CABINET, THE. The word "cabinet," like most British constitutional terms, is of foreign extraction, and originally sig nified a small room (compare the 18th century use of the word "closet"). Hence cabinet counsel came to mean secret counsel and cabinet council the body of persons that gave such counsel. Thus Bacon, in a famous passage, discussing the disadvantages of large councils, writes that "the doctrine of Italy and practice of France, in some kings' times, bath introduced cabinet councils, a remedy worse than the disease, . . . that is . . . councils of gracious persons recommended chiefly by flattery and affection." Organically, the cabinet derived from the Privy Council. Even in Tudor times, owing to the large number of counsellors and to facilitate the subdivision of labour, there were appointed many standing and temporary ad hoc committees of the council; and the practice was continued under the Stuarts. James I., it is true, preferred the advice of individual favourites, and the same may be said of Charles I. at the beginning of his reign. But, after the murder of Buckingham, one of these committees, usually called the foreign committee, gradually developed outstanding impor tance. On it sat the king's most intimate advisers and debated the most serious affairs of State, as well domestic as foreign, decisions being frequently taken in this committee before the subject of the decision had even been broached before the Privy Council, the functions of which were thus to a large extent usurped. Contem porary opinion strongly disapproved of such procedure ; the Grand Remonstrance, presented to the king on Dec. 1, 1641, refers to the grievance in clause 59, and the Commons returned to the charge more explicitly in an address of Feb. 1642. "Reproachfully" and "enviously," to use Clarendon's expressions, such committees were called "junctos," "cabals" or "cabinet councils." The Committee for Foreign Affairs.—At the Restoration, under the auspices of Clarendon, who had survived the deluge, the practice was revived with "that secret committee with the chan cellor, which under the notion of foreign affairs, was appointed by the king to consult all his affairs before they came to public debate." On Clarendon's fall, the precedent was followed by a standing committee of the Privy Council, called the committee for foreign affairs, which committee, owing to the coincidence of the initial letters of the names of some of the members (Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington and LauderdaIe), has passed into history as the Cabal, and, even under Danby, although opposi tion forced the king to greater circumspection, similar caballing in committee unofficially went on.
The position then up to 1679, when, owing to the revelations of Titus Oates and the consequent triumph of the country party, Charles was obliged to submit to conciliar reform, was as follows. There existed, first, a privy council of some 47 members, among whom the highest officials formed the effective nucleus; secondly, many standing and temporary ad hoc committees of the Privy Council, limited in membership, on all of which committees the greatest officials sat ex officio (from time to time certain other individuals were by royal favour appointed to all committees) ; and, thirdly, a committee for foreign affairs, sometimes, but not always, a properly constituted formal standing committee of council, variously termed by contemporaries a cabal, juncto or cabinet, and mainly, though not exclusively, composed of persons holding high political office, on which committee domestic, as well as foreign, affairs were debated and settled, formal decision only—and sometimes not even that—being left to the Privy Council.
