NAVY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1915–16. (Hansard, 1 March 1916)

§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara)
I am afraid I must make a draft on the patience of the Committee not quite of the very moderate dimensions of the Question put from the Chair. Much more is involved than the spending of a £10 note. This is a merely nominal or token sum, and it is due to the Committee that I should seek to explain this somewhat cryptic document. The Committee will remember that for 1914–15 Parliament sanctioned Navy Estimates in detail as usual, and these were being worked to when war broke out. For the last eight months of 1914–15 we continued to work to those Estimates as far as possible in regard to approved Services, and over and beyond those were the War Services of those eight months. They were met, in so far as they were not met by the Estimates of 1914–15, out of the Vote of Credit. These expenditures have been submitted to the Comptroller and Auditor-General in an Appropriation Account. That Account renders a statement of appropriations in respect both of the sums voted in the Estimates 1914–15 and the sums drawn from the Vote of Credit. Referring to that Account, I gave the following reply to the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for West Dorset (Colonel Sir It. Williams), on 18th January last: Colonel Sir R. Williams (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Appropriation Account showing the Grants of Parliament for Navy Services for the year ended 31st March, 1915, and the sums which actually came in course of payment in that year, will be presented to Parliament in the usual form, giving information in detail under the various services for which , provision was made? 1072 The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Admiralty (Dr. Macnamara): The question raised has received careful consideration, and we have consulted the Treasury in the matter. It is considered that in the national interest the Navy Appropriation Account for the financial year referred to should be confined to the abstract statement of expenditure under Votes (those numbered 8 to 11 inclusive being merged in one total), with particulars of balances irrecoverable and correspondence, matters of a confidential character being omitted. There will, of course, be no curtailment of the usual facilities afforded to the Comptroller and Auditor-General of access to all papers and documents relating to the account as a whole, and, in addition, an account containing more detailed information will be prepared and can be issued if so ordered as soon as the public interest permits. Mr. Leif Jones: May we take it that accounts are being kept so . that hereafter, when the War is over, we shall receive as full information as in an ordinary year? Dr. Macnamara: The Estimates themselves have been published, and the Appropriation Account is being prepared by us largely on the lines of the Estimates as published, but I hope that my hon. Friend will not pin me down to every particular detail. As I have said, "an account containing more detailed information will be prepared and can be issued if so ordered. [OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th January, 1916, cols. 176–77, Vol. LXXVIII. So much for the Estimates 1914–15, and the rendering of the Appropriation Account as to the application of the money which Parliament voted. I come now to the Estimates for the current financial year 1915–16, and for which I am now asking Supplementary Estimates. Details of the Estimates on the old lines were quite out of place. For each of the seventeen Navy Votes we asked Parliament to vote a token Vote of £1,000.
It was further arranged that a token sum of £100 as an Appropriation-in-Aid should be taken under each Vote. That is to say, the Estimate under which each of the several Votes was taken is as follows: Gross estimated expenditure on each Vote, £1,100; Appropriation-in-Aid,£100; net amount voted for each Vote, £1,000. The whole Estimates for 1915–16 then stood: Gross estimated expenditure, £18,700; Appropriations-in-Aid, £1,700; net amount voted by Parliament, £17,000. That procedure was followed in accordance with the Treasury Minute of 5th February, 1915, published as Command Paper, 7,790. It will perhaps help the Committee if I read an extract or two from that document. It says: My Lords are satisfied that it is not desirable even if it were possible to present to Parliament detailed Estimates purporting to provide for the cost of the War. To state only two difficulties, it is not possible to estimate at what date the War may be expected to end, if at all, in 1915–16, and it is not in the public interest to disclose through the estimates of expenditure the nature and extent of many of the operations for which provision must be made. 1073 It therefore becomes necessary to ask Parliament to make provision for the cost of the War in 1915–16 (as in 1914–15) by Votes of Credit. The question then arises to what extent, if at all, it is possible or desirable to present Estimates in the customary form for Navy and Army Expenditure apart from the cost of the War. It is clear that in a war like the present, in which the whole resources of the country are involved, any attempt to distinguish between ordinary charges for Navy and Army Services, and expenditure arising out of the War, must be entirely arbitrary and artificial. Later they say: There appears, therefore, to their Lordships to be no satisfactory alternative to dispensing during the continuance of the War with Estimates in the ordinary form for Navy and Army Services altogether, and making provision for the whole of the services as part of the general war expenditure by Votes of Credit. It is, however, in Their opinion, very desirable in the interests of sound administration and for the preservation and continuity of practice and record, that Army and Navy Expenditure, both that of a recurrent nature and that arising out of the War, should be accounted for under the customary heads and sub-heads, as shown in the Navy and Army Estimates for 1914–15 and previous years. My Lords accordingly propose, if provision is made for these