HC Deb 24 April 1856 vol 141 cc1450-66
SIR FRANCIS BARING

said, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would save him wearying the House with a very uninteresting subject. If he had the assurance of the right hon. Gentleman that no objection would be made to the appointment of a Committee for the purposes of which he had given notice, he would at once resume his seat. He must otherwise make a very dull speech, and he did not think his right hon. Friend would make a very lively answer. He wished to spare the House, but as he received no response to his appeal he must go into the whole case. He desired at once to discharge from the mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer any impression that it was his intention to move for a Finance Committee. Nor did he wish to cuter into the question of establishments to see whether a clerk might not be discharged here and a messenger there, or into the details as to the mode of keeping accounts, whether by double or single entry. But he thought he should convince the House of the propriety of inquiry being made into the general accountability for public money. It might be well if he were allowed to state what he considered a good system should secure:—first, that the money should be properly spent, that the regulations of the departments should be properly carried out, that proper vouchers should be produced for the actual payment of money; secondly, that the Treasury, the finance department, should have general superintendence of all the other departments, not for the purpose of inquiring into small details, but that it might be able to hold a supervision over the general expenditure of the country; thirdly, Parliament ought to be satisfied that the money voted was not only spent for the public service, but for that particular public service for which it was voted. Now, in discussions, he thought that weight was often attached to some one or two of these points, while the remaining were neglected—thus official men were very apt to say that each department could audit its own accounts better than the Audit Office. That was quite true in one sense, and if the first point were only required, because very good care would be taken that the vouchers should be correct, and the money spent for the public service. But, it seemed to be entirely forgotten that there ought to be a check of the Treasury and a Parliamentary check carried out, not only in one, but in every public service; and by a departmental audit both these cheeks were either weakened or neglected. Again, the Treasury were apt to argue that, if their check was provided for, the arrangement was satisfactory; but, after all, the Treasury was but a public department, and might have temptations like other departments, and a tendency not to apply the public money according to the intentions of the House. There ought to be, therefore, a check on the part of the House of Commons. He did not, however, at all appear as an accuser, he merely wished to point out the deficiencies of a system, deficiencies arising from changes of which he generally approved. He was far from wishing to impute dishonest practices to the Treasury or elsewhere; it was not that the moneys were not wholly applied to the public service, but that they were not applied in accordance with the Votes and intentions of Parliament. He would now proceed to explain the different points which, in his opinion, required investigation. He would first take the payment of public money into the Exchequer, and upon that point he would remind the House of a case to which he had the other day called their attention. He had asked for an explanation relative to a sum of nearly £250,000 which had been abducted in its progress to the Exchequer. The fact itself was a strong proof that no sufficient check now existed upon the manner in which money was paid into the Exchequer; and the explanation he received, although satisfactory as regarded persons, was very unsatisfactory as regarded the system. He was told that the Treasury had power to deduct the money by issuing a Minute. Now, if that Minute was in perfect conformity with precedent and law his case was stronger, for a system which allowed the Treasury by a Minute of its own to stop nearly £250,000 on its way to the Exchequer certainly called for some inquiry. Again, great alterations had lately been made in the manner in which gross revenue was paid into the Exchequer. Money arising from the sale of old stores and other sums of that kind, previously deducted from the separate items voted in a Committee of Supply, were now carried into the Exchequer, but he should like to know in what way and at what time they were so carried? He should also like to know the rules which regulated repayments, never having been able to ascertain what those rules were when he held office. Next, as to the issues—all the sums paid to the different offices were now issued from the Exchequer to one Paymaster. Before 1836, the Exchequer paid the money intended for the Navy to the Treasurer of the Navy, that for the Army to the Paymaster of the Forces, that for the Ordnance to the Treasurer of the Ordnance, that for Civil Service to the Paymaster of the Civil Service, and other sums, in the same way, to a number of other accountants. That was an expensive system, but it had this advantage, that whatever money was issued for a particular service could be applied only to that service. The moneys once in the hands of their several paymasters could not be moved from one service to the other. Soon after the passing of the Exchequer Bill, the offices of the Treasurers of the Navy, of the Ordnance, and of the Forces, and subsequently those of the Paymaster of the Civil Service and of some other departments, were consolidated. Now, what had been the effect, the unintentional effect, of that consolidation? Why, all the sums that were issued went into the hands of one paymaster, the money intended