§ MR. ALDERMAN LUSKsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, If he has any objection to explain to the House—seeing that the Government last Session obtained a Vote (Class 5, Vote 20) for expenses of Garter King at Arms and Viscount Sydney, in investing the King of the Belgians with the Order of the Garter, £1,020 11s. 6d. Expenses investing Kings of Portugal and Denmark and Grand Duke of Hesse with the Order of the Garter, £2,537 3s. 10d.; total, £3,557 15s. 4d.—why he asked, on Monday, the 17th instant, for, and obtained, a Vote under the head of Civil Service Excesses (Item No. 12, Special Missions, £10,224 17s. 5d.), described as—
Chiefly due to the expenses of Mr. Rassam's Mission to Abyssinia, and of investing the Kings of Belgium, Portugal, and Denmark, and the Grand Duke of Hesse, with the Order of the Garter?
§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, in reply, that the hon. Gentleman was mistaken in supposing that a Vote for these items was taken in the Estimates last year. An account comprising those and other items of the previous year's expenditure was appended to the Estimate of last year for the purpose of showing the data on which that Estimate was based. The Vote taken on Monday, the 17th, was for excesses of the year erring March 31, 1867—the expenditure under Vote 20, Class 5, having exceeded the Estimate in that year.