The Select Committee on National Expenditure, 1902, took a great deal of evidence on the effect of the intervention of the House of Commons in the administrative details of the several Departments of State, particularly on the impairment of the power of the Treasury to control the expenditure of the several Departments.
Lord Welby on Change in Public Opinion
The most important witness was Lord Welby, who, as Mr. Welby, had entered the Treasury in 1856; had been Head of the Finance Department from 1871 to 1885; and had been Permanent Secretary from 1885 to 1894. Lord Welby said that in theory the Treasury had full power of control over the expenditures of the several Departments, but that in practice that power of control was limited by the state of public opinion as reflected in the House of Commons. As soon as the Treasury became aware that it had not public opinion at its back, that fact “would have a certain influence on many of its decisions.” Then again, as soon as the other Departments of State became aware that the Treasury was not supported by public opinion, the authority of the Treasury over those Departments was impaired. “If an idea gets abroad that the House of Commons does not care about economy, you will not find your servants economical.” Lord Welby then went on to say that in all the political parties in the House of Commons, “the old spirit of economy had been very much weakened.” He put the change of public opinion at about the middle of the seventies, or, perhaps, rather later, say, in the eighties. Previous to that change the influence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been “paramount, or very powerful, in the Cabinet.” But with the change in public opinion, “the effective power of control in the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been proportionately diminished.” Lord Welby concluded: “I constantly hear it said now by people of great weight that economy is impossible, that you cannot get the House of Commons to pay attention [to counsels of economy]…. The main object [to be striven after], I think, is that there should be some correlation both in the minds of the Government of the day and in the minds of the House of Commons between resources and expenditure; I think that ought to exist, but I do not think it does exist at present. I see no evidence of it.”[421]
Mr. Hayes Fisher,[422] a Member of the Committee, and Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in 1902 to 1903, replied to Lord Welby: “But is not the business of the Treasury, and the main business of the Treasury, to check that expenditure and keep it within reasonable bounds, outside of questions of policy?” Lord Welby replied: “Quite so; but might I venture to ask the honorable Member, who occupies one of the most important posts in the Government, whether he would not be glad of support in the House of Commons?” “Most certainly we should on many occasions,” was the answer.
Sir George H. Murray on Change in Public Opinion
Sir George H. Murray,[423] Permanent Secretary to the Post Office, was called as a witness because “in the official posts he had held, particularly as Private Secretary to the late Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone, he had had frequent opportunities for observation not only of the reasons for expenditure, but of the control exercised over it in Parliament.” He said: “…But I think the whole attitude of the House itself toward the public service and toward expenditure generally, has undergone a very material change in the present generation…. Of course, the House to this day, in the abstract and in theory, is very strongly in favor of economy, but I am bound to say that in practice Members, both in their corporate capacity and, still more, in their individual capacity, are more disposed to use their influence with the Executive Government in order to increase expenditure than to reduce it…. That is the policy of the House—to spend more money than it did, to criticize expenditure less closely than it did, and to urge the Executive Government to increase expenditure instead of the reverse.”[424]
The Commons the Champion of Class Interests
Sir Ralph H. Knox,[425] who had been in the War Office from 1856 to 1901, and who, for forty years, had listened to the discussions in Parliament of the Estimates of Expenditure, said: “…The mass of speeches that are made in Supply before the House of Commons, are speeches made on behalf of those who have grievances, their friends or constituents, or those with whom they work, or in whom they are particularly interested. If you take speech after speech, you find they are simply to the effect: ‘we want more’—and they get more…. In former days there were more Members who were willing to get up with some pertinence and some knowledge to criticize those proposals. But I cannot say there has been any very great tendency in that direction when details are being discussed…. What I want, is [someone] to nip in the bud, new proposals which are made by Members of Parliament very often on behalf of their constituents. A Member, for instance, represents what I should call a labor borough; he gets up and proposes that the pay of every man employed in certain [Government] factories or dockyards should be increased by so much a week, what I want is somebody to get up and say: ‘That is not the view of the country, you must not accept that;’ but instead of that the matter goes sub silentio, and the Government, which is naturally interested in economy and in keeping the expenditure down, is induced to think if there is any feeling in the House at all, it is in favor of doubling everybody’s pay.” Sir R. H. Knox said he desired more opposition to unwarranted proposals, “because I know what extreme weight is attached to the speeches in Supply by the Minister in charge of a Department, and by the Department itself; but if they find that there is not a single man interested in economy when the details of the Estimates are discussed, it places them in an exceedingly difficult position.”[426]
Commons Debates weaken Treasury’s Hands