(NO. 55.) COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 6 April 1886)

§ VISCOUNT BURY

said, that he would take this opportunity of asking a Question with regard to the Volunteers, as it was practically one of the only occasions on which one could ask a question of this kind. The other day, alter the debate in the other House, he understood that the Secretary of State for War had announced that he was engaged in making inquiries into the state of the Volunteers to decide whether their condition was such as to demand any increase in the Capitation Grant. He hoped that the noble Lord opposite would tell them the nature and scope of those inquiries. If it was true that he was only going to inquire into the subjects which had been brought before the Committee over which he had had the honour to preside, then he thought that the information 907 desired existed in the Office at the present moment in a form ready for immediate use. If, on the other hand, the Secretary of State was going to extend the scope of his inquiry to collateral subjects, he himself, for one, would hear it with great satisfaction. The Committee of 1879 had been somewhat fettered in its investigations owing to the fact that many items now considered legitimate articles of expenditure were then outside the inquiry; and what they had had to define was whether, taking into account all the expenditure that was considered legitimate, the Capitation Grant was sufficient for the purpose. He hoped that the noble Lord would give them some information as to the scope of the proposed inquiry.