It now appears probable that the Judicial Fees payable to the Privy Council Office will produce only £4,300, instead of £5,000, making a shortage of £700 for which we are asking. Receipts from fees, of course, cannot be gauged accurately in advance as there is always some risk of failure to realise the estimate. I trust that the Committee will consider that sufficient explanation of why there has been the shortage of £700.

In the original Estimate for 1933 it was estimated, on the basis of the figures then available, that the fees for the recording of Deeds under the Settled Land Act, 1925, would produce £3,400. It is now expected that they will not exceed £2,800 and it is, accordingly, necessary to ask for this Supplementary Estimate. The same observations that I made on the previous Estimate apply here and I trust the Committee will think that a sufficient explanation.

This Supplementary Estimate is due to the appointment of my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick (Mr. Eden) as Lord Privy Seal. That change in the holder of the office of Lord Privy Seal would not normally require a Supplementary Estimate but the Leader of the House, who was my hon. Friend's predecessor in this office, drew no salary as Lord Privy Seal, which appointment he held concurrently with his appointment as Lord President of the Council. Hence no estimate for the Lord Privy Seal's office was included in the original Estimates for 1933. The salary of the Lord Privy Seal has of recent years been £5,000 or £2,000 per annum, according to the duties performed. The salary of my hon. Friend will be £2,000 a year less the 15 per cent. deduction which Ministers drawing that salary suffer under the economy cuts.

The Disarmament Conference and other specialised activities of the League of Nations have required the almost constant attendance of a Minister. In fact, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has spent no less than 23½ weeks on duty abroad during the course of the last two years. It is obviously inconvenient that any particular phase of the international work connected with the office of Foreign Secretary should necessitate such frequent and prolonged absences on his part. The most satisfactory course to pursue in these circumstances seemed at first to be to arrange for the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to assist the Secretary of State by taking his place at Geneva from time to time. This has often involved negotiations with the foreign Ministers of other countries, and it has been felt desirable that our representative should have full ministerial status. It was accordingly decided to confer upon my hon. Friend, whom perhaps the Committee will permit me to say was so eminently suited, the appointment of Lord Privy Seal, with the intention that he should continue to assist the Foreign Secretary, particularly so far as the representation of His Majesty's Government at Geneva was concerned.

As Lord Privy Seal, however, he could not continue to discharge all the functions of a Parliamentary Under-Secretary, and it became necessary to appoint someone else in his place. This was all the more necessary as both the Foreign Secretary and the Lord Privy Seal had, on occasion, to be absent at the same time. In response to views widely expressed, it was decided that the new Under-Secretary who was to be appointed to succeed my hon. Friend should have a seat in another place in order that foreign policy might authoritatively be expounded there by a representative of the Foreign Office. In the view of His Majesty's Government, the appointment of my hon. Friend as Lord Privy Seal, and of my Noble Friend Lord Stanhope as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State provided the most convenient arrangement. Therefore, it devolves upon me to ask the Committee to approve this Estimate to meet the salary of my hon. Friend for the remainder of the year, together with the appropriate secretarial assistance.

The hon. Gentleman has given us an interesting account of this additional expenditure. The present holder of the office of Lord Privy Seal is deservedly popular with all Members of the House of Commons and none of us would grudge him an adequate salary, but I am bound to say that the explanation of this change has struck me as a little insufficient. We had some two years in which the Foreign Secretary, we were told, was constantly overseas at Geneva at Disarmament Conferences, at the League of Nations and everything else, and he seems to have managed to carry on for a very long time before it was found necessary to supplement his efforts. We are now told that the present Lord Privy Seal has been appointed to do functions which should not be performed by an Under-Secretary but should be done by someone with full ministerial status. If that is so, I cannot understand why the present holder of the office has not become a member of the Cabinet. After all, that is the great dividing line between Cabinet Ministers and other Ministers. The authoritative status is that derived from taking part in decisions of policy, and we have here a departure from all precedents in the Lord Privy Seal not being a member of the Cabinet. I think that there are probably other reasons as to why we are to have this additional expenditure. It is natural in a coalition Government that there should be a great deal of criticism of holders of office, and you get demands from this section or that section for changes. It seems to me that the policy of this Government is to keep on with the old team, but to add someone else.

I hardly think that this question arises upon this Vote. It should arise, of course, on the Vote for the salary of the Prime Minister.

With great respect, Captain Bourne, we have here an additional Minister appointed, and the question which arises naturally is, why we require an additional salary for an additional Minister?

This is not the case of an additional office, but of an additional salary, and we are limited strictly on this Vote to the necessity of paying for it.

The two offices of Lord President of the Council and Lord Privy Seal were held by one individual. They have now been separated, and, therefore, we have another individual brought in. That necessitates an additional salary. The reason given as to why an additional person is required is extra work. The point I am making is that, if it is extra work, a long time has been allowed to elapse before the extra appointment, and, with great respect, I submit that the Committee are entitled to consider the possible reason for an additional Minister, and whether the practice of appointing additional Ministers is going any further. Hitherto we had two representatives of the Foreign Office, and holders of more or less sinecure offices have sometimes been given work. We have rumours that there may be another new Minister appointed soon to act with one of the other Ministers against whom criticism has been made.

I do not think we can go into the question of the possibility of the appointment of new Ministers on this Vote. The Vote is solely a question of whether the present holder of the office of Lord Privy Seal should or should not receive a salary, and whether he should or should not be provided with a certain staff. The general question of Ministers must arise on the Vote for the Prime Minister's salary.

I submit that we have a Government who are an economy Government, and we have here a step taken in which an additional Minister and an additional salary are brought in, and I am merely criticising it as a matter of tendency. We have to vote on this question. We all agree that the present holder of the office of Lord Privy Seal should be paid, but we are entitled to consider how far it is an expression of a tendency in which we are to have large additions made to the Ministry. I am criticising the reason given by the Financial Secretary of the need for this extra salary, and whether in fact it is caused by increased work at the Foreign Office or by dissensions in the Government.

