§ Mr. BILLINGasked the Secretary of State for War (1) whether the Reports of general officers and commanding officers of the Canadian units show that the British service rifle is better than the Ross rifle; whether the men who have to use them prefer the British or the Ross rifle; why, if the British rifle is the better, the Ross rifles were sanctioned for manufacture and issued to the righting troops; and (2) whether the charge brought by Lieutenant General Sir Sam Hughes about Canadian arms being scrapped and replaced by other material not so good has any reference to the Ross rifle; and whether his official information shows that the Canadian soldiers themselves refused to use the Ross rifles and threw them away because they jammed?
§ Mr. NEEDHAMasked the Secretary of State for War whether he has any official information showing that the equipment, transport, and arms of Canadian troops were scrapped by British officers who did not know their business to be replaced by other material not so good, and that Canadian soldiers were allowed to go under the knife of first-year medical men while men from the Dominion were not utilised; will he say whether the Canadian surgeons themselves made their wishes known to the high medical authorities that they desired to be sent abroad to the Near East and elsewhere; and whether Canadians have lost months, and sometimes a year, in hospitals not under Canadian control when they should have been back in the trenches?
§ Mr. FORSTERThe matters referred to in these three questions are the concern of the Government of Canada, as well as of the Imperial Government, and I think it is undesirable to answer questions upon them at present.