asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether General Order No. 36, 1st of May 1878, laying down that "service in the Reserve will reckon towards pension but not towards good conduct pay" is not inconsistent with the terms upon which men entered the Reserve as laid down in Clause 9, Reserve Force Circulars 1870, and inserted in the soldiers' small books; whether he is in a position to state that the General Order referred to has been or will be cancelled; and, whether he will consider the propriety, in any future Regulation which may be issued, of making the privilege of counting Reserve service towards good conduct pay conditional on the possession of one good conduct badge at the time of joining the Reserve?

in reply, said, it was true that the General Order in question was not quite consistent; but, the attention of the War Office having been called to the matter, an alteration had been already made, and would shortly be published, bringing the terms of the Order into complete harmony with the attestation papers.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he can give to the House the names of the officers selected to proceed on special service to the Cape of Good Hope; and, whether he is in a position to state the reasons for their sudden despatch to join the troops in the field engaged in suppressing the Caffre outbreak, under the command of Major General Hon. F. Thesiger, C. B.?

in reply, said, he did not think it necessary to read to the House the names of the officers in question; but the list of them would be placed in the Library for the information of hon. Members. The reason for their being sent to South Africa was, that General Thesiger had written home to say that he found the practice of associating Imperial officers with the Colonial Forces had been productive of great good, and that there were several commands which he wished to see filled by Imperial officers of the rank of captain, or by subalterns of long standing.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether the ordinary pay of the Indian troops employed in the Perak Expedition at the instance of the Governor of the Straits Settlements, for the period when they were beyond the Indian Dominions of Her Majesty, is charged to the Indian Exchequer or is to be otherwise provided for?

Sir, the ordinary pay of the Indian troops in that Expedition is charged to the Indian Exchequer.

gave Notice that he would, at the earliest opportunity, call the attention of the House to the injustice thereby done to the Indian taxpayer.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether, under the circumstance of India being again obliged to borrow two-and-a-half millions to cover expenditure, it would be practicable to give some relief to the embarrassed finances by withdrawing three out of the fifty battalions of European Infantry, especially as the effectives in privates are so far below the established strength of thirty-nine thousand privates, as to be nearly equal to the number of that grade in three battalions; or, if the paper strength of thirty-nine thousand privates must be adhered to, whether that end could not be attained by raising each Infantry company of forty-seven battalions to one hundred and four privates, instead of the nominal present strength of about ninety-seven privates, now fallen to about ninety-two effectives?

in reply, said, he did not think it desirable at present to suggest any change in the number of battalions in the Indian Service, the question having been carefully considered and settled in 1870. It was a mistake to suppose that the establishment of the rank and file in India was always under its strength. It was true the number in each company varied; but the companies were not always under their strength, but, on the contrary, were sometimes over it, the fluctuation being due to the fact that troops could only be sent out to India at a particular season of the year.

in rising to call the attention of the House to the Treaties of 1856 and 1871; and to move—

"That, in the opinion of this House, all future Treaties between this Country and Foreign Powers under which this Country is engaged, separately or in conjunction with any other Power, to interfere by force of arms, or by armed demonstration, or by the contribution of any military contingent or pecuniary subsidy, to attack or defend any Government or Nation with reference to its internal arrangements or foreign relations, or on any other contingency whatsoever, ought to be laid upon the Table of both Houses of Parliament before being ratified, in order that an opportunity may be afforded to both Houses of expressing their opinion upon the provisions of such Treaties,"

said: I did not wish, Sir, to trouble the House at any length on the subject of the Resolution which I have placed upon the Paper, although it is a question which at all times is one of much interest and importance; but it is especially appropriate at the present time, when this country is perhaps on the point of entering upon a new Treaty of international obligations. In view of so probable an event, I think we may wisely seek to learn from the history of past Treaty obligations important lessons, which we may read with advantage at the present time. We now stand in the midst of the ruins of great Treaties of guarantee—the Treaty of Paris of 1856, and the Treaty of London of 1871. The history of the rise and fall of those Treaties is so recent, and the period comprised in that history is so very short, that almost all of us can embrace them in our recollections. We can recall the circumstances which gave birth to the Treaty of 1856; we can trace the vicissitudes of its career; and we are now witnessing its untimely end. I think, from this brief but eventful retrospect, we may draw important lessons for our future guidance. The Treaty of 1856 cost this country £100,000,000 and 60,000 lives. It was a work upon which the greatest skill and judgment of the Foreign Office was devoted. It was a Treaty which was negotiated by most distinguished Plenipotentiaries, and subsequently received the approval of great statesmen. Its objects were principally five-fold—to maintain the integrity and independence of the Turkish Empire, to check the power of Russia, to establish the status quo in the East, to preserve the peace of Europe, and to ameliorate the condition of the Christian subjects of the Porte. In order to obtain these objects, the British Government came under very serious international obligations, and made the people of this country parties to solemn guarantees. Looking back upon the past 20 years, during which that Treaty has existed, we now see that it has failed in every particular; and not only so, but that its provisions were such that they necessarily led to its failure and to the results which have been recently witnessed. In the short-sighted diplomacy of the Foreign Office, one of the stipulations of that Treaty has been considered least important—I mean the amelioration of the condition of the Christian subjects of the Porte—which was, in reality, the most important of all, and the one upon which the permanence or otherwise of the Treaty was based. Before the Crimean War, and the Treaty of 1856, when the Christian subjects of Turkey were suffering injustice at the hands of the Porte, they made appeals to Russia for protection, but we deprived them of that protection. We destroyed the Russian Protectorate, and we substituted absolutely nothing in its stead. We accepted a delusive promise from the Turkish Government, which was not worth the paper on which it was written, and even that was so guarded with limitations, that it gave the Powers no right to enforce its execution. There was recently in the House a curious, but unprofitable, argument to prove that, while under the Treaty we had no right of interference, yet that we retained outside the Treaty a right, in the interests of Europe, to intervene on behalf of the Christians of Turkey if the necessity arose. I have no doubt that there was a right of the European Powers to interfere; but the material fact is that they did not interfere, and no steps were taken to ameliorate the condition of the Christian subjects of the Porte: on the contrary, those Christian inhabitants of the Turkish Provinces were subjected to every indignity and every injustice, and our Foreign Office, from the time of signing the Treaty of 1856, were utterly careless of any of those acts of oppression of the Turkish Governors. Our Foreign Office shut its eyes to the misery of the Christian subjects of Turkey. The practical indifference shown in the Treaty of 1856 and by the Foreign Office to the rights and interests of the Christian subjects of the Porte did, in fact, render all the other objects of the Treaty nugatory. It necessarily increased the influence of Russia as the only Power to which the Christians could look for protection; it rendered the maintenance of the status quo impossible; and, so far from consolidating the peace of Europe, it intensified every element of disturbance, culminating in the dreadful war we have just witnessed, and destroying for ever the "independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire." There was another danger by the Treaty of 1856, and it was the putting upon Russia terms which she would not carry out if she could help. Those who look to the lessons of history must read them to little purpose unless they know that at the close of any exhaustive war, and under the influence of the Powers of Europe, when there are humiliating conditions imposed on a Great Power, so long as those humiliating conditions remain, they are a source of great danger to Europe. We put, by the Treaty of 1856, a humiliating condition upon Russia—a condition so humiliating that some of the highest authorities in this country condemned it. Mr. Disraeli said, in this House, that it was "most impolitic, humiliating, and unnecessarily humiliating to Russia." As a matter of course, Russia, feeling the indignity of the stipulation, took advantage of the position of affairs during the Franco-German War, and at once claimed to be relieved from the humiliating condition of the Treaty of 1856—namely, the neutralization of the Black Sea. No doubt, hon. Gentlemen will recall the circumstances under which Russia appealed to this country to have that part of the Treaty done away with, and the end of the controversy was that the Treaty of 1871 was signed in London, and it declared that Russia was no longer to be bound by those humiliating conditions in regard to the neutralization of the Black Sea. I remember all the circumstances. There was a great hubbub; the people said it was a great blow to Treaties, and we heard talked—as we have recently—a large amount of cant about the faith of Treaties, and about public law being outraged, and that we should stand up as a country in order to maintain Treaties and the public law of Europe. Let us take the case home to ourselves, and ask if such a humiliating condition were imposed on us in a time of our humiliation, whether we would not take the very first opportunity of striking out of the Treaty any such indignity? And yet, in 1871, it really seemed as though we were on the verge of war to maintain a gross injustice towards Russia. There was the greatest possible agitation on the public mind, and there were strong despatches sent from the Foreign Office, and violent articles in the Press, in which there was a great deal said against Russia, just as we have had recently. The only difference—and which, I think, is a very marked difference—between 1871, as compared with the present time, is this. The Government of 1871 did not make the excitement of the public mind an excuse to take millions of money from the people. They secured an arrangement of the dispute, which, while it removed the indignity from Russia, was, at the same time, an arrangement which, satisfied all those who had been parties to it. Now, in connection with this episode, I want to point out to the House a most remarkable circumstance in regard to that Treaty of 1856, and the Article in the Treaty in respect to the neutralization of the Black Sea. We had a diplomatic Correspondence subsequently laid on the Table of the House, and a despatch from Sir Henry Elliot, of the date of November 27, 1870, stated that within three years from the signing of the Treaty of 1856—that is to say, before 1859—Italy, Austria, Prussia, and France all encouraged Russia to free herself from the stipulations of the Treaty—so that, in fact, our Foreign Office stood for years like a blind-folded man in the midst of Europe, holding in its hand the Treaty of 1856, entirely in the dark as to every one of the signatories having trifled with the most important of the Treaty obligations. No greater reason can be found for the Resolution which I have the honour to propose, or can more clearly prove that it is the interest of the House to watch over Treaties with the greatest care, than the fact that when we do enter into these guarantees with other countries, we are continually finding out that other countries do not stick to the Treaties. We may, at all events, say this—that while our Foreign Office is very often shortsighted and blundering, I think it is, at all events, honest. I believe our Foreign Office does not put its signature to a document without making a serious attempt to carry it out. That cannot be said of any other Power in Europe; and thus it is that we, the people of England, are in the habit of entering into a curious joint-stock company with other nations with a mixture of limited and unlimited liability, we taking the unlimited liability, and our partners the limited liability. I observe the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, speaking in Preston, entirely ignored this fact in relation to the Treaties to which I have been referring. If the right hon. Gentleman had only taken the trouble to consider the history of recent Treaties, he would probably have taken a different view of the situation. In fact, one of the newspapers of Lancashire excused his ignorance of foreign affairs by the fact that he belonged to the Home Department. Now, this statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary is so remarkable that I should have liked the right hon. Gentleman to have been present to have given his consideration to it. The right hon. Gentleman said at Preston—

"If there are to be Treaties between nations, if we are to have a concert of Europe, and if that concert has come to some agreement, I want to know if any person who signs that agreement may tear it up and say—'I do not care the least for all those who have signed it with me.'"

Then the Home Secretary asked —"What is to be the state of Europe if such a state of things as that is to exist?" And he said that in order to justify the dangerous policy of the Government in insisting upon mere diplomatic technicalities. He asks—"What is to become of Europe if such a state of things as that is to exist?'' Why, it does exist; it has existed. During the whole of this century it has existed. It is the most common thing in the world for parties to a Treaty, without asking the signatories of the Treaty, to depart from it. Now, the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary told the people of Lancashire that they ought to respect Treaties, and he made a very strong appeal as to the sanctity of Treaties. I am sorry he is not in the House, because I was going to make him a challenge; but, in his absence, I will challenge my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to produce any great or important Treaty which has been signed by the Great Powers of Europe during the present century that has not been, in the course of a few years, broken up or evaded by some of the signatory Powers. And yet the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary seems to think that the whole of Europe will come to an end in some marvellous manner if people who sign Treaties can withdraw from the Treaty without permission from other countries. In order to assist the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, I will just recall to his mind two or three Treaties as instances of the point to which I have been referring. Take the guarantee given to the Belgians in 1831. I remember very well a most distinguished Member of this House—the late Sir Henry Bulwer—alluding to this fact in the House of Commons in 1870, and he asserted—"That before the ink with which the Treaty of 1831 was signed was hardly dry, there was a negotiation going on between France and Prussia to evade that Treaty." The most important Treaty of this century—of course, I mean the Treaty of Vienna—was, no doubt, the greatest example of a Treaty of Guarantees that was ever known in the history of civilized mankind. It was a Treaty in which this country was deeply interested, because it was the outcome of numerous struggles in which it had been engaged, and which had cost it £1,000,000,000. The sum was incredible—it is impossible to realize it. It is a sum of money which has burdened the Exchequer ever since, and which interferes with the commercial advantages of the British people in the present day. The Treaty of Vienna was signed by all the Great Powers of Europe; and yet I venture to say that it was torn to shreds by all the Powers who had signed their adhesion under the most solemn guarantees. It has been said that if you look at the present arrangement of Europe it forms a practical satire upon the Congress of Vienna. The Treaty of Vienna enjoined that Russia should give a Constitution to Poland, which she refused to do. Cracow was to be an independent Republic, and Austria destroyed it. Savoy and Nice were given to Sardinia, and France took them. Italy was parcelled out into several Sovereignties, and this arrangement disappeared when the King of Italy ruled over the entire Kingdom. Germany was to be governed by a Diet, of which the King of Denmark and the King of Hanover were members, with Austria as its President. This arrangement has been entirely dissolved, and these stipulations have been swallowed up by the great Empire of Germany. I will not trouble the House with any other Treaty except one—the Treaty of 1852. The Treaty of London with regard to the succession of the Danish Throne and the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein, was signed by all the Great Powers of Europe; and yet Austria and Prussia, who had solemnly guaranteed the succession to the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein, took possession of it themselves; and in 1864, without asking anybody, proceeded to subvert the Treaty, which was only these few years old, and to which they had signed their names. I recollect the serious danger of war which arose at that time. We were parties to that Treaty. It did not matter to us, and it was not of the slightest consequence, so far as we were concerned, whether Schleswig-Holstein belonged to one Danish family or another German family; but, because we had been entangled into a Treaty with regard to the Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein, we ran a great danger of going into a war in Europe, and it was only some personal feeling on the part of the Emperor of the French—who refused to listen to our application—which kept us from being involved in a war with Germany and Austria to settle the paltry Danish succession. Lord Palmerston, when he could not interfere, set up a dictum that has been quoted several times in this House, and it was to the effect—"That Treaties of Guarantee give a right to interfere, but do not constitute of themselves any obligation to interfere." I should be very glad if this dictum were generally acknowledged, as it relieves these Treaties of some of their dangers. Lord Palmerston, undoubtedly, acted upon it on several notable occasions. But the danger of Treaty obligations of this nature arises from the fact that it depends upon the will of the Prime Minister or Foreign Secretary of the day to determine whether we will act upon them or not; and opportunities are given for exciting a war feeling in the country, by inflammatory appeals in the Press, that British honour and prestige are involved in the maintenance of Treaties to which we have been parties. But if Lord Palmerston's dictum is to be accepted—as I am quite willing it should be—what becomes of the meaning of the English language? Take, for instance, the Tripartite Treaty of 1856, between Great Britain, Austria, and France, which reads as follows:—

"Article I. The high contracting parties guarantee jointly and severally the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire recorded in the Treaty concluded at Paris on 30th March, 1856.

"Article II. Any infraction of the stipulations of the said Treaty will be considered by the Powers signing the present Treaty as casus belli. They will come to an understanding with the Sublime Porte as to the measures which have become necessary, and will without delay determine among themselves as to the employment of their Military and Naval Forces."

If the English language has any meaning at all, it is that we absolutely bound ourselves to maintain the independence and integrity of the Turkish Empire by force of arms; and it had been gravely argued that if Austria and France had called upon us in the name of that Treaty to join them, or either of them—in order to fulfil the obligations—we should have been bound in honour to have gone to war, and we should have found ourselves in this position—we should have had to choose between evading our obligation, and undertaking to fight for maintaining the Turkish despotism. Supposing Austria had had some desire to slice out a portion of the European territory; or, supposing France or Austria had any advantage to gain by going to war, they might, with reference to this Treaty, have claimed us to join them. And I say that that is a very dangerous position for this country to be in; and my object is now, that there may not be arising out of the present negotiations any possibility of this country being placed under obligations of this kind, which might involve British honour for purposes for which there could be no justification as connected with British policy or British interests. There is another danger with reference to those Treaty guarantees—that nobody can tell when they will come to an end. John Stuart Mill said, on a former occasion, that "Treaties are not eternal." They are, in fact, as a rule, very short-lived instruments, and the most evanescent of public engagements. The fields of diplomacy are strewn over with the relics of defunct Treaties; but, unfortunately, there are statesmen of a peculiar turn of mind, who seem to take a delight in groping among these dry bones in order to obtain some sign of life, and Lord Beaconsfield is one of these Treaty re-surrectionists, and he is constantly looking out for some vitality amongst the remains of these dead Treaties. I remember, at the breaking out of the Franco-German War, that Mr. Disraeli got up and with solemn import told the House that, under the Treaty of Vienna, we had joined in a guarantee of a strip of Saxony to Prussia, and that, if in the course of the war the French armies took possession of that strip, we should be bound in our Treaty right and obligation to interfere. That seems most absurd now. It is a laughing matter now that we should be called upon to interfere under such a contingency, but it was no laughing matter in 1870. We could see that the pressure then put upon the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich by the Opposition, that we should be involved in war one way or another, had the effect of inducing the late Government to ask for a Vote of Credit for £2,000,000, which, I fear, was to a great extent wasted. The attachment of the Premier to these Treaties is a matter not alone of the past, it is a matter of very recent date; and, perhaps, the way in which the Government has been maintaining the Treaties of 1856 and 1871 during the past two years, has been the occasion of some of the greatest mischiefs which have arisen out of their policy. The fact is, that the attempt to maintain the obligations of those Treaties was far from promoting peace, for it tended directly to war, and, instead of promoting European concert, it raised obstacles to the joint action of the Powers. The Government upheld those Treaties up to a very late period. Lord Beaconsfield has again and again, with all the force of his rhetoric and the influence of his position, said that this country was absolutely bound to support the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire. His Mansion House speech of November, 1876, was full of our Treaty obligations towards Turkey; and Her Majesty's Speech, at the close of the Session of 1876, recognized the duties imposed upon Her under those Treaties. At the opening of the Session of 1877, again Her Majesty said—

"My object has throughout been to maintain the peace of Europe, and to bring about the better government of the disturbed provinces, without infringing upon the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire."

