is necessary as a protection against tyranny- that he should be constitutionally incompetent to perform any executive act without the co-operation of a responsible minister, still it is his duty in all such acts to exercise an independent judgment on the advice offered by his ministers, and to keep the reins of administration firmly in his own hands.

The advantages and drawbacks of this system cannot well be discussed without entering fully into the consideration of the relation between the legislature and the executive, which I have reserved for the following chapter. My aim now is rather to point out the essential difference between the German type of government, which may be called Simple Constitutional Monarchy, and the English type; which we shall find it convenient to distinguish sometimes as "English Parliamentary Government," sometimes as "English Constitutional Monarchy "according to the point of view from which it is regarded. The personal irresponsibility of the monarch, in the English view, is essentially connected with comparative powerlessness in current administration-it is held that the ministers who have the sole responsibility for executive acts must also have the decisive will in doing them; whereas, in the German view, legal irresponsibility is an essential attribute of supreme power, which is held to be vested in the monarch. It may be further observed that the "Constitutional responsibility" of ministers is differently conceived in the two views: in the German view it means-primarily, if not solely their liability to punishment for illegal or corrupt use of their power: in the English view the most important part of the meaning is, that ministers are liable. to dismissal if their policy is disapproved by a majority of the representative assembly and of the electorate. This difference is, of course, due to the essentially different relations between the executive and the legislature in the two systems which we will now proceed to examine further.

1 I shall explain in the next chapter why and how important powers still remain to the monarch in the English form of government.

CHAPTER XXII

THE RELATION OF THE LEGISLATURE TO THE EXECUTIVE

§ 1. THE relation of the Supreme Executive to the Legislative organ is one of the knottiest points in constitutional construction; it is variously conceived by different theoretical politicians who agree in accepting the principle of popular control over legislation, and variously determined in different modern states in which a popularly elected assembly is actually a main element of the legislature. In the present treatise I think it best not to attempt a single solution of the problem; but rather to characterise the chief methods of dealing with it that seem at all acceptable, point out their advantages and drawbacks, and make some suggestions as to the particular modification of each method which is most likely to be stable and efficacious.

In a previous chapter it was shown that the legislature, from the nature of its functions, must be, in a certain manner and degree, supreme over the other organs of government: since its main business is to lay down the general rules which the executive and the judiciary, no less than other members of the community, are constitutionally bound to obey. Hence the most obvious and simple mode of determining the relations between the legislature and executive would seem to be that of complete subordination

i.e. that the supreme executive should be appointed by the legislature, bound to carry out any resolution it may pass, and simply dismissible at its will. In this way the perfect harmony between the two organs, which is obviously

conducive if not indispensable to efficient government, might be easily and thoroughly secured. To attain this result, however, it seems necessary that the legislature should consist of a single body, capable of corporately deciding any question brought before it by a simple majority of votes, and not of two or more bodies, each of which can check the rest since otherwise the desired harmony would be liable to be marred by a conflict among the bodies of which the legislature is composed, sustaining a conflict between one or more of these bodies and the executive.

This arrangement-on the assumption that the single legislative body is a numerous assembly, chosen from time to time by the citizens at large,'-may be distinguished as Simple Parliamentary Government. Its simplicity is an obvious and real merit: but the institution has not been adopted by any modern state, and appears to be open to very serious objections. The first of these is the consideration to which J. S. Mill gives most weight in favour of two legislative chambers,-"the evil effect produced upon the mind of any holder of power, whether an individual or an assembly, by the consciousness of having only themselves to consult. It is important that no set of persons should be able, even temporarily, to make their sic volo prevail, without asking any one else for his consent. A majority in a single assembly, when it has assumed a permanent character, easily becomes despotic and overweening" if released from all external check on its power. Further, an assembly that can dismiss the executive at will must be expected to grasp, either occasionally or permanently, the supreme direction of the business of the executive: if, as is not unlikely, its control were only exercised in a fitful and irregular way, when any affair reached a specially interesting crisis, its intervention would be almost certainly

2

1 In chap. xxvii. I shall consider whether the elected legislators should be, in their turn, dismissible at will by their constituents. This is perhaps the most natural arrangement according to one rather prevalent view of representative government: but I do not think it would be a good arrangement: and it seems more convenient to defer the discussion of it.

2 Representative Government, chap. xiii.

ignorant and impulsive: while if its control were of a more settled and regular kind, it would practically become the supreme executive, and the government would be liable to the disadvantages-before noticed that attend on the union of legislative and executive functions in the same hands. And even apart from the general objections to this cumulation of functions, it seems improbable that a numerous assembly, whose members are elected for short periods, would make a good supreme council for the administration of current affairs: especially where considerations of importance in deciding an administrative question could not be made public without detriment to the community. This latter is most likely to be the case in foreign affairs: and here it is further to be observed that-apart from any need of secrecy there is reason for doubting whether a representative assembly will be well qualified for managing wisely the external relations of the community. To the consideration of internal affairs a truly representative assembly is likely to bring-at the lowest estimate of the elector's faculty of choice-an important and indispensable element of the knowledge that a statesman ought to possess. For in such a body the political needs and aspirations of all the different sections find adequate expression; and what even comparatively unenlightened and half-instructed persons feel and want in such matters is worth knowing; they can at any rate tell us exactly where the shoe pinches, and their experience may help us somewhat in finding a remedy. But in foreign affairs what the ordinary members of any community desire is, for the most part, the attainment of very vague and general ends-peace as far as possible, the respect of other nations, justice according to their own view of it in any collision of interests, and victory when they go to war: and the best means of realising these different and somewhat incompatible ends can only be ascertained by a kind of study and experience which lies quite apart from that which the majority of the representative assembly can be relied on to possess. Again, in foreign affairs-especially 1 Chap. xix. § 7.

when a nation is in keen competition and danger of conflict with vigilant and energetic rivals-we require combinations and preparations for remote contingencies, a power of concluding agreements with great promptitude, and a stability and consistency of policy which neither reason nor experience would lead us to expect in a numerous rapidly changing assembly. And finally, as I before noted, what was said of the prima facie natural supremacy of legislative over executive functions in internal affairs applies much less in this other department: since the external relations of a community are hardly capable of being regulated by definite, stringent, and permanent general rules. If, then, to avoid the dangers of disunited and conflicting directions at a crisis, it is important that the ultimate control of internal and external executive functions should be in the same hands, we are led to the conclusion that it is undesirable to make the executive the simple agent of the legislature.

§ 2. If, however, in view of these considerations, we suppose a large share of power-such as the English Cabinet possesses to be allowed to the supreme Executive, still simply dismissible at the will of the legislature, new drawbacks and dangers present themselves;the drawbacks and dangers of a Parliamentary Executive. I use this term to denote the arrangement by which the headships of the most important departments of the Executive are allotted to leading members of the majority in the Legislature. It is important to observe that this arrangement is not a necessary consequence of the undisputed supremacy of Parliament-rather we may say that a parliament really governing, in the fullest sense of the term, would hardly find room for what I call a Parliamentary Executive. If we suppose Parliament to keep the control of current administration effectively in its own hands-dividing the determination of all important questions between the assembly in full session and committees appointed for the different departments of work-it would only require further such executive heads as the highest

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