CABINET GOVERNMENT.
WE wonder whether the democracy will ever com- pletely trust a Government. It has repeatedly displayed a readiness to trust individuals for a time, Louis Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, and Victor Emmanuel having in our own generation been intrusted, in the first and third eases formally, and in the second case informally, with powers entirely beyond those laid down in the Constitution, but so far as we know it has never confided fully in a governing Committee. We ask because we see, or think we see, that a grave change is passing without much discus- sion over the method of governing the 'United Kingdom. Power is passing from the House of Commons, as yet the ultimate depositary of authority, to the Cabinet. The democracy, hampered by its own cumbrousness, by its own ignorance, and by a new consciousness of both, is groping about for an agent which can carry out its orders with greater ability, greater judiciousness, and above all greater speed than is possible to a public meeting of representa- tives, who from a variety of causes have become more talkative and more disposed to form groups than they wero when omnipotence was first intrusted to their hands. Those representatives acknowledge every day that they cannot control foreign policy at all wisely, they have almost ceased to discuss it, and they leave it to the Foreign Secretary, checked and supervised by the Cabinet, with a humility which is almost touching. Even forty years ago, when Lord Palmerston was at the helm, the representatives would have discussed the present situa- tion almost every night, and though they would almost always in the end have accepted Lord Palmerston's decision—there was one great exception—they would undoubtedly have influenced his action. They also acknow- ledge that on many points their information is deficient, and are always ready, if a Commission of Inquiry is suggested, to rein in their impatience. And they acknowledge every Session that their methods are too cumbrous, that the work to be done cannot be done at all in their way, and that the whole time of the House of Commons must be placed at the disposal of the Cabinet. No private Member or group of private Members now hopes to pass a Bill without official permission. At the same time, the Cabinet gets though its estimates, immense as they often are, with an absence of resistance which would have seemed to Joseph Hume or Mr. Cobden, or, indeed, any of the economists of an earlier day, perfectly monstrous. The estimates, it is true, are made the occasion of a quantity of talk, sometimes exceedingly instructive, some- times little better than futile, but they always pass, and pass substantially unchanged. We do not in truth exaggerate when we say that the Cabinet, if only it has a fair majority, governs the country, taxes the country, and legislates for the country very much at its own discretion. It cannot, of course, do anything violently opposed to popular sentiment, and it is obliged, in preparing its proposals of any kind, to take that sentiment into account, but it possesses all the initiative, a complete power of veto, and whenever it is determined, which, of course, it often is not, being as a, rule only too anxious for "light from below," an effective working power of arranging details. There is a wonderful avoidance of the autocratic method, or even of that method of visible leadership which is favoured by the German Emperor, and it is considered quite indiscreet of a Minister, how- ever powerful, to say, " I will do it ;" but in truth " the sovereignty" is as completely in the hands of the Cabinet while it remains in Office as it ever was in the hands of any King not avowedly a tyrant.
