"All our generals had told us that direct artillery fire had failed against the Boer entrenchments. It had been known for years past that direct artillery fire would be likely to fail against strong entrenchments; yet we sent twenty-one batteries of field-artillery to South Africa before the first one of the three howitzer batteries was despatched. It was one of the strongest charges which he and others had brought against the War Office for some years, that our army was more badly supplied with field-artillery than any other army in the world. It was not even comparable with the field-artillery of Switzerland and Roumania. In regard to our guns, the Leader of the House had stated in a speech at Manchester that we had guns in South Africa sufficient for three army corps of regular troops. He should like to know on whose authority the right hon. gentleman made that statement. The first force sent to South Africa from India was supplied with guns, not on that scale, but still in fairly decent and respectable measure. The forces of Lord Methuen and Sir Redvers Buller fell altogether short of even the scale adopted for the Indian Contingent. Both these generals had themselves called attention to their deficiency in this respect. We had not even now got artillery on anything like the scale laid down by the right hon. gentleman, and we could not have it in South Africa, because we had not got it in the world. In these circumstances he could only characterise the statement of the Leader of the House as entirely erroneous and misleading, and altogether a blunder. With regard to the batteries which were even now being sent out, many of them were manned by reservists and by garrison artillerymen, who had had no experience in the handling of modern field-guns." Proceeding to the question of lack of cavalry, he argued: