§ MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM (Cork County, N.E.)To ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been directed to the case of Lance-Corporal Gray, a sufferer from paralysis, contracted while in active service in India, who has been discharged as incurable from Netley Hospital; and if, seeing that the best years of the life of Lance-Corporal Gray have been spent out of Ireland and in the service of the Army, he can see his way to make such arrangements for the support of this disabled soldier as will prevent him becoming a charge upon the ratepayers of the union of Fermoy, where he was born.
§ (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The origin of the disability for which Lance-Corporal Gray was invalided from the Army cannot be attributed to his military service, and it is therefore not possible to award him any pension from Army funds. Every endeavour, however, has been made to get this non-commissioned officer transferred to a home, but without success, and, as he had no home of his own to go to, the usual procedure was followed, viz., to transfer him to the care of the guardians of the union where he had a settlement. If Lance-Corporal 1300 Gray had been retained longer in Netley Hospital, it would have been at the expense of other cases which might benefit by treatment in that institution.