Cash account of the paymaster general. government; observing that if it be thought necessary that these stores and other advances should be supplied out of moneys voted by Parliament,' they consider that distinct provision should be made for them in the esti mates, and that all receipts on account of such advances should be paid into the Exchequer.'' 6 There still remain two unauthorised sources of supply, which, however convenient in practice, and unobjectionable, or even expedient, in the abstract, are nevertheless, until sanctioned by Parliament, opposed to an admitted constitutional principle. The one is the cash account' of the paymaster-general, which is the receptacle of various sums and deposits which, though not placed by Parliament at the disposal of the government, are regarded in practice as available sources of supply for the working accounts of the paymaster. For instance, sums realised from the sale of old stores, sums which are deposited with the paymaster for safe keeping or investment-as, for example, moneys paid in respect of the Crown's Nominee Fund, or the Mercantile Marine Fund -sums remitted home on account of fees received by consuls abroad, or in respect of the obligations of certain colonies to the mother country for military protection, &c.; all such sums and deposits are carried to the credit of the paymaster's cash account, and are used to supply his working account with funds; which are not legally available for public purposes. The Committee on Public Accounts has suggested that such moneys should be transferred to the Exchequer, or invested, or kept in deposit, as the circumstances of each case might require; and that they should in no case be used for public purposes. The other instance of money being used to defray voted services without the sanction of the legislature, is that Rep. Com. Pub. Accounts, 1864, pp. vi., vii. And see Evid. pp. 18, 24. Mr. Macaulay's Paper, Rep. Com. on Pub. Accounts, 1865, p. 141. See further, as to 'extra receipts,' and money realised from sale of old stores, Rep. Com. Pub. Accts. 1866; Evid. 444-518. in the revenue ments. of the receipts of revenue. The salaries of the various Salaries revenue departments are never paid, in the first instance, out of the votes, but out of the revenue: such advances departbeing afterwards repaid from the votes. This practice is pursued by collectors of revenue throughout the kingdom in reference to certain payments on account of the public service at the several localities in question; the advances being subsequently repaid to the revenue from the votes. applicable to such services. The Committee on Public Accounts, though cognisant of the mode in which these temporary advances are made from the revenue, do not appear to have objected to it; and the existing practice, both as regards the receipts of revenue and the pay master's cash account, has always been defended by the government as tending to economy, to the security of the public money, and to simplicity of account. This may be a sufficient reason for adhering to the present practice; nevertheless, it is equivalent to the establishment of so many additional Treasury Chest Funds, of indefinite extent, without any parliamentary authority whatever. Provided proper steps are taken to insure an efficient appropriation audit of all the parliamentary grants, there is no reason to fear that a continuance of this practice would facilitate abuse, or misappropriation. But it will be hereafter an important point to determine the conditions under which the government should be authorised by law to use for public purposes moneys derived from other sources than the grants of Parliament and the Treasury Chest Fund." We now proceed to consider the second branch of our enquiry, viz., the mode in which the constitutional control of Parliament over the public expenditure is conducted, through the instrumentality of the responsible department of the Treasury. 'Mr. Macaulay's Paper, appended to Rep. Com. on Pub. Accounts, 1865, p. 142. And see ante, p. 471. Functions of the Treasury ling public expendi ture. 2. The Functions of the Treasury in relation to the Public Expenditure. By immemorial custom, the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury have been constitutionally empowered to in control- control all the other departments of the state, in matters of finance and public expenditure. In various Acts of Parliament, and reports of committees of the House of Commons, this authority has been from time to time. recognised and enforced. By degrees, however, this wholesome control had been gradually relaxed, and the various public departments, more particularly those in charge of naval and military affairs, had begun to act independently of the Treasury, incurring expenses beyond the votes of Parliament, without previous reference to this supreme authority. In order to check the growing extravagance in the public service, and to introduce a proper responsibility in regard to public expenditure, committees of the House of Commons recommended that the ancient control of the Treasury should be again exercised. In 1817, the Finance Committee adverted to the subject in the following terms: Feeling, as your committee do strongly, the necessity of bringing all financial subjects officially within view of the Treasury,' they suggest whether in addition to the unrecorded and confidential intercourse which must at all times exist on the part of the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Master-General of the Ordnance, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer respectively, on all matters which they may feel it their duty to bring under the consideration of their colleagues in the cabinet,'-it might not be advisable that it should be made a rule of the Privy Council, whenever orders in council are in contemplation to regulate the establishment of any public department, that every proposition involving an increase of public expense should, according to the nature of the case, either be submitted to a Committee of Council, consisting of such members as may be connected with the Treasury, or be made by the Council Office the subject of a direct reference to, and report from, the Treasury to that office before it is presented to his Majesty for his final approbation. By this arrangement, which will combine the forms which have from the earliest times prevailed in the practice of our government, with that essential control which your committee judge it necessary to place in the financial ministers alone, they hope that the results which they have so often recommended may be attained.'" Pursuant to the foregoing report, a Treasury Minute was issued on March 13, 1818, embodying a memorandum agreed upon by the Earl of Liverpool (First Lord of the Treasury), the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the MasterGeneral of the Ordnance, and approved of by the prince regent, to carry into effect the recommendation of the Finance Committee, in their fourth and sixth reports, that no department of large expenditure ought ever to be placed beyond the controlling superintendence of the Board of Treasury.' That minute established various regulations for checking naval and military expenditure which are now obsolete, one of which required the working heads of the army and navy departments to attend the Treasury whenever that Board wished for verbal in addition to written information on any financial subject connected with their departments.t Ten years afterwards, a committee of the House of Commons called the attention of the House to the fact, 'that the ancient and wise control vested by our financial policy in the hands of the Treasury over all the departments connected with the public expenditure has been in a great degree set aside. Although it is the practice to lay the annual estimates before the Board of Treasury, the subsequent course of expenditure is not practically restrained as it ought to be by one governing and respon Sixth Rep. Com. on Finance, 1817, quoted in Rep. of Com. on Pub. Accounts, 1862, Ev. 665, 769, 943. of the Treasury ture. Functions sible power, but remains too much under the separate management of the departments. The want of a conin control- stant check over the expenditure, which is the conseling public expendiquence of the departure from the old and constitutional course, has established a scale of expense greatly beyond what existed during the former periods of peace. Each department naturally endeavours to exalt its own importance, and wishes to promote its general efficiency, and to have everything in it complete and perfect; hence the desire to secure these objects, rather than the exigency of the public service, has had too much influence over a great part of the public expenditure.' Again: The establishment of an effectual control in the hands of the Treasury is nothing more than the restoration to the Treasury of its ancient authority. It is necessary that this control should be constantly exercised in determining the amount of expenditure to be incurred by each department, in securing the application of each sum voted in the annual estimates to the service for which it has been voted, in regulating any extraordinary expenditure which, upon an emergency, may be deemed necessary within the year, although not included in the estimates; and in preventing any increase of salary or extra allowance, or any other emoluments, being granted without a minute expressive of the approbation of the Board of Treasury. The committee have further to observe, that it is expedient not only to restore this control, but to secure it from being again set aside, which cannot be effected, except by the House of Commons constantly enforcing its application, by holding the Treasury responsible for every act of expenditure" in each department.'* This expression must not be taken too literally. The Treasury authorities consider that it merely claims for the Treasury a certain degree of responsibility for every excess or surplus in the estimate sanctioned by Parliament'; requiring that every such excess should be made known to the Board. (Com. of Pub. Accounts, 1862; Min. of Evid. 954, 970.) The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the minister who is responsible to Parliament for the entire estimates, and who is liable to censure if the calculations in his budget, though founded in great measure |