by one portion only—namely, the income tax payers.
MR. SEELYsaid, that, whether the expenditure contemplated were £8,000,000 or £10,000,000 was not for the present material; it was, no doubt, so large that it was the bounden duty of every hon. Member of that House to see that in spending the money, they obtained for the nation the full value of that expenditure. The arguments urged by the Government in favour of the measure were these—that this expenditure would result in three changes beneficial to the Army—more scientific officers, promotion by selection, and the power of transferring officers from the Line to the Reserve forces. Now, he doubted whether these changes, if secured, would be so advantageous as was supposed; but, assuming for a moment that they would be, he would ask, what security had they that these changes would be effected after they had spent this money? There was nothing about them in this Bill, and it was certain that
1154
they would not follow as a matter of course. It was said, that they were to be obtained by regulations which were to be issued after this Bill had passed. The Secretary of State for War, in proposing this Bill, had said that purchase stood in the way of these changes; but purchase did not stand in the way of their being carried out in the artillery; and, if they were so desirable that the nation was to be called upon to pay this large sum of money on their account, why were they not carried out, where it could be done without being attended by this large expenditure? They were to have promotion by selection in the cavalry; why were not regulations issued providing for promotion by selection in the artillery? If the change was worth all this money, it was evidently undesirable to continue in the artillery the system of promotion by seniority. Then, again, why did not the Government at once issue regulations for the exchange of officers from the artillery into the Artillery Militia? Purchase did not stand in the way of that. The fact was that, even if purchase were abolished, it would not only be very difficult to effect these changes, but they had no security that the Government would ever have the opportunity of carrying them out. It was, he trusted, an improbable supposition; but, supposing there was a change of Government after the passing of this Bill, did the Committee believe that the regulations which were to effect those changes, and for which they were to pay all this money, would ever be carried out? How would it be if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Droitwich were again at the head of the War Office? They knew that he believed some of these changes undesirable if they were possible, and impossible even if desirable. He was as strong an advocate for the abolition of purchase as any man in that House; but he did not think it right that the nation should be called upon to pay so large a sum, without some better guarantee that the money when spent would result in the changes which they expected. Why, when the money, as at present proposed, was paid, and officers entered the Army under the new regulations, the Government, if they wished to alter those regulations, would again have to deal with vested interests; so that they might find themselves in a few years' time in the position of having

1155
once more to compensate the officers of the Army on the terms on which compensation was made in the Civil Service. He wished also to say a word on the subject of exchanges. If exchanges were practically abolished, as they would be under the operation of the Bill as it stood, the Army would no doubt be rendered much less agreeable as a profession than it was at present, and that being so the pay of the officers would have in some shape or other to be in creased. Well, what advantage, he should like to know, was the country to obtain from raising the pay of the officers? It would appear as if the Government in this proposal were actuated by a mere wanton desire of change, but the matter was a very serious one in reality. Did the Committee know what the number of officers was which, according to the idea of the Government, would be required? As he understood the Secretary for War, they were to have in 10 or 12 years 178,000 men in the Reserves, in addition to the Regular Army. Suppose that that Army were reduced from 130,000 to 100,000 or 80,000 men, there would then be the officers for a quarter of a million of men to be provided for. Now, they had at present 6,000 officers for 130,000 men. How many, he would ask, would be required for 250,000 men, and a large number for the Militia in addition? That was a point on which he thought the country ought to be informed. A great deal, he might add, had been said about the enormous prizes in the Army, and it was said that a large sum might be saved by doing away with honorary colonelcies. He would, however, beg the Committee to bear in mind that the officers of the Army were very much underpaid, while every man who knew anything of business must be aware that within the last 10 or 20 years all service requiring intelligence for its performance had very greatly risen in value. He had no doubt, indeed, that any man who understood the value of intelligent service would say, that if a fair value were put on that of the officers of the British Army, we should have to pay them double the amount which they now received. He should wish, he might add, that hon. Members who sat beside him, and who were so very much in favour of economy, but who, so far as his experience went, very often strained at a gnat while they were prepared to swallow a camel,
1156
would look the expenditure which the country would have to bear under the scheme of the Government fairly in the face. They were likely to have a largely increased number of officers, and what were they to get in return for the great outlay which would be required. Under all the circumstances of the case, what he should suggest would be, that the Government should postpone the further progress of the Bill until they had framed the necessary regulations, and until they had laid before the House an estimate of what was to be the whole cost of the Army of the future some five years hence. It might be urged in opposition to that suggestion that it would lead to loss of time; but then the Ballot Bill might be proceeded with, and that portion of the Licensing Bill which the Government meant to push on during the present Session. While the House was enaged in discussing these Bills, the War Office might be very usefully employed in concocting the new regulations, and then the House could form an opinion, if only the Ballot Bill or a portion of the Army Regulation Bill could be carried this Sessson, as to which of the two it should be. In conclusion, the present Bill, he could not help observing, had been begun in a panic, and like most things begun in a panic was likely to end in nothing but disappointment. In what he had said, he had spoken mainly with respect to the money question, but the whole future of the Army was, he believed, involved in the present scheme, and it was therefore that, while fully approving the abolition of purchase, he had deemed it to be his duty to speak in the sense in which he had done, implying that he could not on that occasion support the policy of the Government.
MR. HENLEYsaid, he was unwilling to give a silent vote on the Amendment before the House. Like other hon. Members, he should not presume to give an opinion on the military part of the question; but as a Representative of the people there were questions which he could not help feeling interested about, for the Government had given no information whatever to the country, apart from the military part of the question, as to matters in which they were deeply interested. He would not venture, like his hon. Friend the Member for South-west Lancashire (Mr. Cross), to ask questions of the Government, because

