the provision of munitions of war. I feel that we need plead guilty only to having believed that 75,000 men were enough. We plead not guilty to the charge that these 75,000 men were not available or that they were not properly and adequately equipped.

us ?

We are arraigned by critics who think that they can impale us on the horns of a dilemma when they say that you ought either to prepare for war or to avoid war. Are you to prepare at all costs for every conceivable expedition? That is the view of one set of extremists. Are you to avoid war at all costs? That is the view of extremists at the opposite pole. We say that it is the duty of a reponsible Government to seek for some mean between those opposite views. We declare that, according to such guidance and with such facilities as were then available, that purpose was sought by the Government of the day and by their predecessors when Mr. Stanhope was Secretary for War. We say we have always sought to find the exact mean between the twobetween war and diplomacy. But who are those who bring this charge against What was their diplomacy in South Africa, and what were their particular preparations in South Africa? Having receded from the Transvaal in 1881 and given a large measure of independence, what did they do in the year 1882? They contracted a treaty with Portugal to admit of the free transit of arms and munitions of war into the Transvaal Republic. And then, when you come to 1895, you get a beautiful balance of diplomacy and preparation for war. A despatch was written in the Colonial Office urging upon President Kruger for his acceptance a five years franchise, the very terms which were offered by Sir Alfred Milner, as he then was, at the Bloemfontein Conference in May, 1899, and what was the preparation for war? The garrison of South Africa consisted of two battalions! I know the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition thinks that that was an adequate garrison at the time. [OPPOSITION cries of "So it was and "That was before the Jameson Raid."] Then why did you keep the despatch back? The right hon. Gentleman has made himself responsible for saying that they had an overwhelming superior

ity with these two battalions at Cape Town, but the despatch did not go. He has made it a charge against us that, without sufficient preparation, we allowed the quarrel to develop. They did not allow the quarrel to develop. They kept the despatch back, and it is very easy to adjust the balance between your diplomacy and your preparation for war if you put nothing, or next to nothing, in either scale. It is not easy to keep an exact balance. It is very difficult to adjust that balance if you have, as you ought to have, a regard for your worldwide responsibilities, and, in particular, a regard for your responsibilities to your colonial brethren, and if at the same time you have, as you ought to have, a regard for the taxpayers and the credit of this country. To say that with all our efforts towards general preparation, and with all these diplomatic reasons for not pushing on special preparations too far, we are to be condemned upon such an issue, is to prefer a charge which this House will cast to the winds. What is the question? Is the Prime Minister, who received a special encomium from Lord Esher's Committee, to continue his work of Army reform, or is he to be succeeded by the distinguished statesman whom hon. and right hon. Members opposite have unanimously agreed upon as more fitting to direct the organisation of the War Office?

SIR A. HAYTER (Walsall) said the right hon. Gentleman had appealed to the evidence of Lord Lansdowne. That being so, might he refer him to page 518 of the Blue - book, where the following passage would be found—

bury's report that we were not sufficiently "It is abundantly clear from Sir H. Brackenprepared even for the equipment of the comparatively small force which we had always contemplated might be employed beyond the force which we have found it necessary to limits of this country. For the much larger employ our resources were absolutely and We had at the outset send troops abroad with clothes and

miserably inadequate.
of the campaign to
equipments. If other
insufficiently supplied
vened
inevitable.”

a catastrophe

complications super

would have been

The right right hon. Gentlemen had appealed to Cæsar; to Cæsar, then, he should go. By that evidence Lord Lansdowne gave a complete contradiction to a great deal that the Chief

upon.

Secretary had been urging. Surely the right hon. Gentleman would also remember that according to the advice of the military authorities it then required an expenditure of £640,000 to complete the equipment of the First Army Corps. And were they to be told that soldiers, into whose hands were placed rifles which carried six inches to the right at 500 yards, were properly armed? or that cavalry with a reserve of eighty swords, and those of a kind perfectly useless for cavalry purposes, were efficiently equipped? It was impossible for Lord Wolseley to have taken these facts into consideration; the evidence of Lord Lansdowne was much more to be relied The House owed a deep debt of gratitude to the hon. and learned Member for South Shields for the able and lucid speech in which he had brought this complicated question before them. He had been inclined to fear that the question had receded somewhat in public interest owing to the length of time which had elapsed since the events took place, to the time it had taken to compile the evidence, and to the appearance on the political horizon of a very large question which, like Aaron's rod, appeared to have swallowed up all others. Moreover, there had been the promise of reform in the War Office, and they had in that Department a Secretary of State enlisted on the side of Army reform. His hon. and learned friend had wisely made it his first object to place the saddle on the right horse, being not only anxious to exonerate the soldiers, but to allot the blame in the proper quarters. One quotation would show the opinion of the Royal Commission on this point

