one of a score of other important conventions of the constitution.[190] Under the act of 1876 it is within the competence of the law lords to sit and to pronounce judgments in the name of the House at any time, regardless of whether Parliament is in session.[191] A sitting of the Court is, technically, a sitting of the Lords, and all actions (p. 132) taken are entered in the Journal of the House as a part of its proceedings.[192] [Footnote 190: Lowell, Government of England, II., 465.] [Footnote 191: When Parliament is in session the sittings of the law lords are held, as a rule, prior to the beginning of the regular sitting at 4.30 p.m.] [Footnote 192: The judicial functions of Parliament are described at some length in Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, I., Chap. 9. The principal work on the subject is C. H. McIlwain, The High Court of Parliament and its Supremacy (New Haven, 1910). On the House of Lords as a court see MacDonaugh, The Book of Parliament, 300-309; A. T. Carter, History of English Legal Institutions (London, 1902), 96-109; and W. S. Holdsworth, History of English Law, I., 170-193.] *138. Control of Legislation and Finance.*--The principal and altogether most indispensable ends which Parliament to-day subserves are those of legislation and of financial control. Many of the measures, important and unimportant, under which the affairs of the realm are regulated are but temporary and require annual re-enactment, and the volume of fresh legislation which is unceasingly demanded is all but limitless. Similarly, to employ the words of Anson, the revenues which accrue to the crown and can be dealt with independently of Parliament would hardly carry on the business of government for a day,[193] and not only does Parliament (in effect, the House of Commons) by its appropriation acts make possible the legal expenditure of virtually all public moneys; it provides, by its measures of taxation, the funds from which appropriations are made. [Footnote 193: Law and Custom of the Constitution, I., 52.] VI. GENERAL ASPECTS OF PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE