§ THE EARL OF MALMESBURYsaid, in pursuance of the notice he had given, he rose to call the attention of the Government to the works now being carried on in St. James's Park; and to ask what were the objects and what would be the probable expense of those works. Any one of their Lordships who might have directed his attention to the proceedings now going on there must have been convinced that considerable expense would be incurred before the works now in progress were completed. For himself, he had in vain attempted to discover how the benefits likely to result from those alterations could be at all in proportion to the money which they would cost. He ought to tell such of their Lordships as were not aware of the facts that the piece of ornamental water in St. James's Park, some twelve or thirteen acres in extent, had been completely drained off, that the bottom of the lake had been levelled and covered over with a strong concrete six inches thick, and that the result would be that in future the lake would be rendered considerably more shallow, and would contain an average depth of water of probably three or four feet. There were other works going on besides; by which the water was to be pumped up into the lake and carried over the whole of its sur- 287 face, and then away to the river. He had taken the opinion of a competent authority on the subject, and the result was that he (the Earl of Malmesbury) could not estimate the total expense of the works in question at less than £12,000 or £14,000. Their Lordships would no doubt recollect that Parliament in 1856 voted £8,000 for making the approaches to the Park. He had been told by a person likely to know the views of the First Commissioner of Public Works, what were the advantages likely to accrue from the alterations now going on—they were three in number. He was informed, first of all, that the palace of Her Majesty would be rendered more healthy, by the water in the lake being kept pure. He could only say that, living as he did in the immediate vicinity of St. James's Park, he had never observed any inconvenience arise from, the state of the water in the lake, nor had he ever heard from any one else that any such inconvenience existed. He knew well that their Lordships would only be too happy to contribute by any means in their power to the health of the Royal family; but, thank Providence, their Lordships had never heard of any ill-health in the family of Her Majesty. The second object was that very great convenience would accrue to skaters on the lake during hard winters. But he (the Earl of Malmesbury) thought that could be no very great desideratum, seeing that it was only about once in two years that any skating could be enjoyed in that part of the metropolis for more than a week; and he, therefore, thought that object would not at all justify the expense. The third point was that there should be a constant supply of water carried through the lake, the effect of which would be to render the water transparent, and, therefore, at once wholesome and ornamental. His impression, however, was that if by that expensive layer of concrete they prevented the natural percolation taking place through the mud and vegetation that usually collected at the bottom of pieces of ornamental water, and which had the effect of purifying the water, instead of putting a stop to the inconvenience of which complaint was made, the result would be very much to increase it. He knew, at all events, from a noble Friend of his who once filled the office of Commissioner of Woods and Forests, that that had been the effect of paving with bricks the bottom of the reservoir in the Green Park, and in consequence the reservoir had been filled 288 up altogether. He had another, though it might be a minor objection to the works in progress. Their Lordships all knew that however beautiful the pieces of ornamental water in St. James Park was, its attraction was very much enhanced by the water fowl which live upon it. If a collection of water fowl was in future to be maintained there, the department of Public Works would have to employ people to feed them regularly, now that all the aquatic vegetation which grew in the lake, and on which they mainly subsisted, had been cleared away and would be prevented from again accumulating. Again, he (the Earl of Malmesbury) had received letters from several of the residents in the neighbourhood of Queen's Square and near St. James's Park, stating that the works now in progress in the Park had completely drained their wells and rendered them useless. They had not complained of that, because they were ready to put up with a temporary inconvenience; but, he had been informed on competent authority that if the steam-engine now set up in the Park was to be permanently maintained, as he understood it was, to pump the water into the lake and through it, the wells in the vicinity would be rendered entirely dry by the process and the inhabitants there greatly inconvenienced. But he looked upon the works in question in a much more serious light. They were at best but a piece of fanciful extravagance on the part of the right hon. Baronet now at the head of the Department of Public Works (Sir B. Hall). Depend upon it, proud as we were of this country, and convinced as we were that it was all-powerful—he might almost say immortal—Parliament and the people at large must pay greater attention to the finances of the country than they had done, unless at some period, and probably not at all a remote one, they were prepared to encounter evils such as they had not hitherto experienced. He never saw a public document more likely to occasion well-grounded alarm to their Lordships and the country than the return of the money expended in Miscellaneous Services from 1838 to 1856, recently laid upon the table of their Lordships' House. It might be said that the £12,000 or £14,000 about to be expended on this lake was nothing to a country like this; but when they added to that a number of sums of smaller or greater magnitude, which made in the aggregate an enormous amount, he submitted it was not beneath 289 the dignity of their Lordships to take such a state of things into their consideration. He should, therefore, like to know whether the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Department