The Committee of Intelligence.—It was the object of what is usually known as Temple's scheme to reduce the size of the Privy Council and to include in its membership representatives of every shade of parliamentary opinion. The new council thus con tained enemies, as well as friends, of the king, as did also its committees, the most important of which was "a Committee of Intelligence for the opening and considering all Advices as well foreign as domestic." Here, at last, was an official committee of council, legally empowered to undertake all those labours (except the short-circuiting of the Privy Council) hitherto extra-legally performed by the foreign committee. Since, however, it was com posed of enemies as well as friends, Charles, in spite of recent promises to cease caballing, began at once to consult informally in his cabinet with those members of the committee who were of the court party, occasionally summoning to such discussions other individual friends, who were not members of the committee at all. There were thus a formal committee of intelligence, composed of friends and enemies, and an informal cabinet, composed of the friendly members of the committee reinforced by a friend or two from without. It was not long before the Opposition representa tives on council and committees came to realize that their mem bership was a farce, since Charles did not take them into his con fidence. Gradually they forbore attendance. By Feb. 1681 they had ceased to attend. The vacancies thus occasioned on the com mittee of intelligence left room for the inclusion of those members of the cabinet who had not hitherto been members of the com mittee. On the other hand, with the defection of the opposition members of the Privy Council, Temple's scheme might be said to have broken down. If the experiment had failed, if the Privy Council had reverted to its former constitution, what authority for its continued existence had the committee of intelligence, which owed its origin to that experiment ? This doubt may ac count for the fact that, with the disappearance of the country party members from the council, the committee of intelligence ceases to call itself by that name, ceases in fact to exist, and is replaced, or rather continued, under the older and more familiar title of "the committee for foreign affairs." A year or so later, dropping all prefix and suffix, it becomes known simply as "the committee," partly, no doubt, because, being by far the most important committee of council, it ran no danger of confusion with the others, and partly, perhaps, because all the other com mittees of the Privy Council were at this time in process of being opened up to all members of the council, and the committee was thus the only one to retain limited membership.
Routine.—The routine of "committee" and "cabinet" sur vived the Catholic caballing of James II. and the idiosyncrasies of William III., who understood ministers but not ministries, to become under Anne the accepted, if still unpopular, machinery of executive government. The committee, meeting as often as neces sary throughout the week in the office of the senior secretary of State at the Cockpit in Whitehall, deliberated upon all business of government and prepared it for the sovereign. Once a week (unless emergency dictated an extra meeting), the lords of the committee attended the sovereign in her cabinet, where the busi ness prepared in committee would be brought to the royal notice and final decisions would be taken. By this time, only formal business would be transacted at meetings of the Privy Council, discussion and debate there being prohibited, although it might still be a wise precaution, in view of the possibility of later enquiries, for ministers to bring their most controversial measures before the board for formal ratification. As long as the sovereign continued to attend the meetings of the cabinet, the system of separate meetings of the committee at the Cockpit and of the cab inet in the royal palace possessed certain obvious advantages. But when George I., who had no English, from 1717 onwards ceased to attend, those advantages disappeared. Less and less frequently in the succeeding years did the lords of the committee come to the palace to wait upon a king who never turned up. Their busi ness, whether preparative or decisive, could now equally well be dealt with at the Cockpit. Nor was there any longer need for two titles whereby to describe what was now one and the same body. The designation, "the committee," is dropped. It is as "the cabinet," since that had been the title of the decisive body, that the executive is in future known ; and, gradually, as its presiding officer, to take the place of an absentee sovereign, there evolves a prime minister.