for the Navy was paid into the same office as that intended for the Army, the distinction that was formerly of necessity made between the various funds no longer existed, and a custom had grown up of making advances from one department to another of those funds. Thus the money voted for the Navy, for instance, after it had been received by the Paymaster General, was regarded as applicable to any service to which he or the Treasury might think fit to apply it. Whether that system was a proper one or not he thought its establishment was not intended either by the Exchequer Bill of 1835 or by the regulations of the Paymaster General's Office. The House ought, therefore, to consider whether they would allow an entire change to be made in the application of their Votes. If all the money voted by that House were to be put together in the Pay Office, leaving that office to set its accounts right at the end of a certain period, it seemed perfectly unnecessary to go through the farce of voting separate sums for each particular service. His own impression was that the old system was better; the present one, although it might not be inconvenient to the public departments or to the Treasury, was certainly very inconvenient as far as the House of Commons was concerned. Another important principle was that all moneys should be paid direct into the Exchequer, and the Paymaster should receive from no other source than the Exchequer. If moneys were paid into the Pay Office which were not received from the Exchequer, advances might be made from one department to another over which the Exchequer and Parliament could have no control. The principle upon which he was insisting was ignored in the case of a Bill recently introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Lowe), by which it was proposed that money which was to be taken from the different ports, and to be placed under the control of the Board of Trade, should be paid at once to the Paymaster General, without going through the Exchequer. He had, on a previous occasion, mentioned the case of old stores, the receipts for which had found their way into the Pay Office, and not direct into the Exchequer. His opinion was, that no money ought to reach the Paymaster's hands except through the Exchequer—the channel in which the public funds should flow; and any stream that ran irregular into the Paymaster's Office ought at once to be arrested and dammed up. He would now come to the Audit. There was great irregularity and many differences in the mode of auditing the accounts of the various departments. One cheek was the old system on which the departments audited their own accounts. That had been very much improved by a Minute of the year 1840, when he (Sir F. Baring) was at the Exchequer, which had been carried out by Sir Charles Trevelyan, with whom, however, he was bound to say, he did not always agree, with great energy. The second mode of audit was by an entirely independent Board of Auditors. The objection to that system was, that in matters of detail it was very difficult for that Board to audit the accounts without having recourse to the departments. In order to meet that difficulty, a third mode, which was admirable so far as it went, was devised. It was instituted by a Bill brought in by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham), and was first applied to the accounts of the Admiralty. That system was, that at each department there should be placed a certain number of audit clerks, who should have power to ascertain, not that every expense was properly incurred, but that it was posted under the proper Vote of Parliament, and had the usual vouchers. That was, therefore, a local audit but with the check that Parliament could ascertain that all the expenses were under their proper heads. The necessity for such a check was shown by the fact that there was in one of our dockyards a long row of buildings which had been erected without Parliament having voted any money for the purpose, their cost having been defrayed out of money voted for materials and labour. That system first tried in the Navy, had since been applied to the Army, to the Ordnance, and to the Commissariat accounts. He was of opinion that it was one of the greatest improvements which had recently been introduced into our service; but the papers with respect to the transfer to the Commissariat Department which had recently been laid upon the table showed that that, which was the best check which we had, required at least consideration. In a Minute, which appeared to have been approved by the Treasury, Sir Charles Trevelyan said— The duty of the War Department is to conduct its share of expenditure according to the rules laid down in Appropriation Acts, Royal warrants, and other instruments which have received the sanction of Parliament and of the Treasury. The duty of the Audit Office is to see that the expenditure is so conducted. Every public department stands in need of some external check. Even with the best intentions, new constructions might be placed upon existing rules; new practices might arise which, without alteration of the system, might entirely change its practical operation. These objects have as yet only been partially attained. The accounts and vouchers of the War Department are examined by the Commissioners of Audit, under the provisions of the 9 & 10 Vict.; but their action is confined to ascertaining that every payment is charged against the proper Vote, and that no payments are made under heads not authorised by Parliament, and certifying the accounts annually laid before the Treasury and Parliament. The nature of this examination, which is conducted in the office of the War Department by one or two clerks deputed from their own office by the Commissioners of Audit, would not, probably, admit of a very searching revision. Sir Charles Trevelyan, therefore, stated distinctly that under our present system the objects which he had in view