Sitting of 14 July 1904

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.

UNOPPOSED PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Great Eastern Railway Bill; North-Western Electricity and Power Gas Bill. Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Llanelly Harbour Bill [Lords]. Verbal Amendments made (King's Consent signified); Bill read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Tynemouth Corporation Bill [Lords]. Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Caledonian Railway Order Confirmation Bill [Lords]; Glasgow and South Western Railway Order Confirmation Bill [Lords]; Govan Corporation Order Confirmation Bill [Lords]. Considered; to be read the third time upon Monday next.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 10.) BILL.
As amended, considered; to be read the third time to-morrow.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
As amended, considered; Bill read the third time, and passed.

ELECTION (UNOPPOSED BILL COMMITTEES) (PANEL).
Mr. HALSEYreported from the Committee of Selection; That they had selected the following Member to serve on Unopposed Bill Committees under Standing Order No. 109:—Mr. Crombie.
Report to lie upon the Table.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confirm a Provisional Order under The Burgh Police (Scotland) Act, 1892, relating to Hamilton Gas." [Hamilton Gas Order Confirmation Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confirm a Provisional Order under The Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Dumbartonshire (Vale of Leven) Water." [Dumbartonshire (Vale of Leven) Water Order Confirmation Bill [Lords.]
And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confirm a Provisional Order under The Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Aberdeen Joint Passenger Station." [Aberdeen Joint Passenger Station Order Confirmation Bill [Lords.]
Hamilton Gas Order Confirmation Bill [Lords]. Read the first time; Referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 271.]
Dumbartonshire (Vale of Leven) Water Order Confirmation Bill [Lords]. To be considered upon Monday next.
Aberdeen Joint Passanger Station Order Confirmation Bill [Lords]. To be considered upon Monday next.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 13) BILL.
Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 272.]

PRIVATE BILLS (GROUP L).
Mr. AGG-GARDNERreported from the Committee on Group L of Private Bills; That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Monday next, at Twelve of the clock.
Report to lie upon the Table.

PETITIONS
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Rothesay, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  LAND VALUES (ASSESSMENT AND RATING) BILL.
  Petition from Glamorgan, in favour; to lie upon the Table.

  LICENSING BILL.
  Petitions against: from Amble; Arfon; Banff; Beeston; Birstwith; Bouthwaite; Brown Bank; Caerphilly; Crowcrook; Darlington; Dunston; Fewston; Garthrmyl; Gourock; Grasshouses; Hafod; Hardisty Hill; Haslingden; Horfield; Ilford; Ipswich; Kingston on Thames; Kirkintilloch; Langford; Langley Mill; Llandudno (ten); Llanfairpwllgyn; Loft-house; Malton; Menai Bridge; Middletown; Montgomery (two); Morpeth; Newcastle Town Moor (two); Paisley; Pateley Bridge; Pelton Fell; Pencaerneisiog; Peterhead; Pontypridd; Pudsey;

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  Rhondda Valleys; Shaw Mills; Summer-bridge; Theddlethorpe; Thornthwaite; Welshpool; Wilsill; Winlaton on Tyne; and, Woodmamoray; to lie upon the Table.

  VALUATION BILL.
  Petitions for alteration: from Hawarden; Holyhead; and, Pwllheli; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS ETC.
  PUBLIC REVENUE (INTERCEPTION).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 27th April; Mr. Gibson Bowles]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 253.]
  PACIFIC CABLE ACT, 1901.
  Account presented, showing the money issued from the Consolidated Fund under the provisions of The Pacific Cable Act, 1901,and of the Money received, expended, and borrowed, and Securities created under the said Act to the 31st March, 1904, together with a copy of the Report of the Chairman of the Pacific Cable Board [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 254.]
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copies presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 3216 to 3219 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  COLONIES (IMMIGRATION).
  Copy presented, of Papers relative to the Laws and Regulations in Force in the Colonies under Responsible Government respecting the Admission of Immigrants [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  GAS ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 2) BILL [LORDS].
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 13th July; Mr. Bonar Law]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 255.]

  GAS ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 3) BILL [LORDS].
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 13th July; Mr. Bonar Law]; to
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  lie upon the Table, and to be printed.[No. 256.]

  GAS AND WATER ORDERS CONFIRMATION BILL [LORDS.].
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 13th July; Mr. Bonar Law]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.[No. 257.]
  WATER ORDERS CONFIRMATION BILL [LORDS].
  Returned presented, relative thereto [ordered 13th July; Mr. Bonar Law]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 258.]
  ELECTRIC POWER UNDERTAKINGS.
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 12th July; Mr. Gerald Balfour]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 259.]
  TRAMWAYS ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 2) BILL [LORDS].
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 12th July; Mr. Bonar Law]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 260.]
  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL [LORDS].
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 13th July; Mr. Bonar Law]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 261.]
  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL [LORDS.].
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 13th July; Mr. Bonar Law]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 262.]
  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No.6) BILL [LORDS].
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 13th July; Mr. Bonar Law]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 263.]
  PAPER LAID UPON THE TABLE BY THE CLERK OF THE HOUSE.
  Divorce and Matrimonial Causes (Rule). Copy of Draft Additional Rule and Order in Divorce and Matrimonial Causes made under The Matrimonial Causes Act, 1857 [by Act].
  LOCAL TAXATION ACCOUNT, 1903–4.
  Return ordered, "Showing, in respect of the financial year ended the 31st day of March, 1904, the distribution of the proceeds of the Local Taxation Licence Duties, Estate Duty, and Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Duties paid into the Local Taxation Account in pursuance of the provisions of The Local Government Act, 1888, The Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act, 1890, and The Finance Act, 1894 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 353, of Session 1903)."—(Mr. Grant Lawson.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Value of Prison-made Foreign Goods not admitted to this Country.
  MR. LAMBERT: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state the value of the prison-made foreign goods excluded up to the latest available date by the action of the Foreign Prison-made Goods Act.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.)£183 4s.

  Naval Regulations.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether, in view of the fact that the captains of His Majesty's ships are required by Articl 828 of the King's Regulations when at sea, as well in time of peace as of war, every evening before dark, to cause the quarters to be cleared and every other arrangement made for night battle, and are further required by Article 829, when at anchor in a harbour or roadstead, to be constantly prepared to repel any attempts of an enemy to board the ship, he will state what steps are, in practice, taken to carry out these regulations.
  (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) The actual terms of these articles, which are of very old standing and not exactly suited to modern conditions, are not strictly complied with. But officers in command are responsible that their ships
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  should at all times be ready to meet any contingency, and it rests with them to take whatever steps are required to act up to the spirit of the articles.

  Juvenile Cases in Metropolitan Police Courts—Children in Industrial Schools.
  SIR JOHN GORST: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will state the number of children under twelve years of age dealt with per annum in the twenty-two Police Courts of the Metropolis during the last three years; the number of industrial schools under his control for boys and girls respectively; the numbers of boys and girls respectively who can be accommodated in them; and the total numbers of boys and girls respectively at present committed to industrial schools.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) Figures can be given only as to children dealt with on arrest; persons dealt with on summons are not classified according to age. The numbers of children under twelve dealt with on arrest in the Metropolitan Police District have been as follows:—

  Summarily convicted, held to bail, etc., or committed for trial.

  Discharged.

  1901

  409

  298

  1902

  397

  312

  1903

  405

  263

  There are eighty-one industrial schools for boys, fifty-four for girls, and four for boys and girls. The number of children which can be accommodated is 13,930 boys and 4,656 girls. 13,513 boys and 4,281 girls are now under sentence of detention, but some of these are out on licence or in auxiliary homes, the number actually in the schools being 12,520 boys and 4,059 girls.

  Licences issued to Motor-Cars—Amount of Revenue.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will state the number of motor-cars that

  25
  have been licensed under the new Act; and what is the amount of revenue derived from these licences to date.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) A Return has been ordered and is in preparation showing the numbers of motor-cars registered under the Act of last session up to the 1st April of this year. When the numbers are known, the total amount of fees taken (at 20s. for each motor-car and 5s. for each motor-cycle) will be readily ascertained.

  Shipment of Worn-out Horses to the Continent.
  MR. BUTCHER: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the large numbers of worn-out horses, under £5 in value, which are shipped from this country to Holland, Belgium, and Germany, His Majesty's Government will cause inquiries to be made of His Majesty's Consuls as to whether these horses, although in a state in which the law of this country would not permit of their being worked, are worked on arrival abroad; and whether, if such inquiries should show that this is being done, His Majesty's Government will consider the desirability of introducing legislation on the subject.
  (Answered by Earl Percy.) If the hon. Member will place me in possession of any information he may have received on the subject, the Board of Agriculture will be consulted as to whether any steps can be taken by legislation or otherwise. It would be difficult to base any general conclusions on the results of an inquiry of the kind suggested in the Question.

  Proposed Tithe Schemes for Villages in European Turkey.
  MR. MOON: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give particulars or epitomes of the two tithe schemes stated to be about to be introduced in two groups of villages in European Turkey; the geographical position of each group; and what report Oolon4 Fairholme has made as to the restrictions stated to have been imposed ay the Porte upon the authority of the
  26
  Gendarmerie officers appointed by the Six Powers.
  (Answered by Earl Percy.) Two schemes of tithe reform have been under consideration, but we are not aware that either has yet been introduced. Colonel Fairholme has not reported that any restrictions have been imposed by the Porte upon the authority of the Gendarmerie officers.

  Appeal Case of the Freed Slave Mshangama at Pemba.
  MR. BAYLEY: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will lay upon the Table of the House a copy of the judgment recently delivered in Pemba by Assistant Judge Skinner Turner, who held the inquiry into the appeal of the freed slave Mshangama against the judgment of Mr. J. P. Farler; and will he say whether the evidence taken on the appeal was taken on oath.
  (Answered by Earl Percy.) A copy of the judgment has appeared in the Press (see African Standard, Saturday, 18th June), and it, therefore, seems unnecessary to incur the expense of publication for Parliament. Presumably the evidence referred to was taken on oath, but if the hon. Member can supply me with any reasons for supposing the contrary there will be no objection to ascertaining the facts.

  Passage of the Bosphorus by armed Russian Cruiser—British Ships stopped in the Red Sea.
  MR. BROTHERTON: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any official information showing that an armed Russian cruiser passed through the Bosphorus under the commercial flag, and that this cruiser stopped two British vessels in the Red Sea; and, if so, whether the Government purpose communicating with the Russian Government on the subject.
  (Answered by Earl Percy.) His Majesty's Government have no official information of the passage of an armed Russian cruiser through the Bosphorus under the commercial flag. They learn, however, that two British steamers have been stopped in the Red Sea. Inquiries are being made.

  Sunday Post from Gorey to Kilanevin (County Wexford).
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDE: To ask the Postmaster-General if he will consider the question of establishing a Sunday post from Gorey to Kilanevin, in county Wexford.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I have considered this question, and I find that, according to the information at present in the Department, the additional expense which would be involved by the establish-merit of a Sunday post from Gorey to Kilanevin would not be warranted. As, however, this information was obtained some months ago, I will have further inquiry made with the view of ascertaining whether the circumstances have since altered, and I will acquaint the hon. Member with the result.

  Postmen's Pensions—Consideration of Sunday Pay in the Calculation.
  CAPTAIN FREEMAN-THOMAS: To ask the Postmaster-General whether the postmen's Sunday pay is taken into consideration in calculating their pensions; and whether the loss of regular Sunday duty involves not only a reduction in their average weekly wages, but also a reduction in their pensions when they become due.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) The average annual amount of Sunday duty pay received during the three years immediately preceding the date of retirement is taken into consideration in calculating the pensions of postmen, provided that the Sunday duty performed has been fairly regular, and that the pay received annually has not been less than the equivalent of one week's wages. If an officer has not performed Sunday duty in accordance with these conditions, the pay is not reckoned for pension.

  The Royal Hibernian Academy.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDE: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will inquire into the position and circumstances of the Royal Hibernian Academy, with a view to changing it to a more suitable situation in Dublin.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) I am afraid that I can hold out no hope of re-housing the Royal Hibernian Academy.
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  There does not seem to be any necessity for further inquiry.

  Naval Gun Sights.
  MR. KEARLEY: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether any representations have been made by expert naval gunnery officers as to the unreliability of the present system of sighting naval guns; whether any estimate has been arrived at as to the expenditure necessary to make the sighting efficient; and whether it is in contemplation to make good all defects without delay.
  (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) The various designs of sights and fittings now afloat are not defective and were considered the best at the different dates they were introduced into the service, but they are not as good as those with which a ship would now be fitted, otherwise it is obvious that no progress in sighting would have been made. The Admiralty frequently receive suggestions from naval officers and others as to improving the sights now afloat and bringing them more up to date, and all these are carefully considered. Estimates are prepared for supplying new sights and fittings to ships as opportunity arises, but it is impossible to give a final estimate of the cost of work which is and always must be continuously in progress.

  Naval Promotions—Delay in filling Vacancies.
  MR. KEARLEY: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that from fourteen to twenty-one days elapse before vacancies caused by the retirement of lieutenants promoted from the chief warrant officer's list are filled by the promotion of other chief warrant officers; and, if so, whether steps can be taken in advance to ascertain the fitness of officers to fill these vacancies and so obviate this delay as in the case of senior officers of the Fleet.
  (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) It generally takes a few days to make inquiries before an officer is selected for promotion to the rank of lieutenant; but it should be pointed out that as the seniority of the officer promoted is dated from the day on which the vacancy occurs he is not under any pecuniary

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  disadvantage. An effort will, however, be made to shorten the interval as much as possible.

  Stores of Seagoing Ships—Allowances to Members of Committee of Inquiry.
  MR. KEARLEY: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether any Report has been presented by the Committee of naval officers appointed to inquire into and revise the amount of stores allowed to seagoing ships, indicating the possibility of effecting considerable saving in the future; whether these officers will receive the usual Committee allowances; or whether their services will be recognised in some special manner.
  (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) Interim Reports have been received from this Committee, and further Reports are still to come. Officers not on full pay serving on the Committee are receiving the usual allowances. The Answer to the third part of the Question is in the negative.

  London Government Act Commissioners— Appeals.
  MR. W. F. D. SMITH: To ask the President of the Local Government Board who are at present the London Government Act Commissioners appointed by the Committee of the Privy Council under Section 15 of The London Government Act, 1899; whether there is any appeal from their decisions; and, if so, to what authority.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The Commissioners are the same as those appointed by the Committee of Council on the passing of the Act in 1899, viz., Sir Hugh Owen, G. C. B., Sir Samuel Johnson, and Mr. A. T. Lawrence, K.C. Any appeal from the decisions of the Commissioners would lie to the Committee of Council.

  Sherlock Estate—Opportunity for Tenants to Purchase their Holdings.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the tenants on the Sherlock Estate, Bally-robin, Cloyne, county Cork, which is at present in the Land Judge's Court, will be afforded an opportunity of purchasing their holdings.
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  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The case of this estate has been placed in the Land Judge's list, and the solicitors having carriage of the sale have been called upon to explain the reasons for the delay in the proceedings.

  Aughnamullen East Band—Action of Constable Creaghan.
  MR. McKEAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to the action of Constable Creaghan, of Shantonagh, who on the evening of the 26th June last followed the Aughnamullen East bald into the private grounds of Mr. Peter M Gough, a former member of the band; will he state what reason or authority Constable Creaghan had for this act of trepass; whether it is the practice of the police to follow the local Orange band to their lodge or into private grounds under similar circumstances; and will he cause an inquiry to be held in this case.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) I am informed that the constable entered the private grounds of Mr. Peter M'Gough at the invitation of the latter.

  Government Provision of Robes and Vestments for Irish Chaplains.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Government provide vestments or robes for chaplains of all the denominations officiating in Dublin at the Royal Hospital, Royal Hibernian School, Mount-joy Prison, Kilmainhann Prison, and to the Protestant and Presbyterian chaplains at Arbor Hill Military Prison; whether the vestments in use by the Catholic priest in Arbor Hill Prison have been in use for over fifty years, and ware condemned by the Board of Inspection two years ago; and, if so, when will the Catholic chaplains be placed on the same footing as the chaplains of other denominations as to the supply of necessaries for conducting religious worship, seeing that the expense involved would not be much more than £10.
  (Answered by Mr. Secre'ary Arnold-Forster.) Under existing regulations vestments are only supplied to Protestant commissioned chaplains in the shape of

  31
  surplices; they are not supplied to Roman Catholic priests, as owing to the religious consecration connected with them, they cannot be treated as Government stores; but in all the cases mentioned in the Question the necessary Roman Catholic garments are already in existence. Under no circumstances would vestments of any description be now supplied to a clergyman other than a commissioned chaplain. The vestments in Arbor Hill Military Prison have been there for over fifty years, and have been condemned by the Board of Inspection. There is no record to show from what source they were originally provided. I am, however, making further inquiries into this matter.

  Delay in Distribution of War Medals to Scottish Horse.
  MR. McCRAE: To ask the Secretary of State for War if he can state the reason for the delay in distributing the war medals to the troopers of the Scottish Horse.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) The examination of the claims for medals of men of the Scottish Horse has been a matter of considerable difficulty as a large proportion of them served in other corps prior to the formation of tins body. One roll containing 1,870 names was sent to Woolwich on the 10th ultimo, and the other roll, containing about the same number, is now in hand and will go to Woolwich shortly.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  Pay of Army Lieutenants.
  MR. MARKHAM: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the total pay of a second lieutenant in t his country is 5s. 3d. per day; and whether, seeing that it is impossible for an officer of this rank to live on his pay without assistance, after paying his soldier servant, providing clothes for this servant, subscriptions, messing, and washing, can he say the lowest sum on which an officer is expected to be able to live in the Army; and, whether, in the reorganisation of the Army, he will raise the pay sufficiently to enable the
  32
  sons of rich or poor men an equal opportunity of entering the Army.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. BROMLEY DAVENPORT,): The pay of a second lieutenant of infantry is 5s. 3d. a day without allowances. It was estimated by the Committee on Officers' Expenses, whose Report was published in 1903, that by the adoption of their recommendations, an infantry subaltern's pay would cover the cost of the necessities of military service, but that he would require about £60 a year from private sources to meet the expenses of ordinary life, such as plain clothes, tobacco, stimulants, etc. In the junior ranks of the Army, as in most other professions, it is not expected that it will be possible for officers to live entirely on their pay, though steps have recently been taken to reduce the expenses. It is not, therefore, proposed to make any increase in the pay of these officers.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that naval lieutenants are expected to, and do, in fact, live on their pay?

  Lieutenant Witton's Case.
  MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been lately called to the case of the convict Witton, formerly Lieutenant Witton of the Bushveld Carbineers; whether he has considered, among other circumstances, the resolutions in favour of some mitigation of his sentence, passed unanimously by the Legislatures of Natal and Cape Colony; and what he has decided to advise His Majesty thereupon.
  ME. BROMLEY DAVENPORT: The Resolutions referred to in the Question are now receiving consideration.
  MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL: Can the hon. Gentleman give no information at all as to the position taken up by the Government?
  ME. BROMLEY DAVENPORT: I can only say that the Government are considering the matter.
  MR. JOYCE: Has not the time arrived for revising all the sentences passed on soldiers in South Africa?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  Chinese Deserters from the Rand Mines.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will, before the Colonial Office Vote comes under discussion, be in a position by means of a telegraphic communication with Lord Milner, or otherwise, to place the House of Commons in possession of the circumstances under which Chinese indentured labourers deserted from the Rand mines and were captured, and the punishment inflicted on these indentured labourers and the persons who subsequently employed them or who aided and abetted them in their flight.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. LYTTELTON,): I am not in a position to say when the information will reach us.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will refer to this matter in his speech to-day to the Chamberlain Club.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has yet received any communication from Lord Milner or the Transvaal Colony with reference to the desertions of Chinese indentured labourers from the mines of the Rand; and, if so, will he put the House of Commons in possession of any such communication.
  MR. LYTTELTON: I have not yet received any communication.

  The Crown Agents.
  MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will now cause to be laid upon the Table the Return in regard to Crown Agents business promised at an early period of the session.
  MR. LYTTELTON: I think I informed my hon. friend that the preparation of
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  the Return involved heavy labour. It is, however, now in the hands of the printers and I hope that it may be ready for delivery in a few days.
  MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR: Will the right hon. Gentleman guarantee we shall have it before the Vote for his salary is discussed?
  MR. LYTTELTON: I will guarantee that every effort will be made to expedite the printers in their task.

  Kaffirs as Mine Overseers in the Transvaal.
  MR. MARKHAM: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies will he say if before or since the war Kaffirs have been employed as overseers in the Transvaal gold mines.
  MR. LYTTELTON: My information is that Kaffirs have not been overseers in the Transvaal mines either before or after the war. But I find in the Blue-books some expressions which lead me to infer that on some occasions, at any rate. Kaffirs have held positions involving some authority over their fellows.

  German Sanatorium Syndicate at Funchal.
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Foreign Office has received any communication from Funchal, Madeira, as to the disquiet produced among British traders and residents by the concessions granted to the German Sanatorium Syndicate; and whether, in view of the fact that the reputation of Madeira as a health resort has been mainly built up by British capital and energy, he will take steps to secure for British interests equality of treatment in any matter of exemption or preference acquired by subjects of another Power.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Earl PERCY,): Yes, Sir. The whole question is engaging the careful attention of His Majesty's Government, and His Majesty's Minister at Lisbon has been verbally assured that no vested interests would be injuriously affected.
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: Can the noble Lord stats the terms of the concession?
  EARL PERCY: No. I do not think it has yet been signed.

  Electricity in Mines.
  MR. MARKHAM: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has any information that all His Majesty's inspectors of mines have o practical knowledge of the application of electricity, and whether electricity was a subject of examination when they obtained their certificates; and whether, seeing that the application of highly technical rules recommended by the Electricity in Mines Departmental Committee is proposed to be left with the inspectors of mines, most of whom have had no experience in electrical work, will he say if any evidence whatever was taken by this Departmental Committee on this point, and how the Committee arrived at this decision; further, that some of the chief inspectors of districts, owing to their many onerous duties, are unable to inspect the underground workings of some of the collieries in their respective districts more than once in ten years.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERSDOUGLAS,): Candidates for the post of inspector of mines are required to have a theoretical and practical acquaintance with coal mines and mining—but electricity has not hitherto been specially mentioned as a subject of examination. I am prepared to consider whether this subject should not be added to the syllabus of examination for any future vacancy. As regards the recommendation of the Committee, I am not aware that they took, or that it was necessary for them to take, any special evidence on the point; as representing all the interests involved, owners, men, inspectors and the electrical profession, they were fully competent to come to a decision themselves. I can only add, as I have already said, that I shall be prepared, if necessary, to consider the question of giving the inspectors the assistance of expert advice. As regards the last part of the Question, I know no case of a mine remaining unvisited by
  36
  the inspector in charge of the district for a period of ten years.
  MR. MARKHAM: The right hon. Gentleman will see my Question referred to the chief inspectors. I will forward him some cases.
  MR. FENWICK: May I ask whether the Special Rules recommended by the Departmental Committee have been approved by the right hon. Gentleman, or what progress has been made with a view to their adoption?
  MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: This is an important point, and I should like the hon. Member to put the Question down.

  Lambeth Guardians and Catholic Nurse.
  MR. JOSEPH DEVLIN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to a meeting of the Lambeth Guardians, recently held, at which a report was adopted stating that the services of a trained nurse, who was temporarily engaged by the master, should be dispensed with on the ground that she was a Catholic; whether he is aware that the report of the committee declared that she had discharged her duties in a very satisfactory manner; and that, notwithstanding this, her dismissal, because of her religion, was carried with practical unanimity; and, if so, whether he will state what action he proposes to take in the matter.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. WALTER LONG,): I have made inquiry as to the case referred to. It appears from the report of the schools committee of the guardians that the officer was temporarily engaged by the master, that he was not aware at the time that she was a Roman Catholic, and that her duties were discharged in a very satisfactory manner. The committee, however, reported that as nearly all the children in the schools belong to the Church of England, and the Roman Catholic children are cared for in separate institutions, they did not deem it advisable that the engagement of the officer should be confirmed. The report was adopted by the guardians. It rested

  37
  entirely with them to decide whether or not they would appoint the person in question as nurse, and I have no authority to interfere with their decision.

  Ordnance Survey Officer's Grievance.
  MR. NANNETTI: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he is aware that a temporary civil assistant in the Ordnance Survey Department has been reduced by the sum of 3d. per day by the divisional officer for visiting, without permission, his wife, who was dangerously ill; and whether, under the circumstances, he will take the case into his consideration, and restore to this man his position and pay.
  MR. AILWYN FELLOWES: The case referred to by the hon. Member is, I think, that of a temporary civil assistant at Coolboy, county Donegal, who, whilst on the sick list, absented himself from his station without leave for two days. On being called upon for an explanation he stated that he had been called away to see his wife who was dangerously ill, but although specifically asked to do so, he took no steps, either at the time or subsequently, to produce any statement or certificate from a doctor in support of his statement. The case was, therefore, referred to the executive officer of the Survey at Southampton who ordered the reduction of pay referred to in the Question. In these circumstances the Board see no reason for the reversal of the decision thus given.
  MR. NANNETTI: If he produces a certificate of his wife's illness, will his case be reconsidered?
  MR. AILWYN FELLOWES: Certainly; the whole difficulty arose from the fact that he never sent in any medical certificate. Otherwise he would have received leave as others do.

  Merchant Seamen and Margarine.
  MR. GILHOOLY: I beg to ask the hon. Member for North Huntindonshire, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he is aware that merchant seamen who contract for pare butter in lieu of
  38
  beef are frequently supplied with margarine; and, if so, what action does he propose to take in the matter.
  MR. AILWYN FELLOWES: I am afraid that the powers of the Board under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899, do not extend to practices such as that referred to by the hon. Member. The Board, however, are instituting inquiry into the matter to ascertain whether any steps can be advantageously taken, and in the meantime perhaps the hon. Member would place me in possession of any specific information which he may have received on the subject.

