Draft Report on the Army Estimates proposed by the Chairman, brought up and read a first time as follows: THIRD DRAFT REPORT. THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON ESTIMATES have made further progress in the matters to them referred, and have agreed to the following Third Report: (1) Your Committee commenced the examination of the Army Estimates and examined Sir CHARLES HARRIS, G.B.E., K.C.B., Joint Secretary of the War Office and Finance Member of the Army Council. (2) As the Session was so advanced it was impossible to do more than hear evidence on the pay of officers and men. They were informed that there had been considerable increases in the pay and that the Army Council were well aware of the seriousness of the position. In answer to a question as to how it would be possible to alter a contract without the consent of both parties, Your Committee were informed that the Army Council would not depart from that proposition, but, that they would be prepared to consider the reduction of the pay of new entrants into the Service, subsequent to a given date. This would result in there being men, for some years, side by side drawing different rates of pay, but the view of the Army Council is that, however difficult this may be, the position is so serious that it has got to be done. Your Committee concur in this view. Question put, that the Draft Report proposed by the Chairman be read a second time. Amendment made in line 4 after the last word "the " by inserting the word "financial" (Viscount Curzon), and in lines 7 and 8 by leaving out the words "depart from that proposition" and inserting the words "break contracts" (Mr. Pennefather), instead thereof. Amendment proposed, in line 9 to leave out the word "of " in order to insert the words "to be offered to " (Mr. Pennefather) instead thereof. Question, That the word "of " stand part, put and negatived. Question put, That the words "to be offered to" be there inserted. The Committee divided: Whereupon the Chairman declared himself with the "Noes." Question, That the word "for" be there inserted, put and agreed to. Paragraph as amended agreed to. 43275 A 3 New paragraph brought up and read a first and second time as follows: "Your Committee hope to continue their investigation of these Estimates at a later date (Colonel Spender-Clay). Question, That the new paragraph be added to the Report, put and agreed to. Question put, That the Report as amended be the Report of the Committee to the House. The Committee divided. Ayes (6). Major Burnie. Colonel Spender-Clay. Mr. Pennefather. Sir Philip Pilditch. Colonel Stephenson. Mr. Wise. Noes (1). Captain Viscount Curzon. Ordered to Report with Minutes of Evidence and Appendices. Sir CHARLES HARRIS, G.B.E., K.C.B. (Joint Secretary and Accounting Officer of the War Office, and Member of the Army Council) called and examined. Chairman. 1. I am very much obliged to you, and I am sure the Committee are also, for the very clear statement you have had prepared for us, and which we have before us at the present time. Turning to the White Paper, which has been circulated, on page 3 there is an "Abstract of Army Estimates 1923-24 and 1914-15." I think to-day we will confine ourselves to Vote A.-the numbers and pay of officers and men. The statement which you have put in shows that the total number of men in 1923-24 is 170,800, whereas in 1914-15 it was 186,400, but the number for which pay is taken in 1923-24 is 9,890 officers and 139,820 men, as against 9,350 officers and 154,200 men in 1914-15. Apparently there is an increase in the number of officers of 540, and a decrease in the number of men of about 15,000. Is there any particular reason why the officers should have been increased while the men have been decreased?-One of the experiences of the War that hit us hardest at an early stage was that we very soon used up the trained officers of the Army and had very few really up-to-date soldiers available to train the new armies; in addition to that, the great importance attaching to machine guns in the modern army has led to an 43275 addition of two officers to each infantry battalion and there are other new Arms of the service. The number of officers on the staff and in various employments shown on pages 4 and 5, where the details are set out, also account for an increase. The Army Council considered very carefully how far it would be possible to make a reduction in officers proportionate to the number of men, and it came finally to the conclusion that the right policy was to maintain an undiminished number of officers and to make the necessary reductions in the men, because you can train a man in war time in something like six months, but you cannot train an officer under a term of years. that reason the