would have retired upon any other subject of disagreement. In the other class of cases there is either no agency at all or the agent has acted outside his proper powers. The responsibility for the acts of partners relates to their lawful acts only, and cannot be extended to their offences. But it is not unreasonable that in ordinary matters of policy the conduct of each minister should bind his colleagues. For the ordinary details of the business of each department the other ministers rely upon the discretion of its chief. They have deliberately associated themselves with him; and if they doubted his competence they could have declined his alliance. In most cases* when men agree generally in the ends which they wish to obtain, they will also agree, at least in a general way, in the means by which those ends should be accomplished. They will also be ready in matters of detail to make large concessions for the sake of carrying on the government. Each minister therefore acts in his own department as the recognized agent of his colleagues in that particular department, subject, however, to inquiry and control by the whole body. But in all cases on which any difficulty is likely to arise, each minister, from motives not merely of prudence but of honour, takes the opinion of the Cabinet. When this precaution is taken, the measure becomes of course the common act of the ministry. All its members have either expressly approved of it, or have at least sanctioned it by their acquiescence. On no question, therefore, of general policy can one minister be dealt with apart from his colleagues. They must either have positively approved of his conduct or have neglected to prevent it. In the one case the act complained of is their act. In the other case they are guilty of negligence.

* See Ashley's Life of Lord Palmerston, ii. 329.

The office of

minister.

ナ

ex

§ 9. We have yet to consider an essential part of this corporate body—its head, the prime minister or premier. He is, indeed, much more than the mere chairman of a board. The true description of the prime organ would be the prime minister and the Cabinet, and not merely the Cabinet, for the prime minister exercises functions that are quite his own. He is the chief confidential adviser on all subjects of the Crown. His appointment is strictly the personal act of the Sovereign, one of the few personal acts which, under our system, the Sovereign is required to perform. The conditions of the case are, indeed, so rigorous that, under the penalty of selecting an adviser who could in the circumstances render no efficient service, the choice is usually confined within such narrow limits as hardly to deserve the name; but when the choice is made, the prime minister becomes the chief and ultimate adviser of the Crown. He recommends to the Royal favour his colleagues. He is the organ of communication between the Cabinet and the Sovereign. His death or resignation dissolves the Cabinet. If, from any cause, he and any member of the Cabinet can no longer work together, it is the dissenting member, and not the chief, that must retire. He is the final referee in disputes between his colleagues, and in cases where any of them has failed to give satisfaction to the Crown. He exercises a L general superintendence over each department, and is entitled to know every matter of unusual interest there transacted. In ordinary cases he sits and votes with his colleagues on terms of perfect equality; but the reserved powers are at all times ready for immediate use. In such circumstances his influence, especially if he be a strong man, is predominant. "Nowhere in the wide world," says Mr. Gladstone,* "does so great a substance cast so small a Gleanings, i. 244.

#

shadow; nowhere is there a man who has so much power, with so little to show for it in the way of formal title or prerogative."

As the Cabinet is unknown to the law, so also is the premier. His very title has no English savour. It is a mere popular word, and has no legal or official significance. The Common Law knows nothing of it. It is not found in any statute; it has no place in the traditions of any of the great services,* or of any state ceremonial. Since the office has no legal existence, it follows that no formal appointment to it is ever made. The actual official position of the premier is usually that of First Lord of the Treasury. This office is not of the highest official rank. Eight members of the Cabinet take precedence of its holder. The first lord is only the first person named in a commission empowering five specified persons to execute the office of the Lord High Treasurer. All these commissioners have apparently equal rank and equal power. Yet they include the two extremes of the ministerial hierarchy. The first

When Lord Palmerston, then premier, visited Scotland in 1863, "the captain of the guard ship, anxious to do honour to the occasion, was hindered by the fact that a prime minister was not recognized in the code of naval salutes; but he found an escape from his dilemma in the discovery that Lord Palmerston was not only First Lord of the Treasury, but also Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, for which great officer a salute of nineteen guns was prescribed an apt instance of the minor anomalies of the Constitution under which we live."-Ashley's Life of Lord Palmerston, ii. 233.

An objection has sometimes been made to the official use in Victoria of the title premier. The Victorian Act, No. 91, s. 2, in effect provides that the Governor may from time to time appoint, under any titles that he thinks fit, a certain number of officers who are made capable of sitting in parliament. It is further provided that these officers shall be members of the Executive Council and responsible ministers. The titles of these ministers vary according to circumstances, and it is under this power that a specific appointment as premier is sometimes made. This Act is the first legislative recognition, at least in this colony, of responsible ministers. The expression is now in ordinary use in Acts of the Parliament of Victoria, but no attempt has been made to give it any precise definition.

lord is, as I have said, the premier. His junior lords are those useful but somewhat subordinate gentlemen, whose duties are "to make a House, to keep a House, and to cheer the minister."

It is not easy to fix accurately the commencement of this great office. In its beginnings it was evidently regarded with much jealousy. It was probably under this feeling that the great Common Law offices of Lord High Treasurer and Lord High Admiral were put into commission. Sir Robert Walpole found it prudent to disclaim the style of first minister. Lord Chatham could obtain the means of equipping his expeditions only by threats of impeaching · his refractory colleagues. During the personal government of George the Third there was no room for a premier. Lord North objected to the use of this or any similar title, as involving an unfounded claim to precedence. The earliest written description of the office is, I think, a letter* written in 1803 by Lord Melville, under Mr. Pitt's directions. The name premier occurs more than once in the poetry of Burns, † and in circumstances which seem to show that its use was not then uncommon. It is probable that its earliest official use was in the Treaty of Berlin, in which one of the English plenipotentiaries, Lord Beaconsfield, is described as "first Lord of Her Majesty's Treasury, Prime Minister of England." Thus, while in former times there were sometimes first ministers without Cabinets and sometimes cabinets without first ministers, yet the combination of the two which marks our present political system dates only from the end of the last century. As the Cabinet and its powers were the result of various movements, so the position of premier was not determined in a single moment. But the office is essential to the successful

* Earl Stanhope's Life of Pitt, iv. 24.

+ See "The Jolly Beggars."

working of a Cabinet, and it may therefore be regarded as coeval with that system.*

system of

Cabinets.

§ 10. It thus appears that the Cabinet, in the sense of a political committee of the Privy Council acting History of together as one body, and on the principle of present mutual responsibility, and as such subject to a simultaneous and general change, is of very recent origin. Perhaps if we desired to obtain for its establishment a well-marked though approximate date, we might say that this system was unknown in the government of England; that its gradual formation may be traced in the government of Great Britain; and that it has been fully adopted in the government of the United Kingdom. It is usual to consider the Revolution as the great landmark in our modern political history. But, although that event forms an essential link in the chain of historical succession, we should regard it rather as a preparation for a later development than as the actual commencement of a new political era. It is to the long administration of Sir Robert Walpole, and not to any earlier period, that we are to look for the first distinct outline of our modern Constitution. It was Walpole who first administered the government in accordance with his own views of our political requirements. It was Walpole who first conducted the business of the country in the House of Commons. It was Walpole who, in the conduct of that business, first insisted upon the support for his measures of all servants of the Crown who had seats in Parliament. It was under Walpole that the House of Commons became the dominant

* For the subjects discussed in this section see, in addition to the references already given, the following authorities :-Todd's Parliamentary Government, i. 218-230, et seq. ; ii. 114, et seq.; Stapleton's Canning and His Times, 179; Massey's History of England, iii. 213; Lord Malmesbury's Memoirs, ii. 379.