said the Amendment now proposed completely changed the character of the Bill. As originally introduced it was open to the gravest constitutional and financial objections, but certainly the major part of thoseobjections would now be removed. Instead of being placed as a permanent charge on the Consolidated Fund, and withdrawn from the control of Parliament, the grant was now to be placed on the Estimates. To enable that to be done an Act of Parliament was not required in the natural course of things, and he assumed the necessity in this case was due to the framework of the Land Bill. But while the Bill was less objectionable than before, it now made an addition to a series of Estimates which was open to serous criticism. It introduced, in fact, a large new grant-in-aid. Grants-in-aid, when small and for specific purposes, such as those for the National Gallery and certain scientific societies, were not very objectionable; they afforded a convenient method of granting public money. But of late years they had enormously increased, notwithstanding the protests of the Public Accounts Committee and the recommendations of the Treasury. Last year the grants-in-aid amounted to £3,600,000, and in addition to that there was £4,000,000 for the Transvaal. The objection to the system was that the money was withdrawn from all the safeguards provided by practice and the Constitution, and handed over to a Department or an individual, without any question being asked, to be expended practically without control. He regretted the Chief Secretary had found it necessary to resort to this form of Estimate, but he acknowledged the readiness with which the right hon. Gentleman had entertained the objections held to the original form of the Bill.

said the circumstances of Ireland were peculiar, and unless recourse were had either to a charge on the Consolidated Fund—the method which he had abandoned—or to a grant-in-aid, Ireland would suffer, and suffer gravely. Last year a large sum was allocated in England to purposes which in that country were ripe for assistance, and, unless an equivalent was secured, Ireland would for some years lose aid which was timely, and indeed overdue. It was, in the first place, to protect Ireland from that loss, a loss which in past years she had frequently had to suffer, that he had felt it his duty to recommend the Committee to adopt a fiscal method which, he admitted, was peculiar, but which was essential in the peculiar needs and necessities of Ireland.

thought it a good thing for Ireland that the Chief Secretary had introduced this Bill, because, although as the money was to be placed on the Estimates the measure was not in one sense necessary, yet it made it clear for all time that Ireland was entitled to this grant, whereas if the Bill were not in existence Ireland would probably in the future, as had happened in the past, be done out of a great deal of the money to which she was justly entitled. The Amendment now moved undoubtedly carried out the pledge of the right hon. Gentleman and gave to the Irish Members a voice in the allocation of the money, and at the same time made it perfectly clear that if the total sum was not expended in any year the unexpended balances would accumulate, and be safeguarded for Irish purposes.

said that the Bill marked a new departure, but so far from objecting to it he desired to see it carried further. In the proposal he detected the germ of an Irish Exchequer—the reservation of Irish money for Irish purposes. The only drawback was that it placed in the hands of Dublin Castle a purse into which the Irish Government could dip for any purpose they chose. However, he had weighed the advantages and disadvantages of the scheme, and he thought the former certainly outweighed the latter.

thoroughly sympathised with the remarks of the hon. Member for King's Lynn with regard to grants-in-aid: they constituted a most inconvenient and objectionable form of giving public money. As to the proposal in the Bill, if money was to be given and set apart in this way for Irish purposes, it would be necessary to give Ireland a governing body to decide how-the money should be spent. The continuation of this policy must end in Home Rule.

asked whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer would give his attention to the general system of grants-in-aid.

said he entirely sympathised with the view expressed by the Treasury that grants-in-aid ought to be carefully watched, and made only for specific objects. This particular case, however, was very exceptional, and it would only lead to gross extravagance if the authorities were compelled to spend the whole of the money within the year. It was really in the interests of economy, though he quite admitted it was a considerable departure from the usual practice.

said that whatever might be said about Trinity College there could only be one feeling in regard to the congested districts.

pointed,out that in the case of Scotland, as the number of children attending school increased the amount of the equivalent grant would also increase. Accordingly, he was not so sure that by the present grant Ireland was being treated fairly, and Irish children would be worse off than Scotch children, because this Bill stereotyped the sum at £185,000 per annum. If the number of children attending school in Ireland increased, they would consequently get less per child instead of more, as was the case in this country. If his contention showed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer any inequality of treatment, he hoped it would induce the right hon. Gentleman, at this stage, to put the matter right before the Bill was passed, and thus secure that Irish children would not be placed at any disadvantage.

said that tins point also related to Scotland. England got the grant under the Act of last year, and it was based upon so much per child. Consequently, it would increase every year if the number of children attending school increased. He thought that on this principle Ireland ought to have her grant arranged to increase automatically like England, and provision should be made to accomplish this. Otherwise next year they would have a larger sum while Ireland would be limited to the stereotyped amount of £185,000. This inequality would be sure to give rise to a discussion on the Estimates every year. He thought it would be a great mistake now to put Ireland in an inferior position. When they were drawing the money out of the Consolidated Fund, and applying it to certain purposes, he could understand that something might be said in favour of a fixed amount instead of a variable sum, but now that they had brought the matter into the Estimates there was no reason why Ireland should not have her share, more especially as they were now allocating the money by Act of Parliament. They would have a balance for Irish purposes, and whatever amount they had it should be an equivalent to that of England and Scotland. The matter should be put before the Committee now instead of waiting till next year. Ireland, was getting this money not as a matter of compromise but as an equivalent in regard to population, and she was receiving a specific sum arrived at upon a specific basis.

