MR. ASQUITH AND MR. HALDANE ON THE STATE OF THE
ARMY.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—In your issue of last week you quoted a remark of Mr. Asquith's at Haddington, supporting a boast of Mr. Haldane's which I recently challenged, that he would be "perfectly content that our administrative record as a Govern- ment should be judged as a test case by comparing the state of the Army as it was left by Lord Midleton, and the state of the Army as it is to-day, after four years' Liberal administration." I feel sure that some figures which I gave at Paddington the following day have escaped your notice. The Army in 1904 was 217,000 strong, and the Estimates were E28,000,000 ; the Army in 1909 is 183,200 strong, and the Estimates are £7,435,000. The Army in 1899, the weakness of which was the subject of much comment, was 184,800 strong, and the Estimates were £20,275,000. The increase in ten years has been £7,000,000, with a decrease of strength.
The Reserve is no doubt temporarily stronger than in 1904, but the Artillery is permanently weaker. A General Staff has been formed, and the Auxiliary Forces have been given a new and better organisation. But their numbers have not increased, and officers, both Regular and Territorial, are deficient. Short service has been almost wholly abandoned, and the Reserve-producing units, as pointed out by the Spectator at the time, sadly depleted.
May I cite two authorities against Mr. Asquith P Mr. Haldane said in March, 1906, three months after he took office :—" Never before that time had there been such good material in the Army. The moral both of officers and men was higher than it ever was. The Army was in a condition in which it had never been before both in point of quantity and quality."
Lord Roberts said, April 3rd, 1907: "The proposed National Army will be neither national nor an army."—I am, Sir, &c.,
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