MINISTERIAL SEATS IN PARLIAMENT.
WITH the single exception of the Premier, Mr. Gladstone is, in addition to his importance as Secretary for the Colonies, the Minister best qualified to explain the bearing and defend the policy of the great measure now before Parliament : but it appears that Mr. Gladstone cannot get a seat. There is something radically wrong here. All financial mea- sures in the House of Commons must originate with the respon- sible servants of the Crown. It is their business to know what Government has to do in the year, and how much it is likely to cost, and to suggest to Parliament the means of raising and appropriating to the beet advantage the necessary funds. It is their business to meet the inquiries and objections of the great inquest of the nation on their policy foreign or domestic. It is their business not only to work the constitution as it exists, but, where they find it giving way from age, or inadequate to the growing or changing wants of society, to propose the necessary modifications. The servants of the Crown—the heads of Depart- ments—require to be in constant communication with the Legis- lature.
Our constitution and modes of transacting public business do not admit of exclusively written communications between the Executive and the Legislature, as is the practice of America. Besides, the public viva voce discussion of important questions of finance, constitutional law, and policy, between Ministers and Members of Parliament, is more favourable to the despatch of business—more conducive to the formation of sound practical views—than the interchange of protocols. In legislation, as in the administration of the law, publicity and oral discussion are the best securities for the ascendancy of justice and common sense. It may also be remarked that the Monarchical principle seems more to require conversational discussion, than that principle, whatever it may be called, which gives form to the American modes. The administrative authority is with us more completely separated from the legislative; its decisions are formed more promptly and with less of public debate ; the Executive with us less frequently asks council beforehand than vindicates its actings afterwards. Long epistolary documents may to a cer- tain extent answer the purpose of previous deliberation, (though they are apt to spin it out very tiresomely) ; but they are utterly inadequate to the task of satisfactory explanation,—as, indeed, they are even beforehand when any details are necessary. The natural inference from these considerations is, that English Ministers ought to have ex officio seats in Parliament. It ought not to depend upon the local prejudices of a limited constituency— perhaps of some great boroughmonger—whether the Ministers of the Crown are to have the power of explaining and enforcing their administrative measures in Parliament. A Ministerial mea- sure may have the hearty approbation of all the great leaders of public opinion, and yet the local crotchet of one constituency— the self-will of one great proprietor—may keep its most efficient advocate out of Parliament. All heads of Departments ought to have ex officio seats in both Houses. It is not enough that there should be a Home Secretary in one House and a Colonial Se- cretary in the other—a Secretary at War in the Lords, and a Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Commons. The enormous business of our enormous empire makes any one department occupy fully the whole powers and attention of any one Minister. None but the head of the department can do it justice when its actions are called in question. This is no new doctrine in the pages of the Spectator. In the summer of 1832—in the heat of the Reform Bill excitement—we demonstrated the necessity of having "Ministerial seats in the House of Commons." The arguments we then used are still ap- plicable; although at that time the waywardness of a newly- enfranchised people was the more obvious danger. Few of us then imagined that the rotten-borough system would be , found sur- viving in full vigour at Newark, Ripon, and other places, in 1846. The utility of allowing Ministers to take part in the discussions of both Houses is obvious. The objections likely to be offered to such a proposal may be supposed to be different in the case of the Lords and in that of the Commons. The Peers, it may be said, would be degraded by allowing the servants of the Crown to sit upon an equality with them and participate in their deliberations. Not more so than they are when a lawyer is ennobled and called a Lord to enable him to act as their president ; not more so than when any Commoner is created a Peer because Ministers want his services in the Upper House. To allow the servants of the Crown to hold and exercise the legislative functions of the Peerage while thq are Ministers of the Crown, would less encroach upon the privileges of the Peerage than the creation of permanent Peers to effect surreptitiously an object that is only half dis- avowed. From the Commons we are likely to hear of unelected Ministers mftvoting the Representatives of the People. To obviate this objection, it has been proposed that Ministers (unless sitting as representatives of some constituency) should only have voice not vote in the House. The precaution .seems uncalled for. A Minister allowed only to speak and not to vote would be placed in a false position—mingling as an inferior with the other Mem- bers. A Ministry whose majority required ex officio votes to keep it up could not long maintain such a majority. In fact, as many ex officio Members do contrive to creep an at present as the heads of Departments would amount to, and they count (often falsely enough) for representative votes. Besides, the necessity of heads of Departments having seats in Parliament, as a qualification for appointment, limits the range ef choice. A man is made a Minister not because he is the fittest of all for the office, but be- cause he is the fittest of those who have seats in Parliament. The public are less efficiently served, and Parliamentary corruption is fostered.
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