Army Estimates. 148 ferred to an observation which he (Mr. | able to do so; but no monopoly could be W. H. Smith) had made a very short time permitted either to an individual manuago. He thought the hon. Member facturer or to our arsenals. It was dewould do him the credit to say that he sirable that the country should reap had carefully avoided making a charge the full advantage of the competiof any kind whatever against the late tion between the two. There must be Government, or from taking any credit reasonable expectations of profit held to the present Government-any charge out to persons who were willing to go to against the late Government for what the expense of providing extensive plant they had done, or any credit to the pre- in competition with each other for the sent Government for what they had material required. Now that we could sought to do. He desired, in dealing form some estimate of the amount of with this question of national defence, work which would have to be done to keep clear of anything which would during the next two or three years, he sound like provocation and from any- ventured to express a hope that no delay thing which would tend in any degree would be suffered to occur in providing to excite Party feeling; but when the the material. It seemed to him that hon. Gentleman referred to what had the interests of the country would be been done by the late Government, and best protected by the provision of the had stated that they had found that the defence which was admitted to be rebreech-loader was not in existence when quired. After the most careful examinathey came into Office, he thought tion, which had spread over three or four he might take some credit to him- years, and after the decision that the self for the fact that in 1878-only a late Government had arrived at, he mainyear or two after the period which the tained there was no desire to postpone hon. Gentleman had described as the the completion of the work. If any period when the change from muzzle- person entering upon the work realized loading to breech-loading was adopted the necessity of its speedy completion, he on the Continent-he had pressed most would not be led away by the fact that strongly for the adoption of breech- the payment for the work was to be loaders for the Navy. From that time spread over a certain period of time, to the present he had been using all the but he would have the work executed influence he possessed in Parliament to as rapidly and as efficiently as possible. urge not only on his Colleagues in the They had at last decided on the kind of last Conservative Government, but also gun to be used, and the kind of powder on the late Government-on the Govern- to be used in the gun, and he believed ments of 1874 and 1880-without en- they had nearly arrived at the kind of deavouring to impart into the discussion projectile which was to be used; and it anything of a factious character, the seemed to him that having, after connecessity and the duty of improving the siderable delay and after considerable armaments of their ports and, as a research, formed an estimate of the exnecessary corollary, of improving the penditure which ought to be incurred, armaments of the Army. Well, steps it would be advisable, in the interests of had been taken, and taken vigorously, the country, that the expenditure should in that direction during the past year or be made as rapidly, and yet as efficiently, two. There could be no doubt that the as possible. The hon. Gentleman the necessity for looking into this question Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand) rewas very great indeed, and he was glad ferred to the course the late Government he had been able to state to the House had taken with regard to the protection the conclusion the late Government had of mercantile ports, and he laid stress arrived at. An hon. Gentleman had re- on his assertion that only the mercantile ferred to the steps which had been taken harbours of the Clyde, the Tyne, and for furnishing ingots of steel for the the Mersey really needed protection. manufacture of guns. He made no But that was only the opinion of the complaint of the hon. Gentleman's de- hon. Gentleman; it was certainly not sire to secure for the State the great re- the opinion of the hon. Gentleman's sources which the country possessed for Colleagues, including the noble Marthe manufacture of steel. He had urged quess the late Secretary of State for the desirability of doing something in War (the Marquess of Hartington). that direction as strongly as he had been The Report which was received and

Mr. W. H. Smith

the Department were educated at the Staff College, the question very naturally suggested itself to one's mind whether the instruction they received at the Staff College was that which best fitted them to perform the great duties required of them. He should be very sorry to decry the Staff in any way; but if he were asked to pick out any body of officers who did their duty in the Soudan better than another-perhaps it was from the peculiar circumstances of the war-he should certainly pick out the gallant regimental officers. There were many officers of the Staff who were brilliant and clever, and who performed their duty well. He would not say whether some men did their duty in the Soudan or not; but this much he would say, that if all the Staff

adopted by the late Government, and which was acted upon by the Treasury, recommended that a grant should be made in the course of the present year for the protection of other harbours and rivers besides those enumerated by the hon. Gentleman. He (Mr. W. H. Smith) thought it was the interest and duty of the Government to afford protection to ports like the Humber and Severn. There were ports in Ireland also which required protection, and he was glad to be able to assure the hon. Gentleman the Member for Roscommon (Mr. O'Kelly) that 12 per cent of the expenditure which was contemplated for commercial ports would be incurred on commercial ports on the coast of Ireland. Ireland, therefore, might rest assured that it would receive a portion, at least, of the expenditure. The hon. and gal-officers, and especially those of the Inlant Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) had, in a most interesting speech, given the Committee a great deal of valuable information, and he (Mr. W. H. Smith) would not fail to profit by it. In conclusion, he could only assure the Com-public organs they naturally turned to mittee that the policy which it was now sought to carry out was not a Party policy; it was not a policy of the present Government alone, but it was a policy which he believed had the sanction not only of the present Government and of the present House of Commons, but of the country at large. Vote agreed to.

