entirely failed to show that the circum- or two?" and the reply was "No, I stances were such that this extra ex- cannot." That was the state of mind to penditure the Committee were now asked which the War Office was reduced by to sanction, could not have been foreseen South African expenditure. That exwhen the Estimates were presented last penditure was of the most lavish kind. year. On the contrary, some of the There was practically no sort of Estimate. remarks of the right hon. Gentleman The right hon. Gentleman had referred tended to show that they could have been to the item of £1,000,000 for "Proceeds foreseen. For instance, he told the Com- of sale of cast and other animals, etc." mittee that certain items referred to How could £1,000,000 be the wiping out matters which were finally closed two of the whole account? When they years ago, and that others referred to wiped out an account they got the expenditure which was really incurred four pounds, shillings, and pence. There years ago, but had not yet been brought was no finality about £1,000,000. With into account. Why were these items regard to Appropriations in aid he brought forward now? Our system was reminded the Committee that they were annual. Things were supposed to be cleared in a somewhat different situation. They up and ended at the close of each year, were made, as he had pointed out, by the and, if we were to have this new system Treasury acting under the Public introduced, we should have our financial Charges Act, and the House had no consystem worked on the plan followed in trol over them. Let the House observe France where, by the introduction of what that this Supplementary Estimate reprewas called an "Exercise," accounts were sented two huge mistakes-a mistake of sometimes dealt with ten or eleven years £6,100,000 on the original Estimate, and after the date to which they referred. a mistake of £3,400,000 on the Estimates He thought they were approaching that of the Appopriation in aid. Such large now. It seemed to him that some of the mistakes, he fancied, had never been items here were such as must inevitably made before. He would not enlarge on have been foreseen at the time, and that now, although he should object later certainly they ought not to have been on to the great vice of Appropriations in left so late as this. The last item of the aid. They meant the withdrawing of Vote was £600,000 for "South Africa- the control of this House from the Compensation Claims." There had been finances of the country. Last year they discussion after discussion in this House amounted to no less than £13,000,000, on that matter, and they had voted and this year they would probably sums up to millions for compensation amount to still more. He most earnestly claims. How could the Government begged the attention of the House and say now that this was expenditure of an the Committee to the growing practice of unexpected nature, and that at no the Government in making Estimates previous portion of the year could it which were not to be trusted, and of have been foreseen? How that could be coming in with Supplementary Estimates contended he could not conceive. The which were not justifiable and which same might be said of almost every item. played a part of a most dangerous He was not complaining of the items; character in dealing with Appropriations they might be quite correct, but he was in aid. complaining of their being put before the Committee in a Supplementary Estimate. When the Public Accounts Committee were sitting he remembered asking with respect to several of the matters indicated here. He asked an official from the War Office what was the total amount of such and such an expenditure-referring to expenditure by officers in the field. That official was a very able man indeed, but his reply was "I cannot tell you." He asked "Can you tell me within a million MR. BUCHANAN (Perthshire, E.) said. he agreed with the hon. Member for King's Lynn that the Government in laying before the Committee Supplementary Estimates like this were practically presenting a second Army Budget for the year. When the Committee came to go into the discussion of details it would be found, from those enormous sums asked for from the Committee, that the Estimates of the various sub-heads a year ago turned out to be absolutely fallacious. The disagreement between the War Office and the Colonial Office for two years past; and if there was going to be such a vast sum placed on the charges for the current year it should have been in the original Estimate. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War in the few remarks with which he had opened the debate did not make any attempt to justify the conduct of the War Office. The right hon. Gentleman made a few observations on several of the large charges, but he did not say why This criticism applied with even these large charges, which might have been greater force in regard to the Apforeseen, had not been entered in round propriations in aid. The hon. Member figures in the Estimates for the current for King's Lynn, who had referred to this year. There was the large figure of subject, did not point out its full gravity. £800,000, payments to the Colonial con- He could quite understand that at the tingents. The War Office must have conclusion of a great war, larger sums for known that a large sum of that sort Appropriations in aid might be coming in, was outstanding to the Colonies and that than on ordinary occasions; and the War it would probably, and ought to, come Office might fairly come forward with in for payment in the current year. some justification for what took place last Why then was it not put in? With year and the year before. The war came what countenance could the Government to an end in June two years ago and the justify presenting an Estimate for £5,000 expectations of the War Office were conat the beginning of the year and in the siderably thrown out of gear. month of February bringing in a Supple- Appropriations in aid went up from mentary Estimate for £800,000? The £3,430,000 to £6,130,000, because when right hon. Member the Secretary for War the war came to an end the War Office did not attempt to explain how it was that wanted to sell a good deal of their the War Office should be ignorant of the property in South Africa; but certainly existence of a claim of this magnitude. the previous year the Appropriations that was an enormous discrepancy. In In the next head the original Estimate in aid amounted to £4,500,000, while was for £10,000, now it was £150,000: and in the Supplementary Estimates there in the third the paltry sum of £3,000 was was an additional sum of £5,500,000 in the original Estimate, now it was ог a total of £10,000,000. The £100,000. Whence