Dissenting minister

“ But, my lords, all must allow this motion to be reasonable, whatever they think of the minister's conduct, who are of opinion that a free people have a right of complaining when they feel oppression, and of addressing the crown to remove a minister that has incurred their universal detestation. ”

“ But, sir, if you can expel whom you please and reject those disagreeable to you, the House will be self-created and self-existing. The original idea of your representing the people will be lost. The consequences of such a principle are to the highest degree alarming. A more forcible engine of despotism cannot be put in the hand of any minister. I wish gentlemen would attend to the plain consequences of such proceedings, and consider how they may be brought home to themselves. A member hated or dreaded by a minister is accused of any crime ”

“ When a defeated minister of our own day is indisposed to accept his discomfiture, he applies himself to poison the public mind, inciting the lower orders against the higher, and blowing up every smouldering ember of sedition he can discover, trusting that the conflagration thus kindled, though it consume the edifice of the State, will not fail to roast his own egg. ”

“ If it was always in our power to penetrate into the intentions of our enemies, they must necessarily have the same means of making themselves acquainted with our projects, and yet when any of them are discovered we think it just to impute it to the negligence of the minister.
Thus, my lords, every man is inclined to judge with prejudice and partiality. When we suffer by the prudence of our enemies, we charge our ministers with want of vigilance, without considering, that very often nothing is necessary to elude the most penetrating sagacity, but obstinate silence. ”

“ I consider that in and for itself a Constitution which introduces joint ministerial responsibility is a political blunder from which every State ought to free itself as soon as it can. Anyone who has ever been a Minister and at the head of a Ministry, and has been obliged to take resolutions upon his own responsibility, ceases at last to fear this responsibility, but he does shrink from the necessity of convincing seven people that that which he wishes is really right. ”

“ The country feels justly offended with the minister, who, in a free nation, where the conscientious voice of the majority should alone decide, attempts to anticipate that decision by the voice of those who are biassed by lower and unrecognised motives, and who scruples not to boast of the success of such a method, and lay claim to merit on its account. ”

“ But there is no more valuable safeguard against maladministration, no more effective method of bringing the searchlight of criticism to bear on the action or inaction of the executive government and its subordinates. A minister has to be constantly asking himself, not merely whether his proceedings and the proceedings of those for whom he is responsible are legally or technically defensible, but what kind of answer he can give if questioned about them in the house, and how that answer will be received. ”

“ We are not of those who think the main business of a cabinet is to keep on good terms with "the agitator and hireling speech-maker,"—and that he is the wisest minister who is most adroit in timing his concessions, and casting off his principles at the moment they become inconvenient. Any seeming tranquillity, any truce with the enemies of constitutional order purchased by such a policy, can never be otherwise than temporary and precarious, because, it is insincere—insincere on both sides—a hollow compromise between principle and the expediency of the hour. ”

“ Such a Minister, however, must make up his account with receiving often only a cold and jealous support from those of his adherents who incline to extreme opinions; while his opponents will increase their zeal and animosity in proportion to their perception of the unobjectionableness of his measures, the practical working of his moderation, viz.—his continuance in power, and their own exclusion from it. ”

“ The administration not only perseveres in the errors which have lost it the public confidence, but refuses to allow its opponents to minister, in any way, to the sufferings of the community, or the necessities of the government. Our constitution is defective, in allowing those to remain in authority three or four months after the people have pronounced judgment against them; or rather the convention did not foresee the possibility of the existence of an administration, which would deliberately treat with neglect and contempt the manifest sentiments of their constituents. ”

“ And when, unhappily for his own fame, this great man determined to return to power, he could only recover office by conceding that very point for which he had relinquished it; thus setting the mischievous example of the minister of a free country sacrificing his own judgment to the personal prejudices of the reigning sovereign. As it was hardly possible to find other ministers who to equal abilities would add equal subservience, it is not surprising that the highest offices were constantly filled with men of notorious incapacity. ”

“ If a Minister is not very sure of his position; if he is backed, not by a united party, but by a haphazard coalition; if he is unduly anxious about his own official future; if his eye is nervously fixed on the next move of the jumping cat, he always fails to govern. He neither protects the law-abiding citizen nor chastises the criminal and the rebel. ”

“ A minister ought not to flatter himself that he has always deceived those who appear to credit his representations; their silence is not so often the effect of credulity, as of cowardice or indolence. Many are overborne by the pomp of great offices, and others who distinguish more clearly, and judge with greater freedom, are contented to enjoy their own reflections, without reproving those whom they despair to reform. ”

“ The episode might have been forgotten, the prestige of the government might have recovered if a concession had been made to the virtuous indignation of those who were shocked by the "scandal" and of those who persuaded themselves that they were shocked; no prime minister is strong enough to despise with impunity the suspicion that, because he cannot afford to lose them, or because he is indifferent to their offence, he is retaining colleagues for whose resignation he should have asked. ”

“ While we are at peace with other nations, our military force may perhaps be spared to support the Earl of Hillsborough's measures in America. Whenever that force shall be necessarily withdrawn or diminished, the dismission of such a minister will neither console us for his imprudence, nor remove the settled resentment of a people, who, complaining of an act of the legislature, are outraged by an unwarrantable stretch of prerogative, and, supporting their claims by argument, are insulted with declamation. ”

