Custom of the Constitution, I., Chap. 9. The
principal work on the subject is C. H. McIlwain,
The High Court of Parliament and its Supremacy (New
Haven, 1910). On the House of Lords as a court see
MacDonaugh, The Book of Parliament, 300-309; A. T.
Carter, History of English Legal Institutions
(London, 1902), 96-109; and W. S. Holdsworth,
History of English Law, I., 170-193.]

*138. Control of Legislation and Finance.*--The principal and altogether
most indispensable ends which Parliament to-day subserves are those of
legislation and of financial control. Many of the measures, important
and unimportant, under which the affairs of the realm are regulated
are but temporary and require annual re-enactment, and the volume of
fresh legislation which is unceasingly demanded is all but limitless.
Similarly, to employ the words of Anson, the revenues which accrue to
the crown and can be dealt with independently of Parliament would
hardly carry on the business of government for a day,[193] and not
only does Parliament (in effect, the House of Commons) by its
appropriation acts make possible the legal expenditure of virtually
all public moneys; it provides, by its measures of taxation, the funds
from which appropriations are made.

[Footnote 193: Law and Custom of the Constitution,
I., 52.]

VI. GENERAL ASPECTS OF PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE

By reason of the supreme importance which attaches to the legislative
and fiscal activities of the two chambers it is necessary that
attention be directed at this point to the character of the procedure
which these activities involve. For the purpose in hand it will be
sufficient to speak of only the more important principles of procedure
in relation to the three fundamental phases of legislative work: (1)
the enactment of non-financial public bills, (2) the adoption of money
bills, and (3) the passage of private bills. And within at least the
first two of these domains the preponderance of the Commons is such
that the procedure of that chamber alone need be described. The
procedure of the two chambers upon bills is substantially the same,
although, as is illustrated by the fact that amendments to bills may
be introduced in the Lords at any stage but in the Commons at only
stipulated stages, the methods o