asked whether the Admiralty paid for night work in a private yard when work was going on night and day. MR. PRETYMAN: Certainly, if the work is required to be done by night, but no night work has been required. on the subject he had received no reply. He thought that when the amount spent on repairs had been increased it was not unfair that the taxpayers of Ireland should get some of it back in the shape of wages. *THE CHAIRMAN pointed out that the MR. RUNCIMAN said night work had complaint that none of the money was been carried on in private yards. spent in Ireland could not be made on this Supplementary Estimate, and that the hon. Member must wait until the Naval MR. PRETYMAN said he was not Estimates came on if he desired to enter aware of the fact. into that. MR. WOLFF (Belfast, E.) said he could not see that there was any difference between the relations of private shipowners and the repairing firms and those of the Admiralty and their contractors, when all parties worked under a similar system. The arrangement made by the Admiralty for the repair of their ships in private yards was such as his firm had adopted for many years in the case of large shipowners, and he failed to see why the Admiralty should not be satisfied with the system. His firm had built and repaired ships on this principle for more than twenty years. The hon. Member had asked whether the Admiralty paid for night work. Of course the wages bill of the contractor would include extra pay for overtime. He believed the arrangement had worked very satisfactorily. It was clear that until a ship was opened out for repairs or alteration they could never tell exactly what was wanted, and any shipbuilder asked to send in a price under such circumstances would be likely to put his estimate in excess of the work which would have to be done. He hoped the Admiralty would continue this arrangement, not only in repairing but building ships. *MR. CREAN (Cork, S.E.) said that although Ireland was called upon to pay a share of the cost of our Navy he found that when work had to be executed Ireland was generally ignored. A short time ago he received a communication from a number of workmen who had been thrown out owing to work in one of the Irish dockyards having been stopped, and although he had written to the Admiralty *MR. CREAN said in that case he would not pursue the matter further. He agreed that the contract work could not be better done than in the way the Admiralty did it. The system of having a tender on scheduled prices was the best way in which the work could be done. He could not now go into the details as to where the work was done, but at the same time he hoped on another occasion he would receive more courtesy and attention from the Admiralty than he received on the last on which he had to approach them. £ Vote 1. Pay, &c. of the Army 2,000,000 Remounts Vote 7. Provisions, Forage, and other Supplies Total Excess Appropriations in Aid (Votes 1, 6, 7, 9, and 10) 2,100,000 £6,130,000 on the 31st day of March, 1904, for Addi- | Estimates would be all that was required. tional Expenditure, in respect of the He thought it would greatly lighten the following Army Services, viz. :task of the War Office if they presented all that was required in one Estimate. He complained that a good deal of the difficulty which arose over the Yeomanry accounts was due to the fact that 35,000 men were sent to South Africa with an 2,030,000 insufficient number of paymasters to keep their accounts for them, there being only two to keep the whole of the accounts of the Yeomanry. These Yeomanry were 3,430,000 enlisted for a term of service of either a year or for the whole period of the war. £2,700,000" Some were enlisted in the winter of 1902. There could be no pretext for putting forward this account that there were still existing in the service any relics of an organised Imperial Yeomanry Corps, and it must be that these accounts had not yet been disentangled from the mass of documents at the War Office. If the matter stopped there, he should not say anything further, but out of the total number of Yeomanry a very considerable portion-not less than 2,000 or 3,000— never left these shores at all. Some of them were enlisted in the London district, but they never went out of the country. One thousand of them the moment they got to South Africa were shipped back again. Consequently they had been paying 5s. a day for some 2,500 men who never took part in the war. They were all fitted out in the most costly manner and remained at Aldershot some time and were afterwards disbanded. Some of the methods adopted as shown in the Blue-book were worth mentioning. Some of the Yeomanry were enlisted by the hall porter at the War Office. Others obtained forms from the same hall porter, filled them up, and in return were given commissions. All this was proved by the evidence in the Bluebook, and it did not reflect credit upon the War Office. This was all given in the evidence of Major Knight in answer to question No. 7170. In the case of one man who was enlisted the only thing he could do was to play the piano and he refused to get on a horse at all. Several officers arrived drunk without their drafts, and 184 officers were sent off MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE (Bristol, E.) drew attention to the difference in the form in which this Vote was presented to the House from that of the Vote which had just preceded it. He pointed out that in the Supplementary Vote for the Navy, it first of all gave the amount of the Supplementary Estimate, and immediately underneath that was the amount of the whole Estimate required. This, he pointed out, was an infinite convenience to hon. Members who desired to criticise these Estimates, and he trusted that on a future occasion, which he hoped would never occur, when the War Office required to present a Supplementary Estimate, they would present it in the form adopted by the Admiralty. The sum asked for by this Vote was £150,000 for the Imperial Yeomanry. The Financial Secretary had stated that he had put down a certain sum on the Paper as the total sum. He (Mr. Hobhouse) had put a reduction on the Paper as a protest against the principle adopted in the Supplementary Vote. The amount asked for the Imperial Yeomanry in the year 1902 was £1,350,000,and the year 1902-3 £1,300,000. Then a Supplementary Vote for £750,000 was asked for, and in 1903-4 a sum of £10,000 was put down, and now the hon. Gentleman came and asked for a Supplementary Vote for £150,000. The total sum asked for in the whole period on the Estimates was £3,750,000, of which 33 per cent. was taken upon Supplementary Votes. That disclosed a very undesirable state of things, because in future they would not be sure that the *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR | Yeomanry (South Africa), be reduced by WAR (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER, Belfast, £100."