1909 J on The Letters of Queen Victoria. .515 



Minister. Every one knows that in theory this check is ever present 

 in a Cabinet. In practice, however, it very frequently lapses or is 

 evaded. 



To consult the Prime Minister before sending a despatch which 

 might have determined the policy of the country was, in practice, at 

 the option of the Foreign Secretary. Lord Palmerston sometimes 

 consulted Lord John Russell, oftener he did not. But, oftener still, 

 the Prime Minister, worried by duties of Cabinet management, did 

 not apply his mind except perfunctorily to what was primarily the 

 business of a colleague. The useful clash of different minds upon 

 affairs of capital importance was tacitly avoided, and consequently lost. 

 It was in these cases, and they are many, when either from the 

 Prime Minister's absorption in other work, or from his failure to grasp 

 at hasty sight the full meaning- of Lord Palmerston's phraseology, 

 that the criticism or remonstrance of the Sovereign led always to 

 reconsideration and almost invariably to amendment. 



The Principle of Cabinet Responsibility. 



The value, the inestimable value, of tlie delay imposed by the 

 Crown was not to obtain sanction for the view the Sovereign lia]ipened 

 to express — that was not the vital issue — but to get the intellect of 

 another statesman of first rank, and often of the whole Cabinet, applied 

 to a problem which could not safely be left to be solved by a single 

 mind. 



There are many illustrations of this thesis scattered through the 

 volumes of the Queen's Letters, uot only in relation to foreign, but to 

 domestic affairs. In every case the Sovereign was triumphant, if 

 triumph is measured, not by the ultimate issue, but by the vindica- 

 tion of this sound principle— that the act of a single Minister should 

 not be allowed to commit the country to a vital policy without the 

 conscious and reasoned adherence of his colleagues in the Cabinet. 

 The ultimate decision was a minor consideration, compared with the 

 principle of Cabinet responsibility as against individual Ministerial 

 action. 



For this the Queen fought steadily all her life. So watchful was 

 she, that often we find her calling the attention of the Prime Minister 

 of the day, not to the action, but to the speech of some colleague 

 who, in her view, appeared to compromise the responsibility of the 

 Government as a whole by some unwary or unauthorised declaration. 

 It was her opinion, expressed on many occasions, that if a Minister 

 made speeches in the country, he should not outstep the limits of 

 Cabinet agreement, and that he should not be permitted to pledge 

 himself to a policy without at the same time pledging his colleagues. 

 That the Queen was right in her interpretation of constitutional doc- 

 trine need not be argued, as every one of her Prime Ministers sup- 

 ported her view. 



