There is no definite rule laid down as to which posts in the Administration carry with them a seat in the Cabinet; but the First Lord of the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Lord President of the Council, the Lord Privy Seal, and the Lord Chancellor are invariably included. Statesmen who hold no office at all, as we have seen in the case of the Duke of Bolton, have occasionally been given a seat. Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon, sat in Charles I.'s Cabinet without office; and, later on, Lord Fitzwilliam, the Duke of Wellington, and Lord John Russell were each accorded a similar privilege. Lord Mansfield, on his elevation to the seat of the Lord Chief Justice, in 1756, became a member of the Cabinet, and did not cease to take part in the discussions until 1765. The precedent he thus created was afterwards cited in the case of Lord Ellenborough, another Lord Chief Justice, who was admitted to the Cabinet of "All the Talents" in 1806. By this time, however, the inclusion of any but the actual holders of parliamentary offices was considered unusual, and it has never been repeated.
Cabinet meetings in Charles II.'s time were first of all held twice a week, and then on Sunday evenings. It was long customary for the Sovereign to be present, and Queen Anne presided regularly over these Sunday gatherings. Indeed, the absence of the King from Cabinet meetings did not occur until the time of George I., and only arose from that monarch's inability to speak English. Since his day, however, no Sovereign has thought it necessary, or even politic, to attend.
Besides the regular official meetings of the Cabinet, informal gatherings of Ministers were occasionally convened. Walpole used often to invite a few colleagues to dinner to discuss the affairs of the nation, and in the Aberdeen Government a Cabinet dinner was held weekly.[126] After the tablecloth had been removed, and the port began to circulate, measures of State were agitated and discussed, and questions of policy decided upon. Whether Ministers were always in a condition fit for the consideration of such grave topics is a matter of doubt. Lord Chancellor Thurlow sometimes refused to take part in these post-prandial discussions. "He has even more than once left his colleagues to deliberate," says Wraxall, "whilst he sullenly stretched himself along the chair, and fell, or appeared to fall, fast asleep."[127]
The Cabinet no longer meets on Sundays, and the practice of holding weekly dinners has been given up. It has no regular times of assembling, but can be summoned at any moment when the Prime Minister wishes to consult his colleagues. It is not necessary for all the members of the Cabinet to be present, as no quorum is needed to validate the proceedings, nor is there any rule laid down as to the length of a Cabinet meeting, which may last from a brief half-hour to as much as half a day.[128]
The chief point with regard to Cabinet meetings is their absolute secrecy. No minutes are kept, no secretary or clerk is present, and only in exceptional circumstances is some private record made of any matter that may have been discussed. The meetings are usually held at No. 10, Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister, or occasionally at the Foreign Office, a practice instituted by Lord Salisbury when he was Foreign Secretary, his Cabinet being so large that the room in Downing Street could barely contain it.
In George II.'s time, No. 10, Downing Street—called after Sir George Downing, a statesman of Charles II.'s day, whom Pepys styles "a niggardly fellow"—belonged to the Crown, and was the town residence of Bothmar, the Hanoverian Minister. On the latter's death, King George offered the house to Walpole as a gift. The Prime Minister declined it, however, and suggested that it should henceforward accompany the offices of the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Externally the Prime Minister's house is not a very imposing structure, but the traditions attached to it as the official residence of so many eminent Englishmen enchance its value in the eyes of its occupants and of the public.
Here, then, the Cabinet assembles to discuss the problems of Empire, whose solution at times of stress the country awaits with such breathless interest. Here the Prime Minister presides over that assembly which, however internally discordant, must ever present an harmonious and united front to the public. The decisions arrived at by "His Majesty's Servants"—no longer known as the "Lords of the Cabinet Council," as in olden times—must always be presumably unanimous. Each Minister is held responsible for the opinions of the Cabinet as a whole. His only escape from such responsibility lies in resignation, in either sense of that word. The defending and supporting in public of what they are really opposed to in private, is the common practice of Ministers. It is thought that one man's scruples should yield to the judgment of the many, and "minorities must suffer" that Governments may be carried on and Ministries remain undivided.[129] There is a well-known story of Lord Melbourne's Ministry which illustrates this point. The Government had proposed to put an eight-shilling duty on corn. Melbourne, who was strongly opposed to the tax, found himself out-voted and overruled by the other members of the Cabinet. At the end of the meeting he put his back against the door. "Now, is it to lower the price of corn, or isn't it?" he asked. "It doesn't much matter what we say, but mind, we must all say the same!" In 1860, again, Lord Palmerston as Prime Minister was in favour of the House of Lords throwing out the Paper Duties Bill, which was the measure of his own Chancellor of the Exchequer.
It is not perhaps easy to imagine a modern Premier being placed in a situation similar to that of either Lord Melbourne or Lord Palmerston. He must necessarily, to a certain extent, have the whip hand of the Cabinet. For if several of his colleagues disagree with him on a question of principle, and resign, he can generally appoint others; whereas, if he resigns, the whole Ministry crumbles and falls to pieces.
The Prime Minister nowadays has indeed acquired a position which is almost that of a dictator. In many ways his power is absolute and his will autocratic. More especially is this true as regards his dealings with the Crown. In olden days he was the servant and creature of the sovereign. He had no voice in the selection of his colleagues; he acted merely as His Majesty's chief adviser, and, as such, was liable to instant dismissal. When Pelham resigned in 1746, because he could no longer agree with the King, he was acting in a fashion that was then unprecedented. Before that time, a Prime Minister whose views did not coincide with those of his sovereign, was summarily dismissed. Many kings had, indeed, been in the habit of themselves undertaking the duties of Prime Minister—Charles II. delighted in referring to himself as his own Premier Ministre, though he was far too indolent to perform the work of that official—and merely looked upon their chief adviser as a convenient channel of communication between themselves and Parliament.
It was not until the eighteenth century that a Premier of the modern type came into existence. With the development of the party system, the gradual growth of the Cabinet's prestige, and the consequent weakening of the sovereign's prerogatives, the Prime Minister ceased to be the choice of the Crown, and became the nominee of the nation. As the leader of the party in office, he acquired the unquestioned right of selecting his own Ministers. To-day, though the King still nominally chooses his Prime Minister, little individual freedom is left to the sovereign, who is guided in his choice by the advice of the outgoing Premier and his interpretation of the wishes of the country.