APPROPRIATION ACCOUNTS-Class II.

Vote 8.-Board of Trade-continued.

Mr. O'Reilly.

48. And the charge has been sanctioned, I suppose?—Yes.

49. Are any steps being taken to legalise the payment referred to in the first paragraph of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General? -The opinion of the Law Officers has been taken as to the legality of the procedure of the Board of Trade, and they have given an opinion, which has been sent to the Treasury, and also to the Comptroller and Auditor General, stating that the course taken by the Board of Trade is within their powers.

50. Does that apply both to the payment of the salaries of the Examiners of Masters and Mates out of the Vote, and to the payment of the fees received for the examination of engineers into the Exchequer ?-That reply applies to the Examiners of Masters and Mates. The payment of fees for the examination of engineers will be dealt with in an Act which we hope to pass this

year.

51. Has a measure been introduced with that object?-It has not yet been introduced.

52. With respect to the second paragraph of the Comptroller and Auditor General's Report, the question of the remuneration of the salaried Procurators Fiscal has been under the consideration of this Committee for the last three years; has any progress been made with respect to it?That has now been settled.

53. Can you put in a statement showing in what manner it has been settled?-The Treasury have agreed to the Board of Trade proposal that, except in exceptional cases, the salaried Procurators Fiscal shall only be employed under the direction of the Lord Advocate, and the payment for that work is included in the salary. A copy of the correspondence has been sent to the Comptroller and Auditor General.

54. (To Mr. Ryan.) That will remove the objections of the Comptroller and Auditor General, I presume?--Yes.

Chairman.

55. (To Mr. Stoneham.) Referring to paragraph 3 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's Report, has the Board of Trade taken any legal opinion with respect to its power to reverse the

sentence of a Court as to costs or fines?-No legal opinion has been taken; but there is no doubt, I believe, as to the ability of the Board of Trade to revise the decision of a Naval Court in such cases. The point here is somewhat The point here is somewhat complicated, and therefore I ought not to answer it off-hand in that way. I had better explain that there were two charges in these cases against the master of the " Reciprocity." The first charge was, that he omitted to make proper entries in the official log, for which the Court fined him a sum of 45 l. The second charge was, that he did not take proper steps on the outbreak of scurvy on board his ship, to deal with it by running into the nearest port. The Court, for that offence, suspended his certificate and condemned him in costs. The Board of Trade, exercising what they believed to be their power, returned his certificate and remitted the costs. They communicated with the Treasury and the Treasury agreed.

APPROPRIATION ACCOUNTS -Class II. Vote 8.-Board of Trade-continued.

Chairman-continued.

56. What has been done has been done under the sanction of the Treasury ?-Yes, with the consent of the Treasury.

57. Would it not, in your opinion, have been desirable that as this payment was made under the Sub-head "Law Charges," a note should have been appended, calling attention to a payment of an exceptional nature?-That has not been the case hitherto. Such cases have been dealt with in the course of the current financial year. In the year 1877-78 two other cases have occurred in which the costs have been remitted.

58. (To Mr. Ryder.) Can you state what would be the opinion of the Treasury as to the desirability of a note of the nature suggested by the Comptroller and Auditor General?-I have no doubt that such a note would be desirable; no objection occurs to me.

Chairman.

59. (To Mr. Stoneham.) In paragraph 7 of his Report, the Comptroller and Auditor General states that," under the Sub-head of Salaries' is included the salary of a railway inspector, Colonel Rich, at 1,000 l. per annum, who is also in receipt. of retired full pay as an officer of the Royal Engineers, respecting which there is no note on the Appropriation Account or the Estimate"; can you state why that was?—That was an accidental omission.

60. Has the note been placed in the Estimates for the current year?—I am afraid not. The Estimates were sent in before the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General was received.

On Vote 18.

THE MINT, INCLUDING COINAGE.

Chairman.

61. (To Mr. Ryder.) There are various small payments under Sub-head C., which the Comptroller and Auditor General does not consider come appropriately under that heading; can you state what the opinion of the Treasury is with respect to those payments?--I think the feeling of the Treasury was that the total amount of the expenditure was hardly enough to require a new Sub-head to be opened for it. It is, no doubt, true that whenever we anticipate travelling expenses to any great amount, we form them into a separate Sub-head; but there was no such Sub-head in the Estimate, and we thought that such a small sum would not require one.

