I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade when he proposes to introduce the Bill for the exclusion of the goods made in the prisons of other countries promised in Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech, and if he will take care to press it forward sufficiently early in the Session to avoid its being subsequently shelved for want of time?

I am not able at present to state when I shall introduce the Bill, but I hope it will not be long delayed.

Will my right hon. Friend make it as soon as possible?

Yes, I hope it will not be long delayed.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he will state how many accounts in the Post Office Savings Bank showed, on the 31st December 1895, a balance not exceeding £50, in how many accounts the balance was over £50 and not exceeding £100, and in how many over £100?

The number of accounts in the Post Office Savings Bank on December 31st, 1895, with balances not exceeding £50 was 5,858,191; with balances over £50 but not exceeding £100, 346,403; and with balances over £100, 248,943.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he will state how much of the net revenue of £3,032,122 derived from the combined Postal and Telegraph services for the year 1895–6 was contributed by England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, respectively?

The amount named by the hon. Member is not net revenue, as it includes work done for Government departments, in respect of which no money is received. I do not know what he means by the phrase "contributed." All that is known is the amount "collected" in any country and the amount "expended" in such country, but the amount collected does not bear any necessary proportion to the amount actually expended. For instance, 2½d. collected for a foreign letter may represent at least 3d. expended whereas 1d. collected for an inland letter may represent much less than 1d. expended in respect thereof by the Post Office. Similarly the amounts expended in any country by the Post Office do not accurately represent the cost incurred in respect of that country. The cost of the Irish packet service for instance is all paid in London. The accounts of money collected and expended in England (including Wales) Scotland and Ireland are to be found on pp. 12 and 34 of Parliamentary Paper 336 of 1896.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can see his way to take any action to put a stop to the importation of the inferior spirit at Sierra Leone, complained of by the Acting Colonial Secretary in Colonial Report No. 160, Sierra Leone, issued in 1890, and described in page 3 as producing terrible effects upon consumers who are our collectors and growers of our produce for export, and being such as is commonly used by painters as driers in lien of turpentine?

, replying in the absence of Mr. Chamberlain: I hope to be very shortly in a position to lay before the House all the papers relating to the general question of the Liquor Traffic in West Africa.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that on the piece of land recently taken by the War Office for the construction of a rifle range at Finner, county Donegal, a cairn of great antiquity, which is held in great veneration by the people of the district, and is believed to contain the ashes of some Irish chiefs, is being demolished and the material used in the construction of the range; and, whether, as this cairn stands on the highest part of the lands and would not in any way interfere with its use, and as the necessary material can be got elsewhere in the neighbourhood, he will instruct the military authorities to stop further demolition of the cairn?

A report has now been received from Finner, and it appears that there is no cairn at all on the range, but a natural limestone formation from which some twelve cubic yards of loose stones were taken. It is added that there is in the neighbourhood a small cromlech known as Muldoon's grave which is an object of local veneration. This is 100 yards from the supposed cairn, and has not been touched.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, why the high rate of postage of 6d. per letter at St. Helena is maintained instead of 2½d. as in all other of our Colonial possessions; and whether in view of the great poverty of the population generally, the recommendation of the Acting Governor in the matter of this excess of postal charge will be accepted, as pointed out in page 5, Colonial Report, No. 176, St. Helena, for 1895, issued last year?

My hon. and gallant Friend is advocating a reform which was carried into effect several months ago. On the 1st of October last the postage on letters from St. Helena was reduced from 6d. to 2½d. per half ounce.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to Colonial Report, No. 176, St. Helena, for 1895, issued last year, where, at page 6, the Acting Governor calls attention to the fact of the growing increase of the female population over the male owing to the emigration of the young men to Cape Colony, and points out the desire of many young women to proceed to the Cape as domestic servants; and whether under the circumstances, he can suggest to the High Commissioner at the Cape to endeavour to arrange with the Cape Government to offer assisted passages from St. Helena to respectable girls to enable them to proceed to Cape Colony where the males are in excess of the females?

I am in communication with the Agent General for the Cape Colony on this subject, and shall be glad if it is possible to make some arrangement such as is suggested by the hon. and gallant Member.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Committees consisting of ex-officio and elected guardians were appointed in the Poor Law Unions of Mallow, Fermoy, and Mitchels-town for the purpose of endeavouring to bring about settlements between evicted tenants and landlords in these unions under sections 46 and 47 of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1896; and if he will ascertain from the clerks of those several unions how many evicted tenants have been reinstated in their holdings through the efforts of these Committees, and how many landlords have either declined their mediation or failed to reply to the invitation extended to them by these Conciliation Committees?

The Committees to which the hon. Member refers in the Question were not created under the authority of any provision contained in the Act of last year, and though I believe it is true that Committees were formed in certain localities for the purpose indicated, I have no effective means at my disposal of obtaining official information as to the proceedings of such bodies as is suggested in the Question. There have been no settlements effected with evicted tenants under the Act in either of the Poor Law Unions mentioned.

asked whether, in view of total failure of this Clause to effect the object which Parliament had in view, he would introduce any fresh legislation this Session?

No, Sir, I cannot undertake to introduce any fresh legislation this Session. I think we ought at all events to wait until the time when that particular provision expires before deciding whether any further legislation is necessary.

asked whether the right hon. Gentleman was not aware that the clerks of the unions were also secretaries of the Committees, and that therefore there would be no difficulty in getting the information he sought.

asked the right hon. Gentleman if he had considered the desirability of obtaining arbitration Courts with compulsory powers for dealing with these cases.

I do not think that would be desirable.

I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether, in view of the fact that in the schools in. Welsh-speaking districts in Wales text books in Welsh and English are used, the Scottish Education Department will consider the advisability of adopting text books in English and Gaelic in the schools of Gaelic-speaking districts of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland?

The adoption of text books does not rest with the Education Department, but primarily with the managers of schools. Should the use of such books as the hon. Member refers to be proposed by the managers of any schools, the Department would consider whether it would be expedient to sanction them.

asked if the hon. and learned Member was aware that these text books were only allowed to pupil teachers in Gaelic schools in the Highlands whereas in Wales the scholars had these books.

said he had nothing to add to the answer he had already given.

said he would put another question on the subject.

I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether the Atlantic seaboard of the Island of Lewis is included in the North Sea Convention?

No, Sir.

I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, whether Her Majesty's Government have taken any steps to ascertain the views of the Foreign Powers, who are signatories of the North Sea Convention, in regard to an agreement as to the extension of the trawling limit upon the east coast of Scotland?

The matter referred to is engaging the earnest attention of Her Majesty's Government; but until a decision has been arrived at on the whole question, which involves points of great difficulty, no case arises for addressing a communication to any Foreign Government.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether it is the intention of the Government to take any action with reference to the Vaccination Laws this Session?

I have carefully considered this question since the Royal Commission reported in September last. The Royal Commission recommended that, amongst other things, a further investigation should be made into the effect of the storage of vaccine lymph in glycerine. I took an early opportunity of instructing Dr. Thorne, the medical officer of the Board, and Dr. Copeman to visit certain foreign cities in order to study and report on the more modern methods adopted abroad as to the preparation, storage, and distribution of glycerinised calf lymph, and to ascertain the results. These officers have visited Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Dresden, and Cologne for the purpose, but their inquiry is not yet completed, and their report, therefore, has not yet been submitted to me. I may say this, however, that on the information before me I have already come to this conclusion—that any alteration of the law will most certainly involve an important and radical change in the matter of lymph supply, and will necessitate consequently a very considerable modification in the system of public vaccination. The hon. Member will see that no time has been lost by the Local Government Board since the report of the Royal Commission was published, and I am quite alive to the importance of this question.

I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether his attention has been called to the state of the road between Marlborough House and Buckingham Palace; whether immediate steps will be taken to repair the same: and, whether he has considered the desirability of continuing the wood pavement between Marlborough House and Buckingham Gate?

I am aware that this road is not at present in good condition. It has been the custom to repair it twice a year (April and September) but the traffic has been growing so considerably, that it will be necessary to mend the road at shorter intervals in future. I propose to have the work done now as soon as possible. I am now considering the question of laying down wood paving on this portion of the roadway.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he has received a resolution from the Listowel Board of Guardians, directing attention to the distress existing among the labouring classes in several parts of the Union, owing to the want of employment and the almost total failure of the potato crop; and, whether, in view of this state of affairs, the Government will see the necessity that exists of opening relief works in the district mentioned?

I have received a copy of the resolution referred to. Careful inquiries which have been made as to the condition of the poorer classes in the Listowel Union do not point to the conclusion that it will become necessary to supplement the resources of the poor law by the opening of relief works.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if he will explain to the House the principle upon which grants will be made towards acquiring new rifle ranges out of the £500,000 to be devoted to that purpose; and, by whom applications for grants should be made to the War Office?

There is no intention of making any grants out of this fund. Its object is the purchase in the several districts of ranges at which the regular troops and the Militia can safely practice with the Lee-Metford rifle. Where ranges so acquired are conveniently situated for use by Volunteers, every facility for shooting on the usual conditions will be given to them.

said he could not say anything as to the locality in which ranges would be purchased.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a Paper giving the details of the proposed expenditure for defence works and ranges provided in the Military Works (Money) Bill, giving similar particulars to those which had been provided with regard to barracks, before proceeding with the Second Reading of the Bill; and, whether, if he will not furnish Papers, he will now say at what precise places the proposed expenditure on the fortification of London is to be made, and what is the exact nature of the works to be undertaken?

It would not be for the public interest that details of the intended defence works should be given. The Government propose to follow the course adopted with the consent of Parliament in 1888 and only to show the amount to be expended in the schedule to the. Bill. The general character of the proposed works was explained in introducing the resolution. As regards ranges, the list of stations at which they are to be provided could not be given without largely increasing the cost. In reference to the allusion in the question to the "fortification of London," I would explain to the hon. Member that the works proposed are merely a continuation of those which have been for some years in progress—viz., the preparation of centres for a system of field defences which could be thrown up on emergency. They include, as has already been stated, storehouses for the tools and ammunition necessary for the troops to be stationed at these points.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether he will furnish to the House additional particulars showing how much has been expended under the Barracks Act 1890, setting out the structures that have been completed, and giving in each case an estimate of the cost which it will be necessary to incur to complete the works under the new Bill before the House?

I shall be glad to give a Return showing by stations the expenditure to the end of 189G under the Barracks Act of 1890, if the hon. Member thinks right to move it. All structures commenced under the loan of 1890 will be completed under it; but any additional buildings required to complete the schemes will be provided under the new Bill.

asked if the hon. Gentleman could state whether, before the Bill was proceeded with, another account of the expenditure under the Barracks Act of 1890 would be furnished, because the one that is in existence is very old?

That looks very much like a question of which I had better have notice.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War why no provision is made either in the Military Works Act or in the Estimates for the contemplated barracks at Londonderry; and, what is the cause of the delay in commencing work?

Provision for the barracks at Londonderry is made in the Barracks Act of 1890, under which the works will be completed. The delay which has arisen is in consequence of the great difficulty experienced in obtaining possession of a large portion of the ground on which the new buildings are to be erected. Steps are being taken to fix a value of this ground by arbitration under the Lands Clauses Act.

asked would the hon. Gentleman take care before the work commenced that the stone for the building should be obtained from the Donegal quarries.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that the advertisements inviting tenders for supplying with goods the prison at Northampton are inserted in London and Birmingham newspapers but not in the newspapers published at Northampton; would he explain what is the reason for this; and whether he will see that these advertisements are henceforward published in the local journals?

The advertisements are not, as the hon. Member's Question suggests, for Northampton prison alone, but for the whole of the prisons of England and Wales; and being lengthy and expensive, are for economy's sake inserted only in trade journals of general circulation, and in the newspapers which have the widest circulation in the various parts of the country. I shall be glad to consider the claim of any Northampton journal to belong to either of these classes of papers.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if, having regard to the resolutions passed by various public bodies in Killarney and Tralee, copies of which have reached him, calling the attention of the Postmaster General to the very irregular manner in which the mails have been delivered in those towns for the last few years, he will communicate with the Great South Western Railway Company and endeavour to get the mails forwarded from Mallow Junction to Killarney and Tralee in a more expeditious manner than at present?

The resolutions referred to will receive consideration. There are, however, grave objections to increasing the number of stops of the Dublin and Cork day mail trains, which would of course unfavourably affect the arrival and departure of the mail at Cork. Even if the Dublin and Cork trains stop at Mallow, it is not clear that the Company would desire to put on trains to and from Tralee in connection therewith for their ordinary traffic, and the Post Office would not be justified in paying for special trains for the service.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether any arrangements have yet been made with the Irish Railway Companies, so as to enable him to give the new mail time table to Cork and Belfast respectively?

The revision of] the hours of the day mail trains from Dublin to Cork, Belfast, etc., was necessarily postponed till the time table between London and Dublin was definitely settled. It is now under consideration, but it has not been possible in the short time which has elapsed to make any definite arrangement.

May I ask whether, in making these arrangements, will due, consideration be paid to the resolution recently forwarded to the Postmaster General by the. Cork Chamber of Commerce and Whipping, directing attention to the needless delays that now occur on the loop line in Dublin and in backing in and out of Kingsbridge station?

I have not seen it, but I have no doubt due attention will be given to it.

May I ask whether, in preparing this time table, the right hon. Gentleman will take the opportunity of laying it before the representatives of the Cork, Derry, and Belfast Chambers of Commerce.

I do not quite know why these towns should be singled out in this Question, which affects the whole of Ireland.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland how much, out of the sum allocated last year for the building of light railways in Ireland, has been spent up to the present?

No portion of the money referred to has yet been spent, but negotiations in connection with a variety of schemes are now in progress.

On behalf of the hon. Member for Cavan W. (Mr. J. P. FARRELL), I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the findings of the Royal Commision on the Financial Relations between Great Britain and Ireland, he will, with a view to giving some relief to the people during this hard season, advise the Government to introduce an Agricultural Land Bating Bill for Ireland?

I have already stated that it is not the intention of the Government to introduce an Agricultural Land Rating Bill for Ireland.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under what sentence, English or Egyptian, is Arabi Pasha still condemned to exile from his country; and whether, in view of the peaceful condition of Egypt at the present time, Her Majesty's Government can see their way to abridge the term of his banishment, and permit him to return to his home and his friends?

Arabi Pasha was tried by an Egyptian court-martial on December 3rd, 1882, on a charge of rebellion against the Khedive. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death, but the Khedive, by a decree of the same date, commuted this sentence to perpetual exile on condition that he should proceed to any locality that might be indicated to him, and that he should there remain unless authorised to remove. The question of allowing him to return to Egypt was raised in March, 1893, when Mr. Gladstone, in reply to a question, stated that inquiry had been made in 1891 into the health of the exiles, with the result that, on that ground there was no reason for Arabi's removal; whilst on any other grounds Her Majesty's Government did not feel themselves justified in overriding the decision of the Egyptian Government. Nothing has since occurred to warrant a reversal of that decision.

May I ask, is it intended to keep him there perpetually?

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War who is responsible for such dangerous experiments as the explosion of large quantities of cordite at Woolwich that took place there and was recorded in Tuesday's papers; and what compensation will he granted for the serious damage caused?

As I explained the other day, these experiments were undertaken for a specific purpose under the supervision of the Ordnance Department, and a site was selected at Plumstead where no risk was likely to occur, and where proper precautions are taken. No complaints have been received at the War Office, and the reports as to the extent of damage done appear to have been very much exaggerated.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) whether French traders are permitted to sell firearms and spirits to the Natives of the New Hebrides, whereas British traders are expressly prohibited from doing so; (2) whether the joint agreements entered into between the British and French Governments in 1887 and 1888, in relation to the New Hebrides, contain any clause sanctioning this state of things; and (3) whether any remonstrances have been addressed to the French Government on the subject?

The answer to the first paragraph is in the affirmative. The joint agreement contains no provision affecting the traffic in arms and liquor, which is prohibited to British subjects by Regulation under Order in Council. Representations on the subject have recently been addressed to the French Government. No reply having been received from them, instructions are being sent to Her Majesty's Ambassador at Paris to again draw their attention to the matter.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether any test case, raising the points referred to in the questions put to him in this House on 3rd July last as to the proper interpretation of Section 2, Sub-Section (1) (b) of the Finance Act, 1894, has yet been decided or is ripe for hearing; and, if not, can he hold out any hope of obtaining the decision of the Courts of Law within a reasonable time?

No case has yet arisen in which it has been found possible to raise before a Court of Law the points referred to in the question addressed to me by the hon. Member in July last. Special instructions have been given to the authorities of the Inland Revenue to watch every case and to arrange at the earliest possible moment to obtain a legal decision upon the points in question, and I will take care that the hon. Member is informed of any cases in which it may seem probable that the questions can be raised.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he can inform the House how many of the Metropolitan Poor Law children will probably come under the jurisdiction of flu; proposed new Asylums Board for Sick Children, and what number of children suffering from ophthalmia, contagious diseases of the skin or scalp, debility, defective intellect, or other physical infirmity, are respectively likely to require the services of the Board?

