§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLI beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been directed to a statement of General Sir William Butler, K.C.B., in his evidence before the War Commission (vol. ii., p. 74), that he was unable to produce in its entirety the correspondence which passed between the War Office and himself during the period of his command, from November, 1898, till August, 1899, because he was recently informed at the War office that much of the confidential correspondence at that time had been 576 destroyed by order of the authorities at Cape Town; did the destruction of this confidential correspondence take place at the War Office or Cape Town; if it took place at the War Office was the destruction carried out with the sanction of the Secretary of State for War at the time, and what was the date of the destruction; if it took place at Cape Town who were the authorities by whose order these documents were destroyed, and had these authorities the sanction of the War Office for that destruction; and whether, having regard to the gravity of the destruction' of public documents, he has any, and, if so, what explanation to offer.
§ MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERA considerable quantity of correspondence stored at Cape Town was destroyed by order of the military authorities there in consequence of a suspicion that the papers in question were contaminated by plague infection. The papers in question are believed to have been among those thus destroyed. Copies of all official correspondence that passed between the War Office and General Sir William Butler during his tenure of command at the Cape have been preserved.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLWere these confidential documents destroyed by the Government in order to save their own bacon?
§ * MR. SPEAKEROrder, order!