Consolidated Fund; and all payments are made out of that fund, either by permanent grants under Acts of Parliament, or by annual votes payable by limited grants. About twenty-eight millions sterling, including the charge for the interest of the national debt, are annually paid under the authority of permanent statutes. The remaining portion of the national expenditure is subject to the annual vote of the House of Commons, and applies to about 230 different services, for each of which separate provision is made.*

§ 6. The means by which the Appropriation Act is carried into effect are found in the independent action of the several departments of the Treasury, the Appropriation of Exchequer, and the Audit. Under this system supplies.

the Treasury checks the other departments, and the Exchequer controls the Treasury. When any sum has been appropriated by Parliament for any service, the executive department to which that service belongs is bound to apply the money to the purposes for which it is granted, and not to exceed the amount so provided. The Treasury does not interfere with any contracts that the department makes, or with any expenditure that it incurs. But if any department appear to be spending a larger portion of its grants than it should prudently spend in a given time, the Treasury may require that department to revise its accounts and estimates, and to show that it has made a sufficient provision for conducting the public service during the year. When the Treasury requires money, either for its own uses or for that of any department, it obtains a Royal Sign Manual Warrant prepared in a certain specified form and authorizing the issue of the required sum; and thereupon directs to the Exchequer

Levi, On Taxation, 248; Report of Committee of House of Commons on Public Moneys, 1856.

certain instruments styled Treasury Warrants and Issuing Letters. It then becomes the duty of the ComptrollerGeneral of the Exchequer to ascertain whether Parliament has agreed to the vote to which the Royal Warrant refers; whether the bill for providing ways and means applicable to such a vote has become law; and whether the Sign Manual reciting the special purposes of the vote and not exceeding its amount, the Treasury Warrant, and the Issuing Letter are in substance and in form conformable to law. If he be satisfied that each of these five indispensable conditions has been duly fulfilled, it is his duty to direct by his Exchequer Warrant the Bank of England, in which the money is deposited, to grant a credit from the Exchequer account to the department mentioned by the Treasury for the exact sum required, and for the specified service authorized. If the Treasury Warrants be not in accordance with the votes of Parliament, or be not authorized by the Royal commands, the Exchequer is bound to refuse compliance with any such demand from whatever minister or department it is made.*

This distinction between the Treasury and the Exchequer seems to have been known at a very early period. The Exchequer, indeed, exercised three different functions, although it was not until a comparatively recent date that its development was complete. It exercised certain judicial powers in cases of revenue; it investigated and directed payment of accounts; and it received and issued revenue. The Department in the exercise of these various functions was under the presidency of the Lord High Treasurer. When this officer acted personally at the Treasury, no written directions from him were required to execute the Royal writs. But as the other duties of

* Levi's Annals of Brit. Leg., ii. 170.

the Treasurer increased, he became unable personally to attend to the execution of these writs, and was obliged to give his written directions to his officers. It is supposed that Lord Burleigh was the first Treasurer who notified through a secretary his orders to the officers on the receipt side of the Exchequer. The practice, however, was not uniformly observed; but after the Restoration the departments seem to have occupied different offices, and thus the separation became marked. At the same time the practice was introduced of appointing several persons to execute the office of Lord High Treasurer: and as the Exchequer could not take orders from a plurality of persons, the system of Treasury Warrants became established.†

Something more, however, was required for securing the proper application of the supplies than the provisions of an Appropriation Act or the erection of the Exchequer as a separate department. It appears from Pepys that large sums which were appropriated to the war were paid into the Privy Purse. Upwards of thirteen hundred thousand pounds had been from time to time borrowed by the King from various bankers. The creditors received orders upon the Exchequer for repayment of their principal and interest out of the moneys coming into the Exchequer. But in 1672, under the authority of an Order in Council, the Exchequer was closed, and payments were discontinued. Three years afterwards a motion to pay a grant made for building ships into the Chamber of London, and not into the Exchequer, was lost by a very small majority ; and in 1680 one of the grounds of impeachment against Sir Edward Seymour was his application to the uses of the army of money that had been appropriated to naval purposes only. It is necessary, therefore, if the Exchequer

*Cox, Inst. of Eng. Govt., 682. + lb., 693. 8 State Trials, 127.

is to exercise an efficient control, that its chief officers should not be subject to the political servants of the Crown. The Exchequer, in fact, like the courts of law, is a co-ordinate and not a subordinate branch of the public service. The Comptroller of the Exchequer, or, as he is now styled, the Comptroller and Auditor-General, holds his office by the same tenure as the judges. If he refuse without sufficient reason to obey any Treasury Warrant, the Treasury may move for a mandamus in the Court of Queen's Bench.* Thus the matter of law, whether the payment in question is or is not authorized by the Act of Parliament under which the warrant purports to be issued, is duly determined by the proper tribunal.

The third form of financial control is the system of audit. On various occasions in our history, both before and after the Revolution, special commissions have been appointed under the authority of Parliament to examine the Royal accounts. After the Revolution the duty of audit was usually performed by the Exchequer. In 1785 a distinct and permanent Board of Audit was appointed, and the authority of these Commissioners was by various statutes extended to the greater part of the public service. In 1866 the departments of the Exchequer and Audit were consolidated.+ The Board of Audit was abolished, and its powers and duties transferred to the chief officer of the Exchequer under the title of the Comptroller and Auditor-General. This officer, in addition to his functions at the Exchequer, examines and certifies the accounts of the various departments of the receivers of revenue. It is his duty annually, in a separate report for each leading department, to report for the information of the House of Commons the result of his examination; and if the Treasury delay to present any of his reports within the 29 and 30 Vict. c. 39.

Bowyer, Com. on Const. Law, 210.

prescribed time, he is himself to present it. In these reports he must call attention to every case in which it may appear to him that a grant has been exceeded, or that money received by any department from other sources than the annual grant has not been applied or accounted for according to the directions of Parliament, or that a sum charged against a grant is not supported by proof of payment, or that a payment so charged did not occur within the period of the account, or was for any other reason not properly chargeable against the grant.

§ 7. There are some matters of present practical importance of which the original character of Parliamentary taxation affords the proper explanation. Since Constitutional theory the object of a Parliamentary grant was to supof taxation. plement a revenue already available for public purposes, every grant was originally preceded by a statement on the part of the Crown of the Royal exigencies, and of the sums required for their relief. The modern change in the pecuniary position of the Crown has not affected the necessity of such an application to Parliament. The supplies are still granted to the Crown. To the Crown still belongs the management of the revenues of the state; and by it all payments for the public service are still made. The Crown, therefore, makes known to the Commons the pecuniary requirements of the Executive Government; and the Commons upon this information both grant such supplies towards these requirements as they think fit, and provide suitable means for raising the necessary amount. The foundation, therefore, of Parliamentary taxation is its necessity for the public service as declared by the Crown through its political advisers.* It

* May's Parl. Practice (6th ed.), 547; Todd, Parl. Govt., i. 475