The Madsen Machine Gun

17 The Madsen [6 June 1918] Gun. 18 ever, realised. On the contrary, it is esti- mated that before any output worth men- tioning could be obtained a minimum pe- riod of probably about a year would elapse. I do not think that it is always realised by people what is involved in starting now on any new manufacture, especially manufacture on such a large scale as this would, be. Meanwhile, what would be hap- pening. If we desire to manufacture Mad- sen guns, one of two things would have to be done. If the supply were to be in ad- dition to the present supply of machine- guns, factories would have to be erected and equipped and new machinery made and I the factories manned with labour. It is obvious that this would take a very con- siderable time; and, in addition, it would make a further serious inroad on the man- power of this country, and contract still more what is now one of the most im- portant supplies of men for the Army. I am told that the military authorities at- tach importance to this consideration. Another thing that would happen is ; that by increasing the number of types : of weapon in the hands of our troops you would inevitably incur all the drawbacks and difficulties of duality, not only duality in manufacture here and in the provision of spare parts both here and in the field, but duality in the training of the men and of the use of the gun in the field. I understand that these considerations have also weighed heavily with the mili- tary authorities in coming to the decision that they have up to now come to. These, my Lords, are the considerations if you ; manufacture the Madsen gun in addition to the present machine-gun. If, on the other hand, it were decided to adopt the Madsen gun with a view to ultimately replacing the present gun, the procedure would be this, I imagine, in order to save time and get the work done as quickly as possible—and I think this is the method that is advocated by the noble and gallant Lord opposite—that you would divert to the manufacture of the Madsen gun a portion of the present machine-gun factories. The House will realise that a machine-gun cannot be made in any shop by any labour and on any machinery. It requires very special machi- nes and very highly skilled labour. This course would obviously decrease the out- put of the present machine-gun. Clearly the more Madsen guns you aim to produce the more machinery and men you would have to divert to that purpose, and the result would be a corresponding decrease in the output of the present type of gun. Though you might quite conceivably in the future put into the hands of your troops a better weapon, you would in the mean- time be depriving them for a certain pe- riod—or rather, I am afraid, for an un- certain period, and that is the danger— of what is, when all is said and done, a very good gun. This is the danger that the military authorities are extremely loath to run. The great thing, I am told, from their point of view is to be able to count with certainty, as they now can, on the steady and uninterrupted flow of what, as I have already said, is a very good gun. I submit, my Lords, that a question of this sort, which is one of weighing the advantages against the dis- advantages, can and ought only to be decided by the military authorities. The noble and gallant Lord asks in Question No. 6 whether the Commander- in-Chief has asked for 2,000 Danish Mad- sen guns to be immediately ordered for issue to the troops. When I read the Question I understood from its language that he must be referring to the present Commander-in-Chief, but I rather gather from his speech that he was referring to the late Commander-in-Chief. Lord BERESFORD: Lord French. Lord ELPHINSTONE: I understand that the late Commander-in-Chief, the present Lord French, did ask in May, 1915, for some Madsen guns. I am told that no special number was mentioned. As the House will recollect, there was no Ministry of Munitions in existence in those days, and so, speaking on their behalf, I am afraid that I am unable to give any more definitive information on that point. But one thing, I think, we must recollect in this connection is that at that date not only was there no Ministry of Muntions but there was no Lewis gun in the hands of the troops. I cannot help thinking— although I do hot know—that this request of Lord French was probably much more a request for machine-guns rather than