MR. CORRY wished to know the result of reducing the standard of height. LORD CLARENCE PAGET said, he had not heard of any difficulty of getting Marines since the standard had been reduced. Some of the recruits had been three or four years without going to sea, and the alteration of the number of men on the reserve would give these young men an opportunity of seeing service. Vote agreed to. the same terms?]-he would give his hon. | Marines as a sea-going corps. If they Friend more information at another time. were kept too long on shore they lost their He had now only to answer the question sea-legs. just put by his noble Friend (Lord Elcho). He had read with indignation the imputations to which his noble Friend had referred upon the sailors who had been employed on the coast of Jamaica. They were charged with conduct unworthy of any seamen in Her Majesty's fleet, and he could not but think that the story was a base falsehood. The Admiralty had received no information of the kind, but he would take care that full inquiry was made into the facts. If it should appear that such a thing had occurred, the perpetrators should be brought to condign punishment, but if this should turn out to be a false and wicked accusation, then he trusted that the authors of it would meet with public reprobation. Vote agreed to. (2.) £2,862,704, Wages. (3.) £1,235,188, Victuals and Clothing. (4.) £274,119, Salaries and Expenses, Coast Guard Service, &c. MAJOR WALKER wished to say a few words on one item of this Vote-the sum of £29,575 for the Royal Naval Coast Volunteers. When this force was first established it was intended to fill up a gap in the naval service, which was then at a low ebb. It was intended for the twofold purpose of providing sea-going ships for the protection of the coast, and for manning the sea-coast defences. Both these objects were now better met-the first by the Royal Naval Reserve, and the next by the Militia and Volunteer artillery. LORD CLARENCE PAGET said, that the force of the Royal Naval Coast Volunteers was diminishing of itself without the interference of the Admiralty. They were men engaged in the coasting trade and boating, and their wives did not like the recent extensions of the area over which they might be called upon to serve. They were many of them fine men, and he, for one, remarked the diminution in their number with regret. MR. CORRY asked why the Admiralty had reduced the number of Marines on shore by 600 men? LORD CLARENCE PAGET said, that the number of Marines was the same as last year, but the proportion of Marines partments. (6.) £85,624, Victualling Yards and Transport Establishments. (7.) £57,368, Medical Establishments. (8.) £15,550, Marine Divisions. MR. HANBURY TRACY wished for some information regarding the Marine barracks at Deal. LORD CLARENCE PAGET said, it was a recruiting barrack for the Marines. They were first taken down to that healthy place, and then they went to the Chatham division. Deal was, in fact, the nursery of recruits for the Chatham division, and the authorities were anxious to have a similar recruiting place in the West of England for the Portsmouth and Plymouth divisions. Vote agreed to. (9.) £75,664, Stores, &c. (10.) £20,605, Martial Law and Law Charges. (11.) £105,800, Divers Miscellaneous Services. Allowances. (13.) £213,837, Civil Pensions and Allowances. (14.) £402,788, Freight of Ships. Resolutions to be reported To-morrow; EXCHEQUER AND AUDIT DEPART- SECOND READING. Order for Second Reading read. at sea to those on shore was a matter of a "That the Bill be now read a second somewhat technical nature, affecting the time." Lord Clarence Paget MR. THOMSON HANKEY said, that | ber of Parliament might have a document though this Bill was one of great impor- before him signed by the Auditor the tance no explanation had been given at its Auditor being appointed by the Crownintroduction; and though he understood which would contain a complete account of the Bill was to be referred to the Commit- the expenditure. The Committee attached tee which had been appointed respecting less importance to the control of the issues the Public Accounts, he thought its prin- which was exercised by the Comptroller. ciple ought to be known to the House before The control of the Comptroller of the Exit went into Committee. The Bill was chequer was to be exercised before the practically an abolition of all control of money was issued, and the object of the that House over the issues by Votes of Audit was to see whether the money, after Supply. He was not going to object to its being issued, had been properly spent. It principle, but it was a very important one. was not a very intelligible principle to vest The Committee on Public Money which these two functions in the same person. It sat several years ago discussed very fully would be better ostensibly to abolish the the nature of the control exercised by the office of Comptroller of the Exchequer Comptroller of the Exchequer over the altogether. A Bill of that importance public issues of all money from the Ex- ought not to pass a second reading merely chequer. After a Vote by Parliament an pro formâ, without discussion. application was necessary to be made to the Comptroller of the Exchequer, and his sanction was given if he ascertained that the Vote was in accordance with the Act of Parliament. This was the check which the present Bill would abolish. He perceived that the Chancellor