I hope that I shall be able to get a full reply upon the matter. We should like to hear something more of the exact work which the Lord Privy Seal has to do, and of the demarcation between the work of the Foreign Secretary and the Lord Privy Seal; how far the Lord Privy Seal is really only a glorified Under-Secretary, and how far he is the representative abroad directly of the Cabinet. It is a very unusual thing. I think that all Members of the Committee will agree that the holder of a great office of State, the Lord Privy Seal, should be entrusted with the duty of taking part with his Cabinet colleagues in decisions of policy. We have it from the Financial Secretary that the purpose of making him Lord Privy Seal was to give him special weight. If, as a matter of fact, he is only an Under-Secretary he can have no more weight as Lord Privy Seal than as Under-Secretary, but if his powers and responsibilities are greater than those of an Under-Secretary then we want to know exactly what they are.

If the House approve of this Vote for the Lord Privy Seal's salary, which I am sure none of us grudge in any way, can we have an assurance that it will not be taken as showing the general approval of the House of Ministers spending so much of their time abroad? There is a very strong feeling in the country that more might have been done if Ministers had spent less time abroad and had attended more to their offices at home. Can we be informed whether it is the opinion of the Government that recent events have shown that practical benefit has been obtained by Ministers spending so much of their time abroad?

The hon. Member is now debating the question of Foreign Policy and not the salary of the Lord Privy Seal.

Before we vote this salary of £2,000, I think the House ought to have an assurance from the Government that it will not be taken as approval by the House of an additional salary being paid because Ministers spend so much of their time abroad. I have said all that I desired to say on the matter.

Is there to be no reply to the questions put by my hon. Friend the Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee)? We are asked to approve the payment of a salary of £2,000 and we are entitled to know what the work of the Lord Privy Seal is to be. He is not going to get a salary simply for holding the office. He has been specially appointed to do special work and the House and the country are entitled to know what that special work is. No one questions the capabilities of the hon. Member or the great services which he has already rendered to the Foreign Secretary and the Government, but in the special circumstances of his appointment we ought to know what his special work is to be. We question the right of the Government to vote this small sum of money and unless we get a satisfactory answer we shall raise the propriety of it in the country and shall challenge the right to vote money without the consent and knowledge of the House. Seeing that there is a National Government we realise that no one could do the work better than the Lord Privy Seal, but we want to know what is the division of functions between the Lord Privy Seal and the right hon. Gentleman who, we assume, will still be in charge of foreign policy.

I take it that the Lord Privy Seal has been appointed for a special purpose. He has been on the Continent to explain our memorandum in regard to disarmament and to see if certain Governments would accept it. When he has completed that work will his term of office end, or are the Cabinet appointing a "drawer"? That is a term which we use in pit language. When an additional man is required we call him a "drawer." Is it the intention of the Government when any other special piece of work has to be done to appoint a drawer to help them out of the difficulty? Is the appointment for a period only? When the Lord Privy Seal has succeeded in getting the matter settled favourably, or if it is not settled at all, will his term of office expire, or is it to be continued indefinitely until there is a rearrangement of the Cabinet and he can be found a position in the Cabinet?

I am sure that everybody in the House shares the sentiment that has been expressed by two hon. Members opposite, that there could not be any better selection for the work which calls to be done than the selection which has been made of my hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal. The question is raised why there should be an additional Minister concerned with the subject of foreign affairs. On that, perhaps I may be allowed, as the responsible head of the office, to say a few words. The Committee will remember that there is a long tradition that there should be three Ministers associated with the War Office and three Ministers associated with the Admiralty. With certain exceptions there have only been two Ministers associated with the work of foreign affairs. I think the Committee will agree with me, if they take a reasonable view of present day circumstances and policies, that, if it is right to have three Ministers associated with the War Office and three associated with the Admiralty, it is not very unreasonable to take the view, which the Government take, that the work of the Foreign Office just now is so multifarious and complex that it does call for this amount of extra help.

The particular functions which the Lord Privy Seal exercises were stated quite plainly from this Box by the Prime Minister when the appointment was notified. The Prime Minister then said:

"My hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal will continue to assist my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, particularly so far as concerns representation of His Majesty's Government at Geneva."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st February, 1934; col. 534, Vol. 285.]

That is a completely clear and definite statement. This is not the constitution of a separate department of the Government. It is the increase of one Minister in the department of foreign affairs. While the head of the Foreign Office is responsible for all that goes on there, I think it is plain that the work which the Lord Privy Seal is specially going to undertake is work which it is appropriate to separate and put more particularly in his charge. He acts under the general authority of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and what has happened, as for example quite recently, is that it has been possible for the Foreign Secretary to stay in this country, which I think is usually the right place for the Foreign Secretary to be, and at the same time for a very authoritative representation to be made of this country abroad, as in the Lord Privy Seal's recent visit to the Continent or in the discussion of special international affairs at Geneva.

In these circumstances, it is not necessary to attempt to draw a precise boundary. I might point out that in a previous Government, I think Lord Parmoor had special responsibility in connection with Geneva, while the Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Claycross (Mr. A. Henderson) remained in undivided authority at the Foreign Office. As to the question of Cabinet membership, that is a matter entirely for the Prime Minister. Sometimes particular people are members of the Cabinet and sometimes they are not, for example the Postmaster-General has sometimes not been a member of the Cabinet and sometimes is, as at present.

The Foreign Secretary is a past master in argument, but I think his argument about there being three Ministers at the Admiralty and the War Office, and the analogy he sought to make in regard to the Foreign Office, was rather thin. The difficulty has come about through the meetings at Geneva and, as some of us think, the too numerous conferences held on the continent. We have not been told why it is necessary to drag the Lord Privy Seal away from the duties of his office and despatch him on periodical tours as the representative of the Government in connection with the administration of another office? Another point occurs to me. I may be wrong but it seems to me that the visits of foreign statesmen to Geneva are not now so frequent and that therefore the need for a constant representative of this country at Geneva of great authority has declined. It seems to me an inopportune moment to appoint the Lord Privy Seal to represent this country abroad. In fact, the salary which we are asked to vote to-day is only another subscription, in addition to the very large sum already subscribed by this country, to the League of Nations at Geneva, and the explanation given by the Foreign Secretary and also by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury does not put the matter in any other guise. I should like to know also whether this procedure is to be taken as a precedent. The Committee will be well advised to embark on it with great caution. During the War we had a great epidemic of new ministries being set up to do particular jobs. Is this a reversal to that discredited policy?

