§ Mr. HARRY LAWSONOn a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask you whether, if the hon. Member for Hoxton is allowed to give his version of the blacksmith's case, by way of personal explanation, I will be allowed in reply to state the facts from the point of view of the hospital?
§ Mr. SPEAKERNo, certainly not. The hon. Member for Hoxton comes into the case because he is specially referred to, and he says the reference is not correct, and he wishes to give his version.
§ Mr. ROBERT HARCOURTOn a point of Order. Is it not very unusual that direct notice should not have been given to the hon. Member who is concerned?
§ Mr. SPEAKERNotice has been given. It was on the Paper for several days.
§ Mr. HARRY LAWSONAnd the hon. Member saw me in the Lobby.
§ Dr. ADDISONI ask to be allowed to make an explanation of the statements contained in the Question No. 35 of the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Harry Lawson). I may say this is the second edition of the question. In the first edition these words occurred:—
Whether this particular blacksmith was not continued in the London Hospital at the request of the hon. Member for Hoxton for successive periods of forty-eight hours.
§ Mr. HARRY LAWSONYou asked me to amend it.
§ Dr. ADDISONI was told by my hon. Friend the Member for Stepney (Mr. Glyn-Jones) that the question was on the Paper, but I received no notice from the hon. Member for Mile End. In a friendly way I saw him in the Lobby, and said:—"This statement affecting me is incorrect." 1533 Thereupon we have the amended edition which I may say, as far as it concerns me, is absolutely untrue in every single particular. The facts are, as far as I am concerned, that the first time I ever heard of this blacksmith was on Friday afternoon, 6th December, when my lion. Friend the Member for Stepney, Chairman of the Middlesex Insurance Committee, came to me and said: "This man's brother says that his brother will be sent out of the hospital and will have to be sent to the workhouse. Do yon know anyone in the London Hospital where you could make inquiry into the actual facts?" On Friday afternoon I telephoned to the London Hospital, and I was there informed that the arrangements with the Middlesex Insurance Committee was that the man would be kept in the hospital until arrangements could be made to send him to a convalescent home, and that they expected to send him there on the following day, Saturday, or on the Monday. On the following morning, about nine o'clock, I received a telephone message from the London Hospital to say that the man was being sent down to their sanatorium that day. He was not detained at the London Hospital for one single moment at my request, and they were simply carrying out their arrangements with the Middlesex Committee, and he was sent to the sanatorium within eighteen hours of my first hearing of the case.