RULERS OF BRITAIN.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20189, 8 May 1937, Page 17 (Supplement)

RULERS OF BRITAIN.

Cabinet Not King r. Comparison of Systems.

(The Right Hon. H. B. Lees-Smith, Postmaster-General of E-duoation,

Inner door before he opens the outer one, is told the message, carries it baok to the Cabinet and returns the answer. -v,' , . rniTr During the last Labour Cabinet Mr Ramsay MacDonald Introduced a pleasant Innovation and began a Cabinet Library, whioh will line the walls of the Cabinet room and whioh consists solely of books presented by Cabinet Ministers. I am, of oourse, prevented by my oath of seoreoy from going far Into the details of Cabinet meetings. A multitude of questions arising all over the Empire have to be decided within about two hours, and not a second oan be wasted. Speeches are short, with no “frills"; anyone who spoke for more than five minutes would be regarded as a bore. Ministers who have no new point to make do not speak for the mere purpose of giving their opinion. On eaoh subjeot probably only four or five Ministers take part; the rest merely Indicate whether they agree with them or not. At the end the Prime Minister Interprets the General Sense of the Oablnet and It Is only on the rarest occasions that a formal vote is taken. I have never known any meetings so efficiently conducted as those of the Cabinet, and It Is only on acoount of this that the Innumerable questions raised week by week In the government of the British Empire can be answered In a couple of hours by a single body of men. As soon as the Cabinet meeting has ended the Minister will hurry to a luncheon engagement. Unlike Washington, London Is a great commercial city, and a host of societies, Institutions and official bodies have their annual meetings In London, accompanied by a luncheon or a dinner. All of them aim at seourlng a Cabinet member to speak, and our Minister will find himself at one of them, replying to the toast of “ His Majesty’s Government." He will not have time, however, to stay to the end of the festivities, for he must be In his place for "question hour” in the House of Commons. This brings me to the most striking difference between the position of Cabinet members In the United States and In England. In the United States a Cabinet official is not a member of Congress and does not sit in either the Senate or the House of Representatives. In England he la a member of Parliament, usually of the House of Commons, and has to spend from soon after lunch until eleven, twelve, one, two, or three o’olock In the morning In the House. Our Minister arrives In the House of Commons at a quarter to three for question hour. If ever any of my readers visit the House of Commons, I would advise them to go there at question hour, which has been described as the Best Entertainment In London. He will see sitting on the right-hand side of the Speaker, on the Treasury Bench running along, the floor, the Prime Minister with the Cabinet ranged on both sides of him. Any member of Parliament may put a question to any Minister on any subject within his department. His replies have been brought to the House in the famous red morocoo dispatch boxes, stamped with his office and the Royal Arms which have almost become part of the British Constitution. During the question hour the Minister Is making or unmaking his reputation. The Government departments have a wholesome respect for the Parliamentary question, for a Minister who Is “let down" because the questions have revealed something for which there Is no proper defenoe will visit his w r rath upon the responsible officials. The House of Commons has devised no more effective method of bringing the fiearohllght of Publicity to bear upon Cabinet Ministers and the entire public service behind them. At a quarter to four questions end and the House prooeeds to deal with the bill that is put down for that day. In the American House of Representatives the real discussion of bills takes place In committee, but in the House of Commons the committees play quite a subordinate part, and the House keeps all the important debates In Its own hands. If our Minister Is In charge of the bill he will sit in his place hour after hour listening to the amendments moved by various members, stating his opinions on eaoh and inviting the House to vote In accordance with his view. By eight o’clock at night the most Important amendments will probably have been disposed of and the Minister can leave his Under-Secretary In charge while he proceeds to his next engagement. It will perhaps be to receive the guests at an official function which the Government Is giving to some great Institution, such as a scientific congress containing eminent delegates from all over the world. He will now' quickly transform himself from a rough and tumble House of Commons debater to the ceremonial representative of His Majesty’s Government, and will appear in his uniform as one of the King’s Privy Councillors, a position w'hich every Cabinet Minister holds. This uniform Immediately transports him from modern democracy to medieval feudalism. It Is a magnificent affair, rather like that of an admiral in the navy, of navy blue cloth heavily embroidered in gold oak leaves and acorns on the collar, the front and the sides. The trousers and tails of the coat are trimmed with heavy gold braid. The uniform Is completed by an ornate golden sw-ord and a large black velour three-cornered hat, trimmed with gold and white ostrich feathers. When attending the King on a full-dress occasion the same coat Is worn, but with white buckskin breeches, white silk stockings ami black shoes with silver buckles. An English Cabinet Minister lives with One Foot In 20th Century, the Other In the Middle Ages. On the one side he lives in the middle of party caucuses, rowdy meetings and “rows in the House"; on the other side he moves amid Royal levees, court balls, semi-military uniforms, Lord Mayors’ banquets and Buckingham Palace This dual existence undoubtedly has a deep subconscious effect upon the minds and outlook of politicians. When the function Is at an end our Minister will return to the House of Commons. If the House is sitting late, his bill will still be on the floor and he will once again find himself Involved in the clash and turmoil of Parliamentary conflict. It may be two or three o’clock In the morning before he Is released by the welcome cry of “ Who goes home ” which for hundreds of years has echoed through the oorrldors of Parliament as Mr Speaker leaves the chair. As he leaves the House he thinks with envy of corresponding officials In the United States, who can confine themselves to their Departments without spending eight to twelve hours a day in the House of Representatives.

