HC Deb 20 March 1876 vol 228 cc337-42

(12.) £9,330, Ashantee Expedition, Gratuities and Prize Pay.

(13.) £6,249, Mediterranean Extension Telegraph Company.

Mr. FAWCETT

asked for an explanation of the Vote.

Mr. BECKETT-DENISON

asked, whether it was likely to be a recurring annual charge, and if the Government had any control over the expenditure.

MR. W. H. SMITH

, in reply, said, that the payment was made in pursuance of a guarantee—which was given in 1857, and would expire on the 1st of December, 1882—to supplement the revenue of the company, so as to enable them to pay a dividend of 6 per cent upon their capital, which amounted to £120,000. The Government had a representative at the Board of the Company; but he was unable to say whether he had any effectual control over the expenditure of the concern.

Vote agreed to.

(14.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £8,192, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1876, for the repayment of certain Miscellaneous Advances to the Civil Contingencies Fund.

MR. MONK

said, the second item in the Vote was £923 1s. 6d. for the equipage of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He wished to know whether this was a usual charge, but in any case he thought it was excessive. Then there was an item of £1,500 for the services of the British agent in connection with the Washington claims, as to which he should wish to have some explanation. The last item to which he wished to direct attention was compensation to Mr. M'Carthy, and payment of his medical and other expenses. It seemed that Mr. M'Carthy had received some injury at the Tipperary election, and he thought the county of Tipperary ought to be called upon to compensate him.

SIR WILLIAM FRASER

called attention to the items of £8 to supply some default of the Consular officer at Odessa, 18s. for repairing the club of the late Sovereign of Fiji, presented to the Queen, and an extraordinary item for "animals washed ashore; burying the corpses of."

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

said, he did not think the Government should be made responsible for money deposited with our Consuls, and mentioned a sum which the Government had paid for Mr. Granville Murray, and a sum of £825 expenses of the Paris Geographical Congress.

MR. W. H. SMITH

said, that it had always been customary to provide for the equipage of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. It had also always been the custom when our Consuls received money in their official capacity that the Government should make good any losses sustained by the default of those officers. With regard to the sum awarded to Mr. Howard in connection with the Wash- ington claims, that gentleman had been engaged in the winding up of a very long and difficult task, which he had discharged with great ability, and he was fully entitled to the sum which it was now proposed to give him. As to the charge in connection with the Tipperary election, the fact was that Mr. M'Carthy was acting on the occasion in discharge of his duty as a magistrate, and the election being rather more lively than usual, he lost an eye and sustained other injuries, and the Government had decided to pay the expenses of his doctor and give him a small gratuity.

Mr. GOLDSMID

expressed his opinion that successful candidates at their elections were liable to pay for damage incurred, or, failing them, the boroughs or the counties they contested.

MR. BECKETT-DENISON

denied the existence of any such liability on the part of candidates.

Mr. GOLDSMID

did not see why the constituency should be charged with the damage done in an Irish row. In England the hundred was charged when damage was done by riot, and he saw no reason why the law should not be the same in Ireland.

Mr. O'REILLY

assured the hon. Gentleman that he was mistaken; the law was the same on the question in Ireland as in England.

CAPTAIN NOLAN

wished to call attention to the payment to Mr. Ganly for delivering up the registers of the diocese of Ferns, which he had purchased at an auction of unclaimed goods from the Great Southern and Western Railway Company of Ireland. He should like to know how those important documents were left as unclaimed goods in the stores of the company? He understood that the documents were lost through the carelessness of the officers of the Commission in misdirecting the papers and then never inquiring after them. He should move to reduce the Vote by the sum of £125, which he thought ought to be paid by the Church Temporalities Commissioners, as the incident arose from their unsatisfactory mode of conducting business.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £8,067, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1876, for the repayment of certain Miscellaneous Advances to the Civil Contingencies Fund."—(Captain Nolan.)

MR. BRUEN

explained that a box with the valuable papers in question was sent to the Commissioners, who selected some and returned the others. The box was unfortunately endorsed "hardware." And when it reached Kilkenny it was taken to all the hardware merchants in the place. None of them claimed it, and it went back to the Great Southern and Western Railway Station at Dublin, and was eventually sold as "unclaimed goods."

MR. SULLIVAN

said, the matter had been much talked about in Ireland, and it was looked upon as a beautiful exemplification of the way in which the Irish Church Temporalities Commissioners did their business.

SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH

accepted the explanation of the hon. Member for Carlow, but said there was no error in sending the box, except its being accidentally labelled as "hardware." The miscarriage was the fault of officers in the service of the Government, and in that way the charge came upon the Votes.

MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY

suggested that the Church Temporalities Commissioners were doing their best to get rid of any surplus there might be in their Department; and if the Vote was not passed that surplus would be reduced still further. He, therefore, advised the withdrawal of the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question put, and agreed to.

(15.) £6,500, Inland Revenue.

(16.) £9,000, Post Office Packet Service.

(17.) £500,000, Charges defrayed by the War Office on account of India.

Mr. W. H. SMITH

explained that the sum had been paid by the War Office to colonels of regiments serving in India, and that an equivalent amount had been paid by the Indian Establishment to the Treasury, who had treated it as part of the revenue of the year, instead of handing it over to the War Office. Under these circumstances, it was thought right to adjust the accounts between the two Departments by bringing forward the Vote, instead of there being so large a suspense account carried on.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

admitted that the question was purely one of book-keeping, but added that he thought they ought to have all the accounts before them. The delays in settling these transactions were open to the gravest objection. The Select Committee of 1874, on which he had served never anticipated that so long a time would elapse in bringing the affairs to a settlement. But so far from the Arbitrator, who was selected to aid in deciding fairly between the two Governments on the disputed accounts, he had, if reports could be credited, actually intensified the difficulties by adopting the views of one side, hostile to India. All that he could say was, that so long as India allowed English Administrators to transact the business of India in their own way, without that proper check which should invariably exist, then India must expect to pay dearly for neglecting those ordinary precautions which sensible men in all other affairs of life so properly take.

MR. BECKETT-DENISON

wished to know whether there was any likelihood of the arbitration in reference to the two Departments coming to an end?

MR. W. H. SMITH

had every reason to think that the decision of the arbitrators would be acted upon.

Vote agreed to.

(18.) £238,255 4s. 6d., Navy Excess of Expenditure, 1874–5.

Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE

asked some explanation of the large excess. The late Government, during the last two years it was in office, was not responsible for any increase of expenditure over the Estimates.

Mr. HUNT

said, he must repeat the explanation he gave on the subject when he introduced the Navy Estimates, that the excess had been kept from the knowledge of the First Lord owing to the cumbrous state of the present system of accounting, but that he had decided to try and remedy such a thing for the future by making a change in the Accountant General's office. As to the excess of £238,000, it chiefly arose on the Store Vote. The Government had to carry out larger operations in the Dockyards than were contemplated by their Predecessors. He had, however, hoped that the surpluses on some Votes would suffice to meet the deficit on others; but to his surprise during the last few weeks of the financial year, when it was too late to take a Supplementary Estimate, he discovered that there was a large deficit on the aggregate Vote. He hoped that arrangements which he had made would prevent the necessity of asking in future for large Supplementary Votes for the Navy.

MR. GOSCHEN

trusted that the anomaly referred to would not occur again. He should like to know when the Navy Estimates would come on again?

Mr. HUNT

said, he was unable to name a day, but he understood that the House would be asked to give precedence to the Committee on the Merchant Shipping Bill.

Vote agreed to.

(19.) £3,718 18s. 11d., Grenwich Hospital and School, Excess of Expenditure.

House resumed.

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow; Committee to sit again upon Wednesday.