being carried out in England will do well to consider, first, the nature of Cabinet government as analysed by Bagehot in 1867; secondly, the peculiar characteristics of the present War Cabinet, and especially its difference from the old Cabinets on which is based Bagehot's account of Cabinet government; and, lastly, the possible effects of the new form of Cabinet government.

CABINET GOVERNMENT AS ANALYSED BY BAGEHOT1

The originality of Bagehot's book lies in one fact: he therein gives a picture of the English Constitution as it actually existed and worked one may say lived - before his eyes some fifty years ago. He thereby discovered once and for all two conclusions which had escaped the attention of historians, such as Hallam, and are absolutely inconsistent with the constitutional doctrines of so high an authority as Blackstone. The one conclusion is that "the efficient secret of the English Constitution may be described as the close union, the nearly complete fusion of the executive and legislative powers"; the second is that this fusion of the Government and the Legislature is achieved through the existence of the Cabinet. Let me therefore sum up the leading features of Bagehot's now universally accepted doctrine as to the nature, the appointment, the functions, the power of the English Cabinet and as to the beneficial effect of Cabinet government. But let my readers carefully bear in mind that Bagehot's masterly description of Cabinet government is based upon his subtle observation of Cabinets as they existed during the Mid-Victorian, we might almost say during the Palmerstonian, era, extending from say 1846 to 1866. The lessons to be learned from the events of these twenty years are supplemented in Bagehot's case by careful study of parliamentary history, at any rate from 1830. But for the full appreciation of Bagehot's genius and the right application of his teaching it must not be forgotten that in 1867, when his work was published, he naturally failed to note some constitutional changes which then were only just coming into view, and inevitably could not anticipate events, such for example as the immense development of the Party

1 See BAGEHOT, THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION, ed. 1878, No. 1, The Cabinet, pp. 1-32; No. 5, The House of Commons, pp. 130-175; No. 6, On Changes of Ministry, pp. 176-218; No. 8, Prerequisites of Cabinet Government, pp. 254–271.

system, or one may say of the "Machine," which has taken place in England since his death.2

The Cabinet, according to Bagehot, consists of all the highest officials who hold office during the King's pleasure, and are technically appointed by and dismissible at the pleasure of the King. They are the heads of all the great departments of government, such as the Lord Chancellor, the Secretaries of State, e. g. for Foreign Affairs, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the like. It is true that occasionally a member of the Cabinet might hold no definite office. All the members of the Cabinet are Privy Councillors. They all, according to Bagehot's description, are members of one or other House of Parliament. At the head of the Cabinet stands the Prime Minister. As some Minister must always be responsible for acts done by the King, the exercise of the Royal Prerogative for practical purposes lies in the hands of the Cabinet. The Cabinet therefore is the true English Executive.1

This being granted, the matter of supreme importance is the mode in which the Cabinet is appointed. Technically the members of the Cabinet are each and all nominated, as they are also dismissible, by the King; they are the "King's servants." But in reality they are, as Bagehot insists, selected by the Prime Minister or, in other words, by the statesman authorised by the King to form a Cabinet. They are always selected from the leading members of either House of Parliament, and are of necessity persons of influence in one or other of the Houses, who can, with the Prime

2 In 1872 his introduction to the second edition of his book clearly shows his perception that the changed circumstances of the time were rendering some parts of his work obsolete.

3 In Bagehot's time the Prime Minister had, as such, no legally recognised title. He was really unknown to the Constitution. He was ordinarily the First Lord of the Treasury, an office which left him free to devote himself to his duties as Premier. But he might, as in the case of Pitt, as also of Gladstone, hold the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, which would increase both his labours and his power.

Bagehot, in parts of his book with which I am not here concerned, is careful to show the real and important influence of the Crown, though probably his language a little underrates the power of the King, and still more overlooks the increase in that power which may arise from changing circumstances, e. g. the increasing feeling throughout the British Empire of Imperial unity.

The Cabinets of fifty years ago generally consisted of about fourteen or fifteen persons. The number of Cabinet Ministers varied from time to time, but it gradually, though not continuously, increased. Thus in 1891 it had risen to seventeen; in 1895 to nineteen; in 1914 (at the beginning of the war) to twenty-two; in June, 1915 (the Coalition Government) to twenty-six.

Minister, "command the support of Parliament," to use popular expressions, though in fact what in general is really meant is the support of the House of Commons, or a majority thereof. To put the same thing in other words, the Prime Minister and the members of the Cabinet are the leaders of the party which forms the majority of the House of Commons. The next point to note is that the effect of true Cabinet government, wherever it exists, and now the avowed object of Cabinet government in England, is to establish that fusion of the Executive and the Legislature which is in Bagehot's eyes the extraordinary merit of the English Constitution, and that this end is attained by the selection of members of the Cabinet from among the parliamentary leaders of the party which commands the support of Parliament."

Consider now the functions of the Cabinet. They may be described as the exercise of every kind of power which can belong to a strong Executive, and especially the right to propose and generally to carry any legislation deemed desirable, or at any rate necessary, by the Cabinet. To one special power of our Executive Bagehot calls special attention:

"It is a committee which can dissolve the assembly which appointed it; it is a committee with a suspensive veto a committee with a power of appeal."

