§ MR. E. JENKINSasked the First Lord of the Treasury, "Whether his attention has been called to a statement, in the Report of the Controller and Auditor General, upon the account of the Commissioners of Church Temporalities in Ireland, for the year 1874, presented to Parliament on the 9th instant, in reference to two Reports recently presented to Parliament by the sanction of the Lord Lieutenant and of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, in these words—
I will point out the great public inconvenience that would arise if the permission granted to the Commissioners were to be held as a precedent upon which every public accountant might claim the privilege of animadverting upon the reports of the head of this department made, in the unavoidable and conscientious discharge of his statutory functions. His duties, it need not be said, are already sufficiently onerous and invidious, and his position would become well-nigh intolerable, if the further task were forced upon him of engaging in controversial written discussions with public accountants, who believe 86 that they have more or less reason to be dissatisfied with his criticisms upon their financial transactions;Whether this does not express the rule by which the relations of the Auditor General to Public Accountants are regulated; and, if so, what were the peculiar circumstances which led to a departure from this rule in the case of the Irish Church Temporalities Commissioners; whether the Lords of the Treasury will take measures to bring the controversy between the Commissioners and the Auditor General to an end; whether his attention has been called to the fact that the expense of the Commission has increased in the inverse ratio to the amount of duties to be performed, viz.: from 1871, when a very large amount of business, specified in the Report, was done, and payments were made amounting to £4,890,000, the cost of the Commission was £28,389, whereas in 1874 the Commissioners stated that their duties as a compensating body had been practically completed, and the payments of the year only amounted to £264,212, the cost of the Commission had risen to £32,409; and, whether any means will be taken of ascertaining the reasons of their increased cost of administration?
§ MR. DISRAELISir, there is no necessity for the Treasury to interfere between the Commissioners of Church Temporalities in Ireland and the Auditor General, even if they had the power, which they have not. The question is in the House of Commons. The House of Commons has appointed a Committee of Public Accounts, before whom all these transactions are now investigated, and it would be highly improper if the opinion of the Government upon any subject of controversy which the Committee had to investigate could be extracted by means of asking a Question. The subject of the relations existing between the Auditor General and the Commissioners is one which it would have been well to bring under the consideration of the House in a different way. With regard to the expense of the Commission, I may say in the general interest of economy the Treasury watch the expenditure of public money under any circumstances with severe scrutiny, but nothing has occurred in the present case to render their interference necessary.