1157
he firmly believed they were incapable of answering them, and, moreover, he thought the Government were legislating in a panic; and, if so, he did not believe it was possible for them to give that dispassionate attention to the question which should be given if it was to be wisely settled. So far as he could judge of it, the measure was calculated to do great injustice to the taxpayers of the country, without in any way benefiting any one of the parties desired; while as regarded the greater question, the circumstances of the taxpayer, he desired to remind the Committee that they were paying between £14,000,000 and £15,000,000 for the Army—a fact that he would beg leave to commend to the attention of those below the gangway, who talked a great deal about economy, and who said it was unjust that none should go into the Army except such as could pay. That meant that a special social class went into the Army; but let them look at the Navy, in which there was no payment for commissions. Did the humbler class of people get commissions there? Let them consider that, because they had raised a cock-and-bull story to amuse the English people into paying this money. There used to be in the Navy a class of men who rose from before the mast, all of which was now changed; and that being so, were they justified in saddling the English people with a burden of taxation of the extent of which no man had a definite idea? Were they to add to the Estimates another £1,000,000? Was that politic? It was said, indeed, they were to have a small force with the colours, and some vast Reserve behind; but looking at notorious facts, it would have been wiser to have made sure that the men could be enlisted, and having got the men, a Minister might say that it was necessary to devise a scheme for getting officers. But, he must say, that to him it seemed they were not to get the men; and, if so, were they, then, to resort to conscription? In that case, it looked as though the Government wanted to bring them to some Germanized system. No one could say that an officer who had paid for his commission would be less amenable to discipline, or less likely to lead his men well because of that. But then it was said there would be such great advantages arising from selection. That was the cry. Well, had
1158
there been such unmixed satisfaction with the working of the Navy within the last 40 or 50 years? What right had the Government to suppose that they could get better men than they got now? Had there not been a good deal of singing out about abuse in regard to the Navy, for men had acted as men would always act? At present an officer had what might be described as the benefit of renewals; if he remained long enough in the Army he would get rank; and the history of the Indian Army had taught them that rank was as much prized as money; but by the measure proposed the officer would be deprived of this certainty of rank, and in return would get nothing. It was true the Government promised to make provisions for taking up the commissions; but what was the security? Parliaments were fickle, and would be, as they had always been, hot and cold; and it might be said, when a large sum appeared on the Estimates for taking up commissions—"We have a right to revise your conditions." So the officer would stand a chance of being deprived of payment as well as this right of renewal. If Government was satisfied of the soundness of its views, why had it not fixed the charge, raised the money by some means, and set the country free of the matter? That would be a fair way of dealing with the officers, and a proposal of that kind would show that Government had confidence in its own scheme. A great deal had been said in times past about all trade being nothing more than gambling; but, considering the vast difference of opinion among those competent to judge on the subject, the whole scheme was a pure speculation, and the Government, like gamblers, were sacrificing the interests of the officers, and risking the security of the country for the sake of a possible advantage. He wished with all his heart that the Government would re-consider this important subject, which so nearly affected the future of the country. It was unjust to the people to refuse them information as to the cost; and hon. Members were not justified in imposing a large charge upon the taxpayers of the future, especially having regard to the excessive and increasing charge for Army establishments, without being well assured that the change proposed would be beneficial.
MR. OTWAYsaid, he had some difficulty in determining the vote he would give. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) had touched an important point in alluding to the social position of the officers of the Army; and the same subject had been dealt with by those who, to his great surprise, had instituted a comparison between the Civil Service and service in the Army in respect of parting with sums of money for making exchanges. But the cases were not analogous. Those who were intrusted to command an armed force should be men of whose loyalty and contentment there could be no doubt. If they deprived the officers of the Army of one advantage which they possessed, he thought they would go far to touch those sentiments of loyalty and contentment for which they were at the present moment so well known. He alluded to a point of which he thought too little had been made, and which, with all due respect, had been, in his opinion, too weakly argued by the representatives of the War Department in that House—he referred to the exchanges between officers. He maintained that it was impossible to do anything more prejudicial to the public service than to throw any impediment in the way of exchanges between officers of equal rank. Hon. Members who had urged this point had been told that they were looking at the subject as if it were a rich man's question. He maintained, however, that it was a poor and not a rich man's question. It was true that we no longer maintained so many troops as we did in the West Indies; but we still sent troops to unhealthy climates, such as the Mauritius. He could easily conceive that an officer of a regiment ordered to the Mauritius, a man of means, though willing to render his Sovereign any military service that might be required of him, might still dislike being ordered to go to such a Colony, while, at the same time, an officer in the regiment ordered home might have married and settled down, and might be equally anxious to stay. In such a case, he would ask what possible harm could result from the power of exchange being permitted for a certain sum of money between officers of equal rank? He was not, however, quite sure how far this clause affected the question of exchanges. It appeared
1160
to him as if it dealt rather with exchanges between officers in the cavalry and the infantry, or between officers on full and on half-pay. He would now turn to another part of the clause—the abolition of purchase—and on that point he was entirely at issue with hon. Gentlemen opposite. He was no recent convert to the proposal for the abolition of purchase, for almost his first vote was recorded, and his first speech in that House was delivered, in favour of that proposal. It was only lately he had referred to the Division List of that debate, and he found that not a single Member of the Treasury bench went into the lobby with him. In those days he sat below the gangway, and the proposals for Army reform, most of which had since been carried with, as he believed, a beneficial result, were not fashionable, and were held by many to be impracticable. More than a quarter of a century since he purchased his promotion into another regiment to serve in an Indian regiment over the head of eight or nine officers, men further advanced in years, and many of whom had served in more than one campaign. It so happened that in 1868, when he contested the borough he represented, he found the depot of his old regiment there. He invited the commanding officer to dine with him, and to his surprise, after the lapse of a quarter of a century, he found an old brother officer in the enjoyment of the rank of captain. He had never left the regiment, but he had served at the Cape of Good Hope, in Kaffraria, and in China. When he joined the regiment, a boy, this officer was a lieutenant, and a quarter of a century afterwards he found him only a captain; and the simple reason was that he was too poor to purchase his promotion, being only the son of an Irish clergyman, whilst others had been able to buy over his head and become general officers, many of whom entered the service after him. That officer had since left the service in which he found so little reward for his services, and it was not surprising he should have done so. He believed that the country had thoroughly made up its mind to the abolition of a system which struck at the root of all military merit, and he would counsel hon. Members opposite to adopt the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr.

