§ SIR WILLIAM PLOWDEN (Wolverhampton, W.)asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, with reference to the Surveyor General's opposition to the production of Papers and Correspondence regarding alleged deficiencies in naval guns and ammunition, amounting to up wards of £1,250,000, Whether any Correspondence has taken place between the War Office and Admiralty as to the amounts necessary to be provided for the supply of guns, ammunition, and warlike stores for naval purposes in the immediate future; if so, is there any objection to lay this Correspondence upon the Table; or, failing this, to give Members access to it on application at the Admiralty?
§ THE FIRST LORD (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON) (Middlesex, Ealing)No thing is known at the Admiralty as to the allegations that deficiencies amounting to upwards of £1,250,000 have occurred, nor is there any correspondence on the subject. The Surveyor General of Ordnance has, in an answer given the other day, denied the truth of any such assertion. Delays in the delivery of guns have occurred which it is understood from the War Office have been unavoidable. As regards the latter part of the Question, it is undesirable to produce these Papers, forming as they do part of 1408 an Inter-Departmental Correspondence between the Admiralty and War Office and Treasury: but I have no doubt that the statements relating to Army and Navy Expenditure to be made by the Secretary of State for War and myself will give the hon. Baronet some of the information he asks for.