Minister plenipotentiary

“ 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. ”

“ If the supreme council once begins to encroach upon the executive fields of government by interferings with the conduct of work in the separate Ministries, by advising as to appointments to be made under the rank of Minister of State, or in any other way taking part in the executive functions of government, it will thereby at once lessen the efficiency and increase the difficulties of every Minister. ”

“ The vast machine of government has outgrown the power of the controlling mechanism.
We trust for the control of the immense bureaucratic machine, almost entirely to the presence, at the head of each department, of a political minister directly responsible to Parliament. We hold the minister responsible for everything that happens in his office, and we regard this ministerial responsibility as one of the keystones of our system. ”

“ Let the Government in power cause the Parliamentary Representatives to understand that they are not to consider themselves entitled to direct the policy of the Cabinet, that Ministers are not their servants, and that a Minister may not be dismissed at their pleasure without necessarily dismissing the whole Cabinet. Let the nation prostrate herself in their temples and implore God to forgive her crimes and errors ”

“ If two-thirds of the members of the chambers so request, projected treaties of alliance must be laid before Congress, and the appointment and suspension of public officials may be effected only on proposal of the ministers. Every act of the President must be countersigned by at least one minister, and every minister is responsible politically and legally for all acts which he countersigns or executes. One member of the ministerial group, designated by the President, exercises the functions of premier. ”

“ Wherever that constitutional right is admitted in principle and fully operative in practice, there is no fear that the assembly will not be willing to trust its own ministers with any amount of power really desirable; the danger is, on the contrary, lest they should grant it too ungrudgingly, and too indefinite in extent, since the power of the minister is the power of the body who make and who keep him so. ”

“ All subordinate public officers who are not appointed by some mode of public competition should be selected on the direct responsibility of the minister under whom they serve. The ministers, all but the chief, will naturally be selected by the chief; and the chief himself, though really designated by Parliament, should be, in a regal government, officially appointed by the crown. ”

“ That with us is the meaning of ministerial responsibility. To that responsibility all the cabinet is subject. But in the Government of the United States there is no such responsibility. The President is placed at the head of the executive for four years, and while he there remains no man can question him. It is not that the scope of his power is great. Our own Prime Minister is doubtless more powerful,—has a wider authority. ”

“ A Ministerial government, too, is carried on in the face of day. Its life is in debate. A President may be a weak man; yet if he keep good Ministers to the end of his administration, he may not be found out—it may still be a dubious controversy whether he is wise or foolish. But a Prime Minister must show what he is. He must meet the House of Commons in debate; he must be able to guide that assembly in the management of its business, to gain its ear in every emergency, to rule it in its hours of excitement. ”

“ Ministers, being public men, are, of course, as Mr. Macdonald means to point out, exposed to the criticism, frequently so absurd, that eminence entails. I recently examined the bye-laws of a literary association in Ross-shire, of which the president is a sheep-farmer, and the secretary, a postman. It is a rule of this association that no minister is ever to be president, the reason assigned being that ministers would try to elevate the natives too hurriedly. ”

“ But the minister, who is usually unfamiliar with the department to which he is assigned, who remains at its head a comparatively short time, and whose attention is largely engrossed by the more exciting scenes enacted in the cabinet, in Parliament, and on the platform, must, unless gifted with extraordinary executive capacity, be to a considerable extent in the hands of his permanent subordinates. ”

“ You have now brought the merits of your administration to an issue, on which every Englishman, of the narrowest capacity, may determine for himself. It is not an alarm to the passions, but a calm appeal to the judgment of the people, upon their own most essential interests. A more experienced minister would not have hazarded a direct invasion of the first principles of the constitution, before he had made some progress in subduing the spirit of the people. ”

“ Parliament does not nominate any minister, but the crown appoints the head of the administration in conformity to the general wishes and inclinations manifested by Parliament, and the other ministers on the recommendation of the chief; while every minister has the undivided moral responsibility of appointing fit persons to the other offices of administration which are not permanent. ”

“ If there is no such other Minister the President shall himself exercise perform and discharge the powers, duties and functions of the Cabinet of Ministers until the conclusion of the General Election. ”

“ The World dealeth with Ministers of State as they do with ill Fidlers, ready to kick them down Stairs for playing ill, though few of the Fault-finders understand their Musick enough to be good Judges.
A Minister who undertaketh to make his Master very great, if he faileth, is ruin’d for his folly; if he succeedeth, he is feared for his Skill. ”

“ The conduct of a Minister who proposes to himself a great and noble object, and who pursues it steadily, may seem for a while a riddle to the world; especially in a Government like ours, where numbers of men, different in their characters and different in their interests, are at all times to be managed ”

“ In the United States, where the whole people is the fountain of power, the ministers are the servants of the President, appointed and dismissed by him. In England, while they are still in theory her Majesty's ministers, and the Prime Minister is nominally selected by the sovereign, by a remarkable transformation they have become the servants of the legislature—that is, of the people. ”

“ How do they get most of these ministers? There will be a man in the neighborhood not very well—not having constitution enough to be wicked, and it instantly suggests itself to everybody who sees him that he would make an excellent minister. ”

“ And if at any time it shall be clear to the provincial ministers and guardians that the general minister is not able to perform the duties of his office and does not serve the best interests of the brothers, the aforesaid brothers, to whom the right of election is given, must, in the name of the Lord, elect another as general minister. ”