Services by a Vote or Votes of Credit, to give directions that the Appropriation Account of such Vote or Votes shall be prepared under the respective Votes and Sub-heads of Navy and Army Services contained in the original Estimates for 1914–15 as laid before Parliament, subject only to such variations (to be approved by Them) as the nature of the expenditure may require, and further that the amount of the provision included under each such Vote and Sub-head for 1914–15 shall be shown upon the Account for purposes of comparison. By way of providing a statutory basis for such an Appropriation Account and at the same time securing to the House of Commons adequate opportunities (apart from the debates upon the Vote or Votes of Credit) of discussing questions which ordinarily arise upon particular Votes, it is proprosed to present separate Estimates, in each case for a nominal amount (say £1,000) only, for the respective Navy and Army Votes. The amount so voted will be appropriated in ordinary course, the substantive provision under each Vote being drawn from the Vote or Votes of Credit which will be framed on the same lines as the Votes of Credit for the current year with the addition of the words 'and for general Navy and Army Services in so far as specific provision is not made therefor by Parliament.' Finally, this Minute dealt with the question of Appropriations-in-Aid. Let me give a short extract referring to that: My Lords accordingly propose that the substantive Appropriation-in-Aid of the receipts should be left over to be made upon Supplementary Estimates under the respective Votes later in the financial year, when the amounts can be more precisely ascertained, a nominal Appropriation only being made on the original Estimates, and that the receipts as they accrue should be retained by the Departments and applied by them in reduction of Exchequer issues from the Vote of Credit. So much for the token Estimates of 1915–16, which show: Gross Estimate, £18,700; Appropriations-in-Aid, £1,700; net amount voted, £17,00;. This brings me to the Supplementary Estimate that I am presenting. I hope that its necessity 1074 and purpose has been made perfectly clear to the members of the Committee. It is with the question of Appropriations-in-Aid that this Supplementary Estimate is for the time being solely concerned. The Committee knows that Appropriations-in-Aid are a form of revenue, and that they ought, in theory, to be paid into the Exchequer. There was a time when they were so paid. They have not been so paid in for many years. They have, with the sanction of Parliament, been used in diminution of the Parliamentary Grants. In this case—these 1915–16 Navy Estimates—Parliament has authorised the Admiralty to utilise Appropriations-in-Aid to the extent of £100 for each of the seventeen Votes, or £1,700 in all. That is the nominal figure. But under the Treasury Minute of 23rd January, 1888, this appeared: The total amount of extra receipts (Appropriations in-Aid) which may be applied in aid of the gross expenditure in any year is to be strictly limited by the total amount of the estimated extra receipts as shown in the Estimates for the year, and any excess of actual receipts beyond the total of the estimated receipts will, when ascertained, be surrendered in the same manner as ascertained surpluses on Grants are now surrendered. The amount which the Admiralty estimated to receive and apply in reduction of expenditure from the Appropriations-in-Aid is, as I have said, £1,700. That is the nominal figure, but the substantive amount we now expect to receive for this year, 1915–16, is £4,500,000. That additional Appropriation-in-Aid is as close an estimate as we can make. It is a large advance on our normal Appropriation-in-Aid. In 1914–15 we estimated to receive just over £2,000,000. I may be asked, and properly asked, how is it now you expect to receive £4,500,000 when your normal revenue from Appropriations-in-Aid is something in the region of £2,000,000? The answer generally is that we have made large issues to Allied Governments on repayment, and it will be observed that we have put the whole of the Appropriations-in-Aid, nominal and substantive, under Vote I. That is in accordance with the proposal of the Treasury on 9th February this year, and is, of course, merely a temporary expedient. Appropriations-in-Aid, as the Committee is aware, are, so far as practicable, distributed under the Votes which make the Service possible, for which the Appropriation-in-Aid is a return. For example, we get a contribution of £100,000 in aid of Navy Votes from the Government of India for His Majesty's ships in Indian waters. We credit the amount on receipt 1075 to the various Votes which bear the services towards which the £100,000 is a contribution—that is to say, the Votes for the pay of officers and men, victualling and clothing, medical establishments, shipbuilding, naval armaments, miscellaneous effective services, half-pay and retired pay, and naval and marine pensions and gratuities and compassionate allowances. When we come to the 1915–16 Appropriation-in-Aid, we shall in due course distribute it in the Appropriation Account. Here Section (4) of the Appropriation Act, 1915, will come to our rescue. That Section provides:
"(1) So long as the aggregate expenditure on. Naval and Military Services respectively is not made to exceed the aggregate sums appropriated by this Act for those Services respectively, any surplus arising on any Vote for these Services, either by an excess of the sum realised on account of Appropriations-in-Aid of the Vote over the sum which may be applied under this Act as Appropriations-in-Aid of that Vote, or by saving of expenditure on that Vote, may, with the sanction of the Treasury, be temporarily applied either in making up any deficiency in the sums realised on account of Appropriations-in-Aid of any other Vote in the same Department, or in defraying expenditure in the same Department which is not provided for in the sum appropriated to the service of the Department by this Act, and which it may be detrimental to the public service to postpone until provision can be made for it by Parliament in the usual course.