said the observations made by the two hon. Members who had last addressed the Committee showed that there might be reason to object to the principle upon which this grant was being made. He confessed that ever since he was Chancellor of the Exchequer he always had a very strong objection to the system of equivalent grants, because when they had made a grant for a certain purpose to England they were obliged to make proportionate grants to Ireland and Scotland, quite irrespective of whether they needed them or not. Therefore, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and when they increased the payment for primary educational purposes in England, by a grant-in-aid of voluntary schools and other schools, he declined to treat it on the basis of equivalent grants to Scotland and Ireland, but he agreed to devote certain sums to various purposes, for which money was required, in Scotland and Ireland, those purposes not being necessarily educational, but purposes for which money was required. He was sorry that the Government had not dealt with this matter in the same way. Indeed there was a pledge given to both Ireland and Scotland on account of the large grants made last year for primary education in England. That relieved the voluntary subscribers or the ratepayers in England of a liability which previously had been imposed upon them; but it did not follow to his mind that a precisely similar grant for a precisely similar purpose should be made to Scotland or Ireland, either on the old basis of 80, 11, and 9, or on the basis of population, which was a new basis altogether. What he should have liked to have seen done would have been this: Seeing that a grant was made last session to England, the educational necessity of Ireland and Scotland should also have been considered, and money proposed in the ordinary Estimates in order to meet such necessities. He had seen something of Irish education, and to tell him that no more money was required for the purposes of primary education in Ireland was to tell him what he did not believe. What had happened in this matter? For many years past a large proportion of the salaries of the elementary teachers in England had been met either by private subscriptions or from the rates. The effect of the Act of last session was that a considerable proportion of that sum would in future be met by Parliamentary grants. What had happened Ireland? For years and years past complaint had been made that the teachers in Ireland were insufficiently paid. What had been the answer? Simply this: "If so, you ought to find more for the payment of teachers from local sources, as done in England and Scotland." Now that England had been relieved Ireland should be relieved also, by securing the better payment and education of teachers. That would have been the way in which he would have liked to have seen this matter dealt with, but the Government had coupled this question, which was purely educational, with a question to which it did not belong— the cost of the Irish Land Bill of this session. So far as regarded a portion of this grant, which was proposed as a grant-in-aid of the Irish Land Bill, that was a flea-bite upon the Exchequer as compared with the large sum which would have to be found by the taxpayers of the country, no doubt with the goodwill of the House towards the carrying out of that Bill. Whatever his right hon. friend expected to get out of this £185,000 for the purposes of the Land Bill, he very much wished that he had dealt with the cost of the Bill in the Bill itself, leaving this money entirely alone. He did not wish to oppose the Motion the Government had made. He would only say that he regretted that two things which appeared to him entirely different had been mixed up in this way, and he hoped that the House and the Government would not consider that all the needs of elementary education in Ireland had been met, and that nothing more would be required in future.

said his right hon. friend spoke with very high authority and very great weight upon the question they were now discussing. He was well aware of his right hon. friend's objections to the principle of equivalent grants, and he had hoped that in a measure, if not altogether, he had met some of those objections by the very devices which had been adopted in the Bill. The great objection to the equivalent grant was that it was proper to spend money in England for a particular purpose, and therefore the Government were asked to spend money for the same purpose in Ireland, whether it was proper to spend money for such a purpose or not. If he were to take the suggestion of his right hon. friend, that a more proper course would have been to have voted on the Estimates this year whatever sum could wisely and properly be expended on primary education in Ireland, he must say that he could not have been responsible for framing such Estimates without almost the certainty of being guilty of extravagance. It was not quite so simple a matter as his right hon. friend appeared to think. He suggested that the whole, or at any rate a great part of the legitimate set-off to Ireland, could have been allocated to increasing the salaries or providing pensions for national teachers. But recently a change had been made in the position of the national teachers of Ireland. He did not mean to say that they were satisfied—no body of public servants were satisfied—with the terms they received, but their position had been improved of recent years. The new system under which they were paid was on its trial, and he believed that in the long run it would be found satisfactory. He should have considered it an act of extravagance to have hastily given this money to the national teachers of Ireland. There were many other points in the education of Ireland which deserved attention quite as much as the national teachers. He had said before, and he said it now, that Ireland did not need perhaps precisely the same kind of education as was properly given in England and Scotland—countries embracing so many industrial centres. The system of education in Ireland, and the financial basis on which it rested, was entirely different from the system in England. In Ireland the Government already gave the capitation grant in respect of all children, and the aid from the localities was almost non-existent.

said he did not mean to imply that any grant to Ireland should necessarily have been confined to increasing the salaries of teachers. What he did suggest was that the grant should have been confined to educational purposes, and that the Land Bill should not have been mixed up with it.

assured his right hon. friend that if he could have got the money required under the Land Bill without coming on this grant, no one would have been more pleased than himself, but that was outside the bounds of practical politics. The general sense of the House was that, in view of the great expenditure on English education, the legitimate claims of Ireland would have to be considered. If Ireland desired land purchase so much—well, that must he considered her particular and imminent claim; there might be no good in a grant in respect of education at all until the need had been shown, and until it had been proved that the money could he wisely and economically expended. He was not in a position to say that be would go bail for the economical expenditure of the money if now placed on the Estimates for Irish education. English education stood in need of further financial assistance; but looking at the position of Irish education—to a great extent owing to the practice hitherto pursued—on the last occasion, when it was felt right to give a large equivalent to Ireland to be devoted to education, Irish education was so backward that it was not ready to receive it. England had local government ten years before Ireland, and it was easy to develop technical instruction under the auspices of the locally-elected bodies, so that Ireland, in order to get a set-off on that occasion, got the large sum of £60,000, which was handed over to intermediate education. It was admitted by those who administered these grants, and it was a matter of common knowledge, that they had more money than they knew what to do with. With all these complications before one, and knowing the necessity of economical administration, he felt that Ireland must either lose the money or that the money must be handed out imprudently, and in a way that would give no gain to Ireland. It was for these reasons that this Bill was brought in in its present shape. The argument of the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark contained two assumptions. The first was that education in Ireland was parallel in all particulars with that of Scotland; and the second that the population was increasing in the same way. He much regretted that that was not so, though he hoped that some day it might be the case. So long as the population was stationary or decreasing it was necessary to get the money down by Act of Parliament instead of getting it year by year.