According to Returns received from the several district and separate schools, including the large Roman Catholic certified schools, the cases of ophthalmia number 760, and, if the number of children in the workhouses and infirmaries is added, the number for which separate treatment is desirable may be roughly estimated at 1,000. The number of children in the schools referred to who are returned as suffering from ringworm is 208, and of those suffering from skin disease 168. If the number in the workhouses and infirmaries is added, the total number of these children may be estimated at about 500. I have no information as to the number of children requiring special treatment during convalescence, or seaside air, or of children who, in consequence of defect of intellect or physical infirmity, cannot properly he trained in association with children in ordinary schools; but the number of the latter class I should not anticipate would be large.

I beg to ask the Attorney General for Ireland (1) whether the forms prescribed by the regulations as to issue of stock in Ireland, under the Public Health Act Amendment Act 1890, contemplate the issue of stock only after public tender, to be invited after the resolution for its creation has been passed; (2) whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Londonderry Corporation, nevertheless, have resolved to issue stock to the amount of £80,000 without public tender at par, and have refused to consider an offer of 101 per cent. made for the stock by a responsible person, on the ground that the Corporation was bound by a contract alleged to have been entered into not under seal, in respect of a smaller total amount and before the consent order had been issued by the Local Government Board; (3) whether the Local Government Board were aware of this alleged contract when they issued their consent order on 27th January; and (4) whether the Board have any power to prevent such a transaction; and, if not, whether the regulations will be revised so as to prevent it being repeated?

The forms and regulation framed under the Statute mentioned resembling in this respect those framed by the Local Government Board in England, do not prescribe any mode in which applications for stock are to be invited, that being left to the local authorities to determine. I am not aware whether the facts are exactly as stated in the second paragraph, as some difference of opinion appears to exist between the members of the Corporation as to what was the precise nature and effect of the negotiations on the subject. The answer to the third paragraph is in the negative. As to the fourth paragraph, the Local Government Board have no power to interfere with the action of the local authority, in respect of the issue of stock after a consent order has been made, and inasmuch as the regulations are similar to those prescribed in England and have been found on the whole to work satisfactorily, it is not considered desirable to alter them.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board what is the sum total of rates paid in respect of Elementary Schools other than Board Schools, distinguishing counties and boroughs, in the last year for which such returns are available?

The Local Government Board have no returns which would enable them to furnish the information referred to.

asked if the right hon. Gentleman could say from which department he could get the return?

could not say without notice.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the case, W 1 a 546, before the Inland Revenue, in which that Department claimed Income Tax on a mortgage although no income had been received from the mortgage or rent from the property for four years, and stated in their letter of the 31st December 1896, though they subsequently waived their claim in this particular ease, that "the Special Commissioners must regard the full amount of the mortgage interest annually accruing (whether it is actually realised by year or not) as representing the income from this source for the purpose of the Income Tax Acts. Whether this claim for Income Tax on incomes nominally accruing, but not paid has his sanction; and, whether it is enforced on unpaid dividends or interest on debentures and other classes of property; and, if so, under what clauses of the Income Tax Acts it is based?

My hon. Friend seems to be under a misapprehension as to the point involved in this case. The Inland Revenue do not claim Income Tax from a mortgagee in respect of interest which he does not receive. A mortgagee pays his Income Tax indirectly, that is, by the deduction of the amount of it from the mortgage interest, when paid over by the mortgagor. Where, therefore, no interest is paid, there is no deduction. But, in considering a claim for exemption or abatement, the Inland Revenue insist that mortgage interest due to a person making the claim should he taken into account in computing his total income, even if it has not been paid within the year, unless it can be clearly shown that such interest is irrecoverable, is, in fact, a bad debt. This was the case in the present instance. As soon as the Inland Revenue were satisfied that the interest was irrecoverable they abandoned the claim that it should be taken into account. The same principle applies generally in the case of claims to exemption or abatement, to dividends, and any interest accruing within the year. Such interest is included in the statement of the claimant's income, unless it can be shown that it is not only in arrear but irrecoverable.

asked whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that in this particular case the Inland Revenue knew that no rents had been received for four years, and was that not sufficient evidence to show that practically the matter was a bad debt?

presumed they had heard that.

said the claim was made after they know that.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware of the doubt existing as to the interpretation of Clause 16, Section 8, in the Local Government Act of 1894, which deals with the custody of parish documents; whether he will state whether a tithe-map would according to that section, be a document directed by law to be kept with the public books, writings, and papers of the parish; and, whether the Local Government Board have given any legal opinion to parish councils upon the question referred to?

I am aware that questions have arisen with regard to the custody of documents under Subsection (8) of Section 17 of the Local Government Act 1894. The Act contemplated that this would be the case, and has provided that any questions as to such custody shall be determined by the County Council. The Local Government Board have no jurisdiction to determine questions as regards the tithe-map, and it has been their practice to inform parish councils to this effect. I am advised that tithe-maps are under the Tithe Commutation Act 1886, to be kept "with the public books, writings, and papers of the parish," and the subsection to which I have referred requires therefore, that they shall either remain in their existing custody or be deposited in such custody as the parish council may direct.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been drawn to the evidence of Dr. Downes, given before the recent Committee on Poor Law Schools, that there are in London workhouses on an average upwards of 2,000 children of school age; and, whether, as it is stated that this aggregation of children in workhouses is largely due to the block caused by the existence of infectious disease either among the children in the workhouse or in the school belonging to the union, he will entrust the new Central Metropolitan Authority, which he proposes to create, with the duty of taking over existing probationary or quarantine wards, and when necessary erecting others, in accordance with the recommendation of the recent Committee?

I am glad to say that the number of children who are detained in London workhouses and infirmaries is now less than the number stated. The block has to some extent been occasioned by the cause referred to by the hon. Member, and it will be the duty of the Central Authority whom it is proposed to constitute to make such provision as is necessary for children of the class alluded to. The question how such provision should be made will be one for the new body in the first instance to consider.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether he will give effect to the recommendation of the recent Committee on Metropolitan Poor Law Schools that the establishment of small certified homes should be encouraged, by the Local Government Board urging on boards of guardians in suitable cases the expediency of utilising such homes, and by the appointment of additional inspectors, preferably women, to be charged with the duty of regularly visiting certified homes, conferring with the committee of management, and inspecting the children individually?

also asked the President of the Local Government Board whether he proposes to take any, and, if so, what steps to carry out the recommendation of the recent Committee on Poor Law Schools that special schools should be provided, of an intermediate character, for the reception of the casual and fluctuating class of children known as ins and outs.

It has already been the practice of the Local Government Board in the past to encourage the establishment of small certified schools, and it is certainly my intention to continue to do so. These schools are inspected by inspectors of the Board, and I have under my consideration the question whether it will not be necessary to increase the number of inspectors for the metropolitan district. The Local Government Board consider that it is very desirable that provision should be made otherwise than in the workhouse for children who are now retained temporarily before being drafted into the school, in order that it may be ascertained that they are not suffering from infectious disease, and for children of the particular class referred to by the hon. Member. The Board are desirous of promoting such arrangements, and schemes for the purpose are now under the consideration of some of the boards of guardians. The Board consider that such provision could be more satisfactorily made by the guardians of the different unions than by a central authority acting for the whole of the metropolis.

I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he hasany objection to state the principle on which the "just equivalent" mentioned in Article 978 XIII. of the Royal Warrant of 10th June 1881, was calculated; and, whether and when any, and, if so, what, limit was placed upon such equivalent by the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury?

The principle adopted has been to give the officer the calculated value of his prospects at the time of retirement under the Warrant or Warrants in force before 1881, subject to a limit of £600 a year, which was the highest amount of retired full pay granted under former Warrants to a Colonel. This principle was decided on with the concurrence of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury.

asked whether this limit was made known to the officers who were to retire under the article in question?

said he was informed (hat it was so made known.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the Resolution unanimously adopted by the House of Commons on 13th April 1894, and supported by all sections of Irish Members, favouring the extension to Ireland of all the legal facilities existing in England for the creation of labourers' allotments or small holdings of land, he will introduce a measure to that effect during the present Session, and thereby encourage the fuller and better cultivation of the soil in Ireland, and increase in this manner opportunities of profitable employment for the industrial population of that country?

The terms of the Resolution in question were "that all the facilities for obtaining land now possessed by England should be at once extended to Ireland." The object aimed at by the hon. Member is to some extent met by the Labourers Acts of 1883 to 1896, which do not apply to England. The condition of affairs in Ireland, which is already a country of small holdings, is materially different from that in England, and I am not prepared to affirm, even apart from the question of machinery, that the same arrangements should he made to apply to both countries. I do not say that the subject in its more general aspect is not worthy of consideration, but the Government in any case cannot undertake to introduce legislation dealing with it in the present Session.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in view of the probability that such a Measure would pass without opposition, he will not reconsider his decision?

I am unable to take the same view as the hon. Gentleman as to the probability of a Measure of this kind being entirely unopposed; and I could give no pledge in the direction indicated without a further assurance on the point, and without giving the subject a great deal of further consideration.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he will state from the statistics of the Local Government Gazette of the Central Provinces of India the death rate in those provinces for the six months of the year ending 31st December 1895, and for the year ending 31st December 1896, and the total number of deaths in each of these two periods, giving each number separately?

The Central Provinces Gazette does not give the full monthly vital statistics for any month later than September 1896, but the figures for the periods of three months ending September 1895, and September 1896, respectively are as follows:—Mean of monthly death rates, July to September 1895, 43·12 per mille: mean of monthly death rates, July to September 1896,55·80 per mille; total number of deaths, July to September 1895,102,420; total number of deaths, July to September 1896, 132,552. These provinces were visited by a severe epidemic of cholera in the spring and summer which caused a heavy and general rise in the number of deaths in the summer and early autumn. Though I have no complete summary of the death rate of the whole province for the later months, the Chief Commissioner informed me some time back that in the division of Jubbalpore, where the distress was acute, there was a continuous fall in the mortality during October and November.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) if, during the recess, he brought before the Irish Government or the Commissioners of National Education the claims of work-mistresses in Irish schools for increased remuneration; and (2) whether, seeing that these workmistresses give constant attendance during school hours, and their remuneration is only £12 a year, increased by a few shillings in the results fees, will he give the matter early attention?

Representations were made during the recess by the Commissioners to the Irish Government in relation to the remuneration of workmistresses in National schools, but the Treasury, having given these representations their best consideration, were unable to sanction the proposals of the Commissioners. As regards the second paragraph, I have already pointed out that workmistresses are not employed for the full school day, and that in the year 1886 their fixed salaries, with the approval of the Treasury, were augumented to the present amount. The number of workmistresses employed in mixed National schools was 843 in the year ended 31st December 1895, and in addition to the fixed salary of £12 they are paid results fees varying from sixpence to three shillings in respect of each girl passed.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, can he explain why a Blue-Book, embodying valuable information as to the causes of the serious decline in the native population of Fiji during recent years, has not been published by the Government of that Crown Colony; is there any document or dispatch in the Colonial Office that would throw light upon this proceeding; and will he call for an explanation from the Governor?

The Report in question has been received and is at present under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government. It would not be desirable, or in accordance with the usual practice in such cases, to publish the Report in the Colony in its present stage.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a Copy of the communication in which the Italian Government requested Her Majesty's Government to assist them against the Dervishes by military advance into the Northern Provinces of the Soudan; and, by whom the communication was made?

The communications in question were received from the Italian Ambassador in London. Their substance has already appeared in telegrams, between the Ambassador and his Government, that were published in the Italian Green-Look of last year, and were read out in this House by the hon. Member for Northampton in the Debate on June 5 1896.

I now ask the right hon. Gentleman again, will he lay these communications in extenso on the Table?

No, Sir; there is no necessity to lay communications between the Italian Ambassador and his own Government on the Table of this House. They have been published by the Italian Government and have appeared in the reports of the proceedings of this House, as the hon. Member will see if he refers to "Hansard."

I desire, Mr. Speaker, to ask you a question on the rules of procedure governing Debates in this House. I wish to know from you whether, when a document is referred to in deflate by a Minister of the Crown, or a gentleman representing a Minister of the Crown, it is not imperative upon him to lay that document on the Table? In reference to this matter I would cite a precedent which occurred in this House on July 17 1857. On that occasion Sir Charles Wood, the then First Lord of the Admiralty, did not quote from but referred to a letter he had received. He was asked to produce that letter in its entirety, and Mr. Disraeli made the following observations in the Debate and laid down this rule:—

"There should be no reference to any Papers that were not laid on the Table or that were not meant to be laid on the Table afterwards. The moment a Minister referred even to a private letter, it became a State document. That was a salutary principle which always prevailed in their Debates. Were it otherwise, the opponents of the Minister could have no chance in Debate. He could always be referring to private matter in his portfolio to support his case."

Mr. Disraeli called it a private letter, and he was corrected by some Gentleman calling out "It is a public letter." To that Mr. Disraeli replied:—

"What! a public letter. That is a worse ease still. It is even a more flagrant case when a public document is kept secret from the House."

I say this case which I have cited is on all fours with what occurred on Friday evening in this House.

If a Minister refers to a particular document by quoting part of it or stating what the effect of the contents of that particular document is, then the House is entitled to see the document itself. But I do not understand that any question of that kind arises here. A Minister is not bound, having stated in answer to a question or other wise that there have been communications generally to such and such an effect with a foreign Government, to produce the document which would bear out his statement. ["Hear, hear!"]

With great respect Sir, the right hon. Gentleman specifically referred on Friday night to communications. At that time the point of order was not taken either before the Chairman of Committees or yourself; but is there not a clear distinction when a Minister specifically refers to a certain document which he refuses to produce?

There is a great difference between specifically referring to communications generally and specifically referring to the contents of a particular document. Nothing of the latter kind seems to have taken place here, [Cheers.]

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that English steam trawlers are in the habit of fishing off the coast of Bally-cotton, county Cork, upon Sundays, and that upon Sunday last one of these trawlers was thus engaged close to the mouth of the bay; and, whether steps will be taken to protect the Ballycotton fishermen from this illegal practice?

The Chief Officer of the Coastguard at Bally-cotton states he has never seen English steam trawlers fishing in this locality on Sundays, but that on Sunday the 31st January one passed at the entrance to the bay though it was not at the time fishing. On Monday last I informed the hon. Member that a bye-law had been prepared with a view to prohibit steam-trawling inside Ballycotton Bay. This bye-law will shortly be submitted to the Lord Lieutenant in Council.

Arising out of that answer might I ask the right hon Gentleman is it not a fact that owing to the great damage done on the Scottish coast by these steam trawlers it was found necessary to prevent steam trawling within three miles of the coast, and whether in view of that fact the Government have any intention of introducing a similar law for the Irish coast?

I am not acquainted with the practice in Scotland, but if the hon. Member will put the question on the Paper I will endeavour to answer it.

I beg-to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Foreign Office have yet received any official information concerning the alleged burning of the village of Galata, and the reported murder of a Christian Judge, M. Markoulakis, at Canea; whether he is aware that the Bishop of Canea and the Administrative Council of Notables have forwarded to the Consuls a memorandum denouncing the violence and misdeeds of the Turks, and imploring the prompt intervention of the Powers with a view to the immediate application of the reforms; and, if he can say what action has been taken by the representatives of the Powers to deal with this dangerous condition of affairs?

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will also answer at the same time the following question, of which I have given him private notice:—whether the Mussulman inhabitants of Crete have been driven to the coast from their homes by Christian insurgents and subjected to grievous maltreatment, and what steps Great Britain and the other Powers propose to take in order to protect the Mussulman inhabitants and to restore order, in view of the fact that the Sultan and the Turkish Government have given all the reforms in Crete asked for by the Powers?

