Fabian Tract No. 210 

The Position of Parties 
and the Right of 
Dissolution 


By 
HAROLD J. LASKI 


(Reader in Political Science in the University of London) 

Published and sold by the Fabian Society, 25 Tothill Street, 
Westminster, S.W. l. March, 1924 


PRICE TWOPENCE 


The Position of Parties and the Right 
of Dissolution 

I. THE NEW POLITICAL SITUATION. 
T
T
HE classic English constitutional doctrine has always envisaged 
a government ruling by reason of its majority in the House 
of Commons. Where, as with Pitt in 1763 and Disraeli in 
r867, there has been government by a minority, a general election 
has always, within a brief space, regularised the position by placing 
a party with a majority in power. For it is the theory of our 
constitution that the Executive must force a stream of tendency 
through affairs. Its programme is embodied in Bills ; and rejection 
<>f an important measure involves, as a necessary consequence, a 
fresh consultation of electoral opinion. 

The position is radically different now. The parties returned 
in the general election of 1923 are, for the moment, distinct both 
in the principles they maintain, and the leaders to whom they 
profess allegiance. The Labour Party is in office ; but its members 
are in number less than one-third of the House. The Conservatives 
are the largest party ; but as against their opponents they are in 
a minority of nearly one hundred. The Liberals are barely one-
fourth of the legislature. The situation we now occupy is, therefore, 
one in which the Government cannot pass its Bills save with 
the consent of one or other of the parties opposed to it. Even its 
time-table--the root of modern legislative procedure-can be 
carried only by the goodwill of a notable fragment of the Oppositivns. 
It is at any moment liable to defeat. It cannot work out 
a programme in the unambiguous terms of its own principles. All 
that it can do is either to discover measures upon which consent is 
general, or else prepare a policy designed regularly to carry with it 
the more advanced of the Oppositions. 

Threatened governments doubtless last longer than so difficult 
an atmosphere mig)l.t seem to warrant. But threatened governments 
cannot, amid these hazards, ever hope to last the normal life of a 
modern Parliament. Opposition in debate always engenders, 
sooner or later, the temper of antagonism. Goodwill might breed 
co-operation, as the Liberal Unionists co-operated with Lord 
Salisbury; and co-operation might in its turn, result in absorption. 
!3ut, in this instance, the conditions ?f co-op~ration are wanting.
fhe Labour Government cannot adm1t the L1berals to prior consultation 
in the making of policy. It can only so design its measures 
as to seek to maximise Liberal support. From the Conservative 


4 

party unremitting hostility is inevitable. Liberal goodwill is bound 
to reach its term once a series of issues is reached upon which the 
outlook of Labour and Liberalism is opposed. That will entail 
defeat in the House of Commons. 

In the normal Parliamentary regime of this country a Prime 
Minister defeated in the House could do one of two things. He 
could either, like Pitt in 1793, appeal from the Commons to the 
electorate, or, like Lord Balfour in 1905, resign and leave the makingof the appeal to his successor. What was fundamental in constitutional 
theory was that the demand by the Prime Minister from the 
sovereign of a dissolution was a demand net to be refused. The 
sovereign might be dubious, as it was rumoured that Edward VII. 
was dubious over Mr. Asquith's first dissolution of 1910 ; but the 
two dissolutions of that year, reinforced by the dissolution of 1923, 
make the right of the Prime Minister who had a majority and has 
lost it, a right beyond discussion. The King may, as in Bagehot's 
famous phrase, advise or encourage or warn. In the normal system, 
it is beyond his power to refuse. 

It is obvious that the system is much more complex when the 
Prime Minister is in office without a majority. Any other party in 
the House would doubtless take office upon the same terms as Mr. 
MacDonald, and the distribution of strength is relatively so even 
that none could claim any genuine mandate in the face of opposition. 
The turning-point in policy obviously comes when the Government 
has suffered defeat. Does that involve, as in the older majority-
system, the right to demand a dissolution ? Does it mean that 
the King must exercise his discretion and act as he deems best 
warranted in the interests of the country ? If a general election 
resulted in a position similar to the present, we might, it is clear, 
be faced by the prospect of a series of general elections prolonged, 
at short intervals, until a new equilibrium of parties was reached. 
It is obvious that there are grave inconveniences in such a prospect. 
Though it if easy to exaggerate the disturbance a general election 
entails, it is also obvious that, for example, a period of annual 
d'issolutions would prevent the carrying out of a great legislative 
programme and seriously impair, in the result, general confidence 
in the stability of Parliamentary institutions. It would destroy 
the possibility of effective administration ; for no minister would 
be long enough in office either to think out or to apply a largepolicy in detail. It would involve, in a word, Lilliputian politics-
and, in an age of social discontent, Lilliputian politics are the high 
road to disaster. 

Il. THE INAPPLICABILITY OF PRECEDENT. 

