§ MR. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green)I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the expenditure of £1,361 for illuminating the Fleet at the Jubilee Review was incurred by the Admiralty without authority; whether the Admiralty subsequently applied to the Treasury to approve the expenditure; and whether the Treasury declined to assume any responsibility for it?
§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONThe facts are as represented in the question of the hon. Member. Full particulars will be found in the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the Navy Appropriation Account for the year 1887–88. As the official correspondence on the subject has come in the ordinary course under the review of the Public Accounts Committee, any explanation now of the circumstances which led the Admiralty to incur this expenditure would be out of place.
§ MR. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S.W.)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether Lord Knutsford has expressed his approval of a proposed Customs Union between the Cape, Natal, and the Orange Free State, under which it is provided that Natal sugar shall be charged in the other two States with a duty of 6s. 3d. per cwt., while all other sugar imported into the Union shall be charged 12s. 6d. per cwt.; whether this arrangement is inconsistent with Article 4 of the Sugar Convention, which provides that "Her Britannic Majesty's Government agree not to impose differential duties on cane or beet sugar imported from countries, provinces beyond the seas, Colonies, or foreign possessions taking part in the Convention"; and, does the Colonial Office intend to take any steps to reconcile the Sugar Convention with the Customs Union?
§ *BARON H. DE WORMSThe proposed South African Customs Union is between the Cape Colony and the Orange Free State only, Natal, as we now understand, having refused to join it; and the provision in the Bill establishing the Customs Union—where by Natal sugar would have received differential treatment in the manner stated in the question—is to be omitted. It is not 239 necessary, therefore, to consider whether the Customs Union, in its earlier form, would have been inconsistent with Article 4 of the Sugar Convention, or to take any steps to reconcile two arrangements which do not conflict.