I am aware that it not possible under this Bill to discuss the propriety of expenditure, but there are some matters that can be discussed on the Appropriation Bill. Sir Erskine May lays it down that Amendments must be restricted to matters of appropriation, and it is to a matter of appropriation that I desire to refer. My contention is that when money is being used with the sanction of the Treasury for which it is not appropriated, then that is a matter to which attention can be drawn properly on this Bill. The matter, in short, is this. In the Army Estimates last year large sums of money were taken for,the arms and transport of the Army, but anyone who examines the Army Estimates will see that there was no indication whatever that these stores were to be used for expeditions of a military—

That does not arise on the Question that Clause 1 stand part of the Bill. This is an issue Clause, enabling the Treasury to issue certain sums of money from the Consolidated Fund for the services of the year. Any question as to the proper presentation of that is provided for by a, proper constitutional body, namely, the Public Accounts Committee, and it cannot arise in a discussion on the question that a Clause stand part of the Bill.

I submit that the point which will come before the Comptroller and Auditor-General, namely, whether a Supplementary Estimate should not have been presented for the expedition in the Dardanelles, is properly discussed by the House on the Bill which confers the duty on the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and, incidentally, which guides the Comptroller and Auditor-General in deciding whether or not the money has been properly used. Although I had not the least intention of going into the merits of the question, I propose to divide the House in order that we might make a protest against what has occurred.

I have exercised my-own ingenuity in these matters in the past. In accordance with all former rulings, the matter cannot now be discussed. The hon. and gallant Gentleman may be right or wrong, but he cannot raise the matter now.

Do I understand you to rule that, despite the extract which I have read from Erskine May's "Parliamentary Practice," this House must wait for two years before it can call attention to the fact that money has been voted for one purpose and used for another?

I do not say that that is the only opportunity, but I do say that this is not the opportunity.

Is not this a question of appropriation? I submit that an appropriation was made, in respect of the service for the current. year, in August last. As since then that appropriation has been altered and a Supplementary Estimate has been introduced, is it not within the power of the Committee to raise the question of the appropriation on this Supplementary Estimate, which would have afforded the ordinary constitutional way of altering the appropriation?

I do not act so much on the terms of the Bill as on the continuous practice of all Chairmen in ruling upon this particular matter.

Forgive me for pressing my point, but it involves a very great public issue of Parliamentary control. Is it not a fact that it is quite possible that a precedent has not arisen because the impropriety has not arisen? If that is so, when has this House an opportunity of protesting against the voting of money for one purpose and the using of it for another?

If the matter is of the importance that the hon. and gallant Gentleman thinks, it might have been better if he had mentioned it to me beforehand, so that I might have had an opportunity of giving him a considered ruling. As it is, the hon. and gallant Member must be content with my decision.

I apologise for not having mentioned the matter to you before, but I did not know

That would open a very wide field of discussion, if once permitted. I can rely only on the continuous precedents of the past in this matter.