It is easy, in such a background, to understand why statesmen 
and learned professors have discovered new splendours in the royalprerogative. Some, like Mr. Asquith, have insisted that the right 


5 

to refuse a dissolution has never in fact died ; and that the rcsoluticn 
of the prospect before us is a matter for the unfettered judgment 
of the King. Others have occupied themselves in the examination 
of the precedents, and Victorian examples have been cited 
to prove that Prime Ministers have been well aware in the past of 
the limit:-under which theii authority was exerted. 

Mr. Asquith's argument is important and I shall discuss it 
later in this essa~r. The argument built upon precedent is, it must 
be insisted, an argument built upon sand. No dissolution has been 
refused within the mP.mory of living man. The Crown may have 
objected as Queen Victoria raised doubts upon Mr. Gladstone's 
dissolution of 1874 ; (1) but, upon pressure by the Prime Minister, 
the Crown has always given way. The situation, in fact, in which 
the direct political influence of the sovereign has been replaced bythe direct political influence of public opinion has shifted the whole 
perspective of events. Hearn's argument, which was based upon 
Lord Coke's analysis, is no longer adequate. It may be, as Sir 
Robert Peel said,(2) "a great instrument in the hands of the Crown," 
which would be " blunted if it were employed without grave neces~
ity." But our situation is not like that of Sir Robert Peel, or of 
Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli. We have become accustomed to a 
sovereign who acts upon the advice of his ministers. That advice 
may be unpalatable; we know that Edward VII. did not like the 
admission of an Indian to the Secretary of India's Council,(3) but 
he was forced, by constitutional convention, to accept that advice. 
If the King has the right to refuse a dissolution, he has the right, in 
effect, to dismiss the ministry; and that has not been attemptect 
since the famous, but mistaken effort of William IV. in 1834.(4) 
Heam assumed that a dismissal is justified if the incoming minister 
receives a majority at the general election which follows his accession 
to office.(5) But that is, in fact, to argue that the King may offer 
a dissolution to a Prime Minister he likes, and refuse it to one with 
whom he is dissatisfied. It is obvious that such an attitude would 
destroy that neutrality of the Crown which is the chief safeguard 
of its existence. 

A further point may here be noticed. The King, it may be 
argued, is not dismissing a ministry when he refuses a dissolution. 
What he is doing is exercising ),is right to believe that a combination 
is possible which will retain the confidence of the House of Commons. 
But in the new orientation of our politics any party in office is 
bound to be defeated in a short pe:riod ; and this argument is 
merely the transference of a dissolution from one Prime Minister 

2

( 1) Morky. Life oj ~ta .;tone, 1L Speeches, IV.. 719. ( 8) Murley.
11 
Recollections, Il., 190-1. t' 1 fnough Mdbourne seems almost to have 
i tvit :..I dismissal, An;o.1, Law and Custom of the Constitution, Il. i., 38-9. 
( ) Hca1n. Government of England, fP· 157 ff. 


6 

who has lost the confidence of the House to another in an identical 
position. This, again, is bound in a critical epoch to bring the 
neutrality of the Cwwn into the hinterland of suspicion, and no 
graver disservice could be rendered to it. 

It has been argued that colonial precedents offer justification 
for the refusal of a dissolution. Such a view is built upon a misunderstanding 
of what is involved in the colonial position. The 
Kirjg is entitled to receive information of all acts and decisions 
contemplated by the Cabinet and to discuss them with the Prime 
Minister. The Governor of the colony is, as Professor Keith has 
pointed out, in a very different position. "The relations of a 
Governor with his ministers," writes Professor Keith, "are often 
merely ceremonial and social. There is not in many cases recognised, 
any general duty of informing the Governor of the affairs 
of the Dominion, and he is left to judge the policy of the government 
from thepress."(l) That alone would make colonial precedent 
inapplicable. But the way in which the discretion of the Governor 
is exercised is surrounded by special circumstances absent from 
this country. Save for Canada and South Africa, the refusal of 
a dissolution has -been of frequent occurrence down to the presenttime. It is an active power which has not yet fallen into abeyance. 
But it is also, as Professor Keith points out, evidence that the 
Dominions have, until very recently, been in a condition of comparative 
political immaturity. And it is vital to note that the 
exercise of the prerogative has always resulted in direct criticism 
of the Governor. There have been charges of sinister infiuence,(2) 
there has been a direct vote of censure,(3) there has been an appealbeyond the Governor to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.(4) 
Obviously either of the first two circumstances would be serious 
in the extreme ; \>vhile the impossibility of the third makes it cesirable 
to retain the Crown rather as a dignified emollient than as a 
reserve of power. The active agent in making governments must 
be the electorate of the modern state. 

Ill. THE PosiTION oF THE CROWN. 

