EXPENDITURE-continued. Other Miscellaneous Charges of a Casual and Temporary Nature continued: Money paid to the Bank of England beyond the Sum received on Bank of England, for Loss sustained by conversion of Coin into into} 38,289 Various small Miscellaneous Payments by Revenue Departments Expenses of Revising Barristers appointed under Municipal Co poration Act 25 Cor-} 3,750 131,233 ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. Interest due to Claimants under the Slavery Compensation Acts} up to the Time when the Awards were made Bank of England, for receiving Subscription to West India Loan Total 7,500 29,838 715,163 2,213,9021 The Grand Total of the foregoing Expenditure was: CHAPTER VII. The same Subject continued. The commons can destroy the equilibrium of the constitution. BUT this force of the prerogative of the commons, DE LOLME. and the facility with which it may be exerted, however necessary for the first establishment of the constitution, might prove too considerable at present, when it is requisite only to support it. There might be the danger, that, if the parliament should ever exert their privilege to its full extent, the prince, reduced to despair, might resort to fatal extremities; or that the constitution, which subsists only by virtue of its equilibrium, might, in the end, be subverted. crown. Indeed, this is a case which the prudence of parliament has foreseen. They have, in this respect, imposed laws upon themselves: and, without touching the prerogative itself, they have moderated the exercise of it. A custom has for a long time prevailed, at the begin- Yearly revenue ning of every reign, and in the kind of overflowing of granted to the affection which takes place between a king and his first parliament, to grant the king a revenue for his life; a provision which, with respect to the great exertions of his power, does not abridge the influence of the commons, but yet puts him in a condition to support the dignity of the crown, and affords him, who is the first magistrate in the nation, that independence which the laws ensure also to those magistrates who are particularly intrusted with the adminstration of justice*. The twelve judges'. Their commissions, which in former times were often given them durante bene placito, now must always "be made quamdiu se bene gesserint, and their salaries ascertained; but, upon an address of 1 Vide Note (1), p. 595. DE LOLME. accidental dis orders of the state. Grant of the civil list. This conduct of the parliament provides an adRemedy for the mirable remedy for the accidental disorders of the state. For though, by the wise distribution of the powers of government, great usurpations are become in a manner impracticable, nevertheless it is impossible but that, in consequence of the continual (though silent) efforts of the executive power to extend itself, abuses will at length slide in. But here the powers, wisely kept in reserve by the parliament, afford the means of remedying them. At the end of each reign, the civil list, and consequently that kind of independence which it procured, are at an end. The successor finds a throne, a sceptre, and a crown; but he finds neither power, nor even dignity; and before a real possession of all these things be given him, the parliament have it in their power to take a thorough review of the state, as well as correct the several abuses that may have crept in during the preceding reign; and thus the constitution may be brought back to its first principles. Superiority of the English over the Roman laws, respecting peri odical reformation. England, therefore, by this mean, enjoys one very great advantage,—one that all free states have sought to procure for themselves; I mean that of a periodical reformation. But the expedients which legislators have contrived for this purpose in other countries, have always, when attempted to be carried into practice, been found to be productive of very disadvan both Houses, it may be lawful to remove them."-Stat. 13 William III. c. 2. In the first year of the reign of George III. it was moreover enacted, that the commissions of the judges should continue in force notwithstanding the demise of the king'; which has prevented their being dependant, with regard to their continuation in office, on the heir-apparent 2. 2 During the arbitrary periods of our history, a judge was liable to be capriciously deprived of his seat, although his title to office was by the patent stated to be "quamdiu se bene gesserint."-(Whitlocke, 16. May's Hist. 17. 1 Hut. Mem. 132. Vide ante, 477.) & 3 Vide Note (2), p. 575. tageous consequences. Those laws which were made DE LOLME. in Rome, to restore that equality which is the essence of a democratical government, were always found impracticable: the attempt alone endangered the overthrow of the republic; and the expedient which the Florentines called ripigliar il stato, proved nowise happier in its consequences. This was because all those different remedies were destroyed beforehand, by the very evils they were meant to cure; and the greater the abuses were, the more impossible it was to correct them. not forcibly overgative; it only throw the prero enervates its it springs. But the mean of reformation which the parliament Parliament does of England has taken care to reserve to itself, is the more effectual, as it goes less directly to its end. It does not oppose the usurpations of prerogative, as were, in front: it does not encounter it in the middle of its career, and in the fullest flight of its exertion: but it goes in search of it to its source, and to the principle of its action. It does not endeavour forcibly to overthrow it; it only enervates its springs. What increases still more the mildness of the operation, is, that it is only to be applied to the usurpations themselves, and passes by what would be far more formidable to encounter, the obstinacy and pride of the usurpers. Everything is transacted with a new sovereign, who, till then, has had no share in public affairs, and has taken no step which he may conceive himself bound in honour to support. In fine, they do not wrest from him what the good of the state requires he should give up: he himself makes the sacrifice. Absolute power The truth of all these observations is remarkably confirmed by the events that followed the reign of the of the Tudors. last two Henries. Every barrier that protected the Vide ante, 152-207. Henry VIII. had DE LOLME. people against the incursions of power had been broken through. The parliament, in their terror, had even enacted that proclamations, that is, the will of the Proclamations of king, should have the force of laws; the constitution the force of laws. seemed really undone. Yet, on the first opportunity afforded by a new reign, liberty began again to make its appearancet. And when the nation, at length recovered from its long supineness, had, at the accession of Charles I., another opportunity of a change of Annihilation of Sovereign, that enormous mass of abuses, which had been accumulating, or gaining strength, during five successive reigns, was removed, and the ancient laws were restored. abuses. The Petition of To which add, that this second reformation, which was so extensive in its effects, and might be called a new creation of the constitution, was accomplished without producing the least convulsion. Charles I., in the same manner as Edward VI.', (or his uncle, the regent duke of Somerset) had done in former times, assented to every regulation that was passed; and whatever reluctance he might at first manifest, yet the act, called the Petition of Right (as well as the bill which afterwards completed the work) received the royal sanction without bloodshed'. It is true, great misfortunes followed; but they were the effects of particular circumstances. The nature and extent of regal authority not having been accurately defined during the time which preceded the reigns of the Tudors, the exorbitant power of the * Stat. 31 Henry VIII. chap. 8. The laws concerning treason, passed under Henry VIII., which Judge Blackstone calls an amazing heap of wild and new-fangled treasons,” were, together with the statute just mentioned, repealed in the beginning of the reign of Edward VI. 5 Vide ante, 366, et seq. 6 Ibid. 208-252. 7 Ibid. 377, 393. 8 Ibid. 395-417. |