§ General Sir IVOR PHILIPPSasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Acting Regimental Sergeant-Major C. E. Reed, W/2422, has been acting for upwards of one and a half years as regimental sergeant-major of a brigade of Royal Field Artillery that originally went out with the 38th Welsh Division in December, 1914; that since that date he has given unqualified satisfaction to his commanding officers and that Regimental Sergeant-Major Reed has now been reduced to battery sergeant-major and replaced by a temporary regimental sergeant-major who is a re-enlisted pensioner who has had only fourteen months' service in France and that as a battery quartermaster-sergeant; and whether the reduction in rank of Regimental Sergeant-Major Reed, who has been fighting in France for over two years, has been made with the consent and approval of the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief in France or has been made by an officer in the records office at Woolwich who is unacquainted with the services rendered by this warrant officer in the field and the high esteem in which he is held by the officers under whom he has served and fought?
§ Mr. MACPHERSONIn order to prevent injustice in the system of promotion to warrant officer Class 1, Regulations have been drawn up to safeguard the rights of senior non-commissioned officers wounded and invalided from the front. Acting Regimental Serjeant-Major Reed would be on the roll for promotion, if he is recommended, and will receive promotion in his turn.