English Constitution — On Changes of Ministry, part 1

ON CHANGES OF MINISTRY.

There is one error as to the English Constitution which crops up periodically.

Circumstances which often, though irregularly, occur naturally suggests that error, and as surely as they happen it revives.

The relation of Parliament, and especially of the House of Commons, to the executive Government is the specific peculiarity of our Constitution, and an event which frequently happens much puzzles some people as to it.

That event is a change of Ministry.

All our administrators go out together.

The whole executive Government changes--at least, all the heads of it change in a body, and at every such change some speculators are sure to exclaim that such a habit is foolish.

They say: "No doubt Mr. Gladstone and Lord Russell may have been wrong about Reform; no doubt Mr. Gladstone may have been cross in the House of Commons; but why should either or both of these events change all the heads of all our practical departments?

What could be more absurd than what happened in 1858?

Lord Palmerston was for once in his life over-buoyant; he gave rude answers to stupid inquiries; he brought into the Cabinet a nobleman concerned in an ugly trial about a woman; he, or his Foreign Secretary, did not answer a French despatch by a despatch, but told our ambassador to reply orally.

And because of these trifles, or at any rate these isolated UNadministrative mistakes, all our administration had fresh heads.

The Poor Law Board had a new chief, the Home Department a new chief, the Public Works a new chief.

Surely this was absurd."

Now, is this objection good or bad?

Speaking generally, is it wise so to change all our rulers?

The practice produces three great evils.

First, it brings in on a sudden new persons and untried persons to preside over our policy.

A

little while ago Lord Cranborne[8] had no more idea that he would now be Indian Secretary than that he would be a bill broker.

He had never given any attention to Indian affairs; he can get them up, because he is an able educated man who can get up anything.

But they are not "part and parcel" of his mind; not his subjects of familiar reflection, nor things of which he thinks by predilection, of which he cannot help thinking.

But because Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone did not please the House of Commons about Reform, there he is.

A perfectly inexperienced man, so far as Indian affairs go, rules all our Indian Empire.

And if all our heads of offices change together, so very frequently it must be.

If twenty offices are vacant at once, there are almost never twenty tried, competent, clever men ready to take them.

The difficulty of making up a Government is very much like the difficulty of putting together a Chinese puzzle: the spaces do not suit what you have to put into them.

And the difficulty of matching a Ministry is more than that of fitting a puzzle, because the Ministers to be put in can object, though the bits of a puzzle cannot.

One objector can throw out the combination.

In 1847 Lord Grey would not join Lord John Russell's projected Government if Lord Palmerston was to be Foreign Secretary;

Lord Palmerston WOULD be Foreign Secretary, and so the Government was not formed.

The cases in which a single refusal prevents a Government are rare, and there must be many concurrent circumstances to make it effectual.

But the cases in which refusals impair or spoil a Government are very common.

It almost never happens that the Ministry-maker can put into his offices exactly whom he would like; a number of placemen are always too proud, too eager, or too obstinate to go just where they should.

[8] Now Lord Salisbury, who, when this was written, was Indian Secretary.

--Note to second edition.

Again, this system not only makes new Ministers ignorant, but keeps present Ministers indifferent.

A man cannot feel the same interest that he might in his work if he knows that by events over which he has no control, by errors in which he had no share, by metamorphoses of opinion which belong to a different sequence of phenomena, he may have to leave that work in the middle, and may very likely never return to it.

The new man put into a fresh office ought to have the best motive to learn his task thoroughly, but, in fact, in England, he has not at all the best motive.

The last wave of party and politics brought him there, the next may take him away.

Young and eager men take, even at this disadvantage, a keen interest in office work, but most men, especially old men, hardly do so.

Many a battered Minister may be seen to think much more of the vicissitudes which make him and unmake him, than of any office matter.

Lastly, a sudden change of Ministers may easily cause a mischievous change of policy.

In many matters of business, perhaps in most, a continuity of mediocrity is better than a hotch-potch of excellences.

