PRIME MINISTERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22142, 22 June 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

PRIME MINISTERS

BT MATAJTGA

NATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY

With the selection of its "junior'' Ministers the new British Government is complete. All the changes are interesting, but there remains central in thought the fact that they attest the accession of a new Prime Minister. In the long roll of British Ministries a new entry is made, with Mr. Baldwin's name as responsible chief displacing Mr. MacDonald's.

A passage in Blackstone, in the chapter of his famous "Commentaries" that deals with "the rights of persons," has been praised for the impressiveness of its language. It is particularly concerned with the King and his title. As Blackstone is little more than an august name to many, even within the legal profession that he so adorned in the days of the Georges, the passage is given here in full. We are next to consider those branches of the royal prerogative which invest, thug piir sovereign lord, thus all-perfect and immortal in his kingly capacity, with a number of authorities and powers: in the exertion whereof consists the executive part of government. This is wisely placed in a single hand by the British constitution, for the sake of unanimity, strength and despatch. Were it placed in mnny hands, it would be subject to many wills, many wills, if disunited and drawing different ways, create weakness in a government; and tc urate thos" sereral wills, and reduce them to one. is a work of more time and delay than the exigencies of Et&ts will aSord. The K:ng of England is, therefore, not only the chief, but properly the sole magistrate of the nation; all others acting by commission from, and in due subordination to bias: in like maimer as, upon the great revolution of the Roman state, all the powers of the ancient magistracy of the commonwealth were concentrated in the new Esnperor- so *hat, as Gravina expressed it, in ejus unius persona veteris republicae vis atijue majestas per cumnlatas magistxatuum potestas exprimebatur. Impressive the passage certainly is; even the weight of its closing quotation will not be wholly lost on a generation eager to forget its Latinity as quickly as possible. But, as Dicey very bluntly says, it has one fault: the statements it contains are the direct opposite of the truth. Even in Georgian days they were not true, a little unfortunately for the reputation of an honoured king's counsel and a solicitor-general to the queen.

Theory and Practice

The executive of England was by that time placed in the hands of a committee called the Cabinet; and, to cite Dicey's plain comment on the "Commentaries" in this particular passage, it is true, to-day as then, that "if there be any one person in whose single hand the power of the State is placed, that one person is not the King, but the chairman of the committee, known as the Prime Minister." 'Of clearer brain than Blackstone, Paley the divine, contemporary with him, wrote in his "Moral Philosophy" a fiage statemeni of the fact that "there exists. a wide difference between the actual state of the government and the theory:" No such royal despotism as Blackstone lauded was in existence. Instead, "when we turn to the actual exercise of royal authority in England, we see these formal prerogatives dwindled into mere ceremonies, and in their stead a sure and commanding influence of which the constitution, it seems, is totally ignorant, growing out of that enormous patronage, which the increased extent and opulence of the Enipire' has placed in the disposal of the* executive magistrate." The National Need

luhat practice can thus proceed ahead of theory, and can mould the theory to meet the ever-increasing demands of the national need, is one of the advantages of our fluid British Constitution. It is a little startling to remember, at this memorable time, when a new " executive magistrate " takes office, that of a Prime Minister the British Constitution, largely unwritten, is " totally ignorant " in a legal sense. Our national practice, which New Zealand shares fully as a Dominion having representative and responsible government, is to modify the methods by which the sovereign takes advice. The real power resides in the efficient, not the dignified, part of the Constitution, [t belongs, that is, to Parliament; and its director is the predominant man in the predominant house of the legislature.

That man, from WalpoJe's day, has been called the Prime Minister. The cot.ntry's business is in his hands; the people's representatives, using the

power resident in an elected majority, have made the choice. And so long as bis followers in Parliament can keep him there, he sits in Cabinet as its effective controller. It was Queen Anne's practice to preside at weekly Cabinet meetings. She could in her day write despatches to her generals and ministers abroad, and personally receive foreign envoys. But that day is as dead as she is. John Morley wrote, " No foreign envoy would now be allowed to address the Sovereign personally on national business." Even whtm an ambassador, entitled to personal access to the Sovereign—as a Foreign Minister is not—is introduced by the Secretary of State to the Monarch, the Secretary breaks the seal of the letter of credit before the ambassador presents it His Majesty. So the Cabinet, as an informal committee of ] the Privy Council, has become the : centre of Governmental authority, and j in it the Prime Minister, who has him- j self chosen its members, rules as chief, j

Unavailing Protests The change so definitely brought about, although coming by no precise enactment, was naturally resisted. Walpole's masterfulness provoked a minority protest by the Lords: " We are persuaded that a sole, or even a First Minister, is an officer unknown to the law of Britain, inconsistent with the constitution of this country, and destructive of liberty in any government whatsoever." Even in the Commons objection was raised. Walpole was there called by his arraigners " a second Strafford," and the leader of the attack upon him declared: "According to our Constitution we can have no sole and prime minister; we ought always to have several prime ministers or officers of state; every such officer has his own proper department; and no officer ought to meddle in the affairs belonging to the department of another." But these Partingtonian protests were unavailing before the incoming tide of imperious necessity, and Pitt's words reasserted what was menaced in Walpo'e's fall. " There should be an avowed

and real minister, possessing the chief weight in the council, and the principal place in the confidence of the king," he said. " In that respect there can be no rivalry or division of power. That power must rest in the person generally called the First Minister .... and the sentiments of that minister must be allowed and understood to prevail, leaving the other' members of administration to act as they may conceive themselves conscientiously called upon to act under the circumstances." So the Prime Minister has come to be the repository of the nation's trust. He stands, in Gladstone's words, " between the Sovereign and Parliament." It is a great office. It is one of almost terrifying responsibilities. The most ambitious of men may hesitate to accept it. even in a land so small as our Dominion.