The efficient secret of the English constitution is the nearly complete fusion of the executive and legislative powers. The connecting link is the cabinet. This is a committee of the legislative body, in choosing which indirectly but not directly the legislature is nearly omnipotent. The prime minister is chosen by the House of Commons, and is the head of the efficient part of the constitution. The queen is only at the head of its dignified part. The Prime Minister himself has to choose his associates, but can only do so out of a charmed circle.
The cabinet is an absolutely secret committee, which can dissolve the assembly which appointed it. It is an executive which is at once the nominee of the legislature, and can annihilate the legislature. The system stands in precise contrast to the presidential system, in which the legislative and executive powers are entirely independent.
A good parliament is a capital choosing body; it is an electoral college of the picked men of the nation. But in the American system the president is chosen by a complicated machinery of caucuses; he is not the choice of the nation, but of the wirepullers. The members of congress are excluded from executive office, and the separation makes neither the executive half nor the legislative half of political life worth having. Hence it is only men of an inferior type who are attracted to political life at all.
Again our system enables us to change our ruler suddenly on an emergency. Thus we could abolish the Aberdeen Cabinet, which was in itself eminently adapted for every sort of difficulty save the one it had to meet, but wanted the daemonic element, and substitute a statesman who had the precise sort of merit wanted at the moment. But under a presidential government you can do nothing of the kind. There is no elastic element; everything is rigid, specified, dated. You have bespoken your government for the time, and you must keep it. Moreover, under the English system all the leading statesmen are known quantities. But in America a new president before his election is usually an unknown quantity.
Cabinet government demands the mutual confidence of the electors, a calm national mind, and what I may call rationality--a power involving intelligence, yet distinct from it. It demands also a competent legislature, which is a rarity. In the early stages of human society the grand object is not to make new laws, but to prevent innovation. Custom is the first check on tyranny, but at the present day the desire is to adapt the law to changed conditions. In the past, however, continuous legislatures were rare because they were not wanted. Now you have to get a good legislature and to keep it good. To keep it good it must have a sufficient supply of business. To get it good is a precedent difficulty. A nation in which the mass of the people are intelligent, educated, and comfortable can elect a good parliament. Or what I will call a deferential nation may do so--I mean one in which the numerical majority wishes to be ruled by the wiser minority.
Of deferential countries England is the type. But it is not to their actual heavy, sensible middle-class rulers that the mass of the English people yield deference, but to the theatrical show of society. The few rule by their hold, not over the reason of the multitude, but over their imaginations and their habits.
II.--The Monarchy
The use of the queen in a dignified capacity is incalculable. The best reason why monarchy is a strong government is that it is an intelligible government; whereas a constitution is complex. Men are governed by the weakness of their imagination. To state the matter shortly, royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions. A republic is a government in which that attention is divided between many who are all doing uninteresting actions. Secondly, if you ask the immense majority of the queen's subjects by what right she rules, they will say she rules by God's grace. They believe they have a mystic obligation to obey her. The crown is a visible symbol of unity with an atmosphere of dignity.
Thirdly, the queen is the head of society. If she were not so, the prime minister would be the first person in the country. As it is the House of Commons attracts people who go there merely for social purposes; if the highest social rank was to be scrambled for in the House of Commons, the number of social adventurers there would be even more numerous. It has been objected of late that English royalty is not splendid enough. It is compared with the French court, which is quite the most splendid thing in France; but the French emperor is magnified to emphasise the equality of everyone else. Great splendour in our court would incite competition. Fourthly, we have come to regard the crown as the head of our morality. Lastly, constitutional royalty acts as a disguise; it enables our real rulers to change without heedless people knowing it. Hence, perhaps, the value of constitutional royalty in times of transition.
Popular theory regards the sovereign as a co-ordinate authority with the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Also it holds that the queen is the executive. Neither is true. There is no authentic explicit information as to what the queen can do. The secrecy of the prerogative is an anomaly, but none the less essential to the utility of English royalty. Let us see how we should get on without a queen. We may suppose the House of Commons appointing the premier just as shareholders choose a director. If the predominant party were agreed as to its leader there would not be much difference at the beginning of an administration. But if the party were not agreed on its leader the necessity of the case would ensure that the chief forced on the minority by the majority would be an exceedingly capable man; where the judgment of the sovereign intervenes there is no such security. If, however, there are three parties, the primary condition of a cabinet polity is not satisfied. Under such circumstances the only way is for the moderate people of every party to combine in support of the government which, on the whole, suits every party best. In the choice of a fit minister, if the royal selection were always discreetly exercised, it would be an incalculable benefit, but in most cases the wisest course for the monarch would be inaction.