(2) A statement showing all cases in which the sanction of the Treasury has been given to the temporary application of a surplus under this Section, and showing the circumstances under which the sanction of the Treasury has been given, shall be laid before the House of Commons with the Appropriation Account of the Naval and Military Services for the year, in order that any temporary application of any surplus sanctioned by the Treasury under this Section may be submitted for the sanction of Parliament."
After this long explanation, for which I must apologise, but which I thought very necessary in view of the form of the Estimate, the Supplementary Estimate I am now submitting needs no further comment. It asks authority to utilise additional Appropriations-in-Aid to the extent of 1076 £4,500,000. Parliament has already voted £17,000, and we have its authority to use £l,700 Appropriations-in-Aid; that is to say, a gross expenditure of £18,700. And now we expect an Appropriation-in-Aid of £4,500,000, making £4,501,700, and, with the Parliamentary Grant already voted, £4,518,700. But Parliament must be asked to vote something to-day in order that we may be authorised to utilise these Appropriations-in-Aid, and therefore we have come for a token Vote of £10, which will make a gross authorised expenditure of £4,518,710.

§ Colonel Sir R. WILLIAMS
The Committee is obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for the very clear explanation he has given of the reasons for this Supplementary Vote. It involves a great many details which he has made abundantly clear, and I shall not trouble the Committee further than to say that I think the Admiralty have followed the right procedure in this case. The whole of the details of these Appropriations-in-Aid will subsequently come under the review of the Public Accounts Committee and also of the House, and I am quite satisfied the course taken is the right one.

§ Mr. LEIF JONES
I confess my gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman for the explanation he has given of the Supplementary Estimates, but I do not know whether there will be a certain disappointment in the Committee as to the amount of information which the public will derive with regard to these sums. There was, I think, an expectation in many quarters that we should have been told something of what the Navy has been doing during the last twelve months.

§ The CHAIRMAN
This is only a Supplementary Estimate, and no large question of policy or principle can arise. They come on the main Votes of the year.

