REX v. LORDS OF TREASURY. In re SMYTH. [ *983 ] be submitted to Parliament for granting Mr. Smyth a retired allowance. For this no ground is laid. If the Lords Commissioners had an option then to decide whether or not a vote on this subject should be placed before Parliament, it is equally in their discretion now to say that, under present circumstances, no such vote shall be submitted. I do not say whether the Court has any power to issue a mandamus for the purpose of interfering with the books of the Treasury. Here, at any rate, it has not. The second branch of the rule is for calling on the Lords Commissioners to submit an application to Parliament for a grant on account of this pension, in the estimates for the present year. What power we have to call upon them to submit a vote to Parliament, I cannot see. I can draw no such inference in favour of the vested right which has been insisted upon, from the language of stat. 3 Geo. IV. c. 113. The superannuation allowance seems to me to be held on the same tenure as the office itself, namely, during pleasure. I cannot discover in the sixth section any ground for requiring this vote to be submitted. It enacts that the total amount of superannuation allowances shall be annually laid before Parliament; but that does not affect the question, what the amount shall be? It is not even required that the names of those entitled to allowances shall be annually submitted. The names of which the insertion is required are those of the persons, receiving allowances, who have died, and the persons to whom allowances have been granted, during the year. At all events this does not vary the tenure on which the allowance is held. We cannot say, because a person's name was once held fit to be submitted to Parliament for an allowance, that such allowance shall be submitted in the estimates now. *These reasons render it unnecessary to enter into more general considerations, which also might possibly furnish an answer to the present application. LITTLEDALE, J.: I am of opinion that there was no vested right in this case, and that the minute of 1826 left the Lords Commissioners at liberty, in a future year, to retain or to strike out the name of the party. And, even if they were compellable to restore the minute, that would not accomplish the object contemplated, unless the party's name were submitted to Parliament, which must be done, if at all, under stat. 3 Geo. IV. c. 113, s. 6. But that section would not compel the Lords Commissioners to mention this party's name, even if the minute were restored. We have no authority to require that they shall submit the proposition suggested. PATTESON, J.: The application is extraordinary; and the party has failed to lay any foundation for it. No clause of any Act has been cited, to shew that an allowance of this kind, once granted, is to continue for life. It is held by the same tenure as the office itself was, namely, during pleasure. And, if the minute conferring the pension did not give a vested interest, none could be acquired by contributing to the superannuation fund. As to the latter part of the motion, there is nothing to shew that the Lords Commissioners have not done all that is required of them by stat. 3 Geo. IV. c. 113, s. 6; and there is no pretence for calling upon them to make the proposed application to Parliament (1). Rule discharged (2). REX v. THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF THE TREASURY. IN RE HAND, GENT., ONE, &c. (4 Adol. & Ellis, 984-998; S. C. 6 N. & M. 508; 2 H. & W. 67.) Under stats. 50 Geo. III. c. 117, and 3 Geo. IV. c. 113 (3), the Lords of the Treasury were not authorised to grant retired allowances for life. A grant of such an allowance made by them in general terms was subject to the discretion of Parliament in voting the supplies from year to year, and was revocable by the Lords of the Treasury. And, where the Lords, after granting an allowance on the abolition of an office, had revoked the grant, but the allowance had been erroneously inserted in the estimates of the year, voted by Parliament, and included in an Appropriation Act, this Court refused to enquire into the (1) Coleridge, J. had left the Court. annuation Act, 1834 (4 & 5 Will. IV. 1836. May 7. [ 984 ] REX ተ. LORDS OF TREASURY. In re HAND. [*985 ] propriety of the revocation, and would not grant a mandamus to the Lords for payment of the arrears, it being proved that the sum so voted had never come to their hands, and had been newly appropriated by a later Act of Parliament. A RULE nisi was obtained in this term for a mandamus, calling upon the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury to issue a Treasury minute or authority to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the treasurer of the navy, or other proper officer, directing and authorising him or them to pay, or cause to be paid, to Robert Hand the arrears of his pension or retired allowance of 240l. per annum, from the 25th of December, 1832, to the 25th of March, 1836, as granted to him by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. By Mr. Hand's affidavit, it appeared that the office of sealer to the Great Seal was granted to him, subject to an existing life estate, by the Lord Chancellor, in 1801, and confirmed to him by patent, to be exercised by himself or by deputy, for his life; and that he entered upon the office, and into the receipt of the fees and emoluments, in 1810. In 1805, before the date of the patent, he was appointed clerk in the Navy Pay Office, an employment which required his constant attendance. The affidavit then mentioned the passing of stat. 3 Geo. IV. c. 113, "to amend an Act passed in the fiftieth year of his late Majesty, for directing that accounts of increase and diminution of public salaries, pensions and allowances should be annually laid before *Parliament, and for regulating and controlling the granting and paying such salaries, pensions and allowances;" and it set out sect. 1 of the Act, regulating the future amount of superannuation allowances, and several other sections (sects. 