TREASURY, a department of the Bri tish government which controls the ma nagement, collection, and expenditure of the public revenue. It is the business of another department, the Exchequer, to take care that no issues of public money are made by the Treasury without their being in conformity with the authority specially enacted by parliament. When money is to be paid on account of the public service, this is almost always done on the authority of a Treasury warrant ; and in other cases the countersign of the Treasury is requisite. The Board of Treasury consists of the prime minister and the chancellor of the exchequer. The real office which the premier holds is generally that of first lord of the Treasury. There are also four junior lords, who have usually seats in par liament, as have also the two joint secre taries of the Treasury. The departments immediately subordinate to the Treasury are the boards of customs, of excise, of stamps and taxes, and the post-office, the various officers in which are to a great extent appointed by the lords of the Treasury ; and this constitutes an im portant part of the patronage of the ministry. The control of the Treasury over the different boards of re.enue and other departments is said to be much less complete now than it was fifty years ago. Constitutionally, its authority ought to be paramount. The duties of the board of Treasury are heavy and multifarious, all exceptional cases in matters relating to the revenue being referred to it. Previous to 1839 the annual parliamentary grant for education was dispensed by the Trea sury ; but from this business, to which it certainly could not pay sufficient atten tion, it was relieved by the appointment of the committee of Privy Council on Education. The offices of the Treasury are in Whitehall. The amount paid in salaries of 1000/. and upwards, is about 30,0001. a year. The First Lord of the Treasury receives 5000/. a year ; two secretaries of the Treasury receive 25001.
a year each, and the assistant-secretary 20001. a year ; the solicitor of the Trea sury receives 2850/. a year ; four com missioners of the Treasury receive 12001. a year each ; and other officers receive sums varying from 10001. to 15001. each. The amount paid in salaries below 10001. a year we have no means of ascertaining. (Lord Congleton's Financial TREATY (from the French trait() means literally that which has been drawn up, or, in other words, arranged and agreed upon, by two or more parties, who are accordingly called the contracting parties.
Although a treaty is commonly defined to be an agreement made with one another by two or more governments, it is not necessary that every party to a treaty should always be a sovereign power or an independent political society. Bodies of persons or even individuals, may be em powered to enter into treaties. Thus the
English East India Company has the power, and has repeatedly exercised it, of making treaties under certain limita tions. But in all such cases this power must be given by the supreme authority in the state to which the contracting party belongs, or, which is the same thing, by the constitution or political system of which it is a member. Trea ties then can only be made by sovereign powers, or by parties upon whom the sovereign power has conferred that right. In our constitution, for example, where the sovereign power consists of the king and the parliament, the power of conclud ing treaties with foreign powers generally belongs to the king. This is the all-im portant fact for foreign countries or other powers to look to in negotiating and en tering into conventions with the English nation : the only party with whom they have to do in such matters is the king, or the ministers whom he may have dele gated to act for him and in his name. In the United States of North America the president makes treaties with the consent of the Senate.
It is usual for the crown, in this as in other cases, to act through its representa tives; and the question has arisen how far the principals to a treaty are to be held bound by the agreements entered into by the authorised negotiators. The difficulty is this. The instructions given to the actual negotiator by his principal, as to what he shall accept or concede, are kept secret, at least in part, for obvious reasons: it is impossible therefore to know whether on any particular point he has exceeded his authority or not; and it would be always in the power of a go vernment to allege that he had done so, if for any reason it desired to escape from the engagements which he may have made in its name. If such a plea were well founded, it would seem to be a rea sonable one; and it could hardly be proved not to be founded in fact, in any case in which it was urged. It would appear therefore to be either useless or unfair to hold the negotiator's signature to be the real conclusion of the treaty; useless, if the plea that he had exceeded his powers were to be allowed to be after wards urged in abatement of the stipula tions he had made ; unfair, if such plea were not to be permitted. Accordingly, notwithstanding some writers on the law of nations (Do Martens, for example) have contended that a treaty is, strictly speaking, valid from the moment of its being signed, that is not the doctrine ge nerally maintained ; and at any rate the practice now completely established and always adhered to is for ratifications of the treaty to be exchanged between the contracting parties before it comes into operation. And there are many instances of states declining to ratify or to act upon treaties which have been signed by their accredited representatives.