said the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer had raised the question how this money should be spent in Ireland. He was sure there was not a single Irish Member who would not agree with the right hon. Gentleman as to the need of further expenditure in Ireland. He understood that what they were doing now was not at all to decide how the money should be spent in Ireland, but whether it should be set aside for Irish purposes. Everyone agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that it would be very much better if this comparatively small fund had not been trenched upon at all for the purpose of land purchase. But in this, as in other matters, they could not have everything their own way, and they recognised that the Chief Secretary and the Government had been obliged in this matter to make a certain amount of compromise and to have part of this fund set aside for the purposes of the Land Act. With regard to the rest of the money, £110,000 would be available for Irish purposes. He personally would not say that there was any great necessity for the expenditure of every shilling of that amount on primary education, but when they came to decide on the Estimates how the money was to be spent that would be the time, as he understood, to put forward their views as to whether it should all go to educational matters or whether some of it should be used for other purposes. At present, what they were securing was that Ireland should not be done out of what she was entitled to. The ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted the great need for the expenditure of money in Ireland. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman would be the first person to agree with the Chief Secretary that Ireland had not always been properly dealt with. If they were to go on the old system of simply giving to Ireland an equivalent grant which could be spent for some purpose, Ireland might not be ready for that expenditure, and the result would be that she would lose it every year, or until she was ready to spend it on education. They were now securing for Ireland £185,000 a year beyond all question or doubt. How that was to be spent, apart from the purposes of the Land Act, would be an open question for future discussion.

moved an Amendment, the object of which was, he said, to enlarge the scope of the measure so as to enable the diversion of a small portion of the grant to works of arterial drainage. He had time after time called the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the question of the River Barrow, and to the necessity for drainage operations in connection with it, and he therefore hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would avail himself of this opportunity to have the matter attended to.

said that it would be inconvenient for the Committee to discuss every single proposition which could be brought forward for the application of this grant. He had used the widest possible Words in declaring that it should be devoted to the improvement of the economic conditions of the country, and he ventured to point out that arterial drainage was one of those economic conditions.

said he thought his hon. friend had done quite right in bringing this matter forward. They were sick of appealing to the House and to the Irish Government on the question of arterial drainage.

said he was as anxious as anyone about arterial drainage, and he might mention the case of the drainage of the Bann as a very pressing need in the north of Ireland, but he wished to utter a caution against loading the Development Grant with works of that kind. The whole problem of arterial drainage, including the Bann, would have to be dealt with, and it would require a very large expenditure indeed. A great deal of money had already been sunk in these works and practically thrown into the water, because no good had resulted. He suggested that this was a question in regard to which the Irish Members on both sides of the House should unite together next session and insist upon consideration for a general scheme of arterial drainage, securing from the national Exchequer a fair share of the expense, and also securing that the various interests involved should bear a reasonable contribution.

said Ire sympathised with the views expressed by the last speaker. He considered that when the arterial drainage was undertaken it would require more money than could be provided out of the Development Grant He and his colleagues in the north of Ireland were, as the Chief Secretary knew, deeply interested in the drainage of the Bann, and that was one of the first great arterial drainage works which ought to be carried out. He did not know the case of the South so well, but so far as the North was concerned he knew the unfortunate people in the neighbourhood of Lough Neagh had already paid over £120,000 to have their lands flooded every year, and not only had they been drowned out but their claims had been drowned out. He agreed as to the desirability for united action to obtain a remedy for this grievance.

said his right hon. and gallant friend knew that he had devoted not a little attention to the question of the drainage of the Bann, and he again appealed to the Committee not to occupy time in discussing the various proposals for the expenditure of this grant, or else they would never be able to get through the work in a reasonable time. Let them first make sure that the money would be available for Irish development.

said he was quite satisfied with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, and begged to ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.

said he had wished to proposean Amendment in line 23, which dealt with the arrangement for allocating and auditing the grant. As the clause now stood, he thought it gave too great powers to the Treasury. It left it to the Treasury to settle nearly everything, to say what should be done with any unexpended portion of the grant, and to decide whether or not there should be any audit, and he thought the decision probably would be that there should be practically no audit. He did not think it was a proper power to leave to any Department of the State. It was a power which was intended to be, and, in his opinion, should be exercised by such a body as the Public Accounts Committee, which represented the House, and was not appointed by the Government or composed of official nominees or subject to official influence. He, therefore, suggested that the regulations referred to in this part of the clause should be made, not by the Treasury but by the Public Accounts Committee, or that the Treasury should have the assent of that Committee to any regulations which it might make. He begged to move.

hoped his hon. friend would not press the Amendment. He was aware that he held very strong views as to the duties of the Public Accounts Committee, and as to the control which should be exercised over the expenditure of public money, but he asked him not to select that measure as affording a fitting opportunity for giving a first demonstration of his financial theories. He might tell him that every shilling spent under the Bill would be reviewed by the Public Accounts Committee of the House, although, of course, a year after it had been spent. It was necessary that the Irish Government should come to some proper arrangement as to the auditing of the accounts. Suppose, for instance, £20,000 was devoted to some educational purposes in Ireland, and some other sum of money to assist economic development, it was clear that the Irish Government must make some arrangement for those two purposes, and that there must be a proper audit of accounts in respect of them. The Treasury would stand at their right hand to guide them, and ultimately the accounts would have to be submitted to the Public Accounts Committee.

said there was one very serious objection to the proposal of the hon. Member for King's Lynn which had not been pointed out by the Chief Secretary. The Public Accounts Committee had the duty of examining the accounts of the various Departments and reporting thereon, and the hon. Member now proposed for the first time in the history of this country to confer upon it functions which the Committee had not been called upon to exercise in the past. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman what was the meaning of the words regulations as to the accumulation of money. He understood that the Treasury might make regulations with regard to audit and other matters; but he did not understand what the regulations with reference to the accumulation of money meant. Would the Treasury have the power to say whether money was to be accumulated or not?

asked if he rightly understood the right hon. Gentleman to state that the Irish Development Grant Account would be audited by the Controller and Auditor-General.

said he thought that was quite clear, because they were proceeding by way of Estimate. The money would be appropriated in every financial year, and would be reviewed by the Public Accounts Committee. With reference to the Question of the hon. Member for Dundee, there was no novelty in the proposal in the sub-section. The Congested Districts Board in Ireland and the Agricultural Department had certain moneys at their disposal to be devoted to certain purposes, but their steps were, to a certain extent, guided by the expert assistance of the Treasury. A Department might make a proposal to accumulate money which might not be of the best possible character. All such proposals would be submitted to the Treasury just as the Estimates were submitted year by year for Treasury criticism. The words were put in at the instance of the Treasury, and he himself took no exception to them. The Treasury could give very great assistance with regard to the proper allocation of funds for various purposes, though those purposes would be decided by this House in Committee of Supply.

