The Madsen Machine Gun

11 The Madsen [LORDS] dun. 12 not have the requisite tools and gauges— industrials who are making things not ab- solutely necessary for the war. That is my proposal. My third proposal is to grasp the thing and s&t up a factory exclusively for ma- king this gun in this country. Of one thing I am certain. Unless you take this gun up, and if the enemy should get it, they will beat you. That is as certain as that I stand here. I say that from my know- ledge of machine-guns and the long prac- tice I have had with them. These are the suggestions I make to the Government. I know their difficulties, but there is no reason why the difficulties should not be faced. They must lay themselves out some- how to get hold of this gun, because, as I say, if the enemy get hold of if they will beat you. Of that I am satisfied. It is a gun superior to other guns in every one of the particulars to which I have alluded. I want the Government to answer cer- tain questions. I want to know why were the orders given for the supply of this Danish gun turned down? Two factories, I think, were started in this country for the making of this gun, under the orders of the present Prime Minister. They were stopped in 1916. They were actually begun and money spent on them. Why were they stopped? I want to know why, when the Danish gun was strongly recommended more particularly by Cavalry men after they had seen it and tested it working with other guns in exhaustive trial, it was not given to the Cavalry. The authorities state that it is impossible that we could get this gun. I want to know why. Noth- ing is impossible. You cannot say that we had made these contracts and must go through with this other gun. They can argue that if they take this Madsen gun while they are so pressed for machine-guns the step will temporarily stop a certain supply. I agree, but the same thing ap- plies in ordinary industrials. In the indu- strial with which I have been connected, if we put up a tool that cost £1,500 we scrapped it in six months because we could put up a tool with a bigger output. We were wise. All those who are connected with manufactories know that that is the principle. The principle is to get the out- put. Scrap all your tools, but not before you Lord Beresford. have got other to put in their place. In this case you can put this in its place in an incredibly short time. Taking the ba- lance you. should run this little risk of not being able to continue your supply of so many thousands a week as that you may get an infinitely superior weapon, which, when you get it, will enable you to shorten the war. The Brazilians have this gun in large numbers. That is the gun of the old pattern. The Bulgarians have 600 of them. The Germans have some of them, but they are of the old pattern which do not fire the same ammunition as the Infantry. If your Lordships go to the War Exhibition you will see one of these guns which came from Bulgaria. It was actually taken by some of our men in battle. There is another point which I wish to bring before your Lordships, and it is a very material point. The authorities who have turned down this gun have never seen it—not one of them. They might have seen the gun in a room, but they have never seen it under trial in practice with the men drilling it, and they have not seen it fired. That is all wrong. The autho- rities should not decide that they cannot have this gun because they have contracts or because the supply may be temporarily or infinitesimally stopped. They have not seen the gun. The gun is so superior that anybody who looks at it, whether or not he knows anything about a gun or a rifle, •will see what an extraordinary weapon it is and how necessary it is that we should put it in our men’s hands. The authorities have turned it down though every single expert, no matter who he was, of both Services has been loud in his praise of the gun. The Army in France has never seen the gun, and I do not believe the Commander-in-Chief even has. He has not seen it tried. With all the advantages I have enumerated I must ask the Govern- ment to be good enough to give me a clear explanation why this gun has not been adopted, and I hope they will give your Lordships some indication that they i are going to do their best to meet the j difficulties, which I acknowledge they labour under, and get this gun put into ■ the British Army as soon as ever it can. It will do more to end the war than any 1 other weapon we can produce.