§ MR. BRAMSDON (Portsmouth)To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state the number of cadets under the old scheme, who after examination passed into H.M.S. "Britannia," Dartmouth, in July 1903, November 1903, and March 1904; the number of cadets admitted in July 1903, November 1903, and March 1904, who up to the present date have been dismissed as unfit for the service; also similar information with reference to the new scheme for cadets at the Royal Naval College, Osborne.
(Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) At Osborne all the cadets are entered strictly on probation and a proportion of them are regularly withdrawn, principally at the end of their first year. Of the total 222 boys entered between July 1903 and May 1904, twenty-five have been thus withdrawn through not making sufficient progress with their work. Two others have been discharged as physically unfit and five for misconduct. In the "Britannia" training ship, where this system of probation did not obtain, seventy cadets passed in in July 1903, sixty in November 1903, and sixty-one in March 1904. One of these boys was discharged 1390 for failing to pass the final examination, and one more for being physically unfit.