asked if he might then take it that the accumulation would be in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant under the direction of the Treasury.

said that the whole financial structure would be arranged with the advice of the Treasury.

said that he thought he might withdraw his objection. It arose from the nature of the grant; because it was not an ordinary Estimate subject to the ordinary rules under which balances were surrendered at the end of the year. If he rightly understood his right hon. friend however, the Government now undertook that the Vote should be submitted to the Controller and Auditor-General and would consequently come before the Public Accounts Committee. If that were so he would withdraw his Amendment.

said that was so.

said that the right hon. Gentleman could not be expected to give an authoritative answer to such Questions. These were Questions which ought to be addressed to the Treasury; and a representative of the Treasury should be present.

said he thought the criticism of the hon. Gentleman was captious. It was for the right hon. Gentleman to say what course he would adopt. He asked leave to withdraw the Amendment.

said that the Chief Secretary stated that it was better, in the interests of Ireland, that the equivalent grant should be circulated on a basis of population. For this purpose England, Scotland, and Ireland were practically a partnership. Previous grants, however, had been estimated without reference to population. For this purpose England, Scotland, and Ireland were practically a partnership. One partner drew out a certain amount of money from the Imperial funds, and it was fair that the other partners should get equivalent sums. It was not necessary that Ireland should draw it out in proportion to population. Supposing Scotland was asked to base her grant on the number of children in voluntary schools in that country. That would not be fair to Scotland, because she had comparatively few voluntary school children as compared with England. Next year Ireland would have to pay increased taxation. England might draw a larger sum; and, in that case, Ireland would have to pay a portion of the increase. Why should not Ireland have her equivalent grant fixed? The population of Ireland was decreasing; and it was absurd to say that her grant should be fixed on the same principle as applied to England and Scotland. It might be favourable to these countries; but it was obviously adverse to Ireland. If a certain proportion was fixed, then the grant would rise automatically as the grant to England increased.

said he had no hope of being able to convince the hon. Member; but he should like to convince the hon. Member for South Kildare that Ireland would receive better treatment under the Bill than she would receive had the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark been Chancellor of the Exchequer. The basis of previous grants was calculated on the quota given to the Imperial Treasury by the three countries. That was unfavourable to Ireland, because as taxation increased, a smaller quota was made by the poorer country as compared to the quota paid by the richer country.

said he did not think that the right hon. Gentleman was quite accurate. He had always understood that equivalent grants were not based on the quota contributed by each country, but on the aggregate amount distributed in the proportion of eighty, eleven and nine. When Lord Goschen was Chancellor of the Exchequer he was pressed over and over again for some information with reference to the financial relations between Great Britain and Ireland; and then, for the first time, the Treasury put forward a proposal that grants of this kind should be put on the basis, not of the quota contributed, but in the proportion of eighty, eleven and nine of the aggregate amount of the probate duty grant. When Ireland made any demand in connection with the Local Government Act, the relief money was based not on population but upon the eighty, eleven and nine basis. It would be most disastrous to Ireland to have this based on the population. He submitted the proper way was to take the precedent of the agricultural grant.

Then you would get £150,000 instead of £185,000.

said the Amendment he had put down was one which would govern several other Amendments to the Bill, and if the noble Lord could see his way to accept it, it would greatly facilitate the proceedings of the Government; if, on the other hand, he could not accept it, the struggle on this Bill was likely to be much prolonged. The object of the Amendment was, first, economy. When the Resolution was put before the House they were told that £5,000,000 would be required for works, and with great reluctance the House passed the Resolution. When the Bill was issued it was found that the expenditure was to be £5,500,000 and not £5,000,000. He objected to these items of £500,000 being slipped in in this manner or taken in the session, and on that ground, on the ground of economy, he moved the Amendment. But it raised a much larger question. The Bill brought in was one of a series of measures, the first of which was introduced in 1897, and they had always been led to understand that this Bill would be of the same kind as its predecessors. When they came to examine it, however, they found an entirely different state of things. In this Bill an entirely different principle was adopted. The new principle laid down was that appropriations-in-aid should be used under the terms of this Bill, but instead of proceeding in the usual way by a Vote of the House, any sum that could be realised by the sale of barracks or Government property should go to increase the expenditure under this Bill. There were many other bad precedents created. He objected to these appropriations, and therefore begged to move.

said he supported the Amendment. He thought they ought to be very careful before allowing this enormous sum to be taken in this Vote. He had one special objection to this Bill, and that was that it constituted a reversal of the Barracks Act. Under the Act any amount received from the sale of barracks or other Government property was to be deducted from the amount received under this Vote as he had good reason to know, he having examined the Accountant-General upon the matter. The Barracks Act had now expired, but it had done a great deal of good, inasmuch as it had enabled the House to judge what was being spent. That control they would lose if this Bill passed. And because he thought this was a reversal of the Barracks Act he should support the Amendment.

asked whether this £5,000,000 for the sale of barracks included the land of the barracks in Dublin near the river.

thought it was not possible to accept the Amendment. The hon. Gentleman seemed to think the \Vat' Office asked for an indefinite sum, but, on the contrary, they asked for £5,000,000 as the definite sum they should take. This was not in any way an increase of the Vote; they only asked that they should he allowed to spend the money they might obtain from the sale of barracks for the purpose of making provision for the same number or more men elsewhere. He thought it would not be desirable to give any information as to what barracks they intended to sell until after they had been sold, because otherwise the amount they stated they desired to get might be taken as the maximum, whereas in some cases they hoped to get more.

