Tory ministry

“ Those who have eyes ought to see that when the government is running smoothly the Whigs are rarely in power. A long Tory ministry has always succeeded an ephemeral Liberal cabinet. The orators of a national party resemble the rats which wear their teeth away in gnawing the rotten panel ”

“ I was helped in coming to this conclusion by some words addressed to me by a shrewd old Yorkshire Tory, which I have remembered gratefully ever since. "I suppose you Liberals really think, as the fools of the Tory newspapers seem to do, that your party is finished for ever and a day. Don't make any such mistake. A Ministry no sooner begins to live than it begins to die. Our people are in the full flush of triumph just now, but already they are beginning to die." ”

“ It is always perilous to adopt expediency as a guide; but the choice may be sometimes imperative. These statesmen, however, took expediency for their director, when principle would have given them all that expediency ensured, and much more.
This ministry, strong in the confidence of the sovereign, the parliament, and the people, might, by the courageous promulgation of great historical truths, have gradually formed a public opinion, that would have permitted them to organise the Tory party on a broad, a permanent, and national basis. ”

“ In the fable of the 'Degenerate Bees,' Gay takes the part of the Tory ministry,—Oxford, Bolingbroke, Dean Swift, and Mat. Prior; and in the 'Ant in Office' he alludes to a Whig minister of that day. We must not be too hard on ministers. Kings and the nation have been open to bribes and assenting to French diplomacy ”

“ King William, in strict constitutional form, asked the Duke of Wellington to form a Tory cabinet. The duke unwillingly essayed the task; but the feeling of the majority of the Tories was so strongly in favour of leaving to the Whigs the responsibility of facing the crisis, that the duke threw up the cards, and acknowledged his inability to form a ministry. This was fortunate, for the Radicals had been organizing armed multitudes, and threatened open insurrection. Pg 650 But the eventful ten days during which war was in the air passed over, and the Grey cabinet came back to power. ”

“ The Tories in the New Tory reaction in new Parliament. Parliament were as strong as the Whigs had lately been. Even London returned four opponents to the obnoxious clauses of the Corporation Act. As yet the theory of a ministry not having been established, there was no great change, yet the balance among the ministers was somewhat altered. Halifax withdrew from the Government; the Board of Treasury and the Board of Admiralty were both reconstituted, with a larger proportion of Tories, and Caermarthen attained such an amount of power as to make him virtually Prime Minister. ”

“ Unlike King William she was a Tory and at first filled offices with members of that party. But the English campaigns under the Duke of Marlborough against Louis XIV were supported by the Whigs, [Footnote: The Tories were the political ancestors of the present-day Conservatives; the Whigs of the Liberals.] who therefore gradually regained control, and in 1708 the Queen had to submit to a Whig ministry. She succeeded in ousting them in 1710, and a Tory cabinet was formed by Henry Harley (afterwards Earl of Oxford) and Henry St. John (afterwards Viscount Bolingbroke) . ”

“ A visit from Henry Scott; [21] nothing known as yet about politics. A high Tory Administration would be a great evil at this time. There are repairs in the structure of our constitution which ought to be made at this season, and without which the people will not long be silent. A pure Whig Administration would probably play the devil by attempting a thorough repair. As to a compound, or melo-dramatic, Ministry, the parts out of which such a one could be organised just now are at a terrible discount in public estimation, nor will they be at par in a hurry again. ”

“ But the Opposition have pressed so long against the Ministry without effect, that being the softer substance, and made of more yielding materials, they have been moulded into their image and superscription, spelt backwards, or they differ as concave and convex, or they go together like substantive and adjective, or like man and wife, they two have become one flesh. A Tory is the indispensable prop to the doubtful sense of self-importance, and peevish irritability of negative success, which mark the life of a Whig leader or underling. ”

“ The nicest of all the adjustments involved in the working of the British Government is that which determines, without formally defining, the internal relations of the Cabinet. On the one hand, while each Minister is an adviser of the Crown, the Cabinet is a unity, and none of its members can advise as an individual, without, or in opposition actual or presumed to, his colleagues. On the other hand, the business of the State is a hundred-fold too great in volume to allow of the actual passing of the whole under the view of the collected Ministry. ”

“ Where the Liberal emphasizes the responsibility of the State to the subject, and requires that every act of its ministers shall be done in the interest of the subject, the Tory emphasizes the duty of the subject to submit to the State, and by a process of argument which is as illogical as it is politically vicious, leaves it to the State to decide even to what persons it shall be responsible. ”

“ Too much attention seems to be paid at times to such interests when they conflict with those of the public; and this brings up the third factor in the problem, that of cabinet responsibility, which has a marked influence on both the form and the content of legislation.
Reform-sponsibility of Ministers.
If the parliamentary system, as it has developed in England, intrusts the active conduct of legislation and administration to the ministry of the day, and thereby concentrates enormous political power in the hands of a few men, it does so among a highly individualistic people. ”

“ The protection life-bill was thrown out by the commons—the Tories uniting with the Whigs, that they might crush a man whom they had idolized—by a majority of seventy-three, although it was urged by stern necessity, and enforced with the whole weight of a triumphant cabinet. On the day after the triumph of the corn-bill and the customs-bill, the premier went down to Osborne-house to tender the resignation of his ministry, in his retirement he carried with him the sympathy and admiration of the great body of the people. ”

