The Government of England (Vol. I)

by A. Lawrence Lowell

Control of the House over Administration.

If the relations between the cabinet and the House of Commons in legislative matters have changed, their relations in executive matters have been modified also. If the cabinet to-day legislates with the advice and consent of the House, it administers subject to its constant supervision and criticism. In both cases the relation is fundamentally the same. In both the English system seems to be approximating more and more to a condition where the cabinet initiates everything, frames its own policy, submits that policy to a searching criticism in the House, and adopts such suggestions as it deems best; but where the House, after all this has been done, must accept the acts and proposals of the government as they stand, or pass a vote of censure, and take the chances of a change of ministry or a dissolution.

It Rarely directs Administrative Action.

There is nothing to prevent the House of Commons from adopting an address or resolution calling upon the government for specific administrative action; and it has been occasionally, though not often, done.[327:1] Under the present rules of procedure there are few opportunities for a direct vote of this kind, the chief occasions when it is in order being the evening sittings reserved for private members' motions. On these and other occasions resolutions asking for executive action are sometimes brought forward,[327:2] but they are rarely carried against the opposition of the cabinet. In fact it does not seem to have occurred at all in the last ten years, while in the preceding ten years it occurred only four times; and it so happened that in the last three of those cases, at least, the government did not carry out the wishes of the House.[328:1] Such votes are not likely to be common in the future, because the modern principle of responsibility requires that the ministers should be free to act and be held to account for what they do, rather than that they should be given explicit directions in regard to their duties.

It Criticises Freely the Conduct of the Government.

If the House of Commons does not often pass votes asking for executive action in the future, its members criticise the conduct of the government in the past freely and constantly. The opportunities for doing so are, indeed, manifold. There is first the address in answer to the King's speech at the opening of the session; then the questions day by day give a chance, if not for direct criticism, at least for calling the ministers to account; then there are the motions to adjourn; the private members' motions; the debates on going into the Committees of Supply and Ways and Means; the discussions in the Committee of Supply itself; the debates on the Consolidated Fund Resolutions, on the Appropriation Bill, on the Budget, and on the motions to adjourn for the holidays; and, finally, the formal motions of want of confidence. The way in which these various occasions are used to bring the acts of the ministers to the attention of Parliament needs explanation.

Individual Criticism and Collective Censure.

But first it is important to distinguish between individual criticism by members, and collective censure by vote of the House. The former, whether coming from the seats behind the Treasury Bench, or from the opposite side of the floor, is in the nature of a caution to the ministers, an expression of personal opinion that is likely to find more or less of an echo outside of Parliament. It does not in itself imperil the position of the government at the moment, although the errors of the ministers pointed out in this way go into the great balance of account on which the nation renders its verdict at the next general election. But a collective censure by vote of the House may mean immediate resignation. Now the system of a responsible ministry implies the alternation in power of two parties holding different views upon the questions of the day. If it does not imply this; if the fall of one cabinet is followed by the appointment of another with a similar policy; then public life will revolve about the personal ambitions and intrigues of leading politicians,—a condition that has caused much of the discredit now attached to the parliamentary system in some continental states. But if a change of ministry involves the transfer of power to an Opposition with quite a different programme, it is clear that the change ought not to take place until the nation has declared, either at the polls, or through its representatives in the House of Commons, that it wishes that result. The ministers ought, therefore, to stand or fall upon their general policy, upon their whole record, or upon some one question that in permanent consequence outweighs everything else, not upon a particular act of secondary importance. Moreover the judgment ought to be given after mature deliberation, not in the heat of a debate upon some political blunder brought suddenly to the notice of the House. Exactly the reverse of this occurs under the French system of interpellations. By that procedure a single act of the government can be made the subject of a debate ending with motions condemning or justifying the occurrence; and great ingenuity is sometimes displayed in so framing the motions as to catch the votes of members, who, although supporters of the cabinet, cannot approve of the act in question.[330:1] How a resort to similar tactics in the House of Commons has been more and more barred out, will be seen in the following pages, which describe the different methods of bringing the conduct of the ministers before the House.

Address in Reply to the King's Speech.

The first two or three weeks of an ordinary session are taken up with a debate on the address in reply to the King's speech. The address provides a field for a series of political battles, fought over the amendments that are brought forward. There are a dozen or more of these every year; many of them urging the need of legislation that is not foreshadowed in the speech; others relating to purely administrative matters arising in foreign or domestic affairs. Sometimes they deal with large questions of public policy, like the extension of the frontier of India, or the maintenance of the integrity of China. But this is by no means always true; and amendments are moved, for example, drawing attention to the grievances of the postal and telegraph clerks, or complaining of the government for failure to prosecute the directors of a blasted financial scheme or for the releasing or refusing to release persons convicted of crimes connected with political agitation in Ireland. In some of these cases particular acts are brought before the bar of the House; and it is usually impossible to avoid a direct vote upon them. But they are not recent events, or unexpectedly sprung upon Parliament. They have almost always aroused a good deal of public attention, and formed the subject of no little discussion. The government has, therefore, plenty of time to prepare its defence, to sound and marshal its followers; and it does not, in fact, suffer defeats on administrative questions brought forward in this way. Twice in more than twenty years the government tellers have found themselves in a minority on an amendment to the address, but neither case involved an executive act. The first, in 1886, was an amendment expressing regret that the speech had announced no measure for the relief of agricultural labourers. Under the peculiar state of parties Lord Salisbury's cabinet took the defeat as a vote of want of confidence and resigned. The other case occurred in 1894, when an amendment aimed at the power of the Lords to reject bills passed by the Commons was carried against the government on the motion of some of its own followers; but it was clearly not the kind of vote that involves the downfall of a ministry.