-(Mr. Charles Hobhouse.) W.) asked if it were relevant on this Vote to discuss the whole of the organisation in regard to the war. MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE said he should not have done so only he was challenged by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. A great deal of the confusion of the accounts was consequent upon sending out the Yeomanry in a very haphazard manner. One squadron was put upon one ship, and another on another ship, and upon arrival in South Africa they never saw each other until they came home. If troops were sent out in this higgledy-piggledy fashion there must be confusion in the accounts. Consequently delay in paying the men who had earned the money ensued, and the financial control of the War Office was reduced to a farce, and gave no satisfaction to anybody concerned. He moved a reduction of the Vote by £100. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item, Vote 1, Sub-head F (C), Pay,, &c. of the Corps of Imperial MR. COURTENAY WARNER (Staffordshire, Lichfield) said that yesterday on a former Vote the excuse was made that the accounts could not be got in because of negotiations with the Colonies, and certain claims were made which took time to decide. There was, however, nothing of the kind in this case, because the men had been home for eighteen months. He knew one great difficulty was that there were no paymasters, and the accounts might have gone in to the wrong person, but that was entirely the fault of the War Office. As far as these their accounts must have been in about men were concerned it appeared that all eighteen months ago. It was said that the officers did not send in the accounts the War Office, because they sent out properly, but that again was the fault of officers before they had learned any of their duties. Naturally, there was a great deal of confusion in consequence. He thought they ought to protest against such gross negligence. This was not the original wiping out, but the second. wiping out and finishing off of the business. They wished to know if this merely round sum, which was not the actual amount required, would finish off these payments. He could not understand how the War Office could now have accounts coming in from persons who ought to have ceased to draw pay more than twelve months ago. This was the kind of accounts which the War Office were very fond of putting in without explanation, and which they could not fathom, and it was apparently for the second batch of Yeomanry. It was the second batch which was so inefficient. *THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is not entitled to go into that. I have already given my ruling upon this point. MR. COURTENAY WARNER said that some of these cases would naturally come into this Vote, and unless they could get some assurance as to who this Vote applied to, the natural assumption was that it applied to the last batch. He hoped this was the last they would hear of the Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa, and that the question of their pay would not be brought up year after year. THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BRODRICK, Surrey, Guildford) said the explanation of this charge was a very simple one. The money taken last year was £2,050,000 and only £1,587,000 could be brought into account before 31st March. Obviously in any other business except the public service, in which the accounts terminated automatically on 31st March, it would not have been necessary to ask for this Vote. With regard to the administration of the Yeomanry by the War Office, he made no apology whatever for the failure of the War Office to employ all the Yeomanry available at the end of the war. MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE said that men sent out to Africa were disbanded as useless in the middle of the war. *SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucester- to the full by the evidence before the shire, Forest of Dean) said they had Commission. had no opportunity until to-day of pointing out how misleading were the accounts presented to them, during the war, on many of the matters in connection with the Imperial Yeomanry. This had been amply proved by the witnesses before the Commission. The whole confusion in these accounts was explained by the facts set forth in the evidence of Lord Chesham and others before the Commission. All this money had been paid long ago. There had been no case of money recently paid for the Yeomanry. As far as he could make out, this large sum left over was an imaginary account, a sort of banking account for money which had been actually paid out. The confusion and delay, in connection with the accounts, was much greater than could be accounted for by mere delay in the making up of regimental accounts for money which was paid eighteen months ago. It was pointed out in the House, over and over again, that the confusion in regard to the Yeomanry arose because the Government had acted in defiance of their own inspector, Colonel Lucas. This was shown by correspondence which had been accidentally laid before the House. It was correspondence relating to other matters as well, but it showed that the whole of the Yeomanry system broke down because the Government refused to send out drafts. The Prime Minister in this House and Lord Raglan in another place had thrown the whole blame for the confusion on the military commanders in the field, but now the evidence of those commanders showed that Yeomanry were sent out prematurely and when they were unfit for service, and that