ion of a truism
included in the power of granting supplies, to declare that the
Parliament has the right and authority to examine into and correct
abuses in the expenditure, if it had not been denied by more than one
speaker on the ministerial side, though not by the Prime-minister
himself. But that denial made the assertion of the right an imperative
duty; for certainly the exclusive right of authorizing a levy of money
would lose half its value, if unaccompanied by the other right of
preventing the waste of the revenue thus raised.

It may likewise be said that another principle of the parliamentary
constitution is, by implication, contained in Mr. Dunning's second
resolution, and that the words, "it is competent to this House to
examine into and to correct abuses in the expenditure," were meant to
imply a denial of the competency of the other House to institute, or
even to share in, such an examination. Even if that were the object of
its framer, it only coincided with the view of the peers themselves, a
very considerable majority[68] of whom had, a few weeks before, rejected
a motion made by Lord Shelburne for the appointment of "a committee of
members of both Houses to examine without delay into the public
expenditure," principally on the ground urged by the Secretary of State,
Lord Stormont, and by several other peers, that "to inquire into,
reform, and control the public expenditure" would be an improper
interference with the privileges of the Commons; the Chief-justice, Lord
Mansfield, even going the length of warning his brother peers that such
interference might probably lead the Commons "to dispute in their turn
the power of judicature in the last resort exercised by the peers." Lord
Camden, on the contrary, affirmed, as a proposition which "no noble lord
present would deny, that that House had a right to inquire so far as the
disposal of public moneys came under their cognizance as a deliberative
body." And in the Lower House itself, Burke, in his speech in favor of
his Bill for Economical Reform, went even farther than Lord Camden, and
blamed the House of Lords for rejecting Lord Shelburne's motion on such
a ground. "They had gone," he said, "farther in self-denial than the
utmost jealousy of the Commons could have required. A power of examining
accounts, of censuring, correcting, and punishing the Commons had never,
that he knew of, thought of denying to the Lords. It was something more
than a century ago