§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he rose to call attention to the mode in which the Vote of Credit of £850,000 for Naval and Military services in China for the year 1859–60 has been dealt with, and to the importance of regulating the system of dealing with the unexpended balances of Votes for Army and Navy services. It had been his wish to call attention to this subject when the House went into Committee of Supply, but although they had now arrived at the Easter recess they had taken Supply only on two occasions. No longer ago than last night, however, a step was taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which very much diminished the interest the House might take in the question. What he had to say, therefore, would only go to the importance of proceeding rapidly with the Committee on Accounts which his right hon. Friend was to move on the first day after Easter, leaving the general question to he investigated by that tribunal. At the same time the case was one in itself of considerable importance, particularly as showing the necessity of putting some limit to the powers of the Government, and confining the expenditure of money in the way the House understood it to be voted, and intended it to be applied. About this time last year Government came down to the House and asked for £850,000 as a Vote of Credit for naval and military services connected with the war in China, intimating at the same time that £500,000 would be applied to the army, and the remainder to the navy. At that time his right hon. and gallant Friend, the Member for Huntingdon (General Peel), challenged the accuracy of the statement of the Secretary of War, and laid calculations before the House to the effect that £500,000 would not be sufficient to cover the excess of expenditure over the army Votes of 1859–60. Lord Herbert, however, maintained that it would be sufficient. Later in the Session, Lord Herbert came forward and proposed another Vote of Credit—£3,800,000, of which the greater part was for the service of the present year connected with the naval and military expenditure in China. He then stated how the money already voted for China had been expended. Of the Vote of Credit, he said, last year for £850,000, the amount which went to the army was £578,648, and to the navy 222 £268,452. Again, his right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon stated that the Army Estimates would be deficient and that the Government would require to apply for a supplementary Estimate. This was the state of things at the end of last Session. Now what he maintained was this—when a Secretary of State came down to the House and asked for a certain sum for the expenditure of any branch of the service, and maintained that that sum was sufficient, he was morally bound to confine himself within the grants made by Parliament; and if his calculations turned out wrong it was important that the House should know that he would be obliged to come down for the extra sum required, and present a supplemental Estimate. In July, Lord Herbert distinctly stated that the sum of £578,648 which was added to the £12,859,000 previously voted for the services of the year would be sufficient for the army, and he was bound in the face of the House to those Estimates and no other. As to the other sum of £268,452 that was apportioned for the navy, he had no more moral right to take that for the purposes of the army than he had to take any other sum expressly voted for the navy. Now, what actually happened? A Vote of £250,000 was placed to the credit of the navy in order to meet extra demands arising out of the war in China. That amount appeared to have been rightly calculated, because the item for stores connected with that expedition reached to about that sum. But there was an excess in the Vote over the expenditure upon another head belonging to the navy—namely, the building of certain vessels by contract. That excess was not a real saving, because it was not owing to a service having been performed at a lower cost than the estimate taken for it, but simply to a particular service having been partly postponed instead of being performed. It would be necessary in another year to execute the work thus put off, and the money voted for it ought to be held over for that purpose or handed back to the Treasury. The amount not expended in the construction of vessels by contract was about £250,000. Finding that to be the case the Government did not apply the £250,000 of the Vote of Credit to the purposes for which it was wanted, but they took the balance upon the item for vessels which ought to have been built, and devoted it to the payment of the charge for stores, handing back the sum given for the 223 Vote of Credit. He would now turn to the accounts