I must point out to the right hon. and gallant Member that this is not a case of setting up a new ministry; the office of Lord Privy Seal has been in existence for a long time. This is merely a question as to whether the present occupant should take his salary or not.

Are we not entitled to discuss the work which the Lord Privy Seal has to do in connection with his appointment?

It is perfectly obvious that the Committee can discuss the reasons why the Lord Privy Seal requires a salary when the late Lord Privy Seal did not, but it is not in order to discuss whether there should or should not be a new Ministry.

You have said, Captain Bourne, in different words what I desire to say. It is a little difficult to deal with this subject when the Government throw a cloak over their proceed- ings and thus whet our curiosity. I think we ought to have a further explanation, because although a large sum is not involved matters of importance are involved in these Ministerial arrangements.

This Supplementary Estimate, like the original Estimate, is a token Estimate only. Owing to an unexpected increase in the work during the year the gross expenditure provided for in the original Estimate has proved insufficient. The increase will be more than covered by an increase in estimated receipts from fees during the year. The Supplementary Estimate sets out the main heads on which the additional provision is required, and, as I have already stated, this is more than covered by an anticipated increase in receipts from fees and stamps. In the circumstances, I hope that the Committee will grant this token Vote.

As the Committee is aware the Treasury, under Statute, is compelled to pay certain gratuities and allowances on the retirement or death of civil servants. We have no option in the matter; we operate under the compulsion of the Statute. Unestablished officers who are retired through age or infirmity after 15 years' service, or on the abolition of the office after seven years' service, are entitled to compassionate gratuities at the rate of a week's pay for each year of service. The death of a Colonial Governor at an early age has caused part of this Supplementary Estimate to be placed before the Committee. Gratuities are payable to established women in the Civil Service on marriage at certain specified rates; we have no option in the matter. The Committee will, therefore, see that this is an Estimate which could not have been foreseen.

This expenditure comes under three heads. The first is connected with the Bechuanaland Protectorate. In June we asked for £140,000 grant-in-aid for the territory, and we are now asking for an additional sum of £37,000, bringing the total up to £177,000. When I presented the Estimate in June I described briefly the conditions which made it necessary. The territory has not only suffered from the world economic depression, but on the top of that it has suffered very severely during last year from the drought, and in addition there has been a severe outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among the cattle of Bechuanaland. The last named calamity resulted in an embargo being put on exports from Bechuanaland, and, as a consequence, not only has the revenue of the territory fallen by one-half, but the administration has had to go to considerable extra expenditure in combating the disease and also in alleviating the distress among native and European inhabitants. I am very glad to say that so far as those matters are concerned there has been a considerable improvement in the terri- tory in the last 12 months. Nevertheless we are asking for an extra £37,000. Something like £17,000 of that is due to the deficit on the Budget over and above the grant-in-aid already given to the territory. The greater part of that £17,000 is on account of additional expenditure in the alleviation of distress amongst the inhabitants.

Is no part of this sum due to Admiral Evans's expedition with his marines?

Part of the sum is due to that, and if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had waited I would have come to that point. As I said, the greater part of the £17,000 is on account of additional expenditure connected with the alleviation of distress amongst the inhabitants resulting from the drought and embargo put on exports. A certain amount of the £17,000 is on account of the expedition to which reference has been made. The sum, as far as we can see at present, will amount to something less than £4,000. This is being borne on the Vote this afternoon. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman will see that we are not asking the natives of the territory to bear any of that expense. In addition to that sum of £17,000 we are asking for another £20,000 in order to provide the administration with fixed working capital. Normally that would be supplied out of surplus assets, but as those do not exist in the territory we think it desirable to provide the money out of a grant-in-aid rather than go in for the expense involved in a permanent overdraft at the bank, for which we have to pay a comparatively high rate of interest. That disposes of the head concerning Bechuanaland.

Then there is the question of salaries in connection with Newfoundland. The Committee will remember the discussion that we had on Newfoundland a few months ago. Three of the Commissioners were to have their salaries borne direct out of United Kingdom funds. The new form of government was formally establisted in the island on 16th February, and this sum of £1,000 is required to pay the salaries of those individuals during the remainder of this financial year. Then there is a third head in the Estimates "Newfoundland, Grant-in-Aid." The Committee will remember that when we had the discussion on Newfoundland re- cently it was made clear that further Supplementary Estimates would be required before the end of the year in order to meet a deficiency in the current financial year, including a provision for the payment of interest due on the public debt on 1st January of this year, and the greater part of this sum of £234,000 is in order to meet that situation and make up the payment of the interest on the public debt.

I think the Committee will be interested in learning the result of the conversion offer which was made at that time. One of the recommendations of the Royal Commission was that the burden of the public debt should be lightened as quickly as possible, and in order to achieve that a conversion offer was made. Although the complete results will not be known for some time, I am able to state that the response has been extremely satisfactory. The old non-trustee stock which could be exchanged were of a total value in sterling of £15,286,000. The guaranteed stock set up in respect of exchange of these securities is £14,964,000. So that approximately 98 per cent. has already been exchanged. The trustee securities came under a separate arrangement. About 25 per cent. of those have also been converted. The net result of that operation is a saving during the six months of just about £150,000. The greater part of this £234,000 under this sub-head is in order to meet the deficiency and to allow those payments of interest to be made.

In addition we are asking for a sum of £40,000 in connection with certain work of reconstruction or rehabilitation in the Island which the Royal Commission said was of great urgency. If hon. Members who have the Report of the Royal Commission with them will look at page 130, they will see that from paragraph 364 onwards the Commissioners made certain recommendations for immediate action to resuscitate the deep-sea fishery and the fall fisheries in Newfoundland. The object which they set themselves was to increase the fishing season by some four months per annum, and they made certain recommendations for early expenditure in order to carry out that development. They calculated that something like £40,000 would be required for the purpose. We are including the sum of £40,000 in this Supplementary Estimate so that development along those lines can be undertaken by the new Government, and thus the work of reconstruction and revival in Newfoundland will be put into being straight away.

Have the new Commissioners appointed to Newfoundland already started their duties?

As I stated, the new Government was installed on 16th February. The new Commissioners are there and have started their duties.

I beg to move, to reduce the Vote by £100.