had been only partially attained, Nor did he stand alone in this opinion. Mr. Hoffay, the assistant paymaster, said—"The problem of effectually checking the proceedings of the large administrative departments is still to be solved." Mr. Romilly, the chairman of the Audit Board, said— I do not well see by what means the Audit Office can maintain a check over the observance of established regulations, except by the examination of the vouchers in detail. The House had, therefore, the opinions of Sir Charles Trevelyan, Mr. Hoffay, and Mr. Romilly, that there were defects in this, which was the best part of our present system; and he thought that was enough to show that even in regard to it there was ample room for inquiry. In other parts of the system also inquiry was absolutely necessary. In the case of the Customs and Excise the whole or the greater part of the gross revenue was paid into the Exchequer, whence it was issued under Votes of Parliament. Those accounts were, he believed, ultimately audited by the Audit Board, but Parliament knew nothing of that audit. The accounts presented to it were not the audited accounts, but those made up by the departments. The heads of those departments would, he knew, be the last men in the world to do wrong; but we ought not to rely upon the characters of individuals. Figures were figures, and had nothing to do with character. In the case of the Navy, every Vote was checked by the audit officers, and if anything was done which was inconsistent with the Votes of Parliament, attention was immediately called to it. With regard to the Customs and Excise, he was not aware that any thing of this sort had been done. If, however, the principle were once admitted, he did not see why any branch of the service should continue free from those checks which were properly attached to the great administrative departments. With regard to the Civil Service Votes, Mr. Romilly made the following observation:— The Audit Office cannot be said to exercise a central and independent check over the whole public expenditure as long as the expenditure under the miscellaneous Votes is not subject to the same check as the expenditure under the Army, Navy, and Commissariat Votes. That showed that the Civil Service Votes were not submitted to the Audit Board, and with regard to those also, therefore, as well as the Customs and Revenue Departments, he ventured to think he had made out a case which, if it had not satisfied the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, would, he thought, justify him in the opinion of the House for having brought the subject under their notice. There was another point, however, which called for the most serious consideration. The large amount of expenditure which had formerly been audited by the Audit Board had lately been transferred to the departmental audit, without the sanction of Parliament being asked in any shape. That might be a beneficial arrangement, but he contended that the power of taking such a step without consulting Parliament was too great to be left to the Treasury. It was not very long since that the whole business of the Commissariat, including the banking business, had been transferred to the War Office; the banking business had been brought back to the Treasury, but if it had been continued at the War Office, the whole of these most important accounts, and which required most check, would have been transferred to a departmental audit. Now, that, he asserted, was a state of things which ought not to be permitted. Two years ago, he had ventured to suggest that a Commission, consisting partly of persons who had been in office, and partly of other persons, should be appointed to investigate the subject which he now brought before the House. He had waited two years in the hope that some one else would undertake the very laborious task of bringing the subject before Parliament, but as nothing was done on the one side, while on the other much was being done, which, to say the least of it, was a departure from all former rules, he had felt it his duty to ask the House to take the matter into its own hands. If a Committee were appointed, he felt confident it would be found he had understated the case. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving for a Select Committee to inquire into the Receipt, Issue, and Audit of Public Moneys in the Exchequer, the Pay Office, and the Audit Department.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, he did not know whether the suggestion to appoint a Commission to investigate this subject, which he understood the right hon. Gentleman to say he had made two years ago, was a public or a private suggestion, but if it was made in his hearing he was sincerely ashamed of himself for not having a more distinct recollection of it. He knew, however, pretty well what his answer to that suggestion would have been had he heard it—it would have been that he cordially approved of the suggestion in substance, but that he thought the time had not come for giving effect to it, on account of the changes which were then in progress. No one could have listened to the speech of the right hon. Baronet without admitting that it contained matter very fit for inquiry. He had opened out a wide field for inquiry, and if he had pleased he might have made it much wider. There were many matters connected with the receipt, issue, and audit of the public expenditure, and with another item which the right hon. Baronet had not mentioned in his Motion, but which, no doubt, he intended should be included in it—the account which was the record of the receipt of public money, into which an inquiry ought to be made in a comprehensive manner and before a tribunal competent for the purpose. The forms of that House under which the issue of public money was permitted, and the rules applicable to that issue, involved many matters of great interest and importance in which the reforming hand was much needed. The