  Cusack Estate, County Longford.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether lie is aware that there are seven occupiers of land on the Cusack Estate in the county of Longford who have, during the last ten years, with the exception of 1903, held same for grazing; that these tenants in last October signed agreements for tenancies, and have subsequently signed proposals to purchase under the Act of 1903, with the concurrence of the solicitors having carriage of the sale; and whether he can inform the House how soon the Estates Commissioners will be in a position to approve of the sale of these interests to the said occupiers.
  MR. CULLINAN: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers the Question, may I ask if he will advise the Commissioners not to approve this purchase, but to acquire the land themselves.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): I think the Estates Commissioners are competent to administer the Act without any intervention on my part. I understand that portions of this property which were let for some years on agistment contracts were in February last let to the grazing tenants under Land Court tenancies, and that prices for sale to them were provisionally agreed upon. The Estates Commissioners have since issued a request to the Land Judge with a view to the purchase of the entire

  39
  estate under the provisions of Section 7 of the Act. When the necessary documents have been lodged wth the Commissioners, they will cause the estate to be inspected, and will consider the terms of an offer for the property.

  Mahony Estate, Gap of Dunloe.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that an application for reinstatement has been lodged with the Estates Commissioners by Mr. Florence Doherty, with reference to a farm on the Mahony Estate, situate at the Gap of Dunloe, from which he was evicted in 1893; and can he state whether his application has now been considered by the Estates Commissioners.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Yes, Sir; the application has been received. It will be investigated by the inspector, who will shortly make an inspection of the estate.

  Spraying Machines for Kerry Farmers.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Congested Districts Board wore in the habit of supplying spraying machines at reduced prices to farmers in the congested districts; and whether, seeing that the Department of Agriculture has now taken over the agricultural portion of the Congested Districts Board's work, he can state why these facilities have not been continued; and whether arrangements can be made whereby the farmers in the parish of Bonane, county Kerry, can now be supplied with these machines at reduced prices.
  MR. WYNDHAM: No provision is made in any of the Department's schemes for supplying farmers in congested districts or elsewhere with potato spraying machines at reduced prices, as such action would not be in accordance with the principle on which the schemes are based. Where a farmer in any locality is not able to purchase a spraying machine for his sole use, he might combine with his neighbours for its purchase at a reduced cost per head.

  Irish National School Teachers.
  MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state the number of national school teachers who, during the three years ending 1903, have either been fined, reprimanded, dismissed, or had their increments and promotion stopped on the statement of a school manager, and without any opportunity being given to the teachers to disprove or explain charges made against them.
  MR SLOAN: I beg also to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that it is the practice of the Commissioners of National Education to fine, dismiss, or have the increments and promotion stopped of teachers on the statement of a school manager, though the Board's inspectors may for the three previous years have commended such teachers as diligent and efficient, and reported the state of their schools as most satisfactory; and, if so, will he explain why these punishments are inflicted without the teacher being called upon to explain or disprove the charges made against him.
  MR. WYNDHAM: It is not the practice of the Commissioners to fine, dismiss, or otherwise punish a teacher on the mere statement of a school manager. They invariably call upon the inspector to make a report to them on all the circumstances. A teacher who has a well-grounded cause of complaint against a manager is at liberty to make a statement of the case to the inspector, who is instructed to refer it to the Commissioners. If the hon. Member will communicate to me the facts of any individual case which he may have in view I will cause further inquiry to be made.

  Kerry County Court Land Valuer.
  MR. MURPHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Major Kiggel, who acts as the valuer in land cases for the County Court in Kerry, is acting as land agent on the property of Mrs. Frances Rowland, at Mourne Abbey, county Cork, and on other estates, and that Major Kiggel has written to the tenants on the Rowland

  41
  Estate, dated the 28th May, 1904, with the object of deterring them from entering the Land Court, and inducing them to agree to certain purchase prices; and, if so, whether such action is permissible in the case of a person in receipt of salary from the Land Commission.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Major Kiggel states he has never deterred tenants from entering the Land Court. He wrote to them suggesting that before entering Court a second time to have fair rents fixed they might consider an offer which he made, to sell at twenty-three years purchase. The tenants rejected the offer and stated they would prefer to enter the Court, but that before doing so they would offer twenty years purchase. Major Kiggel is not in receipt of salary from the Land Commission. Any payments to him as County Court valuer are made from the County Court officers' Vote.
  MR. MURPHY: I think it a public scandal. This man is in receipt of a salary from the Government and is a land agent as well.

  Rev. S. L. Malone's Estate, King's County.
  MR. REDDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the tenants on the estate of the Rev. S. L. Malone, Near Cadamstown, King's county, have agreed to purchase their holdings; and, if so, can he state what steps, if any, have been taken to reinstate Patrick O'Brien, of Lisken, who was evicted off the property within the past five years.
  MR. WYNDHAM: This estate has not yet come before the Estates Commissioners to be dealt with. The application of the evicted tenant has been received and will be duly considered.
  MR. REDDY: When will it be reached?
  MR. WYNDHAM: In view of the enormous number of cases to be dealt with it is impossible for me to fix any date at which a particular case will be taken.

  Armagh, Keady, and Castleblayney Railway.
  MR. JOHN CAMPBELLI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that dissatisfaction exists at the rate of progress of the construction of the Armagh, Keady, and Castleblayney Railway; and whether he will take steps to expedite the completion of the railway.
  MR. WYNDHAM: This is a private undertaking authorised by private Act, and I have no power whatever to intervene in respect of its construction.

  Henrietta De Burgh's Estate, County Cavan.
  MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that tenants on the estate of Henrietta De Burgh, in the townland of Drumcrow and county of Cavan, have been served with writs for the half year's rent due on the 1st May last; and whether, in view of the fact that negotiations for the sale of this estate are pending, he will introduce any measure—administrative or legislative—to prevent the landlord forcing tenants into undesirable bargains.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Three tenants were served with writs for a half-year's rent; they have since paid rents and costs. I am not aware there is any ground for the suggestion that the landlord is endeavouring to compel the tenants to buy at prices which the latter consider undesirable, nor have I reason to believe that the action of some of the tenants in withholding rent can be construed as an attempt to compel sales at prices which the landlord would consider undesirable. But in any case, the provisions of the existing law are adequate to safeguard both parties against bargains induced by duress.

  King's County Evicted Tenant.
  MR DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have received an application for an advance from John Langford, Ballymacrossin, King's county

  43
  (estate of Major Fox), who is in possession of the farm from which Miss Masterson was evicted in 1884; and as the evicted tenant is living in a wooden hut, and claims reinstatement, can he state what course the Commissioners propose taking in the matter.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The estate containing this holding will shortly be inspected. The inspector will report what arrangements can be made to provide the evicted tenant with a holding. John Langford is a leasehold tenant and has lodged an' agreement to purchase his holding.

  Proposal of Roscommon District Council.
  MR. JAMES O'KELLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord - Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Local Government Board for Ireland have refused to permit the Roscommon District Council to give a small weekly allowance of tobacco to certain deserving and aged inmates of the workhouse, and to recompense certain occupants of labourers' cottages for work performed by them; and, if so, whether he will take any steps to allow the decision of the district council to be carried out.
  MR.WYNDHAM: The proposal made by the Guardians was to grant a weekly allowance of tobacco to able-bodied inmates, and also to make an allowance to the occupants of labourers' cottages for tilling their own plots. The Board pointed out that payment out of the rates for either purpose would be contrary to the law.

  Newry Guardians and Deportation of Paupers.
  MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to a resolution adopted by the Newry Board of Guardians, urging the necessity for remedial legislation with reference to the importation of paupers from English and Scotch unions to Irish workhouses, whilst Irish boards of guardians are powerless as to the deportation of non-domiciled destitute persons who may become chargeable on the rates; and whether he will give the
  44
  matter his consideration during the approaching recess.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Yes, Sir; a resolution to the effect stated has been received. Subject to the restrictions imposed by the Poor Removal Act, 1900, Irish-born paupers may be removed from England to Ireland, but there is no corresponding enactment enabling the removal of English and Scotch paupers from Ireland. The matter is being investigated and will be duly reported on by the Poor Law Reform Commission.

  Holdings for Herds on Grazing Lands.
  MR. TULLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have, in the case of the division of grazing lands or untenanted lands, made any provision for economic holdings for the herds, or members of the families of the herds, who worked on those grazing lands; and, if so, if he can state in how many cases such provision has been made since the passing of the Irish Land Act, 1903, up to the 30th June last.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I hope to be in a position to give this information on Monday next, if the hon. Member will repeat the Question on that date.

  Labourers' Cottages in Ireland.
  MR. TULLY: I beg to ask the Chief-Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Iref land whether the Local Government Board have received complaints from their auditors or other persons as to houses erected under the Labourers (Ireland) Acts being occupied by persons who are not bona fide labourers or agricultural workers as defined by Section 93 of the Irish Land Act, 1903; and what steps have the Local Government Board taken to remove these parties and restore the houses to the members of the class for whose benefit the Labourers (Ireland) Acts were passed.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Such complaints, when made, have always been brought under the notice of the local authorities. The Local Government Board has power to refuse its sanction to the erection of additional cottages in districts where abuses of this character are allowed by

  45
  the district council to prevail; but the Board is not empowered otherwise to control the local authority in respect of the tenancy of cottages.
  MR. TULLY: Has the Local Government Board itself done anything to deal with this grievance?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Jones Lloyd Estate.
  MR. TULLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners are aware that notice to quit has been served by a landlord named Robert Jones Lloyd, of London, on his tenant, John Hanly, of Gunthill, Elphin, because he refused to give twenty-three years purchase for his farm held at the yearly rent of £22 10s.; and whether, in view of these proceedings, the Estates Commissioners will sanction without inquiry or inspection any sale of a portion of the Jones Lloyd Estate in Leitrim or Roscommon.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I have no information that the facts are as alleged. In respect of the second part of the Question I would refer to my statement in answer to similar inquiries addressed to me on the 30th June.†

  Phoenix Park Dublin—Traders' Passes.
  MR. CLANCY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether inquiry has been made as to the number of their customers within Phoenix Park, Dublin, of all traders, as well as of Mr. Henry Baggot, who has been refused a pass for his van through the park ostensibly because of the insufficient number of his customers in that locality.
  TIIE FINANCIAL SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Mr. VICTOR CAVENDISH,): No, Sir. Such inquiry is only made when the use made of the permit or other evidence in the possession of the Commissioners of Public Works raises a presumption that the permit is no longer required.
  MR. CLANCY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what is the
  †See (4) Debates, cxxxvii., 167.
  46
  date of the regulation made by the Board of Works in Dublin providing for passes for tradesmen's vans passing through Phoenix Park; and whether a copy of it will be laid upon the Table of the House.
  MR. VICTOR CAVENDISH: There is no such formal regulation as the hon. Member suggests. The management of the Park is vested by statute in the Commissioners of Public Works, and it has always been their practice to exclude tradesmen's vans unless some special justification was proved to exist.
  MR. CLANCY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that, in the case of Mr. Henry Baggot, the pass asked for by him and refused for the entry of his vans into Phoenix Park, Dublin, would I enable those vans to enter by a public entrance within a few yards of his establishment, and that either of the alternative entrances would mean an additional journey for his horses and vans of nearly three miles; and, if so, whether he can reconsider the decision in Mr. Baggot's case.
  MR. VICTOR CAVENDISH: As I have already stated, tradesmen's vans are excluded from the Park in the absence of some special justification for using it. It is not desirable that the Park roads should be used as thoroughfares for trade purposes; but if Mr. Baggot can show that he has customers in the Park requiring the use of a van a permit will be given to him.
  MR. CLANCY: Am I to take it then that if Mr. Baggot gives the names of his customers in the Park he will get the permit from the Board of Works.
  MR. VICTOR CAVENDISH: Yes, if it is shown he has business there the permit will be issued to him.

  Irish Revenue and Expenditure Return.
  MR. LOUGH: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Return of Irish Revenue and Expenditure, ordered this session, is yet ready; and whether copies will be in the hands of the Members before discussion on the Finance Bill is resumed.
  MR. VICTOR CAVENDISH: The Return is in the printer's hands and will be circulated to-morrow.

  Roscrea Income-Tax Appeals.
  MR. TULLY: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can give the names of the special Commissioners of Income-Tax who dealt with income-tax appeals at Roscrea, on the 26th September, 1903.
  MR. VICTOR CAVENDISH: The Special Commissioners who sat on the occasion named were Mr. H. W. Page-Phillips and Mr. S. P. Foster.

  Irish Militia.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he has asked or has received from Lord Wolseley any explanation of his Official Minute, dated 3rd November, 1897, contained in the Appendices to the Report Volume of the War Commission, page 245, in which he stated that the War Office could not explain in Parliament or make otherwise public the fact that the Irish Militia are brought to England to draw the teeth of possible rebellion.
  MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORT: The reply to both Questions is in the negative.

  Cut Road Clonaslee, Queen's County.
  MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that the Cut Road, Clonaslee, Queen's county, was closed in contravention of the provisions of the Military Lands Acts, compensation will be made to the residents in the locality for loss and inconvenience sustained by reason of the traffic having been illegally interrupted by the local military authorities closing the road for five days at a period when the inhabitants were engaged in the removal of peat fuel from the adjoining bogs.
  MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORT: As the hon. Member has been already informed, no complaints whatever were received, and no loss or inconvenience would appear to have been sustained by the inhabitants through the temporary closing of the road.

  The Seizure of the "Allanton."
  MR. RUNCIMAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Government has yet received the detailed reasons given by the Prize Court at Vladivostock for the seizure by a Russian cruiser and the condemnation by the Prize Court of the British steamship "Allanton," which was recently on passage from Muroran to Singapore with a cargo of Japanese coal consigned to a neutral; if not, whether the Government is aware that the owner of the "Allanton" has received from the master of the vessel the reasons given to him in writing by the Court, namely, that the vessel was steaming throught the Japanese Sea instead of through the Pacific; that her cabin boy was Japanese: that there was an absence of proof that the cargo had been sold to a neutral purchaser; and that the Judge was convinced that the vessel was bound to a Japanese or Korean port; whether the Government is aware that the "Allan-ton" was carrying a copy of her charter party and a copy of her bill of lading consigning the cargo to Messrs. Paterson, Simons, and Company, a British firm at Singapore; that the route from Muroran to Singapore through the Japanese Sea is 200 miles shorter than by the Pacific, and is therefore that usually followed by merchant vessels on this voyage; whether, even if her cargo is held to be contraband and therefore seizable, the Government has protested or will protest against the condemnation of the vessel in addition to the cargo; or, in view of all the circumstrnces, what other steps the Government is now prepared to take.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): His Majesty's Government have been made aware, through the owner and other parties interested in this vessel, of the statement contained in the hon. Gentleman's Question with regard to the seizure of the "Allanton." His Majesty's Ambassador at St. Petersburg has pressed the Russian Government for an official statement of the grounds on which the vessel was condemned by the Prize Court at Vladivostock and has been promised a definite reply. On the 7th inst., His Majesty's Ambassador was informed that a further telegram had been sent to Vladivostock pressing for the information required.

  49
  One month is allowed in which to lodge an appeal from the Prize Court in the first instance to the Admiralty Council at St. Petersburg, and His Majesty's Ambassador has been requested to be informed of the date on which such appeal will be heard. He has been further instructed to represent to the Russian Government the loss to which the owner is exposed by the continued detention of the vessel and to represent that there should be no delay in dealing with the case.

  Valuation Bill.
  MR. DUNCAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if the Government intends proceeding further with the Valuation Bill this session.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have no statement to make with regard to this Bill at present. It is, of course, quite evident that it cannot be proceeded with in the immediate future.

  Consolidated Fund.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury what amount of the money authorised to be issued from the Consolidated Fund for the Supply services for the current year remains unissued; and what is the latest date to which the introduction of another Consolidated Fund Bill can be postponed.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The amount of Ways arid Means remaining unissued is about £10,000,000, and it is hoped that it will not be necessary to introduce another Consolidated Fund Bill before the Appropriation Bill.

  The Labourers (Ireland) Bill.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDasked the hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division, as Chairman of the Standing Committee to which the Irish Labourers Bill had been committed, the reason why that Committee had been adjourned till next Wednesday.
  MR. JOHN ELLISexplained that the meeting of the Grand Committee on Trade
  50
  which had been summoned for to-day to proceed with the consideration of the Labourers (Ireland) Bill had been adjourned by him, as Chairman, in consequence of a communication he had received from the Chief Secretary for Ireland that it was his desire to communicate with hon. Members with a view to placing some Amendments on the Paper which he thought might possibly meet the views of hon. Gentlemen on both sides, and that there was not time this week for him to do that.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND,addressing the Chief Secretary, said that so far no communication whatever in relation to the Bill had been received by the Irish Party from the right hon. Gentleman. In view of the period of the session and the great danger arising from any postponement of the consideration of this question, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman could give them some explanation of the action he had taken.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLasked whether there was any precedent for an opposed Bill being sent to a Grand Committee on 20th July.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid he could not answer that. In reply to the hon. and learned Member for Waterford, he had to say that the Government had had to consider, in view of Amendments on the Paper from both sides of the House, whether they could not submit an Amendment or Amendments which would be likely to mitigate the criticism to which the measure was likely to be subjected. He had been in constant conference with the Vice-President on the matter, but, under the existing pressure of business, it had not been possible to come to a final decision on the subject. If there had been an error of judgment in asking for a postponement of the Grand Committee, it was he who committed it.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid that if the Bill was lost through this postponement the responsibility must rest on the Government.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Has the Leader of the House ally statement to make as to business?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid that immediately after the finish of the stage of the Budget down for discussion, which he trusted might be Monday, they would proceed with the Licensing Bill.

  QUESTIONS.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESasked the ruling of the Speaker on a point arising under Standing Order 9. He was, he explained, absent at Question time the previous day and consequently could not put a starred Question which stood in his name. He had expected the answer to be circulated with the Votes this morning and had been disappointed, and he desired to ask if it was not the duty of the Minister to have had it printed.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid the hon. Member asked a similar Question three or four days ago and he could only repeat the Answer he then gave. The Standing Order said that Questions not answered by a Minister should be circulated with the Votes, and although it did not say the next day, it was, he believed, usual that they should be circulated the next day.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PRETYMAN,said the Answer had been printed and would be circulated with the next Votes. Immediately he found that the hon. Member did not put the Question he gave orders to have the Answer printed.
  SUPPLY [17TH ALLOTTED DAY].
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. JEFFREYS (Hampshire, N.) in the Chair.]

ARMY ESTIMATES, 1904–5.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £331,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the
52
Charge for the Salaries and Miscellaneous Charges of the War Office, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1905."
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,): I am afraid I may have to trespass some time on the patience of the Committee because the matter with which I have to deal is undoubtedly a complex and difficult one; and it has this peculiarity—I am quite certain that unless I can carry with me not only the good will of the majority of hon. Members on this side of the House, but the good will of the majority of hon. Members on the other side, my labour will be in vain. I am dealing with a subject which is one of common interest to us all; and I am not unaware that in the vicissitudes of politics it may fall to the lot of others to administer any system which I may desire to establish; and, feeling as I do, the enormous importance of securing a sound system of administration for the Army, I am most desirous—I might almost say it is foremost in my thoughts—to be able to propound a scheme to this House which shall secure, not universal acceptance—that I cannot hope for—but such a measure of acceptance, that it may commend itself both to those who agree with me in general politics and to those who disagree with me in general politics. Of one thing I am perfectly certain, I can convince the vast majority of this House of the nature and the extent of the evils for which I wish to find a remedy, and I am sanguine enough to believe that I can convince a large majority of the House of the expediency of the remedies which I wish to apply to those evils. But I am quite sure the only way I can achieve the latter object is to be perfectly frank with the Committee, to tell them exactly how matters stand, to tell them, what my difficulties are, and to tell them what I think is very important, to what extent I believe my difficulties are common difficulties, difficulties which will be shared and which will have to be met by anybody who undertakes to administer the office over which I at present. preside.

53
I want at the outset to recognise the great consideration I have received from all sections of the House during the present session. I introduced the Army Estimates in a statement which I believe is unparalleled; I said they were interim Estimates, and I asked for a period of leisure and reflection in order that I might perfect, or attempt to perfect, suggestions that I desired to make. I said then that I was not prepared, as I am not now prepared, to administer the Army upon the existing basis; and I asked for time to reconsider the basis on which I thought it ought to be administered. I have received from both sides of the House an amount of consideration and forbearance which I had not the slightest reason to expect, and had no right whatever to demand. I consider that both sides of the House are now dispensed from according to me that indulgence any more. I desire to be judged now, not upon my merits, they are small, but entirely on the merits of the scheme I propose to submit to the House. At the same time I cannot help thanking hon. Members for the forbearance they have extended to me. There is another point I want to make quite clear. I want the Committee to understand that this is not a case in which a Member of Parliament, who has been, so to speak, accidentally tossed into a position of responsibility and importance desires to signalise his arrival at that position by making a stir, by changing old things to new, and making alterations for the sake of alteration. I want them to believe, and I think I can convince them, that whoever sits on this Bench and has this responsibility will find confronting him exactly the same difficulties which confront me. I want them to understand that I am asking them now to listen to me, and if possible to sympathise with me, because the Army is going through a period of great danger; and if the Army is going through a period of great danger, this country is also going through a period of great danger. I am not moving for the sake of moving, but because I honestly believe that the circumstances of the case absolutely compel some change.
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I think it would be a logical procedure if I were to attempt to explain what, in my opinion, is the evil with which we have to grapple. Let me say that, although I have only for a very short time considered this matter as holder of my present office, I am not quite a novice in its consideration. I had given some consideration to it before I was allowed to undertake any responsibility in connection with it; and the opinion which I formed many years ago has not varied in its essentials, but has grown in strength, and the opinion that I propose to express this afternoon is the opinion which I held many years ago, fortified by the information and instruction which I have been able to acquire during my short period at the War Office.
Now, Sir, is there an evil? I think undoubtedly there is. We have two great mentors in this matter; we have before us the facts of the South African War; we have before us the Report of the Royal Commission, which was held as the result of that war. I think that those two events have left rather sore memories in the hearts of the people of this country. Do not misunderstand me; I believe that both the war and the Report of the Commission taught us many things which we were glad to learn: and, made us feel in many respects proud of our Army and of its performances, and, I may go further, made us proud of the organisation of the Army as it then existed. I have never been one of those who accepted the view that the Report of the Royal Commission was a report of universal condemnation; on the contrary, I believe that it bore testimony to the careful work which had been done in many departments, and to the success of that work; and I believe that many were surprised to see how much was done, under that unparalleled and unanticipated stress, by the Department which had been under the charge of my predecessors, Lord Lansdowne and my right hon. friend the present Secretary of State for India.
But, when all is said and done, there does remain in the minds of all of us the absolutely certain knowledge that a great deal still remains to be accomplished—that all is not well

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with the Army. I think some of the main conclusions may be gathered even by the most superficial student as the result of a perusal of that Report; and I would venture to place those conclusions as they commend themselves to me before the Committee. I would say the main evils are these—I do not think I am touching on any controversial matter. In the first place, there is no evidence to show that the Army we possess is, either in composition or in numbers, the Army which is really required to satisfy the peculiar needs of the Empire for the defence of which it is maintained.
I think that, in the second place, it has been made apparent that the Army, such as it is, is not fully and scientifically organised for war; that, whereas the sole object of an Army in a country like ours is to be able to engage in war at the shortest notice, and to emerge successfully and as rapidly as possible, we have been maintaining an Army in peace a large portion of which has been totally unfit for war, and of which even the effective portion could only be utilised with the help of improvised and previously unconsidered arrangements.
Thirdly, we have learnt that all branches of the Army are raised on a system which has to grapple with the difficulties which must attend purely voluntary enlistment, and that, both in the Regular and Auxiliary Forces, there have existed endless sources of friction that have led to wasteful effort, and in some cases, to some extent, to misunderstanding.
Lastly, and I think this is very important, we have been compelled to recognise that this Army, imperfectly prepared, wasteful in its methods and unsatisfactory in its results, was and is one of the most costly machines ever devised. I do not think I have gone beyond common knowledge and common agreement in any one of those generalisations.
Now, if those defects exist, what is the business of a responsible Minister in connection therewith? His business is to remedy them, to see that things do not happen again. My idea of a remedy is very definite. The remedy must not be partial; it must be complete. It must deal substantially with each of the diffi-
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culties and defects which exist; it must deal with the defects of want of proportion, and it must deal with the great defects in the system of expenditure. That is the view of the Army Council, which is conscious of these defects, and it is with that view in my mind that I am going to propound to the Committee the ideas which I have been led to form. There is, of course, the difficulty in this country, which I cannot exaggerate, of applying any remedy to Army organisation; there is the absence of professional opinion. There is an enormous amount of sectional opinion. The Army itself is, as I may say, divided perpendicularly, unlike the Navy, which I would describe as divided horizontally. The Army is divided into a large number of admirable corps, but corps which exist almost independently of each other. There are, quite apart from the Army—and in this connection I speak of the Regular Army—the two great branches of the Auxiliary Forces, both of which combine in themselves two points of view, the military point of view and the civilian point of view. That is a necessity of their existence of which I do not complain; but it naturally introduces into the point of view complexity which makes any dealing with them exceedingly difficult. There is in this House a variety of opinions which are based, I think, very often not upon the consideration of the vast military problem that our Empire has to face, but rather upon a number of—I had almost said petty, but I will say less important—personal and private considerations. These considerations arise out of the comparatively limited knowledge of military affairs, of which hon. Members may, in the midst of their many important avocations, have been able to possess themselves; but which are exceedingly embarrassing when we come to deal with military problems as a whole.
These are the difficulties which assail us. They are very great. They are difficulties which are not peculiar to myself. They are difficulties which will assail every War Minister who attempts to deal with this problem, and my only hope of an issue out of the difficulties which I know beset us is the assistance of the general body of common sense in this House and out of this House.

