§ 73. Mr. WATTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether a graduating battalion of young soldiers of eighteen and a half years of age stationed at Norwich was at the end of March told to prepare for draft leave home, and were within three days sent over to France without getting such leave; if so, was there any intention of giving them home leave; and will these boys, under these circumstances, be given such before they are sent into the firing line, even if they have not then been the stipulated time of nine months in France, in view of the facts of their youth and that they have not had the opportunity of seeing their friends before going out?
§ Mr. MACPHERSONI would refer my hon. Friend to my reply on the 16th April to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Mansfield Division.