and legis lature. mons. executive the slight correspondence between ministers and the ComThe attempt to create an executive which should represent all classes and opinions could hardly have been expected to succeed, but it was something that the constitutional problem should have been recognised though the solution was inadequate. Taxation in Parliament and the free administration of justice had been secured by the Long Parliament; the last of the Stuarts revived an earlier claim of the Crown to independent legislative powers. The final struggle arose out of the attempt of James II to annul, of his own authority, statutes which had been thought essential to the security of the Protestant religion. The issue between the first Stuart and his subjects turned on the security of person and property, the right of the king to tax without Parliament and imprison without legal sentence. The issue between the last Stuart and his subjects turned on the king's right to suspend the law at his pleasure and by his individual act. The offer of the crown to William and Mary, their acceptance of it, and the codification in the Bill of Rights of the limitations on the royal prerogative, mark the beginning of the modern constitution. 1688. The Bill of Rights, code. The Modern Constitution. But the Bill of Rights is more than a summary of constitutional rules; it practically settles a number of disputed how far a questions of principle. In opposition to the doctrine that the Crown was a piece of real property which could never be without an owner, it declares the throne vacant. In opposition to the doctrine that the succession to the throne was a matter of divine indefeasible hereditary right, it regulates that succession. In opposition to the doctrine of passive obedience, it affixes conditions to the tenure of the Crown. The Bill of Rights is perhaps the nearest approach to a constitutional code which we possess, but it does not profess to be a written constitution. It merely states the points which had been from time to time in issue between the Crown and its subjects since the reign of Edward I, and on all points it declares in favour of the nation and against the Crown. This summary of constitutional rules, setting at rest matters Altered conception which had long been a source of difference, represents the legal of royalty. result of the Revolution. The process by which the crown was offered to William and Mary by the representatives of the estates of the realm is evidence of an altered conception of royalty which has practically determined the development of constitutional usage since 1688. It is worth considering how this conception of royalty has gradually been arrived at. Feudalism, which linked political power with the holding of Mediaeval royalty. land, had found the king a tribal chief, had made him the ultimate landlord of every man, and had turned sovereignty into a piece of real property, the rights to which were regulated by the feudal land-law. The practice of Commendation, where fealty was to be rendered on one side and protection on the other, gave to feudalism that element of personal loyalty which made treason the unpardonable sin of the middle ages. At the head of the feudal hierarchy, the lord of kings was the Emperor, but his shadowy lordship lost all practical meaning when the kingdoms of Europe became definite and compact; and the Reformation, which broke up the unity of Western Christendom, destroyed for ever the feudal conception of society, secular and spiritual, tending upwards to the Emperor and the Pope. And as the dependence of the king upon an earthly power was thus exploded, kingship obtained a higher place than it had occupied as a link in the feudal chain. For the connection Divine right. of sovereignty with property was still assumed, and the personal allegiance of feudalism remained, and when men sought for some theory of political duty they found it in the conception of Divine Right. The king held the kingdom as property, his subjects owed him their fealty, and his tenure was of God. And this theory of Divine Right grew into definite shape in tative royalty. Represen- opposition to a new conception of kingship. When, after the Reformation and with the rise of Puritanism, men began to regard the king rather as the official exponent of the wishes and aims of his people, the opponents of this view sought in the divine right of kings a basis of sovereignty and a theory of political duty which seemed to them surer than the convenience of a nation, or the need of having some outward embodiment of the State. The act of the Convention Parliament which gave the crown to William and Mary was the recognition of the official and representative duties of the Crown of England. Whether, with the utilitarians, we say that government exists for the common good, or with Locke, that it exists for the purpose of securing to us natural rights, or with Hobbes, that it exists for the restraint of lawlessness and the protection of us from our own inclinations to rapine and revenge, we come to Result of the same conclusion-that the State exists for our advantage, that the king is a part of the State, that he, like the rest of the State machinery, is not there of right except in so far as he fulfils his functions. new idea of royalty. The Mutiny Act. The appropriation of supplies. This practical view of the relations of the Crown and people had immediate effects. The king had been the leader of the armed force of the nation as a militia. The Bill of Rights declared the maintenance of a standing army in time of peace without consent of Parliament to be contrary to law. Apart from this general proposition the maintenance of discipline necessitates the power of inflicting punishments in a more summary manner than would be possible in the ordinary course of law. Commons were determined that such a power should not pass out of their control, and every year, for a year, they legalise the existence of a standing army and make provision for its discipline. The Again, the Crown had conducted the business of government on the resources supplied by the proceeds of crown lands and of taxes settled on the king for life. If the revenue was in excess of the needs of government the king could do as he liked with the balance; if it was deficient the king asked the Commons to make good the deficiency. But it was left to the king to conduct the entire financial business of state from year to year. After the Revolution this was changed. The king was not entrusted with the payment of all the charges of government; he was placed upon an allowance called the Civil List, calculated to meet the cost of the royal household and of the civil departments. The House of Commons took over the naval and military expenditure, and annually voted and paid the sums required. They thereby acquired a power of constantly reviewing the conduct of the king's ministers. ence of on Parlia ment. But most important of all was the new relation in which Dependthe ministers of the Crown stood towards Parliament. With ministers the increased control which the House of Commons acquired over the business of government, came the necessity that the king's ministers should be able to work in harmony with a majority of the House. The king might choose his servants, but the House of Commons might make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to carry on the business of government. Cabinet and Party Government. Cabinet. And this newly acquired power of the House of Commons The did more than limit the king's choice of ministers; it was incompatible with the discussion of matters of general policy by the Privy Council. The Privy Council was too large a body, and of too various political opinions, to act together or to guide its action by the wishes of a Parliamentary majority. mittee of Already a smaller group within the Council had come to 1. A comtransact the business of the country, and this had arisen from heads of the dislike of Charles II to the formalities of a full meeting departof the Council, and of William III to the communication of his policy to more than a few trusted statesmen. ments. in hold It remained that this committee of the Council, made up of 2. United the chiefs of the various departments of government, should ing the political consist of persons of the same way of thinking in politics, and opinions of the majo- that way in accordance with the opinion, for the time, of the rity in the majority in the House of Commons. The necessity for this became clear so soon as the increase in the power of the Commons became realised. Commons. 3. Not severed from House of 12 & 13 Will. III. c. 2. 8. 3. Disuse of royal presence. Sunderland taught it to William III, and as early as the beginning of the last century Cabinet and party government existed in a rudimentary form. That is to say, the policy of the country was not determined by the Crown with the whole of the Privy Council, but with a limited number consisting for the most part of the heads of departments; and this limited number were men of identical opinions on the chief matters of political interest, and their opinions were the same as those of the majority of the House of Commons. Thus the House of Commons obtained the control which mediaeval Parliaments had sought in vain over the selection of the executive and the policy of the country. It could, by a process of indirect election, determine whom the Crown should employ for the conduct of affairs of state. It nearly sacrificed this power to a fear lest the presence in its body of ministers and placemen should affect its independence. A clause in the Act of Settlement excluded from the House of Commons all who held offices or places of profit under the Crown. Happily this clause was repealed before it came into operation; and the parties in the House of Commons have gradually acquired the power of indicating, by a process which is somewhat indefinable in its action, though perfectly clear in its results, the ministers to whom they are respectively willing that the conduct of affairs should be entrusted. There were two principles which needed to be established before Cabinet government, as we understand it, came into effect. The first was that the Cabinet should be wholly severed from the Council, except in so far as the members of the Cabinet are also members of the Council. Throughout the reign of Anne the policy of the country was settled at small meetings of the Council, attended by the chief ministers of departments and |