As regards Galata and the reported murder of M. Markoulakis, there is nothing to add to the last answer returned to the hon. Member. The memorandum referred to has been sent home by Her Majesty's Consul. It calls attention to the fear of Mussulman agitation, and represents the need for foreign gendarmes in the towns. As regards the general situation in the island, about which the House will naturally desire the latest information, I have to state that the position at and around Canea Halepa, and Suda Bay has been grave for the last few days. Fighting, or rather the discharge of firearms, has been continuous, but there seems to be no foundation for the rumours as to a massacre that have appeared in some quarters, and, so far, the loss of life is reported as comparatively small. Flames broke out in many places in the town, and every exertion has been made by the foreign ships of war to subdue them, and in these efforts they were seconded by both the Christian and Mussulman population. Much difficulty resulted from scarcity of water supply. The Turkish troops are reported to have behaved in an exemplary manner, and there was practically no plundering. The last account, dated this morning, states that the fire has now been completely extinguished, though nearly 200 houses and some largo oil stores have been burnt, that upwards of 5,000 refugees have been embarked, and that the firing has ceased on all sides round Canea. At Candia the Mussulman population, who complained that they were defenceless while the Christians were armed, became uncontrollable, and are reported to have taken a quantity of rifles from the arsenal, but the latest intelligence is that the town continues quiet. As it is reported that there is great scarcity of food, the Admiral in command of the Mediterranean Squadron is sending the troopship Tyne from Malta with biscuits and meat for 1,200 persons for a fortnight. Her Majesty's ships Barfleur, Scout, Nymph, Fearless, Dragon, and a second battleship are at present in Cretan waters, and the Revenge with Admiral Harris on board, is on her way there. The commanders of these ships, in co-operation with Her Majesty's Consul and with Colonel Chermside, late Military Attaché at Constantinople, and representative of this country on the Gendarmerie Commission, have been labouring without cease to allay the disorder and alarm, to prevent more serious developments, and to afford protection to the refugees. In answer to the supplementary question put by my hon. Friend below the gangway, I have already in the answer I have read described generally the steps taken by the representatives of the Powers in Crete. I can assure him that we are as anxious to protect the Mussulman as the Christian inhabitants of the island—[cheers]—and that the steps which I have described as taken by our officials have been directed to that end. But so far as the reports—of which I have read a great many—lead me to form an opinion, it is that the maltreatment appears to be about evenly distributed between the two parties. ["Hear, hear!"]

asked if it were true that large numbers of Christians had taken refuge on board ships and that Turkish troops had rebelled against the Vali.

Order, order. The hon. Member must give notice of the question.

asked if there was any definite information as to the actual loss of life?

replied that the only figures that the Foreign Office had reported the loss of life at not more than 30.

asked if the Government would take steps to see that some protection was offered to the Mussulmans of the interior?

The hon. Member must give notice.

I beg to ask the Attorney General whether he is aware that an inquest was held on Saturday, 23rd January, at Batley, by the Coroner for the West Riding, on the death of one Fred. Taylor, which occurred by accident in the Phoenix Mills, Batley, and that the Coroner neither gave notice of the inquest to the Factory Inspector for the district nor adjourned the inquest for the Inspector's attendance, in accordance with section 19 of the Factory and Workshop Act 1895; and, whether he will take steps to secure the due observance of the law in future?

I have communicated with the Home Office upon the subject of the question of the right hon. Baronet, and I understand that the facts are correctly stated in the first paragraph of the question. I am also informed that the Coroner has been communicated with, in order to insure that in future the procedure directed by the Statute is observed. Upon the facts before me, it does not seem to me to be a case in which I ought to take proceedings under the Statute, as I have nothing to show that it is necessary, in the interests of justice, that another inquest should be held; but I shall be glad to consider any further representation if the right hon. Baronet wishes me to do so.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury (1) will he explain what are the rules, regulations, or practices governing the allocation of grants from the Royal Bounty Fund; and (2) upon whose recommendation a sum of money from this source was given to George Brooks, who was recently the plaintiff in one or more libel suits?

In answer to the second paragraph of the Question, I am alone responsible for all representations for grants from the Royal Bounty Fund. As regards the first paragraph of the question, no rules or regulations have been laid down by Parliament on this subject, but there is a body of official tradition which has been handed on from one First Lord to another, and to that tradition and practice I have endeavoured to conform.

May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that he would find a resolution adopted by this House—[cries of "Order, order!"]—concerning the distribution of this money.

I am not aware of that.

Does the right hon. Gentleman desire to make further explanation of his having allocated this money to Mr. Brooks? [Laughter.]

I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury a question about the business of to-day. The first order of the day is Supply, Army Estimates, in the name of the Under Secretary for War. I observe also on the Paper a notice relating to what are called the proposals of the Government. We have no knowledge of any proposals of the Government. There has been no notice of any such proposals. I have heard it rumoured that a statement has been made about the military plans of the Government in another place. But we are bound not to know anything about that. [Opposition laughter, and cheers.] The Army Estimates have apparently been opened by the Government in another place, and it would be out of order to know anything on the subject. But there are a few people I believe who read newspapers—[laughter]—and those persons may know something about the intentions of the Government upon military affairs. But here we know nothing of the proposals of the Government, and what I have to ask the right hon. Gentleman is that before we go to a discussion upon the Speaker leaving the Chair we should know the scheme of the Government by a statement from the Under Secretary. Otherwise it is quite impossible to deal either generally or in detail with the matter. The usual practice has been to state the Army Estimates after the Speaker has left the Chair. Within my own recollection there have been several instances where it was thought more convenient that the statement should be made when the Speaker was in the Chair. If it be true that a statement has been made in another place of the military intentions of the Government that is a conclusive reason why, before we discuss them here, a statement should be made here. ["Hear!"]

asked whether the proposals of the Government were not contained in Parliamentary papers signed by the Minister for War, and circulated among the Members of the House?

I do not know whence the right hon. Gentleman got his views on constitutional procedure or how long he has entertained them, but I have often, heard him quote at unnecessary length, speeches which had been made in the other House.

Not on financial statements.

Is there any difference? ("Hear, hear!"] I thought the right hon. Gentleman laid it down that he never know about what went on in the other House, and that if by accident he heard from some obscure sources what passed there he never dared to make use of his knowledge in the House of Commons. [Laughter.] I have closely followed the right hon. Gentleman's method of procedure, and should have thought his practice hardly squared with his theory. But, however that may be, the question of my hon. and gallant Friend supplies an answer to the right hon. Gentleman. There has been circulated, and there is in the hands of Members no doubt, a concise but clear and adequate summary of the proposals of the Government with regard to the Army Estimates, and this appears to me to be a sufficient basis for such discussion as may take place before the Speaker leaves the Chair. Under these circumstances I do not think there is any reason to depart from what is the usual, but not invariable, practice of waiting until the Speaker is out of the Chair before the Under Secretary for War makes his general statement on the Army Estimates.

Are we to understand that before we are asked to consider the Army Estimates we shall have no more information than is contained in the memorandum which has been referred to? If that is sufficient for any one question it is sufficient for the whole, and I should have expected that the Leader of the House would have seen at what disadvantages the House is placed.

I must remind the right hon. Gentleman that there is no question before the House.

proposed to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add instead thereof the words—

"this House, while ready to provide the funds required for the efficient maintenance of our Military forces, desires to be convinced that the present system of enlistment and terms of service are such as to be suitable to the requirements of the Empire."

He said the total cost of our national defences was now larger than it had ever been before. Last year the military and naval Votes with the loan money and the Indian expenditure and the expenditure of the self-governing colonies, amounted to £63,000,000 a year, and as far as it was possible to compute the expenditure of the present year it was likely to be on the same scale. Some items would be less, some more, but £03,000,000 a year seemed to be the sum at which our military and naval expenditure stood and was likely to stand. Of this enormous sum the military expenditure of the country formed more than half. This was a curious fact, because this Empire was called an Empire of the Seas, and all persons; concerned in Imperial defence, including soldiers, were generally inclined to admit the Primacy of the Navy in defence. It was a remarkable fact that, although it was generally admitted that the Navy stood first as regarded the defence of the Empire, more than half of our defence expenditure was spent on the land forces. Of course he could not say what the expenditure for the next financial year would be, but taking the Estimates of the next financial year, it was fair to say that our military expenditure at home now stood at £18,855,000. It was difficult to detach the Army at home from the Army in India, and the Indian expenditure in the previous financial year, without anything for Burmah or Chitral, amounted to £16,127,000 odd. Adding together what we spent out of Votes here for the Home Army, and what was estimated for the present year for the Indian Army, which was largely paid here, they obtained a total expenditure of £34,982,000 for the land forces. In addition to that there was a large expenditure on military works, which next year, when from five to six millions sterling would be taken in the Loan Bill of the present year, would be very large. There was also the expenditure of the self-governing colonies, so that he estimated the total expenditure on land forces or fixed defences at at least 39 millions a year. All parties—and the Army itself—were willing to admit that the Navy stood first. That admission had been made very fully on the part of the present Government by Lord Lansdowne, who was responsible for the present Estimates. The present Secretary of State for War had admitted fully that it was the duty of the Navy to protect us against invasion, and to protect our coaling stations, which were garrisoned by the Army, against invasion. He had told them that the coaling stations of the Navy need only be garrisoned by the Army as against what he called cruiser attack, and said that they were not required to be prepared to resist attack from a large hostile squadron, carrying with it a considerable expeditionary force, as from such attack it was the business of the fleet to protect them; and that the enemy's fleet could not be watching or engaging our fleet and at the same time delivering an attack in force against one of our coaling stations. And yet the Empire was spending 39 millions sterling on land forces and fixed defences. India, of course, contributed towards these Estimates, and so did the Crown Colonies, but the latter contributed at a very different rate to that at which India contributed. [Cheers.] The present Government, moreover, had been decreasing the contributions of the Crown Colonies; that was the case with the Straits Settlements, according to the latest Return, and with Ceylon, where the contribution towards these Estimates was fixed at 7½ per cent. of the gross revenue, exclusive of land sales. It was a remarkable fact that, at a time when plague and famine were rife in India, we obtained the utmost farthing from India, although this pressed with even cruel severity upon the Indian taxpayer, while we obtained only 7½ per cent. of the gross revenue of a colony like Ceylon whose prosperity was extraordinary. We were spending on our land forces and defences, putting aside the self-governing colonies, 37 millions sterling, and he thought that even the Under Secretary for War would not deny that our military system was by far the dearest in the world. There was an attempt made to explain the enormous cost of our military system by the absence of military conscription in this country, but large deductions had to be made on the other side. For instance, the cost of forage in Germany or France was overwhelmingly greater than our own—partly because we had hardly any horses in our Army. [Laughter.] Then it had to be remembered that such countries as France or Germany had to keep clothing, ammunition, and arms not for the Army with the colours or for a reserve like our own, but for a war Army of over four million men each, and all that had to be kept up out of the annual Votes. This, he thought, went to prove that the absence of conscription was not in itself a sufficient answer to those who urged that our Army was too dear. On one occasion he had had to read a paper at the Statistical Society on the question of the cost of the Army, which produced a very interesting discussion between the military authorities of this country, and it had to be admitted that the word "conscription" did not constitute a complete answer to the argument drawn from the cost. On the other hand, it was admitted that the British Navy, considering the money we spent on it, was on the whole more efficient than the navies of other countries, and he thought it was also cheaper. In this argument in regard to conscription the War Office took credit for the amount of the pay which was given to the soldiers. But the pay of the Volunteers was non-existent, that of the Militia was very small, and the pay of the private soldier, although larger than that of the private soldier in foreign armies, was, in his opinion, very much less than it might be with advantage to the country. He admitted that no close comparison between the cost of our Army and those of foreign countries was possible; he merely protested against this argument of conscription being considered as a complete answer to the question of cost. Then he would ask what return we got for this cost in the shape of an Army that could really be employed for those purposes for which it was possible to contemplate our Army being used. ["Hear, hear!"] He would assume that we possessed command of the seas. The Secretary of State for the Colonies made a very interesting speech last Saturday week at Birmingham upon this point, in which he said that the House of Commons had increased the Empire and that it must therefore increase its Army of defence. That was rather a specious argument, but one that would not bear investigation. To begin with, large portions of our Empire, such as Australia and British North America, with the exception of the fortress of Halifax, were not defended by the Army at all. They might say that the number of troops we sent abroad needed to be increased; but it had not increased of late years, but had rather diminished, and yet there was an enormously increased expense. The Secretary of State for the Colonies had deprecated any depreciation of our defence resources, and he should be the last person to make any statement with regard to them which could strengthen the hands of foreign countries, but they all knew that, foreign military attaches in this country, and the intelligence departments of foreign armies were thoroughly acquainted with everything that could be said for or against our military system. He believed it was understood by foreign Governments that the utmost force we could send out of this country was 16,000 men. It must be admitted that our Army was the only army in the world which had no permanent organisation in brigades, divisions, or corps, no permanent staff for war, and, he was afraid, no general training for war in the absence of manœuvres, which alone could train an army for service in the field. He feared that that fact must mean disaster in any serious war in which our Army was engaged. Undoubtedly the opinions expressed in evidence before the Wantage Commission by men now responsible for the Army—Lord Wolseley, Sir Evelyn Wood, and Sir Redvers Buller—exceeded in pessimism anything which could be said by any Member of the House. The Adjutant General at the time of the Wantage Commission said—

"the military authorities have never been told what it is that the British Army is expected to do in war,"

and he went on to point out that whatever it was that the Army was expected to do it was unfit, as at present organised, to do it. Lord Lansdowne admitted most frankly that the British Army was unfit for war.

When did he admit that?

He admitted it in another place. The Adjutant General in his Wantage evidence said, "not a single battalion at home is fit to go to war."

Without the Reserve.

said the Reserve was untrained, and in that respect it differed from every other reserve in the world. It was not the intention of Lord Card-well when he established the short service system that the Reserve should be used on any but great occasions, and one of the worst points in the present policy of Lord Lansdowne was that the Reserves Bill, which had been condemned by every competent military Member of the House, was to be reintroduced. When giving his evidence the Adjutant General must have forgotten the battalions of Guards. It would be universally admitted that those battalions were fit to go to war. The Under Secretary shook his head, as he evidently thought they were not fit; he should have thought they were fit to go to war without their Reserve men, or, at any rate, could have picked up sufficient men to go to war very quickly. The Guards were the force in this country which, next to some battalions of Volunteers, were most easily mobilised; but they differed from the Volunteers in being under highly skilled officers and noncommissioned officers. ["Hear, hear!"] One of the great defects in the present scheme was that it would spoil the only battalions which at the present time were fit for war. Sir Evelyn Wood, in his evidence before the Wantage Commission, said:—

"We have not 30 per cent. of the rank and file who are equal to carrying the service marching order,"

and Lord Wolseley agreed. Anyone who had watched the inarching at Aldershot during recent years must have noticed a progressive decline instead of an improvement, and one seldom saw a British battalion carrying packs in marching order. ["The Guards!"] He was talking about the ordinary infantry. Foreign armies carried their service marching order on all occasions. Even the Swiss, who had a very short period of training, marched with 60lb. weight on their backs, and they could march 30 miles a day. In the present state of things the Government proposed to drop the manœuvres. The Under Secretary shook his head, but the Secretary of State spoke of less extended manœuvres. £80,000 in one lump was dropped, and there was a large diminution in land transport work, which was explained as meaning that there were not to be manœuvres in the present year. Many persons believed that we could never have a really efficient army unless we had manœuvres. But even manœuvres could not make battalions, and he asked what return we got for the money Ave spent. Of course in India there was a certain return. We could put upon the frontier in India a force of 70,000 men, of which two-thirds would be natives. But even to put that force in the field 700 officers would have to be got from home for whom no provision had ever been made in the Estimates. What did we get here? We got the Guards and a little field artillery, but nothing else without fresh expenditure and a great waste of time after the declaration of war. The field artillery were to be slightly increased this year. They were diminished by a previous Government, and credit was taken afterwards for having increased them again. But there was no increase in men or horses, and he could not understand what the increase was that was not to be discovered in horses and men. He could not attach any particular importance to the increase of artillery when it was measured by one battery. The net amount of increase in field artillery was to be under 200 men and 66 horses, and he dared say that in these horses were included some garrison artillery horses, for some garrison batteries had officers' horses on the establishment; but even assuming that the field artillery was to get all these 66 horses, that was not a large increase, considering that the field artillery had been steadily declining in amount for a number of years, whilst the War Estimates had been increasing. There was one part of the proposals of the Government which he heartily approved—namely, the proposal to increase the West India Regiment. That would tend to secure our naval base at Sierra Leone, and was a step that had been pressed upon the attention of the Government by private Members for the last five or six years. But what was going to be done respecting the British infantry? It was admitted that the battalions at home were killed for the sake of the small Indian mobile army. The work thrown upon officers and noncommissioned officers who had to train the masses of recruits to be drafted to India was work calculated to break the hearts of the best men. Nothing could be more painful than the description given of our existing battalions in this country by men who knew the facts of the case. There were too many boys in them, and they were there for too short a time. Lord Lansdowne had said that the evil was the total inability of that portion of the Army which was at home to support the portion abroad, and that our present system was worked under conditions which absolutely precluded the possibility of success. Previous Secretaries of State for War had been telling the House for many years that the Army was in a satisfactory condition. Remembering the optimistic statements made from 1888 onwards, he thought the frank description of the condition of the Army which Lord Lansdowne had given was remarkable. In 1892 his right hon. Friend the late Secretary of State for War, speaking on the subject of war administration, referred to the "appalling cost," and said, "we are tied by traditions, prejudices, and habits which it is hopeless to overcome." He asked the House to make the attempt now to overcome the difficulties of which his right hon. Friend then spoke. If there were co-operation between those Radicals who honestly desired to get the article for which the country paid and the soldiers who now realised almost without exception the difficulties into which the Army had fallen—if there were co-operation between those two sections of the House he felt certain that the difficulties would be overcome at once. His right hon. Friend the late Secretary of State for War, whilst admitting the primacy of the Navy, had declined to contemplate the possibility of our taking part in a continental war. How, then, could he justify an expenditure of £36,000,000 a year upon our land forces? When he quitted office the right hon. Gentleman had prepared, as Lord Rosebery told the country at the Albert Hall, a great scheme of administrative reform. What were the results of that great scheme? There was this plan now brought forward by the Government. The Secretary of State for War had said at Bristol that all would be right if the House of Commons would give him 11 more battalions; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer had replied that he would not consent, and now the Government brought forward a totally different proposal—a makeshift. The Secretary of State for War said that we must establish equilibrium between the battalions at home and abroad. Up to the present time there had never been such equilibrium, and it would not be established by the proposals of the Government. It was part of Lord Cardwell's scheme that whenever two regimental battalions were absent from home at the same time the militia battalion of the regiment should be embodied. But that had never been done, and there had never been equilibrium, because ever since 1872 there had been more battalions abroad than at home. By sending three battalions of Guards away and so spoiling the only good infantry battalions that we had at home, and by creating a battalion of Cameron Highlanders—as if that could be done by a stroke of the pen—they would have four additional battalions abroad. This was called a temporary arrangement. What was the meaning of that? Was there the smallest probability that the state of affairs in South Africa would shortly permit the return home of troops from that country, or was it likely, after the speech to which they had listened on Friday, that a battalion would be brought home from Egypt? He thought that that was unlikely, and that the plan of the Government would have nothing temporary about it. Even if 11 battalions were added to the Army, was it probable that our military system would be a success and that the country would get an adequate return for its outlay? The Secretary of State had brought forward his plan as an anonymous proposal. It was talked about vaguely as Sir Arthur Haliburton's plan, and the Under Secretary had said, "This plan is put before us by the military authorities as the best and most economical." Who were the authorities thus referred it? Did the Under Secretary mean that it was the plan of the Commander-in-Chief? They did not give their confidence to the Secretary of State for War or to the First Lord of the Admiralty in military or naval matters apart from the advice which they received and communicated to the House. They, like himself, were amateurs, however great the pains they took; and when a new system was being established, or a now departure made, while admitting that their past system had failed and that they were engaged in patching it up, the House ought to be furnished with some kind of military authority in support of the scheme. ["Hear, hear!"] Personally he did not believe that this was the plan of the military authorities; he did not believe it was the plan of the Commander-in-Chief, of Sir Redvers Buller, and of Sir Evelyn Wood. The present plan was not even that of the Secretary of State for War himself at the time he made the speech; and it might, indeed, be a plan which was forced on the military authorities, and which they might have accepted from the Government; but from a perusal of it he did not think that it was the plan which they themselves had devised. The Under Secretary for War could not object to what he had just said in using the ordinary sources of information as to what the real opinion of the military authorities was. In the Debate on cordite ammunition, it was said by the right hon. Gentleman opposite that the real opinion of the military authorities was known, although the Financial Secretary for War of the late Government (Mr. Woodall) said that