What effect had all this language about the independence and integrity of the Turkish Empire? We know what effect it had. It bolstered up Turkey to resist the Councils of Europe; and Her Majesty's Government refused to join in a European concert, on the grounds stated in the Blue Books—that they could not join in the steps proposed by Russia, Austria, or Germany, because they would interfere with the maintenance of the independence and integrity of the Turkish Empire. We have been held in suspense as to whether the Government had or had not given up the Treaties of 1856 and 1871. There ought certainly to have been no mistake on this matter, considering that no other Government in Europe was maintaining those Treaties except ourselves. It has been a most unfortunate and dangerous circumstance, during the past two years, that the Government have had two voices in their foreign policy; and, until a recent period, they have had two voices in relation to these Treaty obligations. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told us, a short time since, that these Treaties were shattered and destroyed—very distinct language—and I was glad to hear it. But almost on the very same day Lord Beaconsfield in "another place," dealing with the obligations to be enforced upon Russia, said—"This is the key-note of our policy; this is the diapason of our diplomacy." Diapason! Why, so far from being the key-note of harmony, it was the keynote of discord in your own Cabinet—the key-note of disunion and animosity in the country, and of alarm and apprehension and distrust throughout Europe. The Congress meets to-day, and I suppose that now we may assume that these Treaties of 1856 and 1871 have disappeared for ever, or, at all events, we have got rid of their mischievous obligations. But of what will take place we are left in ignorance by the Government. They refuse to give us any distinct statement of their aims and policy; they point to Lord Salisbury's despatch; and, no doubt, that celebrated despatch was a masterpiece of cavilling at the Treaty of San Stefano; but it absolutely failed to lay down any definite scheme for the settlement of the Eastern Question. Sir, I am afraid that some of the worst features of the Treaty of 1856 may appear again in the new Treaty which is about to be made. I am afraid that attempts may be made to bolster up the power of Turkey under the guarantee of Europe, under some delusion that that Empire still constitutes a barrier against the growth of Russia. I am afraid that South Bulgaria, the scene of those recent frightful atrocities, may remain under the misrule of Turkey; I am afraid that in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the people have lived under Turkish oppression for centuries, there is little prospect for improvement; I am afraid that the aspirations of the Greek nation may be disappointed. I hope these things may not happen, but they are possible. If they do happen, or anything like them happens, then I say that any such policy on the part of the British Government in dealing with this great question would be repugnant to the great masses of the British people; and I believe that nothing could be more unwise or unjust than that a policy repugnant to a great portion of the British people should be irrevocably sealed in a Treaty of Europe with which we are bound, and in which we, as a Parliament, have no voice whatever in the terms of its provisions. I hope I may be disappointed. I hope we may all find that the great mistake of 1856 may not be repeated now. But, whatever the Treaty may be, I do think it is very desirable that the opinion of Parliament should be obtained upon its provisions before it is absolutely ratified. Therefore, Sir, I move this Resolution, which recognises the right of Parliament to have a voice in the discussion of the Treaty before its ratification. The Resolution which I intend to move is one which might apply to all Treaties; but I have confined it to Treaties of Guarantee. I think that Treaties of Guarantee ought to come under the view of the Houses of Parliament, for they impose serious obligations which may lead to heavy expenditure, to an increase of the burdens of taxation on the people; or they may carry us into war, endangering the best interests of the country. I say that no Treaty, having such responsibilities, ought to be ratified without having the approval of Parliament. I may be told that I am striking at the Royal Prerogative. It is really, and in fact, the Ministers of the Crown who determine the Treaties of obligation in which the country enters—and I wish to point out to the House how remarkable it is that we, who are so jealous of our privileges that we will not allow the Ministers of the Crown to impose taxation upon the people without first consulting us; that we, who will not even allow them to pass a Turnpike Act without our consent, give them absolute power to impose obligations upon us which may cost hereafter hundreds of millions of money. It may be said that if my Resolution were carried, it would render the negotiations of Treaties still more difficult; but that, in my judgment, is a positive advantage rather than otherwise. It seems to me that no Treaty of Guarantee should be entered into, unless there is the most pressing and justifiable necessity it is possible to conceive. I have not attempted to say in which way the opinion of the House should be taken on a Treaty of Guarantee. If the House thinks there should be some check upon Government, I am quite sure that the wisdom of Parliament and the ability of leading statesmen on both sides of the House would have no difficulty in determining the best mode. I am only concerned in the principle, and I think I am right in recommending the subject to the attention of the House. I might mention several eminent authorities on the point; but I will simply refer to Lord Derby, who, on June 12, 1871, said—

"No doubt, there is a great deal to be said, both on theoretical and on practical grounds, for the principle that the Parliament and the country ought not to be bound by the acts of the Executive, whoever at the time may compose it, in making International Treaties, without having an opportunity of considering the merits of those Treaties."—[3 Hansard, ccvi. 1854.]

We are all looking forward to a peaceful solution of the Eastern Question. The Times Correspondent at Vienna recently remarked upon the craving for peace which exists everywhere, and to the longing for some sort of solution to the question which has weighed down Europe for well-nigh three years. No doubt that is the feeling in Europe. It is, undoubtedly, the feeling in this country. I have never had great doubt as to the preservation of peace; not because the action of the Government has been calculated to promote the peace of Europe, for it has had a contrary effect. I will tell you why I think peace is certain. I think it is because Russia is exhausted; Germany has great interests in peace; France requires repose; and Austria would by war endanger her very existence. I can only hope that a peaceful solution may be arrived at. I do not think the terms of that peace will be very narrowly scanned; it will meet with a very ready acceptance on the part of the people of this country; and I trust that Her Majesty's Government will not seek to obtain any mere diplomatic triumph in this matter, but will use their influence to bring about a peace on the only basis that gives promise of permanence—by securing the recognition of the national desires of the peoples of the European Provinces of Turkey. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving his Resolution.

in rising to second the Amendment, said, he did so with some misgiving, not, however, because he had any thing to object to in its nature or terms, or in regard to its opportuneness, but because it was not likely to be appreciated by the Government or the House as it would be by the country. It was right that attention should be called to the subject; for he did not know whether it was within the knowledge of the Government, though it was certainly within the knowledge of many in that House, that there had been a growing public opinion, especially in the Midland and Northern counties, and in Scotland, that the manner in which Her Majesty had been advised to exercise the Prerogative was dangerous to the Constitution as all desired to maintain it. It could not but be dangerous that Ministers should advise Her Majesty to use the rights of the Prerogative in such a way that they should become unpopular in England. The Resolution of his hon. Friend (Mr. Rylands), he admitted, proposed distinctly to limit the Royal Prerogative, but only so far as to bring it into harmony with the existing state of Constitutional Government in this country. In discussing this matter they were little concerned with historical questions on the one hand, or with ideas of philosophical perfection on the other. What they had to do was to consider the actual facts, and the practical expediency of the Amendment, which would fall to the ground if it could not be shown that the illimitable exercise of the Prerogative was absurd, inconvenient, or perilous. He would observe, in anticipation of what might be said on the other side, that peculiar notions were entertained by some hon. Gentlemen with respect to the use of the Royal Prerogative; and he thought it desirable that some definition should be laid down as to the meaning of the word "Prerogative." Now, in his opinion, the use of the Royal Prerogative was only such as the law allowed. It was as much the creature of law as were the rights of any subject; it was not an original, but a derived right, and depended upon the will of the people, and it ought to be from time to time defined, in order to bring it into conformity with the Constitutional development of their freedom. This had been done, in fact, from time to time, as when judicial powers, nominally vested in the Crown, were delegated to those from whom they could not now be taken away. The precise right claimed for the Crown in this case was the making of Treaties; but was there, he asked, no danger, inconvenience, or impropriety, in permitting the Crown, upon the advice of Ministers, to exercise this Prerogative? One result of the exercise of this right had been seen during the course of the recent negotiations—the concealment from Parliament of the facts, the nature of the issues, and the difficulties upon which a judgment was arrived at. The consequence was that the House of Commons, which was the most responsible power in the country, and had the duty of seeing that the Executive carried out its functions in such a way as not to overstep the limits of the Constitution on the one hand, nor prejudice the interests of the country on the other, was absolutely without any information as to the facts on which the Government were acting. The Cabinet had for months been carrying on a policy so secret that they had been induced to vote £6,000,000, and to condone a gross breach of the Constitution, on the ground of dangers which the Government had not deemed it necessary to communicate. He could conceive the case of an ambitious and unscrupulous Minister—a gambler, who fancied he saw his way to the attainment of a certain end—advising the Crown to do such things upon information which was inaccurate, and upon a state of facts that did not justify it, and months after they might find it was too late to remedy the evil, and the Minister might save himself from impeachment by being buried in Westminster Abbey. The exercise of the Prerogative was, practically, at this moment in the hands of the Prime Minister. Within an hour of his being in Berlin he had walked round to Prince Bismarck, the Minister of a practically autocratic Sovereign, and with him he discussed matters of the deepest importance. Lord Salisbury, who was supposed to be at Berlin as a check upon Lord Beacons-field's ambitious views, was not present at that interview, and would only learn from the Prime Minister as much as he chose to tell him. At home was what might be called the "rump" of the Government, and they also would know no more of those negotiations than the Prime Minister chose to communicate to them. Was that a safe and proper position for this country to be in? We might be committed by the will of one man—and one by no means the most competent—to guarantees, obligations, and expenditure, which might have a lasting influence upon the destinies of this Empire, but of which the supreme Power in Great Britain—the Houses of Parliament—would only know when they were irrevocable. Could the propriety of such a result be maintainable in the face of the great facts of Constitutional Government and the freedom of the people, especially when extravagant claims as to extensions of right had been claimed by the Government on other matters under the name of the Royal Prerogative? Probably two checks on the Ministers would be mentioned by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and it would be said, in the first place, that a Minister might be impeached. But he (Mr. Jenkins) could attach no great value to that argument, for it was hardly conceivable that any Minister would be foolish enough to lay himself open to an impeachment while there were many ways of evading the Constitution. But, it might be urged, Parliament had the right of refusing Supplies, and had, in short, what was known as Parliamentary control. That, too, was an illusory cheek, for there was little likelihood of seeing it pushed to its direst conclusion, as the events of the last few weeks had shown; and it would be fresh in the memory of everyone that the majority had readily condoned or justified the unconstitutional acts of which Ministers had been guilty. And even if, in the last resort, the Ministry were to be dismissed, it was possible to conceive the case of one who would be ready to run that risk if only he could set his hand to a Treaty that would make himself celebrated. Besides, dismissal would not take place till the guarantees had been given, and till Treaties had been signed, when the House would have no power but that of initiating an unreal debate. A thoughtful writer on politics, the late Mr. W. Bagehot, had referred to the subject, and had argued that Parliament ought to have more control over foreign policy than it at present possessed. Besides, the Representatives themselves were responsible to the country, and ought for that reason to have opportunities not only for review, but also for criticism. It was true that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone) had offered objections to the proposition in 1874, on the ground of the necessity which existed for placing implicit confidence in the Ministers who had the conduct of negotiations, and for secrecy during their progress; but he (Mr. Jenkins) believed it would be better for this country if secret diplomacy were swept away; and if they insisted that their diplomatic transactions should be done in the light of day, letting other nations know that when we negotiated with them these negotiations would be subject to daily communications to the Parliament and the country. He saw the Chancellor of the Exchequer blandly smiling at such an idea; but he (Mr. Jenkins) had no doubt that, by-and-bye, they would not only limit the Government in the exercise of this Prerogative in regard to Treaty-making, but expect it to be perfectly open in its negotiations with foreign Powers. He believed it would come to that. He felt that putting forward the proposition of his hon. Friend did not in any degree tend to tarnish the lustre of the Crown of England, and rather hoped that the acceptance of such a proposition might tend to give it greater strength in international negotiations, and more confidence among people abroad.

My hon. Friend who has submitted this Motion to the House (Mr. Rylands) has, I think, framed it, and likewise his speech upon it, in such a temper as to facilitate a perfectly unbiassed and temperate consideration of the question; and I feel strongly that we ought to avoid whatever temptation may beset us upon the present occasion to mix up a discussion of this kind on a question Constitutional in its nature with the particular differences which have arisen during the last year or two between the two sides of the House upon questions of foreign policy. I think such a course would tend very much to perplex and obscure our judgment, if, for example, because some of us think that unconstitutional doctrines have been laid down, or inconsistent acts committed in certain other respects, we were to revenge ourselves for these acts by adopting a Resolution which might have inconvenient consequences, and which could not be defended upon its own general grounds of substantive policy. I am sure my hon. Friends will agree with me in thinking that we should separate recent controversies from the discussion we have before us. What I would urge in regard to the Motion, and the Treaties of 1856 and 1871, is particularly this—that neither has the Mover nor the Seconder shown a case of practical inconvenience which has arisen out of the exercise of this power to which he refers by the Executive. They have shown, I admit, that were the Executive Government, with large powers placed in its hands, to use those powers in a reckless manner, without regard to the interests or the well-understood sentiments of the country, the greatest possible public evils would result. But it is a choice of inconveniences and difficulties. You must, on the one hand, trust the Executive Government in these matters very largely, or you must, on the other hand, run into a greater mischief still—namely, that of committing the transaction of foreign affairs and the conduct of difficult foreign negotiations to bodies—the Houses of Parliament—which are essentially, from their own composition, unfit for the discharge of such tasks. My hon. Friend has agreed with me, in the course of this Eastern Question, in objecting to a great deal that has been done by Her Majesty's Government; but I have never felt, nor has my hon. Friend succeeded in showing that that conduct of the Government was pursued necessarily in consequence of the Treaties of 1856 or 1871, or of the guarantees into which we entered in respect to those Treaties. I can speak with the same impartiality as my hon. Friend; because, not having been a Member of the Government at the time, I am not responsible for the guarantees of 1856, and the guarantee of 1871 was only a renewal of the milder of the guarantees. Practically, I feel that I look upon these questions rather as a spectator than as an actor in the original transactions. Now, if Her Majesty's Government had thought it their duty to act upon these guarantees in the strict interpretation of them, particularly on the guarantees of the Tripartite Treaties, then my hon. Friend would have had a primâ facie ground; because, in that case, Her Majesty's Government would, upon their own responsibility, have committed themselves to some warlike measures as a direct consequence of the obligation of that guarantee. But they have done nothing of the sort; and when, during the last few months, they have made military preparations, and taken proceedings to which some of us have strongly objected, they have not done it upon the ground that they were bound to do it by the guarantees of those Treaties, but in the exercise of their discretion, and in obedience to what they call public motives. My hon. Friend has, therefore, not supplied a link in the argument which would be absolutely wanting to sustain his Motion. I think Her Majesty's Government have used the Treaties of 1856 and 1871 very much as they pleased, that is to say—and I am making no accusation against them—they have acted very largely upon what I believe to have been a dictum of Lord Palmerston and a traditional doctrine of the Foreign Office, that a guarantee gives a title to interfere, but does not impose an absolute obligation to interfere. Under cover of a doctrine of that kind, there is room enough to avoid most serious inconveniences that might arise from these guarantees. We must be content to judge these matters very much in the light of history. I admit that enormous powers are intrusted to Government, and that the misuse of these powers might entail most mischievous and ruinous consequences. That is a condition of necessity attaching to the work of Government. Have these consequences arisen? We must not judge this Motion of my hon. Friend by the opinion we may this moment entertain, aided by the light of experience, as to this or that particular guarantee. It may be there are guarantees which we now see to have been inconvenient and dangerous; but that is not the question. The main question is this—Were these guarantees entered into in conformity with what were believed to be the interests and duty of the country at the time, and in conformity with what were known to be the sentiments of the country at the time? If my hon. Friend goes over the list of the guarantees which have been embodied in various Treaties—gurarantees aimed at by this Resolution—I doubt whether he could produce a single instance of a guarantee entered into by preceding Governments, except where it has been agreeable to the actually prevailing sense of the country. If that is so, it shows that the adoption of my hon. Friend's Motion would only tend to entail a great responsibility upon Parliament; but it does not show that it would have any other practical effect whatever. My opinion, I confess, is that, upon the whole, the Government has upon no occasion known to me run ahead of the public opinion and conviction of the country in any of these guarantees. The guarantees of 1856 were, I think, decidedly agreeable to the generally prevailing sense of the nation at the time. Guarantees have seldom been the subject of such direct discussion in Parliament as to enable the laying down of very positive conclusions upon this subject; but there is one case which is very well worth notice, as it tends to throw light upon this question. It was the Guaranteed Loan of 1855. According to the established practice of this country, the Crown does not make absolute engagements of this kind, but only engages to apply to Parliament for a pecuniary subsidy. In my opinion, this Guaranteed Loan to Egypt was an absolutely bad engagement; and, thinking so at the time, I concurred with others in opposing the Bill. So strong was the objection felt in the House to it, that there was not only a debate and division; but in a rather full House, the Government carried that loan only by a majority of 4, But while that was the case, the Bill passed through every other stage without opposition, because the Government of the day were determined to adhere to it; and it was well understood that if the opposition were prolonged, they would dissolve Parliament, and perfectly well known that if they dissolved Parliament, the country would sustain them to all lengths in that guarantee. What we really desire, and the best we can obtain, is not an infallible security that there shall be no unwise guarantee, but that the Government will carefully adhere to its own views and convictions of what the interests of the country require, and what the opinion and well understood conviction of the country will approve. We come to the application of these considerations of the case which is now before us. All I can say is this—that I think it would be very dangerous if, because we have not been in harmony with the general course thus far of Her Majesty's Government on the Eastern Question, we were on that account to lay down and establish a new Constitutional principle, with respect to which I feel the greatest possible difficulty of giving to it any kind of practical operation. I can conceive it quite possible that we might embarrass, and impede, and distract the course of proceedings, and might discredit the country in the face of Europe, by depriving its Executive Government of that degree of independence and free agency which are absolutely necessary to maintain its influence. How it would be possible, in the midst of diplomatic negotiations, by a constant interchange of information and opinion between Government and Parliament, to arrive at anything like a community of action, I do not know. However much we may have differed from Her Majesty's Government in these matters, yet there are two things which I wish to keep in view. The first is, that we have arrived at a point in which it is not altogether unreasonable to hope that much of the subjects of these differences have disappeared. It is hardly possible to conceive that we may be going into the European Congress which we are now about to enter with any very wide discrepancies of view amongst ourselves generally as to the aims towards which the influence and efforts of this country should be directed. It would be unjust to the Government to suppose that whereas all other Administrations, in all other times and in all other affairs, took a pretty accurate admeasurement of the sentiment of the country on the subject of the guarantees upon which they were about to enter—it would be unjust to them, I say, to suppose that they are likely to rush into new guarantees without having regard to the sentiment of the country. I can scarcely believe such a thing on general grounds, still less should I be justified in believing it when I look at the special circumstances and tendencies of the country at the present time; because it is quite clear, irrespective of any matters which are and have been in controversy, that guarantees at this moment are somewhat damaged in public estimation. I do not wish to push that proposition too far, or to lay it down as an abstract principle; but I think there has been, both on the one side and the other of this great Eastern Question, a dissatisfaction—an uneasy sense of dissatisfaction which prevails even at this moment—that guarantees, upon the whole, have been an embarrassment and an impediment in the way of right action in the management of this Eastern Question. Some may be dissatisfied—no doubt some are dissatisfied—because those guarantees have not been acted upon up to their fullest extent and with the utmost rigour of construction; others are dissatisfied because they have been used, more or less, to promote a line of policy which, in principle, they can no longer approve. But I, for one, entertain no doubt—while carefully avoiding the assertion of any abstract principle—that Her Majesty's Government at the present time have no great disposition to welcome the announcement that a new set of guarantees has been entered into in regard to the state of affairs in the East. Whether any such guarantees should be required or not is not for me to decide; but I entertain the hope that Her Majesty's Government will, in respect to this question of guarantees, bear in mind the principal proposition of the Motion, that this vast power—for it is a vast power—has always been exercised with a due regard to the general sentiments and convictions of the country. And if the Government still continue to act in the same spirit which animated their Predecessors in all former time, then I confess the present arrangement seems to be the best arrangement which, in the many difficulties of the case, is possible; and, in fact, the only arrangement compatible with the effective transaction of the very important class of Business with which the Motion of my hon. Friend deals.

