MR. GORSTasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether the appointments of civilian foremen of works and surveyor's clerkships in the Royal Engineer Department are withheld from discharged non-commissioned officers, Royal Engineers, who have held similar appointments prior to their discharge; and, if so, whether he can see his way to cancel an order which prohibits deserving discharged soldiers from obtaining these appointments on their leaving the Army?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONRegulations have been recently issued (General Order 110, July, 1884), of general application, under which non-commissioned officers or soldiers who have been discharged to pension may, within certain limits of age, be reenlisted for further Army service; but the whole principle of modern rules is that the same man cannot be in receipt at the same time of pay as an effective and of pension as a non-effective. To this rule it is not possible to make an exception in the case of the non-commissioned officers referred to in the Question; but employment is open to them on the conditions stated in the event of their services being required.