NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21399, 25 January 1933, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

CABINET CONFIDENCE The resignation of a Minister from a New Zealand Government owing to an irreconcilable conflict with his colleagues is so unusual that the nearest parallel to the action of the Hon. Downie Stewart is more than 21 years old. Tho fact that there is only one alternative to acceptance of tho majority view was emphasised recently by the London Observer. "Collective responsibility in a Cabinet is the real key of British institutions," it declared. -"It is our holdfast. Without it our executive efficiency would bo destroyed. It is utterly essential that tho expression of opinion by individual Ministers in the historic, though ordinarylooking, room in Downing Street shall be absolutely 'private and confidential.' Every Minister has his alternative under tho Constitution. If ho resigns, ho can, with the Sovereign's permission, state his case in either House. If he deos not resign, he accepts collective responsibility. Ho gives in to tho majority of his colleagues on a Cabinet vote. When h(j does this, he has no right to claim merit because he differed, but deferred. This is the very point that has sometimes made resignation by exceptional statesmen on exceptional occasions a tremendous power."