1

the restlessness after a long campaign which several of his predecessors had which made it difficult for both officers enjoyed. The hon. Gentleman who had and men to settle down to the humdrum just spoken had reminded them that after of barrack routine. Officers also did not all the money that had been spent on the hesitate to leave the Army if they saw Army, in spite of so many rapid changes, any chance of a lucrative position in civil an indescribable feeling of restlessness life, and he did not think any slight prevaded officers and men. They knew increase of pay would rectify that. But in what scathing terms the right hon. the chief cause of the dissatisfaction, of Gentleman the Member for Croydon. both officers and men, was that after many summed up the military achievements years service they frequently found they of his predecessors in office. In these were abused in the Press and held up to circumstances his right hon. friend deridicule and contempt on the platforms, voted himself to his heavy task, and he and very often in the music halls. Until would respectfully submit that the rethat sort of thing was ended there ductions which, in the course of his tenure would be always this feeling of discontent. of power, he had already achieved, were So far as the right hon. Gentleman was noteworthy and satisfactory. There was concerned he had succeeded in making an actual reduction of over £2,000,000 friends with the Army, and his scheme upon the regular Army. There was a would be approved of as a whole; but, further reduction of £900,000 annually if the territorial Army was to be a real on the average loan expenditure of the asset to the country, the Volunteers and preceding ten years, and in addition the the Militia, as at present constituted, right hon. Gentleman had succeeded in must be swept away. surmounting the automatic increase, aggregating in the last few years to nearly £1,100,000, which was an irresistible under current to all his efforts at retrenchment. The right hon. Membər for Dover, of the tone of whose speech on the preceding day he did not in any way complain, seemed rather to underrate the financial achievement of his right hon. friend. He said that, after all, these automatic increase, were things which always occurred. No doubt that was the experience of the right hon. Gentleman, and that was one of the very points of which they had perpetually complained. It merely the ordinary proposals for Army Expenditure which were put before them every year that caused anxiety; it was the momentum that Army Estimates had been steadily acquiring. He ventured to say that if the various schemes put forward by his right hon. friend's two predecessors had attained to their full level, the cost would have been considerably above the Estimates. which were presented this year. The scheme of Mr. Brodrick could not have been carried out, even with the strictest regard for economy, at a less charge than £31,000,000 a year, and would have reached that figure in the present year. The scheme of the right hon. Member for Croydon would have been only very little less. The economies which his

THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL, Manchester, N.W.) said that during the last Parliament the conviction arose, and not by any means only on one side of the House, that the cost of the Army had unduly increased and that it unduly trenched upon the funds required for other purposes of national expenditure -upon the great sums, for instance, which they were forced to provide for the maintenance of the Navy. It was felt, too, that of the money spent on the Army an undue proportion was devoted to the Regular branch of the military forces, and that insufficient attention was devoted to the Volunteers, Yeomanry, and Militia. Those opinions were freely expressed in many debates in the House, and were very often the subject of discussion at public meetings, and he thought no one would deny that they met with a great deal of acceptance in the country at the general election. When the new Parliament came back last session the whole of the Government's supporters were, he thought, resolved that an earnest effort should be made to effect a real retrenchment in Army expenditure and a certain reduction in the numerical strength of the Regular Army. The situation which confronted his right hon. friend was not so satisfactory as that Capt. Kincaid-Smith.

was not

right hon. friend was effecting were not
yet complete. The reduction of eight
battalions from the strength of the
Regular Army was not wholly effective
in the first year;
a further reduction
would be experienced on the Estimates
of future years when the reduction
operated through every stage in the
soldier's career. He was quite aware
that a good many people who followed
military matters with a general, but
superficial interest said that it was the
duty of the Government to reduce the
expenditure on the Army to the level
at which it stood in 1896 and 1897.
That, of course, was absolutely im-
possible. ["Why?"] It was very easy
to add expenditure to expenditure, but
the process of recovering the funds
which had been perhaps lightly and
blithely voted was painful, and, in some
were en-
cases insuperable obstacles
countered. Let them take some of the
items by which Army expenditures had
been increased since 1896. There was,
first, the increase of the pay of the soldier
amounting to £1,500,000 a year. No
one would propose that that should be
taken off. He challenged any one, of
any Party, to say that, having conceded
our private soldiers those considerable
advances in pay, it would be possible
now to lower the standard rate of wage
throughout the Army. Then there was
the bounty given to the Militia by Mr.
Brodrick, amounting to £140,000, for
the purpose of raising the Militia to the
level of 150,000 men, but which had no
result of any sort of a satisfactory char-
acter. Of course,
while the Militia
remained in its present condition that was
an absolutely irrecoverable item of ex-
penditure. Then there was the £400,000
a year increase due to the filling up of the
Reserve, an increase which he did not
at all deplore, but which was automatic
and could only be recovered through the
slow operation of the Army system.
There was an increase of pensions, partly
due to the South African War and partly
due to subsidiary causes. These were
items which were not within the power of
the War Minister to overtake, however
desirous he might be to effect economies,
and however courageous he might be in
making reductions. Then, lastly, there
was the interest on loans and borrowed