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To the general body of common sense, apart from sectional feeling, apart from personal feeling, apart from connection with any particular branch of any particular section of the service, I intend to appeal. If I can carry that feeling with me, I believe that I shall be able to do in my time some small service for our Army. But, if I do not, I frankly tell you I despair.
I spoke of there being specific evils. These evils I have roughly indicated already; but I want to be much more specific, and I want to deal much more in detail than I have done with regard to the remedies. Our measures must be healing. We must direct our measures to the exact evil which we find existing. It is no use inventing a number of new regulations for the Army, Volunteers, Yeomanry, or Militia if we are going to leave the existing plague spots—f or they are plague spots—untouched. We must specially direct our remedies to the existing evils. I said that up to the present time there has been no evidence to show that the Army we possess is, either as regards its composition or its numbers, the Army which is really required to satisfy the peculiar needs of the Empire for the defence of which it is maintained. Up to within a very recent time we have had absolutely nobody in this country charged with the duty of ascertaining what our Army ought to be, what functions it ought to perform, and to what numbers it ought to attain. I read, not with consternation, because consternation involves surprise, but with sorrow, the remarks in the Report of the Royal Commission on the Auxiliary Forces as to the correspondence that had taken place between the members of that Commission and the various Government Departments. I say it was a discreditable and a lamentable thing that a body of that kind should be bandied from pillar to post in order to ascertain the elementary conditions of the problem before them. I say I was not surprised; I have felt the difficulty for twenty years; and whatever power has been given to me I have used for the purpose of altering that condition of things; and we have now, at last, taken a step which, however imperfect, however inadequate it, may be, is a step in
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the direction of enabling us to find out what are the real military needs—I use the word in its widest sense—of this Empire. We have instituted the Committee of Defence, over which the Prime Minister is the presiding authority and in which the representatives of all the great Departments, civil, military, Indian, and Colonial, are associated; and though I do not pretend—no one who has attended that Committee can pretend—that we have done our work, and I know the work will not be done for twenty years, because it will only be done after a long, long apprenticeship, I do say that greater progress has been made in elucidating this great problem than has been made in the twenty years that have preceded its establishment. We are seeing the light. We are not yet in possession of the full information we require.
I said there was another difficulty. I said it had been made apparent that the Army, such as it is, is not fully and scientifically organised for war—that whereas the sole object of an army, in a country like ours, is to be able to engage in war at the shortest notice, and to emerge successfully as rapidly as possible. we have been maintaining an Army in peace time, a large portion of which is totally unfit for war, and of which even the effective portion could only be utilised with the help of improvised and previously unconsidered arrangements. Every student of the Army knows this; the man in the street knows it. Everybody who has studied the history of the last war knows perfectly well that we had to improvise at the last moment an enormous contingent of men to fight our battles; they know that we had to leave behind an enormous contingent of men who were without organisation, who were without proper equipment, and who were unavailable for purposes of war. Now, I trace that state of things to a want of previous preparation. I do not want to touch on any Party question, but I would say frankly that that preparation has not existed under one Administration any more than it has under another. That is my opinion. But, be that as it may, I think that the remedy is to provide some organisation which will prepare our forces prior to a war and will not have to improvise when the war comes. It is for

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that reason that we have thought it desirable to begin at the top, to begin with the reorganisation of the War Office. Well, we shall have, no doubt, still to discuss this question of the reorganisation of the War Office, but I honestly believe that the progress we have made and are making is in the right direction.
We are decentralising; we are going to decentralise very largely. We have followed the advice almost literatim et verbatim of a body which, in my opinion at any rate, was well qualified to advise us, and whose advice, I believe, was given in consonance with the wider learning, ii I may say so, of professional opinion throughout the world. I have for years laboured for an increase of our Intelligence Department. We have in the last few weeks largely increased—we have practically doubled—our Intelligence Department. Do not let it be supposed that I think, because we have doubled the personnel of our Intelligence Department that we necessarily have an Intelligence Department which will do all we require. I know perfectly well that the work of that department has to be learned in a very hard school. We began twenty years too late. We ought to have had that department enlarged long ago. We ought to have had those who are now entering as novices in that department apprenticed twenty years ago, and bringing the ripe fruits of their knowledge to our service at the present day. But we are doing what we can, and I believe we are moving in the right direction.
I said that in my opinion all branches of the Army are raised on a system which exaggerates the difficulties that must always attend purely voluntary enlistment, and that in both the Regular and the Auxiliary Forces there exist endless sources of friction, which lead to wasteful effort, had work, and in some cases to discontent and misunderstanding. I added that the Army, with all its imperfections, was, and is, one of the most costly machines in the world, and I said we must remedy this. But first we must diagnose the disease. Now I should like to attempt a diagnosis of the disease from which, in my opinion, the Army is sufferign. Those who have studied the Report of the War Commission will remember that the relation of the Reserves to the Army,
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to the men serving, is an entirely wrong relation. The Reserve of the Army, so far from being a Reserve, is a substitute for it. I have the figures here—I need not trouble the Committee with them—but to an enormous extent the Reservists simply replaced the men serving in the ranks, and when the battalions went into the field they were scarcely appreciably stronger than they had been in peace time.
Another point is brought out very strongly in the Report of the Royal Commission, and it is a point which, I think, will appeal to every Member of the Committee; it is that with all our number of troops at home we have no striking force at all. The Commission said that if we could have sent a single brigade to Natal at the beginning of the war, we might have seriously altered the whole complexion of the campaign. We could not send one single battalion, and we did not. Two battalions were sent One was a battalion which was in this country en route from Crete to the West Indies and had not discarded its khaki clothes. The other was a weak battalion, not mobilised, sent from Fermoy. We were unable to do that which this country ought at all times to be able to do—send a force straight away on the first sign of danger to hold the field and occupy the situation. [An HON. MEMBER: Which situation?] An hon. Member says, "Which situation?' He may picture any situation he likes. It is one of the axioms of war that the man who is first in the field is the man who is likely to win in the long run. I say that to maintain an army of 240,000 men, and not to be able within six weeks to put an effective force into the field, is to stultify the efforts you have made.
There is another point, which I am sure will commend itself to all Members independent of Party, and that is the use that has been, and must be made, under present conditions of the Reservists. The Reservists are now the first line of the British Army. They are not only liable to be called out, but they are called out whenever we go to war. We have got now what we call the First Army Corps at Aldershot. That Army Corps, which is the best-prepared body of troops we have in the country, cannot move without absolute dislocation, and without calling

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from their domestic avocations, I will not say how many, but many thousands of Reservists who are now in private life. That seems to me to be quite an unreasonable and unfortunate state of things. The Reservist, who is of enormous value to the country, ought to feel that he will be called upon when this country is engaged in a campaign of importance, but that he will not be made to do the duty of soldiers who are actually serving in our camps and barracks at the present time. I believe that the practice which prevails is bad for the Army, bad for the battalions, and exceedingly bad for the Reservists. The evil multiplies itself. It injures the prospects of the soldier on enlistment if he knows that when he leaves the colours he will not have that rest from his labours to which he is entitled. It injures the Reservists, because they know that if they undertake employment, they are liable to be called out for military purposes on occasions that ought never to be made responsible for requiring their services.
Then I come to another serious matter. That is the three-years term of enlistment. The policy which led us to adopt that practice was one that was dictated by circumstances, and it was probably necessary under those circumstances. But those circumstances have passed away, while the system has remained, and when I explain to the Committee what the result really is, they will understand how absolutely essential it is for me, or for anybody in my place, to take the very earliest steps to put an end to the system. The three-year system of enlistment, as you know, means that every man now enlisting for the Army enlists for three years. Well, in the Garrison Artillery alone, unless 100 per cent. of the men extend their term of service, at the end of two years it is impossible to furnish the drafts; and in the infantry battalions, unless 75 per cent. of the men extend, it is impossible to furnish the drafts for the infantry. Already this evil has begun to make itself felt. The men are not extending. The average extension in the infantry at the present time is 12 per cent. Only two days ago I was at the depot of a regiment where the extensions in May had been one man, and in June none. That is a battalion
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whose second battalion is in India with a strength of 1,000 men. I will leave the Committee to picture what is going to be the result if this system is persisted in. I tell the Committee plainly that, if we are to maintain the defence of India and the Colonies, this system is inconsistent, as it is now working, with that object. I have already had to send abroad large numbers of men who had only ten months to serve; and when I add that I have 21,750 drafts to find for India and the Colonies, and that, of the infantry at home, only some 900 men have hitherto extended—it is no laughing matter—it will be seen how seriously this plan is affecting the Army.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how long the system he is condemning has been in force.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that the system has come into force within the last two and a half years. That is one of the things I have to remedy. I really do not want to be controversial. Some hon. Members desire to trip me up, but I will tell them that the system, which existed before it, had, for the purposes of the war in which we were engaged, absolutely broken down; and that consequently it was a necessary step at the time it was taken. But I want to dismiss these matters of controversy from my mind.
There is another very serious matter. Everybody knows that nothing is a greater bar to recruiting for the Army than the uncertainty of a man's obtaining employment in civil life after he has taken his discharge. That acts and reacts throughout the whole of the Army. Do not let it be supposed that the majority of the men do not get employment. They do. The majority get very good employment. But every one knows perfectly well the difference between the chance of charity and the certainty of employment is all the world to an Englishman. Until you make it, or come near making it, a practical certainty for every soldier to obtain employment, I do not think you can hope to attract the provident class to go into the Army or to send

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their sons into the Army. That is another of the problems which I desire to face.
Then I have also to face the problem of the linked battalions. The Committee of Defence, voicing, I believe, the universal opinion of all thinking men in this country, have come to the conclusion that the time has arrived when we must lay down as an axiom that the duty of the Army in this country is not primarily to stand with fixed bayonets around the coast, but to defend our possessions over sea. What we want is an Army which will hold India and our Colonies, which we can reinforce for war, and for which we must maintain the proper depots and institutions in this country. But the adoption of that view is incompatible with the existence of the linked battalion system. I do not deny that from the very beginning I have been a fierce opponent of that system. I said it would never work, that it never did work, and that it ought not to work. I have said that it was an impracticable, illogical, and an unsatisfactory system. But as long as the view was held that we had to retain a great Army in this country for the defence of this country, I can understand the view of those who held that the linked battalion was, in theory, a good system. But the maintenance of the linked battalions for the purposes of drafting is, in my opinion, the worst thing possible. It is an absolutely necessary sequitur to the adoption of the new policy—if we are to have our Army principally maintained for service over sea—that we cannot afford, in logic and reason, to keep the same number of battalions at home as we keep abroad.
Then I have a bone to pick with the regimental depots. The regimental depot is a little colony divorced from the battalion, in which from 40 to 200 men, under five or six officers, are congregated. Half or a third of the men are Militia recruits, upon whom the sergeant of the depot is exercising all his ingenuity to induce them to pass into the Line. These establishments lack every single element which ought to characterise a depot. We have however, depots which are splendid examples. We have the Royal Marine depot at Walmer, and another at Eastney; we have the Guards depot at Caterham; we have depots for stokers for the Navy at various great naval ports;
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and we have the depot for the Rime Brigade and 60th Rifles at Winchester. All these depots, I say, are being admirably worked. But the existing regimental depots must go.
Then there is the question of the Guards. The Guards are, I will not say the best, but among the best, soldiers we have. I do not think any one, whatever view they may entertain, as to the desirability of maintaining a corps d' elite, will say that in peace and war the Guards have ever failed us. I had the great privilege of seeing the Guards Brigade enter Pretoria, and I can bear testimony to the fact that the officers and men had retained their military virtue, owing to their discipline and traditions, in a way which would set an example to the battalions of any other army in the world. But recruiting for the Guards is falling off very fast indeed. Why? Because for the first time we have put the Guards on precisely the same footing as the whole of the rest of the Line. They had the privilege—if you could call it a privilege —of recruiting for three years when the rest of the Army was compelled to recruit for seven years. Now that opportunity has been given to the whole of the Army and the result is—the duties of the Guards being very heavy—that recruiting for the Guards has fallen off.
Then we have another very serious difficulty to deal with. We have a scarcity of officers. If any Member of the Committee will ask any soldier, or consult any military work, or their own common sense, which is the best guide of all, they will find that the one thing the British Army lacks is an adequate supply of officers. We have a great Empire spread all over the world; we have 40,000,000 of people in this country; and hundreds of thousands who are ready to fighfor us in an emergency. But one thing we lack, and that is the driving force for these men. We want more trained officers, and when I speak of trained officers I mean officers who have gone through the mill and know what regimental life means.
Then we come to the great problem of the Auxiliary Forces, and first we come to the Militia. Here I speak fortified by authority much greater than my own, when I say that the condition of the

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Militia is profoundly unsatisfactory. I have before me the Report of the Royal Commission on the Militia and Volunteers and what do I find? I find that the Militia force, which has been of such value to the country in the past, is 35,000 men below strength, that 27 per cent. of the whole force is under twenty years of age, that no less than,19,000 of the Militia pass annually through the Militia in to the line. I am informed that for every one of those 19,000 there are two men, or 38,000 men, who would pass through the Militia into the slender requirements of physical development which are considered necessary to en-enable them so to pass. But that is not all. I have before me the fact that in fourteen garrison units alone 42 per cent. of the men on the establishment do not exist, that seventy companies of Militia Garrison Artillery are entirely view of our military authorities, can be formed. They are absolutely redundant in our scheme of mobilization. I find that there are no less than sixty-four battalions of the Militia which are under 600 men, that there are forty-five battalions under 500 men, twenty-eight under 400 men, and ten under 300 men. I find that fourteen battalions have only fifteen officers have only fourteen, ten have only eleven, two have only ten, and one battalion has only eight officers.
What is the verdict on the condition of the Militia which is pronounced by a Commission largely composed of very distinguished Militiamen? Let me read it—
"There is a consensus of opinion both among Militia officers and those officers who have special opportunities for observation, that the average Militia battalion would not be fit to take the field except after several months continuous embodiment. The training of the Militia officer is inadequate to enable him to lead troops, and especially incompletely trained troops. The force is imperfectly equipped for war, and the Militia, in its existing condition, is unfit to take the field for the defence of the country."
That is a very serious state of things indeed; and when I say that we are spending £1,800,000 on the mainten-
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ance of a force which can be described in such terms, I think it will be clear to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen that the time has come when we should make some effort to mend a disastrous state of things,
I come now to the Volunteers. I believe, the Volunteer Force contains the best material we have in the whole Army—I speak with some experience, for I have seen the army of every European country—and if we are wise we shall make very best use we can of that material. Whether we are making the best use of it at the present moment is a thing about which I am not quite clear. I have before me again the Report of the same Commission on the Auxiliary Forces, and what do they say? They say—
"There is no divisional organisation, nor are any arrangements made for the command of staffs, or for the large mass of Volunteers told off for the defence of London. Units of Volunteers are of various establishments and strengths. Such differences rendered difficult proper grouping into the larger formations required for service in the field. The Volunteer artillery lacks the requisite training and mobility. Transport equipment and artillery material are far from satisfactory. Taking the force as a whole, neither the musketry nor the technical training of the rank and file will enable it to face, with any prospect of success, the troops Continental army."
If they are not to face the troops of a Continental army, what are they for?
"An appreciable number of volunteers classed as efficient are physically unfit for service in a mobile army. The inequality in the attainments of the officers prevents the Volunteer force from acquiring the training necessary for war. In view of the inequality in military attainments of the officers, the limited training of the men, and defects of equipment and organisation, the Volunteer force is not qualified take the field against a Regular army."
That is the development of the statement I made, to the effect that we were not making the best use of our military material. I think I may claim to have established my case. If anyone agrees with me in that, they will go further and say it is my duty to remedy all and each of these evils if I can.
I have said nothing hitherto about a matter which interests the Committee very much, and which does not come under any of these heads—that is the question of the reduction of the enormous cost of keeping up our Army. Everyone knows that the Army Estimates of the present year have

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been £29,000,000 sterling; and hon. and right hon. Gentlemen know very well that those Estimates are in one sense illusory, because they omit items which must necessarily come in course of payment in future years. They do not take into consideration items for the manufacture of guns, the growth of the loan payments, or the replacement of stores. Am I misinterpreting the view of the Committee when I say it is the universal belief that not only should this increase be arrested, but that the total should be diminished? That is my own personal view. I have always felt that we are devoting a larger sum than we need to devote to the service of the Army. I have had that lesson enforced upon me from many quarters. But I would remind the Committee that if you are going to reduce expenditure you must reduce something that costs you money.
And now I come to the real crux and the real difficulty of my exposition. I speak as a Minister with many advisers—and I suppose there has seldom been a Minister who from divergent and contradictory points of view has received so much advice as to what he ought and ought not to do. There has been practically a universal consensus as to the duty of reducing expenditure, but there has been an absolutely universal condemnation of any proposal to do anything which involves the reduction of expenditure. That is the dilemma that I want the Committee to help me out of. I am going to lay down for their consideration a proposition which I ask them to accept. We are all agreed that it is desirable to retain with the colours and with the Reserve the men who axe required for the defence of the Empire at home and abroad—and no more? That whatever is superfluous should be discarded? I wonder whether my major premiss is admitted? I pause for a reply. If it is, it will carry this Committee a very long way in the direction in which I wish to take them. I am quite certain that if I do not undertake this problem somebody else will have to. The thing has got to be done. I believe it can be done, and that it can be done in such a way that we can specifically remedy all those evils which I have wearied the House by dilating upon. We can make our remedy healing, and at the same time effect a saving of money.
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I do not know whether the Committee realises what a great Army we are maintaining. We have in the British Army 213,000 men. We have in the Army in India 77,000 men. We have in the Indian native Army 156,000 men. We have in the various colonial contingents 18,000 men. We have in our Reserve list, which is rapidly increasing, 73,000 men. We have 240,000 Volunteers, and we have on actual strength, not on establishment, 91,000 Militia. We have 28,000 Yeomanry. We have 126,000 men on the active list of the Navy, and we have 46,000 on the Reserve list of the Navy. In other words, we are maintaining now in peace time 1,070,000 men for the defence of the Empire. That is exclusive of troops maintained by the Colonies and the Indian feudatory forces. Does the Committee seriously think that for an island Power like ours this gigantic total is necessary? Frankly I do not think so.
I have had a great deal of advice tendered to me, and many suggestions have been made. One remedy has been suggested to me by many influential and important persons, and I heard it discussed at great length in another place. I mention it not because I recommend it to the Committee, but because it is suggested that as an avenue to a great saving we should adopt conscription. It did strike me as rather odd in the debate in another place the other day that no one of the noble Lords who took part in the debate had, among their other avocations, formed time to inquire into the finance of the system. But after the debate I went home and did inquire into the finance of the system. I took the terms laid down by the Royal Commission—abolish the Militia and the Volunteers, take 30,000 men from the Line, take your annual contingent as being 400,000 men. As a matter of fact I only took 380,000 men. The lowest rate ever paid to a soldier is 1s. a day. I assumed that rate, and the adoption of this simple expedient, omitting the charges for horses and some other things, would mean a net annual addition to the Army Estimates of£25,900,000. I am afraid that those who advocate this economical remedy do not realise that in every other country a conscript army is the army. In France

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and Germany the army is a conscript army. But according to this proposal the whole British Army, minus 30,000 men, is to go on its majestic way undisturbed; and in addition there is the proposal that 400,000 men should be fed, clothed, and paid, that you must find ranges for them and barracks for them; and the net result is that you will get within 20,000 men of the number you have now in the Militia and Volunteers and pay £25,900,000 for the pleasure of your whistle. I have discarded this particular remedy. I have other remedies and these I wish to expound.
I have stated that we want to find out what the Army has to do and how much Army we want to do it. There is the Committee of Defence. No one is more anxious than I am to see its work carried forward. Its work, far from being ended, is barely begun; and my firm hope is that our successors in office may realise as clearly as I do that there is no greater economy, no greater service rendered to the country, than to maintain this Committee, if possible, to increase its efficacy and the value of its work.
We are reorganising the War Office. That, I think, is beginning at the right end, for the improvement in our machinery is the first necessary condition of effective work. We have come to the conclusion that we do not require a large Army at home in time of peace like that hitherto maintained. That being so, I look to the number of troops we must of necessity maintain abroad; and there I think the rule is laid down clearly. We must maintain the garrison of India. At present the infantry garrison of India is fifty-two battalions, and we have in the Colonies thirty-seven battalions. My own belief is that the time will come, and ought to come, when for a variety of reasons we shall withdraw a portion of those battalions. I must point out, however, that what is costing us money is the upkeep and maintenance of those oversea battalions; and as long as we have to maintain them we must pay for them as well as for a certain number of battalions at home, on the same basis, which will furnish a circulation and pre-
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vent the soldier doing what they all dislike—namely, spending the whole of his time on foreign service.
Let us assume that these battalions amount to 100 more or less. We have then remaining a certain number of Line battalions which are superfluous. What are we to do with them? I do not suppose that even the most iconoclastic Member of the House would desire that we should destroy them. I do not suppose that any one would wish to destroy a great regiment like the 93rd Highlanders or the 100th Royal Canadian Regiment. But we are looking for a reduction, and in my opinion the Regular Army, as well as every other branch of it, must be called upon to make some contribution to the reduction. I propose, therefore, that we should reduce gradually by absorbing fourteen Line battalions. Those are the third and fourth battalions of seven Line regiments raised within the last three or four years. They have earned during their existence an honourable position but their position is not to be compared with the famous battalions of which I have spoken. We shall absorb them gradually into the battalions from which they sprang, or into other parts of the Army. We shall also, as time allows, absorb the five garrison battalions created for the war. They have done good service, but they are redundant in our establishments and exceedingly costly, not the less so because, to put it mildly, they are not celibate. There are between forty and fifty battalions remaining over. What are we to do with them? The number will depend on the number we are able to withdraw from colonial services.
But we propose to recognise the facts. At present every battalion is divided into two unequal parts, one part which goes abroad and a part which is not allowed to go abroad. We divide the Army into two parts. We propose to keep a certain number of battalions at home on the home establishment. We also propose to reduce these battalions to 500 men, and out of these 500 men 100 will be general service soldiers and the remainder short service soldiers enlisted for two years. The result is that every year there will be a large turnover of men for the Reserve. They will enter the Reserve for six years, and

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every third year they should come out for training. We propose that the battalion shall have twenty officers, but that there shall be attached to it ten officers who are of the same type of officers as those now joining the Militia, and after an adequate period of training, say a year, will pass into the Reserve and come back at each period of training to train with the battalion. We also propose that, as far as possible, these battalions should be made really territorial battalions. The territorial scheme has never had any real meaning in this country. At Liverpool the other day it was remarked to me that the King's Liverpool Regiment had never been seen in the city of Liverpool. How can you expect any locality to take an interest in a regiment which it never sees? We propose that as far as we can we will quarter the territorial battalions in their own territory. What will be the result? Nothing is more detrimental to the Army than the badness of the barracks. The barracks are so bad, because every battalion goes out of them, knowing that it will never go into them again. The Royal Marine barracks get better year by year, because they are tenanted and maintained by the same force. I look forward to a time when each territorial regiment will be quartered in its own barracks in its own town, and when everything that is done for the soldiers by the benevolence and good will of the county to which the regiments belong will endure for the benefit of that county regiment.
What will be the position of the officers who now go into the Militia, but who will attach themselves to the Home battalions? They will then pass a year with their own Line battalions, and at the end of the year they will pass back into private life and come up for their training. And they will come up for their training with a full battalion of 1,000 men. It may be said, "These officers cannot rise to the full position of colonels-commandant of their regiments." That is true. They cannot, because it is obvious an officer who only engages himself for a month in each year cannot become a permanent member of the regiment; but we believe that we can find an issue from this otherwise difficult situation. We believe, if we allow these officers to retire after a full period of
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service with an honorary step in rank and a retaining fee, that they will come on to the reserve of officers. We are very sanguine that we can follow the recommendations of the Royal Commission, and that we can reserve to them and other deserving officers the dignity of deputy-lieutenant. They will remain as the officers on the reserve for the mobilisation of this battalion. You will have a battalion at Gloucester, say, of 500 men and twenty officers in time of peace. In war it will mobilise and have 1,000 men and thirty officers. There will be some 600 or 700 men over, for whom at the present time absolutely no organisation and officers have been found. We hope that these retired officers who have taken their retaining fee and who know the battalion, the men and officers, will come forward at once and take command of that additional battalion, and we shall at one step have got that for which all military men have longed—something analogous to the German Landwehr—proper organisation for our surplus regiments.
I attach great importance to the question of barracks. Nothing more affects the recruiting than the way you treat the soldier. I know our barracks intimately, and I say they are not a credit to this country, and I have taken a step which I believe will commend itself to the Committee. We have put a stop to the system of having standard plans of barracks which has led to the stereotyping of barracks. I am entrusting the work o our barrack-building and repair to a gentleman who, if any man is capable, ought to be capable. He is the gentleman who has built the great artisans' dwellings and Rowton Houses both in London and Birmingham, and ought to be able to utilise his experience for housing our soldiers as I desire they should be housed.
Now I come to the Royal Artillery. I do not want to touch a battery of the Royal Artillery. They are our best force. They are unrivalled in the world. I want 100 batteries to remain as they are; but I want to take the remainder and put them on the same short service basis in order to enable us rapidly to create a reserve. I want to take some sixty or seventy batteries of the Royal Artillery,