For example, now that progress in the scientific arts is revolutionising the instruments of war, rapid changes in our head-preparers for land and sea war are most costly and most hurtful.

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single competent selector of new inventions would probably in the course of years, after some experience, arrive at something tolerable;

it is in the nature of steady, regular, experimenting ability to diminish, if not vanquish, such difficulties.

But a quick succession of chiefs has no similar facility.

They do not learn from each other's experience;--you might as well expect the new head boy at a public school to learn from the experience of the last head boy.

The most valuable result of many years is a nicely balanced mind instinctively heedful of various errors; but such a mind is the incommunicable gift of individual experience, and an outgoing Minister can no more leave it to his successor, than an elder brother can pass it on to a younger.

Thus a desultory and incalculable policy may follow from a rapid change of Ministers.

These are formidable arguments, but four things may, I think, be said in reply to, or mitigation of them.

A little examination will show that this change of Ministers is essential to a Parliamentary government;

that something like it will happen in all elective Governments, and that worse happens under Presidential government; that it is not necessarily prejudicial to a good administration, but that, on the contrary, something like it is a prerequisite of good administration;

that the evident evils of English administration are not the results of Parliamentary government, but of grave deficiencies in other parts of our political and social state; that, in a word, they result not from what we have, but from what we have NOT.

As to the first point, those who wish to remove the choice of Ministers from Parliament have not adequately considered what a Parliament is.

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Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.

In proportion as you give it power it will inquire into everything, settle everything, meddle in everything.

In an ordinary despotism, the powers of a despot are limited by his bodily capacity, and by the calls of pleasure; he is but one man; there are but twelve hours in his day, and he is not disposed to employ more than a small part in dull business; he keeps the rest for the court, or the harem, or for society.

He is at the top of the world, and all the pleasures of the world are set before him.

Mostly there is only a very small part of political business which he cares to understand, and much of it (with the shrewd sensual sense belonging to the race) he knows that he will never understand.

But a Parliament is composed of a great number of men by no means at the top of the world.

When you establish a predominant Parliament, you give over the rule of the country to a despot who has unlimited time--who has unlimited vanity--who has, or believes he has, unlimited comprehension, whose pleasure is in action, whose life is work.

There is no limit to the curiosity of Parliament.

Sir Robert Peel once suggested that a list should be taken down of the questions asked of him in a single evening; they touched more or less on fifty subjects, and there were a thousand other subjects which by parity of reason might have been added too.

As soon as bore A ends, bore B begins.

Some inquire from genuine love of knowledge, or from a real wish to improve what they ask about; others to see their name in the papers; others to show a watchful constituency that they are alert;

others to get on and to get a place in the Government; others from an accumulation of little motives they could not themselves analyse, or because it is their habit to ask things.

And a proper reply must be given.

It was said that "Darby Griffith destroyed Lord Palmerston's first Government," and undoubtedly the cheerful impertinence with which in the conceit of victory that Minister answered grave men much hurt his Parliamentary power.

There is one thing which no one will permit to be treated lightly--himself.

And so there is one too which a sovereign assembly will never permit to be lessened or ridiculed--its own power.

The Minister of the day will have to give an account in Parliament of all branches of administration, to say why they act when they do, and why they do not when they don't. Nor is chance inquiry all a public department has most to fear.

Fifty members of Parliament may be zealous for a particular policy affecting the department, and fifty others for another policy, and between them they may divide its action, spoil its favourite aims, and prevent its consistently working out either of their own aims.

The process is very simple.

Every department at times looks as if it was in a scrape; some apparent blunder, perhaps some real blunder, catches the public eye.

At once the antagonist Parliamentary sections, which want to act on the department, seize the opportunity.

They make speeches, they move for documents, they amass statistics.

They declare "that in no other country is such a policy possible as that which the department is pursuing; that it is mediaeval; that it costs money; that it wastes life; that America does the contrary; that Prussia does the contrary".

The newspapers follow according to their nature.

These bits of administrative scandal amuse the public.

