SUPPLY. (Hansard, 26 April 1906)

§ MR. ASHLEY
said there was one item put down as "other incidental expenses," which he did not think had been sufficiently considered. For the years 1905–6 this item amounted to £820, but this year it was £920, or an increase of £100. He thought they should have some explanation of the sums which appeared under that heading. It seemed to him to be like what happened in foreign countries when they were asked to vote sums for the Secret Service without knowing who received the money or for what service it was required. He hoped the Secretary of the Treasury would give them some intimation, and in order to get an explanation he begged formally to move a reduction of the Vote by £100.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said it was quite reasonable that the hon. Member opposite should ask this question. When they had a vast number of small expenses of this kind it was impossible to give a detailed account of them. He could, if necessary, give a detailed account of last year's items, but he could not give the items for this year. These examinations were held locally, and he should think the number of persons examined would total 10,000 in the course of the year. There- 106 fore the hon. Member would see that in dealing with such a great mass it was impossible to give a detailed account of what the isolated expenditure was going to be in regard to these small items.

§ MR. WARDLE (Stockport)
drew attention to the item for assistant examiners amounting to the enormous sum of £18,130. It appeared to him that these assistant Commissioners were paid in addition to what they received from other appointments up and down the country. When they were paying so large a sum for assistant examiners, that sum would provide permanent officials to do this work—;men employed solely in the work and put in various centres. Probably a considerable saving might be achieved in that way.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said the suggestion made appeared reasonable on the face of it, but he thought the hon. Member would agree with him, seeing that the examinations took place at different places and at different periods of the year, that it would be impossible to have a permanent staff. The examinations covered a vast number of subjects. They included every sort of examination from that which the Post Office sorter was required to pass up to the examinations for the Indian Civil Service. Consequently they had to draw on a large number of outside examiners. A permanent staff could not be employed the whole year, and it was believed that it was cheaper for the State to employ examiners from time to time to undertake the work of the particular examinations. The question of examination fees had been raised earlier in another quarter. He regretted that the hon. Member who raised the question was not in his place, for he wished to show that he was under a misapprehension on this matter. The examination fees varied from 1s. to £6, the latter fee being charged for entrance to the Indian Civil Service examination. There had been no occasion found to change the scale of fees in the last seventeen years. It would be inadvisable to reduce the remuneration of the sub-examiners, as it was necessary that the services of the most competent men should be retained.

§ * MR. MORTON
said it was estimated this year that the receipts from fees 107 would be £4,000 less than last year. In regard to the item of £750 for the salary of the assistant secretary, it was said that this salary would be reconsidered when a vacancy occurred. Was the salary to be increased or reduced? He wished also to know what were the hours of labour in this particular office. If the hon. Gentleman did not know, would he kindly take this as notice that the Question would be repeated on the Report stage?

§ MR. MCKENNA
said it was impossible to give any exact Answer as to the number of candidates who would come forward for admission to the various departments of the Civil Service. The Commissioners believed that there would not be as many applicants for examination this year as in past years, and that was why they had estimated that the receipts from fees would be less.

§ * MR. MORTON
asked whether there was anything to account for the falling off in the number of applicants.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said the number of vacancies in the various departments varied from year to year. As to the salary which was to be reconsidered when a vacancy occurred, he should like to say that whenever they reconsidered a salary they endeavoured to reduce it. He would endeavour to ascertain what the office hours were, but he warned the hon. Member in advance that he might have considerable difficulty in finding out.

§ * MR. MORTON
said there could surely be no difficulty in the master going into the office and insisting on seeing the attendance books. The Answer given by the hon. Gentleman was not quite good enough. It was not what he was sent here from Sutherland-shire to accept.

§ MR. BRIGG (Yorkshire, W.R., Keighley)
asked whether the examinations for the Civil Service in Egypt came under the Civil Service Commissioners.