“ This shuffling policy, and want of magnanimity in the Minister—this coquetting with extremities, in the forlorn hope of extracting from them some advantage for a sinking Government, pervaded the councils of the Cabinet, and led finally to its downfall.
In the meanwhile, agitation was rising into open manifestations of distrust and resentment in Ireland. ”

“ For proceedings adopted in conformity to this decision, seven ministers in the Presbytery of Strathbogie were first suspended and then deposed from their ministerial offices, without any other charges laid against them than that they sought the protection of the civil courts in acting according to their decision. For refusing to obey a law which the House of Lords declared to be illegal, no minister can be lawfully deposed from his office in this country, unless we are prepared to adopt a principle which would ultimately subvert the entire authority of the law. ”

“ In fact, his misfortune was that of most other ministers who have passed the prime of life; he trimmed and shuffled under all his difficulties,—with journalism, which at this period it was thought advisable to repress in an underhand way rather than fight openly; with financial as well as labor questions; with the clergy as well as with that other question of the public lands; with liberalism as with the Chamber. After manoeuvering his way to power in the course of seven years, the minister believed that he could manage all questions of administration in the same way. ”

“ If the minister, knowing that the under-secretary does not share his own political views, fails to treat him with perfect frankness, or if, after one party has been long in power, the permanent officials have little sympathy with a new ministry from the other party, and do not give it their active and cordial help, then mistakes are certain to be made, the efficiency of the service suffers, and the plans of the government are likely to miscarry. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A Minister of State will sometimes keep himself totally estranged from all his collegues; will differ from them in their councils, will privately traverse, and publicly oppose, their measures. He will, however, continue in his employment. Instead of suffering any mark of displeasure, he will be distinguished by an unbounded profusion of Court rewards and caresses; because he does what is expected, and all that is expected, from men in office. He helps to keep some form of Administration in being, and keeps it at the same time as weak and divided as possible. ”

“ No man who has not witnessed it has an adequate conception of the furious pressure the President is subjected to, especially during the first period of his administration; and that first period is apt to determine the character of the whole. No Cabinet minister can carry out a reform in the branch of the public service over which he presides unless he has the President at his back, for if the President yields to remonstrances and urgencies brought to bear upon him against such a reform, the Cabinet minister will find himself baffled at every step. ”

“ Why therefore should a minister persevere in a measure so disagreeable to all parties? For the sake, I suppose, of a posterity which he will never see, or of a few reasonable, reflecting people whose united interest perhaps will not be able to secure him the smallest borough in England. It is not likely we shall ever find any minister so bad a politician. ”

“ Real love for our country and its government would (I think) induce a person to mix with his criticisms some sentiments of sympathy with the embarrassment of a minister loaded with the business of a great nation, in a situation never before experienced by any minister. The critic would recollect that the minister was a man, subject to error, but not necessarily nor altogether base. But it seems to be an assumed principle with some of our political writers and reviewers that government must always be in fault, and that every thing needs a reform. ”

“ I have more than once asked to be released from my responsibility for a policy with which I was in thorough disagreement, but at your urgent personal request, I remained in the Government. I realise that when the country is in the peril of a great war, Ministers have not the same freedom to resign on disagreement. ”

“ The reason former Ministers have been deceived in this matter is evident—they never considered the temper of the people they had to deal with. I have known a minister so weak as to offer an avaricious old rascal a star and garter, and attempt to bribe a young rogue, who set no value upon money, with a lucrative employment. ”

“ I said, in this chapter, "no one liable to be exposed to reproaches of a certain kind can be placed at the head of the government There are certain speeches, certain phrases, which would oblige such a minister to resign on leaving the Chamber. This impossibility resulting from the free principle of representative government was not felt at a time when all illusions united to place a famous man in office, notwithstanding the too well-founded repugnance of the Crown. ”

“ A Minister of that type can go on blundering with impunity so long as he is supposed to be trustworthy on the one great question which lies closest to the hearts of that section of his supporters, who are prepared to sacrifice him for their cause. ”

“ AND that whoever shall pretend, that the said wholesome and benign decoction, either does not agree with him, or is more expensive than his finances or state of life will permit, shall be only considered as aggravating the offence of disobedience, by a contumacious doubt of the better knowledge of his superiors, and a ridiculous endeavour to seem to be better acquainted with his own constitution and circumstances, than the efficient Minister of the country. ”

“ No Minister ever yet fell but from his own inefficiency. If his downfall be occasioned, as it generally is, by the intrigues of one of his own creatures, his downfall is merited for having been the dupe of a tool which in all probability he should never have employed. If he fall through the open attacks of his political opponents, his downfall is equally deserved for having occasioned by his impolicy the formation of a party, for having allowed it to be formed, or for not having crushed it when formed. ”

“ We can feel no dependence in a minister who introduces measures directly at variance with the whole principles of his public life: and we earnestly trust that by far the greater portion of the true-hearted and loyal men who, from over-confidence in their chief, have allowed themselves to be compromised in the late political transactions, will not again commit themselves to any leader in whose candour and integrity they cannot thoroughly rely. ”