BRITIAN'S CABINET.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6495, 15 April 1908, Page 6

BRITIAN'S CABINET.

PEIME MINISTERS OF A CENTURY. A PREMIER'S PRIVILEGES. A CONTRAST IN POSITIONS. The following table gives the luvmes of tho men who have held the post of Prime Minister in Britain during the past hundred years: June 9, 1813: Earl of Liverpool. April 3-1, 1827: George Canning. September 5, 1623-. Duke of Wellington. November 33, 1830: Earl Grey. Julv 18, 18tM: Viscount Melbourne. December 26, 1534: Sir Robert Peel. April JB, 18a5: Viscount Melbourne. September 6. 1S41: Sir Robert Peel. Julv 6, 18tG: Lord John Russell. February 27, 1532: Earl of Derby. December 2S, 1853: Earl of Aberdeen. February 10, 1855: Lord Palmerston. February 25, 1858: Earl of Derby. June IS, 1853: Lord Paimerston. November G, 1565: Earl Russell. July 6, 1806: Earl of Derby. February 11, 1874: Benjamin Disraeli. December 9, 1868: W. E. Gladstone. February 21. 1871: Benjamin Disraeli, W. B. Gladstone. April 28, 1S80: W. E. Gladstone. June 24, 1885: Marquis of Salisbury. February 6, 1886; W. E. Gladstone. August 3, 18S6; Marquis of Salisbury. ■Vugust 18, 1893: W. E. Gladstone. I March 3, 1891. Earl of Rosebery. July 2, 1835: Marquis of Salisbury. July 1802: A. J. Balfour. December 1905: Sir H. Campbell Bannorman. April 19C8: H. H. Asqurth.

