§ SIR JOHN LENG (Dundee)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Mrs. J. R. Mackenzie, a widow residing at Maritzburg, Natal, who has had three sons serving in the British forces in South Africa, one of whom, a trooper in the 1st Imperial Light Horse, was killed on Wagon Hill, while a second serving in the Scottish Horse, died in hospital on the 22nd July last, from exposure and overwork during the war, and the third son, in the Natal Carabineers, was severely wounded on 5th February 1902, and has been in hospital ever since, has been informed that she can obtain no compensation for the loss she has suffered by their deaths, on the ground that they were not in the Imperial Army nor in the Natal Volunteer Corps; and, seeing that if the two dead sons had been in the Imperial Army compensation would have been awarded to her, and if they had been in the Natal Volunteers she would have been entitled to a pension of £52 per annum for each, and that she is in poor circumstances, can he arrange that special consideration shall be given to her case.
§ * THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Lord STANLEY, Lancashire, Westhoughton)No communication from Mrs Mackenzie has reached the War Office. The regulations however, do not admit of a grant to the mother of a soldier who dies, even if in action. Her case has been considered by the representative of the Patriotic Fund Commissioners in South Africa, who found that the extent of her means debarred her from any grant. I have no knowledge of the grants made by the Colony in the case of Natal Volunteers.