§ MR. FIELD (Dublin, St. Patrick)To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, seeing that the old system of recruiting the Colonial Audit Branch by nomination without any actual educational test examination has now broken 1175 down, he will explain why Volunteers for that branch were not heretofore called for, except in one or two cases, from amongst the trained auditors of the main establishment of the Exchequer and Audit Department.
§ MR. FIELDTo ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether two chief examiners and a senior clerk in the Exchequer and Audit Department now serving in London, who owe their present superior position to the fact that they were members of the Old Colonial Audit Branch, are liable to further periods of service abroad, and, if so, will he explain why the Comptroller and Auditor-General has recently threatened to bring outsiders into the Department if Volunteers are not forthcoming for foreign service.
(Answered by Mr. Hobhouse.) These Questions relate to matters that, under Section 9 of 29 and 30 Vict., c. 39, are entirely within the discretion and authority of the Comptroller and Auditor General, and I have no power of interference.