§ Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will state the number of French and Italian subjects, respectively, who have been visited by the police since 1st January, 1916, or any more convenient date anterior to 1st June, 1916, and have been taken or induced or deported under order to France to serve in the French Army; whether such French and Italian subjects were offered the opportunity of serving in the British Army; how many, if any, claimed exemption as political refugees or on other grounds; how many sustained these or other grounds of exemption; and whether French and Italian subjects are now, like Russians, eligible for enlistment here?
§ Sir G. CAVEIt is not in the public interest to give the figures asked for; but I may say that no French or Italian subject who has made abond fide claim to be a political refugee has been sent away from this country for military service. French and Italian subjects are eligible for enlistment in the British Forces, but the French and Italian Governments do not, like the Russian Government, accept the principle that their subjects may discharge their military obligations by enlisting in the British Army.