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to put them on a four-gun establishment, to enlist a portion of the men for general service, and the remainder for short service, to keep them at home in time of peace, and to be able to create what we greatly desire—a reserve for the Royal Artillery.
I said I wanted to do away with the linked battalion system. We propose to do away with it by establishing large depots throughout the country—depots analogous to the Royal Marine depot, the Guards depot, and the Rifle Brigade depot. We believe, if we do that, we shall be able to select the best officers and non-commissioned officers, to keep the men there for three or six months, and turn them out as trained soldiers.
I spoke of one of our difficulties being the absence of a striking force. We propose to establish a striking force. We propose to keep at Aldershot a force of practically 15,000 or 16,000 men, equal to a division and a brigade of infantry, with troops of other arms, which will be always ready to take the field. That is one of the most important changes from the Army point of view that we contemplate. I believe if we do that we shall have done a great deal to strengthen our military work.
With regard to the cavalry, I propose some slight alterations, with which I need not trouble the Committee now. I do not propose to alter the number of cavalry regiments in any way; but my military advisers are quite clear that there are some steps which may be taken with regard to the enlistment and disposition of the cavalry which will be to their advantage, and which will relieve us from the situation' in which we are now, and under which we have to keep one cavalry regiment at home as a link for a cavalry regiment abroad. I need not enlarge upon that. It is so obvious a mistake. We believe we can alter that system greatly to the advantage of the cavalry.
Hon. Members have frequently, and I think with perhaps more zeal than discretion, attacked the Army Corps system of my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for India. It is really extraordinary how much zeal and energy they have displayed in attacking a matter which really had very slight importance indeed. It is perfectly true, though some hon. Members do not appear to think so
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Hon. Gentlemen have been attacking this system as if it was a matter of substance and essence. My right hon. friend has divided the United Kingdom into a certain number of divisions, and he called these divisions "Army Corps" divisions It does not matter two straws what the divisions are called—whether they are called Sunday school districts or Army Corps districts, and so far as I can make out, the whole fury and zeal of hon. Members opposite has been directed purely against that name. I should have had a great deal more respect for their attacks, if they had directed them to what I believe to be the underlying matter of essence, because there is a matter of essence, which I have never heard mentioned by one single Member. An Army Corps is an accepted expression which connotes in ordinary parlance a certain proportion of troops of the various arms. My right hon. friend hoped that that proportion might be attributed to each of these divisions. Up to the present time it has not been attributed to all of them. Hon. Members laugh, but I have never heard that point of view raised before. I have heard many attacks on the name. But we propose now to follow the recommendations of the Esher Commission, and divide the country into commands, which although they correspond almost exactly with the territorial extension recommended by my right hon. friend, will not be subject to the anathemas of hon. Gentlemen opposite, because they will be described by another name. I think if they can draw any consolation from that fact they are fully entitled to do so. I am in favour of the change, because I think it is desirable to harmonise the name with its customary signification.
Now I come to the question of the Militia. I have already described to the Committee what the position of the Militia is. It is very grave indeed. Nineteen thousand men a year out of the Militia are passing through to the Line. If they were physically fit I think twice that number would pass through. In some battalions as many as seven out of eight of the subaltern officers are in the Militia, in order that they may go into the Line. I was visiting a Militia battalion a few days ago, in which all the officers at the depot mess were officers

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who had passed through or were trying of the material worth anything of the to pass through to the Line. The two majors were Linesmen and the sergeant-major was a Linesman. There-fore you will understand that at present the Line is living on the Militia. There are many hon. friends of mine in this House who have belonged to the Militia who have done splendid work, and I am the last to deny that to a great extent the Militia difficulties have arisen from the unwise treatment they have received in the past. But the difficulties of the Militia are greater than that; they are inherent to the situation. So long as the Line depends upon the Militia, so long as the country districts are depleted as they ale now depleted, the Militia difficulty will remain.
I must tell the Committee what my own view would be with regard to the best treatment of the Militia, both in the interests of the Militia and of the Army as a fighting machine. My belief is that the proper course to take would be to give the Minister of War carte blanche to take some seventy battalions of the best Militia, to unite each two battalions together, and to turn them into territorial battalions; to make them shake hands with the Line; to put them into the great centres of population; to make them the Herefords and the Bedfords, with pay for it. That is the plain black and their colours and their drums and
traditions.—[OPPOSITION Laughter]—These things are very precious to the soldier—[MINISTERIAL Cheers]—and make them the territorial battalions of this country. We should then be able to give 800 Militia officers precisely the same opportunity that they now have—that is, of coming into the trainings and going out after the trainings, being associated with their own country battalion in peace and fighting with it in time of war—and we should be able to give to 1,600 other officers the chance which most Militia officers now are seeking of passing direct into a Line battalion, of serving at home in their own counties, and in their own county towns, and with their own comrades. I believe nothing would be more popular in this country than if I were allowed to put down in each of our county towns one of these territorial battalions, which would use up the whole
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of the material worth anything of the officers and men in the Militia at the present time. That is what I believe is the correct solution of this Militia problem. I believe that is the real way out.
But I have not been so many years as I have in this House without knowing that with a great national force of that kind no Minister—not even a powerful Minister, let alone a tyro like myself—can effect a change like this, unless ho has with him the good will and conviction of Parliament and of the nation. I commend that statement to hon. Members and to the country. I do not propose to ask the House now to give any opinion. On the contrary, I propose to occupy the coming autumn in consultation with the Militia officers, and with those who are best qualified to voice public opinion, and in ascertaining if they desire to fall in with this proposal, which, I believe, will be both popular and valuable. But perhaps no case that I can make out now will prevail to change the customs and traditions of a force to which we owe so much as we do to the Militia; and therefore I am prepared to leave that matter in abeyance. But let the Committee remember this. They have asked me to economise. If they desire to keep up the whole of the Militia on the basis on which it now exists, they will have to pay for it. That is the plain black and white of it. If they desire to keep up the whole of the 124 battalions of Militia, with their artillery and engineers, on their present basis, they will have to pay for it. And do not let it be believed that we can raise the pay of the Militia, and for this reason—the moment you raise the pay of the Militia you raise the pay of the home service Line battalions; and the moment you do that you raise the pay of the general service battalions; and the moment you do that you will raise the pay of the Navy, and some £15,000,000 will be paid by the time you have done. We will do our best, if it is the wish of the House and of the country, to maintain all the Militia that are capable of being maintained; but we ask leave at the same time, as those responsible for making a fighting force for this country, to raise the standard of the Militia. It is absolutely no use to go on recruiting boys who can be described, and are described, in the terms of the Commission's

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Report. And I go further. We must be given permission to cut off from the Militia those units of it which are plainly redundant to our requirements, and show that they are not capable of recovering the ground which they have so unfortunately lost.
Now, Sir, I come lastly to the question of the Volunteers. I said before, and I repeat, that I believe the Volunteer force contains the best material we have in the Army. I say that with some knowledge. I know the Army pretty well; I know the Volunteers pretty well; and I say that within the Volunteers we have the most magnificent material that this country can furnish, and I want to utilise it for the defence of the country. I am going to ask the Volunteers to submit to the same sacrifice as I ask the Line to submit to, and ask the Militia to submit to—that is, a sacrifice in numbers. I ask leave to reduce the establishment of the Volunteers to 200,000 men. I have just read to the Committee the Report of the Commission, which states that large numbers of the Volunteers are inefficient, and are practically not available as soldiers. We ought not to have these men in the Volunteer force at all. I speak not without some knowledge. The other day I was blamed for fixing the establishment of the Yeomanry at a figure which involved a diminution of some of the regiments. What has happened? These regiments now thank me for having done it. They say they have the call of the market, they can get the best men that come up to their standard. I propose, therefore, to fix the establishment of the Volunteers at 200,000 men, and to reduce the strength by absorption, in the first instance to 180,000 men. In every Volunteer corps there are two forces pulling different ways. There are men who want to give more time and are able to give more time, either because they are not fully occupied or because they are young; and there are those who are willing, and capable soldiers, but whose avocations will not permit them to give so much time. The result is constant complaint against the "screwing-up," as it is called, of the War Office regulations. We desire to recognise that state of things, and what we desire to do
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is this. We desire to give a much larger grant to the Volunteers. We desire with the assistance and counsel of Volunteer officers, whom we are most anxious to consult in this matter, to give effect to that separation which we know exists. Personally I should like to take 60,000 Volunteers and make them into a field army, require of them all that we think they can give, put a large grant at their disposal, and make them keep up their full complement of properly-trained officers and their full complement of noncommissioned officers. I should like to put the other 120,000 upon an easier basis of requirement, retaining their connection with the force, sharing all, its social opportunities, proud of their position, and ready, I am perfectly certain, in time of war to take their place in the force, with the experience and knowledge which they have acquired. That I believe to be the right and true solution of this Volunteer problem. Let me take an example. I know many battalions of 900 men. I should like to take 300 of these men—I take 300 as the figure for the sake of example—and say, "We will give you a much larger grant, but you must do certain training, you must show certain proficiency in musketry, and attend for a certain length of time in camp, and, above all, you must have a full complement of trained officers." And I would say to the remaining 600:—"You have done your hard work, and we wish you to remain in the second battalion of this regiment. You may be quite as good"—I know some cases in which they would be quite as good as the first battalion—"and in war time we will rely upon you to come and fill up these companies and make the thirty files sixty files." Then you would have what happens in every foreign army. You would gain strength by obtaining a willing reserve, falling into its place with its officers and noncommissioned officers.
But I do not want to dogmatise on the particular application of my doctrine. On the doctrine itself I am quite clear that we are right. The doctrine itself is this—that we must reduce the number and we must increase the quality of the Volunteers; and in order to be able to increase their quality, we must add to the fund that is at the disposal of those from whom we require

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extra work. There will be a certain number of men who have not the time or inclination to enter the Volunteer force. For them also we desire to provide. There are many Members of this House who command a large amount of support in the country who believe that the country derives great support from the existence of rifle clubs, and undoubtedly the existence of rifle clubs, under proper management and direction, does familiarise men with the use of fire-arms. We propose to put an annual sum at the disposal of these rifle clubs, provided they come under our regulations in such a way as to make them, at any rate, a reasonably effective contribution to the Army in time of war. I further propose to do a thing which, I think, every one will agree with. We propose to set aside a sum that will enable the Volunteers to provide themselves with transport. Everybody well knows that at the time of the war we found ourselves with 250,000 Volunteers in the country, who were practically not available for warlike operations, because they had neither organization, nor transport; and we believe that if we make this attempt to improve the system of Volunteers, we ought not to overlook this important question of transport. That is a rough outline of the proposals I wish to submit to the House with regard to the Volunteers.
But every one will say I have left out one very important element, and I have. I am not going to leave it out altogether. I shall be asked—What about economy? I am not going to pledge myself to positive figures, and I will say that next year the economy will be very little indeed. You cannot deal with a great Army in which every man is serving on an engagement, as if it was composed of people taken on by the day. You will have to meet your engagements. Practically the only way of economising to a large extent next year would be by stopping the manufacture of the new gun or by stopping recruiting. Those are not expedients to which I think any one desires us to resort. But I do think that we ought to aim at reducing the expenditure next year, so as not to have any serious excess upon the Estimates of this year. But it is my ambition to lay the foundation for a scheme which will enable my successors to effect progressive economies
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in the Army expenditure; and that, I believe, I can do. If you strike fourteen battalions off the Line it will be a very large economy; if you strike five battalions off the garrison regiments, that is a clear reduction of £500,000 off the Army Estimates. If you take forty or fifty battalions of the Line and reduce them to 500 men each and put them, not on a basis of full service pay, but on a lower basis of pay, that again is a reduction amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds. I think there are many reductions which I will speak about later, if necessary, which might be made and ought to be made. I hope to see a reduction made in what is to me the incomprehensible expenditure on what we call "aquatics." The Admiralty has always told us that as the submarine is perfected the need for "aquatics" will diminish. I propose to take advantage of that declaration and to diminish the expenditure upon "aquatics." Perhaps I ought to explain. Aquatics are submarine mining apparatus which at present, by a rather strange arrangement, as I think, are in the hands of the Royal Engineers. They are put into the middle of the naval ports, and I am afraid we sometimes get rather scant thanks from our friends at the Admiralty for putting these obstacles in their waters. It is perfectly obvious that this is one of the matters that can only proceed pari passu with the changes made at the Admiralty; but I am so sanguine with regard to the progress that is being made with submarine building that I believe we shall be able at once to commence reducing the expenditure on "aquatics." If any hon. Member cares to add up these figures he will find they amount to a very large reduction. And as we reduce the battalions, and bring battalions back from abroad, this reduction will increase. I cannot stand at the Table of this House now and say I am going to reduce this battalion or that battalion. I have gone into the matter with immense care, and I know what battalions I should desire to reduce. Perhaps it may be possible to reduce other battalions. If I am allowed to carry out these proposals, there will be a reduction of other battalions that will be brought back.

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With regard to the Militia, I am in the hands of the House and of the public. If the Committee insist and the country insist upon the retention of the Militia as it at present exists, they will pay £1,800,000 for the privilege. If they allow me to do what I believe to be the best thing for the efficiency of the Army, they will very largely reduce that expenditure. But, be that as it may, apart from the Militia question, I believe I have done something to carry out the promise I made to the House to suggest specific remedies for a specific evil. I have suggested means by which we may cure the want of organisation in the head direction of the Army. I have already given an indication that we are taking steps to reorganise the War Office. I have told the Committee that we have already reorganised the Intelligence branch and the Staff branch of the Army. I have proposed to abolish the three years service, the evils of which, I think, I have made clear to the Committee.
MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL: What are the terms of service?
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I do not quarrel with my hon. friend for asking these Questions, because he is merely calling attention to some of the many omissions there must be in a long speech. I did give the terms of service for the home battalions — two years. I propose that the terms of service for the General service soldier shall be six months in the depot and eight years and six months with the colours. I would point out that that is practically the term of service served by a very large number of soldiers at the present moment. I have suggested a remedy for the great evil of calling out the Reserves on all occasions, for all wars. I have promised to institute, if I am allowed, a striking force. I have indicated a method by which soldiers may be employed after discharge in employment congenial to them and to which they are accustomed. I have pointed out that there will be some forty or fifty, and, as I hope, some eighty Home - service battalions at home, none of which will be supplied with non - commissioned officers. The whole of the non-commissioned officers for this force and for the whole of
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the depots and Reserves will have to, come from the soldiers of the General service battalions at the expiration of their service. In that way we shall have some 5,000 or 6,000 posts available for soldiers in precisely the career for which they are fitted and which they have learned to exercise. The Reserve will no longer be a substitute for men serving. It will become a supplement to the Army, and there will be an organisation for soldiers in the Reserves on mobilisation beyond those who are immediately called to the colours. The linked battalions will exist for the purpose of exchange, and will exist no longer for the purpose of drafting. Recruiting for the Guards will, I hope, be put on a more stable and satisfactory basis. The attractions of pay will, I believe, be greater than they have ever been, because no longer will the soldier of nineteen years of age be compelled to wait two years before he gets his full service pay. He will be able directly he has passed from the depot to get the full service pay, which, as hon. Members will remember, is 50 per cent. higher than the ordinary pay. The Militia I will not say more about. I have not yet the permission I desire to deal with that question. The Volunteers, I hope and believe, will be enormously improved, and an opportunity will be given to every good man and every good officer now serving in the Volunteers to continue his service and to continue it under conditions, I believe, more palatable and acceptable to him than at the present time.
These are my propositions, which I hope I shall be able to elucidate and elaborate on another occasion. I am putting these proposals forward as the proposals of the Government. I do not want it to be supposed that any reduction is palatable to the Army. Although I speak on behalf of the most loyal colleagues a man could possibly desire, I must not have it supposed that any soldier desires that there should be a reduction of any Line battalion, or that there should be any alteration of the conditions of service of any battalion with which he has ever been associated. I think it would be unfair to my colleagues and those with whom I work if I were to let it be supposed that they desire these changes should be made. They do not; but they do give me their loyal and perfect

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desires the end, I do beg that they will co-operation. It is a matter of policy. It is a matter of policy for the House of Commons, and if the House of Commons give me the means.
I would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition whether he does not recognise as certainly as I do that this problem is one that has got to be faced, and to be faced immediately. I ask him, if he can find in the propositions I have made something that will make our joint work easier, to give me his support. I know I shall have his criticism, and I shall welcome his advice. I am quite confident that, if I could get the House of Commons to look at this thing as I have tried to look at it, they would very largely agree with me. I have been trying to look at this problem from the beginning with one prospect before me, and that is the prospect of war. If I were to say that 99 per cent. of the recommendations and suggestions that have been made to me in the course of the inquiries I have been making have been based on some other consideration, I should not be going far wrong. There are, and there must be, personal views, individual views, views connected with association and with sentiment, all of which I understand, all of which I appreciate. But with the lessons which we have before us to-day, the lessons taught us of what military virtue means—I mean military virtue in the Roman sense of the word—of what are the qualities which you must have in a soldier in order that in the day of battle he may win; when I think of these things then I try to set aside from my mind any consideration which is not guided by, and does not lead to, that final end. I make this appeal to hon. Members on both sides of the House. I ask them, when they criticise me, as they will and as they are entitled to, on this particular or on that particular, whether what they are saying is really and truly in the interests of the fighting forces of this country, or whether it is not a little tinged by something they are thinking of in their own home, in their own county, in their own work—all admirable motives, but not the motives which are entitled to predominate in a case where the fortunes and the fate of this country are really concerned.
Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The right hon. Gentleman has appealed, and will not appeal in vain, to the House to consider this matter with the seriousness it deserves, and to endeavour to put away subordinate considerations and prejudices and Party feelings in order to judge fairly of the scheme he has unfolded to the House. But the right hon. Gentleman must not carry too far that part of the exhortation which he addressed to us towards the end of his speech. I will only say on that that it is impossible for us to ignore a great many considerations which are of a minor character altogether, but yet do, with a voluntary Army as we have it, immensely influence the efficiency of its organisation, and therefore cannot be disregarded. There were two striking things in the right hon. Gentleman's statement. One was the gallant and complete way in which he exploded the doctrine of conscription, which has been dangled before the eyes of the country for some time; and I cannot mention that without expressing not only regret, but a certain degree of rebuke, that an old friend of mine, the chief military adviser of the right hon. Gentleman, should have made such an indiscreet speech the other day which led to the belief that whatever the Government might say or whatever the right hon. Gentleman might say, there was behind them a lurking desire for conscription in this country. The right hon. Gentleman has done good service in pointing out the enormous cost of any such system and the deduction — intellectual and industrial—from the resources of the country which can hardly be essayed in figures but which is really one of the heaviest burdens that some of our neighbours across the Channel have to bear. The right hon. Gentleman also caused a thrill of relief to many Members of the House when he showed that certain intentions attribute to him, I do not know with what authority, in regard to the Militia were not to be carried out. One cause of the weakness of the Militia is the question of officers, but I think a good deal could be done to remedy that weakness without materially transforming the force. The right hon. Gentleman, as I expected, threw over what he persisted in calling the linked-battalion system,

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though it had ceased to be a linked-battalion system. I would prefer to call it the double-battalion system, by which a battalion abroad leant upon a battalion at home. I am completely unconvinced by anything the right hon. Gentleman has said, that it is a wise thing to overset that system. I am quite aware that in this I am going against the great majority. I suppose, of those who count themselves the Army reformers of this House. The system was introduced at a time when our troops were brought home from the Colonies, and when it appeared to those who elaborated the system that the best thing we could do would be to use a battalion at home for a double purpose, not only to employ them in peace time, but also so to maintain them that, with the help of the Reserve, they might be turned into efficient fighting units for defence of this country or any other purpose. The right hon. Gentleman, it seems, is creating a number of depots in addition to the battalions of the Line which will be maintained. These depots will be a costly institution, and, whatever their excellence may be, they will be of no use for the defence of the country, and will not be the same thing for military purposes at home as one, two, or three battalions, however attenuated.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The cost will be less than at present.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: They will not cost less than the present battalions.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: There are sixty-nine regimental depots.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: That is another thing altogether. That is an organisation which was instituted for the initial training of the troops. I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the depots are too small, and that there are too many of them. When that system was instituted it was found that no county would allow itself to be left out of the arrangement. Such are the jealousies between localities, the traditions and associations attaching to individual regiments, and the power-
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ful influence brought to bear in this House, in society, and in the Press, that the Government are forced to multiply those depots in order to meet the strong feeling that exists. That is' a misfortune; but I am afraid that in this country, where, with a voluntary service, we have to depend on the good will of local people and the influence they can bring to bear, it is necessary to keep on good terms with them. If we had a tabula rasa matters might be arranged in another way; but we mast recognise the circumstances in which we have to work. It was only at the end of his speech that the right hon. Gentleman told us what the terms of service will be of the men in the Line battalions, and of the increase proposed. The right hon. Gentleman knows as well as any one that it has been laid down after an immense amount of careful inquiry, on sanitary grounds, and after most elaborate actuarial calculations, that in adjusting the service of a man we come to a time when it is impossible to turn him adrift without providing for him in the future. If we take nine or ten years out of the best part of a man's life we arrive at the pension zone, and it would be cruel and inhuman not to provide for him in some way. The claim may be resisted at first, but it will gradually grow in strength; and therefore in calculating the expense of any system of this sort the right hon. Gentleman must always remember that there is that spectre of a non-effective Vote in the background. If the right hon. Gentleman keeps men too long with the colours, as sure as fate he will land himself in a heavy pension charge; and that is a danger which ought always to be borne in mind.
I do not quite understand how the regiments are to be relieved. I am not at all surprised to hear that the right hon. Gentleman is going to abandon the three years enlistment, and meet in some other way the almost critical difficulties which it has placed us in. But what about the reliefs of the battalions, if the proportions are altered? We shall have a certain number of long-service battalions, some belonging to the expeditionary force, and others garrisoning different parts of the world,

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and the rest of the Army will be on a two-years service footing, and employed for another purpose altogether. I presume that a greater amount of foreign service will be necessary in the case of the long-service battalions. The right hon. Gentleman has very adroitly managed to fasten upon the name of the Army Corps system, and implies that that is the principal thing to which we have objected; but what we object to is the idea of maintaining in this country a number of Army Corps with a view to an Army Corps as an Army Corps being sent abroad to any part of the world. That is an idea unsuited to our wants and requirements. However, that is a thing of the past, and we need not revive ancient controversies. In regard to the Volunteers, I have a good deal of sympathy with what the right hon. Gentleman proposes to do—namely, somewhat to reduce their number and to pile the money, so to speak, on those that remain, and even to add to the grants. I think that in that matter the right hon. Gentleman is going in the right direction. As to the question of the battalions of the Line, the right hon. Gentleman will find that strong local feeling will be aroused if a battalion of distinction is converted into a mere training depot, which is never to go abroad and is never to have a chance of distinguishing itself again.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I wish to point out that all these battalions would go abroad in time of war.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The battalions to which the men are engaged for two years? [Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER assented.] They will be filled up from the Reserves? I think that is a use of the Reserves which the right hon. Gentleman does not like.
MB. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The right hon. Gentleman must not misunderstand me. I have always thought and said that the Reserves ought to be supplementary to the Army, and not a substitute for it. Of course, a service battalion must be filled up with Reservists, as it is in every country.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I think that in this case the Reservists will be a substitute for men in the training battalions. The whole question, however, will stand over for further consideration. For my own part, my principal commentary on the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman, the greater part of which contains nothing very novel or startling, is that if the right hon. Gentleman had been contented to leave in existence the economical and efficient system of double battalions, he would still have been able to save a large amount of money, and probably considerably to reduce the number of men. After all, what has happened? During the last few years 50,000 men have been added to the Army, and the experditure has been doubled, and the right hon. Gentleman is now trying to go back to the position in which he and his friends found the Army a few years ago.
MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENsaid it was impossible to discuss this matter in any full sense on the present occasion. He wished, however, to enter a caveat on a subject on which his hon. friend particularly invited discussion. He did not think his right hon. friend had treated the Militia altogether fairly. He had proposed two alternatives, one of which meant the entire abolition of the Militia, and the other that we were to remain in our present unsatisfactory state at a cost to the country of £2,000,000 a year. There was, however, another alternative, which was to cut down the expenditure of the Militia and get rid of what was useless. A great mistake, in his opinion, would be made if the Militia was done away with. It was admitted that a great number of the Militia found their way into the Line, and he believed it would be found the great bulk of those would never have got into the Line but for the fact that they had gone into the Militia first. The Militia was the feeding-bottle of the Line, and as such was extremely useful. During the late war the Militia did not get much credit for the work it did, but had it not been for the fact that we had 100 battalions of Militia able to garrison both this country and our Mediterranean possessions we should never have been able to release the large

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body of Regulars required by Lord Roberts to finish the war in South Africa. What were we to do on a future occasion when we had sent abroad every available regiment strengthened by Reserves, and had depleted our garrisons in the Mediterranean, if we had not the Militia to fall back upon to perform this work so successfully performed by them hitherto? So far as he understood his right hon. friend's proposal it was that the Militia, as at present constituted, should go and that it should become a portion of the territorial Army. That proposition he ventured to say was an impossible one. It must be remembered that besides the young men who went through the Militia as a matter of course, there were a certain number of country gentlemen who went into the county Militia because their families had always been in it, and it appealed to their sense of patriotism that they could serve their country in that way. What his right hon. friend desired to do was to turn the Militia into an inferior branch of the Line. We had in this country a voluntary system, and what should be done, both as regards the Militia and the Volunteers, was to make the system more elastic so as to attract men in every possible way; to present the term of service in as varied a manner as possible. If the Militia was abolished or so altered that it did not hold the place in the eye of the people that it did now, the result would inevitably be that we should lose and not be able to avail ourselves of a great amount of material which at present existed and which only wanted to be encouraged to be made efficient. It was not possible to enter into any detailed criticism at present because it was not possible, but he thought that any attempt to abolish the Militia would be very badly received by the country, and he appealed to his right hon. friend not to take any such step as suggested without the fullest inquiry. He asked him as an alternative whether he could not improve the Militia as it stood and make it more efficient.
SIR CHARLES DILKEexpressed the opinion that the hon. Gentleman would have appealed to the House with greater force if he had replied to the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman. We spent in this
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country enormous sums for troops tied by the leg and which could not be moved. To-day the House had heard that we were getting rid of the garrison battalions, which were always objected to in that House on the ground that they were costly forces which could not be moved. The question was, were the Militia willing to take upon themselves the burden they had sometimes taken in time of war, to go abroad in war. If that was so, the Militia would not be the force that now existed. The Statement of the Secretary of State for War, though some what lengthy and very interesting, did not make things clear to those who had worked with him in the past and who shared his views, nor had he made it clear how his plan would work. The right hon. Gentleman had based his speech to-day on the Report of the Defence Committee. In introducing his Estimates this year, the right hon. Gentleman said—
"I hope this Report will not be debated on the Army Estimates but will be dealt with by itself."
As regarded the constitution of the War Office, he understood that, although no statement had been made in regard to it in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, a statement had been made in another place to the effect that a Bill was to be brought in in the course of the present session dealing with the powers of the Secretary for War. If that were so some of the subjects which otherwise would be properly discussed now would be postponed for discussion upon that Bill. He was of course assuming that that Bill would be introduced in the course of the present session. He also understood that there would be a further day for the discussion of this Vote itself. There were, however, one or two preliminary questions which he desired to ask. He might be somewhat stupid but he was unable to follow in the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the general principles—with every word of which he agreed and which were so admirably laid down in the first part of his speech—to their logical conclusion in the actual scheme which had been laid before the Committee. He congratulated the Government upon their secret having been admirably kept in retard to the scheme. Many rumours had been rife, and they had turned out to be so different from the actual scheme that none

