SIR HENRY FLETCHERasked the Secretary of State for War, If he will consider the advisability of reverting to the old system of appointing Regimental Surgeons and Assistant Surgeons to every Regiment in Her Majesty's Forces?
§ MR. CHILDERSIn reply to the hon. and gallant Baronet, I have to remind him that the present arrangement of the Medical Service, commonly called the General, as opposed to the Regimental, system, was finally decided upon by the late Government when Lord Cranbrook was Secretary of State, so recently as in 1878. Lord Cranbrook's words were:—"The Regimental system has gone, and it would be impossible to recall it." If that system should appear to me faulty, I shall not hesitate to reform it; but at this moment I have no intention to revert to arrangements so recently condemned.