46. What are "Constitutional" Laws?—From this unrestricted competence of Parliament arise two highly important facts. One of them is that the distinction between "constitutional" laws, on the one hand, and ordinary statutes, on the other, is neither so obvious nor so essentialas under most governmental systems. The concept, even, of constitutional law has developed but slowly among the English, and the phrase is as yet seldom employed in legal discussion. In the United States constitutional amendments or addenda, in so far at least as they assume written form, emanate from sources and by processes different from those that obtain in the enactment of ordinary statutes. In most continental nations the constituent process is at least somewhat different from that employed in the enactment of simple laws. And these specially devised processes are designed to emphasize the essential differentiation of the product from the handiwork of the ordinary legislative bodies. In Great Britain, however, there is, as has appeared, no difference of process, and the distinction between the law of the constitution and ordinary statute law is not infrequently all but impossible to trace. If it is to be traced at all, it must be derived from the circumstances of enactment. Some measures, e.g., the Habeas Corpus Act, the Act of Settlement, and the Parliament Act of 1911, relate obviously to the most fundamental and enduring aspects of state. Others just as clearly have to do with ephemeral and purely legislative concerns. Precisely where the line should be drawn between the two no man can say. It is, in the opinion of Mr. Bryce, because of this obstacle primarily that no attempt has been made to reduce the English constitution to the form of a single fundamental enactment.[55]
47. All Parts of the Constitution subject to Amendment.—In the second place, no portion whatsoever of the constitution is immune from amendment or abrogation at the hand of Parliament. So forcefully was the French observer De Tocqueville impressed with this fact that he went so far as to assert that there really is no such thing as an English constitution at all.[56]De Tocqueville wrote, however, from the point of view of one who conceives of a constitution as of necessity an "instrument of special sanctity, distinct in character from all other laws, and alterable only by a peculiar process, differing to a greater or less extent from the ordinary forms of legislation";[57]and this conception is recognized universally nowadays to be altogether inadequate. There is, in every proper sense, an English constitution. No small portion of it, indeed, is in written form. And it is worth observing that in practice there is tending to be established in England in our own day somemeasure of that distinction between constituent and legislative functions which obtains in other countries. There is no disposition to strip from Parliament its constituent powers; but the feeling is gaining ground that when fundamental and far-reaching innovations are contemplated action ought not to be taken until after there shall have been an appeal to the nation through the medium of a general election at which the desirability of the proposed changes shall be submitted as a clear issue. The principle, broadly stated, is that Parliament ought to exercise in any important matter its constituent powers only under the sanction of direct popular mandate. It was essentially in deference to this principle that the elections of December, 1910, turning squarely upon the issue of the reform of the House of Lords, were ordered. Thus, while in numerous continental countries the distinction between constituent and legislative functions is being nowadays somewhat relaxed, in Great Britain there is distinctly a tendency to establish in a measure a differentiation in this matter which long has been in practice non-existent.
In effect, every measure of Parliament, of whatsoever nature and under whatsoever circumstances enacted, is "constitutional," in the sense that it is legally valid and enforceable. When an Englishman asserts of a measure that it is unconstitutional he means only that it is inconsistent with a previous enactment, an established usage, the principles of international law, or the commonly accepted standards of morality. Such a measure, if passed in due form by Parliament, becomes an integral part of the law of the land, and as such will be enforced by the courts. There is no means by which it may be rendered of no effect, save repeal by the same or a succeeding parliament. In England, as in European countries generally, the judicial tribunals are endowed with no power to pass upon the constitutional validity of legislative acts. Every such act isipso factovalid, whether it relates to the most trivial subject of ordinary legislation or to the organic arrangements of the state; and no person or body, aside from Parliament itself, possesses a right to override it or to set it aside.[58]
48. Contrasts of Theory and Fact.—The government of the United Kingdom is in ultimate theory an absolute monarchy, in form a limited, constitutional monarchy, and in fact a thoroughgoing democracy.[59]At its head stands the sovereign, who is at the same time the supreme executive, a co-ordinate legislative authority (and, in theory, much more than that), the fountain of justice and of honor, the "supreme governor" of the Church, the commander-in-chief of the army and navy, the conservator of the peace, and theparens patriaeandex officioguardian of the helpless and the needy. In law, all land is held, directly or indirectly, of him. Parliament exists only by his will. Those who sit in it are summoned by his writ, and the privilege of voting for a member of the lower chamber is only a franchise, not a right independent of his grant. Technically, the sovereign never dies; there is only a demise of the crown, i.e., a transfer of regal authority from one person to another, and the state is never without a recognized head.
The assertions that have been made represent with substantial accuracy the ultimate theory of the status of the crown in the governmental system. In respect to the form and fact of that system as it actually operates, however, it would hardly be possible to make assertions that would convey a more erroneous impression. The breadth of the discrepancy that here subsists between theory and fact will be made apparent as examination proceeds of the organization and workings of the executive, the legislative, and the judicial departments of the government of the realm. It is necessary first of all, however, to give attention to certain of the more external aspects of the position which the monarch occupies.
49.Title to the Throne: the Act of Settlement, 1701.—Since the Revolution of 1688 title to the English throne has been based solely upon the will of the nation as expressed in parliamentary enactment. The statute under which the succession is regulated is the Act of Settlement, passed by the Tory parliament of 1701, by which it was provided that, in default of heirs of William III. and Anne, the crown and all prerogatives thereto appertaining should "be, remain, and continue to the most Excellent Princess Sophia, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants."[60]Sophia, a granddaughter of James I., was the widow of the Elector of Hanover, and although in 1701 she was not first in the natural order of succession she was first among the surviving heirs who were Protestants. It was by virtue of the act mentioned that, upon the death of Anne in 1714, the throne devolved upon the son of the German Electress (George I.). The present sovereign, George V., is the eighth of the Hanoverian dynasty. Although it would be entirely within the competence of Parliament to repeal the Act of Settlement and to vest the crown in a member of some house other than the Hanoverian, there is, of course, no occasion for such an act, and the throne may be expected to continue to pass from one member of the present royal family to another in strict accordance with the principles of heredity and primogeniture. The rules of descent are essentially identical with those governing the inheritance of real property at common law.[61]Regularly, the sovereign's eldest son, the Prince of Wales,[62]inherits. If he be not alive, the inheritance passes to his issue, male or female. If there be none, the succession devolves upon the sovereign's second son, or upon his issue; and in default thereof, upon the eldest son who survives, or his issue. If the vacancy be not supplied by or through, a son, daughters and their issue inherit after a similar order. No Catholic may inherit, nor anyone marrying a Catholic; and by the Act of 1701 it was stipulated that every person who should attain the throne "shall join in communion with the Churchof England as by law established." If after accession the sovereign should avow himself a Catholic, or should marry a Catholic, his subjects would be absolved from their allegiance. It is required, furthermore, that the sovereign shall take at his coronation an oath wherein the tenets of Catholicism are abjured. Until 1910 the phraseology of this oath, formulated as it was in a period when ecclesiastical animosities were still fervid,[63]was such as to be offensive not only to Catholics but to temperate-minded men of all faiths. By act of parliament passed in anticipation of the coronation of George V., the language employed in the oath was made very much less objectionable. The sovereign is required now merely to declare "that he is a faithful Protestant and that he will, according to the true intent of the enactments which secure the Protestant succession to the throne of the Realm, uphold and maintain the said enactments to the best of his power according to law."
