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to have their own opinions. The honourable and gallant Member for Manchester, with whom I will commence, told this Committee in the plainest way that this is a wretched makeshift on the part of the present Government, and the worst thing he ever heard of, and yet he is going to vote for it. Having informed the Committee his opinions of the Bill, he is going to vote against the Amendment of the honourable and gallant Member for Belfast. Now, we have heard from the right honourable Gentleman the late Secretary for War a statement containing his reasons for supporting the Government. He says that he will do so because it limits the amount of money the Government are going to spend. That is practically what the right honourable Gentleman's suggestion is.

system upon the idea that this Reserve | are honourable Members in this House is absolutely able to do all that we who are soldiers, and who are at liberty require in times of need. I do not want to underrate the value of the Reserve, but I say that the great danger is to overrate the value of the Reserve. I would remind members of the Committee that we have been rather accustomed to see our Reserve forces called out for rapid and quick expeditions, which have generally been crowned by quick victories after one or two engagements, and yet we have never seen them tested by the necessity of great discipline or long endurance, which may be vitally important to this country. Therefore I do think we soldiers are entitled to remind the Committee that absolute faith in the Reserve is hardly a thing that is likely to lead to the absolute efficiency of the Army. As a soldier I am not prepared to oppose the suggestion of the Government, in which I recognise a certain element of usefulness and value. 1 SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: recognise that in the immediate circum- I do not recognise the words at all. stances of the present case it obviates some of the difficulties our regimental officers have declaimed against. But do not let anyone connected with the administration of the Army think for a moment that because we soldiers support this Bill we are satisfied with it as a great measure of military reform. We regard it as a makeshift only forced upon the Government by the unsatisfactory condition in which the Army stands. It will not make a big mark in military history. In criticising the Government we have not forgotten the promise cf increased pay of the Army. I recognise fully the value of the proposals in the Bill. I attach the greatest value to the proposal to transfer from one battalion to another, and I recognise the difficulty in which the Government stands. At the same time I do not consider this anything more than a temporary Measure, though I am not prepared to vote against it.

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MAJOR JAMESON: The very curse of all military legislation has been that we have made the efficiency of the Service absolutely subservient to Party politics. I will never be a party to that. The Government are asking the country to believe that they are getting 5,000 men for defence duty, and they are not adding one man to the Reserve. It is wholly a farce and a sham, and to the whole of the first clause of this Bill I object. I congratulate the honourable Member for Belfast on having brought to the notice of the House the Amendment. I trust the honourable and gallant Member for Shropshire will recollect one thing-that he is a soldier first and a politician afterwards. I myself well remember that I am a soldier first and a politician afterwards. There are some 73 of us in the House, and instead of this extraordinary break-up of Members who have been in the Army, we should combine together in going to the Government, and then we could carry any Reserve we liked in order to secure the efficiency of the Army. I firmly believe that Members who have been in the Army and know its wants will be acting against the best interests of the Army if they do not vote for the Amendment of the honourable Member for Belfast.

*GENERAL LAURIE (Pembroke and Haverfordwest): From my point of view

of all others, should be composed of a cohesive and homogeneous force of men and officers who thoroughly know each other. My belief is that this will injure the Reserve and not effect the purpose you desire. I object most strongly to the Bill.

COMMANDER BETHELL (Yorks., E.R., when I first heard the proposal of the Holderness): I am bound to say that right honourable Gentleman I was delighted with it. It seems to me a modest and sensible method of enabling us to carry on a small war without any great expense. For the life of me I cannot find any objection to it. I have read every book on the subject. I cannot see what objection there is to the proposal. Is it true that the men will not be trained? Is it true that there will be so little cohesion that the men will not be reliable? What have we

