17,5071.; import duties, 8834l.; wines and spirit duty, 14951.; tonnage duty, 39301.; export duties, 13,7451.; fees of public offices, 41827.; spirit licences, 32001. The civil, judicial, ecclesiastical, and police establishments cost 33,8941. Other West India Islands.—It is not necessary to give details of the revenue and expenditure of each island. The revenue is principally derived from customs' duties, licences, export duties on island produce, direct taxes, licences, and some other sources; and it is expended in defraying the cost of civil establishments, improvement of roads, and for churches, schools, &c. &c. Mauritius. Revenue of Customs: Imports, 53,968/.; exports, 37,9021.; port collections, 14,3127.; direct taxes, 52697.; licences, 35,1361.; registration fees, 33,1627.; stamps, 52401.; canteens, 9070l. Expenditure:-Civil List, 26,000l.; judicial, 32,0507.; ecclesiastical, 32731. The mother-country does not levy taxes or duties in any colony except for their use; but the colonies do not usually defray all the cost of their own establishments, and the sum of about 400,000l. a-year is annually voted by parliament for colonial establishments. The colonial revenues are expended in salaries, and in maintaining establishments which are often not only expensive, but sometimes nearly useless. The charges of collecting colonial revenues are frequently greater than the produce of the revenue. The sum of 166,0671. of the public money was voted by Parliament in 1838 for religious establishments in the colonies: of this sum 134,450l. was for the established church; church of Scotland 99671.; Roman Catholic church 14,7631.; Dutch church 68861.; besides 21751. to Jews, Baptists, and Wesleyans for religious purposes. But it is the drain upon the military resources of the mother-country which render the British colonies so heavy a burden. From 1839 to 1843 inclusive, the charges incurred on account of Canada in respect of the army, navy, ordnance, and commissariat, was 5,532,9571. (Parl. Paper, 304 Sess. 1844.) COMBINATION LAWS. The laws known by this name were repealed in 1824. Till then any combination of any two or more masters, or of any two or more workmen, to lower or raise wages, or to increase or diminish the number of hours of work, or quantity of work to be done, was punishable at common law as a misdemeanor: and there were also thirty-five statutes in existence, most of them applying to particular trades, prohibiting combinations of workmen against masters. The act passed in 1824 (5 Geo. IV. c. 95) repealed all the statute and common law against combinations of masters and of workmen, provided a sum→ mary mode of conviction, and a punishment not exceeding two months' imprisonment for violent interference with workmen or masters, and for combinations for violent interference; and contained a proviso with regard to combinations for violent interference, that no law in force with regard to them should be altered or affected by the act. But all the common law against combinations being repealed by the act, this proviso was considered as of no force; and the act also went beyond the intentions of the framers in legalizing combinations unattended with violence for the purpose of controlling masters in the mode of carrying on their trades and manufactures, as well as peaceable combinations to procure advance of wages or reduction of hours of work. The act was passed after an inquiry into the subject by a committee presided over by Mr. Hume, which reported to the house the following among other resolutions: "That the masters have often united and combined to lower the rates of their workmen's wages, as well as to resist a demand for an increase, and to regulate their hours of working, and sometimes to discharge their workmen who would not consent to the conditions offered to them; which have been followed by suspension of work, riotous proceedings, and acts of violence. "That prosecutions have frequently been carried on under the statute and the common law against the workmen, and many of them have suffered different periods of imprisonment for combining and conspiring to raise their wages, or to resist their reduction, and to regulate their hours of working. "That several instances have been stated to the committee of prosecutions | lence or threats to make a workman leave against masters for combining to lower his hiring, or return work unfinished, or wages, and to regulate the hours of work- refuse to accept work, or belong to any ing; but no instance has been adduced of club, or contribute to any common fund, any master having been punished for that or pay any fine for not belonging to a club, offence. or contributing to a common fund, or refusing to conform to any rules made for advance of wages or lessening of the hours of work, or regulations of the mode of carrying on any business, and for any one using violence to make any master alter his mode of carrying on his business. "That it is the opinion of this committee that masters and workmen should be freed from such restrictions