22 JANUARY 1842, Page 13

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

ORGANIZATION OF EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT.

THERE is one reform which Sir ROBERT PEEL has it in his power to effect, which the late Administration could have effected weak as

they were in Parliament, the benefits of which would be felt in every department of Government, and any attempt to cavil at which would at once stamp the critic with the character of a factious per- son—Administrative Reform.

There is an utter want of organization in the Administrative Council of Great Britain, which renders Ministerial responsibility an empty name. That, perhaps, it would be unreasonable to expect Ministers to complain of: but the same want of organization im- pedes and enfeebles the action of Government ; and surely every statesman worthy of the name must desire to see obstacles in the way of executing his intentions removed. The members of the Cabinet Council are now understood to constitute the body of responsible Ministers. They are however, less a Government than an assemblage of functionaries independent

of each other. Strictly speaking, there it in England no Prime Minister—no individual who is responsible directly for the general

policy of Government, indirectly for the misconduct of Ministers placed at the head of departments, inasmuch as he by appoint- ing them guaranteed their fitness. Of course there is always some one individual employed by the Sovereign to construct a Cabinet : he selects for his colleagues the best men he can get who will work according to his views; and he determines the general policy of the Government. But all this is a matter of secret underhand arrangement, regarding which it is under- stood that the public is to be kept as much as possible in the dark. The fiction Of constitutional law is, that all the Cabinet Ministers meet at the Board on a footing of perfect equality; the practice of government is, that each Minister is uncontrolled in his own department. One of the charges most eagerly pressed against

Sir ROBERT WALPOLE was' that he had presumed to act as Prime Minister ; an office, it was alleged, unknown to the British consti- tution. PITT, during his triumphant administration at the close of the reign of GEORGE the Second, while enacting the dictator in the secret councils of Ministers, affected in Parliament to be a mere subordinate agent of his colleagues. Lord Nonni always repudi- ated the character of Prime Minister.

The manner in which this want of organization contributes to destroy the responsibility of Ministers, theoretically recognized by the constitution of Great Britain, may easily be detected. Are complaints made that Government is remiss in enforcing the law, or has exceeded its limited authority? that a war is ill conducted ? or that foreign affairs are mismanaged or neglected ? It is denied as long as possible that the complaints have any foundation; and when this ground can be no longer maintained, it is admitted that something is wrong; but then, it is the fault of so or so—the Home or Foreign Secretary, or Secretary at War, as may be ; that the other Ministers must allow him to have his own way ; that it would be desirable to have him removed, but this would render necessary a general resignation, whereby the country would lose the services of the excellent men who fill the other departments of state.

These excuses pass current with the adherents of government, because they are accustomed to look merely to the manner in which the duties of departments are discharged, instead of taking a com- prehensive view of the spirit which animates, directs, and charac- terizes the whole Government, of which those departments are only subordinate members. And the want of an organized administra- tion is at once the cause of this microscopical criticism and is in turn perpetuated by it.

The Minister who is honestly ambitious of distinguishing his administration by rendering it productive of benefit to the country, feels himself constantly obstructed by this anomalous condition of the Cabinet. The less zealous members of the Cabinet make the practical independence of departments the means of neutralizing his activity, and the recognition of this independence a plea for mitigating his displeasure : they tell him no blame can attach to him from the insufficient discharge of duties for which he is not held responsible. All members of the Cabinet who are inclined to discharge the duties of office with the least possible inconveni- ence to themselves make common cause ; and the Premier finds that the equality of Ministers in the Cabinet, which so materially diminishes the danger of responsibility, entirely neutralizes his power of action.