of Public Works had received the permission of Parliament to incur the expense consequent upon the works in question; whether, in fact, the money had been regularly voted by the House of Commons for the purpose He (the Earl of Malmesbury) held in his hand the paper to which he had just referred, showing the great increase which had taken place in the Miscellaneous Estimates during the last twenty years. A noble Earl not then present said, on a former occasion, that he did not like to alarm their Lordships by comparing the expenditure of 1856 with that of 1838. But in his (the Earl of Malmesbury's) opinion, it was better to state the truth at once. Comparing the year 1838 with 1856, the increase in the expenditure on Public Works had been in round numbers not less than £463,000, the increase in Salaries had been £824,000, the increase in the expenditure in Law and upon Prisons, Convicts, &c., amounted to £1,600,000, the increase on Science and Education was £720,000, and the increase in Votes for what might be called temporary objects was £324,000. In other words, the total miscellaneous expenditure in 1838 was £2,500,000, and in 1856 £6,724,000, showing an increase in 1856, as compared with 1838, of no less than £4,224,000 on Miscellaneous Estimates alone, or a sum very nearly equal to the amount raised by the first property tax. Even if the whole of the expenditure in Law, Education, and Science were deducted, the increase under this head would be upwards of £2,000,000. Now, he wished to guard himself from being supposed to advocate any unnecessary reduction in the estimates for the army and navy. He was surprised to find a suspicion existing in some quarters where he least expected it, that noble Lords on his side of the House were anxious to cut down the expenditure for the effective services of the country. He repeated he was astonished to find such a suspicion entertained of men who were the first to dare, since the battle of Waterloo, to increase the effective strength of the army and navy, as they had done when in office in 1852. Although he was aware of the extent of political gratitude, and of the nature of political memory, he must say he was astonished to hear such charges emanating from such quar- 290 ters. He could only say, so far as his humble opinion went, he should be sorry indeed ever to see the army and navy again reduced to the state in which they were when the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) took office in 1852. He looked back to that time with a keen recollection of the great alarm that he and they with whom he acted experienced lest an emergency should arise in which those services, in the condition they then were, should be put to the test, and the thankfulness they felt that no such occasion arose at that period. He really believed that the Government, before entering upon such works as those in St. James's Park, could scarcely have counted the cost, so recklessly did they seem to be proceeding; and with respect to other items of expenditure incurred by the department over which the right hon. Baronet (Sir B. Hall) presided, he (the Earl of Malmesbury) thought he could show that the people did not get anything like their money's worth. Their Lordships knew that, on their private estates, the estimated charges on repairs of buildings of the simplest kind were 10 per cent.; but that would give them very little idea of the expense of keeping up a building in the style of architecture of the Houses of Parliament. He found a sum of £40,000 expended in 1855 for buildings in Downing-street. He could not understand how such a sum could have been laid out, inasmuch as that part of the Government property seemed to be in the same state of ruin in which it had been for many years. Again, what sum did their Lordships think had been spent three years ago in cleaning the statue of Charles I. at Charing Cross? Why, no less than £1,000. But an architect who had watched the works had told him he would gladly have done it for £120. Then he came to the monument at Scutari, on which £17,000 had been expended. The removal of the Science and Art Department last year cost £10,000; and £4,500 had been expended upon an entrance to St. James's Park, which had only produced two yellow walls. He did not grudge the money, because he thought the entrance a great public convenience; but he had stated enough to show that Parliament would not be doing its duty if it did not—he would not say oblige, but—assist the Government in carrying out a system of strict economy at this time. We had expended £76,000,000 on the war; we had increased the public debt by £40,000,000; and we had a 291 permanent charge of £1,500,000 as interest on the debt, besides something like £2,000,000 to be paid annually to a sinking fund for the purpose of extinguishing the debt. In the face of facts such as those, he submitted it was not beneath the consideration of Parliament to enforce the strictest economy in the public expenditure. Under a strong Government, as the present seemed to be, anything like extravagance was much more dangerous than it would be under a weak one, where the Opposition was as powerful as vigilant. He could easily conceive the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Department of Public Works desirous of distinguishing his tenure of office above that of all his predecessors. Nothing could well be more tempting than for a Member of a Government to stand in the middle of this metropolis, with the public purse in his hand, and say he would convert it into a city of palaces. It was the more natural to indulge aspirations so brilliant when that Member represented one of the great electoral divisions of the capital of England. He (the Earl of Malmesbury) could fancy such a man having before his eyes the glory of Florence and the Medicis, and wishing to become another Lorenzo, to go down to posterity as Benjamin the Magnificent; but he (the Earl of Malmesbury) thought the time had arrived when their Lordships ought to call upon the Government to impose some curb on the ambition of the right hon. Baronet, and some limit to the extravagant expenditure of the public money to which he (the Earl of Malmesbury) had ventured to call the attention of the House.