as regard the rate of wages and the hours of working, and be left at perfect liberty to make such agreements as they may mutually think proper. "That therefore the statute laws which interfere in these particulars between masters and workmen should be repealed; and also that the common law, under which a peaceable meeting of masters or workmen may be prosecuted as a conspiracy, should be altered." Immediately after the passing of this act a number of widely organized and formidable combinations arose in various trades and manufactures for the purpose of controlling the masters as to the way in which they should conduct their business; and the extent to which the act had repealed the common law being doubtful, and the act having clearly gone beyond the resolutions on which it was grounded in legalizing combinations, Mr. Huskisson, then President of the Board of Trade, moved early in the session of 1825 for a committee to consider the effects of the act 5 Geo. IV. c. 95; and a committee was appointed with Mr. (afterwards Lord) Wallace, then VicePresident of the Board of Trade, for its chairman. This committee recommended the repeal of the act of the previous session, and the enactment of another; and in consequence of their recommendation the 6 Geo. IV. c. 129, was passed, which is the act now in force relative to combinations. By the act 6 Geo. IV. c. 129, therefore, combinations of masters and workmen to settle as to rate of wages and hours of labour are made legal and freed from all punishment; but the common law remains as it was as to combinations for otherwise controlling masters. By 9 Geo. IV. c. 31, assaults in pursuance of a combination to raise the rate of wages are made punishable by imprisonment and hard labour. A committee of the House of Commons sat in 1838, presided over by Sir Henry Parnell, to consider the effect of combinations of workmen; but nothing followed from this committee. COMMANDER. [CAPTAIN.] COMMANDERY, a species of benefice attached to certain foreign military Orders, usually conferred on knights who had done them some especial service. According to Furetière, these Commanderies were of different kinds and degrees, as the statutes of the different orders directed. The name of Commandery in the Order of St. Louis was given to the pension which the King of France formerly assigned to twenty-four commanders of that order, of whom eight received 4000, and sixteen 3000 livres each. The Order of Malta had commanderies of justice, which a knight obtained from long standing; and others of favour, of which the grand master had the power of disposal. This act repealed the 5 Geo. IV. c. 95, and all the statutes which that act had repealed. It relieved from all prosecution In England, commanderies were the and punishment persons meeting solely to same amongst the Knights Hospitallers consult upon rate of wages or hours of as preceptories had been among the work, or entering into any agreement, Knights Templars: they were societies verbal or written, on these points. And of those knights placed upon some of it provided a punishment of not more than their estates in the country under the three months' imprisonment, with or with-government of a commander, who were out hard labour, for any one using vio- | allowed proper maintenance out of the COMMISSARY. [ 572 ] revenues under their care, and accounted | ing executors to persons deceased, a function resembling the granting of letters of administration in England. By 4 Geo. IV. c. 97, the functions of the provincial commissaries were vested in the sheriffs of the respective counties, who, before the passing of that act, were usually appointed the commissaries of their By 11 Geo. IV. 1 Wm. IV. districts. c. 69, the jurisdiction of the commissaries of Edinburgh, as above, was vested in the Court of Session. for the remainder to the grand prior at COMMENDAM. [BENEFICE, p. 350.] COMMISSARY, an officer who is delegated by a bishop to act in a particular part of the diocese, to exercise jurisdiction similar in kind to that exercised by the chancellor of the diocese in the consistory court of the diocese. A commissary has, generally speaking, the authority of official principal and vicargeneral within his limits. An appeal lies from his decisions to the metropolitan. In some dioceses there is a commissary court for each archdeaconry. The commissarial courts were established for the convenience of the people in parts of the diocese remote from the consistory court. A commissary must be learned in the civil and ecclesiastical law, a master of arts or bachelor of law, not under the age of twenty-six, and he must subscribe the Thirty-nine articles (Canon 127). In Scotland the same classes of questions which in other parts of Europe were arrogated to the ecclesiastical judicatories came under the authority of the bishop's courts while the episcopal polity continued, and subsequently devolved on special judges, who were called commissaries. The four commissaries of Edinburgh constituted the Supreme Commissary Court, which had