Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/51

 1899.] The Army Estimates. [43

the duties required of it. Taking the artillery first, he stated the number of batteries supplied to India and the colonies, and then explained that for home defence a field army of three army corps and four cavalry brigades was desirable. Each cavalry brigade required one and each army corps two batteries of horse artillery, or ten in all. We had these batteries at home. Of field artillery we had forty-four batteries, besides three howitzer batteries. It was said that each army corps required eighteen batteries, or fifty-four in all, for the field army, and that number would be available in two years' time. He dealt next with the alleged deficit of horses, and with the charge that our service batteries, instead of having alfull complement of trained men, were mere training schools for batteries abroad, and he said that it was generally acknowledged that drafts for abroad were better trained with a service battery than at a dep6t. To supply drafts for India alone it would be necessary to have some 1,500 men at the depdt, imperfectly trained for India, and having no place in the scheme for home defence. The practical question was not whether we should abandon the present system for one involving the creation of a much larger dep6t, but whether it might not be necessary to expand Woolwich to meet the require- ments of the system now in force. Explaining the position of the cavalry, he said that there were nine regiments in India and three in Africa. For the field army there were at home sixteen line regiments, and one regiment made up out of the three regiments of household cavalry. This number only fell short of what was the ideal number by one regiment, and amply covered the needs of two army corps to be despatched abroad. The eight regiments on the higher establishment would not be asked again to supply any drafts for other regiments. The drafts would be trained with the lower establishment regiments. The wish of any man expressed on enlisting to serve, when trained, in a particular regiment would be acceded to whenever possible. These modifications, he hoped, would go some way to redress the grievances of certain regiments. Twelve cavalry regiments could now be kept abroad, and seventeen regiments could be put into the field at home, it only being necessary to ask eight regiments out of thirty-one to train and supply 100 men each for India. Turning to the position of the infantry, he stated that they had to supply India with fifty-two battalions, and the colonies with twenty-nine. At home for three army corps, seventy-five battalions of infantry would be required, and there were the seven battalions of the guards and sixty-four line battalions or ^eventy-one in all. They were, therefore, apparently short of the ideal at which they aimed; but last year the House had authorised the increase of the Army by nine battalions, five of which had been raised, and it was antici- pated that the remaining four would be raised in a short period. In the meanwhile, four battalions could be improvised. They were not blind to the inestimable value of regimental tradition,