§ Sir JAMES DOUGHERTYasked the Secretary to the Treasury how many clerks to surveyors of taxes in Ireland have applied to the Board of Inland Revenue for permission to enlist between August, 1914, and August, 1916; how many have been granted permission; and will he take steps to secure that any clerk who has been refused permission and who has had to resign his place in order to join His Majesty's Forces will be reinstated by the Board at the close of the War?
Mr. McKINNON WOODSurveyors of taxes and their clerks constitute a staff liable to service in any part of the United Kingdom, and are from time to time moved from one part to another. As was explained by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in answer to a question by the hon. Member for Plymouth on the 9th instant, the number of applications by officials of the Board of Inland Revenue for permission to join the forces has been very large;354W the exact figures cannot be given, and would not, in any event, represent the number who were desirous of undertaking military' service. As I have already explained to my right hon. Friend, I cannot, in fairness to Civil servants who have observed the rules of the service, give any undertaking in the case of men who have joined the forces without the permission of their Departments.