§ COLONEL SIR H. VINCENT (Sheffield, Central)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he has succeeded in securing that all paper supplied for the use of the Houses of Parliament, Government offices, and the public service shall be of British or Irish manufacture; and if, in addition to the encouragement thus given to home industry and the employment of the people, a saving has been effected in the charges upon the taxpayer, compared with the time when foreign paper-makers secured a large proportion of the Stationery Vote?
§ THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. R. W. HANBURY, Preston)All the papers known as Stock Papers, chiefly writing, blotting, and printing papers, brown papers, and those used in great quantities for the official forms are now purchased direct from the manufacturers, and all supplies have to be accompanied by a certificate that they have been manufactured on the premises of the contractor. The result is that only papers of British or Irish manufac- 564 ture are obtained, and at the same time a large saving in cost has been effected. The papers not so obtained are chiefly those which have to undergo some special process, and so cannot be obtained direct from the original manufacturer.