of the legislative houses. A department whose chief sits in the Commons is certain to be represented in the Lords by an undersecretary or other spokesman, and vice versa. In France and other continental countries which have a cabinet system, executive departments are, as a rule, represented in Parliament by their presiding official only. But this official is permitted, as English ministers are not, to appear and speak on the floor of either chamber.1

Other Considerations Determining Appointment. A second general principle which controls in making up both a ministry and a cabinet is that of party harmony. William III undertook to govern with a cabinet in which there were both Whigs and Tories, but the result was confusion and the experiment was abandoned. Except during the ascendancy of Walpole, the cabinets of the eighteenth century usually embraced men of more or less diverse political affiliations. But gradually the conviction took root that in the interest of unity and efficiency the political solidarity of the cabinet group is indispensable. The last occasion (prior to the Great War) upon which it was proposed to make up a cabinet from utterly diverse political elements was in 1812. The scheme was rejected, and from that day to 1915 cabinets were regularly composed, not always exclusively of men identified with a single political party, but at least of men who were in substantial agreement upon the larger questions of policy, and who expressed willingness to coöperate in carrying out a given program. The fundamental requisite is unity. It is the obligation of every cabinet member to agree, or to appear to agree, with his colleagues. If he is unable to do this, he must resign.

In the selection of his co-laborers the premier works under still other practical restrictions. One of them is the wellestablished rule that surviving members of the last cabinet of the party, in so far as they are in active public life and desirous of appointment, shall be given prior consideration. Members of the party, furthermore, who have come into special prominence and influence in Parliament must usually be included. In truth, as Bagehot points out, the premier's independent choice is apt to find scope not so much in the determination of the cabinet's personnel as in the distribution of offices among the members selected; and even here he will often be obliged to subordinate his wishes to the inclinations, susceptibilities, and capacities of his prospective colleagues. In the expressive simile

1 See p. 439.

of Lowell, the premier's task 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." 1

Ministerial Responsibility. In its actual operation the English cabinet system, down to the Great War at all events, presented three salient features: (1) the responsibility of cabinet ministers to Parliament; (2) the secrecy of cabinet proceedings; and (3) the close coördination of the cabinet group under the leadership of the premier. Every minister, whether or not in the cabinet, is responsible individually to Parliament, which in effect means to the House of Commons, for all of his public acts. If he is made the object of a vote of censure he must retire. In the earlier eighteenth century the resignation of a cabinet officer did not affect the tenure of his colleagues; the first cabinet to retire as a body was that of Lord North in 1782. Subsequently, however, the ministerial group so developed in compactness that in relation to the outside world, and even to Parliament, the individual officer came to be effectually subordinated to the whole. Not since 1866 has a cabinet member retired singly in consequence of an adverse parliamentary vote. If an individual minister falls into serious disfavor, one of two things almost certainly happens. Either the offending member is persuaded by his colleagues to modify his course or to resign before formal parliamentary censure shall have been passed, or the cabinet as a whole rallies to the support of the minister in question and stands or falls with him. This is but another way of saying that, in practice, the responsibility of the cabinet is collective rather than individual. This responsibility covers the entire range of acts of the executive branch of the government, whether regarded as acts of the king or of the ministers themselves, and it constitutes the most distinctive feature of the English parliamentary system. Formerly the only means by which ministers could be held to account by Parliament was impeachment. With the development, however, of the principle of ministerial responsibility as a necessary adjunct to and instrumentality of parliamentary government, the occasional and violent process of impeachment was superseded by continuous, inescapable, and pacific legislative supervision. The impeachment of cabinet ministers may, indeed, be regarded as obsolete.

A fundamental maxim of the constitution to-day is that a cabinet shall continue in office only so long as it enjoys the

1 Government of England, I, 57. See MacDonaugh, Book of Parliament, 148–183.

confidence and support of a majority in the House of Commons. There are at least four ways in which a parliamentary majority may manifest its dissatisfaction with a cabinet, and thereby compel its resignation. It may pass a simple vote of "want of confidence," assigning therefor no definite reason. It may pass a vote of censure, criticizing the cabinet for some specific act. It may defeat a measure which the cabinet advocates and declares to be of vital importance. Or it may pass a bill in opposition to the advice of the ministers. The cabinet is not obliged to give heed to an adverse vote in the Lords; but when any of the four votes mentioned is carried in the lower chamber, the premier and his colleagues must do one of two things - resign or appeal to the country. If it is clear that the cabinet has lost the support, not only of Parliament, but also of the electorate, the only honorable course for the ministry is to resign. If, on the other hand, there is doubt as to whether the parliamentary majority really represents the country upon the matter at issue, the ministers are warranted in requesting the sovereign to dissolve Parliament and to order a general election. In such a situation the ministry continues tentatively in office. If the elections return a majority prepared to support the ministers, the cabinet is given a new lease of life. If, on the other hand, the new parliamentary majority is hostile, no course is open to the ministry save to retire.