thought, after what had just fallen from his right hon. Friend, and the evident desire of the House not to further debate the subject, that it was scarcely necessary for him to make many remarks upon it. He entirely concurred in what had been said as to the spirit and temper in which both the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment had addressed themselves to the subject. There could be no doubt that it was a very important question, and one which it was perfectly fair and reasonable for hon. Gentlemen holding their views to bring forward for the purpose of challenging the opinion of the House. They knew that that was not a new subject with the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), and that his Motion had not been prompted by recent or any particular circumstances. Five years since, the hon. Member brought forward a similar Motion in another House of Commons, and with reference to a wholly different set of circumstances to that which now prevailed; and no one could deny that the opinion it contained was one which it was perfectly competent for him and those who agreed with him to express; but, at the same time, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) thought that the effect of such a Motion being brought forward at a time like the present might lead others who were not aware of the circumstances of the case, especially foreign Powers, to suppose that it had a more direct reference to existing negotiations than he presumed was really the fact, and that thus a misunderstanding might be created which they would all desire to avoid. He fully understood, however, that that was not the spirit in which it was brought forward, but rather that while it was the intention of the hon. Gentleman to take advantage of the existing state of things or of negotiations which had lately been going on, and were still going on, only for the purpose of illustration in support of his argument, the proposition which he advocated, itself was based on general grounds, When he last submitted it to the consideration of the House it was of a still more general character, and was founded on cases connected with our Commercial Treaties, particularly the Commercial Treaty with France. On that occasion the hon. Gentleman had been met very much in the same way as he had that evening by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich, who was then Prime Minister. The right hon. Gentleman put the question, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) thought, very properly in this way—on the ground that it was not a question of merely abstract doctrine, but one of a practical character, and that it was necesssary, if we were to assert great changes of Constitutional principle such as would be involved in the acceptance of the Motion, to face the consequences and be prepared to see how effect could be given to the new proposition. Nobody could deny that they were necessarily liable to inconveniences in our form of government, for in it, as, indeed, in every form of government, there must be inconveniences of some kind. Those inconveniences and difficulties came very much to the surface when we were dealing with questions of foreign policy; but he did not see how, if the Constitution of the country were to remain as it was, it would be practically possible to work upon the lines upon which the hon. Gentleman would have us proceed. There was no similarity between the state of things which existed in this country and in the United States of America, to which the hon. Gentleman on a former occasion referred. There, undoubtedly, the negotiations of Treaties was subjected to the control of a portion, at all events, of the Legislative Body—the Senate, or practically to a Committee of Foreign Affairs of the Senate, which was a kind of supplementary Cabinet, and which acted in correspondence with the Ministry of the day and in secret communication with them. Now, that was a mode of proceeding in accordance with which it would be impossible to act in this country, the Cabinet being placed in a different position towards the House of Commons and Parliament. It would be necessary, too, to have everything done in public and in the face of Parliament and the country. So far, of course, as Parliament and the country were concerned, there would be no objection to that publicity; but, then, everything thus openly discussed was discussed in the face of the whole world, and it would, he believed, be found practically impossible to conduct negotiations with other Powers if they were to be conducted on such conditions. During all the recent negotiations, for instance, delicate as they had been, it would have been absolutely fatal to them if the Government were obliged to say that everything that was advanced must be discussed in public, subject to the criticisms not only of Parliament, but also of the Press and the public, before any step could be taken. Other Powers would, no doubt, look upon us with great suspicion, if when four or five of them had pledged themselves to the terms of a Treaty which England also accepted, that Treaty were subject, after all, to be controlled and generally criticized in the way which the hon. Gentleman suggested. The hon. Gentleman, indeed, did not probably think that there would be any great evil in such a state of things, for a great portion of his argument was directed against Treaties altogether, which he treated as being on the one hand useless, and on the other embarrassing—embarrassing to the honest signatories, and useless to those who were not disposed to act honestly. That was a difficulty which it was impossible to escape, whether a Treaty was ratified by Parliament or not; and if the argument of the hon. Gentleman was worth anything, it would not, he thought, be found easy to stop short of the conclusion that Treaties ought to be dispensed with, and our business carried on independently of other Powers. He was far from saying that there were not some grounds to justify some of the observations which the hon. Gentleman had made; but he was sure that Europe—he was sure that the people of this country would be very much surprised if we were to enunciate it as a general maxim that we were to do without Treaties altogether, and that in those European affairs in which we were interested, things must be trusted to go on without those international understandings and engagements. He ventured, he might add, to hope that the hon. Gentleman would not deem it necessary to divide the House on his Motion. To do so, might lead to misunderstanding not only at home, but abroad; and the case had been so exceedingly well put by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, that there was, in his opinion, no ground for pressing the subject to a division. It was not a question affecting one Party more than another, or a question of overstraining the Prerogative, or anything of that sort. As he had ventured to say the other day, Prerogative was not a question of the personal right or assertion of the Sovereign; it was a part, and an important part, of the Constitution; and if they desired to make so great a change in the Constitution as would be involved directly, and still more by its consequences, in the adoption of such a principle as that would be, the change was not one which ought to be made by a mere Amendment on the Motion that the Speaker leave the Chair for the House to go into Committee of Supply; but it would be a matter which ought to be most solemnly raised, and debated not only in that House, but also in the other House of Parliament. They did not dispute for a moment the right to raise, and, perhaps, the advantage of raising, such a discussion as the present one; but he would repeat his hope that it might not be made the occasion of a division.

said, that after the appeal of the right hon. Gentleman, he would not press his Motion to a division; but, with the leave of the House, would withdraw it. ["No, no!"]

in rising to call attention to the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, dated 15th March, 1878, upon the

"Account of money raised and issued under the provisions of the Military Forces Localization Act (35 and 36 Vic. c. 68),"

which was laid before the House in Parliamentary Paper, No. 121, of the present Session, said, the Report in question showed that they had no security that the money voted by the House was expended in the manner in which it was intended to be expended. In 1872 the House voted £3,500,000 on behalf of the Military Forces Localization Act; £300,000 of that sum was intended to be applied to a tactical station in the North of England. In 1876 he drew attention to the fact that it was intended to apply part of that sum to a tactical station at Alder-shot, and not in the North of England; but the then Secretary of State for War told him he had better not interfere with a subject on which he had no practical knowledge. Since then the matter had remained in abeyance; but he had now found that the Auditor General had taken precisely the same view of it as ho had when he brought the subject before the House in 1876. In his Report the Auditor General drew attention to the fact that £150,000 out of £300,000 voted for a tactical station in Yorkshire had been applied to increasing the area of Alder-shot. He (Sir Alexander Gordon) would not discuss the question whether that increased area at Aldershot was required or not. The point was, that by an Act they had voted a sum for a particular purpose; that the Auditor General thought £150,000 of that sum had been misapplied; and on that officer applying to the Treasury for their reasons for allowing the War Office so to appropriate that money, the answer they gave was—"My Lords see no reason to object to the manner in which the money has been appropriated." During the last two or three years the Departments had shown an increasing disregard of the remarks of the Auditor General, and the information which he required to enable him to do his duty to the House—whose servant he, in fact, was—in respect to the public expenditure was withheld from him, and he received no reply to his queries. The House, he thought, ought to sustain him in the independent position he took up; for, in his examination of the accounts, it was not for him to take the opinion of the Department as to the way the money was expended, but to follow his own opinion, so as to enable him to perform his duties to the House. He was responsible to that House, and not to the War Department, and they should uphold him in the course he was taking in making these Reports to them, and should insist that he should be furnished with the materials which would enable him to do his duty to the public, or they might as well cease to have such an officer at all. In addition to the sum under consideration in that Report, it would be found from the Appropriation Account for this year that no less than £476,728, out of a total saving of £617,973, had been re-appropriated to purposes of which the House knew nothing, and over which it could, therefore, exercise no control whatever.

said, that before an answer was given by the Government, he wished to call the attention of the House to the present condition of the Militia, though he could not now, as he had intended to do, move—

"That the Militia being now reduced in available strength of rank and file by nearly one-half of the entire number borne upon their establishment, it is expedient to adopt the recommendation of the Militia Committee of last year—viz., 'That a Peace Establishment be given to the Militia, reduced, exclusive of staff, to seventy-five men per company.' "

The hon. Member said that it was an appropriate time for considering that subject, because the system inaugurated by General Peel, and afterwards adopted by Lord Cardwell, of having a large Militia Reserve which might, on an emergency, be summoned to join the active Army, had now been subjected to the crucial test of actual experiment. The Militia and Army Reserve had responded to the call lately made upon them in a manner which reflected the highest credit on the individual men, and also on the excellence of the system adopted under General Peel and Lord Cardwell for the formation of Reserves for our small Army in this country. But, however, excellent that might be as an experiment for the active Army, at the same time it was, under existing arrangements, altogether destructive of the Militia—the backbone of our actual fighting Reserve. Instead of having a Militia Force amounting in round numbers to 120,000, we had, according to the latest Return, not more than half that number of men on whom we could rely. In 1875 the nominal establishment was 123,000; but we had really only 101,000 enrolled. In 1876 the nominal figure was 118,349; but we had only 100,217 enrolled. He was speaking only of the rank and file. Last year we had a nominal Militia establishment of 120,650; but the number really enrolled was 103,298. From that number he had to deduct upwards of 27,000 who had been called upon as Militia Reserve men to fill up the active Army. That reduced the number to 75,000. The number of men who were absent on the day on which the efficiency of the regiments was tested had increased from 10,000 to 15,000 last year. Those 15,000 must be deducted from the 75,000, and the effective strength of the Militia was thereby reduced to 60,000. There was no jealousy towards the Militia upon the part of the Volunteer Service; but if it was to be the main support of the Reserves, his right hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary of State for War must draw tighter the reins of discipline to make the Militia Force come out as on former occasions, or be effective in times of emergency. Within the last fortnight the Under Secretary of State for War (Viscount Bury) stated in the other House that in the Militia there were 102,877 efficients; but when they deducted the Militia Reserve men who had joined the Army, amounting to 27,343, and the number of men absent without leave on the day of inspection, amounting to 15,007, there remained 60,527, against a nominal establishment of 120,650. There was no difficulty in accounting for the deficiency when the state of the following Militia regiments was taken into consideration:—He had selected these regiments as the weakest from the official list, and it would be found that they came from the manufacturing districts in Lancashire, from the Metropolis, from Scotland, from the mining county of Cornwall, from two Midland counties—Northampton and Rutland—and from the purely agricultural counties of Devon and Wilts. For example—The 2nd Devon, whose establishment in rank and file was 800, had present at inspection only 332; wanting to complete, 468. The 4th Lancashire, establishment, 1,200; present at inspection, 432; wanting to complete, 472. The 5th Lancashire, establishment, 1,200; present at inspection, 573; wanting to complete, 536. The Northampton and Rutland, establishment, 1,400; present at inspection, 742; wanting to complete, 597. The 2nd Surrey, establishment, 1,000; present at inspection, 339; wanting to complete, 531. Wilts, establishment, 800; present at inspection, 480; wanting to complete, 302. Aberdeen, establishment, 800; present at inspection, 289; wanting to complete, 489. Cornwall Rangers, establishment, 800; present at inspection, 371; wanting to complete, 384. The total number of those present at the inspection of these regiments was 3,658; but the total of those who were wanting to complete their establishment was 3,765. On the other hand, he was glad to say that these things might be altered. The Hertford Militia, on the day of inspection, had 598 men out of a total strength of 800; while the regiment had sent 188 men to the Army. Fourteen only of their total establishment were wanting, and only two of their Reserve men failed to join the colours. Militiamen who had joined the Army were liable, under an Act passed by General Peel, to serve the remainder of their five years with the Militia. He (Mr. Hayter) was not alone in thinking that a great many of these men might be disposed to change the terms of their engagement, if admitted to do so by a short Act to be passed for that purpose, and join the Army Reserve. They had possibly contracted a taste for soldiering amongst the comrades with whom they had been thrown; and, at any rate, should be allowed an option as to continuing their service with the colours. If only the half of their number joined the Army Reserve, that Reserve would be risen at once to more than double its present proportions. As for the Militia Establishment, it was really a War Establishment; and he would ask, whether it was advisable to keep up a nominal War Establishment which within the past three years had not been approximated by 17,000, 18,000, and 20,000 men?

said, he was glad that the subject had been brought forward, seeing that it affected a Force which had been said to be, and which he believed really was, the backbone of the Army; and he regretted that the Government had not taken steps to prevent things remaining so long in their present invertebrate and unsatisfactory state. The Force had always been short by 20,000 or 30,000. The remedy proposed was reduction; but the Secretary of State and the Government of the day had allowed things to remain in this condition, and had not taken the necessary measures to keep the Militia Forces in a thoroughly healthy state. With regard to the suggestion to reduce the numbers, he was afraid that if such a proposition was carried into effect, the numbers would get small by degrees and beautifully less. He considered it to be the duty of Government, who were responsible for these matters, to take such steps as the Constitution placed at their disposal to bring into the Force, by inducements or otherwise, a sufficient number of men to keep up the establishment. When General Peel created the Militia Reserve, his intention was that it should be maintained in excess of the established strength of the regiments, and that for every man who volunteered from the Militia to join the Reserve, the colonel of the regiment should be allowed to raise another to fill his place. He ventured to say that such a course would be found beneficial.

said, he knew what trouble and expense asking for Returns caused; but, nevertheless, he would like to know how much Militia Reserve men had cost? They were all astonished and delighted at the way the Reserve men answered to the call; but he could not help thinking the same number of men, or more, might have been obtained by giving £2 or £3 bounty to single men, who had served two or more years in the Militia; and, by that means, many married men would not have had to leave their wives and families on the parish, and a good deal of money might have been saved to the country. He would suggest the reopening of the retirement scheme to the adjutants under the old system; and those adjutants who had joined as young men, and wished to remain on, might be allowed to count their former Army service and Militia service for honorary rank, as given to Militia officers. It would be a great advantage to all ranks to know what description of quarters a regiment would have to occupy beforehand, as almost every year he knew, from experience, that within 24 hours of being called out the officers did not know whether they were to be quartered in billets, forts, or under canvas. If the War Office authorities and the Quartermaster General's Department would think over this matter during the winter, and more consideration was shown to the Militia, it would increase the popularity of the Force.

agreed with his hon. and gallant Friend that it was the duty of the House to support the Comptroller and Auditor General in every way they could. Having served on the Public Accounts Committee, he well knew the value of that gentleman's Report. The Committee looked most carefully into any item brought before them, because they thought it was their duty to prevent any money which had been voted by the House for one particular purpose being appropriated to any other purpose. He, for one, objected most strongly to the way in which the £3,500,000 was voted. When money was voted in a lump sum, the House had no control over the expenditure of it. With regard to the Militia Reserves, he thought that the men who had been called out ought at the end of their temporary service to have the option of joining the Army Reserve if they proved themselves efficient soldiers. This would have the effect of adding nearly 30,000 men to the Army Reserve, though the men elect to go into that Reserve, and would also enable the Militia to be filled up to its proper number. A slight alteration of the existing Act would be necessary in order to make this possible, but he thought there would be no real difficulty in effecting what was necessary.

said, he thought it would be as well to postpone the further consideration of the question until after the Public Accounts Committee had reported. As he understood the matter, a sum of £300,000 was voted for the purpose of constructing a tactical camp in the North of England; but only a small portion of land had been bought in furtherance of that object. The War Office, however, had appropriated £150,000 of this money to extend the camp at Aldershot, and had purchased two or three commons, which were at present just as much at the disposal of the troops at Aldershot for the purposes of manœuvring as they were at the disposal of the public for recreation. That proceeding appeared to him to be very unwise, and he certainly must protest against money voted by Parliament for a specific purpose being diverted into a different channel. He hoped the question would not be finally settled until after it had been considered by the Public Accounts Committee and reported upon to the House.

said, he was glad that a supporter of the Government had, brought forward a subject in which the conduct of the Government had been called in question. It was highly necessary that Parliament should look more closely after this matter. The various Departments were too ready to lay hold of unappropriated balances, and transfer them from one purpose to another.

supported the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) that the men in the Militia Reserve should be allowed the option of joining the Army Reserve, if they chose, after completing their term of service with the Force to which they belonged. The Militia Reserve had come forward on this occasion in a manner that was deserving of all praise. It was generally supposed that the Reserves of the Army and the Militia were due to Lord Cardwell; but the credit in connection with, the Militia Reserve was due to General Peel.

said, there could not be a more important point connected with the whole range of the Army Estimates than that to which his hon. and gallant Friend (Mr. Hayter) had drawn attention; and he thought that the hon. and gallant Gentleman had done well to treat it separately before the House went on with the Estimates, lest it might then have been swallowed up in the consideration of other matters. The whole subject of the position of the Militia Reserve and of the establishment of the Militia must, of course, come under fresh consideration now that the Reserve Forces had been actually called out. The noble Lord below the Gangway (Lord Elcho) had spoken of the Militia in terms of high praise, as being the old Constitutional Force and the backbone of the Army; but he had also alluded to it as being invertebrate. It appeared to him that that was an expression which had been somewhat misapplied, because, all that had been proved by his hon. and gallant Friend (Mr. Hayter) was, that the backbone was somewhat shorter than it ought to be. No fault was found with the backbone so far as it went. Had they required any means of testing the efficiency of the Militia, it would have been found in the condition of the Militia Reserve men who had joined the Army within the last few weeks. There was the extraordinary fact that not only those men had obeyed the call which was made upon them in such large numbers, but also that they had turned out to be men in every respect qualified to take their places with the Regular Army. That was not due to the fact of their being Militia Reserve men, but to the fact of their being Militiamen; and it proved that the training of the Militia was such that under it a man of intelligence was enabled to stand alongside of those who constituted the Regular Army. That was an important fact, and it was one which was encouraging and satisfactory in every aspect of the matter. The question as to what was to be done with the establishment of the Militia, whether that establishment ought to be reduced, and the Militia Reserve men to be treated in future as supernumerary to it, or whether they should in future, after being called out and serving in the Line, have the option of being passed into the Army Reserve, and other questions which had been raised in the course of the discussion, were unquestionably of great importance, and required grave and deliberate consideration; but all that he and others who were interested in them could do at present was to direct attention to them, and especially the attention of the Secretary of State for War, without expecting the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to give any opinion just now as to what he thought ought to be done in connection with them. He believed that the War Secretary must have derived some assistance from what had been said on this occasion. As to the point which had been raised by the hon. and gallant Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon), he certainly thought there was some need for explanation. Power had been taken under the Act to expend a certain sum of money upon "a tactical training station," and, undoubtedly, it was intended that that station should be in the North of England. Insuperable difficulties, however, appeared to have arisen; one site after another had been proposed, only to be rejected; and the question which he thought the Government ought to clear up was this—all that being so, why did they expend the money upon Aldershot, instead of leaving it unexpended, when they found that it could not be applied to the purpose for which it was originally designed? No doubt, Aldershot was technically and literally a tactical training station; but, apart from the question of the rights of commoners, which was mixed up in the matter, it remained with the Government to show that the expenditure of this particular money in that locality was really within the proper purview of Parliament at the time the Act was passed.

said, he felt sure that the country was greatly indebted to the hon. and gallant Member for East Aberdeenshire for having raised the question which he had that evening brought before the House, of using public funds voted for one purpose to another purpose; and though it was not likely in the present day that any personal abuse would arise, yet this division of funds was nothing less than misappropriation. He (Sir George Balfour) had on various occasions found in that House the misappropriation of money voted by Parliament. He had suggested that the power of making transfers of money from one head of the same Vote to another head of that Vote should be withdrawn from the Departments, and the power lodged with the Treasury when Parliament was not sitting to provide for the then requirements of the Service by an assignment of funds suitable for the Service. The voted sum no longer needed for the purpose sanctioned by Parliament should then absolutely lapse. Until that was done Parliament would not be able to prevent money being transferred from one purpose to another entirely different from that which Parliament intended. The Comptroller and Auditor General had more than once protested ineffectually against such transfers. He hoped in future the express purpose for which the money was required would be inserted in the Estimates. He made this remark because the £3,000,000 Vote for the Localization of the Forces was put before Parliament in a form so condensed and so obscure, that it was difficult for Parliament to compare the application of the funds in detail, with the brief and obscure entries in the original Estimate. Indeed, he had discovered expenditure out of that Vote which was not only not covered by the entries in the Estimate, but was opposed to the financial rules which were formerly laid down for the management of the financial business of the country With regard to the Motion of the hon. and gallant Member (Mr. Hayter) he would urge that the greatest latitude should be allowed to men to join the Reserves.

