In addition to its control over the application of the sums voted by Parliament, and its authority to permit the use of appropriations for purposes not contemplated in the estimates, the Treasury has a limited power to open the national purse in case of necessity when no grant has been made by Parliament. For this purpose it has three sources of supply at its disposal: the Treasury Chest Fund, limited to £1,000,000, may be used to make temporary advances for carrying on the public service, to be repaid out of sums afterwards appropriated; the Civil Contingencies Fund, limited to £120,000, is available on similar terms for unforeseen contingencies and deficiencies; and, finally, any incidental receipts, not granted by Parliament as appropriations in aid, may be used as such under the authority of a Treasury minute to be laid before the Houses.[126:5] [Sidenote: The Organisation of the Treasury.] In the remarks on the history of the Treasury Board, at the beginning of the last chapter, it was pointed out that the board no longer meets. The Treasury minutes are still drawn up in the name of "My Lords," but this is merely the survival of a form, and all the members of the board, except the Chancellor of the Exchequer, have ceased to take part in directing the financial administration. The three junior lords have at times some small departmental duties, but their real functions are to act as assistants to the Parliamentary or Patronage Secretary, who is the chief government whip in the House of Commons. All the four whips receive salaries from the state on the theory that it is their duty to keep a House, or in other words to insure the presence of a quorum, while the supplies are being voted. But in fact they are officers, not of the state, but of the party in power, and it is their business to see that whenever a vote is taken in which the ministry is interested, their partisans are present in greater force than those of the Opposition. The relation of the First Lord to the Treasury is anomalous. He is usually the Prime Minister, and as such is supposed to keep a general supervision upon all branches of the administration, and to act as a sort of umpire between the different ministers, and, therefore, between the Treasury and the other departments. But whether he is Prime Minister or not he has a real connection with the Treasury. The functions of that office cover a much wider field than its name would imply, including subjects of a most miscellaneous character; and while the finances are entirely under the charge of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,--who is, in fact, the Minister of Finance, with the Financial Secretary of the Treasury as his parliamentary under-secretary,--the First Lord may be said, speaking very roughly, to be at the head of the outlying departments which are not concerned with financial affairs. [Sidenote: The Subordinate Departments.]