TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CABINET SECRETARIAT.
CHANGE is the condition of a healthy political existence ; but changes must be carefully watched in order that we may avoid reaction under the name of either progress or temporary convenience. We are glad to know that the House of Commons is to discuss next week the subject of the Cabinet Secretariat. For this institu- tion more than any other recent innovation needs watching, not merely on the ground of economy, but in connexion with our whole Constitutional theory and practice.
Just because our Constitution is an unwritten con- glomeration of customs, and not a formal document which leaped from the brain of some maker of Constitu- tions as Pallas Athene leaped all equipped from the brain of Zeus, we should be untrue to the spirit of it, and untrue to the genius of the British people for adaptation, if we condemned change merely because it was something new. Our Constitution has grown up, like our language. There has been no censoring authority making or refusing additions to the Constitution any more than there has been an academy magisterially accepting or rejecting additions to the language. In both cases new forms have fought their way into general acceptance because they served the common needs The need, however, must be proved. The proof must come from the people. It is not right for either the Prime Minister or the Cabinet to invent an entirely new instrument and to retain it without the sanction of Parliament. That is going contrary to all our traditions. The Secretariat deserves a par- ticularly searching scrutiny before it is finally accepted lest it should be an obstacle in the way of normal demo- cratic development. It may have been necessary during the War when the Cabinet was overwhelmed with work, but we have not heard sufficient reason for its continuance. Why was it not allowed to end with the War, or at all events shortly afterwards ? The apparent reason, though it is not a good one, is that Mr. Lloyd George, when he took the conduct of foreign policy practically into his own hands and ignored the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service, found the Secretariat a great convenience. With- out it he would not have been able to hold that long series of Conferences in various parts of Europe exactly in the dictatorial way in which he managed them. But the time has now come for Parliament to consider whether the Secretariat shall be allowed to go on, and, if so, in what relation it shall stand to the Cabinet, to Parliament and to the nation. This problem is discussed with great ability and clearness in the June number of the Nineteenth Century by Sir Henry Craik. It is astonishing that Constitutionalists have paid so little attention to the Secretariat, but Sir Henry Craik has now given a very good lead and has pointed out the considerable dangers. He writes judicially, and by no means condemns the Secretariat because it is new ; he asks rather for justification, and in his opinion and in ours, too, this will be very difficult to provide.
Up to 1640 the Privy Council was the Executive of the nation, and when the Cabinet emerged from the Privy Council it was merely as a Privy Council committee of manageable size. We are reminded that the Cabinet is in origin only a distillation of the Privy Council by the fact that any Minister who joins the Cabinet is made a Privy Councillor. It is characteristic of the jealous watchfulness with which changes in Constitutional customs & used to be regarded that at at the very name " Cabinet " was disliked. In a similar way, when the title " Prime Minister " gradually took the place of " First Minister," there were many protests. Both titles have justified themselves, however, and nobody now would dream of displacing them. We repeat that all we are arguing for is that the proofs and justifications of experience should be the test, and not the fiat of a Prime Minister. When "the Privy Council was the Executive of the country its instructions were circulated and explained by Secretaries. At first the Secretaries were merely conduit pipes, but the task of explanation and of assistance in carrying out the required work proved to be so onerous and responsible that the Secretaries gradually developed into those powerful officials, our present Secretaries of State. That was a natural and beneficial growth, but it was at the same time a warning that in a country which has no written Constitution new offices may aggrandize themselves until they pass out of all recognition. They may develop mischievously as well as beneficially. It seems to Sir Henry Craik, and we agree with him, that the officials of the Secretariat have the opportunity of developing on lines that may do real harm to democracy. The fact that the members of the Secretariat attend Cabinet meetings and take minutes of the proceedings is in itself a tremendous reversal of past practice. The Cabinet always used to regard its meetings as strictly secret. No written notes were taken. The idea was that by means of confidential discussion the best policy could be thrashed out, because no member of the Cabinet would be formally committed. The responsibility of the Cabinet, moreover, was collective. The Cabinet spoke with one voice. If any Cabinet Minister disagreed strongly enough with the rest he could resign, and generally did resign. In recent years some Cabinet Ministers have tended to express in public their differences from the Cabinet without resigning. In our judgment this is a bad habit, and we hope that the coming debate in Parliament will do something to remind the country of the grand con- ception of Cabinet unity which has been one of the principal sources of our political strength. Sir Henry Craik asks several pertinent questions to which answers are urgently needed. If the Secretariat should continue, are the Cabinet minutes to be kept as a continuous record ? If so, the most confidential matters of one Government will apparently be at the disposal of the next Government. Again, with the Secre- tariat present at Cabinet meetings, will not the tendency be to lose all the value of the old informal discussions and to substitute debates with Ministers consciously making their points and sharpening their differences with a view to having the whole account put into writing ? Yet again, is the personnel of the Secretariat to remain the same under successive Administrations If Sir Henry Craik's fears should be fulfilled, the Secretariat will grow into a powerful body obtruded between the Cabinet and Parlia- ment. The chief officials of the Secretariat, who are already paid on the scale of the heads of departments, would certainly magnify their office. They could not take messages to the heads of departments with all the authority of the Cabinet, and particularly of the Prime Minister, at their backs, without a gradual accretion of personal authority that might have vast results. The danger is obvious.
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