§ Mr. JONES
I was not intending in the least to go into that matter. I was only referring to an expectation, no doubt wrongly based, when this Supplementary Estimate came on. All I wish to say is that though we have not been able to have any explanation to-day as to the actual origin of these increased Appropriations-in-Aid, £4,500,000 for the Navy and £18,000,000 for the Army in the next Vote that comes on, it is probably undesirable at the present moment that we should have any discussion of the amounts, and therefore I do not ask for any information. I only rise 1077 to emphasise a point I put to the right hon. Gentleman in a supplementary question some time ago that the accounts not now presented to Parliament should be kept so that when the War ends we may get in the usual form the full accounts for the period with which we are now dealing. My right hon. Friend has said, "As far as possible." The point I want to urge upon him is that as far as possible, especially as regards Appropriations-in-Aid, they should be as fully detailed over the whole period of the War as for the ordinary twelve months, and I want to ask the Department not to make an excuse of the fact that they are dealing with a much larger period to lessen the information which would ultimately be given to the Public Accounts Committee and to Parliament. That is the whole point I want to make. We cannot raise the issues now, but we do want to go fully into them as soon as the War is over, when we have to consider the vast expenditure that has been made. We have £4,500,000 Appropriation-in-Aid for the Navy and £18,000,000 Appropriation-in-Aid for the Army. It never was intended when these Appropriations-in-Aid were given to the different Votes that they should grow into these very large sums. What was supposed was that very trifling sums were received under subheads, and it was not thought worth paying these into the Exchequer in the ordinary course, and therefore the Departments were allowed to have them to play with, or, rather, to work upon. The situation is very much changed when you are dealing with sums of £4,500,000 and £18,000,000, and I think it raises the question whether the whole of these sums should not, in accordance with ancient practice, be paid directly over to the Exchequer.

§ Sir T. ESMONDE
This is an estimable Vote, and I am quite in favour of it, and desire to see it passed. I do not approach this question from the point of view of the body with which I was connected for many years, but from the point of view of those in the Navy. This Vote refers to the pay of officers in the Navy, and I wish to suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty that the amount for pay ought to be increased.

§ The CHAIRMAN
The hon. Baronet is mistaken. His opportunity for raising that point will arise upon the main Vote for the New Year, and it cannot. be raised on a Supplementary Estimate. I 1078 think next week, or the week after, the main Vote is to be taken, but this is a Supplementary Vote for the current year.

§ Sir T. ESMONDE
May I ask what can we raise on this Vote? This Estimate deals with the pay of officers and men, and I would like to know if we can discuss that point?

§ The CHAIRMAN
The rates of pay cannot now be discussed. I think the right hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench has exhausted all that can be said on that matter. All we are concerned with now is merely the method of presenting this account.

§ Sir T. ESMONDE
Would it be in order to urge that the pay of these officers should be reconsidered?

§ The CHAIRMAN
Those are questions of policy, and they can only be discussed on the main Votes for the year, and not on a Supplementary Estimate. Questions of policy cannot be discussed on this Vote unless some departure in policy is involved. That has been a long-established rule.

§ Sir T. ESMONDE
There is a slight departure in policy in connection with the pay of officers and men in respect of the messing deduction which has been increased since the War broke out. Surely that is a question of policy which we might discuss now?

§ The CHAIRMAN
That is not involved in this Vote. The only thing involved is the procedure with regard to the Public Accounts Committee, which the right hon. Gentleman has just described.

§ Sir T. ESMONDE
I only want the right hon. Gentleman to give more money to the Navy.

§ Mr. HOHLER
I should like to know the position in which we stand. We are now being limited to a discussion as to whether the procedure is in order, but surely that cannot be right. May we not inquire as to whether or not this money includes certain things, whether or not certain rates have been reduced, or whether certain men have had an increase in their pay, or whether the pay is excessive or extravagant in certain Departments? Surely we may inquire as to what are the merits of this Vote? I have listened with admiration to the compliments paid by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, but he has just 1079 left me where I was, and all these things are conducted under a veil. Surely we may ask whether this money has been applied in a broad way; whether any savings have been caused by deductions; whether all the yards or machinery is being used to the best advantage. I do not wish to discuss a number of Treasury Orders and Regulations, and other matters which do not concern me for the moment. We quite understand that we are not to know now what the amount is, and it may be £100,000,000; but surely we may raise questions as to whether certain grievances have been redressed; whether there has been extravagance, and questions as to how you are dealing with the men who may be killed in the Service.

§ The CHAIRMAN
The hon. and learned Member has put to me a long catalogue of questions, all of which would be appropriate to the main Vote of the year; and he has himself shown how impossible it is to allow those questions to be raised on a Supplementary Estimate. If the hon. and learned Member will' search the records for the last twenty years, he will find that my ruling is quite in accordance with precedent.