“ But what they like may very often be inconvenient for the Cabinet to profess and act upon in the House of Commons. It may often happen that some of the followers, or even of the members, of the Government in the Commons could not, without offending their constituents, take the line which the Conservative Peers would naturally take, and which they will not be withheld from taking without a great deal of discontent. I want you to think whether the following modus vivendi might not be possible. Our position as a Ministry is very peculiar. We have not a majority except on certain vital questions. ”

“ But if a change of ministry involves the transfer of power to an Opposition with quite a different programme, it is clear that the change ought not to take place until the nation has declared, either at the polls, or through its representatives in the House of Commons, that it wishes that result. The ministers ought, therefore, to stand or fall upon their general policy, upon their whole record, or upon some one question that in permanent consequence outweighs everything else, not upon a particular act of secondary importance. ”

“ Such feelings are so just, that they have become universal, and so universal, that they have become IRRESISTIBLE! The minister, be he Whig or Tory, must yield to them, or he instantly descends from his power. All candidates for public distinction will thus be compelled to discover that the most prudent choice, as well as the most manly, generous, and principled, is to side with the country. ”

“ The ministers, and not the sovereign, may be held to account by parliament for every executive act performed, and it is but logical that they should control the time and tenor of such acts. It falls very generally to the prime minister to speak for and otherwise represent the ministerial group. On the whole, however, it accords best with both law and fact to consider the executive under the working constitution as consisting of the crown as represented and advised by the ministry. ”

“ The statesman sent for by the Crown and intrusted with the formation of a ministry becomes himself the Prime Minister, and selects his colleagues. It may be added, also, that he has virtually power to dismiss a minister; that is, subject to his responsibility to the cabinet as a whole and to Parliament, he can request the Crown to dismiss a colleague—a request which the Crown cannot practically refuse. ”

“ The most powerful man in the cabinet at this time, holding the second office in the government, that of foreign secretary, was Lord Castlereagh,--no very great scholar or orator or man of business, but an inveterate Tory, who played into the hands of all the despots of Europe, and who made captive more powerful minds than his own by the elegance of his manners, the charm of his conversation, and the intensity of his convictions. William Pitt never showed greater sagacity than when he bought the services of this gifted aristocrat (for he was then a Whig) , and introduced him into Parliament. ”

“ It is no Wonder that a Measure calculated to promote a Correspodence and a free Communication among the people, should awaken Apprehensions; for they well know that it must detect their Falshood in asserting that the people of this Country were satisfied with the Measures of the British parliament and the Administration of Government. Our Governor has in my Opinion merited greatly of the Ministry by his constant Endeavors, though in vain, to sooth & quiet the people & perswade them to think there were no Grievances that might "be seen felt or understood." ”

“ It is now also distinctly understood that the members of a cabinet are jointly and severally responsible for each other’s acts, and that any attempt to distinguish between a particular minister and his colleagues in such matters is unconstitutional.
During the 19th century the power of ministers was greatly extended, and their duties became more distinctly marked out. As now interpreted, the leading principles of the British constitution are the personal irresponsibility of the sovereign, the responsibility of ministers, and the inquisitorial and controlling power of parliament. ”

“ London, July 13, 1834.—It is evident that several people have been duped this week. The most surprised and upset are of course the Conservatives. They and the public with them have always imagined that the King, too weak to dismiss the Ministry, would none the less be delighted to get rid of them and would eagerly seize the first opportunity to recall the Tories to office. ”

“ A ministry which finds that it cannot command the support of a majority in the House of Representatives has the right to determine upon the dissolution of either of the houses, or of both. If after a general election there is still lack of harmony, the ministry, as would be the procedure in a similar situation in Great Britain, retires from office, the sovereign calls upon an opposition party leader to assume the premiership and to form a cabinet, and the remainder of the ministers are selected from the dominant parties by this official, in consultation with the king. ”

“ For you will see, if you reflect, that, when every law and every grant of money has to be passed by both Houses of Parliament, it would be of no use to a king to have Whig ministers if there was a Tory majority in the House of Commons; a King who wanted to govern well and without quarrels must take ministers from the party which, for the time, has the upper hand in the House of Commons. ”

“ It is the fact of a Reform Ministry, not the name of one that we would support!Languor, sickness of hope deferred pervades the public mind; the public mind says at last, Why all this struggle for the name of a Reform Ministry? Let the Tories be Ministry if they will; let at least some living reality be Ministry! A rearing horse that will only run backward, he is not the horse one would choose to travel on: yet of all conceivable horses the worst is the dead horse. ”

“ All of these persons are strictly in the ministry, and resign with the cabinet; but the officers of the household have, as such, no political functions, and do not concern us here. The heads of departments without seats in the cabinet have become, with the increase in size of that body, very few. By far the greater part of the ministers outside of the cabinet are the parliamentary under-secretaries, who have two distinct sets of duties, one administrative and the other parliamentary. ”

“ Forming a third party in the House, and acting independently, they have held the balance of power in their hands, and have given their support to Ministers on the single condition that their policy is embodied in the Ministerial programme. Each Ministry in its turn depends for its very existence on the votes of this section. However powerful or popular a Premier may be in the country, his position is no better than that of Faust with Mephistopheles at his elbow. ”

“ The system of a responsible ministry can develop in a normal and healthy way only in case the legislative body is divided into two parties, and under those conditions it is the inevitable consequence of the system that Parliament cannot support the cabinet on one question and oppose it on another. The programme of the ministers must be accepted or rejected as a whole, and hence the power of initiative, both legislative and executive, must rest entirely with them. ”