Sir Auckland Geddes informed the House of Commons on Monday
that the grading of recruits between forty-three and fifty-one years of age would be modified, as the result of his conference with Sir Donald Maclean and other Chairmen of Tribunals. The older men passed by the Medical Boards as fit for Grade I. are to be classified Grade I. (13 I.); the Tribunals are to assume that these men are not fit to be trained for first-line infantry. Similarly the new Grade II. (B II.) and Grade III. (B III.) replace the old Grades II. and III. for older men. The Tribunals are to be informed whether a third- grade man has been found to be fit only for sedentary work. It is to be understood that the older men in the second or third grade • are of less military value than the younger men in the same grade.
The concession goes some way to meet the objection that the older men were in fact being treated less tenderly than the younger men. But there remains the difficulty that Sir Auckland Geddes cannot speak for the War Office, and that the Army authorities who get an elderly recruit of Grade I. (B I.) may disregard the qualifying " B I." just as they now disregard the red " 0 " (for " old ") on his calling-up notice.
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