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457 RESPONSIBILITY OF THE STATE IN ENGLAND 457 fully at a court-martial; ^^ in none of these cases will a petition lie. The Crown may ask for volunteers and form them into regiments; but the regimental funds are Crown funds and the col- onel's errors do not render them liable.^^ Nor are these the hard- est cases. Arrears of pay due to naval and military officers cannot be recovered ; ^ an alteration in the establishment may place an army surgeon upon the half-pay list without claim of compensa- tion; ^ both here and in the imreported case of Ryan v. RJ'^ no inability in the petitioner was suggested. They are servants of the Crown, and the Crown has the general right to dismiss any member of the military establishment without compensation of any kind.^® Not, indeed, that this power is limited to a field where a special case for expediency might perhaps be made out. The Superannuation Act ^^ expressly reserves to the Treasury and the various government departments their power to dismiss any public servant without liability of any kind. Except where an- cient office is concerned,^^ there is no such thing as wrongful dis- missal from the service of the Crown,^^ and even where there is statutory provision against dismissal, the royal prerogative to abolish the office remains.^" It is, clearly, impossible to make a contract that will bind the Crown against its will; ^^ and as in the case of the French fonctionnaires, the Civil Service is left to its collective strength if it is to protect itself against the spider's web of public policy .^^ III The protection taken to the Crown has not, in general, been extended to public officers. "With us," says Professor Dicey ,^ « Smith V. L. A. 25 R. 112 (1897). ^ Wilson V. ist Edinburgh City Royal Garrison Artillery, [1904] 7 F. 168. ''Gibson v. East India Co., 5 Bing. (N. C.) 262 (1839); Gidley v. Palmerston, 3 Ba. & B. 275 (1822). w In re TufneU, 3 Ch. D. 164 (1876). " Robertson, Civil Proceedings against the Crown, 357. " Grant v. Secretary of State for India in Council, 2 C. P. D. 445 (1877). " 4 & S Well. IV, c. 24, § 30. " On which see Slingsby's Case, 3 Swanst. 178 (1680). " Shenton v. Smith, [1895] A. C. 229. •» Young V. WaUer, [1898] A. C. 661. " Dunn ;;. Regina, i Q. B. 116. •* Cf. my Authority in the Modern State, Chap. V. " Law of the Constitution, 8 ed., 189.