branch of the Legislature, then styled in that country the Combined Court, respecting a proposed reduction of the salaries on the Civil List. The Combined Court proposed the measure on the ground of the distressed condition of the colony. The Government opposed it on the ground, among others, that it involved a flagrant breach of faith with the existing officials. It was the period at which the great changes in British commercial policy were being carried into effect, and the sugar-growers were eager to recover the protection which they had lost. In concert, therefore, with the Protectionists in England, and as part of a general system of embarrassing a Free-trade Government, the Combined Court resolved to stop the supplies. The principal portion of the colonial revenue was raised by an annual tax, the ordinance for which was not on this occasion renewed. It was probably thought that the Home Government would in these circumstances resort to strong measures, and would, as they had on a former occasion done in the case of Jamaica, seek the aid of the Parliament of the United Kingdom against the contumacious colonists. Such a proposal would, in the then state of political parties in England, have probably been unsuccessful, and the prospects of those who were struggling to recover for the British sugar-grower the monopoly of the Home market would have been improved. These expectations, if they had been entertained, were disappointed. The Governor was instructed that, although a revision of salaries might take place as vacancies occurred, the rights of the present officers must be maintained; and that no change in the commercial policy of the kingdom would be proposed. He was further instructed that, as the colony declined to provide the pecuniary means requisite for carrying on the Public Service, he must strictly confine himself to the exercise of his legal powers; that these public services for which he was refused the means of providing must be discontinued, even if this course involved disbanding the police, and shutting up the hospitals, and an interruption of the regular course of justice; and that, if the usual colonial allowances were not paid to the officers of Her Majesty's troops serving in the colony, the troops would be withdrawn. After allowing the usual collection of taxes to be suspended for eleven months, the Combined Court renewed the taxordinance for three months; and within a short time afterwards the usual financial measures were passed and the controversy terminated. The result of this contest was that the Combined Court failed to attain the objects for which it contended; that the colony lost nearly a year's income, and also incurred a considerable debt; that the consumers derived no benefit from the non-collection of the import duties; that ideas of insubordination were excited in the labouring classes; that credit generally was shaken, and the depreciation of property aggravated; and that, in addition to the delay of many urgent measures of general utility, a reduction of taxation which might have been immediately effected was postponed for three years. CHAPTER XIV. 389 THE EXPENDITURE OF THE CROWN. List. § 1. The appropriation of supplies* was not the only measure of financial reform which is due to the Revolution. Warned by the example of the last two reigns, The Civil the Convention Parliament was not inclined to imitate the dangerous generosity of its predecessors, and to supplement the hereditary revenue with the grant of taxes for life. The accounts which the House obtained of the Royal receipts and expenditure showed a remarkable tendency towards an increase of income, arising from the increased produce of the indirect taxes as the wealth of the country increased;† and at the same time showed various modes of outlay which could not be regarded without alarm. The hereditary excise, the substitute for the military tenures for which eighty years before the Commons had been with great difficulty induced to offer, as a sum far exceeding their actual amount, an annuity of £200,000, now produced an income of nearly four times that sum; and was from year * Lord Mansfield, C.J., observes that "a great difference has arisen since the Revolution with respect to the expenditure of the public money. Before that period all the public supplies were given to the King, who, in his individual capacity, contracted for all expenses. He alone had the distribution of the public money. But since that time the supplies have been appropriated by Parliament to particular purposes; and, now, whoever advances money to the Public Service trusts to the faith of Parliament."-Macbeath v. Haldimand, I T.R. 176. + Hallam, Const. Hist., iii. 114. to year steadily and rapidly on the increase. The Customs showed a similar tendency to rise. But nearly half of the whole revenue was expended upon what was then the great object of national fear and hatred, a standing army; and a large proportion of the residue was placed under the suspicious head of secret service money. The Commons therefore felt that the time had come for a revision of the whole financial position of the Crown. William had expected that he would be placed in at least the same pecuniary position as his uncles. The duties of Excise and of Customs, which produced about £900,000 a year, had been granted to James for his life; and William thought that this addition to his hereditary revenues should be renewed to him for the same period. But on this point the Commons were inflexible; and William was deeply mortified and offended by their apparent want of confidence. It is not easy, and for the present purpose it is not material, to state the precise figures of this settlement. There were three principles which on this occasion the House of Commons established. It fixed an annual sum as sufficient for "the constant necessary charge of supporting the Crown in time of peace."* It divided that sum into two parts, of which it appropriated the one to the charges of the civil Government and the other to the maintenance of the navy. It declared that certain specified articles were part of the charges of the civil Government. On this basis provision was made to supplement the hereditary revenue. A compromise respecting the duties granted to the late King was effected. That portion of the Excise which had been settled on James for life was settled on William and Mary for their joint and separate lives. It was supposed that from the hereditary revenues and from + Ib., 235. Macaulay, Hist. of Eng., iii. 558. * 3 Parl. Hist., 193. this addition to them their Majesties would have an annual income of between seven and eight hundred thousand pounds independent of Parliamentary control. On this income were charged the expenses of the Royal Household and of certain civil offices which had been enumerated in a list laid before the House. The duties of Customs, which had formed the larger part of the extraordinary revenue granted for their lives to Charles and to James, were now granted to the Crown for a period of only four years. The wars which continued with little interruption during the reigns of William and of Anne disturbed to some extent this financial policy; but the principle that the regular and domestic expenses of the Crown should be determined by a fixed annual sum, and that this sum should be kept apart from the expenses of the various departments of the public service, was never afterwards abandoned. The next material change was the surrender by George the Third of the principal hereditary revenues in consideration of a definite Civil List. His Majesty received an annuity of £800,000, out of which he defrayed, as his predecessor had done, the expenses of the Royal Household and the other specified charges which gave to this branch of the revenue its name. In addition to this income the King possessed the droits of the Crown and Admiralty, and some other sources of casual revenue, including Civil Lists for Ireland and Scotland. In fact, however, the income of the Crown was during this reign much greater than these figures represent. During the reign of George the Third the Civil List was relieved of charges amounting in the whole to nine and a half millions, while in the same period the Royal debts were * * May, Const. Hist., i. 204. |