I had intended to ask first of all what the Supplementary Estimate for the Bechuanaland Protectorate was for, and what was meant by "cost of administration." All that is mentioned in the Supplementary Estimate is abnormal conditions due to drought and foot-and-mouth disease. My right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) drew from the Under-Secretary of State something that is not mentioned in any way, the expedition in this Protectorate, about which I think we ought to hear something more. What are the intentions? I will leave that subject to my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme. The statement we have here is not sufficiently explanatory, and we ought to be told more on a matter which might be a subject of controversy.

With regard to Newfoundland, we have never been told yet in this House who are the Special Commissioners who have been appointed and what are their qualifications for this particular work. Nor have we any idea how long they are likely to be engaged on this work. We have just learned that they have arrived in Newfoundland and that a week or two ago they started on their work. I hope that the Commissioners will bear in mind many of the points and recommendations of the Royal Commission that was presided over by Lord Amulree. The Under-Secretary of State has mentioned one or two things that are in the Royal Commission's Report. May I mention one or two other things in the report? Newfoundland, it was said, had been the victim of a corrupt and vicious political system for many years past, and the report contained an overwhelming condemnation of private enterprise, which had brought the Colony to its present state of bankruptcy, although the Colony was blessed by nature to withstand the world economic depression better than most places.

I want these things to be remembered by the Special Commission that has gone out to Newfoundland, because democracy has gone from the Colony and the Government is financed by the taxpayers of the United Kingdom. We have already advanced £550,000, and we ought to be told what is the estimate of the total cost to be undertaken by the United Kingdom taxpayers. How many millions is it likely to take to complete the business? The people in Newfoundland are hard-working, poor and honourable. We know that the money is not provided for them. It has been provided for the bondholders, and there is no guarantee as to what is to be the result of the Special Commission. I hope that the new Government in Newfoundland will not lose sight of many of the recommendations in the Royal Commission's Report. After all, it is very likely that when the Special Commission reports, it may report to a very different Parliament from the one as now constituted. It may be, and it is very likely, that if there should be a General Election before the Special Commission has finished its work, there will be a much more critical House on this matter than there has been with regard to all this money having to be found by the British taxpayers for the resuscitation of the Colony.

We have no particular objection to helping the people of Newfoundland. Our objections have been to the methods taken by the Government, and to the people who are to benefit by their action. Therefore, I hope that the Commission will see that an economic system which has ruined Newfoundland will not be reestablished. After all the viciousness and the exploitation that have gone on, it is to be hoped that the Special Commission will bear in mind the strong points in the Report of the Royal Commission, and that they will set up a new system arising out of that report which will not simply be to the advantage of those who have invested their money in the Colony, but to the benefit of the long-suffering inhabitants of the Colony.

I think that we are entitled to much more information than has been given to us by the hon. Gentleman opposite. First of all, in regard to what is described as a Grant-in-Aid, the hon. Gentleman did not take the Committee into his confidence, and I think he missed a great opportunity of justifying his office and the position it occupies over the people of Bechuanaland.

I would remind the hon. Member that this Vote is for an additional sum of £37,000. The main policy has already been decided, and cannot now be discussed on this Vote.

We have had no statement with regard to part of this expenditure. There was an occasion, which came to our notice during the past year, when Admiral Evans, who, I believe, is the Admiral in charge of the naval forces in South Africa, made a demonstration which drew the attention of the whole world, and rather disturbed a good many people in this country because of the display of force—unnecessary force, we believe—on that occasion, and now we find that that unnecessary display, accompanied by guns, the rattle of drums and the presence of soldiers, is to be at the expense of the Treasury to the extent of not less than £4,000. Not a word is said about that in the Statement, and we would like to know why, if a question had not been put, it should have been glossed over, and allowed to pass. I would like to know, if I am allowed to ask the questions under the Rules of Order, why the £4,000 was spent; whether any authority was given for the expedition by Admiral Evans in Bechuanaland; whether he was authorised to go under the conditions and with the accompaniment of the force which was displayed on that occasion; and whether it was necessary to spend £4,000 of public money of this country in making that demonstration of force against a people unarmed, friendly, and generally content with their relations with us. Further, there is an additional provision in the Estimate for a Grant-in-Aid of expenses of administration on account of abnormal conditions due to drought and foot-and-mouth disease. I am sure it would be a lesson of profit to the Committee if it were told exactly how this abnormal expenditure became necessary last year.

I am afraid that that is exactly a question to which I could not allow the Minister to reply. So far as the expedition under Admiral Evans is concerned, the Minister has stated that that is included in the £17,000, and, of course, it is open to the Committee to discuss that point; but, on the general question and supplementary questions relating to the Navy the hon. Member must not make comments on this Vote.

It was the abnormal measures and abnormal expenditure to which I referred. That is what the Grant-in-Aid is designed to meet, and I thought there might be some explanation as to the grant.

I am afraid I could not have made myself very clear. The question that there are abnormal conditions necessitating a Grant-in-Aid was dealt with on the main Estimate of £140,000. The only question that arises now is whether the £17,000 is required. We cannot go into the question of the original policy.

I was not going into the original policy, but was only asking for a statement as to the kind of measures adopted. If, however, that is out of order, I do not want to trespass any further, but will go back to the question of the expenses of Admiral Evans. I would ask what the £4,000 covers, and where the expense begins. Does it begin in Bechuanaland, or outside? Does it begin when Admiral Evans conceived the enterprise, or when he started the march with all the panoply of war, which was so discreditable a feature of the expedition; who authorised it; whether, in the absence of authorisation, Admiral Evans took upon himself the responsibility; and, if so, in the event of his being personally responsible, whether he could not be called upon to pay the expense himself? I think that the Committee is entitled to know very much more of this adventure. Admiral Evans must have enjoyed himself, but it is very unfair that we should pay for the pleasure of a demonstration of that kind to the extent of £4,000.