§ EARL GRANVILLEsaid, he should only so far detain their Lordships as to make a few observations on the small portion of the noble Earl's speech which related to the question before them. He was not surprised that the noble Earl should have thought it necessary to make the statement he had done, seeing he entertained the views he did upon the subject which he had brought under the consideration of their Lordships. The noble Earl alluded to the inconvenience to the Queen and the Royal Family likely to arise from the water of the lake; and he (Earl Granville) was sure the House and the public would willingly contribute to any public improvement demanded by Her Majesty's health. So far as he was aware, however, neither Her Majesty nor any member of the Royal family had made any 292 complaint on the subject; but then, on the other hand, he did know that the medical officers of the district had made many formal and official applications to the Government to remove the abominable nuisance arising from the impure state of the water in the Royal parks for many years past. He had it, too, on the highest professional authority that, bad as the water was in the other Parks, that of St. James's Park was in the worst state of all. Such appeals could not be neglected by any Government desirous to do its duty; and it became necessary to consider in what way the evil could be rectified. The noble Earl had complained of the irregularity on the part of the Government in proceeding with these works without first presenting an estimate to Parliament. He (Earl Granville) had, however, been told that it was impossible to frame an estimate of the expense necessary for clearing out the lake until the lake was first emptied; and when it was emptied and the mud laid bare, it was not reasonable or desirable to defer the work of cleaning out the lake for a whole year. This was the reason why no estimate had been presented last year for this purpose. When the lake was emptied it was found that the bottom was five feet lower than the Trinity House datum of high-water mark in the Thames; while such were the irregularities of the surface, there being in some places holes three feet deep, and in other places holes of a depth of nine feet, that it was impossible to clear out the lake unless artificially, the inequalities of course adding to the stagnancy of the water left. The noble Earl had said that the lining with concrete would make matters worse than before, and he had instanced the experiment made by a late Commissioner of Works for the purification of the water in the late reservoir in the Green Park. But the two cases were not similar. In the Green Park no concrete was used; bricks were there used without mortar, and the water used came from the Thames directly opposite a sewer, and brought up with it a smell that was anything but agreeable, and which was afterwards further improved by the dead cats, dead dogs, and he believed occasionally by a dead human being, which were found in that receptacle close to Piccadilly. The noble Earl had by no means proved that the measures now in progress would not succeed by citing an experiment of an opposite character. With regard to the noble Earl's regret at the 293 absence of the waterfowl which were so ornamental a feature in St. James's Park, he agreed with his noble Friend on that point. But he was happy to be able to comfort his noble Friend on that point by informing him that they had been removed to Kew pending the alterations, and that they would come back when they were completed. He could not see why they should not in future prosper as much in fresh water as in the stinking and offensive water in which they had been wont to disport themselves. In future, when it was necessary to flush out the lake no expense would be incurred, while at present an enormous expense was unavoidable when it was requisite to clean out the lake. The noble Earl had objected to incurring the expense of levelling the bottom for the sake of the skaters; but it must not be forgotten that much loss of life had occurred in skating which it was desirable to prevent if possible. He believed that the noble Earl had greatly overstated the expense in estimating it at £14,000, and that it would be under £11,500, and that this would comprise not only the clearing out of the lake, but the drainage of that which had turned out to be a swamp on each side of these ornamental grounds. Their Lordships would, he hoped, be of opinion, that this was not too large an expenditure when upon it depended not only the enjoyment but the actual health of a large district of the metropolis. His noble Friend had no doubt been quite right in introducing into his speech the extraneous topic of public economy, and he, therefore, would not complain of three-fourths of his speech; but still, he thought it would have been more fair if his noble Friend had given notice of his intention to refer to that topic, so that the Government might have had an opportunity of answering him. He would admit that, although their Lordships did not hold the purse-strings, they had no more important function than to warn Parliament, the Government itself, and the public when they saw any neglect of economy. He should be the last to urge their Lordships to abstain from giving useful advice on this subject when they saw occasion to do so, but for the sake of