Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

The customs of the constitution are admittedly less binding than law; they are not enforceable in the courts; they are not clearly stated anywhere and, accordingly, their nature, binding or not, is left largely to the interpretation of the actor himself. Since so many of the relationships which are covered by conventions are based on precedents which are secret (such as relationships between monarchy and Cabinet, between Cabinet and political parties, between Cabinet and civil service, and all the relationships within the Cabinet) and since, in many cases, the secrecy of these precedents is protected by law under the Official Secrets Act, the binding nature of the conventions has become steadily weaker. Moreover, many of the so-called conventions which have been pointed out by writers on the subject were never true, but were inventions of the writers themselves. Among these was the convention that the monarch was impartial—a convention which accorded not at all with the conduct of Queen Victoria in whose reign the rule was explicitly stated by Walter Bagehot.

Another convention which appeared in textbooks for years was to the effect that Cabinets are overthrown by adverse votes in Parliament. In fact, there have been in the last two generations scores of cases where the Cabinet’s desires met with an adverse vote, yet no Cabinet has resigned as a result of such a vote in over sixty years. As early as 1853 the Coalition government was defeated in Commons three times in one week, while as late as 1924 the Labour government was defeated ten times in seven months. It is seriously stated in many books that the Cabinet is responsible to the House of Commons, and controlled by it. This control is supposed to be exercised by the voting of the members of the Parliament with the understanding that the government will resign on an adverse vote and can be compelled to do so by the House of Commons’ control over supply. This whole interpretation of the British system of government had little relationship to reality in the nineteenth century and has almost none in the twentieth century. In truth, the Cabinet is not controlled by the Commons, but the reverse.

As W. I. Jennings says in more than one place in his book Cabinet Government, “It is the Government that controls the House of Commons.” This control is exercised through the Cabinet’s control of the political party machinery. This power over the party machinery is exercised through control of party funds and above all by control of nominations to constituencies. The fact that there are no primary elections in Britain and that party candidates are named by the inner clique of the party is of tremendous importance and is the key to the control which the inner clique exercises over the House of Commons, yet it is rarely mentioned in books on the English political system.

In the United States the political parties are very decentralized, with all power flowing from the local districts inward to the central committee. Any man who wins the party nomination in a local primary and in the election can become a party leader. In Britain the situation is entirely different. The party control is almost completely centralized in the hands of a largely self-perpetuating inner clique, and this clique, because of the lack of primary elections, has power of approval over all candidates and can control party discipline by its ability to give the better constituencies to the more docile party members. The statement that the Commons controls the Cabinet, through its control over supply, is not valid, because the Cabinet, if it has a majority in Parliament, can force that majority, by using the party discipline, to pass a supply bill exactly as it forces it to pass other bills. This statement that control of supply provides control of the government was never used to justify the House of Lords’ control over the Cabinet, although the Lords could refuse supply as well as the Commons could until 1911.

Another convention, generally stated in most emphatic terms, is concerned with the impartiality of the Speaker of the House of Commons. The validity of this convention can be judged by reading Hansard for 1939 and observing the way in which the Speaker protected the members of the government from adverse questioning. Such questioning of members of the government by the opposition in Parliament has frequently been pointed out as one of the guarantees of free government in Britain. In practice, it has become a guarantee of little value. The government can refuse to answer any question on the grounds of “public interest.” To this decision there is no appeal. In addition, when questions are not refused, they are frequently answered in an evasive fashion which provides no enlightenment whatever. This was the regular procedure in answering questions on foreign policy in the period 1935-1940. In that period, questions were even answered by outright falsehoods without any possible redress available to the questioners.

Violation and distortion of the “conventions of the constitution” have steadily increased in the twentieth century. In 1921 a convention of over five hundred years’ duration and another of over one hundred years’ duration were set aside without a murmur. The former provided that the Convocations of the Church of England be simultaneous with the sessions of Parliament. The latter provided that the Royal Address be approved in council. Even more serious were the distortions of conventions. In 1931 the convention that the leader of the opposition be asked to form a government when the Cabinet resigns was seriously modified. In 1935 the rule regarding Cabinet solidarity was made meaningless. In 1937 the Conservative government even violated a constitutional convention with impunity by having George VI take the coronation oath in a form different from that provided by law.

This process of the weakening and dissolution of the so-called “constitution” went so far in the twentieth century that, by 1932, Sir Austen Chamberlain and Stanley (Lord) Baldwin were agreed that “’unconstitutional’ is a term applied in politics to the other fellow who does something that you do not like.” This statement is too sweeping by far. A more accurate estimation of the situation would, perhaps, be worded thus: “ ‘Unconstitutional’ is any action likely to lead to public disorder in the immediate future or likely to affect adversely the government’s chances at the polls in any future election.”

The kind of act which could lead to such a result would be, in the first place, any open act of repression. More important, it would be, in the second place, any open act of “unfairness.” This idea of “unfairness,” or, on its positive side, “fair play,” is a concept which is very largely Anglo-Saxon and which is largely based on the class structure of England as it existed up to the early twentieth century. This class structure was clearly envisioned in the minds of Englishmen and was so completely accepted that it was assumed without need to be explicitly stated. In this structure, Britain was regarded as divided into two groups the “classes” and the “masses.” The “classes” were the ones who had leisure. This meant that they had property and income. On this basis, they did not need to work for a living; they obtained an education in a separate and expensive system; they married within their own class they had a distinctive accent; and, above all, they had a distinctive attitude. This attitude was based on the training provided in the special educational system of the “classes.” It might be summed up in the statement that “methods are more important than goals” except that this group regarded the methods and manners in which they acted as goals or closely related to goals.

This educational system was based on three great negatives, not easily understood by Americans. These were (a) education must not be vocational—that is, aimed at assisting one to make living; (b) education is not aimed directly at creating or training the intelligence; and (c) education is not aimed at finding the “Truth.” On its positive side, the system of education of the “classes” displayed its real nature on the school level rather than on the university level. It aimed at developing a moral outlook, a respect for traditions, qualities of leadership and cooperation, and above all, perhaps, that ability for cooperation in competition summed up in the English idea of “sport” and “playing the game.” Because of the restricted numbers of the upper class in Britain, these attitudes applied chiefly to one another, and did not necessarily apply to foreigners or even to the masses. They applied to people who “belonged,” and not to all human beings.