§ MR. MICHAEL AUSTIN (Limerick, W.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury when will copies of the remaining contracts entered into by Her Majesty's Stationery Office be printed and circulated, in continuation of those dated 12th and 13th January of the present year?
§ MR. HANBURYThe four contracts already presented to which the hon. Member refers are contracts for Parliamentary printing, and the Resolutions passed by the House of Lords and the House of Commons on March 30th and 24th respectively, 1882, require those contracts to lie upon the Table for 40 days before taking effect. It has not hitherto been the practice to make public the other contracts for printing, but I am distinctly in favour of publicity whenever there are no practical arguments against it, and the contracts referred to shall, as they are completed, be laid upon the Table. I do not, however, think that it is necessary to incur the cost of printing them, as the form is in all respects practically identical with that of the four already printed.