Here either house of Congress can play "ducks and drakes" with the estimates made by the various heads of departments for the expenditures of the departments, but in England the cabinet must not allow its financial estimates to be defeated or materially changed. When the cabinet goes before the House of Commons and states that a certain expenditure is necessary for the year it must stand or fall on that proposition. On this subject Mr. Gladstone once said: "No government could be worthy of its place if it permitted its estimates to be seriously resisted by the Opposition; and important changes can be made therein only in circumstances which permit of the raising of the question of a change of government."

In Great Britain the Parliament is obedient to the cabinet or the cabinet must go out of power. In America Congress resents any attempt to direct it by the cabinet or by the President. Let one incident suffice as an illustration. In 1887 the gold reserve in the treasury was being daily depleted-in fact, had almost reached the vanishing point. President Cleveland and Mr. Carlisle, his Secretary of the Treasury, called the attention of Congress to this and that the good faith and financial honor of the country was gravely imperiled. Congress did nothing; President Cleveland alternately plead, indeed fairly begged for action, and stormed and scolded-all to no effect. Congress remained deaf to it all. Finally Secretary Carlisle was compelled to go to New York and seek in Wall Street the gold with which to maintain the credit of the government.

Here the President writes his own messages to Congress, and need not consult the cabinet as a whole, or any individual member of it, but in England the address to Parliament is written by the cabinet, principally by the Prime Minister, and it is looked upon as the official utterance of the government ministers.

Here the cabinet are administrative officials only—that is, their mission is to carry out the laws enacted by Congress. In England, however, the most serious business of the cabinet has to do with the enacting of laws. It is an established principle that the ministers are responsible for the introduction and passage of all needful legislation. Private members may introduce measures, as in the United States, but if they are not adopted by the cabinet they stand slight chance of receiving consideration. There it is the duty of the ministry to prevent the passage of objectionable bills. This can easily be done. In the United States Congress would quickly grow indignant if the cabinet should seriously attempt to prevent the passage of any bill. There the cabinet is accorded every facility for effective and speedy legislation. The law officers of the Crown render very valuable services in this respect. The Attorney General and the Solicitor General always have seats in the House of Commons, and an important part of their duty is to assist in framing bills in a scientific manner. In our Congress bills are framed, oftentimes, by outsiders, and presented by a member,

neither of them having any great experience in such matters. The result is that the work is often done in a very crude manner.

Professor Moran, in his admirable book "The English Government," thus sums up the theory and practice in England:

According to the theory of the English law there is a complete separation of the executive and legislative departments. As a matter of fact, however, the two departments are very closely united, even fused. In theory the Prime Minister is appointed by the Crown; in practice the House of Commons governs the choice. In theory the Crown also appoints the colleagues of the Premier in the cabinet; in practice the Prime Minister dictates these appointments. In theory the Crown makes appointments to office in the nation at large and dispenses patronage generally; in practice the cabinet, principally the Prime Minister, performs those duties. In theory the Crown dissolves Parliament; in practice the Prime Minister dictates the time. In theory laws are enacted by the Crown by the advice and consent of Parliament; in practice laws are enacted by Parliament under the guidance of the cabinet without the advice or consent of the Crown. Such royal advice or consent as is granted is merely formal and could not affect the result. Should the King be rash enough to advise contrary to the wishes of the ministers, his ideas could not prevail. In the United States the President always sits at the head of the table when the cabinet meets. In fact, the cabinet meets only on his call. In England the King is not permitted to attend the meeting of the cabinet. It will be recalled that President Wilson demanded the resignation of Secretary of State Lansing because he, at a time when the President was wholly incapacitated by illness, called meetings of the cabinet to consult on routine matters. Such a thing would be impossible in England.

In this country Congress may trample all over the recommendations of any member of the cabinet, or even over those of the President himself, and it will make no change in the complexion of the cabinet. It very frequently occurs that Congress rejects the recommendations made, especially those made by the Secretaries of State, War and Navy, and it sometimes occurs that bills which they wholly condemn are enacted into laws, but the defeated officers do not resign.

It has frequently been agitated in Congress to make our cabinet a little more like that of England, especially as to make its members responsible to Congress. A number of times bills have been introduced providing that members of the cabinet be given seats on the floor of the House and Senate and be permitted to join in debates on matters concerning their departments.

Now a word as to the origin of the name-cabinet. In the early days in England when the King had a Privy Council it consisted of a large number. The habit grew up for the King on all important questions to select a few members of the Privy Council and take them into a small room adjacent to his own room, generally termed a cabinet, and there consult with them. The term "cabinet" was given in derision to these selected few. Thus from what was first always spoken in derision grew the honorable term cabinet, as we now have it in both England and the United States.

