§ MR. RAPHAEL (Derbyshire, S.)To ask the Secretary of State for War, if he will consider the advisability, considering the dearth of officers, of relaxing the rules and regulations with regard to the refusal to grant commissions in the Army to candidates who are shortsighted or who suffer from astigmatism; and whether this is the only country which deprives itself of the service of eligible candidates by reason of their wearing glasses.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The use of glasses is not prohibited. Candidates who have only one-fourth normal vision in each eye are accepted if the visual defect can be corrected by glasses up to a standard of "fairly good" vision (i.e., normal in one eye and half normal in the other), and, if the vision of one eye is normal, one-sixth of normal vision in the other eye may be accepted, subject to correction by glasses up to one-half of normal. The question of reducing the standard still further has recently been under consideration, and it was decided that it was not expedient to do so.