§ Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary to the Treasury, having regard to the doubt cast by the majority of members of the Financial Relations Commission upon the justice of the process whereby the Treasury revise the sum of revenue collected in Ireland, describing a portion, only as true revenue and giving Ireland no credit for the remainder, whether any independent financial authority, having examined the process, agrees with the Treasury in that use of the term true; whether the un-credited revenue was applied to Irish or to other purposes while Ireland was paying a surplus over Irish expenditure; whether the committee now investigating this subject have examined or will examine a representative of the Treasury on the revision in question; and whether the House will, before the end of the present Session, be furnished with a memorandum ex- 1270 planatory of the process worked out in the actual figures for the last completed financial year?
§ Mr. HOBHOUSEThe error to which reference is made in Section 27–28 of the first Supplementary Report, signed by five members of the Financial Relations Commission, was discovered and corrected in 1893 (see House of Commons Return No. 248 of that year), and as steps were immediately taken to correct it, it cannot be said to detract in any manner from the value of the late returns. The replies to the hon. Member's substantive questions are:—(1) The returns have been subject to general public criticism for a long series of years, and so far as I am aware no serious objection has been taken to the basis upon which they are compiled. (2) Revenue collected in Ireland but contributed by other portions of the United Kingdom is treated in the returns as having been applied along with the other revenue contributed by those portions in defraying the local expenditure of the respective portions, and, in so far as it has exceeded the amount necessary for that purpose, as having been devoted to general Imperial expenditure. (3) I understand that the returns in question have been under consideration by the Committee, and that they have taken evidence from a representative of the Treasury on the subject. (4) The process by which the calculations shown in these Returns are made is fully explained in the earlier issues, and there is nothing which can usefully be added to what is there stated. (See House of Commons No. 329 of 1891, No. 93 of 1893, No. 248 of 1893, No. 305 of 1893, No. 225 of 1904, and No. 313 of 1894.