§ Dr. Bowringsaid, he rose to propose the nomination of a Committee to examine and report on the state of the Colonial Accounts. It was not a new subject, for in 1837 a Committee had been appointed—had collected together much valuable evidence—but in consequence of the Session closing, that evidence had not been completed, and there was no possibility of making a Report suggesting measures of reform. The consquence was that the evidence only was laid in an unfinished state on the Table of the House. He wished that the work begun in 1837 should be terminated 1845,—that the points which were then neglected should be now investigated, and that the arrangements necessary for giving order, uniformity, and lucidity to the Colonial accountancy, should have the weight which attached to the recommendations of a Parliamentary Committee. On the importance of the Colonies it was scarcely necessary for him to dwell. Whatever views hon. Members might take of the general subject, no one could doubt that it was a question of consummate gravity. He could not conceive that any honest person could desire that the accounts of the Colonies should be kept in a confused, irregular, or unintelligible shape. Any honest interest must desire accuracy and good faith; and the slightest consideration would show how great the interests involved. A Return lately moved for by his hon. Friend the Member for Montrose, exhibited no less than forty-one Colonies dependent upon this great Empire—containing a population of 5,000,000 of human beings. To the United Kingdom, these Colonies sent for the value of 10,500,000l., while to these we export to the value of 17,000,000l. sterling, of which nearly one-half consists of British produce and manufactures. This trade employs 3,000 ships, comprising 900,000 tons. No one, therefore, could contend for a moment that the subject-matter was one of a trifling character, or that the accounts which represent the revenues and expenditure of so vast and so varied an interest should be kept in any but a satisfactory state.
Yet nothing could be less satisfactory than the present condition of the Colo- 1322 nial Accounts which were presented to Parliament. Accounts, indeed, was a word he ought not to have employed. Accounts properly so called, there were none. There were abstracts from Blue Books—there were approximative statements,—but there was nothing that a merchant or a banker would call an account. And even such as they were they were heavily in arrear. The abstracts presented to the House, only came down to the year 1842; for 1843 there is not a single abstract; the Newfoundland Account is given no later than for 1841; and for several of the Colonies there is no account—no abstract—no statement whatever. None for Tortola—none for Anguilla, none for Fernando Po—none for Cape Coast—none for the Falkland Islands. To take the last for an example. Various Parliamentary grants had been made to the Falkland Islands. We voted 9,812l. in the year 1844; many votes had preceded this, to an amount not probably less than 20,000l. more. Of its application we know nothing—of the revenue of the Island we know nothing. It has been stated that the whole population in 1843 consisted of 111 individuals; of whom fifty-two were permanent settlers—of whom only thirty-one were British subjects. Now, when vole after vote was granted to such a Colony as this, surely Parliament ought to receive some statement as to their application.
Of the accounts presented nothing could be more irregular or less uniform than their character. No period appears to be fixed when the financial year is to begin or terminate. The 30th of September is the day most generally adopted, but the 31st of December is fixed on by many. Gibraltar has one date, Malta has another; Nova Scotia and New Brunswick choose to differ; and the difference runs through the whole list. Some of the Colonies report the amount of their public debts,—others pass this most important matter by in silence. The various departments in the Colonies keep their accounts in various manners. The Custom-house has one system—the Crown Lands Administration another—the Post Office a third; and as to stores, which ought to be reported on in every good system of bookkeeping, no reference whatever is made to them, whether the property of the Colony or of the Mother Country.
Some of the Colonies present their accounts in a tolerably satisfactory shape. Those of Jamaica, for example, are given in some detail; the amount of debt is stated at 600,000l. Barbadoes also reports her 1323 public debts, and it appears that a Committee of Public Accounts has been sitting, with a view to introduce the improvements which are allowed to be necessary. But in the case of St. Kitt's, the whole statement of the revenue is given in seven lines, and the whole details of expenditure in ten lines. In Nevis one single line disposes of the income of 8,834l. 1s.; one single line records the expenditure as 8,678l. 16s. 1½d. recorded to a halfpenny as to the amount, but not an iota of information as to how that amount is made up. It would appear from the fractions reported in some cases, that the accounts must be copied from books in the Colonies, and really represent the facts of receipt and payment—but in other cases the accounts are only estimates or guesses, and represent nothing but a supposed approximation to facts. In a word, there is no unity of plan or purpose—no general model—no system pervading the whole—no two, indeed, adopting the same plan. In some the revenues are divided into fixed and incidental—in others they are wholly blended—what is called fixed in some, is denominated incidental in another. In some Colonies, as in the case of Honduras, the revenues are reported in the minutest detail—in others they are given in a lump, without an attempt at classification. In the receipts from the Customs, the returns are sometimes made instructive by giving the particulars under various heads, and showing the amounts levied on the sundry articles of importation—in other cases not only the Customs, but all the receipts, are brought into a general head, with some such a phrase as "revenues collected under Acts of Parliament." In the accounts of the Cape of Good Hope, the revenues and expenditure are recorded on a plan peculiar to that Colony. They have two columns, one representing amounts paid and received—another representing arrears both of receipt and payment—one recording what has been done, another what ought to have been done.
