the people of this country. In the settlement of a Civil List there often have been disputed questions of great constitutional interest, and this time the situation is unquestionably affected by what took place in 1889. The grant of course proceeds from the House of Commons alone. On the question of the amount to be granted, the appropriation of the grant to specific classes, the abolition or retention of particular payments, the House, as Sir Robert Peel once said, has absolute power to do as it pleases. It will doubtless, in this as in other matters, be guided very much by precedent, and these precedents show that one Civil List Act may differ in very material respects from another. A full account of the history of the Civil List and the hereditary revenues associated therewith is to be found in the voluminous return relating to Public Income and Expenditure presented in 1869, and usually known as Mr. Gladstone's Return.

The Act of 1698 (9 & 10 W. III. c. 23) is usually said to have been the first Civil List Act. A resolution of the House of Commons had previously granted to King William the Third an annual sum not exceeding 700,000l. for the support of the Civil List,' and the Act which followed specified certain revenues as the funds out of which this sum was to be paid. These were: The Hereditary Revenues of the Crown, the Temporary Excise, and the new subsidy' of tonnage and poundage.

The Hereditary Revenues' recited in the Act were: the Hereditary Excise, the Hereditary Post Office Duties, and certain miscel laneous items, usually called the small branches of the hereditary revenues, which included the revenue of the Duchy of Cornwall, and ' of other revenues arising by the rent of lands in England and Wales.'

The appropriated revenues are declared to be for the service of the King's household and family and 'other his necessary expenses and occasions.' Any surplus beyond 700,000l. was not to be disposed of without the authority of Parliament. A later Act substituted a different arrangement, the sum of 3,700l. a week being deducted from the Civil List Fund and applied to the public use and service. Mr. Gladstone's Return contains an Estimate drawn up in 1699 of the charges falling on this Civil List. They include 40,000l. for foreign Ministers (Ambassadors, &c.); 80,000l. for the salaries of various officials, including the Lord Chancellor, twelve Judges, Masters in Chancery, Secretary of State, Commissioners of Trade, Lecturers at the Universities, &c., and 71,000l. for pensions. The Civil List under the first Act included therefore, in its charges, items belonging to the ordinary civil government of the country, and in the revenues appropriated to it, the income arising out of Crown lands, as well as the proceeds of public taxation. There was no definite

2 Including Dr. Titus Oates for life of himself and wife, 3007.

line drawn on the one hand between the expenditure of the Court and the cost of the public service; or on the other between the proceeds of taxation and the revenues of hereditary estates.3

6

The Civil List Act of Anne is of great constitutional importance. It recites the desire of Parliament to settle upon Her Majesty for the expenses of Civil Government' as large a revenue as any enjoyed for that purpose by any of her royal predecessors,' and accordingly continues the temporary excise and the 'new subsidy for the Queen's life, and appropriates these proceeds together with the hereditary revenues to the support of her household and 'the honour and dignity of the Crown.' The deduction of 3,700l. a week was maintained, and made perpetual out of the hereditary excise only.' Other sums were at different times appropriated to public purposes. In this reign the expenditure of the Civil Government in Scotland was brought into account, and we are told that the whole of the hereditary revenues of the Crown in that country were applied in paying the salaries of judges and other officers and other charges upon the establishments there, so that no part remained towards the general expenses of Her Majesty's household or the Civil Government of England.' The important section of Queen Anne's Civil List Act dealing with the Crown lands is noticed separately.

