30. Captain SHIPWRIGHTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether a Territorial soldier who serves 11 years and 11 months in the ranks and then is granted a commission is entitled to receive the Territorial efficiency medal on his completion of the necessary 12 years' service; and, seeing that the granting of this medal is one of the original conditions under which the man was enlisted, will he make inquiries?
Lieut. - Colonel GUINNESSThe answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. I do not think that any special inquiries are necessary. The appropriate reward for long and meritorious service in the commissioned ranks of the Territorial Army is not the medal, but the Territorial decoration, towards which half of previous service in the ranks reckons as qualifying service.
31. Captain SHIPWRIGHTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he will favourably consider the case of the Territorial soldier who signed the Imperial service obligation up to the end of 1915; and whether he will extend the date for the grant of the Territorial war medal to the end of 1915 in the case of those who subsequently served overseas, thus differentiating between the conscripts and the volunteers?
Lieut. - Colonel GUINNESSThe Army Council do not propose to vary the conditions under which the Territorial war medal is granted. They do not think it desirable, in the matter of the grant of war medals, to distinguish between voluntary and compulsory service?
Captain SHIPWRIGHTIs the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the men who were conscripted in October, 224 1918, receive two medals to-day, while the men who enlisted in the Imperial Service in 1914 and served two years and ten months fighting receive only the same medal, and are entitled to no other? Is not that an injustice?
Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESSThe Territorial war medal was specially instituted to recognise the freely accepted obligation for oversea service in time of peace, and I am afraid that it would not be suitable to extend it to the kind of case mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member
§ Mr. WESTWOODIs the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware of the fact that ex-service men are more interested in getting work and meals than in receiving medals?