§ Colonel L. WILSONasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Board of Inland Revenue has issued instructions releasing all clerks to surveyors of the requisite medical fitness up to the age of twenty-six years for military service; whether it is now proposed to release all such clerks up to the age of twenty-eight years; whether all surveyors and assistant surveyors of taxes are retained and exempted from military service; and, if so, whether, in view of the fact that there are a number of recent entrants of surveyors and assistant surveyors into the Department, he will issue instructions that all such surveyors and assistant surveyors, equally with tax clerks, shall be liable to release for military service if they were not previously employed by the Department before the outbreak of hostilities?
§ Mr. BALDWINThe Board of Inland Revenue have gone much further in the matter of releasing their star for military service than the hon. and gallant Member suggests. In addition to releasing clerks in surveyors' offices up to the age of twenty-eight, the Board have released from their headquarters establishments a somewhat parallel grade of clerk up to the age of thirty-five, and clerks belonging to a grade superior to that of clerks in sur-1732W veyors' offices up to the age of thirty-one. Most of the professional valuation staff up to the age of thirty-five has also been released. The retention in their civil employment of surveyors of taxes is essential if the minimum machinery needed to secure the vast war revenue imposed by this House is to be maintained.