§ MAJOR RASCH (Essex, S.E.)asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is the fact that the Royal Commission on Warlike Stores held their final meeting and ceased to exist on or before December, 1887; whether they received the Report on the Collingwood gun, and reported on it, before they were dissolved; where those documents are now; whether he will state the names of those officials who have withheld the Report since December, 1887; and, how he proposes to deal with them?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. E. STANHOPE) (Lincolnshire, Horncastle)I do not think that even an hon. Member of this House is justified, without ample evidence, in making the charge against public servants that they have 303 wilfully suppressed public documents of importance. In this case there is no such evidence. No such Report has been received. But after a charge of this sort has been made, I think it just to the Department to publish at once Colonel Hope's Report, and the observations of the Ordnance Committee upon it.