SUCCESSIONAL CABINETS.
SOME months ago there was an article in the National Review setting out the gains that would follow to the public from a reconstruction of the Cabinet on other than party lines. " Carltonensis " was of opinion that "there were some four or five Conservative Ministers who, though men of undoubted respectability and high character, scarcely possessed the attainments or the abilities fittiu:..! them for the supreme direction of an Empire in times of difficulty and danger," and he urged the substitution for " these eminent, and in some cases rather elderly, mediocrities" of "such men as Lord Rose- bery, Mr. Asquith, or Sir Edward Grey." Even at that time the proposal seemed to us to have very little to recom- mend it. The recent tendency to increase the number of offices conferring Cabinet rank has necessarily led to the multiplication of mediocrities, but we do not know that the country has greatly suffered by the process. Men of genius do not grow on every bush, and even if they did they do not always make the best Ministers. They have a natural tendency to magnify their particular offices, and the result of this is sometimes an inconvenient dispropor- tion between the relative shares of Ministers in matters of policy or legislation. There is no need, however, to argue this question so far as the writer of the article is con- cerned. "Carltonensis" has become a convert to the opposite view, and he displays all the zeal that ordinarily belongs to converts. The editor of the National Review has asked him to say whether in his opinion the scheme of a Coalition Ministry might not be revived with advantage. "Carltonensis" leaves us in no doubt as to his present mind on this subject. "Ought the Liberal leaders to join the Cabinet at present ? If that is the question, I say with the utmost vehemence, NO." In our opinion, the reasons which avail to condemn the project now would equally have availed to condemn it in the first instance, and as " Carltonensis " has not convinced us that his present opinion is not "in the smallest degree inconsistent" with that to which he gave utterance before the war, we have no desire to argue on the contrary side.
" The main reason," he says, " why a Coalition Cabinet seems at the existing juncture of affairs altogether un- desirable, and indeed disastrous, is this : We need an alter- native Cabinet." That is perfectly true, but, to our thinking, it is a need which is inseparable from the system of party government. The political sanction of that system is expulsion from office, and this sanction is commonly applied to the Cabinet as a whole. Indeed, if the relations proper to their several offices subsist between the Prime Minister and his colleagues, he can hardly escape his full share of the blame that falls upon any one of them. Mere administrative errors may occasionally, lead to individual retirements ; but, speaking generally no Minister can have gone far wrong iu a matter of policy without his chief having gone pretty well as far. To say—as " Carltonensis " says of the situation as it is—" that we want a reserve of public men of unblemished reputation, influence and authority, to take the place of the present Ministry if it should become necessary or inevitable that these latter should resign their offices," is really to speak a truth of universal application. What must happen if there is no such reserve is easily foretold, and though the fulfilment of the prophecy might have more startling consequences in our present circumstances than at another time, the difference would be only in degree. A change of Ministry is always a possible contingency. No majority in the House of Commons, no amount of popularity out of doors, wholly excludes its occurrence. At all times it would be a "disaster for the nation if it found itself un- able to cope with that eventuality, and if there were no body of men of influence and political experience to take the place of the fallen group If the recognised Opposition chiefs are not available, the country might turn to some group of new and untried, and perhaps untrustworthy, demagogues. Against that danger the old party system may at least save us." That seems to us an unanswerable statement of the case, and one the force of which, though it may be greater at one time than at another, can never become non-existent. We have seen how the contrary system works in France. There party government can hardly be said to exist, and a change of Ministry is seldom or never anything more than a re- distribution of offices with the same groups rept., Belted, only in differing proportions. One result of this is vie tile in the indifference with which a Ministerial crisis is re- garded by all except the politicians who expect to gain something by it. The country is altogether indifferent to what is going on at the Elysee, because it knows that the new Cabinet will be largely composed of the men lately in office with additions from the Cabinet which was in office next before that which has just been turned out. That is not a prospect calculated to excite enthusiasm in the elec- torate, and the absence of enthusiasm is the primary cause of the numerous abstentions which make a General Election in France so imperfect an index to the mind of the nation.
No doubt this view of the case, though it is always true, is of more serious importance in such a situation as that which we now have to face than it would be at a more ordinary time. " We are using up too many things and too many people over the Boer War already,—using up our soldiers, using up our military resources, using up our distinguished Generals one after another ; in the name of common-sense and foresight let us avoid using up all our statesmen as well." We do not think the "call for a different Ministry" is anything like as imminent as " Carltonensis" seems to imagine. We see no cause to suppose that the actual conduct of the war would be im- proved by a change of Government, or that the disposi- tion to make scapegoats of certain members of the Cabinet has any more worthy origin than the impatience arising from disappointed expectations. But though the history of the war up to the present time ought not to affect the position of the Government, it must • not be forgotten that popular feeling is not always grounded upon reason, and that some unexpected incident, either military or financial, might raise a sudden storm before which Ministers could hardly look to hold their own. This may be an improbable contingency, but it is certainly not an impossible one, and the mere men- tion of it does undoubtedly give great additional force to the contention that the need of " men of capacity and position" in the next Government is only second in im- portance to the need of them in the actual Govern- ment. The want of an Opposition to which to turn for aid will always be a grave misfortune ; it would be something more than a misfortune if it came to aggravate a crisis provoked by some unexpected turn in the war, or in the public estimate of those charged with the conduct of the war. If there were a change of Government the Opposition would be in a position, provided that it were able to heal for the time being its very real internal divisions, to construct a very fair alternative Cabinet. But if we suppose Lord Rosebery, Sir Henry Fowler, Mr. Asquith, and Sir Edward Grey all included in the Unionist Administration, and by consequence sharing its fall, the formation of an alternative Cabinet would be impossible except by taking into it an unusual number of untried, if not unknown, men. No advantage that the present Government could hope to derive from the suggested.reinforcement would be worth mentioning in comparison with so serious .a danger as this.
Admitting, then, that the changes we have been con- sidering are too dangerous to be ventured on, are we compelled to accept the Ministerial status q'uo as the only alternative policy ? " No," says " Carltonensis" ; we want new blood, but it is to be obtained " by going outside the regular circle and bringing in some of those men whose capacity has been proved on other fields than the platform and the Westminster debating-rooms." Let us have a great soldier as War Minister and a distinguished sailor as First Lord, and let other vacancies be ,filled by men like, say, Sir George Goldie or Sir Colin Scott Morcrieff. They " have done magnificent work and vindicated their title to be considered real rulers and governors of men." " Carltonensis " seems to leave one very important element out of his calculations, and that is the milieu in which their new work would have to be done. That milieu would be these very " Westminster debating-rooms" of which he speaks so contemptuously. Change this—send Parliament about its business for so long as these men " whose capacity has been proved on other fields" are in office—and "Carltonensis's " selection would very probably be justified. But this would involve a reconstruction, not of the Cabinet only, but of the Con- stitution, and may therefore be dismissed from present consideration. With Ministerial responsibility to Parlia- ment what it is now, we doubt whether any one of these eminent persons would hold office for a month. The methods that have succeeded so well in Africa might succeed in England if England were Africa.- We see no ground for supposing that they would succeed in England so long as England is governed by Parliament and her Executive officers have to win and retain the confidence of Parlia- ment. Nor is this scepticism of ourselves without justi- fication from an analogous fact. Why is it that the House of Commons has been the grave of so many great Indian reputations if it be not that faculties gained and used in one environment will not serve their possessor equally well in another environment ? Great soldiers and great sailors might not find themselves exempt from the opt rat ion of the same law.
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