truth and the utility of such debates, it was desirable that the House should be in a position to know the pros and cons of the matters in dispute. The discussion of isolated points might give the public wrong impressions, and that might be avoided if due notice were given of points 294 to be discussed. Now, the topics to which the noble Earl had referred were not within his department, and he had had no opportunity of consulting with the department to which it did belong, from the circumstance of his not knowing to what points his noble Friend intended to refer. But he happened to know, that, although the estimate of a late Commissioner of Works for the repair of King Charles's statue at Charing Cross was £1,000, yet the sum actually expended was under £100, if not under £50. [The Earl of DERBY was understood to ask what became of the difference?] If, however, he should be wrong, and if the whole sum of £1,000 was expended, it only showed how important it was that notice of these questions should be given, in order to prevent Members of the Government who might not be connected with the department in question from falling into error in their statements. With regard to the expenditure in the public parks, and the tempting facility to which the noble Earl had alluded of spending the public money upon them, he begged to remark that while on the one hand there could be nothing more criminal than to add to the burdens of the people for the useless ornament of the metropolis, yet, considering that the metropolis was the capital of so large a kingdom, he believed that those who were not resident in it would feel disgusted if it were left in a neglected and unbecoming position. In many respects London, with its population of 2,500,000, was held to exhibit a great inferiority to many second-rate towns on the Continent; but it had one honourable and peculiar feature in its Royal parks, which, while they added to the decent splendour of the Crown, at the same time promoted the health and recreation of all classes of the metropolis. The Minister, therefore, was deserving not of censure, but of encouragement, who applied himself judiciously and economically to make those parks as healthful and as beautiful as possible. He believed that the noble Earl had entirely failed in making out any case against the department responsible for these works, and against the Government which sanctioned them, when he impugned, as uncalled for, the measures taken to purify the water used in, the centre of the metropolis for the ornamentation of the Royal parks.
§ THE EARL OF HARDWICKEsaid, that if the Returns before their Lordships were correct, it would appear that grants of 295 money made by Parliament for carrying out a particular object were not always expended for that purpose; but that any surplus which might remain after the works for which the Vote had been taken had been completed might be expended in a way which Parliament had never contemplated. If £1,000 were asked for the cleaning of a statue, while only £50 were laid out, it was very easy to understand how it was that Sir Benjamin Hall was enabled to carry on the works which he had undertaken. He would not say that that was the mode in which those matters were really managed, but, if not, the documents which had been placed in their Lordships' hands were utterly valueless as the statement of the expenditure of the country, and ought to be taken back and revised by the Government. It was impossible not to perceive that sums of money far beyond what was required for the particular purposes were asked from Parliament, and that the Board of Works were thus enabled to hold in hand capital sufficient for purposes which were not expressed in the Vote. His noble Friend opposite had just stated that it was impossible to frame an estimate of the outlay necessary for clearing of the water in St. James's Park; but their Lordships must be perfectly aware that there was a very simple mode of calculating the sum which would be required for the purpose by taking the number of cubic yards in the space to be cleared, and estimating the expense in accordance with that number; and to say that a calculation could not be made of the contents of ten or twelve acres of water, gave an idea that administrative reform was especially wanted in some departments of the State. He should like to have some further information from his noble Friend upon that point, and should also wish to learn if he had consulted those deeply versed in subjects of that nature as to whether the circumstance of there being a growth of weeds in the water was sufficient to occasion that offensive vapour which generally arose from water in a state of stagnation? The position of the reservoir—the Green Park—to which reference had been made was upon high ground; so that it supplied water to all the houses below it, and it seemed to him to be a somewhat extraordinary piece of engineering to take away water which stood at so great an elevation. He might also say that the improvements in St. James's Park were being carried out, he believed, not by the piece, but by day 296 work, and of course under those circumstances a, very vigilant superintendence would be required in order to get the men employed to go through a fair amount of labour. These were points upon which he should wish to have some information from his noble Friend.
