I beg to move to reduce the Vote by the sum of £15,000,000.

It is always a very difficult task to follow the right hon. Gentleman. He invariably illuminates every subject he touches, and has a wonderful power of inducing in his audience the belief that the subject with which he happens for the moment to be identified, is more vital than any other. That makes it difficult to follow him. But I take heart of grace from one fact. Those who remember his Estimates speech last year, will recollect that he then proved to us that the Army was really a considerable financial asset to the State, and that it was a privilege to pay for it. This year he has confessed that the Army is going to cost a certain amount of money and he has, I think, claimed that it may be possible, by the development of Tanks, to solve the problems of the Ministry of Transport, by making their roads, and the problems of the Food Ministry, by providing unlimited food storage. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman in one thing. He said that the decisions in these matters are in many cases and in many departments, not the decision of the War Office, but the decision of the Government. Last Wednesday week, we had a Debate on economy, and the then Chancellor of the Exchequer complained, as I am sure the House thought with some justice, that very often his hands were being forced by the House, and that on subjects like Housing, Insurance, Education and Wages, it was not really his doing, but it was the doing of the House which forced expenditure upon him. At any rate, however, in the case of the Army Estimates, we have the matter really effectively under the control of the Cabinet, and it was quite within the 1362 power of the Cabinet, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, to settle what our military policy should be, and then the Army Estimates could have been reduced to £100,000,000 or £110,000,000 if necessary, and the Secretary of State and the Army authorities could have carried out their decision.

Before I go into the question, of expense I want to touch on one general point which has not been mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman. I am not satisfied that we ought not to have had the Army Estimates this year in the ordinary form, so that we might really sec the details of Army expenditure as we were wont to do in the past. I know that the Finance Department of the War Office is in such a state of efficiency that if the Cabinet decision on policy had been come to in good time the department could have turned it into terms of money; that if the decision for instance had been come to by the New Year in that case we could have had the Army Estimates in their full form instead of the skeleton now presented to us. It really looks as if the Secretary of State had asked the Cabinet quite late in the Session for a certain figure and as if the Cabinet had insisted that the figure should be smaller, and that the right hon. Gentleman had not yet settled how he is going to arrange the expenditure within the total sanctioned. If that is so, it is perfectly intelligible we should have the Army Estimates in this form, for the longer the delay the greater are the chances of something turning up which may enable the right hon. Gentleman to induce the Cabinet to modify their decision. But look at the position of the House of Commons, which has most jealously treasured the principle of not voting supplies without having the full Estimates before it. The Vote on Account is of course carefully designed to last until the Votes are guillotined at the end of the Session. So that when we pass from this stage, which can only last one day, and from the Report Stage, and when we get Vote A., it will be absolutely unnecessary for the Government to get a single further War Office Vote for the whole of the year as they will have enough money to last them until everything is automatically guillotined. I know that the procedure on Votes on Account was in this form recommended by the Samuel Committee, but I suggest that the House never intended to 1363 enable the Government to get all the, money it wanted for the whole period of a Session without laying Estimates before the House. Therefore I have put down this reduction, not in the interests of any particular school of Army economists, but on behalf of the House and its ancient privileges. I want an assurance that the Estimates will be laid before the Report Stage of this Vote is taken, or, if that is impossible, before Vote A is taken, or, as an alternative, that they will be laid and a further day for their discussion given, say not later than the middle of April. I think it is only fair, and if we do not get such an assurance then I think the House would not be following its ancient and honourable traditions if it were to vote the money which is now asked for and thus lose all control over Army policy so far as obtaining votes in this House is concerned. That is why I have put down this reduction. I think it will be ample to give the Government half the money necessary for the whole estimated annual expenditure of the year and force them when the Army Estimates are properly laid to come back to this House for a further Vote. I do not think that on these skeleton Estimates before us we should vote all the money that they require for the whole of the year.

