§ MR. PATRICK M'HUGH (Leitrim, N.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that a Select Committee on Parliamentary Debates in 1893 recommended that the daily Reports of Parliamentary Proceedings should be delivered at the Vote Office to all Members desiring copies; did the Treasury consider that recommendation, and with what result; and, in case the Treasury cannot agree to supply Members gratis with the daily parts, will he consider the advisability of reducing the present exorbitant price of same?
§ MR. HANBURYThe Committee did not say whether the Reports should be delivered gratis or not. A gratis delivery would be such an extravagant proceeding that it seems unlikely that they should have contemplated it. The Committee's recommendations, as a whole, were considered by the late Government, who decided that their cost would be too great to justify acceptance. The difficulty of reducing the price of the daily parts is that it might reduce the price chargeable under contract for the complete sets, thereby increasing the cost of the contract; but I will keep the hon. Member's point in mind when the terms of the new contract are under consideration.