A NEW SKORETARY OF STATE.
,ONE of the oddest incidents of the Session has been the success of Mr. Sampson Lloyd's Resolution as to the expediency of creating a now Secretary of State, specially to preside over a Department of Commerce and Agriculture, with a seat in the Cabinet. It is very rare for the House of Com- mons to interfere with the structure of the Executive Govern- ment, and still more rare for it to dictate who ehall and shall mot enter the Cabinet, a body entirely unknown to the Consti- tution, and filled with the holders of offices which are not in- -variably the same. It may be doubted, indeed, if such a phrase as "Cabinet Minister" can be found in all the thousands of Bills, Motions, and Resolutions accepted by Parliament. And it is most rare of all for the House not only to interfere, and to pass a resolution involving a change in the structure of the Cabinet, but to do it in the teeth of the Executive Govern- ment of the day. Something of the kind occurred in 1858, when the House of Commons insisted that the new Secretary of State for India should have £5,000 a year instead of £2,500; but in that case it was known that the new Secretary, like the Pre- sident of the Board of Control, would always find a place in the Cabinet, and it may be' doubted if there was any real reluct- ance to pay him like other first-class Ministers. Mr. Lloyd, however, on Tuesday, made his proposal,—almost out of the blue, though he has made it before—adhered to it in spite of the determined resistance of the Ministry, defeated an amendment proposed by Government, omit- ting the words compelling the Premier to put the new Minister in the Cabinet, and finally, carried his own resolu- tion, just as it stood, by 76 to 56. Unless, therefore, Lord Beaconsfield appeals to the House of Commons to rescind its vote, on the ground that sufficient Members were not present to discuss a resolution of such importance, he must select a new Cabinet Minister, and charge him with all "those func- tions of the Executive Government which especially relate to commerce and agriculture,"—a bit of work which it will take months to arrange and a statute to render efficacious, the powers of a "Principal Secretary of State" being statutory, and not derived from prerogative.
We decidedly dislike the way in which this Resolution was carried, and are by no means sure that we agree as to its ex- pediency. Great changes in the Executive ought either to be proposed by the Executive, or to be forced on it after much deliberation, exhaustive debate, and a vote carrying with it ounmistakably the matured judgment of Parliament. This resolution was carried suddenly, against the will of the Execu- tive, after a debate which, though serious, was not exhaustive, no one even mentioning the effect of the change upon the existing Departments deprived of functions, and in a House far too thin to represent completely or adequately popular opinion. The country had not expected it, the Ministry were not prepared for it, or they would have secured a much larger attendance, and the change was supported by only one statesman—Mr. Forster—of first-class Cabinet rank. The case may be excep- tional, but the precedent cannot be considered a good one. If the House of Commons takes to revising the mechanism of the Constitution in this way, bit by bit, with no large plan before it, with no Government to advise it, and with no party pre- pared to stand or fall by its vote, it may some day break a Wheel or insert a cog in the Executive car which will be fatal
to the action of the whole machine. If one new Minister, why not half-a-dozen, each one of whom, being in some degree a specialist, will limit still further the already limited choice of the Premier in organising the Parliamentary Committee of Govern- ment? No doubt, as matters stand, Lord Beaconsfield can add a Secretary without raising the usual number of the Cabinet, or can extrude the Postmaster-General without diminishing the weight of his Government in the country ; but still one Minister will have been forced on him, and the next Administration may be in a less advantageous position. At all events, if such a change, so important and unprecedented, were to be made, it should not have been treated like a proposal to establish a new in- spectorship, and accepted by the House as it were prnprfo MN, and on a sudden.
