I do not think any one will deny that the Cabinet has in a large degree
lost these four features which we have laid down as requisite for full
efficiency. The process has been going on for a long time, but during
the last six years it has been accelerated so greatly that the Cabinet
of to-day is almost unrecognisably different from what it was fifty
years ago. To begin with, it has grown enormously in size, owing to the
increase in the number of departments of government. This growth has
markedly diminished the sense of responsibility for national policy as a
whole felt by the individual members, and the wholesome practice of
resignation has gone out of fashion. It has led to frequent failures in
the co-ordination of the various departments, which are often seen
working at cross purposes. It has brought about a new formality in the
proceedings of the Cabinet, in the establishment of a Cabinet
Secretariat.
The lack of an efficient joint Cabinet control has encouraged a very
marked and unhealthy increase in the personal authority of the Prime
Minister and of the clique of more intimate colleagues by whom he is
surrounded; and this is strengthened by the working of the new
Secretariat. All these unhealthy features have been intensified by the
combination of the two strongest parties in Parliament to form a
coalition; for this has deprived the Cabinet of homogeneity and made it
the scene not of the definition of a policy guided by clear principles,
but rather the scene of incessant argument, bargaining, and compromise
on fundamentals. Finally, the responsibility of the Cabinet to
Parliament has been gravely weakened; it acts as the master of
Parliament, not as its agent, and its efficiency suffers from the fact
that its members are able to take their responsibility to Parliament
very lightly.
All these defects in the working of the Cabinet system have been much
more marked since the war than at any earlier time. But the two chief
among them--lessened coherence due to unwieldiness of size, and
diminished responsibility to Parliament--were already becoming apparent
during the generation before the war. On the question of responsibility
to Parliament we shall have something to say later. But it is worth
while to ask whether there is any means whereby the old coherence,
intimacy and community of responsibility can be restored. If it cannot
be restored, the Cabinet system, as we have known it, is doomed. I do
not think that it can be restored unless the size of the Cabinet can be
greatly reduced, without excluding from its deliberations a responsible
spokesman for each department of government.
But this will only be possible if a considerable regrouping of the great
departments can be effected. I do not think that such a regrouping is
impracticable. Indeed, it is for many reasons desirable. If it were
carried out, a Cabinet might consist of the following members, who would
among them be in contact with the whole range of governmental activity.
There would be the Prime Minister; there would be the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, responsible for national finance; there would be the Minister
for Foreign Affairs; there would be a Minister for Imperial Affairs,
speaking for a sub-Cabinet which would include Secretaries for the
Dominions, for India, and for the Crown Colonies and Protectorates;
there would be a Minister of Defence, with a sub-Cabinet including
Ministers of the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force; there would be a
Minister for Justice and Police, performing most of the functions both
of the Home Office and of the Lord Chancellor, who would cease to be a
political officer and be able to devote himself to his judicial
functions; there would be a Minister of Agriculture, Industry, and
Commerce, with a sub-Cabinet representing the Board of Trade, the Board
of Agriculture, the Ministry of Mines, the Ministry of Labour, and
perhaps other departments.
Ministers of Public Health and of Education would complete the list of
active administrative chiefs; but one or two additional members, not
burdened with the charge of a great department might be added, such as
the Lord President of the Council, and one of these might very properly
be a standing representative upon the Council of the League of Nations.
The heads of productive trading departments--the Post Office and the
Public Works Department--should, I suggest, be excluded from the
Cabinet, and their departments should be separately organised in such a
way as not to involve a change of personnel when one party succeeded
another in power. These departments have no direct concern with the
determination of national policy.
On such a scheme we should have a Cabinet of nine or ten members,
representing among them all the departments which are concerned with
regulative or purely governmental work. And I suggest that a
rearrangement of this kind would not only restore efficiency to the
Cabinet, but would lead to very great administrative reforms, better
co-ordination between closely related departments, and in many respects
economy. But valuable as such changes may be, they would not in
themselves be sufficient to restore complete health to our governmental
system. In the last resort this depends upon the organisation of an
efficient and unresting system of criticism and control.