I should like to criticise, with the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell), somewhat the manner in which this Estimate has been presented. Like other hon. Members, on reading the Estimate I never imagined that it contained the sum of £4,000 on account of the expedition to Bechuanaland. The original Estimate was to deal with the bad conditions in Bechuanaland owing to drought and cattle disease, but why in such a Supplementary Estimate as we have now before us there should be hidden away this £4,000 for the Admiral's expedition, I fail to see. I do not think it is fair to the Committee that an Estimate should be presented in this way. The hon. Member has assured the Committee that this charge will be in no wise placed upon the people of Bechuanaland. If that be the case, I venture to ask why it is included in a Grant-in-Aid to Bechuanaland? I hope that the hon. Member when he replies, will give us some reason why the Estimate has been presented in this way, and some further assurance that the £4,000 will eventually find its way into the right pigeon-hole, it being now, I believe, in the wrong one.

I, too, want to enter a protest against this extremely novel and bad habit of the Dominions Office. I cannot believe that this was originally drafted by the Office but imagine that it has been altered subsequently by the Secretary of State for the Dominions. It is inconceivable, on the wording, that it should have been intended to cover the £4,000 for Admiral Evans's expedition. Nobody could have suspected that it was included. I thought it best to ask the question to make certain, believing that I should merely be told that it was not there. Everybody reading the Supplementary Estimate could have had no conception that the taxpayers of this country were to be asked to pay for that wild-cat expedition of Admiral Evans. There are not merely two alternative ways to pay for that sort of advertisement—through the taxpayers of this country, or the unfortunate natives of Bechuanaland. There is a third alternative, namely, that it should be surcharged on Admiral Evans's salary. The story that is going about the Navy as to whether he was authorised to take that expedition to Bechuanaland.

The first question I want to ask is, whether the Department were in favour of the drafting of the Supplementary Estimate; and, in the second place, whether Admiral Evans was authorised in any way whatever to carry out the expedition? Was it known to the Dominions Office before he started that he was going to take that force of machine guns against a perfectly friendly native tribe? Let the Committee remember what really happened. It was while the House was not in Session. Khama's second son ordered the flogging of a white man in Bechuanaland because he was living on the immoral earnings of black women, after the Chief had done everything by writing to the resident magistrate to get the man removed. Immediately it got into the South African Press there was all the trouble that usually arises when any white man occupies an inferior position in relation to a black. Admiral Evans, in the absence of the High Commissioner, immediately went up with a number of marines and machine guns, disregarding the fact that there was no opposition whatever on the part of the natives. The expedition was so ridiculous that it was ridiculed even in the South African Press, where they are only too anxious to support any violent action by white against black. No defence of the expedition has been put forward anywhere. The native chief was dethroned, but, immediately, upon representations by Dominions Office, he was re-established in his position.

There was no justification for and no good results from the action of Admiral Evans, and if it was not authorised from the Dominions Office or from this country I maintain that the cost ought not to be a charge either on the British taxpayer or on the natives of Bechuanaland, but should be surcharged on the salary of the man who made himself responsible for it. Unfortunately, unless you do sometimes take drastic action against your servants all over the world, they will take upon themselves responsibility for carrying out policies which are sheer advertisement. Nothing has been or can be said for this expedition, and I would like to know whether there was any semblance of authorisation from this country for the action of Admiral Evans, and whether it will be possible to get back this money by a surcharge upon his salary or upon Navy funds.

Passing from that, I turn to Newfoundland. The Commissioners I am glad to see have taken up their work there. I gather that they are to be paid £2,000 a year each, that is £1,200 salary with 4,000 dollars allowance. I think the salary is a trifle high and that you could have got the same people for less, but what I am particularly interested to know is, what are they going to do, now that they are on the job, about the recommendations of the committee which reported on Newfoundland and its conditions? In the first place, what are they going to do to put an end to the graft, the almost glorified bribery and corruption which was going on in that Dominion? It is not enough to put three English Commissioners into the country. Something ought to be done by way of improving both the status and the morality of the civil service in that island. Are we simply sending out there a certain number of Englishmen with British traditions as to the conduct of public business, or are we going to leaven the existing civil service in the Newfoundland with a better element so that we may hope to put an end to the extremely unsavoury state of affairs which existed before we took over there? Secondly, when the Commissioners start on their work in Newfoundland will they deal with the question of the taxation of undeveloped land in Newfoundland?

I must point out to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that the functions of the Newfoundland Government authorised by the recent Act of Parliament do not come up for discussion on this Vote at all. I think the discussion must be limited to those Commissioners for whose payment this House is responsible.

I was speaking on the question of the Commissioners' salaries. If we pay men a big salary we have a right to expect good work from them.

The right hon. and gallant Gentleman will forgive me for intervening again, but I think the question which he was raising was a question relating to the Newfoundland Government as a whole. I must point out to him that half the Members of that Gov- ernment are not paid by this House at all and I do not think that he can possibly criticise that Government as a whole on this Vote.

That is a very serious statement, Captain Bourne, and I do not think we can allow it to pass unargued. Surely now that we have responsibility for Newfoundland, now that we have to make the Newfoundland budget balance, now that we have the nomination and dismissal not only of the three Commissioners here mentioned but of all the Commissioners, including the Newfoundlanders, we are entitled to deal with these questions here. I submit that so long as the powers I have described rest with the House of Commons and the Dominions Office we have a right to discuss these matters here. In fact, it is our duty to do so.

The right hon. and gallant Gentleman may be right in that general statement but I think that as regards the commissioners who are not paid by this House the discussion could only arise on the Vote for the salary of the Secretary of State. It is he who is responsible for nominating them. The difficulty that I am in on this Vote is that we have here a Government, part of which is being paid for by this House and part by Newfoundland, and it seems to me that the occasion on which to criticise the actions of that Government as a whole would be the discussion of the Vote for the salary of the Secretary of State.

This is a very important point of Order. This Supplementary Estimate includes expenditure by the Government of Newfoundland of £40,000 for reconstruction in connection with various matters mentioned in the report and recommendations of the Royal Commission. Is it not cempetent to discuss the question of how money voted to the Government of Newfoundland should best be spent and what is the most economical and best way of dealing with our liability to carry on, in that respect, the government of Newfoundland?

The hon. and learned Gentleman will realise that on this Supplementary Estimate I am in considerable difficulty. There was an original grant of £400,000 made to Newfoundland. There is a subsequent grant of £234,000 which is now before the Committee. In normal circumstances I should not regard that as a new service and therefore the question of policy would not be open for discussion at all. But I cannot forget that in this case the situation has been altered to some extent by the Act recently passed by Parliament. All I am laying down at the moment is that where action is taken by the Newfoundland Government as a whole I think we ought to discuss it on the main Estimate, on the Vote for the salary of the Secretary of State, because obviously he is the only person who can bear any responsibility for those of the commissioners who are not paid by this House. My difficulty is to draw the line between that part of the Newfoundland Government for whose payment we are directly responsible and that part of it for whose payment we have no responsibility at all.