Though we believe the change to be more far reaching than is yet perceived, and to involve some results as to the attractiveness of Parliamentary life which have not been fully felt yet, and which, when they are felt, may prove injurious, we are far from wishing to assert that it is either mischievous or avoidable. It has come unconsciously, and changes in a Constitution which come unconsciously usually meet some deeply felt want in a sufficiently satisfactory way. The Cabinet itself, it must be remembered, grew without Parliament ever arranging for its growth, or indeed acknowledging its existence by any formal vote. As regards foreign policy the change probably increases our national safety, and certainly has not impeded the territorial expansion of the Empire,—indeed we are not sure that it has not facilitated it a little too much, the gigantic acquisitions of the last twelve years having been effected without the people having given, or even formed, any definite opinion upon their value. As regards information, the system does as well as another, it is carried much farther in France, and it is true that owing to the great complexity of modern life there is much more need than there used to be for inquiry before action. Parliament might ruin whole trades and classes by what seemed, before the evidence of experts was taken, self-evident improvements. We doubt, we must confess, whether the new system works well as regards finance, for it throws a quite terrible power into the hands of the spending depart- ments, and gives the rein to that thirst for "improve- ments " which in the present day at once excites and seems to justify a desire for ever-increasing expenditure ; but then it is very doubtful if the Cabinet spends more freely than the Commons would, or if the lavish ex- penditure is offensive to any popular instinct such as sooner or later is sure to find expression among the representatives. Perhaps the worst effect of the change at this moment is that under it economists lose heart so com- pletely that there is no single Member or group of Members left who or which plays the part of wife to the House of Commons, that is, attempts to control the outlays in detail, which, if controlled, make establishments economical. And finally, as regards the cumbrousness of procedure, the change appears to be inevitable. All manner of palliatives, like the Closure, have been tried in vain, and we are driven to the conviction that there is something in the national character which produces cumbrousness in discussion. It does not exist in France, where people are not patient. There they usually get to the final vote on the most momentous subjects in a single day, and settle, or try to settle; whether their House of Lords shall continue to exist in a single improvised sitting of three hours. Our people simply will not discuss without time for discussion, and as the universe was not made for their convenience, there are not hours enough in a day sufficient for business if done in the method which they approve. Successive Governments consequently find that they must either " take " all the time there is, or give up all hope of seeing their proposals assume the form of Acts. But while we avoid objections to the change which we know must be futile, we wish to ask why, if Parliament admits its necessity, it should not recognise the change a little more completely, and so obtain its full benefit. If the Cabinet is to legislate on all but the most contentious sub- jects, why not let it legislate ? Why, for example, should not the House accept or reject by resolution the principles of the new Irish Land Bill, and then leave the Cabinet to draft that Bill, to amend its draft once after six weeks' delay allowed for suggestions and remonstrances, and then to place the Bill on the table as an Act, operative unless the House vote otherwise within a month ? If it is said that the Irish Land Bill is too great a measure for this treat- ment, though it it is only a Bill for improving details, let us take a little Bill. The country wishes, it is well known, that the present laws as to horseless carriages should be abolished, and other laws substituted which will require very careful drawing. Why should not the Cabinet propose, draw, and publish the required Bill, wait six weeks for suggestions, and then by Order in Council make an amended copy law ? Who would be hurt ? The Act would be a much better and less illogical Act than the one Parliament will pass, the popular House would have full opportunity of rejecting it, and the time of the country would be indefinitely saved. This process is followed even now very often when a measure is sent to a Committee whose advice it is not considered etiquette to reject, and our contention is that in an immense variety of cases the Cabinet is itself the best Committee it is possible to obtain. It must surely be possible to define the subjects on which such legislation would be inadmis- sible, even if the definition were as rough as the following : —" That no Order in Council should be legal if it made any change in the Constitution." Within that limit the Cabinet can do no irremediable harm, while it might in many departments of effort, and especially in the work of codification, and in restoring simplicity to commercial law, do an infinite amount of good.
Two objections will at once be raised to this proposal,— one that it would overweight the Cabinet, and the other that it would aggrandise it too greatly. We contend that the Cabinet is already burdened by its possession of the sole initiative, and that relief from the task, often the impossible task, of piloting its Bills through the House would be ample compensation for the fresh responsibility laid upon its shoulders. It is not work which kills Cabinet Ministers, but the " dreary drip of desultory debate," as Lord Salisbury described it, ending so often in nothing but a heartbreaking conviction that the measure on which such energy and time have been expended, and from which its authors expected so much good, must be withdrawn because in a House so choked with business nothing not imperative could be got through. And as for aggrandising the Cabinet, that is impossible. It already possesses in practice the whole sovereignty. It already declares war and makes peace—who did either in the case of Ashantee if not the Cabinet ?—and it already decides what shall and shall not be matter of public Policy. There is only one final authority in the British Empire, except an Act, and that is a Cabinet Order, drawn up as often as not by a Committee of three, and entirely unknown to Parliament until it has passed into operation. That is the system we live under, and our only contention is that it would be wise to acknowledge it, and obtain from it all the benefit of which it admits.
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