In these accounts it is for the most part impossible to decide whether the statements represent gross or net revenue—whether the amounts are the receipts after or before the charges of collection are deducted. In some of the Colonies there is a debit for the cost of collection and for the expenses of protecting the revenues—in others there is no reference to any deductions. Now, according to his (Dr. Bowring's) view, there can be no really efficient control, 1324 either in the Colonies or elsewhere, unless the gross revenues are paid without any deductions whatever into the Public Treasury.
Were the accounts what they ought to be, they would exactly harmonise with the corresponding accounts in this country. Take for example the accounts of the Customs. As these are under the immediate influence of the London Board of Commissioners, there ought to be some means of checking the accuracy of the accounts by a reference to the central books in London. Now it appears by the evidence of Mr. Wodehouse, as given to the Committee in 1837, that the gross receipts for Customs in the Colonies was 555,137l., of which 401,142l. was paid into the Colonial chest, and the remainder was exhausted in salaries, costs of collection, &c.—but the corresponding returns of Customs, Colonial Revenue, gave only 142,000l. as receipts, and 105,000l. as cost of collection, which would seem to leave a balance of 37,000l. as paid into the Colonial chest; while it appears not only that there was no balance on the general Custom-house receipts of the Colonies, but that 14,832l. beyond the amount of Colonial Customs was contributed from the Custom-house revenues of the mother country.
Equally irregular are the records of Colonial outlay. Ordinary and extraordinary expenditure are in some Colonies distinguished—in others confounded. For some the expenses of the Civil Service are given in detail—in others in a mass—some Colonies go into the minutiae of farthings—record the salaries and duties of every functionary—others dispose of the whole affair in a single line, and with the words "all civil officers," and a round sum at the end thereof, with the whole question of outlay under this particular head. The details of the expenditure of New South Wales, for example, being above 800,000l. occupy nine folio pages—that of Canada, which is 476,000l., is despatched in less than a page and a half—or in less space than is occupied to account for the 20,000l. which is disposed of in Prince Edward's Island, or the 13,500l. spent in Honduras.
The mode of making payments in the Colonies does not appear to be regulated by any general principle. Whether they are effected under the authority of a warrant from the Governor, or by order of an official specially appointed, is not clear; nor does there seem to be any periodical examination of the cash balances in the Colo- 1325 nial checks to ascertain their conformity with the books. It is notorious that there have been frequent defalcations, and that proper investigations into the moneys actually in the hands of cashiers would have checked many frauds in their progress; but there is no reason to believe that the simple plan of comparing the balances in the cash books with the amounts in the treasurer's or cashier's hands, has been generally or even partially adopted.
And then, again, as to the auditing the accounts in the Colonies. For this important matter there is no provision; neither the duties of auditors, nor the manner in which those duties shall be discharged, are provided for. Auditors in many of the Colonies undoubtedly there are, if a charge for the service of such functionaries is evidence of their existence. In Malta, the charge for auditors is 980l. per annum. In Gibraltar, 317l.; and in Ceylon, Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and other Colonies, they appear among the regular Colonial functionaries. But the accounts bear no proof's of their having exercised their authority; they bear no auditors' signature—no sign of auditors' examination or approval. It may be supposed that the audit—uncertain and irregular abroad—is complete and perfect at home. We have here an Audit Board which costs the country some 50,000l. a year. Are its functions fitly exercised? Is it, what it ought to be, a tribunal of revision and control, giving security to the public against the irregularities and frauds of those who handle the public money? Far from it. Accounts to the amount of millions sterling have been passed without proper vouchers. In 1833, 150 accounts were allowed to slip through unaudited and unapproved—and the amounts involved were 5,000,000l sterling. It has been impossible for this office to wade through the accumulated mass of arrears; and hence from time to time accounts have been shelved with all their errors, and permitted to be flung into the realms of oblivion, from the alleged impossibility of establishing a proper examination. Applications have sometimes been made to the Treasury for additional assistance; but whether granted or refused, the Board has been wholly unable to cope with the mass of business referred to it. Nor are the functions and powers of the Audit Office very clearly defined. If they detect an error—if they track a defaulter, so as to substantiate his offence—if they obtain substantial evidence 1326 of fraud, they have no power to enforce a payment or a penalty. The Cour des Comptes in France is a tribunal to which every fiscal or financial functionary is amenable, before which he is regularly cited, and can be discharged from his responsibility only after the elaborate examination and formal approval of his accounts by their judicial declaration. Every voucher is sent to that tribunal to prove the facts of receipt and payment. Every receipt is examined to ascertain its being authorized by Parliamentary authority—every disbursement is compared with Parliamentary grants—the regularity of every issue is sifted—and the accounts, when audited, are presented to the Chambers in exactly the same form, and under the same heads, as the Votes of the Budget. This identity of classification is an admirable security for order. First, the Estimates, which precede the receipts and payments as sanctioned by the Legislature. Then, secondly, the accounts as representing the facts of receipt and payment, according to the sanction so given, but preserving the same classification as that of the Estimates. And, thirdly, the final audit, corresponding in form with the original Estimates, and the current yearly account of Income and Expenditure, so that any public grant may be traced through its stages in the Budget, anticipated in the accounts as realized, and in the audit as approved; and all this is accomplished without any accounts being allowed to fall into arrear.