§ SIR A. ACLAND-HOOD (Somersetshire, Wellington)
said the Committee had just been informed that the fees for candidates were sometimes as high as £6. He wished to know whether it would not be possible to make a re- 108 duction in favour of the sons of officers who had lost their lives in the Indian Civil Service or in the Army. They all knew that the payment of £2 or £3 in such cases was a very serious matter.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said he was under the impression that the Egyptian examinations did not come under the Civil Service Commissioners. He did not think the fees for the Indian Civil Service examinations were excessive. It was a question whether the cost of the examinations should be borne by the country generally or by those who were to get the benefit of them. He was bound to say that he did not see any reason for altering the scale at this moment.

§ MR. WARDLE
asked whether it was not possible to reduce the fees of the assistant examiners, seeing that it was estimated that the fees from candidates would be less. Surely it could not cost so much for the examinations this year as last, if there were to be fewer condidates.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said the fees for assistant examiners varied according to the nature of the work they did. These men had to be skilled examiners, and if their fees were reduced, probably they would not obtain such competent men. He did not think it would be wise to alter the scale of fees.

§ SIR A. ACLAND-HOOD
said he noticed that there was a slight reduction in the sum I for the employment of assistance and a new sum for the salary of an assistant registrar. He knew that the work of this Department was increasing year by I year, and that with the present staff, it was almost impossible to cope with that increase. He presumed that the reduction in the cost of the clerical staff of the office was made up for by the appointment of the new assistant registrar.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said that the allowance for the clerical staff was lower on account of the appointment of the new assistant registrar.

§ MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON (Lanarkshire, N.W.)
said he wished for more information under Sub-head K as to the withdrawal of silver coinage from circulation. Last year the amount of silver withdrawn from circulation was £40,000, and this year it was to be £60,000, or an increase of 50 per cent. The Committee were entitled to have some explanation of such a large increase.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said that the only answer he could give was that old and worn silver coinage had to be withdrawn from year to year, and that the Department had to be guided by their skilled officers as to the amount of coinage withdrawn from circulation.

§ MR. ASHLEY
said he wished to call attention to the salaries paid to the charwomen employed in the Public Record Office. This was really a very serious matter, for these charwomen only got 10s. per week, whereas the charwomen employed at all the other offices received 13s. and 14s. per week.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said that these women were not employed the whole day, and the view of the Department was that 10s. was a fair wage for the work they had to do. A certain amount of freedom must be allowed in this regard to the heads of Departments, and he had never heard that the women had made any complaints.

§ * MR. J. WARD
said he thought 2s. a day and 1s. for a half day a very low wage indeed. It might be true that they could get plenty of women in London to 110 do the work for that wage, and they were often compelled to accept such a wage without complaining. But it was not fair for a Government Department to ask them to accept such a low wage.

§ MR. SLOAN
hoped that the hon. Gentleman would pay special attention to this matter, and try if possible to increase the salary of these women. It was not right to say that because no direct complaint had been made there was no feeling about the matter.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said that the charwomen were paid for only a part of the day's work, and they went from one place to another the whole day long, so that in the main they earned a very fair living indeed. There was no evidence whatever that these women were sweated or underpaid.

§ MR. SLOAN
wished to know whether the Financial Secretary would make inquiries and find out exactly what the wages of the charwomen were, and if he found them inadequate, would he make proper arrangements.

§ MR. MCKENNA
Certainly.

§ MR. T. L. CORBETT
said he had felt it his duty to point out the extravagance of the Government in many directions, but in regard to this item of expenditure he did not think they had been extravagant. The hon. Gentleman pointed out that charwomen who had ten shillings a week made no complaint and seemed to think that that was a satisfactory answer to the allegation that a small wage was paid. At the same time it must be admitted that ten shillings a week was a miserable wage to offer to any poor woman, and he was stirred that evening as he had not been stirred in the past, as his attention had not been called to this case. Passing from that item for the moment, he wanted to point out a most remarkable and significant pronouncement which appeared at the foot of the Paper dealing with this Vote. Speaking of messengers and porters the note said—; These men belong to the new class of the pensioner messengers and vacancies are filled from that class. Did that note mean that this new class of pensioner messengers were paid less 111 than the market value of their services because they were pensioners? He wanted the Financial Secretary to answer "yes" or "no" to this question. If that was not the meaning of the note, he did not know what its meaning was. This was a very important point, to which he should have thought the Labour Members below the gangway, who had been criticising the expenditure of the Department, would have called attention. It seemed to him a very serious matter indeed that men, because they were pensioners, should be put into a special new class of messengers with less salary than their services would command upon the market.