62. But payments like 137. for coins and metals, presented to the Melbourne Library, and 117. 10 s. 6 d. for old English coins for the Mint Museum, do not fall under Incidental Office Expenses, do they?—I suppose it was considered

that there was no other Sub-head that was more

appropriate for such payments, than the Sub head head that we resort to when there is no other for Incidental Expenses. It is the sort of Sub

better one.

On Vote 25.-STATIONERY AND PRINTING.

Chairman.

63. (To Mr. Ryder.) There is appended to the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General

a statement of the value of stocks in the Stationery Department; would it not be desirable that there should be added to this account a statement of the stocks at the corresponding time last year, in order that the real expenditure on the Department might be ascertained?—I think that such a statement will be found in the corresponding account of last year.

64. But would it not be useful, for the purpose of comparison, that such a statement should be added to the Accounts each year?-It would be quite worth considering, but it had not occurred to me. (Mr. Ryan.) It would be quite possible in our Report next year to make a comparative

statement.

On Vote 38.

THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD

(IRELAND).

Chairman.

65. (To Mr. Ryder.) In paragraph 1 of his Report the Comptroller and Auditor General says, "There being no note to this effect in the Account nor in the Estimate, I have to observe that Mr. O'Brien, an inspector of the Local Government Board (Ireland), received 2007. for

Temporary Commissions."" I believe that is a Vote for which the Treasury is responsible, is it not?-It is.

66. Did they send the necessary information. to the Local Government Board to enable them to append this note ?-We certainly ought to have done so. I am afraid that we omitted to carry out our own regulation.

67. In the second paragraph of his Report the Comptroller and Auditor General says, "Payments for rent, ground rent, rates, taxes, and

insurance are included in the Account. Such charges are usually paid out of the Vote for the Department of Works. A statement of houses occupied by the Local Government Board, for which the rent is defrayed out of the Vote 38, Class II., has been furnished by that Department, and is annexed." Do you know why those charges are included in the present Account, instead of that for the Department of Works?— It has been the policy of the Treasury to collect charges of that kind into the Public Buildings

Vote, but I do not think we have carried out that policy quite completely; and diligent examination would, no doubt, show various little outlying charges which, perhaps, ought to come into the Public Buildings Vote.

68. Is it the intention of the Treasury to persevere in that direction ?—I think So, unless there is evident reason to the contrary, as there may be in the case of the Vaccine Grant.

Mr. O'Reilly.

69. (To Mr. Ryan.) Under what head are these charges included in the Account?-I think that they would be classed under the head of Incidental Expenses. It was as a question of appropriation that the Comptroller and Auditor General raised this point. There being a distinct Vote for rents he thought that all rents should be charged under that head.

APPROPRIATION ACCOUNTS--continued.

CLASS III.

On Vote 2.

CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS, SHERIFFS' EXPENSES, &c.

Chairman.

70. (To Mr. Ryder.) In the explanation of the causes of the variation between the expenditure and grant, at the bottom of page 160, the Accounting Officer states that, "This deficiency ing from a re-arrangement of the northern and arose partly from an increase of salaries, resultnorth-eastern circuits on the death of the late clerk of the crown, Lancaster." Was that new arrangement sanctioned by the Treasury?-Yes, I think so.

On Vote 5.

PROBATE AND DIVORCE REGISTRIES OF THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE.

Mr. Thomson Hankey.

71. Is there any Account in which we can see the fees paid in the High Court of Justice?—In the Finance Accounts, under the head of Stamp Duties, you will see the amount of stamp duties collected in each Department by the Inland Revenue; it is more than the cost of the Probate Registries.

72. Do the fees paid in courts of justice generally in England exceed the cost to the public?-I should say not, if you take all the charges of the courts on the Consolidated Fund, such as salaries, &c., pensions of judges, and so forth.

73. Do they exceed the amount annually voted by Parliament?-1 think if you join the Probate Divisions, very possibly you might find that they Division with the Queen's Bench and Chancery did exceed the Vote.

74. There is no Account delivered to Parlia

ment, is there, in which we can see it stated what Only one Account is kept of the Judicature Fee the fees are from any one particular Court?— Stamps, and in the Estimates you will see a statement of the stamp duties under the account of the High Court of Justice; we put it under the Chancery Estimate.

75. Is there any Account delivered to Parliadifferent Courts are? Yes, there is, besides what ment showing what the total receipts from the I have mentioned in the Finance Accounts, a distinct account showing the expenditure and receipts.

