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Basis of Cabinet Government

Cabinet Government is not just Government by a Cabinet; it is a whole scheme of Government in which ultimate responsibility for political decisions is vested in the Cabinet. It is not enough to collect a dozen gentlemen in a room, place agenda before them, and tell them that their salaries depend on their reaching agreement. Every administrator, however lowly he be, and however remote from the precincts where Cabinet decisions are taken, must realise that every decision he takes may implicate the Government.

The problem may be illustrated from the experience of Ceylon. Cabinet Government was introduced in Ceylon in 1947 after a period of “tutelage” not unlike the diarchy contemplated in the Government of India Act, 1935. So far the principal difficulty has been not to introduce the conventions of responsible government inside the Cabinet but to key the administration to the conventions which operate outside the Cabinet. The main reason is to be found in the bureaucratic traditions of colonial Government. There being no Ministers before 1931, the effective powers of decision were vested in officials who were described in “Heads of Departments” and who were responsible to the Colonial Secretary and the Governor. They not only took decisions, they also communicated to other officials and the general public under their official titles, issued statements to the Press, published administration reports, and generally lived up to their titles. After 1931, most of them were placed under the control of executive committees of the State Council, but they were still “Heads of Departments” though they had to consult their executive committees and in practice abide by their decisions.

In the Cabinet system there are no “Heads of Departments” except the Ministers; but the Ministers are concerned with policy and not with administration, whereas the official “Heads of Departments” of the colonial system were concerned with both. In Britain the term is rarely used; but when it is used, it is customary to speak of the Minister as the “political head.” The subordinate officials who correspond to the “Heads of Departments” of colonial Ceylon are in fact Assistant Secretaries.

The difference is important for whereas in Ceylon the “Head of Department” continues to communicate in his own name, issue administration reports, and even make speeches, in Britain the Assistant Secretary is virtually anonymous. When he has to sign documents he does so “by order of the Minister” or at his “direction.” Even though the Minister never sees the papers, he is responsible for the decision and the Cabinet is responsible for the Minister. In Ceylon we are often told that the “Head of the Department” has given instructions, or has made a report, or is examining a proposal…This contravenes the theory of Cabinet Government…Ceylon experience suggests that one of the difficulties of converting a bureaucracy into a Cabinet system is to make certain that responsibility is transferred from officials to Ministers.

It must be emphasised that it is responsibility which is transferred, not the power of administrative action. The Minister does not assume the functions of the “Head of the Department.” The Minister decides the political issues — subject to the Cabinet — but the official administers on the Minister’s behalf. During the war, when something akin to a Ministerial system was developing, we had examples of political (and even social) pressure being brought to bear on Ministers to issue licences and permits. Had this continued, a particularly objectionable form of political corruption would have developed. The Minister is brought into these matters only where corruption develops in his Department. The official acts on behalf of the Minister and must therefore do justice to everybody, for the Minister becomes responsible for injustice. British experience suggests that the official is in a far stronger position where he remains anonymous. The peculiarly objectionable “contact man,” which recent British experience has brought to light, cannot make “contacts” if he does not know which is the official concerned but knows that the Minister is not concerned. Even in political matters the official is stronger through strict anonymity, for he can make very strong representations if he believes he is right but knows that there is no risk of his recommendations becoming known. It is essential to the efficient and honest administration of Cabinet government that there should be absolute security for all official communications and no risk whatever of a “leakage.”

The Minister is responsible for what goes on in his Ministry, but he is responsible to and acts on behalf of the Cabinet. Collective responsibility means not only that the Cabinet is collectively responsible for its decisions, but also that it is collectively responsible for Ministerial decisions. There are, of course, limits to this responsibility for the Minister unlike the official is not anonymous. On the contrary, he makes all the announcements of government policy relating to his own Department, whether they relate to his decisions or to Cabinet decisions. There are limits because the Minister must be personally responsible for inefficiency or corruption, whether on his own account or on his Department’s account. In the last resort he is disowned and thrown out. More often he is “kicked upstairs.” It is a pity that India is abolishing “honours” for they can be used not only to reward good work but also to get rid, politely and gently, of somebody who is no longer wanted. A British Minister is not dismissed, he resigns and accepts a Peerage.

These are, however, the exceptional cases. The ordinary problem is to integrate Government policy. One way of course is to refer every question to the Cabinet; but in these days the essential problem is to keep down the number of “Cabinet questions,” for all Cabinets are overworked. Provided that the Minister realises that he is acting on behalf of the Cabinet and that his decisions must be those which the Cabinet itself would take, the Minister can take nearly all the political decisions himself and refer to the Cabinet only those which are likely to be doubtful or controversial. The provisos are important. There is no such thing as “the policy of the Minister of External Affairs”: there is only the policy of the Government. Provided that fundamental changes are referred to the Cabinet, the Minister can normally be sure that the Cabinet is behind him.

