§ MR. BUCHANAN (Perthshire, E.)To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the £600,000 in the Army Supplementary Estimate is to be paid to the Governments of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, or to whom; and for what purpose is this compensation to be paid.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) As already explained in debate on the Army Supplementary Estimate, £300,000 of the amount is a payment to the Governments of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, and forms part of the sum of £3,000,000 which His Majesty's Government agreed should be paid on the understanding that the civil authorities would take over all outstanding claims in respect of requisition notes for supplies, horses, stores, &c, taken during the war from the inhabitants of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony. £100,000 represents the amount paid by the military authorities to inhabitants of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony in respect of similar claims in 1902–3, but which could not be charged to that year owing to proof of payment not then being forthcoming. The balance of £200,000 represents similar claims in Cape Colony which, it was thought, would have been adjudicated upon and paid in 1902–3.