May I put this consideration to you, Captain Bourne? Here is a sum of £40,000 which is being voted for an entirely new service, for something what has never been contemplated in any Estimate before. That service is concerned with the reconstruction of certain industries in Newfoundland under the authority of the Newfoundland Government. Is it not competent for this Committee now to discuss how the money so voted can best be expended and what attitude it is desirable for our commissioners—who are paid by this House—to take up as regards the influence which they can bring to bear on the expenditure of that money?

I think I have said in an earlier ruling that I realise that this Estimate, in this particular form, raises an entirely different point and that, as far as the £40,000 is concerned, it must obviously be regarded as a new service and is open to discussion as such. But it seemed to me that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) was really going into a wider question of policy altogether, as to what the Newfoundland Government might or might not do beyond the limits of the £40,000. I think that a question of that sort should be raised on the main Estimate on the Vote for the salary of the Secretary of State because he is the only person who could be held to be responsible for the commissioners who are not paid by this House.

I think it is quite clear that on the question of voting this sum of £40,000 we are entitled to raise this point—that certain preliminary considerations must be taken into account by the Commissioners, when it is a matter of developing the industries of Newfoundland. We are all willing that money should be spent on such a purpose, even though it comes out of the pockets of the British taxpayer, but what we want to know is: Are the Government satisfied that this preliminary expenditure of £40,000 on the development of the deep-sea fisheries, is the most economical and is likely to be the most reproductive way of investing our money? These problems are strange even to us on this side of the Committee; I fear they are equally strange to the Dominions Office, and in the circumstances it might be possible, with a too generous spirit on the part of the new Government in Newfoundland, to rush us into an expenditure of £40,000 on some purpose, without being certain that that was a wise or reproductive expenditure.

The spirit of giving doles has to stop in Newfoundland. The subsidising of industries which do not pay has to stop in Newfoundland. If we are to make a success of that country, we shall have to find out the industries which ought to pay and develop them. The first thing is to get the land into the possession of the Government so that the development of Newfoundland will be the development of our own property and not the development of other people's property. I hope we shall not see there, what we have seen in the development of other territories, an enormous expenditure of public money the benefit from which does not accrue either to the taxpayers here or to the people of the country concerned, but to the benefit of the London Stock Exchange and of speculators in land who may see their derelict properties develop overnight into valuable states which can be floated on the market. It is never too early to look into and stop development on those lines, and it is essential, if we are to make a success of Newfoundland, that we should get in on the ground floor ourselves and have the Government holding the land and the minerals from which in the future dividends and returns are to be expected.

This is not a case of taking over a Colony without a debt which we can develop without great responsibility to the taxpayers. In Newfoundland we are taking over a Colony with a gigantic debt, and it is our duty to the people of this country to see that any capital sums which we spend there are invested reproductively, so that people here may recover at least the interest on the money which they are going to put into the Colony, so that the taxpayers here may not be milked as the taxpayers there have been for the benefit of vested interests and the lucky individuals who usually get a "rake-off" during these processes of development. It is admitted that Newfoundland is an extraordinarily difficult proposition for any Department to tackle, and I should be most loath to say anything which would make their task more difficult, but I believe the hon. Member and the Department are at one with me in thinking it necessary to get into that country some of our own young men of the Colonial Office type, to set the tone and to raise the level of the administration, and that it is essential to get back the land of that country for the public, as a necessary preliminary to any successful development of the latent wealth of the Colony.

With regard to your Ruling, Captain Bourne, I should like to ask whether there were any terms of reference or instructions given to our three Commissioners, for whose salaries the Vote is now being considered, in regard to their action when they should arrive there, in conjunction with the Newfoundland Commissioners. It is an important thing for the people of this country and the Members of this Committee to know just what action is going to be taken and what instructions, if any, have been given. Our commissioners represent three out of six, so that they have a 50–50 voice in determining the policy that is to be conducted in Newfoundland.

The other point that I would like to put is a more important one. I am not sure what is included under the item K2, £234,000, but I understand that the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State said that included in it would be interest due to the bondholders, which was recently agreed to in this House. I would like to know whether any grants or any sums are included in this Estimate to relieve the immediate distress of the fishermen themselves. After all, the thing that hon. Members were most interested in, when we were discussing the Resolution that we were asked to pass some time ago, was the fact that Newfoundland was in such a state of bankruptcy that not only were the Government officials suffering, but there was terrible distress among the poor fishermen and others in that Colony. There is nothing in the Vote that I can see which shows that any immediate relief has been given to them, and I should like to know whether they are still in that condition of dire distress, if any of the amount voted has been included for that purpose, how such amount, if any, has been distributed, by whom, what is the limit of it, and how long it is likely to be needed.

With regard to the interest to the bondholders, I was interested to learn from the hon. Gentleman that a very considerable saving—he got almost enthusiastic about it—of £150,000 had been made in, I presume, reducing the interest or issuing a new form of bond. I presume that the old bond was called in and a new form issued, or perhaps the same bond was allowed to remain at a reduced rate of interest. The hon. Gentleman rather seemed to imply that the bondholders were acting so generously, by agreeing, presumably, to a reduced rate of interest, that we were actually able to save £150,000. I think the bondholders would take another point of view. I think they would consider that they had had a security which was worth nothing at all, and that this House came to their rescue, gave them a security, to which they were not entitled, at the expense of the British taxpayers generally, and said to them, "We will let you off very lightly, and if you are prepared to make some small offer to show the British taxpayer that we are getting at least a little bit back from you, it will be squared up on that line."