only point on which he was inclined to differ from the right hon. Gentleman was as to the mode of inquiry. He did not know what were the reasons which had induced the right hon. Gentleman to alter the form of his Motion and to suggest a Committee instead of a Commission, which he had originally proposed; but, in his opinion, the inquiry would be much more effectually conducted if intrusted to a small and carefully chosen Commission. There were a great number of questions connected with the subject so technical and so minute that he was apprehensive that it would be quite impossible to get together a Committee of that House adequate—he would not say in point of knowledge—but so far as time, opportunity, and power of combined labour were concerned, to collect completely and carefully the whole facts of the case. That minute and careful investigation of the facts was the first thing which the House ought to have before it. On former occasions, when matters of this sort had been inquired into, it had been found most convenient to do it through the medium of a Commission. The Act under which the Exchequer now existed was founded on the recommendations of a Commission, and the same considerations of practical convenience which led the Government of that day to adopt that mode of inquiry ought to induce the present Government to pursue a similar course now. The House, he considered, was greatly indebted to the right hon. Baronet for the pains he had taken to bring this matter clearly and completely before them, and, while thoroughly agreeing with the substance of the right hon. Baronet's Motion, he would venture to suggest that the preferable course would be to follow former precedents, and to agree to an humble Address to Her Majesty, praying her to appoint a Commission to investigate the subject. He thought the appointment of a Commission was in itself a preliminary proceeding, and that the power ought to remain in that House to review the labours of the Commission. The function of the Commission should rather be to make a scrutiny into facts than to guide the House by its opinions. There might be matters on which it would be right for the Commission to express an opinion, but with respect to the facts as to the receipt and issue of public money, which partook of a political as well a constitutional character, they should be jealous of receiving any strong expression of opinion from the Commission. He thought that the words in which an Address to the Crown should be framed would require more careful examination than the terms of a Motion merely for the appointment of a Committee, and, having made that suggestion, he would leave the House to deal with it as it thought fit.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, he should regret if, by not acceding at once to the proposal of his right hon. Friend (Sir F. Baring), he should be the means of causing a debate on so dry a subject as the audit of the public accounts, but he thought it due to the House and to the department he had the honour to represent that no impression should go forth to the public that there was some irregularity in the present state of keeping the public accounts, or something at the present time peculiarly demanding investigation, which inference might be drawn if he gave an assent without any explanation to the proposition of his right hon. Friend. His right hon. Friend stated, that two years ago he proposed the issue of a Commission, the object of which was identical with that of the Committee now proposed. Therefore, on his right hon. Friend's own statement of the case, his Motion was not founded on anything he had recently observed, for the state of things two years ago formed as valid a ground for an inquiry as the state of things at present. However, his right hon. Friend advocated his proposal by adverting to certain effects which he thought had recently arisen. Now, if his right hon. Friend meant merely to affirm that the system of the receipt, issue, and audit of public moneys in the Exchequer was short of perfection, and that it admitted of further improvements beyond the state in which law and practice now placed it, he was quite prepared to accede to such a proposition. He was quite aware that a great deal might be done for its further amelioration, but if his right hon. Friend meant to say that there was anything at the present moment which rendered it peculiarly incumbent on the House to institute an inquiry by a Select Committee, he must, though with great deference, differ from his right hon. Friend, whom he would shortly follow through a few of his statements. In the first place, his right hon. Friend called attention to the redemption of the Duke of Grafton's pension. Now, it was not his intention at the present time to enter into the question of the policy of that measure; but, treating it as a question of accounts, he maintained that the course taken was unimpeachable, and, if precedents were referred to, it would be found that the same course had been taken on previous occasions. It would be found that on previous occasions, when pensions charged on the gross revenue were redeemed, no Vote of the House was taken, but the money was intercepted, before it went to the Exchequer. The proceeding was not then considered to exceed the powers of the Treasury, and consequently the course pursued in the present instance was fully supported by precedent; and, indeed, went beyond it to this extent—that, whereas formerly the attention of the House was not specifically called to the transaction in the annual balance-sheet, on the present occasion the operation was, as a matter of account, fully explained there, and a statement of it also appeared in the annual finance accounts. He therefore contended that the conduct pursued in respect to that redemption was wholly unimpeachable, and nothing he had heard to-night formed any valid complaint against the adopted mode of proceeding. His right