Mr. Asquith's theory is based upon other considerations. In 
his discussion of the right to ask for a dissolution, he merely emphasised 
his belief tl1at it was in the province of the Crown to refuse. 
But he did not envisage the consequences ot that refusal. Mr. 
Asquith did not explain the argument upon which his view was 
based. Possibly he feels that a Ministry without a majority in 
the House of Commons is not entitled to the same tights as a Ministry 

( 1) Impenat Umty and the Dominions. Chap. V. The whol" of th1s 
valuable chapter is a final commentary of the theory of colonial pr<!cedents.
(') Keith. Op. cit. 92, g8. (') The case of Lord Chelmsford in Queensland, 
op. cit g8. (') Ibtd, too-r. 

7 

with a majority. Possibly he locks to the prospect of a series of 
general elections as one which the prerogative might reasonably 
be exerted to avoid. 

Either view, I submit, rests upon dangerous ground. It is 
the argument that at the decisive point in the life of a government 
the King is entitled not to act upon the advice of his Ministers. 
Sooner or later such a view implies a differentiation of treatment 
between one government and another. If the Labour Government 
were defeated after a brief tenure of office and, asking for a dissolution, 
were refused it, the new government then formed, either bythe Liberal leader or by the Tory leader, would find itself in a 
minority, and its defeat would be followed by a third brief tenure 
of power or by a dissolution. The latter event would be regarded 
by the supporters of Labour as an infraction of the neutralitybetween parties incumbent upon the Crown, especially if the original 
defeat had taken place upon a subject integral to Labour 
policy. A third tenure of offi.ce would, upon defeat, inevitably 
be followed by a dissolution, and the King would then be in the 
position of granting to one party-and that one, conceivably, the 
smallest--what he had refused to the other two. The King must \ 
act upon the advice of his Ministers whoever those Ministers may be, \ 
and to refuse to one party what was granted to another would 
inevitably, especially when a party occupies office for the first 
time in its history-lead to suspicions of a peculiarly undesirable 
kind. 

The whole strength of the Crown, in fact, lies in the avoidance 
even of the appearance of discrimination. The King, who acts upon 1 /'" 
the advice of Ministers, throws the burden of responsibility upon /
their shoulders. The fate that overtakes them is-whatever itsl 
nature-a fate of their own making. If they have what Lord Derbycalled "the moral conviction " that their policy would command 
the confidence of the country if submitted to it, they are entitled 
to the proof of that judgment. And few governments will fail to 
have that moral conviction. If they are defeated by merely factious 
opposition, they will consider that the country will punish their 
destroyer:, for their faction. If they are defeated upon an issue 
which, as they think, is likely to arouse popular approval, thry will 
demand its submission to the country. Even if they are defeated 
by reason of sheer ineptitude they will tend to think that the absence 
of a majority deprived them of a full opportunity, and they will 
desire the chance to win that majority. To suggest that the Crown 
should resist that desire is to place it in an impossible position. It 
is to ask men contending for great issues to see their rivals placed 
m office upon the hazardous judgment of a single man. That is 
bound to exacerbate party feeling. It is bound to raise doubts 
ot._ monarchial impartiality. And it is an especially dangerous 


8 

creed at a period when new views of social organisation are finding 
for the first time their position in the state. 

It would be the more dangerous for another reason. No 
monarch in such a situation would be satisfied to act upon his 
unaided judgment. He would be bound to ask advice. He would 
be bound, that is, to go outside the ministerial advisers with whom 
Parliament has provided him to other persons. What other person~ 
would he consult ? Sir Sidney Low has suggested(!) that he might 
consult a political Committee of the Privy Council in the same way 
as, technically, the Judicial Committee offers advice upon cases 
which come upon appeal frcm the Dominions ; and he suggests 
that the Prime Minister might be chairman of this committee as 
he is chairman of the Committee on Imperial Defence. It is difficult 
to see what real help there is in such a view. If the Political 
Committee were composed of the leaders of the different parties, 
it could not, in the nature of things, proffer unanimous advice ; its 
counsel would then, in any case, force the Crown to a partisan 
attitude. If it were composed of Law Lords only, it would be 
submitting to judicial analysis questions which from their very 
nature again, are not susceptible to judicial enquiry. And it would 
force the Law Lords into a political position from which it is at all 
costs desirable that they be kept free. 

Nor is advice sought by the King of his own part desirable. 
That is, in effect, the building of a non-ministerial executive. Those 
from whom the King sought counsel would sooner or later be 
known, and it would then become a capital fw1ction of the Cabinet 
either to appease or to destroy them. The great virtue of what 
Bagehot calls " the unroyal species of Cabinet government " is that 
it prevents the creation of a Court. If there are men to whom the 
King may turn when his constitutional advisers are defeated, upon 
any representation except their own, men to whom he \\ill turn 
for advice upon the future of minister, the delicate equilibrium of 
our system is bound to suffer serious disturbance. The perplexityof Parliament and the confusion of parties is the very moment 
when Tadpole and Taper become significant. It is when no single 
alternative exists that the door is open to intrigue. The King, in 
that position, could not long maintain the prestige of impartiality. 
He would be regarded by some as their friend, and by others as 
their enemy. There would be the kind of rumours about him that 
we hear of the President of the French Republic. But the latter 
is an elected official who cannot hope for a second term. The Kingis a permanent official who cannot be legally changed save by his 
abdication. It would be the height of folly to make that permanence 
a problem instead of a guarantee. 