§ EARL GRANVILLEsaid, he had been informed that the consequence of allowing the weeds to accumulate in the water would be to create malaria, and that Sir William Hooker, a gentleman of great experience in such subjects, had entirely approved the mode in which the water had been dealt with. He must also inform his noble Friend that the improvements in the parks were not being carried out by means of day work. With respect to the charge of keeping the money granted to prosecute a particular work for the purpose of appropriating it to an entirely different purpose, he could only say that the thing was absolutely impossible, inasmuch as the Audit Office required that any sum which might not have been laid out on the proposed work should be repaid into the Treasury.
§ THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHregretted the noble Earl had not informed the House whether in the original estimate the cleaning of the statue which had been mentioned was or was not to be done by day work; for on no other supposition could it be assumed to cost £1,000. It was not, perhaps, exactly within their Lordships' province to enter into those details of public expenditure; but he trusted there would be found in the new House of Commons some one man who would be competent to undertake the duty in that respect which had been so long and so usefully performed by the late Mr. Hume, namely, to keep a constant watch over the public expenditure. How it was that the House of Commons could have voted a sum of £1,000 for the cleaning of a statue—unless, after it had undergone that process, they intended that it should be gilded—he could not understand.
§ LORD MONTEAGLEsaid, that the noble Earl near him (Earl Granville) had been to a certain extent necessarily unprepared for a discussion which had gone so much beyond the term of the notice given. The subject was also one which by no means related to the noble Earl's department. The House knew the pains he generally took to obtain the information required, to answer any questions put. Their Lordships ought not to feel any 297 great surprise at finding the President of the Council had committed a mistake in assuming that the surplus of a sum of money granted for one purpose could not, owing to the check which the Audit Office exercised over such transactions, be applied to another. It would be most fortunate if this were the case. Such, however, was not the fact, and he regretted to be obliged to inform their Lordships that no audit whatever was applicable to the great majority of the Votes which appeared in the accounts under their notice. There was, therefore, no attempt to audit the miscellaneous services, and no such check as his noble Friend supposed existed. But even in cases where an audit applied, it was not always sufficient to prevent misapplication of public monies. It rather exposed than prevented such misconduct. In order to show the House how dangerous were the consequences which were likely to result from the present state of our public expenditure, he might state the simple fact that, although £80,000 had been devoted to pay the expenses of the funeral of the late Duke of Wellington, yet there remained out of the sum £25,000, not one farthing of which had been employed for the purpose for which it had been voted, but which, during the last four years which have since elapsed, had been applied to an entirely different use. Nor has any knowledge of this fact been communicated on the face of the annual accounts; those accounts, on the contrary, went to prove that the £80,000 had been expended for the purposes of the Vote. The truth was at length discovered. In a debate in the other House of Parliament it incidentally transpired that this money had been thus misapplied, and then, after some difficulty, the matter had been set right, so far as the admission of the facts of the case to Parliament. This fact, therefore, showed that no sufficient audit existed by which this flagrant violation of law existed, or by which, when discovered, it could be atoned for. Now, what applied to this small sum applied equally to millions; and since his noble Friend (Earl Granville) relied so implicitly upon the efficiency of a supposed audit, it would be well for him to inquire how far such a system of audit existed, and how far it was effected where it did exist. The special question now before the House had not been properly dealt with. The charge against the Government was, not any indifference to the improvement of the park 298 that they had incurred this expense without an estimate and without proper Parliamentary Votes and authority. The excuse was most weak, he had almost said absurd. What could be thought of a Government which alleged that they could not obtain a proper estimate of the cost of such a matter? Surely there could not be any difficulty in obtaining an estimate of the expense of draining a pond; but failing that, they could have taken a Vote of money on account, which would at least have rendered the proceedings legal. Their Lordships knew how frequently money was placed at the disposal of Government for the purpose of meeting unascertained expenditure, as by the Civil Contingency Vote. Under no circumstances should the Government have expended money as they had expended this, without the authority or even cognizance of Parliament. It was unjustifiable to do so. Such a course was neither in accordance with the principles of the constitution nor with the rules under which public money should alone be expended. He thought that these violations of the Appropriation Act should not be lightly passed over. They constituted serious Parliamentary offences. This £25,000 to which he referred, had only been prepared to be repaid after the misapplication had been found out. However, these matters were not, it seemed, to be discussed during the present Session; but it seemed to belong to his official duties not to pass over this occasion without putting his noble Friend (Earl Granville) right in his belief in the existence in most cases, or in the efficiency in all, of the efficacy of the audit, as checking any excess of expenditure beyond the sums voted. He did not so much object to the Government of the day taking a Vote larger than the circumstances of the case might require; that might occasionally arise from the circumstances; but he did complain of the application of money voted by Parliament for one purpose to a purpose totally different, because in such cases it was more than doubtful whether the excess issued from the Exchequer was ever returned to the credit of the public; of this he complained as being contrary to law and to the constitution.