§ * MR. ASHLEY
wished to know if the Financial Secretary could see his way next year, if the Government was in office, to put down in the schedule that the charwomen were paid 10s. for part of a week's work. If that were done a great deal of time would be saved.

§ MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD
said he found, upon looking at the details of the Vote, that £3,750 was spent upon investigations of documents and so on at Rome, Venice, and Simancas. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would tell them whether this work was approaching completion and for how many more years this £3,750 was to be spent. He knew whore Rome was very well and also where Venice was, but perhaps the hon. Member would tell them where this other place, Simancas, was. He had no doubt that there were most important matters to be investigated at Simancas which warranted this country in paying £120 a year, but it would be desirable to know whether it was in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, and whether, in the opinion of the hon. Gentleman, it was desirable to spend this sum of money.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said that Simancas was in Spain. The investigations as to calendars and historical documents were now being brought to an end, and he did not think they could last very much longer.

§ MR. T. L. CORBETT
said the hon. Gentleman had not answered as to the special class of pensioners.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said the answer was as brief as the hon. Member could desire. It was "No."

§ * COLONEL LEGGE
thought they ought to have some more information about this place in Spain. Spain was a very large country, and he really thought the Minister in charge of the Vote should be able to inform them where the place was more exactly. They were spending £120 a year for the investigation of documents and archives at Simancas and they wanted to know where the place was; what the investigations consisted of; who was investigating and who was translating the Report of the investigators. Ministers on the Treasury Bench were expected to come down armed with all sorts of remarkable knowledge.

§ MR. BYLES (Salford, N.)
rose to a point of order, and asked if the Deputy-Chairman had not power to stop this vain repetition.

§ * COLONEL LEGGE
said he was only informing new Members who did not know the ways of the House that Ministers in charge of Estimates came down armed with a marvellous amount of information which they were ready to give to any Member who wished to know anything.

§ THE DEPUTY - CHAIRMAN (Mr. CALDWELL,) Lanarkshire, Mid.
I must ask the hon. Member to come a little closer to the subject. He is making general observations which have no reference to the Vote.

§ * COLONEL LEGGE
said he desired to have further information about Simancas and the investigations of the documents and archives there.

§ MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford)
said a good deal of the discussion which was going on was being carried on by his hon. friends above the gangway, many of whom were new to the proceedings of this House. He would point out to them that if they thought they were injuring or embarrassing the Government by raising those utterly trivial points, they were making a great mistake, because under the Supply rule all that the Government had got to do was to provide 113 a certain number of days for Supply—;twenty or twenty-three—;and it made absolutely no difference to the Government whether the whole of the twenty or twenty-three days were occupied in the discussions upon one Vote or whether it was spread out over a number. Therefore he would respectfully suggest to the new Members above the gangway, who were raising these points which—;he did not put it disrespectfully —;by comparison were small points, that they were not hurting the Government, but destroying their own chance of raising serious discussions upon serious points upon other estimates. He would suggest that instead of occupying the House for a considerable time in discussing questions such as they had been listening to for some little time, it would be better if hon. Members would concentrate their criticisms upon the many important points which required serious consideration and examination.