The charges on the Civil List appear to have been much the same in character and amount as in the previous reign. In 1703 the total expenditure was 589,000l., and included 24,000l. for secret service, nearly 90,000l. for fees and salaries, and 40,000l. for British Ministers abroad. The total income after the various deductions mentioned above was for the same year 539,051/.*

In the Civil List Act of George the First, the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall and certain minor items were excluded from the hereditary revenues appropriated along with others as before 'to the support of His Majesty's household and the honour and dignity of the Crown.' An Act of the second Session granted a further sum of 120,000l. out of the 'Aggregate Fund' to the 'Civil List Revenues,' on condition that if the total fell short of 700,000l. the deficiency should be made good by Parliament, and any surplus should go to the Aggregate Fund. Further grants were made in different years, and it appears that the income of the King applicable to the support of the household and the expenses of civil government, i.e. 700,000l., was inadequate, and additional sums amounting to 1,300,000l. were applied to discharge debts which had accrued."

''The general nature of the expenditure in each year was precisely similar, and comprehended every expenditure of the country, except payment on account of the Public Debt, and for the great services of the Army, Navy, and Ordnance, which were defrayed out of other funds provided by Pa ament.'-Mr. Gladstone's Return, part II. p. 594.

'Mr. Gladstone's Return, part I. p. 29, and part II. p. 595. * Return, part II. p. 596.

The Civil List Act of George the Second provided that if the 'Civil List Revenues' failed to yield 800,000l. over and above encumbrances, the deficiency should be made good by Parliament, but any surplus should go to the Crown. Subsequent Acts of the same reign affected the Civil List in various ways which need not be enumerated. The average income of the List in George the First's time was 805,000l., and in George the Second's 811,000l. As before the charges include large sums for secret service, fees, and salaries, and for the maintenance of British Ministers abroad.

6

The reign of George the Third marks an important change in the system of the List. The King on his accession signified his consent to the Commons that such disposition might be made of his interest in the hereditary revenues of the Crown as might best conduce to the utility and satisfaction of the public.' The duties hitherto payable in support of the Crown, together with the hereditary revenues, were accordingly carried to the Aggregate Fund, and a fixed Civil List revenue of 800,000l. was granted to the King out of the Aggregate Fund. The Civil List Act in which all this is enacted contains no terms of compact. The Commons acknowledge that the King's suggestion is 'a most substantial proof of his tender concern for the welfare of his people and that the same is superior in his royal breast to all other considerations.' They express their desire that a certain and competent revenue for defraying the expenses of His Majesty's Civil Government and supporting the dignity of the Crown may be settled on His Majesty for his life. And they proceed to enact accordingly. It is to be observed that in the enumeration of the hereditary revenues which had stood settled or appointed to be towards the support of the household of the late King and the honour and dignity of the Crown,' and were now to be paid to the Aggregate Fund, the revenue of the Duchy of Cornwall is expressly excluded. In this Act as in others the object of the Civil List is variously described to be the support of the household and the honour and dignity of the Crown,' or 'defraying the charge of the Civil Government and other his necessary expenses and occasions.' The phrases appear to be interchangeable. In point fact, in addition to the personal family and household expenses the sovereign, nearly the whole expenses of the Civil Government were charged upon the Civil List.' The amount appropriated became insufficient to meet the increasing expenditure, and relief was obtained from time to time by additional grants and by charging on the Consolidated Fund expenditure that under the old system would have fallen on the Civil List. The Act of 56 Geo. III. c. 46 contains a schedule classifying the charges under various heads, the total being estimated at 1,083,7271.

of

The Civil List Acts of George the Fourth, of William the Fourth,

Return of 1869, part II. p. 600.

and of Victoria recited the like surrender of the interest of the Sovereign in the hereditary revenues, and contained the like classification of the purposes to which the grant from the Consolidated Fund was to be applied. The second Act, however, was avowedly based on the principle of limiting the charge to expenses affecting the dignity and state of the Crown and the personal comfort of Their Majesties. The grant was cut down from 850,000l. to 510,000l.; the allowances and salaries to judges, ambassadors and other officials disappear, and the classification adopted was the following:

Class 1. Their Majesties' Privy Purse
Class 2. Salaries of the Household
Class 3. Expenses of the Household .
Class 4. Special and Secret Service
Class 5. Pensions

£

The same principle was carried still further in the Act of Victoria, the classification of which has already been set forth.