money, which amounted to no less than
Those were serious
£900,000 a year.
limitations and restrictions upon the work
of his right hon. friend, and he thought
the Committee would agree that, as he had
begun to make the necessary reductions
in the units of the Army, time and patience
should be accorded him; and while the
other process by which retrenchment
might be effected, viz., the year-to-year
practice of thrifty and frugal adminis-
tration and careful scrutiny of accounts,
was at work, the process of his right
hon. friend would be permitted to
mature. The right hon. Gentleman the
Member for Dover, who addressed them
on the previous day, had said that what
we required was a better Army at a
cheaper price. It was a modest request.
but he thought they would all agree with
The only test to which military
it.
schemes should be subjected was the
amount of war power yielded by the mili-
tary machine in proportion to the money
which was spent upon it; and that was the
only test by which the Secretary for War
would desire his scheme to be judged.
What were the main principles of the
scheme unfolded to them on Monday
last? First, it was an earnest attempt
to

turn the voluntary system to
its best advantage. In the second
place, there was the principle of the
organisation of our land forces in two
lines-the field Army and the Home
Army; or they might be called the Regular
Army and the territorial Army, or people
who liked high-sounding titles might
call them the Imperial Army and the
National Army. The right hon. Gentle-
man the Member for Dover might take his
choice-he believed he preferred the more
luxuriant forms of expression. He thought
they would agree that there was great
simplification in the division of our land
forces into these two main categories. It
was with the Regular forces of the Crown
that the problem to be solved presented the
primary difficulty. It was an old problem.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member
for Dover had told them on the previous
day that the needs of the British Army
were peculiar, and that the problem was
complicated. It was quite true that the
Minister who was responsible for the
British Army had to solve a problem
which contained not only every perversity

of fact but also every perplexity of human problem was considered, the case for nature, with all the difficulties of mathe- dove-tailing the foreign and home regular matics added. There were two facts services together, for making the home about the Regular forces of the Crown battalions train the drafts for the which made all comparison between the foreign battalions, for enabling the cost of our system and the cost of the foreign battalions to secrete the reserves military systems of foreign nations quite which in time of war were to form inapplicable. First of all, we proceeded upon the cadres of the home battalions on the voluntary system, so that we had that dual principle, that reciprocal to take our men when and where we could action presented such enormous economy get them; and the second fact was the in finance, realised such a high standard great foreign establishment which this of battalions on mobilisa ion compared country was forced to maintain. These with anything that could be obtained two facts, which could not but be present under rival schemes, that, although to one set of critics or the other, were the system had been SO often absolutely irremovable facts, and as long changed, and although SO many as they endured the symmetry of the able men had cudgelled their brains military machine could never be wholly to destroy it, yet it had stood all attain d, and its cheapness could never the knocking about to which it had bear comparison with the military organi- been subjected, and those who had sation of other countries. He had brought their arguments into collision observed in the debate yesterday a ten-with it had usually retired in weariness dency to prowl around the Cardwellian from the field. His right hon. friend system without the necessary courage to preserved as the basis of the settlement make an inroad upon it. The right hon. of the problem of the Regular army the Member for Dover seemed to speak main principle of the Cardwellian system, with some suspicion and doubt of the by which he meant the training of men regular Cardwellian system as we had for battalions abroad in the ranks of the known it in this country, and his hon. and battalions at home. He was told that gallant friend the Member for the Aber- so long as that system was observed, cromby Division had given notice that there could be no further extensive he would on a suitable occasion attempt economy in the British Army. He was to demolish it completely. The needs of not at all prepared to admit that. While the British Empire were diverse. There recognising that a balance of battalions, were the forces which we required at the number of battalions at home equalhome, and there were the forces which ling the number abroad, was the best we required to gar ison foreign stations. means of arri ir g at the highest efficiency The system which suited one force was and economy, under the Cardwellian less well adapted to the other. The system, it was by no means proved that conditions of service which would enable the equipoise must inevitably, and in the whole Army to accumulate a very all cases, be maintained. Such an equilarge reserve were not applicable to the poise did not in fact exist at the present maintenance of foreign garrisons abroad, moment; and although he was very glad where stability was required, where they to find himself again in agreement with must necessarily serve for a considerable the right hon. Gentleman below the time, where they must be matured and gangway, that such an equipoise did seasoned men, and where it was not worth not in fact exist, yet there were while to take them out merely to be trans- half a dozen devices, with the details ported back again to this country. These of which he would not weary the Comconflicting needs had led numerous stu-mittee, by which a certain preponderance dents of Army reform to propose a of the battalions necessary to be kept solution on the basis of a dual service, abroad might be met, without overthe two parts to be quite distinct. He throwing the advantage of the principle of quite admitted that for the purposes training recruits for service abroad of either service such a distinction would in the ranks of the Regular battalions at be a great advantage; but when the home. He confessed that it was to him n eds of the country as a whole were an additional advantage in the scheme considered, and the whole military of his right hon. friend that it did not Mr. Churchill.

