Major-General SEELY:

As my name has been mentioned in connection with the point raised by my hon. and gallant Friend (Captain Berkeley), perhaps the House will forgive me for intervening at once to say that I appreciate to the full the importance of the point raised by my hon. and gallant Friend, namely, that we must maintain in this House the principle that the speeches we make cannot be acutely criticised by public servants. This is no party question, and it would apply exactly the same to every other party. It is a doctrine which must be maintained. It is quite proper and right—I speak as an ex-Secretary of State for War—that Debates in this House should be referred to by our great public servants by way of elucidation and comment. But when it comes to controversy, it does raise at once the constitutional issue which we always wish to avoid, as to responsibility of Ministers to Parliament, and the responsibility of our great public servants to the Ministries under whom they serve. I think my hon. and gallant Friend, therefore, was quite right to raise the question, though I had not the least idea he was going to raise it until he gave me warning. I should not have raised it myself, seeing I was the person referred to in one of the news paper articles which I have seen.

Having said that, and having entirely endorsed what the hon. and gallant Member said, that it is important the rule should be maintained, I would like to add that the particular point which I ventured to bring before the House was the vital importance of saving human life by greatly increasing, if possible, fire power, that is, machine-guns, artillery, indeed everything to avoid the sacrifice of life which caused such great grief to everybody in the late War. Of all the soldiers whom I knew in the War, who held any high position, Lord Cavan was the one who most sincerely and cordially agreed with that view, and who proved it not only when he was in high position, but especially when he was commanding first a battalion, then a brigade—when I saw much of his work—and, of course, later on, an army corps. When he commanded a battalion and a brigade he was especially distinguished, almost above all other officers, by his care of his men and by his determination to save them. He was the first man to get a real cure for trench fever. He was the first man who really got the hang of cross-fire to cover an attack. I cannot say how great a debt the Army owes to Lord Cavan for doing in his early days the very thing for which I pleaded a month ago in this House. Therefore, I desire to state that we owe a debt we can never repay to Lord Cavan for having carried through in his early days the very thing on the importance of which I insisted.