hon. Friend next adverted to the question of repayments, stating that there was great difficulty in knowing what were and what were not repayments, and that, when he was in office as First Lord of the Admiralty, he never could obtain from the Audit Department an account of what constituted a repayment. Therefore, according to that statement, there was nothing new in the complaint now made by his right hon. Friend. His right hon. Friend then adverted to the consequences arising from the consolidation of the different paymasters, and said that when there was a separation of paymasters there was also a separation of the funds voted by Parliament, which was not the case at present. That, again, was nothing new, for the alteration dated many years back, and no new system had been introduced since the present year, or since the recent war. Even before the consolidation of the paymasters, he apprehended that during a war it was necessarily the case that payments should be made into one Commissariat chest on a foreign station, and as it was impossible to know beforehand what officer would need to draw on it there was a necessity to keep the chest full, and to give authority to the officers on the spot to draw. The House had heard much complaint of late of a servile adherence to routine, but what would have been said if, with a full Commissariat chest at Constantinople during the late war, there had been difficulties in drawing on it, either for purposes connected with the Navy, or any other department of the military service, arising from rules laid down by the Treasury at home? If the Government had laid down any such strict rules to be observed during war, which was necessarily a time of unforeseen expenditure, and had strictly adhered to them, they would most justly have deserved the reprehension and censure of that House. Those were the three points to which his right hon. Friend had drawn the particular attention of the House, and he had also quoted a semiofficial letter of Mr. Romilly, to the effect that the present system of audit was not an independent check on the expenditure of the public money. Now what Mr. Romilly, as Chairman of the Audit Board, adverted to, existed when his right hon. Friend was in office—namely, that of having the Army and Navy Votes audited and closed at the end of the year, while the Civil Service Votes were allowed to run on from year to year. Such, he believed, would probably be found, after examination, to be the most convenient course. For example, supposing a sum of money, £5,000, were voted to construct a new harbour, and the whole of that sum was not expended in one year, the expenditure on account of that Vote was allowed to go on in the succeeding year, but the whole of the expenditure was ultimately audited, and those who had the management of the harbour would have to account for every pound of public money issued to them. His right hon. Friend had complained of the irregularity of transferring certain clerks from the Audit Office to the War Department, but he had omitted to mention the important fact that the transfer was the inevitable consequence of the transfer of the Commissariat business from the Treasury to the War Department. His right hon. Friend said that that transfer was accomplished without the sanction of Parliament; but the fact was that no measure more entirely obtained the approbation of that House than the consolidation of the War Department. The audit of the Commissariat accounts was transferred from the Audit Office and placed under the War Department itself, which, through its clerks, exercised an investigation in all the war accounts. If his right hon. Friend (Sir F. Baring) had read the papers with care, he would see that they contained a complete justification of the Government. There was no doubt of the power of the Crown to transfer the business of one department to another. The change in the audit of the accounts of the Commissariat was necessarily involved in the consolidation of the War Department, which had been fully known to that House, and had received its entire approbation. With regard to the Motion before the House, he was not aware of any special reasons at the present time for such an inquiry. The auditing of the accounts of the war would necessarily fully occupy for some time the present force engaged in the Audit Office. The auditing of the public accounts was, he believed, never in a more satisfactory state. The public accounts, too, were never in so advanced a state of audit as at present. There was no ground whatever for supposing that our system of public audit was anything but perfectly efficient and accurate. But if the House thought it desirable at that period of the Session, without any specific grounds being shown, and with the Audit Office engaged in auditing the accounts of the war, to appoint a Select Committee composed of Members capable of dealing with those intricate investigations, he had no objection, provided it was distinctly understood that it was the general wish of the House to have a Committee. But if the House desired to improve the system, to investigate its principles, to make a searching inquiry into the "receipt and issue," and, he would add, "the account" and audit of the public moneys—and here he would stop, for his right hon. Friend had too much limited his inquiry, which ought to embrace the whole circle of the public offices—if, he repeated, it was the wish of the House to have an efficient investigation into this extensive, difficult, and abstruse subject, then he agreed with his right hon. Friend (Mr. Gladstone) that it would be much more efficiently conducted by a small Commission of persons having special knowledge, who could go into details and make a general Report, which the House could peruse, and which it might then refer, if it chose, to a Select Committee with more satisfactory results than if a Committee entered now upon so large and extensive an inquiry.