came that? Surely war having come to an end a careful department might have anticipated that a very large sum must come to the credit side of the account, and if that was the case last year, á fortiori it should have applied this year, when the war had heen finished for more than a year and a half, and when the War Office must have been aware of what they had to sell in the shape of cast horses and other animals, provisions, forage, stores, and materials, but there was discrepancy as in preceding years. as great a Under Vote 6 for the sale of cast horses and other animals the yearly Estimate was £77,000 while the Supplementary Estimate was £100,000, but the discrepancy was even greater in the case of sales of provisions, forage, and supplies. In the Estimates for the year the amount given was £76,800, while in the Estimates Supplementary it was £1,600,000. The discrepancy was not SO great on the next item-Stores £650,000 and £500,000; and for Materials £137,000 and £130,000. But putting the four items together the amount in the Committee had a right to demand the original Estimates was £941,000 | clusion of hostilities they were handed and the sum now given in the Supple- over to the Colonial Government. Their mentary Estimates was no less than £3,430,000 or an increase of 350 per cent. Surely they had a right to expect from the head of the War Office some statement to account for the hopeless error into which the War Office had fallen. This matter was important because it would become, under the existing system, almost impossible in future for students to discover the real cost of the war. He thought that it was of the greatest importance that the Public Accounts Committee should devise some alteration of the present practice, in the direction of simplification of the accounts of payments usually put under the heading of Appropriations in aid. THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. BROMLEY DAVENPORT, Cheshire, Macclesfield) said that he did not intend to follow the right hon. Gentleman opposite into the regions of prophecy. He would endeavour to answer the considerable number of Questions that had been put to the best of his ability, and if he did not make himself perfectly clear he hoped hon. Members would be indulgent. The hon. Member for King's Lynn had referred to these Estimates as altogether unexampled, and had suggested that there was something improper in applying Appropriations in aid to meeting deficiencies in the Army Estimates. There was, however, nothing new in the practice, and if the hon. Member thought there was anything improper in it, he was surprised that he did not make the same speech last year. While we were at war it was absolutely impossible to arrive at an exact estimate of the cost of particular services. As to the question of the expenditure upon Imperial military railways, upon which he had been asked a question, he thought he could make the matter quite clear. So far as the War Depart ment was concerned it was only an affair of book-keeping, and no money had passed. These railways had belonged to the Transvaal and the Orange River Colonies, and had been captured as prizes of war by our Army. During the war they were worked by the military authorities as military railways, and on the con price had been a matter of discussion between the War Department and the Colonial Office, and finally a sum of £1,250,000 had been agreed upon. When he took office that sum was regarded as due to the War Department, but in the last few weeks it had been realised that under the South African War Loan Contribution Act, 1903, all moneys over and above £3,500,000 paid by the new Colonies must go, not to the relief of taxation, but to relief of the National Debt. It therefore became necessary in the Estimate now presented to write off £900,000, £350,000 of the amount having been already charged against the Army Votes in the form of stores supplied from stock. So far as the War Department were concerned, they realised that if, and when, this sum was paid over it would not go to them but would go in relief of the National Debt. The hon. Member turned to the excess of Appropriations in aid, and said he had been asked what was the meaning of the £1,000,000 shown. He explained that when the transports ceased to be required they contained a large quantity of coal; that receipts from the sale of transport animals in South Africa, other than the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies, amounted to £440,000; and that animals and vehicles in the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies accounted for £410,000. Altogether there were items amounting to about £1,000,000; but he did not suggest that that would be found to be the precise sum. MR. LOUGH: Then if we have not to pay it, why should it be in the Estimates? MR. BROMLEY-DAVENPORT said that it was because they had sold the railway, for which they had paid nothing. to the Colonial Government for £1,250,000. *SIR EDGAR VINCENT (Exeter): Why, if nothing is being paid, should we have a sum on the Estimates of £900,000? MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORT: It is put down to balance our account, to show that we no longer take credit for received no money. As regarded the the sum of £900,000. *SIR EDGAR VINCENT: But that really is no explanation. Because you do not receive a sum which you expected, are you justified in stating that you are going to spend a sum which you do not intend to spend at all? I am MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORT: told that it is necessary to show it in this way. pay. But *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER said that there would have been an Appropriation in aid to the extent of the £900,000, which would have been in reduction of the amount payable on the Supplementary Votes which they now had to that amount they now realised would not be paid, and, therefore, the original charge on the Supplementary Votes would not be met by a corresponding. Appropriation in aid. In that sense they would have to pay £900,000 more out of the Army Votes. amount for not were re was were Yeomanry accounts, he thought that, in view of the conditions under which the men were recruited, coming as they did from many parts of the world, and receiving different rates of pay, it was rather unreasonable to expect that the accounts should be completely and accurately wound up so soon after the conclusion of the war. As to the China expeditionary force, the Vote comprised money expended to the amount of £400,000. There were, however, surplus Appropriations in aid amounting to £200,000. The old system of conducting a war was by a Vote of credit, and he was not quite better. Hon. sure, from the point of view of this