614 PARLIAMENTS OF THE DOMINIONS [rArT iit 
which passes through its various stages, and finally receives 
the royal assent ; and then, but not before, the Treasury 
are empowered to direct an issue out of the Consolidated 
Fund to meet the payments authorized by votes in supply 
of the House of Commons. This general grant of ways 
and means is made available, so far as it will go, to meet 
votes in supply passed both before and after it. 
6. The constitutional effect of these regulations is that 
until the House of Lords and the Crown have assented to 
the grant of ways and means, the appropriation of the public 
money directed by votes in supply of the House of Commons 
is inoperative. These general grants of ways and means on 
account during the session in anticipation of the specific 
appropriations embodied in the Appropriation Act passed 
at the close of the session, may be viewed as the form in 
which Parliament considers it most convenient to convey 
their sanction to an ad interim issue of public money upon 
the appropriation directed by the Commons alone, relying 
upon their final confirmation being obtained at the close 
of the session. For example, on the 4th and 15th March 
1878, votes amounting to more than £12,100,000 were 
granted in supply for the army and navy services of 1878-9. 
On the 19th March a vote of £12,000,000 in ways and 
means was taken towards making good the supply granted 
to Her Majesty for 1878-9, and this vote was embodied 
in a Ways and Means Bill which received the royal assent 
on 28th March. 
7. These ways and means have since been used not only 
for military and naval services, but to meet such votes as 
have been granted in supply for civil services and collection 
of the revenue since the passing of the ways and means 
resolution on 19th March. 
8. I have thus, I think, sufficiently explained that, accord- 
ing to the practice followed in this country, a supply for some 
branch of the public service must have been granted to the 
Queen, and ways and means towards making good that 
supply must have been provided by an Act, before Her 
Majesty can authorize the Treasury to issue any money ; but 
that so soon as ways and means have been provided for any 
service, the Treasury may draw upon these ways and means 
so long as they last, in order to defray the expense of any 
votes comprised in the resolutions adopted in supply 
(whether before or after the date of the resolution in ways 
and means), provided always that such resolutions in supply 
have been passed in the same session of Parliament. Finally,