LIST, a term signifying in the United States, (1) a list of the entire expenses of the civil government, (2) the revenue appropriated to support civil government, (3) the officers of the civil government who are• paid from the public treasury.
In England the meaning of the term for merly represented the whole expenses of the government with the exception of those of the army, navy and other military departments. It is now limited to expenses proper to the main tenance of the household of the sovereign. It was once a principle in England, as also among Teutonic nations, that the monarch was to pay all the expenses of govermhent, even includ ing those of the army, from the possessions of the Crown, the domains, and that the subjects were not obliged to contribute anything more than they voluntarily engaged to. From this principle, which is proved by the history of the origin of the domains, it appears that the Crown lands in general cannot be considered the private property of the ruling family. On the contrary, they are, in general, the property of the state and have been given to the prince to defray the expenses of government. Until the Restoration the whole expenses of the gov ernment continued to be defrayed out of the royal revenue. The first Parliament of Charles II fixed on 11,200,000 as the ordinary revenue of the Crown in time of peace. For this they provided by taxation, which ultimately pro duced more than the amount of the grant. The same taxes were continued during the reign of James, and produced on an average 11,500,000, in addition to which he received extraordinary grants. At the commencement of the reign of William, the Commons made still further re striction on the royal control of the revenue.
They voted 11,200,000 as the revenue of the Crown in time of peace, one-half of which was appropriated to the maintenance of the king's government and the royal family, the other to public and contingent expenditure. The outbreak of war prevented this arrange ment from being strictly carried out, but the Commons maintained the principle of separat ing the regular and domestic expenses of the king from the public expenditure, and estab lishing a systematic and periodical control over the latter. The amount actually voted to the king for life in 1697 was 1700,000 and the same vote was made at the commencement of the reigns of Queen Anne and George I. On the accession of George II 1830,000 was voted. Be sides the regular vote, grants had been fre quently made to defray debts incurred in the expenditure of the sovereign. On the acces sion of George III the civil list was fixed at 1800,000, but instead of being paid out of the appropriated revenues in which the Crown lands were included, these were surrendered, and it was charged on the ordinary taxation. Large extra grants had to be made during this reign. At the commencement of the reign of Victoria a civil list of 1385,000, per annum was settled on her majesty for life for the sup port of the royal household, and the main tenance of the dignity of the Crown, 160,000 being allotted to the privy purse. In 1901 the civil list of the king of England was raised to 1470,000; 1110,000 of this being for the privy purse.