The Cabinet therefore is, to use Bagehot's expressions,

"a combining committee - a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the State to the Executive part of the State. In its origin it belongs to the one, in its functions it belongs to the other."

Bagehot is aware of the importance of the difference between selection and election. Selection by the Prime Minister pretty well secures that he will and must choose as colleagues in the Cabinet the most eminent members of the Legislature who belong to the dominant party, of which he will be presumably the chief. Election to the Cabinet either by the two Houses of Parliament sitting together, or by the electorate of the United Kingdom, would probably in many cases have the result of placing in office not the candidate who had the greater number of ardent supporters, but the candidate who would on the whole excite the least opposition among the persons called upon to elect him. This at least is the conclusion a foreign critic is tempted to draw from the character of the Presidents of the Third French Republic who are elected by the two Houses of Parliament sitting together, and from the character of many of the American Presidents elected before the election of Lincoln.

• A private member can still introduce a Bill into Parliament, but his power of passing it through Parliament without the aid of the Government amounts, it is said, at the present day almost to nothing. Since the beginning of the war the authority given to legislation by means of Orders in Council places something very like unlimited legislative authority in the hands of the Cabinet.

But it is much more than this; it links together not only the Executive and the Legislature, but also in a great measure the Government, the Legislature, and the Electorate, or in popular language the people. In any case the

"English system therefore is not an absorption of the executive power by the legislative power, it is the fusion of the two. Either the Cabinet legislates and acts, or else it can dissolve. It is a creature, but it has the power of destroying its creator."

It is worth noting that the want of this power of dissolution produced singular and not always beneficial results on the working of Republican institutions in France. It can hardly be doubted, as Bagehot when quite a young man had the acuteness to discover, that in 1851 the French people desired the re-election of Louis Napoleon as President. The legislative assembly of that day could not be dissolved before the expiration of the term for which it was elected. A majority of the Assembly, if my memory does not deceive me, were willing to pass a law changing the Constitution which should make the President re-eligible, but this majority was not as large as the terms of the Constitution required. An appeal to the electors through a dissolution was impossible. It is at least, however, conceivable that such an appeal would have met the wish of the country, and by giving to Louis Napoleon a new term of office would have deprived him of the excuse, and possibly of the wish, for the coup d'état of the 2nd December, which in effect, though not immediately in form, changed a democratic Republic into a despotic Empire. Under the third Republic a dissolution is legally possible, but it has never but once taken place, and the result of the precedent then set deprives it of authority. When Gambetta was Prime Minister and at the height of his popularity, the want of a right on his part to demand a dissolution prevented him from continuing at the head of the Government.

To Cabinet government, as it existed in England fifty years ago, Bagehot ascribes and, in the main with truth, some pre-eminent

7 A dissolution under the Third French Republic can take place only on the action of the President on the advice of the Senate. See Law of 25 Feb. 1875, s. 5.

“5. Le Président de la République peut, sur l'avis conforme du Sénat, dissoudre la Chambre des députés avant l'expiration légale de son mandat. En ce cas, les colléges électoraux sont convoqués pour de nouvelles élections dans le délai de trois mois."

merits; he clearly holds it to be the best form of executive for any State which in reality enjoys a representative legislature. To him it is an instrument of government which works simply, easily, and effectively; the fusion which it creates between the Cabinet and the Legislature really increases the strength both of Parliament and of the Executive, and further, because legislation in England is so closely connected with the tenure of high office, keeps alive the interest of the people in the otherwise dull business of passing of Acts of Parliament. The Cabinet in his eyes again, by giving actual and exciting importance to parliamentary debate, is the educator of public opinion, whilst the Houses of Parliament, and especially the House of Commons, will be found to constitute the very best body conceivable for selecting the members of the Government; for every one of the men chosen by the Prime Minister to occupy a seat in the Cabinet must be a person well known to one of the two Houses, and probably to both; he must be a man of more than average talent, since, either by the gift of nature or by careful study, he has obtained the power of leadership among men, such as are Members of Parliament who have got to know both the strength and the weaknesses of their fellows. Cabinet government further, though it is a slow product of the complicated and exceptional history of England, and though it is favoured and strengthened by the traditional greatness and the living influence belonging to an English King, is a form of executive which in its essential characteristics can, if its nature be properly understood, be created in countries where no art of legislation can create a constitutional monarchy such as that which has grown up in England. Cabinet government, lastly, as Bagehot always implies, has the transcendent recommendation that it provides the most flexible form of executive which can be now found in any civilized State. Bagehot's belief in the excellence of Cabinet government is tempered by the soundness of his good sense and the acuteness of his insight with regard to all matters that came under his thoughtful observation. The very existence of the new constitutional experiment to which I am calling your readers' attention shows how justly Bagehot attributed flexibility to the English Cabinet. The Constitution of the Third French Republic, which has now stood the terrible test of time and has existed for more than forty years, proves decisively that a form of true Cabinet government may exist under Republican