§ COLONEL CHATTERTONbegged to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary at War if a fund, called the St. Patrick's Fund, in the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, had been arranged; and if so, if he had any objection to lay on the table the particulars of that arrangement, and how the sum of 3,000l and upwards, belonging to that fund, had been divided and disposed of?
§ MR. F. MAULEsaid, that, with reference to this and other funds in certain regiments of the line, the House would recollect that an Act of Parliament had been passed last year, appointing a commission, consisting of the Secretary at War, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary of the Commander-in-chief, to examine into the nature of those funds, into their amount, and to settle in an equitable manner the way in which they should be distributed amongst those presently entitled to their advantage. That commission had lately met; they had revised the various funds of the benefit societies, and, among the rest, the fund belonging to the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards. They had arranged the mode of distributing all those funds equitably among those entitled to claim anything from them, and as soon as their report should have been adjusted, and put in form, they would have no objection to lay it on the table of the House, whereby the public would know the mode in which it was proposed to distribute those benefit funds. He might add that, from the nature of the Act of Parliament, and the in- 359 structions from the Commander-in-chief, no benefit society of any kind would be permitted to exist in future in any regiment of the line.