§ SIR W. EVANS GORDONTo ask the Secretary of State for War whether the estimate that under a seven and five years system of enlistment the number of men in the Reserve could be calculated in the proportion of five to seven of those with the colours was made on the authority of the Actuarial Department of the War Office; whether the numbers of men serving with the colours and with the Reserve respectively have ever stood in such proportion under a seven and five years system; whether they stand in those proportions now; and whether he has any official estimates showing that they will do so.
§ (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) I made no such statement as that which the hon. Member quotes quite correctly from a Report, which, unfortunately, I had not seen until now; what I did say was that if the system was one of seven years with the colours and five with the Reserve, even on the assumption of a large margin for wastage, 115,000men was a more likely estimate of the Reserve than the much lower figure quoted. 425 Full information of the mode of calculating the normal Reserve was given in Command Paper 3360.