2 to 7. and sects. 10, 12, and 15), fixing the amount, &c., of such allowances, and establishing a fund for paying them, by contributions and deductions from salaries. The Navy Pay Office was one of the departments included (by schedule) in these provisions. The affidavit also referred to sects. 1 and 3 of stat. 5 Geo. IV. c. 104, which repealed the former enactments as to contribution from salaries, and directed that all contributions and deductions made. under the previous Act should be refunded. None, however, had been made from Hand's salary. In August, 1832, the Lords of the Admiralty, having determined on placing several clerks of the Navy Pay Office, and among them Mr. Hand, on superannuation allowances, gave him notice that, in consequence of the consolidation of the civil departments of the navy, and the abolition of his office, his services were no longer required, and they had granted him "a pension of 240l. per annum." Hand ceased to be a clerk from the date of the notice. His full salary, till that time, was 400l. a year. In the navy estimates, laid before Parliament the next year (ordered to be printed, February, 1833), the pension granted to Hand was inserted under the head "Civil Pensions and Allowances," among "Pensions granted on Reduction of Office." It was stated as follows: : REX ľ. LORDS OF TREASURY. In re HAND. "Robert Hand, clerk. Served Years. Pension. £240.' By an Appropriation Act, 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 96, passed August 29th, 1833, it was enacted, in sect. 10 (which, *with others of the same Act, was referred to in the affidavit), that out of the supplies granted to his Majesty in the then session of Parliament there should be issued and applied any sum or sums money, not exceeding 220,3427., to defray the charge of civil pensions and allowances which should come in course of payment during the year ending March 31st, 1834. And, by sect. 20, that the supplies provided (as in the Act before mentioned), "shall not be issued and applied to any use, intent, or purpose whatsoever other than the uses, intents, and purposes before mentioned, or for the other payments directed to be satisfied thereout by any Act or Acts, or any particular clause or clauses for that purpose contained in any other Act or Acts of this session of Parliament." Hand received the pension from the time of his retiring from the Navy Pay Office till the discontinuance of the pension as after stated. By stat. 1 & 2 Will. IV. c. 56 (1) ("to establish a Court in Bankruptcy"), the Lords of the Treasury were enabled (sect. 53) to grant compensation to certain officers of the Lord Chancellor and of the Court of Chancery, whose fees would be abolished by the operation of the Act. The office of sealer to the Great Seal, which Hand held then and at the time of the present application, Was among those included in this enactment; and, in pursuance (1) Repealed 32 & 33 Vict. c. 83, s. 20. [ *986 ] REX V. LORDS OF of it, the Lords of the Treasury, by a minute of January 24th, 1833, awarded to Hand 4491. per annum so long as he should TREASURY. Continue in office, the said annuity or compensation to commence from January 11th, 1832. In re HAND. [ *987 ] [ *988 ] In March, 1833, Hand received a letter, addressed to him by direction of the Lords of the Treasury, wherein, after noticing the last-mentioned grant, they stated that, adverting to the fact of his holding the said office of *sealer, amounting in emolument to 700l. per annum, they had thought proper to direct the Lords of the Admiralty to discontinue the annual payment of 2401. per annum made to him from the Navy Pay Office. From the date of that letter, Hand received no further payment on account of the last-mentioned annuity; and he now stated that he was informed, and believed, "that from time to time sufficient sums of money have been voted by Parliament to, and received by, Government, to be appropriated for the payment of civil pensions. granted by the authority of the Government, out of which they could provide for and pay to him, this deponent, the arrears" of the last-mentioned annuity, "without prejudice to the other demands on the public service." And that the pension of 449. was granted for life without qualification, and solely as a compensation for the fees of which Hand was deprived by the establishment of the Court of Review. On the 2nd of December, 1835, Hand presented a memorial to the Lords of the Treasury, praying that they would reconsider his claim, and order the arrears of his pension to be paid, and the payments continued for the future, or that they would refer the case to the law officers of the Crown. The answer was, that it did not rest with the Treasury Board to direct compliance with the prayer of the memorial for payment of the pension. Hand afterwards presented a memorial to the Lords of the Admiralty. stating the above facts, and ending with a similar prayer to the above. The answer was, that the Lords of the Admiralty did not admit the claim, and had no funds in their possession which they could legally apply to meet it. In opposition to the rule, Mr. Briggs, Accountant-General *of the Navy, deposed that it was part of his duty to prepare, for the purpose of being laid before Parliament, the estimates of monies |