§ EARL FORTESCUE moved an Address for Copy of Proceedings of Two Committees assembled at Woolwich on the 6th March and 26th April, to report on Captain Grant's Cooking Apparatus; and, Copy of Correspondence between the Quarter Master General and Captain Grant, respecting the Erection of a Cooking Apparatus at Shorncliffe. The noble Earl also asked the Under Secretary for War, whether after the three years' experience that has been had of Captain Grant's Cooking Apparatus, there appears any reason to doubt its superiority over every other previously in use; and, if not, whether any or what steps were being taken to extend its adoption generally throughout the army?
§ VISCOUNT HARDINGEsaid, there was no objection to the production of the papers 1909 moved for by the noble Earl. The last meeting of the Woolwich Committee took place on the 20th of April, and the evidence laid before the Secretary of War had induced him to come to the conclusion that Captain Grant's cooking apparatus—the great saving of fuel and other desideratœ being most satisfactorily proved—was the best that ever had been submitted to him. The report, however, recommended that before the general adoption of the apparatus in the army, Captain Grant should be desired to superintend the erection of a model kitchen on his principle for 500 men at some station or other—to verify his estimate of prime cost and test its capabilities; and hence it was that the further trial at Shorncliffe had been determined on. If the report of that experiment should be as satisfactory as the other reports had been, the Secretary for War, he believed, would take steps for the general adoption of the cooking apparatus in the service. The delay of three years mentioned in the noble Earl's question had not occasioned any great inconvenience, but it had certainly been productive of great improvement in the apparatus, for every time a new one had been erected, some additional improvement had been effected. The last submitted to trial was very different from that originally erected at Aldershot.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ House adjourned at a Quarter to Eight o'clock, till To-morrow. half-past Ten o'clock,