( 1) The Governance of England (ed. of 1914). p. xxv. 

9 

In these suggestions there seems no protection for the neutrality 
of the Crown. It has been suggesLed by Hearn(1) that the requisitesafeguard is to be found in a resolution from Parliament against a 
dissolution. That argument has recently been reaffirmed byProfessor Pollard. The Commons, he points out, have the immemorial 
privilege of access to the· Crown through the Speaker. Such 
an address enables Parliament to dismiss the judges and its permanent 
officials; such an address might be presented asking for 
the dismissal of ministers. "Supposing," writes Professor Pollard,(2) 
"such an address were presented to the Crown when a Prime 
Minister was advising a dissolution, are we to say that the Crown 
is constitutionally bound to accept the advice of a Prime Minister 
to dismiss the Commons, and to reject the advice of the Commons 
to dismiss the Minister ? " Undoubtedlv, Parliament has the 
right to advise the Crown in the use of the prerogative of dissolution. 
Parliament has before prayed that the King would dissolve 
Parliament, and in 1783 the Fox-North coalition urged the King 
not to grant dissolution to the younger Pitt who was in office with 
a minority government.(3) But of these precedents there are two 
things to be said. The last occasion of their attempted application 
was over ninety years ago,(4) when the personal authority of the 
sovereign was still an agency of direct intervention. In the case 
of 1783, two parties of antagonistic views were prepared to sink 
their differences in order to become a majority government. We 
do not confront that situation. 

Professor Pollard, in fact, is asking a House of Commons which 
offers no prospect of continuous support to any government to vote 
for the perpetuation of its own existence ; and, seemingly, he is 
asking the Crown to accept its verdict. For, otherwise, the C.own 
becomes arbiter between the Ministry and the Commons, which 
would be an intolerable position. Those who sought to preventthe dissolution would not take office if the Crown accepted their 
advice. They would constitute a coalition to defeat, not a coalition 
to govern. The new Ministry would, sooner or later, either be in 
the same position as its predecessor, or else receive a power denied 
to it. Obviously, the sense would be widespread that the machinery 
of Parliament was being used to the detriment of one party only 
among several. 

To be effective, therefore, Professor Pollard's scheme ought 
to be applied to each party in turn until all have had an opportunity 
to govern. That would reduce the advice of the Commons 
to the point of ridicule. It would bring into our system something 

(1) Government of England (2nd cd.}, page 154, r64. (2) Ti111es, Januuy29th, 1924. (3) May, Constitutional History of England, I., 50-1 . (•) Ibid., 
page ')f1. 

IO 

akin to the rotativism of Spain, of which the outcome is dictatorship. 
It would make Ministers sacrifice principle to the constant 
search for a majority. The Crown would cease to act, at times 
of final crisis, upon the advice of Ministers, and accept mechanically 
the advice of the House of Common<>. The certainty that office 
would be shared in turn by each party would lead to the multiplication 
of stratagems that the reward might come quickly. The 
responsibility of Parliament would be greatly hampered. The 
centre of the struggle would be transferred from the substance of 
measures to the teclmique of procedure. The knowledge that the 
King could always find a government would make it certain that 
Parliament would be careless of the consequences of defeating a 
Ministry. No method would be more likely to destroy confidence 
in Parliamentary institutions. The way out of our present difficulties 
does not lie in the refurbishing of ancient weapons. 

"I should on no account," writes Mr. Ramsay MacDonald,(1) 
" leave to the Monarch the dangerous and invidious task of safeguarding 
the nation against too frequent dissolutions." Theyrender, indeed, small service to the Monarchy who are urgent to 
that encl. The strength of the Crown in the last two generations 
has been its insistence upon neutrality. Ministers have never 
in istecl in vain upon their policy. We have grown unaccustomed 
to a King who, like George III., sought himself actively to influence 
the course of affairs. We have even grown unaccustomt'lfl to that 
atmosphere with which Baron Stockmar sought to invest our 
institutions. The. ri!:!ht of Ule C~IJ1 is ~. ad.visory .:!.ght <.mJ.y.;
the centre of power IS the leader of t e party m office. It IS his 
duty to consult, and, obviously, where he is dealing with a monarch 
who has been long at the centre of affairs, who has come to have, 
by virtue of experience, almost an intuitive sense of the impactof policy. he will be wise to weigh the advice he receives with greater 
care than any other to which he has access. But there is no moral 
obligation upon him to accept that advice when weighed. Suppose,
for example, that the King is a young man with no experience of 
affairs, instead of a King to whom every variation of the constitutional 
theme has become known : obviously, to make the Prime 
Minister the servant of that inexperience would be a grave and 
hazardous experiment. Fer the error of Prime Ministers can be 
punished by the electorate, but the errors of Kings do not admit of 
so simple a remedy. And since no monarch who is asked to dissolve 
Parliament can fail to desire advice, the admission of a right to 
refuse a dissolution will always mean the existence of a ministryexternal to the Cabinet which may well, in a crisis, be the real 
depository of power. 

