§ 97. Mr. HUGH LAWasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the record of engineering works on pages 89–94 of the 34th Annual Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland, and to the numerous payments therein referred to as having been made in the year 1915 out of the Development Fund as free grants and loans in respect of various harbour improvements in Scotland; and whether the Treasury will explain upon what principle these payments have been made for Scottish harbour works while in all cases of harbour improvements in the western half of Ireland, scheduled as congested, the Treasury decided in every instance, except that of Baltimore, county Cork, that no payments should be made out of the Development Fund during the War, although all preparation had been made locally for carrying out harbour improvements at Buncrana, Rathmullen, Burtonport, and Dingle, with aid from the Development Fund as approved by the Treasury?
§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. McKinnon Wood)Yes, Sir; I have referred to the Report in question. Payments have been made for harbour improvements from the Development Fund during the year 1915 only in cases where contracts had already been entered into and extra cost would have been involved by breaking the contracts, or where work was urgently required to secure the safety of existing harbour structures. There has been no differentiation between the cases of Scotland and Ireland in the application of these principles.
Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that the annual Grant of£200,000 to the Scottish Board of Agriculture has been taken away, and that there has been no equivalent reduction on the expenditure in Ireland?