was not acceptable, they permitted to be materially altered by the House. Had ministers defiantly told Parliament that it must accept the measure as they presented it, there can be little doubt but that it would have gone the way of the other six Reform Bills which had preceded it.

Notwithstanding all the learned treatises which have been written on parliamentary government, will it be believed that no rule, principle, or constitutional usage has yet been discovered whereby it can be determined what should, or what should not, be regarded as a cabinet question? It would appear that questions are not declared ministerial or non-ministerial because of their importance or non-importance, as one would expect, but are deemed ministerial only if ministers are agreed upon them, and open ones if they disagree. Thus important questions like Parliamentary Reform, Vote by Ballot, the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Roman Catholic Emancipation, and Free Trade, have severally been considered as open questions by some administrations and not by others.1 The cabinet, it would appear, hold themselves responsible for just what they please and for nothing more. If they cannot come to an agreement on any

1 Todd's Parl. Gov., vol. ii. p. 327.

question, they quietly leave it an open one; but if they do agree, it forthwith becomes a cabinet question, and their followers are directed to vote for it. The whole matter is left absolutely to the discretion of the cabinet. There is nothing to guide ministers in such a momentous matter but their own sweet will.

It is generally believed, however, that there is one recognized rule, and that is, when a change of ministry takes place the incoming ministry shall be held responsible to Parliament for the policy which occasioned the retirement of their predecessors.1 But if there be such a rule, all I can say is that it is seldom put in practice, and it would not be difficult to find instances where it has been glaringly set aside. Thus, when the first Portland administration succeeded to office, in consequence of Parliament having expressed its dissatisfaction with the manner in which they had negotiated the terms of peace, the new ministry, on the assembling of Parliament, announced in the king's speech that they had signed the treaty of peace, leaving it to be understood that the terms were different from what their predecessors were prepared to accord. But Mr. Pitt, the leader of the opposition, informed the House that the treaty was substantially identical with the preliminary articles upon which ministers had turned. 1 Todd's Parl. Gov., vol. i. p. 223.

out their predecessors.1 Again, on the 7th of April, 1835, Sir Robert Peel's first administration was defeated on a motion of Lord John Russell in regard to the temporalities of the Irish Church and the adjustment of the Irish tithe question, and the motion was accepted by them as a vote of want of confidence. On the 18th of the same month Lord Melbourne accepted office, but he brought in no bill in accordance with the terms of his motion, although he subsequently held office for nearly six and a half years altogether.

On two occasions only within the last hundred years has the incoming cabinet assumed the responsibility of the policy on which they obtained office. The first was in 1783, in Pitt's first administration. Mr. Pitt had, as already stated, succeeded to office on the dismissal of the first Portland ministry on account of the rejection of Mr. Fox's India Bill, and a measure on that subject being extremely urgent, the new ministry took up the question, and after a long struggle and a general election, succeeded in passing a bill through both Houses. In this case, however, Mr. Fox's bill had been rejected by the Lords and not by the Commons, where it had passed by a large majority. The second occasion in which the same course was followed was in 1867, to which I have

1 Parl. Hist., vol. xxiii. p. 1140.

already referred, when the Derby ministry took up the reform question on which they had defeated the government of Lord John Russell.

Still more extraordinary is the absence of any rule, principle or established usage in respect to an appeal to the country on a question on which ministers have suffered a defeat in Parliament. One should certainly expect that when ministers appealed from Parliament to the country, they would appeal on the issue on which they had been defeated, and on no other; or, at all events, if there were several issues put before the constituencies, that this would be one of them. This, however, is by no means the course usually adopted. During the last hundred years (from 1780 to 1880), there have been twenty-two dissolutions of Parliament, and of them eight have been on account of the near approach of its natural term of existence; five on account of defeats of ministers, owing to their not being able to command a majority in the House; four on matters personally affecting the sovereign, or on his demise; and one to admit of an enlarged system of representation being put into immediate operation. Of the remaining four, one was on a want of confidence motion carried against the administration of Lord Melbourne; one was a vote of censure on the administrative policy of Lord

Palmerston in connection with the war in China; and two on account of the rejection of measures introduced by ministers, the first being the Reform Bill of Earl Grey, rejected by the Lords, and the second, the Reform Bill of Lord John Russell, rejected in the Commons. In only one, out of the last four cases mentioned, was the appeal to the country made on the question on which ministers had been defeated in Parliament. When Earl Grey obtained a dissolution on the rejection of his Reform Bill, the appeal was made to the country on that bill, and there was no other issue. In none of the other three cases, however, was the appeal made to the country on the question on which ministers had been defeated. At the dissolution which followed on a vote of want of confidence being carried against the Melbourne administration in 1841, the appeal to the country was not that of confidence in ministers, but on a proposal for a modification of the corn laws. When Lord Palmerston obtained a dissolution on a vote of censure on his policy in connection with the Chinese war being carried against him, that subject was scarcely even mentioned, the question that was kept prominently before the electors being that of confidence in ministers. Again, when Earl Derby obtained a dissolution after defeating Lord John Russell on his Reform Bill in 1859, he distinctly