§ MR. ARTHUR LEE (Hampshire, Fareham)To ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the number of staff sergeants and sergeants in the Royal Garrison Artillery, and of the permanent staff of the Militia and Volunteers, who will be compulsorily discharged from the service on April 30th, and of the disadvantages that will be thereby imposed upon them, he will consider the advisability of amending Article 1160 of the pay warrant in the sense of substituting eight years' continual service in the rank of sergeant, immediately preceding the completion of twenty-one years' service, for twelve years' continual service in that rank, as now required.
(Mr. Secretary Haldane.) Owing to the number of non-commissioned officers in the senior ranks of the Royal Garrison Artillery who were ineligible for service abroad through length of service, it was decided to call upon all who were forty years of age and had completed twenty-five years' service to retire upon pension. To avoid any hardship, all those who so desired were given four months' notice in lieu of the usual one month's notice laid down in the regulations for soldiers with more than twenty-one years' service. It cannot, therefore, be admitted that these men were suffering under any disadvantage, and no amendment of the pay warrant is considered necessary.