country was undeniable, but they must of the Indian Army which was fixed remember that the conditions of mercan- at the strength considered necessary tile competition with foreign nations, after the Mutiny and had been preserved and the demand for skilled workmen were at that strength ever since would incur greater than ever they were before. the gravest responsibility. He rather At the same time there were so many men gathered from one of the speeches out of work that masters would not wait delivered to-night that they were advised for a man, but filled up his post. Some to trust to Bengalee agitators rather than years ago he was asked how many men to British bayonets, but that was not he could get to come up upon mobilisation an opinion held by any sane surveyor of the situation. Our fellow subjects in within twenty-four hours, and he said 90 per cent., for the first fortnight, but after India had realised the fact that a strong and that not more than 60 or 70 per cent. at efficient Army was the greatest factor for one time; but this six months continuous peace. There were, however, some points of detail upon which India was rather training would be a serious bar to such a state of things and to the efficiency of Gentleman could see his way to reduce hardly treated, and if the right hon. the Volunteer corps. the charges made by way of capitation grant, he would redress a long-felt grievance. He also hoped that the Cape garrison would not be indefinitely reduced. There was no apprehension of trouble there at present, but the force at the Cape was not larger than was necessary. True the Boers were not likely to give trouble. They might say, "Bella gerant allii; we'll try the ballot boxes." But our countrymen were a few among many natives of the country, and their safety was a paramount consideration. The too great reduction of the peace strength of our troops in foreign posses *MR. REES (Montgomery Boroughs) did not wish to take a hand among the experts in what had been described as Bridge." He wanted, however, to know what would be the effect of this reduction upon fourth Volunteer battalions. He did not ask for any ruling as to any individual battalion, but to give a concrete case, would take, for instance, the fifth battalion of the South Wales Borderers in his own constituency; would it disappear? MR. HALDANE: It will disappear sions, inspired a feeling that we were on its present footing. *MR. REES said there were other Members, who did not understand exactly how the new system would work out in this respect, but at present he need say nothing further upon that. He would like to know whether the cadres which were preserved under Mr. Cardwell's organisation were to be pre served, and whether any addition was to be made to them for the purpose of filling up drafts for India on account of those which had admittedly disappeared. The Army at home supplied 75,000 men for India, and the right hon. Gentleman last year informed the House that not a man, nor a gun, nor a battery, would be reduced in the Indian establishment. He desired to know whether it was the case that in spite of the changes to be introduced there would be a provision for the main tenance of those 75,000 British soldiers together with the present complement of artillery. In his opinion the Minister who would propose to reduce the strength letting things down, provoked attacks, and was opposed to the preservation of the peace. *MR. COURTHOPE (Rye, Sussex) said he desired to say a few words as a junior Volunteer officer on the aspect of this case as it appeared to him and his brother officers. He was very glad to hear his hon. and gallant friend, who had had forty years service in the Volunteer Forces, say that he was aware of no jealousy on the part of Volunteer officers of officers of the Line. He desired to endorse that view. Their complaint had been that they had not been sufficiently associated with the Regular Army; that they had never been regarded as soldiers, and that no attempt had been made to make the Volunteers into soldiers. He welcomed the association with the Regular Army that the right hon. Gentleman was aiming at and the Divisional organisation which he was proposing. The Volunteer Forces had suffered enormously from the want of co-ordination. There had never been co-ordination would be no trouble with the landowners. They would help. But there would be difficulty with the employers. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would or hold out some hope that the difficulty might be got over, because he felt that at present it was a very great one. He knew that under our present system, Volunteers might be called out in a national emergency to defend our shores, but that was rather a different thing. It was a very remote contingency. MR. HALDANE said it was just the same contingency. The mobilisation would only be on a very great emergency when the whole of the Reserves would be called out. It was just the same sort of contingency as was contemplated in a great national emergency. *MR. COURTHOPE thanked the right hon. Gentleman, and said he rather gathered that under the new scheme the mobilisation for six months would take place under a much less urgent necessity than at present, but he felt reassured. He had only one more misgiving and it was this. He did not quite see his way through the transition period, which must be difficult and lengthy. How were they going to get from the present number in a given county to the number that might be required, because he gathered that there would be considerable variation between brigades, there had been too little co-ordination between battalions. He welcomed also the proposals with regard to camp, that the camp should be fifteen days in all. They were once be able to make some suggestion allowed to go into camp for a month during the war, but it cost the Government so much that they had never been allowed to go out for more than a week since. Ever since then they had been asking to be allowed to take the happy mean and go to camp for a fortnight. A week was no good at all. On the Saturday they went into camp; on Sunday, from some absurd reason, they were allowed to do nothing; on Monday they were settling down, and on Tuesday they started work. Then on Thursday there was inspection and on Friday they packed up, and only two days' real work was possible. But there was one point on which he could not make up his mind, and that was whether these extra services, double camp and other advantages, given to this territorial Army could be given at less cost than the cost of the present organisation. He hoped it might be so, but he could not help thinking that the right hon. Gentlemen had not entirely justified the very low estimate which he had placed