In the third place, the procedure of the Cabinet must be intimate, informal, elastic, and confidential; every member must be able to feel that he has played his part in all the main decisions of policy, whether they directly concern his department or not, and that he is personally responsible for these decisions.  Constitutional usage has always prescribed that it is the duty of a Cabinet Minister to resign if he differs from his colleagues on any vital matter, whether relating to his department or not, and this usage is, in truth, the main safeguard for the preservation of genuine conjoint responsibility, and the main barrier against irresponsible action by a Prime Minister or a clique.  When the practice of resignation in the sense of giving up office is replaced by the other kind of resignation—­shrugging one’s shoulders and letting things slide—­the main virtue of Cabinet government has been lost.  In the fourth place, in order that every minister may fully share in every important discussion and decision, it is essential that the Cabinet should be small.  Sir Robert Peel, in whose ministry of 1841-6 the system probably reached perfection, laid it down that nine was the maximum number for efficiency, because not more than about nine men can sit round a table in full view of one another, all taking a real share in every discussion.  When the membership of a Cabinet largely exceeds this figure, it is inevitable that the sense of joint and several responsibility for every decision should be greatly weakened.

MODERN CHANGES IN THE CABINET

I do not think any one will deny that the Cabinet has in a large degree lost these four features which we have laid down as requisite for full efficiency.  The process has been going on for a long time, but during the last six years it has been accelerated so greatly that the Cabinet of to-day is almost unrecognisably different from what it was fifty years ago.  To begin with, it has grown enormously in size, owing to the increase in the number of departments of government.  This growth has markedly diminished the sense of responsibility for national policy as a whole felt by the individual members, and the wholesome practice of resignation has gone out of fashion.  It has led to frequent failures in the co-ordination of the various departments, which are often seen working at cross purposes.  It has brought about a new formality in the proceedings of the Cabinet, in the establishment of a Cabinet Secretariat.

The lack of an efficient joint Cabinet control has encouraged a very marked and unhealthy increase in the personal authority of the Prime Minister and of the clique of more intimate colleagues by whom he is surrounded; and this is strengthened by the working of the new Secretariat.  All these unhealthy features have been intensified by the combination of the two strongest parties in Parliament to form a coalition; for this has deprived the Cabinet of homogeneity and