Nor are we sure that the new Secretary of State for Com- merce and Agriculture will do very much good either to agri- culture or commerce. The object of those who supported the Resolution was avowedly twofold. They think they will get a great deal more information on commerce and agricul- ture ; and they think that those great interests will be bettor represented in the Government, will exercise a more direct control over legislation--especially as regards bankruptcy, patents, and factory regulations—and will possess a more visible influence over the preparation of Treaties with foreign Powers. As to the first object, Mr. Lloyd and his friends are probably in the right. The duty of supplying information on commerce and agriculture, consular reports, foreign official reports, and British statistical returns, is a great deal too much scattered among Departments, some of which, perhaps, rather enjoy refusing the materials for unpleas- ing investigations. We can quite conceive that it would have been difficult to get together all the necessary materials for proving that the Foreign Office had made a muddle as regards the sugar duties, or for showing that Government was mistaken about some proposed regulation on the cattle trade. And we quite admit that it is very vexatious to a Member inquisitive about the competition in cattle, to be bandied about from the Privy Council Office to the Board of Trade, and thence to the Foreign Office, and thence to the Privy Council Office again. But then the jumble of responsibilities could have been corrected without building a new Secretaryship of State. The Government offered a new Department, either under the Home Office, the Foreign Office, or the Board of Trade ; and even humbler means, as regards the collection of information, might have proved quite efficacious. Suppose the Statistical Department of the Board of Trade had been raised into a Department of Information on commerce and agriculture, and Mr. Giffen ordered to collect all needful papers, surely they would have been got together. Did any Member ever hear of anything that Mr. Giffen and his staff could not collect? We do not want a Secretary of State to do work of that kind, or to be Parliamentary editor of instructive manuscripts. That is waste of power, and very embarrassing waste, too ; for the man who can best keep an office at that kind of work is not always or often the man whom Premiers specially want as a colleague. Pumping a subordinate is very much easier than pumping an equal, if only because the subordinate cannot plead the value of his time. The Houses will get their papers under the new arrangement, oceans of papers, but get them at a very high price. Then as to the second and higher object, is it quite certain that a separate Minister will be able to impress upon his colleagues the importance of the special interests he represents better than Members can now do. Mr. Forster says he will be able, and he has much experience, having, as he says, while in the Cabinet, had to look after the cattle of the Three Kingdoms as well as the rising generation, but still we do not feel sure. For example, there is the sugar question. That, it is said, was neglected by the Foreign Office in its recent Treaty with Brazil, and would not have been neglected if there had been a Cabinet Minister to whom sugar and its refiners were, ex Oki°, more dear. Why not? What stopped the trade from pressing their view on the Foreign Office, which could give direct effect to their representations, and would not have been jealous of them, as it infallibly will be of the interference of another and coequal department ? Experience seems to show that the President of the Board of Trade, even when in the Cabinet, has great dif- ficulty in pressing his views on the Foreign Office or the Treasury, and that it pays better to give those offices dignified subordinates, charged to look after specialties, and to keep the Chief well informed about them. Correspondence between Departments is too apt to become controversial. Mr. Lloyd and his friends allege that the special Minister will have much more time than Ministers now have for such subjects ; but is that certainly true ? He will have to manage a heavy de- partment, made up of sub-departments taken from the Treasury, the Board of Trade, the India Office, and the Foreign Secre- tariat, to be always ready with information in the House, and to take a considerable part in debate—a part in which he will have constantly to speak for the Foreign Secretary, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Secretary for India, without being as responsible as either for either treaties or taxation—and will, in all human probability, be overworked by the double duty into a state of coma. Mr. Forster can work hard, but if he were to try for six months the duty of standing fire from every Member interested in com- merce or agriculture, about every topic, from Cuban sugar to the last rate of railway freight fixed by the Western Railway Kings, to urge the Foreign Office, to remonstrate with the Exchequer, and to keep two great " colliding " interests from damaging each other, we venture to say his spare time for preparing a Patent Law and a Bankruptcy Law would be very strictly limited, and these great necessities would not be very quickly provided. We confess we cannot avoid a suspicion that those who voted for the Resolution were a good deal influenced by a caste superstition,—that they thought agriculture and trade important enough to be recog- nised in Cabinets, and believed thatr somehow, a special Cabinet Minister could do something for both of them. He would "attend to them," as a First Lord or a Chancellor of the Exchequer will not do. Agriculture and commerce would be more dignified, if not more prosperous, and that would be comforting to agriculturists and manufacturers. Well, it may be so, and undoubtedly the advocates of the scheme have Con- tinental precedent in their favour ; but we feel no certainty that the change will work well, and confident that a great alteration in the Cabinet ought not to have been made in that summary way, or after one night's discussion, or on the motion of the most experienced private Member.
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