§ SIR GEORGE BALFOUR,asked the Secretary of the Treasury to inform the House, Whether the weekly returns of 313 Revenue Expenditure and Exchequer Balances will in future be published regularly every week without omission or delay, and on what clay of the week these returns will appear; and whether the weekly returns that have not been published during this financial year will be made public; to explain whether the total estimated liabilities of this financial year, as shown in the weekly returns for "Supply Services," comprise amounts for this financial year under the same heads as in last year's "Supply Services," and if any new head has been inserted, then what is that head and what amount is so added; and, whether the total payments shown in the weekly returns to have been already incurred for Supply Services include only payments for these services under the same heads as in last year's payments for Supply Services, or if payments have been made for any new head then what is the head and the amount?
§ MR. BAXTERSir, it has been the practice hitherto, and there is no intention of departing from it, to publish the Returns of Revenue, Expenditure, and Exchequer Balances every Tuesday, made up to the Saturday preceding, unless in instances occurring at the commencement of a quarter, when such Returns would be calculated to mislead. The heads of the ordinary Supply Services are always the same; but almost every year there are extraordinary services which of course vary—such, for example, as China Wars, New Zealand Wars, Abolition of Purchase in the Army, and the Commutation of the Sound Dues. There is an item this year among both the estimated liabilities of the payments for the Alabama Indemnity which had no place in last year's accounts, and which, no doubt, is pointed at in the last two Questions of my hon. and gallant Friend.