There is another assurance which I should like to obtain, although I am afraid I shall not get it. It is this. When the Estimates are produced, seeing their complexity, and the enormous importance of the matters with which they deal, they should be referred to a Commitee on the lines recommended by the National Expenditure Committee which we debated in this House the week before last, so that the House should have before it the report of the Committee to guide it in its discussions here. A very curious thing happened on Wednesday last week on the Debate on Economy. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was, or seemed to be, imperfectly informed on the recommendations of the Public Expenditure Committee, and on this Motion he asked my right hon. Friend, the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean), to explain to him the recommendations of that Committee. That was done. The right hon. Gentleman made a quite important speech on economy later on, but in it he made no mention whatever of that extremely important recommendation of the 1364 National Expenditure Committee in favour of setting up a proper Estimates Committee of this House, advised, as it should be, by an officer of the House of Commons responsible for that duty before the matters come up here. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman thought it wise to get a decision of the Cabinet on it. I should be very glad if before our Debate ends to-day we can have the decisions of the Cabinet; if we can be informed whether the Estimates are going to be presented, and when, and if when they have been produced we shall not have lost an opportunity of considering them. Fourthly, I want to know whether they will be referred to such a Committee as was recommended by the National Expenditure Committee. Let us look at the figures such as they are. This Vote on Account contains provisions for £55,000,000 for the same estimated numbers as in 1914–15, and for terminal charges to the amount of 29½ millions, while there is also an extraordinary provision of £40,000,000 for overseas garrisons. Of course, the first and last items are the really important two, but I would like to say a word or two in reference to the item for terminal charges, which includes the salvage Army. Whereas all the proceeds of salvage sales are going to the Ministry of Munitions Vote, the charge is to be borne on the War Office Estimates, and the effect will be this, that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State will be able, in defending his Estimates here, to point to the charges forced upon him by the Ministry of Munitions for realising his stocks, whereas the Minister of Munitions will be able to say, when his Estimate is under discussion, "Look at the money I get for the salvage. Another effect will be that he will be able to keep the stocks in hand, to nurse his market at a heavy expense to the War Office, and then show a big profit on realisation without showing the cost. We want to bring the. two items together—the actual amount realised and the cost incurred in realising it. Therefore, we suggest that the salvage Army must be under War Office control and under military discipline. The cost should not be shown here, but it should be charged against the Ministry of Munitions.

But there are far more important considerations under the other head, the provision for the same establishment as in 1914–15, £55,000,000, and the extra- 1365 ordinary provision for overseas garrisons. Unless there is a serious intention of reducing the British establishment to the same figure as it was before the War, it is really almost pure humbug to put it on the Estimate. I believe I can show that this figure, so far as this year's Estimates are concerned, is misleading, that it means absolutely nothing at all and that really it would have been better, if you have any real intention whatever of reaching it, not to put it on the Estimates before us. Let us look at the figures. The number of men on the British establishment in 1914–15 was 174,000, and yet I think I can show that there is nothing at all in the figures or in the statement the right hon. Gentleman has made to bind him to come below that figure of 239,000. That is a difference of 65,000. The figure of 239,000, on the same proportion that 174,000 bears to £55,000,000, would mean an expenditure of £75,000,000. Of course it would have been inconvenient to say "My Estimates mean, if they are accepted, that I may keep a force of British troops of 239,000 all through the year, but that has no relation whatever to this figure of £55,000,000. If I have to do that, it will cost at least £75,000,000." It would have produced an unfortunate impression to give that figure because the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made a forecast, which we still hope may be realised, that the Army and Air Force together in a normal year will be brought within that figure. I am not counting, of course, the extraordinary provision. It would, of course, have taken some part out of the £40,000,000. If he put this British establishment at 239,000 costing £75,000,000 it would have reduced the extraordinary provision from £40,000,000 to £20,000,000. But unless he is really pledged, as he is not, to any reduction of the British establishment below 239,000 it would really have been more honest not to put this figure of £55,000,000, which can only be reached if the British establishment goes down to 174,000. I think that it is clear from the Estimate.

