§ MR. ALLEN (Newcastle-under-Lyme)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the War Office insisted that in a recent contract for bottles the contractor should pay the full trade union rate of wages to the workmen employed; and whether the contract was given to an English merchant who supplied foreign bottles; and, if so, whether it was insisted that the foreign manufacturer should pay the same rate of wages as the English manufacturer for the same work?
§ THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. WOODALL,) HanleyThe recent contract for bottles contained the usual provision that the wages paid in executing it should be those generally accepted as current for competent workmen of the trade required in the district where the work was carried out; the contract was given to an English firm, but we are unable to obtain evidence as to where the bottles were actually made; there is no power to insist that foreign rates of wages should be assimilated to home rates.