§ Mr. BOOTHasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office if the women who suggested the placing of the clothing contract actually introduced Mr. Glanfield to the contract department; will he say what previous experience such persons had enjoyed in placing orders of two and a half millions sterling; whether any portion of this or other clothing contracts of the War Office has been executed in America; and, if so, upon what terms?
Mr. BAKERThe Central Committee on Women's Employment, to which I understand the hon. Member to refer, was appointed by the President of the Local Government Board to devise schemes of employment for women unemployed on account of the War. Neither the Committee nor any of its members advised the placing of any contract for clothing, but they made representations for a wider distribution of contracts and suggestions for a simplification of the Service dress pattern. Mr. Glanfield was one of the commercial advisers to the Committee, and was already well known to the War Office as an army clothing contractor of high reputation. No part of the contract has been executed in America. I will furnish the hon. Member with a statement of the clothing contracts which have been placed in America.