HC Deb 25 July 1889 vol 338 cc1262-3
MR. HANBURY

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the following evidence given before the Committee on Sweating by the Director of Army Contracts— The evidence given before your Lordships has tended to show that our contracts have been used for some years as a vehicle for sweating … and that the whole of the sweating business has been carried out almost under the protection of the War Office; that "after reading the evidence" he put himself in communication with some of his contractors, and then found on inquiry that the prices for valises, for instance, "had gone gradually down and down until really they were perfectly shameful," and that "with regard to Colonel Wallace's valise the price had been 10d., and that the fair price to pay was 1s. 4d," or 60 per cent more; who is responsible for having conducted the Contract Department of the War Office for some years in a manner which made such a state of things possible, and left it to be made public only by an outside body unconnected with the War Office, or whether nobody is responsible; whether it is still the fact, as admitted in evidence by the same Director of Contracts, that "it is nobody's duty to find out whether the Factory Clause is carried out in Government Contracts," that being the chief guarantee against such abuses in future; and what other steps have been taken to secure that British troops shall not under such a system be supplied with accoutrements which may fail them when tested before an enemy?

* MR. E. STANHOPE

Of course, Sir, I have read the whole of the evidence from which the hon. Member quotes a single passage, and if any other hon. Member will read it he will find that it contains a full answer to all the questions now put. The words "almost under the protection of the War Office" refer, of course, to the fact that this branch of the trade was almost exclusively employed on War Office contracts. Sweating has been produced by extreme competition and by the system of taking the lowest tender. The contractors are clearly responsible for it. Any hon. Member will find in Mr. Nepean's evidence a full account of the steps taken by my direction to prevent sweating. The Director of Contracts has insisted that fair wages shall be paid to the stitchers, that such prices shall be sent in with the tenders, and that they shall be posted up in the workshops. Moreover, he has encouraged those firms who are inclined to do their work in factories, and middlemen are not to be employed. As regards the last point I am not aware of any accoutrements having failed on service.

In answer to a further question by Mr. HANBURY,

* MR. E. STANHOPE

If a fair price is not paid to workpeople the remedy is in their own hands. I cannot say from my own knowledge that prices are posted up in the factories, but orders have been given that it shall be done.