TOPICS OF THE DAY
CABINET ETIQUETTE
THE questions asked of the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister in the House of Commons on Mond ay in regard to Russian relations generally, • and Mr. Churchill's recent speech in particular, show how wise was the strict Cabinet etiquette of the last generation, especially in foreign affairs, and how dangerous it is to the Cabinet system to give oratorical Ministers a loose rein.
In old days there was no stricter rule than that there must be no poaching by one Cabinet Minister on the ground of another—except by the Prime Minister as head gamekeeper, so to speak ! The only exceptions were the Leader of the House of Commons when the Prime Minister was in the Lords, and the Leader of the Lords when the Prime Minister was in the Commons. The result was that you could never have such halting and confused answers as were given on Monday, or find the Prime Minister humorously declaring that in his party, as in other parties, "some of us have to walk on the floor, and some of us have to-use wings." Stranger still was Mr. Baldwin's declaration that he believed Mr. Churchill's speech represented the Cabinet's point of view, but he desired an opportunity of studying it. This, we venture to say, was a statement which it would have been impossible for any ante-War Prime Minister to make. A Cabinet Minister did not even speak on behalf of his own Department unless he had talked the policy over with the Prime Minister, had told him what he proposed to say, and had obtained his approval. Owing to this Cabinet etiquette the Ministry never spoke with two voices.
We say this, not merely out of a desire that the rules of the game should be followed, but because we arc convinced that the rule was a wise one. The essential 'virtue of Cabinet Government is that while a Ministry retains office it assumes a kind of artificial personality. It is in order to maintain and protect this corporate individuality that the old and almost superstitious guardianship of Cabinet secrecy was maintained. A Cabinet might, in private, be full of cross-currents and antagonisms ; but in public no discordant voices were to be heard. When, then, the Prime Minister, or " the Minister concerned," spoke, he spoke, not for himself, but for the Cabinet as a whole, and his words bound every one of his colleagues. A decision was the decision of the Cabinet as a whole and not of a majority. If a Cabinet Minister felt that he could not be responsible for that decision, then there was one, and only one, way out. He resigned and, obtaining from the Sovereign relief from the Privy Councillor's oath, he was permitted to give his personal reasons for leaving the Cabinet. That was the only peep ever allowed into the delibera- tions of the secret Committee of " the King's servants," i.e., Privy Councillors.
We are no pessimists, and we do not for a moment suggest that the unfortunate weakening of Cabinet solidarity, and consequently of its strength, is due to any corresponding weakening of the fibre of our statesmen or of their loyalty, honour and good faith. The dis- appearance of Cabinet etiquette has a very much simpler explanation. It is ultimately due to the unwieldy size of the Cabinet. You may maintain the useful fiction of artificial personality when a Cabinet has ten or at most a dozen members, but you cannot maintain it when there are twenty or more. The moment you get such numbers Cabinet decisions are not arrived at by close and intimate deliberation, but by speeches and dissertations made at what is in effect a small meeting, at which minutes are taken and decisions are formally recorded. Cabinets have lost the elasticity which belongs to a single mind. And here it may be reiterated that the great size of modern Cabinets has inevitably led to a diminution of that reticence which is so necessary to effective joint action. In old days Cabinet meetings were shrouded in mystery, even as to time and place, and still more as to the subjects discussed. Now nothing is more conunon than to see in newspapers references to what is actually called "the Agenda of the Cabinet." We are told what was the line taken by this or that Minister, and there are even, horrescimus referentes, statements as to how "the voting" went in a Cabinet—" voting " again being a product of bloated Cabinets.
It will be said, "All this may be quite true, but how do you propose to reduce Cabinets ? " We suggest that it could be done by a plan of grouping. There must, of course, be a Prime Minister, a Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Lords, a Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs, Colonial Affairs, and Indian Affairs. Then would come a Secretary of State for Imperial Defence, who should have under him the three Depart- ments of Land, Sea, and Air. In a similar way, all the offices connected with Home Affairs could be grouped under a single Secretary of State. He, indeed, would have almost a little sub-Cabinet to deal with. There would be in this sub-Cabinet the heads of the Ministry of Health, of the Scottish Office, the Board of Trade, the Boards of Education and of Agriculture, and of the Ministry of Labour. The Postmaster-General should not be a member of the Cabinet, but his Ministry would wisely be put under the Home Office.
We come last to the Lord Chancellor. It is very' difficult to decide whether the Lord Chancellor should or should not be a member of the Cabinet ; but, on the whole, we are inclined to think that, at any rate for the present, he ought to remain in the Cabinet, in spite of the anomaly of mixing up the direct administration of justice with a Parliamentary Administration.
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