HC Deb 14 June 1852 vol 122 cc615-6
MR. MONSELL

said, he had two questions to put to the hon. Member for Herefordshire (Mr. Cornewall Lewis), who was Secretary to the Treasury in the late Government. On Friday last he (Mr. Monsell) asked the Home Secretary why it was that the annual grant for the repair of Maynooth College had been left out of the Estimates this year? To that question the right hon. Gentleman replied, that the reason why it was omitted was, that the Government did not consider there were any circumstances that rendered any such vote necessary, and therefore it had been omitted from the Estimates that the present Government had adopted. He wished to ask the hon. Gentleman the Member for Herefordshire, first, whether it was within his knowledge that the Estimate had been sent in by the Board of Works in Ireland (the proper authority) for the repair of the College of Maynooth this year; and, secondly, whether the late Government gave any direction for the omission from the Civil Service Estimates for this year of the annual grant for that College before they went out of office?

MR. CORNEWALL LEWIS

said, that in the course of last autumn the usual circular was sent by the Treasury to the different departments, calling on them to furnish their answers with respect to the Estimates for the ensuing year. Before the late Government went out of office, an answer was received from the Irish Board of Works, in which there was a sum proposed for repairs to the College of Maynooth, amounting, according to the best of his memory, to the sum of either 1,000l. or 1,200. Before the change of Government took-place, the Estimates had not been prepared to be laid before the House; they were not put in the form in which they are printed, nor had they been considered by the Government. No directions had been given by the late Government for the omission of this item from the annual Estimates; and he could only say that he had no reason to doubt that if the late Government had remained in office this item would have been continued in the Estimates as before.