said, he must fully recognize the kindness which the House was in the habit of extending to individuals holding the Office he now held, provided the statements they had to make were satisfactory. Although he might differ in some matters of detail from the views expressed by the hon. and gallant Member behind him, still he concurred in the general opinion that he had advanced, that all possible attention should be paid to the advice of the Auditor General in respect of matters which came under his notice officially. During the tenure of Office by Lord Cranbrook the system of a test audit was for the first time introduced; and he believed the First Lord of the Treasury had been communicated with respecting the application of the same principle to the accounts of his Department. He was, therefore, entitled to say that the Government would by no means be opposed to the system of audit. That system was good up to a certain point. It was the duty of the Auditor General in his Report to state, as an independent officer, his opinion as to the validity of a charge, and as to whether the vouchers and other documents connected with it were satisfactory. It must not be forgotten, however, that behind him there was a body which was regarded with great deference by that House—namely, the Public Accounts Committee. The Report of the Auditor General was laid before that Committee, which carefully investigated all matters that were fairly open to challenge. Not being a Member of that Committee, he was unable to state positively whether the Report had come before it this year, but his impression was that it had, and that it passed either without any remark at all or with a mere casual question. After all, what was the actual state of the case? Certain large sums were reported to the House for the localization scheme of his noble Friend Lord Cardwell. In that amount was included a sum for a Northern tactical station. Reasons had been adduced both by Lord Cardwell and his Successor (Lord Cranbrook), showing why it was impossible to apply that money to the purpose for which it was originally intended. What with mining rights, the character of the soil, the difference in climate, and other difficulties, it had been found almost impossible to meet with land at a low level in the Northern parts of this country with a sufficient area of open space to afford a tactical ground which would be of practical value. Over and over again it had been thought that such and such a place would answer the purpose. One was found to be cut up with mining and other rights which would interfere with its free use, while another was found to be on too high a level with such inequality of ground as to render it practically useless. These difficulties occurred year after year, and the completion of a Northern tactical station became more and more pressing. Therefore, his noble Friend, looking at the use to which this money was originally destined, and regarding as a secondary consideration the locality in which that use was to be exercised, thought that he should be acting in the spirit in which the money was voted if he applied it in increasing the existing training grounds, and in giving opportunities for regiments in the North to be trained at the great training grounds which they already possessed. The question had been before Parliament on many occasions. In 1876 his noble Friend distinctly stated that the question mentioned by his Predecessor of a tactical station in the North of England still remained in abeyance; but he added that negotiations were going on for the purchase of land suitable for the purpose. Inasmuch as some of the money had been applied with the consent of the Treasury to an extension of land at Aldershot, where Northern regiments could be trained, he thought he might claim that the spirit, if not the letter, of the Vote had been fulfilled. With regard to the remarks of the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Shaw Lefevre), he thought his hon. Friend, when he objected to give to the War Office power over the land at Aldershot, seemed to forget that a much smaller area would be placed under the control of the Department than it was originally intended to obtain in another place. As regarded the transfer from one Vote to another, that was in itself a most important matter; but the power of transfer with the consent of the Treasury was expressly given to the Naval and Military Departments by Act of Parliament. His hon. and gallant Friend opposite (Mr. Hayter) had called attention to the manifold deficiencies which, unhappily, continued to exist in the establishment of the Militia Force. Now, as far as the scope of his Resolution went, his hon. and gallant Friend was teaching a very willing disciple; for his hon. and gallant Friend cited as his text the Report of a Committee over which he himself presided two or three years years ago. Undoubtedly, the discrepancy existing between the establishment and the enrolled members of the Militia, showed a state of things which was far from satisfactory. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that the conditions under which the Militia served rendered it impossible to contrast with fairness and accuracy the number of absentees with the absentees from ordinary regiments. He ventured to say that if the men in a regiment of the Line were allowed to go back to civil life for 11 months in the year, that circumstance would, to a great extent, account for many of these absentees, although he freely admitted that even then there would be a large number of whom it would be impossible to give a satisfactory account. His hon. and gallant Friend had taken three principal classes—from the metropolitan, the mining, and the agricultural districts respectively. Now, it should be remembered that at the present time the Militia was at about its worst. Considerable disturbance was given to that Force by Lord Cardwell's scheme for the localization of regiments, which, for some years, he was sorry to say, produced among the men an indifference to comply with those engagements into which they had formally entered. The men, instead of being in the pleasant places they expected, found themselves suddenly transferred far away to the middle of a large camp or garrison, to perform duties very different, perhaps, from those which they looked for when they joined. But though, on the whole, the localization scheme appeared to be very carefully worked out, he did not feel sure that the original allocation of the Militia regiments was such as, after more experience, could be accepted without some slight modifications. He always entertained the opinion that those who framed the regulations must have had some vague notion of compulsory service, inasmuch as their calculations were founded, not on the number likely to enlist, but on the number of males in the district. However, the regulations could not be altered without careful consideration. Then, in the metropolitan and other districts in the neighbourhood of large towns, there was another class of absentees. In those districts they must always reckon upon losing a certain percentage. The class of men enlisting were taken from a shifting population, and owing to the fluctuations of labour, the opening of fresh pits, and other causes, the men went to other districts or to sea. Of course, every effort was, and would still be, used to trace accurately where the men went. He had no doubt, however, that some regiments returned as absent from training men who had been up for training and had been afterwards sent down. That he knew to be the case. With regard to the question whether it would not have been better, instead of giving a larger bounty to the Militia, to let the money accumulate in a fund, and then give a larger bounty when men were wanted to volunteer for the Line?—that subject had been considered by the Committee to which reference had been, made, and it had been found to be an unsatisfactory proposal. The fund would accumulate indefinitely, demurs would naturally be made to the money lying idle from year to year, and it would never be known what was the actual number of men on whom they could rely. If a large bounty were given, it would be given with their eyes open to all the evils, which were now condemned, of the former bounty system. Considering the various classes of employment in which the men were ordinarily engaged, the result, on the whole, of the organization of the Militia Reserve was not unsatisfactory. The total strength on the 1st of April, 1878, was 25,111; the number who reported themselves at the Militia head-quarters was 23,372; the number who failed to report themselves was 1,739. Of those who reported themselves, rather a large proportion—2, 026—were found medically unfit, some temporarily, some totally; but the medical examination, being a military one, was rather severe. The number of men, therefore, who joined the Army was 20,296. Of the 1,739 who failed to attend, 420 were accounted for, and 1,319, or about 5 per cent of the strength of the Force, were unaccounted for. All things considered, and this being the first time they were called out, that percentage was not unsatisfactory. There were taken into custody 161, discharged for fraudulent enlistment 72, dead 61, sick 54. With regard to training, these men of the Militia Reserve were fit to take their places side by side, not only with men of the Line, but with men of the Guards. The illustrious Duke at the head of the Army had informed him that he had seen with great satisfaction that the men who had been sent down to the Guards' depôt were scarcely distinguishable from the trained soldiers among whom they had taken their places. Then, as to the point whether it was advisable to keep up a war establishment, the Committee were of opinion that the Militia establishment should practically be a war establishment, and he thought the result had justified that opinion. When the Militia Reserve men came to be suddenly drafted off, it was desirable that the commanding officers who lost some of their best men should beforehand be able to know what men permanently belonged to them, and it was thought preferable that 25 per cent should be borne as supernumerary. A very important point had been raised—namely, whether Militia Reserve men, having come up to the colours, should be allowed to go into the Army Reserve instead of going down as supernumerary to the Militia? Without any wish to discourage the Militia Reserve, or to prejudge the question, he must ask the House not to be carried away by their natural sympathy for these men, who did their duty so well. It should be borne in mind that the terms of the Army Reserve were made very different from those of the Militia Reserve, avowedly because they had a different class to deal with. In the Army Reserve they had trained soldiers; the Militia Reserve was not composed of the same class of men; and it seemed, therefore, natural that there should be a different rate of pay for the highly trained men. He hoped he had not trespassed unduly on the attention of the House, in endeavouring, as far as he could, to meet the various questions which had been raised. He should be prepared to answer any other Questions which might be put, and he hoped the House would now consent to go into Committee of Supply.

objected to any Department having the power of devoting any grant of money to a purpose other than that for which it had been voted. He believed that some of the Militia regiments, especially those in the North of Ireland, were thoroughly worthless, and that, in case of emergency, instead of being a source of strength, they would prove the very reverse. He would recommend that the Government should do something to improve the morale of the Force.

said, that as he was not in the House when the Army Estimates were last under discussion, he might, perhaps, be allowed to say a few words. He thought the manner in which the Army Reserve had responded to the call which had been made for their services was highly creditable to them and eminently gratifying to all concerned. For this result they were greatly indebted to Lord Cardwell, whose legislation upon this subject was based on sound principles. That noble Lord had made very large changes, but he left Office before he had time to reconstruct or replace what he had demolished. To his Successor belonged the credit of having provided a system of promotion and retirement for officers in place of what had been abolished; and he provided such attractions for the men as not only filled the ranks with the usual number of recruits, but supplied the extra number required by short service. He altered the system of organization in the Royal Artillery; he took steps very materially to improve the condition of the administrative Department of the Army; he altered the system of education at Sandhurst; and, above all, he did away with the ridiculous and mischievous restrictions on exchanges. There were, however, many difficult matters connected with our military system, some of them arising out of the changes recently made, still awaiting settlement. He believed that the Secretary of State would have to reconsider the policy of both his Predecessors with respect to the Medical Department, and that the warrants now in force would have to be repealed. Then he would inevitably have to re-adjust the pay and allowances of officers. While there were two systems of promotion in force, purchase and non-purchase, each having their own advantages, it was all very well that what were called the scientific branches should be at some disadvantage; but now those branches must be placed at least on an equality with the others. Indeed, special advantages should be given them, if they wished to keep up their standard. At the examination for Woolwich in March, there were 92 candidates for 40 vacancies. Of these 92, only 45 qualified in the preliminary examination; while last November 476 candidates competed for 91 vacancies at Sandhurst, of whom 125 failed to qualify. The remedy must also be found for desertion. The most efficient mode of dealing with it, in his opinion, would be to resort to the old system of marking with letter D. A sentimental objection existed, however, to this, owing to a misconception that men were branded like cattle, as had been said, and that it was a painful process. It had been suggested that all who entered the Service might be marked with a Broad Arrow or Crown, to which officers would, no doubt, gladly submit; but he scarcely thought it logical to make rules under the operation of which good men would come to protect us from the crimes of the bad. Instead of imprisoning deserters, he would like to see them confined to barracks till they could be sent to India or the Colonies, whence they could not desert. If removed from the temptations incidental to English life, most of them would become good soldiers. The next point to be considered was how Indian reliefs were to be kept up under the short-service system. He would suggest that all men should do their first term of six years on the English establishment; that they should then have the option of joining the Reserve, or going for six years to India, in which latter case they must, of course, receive some gratuity or other inducement. He regretted that the Government had not accepted the offer of a portion of those 10,000 troops made by the Dominion of Canada. It would have been a grand spectacle to see the East and the West uniting in defence of the Empire. He should like to see some change introduced whereby the Forces of the Crown, on occasions of emergency, could be made available without the inconvenience and scandal attending discussions in the House on the question, and suggested whether the case could not be met by an additional clause in the Mutiny Act. He would also suggest the desirability of considering whether the Native Indian troops should not be enabled to extend their travels to this country. ["Oh, oh!"] There were differences of opinion on that subject; but he had consulted soldiers of high rank, Indians both military and civil, and Colonial Governors, and he had found that, with one exception, they were of opinion that the money would be well spent in bringing a portion of the Indian troops now at Malta to this country for a short visit, to participate in the duties of the home troops, and to mount guard at the Queen's Palaces. It would gratify the people of India and promote the unification and consolidation of the Empire, over which they were in the habit of boasting that the sun never set.

said, he wished to ask the Secretary of State for War, whether the Vote included any charge on account of Hospital services in connection with the brigade of Guards? He might mention, by way of explanation, that whilst discussing the previous Vote, before the right hon. and gallant Gentleman came into his present position, the then Secretary of State for War stated that a portion of the Stock Purse Fund only was put down in Vote I. under certain headings, and that the remaining portion of the Fund was distributed throughout the other Votes. He (Mr. Parnell) was anxious to know in what Votes the remaining portion of the Stock Purse Fund appeared, as lie had not been able to trace it?

said, that that portion of it which related to medical purposes such as Hospital expenses was included in the present Vote; but he could not at that moment recollect under what heads the remaining portion of the Fund appeared.

said, the precise information he wanted was this—whether the Vote included any charge on account of Hospital service in the brigade of Guards?

said, he would endeavour to answer the question. He believed that the Stock Purse defrayed all the medical charges of the Guards; but whether the actual surgeons doing duty there were included he was not able to say. His impression, however, was that they were.

said, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman did not seem to be aware that the original Stock Purse Fund, known as such, had been broken up into portions and distributed amongst certain items in the Votes. He had been successful in tracing two items in Vote I., and, perhaps, he might be allowed to refer to them, as they might be a guide to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. In Vote I., there were, according to page 16, three portions of this Stock Purse Fund included—namely, £2,610 for contingent allowances, &c.; £700 for allowances in aid of band expenses; and £6,910 for the profits of the field officers of the Foot Guards, in the shape of extra pay. Perhaps it would be better to take the items in order as they appeared in the Vote. The first was Infantry and Foot Guards' profits of the field officers, in the shape of extra pay, £6,910; then, under the head of contingent allowances, deducting stoppage for repair of arms, £2,610; and then, under the head of allowances for band expenses, came the sum of £700. These were all the items which stood opposite an entry under the head of Infantry and Foot Guards, and it was found out, in the course of the discussion of Vote I., that these items were paid out of the Stock Purse Fund. The right hon. Gentleman the then Secretary of State for War further informed the Committee that the remnants of the Stock Purse Fund, which amounted to considerably more than these three items—the total amount of the Fund being £13,190—were distributed among the rest of the Votes. According to a Return, which had been produced at the instance of the hon. Member for Clonmel (Mr. A. Moore), he found that the remainder of the Fund was applied to Hospitals and recruiting purposes. The sum of £8,929 was applied to Hospital purposes for the brigade of Guards, and the sum of £145 was applied to recruiting purposes for the same brigade of Guards—making a total of £9,074. He had been very anxious to trace this Vote and to find out what had become of the different items of this Stock Purse Fund, and he would have been able to obtain information, no doubt, if the former Secretary for War had been still in Office. At present, he would direct the attention of the Secretary for War to page 29, which referred to the present Vote—Vote IV. He found, under the head of allowance to private medical practitioners and medical bills under sub-head C for home purposes, an item of £5,340; and for Colonial purposes, £5,840. There was an increase in the item for home purposes for last year of something like £2,300, and an increase in the item for last year for Colonial purposes of something considerably more than that. He could understand that the Vote for Colonial purposes would be still more increased by the War at the Cape; but he could not understand the reason for the other increase; and, in any case, he could not account for the sum proposed to be applied. In the Return produced at the instance of the hon. Member for Clonmel, there was a sum of £3,000 odd, which was stated to be taken for Hospitals in connection with the Guards. He wished to know what had become of the sum applied to the Hospitals of the Guards?

was afraid that he was not able offhand to trace that particular item. If he had been in the House when the previous discussion took place, his attention would have been directed to the subject probably; but, unfortunately, he was not. He thought the hon. Member would find that provision was taken for part of this Vote in the shape of Hospital services in one Vote, and in other shapes in regard to the other Votes. [Mr. PARNELL: Which Votes?] The hon. Member would see that provision was taken for Medical Services in Vote IV., and so on, in regard to the other Votes. He was unable to give more precise information at the present moment; but if the hon. Gentleman would put the question on the Report, he would then be able to give him every information in regard to the matter. He believed the way in which the Vote was applied was traceable, though in the form in which it originally stood in Vote I., it was, unquestionably, open to some doubt. He would repeat the answer he had given to a previous question—that his impression was that the Hospital services of the year were recorded in the Vote about to be taken.

said, the difficulty he found himself in was this—that the whole of the Stock Purse Fund had been broken up. It was originally in one lump sum of £13,190, and a Return was moved for by his hon. Friend the Member for Clonmel (Mr. A. Moore), asking for further details as to the appropriation of the Fund and the application of the money. When the Return appeared, it was found that it only accounted for a very small portion of that sum of £13,190—in point of fact, it only accounted for £502 18s. 4d., for pay and allowances, apartments for the field major, fuel and light, recruiting, proceedings at courts martial, &c. Altogether there were five items, and they amounted to £502 18s. 4d. But the vast bulk of the sum of £13,000 was not accounted for at all, and was still put down as the Stock Purse Fund; so that, as far as any information to be obtained from the Return was concerned, they might just as well have been without it. In consequence of the futility of the Return, his hon. Friend moved for another. The second Return went much more into detail, but did not clear up this extraordinary matter, which was of a very complicated character, and very much required to be cleared up, and with regard to which he would suggest by-and-bye a way of clearing it up. In the second Return obtained by the hon. Member for Clonmel, he found that this sum of £11,000 and odd, not accounted for in the preceding Return, was accounted for in the following manner:—The Hospital services of the Guards were to get £8,929, recruiting services £145, band expenses £1,360; in addition to which there was an item of £970 for Staff allowances to noncommissioned officers, and an item of £6,708 5s. 6d. for average profits of field officers and captains. It was not his present purpose to object to these large profits of field officers and captains, though he thought they should be done away with after the present officers ceased is hold their offices. He wished more particularly to direct the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the Hospital branch. They had there the expenses of hospitals, and a number of contingencies—wages, washing, fuel, light, repairs, &c., amounting altogether to a sum of £8,029. Now, that amount had been stowed away somewhere, and he did not know where. It was not in Vote I., because they had accounted for the item, and he thought that a considerable portion of it must be in Vote IV. The difficulty he felt was this—that when the Report was brought on, it was always difficult to discuss a question of this sort, because the Report itself was not brought up until very late. He would suggest to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that, if he were unable to point out in this Vote for medical establishment and services what portion of the sum of £8,000 and odd was included, he should postpone the Vote until some future day.

said, he could not accept the suggestion. He had already endeavoured to explain, though, he was afraid, without success, to the hon. Member, that, so far as he was aware, charges which were made upon the Stock Purse Fund, except those which were included in Vote I., already voted, were distributed among the separate Votes of the Estimates—that was to say, in the Hospital Vote. The item for provisions, light, forage, fuel, and so forth, belonged to the Stock Purse Fund. He was not able to say precisely the amount of the charge included in each Vote; but if the hon. Member would be good enough to repeat his question on Report, he should be glad to give every information. In the meantime, he had endeavoured to answer the question, by stating that, to the best of his belief, the medical officers were included in the previous Vote—that was to say, that the medical expenses were included in the present Vote; and that the rest of the Stock Purse charges, such as fuel, light, &c., were to be found in the other Votes.

said, he had intended to raise a question touching the Medical Department upon this Vote; but when he saw a matter brought forward in such a cavilling spirit, he had changed his mind, and abstained from occupying the time of the Committee with the subject. He was anxious to do all he could to forward the Estimates; but he reserved to himself the right of using an independent Member's day for the purpose of calling attention to the state of the Medical Department. He wished his right hon. and gallant Friend to regard this intimation as made in a friendly, and not in an unfriendly, spirit. He had no wish to interfere with any of the steps that were now being taken for the re-organization of the Department. His only object was to improve the present state of things.

said, he had listened to what had been brought forward by the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell), and he could not help agreeing that the question was a very important one. On the other hand, it was not desirable that they should unduly interrupt the Supply. It appeared to him that the question had been fairly met by the offer of the Secretary of State for War. He would, therefore, suggest to the hon. Member for Meath that he should allow the Vote to pass, on the understanding that the information would be given on the Report.