Personnel.—Even in the early 17th century, before the for eign committee had begun to usurp the functions of the Privy Council, the main work of the latter was done by a small number of the most important officials, who alone were constant in their attendance. These included the archbishop of Canterbury, the lord chancellor, the lord treasurer, the lord president (when there was one), the lord privy seal, the two secretaries, and a number of household officials (all the royal ministers were, of course, originally household servants), of whom the most important were the lord steward and the lord chamberlain. These again formed the nucleus of the committees of council, and, although it would not be true to say that the foreign committee normally contained these officials, or indeed the majority of them, yet it is a fact that, in proportion as the foreign committee and its descendants developed into the recognized executive of the nation, so did it tend to be composed more and more exclusively of the greatest political officials, for the simple reason that their collaboration, and their collaboration alone, was necessary to the conduct of government. When the cabinet and committee system emerges towards the close of Charles II.'s reign, these bodies possess only from six to seven members; in William III.'s reign there are sometimes nine ; under Anne, ten or 12. Now we cannot call even a dozen an excessive total for the great officers of State or for the proper conduct of business. But later, under the Hanoverians, there was a constant tendency, difficult to check, towards an in crease of membership by the inclusion of individuals, either (1) holding offices which, although of no great political weight, had occasionally, in the past, carried cabinet rank, or (2) possessing great political connections and borough interests which it might be necessary to placate, or (3) personally dear to the sovereign. Thus by 174o the cabinet had from 16 to 17 members, by 20, and in 1761, when the high water mark of 21 was reached, we read that cabinet councillor is "a rank that will soon become indis tinct from that of privy councillor by growing as numerous." "The Inner Cabinet."—Not unnaturally the more "efficient" members had begun to concert business privately. As long as the sovereign continued to preside at cabinet meetings, such informal gatherings, of course, would not be tolerated, nor indeed for a decade after his abstention did the cabinet swell to such a size as would necessitate or justify such a proceeding. It is during Walpole's long administration that the practice originates and develops into a regular habit. From 1727 to 1729 we hear of "select lords who are usually consulted in foreign affairs" ; by 1738 this reference of foreign negotiations to a select few has become "the usual practice." From 1735 we begin to hear of "private meetings at Sir Robert Walpole's." All this is informal. But from 1739-1741, as a result of war, of the absence of the king abroad and of the greater need in consequence both of secrecy and of formality of communication with the sovereign, there emerges a recognized group of five officials, the first lord of the Treasury (who was also chancellor of the exchequer), the lord chancellor, the lord president and the two secretaries of State, virtually in sole charge of affairs. This group deals with the most important business of every kind. It meets frequently, as occasion demands. It keeps minutes. It communicates directly with the sovereign and not via the cabinet. It meets at Walpole's house, whereas the cabinet sits at Whitehall. Its membership is definitely approved by the king, and the responsibility of members of this inner ring is recognized as greater than that of other cabinet ministers. But it could not actually supplant the cabinet, until it had expanded to include all the really efficient members of the cabinet. This was effected in the course of the next quarter of a century. In 1752 the first lord of the admiralty was added to the inner group, in 17S5 the lord privy seal, and in 1766 the chancellor of the exchequer, an office that since the Treasury had been put into commission, had usually been held by the first lord of the Treasury, was admitted on an independent footing. By that date the entire cabinet was only summoned on formal occa sions for the transaction of formal business; by 1775 it had become "a nominal cabinet"; and by 1783, when the younger Pitt formed his administration, it had to all intents and purposes ceased to exist.
Until the middle of the 19th century, the small, efficient cabi net suffered practically no greater increase in membership than can be accounted for by the creation of additional secretaries of State. From then on, however, the total rose rapidly. In 1867 it stood at 16; in 190o at 20; during the World War it reached 23; and since then all efforts to keep it below a score have failed. This increase is due, not, as in the 18th century, to the accretion of "inefficient" members, but to the creation of new and impor tant governmental departments, each with a responsible min isterial chief, to administrate the ever-swelling bulk of social legis lation. The concentration of the control of policy into the hands of a small, inner group—a proposal advocated by many as the best solution to the problem of an overgrown executive—is not, therefore, so easy a matter as it was two centuries ago. Neverthe less, something of the sort did develop during the war, although again in contradistinction