§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURasked the Secretary to the Treasury to state, Whether the Instruction from the Treasury to the War Office, at page 17 of the Public Accounts Committee's Re-port of l880, is intended to allow of transfers of savings in Vote 1 of the Army Estimates from the item of Infantry of the Lino to meet excess of 892 charges on the General Staff or Household Cavalry, without any record thereof for the notice of Parliament, merely on the plea that the transfers are from one item to other items of the same Vote, quite irrespective of the condition that the services are quite distinct; if such be the interpretation of such an Instruction, whether the Treasury will now require the sum of Five Millions, at present voted in one Vote of the Army Estimates, to be broken up into separate votes for each branch of the service, so as to enforce the old and established practice of not permitting funds voted by Parliament for one purpose from being appropriated to another and different purpose, without an application to and sanction by the Treasury; and, finally, whether the annual Appropriation Act will be so altered as to enforce the use of funds granted by Parliament to the strict purpose for which voted?
§ LORD FREDERIOK CAVENDISHSir, the Treasury Minute of October 27, 1879, on the Report of the Public Accounts Committee, made no change whatever as to the power of transfer of savings in the Votes of the Army Estimates, nor in the record that is made in the Appropriation Act of any such transfer. That Minute has, therefore, created no special reason for making any change in the form of the Army Estimates or in the Appropriation Act.