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of those opportunities of discussing the matter in advance, which frequently happened in regard to statements of this kind, had occurred. The main point which had been established was the success of those principles which the Secretary for War and many other hon. Members had fought for in the past in regard to the establishment of a completely separate system of enlistment for India and the peace foreign Army from that for the home Army. He had never asked—and he did not think any hon. Members in the House who held those views had ever asked—that what might be called the principle of service with the Indian Army should be applied to any part of the Army at home. Many of them had discussed this matter and had written about it, and they had always assumed that eight or nine years was the proper Indian system, and they had always understood that that system of enlistment would be applied to the Indian Army or the foreign peace service Army, but they had never asked for it to be applied to the Army at home except so far as the Secretary for War himself and other writers had recommended that a comparatively small force should be kept ready as a striking force. As he understood the right hon. Gentleman's statement he went far beyond that in the direction of long service. This was a point upon which they ought to be most distinct and clear. Was the long service system of nine years to be applied only to the peace foreign service Army and the striking force at Aldershot?
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: We propose that of these battalions the greater part should be at Aldershot. The entire service of the General-service soldier will not be in the foreign service.
SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid that was a most important point which ought to be worked out, and placed before the House in detail. There was another reason for this, and it was the effect the nine years and the two years enlistment respectively would have upon the Reserve. It was impossible that the Committee should either accept or refuse this scheme until hon. Members were satisfied upon these two points. It was
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most important to know what the effect of this scheme would be upon the eventual number of Reservists. The right hon. Gentleman had not placed that information before the House, and therefore he asked him in his reply to give some calculation as to the number expected from the two years enlistment and the effect produced by it on the Reserve; and in the other direction he wished to know the effect anticipated by the extension of the service from eight years to nine years. Those were points of extreme importance upon which he thought they ought to have some statement from the right hon. Gentleman.
In the whole of the first part of his speech the Secretary for War carried the entire Committee with him in the exposition he gave of the enormous number of troops maintained and the very small number of actual efficients produced by that large number. One important question which underlay a great deal of the right hon. Gentleman's statement was the large proportion of our troops who were tied by the leg for home service only, and who could not be sent abroad in time of war, except by volunteering as individuals. He understood that the tendency of the right hon. Gentleman's speech was against spending large sums of money upon troops which were tied by the leg to home service, but he had not been strong enough to tell the House that he actually intended to reduce the expenditure upon this class of troops; even the improved Volunteers and the improved Militia which he looked forward to would not be capable of being sent abroad except by a change in the conditions of their service. When they came to the points where money was going to be saved they were inseparably connected with the abolition or diminution of the linked-battalion system. Those who would mend the linked-battalion system and those who would sweep it away altogether in accordance with the recommendations of the Esher Commission, had always looked forward to obtaining a considerable reduction of Army expenditure after getting rid of the necessity of keeping a battalion at home for every battalion abroad; the former being battalions which were not needed at home. When the Secretary for War used that argument and

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spoke of the abolition of the linked-battalion system he became a little vague in his figures. He told the Committee the number of battalions in India and the number of battalions for colonial stations, but he did not distinguish between those battalions and the South African garrison, and he left a very wide margin unaccounted for.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid that what he hoped was to have about 100 battalions for general service, which would cover India and colonial service and would leave a very small number of the General-service battalions at home, which would carry out what the right hon. Gentleman desired.
SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid that if the right hon. Gentleman would total up the battalions he had referred to he would find that they added up to eighty-nine battalions for service abroad, and that left a very small amount of troops for his Aldershot force. The right hon. Gentleman, no doubt, looked forward to a reduction of the South African garrison. That matter was inextricably mixed up with the question of the constabulary of the Transvaal, which now consisted only of 4,770 men, with the result that the garrison had to do policemen's duties, and that was fatal to the training and discipline of the Army. This had rendered the service most unpopular and it was damaging recruiting. A ring of brewers had been formed and duties upon beer had put up the price of beer to the troops to 6d. per glass in South Africa, and that was not likely to encourage recruiting. The reduction of the garrison in South Africa was an essential part of the scheme which had been put before them that day. The present state of things put difficulties in the way of recruiting. It would no doubt be suggested that now it was proposed to take steps toward long service whilst two years ago they took steps in the direction of short service. The most confused impression upon this matter appeared to exist not only in the Press but in the minds of Cabinet Ministers. The present Secretary of State for India attempted to throw upon him personally the charge of desiring to cut down the general service of the Army to short
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service. He wished to point out that the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor in office in his evidence before the Royal Commission on the War, made exactly the opposite statement, for he said that for years the Government had been fighting against proposals for long service. All these general statements were most confusing. What he had always pleaded for in this matter had been greater elasticity in the conditions of service in the long service according to the purpose for which it was required, and the same with the short service. He did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman would go so far as to admit that there was in the evidence which had been taken upon this subject in the three most recent inquiries a great deal of evidence which went to show that it was not necessary to have a longer service than one year in order to make an efficient soldier. The evidence given by General Sir Charles Knox went to show that the best men in the Army were convinced that in one year they could train a person of the present class of British recruit not only in ordinary infantry work but also in mounted infantry work as well. The evidence was very strong that in a single year, with the assistance of good noncommissioned officers, they could produce a most excellent man for the service, and therefore he was inclined to give more elasticity to the conditions of our service.
The general principle of the Secretary of State's scheme was admirable, though at present it was a limited scheme. It was possible that if the right hon. Gentleman was encouraged by success in the main portions of the scheme he might be inclined to carry the reductions further. He had given them simply a general statement as to the reductions, and he had suggested that the reduced charges in the course of this year would be little more than equivalent to the necessary increase in the charges for next year. One reason why he was anxious for a reduction was not only that the country might spend more money on the Fleet but also to some extent save money, and spend more money upon some other branch 's of the service in certain matters which he thought were necessary. The Secretary for War had said hardly anything about cavalry and mounted men. They were costly, but

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the right hon. Gentleman must be aware that the only definite recommendation of the War Commission was that there must be a large increase in the number of our mounted men. He also knew that the Esher Committee had used words which showed that they were in favour of the creation of regular mounted infantry battalions, and yet he had not said one word upon those subjects in regard to which some increase would undoubtedly have to be provided for; neither had he made clear the system he proposed for the cavalry in the future. He had stated that he was going to leave the number of the cavalry alone, and that he was going to make certain changes at home. The right hon. Gentleman had not, however, described them, and perhaps his plans were not sufficiently matured to allow him to do so; but in making those changes many of them would be prepared to support him in making a greater reduction in the number of Regular infantry and spending the sum thus saved upon increasing the number of mounted troops.
The Secretary for War had made some sort of defence of the Army Corps system, and explained that they were in the nature of school districts, and were merely a change of name. The right hon. Gentleman was wrong upon this point, because the Committee would remember that one of the strongest points of attack upon the Army Corps system was that it linked together imaginary Army Corps which could never be sent abroad as they existed, because the Yeomanry Cavalry and the Militia were serving under conditions which did not allow them to go abroad as organised bodies. They declared that that system was a sham, and the Esher Committee declared that it was a sham, and that system was now happily at an end. Therefore they had criticised that scheme upon grounds a little more serious than those which had been suggested to the Committee. A great mistake was made, for which they had paid a great deal in muddle and waste, by trying to reorganise the Army under pressure and in haste after certain pledges had been given at the election. There were members of the Government who had said that the War Office must be swept out from top to bottom, and there was a sort of sham system adopted which
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involved them in a great deal of muddle and waste and loss of time. Now they were getting to that position in which they might have been several years ago. The Secretary for War had used strong language-strong coming from one in his position, but not too strong—in regard to the question of what the Army really existed for. The Norfolk Commission appeared to have experienced an extraordinary difficulty in obtaining a really sound opinion upon this question, and as late as January last members of the War Office staff gave evidence, showing that they firmly believed in the necessity of having an Army ready to meet an invasion of this country. The whole of that argument had now been disposed of, and the Government had turned sharply round from the position taken up by the War Office staff.
The expenditure proposed upon the forces which could not be sent abroad and which would be required for national defence only had not been made very clear. The theory was that the Militia would readily volunteer for service abroad. Would it not be much better to recognise that in time of peace. The right hon. Gentleman had described fully the present military resources of the British Army, but lie wished to point out that, counting the expenditure for troops for India and the Colonies, they were still spending far more upon the land forces of the British Empire than they were upon the naval forces. Whilst the Government admitted the primacy of the Navy in the defence of the Empire, and the absurdity of preparing to resist an invasion of this country; whilst they had concentrated their attention upon the establishment of a striking Army, they still had to justify the proportion between the naval and military expenditure of the Empire as a whole, and they had still to show that the country was getting a sufficient striking power for the amount of money which it was proposed to spend upon the land forces. He thought the main lines of the early part of the statement of the right hon. Gentleman were entirely sound from that point of view, but he failed to see a sufficient acceptance of those lines in practice in the scheme put forward.
SIR JOHN COLOMBsaid that they had had a very

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able and clear statement put before them by the Secretary for War of the difficulties in which they found themselves placed in respect to their military forces and the outline of the remedies which must be applied to meet those difficulties. The subject was so enormous, however, that it was impossible on the present occasion to do anything more than touch the broad fringe of the question, because the statement which had just been made to them required to be carefully read and weighed. He heartily congratulated the right hon. Gentleman upon the masterly way in which he had made clear the difficulties of the present position, and the general outline of the way in which he proposed to meet those difficulties. He thought nobody who had studied the question could find much fault with the statement which had been presented to them. He agreed, however, with the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean that when they came to apply those principles it was quite possible that some of the halo would diminish. The crux of the Army question was really what value should be attributed to the sea and land forces to provide against any possible military descent upon these islands. His right hon. friend had made it perfectly clear what his opinion was. What had brought this question out of the narrow purview of the War Office was the creation of a Committee of Defence which even in its infancy had brought more true light to bear upon the Cabinet than ever before. Therefore he thought the Government was to be congratulated upon having gone so far as to make a pronouncement which was simply a reversion of the policy they had been pursuing for over forty years. It was almost unreasonable to expect from any Minister dealing with the Army a statement of the real scientific facts of the situation uninfluenced by political considerations. Under our system of government they had always to remember that a Minister face to face with the Army problem had to take up two points. In the first place he had to think of the real necessities of the Empire as regarded military forces; and he had to think in the second place of the exigences of the Parliamentary situation. Therefore, no
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Minister in that position could by any possibly means give them a wholly sound and true scheme.
There were one or two main points which he should like briefly to touch upon now, and after he had had time to digest the right hon. Gentleman's statement there would, no doubt, be other matters he would like to discuss. The first matter was, of course the recognition of the fact that our Army should really be ready to strike and not wait until we were struck. That was clearly acknowledged by his right hon. friend, but he himself was a little confused as to what increase or decrease the present proposals, if carried out, would mean in respect of the number of units which were now, and would then be, available for oversea service. His difficulty in that matter might disappear when he came to study the right hon. Gentleman's speech. Of course, he recognised the most desirable change in a small portion of that problem by the fact that they were to have at Aldershot 16,000 men who would be an organised striking force as far as that number went, and in order to apply them for purposes oversea for which they existed we should not have to call out any reserve at all. He thought that was true policy and a real advantage, but it did not meet his difficulty, namely, what would be the Imperial striking force which this scheme would give in regard to numerical strength. When the right hon. Gentleman came to face the inevitable question of reductions they would sympathise with him. Reductions could not be made without hurting somebody's feelings. The one thing with which he was most pleased of all was that there was certainly to be no reduction in the cavalry strength. He agreed with his right hon. friend that whatever reductions might be made in other branches, so far from any reduction being contemplated in respect of the cavalry, all students of this question would advocate some increase in the cavalry strength. He observed that there was to be no real reduction in field artillery. There would be in peace a reduction in the actual strength of certain batteries, but that was to create a reserve which would fill up those

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batteries in war and, therefore, practically he did not gather that it meant anything in the shape of an attempted reduction in field artillery. That was a thing upon which they must congratulate his right hon. friend and the Government. He did not gather from the right hon. Gentleman's speech that there was any policy settled as regarded the garrison artillery. The Committee knew that there was to be a considerable reduction in the Line. The right hon. Gentleman had said nothing whatever about the garrison artillery. He did not press the right hon. Gentlemen for an answer now, but he would on a future occasion ask for some fuller explanation as to that. The right hon. Gentleman said generally that he contemplated a reduction in the colonial garrisons, but he did not mention the garrison artillery. He heard with the greatest satisfaction the declaration of his right hon. friend, that he intended to put his foot down firmly against putting the cost of submarine, or what was called aquatic business, on the Army Estimates, and applying soldiers to work they were not qualified, by any means, to do. He thought every sensible man would cordially support his right hon. friend in that direction.
They had it acknowledged clearly and firmly that the main purpose of our Army was for oversea service. That principle being acknowledged, it destroyed what had been a bugbear in regard to our military force in its relation to home defence. He did not know whether the question of the area of the services of the different forces had been considered. He was not clear whether there was to be any change in regard to that. The obligation of the soldier in the Regular Army was to go anywhere in the world. That was a binding obliation, but under the present system the obligation of the Militia was only to serve within the United Kingdom. The obligation of the Volunteer was only to serve in Great Britain. No comment was needed from him to show that the position was an absurd one. [An HON. MEMBER: Why?] In the first place, did they consider these three forces the component parts of one army. If they did, could they have an efficient Army when the three elements of it had different spheres of obligation. The thing was preposterous. In view of the statement
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that the Army was to be a striking over-sea force, he wished to ask whether it was in contemplation by the offer of inducements to get the Militia to extend the area of their service to any point within the Empire. That was important from the point of view of its necessity. He was not now talking about efficiency. He was talking about numbers. Efficiency was a different question. When it was remembered that on the outbreak of the South African War there were on the enrolled strength 98,000 Militia and nearly 250,000 Volunteers, and that the number who volunteered for service over-sea was 52,000 Militia, and only 19,000 Volunteers, it seemed to be within the range of practical politics, whatever might be done, to get the Militia without much difficulty to extend their services to outside the United Kingdom. He considered the policy which the right hon. Gentleman had indicated was a great advance, and he trusted that they were not going to have a repetition of what happened when the last Army scheme was introduced. They were told then that the great aim was to have an oversea fighting force, and he got up and congratulated the Secretary of State for War on that statement. They were then told that they were to have 120,000 men as a striking force, and then, having chalked up this main principle, the right hon. Gentleman ran away from it. He trusted that, the Government would have backbone now—he was sure his right hon. friend had—and that, having indicated the main principles aimed at, they would stick to them and carry them out in their entirety.
MR. MUNRO FERGUSONsaid there would be much advantage in having a Memorandum from the Secretary of State for War showing the exact bearing of the most interesting statement to which the Committee had listened that afternoon. He was sure it was impossible for many who were sincerely desirous of assisting the right hon. Gentleman to give him any effective support without such a Memorandum. He would only give one or two examples of what was needed. One of the proposals which would meet with great opposition was in regard to the Militia. He entirely agreed with the right hon. Gentleman

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that although in many Militia battalions they would find admirable men, there were a few in which the circumstances were exactly opposite. He believed the proposal was to make the Militia part of the Regular Army.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERindicated dissent.
MR. MUNRO FERGUSON: Well, to make it into a localised force, and to diminish the ineffective condition of the present Militia. Probably there was no way in which a large saving could be more readily effected than by that method. But in order to press this and other points, as well as to enable hon. Members to consider possible alternatives—because there were possible alternatives —to the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman they must have a Memorandum. He was sure that many of the contentions of the right hon. Gentleman could hardly be upset. Most hon. Members were agreed that it was essential to have a considerable reduction in the cost of the Army, and when the right hon. Gentleman put that in the forefront, and stated that in the policy he was pursuing he had a single eye to the making of preparations for war, and war only, he must have the support of those who had also held those views for some time past. He should like to express his deep sense of gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman for the illustration he gave of the disadvantages of conscription merely with respect to its cost. That was a most valuable contribution to their information. The figures the right hon. Gentleman gave with respect to the three years system would carry conviction to the country that it had broken down, and that it was essential to have some effective substitute for it. He hoped this would be the last of the Army schemes brought before the House, and that they would be able to see their way through the entanglements of what had been a disgrace to the administrative system of the country.
MR. REGINALD LUCASsaid he had read in a newspaper that in the House of Commons there were few Militia officers; but it was some satisfaction to gather from the tone of the debate
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that they might hope to have considerable support and encouragement in regard to the Militia part of the scheme. But he could not help feeling the disappointment which was shared by an hon. Member opposite, that after what had been said the Militia were to be still left with the sword hanging over their heads. They might have hoped after that statement that they would have had some intimation of what were the prospects of the Militia, whereas at the present time he did not know that they were very much wiser than they were when they came into the House. To those interested in the Militia it was of the utmost importance to know what was going to happen. He desired to know whether it had been definitely settled that the Militia were to be turned into a part of the Regular Army. They had heard a good deal about the quantity and expense of the Militia, but very little had been said about the quality. The real point was whether the Militia were considered to be worth continuing on their merits. He did not forget that before the Commission on the South African War Lord Roberts spoke rather disparagingly of the Auxiliary Forces in South Africa; but he thought they were entitled to say that the Militia at that moment were put in the position of a squeezed orange. When the war broke out the Militia became attenuated, because the Regular Army had borrowed from them to fill up their own ranks. He maintained, therefore, that the Militia were entitled to the benefit of extenuating circumstances on that occasion. They had been told that the great drawback to the Militia was the lack of trained officers. He would take one authority in regard to that. Colonel Henderson, in his "Life of Stonewall Jackson," having begun by saying that the Militia were not really worth anything as soldiers, went on to make this admission: "There were not more than a dozen Regular officers in the whole of the Army of the Valley. Twelve months previously several of the brigadiers had been civilians—yet Jackson might have boasted that his men had accomplished feats of which thoroughly trained soldiers might well be proud." On the authority of Colonel Henderson, therefore, Militia were not altogether worthless in case of war. He submitted that even if they

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could not train the Militia more than they did now, there was a foundation on which to build. He believed that soldiers trained to that extent would improve very rapidly, that there would be a geometrical progression, and that in no very great time an army could be produced which would become identical with the Regular Army, and give that material aid in time of emergency which they could very ill afford to spare.
As to the training of officers there were proposals laid before the recent Commission which, he thought, were perfectly impracticable, unless they were going to turn the Militia into the Regular Army. Colonel Satterthwaite in his Report said that all officers in the Militia ought to pass an examination equivalent to that for the Army. His point was that they could not take, say, two brothers—one who went into the Regular Army, and the other who became a barrister or Member of Parliament, but who joined the Militia—and ask them to do precisely the same work. It was ridiculous to ask them to pass the same examination. There was another point which was of even more importance in connection with the Militia. Unless they were going to extinguish the Militia altogether, it was impossible to jeopardise the character of the officers. Sir Ralph Knox, in his evidence before the Norfolk Commission said that—
"No officer trained exclusively in these forces should be given such a rank, unless he has shown himself up to the standard of the same rank in the Regular Army."
He would give a personal illustration of what he meant. In the battalion in which he held a commission, the late colonel was the First Lord of the Admiralty, who could not be expected to spend the time to pass his examination, and the present Colonel was a Member of Parliament and an exceedingy busy man, but who was just the sort of man that that was wanted to command Militia. He was fortified in that opinion by the tatement of General Swaine on 25th June last, in which the General said—
"The best Militia battalions that have come under my notice were those commanded by country gentlemen, who had never been in the Army, and some of the least good were commanded by ex-Army officers. The former were principally officered by gentlemen of the county, who took a pride and pleasure in their
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work. The latter suffered from not being in touch with the county, or the county with them, and in several cases had a difficulty in obtaining officers."
MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSEsaid that he dissented from some of the suggestions and theories put forward in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War. He, however, fully recognised the spirit in which that speech had been conceived. There was only one objection he had to offer, and that was that the speech had been made so late in the session. It was manifestly impossible, or at any rate difficult, for hon. Members to consider the speech in all its bearings at the present moment, and it was difficult for the Government to find another day for the consideration of so important a subject. One thing which struck him at the commencement of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman was, that it was a speech which might have been made in support of a vote of censure on the preceding scheme of Army reform propounded from the same Bench. Any one who was in the House of Commons on 8th March, 1901, must have recognised that the right hon. Gentleman who had just come in (the right hon. Gentelman the Secretary of State for India) proposed, amidst a scene of equal excitement and interest to that they had witnessed that day, a new scheme which was guaranteed to be a great achievement in the way of Army reform. He did not wish to dwell upon the fact, or to arouse any feeling of bitterness, but if the authority of the Government was brought in this afternoon in support of this scheme, why was the same authority pledged to the scheme of three years ago? The Chief Secretary for Ireland, the Prime Minister, the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, the Postmaster-General all spoke in the debate in support of the scheme which they had now had to throw over. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India indulged in an outburst at one period of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, which indicated that it was doubtful whether he had really abandoned his own scheme.
THE SECRETARY of STATE For INDIA (Mr. BRODRICK,)said that the hon. Gentleman had misunderstood him. The Leader of the

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Opposition had fallen into an extraordinary mistake in believing that a large number of home service battalions could not be available for service abroad. He cheered the correction.
MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSEsaid he quite accepted the explanation, especially as it showed that the right hon. Gentleman had abandoned his own scheme; and he, as one who voted against the Army Corps scheme, must rejoice at the tardy repentance of the right hon. Gentleman. The Secretary of State for War spoke of the necessity of remedying the evils which existed. He said that the country was going through a period of great peril; that the present numbers and composition of the Army were unsuitable to the needs of the Empire; and that it was unduly costly. Yet that was the system to which the country was asked to pledge itself three years ago. They were, therefore, entitled to look very carefully at the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman before accepting it.
He wished to refer to a few details taken at random. The right hon. Gentleman did not go at any great length into the question of finance; but he indicated that, although there would not be an immediate reduction there would be a reduction the year after next. It was essential, however, that the Committee should know how far the statements of the right hon. Gentleman were accurate. The right hon. Gentleman raised the question of linked battalions; but it was quite clear that the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman would involve the creation of a large number of depots. Sites would have to be purchased; large buildings would have to be put up; which he hoped would be more economically erected than was the case in the past. The cost of the Army had been progressive, however, not only in bulk but in detail. There had been an enormous increase in the Army since 1895; all of which had to be put against the small decrease mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman. He was certain that there would be further increases. Take the case of the Army Corps. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lard-Lieutenant of Ireland stated in 1901 that they would be the basis of the Army. Now he had changed his
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opinion. The right hon. Gentleman, on that occasion, said that it was of importance to get the design of their house right; their design was to have six Army Corps; that would be steadily in view in all the plans submitted to the House. Now the whole matter was to be reversed. There were to be district commanders, and it would be certain that the cost of the staff would be much more than under the old system. Again, the linking of battalions one to another was to he abolished. Were battalions to be renumbered or renamed? The right hon. Gentleman ought to make J that clear. Then the right hon. Gentleman proposed nine years in the colours for the striking force. That would leave only three years in the Reserve; and to that extent the Reserve would be reduced. He wished to know whether there was to be a considerable reduction in the reserve. The right hon. Gentleman also stated that there was to be a considerable reduction in the artillery; but it was not clear whether the reduction would be in horse artillery or field artillery.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid in both.
MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSEsaid that the late Mr. Stanhope attempted what the right hon. Gentleman now proposed; but his action had to be reversed.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid that the number of horse artillery had been nearly doubled since then.
MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSEsaid he hoped that the question had been taken into consideration. As to the Volunteers, he absolutely endorsed everything which the right hon. Gentleman had said. It was essential, if the Volunteers were to be any use, that they should be efficient. From his own experience, he believed that this efficiency could be secured without the very largely increased grant foreshadowed by the right hon. Gentleman.
COLONEL PILKINGTONsaid he listened with great pleasure to the speech of his right hon. friend. It contained many proposals, one or two of which were so novel as to be almost revolutionary, and it was difficult to digest them at the moment

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properly. He did not like the proposal put forward with respect to the Militia. In his opinion the Militia ought to be improved and made much better even than it was at the present time. The record of the Militia in the South African War was the best of all the forces, being far better than that of the Line or the Volunteers. The battalions of Militia went out as they stood with their own colonels and their own officers. He hoped there would be reorganisation and improvement in the establishment of the Militia on the grounds of the Report of the Royal Commission, which did not advocate its being broken up, but, on the contrary, advocated its being trained and improved in every war. This old constitutional force should be improved and enlarged. His right hon. friend wished to reduce the expenditure, but he would point out that for the £1,800,000 we paid for the Militia we had something like 100,000 men fairly well trained; better trained and more valuable in the field certainly than the Volunteers would be. This was the thin end of the wedge in the attempt to spoil this old and excellent force, and in his opinion such a policy would be fatal.
With regard to the other proposal, he agreed with the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean as to the increase of mounted infantry. It was noticeable in the war in South Africa a very much larger mounted force was wanted. It was all very well to talk about reducing expenditure, but the safety of the country and the efficiency of the Army of one of the greatest Empires of the world should be the first consideration. It was not a question of expense. He was glad that the artillery and cavalry were to be left as they were. But he could not see how the supply of men to feed the fighting force was to be obtained. The fighting force in South Africa came to an end because the system was not sufficiently expansive. If the right hon. Gentleman was going to do away with linked battalions he would destroy the system which gave reinforcements, and allowed the operations of war to be carried out without much difficulty. But that question had not been touched upon by the right hon. Gentleman. From where were the supplies of trained men in the case of a
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great Continental, or a great Indian War to be drawn? The Militia as at present constituted could go out en bloc, and those who did not go could do duty here in place of the Line. In his opinion the exhaustion of men which took place during the war in South Africa ought never to occur again. He would point out with regard to that that it was not the voluntary forces which broke down, but the Regular forces. He submitted that to carry out the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman would not only be unreasonable, but dangerous. While he admitted that at the time the force was founded both officers and men of the Volunteers knew very little, he drew attention to the fact that there had been a marvellous improvement during the last forty-four years, and that that improvement was clue entirely to the effort of the force, and that if the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman were carried out this force would be destroyed. All that the Volunteers asked the Government to do was to take the force as it was and improve it on those lines. The provision of rifle ranges was a perfect farce. They wanted more ranges and more inspection and examination. They did not mind the Regular superior officers coming down occasionally to stir them up and if they were not good enough making them better. They were often snubbed in camp, but it did them good in the end. He protested against the introduction of rules and regulations with regard to the Militia and Volunteers which would tend to discourage those forces. In every army in the world the Reserve was always five, six, seven, eight, nine, and often ten, times greater than the number with the colours, but this was not the case with our Army. The vital question which the Government ought to turn its attention to was to raise a much stronger Reserve. If they proposed to decrease the number of men with the colours they ought to increase the Reserve ten-fold. Why should they not adopt some system whereby when men left the Volunteers or the Militia their names should be taken and something done for them? Why could they not be granted some small privilege which would cost the nation practically nothing? He asked the Government to pause before taking some of these strong steps which

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he was afraid would be disastrous and would spoil in many ways what they now possessed. He wished to improve the system they had now. The Report of the Royal Commission said that with regard to the Auxiliary Forces they ought to improve the Militia and they said practically the same thing with regard to the Volunteers. What was the use of having a Royal Commission and taking no notice of its recommendations.
MR. GUESToffered the Secretary for War his hearty congratulations on the spirit of the pronouncement he had made, and wished to re-echo the view he held that the question of Army reform should be treated in no Party spirit. Last year he ventured to move that the forces of the Crown might safely be reduced by 27,000 men, and his proposal was received in almost every quarter of the House, and especially on the Treasury Bench, with scorn and contempt. Fifteen months had elapsed since that time and now the same right hon. Gentlemen came forward with a proposal for a still larger reduction. He should like the Secretary for War to tell them what reduction he considered his proposals would effect. He understood that nineteen battalions were to be abolished altogether. Then there was to be a further reduction of the difference between the 500 and the existing strength of the battalions, but they did not know how many battalions. He understood that they were to have at least fifteen or twenty battalions maintained at Aldershot at war strength, therefore they must deduct those from the forty or fifty battalions which were to be treated as upon the home establishment. That would leave thirty battalions to be reduced from whatever they were now, and he calculated that that would amount to about 24,000 men. But that did not represent the whole of the reductions which the Secretary for War hoped to effect in the Regular forces of the Crown. The artillery and the cavalry were not affected; but there was another principle which they had contended for all along, namely, economy. Although the right hon. Gentleman had laid down that principle, he had only seen fit to give the Committee the vaguest and most general figures in support of the economy
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he hoped to effect under his scheme, and he had left it to the members of the Committee to make calculations for themselves. Having regard to the difficulty of calculating the reduction in the number of men, it was hopeless to attempt to determine what that reduction would represent in pounds, shillings, and pence. He trusted the Secretary for War would not be content with simply saying that he hoped to effect some economy, but that he would give the House some idea as to the extent of the economy he was going to achieve. The two things hung together very much, and unless the reduction in numbers was accompanied by efficiency the right hon. Gentleman would find it very difficult to persuade the House to adopt his scheme. He was delighted to feel that they had at last given up the idea that the main object of an Army in England was for home defence. The idea had been prevalent in the past that there should always be a sufficient number of men in this country ready to stand with fixed bayonets all round the coast to prevent a foreign invasion, but that idea had now happily entirely disappeared. They no longer entertained the ambitious views of the Secretary for India upon this point that they might be called upon to take their chance in combination with a Continental army against some other other Continental army. They had abandoned that idea altogether.
MR. BRODRICK: I never suggested that our Army should be maintained with the idea of taking part in a Continental war.
MR. GUESTsaid the whole tenor of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, and the only justification he made for the Army Corps system was that at some time or other, we should be obliged to take part in some very large conflagration, if not on the Continent, at least on a Continental scale. One of the great points of the right hon. Gentleman's scheme was that the Indian frontier might be defended, and for that purpose we were to reduce the seven years system with the colours to a three years system. Now they found that the justification for that policy put forward both by the right hon. Gentleman and the Prime Minister had entirely collapsed.