"It appears now that with a greater amount of forethought in arrangements generally, in the provision of stores and equipment, and with the addition perhaps of one brigade, the situation in Natal might have been so strengthened that the whole course of the war must have been altered." (Page 30.)

And again on page 28—

"There can be no doubt now that the position in South Africa was dangerously weak."

In the judgment of Sir J. French, the addition to the force in Natal of a brigade of 5,000 men, 'would have turned the scale in the operations after Elands

laagte. It was difficult to form any conception of the difference in the whole course of the war which might have been the result. What was the situation in June, 1899? According to page 25 of the Report

Army Corps and a Cavalry Division was desig"In June, 1899, it has been shown that an nated as the force which would be required in the event of hostilities. The equipment of that force required, in the opinion of the Army the Army Board up to 22nd September, 1899, Board, an outlay of £640,000. The minutes of make it clear that in their opinion the main difficulty was the refusal of sanction for the however, equally manifest from his minute of expenditure of the money involved. It is, the 12th of August, that Lord Lansdowne, as Secretary of State, fully appreciated the of any delay in the grant of money, and that extent of the deficiency, and the consequence he brought the whole circumstances before his colleagues. The decision not to sanction expenditure was, therefore, taken by the Cabinet, though Loid Lansdowne, of course,

does not dissociate himself from it."

دو

Therefore the very thing which prevented the Army Corps going out was the refusal of the Cabinet to sanction the necessary expenditure. Nothing could be more clear than that it was not the fault of the soldiers. Sir H. Brackenbury had shown that nothing was done by the Secretary of State to remedy the state of affairs. From his evidence it appeared that

"The proceedings of the Army Board were full of instances of our asking at that time to be allowed to spend money in making preparations It and of our being told we could not do it. was perfectly clear that it was the decision of the Government that they would not spend money at that time in preparation for the despatch of an army corps."

And again

That was from the evidence of Lord Lansdowne, a conclusive authority who cannot be mistaken.

With regard to the provision of men

appointed to the command. It was. indeed, most melancholy to read of the want of preparation that obtained at that time. The question of the reserves in this country should not be lost sight of. The authorised reserve of cavalry swords was 6,000; the actual reserve, however, was 80, and they were described by Sir J. French as the worst that could possibly be used by any mounted troops, and by General Baden-Powell as a perfectly useless weapon. to the rifles, the back-sight the back-sight had been altered, and that was the cause of the divergence of the bullets, and it was a terrible blow at the commencement of the war that 200,000 rifles were useless. But who found that out? Not the War

As

Office, but the unfortunate Yeomanry to whom they were served on the eve of going into the field. That, he contended, was a scandalous thing. Great

use was made of machine

guns, which

were especially useful when acting with cavalry, but Sir H. Brackenbury stated that while the authorised number was 1,224, they had only 898, a deficiency of 326. And further

"We were driven to great straits for ammunition, because we had actually got reduced in this country to two or three boxes of Mark II. ammunition, so that if we bad had to go to war with a European Power we should have had to fight them with expanding bullets."

"We had a quite insufficient rese ve of horse and field artillery material, only one battery of horse artillery, and that converted to an experimental quick-firing system. The whole stock of field-gun ammunition was absorbed by demands from South Africa at an early stage. We borrowed from India and the Navy. We had only 500 sets of harness and 500 of Cava ry saddlery in reserve, we at once exhausted the reserve of infantry accoutrements, we had to borrow large guns from the Navy, machine guns from fortre-ses, boots and helmets from India, to buy 25,000 se's of mule harness, 17,000 tents and 900 marquees, we had no reserve of hospital equipment, the fiftieth of the picketing gear required, and a reserve of 80 swords."

VOL. CXXIX. [FOURTH SERIES.]

