MR. PAGETasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he will avail himself of the power of the Act 14 and 15 Vic. c. 55, and sanction the payment to prosecutors and witnesses detained for a night at the Somerset Quarter Sessions, of allowances similar to those paid in adjoining Counties?
§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON (for the HOME SECRETARY)said, the existing rate of allowance to prosecutors and witnesses detained for a night at Quarter Sessions in certain counties was fixed by Sir George Grey, when he was Home Secretary. The Secretary of State had power to revoke the regulations issued under the present law with regard to this subject, and if the justices of Somerset had applied to the Home Secretary to alter the scale, no doubt it would have been conceded. The justices could make the application whenever they thought proper; but up to that time he was not aware that any formal application for the purpose had been made to the office.