§ Captain BOWYERasked the Prime-Minister whether there has been formed a body known as the Railway Accounts Department to arrange and tabulate. accounts for railway expenditure during the War in order to ascertain the amounts due to each other from the French, Belgian, and British Governments; how long it is calculated that the work will take and the estimated cost of the work and of this Department; and whether he will consider the desirability of the appointment of three competent railway accountants, acting as assessors, one representing each Government concerned, the ascertain figures approximately correct and mutually agreeable, with a view to saving expense and effecting a reduction in staff?
§ Mr. FORSTERI have been asked to reply to this question. My hon. and gallant Friend is, I think, under some misapprehension. No such Department as he suggests has been formed or is in contemplation. The accounts branch of the British Railway Department in France. 1531W the work of which is not yet finished, is about to be transferred to this country, but the detailed arrangements are not yet settled. It is, and always has been, in charge of a competent railway accountant.