50. Regencies.—The age of majority of the sovereign is eighteen. The constitutions of most monarchical states contain more or less elaborate stipulations respecting the establishment of a regency in the event of the sovereign's minority or incapacitation. In Great Britain, on the contrary, the practice has been to make provision for each such contingency when it should arise. A regency can be created and a regent designated only by act of Parliament. Parliamentary enactments, however, become operative only upon receiving the assent of the crown, and it has sometimes happened that the sovereign for whom a regent was required to be appointed was incapable of performing any governmental act. In such a case, there has been resort usually to some legal fiction by which the appearance, at least, of regularity has been preserved. A regency act regularly defines the limits of the regent's powers and establishes specific safeguards in respect to the interests of both the sovereign and the nation.[64]
51. Royal Privileges: the Civil List.—The sovereign is capable of owning land and other property, and of disposing of it precisely as may any private citizen. The vast accumulations of property, however, which at one time comprised the principal source of revenue of the crown, have become the possession of the state, and as such are administeredentirely under the direction of Parliament. In lieu of the income derived formerly from land and other independent sources the sovereign has been accorded for the support of the royal household a fixed annual subsidy—voted under the designation of the Civil List—the amount of which is determined afresh at the beginning of each reign. The Civil List was instituted by an act of 1689 in which Parliament settled upon the king for the meeting of personal expenses, the payment of civil officers, and other charges, a stipulated sum, thus separating for the first time the private expenditures of the crown from the public outlays of the nation.[65]The sum given William III. was £700,000. George III., in return for a fixed Civil List, surrendered his interest in the hereditary revenues of the crown, and William IV. went further and, in return for a Civil List of £510,000 a year, surrendered not only the hereditary revenues but also a large group of miscellaneous and casual sources of income.[66]At the accession of Queen Victoria the Civil List was fixed at £385,000. The amount was comparatively small, but opportunity was taken at the time finally to transfer to Parliament the making of provision for all charges properly incident to the maintenance of the state. In addition to various annuities payable to the children of the royal family, the Civil List of Edward VII., established by Act of July 2, 1901, amounted to £470,000, of which £110,000 was appropriated to the privy purse of the king and queen, £125,000 to salaries and retiring allowances of the royal household, and £193,000 to household expenses. At the accession of George V., in 1910, the Civil List was continued in the sum of £470,000.[67]
The sovereign enjoys unrestricted immunity from political responsibility and from personal distraint. The theory of the law has long been that the king can do no wrong, which means that for his public acts the sovereign's ministers must bear complete responsibility and for his private conduct he may not be called to account in any court of law or by any legal process. He cannot be arrested, his goods cannot be distrained, and as long as a palace remains a royal residence no sortof judicial proceeding can be executed in it. Strictly, the revenues are the king's, whence it arises that the king is himself exempt from taxation, though lands purchased by the privy purse are taxed. And there are numerous minor privileges, such as the use of special liveries and a right to the royal salute, to which the sovereign, as such, is regularly entitled.
52. Sources: the Prerogative.—Vested in the crown is, in the last analysis, an enormous measure of authority. The sum total of powers, whether or not actually exercised by the sovereign immediately, is of two-fold origin. There are powers, in the first place, which have been defined, or conferred outright, by parliamentary enactment. Others there are, however—more numerous and more important—which rest upon the simple basis of custom or the Common Law. Those powers which belong to the statutory group are, as a rule, specific and easily ascertainable. But those which comprise the ancient customary rights of the crown, i.e., the prerogative, are not always possible of exact delimitation. The prerogative is defined by Dicey as "the residue of discretionary or arbitrary authority which at any time is legally left in the hands of the crown."[68]The elements of it are to be ascertained, not from statutes but from precedents, and the sources of it, as enumerated by Anson, are (1) the residue of the executive power which the king in the early stages of English history possessed in all of the branches of government; (2) survivals of the power once accruing to the king as the feudal chief of the country; and (3) attributes with which the crown has been invested by legal theory, e.g., the attribute of perpetuity popularly expressed in the aphorism "the king never dies," and that of perfection of judgment, similarly expressed in the saying "the king can do no wrong."[69]The most considerable element in the prerogative is that which Anson first mentions, i.e., the power which the king has carried over, in the teeth of the popularization of the governmental system, from days when the royal authority was not hedged about as since the seventeenth century it has been. It is further to be observed that no inconsiderable portion of the royal powers as they exist to-day represent original prerogative worked over and delimited by parliamentary enactment, so that in many instances it becomes difficult to determine whether a given power exists by virtue of a statute, by which it is to be regarded as absolutely defined, orby virtue of an anterior prerogative which may be capable of being stretched or interpreted more or less arbitrarily. Nominally, the sovereign still holds by divine right. At the head of every public writ to-day stand the words "George V., by the Grace of God of Great Britain and Ireland King." But no principle of the working constitution is more clearly established than that in accordance with which the prerogatives of the crown may be defined, restricted, or extended by the supreme legislative power. Among prerogatives once claimed and exercised, but long since rendered obsolete by prohibitive legislation may be mentioned those of imposing taxes without parliamentary consent, suspending or dispensing with laws, erecting tribunals not proceeding according to the ordinary course of justice, declaring forfeit the property of convicted traitors,[70]purveyance, pre-emption, and the alienation of crown lands at pleasure.
