§ Mr. HANCOCKasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that young men who voluntarily joined the Inns of Court Officers' Training Corps and were given to understand by the Board of Selection that they would be gazetted in due course unless found incompetent or unsuitable have now been compulsorily and permanently transferred to the 5th King's Royal Rifle Corps now stationed at Rugeley Camp, Staffordshire; and, seeing that when the Armistice was signed many of them had nearly completed their course of training and were about to pass into Officers' Cadet Battalions, which have since been demobilised, will he consider the question of remedying so far as possible the apparent injustice done to these men?
§ Mr. CHURCHILLI would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given on the 13th May to similar questions asked by the hon. and gallant Members for Epping and Finchley, where it was explained that members of the Inns of Court Officers' Training Corps wore ordinary enlisted soldiers, and as such were liable for service in the Army, unless they could be demobilised under the Regulations in force. The suspension of hostilities removed the necessity for training and commissioning more soldiers as officers. I do not think that because these young men voluntarily joined the Inns of Court they can therefore expect to avoid the liabilities of men who joined other units.