§ MR. WEIR (Ross and Cromarty)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state who was responsible for the inspection of the fifty million Mark IV. bullets which were found to be defective 738 after a portion of them had been issued.
LORD STANLEYNo, Sir; I have on several occasions endeavoured to make it clear to the hon. Member that the bullets were not defective, that an extremely small number only of them stripped, and that, in order to avoid any possible risk on active service, it was considered advisable to use those already made up into cartridges for practice purposes only, and to break up the four and a half millions that were not so made up.
§ MR. WEIRWill the noble Lord have the goodness to say who was responsible for the inspection of these defective cartridges?
§ MR. WEIRBut who was responsible for the inspection of the four and a half millions the noble Lord has admitted to be valueless?
§ [No answer was returned.]
§ *MR. SPEAKERThe noble Lord has answered the question on the Paper. The hon. Member will find no difficulty in framing another question and putting it down in the usual way.
§ MR. WEIRI will not only put another question, but I give notice that I will call attention to the matter on the earliest opportunity.