§ COLONEL SYKESsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary of State for War, in reference to an advertisement in the public papers headed "Army Medical Department," stating that there would be a competitive examination for thirty Military Assistant Surgeons, Whether Her Majesty's subjects in India and coloured British subjects in Canada and the Colonies, would be allowed to compete? Why 1,824 recruits, for the Bengal Presidency alone, were sent out at the end of last year, the fixed establishment of European Troops of all arms for India—namely, 71,000 men, being at the time exceeded by 9,770 men? And why the Queen's Bays, ordered home from India, were stopped at Cawnpore on their march to embark for England?
SIR GEORGE LEWISsaid, the hon. and gallant Member moved for a return last Session which contained the materials for an answer to the chief part of the question which he had put. It was not intended that the Natives of India should compete for the office of army surgeons in the British army. In the returns to which he alluded there would be found a report from the Medical Board appointed last Session by the late Secretary of the War Department, in which the members of the Board gave it as their deliberate opinion that the native and mixed races of India and other tropical countries would never be able to sustain for any time the climate of northern regions, and therefore could not be employed with advantage to the public service in climates not similar to the is own. The consequence was, that it was not thought possible or advisable to open the office of army surgeon in the general army to Natives of India. With regard to the coloured British subjects in Canada, he hardly knew to whom the hon. and gallant Member referred—whether he referred to the red men in Canada, the aborigines, or the free blacks. He was not aware of any of those classes being in a position to be admitted to the rank of army surgeon.
§ [The hon. and gallant Member repeated his Questions on Motion for going into Committee of Supply.—See post.]