there are two very strong objections to
the Measure. In the first place, it is
proposed to take 5,000 men from the
Reserve, and asking them to hold them-
selves in readiness to serve at a moment's
notice. I ask any Member of this House
if he would give any man a job with the
full knowledge that at any moment he
might be taken from him? And yet we
profess to be trying to find employment
for our men when they go to the Reserve.
Recollect that this will not merely affect
5,000 men in their first year of service.
When a man leaves the Army it is his
first year that shapes his career in civil
life for the future. In that twelve months
you will almost compel him to
be a
casual and a loafer, and the habit once
acquired will go on for the rest of his
life. Practically, your Reserve men in
after years will be all of that class. That
is the way in which it will affect the
Reserve very seriously. The other point been
is, will it give you an eeffctive fighting
force? There is the question as to
whether it is worth while to spend money
in getting a force that will be a failure.
It will be a composite force of men who
do not know one another. Our experience
of composite forces has not been satis-
factory. We tried one in the last attack
on the Redan at Sebastopol, and again
at Majuba, and in both cases it ended
in disaster. Surely it is better
to spend money on a force that
will be effective. We are spend-
ing £45,000 with the object of get
ting a satisfactory result. That is a point
this House ought to fully consider and

doing now for the last 25 years? Have we not been successful! If it was cheaper, that would be an advantage.

What is the alternative? There are two. Either we must spend five times as much to keep some five or six battalions ready to take part in these little wars of ours, or we might do what my honourable Friend opposite suggests -we might take our military system to pieces, and put it together again, to meet this particular contingency. I think that would be a wrong thing to do. I think blemishes, is one that has answered very our present system, although it has some well. So far from joining my honourable decide. I maintain that we shall not and gallant Friends in their criticism on have a satisfactory result from the this proposal, I heartily congratulate the expenditure of this money. Recollect, again, right honourable Gentleman upon it. I that it is for small wars that this pro think it is one of the happiest suggesposal is made. Small wars are generally tions that have ever been made in Parcarried on with barbarous races, and in liament, and I am only surprised that dealing with barbarous races you require the right honourable Gentleman did not greater cohesion to stand against them propose it long ago. Perhaps I may be than you require when fighting against permitted to say, without presumption, civilised forces. Take what happened that we naval and military men make a lately. Your wounded are cut up at great mistake when we think we are once; they are never spared; and you always quoting the opinion of the Navy require men to thoroughly know one and Army in these questions. I believe it another and feel that they have a com- is a mistake to suggest to this House mon interest, and will not desert that the Army as an army, and the Navy one another when wounded, when as a navy, object. In my belief, we you send them on expeditions such weaken our position by quoting the Seras that. I say, therefore, in ex-vices as we do in that way. I congratu peditions which you send against late my right honourable Friend upon his barbarous races, such expeditions, proposal, and only hope it will operate

General Laurie.

with the success which is anticipated for | ment to send no man for service in India it; but, if it does not, it can be altered, I under 20 years of age-if that had been daresay, without much inconvenience. understood, and every commanding

MR. WARNER (Stafford, Lichfield): I had no intention of speaking upon this subject until I heard the speech of the honourable and gallant Gentleman who has just sat down, which, I think, showed that this Bill is very much misapprehended by honourable Members of this House. There are many objections, in my opinion, to this Bill, one of which is that men who have been out of training for some six months, and who have lost, to a certain extent, their efficiency, are called up to strengthen our Army. That is the first objection. Another and more serious one is

COMMANDER BETHELL: I would just like to point out that it is the men who are only in the first year of their Reserve service who will be required, and they must be perfectly trained.

MR. WARNER: I think the honourable and gallant Gentleman has mistaken the meaning of my observation. I said men who have been out of military training for six months, and who have lost, to a certain extent, their habits of discipline. But another objection is that at a time when we wish to strengthen the Army here is a Bill the effect of which will be to rob our Reserve force of some of its very best men. The object of this Bill is to avoid the necessity of increasing our battalions up to their full strength. Instead of making our battalions ready to send abroad by means of fresh blood, you take men out of the Reserve, which we do not want to decrease, at a time when this country certainly looks forward, at no distaut period, to the possibility of war. The policy of keeping the Reserve up to its full strength is a good one, but this Bill robs the Reserve of a number of its men

whenever there is a little war, and it subjects the men to an amount of active service, and, as I think, weakens the Reserve to a very serious extent. That in my opinion, is a serious objection to this Bill, and I shall certainly record my vote against it if it goes to a Division. *COLONEL

