MR. GREMER (Shoreditch, Haggerston)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the fact, as stated in The Star of the 7th instant, that George Kine, a boy who is now 13 years of age, was in March of last year charged at the Stratford Petty Sessions with playing truant and sentenced to be detained for four years in the industrial training ship Shaftesbury; that after being so detained for 12 months he was, without the knowledge of his parents or friends, drafted into the band of the First Royal Warwickshire Regiment; that the boy has since written several letters to his friends complaining of the way in which he was entrapped into the Army and begging of them to buy him out; whether he will state what the Rule is in regard to the transference of boys from industrial schools into the Army; and whether if boys of tender age consent to enter the Army such consent has to be given in the presence of their parents, guardians, or friends?
§ MR. ASQUITHI am inquiring into this case, and would be glad if my hon. Friend would further postpone this question for a week.