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

Again, in 1931, George V, on the resignation of MacDonald, did not call upon the leader of the opposition to form a government, but encouraged an intrigue which tried to split the Labour Party and did succeed in breaking off 15 out of 289 Labour M.P.’s. MacDonald, who then represented no party, became prime minister on a majority borrowed by the king from another party. That the king would have cooperated in such an intrigue in favor of the Labour Party is very dubious. The only satisfaction which Labour had was in defeating the secessionists in the election of 1935, but this did little to overcome the injury inflicted in 1931.

Or again, in 1929-1931, under the second Labour government, the Conservative House of Lords prevented the enactment of all important legislation, including a Trades Disputes Act, the long-needed democratization of education, and electoral reform. For any Act to pass over the opposition of the Lords, it must, since 1911, be voted in the Commons three times in identical form in not less than two years. This meant that the Conservatives have a suspensive veto over the legislation of opposition governments. The importance of this power can be seen in the fact that very few bills ever became law without the Lords’ consent.

Unlike the government of the United States, that of England involves no elements of federalism or separation of powers. The central government can govern in respect to any subject no matter how local or detailed, although in practice it leaves considerable autonomy to counties, boroughs, and other local units. This autonomy is more evident in regard to administration or execution of laws than it is in regard to legislation, the central government usually blocking out its wishes in general legislation, leaving the local authorities to fill in the gaps with administrative regulations and to execute the whole under supervision of the central authorities. However, the needs of local government, as well as the broadening scope of general governmental regulation, have made a congestion of legislation in Parliament so great that no member can be expected to know much about most bills. Fortunately, this is not expected. Voting in Parliament is on strict party lines, and members are expected to vote as their party whips tell them to, and are not expected to understand the contents of the bills for which they are voting.

There is also no separation of powers. The Cabinet is the government and “is expected to govern not only within the law, but, if necessary, without law or even against the law.” There is no limit on retroactive legislation, and no Cabinet or Parliament can bind its successors. The Cabinet can enter into war without Parliament’s permission or approval. It can expend money without Parliament’s approval or knowledge, as was done in 1847 for relief in Ireland or in 1783-1883 in regard to secret-service money. It can authorize violations of the law, as was done in regard to payments of the Bank of England in 1847, in 1857, or in 1931. It can make treaties or other binding international agreements without the consent or knowledge of Parliament, as was done in 1900, 1902, and 1912.

The idea, widely held in the United States, that the Commons is a legislative body and the Cabinet is an executive body is not true. As far as legislation is concerned, Britain has a multicameral system in which the Cabinet is the second chamber, the Commons the third, and the Lords the fourth. Of these three the Conservatives always have control of the Lords, and the same party generally has control of the other two. Legislation originates in the meetings of the inner clique of the party, acting as a first chamber. If accepted by the Cabinet it passes the Commons almost automatically. The Commons, rather than a legislative body, is the public forum in which the party announces the decisions it has made in secret party and Cabinet meetings and allows the opposition to criticize in order to test public reactions. Thus all bills come from the Cabinet, and rejection in Commons is almost unthinkable, unless the Cabinet grants to party members in Commons freedom of action. Even then this freedom usually extends only to the right to abstain from voting, and does not allow the member to vote against a bill. Although machinery for private members’ bills exists similar to that in the United States, such bills rarely become law. The only significant one in recent years was an unusual bill of an unusual member from an unusual constituency. It was the divorce law of A. P. Herbert, famous humorist, and Member from Oxford.

This situation is sometimes called “Cabinet dictatorship.” It could more accurately be called “party dictatorship.” Both the Cabinet and the Commons are controlled by the party, or more accurately by the inner clique of the party. This inner clique may hold seats in the Cabinet, but the two are not the same thing, since members of one may not be members of the other, and the gradations of power are by no means the same in one as in the other. The inner clique of the Conservative Party sometimes meets in the Carlton Club, while the inner clique of the Labour Party meets in a trade-union conclave, frequently in Transport House.

The implication here that the Cabinet controls the Commons, that Commons will never overthrow the Cabinet, and that it will not reject legislation acceptable to the Cabinet is based on the assumption that the party has a majority in Commons. A minority government, usually a coalition government, has no such control over Commons because its powers of party discipline are very weak over any party but its own. With other parties than its own, a government has few powers beyond the threat of dissolution, which, while it does threaten members of all parties with the expenses of an election and the possibility of losing their seats, is a double-edged weapon that may cut both ways. Over its own members the Cabinet has the additional powers arising from control of nominations to constituencies, party funds, and appointment to government offices.

It is not generally recognized that there have been many restrictions on democracy in Britain, most of them in nonpolitical spheres of life, but nonetheless effectively curtailing the exercises of democracy in the political sphere. These restrictions were considerably worse than in the United States, because in the latter country they have been made on a variety of grounds (racial, religious, national, and so on), and because they are recognized as being unjust and are the occasion for feelings of guilt from those whom they benefit and loud protests from others. In Britain the restrictions were almost all based on one criterion, possession of wealth, and have been the occasion for relatively mild objections, because in Britain the idea that wealth entitled its possessor to special privileges and special duties was generally accepted, even by the non-possessing masses. It was this lack of objections from both classes arid masses which concealed the fact that Britain, until 1945, was the world’s greatest plutocracy.

Plutocracy restricted democracy in Britain to a notable but decreasing degree in the period before 1945. This was more evident in social or economic life than in political life, and in politics it was more evident in local than in national affairs. In political life local government had a restricted suffrage (householders and their wives; in some localities only half as many as in national suffrage). This restricted suffrage elected members of local boards or councils whose activities were unpaid, thus restricting these posts to those who had leisure (that is, wealth). In local government the old English tradition that the best government is government by amateurs (which is equivalent to saying that the best government is government by the well-to-do) still survived. These amateurs were aided by paid secretaries and assistants who had the necessary technical knowledge to handle the problems that arose. These technicians were also of the middle or upper classes because of the expense of the educational system which screened out the poor on the lower levels of schooling. The paid expert who advised the unpaid members of the borough councils was the town clerk. The paid expert who advised the unpaid justice of the peace in the administration of local justice was the clerk of Quarter Sessions.