§ General Sir GEORGE BALFOURasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If, in regard to the conflicting character of the evidence given before the Public Accounts Committee, he will furnish the House with a statement of the advances on account of War Office Charges made by the India Office to the Exchequer since the abolition of the agreement about the Capitation Rates for Effective and Non-effective Services, stating the 118 dates on which the advances were made by the India Office, dates brought to account as national receipts, and years and quarters in which included in the accounts of the income of the Kingdom; and of any interval between these, the causes and objects of the delays; also the amounts appropriated out of the Indian advances in each quarter and year to clear off the War Office claims, and the yearly balances and totals not cleared off, and, if these balances were retained in the Exchequer as income, then to what extent the income of the Kingdom has been unduly swelled in each of the past years?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, in reply, said, he was not prepared at present to furnish the House with a statement of the nature desired by the Question of the hon. and gallant Member. It was rather a complicated matter, and it would be more conveniently dealt with in the Report of the Auditor General than by him (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) in answer to a Question.