§ MR. CHARLES CRAIG (Antrim, S.)
said that hon. Members were very much indebted to the last speaker for the advice he had given them and which he was going to take. He would call attention to what he considered was a matter of great importance. He referred to the item dealing with calendars and historic documents and the preparation of indices, for which a sum of £500 was put down. He should like the Financial Secretary to explain to the House how any Government, whether it was an extravagant Government, such as the last Government was supposed to be, or an economical Government such as this was supposed to be, could possibly spend £500 on the preparation of indices of documents in the archives of Venice, Simancas and Rome. With regard to the amount of £500 for indexing he would be glad to know from the hon. Gentleman where these indices were to be found; what hon. Members were supposed to learn from them, and whether they applied only to the three items which appeared above them in the estimate or whether they applied to the four or five below as well.

§ MR. THORNTON (Clapham)
asked whether the researches into the documentary evidence which were conducted by Mr. Froude at Simancas wore being continued, and, secondly, whether any 114 one had followed Mr. Brown, the great investigator, in his work at Venice. These, it should be remembered, were matters of great historic research and an answer ought to be given to these questions by some one on the Treasury Bench, in order that the Committee might know whether the money it voted was being properly spent.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said the work at Venice was being continued by a very proper person. It had been conducted by Mr. Rawdon Brown, and was now being conducted by Mr. Horatio Brown. Mr. Froude was at Simancas. As to the indices, with regard to which a question had been asked by the hon. Member for South Antrim, they were indices to each volume and were a general indication of what each volume contained.

§ * MR. MORTON
asked whether this was not a Department which could be abolished altogether, and the little work they did transferred to the Local Government Board or some other Department. The Department cost altogether very nearly £18,000 a year, but he did not know that it was of much use now-a-days because loans wore obtained by local authorities and others without the assistance of the Department. Those who had pledged themselves to reduce the bloated expenditure of the country had to remember that the only way in which that could be done was to show that there was a great deal of unnecessary expenditure which should not be allowed.

§ MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD
said this was one of those Votes which ought not to be passed without some criticism. They were asked to vote a sum of £11,700 for this particular Department, and they were entitled, therefore, to give their views upon the way it was conducted and as to whether it could not be conducted more economically. £7,860 had to be paid for salaries, in addition to which there were salaries for legal assistance amounting to £2,891. There was a solicitor at a salary of £1,200 with annual increments of £50, 115 with a chief clerk at £400, and other allowances amounting to £1,000 had to be paid to the solicitor for salaries of clerks. In his opinion there was quite enough legal assistance in other Departments, some of which might be made available for any possible purposes for which the Public Works Loans Department might require it, and thus render unnecessary the maintenance of this expensive solicitors' Department. He agreed with the hon. Member for Sutherlandshire that this was one of those Departments the working of which should be closely inquired into to see whether a considerable economy could not be made. There was not sufficient work going on in the Department to warrant such an expenditure as was proposed under this Vote, and it appeared to him to be a reasonable thing to suggest that this was one of those smaller branches of administration which might with advantage be combined with another Department.

§ MR. J. WARD
called attention to the fact that the solicitor started at a salary of £1,200 and rose to £1,500, and his chief clerk commenced at a salary of £400 and rose to £700, his present salary being £506 per annum. Though these exorbitant salaries were being paid there was an allowance of £1,000 to the solicitor for clerical assistance, he supposed as a sort of Christmas-box, or something of the kind. It was an astonishing way of conducting business. If clerical assistance were required it was better that it should be paid for directly by the Department itself.

§ CAPTAIN CRAIG
asked how it was that the salary of the chief clerk this year was £506.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said it was because the appointment was not made at the begining of a year. The solicitor was appointed in 1900 by the late Government and had done his work very well. He did not suppose it was suggested by the hon. Member for the West Derby Division of Liverpool that he should be deprived of his office.

§ MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD
Oh, no.

§ MR. MCKENNA
Did the hon. Gentleman suggest that his salary should be abolished?

