§ MR. MOONEY (Newry)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in connection with the recent charge made by his Department against Messrs. Kynoch for the use of a sterilising ingredient in the manufacture of certain explosives, if he can state when and to whom did Messrs. Kynoch state that they declined to admit that the ingredient was there at all.
§ MR. GLADSTONEMessrs. Kynoch stated in two letters to His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Explosives, dated 19th December, 1906, and 4th January, 1907, respectively, that there was no 1085 unauthorised ingredient in the explosives which had been seized.
§ MR. MOONEYsaid the question he had asked was whether Messrs. Kynoch had ever stated that a certain ingredient was not used in the manufacture of certain explosives.
§ MR. GLADSTONEThe certain Ingredient in question is mercury, and mercury is unauthorised. They stated in these letters that there was no unauthorised ingredient in the explosives.
§ MR. MOONEYAre not the Homo Office deciding this case before it has been decided judicially?
§ MR. GLADSTONEThe hon. Gentleman has put a question to me, and I have to answer it as well as I can. The Court of first instance gave judgment in favour of the Home Office, and that judgment was confirmed by Court of quarter sessions. Messrs. Kynoch have appealed on a technical point of law, whether the mercury was not such an infinitesimal quantity that the law ought not to apply. I am advised that the law is perfectly clear against Messrs. Kynoch on that point.
§ MR. BELLAIRS (Lynn Regis)asked whether the manager to Messrs. Kynoch at Arklow had stated that no mercuric chloride was added to the cordite, but only to the mining explosive.
§ [No Answer was returned.]
§ MR. MOONEYI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been called to the evidence in the recent action against Messrs. Kynoch, given by Captain Thomson, His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Explosives, Dr. Farmer, Government chemist, J. M. Thompson, Government chemist, and Sir Frederick Nathan, superintendent, Waltham Abbey, to the effect that in foreign countries a solution of mercury was used for the purpose of acting as an antiseptic for gun-cotton; and whether, in view of these statements by the Home Office experts, he will state the grounds on which the Home Office hold that this ingredient is used else-where for the purpose of masking the heat test rather than as an antiseptic.
§ MR. GLADSTONEThe witnesses mentioned did not state that mercury was used as an antiseptic in foreign countries; they only said they had heard statements to that effect. Captain Thomson, moreover, expressed his disbelief that the mercury was for antiseptic purposes only. The reasons why the Home Office hold that this ingredient is probably used elsewhere for the purpose of masking the heat test rather than as an antiseptic are that the explosives of two foreign firms who have abandoned the use of mercury in consequence of the rejection of their goods previously sent to this country, have since that abandonment failed to pass the heat test; and one of them has since been detected in the attempt to use another masking agent to conceal the very impure nature of their explosive.
§ MR. MOONEYIs it not the fact that Captain Thomson stated that this mercury was used under the regulations of the German War Office, and did not Dr. Farmer state that it was used as an antiseptic?
§ MR. GLADSTONEI understand the witnesses stated it was not used as an antiseptic.
§ MR. MOONEYWill the right hon. Gentleman look into the evidence?
§ MR. GLADSTONEYes, Sir.