Army Council was unable to accept the doctrine, which looks reasonable at first sight, that the reduction of officers should be proportionate to the reduction in men. For 2. If I may say so, that seems a very proper answer. The number of officers and men at the present moment is in round figures 148,000 as against in round figures 163,000 in 1914-15, or a reduction of somewhere about six or seven per cent.? Yes. The first number in this statement, 170,800, is in one way very misleading. If you look at page 5 you will see 170,800 in the middle column at the bottom of the statement in large print. Immediately above that you will A 4 9 July, 1923.] Sir CHARLES HARRIS, G.B.E., K.C.B. see "Indian troops administered by the Air Ministry 10,500"; those people have no sort of concern any longer with the Army or with the War Office; they are Indian troops borrowed from India, and the War Office knows nothing of them, but for constitutional reasons the Law Officers held that, inasmuch as they are in the main infantry, they ought properly to be included in Vote A. of the Army rather than in Vote A. of the Air Ministry. The effect of that is that the real reduction is 10,500 larger than it appears. 3. Then am I to take it that instead of 148,000 officers and men this year the number on pay should be 138,000, or is this the number of British troops, and Indian troops would not come in?-No, that number is right. I was taking the comparison between 170,800 and 186,400 where it looks as if it was only a small reduction. 4. My question is that apparently the full strength in 1923-24 of officers and men is about 148,000; whereas in 1914-15 it was about 163,000?-Yes, those figures are not affected; that comparison stands. 5. Then the result is that the cost of 148,000 men is £44,482,000; whereas the cost of 163,000 men in 1914-15 was £24,888,000; that is to say, in round figures there has been an increase in the cost of about 80 per cent., and a diminution in numbers of about seven per cent. ?-That is so. The "Other charges there of practically £28,000,000 in 192324 and £17,000,000 in 1914-15 are not charges that vary, except in the very broadest way over a series of years, with the number of men. The charges immediately above of 16 millions in 1923-24, and £8,000,000 in 1914-15 are for the pay of officers and men, and the main reason of that totally disproportionate variation is the new pay code which was introduced in 1919, and which gave higher rates. Those higher rates not only took the place of what in the Civil Service is known as War Bonus, that is an increase for cost of living, but they were also deliberately adopted in order to put the pay of the Infantry officer and man, who had been the worst paid arm of the service, more on a level with the other arms. The Infantryman was levelled up in comparison with other arms. 6. What are the other charges?— Buildings, stores, the Territorial Army, the Militia, and all sorts of charges of that kind. [Continued. 7. If we deal only with the pay of the officers and men, am I right in thinking it is in round figures 16 millions as against £8,000,000 in 1914-15?-That is so. 8. That is to say, the pay has doubled while there has been a diminution in the number of men of about 7 per cent.?— Yes. The average per head is given in the column just to the left, and you will see that the average per head for the soldier-not the officer-is considerably more than double. 9. Turning to page 7, it deals with the increase in the pay of the officers, and we find that the Naval officers receive considerably higher pay when you get over the age of 32. Captain Viscount Curzon.] There are certain particulars missing from these statistics as regards the pay of Naval officers; for instance, no mention is made with regard to the Army officer of the fact that when he is moved from point to point his family goes with him at the expense of the State, but that does not appertain in the case of a Naval officer who is frequently stationed abroad. Chairman. 10. But the stations of Army officers are not moved very often-once a year would be the very outside?