"the War Office had been advised by the Director of Artillery, whose conclusion had been accepted and confirmed by the Adjutant General."

He said that this was an anonymous proposal. The Government when they came into office chose Lord Wolseley as Commander-in-Chief. If the Government were not going to back Lord Wolseley up in the proposals he made they ought to come to the House and say what was his opinion and their opinion of the situation. The Government ought to have the courage to back him up, because otherwise they misled the country by the weight of the Commander-in-Chief's name. The fact was that the House and the country were receiving the opinions on what was evidently a complicated disease, not of the physician but of unknown amateurs. [Cheers.] He thought that the Government had on this occasion a great opportunity. They made a new departure by appointing a Committee of the Cabinet for defence, and they made certain variations in the reforms of the late Secretary for War; and he believed that public opinion would have supported the Government in any drastic and effective measures to remedy the present condition of the Army. [Cheers.] He was, how-ever, greatly disappointed at the miser-able makeshift proposal which the Government had offered to the House. ["Hear, hear!"] This particular anonymous proposal failed to meet the battalion difficulty. It obviously left the Field Artillery far below the responsibilities of the country; it increased the fixed defences of the country, which were already large in proportion to her mobile strength; but it spoiled one of the home Infantry forces. The Guards were now a short service Infantry force; the majority of the men served three years, and it was difficult to send abroad a three years' force. It was impossible under three years' service to allow the Guards to go abroad in the sense in which the Line battalions went abroad. They could not be sent to India or to any other distant place; they could only be sent to the Mediterranean, which meant Malta, Gibraltar, or Egypt. But in all these places the difficulties of training were very great, and the sentry duty was very heavy; the troops so used were essentially garrison troops. If the Guards were sent to Egypt, to Malta, or Gibraltar, the young soldiers would be subject to fever in a considerable degree, and undoubtedly most of the battalions which were sent there would pass into the Reserve virtually untrained. They would get no proper exercise in field work, and in the garrison stations they would become garrison troops. Then the battalions left at home would undoubtedly, though not in so large a degree, undergo the deterioration to which Line battalions were subject by having to keep up their corresponding battalions abroad. It was said that Lord Methuen approved the Government scheme He was one of the best generals of his age which we or any other country possessed—[cheers]—and Lord Methuen had shown that he was a very excellent Parliamentary speaker. But in his judgment Lord Methuen had managed to express his extreme objection to the Government scheme in language which was interpreted by the Government to be language of resigned approval. Lord Methuen said there were three evils in Gibraltar which existed in a greater degree there than in London: Drunkenness, disease, and heavy sentry duty.

"The question of recruiting was one with which he had nothing to do, but he did hope that if any difficulty was found in getting recruits, and if the Brigade of Guards was in consequence to lose its fine physique, some steps would be taken to stop any deterioration."

Lord Methuen added that

"he should not be doing his duty if he did not point out the dangers and difficulties in the way."

[Cheers.] It was not needful to dwell on the great cost and extreme inconvenience of having those troops perpetually at sea. They would have, according to the Government scheme, to be continually relieved at Gibraltar, to be frequently crossing the Bay of Biscay, and there would be the cost of transport; but this was a minor detail. The real point to consider was whether the troops sent to the Reserve would not have had their efficiency destroyed by their want of training, and whether the battalions at home would not be ruined in order to support the battalions at Gibraltar. As to the reduction of military expenditure, while at the same time securing reforms, he said that he had not much hope of a considerable saving in the military Estimates so long as we proceeded on the present lines. One economy which might be effected would be to hand over the naval bases to the Admiralty. He believed that the Admiralty did not want to take them, but foreign Admiralties had to take charge of such bases. There were some, again, who would vote the money in a lump to the military authorities, and let the Commander-in-Chief spend it very much as he chose, without control from that House. In short, these people thought the Army should be left to itself. Lord Cromer gave some interesting evidence upon that point before the Indian Expenditure Commission, and he said:—

"The fault of the English system is that it looks too much to the amount spent but not enough to seeing that the money is well spent, and sometimes certainly it is not well spent."

It would be necessary for Parliament, if it wished to have what Lord Wolseley called a cheaper Army of equal strength, or a larger Army at the same price, to adopt a complete change of system. The real question was what that system should be. He thought it should be a short-service system for the Home Army, combined with a long-service system for India and for the naval bases, if the Admiralty would not take those bases. Lord Roberts had expressed an opinion on that point. He said:—

"If a system had to be framed afresh to meet our requirements, the separation"

—he did not shrink from the word—

"of the infantry into permanent home and foreign service battalions might be conducive to the interest of the soldier and of the State."

He also used these words:—

"The present system is extremely prejudicial to India financially."

Now, one of the reasons which had been given for not making a great change was that somebody in the War Office—he believed Sir A. Haliburton—thought it would mean that India would have to pay more for her Army than at present. It seemed a remarkable fact, however, that Lord Roberts, with his enormous experience of India, and General Chesney, with his still greater experience of Indian military finance, should both unhesitatingly express the opinion that financially India would be the better off for the change. When, some time ago, he, in collaboration with Mr. Spencer Wilkinson, ventured to write on this subject, they had certain actuarial calculations with regard to the cost of separate systems for enlistment for the Home Army and for India. Those calculations had been contradicted, but they had never been in his opinion upset, and since then, with some modifications, they had received the public approval of Lord Roberts and General Chesney. The system that Lord Roberts suggested was three years' service for Home, with a prolongation for India of the men who wished to remain for nine years' service. That was the essence of Lord Roberts's scheme. It had been said there would be difficulty in getting sufficient men for the long service. [Ministerial cheers.] On that question he submitted that the opinions of Lord Roberts and General Chesney should have some weight, and also the experience of the Royal Marines. He believed Lord Roberts was right in his belief that half the men would go for long service if the service were made reasonably attractive. If that were the objection of the Government to the change, then he suggested it would be possible, as regards certain forces, to bring the question to the test of actual decision by the men themselves. It would be easy to see what proportion of men could be raised, for instance, when the Marines were being increased, as he presumed they would be this year, by volunteers from among short-service men. He should be prepared himself to suggest a plan by which such a test could be made. If he were asked what the expenditure of the country on its Army ought to be, he answered that he would be prepared, and he believed the country was prepared, to spend whatever was necessary for our life and existence. [Ministerial cheers.] But they wanted to have it shown that we were, on the total computation of this immense expenditure, allotting a proper share to the Army and Navy respectively, and spending the portion allotted to the Army in the most effective way. [Cheers.] He had no desire to express want of confidence in the Government generally; he confined himself strictly to their military scheme, but he knew it was open to them to declare—and Governments generally were not slow to do so—that they would treat any Amendment in Supply as a vote of want of confidence in themselves. Some hon. and gallant Gentlemen opposite had given notices which technically amounted to want of confidence also. He could not assent to the milder form of asking only for inquiry, because the fact was, since he had been a Member of the House, the reports of Committees and Commissions on this subject already mounted to a column taller than himself, and everything that could be said had been said in evidence, and was on record. He appealed to those who wanted their money's worth for what they spent, and also to those who wanted an Army fit to do that which, by the admission of the Government themselves, our present Army was not able to perform, to vote for his Motion.

seconded the Motion, and said that, although the right hon. Baronet had called himself an amateur, he was yet an admitted expert in all matters connected with civil and military administration, and his reputation extended far beyond the walls of that House. [Cheers.] In his opinion, the charge of inefficiency of the Home Army was caused, not because Parliament voted insufficient money, but because the money was improperly and inefficiently spent. [Cheers.] The country got the maximum of cost and the minimum of result in its Army. An expenditure of 19½ millions resulted in a force of 154,000 with the colours and 78,000 in the reserves. He was glad to know that the Government were going to increase the Army, but many regarded the proposals as makeshift and patchwork. He approved of several of the proposals, but he did not think that those with reference to the Brigade of Guards would increase its efficiency. He did not wish to say anything in depreciation of that Brigade, which for 250 years had been bound up with the history of the Empire, and which was the oldest commissioned corps in existence. The Foot Guards were largely recruited in London and the metropolitan counties, and the men were able while soldiering to keep in touch with their friends. Thus, when they joined the reserve, they were able to get civilian employment much more easily than soldiers of the Line; and it was that fact which was the great deterrent to recruiting for the Line. If the Foot Guards were to be sent abroad they would lose this advantage. At Gibraltar there was no drill-ground suitable for large bodies of troops, and there were so many garrison duties for which men had to be detached that the Colonel had little opportunity of getting the regiment together. By forming the Guards into six battalions—three at home and three abroad—those at home, which fed those abroad, would be reduced to the position of squeezed lemons. As to the field batteries, Lord Lansdowne said that by increasing them by one there would be guns enough for the three home Army Corps. According to the French and Prussian standards, there "were five guns to 1,000 men; and at that rate we ought to have 375 guns for our three Army Corps. But the number of guns we should absolutely possess would, at the most, be 320, and for the 400,000 infantry, beyond the three Army Corps, there would not be a single battery. Those who were in France in 1871 would know that the defeat of the Army of the Loire and of the Army of the East, under Bourbaki, was almost entirely due to shortness of guns. It was easy to improvise a regiment of conscripts, but a battery could no more be improvised than an ironclad. We were to have only 320 guns, while a small country like Roumania in 1885 had 300 guns, and Servia had 285. As for ammunition trains, which were an essential part of the artillery service, we had absolutely none in this country. The War Office had not shown a proper grasp of this question of army augmentation. This scheme ought to have represented a parting of the ways with the old methods. The addition of a few thousand men was nothing; augmentation ought to have been considered in connection with a well-conceived plan of national and Imperial defence. The Authorities might have considered the scheme of a long-service army for India and a short-service army with a reserve for this country; the garrisoning of small outlying stations by the Marines, instead of by Line regiments which, so shut up, became inefficient for want of proper drill and manœuvring. The War Office might have considered also the scheme put forth by the Daily Chronicle for an Imperial army, in the formation of which the colonies should be invited to join, paying some part of the cost and finding a recruiting ground. Before giving this money, the House should consider what the War Office had done in the last 50 years. Its path had been strewn with failures. There was the scheme of 1872, the most fatuous and ridiculous ever imagined, in which the whole country was parcelled out into eight army corps which had no existence; the squadron system, which was soon abandoned, and the linked battalion system, which had proved an utter failure. In 1860—a normal year—the Army Estimates were £14,900,000, and for this sum an army of 230,000 men might have been put into the field. Last year's Estimates amounted to £19,500,000, and the total forces available were only 229,000 men. So that in 36 years the War Office had increased the Estimates by 36 per cent., and reduced the nominal forces available by 21 per cent. That did not encourage the voting of more money to this Department. The French army represented a charge of 25 millions a year, and for that expenditure there were 600,000 men with the colours, and reserves of 2,500,000. In the German Confederation there was an expenditure of 27 millions, and there were 585,000 men with the colours, and reserves of 3,250,000. Switzerland, with a population of three millions, spent £1,000,000 a year, and had a first reserve of 250,000 men and a second of 220,000. And these forces were all brigaded and available when wanted. In 1870 the Prussian Staff put 400,000 men on the line of the Rhine and the Vosges in a few weeks. How long would it take the War Office to mobilise 35,000 at Aldershot? But, unsatisfactory as was the nominal force available when compared with our expenditure, it was still more unsatisfactory in reality than on paper; for nearly 37,000 out of the 156,000 men were serving in the colonies. Most of the men of the Home Army serving abroad were shut up in Gibraltar and Malta, and in other small stations, where they had no chance of getting the necessary field drill and instruction. They consequently lost their efficiency and were unable to meet European troops in the field. In regard to the rest of the Home Army, 116,000 men, he would point out that the present Commander-in-Chief stated before the Wantage Committee that there was not a single battalion fit to be sent abroad, each being like a squeezed lemon; that it would have to be supplemented by the Reserve; and that that Reserve was practically a sham. He did not think there could be a stronger condemnation than those words of Lord Wolseley. Then, take the case of individual battalions. He knew one which was supposed to have a strength of 950 men in the ranks. But 400 of the men were under 20 years, and could not be sent out of the country. About 5 per cent. were what were called "specials"—their chest measurements were short and they were under 5ft. 4in. In addition to all that, there was a draft of from 120 to 150 men to be sent to the battalion serving abroad in the course of the next month. What then became of the strength of 950 men when only 320 men could be put into line? Lord Wolseley was therefore right when he said that the battalions at home were nothing more than "squeezed lemons." Then as to the cavalry branch of the service. He had never been able to understand, though he had served ten years in a dragoon regiment, why, with 13,000 dragoons, they should not have 13,000 horses to put them on. He knew very well that there were a great many double horses in some regiments—more horses than men to ride them very often. But that was because of the system under which recruits, after a lot of money was spent on their training, were put into the canteens or made officers' servants of instead of being made dragoons. Lord Wolseley had described the Reserve as a sham. How could there be an efficient Reserve when they were never called up? Some of the men of the Reserve had not worn a red coat for nine years, and since they left the colours, rifles, powder, guns, projectiles—everything, in fact, had been altered; and now the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary proposed to introduce a new helmet. Then, as to the Auxiliary Forces, he did not think he need take up the time of the House in describing their condition. He could understand the position of hon. Gentlemen like the Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), who wished to have the Army disbanded and the Navy dismantled, and desired to trust, like Lord Randolph Churchill, the warlike instincts of an ancient people; but he was surprised that a proposal to largely increase the expenditure on the Army should be made by right hon. Gentlemen who knew perfectly well that the Army was neither efficient nor to be relied on.