May I again ask the Committee to look it the figures? It is stated on page 2 of Vote A that the 520,000 will come down to 280,000, a reduction of 245,000. Clearly, most of that reduction comes under heading 3, the sick and the salvage, or of the men being demobilised. All of these come off that 176,000. If 176,000 are 1366 taken off the 245,000, it leaves 70,000 men to come off somewhere else. Then he says, at the end of page 3 of Vote A, that the garrisons employed in other territories are in process of reduction to approximately half their present strength where local circumstances permit, and they amount to 168,000 men, of whom 68,000 are British and 100,000 Colonial and native Indians. If one half is to come off this, that is a total of 84,000, or, as he would put it, approximately half, and that would be represented by possibly the 70,000 instead of 84,000 which have still to come off the grand total. But he can take off that half of the 170,000 in any way the likes, and it is quite clear that all of it might come off the 100,000 Indian troops, leaving a nice useful balance of 30,000 still at his disposal, and that the British force abroad might be left wholly untouched, and therefore a total British establishment of 239,000 at the end of the year just as at the beginning. If that is the meaning of the figures when analysed it is rather moonshine to suggest that it is within the bounds of practical politics even to think in terms of this figure of £55,000,000 or £63,000,000 allowing for the stores as he has put it before us. If he had said "The total British establishment at the beginning of the year is 239,000, of which I have a definite intention of making such and such reductions," there would have been very little criticism, but he has so arranged his figures that no sort of expectation can be held out on the face of the Estimates of any reduction of that force. In fact I think it comes back to this. There ought to have been laid before us, and surely there might have been, a proper Vote A. This is a mere substitute for a Vote A. Vote A normally takes 13 pages of the Army Estimates, and gives the House some very valuable information, and we ought to have figures which would show the permanent establishments of our post-war Army separately from the temporary garrisons. Instead of that, we only have the geographical distribution on 1st April and nothing to show what troops under heading 3, on page 3, are permanent and what are temporary.

Let us look at the figures a little further. Looking at Vote A for what it is worth, the list is headed by cavalry. There we find that it is practically the 1367 same figure as before the War, and yet I should have thought if anything had been proved by the War it was that cavalry was less useful that we had previously thought it was going to be. There are the same totals as before the War, the same as in 1914 when the, cavalry was tuned up to the highest possible pitch, and with the very fullest possible establishment of horses, and men to groom them, whereas now there is no need whatever for it to be tuned up in anything like the same way. If you do not need the same establishment of horses, you do not need the same establishment of men, and yet here the right hon. Gentleman has the same establishment of men. I should have thought if they were not tuned up in the same way it would have reflected itself in a reduction of numbers and consequently a reduction of expense, and certainly in this arm, which we know to be a most expensive arm, a little reduction of numbers and expenditure would have been very welcome. Next, the artillery. There you have 29,000 against 32,500 before the War. There is an apparent reduction of numbers. That is the only case of an apparent reduction of numbers. But of the 32,500, about 14,000 were garrison artillery, leaving only 18,000 horse and field, and of course coast defence will be unnecessary for years and years—we hope for ever—and yet, although the garrison artillery of 18,000 are really unnecessary altogether, we only have a reduction of a few thousand.

So it goes on. The engineers and the Colonial service are 23,000 as against 10,000 in 1914. The A.O.C. is more than double; the R.A.M.C. three times, the Royal Ordnance Corps 2½ times, and so on almost through the list. When we come to the new items of machine gun corps and tank corps, I do not complain of then-existence, their development and their numbers. But it is an obvious subject of complaint that these new technical corps, no doubt of very high efficiency and in particular with the Royal Air Force at his disposal, of whose use we have recently seen such a striking example, he should be still going on with what I may call the old Army not only undiminished, but very considerably enlarged. It would seem to an ordinary person that if there was any real gain to be anticipated by having a single Minister of War and Minister of Air 1368 it would have been that when he saw how extraordinarily successful the Air Force was in doing work which it had previously taken vastly greater numbers of other arms to do he would have had the strength to reduce to some extent at any rate—not absolutely altogether of course—some of the forces which ought now to be unnecessary. I am only taking the Government at their word, and assuming that they really are desperately keen on national economy. If that is not so, my criticism falls to the ground, but it seems to me, and it must seem to the Committee, as though instead of using that wonderfully keen intelligence which he has, the right hon. Gentleman had rather left himself in the hands of the soldiers, who are, I fear, in general the last people to whom we can look to advise any cutting down of the old Army, however completely it may have been superseded. Or is it possible that the eternal vigilance of the Prime Minister for economy which he exercises day and night has somehow not penetrated across Whitehall?

But let me return to the figures. I have tried to show that the total reduction promised for this year is more than accounted for by the disappearance of the temporary men and the reduction of the foreign garrisons. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman would suggest that there was any reduction of our British troops at home. They are shown on the top of page 3 as 161,000 men. It is a remarkable thing, in view of the very great decrease of our home responsibilities, that he has a considerable increase above our home establishments in 1914–15. Our home standing Army in 1914–15 was 138,000, as against 161,000. One surely would expect that, whereas in 1914 everything was ready for the instant mobilisation of a six-division army, whereas we had to provide considerable numbers of troops, I think 150,000, for coast defence—