So long as the King of England governed as well as reigned, this equality of the Ministers constituting his Council, if not useful, was at least harmless. Now, however, that the safer maxim has been adopted ," Le Roi regne, meis ne gouverne pas," some osten- sible occupant of the place demitted by Royalty is indispensable, both with a view to prevent the evasion of responsibility by a num- ber shifting it from shoulder to shoulder till it falls to the ground, and with a view to arm some central controlling authority with the right to oblige the beads of departments to act in his sense. The organization of the Executive Government is, if possible, still more defective in the internal arrangements of departments than

in the subordination of those departments to a general ministerial authority. The office of Chancellor was originally a ministerial office : the judicial authority annexed to it was an accident arising from the imperfect distinction between the functions of government in the earlier and ruder periods of our constitution. Down to the time of CHARLES the Second, it was not deemed necessary that the Chancellor should be a lawyer : a layman (as, for example Lord SHAFTESBURY) was deemed competent to dis- charge all its judicial functions with the advice of a lawyer. Now, however, the judicial character of the office has almost en- tirely eclipsed the ministerial. The ministerial character of the Lord Chancellor consists in great part in the formal discharge of business which is in reality transacted in other offices. The Keeper of the Great Seal, and still more of the Privy Seal, are functionaries without departments. The President of the Council is in like manner a functionary without a department—a nominal office, kept up in order to assist the real Premier to escape responsibility under the appearance of an equality among the Ca- binet Ministers. Whilst on the one band there are Ministers with- out departments, there are on the other hand departments without Ministers. The Secretary of State, originally a mere Clerk to the Council—or, in the politer language of CLARENDON, "being only to make despatches upon the conclusion of Councils, not to govern or preside in those Councils "—became in process of time a Minister; and at first the same individual discharged the duties both of Home and Foreign Secretary. As late as the reign of GEORGE the Second, when the increase of business had rendered two Secretaries neces- sary, they were designated Secretaries for the Southern and North- ern provinces, from the transactions with the Northern States, along with a portion of the domestic business, being allotted to the latter, the transactions with the Southern States and the remainder of the domestic business to the former. When the addition of a Secretary for the Colonies was found to be necessary, the more rational arrangement of giving the Home affairs exclusively to one of the already existin4 Secretaries, and the Foreign to the other, naturally suggested itself. That the business of the Home Office is more than sufficient for one Minister, we are entitled to infer from the New Poor-law, which has placed under a sepa- rate board what certainly is a branch of domestic administration. The plethora might be relieved by creating a Minister of Justice, to transact business which is and can only be partially attended to by a Home Secretary. The despatch of business is not so prompt in the Colonial Office as to render it advisable to place the whole of our colonies and dependencies under the Colonial Secretary ; at the same time that the anomalous position of the President of the Board of Control in relation to the India House is such as either to neutralize the power of Government in our Oriental possessions, or to relieve it of the necessary responsibility — perhaps both. The Committee of the Privy Council, called the Board of Trade, with its President, might be advantage- ously superseded by a Minister of Commerce, on whom should devolve the appointment of Consuls and the responsibility for the conduct of that class of employes. The Committee of the Privy Council for promoting Education is not so much a provision for the discharge of that duty, as a confession that it ought to be discharged. The anomalous constitution and authority of the Trinity Houseis only one of many instanees in which the functions of the Executive Government have been unwisely devolved upon private corporations. The Lords of the Admiralty have really the management of their department confided to them ; but what is the Secretary at War ? These hints do not pretend to convey a complete picture of the imperfect organization of the Executive Government of this country : that could only be done by a history of the various accidents under the influence of which the Government has grown into what it is. But enough has been said to indicate, that any Minister, desirous of leaving behind him an honourable name, has a noble field open to him in perfecting the administrative arrange- ments of his country. The task is one which will elicit little applause while in execution. It is a mastering of dry and musty details, as a basis for erecting an equally dry edifice of technical distribution of offices, and regulations for discharging them. But whoever has the requisite comprehensiveness of view and know- ledr of detail, combined with sufficient patient industry, will achieve a task the benefits of which will be felt by all. He will impress upon the minds of that intelligent portion of the COHIMU■ nity which really thinks what the many only repeat, a conviction' of his talent for governing, which will render his hold on public opinion almost unassailable. And the reforms it will be incum- bent on him to propose, if little calculated to awaken enthusiasm, are, on the other hand, such as to deter open opposition. Their value must be confessed alike by the advocates of Monarchy and Democracy; and the high-minded Minister who would frankly submit them, with his reasons, to the tribunal of public opinion, might easily bear down the small intrigues and vexatious inert system of obstructions which he would unquestionably have to encounter on the part of all who have grown gray in the routine of office.