§ COLONEL KING-HARMANasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it it is true that orders have been given to the Officer Commanding the Flint and Carnarvon Volunteers not to enrol in his regiment Irish gentlemen who desire to serve Her Majesty as Volunteers; whether there is anything in the Volunteer Act, or in any other Act of Parliament, or in any regulations issued from the War Office, which prohibits loyal Irishmen, who are willing to take the Oath of Allegiance, and who are anxious to serve Her Majesty, from enrolling themselves in a Volunteer Regiment in England, Scotland, or Wales; whether it is the intention of the War Office to order the discharge from the Volunteer Service those Irishmen who have, from time to time, been enrolled in its ranks; and, if such a step is not contemplated, on which principle of selection the services of some loyal Irishmen are refused while others are accepted?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONSir, there is no Act or Regulation prohibiting the enrolment of Irishmen in any British Volunteer Corps; but, on the other hand, it is optional with the Crown to accept or retain the services of any person tendering himself as a Volunteer. There is no present intention of discharging Irishmen who have joined the Volunteers. Indeed, there is no distinction as to nationality among members of Volunteer Corps. The officer referred to has been instructed not to enrol Irish Volunteers unless they be domiciled in Great Britain. The case was a peculiar one. A number of members of an Irish 1739 rifle club, wishing to be drilled, and unable to be drilled in Ireland, proposed to join a Welsh Volunteer Corps for the purpose of obtaining instruction, but with the obvious intention of returning to their Irish domiciles when they had obtained that instruction. The intention of the Regulations is that Volunteers should be enrolled in corps near the head-quarters of which they reside, so that they can be drilled with and in an emergency be called out with the corps. These conditions are obviously not compatible with the enrolment of Volunteers resident a considerable distance from the head-quarters of the corps. It has deliberately been decided not to sanction the formation of Volunteer Corps in Ireland; and the proceeding in question, however well-intended, appeared to be an evasion of the law which, if permitted in one case could not have been prevented in others under very different circumstances.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORinquired if the Capitation Grant would be allowed to any of the men who had already enlisted under the circumstances mentioned?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he believed the application was made in perfectly good faith, and the officer had been instructed not to dismiss any men who had already enlisted. If any of those earned the Capitation Grant, it would be paid.