Debate in House of Lords

Thames Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 9885, 6 March 1901, Page 2

Debate in House of Lords

DEFENCE OF LORD WOLSELY.

ADVERSE CRITICISM

(Per Press Association —Copyright. J

LONDON, March 5

In the House of Lords the Duke of Bedford complained of the army system, said it deprived the Commander-in-Chief of all real responsibility. Lord Raglan defended Lord Wolsely in a carefully prepared speech which lasted an hour. He advocated the professional control of the army and the rehabilitation of the office of Com-mander-in-ChieJ. The only exceptions among the nations of the rule that soldiers should control the army were China, which was a bad example, and Great Britain. He ■ had for the five years he was Commander honestly tried the present system and found it wanting. He could show if needed the want of efficiency. The army had been subordinated in the wish to produce a- low bugdet, and the virtual command had been transferred to the civilian Secretary of State. The Commander-in-Chief could suggest, recommend, and exhort, but nothing beyond. He often had been sick at heart seeing the National risks deliberately accepted by the Government because it was afraid to ask for money. Had the annual demands of the Commanders for the last fifteen years been published with the reasons for demands the taxpayers would have been enabled to judge between the expert and the economist and would have insisted in a compliance with those demands. They would thus, have escaped many terrible risks.

Lord Lansdowne in replying stated the present system was better than the one which Lord Hartington's commission had so emphatically condemned. The failures is South Africa were not due to the system, but in not giving the system full effect. Lord Wolsely had initiated proposals concerning the different departments of the War Office, but only fitfully and when the spirit moved him. The auxiliary forces had been neglected, for had Lord Wolsely more fully realised the immensely important duties assigned him, by the Order-in-Council requiring him to prepare schemes for offensive and defensive operations, the duties wherefore he alone was responsible for, he might have told us before the war that Ladysmith was not a very suitable military station, and might even have warned us to take more than one army corps •to subjugate the republic. Debate was adjourned. Later. In his speech Lord Lansdowne said that when Lord Wolsely resigned he memorialised the Premier on the score of his inadequate powers as Commander in Chief.

The memorial, however, did not mention the fact that he was responsible for the direct control and the mobilisation of the army, for the utilising of the volunteer forces and for the intelligence department.-: