SIR HENRY FLETCHERasked the Surveyor General of the Ordnance Whether he would postpone the Medical Vote No. 4 of the Army Estimates, and also the Vote relating to the Royal Hospitals of Chelsea and Kilmainham, the Report of the Committee of the Medical Commissariat Department not yet having been supplied to Members, although it had appeared in the journals?
MR. BRAND,in reply, said, the Question was a very reasonable one, and he would undertake that the two Votes mentioned should not be taken until the Report was in the hands of Members.
§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, he also had to complain that the whole 588 of the Report had appeared in the newspapers, and he should like to know how it had occurred? Its appearance was a violation of the undertaking made by the Government that the Reports of Committees should not be published in the newspapers before their distribution among Members. He also wished to give Notice that in Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates, upon the Reserve Vote No. 8, he would call attention to the present state of the recruiting, the crime and waste of the Army, and their effect upon the efficiency of the Reserve; and, on Vote 11, he would call attention to the inexpediency of making any change in the colour of the uniforms of the Army; and, on Vote 19, to the compulsory retirement of purchase colonels under the Warrant of 1881.
MR. BRANDsaid, an inquiry was being made into the matter of the publication; therefore, perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman would postpone his Question.