In the House of Lords on Monday Lord Tweedmouth moved
a Resolution declaring that in the opinion of the House a Joint Committee should be appointed to inquire into all purchases made by or on behalf of the War Office, "for the outfit, supply, and maintenance of our troops in South Africa." He described the Resolution as "not in any way a censure, but simply a Motion to get at the truth." His main point was that the longer the delay in coming to the definite business of inquiry the less effective that inquiry would be. Lord Morley, who followed, opposed the Motion, urging that the critics of the War Office occupied themselves too much with what the War Office had not done, instead of recognising in an impartial spirit what the War Office had proved itself able to do. Inquiry at the present moment would only clog the wheels of the machinery which the War Office, to its credit, had set in motion. Lord Selborne, who spoke later, insisted that immediate inquiry was not only undesirable, but impracticable in the highest degree. It meant stopping the work of officers now in South Africa. It meant prolonging the war. The same objection was raised by Lord Lansdowne and Lord Salisbury at the end of the debate, and eventually the Motion was lost by a majority of 63,-88 to 25. In the course of the debate Lord Rosebery made a clever if not a statesmanlike speech, occupying himself with general criticism of War Office methods, rather than attempt- ing to meet the definite point raised by Lord Selborne. That point, indeed—that immediate inquiry was impracticable and unbusinesslike—was never answered at all.
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