“ AND WHEREAS it is a true and admitted principle in all free governments, that the efficient Minister is the best and only judge of what suits the constitution, pleases the appetite, or is adapted to the wants of the subject. ”

“ Very shining ministers, like the sun, are apt to scorch when they shine the brightest: in our constitution, I prefer the milder light of a less glaring minister. His successor is not yet, at least publicly, ‘designatus’. You will easily suppose that many are very willing, and very few able, to fill that post. Various persons are talked of, by different people, for it, according as their interest prompts them to wish, or their ignorance to conjecture. ”

“ The position of the Minister who is about to accede to office is very different. In the first place he has to form his Administration. This is a work of great time and of heavy responsibility. It is not confined merely to the construction of a Cabinet. Before a Ministry can be formed, whoever undertakes the task of its construction must see some fifty individuals whom he has to appoint to offices of trust and consideration. ”

“ The executive power is vested in the council of ministers, at whose head is the minister-president. There are eight ministries, namely, the ministry of the interior, of national defence, of worship and instruction, of finance, of commerce, of agriculture, of justice, and of railways. ”

“ Furthermore, the President of the Republic shall have the right, in cases provided by the law, to appoint civilian and military officers proposed by the Council of Ministers. Paragraph 2. Every official of the Republic is subject to the orders of the appropriate minister who is responsible to the Diet for his acts. Art. 56. The Council of Ministers as a body shall bear the constitutional and parliamentary responsibility for the policies of the Government. ”

“ Much of a Minister's comfort and success depends upon his Private Secretary. Some Ministers import for this function a young gentleman of fashion whom they know at home—a picturesque butterfly who flits gaily through the dusty air of the office, making, by the splendour of his raiment, sunshine in its shady places, and daintily passing on the work to unrecognized and unrewarded clerks. ”

“ Most Cabinet Ministers in charge of considerable departments are men of superior ability; I have heard an eminent living statesman of long experience say that in his time he only knew one instance to the contrary. And there is the best protection that it shall be so. A considerable Cabinet Minister has to defend his department in the face of mankind ”

“ But there was as yet no clear consciousness of the rule, infinitely important for the moral and political development of remarkable men, that the activity of a minister must be harmonious and consistent with his activity as a member of Parliament. ”

“ He appoints and dismisses ministers at will, issues ordinances with the force of law, and exercises far-reaching control over the processes of legislation. Upon the failure of the chambers to vote supplies which are held to be essential, he may even collect and expend revenues for a year on no authority apart from his own. For purposes of administrative supervision there are ministers of War, Finance, Justice, Foreign Affairs, the Interior, and Education, and the ministers collectively comprise a Gesammt-Ministerium, or ministry of state. Measures of the crown are countersigned by a minister ”

“ Practically, however, the word minister has in modern states come to be applied to the heads of the great administrative departments who as such are members of the government. On the continent there are, besides, “ministers without portfolio,” i.e. ministers who, without being in charge of any special department, are members of the government. ”

“ There is a department of the business of the House that has lately assumed alarming proportions—the putting of questions to Ministers upon every conceivable topic. I would here apply, without hesitation, the printing direct and the plural backing, and sweep away the practice entirely from the public proceedings of the House. No single member unsupported should have the power of trotting out a Minister at will. ”

“ Successive governments give as large a share of patronage to the peers and baronets, and their kinsfolk, as they reasonably can; while the Premier is only too glad to select men of rank as his colleagues in the Cabinet, if they are only possessed of decent abilities, and will work—for a minister must be a hard worker in these days. ”

“ Each minister is responsible to the cabinet for the conduct of his department. He is constantly meeting with problems which may involve criticism in Parliament, and where a mistake might entail serious consequences for the whole government. In such cases he must decide how far he can assume to settle the question in accordance with his own opinion, and what matters he ought to bring before the cabinet. He must not, on the one hand, take up its time in discussing trivialities, and he must not, on the other, commit his colleagues to a course of action which really involves general policy. ”

“ As soon as such confidence ceases, the minister ceases to be minister. As the Crown has no politics of its own, it is simply necessary that the minister of the day should hold the politics of the people as testified by their representatives. ”

“ The Prime Minister stands between the Crown and the cabinet; for although the King may, and sometimes does, communicate with a minister about the affairs relating to his own department, it is the Premier who acts as the connecting link with the cabinet as a whole, and communicates to him their collective opinion. ”

“ The Minister has command of the opinions and views of all officers of the department he administers on matters of public policy. Good stewardship demands from Ministers of the Crown frank, fair, full statements of all opinions of trusted experienced officials to colleagues when they have direct reference to matters of high policy. ”

“ A Minister who inspires great actions must be a great Minister; and Lord Chatham will always appear so,—by comparison with his predecessors and successors. He retrieved our affairs when ruined by a most incapable Administration ”

“ By the word "minister" we may understand not only a servant of the crown, but a man of influence among the Commons, who regard themselves as having a share of the sovereignty over us. The minister of the house may, in a point respecting the colonies, be so strong, that the minister of the crown in the house, if he is a distinct person, may not chuse, even where his sentiments are favourable to us, to come to a pitched battle upon our account. ”