§ MR. WEIR (Ross and Cromarty)To ask the secretary to the Admiralty having regard to the fact that out of 588 cadets who have been selected and passed by the Board of Admiralty for training at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, as many as forty-three have been withdrawn from the college on account of their inability to show satisfactory progress in training, will he state the names of the gentlemen constituting the Admiralty Board of Examiners and their qualifications for the work, especially having regard to the fact that under the old system of examination by the Civil Service Commission it was never necessary to withdraw cadets from their course of training on the score of inability to show progress; and will he state whether there is any reason why the Civil Service Commission should not conduct the whole of the entrance examinations for naval cadetships as formerly.
(Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The examination referred to in the Question is conducted by the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board, whose qualifications for the work of examining young boys have been recognised by the authorities of a largo number of secondary schools, The Admiralty are not aware of the names of the gentlemen employed by the Board as examiners; they vary from time to time. It is not the fact that it was never necessary that cadets should be withdrawn from the "Britannia" for failure to make satisfactory progress. The office of examining the candidates for cadetships under the new system was transferred to the Oxford and Cambridge Board because the Civil Service Commissioners did not consider that the examination of young boys, such as these entered at Osborne, properly came within the scope of their administration.