214 KANSAS UNIVERSITY QUARTERLY. 



Commons in Parliament over matters of taxation. The Lords could 

 not claim to represent the nation in Parliament as thoroughly as did 

 the Commons, and it seemed but a new phase of an old principle 

 that the Commons should possess the sole right of initiative in mat- 

 ters of taxation. Under Charles II the Commons made a formal 

 assertion of such a right, although it had undoubtedly been an active 

 principle of government for a long time. A resolution of the House 

 of Commons in 1678 declares that " all aids and supplies to His 

 Majesty in Parliament are the sole gift of the Commons; and all bills 

 for the granting of any such aids and supplies ought to begin with the 

 Commons; and that it is the undoubted and sole right of the Com- 

 mons to direct, limit and appoint in such bills, the ends, purposes, 

 considerations, conditions, limitations, ami tpialifications of such 

 grants which ought not to be changed or altered by the House of 

 Lords."* 



This resolution was at once a protest against the amendment of 

 money bills by the House of Lords, and an assertion of the principle 

 that aids to the Crown are the sole gift of the Commons. The Lords 

 did not deny the principle, and the right has long been recognized by 

 the speech from the throne at the opening of Parliament. That 

 portion which refers to the general condition of the nation is ad- 

 dressed to "My Lorils and (Gentlemen, " while that referring to 

 supplies is addressed to " (lentlemen of the House of Commons. "f 

 But although the Lords readily assented to the principle that aids to 

 the Crown are the sole gift of the Commons, they have never formally 

 renounced their right of the amendment or rejection of money bills. 

 The two houses did not come into serious conflict on this point until 

 i860, when the Lords rejected a bill sent up by the Commons^! 

 providing for a repeal of the paper duties and an increase of the 

 property tax. The attitude of the Commons is well summarized by 

 Anson:§ "The Commons met this action on the part of the Lords 

 by resolutions which set forth the privileges of the House in matters 

 of taxation, and which while they did not deny that the Lords might 

 have the power to reject money bills, intimated that the Commons 

 had it always in their power so to frame money bills as to make the 

 right of rejection nugatory. The resolutions were three in number. 

 The first recites that the right of granting aids and supplies t(j the 

 Crown is in the Commons alone. The second, that although the 

 Lords have exercised the power of rejecting bills of several descrip- 

 tions relative to taxation, by negativing the whole, yet the exercise of 



♦Alison. Law and Custom of the Constitution, Vol. I. p. 'Z'M. 



+Chicago Tribune. Feb. 12. 1890. p. 5. 



JMay, Parliameutai'y Practice, p. 619. 



§Auson, Law and Custom of the Constitution. Vol. 1, p. 233. 