Articles on them are very easy to write, easy to read, easy to talk about.

They please the vanity of mankind.

We think as we read, "Thank God, _I_ am not as that man; _I_ did not send green coffee to the Crimea; _I_ did not send patent cartridge to the common guns, and common cartridge to the breech loaders.

_I_ make money; that miserable public functionary only wastes money".

As for the defence of the department, no one cares for it or reads it.

Naturally at first hearing it does not sound true.

The Opposition have the unrestricted selection of the point of attack, and they seldom choose a case in which the department, upon the surface of the matter, seems to be right.

The case of first impression will always be that something shameful has happened; that such and such men did die; that this and that gun would not go off; that this or that ship will not sail.

All the pretty reading is unfavourable, and all the praise is very dull.

Nothing is more helpless than such a department in Parliament if it has no authorised official defender.

The wasps of the House fasten on it;

here they perceive is something easy to sting, and safe, for it cannot sting in return.

The small grain of foundation for complaint germinates, till it becomes a whole crop.

At once the Minister of the day is appealed to; he is at the head of the administration, and he must put the errors right, if such they are.

The Opposition leader says: "I put it to the right honourable gentleman, the First Lord of the Treasury.

He is a man of business.

I do not agree with him in his choice of ends, but he is an almost perfect master of methods and means.

What he wishes to do he does do.

Now I appeal to him whether such gratuitous errors, such fatuous incapacity, are to be permitted in the public service.

Perhaps the right honourable gentleman will grant me his attention while I show from the very documents of the departments," etc. , etc. What is the Minister to do?

He never heard of this matter; he does not care about the matter.

Several of the supporters of the Government are interested in the opposition to the department; a grave man, supposed to be wise, mutters, "This is TOO bad".

The Secretary of the Treasury tells him, "The House is uneasy.

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good many men are shaky.

A.

B.

said yesterday he had been dragged through the dirt four nights following.

Indeed I am disposed to think myself that the department has been somewhat lax.

Perhaps an inquiry," etc. , etc. And upon that the Prime Minister rises and says: "That Her Majesty's Government having given very serious and grave consideration to this most important subject, are not prepared to say that in so complicated a matter the department has been perfectly exempt from error.

He does not indeed concur in all the statements which have been made; it is obvious that several of the charges advanced are inconsistent with one another.

If A. had really died from eating green coffee on the Tuesday, it is plain he could not have suffered from insufficient medical attendance on the following Thursday.

However, on so complex a subject, and one so foreign to common experience, he will not give a judgment.

And if the honourable member would be satisfied with having the matter inquired into by a committee of that House, he will be prepared to accede to the suggestion."

Possibly the outlying department, distrusting the Ministry, crams a friend.

But it is happy indeed if it chances on a judicious friend.

The persons most ready to take up that sort of business are benevolent amateurs, very well intentioned, very grave, very respectable, but also rather dull.

Their words are good, but about the joints their arguments are weak.

They speak very well, but while they are speaking, the decorum is so great that everybody goes away.

Such a man is no match for a couple of House of Commons gladiators.

They pull what he says to shreds.

They show or say that he is wrong about his facts.

Then he rises in a fuss and must explain: but in his hurry he mistakes, and cannot find the right paper, and becomes first hot, then confused, next inaudible, and so sits down.

Probably he leaves the House with the notion that the defence of the department has broken down, and so the Times announces to all the world as soon as it awakes.

Some thinkers have naturally suggested that the heads of departments should as such have the right of speech in the House.

But the system when it has been tried has not answered.

M.

Guizot tells us from his own experience that such a system is not effectual.

A great popular assembly has a corporate character; it has its own privileges, prejudices, and notions.

And one of these notions is that its own members--the persons it sees every day--whose qualities it knows, whose minds it can test, are those whom it can most trust.

A clerk speaking from without would be an unfamiliar object.

He would be an outsider.

He would speak under suspicion; he would speak without dignity.

Very often he would speak as a victim.

