§ Sir B. FALLEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty the foreign stations mentioned in the reply to Item 27 of the 1926 welfare requests where the cost of living is less than at home?
§ Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAMThe reference was to the Mediterranean Station. In actual fact, messing and victualling allowances are, in the main, based on prices that operate all over the world, and whatever the cost of living may be in the several stations where men are serving, there is but little ground for departing in either direction from the universal application of these allowances. As, however, the Welfare Request appeared to contemplate a system 2068W under which these allowances would be varied according to the local cost of living, it was thought desirable to make it clear that such an arrangement would not operate to the benefit of the men. The conditions in China are, however, exceptional, and are being dealt with accordingly.