§ CAPTAIN JESSEL (St. Pancras, S.)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether the Cavalry Depot is to furnish drafts only for regiments serving in the Colonies and Egypt; and, if so, whether he will explain how drafts will be supplied during the ensuing trooping season for regiments in India.
§ MR. WYNDHAMAs I have already stated to the House, the system which we have established is that drafts for cavalry regiments in India shall be supplied by regiments on the lower establishment at home, while drafts to regiments in the Colonies shall be supplied from depôts. But we have also pledged ourselves that the system, when fully established, shall be so worked as not to reduce the draft-giving regiments at home below a nucleus of 350 rank and file. I may remind the House that that pledge, which was given in February, 1898, does not fall due till the spring of 1901. But we are desirous to help the regiments at home, as far as we can, over the difficult period of transition, and we have therefore arranged that drafts for the two Lancer regiments in India shall, for the present, be taken from depots.