281

attention

close the door to any further movements good to the social system as a whole. in the direction of reducing the general Let them compare the scheme of the strength of the Army if policy should Secretary of State with the schemes of appear to justify such a reduction. There his predecessors, bearing these few obwas another important fact about the servations in mind. He was informed scheme of the right hon. Gentleman, that actuarial calculations of a very to which he would like to draw the complicated character placed the averviz., age annual quota of recruits necessary to of the Committee, the supply of recruits required every sustain Mr. Brodrick's Army scheme The policy of the year to maintain establishments and at 40,200 a year. often told right hon. Gentleman the Member for organisation. They were that they should begin considering what Croydon had differen terms of service our Army should be by considering and was based on the principle of the how great our needs might be; but he dual Army, which was stated by him thought that it was much better to see in the House, in reply to a question by The present what were our actual resources rather than the present Prime Minister, to require attempt to measure potentialities which 31,600 recruits a year. were in their very nature immeasurable. Secretary for War had effected a reducThe governing consideration of Army tion in the Army of eight battalions, and policy was the annual quota of efficient he had also returned to the old comgood, healthy recruits of the proper promise between the needs of the home standard who could be obtained from the Army and the needs of foreign service country in any one year. That, he which was best expressed by the term, seven years with the colours and five Thus he had resubmitted, ought to be the starting point in any scheme of Army reform. with the reserve." The annual supply of recruits varied duced the annual demand on the revery much less from year to year than cruiting supplies of the country to 22,000 people would suppose. The supply varied men a year-a demand well within the to some extent inversely with the labour normal limits of production. The greatly market; it also varied with the spirit improved terms now given to the soldier, of military adventure that filled the together with the diminished demand. minds of the people. As long as they for recruits, should give the Secretary for kept within the demand of 23,000 to War a higher selective power than his 25,000 men a year a very considerable predecessors had possessed, and condegree of economy pervaded the military sequently there would be a gain of effisystem. Once they passed beyond that ciency all through the elaborate circuevery kind of waste and inconvenience lations of the Army. If the establishcrept into the system, and the larger the ments of the regiments were somewhat demand for recruits the greater the smaller, the proportion of effectives would wastage. The standards of health, age, be larger; and if the force looked smaller As to the and good character were very important on paper it would really be stronger in the in regard to the Foreign Service Army, field when mobilised for war. be fourth point in this scheme-the exbut those standards could not so rigidly enforced, or possibly they had peditionary force-no one viewed with to be relaxed, and the energies of re- undue enthusiasm the preparations of a great army for immediate overseas cruiters were stimulated to procure men and such a provision, even if they went beyond the strict rules employment, which had been laid down to govern the although necessary in the case of our enlistment of men in the Army. General Empire, was nevertheless not a provision recruiting in this country was like a which found its parallel among other spring; so long as they were content modern States. But of course no one could with its normal flow they got clear water be blind to the fact that we had a very circulating through the whole of the serious and grave obligation upon us in military system; if, on the contrary, they regard to India, and it was our high duty began to pump, they brought up gravel, to shield India from anything that could which, at every stage of the whole bring disturbance or disaster to the elaborate process, caused friction, waste millions living there under the protection to the public, and he ventured to say no of the British Crown. It was that aspect