[40:2] Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," II., 415 _et seq._
[40:3] English Const., 1 Ed., 103.
[41:1] Gladstone, "Gleanings of Past Years," I., 85.
[41:2] Morley, "Life of Walpole," 155.
[41:3] This was in 1880. Lee, "Life of Queen Victoria," 451.
[42:1] "Gleanings of Past Years," I., 86, 87.
[42:2] For the same reason the President of the Board of Control
objected in 1842, when Lord Ellenborough, the Governor General of India,
took upon himself to write directly to the Queen, a proceeding which
would undoubtedly not be permitted to-day. Parker, "Life of Sir Robert
Peel," II., 591.
In 1885 Lord Randolph Churchill tendered his resignation as Secretary of
State for India, because the Prime Minister, without consulting him, had
transmitted to the Viceroy a suggestion by the Queen that one of her
sons should be appointed to the command of the forces in Bombay. The
appointment was not made, and Lord Randolph withdrew his resignation.
Winston Churchill, "Life of Lord Randolph Churchill," I., 503-13.
[43:1] _Cf._ Dicey, "Law of the Constitution," 5 Ed., 392.
[43:2] _Cf._ Parker, "Life of Sir Robert Peel," I., 334.
[44:1] I., 42.
[44:2] Lee, "Life of Queen Victoria," 133, 295, 387, and see page 39,
note 2, _supra_.
[45:1] Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 267 _et seq._ Davidson and
Benham, "Life of Archbishop Tait," 2 Ed., II., 20-27, 35-36, 40-42.
[45:2] Lee, "Life of Queen Victoria," 266, 302.
[45:3] 33-34 Vic., c. 17. Order in Council, June 4, 1870.
[45:4] _Cf._ Lee, "Life of Queen Victoria," 299, 336, 349.
[46:1] Morley, "Life of Walpole," 159. But see Morley, "Life of
Gladstone," I., 415.
[46:2] Pp. 544-45.
[46:3] "Croker Papers," II., 317. A couple of years earlier Peel had
dreaded the advent of a ministry that might appear to be dictated to the
King by the House of Commons, and continue in office independently of
his will and control. Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," II., 302. No statesman
would repeat either of these remarks to-day.
[46:4] In Prince Albert's letter to his daughter, the Crown Princess of
Prussia, on the advantages of a responsible ministry, he speaks of the
power of the monarch to settle the principles on which political action
is to be based, in terms not applicable in England. Martin, "Life of the
Prince Consort," IV., 218.
[48:1] "Life of Victoria," Pref., vii-viii.
[51:1] _The Times_, Sept. 17, 1903.
[52:1] Hans., 4 Ser. XCIV., 1500. The Civil List of Edward VII. was
fixed at his accession at 543,000_l._, to which must be added about
60,000_l._ of revenues from the Duchy of Lancaster, and also the
revenues from the Duchy of Cornwall which go to the heir apparent as
Duke of Cornwall. Rep. Com. on Civil List, Com. Papers, 1901, V., 607.
CHAPTER III
THE CABINET AND THE MINISTERS
[Sidenote: Absence of Fixed Traditions.]
A German professor in a lecture on anatomy is reported to have said to
his class, "Gentlemen, we now come to the spleen. About the functions of
the spleen, gentlemen, we know nothing. So much for the spleen." It is
with such feelings that one enters upon the task of writing a chapter
upon the cabinet; although that body has become more and more, decade by
decade, the motive power of all political action. The fact is that the
cabinet from its very nature can hardly have fixed traditions. In the
first place, it has no legal status as an organ of government, but is an
informal body, unknown to the law, whose business is to bring about a
cooperation among the different forces of the state without interfering
with their legal independence. Its action must, therefore, be of an
informal character. Then it meets in secret, and no records of its
proceedings are kept, which would in itself make very difficult the
establishment and preservation of a tradition. This could, indeed,
happen only in case of a certain permanence among the members who could
learn and transmit its practice. But a new cabinet contains under
ordinary circumstances none of the members of its predecessor. A
Conservative minister knows nothing of the procedure under Liberal
administrations; and we find even a man of the experience of Sir Robert
Peel asking Sir James Graham about the practice of a Liberal cabinet, of
which that statesman--who at this time changed his party every
decade--had formerly been a member.[53:1] No doubt the mode of
transacting business varies a good deal from one cabinet to another,
depending to a great extent upon the personal qualities of the members.
Still, the real nature of the work to be done, and hence the method of
doing it, have changed during the last half century less in the case of
the cabinet than of any of the other political organs of the state, and
one can observe certain general characteristics that may be noted.
[Sidenote: Nature of the Cabinet.]
The conventions of the constitution have limited and regulated the
exercise of all legal powers by the regular organs of the state in such
a way as to vest the main authority of the central government--the
driving and the steering force--in the hands of a body entirely unknown
to the law. The members of the cabinet are now always the holders of
public offices created by law; but their possession of those offices by
no means determines their activity as members of the cabinet. They have,
indeed, two functions. Individually, as officials, they do the executive
work of the state and administer its departments; collectively they
direct the general policy of the government, and this they do
irrespective of their individual authority as officials. Their several
administrative duties, and their collective functions are quite
distinct; and may, in the case of a particular person, have little or no
connection. The Lord Privy Seal, for example, has no administrative
duties whatever; and it is conceivable that the work of other members
might not come before the cabinet during the whole life of the ministry.
[Sidenote: Functions of the Cabinet.]
The essential function of the cabinet is to coordinate and guide the
political action of the different branches of the government, and thus
create a consistent policy. Bagehot called it a hyphen that joins, a
buckle that fastens, the executive and legislative together; and in
another place he speaks of it as a committee of Parliament chosen to
rule the nation. More strictly, it is a committee of the party that has
a majority in the House of Commons. The minority are not represented
upon it; and in this it differs from every other parliamentary
committee. The distinction is so obvious to us to-day, we are so
accustomed to government by party wherever popular institutions
prevail, that we are apt to forget the importance of the fact. Party
government as a system has developed comparatively recently; but it has
now become almost universal. The only exception among democratic
countries (that is, the only case where the executive body habitually
contains members of opposing parties) is in Switzerland. Still the
system is carried to a greater extent in some countries than in others;
and the amount of power concentrated in the hands of a single party
leader, or a body of party leaders, varies very much. The President of
the United States, for example, is the representative of a party; but he
rules the nation only in part. The legislature is neither in theory or
in practice under his control; and this is so far true that even when
Congress is of the same party as himself, neither he nor any committee
of the party so controls both executive and legislative that any one
body can be said to rule the nation. But where the parliamentary system
prevails, the cabinet, virtually combining in its own hands, as it does,
the legislative and executive authorities, may fairly be said to rule
the nation; although the degree in which this is true must depend upon
the extent of its real control over the legislature. Now, although the
legal power of the executive government is in some respects less in
England than in most continental countries, the actual control of the
cabinet over the legislature is greater than anywhere else.
The cabinet is selected by the party, not directly, but indirectly, yet
for that very reason represents it the better. Direct election is apt to
mean strife within the party, resulting in a choice that represents the
views of one section as opposed to those of another, or else in a
compromise on colourless persons; while the existing indirect selection
results practically in taking the men, and all the men, who have forced
themselves into the front rank of the party and acquired influence in
Parliament. The minority of the House of Commons is not represented in
the cabinet; but the whole of the majority is now habitually
represented, all the more prominent leaders from every section of the
party being admitted. In its essence, therefore, the cabinet is an
informal but permanent caucus of the parliamentary chiefs of the party
in power--and it must be remembered that the chiefs of the party are all
in Parliament. Its object is to secure the cohesion without which the
party cannot retain a majority in the House of Commons and remain in
power. The machinery is one of wheels within wheels; the outside ring
consisting of the party that has a majority in the House of Commons; the
next ring being the ministry, which contains the men who are most active
within that party; and the smallest of all being the cabinet, containing
the real leaders or chiefs. By this means is secured that unity of party
action which depends upon placing the directing power in the hands of a
body small enough to agree, and influential enough to control. There
have, of course, been times when the majority was not sufficiently
homogeneous to unite in a cabinet; when a ministry of one party has
depended for its majority upon the support of a detached group holding
the balance of power. The Peelites in 1850, the Liberal Unionists in
1886, and the Irish Nationalists in 1892 formed groups of this kind; but
such a condition of things is in its nature temporary and transitional,
and usually gives place to a coalition ministry, followed by party
amalgamation.
[Sidenote: Formation of the Cabinet.]
The statesman sent for by the Crown and intrusted with the formation of
a ministry becomes himself the Prime Minister, and selects his
colleagues. It may be added, also, that he has virtually power to
dismiss a minister; that is, subject to his responsibility to the
cabinet as a whole and to Parliament, he can request the Crown to
dismiss a colleague--a request which the Crown cannot practically
refuse.[56:1] In the selection of the cabinet his choice is, however,
decidedly limited both as to persons and offices. In the first place,
all the men still in active public life who served in the last cabinet
of the party have a claim, a very strong claim, to sit in the new
cabinet, and hence it is unusual to discard a man who is willing to
return to office.[57:1] This in itself fills a goodly number of the
cabinet positions. Then all the prominent leaders in Parliament, and
especially in the House of Commons, must be included. In fact, as Mr.
Bagehot puts it, the Prime Minister's independent choice extends rather
to the division of the cabinet offices than to the choice of cabinet
ministers. Still, he has some latitude in regard to the men whom he will
admit; especially the younger men, who are appointed to offices in the
ministry but not in the cabinet, and this may be a matter of great
moment. One cannot tell, for example, how different the history of
Parliament in the middle of the century might have been had Peel decided
to invite Disraeli to join his ministry in 1841.[57:2] Although the
Prime Minister has by no means a free hand in the selection of his
colleagues, the task is often extremely difficult and vexatious. It is
like that of constructing a figure out of blocks which are too numerous
for the purpose, and which are not of shapes to fit perfectly together;
for with the selection of the members of the cabinet the difficulties
are by no means over. The distribution of the offices among them may
raise additional problems. One man will take only a particular office,
while others may object to serving if he occupies that post. Where
parties are a good deal broken up, or are evenly divided, obstacles like
these have sometimes prevented the formation of a cabinet altogether;
and there is always some disappointment and consequent discontent on the
part of men who thought themselves sufficiently prominent to be
admitted to the ministry, and whose chagrin may drive them into an
independent attitude.
There are, indeed, two ways in which an ambitious young member of the
House of Commons can render his services indispensable to the Prime
Minister. He must, of course, first get the ear of the House, and make
himself a power there. Then he may vote regularly with the party whips,
support the leaders of his party on all occasions, and speak in their
favour whenever he can be of use to them. In that case he is likely to
be regarded as a promising young man of sound principles who can be
relied upon by his chiefs. Or, he may follow the opposite course of the
candid friend, criticising and even attacking the leader of his party,
showing the weak points in his arguments, and the errors in his policy.
In that case, if the young man has achieved so important a position that
he cannot be disregarded, he stands a good chance of being given an
office as a dangerous critic who must be conciliated and attached firmly
to the government. The first of these methods is slower but safer. The
second has sometimes been tried with startling success, notably in the
case of Lord Randolph Churchill; but it has also been tried too
obviously, and without the necessary social or parliamentary influence;
and when it does not succeed it is likely to leave its victim hopelessly
stranded below the gangway.
[Sidenote: Increase in Size.]
The number of members in the cabinet has varied very much at different
times,[58:1] and of late years it has shown a marked tendency to
increase. William Pitt had only six colleagues. A generation ago the
cabinets contained from a dozen to sixteen members; but they have now
run up to eighteen or twenty. There are several reasons for the change.
