qualified to bring forward a budget or explain an estimate. The country would have been governed by Peers; and the chief business of the Commons would have been to wrangle about bills for the enclosing of moors and the lighting of towns." § 4. I have already observed that during the last century the rules of Ministerial discipline were much less exact than they now are. In like manner, although in a less degree, the present practice as to the permanent tenure of nonpolitical officers was not always observed. On more than one occasion the misconduct of some subordinate officers or the violence of their superiors very nearly led to the establishment of dangerous precedents. During the reign of Queen Anne the Whig Ministry complained bitterly of the impediments which they experienced from Tory officials. Lord Godolphin declared that there was not a Tory in any Ministerial office who did not require to be spoken to ten times over before he would execute anything that had been ordered, and then it was done with all the difficulty and slowness imaginable. When the Tories were in power and their triumph seemed to be secured by the momentary victory of Bolingbroke, it was their intention, as the baffled Minister himself acknowledged, to fill all the employments of the kingdom down to the meanest with their partisans. Sir Robert Walpole, when smarting under the defeat of his Excise Bill, not only dismissed civil officers with seats in Parliament whom we should now consider as bound to support the measures of their chief, but deprived of their commissions several officers in the army. Nor was this the only occasion on which the great Whig Minister Macaulay, Hist. of Eng. iv. 341. † Russell's Eng. Gov. 144 (1st Ed.) exercised for political reasons towards military members of Parliament the prerogative of dismission. Three or four years afterwards he tried, though very unsuccessfully, by this means to muzzle that "terrible Cornet of Horse" whose fiery eloquence was then beginning to fulmine over England. Walpole indeed asserted in Parliament that he should think any man a most pitiful Minister who should be afraid of advising his Majesty to cashier an officer who habitually opposed the measures of Government.* He added that by his dismission of Lord Cobham and the Duke of Bolton he should leave it as a legacy to all future Ministers that upon every occasion it is their duty to advise their master that such an officer is unfit to have any command in the army. This view of Walpole as to the similarity of civil and military officers so far as their political duties were concerned, although it is not countenanced by the Act of Queen Anne, was accepted both by George the Third and Mr. Grenville.+ When the great question of general warrants was discussed in Parliament, Colonel Barrè and Colonel A'Court were deprived of their commands in consequence of their votes in the House of Commons: and a little afterwards by the King's express directions the same measure was adopted in the case of one of the principal Whig leaders, General Conway. But the public feeling on this subject has been so strong, and the impropriety of punishing a soldier for other than a soldier's offences so manifest, that this precedent has not been followed. No example since the dismission of General Conway has occurred of any military Member of Parliament being required to support the Government. A much more serious innovation however was attempted a few years before the affair of General Conway. We meet from time to time under the later administrations of George the Second and the earlier ones of his grandson with complaints against what were termed proscriptions. Most of these acts were merely what we should now regard as ordinary political changes. But a true proscription occurred in 1763 under the auspices of Lord Bute and the elder Fox. Not merely were the chiefs of the opposite party subjected to unseemly and almost unprecedented affronts, but the rage of the victors did not spare the subordinates. Excisemen and tidewaiters were dismissed because they had been recommended by some member of Parliament who voted against the Government on the negotiations for peace. Several old servants of the Duke of Newcastle who had obtained subordinate places were hunted out and deprived of their bread. A Sussex yeoman who had been rewarded with an office for his bravery in a conflict with smugglers was dismissed because he was an adherent of the Duke of Grafton.* The widow of an Admiral, who had for many years held in lieu of a pension an appointment of housekeeper at one of the public offices, lost her situation for no other reason than that she bore the name of Cavendish. But this bad precedent has been universally reprobated. The restoration of the proscribed was one of the first conditions for which the Rockingham Ministry on their accession to office in 1765 stipulated. Charles Fox a few years afterwards was shocked and grieved at the mention of his father's cruelty. At the present day no minister could attempt such a course. tendency is perhaps towards the opposite extreme. German writert has remarked with not unnatural surprise the fact that on one occasion the dismission of a letter carrier led to the presentation to Parliament of 2160 folio pages of evidence. Little has occurred during the present century * Lord Mahon, Hist. of Eng. v. 23. + Fischel, Brit. Const. 160. The A in respect of this subject to require notice. Complaints have sometimes been made that some official has taken a prominent part in some contested election or other political proceeding, and an intimation has been given that a continuance in such conduct would induce the Government to advise Her Majesty to dispense with that officer's services. Such instances are infrequent, and merely serve to illustrate the principle which is involved. That principle also receives illustration from two remarkable cases. In 1812 the Prince Regent had caused negotiations to be opened with Lords Grenville and Grey for the formation of a Ministry. It was proposed that the officers of the Royal Household should be considered as included within the new ministerial arrangement. Lord Moira, who acted for the Regent, refused to allow any such change. Lords Grenville and Grey contended that the change they proposed was essential as a public proof of the Royal confidence and support. On this issue the negotiations were broken off. Subsequently however these offices were usually treated as political; and in a minute of the Cabinet* in opposition to Sir Robert Peel's views on the Bed Chamber question, it was admitted to be "reasonable that the great offices in the court and the situations held in the Household by Members of Parliament should be included in the political arrangements made upon a change of Administration." The other case to which I have referred was the extension by Sir Robert Peel of this principle to the offices held by the ladies in the court of a Queen Regnant. Although when the question first arose in 1839 Lord Melbourne's Ministry denied that such offices were political, the practice for which Sir Robert Peel contended was adopted in 1841, and has since that time been followed.† The Mistress of the Robes and the May, Const. Hist. i. 130. + Ib. 132. Ladies of the Bed Chamber, when they are closely connected with the outgoing Ministry, are regarded as holding political offices. But when Ladies of the Bed Chamber belong to families not occupying any prominent political position, no objection is made by the new Ministry to their continuance in office. § 5. These examples indicate the true principles upon which disqualifications arising from office depend. They are not penal measures towards individuals; and should be regarded not as conveying any slight or degradation, but as based upon sound public policy. Whatever may have been their origin, these disabilities cannot now be considered as securities against an overgrown prerogative. They are not the props and appliances by which the weakness of Parliamentary virtue is supported. They are not the safeguards against the ignorance or the imbecility of electors. All these reasons have indeed been urged in their defence, and some of them if not all were once true. But the reason for which a law was passed is not necessarily a reason for its continuance. In the present state of the Royal authority its influence is perhaps less than we should desire. With the present constitution of Parliament, under the present conditions of publicity, and with the present increasing tendency in England to elect none but wealthy representatives, there is little danger that members will be directly bribed with places or by any other direct means. In the present state of public intelligence, and with the present means of forming and enlightening the public opinion, electors do not require protection against themselves. But under the existing system of Parliamentary control, enforced by Ministerial changes and guarded by an official profession, with a fluctuating body of chiefs and a permanent body of subalterns, a seat in Parliament and a |