war cabinet from the summer of 1917 to the end of 1918, although he was, of course, neither a minister nor a member of Parliament. But again no law was violated; for it is only custom that requires cabinet officers to be members of Parliament.

The war cabinet's methods of work are fully described, not only in its published reports, but in certain speeches of its members on the floor of Parliament. The body met every day, often. two or three times a day, and hence, for all practical purposes, was in session continuously. Part of the time was given to hearing reports, including a daily summary of the military situation. Part was given to discussion of military policy and of public questions, participated in by the members alone and behind closed doors. But most of the sittings were taken up largely with hearings and discussions, attended and participated in by ministers, military and naval experts, and persons of many sorts and connections who were invited to appear. Thus, if the agenda of the day called for a consideration of diplomatic questions, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, accompanied perhaps by one or more of his under-secretaries or other aids and subordinates, would be likely to be present. "The majority of the sessions of the war cabinet," says the Report for 1917, "consist, therefore, of a series of meetings between members of the war cabinet and those responsible for executive action at which questions of policy concerning those departments are discussed and settled. Questions of overlapping or conflict between departments are determined and the general lines of policy throughout every branch of the administration coördinated so as to form part of a consistent war plan. Ministers have full discretion to bring with them any experts, either from their own departments or from outside, whose advice they consider would be useful." In pursuance of this work of coördination, scores of special committees were set up, consisting usually of the heads of the departments most concerned, under the chairmanship of a member of the war cabinet. Finally, it is to be observed that.all of the principal ministers were occasionally convoked in a "plenum of the cabinet " for the consideration of great public questions such as the Irish situation and the Representation of the People Bill, although even on these matters the final choice of policy lay with the war cabinet.

1 Notably one by Lord Curzon in the House of Lords on June 19, 1918 (Parl. Deb., 5th series, Lords, xxx, 263 ff.).

2 Cd. 9005, 1918, p. 2.

For example, the war priorities committee, the economic defense and development committee, the committee on home affairs, and the demobilization committee.

So long as hostilities continued, the war cabinet had, indeed, the powers of an autocrat. It recognized an ultimate responsibility to the House of Commons. But it was practically independent, and it is doubtful whether it could have been overthrown. Parliament, already shorn of real initiative, and heavily depleted by war service, became a mere machine for the registration of executive edicts. After the armistice, however, the situation changed. Criticism of the war cabinet as an arbitrary "junto," long repressed, broke forth; and the new parliament elected in December, 1918, although containing a huge Government majority, showed much independence of spirit. The end of the war cabinet began to be both prophesied and demanded, and the premier himself intimated that such a change was not unlikely to come.1 After the Peace Conference convened at Paris, in January, 1919, only three members of the governing group were left in England; and Mr. Law who in the absence of Mr. Lloyd George acted as a sort of deputy prime minister, began to summon ministerial conferences attended by twenty or thirty persons, and therefore bearing a strong resemblance to the cabinet of pre-war days. Upon resuming the reins in Downing Street, in midsummer, Mr. Lloyd George made it known that the war cabinet was soon to be superseded; and for some weeks the details of the impending reorganization absorbed much of his thought. The cabinet in its new form had served a useful purpose. But it was not conspicuously successful in coördinating the work of the different departments, and it virtually abrogated the principle of the collective responsibility of the ministers for the acts of the Government. Its abandonment, in its present form at all events, was almost universally desired.

The contemplated reconstruction raised, however, two difficult questions. How large should the reorganized cabinet be made? And should the principle of party solidarity within the cabinet be revived? Even if only the ministers who were heads of departments were brought in, there would be thirty members. But pre-war cabinets had never contained more than twentytwo persons; that number had usually been considered too large; the political history of 1915-16 had vividly demonstrated the disadvantages of a large cabinet; and the Machinery of

1 In announcing the new coalition government formed after the elections he said (January 10, 1919) that the war cabinet would be continued until there should have been "more time to make permanent peace arrangements." London Times, Jan. 11, 1919.

Government Committee of the Ministry of Reconstruction was urging that for the proper performance of its functions the cabinet should consist of not more than twelve- indeed, preferably ten-members. Mr. Lloyd George's own idea was that only twelve of the most important department heads should be admitted, which would mean a cabinet of the same size as that over which Disraeli presided in 1874-80. He found it not feasible to adhere to this plan, however, and as the new cabinet gradually took form, in October, 1919, it steadily approached the proportions of pre-war days and finally attained a membership of twenty. The secretariat set up in 1915 was wisely preserved, and formal records of proceedings, although not published, continue to be kept. It is unlikely that the old methods of transacting business will ever be restored, and in that case the war cabinet experiment will have had lasting and wholesome results. To the date of writing (1920), however, the coalition principle has been maintained; so that the cabinet system does not yet function as it formerly did, although there are growing indications that cabinets formed with a view to party unity will presently reappear.2