In the first place, as the sphere of the state activity extends and the
government grows more paternal, the range of affairs that come within
the action of the cabinet is greater; and hence from time to time there
is need of admitting a representative of some fresh department to its
consultations. Then, on the political side, the development of the
parliamentary system has made it necessary for the cabinet to have an
ever stronger and stronger hold upon the House of Commons; and,
therefore, the different shades of feeling in the party that has a
majority in that House must be more and more fully represented in the
cabinet. This alone would tend to increase the number of its members;
but far more important still is the fact that a seat in the cabinet has
become the ambition of all the prominent men in Parliament. Consequently
the desire to be included is very great, and the disappointment
correspondingly acute. For these various reasons there is a constant
pressure to increase the size of the cabinet. The result is not without
its evils. A score of men cannot discuss and agree on a policy with the
same readiness as a dozen. There is more danger of delay when action
must be taken. There is a greater probability of long discussions that
are inconclusive or result in a weak compromise. There is, in short, all
the lack of administrative efficiency which a larger body always
presents; unless, indeed, that body is virtually guided and controlled
by a small number of its own members. That some recent cabinets have
been actually so controlled there can be little doubt; and this must
become more and more the case as the cabinet grows larger, if it is to
retain its great suppleness and strength. One sometimes hears of an
interior junto, or cabinet within the cabinet, that really determines
the policy. This is undoubtedly an exaggeration; a giving of formal
shape to informal conferences among leaders on special questions, which
have always taken place; but it appears not improbable that if the
growth in the size of the cabinet continues, some such interior nucleus
may develop which will bear to the cabinet something of the relation
that the cabinet now bears to the ministry.
[Sidenote: Offices in the Cabinet.]
Certain offices always bring their holders into the cabinet. These are
the positions of First Lord of the Treasury (a post almost invariably
held either by the Prime Minister himself, or by the leader of the
House of Commons if the Prime Minister is a peer and takes some other
office); Lord Chancellor (a great political as well as judicial office);
the great English executive offices, those of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, the five Secretaries of State, and the First Lord of the
Admiralty; and a couple of dignified positions without active
administrative duties, those of President of the Council and the Lord
Privy Seal. Certain other officers have been of late years always in the
cabinet; such are the Presidents of the Board of Trade, the Local
Government Board, and the Board of Education, and the Chief Secretary
for Ireland,--except when his nominal superior, the Lord Lieutenant for
Ireland, is himself a member. On the other hand, the Secretary for
Scotland and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster are usually in the
cabinet; while the President of the Board of Agriculture and the
Postmaster-General are often there; the First Commissioner of Works and
the Lord Chancellor for Ireland occasionally so. The tendency at the
present day is certainly in the direction of including the head of every
considerable branch of the administration.
The counsel of a statesman who was incapacitated for the performance of
steady administrative work, or unwilling to undertake it, was
occasionally secured in former times by giving him a seat in the cabinet
without any office under the Crown. He then became what is known on the
continent as a minister without portfolio. The last case of this kind in
England was that of Lord John Russell in 1854-1856; but the same object
is practically attained to-day by means of the office of Lord Privy
Seal,[60:1] which involves no real administrative duties, and those of
President of the Council,[60:2] and Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster, where the duties are very light.
[Sidenote: The Ministers must have Seats in Parliament.]
As the continental practice whereby ministers are allowed to address
the legislature, whether they have seats in it or not, is unknown in
England, every member of the cabinet, and indeed of the ministry, must
have a seat in one or other House of Parliament;[61:1] the last
exception being that of Mr. Gladstone, who held the office of Secretary
of State for the Colonies during the last few months of Sir Robert
Peel's administration in 1846, although he had failed of reelection to
the House of Commons.[61:2] The reason commonly given for such a
limitation in the selection of ministers is that otherwise they could
not be made responsible to Parliament, where they must be present in
order to answer questions, and give information relating to their
departments. From the standpoint of Parliament this is perfectly true,
but the converse is also true. The head of a department sits in the
House of Commons quite as much in order to control the House, as in
order that the House may control him. In his chapter on "Changes of
Ministry," Bagehot has shown how defenceless against attack any
department is sure to be without a spokesman in Parliament, and he cites
as a forcible illustration the fate of the first Poor Law
Commission.[61:3] All this applies, of course, only to the House of
Commons, for although the presence of ministers in the House of Lords is
a convenience in debate, and an appropriate recognition of the legal
equality of the two chambers, there is no responsibility to be secured
thereby, and it is not the essential means of controlling the action of
the peers.
[Sidenote: The Cabinet System and Administrative Efficiency.]
The men who win places in the ministry have usually, although by no
means invariably, made their mark in debate. It is a strange assumption
that a good talker must be a good administrator, and that a strong
government can be formed by parcelling out the offices among the leading
debaters in the legislative body. At first sight it appears as
irrational as the other corollary of the parliamentary system, that the
public service is promoted by dismissing an excellent foreign minister,
because the House of Commons does not like an unpopular clause in an
education bill. Any one with a sense of humour can point out the
incongruities in any human organisation, whether it works in practice
well or ill. But there is, in fact, reason to expect that a leading
debater will make a good head of a department. Influence is rarely
acquired over a body so permanent as the House of Commons by mere showy
eloquence. Real weight there must be based upon a knowledge of men, and
a power to master facts and grasp the essential points in a situation.
It must be based, in other words, upon the qualities most essential to a
good head of a department in a government where, as in England, the
technical knowledge, the traditions, and the orderly conduct of affairs,
are secured by a corps of highly efficient permanent officials. No doubt
all leading debaters do not make good administrators. Sometimes a
minister is negligent or ineffective, and occasionally he is rash. There
are men, also, who have outlived their usefulness, or who were once
thought very promising, and have not fulfilled their promise, but who
cannot be discarded and must be given a post of more or less importance.
The system works, however, on the whole very well, and supplies to the
government offices a few extraordinary, and many fairly efficient,
chiefs, although it puts some departments under the control of poor
administrators.
The power of creating peers would make it possible to select for the
head of a department a tried administrator altogether outside of the
parliamentary field. Something like this was attempted in the recent
case of Lord Milner, who was offered, on Mr. Chamberlain's resignation,
the post of Secretary of State for the Colonies. Lord Milner was,
indeed, a peer at the time the place was tendered to him, but he had
attended in the House of Lords only to take his seat. He had never
spoken or voted there, and in fact had had no parliamentary career, his
nearest approach to St. Stephens having consisted in standing on one
occasion as a candidate for the House of Commons without success.
Formerly a statesman regularly began his official life as a
parliamentary under-secretary; and he did not become the head of a
department, or win a seat in the cabinet, until he had in this way
served his apprenticeship in public administration--a practice which
furnished both a guarantee of experience and a test of executive
capacity. Of late years there have been a number of exceptions to this
rule. Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Randolph Churchill, Mr. Morley and Mr.
Birrell, for example, were admitted to the cabinet, and put at the head
of great departments without any previous training in the service of the
government. As a rule, however, the old system is likely to prevail,
because it is difficult for a man to make his mark in Parliament unless
he begins his work there very young; and the exceptions occur only in
cases of men of great ability.
[Sidenote: The Need of Unity in the Cabinet.]
In the earlier part of the century, before the party system had
developed as fully as it has to-day, complete unity in the cabinet was
much less necessary than it is now. At that time it was not uncommon to
have matters, sometimes very important ones, treated as open questions
in the cabinet, and a good deal of discussion has taken place upon the
advantages and the evils of such a practice.[63:1] Members of the
cabinet occasionally spoke and voted against government measures,
although a difference carried to that length was always rare. One even
finds colleagues in the ministry standing as opposing candidates at an
election.[63:2] Such occurrences would be impossible to-day, because, as
will appear more fully when we come to treat of the political parties,
parliamentary government in its present highly developed form requires
a very strong cohesion among the members of the majority in the House of
Commons, and, therefore, absolute harmony, or the appearance of harmony,
among their leaders. It is necessary to present a united front to the
Opposition, but if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall
prepare himself for the battle? Any one watching the course of events
during the early summer of 1903 must have observed how rapidly the
process of disintegration went on in the Conservative party while it was
known that the ministers were at odds over the tariff. Party cohesion,
both in the House and in the cabinet, is, indeed, an essential feature
of the parliamentary system; but since men, however united on general
principles, do not by nature think alike in all things, differences of
opinion must constantly arise within the cabinet itself.[64:1] Sometimes
they are pushed so far that they can be settled only by a division or
vote, but this is exceptional, for the object of the members is, if
possible, to agree, not to obtain a majority of voices and override the
rest.[64:2] The work of every cabinet must, therefore, involve a series
of compromises and concessions, the more so because the members
represent the varying shades of opinion comprised in the party in power.
A minister who belongs to one wing of the party may, in fact, be more
nearly in accord with a member of the front Opposition Bench than with
some colleague who stands at the other political pole of opinion, and
yet he will stay in the cabinet unless the measures proposed are such
that he feels conscientiously obliged to resign. So long as he remains
in the government he will attempt to agree with his colleagues, but when
he has finally left them his personal opinions will take full course,
and he may go off at a tangent. In this way the behaviour of an
ex-minister towards his former colleagues, which is sometimes attributed
to rancour, may very well be due to a natural expansion of opinions
which were held in check while he clung to the cabinet.
[Sidenote: Need of Secrecy.]
Men engaged in a common cause who come together for the purpose of
reaching an agreement usually succeed, provided their differences of
opinion are not made public. But without secrecy harmony of views is
well-nigh unattainable; for if the contradictory opinions held by
members of the cabinet were once made public it would be impossible
afterwards to make the concessions necessary to a compromise, without
the loss of public reputation for consistency and force of character.
Moreover a knowledge of the initial divergence of views among the
ministers would vastly increase the difficulty of rallying the whole
party in support of the policy finally adopted, and would offer
vulnerable points to the attacks of the Opposition. Secrecy is,
therefore, an essential part of the parliamentary system, and hence it
is the habit, while making public the fact that a meeting of the cabinet
has taken place, and the names of the members present, to give no
statement of the business transacted. Not only is no official notice of
the proceedings published, but it is no less important that they should
not be in any way divulged. In fact, by a well-recognised custom, it is
highly improper to refer in Parliament, or elsewhere, to what has been
said or done at meetings of the cabinet, although reticence must at
times place certain members in a very uncomfortable position.[65:1]
Occasionally it becomes well-nigh intolerable. This is true where a
cabinet breaks up owing to dissensions over an issue that excites keen
public interest, and in such cases the story of what happened may be
told in a way that would be thought inexcusable under other
circumstances.[66:1]
When we consider the great public interest that attaches to the
decisions of the cabinet, and the great value that premature information
would have for journalists and speculators, it is astonishing how little
cabinet secrets have leaked out. In curious contrast with this are the
reports of select committees of Parliament, the contents of which are
often known before the report is made,[66:2] probably in most cases not
from any deliberate disclosure, but as a result of the piecing together
of small bits of information, no one of which alone would seem to be a
betrayal of confidence. The reason this does not happen in the case of
cabinets is no doubt to be sought in the complete reliance of the
members upon one another, and their disbelief in the statements of any
one who pretends to have obtained information from a colleague. The best
proof of the real silence of ministers is found in the fact that
although on two or three occasions the press has been remarkably shrewd
in guessing at probable decisions, members of the cabinet have seldom
been guilty of talking indiscreetly. The one or two instances where it
is alleged to have occurred have, indeed, acquired the sort of notoriety
of exceptions that prove the rule.[66:3]
At one time, it seems, before the reign of Queen Victoria, minutes of
cabinet meetings were kept, showing the opinions held, with the reasons
given therefor, and these were transmitted to the King.[67:1] Even as
late as 1855 regular cabinet dinners took place, marked by the possible
convenience that no reports of the topics of discussion were sent to the
sovereign, as in the case of more formal meetings.[67:2] At the present
day he receives only a general statement of the matters discussed, with
formal minutes of decisions that require his approval; and it would be
considered improper to inform him of the conflicting opinions held by
the different ministers.[67:3] In fact no records of the cabinet are
kept. This results in occasional differences of recollection on the
question whether a definite conclusion was reached on certain matters or
not; but possible difficulties of that kind are probably of far less
consequence than the facility in compromising differences of opinion and
reaching a harmonious conclusion that comes from the entire informality
of the proceedings. So little formal, indeed, are the meetings that a
person not a member of the cabinet is occasionally brought in for
consultation. This occurred in 1848, for example, when the Duke of
Wellington attended a Liberal cabinet to give advice upon measures to be
taken in view of the danger of the Chartist riots.
