§ SIR GILBERT PARKER (Gravesend)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state the reasons for discontinuing Gravesend as a station for regular troops, dismantling the forts, withdrawing the Royal Engineers, and utilising it only as a depot for musketry exercise.
§ * MR. HALDANEThe hon. Member has been misinformed. Gravesend will not be discontinued as a station for regular troops. The barracks there have only been occupied by an infantry Battalion since the South African War. As there is not now the same pressure on barrack accommodation, the barracks have reverted to the use for which they were designed, viz., to house musketry detachments. The reduction of the Royal Engineers is due to the abolition of submarine mines.
§ SIR GILBERT PARKERWhat will the barracks be used for?
§ * MR. HALDANEThey will be used by musketry detachments.
§ SIR GILBERT PARKERThen am I to assume that regular troops will no longer be stationed there, as they have been since the war?
§ * MR. HALDANEThe musketry detachments will be regular troops, but they will not be there permanently.