to the inner cabinet of the i8th century the war cabinet was at times composed, not of the greatest office-holders, but on the contrary to a large extent of ministers without portfolio, deliberately so chosen, in order that, free from departmental duties, they might devote the whole of their time to general policy. After the World War there were further rumours of an informal inner ring of ministers, and one writer on the sub ject (Carthill, Rods and Axes, 1928) declares that : "A practice has sprung up of constituting an inner cabinet within the cabinet. This is not a true managing committee, nor is it a true regulator; it is an informal council of close political friends of the premier, and its existence is not formally recognized." Principles of Cabinet Government.—Functionally, the cabi net may be described as a committee of privy councillors, with seats in parliament, united by political principle and professing unanimity in public, under the leadership of the acknowledged head of the party commanding a majority in the House of Com mons, by whom, with the sovereign's assent, they have been ap pointed to the control of the principal government departments, to act through him as the sovereign's sole advisers, and to be sev erally and jointly responsible to the sovereign, the prime minis ter, parliament and the people, for their individual and collective actions, so long as they are supported by a majority of the House of Commons. The principles of cabinet government set forth in this definition have achieved recognition as the result of nearly three centuries of ministerial and party conflict. There is, of course, no law compelling ministers to be members of parlia ment. On the contrary, for two centuries, through fear, at first of the influence of the Crown, and later of ministerial corruption, repeated efforts were made to exclude all placemen from the House of Commons. It was only when with the carriage of "eco nomical" reform by the Rockingham administration of 1782 and with the passage of the Reform bill of 1832 the dangers of a bought majority had been removed, that the advantages of the presence of the executive in the legislature were fully understood. During the i8th century, the majority of cabinet ministers were peers; in the 19th and 2oth centuries, commoners; but each of the chief departments has usually a ministerial representative in either house. That ministers should be united by political principle was a doctrine first, and prematurely, enforced on his cabinet by Wal pole. Later, it was enunciated as the official Whig doctrine, in opposition to the personal government of George III. and Chat ham's dogma of "men not measures," by Burke in his "Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontents" (1770), and, with the fall of personal government, may be said to have triumphed, although even to this day coalition governments occasionally violate the principle. Unanimity in public is an obvious corollary. The principle is summed up in Lord Melbourne's dictum "I don't care what we say, but we'd better all say the same thing." Since then independent action, contrary to the policy of the Govern ment, has always been followed by the resignation of the individual concerned, for instance Lord Palmerston's congratulation of Napo leon III. on the coup d'etat of 1851 and E. Montagu's publi cation of a protest of the Indian Government against the treaty with Turkey in 1922.
The principles governing the relations between the cabinet and its chief belong to the story of the evolution of the office of prime minister (q.v.) ; that the latter should be the head of the party commanding a majority in the lower house is the natural out come of the Reform bills of the 19th century, although, even to this day, if there are more than two parties in existence, none of which commands an absolute majority, it is possible for the head of a minority to be in power, e.g., J. Ramsay MacDonald and the Labour Government of 1924. The sovereign's assent to ministe rial appointments made by the prime minister is the residue of the former unfettered powers of the council to appoint what ministers it pleased ; but the statement that members of the cabi net are in control of the principal government departments needs some qualification. In the 18th century there were several in stances of cabinet ministers without portfolio (Pulteney in 1742, Hardwicke in 1757, Conway in 1770 and Camden in 1798) ; during the World War, at one period, of a war cabinet of seven, four ministers held no departmental office ; and, among the offices which habitually carry cabinet rank, there are several, as, for instance, the lord president and the lord privy seal, which nowadays involve no departmental duties. The doctrine that the king should be advised solely by his ministers was slow in achieving recog nition. It may properly be said to have done so during the younger Pitt's administration (1783-1801) . As regards the minor house hold posts, the controversy revived for a moment with the Bed chamber Question of 1839, but was finally settled with the queen's surrender on Peel's assumption of office in 1841.
