HC Deb 03 March 1915 vol 70 cc797-8
66. Mr. T. M. HEALY

asked the Secretary to the Treasury what reductions in Estimates for English and Scottish purposes have been announced corresponding to those which the Treasury have notified Irish Departments; and will a Return be presented or correspondence published from which the principle on which the Treasury is proceeding in the three Kingdoms can be studied?

Mr. ACLAND

For details of the reductions of civil expenditure which have been effected I must ask the hon. and learned Member to await the issue of the Civil Service Estimates which will shortly be in the hands of Members. The only principle which has been followed, or can properly be followed in making economies at a time like the present, is to exclude all civil expenditure which is not clearly and immediately necessary. I shall be glad if the hon. and learned Member desires when the Estimates are published to indicate to him the chief directions in which reductions have been made, and I believe he will not find that any injustice has been done to Ireland, if he will bear in mind that several matters which are left to private enterprise or to local authorities in Great Britain are in Ireland carried out by State assistance.

Mr. HEALY

May I ask whether the Treasury take into account that they are guaranteeing the dividend of the whole of the English railways and are providing a sum of five million pounds in extra wages in England, and are also allowing the use of enemy ships to English merchants for the purpose of carriage and advancing money in connection with the aniline dye industry, none of which are in Ireland?

Mr. ACLAND

I am not quite sure that that means we ought to have a different standard for giving advances of capital sums in Ireland from the standard we have in Great Britain.

Mr. HEALY

Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the cutting off of £1,500 for books for a Dublin library might very well be set against the question of finding five or six or ten million pounds for some English industry?

Mr. ACLAND

I think all expenditure on anything that can really wait ought to be cut off, whether in Ireland or in Great Britain.

Mr. HEALY

How soon shall we see the comparative savings?

Mr. ACLAND

Any hon. Member can make calculations on this matter as soon as the Civil Service Estimates are published, and they will be published, I think, sooner this year than in ordinary years.