improper one. He wished to consider | War Office which had been intercepted what effect the transaction would have would be intercepted for his Own upon the Volunteer Force. It was repayment. That, in the course of the possible that the scheme of the right hon. number of years the loan had to run, Gentleman might not go through during would extinguish the debt, just as, if he the present year. In that case the Volun- had done nothing, it would have exteer corps would remain in the same tinguished the debt in the hands of the position that they occupied now, and the Public Works Loan Commissioners. At change effected would be that, instead the end of the currency of those loans of the Public Works Loans Commissioners, what would be the right hon. Gentleman's the War Office would be the mortgagees position if the Volunteers were continued of these drill-halls. That would give on the basis which now existed? He the War Department a pull over the would have wiped out a debt it was true, Volunteer corps which it had not had but it was a debt someone owed to him, before, and they all knew that the and his obligation would be to pay not the Auxiliary Forces were in a very difficult capitation grant less their charge for the position with regard to the action which Sinking Fund and interest, but the whole. the authorities at the War Office took of the capitation grant. It would in reference to them. On the other hand, be the debt of the Volunteers that if the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman was wiped out and not the debt of the became law, the capitation grant to nation, and the annual obligation of the Volunteers would cease. He Who would nation would be exactly the same. then be the owner of these halls? noticed that the right hon. Gentleman Would the War Office become the owners shook his head, but he would be exor would the new corps which were to tremely interested to hear how he met be formed out of the new Territorial that argument. If the new scheme went Army be the owners? Would they have through what would happen? The Finanfull control over them, as the trustees cial Secretary to the War Office had in connection with the Volunteer explained that it was the object of the corps had over the drill-halls at the Secretary of State for War in becoming the present time? He for one would like mortgagee of these debts to be able to to have some further explanation. He remit them in connection with his new thought the protest which had been made organisation. That got rid of the debt, against this transaction had been fully but whose debt? It was the debt of the justified. Volunteers, but not the debt of the nation, for that remained exactly where it was when the right hon. Gentleman began his operations. On either hypothesis, whether the scheme went through or not, the right hon. Gentleman was delaying the reduction of Debt to the tune of £450,000, and that was a thing which ought not to be done except under special conditions of urgency or for very special reasons which did not exist in this case. It was being done by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, who had so persistently attacked the late Government for sins which were not comparable in magnitude with this. MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN desired to say a few words in reply to the financial argument used by the hon. Gentleman. He took exception to the statement that by the process suggested they were paying off Debt. But for this proposal the £430,000 would go at the end of the year to the National Debt Commissioners and would be applied to the reduction of Debt. The Secretary for War admitted that he intercepted this sum, but he claimed that he equally applied it to the reduction of Debt because he redeemed an annuity. He would take the two contingencies of the Army scheme going through and not going through. Whether the scheme went through or not the right hon. Gentleman did not succeed in reducing the Debt by withdrawing this sum. In case his scheme did not go through a certain amount of the capitation grant due to the MR. HALDANE said he had appreciated the admirable and ingenious argument of the right hon. Gentleman. He would put the matter to the Committee in a manner in which it would be clear as light. The right hon. Gentlemen had said that if things were left to their normal course this £459,000 would go in payment of debt. He wished to point out that they handed over this money to the Public Works Loans Commissioners, and they applied it to the extinction of the public debt just in the same fashion as the Treasury would have done. It was simply done by another process and the same amount of debt was extinguished. MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN said the Secretary of State for War's fallacy was in supposing that he was redeeming a debt which he had to pay, whereas it was a debt which somebody else had to pay. It was the debt of the Volunteers, and he only came into it because, having money due to the Volunteers in his possession, instead of paying the money to the Volunteers and then letting the Volunteers pay it back to the National Debt Commissioners, it was a simpler transaction that he should pay it to the Public Works Loans Commissioners. He wished to point out that the debt he was redeeming was not a debt of the State at all. MR. HALDANE said the Volunteers incurred this debt for a public purpose, and it was only being transferred from one authority to another. Under the Volunteer Act the property of the Volunteers was vested in his own corporate capacity and he was liable. right SIR F. BANBURY said the hon. Gentleman had told them that they had made a mistake, because he was going to pay this £459,000 to the Public Works Loans Commissioners, who would apply it to the reduction of the National Debt. Under ordinary circumstances the £459,000, being a surplus, would be handed to the National Debt Commissioners, and would be applied to the reduction of Debt, and the Public Works Loans Commissioners would still have £459,000 owing them by the Volunteers. They would receive in payment of that so much for interest, and so much for Sinking Fund, and the Sinking Fund would eventually redeem it, and that would be applied to the reduction of Debt. In that case there would be twice £459,000 applied to reduction of Debt, but under Mr. Haldane. MR. COCHRANE (Ayrshire, N.) said that where a corps lost its identity there might be cases where money had been acquired to purchase drill halls and ranges for that particular corps, and those who had provided the money might be unwilling to hand over those halls and ranges. He instanced the case of the Lonand distinct identity. Would the right don Scottish, who had their own history hon. Gentleman use this money to take over the debt of a corps like that? If not, how was he going to deal with the various Volunteer forces under his territorial scheme? This was a matter of considerable importance. The right hon. Gentleman would take over the debt now due to the Public Works Loans Commissioners, and in the meantime he would pay the interest out of the capitation grant. One of the purposes in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman