or of a dissolution of Parliament will generally bring them to terms. The ministerial ranks are then closed, and the re-united majority behind the treasury benches are used to crush the opposition minority. To the outside public all seems fair and square, but none the less effectively have ministers exercised their influence and authority to silence the voice of the majority.

But is it really desirable that ministers of the Crown should exercise authority over Parliament? Is it not desirable rather that Parliament should exercise authority over ministers? Is it not an essential principle of parliamentary government that ministers should be held responsible to Parliament, instead of Parliament being held responsible to ministers ? What, may I ask, would become of the authority of Parliament if the principle enunciated by Earl Grey were carried out in its integrity? The theory that ministers of the Crown, who shape their policy and prepare their measures in secret, should be permitted to force that policy and these measures on the representative body, whose ministers they virtually are and to whom alone they are responsible, is so monstrous that it is difficult to understand how it can find acceptance amongst intelligent men at the present day.

But, say the advocates of party government, the

business of the country cannot be carried on without a strong ministry. It is necessary, we are assured, that a government should have a large and pliant majority behind them to enable them to retain their position and to carry their measures through Parliament. We are left in no manner of doubt as to how this majority was got together in the prereform era. "The adherents of the ministry," says Todd, were obtainable from the first by means of various small boroughs which were under the direct control of the Treasury, and of other boroughs which were subject to the influence of certain great families or wealthy proprietors, who were willing to dispose of the same in support of an existing administration." 1 And this majority was, according to the candid admission of another friend and advocate of party government, retained in a still more objectionable manner. “Parliamentary government," says Earl Grey, “derives its whole force and power from the exercise of an influence akin to corruption. The possession and exercise by the ministers of the Crown of a large measure of authority in Parliament is the foundation upon which the whole system of government rests, while the authority was from the first time maintained principally by means of the patronage of the Crown, and of the power vested in the administra1 Parl. Gov., vol. i. p. 9.

tion of conferring favours of various kinds on its parliamentary supporters." Thus the rotten borough system, the control of the Crown, and the influence of great families were all necessary to the existence of party government; and it was only natural that a system which owed its origin to such agencies should resort to corrupt means in order to maintain its existence.

A strong government, however, is not necessarily a good one. A large following is not essential to either good administration or to wise legislation. We have had numerous strong governments in the past, but, as a rule, they were not good ones, in the sense of being either honest or efficient. If we are to test the strength of a ministry by the length of time it has held office, then the strongest government that ever existed in England was that of Walpole's. But that government was strong because it was corrupt, and it was inefficient because it was strong. It was corrupt because it purchased its support; it was inefficient, because firmly secure in its position it was under no obligation to strengthen itself by attempting any legislation that was not absolutely necessary to its existence. The twenty-one years of Walpole's rule are absolutely barren of legislative results. Legislative activity abruptly ceased when 1 Parl. Gov., vol. i. p. 38.

he entered office, and was only resumed when he left it. Year after year passed and nothing was done, and nothing attempted.1 The opposition was so weak that for a time they ceased to attend Parliament, so powerless did they feel themselves before the overwhelming majority behind the treasury benches. The next strong ministry was that of the second Pitt. Pitt's policy was the very reverse of Walpole's. He displayed great legislative activity. He attempted to solve almost every problem that Walpole shirked. He conducted the government of England during a long and critical period of her history, but his administration was as barren of legislative results as that of Walpole's. And his failure in this respect was not due to the want of opportunity or of support. His ministry lasted seventeen years, and so strong was it that it was said that at one time the entire opposition could have been held in a hackney coach.

The advocates of strong governments who deplore the decline of the old nominee and close borough system which the Reform Act of 1832 abolished, should compare the legislative results of Walpole's

1 It is a remarkable fact that though he was at the head of affairs during more than twenty years, not one great measure, not one important change for the better or for the worse in any part of our nstitutions, marks the period of his supremacy.-Macaulay's Essays; Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann.

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and Pitt's administrations with those of two other ministries which have held office since the passing of that measure.

The ministry of Earl Grey and Mr. Gladstone's first administration were neither of them long lived, but the measures passed by them during their short tenure of office are in marked contrast with the beggarly results of the two administrations referred to. Thus, during the first session of the Reformed Parliament, there were passed-a Bill for the Abolition of Slavery, thus settling a question which had occupied the attention of many previous Parliaments; a Bill for the Regulation of Factories, the first of a long series of measures in the interests of labour, and several important law reform bills. It was during this session that the first step was taken towards the establishment of a really national system of education. Perhaps no single session of any Parliament ever produced so many important measures as this. Mr. Gladstone's first administration was also prolific of important legislative results. We have only to mention the Irish Church Disestablishment Act, an Irish Land Act, the present Education Act, the Abolition of Purchase in the Army Act (abolished also during the same session by royal prerogative), and Vote by Ballot Act, which settled a controversy of 150 years' standing. No government, either before or since the