Secrecy of Proceedings. - Steadily responsible to the House of Commons and obligated to resign collectively when no longer able to command a working majority in that body, the cabinet must at all times seek to present a solid and imposing front. Two devices to this end have been secrecy of proceedings and leadership of the premier. It is a sufficiently familiar principle that a group of men brought together to agree upon and execute a common policy in behalf of a widespread and diverse constituency will be more likely to succeed if the differences that are sure to appear within their ranks are not published to the world. It was in deference to this fact that the German Bundesrath always transacted business behind closed doors; and it was for the same reason that the public was excluded from the sittings of the convention which framed the present constitution of the United States. Notices of meetings of the English cabinet and the names of members present appear in the press, but until of late not a word was given out, officially or unofficially, concerning the subjects discussed, the opinions expressed, or the conclusions arrived at. In the earlier part of the nineteenth

century brief minutes of the proceedings were recorded. But in later times no clerical employee was allowed to be present, and no formal record whatsoever was kept. For knowledge of past transactions members had to rely upon their own or their colleagues' memories, supplemented at times by privately kept notes. It was, indeed, so the ex-premier, Mr. Asquith, stated in the House of Commons in 1916"the inflexible, unwritten rule of the cabinet that no member should take any note or record of the proceedings except the prime minister." It was announced, however, on this same occasion that a different plan was to be followed in the future, that minutes of the proceedings were to be kept, and that a record of every decision would be sent by the prime minister's secretary to every member of the cabinet and to any other minister or department affected. Cabinet meetings, which are held only as occasion requires (usually as often as once a week when Parliament is in session) are entirely informal. There is not even a fixed place for them, the members being gathered sometimes at the Foreign Office, sometimes at the premier's official residence (No. 10, Downing Street), or, as circumstance may arise, at almost any convenient spot.

Leadership of the Premier. The unity of the cabinet is farther safeguarded and emphasized by the leadership of the prime minister. Long after the rise of the cabinet to controlling influence in the state, the members of the ministerial body continued supposedly upon a common footing in respect to both rank and authority. The habitual abstention of the early Hanoverian monarchs from attendance at cabinet meetings, however, left the group leaderless, and the members gradually came to recognize a virtual presidency on the part of one of their own number. In time what was a mere presidency was converted into a thoroughgoing leadership, in short, into the premier's office of to-day. It is commonly considered that the first person who fulfilled the functions of prime minister in the modern sense was Sir Robert Walpole, First Lord of the Treasury from 1715 to 1717 and from 1721 to 1742. The term prime minister was not yet in common use; Walpole disliked the title and refused to allow himself to be called by it. But that the realities of the office existed is indicated by a motion made in the Commons attacking Walpole on the ground that he had

1 Similarly, no formal record is kept of proceedings of the president's cabinet in the United States. On the secrecy of English cabinet proceedings see Low, Governance of England (new ed.), 34-43.

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grasped in his own hands every branch of government; had attained the sole direction of affairs; had monopolized all the powers of the crown; had compassed the disposal of all places, pensions, titles, and rewards" - almost precisely, as one writer puts it, what the present premier is doing and is expected to do.1 By the time of the establishment of the ministry of the younger Pitt, in 1783, the ascendancy of the premier among his colleagues was an accomplished fact and was recognized as legitimate. The essentials of his position may be regarded as substantially complete when, during the later years of George III, the rule became fixed that in making up a ministry the king should merely ratify the choice of officials made by the premier.

Not until 1906 was the premier's office recognized by law.2 But through more than a century no other public position in the nation has been comparable with it in volume of actual power. Within the ministry, more particularly the cabinet, the premier is the guiding force. He presides, as a rule, at cabinet meetings; he advises with colleagues upon matters affecting the administration's welfare; and, while he may shrink from doing it, he can require of his colleagues that they accept his views, with the alternative of his resignation or theirs.3 He occupies one of the high offices of state, usually that of First Lord of the Treasury; and, although ordinarily his own portfolio will not absorb much of his time or energy, he will expect to exercise a general supervision, and even a certain amount of control, over all of the departments in which his appointees have

1 Moran, Theory and Practice of the English Government, 99.

2 This was done in a statute fixing the order of precedence in state ceremonials. A royal proclamation of December 2, 1905, however, gave "Our Prime Minister" precedence next after the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord High Chancellor, and the Archbishop of York. For the full order of precedence see Hazell's Annual and Almanac, 1919, p. 158.

The resignation of the premier terminates ipso facto the life of the ministry. An excellent illustration of the accustomed subordination of individual differences of opinion to the interests of cabinet solidarity is afforded by some remarks made by Mr. Asquith, December 4, 1911, to a deputation of the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage. The deputation had called to protest against the Government's announced purpose to attach a suffrage amendment (if carried in the House of Commons) to a forthcoming measure of franchise reform. The Premier explained that he was, and always had been, of the opinion that "the grant of the parliamentary franchise to women in this country would be a political mistake of a very grievous kind." "So far," he continued, "we are in complete harmony with one another. On the other hand, I am, as you know, for the time being the head of the Government, in which a majority of my colleagues, a considerable majority of my colleagues - I may say that without violating the obligation of cabinet secrecy are of a different opinion; and the Government in those circumstances has announced a policy which is the result of their combined deliberations, and by which it is the duty of all their members, and myself not least, to abide loyally. That is the position, so far as I am personally concerned."