DEPARTMENTS OF A SECRETARY OF STATE Although there is no formal order of precedence among English Government departments a certain priority, after the Treasury, may be said to attach to those whose head is one of the secre taries of State. These are eight in number under seven Minis ters (that of the colonies and the dominions being held together), namely—Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs, War, the Colonies, India, Air, the Dominions, and Scotland. The Board of Trade, the Board of Education, the Ministries of Agriculture and Fisheries, of Health, of Transport and of Pensions, and the General Post Office are other departments usually recognized as suitable to be placed in charge of a minister of cabinet rank, though not of a secretary of State.
The Home Office in its present form dates from 1801, when colonial business was transferred to a separate secretary of State. The supervision (other than judicial) of the administration of justice, advice to the King upon the exercise of the prerogative of mercy, the supervision of police, prisons, reformatories, the liquor trade and factories, and the making of arrangements for national and local elections and for electoral registration, are among the specific duties of the home secretary. He is, moreover, the primary constitutional channel of communi cation between the sovereign and the subject, and in this capacity no limit to his duties can be set. A duty of particular interest is to serve as intermediary between the Imperial Government and the Channel islands, which are not colonies but part of the ancient dominions of the Crown. It is his duty also to receive petitions addressed to the Crown (and refer them to other departments if necessary), to issue warrants and appoint royal commissions (even in matters not affecting his own specific duties), to settle precedence and titles of honour (for example, in 1927, a pro nouncement was made that lord mayors are not entitled to be called "Right Honourable" without a grant from the Crown) and generally to deal with business involving the prerogative, or any business not definitely assigned to some other department of Government. The jurisdiction of the Home Office does not ex tend to Scotland, which has its own secretary of State. The Home Office, though new duties, e.g., the supervision of factories, have been engrafted on it by statute, is fundamentally a peculiar prod uct of British constitutional growth, and its position has no exact parallel elsewhere. In many countries of the British empire and of Europe its duties are divided between the Ministries of Justice and of the Interior (some also being appropriate to a Ministry of Labour)—although in many countries, as is mentioned above, the Minister of the Interior is largely engaged in controlling local administration through the prefect, a functionary for whom no English parallel exists.
The Colonial Office is the department which deals with questions affecting the various colonial possessions of the British Crown other than the self-gov erning dominions. At the Restoration, a committee of the privy council was formed to deal with colonial business, and in 1695 a Board of Trade and Plantations was created for collecting in formation and giving advice, the executive work being performed by the secretary of State for the southern department. A sepa rate secretary of State was appointed, abolished and reappointed in the i8th century, and in I 8o 1 this secretary was designated as secretary of State for war and the colonies. In 1854 a dis tinct office of secretary of State for the colonies was created. In 1925 a secretaryship of State for the dominions was created. This is a good example of the constitutional process by which a secre taryship of State comes into existence, for there was no statute : an order was given to the king's engraver to make a new seal and this was conferred on L. S. Amery, to be held with the seal apper taining to the secretaryship of State for the colonies. The business relating to the self-governing dominions was assigned to a sepa rate Dominions Office, though certain services, e.g., legal, financial, and other general business, continued common. Since the Colonial and Dominions Offices exist as the vehicle of communication between the Imperial Government and the rest of the empire, there is, in the nature of things, no counterpart in other coun tries of the empire. Similarly, no other State has an exact parallel to the Dominions Office, because no imperial constitution re sembles the British, but France and Italy among the Great Powers have Colonial Offices, under ministers of the first rank, as had Germany before the war.
The India Office is another department of the British Government which is without parallel elsewhere, being the link between the imperial cabinet and parliament and the Government of India. Created in 1858, it took over the duties of the Board of Control (which Pitt's act of 1784 had set up for such supervision of Indian affairs as parliament and the home Government then desired to exercise) and of the head office of the East India company in the city. The office was in part re organized in 1919, in connection with the reform of the Indian Government, but retains certain special features due to its origin, which are not found in other departments. Thus the secretary of State, who is the head of the department, exercises in part the same class of jurisdiction as any other member of the Government, but in certain matters he is bound by statute to obtain consent of, and in other matters to consult, the "Council of India." This is an advisory body, of whom half at least must have Indian ex perience, and is historically descended from the 18th century Board of Control on the one hand and from the board of directors of the East India company on the other. It works in close touch with the several divisions of the India Office, but administratively does not control them. A second peculiarity of the India Office lies in the fact that its cost is in part not charged upon British revenues: the British parliament pays (since 1919) the salary of the secretary of State and a proportion of the office charges, and the rest, calculated to represent the value of business done in Eng land for India, falls on Indian revenues.
For the departments of other secretaries of State, see FOREIGN OFFICE ; WAR OFFICE ; see also ADMIRALTY.
