§ SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, having reference to the Return of the Comptroller General issued on Friday last, Whether the profits of £118,687, which have apparently accrued to the State according to that Return, are not wholly or to some and what extent attributable to the fact that a part only and not the entire of the expense of the service and administration of these banks is defrayed by the Post Office Savings Banks department; and, whether he can state to the House that any profit whatever would appear on the working of the Post Office Savings Banks if those institutions were charged as a department with the full quota of their cost to the State, including the ordinary rates of postage, and involving a distribution of salaries of postmasters and assistants, so that the Savings Banks Department would bear its full quota, having regard to the proportion of the labour and responsibility which appertains to the Savings Banks operations?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, in reply, said, that the Question asked by the hon. Gentleman was rather a difficult one for him to answer. The principle on which all these things were regulated was to charge to the revenue of the Post Office all the expenditure incurred in it. That was the practice in dealing with all the departments of the public service, and with regard to the charge for postage there was no difference whatever made with the Post Office. It was conducted on the same principle, subject to the control of the Treasury.