§ MR. JESSE COLLINGS (Birmingham, Bordesley)To ask the Secretary of State for War whether in calculating the cost of rifles made in the Government factories interest on cost of land and buildings, cost of making and alteration of machinery and plant, rates, taxes, heating, lighting, and other fixed charges are taken into account.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) The cost prices of rifles and other productions of the Ordnance Factories, as shown in the published accounts, include cost of making and alteration of machinery and plant, buildings, rates and taxes, heating, lighting, and all other expenditure of every kind actually incurred by the War Department in connection with manufacture, as provided in the Annual Estimate for the Ordnance Factories. They do not include rent of land, interest on capital, or other trade charges and risks, because such charges are not incurred. An independent Committee, under the chairmanship of Mr. Webb, then head of Crewe Works, recently considered this point and recommended that such charges should not be included, but that a note to that effect should be printed with the annual accounts of the 677 Ordinance Factories. This note will be found at page 1 of these accounts for 1902–3 recently published. The subject was also brought to the notice of the Public Accounts Committee of 1902.