said, the hon. Member for Meath had a perfect right to ask for information. It was certainly within his (Sir George Balfour's) own knowledge, that the origin of all the evil was allowing the Guards to conduct their own hospitals out of funds levied from the soldier. In point of fact, the Guards had been allowed, from time immemorial, to manage their own services in connection with the recruiting and hospitals. The personal allowances given to the officers of the Guards for being on duty in London, or liable to be on duty, was wrong. If the London duty was undertaken by a battalion of the Line, then the officers were also entitled to allowances; but these were fixed and regularly paid out of the voted monies, whereby the Guards raised funds under the old and objectionable form by stoppages from the pay of the men, and the consequence had been a confusion of accounts, as well as a suspicion that these were doings which could not be laid open to the country. The Secretary of State for War had now, with the honesty that was his characteristic, proposed to give all the information asked for, and he thought the hon. Member for Meath ought not further to oppose the Vote.

said, the only reason why he appeared to hesitate about accepting the offer of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was, because he very much feared, from what he had previously seen in regard to the question, that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would not be able to give him the information he required. The subject was really in such a ravel and a tangle, that until a new arrangement was made to place the officers of the Guards on the same footing as the officers of the rest of the Army, it would be impossible to make head or tail out of this question of the Stock Purse Fund. This last attempt of the Government to distribute the items among the other Votes, instead of making them one bulk sum, only made confusion worse confounded. In point of fact, he did not think the right hon. Gentleman knew very well what he was talking about, when he answered the question in the first instance. The money was obviously hidden away, and where, as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman himself admitted, he did not know.

said, the difficulty that was found in connection with all these Votes was this. The hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who had charge of the different Departments were almost all new to their particular positions, and were quite as destitute of information as the House itself. He did not wish to make any specific charge against the Government on this question, because he was disposed to make every allowance for the Secretary of State for War; but it was a very serious position to find themselves placed in—that on all occasions when a question was asked in reference to different Departments they should receive the same answer from the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen in charge of them. The evil was that they came into Office since the Estimates were framed, and that they did not know anything about them. Whenever information was asked for, the practice was to say—"I really don't know anything about it; but, if you will postpone the question until the Report, then I will give you the information required." When the Report came on, if they repeated the question, they were told that it would be wasting time to discuss it, and that the only time for raising the question was when the Vote itself was brought forward. He would suggest to the Government that it would be well to postpone all these Votes, until the heads of the different Departments got to know something about the subjects they had to bring before the Committee. As the matter existed at present, there was a frightful waste of time involved, because the Committee were unable to get any information; and at the same time, the non-official Members, who really knew a good deal more about these matters than the heads of the Departments, did not wish to press too hardly upon Gentlemen who were new to their Offices. At the same time, he really did think that that system of asking time after time for the postponement of questions until the Report, when it was well known there could be no opportunity for discussing the question, was most objectionable, and ought to be given up.

was sorry that the hon. and gallant Member for Hereford (Colonel Arbuthnot) had not brought the question of medical officers before the Committee. He also regretted that the Members of the Medical Profession who were also Members of the House, and who sat principally on the Opposition Benches, were not present when that Vote was under discussion. In their absence, he desired to bring forward a question which considerably affected the interests of medical officers, and which had been a subject of comment during the last two or three years, It was alluded to very recently in a letter that appeared in the newspapers from Dr. Corrigan. The question he referred to was that of providing a supply of surgeons for the Army. It was a question in which great interest was taken by the Medical Profession generally, and particularly by what might be called the Medical Schools. The Irish Members had a good deal of interest in the matter, because a large proportion of the surgeons of the Army came from Ireland. The letter he referred to really summed up the whole subject. It showed that there was at present a great want of medical officers in the Army, and it put forward as the chief reason, not the want of pay, or of material advantages, but the fact that the medical officers in the Army were not properly treated. One grievance was that they were required to cease to be members of regiments and members of messes, this being carried out by an Order of the Secretary of State for War. Personally, he (Major Nolan) had taken great pains at various times to put the question to various Army surgeons he had been brought into contact with, and he certainly found that all the younger members were unanimous. The older members of the Army Medical Profession took the same view, although perhaps not so strongly. All the younger medical men, however, felt very strongly indeed upon the fact that at the present moment they were not members of regiments, and had no locus standi. They found that when they went into a mess they had, as it were, no home. An ordinary officer had his home and his mess, to which he could ask his friends, but the Army medical officers were only there on sufferance, and could ask no friends. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would read the very important letter to which he had referred, which fully summed up the views of the surgeons in the Army. He (Major Nolan) had no doubt that it was a real grievance, and the effect of it was witnessed by the diminished number of candidates for appointments in the Army. He believed that if it went on much longer, the Army Medical Department would drift into a state of hopeless inefficiency. He was satisfied that the condition of the Medical Profession in the Army would be much different if the Government would adopt measures for improving the present status of the Medical Profession. If something of this kind were not done, the Army itself would suffer in the end; because, if the country went into war, the Medical Department would certainly break down. It would be of no use then for Her Majesty's Ministers to say it was not their fault; that they were anxious to employ the men, if they could procure them. It would be the fault of the Government entirely, if they did not take proper precautions to secure an efficient establishment in a time of peace. It was impossible to get an efficient Staff in a time of war, because it required a certain amount of discipline; and civilian practitioners, obtained on the spur of the moment, would require considerable time and training before they could be rendered efficient. He believed that the application of the regimental system, as far as medical officers were concerned, would be wise economy in the end. The hard work entailed by the business of an efficient Staff told hardly upon the private soldier as well as upon the surgeons themselves. At present, there were not a sufficient number of medical officers to enable them to obtain proper leave, and the whole of the Profession was in consequence greatly dissatisfied. He was sorry that his hon. Friend the Member for Galway (Dr. Ward) was not present, because he knew that he was anxious to bring the question forward. In the absence of his hon. Friend, he (Major Nolan) had ventured to introduce the question; and he would only add that, in regard to the medical officers themselves, they were all of them unanimous upon the subject. He wished to ask what steps the Government intended to take in the matter?

said, that unless he obtained an answer to his question, he would feel it necessary to move that the Chairman report Progress.

said, he had no wish to leave the hon. and gallant Member without an answer. He had only waited to see whether any other hon. Member was desirous of continuing the discussion. The House was already aware that his noble Friend and Predecessor (Viscount Cranbrook) had already referred to a small Committee the very important case of the medical officers of the Army, and had issued general instructions to that Committee to confer with all the large medical centres, with eminent physicians, and the principal medical councils, so as to ascertain really what in the eyes of the Profession were the practical difficulties in the way of obtaining a sufficient supply of medical officers for the Army. Of course, they all had a certain bias in the matter, and however carefully they might endeavour to weigh the question, they would have a prejudicial feeling either one way or the other. It must be borne in mind that the present system was adopted after very careful consideration. It was adopted mainly in consequence of the action taken by a number of the members of the Profession in the view of what they regarded as their grievances. His Predecessor in the Office of Secretary of State for War after weighing fully the representations of the Profession and considering how their grievances could best be met, came to the conclusion that they were only to be met by the rearrangement of the Medical Service on a basis very distinct from that which had hitherto obtained. Whatever merits might attach to the regimental medical services, Lord Cranbrook considered that it was not absolutely perfect with regard to the position of the officers in the regiment. Therefore, all these things had to be very carefully considered and weighed, in reference to how they would press in particular cases. He feared that it would never be possible so to deal with the matter as to do away altogether with complaints of grievances; but he should hail any opportunity that might arise of putting the gentlemen in the Army Medical Service on a satisfactory footing. At present he was speaking in the dark, because the position of medical men both in the Army and the Navy was changing from day to day, and he had not as yet had opportunity for consulting as many authorities as he should like to consult on such a subject before coming to a decisive opinion upon it. No one could have a more earnest desire for the amelioration of the service than he had, and he hoped he should receive such assistance as would enable him to put his hand upon any blot or defect in the system with a view to its removal; but, at the present moment, he did not think he would be justified in prejudging the question to any extent; at the same time, he was most anxious to consider it.

said, he wished to refer to a question affecting the health of the troops in India. A correspondence was going on between a general officer who had seen much service in India, the Medical Department, and the Commander-in-Chief, with reference to the hour at which dinner should be served to the troops serving in India. The general officer said he had found that by postponing the hour from 1 o'clock until 4—a cooler part of the day—the regiment under his command had not suffered, to any great extent, from the complaints to which other European regiments serving in India were subject. He hoped the question would be carefully considered by the authorities.

said, he should like to know, whether the Committee which had sat to inquire into the subject were likely to report shortly, and whether the Report was likely to be published, or whether the inquiry was merely a departmental one?

said, he could not answer the question of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, because it would depend upon the form and not upon the substance of the answers given by the medical witnesses, whether their evidence could be made public. If it should appear that the evidence was not of a strictly confidential character, he should be happy to produce the Report.

called attention to the large and increasing number of men absent without leave. In the year 1875 the number was 10,860; in 1876 it was 11,291; and in last year it was 15,007. The exact figures for this year were not yet available, but there had been an alarming increase already as compared with 1875.

said, he thought the apparent increase was due to the fact that the Returns had in late years been made out in a different way as far as the permanent Staff was concerned.

wished to make a suggestion with regard to the fund which had accumulated, in the shape of fines for drunkenness, and which now amounted to about £4,000. He thought it would be well to expend this sum in the purchase of newspapers and periodicals, and in providing other forms of recreation, in order, as far as possible, to keep the men out of the public-houses during their periods of training.

said, the difficulty had been how to allot so small a sum as £4,000, so as to produce any real and practical benefit. A Departmental Committee was appointed to consider the matter, and it was determined on their Report to dispose of the money in the shape of small indulgences to militiamen during their periods of service.

referred to the debate which had taken place earlier in the evening upon the state of the Militia, and to the remarks which were then made by the Secretary of State for War. His contention was that the Militia establishment, when it was fixed in 1852 by the Government of that day, was fixed at a standard which was not believed to be a war standard, but the proper standard for the Militia of this country to be maintained at for our home defence. He hoped the strength of the Militia would be kept up, and that the present Secretary of State for War would not shirk his responsibility, as some of his Predecessors had done, but would ask Parliament either for more money, or for compulsory power to enrol men in the Militia. At the time to which he had referred, Mr. Walpole, the then Home Secretary, said the number of the Militia necessary for home defence was 80,000, and that if the number was obtained by voluntary enlistment, the Bill had been so drawn that there would be no necessity to resort to the compulsory clauses.

pointed out what he deemed to be a great injustice—namely, that money drawn from the fines paid for drunkenness by the Militia was distributed in the shape of gratuities to men in the Regular Army. This was a course likely to cause much dissatisfaction in the Militia, and it was a course, moreover, which, if he was correctly informed, had not received the sanction of the Treasury.

thought greater consideration should be shown to non-commissioned officers in the Militia when they were called upon to serve with the Regular Army. At present they only drew the pay of privates, although some of them were very valuable non-commissioned officers. He thought that, after a short period of probation, they should be allowed to receive the full pay of their respective ranks.

asked for some information as to the fact that there appeared to be a decrease of about 3,000 in the rank and file of the Militia as compared with last year?

said, the apparent decrease was, in fact, no decrease at all, and was due to the partial absorption of the regular Staff of the Militia into brigade depôts. As had been already stated, the amount of money received in the shape of fines for drunkenness had, on the recommendation of a Committee, been applied in the direction of recreation for the men by whom the fines had been paid. A Committee had just completed the consideration of the question as to the best means of utilizing the services of half-pay officers. The question was a very complicated one, and he had not at present had time to master the details of the Report. The matter should have his immediate attention, for he was anxious to hit upon some plan by which half-pay officers could be utilized in time of war. Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; Committee counted, and 40 Members being found present,

said, he thought the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War must have misunderstood the question which he had put to him with reference to the diminution in the rank and file of the Militia. That diminution amounted to 3,000 men, consisting of corporals and privates. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had referred him to page 132 of the Appendix, which contained an account of all the different brigade depôts at home and abroad; but he found, on consulting it, that the strength of the Militia in those depôts was only 64 men, and it was obvious that the withdrawal of 64 men from their regiments to brigade depôts would not account for the deficiency in the number of the Force for this year and last year, to which he had called the attention of the Committee.

said, he was unable, at the present moment, to enter into any further details in explanation of the discrepancy to which the hon. Gentleman alluded, beyond the information which he had already given to the Committee.

said, it was somewhat remarkable that while the number of the rank and file of the Militia had been reduced by 3,000 men last year, there was an increase from £181,000 to £207,000 this year in the amount asked for for bounties and new enrolments. Another very curious point connected with the matter was, that according to the statement set forth in page 48, which gave the details of the charges for clothing, the sum required for the purpose this year was put down as only £117,955, as against £212,555 last year; so that, with a Force smaller by 3,000, there was an increase for bounties and enrolment of £26,000, while the charge for clothing was less. He was afraid the Estimates had been very carelessly drawn. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman was not, of course, responsible for them, inasmuch as they had been framed long before he entered upon the duties of his present Office. On looking over them, however, he discovered traces of carelessness in almost every page, due, perhaps, to the system which prevailed at the War Office, which, no doubt, required re-organization. It was quite clear, at all events, that if the Estimates had been framed with that attention which ought to have been bestowed upon them, he would not have been able to point out such extraordinary anomalies as those to which he had just called attention.

explained, that the payments in the shape of bounties had been increased, and that, as clothing was not served out every year to the men, there was a variation in the quantity supplied, which accounted for the charge under that head being less one year than another.

called attention to the fact that several officers of the Regular Army were serving as adjutants to the Yeomanry at home, while their brother officers were employed with their regiments abroad, running all the risks which resulted from bad climates and other causes. Those adjutants, too, derived all the advantages in the way of promotion which they would be entitled to if they had gone on foreign service, and in that way he thought a great injustice was done to those who had to bear the brunt of the Service.

said, his noble Friend who had preceded him in the Office which he had the honour to hold considered that it would be very advantageous to apply to the Yeomanry the rule which had already been applied by Lord Cardwell to the Infantry—namely, to appoint as adjutants to the Force officers on full pay in the Regular Army, who would be entitled to hold those appointments only for five years. That was regarded as a fair line so far as the rest of the Service was concerned, and as not being so long as to render it probable that an officer would become rusty for the performance of his regular duties.

said, he thought the answer of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was so unsatisfactory, that he should feel it his duty to take a division on the Vote. He, therefore, begged to move that it be reduced by the sum of £5,960, the pay of Yeomanry adjutants. He strongly objected to having an officer getting from £200 to £350 in one of those appointments, who had, perhaps, never served one day abroad. There was a rule, he might add, that the adjutantcy of a Yeomanry regiment should not be given to an officer with less than two years' service; but that rule had been very recently set aside in the case of the Royal Dragoons and the Carbineers.

was also of opinion that the answer of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War was most unsatisfactory. The Vote appeared to him to be one which was liable to be applied in a direction to which he strongly objected—namely, that of undue favouritism. The practical result would be that the appointment in question would be conferred upon officers who happened to have political or other influence at their command, and who desired to be able to put in their time in England instead of taking foreign service in the same rotation as their brother officers. Besides, young officers would be far more likely to acquire a knowledge of their profession if they were to go with their regiments when sent abroad, than if they were to stay at home in positions, which, after all, were nothing more than semi-sinecures. For those reasons, he hoped his hon. and gallant Friend would press his Motion for the reduction of the Vote to a division.