for the army; but here he was met by a difficulty. Although the Admiralty had, in conformity with the Appropriation Act, laid on the table, along with the Navy Estimates, the correspondence between that department and the Treasury relating to the transfer of the surplus of one Vote to supply the deficiencies of another, the War Department had failed to comply with the like statutory condition. The latter department had fallen into the bad habit of not laying such papers on the table; and therefore it was impossible to say positively what had taken place in regard to the army expenditure. As far, however, as he could collect from the explanations given in that House, it would seem that as the year grew on the Government began to suspect that his right hon. and gallant Friend was right, and that more money would be needed to make up the deficiencies of the Army Estimates for 1859–60. Finding that to be so, he contended that it was their clear duty to come to the House for a supplementary Vote. He did not say they were bound to do that legally, but morally, after what happened in July. But they did no such thing. They made the Vote for the building of ships do duty for the Vote applicable to the purchase of stores, and handed the £250,000 of the Vote of Credit over to the Treasury chest, where, as he understood, it was still applicable to the army service. They had thus done indirectly what they could not do directly, thereby utterly frustrating the checks which the jealousy of the Legislature had imposed upon the appropriation of public money. In fact the proceeding amounted almost to an abuse of the confidence of Parliament. As, however, the House had now the prospect of having a Committee of Accounts, this matter could be more satisfactorily looked into. His object in bringing it forward was not to prefer any accusation against the Government, and when he placed his Notice on the Paper he did not know that the nomination of that Committee would be proceeded with. With respect to the Vote for building ships by contract, he did not impute the delay in constructing these vessels to the Government; he believed it was entirely due to the contractors, or to other circumstances. But if the money granted, for that particular purpose was to be applied as it had been in this case, and the transaction was allowed to go unchallenged by the House, it 224 was obvious that they would open a door to the most grievous irregularities, since it would be easy for the Government, if they found their Estimates insufficient, to put off important work for which provision had been made, and to apply the money voted for it to another purpose. It was obvious that Votes of Credit must be much less under the control of Parliament than others, and he thought the matter deserved the special attention of Parliament. He wished, therefore, to ask his right hon. Friend whether the sum of £250,000 had been dealt with in the way he had described, and whether papers giving a detailed account of the application of the Vote of Credit would be laid upon the table
GENERAL PEELsaid, he had one or two questions to put before the right hon. Gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) replied to the questions just put to him. The right hon. Gentleman had the other night told him that no portion of the Vote of Credit of £850,000 would be applicable to the charge of £610,000, which the Indian Government stated in January would be required for army purposes early in the spring; because, he said, the expenditure for which the latter was voted would not fall within the financial year. The question was whether any part of the expedition of that item of £610,000 would come within the financial year 1859–60. He believed that if the right hon. Gentleman had the good fortune to see a settlement of accounts between the Indian and the British Governments he would find that a great part of that money would be applicable to 1859–60, and could not be applicable to any other year. And in this way:—The European troops going from India to China were upon the Indian establishment, therefore, it was very probable that the European portion would not be chargeable to England until the year 1860–61, when they arrived in China. But it was very different with regard to the Indian troops. The troops who volunteered in India to go to China were, from the moment of so volunteering, chargeable upon the British establishment. They were told that from the time of volunteering they would receive half batta; and, therefore, whether the men were afterwards in India or China, they were upon the English establishment; and, therefore, it was clear that that part of the expenditure in respect of Indian troops which took place in 1859–60 must be paid out of the Vote of Credit for that year.
