§ Mr. KINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Colonel Clayton, military representative at Bath, stated that the National Service 158W scheme is a regular frost and that he was not going on with it; and whether instructions have been, or will be, sent to military representatives to ignore the operations of the work carried on under Mr. Neville Chamberlain?
§ Mr. MACPHERSONI am informed that at a meeting of the Bath Rural District Council on the 16th May, during an informal conversation not relating to any matter on the agenda, Colonel Clayton, who is a member of the council, stated in effect that he did not consider a formal canvas for the National Service scheme to be called for in the purely rural parishes which he represented. Any remarks he made were made not in his capacity as a military representative but as a member of the council. No instructions of the nature suggested in the last sentence of the question have been or will be given to military representatives by the War Office. On the contrary, instructions were issued to military representatives, amongst others, on the 15th May, calling attention to the value and importance to the Army of the National Service scheme.