said, when he gave Notice of his Motion for the reduction of the Vote, it was his intention that it should be reduced by the sum of £16,663, the amount of increase in the present Estimate over the sum provided for last year; but he found that by so doing he should still be under the responsibility of sanctioning the payment for English and Scotch Volunteer Corps, while his countrymen in Ireland were debarred from the right of enrolling themselves as Volunteers. Of the sum of £485,300 required for the English and Scotch Volunteer Corps, it appeared that as nearly as possible the proportion of one-sixth part, or about £80,000, would have to be paid by Ireland. In view, therefore, of this contribution to Imperial taxation for the purpose of the Volunteer Service, in which the people of Ireland were not allowed to participate, and in order to secure to Ireland an immunity from this payment in the future, he was now compelled to move the reduction of the Vote by about six times the amount he originally intended—namely, £80,000—which would still leave Ireland under a very unfair amount of taxation. It appeared that the Vote asked for was made up as follows:—Pay to adjutants of Volunteer Corps, £61,000; sergeant instructors, £63,000; Capitation grants, £335,438; miscellaneous charges, £25,900; in all, £485,338. He did not object to the establishment of Volunteer Corps—on the contrary, he was strongly in favour of the claim of England and Scotland to possess them; and he held that it was the right of every free citizen of a free country to be trained to arms, a right that had been exercised and encouraged in England from time immemorial. He was also bound to admit, that since their establishment, not with standing the fact that every year a number of trained officers had found it absolutely necessary to throw up their commissions, the Volunteer Forces had continued to increase both in England and Scotland. The sum demanded annually for the Volunteers was constantly increasing. The Captitation Grant did away with the expense to the Volunteer individually, inasmuch as the Government paid his corps a sum which enabled the administrative of that corps to give him his training and outfit practically free of charge, provided he was at all efficient. But why were the Irish people debarred from sharing the advantages of a military training, while they were called upon to contribute a large sum annually for Volunteer purposes in this country? He believed that no charge of inefficiency had ever been made against those of his countrymen who had enrolled themselves as Volunteers in England and Scotland; on the contrary, it was admitted by competent authorities that two of the most efficient corps in this country were the Liverpool Irish Brigade and the London Irish Volunteer Corps; and he ventured to say that, as far as marching was concerned, those Irish Volunteer Brigades were not to be surpassed by any regiment in Her Majesty's Service, while he was sure their officers would resent any charge made against their personal bravery or devotion. He found no difference whatever existed in these respects as between his countrymen who were serving in England and Scotland, and those who remained in Ireland. On what grounds, then, should the Irish, living in Ireland, be deprived of the privilege of raising Volunteer Corps—a privilege which was of more importance to them than to the English or Scotch, because they were a more martial race? The latter, although a great commercial people, did not take to the pursuit of arms with the readiness of the Irish; and he would say, for the information of any officer, be he Irish, Scotch, or English, that the Irish Volunteer would learn his drill in a far shorter time than the English Volunteer. His sense of duty and discipline was higher than that of the ordinary English soldier taken from any county in this country. When it was found that the people of Ireland had the desire to be trained to arms, when it was seen that this natural desire was discouraged in every possible way, he was forced to the conclusion that a corresponding feeling of disgust at being thus debarred would arise in the minds of the Irish people; and he questioned whether it was to the interest of the State that such a feeling should be excited. The Irish Militia regiments had always shown themselves to be perfectly efficient and loyal, and it was to be remembered that they were, to a certain extent, recruited from a stratum of the people socially lower than the ordinary Volunteers, and that the Volunteers who were likely to come forward and offer their services in Ireland would be of the same standard as the Irish Constabulary Force, whose loyalty had been over and over again the subject of compliment—one hon. and gallant Gentleman having said that this Force, taken from the ranks of the people, was at that present moment, man for man, almost the finest in Europe. It was found from year to year that by their training and discipline they were becoming practically a military Force; and, at the present time, they were actually so in Ireland. The military taste of the Irish people was manifested by that body of horse police, and he would add that the police of this country would require a good deal of training before it attained to the efficiency of the Irish Constabulary. Why, then, should they not allow a Volunteer Force to be created in Ireland? He had devoted attention last year to the subject of the establishment of Volunteer Corps in Ireland, and by the permission of the House he had introduced a Bill for that purpose, modelled upon the Volunteer Bill passed in 1859–60, by which every restriction contained in the latter was to apply to the Irish Volunteers; but, as in the case of all Irish measures, he had found it impossible to bring this Bill to the stage of a second reading, and therefore allowed it to drop, with the intention of again bringing forward the subject in the form of a Resolution to the effect "that it was desirable to establish Volunteer Corps in Ireland." That, however, might not have been listened to, and it now seemed to him that the best way was to direct attention to the question in that Vote, because it must in that way receive the attention of the House, and there was no chance of its being shelved. This question of establishing Volunteer Corps in Ireland was one of very great importance. There had been a time when the Empire had on hand a great European war, such as was perhaps now before it, when the requirements of England were so pressing that she was compelled to withdraw all the troops from Ireland. At this time the Privy Council and the Parliament permitted the Irish to enrol Volunteers. The result was, although no Catholics could be officers in the Force, that in a single year, and at a time when the population of Ireland amounted to but 4,000,000, 100,000 men sprang to arms; and, looking at that percentage, he considered that it afforded fair evidence of the desire of the Irish people to come forward in defence of their country. The great reliance of the Irish Parliament was on that Volunteer Force, which would have continued to exist had not the English Minister, in his designs on the Parliament of Ireland, and with the intention of destroying the Irish Constitution, sapped its foundations, putting every obstacle in the way of its working, until the year 1796, when the Yeomanry Force was established instead, and the Ministerial plan was carried out. A state of mistrust then ensued; there were no Volunteer Corps in the country, and the Parliament by bribery and corruption sanctioned the measure by which Ireland lost her Constitution. At that moment the Irish regiments were true to their oaths and colours, and from that period to the present no Irish soldier in Her Majesty's Service had ever flinched in the time of danger. He would not say that had always been the case with English soldiers. Two or three years ago the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrew shire (Colonel Mure) publicly stated in that House that on the morning of the assault on the Redan, there were many recruits who flung themselves down in the trenches, and had to be twitted into something like manhood by Irish sergeants. It was, no doubt, a disagreeable thing to hear; but he must say that no Irish soldiers had ever to be so treated. He would now look at this question as affecting the defence of the Empire. For a considerable time past every English patriot had been thinking how best to make England present a very bold front before Europe, going even to the extent of bringing Indian troops to Malta; but all this time a very important portion of the Empire was left practically defenceless. That fact alone clearly showed where the danger to the Empire lay, and where was the vulnerable point of her armour. A Power hostile to this Kingdom would find in Ireland a people deprived of arms, denied their use in every possible way, and treated in a manner that would almost throw them into the arms of an enemy. He questioned whether this was a state of things to be passed over lightly. It had been often said that one reason why Volunteer Corps could not be allowed in Ireland as in England and Scotland, was the possibility of religious differences; but he had not found that the embodiment of the old Irish Volunteers led to any differences of this kind, nor did he doubt that precautions could easily be taken to prevent their occurrence in the future. It was true there were some districts in Ireland that had been disgraced by the manner in which the population observed certain anniversaries; but that was no reason why all Ireland should be denied the privilege of forming Volunteer Corps; but he thought it would be a good arrangement, if the districts in which these disturbances had occurred, were denied this privilege until they could show themselves worthy of it. He would now look at the case of a foreign State. In the year 1849, the same system was practised towards the ancient Kingdom of Hungary as was applied to Ireland in 1796–1797. The Hungarians took up arms, and the result of the struggle was that, when peace was established, the Hungarian corps were disbanded. Everybody who studied the question would know that those regiments were, by the very nature of things, more or less dissatisfied with the denial of their ancient right to serve with the National Forces, and the Austrian Government afterwards saw the necessity of restoring more or less nationality to Hungary. With what effect? At this moment, Hungary, which a few years ago was treated so contemptuously by the Austrian Government, was the bulwark of the Empire, and the power of all others looked to as a defence against Russia; and he ventured to think that if His Majesty's Forces were actually called into the field, it would not be thought that the security of the Army would be lessened by its having Hungarian regiments on its side. Again, in the case of Norway and Sweden—the Norwegian law allowed the levy of a National Militia in the country, and, by the very fact of their being trusted, the Norwegians have always stood by Sweden honestly and faithfully. In the event of these two countries being menaced by any foreign Power, Norway could not be looked upon as the weak point of the Swedish-Norwegian Monarchy, neither could Hungary be so regarded with reference to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Ireland, however, must be considered as the weak point of the three Kingdoms, generally known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Every enemy of England must be aware that the mistrust engendered by the denial to Irishmen of the rights enjoyed by the English and Scotch people must recoil upon this country. He believed a movement had been set on foot quite recently, with the object of endeavouring to raise a Volunteer Force in Ireland on a footing different to that which existed in England, and he understood this movement to be so far advanced that the promoters were in a position to communicate with the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who had consented to receive next day a, deputation on the subject. He thought it right to state that in his opinion the basis of this movement was a false one, because the gentlemen who were promoting it asked for the enrolment of Volunteers on a much narrower basis than that which existed in England. The promoters were quite content that no man should be allowed to join the Volunteer Service throughout Ireland without the strictest investigation being made into his character, and at the same time they were willing that obstacles of every kind should be put in the way of the Volunteer. The rule was different in England, where anyone who was ready to do his duty simply came forward, and after satisfying the officers that he was a fit and proper man, was admitted without any regard being paid to his religious opinions. In England it was in the interest of the officers to keep a man who was worthy of the Corps; but in Ireland the system, put forward by the gentlemen to whom he had referred, would be but a system of national espionage, and would lead to evils greater than it was intended to remedy; and would, moreover, practically result in arming the Orangemen of the North to the exclusion of the rest of the population. In his opinion, a system which provided for the arming of a section only of the Irish people would be much worse than the present system, of disarming the whole population. It was his duty to state that he felt as strongly upon this question of voting money on the part of his countrymen towards the maintenance of English and Scotch Volunteer Corps as if it were a question of education. He objected to the voting of any money for the English Volunteer Service until he heard from the Secretary of State for War, who was best entitled to speak on the subject, a full and satisfactory explanation of the reason why the system was not extended to Ireland. The only satisfactory solution of the question would be to establish in Ireland Volunteer Corps on exactly the same basis as those in England, and with no other restrictions or conditions in reference to their members. He would now move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £485,280.

Do I understand the hon. Member to move the reduction of the Vote by £485,280?

said, that was his proposition. The reason he did not move to reduce the Vote by £80,000, the amount Ireland contributed, was that that reduction would be distributed over England and Scotland as well as Ireland, and therefore the latter country would still contribute towards the Volunteer charges of England and Scotland.

The Vote is for £485,300, and I understand the hon. Member proposes to reduce it by £485,280, which will leave the Vote at £20.

said, that was his proposal.

The practice of the Committee in such cases is to move to reject the whole Vote, there being no object or reason for leaving £20 to be voted.

said, he would have moved the rejection of the Vote; but he understood an hon. Member wished to propose its reduction by the amount in excess of last year's charge. He asked the opinion of the Chairman whether his moving the rejection of the whole Vote would prevent any other hon. Member moving its reduction?

Any hon. Member would be in Order in proposing the reduction of the Vote, and the proposition for reduction would be taken first.

I move to reduce the Vote by £485,280.

The course which the hon. Member proposes to take is contrary to the practice of the Committee. The reduction he mentions is tantamount to the rejection of the whole Vote. The order of Business is either to put the rejection of the whole Vote, if it is moved, or such reduction as can reasonably be distinguished from the whole Vote.

said, in that case he would move the rejection of the Vote.

asked, whether it was not competent for an hon. Member to move the reduction of a Vote by any sum he thought right?

The practice which has prevailed has been to move to reduce a Vote by a reasonable amount. But it is impossible to draw a distinction between such an Amendment as the hon. Member proposes to submit and the rejection of the whole Vote; and it is, therefore, my duty to put the Question on the whole Vote.

asked the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, whether it was his intention to make public the Report of the Departmental Committee now sitting at the War Office, considering the whole question of the Volunteer Force? All commanding officers of Volunteer regiments had had a series of questions submitted to them by that Committee, and replies had been forwarded. Of course, those answers would be laid before the Departmental Committee, and he should be glad to know if the Government would make their Report public? There was one decrease in the Volunteer Estimates which could hardly be regarded as satisfactory—he meant the reduction in the allowance for Volunteer officers attending Schools of Instruction. Last year, £1,300 was granted for the purpose; this year, only £1,000 was asked for. He hoped this did not indicate a falling-off of the desire on the part of Volunteer officers to attend such schools, the instruction at which was of so much value, and attendance at which should be encouraged as much as possible. There was a question raised by the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Worcestershire (Mr. Knight) at the early part of the Session, which he regarded as being of considerable importance—he referred to the retiring allowances to adjutants appointed previous to the present arrangements, whereby captains of the Line were appointed for five years as adjutants of Volunteer regiments. Lord Cranbrook, when questioned on the subject, said he could not entertain the idea of reviewing the decision arrived at, which was that adjutants appointed previous to the present arrangement should not have more than £ 100 a-year retiring pension, and the honorary rank of major. The Secretary of State for War must be aware that these old officers, who had served their country for lengthened periods, now had £275 a-year, with allowances for lodgings and forage, and if they were not to receive retiring allowances which they considered adequate to the services they had performed, it would be impossible to get rid of them, although they might, by old age, become somewhat incapable. Speaking from personal intercourse with Volunteer adjutants, he could say they considered they were suffering under a very serious grievance, and he considered if they were to be got rid of, the process should be carried out with something like liberality. The argument of Lord Cranbrook, that nothing more could be given these officers, as they took the positions on the terms now set forth, would not hold good; because, as the Secretary of State for War well knew, the officers who entered the Army under the Purchase-system had no claim whatever to compensation on the abolition of Purchase, and yet they were paid the over-regulation money. Hence, he hoped the old adjutants would be treated properly by the Government.

did not find fault with the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. O'Clery) for having brought forward the question of Volunteer Corps for Ireland. But had the hon. Gentleman confined himself to that matter, he would have done much more good for the cause he advocated. Instead of that, however, he had gone out of his way to accuse English recruits of cowardice, and had said that they had behaved badly in the face of the enemy at the Redan.

desired to explain. The hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure) had stated that at the Redan the English recruits had to be kept at their posts by Irishmen.

was sure no one would be more surprised than his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure) to hear the statement of the hon. Member for Wexford. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had never said the soldiers he was alluding to were Englishmen, Scotchmen, or Irishmen. He might have said they were recruits. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) was quite sure his hon. and gallant Friend had never made such a statement. The hon. Member for Wexford had spoken of a distinction drawn between Irishmen, Scotchmen, and Englishmen. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) was an old soldier, and he was proud to say that in the Army they never made such a distinction, and they were glad to have men from either country in the ranks. It was the last thing in the world that officers would do to draw an invidious comparison between the men from either England, Scotland, or Ireland. Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen, had in the past, and, he was sure, would in the future, serve their country to the best of their ability; and he considered it a most mischievous thing for any hon. Member, be he Irishman, Scotchman, or Englishman, to get up in that House and try to detract from the merits of those who had fought and bled for their country wherever they had been called on to do so. Had the hon. Member for Wexford merely said there was a desire to form a Volunteer Corps in Ireland, and had he asked the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to calmly consider the question, he might have done some service to his country. But the Committee could not forget what was said by hon. Gentlemen who sat on the Benches nearest the hon. Member for Wexford, as to what would happen if Irishmen were called upon to fight. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) was surprised that any man, calling himself what he might, a Nationalist or Home Ruler, should say, that if called on to fight in the interests of the British nation, Irishmen would refuse to defend their Queen and country. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) never believed such a statement; but, still, he could not conceal from himself the fact that the hon. Member for Wexford, when he claimed the right for all Irishmen to carry arms, forgot the statement of those around him, that they were not to be trusted with arms in the service of their country. He only wished the hon. Member for Wexford had shown that Irishmen, if trusted with arms, would use them as loyally, gallantly, and honestly, as any other men in the United Kingdom. The hon. Member for Wexford had said that, as far as the Volunteer Forces of England and Scotland was concerned, he did not for a moment wish to interfere with the Vote, and yet he moved its absolute rejection. If that was Irish logic, it certainly was not English. Instead of acting in that way, the hon. Member should produce such reasons and such arguments to the House as would induce the Government to establish Volunteer Corps in Ireland, and he would then find the House of Commons as ready to grant money to Ireland as to England or Scotland. The hon. and gallant Member for Bath (Mr. Hayter) had stated there was a Committee now sitting to inquire into the constitution of the Volunteer Force generally. He hoped the result of the deliberations would be to enable his right hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary of State for War to produce a scheme which would have for its object the placing of the Volunteer Corps on an even better footing than at present. Everyone who had watched the Volunteer movement from the commencement must see that that part of the defensive Force of the country was in a very different position now compared with the time it was inaugurated. A great deal had been learned by the Volunteers; their discipline had very much improved; and many battalions had adopted the important point of going into camp annually. This going into camp cost a great deal of money; and, as an illustration, he would take the case of his own battalion. They went into camp every year in Arundel Park, and he was bound to say that one of his captains, the premier Duke stayed in the camp from its formation to the close of the training, and did all in his power to promote the interest of the battalion. But it cost the battalion, over and above what they were allowed by the War Office, something like £560 in hard cash during the time his 600 or 700 men were under canvas. This sum was made up by the extra things they had to provide—such as water, wash-houses, lattrines, extra tents, and mess tents. This large sum of money was a heavy charge on the officers who went into camp. Seeing that so many Volunteers were willing to go into camp for eight days with a view to learning that which would be of advantage to them if ever called upon to defend their country, he contended that every encouragement ought to be given them, and such sum of money voted as would do away with the heavy tax now regularly placed upon those who spent eight days under canvas. No one could deny that if men could be got into camp, and taught all that men in the Regular Army had to do under such conditions, they would learn more in eight days than they would by four times the number of drills carried on at different parts of the year. He especially hoped the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would consider the question of administrative battalions. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) was quite satisfied that administrative battalions, as such, ought to be abolished, and all battalions consolidated. Then a commanding officer would have more power, greater uniformity would be carried out, and discipline better enforced. It was apparent that a battalion would be far better if commanded absolutely by one man than when made up of corps with several commanding officers. Another question, to which he wished to direct attention required careful consideration, and that was whether Volunteers ought or ought not to be enrolled for a longer period than at present. All sorts of terms had been suggested, and three years, he was told, had been specially considered. But whatever term might be agreed upon, he believed it would be a great advantage to the Volunteer Corps if men were enrolled for a longer time than now. Although he was aware his noble Friend the Member for Hadding-tonshire (Lord Elcho) did not quite agree with him on that point, still he thought it was one which should be fairly considered. As a matter of course, if a term of service was agreed upon, men leaving one locality would be entitled to transfer their services to the regiment in the place they had removed to. He hoped this subject would be brought under the attention of the Departmental Committee which was now sitting. A question, of small importance it might be, also deserved consideration—he referred to the clothing of Volunteers. Without saying whether it ought to be changed or not, one thing was quite clear—that the Volunteers ought to have the same kind of uniform and accoutrements, and as to the belts which should be supplied them, he considered those made of brown leather would be the best, they being very durable, besides which they would distinguish Volunteers from other soldiers. He was sure he need not press on the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who so worthily filled the Office of Secretary of State for War the importance of seeing all the points to which he had referred fairly and deliberately looked into, and every information and advice given to the Departmental Committee, so that they might consider what was best to be done in the interests of a Force which the country thoroughly appreciated. He also hoped his right hon. and gallant Friend would consider the cases of the Volunteer adjutants. The country would be put to very little expense if they were offered the same terms as were proposed to the Militia adjutants in 1875. Those who would not accept such an arrangement must, of course, go on as at present; but there were some who would embrace the offer, and thus the feeling that they had been hardly dealt with would be dissipated, and the country would have a body of contented servants who really had done a great deal for the Volunteer Force.

desired to say a few words in reply to the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just sat down (Sir Walter B. Barttelot). The hon. Member had said that until he (Mr. O'Clery) could show that Irishmen, if intrusted with arms, would do their duty faithfully and manfully, his desire to establish a Volunteer Corps for Ireland could not be agreed to. He had met that argument by showing that wherever Irishmen were intrusted with arms, not only in Line regiments, but in the Militia, whose ranks were recruited from a lower strata than Volunteers would come from, they had done their duty. In order to give force to his argument, he mentioned the case of the Redan, and although he regretted very much to allude to acts of cowardice, he referred to the remarks made by the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure), when drawing attention to the class of recruits being taken into the Army. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had regretted that the Irish peasants and Scottish Highlanders were not now joining the Army. The hon. and gallant Member had also said, referring to the disaster at the Redan, that the men who acted the cowards' part were taken from the slums of large towns in England, and men's work could net be expected of them. Irishmen living in large towns in England had quite a different physique, and, that being so, he thought he had fairly made out his argument in favour of Irishmen being allowed to carry arms and form a Volunteer Corps.

asked, if it were the intention of the War Office to arm the Volunteers with Martini-Henry rifles?

said, he was sure the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. O'Clery) had mistaken the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (ColonelMure) in reference to the disaster at the Redan, and he hoped no military question would be brought forward in such a way again. He trusted the Secretary of State for War would endeavour to have the Volunteers armed with the Martini-Henry rifle. The late war had shown how effective a weapon it was, and how inferior any other arms were. The Russians had found this disadvantage around Plevna, and he was sure the Secretary of State for War would not wish English troops to be similarly situated. The hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) had said a great deal about the discipline of Volunteers being very much improved of late. He (Lord Elcho) had before now doubted whether the adverse criticisms on Volunteer discipline were deserved. It had suited a certain portion of the Press of this country to adversely criticize the Volunteer discipline in former times and to allege that the Corps was unnecessary. Now it suited these newspapers to say the Volunteers were necessary. He had been connected with the Volunteer movement since 1859, and he did not believe the men were ever undisciplined. At any rate, he was certain of this, the commanding officers had the power to maintain discipline, and if that did not prevail it was the fault of the commanding officers and them only. The hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex hoped the question of terms of service would come before the Departmental Committee. He (Lord Elcho) had a strong feeling on the whole question, and, seeing that the Volunteer Corps had grown so steadily in numbers and efficiency, he thought they had better observe the old principle of letting well alone. The same idea was contained in the epitaph—"I was well, I would be better—here I lie," while Lord Melbourne put it still more tersely, when he said—"Damn it, why can't you leave it alone." He hoped these sayings would be in the minds of the Committee in dealing with this matter, and that they would remember that the Volunteer Force was not intended to be a Force ready at once to take the field, but was intended to make this nation an armed nation. The Volunteer Force did not pretend to be in a state of complete efficiency as regarded training; but it rested on the assumption that, existing as it did in large numbers, it would be ready to meet the enemy if it had that sufficient warning which they all anticipated would precede an invasion—a warning which would enable it to be embodied, and to receive that additional training which would be necessary to enable it effectively to meet the enemy. He warned the Committee against endeavouring to draw too closely the bonds by which this Force was held together. Its term of service was 14 days. The men came up of their own free will; they received no pay; they did their duty efficiently and well according to the requirements of the Service; and they were free to go on giving 14 days' notice. The success of the Service depended on that freedom of service, and no greater mistake could be made by those in authority than attempting to make this service more stringent, and to get a greater hold over the Volunteer Force. If that were done, he believed they would run the danger of losing the Force altogether. That danger had taken another form of late. The advice of Talleyrand to his young diplomatists would apply equally well to young Volunteer officers. A great many men had joined lately who had come from the Army, and seeing the defects of the Force, and noticing that it was not quite under command, they were very full of zeal to make it as complete as possible, and bring it up to the level of their own ideas. To these gentlemen, to the Committee, and to the Government, he would say, with Talleyrand—"Surtout, point de zèle." Too much zeal would lose them the Force altogether, and in no form was it more to be avoided than in the question of what was called volunteering for active service. He knew that the late Secretary of State for War did not look upon the proposal with favour, from communications he had had with him, though he did not think it advisable to say that the services of these Volunteers would not be accepted, because it would damp the zeal of the men in the Force. Even supposing they had a certain number of men, neither in the Army nor in the Militia, their number must be necessarily comparatively few, and as an addition to the Army they must be comparatively worthless and trifling; but, on the other hand, there would be a danger that the Force, instead of being as now, numbered by hundreds of thousands—for upwards of 600,000 had passed through their ranks, besides the 182,000 now serving—would be numbered by tens of thousands on that account. At present, men entered who could not afford to enter the Regular Army, who did not expect to go on foreign service, but who were willing to give their time and service for the defence of their hearths and homes. But, if it were to be supposed that no man was to be considered a zealous Volunteer, and a loyal subject of the Crown who did not enter for foreign service, if there were to be two classes—the men who go abroad and the men who stayed at home—then the latter class would certainly become a reproach; they would be chaffed and sneered at by the others, and this would eventually break up the Corps. He could not conceive a greater error than to encourage this movement. He did not wish to enter into the question of Committees at the War Office; but knowing that this Committee was now sitting, having had to answer a great many questions about it, and as he would probably have to appear before it, he had ventured to speak freely on this subject, in the interest of that Force whose value in these times of danger the public were beginning to appreciate. What would have been the condition of the country now, with the Militia in the state of which they had heard to-night, if there had been no Volunteer Service. They would certainly have had to ballot for men. He trusted that the House and the country, appreciating the value of this Force, would be content to leave it alone, only giving those things necessary, besides an equipment, for allowing it to go into camp, which most of the regiments were unable to get out of their capitation.

