conferring with the prominent members of the Commons. Charles, later, extended this office to others, much against the advice of Clarendon, and so the committee, which the King trusted "in his most secret affairs" was composed of Clarendon, Southampton, and these additional members. Upon the impeachment and fall of Clarendon in the year 1667, Charles admitted and gave his confidence to a group of statesmen who formed the Cabal Ministry. The formation of this ministry may be looked upon as a very distinct advance towards the Cabinet. Its actual characteristics differed very materially from the Cabinet of a later day. The meetings were secret, it held no actual position in the Constitution, and also it applied itself, in general, to the political questions and difficulties; but there existed these fundamental differences between the Cabal Ministry and the modern Cabinet. The Cabal Ministry pursued its own policy regardless of the approval of the majority in the Commons, without any common plan either of legislation or administration, and without even recognising any definite head. The next step forward was Sir William Temple's scheme in the year 1679. His plan was to combine the advantages of the old system of government by a council with those of the modern device of government by means of a Cabinet selected from amongst the principal parliamentary leaders. The Privy Council was dissolved and a new one constituted with only thirty members, of these half were to be selected from the chief officers of the Crown and royal household, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London. The remaining moiety were chosen from the leading members of the House of Commons. The latter were chosen from both sides of the House, subject to a certain property qualification. This Council was presided over by a Lord President, who however differed from the modern Prime Minister both as regards his authority and the influence he wielded. These councillors were not bound together by any common policy, for we learn that they did not abstain even from Parliamentary opposition to each other.1 The formation of this Council was announced to Parliament by the King himself in 1679. Parliament did not give the scheme an enthusiastic reception. It marked, nevertheless, an important stage in the progress of the system. The formation of this Council dealt a great blow to the cause of government by prerogative through the whole Privy Council, and gave a great impetus to Parliamentary government through the instrumentality of the Cabinet. This was to be no final settlement of the difficulties. The Council became divided against itself, and ultimately Temple consented to form an interior Cabinet and thus sounded the death knell of his scheme. For some years the nation was to wander through the blackness of an experimental wilderness. Then came the Revolution, the flight of James II, and the accession of William and Mary in the year 1689. It might have been supposed, with reason, that "The Declaration of Right" which was passed in the year 1689, concurrently with all its other statements as to how England was to be governed, would have contained some reference to government by Cabinet, but, strange to say, there was no reference to that system of government through the Cabinet as representing the Crown, and through the Crown, the nation. There was no mention of that method by which ministers were to be held personally responsible for the government of the country which we recognise as the keynote of our administration of to-day. During the reign of William conflicts between the Ministers and the Commons were numerous. No doubt William realised that it would have been wiser and better for him to 1 Temple's Memoirs, by T. P. Courtenay, Vol. II, pp. 34-74. appoint Ministers who were in agreement with the majority in Parliament. Regardless of this, he preferred to act himself rather than to bring matters before a Council which would probably disagree with him and prevent, or at any rate hinder, his plans being carried into effect. We find a letter addressed from Sunderland to Somers in which he says: "It would be much for the king's advantage if he brought his affairs to be debated at that Council" (the Cabinet.1 After the passing of the Pardon Bill, William, finding England quietened for a time from the turmoil and stress of the last few years, on leaving for Ireland, prorogued Parliament and appointed a Council of nine to co-operate in the government with the Queen. Even in this Council the members were chosen from both political parties, and so differed substantially from a modern conception of the Cabinet. It is made clear, according to contemporary records, that the Ministers did not consider themselves as acting upon their own responsibility, but believed themselves to be liable still to the Crown. Conclusive evidence that the Sovereign had as yet no fixed idea of Cabinet government is afforded by the fact that upon his return from Ireland he dissolved immediately this ministry of nine. William considered upon his return that the government of the country was again in the hands of the king, and that the ministry had completed its services. It is necessary that the Ministers who comprise the Cabinet should be bound together by a common policy, that they should agree upon a certain mode of administration, although of course they may differ upon minor points subservient to the main and dominant issues. Necessity also demands that the ministry should be in touch and sympathy with the majority in the House of Commons. The smaller the majority in the Commons the 1 Hardwicke State Papers, II, 461. more perilous the stability of the Cabinet. To conform to the modern system, the king should feel himself bound by the decision of his Ministers, who would form the connecting link between the Crown and the Executive. These features did not exist at the time of the death of William III. Macaulay tells us that "Among the members of the "Government there was only one point of union, their common head the Sovereign. The nation considered "him as the proper chief of the administration, and "blamed him severely if he delegated his high functions "to any subject. Clarendon has told us that nothing "was so hateful to Englishmen as a Prime Minister. "They would rather, he said, be subject to an usurper "like Oliver, who was first magistrate in fact as well as “in name, than to a legitimate king who referred them "to a Grand Vizier."1 We must look for any appreciable change to the eighteenth century. Circumstances became very favourable during the reign of Queen Anne for the founding of the Cabinet system upon a firmer basis than it had hitherto known. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to enumerate the circumstances which contributed, step by step, to this end. To expatiate, adequately, upon the significance of the great Tory majority which resulted after the election when Anne had dissolved Parliament, to consider the conflicts which occurred between the Commons and the Lords upon various matters, and mainly upon the introduction of the "Occasional Conformity Bill" and the discussion of disputed elections, would be to exceed our purpose. One event must be mentioned, as it contributed in a great degree to the recognition of an Inner Council. Upon the introduction in the House of Commons of the measure which had originated in the House of Lords, 1 Macaulay, History of England, Vol. III, p. 13. and which was to render certain the continuance of the Hanoverian succession, an amendment was passed of which one of the clauses provided that the Privy Council should apply itself to those matters which rightly had been assigned to it; the resolutions upon such matters were to be signed by those members who assented thereto, and no person holding office under or receiving a pension from the Crown, should be capable of sitting in the Commons. "It was visible," says Burnet, "that no man would be a Privy Councillor on those terms." 1 The House of Lords refused to accept this amendment, and ultimately, upon a compromise being arranged between the Commons and the Lords, the Commons accepted their decision. This step was of paramount importance. Secret meetings of the Cabinet became possible. The Privy Council, as a consequence, was placed somewhat in the background and likely to occupy, more or less, a formal position in the administration. A modern historian writes, "were it not for one fact, we could hardly hesitate to assign the passing of the Act of Security as the date which finally established the supremacy of the Cabinet system. But the curious fact remains that in all the contemporary records of the period there is scarcely a hint that the significance of the change was understood." 2 It became Queen Anne's custom to preside at weekly Cabinet Councils at which all public business, foreign and domestic, was debated and some line of action adopted. We obtain some insight into the interest which Her Majesty took in the Cabinet from a passage contained in a letter addressed by Bolingbroke to Stafford: "The employment of First Commissioner of the Admiralty brings your Lordship into the Cabinet which could not have been if the other employment (Master of the Ordnance) had fallen 1 Burnet, History of Reformation, Vol. ÏÏ. |