§ 18. Mr. C. BATHURSTasked whether it is proposed to proceed with the scheme for transferring the administrative department of the Southern Command from Salisbury to the village of Harnham, just outside the city; if so, what is the object of the proposed transfer; and what is the estimated cost both of the necessary buildings and of constructing a new road for direct access to the city from the proposed site across the intervening marshy' land and rivers?
§ Colonel SEELYIt is proposed to proceed with the erection of a building for the offices of the Southern Command headquarters on a site near Harnham, purchased for the purpose. The present offices are in several separate buildings, held on lease, which are inconvenient and in many respects unsuitable. The cost of the buildings is estimated provisionally at £25,000. A new road for direct access to the city is not considered necessary.
§ 21. Mr. C. BATHURSTasked the reason for the reduction, as from the 1st inst., of the pay of from ninety to a hundred men employed at the headquarters of the Southern Command?
Mr. BAKERThere has been no reduction of pay. It has been decided, however, that the circumstances existing at Salisbury are no longer sufficiently exceptional to justify the continuance of a special rate of 1s. per diem ration allowance approved in 1901, and (his has been reduced to the usual rate of 6d. per diem.
§ Mr. C. BATHURSTDoes the hon. Member realise that this reduction of ration allowance involves a loss to each private of 3s. 6d. per week out of a total of 11s. 8d., after paying for his lodging accommodation, and whether Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien himself has not protested against such reduction?
Mr. BAKERNo; it was only a temporary increase under the special circumstances, but now the circumstances are ordinary again, the old rate has been brought into force.