LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
LORD BEACONSFIELD ON THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE GOVERNMENT IN MILITARY EXPENDITURE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPEOTATOR.71
Sin,—In your article on "Lord Beaconsfield's Secrecy" you quote, in italics, a sentence from the Premier's speech in the House of Lords on Monday, May 20th, in which he alleges the security of the Indian revenue, notwithstanding a delay, in this case, of two or three months in preparing the Supplementary Estimate for the movement of the Indian troops. If you had had before you the report of that speech in the Morning Post, you would probably have attributed to it even graver significance. From that report it appears that Lord Beaconsfield went on to represent it as indifferent to the Indian revenue whether the Estimate was ever submitted at all to the House of Commons :— " Even if, from any circumstance, that Estimate could not be made or carried in Parliament, the Indian Treasury would be perfectly safe, because it would probably owe a much larger sum to the English Treasury than the expenditure incurred in this movement of troops." This follows the mention of delay in the report, so there is here no accidental omission by the reporter of any reference to time, but what is contemplated is the position of the Indian revenue in the event of no application being at any time made to Parliament. There is thus involved the assumption that as between England and India, it is unnecessary to obtain the authority of Parliament to write off the amount of debt from India covered by the military expenditure incurred by the latter on behalf of England, but not chargeable to her revenue. It would follow that the money of the English taxpayer can, by a circuitous process, legally be made applicable to military expendi- ture to which it has not been appropriated by Parliament, and for which the consent of Parliament need not be obtained.--I am, Sir, ac., P.S.—Since the above was written, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has placed the extent of the pretensions of the Government in dealing with the moneys voted by Parliament beyond doubt. Last (Monday) night he is reported (Times) to have said, in the debate on going into Committee of Supply, "Even if the vote was refused, the Government would still hold the revenue of India harmless ; but as had been pointed out, the refusal of it would put their estimates into some confusion,
ture, in order that what had been spent in this particular opera- tion might be met out of other portions of our revenue." because it would be necessary to make a change in their expendi-
Although not, of course, so intended, this reads as much like a defiance of the House of Commons by the Crown as any lan- g'nagie since the time of Charles I. It says, "You cannot help yourselves, for if you disallow this expenditure, it shall be met all the same, out of moneys voted and raised for other branches of the public service, which must, of course, be starved." How far this could happen without a violation of the Appropriation Act might be worth ascertaining ; certainly it could not happen at all, without a readjustment of charges distinctly inconsistent with the several estimates on the faith of which the money was voted. Meanwhile, the following passage from Hallam (" Con- stitutional History," Vol. III., e. 15) seems worth recalling to the memory,af Members of Parliament at the present time :— " But the general principle [of appropriation] has not perhaps been often transgressed without sufficient reason, and a House of Commons would be deeply responsible to the country, if through supine confidence it should abandon that high privilege which has made it the arbiter of Court factions and the regulator of foreign connections."
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