On Vote 6A.

WRECK COMMISSIONER'S OFFICE. 76. I thought the charge for the Wreck Commissioner was 3,000l. a year?-Formerly the charge was divided between two different Votes, but it is brought together for 1879–80.

113. And probably the Department will become more and more stringent as time goes on?That is the way that it is worked. One year, perhaps, we fine them without refusing them the whole of the grant, and the next year we refuse the whole of the grant. It may go on for some time; perhaps for years. In London, for example, where the expenditure is very great already, and where they are building as rapidly as they can, it strikes me that it would be absurd to say that because you have half-adozen more children than your school will properly hold this year, or even for two years running, whilst other schools are building, you shall not have a grant.

Chairman.

114. Does not that imply that if your Code involves an absurdity, it would be better to revise the Code ?-We thought, as I say, that the Code gave us discretion. We did not wish to claim it too boldly, because if we claimed a discretion and did not exercise it judiciously, as we hope we are doing, hardly any rule would stand.

115. (To Mr. Ryan.) Is it the contention of the Audit Office that the Education Department, like all other departments, is bound by Acts of Parliament and Orders in Council, and such other higher authorities? It is clearly the view of the Comptroller and Auditor General that when there are such documents, laying down in distinct language what appear to him to be requirements, that if they are not complied with, it is, at all events, his duty to notice the fact.

116. In paragraph 3 of his Report, the Comptroller and Auditor General calls attention to the definition of an elementary school, and he says that," the ordinary practice of the Department is, to require that the average fee paid in a school shall not exceed 9 d. a week," and he points out an instance in which it appears that that ordinary fee was exceeded; have you any observation to make with respect to that? Those words in paragraph 4 are taken from the Act of Parliament. I believe that the words even of Acts of Parliament, as well as of codes, are sometimes liable to question as to their interpretation. "The ordinary payments in respect of the instruction from each scholar," may mean several things, but the ordinary payment in respect of the instruction from each scholar, in nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand of

APPROPRIATION ACCOUNTS-Class IV. Vote 1.-Public Education in England and Wales-continued.

Chairman-continued.

Then we

our schools, means that all the children, or the greatest bulk of them, are paying much less than 9 d., as there are only six children in ten thousand who pay above it. But cases will occur in which good schools for a certain class of people, charge 9 d. all round as the general fee. Some children come in of a superior class who pay, we will say, 1 s., and if we went on our ordinary rule of working by the average fee, of course that upsets the calculation. look at the case, and say, nine-tenths of the children here are paying 9 d., and that is the construction we will apply in this school. In the particular case in question, the average fee paid by the children at the end of the year, on the books of the school, was a little more than 9 d., 91⁄2 d. Some 29 or 30 children had left not very long before, whose names had been removed from the registers, but who ought to be taken into account among the numbers who had paid the gross amount of the school fees for the year, and we maintain that the payment was correctly made.

117. It was owing to an accident, as I understand, that the average fee exceeded 9 d.?Yes.

118. In all ordinary years in that school, the average fee would not have exceeded 9 d.?— No. Sir Henry T. Holland.

119. The word "average" is not in the Code, so that you were clearly right, because the ordinary payment for each scholar did not exceed 9 d., though it happened that a few scholars were taken in above 9 d. ?—Yes; I rather think that the Comptroller and Comptroller and Auditor General challenged that case, because it was a departure from our usual practice of taking the average fee, which covers, as I said, nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand. In that case, we went upon a different basis.

Chairman.

120. In paragraph 6 of his Report, the Comptroller and Auditor General states, "that Article 17 (g), requiring school accounts to be correctly kept and audited before grants can be made, has been disregarded in more than one instance, but the Department has not afforded explanation why it is not invariably enforced"; have you any observation to make upon that?— Several cases were challenged. Though there is a question to be answered in the manager's return, and a certificate to be signed by the auditor, they are left blank in those cases. The Inspector, however, in his Report, said that the accounts had been properly kept and audited. The certificate was omitted to be signed, but having the Inspector's Report that the accounts had been properly kept and audited, we did not send back the Report. In one case, and, perhaps, in two, by accidental omission, I think the Inspector's Report was not so explicit; but still the account was not sent back. He omitted to state that the accounts were audited, and there was no signature of the auditor. It was an accidental omission that the Examiner did not return it to the managers.