said he always listened with the greatest possible respect to everything that fell from the right hon. Gentleman who had moved this Motion. There was probably no Member of the House who was not an Army man who had given so much of his time or attention to the subject of the organisation of the Army as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean. He therefore regretted very much that it became necessary occasionally for him, as Under Secretary for War, to controvert the views expressed by the right hon. Gentleman, who, however, was often found supporting the policy of the present Government in regard to the defensive forces of the Empire. But he thought that on this occasion every Member of the House who had heard the denunciation of the whole Army system and the hostile criticism of every arrangement connected with the Army at home and in the Colonies, in the course of the two speeches which had been made in support of the Motion, must wonder how it was—to quote the concluding words of his hon. Friend the Member for South-East Essex—that men who knew that the Army was neither useful nor efficient could ask the House to spend a large extra sum in bolstering it up. [Cheers.] He wondered what his hon. Friend's idea was as to the process of mind by which a number of men sitting on the Treasury Bench could so far forget all the attributes on which all Members of the House prided themselves as to unite in bolstering up a rotten Army system and in making fresh demands for money without satisfying themselves that the money could be effectively spent in improving the condition of the Army. [Cheers.] He thought the fact that nine Secretaries of State had supported the system introduced by Lord Cardwell—modified since then in some minor respects—ought to be some guarantee that that system was not so absolutely rotten as it had just been described. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean had said that the country ought to get more value for the money it spent on the Army; but the right hon. Gentleman never threw out a suggestion, in the course of his speech, as to how that better value was to be obtained for the expenditure. The right hon. Gentleman had, indeed, made one suggestion—that was that the soldiers should be more highly paid. Of course, they would all be glad to see that done, but it would mean an enormous plunge into the National purse. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Gentleman had put forward a scheme which had to some extent received the imprimatur of Lord Roberts. What would be the result of such a scheme if adopted? It would magnify every evil under which our Army system now suffered, and put upon India an increased charge of £640,000 a year. [Cheers.] Let the House consider what our Army had to do. There was no other army in the world subject to similar conditions. ["Hear, hear!"] In the first place, we had to maintain a force in India and the colonies of nearly 100,000 men; secondly, we had to provide a force fit for mobilisation to the extent the military authorities deemed necessary; thirdly, we had to provide the possibility of sending two army corps on foreign service; and, fourth, we had to provide for the exigencies of possible small wars, and he would remind the House that the small wars which we had undertaken—often surrounded with great difficulties—had been carried out with more success than had attended the efforts of foreign Powers under similar circumstances. [Cheers.] The short-service system was based on the principle that we should have an equal number of battalions at home and abroad, the battalions at home to find drafts for those abroad. The effect of this, of course, was that the home battalions were depleted annually of a number of their best men. That system was tried by Lord Cardwell under two different organisations, first with the home battalion at 450. That system failed entirely, and it was deserted for a system in which nearly all the battalions at home were placed on an establishment of 720 rank and file. But after the Indian and colonial drafts were taken away from these battalions they were reduced to a number at which they could not be sent abroad without drawing upon the reserves. It had been made a matter of complaint that the battalions were not effective for foreign service without the reservists being drawn upon; but that was inevitable, and he did not apologise for it under the circumstances. There was no foreign regiment, so far as he knew, which could be mobilised for the defence even of its own country without calling on the reserves. It was true that our reservists were not called out for training as foreign reserves were; but the men could not be called up arbitrarily without interfering with their employment. It would, of course, be an advantage to train the reservists to a greater extent, but it could not be done compulsorily. ["Hear, hear!"] In considering this point he would ask the House to bear in mind the extent of training the British soldier had with the colours. The British soldier was eight years with the colours and four or five years in the Reserve; and was it reasonable to suppose that a man would forget in four years what he had learnt in eight years of active service? In the German infantry the soldier was 20 months with the colours and two or three years in the reserve, but the men were trained ceaselessly, morning, noon, and night, and he would ask what sort of recruits would be obtained in this country if a man's life was made practically a slavery, as was the case with the German soldier in the first year of service? ["Hear, hear!"] He would be a bold War Minister who would come down to that House and propose a similar system of training for the British soldier. The French soldier was three years with the colours and seven years in the reserve, and the Austrian soldier the same. Therefore, the British soldier spent more than twice the time with the colours and a shorter period with the reserve than the foreign soldier. ["Hear, hear!"] In 1885 the reservists attached to 14 different regiments were called out for inspection. He would not give the names of the regiments, but he would read some of the reports of the inspecting officers. The first was a cavalry corps, and the men were reported, after a month's training, to be "fit to take their places in the ranks." The reports went on as to the other regiments—" efficient in drill," "efficient in drill and military duties," "efficiency excellent," "thoroughly efficient," and so on, the reports generally being to the effect that the Reserve men were efficient and tit for active service. ["Hear, hear!"] That experience ought at once to dispose of the idea that our Reserve force was a sham. ["Hear, hear!"] Whatever were the faults of Lord Cardwell's scheme, it, at all events, had this advantage—that it had provided for the first time an efficient Reserve of 80,000 men fit to take their places in the Line regiments. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean had complained that there was a deficiency of field artillery at home, in comparison with the strength of the infantry. He might state that the field artillery had now been increased to the extent sufficient for three Army corps. ["Hear, hear!"] We had in store, and practically in readiness—though a few guns were still under conversion—all the reserve guns necessary for those Army corps to meet casualties or exigencies. The right hon. Gentleman also complained that there were no field guns attached to the great force of Volunteer infantry in the country; but, surely, if the Volunteer infantry was to be regarded as an integral part of the national defences, it was only right that they should take into account the 200 mobile gains in the hands of the Volunteer artillery, which would, in the event of invasion, be undoubtedly used in support of the infantry—["hear, hear!"]—though he was ready to admit that the Volunteers were not yet furnished with a regular artillery force. With regard to the complaint that the military manœuvres had been dropped this year, he could only say that the explanation was simple. The Government had had many difficulties to contend with in the matter, but they had an important Measure in hand relating to it, and it would be pushed forward as soon as possible. At any rate, the Government did not go one step from the declaration they made last year—namely, that it is desirable from time to time to hold large manœuvres. They hoped in the next year to have the large tract of ground on Salisbury Plain, to which reference had previously been made in the House, and for the purchase of which the necessary estimate had already been taken. The ground would be new to the troops and new to the generals, and would enable troops to be manœuvred on a much larger scale than at Alder-shot or elsewhere. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Gentleman asked, "Do we get a force for any of the purposes of the Empire in any way equivalent to its expense?" and he had expressed his regret that the demand was so small. He did not think it was a small demand. ["Hear, hear!"] It was the largest increase which had been made to the Army for 25 years. [Cheers.]

said he did not express regret that the demand was so small. He expressed no opinion one way or the other upon that point, but he did express the belief that a large saving could not be made with the present system.

said he was about to justify their proposal. It was quite true they had not asked for more field artillery.

said he did express regret with regard to the field artillery.

said they did a good deal for field artillery last year. They added 81 guns, and they had got horses and men for three Army corps. After all, they could not do everything at once, and it was perfectly obvious that they must apply the military organisation to what they had got before they began to lay down plans for an occasion which had not yet come upon them. As regarded the garrison artillery, they had faced the question of providing for the adequate defence of the forts and coaling stations by largely increasing the number of such artillery. But the right hon. Baronet and those behind him had concentrated their attention on the infantry. What were the facts about the infantry? He hoped the right hon. Baronet would not think him discourteous if he declined, at that moment to enter into the question of the Guards. It was to be raised on a distinct Motion later in the evening, and he thought it would be convenient to the House that the discussion should take place then. ["Hear, hear!"] But as regarded the number of regiments which it had been said should be added to the Line, he might say that the present number of Line battalions abroad was 76, and the present number at home was 65. Incidentally he might say that the right hon. Baronet was in error in stating that 25 years ago they had proportionately a larger number abroad.

I did not say proportionately.

said he had so understood him. At all events, the position 25 years ago was that they had 71 battalions at home and 70 abroad. No short-service system could have a fail-trial which for a long period had a strain of that kind put upon it. What it meant was that they had regiments abroad with no battalions at homo to relieve them and forced to draw their recruits from depôts—by no means the best method of training recruits—and forced, therefore, to take a very large number of young soldiers into their ranks, and who, when they did come home, were in a state of very much less efficiency. The proposal of the Government, if it was accepted, as he hoped it would be, by the House, would prevent the necessity of raising six new Line battalions, as it would mean that instead of having 76 Line battalions abroad and 65 at home, they would in future have 73 abroad and 69 at home. The right hon. Baronet said, "Why didn't you make a clean business of it and raise four more new battalions?" ["Hear, hear!"] Their reply to that was that they had a right to consider that two of the battalions which were sent to South Africa last year were only there temporarily, and that any change in the state of affairs there which enabled them to bring those battalions home would make the number of battalions at home equal to those abroad. But the right hon. Gentleman challenged this decision, and practically said it had not been supported by military opinion. The Army Board, of which the Commander-in-Chief was a member, had been consulted continually throughout the year with regard to this proposal, and it finally submitted to the Secretary of State the following proposals:—(1) To add one battalion of field artillery; (2) To add 3,500 men to the garrison artillery; (3) To raise two new battalions of Guards; (4) to raise an additional battalion of the West India Regiment; and (5) To raise an additional battalion of Malta Militia. The Army Board also considered the condition of battalions of the Line, and they held that it was necessary that the lining should be put into such a position that the foreign battalions could be supplied without having two battalions of the same regiment abroad at the same time. The Government had made that decision except with regard to the two battalions he had mentioned, and therefore he was entitled to say, in reply to the right hon. Baronet, that the proposals of the Army Board, under the instructions which the Government naturally gave as to the purposes for which the Army was intended to be used, had been met by the provision which the Government had made. He might go one step further and say that, so far from there being, on the part of the military heads of the War Office, any feeling that they had been defrauded of what they might naturally have expected, the proposals of the Government, taken as a whole, had been gratefully accepted by one and all not merely as an instalment, but as, in the words of the Commander-in-Chief, "such a step forward as the Army has not made for many years." [Cheers.] He did not wish to labour this point, but he should like to say that the language with which their military advisers had agreed to the proposals of the Government had been very different to that of the Gentleman who had spoken in the House that afternoon. After all, they could only be guided by those who had the responsibility. They had followed them, he believed, not only in the main in the proposals they had made, but they had followed them, he believed, to the whole extent of the soldiers they were likely to obtain. ["Hear, hear!"] He had a few words to say as to the alternative proposal laid down by the right hon. Baronet. That proposal was a revival of the scheme which he submitted in great detail and admirably worked out some time ago. That scheme was that the recruits should be enrolled for three years at home and for nine or 18 years in India.

I said nothing about 18 years to-night. I confined myself to that scheme as criticised by Lord Roberts. I accepted to-night the criticisms of Lord Roberts.

said he did not want to hold the right, hon. Baronet to anything but his present view. His present view was three years at home and nine years in India. Did that improve the condition of the Army at home? Would it improve the condition of the Army at homo if, after a man had done three years' service at home, he was to have the alternative either of going into the Reserve or of going to India for nine years? Lord Roberts was a great authority, but there were some statistics which were perhaps even higher than Lord Roberts. Those were the statistics of the health of the Army in India during the closing years of long service. ["Hear, hear!"] Before the end of long service 65 per 1,000 of the Army of India were dying. The cost of India annually represented, as compared with the previous rate, the difference between 65 per 1,000 and 17 per 1,000. ["Hear, hear!"] If they could reduce the amount of life to the figures, the cost to India by this reckless expenditure of human life was calculated to amount to £1,000 per day, or £365,000 per year. There was not merely the question of health. There was also the question of efficiency. He believed it was held widely by other soldiers of eminence that nine years in India was too long a time to employ private soldiers without a change. The right hon. Gentleman's proposal was, after the 12 years' service to send the men back home. Was he going to pension them or would he turn them out at the age of 30 without a farthing except what was due to him as deferred pay? He did not know whether he took the question of pensions into his scheme or not, but the cost of that scheme would be something like £640,000 a year more than the present system of providing a good British Army with shorter service and an Indian Army, and would be, in his opinion, of most military authorities, far less efficient. That House had appointed committee and commission, one after another, to inquire into the needs of the Army. They had Lord Randolph Churchill's Committee, which considered the financial arrangements of the Army in 1887. They had the Duke of Devonshire's Commission in 1889, and they had the Wantage Committee in 1890. The Wantage Committee was specially charged with considering the terms and conditions of service in the Army, and he thought that, as that verdict had been challenged, they had some right to ask the House to abide by it. Lord Wantage's Committee said, not that the system had failed, but that the working of the system had been such that it had not had a fair chance. The House was now asked to improve the working of the system and to put that system into such a condition as Lord Wantage's Committee desired it should be in. The right hon. Gentleman had a scheme and the other hon. Gentlemen had their schemes. There might be a separate Indian Army or there might be a return to the long-service system, which, as Lord Wolseley had observed, would be like making water run up hill, but there was no scheme on which reliance could be placed with that certainty which could be relied on as to results, as was the case with the short service, and until a better system was produced, surely it must be said that short service held "the field. ["Hear, hear!"] What had it given us? We had for the first time a force of 200,000 under pay in England by voluntary recruiting. He admitted that the first year recruits were too young; he admitted that the battalions at home were unfit to go abroad without reserves. If we could afford to pay a larger scale of pay we might secure recruits in competition with the ordinary labour market, but we could not do that; we could not hope to attract men who could earn 4s. a day at other labour, but at the same time those who knew our soldiers after two or three years' service allowed that there never was a time when the British Army was in a better and sounder condition, except as regards the first-year recruits. Under these circumstances he urged the House and every Member to read the evidence given before Lord Wantage's Committee, and to believe that they came to the conclusion that it was not the system that had failed, but that the working of the system required improvement. The hon. Member for Belfast (Mr. Arnold-Forster) had written a letter to The Times in which he regretted to see the hon. Member spoke of a small section having had their fling and having done their level best to ruin the British Army. That section thus alluded to included nine Secretaries of State, four Adjutants-General, and two Commanders-in-Chief, of whom one was the most distinguished representative of the old school of military thought, and the second was the most prominent General of the new school. In asking the House to reject the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman, he did so in favour of a system which had given us the best Army we had ever had, which had produced results which could not be surpassed by any system which could be suggested in place of it, and which, if the House would only give the extra regiments now proposed, would enable the system to have a fair trial, enabling line regiments to fulfil the part they were intended to bear, and carry out a well-conceived plan which, in the opinion of the highest authority, would secure the efficiency of our Army. [Cheers.]

said he had no intention of voting with the right hon. Baronet because, though there were some parts of his speech with which he thoroughly agreed, his own view was in accord with that of the Under Secretary. He had not had an opportunity of looking closely into the figures of the right hon. Baronet, and it was not of the slightest use to follow a comparison of the cost of foreign armies with the British Army. This matter had been discussed in the House, and had been well dealt with by the late Secretary for War. It was not possible to make the comparison, not only because of the fact that while on the Continent there was the system of conscription, and we had to go into the open market, but also because of the comfort and almost luxury of the position of the soldier in the British Army as compared with foreign armies. While the pay of the latter was about a halfpenny a day, our men received from 6 to 12 times that amount, and were lodged and maintained in a manner which in continental armies there was no attempt to approach, nor would he have that standard of comfort in the least diminished. In the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman with reference to artillery, and in his comparison of the number of guns required by the infantry, he forgot to mention that, of the total number of infantry, 250,000 were Volunteers, and that they had a fairly adequate amount of Volunteer artillery—some 280 guns, many well horsed; and the only reason why they had not a larger force of field artillery was that the military authorities did not think it desirable to institute Volunteer field batteries. But they had some seven or eight, and the number might be increased at any time if it should be thought desirable to make the increase. Of the specific proposals of the Government he thought they were excellent so far as they went, but he found fault with the Government for not proceeding further in the same direction. To the proposal so far as the Guards were concerned he objected, and he predicted that in a few years it would be revised. At first one or two battalions would be sent abroad, but soon the difficulties of recruiting would come in, and the scheme would have to be abandoned. He agreed with the Under Secretary as to the advantages of the short-service system, but the fault he found with the scheme was twofold—first, that it should not leave well alone and the Guards as they are; and, next, that it did not give the nine extra battalions all military reformers had been asking for during ten years past to make the short-service system work well. The question as it concerned the Guards would come up for subsequent discussion, but he was perfectly convinced that there would be no shadow of objection on the part of officers of the Guards to any scheme for the advantage of the service—their public spirit and esprit de corps would induce them to sacrifice all personal considerations to that end. The objection to that part of the scheme was that the opinion of the officers commanding the Guards had never been asked. They were surely the first people who ought to have been consulted. The defect of that scheme was that it was proposed to send three battalions of the Guards where both the popularity of their recruiting and their efficiency as trained soldiers must be diminished. One reason of the popularity of the Guards was that the soldiers, on the termination of their three years' service, had little difficulty in obtaining civilian employment. If they were sent abroad that would cease to be the case, and the popularity of recruiting for the Guards, and their efficiency also, to a certain degree, would be reduced. The men composing the Guards regiments were as fine as any in the whole world as regarded both drill and training, but they were going to be sent to a place the principal characteristics of which were, according to Lord Methuen, disease, heavy duty, and heavy drinking. The circumscribed space which they were to occupy must result in contributing to their inefficiency, whilst the way it was suggested to remedy that by making the terms of service shorter would not prove effective, and would add greatly to the expense. He was of opinion that short service had in the main been of substantial benefit. ["Hear, hear!"] The defect of the remarks of the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean was that he had no remedy to propose. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman, if the present system was put in the melting-pot, was there a single person ready with any effective substitute for it. ["Hear, hear!"] He himself did not know of any such person. With the exception of the proposal relating to the Guards, he approved of the scheme of the Government, which he should support in the hope that this one step in the right direction would be followed up by further steps in succeeding years. ["Hear, hear!"]