Mr. RUTHERFORD
I did expect when we received this Estimate that we should be told, at all events, how this money is going to be overspent before the end of the financial year, and that we should have presented to us a statement such as was indicated by the Regulations and in the Appropriation Act showing the different items. Here we have no such statement. I am not one of those who on this Vote is anxious to suggest that this proposal is objectionable on account of the largeness of the amount. This is just one of those years and occasions when we cannot complain. I think the Admiralty ought to be complimented, and we ought to be exceedingly grateful to the whole Department, if it really is a fact, as I gather from the right hon. Gentleman's statement, that they now find that their Estimates, notwithstanding all the work which has been done, were so accurate that they have only really overspent £4,500,000.

§ Dr. MACNAMARA
We take token sums of £100 revenue Appropriation-in-Aid under each Vote. The substantive Appropriation will turn out to be £4,500,000, and this is the income coming to us.

Mr. RUTHERFORD
Then the object is to enable the money voted for one purpose, and not used for that purpose, to be made use of to make good deficiencies on other Votes? That is my view of what the Appropriation Act was intended to do.

§ Dr. MACNAMARA
This is not the Appropriation Act.

Mr. RUTHERFORD
That is what the appropriations under the Act were intended to be. Here it is nothing of the sort. We are not even told, except by one illustration, the source from which the Appropriations-in-Aid are coming. I really think the Committee are entitled to know where you are getting the £4,500,000 Appropriations-in-Aid which you now propose to use to make up the deficiency of the original Estimate. We have not had that information.

§ Dr. MACNAMARA
Yes, I gave it.

Mr. RUTHERFORD
I was entirely unable to understand from the otherwise very lucid remarks of the right hon. Gentleman exactly where he was getting this sum of £4,500,000 which was not I anticipated, and which is now going to be used by way of credit in this Vote. If the right hon. Gentleman has, in fact, told the Committee, I am sorry to say that I did not understand him. I think the House of Commons and the whole country ought to appreciate the extremely excellent way in which the original Estimates were framed, if it really is a fact that they only want to use £4,500,000 Appropriations-in-Aid, and that the only amount for which they want cash for the purposes of this Supplementary Estimate is only £10. If that is the meaning of this Vote, we ought to be exceedingly satisfied, but if that is not the meaning, as I rather gather from certain indications that it may not be, then I think we are entitled to some further explanation from the right hon. Gentleman.

§ Mr. LOUGH
The right hon. Gentleman's manner was so extremely conciliatory that I became suspicious that he was tempting the House of Commons to pass as a matter of form that which it really ought to endeavour to understand. As I understand it, he is seeking by this token Vote to secure permission to use a much larger sum of Appropriations-in-Aid for the purposes of the Navy than would be legal without the consent of the House.

§ Dr. MACNAMARA
Under the original Estimate.

§ Mr. LOUGH
That, I think, is the object of the Vote?

§ Dr. MACNAMARA
Yes.

§ Mr. LOUGH
Of course, no one wants in any way to place any restriction upon what the Navy requires. The Navy must get everything it requires, but why could it not be done in another way? Is not the object and effect of using these Appropriations-in-Aid to avoid the necessity of the Department going to the Treasury? If it can use these Appropriations-in-Aid it will not have to go to the Treasury and get its sanction for the expenditure. If the course put forward in this Supplementary Estimate had not been adopted we should have had an Estimate of a different kind. It might still have been a token Vote, but it would have been for the additional sum required, and the Appropriations-in-Aid would have been surrendered as usual. The object of this Vote is to enable the Department to use a large portion of the Appropriations-in-Aid without surrendering them, as it ought to do according to the law. We have not had the reason why this is being done, and I regard it with a little suspicion. Why not let the Appropriations-in-Aid be surrendered in the usual way and then obtain the sanction of the Treasury as hitherto? If it is not necessary to follow that course we ought, I think, to have some more direct reasons given us. I really do not see why we should be asked to assent to the Department using much larger Appropriations-in-Aid than usual or why they should not be surrendered and the additional money required obtained in the usual way. I think some more reason ought to be given us for adopting this unusual course.

§ Mr. D. MASON
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the £2,000,000 to which he referred represent advances to our Allies?