225 He should be glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman how he had intended, when he made his financial statement last year, that that sum of £610,000 was to be paid? No provision had been made for it in the Estimates for the subsequent year, and no further Vote of Credit was hinted at beyond the £500,000 for the war in China. That amount would not have paid the expenses of the Indian Government, and would not have sufficed to pay one month's expenditure in carrying on the Chinese war. In his financial statement, the right hon. Gentleman professed to give an account of all monies that would he required to cover the expenditure, not only of the year 1859–60, but also of the year 1860–61. Upon the faith of that statement the House was called upon to make great changes in the taxation of the country. But what could be said of the accuracy of the statement if £610,000 due to the Indian Government, which they had stated would be required early in the spring, was unprovided for, either in the Estimates of the year 1859–60 or 1860–61? He wished to ask how the right hon. Gentleman, at the time he made his financial statement, proposed to meet that £610,000? He also wanted to know if the Vote of Credit for £850,000 was not based on the account received from the Indian Government, for what and when it would be required? It could not have been wanted on account of the navy because the navy would not need it; nor could it have been required by the Secretary of State for War, who, only ten days before the close of the financial year, said not only was there no excess of expenditure, but there had been an actual saving of £5,000. He (General Peel) had been recommended to wait until the accounts were on the table; but it was unnecessary for him to do so, as a Return which he had moved for gave all the information that was necessary. From that Return he found that the total number of effective men upon the army establishment in 1859–60 was 136,436, not including officers and staff. He did not know whether the cost of officers and staff was included in the gross amount taken for the effective strength of the army as given in the Return. [Mr. T. G. BARING: It is!] The Return showed that the cost of each man was £54 4s. 3d., and the aggregate amount was £7,389,759 2s. 8d.; while the total amount in the Estimates was only £6,693,627, so that the excess of expenditure was £696,132 2s. 8d. How the 226 Secretary for War within ten days of the close of the financial year could make the statement he did it was difficult to understand. If he (General Peel) was correctly informed, one-third of the excess would arise upon the embodied militia; and, if so, it would puzzle the ingenuity even of the right hon. Gentleman to show how the excess arose out of the China war. He wished to know whether any supplemental Estimate was required in addition to the Vote of Credit to supply the excess of expenditure upon the Army Estimates.
MR. PEELsaid, that before the Under Secretary for War answered the questions of his right hon. relative, he would reply to those of the hon. Baronet the Member for Stamford (Sir Stafford Northcote). He could not admit that the Vote of Credit of £850,000 had been applied by the Government in any way inconsistent with a fair construction of the statements made by the Ministers of the Crown, or to any purpose not contemplated by the special grant. That sum was voted last Session to defray the extraordinary expenses of the expedition to China, to the close of the year 1859–60. Of course, the amount of that Vote must have been fixed after calculation of what the extraordinary expenses would probably be. It was supposed that the extraordinary expenses of the military department would be £500.000, those of the navat department £250 000, and that the expenses paid in India would have to be met by the balance of the Vote of Credit. But it would have been preposterous to require that when the Government in March, 1860, were asking for a Vote of Credit, the amount of which had to be fixed by them at that time, they could pledge themselves to the actual expenditure which was taking place in the very same month in three several departments, and in places so distant as India and China, or that they could make it correspond exactly with their own calculations as to the probable apportionment of the Vote. They did, however, show this degree of confidence in their own Estimates, that, when the money was voted they made an issue in the proportions which they had mentioned—namely, £250,000 to the navy and £500,000 to the army; but with this distinct understanding that, in the event of the ordinary grants for the year sufficing both for the ordinary and for the extraordinary expenditure of the particular departments, then that special issue should 227 be returned to the Exchequer, and not be made use of. The hon. Baronet's view was that because there was an excess in some particular Vote on the Navy Estimates, the amount so taken in excess should not have been paid over for some excess of expenditure over the Vote of Credit, assuming this to have been due to the war in China, was founded on a misconception of the scope and purport of the Appropriation Act. The Appropriation Act did not permit, under such circumstances, the application of the Vote of Credit to the general expenditure of the navy, and therefore the Government had not got it in their power to apply any portion of the Vote of Credit to cover any excess there might be in the expenditure over the Navy Estimates, unless it could be shown to be chargeable to expenses incurred in China. But if, in closing the account of the expedition, there had been a general result, an excess upon the Vote of Parliament, then to the extent to which that excess was due and chargeable to the expenditure for the Chinese expedition, to that extent it must have been paid out of the Vote of Credit. When it appeared, therefore, that the ordinary grants for the year would be sufficient, that sum of £250,000 was returned, and placed to the account of the special grant for China, so that it now remained available, in the event of its being necessary, to pay for the excess of the army expenditure of 1859–60, if that were due to any expenses incurred in China. He thought that was a sufficient answer to the observations of the hon. Baronet, and a sufficient justification of the course which had been pursued by the Government.