permanent officials in the English administration now are; persons of ability and experience, and often large influence, but accustomed in all important matters to carry out unquestioningly the decisions of their parliamentary chiefs. Such permanent heads would be obviously fitted to supply the element of continuous special experience in which Parliament and its committees would be likely to be wanting; and, as this kind of subordinate work would not offer an irresistible prize to the parliamentary leaders, it would be natural to keep the management of the executive departments, under Parliament, in the hands of such permanent officials, chosen for their qualifications for their special work, and at the same time willing to serve loyally the dominant majority for the time being in Parliament and its committees. Such extra-parliamentary heads would not, indeed, necessarily be taken from the subordinate officials in their respective departments-if a sweeping reform were required in any branch of the administration it would be probably best to introduce an outsider, and it would doubtless be difficult to prevent parliament from being an avenue to the posts. But at any rate it might be hoped that any member of parliament appointed would have some claims to special fitness for his post, and when appointed he would give up his parliamentary position. Appointments in the Executive would, in short, resemble appointments in the Judiciary under the present English system; by which parliamentary lawyers are often made judges, but a man ignorant of law could not practically be made a judge, although a man ignorant of finance may be made Chancellor of the Exchequer. This might, perhaps, turn out to be the least unsatisfactory plan for working simple Parliamentary Government, in spite of the disadvantages inseparable from administration by a numerous elected assembly.

But if, to avoid these disadvantages, large powers be left to the supreme executive, the exercise of these powers can hardly fail to be an object of the highest political ambition, while at the same time the parliamentary majority will naturally demand that they should be entrusted to persons

who have its confidence. The chief executive posts will therefore be filled by parliamentary leaders, who, though they will be probably persons of general intellectual force, are more likely to be distinguished for oratorical gifts and parliamentary tact than for administrative talent. This is one disadvantage of a parliamentary executive; another is that the prize thus offered to parliamentary ambitions is likely to stimulate intrigues and combinations for personal ends. The executive will thus be in constant danger of being suddenly thrown out of office by such intrigues; and it will be exposed to a similar danger from honest changes of political opinion, whenever the majority supporting it in the legislature is either small or naturally unstable from the multiplicity of party divisions.1 In view of these dangers, the ministers will be drawn to devote a large share of their attention to the business of managing the legislature, in order to detect and frustrate the plots of personal ambition, and more effectually meet or avoid the attacks of hostile combinations of all kinds: and their energies are thus likely to be distracted from their proper work.

§ 3. In the modification of Parliamentary Government which has gradually been developed in England, under the forms of constitutional monarchy, the objections to a Parliamentary executive are somewhat reduced by the power which the executive possesses of dissolving parliament. In all cases where this system is actually working, the legislature consists of two chambers; but it will be convenient for the present to ignore the Senate or Upper Chamber; and in so doing we shall not diverge very materially from actual facts, as this chamber has usually little share in the control exercised by parliament over the executive. In the English species of Parliamentary Government the practical head of the executive is practically though not formally selected by the majority of the representative assembly,—at least when the choice of this majority is clear and decided; while the

1 I shall hereafter point out (chap. xxix.) as a merit of the two party system that it tends to reduce this danger, though it does not completely get rid of it.

other members of the supreme Executive Council or Cabinet are also leading members of the same majority (or persons of similar views in the second chamber). But, when formed, the Cabinet is not removable at the will of the representative assembly that practically appointed its head the executive has by established constitutional custom the power of dissolving the body by which it was indirectly appointed or any subsequently elected assembly and causing a new election. It is the recognised duty of the cabinet to resign office, unless it can obtain the support of the majority of a representative assembly: and should it refuse to resign after a vote of want of confidence, it would be regarded as the constitutional right of the assembly-and the proper course under the circumstances to compel its resignation by refusing to furnish supplies:1 but the executive may always by a dissolution appeal to the electorate from any particular assembly with which it may disagree on any vital question of policy. In this way two results are attained there is normally a close harmony between the Cabinet and the assembly, any breach in which tends to be rapidly healed by a change in the personnel of one or the other organ: while at the same time the two bodies mutually check each other in a manner which tends to remove from either the temptations that arise from the consciousness of supreme power. If the representative assembly could simply dismiss the Cabinet at any moment, the latter might be compelled to watch its drifts of opinion and gusts of sentiment with the same absolute subserviency with which an Eastern vizier watches the whims and humours of an individual. But when the executive has the power of dissolving the assembly the case is altered: first, because the majority in the representative assembly can never be certain that it rather than the executive will be supported by the nation: and secondly, because an election is usually a troublesome