[Sidenote: Times of Meeting.]
It is an old practice, and obviously a necessary one, to hold one or
more meetings of the cabinet in the autumn to consider the measures to
be presented to Parliament during the coming session; to arrange, as it
were, the government's parliamentary programme. Other meetings are held
from time to time whenever necessary; sometimes as often as once a week
during the session; occasionally even more frequently when urgent and
difficult matters are to be decided. After the session of Parliament
comes to an end in August, the ministers usually take their vacation in
travel, sport, or public speaking; and cabinet meetings are suspended
unless political questions of a pressing nature arise.
In the rare cases where the cabinet is obliged to settle its policy by
the crude method of a division or vote, the voices of its members count
alike; but questions are usually decided by preponderance of opinion,
not by votes; and the weight of the opinions of the ministers is
naturally very unequal. Such a difference must be particularly marked in
the large cabinets of the present day; and some of the members must be
perfectly well aware that they are expected to follow rather than to
lead. The relative influence of the different ministers over their
colleagues, both at the cabinet meetings and elsewhere, depends, of
course, primarily upon their personal qualities; although the post
occupied is, in some cases, not without importance. This is particularly
true in the case of the Prime Minister.
[Sidenote: The Prime Minister.]
Until 1906 the Prime Minister, like the cabinet itself, was unknown to
the law,[68:1] but the position has long been one of large though
somewhat ill-defined authority. It has grown with the growth of the
cabinet itself; and, indeed, the administrations of the great Prime
Ministers, such as Walpole, Pitt and Peel, are landmarks in the
evolution of the system.[68:2] We have, fortunately, from two of the
chief Prime Ministers in the latter half of the nineteenth century,
descriptions both of the cabinet and the premiership, which are
authoritative;[68:3] and although they do not add a great deal to what
is popularly known, they enable us to state it with greater confidence.
At the meetings of the cabinet the Prime Minister as chairman is no
doubt merely _primus inter pares_. His opinion carries peculiar weight
with his colleagues mainly by the force it derives from his character,
ability, experience and reputation; but apart from cabinet meetings he
has an authority that is real, though not always the same or easy to
define.
In the first place the Prime Minister has a considerable patronage at
his disposal. Subject to the limitations imposed by political
exigencies, he virtually appoints all the members of the ministry. The
ecclesiastical offices also, from the bishoprics to the larger livings
in the gift of the Crown, are bestowed on his recommendation; and so as
a rule are peerages and other honours; and he has a general presumptive
right to nominate to any new office that is established under the
Crown.[69:1]
[Sidenote: His Supervision.]
He is both an official channel of communication and an informal
mediator. The duties of the Prime Minister, if one may use the
expression, surround the cabinet. He stands in a sense between it and
all the other forces in the state with which it may come into contact,
and he even stands between it and its own members. Matters of
exceptional importance ought to be brought to his attention before they
are discussed in the cabinet; and any differences that may arise between
any two ministers, or the departments over which they preside, should be
submitted to him for decision, subject, of course, to a possible appeal
to the cabinet. He is supposed to exercise a general supervision over
all the departments. Nothing of moment that relates to the general
policy of the government, or that may affect seriously the efficiency of
the service, ought to be transacted without his advice. He has a right
to expect, for example, to be consulted about the filling of the highest
posts in the permanent civil service.[69:2] All this is true of every
branch of the government, but the foreign relations of the country are
subject to his oversight in a peculiar degree, for he is supposed to
see all the important despatches before they are sent, and be kept
constantly informed by the Foreign Secretary of the state of relations
with other powers.
The extent to which a Prime Minister actually supervises and controls
the several departments must, of course, vary in different cabinets. One
cannot read the memoirs of Sir Robert Peel without seeing how closely he
watched, and how much he guided, every department of the
government.[70:1] A score of years later we find Lord Palmerston
lamenting that when able men fill every post it is impossible for the
Prime Minister to exercise the same decisive influence on public
policy;[70:2] and recently Lord Rosebery has told us that owing to the
widening of the activity of the government no Premier could, at the
present day, exert the control that Peel had over the various branches
of the public service.[70:3] It is certain that a Prime Minister cannot
maintain such a control if his time is taken up by the conduct of a
special department; and this, combined with some natural recklessness in
speech, accounts for the strange ignorance that Lord Salisbury displayed
at times about the details of administration, as in the case when he
excused the lack of military preparation for the South African War on
the ground that the Boers had misled the British War Office by smuggling
guns into the country in locomotives and munitions of war in
pianos.[70:4] It has been usual, therefore, for the Prime Minister to
take the office of First Lord of the Treasury, which involves very
little administrative work, and leaves its occupant free for his more
general duties.[70:5]
[Sidenote: He Represents the Cabinet.]
The Prime Minister stands between the Crown and the cabinet; for
although the King may, and sometimes does, communicate with a minister
about the affairs relating to his own department, it is the Premier who
acts as the connecting link with the cabinet as a whole, and
communicates to him their collective opinion. To such an extent is he
the representative of the cabinet in its relations to the Crown that
whereas the resignation of any other minister creates only a vacancy,
the resignation of a Premier dissolves the cabinet altogether; and even
when his successor is selected from among his former colleagues, and not
another change is made, yet the loss of the Premier involves technically
the formation of a new cabinet.
Unless the Prime Minister is a peer he represents the cabinet as a whole
in the House of Commons, making there any statements of a general
nature, such as relate, for example, to the amount of time the
government will need for its measures, or to the question of what bills
it will proceed with, and how far the lack of time will compel it to
abandon the rest. The other ministers usually speak only about matters
in which they are directly concerned. They defend the appropriations,
explain the measures, and answer the questions relating to their own
departments; but they do not ordinarily take any active part in the
discussion of other subjects, unless a debate lasts for two or three
days, when one or more of them may be needed. They are, indeed, often so
busy in their own rooms at the House that it is not uncommon, when a
government measure of second-rate importance is in progress, to see the
Treasury Bench entirely deserted except for the minister in charge of
the bill. But the Prime Minister must keep a careful watch on the
progress of all government measures; and he is expected to speak not
only on all general questions, but on all the most important government
bills. He can do this, of course, only in the House of which he happens
to be a member; and the strength of his all-pervading influence upon the
government depends to no slight extent upon the question whether he
sits in the Lords or the Commons.
As the House of Commons is the place where the great battles of the
parties are fought, a Prime Minister who is a peer is in something of
the position of a commander-in-chief who is not present with the forces
in the field. He must send his directions from afar, and trust a
lieutenant to carry them out. In such a case the leader of the House of
Commons stands in something of the position of a deputy premier. He is,
of necessity, constantly consulted by his colleagues in the House, and
he can, if so disposed, draw into his own hands a part of the authority
belonging to the head of the cabinet. As Mr. Gladstone remarked, "The
overweight, again, of the House of Commons is apt, other things being
equal, to bring its Leader inconveniently near in power to a Prime
Minister who is a peer. He can play off the House of Commons against his
chief; and instances might be cited, though they are happily most rare,
when he has served him very ugly tricks."[72:1] It is certainly true
that the Prime Ministers who have most dominated their cabinets, and
have had their administrations most fully under their control, have all
been in the Commons. It may be added that a high authority has declared
that "no administrations are so successful as those where the distance
in parliamentary authority, party influence, and popular position,
between the Prime Minister and his colleagues in the cabinet, is wide,
recognised and decisive."[72:2]
[Sidenote: Relation of the Ministers to One Another.]
Not only does the Prime Minister stand above and apart from his
colleagues, but they do not all stand upon one plane. The influence of a
minister depends upon his personal force, but it may be affected by the
office that he holds, and perhaps by his nearness to the Prime Minister
himself; for although there is no formal interior junta, or cabinet
within the cabinet, yet the Premier is apt to take counsel informally
with other leading ministers, and if he is a masterful man those who
can command or win his confidence have the better chance of shaping the
policy of the government while it is still formless and malleable. The
cabinet, moreover, does not always act as a whole. It sometimes appoints
committees to consider special subjects, and indeed it has an old and
well-established practice of appointing committees to prepare important
government bills.[73:1]
[Sidenote: Joint and Several Responsibility.]
It is commonly said that the ministers are severally responsible to
Parliament for the conduct of their own departments, and jointly
responsible for the general policy of the government. Like many other
maxims of the British Constitution, this has the advantage of being
sufficiently vague to be capable of different interpretations at
different times. With the growth of the parliamentary system, and the
more clearly marked opposition between the parties, the joint
responsibility has in fact become greater and the several responsibility
less. The last instances where a single minister resigned on an adverse
vote of the House of Commons were those of Mr. Lowe, who retired from
the vice-presidency of the Committee on Education in 1864 in consequence
of a vote charging him with improper mutilation of the reports of
inspectors, and Lord Chancellor Westbury, who resigned in 1866 on
account of a vote censuring his grant of a pension to a registrar in
bankruptcy charged with misconduct.[73:2] If at the present day the
cause of complaint were a personal error on the part of the minister, he
would probably be brought to resign voluntarily before there was a
chance of his resignation being forced by a hostile vote in the House;
and if the question were one of policy, the government would, save in
very exceptional cases, assume the responsibility for that policy,
treating a hostile vote as showing a want of confidence in itself. The
majority in the House of Commons, on the other hand, while it may
question, criticise and blame a minister in debate, is reluctant to
permit a vote of censure upon him which is liable to involve the fall of
the ministry.[74:1]
Each minister is responsible to the cabinet for the conduct of his
department. He is constantly meeting with problems which may involve
criticism in Parliament, and where a mistake might entail serious
consequences for the whole government. In such cases he must decide how
far he can assume to settle the question in accordance with his own
opinion, and what matters he ought to bring before the cabinet. He must
not, on the one hand, take up its time in discussing trivialities, and
he must not, on the other, commit his colleagues to a course of action
which really involves general policy. If in doubt he can, of course,
consult the Prime Minister; but in spite of this privilege annoying
blunders must inevitably occur.
A minister naturally has charge in the cabinet of the business relating
to his own department, but how far he takes an active part in other
things will depend upon the interest that he feels in them. Lord
Palmerston, for example, when Secretary for Foreign Affairs, took, as
his letters show, little interest in anything else; but when he became
Home Secretary he took not only an active but a leading part in
directing the foreign relations of the country. This he was fully
entitled to do, because the cabinet is both an assemblage of ministers
at the head of the separate branches of the administration, and a
council of state which must form a collective judgment upon the
questions submitted to it. A minister is, therefore, justified in
pressing his views on any subject, whether connected with his own
department or not; and on no other basis could collective responsibility
be maintained. The practice is particularly marked in the case of
foreign affairs, which usually form a large part of the business at the
meetings.
[Sidenote: The Treasury and Other Departments.]
