§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT (Sussex, N.W.)said, he wished to ask a Question of his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War, whether his attention had been called 1956 to a letter in The Times of that morning, written by Sir John Adye, giving an account of an interview with the Secretary of State, and whether the account of the interview was correctly stated. He might add that he put the Question in the interests both of Sir John Adye and of the Secretary of State.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. E. STANHOPE) (Lincolnshire, Horncastle)I am glad, in answer to my hon. and gallant Friend, to say a word with respect to the attack upon my personal honour which, smarting, no doubt, under certain attacks from which I endeavoured to defend him, Sir John Adye has made in The Times to-day. After receiving a letter from him containing his explanation on the subject of the cutlasses, I asked him to have a personal interview with me. What passed between us has been utterly and strangely misrepresented by him. All I have to say is, that the defence which I then told Sir John Adye I would make for him is precisely in all substantial points identical with that which I afterwards put forward in this House. It would have been utterly impossible for me to hold, or to have told Sir John Adye, that he, although Director of Artillery during a part of the time when these transactions took place, was altogether free from responsibility in the matter, though I explained carefully the other day the limits of his responsibility.
§ House adjourned at one minute before Six o'clock.
§ INDEX.
§ LONDON: CORNELIUS BUCK AND SON, 22, PATERNOSTER ROW, E. C.