53. Powers, Theoretical and Actual.—It is not, however, the origin of the royal power, but rather the manner of its exercise, that fixes the essential character of monarchy in Great Britain to-day. The student of this phase of the subject is confronted at the outset with a paradox which has found convenient expression in the aphorism that the king reigns but does not govern. The meaning of the aphorism is that, while the sovereign is possessed of all of the inherent dignity of royalty, it is left to him actually to exercise in but a very restricted measure the powers which are involved in the business of government. Technically, all laws are made by the crown in parliament; all judicial decisions are rendered by the crown through the courts; all laws are executed and all administrative acts are performed by the crown. But in point of fact laws are enacted by Parliament independently; verdicts are brought in by tribunals whose immunity from royal domination is thoroughly assured; and the executive functions of the state are exercised all but exclusively by the ministers and their subordinates. One who would understand what English monarchy really is must take account continually both of what the king does and may do theoretically and of what he does and may do in actual practice. The matter is complicated further by the fact that powers once possessed have been lost, that others which have never been formally relinquished have so long lain unused that the question may fairly be debated whether they still exist, and that there never has been, nor is likely ever to be, an attempt to enumerate categorically or to define comprehensively the range of powers, either theoretical or actual.
54. Executive Powers.—Disregarding for the moment the means of theiractual exercise, the powers of the crown to-day may be said to fall into two principal groups. The first comprises those which are essentially executive in character; the second, those which are shared with the two houses of Parliament, being, therefore chiefly legislative. The first group is distinctly the more important. It includes: (1) the appointment, directly or indirectly, of all national public officers, except some of the officials of the parliamentary chambers and a few unimportant hereditary dignitaries; (2) the removal, upon occasion, of all appointed officers except judges, members of the Council of India, and the Comptroller and Auditor General; (3) the execution of all laws and the supervision of the executive machinery of the state throughout all its branches; (4) the expenditure of public money in accordance with appropriations voted by Parliament; (5) the pardoning of offenders against the criminal law, with some exceptions, either before or after conviction;[71](6) the granting, in so far as not prohibited by statute, of charters of incorporation; (7) the creating of all peers and the conferring of all titles and honors; (8) the coining of all money; (9) the summoning of Convocation and, by reason of the headship of the Established Church, the virtual appointment of the archbishops, bishops, and most of the deans and canons; (10) the supreme command of the army and navy, involving the raising and control of the armed forces of the nation, subject to such conditions only as Parliament may impose; (11) the representing of the nation in all of its dealings with foreign powers, including the appointment of all diplomatic and consular agents and the negotiation and conclusion of peace; and (12) the exercise, largely under statutory authority conferred within the past half-century, of supervision or control in respect to local government, education, public health, pauperism, housing, and a wide variety of other social and industrial interests.
55. The Composition of the Executive.—The executive branch of the government, through whose agency these powers are exercised, consists of the sovereign, the ministry, and the entire hierarchy of administrative officials reaching downwards from the heads of departments and the under-secretaries at London through the several grades of clerks to the least important revenue and postal employees. There are various points of view from which the chief of the executive may be conceived of as the sovereign, the prime minister, the ministry collectively, or the king and ministry conjointly. So far as executive functions go,the sovereign, in law, is very nearly as supreme as in the days of personal and absolute monarchy. The ministers are but his advisers, the local administrative authorities his agents. The government is conducted wholly in his name. In practice, however, supreme executive acts of the kinds that have been mentioned are performed by the ministers; or, if performed by the crown immediately, will not be undertaken without the ministers' knowledge and assent. The ministers, and not the sovereign, may be held to account by parliament for every executive act performed, and it is but logical that they should control the time and tenor of such acts. It falls very generally to the prime minister to speak for and otherwise represent the ministerial group. On the whole, however, it accords best with both law and fact to consider the executive under the working constitution as consisting of the crown as represented and advised by the ministry.
56. The Crown and Legislation.—The second general group of powers lodged in the crown comprises those which relate to legislation. Technically, all legislative authority is vested in "the king in parliament," by which is meant the king acting in collaboration with the two houses. Parliament transacts business only during the pleasure of the crown. The crown summons and prorogues the houses, and it is empowered at any time to dissolve the House of Commons. No parliamentary act, furthermore, is valid without the crown's assent. It is on the legislative, rather than the executive side, none the less, that the crown has lost most heavily in actual authority. There was a time when the crown possessed inherent law-making power and through the agency of proclamations and ordinances contributed independently to the body of enforceable law. To-day the sovereign may exercise no such power, save alone in the crown colonies. It is true that ordinances with the force of law are still issued, and that their number and importance tend steadily to be increased. But in all cases these ordinances have been, and must be, authorized specifically by statute. As "statutory orders" they emanate from a delegated authority purely and bear no relation to the ancient ordinance by prerogative. The king may not even, by virtue of any inherent power, promulgate ordinances in completion of parliamentary statutes—the sort of thing which the French president, the Italian king, and virtually every continental ruler may do with full propriety. Of his own authority, furthermore, the sovereign may not alter by one jot or tittle the law of the land. There was a time when the crown claimed and exercised the right to suspend, or to dispense with, laws which had been duly enacted and put in operation. But this practice was forbidden definitelyin the Bill of Rights, and no sovereign since the last Stuart has sought to revive the prerogative. Still another aspect of the ancient participation by the king in the legislative function was the influencing of the composition of the House of Commons through the right to confer upon boroughs the privilege of electing members. This right, never expressly withdrawn, is regarded now as having been forfeited by disuse. Finally, the power to withhold assent from a measure passed in Parliament has not been exercised since the days of Queen Anne,[72]and while legally it still exists, it is conceded for all practical purposes to have been extinguished.