of the Exchequer dissented from this statement. He admitted that the opinion of the Committee on Public Money appeared to have been that the check was of no very practical importance. Still it had had the sanction of Parliament from time to time, and the Comptroller of the Exchequer had been supposed to hold an office of great importance. This Bill was to unite the office of Comptroller with that of Auditor. Now, the duties of the Comptroller and those of the Auditor were two sorts of duties which had always appeared to him, and had, he thought, appeared to the Committee, to be very different the one from the other. The Chancellor of the Exchequer dissented from his statement that such was the opinion of the Committee; but the Committee never had recommended that they should be united and discharged by one officer. It might be wise to abolish the office of Comptroller and make the real check that of the Auditor. It was true that while there had been a control over the issues there had been none over the expenditure. No issue could be obtained without Parliamentary authority; but the moment the issue took place Parliamentary control ceased. The recommendation of the Committee was that the Audit Office should be made a more important one, and that it should be made so efficient that, early in the following year after the various Votes of Supply were passed, every Mem SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE said, he quite agreed with the hon. Member that it would be wrong and even indecent to read a Bill of such cardinal importance a second time without some discussion. It related to a matter which really lay at the root of the functions of the House of Commons-namely, the granting of money; and it appeared materially to alter the principles on which Parliament had proceeded. They were not, however, in a satisfactory position then to discuss the subject. The question was one with which comparatively few Members of the House were acquainted, and even those few could not speak authoritatively on the merits of the measure till they had had an opportunity of looking more closely at its clauses, and examining officers outside of the House as to the operation it might be expected to have. They might talk very easily as to the matter of principle, and say it was a question whether they would have two checks or one-whether they would have the principle of control, and the principle of audit, or whether they would trust mainly to the latter. But if they were to substitute the principle of audit for the principle of control, they must show that by their regulations they made the principle of audit thoroughly effective; and for that purpose it would be necessary to examine those Gentlemen who were practically concerned, as representing the Audit Office and other Departments of the State, as to the exact effect of some of these clauses. That was just one of those questions upon which they were bound in duty not to trust the Government, but rather, if he might say so, to distrust it. He did not intend to speak disrespectfully of Government, for he thought it was a very fore the Committee, that the Committee were to be free, and the House free also, to adopt or reject it as they thought best, after the examination to which it would be subjected. The Bill was to be referred, he believed, to the Committee on Public Accounts; but the House ought to understand what were the functions of that Com good and safe rule to trust Government on most questions on which the Government were probably well informed, and the House imperfectly informed; but when they were granting the public money they were bound to require, and to insist on, and to see that they got a security that the money granted by the House for the public service should be spent in the manner which the House in-mittee, and that it was not a Committee to tended it should be. As to the control of the Comptroller of the Exchequer, whatever it might have been formerly, it had of late been merely a nominal control; because, although it was necessary that the Treasury or other Departments which applied for the issue of money should apply for it in such form and for such purpose as the House had voted it, and the Comptroller would not otherwise allow it to go out of the Exchequer, he afterwards entirely lost sight of it, and it was in the power of the Treasury, for anything he could do to prevent it, to spend the money on any other service. Then the Comptroller became useless, and even mischievous, because he caused Parliament and the country to shut their eyes to a danger that was real, and prevented their turning their attention to what was a real security -namely, an efficient system of audit. True, they might have made the power of the Comptroller a real living power, capable of preventing the expenditure of any money except in the way directed by Parliament; but then they must have much hampered the action of the Executive, and kept up a number of separate balances in the hands of separate paymasters; which would have been the reverse of an economical proceeding. Most people would agree that it was desirable to keep the balance as low as possible, and to have one balance instead of a large number. Undoubtedly, the system of audit had not been as thoroughly elaborated as it might and ought to have been, and the great merit of the present measure was that it did at least attempt to make that system fully