§ MR. DAVID THOMAS (Merthyr Tydvil)I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that when an effort was made in 1891 by the County Councils of Wales and Monmouthshire to put section 81 of the Local Government Act, 1888, into operation, the Local Government Board ruled, notwithstanding sub-section 6, that the Act did not provide for any expenditure of public money for such a purpose; and whether it would be competent for a district auditor to disallow the legitimate expenses of a Joint Committee of two or more Welsh County Councils incurred in carrying out any purposes of the Act in which they were jointly interested, such Committee having been formed under the provisions of section 81.
§ MR. WALTER LONGI am aware of the correspondence which the Joint National Council of Wales and Monmouthshire had with the Local Government Board in 1892. The Board were then advised that the objects for which the Joint National Council was formed were not such as could be regarded as within the scope of section 81 of the Act of 1888. If a Joint Committee of two or more Welsh County Councils was formed for any purposes of the Act in which they were jointly interested, subsection 6 of the section referred to would apply to the legitimate costs of the Committee and such costs could not be properly disallowed.