§ MR. ERNEST NOELasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether the Committee that has been appointed to inquire into the organization of the Army, will receive instructions from the Government to consider what ambulance arrangements it will be desirable to make, so that the sick and wounded soldiers of the British Army should not in the future be left in any way dependent for nursing and surgical assistance on the necessarily precarious and inadequate aid of charitable and voluntary associations, as in some measure seems to be the case at present in South Africa?
§ COLONEL STANLEYIt is matter for regret that the hon. Gentleman was, perhaps, not present in the House on Monday evening when it was my duty to state that, so far as I am aware, the arrangements for the care of the sick and wounded soldiers now serving in South Africa have been properly attended to. I stated, at the same time, that, so far as I was informed, every arrangement had been made for their proper comfort. I have not thought that it would be wise, however, to make that a ground for discouraging the charitable 173 feeling which has appeared to prevail amongst many classes of people, who have been anxious to contribute from their private means assistance to those who were invalided or sick.