ORDER OF REFERENCE.

[Tuesday, 14th February, 1928]:-Public Accounts,Ordered, That the Committee of Public Accounts do consist of Fifteen Members.

Committee accordingly nominated of,-Mr. Walter Baker, Mr. Briggs, Captain Crookshank, Mr. Ellis, Mr. Gillett, Mr. William Graham, Sir Robert Hamilton, Mr. Cyril Lloyd, Sir Malcolm Macnaghten, Sir John Marriott, Mr. PethickLawrence, Sir Assheton Pownall, Major Salmon, Mr. Arthur Michael Samuel, and Mr. Roy Wilson.

Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.

Ordered, That Five be the quorum.-(Sir George Hennessy.)

The cost of preparing for publication the Shorthand Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee was £181 4s. Od.

The cost of printing and publishing this Report is estimated by the Stationery Office at £693 8s. Od.

FIRST REPORT.

THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS have made progress in the matters to them referred, and have agreed to the following FIRST REPORT:

Your Committee have to report that during the year ended 31st March, 1927, expenditure in excess of the amount voted by Parliament has been incurred under the following Vote:

STATEMENT OF EXCESS.

A STATEMENT of the Sum required to be Voted in order to make good an EXCESS on the GRANT for BEET SUGAR SUBSIDY, GREAT BRITAIN, for the Year ended 31st March, 1927.

Twenty-five Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty-eight Pounds Fifteen Shillings and One Penny.

This excess is due to the fact that, in the case of a certain group of Companies, a process of de-sugarisation of molasses, formerly carried out in the summer, was advanced several months, the resuiting product thereby becoming eligible for subsidy before 31st March, 1927, instead of in the following financial year. The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries did not become aware of this factor in time to permit of an amendment in the amount of the Supplementary Estimate taken in February, 1927.

Your Committee see no objection to this sum being provided by an Excess Vote.

65589

a 2

Qs. 1851-2.

The COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS have made further progress in the matters to them referred, and have agreed to the following SECOND REPORT:

GENERAL.

1. Appropriations in Aid--Stamp Receipts.-Your Committee note that in pursuance of the recommendation made by the Select Appendix 4. Committee on Estimates, 1927, in paragraph 20 of their First Report, the Treasury have arranged that in future receipts collected in stamps (not forming part of the stamp revenue) shall be brought into line with cash receipts so far as estimates are concerned, and shall be shown as Appropriations in Aid of the Votes to which they relate.

Qs. 611-616.
Qs. 620-626.

Para. 18 of

C. & A. G'.s
Report, and
Qs. 2111-
2125.

PARTICULAR ACCOUNTS-CIVIL SERVICES AND

REVENUE DEPARTMENTS.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

2. Travelling Expenses of Members.-Your Committee suggest, in view of the experience which has now accumulated, that the Ministry of Transport might be invited to consider whether any economy could be effected in the cost of travelling of Members by substituting season tickets for the present system of vouchers.

ROYAL MINT.

3. Contract with Straits Settlements: Option as to Price of Silver. The attention of Your Committee has been called to a contract concluded between the Royal Mint and the Government of the Straits Settlements for the manufacture of certain silver coin, the bullion for which was supplied partly by melting Straits Settlements silver and partly from stocks of silver held by the Royal Mint. It appears that the Government were given the option of paying for the silver supplied from Mint stocks either at the market price of the day on which the order was placed, or at that ruling on the day on which coinage operations began. The Government of the Straits Settlements did not definitely elect for either option, but ultimately were charged the price. ruling at the later date, which was more favourable to them. Your Committee do not suggest that the Straits Settlements should in the circumstances have been charged the higher price, but it seems to them regrettable that the option was left open

and that the authorities of the Mint did not at the outset come to a definite understanding with the Government as to which of the two alternatives they preferred.

REFORMATORY AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS.

4. Collection of Parental Contributions in London.-Your Qs. 4223-5. Committee understand that the Home Office are considering, in conjunction with the London County Council, the possibility of avoiding duplication of work as regards the collection of contributions in the London area.