they were forced upon them against their wish. Then, as regarded officering, it was stated at the time that a large number of officers had been sent home as incompetent. The evidence taken before the Commission showed that that was correct, and that officers were sent home as hopelessly incompetent. He would not develop this question, but as the present was probably the only opportunity they would have of referring to it, he wished to point out to the Committee that every word which he and others had said about the Imperial Yeomanry in the field had been justified a MR. BRODRICK said that if the hon. Member supposed that it was possible for the Secretary for War to supervise the training of all the men demanded in such large numbers as they were demanded in South Africa, he must be under a delusion. Special tests were laid down in every case, and the AdjutantGeneral assured him that those tests had been applied. If it was true that some of the men could not ride or shoot, they must have evaded the tests. The only thing a Minister could do was to see that the tests were imposed which his military advisers considered adequate. He admitted that the second contingent were raised too hastily, and were sent out too hastily. The Government claimed credit for absolute bona fides in the statement made on the authority of those who advised them, that the war was coming to an end; and hon. Members who believed and frequently stated that that was merely an electioneering cry attacked the Government for not sending out drafts to continue the war, which the Government thought was coming to an end. In 1901 no drafts made for all classes of troops to be sent were raised, as arrangements were being home. Within a fortnight he had to go to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for authority to send out fresh troops, and all the mounted men he could lay hands on. Shortly afterwards they began to enlist. THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE said. again for the Yeomanry; and it was in the blame upon Lord Kitchener. But answer to the urgent appeals of Lord Lord Kitchener repudiated responsibility. Kitchener that men left this country Fuller explanation ought to be given as before, in his opinion, they should to the real nature of this transaction, have gone. There was no doubt because it would enable the Committee that the men were not sufficiently to understand better War Office finance trained, and they gave both Lord in the future. Roberts and himself considerable anxiety before they were sent out. When the third contingent of Yeomanry were raised he asked Lord Roberts to certify that every man who left the country was properly trained for the purpose for which he was required, and he did so; and he had no complaint whatever of that contingent. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had attacked the quality of the officers. When in ordinary years 600 to 800 officers were commissioned for the Regular forces and that number increased in 1899 to 1,500, in 1900 to 2,500, and in 1901 to 4,500, did it not stand to reason that when officers had been found with the greatest difficulty for the other forces the choice for the Yeomanry should be much more limited. That had proved what he had long felt-the necessity of having a very much larger reserve of officers than we had had hitherto. MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs) said he was not very clear as to this £150,000. When was the money paid? He understood from bis right hon. friend that it was paid before the beginning of the present financial year; but if that were so it was very extraordinary that it should come up on the Supplementary Estimates this year. Or, if the men were not paid before 31st March last, he thought it was a gross scandal that they should have been kept fifteen or eighteen months without their money. When the right hon. Gentleman was speaking about the criticism which had been made as to the efficiency of the new Yeomanry, he wondered whether the right hon. Gentleman had read the Report of the War Commission. In that Report Lord Chesham said that of 1,900 Yeomanry under his command, 75 per cent. had never been on a horse before they passed the test, and 25 per cent. had ridden very little. They had never had an opportunity of discussing this matter in the House of Commons; and when criticism was made, the right hon. Gentleman seemed inclined rather to cast he thought he could speak with some little authority about this matter at any rate. The facts were as follo vs. The officer had an account with his men, and afterwards an account with the War Office which paid upon the lists sent in. He admitted that these pay lists were in a state of confusion, and he could not say absolutely that every single man had been paid. It was a fact that it would have been very much better for all the officers concerned, and possibly for the country, if some better provision had been made for the proper payment of the men during the war. That everybody recognised.. It must not be forgotten that the first contingent of Yeomanry was despatched from this country under conditions of hurry. He himself happened to be in command of the first squadron which sailed from Great Britain, and he remembered perfectly that he was not ready when they got orders to sail on the following Saturday, and he did so sail. under protest. The answer to his protest was that great pressure had been put on the War Office by the authorities in South Africa, and there was an earnest desire and necessity to get the men to the front. It had been asked, why were not the units followed up with drafts? No doubt that would have been better. At first drafts were sent out, but they were not continued, because the Government believed that the war was coming to an end. He could assure the hon. Gentleman who laughed, that the Government did believe the war was coming to an end, and that there were some credulous people in South Africa who believed likewise. He himself, however, had doubts about it; and as a matter of fact he pressed for drafts to fill up his regiment. The second contingent of Yeomanry was sent out. There were some unsuitable men among that body, but there were also a large number of splendid men. A |