1161
Disraeli). They were resisting the wishes of the country, in persisting to oppose this reform, and they would find their efforts would be futile. The Bill, no doubt, had many defects; but the Government had taken in hand a very complicated question, and one in which they were entitled to the aid of the House. He looked upon the abolition of purchase as the first step towards the re-organization of the Army, when we should, he trusted, no longer present to Europe the ridiculous spectacle of having 500,000 or 600,000 armed men, and yet no Army, for he doubted whether we could put 40,000 men into the field to-morrow perfectly equipped. The North German Confederation, with an expenditure of £11,000,000 per annum, supported an Army of 300,000 men in times of peace, an Army capable of immediate expansion to 900,000, and yet we, with an annual expenditure of nearly £16,000,000 could not to-morrow put 40,000 men properly equipped into the field. Altogether he must say that the Bill did not deal with the question of Army re-organization in a way which he could support; and, further, he agreed with much of the criticism which had been levelled at the reticence of the Government in regard to the expense of the system of retirement. It was idle to suppose that some calculation of the cost had not been made, and it was scarcely fair to the House that such calculation had not been laid before it. It was not alone the expense that was now to be incurred, but the enormous additional sum which would be thrust on the country for payment in the future, if purchase was finally abolished. That would have to be considered. When the question was brought forward in 1851, Mr. Sidney Herbert, in opposing it, expressed an opinion that the cost of abolishing purchase at that time would have been about £5,000,000, while Mr. Frederick Peel estimated that the whole of the commissions of officers then serving in the Crimea could be purchased for £100,000, at least that was the statement to be found in Hansard. It was, therefore, in his opinion, an instance of want of foresight in successive Governments that the system had not been abolished before its costs had had time to grow to a sum of £8,000,000. The taxpayers had therefore a right to ask
1162
why favourable opportunities had been neglected in the past with the result of laying upon them an additional 2d. in the pound of income tax at the present time. He came down to the House determined to support an Amendment in favour of exchanges, for he considered it a private transaction between officers, and one that would confer no vested light whatever. On the whole, however, he should support the clause, because he believed any disadvantages it might possess were outweighed by the fact that if it were rejected it would at once prove fatal to the measure under consideration.
MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he thought the statement of the hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Otway) that it would be impossible at the present moment to put 40,000 or 50,000 troops in the field in case of emergency, was one of the strongest arguments that could be adduced in favour of postponing this question for the present. If he understood the propositions of the Government, the House was not at present informed as to the means by which it was intended to increase the effective force of the Army, although it was asked to sanction an immense, but as yet undefined, increase in the Army expenditure. What, he asked, did they mean to substitute for the abolition of the purchase system? It was very much like what they had heard during the last two or three years that the constitution had been abolished. And what next? There was absolutely nothing, for it all rested in the bosom of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, or the Government for the time being. As the Government proposed to abolish purchase, he thought—although in his opinion the system was theoretically indefensible—that the House and the country had a right to ask what was to be substituted for it. What he wanted to see was an Army in which the officers should not form a strictly professional caste, similar to that which, in 1846–7, created panic and disorder in France, but should remain a part of the people of the country, and in order to insure this the Government ought to draw up and lay before the House a fair and sufficient scheme of retirement before asking Parliament and the people to assent to any scheme of Army reform. The country was now awakening to the fact that the proposals of the Government as they at present