BOARD OF EDUCATION.

.3379

3412.

5. Subhead D. Grants for Higher Education.-The attention Para. 24 of of Your Commitee has been called to the question whether there C. & A. G.'s is any duplication of grant in certain cases where a Local Educa- Report, and tion Authority has contributed to a non-provided Secondary School the cost of maintaining the free places required as a condition of a direct grant from the Board to the School. Your Committee understand that this question is being investigated by Q. 3379. the Board of Education, and they will hope to learn in due course the decision at which the Board may arrive with the concurrence of the Treasury.

DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR SERVICES.

Para. 26 of

6. Defalcations at Consulates.-Your Committee note that the Foreign Office have taken further steps to safeguard the public C. & A. G.'s against defalcations at Consulates. They have learned with Report, and concern that in eight years there have been deficiencies of some Qs. 1083£14,000 (gross) in consular accounts.

1086.

Qs. 10901097.

7. Austro-Hungarian Rolling Stock Commission.-In paragraph 7 of their Second Report, the Public Accounts Committee Qs. 1098– of 1927 referred to certain claims outstanding against Sir Francis 1101. Dent, the President of the International Commission formed in 1919 to distribute Austro-Hungarian rolling stock among the Successor States. Your Committee learn with satisfaction that this question has now been settled by arbitration as suggested last year.

COLONIAL SERVICES.
DOMINION SERVICES.

8. Passages of Governors.-Governors and Governors-General Qs. 2894are entitled to allowances, on proceeding to take up an appoint- 2900. ment and on relinquishing the same on completion of the term Qs. 2953of office, according to a scale sanctioned by the Treasury which 2990, and Appendix 24. now ranges (including an addition of 50 per cent. granted at present in consideration of the rise in cost of ocean passages, etc., since the war) from £225 in the case of the Governor of the Gambia, to £3,000 in the case of the Governor-General of

65589

a 3

Para. 33 of

C. & A. G.'s
Report, and
Qs. 3004-
3009.

Q. 1626.

Australia. The allowances appear to have been fixed on a basis which would provide a given number of first-class passages for the Governor and his suite, and would leave a margin for other purposes than passages, but no allowance for outfit as such is given

In certain cases in recent years the Treasury on the recommendation of the Secretary of State have sanctioned special additions to the regulation grant. Since 1920 six such cases have occurred. The largest addition relatively to the normal allowance which has been approved is the special allowance of £1,700 paid in 1926 to the Governor-General of Canada in addition to the normal allowance of £1,200. The Treasury subsequently assented to this payment with reluctance, and suggested that should any further cases occur in which supplementary grants in connection with the outward passage of Governors prove to be necessary, consideration should be given to the propriety of limiting in some way the charge on public funds in respect of expenditure incurred at the discretion of the Governor. Your Committee feel bound to endorse this recommendation, and suggest that no such supplementary grants should be allowed except with the previous sanction of the Treasury.

EMPIRE MARKETING.

9. Empire Marketing Fund, Grant in Aid.-Your Committee. have had before them the first account of the Empire Marketing Fund, instituted in 1926. The Parliamentary Grant to this Fund takes the form of a grant in aid, and the Fund, as explained on the face of the Estimate, is administered by the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs. The grant for the year 1926 was £500,000, which was followed by a grant of £1,000,000 for 1927. A grant of £500,000 is proposed for 1928.

Your Committee call attention to these facts, and desire to add that they view with some concern the growing use of the machinery of the grant in aid, which in this case will result in the expenditure of a sum of £2,000,000 (assuming the Vote for the current year is passed) being withdrawn from the control of Parliament or of the Treasury on behalf of Parliament, and placed at the discretion of a single Minister.

IMPERIAL WAR GRAVES COMMISSION.

10. Imperial War Graves Endowment Fund.-Your Committee were informed that the Commission are looking forward to the completion of the construction of cemeteries (that is to say, the main part of their work) by the end of the present

year.

After that, the only remaining work will consist of the monuments to the missing. Meanwhile, as stated in the latest report of the Commission, the organisation for permanent maintenance