§ Major CADOGANasked the Under-Secretary of State for War what is the precise significance of the title Army agent; and whether he will consider the advisability of prohibiting its use by any banking firms, in view of the fact that the War Office has repudiated all legal responsibility for any banking business conducted by Army agents?
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Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESSThe present public duty of an Army agent, which is a term of very old standing and long historical development, is, broadly speaking, to distribute pay to those officers who desire to receive their pay through the agent rather than from the Paymaster. There is no necessary inconsistency 'between this public function and the private function of acting as a banker for those officers who desire it, and there is therefore no intention of forbidding the present Army agents, Messrs. Cox and Messrs. Holt, to continue to use a title which is long established and which expresses quite accurately their relationship to the War Office.