§ CAPTAIN NORTONI beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether his attention has been directed to the loss of a sum of £376 Os. 4d., value of salt beef condemned at Malta, and stated in the Navy Appropriation Account just issued to have been improperly cured, owing to inexperience on the part of those employed on the work at Deptford Victualling Yard in 1896; can he state what rate of wages the men who performed this work received; and why inexperienced men were employed upon Government work of such a nature.
§ * THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,) Belfast, W.The matter referred to by the hon. and gallant Member was fully gone into a year ago by the Committee of Public Accounts, and the circumstances of the case will be found reported on page 38 of the published evidence. The curing of the beef in question was supervised by a practical butcher, receiving 33s. a week, who before entering the yard had been employed in the outside trade. He was assisted by ordinary labourers in the work of cutting up, rubbing with salt, and placing the meat in the bins, and the labourers so employed received special allowances of eight-pence and sixpence a day in addition to their ordinary pay of 20s. a week. As regards the last part of the hon. and gallant Member's Question, I must refer him to the evidence given before the Committee of Public Accounts.