BLUNDELL (Lancashire,

officer had been allowed to engage men in his own regiment, giving the Reserve pay and half as much again to Reservists who engaged for all wars, you would now have had regiments which could call on their own men for their own work. The only objection to that system was, it was suggested that the men could not find employment in the same way as the men in the Reserve service, who were only liable when the Reserve was called. Now, a great deal of nonsense has been talked about the Reserve men supposed to be tramping about the country, a great many of whom are not soldiers at all, In my opinion, the nucleus of a regiment but pass themselves off as Reserve men. must have sufficient to absorb and assimiLord Haliburton-admirable public serNow, speaking of vant as he is his letters showed that he

late the Reservists.

thought the soldier should be as interchangeable as the parts of a rifle itself. It is the natural thing for the officer at headquarters to do. As men who have to act with young soldiers know, they are much influenced by regimental sentiment, and when they have been some years in the Service that is not so much the case. In our Service we have some of the most distinguished officers, I admit, and we have a Reserve of 8,000-not merely a good Reserve, but the best Reserve in the whole world for its numbers; but, at the same time, the nucleus which has to take it in is not sufficient, and I strongly advise the Government to do all that they can to make it sufficient.

*MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: With re

gard to what the honourable Gentleman has stated, it is quite clear I could not approach the matter of which he spoke. I did attach great importance to the argument which I used, and thought it was strongly relevant to that which was addressed to me by the honourable Gentleman when he said we are to be received the approval of the War Office. pressed to accept this Bill because it had I pointed out that we had received simi

Ince): If, some time ago it had been lar assurances on similar occasions, and understood what havoc was created in I asked the right honourable Gentleman the Cardwell system by Sir William for permission to give the particulars Mansfield, when he induced the Govern- which I gave, and therefore I have

nothing with which to reproach myself in that matter. I am strongly in favour of the Motion which I move, and although I am indebted to the honourable and gallant Gentlemen who have spoken in favour of it, I regret that they find themselves unable to give me the advantage of their votes. I am content, however, with the expression of opinion which has been given. The right honourable Gentlemen on both Front Benches support each other when matters of administrative detail are in question, but, with all due deference to them, I confess that in this matter I retain my own opinion.

MR. BROADHURST (Leicester): Many of us are inclined to support the Government in the more moderate proposal which they put forward rather than support the proposal of the honourable Gentleman, that a permanent body of

Arrol, Sir William
Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John
Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manch.)
Barton, Dunbar Plunket
Beach, Rt. Hn. SirM. H. (Brist'})
Bemrose, Sir Henry Howe
Bentinck, Lord Henry C.
Bethell, Commander
Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.
Blundell, Colonel Henry
Bond, Edward

Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John
Burt, Thomas
Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.
Cecil, Lord Hugh

Chaloner, Capt. R. G. W.
Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm.)
Chamberlain, J. A. (Worc'r)
Charrington, Spencer
Cochrane, Hon. T. H. A. E.
Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse
Compton, Lord Alwyne
Cooke, C. W. R. (Hereford)
Corbett, A. C. (Glasgow)
Courtney, Rt. Hon. L. H.
Cripps, Charles Alfred
Dalrymple, Sir Charles
Dixon-Hartland, Sir F. D.
Dorington, Sir John Edward
Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-
Duncombe, Hon. Hubert V.
Fergusson, Rt. Hn. SirJ. (Manc.)
Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne
Fisher, William Hayes
Fison, Frederick William
FitzGerald, Sir R. Penrose-
Flannery, Fortescue

Foster, Sir W. (Derby Co.)
Gedge, Sydney
Gilliat, John Saunders
Goldsworthy, Major-General
Gordon, Hon. John Edward

Mr. Arnold-Forster.

AYES.

men should be kept at Aldershot waiting and anxious for a job. May I ask the right honourable Gentleman whether the first clause in any way makes any inroads in the constitutional safeguards by placing in the hands of the executive Government the power of calling out an increased number of men without our consent?

*MR. BRODRICK: There is no question arising as to constitutional safe guards. This House votes a number of men every year, and this merely provides that the Government may call out 5,000

men.

Question put

"That clause 1, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

The Committee divided:-Ayes 121; Noes 46.-(Division List No. 125.)

Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John E.
Goschen, Rt. Hn. G.J. (St.Geo's)
Goschen, George J. (Sussex)
Gray, Ernest (West Ham)
Greville, Captain

Hamilton, Rt. Hon. Lord G.
Hanbury, Rt. Hon. R. W.
Helder, Augustus
Henderson, Alexander
Hozier, Hon. James H. C.
Hutton, John (Yorks, N.R.)
Jessel, Capt. Herbert M.
Kemp, George
Kenyon, James
Kenyon-Slaney, Col. Wm.
King, Sir Henry Seymour
Lafone, Alfred

Lawson, J. Grant (Yorks)
Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)
Lockwood, Lt. Col. A. R.
Loder, Gerald Walter E.
Long, Col. C. W. (Eveshanı)
Long, Rt. Hon. W. (Liverp'l)
Lowe, Francis William
Lucas-Shadwell, William
Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred
Macartney, W. G. Ellison.
Maclean, James Mackenzie
Maclure, Sir John William
McArthur, Wm. (Cornwall)
McCalmont, Mj-Gn. (Ant'm,N.)
McKillop, James
Marks, Henry H.
Melville, Beresford Valentine
Milton, Viscount
Milward, Colonel Victor
Mount, William George
Nicol, Donald Ninian
Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay
Parkes, Ebenezer
Pender, James
Phillpotts, Capt. Arthur

Pollock, Harry Frederick
Powell, Sir Francis Sharp
Purvis, Robert

Richardson, Sir T. (Hartlep'l)
Ridley, Rt. Hon. Sir M. W.
Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Charles T.
Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)
Robertson, Herb. (Hackney)
Robinson, Brooke
Round, James

Royds, Clement Molyneux
Russell, Gen. F. S. (Chelt'm)
Russell, T. W. (Tyrone)
Savory, Sir Joseph

Scoble, Sir Andrew Richard
Sharpe, William Edward T.
Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renf.)
Sidebottom, Wm. (Derbysh.)
Skewes-Cox, Thomas

1 Stanley, Lord (Lancs)

Stone, Sir Benjamin
Strauss, Arthur

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)
Talbot, Rt. Hn.J.G. (Oxf'dUny)
Tollemache, Henry James
Tomlinson, W. E. Murray
Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. H.
Wanklyn, James Leslie
Ward, Hon. R. A. (Crewe)
Warr, Augustus Frederick
Webster, Sir R. E. (I. of W.)
Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon
Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)
Williams, J. Powell (Birm.)
Willox, Sir John Archibald
Wortley,Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Wyndham-Quin, Maj. W. H.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES-
Sir William Walrond and
Mr. Anstruther.

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"Page 2, line 4, leave out one year' and plan of the Government to take the insert two years."Mr. Warner.)

MR. WARNER : There are two points in this clause which I do! not think are quite realised, and the Amendment I have put down seems to be necessary. It depends whether the "one year refers to the first part of the clause as well as the second. This clause deals with very different things. One part deals with the question of the extension of the places in which the Militia may be employed, and the other deals with the calling out of certain people in the Militia. If the "one year" applies to the extension of the first part of the clause, it will be really rather a serious injury, because the Militia cannot be, as it has always been, asked to volunteer to garrison either Gibraltar or Malta, or other places required to be garrisoned, and they have been required to stop there for more than a year. If you have a hard and fast rule that they may only be there for one year that will tie the Government down to bringing them back in time of war, perhaps at a most inconvenient time. If, however, it only applies to the second part of the clause I do not wish to press my Amendment. Then there is another point that I should like to have explained, and that is

"Shall be construed as authorising the employment of any member of the Militia volunteering to serve for a period not exceeding one year, whether an order embodying the

Militia is in force or not at the time."

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Militia. It is practically another reserve, but this clause as it stands, or as I read it, leads to the possibility of the Government doing what may be called a War Office job by using Militia officers for the purpose of active service, which is really the right of the Army when a small war is going on. The clause says

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'any member of the Militia." That, of course, includes any officer of the Militia, and might lead to the Militia officers being used in preference to the officers of the regular Army.

*MR BRODRICK: As regards the first point of the honourable Member, the period of one year was adopted because it was considered a necessary and convenient period, so far as the service was concerned. The period of one year also applies to the second part. As to the second query of the honourable Member, there is not the slightest intention to rely on this clause for the purpose of employing Militia officers in preference to the officers of the regular Army, but rather on the contrary.

MR. BANBURY (Camberwell, Peckham): If I understand the right honourable Gentleman correctly there is no danger of the honourable Member having

to take active service.

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