It is not only on questions of general policy, brought before the
cabinet, that differences of opinion between ministers may arise, for
there are many matters of current administration that affect more than
one department. In such cases the ministers concerned confer together,
and if they cannot agree their differences must be submitted to the
Prime Minister, and ultimately to the cabinet. There is, indeed, one
department which is continually brought into contact--one might almost
say conflict--with all the others; that is the Treasury. Any vigorous
branch of the public service always sees excellent reasons for
increasing its expenditure, and proposes to do so without much regard
for the needs of the other branches; while the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, who is obliged to find the money, must strive to restrict the
aggregate outlay. If he did not, the expenditure of the government would
certainly be extravagant. As a preliminary step to the preparation of
the budget the Treasury issues in the autumn a circular to the other
departments asking for estimates of their expenses during the coming
fiscal year. These are made up in the first instance by the permanent
officials, and then laid before the parliamentary head of the
department, who revises and perhaps reduces them. When they reach the
Treasury they are scrutinised by the permanent officials there, and if
anything is not clear, an explanation is sought from the department
concerned. The estimates are then submitted by the Treasury officials to
their parliamentary chiefs, and if there is an objection to any item it
is the duty of the Financial Secretary of the Treasury to confer with
the head of the department whose estimates are in question.[75:1] If the
parliamentary head of the department does not agree with the Financial
Secretary he may go to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and if they
cannot settle the matter they must appeal to the Prime Minister and as
a last resort to the cabinet. Being placed in such a relation to his
colleagues, it is not unnatural that the Chancellor of the Exchequer
should often differ with them. As Gladstone notes in his diary in 1865,
"Estimates always settled at the dagger's point."[76:1] Like other
differences in the cabinet, these occasionally come to light, especially
when they have been so sharp as to cause the Chancellor's resignation.
Lord Randolph Churchill resigned in 1886 because the cabinet insisted
upon appropriations for the Army which he opposed; and Sir Michael
Hicks-Beach has told us recently that had it not been for the fact that
his protests against the growth of expenditure were received with
indifference he might not have quitted the office.[76:2] One cause,
moreover, of the final resignation of Mr. Gladstone--who although not
then Chancellor of the Exchequer, always looked upon matters from the
Treasury standpoint--was a difference of opinion between him and his
colleagues on the question of the cost of national defence.[76:3]
Whatever the policy of the cabinet at any moment may be, the scale of
expenditure is ultimately determined by the feeling in the House of
Commons, and this in turn depends upon the state of public opinion.
Except for a few short periods of extravagance, the seventy years that
followed the close of the Napoleonic wars were marked by a decided
tendency in favour of economy. People felt the pressure of taxation,
worried little about the condition of the Army or the Navy, and had no
strong desire to increase the expenses of the government in any
direction. Latterly the tendency has been reversed. The country has felt
rich; there have been a series of alarms about national defence, and at
the same time the general growth of paternalism has brought in a desire
for improvement and expenditure in many ways.
[Sidenote: The Cabinet and the Ministry.]
The ministry is composed, as has already been pointed out, of an inner
part that formulates the policy of the government, and an outer part
that follows the lines laid down; the inner part, or cabinet, containing
the more prominent party leaders, who are also holders of the principal
offices of state, while the outer part consists of the heads of the less
important departments, the parliamentary under-secretaries, the whips
and the officers of the royal household. All of these persons are
strictly in the ministry, and resign with the cabinet; but the officers
of the household have, as such, no political functions, and do not
concern us here. The heads of departments without seats in the cabinet
have become, with the increase in size of that body, very few. By far
the greater part of the ministers outside of the cabinet are the
parliamentary under-secretaries, who have two distinct sets of duties,
one administrative and the other parliamentary. Their administrative
duties vary very largely, mainly in accordance with personal
considerations. Some of them are really active in their departments,
doing work which might fall upon the parliamentary chief, or upon the
permanent under-secretary, while others have little or no administrative
business; but in any case the real object of their existence is to be
found on the parliamentary side. Whatever duties, parliamentary or
administrative, may be assigned to an under-secretary, he is strictly
subordinate to his chief, who retains both the authority and the
responsibility for the decision of all questions that arise in the
department;[77:1] although an active under-secretary in the Commons may
sometimes attract more public notice than his real chief in the Lords.
It is commonly said that as a minister can speak only in the House of
which he is a member, there must be two parliamentary representatives
for every department, one in each House. This, however, is not strictly
true. Going back, for example, over the period of a generation, we find
that the Foreign, Colonial and Indian Offices have practically always
been represented in both Houses.[78:1] The other great departments have,
of course, always been represented in the Commons;[78:2] but the War
Office and the Admiralty have not always been represented in the Lords.
The Board of Trade has often, and the Local Government Board and Home
Office have usually, had no spokesman of their own there;[78:3] while
all the parliamentary officers of the Treasury invariably sit in the
Commons. The system of under-secretaries, therefore, is by no means
always used in order to give a representative to the department in both
Houses. It not infrequently happens that both, or in the case of the War
Office and the Admiralty all three, representatives sit in the House of
Commons. An under-secretary, even when he sits with his chief in the
Commons, is, however, a convenience for those departments which have a
great deal of business to attend to, and many questions to answer.
Moreover, the large number of under-secretaryships has the advantage
already noticed of including within the ministry a considerable number
of lesser party lights who have not achieved sufficient prominence to be
included in the cabinet, and yet whose interest in the fortunes of the
ministry it is wise to secure.
[Sidenote: The Cabinet and the Privy Council.]
One of the great changes in administrative machinery that has taken
place in the civilised world within the last two hundred years is the
substitution of an informal cabinet composed of the heads of
departments, for a formal governing council of members who had
themselves no direct administrative duties. The form of the old council
has survived in England under the name of the Privy Council, but its
functions have become a shadow. The Privy Council never meets as a whole
now except for ceremonial purposes. Its action is, indeed, still legally
necessary for the performance of many acts of state, such as the
adoption of Orders in Council, and the like; but this is a formal
matter, requiring the presence of only three persons, who follow the
directions of a minister, for all cabinet ministers are members of the
Privy Council. The Council does real work to-day only through its
committees. Of these the most notable is the Judicial Committee, which
sits as a court of appeal in ecclesiastical and colonial cases, and will
be more fully described in a later chapter. Other committees, such as
those on trade and on education, have at times rendered great service to
the state, but the more important administrative committees have now
been transformed into regular departments of the government. It is by no
means certain, however, that the Privy Council may not, through its
committees, become in the future an organ by means of which important
political functions, especially in connection with the growth of the
empire, will be evolved. At present it is mainly an honorary body. Its
members are appointed for life, and bear the title of Right Honourable;
and, indeed, of late years membership in the Council has been conferred
as a sort of decoration for services in politics, literature, science,
war, or administration.
[Sidenote: Future of the Cabinet.]
Mr. Gladstone was of opinion that the cabinet had "found its final
shape, attributes, functions, and permanent ordering,"[79:1] and so far
as its relation to Parliament alone is concerned, this may very well be
true; but Parliament is gradually ceasing to be the one final arbiter in
public life. The cabinet is daily coming into closer contact with the
nation, and what modifications that may entail we cannot foresee. It may
be observed, however, that while the members of the cabinet present a
united front, and say the same thing in Parliament, they do not always
say the same thing to the country. The ministers agree on a policy
before announcing it in Parliament, but they are not always in the
habit of taking counsel together about the speeches that they make upon
the platform. Mr. Chamberlain's sudden declaration of a policy of
preferential tariffs in his speech at Birmingham in 1903 is only an
extreme example of what sometimes occurs. Absolute unanimity may not,
indeed, prove to be so necessary to the ministers in order to maintain
their authority before the people as it is to hold their position in the
House of Commons.[80:1] But no serious changes in the structure of the
cabinet are probable so long as parliamentary government continues in
its present form; and it is too early to speculate on the changes that
may occur if the parliamentary system itself becomes modified under the
pressure of political parties acting in a democratic country.
FOOTNOTES:
[53:1] Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," III., 496.
[56:1] This is the opinion of two of the most prominent Prime Ministers
of the century. Ashley, "Life of Palmerston," II., 330; Morley, "Life of
Walpole," 159; the latter representing, as has already been pointed out,
the views of Mr. Gladstone.
[57:1] For an example of the difficulties that arise on this score,
_cf._ Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 628-29. Lord Rosebery, who,
after being Prime Minister in 1895, was left out of the next Liberal
cabinet in 1905, had taken himself out of the field by saying that he
could not serve in a ministry whose chief held the views on Home Rule
that Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had expressed.
[57:2] _Cf._ Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," II., 486-89; III., 347-48.
[58:1] Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," 2 Ed., II., 189-90.
[60:1] If the post of Lord Privy Seal is not needed for this purpose, it
is given, without salary, to the holder of some other office.
[60:2] The President of the Council had in the past a somewhat undefined
authority in connection with the Committee of the Council on Education,
but this committee has now been replaced by a Board.
[61:1] The Law Officers present occasional exceptions.
[61:2] As in the case of Mr. Birrell in the present ministry, a man who
is not in Parliament may, of course, be included in a new cabinet in the
expectation that he will win a seat at the impending dissolution.
[61:3] Eng. Const., 1 Ed., 228-30.
[63:1] _Cf._ Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," II., 405, note _w_.
[63:2] This happened, for example, in 1825, when Palmerston, Goulburn
and Copley (all three in the ministry) were three out of the six
candidates for the two seats for Cambridge University. Bulwer, "Life of
Palmerston," I., 153 _et seq._
[64:1] One cannot read Mr. Morley's "Life of Gladstone" without being
struck by the frequency of such differences. One feels that in his
twenty-five years of life in the cabinet Gladstone must have expended
almost as much effort in making his views prevail with his colleagues as
in forcing them through Parliament.
[64:2] In Gladstone's cabinet of 1880-1885 the practice of counting
votes was complained of, as an innovation. Morley, "Life of Gladstone,"
III., 5.
[65:1] This obligation has been said to rest upon the cabinet minister's
oath of secrecy as a privy councillor (Todd, 2 Ed., II., 83-84, 240).
But this would seem to be another case of confusion between the law and
the conventions of the constitution. Although the permission of the
sovereign must be obtained before proceedings in the cabinet can be made
public (_cf._ Hans., 3 Ser. CCCIV., 1182, 1186, 1189), yet in fact the
duty of secrecy is not merely a legal obligation towards the sovereign
which he can waive under the advice, for example, of a ministry of the
other party. It is a moral duty towards one's colleagues, which ceases
when by lapse of time, or otherwise, the reason for it has been removed;
and the secrets must be kept from other privy councillors, the leaders
of the Opposition for example, as well as from the rest of the world.
Sometimes sharp discussions have occurred on the limits of the
permission given to reveal what has taken place at cabinet meetings.
This occurred after Mr. Chamberlain's resignation in 1886. Churchill,
"Life of Lord Randolph Churchill," II., 85-86.
[66:1] _E.g._ Hans. (1886), 3 Ser. CCCIV., 1181 _et seq._, 1811 _et
seq._, and (1904), 4 Ser. CXXIX., 878, 880; CXXX., 349 _et seq._;
CXXXI., 403 _et seq._, 709 _et seq._
[66:2] _E.g._ Rep. Com. on Civil List, Com. Papers, 1901, V., 607.
[66:3] There is some interesting gossip about instances of this kind in
MacDonagh, "Book of Parliament," 337-49.
[67:1] Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," III., 496-99.
[67:2] Morley, "Life of Walpole," 151. Cabinet dinners have occasionally
taken place of late years, but it is safe to say that they have not been
held with that object.
[67:3] Mr. Gladstone "was emphatic and decided in his opinion that if
the Premier mentioned to the Queen any of his colleagues who had opposed
him in the cabinet, he was guilty of great baseness and perfidy."
Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 575. But this seems to have applied
only to giving their names. _Ibid._, III., 132.
[68:1] In 1906 the position was recognized by being accorded a place in
the order of precedence. _Cf._ Hans., 4 Ser. CLVI., 742.
[68:2] Walpole repudiated the title of First or Prime Minister, although
he was, in fact, the first man to occupy such a position.
[68:3] See Ashley, "Life of Palmerston," II., 329-30; Gladstone,
"Gleanings of Past Years," I., 242. See also the description in Morley,
"Life of Walpole," 150-65, which, as already pointed out, represents Mr.
Gladstone's views.
[69:1] Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 383.
[69:2] Morley, "Life of Walpole," 159-60.
[70:1] "Sir Robert Peel, from his Private Correspondence"; _cf._ Parker,
"Sir Robert Peel"; Morley, "Life of Gladstone," I., 248, 298.
[70:2] Ashley, "Life of Palmerston," II., 257; _cf._ Morley, "Life of
Gladstone," II., 35.
[70:3] In his review of Parker's "Sir Robert Peel," in the first number
of the _Anglo-Saxon Review_.
[70:4] Hans., 4 Ser. LXXVIII., 27.
[70:5] At the end of his first ministry, and at the beginning of his
second, Mr. Gladstone held the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer.
With this exception, and with that of Lord Salisbury, no Prime Minister
has been at the head of a department since 1835.
[72:1] "Gleanings of Past Years," I., 242.
[72:2] Morley, "Life of Walpole," 164-65. This would hardly be stated in
such broad terms to-day.
[73:1] During the late war in South Africa, there was a special Cabinet
Committee on National Defence, which was afterwards enlarged and made
permanent, as explained in the following chapter.
[73:2] See a collection of instances in Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England,"
2 Ed., II., 471 _et seq._, and I., 444-49, 668-87. The vote in 1887 to
adjourn in order to draw attention to the conduct of the police in the
case of Miss Cass might very well have been regarded as a censure upon
the Home Secretary, Mr. Matthews; but he did not think it necessary to
resign. Hans., 3 Ser. CCCXVI., 1796-1830.
[74:1] The vote to reduce the salary of the Secretary of State for War
in 1895 was anomalous. It was a trick which will be explained in a later
chapter.
[75:1] Com. on Nat. Expenditure, Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, App. 1 and
3.
[76:1] Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 140.
[76:2] Hans., 4 Ser. CXXIII., 348-49.
[76:3] Morley, "Life of Gladstone," III., 506-09.
[77:1] It may be noted that the Chief Secretary of the Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland is not a parliamentary under-secretary, but the real head of
the Irish Office, unless the Viceroy is in the cabinet; also that until
the creation of the recent Board of Education the relations between the
President and Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education
were not clearly defined.
[78:1] In the Liberal cabinet of 1905, however, both representatives of
India are in the Commons.
[78:2] The Board of Works and the Post-Office have at times been
represented in the Commons by the Treasury.
[78:3] Some member of the government is always ready to answer questions
for them, and if need be to defend a department not directly
represented.
[79:1] Morley, "Life of Walpole," 165.
[80:1] The Duke of Argyle found fault with this practice as early as the
cabinet of 1880-1885. Morley, "Life of Gladstone," III., 4. Mr.
Gladstone thought that liberty of speech should be used by a cabinet
minister "sparingly, reluctantly, and with much modesty and reserve"
(_Ibid._, 113), although his own incautious remark about the American
Civil War had at an earlier time caused the cabinet of which he was a
member no little embarrassment. _Ibid._, II., 75-86.
CHAPTER IV
THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS
The departments of state are very different from one another, both in
historical origin and in legal organisation; and they have gone through
transformations of all kinds, until the nomenclature has in some cases
almost ceased to bear any relation to the facts. The title of an officer
often gives no clear idea of his functions. The most striking case is
that of the Treasury, whose regular chief, from the time of Henry VIII.
to the death of Anne, was the Lord High Treasurer. Since 1714 the office
has always been in commission; that is, its duties have been intrusted
to a board composed of a number of Lords of the Treasury. But while the
board is still regularly constituted by Letters Patent whenever a new
ministry is formed, and still retains its legal authority, all political
power has, in fact, passed from its hands. The board never meets, most
of its members have little or no connection with the Treasury, and its
functions are really performed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who
is not now a chancellor, and does not control the work of what is more
properly called the Exchequer. Thus, by a strange process of evolution
the powers of the Lord High Treasurer have, by law, become vested in a
board; and by a still later custom they are actually wielded by quite a
different officer, whose title indicates neither his succession to the
Treasurer nor the nature of his present duties.
Although in origin and legal organisation the departments of state are
very unlike, yet the growth of custom, and the exigencies of
parliamentary life, have, for practical purposes, forced almost all of
them into something very near one common type. Whatever the legal form
of the authority at their head, the actual control is now in nearly
every case in the hands of a single responsible minister, usually
assisted by one or more parliamentary subordinates, and supported by a
corps of permanent non-political officials, who carry on the work of the
office.
[Sidenote: Origin of the Departments.]
[Sidenote: The Former Great Offices.]
The historical origin of most of the departments may be traced to one of
three sources: the great offices of an earlier time; the secretariat of
state; and the more recent boards and commissions. Many of the former
offices of state survive as honorary posts, or with duties connected
solely with the royal household.[82:1] The only ones that are still in
touch with public administration are those of the Lord High Chancellor,
who has retained the greater part of his ancient authority; of the Lord
High Treasurer, the transformations of whose office have already been
mentioned; and of the Lord High Admiral, whose powers have also gone
into commission, and are vested in the Admiralty Board.
[Sidenote: The Secretariat of State.]
The secretariat is an old institution, although the standing of its
members has varied much at different times. There are now five
secretaries of state, but their position is peculiar in this, that they
all share, from a legal point of view, the same office; and except so
far as statutes have conferred special authority upon one or another,
each of them can perform the duties of all the rest. During the greater
part of the eighteenth century there were two secretaries, one for the
northern and the other for the southern department, the former having
charge of the relations with the northern powers, the latter of those
with the southern powers together with home and colonial affairs. A
series of changes made at the end of the century resulted in an increase
of the number of secretaries to three, and a redistribution of their
work, so that one had charge of foreign relations, another of home
affairs, and the third of war and the colonies. The Crimean War brought
about in 1854 the separation of the colonial and war departments, with
the creation of a fourth secretary of state; and, finally, the mutiny in
India, and the consequent transfer of the direct government of that
country to the Crown, caused the appointment of a fifth secretary of
state to take charge of Indian affairs.
[Sidenote: The Recent Boards and Commissions.]
[Sidenote: Sham Boards.]
The third great source of public departments has been the creation in
comparatively recent times of a number of administrative boards or
commissions, whose duties (except in the case of the Board of Works) are
not primarily executive; that is, they are not concerned mainly with
direct administration, but rather with the supervision and control of
local authorities and of bodies exercising functions of a public or a
quasi-public nature. There are now five boards of this kind, the Board
of Trade, the Local Government Board, the Board of Works, the Board of
Agriculture, and the Board of Education. Some of them, the first and
last named, for example, have developed from committees of the Privy
Council; while others have grown out of administrative commissions which
were not originally regarded as political, and had no representatives of
their own in Parliament. Except in the case of the Board of Trade,[83:1]
both their organisation and their functions now rest upon
statutes,[83:2] and in general character they are all very much alike.
Each of them consists of a president,[83:3] of the five secretaries of
state, and of other high dignitaries, such as the Lord President of the
Privy Council, the First Lord of the Treasury, or the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and sometimes, in the case of the older boards, even of the
Archbishop of Canterbury and the Speaker of the House of Commons. But
the board never meets; the president alone constitutes a quorum, and he
conducts the business of the department, with the assistance, in the
case of the Board of Trade, of the Local Government Board and the Board
of Education, of a secretary who is not himself a member of the board,
but is, like the president, capable of sitting in the House of Commons,
and occupies, in short, the position of a parliamentary under-secretary.
In practice, therefore, these boards are legal phantoms that provide
imaginary colleagues for a single responsible minister; and, indeed, the
only department in the English government conducted by a board that
really meets for the transaction of business is the Admiralty.[84:1]
A satirical observer has remarked that the English Constitution is a
bundle of shams; and this is inevitable where law fails to keep pace
with custom--where the legal organisation has ceased to express the real
working of the system. But it is difficult to penetrate the motive for
deliberately constructing a sham; and yet that was done in the creation
of the Board of Agriculture in 1889, and the Board of Education ten
years later. In the last case the measure was criticised upon this
ground;[84:2] and Sir John Gorst in reply said that, as there were other
boards, the general desire of the House was thought to be in favour of a
Board of Education, and that, although these boards did not often meet,
they were potential.[84:3] He denied that the Committee of Council on
Education had never met, and referred to an occasion, about twenty years
earlier, when it had been called together, and actually transacted
business.[84:4] A better statement of the reason, or rather the absence
of any reason, for the creation of a sham board, was made with
characteristic frankness by the Duke of Devonshire, who said, "as far as
I remember, the point was mooted when the bill was first prepared, but I
quite admit that I am unable, at the present moment, to recollect the
reasons which weighed in favour of a board rather than a secretariat. It
has the advantage, at all events, of numerous precedents, and it is
perfectly well understood that there will be no board at all."[85:1]
In giving in this chapter a sketch of the executive departments nothing
will be said of those offices to which no substantial administrative
duties, or none outside of the royal household, are attached. There are
about a dozen such posts, which are regarded as so far political that
their holders retire upon a change of ministry; but they are omitted
here, because the object is to describe not the offices of state, but
the different branches of the public service and the distribution of
business among them. Most of the departments require for our purpose
only a few words, to point out the general nature of their duties and
anything unusual in their structure or method of working. The functions
of some others, such as the Colonial Office, the Local Government Board
and the Board of Education, can be passed over rapidly, because they
will be treated more fully in the chapters devoted to the subjects under
their control; while the Army, the Navy and the Treasury are described
at greater length on account of the peculiarities in their organisation,
and the fact that their work is not dealt with in any other part of the
book.
[Sidenote: The Foreign Office.]
The Foreign Office has at its head a secretary of state, who, like the
chief of every normal department, is supported by a parliamentary
under-secretary and also by a permanent staff consisting of an
under-secretary, several assistant under-secretaries--in this instance
three--besides clerks and other permanent officials. For convenience of
administration there are in the Foreign Office a number of departments,
the business being distributed among them partly on a geographical
basis, and partly according to the nature of the subject.[86:1] The
office has, of course, charge of foreign relations, controlling for that
purpose the diplomatic representatives and the consuls. The only odd
thing about its duties is the fact that in addition to the ordinary
functions of a foreign office it governs certain dependencies of the
Crown. The expansion of European influence over the less favoured
portions of the globe has produced among other new things the
"protectorate," which involves, by a political fiction, an international
as well as a philanthropic relation between the ruler and the ruled. The
result is that protectorates not closely connected with existing
colonies are administered by the Foreign Office. This has been true of a
number of protectorates in Africa, and notably of Egypt, which is still
nominally ruled by the Khedive under the suzerainty of the Turkish
Sultan, but is practically governed by a British agent.
[Sidenote: Position of the Foreign Secretary.]
The conduct of the relations with foreign powers requires from its very
nature a peculiar method of procedure. Much of the work of the Foreign
Office consists, no doubt, in examining and pushing the private legal
claims of British subjects, and to some extent work of that kind has a
routine character. But apart from this there is comparatively little of
the detailed administration--so common in other departments--which,
involving merely the application of settled principles to particular
cases, can be conducted by subordinates without consulting the political
chief. Much of the correspondence with foreign powers may entail serious
consequences, and hence must ordinarily be laid before the Secretary of
State. The permanent officials play, therefore, a smaller part in the
management of affairs than in most branches of the public service, a
matter that will be discussed more fully in a subsequent chapter.[87:1]
Moreover, the representatives at foreign courts are kept, by means of
the telegraph, under more constant instructions than formerly, and it
has become the habit in all countries to retain diplomatic negotiations
very closely in the hands of the home government. Even the functions of
foreign envoys as the eyes and ears of the state have declined in
importance; and it has been observed that as gatherers of political
information they have been largely superseded by the correspondents of
the press.
