§ 10. Mr. PROTHEROasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether commanding officers have been recently instructed by the War Office to treat the age given by a boy on enlistment as his official age and, provided the medical officer certifies him to be up to the standard of 18½ years and fit for service abroad, to send him on active service overseas, although his parents prove by his birth certificate that his real age is 17 years and 1 day?
§ Mr. TENNANTGeneral Officers Commanding-in-Chief have been instructed that soldiers who, by their birth certificates, are shown to be over seventeen years of age are, in the event of an application for their discharge, to be held to serve, and that if the medical officer certifies they are up to the standard of eighteen and a half years and fit for service abroad, they may be sent overseas. A man's actual age is not always a true measure of his physical efficiency, and I think that adequate security against youths who are immature being sent overseas is provided by the requirement of a definite medical certificate of fitness for service abroad.