encroachments than to guard against those of others." A few years before
(in 1763), the House of Lords showed that they had no doubt of their
right to reject a money-bill, since they divided on the Cider Bill,
which came under that description. As, however, the bill was passed,
that division was not brought under the notice of the House. But in
1783, in the time of the Coalition Ministry, the peers having made
amendments on the American Intercourse Bill, "the Speaker observed that,
as the bill empowered the crown to impose duties, it was, strictly
speaking, a money-bill, and therefore the House could not, consistently
with its own orders, suffer the Lords to make any amendments on it, and
he recommended that the consideration of their amendments should be
postponed for three months, and in the mean time a new bill framed
according to the Lords' amendments should be passed." The recommendation
was approved by Mr. Pitt, as leader of the Opposition, and approved and
acted on by Mr. Fox, as leader of the ministry in that House. But, at
the same time, Mr. Fox fully admitted the right of the Lords to discuss
such questions, "for it would be very absurd indeed to send a loan bill
to the Lords for their concurrence, and at the same time deprive them of
the right of deliberation. To lay down plans and schemes for loans
belonged solely to the Commons; and he was willing, therefore, that the
amended bill should be rejected, though he was of opinion that the order
of the House respecting money-bills was often too strictly construed."
And he immediately moved for leave to bring in a new bill, which was
verbatim the same with the amended bill sent down by the
Lords.--_Parliamentary History_, xxiii., 895. The question was revived
in the present reign, on the refusal of the Lords to concur in the
abolition of the duty on paper, when the whole subject was discussed
with such elaborate minuteness, and with so much more command of temper
than was shown on the present occasion, that it will be better to defer
the examination of the principle involved till we come to the history of