The prime minister is appointed by the sovereign. "I offered," said Sir Robert Peel on his resignation of office, "no opinion as to the choice of a successor. That is almost the only act which is the personal act of the sovereign; it is for the sovereign to determine in whom her confidence shall be placed." And, as late as 1894, Queen Victoria could call Lord Rosebery (1894-95) without consulting the retiring prime minis ter, Gladstone (1868-74, 1880-85, 1886, 1892-94), or the wishes of the parliamentary majority. Nevertheless, the Crown's free dom of choice is narrowly circumscribed. The "economic" re forms of Rockingham's administration (1782), by reducing the royal patronage, made it less easy for the sovereign to put ready made majorities at the disposal of whatever minister he might fancy, and the Reform bills of the 19th century made the ministry depen.lent on parliament and the electorate rather than on the royal favour. The prime minister is normally the acknowledged head of the party commanding a majority in the House of Corn mons, and it is only, therefore, on occasions when no party com mands an absolute majority of the House, or when the majority party has no acknowledged head, that there is room for the ex ercise of the royal discretion.
It will be obvious from what has been said above that the prime minister has no salary as such. He merely draws the emoluments of whatever office he may happen to hold. At the close of the 7th century the lord treasurer was already regarded as the most important Government official, and since the Treasury came to be put into commission, the leading minister has normally held the office of first commissioner, or first lord (until the middle of the 18th century he was usually chancellor of the Exchequer as well). But Chatham (1766-67) was lord privy seal; Salisbury (1885 86, 1886-92, 1895-1902), successively secretary of State and lord privy seal; and msay Macdonald (1924) simultaneously first lord of the Treasury and secretary of State. In addition, the prime minister is usually leader of the house of which he is a member. D. Lloyd George (1916-22), however, finding his duties too onerous, transferred this burden to other shoulders. In the 18th century, when cabinets were almost exclusively composed of peers, the leading minister, curiously enough, was recruited most of the time from the Commons; in the 19th century, when commoners came to form the bulk of the cabinet, the prime minister was, more often than not, a peer. As a result, however,
of the passage of the Parliament Act of 191r, truncating the powers of the Lords, and of the rise of a Labour Party with few adherents in the upper house, the Commons have, for the time being, at any rate, achieved a practical monopoly of the office. Thus, for instance, Lord Curzon's claims to the premiership were passed over, in 1923, in favour of those of Stanley Baldwin.
"As the cabinet stands between the sovereign and parliament," wrote Gladstone, "so the prime minister stands between the sovereign and the cabinet." He it is who, with the king's consent, appoints his fellow ministers to their respective posts. Originally, of course, the sovereign exercised an unfettered choice. Even so old and faithful a servant as Cecil never knew whom the queen would appoint to her council. Even in Anne's reign it required the united and persistent pressure of a ministry to get a Harley out or a Sunderland in. Even Pitt, at the close of the 18th cen tury, had to put up with Thurlow, "the king's chancellor," and, at the dawn of the 19th century, to do without Fox, the king's bete noire. So even to-day, when the prime minister's choice is theoretically as free as was originally the Crown's, the pressure of party, the claims of talent and the prescriptive rights of previous office-holders render that freedom largely nugatory. With the right of appointment is bound up the right of dismissal, but the responsibility of the cabinet to the prime minister and the remain ing functions of the latter belong properly to the history of, the cabinet (q.v.). For lists of the prime ministers and other prin cipal Government officials see MINISTRY.
books as The Prime Ministers of Britain (4th ed., 1924) by the Hon. Clive Bigham, give certain dates and facts, but the history and functions of the office can only be authoritatively studied in the memoirs and biographies of the statesmen themselves and in the party, ministerial and cabinet history of the last two centuries. (F. L. B.)