efficient. The proposal to send the Bill to a Select Committee was a very wise and proper one, because the Committee would be able to satisfy itself by the evidence of tho officers of the Audit and other Departments whether such proper provision had been made as to the mode of keeping accounts, the way in which the audit was to be conducted, and the thorough independence of the auditors, as would really accomplish the end in view. It ought to be clearly understood, when the Bill went beSir Stafford Northcote which every question of finance was to be referred. The Committee of Public Accounts was appointed as the organ of the House for a very special and rather uninteresting purpose, and the House ought to take care not to withdraw the attention of its members from their special duty, that of revising the audit of public accounts. There were two kinds of audit. First the administrative audit, conducted by the officers of the Audit Board under the directions of the Treasury, in order to see whether the money had been expended in accordance with the directions of the Treasury. The auditors examined into and reported to the Treasury upon the expenditure of money, and the Treasury took note of any irregularity that might have occurred in regard to that expenditure. Next, there was the Appropriation Audit, which was performed, not for the Treasury, but for that House. It was with reference to the latter that the Committee of Public Accounts was appointed, and it was their function to examine every year the audited accounts of the previous year's expenditure. He had had the honour of sitting upon the Committee since its appointment and during the six years of its existence; and he confessed that the members of it found it more agreeable and interesting to devote their attention to questions of general principle than to the dry work of looking into the details of the accounts. He hoped the House would be cautious how it supplied them with matter more attractive than their proper business. He thought that they ought to thank the Government for having framed so efficient a Bill, which would, in his opinion, effect a great improvement in the mode of auditing the accounts, and would establish a simple and more effective system. THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER said, he agreed with almost everything that had been stated by his hon. Friend opposite (Sir Stafford Northcote). The Bill, no doubt, was a very useful one, and it was incumbent on the House to see it thoroughly carried out. When the House voted money it parted with it for certain uses, and it then passed under the control | really been the originator of the Public of the financial department of the Trea- Monies' Committee. Reference to the sury, and was distributed among various Parliamentary proceedings of the period organs of the State all over the world. The when the matter was before discussed accounts were then made out and sent would show that high authorities, such as permanently to the Board of Audit; but Lord Grenville, Lord Lyndhurst, and Lord the last portion of the circle remained in- Monteagle, attached great importance to complete until the Committee of Public the powers exercised by the Comptroller Accounts had done its duty. It was not of the Exchequer over the issue of public till then that it could fairly be said that the monies. Recent proceedings in Prussia office of the House, as the real authorita- also showed the constitutional importance tive steward of public monies, had been of control over the issue. As he understood discharged. It was with no wish to press the question which arose in Prussia, it was their opinion on the House that the Govern- that their House of Commons refused to vote ment had come to the conclusion that this the supply for the army. The Crown, howBill had better be referred to the Com- ever, on the plea that it felt bound to promittee of Public Accounts; and if the vide for that branch of the Administration, House thought it ought to be referred to expended the money. If a control over the another Committee, the Government would issues had existed, that course would not gladly give way. His hon. Friend (Mr. have been pursued by the Crown. And the Thomson Hankey) objected to the two fact that the Comptroller had no power over offices of the previous control and the the items after they had left him did not definal audit being conferred on the same tract from the constitutional importance of person. No doubt, the functions were the office as a control over the issue of pubperfectly distinct in themselves, but they lic money. The right hon. Gentleman the did not occupy the full time of a public Chancellor of the Exchequer had said the officer, and no advantage could be gained Comptroller of the Exchequer had not by separating them. It was impossible enough to do, and that, therefore, as his to make the previous control of the ac- time was not fully occupied, it was undecounts absolutely efficient. If all the sirable to keep up his office separately. He money were paid in London, it might did not concur with that view of the matter. be done; but the expenditure was dis- If a public officer's time were not fully tributed all over the world, and it was occupied, that was no reason for jumbling physically impossible to make the Exche- his duties with those of some one else. quer control that which in theory it ought They might as well have said if the Comto