All the bores of the House would be upon him.

He would be put upon examination.

He would have to answer interrogatories.

He would be put through the figures and cross-questioned in detail.

The whole effect of what he said would be lost in quaestiunculae and hidden in a controversial detritus.

Again, such a person would rarely speak with great ability.

He would speak as a scribe.

His habits must have been formed in the quiet of an office: he is used to red tape, placidity, and the respect of subordinates.

Such a person will hardly ever be able to stand the hurly-burly of a public assembly.

He will lose his head--he will say what he should not.

He will get hot and red; he will feel he is a sort of culprit.

After being used to the flattering deference of deferential subordinates, he will be pestered by fuss and confounded by invective.

He will hate the House as naturally as the House does not like him.

He will be an incompetent speaker addressing a hostile audience.

And what is more, an outside administrator addressing Parliament can move Parliament only by the goodness of his arguments.

He has no votes to back them up with.

He is sure to be at chronic war with some active minority of assailants or others.

The natural mode in which a department is improved on great points and new points is by external suggestion; the worse foes of a department are the plausible errors which the most visible facts suggest, and which only half visible facts confute.

Both the good ideas and the bad ideas are sure to find advocates first in the press and then in Parliament.

Against these a permanent clerk would have to contend by argument alone.

The Minister, the head of the Parliamentary government, will not care for him.

The Minister will say in some undress soliloquy, "These permanent 'fellows' must look after themselves.

I cannot be bothered.

I have only a majority of nine, and a very shaky majority, too.

I cannot afford to make enemies for those whom I did not appoint.

They did nothing for me, and I can do nothing for them."

And if the permanent clerk come to ask his help, he will say in decorous language, "I am sure that if the department can evince to the satisfaction of Parliament that its past management has been such as the public interests require, no one will be more gratified than myself.

I am not aware if it will be in my power to attend in my place on Monday; but if I can be so fortunate, I shall listen to your official statement with my very best attention."

And so the permanent public servant will be teased by the wits, oppressed by the bores, and massacred by the innovators of Parliament.

The incessant tyranny of Parliament over the public offices is prevented and can only be prevented by the appointment of a Parliamentary head, connected by close ties with the present Ministry and the ruling party in Parliament The Parliamentary head is a protecting machine.

He and the friends he brings stand between the department and the busybodies and crotchet-makers of the House and the country.

So long as at any moment the policy of an office could be altered by chance votes in either House of Parliament, there is no security for any consistency.

Our guns and our ships are not, perhaps, very good now.

But they would be much worse if any thirty or forty advocates for this gun or that gun could make a motion in Parliament, beat the department, and get their ships or their guns adopted.

The "Black Breech Ordnance Company" and the "Adamantine Ship Company" would soon find representatives in Parliament, if forty or fifty members would get the national custom for their rubbish.

But this result is now prevented by the Parliamentary head of the department.

As soon as the Opposition begins the attack, he looks up his means of defence.

He studies the subject, compiles his arguments, and builds little piles of statistics, which he hopes will have some effect.

He has his reputation at stake, and he wishes to show that he is worth his present place, and fit for future promotion.

He is well known, perhaps liked, by the House--at any rate the House attends to him; he is one of the regular speakers whom they hear and heed.

He is sure to be able to get himself heard, and he is sure to make the best defence he can.

And after he has settled his speech he loiters up to the Secretary of the Treasury, and says quietly, "They have got a motion against me on Tuesday, you know.

I hope you will have your men here.

A lot of fellows have crotchets, and though they do not agree a bit with one another, they are all against the department; they will all vote for the inquiry."

And the Secretary answers, "Tuesday, you say; no (looking at a paper), I do not think it will come on Tuesday.

There is Higgins on Education.

He is good for a long time.

But anyhow it shall be all right."

And then he glides about and speaks a word here and a word there, in consequence of which, when the anti-official motion is made, a considerable array of steady, grave faces sits behind the Treasury Bench--nay, possibly a rising man who sits in outlying independence below the gangway rises to defend the transaction; the department wins by thirty-three, and the management of that business pursues its steady way.