Compare this with the state of things in an Audit Office. In 1837, according to the evidence given by Mr. Hamilton, the Colonial Accounts of 1831 had not been audited; and the audit itself, always in arrears, appears to be of a most unsatisfactory character. The same witness states, that of the cash accounts of the Colonies, the auditors have no cognizance; and that the detailed entries (by which only a satisfactory examination can be established) are not even transmitted to the Audit Office. According to a statement made in conformity with an Order of the House of Commons in 1843, it appeared that the accounts of St. Helena and Van Diemen's Land had not been audited at all; that the accounts of Ceylon were eleven years in arrear at the Audit Office; those of the Cape of Good Hope eight years; of the Mauritius, and Southern Australia, seven years; of Malta and Upper Canada, six years; of Western Australia, five years; of Lower 1327 Canada, four years, and so on; while the same Return gave most extraordinary reasons for the delay. In one case (Southern Australia) it is stated that the accounts previous to 1839 had not been delivered to the Audit Office; and those for 1840 had not been delivered complete. Incomplete accounts are, as everybody knows, nearly equivalent to no accounts at all. From the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope we learn, that the accounts were always in arrear; in arrear at the Audit Office—in arrear from the Colony; that illness and death had impeded the examination from being continued. Is this a tolerable thing for a public officer to avow—the service undone, and no arrangements made for doing it? Again, it is stated, in the Ceylon accounts, that there had been delays and arrears which are most unsatisfactorily explained — no answers to inquiries on accounts of 1834, and the inquiries as to the accounts of 1833 not received till the year 1840. In the Gambia accounts, illness and absence of the examiners pleaded as a reason for the delay; and the same causes stated as an excuse for the non-auditing the accounts of Sierra Leone and the Mauritius. A long list of the Colonial accounts are stated to have been neglected in consequence of the examiner being called away to "the examination of the accounts of the late service in Syria."
But, bad as matters are, they were formerly much worse. The Colonial accounts previously to 1814 appear never to have been audited at all; but the establishment of the Colonial Audit did lead to some useful suggestions, which, however, have been very imperfectly carried out; and which, indeed, have nothing of a complete or comprehensive character, and have proved wholly inadequate to remove the mass of irregularity and abuse. One point appears to have been tolerably well accomplished—namely, the separation of the military from the civil expenditure—which, though so obvious a necessity for distinguishing what charge should fall on the Colony, and what on the mother country, was formerly neglected. It would be wearying the House to exhibit in how many Reports an improvement in the manner of keeping the Colonial accounts has been insisted on. The Commission which in 1830 visited several of the Colonies, urgently recommend that a better mode of stating the accounts be adopted, and a system of uniformity introduced 1328 Nor did he (Dr. Bowring) conceive that the difficulties or the resistance would be great or immovable. In the Crown Colonies, it is clear, the Executive could at once and peremptorily interfere, and require the accounts to be presented in the form that is most satisfactory to the Government; and there is every reason to believe, from the evidence given before the Committee in 1837, that the Colonies having Representative Assemblies would very cheerfully concur in any suggestions having for their object the improvement of the public accounts. Some of them, as he had before remarked, have already begun the good work; and all must be really interested in a sound and satisfactory system of book-keeping. The Committee for which he was asking could not propose to interfere with the authority possessed by the popular Assemblies of the Representative Colonies. It could only suggest models and plans for the improvement of their public accounts; but as every honest and intelligent person must desire that accounts should be kept in the best shape—since no one profits by irregularity, except the careless and the fraudulent—he (Dr. Bowring) was persuaded that the Colonies in general would lend a hearty co-operation. And he would state some of the objects which he proposed to accomplish. And, first, a general scheme of improvements. Let the best plan be adopted—let its introduction be insisted on in the Crown Colonies, and recommended to the approval of the Representative Colonies. Let the system of double entry be universally recommended—of its value no unprejudiced person could entertain a doubt. The evidence of the Accountant General of the Navy (Mr. Briggs) is irresistible on this subject. He gives the strongest testimony as to the security it affords for accuracy, for despatch, and for economy—and its universal use among merchants—and its introduction by all Governments that have had their attention directed to the subject, leaves no room for doubt or hesitation. Then, again, it is a principle scarcely less important, that the gross revenues should, in all cases, be paid into the Colonial chest—that no deductions, under any plea whatever, should be made in their progress. This fundamental principle of all sound and satisfactory public accountancy, has been recommended by the Audit Board itself—has been approved by the Treasury, and laid down in the strongest terms by the Commissioners of Public Accounts. 