said he had not intended to take part in this discussion, as he had given expression to his views on many previous occasions. But, when he heard the right hon. Gentleman, speaking on behalf of the War Office, appeal to the fact that so many of his predecessors had taken the same view that was taken by the present Administration on that subject, he thought it only right that he should express his entire confirmation of that statement. ["Hear, hear!"] He would go a little further and say that, to his own knowledge, more than one Secretary of State had gone to the War Office strongly prejudiced against the present system, but when they became aware of the real internal difficulties of working such a complicated Army as theirs, they altered their opinions and accepted the present conditions. He would even go a little further, and say that soldier after soldier had gone to the War Office, and they also had found reason greatly to modify the opinions they had previously entertained, and he doubted very much whether they could find any soldier at the present day who had occupied a high responsible position connected with the Army who would endorse the view put before the House by the right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean. ["Hear, hear!"] He was quite aware that the right hon. Baronet had been able to quote the evidence of two very distinguished officers. But they were officers the whole of whose service had been passed in India, who had to do with the finished and manufactured article, and not with the manufacturing and finishing of it. They had no knowledge or experience of all the difficulties surrounding the question. There was one point he should like to urge upon those who had a conscious or unconscious inclination towards the system of long service—namely, that if the right hon. Baronet's Motion was good as against the present Government, it was good as against the whole series of Governments from Lord Cardwell's time down to this. ["Hear, hear!"] Why was short service introduced? It was introduced because the long service system had notoriously failed, and because the Recruiting Commission had produced evidence which could not be resisted, and which showed that they could not recruit the Army under the long-service system. It therefore came to be a question of short service or nothing. There was really no choice in the matter, and those who were responsible at the time had to face the necessity of altering the old long service pension system. ["Hear, hear!"] His right hon. Friend was not an upholder of long service; he wished a very short service for this country, but for the Indian and the colonial service he would still have a long term, with the consequence that had been already pointed out—that in addition to being an inefficient system it would be a costly and a cruel one. They would send the men out to India and keep them there until they either died or their constitutions were hopelessly damaged, and then bring back the remnants to this country to be pensioned and to eke out their wretched existence. They had this to be said for the present system—that, if illogical from many points of view, it suited their conditions, and what they endeavoured to do was to keep the men who went to India long enough for efficiency, yet sparing as much as possible expense to the Indian Government, while at the same time not keeping them so long as to do material damage to their constitution. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Baronet had quoted the evidence of Lord Wolseley, Sir Redvers Buller, and others before the Wantage Committee. Lord Wolseley was rather apt to make strong statements, and in some of his evidence he had made rather sweeping admissions as to the condition of the Army. But did Lord Wolseley, Sir Redvers Buller, and Sir Evelyn Wood, who had given that kind of evidence before the Wantage Committee, endorse the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman? Not one of them. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Baronet had quoted some words he had himself used with regard to the way in which they were hampered by traditions and local difficulties. He remembered the occasion and the matter of which he was then speaking, and he repeated it now. It was when the infantry was organised in double battalions and localised as it was now over the country; he did not hesitate to say that it would have been better to have formed larger regiments with more battalions, to have had smaller districts, and thus have saved a great deal of expense in barracks and staffs. ["Hear, hear!"] He appealed to anyone in the House what would have been done if the A-shire regiment had been sent to the B-shire district, or the colonel of the C-shire Militia had had to serve under the Commanding Officer of the D-shire district. [Laughter.] They were beset on all hands by county prejudices and jealousies, and by the traditions and susceptibilities of the regiments. There were enormous difficulties in dealing with the distribution of regiments of the Line. Take the case of the Cameron Highlanders. He made a feeble effort to dispose of it, because it was an utterly anomalous regiment. As a Scotchman his heart bled for it—[laughter]—and feeling was too strong against him. But now, the Government which the right hon. Gentleman represented had a great courage. Here was a single battalion which, according to the last return, was kept in a state of efficiency by 11 recruits drawn from its own district; and to get over the difficulty the happy thought had occurred to the Government to have two battalions and divide the 11 recruits between them. [Laughter.] This showed the difficulties met with when they attempted to do anything businesslike in regard to the different regiments. He had already spoken of the system, and said all he need say about it. The question the House had to consider was whether the present system had worked thoroughly. He had listened with great pleasure, as he always did, to his hon. and gallant Friend who preceded him in this Debate, than whom there was no one with a wider knowledge of the Army or more qualified to advise the House on any military question. ["Hear, hear!"] His hon. and gallant Friend alluded to the excess of battalions out of the country. That was really the crux of the question. If we had had from the first a larger number of battalions in the country than serving abroad, or, in other words, had maintained the system as it was originally intended, none of the difficulties which had so far been discovered would have arisen. But what reason had they to believe that the excess of battalions abroad would be permanent? That had always been the difficulty. He had had this responsibility himself, and he had never felt quite certain he was justified in coming to the House of Commons for a large additional sum for the Army on the ground of the excess of battalions abroad, because he was not certain what change of policy might not create an inequality without any other mode of interference. He believed we had 52 battalions of the Line in India. Would it not be possible to bring home two or three of those battalions? He was not aware that there was a serious objection to a step of this sort being taken. Then he came to a difficulty to which he felt bound to allude, and which had really had a good deal to do with this question. Of late years, greatly to the public advantage, the Army and Navy had been brought together on the question of the defence of the country. They had heard each others' views, and now the whole system of national defence was arranged on full consideration of the views of the two services. Pie ventured to hope that both services were perfectly fair and reasonable in the matter. But the distinguished officers at the head of the Navy declared that they would not be responsible for conveying any reinforcements to any of our foreign stations after a declaration of war. This statement had been made authoritatively and it was accepted as gospel. But he was not aware that there was anything in it which should make it like one of the postulates of Euclid that people should accept as beyond contradiction. What did it mean? He was not aware that that claim on the part of the Navy had ever been made before. But now the theory was that the Navy was to have the supreme command of the seas. If this doctrine were put forward by a weak Navy he could well understand it. But it was put forward by a strong Navy, and if it were not strong enough let them strengthen it. But it seemed to him to make a considerable claim on the intelligence of the ordinary outsider merely to say it was impossible for it to convey troops to Gibraltar or Malta after a declaration of war.

I never said that.

said it might be right or it might be wrong. He pointed out the great influence that it had. What was the consequence? We had seven battalions of infantry at Malta treading on each others heels, deteriorating day by day in many respects. They were not in a suitable place for a part of our mobile forces. He tried when in office to get one or two away, but he was immediately extinguished when any proposal of the kind was made. He was told it was a scandalous thing, that the infantry garrison at Malta was not large enough at the present moment, and the War Office ought to send more men there. That was a state of things not in itself desirable. Malta was nothing but a Navy base. The Army had no use for Malta; yet all its best infantry battalions in piping times of peace were kept there year after year deteriorating under their eyes, and they were told there was no help for it. The same thing applied mutatis mutandis to Gibraltar. He was merely showing how many considerations must be taken into account. He did not venture, after his past experience, to contradict the theory to which he had alluded as a postulate to be accepted. It might be right or not. He pointed out the consequences, and if it could be got over, the equalisation of battalions was pretty well accomplished. The proposal they had heard with regard to the Guards was terra incognita. It had not been explained, so he should reserve what he had to say about it. But he had thought it desirable in connection with this question of the Army system and its administration to make these few plain observations upon the evils and possibilities of cure which attach to the present state of things. Holding strongly the view that our present Army system, although it was easy to find fault with it, could not be replaced by any other which would not have ten times more evils or which would at all come near it in meeting the various requirements of the Service, he need hardly say he should support the Government. [Cheers.]

said that although the Motion of the right hon. Member for Dean Forest was practically a vote of censure on the Government, it would be recognised in every part of the House that the motive was a most creditable one and only sprang from a desire, shared in a large degree on the Ministerial side of the House, to direct general attention to the present serious condition of the Army. Nothing the right hon. Baronet had said had so heartily enlisted his own approval as his observation that the public would have backed up the Government in making much more thorough and carefully elaborated proposals than they had done. He was not by nature a democrat, but he thoroughly believed in the policy of completely trusting those from whom you wanted extensive favours, and he thought that in the case of naval policy the public had shown an absolute will ingness to vote any sum of money provided it had some guarantee that it would have commensurate results in return. It was no new discovery that our military system was excessively expensive. The Wantage Committee, so often referred to, contained references to the fact that the efficient maintenance of our military establishments and the defence of our positions at home and abroad, must always, under any system of voluntary enlistment, be a matter of great difficulty. The voluntary system was more responsible than, anything else for the excessive cost of the Army, and though the right hon. Baronet tried to minimise that objection, his arguments did not disturb the central fact that a soldier who was paid under the voluntary system had to be more highly paid. In his opinion there were many people in this country who held extravagantly optimistic views with regard to the Navy. They talked about the sister service exactly like the French used to talk of their Army just before the events of 1870. The cause of those views being held with regard to our Navy was to be found in the fact that so many of our military critics were fond of depreciating our Army and of always looking at its seamy side, both in public and in private. He did not think that either the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean, nor his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Essex, were quite fair in the statements they had made with regard to some features of our Army. It had already been pointed out that evening that our Army occupied a most difficult position, and had more anomalous duties to perform than that of any other nation. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman did not give sufficient credit to the Reserve, which formed a most important feature in our short system. He, however, entirely sympathised in the complaint that the Reserve men were not adequately trained, and that great difficulty was created by employers objecting to the Reserve men in their employment being called out for annual training. If this difficulty cropped up too frequently that House would have to deal with such employers, who could not be allowed to sacrifice the Army for their own interests. As a general rule, the Reserve men had responded admirably when they had been called out. Thus, in 1878, out of, in round numbers, 14,000 men summoned, 13,000 had come back to the colours. In 1882, out of 11,600 men summoned, 11,000 had responded to the call; and from the figures which had been set forth that night the same thing had occurred in 1885. His hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Essex, and certain other military critics, were in the habit of ridiculing the physique of our young soldiers. It was a fact, however, that our minimum standard of height was considerably above that of foreign armies. Putting aside the exceptional standard of the Guards, he might remind the House that the minimum standard of height in the Line was 5 feet 4 inches, as against the minimum standard of 5 feet in the German army, which actually had in the ranks of their line battalions soldiers who stood "5 feet nothing." He had had the honour of serving for some years in India, and he had seen, our magnificent battalions there in their full war strength, who were constantly being moved out of their cantonments at a moment's notice, and it was impossible not to be deeply impressed with their warlike efficiency, which could hardly be surpassed. He should recommend our military critics to visit India and to look at those battalions for themselves, because he was satisfied that if they did so we should hear a great deal less said in depreciation of our Army as a whole. His right hon. Friend had said but little about the possible invasion of this country; and it had been suggested that the proposals for the fortification of London did not enter into the serious military policy of our defence, but were rather devices to lull the fears of the uninformed multitude. He feared that the military authorities were really placing absolute reliance for the security of the country against invasion upon the Navy alone. With regard to the difficulty arising out of our linked battalion system, he thought that when, by any accident, two of the linked battalions were sent abroad at the same time, the third battalion, in other words, the Militia, should be embodied, in order to feed the other two. If in the present instance 11 militia battalions had been permanently embodied, it would have had rather a striking effect upon the people of this country. He thought that that experiment might fairly be tried. He also agreed with the suggestion of his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Essex that, in order to give some outlet for local patriotic feeling, a regiment might be localised in each of our more important dependencies, such as Canada and Australia. As to the proposals of the Government generally, he repeated that the public would have been prepared for something much more sweeping and involving much greater cost if it had only been explained to them that it was necessary. Nevertheless, he trusted that the Government, having once decided upon a scheme, would thoroughly persevere with it, and would not, like their predecessors in office, allow themselves to be led away by social influences. With regard to a second battalion for the Cameron Highlanders, he should have liked to have heard that the wish of Lord Card well, to the effect that a superior class of young men should be attracted to the Army, had been fulfilled. He commented on the absence in these proposals of any definite plan for sending small expeditions out of the country in cases of emergency. The Guards would have been a specially serviceable body for this purpose, and he could understand that to send them to do duty in a fortress in time of peace might have a very injurious effect on their recruiting. He would not discuss the additions to the Army, which were really microscopic, any further, except to express the hope that the field battery might at least consist of six guns and not four. The issue raised by the right hon. Baronet was, of course, one of want of confidence. If that Motion were carried, and the Government defeated, did he (the right hon. Baronet) desire to return to the torpid sway of the right hon. Gentleman the late Secretary of State for War? and did he think that would advance the objects which he, in common with the right hon. Baronet, had at heart? It was useless to contend that our military position and the military administration of this country were absolutely satisfactory, but he was not prepared to interrupt and terminate by a vote of censure the first important step taken for many years to improve the efficiency of the Army.

said there was very considerable difficulty in properly discussing these military proposals. The first thing the House required to be convinced of was whether the money provided would do the work that the Army had to do; but before they could say what the Army had to do they must first decide whether the country was safe from invasion. That was a question which could not be decided by the Military Authorities at all, but was a Naval question, involving also the question of transport and the Mercantile Marine of this and other countries. If he were to attempt to discuss that question on the Army Estimates he would no doubt be told by the Speaker that this was a question which should be discussed on the Navy Estimates. But he wished to point out that the Member for the Stirling Burghs (Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman), a late Minister responsible for the War Department, had said that the number of battalions at Malta might be reduced. The root of the whole question of the inequality between the foreign service battalions and the home service battalions rested upon the answer to the question: What was the number of battalions that it was necessary to have in garrisons abroad? He entirely agreed with Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman that we had too many battalions at Malta. His opinion of the difficulties and the cause of the failure of the military system was that they arose from the fact that we had never actually defined, and no Minister in the House had been in a position to say, given our supremacy at sea, what are our military requirements? He would require a distinct statement how far naval supremacy affected our military policy. The steady absorption of our Army into garrison service he regarded as a great danger, and considered that the result obtained was not at all in proportion to the expense to which we were put by such a system. He understood that the increase of the garrison battalions was the result of the recommendation of the Colonial Committee, but he asked if the Authorities of the War Office were going to produce to the House the recommendations and Report of that Committee? It was a curious fact that the proposals now made by the Government were exactly the reverse to the proposals made before the short service system was introduced, when, in 1870, as preliminary to the reform in the Army, they took away one battalion of the West Indian Regiment, and abolished the Canadian Rifles and the Ceylon Corps, and turned Garrison Artillery into Field Artillery. Now another preliminary reform in 1870 was a reduction in the fleet, when it was announced, amidst the cheers of the House, that the Navy Estimates were lower than they had been for many years; therefore, the difficulty he found in discussing the Army Estimates was that of having clearly in their minds what the Statesmen guiding the defences of the Empire really thought of the military necessities. Evidently the tendency was that the stronger the fleet became the more they should lock up the Army; but, in his opinion, the stronger the fleet the freer should be the Army. His own conviction was that they were overdoing the cost and the number of men provided for the sedentary duties of the Army. If they took the case of Malta, all the troops in Europe crammed into Malta would not prolong its existence under the British flag for one hour when our naval supremacy had ceased; while, if we exercised a dominating influence at sea, how was it possible for any great sea expedition to come down and attack Malta? Therefore, the real cause of complaint in regard to the little apparent result they got from the Army was that they did not face fairly the question of what our Army was for, and what were its necessary functions. He found that for garrison service, and service in defensive positions alone, they absorbed 372,123 men at a cost of nearly five and three-quarter millions, while the field Army, which was the real Army, cost only just five millions, and absorbed only 112,000 men. He did not think such a system was satisfactory, or that the country was getting value for its money. Our Navy was really the defensive arm of the country, and so long as it fulfilled its duty offensive expeditions over the sea by foreign military force were impossible. He wished to draw attention to this fact. There was a statement made by the War Minister that such and such things were going to be done on the recommendation of the Colonial Committee. Was the right hon. Gentleman going to produce the Report of that Committee? Because this question and the Guards, and, indeed, all these questions resolved themselves into this, What was it that determined the necessity for strengthening the garrisons abroad? If it was proposed to keep so many battalions at Malta—the very flower of the Army with the colours outside India—surely the House had a right to know what were the broad grounds on which it was proposed to keep seven battalions locked up at Malta? In this matter he did not consider himself tied by any Party obligations. ["Hear, hear!"] He felt himself bound to vote on matters affecting the national defence according to his own lights and judgment; and, unless before the Debate closed he could get some satisfactory statement from the Front Bench as to what were the real circumstances that led to increasing the strength of these garrisons, and unless he had some clear statement as to why it was, with the naval supremacy in their hands, the Government could contemplate for a moment a large hostile force coming across the sea to attack them, he was bound to say he should vote for the Motion, because he did not think the Government were fulfilling the requirements of the country. He felt this very strongly when he looked at the general position abroad, and remembered that if the supremacy at sea was real, the main military question simply resolved itself into a question—apart from India—of offence. The naval base must be secured from the cruiser attacks of which the Duke of Devonshire spoke, but he could not see that seven battalions were wanted at Malta, besides an enormous force of artillery, engineers, and sub-marine mines, to resist cruiser attacks. If the fleet was sufficient, any organised attack on British possessions abroad was impossible. ["Hear, hear!"] Why, then, were the Government locking up the flower of the Army in these garrisons? Unless he could get some more satisfactory statement as to the reasons and grounds for all this enormous accumulation of force and all this enormous expenditure on garrison service, he should feel bound to give his vote for the Motion, not so much on the question of enlistment or terms of service, as upon the primary question of military policy. He trusted the House would have some satisfactory explanation. It was no good for the Under Secretary to get up and say that the military authorities feared invasion, because the highest military authority at his back had the most extraordinary notions on the subject, namely, that the Army must be looked to because the fleet might, disappear in a night. The point on which he wanted a clear and explicit answer was this, had the military policy in regard to these preparations for great military attacks been settled, not by the military authorities, but by the most serious consideration of the possibility of an enormous military force parading about the sea to attack our possessions, while we held the supremacy of the sea On the answer the right hon. Gentleman was able to give to that question certainly depended into which Lobby he should go. ["Hear, hear!"]

