nsurance or indemnity against
risk or otherwise,--for the relief of distress, and generally for all
expenses arising out of the existence of a state of war. I believe the
Committee will agree with us that it was wise to extend the area of
the Vote of Credit so as to include all these various matters. It
gives the Government a free hand. Of course, the Treasury will account
for it, and any expenditure that takes place will be subject to the
approval of the House. I think it would be a great pity--in fact, a
great disaster--if, in a crisis of this magnitude, we were not enabled
to make provision--provision far more needed now than it was under the
simpler conditions that prevailed in the old days--for all the various
ramifications and developments of expenditure which the existence of a
state of war between the Great Powers of Europe must entail on any one
of them.

I am asking also in my character of Secretary of State for War--a
position which I held until this morning--for a Supplementary Estimate
for men for the Army. Perhaps the Committee will allow me for a moment
just to say on that personal matter that I took upon myself the office
of Secretary of State for War under conditions, upon which I need not
go back but which are fresh in the minds of every one, in the hope and
with the object that the condition of things in the Army, which all
of us deplored, might speedily be brought to an end and complete
confidence re-established. I believe that is the case; in fact, I know
it to be. There is no more loyal and united body, no body in which the
spirit and habit of discipline are more deeply ingrained and cherished
than in the British Army. Glad as I should have been to continue the
work of that office, and I would have done so under normal conditions,
it would not be fair to the Army, it would not be just to the country,
that any Minister should divide his attention between that Department
and another, still less that the First Minister of the Crown, who has
to look into the affairs of all departments and who is ultimately
responsible for the whole policy of the Cabinet, should give, as he
could only give perfunctory attention to the affairs of our Army in a
great war. I am very glad to say that a very distinguished soldier and
administrator, in the person of Lord Kitchener, with that great public
spirit and patriotism that every one would expect from him, at my
request stepped into the breach. Lord Kitchener, as every