CHAPTER VIII.

197

THE CABINET.

of modern administration.

§ 1. I have said that under our present system the powers of the Crown are exercised by the agency and under the advice of certain officers of state, and Description that the conduct of these officers is criticised in Parliament. But apart from their relations either to the Crown or to Parliament, a remarkable relation has grown up between those officers themselves, which forms the very corner-stone of our modern system of Government. Few writers have, until very recently, cared to treat of this subject, and still fewer have fully discussed it.* Our present familiarity with its working is easily mistaken for a knowledge of its theory; and the system, the gradual and undesigned and sometimes interrupted growth of many years, does not readily admit of a clear and unembarrassed description. It is not, therefore, without hesitation that I attempt to trace in the present chapter the rise and progress of the Cabinet.

The Cabinet of the present day may be described as a Political Committee of the Privy Council.+ As the judicial functions of that ancient board are now exercised by a committee specially organized for the purpose; and as

* See, for much valuable information on this subject, Earl Grey's Parliamentary Government, and Mr. Cox's Inst. of the Eng. Govt., b. i. c. x.

+ See The Grenville Papers, ii. 515, iii. 15, and Hans., vi. 300; Macqueen's Appellate Jurisdiction.

other committees have been in like manner formed from it for the exercise of other parts of the prerogative, so the general direction of all public departments and the decision upon all important questions of administration are now vested in a similar committee. There is indeed a difference, although not a very material one, between the Cabinet and the other committees to which I have referred. The latter have a known right and a statutable jurisdiction. The growth of the Cabinet has been spontaneous, and its powers and duties are fixed by custom. This committee is nominated, like all other parts of our Executive system, by the Crown, and comprises the chief officers of all the great departments of state. These officers are members of either House of Parliament; and their opinions on the pressing questions of the time agree generally with the opinion of Parliament, or at least of the House of Commons. When this agreement ceases, they make way for others who can fulfil this essential condition. In accordance with the advice of this body, however it be for the time constituted, the King, while he retains their services, always acts. This advice, at least on all important occasions, is the result of joint deliberation, is communicated to the King in a joint form or through their Chief, and is taken to be the advice of the collective body. Each member of the ministry, therefore, is responsible for all the proceedings of the ministry; and in like manner the collective ministry is bound by the acts of each of its members. If any minister is overruled on a point on which he feels that he cannot submit to the opinion of the majority, he must resign. If the ministry feel that it is compromised by the misconduct of a colleague, that colleague must be immediately removed. "It is," says Lord Macaulay,* "by means of ministries thus

*Hist. of Eng., iv. 436.

constituted and thus changed that the English Government has long been conducted in general conformity with the deliberate sense of the House of Commons, and yet has been wonderfully free from the vices which are characteristic of Governments which are administered by large, tumultuous, and divided assemblies. A few distinguished persons agreeing in their general opinions are the confidential advisers at once of the Sovereign and of the Estates of the realm. In the closet they speak with the authority of men who stand high in the estimation of the representatives of the people. In Parliament they speak with the authority of men versed in great affairs and acquainted with all the secrets of the state. Thus the Cabinet has something of the popular character of the representative body, and the representative body has something of the gravity of a Cabinet."

§ 2. In the earlier period of our history all administrative business was transacted in the Privy Council. This body, which at different times is mentioned by various Description names, is that Council assigned by the law to the King for affairs of state. In it all questions of Restoration.

of administration before

public policy were debated, and the Royal resolutions concerning them were adopted. But there was no concerted action between its members, and no pre-arranged policy. There was no disposition on the part either of individual members or of the whole body to cease to offer any further advice if they found that their advice was disregarded. Their duty was to advise the King. If he adopted their counsel, it was well. If he disregarded it, they could only in their respective offices carry out his views as well as the nature of the case admitted. If they gave improper advice, or if they, in submission to the Royal directions, transgressed the limits of the law, they were criminally liable. But it

L

was the duty of each councillor merely to give his advice; and it was the duty of each minister to execute within the limits of his office all lawful commands that the King might issue. There was therefore no unity of sentiment among members of the Council. They were indeed employed in the service of a common master; but in private, and even in public, they made little attempt to conceal their differences, and were frequently engaged in mutual and deadly hostility.* When they were in Parliament they were indeed expected to procure the desired subsidies with as much expedition as they could; but any attacks upon each other, and occasionally even votes against favourite projects of the Crown, were regarded as, at the worst, venial offences. If a servant were in other respects meritorious, the King did not think of dismissing him because he opposed in Parliament what he had previously opposed in Council. On some occasions the authority of the Crown was vigorously exerted, but these displays of vigour were exceptional. The strict discipline of later times was characteristic of a very different system. In many respects, indeed, the relation that then subsisted between the Crown and its advisers was in reality what it professed to be in words, the relation of master and servant. The official counsellor, such as Cecil or Hyde, often deplored, like some faithful steward, the extravagance of his master, and grieved at the infatuation that rejected all advice and was deaf to every entreaty. But he would have thought himself grossly failing in his duty if on that account he deserted his post; and his dismission pained him, not as a mere pecuniary loss, but as a slur upon his fidelity.+

* See Macaulay's Hist. of Eng., iii. 13.

+ Lister's Life of Clarendon, ii. 516. See also Hallam's Const. Hist., i. 256.

Cabinet from

§ 3. Although some traces of the practice are found in the times of Charles the First, the first separation of the Political Committee from the Privy Council Separation of dates from the Restoration. At all times in- Privy deed the King must have frequently transacted Council. business with some small number of his more trusted councillors; and Clarendon speaks of the formation of committees of "dexterous men" from the Council table for the despatch of business. About the time of Charles the First the rank of Privy Councillor seems to have been X gradually becoming a mark of honorary distinction; and the increase of such councillors would of course diminish the utility of the council as an administrative body. At the Restoration it was thought expedient to retain the surviving members of Charles the First's Privy Council. These persons, together with the ministers of the restored King, amounted to thirty. Some of these former counsellors had sided with the Parliament, and were thus of suspected loyalty. Such a body so composed seemed to the practical and zealous Hyde to be certainly inefficient, and probably unsafe. He accordingly procured, perhaps as part of a general scheme of administrative reform, the appointment of a committee of six persons whose ostensible duty was the consideration of foreign affairs, but who really deliberated in the presence of the King upon all questions of importance, whether domestic or foreign, before they were submitted to the Council Board. It was probably to this same committee-it certainly was to one of which Clarendon was a member-that the King entrusted the general management of his parliamentary business. On Clarendon's fall the practice was continued; and an accident gave to it a curious prominence. The initial letters of the

* See Cox's Institutions of the English Government, 240.

+ Lister's Life of Clarendon, ii. 6, 7.