PUBLIC WORKS.—RESOLUTION. (Hansard, 27 May 1862)

§ MR. DILLWYN
said, he rose to move the Resolution of which he had given notice in regard to Estimates for Public Works. The House had so long shown its indifference with regard to questions of financial reform, that if he had been bringing forward his Motion at the beginning of the Session, or even within the last month, he should have felt it necessary to have detained them longer than he now intended to do. The House, however, was at length awakening to the importance of taking some steps towards retrenchment. Many hon. Members had done their best to awaken the country to a sense of its increasing expenditure. The right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire was a convert to, and had advocated a large measure of, retrenchment, and he was glad to see the right hon. Gentleman among financial reformers, and wished that he had spoken from that side of the House, where he would have been more heartily cheered than he was by his usual supporters. He could not agree with all the right hon. Gentleman said in depreciation of "bloated armaments," but he would point out a. mode in which he thought the expenditure might be reduced. He believed that the expenditure in the War Department, and in other departments, 53 might he reduced without any sacrifice of efficiency; and he hoped he should have the assistance of the right hon. Gentleman in asking the Government to take a practical step towards retrenchment. He took the division the other night on the British Museum Bill as an indication that the House was thoroughly awake to the subject, and was determined to carry out a system of retrenchment in some way. He knew that other considerations affected that decision, but he believed it was influenced to the extent of many votes by that consideration. The question was how independent Members could best effect a reduction of the Estimates when the House saw that they could be safely and properly reduced. In the discussions upon the Estimates it was a matter of common occurence that objections to items were met with the objection that the expenditure had already been sanctioned by a vote of the House, and that the refusal to continue it would inflict hardship upon persons who had accepted office on the faith of such a vote; or that it was for the completion of works which had been already commenced, and the money spent upon which would be wasted if a further sum was not expended. No doubt those were strong arguments as far as they went, and the House, frequently for those reasons, rejected a Motion of which in the abstract it approved. Had many of the works which had consumed so large a portion of the public money been fairly and fully explained to the House in the first instance, it was very likely that they never would have been consented to. He might quote as an illustration of this the case of the fortifications at Alderney, which were defended by the noble Lord at the head of the Government on the ground that they were a continuation of works begun by a former Government. And so with the South Kensington Museum. At first they were only asked for the money for a shed; then the shed was enlarged; then they were asked for a corrugated iron shed, on the plea that there were articles spoiling for want of room; and so they went on until at length an enormous establishment had grown up, which cost the country some £20,000 or £30,000 a year besides the expense of the building. As showing how the public money might be saved by the House paying proper attention to the subject in the first instance, he might cite the case of the proposed road across Hyde Park to the Exhibition. It was shown by a high authority in the 54 House that the road could not be made in time to be of any service, and the proposition was rejected, the result being that a more economical road, which served every purpose, had been opened. He did not mean to charge either the present or any previous Government with wilfully misleading the House in these matters, or endeavouring to get in the thin end of the wedge.

§ MR. DILLWYN
said, the Motion he had the honour to move pointed, as he thought, to a simple method of checking the continual demands upon the public purse of an unnecessary description. He believed, that if there was a distinct class of Estimates for Votes which were proposed for the first time, hon. Members would think it worth their while to be present when such Votes were taken, and to examine them more fully than they cared to do in the case of Votes which had already in some way or other received the sanction of Parliament. Why should not the House of Commons deal with the Estimates in the same manner as a private gentleman regulated his own expenditure? No private gentleman or man of business would consent to his agent undertaking new buildings without carefully considering the subject, nor would he allow items for such expenditure to he passed under his review as if they were a portion of his ordinary annual outgoings. They had been told over and over again by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Government were responsible to the House for the expenditure which they proposed; but in reality that responsibility was very slight, because the change of Governments enabled them to shift the blame to the shoulders of their predecessors. By the alteration which he sought to introduce, more direct responsibility would be created, and at the same time the passing of the ordinary Estimates would be facilitated. He would therefore conclude by moving the Resolution of which he had given notice.

§ MR. AUGUSTUS SMITH
seconded the Motion.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS
said, he hoped that the hon. Gentleman would not think he was treating him with any want of respect, when he stated that it was not his intention to follow him through the several topics of his speech. The hon. Gentleman's proposition was, that a new class of Estimates should be created by the executive Government and laid before the House. There were already four classes of Estimates, one for each branch of the War Service, one for the Revenue Departments, and one for the Civil Service. His hon. Friend proposed that a class should be constituted, to consist of "new works," which were now distributed among the other classes; but he had not gathered from his hon. Friend's Resolution or from his speech whether in the new class were to be included additions to existing works. Would an addition to a barrack be considered a new work?

§ MR. DILLWYN
Yes; if it were a considerable addition.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS
A considerable addition?—then a small addition would not, in his opinion, be a new work. The hon. Gentleman would see that a very nice question would at once arise as to the extent of the addition which was to constitute a new work. But the hon. Gentleman overlooked another inconvenience that would arise. The new works, according to his meaning of them, would be of a very limited extent. In the fourth class of the Army Estimates the Votes were set out in great detail, and, with few exceptions, the new works mentioned therein were works which had previously received the sanction of Parliament by a vote of money. Now, what information could the hon. Member ask for more than was furnished in those details? The only works really new in these Estimates were to be found under the head of Bermuda, the total estimate of which was £5,000. Supposing that Vote were put in a fifth class, what advantage would the House derive from such an arrangement? That Vote was connected with other Votes, for Gibraltar and other fortified places in our Colonies. Now, if that particular Vote for new works were relegated to a fifth class of Estimates, the House would be deprived of that information which was derived from a comparison 56 with other Votes, and from the details referring to them all. There was every wish on the part of the Government to present those Estimates in a form most satisfactory to the House, with a view of furnishing the best information possible, and of facilitating discussion. Those Estimates were now set forth in much greater detail than they used formerly to be presented to the House. Their present bulk was occasioned by the frequent demands made on the Government for additional information, and the desire of the Government to furnish such information. It was most convenient, in the discussion of those Estimates, to be able to compare one year with another, and to see the total amount of the Estimates as a whole. [Another attempt was made to count out the House without success.] He would instance the case of a new barrack for which a total estimate of £50,000 would be required; but only a sum of £10,000 would be asked for the first year. Now, though that Vote would appear in the first instance in the proposed new class of Estimates, in the second year it would necessarily be transferred into the ordinary Army Estimates. But how would the Vote of the previous year be entered? Here it was obvious that the necessary information could not be communicated, and the advantage of comparison would be wholly destroyed. The same inconvenience and confusion would arise with respect to the Naval and Civil Service Estimates if the proposition of the hon. Gentleman were agreed to. The Army Estimates were, he thought, presented in such a form that hon. Members could easily see for themselves what was and what was not a new work. If they were not sufficiently clear, he should have no objection to indicate the new works by some typographical arrangement, so as to draw attention to them more forcibly. There was every disposition on the part of the Government to present the Estimates in the form most convenient and acceptable to the House, but he did not see that any good would arise from the adoption of this plan, and he was therefore unable to give his assent to it.

§ MR. DILLWYN
in reply said, that if the right hon. Gentleman would separate the Vote for new works in each class of Estimates it would be a practical improvement upon the present system.