{ 1) New L eader, January 4th, 1924. 


II 

Our generation is fighting for great issues ; and if the Crown 
exerted this authority, access to its mind would be a privilege of 
immense importance. The use of dissolutions in political tactics is 
fraught with much significance; and to make them dependent 
upon the Crvwn is to make men fight for that access. We should 
not only bring the King directly into the politic::.! arena, we should 
bring into existence factions at the Court whose policies would, 
sooner or later, bring the Crown into grave disrepute. The salvation 
of monarchy is its irresponsibility. Its irresponsibility is 
built upon the assurance that it has surrendered control. To 
attempt even a contingent resumption of authority would be fatal 
to the modern equilibrium of constitutional practice. 

IV. THE EXECUTIVE AND THE LEGISLATURE. 
The remedy for our difficulties must, therefore, be sought in 
other directions than the revivification of the prerogative. But 
properly to seize the perspective of that remedy, it is important to 
realise what the three party system, with each government in a 
minority, in fact implies. It is obvious, in the first place, that it 
means an increased deference to the House of Commons on the part 
of the government. The Prime Minister can threaten to dissolve ; 
but no Prime Minister will dissolve unless he has a substantial issue 
or some solid achievement upon which to go to the country. The 
first effect, therefore, of the present situation will be the enhanced 
importance of the private member. Measures will no longer be 
carried by the inertia of majorities ; they will be much more dependent 
upon the debating power that is behind them. There will 
be a much less rigorous use of closure and guillotine and kangaroo 
to enforce silence whEn the Minister is weary of discussion. The 
private member will be much more tenacious of his rights because 
he is much more likely to realise them ; and governments will be 
more tender of his desires for the simple reason that inattention 
to the private member is, in the absence of the maj01'ity, exactly 
the kind of atmosphere that provokes defeat. No minority government, 
it must be added, can afford to provoke defeat save uponissues which it is tolerably sure are inviting ground for electoral 
approval. And such issues are not merely rare, but they seldom 
spring into view in the early days of a new government. If theydo, it is because the new government has broken completely with 
the traditions of its predecessor and, in that event, the Prime 
Minister may well think him elf entitled to consult the electorate 
upon the verdict of the House of Commvns. 
That is not likely to be the usual course of events. A wise 
Prime Minister will never inaugurate his tenure of office by searchingthe occasion of defeat. For him the real rocks ahead will be the 
sudden vote sprung on him in the tactic of party manceuvre, or the 
event outside which dislocates altogether the . programme he has 


12 

had in view. The first danger is a very real one. Every government 
defeat involves a real loss of prestige. It dislocates the pro-
gramme of the Administration ar.d puts new vigour into the 
Opposition's blood. And if the defeat is on a central issue-the 
second reading of a capital measure or a direct vote of confidence-
it obviously entails either resignation or a dissolution of Parliament. 
No one acquainted with the history of parties will doubt that an 
attempt will be made to manreuvre defeats whenever possible. 
That involves, I suggest, a new development in the attitude of a 
minority government to the vote of the House. It cannot take 
the snap vote, or the division in Committee, with the same seriousness 
as a government with a majority. It must look upon amendments 
with a more friendly eye. It must be more willing to :rield 
to pressure and less urgent about its prestige. The vote which 
brings about its downfall must always be a vote upon some issue 
that is central to its existence.(!) It ought not to survive the defeat 
of its Budget ; but there is no reason why it should not give way 
to the House upon an amendment to terminate the Burnham Scale 
in 1926 rather than in 1925. Its defeats, of course, must, even on 
minor issues, be sufficiently rare to leave its credit unimpaired. 
But it may well be one of the minor blessings of a complex situation 
that the will of the House of Commons is given once more ~ome 
substance of reality. 

The problem of the unexpected event raises greater difficulties-
It rules out of court, I think, 1\Ir. MacDonald's suggestion that 
Parliament might conceivably fix a minimum term to its existence, 
and so prevent a dissolution within that time. The sumem~ 

..oi.J.he British system is ll,~ ..elasticity. You can always find the 
sovereign electorate when you want it. We do not live by the 
impossible American theory that great events ought not to influence 
decisions about the holders of power. The ability to dissolve 
whenever necessary not only makes our politics more interestingthan those of America; it also makes them more educative. English 
events produce better journalism than American because, even 
to-day, the opinions of a great newspaper may affect the verdict 
of the House of Commons. To say that the verdict is not to be 
challenged until a given period has elapsed will be to impart a 
dangerous atmosphere of unreality into the proceedings of the House. 
It would mean constant manreuvring for position as the statutory 
period approached ; and the mind of the House would be concentrated 
not upon the substance of measures, but upon the incidents 
of tactics in a critical time. 

