authorities in Lancashire. At the present time there are 108 local education authorities in England and Wales which exercise powers in regard to choice of employment under Section 107 of the Education Act, 1921, and assist juveniles to obtain employment through their juvenile employment bureaux. Of these 19 are in Lancashire. As the hon. Member will no doubt be aware, the arrangements for giving advice and assistance to juveniles in choice of employment, whether the work is conducted by the Ministry itself or by the local education authority, are based on close co-operation in all areas.

An important step in the reorganisation of the medical services of the Army is announced by the War Office, which should have far-reaching effects in consolidating and. extending the teaching, research work and the professional opportunities of officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps throughout the Army and in enhancing the status of the Royal Army Medical College and the professional side of the corps.

In the period immediately succeeding the Great War a great advance was made in co-ordinating the professional activities of the Royal Army Medical Corps by the creation of the Directorates of Hygiene and Pathology, with their advisory committees' composed of eminent members of the civilian medical profession, and the appointment of a consulting physician and a consulting surgeon to the Army from among the serving officers of the corps. Owing to the large size of the Army at that time, these directorates and appointments were located at the War Office as part of the staff of the Director-General, Army Medical Services.

Now that the size of the Army has been reduced and more largely concentrated in the principal military stations, the organisation of the medical directorate has permitted of some decentralisation, and the opportunity has been taken to concentrate at the Royal Army Medical College the beads of all the specialist branches of medicine and surgery.

The revision of departments involved has been secured by transferring the director of pathology, the consulting physician to the Army, and the consulting surgeon to the Army, from the War Office to the Royal Army Medical College, and absorbing the appointments of professors of pathology, tropical medicine and military surgery respectively. Each of these officers will, as at present, have an assistant professor under him, and in the case of medicine and surgery these officers will form the visiting medical and surgical staff of the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital, Millbank. The director of pathology will still control the pathological work in commands as well as carry on his professorial work.

The teaching staff of the college will now become the consultants and advisers of the Director-General, Army Medical Services, at the War Office, and will be available for consultation in commands when required.

The composition and location of the directorate of hygiene has not been changed.

It has also been decided that the consultant and professor in each case, though normally of colonel's rank, may be promoted to major-general should he come up for promotion in the ordinary course while holding the appointment. The appointment of Commandant and Director of Studies at the college will in future carry with it the rank of major-general, but on the other hand the Deputy-Director, Army Medical Services, at the War Office will, when the next appointment is made, be a colonel instead of a major-general. Thus of the possible 11 major-general's appointments open to Royal Army Medical Corps officers, five are now of a professional nature and six administrative.

The reorganisation constitutes a definite step forward and marks the great advance in the professional work of the Royal Army Medical Corps which has been evident since the War. It should do much to remove the erroneous impression that adequate professional work is unobtainable in the Army. In consequence also of the elaboration of motor transport in recent years many of the smaller hospitals in commands have been closed and the patients concentrated in central hospitals fully equipped with all the special departments made necessary by modern methods of diagnosis and treatment. This has resulted in specialisation in all branches of medical, surgical and pathological work being now the rule rather than the exception.

The Secretary of State for War has also approved the recommendation made recently by the Army Medical Advisory Board, that, in order to maintain uniformity in the teaching and examination of Royal Army Medical Corps officers with that in civil life, a civilian inspector of the teaching and civilian examiners should be appointed by the Director-General, Army Medical Services, after consultation with the presidents of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons.