§ Lord Henry Pettymoved the order of the day for the house to resolve into a committee on the bill for the better regulation of the office of Treasurer of the Ordnance. The order being read, the noble lord explained the objects of this bill: first, that the house might have under its view a correct regulation in the mode of expenditure for such sums of the public money as it should think proper to vote for this branch of the public service; and, secondly, for securing the responsibility of the public officer charged with the disbursement of such expenditure; and to prevent, as far as possible, the misapplication of money entrusted to his charge. If the bill, in its present form, should be liable to any objections, he was ready to attend to the suggestions of gentlemen, and to avail himself of their assistance, so far as he thought really conducive to the objects of the bill; and he should have no objection, if necessary, to re-commit the bill for a future day.—The house having resolved into a committee,
§ Mr. Wellesley Polesaid, he had a number of suggestions to propose for the adoption of the committee in amendment of this bill, which was utterly inadequate to the purposes for which it was avowed. Most of those suggestions had the approbation of the noble lord himself, upon whom he had felt it his duty to wait, and to mention his objections to the bill; for it was 528 his wish, really and sincerely, to communicate such suggestions to the noble lord as had appeared to him from experience absolutely necessary to give effect to the objects of a bill, the principle of which he very much approved. The hon. gent. now entered into a detail of the official routine in the department of Treasurer of the Ordnance, through which monies had hitherto issued, and under which the treasurer not only was enabled, but usually, and he believed uniformly, did make use of large balances of the public money remaining at his disposal, owing to his being enabled to draw for a full quarter's amount of the chief expenditure, a quarter of a year before it was ultimately payable to the claimants. Having suggested an arrangement by which this application might in future be completely prevented, he shewed the impossibility of disbursing, by drafts on the bank, very large sums of money which were payable weekly and individually to working gun-smiths, armourers, and other labourers in the tower, for which purpose it would be absolutely necessary that some balance must remain in the treasurer's hands. But one very principal omission he remarked in the bill was, that, although a large sum was voted for ordnance services in Ireland, the word Ireland never so much as once appeared in the bill. To remove these several defects, he read the amendments which he proposed, and strongly recommended that no alteration with respect to Ireland might take place, as he understood was intended, in the ordnance establishment of that country, which he could assure the committee, and the noble lord, was established on a most correct and effectual system of economy, for the advantage of the public service: he said, that a plan of regulation, similar to the present bill, was in the contemplation of the noble lord late at the head of the ordnance.
§ Lord Henry Pettyacknowledged the attention paid by the hon. gent. upon a subject to which he was so eminently competent, and approved the amendment he suggested. But with respect to Ireland, the only reason why nothing was mentioned in the bill with regard to it was, that an arrangement was in contemplation, calculated to give the noble duke who, happily for that country, now presided over its government, a more effectual controul over the expenditure of the ordnance department there.
§ Mr. Huskissonsaid, that for a considerable time before the disease of his late right hon. friend, a project was not only in contemplation for the establishment of effectual checks, such as those now proposed, on the expenditure of public money in the ordnance department, and in every other public office, as professedly intended by the noble lord, but that the plan had really been long acted upon, and only awaited an opportunity of parliamentary regulation, under a bill in the contemplation of his right hon. friend.—The clauses were then read and agreed to, and added to the bill.