said the noble Lord had attempted to deny that this was an increased charge. Surely he was mistaken, because under this section they were empowering the Government to spend £5,500,000 in- stead of £5,000,000. That might be a good thing or a bad thing, but, at any rate, it did not correspond with the description given of it by the noble Lord. The point was that it was wholly contrary to the previous practice of the War Department to do this thing. In the ordinary course of things, if the War Office disposed of lands or of old barracks the proceeds would go into the appropriation-in-aid. In the Works Act of 1890, it was provided that when the Government sold barracks, as was proposed under this Bill, the proceeds for the sale should go in reduction of the charge for the new works. The words of that Act provided that the Secretary of State might, with the concurrence of the Treasury, sell any land in the United Kingdom for the time being vested in him, and that the proceeds of sale should be applied for the purposes of the Act, the amount authorised to be received out of the Consolidated Fund under the Act to be reduced accordingly. Why should the Government not have adopted a similar provision in the present Bill? Why should they not have allowed the proceeds of the proposed sales to go in diminution of the charge, instead of making it an addition to the charge? The War Office were taking ample money for their scheme—more than ample, he believed—and there was no need, therefore, for assigning to them this particular power to expend an additional £500,000 over and above the £5,000,000 provided for under the Bill.

said he did not think hon. Members opposite quite appreciated the effect of the proposal which they were making. He could not imagine any financial theory more vicious. It was that they should first raise money by loan in order to build new barracks, that they should then sell existing barracks, and that the proceeds of the sale should be utilised for the purpose of reducing the burden on the taxpayer. He really thought that the House would have serious ground for complaint if any such plan were carried out.

disagreed with the idea that sufficient money was taken under the Bill. He had never heard of works which had not cost a great deal more than the original estimate, and he feared that this proposed expenditure of £5,000,000 would probably grow to £7,000,000 before the scheme was completed. He wished to know whether the proceeds of the sale of land at the mouth of the Liffey some time ago—proceeds, he believed, amounting to about £100,000—were included in the £500,000 provided under the Bill?

Certainly not.

said his complaint was that money obtained by the sale of barracks in Galway might be expended in Dublin. He thought it ought to be spent in the immediate locality where the old buildings were sold, and he did not think that they ought to utilise the proceeds of the sale of barracks in England for new barracks in South Africa.

said the objections raised on that side of the House had not been appreciated by the Government. They wanted to secure that all these matters should be discussed by the House. The right hon. Gentleman had told them that very valuable works might become useless, and might have to be sold. Well, any transaction of that kind, involving possibly hundreds of thousands of pounds, ought not to take place without the House knowing all about it, and the House should have a voice in the appropriation of the money. If their plan were adopted the matter would come up in the annual Estimates, and an opportunity would thus be afforded to question Ministers as to the reason for their action. It would help the House in checking the extravagance which had set in, and which would prevent things being done in a hole and corner way. His hon. friend the Member for Perthshire had quoted the words of the Act passed twelve years ago, and he thought they were entitled to have some explanation why the Government had departed from the words of that Act. He also thought that they should be told whether a new principle had been established allowing the War Office, behind the back of Parliament, to sell any valuable property and apply the money as it chooses.

denied there was any idea of doing anything behind the back of Parliament. Their proposals would be made as clear as possible.

Where?

On the face of the Bill. He had heard exactly the same argument used when the first Barracks Act was introduced, and the difficulty was then relieved by providing that the schedule of expenditure in each year should be laid before the House. In the same way the Government proposed that there should be a scheduled statement of the sum realised by the sale of old barracks, and that surely would enable the House, if it chose, to further inquire into the question, and would give effective Parliamentary control. He hoped the hon. Member, under these circumstances, would not press his Amendment further.

said the question was why should the change have been made, and what was to be gained by it? Why had the Government not adhered to the words of the previous Act?

said the answer was simple. The change had been made because, in this particular case, large sums had been asked for barracks in South Africa, and it was in South Africa mainly that the necessity had arisen for selling barracks.

pointed out that in 1890 also there was a prospect that certain barracks would have to be sold in the same way, and yet the words which had been quoted were put into the Act to ensure that the proceeds should go in in reduction of the amount authorised to be used out of the Consolidated Fund. That was a businesslike, proper, and. regular way of doing the business, and he must press for an answer why a change had now been made. If a large sum of money was to be realised by the sale of barracks, in his opinion it ought to go in reduction of the amount proposed to be raised under the Bill. It appeared to give justification for an expenditure of £5,000,000, when in reality it was an expenditure of £5,500,000. If the old-established practice had been followed, there would have been no complaint of ambiguity.

said no reason had been given for not following the old system. The reasons given by the right hon. Gentleman were for not putting the sum on the annual Estimates, but he thought that even for that the right reasons had not been put forward. The expenditure on barracks, provided for in the Estimates, was being reduced year by year, and placed in these Loans Bills instead. The Vote for

said he would move the next Amendment standing in his name on the Paper. His explanation of it was in the same sense as the last Amendment. The object of the change which the Government had made in the Act was to extend the period of borrowing for the erection of barracks. It was said that many barracks were unsuitable, and therefore the old ones had to be realised and new ones erected. He did not know why at the same time they should extend the period for which the money could be borrowed. Under the Act of 1897, the money had to be repaid within thirty years. That provision was adopted because it was thought that this was an exceptional matter, and that the Army ought to be fitted up with sufficient barracks put up by loans, and it was thought by that means that an end would be put to this system of continually borrowing for the necessities of the Army. Now the measure had been entirely changed, and they were asking that the repayment of loans should run for thirty years from the time of borrowing. The objection to this system was that the Government came too often for these loans, but if the principle that was now being asserted was accepted there was not the slightest reason why the Government should not hasten to spend any money which they had the power of borrowing on the previous Acts, and yet they came to the House for £5,500,000 more. If they were permitted to extend the period of loans as long as they liked it would set up a new and a very dangerous precedent. He begged to move his Amendment.

contended that the proposal in this Bill was only a natural one, and the hon. Member in this matter appeared to be governed too much by precedent. The intention of Parliament in these Acts was that the repayment of loans should be spread over 30 years, and by this Act they were continuing the practice laid down by Parliament in the Act of 1897.

said that the right hon. Gentleman's interpretation of this Act was about as inaccurate as his interpretation of past Acts. He stated that this was really following previous precedents, but it was not so. In the first Military Works Act provision was made that the money borrowed should be met by the terminable annuities over a period of 30 years, dating from the time of the passing of the Military Works Act, and that provision had been continued in subsequent Acts. Under the first Military Works Act the money was borrowed all the way through on the same terms, and now, for the first time, in this Bill an alteration was being made, and the terms would vary from year to year, because the annuities would run out at different periods in the future. As each sum was issued the borrowing would be under different conditions and at different times, and consequently the annuities would expire at different periods. He supported his hon. friend mainly because it was their chief object to hold the Government to the idea that they should have a real scheme in their minds for the construction of a definite amount for large military works. That was the reason for which the House assented to the Military Works Act. If they now permitted this substantial alteration from previous Acts they would be allowing a departure from the original intention of those Acts.

