The war has reacted somewhat differently upon political parties in European parliamentary governments than upon those in the United States. From one point of view the British cabinet is, in ordinary times, a party com mittee. It is a body of politicians selected from the leaders of the majority party, rather than a body of non-partisan technical experts; it is a parliamentary committee holding secret sessions and collectively responsible to the House of Commons. At the outbreak of the war it con sisted of an unwieldy body of about 20 mem bers. The war, however, has wrought funda mental changes in its character. At the very outset a party truce was agreed to, followed shortly afterward by the creation of a coalition cabinet of about the same number of members, containing practically all the prominent leaders of the two major parties, but with a nonpartisan technical expert, Lord Kitchener, in charge of the war office. The formation of the coalition cabinet sealed the party truce and indicated a significant departure, at least temporarily, from the ordinary plan of party control and responsibility. Certain other changes also fol lowed in the train of the coalition cabinet. The cabinet ceased to be a mere parliamentary committee and less attention began to be paid to proceedings in Parliament, inasmuch as the latter ceased to affect or control the policies and personnel of the cabinet. The responsi bility of the cabinet was rather to the electorate than to the House of Commons. That this responsibility had become individual rather than collective was indicated by the resignation in 1917 of the Secretary of State for India with out affecting the tenure of office of the other members. Under these circumstances, the necessity for holding general elections ceased and acts were passed from time to time putting off the elections by prolonging the duration of the House of Commons.
The British coalition cabinet proved unsat isfactory, however, largely because of its un wieldy size, and smaller committees, selected partly from the cabinet and partly from out side were appointed to supervise particular phases of the administration. One of these com mittees was the war committee, which subse quently developed into the war cabinet of five members with Lloyd George at its head. The war cabinet, however, differed from the war committee in that the latter was a mere com mittee of, and subordinate to, the large cabinet, while the war cabinet was a small compact group of leaders of both parties which was superior to the ministry. For the most part, the members of the war cabinet were not bur dened with the duties of administrative office, sc that they could devote their whole attention to general matters connected with the war. The war cabinet was a manifest improvement over the cumbrous coalition cabinet, but even the war cabinet lacked the advantages which come from the concentrated power and respon sibility of a single controlling head, such as we have in the United States.
We may now contrast the developments in the United States with those in Great Britain. In November 1917, Premier Lloyd George de clared that he was almost the only minister in any land on either side who had been in office since the beginning of the war. Practically all the others had fallen by the wayside through one cause or another. This was not the case, however, in the United States. A few months after the re-election of President Wilson in 1916, many votes being undoubtedly cast for him on the ground that he had kept us out of war, he found himself unable longer to pre serve peace and at the same time maintain the national honor and self-respect. The entrance
of the United States into the war, however, pro duced no cabinet crisis as it had done in Eng land. The same cabinet that had served in time of peace continued to serve without change after a state of war had been declared. A de mand arose from certain leaders and organs of the opposition party that, following the example of England, a coalition cabinet should be formed, but the demand was unheeded. The opposition to the President's conduct of the war culminated in the attempt to secure the en actment of what was known as the Chamber lain war cabinet bill, providing for the appoint ment of a war cabinet of three distinguished citizens of demonstrated executive ability,* which should practically take the conduct of the war out of the hands of the President and usurp his constitutional functions as com mander-in-chief of the military forces. This bill as proposed would probably have compli cated the situation rather than simplified it, and was clearly unconstitutional, yet it was supported on the ground that such a war cabi net had been established in Great Britain with resulting increased efficiency in war administra tion, and we should consequently profit by her example. Such an argument, however, failed to take into account fundamental differences in the forms of the two governments. The Over man bill, which was finally enacted instead of the Chamberlain bill and gave the President power to co-ordinate and consolidate the scat tered administrative agencies, was much more in harmony with the for and spirit of our in stitutions. The President neither could be, ex cept by impeachment, nor ought to be sup planted in the conduct of the war. Stability of policy and administration in time of war is more important than that the personnel of the government should change quickly and readily in accordance with the changing currents of popular opinion and the ebb and flow of par tisan politics. To secure such stability in Great Britain, a coalition cabinet was deemed necessary in order to avoid partisan criticism and struggle which might otherwise cause the downfall of the government through the loss of confidence in it by the House of Commons, to which it was responsible. No such coalition was necessary in the United States, however, since the cabinet officers are not responsible to Congress and are in no danger of an upset so long as they retain the confidence of the Presi dent, who is not only the head of the adminis tration but also the leader of his party, and whose tenure of office is of course secure for the period of his term. The concentrated power and stability of tenure of the President makes for such efficiency in war administration as parliamentary governments are unable to at tain except by abandoning the essential prin ciple, that is, ministerial responsibility.to Parlia ment, on which such governments are based. The argument that, because the establishment of the British war cabinet resulted in increased efficiency, such a plan would have the same re sult in the United States failed to take into account the fact that the establishment of the British war cabinet was a move in the direction of concentration of executive power, while such a cabinet, if introduced in the United States, would be a move in the direction of the diffu sion of such power and responsibility.