TREASURY CHEST FUND. (Hansard, 17 March 1911)

§ Sir F. BANBURY
I want to have an explanation of this. No doubt there is one, but I do not understand it. It may be due to my stupidity. If the right hon. Gentleman will look at the paper, he will see that the items are given in a different form to that in which they are submitted for every other Vote in the Supplementary Estimates. I find these words, "Treasury Chest Fund, 1910–11, £26,128." Then the next item goes back to "1909–10, £17,052—increase £9,076." Then there is a little star, and we go back to the Supplementary Estimate 22nd February, 1910. Why we should suddenly go back to that date I cannot understand. Is it in order to inform the House that last year there was a 2636 deficit of £17,052, and this year of £6,928? If so, it may be a very good way of doing it, but I would point out it has not been done in the case of any other Estimate. I believe it means that the £26,000 is required to make up a loss on exchange. I am not disputing that item, although it seems to me rather a large amount, but I want to know if the right hon. Gentleman will kindly give me some explanation why it is brought out in this form in the Supplementary Estimates? I have only given the explanation which I have found out for myself. I want to know if it is correct.

§ Mr. HOBHOUSE
The Treasury Chest Fund is an account with which I daresay a great majority of hon. Members are not familiar, and perhaps it will serve the purpose of the hon. Baronet if, in half-a-dozen sentences, I endeavour to explain what the operations of this fund are. It goes back, I believe, to the year 1826, when the Treasury first became responsible for the fund, and when the practice was somewhat antiquated. Since that time they have had to deal with the money required for the pay of the troops and of the Admiralty, and in connection with these transactions there are telegraphic transfers on bills. There is a loss, or it may be a gain, upon these transactions in some years, and provision is made in the expenditure of one year for the loss resulting from the transactions of the previous year, consequently the Treasury Chest Fund is presented to Parliament in the year subsequent to the financial year on a Supplementary Estimate. It is therefore the sum required to make good the nett loss on the transactions of the year 1909–10 of £26,000, which is really an increase upon the year previous to that. These transactions entailed us in a loss of something 2637 like £9,000 more than they have in previous years, and the reason why this sum is brought to the House of Commons is this. No final expenditure may be charged upon a sum, which is fixed, I think, by the Act of 1894—a capital sum of £700,000—no final expenditure may be charged upon that fund, but the expenses incurred in connection with it can be brought before Parliament and sanctioned year by year. If there is a loss that has to be voted by Parliament, and if there is a surplus that has to be surrendered to the Comptroller and Auditor-General, who audits the accounts, so that the control of Parliament over the whole of this fund is fully and amply maintained.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
Do I understand that this sum is for a loss of exchange on orders and bills in the financial year ending 31st March, 1910?

§ Mr. HOBHOUSE
Yes.

§ Mr. BOOTH
Can the right hon. Gentleman say what is the amount involved in the transactions connected with this charge so that we may see what ratio the cost has to the magnitude of the actual transactions?

§ Mr. ASHLEY
There is only one point I wish to ask for information about, and which arises out of the answer of the right hon. Gentleman to my hon. Friend, and that is if this is a loss which has occurred during the year ending 31st March, 1910, why was it not put in an Estimate before? Why has it remained over till March, 1911, before we are asked to pass it?

§ Mr. HOBHOUSE
The explanation is not a difficult one to give. It is due to the vastness of our territory and to British possessions being scattered all over the world, a fact which does not allow of these amounts being brought into account until a very late period of the year. May I add that this is the usual time at which the consideration of this matter is presented to Parliament?

§ Mr. ASHLEY
I do not think the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman is a very satisfactory one, although it might have been a good explanation in the year 1856, when we had no telegraphs and no posts.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER
The hon. Member is only entitled to speak once.

§ Mr. ASHLEY
I was interrupted, Sir, when I was in the middle of my speech.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER
If the hon. Gentleman is only answering an interruption he can proceed.

§ Mr. ASHLEY
I say the right hon. Gentleman's explanation is entirely unsatisfactory. If he had made that explanation fifty years ago then I can quite understand that it may have been possible that information from distant parts of the Empire or from China could not arrive in London in time to present Estimates, but to tell us now in the year of grace, 1911, that letters or telegrams take six, eight, or ten months to reach other parts of the Empire is, I think, a very lame explanation. I do hope and trust that in succeeding years the right hon. Gentleman will not wait until March of the succeeding year before he brings this expenditure before the House.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
This is a loss which appears to have occurred in the year ending 31st March, 1909–10, but apparently, if it is a loss, it was paid, and I should like to know out of what fund it was paid? It was brought forward as a loss by exchange, but if that was the case it must have been incurred and paid before the 31st March, 1910, and it would interest the House to know whether this sum was drawn from the capital sum of £700,000, and the object of this Vote is for the purpose of replacing it or whether it is a sum which has been paid and not authorised by Parliament at all, and now at this time he comes to Parliament to authorise the payment of it.

§ Mr. HOBHOUSE
If I may speak by the leave of the House the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has accurately described the transaction which took place.

§ Lord ALEXANDER THYNNE
I cannot regard the right hon. Gentleman's explanation as in any way adequate or as meeting the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for the City of London. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that this is a loss that has been incurred upon certain rates of exchange in consequence of certain operations with regard to establishments abroad. The right hon. Gentleman has not told us what the total amount involved amounts to.

§ Mr. BOOTH
I asked that.

§ Lord A. THYNNE
We have no means of telling whether these operations by means of bills of exchange or documents of a similar character were advantageous or not, and we should like to know what 2639 proportion the sum of £26,000 bears to the total sum involved in order that we may form some rough estimate of the business ability with which the financial affairs of this country are transacted. There is one other point which I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has dealt with at all, and that is the point raised by my hon. Friend below me, that this is a complete transaction before 31st March, 1910, and there was no reason why it should form the subject of a Supplementary Estimate. This practice of bringing in Supplementary Estimates has grown with great rapidity under the right hon. Gentlemen's administration, and I do not think that it makes for sound finance, or makes our system of finance intelligible to the ordinary Member of this House.