The Mother of Parliaments Part 8

In Tudor days the Sovereign had almost dispensed with Parliament altogether--in the course of Queen Elizabeth's lengthy reign it was only summoned thirteen times--and the country was governed autocratically by the monarch, with the aid of his Privy Council. This advisory body varied in size from year to year. In Henry VIII.'s reign it consisted of about a dozen members; later on, the number was much increased. In time the Privy Council became too large and c.u.mbersome an a.s.sembly to act together without friction, and was gradually subdivided into various committees, to each of which was given some specific legislative function.

In the reign of Edward VI. one of these smaller bodies was known as the Committee of State, and from this has slowly developed the Cabinet to which we are accustomed to-day. When the Great Council of Peers was convened at York in 1640, the Committee of State was reproachfully referred to as the "Cabinet Council,"--from the fact that its meetings were held in a small room in the Royal Palace,--and afterwards as the "Juncto." It consisted of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Earl of Strafford, and a few other leading men, and met at odd times to discuss important intelligence, the Privy Council only meeting when specially summoned.

James I. acquired the habit of entrusting his confidence to a few advisers, and his successors followed suit. The inner council, or cabal, thus originated, was the cause of much parliamentary jealousy and popular suspicion. After the fall of Clarendon in 1677, and of Danby twelve years later, Charles II. promised, in accordance with the general desire, to be governed by the Privy Council, and to have no secrets from that body. It soon became evident, however, that the King had no intention of keeping his promise, and the Remonstrance of 1682 complained that great affairs of State were still managed "in Cabinet Councils, by men unknown, and not publicly trusted."

In Stuart days the Commons had grown in strength from year to year, and the Privy Council had weakened proportionately, though it had increased in size. Besides being so unwieldy as to be impracticable for administrative purposes, it was largely composed of men who were not in any way fitted for the post of responsible advisers. Naunton, writing of Elizabeth's day, observed that "there were of the Queen's Councell that were not in the Catalogue of Saints."[123] And much the same criticism would apply to the Privy Councillors of Stuart times.

The inner Cabinet, therefore, gradually a.s.sumed all the more important functions of the Legislature, and eventually became the ruling power in the State.

[123] "Fragmenta Regalia," p. 23.

In the time of Charles II. the Ministry was not a united body, but was composed of men of different political opinions, each of whom held his office at the King's pleasure. The Cabinet long remained, therefore, in a disorganised and subordinate condition, largely dependent upon the royal will. Under the Tudors and Stuarts, Ministers were the masters or servants of the Crown, according as the Sovereign was a weak or a strong one. They did not necessarily sit in Parliament, nor did they act together in response to the views of a parliamentary majority. The Cabinet itself consisted of an inner group of responsible advisers and an outer circle of members with whom they often differed fundamentally. There was no need for unanimity of political thought in the Cabinet of those days, so long as its members were unanimous in their subservience to the King.

After the Revolution of 1688, however, the powers of the Crown were limited and those of Parliament extended. Ministers now customarily sat in Parliament, and gradually acquired unanimity of thought and purpose, working together with common responsibility and for common interests.[124] The Cabinet thus became what Walter Bagehot calls a "combining committee--a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative to the executive part of the State"--and remained an essentially deliberative a.s.sembly, as opposed to the Privy Council, or administrative body.

William III. had begun by convening mixed Cabinets of Whigs and Tories, but in 1693 he determined to appoint Ministers all of one party, and in two years his Cabinet was entirely composed of Whigs.

This example was followed by his successor, though unwillingly, and the Cabinet system, as we understand it to-day, may be said to date from the moment when G.o.dolphin forced Queen Anne to accept Sunderland, and, later, to remove Harley, in accordance with the views expressed by the country at elections.

[124] It is not absolutely necessary for a Cabinet Minister to sit in either House. Gladstone was a Secretary of State from December 1845, to July, 1846, without a seat in Parliament.

By this time Parliament had learnt to tolerate the idea of a Cabinet, and the word itself appears for the first time officially in the Lords' Address to the Queen in 1711. In that year a lengthy debate took place on the meaning of the words "Cabinet Council," several peers preferring the term "Ministers." Among the latter was the Earl of Peterborough, who declared that sometimes there was no Minister at all in the Cabinet Council. He seems to have regarded the members of the Privy Council and of the Cabinet with equal contempt. The Privy Councillors, he said, "were such as were thought to know everything and knew nothing, and the Cabinet Councillors those who thought that n.o.body knew anything but themselves."