1163
stood would not justify so large an expenditure as was proposed, and he therefore hoped the scheme would be taken back for a time, and reproduced in a manner which would be complete and likely to prove satisfactory to the country generally.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, the hon. Member who had just sat down (Mr. W. H. Smith) had said it was quite impossible to defend the present system of purchase in the Army. [Mr. W. H. SMITH: Theoretically.] As he understood it, practically or theoretically, for the hon. Member and the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) had been unable to distinguish between the two. The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down was in favour of delay; and here he might say he thought the excellent speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Chatham (Mr. Otway) was a speech in favour of delay—influenced, no doubt, by that passage in that hon. Member's speech wherein he said the amount required had increased from £5,000,000 to £8,000,000, and which hon. Members on the Opposition benches amused themselves by stating sometimes to be at £20,000,000, and at other times £40,000,000. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) objected very strongly to the adoption of a system of selection, and proceeded to draw parallels between the Army and the Navy, altogether forgetting to consider whether purchase or selection was the prevailing principle in the British Navy. His right hon. Friend the other night, giving his opinion of the principles of the Bill, went a little out of his way to tell them that the general officers of the Army were somewhat wooden-headed. He should not venture to give the smallest countenance to any such assertion as that; but he might be permitted to remind him that the Royal Commission which sat on the purchase question pointed out that if they had a man placed in the command of a regiment by virtue of his purse, they would be liable to have a disaster which might end in the loss of a battle from the bad conduct of a regiment, and that, further, unless they had a system of selection, not merely to be exercised at the time of the outbreak of a war, but a general system of selection throughout the service, by which those who would
1164
be responsible at the outbreak of a war for placing the right man in command of the whole Army might have had practice and experience in selection, the Government of this country must be in a very disadvantageous position as compared with the Government of the foreign country with which it was about to go to war. His right hon. Friend went on to say that they cut off from the purchase officer that which was his right—namely, the practice of promotion by purchase. Well, his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty had been much blamed for a speech he had made, not in that House, in which he said they were called on to purchase back from the officers the Army, and reconvey it to the country. But if the officers had got a right to the continuance of the system of purchase—as was constantly urged on the other side of the House—wherein did his right hon. Friend (Mr. Goschen) differ from hon. Gentlemen opposite, except in the mode of expression? If the officers had that right, then it had to be purchased back before they could begin the career of Army improvement and regulation. What were they going to take away from the officers? Gambling had been spoken of; but what, he should like to know, was so like gambling as the purchase system? He had, perhaps, incurred some censure because, as a civilian when he first took his present office, he had declared the purchase question to be one which no one could understand. He had formed that opinion from finding how little the most experienced military men around him seemed to understand it. But the purchase system gave the purchase officer a priority over his comrades who had not his command of money, and yet they had been frequently told that great injury would be inflicted on the non-purchase officer if they abolished purchase. But the purchase system inflicted on the non-purchase officer that which was said to be the greatest grievance to any officer—namely, supersession all the time he continued in the Army, and when he left it gave him, indeed, other people's money to put into his pocket, being in that sense a benefit to the non-purchase officer which he ought not to have expected, and which it was not to the public advantage that he should receive. But who was the non-purchase officer whom they most wished

1165
to benefit? Was it the officer who went into the service and wished soon to leave it? No; but the officer who made the Army his profession and desired to remain there, and whom they wished to see rise by merit to the highest commands in the field. And what had that gambling and lottery system done for him? It had superseded him by giving priority to his juniors in the service; and because he did not desire to sell and realize money, he never gained any compensation for the disadvantages to which he had been previously subject. In his opinion, the foreign Governments who raised money by lottery were in much the same position with a Government which maintained the purchase system, and which said they maintained it for the benefit of the taxpayers. He now came to that which had been put forward as the great question—namely, the cost. He had been constantly told that he had been reticent on that subject. Now, he was not surprised that some persons, and especially the hon. Member for South-west Lancashire (Mr. Cross), had made that charge against him, because that hon. Gentleman probably had little time to read the Parliamentary Papers which were laid on his table in the morning. The hon. Member said all he knew about the cost was that they would have to pay £600,000 this year, £1,200,000 next year, and he did not know what it would be the third year, but he spoke as if he thought the cost was likely to go on in geometrical progression to £2,400,000 in the third year. The hon. Gentleman would have been quite satisfied if he had only known what it would be in the third year. Well, a Paper had been laid on the Table, which extended far beyond the scope of the hon. Member, for it did not terminate till the year 1895–6, and it gave full particulars for the whole of that period. From that Paper it would be found that, instead of the cost rising by geometrical progression, it would descend in the third year to £874,000, in the 10th year to £276,000, and by the 15th year to—[Mr. ASSHETON CROSS: The limit has been altered since then.] That was a very convenient line of argument to adopt. As long as the limit was maintained, nothing was too strong to be urged against the limit. But when he announced that since the original introduction of the Bill they had obtained more light on the subject, and
1166
believed that the limit was entirely unnecessary, as there would, probably, be more sales whether the limit existed or not, and they accordingly abandoned the limit, then their opponents turned round upon them and took their objections the other way. However, as far as the calculation of actuaries was concerned, he had laid on the Table everything that he himself possessed with regard to the redemption of purchase, and, therefore, he could not be accused of reticence. Then there was the grand topic about retirement, and they were told that all that "factious opposition"—he was not using his own words, but those of hon. Gentlemen who resorted to it—would have vanished if the Government had only told them their system of retirement. Well, he should like to know what sort of criticism he should have been exposed to if he had attempted to sketch a system of retirement for which he himself had not got the data. [Cheers.] That was no novelty to occasion cheers from hon. Members opposite, for he had previously stated it to the House, and given the House his own candid opinion on the subject, when he introduced the measure. He had stated that there were those who said there would be no diminution in the rate of retirement after the purchase system had been abolished, and that a parent would not be less willing to send his son into the Army because he had nothing to pay for his commission. There were those who held that opinion. He did not think it was a very unreasonable one; but he had candidly admitted that, on the whole, it was not his own. But, then, he had also said that they proposed to make the Reserve forces a means of drawing off, at a certain period, experienced officers from the Army, in order that they might lead those Reserve forces. [An hon. MEMBER: You must pay them.] No doubt they must; but that was not a discovery reserved for that evening. [An hon. MEMBER: Where is the money to come from?] The hon. Member had early in the evening delivered—not for the first time—his sentiments on that subject; and he hoped he would be kind enough to now permit him to deliver his. Were it possible to predict whether there would be the same desire to enter the Army and to retire from it after the purchase system was abolished as there was at present, and in what proportion;