"Colonel Lucas, who acted as Deputy-Adjutant General of the Imperial Yeomanry, stated Office, after the despatch of the first contingentthat on several occasions, he urged upon the War that recruiting for the Imperial Yeomanry should not be stopped but the committee should be allowed to raise drafts to maintain the strength of the force. It was a mistake on the part of the War Office authorities to have declined to santion this. If the force first sent out had not been allowed to melt away the subsequent hurried and unsatisfactory raising of further contingents would not have been necessary."

The second contingent was raised by order in February, 1901. The privates were given 5s. a day, to the great disgust of their comrades in the first contingent,

who were paid at cavalry rates, and had also to be raised to 5s. a day, like the Colonials. These men, when they arrived in South Africa, were absolutely untrained, and could neither shoot nor ride.

64

They were very bad; I do not know where they were got, but they had no idea of riding, shooting, or anything else."

Colonel Crabbe said that

"They were absolutely ignorant of the rudiments of soldiering, and knew nothing about horses. Some of the officers were unfit and had to be sent home."

himself to the Militia. Lords Wolseley With regard to the officers he limited. and Roberts and the Adjutant-General agreed that the Militia failed in the matter of an adequate number of well-trained officers. In the sixty-eight battalions warned for embarkation, there was a deficiency of 303 officers. One battalion was seventeen, another sixteen, and another fourteen officers short. The whole Militia

Q

force in 1899 was 624 officers short. The Inspector-General of the Auxiliary Forces between October, 1899, and April, 1900, gave away 407 Militia Commissions. He sent out young gentlemen with no training whatever, and knowing nothing. He took them straight from their families or from school and sent them out without even gazetting them. Naturally Lord Roberts found the greatest difference between Line and Militia on service, and could only employ the latter on lines of communication, and he referred to the great anxiety he felt in his communications being held by partially trained troops such as Militia and hastily raised Yeomanry. No doubt one of the great difficulties was the supply of trained officers. They could not pay a man for longer time than he served. Might they not utilise the Militia, increase largely the establishment, train an officer for three months and then one month yearly. They then would not need largely to increase the cadres of regiments, or pay men for twelve months while doing one month's duty, and yet they would get the Militia properly officered.

As to horses, there was less reason to speak of the terrible deficiencies of the remounts, as there had been more than one debate and more than one Committee upon it. But no one could pretend that an establishment to purchase only 2,500 horses a year was sufficient; nor could any excuse be found for not increasing the staff when they suddenly had to deal with an expenditure of £7,000,000 in a single year. All would agree with the finding of the Commission

"That the real complaint against the Remount Department does not so much relate to its purchase of horses during the war as to the fact that from first to last there was not the symptom of an idea in anyone who was responsible for its organisation that in time of war there would be necessity for its expansion."

In conclusion, he thought they were all indebted to his hon. and learned

friend for the admirable manner in which he had brought the subject before the House.

And, it being half-past Seven of the clock, the debate stood adjourned till this Evening's Sitting.

EVENING SITTING.

KING'S SPEECH (MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS).

Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Amendment [4th February] to Main Question [2nd February].

"That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth :

66

"Most Gracious Sovereign,

'We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliainent assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."—(Mr. Hardy.)

Which Amendment was

"At the end of the Question, to add the words, 'But humbly represent to Your Majesty that the facts now made known in regard to the preparations for and conduct of the recent war in South Africa, and particularly the evidence taken by Your Majesty's Commissioners appointed to inquire into those matters and and mismanagement on the part of Your their Report thereon, disclose grave negligence

Majesty's Ministers, whereby the duration, magnitude and cost of the war were greatly increased.""-(Mr. Robson.)

Question again proposed, "That those words be there added."

*MR. DUKE (Plymouth) said if it were possible for the Amendment to be a declaration of public necessity for the removal of the Government in order to promote the efficiency of the defensive forces of the Crown, there would be found a majority sufficiently publicspirited to prefer the efficiency of the forces to the continued existence of His Majesty's Government. But the powerful speech of Mr. Wyndham must have satisfied Members on both sides of the House that the efficiency of the Imperial forces did not require the removal of the Government. The objects of the Commission were to discover any inefficiency or defects in the administration of the

Army, as disclosed by the war in South Africa, and to indicate their causes where possible. The Commissioners faithfully their ability and industry to discovering carried out those objects, and devoted inefficiency and defects, which they disclosed in an impartial Report. Their