A.—B

20

to the Commons for the supplies which the public service demands. The Commons grant the supplies, and provide the ways and means for raising them. The Lords assent to these grants and these financial arrangements. The Crown accepts the grants and assents to the legislation which they involve." (P. 353.) The exemption of such Bills (money Bills) from amendment by the Lords may be dated from the Conferences of 1671 and 1678. " These principles may now be regarded as firmly settled. The House of Lords, indeed, has never formally abandoned its right of amendment, but it has for many years abstained from its exercise in cases calculated to excite dispute." (P. 353.) In 1860 the Lords rejected, for financial reasons, a Bill passed by the House of Commons for the repeal of the excise duties on paper. This action of the Lords was met by the Commons by declaratory resolutions, and in the following session by a Bill including various enactments for the repeal of some taxes (the paper duties among the number) and the imposition of others. The House of Lords, after some opposition, passed the Bill rather than reject it in its entirety ; but such forbearance, it is said, is not to be expected where " questions of general commercial policy are involved." The precedent of the paper duties does not sanction the combination of a Tax Bill with an Appropriation Bill, or with any other measures not connected with ways and means. (P. 354.) The constitutional theory of taxation, it is said, has been recognized by express enactment in the various Colonial Constitutions which during the present reign have received the sanction of Parliament. (P. 353.) Mr. Todd, in his book on parliamentary government, remarks that " there is no rule or usage of the House of Lords to forbid the presentation and discussion of a petition for pecuniary redress or compensation, provided it be couched in general terms ;" and the Lords " are not constitutionally debarred from instituting inquiries by their own Committees into financial matters or into questions which involve the expenditure of public money," because it is desirable " that they should be prepared, by full investigation and free inquiry, to give or withhold their assent intelligently" to every legislative measure, whether of Supply or otherwise. In 1852 the House of Lords inquired by a Select Committee into the claims of Baron de Bode for pecuniary relief; and in 1860 a Lords Committee upon Floating Breakwaters recommended "that a sum not exceeding £10,000 be placed at the disposal of the Admiralty" to enable that department to test any plans for the suitable construction of such works. (P. 433.) Upon matters of Supply and taxation the Commons " have succeeded in maintaining their exclusive right to originate all measures of this description. They have gone further, and have claimed that such measures should be simply affirmed or rejected by the Lords, and should not be amended in the slightest particular. The Lords have practically acquiesced in this restriction, although they have never formally consented to it." (P. 457.) "Every Bill to impose or repeal a tax involves other considerations besides those which are purely questions of revenue :it necessarily includes principles of public policy or of commercial regulation ; and on points of this kind the Lords, as a .coordinate branch of the Legislature, are constitutionally free to act and advise as they may judge best for the public interests." Their power should, however, be only " resorted to upon extraordinary

occasions." (P. 459.) In 1862 the Budget propositions, involving twenty-two millions of money, were introduced into the House of Commons in one Bill. When the Bill was before the Lords, Lord Derby, in debating the expediency of such a mode of introduction, remarked that " the one course interposes to us no greater obstacles than the other, because, as it is perfectly within our province and our right to reject a particular proposition in a single Bill, so it is equally within our competence to reject that same proposition when incorporated with others," and " leave the Commons to the consequences of their own proceeding." (P. 464.) Mr. Homersham Cox observes in his work on the institutions of the English Government (1863) : " The now established practice of the House of Commons admits of no discussion with or amendments by the House of Lords with respect to money Bills; but that practice was not completely established until after the seventeenth century." (P. 185.) "In 1678 the Commons resolved that all supplies were their sole gifts, and that the ' ends, purposes, considerations, conditions, limitations, and qualifications of such grants ought not to be altered by the House of Lords.' From the end of the seventeenth century these claims have been seldom, or but faintly, controverted by the Lords." (P. 186.) Mr. Cox also quotes the proceedings of the House of Commons in 1860 with respect to the rejection of the Paper Duty Eepeal Bill, and the consequent action taken by that House in 1861, in passing a Bill " in which measures for the repeal of some taxes and the imposition of others were combined." "The Lords," he observes, "passed the Bill, but not without a protest from several lords against the course taken by the House of Commons, on the ground that it was contrary to usage, and that measures of Supply and repeal of taxes ought not to be combined in the same Bill." He also quotes Blackstone as saying with reference to the right of the Lords to reject money Bills, " It is sufficient that they have a power of rejecting, if they think the Commons too lavish or improvident in their grants." Also De Lolme: "The Lords are expected simply and solely either to accept or reject them." (P. 188.) Hallam says (" Constitutional History," Vol. 111., p. 27) "that the importance of the exclusive privilege claimed by the Commons" (in money Bills) " has been rather exaggerated by them." " In early records Lords and Commons made money grants to the King without mutual communication." "22nd Edward III.: Commons alone granted three - fifteenths, levied on themselves." " After this both Lords and Commons are jointly recited, sometimes after deliberating together." In Eichard ll.'s reign, Commons are recited to grant money with assent of Lords, apparently indicating that the vote originated with Commons, and that the grant was mainly theirs. In the reigns of Henry 17. and V. the Commons grant, the Lords consent. Hallam doubts whether, in other than cases where it is specially mentioned, the Lords bore any part of the taxes. ■ Hallam further says that " in 1 Car. I. Commons began to omit names of the Lords, reciting the grant as if wholly their own." The Commons further maintained that "the Lords could not amend Bills making a charge upon the people." Hallam, "Constitutional History," Vol. 111., pp. 30, 31, and 32 :— If tho Commons, as in early times, had merely granted their own money only, it would be reasonable that they should have, as they claimed, a fundamental right as to the matter, measure, and time. But that the peers, subject to