§ COLONEL KENYON-SLANEY (Shropshire, Newport)To ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the announcement that no man shall be recruited for the territorial force who cannot accept a liability to a six months embodiment on the Army Reserve being called out, he proposes to disband or reduce such corps as the Civil Service, the Post Office, the Elswick, the Woolwich, the Dockyard, and the Railway Volunteers; and whether he proposes to discharge from other battalions all Volunteers who from being in the Government service or from the nature of their employment are unable to comply with such requirement.
§ (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) I have never stated that any particular Volunteer units will be disbanded or reduced, or that any individual now serving must be discharged if the Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill becomes Law. What I did say, and what I now repeat, is that the Government does not intend to spend money in paying, clothing, and training men who, owing to the nature of their civil employment, cannot in any circumstances be embodied for military service in the event of national emergency. Seeing that the liability of Militia, Yeomanry, and Volunteers to be embodied will be the same in the future as in the past, I presume that Government departments and private employers have already faced the contingency of those in their employment who are now serving in these forces being called out on mobilisation, and I do not therefore anticipate that any serious consequences will follow if this Bill becomes law.