§ SIR GEORGE BADEN-POWELL (Liverpool, Kirkdale)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War: (1) whether, in regard to the proposal to reserve for artillery practice an area of the Solent between Cowes Old Castle Point, Ryde, and the Stokes Bay Batteries, any protests or objections have been made to Her Majesty's Government by local authorities; and, if so, by what local authorities; (2) whether these protests allege that such a course would involve danger to life, injury to the local fishery industry, serious interference with navigation, and exclusion from an established area of public recreation; and (3) whether he will 211 appoint a Committee of a public character to inquire and report before final steps are taken in this matter?
§ * MR. BRODRICKObjections more or less in the terms of the second paragraph of the Question have been received from various local authorities to the proposed bye-laws regulating the firing from the forts at Portsmouth and in the Isle of Wight. It is open to the Board of Trade to hold a public Inquiry in any case in which one may be thought desirable; but the effect of the bye-laws has been greatly misunderstood. They limit rather than increase the present rights of firing, and it is not anticipated that in all the rights will be exercised for more than 15 hours in each year.