94 FOR THE YEAR 1926. (Presented to Parliament by His Majesty's Command.) Ordered, by The House of Commons, to be Printed, 17th June 1926. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE. To be purchased directly from H.M. STATIONERY OFFICE at the following addresses: or 120, George Street, Edinburgh; or through any Bookseller. 1926. Price 3d. Net. ORDNANCE FACTORIES ESTIMATE, 1926. I. Estimate of the Sum required in the Year ending 31st March, 1927, to defray the Expense of the ORDNANCE FACTORIES, the Cost of the Productions of which will be charged to the Army, Navy, Air Force, &c. One Hundred Pounds. II. Subheads under which this Vote will be accounted for. Estimate of INCOMINGS and OUTGOINGS in respect of CAPITAL in the ORDNANCE FACTORIES during the Year 1926: * As in the case of Army Estimates the Ordnance Factories Estimate now reverts to the cash form. The total cash figure of £3,191,800 for 1925 shown in the Estimate for that year is here divided into subheads for comparison with 1926. ORDNANCE FACTORIES ESTIMATE, 1926. The Ordnance Factories consist of the following: At Woolwich.-Royal Ammunition Factory, Royal Filling Factory, and Royal Gun and Carriage Factory; with an Engineering and Building Works Department which serves the whole of the Arsenal and Dockyard area. At Enfield Lock.-Royal Small Arms Factory. At Waltham Abbey.-Royal Gun Powder Factory. A reserve establishment at Hereford, and pivotal plant centres containing plant which would be brought into use on emergency, at Blackpole (Worcestershire), Birtley (Durham) and Irvine (Ayrshire). The Factories are administered, under the Master-General of the Ordnance, by the Director of Ordnance Factories, whose pay is borne on Army Vote 12 (War Office). They supply the Service Departments, and also the Dominions, India and the Colonies, with guns, mountings, rifles, ammunition, tanks, vehicles, torpedoes, and many other warlike stores. They are also largely used for repair work. (Goods similar to those made by the Factories are also supplied to the Services by trade firms.) The several customers of the Factories are charged each year for the work done for them at the cost prices shown in the Factory Manufacturing Accounts, and the Factories thus recover in the year all their working expenses, together with depreciation charges sufficient to enable them to finance for themselves all their normal requirements in the way of new capital services (see below under Supplies Suspense Account). Normally, therefore, no substantive Ordnance Factories Vote is required, but a token vote of 1001. is taken in order to bring the Estimate before Parliament. The cost prices charged to customers are assessed on a system revised in 1921 so as to bring it into line, subject to necessary modifications, with modern commercial practice. The prices, however, do not include any charge in respect of rent of land, interest on capital or profit. On the other hand they include part of the cost of maintenance of the reserve capacity which would be required on emergency, the balance of that cost being recovered in the form of direct contributions in aid from the Navy, Army and Air Force; the payment by Army (78,000l. in 1926) appears under Vote 9 D. on page 176 of the Army Estimates. With the reversion this year to the normal cash form of Parliamentary Estimate (see footnote on page 2), the several subheads of the Vote represent the amounts estimated to be paid or received within the year. Supplies Suspense Account. The Estimate of Incomings and Outgoings in respect of Capital works up to a balancing item consisting of a transfer 26120 A 2 |