Nor can we assume that the mind of the country will remain 
constant in that statutory period. Everything will depend uponthe unforeseeable future and the policy of the government. The 

( 1) See on this Mr. MacDonald 's remarks, House of Commons Debateh, 
1:ebruary 12th, 192~. 

I3 

Cabinet may agree that, for example, the nationalisation of the 
mines is, at the moment, undesirable ; and a miners' strike may. 
even as it takes the decision, force nationalisation upon it. It may 
come into office when the foreign outlook is dark ; and a series of 
successes abroad may convince it that it could win a majority for 
the domestic policy it has not the power to carry out. Obviously 
it is urgent to retain unimpaired the power to consult the electorate 
when a refreshment of authority is deemed desirable. The two 
elections of rgro are proof of the advantage implicit in that power. 
In each case the authority of the country was sought for a policy 
that was not in discussion at the previous election. In each case 
the change effected was momentous Enough to warrant going 
beyond Parliament to the source of ultimate decision. It would 
have been disastrous if a rigid constitution had deprived the executive 
of access to the electorate. Nor is it an answer to say that 
the executive commanded a majority in the House of Commons, for 
it was precisely the p1ea that the majority did not voice the opinion 
of the country which made necessary the reaffirmation of power. 

It seems clear, therefore, that such a statutory limitation as 
Mr. MacDonald has suggested is on every count undesirable. The 
Government, und~r the new dispensation, will be compelled to a 
new defenmce to the House of Commons. The ties of party will be 
drawn more "loosely ; and the private member who has something 
to say will be more likely than in the past to secure attention for 
what he says. But there lurks in this situation a danger not les!> 
formidable than the old. It was a misfortune that party development 
made the legislature the creature of the executive, but it will 
be still more unfortunate if the new system makes the executive 
the creature of the legislature. The success of our Parliamentary 
system has been built upon the ability of the Cabinet to drive a 
programme through the House of Commons. We have escaped 
both the fatal division of power between President and Congress 
in America-a division well illustrated by the position of President 
Coolidge-and, on the other, that subordination which makes the 
Swiss Executive simply a body of pre-eminent civil ervants. The 
maintenance of Cabinet direction is essential to the working of our 
institutions. 

For the ambit which is covered by the modern state is too wide 
to permit of legislative control. The House of Commons can 
decide principles ; it can voice grievance and secure information ; 
it still serves as an admirable assembly in which political talent 
is tested. But 6rs members cannot usefully act as a supernumerary 
executive. The things to be decided upon must still be selected 
from without. The focal points of legislation must be submitted 
to the House of Commons, not created by it. To leave to so numerous 
a body the task of fitting measures to events is to destroy its 


I4 

coherence and to dissipate its energies. The Executive need not 
stifle the legislature ; but it is essential that it should control it. 
Legislative policy must not be some variegated mosaic to which the 
will of any member who has been successful in the ballot maycontribute its piece. It must not reject now the will of the government 
and now the will of the combined opposition. It must expressthe will of a unified Cabinet as that will is modified in detail by the 
impact of debate. Executive policy that has to follow everytwist and turn of the legislative will is emptied of all substance; 
and a Cabinet which cannot effect its purpose in large outline will 
sooner or later destroy the quality of administration. For it will 
turn the mind of the civil service not to the building of creative 
measure, but t<l the thinking of expedients for the perpetuationof its own life. We have· had experience in recent history of the 
results of turning the civil service to the aid of persons rather than 
the evocation of ideas. There can be no effort more fatal to its 

., character . 
1 Minority government, therefore, involves a mechanism for the 
enforcement upon the House of Commons of an urgent sense of 
responsibility. To free the private member from uncritical subordination 
ought not to involve his investiture with the power of factious 
opposition. That is the grave danger of the· present position. 
The Governme.1t has to keep a House without assurance that it 
can do so ; it has to secure assent to its time-table and its policy 
in the knowledge that if its opponents can enforce their rejection 
they may succeed to the seat of power. There is every encouragement 
to men who prize party advantage to manipulate these immense 
opportunities. If the only penalty they involve is a change 
of government, those opportunities arc certain to be taken. The 
one sure way of impressing upon the House of Commons the realisation 
that it dare not take its responsibilities lightly is the existence 
of the certainty that appeal may be made from its decision to the 
electorate outside. A House of Commons that is liable to dissolution 
is a House of Commons that will be on its mettle. Parties 
which can be immediately arraigned for faction are parties which 
will seek to avoid that indictment. The knowledge that the 
Government is not the creature of the Opposition will tend to make 
the conflict centre about the real issues of disagreement. That 
is an urgent and even a supreme matter. The legislative assembly 1 
of the modern state is a magnificent instrument of political education 
~it is alert to the use of its opportunities. Great interests contest' 
there for power. The uncertainty of the outcome lends a dramatic 
quality to its proceedings ; and the appeal of vividness will always 
win its response from the public. But the ground of controversy 
must De that busin~:.ss which comes home to men's bosoms if the 
strife of parties is to be the source of illumination. From the 
politic of manceuvre there will never develop great debate ; and 


rs 


our-debate-to-day needs to be of the highest quality if its results 
and substance are to affect the judgment of an electorate of the 
modern size. 