1329 The same principle requires that all proceeds of stores—all moneys of every sort which may be raised by the sales of public property, in or by any department of public expenditure, should not be applied by that department, but be paid into the public Treasury, to be drawn out only as any other public money is drawn. This, of course, implies that the departments of Receipt and Expenditure should be kept wholly distinct and apart; and the one be never allowed to interfere with the functions of the other. The gross revenue being thus conveyed to the public chest, some uniform system should be adopted for their appropriation; the authority under which they are to be drawn on should be accurately and clearly defined, whether under a Governor's warrant, or by authorities specially appointed. Some security analogous to that which the Exchequer exercises upon the issue of the public money in this country, ought to be established in all the Colonies. The mode in which all entries should be made, and all books kept in the Colonies, should be also prescribed; so that the progress of receipt and payment might correspond with the authorities granted by the estimates.
These estimates, in the shape of Budgets, should in all cases be the groundwork of the whole system. They should be regularly prepared, in all of the Colonies, previous to the commencement of the financial year; and after being submitted to the Colonial Office, be regularly laid before Parliament, not for the purpose of Parliamentary interference with the disposal of the revenues, but for the communication of all the important information to which the Imperial Parliament is entitled, and which it has always been in the habit of receiving, though in a very incomplete and unsatisfactory form. Years ago, when Sir George Murray was Secretary to the Colonies, he pledged himself that a Colonial Budget should be laid before Parliament. That promise seems to have been wholly forgotten; but if effect had been given to it, much embarrassment might have been prevented, and many abuses would have been eradicated. The control of the Colonial Office at the Treasury would have been strengthened, and we might have had at head-quarters, at the Treasury, a set of Colonial books, exhibiting the Colonial finances with the same regularity and accuracy as those of the mother country. At present all was uncertainty and anar- 1330 chy; and with a view to put an end to this state of things, he had to propose, in the words of the Resolution of 1837,—
"That a Select Committee be appointed to examine into the Accounts of Colonial Receipt and Expenditure, laid on the Table of this House, and to report as to the mode in which it may be desirable to frame the same for the future, in order to introduce uniformity, regularity, correctness, and completeness."
§ Mr. G. W. Hopedid not rise to object to the Committee, but wished the House to consider to what extent it was likely their labours would be valuable. As he understood, the proposal was to take such Members of the former Committee as were now in the House, to complete the inquiry they began, with a view partly to an improved mode of collection, and partly to a Colonial Budget, of course with estimates to be laid on the Table, without which a Budget would be useless. Now, as regarded the Crown Colonies, the Government assumed responsibility over the Revenue, and had been for years occupied in introducing improvements; but, as regarded Colonies having popular forms of Government, that House and Her Majesty's Ministers had no responsibility; but left the matter in the control of the local Assemblies; if the House made a recommendation it rested with those Colonies to adopt it or not, as they pleased. As far as the Government had power over its own officers, it was already endeavouring to enforce regularity; but variety must be expected from a number of Colonial Assemblies.
§ Mr. Humethought that even a suggestion to those Assemblies would be useful, though it might not be authoritative. If the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) wanted money, here was a department in which large sums might be saved. An enormous expense for collection was allowed in order to keep up patronage; and in the mode of levying many of the products of this country were unfairly dealt with. The Colonies ought to be no expense to the mother country; whereas we were paying large sums for Australia and other of our possessions. In France there were no complaints of mismanagement; but then there was a board comprising a delegate from each Colony, to whom the Minister of Marine resorted for a Report on any question that might arise. He 1331 thought the Government acted wisely in complying with the Motion of his hon. Friend.