B

FOREIGN AFFAIRS UNDER THE COLONIAL SYSTEM

EFORE AND DURING THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE several of the colonies maintained agents in England. They were called "Friends to American Liberty." These agents were Paul Wentworth, Charles Garth, William Bollan, Thomas Life, Edmund Burke, Arthur Lee and Benjamin Franklin. They were instructed to act for the "United Colonies," but Bollan, Lee and Franklin were the only three who did so. They were the representatives of a power destined soon afterwards to declare its independence, and their duties were to a certain extent diplomatic.

When the Congress met in 1775 it was known that the efforts of the American agents in London had failed to secure a redress of grievances and that the colonies had to choose between submission to the king or rebellion against his authority. An important means by which the rebellion might be successfully prosecuted was provided in the "Committee of Secret Correspondence," selected November 29, 1775, with Benjamin Franklin as its chairman and guiding spirit, and Benjamin Harrison, of Virginia; John Dickinson, of Pennsylvania; Thomas Johnson, of Maryland, and John Jay, of New York, as its members. This was really a committee of foreign affairs. It opened correspondence with Arthur Lee, among others, instructing him to communicate with the French minister of foreign affairs, Count Vergennes, and ask French aid for the colonies. This was the beginning of the negotiations, which resulted three years later in the alliance, offensive and defensive, with France.

But after its first action the Committee of Secret Correspondence ceased to be of importance, Congress preferring to manage the foreign affairs of the country by itself, and on April 17, 1777, the title of the committee was changed and it became the "Committee for Foreign Affairs." The first members were Benjamin Harrison, of Virginia; Robert Morris, of Pennsylvania; Thomas Hayward, Jr., of North Carolina, and James Lovell, of Massachusetts, but the personnel of the committee underwent constant change. The first secretary of the committee was Thomas Paine, who received a salary of seventy dollars a month. He was dismissed in January, 1779, because he made an official matter public. The chief function of the committee was to furnish the agents of the government abroad with accounts of the progress of events in America. Beyond that it simply executed the orders of Congress and had little real power over our foreign affairs. The only member who remained continuously on the committee was Lovell. He was a Boston school teacher; was imprisoned by the British after the battle of Bunker Hill; was exchanged later and elected a member of Congress in December, 1776, serving until 1782. He is represented as having

been a man of learning and ability, but of such eccentricities of manner and temper as to lead at times to doubts of his sanity.

The necessity for some channel through which to conduct foreign affairs resulted finally in "a plan for the Department of Foreign Affairs," reported to Congress in January, 1781. The opening paragraph of the plan stated:

That the extent and rising power of these United States entitles them to a place among the great potentates of Europe, while our political and commercial interests point out the propriety of cultivating with them a friendly correspondence and connection.

It was not until August 10 that the department was organized, and Robert R. Livingston, of New York, was elected the secretary. He had been a member of the old committee for a short time in 1779. He continued to act as Secretary for Foreign Affairs until June 4, 1783. Dr. Francis Wharton estimates his character and services in the diplomatic correspondence of the American Revolution. "Livingston," he says, "though a much younger man than Franklin, possessed, in his dispassionateness and his many-sidedness, not a few of Franklin's characteristics. From his prior administrative experience as royalist recorder of New York he had at least some acquaintance with practical government in America; his thorough studies as scholar and jurist gave him a knowledge of administrative politics in other spheres. *** He did more than anyone in the home government in shaping its foreign policy."

Although Livingston's department was under constant instructions from Congress and was permitted to take no independent action, its duties were, nevertheless, highly important, as it was the medium for all correspondence with our agents abroad. The method of correspondence was perilous and laborious. At least four and sometimes seven copies of every letter were sent, to lessen the chances of loss from capture, and on each packet was written the warning, "To be sunk in case of danger from the enemy." Ciphers were freely used and some of the letters were in invisible ink. Nevertheless, a large portion of the correspondence went to the British foreign office, where the ciphers were probably understood.

When Livingston gave up his office June 4, 1783, he left the business of the department in the hands of the under secretary, Lewis R. Morris; but Morris was without authority to act, and severed his connection with the department soon afterwards, his place being taken by Henry Remsen, Jr. As a matter of fact, however, the Department of Foreign Affairs practically ceased to exist, and Congress managed the foreign relations of the country directly, committees being appointed as occasion arose to consider specific questions.

John Jay, of New York, was one of the commissioners who, in 1783, negotiated at Paris the definitive treaty of peace with Great Britain. He sailed for home in the summer of 1784, and before his arrival was elected Secretary of Foreign Affairs on motion of Elbridge Gerry, of

Massachusetts. He took the oath of office and entered on his duties September 21, 1784, and the functions of the department were revived, but they were ill defined and limited, and the secretary was constantly complaining of the unsatisfactory nature of his authority.

On September 16, 1788, was taken the last act relative to foreign affairs by the expiring Congress, when it

Resolved, That no further progress be made in the negotiations with Spain by the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, but that the subject to which they relate be referred to the federal government which is to assemble in March next.