57. Principles Governing the Actual Exercise of Powers.—After full allowances have been made, the powers of the British crown to-day comprise a sum total of striking magnitude. "All told," says Lowell, "the executive authority of the crown is, in the eye of the law, very wide, far wider than that of the chief magistrate in many countries, and well-nigh as extensive as that now possessed by the monarch in any government not an absolute despotism; and although the crown has no inherent legislative power except in conjunction with Parliament, it has been given by statute very large powers of subordinate legislation.... Since the accession of the House of Hanover the new powers conferred upon the crown by statute have probably more than made up for the loss to the prerogative of powers which have either been restricted by the same process or become obsolete by disuse. By far the greater part of the prerogative, as it existed at that time, has remained legally vested in the crown, and can be exercised to-day."[73]
The next fundamental thing to be observed is that the extended powers here referred to are exercised, not by the king in person, but by ministers with whose choosing the sovereign has but little to do and over whose acts he has only an incidental and extra-legal control. Underlying the entire constitutional order are two principles whose operation would seem to reduce the sovereign to a sheer nonentity. The first is that the crown shall perform no important governmental act whatsoever save through the agency of the ministers. The second is that these ministers shall be responsible absolutely to Parliament for every public act which they perform. From these principles arises the fiction that "the king can do no wrong," which means legally that the sovereign cannot be adjudged guilty of wrongdoing (and that therefore no proceedings may be instituted against him), and politically thatthe ministers are responsible, singly in small affairs and conjointly in more weighty ones, for everything that is done in the crown's name. "In a constitutional point of view," writes an English authority, "so universal is the operation of this rule that there is not a moment in the king's life, from his accession to his demise, during which there is not some one responsible to Parliament for his public conduct; and there can be no exercise of the crown's authority for which it must not find some minister willing to make himself responsible."[74]In continental countries the responsibility of ministers is established very commonly by specific and written constitutional provision. In Great Britain it exists by virtue simply of a group of unwritten principles, or conventions, of the constitution; but it is there none the less real. In the conduct of public affairs the ministry must conform to the will of the majority in the House of Commons; otherwise the wheels of government would be blocked. And from this it follows that the crown is obliged to accept, with such grace as may be, the measures which the ministry, working with the parliamentary majority, formulates and for which it stands ready to shoulder responsibility. It is open to the king, of course, to dissuade the ministers from a given course of action. But if they cannot be turned back, and if they have the support of a parliamentary majority, there is nothing that the sovereign can do save acquiesce.
58. Appointment of Ministers.—In the naming of a new premier, following the retirement of a ministry, the king is legally unhampered; but here again in practice he is bound to designate the recognized leader of the dominant party, and so to pursue a course in which there is left no room for the exercise of discretion. Only when there is no clearly recognized leader, or when circumstances compel the formation of a coalition ministry, is there a real opportunity for the sovereign to choose a premier from a number of more or less available men.[75]In the appointment of the remaining ministers, and of all persons whose offices are regarded as political, the crown yields uniformly to the judgment of the premier. The King's Speech, on the opening of Parliament, is written by the ministers; all public communications of the crown pass through their hands; peers are created and honors bestowed in accord with their advice; measures are framed and executive acts are undertaken by them, sometimes without the sovereign's knowledge and occasionally even contrary to his wishes.
59. The Real Authority and Service of the Crown.—It would be an error, however, to conclude that kingship in England is unimportant, or even that the power wielded in person by the crown is negligible. On the contrary, the uses served by the crown are indisputable and the influence exerted upon the course of public affairs may be decisive. The sovereign, in the words of Bagehot, has three rights—the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn. "A king of great sense and sagacity," it is added, "would want no others."[76]Despite the fact that during upwards of two hundred years the sovereign has not attended the meetings of the cabinet, and so is deprived of the opportunity of wielding influence directly upon the deliberations of the ministers as a body, the king keeps in close touch with the premier, and cabinet councils at which important lines of policy are to be formulated are preceded not infrequently by a conference in which the subject in hand is threshed out more or less completely by king and chief minister. Merely because the ancient relation has been reversed, so that now it is the king who advises and the ministry that arrives at decisions, it does not follow that the advisory function is an unimportant thing. Queen Victoria many times wielded influence of a decisive nature upon the public measures of her reign, especially in respect to the conduct of foreign relations. The extent of such influence cannot be made a matter of record, because the ministers are in effect bound not to publish the fact that a decision upon a matter of state has been taken at the sovereign's instance. It is familiarly known, however—to cite a recent illustration—that Edward VII. approved and encouraged the Haldane army reforms, that he sought to dissuade the House of Lords from the rejection of the Lloyd-George budget of 1909, and that he discouraged the raising, in any form, of the issue of the reconstitution of the upper chamber. In other words while, as a constitutional monarch content to remain in the background of political controversy, the late king not only had opinions but did not hesitate to make them known; and in the shaping and execution of the Liberal programme his advice was at times a factor of importance.[77]
60.Why Monarchy Survives.—Monarchy in Great Britain is a solid and, so far as can be foreseen, a lasting reality. Throughout the tempestuous years 1909-1911, when the nation was aroused as it had not been in generations upon the issue of constitutional reform, and when every sort of project was being warmly advocated and as warmly opposed, without exception every suggested programme took for granted the perpetuation of the monarchy as an integral part of the governmental system. In the general bombardment to which the hereditary House of Lords was subjected hereditary kingship wholly escaped. The reasons are numerous and complex. They arise in part, though by no means so largely as is sometimes imagined, from the fact that monarchy in England is a venerable institution and the innate conservatism of the Englishman, while permitting him from time to time to regulate and modify it, restrains him from doing anything so revolutionary as to abolish it. That upon certain conspicuous occasions, as in the Cromwellian period, and again in 1688, kingship has owed its very life to the conservative instinct of the English people is well enough known to every student of history. But to-day, as ever, the institution rests upon a basis very much more substantial than a mere national predilection. Monarchy remains impregnably entrenched because the crown, in addition to comprising an accustomed feature of the governmental economy, fulfills specific ends which are recognized universally to be eminently worth while, if not indispensable. As a social, moral, and ceremonial agency, and as a visible symbol of the unity of the nation; king and court occupy an immeasurable place in the life and thought of the people; and even within the domain of government, to employ the figure of Lowell, if the crown is no longer the motive power of the ship of state, it is the spar on which the sail is bent, and as such it is not only a useful but an essential part of the vessel.[78]The entire governmental order of Great Britain hinges upon the parliamentary system, and nowhere has that system been reduced to satisfactory operation without the presence of some central, but essentially detached, figure, whether a king or, as in France, a president with the attributes of kingship. It is fundamentally because the English people have discerned that kingship is not necessarily incompatible with popular government that the monarchy has persisted. If royalty had been felt to stand inevitably in the path of democratic progress, it is inconceivable that all the forces of tradition could have pulled it through the past seventy-five or eighty years. As it is, while half a century ago there was in the country a small republican group which was fond of urging that the monarchy was but a source of needlessexpense, to-day there is hardly a vestige, in any grade of society, of anti-monarchical sentiment.[79]
