Parliamentary Procedure

A bill, on being reported from a committee, is considered by the House as a whole and not clause by clause, but otherwise in much the same detail as by the committee, and thereafter passes to its third reading. If it is read the third time it is then sent to the other House and, after passing through the same stages there, is presented for royal assent.

Finance.

A characteristic feature of House of Commons pro cedure is the necessity for the recommendation by the Crown of any financial business, and for its consideration in committee of the whole House. When the main object of a bill is the creation of a charge upon the public revenue, a resolution, to which the royal recommendation has been signified, must be passed in com mittee of the whole House, and approved by the House, before the bill may be introduced. If the charge created by a bill is a subsidiary feature, resulting from the provisions it contains, a resolution sanctioning the charge must be passed by a committee of the whole House, appointed upon the recommendation of the Crown, and must be agreed to by the House, before the relevant provisions of the bill are considered in committee. In either case the financial provisions of the bill, and any amendments to the bill in committee, must be covered by the financial resolution. In

the committee of supply and the committee of ways and means, which are both committees of the whole House, the financial duties of the House of Commons are mainly discharged. The committee of supply controls the public expenditure by considering the grants of money that will be required for the navy, army, air services and civil services during the current year, upon the estimates of that expenditure proposed by the ministers of the Crown. The committee of ways and means considers such taxation as is needed to meet the expenditure required for the service of the Crown, and votes the resolutions that authorize the issue out of the Consolidated Fund of the sums required to meet the grants made by the committee of supply. These latter resolutions are the preliminary stages of Consolidated Fund bills, while the resolu tions imposing taxes form the basis of the Finance bill. The resolutions of the committee of supply and of ways and means are reported to the House and must be agreed to by the House. In contrast with many otherwise comparable assemblies, parlia ment has no executive committees. (C. L. F.)