When Walpole was Prime Minister, the country was governed by three bodies--the Great Council, somewhat similar to the modern Privy Council; the Committee of Council, a smaller a.s.sembly which met at the c.o.c.kpit in Whitehall, and seems to have concerned itself chiefly with foreign affairs; and the Cabinet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR ROBERT WALPOLE

FROM THE PAINTING BY FRANCIS HAYMAN, R.A., IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY]

The members of the Cabinet varied in number from eight to fourteen, and included the Great Officers of the Royal Household. In April, 1740, for instance, it consisted of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President of the Council, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Steward, the Lord Chamberlain, the Master of the Horse, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, two Secretaries of State, the Groom of the Stole, the First Minister for Scotland, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the First Commissioner of the Admiralty, and the Master of the Ordnance. Besides these, the Duke of Bolton was also included, for the somewhat inadequate reason that "he had been of it seven years ago."[125] As such an immense body must have been quite unmanageable from a business point of view, there also existed an interior council, consisting of Walpole, the Lord Chancellor, and the two Secretaries of State, who consulted together, in the first instance, on the more confidential points, and reported the result of their deliberations to the rest of the Cabinet.

[125] Hervey's "Memoirs of George II.," vol. ii. p. 551.

The size and composition of a Cabinet is a question which has always been left entirely to the discretion of the Prime Minister. In 1770 and 1783, when Lord North and Pitt were Premiers, the number was reduced to seven. Later on, this was increased; but Lord Wellesley, in 1812, expressed his conviction that thirteen was an inconveniently large number, and Sir Robert Peel, some twenty years later, declared that the Executive Government would be infinitely better conducted by a Cabinet composed of only nine members.

Among His Majesty's advisers in Georgian days, and earlier, peers usually preponderated. The younger Pitt was the only Commoner in his first Cabinet. Nowadays both Houses are suitably represented.

There is no definite rule laid down as to which posts in the Administration carry with them a seat in the Cabinet; but the First Lord of the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Lord President of the Council, the Lord Privy Seal, and the Lord Chancellor are invariably included. Statesmen who hold no office at all, as we have seen in the case of the Duke of Bolton, have occasionally been given a seat. Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon, sat in Charles I.'s Cabinet without office; and, later on, Lord Fitzwilliam, the Duke of Wellington, and Lord John Russell were each accorded a similar privilege. Lord Mansfield, on his elevation to the seat of the Lord Chief Justice, in 1756, became a member of the Cabinet, and did not cease to take part in the discussions until 1765.

The precedent he thus created was afterwards cited in the case of Lord Ellenborough, another Lord Chief Justice, who was admitted to the Cabinet of "All the Talents" in 1806. By this time, however, the inclusion of any but the actual holders of parliamentary offices was considered unusual, and it has never been repeated.

Cabinet meetings in Charles II.'s time were first of all held twice a week, and then on Sunday evenings. It was long customary for the Sovereign to be present, and Queen Anne presided regularly over these Sunday gatherings. Indeed, the absence of the King from Cabinet meetings did not occur until the time of George I., and only arose from that monarch's inability to speak English. Since his day, however, no Sovereign has thought it necessary, or even politic, to attend.

Besides the regular official meetings of the Cabinet, informal gatherings of Ministers were occasionally convened. Walpole used often to invite a few colleagues to dinner to discuss the affairs of the nation, and in the Aberdeen Government a Cabinet dinner was held weekly.[126] After the tablecloth had been removed, and the port began to circulate, measures of State were agitated and discussed, and questions of policy decided upon. Whether Ministers were always in a condition fit for the consideration of such grave topics is a matter of doubt. Lord Chancellor Thurlow sometimes refused to take part in these post-prandial discussions. "He has even more than once left his colleagues to deliberate," says Wraxall, "whilst he sullenly stretched himself along the chair, and fell, or appeared to fall, fast asleep."[127]

[126] "Our immemorial Cabinet Dinner was at Lord Lonsdale's," writes Lord Malmesbury, on March 17, 1852. "Each of us gives one on a Wednesday."--"Memoirs of an Ex-Minister," vol. i. p. 321.

[127] Wraxall's "Memoirs," vol. i. p. 527.

The Cabinet no longer meets on Sundays, and the practice of holding weekly dinners has been given up. It has no regular times of a.s.sembling, but can be summoned at any moment when the Prime Minister wishes to consult his colleagues. It is not necessary for all the members of the Cabinet to be present, as no quorum is needed to validate the proceedings, nor is there any rule laid down as to the length of a Cabinet meeting, which may last from a brief half-hour to as much as half a day.[128]

[128] "Granville dined at the Lord Chancellor's yesterday," wrote Lady Granville to the Duke of Devonshire, on November 8, 1830, when the question of the postponement of the King's visit to the city was filling the minds of Ministers. "The Chancellor came in after they were all seated from a Cabinet that had lasted five hours, returned to be at it again till two, and the result you see in the papers."--Lady Granville's "Letters," vol. ii. p. 63.