This arrangement again implies that intra-governmental communications are absolutely confidential. It must not be known whether a decision is taken by the Minister or by the Cabinet. The Minister may decide on behalf of the Cabinet, but if it is known that he decided he can be attacked personally in Parliament, whereas the essence of collective responsibility is that the Government as a whole should be attacked. This principle, too, has not been fully established in Ceylon. Under the Donoughmore Constitution there was no collective responsibility (except in matters of finance) and each executive committee went its own sweet way. The Ministers have therefore tended to assume that they replaced the executive committee; a Minister has been known to announce “my policy” or “my intentions”; there have even been cases where Ministers have allowed it to be known that they were submitting proposals to the Cabinet, a gross breach of the principles of collective responsibility. This is another difficulty which India may possibly meet, for politicians are by definition persons who like publicity and they are always anxious to give the impression of activity. It must be emphasised that there is only one policy, that of the Government. Good Ministers are Ministers of good Governments.

Collective responsibility is usually thought of as joint responsibility. In Lord Melbourne’s famous phrase: “It does not matter what we say, provided that we are all in the same story.” True, it is important that they should be all in the same story. Differences of opinion should be fought out in the Cabinet, not on public platforms or in the Press. A Minister who cannot agree has his remedy: he can resign. But Cabinet Government will never work if Cabinet meetings are “dog-fights.” In Britain, and probably in India too, the burden of work is far too great to spend much time on argument. There are, perhaps, fifteen items on the agenda and they have to be disposed of in a couple of hours. It is useless to postpone them to the next meeting, because at that meeting there will be another fifteen items, equally urgent and important. It is of course helpful to start from the same ideological basis, for then agreement is much easier. Party Government is not essential to Cabinet Government, but it enables the Cabinet system to work more expeditiously. Disraeli’s remark that England does not love coalitions is true because coalitions do not love each other. But even in party government there are differences of opinion; and if the Cabinet is to function properly its members must agree in principle before the Cabinet meets. In Britain it is laid down that a Department must discuss a problem with the other Departments concerned before a Cabinet decision is sought. If the Departments cannot agree beforehand, or if a difference of opinion arises in the Cabinet — after all, the Minister of Transport may have views about prohibition or the recognition of Communist China — the only solution is the appointment of a Cabinet committee.

In a perfect world there would be no committees, for they are instruments of torture. Unfortunately they cannot be avoided, and the burden of work of which most Ministers complain is due to excessive committee work. A Minister who wants to argue about everything and who is therefore responsible for a vast increase of committee work is a menace to the efficiency of Cabinet Government and is obviously destined for promotion to an honorific post which involves splendid isolation. Fortunately he is usually expert at throwing resignations about, and one day his bluff gets called because, like Lord Randolph Churchill — who “forgot Goschen” — he is found not to be indispensable. The ordinary Minister, fortunately, soon learns to strike a nice balance between meek acquiescence and obstreperous opposition.

There is, of course, nothing like a good enemy to enable one to discover how much one loves one’s friends. There has never been a good Government without a good Opposition. The fact that there are opponents waiting to pounce helps a Government to agree. The fact that there is an Opposition asking for a decision and continually drawing attention to its absence is a great incentive towards rapid conclusions. The fact that an Opposition simply revels in “jobs” and other forms of corruption helps towards honest administration. In short, a good Opposition is essential to good Government. Cabinet Ministers usually think otherwise. Politicians have an astonishing capacity for believing themselves to be right, and they often regard opposition as “unpatriotic.” Nor do they usually welcome an “alternative Government,” for they can rarely concede that there is an alternative.

Indeed, the growth of the doctrine of the divine right of politicians — that is, of the politicians in power — is one of the dangers to be avoided. There are many problems that politicians can tackle but many more that they cannot. The fact that they represent “the People with a capital P” proves nothing. In fact, it is not true. Even if they had a majority at the last general election it does not follow that they have one now; nor is it true that a majority to govern is a majority to decide everything? This is clear enough in the case of religion, which may be taken as one example of many; a majority cannot decide what shall be the content of the religion of the minority. It is not democracy but fascism which alleges that “the People with a capital P” has a right to decide everything. Some matters are political and must be decided by majority vote, but none of us vests power in our politicians to decide every aspect of our lives.

It follows that there are limits to the power of a Cabinet even when they are not expressed in a written Constitution. Caesar is not omnipotent, and we are bound to render to Caesar only the things that are Caesar’s. There are many spheres of ordinary life, including not only religion but all matters of intellectual and emotional concern, where the politician is utterly unimportant. It may be right for Stalin to decide the theory of inheritance, provided that one accepts Stalin’s assumptions; but those assumptions negative the principles of democracy, which imply not only the ordinary majority rule but also the limitation of the politician’s power. The fact that India has tried to express some of the “fundamental liberties” in terms of law should not lead to the assumption that there are no other fundamental liberties.

— from Republic Supplement, January 26, 1950