CLAUSE 6.— (Short Title, Interpretation, and Repeal.) (Hansard, 15 April 1918)

§ Mr. HOGGE
I notice that the Minister of National Service has put down an Amendment to the Schedule, which covers certain Sections of the Review of Exceptions Act. I dare say all Members look at this exception with a considerable amount of gratitute to the right hon. Gentleman and the Government for having made these concessions. They are not quite complete, and I rise now before we reach the Report stage and the consideration of the Amendments in order to see whether the Minister of National Service can go a little further than he has gone. The points I want to bring to his notice are these: In the first place, the Amendment with regard to disabled men only applies to disabled men in the present War. I should like to ask my right hon. Friend whether he could not agree, as has already been agreed by the 161 War Office previously in a reply to a question, of which I have shown him a copy, that the exception should apply to disabled men wounded in previous wars. There is this point, to which I have already also called some attention. There is a very small class of men who have suffered very serious inconvenience and hardship as a result of the War, the men who are exchanged prisoners.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I do not think I can allow the hon. Member to raise the Second Schedule when we are on Clause 6—

§ Mr. HOGGE
On the point of Order—

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I am very sorry. I quite appreciate the point, but I am bound by the Rules of the House, notwithstanding the time-table, and I cannot allow the Second Schedule to be argued on Clause 6.

§ Mr. HOGGE
On that point of Order. May I call your attention, Sir Donald, to Sub-section (3), which reads: The enactments specified in the Second Schedule to this Act are hereby repealed to the extent mentioned in the third column of that Schedule. May I, respectfully, point out that the Minister of National Service has put down an Amendment to that Schedule repealing the third column, and I am only trying to save time by asking him two questions that have reference to the Second Schedule?

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I do not mind if the hon. Gentleman puts the question in a general way, but anything like detail would properly come on the First or Second Schedules, and I cannot allow it now.

§ Mr. HOGGE
I quite agree, and I will only ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will extend the same privilege to exchanged prisoners of war, who are a very small number of men, who have suffered extreme hardship, and who have escaped from Germany? If he does that I think he will have completed his concession, and will have earned the gratitude of these men and of this Committee. If the right hon. Gentleman can say now that between to-night and to-morrow he will amend the Amendment which he has already put on the Paper in that respect, I am perfectly certain that the remainder of the Bill will 162 have a much easier passage. May I ask him if he can give me an assurance to that effect?

§ Colonel ASHLEY
Before the right hon. Gentleman answers, I would like to call his attention to the case of a very small section of men who have deserved very well of their country. As he is doubtless aware, before the Act of 1916, which is largely repealed here, men who had done ten or twelve years of their military service were allowed to retire from the Army, and were not to be called up again. Even under the Act of last year, when their privileges were restricted, it was eventually agreed that men who had served thirteen years continuously in the Army, and who had attained forty-one years of age, should be allowed to retire from the Army at the end of their thirteen years' service, and on reaching forty-one be free from any further liability to military service. Unless some change is made in the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment these men will be compelled, owing to the raising of the age, to go on serving still longer. There are very few of these men who have served continuously for thirteen years in the old Regular Army, and I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that such men, being over forty-one years of age, should, if they wish, be allowed to retire, and that some other fellows who have been shirking all the time should be combed out and should take their places. There cannot be more than a few hundreds of these men, and for the sake of that number we should not do an injustice to men who have already served in the Army and have reached forty-one years of age.

§ Sir A. GEDDES
With regard to the first point raised by my hon. Friend (Mr. Hogge), the question of men who have served actually in the field in previous wars, that should have been provided for in the Amendment which I put down, because, as a matter of fact, the words I used covered that. I will, however, consider the words to see if they give effect to it. With regard to the question of the returned prisoners of war who have come back under various conditions, I will have the points as we stand now under the various Sections of the Bill examined, and see exactly what the effect is. My own impression is that the men who have been wounded and prisoners, and who have returned through Switzerland or by whatever route there may be, are actually 163 excepted now. There is the other point, about the men who have served thirteen years with the Colours and who have attained the age of forty-one years. That is not an easy concession to grant. These men arc extraordinarily valuable, many of them, at the present time. We have just heard that there are only a few hundreds of them. If that were so, they would still be valuable; but they are more than a few hundreds, and I would like to consider that point further before expressing an opinion.

§ Colonel ASHLEY
I quite understand the right hon. Gentleman's point. Might I put it to him that even though ho is not able to put it in the Bill, whether, if the times get a little more favourable in a month or two, he cannot then consider the possibility of carrying this out by Order?

§ Mr. HOGGE
I am quite satisfied with what the right hon. Gentleman says about the prisoners of war who have been wounded. Will he consider the case of escaped prisoners, in addition' to those who have been wounded?

Captain S. WILSON
They are not sent back.

§ Mr. HOGGE
If the right hon. Gentleman assures me that he will consider the point and say something on the Report stage to-morrow, I shall be satisfied.

§ Mr. T. M. HEALY
In Clause 3 reference is made to certificates of exemption. In Clause 4 you refer to applications for certificates of exemption, including appeals, and then you goon to define certificates of exemption in this Clause: The expression ' certificate of exemption ' means any certificate of exemption from military service granted or renewed, whether before or after the passing of this Act, to any man belonging to the Army Reserve. I may be quite wrong, and it may be due to my want of understanding the scheme of the Act, but I think "certificate of exemption" as used in Clauses 3 and 4 is not confined to men belonging to the Army Reserve, but is used in a much larger sense. We have been discussing certificates of exemption all through this day as if a certificate of exemption meant a general exemption. Then at the end we find that "certificate of exemption" means certificate of exemption for men belonging to the Army Reserve. Am I right or wrong?

§ Sir G. CAVE
The term is always used. It means a man in the Reserve before he becomes, in the full sense of the word, a soldier.

§ Mr. HEALY
That is surely not quite an answer to my point. A man as soon as he comes within the provisions of this Bill will be a soldier—he will not be in the Reserve.

HON. MEMBERS
Yes:

§ Mr. HEALY
Then we may take it that the monks of Mount Melleray are soldiers in Reserve?