§ CAPTAIN NORTONI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can state the proportion of married to single men in the Metropolitan Police Force; and whether, if the men who have recently joined are not influenced to leave the service by the prospect of having to pay high house rent when they marry, he can state to what cause he attributes the increase in the number of short service men who now leave every week.
§ * THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir M. WHITE RIDLEY,) Lancashire, BlackpoolThere are 11,673 married men in the Force, equivalent to 75 per cent. of the total strength. The extraordinarily satisfactory state of the unskilled labour market is, in my opinion, quite sufficient to account for the number, which is in no way abnormal, of short service men who leave the Force.