HC Deb 26 October 1899 vol 77 c725
SIR HOWARD VINCENT

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War what number and what proportion of the men comprising the regiments, battalions, and batteries ordered on active service have been rejected as medically unfit or under twenty years of age.

*MR. WYNDHAM

The figures can only be given approximately, as all the returns have not come in; but so far as is known, the percentage on all arms of rejection for foreign service on account of insufficient training, of being under age, or of being medically unfit, is 36½.

SIR HOWARD VINCENT

36½?

*MR. WYNDHAM

Yes. We deliberately leave behind everybody under twenty years of age, and that accounts for a very great number.