into bills for the imposition of such taxation. So much of the work of the Committee as proposes grants from the Consolidated Fund passes, when adopted by the House, into an Appropriation Bill. § 4. Appropriation Bill. without of Parlia In speaking of the Appropriation Bill I do not wish to No public anticipate what I may have to say hereafter as to the Trea- money paid sury, Exchequer, and Audit Departments, and the various authority machinery by which it is secured that the intentions of Par- ment; liament as to the disposition of public money will be carried out. It is enough to say that none of the public money, that is, of the money constituting the revenue of the Crown, is paid except by Parliamentary authority, and that about two-thirds of the revenue of each year is appropriated to specific purposes in an Appropriation Act passed in that year. ments need For just as some taxation is annual while some does not some payrequire to be annually imposed, so some payments are annual annual grants, while some do not require to be annually sanctioned. authority; To give illustrations: payments of the interest of the National Debt, and of the pension to the late Speaker are alike required, by the Statutes which authorise their payment, to some do be warranted and directed to be made by the Commissioners of the Treasury, and do not need to reappear annually in the estimates, and run the gauntlet of the Committee of Supply. But the sums voted to meet the army, navy, and civil service estimates cannot be legally paid until they are embodied in the Appropriation Act; and the House of Commons, in order to get the supplies of the whole year into one bill, reserves the Appropriation Act until the close of the session. not. nary ap tions, Nevertheless, since money is often wanted for the public Prelimiservice some time before the Appropriation Act is passed, propriaand inconvenience may be caused by delay in paying money to meet supplies which have been already granted by the Commons, it is customary to legalise the issue of certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund, and to do this after supply has been agreed to in the Commons to the amount for which the issue is allowed, but some months before the Appropriation Act is passed. This may be done more than once during the session; and, at the end of it, these preliminary and less specific Appropriation Acts are embodied in the embodied general Act which is passed at the close of the session, in Appropria- which the items are all set out for which the earlier payments were legalised. in the tion Act. When the Appropriation Bill has received the assent of the Lords it is returned to the Commons, and when the House is summoned for prorogation it is brought by the Speaker to the bar of the House of Lords, and handed by him to the Clerk of Parliaments to receive the assent of the Crown. A bill for granting money to the Crown, whether the grant take the form of the imposition of new taxes, or of an appropriation of money out of the consolidated fund, is expressed differently to other bills in its enacting clause. It may be well to compare the forms. Act for granting duties of Customs and Inland Revenue. We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, towards raising the necessary supplies to defray Your Majesty's public expenses, and making an addition to the public revenue, have freely and voluntarily resolved to give and grant unto Your Majesty the several duties hereinafter mentioned, and do therefore most humbly beseech Your Majesty that it may be enacted; and be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows. Appropriation Act. MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN, We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, towards making good the supply which we have cheerfully granted to Your Majesty in this session of Parliament, have resolved to grant unto Your Majesty the sum hereinafter mentioned; and do therefore most humbly beseech Your Majesty that it may be enacted; and be it enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows. SECTION IV. PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION. § 1. Historical outline. bill is partly a The passing of a private bill is, at the present time, a A private proceeding partly legislative, partly judicial. Such a bill commences by petition; it is furthered by persons outside judicial proceeding. the House, the promoters, who have some practical interest in the passing of the bill: it relates to matters of individual, local, or corporate interest. Although it passes through the forms of a public bill, and although these forms are a vital part of its progress, yet the most interesting and important stage of that progress is its passage through Committee, which is for the purpose of private bill legislation a select Committee of one or other House. This Committee acts as a judicial tribunal before whom counsel appear on behalf of the promoters or the opponents of the bill in question. The history of private bill legislation might lead us to a Originally the petition great deal of very interesting inquiry concerning Parliamentary of an indiantiquities, but with these it is only possible to deal in the vidual. most general way. The petition with which the Bill commences was the one method in the middle ages by which rights might be acquired which the Common Law Courts could not confer or assure. If a man had to complain of inequitable dealings in the matter of property or contract, 1 The learning of this subject is made extremely interesting in Mr. Clifford's work on Private Bill Legislation, where the historical side of the question is amply treated, Addressed to Parlia ment. p. 309. he petitioned the Crown or the Crown in Chancery. If he had to complain of violence or oppression, such as the ordinary courts could not or dared not redress, he petitioned the Crown in Council. If he was not in search of equity or of law, but wanted to get the law altered in his favour, he petitioned Parliament, sometimes addressing himself to King, Lords, and Commons, sometimes to Lords and Commons, sometimes to the Commons alone, sometimes to the king or to the king in Council. The petitions from which private bill legislation takes its origin are those which it became the practice in the reign of Henry IV to address to Parliament, or to the Lords or See post the Commons1. Such petitions were not handed, as in earlier procedure, to the Receivers and Triers of Petitions nominated (as they are still nominated) at the commencement of each Parliament. They went to the House to which they were wholly addressed, generally the Commons, and after consideration personal. there, were passed on with the endorsement soit baillé aux Cease in time to be 'Private' and 'Lo seigneurs. Such petitions were at first of a purely personal character, attainders or the reversal of attainders, rewards given or punishments inflicted in individual cases. Later comes local legislation, the regulation of fisheries, of the navigation of rivers, of harbours, the prevention of floods and the inclosure of commons. Last comes legislation on behalf of bodies incorporated for commercial purposes, requiring, in furtherance of those purposes, some interference with private rights. Such are the acts passed to confer powers on railway, gas and tramway companies, of which every session affords numerous examples. The first of these three groups is at the present time cal' Acts. distinguished from the rest by the title of 'private Act,' and relates to naturalisation, to dealings with trust estates, in rare cases to divorce. The last two are included under the general term 'local Acts,' and cover almost the whole ground of private bill legislation. 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. iii. 460, and n. 4. § 2. Procedure in respect of Private bills. It would be impossible without entering into technicalities Technicality of and details unsuited to the compass and character of this procedure. book, to attempt to do more than give a very general outline of the process of private bill legislation. Enough may be said, however, to show the nature of these half legislative half judicial proceedings, and the care with which the Houses guard themselves against legislating in the interest of private persons or of corporations to the detriment of individual interests, unless they are satisfied that public purposes are to be attained for which individual interests may fairly be set aside with compensation for loss sustained. By the 21st of December, in the year before the bill is Petition. to be brought forward, a petition for the bill must be deposited in the Private Bill Office of the House of Commons, together with a copy of the bill and certain explanatory documents required by the standing orders of the House. from oppo Here too are sent memorials, from parties interested in Memorial preventing the passing of the bill, to the effect that the nents. standing orders of the House have not been complied with in the presentation of petition, bill, and documents. to compliance with Orders. On the 18th of January the petitions and memorials are Inquiry as dealt with by two Examiners, one appointed by the House of Lords, the other by the Speaker. If no one appears in Standing support of a petition, it is struck out, but in the ordinary course the agent concerned in promoting the bill, offers proof that the Standing Orders have been satisfied; those who have presented memorials against the bill are heard, not on the merits of the bill, but on the preliminary question of compliance with the Standing Orders; witnesses are called; and at the conclusion of the hearing the petition is endorsed by the examiner and returned to the Private Bill Office. If the endorsement is to the effect that the Standing Orders have been complied with, no more is said; but if the examiner decides adversely to the petition on this point, he makes a Ꭱ |