also wished to press the Secretary of State for War to make some allowance for small regimental camps of instruction. He had heard complaints in his constituency of the expenses the men—mostly poor men—were put to in these camps, and he knew it was a very great pressure upon both officers and men. In some corps they actually charged gate-money for admission into the camp, in order to eke out the very small allowance they received. The admittance of a crowd of spectators must necessarily interfere with the drill and efficiency of the men, and he thought it should be discouraged. It was not every corps which was so lucky as to be commanded by the hon. and gallant Baronet opposite (Sir Walter B. Barttelot), who had a Duke for one of his captains, and Arundel Park in which to camp out. Some of the corps, on the contrary, had to pay for the hire of the land on which they camped. Englishmen had a national privilege of grumbling; but none were less ready to grumble than Volunteers, and they were always ready to give up their time, which was often their money. If the Secretary of State for War could do anything for them, he would earn the gratitude of a body of men whose gratitude was certainly worth having. At the present moment, especially, the Government ought to feel kindly towards the Volunteers, for if they had not been in existence they certainly could not have carried out their policy on the Eastern Question.

did not wish the debate to close without enforcing, as strongly as he could, the remarks of his noble Friend the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho). He did not know what the Committee, of which so much had been said, would do; but he feared that its tendency was to increase the stringency of the discipline of the Volunteers, and he felt that there was very great danger in that. If the Force were worth having at all, it should be worked as it was at present. He had taken an active part in the Volunteer movement since 1859, as the commander of a corps, and he had always succeeded in maintaining and enforcing the rules with the present system. In his opinion, the power they at present possessed was quite enough, and it would be very unwise and dangerous to strain the conditions under which Volunteers enlisted, and to make the discipline more stringent. Further, he thought it would create an unwillingness to serve on the part of men who had already passed through the ranks. He hoped what had been said would have some weight with the Secretary of State for War, more especially as he had heard it said that the Committee was likely to report adversely to his view.

said, the debate had been turned aside a little from the point raised by the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. O'Clery), and Irish Members could not join in a discussion of the details of the Volunteer Force, because they were not allowed to have Volunteers in Ireland. He was glad his hon. Friend the Member for Wexford had brought this subject forward, and he considered it was a reproach to Irish Members that the subject had not been discussed before. They tried to do so, however, last year, when they could not get a day; and, even now, he was sorry it was not brought forward as a Bill or a Resolution, instead of in the form of a protest against Englishmen having Volunteers. However, this was the only course left open to them, although he fully recognized the great value of the English and Scotch Volunteers, and believed they got full return for the money they spent on them. But Ireland did not get full value for her share of the money; and, therefore, he could not support this Vote, which was in reality a reproach to Ireland. The hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) said that Ireland must show that she was good and faithful before she could be trusted with arms. How splendidly that argument would have come from a Turkish Pasha to some Christians, who asked for arms to defend themselves. But the Irish were worse off than the Christians of Turkey, for they were not allowed, even though they were Protestants, to enter the Army until the Irishmen who fought for France altered the views of Englishmen. Was it in accordance with Irish self-respect to insist on this difference? Of course, they would be out-voted, and they would get a very bad vote, because many Irish Members had not yet returned; but they would get a better vote next year if the Ministry did not give way. Why should not this boon be granted to them? The Government would get 30,000 or 40,000 more Volunteers; and it was impossible to say there could be any danger, unless they believed the statement which his hon. Friend had quoted from the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure), and which he did not accept, that the Irish troops were so very much better than the English. He believed the Volunteer movement was an exceedingly useful one; but he was compelled, entirely against his professional prejudices, to go into the Lobby for this reduction, because he believed the refusal of Volunteer Corps to Ireland was a very great wrong.

said, he understood the hon. Member to move the reduction of the Vote as a protest, and not as a serious objection to the Volunteer Force; and, therefore, he did not think it necessary to follow him through all his speech, though he might point out that the Hungarian Honveds were Militia rather than Volunteers. Nor would he follow him in his remarks about Irish gallantry and the smartness of Irish regiments, because all that he took to be admitted on both sides of the House. On the question of Volunteers for Ireland, he hoped he might be excused if he spoke with considerable reserve. He had not long had the War Office under his control, and he therefore spoke on this matter rather from a military than from a general point of view. He was bound in all candour to say, from a military point of view, and leaving all other considerations aside, that he had never been able entirely to see a reason why some step should not be taken in the direction which the hon. Gentleman indicated. He was saying that as his personal opinion, based on military grounds alone; but the question must be dealt with not as a matter of sentiment, but as a matter of business, and points must be considered, which he had then neither the time nor the ability to discuss. The events of the last few months had left very little time for matters other than those of immediate importance to the State, and he had not had time for consultation with his Colleagues upon the matter, and therefore he did not feel justified in expressing anything more than his individual view. It must be considered, too, that in the formation of any new Force, there were many local considerations to be dealt with, which would render the establishment of any such Force liable to be conducted under very different arrangements from that under which the Volunteers at present were. The locality of the mode of concentration had to be regarded from a military point of view. If the Corps were to be re-formed in England a great many points would have to be re-considered, and if Corps were formed in Ireland, he did not say that matters could be arranged precisely upon the same lines as in this country. In all these matters, too, he thought Party feeling and Party distinctions should be laid aside, and the Volunteer should only remember that he was the servant of the Crown and the country. As to what had been said in the discussion, it was far from the fact that Volunteers were taken into these Corps without inquiry. In all regiments—certainly all good ones—a very careful inquiry was made into the character of every man, and in some Corps the candidate had even to be proposed and seconded as in a club. Therefore, the observation of his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) would apply to Irish Volunteers in the same way that it did to English and Scotch. Of course, he could not accept the Amendment; and, after this expression of his personal views, he might perhaps be permitted to pass to other questions. He saw no reason why the Report of the Committee now sitting should not be made public. If these things were to stand at all, they must stand ventilation, and, so far as he was concerned, he had no desire whatever to withhold any information. With regard to the question of the adjutants, that was now under consideration before that very Committee, and he did not therefore wish to express any opinion on it, further than that he was bound, in honour and allegiance to his Predecessor and late Superior, to say that in the refusal which he had given year after year upon the question he had been fully borne out by the facts. With regard to the question raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Bath (Mr. Hayter) as to the adjutants, he believed that some representations had been made to the War Office; and he had authority for saying that if the hon. and gallant Member wished to bring the matter before the Committee, he would have ample opportunity for doing so, and that the Committee would be very much obliged for any information he could give them. He was sorry to be obliged to give an indefinite answer upon the point; but, pendente lite, he did not like to express even an individual opinion. As regarded camp allowances, that had become one of the most prominent questions connected with volunteering; but he had to ask Volunteer officers and others who heard him to bear in mind that there was a very wide difference between a necessary expenditure, and the actual amount of which Volunteer officers and others camping out were out of pocket. He only mentioned that in order that there should be no possible room for misapprehension. Well, then, with respect to the clothing and discipline, he was not at the moment in a position to know what recommendations the Committee were likely to make. All he could say was that his hon. Friend had an inkling of what was going on in the Committee, and knew what their Report was likely to be—in fact, a great deal more than he (Colonel Stanley) himself, or even any Member of the Commitee.

said, that what he wanted to know was not the tendency of the Report, but of the Inquiry.

said, that what he had seen had led him to the conclusion that the inquiry was of as general a character as possible, though undoubtedly there might be certain questions which would be matters of argument, and if stress had been laid upon certain of the questions which were put, those questions had really been asked with the view of eliciting the widest possible range of information, and encouraging those officers to whom they had been addressed to answer them as fully as possible, and to give all the information which they possessed. With regard to the question as to the Martini-Henry rifle, he was sorry he could not give his right hon. Friend (Mr. Dodson), who had put the question, an answer which would be satisfactory to him. At the present time they did not deem it to be advisable to place in the hands of the Auxiliary Forces the arms which they had in store until the store, which was now being largely drawn upon, was very considerably developed. He did not, therefore, see his way to issuing those arms to Volunteers. At the same time, he need hardly say that they had the most earnest desire as soon as a legitimate opportunity might occur, to place that which they believed to be the best possible arm in the hands of the Auxiliary Forces as well as those of the Regulars. As regarded the accustoming of the Auxiliary Forces to the use of that arm, he believed it was the intention of his noble Friend to issue such a number of them—about 2,000–—as would suffice for a very efficient training of Volunteers at Wimbledon. He thought that he had now answered all the questions which had been put to him.

did not wish to suggest to his hon. Friend the Member for Wexford (Mr. O'Clery) any course which he should take on the occasion; because, whether he took a division on the Vote or not, there had been so much attention given to it, that he thought that they, as Irish Members, ought to be satisfied with whatever course the hon. Member took. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had expressed his opinion on Irish Volunteers as an individual. He did not understand him to speak as a Minister, when expressing his opinion in favour of some extension of the principle of volunteering to Ireland; and so far, of course, his utterances had not had that authority which they could have wished them to have under the circumstances. But neither did those utterances come up to what they had a right to expect. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had said that Volunteers must exist under different conditions from those in England. He had said that a certificate of character would be necessary, and had also pointed out that a certificate of character was necessary for admission into English Volunteer regiments. But he very much feared that if the conditions—he would not say the conditions which he had named—but he very much feared that in any scheme for Volunteers in Ireland, conditions would be attached which would result in allowing only a section, and a very small section—in fact, the minority of the people—to join the Volunteer regiments. If the system of volunteering were to be used for the purpose of continuing partizanship and keeping up Party spirit; if it were to be confined to a certain section of the people of Ireland; and if certificates were not to be given to all Irishmen of good character, then, he said, that they, as Irish Members, ought not to accept such an offer; and therefore it was that he looted with considerable doubt at the utterances of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War. But he had been sorry to see the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex reply with so much heat to the very temperate speech of the hon. Member for Wexford. His hon. Friend had not intended to impute any want of courage to the English soldiers when he said that the English recruits had behaved badly during the Crimean War. It was a common saying amongst soldiers that when an English Army went into action the Irish regiments went first to break the line, the Scotch regiments came next to take the prisoners, and that the English regiments came last to secure the booty—a very good operation, which had resulted in the English gaining so much more wealth than the Irish or the Scotch. But why should England deny to Ireland that which she herself possessed? She had Volunteers herself, and she refused them to Ireland. If there were to be a war the next day—and he was glad to remind the Committee that the origin of raising Volunteers was the necessity of defending Ireland from the French—while they denied to Ireland the privilege of defending herself, they insisted upon her paying them for the purpose of defending themselves. How long were they going on like that? How long were they going to give it out to foreign nations that they had a disaffected people in their midst? He had merely suggested these considerations to the Secretary of State for War, as he understood that a proposition was going to be made with reference to the formation of Volunteer Corps in Ireland, and he hoped that if it were acceded to those corps might be formed in such a way as to please and satisfy all sections and all classes in Ireland.

said, he had often heard complaints with regard to the numerous speeches they heard, that there had been generally a great want of the Irish wit that was so much talked about, and of which he had seen so much; but with reference to the assertion which had just been made by the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) as to what sort of feeling existed in the Army, he must say that it had astonished him. Both the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for West Sussex and himself had been in the Union Brigade of Cavalry, and he could therefore bear him out when he assured the hon. Member opposite that no such feeling ever existed in the English Army. English, Scotch, and Irish, had always fought together like true Britons whenever there was a chance, and always would. With regard to the Volunteer question, he had always taken an interest in the movement. He had been in Ireland for 12 years, and he would honestly state that there would be a great difficulty in finding in Ireland a class of men similar to that from which they drew their Volunteers in England. He did not believe that that especial class actually existed in Ireland. With regard to character, good character as to loyalty and respect for law and order was essential, not only for men but for officers; and he confessed in the present state of affairs he did not think that Irish Members who took an interest in Ireland would honestly and truly advocate at the present moment the formation of a Volunteer Force in Ireland.

said, that the hon. and gallant Member for Brighton (General Shute) had raised the point that they could not produce in Ireland the same class as that from which the Volunteers were taken in England. Now, he had heard it stated that the English Volunteers were shopmen with soldiers' coats on. But they in Ireland could produce a better class than that—namely, farmers' sons, and in that point he thought they could fairly compete with the English Volunteers as they existed. Now, upon the question of Irish Volunteers several points had been raised, and one was the form in which the Amendment had been put before the Committee. Now, they all knew it was not competent for a private Member to move to increase the Vote. Of course, if it had been so, the proper way would have been to move to increase the number of Volunteers in Ireland to that in England but, as matters stood, the only way was to vote against the sum altogether. Now his hon. Friend had decided upon the system of moving to reject the Vote altogether, and in that he thought he was perfectly right. On the question of Volunteers for England, Scotland, and Ireland, he thought the Irish had suffered great injustice; because, after all, the system of volunteering really meant that gentlemen were only playing at soldiers, because it was never intended that they should fight except in a contingency, which they did not expect to see in their life-time—namely, the invasion of England. Now, if they were only to put on soldiers' clothes and do nothing else, he thought that £485,000 was so much money thrown away. But if it had been understood that a large proportion of these Volunteers would volunteer for active service, he thought there would then be some practical argument in favour of the system of English volunteering, and from that point of view he thought the Irish were very hardly treated. For these reasons, he felt thoroughly justified in moving to reject the whole of the Vote; because, unless these men were intended for soldiers, he did not know what they were intended for.

said, he must admit that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had spoken as a soldier, and not as a Member of the Government; and, therefore, there had practically been no answer to the desirability of forming Volunteer Corps in Ireland. He supposed it was only right to say there that they all felt that England really feared to in-trust Irish people with arms. They had deprived Ireland of its own Parliament; but when it had its own Parliament it was able to maintain 100,000 Volunteers. Now they had endeavoured to govern the country themselves, and the result was that they were not able to intrust the Irish people with arms. He thought that was a very dangerous state of things as regarded foreign countries. It was not nice year after year to have coercion laws passed nominally against crime in Ireland, but really to perpetuate English rule and to keep the people from their natural military tastes. He had brought that Motion on as a protest, and he did not think he should be giving sufficient emphasis to the protest if he did not divide; and he at the same time hoped that he should find an opportunity of bringing the question on in the form of a Motion, when he and his Colleagues would be prepared to bear testimony to the right of the Irish people to carry arms.

said, he wished to direct the attention of the Secretary of State for War to this Vote. It appeared to him that the Estimate of this Vote rather came in the same category as some of those other Votes to which he had directed the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's attention. He found that there was no sort of proportion to be observed during a series of years between the actual expenditure and the Estimate of expenditure, and he could not at all see why that should be so. For instance, he found that in 1875–6, the number of men estimated for the First Class Reserve was 10,000, and the estimated expenditure was £121,000, but only £99,000 was spent. In 1876–7, there was the same number of men estimated, and the total estimated expenditure was £ 122,000. In that year, again, only £94,000 was spent. Then, in the year 1877–8, the number of men estimated was 15,000, and the expenditure estimated and taken was£132,000; but there were no Returns with respect to that sum. This year, the number of men estimated was 19,000, and £185,000 was estimated for the expenses of those men. It appeared to him, in view of the fact that the Army Reserve had been called out now for some time, and that in all probability it would remain out for some time longer, and that, consequently, the charge for the Army Reserve was not now, and would not be, in this Vote while it was called out, that a very much less sum of money than £185,000 would be sufficient to cover the expenditure. In no year during the years he had mentioned had the War Office spent nearly the amount of money that had been voted. In 1875 the expenditure was £22,000 short of the sum voted, and in 1876 it was £28,000. He really did not see why these exaggerated Estimates should be necessary. He would suggest to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that the sum of £185,000, for which he asked, was entirely too much. Looking at the figures which he had quoted, he could not see how the expenditure could possibly exceed much more than, say, the amount of £90,000 or £95,000. Therefore, he begged to reduce the Vote by the sum of £90,000.

remarked, that there was one subject in connection with this Vote which he should like to bring to the notice of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. He would ask him to consider the propriety of instituting a periodical medical examination of the men of the First Class Army Reserve when not serving with the colours, and he would shortly state the reason why he made this request. When lately these men responded, as had been stated that evening, with great alacrity and patriotism, to the call which their country made upon them, a certain proportion, though not a very large proportion, of the men were found to be medically unfit for service, and this had caused considerable inconvenience and expense to the public. But what was much worse was, that he believed that several of the men who were pronounced as medically unfit for military service had been obliged to abandon lucrative civil employment. He thought that if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would take into consideration the question of instituting periodically such an examination as he had suggested when the men were not serving with the colours, the inconvenience and also the hardship which he had pointed out might be obviated.

desired, before the Secretary of State for War rose to reply, to make a suggestion to him with respect to the wives and children of the men of the Reserves who had been called out. It must be obvious to everyone that the allowance which was at present given to the former was wholly inadequate. He had received several letters on the subject. Out of the 3s. 6d. a-week which the wife of a Reserve man now received, she would have to pay 2s. or 2s. 6d. for lodgings, so that there would be 1s. left to provide clothes and food. No doubt some of the women were able to earn money for themselves; but a great many others, owing to various reasons, would not be able so to do, while nearly all the children left behind were of a helpless age. As a rule, the men would have only married after leaving the Army; they would, therefore, have been married, probably, for five or six years, and thus all the children would be of so tender an age as not to be capable of affording any assistance to their mothers. Moreover, if a soldier were ever so careful, he could not save more than 4d. or 5d. a-day, and he believed that generally it would be found that he saved much less. Indeed, it had been admitted in that House that the soldier could only save 3d. When the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) brought forward the question of making soldiers contribute to the support of their wives whom they had deserted, or of their illegitimate children, the late Secretary of State for War maintained—and so, also, did many others on the same side—that 3d. a-day was the most which a soldier could spare to his wife. Therefore, the most a soldier could be reckoned on to spare to his wife would be 1s. 9d. a-week, and that, with the 3s. 6d., was a totally inadequate allowance. He thought the Government ought to do something to mitigate the distress that was at present being caused by the Reserves having been called out. He put a Question the other day to the Under Secretary of State for India, in order to show how differently this matter was treated in that country. The reason for this different treatment was, that there the ordinary conditions of service often necessitated separation between the soldiers and their wives and children, and it was customary to fix a certain monthly allowance. That allowance represented nearly 6d. a-day to the wife, with a further allowance for the children; but, in addition, they got free quarters and half-rations. They saw, therefore, that where it was the custom to separate wives from their husbands, adequate provision was made for the former. But there the Reserve Forces were an entirely new institution. See what Continental nations had done. When, during the late war, they began to call out men—not only of the age of 20, but of seven, eight, and nine-and-twenty—they made sometimes elaborate distinctions. They first took the bachelors for the Army, leaving the married men at home; they next called out the married men who had no children; and then they took the men who had only one child. They in this country now saw the necessity for making these distinctions. For the first time they were brought face to face with the fact, that there was a large number of soldiers' wives for whom the nation ought to provide an adequate allowance. What could be more cruel than to send soldiers abroad to fight the battles of the country, and leave their wives at home to starve, or very nearly so? In some instances they were worse off than if they had no allowance at all, because the Unions actually made it a ground for refusing to do anything for them. He would remind the Committee that it was rather different with the Reserves in this respect than with the Army. It had never been the policy of the authorities to discourage marriage in the Reserve Forces. On the contrary, the policy had been, as regarded them, to interfere as little as possible with the ordinary population, laws of the Kingdom; and, therefore, when a national emergency arose, and the men were called out, it was somewhat hard and unfair that their wives and children should not be properly cared for.