61. The Privy Council.—One who would understand the modes by which the powers of the crown are in practice exercised must begin by fixing firmly in mind the nature and relations of three distinct but closely interrelated institutions, the Privy Council, the ministry, and the cabinet. As has appeared, the Privy Council through a long period of English history comprised the body of men who advised the crown and assisted to some extent in the supervision of administration. The number of councillors from time to time varied widely, but it tended constantly to be too large to admit of the requisite despatch and secrecy, and by reason principally of this consideration the crown fell into the custom of selecting as advisers a group of persons less numerous, and perhaps more trustworthy, than the whole body of public functionaries collectively designated as the Privy Council. Thus arose the cabinet, which throughout its entire history has been only an inner circle, unknown to the law, of the older and larger body. The Privy Council survives to-day, and in both law and theory it still is the advisory body of the crown. A cabinet member possesses authority and is known to the law only as a privy councillor. In point of fact, however, the Privy Council, once highly influential in affairs of state, is now, as such, all but powerless. Such portions of the dignity of its ancient place in the constitution as remain to it are of a purely formal and ceremonial nature. It holds no meetings of a deliberative character, and although legally its action is still essential to many public measures, as the preparation of proclamations and of orders in council, this action may be taken by as few as three persons.[80]All cabinet members are members of the Council, so that even one-fifth or one-sixth of the cabinet group is competent to meet every legal requirement imposedupon the Council as a whole.[81]All councillors are appointed by the crown and continue in office for life or until dismissed. Their number is unlimited, and the only qualification necessary for appointment is British nativity. Members fall into three groups: (1) members of the cabinet; (2) holders of certain important non-political offices who by custom are entitled to appointment; (3) persons eminent in politics, literature, law, or science, or by reason of service rendered the crown, upon whom the dignity is conferred as an honorary distinction. Members bear regularly the title of Right Honorable. The President of the Council, designated by the crown, takes rank in the House of Lords next after the Chancellor and Treasurer.[82]
62. Ministry and Cabinet.—Another governmental group which, like the Privy Council, differs from the cabinet while containing it, is the ministry. The ministry comprises a large and variable body of functionaries, some of whom occupy the principal offices of state and divide their efforts between advising the crown, i.e., formulating governmental policy, and administering the affairs of their respective departments, and others of whom, occupying less important executive positions, do not possess, save indirectly, the advisory function. The first group comprises, approximately at least, the cabinet. Most heads of departments are regularly and necessarily in the cabinet. A few are in it as a rule, though not invariably. A few, still less important, may be, but are not likely to be, admitted to it. And, finally, a large number of parliamentary under-secretaries, party "whips," and officers of the royal household are certain not to be admitted.[83]
In respect to both origin and legal status the executive departments of the central government of Great Britain exhibit little of the conformity to type which characterizes their counterparts in the logical and self-consistent governmental systems of the majority of continental countries.Under the pressure, however, of custom and of parliamentary control, they have been reduced to essentially a common style of organization and a common mode of administrative procedure. In virtually every instance the department is presided over by a single responsible minister, assisted as a rule by one or more parliamentary under-secretaries and, more remotely, by a greater or lesser body of non-political officials who carry on the actual work of the department and whose tenure is not affected by the political fortunes of their chiefs.
63. The Treasury.—Among the numerous departments, some represent survivals of great offices of state of an earlier period, some are offshoots of the ancient secretariat, and some comprise boards and commissions established in days comparatively recent. In the first group fall the offices of the Lord High Treasurer, the Lord High Chancellor, and the Lord High Admiral. From the early sixteenth century to the death of Queen Anne the principal official of the Treasury was the Lord High Treasurer. Since 1714, however, the office has been regularly in commission. The duties connected with it have been intrusted to a board composed of certain Lords of the Treasury, and no individual to-day bears the Lord High Treasurer's title. When a ministry is made up the group of Treasury Lords is renewed, and as a rule the post of First Lord is assumed by the premier. In point of fact, however, the board is never called together, some of its members have no actual connection whatsoever with the Treasury, and the functions of this most important of all departments are in practice exercised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, assisted by the Junior Lords and the under-secretaries. The Exchequer, i.e., the department concerned principally with the collection of the taxes, is in fact, though not in name, a branch of the Treasury Board. Within the Treasury, and immediately under the direction of the Chancellor, is drawn up the annual budget, embodying a statement of the contemplated expenditures of the year and a programme of taxation calculated to produce the requisite revenue. The Treasury exercises general control over all other departments of the public service, e.g., the Post-office and the Board of Customs, in which public money is collected or expended.[84]
64. The Admiralty Board and the Lord High Chancellorship.—A second of the ancient offices of state which survives only in commission isthat of the Lord High Admiral. The functions of this important post devolve to-day upon an Admiralty Board, consisting strictly of a First Lord, four Naval Lords (naval experts, usually of high rank), and a Civil Lord, with whom, however, sit a number of parliamentary and permanent secretaries. The First Lord is invariably a member of the cabinet, and while legally the status of the six Lords is identical, in practice the position of the First Lord approximates closely that of the minister of marine in continental countries. Unlike the Treasury Lords, the Lords of the Admiralty actually meet, and transact business.
The third of the executive offices which comprise survivals from early times is that of the Lord High Chancellor. There is in Great Britain no single official who fills even approximately the position occupied elsewhere by a minister of justice or an attorney-general, but the most important of several officers who supply the lack is the Lord Chancellor. "The greatest dignitary," says Lowell, "in the British government, the one endowed by law with the most exalted and most diverse functions, the only great officer of state who has retained his ancient rights, the man who defies the doctrine of the separation of powers more than any other personage on earth, is the Lord Chancellor."[85]The Lord Chancellor is invariably a member of the Cabinet. He is the chief judge in the High Court of Justice and in the Court of Appeal. He appoints and removes the justices of the peace and the judges of the county courts and wields large influence in appointments to higher judicial posts. He affixes the Great Seal where it is required to give validity to the acts of the crown and he performs a wide variety of other more or less formal services. Finally, it is the Lord High Chancellor who presides in the House of Lords.
65. The Five Secretaries of State.—Five of the great departments to-day represent the product of a curious evolution of the ancient secretariat of state. Originally there was but a single official who bore the designation of secretary of state. In the earlier eighteenth century a second official was added, although no new office was created. At the close of the century a third was added, after the Crimean War a fourth, and after the Indian Mutiny of 1857 a fifth. There are now, accordingly, five "principal secretaries of state," all in theory occupying the same office and each, save for a few statutory restrictions, competent legally to exercise the functions of any or all of the others. In practice each of the five holds strictly to his own domain. The group comprises: (1) the Secretary of State for the Home Department, assisted by a parliamentary under-secretary and a large staff of permanent officials, and possessing functions of a highly miscellaneous sort—those,in general, belonging to the ancient secretariat which have not been assigned to the care of other departments; (2) the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, at the head of a department which not only conducts foreign relations but administers the affairs of such protectorates as are not closely connected with any of the colonies; (3) the Secretary of State for the Colonies; (4) the Secretary of State for War; and (5) the Secretary of State for India, assisted by a special India Council of ten to fourteen members.
