BEVELS, MASTER OF TRE, or LORD of Mrsnum, the name of an officer, who, in England, was attached to royal and other distinguished houses, whose function it was to preside over the amusements of the court, or of the nobleman to whose house he was attached, during the 12 Christmas holidays. This officer, sometimes called master of the tents and revels, became a permanent appendage to the English court in the reign of Henry VIII., and his duties included the keeping the tents and pavilions which accom panied the sovereign on a royal progress, as also time keeping the dresses and masks used in entertainments given at court, and the providing of new ones when required. In queen Elizabeth's time, we find the mastership of the revels divided into several distinct offices. The office continued to exist till the reign of George Ill., when it was alto gether discontinued.
ItErENUE, PUBLIC. A state has a right to reserve part of the property of the citizens, or of the produce of the country, or to exact contributions from the citizens, to supply the expense of carrying on the government. It is also entitled to augment the riches of the state by taxing merchandize imported into or exported from the country, and by taking a small part of the things consumed. In the United Kingdom, this branch of the sovereign power is vested in parliament.
The revenue of the crown, in England, has been divided by Blackstone into two branches, designated ordinary and extraordinary; the, former attached to the crown by hereditary right, the latter specially granted by parliament as a supply for national pur poses. The so-called ordinary revenue was the more important of the two, in the early history of the country, a great measure of the rents of the crown lands; but these came, in the course of time, to be dilapidated by alienation and improvident man agement; and what remains of the hereditary land and forestal revenue of the crown, is now intrusted to certain officers, called commissioners of woods, forests, and land revenues (see Woons AND FORESTS), who act raider the control of the treasury. From the diminution of the hereditary revenues of the crown, subsidies have become the chief source of supply, a circumstance constitutionally of great importance, as it has rendered the crown dependent on parliament for its ordinary support and existence.
The popular voice, in the matter of taxation, was admitted as early- as the reign of Edward I., an act of that monarch declaring " that uo 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 laity were thenceforth taxed by the votes of their representatives. The lords spiritual and temporal voted separate supplies for themselves; and from the reign of Edward I., the clergy, as a body, granted subsidies, either as a national council of the clergy, in connection with parliament, or, at a later period, in convocation, till the disuse of this right in the reign of Charles I. As the commons increased in political importance, the subsidies voted by them became the principal sources of revenue, and they gradually assumed their present position in regard to taxation and supply, including the lords as well as themselves in their grants. Concurrently with parliamentary taxation, imposts were formerly levied by royal prerog ative alone; but none of these survived the revolution 1688. A grant by the commons is not effectual without the ultimate assent of the queen and house of lords; the lords, however, cannot alter a bill of supply, though they may refuse their assent to it.
The royal speech at the opening of parliament requires the commons to make pro vision for the public service, and states that estimates will be laid before them. The
commons, referring to time royal speech, resolve that a supply he granted. Sitting as a committee of supply, they consider what specific grants shall be voted; and sitting as a committee of ways and means, they deliberate on the manner in which the necessary funds shall be raised. When some progress has been made in voting the estimates, the ehancelor of the exchequer brings forward, in the committee of ways and means, his annual statement, popularly known as the budget, embodying his views on the probable revenue and expenditure of the year. Apart from the services voted in detail by the committee of supply, there are some few permanent charges which the treasury is bound to defray from the consolidated fund, such as the interest of the national debt, the civil list, the annuities of the royal family, and the salaries and pensions of judges and some other public officers. When taxes arc imposed or altered, the government begins to levy the new duties as soon as the resolutions for that purpose are agreed to by the house. A control is established over the expenditure of the supplies by the long-established prac tice of separating the custody of the public revenue from the function of payment, the former being vested in the exchequer, and the latter in the treasury, and the officers of the exchequer being empowered to refuse their sanction to any demand not in accord ance with the determination of the lesislature. By an arrangement effected by 4 and 5 Will. IV. c. 15, the public revenue is now paid into the bank of England, to the credit of the comptroller-general of the exchequer, an officer independent of the ministry, who can only be removed on a joint-address to the crown from both houses of parliament.
The principal sources of revenue are now the customs, the excise, the stamp-duties, the laud-tax and lieuse-duty, the property and income tax, the post-office and telegraph service, and the crown lands. The excise, stamps,. and taxes have been placed, by 12 Viet. c. 1, under the control of a board called the "commissioners of inland revenue." The aggregate of the different sources of revenue is paid into a fund called the "con solidated fund," founded by 27 Geo. III.. c. 47, which is chargeable with the interest of the national debt, and is mortgaged to raise an annual sum for the maintenance of the royal household and civil list (q.v.).
The following table exhibits the gross revenue and expenditure of the United King. dom, in the year ending Mar. 31, 1876: In the financial year 1877-78 the income was £79,763,298; the ordinary expenditure amounted to £78,903,495, but under the vote of credit of six millions granted on account of the eastern crisis, an additional sum, three and a half millions of pounds, was expended.
In 1801 the gross revenue of Great Britain was £35,218,525, and of Ireland £2,919,217; in 1861-62 Great Britain raised £61,360,749, and Ireland £6,792,606. So that in 1801 the revenue was £3, 7s. per head of population, and in Ireland, 11s. 2d.; while in 1861-62, the amount per head was £2, 13s. in Great Britain, and £1, 3s. tid. in Ireland. At the conquest, the public revenue of England is estimated to have been about £400,000; and in the reign of Henry VI., it had fallen to £65,000. Under Henry VIII., it rose to £800,000; and under Anne, at the union with Scotland, it was £5,700,000.
The revenue of British India for 1877-78 was given at £58,635,472, and the expendi ture at £62,018,853. The revenue of France is about £109,000,000; of Russia, £70,000, 000; of Austria, £54,000,000; of Italy, £60,000,000; of Germany (the empire), £22,000, 000; and of Spain, £23,000,000.