1167
and were it possible to predict how many-military officers would be willing to accept service in the Reserved forces, and to what extent, they should be able, with the assistance of the same gentleman who had prepared the Paper before him, to lay before the House a statement that would be perfectly satisfactory to hon. Members opposite. He wished very much that he had the powers of prediction to which he had alluded; but, not possessing them, all he could do was to express his belief on the subject, which was that the net result of the scheme, including the Pension List on the one side, and a possible increase of retirement on the other, would be not an increase, but a diminution of expense. Expressing thus frankly the opinions he held, he could not be accused of reticence on the subject. He had had one great advantage in dealing with this part of the subject to which he had referred the other night—namely, that although he had himself been cautious not to lay Estimates before the House for which he had no certain data, other hon. Members had not been so prudent. Thus, for instance, the right hon. and gallant Member for Shropshire placed a calculation upon the Table of that House, by which it was estimated that the increase of cost which would result from this scheme would be £1,977,000. He had had the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's figures dissected by the gentleman who had prepared the other statistics for him, and the result was, that upon the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's own hypothesis, the amount was reduced from £1,977,000 to about one-third of that amount. Had any calculations of his own been proved to be thus unreliable he should have been placed in a very awkard position, for he had endeavoured to tell the House all he knew and nothing beyond. He had one general observation for those who only wanted information on the subject, who would at once withdraw their opposition to the measure if they could only get information with regard to it, and that was this—When a reform was proposed he had always observed two classes of opponents whom it had to encounter: those who moved quite in front, and liked to take the fortress by storm, but who if opposed were beaten, and there was an end of it; and those who tried to take the movement in flank, and complain that it was not complete. The
1168
latter said—"Why come with this fragmentary plan? Why not lay all your regulations on the Table, and tell us at once what it is you mean?" But was the Government engaged in building up from a clear foundation an entirely new superstructure? Or were they engaged in the not less difficult task of combining in one harmonious whole works of the past and the future? ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] It was very easy to sneer: that cost nothing; but when a great task had to be performed, it was well to understand what it was they wished to do. Well, they were endeavouring to make the Army, a complicated system of itself, and the various branches of the Reserve force, complicated also in themselves, without any violent test or any sudden change—without injury to any vested interest, unite and amalgamate till they became one arm for the public defence of the country. Was not the right hon. Gentleman opposite wise when he said that any endeavour of this kind must be tentative, and that if the Government were to come down with a set of regulations cut and dried they would, in all probability, find that they had reckoned too confidently upon the future, and that they had taken a second step before they had planted their foot firmly on the first? It had been asked by the hon. Member for Nottingham (Mr. Seely), how the Government knew that other vested interests than those they proposed to deal with would not spring up, for which they would have to provide further compensation. But the surest way to raise up additional vested interests was to make regulations hastily, and to hold out promises which could not be performed; whereas, on the contrary, by pursuing a quiet course, by making each step safe before the next was taken, and by thus carrying with them the confidence and the goodwill of the various interests which they touched, the Government would effect their object without being called upon for further compensation in respect of fresh vested interests. Such a course was doubtless not a sensational one, but it was one that he submitted with confidence the House of Commons would be wise to adopt. Much had been said in the course of the debate that night about the enormous expense the Government were going to in this matter, and attempts had been made in various quarters to draw them into a discussion

1169
upon a branch of the question with respect to which the House must be exceedingly tired. Many hon. Members appeared to think that this was the first occasion on which the question of the expenditure involved by the scheme had been debated, forgetting that the matter had been fully discussed for five nights, at the end of which time the House had decided, in his opinion most wisely, in favour of sanctioning that expenditure. How did it happen that under these circumstances, when they were now in Committee upon the Bill, that the same arguments in favour of the purchase system were iterated and reiterated, as though it was determined that no single step should be taken without every possible obstruction being thrown in the way? The question of retirement had also been fully discussed on several previous occasions, and therefore he should not feel justified in repeating the arguments he had already made use of over and over again. He was, however, delighted to find, in the course of the debate, that so many hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Westminster, who had spoken last, were by no means friends of the purchase system. The hon. Member for Chatham would doubtless excuse him for not entering into the question of exchanges, seeing that the Committee had so recently divided upon the subject. Why, it was now 14 years since Sidney Herbert had declared himself to be no friend to purchase, and it was too much to ask them to wait another 14 years before they took decided steps to secure the abolition of that system; and, besides, he believed it was the determination of the House that promotion should not go by the power of the purse, but by the merits of a man. He believed they regarded that as the foundation of all Army reform, and that they would by their vote in Committee re-inforce and repeat the determination to which, with the Speaker in the Chair, the House had already come on more than one occasion.
LORD GARLIESdenied that promotion in the Army was at present obtained by the power of the purse. That observation had been so frequently made that he felt bound to challenge it, and to point out that it had been disproved over and over again. The hon. Member for Chatham was the only hon. Gentleman who had supported the clause, and one of his reasons for so doing—that he
1170
objected to the expenditure of a large sum of money on the military service—was most remarkable, seeing that by supporting the clause he was helping to incur a still larger expenditure.
Question put, "That Clause 2 stand part of the Bill."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 208; Noes 169: Majority 39.
Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Thursday.

