Mr. CHANCELLORasked the Under-Secretary for War (1) whether the War Office is instructing officers to use influence and persuasion which practically deprives recruits of their legal right to refuse inoculation; and whether soldiers who are physically fit for service at the front are being kept at home solely because, whilst willing to face the enemies' bullets, they decline to risk being poisoned before starting by the inoculation by their own officers of disease into their blood; and (2) whether he is aware that a number of recruits in both the Territorial and the Regular Army have been made ill and unfit for service for days and sometimes weeks by vaccination and inoculation; and whether, in view of the importance to the Empire of fitting them for service at the earliest possible moment, he will, in the case of unwilling soldiers, instruct officers to cease from exercising influence and persuasion, which in most cases amounts to compulsion, or, in the alternative, will have all recruits informed before enlisting that, their legal right to exemption is illusory?
§ Mr. TENNANTThe position in regard to vaccination and inoculation in the case568W of the Regular and Territorial Forces has been frequently stated. I cannot accept my hon. Friend's questions as correctly summarising the existing regulations and instructions, and the conclusions he draws are, consequently, in the opinion of my advisers and of my Noble Friend the Secretary of State, also inexact. I may add that I cannot find that soldiers have been kept at home owing to difficulties about inoculation. The presence of inoculated men amongst the troops is an undoubted source of danger.