must be understood as including, not the cabinet merely, but the entire administration, of which the cabinet is the ruling head. The ministry itself comprises the whole assembly of political officers charged with the direction of public affairs, whose tenure of office is dependent upon that of the existing cabinet. This body which is styled the Cabinet, the Ministry, and (not unfrequently) the Government, is invested with two characters. In one of those characters they are ministers of the king as a branch of the Parliament, and of the king as the head of the executive government. In the other, they are virtually a standing committee of the two Houses of Parliament, being respectively members of the Upper and Lower Houses, and preparing and conducting much of their business. As combining the two characters, they may be deemed a small and select body to whom the sovereign Parliament (which consists of king, lords, and commons), delegates its principal functions.' The leading characteristics of the Cabinet Council are thus described by Lord Macaulay, whose personal experience as a politician and statesman gives peculiar weight to his words. 'The ministry is, in fact, a committee of leading members of the two Houses. It is nominated by the crown, but it consists exclusively of statesmen whose opinions on the pressing questions of the time agree, in the main, with the opinions of the majority of the House of Commons. Among the members of this committee are distributed the great departments of the administration. Each minister conducts the ordinary business of his own office without reference to his colleagues. But the most important business of every office, and especially such business as is likely to be the subject of discussion in Parliament, is brought under the consideration of the whole ministry' (or rather, it should be observed, of that section of the ministry which is known as the Cabinet Council). In Parliament the ministers are bound to act as one man on

P Austin's Plea for the Constitution, p. 7.

all questions relating to the executive government. If one of them dissents from the rest on a question too important to admit of compromise it is his duty to retire. While the ministers retain the confidence of the parliamentary majority, that majority supports them against opposition and rejects every motion which reflects on them or is likely to embarrass them. If they forfeit that confidence, if the parliamentary majority is dissatisfied with the way in which patronage is distributed, with the way in which the prerogative of mercy is used, with the conduct of foreign affairs, with the conduct of a war, the remedy is simple. It is not necessary that the Commons should take on themselves the business of administration, that they should request the crown to make this man a bishop and that man a judge, to pardon one criminal and to execute another, to negotiate a treaty on a particular basis, or to send an expedition to a particular place. They have merely to declare that they have ceased to trust the ministry and to ask for a ministry which they can trust.

'It is by means of ministries thus constituted and thus changed that the English government has long been conducted in general conformity with the deliberate sense of the House of Commons, and yet has been wonderfully free from the vices which are characteristic of governments administered by large, tumultuous, and divided assemblies. A few distinguished persons, agreeing in their general opinions, are the confidential advisers at once of the sovereign and of the estates of the realm. In the closet they speak with the authority of men who stand high in the estimation of the representatives of the people. In Parliament they speak with the authority of men versed in great affairs and acquainted with all the secrets of the State. Thus the cabinet has something of the popular character of a representative body, and the representative body has something of the gravity of a cabinet."

Macaulay's Hist. of England, iv. 435, 436. And see Grey on Parl. Govt., new edit., p. 23.

These eloquent paragraphs present an admirable summary of the present position of the Cabinet Council in the British constitution. They generalise upon a variety of points which must necessarily receive careful consideration in the remaining sections of this treatise. Meanwhile it should be distinctly understood that while all important questions, which from time to time may occupy the attention of the government, and all plans of action, whether to be carried out by acts of legislation or of administration, are first proposed, considered, and agreed to A delibera- by the Cabinet, it is nevertheless a deliberative body only, tive body. and whatever powers may belong to its members individually by virtue of their respective offices of State, it has no authority to act collectively, except through the instru mentality of the Privy Council, of which technically considered it must still be regarded as a committee.

Its members unknown to the law.

And not only is the existence of the Cabinet Council, as a governing body, unknown to the law, but the very names of the individuals who may comprise the same at any given period are never officially communicated to the public. The London Gazette announces that the Queen has been pleased to appoint certain privy councillors to fill certain high offices of State, but the fact of their having been called to seats in the Cabinet Council is not formally promulgated. Until the principle of collective ministerial responsibility was fully established this circumstance occasioned frequent impediments in the exercise of the inquisitorial powers of Parliament. There was no method of ascertaining upon whom to affix the responsibility of any obnoxious measure, and Parliament had no alternative but either to assume that the responsibility rested upon, certain individuals holding prominent official rank, or to address the crown to be informed by whom such measures had been advised. No complete lists of existing adminis trations have ever been published by authority, nor is there any legal record of the names of persons of whom See Commons' Journals, ix. 702; x. 298, 300.

6

any cabinet has been composed. It was not until after the year 1800 that regular lists of the ministry for the time being began to be inserted in the Annual Register.' So recently as the middle of the last century, Lord Mansfield, when chief justice of the Court of King's Bench, had a seat in the cabinet during more than one administration, and the fact was not certainly known to Parliament and to the country until several years afterwards. But it is impossible that such a circumstance could now occur because of the publicity attending all ministerial changes, and the full recognition of the doctrine of collective ministerial responsibility for every administrative act.

crown.

The selection of the advisers of the crown is a branch Appointed of the royal prerogative that must be exercised by the by the sovereign himself. It is perhaps the sole act of royalty which, under the existing constitution of Great Britain, can be performed by the sovereign of his own mere will and pleasure. Nevertheless, its performance is necessarily controlled by certain constitutional checks, it being essential to the very existence of parliamentary government that the advisers of the crown should possess, or be able to secure, the approbation of Parliament. We have already traced, in a preceding chapter," the constitutional usage in regard to the choice of ministers by the crown, and have pointed out that while in theory it is presumed that the sovereign is free to select whom he will as his instruments for carrying on the government of the country, he is practically obliged, by the spirit of the constitution, to form his administration of men who can work harmoniously with the legislature, and more particularly with the House of Commons. It was also shown. that while in the first instance the sovereign may be presumed to have acted without advice, when he dismisses one ministry and appoints another, yet that in point of fact the incoming administration are constitutionally "See ante, vol. i. p. 210.

'Parl. Deb. vi. 309. * Ibid. 303.

The crown

Premier,

who recommends his colleagues.

responsible to Parliament for the circumstances under which they have accepted office, including the dismissal of their predecessors, if they are prepared to carry out the policy by which such a change was occasioned.

Upon the resignation or dismissal of a ministry it is customary for the sovereign to send for some recognised party leader, in one or other House of Parliament, and entrust him with the formation of a new administration. Or, should the position of parties be such that no particular person appears to the king to be specially eligible for the post of Prime Minister, he may empower anyone in whom he can repose sufficient confidence to negotiate on his behalf for the formation of a ministry, and to present to him the names of the statesmen who are willing to serve his Majesty in that capacity.'

By modern usage, it is understood that no one but the chooses the Premier is the direct choice of the crown. He is emphatically and especially the king's minister, the one in whom the crown constitutionally places its confidence, and the privilege is conceded to him of choosing his own colleagues; subject, of course, to the approbation of the sovereign. The list of persons selected to compose the new ministry, and who have consented to serve, is submitted to the king, who may approve or disapprove of it, in whole or in part, even to the exclusion from office of anyone personally objectionable to himself." In like manner when any vacancy occurs in an existing ministry, it is the privilege of the Prime Minister to recommend some one chosen by himself to fill up the same. If his colleagues differ with him in the selection he has made, they must either acquiesce in the choice or resign their own offices.*

When negotiations are set on foot between the sovereign and any statesman to whom he may be desirous of entrusting the direction of public affairs, such negotiations

See ante, vol. i. p. 224.

See ibid. p. 225.

* Stanhope, Life of Pitt, vol. iv. p. 288.