§ 3. Mr. WINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if he is aware that there are cases in which privates are promoted to lance-corporal and further promoted to acting sergeant, and at the front further promoted to acting company sergeant-major; will he explain why on returning 820 home wounded these men on resuming duty are reduced to the position they held previous to leaving for the front; and will he take steps to ensure these men maintaining the rank at home to which they have been promoted abroad, as reduction for Army convenience in the rank is resented, such reduction inferring degradation?
§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Tennant)I should like at once to dissipate the notion that the noncommissioned officer who reverts from an acting rank to his substantive rank undergoes any reduction, still less degradation. Vacancies occur in units in the field with such frequency that most vacancies can be filled by a substantive promotion, though there may still be a few cases when promotion to acting rank only is given. The essence of acting rank is that it should only be held while the duties of the acting rank are actually performed. This is, I think, well understood in the Army, as is the fact that acting rank must be given up when the soldier comes home and ceases to perform the duties of the rank in which he had been appointed to act. It is not possible nor desirable to do away entirely with acting rank in the units at the front.