§ Mr. HOHLER
I will put each of my questions to the right hon. Gentleman so that if any of them are not in order you may rule them out of order. You have referred me to precedents, but with great respect I am not aware that there is any precedent for such a crisis as this. As I understand it, these Appropriations-in-Aid are savings on other Votes. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I am told that is wrong, and I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman did not convey to me precisely 1082 what they are. In some way or other there is a deficiency on some Votes and the Admiralty requires more money. We never knew what was granted by the original Vote, but apparently more is required, and my questions to the right hon. Gentleman will be addressed to ascertaining whether or not in these further sums certain matters are included. The first question I propose to ask is whether there is included in this Vote provision for the widows of men of His Majesty's Navy who have been promoted lieutenants and who have died as such?

§ The CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member is really contesting my ruling, and I cannot permit that.

§ Dr. MACNAMARA
I said at the outset that I rose with some trepidation, and I did my very best to make the matter clear, but I will take the points which have been put to me and try to answer them. My hon. Friend the Member for the Rushchiffe Division (Mr. Leif Jones) asked whether we should take advantage of the fact that we might have to present an Appropriation Account after more than a year to say that we could not give quite as much information as if it had been only for a year. I said earlier that I was not to be pinned down to precise details, but we should keep in the office the most detailed and complete statement of how we were spending this money—the £17,000 already granted by Parliament, the £1,700 Appropriations-in-Aid which we have authority to use, and this additional Appropriation-in-Aid plus the much larger sum which will be taken on the Vote of Credit—and when the proper time came we should be ready to submit it to the Public Accounts Committee and for the examination and criticism of this House. Then I am asked why we do not go back to the old method of disposing of the Appropriations-in-Aid altogether. If we sell a battleship and get a certain amount for it, why do not we pay that over to the Exchequer, instead of using it with Parliamentary sanction in abatement of Parliamentary Grants to be given? That is a very interesting point, and I would only advance one argument in favour of the present system. Supposing we do so—

§ The CHAIRMAN
The right hon. Gentleman is raising a question of policy. That is a matter for the main Estimates and not for Supplementary Estimates.

§ Dr. MACNAMARA
I agree, and I will discuss the matter privately with my hon. 1083 Friend. I am afraid that the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. W. Rutherford) has entirely misunderstood the purpose of this Supplementary Estimate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Islington put it most succinctly in a sentence We now find that instead of receiving £1,700 for services rendered we shall receive £4,500,000, and in order to entitle us to use that £4,500,000 Appropriations-in-Aid instead of £17,000, the amount already voted, we have got to come to the House with this token Vote; which makes the total Vote this year £17,010. It is a question of the substantive Appropriation-in-Aid being larger than the original amount provided for. My hon. Friend asks why we do not say the source from which the additional Appropriations-in-Aid are coming. I said: The £4,500,000 is as close, an estimate as we can make it. It is a large advance on our normal Appropriations-in-Aid. In 1914–15 we estimated to receive just over £2,000,000. I may be asked, and properly asked, how it is that we now estimate to receive more than twice the sum in 1915–16. The answer generally is that we have made large issues to Allied Governments on repayment. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry (Mr. D. Mason) asks if these Appropriations-in-Aid mean that we are making grants to Allied countries. No. The answer generally is that we have made large issues to Allied Governments in repayment for services rendered. Then my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington (Mr. Lough) asks why we do not surrender these Appropriations-in-Aid according to Parliamentary practice. My right hon. Friend suggested that we wanted to deal with this money without going to the Treasury. On the contrary, we are acting in strict accord with the directions of the Treasury embodied in a Minute of the 5th February, 1913, to the following effect: That the substantive Appropriation-in-Aid of the receipts should be left over to be made on Supplementary Estimates under the respective Votes later in the financial year when the amounts can be more precisely estimated, a normal appropriation only being made on the original Estimates. That is exactly what we have done. We have acted on the instructions of the Treasury, which thus laid down the proper way of dealing with Appropriations-in-Aid.

Mr. RUTHERFORD
Having regard to the ruling of the Chair, and the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman, I think we are bound to pass this Vote without any real criticism. I have been under the impression that the object of presenting 1084 Votes in this way was to give the House of Commons some information as to where the money was coming from, and what was proposed to be done with it. But the right hon. Gentleman has told us nothing of the kind. I can quite understand it is not politic at the present moment to go into details with regard to these matters, but I must congratulate the right hon. Gentleman once more on the way in which he is managing this business, and on the exceedingly able and astute manner in which the Vote has been put before the House, so as to make it impossible for anyone to understand it.