CONTRACTORS ACT.
Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into the operation of the Contractors Act (22 Geo. 3, c. 45), with a view to determine whether it should be amended or repealed, or, on the other hand, be rendered more stringent."—(Mr. Mitchell Henry.)

INTOXICATING LIQUORS (NEW LICENCES) BILL.
On Motion of Sir ROBERT ANSTRUTHER, Bill to suspend the grant of New Licences for the sale of Intoxicating Liquors, ordered to be brought in by Sir ROBERT ANSTRUTHER, Sir HARCOURT JOHNSTONE, Mr. MORRISON, Mr. THOMAS HUGHES, Mr. WENTWORTH BEAUMONT, Mr. SAMUELSON, Mr. MUNDELLA, and Mr. PEASE.
Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 157.]

LAND DRAINAGE SUPPLEMENTAL BILL.
On Motion of Mr. WINTERBOTHAM, Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders under "The Land Drainage Act, 1861," ordered to be brought in by Mr. WINTERBOTHAM and Mr. Secretary BRUCE.
Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 158.]
House adjourned at a quarter before Three o'clock.

MINUTES.
Sat First in Parliament—The Lord Clanbrassill, after the death of his grandfather.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Locomotives * (130).
Second Reading—Committee Negatived—Third Reading—Consolidated Fund (£7,000,000) *; Customs and Income Tax *, and passed.
Second Reading—Lunatics (Scotland) * (117); Postage * (118).
Committee—Report—Leeward Islands * (105).
Report—Ewelme Rectory * (82).
Third Reading—Judgments (Ireland) * (59), and passed.

UNITED STATES—JOINT HIGH COMMISSION—THE TREATY.—QUESTION.

  RULES OF THE HOUSE—NOTICE OF QUESTIONS.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I now ask the Question of which I gave Notice on Friday, on account of the noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs being unable to answer it at once—namely, Whether Her Majesty's Government intend to proceed with the ratification of the Treaty with America until after the Motion of which Notice has been given for the 12th of June. There being some difference of opinion, when the Notice was given, as to the nature of the answer given by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons to an analogous Question, I have referred to the words which he is said to have used. They are these—
  "When the Treaty does arrive, however, it will be immediately presented to Parliament, without waiting for its ratification."
  That, of course, does not amount to an actual pledge that the decision of Parliament will be waited for before ratification, but it amounts to a constructive pledge to that effect; for to present a Treaty to Parliament and give Parliament no time to discuss it would be simply laughing at the Legislature, and making the promise entirely nugatory. I shall be glad, however, to elicit a more distinct statement of the intentions of the Government. Since I gave the Notice the necessity of the Question has been pressed upon me still more cogently by the rumours—and something more than rumours—which I hear of the deep dissatisfaction with which the news of the Treaty has been received in our North American Provinces.
  THE EARL OF LAUDERDALEfelt bound to call attention to a telegram which appeared in the morning papers, dated Washington, May 20, stating that Mr. Sumner had delivered a speech in the American Senate, objecting to the English apology as inadequate, and deeming an apology for England's fault in recognizing the belligerent States requisite. Mr. Sumner had also maintained that England's claims were not well-founded, and that the Treaty was only acceptable as a measure of peace. Now, the reason he (the Earl of Lauderdale) did not lose a moment in bringing
  1102
  this before their Lordships was, that he was not aware that this Government were ever to make an apology to the Americans. He thought it was very likely we should have to pay the claims; but this was the first time he had heard that our Government would make an apology. Mr. Sumner stated that the Treaty had been entered into for the sake of peace. It was not a question of peace or war at all. It was a question of how much money they could get out of us. He hoped the noble Earl would be able to assure the House that we were not to make an apology.
  EARL GRANVILLE: I hope the noble and gallant Earl (the Earl of Lauderdale) will not think it a want of respect if, after having repeatedly refused to enter into the question of the Treaty, I utterly decline to say anything on the subject. Your Lordships are all, I believe, of opinion that it would be premature to discuss the Treaty at this moment. I can take as little notice of Mr. Sumner's statement on the one side as of the noble and gallant Earl's on the other. With regard to the noble Marquess's (the Marquess of Salisbury's) observations, I am surprised that he should have been dissatisfied with me for not departing from the Order of the House, and not answering a Question put without Notice; but, without going into the question whether it is desirable or not to observe the standing rule of the House on that subject, I must say that what passed on Friday was rather in favour of the rule—though I avow I was not, when it was moved, one of the strongest partizans for it. The noble Marquess put a Question without Notice. It did not appear to me to be right that I should answer it without Notice having been given. Whereupon the noble Marquess pressed me to answer it, and told me that Mr. Gladstone had answered the Question in "another place." I thought it odd that I should have missed reading the report of an important Question on Foreign Affairs, or that Mr. Gladstone should have abstained from telling me of an important Answer given by himself. I accordingly referred to the report in The Times, which does not in the slightest degree bear out the noble Marquess's description either of the Question or the Answer. I sent the report to Mr. Gladstone, and requested him to correct it. The Question, put to Mr. Gladstone was this—