said that one great object had been entirely overlooked, which was that this proposal was an encouragement for the War Office to borrow under this Bill instead of under former Bills, because they could borrow cheaper. He thought the old Bills ought to be wound up first, and he preferred the Amendment, of the hon. Member for Perthshire. He wished to know if the Secretary of State for War would accept the hon. Member for Perthshire's Amendment, which obviated the antiquated date of 1897 and made it "the passing of this Act." That would meet their objections to a great extent, because it would make the borrowing less indefinite.

said that was a matter for the Treasury.

said that more or less it lay with the War Office to take up loans when they liked, and it would greatly assist them to understand the indebtedness that the War Office had got into if they knew when the loans expired. Instead of having all this debt wiped out at one time they would have these loans wiped out at a series of different dates instead of in a period of thirty years. He thought if the right Hon. Gentleman would accept the suggestion of his hon. friend the Member for Perthshire, it would bring some sort of order into the issuing of these loans. If not it would be the duty of hon. Members to try and prevent this muddling of accounts by voting for this Amendment.

contended that this proposal went entirely beyond the terms of the Resolution which authorised this Act. He did not know when the works would be completed. Estimates as to their cost had been made but those estimates would probably be far exceeded, and they would have an undetermined period during which borrowing might take place, and at each borrowing the date would be altered. That would be extremely inconvenient, and his opinion was that the proper way

said this Bill marked a new departure in regard to borrowing for military works. Under the old system the initiation of works was based upon the expenditure to be incurred each year. Under the new plan, the object of which was to have a definite scheme, money was borrowed in the shape of annuities terminable in thirty years. By that means the Government was enabled to formulate a scheme for certain works of a permanent character. What the Secretary of State for War now proposed to do was to introduce a permanent system of borrowing. They were now adopting a plan of borrowing by which a burden was to be thrown upon their successors. He supposed that this system would he extended to all other kinds of works, and that there would be continuous borrowing instead of wiping off debt. It was a system conducive to extravagance, and, not merely that, but many of the works carried out might be of a character which would not be beneficial for thirty years. Barracks might be built in certain parts of the country, and on account of some change in Army organisation they might become useless. Then barracks might be built according to certain sanitary requirements, and it might be found desirable to put more troops there, but the buildings might be useless for making additions to, and they would have to be pulled down. The main objection to this system of borrowing was that instead of paying as they went along they were adopting a system by which the burden would be thrown on the future.

moved as an Amendment to leave out "dates of borrowing" in line 23 and insert "passing of this Act." What he now proposed was that the borrowing necessary under this Bill, when it became an Act, should be from the time of the passing of the Act. That was the ordinary form in which these clauses ran in Bills of this and analogous nature. He was sure it would meet with the approval of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because, until this Bill and the Naval Works Bill were introduced, it had been the invariable practice to borrow the money as from the date of the passing of the Act. That was a valuable provision in respect that it enabled one to have confidence in the statement made that the Government really had definite and clear-cut schemes in their heads which were going to be carried through under the Bill submitted to Parliament. He thought it was very much in the interest of regularity in finance that they should accept this Amendment so that they should be able to ascertain more definitely what the liabilities were likely to be under the Bill

said that there were two reasons why he could not accept the Amendment. In the first place it was at variance with the Resolution of the House under which this Bill was introduced, and in the second place it would be a most inconvenient plan on which to act. If the Amendment were adopted the annuity would run for thirty years, not from the date of borrowing, but from the date of the passing of the Act which must be antecedent by some months to the borrowing of the money for the various purposes contemplated. He was afraid that the Government could not accept the Amendment.

said he was constrained to support the Amendment as one in the interest of sound finance and according to precedent. There was no precedent to be found for the operation suggested in the Bill. It was an operation indefinite and infinite, because there was absolutely no limit to the time in which the work was to be completed, and in which the money was to be required. Consequently there was absolutely no limit to the period to which the liability of the country was to be made to extend. He thought the Secretary of State for War hardly understood his own Bill. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that the Amendment would violate the Resolution on which the Bill was founded. The only violation of the Resolution would be if the Bill exceeded its terms, but they might do, within the Resolution, as much as they liked. In his belief what the Resolution embodied was what was contemplated by this Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman proposed that there was not to be a date, but many dates, for borrowing the money—every year, or every month, or every fortnight—when he had to make a new bargain, and the liability was fixed from the date of the new borrowing. The Committee should remember that this was a Loan Bill, and it was most important and entirely in consonance-with the traditions of the House that a definite term should be fixed to the date of borrowing unless it was for the creation of National Stock or new National Debt, in which there was only a liability to pay so much per annum, but even there also there was often a date fixed for the extinction of the loan. It was essential to fix a day when the liability for borrowing the amount stated in the Bill was to be extinguished. That had always been done in previous Bills of this kind. The right hon. Gentleman had said that it would be an inconvenient plan. Why had that inconvenient plan been previously followed? Certainly there could be no inconvenience in it. This system of loans for the purposes of naval and military works and public office site was an extremely mischievous one. It was no new one. The theory was that it was better to borrow in a lump sum than from year to year. He was not going to dispute that for a moment. If the system of borrowing proposed by this Bill were adopted, it practically came to a system of estimating from year to, year. The right hon. Gentleman might say that next year they required a million, and in the following year another million and so on. That cut away the whole ground for doing the whole operation under one loan.

