§ MAJOR RASCH (Essex, Chelmsford)To ask the Secretary of State for War if he will explain why those medical officers of the Militia and Volunteers whom the War Office has employed continuously for the last three years or more in lieu of Royal Army Medical Corps officers, and whose services it still finds necessary, through the dearth of Regular medical officers, to retain for the same duties, no longer receive the pay and allowances of their corresponding Army rank, but have been reduced to a salary of £270 per annum, a reduction in the case of a lieutenant of more than £50, and in that of a captain of nearly £100 per annum.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) These officers have been demobilised and are now employed as civil medical practitioners. They act as such entirely at their own option, and it is impossible to treat them differently from other civil medical practitioners.