But the essential character of that feature of the Cabinet system which we are now dis cussing, is best proved by the unquestioned rule of constitutional custom: that a Cabinet de feated on 'an actual vote in the House of Com mons caust Instantly either resign or persuade the king to dissolve Parliament. The former alternative, established by the resignation of Walpole in 174Z on the apparently irrelevant question of the Chippenham election, was long thought to be the inevitable sequel of defeat in the House of Commons. But Pitt, in 1784, added the second alternative, with striking suc cess. Whether the king is bound to grant a dissolution upon the request of a Cabinet, is a delicate question which is said to turn on the point whether the Cabinet was in office when the previous general election occurred. If so, the country has pronounced its opinion; and the Cabinet is not entitled to a second verdict. Probably, however, the true doctrine is, that if there is any reasonable probability of the Cabi net securing a majority in the country, it is en titled to a dissolution. Needless to say, if the verdict of the polls is against it, the Ministry at once resigns, as Gladstone's government did in 1874, and Lord Beaconsfield's in 1880. It may be incidentally remarked, that the fall of the Cabinet results in the resignation of about 30 other high officials, e.g., the law officers, the under-secretaries of state and the chief house hold officials, who, though not members of the Cabinet, are more or less in its confidence and are, in contrast to the permanent officials of the civil service, °liable to retire from office on political grounds." These removable officials, together with the Cabinet, constitute the °Gov enunent" or 'Ministry." Informal Character of the third cardinal principle of the Cabinet system is its completely informal character. The Cabi net is indifferently described as a committee of Parliament and a committee of the Privy Coun cil; but, in law it is neither. It is true that in each House of Parliament there is a Ministerial (not a Cabinet) bench; and that, in the House of Commons, the Cabinet wields a great and growing control over business. None the less, it is undoubted that its members sit by virtue of their membership of the House and not by virtue of their offices and that the measures which they propose, though commonly called gGoverzunent measures," are, with the exception of financial proposals, technically brought for ward in their capacity of influential members of the House, and not as Crown officials. Even the King's Speech, though unquestionably drawn up by the Cabinet, is delivered in the House of Lords by the King himself or by special com missioners; while in the Commons it is read by the Speaker, who is not a government official.
On its executive side, the Cabinet is equally informal. Its members are always made mem bers of the Privy Council, in order that the oath of secrecy may be administered to them. But, as a body, it has no legal existence. It is never constituted by order in council, the clerk of the council is not present at its meetings, no minute or record of its proceedings is made, no decrees or orders are issued in its name, and it is never alluded to in Acts of Parliament, though the phrase °Responsible Minister of the Crown" is once or twice to be found in the Statute-Book. The various departments, such as the Admiralty and Treasury boards, have, by tradition or statute, certain limited powers of issuing orders and regulations; but, in the vast majority of cases, the deliberations of the Cabinet appear in the guise of Orders in Coun cil, i.e., commands of the King, issued by the advice of the Privy Council, or in the form of simple executive acts of the Crown, signified through the appropriate Minister. Both these classes of acts always receive the personal ap proval of the King, in whose name they are done, though the approval of the Privy Council is a pure formality.
The Unity of the Cabinet. Fourthly, the unity of the Cabinet is expressed by the Prifne Minister, though it is only within a short time (January 1906) that the existence of the work ing head of the Ministry has been formally rec ognized, and that only by a place in the official Table of Precedence. No Prime Minister's de
partment exists, though the estimates have re cently provided for two or three private secre taries. Like his colleagues, the Prime Minister is simply the holder of an executive post, though it is usual to appoint him to a well-paid sinecure (First Lord of the Treasury, $25,000) in order that he may have time to devote to the general policy of the government. But even this prac tice is very recent. Walpole, who really cre ated the position of Prime Minister, always de clined to assume the designation; and the fiction was long maintained by the unwise practice of charging the holder of the position with the actual cares of a working department, such as the Foreign Office or the Exchequer.
And, even now, the precise relations be tween the Prime Minister and the Cabinet as a whole depend more upon the nice balance of circumstances than upon any well-defined tradi tion. The fact that the Prime Minister hai been charged with the formation of the minis try, a fact which in itself is usually (though not always) a consequence of his election as leader of his party whilst in opposition, necessarily gives him a strong position with regard to his colleagues, who are, in a sense, his nominees. This advantage is strengthened by the rule that the collective decisions of the Cabinet are always communicated to the King by his mouth, while his prominence in the public eye tends also in the same direction. But the desirability of including in a ministry the ablest and most popular members of the party, the desire of avoiding any appearance of schism in the ranks of the government, and the almost unfettered discretion conceded to individual Ministers in the administration of their own departments, upon the business of which they communicate directly with the King, all combine to prevent the leadership of the Prime Minister, in nor mal circumstances, solidifying into actual con. trol. Whether this result is desirable or not, may be regarded as an open question. On the one hand, a weak Prime Minister is said to im ply a weak Cabinet; on the other, a Prime Minister of overpowering strength is not with out his drawbacks. It is often said, for ex ample, that the Liberal Party was driven into its long exile in 1895, because, in the later days of his leadership, none of his colleagues was sable to stand up to Mr. G." The Position of the In conclud ing this brief sketch of the working of the Cabinet system, it may be well to anticipate a criticism which every succinct account of the working of British politics is likely to raise in the mind of a reader not himself personally familiar with its atmosphere. A foreign ob server may well be expected to say, though it would hardly ever occur to a Briton to say: °What then is the use of the King, if he is merely the mouthpiece of his Ministers; if, except on the rarest occasions, he is bound to accept the advice tendered to him by his consti tutional advisors? Does it not really seem as though Carlyle's proposal for a king) would fit the present British Constitu tion?* The first answer to this criticism is the re minder that, though politics are an important side of public life in the British Empire, they do not by any means exhaust its interests. And the occupant of the throne is by no means con fined to the sphere of politics. As the head of society, as the patron of religious, charitable, agricultural and scientific enterprises, as the en courager of art and sport, as the focus of that spectacular world which, even to the phlegmatic Briton, is no small share of his existence, the opportunities of the monarch are uni.mited, and his personal discretion unfettered. To secure the presence of the King at any function, is to place success beyond the range of doubt. For the King to take a personal interest in the prosperity of a public enterprise, is the surest guarantee of its popularity. The King's Hos pital Fund is but one of countless examples of this truth. And with all these matters the Cabinet has no concern.