All this has the effect of concentrating the direction of foreign
relations in the hands of the Secretary of State. At the same time he is
singularly free from immediate parliamentary control. Diplomatic
correspondence is ordinarily confidential, and it is usually a
sufficient answer to any question in Parliament, touching foreign
relations, to say that the information sought cannot be given without
detriment to the public service. It follows that the presence of the
minister in the House of Commons is less necessary than in the case of
other departments; while his arduous duties make it hard for him to find
the time required for attendance at the long sittings. These facts,
coupled with the strange provision of law which permits only four of the
five secretaries of state to sit there, resulted in placing peers at the
head of the Foreign Office continuously from 1868 to 1905, the
under-secretary alone representing the department in the popular
chamber. But if the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is less under
the direct control of Parliament than other ministers, he is more under
the control of his colleagues. We have already seen that every important
despatch ought to be submitted, before it is sent off, both to the Prime
Minister and to the sovereign; and, as a rule, the telegrams, together
with correspondence of peculiar interest, are also circulated among all
the members of the cabinet.[88:1] In fact there is probably no
department where the executive action of the minister is so constantly
brought to the notice of his colleagues.
[Sidenote: The Colonial Office.]
Ever since England began to extend her dominion beyond the seas her
foreign relations have been complicated by her distant possessions, and
it is therefore natural to pass from the offices of the Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs on one side of the doorway in Downing Street
to those of the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the other. But it
is needless to speak of the Colonial Office at length here, because the
government of the dependencies will form the subject of later chapters.
The Secretary of State for the Colonies is assisted by his parliamentary
and permanent under-secretaries, and by a staff of subordinate
officials. There are in this office four permanent assistant
under-secretaries; one of whom has charge of questions of law, and also
at present of business connected with Canada, Australasia and a number
of islands; another of South Africa; a third of the East and West
Indies, emigration, prisons and hospitals, with a mass of miscellaneous
matters; and the fourth of East and West Africa.[88:2] But the division
of the colonies among these officers is not fixed, and varies to some
extent with their personal experience. There are, in close connection
with the office, agents for each of the dependencies, those for the
self-governing colonies being real representatives appointed by the
colonial governments, while the three who act on behalf of the crown
colonies are selected by the Colonial Office itself.
It may be observed that the Colonial Office has by no means charge of
all the outlying dependencies of the British Crown. Besides the
protectorates governed by the Foreign Office, there are a number of
smaller places under the care of other departments. The Isle of Man and
the Channel Islands, for example, are under the Home Secretary; some
small islets are used only for lighthouses by the Board of Trade; while
by an official fiction the Island of Ascension is considered a vessel of
war, and as such is commanded by the Admiralty. But larger by far than
any of these, more populous than all the other parts of the British
Empire put together, is India. It is not classed among the colonies, for
that term is confined to the places under the Colonial Office, and does
not extend to a country ruled by a distinct administrative system of its
own.
[Sidenote: The India Office.]
The Secretary of State for India has the usual parliamentary and
permanent staff; but he has in addition a Council of India, composed of
not less than ten or more than fifteen members, appointed for a term of
ten years. In order to insure a familiarity with Indian conditions, it
is provided that nine of the members must have lived in India within ten
years of their appointment.[89:1] The Council is a consultative body. It
has no power of initiative, but except for matters requiring secrecy or
urgency (such as war and peace, or the relations of India with foreign
powers or with the native states), all questions must be brought before
it for consideration. The Secretary of State is not, however, bound by
its decision, save in a few cases, of which the most important are the
expenditure of the Indian revenues, and the issue of Indian loans.[89:2]
Legally, the government of India is directed by the Secretary of State
and his Council. Even the laws made in India can be disallowed by the
Crown on their advice; but in spite of the ease of communication
furnished by the telegraph, the internal affairs of the country are
still in the main managed by the authorities in India, happily without
much interference from England. Parliament, moreover, exercises little
control over Indian administration. Some matters--the use of the Indian
revenues, for example, to pay for expeditions beyond the
frontier--require its consent; and in other cases notice of action taken
must be laid before it within a certain time. But the ordinary
opportunities for bringing pressure to bear do not exist, because the
salary of the Secretary of State for India, being paid out of the Indian
revenues, does not furnish an occasion for a debate in Parliament; and
although the Indian budget is regularly submitted, it does not need to
be approved. On one of the last days of the session, when the work of
the year is almost done, and the members are weary of attending, this
budget, which is merely a financial statement, is introduced, and in
order to give an opportunity for debate a formal motion is made that the
Indian accounts show such and such totals of receipts and expenses. A
discussion follows on the part of members who deem themselves qualified
to express opinions on the government of India, and then the vote is
passed. An illustration of the small authority of Parliament in Indian
matters may be found in the fact that in 1891 (April 10) the House of
Commons carried against the ministers a motion condemning the opium
revenue; and in 1893 (June 2) a resolution that the examinations for the
Indian Civil Service ought to be held in India, as well as in England,
was carried in the same way; yet, on each occasion, the government after
studying the subject came to the conclusion that the opinion of the
House had been wrong, and did not carry it into effect. Such a condition
of things is highly fortunate, for there is probably no body of men less
fitted to rule a people than a representative assembly elected in
another land by a different race.
If the vast colonial empire has complicated foreign relations it has
also caused England to become the greatest of maritime powers, with an
enormous navy to protect her dependencies, her merchant ships, and not
least important, the routes of her food supply. The effective
organisation of a naval force is, therefore, of more importance in her
case than in that of any other nation.
[Sidenote: The Admiralty.]
It has already been observed that the Admiralty is the only department
of state conducted by a board that really meets for the transaction of
business, yet even in this case the statement may convey a false
impression of the character of the body. The board as created by Letters
Patent under the Great Seal consists of a First Lord, four Naval Lords
and a Civil Lord; but by a series of Orders in Council, and by the
practice of the department, the parliamentary and permanent secretaries
also sit as members of the board.[91:1] The First Lord, the Civil Lord
and the parliamentary secretary are capable of sitting in the House of
Commons, and are, in fact, always members of one or other House of
Parliament. The permanent secretary is, as his name implies, a permanent
official, and hence excluded from the House of Commons altogether. The
Naval Lords, on the other hand, although eligible to Parliament,[91:2]
are very rarely members,[91:3] and yet they are not permanent officials.
They occupy the anomalous position of non-political officials, who
nevertheless retire upon the fall of the ministry. This does not mean
that they belong necessarily to the party in power, or that they may not
be reappointed under the commission issued when a new ministry comes
into office. In order to preserve a continuity of administration, and a
knowledge of the work, the new patent usually includes one, and
sometimes more, of the Naval Lords who served under the preceding
cabinet, and commonly another who held the place under some earlier
ministry of the party that has taken office.
[Sidenote: Position of the First Lord.]
According to the language of the patent all of the members of the Board
of Admiralty are equal in authority; but in fact the First Lord, who is
always in the cabinet, is held by Parliament responsible for the conduct
of the department, and as the other members of the board can be changed
if necessary on his recommendation, they must adopt the course which he
can justify in Parliament. With the evolution of the cabinet system,
therefore, the power of the First Lord has increased until he has become
practically a minister of marine assisted by an advisory council. The
relation was sanctioned, not created, by Orders in Council of Jan. 14,
1869, and March 19, 1872, which declared the First Lord responsible for
all business of the Admiralty,[92:1] and thus "the department now
possesses more the character of a council with a supreme responsible
head than that of an administrative board."[92:2]
[Sidenote: The Other Lords.]
The Civil Lord and the financial or parliamentary secretary are
subordinate ministers, who occupy substantially the position of
parliamentary under-secretaries. They are civilians, as is the permanent
secretary also; while the four Naval Lords are naval officers, usually
of high rank, who bring an expert knowledge to bear upon the
administration of the department. But the members of the board, like the
cabinet ministers, have individual as well as collective duties. By the
Orders in Council of March 19, 1872, and March 10, 1882, and the
regulations made in pursuance thereof, the work of the office is
distributed among the members of the board, each of whom is at the head
of a branch of the service, and responsible for it to the First Lord. By
virtue of this arrangement the First Lord retains in his own hands the
general direction of political questions, and the appointment of flag
officers and the commanders of ships. The First Naval Lord, who is also
the principal adviser of his chief, has charge of strategical questions,
the distribution of the fleet, discipline, and the selection of the
higher officers not commanding ships. The Second Naval Lord has charge
of the recruiting and education of officers and men, and the selection
of the lower officers. The Third Naval Lord, who is the "Controller,"
attends to the dockyards, and to construction, repairs and ordnance;
while the Junior Naval Lord has charge of the transport and medical
service, and the victualling and coaling of the fleet. The Civil Lord
attends to the civil establishments, and the contracts relating to
stores and to land. The parliamentary secretary is responsible for
finance; and the permanent secretary for the personnel in the Admiralty
Office, for routine papers and correspondence and for the continuity of
business on the advent of a new board.[93:1]
Thus the actual administration of the Navy devolves upon the members of
the board charged with the superintendence of the different branches of
the service, while the full board meets frequently for the consideration
of such questions as the First Lord wishes to refer to it.[93:2] There
have been at times complaints about the working of the board, and the
existing organisation is the result of gradual adaptations,[93:3] but at
the present day the system appears to be highly satisfactory, and in
fact it is constantly held up as a model to the less fortunate chiefs of
the Army.
[Sidenote: The War Office.]
[Sidenote: Effect of the Crimean War.]
The organisation of the War Office has undergone far more changes than
that of the Admiralty, and has been the subject of a great deal more
criticism both in and out of Parliament.[93:4] Like other countries with
a popular form of government, England has found it hard to reconcile
military command and civil control. In the War Office, as in the
Admiralty, there has been a tendency to transfer supreme power gradually
to the hands of the parliamentary chief; but owing to a number of
causes--one of which was the tenacity with which the Queen clung to the
idea of a peculiar personal connection between the Crown and the
Army--the process of change in the War Office has been slow and halting.
Up to the time of the Crimean War the Army was controlled by several
different authorities, whose relations to one another were not very
clearly defined, and who were subordinate to no single administrative
head. This naturally produced friction and lack of efficiency, which
was forcibly brought to public attention by the sufferings of the
troops during the war. The result was the creation of a distinct
Secretary of State for War, and the concentration in his hands of
most of the business relating to the Army; but the change was made
without a thorough reorganisation of the War Office, and without
defining the relative authority of the Secretary of State and the
Commander-in-Chief.[94:1] This last office was held at that time by the
Queen's cousin, the Duke of Cambridge; and the fact that he was a royal
duke, coupled with the Queen's feelings about the Army, threw an
obstacle in the way of bringing the office fully under the control of
the Secretary. In 1870, however, the Queen was prevailed upon to issue
an Order in Council providing that the Commander-in-Chief should be
completely subordinate to the Secretary of State.[95:1] Unfortunately,
this order by no means settled either the organisation of the War
Office, or the relation between the Secretary and the Commander-in-Chief.
[Sidenote: Lord Hartington's Commission.]
A number of commissions have examined the subject, one of the most
important of late years being Lord Hartington's Commission, which
reported in 1890.[95:2] At that time[95:3] the Adjutant General, who was
charged with the general supervision of the military department, was the
first staff officer of the Commander-in-Chief, and as such was
responsible to him for the efficiency of the forces; while the other
principal military officers--the Quartermaster General, Military
Secretary, Director of Artillery, Inspector of Fortifications, and
Director of Military Intelligence--were also immediately responsible not
to the Secretary of State, but to the Commander-in-Chief, and approached
the latter through the Adjutant General. Thus, while all the officers in
the department were nominally subordinate to the Secretary of State,
practically between him and them stood the Commander-in-Chief, who had
the privilege of approaching the Crown directly and without the
intervention of the Secretary. The commission thought that such a system
failed to make the heads of the different branches of the service
effectively responsible to the Secretary, or to provide any satisfactory
system for giving him expert advice. They recommended, therefore, the
virtual abolition of the office of Commander-in-Chief, and a division of
the duties among a number of officers, who should be individually
responsible for their administrative work to the Secretary, and should
collectively advise him as a War Office Council. They recommended, in
short, a system not unlike that of the Admiralty.
