SECRECY AND THE CABINET SYSTEM.
CABINET government is government by a Committee or group of men who agree to take common action on common resolves. "Collegiate Government," as the political philosophers of the seventeenth century called it, involves the creation of a composite artificial personality which is supposed, because it is composite, to have greater and higher faculties than those of the ordinary man. A's dash and courage are added to B's wisdom and steadfastness. The product is supplemented by C's knowledge, D's powers of logic, and E's eloquence. By agreeing to work together, and to let the acts of the whole body be the acts of each, even though the whole policy was never completely endorsed by any individual member, a net result was supposed to be attained transcending in force and wisdom the capacity of any single component of the group. Whether this ideal has ever been reached in practice is not a matter which we need discuss at the present moment, though there is perhaps more to be said for it than the plain man supposes. All we can say now is that, granted you are to have a successful system of Cabinat government, government by this artificial person or Com- mittee personified, you must have secrecy in council, secrecy as to the motives which collectively inspire the joint action, secrecy as to which members of the Committee agree or disagree with the course of action adopted by the whole-- secrecy, in fact, on the majority and minority accounts. Secrecy is essential, a necessary instrument of Cabinet government. Unless it exists and is maintained in its most rigid form, the Cabinet system will never work satisfactorily, will tend, rather, to prove a source of weakness and distraction. It will breed hate and temper, dissolve agreements, and give rise to a sense of treachery where there should be confidence and of restlessness where there should be security.
The reason why secrecy should be preserved, not from fear of penal regulations, but in accordance with the strictest code of personal honour, is not far to seek. Men in a Cabinet must be loyal to one another, to their chief, and to the Committee as a whole, or they will be undone. By loyalty we do not mean that they are merely to refrain from backbiting or from undermining each other's position, or, again, from trying to better their own positions by pushing a colleague down. We mean something a good deal snore elemental. When a matter has been decided upon in the Cabinet, then the men who opposed the course ultimately adopted must make their choice either of resigning or else of whole-heartedly adopting the will of the Cabinet as their own. If their choice is in favour of remaining in the Cabinet, then both in public and in private they must defend the action of the Government exactly as if their own private wishes had been accepted. The will of the whole must become the will of each. The duty of the defeated party is analogous to the duty of the barrister who, having agreed to defend a litigant, must put his client's case, whether personally he agrees with it or not, in the strongest and most convincing way that he can. To state the matter from another point of view, a man must- either be in a Cabinet or out of it. If he goes out of it, then his way is plain. As long, however, as he remains in it there must be no half-hearted allegiance. Its acts are his acts, and he is just as much responsible for them and just as much bound to defend them as if he were their sole author and begetter. Inside the doors of the Cabinet there may be the most keen discussion. Outside the solidarity must be adamantine.
That absolute loyalty must exist if there is to be successful government by Cabinet or Committee is obvious. No doubt it is possible to have government by a single individual—by an autocrat or a Grand Vizier, whether chosen by popular vote, as the President of the United States, or by birth, as the Emperor of Russia—but in that case the so-called Cabinet is not a Cabinet in our sense, not a gathering of equals. The position of members of such Cabinets is analogous to that of the permanent heads of our Depart- ments. They are servants, not masters. Therefore they can without injury let their individual opinions be known. It is the King, the Vizier, or the President who has the responsi- bility for action. Their Ministers are merely executants. They act like soldiers under orders, and their personal agreement or disagreement with the orders is a matter of indifference. All they have to do is to carry them out faithfully. A Cabinet Minister is not a servant in this sense. He helps to make the orders which he obeys, and acts in the double capacity of master and servant.
In view of these circumstances, the need for secrecy becomes abundantly clear. Loyalty of the kind we have described can only be maintained through secrecy. If once it is allowed to leak out that Mr. Black and Lord White were against a particular policy being adopted, that they were overruled in the Cabinet, have sulked ever since, and have tried to do their best to upset the man who was the cause of their being overruled, a condition of things is created which must sooner or later break up the Cabinet, or at any rate ruin that solidarity which alone can produce efficiency. Half-secrecy makes things more difficult than would actual debate in public. It would really be better for mutual con- fidence to have a verbatim report of Cabinet meetings published daily than the sort of gossip which now goes on. Under conditions of hall-secrecy no one is quite sure who was the person to let out this or that Cabinet secret, and every one is suspected. Further, if Mr. Black has the feeling that if he makes certain sacrifices to silence and good faith they will have no effect, because Mr. Green is sure to talk, he is very apt to come to the conclusion that he may as well be the first to secure the advantages which are to be gained by publicity.—" I had better improve my own position by letting the supporters of a particular policy know how gallantly I fought for the matter in the Cabinet, and how I was overruled by a rival group."— Unless there is absolute confidence that no man will betray Cabinet secrets, however great the advantage to himself, there is only too likely to be an ignoble helter-skelter to betray them. Just as secrecy is the antiseptic of the Cabinet system, so betrayal of confidence is a septic influence which poisons the whole body. When, then, an effort is being made, as it is being made now, to re-establish Cabinet secrecy, it should have the support of all those who think that, on the balance of good and evil, the Cabinet system of government ought to be maintained. Remember that up till thirty- six years ago—up till 1880—Cabinet solidarity, supported by Cabinet loyalty and Cabinet secrecy, was the rule of our government, a rule that was practically never broken, ot only broken by some accidental occurrence. Before that penod a man would no more have thought of divulging Cabinet secrets than of cheating at cards, or refusing to pay a debt of honour because it had not been incurred in legal form. The only exception to the rule was when a member of the Cabinet retired and wished to explain his position. In that case the Sovereign gave him partial exemption from the Privy Councillor's oath of secrecy—the oath which seals the doors of the Cabinet, and ought to seal the lips of all its members.
