§ MR. QUILTER (Suffolk, South)said, he was desirous of calling attention to certain advertisements which had appeared in the newspapers at the instance of the prison authorities offering to contract for the supply of large quantities of mats made by prison labour in the Bristol, Leeds, Cardiff, Chelmsford, and other prisons. Such contracts entered into on the part of the prison authorities were calculated to keep a great number of honest and industrious persons out of work, and were entirely opposed to the spirit of the assurances which had been frequently given by the Government that every effort should be made to reduce the amount of mat-making in prisons, which competed most unfairly with outside labour. It was one of the greatest anomalies of our system of government that a Public Department was allowed to compete in the open mar- 1037 ket with manufacturers and industrious artizans for the supply of articles which were the result of labour in our prisons, which were supported and paid for by the taxpayers of the country. In these circumstances, he asked the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) to give him assurance that these proposed contracts should not be entered into by the Prison Department until he and other hon. Members had had an opportunity of bringing the subject under the notice of the House.