§ COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT (Sheffield, Central)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty why, during the year ending the 31st of March, salt pork to the value of £13,353, lubricating oil to the value of £8,915, and boilers to the value of £13,840, as well 1213 as £1,000 worth of chairs, and nearly £1,000 worth of butter, were purchased for Her Majesty's Navy from foreigners instead of from our own countrymen?
THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Sir U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH, Lancashire, Clitheroe)In the annual healthy competition between Irish and Danish firms for orders for salt pork the Danes secured rather more than half last year. The lubricating oil used is only made in America and by one or two British firms, who import thence the material from which it is distilled. Competition, which has greatly reduced the price, resulted on the last occasion in the success of American contractors. At the time of the contract for French boilers for two of our gunboats no British firms had had any experience in manufacturing boilers of these two special types, and they were bought in order that experiments under our own officers' superintendence might be made. It was an experimental order. All further orders for tubulous boilers have been given to home firms. The supply of bentwood chairs was introduced three years ago. British firms have proved unable to make them at a reasonable price; but this pattern has now been abolished. I regret that hitherto butter made and tinned at home has failed to hold its own against the tinned Danish butter selected by a Committee for use in officers' messes. It may be hoped that the great attention now being paid to butter-making, especially at the instance of Agricultural Societies and County Councils, will soon result in our tinned butter being at least equal to that of any other country.
§ COLONEL HOWARD VINCENTI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury why the Return, No. 128, he has just laid upon the Table of Government Contracts with Foreigners contains no particulars of the foreign paper purchased on Government account, of the Bavarian pencils used by Her Majesty's present Ministers in their several offices and now issued to the House of Commons, of the German boats ordered by the Admiralty, of the Swedish matches supplied to the Treasury, as of other articles; and if he will cause it to be duly corrected, so as to give to the House a full and accurate Return of the large sums of public money spent in the employment of foreign labour?
§ *SIR J. T. HIBBERTWith regard to Stationery Office stores, the answer is, as has been frequently explained, that they are not obtained by contract, but are purchased in the open market, and no orders are given to firms outside of the United Kingdom. Similarly "Lion" matches are bought from a firm in London. Accordingly, neither of the two cases comes within the scope of the Return. I am informed by the Admiralty that the contracts for the German boats referred to were not made by the Admiralty, but by the contractors for the vessels on which the boats will be carried. Hence this case is also outside the scope of the Return of Contracts with Foreigners made by Government Departments. The Return appears, therefore, to be correct in its present form.
§ COLONEL HOWARD VINCENTCan the right hon. Gentleman tell me what steps are taken to ensure that Government contractors are not mere agents of foreign mills and labour, and that they supply articles made or produced at home under the Fair Contracts provision, and not in foreign countries, or in foreign prisons?
§ *SIR J. T. HIBBERTThese things are bought in the open market. Paper was purchased by the Stationery Office last year from 98 different firms, in different parts of the United Kingdom, but it is quite impossible to ascertain where the different supplies were made.