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1904.
June 17th.
... It would have been simply disastrous to have had an increased Army Vote. Has Clarke ever come to close quarters with you as to his project for getting the Army Estimates down to 23 millions? for that is really the figure which represents the proportionate part of the total sum which I make out to be available for the fighting services, and unless some such figure can be arrived at for the Army, I do not think the British Public will face the reduction in the Navy Estimates which I see to be possible with the increased efficiency; because they will rightly argue that the Navy is the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th ad infinitum line of defence, and it is simply monstrous therefore that the bloated Army should starve the essential Navy.... It is this Army Vote that absolutely blocks me, because I am perfectly certain it will wreck us unless it can be brought down to some such figure as 23 millions at the outside. That N.-W. Frontier of India is the bug-bear which has possessed the whole lot of our present rulers! and there is no “advocate of the devil” to plead the other side. So I hope you will put that mind of yours to work to make the Prime Minister see his mission to cut down the Army Vote to 23 millions and then we can go ahead and get that threepenny income tax we all so long for and which we can get if we like!
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1904.
I was with the Prime Minister from 12.30 to 4 p.m. He was most pleasant and delightful but evidently didn’t see his way to making the reduction in the Army Vote which is imperative.... He and all the rest appear stupefied by the Indian Frontier Bogey and the 100,000 men wanted. I gave him figures to show the Army had been increased 60,000 odd men in 10 years. If he would reduce them at once he would get nearly threepence off the income tax and get rid of his recruiting difficulties. The Auxiliary Forces 4½ millions—absurd—the Volunteers 2 millions—still more absurd!
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1904.
July 16th.
A.-F.’s scheme rotten! You have hit the nail on the head about expense. He had the remedy in the palm of his hand! He simply had to reduce what the Army had unnecessarily increased in 10 years—the 60,000 officers and men—and he got 6 millions sterling (including the accessories) and solved the recruiting question!... 3,700 Royal Engineers put on in 10 years and only ⅓ of them went to the war in S.A.! the rest enjoying themselves in civilian work! and was there ever such ineptitude as trying to make them into railway men, electric engineers and sailors for submarine mines when you have the real thing in abundance in the railway and telegraph workmen of the country and fishermen for any water work? This is only one sample. Every blessed item of the military organisation is similarly rotten! Why? Because the military system of entry and education is rotten.
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