§ MR. HANBURY (Preston)asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is the fact that the War Office paid to a clergyman named MacAlister an annual subscription of £20 for two schools in his parish, up to and including the year 1885; whether one of these schools was abandoned in 1876, and the other passed out of this clergyman's control in 1878 and was taken over by the London School Board; how it happened that no sufficient inquiry took place in any year during which these payments were made; and, what particular official should have made such inquiry, and who held that position in the years in which this alleged negligence occurred?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. E. STANHOPE) (Lincolnshire, Horncastle)I cannot refer to the Papers on the subject, as they are in the hands of counsel; but I believe the facts are as stated. The War Office, as large owners of property, have been in the habit, like other landowners, of giving small subscriptions to parochial schools on the application of the rectors of the parishes concerned, which they require to be renewed each year. It did not occur to those dealing with these issues, amounting in the whole to about £200 a-year, to doubt the perfect bona fides of a clergyman like Mr. MacAlister, and no further evidence was considered necessary to justify the grant. It is now the custom to call for a statement of the expenditure of the school before any grant is renewed.