[Sidenote: The Changes of 1895.]
As a preliminary to bringing about a change of this kind Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal Secretary of State for War, procured the
resignation of the Duke of Cambridge in 1895, and Lord Wolseley was
appointed Commander-in-Chief for five years. The Secretary then
announced a plan in accordance with the main principles suggested by the
Hartington Commission. But just at that time the Liberal administration
fell,[96:1] and Lord Lansdowne, the new Secretary of State, made a
change in the plan, which left more power in the hands of the
Commander-in-Chief. The policy thus adopted was embodied in an Order in
Council of Nov. 21, 1895, followed by a memorandum setting out in
greater detail the duties of the heads of the different branches of the
service thereunder.[96:2] According to the new system the
Commander-in-Chief exercised the general command, issued army orders,
inspected troops, took charge of the distribution of the Army, and
prepared strategical plans, having under him for that purpose the
Director of Military Intelligence. He was also to have the general
supervision of all the military departments, and to be the principal
military adviser of the Secretary of State, all important questions
going to him before submission to the Secretary. The Adjutant General
was to have charge of the discipline and training of officers and men,
and the patterns of their uniforms,--a matter which seems to involve as
many changes in fashion as a dressmaking establishment. The
Quartermaster General had charge of food, forage, transports and
remounts. The Inspector of Fortifications constructed and maintained
forts, barracks, etc., and supervised the engineer corps. The Inspector
General of Ordnance looked after the supply of warlike stores and
equipments, and each of these officers advised the Secretary of State on
questions connected with his department. The Financial Secretary had
charge of all questions of expenditure, and of the audit of accounts.
Until 1899 he was also at the head of the manufacturing departments, but
by an order of that year they were transferred to the Inspector General
of Ordnance, whose title was changed to Director. By the memorandum
which followed the order a War Office Council was created, consisting of
the heads of the military departments, the under-secretaries of state,
and the Financial Secretary, together with any other officers who might
be summoned; its function being to discuss subjects referred to it by
the Secretary of State. An Army Board, composed of the heads of the
principal military departments, was also established, which was to
report upon promotions to the higher grades in the Army, upon estimates,
and upon other questions submitted to it by the Secretary of State.
[Sidenote: Their Results.]
The two great changes made at this time were the modification in the
powers of the Commander-in-Chief, and the creation of consultative
boards in the War Office. Neither of them can be said to have attained
the object aimed at. The attempt to create advisory councils of that
kind has been tried more than once, but after working usefully for a
time they have ceased to meet regularly and have fallen into disuse.
This appears to have been the case with the War Office Council and Army
Board created in 1895 and reorganized in 1899 and 1900.[97:1]
The position of Commander-in-Chief under the Order in Council of 1895
has been the subject of severe criticism. At the expiration of his term
of five years, Lord Wolseley recorded in a memorandum his opinion that
the attempt to give the Commander-in-Chief a supervision over the
departments of the War Office, and yet make their heads responsible to
the Secretary of State, involved a contradiction, and had resulted in
depriving the Commander-in-Chief of all effective control, and in making
his office a high-sounding title with no real responsibility. He
insisted that no army could be efficient unless the command, discipline
and training of the troops were in the hands of one man, and that man a
soldier; and he urged that the Commander-in-Chief should either be made
the real head of the forces, or that the office should be abolished, and
the Secretary of State for War should be himself a military man.[98:1]
The only direct result that the memorandum had on the organisation of
the War Office was the reestablishmemt of the control of the
Commander-in-Chief over the department of the Adjutant General by an
Order in Council on Nov. 4, 1901.[98:2] But a statement by Lord Wolseley
of his views, in a speech in the House of Lords in March, 1901, led to
an unseemly altercation with Lord Lansdowne, the late Secretary of State
for War, in which each sought to cast upon the other the blame for the
lack of preparation for the war in South Africa.[98:3] The occurrence
would appear to show that the relations between the military and civil
authorities at the War Office are not yet upon a well-recognised or
satisfactory basis; and it shows also that this relation is very
different from that which ordinarily prevails between ministers and
their expert officials. For reasons that will be explained in a later
chapter, such a dispute in any other department would be well-nigh
inconceivable. From a political point of view the Army and Navy officers
are, in fact, in an exceptional situation. They are not subject to the
general rule which excludes from the House of Commons all office-holders
who are not ministers.[98:4] And just as military officers are allowed
to play a part in politics forbidden to other public servants, so those
among them who hold high administrative posts stand in a position
peculiar to themselves, a position which in the case of the Admiralty is
definite and satisfactory, although anomalous, but in the case of the
Army is not altogether definite or satisfactory.
[Sidenote: Effect of the South African War.]
The efficiency of the War Office was put to a rude test by the South
African War, and some branches of the service did not stand the test
very well. The results recalled, although in different respects, the
experiences of the Crimean War. The commission on the war found that,
both as regards plans and stores, there had been a grave lack of
preparation which was not wholly due to the suddenness of the
emergency.[99:1] There was not merely a deficiency in warlike stores,
such as guns[99:2] and ammunition for them,[99:3] cavalry-swords[99:4]
and clothing;[99:5] but some of the stores were unfit for use. Such
clothing, for example, as there was on hand six months before the war
broke out was all red and blue cloth, quite unsuitable for the campaign;
and even after the manufacture of khaki suits had begun, changes were
ordered first in the material and then in the pattern.[99:6] More than
one third of the small arms ammunition on hand was found to be
unserviceable and was discarded;[99:7] and all the reserve rifles were
wrongly sighted, so that at a distance of five hundred yards they shot
eighteen inches to the right--an occurrence the more extraordinary
because the government had been manufacturing those weapons for some
years, and never discovered the defect until after the war broke
out.[99:8]
It would be a mistake to suppose that all the shortcomings in the South
African War arose from defects in the War Office. Some of them were of a
kind certain to occur where a military organisation is suddenly expanded
beyond its normal size. Still, the errors already described certainly
showed a lack of efficiency, and they have led to a remodelling of the
office. In November, 1903, another commission was appointed for this
purpose, and its principal recommendations[100:1] were put into effect
in the course of the following year.[100:2]
[Sidenote: The Changes of 1904.]
According to this last system, for which the Admiralty served as a
pattern, an Army Council has been formed, consisting of the Secretary of
State for War, the parliamentary under-secretary, the Financial
Secretary to the War Office, and of four military members. The post of
Commander-in-Chief having been abolished, and that of Chief of Staff
created instead, the four military members of the council are the Chief
of Staff, the Adjutant General, the Quartermaster General, and the
Master General of Ordnance. By the terms of the Order in Council the
military members are responsible to the Secretary of State for so much
of the business relating to the organisation, disposition, personnel,
armament and maintenance of the Army as he assigns to them or each of
them, while the Financial Secretary is responsible for finance, and the
parliamentary under-secretary for the other matters that are not
strictly military. The permanent under-secretary acts as secretary of
the council, which has also under its orders a new officer, the
Inspector General of the Forces, charged with the duty of reporting to
it upon the results of its policy, and of inspecting and reporting upon
the training and efficiency of the troops, and the condition of the
equipment and fortifications. But the Army Council has in the last
resort only advisory powers, for the Secretary of State is expressly
declared responsible to the Crown and to Parliament for all its
business.
[Sidenote: Lack of Initiative among Officers.]
An army, and especially a standing army, is liable during a long period
of peace to fall into habits that impair its efficiency in war. One of
the chief criticisms made after the South African War related to the
lack of initiative, and of capacity to assume responsibility, on the
part of the officers both in the War Office and in the field.[100:3]
Now, this is precisely the defect that one would expect to find under
the circumstances. With the traditions of strict discipline ingrained in
military men, there is a natural tendency in time of peace to regulate
everything with precision, leaving to subordinate officers little
independence of action. And in fact the Committee on War Office
Organisation in 1901 reported that the Army was administered by means of
a vast system of minute regulations, which tended on the one hand to
suppress individuality and initiative, while on the other their
interpretation led to protracted references, and to absorbing the time
of high officials by matters of routine.[101:1] The evidence presented
to the Committee on the war in South Africa pointed to the same evil,
for it showed that the deficiencies of the officers arose from their
being too much controlled and supervised during their training.[101:2]
[Sidenote: Their Training.]
The excessive tendency to routine, and the consequent lack of
initiative, might be counteracted in some measure by a keen intellectual
interest in the profession on the part of the younger officers; but the
military education they receive is hardly of a character to stimulate
such an interest. As a rule the candidates for commissions, after
leaving the great public schools, such as Eton, Harrow and Rugby, where
the sons of the upper classes are educated, obtain admission to the
military academies by means of competitive examinations based upon the
curriculum of those schools. The ordinary time then spent in studying at
Woolwich, where the engineer and artillery officers are taught, is two
years; that at Sandhurst, the school for the infantry and cavalry, was
eighteen months before the South African War, and later only a year.
Periods of this length are obviously too short to give a thorough
training, or even a strong interest, in military science; and, in fact,
the object is rather to produce a good subaltern than a highly educated
officer.[102:1] If a man is ambitious for promotion he is expected to
pursue his studies by himself, or to attend the staff college, later in
life. Now, with the modern application of science to warfare, a military
officer has become a member of a learned profession. But in England the
preliminary teaching is insufficient for this purpose; and what is more,
the conditions of the service are very unlike those of learned
professions, and hardly such as to stimulate intellectual activity.
Moreover, the private contributions to the mess, and the other expenses
of an officer, are often so great that it is difficult for a man without
private means to follow the Army as a career. In short, after the
abolition of the purchase of commissions in 1871, the Army ceased to be
a caste without becoming a profession.[102:2]
[Sidenote: Advantages of the Navy.]
The fact that the Navy escapes some of the difficulties that beset the
Army is not due altogether to better organisation. The Navy has in many
ways great natural advantages as compared with the Army. Most civilians
feel that after a short experience they could lead a regiment, but few
landsmen have the hardihood to believe that they could ever command a
ship. The Navy is a mystery which ordinary men do not pretend to
understand, and with which they do not attempt to interfere; and this is
a security for expert management. Again the Navy is less exposed to the
dangers of peace. Warships are constantly in service. If they do not
fight, at least they go to sea; and hence the Navy is far less likely
than the Army to suffer from the demoralising influence of minute and
antiquated regulations.
[Sidenote: The Training of Naval Officers.]
This has an effect also upon the training of naval officers. Under the
old plan which is now being superseded, the theoretical education given
them was by no means high. The cadets destined for executive naval
officers entered "The Britannia" at the age of about fifteen, and spent
there a little less than a year and a half. They then had a service of
about three years at sea, where besides learning the practical side of
their profession, they were expected to study elementary mathematics,
mechanics, physics, navigation, surveying, etc. Then followed a couple
of months at Greenwich preparing for the final examination in those
subjects; and, lastly, before receiving their commissions as
sub-lieutenants, five or six months at Portsmouth studying pilotage,
gunnery, and torpedo practice. Thus the average age for obtaining the
commission was not far from twenty years. The theoretical study pursued
was certainly not of an advanced character. In mathematics, for example,
it did not include the calculus, or even conic sections. In fact,
according to the syllabus as revised in 1899, one of the optional
subjects which men who desired to go farther than the rest might pursue,
if they desired, was projectiles, "treated so as not to require a
knowledge of conic sections."[103:1]
The principal changes made by the new plan, which began to go into
effect in 1903, were, first, making the executive, engineer and marine,
officers more nearly into a single corps, and therefore giving them a
common training until they reach the grade of sub-lieutenant; and,
second, reducing the age for entering "The Britannia" to between twelve
and thirteen. This last change enables the cadets to remain at the
school four years, and will, it is hoped, insure a sounder education.
