be invaluable for our special needs. What sketched out for the Militia was a duty happened when the country went to war? which could not be done by any other They strained the resources which the Volunteer or semi-Volunteer force. Regular Army put at heir disposal almost He hoped the right hon. Gentleman to the breaking point. They sent to the would reflect upon this difficulty and front from the fortresses in the Mediter- reply to it if he had anything in his ranean, and from this country, every Re-mind to meet it. At this stage he gular battalion they could find, and they would say no more about the Militia made up the deficiency so created in the but would turn to the Volunteers. The fortresses by Militia battalions, and they right hon. Gentleman having destroyed were capable of making up that deficiency. the Militia, threatened to destroy the They could do it thoroughly well, but the Volunteers. On that point the right hon. new battalions-their third battalions- Gentleman spoke with much greater aucould not. From their very constitution thority than he could. The Volunteer they were tied to the soil. The right hon. force of which he dreamt, if he could Gentleman said they were not to serve get it, was undoubtedly a far better abroad. They were not even to be Volunteer force than we had at present. allowed to volunteer to go abroad, be- But whether the right hon. Gentleman cause, if they did, the whole machinery had made the terms too cast iron, to for supplying drafts for the troops abroad rigid, too difficult, of accomplishment, would, from the very nature of the case, carrying with them too great a burden, be smashed and destroyed. Therefore, was a point upon which he had no title if the right hon. Gentleman's plan was to give an opinion. There was a large carried out, there was nothing to use for number of Gentlemen there in close touch the Mediterranean fortresses, or for the with Volunteer feeling and he would lines of communication, as in the South leave them to discuss it. But was African War. They could not use the he wrong in saying that in the course of a English or Scottish Militia regiments be- three days debate they had seen a percause they had been wholly destroyed. ceptible weakening in the heroic line the The need found in South Africa for the right hon. Gentleman took upon the first Militia battalions and the use to which night? Certainly everybody went away they were put would be repeated and with from the first night's debate with the fresh emphasis if we had to defend India. understanding that every Volunteer was Let them assume that the Militia battalions to bind himself for four years, and to give were quite incapable of meeting on equal a certain amount of fixed time each year, terms European forces in the Passes of irrespective of the calls of his own Afghanistan, yet they would be quite business, profession or trade. He was capable of taking the place of the Indian not only bound for four years to these troops sent to the front. Everybody onerous obligations, but there was a heavy would agree that it would be quite im- penalty upon him if he broke his engagepossible to remove the white troops from ment. The right hon. Gentleman now India altogether, but the white troops left there need not be Regular troopsMilitia troops could do the work equally as well. If they deprived themselves of the Militia they would deprive themselves of what was a stand-by of incalculable value in such a crisis as arose in the South African War, and such as would have to be faced if called upon to defend India. He confessed he did not see that the right hon. Gentleman had given any adequate reason for a revolution which must have hurt his historic sense of the British Army, and which carried with it the great and inevitable defect that he could not use the Volunteers to fill up the drafts. The work which he had Mr. A. J. Balfour.

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indicated that although there was penalty of £5 to be enforced by some process or other, it was not to be enforced very often. Any excuse almost would be accepted as a ground for a man's relieving himself of this duty. He believed the right hon. Gentleman was right. He was not sure that this absolute obligation of going out in a particular week in the year would not press extremely hard upon some of the people they most desired to take part in Volunteer training. He quite agreed that to ask them to go out for a week or a fortnight's training was not too much-probably not enough. But if a man's business required him to be at home in a particular week, and that

MR. CHURCHILL: The soil.

which he thought would cause friction, | fantry and cavalry which the country and he was not at all sure that it was was perfectly capable of supplying. The going to give them anything for which hon. Gentleman who had just sat down it was worth while to incur friction. Mr. had told them that the new Volunteer orBrodrick's scheme of army corps was ganisation, the territorial Army, was to much derided, most unjustly, as being be called together to defend the coasts beautiful on paper but difficult to carry of these islands. out in practice, and, if carried out in practice, more-as in the case of ambitious architectural plans-pleasing to the military eye than as serving the real needs of war. Well, were not these elaborate fourteen divisions, each supplied with cavalry and artillery, a somewhat picturesque and rather useless organisation? He did not wish to criticise them too severely from that aspect, however; his serious criticism was from another point of view. The organisation of separate divisions with artillery implied that they believed in Volunteer artillery. But was there a single soldier who did?

MAJOR SEELY (Liverpool, Abercromby) said that to deny the efficiency of Volunteer artillery was to cut ourselves off from all help from the Colonial artillery.

