§ MR. BRADLAUGH (Northampton)I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury a Question of which I have given him private Notice. I wish to ask, Whether he is aware that on Thursday last the Attorney General intimated to me that if the words "unless the House otherwise resolve" were inserted in my Amendment on going into Committee of Supply, the Government would accept the Amendment; whether such words were inserted; and, whether, in spite of the insertion, 17 Members of the Government voted against the Amendment, and only four in favour of it?
§ THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster)It is a fact that the Attorney General, with my sanction, did give the hon. Member to understand that, as far as I was concerned, and as far as my Colleagues were concerned, the course which the hon. Member has described would be taken. I am not aware that so many of my Colleagues as 17 voted against the Resolution. As I stated in the House on Friday I was obliged to be absent from the debate, having to attend elsewhere to matters of urgent public 176 importance. It was only after the Division that I was made acquainted with the circumstances that had occurred.