on this territorial second line. He did not share the misgivings of some hon. Members as to the four years enlistment or as to the £5 fine. The Volunteer did not care whether he enrolled or whether he enlisted, or whether it was for three years or four, and as to the fine, they have been told over and over again that the £5 fine placed a man on a different footing than at present, but that was not so. For all practical purposes it was just the same. In his own battalion there was only one fortnight in the year when they allowed a Volunteer to give notice. He had to give notice within the last fortnight of October if he was going to go without being run in for the 35s. capitation grant. He signed on for three years, but if he went during his first year he was run in for three years capitation grant, and it made no difference to him whether he was run in at the local petty sessional court under civil contract with his commanding officer, or whether he was fined under a statute. There was one point on which he had misgivings. It had been mentioned once or twice already. He thought they would have trouble with the employers over the six months mobilisation. There Mr. Courthope. on there must be from what he knew of the force. The transition period must necessarily be a period of very great difficulty. They would have at the same time recruits under the new scheme, and men who were now serving, who would not be prepared to go under the scheme, and yet whom presumably we should not want to get rid of immediately, because we did not want to deplete one force until we had the other. It might be all right; he hoped it would be. He was sure that all Parties and all sections of the Auxiliary Forces would do their best to help the right hon. Gentleman with his scheme, but he did not himself see his way through that difficulty. If he might he wanted to mention one or two points of detail which had occurred to him. The first was a point the right hon. Gentleman himself raised in his speech on Monday with reference to the present mobilisation arrangement. He thought ing the troops there. A sergeant instructor of a Volunteer company had much more to do than that. It might be possible to do away with them to a large extent in the town corps, where everything was concentrated, but in the country battalions, where nearly every company had its own orderly room, its own organisation, and a considerable amount of clerical and other work to be done as well as its drills, they could not dispense with sergeant instructors, who had to do all that work. He would take an example of what passed in his own company. He drew his company from six or seven different parishes. There was an enormous amount of clerical and other work to be done, and he had to keep up an orderly room. He was, so to speak, his own commanding officer, and his own adjutant as well as captain, and it was absolutely necessary that he should have an instructor. They could not dispense with a professional instructor in such cases. And yet there was no provision in these Estimates for anything like the number of professional instructors that would be required, if every company in the battalion in which he served had its own contracts all ready and complete for mobilisation. He had in his company. He could lay his hand within six hours on transport for everything required, and he thought it was the same right through. He had an idea that that system was very general in the Volunteer force, and that, speaking from the point of view of individual units, they were really better prepared for mobilisation than the right hon. Gentleman gave them credit for. But that was a minor point. While he was mentioning mobilisation, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to send Volunteer units for their usual training to the position which they would occupy on mobilisation. He had been a Volunteer officer for fifteen years, and had never in a military capacity seen the place to which they were to go on mobilisation. He had been there on a private visit but that was all. It was very deplorable that such a state of things should exist, and he hoped it might be changed. There was another point with reference to the Memorandum which the right hon. Gentleman had the country companies of Volunteer issued. He gathered from the second paragraph of the approximate estimated cost of the territorial force that there were to be no Regular adjutants in the territorial regiments, and he had some doubt as to the advisability or possibility of replacing Regular adjutants by auxiliaries. MR. HALDANE: That is not what is intended. The policy is that the General Staff should rather concentrate their Regular adjutants as a provisional staff, and that new adjutants should be appointed. battalions were to keep their present instructors. The occasional man dropping in on a bicycle, and holding a drill in the village school would not be sufficient. MR. HALDANE: The hon. Member need be in no doubt. We do not intend to make any alteration in the present system. I appreciate to the full the value of what he says. *MR. COURTHOPE said he was very glad indeed to hear that; he must have misunderstood the figures, which *MR. COURTHOPE said he hoped this did not appear to him to be sufficient. might succeed. He happened one Then there was a point as to the exsummer to act as adjutant to a Volunteer penses of administration, and here battalion, and he knew what an exceed- again he referred more to the rural ingly serious thing it was for a Volunteer battalions than to the town battalions. officer to undertake. Another point He saw from the Estimate that no paywhich he considered even more serious ment of any kind, beyond railway fares, was that apparently the present system was to be made to officers and men for of sergeant instructors was going to be attendance at drills. Did that refer to changed. The only mention the Secre- the cost of conveyance, or only to actual tary for War had made of sergeant pay? Because if it meant that no instructors was that of a man riding financial provision would be made for on a bicycle to the village green the expenses of attending drills, it would to the village school and train- be a very serious blow. or MR. HALDANE was understood to say that it was not proposed to withdraw the payment of expenses. *MR. COURTHOPE said that was all right. He was glad to know that, because in these rural districts a very large proportion of the annual expenses they had to bear was in getting the men in to drill. Where a single company might be drawn from six or seven parishes, as in his own case, and the men were to a certain extent agricultural labourers who had done a hard day's work, they could not be expected to march six or seven miles to drill, and then to march home again. They could not do it. In his own case, in a single company, he spent £40 or £50 a year on van hire, and it was a very necessary expense if they were to get the men together at all for practical work. He was glad that would be dealt with. