right to attend, now does so, unless specially summoned.

'The Ministry,' says Lord Macaulay, 'is, in fact, a Committee of leading members of the two Houses. It is nominated by the Crown: but it consists exclusively of statesmen, whose opinions on the pressing questions of the time agree, in the main, with the opinions of the majority of the House of Commons. Among the members of this Committee are distributed the great departments of the Administration. Each Minister conducts the ordinary business of his own office without reference to his colleagues. But the most important business of every office, and especially such business as is likely to be the subject of discussion in Parliament, is brought under the consideration of the whole Ministry. In Parliament, the Ministers are bound to act as one man on all questions relating to the Executive Government. If one of them dissents from the rest on a question too important to admit of compromise, it is his duty to retire. While the Ministers retain the confidence of the Parliamentary majority, that majority supports them against opposition, and rejects every motion which reflects on them, or is likely to embarrass them. If they forfeit that confidence, if the Parliamentary majority is dissatisfied with the way in which patronage is distributed, with the way in which the prerogative of mercy is used, with the conduct of foreign affairs, with the conduct of a war, the remedy is simple. It is not necessary that the Commons should take on themselves the business of Administration, that they should request the Crown to make this man a Bishop and that man a Judge, to pardon one criminal and to execute another, to negotiate a treaty on a particular basis, or to send an expedition to a particular

place. They have merely to declare that they have ceased to trust the Ministry, and to ask for a Ministry which they can trust.'1

The Executive Government, though nominally vested in the Crown, is now practically in the Cabinet, the members of which are sworn 'to advise the King according to the best of their cunning and discretion,' and 'to help and strengthen the execution of what shall be resolved.'

As the acts of the Ministry are liable to be questioned in Parliament, and require prompt explanation, the members of the Cabinet invariably have seats in either the Upper or the Lower House, where they become identified with the general policy and acts of the Government.

The member of the Cabinet who fills the situation of First Lord of the Treasury, and combines with it sometimes that of Chancellor of the Exchequer, is the chief of the Ministry, and therefore of the Cabinet. It is at his recommendation that his colleagues are appointed. Every Cabinet includes the following ten members:—the First Lord of the Treasury, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President of the Council, the Lord Privy Seal, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the five Secretaries of State. A number of other ministerial functionaries, varying from five to eight, have usually seats in the Cabinet, those most frequently admitted being the Chief Commissioner of Works and Buildings, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the President of the Board of Trade, Vice-President of the Privy Council, the Postmaster-General, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and the President of the Poor Law Board.

1 History of England, vol. iv. p. 437.

2 Statesman's Year-Book, p. 204.

Although the Cabinet has now long been regarded as an essential part of our institutions, it still continues to be unknown to the law. The names of the members who compose it are never officially announced; no record is kept of its resolutions or meetings, nor has its existence been recognized by any Act of Parliament.

Hallam, who regards with dissatisfaction the irresponsible position of the members of the Cabinet, says, 'this-the displacement of the Privy Council by the Cabinet-however, produced a serious consequence as to the responsibility of the advisers of the Crown; and at the very time when the controlling and chastising power of Parliament was most effectually recognized, it was silently eluded by the concealment in which the objects of its inquiry could wrap themselves. Thus, in the instance of a treaty which the House of Commons might deem mischievous and dishonorable, the Chancellor, setting the Great Seal to it, would of course be responsible: but it is not so evident that the First Lord of the Treasury, or others more immediately advising the Crown on the course of Foreign policy, could be liable to impeachment, with any prospect of succsss, for an act in which their participation could not be legally proved. I do not mean that evidence may not possibly be obtained which would affect the leaders of the Cabinet, as in the instances of Oxford and Bolingbroke; but that, the Cabinet itself having no legal existence, and its members being surely not amenable to punishment in their simple capacity of Privy Councillors, which they generally share in modern times, with a great number even of their adversaries, there is no tangible character to which responsibility is

attached; nothing, except a signature or the setting of a seal, from which a bad Minister need entertain any further apprehension than that of losing his post and reputation. It may be that no absolute corrective is practicable for this apparent deficiency in our constitutional security; but it is expedient to keep it well in mind, because all Ministers speak loudly of their responsibility, and are apt, upon faith of this imaginary guarantee, to obtain a previous confidence from Parliament which they may in fact abuse with impunity. For should the bad success or detected guilt of their measures raise a popular cry against them, and censure or penalty be demanded by their opponents, they will infallibly shroud their persons in the dark recesses of the Cabinet, and employ every art to shift off the burthen of individual liability.'1

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY-1700 to 1799.

William III., 1700 to 1702. Anne, 1702 to 1714. George I., 1714 to 1727. George II., 1727 to 1760. George III., 1760 to 1820. Intimately, indeed inseparably, connected with the history of the Cabinet is that of the Parties-Whigs and Tories, more modernly Liberals and Conservatives. The year 1714 be fixed as the commencement of a new era in the Constitutional History of England, an era characterized by a new Dynasty—the House of Brunswick; new contending parties-the Whigs and the Tories; a new institution-the Cabinet.

may

1 Const. Hist. vol. iii. p. 183.

For though, as we have already seen, the origin of the Cabinet must be assigned to the last, its full operation belongs to this century. And though, as will immediately appear, the terms Whig and Tory were first applied to contending parties in the last, it is to this century that we must look for the origin and foundation of what we now understand as the parties distinguished by those appellations. Before, however, attempting to enter upon this subject, we must notice the Act of Settlement.

The Act of Settlement, 12 and 13 William III., c. 2, dated the 12th of June, 1701, and intended to take effect in the event of there being no surviving issue of William and Mary, of the Princess Anne, or of William-an event which happened in 1714, when the Crown passed to the House of Brunswick,-contains the following eight articles :

1. That whosoever shall hereafter come to the possession of this Crown, shall join in communion with the Church of England as by law established.

2. That in case the Crown and imperial dignity of this realm shall hereafter come to any person not being a native of this kingdom of England, this nation be not obliged to engage in any war for the defence of any dominions or territories which do not belong to the Crown of England, without the consent of Parliament.

3. That no person who shall hereafter come to the possession of this Crown, shall go out of the dominions of England, Scotland, or Ireland, without consent of Parliament.1

4. That from and after the time that the further limitation by this Act shall take effect, all matters and 1 Repealed in 1714.