COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 16 March 1858)

§ SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBY
said, he wished to call the attention of the Committee to a statement made by him on a former occasion, and then controverted by the Secretary to the Treasury, that there had been introduced into the Appropriation Act of last year a clause of a novel kind. That clause was the 26th, the words of which were of such a nature that he maintained the whole principle of appropriation might be set aside under it. Whatever might be the intention of the persons who introduced that clause, he thought it certain that an evil-minded Minister might now take money voted for the army and appropriate it to the navy; and, in fact, apply any money to any purposes. He, under these circumstances, was anxious to ascertain from the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer the circumstances under which that clause was introduced into the Appropriation Act; whether it was borrowed from any previous Act, and if any appropriation had taken place under the Act which would not have been made were no such clause in existence. He himself believed that there had been no appropriation under the Act; but he felt it was due to the House of Commons to raise the question now, inasmuch as in "another place" the subject had created much attention, and 264 it had been even assumed that this House had abandoned its functions.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS
said, the explanation which the hon. Baronet desired was one which was extremely simple. The clause in question was one which was almost peculiar to the Act of last Session. There had been a dissolution of Parliament in the middle of the Session, and there were two Appropriation Acts. The arrangement had been made to prevent the necessity of separate votes for the two portions of the Session. The first appropriation was passed before Easter. At the end of that Session, Government considered whether it might not be desirable simply to pass a Ways and Means Act, and at the end of the ordinary Session in August an Appropriation Act, covering both portions of the Session. It was decided, however, to adhere strictly to the precedent of the year 1841, in which precisely the same circumstances occurred, and a dissolution took place in the middle of the Session. The clause, therefore, to which the hon. Baronet referred had been copied exactly from the Act which was passed at the end of the Session of 1842, in order to rectify the difficulty which had arisen from its omission in the Appropriation Act of the previous year. The precaution was taken of inserting the identical words under which the Controller of the Exchequer at that time had acted from the old Act, instead of allowing the difficulty to arise which had been encountered the previous year from the separation of the votes of the year into two portions. The late Government had not, in taking that course, enlarged in the smallest degree the powers which were given by the 27th Clause, or enabled the Minister to appropriate any sum to a purpose not specified in the other clauses of the Appropriation Act.

§ SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBY
observed that the clause ought to have been so worded, that surplus money voted for the army should be applied to army purposes only, and that any surplus in the money previously voted for the navy should only be applied to the navy. As the clause stood, the surplus could be appropriated to any Department of the State.