This is a token Estimate for £10, but in point of fact it is an Estimate which, if passed by the Committee now, will be relied on by the Postmaster-General and his Department for the authorisation of an expenditure which amounts to £512,481. It is all very well for him to say the Committee will have opportunities of discussing this matter in detail on the Post Office Vote. I am an older Member of the House than the Postmaster-General, and I assure him and other Members that if they hope on the Post Office Vote, on which one thousand and one subjects, many of them of high policy, are raised, that there is any time to be found to discuss this question, that hope is likely to be disappointed. This is the proper opportunity for a discussion of this matter.

I think the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. Rea) is a very important one in considering this question. Is the railway working at this moment, or is it not? Is the £1,000,000 producing no results, or is it producing results? The Postmaster-General replies to that question by saying that all the expenditure for which we are asking was in the original Act. That is quite true. I remember taking some interest in the original Act. It was introduced by the Government of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith). That Act consisted of authority for at least eight or nine lengths of railway, some of them two chains long, some ten, and others of varying short lengths. In that sense he is quite right when he says the original statutory authority for this line is contained in the original Act, but I am informed that a large number of those numerous railways are in fact, and have been, open for some time, and are working, and therefore this new money is for the extension and completion of further lengths of railway which it is quite true were authorised in the Act, but are not yet working and open.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood (Mr. N. Chamberlain) asked a question as to the form of this Vote. It is a token Vote for £10. Anticipated savings of £16,690 are relied on by the Postmaster-General to reduce the total amount of £17,000 to £10.. I put it to the Postmaster-General, that I should have thought that events during the last few days would have largely reduced the total of anticipated savings on the Post Office Vote. He is going to send 2,000 bags of Indian mails overland to Marseilles. I am therefore a little astonished that he has not more to say about that. I should like to know why in these arrangements he is departing from the principle of the original Act which was that this expenditure was to be financed by the Treasury by issues from the Consolidated Fund against which the Treasury were to charge annuities over a period of 30 years. That is to say, this expenditure was to be charged to capital. Now I observe with great astonishment that the right hon. Gentleman to-day proposes that while one million of the expenditure should be charged to capital, the remaining £512,000 should be charged to revenue. I should have thought the one thing you wanted to do at the present moment was to try to avoid further burdens on the taxpayer. I should also have thought, following the Trade Facilities Act, that works which were undertaken, as these appear to be undertaken, very largely for the relief of unemployment, might very properly have been charged to capital and not revenue, and I hope before we pass from this Vote we shall have some explanation on that point. I do not want to make things more difficult for the right hon. Gentleman than I can help, but I felt bound to put these considerations before the Committee, and I hope that we shall have some reply from the right hon. Gentleman.