§ Order for Third Reading read.
§ SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, he would take that occasion to ask the Secretary for the Treasury for information with reference to the expenditure of the votes of credit, amounting on the whole for the years 1854, 1855, 1856, to £8,000,000, which had been granted during the Russian war. He wished to ascertain whether the entire of that sum had been expended, and, if not, what the balance was which remained still unappropriated?
§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, the actual state of the fund to which the hon. 1766 Baronet referred was, that £6,400,000, had been actually laid out on account of the service of the war. With regard to the remaining £1,600,000, the power to draw one million of it out of the Exchequer had been surrendered last year, which left a sum of only £600,000 to be accounted for. As soon as the Army and Navy accounts were wound up it was his intention to lay a statement of the manner in which the whole of the money had been expended on the table of the House. Only one account, he believed, involving a sum of any magnitude remained to be settled. It was connected with our arrangements with France, in reference to what took place during the Crimean war, and was in progress of settlement. It was possible, too, that there might be some charge on account of the German Legion; but as soon as those two items were arranged the balance of the votes would be formaly transferred to the Exchequer, and the accounts laid before Parliament.
§ Bill read 3° and passed.