be. He agreed with his hon. Friend mander-in-Chief was not fully occupied, that that which was intended for a good that he should also take office as Archpurpose would become a mischievous pur- bishop of Canterbury. He noticed that all pose if it went out to the world that the through the Bill the functions of receipt public had a security for the laying out of and issue and the functions of the Audit the money which really did not exist. The were confounded together, when they were Government were not entirely spontaneous actually very different portions of the adand independent agents in the introduction of ministration. In the whole system the this Bill; but the Bill was of great import- great difficulty which had struck the Comance, because it embodied a final decision mittee on Public Monies was this. There that the theory of the law was to be made was a control over the issue, but when to conform to the established and recog- the money was issued there was no control nized practice, instead of the practice being at all; so that between the issue and the made to conform to the theory. For a long audit the Treasury could do just as they series of years that the practice under the please with the money. The control over law had not been in conformity with the the issue was a constitutional control; and law was a matter of perfect notoriety. If the control by the Audit an administrative the Members of the Committee to whom control. But the Audit Department was the Bill was referred should come to the by no means effectual. The accounts of the conclusion that it was not well suited for Secretary of State were not audited by it. its objects, they would properly decline to The Board of Audit was subject to the consider themselves bound by the step Treasury, whereas it should, in his opinion, which it was now proposed to take. be superior to it in the matter of account, just as the Chamber of Accounts in France was. The French Chamber of Accounts SIR GEORGE BOWYER said, he took great interest in the question, having had jurisdiction over all accountants; it had power to summon them to account and to produce vouchers and papers, and to examine them on oath, and to hear and determine all questions of account and to enforce its orders by fine and imprisonment. It was the Supreme Court of accounts. The Board of Audit in this country should have similar powers. The French Chamber of Accounts was most perfect in its machinery; and he believed the Board of Audit would never work effectually until it was endowed with a constitution somewhat similar, and was possessed of the powers he had described. The Board of Audit ought not to be at the mercy of the different Departments, but to have the power of acting judicially, and making orders upon the accountants to appear for examination, and produce such vouchers as might be deemed necessary for the rendering of the accounts. Till that should be done the House would not have a complete audit. HOUSE OF LORDS, Friday, March 2, 1866. MINUTES.]-Took the Oath-The Earl of DEVONPORT ELECTION. PERSONAL EXPLANATION. THE DUKE OF SOMERSET: My Lords, I wish to make a personal explanation respecting a statement which has been made in reference to the petition which has been presented against the return of Members at the late election for the borough of Devonport. It has been stated that, in consequence of a letter which was addressed to me, I ordered a telegram to be sent to the officers at the Devonport Dockyard ordering them to give to the Parliamentary agent every facility for the services of the Speaker's warrants upon such witnesses as were employed in the yard. Now, I wish to state clearly and distinctly what did occur. First of all, no letter was written MR. CHILDERS said, he did not think the hon. and learned Member could have read the Bill, which provided that accountants should transmit their accounts, together with the authorities and vouchers relating thereto, to the office of the Commissioners, in such form, and for such to me at all, nor was any application made periods, and under such regulations as the to me on the subject; consequently, I isCommissioners might prescribe. The Bill sued no order-and, indeed, I knew nowould extend the audit to all branches of the public service, and effectually prevent the intentions of Parliament being contra vened. thing whatever about the matter until I saw the notice on the Votes of a Question to be asked in the other House. From inquiries, however, which I have since instituted, I am able to state what actually did occur. An application was made in the usual form to the Secretary of the Admiralty, who referred it to the persons who superintended the business of the dockyards. They consulted the branch of the Admiralty which is connected with legal matters as to whether the Speaker's warrant would have any authority in the dockyards, and afterwards a telegram was sent to the authorities at Devonport, ordering them to give the necessary facilities for the service of the warrants. That proceeding was so much a matter of course that it was never taken of it at the Board the next day. As a mentioned to me at all, and no notice was Member of your Lordships' House, I have thought it only fair to myself to say that I have taken no part in any way in reference to this petition, and that I know nothing whatever of the matter. THE EARL OF DERBY: My Lords, no one who is acquainted with the noble Duke |