§ CAPTAIN NORTONI beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether there are at present two administrative medical officers of Surgeon-Colonels rank serving in the Home District; and, 557 if so, what duties are assigned to the second officer; if a Surgeon-Major-General is now, and has been for some months, filling a Surgeon-Colonel's post; if so, what are the circumstances that have called for such unusual administration; and whether there is any precedent for it?
§ *MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANThere are not at present two medical officers of Surgeon-Colonel's rank serving in the Home District, though there recently were; but a Surgeon-Major-General now occupies a Surgeon-Colonel's position at Colchester. The reasons for this inconvenient arrangement are: First, that Surgeons-Major-Greneral necessarily servo but a few years in that rank; and second, that the Indian Government will not receive an Administrative Medical Officer who has not two years to serve. The result has been that for some months past there has been an excess of one Surgeon-Major-General at home and a deficiency of one in India. The arrangement is not without precedent; but it is obviously inconvenient, and I have it under consideration in what way a remedy can be applied.