said, it must be admitted that his hon. and gallant Friend who had just sat down had done his best to procure for the Reserve men and their families the best possible terms. He thought his hon. and gallant Friend had done wisely in this, because no money could, in his opinion, be better spent than that which was devoted to popularizing the Reserve Forces. The whole success of the movement in the future would depend upon the endeavour which was now made to give, as far as possible, satisfaction to these men and their families. There was one point in connection with the Reserve Force on which he should like to have some information from his right hon. and gallant Friend. When this subject was under discussion before, a question arose as to what would be the probable future strength of the Force, and the then Secretary of State for War, now Lord Cranbrook, said that an expectation had been raised which was not likely to be realized. He understood his noble Friend to have stated that in 1883 it was anticipated that the Reserve Force would amount to 80,000 men, but that he did not think it would number more than 40,000. Some hon. Members understood him to have said 60,000; and he was desirous that any figures which his right hon. and gallant Friend might have in his possession should be given to the Committee in order that they might be in a position to judge as to the probable future success of this Force.

said, he entirely agreed with the noble Lord as to the desirability of popularizing, in every possible way, the Reserve Force. His object in rising was, however, to say a word or two with respect to the subject of the question which he had put to the Secretary of State for War in the earlier part of the Sitting. He should say that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's answer was entirely satisfactory to him. It would be satisfactory, too, to the men of the Reserve to know that the just claims and expectations of those who had entered under certain conditions would be fulfilled to the letter. But the suggestion which he had made raised a point which, he was rather afraid from the tenour of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's answer, was likely to be overlooked. It was, that all the men who behaved themselves well while with the Colours, should be allowed to count their Reserve service towards good conduct pay as well as towards pension. It would only be possible for those men during their six years' service to obtain one more good conduct badge, so that it would only be a question of adding 1d. a-day to their pay, while it would operate as an inducement to men to join the Reserves, and to conduct themselves well while with the Colours during their first six years of service.

said, that before he proceeded to reply to the points which had been raised, it might be satisfactory to the Committee to know what had been the result of the organization of the Army Reserve Force. The strength of that Force on the 1st of April was 14,154 men. Of those, 13,677 had reported themselves for mobilization, leaving only 477 men who had failed to report themselves. But that was not all. Of those 477 absentees, 132 were accounted for in various ways, leaving only 345 bonâ fide absentees, or less than 2½ per cent on the whole. A good many of those had, however, since turned up, and were even now dropping in. He thought that after the gloomy forebodings which one heard some two years ago, it was only right to give all due credit to Viscount Cardwell, who had instituted the system of Army Reserves. It was a bold experiment; but the success which had attended it had fully justified the confidence of those who were responsible for proposing it. Of course, in connection with the calling out of the Reserves, various questions had arisen; and, undoubtedly, the case of the families of those men was one of considerable difficulty. But he must ask the Committee, in considering this question, to draw a distinction—and it was a very necessary one—between cases of hardship and cases of destitution; because many cases of reported destitution, when they came to be investigated, turned out to be cases of hardship rather than of actual want. Of the latter, there were very few instances, but there were, undoubtedly, some cases of hardship—as, for example, when a man was called out to serve who was in the receipt of good wages; and who, although he might be able to leave his wife a certain amount for her support, yet could not give her that assistance to which she had been accustomed. But, painful as such cases were, and much inconvenience as was thus created, it must be borne in mind by those who were anxious that liberal allowances should be made to the families of our Reserve men, that it should not be taken for granted that they would have to be made only for a period of one, or two, or three months, but that the necessity of continuing them for a considerably longer period would have to be taken into account. There was another point which he must also ask the Committee not to lose sight of. He regretted to have to use what might seem hard words; but if the allowances were unduly increased, a tendency would be likely to be encouraged, on the part of those who received them, to avoid seeking employment, or in any way endeavouring to support themselves. He was not speaking without book, for he knew some cases in which charitable funds had been expended in relieving the widows of men who had fallen in action, with the result that the mere fact of those women having been in the receipt of sums more than sufficient for their support had not conduced to either their social or moral improvement. He had, he might add, consulted his noble Friend (Lord Eustace Cecil) and his hon. and gallant Friend who sat near him (Colonel Loyd Lindsay) on the subject, and they had informed him that they had heard of no complaints of hardships officially from the persons actually concerned. There had been cases raised by individual members of Boards of Guardians, and he himself had had two instances of considerable inconvenience and hardship brought to his notice; but these were only isolated cases, by which the general principle involved was not affected. The scale of allowances to the wives and families of Reserve men had, he believed, been wisely and not expensively fixed in the first instance; but, as the Committee were already aware, directions had been issued from the War Office that payments should be made in advance, and another step had also been taken which, in his opinion, was a perfectly legitimate one, and which would have a considerable effect in giving indirect relief to those families. They had been placed on the same footing as the families of soldiers, and thereby had conferred upon their children the benefits of a free education where there were Army schools, there being a Warrant under which they obtained for those children the payment of the school fees. That would be a material assistance, and one which would, perhaps, meet the greatest change which had occurred since the Reserve men had entered into their present engagements with the Government. He did not wish to press the question of contract unduly; but it should not be forgotten that those men knew perfectly well what it was they would be entitled to receive, so that if they did not wish to take employment that was a matter for which the Government could not fairly be held to be responsible. He had been asked why a reduction had not been made in the Vote? That was a matter which he had considered; but he had not deemed it desirable that it should be reduced. There was, he hoped, at all events, a possibility that only a certain portion of the Army Reserve Vote would be required before the end of the financial year. But, whether that turned out to be so or not, in view of the possibility—he might almost say the certainty—of having to apply for another Vote for those men before they could serve with the Army, he did not think that any practical benefit was to be obtained from restoring money on the one hand, while an additional amount would have to be voted on the other. Considerations of general convenience had induced him to come to the conclusion that the Vote should be allowed to stand as it was originally proposed, and any money which might be left unexpended would, of course, be surrendered at the close of the financial year. He had been asked a question with regard to good-conduct pay, and he had to say, in reply, that prior to 1874 the men belonging to Section A of the Army Reserve were entitled to reckon all their previous service, both in the Army and the Reserve, towards good-conduct pay, as well as a pension. In February of that year, however, Viscount Cardwell came to the conclusion that there was no good reason why good-conduct pay should continue when the men were called out for service, and a Warrant was issued which cancelled the Memorandum which previously existed. Unfortunately, there was a printed Paper, on which the men were supposed to rely, promising the continuance of the advantages which they had enjoyed, and he need not say that a few days after they were called out attention was invited to the grievance of which he was speaking; and, acting on the principle that faith must be kept with them, a General Order had been issued, and further modifications were either about to be made, or were actually made at the present moment, in accordance with which the men in Section A would be able to reckon all their previous service in the Army as well as in the Reserve towards good-conduct pay. The men in Sections B and C would be allowed to reckon all their previous service in the Army, together with their service in the Army Reserve, towards good-conduct pay and pension. By that means good faith would be kept with the men, and the justice of the case would, he believed, be substantially met. He had been asked if he could furnish the Committee with any data to show why the number of the Army Reserve did not come up to that which was originally expected? He was afraid he did not possess any such data in a form in which they could be laid on the Table of the House; but those which had been left him by his noble Friend and Predecessor went to show that, in the first instance, sufficient allowance had not been made for desertions, for the fact that the system of short service tended a good deal in that direction, or for the number of men who purchased their discharge. These were the causes which had been in operation, and, so far as he could gather, the result would be that the number of the Reserve should be fixed at 60,000 instead of 80,000, which was the number originally stated. He gave that calculation for what it was worth; but it would, he believed, be found to be substantially correct.

reminded the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, that he had forgotten to answer his question with reference to the medical examinations.

believed that measures would shortly be taken to make the medical examination periodical, as well as more stringent. Every attention would be paid to that point.

said, he had not asked why the Vote had not been reduced, but why it had been very largely increased? At present the Reserves were on another Vote, and he felt perfectly convinced that not more than £100,000 need be spent upon the Army Reserve, although the Committee were called upon to vote a sum of £185,000. Under these circumstances, he must press for the reduction of the Vote.

in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, its object was to provide for a conjoint scheme of examinations, making uniform the test of admission to the Profession in the three Kingdoms, and providing for the direct representation of the Profession in the Medical Council. The measure contained provisions in regard to the double qualification of medical and surgical practitioners, and further provisions as to the registration of Colonial practitioners.

did not think the House ought to go on with the Bill at so late an hour of the night. Hon. Members were aware that a large and important Government measure on this subject had been printed in "another place." The subject was very intricate, and this Bill appeared to be a very long one. Under the circumstances, he begged to move that the debate be now adjourned.

seconded the Motion.

said, he had no objection whatever to the adjournment of the debate, and he would put off the second reading till Wednesday next.

said, he thought it was too late to go on with the Bill, and therefore he would move that the Chairman should now leave the Chair.

observed, that the Bill passed the second reading by a narrow majority of only two votes. He himself had taken part in the discussion on the second reading, in the same capacity in which he now appeared—namely, as a private individual, and not as in any respect representing the Government. On the former occasion he stated that the subject of race meetings within the Metropolitan district was about to be brought under the notice of the Jockey Club. To make sure that that course would be adopted, he himself took the earliest opportunity of laying the matter before the Club. At that meeting, a resolution was passed to the effect that the stewards should be requested to take steps to oppose the Bill. The question was mooted at the meeting as to whether a Petition against the Bill should be adopted; but as some of the members of the Jockey Club were persons who occupied high positions in the political world—one steward being the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, and another steward being also a Member of the House of Commons—it was thought that it would be more decorous to leave the matter in the hands of the stewards. The noble Lord undertook at that meeting to oppose this Bill, and his hon. Friend the Member for North Lincolnshire (Sir John Astley), at that time a steward, also undertook to adopt a similar course. The Jockey Club were not content with merely opposing this Bill; but, on a subsequent occasion, their attention was again drawn to the subject. He was not himself present at the meeting; but it appeared, from the records of the proceedings, that an assurance was given on that occasion that the Jockey Club would take cognizance of abuses which were brought to their knowledge with reference to race meetings. The complaints to which the hon. Member who introduced the Bill referred, had not been submitted to the Jockey Club in a tangible form. If, instead of being communicated anonymously or otherwise to the newspapers, they were brought before the Club, notice would be taken of them. The magistrates, at the present moment, had considerable power with regard to the licensing of refreshment booths. By declining to grant occasional licences, disturbances and nuisances could be put down by the magistrates. Other evils could be dealt with by the Jockey Club. It was sometimes said that the Jockey Club had no absolute power over these race meetings. He ventured to say, however, that it had complete power. If the publication of the programme of a meeting in the official Calendar were prevented by the Jockey Club, the meeting would ipso facto come to an end. As a body existed which possessed this power, and had signified its intention of exercising it with a view to checking abuses at race meetings, he hoped the Committee would hesitate before it took jurisdiction from that body and put it in hands which, in his judgment, were unfit to exercise it. It would be impossible to confine the operation of the principle established by this Bill to the narrow limits proposed by the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson). How would it be possible, for example, to limit its operation to the Metropolis, and not to extend it to Provincial towns? He thought it would be most unwise for the Committee to adopt this measure, and he believed it would best suit the convenience of hon. Members to take the sense of the Committee on the Question, "That the Chairman do now leave the Chair?" This was what was called an "open question;" and whichever way the matter was determined, the existence of Her Majesty's Government would not be affected. On the previous occasion, Members on both sides of the House voted in accordance with their individual views, and he felt sure they would do so now.

said, this question occupied for some time the attention of the Office to which he lately belonged. Whilst he was at the Home Office, numerous complaints were received from the Metropolitan Police Force as to these race meetings. Indeed, the complaints were of so grave a character that it was seriously considered whether a Bill ought not to be brought in by the Government to do very much what the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) proposed to do by this Bill. When this measure came on before in the House, he abstained from supporting it in consequence of the assurance of his right hon. Friend that the Jockey Club had the power, and that they were prepared to deal with this particular question. Since that discussion took place, the matter had been under the consideration of the Jockey Club, and one hon. Member belonging to that Club had since withdrawn his opposition to this Bill, and had stated that the Jockey Club would not do what they were thought to be able to do. Under these circumstances, he thought the Committee would see that it was placed in a position very different to that which it occupied when his right hon. Friend last opposed the measure. On that occasion his right hon. Friend had induced him not to vote against it by stating that there was another remedy for the evil complained of. That remedy had failed, the nuisance of these race meetings in the neighbourhood of the Metropolis was as great as ever, and he thought the House should itself take some step, instead of leaving the matter to a body which was wholly inadequate to deal with it.

had nothing to say in addition to what had fallen from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury.

thought that if this Bill were so extremely desirable, it ought to have been introduced by the Government. The definition of races in the Bill was of the widest possible character. He scarcely thought the Committee could pass a definition of this kind merely on the responsibility of a private Member. He hoped his hon. Friend would persist in the Motion that the Chairman should leave the Chair. This was a Bill of a most tyrannical character, and, if introduced at all, it ought to have been brought forward on the responsibility of Her Majesty's Government.

desired to correct his hon. Friend (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) in one point. His hon. Friend, who had, of course, as much right to his opinion as he (Mr. J. Lowther) had to his, and with whom he cheerfully could agree to differ, said an assurance was given on the last occasion when this question was under discussion that the Jockey Club would do something. He was one of those who gave that assurance, and he wished to inform the Committee that the Jockey Club had done something. As the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition had stated at a recent meeting of the Club, the Jockey Club had published a notification requesting gentlemen who might be asked to act as stewards at race meetings not to do so until they had assured themselves that such meetings would be conducted on a proper footing. This notification had been published in the official Calendar during the last few weeks. His hon. Friend appeared not to be aware of that fact. In the event of this notification not being found sufficient, further measures would, he had no doubt, be adopted by the Jockey Club. It was sometimes said that the persons who took part in these race meetings did not care for the opinion of the Jockey Club; but he maintained that they did, and that the Jockey Club could stop them by simply putting a veto on the publication of the programme. If complaints were addressed to the Jockey Club instead of being sent, anonymously or otherwise, to the newspapers, they would be much more efficiently dealt with.

observed, that the Grand National Hunt Committee had done exactly the same thing as the Jockey Club. They also had requested their members not to act as stewards at these meetings, but actually two members of the very Committee which had made this request went down to Streatham and acted as stewards within three months. The Jockey Club had not even carried out their own rules, which had now been in existence for a year and a-half, and they knew it would be inexpedient for them to do so. The hon. Member for Mid-Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) was well aware of that, and, consequently, he had withdrawn his opposition. The hon. Member was satisfied that the Jockey Club could not deal with the matter, and that it would be better for some other parties to undertake the task. For that reason, the hon. Member's opposition to the Bill had been withdrawn, and there was no longer any bonâ fide opposition to it. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) had objected to the wording of the Bill. To that he would only remark that the Bill had been four months before the House, since it gained second reading, and that during that time not a single Amendment relating to the wording of the Preamble or the clauses had been placed on the Paper. The measure was not intended to put down any racing, but only to cause certain race meetings to be conducted in a better style than they had been in time past. Those who opposed the Bill were fighting the battle of the "welshers," the blackguards, and the swindlers who attended those race-meetings. In doing all he could to fight the battle of the "welshers,'' the right hon. Gentleman opposite had placed himself in a most unenviable position.

said, the amounts of the fines were adjusted in consultation with the Government last year. They were made rather heavier than was originally proposed, in order to please the Government; and, therefore, he could not consent to change them without the consent of the Government.

said, the hon. Member for Glasgow was correct in saying that the fines, as they appeared in the Bill, were agreed upon by the Home Office and the hon. Gentleman last year. Still, he now thought that smaller fines would be sufficient to meet the object in view.

thought, that as the amount of the fine had been diminished, he would propose that the term of imprisonment should be reduced. He moved to reduce it from "three months" to "three weeks."

hoped his hon. Friend would not press tins Amendment. A fine of £5 would carry three months' imprisonment, and a week's imprisonment would be no penalty at all in a case of this kind.

thought the punishment should be sufficiently severe.

said, he should like to ask his hon. Friend (Mr. Anderson), whether his definition of a horse-race was sufficient? The Preamble made the Bill apply to horse-races, and in the 1st clause a horse-race was defined as a race in which a horse ran against a horse or against time. There were, however, various other forms of horse-racing. For example, there was the racing of horses against bicycles; and he doubted very much whether the definition would apply to races of that kind. He objected to the Bill altogether; but if it were to pass at all, it ought to be in proper form.

promised to consider the point. He thought, however, that the definition did cover every reasonable thing in the shape of a horse-race. If there were any kind of swindling transactions going on in bicycle-racing, the Bill, of course, ought to be extended to that also.

asked when his hon. Friend proposed to take the Consideration?

To-morrow.

objected to this arrangement.

said, he had intended to fix the Consideration for tomorrow; but he would not persist in that resolution, if any objection was raised.

said, he had supported the second reading of the Bill. He placed on the Paper some clauses which he proposed to add to it; but he was not in the House when the adjournment took place just before the Whitsuntide Recess. His only opportunity, therefore, of moving the new clauses now would be upon the Report. He did not suppose that the noble Lord who had charge of the Bill wished to avoid discussion of the new clauses which he desired to propose. Therefore, he hoped that an opportunity would be given to him of bringing those clauses forward. In conclusion, he moved that the consideration of the Bill, as amended, should be postponed till Monday.

, having referred to what occurred the other day, expressed his opinion that the hon. Gentleman was entirely out of Order in moving the adjournment.

was quite aware that the new clauses might sometimes be moved on the Report of a Bill which could not be considered in the Committee. At the same time, he was of opinion that the Amendments of the hon. Member for Tyrone had been inadmissable at the earlier stage, inasmuch as they dealt with a larger question than that to which the Bill related. The Bill proposed to amend the law of Tenant Right in the case of leasehold property. The Amendments of the hon. Member for Tyrone proposed to make the Bill applicable to all property held by any tenure whatever. That, it appeared to him, would extend the operation of the Bill, and make it quite a different measure from the one which had been submitted to the Committee. Accordingly, he had intimated on a previous occasion that these Amendments were at that time out of Order. He understood his hon. Friend the Member for Tyrone now to propose to adjourn the debate. He should advise his noble Friend to accede to the proposal, as this was a matter requiring consideration, and the clauses which were objectionable in Committee might be regarded as not being open to objection in the House. The subject would, he trusted, be discussed on an early day.

said, it was his intention that the matter should be discussed at the earliest opportunity.