Great Britain, 1929-1931; President of the Board of 1931.)

ENGLAND IS RULED not by Its King, but by Its Cabinet. The Cabinet members themselves have always been well aware of this faot; but the Immense deference paid to the King gave an Impression to the world In general that he still retained the supreme authority. Now the world has suddenly Realised that even so apparently private a question as a King’s oholce of a wife Is a matter for Cabinet approval. Ours Is a Constitutional Monarchy; Acts of State are carried through in the King’s name, but most of them are Invalid unless they are countersigned by a Cabinet Minister. On all matters of State —even his marriage—the King can act only upon the advice of the Cabinet. The objections of the Cabinet to Edward’s marriage with Mrs Simpson were not due to the fact that 6he Is an American or a commoner, but to the attitude of this oountry and the Dominions to her dlvoroes, which Raise Awkward Problems for one who Is not only King but head of the Churoh of England. Who, then, are these Cabinet Ministers? How are they chosen? What are their duties in directing the course of the British ship of State? These things I shall endeavour to make clear. As soon as the English general election has brought about the defeat of the party In power, the Cabinet-making process commences. At dinner tables throughout the land guesses, prophecies and arguments begin as to who will become members of the group that will oontrol Great Britain during the coming regime. The Prime Minister is a certainty—he naturally will be the leader of the party that has just won the battle; but no one can prediot who are going to be his twenty colleagues In the Cabinet, or what posts they will get. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister Is in constant touch with the King. At last those whom he has selected for the Cabinet receive a message that he would like to see them at his private residence at a certain time. They go; and when they enter his study they have not any notion whether they will come out Secretary for War, Minister of Labour, Secretary for India, First Lord of the Admiralty, Minister of Education or any of a dozen different offices. Whatever it is, from the moment that they dose his door they are in supreme command of that Department and must answer for it to Parliament and the nation. A Cabinet Minister is by no means sure that he will be sent to a Department of which he has any previous knowledge. An old political hand once gave me a piece of sound advice—“A politician takes what he can get.” He must not be surprised if, as a reward of specialising for twenty years on housing he Is sent to take control of the British Navy or put In charge of the countless millions of India. The Make-up of a Cabinet must represent the different political forces on which It depends for Its support, and this prevents the members from having the position which they would select for themselves. The system was hit off by W. S. Gilbert in ” H.M.S. Pinafore” in his famous couplet: Stick close to your desks and never go to sea And you all may be rulers of the Queen’s Navee. The plain man says that the system is ridiculous and that the head of a department should be the specialist who has known its work for the whole of his life. But the control of a State service Is not like 'hat of a wholesale store or a factory. The vital decisions which members of the Cabinet have to make are questions of politloal principle, and In these It Is the statesman who Is the specialist. The expert Is likely to forget the publlo. But the Cabinet Minister has to remember that democratic government is government by consent, and he Is guided by the maxim that ‘‘the business of a Minister Is to know how much the public will stand." A genial Minister at a dinner of experts, at which he was the guest, put the argument when he said to them: ‘‘The duty of a Minister is to save all of you gentlemen from being hung upon the nearest lamp-post.” A Minister arrives at his office at ten o’olook In the morning. The chief officials are waiting for him, and he discusses with them the policy to be followed on the subjects which have been raised in his correspondence, or In the previous days’ sittings of Parliament or In the Press. His conversations are naturally confined to the handful who are right at the top of the department. The Civil Service consists of tens of thousands of officials, but only a few dozen of them ever acquire a speaking aoqualntnace with a Cabinet Minister. He confines himself to the Major Issues of Polloy which he alone can decide, and If he attempts to enter Into the minutiae of his department he will certainly fail in his higher responsibilities. A very old Minister summed up his duty in the words: "My business is not to work my department, but to see that it is worked.” At li o’clock the Minister is probably due at a Cabinet meeting. He walks over from his office to No. 10 Downing Street and will arrive there well In time, for unpunctuality of even a few seconds at Cabinet meetings is an unpardonable offence. The Cabinet sits at a long oblong table; nine Ministers sit at each of the long sides, and two at each of the short sides. The Prime Minister sits In the middle of one of the long sides in an armchair, with an unoomfortably hot fire at his back in winter. The room looks out on the great parade ground of the Guards’ Regiment in St. James’ Park, and on summer mornings, when the windows are open, the Ministers can watch the Guards drilling In front of them, while the words of command break through their deliberations. All the windows are double-framed, and there are double doors. When the first Labour Cabinet met in 1924, the only Minister who had ever before sat in a Cabinet was Lord Haldane, the Lord Chancellor, and he naturally became their mentor on Cabinet procedure. He was an inveterate smoker and induced them at their first Cabinet meeting to allow him to finish his cigar. But he could not be the only one, so smoking became an accepted practice —a revolution which would have Made Mr Gladstone Turn In His Grave. The smoking habit has rendered more aoute the silent struggle which goes on in the Cabinet between the members who want the windows open and those who want them shut. In my experience, the victory has usually gone to the enemies of fresh air, so that after a couple of hours the atmosphere is dense. The only person admitted to Cabinet meetings except members Is the Secretary of the Cabinet, a very high official who knows more Government secrets than any living man. Of course, messages frequently have to be sent Into the Cabinet room while the Cabinet Is sitting. But as no one can enter, a confidential secretary knocks at the outer door, a Cabinet Minister leaves his plaoe, closes the