I>r Johnson, in drawing a distinction between Sir Robert Walpole's position and that of tho firet Pitt, said Walpolo was a Minister given by the King to the people; Pitt was a Minister given by the people to the King That may be taken in a general way as summing tip in a few words the relation of the Crown to the Parliament until Walpole's time early in 1700, and the relation of the Crown to Parliament to-day. It was under Walpole's Administration rhat the British. Government began to be conducted with direct reference to the prevailing opinion of the House of Commons. He was the first Prime Minister who sat in the House of Commons, and the development of the office of Prime Minister has contributed materially to the growth and perfection of Parliamentary Government. Mr John Morley, now Viscount Morley, in Ms life of "Walpole." in referring to the methods adopted before 1700 in conducting the Government, said: "Not many years before Walpolo a man was expected to i ay some thousands of pounds for being appointed Secretary of State, just as uown to our own time' he paid for being colonel of a regiment. Many years after Walpole Lord North used to job the loans, and it was not until the younger Pitt set a loftier example that any Minister saw tho least harm in keeping a portion of a public loan in his own hands for distribution among his private friends." Gradually the responsibility of, the Government to the House of Commons as the direct representatives of the people, became recognised and alloired. The first instance on record of the resignation of a Prime Minister in deference to an adverse vote of the HoUse of Commons was that of Sir Eobert Walpole. His resignation, however, wae not accompanied by that of the whole of lis colleagues; the solidarity of the Minister, and its dependence 'upon the continuance in office of its recognised head not having been at that time established. As already stated the development of the office of Prime Minister was strongly insisted upon, and watched with interest. "Tho earliest instance," Viscount Morley says, "in which I have found the head of the Government designated a* Premier is in a letter to the Duke of Newcastle from the Duke of Cumberland, in 1746. though in Johnson's dictionary, published nine years later, 'Premier' still only figures as an adjective. The King wished Pitt, then just made Paymaster, to move the Parliamentary grant to the victor of Oulloden. 'I should be much better, pleased,' writes the Duke of Cumberland, 'if tho Premier moved it. both as a friend and on account of his weight. I am fully convinved of the Premier's goodwill to mo.' On the other hand, in a debate so late as 1761, George Granville declared that Prime Minister is an odious title, and he was sorry that it was now deemed an essential part of the constitution. Lord North is said never to have allowed himself in his own family to bo called Prime Minister. " 'Mr Pitt.' wrote Lord Melville, 'stated not less pointedly and decidedly his sentiments with regard to the absolute necessity there is in the conduct of tho affairs of this country that there should be an avowed and real Minister possereing the chief weight in the Council, and tho principal place in the confidence of the King. In that respect there can be no rivalry or division of power. That power must rest in the person generally called the Prime Minister, and that Minister ought, he thinks, bo the person at the head of the finances. He knows, to his own comfortable experience, that notwithstanding the abstract truth of that general proposition it is noways incompatible with the most cordial concert and mutual exchange of advice and intercourse amongst the different branches of executive departments; but still if it should come unfortunately to such a radical difference of opinion that no spirit of conciliation or concession can reconcile the sentiments of the Minister must bo allowed and understood to prevail, leaving the other members of tho ndminstratioii to act _ as they may conceive themselves conscientiously called nr;on to act under the circumstances.' " The Premier may be either a peer or a commoner indifferently. ' During the time that has olnpsed since the accession of George 111. the office has bee : i held for nearly half the time by a peer. The distinction, moreover, is personal, not official. It might, as n.matter of fact, be conferred on on© who held no departmental office whatever. The principal features of the Britislsystcm of Cabinet Government are, a® stated by Viscount Morley, four. The first is the doctrine of collective responsibility. Each Cabinet Minister carries on the work of a particular department, and for that department he is individually answerable. In addition to this individua bio responsibility with all other members of the Government for rnything of high importance that is done in every other hraneh of the public business besides his own. The second of these four features is that the Cabinet is answerable immediately to tho majority of the House of Commons and ultimately to the electors, whose will creates that majority. Responsibility to the Crown, Viscount Morley says, is slowly censing to be more than a constitutional fiction. Third, the Cabinet is, except under -uncommon, peculiar, and transitory cirqums+ancc-s. selected exclusively from one party, Fourth, the Prime Minister is the keystone of the Cabinet ■arch. In form he is chosen by the Crown, but in practice the choice of the Crown is pretty, strictlj confined to the man who is designated by the acclamation of a party majority. The flexibility of the Cabinet system, the same author remarks, allows the Prime Minister in an emergency to take uion himself a power not inferior to that of a dictator provided always thnt the House of Commons will stand by him. ... Tho office of Prime Minister, as it is now exercised, i? a proof and a result, writers on Constitutional Government say. of the necessity which exists in enr political system for the concentration of power and responsibility in the [lands of one man, in whom the Sover-. j

eign and the nation can oonfide, and from whom they have a right to expect a definite policy and a vigorous administration. Nevertheless, strange to say, this office is still unknown, not only to the law, but also to the Constitution, which, 86 was remarked in Parliament in 180 S. "abhors the idea of a Prime Minister." . . . The Prime Minister is simply the member of the Cabinet, who possesses pre-eminently the confidence of the Crown, and to whom the S .vereign has thought lit to entrust the chief direction of the Government. But the choice of a Premier, however necessary or notorious, must still be regarded as a matter of private understanding, there being no express appointment of any member of the Administration to be the Prime Minister. Concluding a chapter in "WalooloV life, Viscount Morley says:—"To-day it is correct to say that the Cabinet has drawn to iteelf all, aud more than all, of the Royal power over legislation, as well as many of the mest important legislative powers of Parliament. YYn. due qualification and allowances, it is not very far from the mark to add that the head of the Cabinet to-day corresponds in many particulars, alike in the source of his power and in the scope of his official jurisdiction, with the President of the United States, though with the two immensely important and farreaching distinctions, that the Minister hold office for no fixed term, and that he always sits in the Legislature. It is possible that within the next hundred years government by Cabinet may undergo changes of substance as important as the changes sinco the time, of Sir Robert Walpole; but it is worthy of romark that tho living statesman of widest experience and highest authority in the working of our constitutional system has declared that, in his judgment, the Cabinet, as a great organ of government, has now found its final shape, attributes, functions, and permanent or--1 dering."