HC Deb 27 February 1839 vol 45 cc942-5
The Chancellor of the Exchequer

in a Committee of Ways and Means, proposed a resolution for a transfer of aids.

Mr. Hume

would take that opportunity of giving notice that upon an early day he would move that a separate account be presented of all issues from the Treasury of Exchequer Bills for Public Works. The accounts were at present kept in a confused manner, and there was much room for improvement.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer

begged to assure his hon. Friend and the House, that he was most anxious to do all in his power to render the accounts as simple as possible. He would take that opportunity of stating to the House that he had not in any manner departed from the old practice in making out the public accounts. The suggestion that he had done so was unfounded.

Mr. Hume

thought this was a matter well deserving the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The charge made against the right hon. Gentleman, however, was not for altering the public accounts, but for having last year so managed the accounts as to add 2,000,000l. or 3,000,000l. to the national debt without the sanction of that House; and he (Mr. Hume) believed the charge was quite true. The funded debt of the country was increased by the exchange which had been effected, Exchequer bills being bought by saving-banks money, and converted into 3 per cent. stock, utterly without the knowledge or sanction of Parliament. Two millions of Exchequer-bills had been taken out of circulation, and the result was, as he had stated, the House and the country only arriving at a knowledge of the fact through the production of certain returns for which he had moved in the course of last, Session. He did not mean to say that the regular market-price had not been paid; he did not mean to say that the operation was not essential to public credit, and was, on the whole, beneficial: he did not quarrel with the fact, but with the mode in which it was effected. This was the ground of complaint; and what, he would ask, was going on now? It was well known the expenditure exceeded the income. The Bank, it was alleged, made no advances, and it was quite clear the right hon. Gentleman could not make up his deficiency of a million and a half without some resources. The interest of the public required that the mystery in this matter should be cleared up.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer

said, the mystery he had formerly alluded to respected tile form of the accounts, which, in some way or another, had been supposed not to communicate to the public the information they had been accustomed to receive. But nothing in the whole world could be more unfounded. With regard to the particular operation, to which his hon. Friend now referred, one might imagine, from what had fallen from him, that some act had been done by the Treasury which there was no law to warrant. The fact, however, was otherwise. The whole of that proceeding originated in, and was supported by, the authority of the law passed several years back—in 1827, he believed—which allowed such operations; and the knowledge of the fact could by that law only be communicated to the House by the statement of the Exchequer-bills so transferred.

Mr. Hume

was aware of the existence of that law. It passed when Mr. Herries was Chancellor of the Exchequer; and he perfectly well recollected objecting to it at the time; but he was told that his alarms were groundless, and that no person would add to the funded debt of the country without consulting Parliament. That was so far true, for up to last year it had never been acted upon; and he did complain, that, with an increased expenditure, the national debt and burdens of the country had thereby been augmented. He hoped the present Session would not pass without a correction of the evil. One Chancellor of the Exchequer might do one thing, and another another; they might go on expending the resources and increasing the funded debt of the country without the knowledge of Parliament. Such a state of things could not be permitted to continue, and, with the view of bringing the matter fairly before the House, he should shortly move for similar returns to those he had called for last Session.

Resolution agreed to.