In the House of Commons on Thursday week Mr. Asquith
gave a rather different version of tho facts which Lord Kitchener recently described when he said that the manufacture of anti. aircraft guns had been given priority over other ordnance. Mr. Asquith said that there was an " accelerated manufacture " of anti-aircraft guns, but that the supply of guns for the front would not be interfered with. The Army was already well supplied with the lighter guns, so that this class of gun could now be made more rapidly for the anti-aircraft service without detriment to the needs of the Expeditionary Force. A good deal of criticism of the working of the Military Service Act followed, and Mr. Tennant announced that public notices were being issued making it clear that men who had been medically rejected since August 14th were outside the scope of the Act. When certificates of medical rejection had been torn up by the recruiting authorities, this had been done only when armlets had been issued in exchange, and also partly hi order to prevent any possibility of the certificates being sold to other men. He utterly repudiated the absurd and unseemly charges of trickery which had been brought against the recruiting authorities.
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