MR. BOWYER

said, he did not rise to prolong the discussion; but, having been the humble individual who originally brought this important subject before the House, he trusted to be permitted to say a few words. If he wanted proof that such an inquiry ought not to be neglected by the Government, he should find it in a letter printed in a recent Return from a public officer of great experience, in which he found it stated that the problem of checking the large administrative departments was still to be solved. The recent transfer of clerks to the War Department was another proof that the inquiry ought to be entered into. That transfer was partly justified by a letter from Mr. Romilly, dated Sept. 8, 1855, upon grounds that confirmed the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir F. Baring) that the question ought to be investigated. Mr. Romilly said that the accounts of the Secretary for War could best be examined by officers of his own, because the War Office could best judge whether its own rules had been duly followed, and that that was the reason why the audit of the accounts of the War Department should lie with that department. But was not that a reason why the Treasury should audit the whole of the public accounts of the country? The system of auditing the Admiralty accounts introduced by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir James Graham) was found exceedingly convenient for certain purposes; but that system ought not to remain without investigation, because it consisted in the accounts being audited by the Admiralty, and at the Admiralty, the clerks of the Audit Office standing by and following the operation. Now, he asserted that such a system was contrary to sound principle, because the efficiency of an audit consisted in its being entirely separate from the department the accounts of which it audited, just as there ought to be no contact between the Judge and the persons whose cases he decided. He could not, however, agree with the right hon. Gentleman (Sir F. Baring) with regard to the issue of public money. A Committee was appointed during Mr. Pitt's Administration, and it appeared from their Report that separate sums were issued to the Navy, the Army, and the Ordnance, which departments had separate treasuries and separate balances. The result was, that when the Commissioners examined into the subject, they found that five persons had filled the office of Treasurer of the Navy, all of whom held balances in their hands which had never been accounted for. The modern system, that of having one balance applicable to all the services, was a great improvement; but still a further inquiry was necessary, and therefore he should support the Motion of the right hon. Member for Portsmouth, concurring, however, in the suggestion of the right hon. Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone) that a Government Commission would be more able to elicit the facts than a Committee of that House.

MR. W. WILLIAMS

said, that the audit system of the country was so deficient that it could not be called an audit at all. He would instance the expenditure of the harbours, which ought to be checked year by year, and which were not audited at the Audit Office. It was a very easy thing to get a Commission to inquire, and make such a Report as they might think convenient, but it was absurd to say that the House could not itself inquire into the matter. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would persist in his Committee.