said the question which his hon. Friend had asked was one scarcely coming within the scope of the Motion. The Secretary of State had quoted the opinion of the Colonial Defence Committee and the other authorities which had influenced the opinion of the Government on the probable points of attack and the force that ought to be maintained. Those recommendations had been put before the House on the responsibility of the Government, who, of course, had carefully considered both the naval and military effects that might be produced. The hon. Gentleman might rest assured that if the Government came to the House and asked for what they considered the needs of the national defences, it was after considering the whole naval and military requirements of the nation.

pointed out that our voluntary system of enlistment gave every man in England a freedom which was absolutely priceless, and although he did not deny that our Army was expensive, the reason lay in that fact. As long as the voluntary system existed, we would undoubtedly have to pay the price of freedom for it. Every miltary man would like to see the system advocated by the right hon. Baronet, but there was great objection to it, and that was the objection of pensions which it would entail. It was an ideal system, but he did not think it could be introduced now. We had adopted another system, that of linked battalions. That system was the very best that could be devised at the time it was brought forward, but from the day of its conception until now, it had never had the slightest chance of success, owing to the action of various administrative Governments. He read several extracts from Memorandum of General MacDougall's Committee's Report on Details of Army Organisation, to show that essential recommendations had never been carried out. It was quite impossible that system could go on under the circumstances. We had now; 76 battalions abroad and 65 at home. The fact was, that to work the system properly we required a margin over and above the reliefs of six battalions attached to the First Army Corps. He could not understand how the Under Secretary for War proposed on any ground whatever to carry out the linked battalion system, unless he had, at any rate, an equal number abroad and at home. The proposal of the Government, put it any way they liked, left us in at minority of four. He could not understand the attitude of the Government. He was a representative belonging to the Conservative Party. He had been wont to go down to the constituencies and denounce the Party opposite, declaring that when the Conservatives came into power they would do something for the Army, and would put it on a proper footing. He was bound to say, as a military man, and, he must humbly add, one who had had considerable experience, he regarded the proposals of the Government as absolutely contemptible and paltry. If ever we wanted an, addition to the Army it was now, because the territory of the Empire had grown in a prodigious way. We had annexed Cyprus and the Transvaal, though we afterwards gave the latter back to the Boers, which hon. Members opposite would say was the right thing to do But we had since added Bechuanaland and Rhodesia to our South African dependencies. They could not call it a temporary expedient to send out four battalions to South Africa. The Under Secretary looked to get two battalions back from South Africa. In his opinion they would probably have to send out 10 more battalions there. We should have to keep our troops in South Africa, or else he was entirely wrong in his prognostications. Turn to Egypt. We had several battalions there. Was that looked upon as a temporary measure. Here we were with a deficiency of at least 11 battalions, and all this was due to the fact that successive Governments had never done any thing to carry out the most essential points of General McDougall's Committee's recommendations. The increase of the Depôt organisations to meet emergencies had been quietly ignored. Nobody knew what chaos reigned at present from one battalion preying upon another. In consequence, no one knew that except the regimental officers of the British Army, and they had no means of expressing their view of the facts in this House; but, having commanded a British regiment, he could vouch for the fact. For two or three years, while he commanded that regiment, when he objected to the system carried on he was told by the Adjutant General that, according to the plan, the regiment was for the time being useless. That was a contemptible position to put any colonel in. What did the Government do? They came down and asked the House of Commons for two battalions to the Guards, and claimed, by a process of arithmetic, that in so doing they were adding six battalions to the Army. They were doing nothing of the kind. As a matter of exchange they were adding six battalions to the Line, but merely adding three battalions to the Army. For the Government to come down with a miserable £5 note proposal of that kind—he said it was a contemptible thing for any Government to do. He was extremely sorry to have to go so far as to say that. One of the greatest difficulties they had to contend with was that they could only get a diluted opinion as regards the military advisers of the Crown. At the present time they had the Commander-in-Chief, the Quartermaster General, the Adjutant General, and the Commander of the Forces in Ireland. He did not suppose that any Government in modern times had had the advantage of more skilled advice, or officers more experienced in war, than those four officers. What he would like to have would be the concrete opinion of those general officers, or else the individual opinion of any one of those officers on the proposals before the House. Everyone who had served in the Army as long as he had must feel that some of the remarks of the Under Secretary could hardly represent the opinions of the military advisers of the War Office. Those opinions must have been whittled down, so that the force had been altogether destroyed, to trim with political exigencies. They had to cut their coat according to their cloth, and that cloth was served out to them by a set of clerks in Pall Mall who did not know the requirements of the service. This great Empire would some day meet with an unparalleled catastrophe if these methods were persisted in. The service Members were supposed to swallow anything offered to them, but he was not prepared to swallow some of the proposals of the Government; and he said this from a strong conviction that the Army was not up to the requirements of the Empire. He saw it was proposed to add some 400 horses to the cavalry; but if our cavalry were to be put in a state even relatively equal to that of France and Germany, 2,000, even 4,000, rather than 400, more horses would be needed. At the same time, the Government must be thanked for the proposal, because they were the first Government in the last 20 years who had added a single cavalry horse. The ideal cavalry organisation of France and Germany was four squadrons to the regiment and 24 squadrons to the division, while we were content with three squadrons to the regiment and 18 to the division. It would be well to follow the standard of Powers which had had so much reason to study the matter, and which had at present such magnificent cavalry divisions. If he had expressed himself more warmly than he intended, it was simply in the interests of the service which he had so much at heart. ["Hear, hear!"]

said the system under which enlistment was now conducted in the Army, as far as foreign service was concerned, was the best system for the country. The men who were trained in service abroad returned eminently fitted to make a good reserve. In advocating a return to the long service system, it had been forgotten that Lord Cardwell's system of depot centres had never yet had a fair trial. The idea of that system was, that all the arms of the service should be so brought together that they worked, not as units, but as a whole. Further, these depot centres were to be made stores, where everything would be found necessary for the troops ordered on active service. But the money—£3,500,000—voted by Parliament for establishing this system was spent for quite different purposes. A great proportion of it went to build barracks. The time had come when the War Office should take this scheme into consideration. If war were to break out to-morrow we should find ourselves in the same position as we did at the outbreak of the Crimean War and during the Abyssinian campaign. To send an army corps into the field would cause considerable confusion. What we wanted was some organisation which would give us a better preparation for actual war. The late Secretary of State for War had that evening declared that the naval authorities declined to be responsible for the movement of the garrisons in the Mediterranean. That was a very serious state of things. He thought that, under the new Committee of the Cabinet, something like co-operation of the services had been brought about; and he hoped that reasonable and sensible co-operation would be insisted on. Manœuvres ought to be conducted, not by the Army alone, but by the two services in co-operation. There should, for instance, be exercise in the embarkation and disembarkation of troops and stores. It was essential that the forces should be employed in times of peace at such work as would be required of them when actively engaged in war. He also considered that we were not getting money's worth for what we were spending on the Army. When his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury was an independent Member he was always laying before the House evidence of military extravagance. He remembered that on one accasion his hon. Friend showed that the cost per head of our Army was three times more than the cost per head of the Army of any other country. The total cost of an English soldier was £130 a year. The greater portion of that cost was due to extravagance in organisation and administration, and that therefore was a branch of the service in which economy was badly needed.

said he did not agree with the conclusions of the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean, when he advocated two Armies, enlisted under different terms of service, for home and India. Such a scheme was not likely to be beneficial either to the Army or to the military needs of the country. But, on the other hand, the proposal of the Government did not appear to him to meet the requirements of the service. They were no doubt a step in advance, and as such they would be welcomed; but what was required was not so much what he should call, with great respect, a patching-up of the present system, as the remodelling of that system on a working basis. The right hon. Baronet had quoted the opinion of the Adjutant General, who had said that there was not a battalion of the Line in this country at the present time that was ready for war. It was' popularly supposed that our battalions were ready for war at any moment. But if it were otherwise, it was not the battalions but the system that was to blame, and it was the duty of Members of the House, as the representatives of the electorate of the country, to find out where the defect lay, and to suggest an adequate remedy. Personally, having had forty years' practical experience of military life, and therefore having some knowledge of the subject, he thought the two questions of linked battalions and short service should not be mixed up together, but should be considered separately. At present, military opinion was not strongly against short service. Under that system we escaped the great number of pensions which lay at the end of long service, and besides, the term of service was being gradually extended. But the linked battalion system had never appeared to him to be a good scheme. It was like an Army working in fetters. He had always held that it was not right to sacrifice the efficiency of one battalion in order to feed another, and keep up the system of linking. It was intended under that system to have at home precisely the same number of battalions as were abroad. But if it became necessary to maintain permanently abroad a number of battalions in excess of the number at home—say, in the case of a European war—what, then, would become of the linked battalion system? The system was based on the idea that an even balance should be preserved between the two linked battalions—the one at home and the other abroad—but it was conceivable that in certain eventualities that balance might be disturbed. What should be done was that the links should be severed, the battalions should be set free, as before, and restored to their old numbers; that the depot system should be made a reality; that each battalion should have two strong companies at the depot to feed the battalion at home or abroad, and with a framework ready so that it could be extended when necessary into a fresh battalion. He was sorry it was proposed to add only one battery to the Field Artillery. It was a service that took a long time to train; there was none that could be extemporised less quickly in the field, and none it was more essential to keep at all times up to its full strength and efficiency. Therefore, while willing to accept the proposals of the Government, he did not think they were complete or efficient. There was one other point to which he wished to refer, and that was the responsibility for military policy. They had had a short statement from the Under Secretary with regard to Army matters, but which he thought the House and the country would like—

That hardly arises upon this Amendment.

said he would, therefore, only add, in conclusion, that the conditions which were proposed in the present instance appeared to him hardly sufficient to meet the requirements of the service. Hon. Members were willing to accept them at the present time, but he trusted the time would soon come when the Government would see fit to accede to the wishes of the House and go more fully into the requirements of the Army.

said it was with great diffidence that he rose to make a few remarks on the proposal now before the House, and his diffidence was increased by the statement of the late Secretary for War that until they had sufficient knowledge of an official character upon the question it was really impossible to express an opinion. He was, however, somewhat strengthened in appearing before the House when he remembered that the same right hon. Gentleman had said that the cost of the Army was appalling, and was at present increased by prejudices and traditions which it was almost hopeless to overcome. He for one did not give up hope entirely, and he trusted that the other military Members of the House, who were almost all of one mind on certain points, would not give up hope until the country knew the real facts of the case. The Under Secretary for War, in his very able statement, said, in direct contradiction to what the Secretary for War stated in another place, that the state of the Army was quite satisfactory up to a certain extent—that we had succeeded wherever we had gone in our wars. He had always held that the British Army was good, but he did not think that was quite the question before the House. The question was, was it as good as it might be? Was it as good as this great nation had a right to demand? He did not think that any answer could be given to that question except in the negative. He did not think it was right to say, as the late Secretary for War said, that the present Commander-in-Chief had a very large field of expression. He thought that when a man like Lord Wolseley gave utterance to the words that the Reserve was a sham, those words ought to be received with great respect and attention. He had had some slight personal knowledge of those distinguished officers, Sir Evelyn Wood and Sir Redvers Buller—the latter of whom was better known by the very determined way in which he expressed himself—and he did not think that anything but absolute truth could be attached to any evidence they might give before a Committee. But the principal object for which he rose was to refer to the words in the Motion, viz., "dealing with the present system of enlistment." That was a matter which he had the honour to bring before the House on the Estimates last year. He was convinced that, whatever might be said about systems and about the different ways of managing the Army, until they went to the very root of the question, until they dealt with the actual material of which the Army was composed, the sources from which that material was derived, and the way in which it was derived, they must be beating the air. That was the very root of the question, and until they looked at the way in which they got their recruits, and the time of getting them, they would never attain the ends which they had all in view, viz., that the country should get its money's worth for the money which it spent on the Army. It was wise to see what foreign countries were doing in this respect. Most foreign countries enlisted men at the age of 20 or 21, and only one European country enlisted at the age of 19. But the normal age of enlistment in this country was 18, and practically general officers were allowed to accept recruits at the age of 17, and it was a well-known fact that recruits were taken even at much lower ages. Those recruits were merely undeveloped boys; their minds and their characters were not those of men, and yet they were expected to do the work of men, and to resist the temptations of men. In 1894, in order to get 37,000 recruits no less than 62,000 candidates were examined, and, therefore, 25,000, or over 40 per cent. of all the applicants, were rejected. That to his mind showed that the class from which recruits were drawn was almost entirely composed of the lowest of the community, especially in view of the small requirements of the Army recruiting departments. He thought that if we could organise our Army on the real lines that we ought to do, we would obtain a better class of men. We expected a great deal more from our soldiers than we did a very short time ago. He held that as long as we continued to take our recruits at anything under 20 into the battalions in which they were expected to serve, they could not, from the force of circumstances, do the work nor acquire the knowledge expected of them. Perhaps the most serious aspect of this matter was the nation's responsibility as regarded the individual units who were persuaded into joining the Army. Until they altered the present conditions under which the men, instead of leaving the Army better than when they entered it, left it worse, they would never get the parents of boys anxious to send their sons into the Army. The same rule ought to apply to the non-commissioned ranks as to the commissioned. There was an unparalleled anxiety to get into the latter, and if the Army was treated on logical lines, by making it sufficiently attractive to the rank and file, there would be the same competition to enter the ranks of the Army as there now is to obtain a commission. Another point he desired to refer to was the terrible state of the health of the Army, and it made the responsibility all the greater when they thought of the comparative youth of those who were invalided while their service was going on.