66. The Administrative Boards.—The third general group of departments comprises those which have arisen through the establishment in comparatively recent years of a variety of administrative boards or commissions. Two—the Board of Trade and the Board of Education—originated as committees of the Privy Council. Three others—the Board of Agriculture, the Board of Works, and the Local Government Board—represent the development of administrative commissions not conceived of originally as vested with political character. All are in effect independent and co-ordinate governmental departments. The composition and functions of the Board of Trade are regulated by order in council at the opening of each reign, but the character of the other four is determined wholly by statute. At the head of each is a president (save that the chief of the Board of Works is known as First Commissioner), and the membership embraces the five secretaries of state and a variable number of other important dignitaries. This membership, however, is but nominal. No one of the Boards actually meets, and the work of each is performed entirely by its president, with, in some instances, the assistance of a parliamentary under-secretary. "In practice, therefore, these boards are legal phantoms that provide imaginary colleagues for a single responsible minister."[86]Very commonly the presidents are admitted to the cabinet, but sometimes they are not.[87]
67. Regular and Occasional Members.—The cabinet comprises a variable group of the principal ministers of state upon whom devolves singly the task of administering the affairs of their respective departments and, collectively, that of shaping the policy and directing the conduct of the government as a whole. The position occupied by the cabinetin the constitutional system is anomalous, but transcendently important. As has been pointed out, the cabinet as such is unknown to English law. Legally, the cabinet member derives his administrative function from the fact of his appointment to a ministerial post, and his advisory function from his membership in the Privy Council. The cabinet exists as an informal, extra-legal ministerial group into whose hands, through prolonged historical development, has fallen the supreme direction of both the executive and the legislative activities of the state. The composition of the body is determined largely by custom, but in part by passing circumstance. Certain ministerial heads are invariably included: the First Lord of the Treasury, the Lord Chancellor, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the five Secretaries of State, and the First Lord of the Admiralty. Two dignitaries who possess no administrative function, i.e., the Lord President of the Privy Council and the Lord Privy Seal,[88]are likewise always included. Beyond this, the make-up of the cabinet group is left to the discretion of the premier. The importance of a given office at the moment and the wishes of the appointee, together with general considerations of party expediency, may well enter into a decision relative to the seating of individual departmental heads. In recent years the presidents of the Board of Trade, the Board of Education, and the Local Government Board have regularly been included, together with the Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary for Ireland.[89]The Secretary for Scotland and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster are usually included; the Postmaster-General and the President of the Board of Agriculture frequently, and the First Commissioner of Works and the Lord Chancellor for Ireland occasionally.
68. Increasing Size.—The trend is distinctly in the direction of an increase in the size of the body. The more notable cabinets of the eighteenth century contained, as a rule, not above seven to ten members. In the first half of the nineteenth century the number ran up to thirteen or fourteen, and throughout the Gladstone-Disraeli period it seldom fell below this level. The second Salisbury cabinet, at its fall in 1892, numbered seventeen, and when, following the elections of 1900, the third Salisbury government was reconstructed, the cabinet attaineda membership of twenty.[90]The Balfour cabinet of 1905 and the succeeding Campbell-Bannerman cabinet likewise numbered twenty. The increase is attributable to several causes, especially the pressure which comes from ambitious statesmen for admission to the influential circle, the growing necessity of according representation to varied elements and interests within the dominant party, the multiplication of state activities which call for direction under new and important departments, and the disposition to accord to every considerable branch of the administrative system at least one representative. The effect is to produce a certain unwieldiness, to avoid which, it will be recalled, the cabinet was originally instituted. Only through the domination of the cabinet by a few of its most influential members can expeditiousness be preserved, and during recent years there has been a tendency toward the differentiation of an inner circle which shall bear to the whole cabinet a relation somewhat analogous to that which the cabinet now bears to the ministry. Development in this direction is viewed apprehensively by many people who regard that the concentration of power in the hands of an "inner cabinet" might well fail to be accompanied by a corresponding concentration of recognized responsibility. During more than a decade criticism of the inordinate size of the cabinet group has been voiced freely upon numerous occasions and by many observers.[91]
69. Appointment of the Premier.—When a new cabinet is to be made up the first step is the designation of the prime minister. Legally the choice rests with the crown, but considerations of practical politics leave, as a rule, no room whatsoever for the exercise of discretion. The crown sends as a matter of course for the statesman who is able to command the support of the majority in the House of Commons. If the retiring ministry has "fallen," i.e., has lost its parliamentary majority, the new premier is certain to be the recognized leader of the party which formerly has played the rôle of opposition. If there has not occurred a shift in party status, the premiership will be bestowed upon some one of the colleagues, at least upon one of the fellow-partisans, of the retiring premier, nominated, if need be, by the chiefs of the party. Thus, when in 1894 Gladstone retired from office by reason of physical infirmity, the Liberal leaders in the two houses conferred upon the question as to whether he should be succeeded by SirWilliam Vernon-Harcourt or by Lord Rosebery. They recommended Lord Rosebery, who was forthwith appointed by the Queen. If, by any circumstance, the premiership should fall to the Opposition at a moment when the leadership of this element is in doubt, the crown would be guided, similarly, by the informally expressed will of the more influential party members. While, therefore, the appointment of the prime minister remains the sole important governmental act which is performed directly by the sovereign, even here the substance of power has been lost and only the form survives.
