DR. RUTHERFORD (Middlesex, Brentford)To ask the Secretary of State for India, if he will consider the suggestion of the Royal Commission, over which Lord Welby presided, that the financial year for India should end on the 31st December instead of the 31st March, in order that the actual result of the expired year might take the place of the revised estimate which is now presented, and in order that the Indian accounts might be laid before this House at an earlier date, and an earlier discussion of Indian finance thus be made possible.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) On reference to Parliamentary Paper 169, of 1902, the hon. Member will find that the suggestion was fully considered in 1900 and 1901, and that the Government of India drew attention to the administrative inconvenience that would result from the adoption of the course proposed in paragraph 69 of the Report of the Royal Commission, viz., that the Budget should be introduced two or three months after the beginning of the financial year to which it relates. It was accordingly decided to make no change. As at present advised, I do not propose to modify this decision.