Tables of revenue, &c. Improvement of statistical returns. of legislative inquiry; in law, history, the privileges of Parliament, negotiations with foreign powers, and every variety of statistics. The statistical returns have been moved for at different times, for particular objects, and do not present so regular and complete a series as could be desired. Sometimes a return has been presented for several years in succession, when the series is interrupted, and commences again at a later period. At other times, the returns for succeeding years, though similar in object, are not moved for or prepared in a uniform manner. One return, for example, is found to include the United Kingdom, while another extends only to Great Britain; one shows the gross, another the net revenue; one dates from the 1st January, another from the 5th April; one calculates the value of exports by the official rate of valuation, another by the declared or real value. By discrepancies of this nature, the statistical importance of parliamentary papers has been very much impaired. To secure a more complete and uniform collection of statistics, the statistical department of the Board of Trade was established some years since. Accounts of the revenue, commerce, and navigation of the country, are there collected from every department, and annually laid before Parliament. The tables prepared by this department have greatly improved the statistics of the last 10 years; and, in the commons, other parliamentary papers have recently been moved for, and prepared with considerable care. The causes of imperfection in the statistical accounts have been: 1. The irregular manner in which they have been moved for, without any settled plan or principle; 2. The imperfect mode of preparing the orders; 3. The want of proper forms and instructions addressed to those who are to prepare the returns; 4. The absence of control and superintendence in editing the returns before they are printed. With a view to improve the character of parliamentary returns, a plan was proposed by the printing committee, in 1841,' and has since been partly carried into effect; the gradual operation of which cannot fail to be attended with benefit. The committee suggested: 1. "That every member be recommended, before he gives notice of a motion for a return, to consult the librarian of the House of Commons." 2. "That after the order for a return has been made by the House, the librarian do prepare, when necessary, a form, to be submitted to Mr. Speaker for his approval; and that such form shall be forwarded with the order in the usual manner." 3. "That before any return which has been presented to the house shall be ordered to be printed, it shall be inspected by the librarian, and approved by Mr. Speaker." turns. By attending to the first of these suggestions, a member Orders for rewill generally obtain assistance in framing a motion for returns. Documents of a similar character can be consulted, and their merits or defects in form and matter, will serve as guides to further investigation. The preparation of the order, also, frequently requires a practical acquaintance with the forms and character of parliamentary accounts, in order to secure the information desired. The object in preparing blank forms to accompany the Blank forms. orders of the house, is to ensure complete and uniform answers from the parties to whom they are addressed. An order of considerable length, and containing various queries, is often forwarded to a great number of persons in all parts of the country. Each person is left to his own interpretation of the order, and is at liberty to return his answers in whatever form he pleases. When all the answers are afterwards collected, they are found to be so different both in form and matter, that they are almost useless for purposes of comparison, and cannot be reduced, with the greatest pains, into a consistent and uniform return. A blank form, with columns properly headed, interprets the order, and obtains the answers in such a shape, that if properly given, they are ready for printing; and if not, any imperfection can be readily detected. 1 Parl. Paper, 1841 (181). Abstracts. When this precaution has been neglected, an attempt is still made, by means of abstracts, to improve the form in which returns are originally presented. They are compressed into the best form of which they will admit, and when practicable, general results are deduced from them, in illustration of the purposes of the order. CHAPTER XXI. Feudal origin of parliamentary taxation. PROGRESSIVE INFLUENCE OF THE COMMONS IN GRANTING CROWN AND OF THE COMMONS, IN MATTERS OF SUPPLY. PLY AND WAYS AND MEANS. In England, as in many other countries of Europe, the origin of taxation may be referred to the feudal aids and services due from the tenants of the Crown to their feudal superior. Before the growth of commerce, the royal revenue could only be derived from land; and after the Conquest the entire soil of England was placed under the feudal sovereignty of the Conqueror. The greater portion was held by military service, and the councils of William, being composed of the tenants-in-chief of the Crown,' granted and confirmed as a Parliament, the aids and services, to which the king, as their feudal superior, was entitled. This connexion between feudal rights and legislative taxation is singularly illustrated by the Charter of William the Conqueror, which declared that all freehold tenants 2 Sce supra, p. 14. 21 Fœdera, 1. (Record Comm. ed.) by military service' should "hold their lands and possessions free from all unjust exactions, and from all tallage,2 so that nothing be exacted or taken from them except their free service, which had been given and conceded to him for ever, of hereditary right, by the common council of his realm." In the words of this charter two remarkable points may be observed; the first, that the claims of the Crown upon those classes who formed its councils were confined to feudal aids and services; and secondly, that even these had been freely given by the common council of the realm or Parliament. At the same time the Crown was entitled to other sources of revenue from classes who did not hold lands by military service, and who had no place in the national councils, either personally or by representation. But the various claims of the Crown gradually became less determined, and required repeated assessments, for which purpose the council or Parliament was convened. And by the Great Charter of King John, the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, greater barons, and all other tenants-inchief of the Crown were to be summoned with forty days notice to assess aids and scutages,3 which the king bound himself not to impose otherwise than by the common council of his realm. The strictly feudal nature of these impositions was exemplified by the reservations which were made in favour of the king's right to aids for the ransom of his person, on making his eldest son a knight, and on the marriage of his eldest daughter. But the practice first noticed in this charter, of summoning the tenants-in-chief of the Crown through the sheriffs and "Liberi homines." See explanations of this term, Rep. on Dignity of the Peerage, p. 31. 2 Tallage was raised upon the demesne lands of the Crown, upon the burghs and towns of the realm, and upon escheats and wardships. 1 Madox, Hist. of the Exchequer, 694. 3 For a full explanation of the nature of these feudal sources of revenue, see Madox, chapters 15 and 16. See also supra, p. 16. Growth of the commons' right of supply. bailiffs, led to the principle of representation, as was shown in the first chapter of this work,' and had an important influence upon the revenue of future kings. After the property in land had undergone many changes and subdivisions, and the commonalty had grown in numbers and wealth, the taxation became less feudal in its character. On the one hand, the tenants of the Crown had contrived to defraud their superior of much of his lawful dues; and, on the other, the kings had been improvident; and while their feudal revenues were diminished in amount, and confused in title, their necessities were continually increasing. The commons, in the meantime, had assumed their place as an estate of the realm in Parliament, and represented wealthy communities. These changes are marked by the well-known statute, De tallagio non concedendo, in the 25th Edward 1, by which it was declared, "That no tallage or aid shall be taken or levied without the goodwill and assent of the archbishops, bishops, earls, barons, knights, burgesses, and other freemen of the land." The popular voice being thus admitted in matters of taxation, the laity were henceforth taxed by the votes of their representatives in Parliament; but the lords spiritual and the lords temporal voted separate subsidies for themselves; and from the reign of Edward 1, the clergy, as a body, granted subsidies in convocation, until the surrender of their right in the reign of Charles 2.2 1 Supra, p. 15. 2 In 1295 Edward 1, being in great need of money, summoned deputies from the inferior clergy for the first time, to vote him subsidies from their own body. The clergy, however, would not obey the king's writ of summons, lest they should appear to acknowledge the temporal power; and, in order to overcome this objection, the king issued his writ to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, as their spiritual superior, summoned the clergy to meet in convocation. From this time the clergy continued to vote subsidies in convocation, until they voluntarily surrendered their right to the House of Commons in the reign of Charles 2, in return for the remission of two subsidies already granted, and for the right of voting at elections. |