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With the general spirit of the Secretary for War's statement he was agreed. But he did not think that the right hon. Gentleman would find it so easy to put into practice the whole scheme he had put before the Committee. Hosts of difficulties would occur to anybody with even the slightest knowledge of the subject. How many battalions did the right hon. Gentleman contemplate keeping abroad? He did not understand what the right hon. Gentleman meant with regard to the five garrison battalions which were to be abolished. They were abolished, and consequently there were fifty-two battalions in India, and thirty-seven in the Colonies, and that number would be diminished by five, leaving eighty-four. He could not see how the right hon. Gentleman made the 100 he spoke of. How many battalions did he allot for the defence of India and the Colonies; that would be the base upon which the number of battalions retained at home would be fixed. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would tell the Committee how many battalions he thought it necessary to keep at home at full strength to circulate. With regard to the Auxiliary Forces, it was very difficult to make out from the information furnished the real effect of the right hon. Gentleman's proposals. With regard to the Auxiliary Forces, there were two schools of thought, and they both had disadvantages. There was the school of thought very common among professional soldiers that unless they could get out of the Auxiliary Forces the same efficiency they got out of the Regular Forces, the former were of no use at all. The other school of thought was that held by hon. Members who were interested in the Volunteers and Militia, and who thought that the best assistance and encouragement that could be given to the Auxiliary Forces was to allow any number oh men, whatever their disqualification, to join. But the Secretary for War intended to avoid both those extremes, and to indicate his encouragement of, and the value he set upon, the Auxiliary Forces, not so much by trying to increase the number but to increase their efficiency. He would be taking a wise course if he carried that out.
The remarks the right hon. Gentleman made upon the Militia were of a some-
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what striking and alarming character. The right hon. Gentleman knew perfectly well the services the Militia rendered in time of war. During the late war ninety-seven thousand men went from the Militia. What he did most earnestly regret was that the Secretary for War thought it wise to take up the question of the Militia, and instead of giving the decision of the Cabinet upon it, throwing it upon the floor of the House to be dealt with as best it might. Nothing could be more damaging to a force than to be placed in that position of not knowing whether they were to be abolished or retained. He thought the discouragement which such a situation was bound to bring about would rather enhance than diminish the unsatisfactory condition of the Militia. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of recruits being six months at the depot and then being drafted into the regiment. At present a great many boys joined at eighteen and nineteen, and it was an axiom of foreign service that no recruit under twenty years of age should be sent to a tropical climate.
He would like to ask a question about the Reserves. The foreign service Army would be completed very slowly, and it was therefore probable that at any moment the foreign service Army would have a very small Reserve of its own. Was there any connection between two battalions for the purpose of defence? It seemed to him obviously undesirable that a man who was treated as a Reservist for the home Army, on the outbreak of war should be drafted into a regiment with which he had nothing to do; that presented some difficulty and he hoped that the Secretary for War would give some information about it. He regarded with great satisfaction the general views of Army problems which the Secretary of State had brought before the House, and he hoped he would be successful in impressing upon the House that he was able to give practical effect to them.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid that nothing had made more plain to him the inadequacy of his statement than the number of Questions that had been asked with regard to omissions he ought not to have made. But it was exceedingly difficult to present the problem as it had

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presented itself many scores of times to his own mind. Only one remark had been made which he regretted. The Leader of the Opposition had spoken of the Chief of the General Staff in his absence in terms of reproach, which he thought might have been omitted. In regard to the suggestion of the hon. Member for the Leith Burghs he would do his best to supply a Memorandum of the case as he desired the House to see it. The right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean was unduly alarmed as to his departure from the canons which the right hon. Gentleman and he had agreed upon as to the distribution of men at home and abroad. The whole object of the depot system and the getting rid of the system of linked battalions for the purpose of drafts was to enable them to keep a much larger number of colour men abroad than at home. Without desiring to commit himself to precise figures, he could give an indication of the kind of proportion he had in his mind. He should like to see the Indian garrison maintained as it was; he should like to see some twenty-six battalions—a reduction on the present number—retained in the Colonies, and he should like to see twenty-six battalions of General service troops maintained in this country. That, of course, was an entire departure from anything we had ever had before and it was coming into line with the view the right hon. Gentleman had been in favour of.
MR. BRYCE: When the right hon. Gentleman speaks of the Colonies will he say how many battalions are to be retained in South Africa?
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid he knew the right hon. Gentleman felt strongly on that, but he would rather not introduce that question. He felt confident, himself, that in the course of a short time they would be able materially to reduce the South African garrison. But it would introduce an element into the debate which was really not necessary to it if he were to venture on a prophecy as to the reduction of the South African garrison. Everyone knew that the garrison in South Africa was abnormal because of the abnormal condition of things existing there, and when
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that condition ceased they hoped to withdraw some of the battalions in South Africa. With regard to the Reserves, roughly speaking, there would be a reserve of 23,000 for General service battalions and 87,000 for the Home service battalions if he were allowed to incorporate a certain number of Militia battalions.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: The anticipated figure was 120,000.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid that was the anticipated figure. It was considerably larger than the actual Reserve, but he would ask hon. Members to bear in mind that the difficulty was not the question of men. The hon. Member for Dewsbury had said that we ought to pile up our Reserves and have hundreds of men in them and very few men with the colours. The hon. Member said that was the example of every country in Europe. There was a fallacy underlying that statement. In every other country in Europe a standing army was only kept in existence for the purposes of training. We were face to face with a totally different set of circumstances. We had at this moment eighty-seven battalions of infantry abroad, apart from artillery and cavalry, which were bound to be on a war footing. Therefore his hon. friend the Member for Dewsbury would see that his theory did not apply under existing circumstances.
COLONEL PILKINGTONsaid why could not some provision be made for extending the time during which these men should be in the Reserve; and why could not the same regulation be applied to the Volunteer?
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: It could. But in his view of the circumstances they did not want an enormous Reserve. His own feeling was that the sooner they could relieve the Englishman after he had successfully done his soldiering the better. They might continue the length of Reserve service ten, twelve, or fifteen years and they would get a gigantic Reserve.
COLONEL PILKINGTON: You exhausted every man of the Reserve in South Africa.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid the hon. and gallant Member was mistaken. That was exactly what they did not do. What happened in South Africa was what he wanted to guard against. They sent to South Africa the Reserve of the Regular Army, which was less than the Reserve he proposed now, and they got a great many Volunteers and Militia. But 90,000 men were left behind whom they could not send and for whom no organisation at all existed. He wanted to bring about a state of things under which all the men we were paying or should be available for the service of the country. He wanted to go beyond that, and to have a large number of additional officers, so that the men, who in a time of stress would certainly come forward, could fall in under properly trained officers and be made available. He had purposely refrained from giving full details in regard to cost, because he had been compelled to leave part of his proposals in abeyance, but he thought lie could give some figures which would be of considerable interest. If he were permitted to strike off fourteen battalions of the Line he would strike £810,000 off the Estimates. If he were permitted to abolish five battalions of the garrison regiments he would strike off £530,000. If he were allowed to divert forty-five Line battalions of the home establishment he should save £954,000, and there would be a saving of £100,000 by transferring from the Army to the Navy the aquatic submarine service. He made a slight addition to the cost of the cavalry and artillery for Departmental reasons, and the Foot Guards which would add £115,000. He did not say anything about the reductions that might be effected in regard to the Militia, but he was confident that he or his successor would be able to reduce many other items of expenditure in the future. There was the Garrison Artillery. It was a complex problem, but he was sure there was a way through it which would not alone improve the constitution of the force, but reduce its cost. The position was similar with regard to the Royal Engineers. But until he had his estimates ready he could not give any accurate statement with regard to the cost of a condition of things for which he did not at present know
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whether he had the sanction or good will of the House.
He had been asked where he would get his men if he abandoned the linked battalion system. There was no mystery about that. The Royal Artillery, the Guards, and the Royal Marines, got their men, although they had no linked battalions for the purpose of drafts. As to the Volunteers, the Royal Commission had reported that they were not fit to face foreign troops, and he wanted to take some steps to bring them up to a better standard. He was perfectly prepared to consult with the representatives of the Volunteer force as to how best to utilise the force. What he did insist upon was that the Volunteers should have the necessary additional efficiency. With regard to the Militia, if the suggestion of the Royal Commission that the force should be called up for service six months of the year Were adopted, it would absolutely revolutionise its character, and bring the cost of a militiaman up to within £6 17s. 2d. of the cost of the Regular soldier. He adhered absolutely to the view—although the decision must rest with the House and country — that his plan would give the opportunity to every Militia officer who cared for his craft, and to every Militiaman who cared for the service, to continue in the force under conditions which would be more congenial to them and much more advantageous to the country, and in that way perpetuate to the full the traditions of the service to which they belonged.
And it being half-past Seven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
Committee report Progress; to sit again this evening.

EVENING SITTING.

  MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BOARD BILL [Loans] (By ORDER).
  Order for Consideration, as amended, read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill, as amended, be now considered."
  MR. ROBSON (South Shields),in moving that this Bill be considered this day three months, said nobody could feel more strongly than himself the inadvisability of interfering with a decision arrived at by a private Bill Committee; but, where a so-called private Bill affected the rights of the King's subjects as a whole of any considerable class like seamen, who depended upon this House for their protection, the House, he submitted, was bound to consider the decision arrived at by the Committee before they sanctioned a Bill which interfered with their rights. The complaint against this Bill was that by virtue of its provisions it would operate so as to lessen the amount of accommodation allowed to the crews of British ships, and lessen the amount of working and breathing space in which engineers, firemen, and the like, had to live and carry on their employment. Obviously such a thing ought not to be done by a private Bill. This Bill, promoted by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, proposed to alter the basis upon which dues now levied on ships entering the docks were calculated. According to the present system they were calculated and levied on the net tonnage. It was now proposed to alter that system and charge not upon the net tonnage, but on 50 per cent. of the gross tonnage, with the proviso that where the cargo-carrying power exceeded 50 per cent. of the gross tonnage the dues would be levied on the net. There were many cases where the net tonnage of stuffs was less than 50 per cent. of the gross, which allowed for a larger amount of space for the crews and the propelling power, and the result of this alteration would be that the owner who had up to now only paid dues on the profit-bearing portion of his ships would have to pay on the nonprofit-bearing portion as well, and the ultimate result would be a tendency to contract the accommodation given to the crews.
  During the last few years the amount of space given to crews bad been greatly increased; the stoke-hole was less a travelling inferno than it was, though now it was bad enough, though with more space came better ventilation and more light and air, and better conditions for working in. It was not the need of revenue which impelled the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board to this step. The idea was that the
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  present mode of calculation favoured the fast ships at the expense of the slow; that the net tonnage register of the great liners was very low, owing to the amount of space given to other purposes; that they paid less than other ships, and that all should be put on an equality. The principle of equality was a very fine principle, but he submitted that the matter should. be carefully considered before the principle was applied to the great liners, because although they might pay less on the average than other ships they were able to make a great many more voyages, and if the amount of dues paid by great liners over a certain period of time were compared with those paid by other ships it would be found that they paid far more than the slower ships, owing to the more frequent voyages they made. The present statutory requirements for the accommodation of crews on board ships were extremely low, the statutory minimum being seventy-two cubic feet for each man, and there was a natural objection to legislation for increasing that minimum in face of the fact that there was a voluntary effort on the part of shipowners to increase the air space and give sometimes 150 or 200, and sometimes even 250, cubic feet of air space to each man. It was not desirable to check this tendency. He did not doubt that by providing more breathing space one motive was to get a better class of men, and if that was so, that was a motive to be encouraged, a motive that ought not to be penalised or impeded by any alteration in the existing law. It was obvious that if dues were paid on gross tonnage less air space would be allowed. And that was what this Bill proposed to do. He was the more emboldened to take the course he was now taking in asking the House to consider this question, because of what the Committee had themselves stated; they had themselves entered a little caveat against the decision of the House. While finding the preamble of the Bill proved their decision was that the question of harbour dues should be the subject of legislation initiated by the Board of Trade. The Committee had done their duty in coming to a decision, and more than their duty, in indicating to the House that this was a matter more for the House than the Committee to deal with. They were unanimously of opinion that the matter

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  should no longer be left in the hands of the Committees on Private Bills, but should be the subject of general legislation initiated by the Board of Trade. It was not an easy matter to get legislation in regard to seamen or anything else, but until they could get general legislation the House would see that the fairest thing was to leave matters as they stood.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIGin seconding the Amendment, said that he opposed the Bill on the ground that it would interfere with the Irish traffic with Liverpool, and because of the effect which the provisions of the Bill, if passed, would have on the crew space in steamships on account of the great competition now existing. Anything which had that tendency ought to be viewed by the House with very great caution and suspicion. It seemed to him clear that the Board of Trade was the proper authority to initiate any legislation dealing with this subject, and not a private dock and harbour authority. Liverpool was the second port of the kingdom, and if the rule was once laid down that Liverpool should be allowed to charge dues on the lines of this Bill the practice would be followed by every port of the kingdom, who would at once ask for similar powers. If there was to be any alteration in the law it should be initiated by the Board of Trade. He did not think that anybody needed to pin their faith to any statement of his. It was only necessary to read the Report of the Committee that sat on this Bill. They practically said to the promoters of the Bill, We will allow you to have the Bill this time, but it must not happen again." This was a matter which should be dealt with by general legislation and a private Bill before a Committee was not the proper place for dealing with a subject of this kind. He begged to second the Motion.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out the word 'now,' and add the words upon this day three months."—(Mr. Robson.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  MR. CHARLES McARTHURfelt that a somewhat
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  invidious task rested upon him as one of the Members for Liverpool to oppose this Bill, which was promoted by a body in Liverpool for which he had great respect. The present Bill was open to very great objections upon grounds of public policy, and, while he admitted that the Bill had a beneficial object to serve, he believed that object could be better obtained by other means than by a private Bill. No doubt it would be said that it was somewhat unusual to oppose a private Bill which had already passed through its various stages, but he submitted that there were reasons why that course should be adopted on the present occasion. He thought the House was justified in reconsidering the Bill, because the Chairman of the Select Committee had given a very qualified Report in regard to it. That Report had expressed the opinion that the anomalies in regard to shipping dues should be corrected by general legislation initiated by the Board of Trade. This Bill involved a principle of great importance to the merchant shipping of this country and also of other countries, because it proposed to change the principle on which the measurement of tonnage had been computed from the net system to the gross system. The net tonnage was clearly intended to represent the earning capacity of the ship, and that was the system adopted by every important maritime country in the world. It was admitted that there were anomalies attending the present system. Extreme cases had been dealt with by the Board of Trade who had passed the necessary regulations. Larger and faster steamers must, of course, have more room for crew and engineers, and, therefore, the tonnage must be smaller, and the situation which that created was, he considered, one that ought to be dealt with by the Board of Trade by means of a Departmental Committee. The Cunard steamers visited the port of Liverpool often, and, although cargo steamers paid more, still the frequent visits of the former equalised that, and besides, as they carried little tonnage, they did not require the same amount of dock and shed accommodation. These large mail steamers could not be built upon commercial lines, and if it was desirable to have some such vessels under the British flag, some consideration

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  must be allowed them. That was the reason why such steamers got a subsidy.
  The proposal in the Bill was that no ship should pay less than 50 per cent. of the gross tonnage. He found, from evidence given before the Committee on behalf of the Mersey Board that what was desired was equality; but this proposal would not establish equality, but would increase diversity in tonnage basis as between the various classes of vessels. The Board of Trade instead of grasping the nettle, had only made a half-hearted attempt to deal with it, having allowed a number of port authorities to obtain Private Acts enabling them to levy dues on proportions of the gross tonnage of vessels varying from 33⅓to 50 per cent. This had been chiefly for the relief of small ports, which were not able to pay their way. He argued that what was necessary in the case of small ports was not necessary in the case of Liverpool. There was no fear of Liverpool not being able to pay its way. According to last year's report the income of the Mersey Board was £1,320,125, and the tonnage and harbour dues £646,415. Was it worth while to disturb the arrangement exiting in Liverpool? This question was one of important public policy. So long as it was confined to small ports it did not matter; but here they were dealing with a great port, and if the exception asked was granted to Liverpool, how could great ports? He thought, therefore, it would be most undesirable to consent. He did not attach so much importance to the point raised by the hon. and learned Member for South Shields, and he did not think the change, if made, especially no doubt an owner might, especially in bad times, desire to economise by limiting or perhaps reducing the crew accommodation and the light and air spaces. He trusted the Board of Trade would take the matter in hand, and constitute a Departmental committee to go into the whole question.
  SIR CHARLES CAYZERsaid that both the hon. Member for South Shields who moved the rejection of the Bill and the last speaker who seconded it had stated their object-
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  tions to the Bill very fairly, and the former in spite of his knowledge of shipping being of an amateur character. If he thought that the change proposed in the tonnage would reduce the crew the space he would not support the Bill, which he admitted was a complicated one, and in regard to which issues which were raised which were not consequent on the Bill. The principle of the Bill, he claimed, was one of equity. It was to equalise the rates at which dock dues were charged so that each class of ship frequenting the port should contribute its fair proportion of dues, which at present were charged the net register tonnage of the ship arrived at after deducting the space which was occupied by the crew and the engine-room space from the gross tonnage. What were the objections? That it would tend to reduce the crew space, and that the change should be made by public Bill. There were two classes of ships which did not pay their fair share of dock dues, one the large fast passenger liners, and the other a number of coasting steamers. The inequality of tonnage on which dues were charged was caused by the fact that the large steamers required larger spaces for crew and servants and engine-room than was needed by the ordinary type of steamer, which being deducted from the gross tonnage caused a larger reduction in the nett tonnage. For example, there was the "Campania," belonging to the Cunard Line, with a gross register tonnage of 12,950 tons, whilst its net tonnage was 4,974 tons. Then there was the "Rowanmore," a cargo steamer, with a gross tonnage of 9,456 and a net tonnage of 6,158. The large passenger ship paid on 1,184 tons less than the ordinary cargo ship, but, being deeper, required more expenditure for dredging and larger accommodation, and entailed more expense on the dock authorities. He was certain that no port had done more to give facilities for large fast steamers than the port of Liverpool. In promoting the Bill the Dock Board had followed the advice of the Board of Trade. Both the hon. Member for Croydon and the present President of the Board of Trade distinctly stated that they would not introduce public legislation which the hon. Member for Liverpool now so earnestly.

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  advocated to adjust the inequality in the dock charges, and stated it was for the Dock Board to get the change made by a Bill of their own.
  Replying to the hon. Member for Cork on 29th July, 1902, the President of the Board of Trade stated that the registered tonnage of British ships was ascertained by rules laid down in the Merchant Shipping Act, and there was no fixed rates between registered tonnage and carrying capacity. It was open to harbour authorities, he added, by means of local Acts, to endeavour to obtain powers to levy dues, based on the proportion of the gross instead of on the net tonnage. Asked by the hon. Member for King's Lynn if he would support any such application, the President of the Board of Trade said that in almost every, if not in every, case he had supported such an application. He wished to ask his right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade if he was now going to support the application in this Bill. This Bill followed entirely on the lines of the advice given by the Board of Trade. If his right hon. friend had altered his opinion he would no doubt say so. If not, he claimed the right hon. Gentleman's vote in support of the Bill. The case had been exhaustively considered by Committee presided over by the hon. Member for Northwich, which came to a conclusion in favour of the Bill and stated it would not have the effect of curtailing the space for the crew, but would equalise the dock rates. The objections to the Bill were chiefly raised at the instigation of the Cunard Company. It was said that the Cunard mail steamers used the port more frequently than the cargo boats, and, therefore, paid more dues in the aggregate. But as ship-owners they knew that ships went to ports because they had cargoes to take there, and, therefore, the frequency of their visits was not an argument against their paying dues on a fair and just scale as they had an earning return for each visit. It was true that the large Cunarders carried very little cargo, but they had a much more remunerative freight in the passengers they carried, and when that was put forward as an excuse he did not think the House should listen to it. It was said that the development of high-speed ships was of national importance.
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  He agreed. But why should the Liverpool Dock Board be called upon to contribute Ito this national object by foregoing part of the dues to which they were entitled on the fast ships? The argument did not hold good in the case of the Cunard Company. Surely they might be expected to pay their fair share of the dock dues, when last year Parliament granted them, for two ships, a subsidy of £150,000, and lent them £2,500,000 at 2¾ per cent. It was inconceivable that they should come forward under these circumstances and object to this Bill. Was it right that a company largely subsidised by the Government for the sake of saving a paltry £2,500 a year which they legitimately ought to pay should oppose this Bill?
  Another objection was that the Bill would have the elect of considerably curtailing the crew and engine-room space. Honestly, he did not think the fears of the Sailors' and Firemen's Union on this point were well founded. The majority of shipowners gave a larger crew space than the statute required, and he hoped they would always do so. The Board of Trade expert, Captain Chalmers, made a most unwarrantable statement to the Committee when he said that if the Bill were passed it would tend to induce shipowners to take advantage of it to reduce the space for the crews. He protested against that unjustifiable accusation from a Board of Trade official against British shipowners. He was much surprised that the Cunard Company should have circulated such a report as a reason for getting off paying their fair share of Liverpool dock dues. The comfort and welfare of the crew was the shipowner's chief care, and he challenged the President of the Board of Trade to confirm the imputation made by the official of his Department who gave evidence before the Committee that they neglected their duty in this respect. If such an inducement existed, it could apply only to a few of the high speed passenger ships, because, with the exception of these ships, nearly all the vessels frequenting the port had a net tonnage of over 50 per cent. of the gross, and the average was between 64 per cent. and 68 per cent. It was said that the alteration of net tonnage was an international question, and that foreign countries might, if