They are then to get a training at sea for three years, followed by
three months at Greenwich and six at Portsmouth. At that point they are
to receive their commissions as sub-lieutenants, and those who join the
executive branch of the service will go to sea again, while the engineer
and marine officers attend their respective colleges for some time
longer.[104:1] Whatever good effects the new plan may have in other
directions, it can hardly increase materially the scientific education
of the cadet.
But if the education in the theory of naval science has not been carried
far, the junior naval officer has much greater opportunities for
learning the practice of his profession than the officer in the army. In
fact, if not a master of naval science he becomes an excellent seaman,
and this, in the opinion of many officers, is much the more important of
the two.
[Sidenote: The Defence Committee.]
One of the chief criticisms of Lord Hartington's Commission on the
administration of the naval and military departments, bore upon the lack
of combined plans of operation for the defence of the empire. They
suggested the formation of a naval and military council, to be presided
over by the Prime Minister, and to consist of the parliamentary heads of
the two services, and their principal professional advisers.[104:2] In
partial fulfilment of this recommendation a committee of the cabinet was
formed, consisting of the Prime Minister, the parliamentary heads of the
Army and the Navy, the First Lord of the Treasury, with the addition, if
need be, of the Colonial Secretary. The committee was intended to deal
with questions unsettled between the two departments, matters in which a
joint policy was advisable, and questions relating to the relative
importance of expenditures; and it differed from other committees in
that minutes were to be kept of its proceedings, and formally recorded
by the departments. The committee seems, however, not to have fulfilled
the intentions of the Hartington Commission, for it has been openly
stated in Parliament that it never met;[105:1] and even the Secretary
of State for War admitted that it acted mainly with regard to estimates,
and to questions within the War Office and the Admiralty, while, in his
opinion, it ought to act on larger questions of policy. A new Defence
Committee was, therefore, created in 1903, to consist, besides members
of the cabinet, of the most influential experts of the two services, and
when necessary of representatives of the Indian and Colonial Offices.
The committee is intended to deal not only with estimates, but with
larger questions of military policy.[105:2] But whether this result will
be permanently attained, or whether the committee will meet with the
usual fate, and find itself absorbed by details of administration and of
expenditure, is yet to be seen.
The departments of state that remain to be considered in this chapter
need not detain us long. They are all concerned with the internal
government of the kingdom, and so far as their work is of general
interest it will be touched upon again.
[Sidenote: The Home Office.]
The Home Office is a kind of residuary legatee. It is intrusted with all
the work of the secretariat that has not been especially assigned to the
remaining secretaries of state, or to the other administrative
departments. Its duties are, therefore, of a somewhat miscellaneous
character. As the heir to the residue of the secretariat, the Home
Secretary is the principal channel of communication between the King and
his subjects, and countersigns the greater number of the King's acts. He
receives addresses and petitions addressed to the sovereign, and
presents them if he thinks best. Among others he receives petitions of
right--that is, claims to be allowed to sue the Crown--and consults the
Attorney General about the answer to be given. Outlying places, such as
the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, which are not from an
administrative point of view a part of the United Kingdom and yet are
not colonies, fall under his jurisdiction. He has charge of questions of
naturalisation and extradition. But more important still, the central
control over the police, not having been transferred to the Local
Government Board, remains in his hands, and this gives him wide powers
of supervision. The metropolitan police of London is, indeed,
administered directly by the national government under his immediate
control;[106:1] and although the police elsewhere is not under his
orders, yet the fact that the central government pays one half of the
cost on condition his regulations are observed, enables him to prescribe
the organisation, equipment and discipline of the local police all over
England. Moreover, all by-laws of counties and boroughs, except those
relating to nuisances, must be submitted to him for approval, and may on
his advice be disallowed by the Crown.[106:2] As a part of his authority
in matters of police he manages the prisons, both the national prisons
for convicts and the county and borough gaols. He is responsible for the
appointment and removal of recorders and stipendiary magistrates. He
appoints the Director of Public Prosecutions, and makes regulations
about costs in criminal proceedings. By virtue of special statutes he
sees to the enforcement of the acts relating to factories, mines,
burial-grounds, inebriates, anatomy, vivisection, explosives, and other
kindred matters.
He is assisted by a parliamentary under-secretary, and by a large staff
of permanent officials, beginning with a permanent under-secretary, and
including a prison commissioner, a metropolitan police commission, and a
host of inspectors for factories, mines, police, and so forth.
It will be observed that although primarily responsible for public
order, the Home Secretary is by no means a minister of the interior in
the continental sense, for apart from the police he has very little to
do with local government. The supervision of matters of that kind,
although in part scattered among different departments, is mainly
concentrated in the hands of the Local Government Board. The Home
Secretary has, on the other hand, some of the functions of a minister of
justice; and this will be referred to again when we come to speak of the
Law Officers of the Crown.
[Sidenote: The Board of Works.]
The Board of Works is not regarded as a department of great political
importance, and for this reason it presents one of the two or three
cases where the minister has no parliamentary under-secretary. For a
score of years the public lands and buildings were under the care of a
body called the Commissioners of Woods and Forests; but in order to keep
the revenue from land separate from the expenditure upon buildings, and
so bring the latter more completely under the control of Parliament, the
duties were divided in 1852. The Commissioners of Woods, Forests and
Land Revenues were made a permanent non-political body under the
Treasury, while the Board of Works was established to take charge of the
construction and maintenance of parks, palaces and other buildings. At
that time many of the public buildings were, in fact, committed to the
care of the departments that occupied them; but by a series of statutes
these have now been transferred almost wholly to the Board of Works.
Now, although the amount of money that passes through its hands is very
large, the board is by no means entirely free, for without the sanction
of the Treasury it can undertake no work not directly ordered by
Parliament, and it can make no contracts for the erection of large
public buildings without submitting them to the same authority,[107:1]
which also appoints the ordinary permanent staff of the office.[107:2]
[Sidenote: The Board of Trade.]
The Board of Trade occupies, on the contrary, a position of great and
growing importance. It has had a long and chequered history, and
although in the course of its career it has lost duties enough to keep
an active department busy, these have been more than replaced under
that modern tendency toward state regulation of industry which is
constantly adding to its burdens. It deals not only with trade, but with
many of the chief agencies of trade, and especially with transportation.
As in the case of the three other boards to be described hereafter, the
Board of Trade is engaged not in direct administration, but in
supervising and regulating the action of private bodies and local
authorities, and in keeping a watch upon the enforcement of the law.
Speaking broadly, its powers have grown by the process of making it
responsible for the application of a great many statutes.
Its functions may be classified roughly under the heads of collecting
information, registration, inspection, and authorising acts or
undertakings of a public nature; although any such classification is
sadly confused by the fact that duties of more than one kind have been
conferred upon the board in regard to the same subject-matter, and even
by the same statute. To the first of these classes belong its functions
in collecting and publishing statistics relating to domestic and foreign
trade, and giving advice on commercial matters to other departments of
the government. To that class belong also its functions as a labour
bureau in preparing statistics about labour, wages and other matters
touching the interests of workingmen. In this connection it has power
also to act as a board of conciliation in labour disputes, and to name
arbitrators or conciliators. Under the head of registration may be
mentioned its duties in maintaining the standards of weights and
measures; registering joint-stock companies; examining and recording
patents and trade-marks; and keeping a register of ships and seamen.
Under the head of inspection come its functions in ascertaining that
merchant vessels are in a seaworthy condition, and properly laden,
officered, manned and equipped; with the power to detain unseaworthy
craft. Under the same head may be classed its control over harbours, its
duty to see to the enforcement of the laws relating to railways[109:1]
and to inquire into the causes of railway accidents and disasters at
sea. As an example of the final class of powers may be cited the fact
that the by-laws of a railway company require for their validity the
approval of the board; but a far more important instance is to be found
in its control over the building of new lines of railway, over new
undertakings for the supply of water, gas and electric light, and over
the construction of tramways and light railways, the last being a recent
invention legally very different, but physically indistinguishable, from
tramways. This control is exercised by means of provisional orders,
prepared by the board after an investigation and a hearing of all the
persons interested, and then confirmed by Parliament.[109:2] The
petitioner is not, indeed, compelled to resort to a provisional order,
but may avoid the direct control of the Board of Trade by means of a
private bill in Parliament. But a provisional order is far less
expensive; and even when the procedure is by private bill the board
endeavours to exert its influence by scrutinising the bill, and bringing
to the notice of the officers of the House any departures from the
general policy of legislation.[109:3] The result is that the board has
an effective, although by no means an absolute, control over these
matters.
The subject of bankruptcy has also been placed in the hands of the Board
of Trade, and except for legal questions which come before the courts,
it has the entire charge of the cases, maintaining for that purpose a
staff of inspectors, examiners and official receivers.
The nearest approach to actual administrative work intrusted to the
board is in the case of lighthouses, buoys and beacons, which are
maintained by Trinity House, an ancient corporation composed of
self-elected brethren but financially under the control of the Board of
Trade.
[Sidenote: The Local Government Board.]
Until the era of the Reform Bill local affairs in England were managed
in the main by justices of the peace and town councillors, whose powers
were derived from a host of statutes covering many subjects in great
detail. These officers were kept rigorously within the limits of their
authority because the legality of their acts could be tested in the
courts of law; but they were almost entirely free from administrative
control. The first wide breach in the system was made by the Poor Law
Amendment Act of 1834, which aimed at a reform in the method of giving
poor relief, and set up for the purpose a commission to supervise the
local bodies. The new commissioners, being vigorous and efficient,
aroused hostility, and as they were not permitted to sit in Parliament,
they found it hard to defend their policy. In fact the experience they
went through is used by Bagehot as an illustration of the impotence of
an executive department without a representative in the House of
Commons.[110:1] In 1847 the body was reorganised under the title of the
Poor Law Board, with a responsible minister at its head, and thenceforth
received from time to time additions to its duties. Various functions
relating to public health and local government had in the meanwhile been
intrusted to the Home Secretary and the Privy Council; and, finally, in
1871 the greater part of them were transferred to the Poor Law Board,
which was given the name of Local Government Board.
Legislation of this kind has entirely transformed the nature of English
local government. Partly by bringing the exercise of existing powers
under the supervision of the central government, partly by subjecting to
systematic control the new powers called into life by the wants of the
time, the old system of local self-government--limited by law, but
independent of any administrative superior--has been replaced by a
system where the local bodies, and especially those outside of the great
towns, are to a considerable extent under the tutelage of the state. The
subjection is not the same as that which prevails in other European
countries, and it is not so great, but it is in some respects more
nearly akin to the continental system than to that of England in the
eighteenth century.
Except for such matters as police, education, and the supply of
transportation, light and water, the control over the local authorities
is almost entirely vested in the Local Government Board; but as the
subject of local government, and therefore the powers of the board, will
be considered at some length in another part of this book, we do not
need to enumerate its functions here. We need only point out that it has
the unusual number of five assistant under-secretaries, and a large
staff of clerks, auditors and inspectors. But although the amount of
head work to be done, and therefore the number of permanent officials of
high grade, is large, yet from a political point of view the department
is not regarded as of the first class.
[Sidenote: The Board of Agriculture.]
The creation in 1889 of a new department of state to attend to the
matters that have been transferred from various commissions to the Board
of Agriculture hardly seems to have been necessary; and, indeed, the
board is not important enough to require a parliamentary
under-secretary. It has inherited the duty of shaking the dry bones of
ancient tenures by dealing with such subjects as the commutation of
tithes, the enfranchisement of copyhold, the enclosure of commons,
allotments to labourers, and the improvement of land by limited owners.
The control of fisheries, the promotion of agriculture and the
prevention of contagious diseases among animals are also placed under
its care, and it has been given power, or rather authority, to muzzle
dogs and destroy the Colorado beetle.
[Sidenote: The Board of Education.]