House, whether that was Members, at all events, then knew the which they sponsible in any year. But it became much more difficult when a war conducted not by the War Office but by the India Office. The accounts made up in China; they were then sent to India to be checked and audited, and were then sent to the War Office, by which they were presented to House. That might be undesirable but it was in strict accordance with Finance the recommendations of the Committee. The expedition to China was in 1901, and though the delay in getting these accounts, he admitted, was most undesirable, still it was unavoidable. The same would apply to the Somaliland operations which were being conducted With regard by the Indian Government. to the compensations claims, £600,000, that was made up of three amounts, as hon. Members knew, in 1903. The Transvaal and Orange River Colonies agreed to take £3,000,000 in satisfaction of those SIR HENRY FOWLER (Wolver- claims. £1,500,000 was paid by us in hampton, E.): Are under-1902 and it was estimated in 1903 that the stand that the Estimates presented total amount of these claims amounted and approved by the House last April to £4,500,000, and the two Colonies are £1,250,000 less than they ought to agreed to accept £3,000,000 in satisfachave been because you expected this tion. amount to come back? *SIR EDGAR VINCENT: To whom? Who is the money to be paid to. SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Might I ask one question? Take the next item, "Cast horses, £1,000,000." The hon. Gentleman takes credit in an Appropriation in aid for cast horses. Now supposing it was found, when that amount was gone into, that that was a mistake and that the amount was only £500,000. Would the hon. Member put the £500,000 down as having been spent on cast horses? we to MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORT said he was sorry he could not answer that Question; he did not look into the matter. He desired to make it quite plain. This sum would not be deducted from the Estimate. He was told that it was necessary to include it for book-keeping purposes. We had paid no money and had this MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON (Dundee) congratulated the hon. Member on his first appearance as a member of the Government supporting the Estimate before the Committee, and said had the hon. Member been more frequent in his attendance before he occupied his present position, when the Estimates were discussed, he would not have imagined that the hon. Member for King's Lynn was | time when that railway was being worked making the protest he had made for the by the military. first time. It was not the first nor the -fifth time that the hon. Gentleman and many others had made the same protest. The hon. Member had been speaking for twenty-five minutes in explanation of the military expenditure on South African railways but he could not even now pretend that he understood what those explanations were. So far as he had been able to gather the original statement contained an item of Appropriation-in-aid of £900,000 which was wrong. MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORT said he found that he was mistaken in the statement he had made. He found that the £900,000 was actually spent and that it was now only charged against the Army Vote because it had not been repaid. It was anticipated that it would be repaid and it was admitted by the Colonies that it was due. As a matter of fact £350,000 was repaid, but the remaining £900,000 which was expended could not be repaid, and therefore had to be charged against the Army Vote. *SIR EDGAR VINCENT: Was it spent on these railways? This MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON said this amount was nothing but a loan which was not repaid as they expected it would be. They had had four or five explanations as to this matter but he could not say that he understood any one of them. question ought to be raised on an Amendment which would bring the question before the Committee in a definite manner, when, perhaps, that Committee would get a proper explanation from the Government. His right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition in his speech had taken the financial ground, which was the only ground which could be taken in this matter. The right hon. Gentleman had shown what the amount would be if these items had been passed, but he omitted to take note of the Military Works Bill. *THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! This is not the occasion upon which to enter into a general review of Army expenditure. Upon Supplementary Estimates the debate must be strictly confined to matters contained in those Estimates. MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON remarked that these Estimates SO MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORT: Yes. enormously swelled the total naval MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON said he was obliged for the explanation but it did not correspond with what he understood the Secretary of State for War to say. *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER said there was no discrepancy. This amount of £900,000 was taken out of the Army funds as a temporary expenditure, and it was expected that it would be paid back. It was taken, with the sanction of the Treasury, out of the Army Votes for current expenditure, and it was expected that it would be repaid. and military expenditure that he should hesitate before accepting them. Once these and the corresponding Naval Estimates were accepted the gross amount of naval and military expenditure would be nearer £85,000,000 than £75,000,000. A large amount of the extra expenditure related to the unhappy war in South Africa, the true character of which was becoming day by day more visible. The Estimates included a sum of £3,845,000 required for excess expenditure connected with South Africa. Before voting that sum the Committee were entitled to have a definite account of the total cost of the war to this country. Another point on which information was necessary was as to how much of these Estimates was for ancient and how much for current expenditure. It was recently stated that the present cost of the Army in South Africa was about £80,000 a week, but the Committee were entitled now to ask for more MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORT: Ex-precise information. How much was to pended by the military on a railway at a be the expenditure on military services MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON said it now appeared that this £900,000 was an advance with the sanction of the Treasury from the Army funds because it was expected that it would be repaid within a year; it was therefore a loan. |