§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR (Kincardine)asked the First Lord of the Treasury, If Government, during the Recess, will call upon the Secretary for Scotland to prepare a Report for presentation to Parliament on the course hitherto followed for filling up the offices of Principal Sheriffs, as to the parties appointed, their qualifications, by whom selected, and how far these offices have been filled up from the ranks of Sheriffs' Substitutes, and finally as to arrangements of the future; as to forming the Procurators Fiscal into Government officers, the expenditure which will be needed, the age and examinations for the office, and the system of promotion and selection in the future; and, to report upon the ranks of Sheriff Clerk and 275 Commissary Clerk, and generally as to the improvements and economies which can be effected in the establishment of these offices, and how their duties can be usefully extended?
§ THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster)I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman is not aware of the fact that a Royal Commission investigated the whole of this question very recently—in 1871. Therefore, the necessity he suggests in the Question does not arise.