§ MR. CALLANasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether, in view of the present critical position of foreign affairs, Her Majesty's Government have taken into consideration the advisability of taking the necessary steps to enable officers who had purchased their commissions previous to the Abolition of Purchase Act, 1871, the value of which was guaranteed to these officers by the Act of Parliament, to bequeath or otherwise assign the value of their commissions, to which they would be entitled were they now to sell out?
MR. GATHORNE HARDY,in reply, said, that, as he understood the Act for the Abolition of Purchase, officers were to be secured in the same rights which they enjoyed before that abolition. So far as payment was made for the purchase of a commission, the regulation that was in force previous to 1871 was still in force, and therefore officers and their families would be treated in exactly the same way as they would have been if purchase had never been abolished. It was not the intention of the Government to make any change in this respect.