HC Deb 25 May 1911 vol 26 cc428-9
Mr. GINNELL

asked the Prime Minister whether, in preparing his scheme for the restitution of the £320,000,000 excessive taxes found to have been drawn from Ireland since the Union, any addition to that sum will be made for the decay of trade and industries and the destruction of population due in part to that excessive taxation?

Mr. BIRRELL

The Prime Minister, who is unavoidably absent, has asked me to reply. No such scheme is in preparation.

Mr. GINNELL

Does the right hon. Gentleman contend that in regard to the appointment of a committee of this kind to investigate a question of public money an hon. Member is not entitled to information not only regarding the committee itself, but also in regard to the subjects investigated?

Mr. BIRRELL

The whole of the questions which the hon. Member puts to me are a just punishment inflicted on me for having been foolish enough to give publication to the fact that the Government, for their own private information, are seeking information of a particular sort. There is nothing public about it at all.

Mr. GINNELL

Does the right hon. Gentleman maintain that this House is not entitled to information which he gives freely at Bristol?

Mr. BIRRELL

The hon. Member is no more entitled to this information than he is to ask me what books I am reading in order to satisfy my own mind on this subject. It has nothing to do with the public.

Mr. GINNELL

asked, in view of the fact that all the returns, estimates, and calculations prepared by the Treasury for the Financial Relations Commission were found, on examination by the Commission, to be inaccurate, in every case to the detriment of Ireland, whether all similar information submitted to the secret Treasury Committee now sitting will, before the Cabinet come to any decision on the subject, be submitted to the representative Irish Financial Relations Committee now in course of formation?

Mr. BIRRELL

I am not aware of any grounds for the allegation contained in the first part of the question. The answer to the second paragraph is in the negative.