§ One word on the matériel for the year. There was much fear expressed in this House last year that we were falling behind in the matter of Artillery. I was attacked last year on account of the guns we procured from Germany. I can say that the results given by these guns have been, in the opinion of those who served them and the officers who inspected them, including the Commander-in-Chief, admirable both in rapidity of fire and as regards the distance covered by the fire, and an immense improvement on our present guns. We have a Committee investigating the whol qeuestion of improvement in guns. We have much improved the larger guns, the 9.2 guns; but the feature we are proposing this year is to make permanent the Explosives Committee, which has been sitting for the last two or three years, presided over by Lord Rayleigh. It will have joined with it one soldier and one sailor, and they will have at their command an experimental establishment and a laboratory. I believe their researches have already resulted in giving us a powder much better than cordite, by limiting the erosion, which has so much reduced the length of the life of our larger guns, that I believe their work will be of the greatest value to the nation.