1 In England the resignation of ministers might also be compelled by refusing to pass the annual Mutiny Act authorising the discipline required for the army. But in the Continental adaptations of English constitutional methods, Refusal of Supplies is generally recognised as the normal method of enforcing parliamentary control over the executive.

crisis in the parliamentary career of a representative, which he has, therefore, a personal inducement to postpone. Thus while parliamentary control effectually checks any misuse of power by the executive, which the parliamentary majority would disapprove, on the other hand the power of dissolution enables the executive to resist any caprices and vagaries on the part of the legislature, which the majority of the electorate, if appealed to, would disapprove; and at the same time the possibility of any prolonged conflict between the two is completely excluded.

The essential features of this system are independent of the existence of the hereditary monarch who, in most countries under Parliamentary Government, formally appoints the practical head of the executive. If the Prime Minister in England, or any country that has adopted the English type of "constitutional monarchy," monarchy," were appointed directly by the House of Commons, the whole business of government might go on without any material change-at least in ordinary times, and the balance of power between executive and legislative organs might be the same as at present. The question therefore arises how far such an official as the hereditary monarch has come to be is needed in a constitution of the English type,—in which the claim of the leaders of the majority of Parliament to form the supreme administrative cabinet is practically undisputed,-except to maintain the continuity of constitutional development in a country that has been more monarchically governed. At present the hereditary monarch in such a constitution is the highest representative of the executive on all ceremonial occasions, and has to give formal assent to the most important executive acts. He has a right to have full information as to the grounds of all such acts, and to require them to be discussed with him before his assent is given. But he has not, according to the existing constitutional understanding, a right to impose his own policy on his ministers: if there is an irreconcilable disagreement in policy between him and them, the monarch is bound to give way-at least if their designs are not illegal, and if they are supported by a majority of the

representative assembly and of the electorate. Let us ask, then, how far it would be desirable to establish such a hereditary monarch-or an elected official having corresponding functions-in an English colony that was carrying out a peaceful separation from the mother country, and equipping itself for perfect political independence: or in any other civilised community in which a fair degree of education and enlightenment was generally diffused, supposing it to be somehow in need of a new constitution.

§ 4. In examining the effects of such an institution it will be well to distinguish between the normal functions of the monarch- -as it will be convenient to call him-in ordinary times, and his exceptional functions in relation to actual or possible changes of government. Among the former, if we are considering the actual social conditions under which the English type of constitutional monarchy exists in West European states, we must certainly count as important, from its effect on popular imagination, the additional appearance of stability which the government gains by the permanence of its formal head amid the changes of ministries. As we shall presently note, the liability of these changes to occur with disturbing frequency is one of the defects of this form of government: and if it be said that the bad effect of such changes on the work of government is rather veiled than diminished by the unshaken permanence of the hereditary monarch, we may fairly answer that to veil it is to mitigate it, owing to the practical importance of the prestige of government, in producing a general sense of confidence among the governed, and maintaining the habit of willing obedience. It seems probable, however, that as the political consciousness of a nation grows, and the sentiment of loyalty to the state comes generally to take the place of that personal feeling towards the (so-called) sovereign " which West European communities have inherited from an earlier stage of development, this utility of the hereditary monarch will become at any rate less important.

But further, apart from any consideration of prestige, the mere permanence of the position of the monarch,