jurisdiction in questions of divorce, and of declarations of the existence or non-existence of marriage. The district commissaries had the administrative authority of confirm A com COMMISSION. This word appears to be used generally to express the instrument by which authority is delegated by one person to another; and it is particularly used to express the instrument by which the crown gives authority to a person or persons to do any act. mission, then, is a warrant or letter patent by which a person is empowered, or persons are empowered, to do any act, either ordinary or extraordinary. Some commissions in England issue from the king under the Great Seal, and others are only signed by the king. There was formerly a High Commission Court, but it was abolished by 16 Charles I. c. 11, and 13 Charles II. c. 2. An enumeration of some of the principal kinds of commissions will show the nature of the power thereby given, and the objects of it : Commissions of Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery. [ASSIZE.] Commission of Lunacy. [LUNACY.] Commission of the Peace. [JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.] Commissions, Naval and Military, and others. [COMMISSIONS, MILITARY.] COMMISSION. [AGENT; BROKER; FACTOR.] COMMISSION ECCLESIASTICAL. [ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION.] COMMISSION, in military affairs, is the document by which an officer is authorized to perform duty for the service of the state. In England in former times the regular mode of assembling an army, either to resist an invading enemy, or to accompany the king on a foreign expedition, was by sending a royal command to the chief barons and the spiritual lords, that they should meet at a given time and In the French service, between the reigns of Francis I. and Louis XIV., we find that the kings reserved to themselves the nomination of the principal commanders only of the legions or regiments, and that the commanders were permitted to grant commissions under their own signature and seal to the subordinate officers, who were charged with the duty of raising the troops and instructing them in the use of arms. place with their due proportion of men, | recommended for commissions by the horses, &c. properly equipped, according captains of the companies. to the tenure by which they held their estates; and these tenants in capite appear to have appointed by their own authority all their subordinate officers. But commissions were granted by the kings to individuals, authorizing them to raise men for particular services; thus, in 1442, Henry VI. gave one to the governor of Mantes, by which he was appointed to maintain 50 horsemen, 20 men-at-arms on foot, and 210 archers, for the defence of that city. According to Père Daniel, the commission was written on parchment, and, that it might not be counterfeited, the piece was divided, by cutting it irregularly, into two portions, of which doubtless each party retained one. Commissions of array, as they were called, were also issued by the king in England, probably from the time of Alfred, for the purpose of mustering and training the inhabitants of the counties in military discipline; and in the reign of Edward III. the parliament enacted that no person trained under these commismissions should be compelled to serve out of his own county except the kingdom were invaded. Of the same nature as these commissions of array was that which, in 1572, when the county was threatened with the Spanish invasion, Queen Elizabeth issued to the justices of the peace in the different counties, authorizing them to muster and train persons to serve during the war. Those magistrates were directed to make choice of officers to command bodies of 100 men and upwards; and such officers, with the consent of the magistrates, were to appoint their own lieutenants. This privilege of granting commissions to the officers of the national militia continued to be exercised by the lord-lieutenants of counties, the king having the power of confirming or annulling the appointments; and it was made law in the reign of Charles II. The militia has been disembodied for several years; but commissions in the yeomanry cavalry, a force which is still kept up in England, are granted by the lord-lieutenants. It appears, however, that before the Revolution, the lieutenants and ensigns were In the British regular army all the commissions of officers are signed by the king. The several commissions in the navy are a sort of warrant, and are signed by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty; but the documents are called commissions, and they are signed in the name of the king. In the navy, in the regiment of artillery, and in the corps of engineers and marines, the commissions are conferred without purchase; and to a certain extent this is the case with the commissions granted to officers of the line. Those cadets who have completed a course of military education in the Royal College at Sandhurst are so appointed. In other cases, gentlemen obtain leave to enter the