§ SIR J. FERGUSSON (Manchester, N.E.)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether the direct commissions being offered to young men from the universities, public shools, and colonies will confer seniority over cadets at present receiving military instruction in the Royal Military Academy and Royal Military College; and whether the Secretary of State will consider the propriety of ante-dating the commissions of such cadets when they receive them, so that they may not be superseded by officers who have entered the Army without having received any preliminary instruction.
*MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS (for Mr. WYNDHAM)The direct commissions offered to universities and colonies will not be given to candidates under the age of twenty, who will thus be in most cases senior in age to the cadets leaving the Royal Military Academy and Royal Military College. Any special measures adopted to meet the abnormal requirements of the present moment must necessarily produce to a certain extent results of the kind to which the hon. Member's question points. To antedate the commissions would do more harm than good, as it would lead to the super-session of those actually serving.
§ SIR J. FERGUSSONHas it not been often done by cadets who have passed the higher examinations going out to higher positions and superseding those already serving in the Army?