pense of recapturing descrters, until this | was done our endeavours to get respectable men to join the Army would be fruitless.

COLONEL STANLEY, desiring to save trouble to the Committee, was willing to leave out the words objected to; but in order to render the clause more clear, he would ask the Committee to assent to the insertion, in line 21, after the word "forces," of the words "without declaring the circumstances of his discharge."

SIR HENRY HAVELOCK said, there could be no doubt that desertion and re-enlistment was one of the greatest evils existing in the Army, and that the means hitherto devised had been insufficient for the purpose of checking it.

MAJOR O'BEIRNE rose to Order. The word "desertion" was not mentioned in the clause under consideration. THE CHAIRMAN said, that a more suitable opportunity of raising this question would occur when Clause 34 was reached. He would point out to the Committee that the clause now before them was directed against improper persons entering the Army, who were referred to as persons previously discharged from the Army. He could scarcely, therefore, see the immediate relevancy of the observations of the hon. and gallant Member for Sunderland (Sir Henry Havelock), which, as he had already said, would be more suitably applied to Clause 34.

SIR HENRY HAVELOCK thought

that the Committee would see that his

remarks were properly made at that stage of the Bill, when they were dealing with the offence of entering the Army again after discharge, with a view to its prevention. This matter which had, to a great extent, already occupied the attention of the Committee, was one of such serious importance that he ventured to draw the attention of the Committee to the evidence given by the Commander-in-Chief before the Royal Commission. The questions were put by himself (Sir Henry Havelock); but, before referring to them, he wished to point out that from the circumstance that the punishment of the crime of desertion in the face of the enemy was in our Service death, there had grown up a popular feeling in favour of the deserter. But that crime was not included in the present use of the word "deser

tion," which simply implied a fraudulent breach of contract entered into with the Service; an act, in itself, essentially and notoriously disgraceful. He was, therefore, sure that when this was clearly understood by the public there would not remain a shadow of sympathy for a man who had committed this crime, who would thenceforward be regarded as a thoroughly disgraceful and fraudulent person. Proceeding to another part of the question--the system of branding-it was supposed by many persons who knew nothing about the matter that officers were in the habit of binding a man hand-and-foot, throwing him upon his face, and branding him with a hot iron. But the truth was, the marking was done by the much more simple and painless process of tattooing, generally on the left breaststhe pain in that case being no more than would be felt on pricking a finger with a pin. When the House deprived itself of that means of checking fraudulent enlistment, the public purse by that act suffered to the extent of £320,000 a-year, and would continue to do so until a remedy was discovered. But to return to the opinion of His Royal Highness the Commander-inChief, who was asked the Question—

turn to the system of marking which is now "Without in any degree assenting to a reobsolete, is it your opinion that such marking was effective?"

His Royal Highness replied

"I think it would be a very good plan; I see no reason why it should not be adopted."

And, again, he said, in reply to another

Question

"I do not think there would be any hardship

in this; it would draw the attention of the

medical officer to the fact."

Now, the remedy for the evil in question was that it should be understood that the House was in favour of a system of marking by vaccination, which would for the future indicate that a man, presenting himself with such mark upon him, had been a soldier, and draw attention to the circumstances in which he was discharged. This would have the effect of saving the country the largo sum of £320,000 a-year. But the advantage was not to be measured entirely by its pecuniary result; for anything which tended to check desertion and

re-enlistment in the Army would be entirely in favour of the good soldierthe man who endeavoured to do his duty, and who was now the greatest sufferer by the fact that this fraudulent re-enlistment escaped notice. He thought the Committee was much indebted to the hon. and gallant Member for Oxfordshire (Colonel North) for having drawn attention to the subject, and trusted that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would devise some efficient means of checking the evil.

COLONEL ARBUTHNOT thought it well, as the discussion had turned upon the means by which the offence of fraudulent desertion and enlistment in the Army could be prevented, to point out that those who were instrumental in bringing in the soldiers guilty of that offence, might, in his opinion, be very properly called upon to exercise greater circumspection in the men whom they selected. He had no doubt that in many cases the recruiting sergeants were very well aware that the men enlisted by them had been soldiers before; and he (Colonel Arbuthnot) had himself, on more than one occasion, refused to enlist men who had been brought up by the sergeant for enlistment, because it was evident to anyone that the men knew something of military drill. One good step, he thought, in the right direction would be that a little care should be exercised in the granting of sums of money for enlistments. He quite held with the granting of money to those who discovered deserters; but considered it undesirable that pecuniary rewards should be given to anybody in connection with the enlistment of a soldier, until that soldier had been for some time under examination; and he had himself known of cases in which money so granted had been taken back again.

THE CHAIRMAN pointed out, that the hon. and gallant Gentleman was departing from the subject before the Committee in referring to the question of bounties.