In such a view as this, it appears essential to vest the ultimate 
right of dissolution in the Prime Minister. Its exercise must be 
within the limits of his discretion. He must be able to appeal to 
the Crown for the power to dissolve in the certainty that the Crown 
will grant his appeal. That, in a situation such as ours, is the 
only way in which the Executive may combine with the legislature 
to the service of the state. Such a power is, of course, a tremendous 
one. The consultation of the electorate is always, and even at the 
best, a dark and perilous adventure. The issues upon which it 
is fought can rarely be disentangled. The results that it impliesare seldom so clear as to be unmistakable. 

But it is exactly in that hinterland of doubt that we have the 
guarantees for its proper exercise. No Prime Minister will wantonlythrust an election upon the country if he can avoid it with honour ; 
above all, no Prime Minister is likely to consult the electorate 
within a brief space of the assumption of office. He will have 
dubious colleagues to persuade. He will have to weigh the displeasure 
of the indifferent voter who decides, not upon the issues 
in dispute, but upon the hostility he feels at the disturbance of his 
peace. H~ will remember that every section of the communityoffended by his policy will vote against him not upon the generalmerits of his case, but upon what it considers the special demerit 
of some particular act. Dockers who are dissatisfied with the 
index number of the Ministry of Labour, teachers who resent the 
invasion of the Burnham Scales ; Southern Irish Unionists who 
consider that the loyalists have been deserted ; eager advocates 
of unity with France who have clamoured for support of the Ruhr 
adventure ; it is special groups like these whose numbers he must 
seek to weigh. He will remember that defeat is a serious menace 
to his own prestige. He will realise that only real victory will give 
him improved control, and that partial success may prevent a 
repetition of his effort. The power to dissolve carries with it, 
in short, its own effective limitations. It needs a fair! y united 
Cabinet. It requires strong evidence that the tide of public opinion 
is flowing with the party and not against it. Above all, it needs to 
be successful in its results if it is not to deprive the government of 
the main source of its authority. · 

These limitations have been well summarised by Mr. MacDonald. 
"The idea," he writes, "that a Prime Minister can go to the Kingjust when it suits himself and, within a short time after an election,(') 
ask for a dissolution, is absurd. Mr. Baldwin's experience ·ought 

( 1) The italics are Mr. MacDonald's. The remark is from the article 
in the New Leader, cited above. 

r6 

to have settled that. If, to the best of his beliefs, supported by the 
evidence, say, that bye-elections afford, the Minister thiuks that 
an election is necessary, and that the country would accept it, it 
belongs to his responsibility to have his advice in that request 
taken, just as if he advises that another party l~ader should be 
sent for, his advice in that respect should also be taken." Jb.e.. 

~\'€: of dissolution. in fact, is a discretionary~, and the 
only problem in dispute is where the discretion should be. I have 
argued here that to revive the authority of the Crown would have 
serious and, in the long run, disastrous results. To limit the discretion 
either by the statutory creation of a minimum life for 
Parliament, or by asking the Crown to accept the judgment of the 
House of Commons is equally undesirable. The one would destroy 
the invaluable flexibility of our political system ; the other would 
impair the character of the Executive by making it the mere creature 
of concerted opposition. There remains the Prime Minister. Our 
safeguard against this abuse of his authority is that he cannot 
guarantee success, and that it is within the power of the electorate 
to punish him for that abuse. That is where, as a depositary of 
thi<; power, he remains superior to the Crown. For the latter 
cannot answer at the bar of public opinion ; but public opinion 
is the maker of Ministries, and as it makes, so can it destroy them. 

V. CONCLUSION. 
Nothing of all this implies that the concentration of this power 
in the Prime Minister's hands will do more than mitigate the complexities 
of a complex situation. Over any lengthy period minoritygovernment is impossible in a democracy. It deprives authority 
of the prestige of numbers. It invites unreasoned oppositionby the absence of a wide foundation of consent. Nothing, it maybe urged, so certainly accounts for the rise of dictatorships upon 
the Continent as the presence in the legislative assemblies there of a 
multiplicity of groups whose power has rested solely upon their 
ability to manreuvre and to compromise. They have representedthe apotheosis of intrigue ; and the people have seen, not without 
relief, the emergence of a straightforward will which could @e disliked, 
but was at least intelligible. A democracy, to be successful, 
must be presented with the choice between distinct alternatives. 
The business of parties is so to frame issues for electoral acceptance 
that• their substance may be simply affirmed or simply denied. 
To multiply issues by multiplying parties is always ultimately to 
confuse them ; and the confusion of issues in a democratic state is 
in general the prelude to Cresarism. 

