§ Colonel RAWSONasked the Secretary of State for War if he will state what proportion of the non-commissioned officers and men of the Departmental Corps, such 1015 as Royal Engineers, Army Service Corps, Royal Army Medical Corps, Army Ordnance Department, etc., re-engage since service pay has been abolished, compared with those who re-engaged before it was abolished; what inducement there is for them to stay on; whether he is aware that the commanding officers of the Departmental corps complain that they are now losing their best men because they have no inducement to re-engage?
§ Mr. HALDANEThe numbers of re-engagements in the corps concerned have risen during the past year to the figures of the period when service pay was granted. There is, therefore, evidently no lack of inducement to re-engage, and the hope of qualifying for pension still appears to attract.