§ Mr. MACVEAGH (Down, S.)
No; he wants you to suggest more, as he was appointed by the Tories.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said the official in question was appointed by the late Government, which the hon. Member for the West Derby Division of Liverpool supported, and if he desired his discharge he should be glad if he would make a statement to that effect. With regard to the allowance of £1,000 for clerical assistance, he might state that it was only an estimated allowance which would be audited in the ordinary course by the Auditor and Comptroller-General, and, if in excess, the sum that remained would be returned to the Treasury. It depended on the amount of work to be done. In the course of last year £3,000,000 was issued by the Public Works Loans Commissioners, who were the sole judges of the security of the loans. They were not paid themselves, and the staff which they engaged was not at all in excess of the requirements.

§ MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD
explained that his point was that the money issued by the Commissioners was borrowed by local authorities, and there was very little difficulty in ascertaining whether the authorities were entitled to borrow it. He should not think there was any legal point in reference to the work of the Department that one of the junior solicitors to the Treasury could not dispose of in a few minutes.

§ MR. MCKENNA
Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that the solicitor appointed by the late Government should now be discharged?

§ MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD
said they were not discussing the conduct of the late Government. Had he been a Member of the House in 1900 he probably would have protested strongly against this expenditure. They were now dealing with the matter as they found it in 1906. He failed to see that there was anything in connection with the legal 117 department of the Public Works' Loans Commissioners which necessitated big fees for a solicitor, £600 in rates for the office, messengers, office boys, and all the rest of the paraphernalia included in this Vote. This was a matter which, if the Financial Secretary of the Treasury would concentrate his great ability upon it, he would find would give him an opportunity for effecting a little economy. There was no economy whatever in these Votes. Where was the retrenchment and reform which had been so much talked about at the last election? When he ventured to suggest that this was a matter which should be looked into in order that money might be saved, he was asked by the hon. Member whether he desired the Government to discharge some official that the Tory Government had appointed. It was the duty of the Financial Secretary of the Treasury to consider whether he could not make the service efficient, and at the same time save money, instead of bandying words across the floor of the House. It would be better form on the part of the Government if, instead of scoffing when a reform was suggested, they would promise to bring their ability to bear upon the question of economy.

§ * MR. J. WARD
said the principle of granting this £1,000 for clerical assistance to the solicitor was a vicious one from beginning to end, and he strongly objected to the principle of subletting the employment in any department. If it was necessary to spend £1,000 in this way, he thought that those clerks who were employed should be in the direct employment of the Department.

§ MR. MORTON
said he understood that this solicitor was only appointed last year.

§ MR. McKENNA
In 1901.

§ * MR. MORTON
said he agreed with his hon. friend that those clerks ought to be employed by the Government. [Cries of "Divide, divide."] He could assure his young friends from the country that they were only delaying things by making such a noise. This was a very important matter. The real function of this office had gone, and they 118 might easily transfer to some other department what little business was left, and thus make a considerable saving.

§ MR. VICTOR CAVENDISH
said that as the question of municipal trading was occupying public attention, he should like to know whether any change had been made, or was contemplated, in the rate of interest on loans advanced to local authoriiies.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said that that matter was under the control of the Treasury, and it had been ruled that Treasury matters could not be discussed on this Vote. With regard to the point raised by the hon. Member for Stoke, he could only repeat that the clerical assistance referred to was an unknown quantity. He could assure the hon. Member that these persons were not sweated. They were not in the permanent employment of the Government, and no definite estimate could be made of the probable cost. Whatever was spent would be properly audited, and the conditions of employment were the same as those which applied to any other Government service. He did not think that any economy would be effected by abolishing this office. During the last year some £3,000,000 had been spent in small sums.

§ * MR. MORTON
said that for London the County Council mainly managed this loan business. He knew that the local authorities in London preferred to go to the London County Council, because they got the work done more cheaply and at a lower rate of interest than by going to the Commissioners. Unpaid gentlemen very often were worth only what they got.

§ LORD TURNOUR
said he understood that there was an increment here of £50. It was most unfortunate that the Committee should treat this subject in a spirit of levity. When his hon. friend the Member for Liverpool was speaking just now he was very much surprised to hear an hon. Gentleman below the gangway say. "Good God, here's another of them."