I think the health of the Army is a subject outside this Motion.

said he was merely going to prove that the enlistment suffered in consequence of the neglected state of health of the soldiers. He could only say that when a man left the Army he was often worse than when he went into it. He left it, in many eases, a beer-drinker, and that was one of the greatest detriments to a man obtaining employment when he left the service. He did not deny that a great improvement had taken place as regarded the question of temperance, but there was great room for further improvement. As remedies for meeting the present difficulty, he suggested that our tropical and semi-tropical coaling stations should be placed under the Admiralty, which would relieve many of the battalions now in garrison there. Then, also, with regard to our smaller Crown colonies, he thought their efficiency might be maintained with much smaller staffs of officers. At some of the stations the staffs were ridiculously large. Thus, for example, at Bermuda, ten staff officers, nearly all of the rank of Lieut.-Colonel, are maintained for the control of a force less numerous than a single German regiment—and this, of course, not including regimental officers. The time had come when those anomalies should be remedied. Twenty-five years ago Yokohama was garrisoned by marines, and the experiment was proved to be an unqualified success. The Secretary of State for War stated that those stations absorbed no fewer than 18 battalions; but if the coaling stations were placed under the Admiralty, and garrisoned, if only partially, by marines, many battalions would be relieved. He could not understand there being any objection on the part of the Navy to undertake the work. ["Hear, hear!"] Another method by which he would seek to change the present unsatisfactory system would be not to admit any recruit into a battalion until he was 20 years of age, but if it was necessary to enlist recruits at a lower age, then they ought to be placed first of all in training establishments, similarly to training commissioned officers at Woolwich and Sandhurst. As long as recruiting at the present age went on, he held that satisfactory results could never be obtained. ["Hear, hear!"] The Under Secretary for War seemed to refute the idea that men could be got to enlist under present conditions for long service, but the right hon. Gentleman had forgotten that it was the object of the authorities to throw every obstacle in the way of the men, to prevent them from enlisting for long terms. He believed also that the pernicious system of deferred pay had done more harm to the Army than anything else, and it was one of the first things he would abolish in the present system. They could not expect finality in the matter, however, until the Army was so reformed and the soldier so treated that he would be made to feel that the greatest punishment that could be awarded him was to be dismissed from the service, and until there was as great competition to serve in the rank and file as there was in the commissioned ranks. ["Hear, hear!"]

while not wishing to interfere with the Debate, ventured to point out that there was another Amendment following on the Paper which raised a question of very great interest, which deserved to be debated, and on which the public would desire to have some information. He alluded to the subject of the additions to the Guards. ["Hear, hear!"] He therefore thought it would be for the general convenience of the House that the present Debate should be brought to a close with or without a Division, so that the other subject might be considered. When his right hon. Friend the Under Secretary made his statement on Friday there would be every opportunity of discussing the general question. ["Hear, hear!"]

said he felt bound to make a few remarks on the matters under consideration that night, as he understood that on Friday an Amendment would be moved for a reduction in the number of men, which would have the effect of preventing any hon. Member from dealing with the subjects which were now before the House. The two front Benches were agreed on the present policy adopted in regard to the Army; they had similarly agreed before, and the result of such agreement had always been the breakdown and failure of our Army organisation. ["Hear, hear!"] Until this system was changed the British Army would never make any progress. The system was contrary to common sense. It was a crazy system which could never produce any satisfactory results. The plan of linked battalions supposed that two battalions formed one unit, but only by accident had the two battalions of one regiment ever been quartered together. They generally met each other in the Suez Canal. There never would be regimental solidarity with one battalion at home and the other abroad. The depot system for recruits had undoubtedly been a failure; to those brick buildings scattered all over the country were sent recruits and some old veterans who were employed there in cleaning pots and pans, looking after vegetables, and doing other military duties of that kind. [Laughter.] Another batch of recruits would go to the home battalion. Was it credible that this could be a wise system? The whole staff of officers of the home battalion had practically not to learn military duties, but to play the part of masters of schools and of drill-masters to the recruits. When the men thus under training began to know their masters and to become soldiers they were sent away to another battalion. Let the House look at the contrary effect of the system pursued in regard to the Royal Marines. The recruits for this force were sent to large depôts and kept there for nine months. They were then turned out the best drilled soldiers in the world—[cheers]—and sent straight to the various divisions. To make any comparison between the line battalions at home and the Royal Marines, either at home or abroad, was perfectly idle and absurd. ["Hear, hear!"] It had been urged that there should be a system of short service for the Army at home and of long service for the troops abroad. The system of short service—the term of three years—had been tried at home in the Brigade of Guards, and it had succeeded after the long term of seven years had failed. They had a long service in the Royal Marines, and there they had, side by side, a three years' service and a 12 years' service, both producing admirable results. Between those two they had a seven, or eight, or six years' service, which they pretended was a short-service system, and which was an absolute failure. ["Hear, hear!"] Their practice in the matter was contrary to common sense. They expected to get good soldiers and plenty of them, and yet they told every man or boy on enlisting that they would keep him for six years and then turn him adrift a ruined man, unless he got aid from some charitable institution, to which he must go and beg the right to live. ["Hear, hear!"] He defied anyone to suggest that that sort of system could attract the right class of men. He asked any hon. Gentleman to tell him of one single instance since the short-service system started of any battalion in the British Service—except the Guards or on the Indian Establishment—that had paraded on its war strength in war. As a matter of fact, their Commander-in-Chief, or others, had selected their battalions. ["Hear, hear!"] They picked and chose and filled up their battalions with the best men they could get from here and there. A war would test this system, and they would then see whether they were dealing in realities or not. It was said that these men were very fine fellows. 80 they were. Those who survived the perils and temptations of Indian life grew up to be fine soldiers; but they came back here to be ruined and to go into the workhouses. Only last Session he asked that these men might receive a little more consideration at the hands of the Government—men who were discharged into the workhouses by scores and hundreds. [Ministerial cries of "No."] He hoped he should have an occasion of proving that statement. He was told that a great number of these men had been employed by the railway companies, but that the railway companies found they were not the proper class of men, and it was not fair to press them to take a class of men whom they really could not make use of. Was that the necessary consequence of serving Her Majesty? Not a bit of it. They got men discharged from the Marines by hundreds and from the Navy by thousands, and everybody was glad to get their service. But they got those men whose careers had been broken by this Army service discharge, and they came out as they went in—very little better, and sometimes, perhaps, a little worse. He claimed that the failure of the system, which was now undoubted, was the natural and inevitable consequence of the system; and he trusted the House would not be misled by the rosy statements they heard sometimes. They must discount and discount the legitimate and splendid pride their officers took in the units they commanded, and they must go and see for themselves what these battalions were. He did not care where hon. Members went, they would find the same miserable, tedious sham going on of these battalions being treated as depôts for other battalions. ["Hoar, hear!"] What he believed they wanted was a recasting of the system on some common-sense lines. ["Hear, hear!"] They wanted to do away with this plan of making one battalion depot for another—a plan never' heard of in any land except this or fairyland. He wanted to see the men transferred, when they were properly trained, to the regiments in which they were to serve. They wanted to see their superior officers really occupied in doing the work which they entered the Army to do, and not doing the work which, as a matter of fact, was being done by non-commissioned officers in the depôt. They were burning the candle at both ends, for they were preventing the right men going in, because they did not allow them to go in under conditions which good men would be content to accept. For these reasons he would support the Motion of the right hon. Baronet.

desired to challenge the statement of the Under Secretary for War that the 200 guns belonging to the Artillery Volunteers were perfectly mobile and could be used in case of an invasion. Those guns—and he dared say the right hon. Gentleman was aware of the fact—were absolutely useless, for they were obsolete. There was not a Volunteer company in the country that had got breech-loading field pieces, while the battalions on the coast had only muzzle-loaders. He would like to know why the right hon. Gentleman said that these 200 guns could be used in case of invasion, and were perfectly mobile. He did not object to the proposed expenditure. Far from it, but with this expenditure the artillery of the Volunteers should be put on a proper basis. He happened to be an old Volunteer officer, and remembered that the guns were and remained now, he believed, all muzzle loaders. What was the use of these? Those were not the best weapons with which to resist an invasion. He would go further in reference to the expenditure upon artillery, and deny that the best weapons were given to the Royal Artillery. They might brag of the efficiency of batteries and horses, but the weapons were old. The breech mechanism of the field pieces was old, it had the side swing and not the proper drop action for quick-firing. Why spend money on the obsolete mechanism? He merely directed the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to these facts. It was all very well to come to the House and ask for money, and the right hon. Gentleman was only doing his duty in that, but the money would not be wisely spent unless it armed the British Army with the best weapons. The, Royal Artillery could not compete with continental artillery, simply because the weapons were not of the modern type. The quick firing of the French and German artillery could beat ours, to use a common expression "into fits." He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be practical in this matter. It was his duty as Minister of the Crown, and not only a duty he owed to his colleagues but to the nation, that, before asking for money he should show it was for supplying the best article he could get.

felt an apology was due to the House, and he hoped Members would bear with him while he called attention to a matter which would not be in order on later Amendments. The Under Secretary had reproached the right hon. Baronet who moved this Resolution with not having provided any solution of the difficulties which he had placed before the House, and the taunt had been repeated by hon. Members who had followed. But it seemed to him, if the right hon. Gentleman established his point, if he had shown that the state of the Army at the present time was unsatisfactory, that it was inefficient and required to be reorganised, then he had done all that could be expected from a civilian Member of the House, the solution of the difficulties resting with the paid officers of the Crown. ["Hear, hear!"] It was not for a civilian Member of the House to offer the solution of these difficulties. He asked the patience of the House because he believed that to a certain extent he could suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary some lines upon which he could amend the future organisation of our Army. No doubt our Army presented a most complex problem. We had to provide for home defence, for the possibility of landing a large force on the continent, for our Indian Army, and for the garrisons of our colonial and foreign possessions, and all this had to be done with the voluntary system. To provide for all these difficulties we had a system which dated from a time when we had no colonial possessions or Indian Empire to defend; the system of district commands, a system which had been thrust aside by all continental nations. We had rejected it in India, where we had a far better organised and more efficient Army. This system of district commands dated almost from the beginning of our standing Army. So different were the districts in this country that it would be found in their staff officers they varied from nine up to twenty-one, and in battalions in these districts they varied from one to fifteen. In spite of these irregularities they were co-equal in power, each independent of the other, and simply tied to the War Office and subject to the War Office. In England these districts were nine in number, in Scotland one, and in Ireland four. He would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Brodrick) that if he really wished to lay the foundation of a properly-organised Army system in the country, he should change these district commands into Army Corps commands, those in Great Britain to two or three Army Corps districts and those of Ireland into one. When he said a change, he meant much more than any change that had been made on paper up to the present time. He did not mean merely reorganising them on paper, leaving these Army Corps subordinate to the War Office as at the present time; he meant more than that. If the right hon. Gentleman and the Secretary for War thought of waiting until the War Office took the initiative, that would never come until they were in their graves. What the right hon. Gentleman needed to do was, to speak with the authority of the Government to which he belonged, with the force of the public opinion of the of the country behind him, and say that this antiquated system must cease and be replaced by a system in accordance with continental and Indian experience. It must be something real. The Army Corps must not be simply generals who are under the thumb of the War Office, they must be in command of the Army Corps, responsible for everything concerned in the district, ammunition, materiel and arms, and all preparations for defence. Let these be as independent as the Army Corps leaders in Germany, and only by laying the foundation of some such system would the organisation of the military force of the country be effective? What the right hon. Gentleman was doing was simply patchwork. The War Office was an old building, and whilst to an old building they might put a bow window, or an attic, or a new storey, they could not adapt it to new requirements. ["Hear, hear!"] They must start at the very foundation and build upwards. If the right hon. Gentleman would not do this the money he was now asking to be voted for the Army would be wasted, for he would not get any effective return for it. It was a question of organisation, and unless the right hon. Gentleman took that in hand and insisted upon its being real, complete success would not attend his efforts. ["Hear, hear!"] He could warn him that when he came to attack the War Office system he would find there was an enormous vis inertiœ. It was a building in which had collected an enormous number of staff officers and staff clerks. They naturally loved power—as did everybody—they had got it in their hands and would keep it if they could. But if the right hon. Gentleman would speak with the strength of the Government and of public opinion behind him, he could say to the War Office that it should be reduced to the limits of any general staff of the foreign armies, and that these staff officers and clerks who were superfluous should go to the Army Corps district. ["Hear, hear!"] He pressed it upon the right hon. Gentleman as a matter of organisation, and he would tell him that, if he genuinely asked for a solution of the difficulties in connection with the British Army in this country, that solution could only come from such a system of decentralisation as he had mapped out to him. ["Hear, hear!"]

observed that the proof of the short service being the better system was that the very regiments they proposed to increase were those which had been successful because of the short service. They were, indeed, the very regiments that were most easily recruited because they had the option of short service. Then came the question of the battalions at home. The Under Secretary said they were supposed to be of a strength of 720 each, or taking the drafts for India 520. He had himself been at Aldershot for something like twenty years, and he had never seen—except in a very rare case—a battalion of 520 men on parade, and he did not think they very often saw 400. As to the question of the Artillery the increase that was proposed would bring the number of horses and men up to what they were about thirty years ago, when there were both more horses and men than now. He thought it was Mr. Stanhope who brought about the reduction, and the Artillery were now about to be put back to the old numbers by the proposed increase. But independently of that, the Army was supposed to be increased, therefore the proportion had fallen enormously. Coming to the Reserves, there was one Reserve which was a perfect myth, namely, the Militia. The Militia Reserve was composed of men who were reserved naturally by being in the Militia. The Militia in the old days was a reserve that filled up their battalions at the battle of Waterloo, and on a hundred other occasions, and formed the Reserve Army of this country. They took 30,000 men out of the Militia, called them Militia Reserves and gave them a pound or thirty shillings a year for the sake of having that name. No members of the Militia would object to see that force used for foreign service when required, and the country would then be enabled to save the £30,000 a year they were now spending on a Militia Reserve, which was practically a stage Army, and which became reserved twice over, first, as the Militia Reserve, and then as the Militia. They had got no artillery for the Militia. They had got Garrison Artillery but there was not a single gun to supply them with. Then there was the Yeomanry, which was very good for scouts and so on, but hardly sufficient to supply the Army with 70,000 men—at least with cavalry—which the Militia was supposed to be able to do. They had thus got a large reserve in the form of Militia without a single gun, and without any real cavalry to support them in the field. He thought this reform was a fictitious one. They increased the infantry, in which they were strongest, but they increased the Artillery to such a small extent as to be utterly inefficient for use as a Reserve, and they did not really improve the existing force of the country against invasion. The only thing they did, was to enable their best force for protection namely, the Guards, to be divided, so that a certain portion of them could be utilised as were the Line regiments, by being sent abroad, but by that means they destroyed the few battalions that were left at home. He complained of the inefficiency of the Army at home. Something was radically wrong with the system of recruiting, and should be altered if we were to have anything more than a paper Army.

held that the proposals of the Government were unsatisfactory in themselves and insufficient for the needs of the Army. The Under Secretary for War spoke of the recommendations of the Military Board. Military members knew what they were. The Military Board was obliged to take what was given to it. He did not deny that the permanent officials of the War Office were painstaking and industrious, but he contended that they and the Secretary of State should have a freer hand, and not be told by the Treasury: "You cannot have any more money; you must make the best of what you have." The Militia were below the proper strength, and no attempt had been made to enforce the Constitutional law of raising it by ballot. He exceedingly regretted that. The system of deferred pay was most objectionable, and the sooner it was abolished the better. He was surprised that no proposals had been made for extending the manœuvres. The Under Secretary for War had referred to the acquisition of 60 square miles on Salisbury Plain for that purpose. Did he think an Army could manœuvre on a space eight miles by eight miles? Such an area was nothing more than a large drill ground. Our Reserves did not receive sufficient training, and when they were called out to fill up weak battalions, as had been done in the case of Egypt, they had in some instances been found to be extremely insubordinate and difficult to deal with. But why were the Reserves not called out oftener? It was said that if called out they would not get employment. They got retaining pay, and why not call them out at least for a few days every year"? ["Hear, hear?"] He had been in the Army 30 years, and he had never known the Militia Reserve to be called out. He believed that any hon. Member who was in the service would bear him out in that statement. He maintained that when the Reserve men had been called out in England they had been found to give a great deal of trouble. [Cries of "No!"] As to what had been said with regard to the provisions of guns for the Artillery, he happened to command a brigade of Volunteers, and he should like to know where the guns were that would be a necessary adjunct to the force if they were called upon at short notice to go into action. As far as he could ascertain we had something like 200 guns only nominally assigned for that purpose, which amounted to about half a gun per thousand men. The Government had made no adequate provision of these arms, but they came down to that House with a mere makeshift proposal to carry out the linked battalion system. He would not detain the House longer at that late hour of the night, and he could only apologise for having occupied its time at such length. The matter, however, was one of great importance, and it was this fact that had led him to trespass so long upon the good nature and indulgence of the House. ["Hear, hear!"]

said that the state of our military forces was a subject that fully deserved the attention of that House. For some 18 or 20 years he had held a Commission in Her Majesty's Service—not in the Regulars, but in the Militia—and he had taken a great interest in the question of the recruitment of the force. It appeared to him that it was a mistake to recruit for the Army and for the Militia separately. They ought to recruit for the two branches of the Service together, and after the men had received a certain amount of training they should be allowed to elect whether they would join the Militia or the regular Army. As it was, he believed that some 15,000 or 20,000 men who were recruited for the Militia went into the regular Army every year. That appeared to him to be a very wasteful and unworkable system, which ought to be abolished. Then, in order to stop desertion in the regular Army, a soldier, after a certain probationary period, should be free to return to civil life or to remain with the colours as he thought fit. The Government, in place of adding three battalions to the Guards and sending them to Gibraltar and Malta, where they could not be properly trained, and consequently must deteriorate, should have added four regiments to the Line, which would have been a real and a useful addition to the Army. In his opinion the proposal of the Government to send the Guards abroad would render it very difficult to obtain recruits for that branch of the Army. The hon. Member for Aberdeen had drawn attention to the excessive amount of drinking that went on in the Army—but in India it would be found that some 30 or 40 per cent. of the men were