The cabinet it has been said, is responsible to the sovereign, to the prime minister, to parliament and to the people ; but the nature of the responsibility varies in each case. The sovereign must be kept fully informed, his advice taken and his consent obtained. Between Crown and cabinet the prime minister ordi narily acts as intermediary, but it is always possible for the sov ereign to reprimand a minister who has failed in respect or duty, as did Queen Victoria in her famous memorandum to Lord Palm erston in 1850. The responsibility of the cabinet to the prime minister is twofold ; collective, in that, when he resigns the whole cabinet follows suit, a practice first (without prearrangement) adopted on the dismissal of the Pelhams in 1746, though not finally established till much later ; and individual in that the prime minister appoints each member of the cabinet to his post and can at any time demand his resignation. As regards parliament, the responsibility is in the main collective, since the individual action of each is usually covered by the collective responsibility of all. "Each minister acts in his own department as the recognized agent of his colleagues in that particular department, subject, however, to enquiry and control by the whole body." And, if an individual minister takes publicly an independent line, either contrary to, or without consulting the general opinion of his colleagues, it is usual, as has been shown above, for the prime minister to demand his resignation. But there have been cases when such individual or improper action, having been passed over by the prime min ister, has been taken notice of by parliament in such a way, how ever, as not to involve the resignation of the cabinet. Thus in 1855 Lord John Russell resigned when Bulwer Lytton gave notice of a motion of censure on "the minister charged with negotiations at Vienna," and in 1865 Lord Westbury was forced to resign as a result of a motion of censure carefully worded so as to confine responsibility to the chancellor alone. Lastly, in speaking of the responsibility of the cabinet to the people, we mean something more than the continuous modification of policy by public opinion, something more than the increasing tendency of ministers in their parliamentary utterances to address the nation at large at least as much as their immediate hearers. The responsibility is greater and more direct than that, and is best illustrated by the practice, which in the last zoo years has become common, of dis solving parliament instead of resigning, on defeat, thus appealing from parliament to the people, and by that other practice now generally followed of accepting the verdict of the electorate as final and resigning on defeat at the polls. (F. L. B.) Twentieth Century Developments.—In July 1914 the cabinet system proved unequal to the demands imposed upon it by the diplomatic strain that led up to the declaration of war. In 1916 it had completely broken down. One of the salient char acteristics of cabinet government was the secrecy of its discus sions. The privacy of its meetings had been rigidly observed. No secretary was present, no minutes of proceedings were kept. On rare occasions a document called a "minute of the cabinet" was drawn up, the names of the ministers approving or disapproving were attached, and the record was placed in the archives of the sovereign. The prime minister was in the habit of writing to the sovereign atter the cabinet meetings a short precis of its decisions, in the form of a confidential letter. Many of these letters are preserved in the royal archives, but they are not used for purposes of reference. Recent biographies and published correspondence of ministers show that important cabinet decisions were sometimes not acted upon through misunderstanding or forgetfulness.
So archaic was the system, so unsatisfactory its results, that in Aug. 1914 H. H. Asquith instituted a change in cabinet procedure. Some years before the war he had been provided with a secretariat for the purposes of the committee of imperial defence, over which as prime minister he presided. The services of this secretariat he adapted to the use of the prime minister himself and his cabinet in 1914. Up to that time the prime minister had not possessed a departmental staff, and no "office," other than a few private secre taries. Downing street contained no records. The evolution of the secretariat of the committee of imperial defence into the secre tariat of the cabinet was, under the stress of the World War, natural and easy. When in 1916 D. Lloyd George became prime minister and superposed upon the cabinet of 23 the war cabinet of four or five, the cabinet secretariat was strengthened. By gradual processes inevitably arising out of the immense business accumulating in the hands of the head of the cabinet, owing to the closer relations with the dominions, by the ramifications of imperial defence which, as the war showed, affect every department of State, and by the growth of centralized Government, the insti tution of a "cabinet office" or prime minister's department was found to be and has remained an essential condition of directing the business of the nation.
From its inception until his resignation in July 1938, Sir Mau rice Hankey was the head of the cabinet office and also of the defence committee secretariat. Suggestions have been made that the functions should be separated, but so far the opinion of those best qualified to judge is that the service to the prime minister would be less efficiently rendered if the present plan of one nent civil servant in control of both secretariats were changed.
Since 1916, records of cabinet proceedings have been preserved. They are the property of the sovereign, their secrecy is safe guarded by the privy councillor's oath, and they are under the constitutional guardianship of the ministry for the time being. No public use can be made of them except by leave of the sov ereign acting on the advice of the prime minister.
