§ MR. ALFRED HUTTON (Yorkshire, W.R., Morley)I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury what opportunity he proposes to give the House for the discussion of the Code and Minute of the Education Department; and whether the Secondary Education Bill is likely to be introduced at an early date.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI have already answered these questions. The code will be discussed next Thursday.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL - BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs)I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, as the Vote for the War Office is being taken for a specific purpose on Friday, he will withdraw the Vote when that purpose has been effected. There are many other points to be raised on that Vote, and it would be convenient to keep some Vote of this sort alive to give an opportunity of discussion towards the end of the session.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI think the right hon. Gentleman is quite right in what he has said, and I had already arrived at the same conclusion. I hope the discussion of Friday on the War Office Vote will be restricted to the one point of the publication of the Spion Kop despatches. It was in view of the controversy to which that publication has given rise that I proposed to put the Vote first. As soon as that discussion has run for a sufficient time I should hope the House would consent to the Vote being withdrawn.
§ * SIR CHARLES DILKEAre the Government going to let us discuss the Koorn Spruit and other similar incidents on Friday?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThere is no published despatch on the Koorn Spruit incident. I rather hoped that we should confine our discussion to the Spion Kop despatches and to the general principle which governed the action of the War Office in publishing the despatches.