We gailjl nothing by the argument that the referendum will 
modify the position. No referendum is ever real. A Tory who 
votes against the recognition of Russia may well do so because he 


I7 

hopes thereby to prevent the advent of a capital levy. It is rarely 
possible to discover any problem that is genuinely susceptible of 
the analysis a referendum implies. Schemes of Home Rule for 
Ireland, for instance, may well vary from Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's 
extension of local government to the principles of the Act of 1922. 
If the electorate \'Otes in favour of H0me Rule we do not know 
what scheme it favours ; and it does not possess the competence to 
decide upon the details of a given scheme. Nor must we forgetthat the referendum impairs the responsibility of the Executive, 
on the one hand, and of the legislator upon the other. As an index 
to the drift of public opinicn it is inferior to bye-elections ; as a 
method of penalising the conscientious member of Parliament, 
it would proYe unsurpassable. For it would bring into being a race 
of politicians whose sole desire was to calculate the probable nature 
of sudden electoral judgment without regard to its competence or 
its value. The referendum has not been a failure in Switzerland; 
but it has not been a success, and the problems of Switzerland are 
not comparable with our own. In the United States its record 
is at all points dubiou . We shall not stabilise our institutions 
by an attempt at direct government with an electorate of the 
modern size.(1) 

It is, however, probable that we could do much to mitigate 
our present position by experiment with Parliamentary methods. 
For the moment, Cabinet omnipotence has gone·; and the privatemember is in a new position of power. It is eminently desirable 
that he should be given the opportunity to exercise that power in a 
creative way. I have elsewhere argued that the erection of committees 
of members to act with the Minister as an advisory council 
of his Department would be attended with beneficent results.(2) 
It would bring the Civil Servant into a human relation with the 
House of Commons. It would train a body of members to gwuine 
knowledge of the problems of administration. It would c::nable 
the Minister to consult authoritative persons about the probableimpact of his policy on public opinion. I.t would prevent that 
complete separatism between Govc::rnment and Opposition, which 
destroys whatever there is of suggestiveness and knowledge in the 
House outside the Treasury bench. It w>:mld enable the Ministryto use goodwill in a direct way and prevent the policy of wrecking, 
which is inherent in minority systems. There is no incompatibility 
between such committees and the classic principle of ministuial 
responsibility. It needs, of course, the presence of strong Ministers 
at the head of departments. But it is tolerably clear that minoritygovernments will not survive if they are peopled with weak ministers. 

( 1) On tJlc Tl..!h.:ri..!UUUm ffiULh tt...c u~:, L ubi,.U!)Siu.l wid U\..: tound in j-",· :.-.J..h.mt 
Lowell's P1<blic Opmwn and .i:'opular Government. 1-ur '-f"-vuurablc '';w see 

J. St. Loc Strachcy, The Referendum. 
( 1} The Development of the C>vtl Serv<ee, Chap. ll. 

18 

Such a system, indeed, need not be confined to a period, like 
the present, of party confusion ; and, in any case, it will only help 
to minimise the degree of confusion. The real need, in the end, is 
a return within the shortest possible period to the two-party systemParliamentary institutions depend for their success upon the direct 
choice of the government by the electorate. To make that direct 
choice difficult, if not impossible, is to bewilder the opinion of the 
public. ooner or later, public bewilderment is public distrust, 
and institutions which derive their strength from popular support 
cannot long fl.ouri h in that atmo phere. The need for such a 
return is the more urgent in a period of social unrest. We have 
embarked upon the great adventure of entrusting ultimate political 
power to the mass of the population. We must mould our institutions 
so that the will of that mass may be given a genuine and 
emphatic expression. 

At the moment, it may be admitted, it is not easy to forecast 
either the way or the persons through which we may return to 
more ..,imple conditions. Parties which arc rooted in historic 
traditions and bear loyalty to honoured leaders are not unnaturall)
prone to emphasise their separate identity and peculiar principles. 
Yet it may be argued with some confidence that ciret.m~tances are 
building the bridge oYer which we may r turn to directness of 
choice. The real issue of our period is rapidly coming to be the 
tssue of the rights of property. Exactly as the last generations 
were mainly concerned w;th debate upon the character and extent 
of political privilege, so our own time is likdy to be occupied with 
debate upon the character and extent of economic privilege. Just 
a:; men supported the Hcform Bill of 1832 les;; because they approvedthe Bill itself than b cause they saw the need for reform ; just a , 
in that co-operation, they gave birth to a unifiLd political part}. 
so, it may be suggested, the desire to modify the prc::.(;nt economic 
r{gime will group men again into the forces of partial amelioration 
and the forces of radical change. No one can fores<:e when exactly 
that day will come, though, obviously enough, it~ coming shadows 
the horizon. ertainly no more important ta,k confronts the 
party in office than to prepare for ib emergence. Certainly, also, 
no other way lies open to the consolidation and improvement of 
the Parliamentary sy,;tt•m.(') 

( 1) I do not d"cu"" here the pr<lhlt·m of <h·clor.Ll mtthO<b, "h•ch 1 
obviou.,.Jy in1purtant in thi, connection. 


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