70. Selection of Other Members.—The remaining members of the cabinet are selected by the premier, in consultation, as a rule, with leading members of the party. Technically, what happens is that the first minister places in the hands of the sovereign a list of the men whom he recommends for appointment to the principal offices of state. The crown accepts the list and there appears forthwith in the London Gazette an announcement to the effect that the persons named have been chosen by the crown to preside over the several departments. Officially, there is no mention of the "cabinet." In the selection of his colleagues the premier theoretically has a free hand. Practically he is bound by the necessity of complying with numerous principles and of observing various precedents and practical conditions. Two principles, in particular, must be adhered to in determining the structure of every cabinet. All of the members must have seats in one or the other of the two houses of Parliament, and all must be identified with the party in power, or, at the least, with an allied political group. There was a time, when the personal government of the king was yet a reality, when the House of Commons refused to admit to its membership persons who held office under the crown, and this disqualification found legal expression as late as the Act of Settlement of 1701.[92]With the ripening of parliamentary government in the eighteenth century, however, the thing that once had been regarded properly enough as objectionable became a matter of unquestionable expediency, if not a necessity. When once the ministers comprised the real executive of the nation it was but logical that they should be authorized to appear on the floor of the two houses to introduce and advocate measures and to explain the acts of the government. Ministers had occupied regularly seats in the upper chamber, and not only was all objection to their occupying seats in the lower chamber removed, but by custom it came to be an inflexible rule that cabinet officers, and indeed the ministers generally, should be drawn exclusively from the membership of the two houses.[93]Under provision of an act of 1707 it is still obligatory upon commoners who are tendered a cabinet appointment, with a few exceptions, to vacate their seats and to offer themselves to their constituents for re-election. But re-election almost invariably follows as a matter of course and without opposition.[94]It is to be observed that there are two expedients by which it is possible to bring into the cabinet a desirable member who at the time of his appointment does not possess a seat in Parliament. The appointee may be created a peer; or he may stand for election to the Commons and, winning, qualify himself for a cabinet post.
71. Distribution Between the Houses of Parliament.—Since the middle of the eighteenth century the tenure of the premiership has been divided approximately equally between peers and commoners, but the apportionment of cabinet seats between the two houses has been extremely variable. The first cabinet of the reign of George III. contained fourteen members, thirteen of whom had seats in the House of Lords, and, in general, throughout the eighteenth century the peers were apt greatly to preponderate. With the growth in importance of the House of Commons, however, and especially after the Reform Act of 1832, the tendency was to draw an ever increasing proportion of the cabinet officers from the chamber in which lies the storm center of English politics. By legal stipulation one of the secretaries of state must sit in the upper house; and the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Chancellor, and the Lord President of the Council are all but invariably peers. Beyond this, there is no positive requirement, in either law or custom. In the ministries of recent times the number of peers and of commoners has generally been not far from equal. To fill the various posts the premier must bring together the best men he can secure—not necessarily the ablest, but those who will work together most effectively—with but secondary regard to the question of whether they sit in the one or the other of the legislative houses. A department whose chief sits in the Commons is certain to be represented in the Lords by an under-secretary or other spokesman, andvice versa.[95]
72.Political Solidarity.—A second fundamental principle which dominates the structure of the cabinet is that which requires that the members be men of one political faith. William III. sought to govern with a cabinet in which there were both Whigs and Tories, but the result was confusion and the experiment was abandoned. Except during the ascendancy of Walpole, the cabinets of the eighteenth century very generally embraced men of more or less diverse political affiliations, but gradually the conviction took root that in the interest of unity and efficiency the political solidarity of the cabinet group is indispensable. The last occasion upon which it was proposed to make up a cabinet from utterly diverse political elements was in 1812. The scheme was rejected, and from that day to this cabinets have been composed regularly, not necessarily of men identified with a common political party, but at least of men who are in substantial agreement upon the larger questions of policy and who have expressed their willingness to co-operate in the carrying out of a given programme of action. The fundamental requisite is unity. A Liberal Unionist may occupy a post in a Conservative cabinet and a Laborite in a Liberal administration, but he may not oppose the Government upon any important question and expect to continue a member of it, save by the express permission of the premier. It is the obligation of every cabinet member to agree, or to appear to agree, with his colleagues. If he is unable to do this, no course is open to him save resignation.
73. Other Considerations Determining Appointment.—In the selection of his colleagues the premier works under still other practical restrictions. One of them is the well-established rule that surviving members of the last cabinet of the party, in so far as they are in active public life and desirous of appointment, shall be given prior consideration. Members of the party, furthermore, who have come into special prominence and influence in Parliament must usually be included. In truth, as Bagehot points out, the premier's independent choice is apt to find scope not so much in the determination of the cabinet's personnel as in the distribution of offices among the members selected; and even here he will often be obliged to subordinate his wishes to the inclinations, susceptibilities, and capacities of his prospective colleagues. In the expressive simile of Lowell, the premier's task is "like that of constructing a figure out of blocks which are too numerous for the purpose, and which are not of shapes to fit perfectly together."[96]
74. Ministerial Responsibility.—In its actual operation the English cabinet system involves the unvarying application of three principles: (1) the responsibility of cabinet ministers to Parliament; (2) the non-publicity of cabinet proceedings; and (3) the close co-ordination of the cabinet group under the leadership of the premier. Every minister whether or not in the cabinet, is responsible individually to Parliament, which in effect means to the House of Commons, for all of his public acts. If he is accorded a vote of censure he must retire. In the earlier eighteenth century the resignation of a cabinet officer did not affect the tenure of his colleagues, the first of cabinets to retire as a unit being that of Lord North in 1782. Subsequently, however, the ministerial body so developed in compactness that in relation to the outside world, and even to Parliament, the individual officer came to be effectually subordinated to the group. Not since 1866 has a cabinet member retired singly in consequence of an adverse parliamentary vote. If an individual minister falls into serious disfavor one of two things almost certainly happens. Either the offending member is persuaded by his colleagues to modify his course or to resign before formal parliamentary censure shall have been passed, or the cabinet as a whole rallies to the support of the minister in question and stands or falls with him. This is but another way of saying that, in practice, the responsibility of the cabinet is collective rather than individual, a condition by which the seriousness and effectiveness of it are vastly increased. This responsibility covers the entire range of acts of the executive department of the government, whether regarded as acts of the crown or of the ministers themselves, and it constitutes the most distinctive feature of the English parliamentary system. Formerly the only means by which ministers could be held to account by Parliament was that of impeachment. With the development, however, of the principle of ministerial responsibility as a necessary adjunct to parliamentary government, the occasional and violent process of impeachment was superseded by continuous, inescapable, and pacific legislative supervision. The impeachment of cabinet ministers may be regarded, indeed, as obsolete.
