§ Sir ARTHUR MARKHAMasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he has had a bight of a number of letters from Mrs. Thorpe, of 9, The Green, Bulwell, Nottinghamshire, relating to the case of her son Private Thorpe, 17th Sherwood Foresters, who was sent abroad last March to fight in France, aged seventeen years and five months; whether he is aware that this boy enlisted at the age of sixteen; that the mother, following his statement in Parliament that boys would not be sent abroad till the age of eighteen, wrote on several occasions both to him and to her son's commanding officers calling their attention to his statement in Parliament; if he is aware that, notwithstanding his pledge, the boy was sent abroad though Mrs. Thorpe had taken the precaution of sending a birth certificate to prove that the boy was only seventeen years of age; and will he, in view of the undertaking given in Parliament, see that the boy is returned to this country till he reaches the age of eighteen?
§ Mr. TENNANTI must apologise for the delay in answering this question. My hon. Friend is wrong, I venture to suggest, in stating that I gave a pledge in this House that boys would not be sent abroad till they were eighteen. If my hon. Friend will look at the answer given on the 2nd November to the hon. Member for Blackburn he will see that what has happened in the case of Mrs. Thorpe's son does not in any way contravene the principles therein described.