f
half of the public expenditures, it is to be observed, e.g., the
Civil List, the salaries of judges, pensions, and interest on the
national debt, are provided for by permanent acts imposing charges (p. 136)
upon the Consolidated Fund and do not come annually under parliamentary
review.

[Footnote 198: Before the lapse of a twelvemonth
unforeseen contingencies require invariably the
voting of "supplementary grants."]

*143. The Budget.*--As soon as practicable after the close of the fiscal
year the House, resolved for the purpose into Committee of Ways and
Means, receives from the Chancellor of the Exchequer his Budget, or
annual statement of accounts. The statement comprises regularly three
parts: a review of revenue and expenditure during the year just
closed, a provisional balance-sheet for the year to come, and a series
of proposals for the remission, modification, or fresh imposition of
taxes. Revenues, as expenditures, are in large part "permanent," yet a
very considerable proportion are provided for through the medium of
yearly votes. In Committee of Ways and Means the House considers the
Chancellor's proposals, and after they have been reported back and
embodied in a bill they are carried with the assent of the crown,
though no longer necessarily of the Lords, into law. Prior to 1861 it
was customary to include in the fiscal resolutions and in the bill in
which they were embodied only the annual and temporary taxes, but in
consequence of the Lords' rejection, in 1860, of a separate finance
bill repealing the duties on paper it was made the practice to
incorporate in a single bill--the so-called Finance Bill--provision
for all taxes, whether temporary or permanent. In practice the House
of Commons rarely refuses to approve the financial measures
recommended by the Government. The chamber has no power to propose
either expenditure or taxation, and the right which it possesses to
refuse or to reduce the levies and the appropriations asked for is
seldom used. "Financially," says Lowell, "its work is rather
supervision than direction; and its real usefulness consists in
securing publicity and criticism rather than in controlling
expenditure."[199] The theory underlying fiscal procedure has been
summed up lucidly as follows: "The Crown demands money, the Commons
grant it, and the Lords assent to the grant;[200] but the Commons do
not vote money unless it be