Nobody suggests that

said the Bill suggested it. The Bill suggested that the Government were to make one operation of the £5,000,000 instead of coming to Parliament year by year for what they wanted. He should find it absolutely necessary to vote for Amendment.

said he should like to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the reason for abolishing the practice that had been established in regard to these loans for many years? It was a serious thing to do when we were increasing, so enormously as we were doing, the liabilities of the country. He would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the effect of this new practice would be to postpone to a later date than would otherwise be the case the liquidation of this debt. If that were so, it was self-condemned. What they ought to do was to take in each year what they wanted. He wanted to know why they were piling loan on loan and debt on debt at this enormous rate. Some good reason ought to be given for introducing what on the face of it appeared to be a much more lax and a much more onerous system of borrowing than that to which they bad been accustomed.

said that the right hon. Gentleman was evidently not in favour of borrowing for these works at all; that each year should bear its own burden, whatever the nature of the expenditure that had to be incurred.

Not at all.

said he understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that he objected to the principle of borrowing for capital expenditure. But if the right hon. Gentleman looked with disfavour only upon the accumulation of loans he was bound to say he sympathised with him. But it must be remembered that there were great deficiencies to be made up, and to have put them on the Estimates would have been to impose upon the present taxpayers a burden which they were not entitled to place upon them.

said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had entirely misapprehended him. He had no objection to the practice which had been established by these loans. He had done it himself. He was speaking of the liquidation of the loans. He wished to know whether or not this new practice of making the terminable annuities run at different periods would postpone the liquidation of the loan to a mores distant period than would have been the case under the established practice.

said that it was not contemplated to raise the money by one loan which would run a certain mumber of years. His hon. friend the Member for Lynn Regis said that the purpose of the Government was to raise the money in one lump sum.

said that what he had stated was that the Resolution contemplated raising the money in one lump sum, repayable in thirty years. But this Bill contemplated the raising of successive loans, repayable at successive periods.

said that these moneys were not raised by one loan but were raised as required, by means of terminable annuities. It was true that the proposal they were making was a departure from the principle laid down in the Bills of previous years, but let them see whether it was based upon sound principles or otherwise. The question was over what period of time ought the expenditure for these buildings to be spread. If thirty years was the fixed period for repayment, it was only reasonable and proper that the thirty years should commence from the time when the building was undertaken. It might well be that the building might not be undertaken until four or five years after the passing of the Act, and it was, in his opinion, perfectly justifiable that the period of repayment should commencefrom the time the money was expended. That was common sense, and there was no financial difficulty about it.

said that the first Loan Act was the Naval Works Act of 1895, and that Act and every subsequent Works Act until the present was founded on the principle that the money borrowed should all of it be repaid within a period not exceeding thirty years from the first Naval Works Act. The same principle and the same system were adopted in the Military Works Act. The proposal in the Bill was a real departure from the principle upon which the Naval Works Acts and the Military Works Acts had hitherto been founded. The proposal of his learned friend was a fair and real compromise between the old and the new systems— viz: that the repayment should be made within a period of thirty years from the date on which the Bill passed. They were piling liability upon liability upon the State, and throwing more and more of the burden upon the future. Having thrown so much on the future, they should adhere to the established practice and let future generations bear the proportion that they were originally held to be bound to bear. In the case of the Naval Works Bill the Admiralty had stated that if the old system was continued the Navy Estimates would be swollen to the extent of £3,000,000 a year. That was the real reason which induced the Committee to lengthen the period of repayment in the case of the Naval Works Bill. Could the Secretary of State for War give a similar reason for extending the period in the case of this Bill?

said he really could not say himself, but if he were in the position of the hon. Gentleman, as a critic, he should say that it was not a reason which ought in itself to materially influence the decision of the House of Commons. The fact of the repayment amounting to a large sum some years hence was not a sufficiently good reason to induce the Committee to depart from a sound principle. Their principle was that if it was right that the expenditure upon certain works should be spread over thirty years, then the spreading over ought to commence from the time when the expenditure was incurred. That was a sound principle.

said the Chancellor of the Exchequer had practically admitted that these Military Works Bills were likely to be permanent institutions. The precedent set up by this Bill and by the Naval Works Bill and the Public Offices Bill was in the direction of greater laxity of financial control.

said he trusted that the Committee would bear with him a little, for the right hon. Gentleman had raised a new and important matter. There was no doubt the effect of these Loan Bills was to relieve the Estimates; and if that were so it should be done on a settled principle. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had made an unwarranted attack on his predecessors in office, whose conduct, he said, had been improper, absurd, and unsound.

I have not said so.

said the right hon. Gentleman had said the system in this Bill, which was entirely new, was the only sound system, and that ally other way of dealing with the matter would be improper, absurd, and unsound. But a diametrically different system had been adopted by his predecessors in regard to Bills of this sort. There were no fewer than seventeen of such Acts in existence, on which the charge to be paid out of revenue this year was £6,876,000. According to the right hon. Gentleman, all those Acts were improper and unsound. Under the proposed system of spreading over the repayment, the period might be extended from thirty to fifty years, or even longer. He thought that on consideration the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose finance was very good, and whose views generally were sound, would recognise that he had done some injustice to his predecessors.

said there was one consideration that ought to be borne in mind—viz., that they were not dealing only with an isolated Bill. These Loan Bills, unfortunately, were periodic; they were introduced every two or three years, and there would be the greatest confusion if the repayment was spread over a great number of years. It was desirable to keep the repayment within a certain limit; if there was no such limit it was quite possible that there might be expenditure still unextinguished at the end of sixty years. Moreover, these Bills would run into each other, and overlap in a way that would make control by the House of Commons almost impossible.

said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated that the money would be repaid in thirty years from the time the building was undertaken, but the case was not when the building was undertaken but when the last expenditure on it was incurred. Take the case of the building of barracks. The contract might not he given out until five years.after the Bill was passed, and it might be five years more before the building was finished, the War Office giving the contractor the hint not to push on. The system of the Bill would therefore encourage the War Office to do work piecemeal, so that it should not appear that they were doing too much at the same time. He hoped the Amendment would be accepted. It would not hurt the Bill, and would not affect the financial point of view in any way. A new system such as was now proposed should not be introduced.