When the hon. Gentleman comes here and says they were so generous that they actually accepted new conditions under which we were able to make a profit of £150,000, I should think he knows, as I certainly know, that he is talking sheer nonsense. They gave us nothing at all. Everything they have got now is of value. They have a security that they never could have had if it had not been for the action of this House, and if they acted in anything like a generous spirit, it would not be a matter of £150,000 saved, but at least 50 per cent. of the entire amount that is involved. I think we could reasonably ask for that amount and then consider ourselves generous, because the British taxpayers are giving them the only security that they have got. The Commissioners' report said that the conditions out there were hopeless, that political corruption was on every hand, that land was being given away by people who had no right to give it away, that generally speaking corruption was so bad that nobody appeared in the Government service or in high office who was not in some form or other corrupt. That question has been settled by a Vote of this House, I am sorry to say, but I am sure that we are all concerned about the actual condition of the people who suffered as a consequence of that corruption, namely, the poorest section of the people in Newfoundland, and I would like the hon. Gentleman to tell us what has been done to relieve that terrible distress, and whether it can be truthfully said that the terrible poverty about which we were told a few weeks ago has in fact been relieved.

I would like to ask a question about the Evans Expedition. I was not here, I am sorry to say, but I understand that the Under-Secretary of State said that £4,000 of this Vote of £37,000 for the Bechuanaland Protectorate was to defray that expenditure. Is the hon. Gentleman sure that he is right about that, and that he can defray that expenditure? First of all, this is a new sub-head; it is not in the main Estimate for the year. It is a sub-head which first appeared in the Supplementary Estimate of the 22nd June, and there it was taken in the form of a grant to meet the estimated deficiency on the account for the revenue and expenditure of the Protectorate,

"which has been accentuated by abnormal conditions due to drought and foot-and-mouth disease."

That means that the grant was required for the general expenditure, but that that general expenditure was increased, the situation being accentuated owing to abnormal conditions of drought and foot-and-mouth disease. That might have covered the Evans Expedition, if it had been before June, but the form of the Supplementary Estimate does not show that that grant was for that purpose. If the form of the Estimate means anything at all, it means that the extra £37,000 is merely on account of the two items: extra expenditure on drought and extra expenditure on foot-and-mouth disease; and it does not mean that it is an extra grant for the whole of the deficiency in that public expenditure. I may be wrong, but that is what my knowledge of these things makes me think it means, and I do not believe that, in spite of the hon. Gentleman's saying that the £4,000 is to be taken out of this, it can be taken out of it. On the other hand, if it can be taken out of it, I think it is nothing less than a public scandal that that item of expenditure should be smuggled in in this form without the House of Commons being made aware of it before the speech of the Under-Secretary of State. But I am not sure that he is right, and that he will get his £4,000 out of it as he thinks he will.

I notice that in respect of two items of this Supplementary Estimate there is this phrase:

"Expenditure out of this Grant-in-Aid will not be accounted for in detail to the Comptroller and Auditor-General."

That occurs with regard to item J, the Bechuanaland Protectorate, and item K.2, the Newfoundland Grant-in-Aid. Who is going to account to this House for the proper expenditure of money voted by this House in respect of these two services? I am sorry I was not here to hear the statement of the Under-Secretary of State at the beginning of the proceedings, but I hope I am well within the truth when I suggest that here is a sum of £37,000 to be expended, we are told, in relation to certain drought and foot-and-mouth disease requirements. What assurance is there that the £37,000 will be so spent? This House would not allow the hon. Gentleman's Department to have £1,000,000 or even £37,000 for a particular purpose without expecting from him a proper account presented, so that the accounting officers of this House would be able to assure the appropriate Committee of the House that the money had been expended for that purpose and for no other purpose. Here is £37,000 allotted to Bechuanaland. How do we know that it is to be spent in the sense that we are told it is to be spent?

The same question arises in regard to Newfoundland. I daresay these commissioners in Newfoundland will do their best to carry out the instructions of the Government, but this House is entitled to know that the money, once voted, is spent for the purpose for which it has been voted. Let me give an illustration how very meticulous this House is in regard to accounts. Suppose the hon. Gentleman's Department gets £12,000 for a particular purpose, for a particular department of services within its larger area of activities. If he has only spent £5,000 under that sub-head, he cannot adopt the rest of the money for any other purpose that he may think fit. He must return it to the Treasury. What assurance have we that the money in this Vote is going to be spent for the purpose to which it is here allotted? I gather that the hon. Gentleman did not tell us what the £40,000 is intended to cover in Newfoundland. Why should we be asked to give that amount without knowing on what it is to be expended?

I have told the Committee.

I understood that the hon. Gentleman had not. We must, however, have an assurance through the medium of a proper audit that the money is so spent, and I express a strong dissent from this provision whereby money, voted by the House of Commons, may be spent—no doubt it will be properly spent—without in the ultimate resort this House having a proper audited statement as to how it has been expended. I should like to have from the hon. Gentleman a defence of the proposition that there is to be no audit by the Comptroller and Auditor-General of this House. After all, it is our money, and we are entitled, having granted it as freely as we have done, to an assurance that it has been properly spent.

I will at once deal with the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones). This is the usual form in which Estimates are presented for the expenditure of money in territories overseas. It is true that under J, for instance, it says:

"Expenditure out of this grant-in-aid will not be accounted for in detail to the Comptroller and Auditor-General,"

but it goes on to say,

"but he will be furnished by the Dominions Office with the audited accounts and with any report of the local auditor thereon."

The expenditure is audited in the territory concerned. The Dominions Office is responsible for seeing that that is done, and we are answerable to the Comptroller and Auditor-General for every item of the expenditure under this head. I can asure my hon. Friend that we shall see that nothing is spent on any matter for which there is no authority from the House of Commons. That is the usual form in any case which is parallel to the items under J and K.

It is true in regard to J, but I was looking at J in conjunction with K to show the development of a procedure which I regard as undesirable. It is a rather new departure with regard to Newfoundland, and I hoped we should have from the hon. Gentleman a statement that since we are now making grants to Newfoundland in a new way we should get from the proper accounting officer of this House an audited statement every year as to how the money was spent. I was thinking of K more than of J.

I think that the position in regard to Newfoundland is adequately covered by the practice. There is a local audit done there, and we shall be responsible for seeing that the money is spent on the purposes for which it is intended by the House of Commons to be spent.

The hon. Gentleman must seize the point. I am doing my best to put a new point. Until now there has been a Parliament in Newfoundland, and I presume there has been a proper accounting officer to that Parliament. There is now only a Commission which is possessed of almost autocratic powers. It will receive grant from this country and, since there is no Parliament in Newfoundland having an accounting officer in charge of the accounts, we are entitled, as so much money is involved, to have an audit made by our own accounting officer in order to see that the money is properly controlled.

I think that the position is really adequately covered by the procedure followed in the case of grants-in-aid which we make to Governments in other parts of the world; the practice is satisfactory, and it will be satisfactory in the case of Newfoundland. At any rate, that is the answer to the question which my hon. Friend quite properly put. A number of other questions have been asked, and I will do my best to answer them. My hon. Friend the Member for Rothwell (Mr. Lunn) asked under what terms the three commissioners who are being paid out of United Kingdom funds have been appointed. They have been appointed in every case for three years in the first instance, with the option on either side to give three months' notice at the termination of the first or the second year. My hon. Friend the Member for West Walthamstow (Mr. McEntee) asked what specific instructions these three United Kingdom commissioners had been given by the Government with regard to carrying out their duties. Their instructions are of a general character. The Committee knows what the object of the commission form of government is. It is to endeavour to set the island on its feet again economically and politically, and, of course, our three commissioners are to do everything they can to attain that object. At present they are looking into the question in a preliminary way. They have been there for only two or three weeks and have, therefore, not been able to get very far with their actual work.

The right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) put his finger on this question of the £40,000 and asked us whether we were satisfied that such a sum would be best expended in the direction which I indicated. I reminded the Committee of certain recommendations which had been made by the Royal Commission, which are summarised from page 136 onwards, with regard to the resuscitation of the deep sea fisheries and the fall fisheries in Newfoundland. I can only says that the Government have been guided on this matter very largely by the report of the Royal Commission. The Commission said that there were many other matters which ought to engage the attention of the Government quickly, and my right hon. and gallant Friend mentioned some of them and was ruled out of order for doing so. The point about this £40,000 for this particular fishery purpose is that the Commission regarded work in that direction as so urgent that the money should be made available for it straight away. We have been guided very largely by that opinion in deciding that that money should be available for what the Commission regarded as the most urgent work. This development of the deep sea and fall fisheries will definitely help the Newfoundland people, the poor fishermen, their wives and families.

It is not a case of putting £40,000 into the pockets of the bondholders; it is a case of resuscitating very important fisheries in order, as I said in my speech, to enable the fishing season to be extended by four months. The result of this expenditure, it is hoped, will be that the poor fishermen of Newfoundland will be able to earn money for an additional four months in the year during which, in recent years, they have not been able to earn any return for their labour. Therefore this is directly an effort to help the poor population of Newfoundland. My hon. Friend the Member for West Walthamstow asked whether there was any money out of this enormous sum of £234,000 to be paid in relief to the fishermen who are suffering poverty. The effect of that £40,000 should be to help them very materially, but the question of paying them relief in order to help them overcome the worst part of their present poverty is not covered under this Estimate. The money for any such relief is voted by the ordinary Newfoundland Budget, and it has amounted to several hundreds of thousands of dollars during this winter. Indeed, the amount has exceeded $1,000,000. That relief expenditure is going on independently of the Supplementary Estimate. My right hon. and gallant Friend for Newcastle-under-Lyme asked about other works of development and the reform of the Civil Service. I do not want to get out of order and perhaps the best thing I can do is simply to point out that the Commissioners have been in the island only since the 16th February and they have hardly had time to get very far in their investigations. They have not had time to make any reports to us by the ordinary mail which would enable us to give a report to the House of any specific recommendations. But I can report the fact that they have lost no time in going into the question of tariffs. The Royal Commission thought that the present incidence of tariffs in Newfoundland was not as happy as it might be, and the Governor has, by telegram, asked us to send out on loan two officers from our Customs Department in order to help them in that matter. These two officers have gone.

Questions have been asked with regard to Bechuanaland. The hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) asked whether we could supply out of this Supplementary Estimate £4,000 for a particular purpose which has been discussed in this Debate. I am advised that it is possible and that there will be no difficulty about that. My hon. Friends in various parts of the Committee have protested at what they described as an attempt to hide that item of expenditure in this Estimate. It was never my intention to hide it. Those who were in the Committee when I spoke will recall that I had just begun to give some of the details on which it is proposed to expend this money when my hon. and gallant Friend interrupted and asked if this item was included. In reply I said that it was and I pointed out that if he had remained in his place I had intended to acquaint the Committee with the fact that it was proposed that something like £4,000 in this Supplementary Estimate was required to pay for the expedition under Admiral Evans.

The hon. Gentleman is the last man to try and conceal anything but we complain of the wording of the Supplementary Estimate itself.

All I can say is that there is no intention on the part of anyone of the Dominions Office to be deceitful in this matter. And this Debate at any rate has brought out clearly that a certain amount of this money is required for that purpose. My hon. and gallant Friend asked under what authority Admiral Evans had undertaken that expedition. He undertook it under his own authority as Acting High Commissioner. He had full authority as such to take the action he did and to use his discretion in the matter, and no further authority was required. We were informed in the Dominions Office of what he was doing. The hon. and gallant Member will recall that it was a matter which blew up in a few hours and that action was taken as a matter of urgency. The answer to his question is that the Acting High Commissioner had perfect authority on account of the office he was holding to take the action that he did without seeking authority elsewhere.

Is the hon. Gentleman quite certain that no communication was made to the Admiralty before the expedition started?

So far as I know, the Admiralty would receive the same kind of information as we did, and at the same time. Certainly, there was no question of the Admiralty giving authority to the Admiral in regard to taking that action. I take it that as Admiral commanding the station in South Africa he had authority, just as he had as acting High Commissioner, to use his discretion in a case of urgency, and that he could——

You say that you and the Admiralty got information. Did you get that information in time to stop him, or not?

I was answering the question which had been put to me as to the authority necessary for this action to be taken, and the answer to that is that he could do it on his own authority. We have to allow discretion to those in authority to make up their minds what action is necessary in an emergency. As for his reasons for taking the action, about which I have been questioned, I think I cannot do better than repeat the terms of an answer which my right hon. Friend gave on that matter at the time. In reply to a question my right hon. Friend then said:

"I understand that the High Commissioner for South Africa considered that the presence of a naval escort was desirable as