§ * MR. LEHMANN (Leicestershire, Market Harborough)
The remark I made was "Oh, Lord, here's another of thorn."

§ LORD TURNOUR
said inadequate answers had been given by the hon. Gentleman representing the Treasury in regard to some of the money which had been voted. He thought this was a matter on which the Committee should get an answer.

§ * MR. MORTON
said the total expenditure on the House of Lords was £42,000. He had always thought that was a great deal too much considering the work they did. He should like to move to reduce the expenditure by one half. Of what service was the House of Lords to the country? Very high salaries were paid to officials who did very little work. If they were going to economise he should think this was one of the items on which they could make a great saving without loss to the country in any way whatever. It was all very well to put friends into sinecure offices in the House of Lords, but the country could not afford that sort of thing. He did not know whether anybody was going to defend the House of Lords, but he hoped hon. Members who had pledged themselves to economy would help him to effect this reduction. He moved to reduce the Vote by £5,000.

§ * MR. CLAUDE HAY
said that there were a number of clerks and messengers who were paid partly by the House of Lords and partly by the House of Commons. He contended that it was infra dig that these clerks, who had onerous and diffi- 120 cult duties to discharge, should be asked to serve under conditions which were almost offensive. They were paid by odds and ends, and the total amount they received was not set forth in a straightforward manner. Let the Committee take the case of the senior clerk in the Office of the Examiner of Standing Orders. In one place they were told that he received £950 a year, and footnotes here and there described additional fees which he received; but why should they not be told that that clerk got in all £1,200 a year.

§ MR. HAROLD COX (Preston)
said he wished to ask, on a point of order, whether the hon. Member was not infringing the rule against frivolous repetitions by repeating again and again the same points of criticism?

THE CHAIRMAN
said he thought that there had been a good deal of repetition during a portion of the afternoon and the evening, but if he had checked hon. Members for repetition it would have probably wasted more time than was incurred by the original offence.

§ * MR. CLAUDE HAY
said he had again to make the remark that in the case of the other officer he had referred to it was not shown in the Estimates the actual amount of money he was paid. He trusted the Financial Secretary would endeavour to arrange that they should not have this avalanche of footnotes to the Votes put into their hands. It should be plainly stated to the Committee in regard to each individual servant of the Crown what his salary was and it should not set out that he had so much salary and so many pickings here and there. If the Financial Secretary could meet him in this matter he was satisfied that he would expedite the business of the Committee and not expose the Department of which he was the representative to the attacks to which it was exposed by the Votes being presented in a cumbersome and unbusinesslike manner.

