§ Resolution reported.
§ "That it is expedient to authorise the issue, out of the Consolidated Fund, of such sums, not exceeding in the whole £225,000, as may be required for the purposes of any Act of the present session for the acquisition of certain land in Dublin, and for the erection and equipment of a Royal College of Science and other buildings for the public service, and to authorise the Treasury for the purpose of providing for the issue and repayment of such sums to borrow money by means of Terminable Annuities for a period not exceeding thirty years, such annuities to be paid out of moneys to be provided by Parliament for the Service of the Commissioners, and if those moneys are insufficient out of the Consolidated Fund."
§ Resolution read a second time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
§ MR. CALDWELL (Lanarkshire, Mid)said he did not desire to oppose the Motion; but he wished to call attention to the fact that it was for the purpose of providing a sum of £255,000 for a College of Science in Dublin. He did not object to Dublin having a College of Science out of Imperial money, but he desired to direct attention to the fact 436 that hitherto the principle was that each country should have a grant equivalent to what was taken out of the Imperial purse for another country. They had a College of Science in Glasgow which was built entirely out of local money, no grant being obtained from the Imperial purse in respect of it. Before the principle of the equivalent grant was introduced by Mr. Goschen, each country dipped into the Imperial purse, and in that way no particular account was kept in order to see that each country had its proper share. To get rid of that, it was proposed that each country should get a certain proportion of what either of the other countries got. Scotland was limited entirely to its equivalent grants. It did not get any money for any special purpose, such as a College of Science. He was not going to stand in the way of Dublin getting this money; but, at the same time, he thought he was justified in pointing to the fact that Scotland did not get any special grants.
§ MR. BUCHANAN (Perthshire, E.)said that the Government proposed to meet this expenditure, not out of the ordinary Estimates of the year, but by borrowed money, to be repaid by a series of terminable annuities. As he pointed out the other day, this was an extension of the bad principle which was in vogue during the last ten years in a sphere in which it had not previously been applied The defence set up when the matter came before the House on the Naval Works Bill was that the Government was justified in adopting the principle where large public works were concerned, but would not be justified in the case of small public works. The subject of the motion was a comparatively small work, and the motion itself constituted a distinct innovation of the previous practice of the House.
§ And, it being Midnight, the Debate stood adjourned.
§ Debate to be resumed this day.