This contrast is no fancy picture.

The experiment of conducting the administration of a public department by an independent unsheltered authority has often been tried, and always failed.

Parliament always poked at it, till it made it impossible.

The most remarkable is that of the Poor Law.

The administration of that law is not now very good, but it is not too much to say that almost the whole of its goodness has been preserved by its having an official and party protector in the House of Commons.

Without that contrivance we should have drifted back into the errors of the old Poor Law, and superadded to them the present meanness and incompetence in our large towns.

All would have been given up to local management.

Parliament would have interfered with the central board till it made it impotent, and the local authorities would have been despotic.

The first administration of the new Poor Law was by "Commissioners"--the three kings of Somerset House, as they were called.

The system was certainly not tried in untrustworthy hands.

At the crisis Mr. Chadwick, one of the most active and best administrators in England, was the secretary and the motive power: the principal Commissioner was Sir George Lewis, perhaps the best selective administrator of our time.

But the House of Commons would not let the Commission alone.

For a long time it was defended because the Whigs had made the Commission, and felt bound as a party to protect it.

The new law started upon a certain intellectual impetus, and till that was spent its administration was supported in a rickety existence by an abnormal strength.

But afterwards the Commissioners were left to their intrinsic weakness.

There were members for all the localities, but there were none for them.

There were members for every crotchet and corrupt interest, but there were none for them.

The rural guardians would have liked to eke out wages by rates; the city guardians hated control, and hated to spend money.

The Commission had to be dissolved, and a Parliamentary head was added; the result is not perfect, but it is an amazing improvement on what would have happened in the old system.

The new system has not worked well because the central authority has too little power; but under the previous system the central authority was getting to have, and by this time would have had, no power at all.

And if Sir George Lewis and Mr. Chadwick could not maintain an outlying department in the face of Parliament, how unlikely that an inferior compound of discretion and activity will ever maintain it!

These reasonings show why a changing Parliamentary head, a head changing as the Ministry changes, is a necessity of good Parliamentary government, and there is happily a natural provision that there will be such heads.

Party organisation ensures it.

In America, where on account of the fixedly recurring presidential election, and the perpetual minor elections, party organisation is much more effectually organised than anywhere else, the effect on the offices is tremendous.

Every office is filled anew at every presidential change, at least every change which brings in a new party.

Not only the greatest posts, as in England, but the minor posts change their occupants.

The scale of the financial operations of the Federal government is now so increased that most likely in that department, at least, there must in future remain a permanent element of great efficiency; a revenue of 90,000,000 pounds sterling cannot be collected and expended with a trifling and changing staff.

But till now the Americans have tried to get on not only with changing heads to a bureaucracy, as the English, but without any stable bureaucracy at all.

They have facilities for trying it which no one else has.

All Americans can administer, and the number of them really fit to be in succession lawyers, financiers, or military managers is wonderful; they need not be as afraid of a change of all their officials as European countries must, for the incoming substitutes are sure to be much better there than here; and they do not fear, as we English fear, that the outgoing officials will be left destitute in middle life, with no hope for the future and no recompense for the past, for in America (whatever may be the cause of it) opportunities are numberless, and a man who is ruined by being "off the rails" in England soon there gets on another line.

The Americans will probably to some extent modify their past system of total administrative cataclysms, but their very existence in the only competing form of free government should prepare us for and make us patient with the mild transitions of Parliamentary government.

These arguments will, I think, seem conclusive to almost every one;

but, at this moment, many people will meet them thus: they will say, "You prove what we do not deny, that this system of periodical change is a necessary ingredient in Parliamentary government, but you have not proved what we do deny, that this change is a good thing.

Parliamentary government may have that effect, among others, for anything we care: we maintain merely that it is a defect."

In answer, I think it may be shown not, indeed, that this precise change is necessary to a permanently perfect administration, but that some analogous change, some change of the same species, is so.