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  a change of this kind was sanctioned, alter their dock dues in foreign ports to the disadvantage of British shipowners. But this argument could not apply to Liverpool, for there was not a single foreign ship trading to Liverpool which would be affected by the Bill. Such an objection, if it was valid, should have been urged before. Why had it been left to this late hour, after the Dock Board m ere allowed to go to all the expense of promoting the Bill at the invitation of the Board of Trade. He hoped the President of the Board of Trade would be able to offer some explanation of the matter, and he asked the House to support the decision of the Committee.
  MR. LAWRENCEsaid that when this question came up ten days ago he approached it without prejudice. He supported this Bill on the principles of common justice, and if he thought the hon. and learned Member for South Shields had a scintilla of evidence for his suggestion that the Bill would operate to the prejudice of the seamen, he would have no hesitation in voting against it. The three speeches against the Bill had been in one way or another destructive of each other. The hon. Member for Ulster forgot, when he opposed the Bill, that nine Irish ports had already obtained the very power for which the Dock Board now asked. Were the interests of the seamen prejudiced every time a steamer entered one of these ports I Therefore the sailors in the steamers which entered Liverpool would he treated no worse than if they entered,one of these Irish ports. This Bill was promoted by a board with a most honourable career, manned by the most careful and thoughtful men in the trading community, of Liverpool. Was it likely that they would, even to promote justice between different classes of shipowners, act unjustly or prejudicially to the interests of the sailors? The Bill would effect only one-tenth of all the ships that entered the port of Liverpool. This Bill was promoted in the interests of justice in the matter of taxation on the various ship-owners. It was the case that the Chancellor of the Exchequer endeavoured to equalise taxation among the different, classes of people he had to tax, and this Bill was promoted for that end, and for no other purpose. This Bill
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  had come into being after the repeated, continual, and persistent action and pronouncements of the Board of Trade itself. That very afternoon the House had passed a Bill in favour of the Port of Llanelly exactly enacting the principles which apparently now the President of the Board of Trade was going to refuse. Where was the consistency of such action? Not until Thursday, the 9th of June, without any notice, official or unofficial, did the Board of Trade come down and criticise this Bill, and it was not on the ground that a public Bill was the right method of dealing with this question, but the idea was that the Bill affected light and air space, and was detrimental to the sailors. Of course that was absurd inconsistency, seeing that the Board had been responsible for twenty-five Acts on Provisional Orders authorising the scheme. Having regard to the great difficulty of any legislation in that House, and looking to the great time that must elapse before this eminently absurd system of measuring could be remedied, was if not right, if the principle was not wrong, that this method should be advanced by a private Bill. Seeing that Liverpool shipping was practically a microcosm of the shipping of the United Kingdom he thought it might very well be allowed to extend this principle by means of a private Bill.
  The hon. Member for the Exchange Division affirmed the desirability an the importance of the advance of fast-going ships, but why should they put it on fellow shipowners, on great dock and private corporations, to pay the expense of enabling these great experiments in transport to be carried out? If that was a matter of national importance, it ought to take the form of a national subsidy. It was not the risk that sailors coming out of Irish and Welsh ports ran that had induced the representative of the Board of Trade to come down; but it looked as if there was a personal buttonholing on the part of certain people that had set the Board of Trade in motion. The House had already heard of the gross mismeasurements, which amounted to a grievous injustice on a certain class of shipping, and the Board of Trade would agree that those measurements were unjustifiable. It was reasonable that the Board of Trade shou'd allow this Bill

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  to go forward, and then at their convenience, when they had considered the matter, bring in their public Bill. That would he a much more reasonable way to proceed in regard to this matter. There had already been a large amount of public money spent owing to the laches or imperfect appreciation of their duties on the part of the Board of Trade. The Dock Board was not allowed to make a shilling of profit, which all went to the improvement of the docks, and under these circumstances it was rather hard that this carefully-administered Board should have to waste public money promoting a Bill which had passed through four Committees, and then, when it reached the final stage, the House of Commons should be asked to reject it. It was very hard that the labour of years should be thrown away because the Board of Trade had woke up at the last hour to new interests and new responsibilities.
  MR. RUNCIMANdid not want, like Mr. Lawrence, to wander into the merits of the Cunard Company or their action in the House of Commons; nor was it his duty to defend the attitude of the Board of Trade in this matter. His own interests were in no wise touched by the Bill one way or the other, and he, therefore, disclaimed any personal considerations in the attitude which he had adopted. He saw no reason for dragging the Cunard Company into the discussion. The Cunard Company were a firm of the greatest responsibility, and they had done great service to the mercantile marine of this country, as had all the other great lines of which we wore so proud. They were an extremely pushing firm, and when they found that their interests were affected they made such protests before the Private Bill Committee as were open to every class of citizens. He thought no complaint could be brought against them for the action they had taken when they found that their interests would be injuriously affected by this Bill. Nor did he think it at all fair that the Cunard Company should be blamed for the course they had taken in this matter because they were shortly to be in receipt of a subsidy from the Government. He ventured to think that that was an insinuation which this House would not tolerate.
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  After all, the American fast liner was not the only class of vessel which would be affected by this change. The small traders would be affected in even a larger degree. The estimate was that if this Bill were passed it would mean £17,000 per annum, and of that the Cunard Company would be responsible for not more than £2,500. The rest would be paid by a few other large steamers, and a very large number of coasting craft. Nor was he disposed to say that the members of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board had not done their duty in promoting the Bill, and their success up to the present had justified their action. This was a matter that concerned more than the Mersey, because the whole question of the assessment of merchant tonnage, not only in the United Kingdom, but all over the world, was involved. He was quite prepared to believe that there were a number of tonnage cheaters, and that there were a few extreme freaks which, carrying, say, 300 or 400 tons, managed to get under an artificial rule and to escape on nineteen or twenty-five tons register. These freaks had been dealt with to some extent already by the Board of Trade regulations. If this Bill were an attempt to catch them and them alone, he should be no party to opposing it. But this only went to prove how artificial the scale was as a whole. How artificial it was Members of this House scarcely realised. He did not pretend to say anything which was not well known to every shipowner and shipping man here, but he wondered how many Members of the House could give a definition of dead weight ton, cubic ton, and gross ton. He ventured to think that there were not a dozen who could give an accurate definition of what these terms meant. The tonnage on which dues were paid was extremely complicated, and the artificial scale was altogether out of date, as was shown by the definition for drawing up the net tonnage of steamships in the United Kingdom. He took only the case of steamships in order to point out how enormously complicated the question was—
  "As to screw steamers the space actually occupied by the boilers and machinery was to be measured, and if this space equalled 13 per cent., but did not equal 20 per cent., the ship was to be allowed a combination for engines,

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  boilers, and fuel 32 per cent. of the gross tonnage as a deduction from that tonnage to arrive at the net register tonnage. This was supposed to represent the capacity of the vessel. If the space occupied by the machinery and boilers equalled or exceeded 20 per cent. of the gross tonnage, then instead of applying the rule just quoted, they were to be allowed the space actually occupied and 75 per cent. of such space in addition."
  He put it to the House that that was a purely artificial way of arriving at the assessable value of the various vessels concerned. It was true that the application of this assessment had been duly considered by the Committee over which his hon. friend presided, but now they had a claim put forward by the hon. Member who had just sat down, that in this matter the House should follow the precedent set in the case of Llanelly He did not know where Llanelly was, though he knew most of the good ports of the United Kingdom. He supposed it was somewhere in Wales, and he believed it was a small port; that was to say, in comparison with the great ports of the United Kingdom it was a small port. Would the hon. Member say that what was done at Llanelly was sufficient as a precedent in the case of Liverpool?
  MR. LAWRENCEsaid the principle was the same in both cases.
  MR. RUNCIMANsaid he would point out how the principle differed. It was absolutely necessary in the case of some small ports that they should be treated on such a basis as to make them, so far as one could consider them in a mercantile sense, a success. The only way of making the port of Llanelly a success was by allowing an assessment which had not been allowed except in a few ports with which he would deal. He would read the list. There was Rothesay, which had a 40 per cent. limitation. Rothesay was an important yachting centre, but it was not an important mercantile port. There was the case of Greenock, but there the limitation of 40 per cent. applied only to local traffic. There was Lame, which was a most important port, but it was not to be compared with Liverpool. Kilkeel, in county Down, was a comparatively small port. Stromness, Buckie, and Wick, were all
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  very small ports, and the idea of quoting them as precedents for the port of Liverpool was purely ridiculous. Let him point to some of the ports which had received a 50 per cent. allowance. The most important was Swansea. That was the only considerable port in the United Kingdom where a 50 per cent. allowance had been given, and if the Board of Trade allowed it to pass he had no doubt they were capable of explaining their action. Cardiff was 40 per cent. Barrow 40 per cent.; Dublin, Cork, Dundalk, Limerick, and Galway were all ports where 50 per cent. was adopted. In every one of those cases local considerations wholly weighed. The international considerations raised in the case of Liverpool did not apply to them. It was absurd to quote those minor ports and the fishing ports of Scotland as precedents for Liverpool. If this Bill went through in its present form every port in the United Kingdom would come to Parliament applying for powers on exactly the same basis. [An HON. MEMBER: Why should they not?] If the proposals in the Bill were adopted it would mean the removal of the tonnage assessment from a net-register basis to a gross-register basis. No one except those connected with shipping would know what an enormous change that meant. It might be a good or a bad system. He was not arguing for or against it, but it was not by a private Bill of this character that the proposal to make the change should be brought before Parliament, or become a means of general legislation. If there was an advantage to be derived by harbour authorities from the adoption of this limitation he was sure that those of northern Europe, where the ports to a certain extent came into competition with our own, would not be slow to adopt this basis. If we adopted this basis they would probably do so also, because up to the present the British example had always been followed abroad.
  The point he wished next to deal with was whether a Private Bill Committee was the proper body to deal with an immense national and international question of this kind. Might he point out that the Members of the Committee who considered this Bill were not equipped with the technical

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  knowledge necessary to enable them to know how far their decision was likely to carry them? Nor could it be said that they were in any way representative. This question was one which touched the whole mercantile marine of the United Kingdom, representing roughly from £120,000,000 to £150,000,000 sterling. It affected also the mercantile marine of other nations. Nor did he think that the Committee could have been equipped with the requisite knowledge to decide on a great technical change of this kind. The complexities of the question were so great that, when they had arrived at a definition of tonnage. they had by no means got to the end. The theory on which it was based was not a question on which any Private Bill Committee could come to a decision which ought really to set an example to the mercantile marine of the world. The question was one to engage the attention of a strong Committee or Commission equipped with full technical knowledge, and representing shipowners, traders, harbour authorities, and seamen. It was a question as between ship and ship, as well as between shipowners and dock owners; it affected an enormous number of vessels constructed in conformity with existing rules; and a Bill of this kind would certainly have an effect in reducing crew space to a minimum and increasing the earning capacity of a ship. Further, it would open the door to retaliatory measures in foreign ports, which we certainly should endeavour to avoid.
  MR. HOUSTONspeaking as a Liverpool man, said that he was in no way connected with the Mersey Dock Board, and that he held no brief from them. He was certainly under no obligation to them with regard to the character of the accommodation which they had afforded to his fleet. He was not speaking out of any sympathy with them, but rather as representing the great body of Liverpool shipowners and the Liverpool Shipowners' Association, who were mostly supporters of the Bill, the exception in this matter being the Cunard Line, with regard to whom, however, he should not make any uncomplimentary remarks, although it would be necessary for him to refer to them. The constitution of the Dock
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  Board, it was necessary the House should understand, was that, having no capital they paid no dividend, any profits that might accrue being applied in reduction of duties or the carrying out of improvements. A great deal of such expenditure had been caused by, and was made in consequence of, the larger Transatlantic ships, which needed deep water and large dock accommodation, involving the removal of the obstacle at the bar, and the building of the largest landing-stage of its kind in the world. About £8,500,000 had been so spent. Large cargo steamers, he asserted, were of more importance to Liverpool than the liners, because they carried cargoes both in and out, and gave employment in the docks to large numbers of hands, who were not needed for the passenger steamers. The hon. Member for the Exchange Division had stated that the exact contrary was the case, but then he did not know very much about the subject. It was, in fact, an anomaly that the passenger ships should occupy more dock space and cause more expense and, at the same time, not be required to pay a fair proportion. Ninety per cent. of the steamers using the port paid up to 64 per cent., and here the Cunard Company was only asked to pay 50 per cent. of the gross tonnage. He believed it would be a fatal mistake to undertake shipping legislation of the kind suggested by his hon. friend. The White Star Line did not object; in fact, there was no objection to the Bill, save by the Cunard Company and small coasting steamers, and it would not affect a single foreign steamer using the Port. If they altered the law of tonnage measurement international questions would be raised to the detriment of British shipping. The whole subject was one upon which lie thought he might claim a right to speak with some authority, for he had worked in the inferno of the engine-room, and had, at an early age, been superintendent engineer of an Atlantic Line. The Bill would have no bearing whatever on about 90 per cent. of the tonnage of the port. It applied only to high-speed steamers and coasting steamers.
  With regard to the attitude of the Irish Members, it illustrated their usual tactics;

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  they always supported anything that would favour an Irish port. As to the Scotch coasting owners, Scotchmen had a reputation of looking after themselves. The gross register was obtained by measuring the internal capacity of the ship below the upper deck, and all the erections above it. The net register was obtained by deducting from the gross tonnage first the machinery space. Now when this space, not including bunkers, was between 13 and 20 per cent., a deduction of 32 per cent of the gross tonnage was allowed. When this space was over 20 per cent of the gross, a deduction of one and three-quarter times this actual space was allowed. The machinery space so measured included the light and air space above the upper deck, but did not include any of the bunkers which were supposed to be provided for in the extra three-quarters per cent. allowed in the deduction. A further deduction was made for crew space, the whole of which was measured and deducted from the gross, provided that it was not less than seventy-two cubic feet per man, and twelve superficial feet of deck space per man. This deck was measured clear of obstruction, and in all modern ships, where the decks were more than six feet in height, it must necessarily result in more than seventy-two cubic feet per man, and as the crew were usually housed in a forecastle forward or on the poop aft where the sides flared out as they rose, the actual cubic capacity arising from the twelve superficial feet of deck space was very largely increased. The effect of the proposed Bill to charge not less than 50 per cent. of the gross tonnage would have no application to about 90 per cent. of the tonnage used in the port of Liverpool. Its application was only to high-speed passenger steamers and to coasting
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  steamers. The effect of the Mersey Board's Bill upon high-speed passenger steamers might be explained as follows. Under the net-register system the inducement to reduce light and air space was practically as great as it would be under the Mersey Board Bill. The light and air space was the volume, above the upper deck, of the openings over the engines and boilers. At present this volume multiplied by one and three-quarters was deducted from the tonnage, and at 1s. 4d. per ton (the Mersey Board charge) this deduction amounted to 2s. 4d. for every ton (100 cubic feet) of space appropriated for light and air. The argument that the light and air space would be reduced in order to reduce gross tonnage would not hold, because whatever the light and air space might be, it was in the owner's option not to have it measured, so that he could not reduce his gross tonnage by reducing his light and air space. In fact, as far as adding to gross tonnage was concerned, he might make the addition absolutely nil (whatever its actual amount might be) by not having it measured. It was in the shipowner's option. As to the part of the machinery space below the upper deck, the shipowner must have sufficient for his machinery. If he had more than was necessary, he would gain 2s. 4d. for every 100 cubic feet by reducing tonnage. But space in a passenger ship was worth much more than this. Take the case of a passenger cabin. For every passenger more than 100 cubic feet were required. Each passenger would certainly earn many times 2s. 4d., the amount of tonnage dues paid for 100 cubic feet, and paid only once per round voyage. It was not unreasonable then to assume that four times in a year the extra 100 cubic feet would he filled with passengers earning at least £20 as against say twelve

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  or even twenty-four voyages, on which tonnage dues would be paid at 2s. 4d. per 100 cubic feet, amounting to 28s. or 56s. reapectively. Consequently under both the present system and the one now proposed, the inducement to reduce light and air space was practically the same, and was only limited by the engineering requirements. With reference to space occupied below the living spaces, the same considerations applied, except that instead of being able to make use of the space for passengers, it was available for cargo. Every hundred cubic feet given to machinery space saved 2s. 4d. per ton in dues, but lost two-and a-half tons of measurement, which would earn in a round voyage to New York and back at least £1. Another way of putting it was that 2s. 4d. on 100 cubic feet was 11¼d. saved on forty cubic feet, which on a round voyage would give 5⅝d. on the ton of forty cubic feet space. This was obviously very much less than freight earned by this space, which amounted to more shillings earned than the pence saved in dues.
  With reference to the coasting steamers, they might be considered as in two classes. First, those which were general cargo and passenger ships, in which space was of great value, and to which all the foregoing arguments equally applied. The inducements to cut down light and air, machinery and crew space were limited by the loss of earnings. Coasting dues were, however, only 4½d. per 100 cubic feet, and earning space was many times more valuable, as this only worked out at l¾d. per measurement ton of 40 cubic feet. The other class of coasters was that which carried deadweight cargoes. In these vessels there was always space to spare, and it would not add to the earnings of the
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  shipowner to reduce machinery or crew space, as he could do nothing with the space so saved. With reference to the erections above the upper deck, which it was alleged were due to the present beneficent Act, it might be noted that these erections had been put on modern coasters, because the freeboard might be thereby reduced, and the deadweight carrying increased. If to reduce gross tonnage these erections were done away with, the vessels would have to reduce their weight-carrying, and consequently their earning power, and this reduction or loss would be much more than any saving in tonnage dues.
  SIR JOHN BRUNNERsaid it was his duty to tell the House the view taken by the Committee over which he had the honour to preside. He wanted the House to understand that when this proposal of the Mersey Harbour Board came before Parliament it was by no means the beginning of the discussion as to the rating of steamers in Liverpool for dock dues. The subject had been discussed for many years in Liverpool. The Mersey Board was not a money-making body; it was interested only in improving the facilities of the port. It was constituted to represent all the authorities and public bodies in the city, while twenty members were shipowners, merchants, and dock-ratepayers. There were representatives of the coasting steamers, of the Cunard Company, and of every class of steamer trading to the port; and it was the proposals of such a board which came before the House. The Committee had considered it their duty to make what was called a special Report, because they contemplated the likelihood of all the other port authorities applying for similar

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  powers. His hon. and learned friend the Member for South Shields had, with his highly trained and amiable intellect, conveyed an interpretation of that Report which was by no means before the mind of the Committee. He said that the Committee did not consider themselves competent to deal with this question and had relegated it to the Board of Trade. That was not the case. The Committee had approved of the Bill, and if they had considered themselves incompetent they would not have approved of the Bill. The Committee were aware that an enormous amount of money had been spent in the successful endeavour by twenty-six ports to pass twenty-six Bills embodying the same principle. The hon. Member opposite had said that the engine space should equitably be deducted from the cargo tonnage in order to arrive at the rateable tonnage. But the large engine space in the fast passenger steamers was earning space. Without that space they could not get their earnings from the passengers. Everybody who had considered this matter knew that this Bill was the outcome of a constant struggle between the naval architects and the owners of docks. These naval architects were extremely able men; they studied the regulations of the Board of Trade, so as to adopt one scheme of design after another, without at all diminishing the earning capacity of the ship. Mr. Japp, the managing owner of the Shamrock Line, gave the Committee the benefit of his very great knowledge.
  This Bill was now before Parliament for the fourth time. It had passed through Committees of both the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and had been in the hands of the Board of Trade
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  since 1902, and although it had passed through all this ordeal it was only now. in the Committee upstairs, that the Board of Trade had a word of objection to say to it. The Committee had to consider questions of equity between two classes of traders in Liverpool, and he must say that he never sat with a more painstaking Committee. The Committee inquired into the equity of the proposal made by the Mersey Harbour Board, and their decision was that as between the two classes of steamers the existing law unduly favoured the passenger steamers. The Mersey Dock Board asked for power to charge more to the passenger steamers than at present and they had given them that power. The Board of Trade had allowed twenty-six Bills embodying the same principle to pass into law without remonstrance, and it was only at the eleventh hour that, by the mouth of a technical expert, they were told that the principle of the Bill tended to induce shipowners to reduce the crew space and would be prejudicial to the health and well-being of the crew. But great authorities like Professor Biles, of Glasgow University, did not agree with the view of the Board of Trade that, if the Bill passed, shipowners would be induced to diminish the crew space in their vessels. If the Committee considered there was any danger to the crews, the Bill would not have been passed. But it was another matter as between ship and ship. The Board of Trade had full power to deal with the protection of the crews. The Board of Trade lead done their duty in the past, and he was sure they would do their duty in the future. Never had any Committee of the House been more emphatic in dealing out fair treatment to all the interests concerned.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY To THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. BONAR LAW,)said that to ask the House, as he felt bound to do, not to allow the Bill to go further was to incur a very grave responsibility. They fully realised that it was a responsibility, and he could assure the House that they had only undertaken it after the most careful consideration, and because they believed that there was really no other course open, and that it was the duty of the Department. If this Was a question which concerned Liverpool alone, no matter how much they might diner on the principles involved in this Bill, they would certainly not ask the House to reject the decision of the Committee. but this did not concern Liverpool alone. Liverpool was a microcosm of the shipping world, and it had been admitted that whatever was done in Liverpool today would be done in the whole of the world to-morrow. This was not an ordinary private Bill. This Bill upset the whole tonnage system of the United Kingdom. The Board of Trade had always aimed at inducing other Goverments to adopt our system of tonnage rating, and this year they had succeeded in inducing the French Government to adopt the same system of rating which applied in the United Kingdom. It seemed to them that it would be almost ridiculous for them to have succeeded in that, and then for French vessels to find when they came to the United Kingdom that they were subject to a charge on a totally different basis. Apart from the fact that in their opinion this was a subject too large to be dealt with in any Private Bill Committee, however competent, they thought this Bill was introducing a bad principle, and was contrary to what had been the
  140
  distinct aim of the Board of Trade in shipping legislation for a very great number of years. If this Bill became the general system of this country it would be maintained in many cases to be the direct interest of the shipowner to give the crew the smallest space. There was a large class of ships where the interest was to reduce the space for crew and engines. He did not refer to passenger steamers, but to coasting steamers up to 1,000 tons. It was owing to the ingenuity of the ship-builders that this had arisen, and he was satisfied that if the Bill became law that ingenuity would be again exercised for the purpose he had mentioned. The question was not whether the Board of Trade was wrong in the past, but whether it was right now.
  The proposal which on behalf of the Board he had to make was one that ought to commend itself to the House. It was that a competent Committee would be appointed to consider the anomalies which were admitted to exist. That Committee would consider in what way the system of allowances and deductions by which the tonnage was arrived at should be altered, if it should be altered at all, and if, as they expected, that Committee recommended alterations which seemed to he reasonable, the President of the Board of Trade would do everything he could to bring in legislation to carry those views into effect. He could promise the House that the Committee, which would be a Departmental Committee, would be representative. It would not be an official Committee; the official element would be in a minority, and it would contain experienced men—shipowners, shipbuilders, and dock managers. That was a

  141
  proposal which ought to commend itself even to the Dock Board, and he hoped they would accept it. He believed they would accept it were it not that it had become a question of sentiment. It was obvious that Liverpool was divided against itself. It was a straggle between the Cunard Company and the Dock Board, but sentiment ought not to influence the view of the Committee. It was said that the Board of Trade was influenced by partiality to the Cunard Company because the Government had lent them money; that the security of the loan would not be so good, if the Cunard Company had to pay more for dock dues. It was not usual to give Government Departments credit for looking so closely after the pence as this would indicate. He could assure the House

  Ayes.

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

  Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln)

  Balcarres, Lord

  Hoult, Joseph

  Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Kitson, Sir James

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Leng, Sir John

  Spear, John Ward

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Bristol, S.)

  Stanley, Hn. Arthur(Ormskirk)

  Brigg, John

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Stanley, Rt. Hn. Lord (Lancs.)

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Milner, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick G.

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

  Milvain, Thomas

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Caldwell, James

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Tollemache, Henry James

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow)

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Rankin, Sir James

  Valentia, Viscount

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

  Renwick, George

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. William Lawrence and Mr. Houston.

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  Rose, Charles Day.

  Gardner, Ernest.

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert J.

  Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos.Myles

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Churchill, Winston Spencer

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir A. F.

  Balfour, Rt. HnGeraldW.(Leeds

  Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Bingham, Lord

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Allen, Charles P.

  Black, Alexander William

  Craig, CharlesCurtis(Antrim,S.)

  Allhusen, Augustus Henry E.

  Boland, John

  Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark)

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Cremer, William Randal

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Burke, E. Haviland

  Crooks, William

  Arnold-Forster,Rt Hn Hugh O.

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Cullinan,,J.

  Asher, Alexander

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Cavendish, V.C.W.(Derbyshire)

  Delany, William

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Devlin, C. Ramsay (Galway).

  that, so far as the Department was concerned, the question of the Cunard Company had had no influence whatever upon their minds. At the moment he had no reason to know that the proposal he had made would be more or less acceptable to the Cunard Company than it would be to the Dock Board; but it was a fair and reasonable proposal, and the wily one open to them in the circumstances.
  MR. BRYCEsaid he agreed that the question was of such obvious importance that it ought to he investigated as a whole.
  Question put.
  The House divided:— Ayes, 52; Noes, 154. (Division List No. 238.)

  Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.)

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Leamy, Edmund,

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Price, Robert John

  Dobbie, Joseph

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Pryce-Jones Lt.-Col. Edward

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Lough, Thomas

  Randles, John S.

  Doogan, P. C.

  Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

  Reckitt, Harold James

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Reddy, M.

  Fenwick, Charles

  Lueas, Reginald J.(Portsmouth

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Fergusson,RtHn.SirJ.(Mane'r

  Mac Veagh, Jeremiah

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Field, William

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

  FitzGerald, SirRobert Penroso

  M'Kean, John

  Runciman, Walter

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Russell, T. W.

  Flynn, James Christopher

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

  Forster, Henry William

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Foster,Philip S.(Warwick,S.W.

  Maxwell, RtHn.SirH. E.(Wigt'n

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Gordon,Hn.J. E.(Elgin &Nairn)

  Maxwell, W.J.H(Dumfriesshire

  Shackleton, David James

  Grant, Corrie

  Mitchell, Edw.(Fermanagh, N.)

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury)

  Mooney, John J

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Gretton, John

  Moore, William

  Slack, John Bamford

  Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th)

  Moss, Samuel

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Harris, Dr. Fredk. R.(Dulwich)

  Murphy, John

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Sullivan, Donal

  Helder, Augustus

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Talbot,Rt.Hn.J.G.(Oxf'dUniv.

