THE PROPOSED ADDITIONS TO THE CABINET.
Wh cannot support the demand, raised by so many Cham- bers of Commerce and Agriculture, for the creation of a special Ministry or special Ministries for those Depart- ments. The objections stated by Mr. Kynaston Cross, the new Under-Secretary for India, in his speech of Wednesday to his Bolton constituencies, are in themselves nearly final. As he says, every Department, the whole government of the country, is concerned with Commerce and Agriculture. Hardly any officer of State can do anything without touching those in- terests, and, half the policy of the Government is directed to the improvement of their condition. The Cabinet cannot sanction a foreign despatch, or arrange a Budget, or consider a Banking Act, without thinking of commerce ; while every measure for the improvement of tenure, for the reform of county government, or for the readjustment of rates, directly and in many cases most perceptibly, affects agriculture. The greatest agricultural and commercial measures of our time, the new Poor-law and Free-trade, were measures of high policy, to be settled by Governments and Parties, not by Departments; while the smaller measures now in front, the French Treaty and the modification of tenure called the Holdings Act, could not possibly be left to individual Ministers. They are and will remain questions of the class which Cabinets must think out, and on which the Premier, or the Premier plus the two or three men who form in practice an in- terior Cabinet, must finally decide. A Minister of .Com- memo who could propose and carry, say, complete Free- trade, would be above the Premier and the Treasury too ; while a Minister of Agriculture who could propose tenant- right would be above the whole Government. Yet, if he could not propose these things with a good prospect of carry- ing them, he would be a mere intermediary, extremely incon- venient to the Cabinet, where he would be an intruding and, so to speak, isolated person, and of very little use to any- body. Important interests like agriculture and commerce, with hundreds of representatives, can already address the Treasury with quite sufficient emphasis. No Minister of Commerce could have pressed on the Foreign Office the case of Bradford under the French Treaty more vehemently than it was pressed ; and no Minister of Agriculture, if he had been as eloquent as Fox or as competent as Sir R. Peel, could have forced a Government to grant compensation for slaughtered cattle as it was forced by the agricultural property-holders in the House.
We do not deny that, in matters of detail, Commerce and Agriculture, considered as interests, may have something to complain of. The Chambers all say so, and they must, on such a point, know the grievances of their constituents. As regards commerce, we think it possible that a special Minister might collect information now left vague or scattered—this is certainly true of Asiatic facts—might inquire more persistently into new openings for trade, and might stimulate the Foreign Office to attempt new treaties of commerce with States like the Republics of South America, to which "public opinion," now the only motor, will not continuously attend. A Minister of Agriculture also might collect information, now left too indefinite—the history of ensilage is a good illustration—and collate more accurately the views of the Chambers about tenure, and even give valuable warnings from the whole world to agricultural districts. An Office set apart for special inquiry always receives a great deal, and such Ministers might be most convenient intermediaries between the interests concerned and the governing Committee. But then they should be Ministers, not Secretaries of State. Mr. Mundella, who has quite enough to do with Education, without worrying himself about sick cows, should receive a colleague, a second Vice-President, with agriculture as his business; while
the Vice-President of the Board of Trade should become a much bigger man, with the extension of Commerce as his de- partment. Each of these officers would be grand sifter for the interest represented, and his sifted information and pro- posals would be sure of attention, and even eager attention, from a Cabinet which would like nothing better than to see . its way to any improvement really needed by any great interest. That means a great many votes at the next election, as well as a benefit to the country, and with those two motives pulling together, a Cabinet soon puts itself in motion.
We confess to a good deal of jealousy about additions to the Cabinet. So far as we see, a non-political Department gets itself most admirably managed whenever it is in the hands of a Minister who is a good administrator, who is just under Cabinet rank, but who is strong enough to weigh heavily with the Government as a whole. We do not see how we can have the Education Department better managed than it was by Mr. Forster, or is by Mr. Mundella, and fancy we owe a good many recent improvements in the Post Office to the fact that Mr. Faweett has not to consider the affairs of the whole world. We are by no means satisfied that the work of the Board of Trade would not be better done if its head were a Vice-President under the Treasury, instead of a leading politician ; and are quite certain that if the First Commis- sioner of Works were in the Cabinet, the Crown lands would be managed with less attention. Even for Ireland and Scot, land, our ideal, if it were possible—which it is not, while the Lord-Lieutenancy continues — would be representative Under-Secretaries, answerable to the Home Secretary, who should himself be directly responsible for the peace of the Three Kingdoms. The Cabinet should not be too full, and it should be filled with men of political rank who are more than heads of Departments. Day by day, two silent political processes are going on which will materially modify the working of the Constitution, which are probably beneficial, but which ought to be watched with the greatest care. The force of the Cabinet is growing. The tendency of our Demo- cracy is towards Cabinet government. The majorities grow larger—ten was formerly a working majority—the groups more numerous, the pressure of business heavier, the powers of private Members less, till the initiative is being con- fined to the governing Committee, which has, moreover, a working veto on all propositions. It is essential that this Committee should be fairly homogeneous, not too much of a little Parliament—we note that Councils, now-a- days, sit long—and should consist of men not entirely worked to death, but with a little capacity left for initiating new things. Energy, too, and secrecy are increasingly neces- sary, and to secure all those objects a Cabinet should be rigidly kept from unwieldiness. The increase of Cabinet power will not, we conceive, stop, it being the most natural instrument through which a democracy can govern ; and though the second process may stop, it also may not: This is the great increase in the standing, and therefore the power, of the Premier. We shall soon have been governed twenty years by two men, each of whom, whatever his merits or demerits, was admitted all round to stand head and shoulders above his fellows, It has been Lord Beaconsfield's Govern- ment and Mr. Gladstone's Government in an unusually truthful sense. That is not a bad change in itself, whenever we can find the right man, a moderated personal ascendancy giving coherence to the Administration ; but it increases the need for confining the Cabinet to the powerful, and avoiding a dilution, the effect of which is to exaggerate the personality of the Premier. It is all very well at present, but we do not want the Cabinet always to be, as it certainly was last year, when Mr. Gladstone was bearing the world on his own shoulders— rather crushing them, as we now know, by that supreme effort —the Premier's Council. The stronger, in short, the Cabinet is made, the better, and concentration is a great element in strength.
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