was to abolish that grant. Therefore the fund to meet the interest would disappear. Did he mean to leave the debt as a burden hanging round the necks of the officers who had guaranteed the payment of the interest on these loans? If not, was he going far to force officers into the acceptance of his scheme? It seemed like a form of coercion. He thought the right hon. Gentleman should state that he intended to pay the debt on all these halls irrespective of whether the Volunteer corps joined the Territorial Army or not. Otherwise he would be placing in a very awkward position officers who by their exertions had secured matter, and he would explain them when valuable drill halls and ranges in different they got into Committee on the Bill. parts of the country when he said, "Your corps is going to be transferred to the 71st Battalion of the Territorial Army, and we desire you to hand over all that you have got, and if you don't do so we will make you responsible for the sums incurred as debt on your drill hall, which will be valueless for any other purpose." He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would relieve the Volunteer corps of the debt. SIR J. RANDLES (Cumberland, Cockermouth) asked what would happen in a case where the members of a corps had borrowed money for the purpose of a drill hall and had issued debentures on the hall. Would the War Office relieve both the corps and the debenture holders by taking over the property? If they did not, those who provided the hall might be badly left. MR. HALDANE said that naturally that was a matter which had not escaped notice. Probably they would do something in future, but he could not say at the present stage how the matter would have to be dealt with. anything in this Estimate. It was outside of SIR F. BANBURY asked whether he might assume that the Financial Secretary had admitted the statement he had made. Question put. MR. HALDANE said the effect would be precisely the same. It was not the intention of the Government to use any sort of compulsion. There were provisions in the Bill which dealt with this Noes, 299. Acland-Hood,RtHn. Sir Alex. F| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H. Bowles, G. Stewart Boyle, Sir Edward Cavendish, Rt. Hn. Victor C. W. AYES. The Committee divided :-Ayes, 88; (Division List No. 37.) Dalrymple, Viscount Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. Hervey, F.W.F. (Bury S. Edm'ds Hornby, Sir William Henry Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hon. Col. W Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) Percy, Earl Powell, Sir Francis Sharp Stone, Sir Benjamin Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. Howard TELLERS FOR THE AYES-Sir Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.) | Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry Atherley-Jones, L. Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) Balfour, Robert (Lanark) Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) Barker, John Barlow, Jn. Emmott(Somerset) Barlow, Percy (Bedford) Barry, E. (Cork, S.) Beale, W. P. Beauchamp, E. Beck, A. Cecil Bell, Richard NOES. Duckworth, James Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Flynn, James Christopher Brooke, Stopford Brunner, J.F.L. (Lancs., Leigh) Brunner, RtHnSir J.T(Cheshire | Bryce, J. Annan Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn Buxton, Rt.Hn.SydneyCharles Causton, Rt.Hn. Richard Knig't Cleland, J. W. Clough, William Clynes, J. R. Gill, A. H. Ginnell, L. Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert Jn. Glover, Thomas Goddard, Daniel Ford Gooch, George Peabody Gulland, John W. Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton Gwynn, Stephen Lucius Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B. Hall, Frederick Halpin, J. Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis Higham, John Sharp Hobhouse, Charles E. H. Hogan, Michael Holden, E. Hopkinson Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N Jacoby, Sir James Alfred Johnson, John (Gateshead) Pullar, Sir Robert Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' Reddy, M. Redmond, John E. (Waterford) Rendall, Athelstan Richards Thomas (W. Monm'th) Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) Robson, Sir William Snowdon Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford) Seely, Major J. B. Soames, Arthur Wellesley Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.) Stewart, Halley (Greenock) Taylor, Theodore C.(Radcliffe) Trevelyan, Charles Philip Original Question again proposed. MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN said that there was an amount of £20,000 in this Vote for compensation in connection with the explosion at Woolwich Arsenal. Could the right hon. Gentleman give the Committee any information as to the cause of that accident, and did he intend to lay Papers on the Table of the House regarding it? He expressed the hope that the right hon. Gentleman would go into the question of the danger of the buildings at Woolwich and the danger of the work which was carried on in them. He heard a little about these matters from various sources sometime ago, and he was considerably alarmed at the state of things that existed, but which he thought had been considerably remedied since. Of course he was very much shocked that an explosion of this kind should have taken place, but was thankful that it had involved no loss of life. The right hon. Gentleman had devoted great attention to the subject of explosives, and he thought that he should consult with private firms who manufactured explosives and who entertained the impression that the precautions taken in the Government factories were either inVOL. CLXX. [FOURTH SERIES.] Villiers, Ernest Amherst Vivian, Henry Wadsworth, J. Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) Walton, Sir John L. (Leeds, S.) Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palmer Wilson, J.W. (Worcestersh. N.) Wood, T. M'Kinnon Yoxall, James Henry TELLERS FOR THE NOES-Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease. sufficient, or disregarded, or were not as successful as they should be in the way of preventing explosions. MR. HALDANE said that they did not know what the causes of the explosion were. They knew that there was nitro-glycerine in the building, but there were many other things there of which they knew nothing at present. There were many explosives of a dangerous nature, such, for instance, as cordite, which altered their character under varying conditions of temperature. We had brought home from abroad small quantities of those dangerous substances which had stood the heat test; but whether the explosion was due to carelessness or whether it was inevitable they had not yet determined. But he had appointed the best expert Committee which he could get together, and it was conducting an exhaustive investigation into the whole subject. That was all that he could say at present, but he would be able to give further information later on. It was probable that several of the things which had been put into the building were the cause of the explosion, but probably not blasting gelatine, otherwise fragments of blasting gelatine 2 G |