We cannot here give any historical account of how it became the fashion to disregard the Privy Councillor's oath, and for Cabinet Ministers to talk freely to Journalists and others about what went on in the Cabinet. No doubt the Press played its part in the abandonment of the older and better tradition, but it was not so ignoble a part as has been represented. Unques- tionably it is primarily the business of Cabinet Ministers to keep their own secrets. If they choose to reveal them, the Press cannot be expected to refuse to listen. But, it may be asked, what were the influences which tended to make Cabinet Ministers so leaky ? The answer is a fairly simple one. Ambi- tious Cabinet Ministers pushing their way fiercely to the front were anxious to have influential newspapers on their side. In England, however, it is happily impossible to bribe the Press. No newspaper worth purchasing can be bought with money. But it was found that though newspapers could not be got to boom this or that Cabinet Minister by money down, their goodwill and support could be obtained by giving them secret information. The temptation to secure powerful news paper aid in this way was often too much for eager Cabinet Ministers. But when once the movement towards Cabinet publicity was begun it was difficult to keep it within bounds. If A, B, and C believed that D was purchasing political pro- motion by letting out Cabinet secrets, they felt that they had a right to follow in his footsteps. During the last seven or eight years a condition of things has been reached under which it is hardly too much to say that there have been no Cabinet secrets or opinions unknown to "able editors." It does not follow, of course, that details of what went on in the Cabinet were published ; but they were known, freely dis- cussed, and inferences drawn from them appeared in the newspapers, and so influenced public opinion.
It is greatly to be hoped that Ministers will now act in the spirit of the new Order in Council, and adopt a high, not a low, view of the oath of secrecy which they took as Privy Coun- cillors. It is on this oath that we must rely for an improvement in the matter of secrecy, and not on the penalties imposed upon journalists. Cabinet Ministers must be the guardians of their own honour. When we say this we must not be taken to share in any way Mr. Massingham's objection to the Order in Council under the Defence of the Realm Act raised in a letter to Wednesday's Times. Mr. Massingham seems to think that it will be injurious if Cabinet Ministers cannot consult freely with their favourite editors and Lobby correspondents. We cannot agree. In our opinion, it is very much better that newspapers should be as independent as possible of Cabinet influences. Newspapers should not be liable to be purchased by the betrayal of secrets. They had far better judge Cabinet Ministers on their public form than by tittle- tattle about what went on in the Cabinet, tittle-tattle which must of necessity partake of the nature of ex-parte statements. Editors when they are given inside information of what goes on in the Cabinet cannot by the nature of things test its accuracy, and very often they become the victims of coloured information. A Cabinet Minister who has made a faux pas, and is anxious. to put himself right with public opinion, when he tells his story to a journalist will of course put the matter in the best light for himself, but not necessarily in the true light.
We shall see whether a stop can be put to the cataract al indiscretions which has recently prevailed. If Cabinet secrecy can be restored, then the National Government will have gained immensely in force and efficiency. If, however, we are not to slip back into the old rut, Cabinet 'Ministers must be made to feel that if they betray Cabinet secrets they have bereft themselves of their personal honour just as much as if they had betrayed the confidence of a friend or were guilty of some conspicuous act of domestic treason. If a betrayal of secrecy can be traced to a particular Minister, the Prime Minister and the offending Minister's colleagues must harden their hearts and determine to show no mercy. It ought to be a rule with no exception that if a Cabinet Minister betrays Cabinet secrets he must at once cease to be a member of the Government and must for the future be placed under an absolute ban. Only by making men feel that if they betray Cabinet secrets they will be not merely disgraced personally, but have their political careers completely ruined, will Cabinet secrets be kept inviolable. There i3 no other way.
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