The chief point with regard to Cabinet meetings is their absolute secrecy. No minutes are kept, no secretary or clerk is present, and only in exceptional circ.u.mstances is some private record made of any matter that may have been discussed. The meetings are usually held at No. 10, Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister, or occasionally at the Foreign Office, a practice inst.i.tuted by Lord Salisbury when he was Foreign Secretary, his Cabinet being so large that the room in Downing Street could barely contain it.

In George II.'s time, No. 10, Downing Street--called after Sir George Downing, a statesman of Charles II.'s day, whom Pepys styles "a n.i.g.g.ardly fellow"--belonged to the Crown, and was the town residence of Bothmar, the Hanoverian Minister. On the latter's death, King George offered the house to Walpole as a gift. The Prime Minister declined it, however, and suggested that it should henceforward accompany the offices of the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Externally the Prime Minister's house is not a very imposing structure, but the traditions attached to it as the official residence of so many eminent Englishmen enchance its value in the eyes of its occupants and of the public.

Here, then, the Cabinet a.s.sembles to discuss the problems of Empire, whose solution at times of stress the country awaits with such breathless interest. Here the Prime Minister presides over that a.s.sembly which, however internally discordant, must ever present an harmonious and united front to the public. The decisions arrived at by "His Majesty's Servants"--no longer known as the "Lords of the Cabinet Council," as in olden times--must always be presumably unanimous. Each Minister is held responsible for the opinions of the Cabinet as a whole. His only escape from such responsibility lies in resignation, in either sense of that word. The defending and supporting in public of what they are really opposed to in private, is the common practice of Ministers. It is thought that one man's scruples should yield to the judgment of the many, and "minorities must suffer" that Governments may be carried on and Ministries remain undivided.[129]

There is a well-known story of Lord Melbourne's Ministry which ill.u.s.trates this point. The Government had proposed to put an eight-shilling duty on corn. Melbourne, who was strongly opposed to the tax, found himself out-voted and overruled by the other members of the Cabinet. At the end of the meeting he put his back against the door. "Now, is it to lower the price of corn, or isn't it?" he asked.

"It doesn't much matter what we say, but mind, we must all say the same!" In 1860, again, Lord Palmerston as Prime Minister was in favour of the House of Lords throwing out the Paper Duties Bill, which was the measure of his own Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[129] See Speaker Onslow's "Essay on Opposition," "Hist. MSS.

Commission" (1895), App. ix. p. 460.

It is not perhaps easy to imagine a modern Premier being placed in a situation similar to that of either Lord Melbourne or Lord Palmerston.

He must necessarily, to a certain extent, have the whip hand of the Cabinet. For if several of his colleagues disagree with him on a question of principle, and resign, he can generally appoint others; whereas, if he resigns, the whole Ministry crumbles and falls to pieces.

The Prime Minister nowadays has indeed acquired a position which is almost that of a dictator. In many ways his power is absolute and his will autocratic. More especially is this true as regards his dealings with the Crown. In olden days he was the servant and creature of the sovereign. He had no voice in the selection of his colleagues; he acted merely as His Majesty's chief adviser, and, as such, was liable to instant dismissal. When Pelham resigned in 1746, because he could no longer agree with the King, he was acting in a fashion that was then unprecedented. Before that time, a Prime Minister whose views did not coincide with those of his sovereign, was summarily dismissed.

Many kings had, indeed, been in the habit of themselves undertaking the duties of Prime Minister--Charles II. delighted in referring to himself as his own _Premier Ministre_, though he was far too indolent to perform the work of that official--and merely looked upon their chief adviser as a convenient channel of communication between themselves and Parliament.

It was not until the eighteenth century that a Premier of the modern type came into existence. With the development of the party system, the gradual growth of the Cabinet's prestige, and the consequent weakening of the sovereign's prerogatives, the Prime Minister ceased to be the choice of the Crown, and became the nominee of the nation.

As the leader of the party in office, he acquired the unquestioned right of selecting his own Ministers. To-day, though the King still nominally chooses his Prime Minister, little individual freedom is left to the sovereign, who is guided in his choice by the advice of the outgoing Premier and his interpretation of the wishes of the country.

For a very long time the very name of Prime Minister stank in the nostrils of the public and of Parliament. The word "Premier" was used in 1746,[130] but as late as 1761 we find George Grenville in a debate in the Commons declaring "Prime Minister" to be an odious t.i.tle. The holder of it long occupied an anomalous position. Legally and const.i.tutionally he had no superiority over any other Privy Councillor. Eight members of the Cabinet took precedence of him, by virtue of office--a fact which naturally resulted in situations puzzling to the lay mind--the exact rank of the Prime Minister being apparently impossible to define. When Lord Palmerston visited Scotland in 1863, the commander of the naval guardship was very anxious to receive that distinguished statesman with all the ceremony befitting his exalted position. On the subject of salutes due to a Prime Minister the naval code-book unfortunately maintained an impenetrable silence, and gave the officer no information as to how he should act.