MR. ELLICE

said, that having been one of the Commissioners who examined into the audit of public accounts, and having himself drawn the Report upon which the Bill of the right hon. Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham) was founded, he wished to say a few words in support of the Motion before the House. He thought that an inquiry should be instituted into the existing system of audit, because a long time had now elapsed since the plan introduced by the right hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring) had been observed in the audit of accounts, because great changes had taken place in the various departments connected with the expenditure of public money, and because grave doubts had existed for several years past as to the efficiency of the present system. Having also some acquaintance with the accounts in the War Office, he believed that the transfer lately made of those accounts from the Audit Office to the War Department had been a very expedient measure, inasmuch as they could not fail to be much better audited in the War Department now that the Commissariat had been associated with that department, than they could be in the office in which they used to be audited. He therefore did not complain of that transfer; but it appeared to him very desirable that the whole system of audit should be reviewed, that some inquiry should be made into the system pursued in other countries, especially into the working of the Cours des Comptes in France, where he believed that the most perfect system of audit had been established, and that steps should be taken to satisfy the public that the accounts were audited in the satisfactory manner described by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He agreed also with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford that the whole subject should be embraced in any inquiry that might be instituted. Whether that would best be done by a Commission or a Committee might be a matter of doubt, but his own opinion was, that they should begin with a Committee—that they should, in the first instance, inquire generally into the subject, and that then the details should be examined and reported upon by a Commission. If he remembered rightly, the last Commission arose from the recommendation of a Committee of that House, and he saw no reason why the same course should not be adopted upon the present occasion.

SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBY

said, that all seemed to agree as to the necessity of an inquiry into this important subject, and the only question was, whether it should be done by a Committee or a Commission. Now, he thought the country was overrun with too many Commissions already, whose Blue-books were seldom read, and served only for waste paper. A Committee of the House of Commons was, in his opinion, the proper tribunal to examine anything which concerned the expenditure of the public money. A question had lately arisen, whether it was not under the present system possible that money voted on one Estimate might be transferred to another; and the hon. Secretary to the Treasury, a few nights ago, denied the possibility of such a thing; but the very subject which the House was then discussing instanced three cases of that kind, which had not yet been explained. Such cases should be prevented by an efficient audit.

MR. HENLEY

said, he was convinced that the preferable mode would be to adhere, in the first instance, to the line struck out by the right hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring). It would be quite time enough to inquire whether a new principle of audit should be adopted when some examination had taken place as to what extent, if any, the existing system had been departed from. For, that preliminary investigation a Parliamentary Committee was the best tribunal that could be appointed. If they were to appoint a Commission, and if that Commission were to examine the audits of other countries, the result would be, that no conclusion would be arrived at until some three or four years hence, when we might perchance be entering upon another war.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

No doubt, Sir, the subject is one of very considerable importance, and one which excites a great deal of interest in the country; because, if it were supposed that very large sums which are voted for the public service—more especially in time of war—were not properly audited as regarded their application to the public service, in conformity with the Votes of Parliament, an impression of a very undesirable nature might be left upon the public mind. My impression is, though the present system of audit may be susceptible of improvement, and though the changes which have been made in the organisation of the Government have rendered alterations in some respects desirable, yet it is my belief that the proposed inquiry, when concluded, will show that practically the public expenditure is and has been satisfactorily accounted for. I am quite ready, however, to admit that, under all the circumstances stated, it is desirable that an inquiry should take place. With regard to the form of inquiry, no doubt there is much to be said in favour of a Commission, and probably that would be the best means of carrying out the inquiry. My right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone) has shown, for instance, that a Commission, having a greater command of time and better means of obtaining information, would be able to go more thoroughly to the root of the matter, and would be enabled to collect evidence on a wider range than a Committee of this House could do. At the same time, we must in a matter of this sort a little regard public impressions; and, although a Committee of this House may not, perhaps, be so powerful an instrument as a Commission, better armed, would be, yet I am quite ready to assent to the Motion of my right hon. Friend, and if the Committee should find that it has not adequate means for pursuing its inquiries to the full extent, it will be for that Committee to suggest any other instrument which, in its opinion, might be better suited to the purpose.

SIR FRANCIS BARING

said, he would admit that a Commission would certainly go more into details, but, under all circumstances, he thought that a Committee was the best initiative course. He hoped the House would not swamp him by having too wide an inquiry, for if that were agreed to, he was satisfied it would come to be a mere affair of Blue-books, and no practical good would be the result. He wished to disclaim any intention of making a charge, that any portion of the public money had been improperly disposed of. He only wished to convey his impression, that, owing to recent changes, there might be a better audit of the expenditure of public money.

Motion agreed to.

Select Committee appointed— to inquire into the Receipt, Issue, and Audit of Public Monies in the Exchequer, the Pay Office, and the Audit Department.