1 See p. 89.

On the war cabinet see J. A. Fairlie, British War Administration (New York, 1919), 31-58 (also in Mich. Law Rev., May, 1918); R. Schuyler, "The British War Cabinet," in Polit. Sci. Quar., Sept., 1918, and "The British Cabinet, 1916-1919," ibid., Mar., 1920; A. V. Dicey, "The New English War Cabinet as a Constitutional Experiment," in Harvard Law Rev., June, 1917; H. W. Massingham, “Lloyd George and his Government," in Yale Rev., July, 1917; Anon., "The Recent Political Crisis," in Quar. Rev., Jan., 1917; S. Low, "The Cabinet Revolution," in Fortn. Rev., Feb., 1917; F. Piggott, "The Passing of the Cabinet," in Nineteenth Cent., Feb., 1917; H. Spender, "The British Revolution," in Contemp. Rev., May, 1917; London Times Hist. and Cyclop. of the War, Parts lx and cxxvii; J. Barthélemy, "La gouvernement par les spécialistes et la recénte experience anglaise" in Rev. Sci. Polit., Apr., 1918. The reports of the cabinet for 1917 and 1918 have been cited (p. 108, note 2).

CHAPTER VIII

PARLIAMENT: THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

THE Parliament which sits at Westminster is not only the chief organ of English democracy but the oldest, the largest, and the most powerful of modern legislative assemblages; it is, withal, in a very true sense, the mother of parliaments. Speaking broadly, it originated in the thirteenth century, became definitely organized in two houses in the fourteenth century, wrested the control of the nation's affairs from the king in the seventeenth century, and underwent a thoroughgoing democratization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The jurisdiction which, step by step, the two houses have acquired has been broadened until it includes practically the whole domain of government; and within this enormous expanse of political control the power of the chambers is, as we have seen, absolutely unrestricted, in law and in fact. "The British Parliament, writes Bryce, can make and unmake any and every law, change the form of government or the succession to the crown, interfere with the course of justice, extinguish the most sacred private rights of the citizen. Between it and the people at large there is no legal distinction, because the whole plenitude of the people's rights and powers resides in it, just as if the whole nation were present within the chamber where it sits. In point of legal theory it is the nation, being the historical successor of the folk moot of our Teutonic forefathers. Both practically and legally, it is to-day the only and the sufficient depository of the authority of the nation; and it is therefore, within the sphere of law, irresponsible and omnipotent." Whether the business in hand is constituent or legislative, whether ecclesiastical or temporal, the right of Parliament to discuss and to dispose is incontestable. In order to understand how England is governed it is, therefore, necessary to give much attention to Parliament; and in order to appreciate the fullness of English political democracy one must know something of the long historic process by which this 1 American Commonwealth (3 ed.), I, 35-36.

all-powerful Parliament at all events the House of Commons has been made completely representative of the people. Present Composition. "When," wrote Spencer Walpole a quarter of a century ago, "a minister consults Parliament he consults the House of Commons; when the Queen dissolves Parliament she dissolves the House of Commons. A new Parlia

ment is simply a new House of Commons." 1 The gathering of the representatives of the commons" at Westminster is indeed, and has long been, without question the most important single agency of government in the kingdom. The chamber is at the same time the chief repository of power and the prime organ of the popular will. It is in consequence of its prolonged and arduous development that Great Britain has attained democracy in national government; and the influence of English democracy, as actualized in the House of Commons, upon the political ideas and the governmental forms of the outlying world, both English-speaking and non-English-speaking, is incalculable.

The House of Commons consists to-day of 707 members, of whom 492 sit for English constituencies, 36 for Welsh, 74 for Scottish, and 105 for Irish. Fifteen of the members are chosen, under somewhat special arrangements, to represent the principal universities. The remaining 692 are elected in county or borough constituencies 372 in the former and 320 in the latter - under a suffrage law which falls not far short of being the most democratic in the world. The regulations governing the qualifications for election are simple and liberal. There was once a residence qualification. But in the eighteenth century it was replaced by a property qualification, which, however, in 1858 was in its turn swept away.2 Oaths of allegiance and oaths imposing religious tests formerly debarred many persons from candidacy. But all that is now required of a member is a very simple oath or affirmation of allegiance, in a form compatible with any shade of religious belief or unbelief. Any British subject who is of age is qualified for election by any constituency to which he [or she] chooses to offer himself [or herself] as a candidate, unless he [or she] belongs to one of a few small groups chiefly peers (except Irish); clergy of the Roman Catholic

1 The Electorate and the Legislature (London, 1892), 48.

2 The rule requiring county members to be residents of the counties they represented was formally abolished in 1774. From 1710 to 1858 the property qualification required of county members was £600 a year, in possession or expectancy, derived from the ownership of land; the qualification of borough members was £300.