IN

ENGLAND:

ITS ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT, AND PRACTICAL OPERATION.

BY THE LATE

ALPHEUS TODD, LL.D., C.M.G.,

LIBRARIAN OF PARLIAMENT FOR THE DOMINION OF CANADA.

NEW EDITION, ABRIDGED AND revised

BY

SPENCER WALPOLE,

AUTHOR OF A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM 1815."

VOL. II.

LONDON:

SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY

LIMITED,

St. Dunstan's House,

FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E. C.

1892.

[All rights reserved.]

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALINIA
DAVIS

LONDON:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,

STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

III. THE FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS OF THE CROWN IN RELA-

TION TO PARLIAMENT

52

IV. THE PARLIAMENTARY DUTIES OF MINISTERS, AND THEIR

PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT

IN

ENGLAND.

PART IV.

THE EXECUTIVE AND PARLIAMENT.

CHAPTER I.

THE FUNCTIONS OF THE CABINET.

The cabinet

known to the

law.

THE cabinet council (like the office of premier) is a body
unknown to the law and hitherto unrecognized by
any Act of Parliament1—that is to say, it has no council is un-
corporate character; its decisions as such have no
authority; it is merely a meeting of ministers to
discuss important business. Nevertheless, it is now universally
recognized as an essential part of our national polity. It is,
in the words of Lord Campbell, "in the practical working of
the constitution—a separate defined body in whom, under the
sovereign, the executive government of the country is vested,"
and "without whom the monarchy could not now subsist.'
The leading characteristics of the cabinet council are thus
described by Lord Macaulay, whose personal experience as a
politician and statesman gives peculiar emphasis to his words:

1 Hallam, Const. Hist. v. 3, p. 253; Macaulay, Hist. of Eng. v. I,

p. 211; see observations of C. J. Fox, and of Mr. Addington, in Parl.

Deb. v. 1, pp. 508-514; Hans. D. v. 196, pp. 1177, 1193.

2 Sir G. C. Lewis's Letters, p. 429.

3

Campbell, Lives of the Chief Justices, v. 3, pp. 187, 188.