  1103
  "I think it will be satisfactory to the country if the right hon. Gentleman will tell us when he expects the Treaty to arrive here."
  Mr. Gladstone informs me that he replied—
  "I am not able to name the particular day of the arrival of the Treaty, of which we have not received a final copy. When it does arrive, however, it will be immediately presented to Parliament. We shall, in this instance, depart from the general rule, and present the Treaty to Parliament without waiting for its ratification, on account of special circumstances. Among these I may mention that the Treaty has been prematurely made known in America—by prematurely I mean contrary to the intentions of the Executive Government. We expect its arrival in a very few days."
  Now, obviously that Answer to that Question did not justify the noble Marquess in stating, as a reason why I should reply to a Question put without Notice, that Mr. Gladstone had answered it.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: It was not till the noble Earl (Earl Russell) had agreed to postpone his Motion, which took me by surprise, that the putting of the Question suggested itself to me.
  EARL GRANVILLE: That proves my argument the more strongly, for I was assuming that he had come down prepared with all his facts to ask the Question; but assuming him taken by surprise equally with myself, the noble Marquess brings on a Question which might have induced me to make a rash answer. I remembered the old saying that a question cannot be indiscreet, it is only the answer which can be so; and I did not answer it at once, though I should have done so very nearly in the same terms. Mr. Gladstone, in his reply, accurately stated the usual course, one which, both on international and constitutional grounds, has its advantages—namely, that a Treaty, which in point of fact does not become a Treaty till it has been ratified, is only presented to Parliament after ratification. The reason why the rule should be departed from in this instance is that this Treaty has been published in the United States; and I see—although I have no official knowledge on the subject—that there has been a debate in the Senate as to the surreptitious means by which a copy of it was obtained. The Treaty having been published in America, it was thought desirable that Parliament should be also acquainted with it. When the Senate will come to a decision on the
  1104
  Treaty it is impossible for me to say, or in what sense that decision will be; and it is therefore impossible for me to say when the signed Treaty will arrive in this country. What I believe is that even if we were to adopt any precipitate haste in the matter it would be physically impossible that it should be ratified before the 12th of June. In making that statement, however, on a matter of fact, I utterly decline to answer the Question in the shape of a pledge that Her Majesty's Government will not advise Her Majesty to ratify it in consequence of a man, however eminent and of whatever weight, having given Notice of raising a discussion upon it in this House. The eminent men who formed the Constitution of the United States gave the Senate, together with the Executive Government, the power of making treaties. That has sometimes been inconvenient to the United States themselves, and sometimes inconvenient to other nations; but I have not a word to say against the arrangement which the United States have adopted—it is not a question to be discussed in this country. I remember an ingenious political friend of mine discussing the question of giving this House the same power with regard to treaties as is possessed by the Senate of the United States. I am far from wishing to reject all improvements in our Constitution; but I certainly decline, by the sidewind of answering a Question put with or without Notice, to make an innovation, and—to use a phrase more common on the opposite than on this side of the House—to "Americanize" our institutions. The House of Lords has an undoubted right, in common with the other House, of tendering advice to Her Majesty in the exercise of her prerogative, to condemn any act whatever, whether a treaty or not, and to discuss the action of the Government; but it is not right by a sidewind to make it the duty of the Government to submit a treaty to the House of Lords before it is ratified by the Queen on the advice of her responsible advisers.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVON: I did not understand my noble Friend (the Marquess of Salisbury) to suggest that it was the duty of Her Majesty's Government to submit this Treaty to the House of Lords before it is ratified. He simply asked whether it was the intention of the Government to give the

  1105
  House an opportunity of discussing the Treaty before it was ratified. I wish to say one word on the question of Order. The noble Earl stated it to be a rule of this House that every Question must be preceded by Notice. With great deference to the noble Earl, I deny that it is the rule of the House that Questions should not be asked without Notice. All that exists is the recommendation of a Select Committee—of which the noble Earl and I were members—that, except in cases of urgency, it should not be the practice of independent Members of the House to ask questions which were calculated to raise a debate. It is not binding on any noble Lord; it is simply a matter of courtesy and practice, and I utterly deny that it is in any sense a rule of the House. The noble Earl is so very decided upon this point that I will not now ask him a Question without Notice; but I will venture to make a request that when the text of the Treaty is printed certain other Papers of great importance should be presented with it. It has been repeatedly stated that Her Majesty's Government consented that the Treaty, before it received the sanction of the Crown, should be submitted for the concurrence, in some shape, of the Canadian Parliament. I have seen that stated in print, and I imagine it is time. I hope, therefore, that the noble Earl, when laying the Treaty on the Table, will consent to produce such communications as have passed between the Imperial and Canadian Governments with reference to this important question. As to the Treaty, I suspend my judgment on it till I see the text, for as yet we have only seen fragments in newspapers. I agree, however, with my noble Friend (the Marquess of Salisbury) in feeling great anxiety as to how far Canadian interests are protected in the Treaty. The interests of Canada and of this country are one, and anything which would be viewed by Canada with doubtful or mixed satisfaction would certainly not be a subject of great pleasure to this country.
  EARL RUSSELL: I do not think that any practical conflict will arise, for after what my noble Friend the Secretary of State has stated, there seems to be hardly a possibility that the Ministers of the Crown should have the Treaty before them for the purpose of ratification before the 12th of June, on which day I
  1106
  shall propose my Motion. I cannot, however, agree with the constitutional doctrine of my noble Friend. I have always thought that Parliament is the Great Council of the nation, the chief adviser of the Crown, and that this House has a right to give advice to the Crown at any period in the exercise of any part of the prerogative. But even though it may not be a matter of right to give advice to the Crown before the Treaty is ratified, yet, as a matter of courtesy, I think that if a Treaty had arrived, and if Notice of a Motion had been given by anyone upon it, the Ministers of the Crown would show great disrespect to this House if they proceeded to ratify it without giving us the opportunity of expressing an opinion.
  EARL GREY: I am sorry to differ from so high an authority, but on this point I must entirely differ from the noble Earl (Earl Russell). Ever since I have been in Parliament I have invariably heard the rule of our Constitution and of Parliament stated by the highest authorities to be this—that treaties were never to be laid before Parliament until they had been ratified; that the responsibility of ratifying or refusing ratification rested with the Ministers; that when a treaty had been ratified it was quite competent for Parliament to censure the conduct of Ministers, and that the Crown had never been in the habit of abdicating responsibility and presenting treaties before they were signed. There are strong reasons for adhering to this ancient principle of our Constitution. Diplomacy cannot be properly carried on in large legislative assemblies. When questions are at issue between this and any other nation, it is far better that the responsibility of dealing with them should rest with the Ministry than that Parliament should step in and pronounce a decision before the Crown had had an opportunity of doing so. Such a mode of conducting diplomacy would not, I think, conduce to a good understanding with other nations. I agree with my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs that some countenance would be given to the new and, as I think, the erroneous principle, if the Government had undertaken to withhold ratification until there had been a discussion here. Parliament has never claimed such a right; and the result of adopting such

