COST OF RETURNS DURING ONE SESSION OF BRITISH PARLIAMENT.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2632, 15 June 1877, Page 3

COST OF RETURNS DURING ONE SESSION OF BRITISH PARLIAMENT.

Constituents (observes the Glasgow Herald) if they seek after edification and a little amusement, had better straightway invest 2fd ia a Parliamentary paper just issued, showing the cost to the country of the returns moved for in the ■ House of Commons during the session of 1875. We find that during the session referred to close upon £14,000 was spent in the preparation and printing of these so-called returns. Private members are responsible for nearly one-half of this expenditure and the Government for the other. Among the former, Sir George Balfour shines as a star of the first magnitude,. In the one year mentioned, he himself cost the country j'no less than £1009 17s 6d for printing; and as if he had been actuated by a generous spirit of emulation, we find Mr Charles Lewis ranking next in precedence, he having found it necessary to enlighten the world' to the handsome extent of £856 Is 6d. One paper alone, which. Sir George caused to be printed, cost the respectable sum of £412 ss6d. True, it related to population, and ought to have been interesting as well as useful; but we find on looking into the instructive document which supplies us with our facts, that the number of copies sold amounted to 51, and the total sum realised by their sale was a modest 16s 3d. For whose benefit, instruction, and enlightenment are those enormous arrays of figures collected, the preparation of which entails very often the. necessity of employing an extra staff of clerks ?—r[The cost of Parliamentary papers in the shape of returns is, in proportion, very much greater in New Zealand, the sale equally limited, and the matter in most cases of exceedingly small public interest.—Otago. Guardian.]