Finally the new King has in his Speech from the Throne unreservedly placed at the disposal of the House of Commons the hereditary revenues which had been surrendered by his predecessors.

The long series of Statutes dealing with the Civil List-of which the leading Acts alone have been referred to here-exhibit a clearly marked constitutional progress. The Civil List in the earlier Acts is a provision for the 'Civil Government' of the country, including the maintenance of the Court. It leaves the great military services and certain portions of the Civil services to be supplied by Parliamentary grants. It is permanent, in the sense that it is by Act of Parliament made coterminous with the current reign. The Act seizes and applies to its purposes certain so-called hereditary revenues of the Crown and certain specified taxes. That is the first stage. Then in the Act of 1760 the interest of the Sovereign in these hereditary revenues is surrendered, and that surrender is repeated in every subsequent Act. The language of recital and enactment is not uniformly the same. It would be tedious and probably useless to recapitulate the variations. The last Civil List Act contains a recital that the hereditary revenues are now due and payable to your Majesty,' and section 2 enacts that after the decease of Her Majesty they shall all be payable and paid to Her Majesty's heirs and successors.' Finally in the reign of George the Third began the process of shifting the burden of Civil Government' properly socalled from the Civil List to the annual grants in Supply and the permanent charges on the Consolidated Fund-a process now almost carried to completion. Little remains, as we have seen, in the Civil List but matters of household and personal expenditure, and the historic term has become a misnomer.

Since the gradual elimination of the public services from the Civil List began there have been from time to time suggestions made

that the Crown lands,' surrendered at the beginning of each reign furnish some kind of measure of the amount to be allotted to the Civil List. It is sometimes said that they are the personal property of the Sovereign, and that the surrender' is a bargain in which the country has had the best of it. The most definite form ever given to this idea by a responsible Minister is to be found in Mr. Disraeli's argument that the Sovereign 'positively relinquished the large real estate which Her Majesty possessed by the laws of the land by as clear a title and as complete possession as any of the peers hold their estates to whom reference has been made,' and that the Civil List was a settlement not to the personal advantage of Her Majesty.'7

This theory, recent as I believe it to be in origin, is quite inconsistent with the history of the Civil List. It reads into the 'surrender' by the Crown to the country, substituted in the Act of George the Third for the previous grant by Parliament to the Crown, a meaning which that transaction cannot properly bear. What is surrendered is the interest' of the Crown, in the 'hereditary revenues.' If Mr. Disraeli's language was correct, such of these revenues as consisted of the proceeds of taxation were equally with the real estate the personal property of the Sovereign. What then was and is the Sovereign's real interest in the Crown lands?

Those who wish to get to the real root of the matter should read John Allen's chapter on the tenure of landed property in his once famous and still valuable book on 'The Royal Prerogative.' A thousand years ago the King of England could, like other people, own land as private property. He could also, with the assent of his Council, but not without, make grants to private persons of the land which belonged to the people. Gradually a different conception came to prevail, the land of the people became the terra regis, of which the King might dispose as he pleased, and out of the revenues of which he discharged all the expenditure of his Government. It was his land in the same sense that the servants of the public were his servants, the laws his laws. But during that period the King could not be said to have private property at all.

The distinction between the private patrimony of the King and the public property of the State was at length obliterated. When the folclands of the community which had not been converted into private inheritance acquired the

Hansard, the 31st of July, 1871. Less exceptionable is Sir George Cornewall Lewis's statement that it has been deemed a matter of policy in this country wholly to strip and denude the Sovereign of all hereditary property, and to render him during his life entirely dependent upon the bounty of Parliament. Through a constitutional jealousy of the ever-increasing power of the Crown, it has been deprived of its hereditary revenues, and a corresponding obligation arises on the part of Parliament to make a sufficient provision for the Crown and the Royal Family.'— Hansard, the 22nd of May, 1857.