crap. 11] THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA 897
no one was very enthusiastic about it, for it compelled the
Federal Government to raise four times the revenue which
it wanted for the purpose of raising a federal revenue of
any size, since the other most important revenue-producing
measure was the postal revenue. But the real resistance
grew strong when it was decided in 1908, on the expiration of
the book-keeping system, to alter the purely cash system
of accounts established by the Constitution. The Audit Act,
1906, had authorized the establishment of trust accounts by
the treasurer to which should be carried all moneys appro-
priated to the purposes thereof by Parliament. The Surplus
Revenue Act, 1908, s. 4 (4) (d), now provided that all pay-
ments to trust funds established under the Audit Act, 1901-
1906, of moneys appropriated by law for any purpose of the
Commonwealth should be deemed to be expenditure, and
that any such appropriation should not lapse at the end
of the financial year for the service of which it was made.
In other words, the system was no longer to be followed of
debiting the states with the actual expenditure, but with the
amount of expenditure which the Parliament had authorized.
Moreover, the Parliament authorized the accumulation of
funds in respect of services to be undertaken in subsequent
years. The new proposal was bitterly attacked in Parlia-
ment as contrary to the Constitution ; it was urged! that
the device was illegitimate, that the states were entitled
to everything not actually expended, that appropriation
was not expenditure, and that nothing by the usage of
Parliament could be deemed to be expenditure if it were
not voted by Parliament for the actual service of the year.
Moreover, it was urged that a direction that money be
carried to a trust account was not even in a parliamentary
sense appropriation, since it did not make the money avail-
able for handling by the Executive Government. The pro-
vision in question could be used to nullify the constitutional
right of the states to surplus revenue by allowing the Com-
monwealth to put aside whatever it wanted, nominally for
« Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 1908, pp. 11810 seq. (Mr. Bruce
Smith), 11833 seq. (Mr. Reid). Cf. Quick and Garran, p. 825.
1979-2 7
