MR. TORRENSasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether, notwithstanding the assurance given in this House by his predecessor the Member for Droitwich, it is intended to give retrospective effect to the Medical Regulations for the Army issued in 1866 and 1867, so as to deprive medical officers who had volunteered under the Regulations of 1859 for service on the west coast of Africa, of the pay and promotion guaranteed to them by those Regulations as the inducement to volunteer for that unhealthy and disagreeable service?
§ MR. CARDWELLSir, I am informed by the Director General of the Army Medical Department that there has been no change of practice in dealing with the African medical officers since 1859. The system has always been to allow each year on the Coast to count as two years towards the five years required as a qualification for the rank of surgeon and towards retirement, but not towards increase of pay or the rank of surgeon major.