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman did not mind his raising these little points of detail. His next point was about dress. He saw that one suit of service dress would be provided for each man. Were they going to do away with the full dress? MR. HALDANE was understood to say that the allowance would be for service dress only. *MR. COURTHOPE: The rest would be provided, he took it, by the County Committees. That worked out at ten chargers per battalion at the public cost. Was the right hon. Gentleman going to mount the captains, because he did not know where the ten chargers would come in otherwise? He hoped he would mount the captains, for they would then be able to do better work, and personally he would enjoy it much, although, of course, he did not know that that was the intention, but ten chargers per battalion were being provided at the public cost for the infantry battalions of the territorial Army. There was one point with regard to the territorial Army which involved a larger principle than these matters of detail. Was the organisation of the territorial force going to be the same in Ireland? They had no Volunteers there, but they had Militia. MR. HALDANE: I explained in my speech that there are no Volunteers in Ireland, but we propose to take the existing Irish Militia battalions, to make those who are in them enlist under the special service clauses of the Bill, and in that way to get a number of extra battalions in Ireland to represent the old Irish Militia. *MR. COURTHOPE said he wished to air a grievance or two about ammunition and rifles. As to ammunition the right hon. Gentleman promised him early last year to remove a grievance, which the Volunteers felt very much, about the quality of ammunition, and he would MR. HALDANE: That is at their like to take that opportunity of thanking discretion. him for carrying out that promise *MR. COURTHOPE thought that although the service dress was very service able and useful it was very necessary that the men should be given a change of clothes for instance, in camp, or in hot weather-and also that they should have something a little bit smarter than a well worn service kit, in order, for one thing, not to strike a blow at recruiting. The service dress, when it had been worn on field days and so on for two or three years, did not look well on a church parade, and it was necessary that there should be full dress in many, if not all, cases for the Volunteers. He had one other point on the Estimates. Provision was made for 1680 riding horses, presumably chargers, under the heading of infantry brigades. to be given for military efficiency eight adjustments to get it into order. As it was as this of those marks should go to musketry, unless they used all sorts of tinkering and he was sure that that was no exaggeration, and that if Volunteers were willing to give their time and go on the range week after week they should get an unlimited quantity of ammunition, provided, of course, that their shooting was under proper supervision, and that the ammunition was not wasted. Then as to rifles. In the right hon. Gentleman's Memorandum issued with the Army Estimates, there was a statement that he intended to re-arm the Volunteer force with a new, or rather a converted, rifle, the long Lee-Enfield. He did not know whether it was official or not, but he found a paragraph in the daily papers on Monday, giving details about this rifle. The rifle, he understood, was to have the long Lee-Enfield barrel rather than the short one, and that he was very glad to see, because he was convinced that it was a better barrel in every way. Directly they got beyond 500 yards it was more accurate, and it had a great advantage over the short rifle on dark days and in the evenings when the short barrel showed a flash, but the long barrel did not. He was also glad that this long barrel was to be kept, because it was very much less liable to drop the foresight, one of the commonest failings of the indifferent rifle shot. That was a point on which he thought everyone who had handled both would agree with him. The further particulars which were given in the public Press said that the rifle was to be adapted and fitted with a charger or outrigger, as on the short rifle, for clip loading. He hoped it might be possible to adapt the long rifle to clip loading, but by some method more serviceable than that adapted with regard to the short 303. The outrigger was so easily liable to damage and to be knocked off, and he hoped it might be found possible to adopt some simpler system. His last point, and one of the most important, was with regard to the question of sights. He did not know what sights were going to be used for this new rifle. The Press stated that the back sight was going to be the Lee-Enfield "leaf." He hoped that was not so, because it was a very bad sight. He did not pretend to be an expert in this matter, but he had done a great deal of rifle-shooting with a great variety of weapons and he was pretty well in touch with the best rifle shots of the day. The Lee-Enfield leaf back sight was a bad sight Tommy was not up to judging wind and altering the sight with the windguage in front. Very well, let him leave it alone. He need not use the screws. It was quite possible to use sight without moving the wind-guage at all, and at the same time the expert shot who could judge the wind was able to take full advantage of the sight. As to the foresight he thought the short rifle 303 was, on the whole, a very good one, but the wings were much too heavy He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would bear that in mind. The wings were necessary to protect the foresight, but should not be of the massive pattern fixed to the present short rifle. As a general principle of policy with regard to this question of sights he hoped the right hon. Gentleman and the Army Council would see their way to allow much greater latitude to marksmen in the matter of their sights. No country in the world was so tied down by regulation as we were in regard to this matter. It was notorious that different eyes required different sights in order to utilise their rifles to the best advantage. In the United States great latitude was allowed, and on the Army rifles all sorts of peep sights and other things were fixed, to the very great advantage of those who used them. It might be said that this would cause expense. Of course it would, but it was nothing like the heavy expense which had to be borne by |