§ Mr. HOGGEasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he has had a copy of a resolution passed by the Scottish Operative Tailors' and Tailoresses' Association of Scotland calling upon the War Office to augment the price paid for producing military, naval, and Territorial clothing, so as to enable a share of the work to be distributed among the members of this association, among whom there is very considerable unemployment; and whether he intends to do anything in the matter?
Mr. BAKERI have received a copy of the resolution referred to. At the suggestion of the Wholesale Clothiers' Federation of Great Britain and Ireland the War Department has recently established a uniform scale of prices for the manufacture of Army clothing which will apply in all future contracts. The new rates are higher than those usually paid for similar work hitherto, and are considered adequate to allow both a substantial margin of profit to the contractors and the payment of proper rates of wages to all the workpeople employed.