§ Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked the First Lord whether the designs sent in by Mr. Yarrow some time ago were copied and sent out by the Admiralty to other builders to tender upon; and why is this firm not 1147 given the construction of certain of our destroyers, in view of their knowledge and experience in building vessels of this type?
§ Mr. McKENNANo, Sir; unless the question refers to an incident which took place as far back as the year 1894, when Messrs. Yarrow raised objections to certain of their machinery drawings having been sent to other firms. The firm have built several torpedo-boat destroyers and torpedo boats for His Majesty's service during recent years, and were asked to tender for the torpedo-boat destroyers of last year's programme.