THE ALLEGED POWER OF THE CROWN TO CONTROL FOREIGN POLICY.
IN commenting last week on the suggestion that the German alliance was due to " Court influence " we pointed out how entirely inconsistent such a view was with the working of the Constitution, and begged our readers not to follow any such false scent. The Constitution places the power and the responsibility for Executive action, in foreign as in home affairs, in the hands of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, and to admit that such power is being used, not by them, but by the Crown, is tantamount to accusing the Cabinet of a dere- liction of duty of a most flagrant kind. ' This week we publish a letter on the subject from Mr. Sidney Lee, the able and learned biographer of the Queen, which most strongly and convincingly supports our view, and shows what is and has been the custom of the Constitution in this respect. To our mind the matter is so clear and the principle for which we contend so well established that it really seems unnecessary to discuss them. They are, like the question of the right of the Commons alone to vote public money or impose taxes, wholly beyond dispute. Since, however, a great deal of interest seems to have been taken in the matter, and since also there appears to have been a good deal of confused thinking in regard to it, it may be worth while to return to the alleged control of foreign policy by the King.
It is sometimes argued that the King has by the custom of the Constitution special rights of control over foreign affairs, rights which he does not enjoy in respect to home affairs. That is a delusion. The whole of the Sovereign's special rights in regard to foreign affairs, as Mr. Lee points out, consists in the fact that he is kept more minutely informed about them, and that no steps of any importance in foreign politics are taken until he has been given an opportunity to understand what is proposed to be done, and to exercise his right of criticism thereon. The notion of the King claiming a right to any initiative in foreign policy, or of his making even the most temporary and tentative agreements with foreign rulers, is utterly preposterous. That he should be kept minutely acquainted with the conduct of foreign affairs is a very sound and proper arrangement. Again, considering his special and private opportunities for knowing what is going on abroad, it is in the public interest that he should be able to draw attention to aspects of a question that may have escaped the attention of his Ministers. But between this and controlling or directly influencing the conduct of foreign affairs there is the widest possible difference. It may be asked, however, if all this is so clear, and if there is no pos- sibility of the Royal influence being exercised, why is it thought necessary to deal with the question at all,—why not let the delusion perish quietly and without comment ? A suf- ficient answer to this question is, we believe, to be found in the fact that unless the allegations as to Court influence are at once met and shown to be contrary to the Constitution, there is a certain danger of this delusion being made the excuse for weakness in Ministers and for the avoidance of responsibility. Our people are a good-natured people, and if the idea once grew up that the Cabinet were not wholly and solely responsible for all Executive acts, and that a mysterious thing called Court influence was liable to interfere with ite plans, a dangerous tolerance of unwise actions might easil) grow up. It is most undesirable that people should ever be found saying : " The Ministry have made a very great blunder, but perhaps they were forced into it by the King, and,therefore they are not really to blame." To entertain such notions as that is to undermine and destroy the Con- stitution. The only right, the only safe, plan is to insist that Ministers, and Ministers alone, are responsible for all the acts done in the name of the King. If once they are believed to be able to shelter themselves behind the sup- posed power of the Crown, the hold of the British people upon them becomes weakened in the most dangerous way. You cannot exact full responsibility from a servant for his acts if you admit for a moment the possibility of his being controlled by an external power which he could not disobey. Again, if the delusion spread and were not contradicted, it would. soon grow into a reality. If the Sovereign and the Ministers knew that the public believed in the Royal con- trol of foreign policy, such control would soon grow up. It is, of course, impossible for the Sovereign, like the rest of us, not to have his own opinions and his own ideas in regard. to foreign policy, and also it is impossible that these opinions should be unknown to his Ministers. But Ministers like to please the King. If they are easygoing people, it must be a great temptation to shape their policy in a way which will gratify the King. As it is, however, they must know that in case of failure no plea that they were led to take a certain course of action, not because they thought it right, but through their desire to please the King, will be allowed. to stand for a moment. Full responsi- bility will be exacted from them on the ground that their business was to do what was right, not to gratify the King. If, however, they were allowed to think that they could shift some of the responsibility in case of failure on to the King, they would be far more likely to give way to the desire to please the Sovereign by carrying out his policy rather than their own. The thought, " If I do that, it is I, and I alone, who will bear the blame " is the strongest incentive a man can have to take trouble about what he is doing. " Well, if it goes wrong, they won't altogether blame me " is the greatest possible weakener of personal responsibility. This being so, it is clear that the spread of the notion that the King partly controls foreign policy, and that therefore Ministers are not altogether responsible, would very greatly weaken that sense of personal responsibility which it is the aim of the nation to secure in regard to all its public servants. Our only safety rests in exacting personal responsibility. The only answer that the nation can take from a Minister in reply to the question, " Why did you do it ? " is, " Because I thought it was the right thing to do."
We desire, then, to protest with all our strength against the growth of this dangerous notion that Executive acts are to be explained, and so excused, on the ground. of Court influence. If, as we have said, we once admit such ex- planations and excuses, the thing which we have imagined will become a reality. If, on the other hand, we refuse to admit any such explanations or excuses, the Ministers who are the guardians and trustees of our rights will take care that the growth of any new power in the Crown does not become a reality. They can easily prevent such a new growth; but if they find that the public already half believes in its existence, they are very likely to choose the line of least resistance, and let what is now a delusion materialis into a fact. It is a clear fact of history that Constitu. tions are never immutable. They change and grow, like all organic bodies. And they can grow in either of two direc- tions,—towards freedom and popular rights, or in the direc- tion of prerogative. It would. not take many years for the fiction of Royal control over foreign affairs to harden into a custom. It behoves us, then, to exact from Ministers the maximum amount of responsibility in foreign as in home affairs, and to turn a deaf ear to all explanatory whispers and allegations of Court influence. Court influence can only exist owing to the lathes, the weakness, and the want of backbone of Ministers. If they know that the public realises this fact to the full, we may be perfectly sure that they will never allow Court control to assert itself. If Ministers do not know it, but think the public is content to see Court influence at work iu foreign affairs, we shall soon see Court control return. Another evil result of the propagation of the delusion in regard to the power of the Court to exercise a certain degree of control in foreign affairs is that it is exceedingly unfair to the present King. He has, of course, his own private views on foreign policy, and he has every right to have them ; but when they happen to coincide with those adopted by his Ministers, it is grossly unfair to make his Majesty responsible for the upshot. We are bound, if we are loyal to the Constitution, to hold that such harmony is merely a coincidence, and not due to any pressure by the King. To assume that it is due to pressure is to convict Ministers of a culpable weakness amounting to treason to the rights of the people. If any such pressure were exerted, it would be the immediate duty of the Ministers to report the fact, as it were, by resignation, to their masters, the people, and to let them find the remedy. That no such report has been made must be taken as a sure sign that no such pressure has been exerted. The King's private views are solely his own affair, and nation has no right to pry into them. His Ministers' are their own, and for these the nation will hold them, and them alone, responsible. We trust, therefore, that we shall hear no more excuses as to Court interference with and control over foreign affairs. It is a slander on. the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, who, however much we may think them mistaken in their German Alliance, are not cowards and sycophants, but men, we do not doubt, as true to the Constitution and as determined to maintain it as their predecessors.
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