§ SIR JOHN LENG (Dundee)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Report of Lieutenant-Colonel Garsia, C.B., Inspector of Military Prisons for 1900, stating that the waste of nearly 2,000 soldiers discharged from the Army for bad conduct every 664 year, is not the result of disgraceful or even very serious military crime, has been considered along with the special reports from the Governors of Kendal, Colchester, and Gosport Military Prisons; whether his official information shows that, in the words of the Governor of Gosport Prison, the extreme measure of discharging men from the Army for bad conduct is too frequently resorted to; and if he will consider whether steps could, with advantage to the State, be taken to retain in the service the majority of these men who are capable of being made into good soldiers.
§ MR. BRODRICKColonel Garsia's report has been considered along with the special reports mentioned:, but it should be remembered that the duty of the Inspector of Military Prisons is rather to satisfy himself as to the condition of the prisons, and the treatment of the prisoners, than to criticise sentences, the whole facts of which are not before him. The extreme measure of discharging men from the Army for bad conduct is not, in the opinion of the military authorities, too frequently resorted to. It is the earnest desire of the Commander-in-Chief to raise the class of men entering the Army, and it would be a great drawback to the marked improvement which has been shown in the quality of recruits in recent years, if men who had been guilty of dishonesty, or other serious bad conduct, were retained in the Army.