§ Mr. NIELDasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that a number of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of all ranks, of military service age, physically fit and in all respects competent to take their place in the fighting lines, are at present and have for many months past been employed in civil and military duties of an administrative character at the various depots and stations in Northern France; and whether he will take steps to ensure that these officers, non-commissioned officers, and men are required to go to the front and share the full burdens of the ordinary units of the British Expeditionary Force in France as soon as arrangements can be made for their duties to be taken over by those men of corresponding rank who have been returned incapacitated for further active service and whose condition permits of their being employed in the discharge of administrative duties?
§ Mr. FORSTERSteps have already been taken for the withdrawal from the lines of communication of men fit for general service and their replacement by men who are not fit for general service. This process involves, first, the training of unfit men in England to enable them to take over the important duties they will have to perform on the lines of communication, and then the training of the men withdrawn in their new duties with combatant units. The transfer and replacement of a single individual from the lines of communication to a combatant unit, therefore, takes some time to effect, and, as the withdrawal of the men must be spread over a certain period to avoid dislocating the administrative machinery on the lines of communication, the whole process cannot be effected by a stroke of the pen.
§ Mr. NIELDasked the Secretary of State for War what number of officers on full pay physically fit for service in the field, and within the limits of military service age, are at present employed in the War Office and the public Departments connected therewith who have not, since the commencement of the War, seen any service in the field; and will he take steps to ensure that all such officers shall be required to go on active service as soon as arrangements can be made for their duties to be taken over by those officers who 1879W have been returned incapacitated for further active service, and whose condition permits of their being employed in the discharge of administrative duties?
§ Mr. FORSTERI would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given on the 7th March last to the hon. and gallant Member for the Enfield Division of Middlesex.