THE EARL OF WICKLOWsaid, that, from his personal experience, he could bear testimony to the benefit derived by the people of this city from the works carried on by the Government in the parks. For the last few years an extensive system of 299 drainage had been carried on in all the parks, which had conduced greatly to the health and comfort of the people of the metropolis; and he was bound, moreover, to say that the improvements made by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Board of Works had contributed very much to the convenience of the public. The new walks had been laid out with great skill and judgment; and many parts of the parks, which had been previously to their formation deserted, were now favourite spots.
§ LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid, that, if he had understood the noble Lord (Lord Monteagle) correctly, he had implied that it was in the power of the Government of the day, if there was any excess upon any estimate, to spend that excess in any manner they might think fit, without responsibility to Parliament. Now he begged to say that, so far as his experience went, that course was not practised by Government; and he did not think that the experience of the noble Lord would enable him to tell their Lordships and the public that it was in the power of the Government to adopt such a course. If in one department there should be an excess upon one estimate, then the Treasury had power to authorise the expenditure of that excess for analogous purposes in that same department; but it was not competent to them to employ money voted for one purpose to objects totally different. With regard to the statue of Charles I., it was true that a Vote of £1,000 had been taken, but that had been done under the impression that the pedestal and foundation were insecure; but it having turned out that such was not the case, a considerably smaller sum had been expended. As to the surplus of £25,000 which remained after the expenses of the funeral of the Duke of Wellington had been defrayed, he would undertake to say that none of that money had been applied for any other purpose, although from the accounts not having been finally sent in, it had no doubt remained a considerable time in the Treasury. When, however, the accounts were audited the matter was put right.
§ LORD MONTEAGLEwished to point out to the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) two errors into which he had fallen. He had stated that it was in the power of the Treasury in a case like that so justly complained of by the noble Earl (Lord Malmesbury) to apply sums of money voted 300 for one purpose to other purposes in the same department. Now, that was true with regard to the three great services; but even there it was only true in certain cases—the army and navy and the ordnance, because a provision to that effect had been introduced by Sir J. Graham, for the improvement of the Appropriation Bill; but the provisions of that Act did not apply in the slightest degree to the civil expenditure Estimates of the country. The miscellaneous service expenditure was entirely carried out by the Treasury, altogether out of the control of the Audit Office, and on no occasion were they as such submitted to the Board of Audit. It had been stated before a Committee of the House of Commons by the Chairman of the Board of Audit, that the appropriation of the Miscellaneous Votes did not come under the control of the auditors. The second error into which the noble Earl had fallen was, that in the case of the surplus of the sum voted for the funeral of the Duke of Wellington the matter would have been rectified when the accounts were audited. Now, if he would look into the subject, he would find that, as he had said, the whole of the Civil Estimates were entirely out of the control of the Audit Office, and therefore any check upon the part of that Office was impossible. He repeated, as an unquestionable fact, that a sum of £25,000, voted for one purpose, had from 1853 to 1857 been illegally diverted to another. [Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY: Not permanently.] Not permanently! No; but till the Treasury was found out. This largo sum had for a period of three or four years been applied, under the authority of the Treasury, to purposes wholly different from that for which it was voted by the House. This was not our constitution, and it was only from the fact of this illegal misappropriation oozing out in the House of Commons that any steps had been taken by which this illegal misappropriation might eventually be set right.
§ LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid, the country had not been deprived of the sum to which the noble Lord referred. From his knowledge of the working of the civil departments he was certain that no department would undertake to apply the surplus of one vote in aid of the diminution of another without application being made to the Treasury, and the approval of the Treasury being obtained.