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MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Well, they could not get to the soil without first landing on the coast; he begged the hon. Gentleman's pardon; he would take his phrase if he preferred it. Having said that, the hon. Gentleman made a small excursion upon the Blue Water school, their exaggerations in the past, and the modifications which might be introduced into the naval view. He did not dissent at all from the representation which the hon. Gentleman had of his views with regard given to the absolute necessity of maintaining a force in this country, whatever the object might be. The real use of a force in this country was to compel the invader to invade with so large a body of troops that practically the process of inMR. A. J. BALFOUR said his know- vasion was impossible as a military operaledge of the working of the Colonial tion. In order to attain that end unsystem and of the efficiency of their doubtedly troops were required; artillery was not sufficient to enable thought some Regular troops should him to deal with the perfectly relevant always be in the country. He did not and fair interruption of the hon. Gentle- deny that the Volunteers, in order to man. He must leave that to more perform that duty properly, must be competent persons than himself. But better organised than they were now. of this he was quite sure, that every His criticism upon the elaborate and military authority whom he had ever rather onerous organisation proposed had the opportunity or the duty by the right hon. Gentleman must not of consulting was of opinion that the be taken as meaning that he was satisfied one thing which they could not im- with the volunteer system as it was, provise was artillery. No cross-examina- for he was not. When he was, tion, no pressure, would squeeze out of member of the Defence Committee, them any other opinion. And he was looking into the question of a raid on forced by that absolutely unanimous view, Newcastle-on-Tyne, he thought that, as not to say that Volunteer artillery was far as that military operation was useless, but that if they wanted to make concerned, undoubtedly there should the best use of their Volunteer infantry be some much more careful and elaborate and cavalry they must add to their reorganisation of the forces we had at our Volunteer artillery, artillery which was disposal to meet it. But what he wanted not volunteer. In other words, in to point out now as that there was a addition to the artillery which was discrepancy, as it seemed to him, between. required for their Regular Army the thesis of the hon. Gentleman who had they must have other artillery-he did just sat down and the original contention. not say that it need be in very great of the Secretary for War. The hon. Gentle quantities to reinforce the Volunteer in- man had told them that the Territorial Mr. A. J. Balfour.

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Army was to defend the soil of this country. | in the past, and which a reformed Militia, If he understood the right hon. Gentle- supplied with Regular officers, would be man, he looked to the Territorial Army able to fulfil even more efficiently. With to supply not only drafts, but units for regard to the scheme of third battalions service abroad. Of course it was not to be a they might call them battalions if they compulsory provision of drafts and units; liked, but really they were a sort of hybrid but the object in making the proposed mixture-something between a big depot immense change in the Volunteers was and a rear battalion. That hybrid connot that the soil of this country should be struction was not, and could not be, better defended, but that the country capable of fulfilling the duties which they should be better provided with. threw upon the units which the Militia now means for carrying on wars in distant supplied. When the Government came parts of the Empire. Nobody could to consider that, he thought they would guess that from anything that fell from perhaps be somewhat inclined towards the Under-Secretary of State for the the policy which he confessed he personColonies. Surely the Secretary of State, ally had always favoured, which was that and not the Under-Secretary for of seeing if they could not, by reforming the Colonies, was right in that matter. the Militia, give that power of expansion If all they had got to do was to the British Army which reformers of to defend the shores of these islands, he all schools admitted to be necessary, but did believe some reorganisation of the which, he admitted, no reformer had yet Volunteers was necessary, but he did happily and thoroughly accomplished. not believe the revolutionary proposals of the Government were necessary. They were only necessary and justifiable if they were going to rely on the Volunteers to do that for which they had hitherto, in the main, though not wholly, relied on their Militia. Therefore, if they abolished their Militia, something of the sort proposed by the Secretary of State might be necessary. But let it be observed, it was not nearly as good for the purpose on which he dwelt earlier, because they could not ask them to go abroad to the foreign or Mediterranean garrisons or to India. They were not fit to do it until they had gone through the six months training which preceded the outbreak of war, although during that very six months it might be most convenient to move their Regular troops from the Mediterranean garrisons. He asked the Government again, therefore, whether they had sufficiently considered the difficulty that would result from this revolutionary change in the traditional system. They abolished the old historic force which could carry out some great and necessary duties, and substituted for it, not a Volunteer. force, but the possibilty of a Volunteer force, which, with all its merits and if organised on the system of the right hon. Gentleman they would be very great--would not be able to fulfil the exact duties which had been so admirably accomplished by the Militia

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE, Haddington) thought they might congratulate themselves upon the tone which had prevailed in the debate. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman opposite was admirable in its attitude, because perfectly fair in its criticisms. He put his points in such a fashion as showed that he was really deeply conscious of the difficulties [Mr. BALFOUR: Hear, hear.] and only anxious to co-operate in the matter. For his part, they were deeply conscious of the difficulties with which they had to cope; and when points arose, as indicated, they would consider most carefully whether there were ways which might get them out of the difficulties with which they were confronted. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of the Militia question. Some months ago he confessed that he studied the question

very

much in the manner the right hon. Gentleman had disclosed. He, too, thought that it would be possible to reform the Militia, and so to alter their character as to make them fulfil the double function of at once finding drafts for the Army and at the same time of preserving that independence in their cadres

which would have enabled

them to be used for the purpose to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred. But he came to see that the two functions were inconsistent. He found