§ MR. RAMSAY MACDONALDTo ask the President of the Local Government Board if he authorised a certain firm in London to value samples of clothing submitted to the Poplar Board of Guardians by various firms, one of which was the Women's Committee of the Central Unemployed Body; whether the report submitted stated that the Board had paid to these workrooms 2s. 3d. for shirts which were valued at 1s. 9d., 2s. 11d. for flannelette vests valued at 1s. 8½d., £1 for men's suits valued at 9s. 11d. and 11s. 6d.; what steps he took to make sure that the samples submitted by the private firms were the same as those sent originally to the board of guardians but returned by them; and whether the expert responsible for the valuation indicated in each case how much he estimated as being a fair wages rate for making the various articles in question.
(Answered by Mr. John Burns.) As regards the first two points in the Question, the facts are substantially as stated. As regards the third point, I asked for the particular samples which had been submitted to the guardians by the firm referred to, and I have no reason to doubt that these were the samples furnished to me. They are still in my possession. As regards the concluding part of the Question, the expert compared the four sets of samples sent to him and assigned a value to the samples accepted. He did not indicate in his report what he estimated to be a fair wages rate for making the articles in question.