telligence Department, had done their duty, they would not have to deplore so many casualties in that campaign. It was stated in all the newspapers-and when they read the statement in the

see what authority there was for itthat there would be no opposition to the march from Korti across the desert viâ Abou Klea and Metammeh to Gubat. Why, when the troops arrived at Abou Klea there were thousands of the enemy ready to pour down upon them. Not one piece of information was conveyed to the officers marching across the country; and if it had not been for the gallant

(4.) £843,800, Works, Buildings, &c., conduct of the 19th Hussars, who scouted at Home and Abroad.

and did their duty in the most admirable manner, very fatal consequences would Now, what was it that

(5.) £128,500, Establishments for have ensued. Military Education.

men went to the Staff College to learn? Surely it was not only mathematics and foreign languages. He quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Se

SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT desired to make a few observations upon the question of military education. He had spoken upon the subject on pre-cretary of State for War (Mr. W. H. vious occasions; but, at the present moment, it was imperatively necessary that it should be brought before the Committee and the country. He did not find fault with any of the officers who had served on the Staff in the Soudan, excepting so far as it was agreed on all hands that the Intelligence Department in the Nile Expedition in the Soudan did not perform those services which were and ought to have been expected of it as well as it was hoped they might have been. When he believed that all the gallant officers who formed

Smith) when, in answer to a Question put to him earlier in the evening, he said foreign languages could be more properly and fully taught in the countries in which they were spoken than in the Staff College. He, too, was of opinion that mathematics should be eliminated from the subjects of instruction in the Staff College. The first thing that men should be taught when they went to the College should be how to manage, how to manoeuvre, and how to manipulate all the different arms of the Service which they would have subsequently to com

Office (Mr. Northcote), because he was afraid the observations of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) upon the officers of the Intelligence Depart

(6.) £51,700, Miscellaneous Effective Services.

had been a greater unanimity of feeling amongst all classes, in the places were the Acts were in force, than there was upon the value of the Contagious Diseases

Acts.

Not only in Plymouth, but in kindred constituencies, there was unanimity in deploring the repeal of

a

MR. PULESTON said, he thought that reference might very properly be made ment in the Soudan were liable to some on this Vote to the repeal of the Conmisconception, and might convey some tagious Diseases Acts. He did not inimputation upon the Staff officers of that tend to make anything like a speech on Department which he hardly thought the the subject; but he considered that the hon. and gallant Gentleman intended question might very properly be brought them to convey. He understood the before the Committee at this time, espehon. and gallant Gentleman to say that cially as there was now a Secretary of the Intelligence Department failed to State for War (Mr. W. H. Smith) whom provide the officers commanding in the it was supposed was in sympathy with Soudan with the intelligence they ought others entertained on the question. He the views he (Mr. Puleston) and many to have possessed; but he did not understand the hon. and gallant Gentleman was very sorry to hear the other day, in to adduce the slightest proof of the asreply to a Question, that nothing would sertion. All he heard the hon. and be done in regard to the Contagious gallant Gentleman say was that he read Diseases Acts this Session, because durin several newspapers that there would ing the many years he had represented be no fighting between Korti and Me- his constituents in the House of Comtammeh. He (the Marquess of Harting-mons he did not remember that there ton) was not aware that it was the duty of the officers of the Intelligence Department to communicate intelligence they received to the newspaper correspondents whose reports the hon. and gallant Gentleman had read. He did not know from what information the hon. and gallant Gentleman supposed that no intelligence as to the movements of the enemy was conveyed to the responsible officers in command. It was very easily understood that reliable information in a country like the Soudan was extremely difficult to get. He believed the fact was that the Intelligence Department obtained an enormous amount of information, but a great deal of it was found to be incorrect. Some information there was which, no doubt, was accurate, and, perhaps, in all cases not sufficiently acted upon. But there was nothing to justify the hon. and gallant Gentleman in say ing that Lord Wolseley and the other officers in command were informed that the desert column would meet with no the fact that the three Ministers most strong opposition in the march from responsible on the subject-the noble Korti to Metammeh. He thought it Marquess the late Secretary of State for right to make these remarks, because he War (the Marquess of Hartington), the believed that, notwithstanding the diffi- noble Earl the late First Lord of the Adculties experienced in obtaining very ac-miralty (the Earl of Northbrook), and curate information during the Soudan Campaign, there was not the slightest reason to suppose that the officers of the Intelligence Department failed in any degree in their duty. Vote agreed to.

those Acts which had seldom been attained upon any subject in any constituency in any country. It must not be forgotten that what was practically a repeal of the Acts was effected in deference to what he had more than once said was nothing more than a scratch vote. It was not worth while to discuss the parallels to the proceedings of the late Government in this matter, although he might very easily point out that the late Government did not display the same alacrity in giving force to wishes on other subjects which had been as strongly expressed. What was most remarkable was that the operation of those Acts was suspended in the face of

the right hon. Gentleman the late Home Secretary (Sir William Harcourt)—were entirely in favour of the continuance of Ministers, of all others, to know how the the Acts. It had been the duty of those Acts were carried out; they made it their business to acquaint themselves