-The expenses of moving, on the official scale, are paid when they are moved on duty, but it is true that the official expenses do not cover the human expenses, so to speak. The reason why the table on page 7 was put in was that I saw a table which had been put in by the Admiralty comparing the pay of Army and Navy officers rank by rank, and that gave an impression altogether different from this table, which gives it age by age, the reason being that the Naval officer reaches his relative rank earlier in life than the Army officer. I therefore, in communication with Sir Charles Walker of the Admiralty, drew up this table, which he has seen and which he accepts as a fair statement, and I put it in because I thought the Committee would like to have both points of view before it. 11. I do not quite see how the first part of the table coincides with the second part. According to the first table a Lieutenant in the Navy at the age of 22 receives £310 a year, whereas a Second Lieutenant at the same age in the Army only receives £237 a year; a Lieutenant 9 July, 1923.] Sir CHARLES HARRIS, G.B.E., K.C.B. [Continued. in the Navy at the age of 23 receives £310, and a Lieutenant in the Army £292; a Lieutenant in the Navy at 26 years of age and four years' service receives £365, whereas a Lieutenant in the Army only receives £292; a Lieutenant of six years' services in the Navy receives £438, whereas a Lieutenant of seven years' service in the Army only receives £347. When you get to a LieutenantCommander he receives £547 in the Navy, whereas a Captain in the Army only receives £429; a Lieutenant-Commander of three years' service in the Navy receives £584, whereas a Captain in the Army only gets £429; a Commander in the Navy at the age of 34 gets £730, whereas a Captain in the Army only gets £429; a Commander of three years' service in the Navy gets £803, whereas a Major in the Army only gets £574; a Captain in the Navy of six years' service gets £1,277, whereas a LieutenantColonel in the Army only gets £867. So apparently there would be, according to this table, a very considerably larger pay for similar ranks in the Navy than there is in the Army?-The table on page 7 shows the position when the officers are living with their families and have rations, lodgings, fuel and light supplied in kind. Then the Army officer who is 30 years of age is entitled to marry in the sense that his wife is recognised in the Regulations, and if he is separated from his wife-and the Naval officer may perhaps claim that separation from his wife is almost the normal state of his existence the Army officer gets certain extra allowances, and, if those extra allowances are taken into account, then the difference betwen the Army officer and the Navy officer at each age is not as shown in the right hand column of the upper statement, but as shown in the lower statement on the page. 12. What I understand is that the figures which I have read are figures which relate to a married officer in the Army and to an unmarried officer in the Navy. Then if either of them marry a different state of affairs ensues; is that correct? No, the officer after the age of 30 is taken as married in either case, but, if he is married and living with his wife, that is if his wife is living in barracks with him 13. You say in either case": do you mean both in the Navy and the Army; in the table at the top of page 7 all officers over 30 years of age are supposed to be married? I think the Navy as regards officers do not recognise the wife in any way; they do not enquire. If the Army officer is married the wife must live in the regiment, so to speak, and that is the difference. If the Army officer is sent away on duty he gets provided, at the place to which he goes on duty, with a single man's dwelling, and with his fuel and light, and so on, and his wife continues to draw the married allowance at her proper station. So that in a way the Army officer who is married and separated by duty from his wife gets double allow ances. Captain Viscount Curzon. 14. I think you stated that these figures were supplied by Sir Charles Walker and that he agrees with them. Shall we have an opportunity of recalling Sir Charles Walker with these figures in front of us and asking him questions relating to them?-As regards that, may I say there is a Committee at present sitting under Sir Alan Anderson, appointed by the Cabinet, to review the relative level of emoluments in the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, and the Civil Service, and therefore everything may be said to be sub judice from that point of view. I do not think if Sir Charles Walker were called now he could carry it any further. 15. Of course I do not accept the comparison as being complete and I would like to know whether we shall have an opportunity of recalling Sir Charles Walker. Chairman.] We will consider that later on; I do not think it arises at this moment. 16. Where do you give the pay of the officers of the Army as compared with their pay in 1914-15?-On pages 10 and 11 of the White Paper there is a sort of historical table showing how the infantry subaltern progressed from 5s. 3d. to 138. per day. 17. A second lieutenant before the war got 5s. 3d. a day, and he now gets 13s. What is the 14s. per day which is given in column (e)? That was a rate he drew for a certain time when he was in receipt of what is called "Army of Occupation Bonus." |