He eventually solved the difficulty in a thoroughly tactful manner by giving Palmerston the salute of nineteen guns which were due to him as Lord Warden of the Cinq Ports.[131] Mr. Gladstone, who was ever most punctilious in matters of etiquette, always resolutely declined to leave a room in front of any person of higher social rank, and many a youthful peer vainly endeavoured to induce the aged Prime Minister to precede him.

[130] c.o.xe's "Pelham Administration," vol. i. p. 486.

[131] Ashley's "Life of Palmerston," vol. ii. p. 233.

The Prime Minister continued to occupy an ambiguous position until quite recently. It was not, indeed, until the close of Mr. Balfour's Premiership that his proper precedence was recognised. Matters were simplified, however, when he held some ministerial office, as First Lord of the Treasury, Lord President of the Council, or Foreign Secretary, whereby he became ent.i.tled to an adequate salary and an a.s.sured, if inadequate, precedence.

Sir Robert Walpole, who held the Premiership for twenty-one years--though not consecutively[132]--was the first Prime Minister in the modern sense of the word, the first to sit in the Commons, and the first to resign because of an adverse vote of Parliament.

[132] Walpole was First Lord of the Treasury for more than twenty-one years, but Macaulay says that he cannot be called Prime Minister until some time after he had been First Lord.--"Miscellaneous Writings," p.

359.

Walpole was in many ways a model Premier. Though not, indeed, as incorruptible as Harley, he yet possessed many of the qualities which contributed to that statesman's success.[133] It was not genius, it was not eloquence, it was not statesmanship that gave Harley his astounding power in Parliament, as Forster has remarked; it was "House of Commons tact." Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell, and Disraeli each understood that art of "managing Parliament," which is probably of far greater value to a Prime Minister than either virtue or eloquence. Lord Rockingham, George Grenville, and Lord Bute--the last uttering his words with hesitation and at long intervals, causing Charles Townshend to liken them to "minute-guns"--each lacked that power of oratory for which another Premier, Lord Derby, the "Rupert of debate," was more famous than for any intellectual ability.[134] Lord Castlereagh had a great influence with his party, and was a most successful leader of the House of Commons. Yet he was a shocking speaker, tiresome, involved, and obscure.[135] On one occasion he harangued the House for an hour, during no single moment of which could any of his hearers make out what on earth he was driving at "So much, Mr. Speaker, for the law of nations!" he finally exclaimed, as he prepared to turn to other matters.

[133] Walpole distributed government patronage freely among the members of his own family. His relations held offices worth nearly 15,000 a year, and, two years after he relinquished office, his own places brought him in an annual income of 2000. He made his eldest son Auditor of the Exchequer, and his second son Clerk of the Pells.

He gave his son Horace two posts, as Clerk of the Estreats and Comptroller of the Pipe, when the boy was still an infant. Later on he gave him a position in the Customs, and lastly made him Usher of the Exchequer, an office worth about 1000 a year. See "Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole," vol. i. p. 730; Cunningham's "Letters of Horace Walpole," vol. i. pp. lx.x.xiv. and 314.

[134] "My father would be a very able man--if he knew anything," Lord Stanley is supposed to have said of him. Hutton's "Studies," p. 48.

[135] "He evidently attempts to imitate Mr. Pitt in his manner and rhetorick; but the clumsy attempts of a heavy domestic fowl to take wing are very different from the vivid and lofty soaring of the lark."

Courtney's "Characteristics," p. 42.

Parliament will, indeed, put up with a great deal from a Minister whose honesty is unquestioned, and who has sufficient common-sense not to blunder at a moment of crisis. Nowadays, however, no man who was utterly lacking in ordinary power of speaking would be given a place on the front bench. A talent for debate may not necessarily be a gauge of a man's capacity as a Minister, but only in debate can he show his powers. His success in Parliament is a test of intellect, for there, at any rate, he cannot conceal departmental ignorance. But it requires judgment, ability, and tact to become a leader. Charm and personal magnetism are the qualities that endear a man to his followers. A kindly word, a smile, or a glance of recognition will often win the affection of a supporter more surely than the most eloquent speech, and it was in this respect that Lord John Russell, Gladstone, and Lord Salisbury, either from shortness of sight or absence of mind, failed.

The same qualities which young Grattan considered necessary for a successful leader of Opposition may also prove invaluable to a Prime Minister. "He must be affable in manner, generous in disposition, have a ready hand, an open house, and a full purse. He must have a good cook for the English members, fine words and fair promises for the Irish, and sober calculations for the Scotch."[136] He must, indeed, be a man who breeds confidence and inspires affection among his subordinates.

[136] Grattan's "Life and Times," vol. v. p. 417.