  1107
  a course would be that the Ministers would get rid of their responsibility. Therefore, though it may be convenient that this Treaty should be discussed before it is ratified, I am persuaded that the Government are right in declining to give any pledge of the kind, and in adhering to constitutional practice.
  LORD CAIRNS: I do not propose to continue the discussion: but with regard to the rule of giving Notice, I think my noble Friend (the Marquess of Salisbury) was perfectly justified in putting the Question he did on Friday night; and I must also say that the noble Earl opposite (Earl Granville) was perfectly justified in refusing to answer it if he was not prepared to do so at the time. There must sometimes be cases of urgency, when Questions must be put without Notice, and it is then for the Minister to say whether, in his discretion, there is good reason for refusing to answer them at once. With regard to constitutional practice, I entirely agree with what has been said by the noble Earls. The essence of the Constitution is that the responsibility of concluding treaties should rest with the Crown, and it would be shifting that responsibility from the Executive to Parliament were the Government to invite or court the opinion of Parliament on a treaty before the assent of the Crown had been given to it. I did not, however, understand my noble Friend (the Marquess of Salisbury) to intend to throw any doubt upon that practice. I believe he desired, as matter of information, to know whether the Treaty would be ratified before the House met again and had an opportunity of discussing it. Nor did I understand the noble Earl (Earl Russell) to differ from the noble Earl (Earl Grey), or to say more than this—that, as it is the right of the Crown, and the duty of the Executive Government, to conclude treaties upon their own responsibility, so it is also the correlative right of Parliament, at any time before it is too late, to step in and tender respectful advice to the Crown on the subject. Turning to a more practical point, I understand that the Government are not in expectation of receiving this Treaty ratified on the part of the American Executive for some little time longer; but I understand that the text of the Treaty has been published in the United States. Now, inasmuch as the text
  1108
  either has arrived, or will arrive immediately, and inasmuch as it is to be published prior to ratification, I do not see what harm can arise if it is communicated to Parliament at the earliest opportunity.
  EARL GRANVILLE: We received the first formal copy of the Treaty yesterday afternoon. It is now in the printers' hands, and I hope to present it to-morrow. As to the additional Papers, it is obvious that there are Papers which it would be quite right to present after the ratification of the Treaty by the United States, but which it would not be convenient to present until we know a little more what the prospect of the ratification is. With regard to the giving Notice of Questions, I find in the Standing Orders, under date the 2nd of April, 1868, this Resolution—
  "That it is desirable where it is intended to make a statement or raise a discussion in putting a Question that notice of it should be given in the Orders of the Day."
  I think the noble Earl (the Earl of Carnarvon) was wiser when he stated that he would not discuss the Treaty before the text of it appeared than when he went on to question one of the most important portions of the Treaty, and one of a very delicate nature—that connected with Canadian questions.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVONsaid, he adhered to his construction of the Standing Orders, and was ready, if the noble Earl wished, to discuss the matter at a future time.
  EARL STANHOPE, as one of the framers of the rule, differed from the noble Earl (the Earl of Carnarvon). The Resolution of the House was that Questions should not be put without Notice, except in cases of urgency.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYpointed out that the Resolution referred to cases where it was intended to make a statement or raise a discussion. Now, in putting the Question on Friday night he neither intended to make a statement or raise a discussion.
  EARL GRANVILLEremarked that, whatever the noble Marquess's intention had been on Friday, it had been proved to-night that his Question was calculated to raise a discussion.

  LOCOMOTIVES BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to consolidate and amend the Law regulating the use of Locomotives on Roads—Was presented by The Lord DUNMORE; read 1a. (No. 130.)
  House adjourned at Six o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.