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork)

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Higham, John Sharpe

  O'Brien,Kendal(Tipperary Mid

  Thomas,David Alfred (Merthyr

  Hope, J.F. (Sheffield, Brightside

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Tully, Jasper

  Hornby, Sir William Henry

  O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)

  Welby, Lt.-Cl. A.C.E.(Taunton

  Howard, J. (Kent, Faversham)

  O'Dowd, John

  Wilson, Henry J.(York, W.R.)

  Jameson, Major J. Eustace

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon,N

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Jones,David Brynmor(Swansea

  O'Malley, William

  Wylie, Alexander.

  Jones, William(Carnarvonshire

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Joyce, Michael

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Young, Samuel

  Kennedy,Vincent P.(Cavan,W.

  O'Shee, James John

  Keswick, William

  Parrott, William

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Robson and Colonel Denny.

  Kilbride, Denis

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Words added.
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to. Consideration, as amended, put off for three months.

  UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL BILL.
  Read a second time, and committed for Monday next.
  WILD BIRDS PROTECTION ACTS AMENDMENT (ST. KILDA) BILL.
  Read a second time, and committed for Wednesday next.

  ADJOURNMENT.
  MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL, on the Motion for the adjournment, said in view of the very important announcement in reference to the Army
  144
  which had been made by the Secretary of State for War, and the great importance of discussing it, he wished to know when the debate would be resumed.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Sir A. ACLAND-HOOD,)said that the hon. Gentleman had better address a Question to the Prime Minister on the subject.

  REGISTRATION OF NURSES.
  Ordered, That Sir Michael Foster be discharged from the Select Committee, and that Dr. Hutchinson be added —(Mr. Herbert Gladstone.)
  Adjourned at eighteen minutes after Twelve o'clock,

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Leyton Urban District Council Bill. Supplemental Report from His Majesty's Attorney-General received, and ordered to lie on the Table.
Barrow-in-Furness Corporation Bill [H.L.]. Commons Amendments considered, and agreed to.

STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE.
Report from, That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the London County Council (General Powers) Bill ought to be dispensed with and the Bill allowed to proceed. Read, and agreed to.
Saddleworth and Springhead Tramways Bill. The meeting of the Standing Orders Committee (which stands appointed for this day), put off to Monday next.
Tottenham Improvement Bill. Reported, with Amendments.
Carlisle Corporation Bill; Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, and Thornaby Tramways Bill; Clyde Navigation (Works) Bill. Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Earl of Romney and the Lord Brougham and Vaux be proposed to the House as members of the Select Committee in the place of the Earl of Craven and the Viscount Hampden; and that the Lord Brougham and Vaux be Chairman of the said Committee; read, and agreed to.
Selby Urban District Council Bill. Moved, That the order made on the 14th day of March last, "That no Private Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after the 16th day of June next," be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now read 2a; agreed to. Bill read 2a accordingly and committed. The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (Various Powers) Bill; Thurles Urban District Council Water Bill. Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill. Brought from the Commons.
Richard Jaeger's Patent Bill [H.L.].Returned from the Commons agreed to, with Amendments. The said Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Greenock Corporation Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.]; Glasgow Corporation (Tramways, etc.) Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.]. To be read 2a To-morrow.
Local Government Provisional Order (No. 4) Bill. Moved, That the order made on the 14th day of March last, "That no Provisional Order Confirmation Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time fter the 16th day of June next," be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now Read 2a; agreed to. Bill Read 2a accordingly and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill; Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill; Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill; Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill. Moved, That the order made on the 14th day of March last, "That no Provisional Order Confirmation Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after the 16th day of June next," be dispensed with, and that the Bills be now read 2a; agreed to. Bills read 2a accordingly and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill [H.L.]. House in Committee (according to order). The Amendments proposed by the Select Committee made. Standing Committee negatived. The Report of Amendments to be received To-morrow; and Standing Order No. XXXIX. to be considered in order to its being dispensed with.
Drainage and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Provisional Order Bill. Read 3a (according to order), and passed.
Hamilton Gas Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.]. Read 3a (according to order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
Dumbartonshire (Vale of Leven) Water Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.]; Aberdeen Joint Passenger Station Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.]. Read 3a (according to
4
order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
Leith Corporation Tramways Order Confirmation Bill. Read 3a (according to order); Amendments made; Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.
Doncaster Corporation Bill; Skipton Water and Improvement Bill; Soothill Nether Urban District Tramways Bill. Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.
Barnet District Gas and Water Bill. Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill. Read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 145.)

PETITION.
  OUTDOOR RELIEF (FRIENDLY SOCIETIES) BILL [H.L.]
  Petition in favour of; of Guardians of the Poor of the Ecclesall-Bierlow Union; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  No. 3213. Italy (Sicily); No. 3214. United States (Hawai); No. 3215. Sweden; No. 3216. France (Dunkirk).
  COLONIES (ANNUAL).
  No. 420. St. Helena (Report for 1903).

  COLONIES (IMMIGRATION).
  Papers relative to the laws and regulations in force in the Colonies under responsible Government respecting the admission of immigrants.
  Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  SUPERANNUATION.
  Treasury Minute, dated 9th July, 1904, declaring that George J. Stuck, skilled labourer, Royal Laboratory, War Office, was appointed without a civil service certificate through inadvertence on the part of the head of his department.

  GAS AND WATER WORKS FACILITIES ACT, 1870.
  Reports by the Board of Trade as to dispensing—
  With the consent of the Little Stambridge parish meeting in the case of the Rochford Gas Provisional Order.
  With the consent of the Cheshunt Urban District Council in the case of the Waltham Abbey and Cheshunt Gas Provisional Order.
  With the consents of the Melbourn Rural District Council and the Meldreth and Shepreth Parish Councils in the case of the Meldreth and Melbourn District Gas and Water Provisional Order.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  HALL-MARKING OF FOREIGN PLATE BILL.
  Read 3a, and passed.

  PUBLIC HEALTH BILL [H.L.]
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order of the day for the Second Readng read.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS(The Marquess of LANSDOWNE): My Lords, the circumstances under which I present this Bill to your Lordships are as follow. In 1897, an International Sanitary Convention was signed by several Powers, among them by this country, at Venice. That convention contemplated that measures would be prescribed by any of the adhering countries, should those countries be infected with plague, to regulate the departure of ships, and the export of articles susceptible of infection. Some time afterwards a slight outbreak of plague took place in this country, and we were asked whether we were prepared, in accordance with the terms of the convention, to issue regulations dealing with the matter. The question was examined by our legal advisers, and it proved to be the case that there was no statutory authority for issuing regulations of the kind. Lately another conference has been held at Paris and another con-
  6
  vention made which also contemplates that measures of the kind which I have described should be prescribed to regulate the departure of ships and the export of articles capable of carrying infection. It follows, from the opinion of the law officers to which I have already referred, that we are still without the statutory authority necessary to enable us to issue regulations of this kind. This Bill accordingly proposes to give the powers required. It enables the Local Government Board to make regulations authorising measures to be taken for the prevention of the conveyance of infection by means of vessels arriving at or sailing from any port, so far as may be necessary for carrying out any treaty or convention with a foreign country. This Bill is necessary both as a measure of precaution for the public health and also in order to enable us to fulfil obligations which we have contracted as regards other countries who joined us in adhering to the conventions to which I have referred. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
  On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.

  DEAN FOREST BILL.
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order of the day for the Second Reading read.
  THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (The Marquess of SALISBURY): My Lords, the Bill of which I have now the honour to move the Second Reading arises out of the peculiar conditions under which the mines in the Forest of Dean are worked. They are, as your Lordships are aware, the property of the Crown, and the Crown is represented there by an official who rejoices in the remarkable name of the Gaveller. The coal field is divided into areas which are called gales, and these areas are granted to the free miners of the district in fee but subject to certain conditions, the failure to perform which entails forfeiture and brings them back

  7
  into the hands of the Crown. The free miners consist of all the miners of the district who have worked for a year and a day in the mines, and they have certain very remarkable rights. Whenever a gale is in hand the free miners have the right to apply for it, and it must be granted, if he fulfils the conditions, to the first applicant. A considerable difficulty, however, arises when a great many miners apply on the same day, which appears to be continually the case. This coal field is a very large one and very productive, but owing to the conditions which at present exist there is a prospective lack of employment. The conditions were sufficient in order to work the shallow-seam mines, but a large part of the coal—it is estimated to the extent of 100,000,000 tons—lies very deep. The present conditions hamper the working of that deep-level coal, and it is in order to make these conditions easier that this Bill has been submitted to Parliament. There are two difficulties. In the first place, in order to repay the capital which it is necessary to invest in the case of the deep-seam mines the areas are too small; and, secondly, the period of revision of the conditions as to rents and royalties, which under the existing law is twenty-one years, is too short to permit of the investment of capital, and this Bill seeks to extend the period.
  I have told your Lordships, in a very few words, the condition of this coal field and the reasons why both the miners themselves and the Crown are anxious for a revision of the conditions under which it is worked. Indeed, I may say that this Bill is an agreed Bill so far as both parties are concerned. I will now explain its precise provisions. There is, in the first place, a power to amalgamate these areas. That involves, necessarily, that the power of applying for a vacant gale should not be allowed, as it does now, to arrest any action on the part of the Crown officials in carrying out these amalgamations. Your Lordships will realise that the amalgamation of two vacant gales cannot be effected in a moment, and, while the process was actually proceeding, if a free miner made application, he would have, under the old procedure, a perfect right to enter into the area of this coal field and the amalgamation would become impossible. There is a clause in this
  8
  Bill which gets over that difficulty, and it is protected by arbitration provisions, so that no injustice shall be done. Then, as regards the period during which the existing rents and royalties run, which under the existing law is twenty-one years, it is provided in another clause that it shall be extended to a maximum of sixty-three years. That is the main part of the Bill, and the main part only applies to the deep-level seam.
  There is also one clause of general application to all these mines, and it deals with that very peculiar right which I have explained to your Lordships—the right of a free miner to make application for a vacant gale. I said just now that where a great number of miners apply on the same day considerable difficulty arises. Under the existing law, when that happens the fortunate miner is determined by lot, but in these days that is held to be rather a rough-and-ready method of arriving at a decision; and consequently what is now proposed, with the consent of the miners themselves and of the Crown, is that the body of miners who apply on the same day shall be treated as a sort of association, shall be represented by a committee, and that the mine shall be granted to the committee in trust for the miners who are applicants. In that way the difficulty to which I have called your Lordships' attention is got over and substantial justice is done. That, my Lords, is the whole of the Bill, and I ask your Lordships to read it a second time.
  Moved. "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
  On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.

  THE NEW SERVICE RIFLE.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: My Lord, I rise to ask the Under-Secretary for War what have been the reports received as to the shooting of the new service rifle so far as issued to His Majesty's troops; and why have not greater opportunities for its use been afforded at the present Bisley meeting; whether experiments are now being conducted with (a) a new

  9
  pattern of barrel, and (b) with a new explosive; and what was the extent of the orders placed respectively at Enfield, at Birmingham, and with the London Small Arms Company for the manufacture of the new rifle, how far have those orders been completed, what deliveries have been made from each place, and what is the reason for the difference between the amount of the order and the amount of the delivery in each case; and to move for Papers.
  To none of your Lordships is vain repetition more distasteful than to myself, and having had the opportunity about a month ago of making some remarks on the new service rifle I certainly do not intend to-day to go over that ground again. I will only say, with regard to my remarks on that occasion, that I do not think that either the noble Earl the Under-Secretary of State for War or the noble and gallant Earl the late Commander-in-Chief at al] met my criticisms or disposed of them. I also think I am justified in saying, on my own behalf, that I really have been astonished at the number of letters I have received, since the day on which that short discussion took place in this House, from men of all sorts —from soldiers, gun-makers, and others, who state that they were very much in agreement with my criticisms and that on the whole they supported entirely the position I had taken up. I do not, of course, mean to say that they agreed with every detail, for this is a subject in connection with which there is much room for controversy.
  In the Questions I have placed on the Paper to-night I ask for information, and I hold that Parliament and the country have a right to ask for full information with regard to the new small arm with which our troops have now commenced to be supplied. I may be met by the ordinary official answer, that it is not in the interest of the public service that the experiments with the new rifle or the results that have been obtained from it should be made public; that it would do harm, and would be supplying information to foreign nations. Well, my Lords, that is an argument that might, perhaps, fairly be used supposing the new weapon had not been adopted and had not been
  10
  issued. But the situation now is that it has been adopted, that cavalry regiments have been supplied with the weapon, and that it is in the hands of many people; and, let me assure the noble Earl the Under-Secretary that they probably know quite as much about the new rifle in France, and certainly in Germany, as is known here. I am certain that there is no concealment necessary in the interests of the country.
  My contention is that we have a right to be anxious about the new rifle from what we know of it so far, and from our former experience of the War Office and War Office methods. I do not think the past history of the Small Arms Department is one that commands a very great deal of confidence. In that department there are able men, no doubt, but able men who have inventions of their own, and again and again have pressed the Department in every way they could to stick to the old plan, to hang on to the suggestions that they themselves had made, and, indeed in some cases, as we know very well, for which they had taken out patents. In the short discussion that took place last week on the debate raised by my noble friend Lord Ashburton with regard to the armament of mounted troops it was pointed out that the new rifle had been designed for one very particular purpose—namely, that of being convenient for mounted troops. That was not denied. It was not denied, either, that up to this moment no method for carrying it on horseback has been devised or decided upon. It certainly does seem to me that that was an extraordinary admission for the Government to make, and an extraordinary condition of things to find in existence.
  The noble and gallant Earl, our most distinguished soldier, when he came to deal with the question, did not attempt to disguise the difficulty of it, and he suggested—what?—that one method of carrying this weapon should be used in time of peace, namely, the bucket, and another in time of war, when it should be carried across the back of the soldier. That did seem to me a most amazing suggestion to come from so high an authority. If a man is going to carry a rifle on horseback it must be somewhat

  11
  inconvenient, and it is desirable, therefore, that he should be trained in peace time in the way he is to carry it in war, so as to accustom himself to the strain which must be thrown upon him and to enable the authorities to see that all the attachments to the saddle are well-devised. It is not as if, even now, there was any method decided upon. Two clays ago I saw what is called the Patterson equipment, which has, I understand, been to sonic extent adopted by Lord Kitchener in India, and which certainly seems to me to have many advantages. I have tested it thoroughly. A soldier with this equipment fixed on to him mounted and dismounted on the right side and the wrong side, and then rolled off in order to show that there is no danger of the rifle hanging up on the saddle. I do not say that this equipment was perfect, but it is one that may very well be made a basis for an equipment. That is one deficiency which, I say, gives us a right to have some anxiety with regard to the new rifle.
  But I have yet one more argument to bring forward. One of the great contentions in favour of this new rifle is that though it has bean shortened, and though various things have teen done to it, yet biter all there has been no great damage lone because the same muzzle velocity has been obtained in the shortened rifle as in the old long rifle adopted twelve or fourteen years ago. Is not that in itself an extraordinary admission to make? Here you are going to solemnly take on a new rifle which only has the muzzle velocity which was usual, and which was thought to be the best, twelve or fourteen years ago. Both in France and in Germany, so far from sticking to a muzzle velocity of 2,000 foot-seconds, they are obtaining a muzzle velocity of 2,800 foot-seconds. I cannot give your Lordships any absolute details as to what has been obtained in France, but I can give absolute details in regard to Germany. I have here a trajectory table showing the velocities obtained with British cordite ammunition. These were experiments carried on at the central place for technical and scientific examinations. At 1,200 yards, with British cordite ammunition, the highest point of the trajectory is forty-two feet; with the new ammunition—a new explosive and new
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  bullet—the highest point at 1,200 yards is about twenty-nine feet. Then, going to a much closer range, at 600 yards the result of the new ammunition is to give the highest point in trajectory two-and-a-half feet, as against a trajectory of nearly six feet with the present British cordite ammunition.
  One hears a great deal about the results obtained by long-range shooting. I do not believe you are ever going to win battles by shots fired at 1,500 and 2,000 yards. What you want is to get the lowest possible trajectory for the shortest ranges; and with a two-and-a-half feet height of trajectory at 700 yards you will get an absolute danger zone the whole way; that is to say, if you were to fire at a man standing 700 yards away and aimed at his head, with this ammunition you would hit him somewhere in the lower part of the body without shifting your sight at all. I need hardly tell your Lordship's that that is a very important consideration and of enormous advantage. I will hand these tables—there is no secret about them—to the noble Earl the Under Secretary.
  I will give the result of another experiment carried on in the presence of a friend of my own who is a prominent man in the English steel trade. I have here three pieces of steel plate 16·7 millimetres in thickness. This experiment was carried on, not at an official range, but at a private workshop—at the great German workshop of Mauser. Three different ammunitions were used, the British cordite, the German ammunition of 1888, which is about the same data as the British cordite ammunition, and a new explosive and new bullet of the present date which has been adopted or tried by Messrs. Mauser. The shots were fired at fifty yards, the experiment taking place on 20th May of this year. The British bullet penetrated the steel plate 2·6 millimetres; the German one of 1888 penetrated the steel plate 3·8 millimetres, while the new German bullet went right through the plate. I think that shows that there is a considerable possibility of an improvement in ammunition over what we have at present. I will put these experiments at the disposal of the noble Earl the Under-Secretary in order that he may have

  13
  them examined by his experts. So far as I am concerned I court all inquiry with regard to them.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: What is the muzzle velocity of the Japanese rifle?
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: The Japanese rifle has, I think, a muzzle velocity of 2,400 foot-seconds. I do not pretend that I cover all possible ground in the Questions I have on the Paper. I have only suggested headings for information. I ask for as much and as complete information as possible. I want to know why greater opportunities for the use of the rifle have not been afforded at the present Bisley meeting. It does seem a pity that you should have gathered together at Bisley all the most competent shots, and it should not be arranged that this new rifle should have a good trial there against, and in competition with, other rifles. The great difficulty at Bisley is that in almost all the competitions anything in the shape of a movable backsight to be used as a wind gauge is forbidden. That cuts the new service rifle out of practically all the more important competitions. There are three or four competitions in which the new service rifle is admissible, but they are not competitions which can be claimed as very great tests; they are almost all of them, I think, at comparatively short range, and competitions in which you have to ride a distance, and then fire, or run a distance and then fire, and the range does not go to much more than 300 yards. They are not competitions in which a real test of accuracy can be arrived at. I hope His Majesty's Government will consent to give me the information that I ask for, and that they will give it in such a form that it will be quite clear and serviceable to those who are anxious to make further inquiries into the weapon when it gets into their hands.
  Moved, "for Papers with regard to the new service rifle."—(Lord Tweedmouth.)
  THE UNDER - SECRETARY of STATE FOR WAR (The Earl of DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, the noble Lord made a remark at the commencement of his speech to which I naturally take some exception, not to the sense in which the noble Lord intended it to be made. But
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  rather to the construction that might he put upon it in other quarters. He suggested that members of the Small Arms Department—I presume he meant by that the Small Arms Committee—of the War Office are interested in inventions.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: I beg the noble Earl's pardon. I was referring to the people in charge at Enfield, and to the time when the Lee-Enfield rifle was introduced.
  THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: I imagine they would have nothing whatever to do with any decision as to what rifle we adopted for the Army. Therefore, I do not see how their position can in any way influence the adoption of any rifle that may be decided upon. I am sure the noble Lord did not mean to cast any slur on the officials at the War Office who deal with these matters. The noble Lord has made a number of detailed criticisms which I will deal with as best I can, but I honestly confess I have not been able to go into this subject as thoroughly as I should have liked, as I only got notice of the Question yesterday, and the official at the War Office who generally deals with this subject is away. Whether we shall be able to publish the reports that we have received from various parts of the world, I am not prepared at the present moment to say. Many of the reports concern the Admiralty as well as the War Office, and I should like to consult them before giving any d finite answer. We have had a large number of reports, and while I shall be prepared to tell the noble Lord the source from which a great many of them come, I am not prepared at present to lay them on the Table. Although it may be possible that foreign Powers are aware what our rifle is, I do not know that they are aware of the experiments that we conducted in order to arrive at that rifle, and I am not prepared now to say that it would not be detrimental to the public service to publish these experiments. I will, however, consult the Admiralty and my colleagues further upon that. I can certainly promise that we will publish as much as we can. As regards the criticism as to the method of carrying the rifle, that is not quite germane to the subject, because the people who would

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  decide how to carry the rifle would have nothing to do with the Small Arms Committee who invented the rifle. It is true that in the recent discussion the noble and gallant Earl (Lord Roberts) expressed some opinions on that point, but, if I remember rightly, no member of the Government spoke after the noble and gallant Earl.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: Perhaps the noble Earl can now tell us how they are to carry the rifle.
  THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: No, I cannot, but experiments are proceeding at Aldershot, I think. It was suggested the other night that the rifle should be carried on the man, and the sword on the horse, but I would remind the noble Lord that there are equally strong advocates for carrying the rifle on the horse and the sword on the man. I only mention this to show that there is a wide divergence of opinion on this subject, to which is attributable the fact that a decision has not been arrived at earlier. The noble Lord gave us some most interesting figures as to the trajectory of the German rifle and the English rifle—figures which, I understand, are included in this bundle of papers he has given me, and which I shall be glad to send to the proper authorities, so that they may be considered. The fact remains that in our experiments the figure of merit reached by the new rifle, as compared with the German rifle, was very satisfactory. I will not go fully into the figures; but at 500 yards, for instance, we find that our rifle has 1¼ inches better figure of merit. As regards the definite Question asked by my noble friend, I can assure him that we have received satisfactory reports from the School of Musketry at Hythe, from the first three Army Corps, and also from Somaliland. We have had a further report from Hythe, where repeated trials are going on with the new rifle, and that report is, if possible, more satisfactory than the previous ones. There have been exhaustive trials at two naval gunnery schools, and exhaustive experiments have been carried out by the Small Arms Committee themselves.
  The Bisley meeting, as the noble Lord knows, has nothing whatever to do with the War Office. It is under the control
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  of the National Rifle Association, but I understand they have permitted any soldier in possession of the new rifle to use it in competitions in which the service rifle is used. As to whether we are experimenting with a new pattern of barrel and a new explosive, the answer is in the affirmative. The noble Lord next asked me the extent of the orders placed respectively at Enfield, at Birmingham, and with the London Small Arms Company. The answer is as follows:—117,000 rifles have been allocated to the Ordnance Factories, 70,000 to the Birmingham Small Arms Factory, and 35,000 to the London Small Arms Factory, making 222,000 rifles in all. These orders are to be delivered by the last day of March next year. We have already had 8,476 rifles from the Ordnance Factories, 2,720 from Birmingham, and 400 from the London Small Arms Company. That is not as many as we had anticipated, but there was a delay in the making of the gauges in the Ordnance Factories, and the firms are not in any way to blame. We anticipate that by the appointed day the whole of the orders will have been carried out.
  THE EARL OF ERROLL: My Lords, I had not intended to take part in this debate, and I only rise to say a few words. The choice of the rifle was, I believe, entirely in the hands of the Small Arms Committee on which I myself had the honour to serve, and therefore I feel that I have some title to reply to one or two of the points mentioned by the noble Lord opposite. In the first instance, I was rather surprised to hear that he objected to the range of the new rifle. He read a letter the other day from a cavalry officer, who said he would like to go back to the old carbine, and—
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: That was not my view. I did not accept that view.
  THE EARL OF ERROLL: Then I beg the noble Lord's pardon. I thought he accepted it, and considered that the best thing to do would be to put new sights on the old carbine. I entirely differ from that view. In the first place, the reason why the carbine was given up in South Africa was, that the cavalry found they were enormously

  17
  outranged by the Boers. That was the genesis of the new rifle. I do not agree with the noble Lord that it cannot be made uncomfortable for troops at 1,500 yards. On frequent occasions in South Africa the Boers made extremely good shooting at over 1,700 yards, and the cavalry with their carbines were not able to reply to them. It is perfectly easy to hit, say, a convoy at 1,500 yards, and it is important that the cavalry should have this long-range rifle. With regard to the carrying of the rifle, I quite agree that it is time we had some way of carrying it. When this new rifle was suggested, the Inspector-General of Cavalry stated that a rifle four inches longer than the carbine could be carried in the bucket without touching the ground. Personally, I think that the best way to carry it is in the old carbine bucket, although it is rather heavy. I also agree, to a certain extent, with what was said the other day by the noble and gallant Earl the late Commander-in-Chief, as to carrying the rifle in peace time in the bucket and in war time on the man's back. But I go further. In all campaigns there is a great deal more marching than fighting, and I would suggest that the rifle might be carried not only in peace time in the bucket, but might be carried on service in the bucket when not actually in the presence of the enemy. When soldiers are near the enemy I think the rifle ought to be on their backs. Personally, I think the wind-gauge absolutely useless on service. I do not think soldiers would ever use it. I am not quite certain whether it is on this rifle.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: Yes, it is.
  THE EARL OF ERROLL: Then it has been added since I was on the Small Arms Committee. A wind-gauge is all very good for match shooting, but what we want for the Army is not a match weapon, but a weapon which will be handy and useful in war.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: I understand that the noble Earl the Under-Secretary will give me what information he can, and will lay on the Table all the Papers that it may be convenient to publish?
  THE EALR OF DONOUGHMORE: I will certainly lay on the Table all the Papers I can.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: In those circumstances it is not necessary for me to press the Motion. But I think I ought to say, in answer to the Earl of Erroll that I did not commit myself in any way to the opinion that the old carbine was a sufficiently good weapon for the cavalry in the future. In the letter from which I read an extract to your Lordships, my correspondent was simply referring to the convenience of carrying the weapon, and his point was that if it was to be carried comfortably in the bucket, the old carbine with new sights on it would be the best in the circumstances. As to the statement of the Under-Secretary, the only thing I have to say is that the figure of merit was not the particular point that I was raising. My great point was to get as low a trajectory as possible, and I think the noble Earl himself would prefer a very much reduced trajectory, even to a somewhat increased amount of absolute accuracy. A low trajectory I put before anything for a practical service weapon. I withdraw my Motion.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: My Lords, I do not rise to take part in this discussion further than to say this, that next Monday I have a Notice on the Paper which will raise this Question, and as my noble friend Lord Tweedmouth has shown to-day the effect of the German bullet on steel plate, I shall produce a photograph which will be of interest as to the manner of carrying the rifle.
  House adjourned at twenty minutes past Five o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.