The decision of the Income Tax Commissioners referred to in your letter to The Times must be reversed if the rank is granted, and should be challenged if the rank is not granted.
And:
... You may rely upon me now and upon all future occasions to support the demand you make.
And:
There seems to me to be great force in your contention that where a woman doctor has to perform the duties of a colonel, in authority over a large number of different sorts of troops in a general military hospital, she should have the advantage which military rank would give in maintaining discipline among them.
Altogether sixty-two Members of Parliament gave definite promises of support and many others expressed a desire to help. Questions were asked in the House; and the amount of sympathy and interest evinced by Members were astonishing to those who made the usual official replies. It was, however, too late in the session to do more. Parliament was on the point of dissolving, and every one’s thoughts were concerned with the coming election.
When the new House of Commons met in February 1919, the Prime Minister and Mr. Bonar Law were pledged ‘to remove all existing inequalities of the law as between men and women.’ The doctors circularised the new House without delay, desiring to obtain consideration for their requests before the new Army Act and Finance Act were drafted. The documents forwarded to Members were entitled: ‘Memorandum on the position of Women Doctors serving under the War Office,’ and ‘Application for Relief under Service Rate of Income Tax by Women Doctors serving the War Office.’ The first requested that legislation might ‘be introduced under the New Army Act to enable women doctors serving under or attached to the War Office to hold Commissions.’ The second asked for an alteration in the wording of the Income Tax Act.
In 1915–16, the doctors had claimed to be assessed under the Service Rate of Income Tax, quoting Schedule E, page 2:
Persons who have served during the year as members of any of the naval or military forces of the Crown, or in service of a naval or military character in connection with the present war for which payment is made out of money provided by Parliament ... special rates of tax and scales of allowances are applicable to the pay in connection with any such service.
The Surveyor of Taxes, however, disallowed the claim, though he could give no reason for doing so. The matter was referred to the Secretary of the Board of Inland Revenue in 1916–17, and without giving any reason, he also informed them that they were not eligible for the special rate of tax. In 1917–18, an appeal was heard by the Income Tax Commissioners, who decided that ‘on the wording of the Section relief could not be granted,’ and advised them to spend a large sum of money in making an application to the High Court. All these persons were profuse in expressions of sympathy, which were naturally irritating to women who were only asking for justice. The application to Parliament made a point of asking that relief might be made retrospective over the years 1914–1919. This appeal to the House of Commons met with far less response than the first one had done. Members who had written almost gushingly before the general election, forgot to reply at all; others thought that everything had been done which could be done, or pointed out that the War was over; and when unsatisfactory replies to questions were received and friends moved the adjournment of the House, sufficient support was not forthcoming.