§ SIR WALTER BARTTELOTasked the Surveyor General of the Ordnance, Whether the decision of the House of Lords of the 11th instant in the case of Dixon versus the London Small Arms Company, that the Crown is excluded from the free use of patented inventions, except within the manufactories and departments of the Crown, will not practically limit the supply of small arms to those made at the Royal Factory at Enfield; and, whether the resources of that manufactory are not utterly inadequate to the wants of the Country in case of any great emergency?
§ LORD EUSTACE CECILI am advised that the decision of the House of Lords only precludes the Crown from the free use of patented inventions. But this does not prevent the Crown from obtaining arms by contract, provided the Crown pays the usual Royalties. 2. The resources of the Government Factory at 1480 Enfield are quite equal to any emergency that can be foreseen. I may remind my hon. and gallant Friend upon this question of that which I stated upon the Estimates—namely, that at the close of the financial year we shall have about 376,000 Martini-Henry rifles out of a total of 891,000 breech-loading arms.