COLONEL ARBUTHNOT was simply showing how these improper enlistments could best be prevented. But he would pass to another point. The hon. and gallant Member for Oxfordshire (Colonel North) had read from a Report in which it was said that by the system of bounties, without due inquiry as to the anteSir Henry Havelock

cedents of soldiers, desertion was very much encouraged. He (Colonel Arbuthnot) did not see why a man, on offering himself for enlistment, should not be obliged to bring a character of some sort, or furnish a reference, in exactly the same way as demanded from servants engaged by private individuals. There would be a great advantage in this; because, if reference was given to persons who had known the recruit from his early youth, a stop would be put to the practice of children enlisting as men. It would, by this means, be very easy to discover whether the person presenting himself was of the age which he professed to be, or whether, as was often the case, he was three or four years younger. He ventured to think that the civil magistrates might do a great deal in the way of assisting to stop this practice; but he was aware that the various benches of magistrates took very different views concerning the gravity of the crime, and, in some cases, were inclined to act in an unduly lenient manner, from an unaccountable feeling of opposition to the military authorities. He remembered a case in which, finding that a man taken before them had not received his proper punishment, he had written, pointing out the gravity of the offence, and suggesting that he should have received a proper punishment. A rather sharp letter was received in reply, telling him, in effect, that he, as a civil magistrate, understood the case best. He (Colonel Arbuthnot) wrote an apologetic reply, as magistrate of Quarter Sessions in another county, in answer to which he received a very different letter, and the next two men whom he sent up received considerably more punishment than had been formerly awarded. With regard to the making away with kits, he was not quite sure whether the Bill dealt with the point so far as concerned the receivers, who were as much to blame as those who sold the articles. If that was not the case, ho thought some provision should be introduced to meet the case of receivers.

MR. CAMPBELL - BANNERMAN conceived that it would be departing from the proper subject before the Committee to continue the discussion upon fraudulent re-enlistment, concerning which a great deal would have to be said. The clause appeared to him to be misplaced. It dealt with an offence in relation to

Gentleman (Colonel Mure). who appeared to be raising a wholly different question.

THE CHAIRMAN said, it did not appear to him that that was the most convenient place for the observations of the hon. and gallant Member to be made, as they did not strictly relate to the subject-matter of the clause.

COLONEL MURE observed, that the subject was most important; and although, according to the ruling of the Chair, it could not then be brought forward, he hoped that it would be fully discussed on Report.

COLONEL ALEXANDER suggested that not only every soldier, but that every officer entering into a regiment should receive a mark. Every second licutenant on joining, as well as every private, should be marked with the name of his regiment. A great misconception had arisen from the use of the word branding;" but it was quite unnecessary to use that term. They had heard from the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure) that it was absolutely necessary, on the first conviction for desertion, to mark with the letter D; but the court had power to abstain from so doing, if they thought there was sufficient reason. He would not at that point enter into the question of the advisability of using the letter D; but would only say that it was quite distinct from the use of a regimental mark. To the use of the letter D he did not think the House would ever again consent; but he did think it very necessary that every soldier should be marked with the name of his regiment. GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR | urged the Secretary of State for War to take into consideration the suggestions that had been so admirably urged by the hon, and gallant Member for Oxfordshire (Colonel North). It would be well for a careful inquiry to be made into these

matters.

MR. E. JENKINS was sorry that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War was not at that moment in the House; but he was glad to see the Judge Advocate General in his place, as he would be able to reply to the observations which he had to make with regard to this clause. The more he considered this clause the less he liked it; and he thought the remarks of the hon. and learned Member

Mr. E. Jenkins

for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt) ought by that time to have had some weight, because the hon. and learned Member agreed in supporting this Bill, and was the Chairman of the Committee upon whose recommendations this Bill had been drawn. He wanted to point out to the Committee that this clause affected not every person subject to the Military Law, as the 13th did, but every person having become subject to Military Law. The object was that the military authorities might follow into civil life a man who had been discharged with ignominy; upon his release and entrance into civil life it was sought still to bring him under the provisions of the Act, and to subject him to a military court martial. Surely, the Bill was harsh enough as it stood, without the introduction of such extra punishment as the subjecting a man who had re-entered civil life to a court martial and a sentence of penal servitude. It seemed to him that this clause was perfectly gratuitous; for it provided severe and unnecessary punishment in the case of fraudulent enlistment, which offence was already provided for by another clause. He would take the sense of the Committee with regard to the maintenance of this clause; for the more he considered it the more he thought it was unnecessary, and unduly severe. It was merely an attempt, by imposing penal servitude, to endeavour to dissuade persons from committing crime. Because the organization of the Army was imperfect, and because the right hon. and galiant Gentleman, as he had admitted, found difficulties in registering the name of every person who had been dismissed the Service with ignominy, undue penalties of this sort were to be imposed. It was simply an attempt to prevent, by highly penal legislation, an offence which arose from the want of organization of the Army. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary must see that the clause was too severe; it was a clause against the general policy of legislation, and, indeed, it was admitted to be so. There was nothing in the present Mutiny Act or the Articles of War even remotely akin to it; and he would ask whether, in order to meet the difficulty of persons re-enlisting who had been discharged with ignominy, it was right to introduce a clause of such severity as this into an Act of Parlia