Mr. CHANCELLORasked the Secretary of State for War whether, seeing 2305W that, as the late Lord Kitchener stated publicly and the Under-Secretary of State for War has repeatedly stated in this House, inoculation is not compulsory, he will cause instructions to be issued that men who enlisted in reliance upon that statement and undertaking should not be deprived of their leave and subjected to constant bullying and insult by Army medical officers and regimental colonels for declining to be inoculated in face of the results which they observe in the case of the men who are inoculated; whether he will take into consideration the fact that such an attitude on the part of the Army medical officers, with the connivance of the regimental colonels, is causing dissatisfaction amongst the men; whether he is aware that inoculation has produced a great deal of debilitating sickness and that a number of officers have declined to be inoculated; and whether these gentlemen have been penalised in the same way as the men of the line?
§ Mr. FORSTERI have not heard anything of the bullying mentioned, nor of any dissatisfaction, nor that inoculation produces a great deal of debilitating sickness unless the slight "reaction," which is not unusual, is so described. Inoculation is not compulsory, but its benefits have now been so completely proved, that the vast majority of officers and men avail themselves of the opportunity of escaping enteric fever.