75. How a Ministry may Be Overthrown.—A fundamental maxim of the constitution to-day is that a cabinet shall continue in office only so long as it enjoys the confidence and support of a majority in the House of Commons. There are at least four ways in which a parliamentary majority may manifest its dissatisfaction with a cabinet, andso compel its resignation. It may pass a simple vote of "want of confidence," assigning therefor no definite reason. It may pass a vote of censure, criticising the cabinet for some specific act. It may defeat a measure which the cabinet advocates and declares to be of vital importance. Or it may pass a bill in opposition to the advice of the ministers. The cabinet is not obliged to give heed to an adverse vote in the Lords; but when any of the four votes indicated is carried in the lower chamber the premier and his colleagues must do one of two things—resign or appeal to the country. If it is clear that the cabinet has lost the support, not only of Parliament, but also of the electorate, the only honorable course for the ministry is that of resignation. If, on the other hand, there is doubt as to whether the parliamentary majority really represents the country upon the matters at issue, the ministers are warranted in requesting the sovereign to dissolve Parliament and to order a general election. In such a situation the ministry continues tentatively in office. If at the elections there is returned a majority disposed to support the ministers, the cabinet is given a new lease of life. If, on the other hand, the new parliamentary majority is adverse, no course is open to the ministry save to retire. The new parliament will be convoked at the earliest practicable date; but in advance of its assembling the defeated cabinet will generally have resigned and a new government, presided over by the leader of the late Opposition, will have assumed the reins. During the interval required for the transfer of power none save routine business is likely to be undertaken.
76. Secrecy of Proceedings.—Perpetually responsible to the House of Commons and imperatively obligated to resign collectively when no longer able to command a working majority in that body, the cabinet must at all times employ every device by which it may be enabled to present a solid and imposing front. Two such devices are those of secrecy and the leadership of the premier. It is a sufficiently familiar principle that a group of men brought together to agree upon and execute a common policy in behalf of a widespread and diverse constituency will be more likely to succeed if the differences that must inevitably appear within their ranks are not published to the world. It is in deference to this principle that the German Bundesrath transacts its business to this day behind closed doors, and it was for an analogous reason that the public was excluded from the sittings of the convention by which the present constitution of the United States was framed. Notices of meetings of the English cabinet and the names of members present appear regularly in the press, but respecting the subjects discussed, the opinions expressed, and the conclusions arrivedat not a word is given out, officially or unofficially. The oath of secrecy, required of all privy councillors, is binding in a special degree upon the cabinet officer. Not even the sovereign is favored with more than a statement of the topics considered, together with occasionally a formal draft of such decisions as require his assent. In the earlier part of the nineteenth century meager minutes of the proceedings were preserved, but nowadays no clerical employee is allowed to be present and no record whatsoever is kept.[97]For knowledge of past transactions members rely upon their own or their colleagues' memories, supplemented at times by privately kept notes. The meetings, which are held only as occasion requires (usually as often as once a week when Parliament is in session) are notably informal. There is not even a fixed place where meetings are held, the members being gathered sometimes at the Foreign Office, sometimes at the premier's house, and, as circumstance may arise, at almost any convenient place.
77. Leadership of the Premier.—The unity of the cabinet is further safeguarded and emphasized by the leadership of the prime minister. Long after the rise of the cabinet to controlling influence in the state the members of the ministerial body continued supposedly upon a common footing in respect both to rank and authority. The habitual abstention of the early Hanoverians from attendance at cabinet meetings, however, left the group essentially leaderless, and by a natural process of development the members came gradually to recognize a virtual presidency on the part of one of their own number. In time what was a mere presidency was converted into a thoroughgoing leadership, in short, into the premier's office of to-day. It is commonly regarded that the first person who fulfilled the functions of prime minister in the modern sense was Sir Robert Walpole, First Lord of the Treasury from 1715 to 1717 and from 1721 to 1742. The phrase "prime minister" was not at that time in use, but that the realities of the office existed is indicated by a motion made in the Commons attacking Walpole on the ground that he had "grasped in his own hands every branch of government; had attained the sole direction of affairs; had monopolized all the powers of the crown; had compassed the disposal of all places, pensions, titles, and rewards"—almost precisely, as one writer puts it, what the present premier is doing and is expectedto do.[98]By the time of the establishment of the ministry of the younger Pitt, in 1783, the ascendancy of the premier among his colleagues was an accomplished fact and was recognized as altogether legitimate. The enormous power of the premier, arising immediately upon the ruins of the royal prerogative, was brought virtually to completion when, during the later years of George III., the rule became fixed that in constituting a ministry the king should but ratify the choice of officials made by the premier.
Not until 1906 was the premier's office recognized by law,[99]but through more than a century no other public position in the nation has been comparable with it in volume of actual ruling power. Within the ministry, more particularly the cabinet, the premier is the guiding force. He presides, as a rule, at cabinet meetings; he advises with colleagues upon all matters of consequence to the administration's welfare; and, although he will shrink from doing it, he may require of his colleagues that they acquiesce in his views, with the alternative of his resignation.[100]He occupies one of the high offices of state, usually that of First Lord of the Treasury; and, although ordinarily his own portfolio will not require much of his time or energy, he must maintain as close a watch as may be over the affairs of every one of the departments in which his appointees have been placed. The prime minister, is, furthermore, the link between the cabinet and, on the one hand, the crown, and, on the other, Parliament. On behalf of the cabinet he advises with the sovereign, communicating information respecting ministerial acts and synopses of the daily debates in Parliament. Inthe house of which he is a member he represents the cabinet as a whole, makes such statements as are necessary relative to general aspects of the government's policy, and speaks, as a rule, upon every general or important projected piece of legislation. As a matter of both theory and historical fact, the premier who belongs to the House of Commons is more advantageously situated than one who sits in the Lords.[101]
78. The Cabinet's Central Position.—In the English governmental system the cabinet is in every sense the keystone of the arch. Its functions are both executive and legislative, and indeed, to employ the figure of Bagehot, it comprises the hyphen that joins, the buckle that fastens, the executive and the legislative departments together.[102]As has been pointed out, the uses of the crown are by no means wholly ornamental. None the less, the actual executive of the nation is the cabinet. It is within the cabinet circle that administrative policies are decided upon, and it is by the cabinet ministers and their subordinates in the several departments that these policies, and the laws of the land generally, are carried into effect. On the other side, the cabinet members not only occupy seats in one or the other of the houses of Parliament; collectively they direct the processes of legislation. They—primarily the prime minister—prepare the Speech from the Throne, in which at the opening of a parliamentary session the state of the country is reviewed and a programme of legislation is outlined. They formulate, introduce, explain, and advocate needful legislative measures upon all manner of subjects; and although bills may be submitted in either house by private members it is a recognized principle that all measures of large importance shall emanate directly or indirectly from the cabinet. Statistics demonstrate that measures introduced by private members have but an infinitesimal chance of enactment.