by the appointment of a "Comptroller-General," who holds his office permanently, subject to removal on the address of both Houses of Parliament.

In the issues by the Exchequer, the practice with respect to Parliamentary annual grants differs from that with respect to the permanent charges on the revenue. With respect to the former, the first authority for the disbursement is a Royal order, which refers to the particular Parliamentary grant, and authorizes the Comptroller-General to place the amount voted to the credit of the proper officer. This Royal order is put in operation by Treasury warrants for specified portions of the amount voted. The Exchequer, if satisfied that the Treasury warrants do not exceed the total amount voted, authorizes the Bank of England to issue the specified sums accordingly.

The course of issue, with respect to permanent charges on the revenue, differs from that just described by omitting the Royal order.

A defect of this system consists in this, that where the same officer is paymaster for different services, he is not prevented by any control of the Exchequer from temporarily applying to one service moneys appropriated to another, provided that the interchange of appropriations is ultimately corrected. For the remedy of this defect various methods have been proposed, and Parliament has recently extended one of them-the appropriation audit, by which accounts of the actual appropriation of moneys granted for naval and military services, and various branches of the public service, are required to be audited and submitted to Parliament.

The administration of the military and naval forces of this kingdom presents a remarkable solution of one of the most difficult and important problems in the science of Government,viz. to devise means of securing the constitutional control of Parliament over those forces, without impairing their discipline, or derogating from the necessary authority of the executive over them.

Book III.

CH. VIII.

Military and

Naval Offices

g

Standing armies were not established in England until after the restoration of Charles II. Previously, the constitutional military forces consisted of feudal troops raised by the tenants of the Crown and their vassals, under the obligations of military tenures; the posse comitatus for the internal defence of counties; and stipendiary forces, which however were not regularly maintained, except in time of war. After the Revolution, the system was adopted of maintaining the army under temporary Acts of Parliament-the Mutiny Acts, which have ever since been regularly renewed, and authorize the Crown to maintain a specified number of troops for one year, and to try and punish offences against military discipline by a code of martial law differing materially from the common law. With respect to the navy, the Mutiny Act is not temporary, but permanent; but the numbers of the naval, as well as of the military forces, are effectually controlled by the power of Parliament of refusing supplies for maintaining them.

The administration of the army has been materially altered within the last few years, and a number of offices relating to it have been consolidated. The principal features of the administration of the army, as at present constituted, are the establishment of two offices; the one having the civil and financial affairs of the army, the other the military discipline and patronage under its more immediate management. The former of these offices is that of the Secretary of State for War, the latter the office of the Commander-in-Chief. In the office of the Secretary of State for War are consolidated the following offices, which were, until lately, separate departments-the office of "Secretary-at-War," who managed the financial affairs of the army; the civil branch of the Ordnance Office, which superintended the supplies of arms and materials of warfare, and the construction of military works and barracks, and the Commissariat, so far as relates to the supply of provisions, forage, and means of transport. In the office of the Commander-in-Chief is now united the military administration of the whole army, including the artillery and engineers. The Commander-in-Chief has a more permanent tenure of his

office than the Secretary of State for War, as the latter resigns his office whenever a new cabinet is formed. It is said that the authority of the Commander-in-Chief is strictly subordinate to that of the Secretary of State, but the latter exercises only a nominal supervision of the patronage and discipline of the army.

In the administration of the navy there is no such division of the civil and martial government as in the army. The entire administration of the navy is under the Admiralty, a department which has existed from very early times. Formerly, the department was under the management of Lords High Admirals; but some time before the Revolution it became the practice to assign the office of Lord High Admiral to be executed by commissioners, and that practice has been adhered to ever since the Revolution, with rare exceptions. The ancient history of the navy presents this point of resemblance to that of the army, that anciently the naval force was not permanent, but was raised as occasion required. The standing naval force dates from the reign of Henry VIII, From that time the Admiralty has had the management of the Royal dockyards, the construction and equipment of ships, and the discipline and patronage of the navy and marine forces. The Admiralty Board consists of several commissioners, among whom the offices just mentioned are distributed; but the supervision of the whole, and the responsibility to Parliament for the proper management of the navy, belong to the First Lord of the Admiralty, who is ordinarily a member of the Cabinet.

CH. IX.

ministrative

The division of this kingdom into separate provincial and Book III. municipal governments, which managed their own internal admi- Local Adnistration, existed in a very complete manner in the Anglo-Saxon Government period. In the fourteenth century, the counties lost the elective constitution of their magistracy, and they never regained it. The boroughs, on the other hand, obtained in many cases elective municipal institutions by charters from the Crown. By the more ancient of these charters, the suffrage for electing municipal officers was very liberal; but under the Tudors and Stuarts these

charters were superseded by others, which gave to the boroughs self-elective councils. Thenceforward, until the reform of municipal corporations in the reign of William IV., the government of boroughs was usually in the hands of a few irresponsible persons, and was subject to gross abuses. The Act for the Regulation of Municipal Corporations, which was passed in the year 1835, establishes for almost all the important boroughs of England a uniform constitution. Under this constitution a constituency of each borough, consisting generally of the rated resident householders, elect a Town Council, to which is entrusted all the deliberative and administrative functions of the corporation. These functions relate chiefly to matters of police, and the local rates.

In numerous unincorporated towns somewhat similar functions are assigned by special Acts of Parliament to local commissioners.

In counties, the same kinds of functions appertain to the county magistracy, or justices of the peace, who have the maintenance of county gaols, prisons, bridges, and police. The magistrates in Quarter Sessions have power to order county rates for any of the purposes to which the county stock is liable, whenever they think fit. The ratepayers have a right to appeal to the Quarter Sessions against errors and inequalities of rating, but have no control over the management and expenditure of the county funds.

UNIVERSITY

CALIFORNIA

THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT.

BOOK I.-LEGISLATURE.

CHAPTER I.

DIVISIONS OF GOVERNMENT.

THE foundation of political government is the need of some supreme power in every civil community for the protection of the rights of its members. The collective force at the disposal of the government, gives to each of its subjects a security for his person and property which his own strength could not procure for him; and it is clear that unless such collective force were effectually exerted to overcome aggression against individual rights, the community must soon. be dissolved, or cease to have a separate existence.

Again, in every form of government, however rude or despotic, the action of the State will be in a greater or less degree regulated by Laws, that is, rules which authoritatively, publicly, and prospectively declare the rights and obligations which the State will enforce. It is obvious that government by laws has these advantages over arbitrary government, that the laws, being publicly declared, give information to the people of the extent of their civil rights and obligations; and that the laws, being made prospectively, are more likely to be impartial and temperate than are resolutions taken by the ministers of government with