§ MR. WILLIAM REDMONDI beg to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland a Question of which I have given him private notice, namely, whether the sum of £410,000 said by him to have been saved from the Irish Estimates during a period of three years has been placed to the credit of any Irish account.
§ * MR. WYNDHAMI think I can reply to the hon. Member. The excellent report which appeared in The Times of the speech in which I introduced the Land Bill, contained an error which, I am sure, was due to myself and not to the reporter. What I was doing was this. I was comparing the amount of the civil government charges expended on the Irish Estimates in the year 1901–02 and the same amount for the year 1896–97, and I said, I believe quite accurately, that it was lower in the former year than in the earlier year. I made a parenthetical allusion to the fact that in three out of the intervening years there had been a decrease, but in the other two there had been an increase. These minor fluctuations in the Estimates are not matters which can be treated in the method which the hon. Member suggests. I was saying that we expected to make a reduction of £250,000 a year, and I pointed out that in recent years there had not been an increase but the reverse on the civil government charges in Ireland.
§ MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.)But have the savings been devoted to any Irish purpose?
§ * MR. WYNDHAMThe hon. Member cannot have listened to what I said. On the three years there were savings amounting to £410,000, but on the other two years there were increases. Would the hon. Member suggest that the savings should be earmarked for Ireland, and the increases earmarked for Great Britain? The relations of the two countries cannot be conducted in that way.
§ MR. T. W. RUSSELLI am quite certain that that is what will be done.