said he desired to express his very strong regret at this further relaxation of the financial control of the House of Commons over military expenditure. The proceeding now proposed was contrary to the proceeding under any previous Bill of the kind. In all previous Bills, the repayment was to be made within thirty Years of the passing of the Act. That limited the period of the relaxation of the control of the House of Commons. But in this ease the limit was entirely done away with. The limit was to be not from the passing of the Act, but from the time it suited the convenience of the War Office to borrow the money. As that money might be borrowed at any

said he was not at all surprised that the War Office were anxious to extend the time for the repayment of the loan after having put such heavy burdens on the taxpayers. The whole system was so unbusinesslike that he must protest against it; and if his hon. friend went to a division, he would support him. He hoped, however, that the Government would accept the Amendment. He felt very strongly that the limit of thirty years for repayment should he adhered to. Nothing was worse than to dawdle about with new works. If they wanted barracks they should be put up promptly, and not be allowed to drag on year after year. He hoped the Government would accept the Amendment.

said he wished to move the omission of Sub-section (4). It was the last Amendment which he would move in an endeavour to restore the Bill to the same form as previous Bills. It was somewhat difficult to understand the sub-section; but he took it to mean that the new form of the schedule should be read into previous Military Works Acts. Among the large alterations made in this Bill as compared with previous Works Bills, not the least important was the alteration in the schedule. In the first place, as his right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition had stated, it rendered entirely impossible any comparison from year to year of expenditure on public works under this series of Acts. That distinctly lessened the financial control which the House ought to exercise over successive War Ministers. It lessened financial control also in another way. The items were lumped together in the schedule, and that, of course, diminished the knowledge of hon. Members as regarded the work the War Office were engaged in, and its progress. Further, the power of transferring money from one item to another was larger in the present Bill than in any previous Bill, and the power of the Department to spend money for purposes of which the House was ignorant, or, at any rate, had no control over, would be greatly increased. The schedules in the Acts of 1899 and 1901 were adopted in consequence of representations in this House by his right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition; and the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor agreed on behalf of the War Office to make the White Paper issued with the Bill a part of the Act. That gave hon. Members undoubtedly greater information than they previously had, and also increased the control of the House over expenditure. He had not heard any real justification brought forward for this change. There were two suggestions made. One was that the expenditure on barracks should be made to correspond with the new Army Corps system of the right hon. Gentleman. That would enhance knowledge of what was going on, and also the control of the House over expenditure. The other point had reference to the purchase of land; but he did not see how they would be much better off in that respect under the present Bill. There was a large sum in previous schedules which could be used for the purchase of land in order to carry out the barracks scheme. That ought to be ample. Further, there was an item on the schedule for ranges. The Government purchased a large amount of land in Salisbury Plain in which not only ranges were erected, but barracks as well. That included the large property purchased from the late Chancellor of the Exchequer; and, as far as he could judge, there had been no difficulty in regard to the purchase of land there. As no justification had been offered for departing from precedent he begged to move his Amendment.

said that, as he had stated on the Second Reading, it would be quite impossible to accept the Amendment. Previous to the Act of 1899 when a change was pressed on his right hon. friend the Chief Secretary, it had not been the practice to state where barracks were to be built. The point was made very strongly that if the hands of the War Office were tied they would be at the mercy of everybody in the locality. It had been made the means of bleeding the Exchequer, and the War Office had to come to Parliament to ask to be released from the burden which had become intolerable. He had already stated what had occurred in the case of Salisbury Plain, and the difference between the price paid for land before it was known that the War Office was going there and the land they took by arbitration from the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, for which a reasonable price was given, on the one side, and the price forced upon them for intermediate plots of land which they had to take on arbitration when it was known that the War Office was purchasing. He did not think anybody with any practical experience of the working of the former Acts would differ from the course that was now being taken. There was nothing in the sub-section which released the Government from their promise to Parliament, but it did release them from the obligation either of spending public money at a rate they had no right to spend at, or not to spend at all. There was no device whatever for eluding any proper criticism.

said that in his reference to the previous occasion, when the Chief Secretary for Ireland was representing the War Office, the right hon. Gentleman had omitted one fact. The theory now was that it would be fatal to the economical purchase of land if it was known where the War Office intended to erect barracks; but on that occasion a White Paper was issued giving the full information to the House of Commons, and it was called a schedule, which was rather misleading, because it was not a schedule. What they maintained was that it should have been embodied in the Bill, in order that the House of Commons should have control over the expenditure of the money.

said that that was just the point. When the information was given for the guidance of the Committee on the previous Bill, it was on the clear understanding that it would not he adhered to if certain conditions arose, but the right hon. Gentleman who brought in that Bill, who had great knowledge of affairs, but who had not long been in the War Office, accepted a most vicious Amendment, and from that date until now there had been endless difficulty.

thought it rather too disrespectful to a past House of Commons and to the Government themselves to say that they accepted a vicious Amendment; but that was the vicious Amendment which they wished to enforce on the Government. They were not aware that any evil flowed from it, and they certainly thought it went far to preserve the right of control of the House of Commons, and they were not aware of any reason why they should not reserve to the House of Commons their right of control of the Government.

said he could not for the life of him understand this clause, and he had read it through and through till his head nearly itched. He should have thought the right hon. Gentleman would have given some simple explanation of it. It was a most amazing thing to him that any Government should have presented such a sentence to the House of Commons. What did it mean? It meant that all the works sanctioned by the Bills of 1897, 1899 and 1901 were not completed.

explained that it arranged for the allocation of unexpended money borrowed under the previous Acts.

Did that mean that the money then voted was not all spent? It was a most dangerous thing to assent to During the last six years certain sums had been taken for certain works, and now six years afterwards they found 35 per cent. of the money granted under the Military Works Acts of 1897, 1899 and 1901 was not expended, This sub-section was brought in for its allocation. Such a thing, in his opinion, knocked the bottom out of the necessity for this Bill, and that being so, be thought it ought not to be passed without fuller consideration.

thought the Committee was justified in asking for some fuller explanation with regard to this sub-section, which purported to repeal every schedule in every previous Military Works Act. Would the right, hon. Gentleman take the Act of 1899, for instance. He proposed to repeal the schedule of that Act; would he read to the Committee the schedule he proposed to substitute for the schedule now in the Act of 1899? If the right hon. Gentleman would do that, the Committee would know where it was, but if he did not, nobody would agree to it. It was a most extraordinary piece of drafting, and would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer, let alone the House of Commons.