army by the purchase of an ensigncy, the prices of which, in the different classes of troops, are regulated by authority; and they proceed to the higher grades on paying the difference between the price of the grade which they quit and of that which they enter. The commissioned officers of a battalion of infantry are as follow: Fieldofficers-colonel, lieutenant-colonel, and major. Regimental officers-captains, lieutenants, and ensigns. Staff-officerschaplain, adjutant, quartermaster, and surgeon. The prices of commissions in the British army are as follows:-Life Guardslieutenant-colonel, 7250l.; major, 5350l.; captain, 3500l.; lieutenant, 17851.; cornet, 12601. Royal Regiment of Horse Guards-lieutenant-colonel, 72501.; major, 53501.; captain, 3500l.; lieutenant, 1600.; cornet, 12007. Dragoon Guards and Dragoons lieutenant-colonel, 6175.; major, 4575l.; captain, 32257.; lieutenant, 11907.; cornet, 8404. Foot Guards-lieutenant-colonel, 9000l.; major, with rank of colonel, 8300l.; captain, with rank of lieutenant-colonel, 4800l.; lieutenant, with rank of captain, 20507.; ensign, with rank of lieutenant, 12007. Regiments of the Line-lieutenant-colonel, 4500l.; major, 32007.; captain, 18007.; lieutenant, 700l.; ensign, 450l. Fusilier and Rifle regiments-1st lieutenant, 7007.; 2nd lieutenant, 500l. Commissions in the military service of the East India Company are given by the Court of Directors. In the British colonies where a militia is kept on foot commissions are given in it by the governor as captain-general. In the National Guards of France the officers are selected by their comrades. COMMISSIONERS, LORDS. [ADMIRAL; ASSENT, ROYAL; PARLIAMENT.] COMMISSIONERS OF BANK RUPTS. [BANKRUPT.] COMMISSIONERS OF [LUNACY.] COMMISSIONERS OF SEWERS. [SEWERS.] the Convention gained the victory, by means of the armed multitudes of Paris, over their fellow-deputies of the Gironde party, who wished to govern the republic according to legal forms, and when the leaders of the Girondins were sent to prison and to the scaffold. From that time Robespierre and his friends monopolized all the power of the Committee of Public Safety. By a decree of the Convention, 4th of December, 1793, the committee had the power of appointing and removing all the administrative authorities, all the agents and commissioners sent to the departments and to the various armies, and the agents sent to foreign countries. They were to watch and direct public opinion, and denounce all suspected persons. By another decree, of 28th July, 1793, the committee was invested with the power of issuing warrants of arrest. There was another comLUNACY.mittee, called de Sureté Générale, which has been sometimes confounded with the Committee of Public Safety, but was subordinate to it, and concerned itself with the internal police and judicial affairs. "The Committee of Public Safety," says a witness and a member of the Convention, "did not manifest its ambition at the outset; it was useful at first. But that prudent conduct ceased after the revolt of the 31st of May, when the Convention, its several committees, and especially that of General Security, fell under the yoke of the Committee of Public Safety, which acted the part of the Council of Ten and of the three inquisitors of the Venetian government. Its power was monstrous, because it was in a manner concealed-because it veiled its acts amidst the multitude of other committees-because, by renewing itself perpetually from among men of the same stamp, it took away the responsibility from its members, although its measures were ever the same. The committee concentrated itself at last in three of its members: Robespierre, who was the real chief, though half-concealed from view, and Couthon and St. Just. There was perfect unanimity among these three down to the moment of their fall; in proportion as the Mountain itself became divided, and its chiefs perished on the COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY, Comité de Salut Publique, the name given to a committee of members of the National Convention, who exercised a dictatorial power in France for about fifteen months, which is known by the name of the Reign of Terror. The National Convention having abolished the royal authority at the end of 1792, and proclaimed the republic, found themselves invested with the whole sovereign power. They delegated the executive part of it to several committees or departments of government, and placed a Committee of Public Safety over all. This committee consisted of ten members of the Convention, appointed for three months, but re-eligible indefinitely: they were commonly called the decemvirs. Their business was to watch over the conduct of the public authorities, and to promote the cause of the revolution. By degrees their powers attained a most extensive range; all the constituted authorities and public functionaries, civil and military, were placed under their immediate inspection. This was after the successful insurrection on the 31st of May, 1793, when the Mountain or terrorist party in |