In normal times the tendency had been for the numbers of cabinet ministers to increase, until in 1914 there were 23 holders of cabinet office. In times of national difficulty and peril when legislative and departmental questions are subordinate to rapid decisions' and executive action, the tendency has been to restrict the cabinet to the smallest possible number. It is impossible to predict the future of cabinet government, but those who have studied with care the tendencies of popular government in Eng land incline to the view that the authority of the prime minister is more likely to be enhanced than shared by his cabinet colleagues. It does not seem probable that any serious attempt will be made to revert to the methods of conducting cabinet business which prevailed before 1916.
The cabinet meetings are held in Sir Robert Walpole's house, 10 Downing street, which he bequeathed to the nation, and which prime ministers continue to occupy to this day. For tables of the cabinets and ministers of the English Crown, In the United States the president's cabinet is composed of the heads of the ten co-ordinate executive departments. But this is a matter of custom rather than of law, for the cabinet, as a collective body, has no legal existence or power. The Constitution contains no provision for a cabinet and makes only incidental ref erence to heads of departments, from whom the president may ask opinions. Neither did Congress, in creating the first three depart ments in 1789, recognize in any way the possibility of a cabinet council composed of the department heads. In fact, as the Consti tution would seem to indicate, the Senate was then regarded as the real executive council on account of its powers to ratify treaties and confirm appointments.
Whatever may have been the views of the framers of the Con stitution and of Congress, a cabinet, based on usage alone, early became a recognized part of the executive policy. Washington re garded the heads of the three executive departments and the at torney-general, who was not made the head of a department until later, as his confidential advisers, though the term cabinet was not immediately applied to them. He also exercised his constitutional power of requiring opinions from the chief executive officials, and took them into his confidence in all important matters of State. By this gradual process, he welded the department heads into an executive council, and by 1793 the term cabinet was generally ap plied to this group of presidential advisers. Gradually, as the ad ministrative duties increased with the expanding nation, new executive departments were created by Congress and their heads became cabinet members. The three departments—State, Treas ury and War—were established by the first session of Congress. The offices of attorney-general and postmaster-general, which were also created in 1789, did not rank as regular departments until 187o and 1874, respectively, but the attorney-general, from the beginning, was considered a member of the cabinet and, upon the invitation of President Jackson, the postmaster-general became a member in 1829. Other department heads became members of the cabinet as follows: the Navy, in 1798, the Interior, in Agriculture, in 1889, Commerce and Labor, in 1903 ; however, the latter department was divided in 1913 into two separate depart ments, that of Commerce and that of Labor, with separate heads.
As Prof. Munro points out in his book The Government of the United States, there is nothing done with the cabinet's consent which could not be done without its approval if the president should so decide. Yet it now meets regularly at stated times (usually once each week) fixed by the president. The meetings are not public, and no record is kept of transactions. Discussion is confined to whatever the president may see fit to lay before it, usually matters of importance relative to the general policy of the administration or any important piece of legislation desired by the president or by a cabinet member, and about to be submitted to Congress. (See GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.) The cabinet is the president's council in a very peculiar sense, in that its members are usually his personal selection. While the cabinet officers' nominations must be confirmed by the Senate, as a matter of practice, confirmation is given promptly and without objections. Department heads are appointed for the term of the administration; however, the president may dismiss any member at pleasure. In reality, dismissals are rare but individual resigna tions, due to the lack of harmony, are frequent. Congressional con trol over the various departments is limited to its powers to create and abolish executive offices ; to give or withhold appropriations ; to require reports and information ; and to impeachment.
Between the English and American cabinets there is hardly a point of similarity. Members of the English cabinet must be mem bers of one or the other branch of parliament ; in America the members of the cabinet cannot be members of either house of Congress, nor can they be heard from the floor. In England the cabinet assumes the function of legislative leadership ; this does not belong to the cabinet in the United States. In England the cabinet is responsible to the House of Commons, while in the United States the cabinet is responsible to the president alone.
There follows a list of U. S. cabinets since the beginning. Owing to the slow evolution of the British cabinet (see above) from the old King's council corresponding British lists from 5603 are given under MINISTRY.