§ MR. CHARLES CRAIG
said that a largo section of the Committee were not satisfied with the rate of progress that was being made with the Estimates, but he would point out that 121 there were eleven separate and distinct Votes set down for discussion, and that they were now on the ninth. He did not think that was bad work, and all the criticisms he had heard from the Opposition side of the House had been most reasonable from start to finish. He desired to amplify somewhat the remarks that had fallen from his hon. friend who had just sat down. He was quite certain that the Estimates, framed as they were, with those interminable footnotes and references to other Votes must be unintelligible to Members. He objected to the footnote to the Vote on page 75. The control of the Treasury over this Estimate was confined to items which did not relate to the personal remuneration of officers of the House of Lords. The general control was vested in a Select Committee of the House of Lords and this was appointed each session. In the face of that note one might almost ask what was the object of bringing this vote before the House of Commons at all. As far as he could see the Financial Secretary could not answer for that Select Committee, and so far as they knew there was no representative upon that Bench who was entitled or empowered to speak for that Select Committee. When the Financial Secretary came to reply he hoped he would throw some light upon this subject, and that he would not think that his remarks were prompted by any frivolous intentions. He knew that hon. Members on the Ministerial side of the House who were in the last Parliament used to raise this question, and he was sure that anything they could do to make these Estimates more plain they ought to endeavour to do. The second item on page 76 dealt with the Sergeant-at arms in attendance upon the Lord Chancellor, and to it an asterisk was attached, and a foot-note appeared as follows—; This officer also receives emoluments as a lieutenant-colonel on the retired list. He should like the Financial Secretary in his reply to let them know what was the object of that foot-note. Were they to understand that the emoluments which the sergeant-at-arms of the House of Lords received as a retired lieutenant-colonel, was to be taken as part of his salary for the duties he performed in the House of Lords, or were they to under- 122 stand that his salary for his duties in the House of Lords, of £1,000, was made specially low because he was at the same time receiving emoluments as retired pay? It must be one or the other of these two alternatives, otherwise the foot-note was superfluous; and if it was superfluous it ought not to be there. There was plenty of matter in the Votes without having superfluous foot-notes. Turning to page 78, hon. Members would find some items which were even more mystifying than those which had gone before. He came upon an item for the preparation of indices for the Select Committees, and others for the dusting of boxes in the library, which was charged at £60. He had not had the time to discover whether there was any item down for the payment of housemaids, but it was quite clear to him that the duty of dusting boxes in the House of Lords must necessarily fall upon the housemaids or the attendants of the Librarian. If that was the case the item of £60 was unnecessary. Two items lower down were also rather strange. One dealt with stamping and arranging Parliamentary documents, and was for £30. Was that £30 expended in manual labour or on purchasing the stamps? In reference to the whole of the Votes he submitted that the manner in which they were presented was complicated and archaic to a degree. Was it intended to give them an opportunity of discussing them in a sensible manner?

§ MR. MCKENNA
rose to a point of order and submitted that the hon. Member was not in order in discussing the form of the Estimate.

* THE CHAIRMAN
did not understand that the hon. Member was discussing the form. He understood that he was discussing the items.

§ MR. MCKENNA
said the hon. Member was discussing the form.

* THE CHAIRMAN
said it was not in order to criticise the form of the Estimates.

§ MR. CHARLES CRAIG
submitted that it was competent for him to point 123 out that the multiplication of the footnotes rendered it impossible for him to understand the Estimate.

§ MR. MACVEAGH
Get on to the refreshment department. That is the next item.

§ MR. CHARLES CRAIG,
on attempting to continue his remarks, was greeted with laughter and ironical cheers.

§ MR. T. L. CORBETT
rose to a point of order. He said it was impossible to hear what his hon. friend was saying owing to the constant interruptions from the other side of the House.

§ MR. CHARLES CRAIG
submitted that the Estimates were confusing owing to the multiplicity of the footnotes, and were so complicated as to be absolutely incomprehensible to hon. Members. He thought the Financial Secretary of the Treasury would be doing a great public service if he endeavoured to simplify the Estimates another year.

§ LORD TURNOUR,
who spoke amidst cries of "Divide," was understood to say he was much surprised at the hurry of hon. Gentlemen opposite to get through this Vote. They were voting a sum of £17,200, and having regard to the way in which hon. Members opposite had spoken of retrenchment during last year, it seemed to him particularly inappropriate that they should desire to hurry through this Vote. There were one or two items of great importance in it. There was, in particular, the item of £60 for dusting books in the library. The Committee could not be aware of the fact that there were already provided eleven housemaids for the House of Lords. Why was this item of £60 put down for dusting books in the library when there were already eleven housemaids, any one of whom could perform the work? Was the office of dusting books at £60 a year open to public competition, because if so he would like to be a candidate for the office. It seemed to him to be a very easy way of helping to earn one's living. 124 He appealed to the Committee not to pass the Vote without thought.

§ Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY
rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put, "but the Chairman withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

§ LORD TURNOUR
said another question which he desired to ask had reference to the Admiralty assessors. Were the assessors referred to here the same as the assessors to whom they had been referring earlier in the evening? Then on page 79 of the Estimates there was an item of eleven housemaids for the House of Lords. He had no objection to the employment of those housemaids, but—;

§ * MR. J. WARD
On a point of order, is there no form of the House which we can employ to prevent such a farce as this continuing?