728948-1847-14-Jul-1847 — Page 3

THE FRIEND OF CHINA AND HONGKONG GAZETTE.

willing to pay for the license, but objected to the who were upon all occasions, when the Secretaries cumshaw, as from his experience of English cus received any extraordinary intelligence, or were to tom in India, he knew that it was an illegal exac. make any extraordinary dispatch, or as often other tion. Fearing that Major Caine was absent on a wise as was thought fit, to meet whereas the body shooting excursion, Achoi made an application to of the Council observed set daya and hours for their the Governor through the Surveyor-General, think-meeting, and came not else together except espe ing that his request would be granted on more fa- cially summoned." "So, in his Life (p 85), he tells yourable terms. His Excellency, however, refused us that when, after the death of Lord Falkland at to act in the matter until the Secretary returned, the haule of Newbury, in 1843, the Lord Dighy when it was intimated that the license to build a

thes mundo Secret of State in his room, he wres market would cost $100 a month. This case was no sooner admitted and awora Secretary of State also brought before the Court of Inquiry,"

and Privy Counsellor, and consequently made of the Junto which the King at that time created, consisted of the Duke of Richmond, the Lord Cot- ting on, the two Secretaries of State, and Sir John Colepepper, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Clarendon, then Mir Hyde himself) was likewise added: to the trouble at least the surprise, of the Master of the Rolls, who could have been content. ed that he should have been excluded from that near frost, where all matters were to be consulted before they should be brought to the Council board." The introduction of this method of government by a Cabinet was one of the novelties against which the popular feeling was directed in the first years of the Long Parliament. Thus we find the Com- mittee of the House of Commons which sat at Gro- ners' Hall after the attempt to seize the five members, in January, 1642, complaining, in their Second Remonstrance of the managing the great affairs of the realm in Cabinet Councils, by men unknown and not publicly trusted." It is evident that the Cabinet Council itself is here objected to, as well as its composition.

I will naturally occur to our readers, that though no charge is brought against any member of the Government, still there are circumstances which called for an examination before the independent Magistrates of the colony, and that the proceedinge should have been open. There are several gentle- men on the island sworn Magistrates, though they have ever once been required to act; and they are the parties who should have silted this matter. As an act of justice to the members of his Government Sir John Davis ought to have demanded a scrutiny by those who could not in any way be interested, intimidated, or biassed. He acted otherwise, and appointed three young men of no standing; and whatever their verdict may be, it is to be feared that the stigma will remain that people will have doubts as to whether the two compradores are the only parties with whom the guilt rests.

GOVERNMENT OFFICES. (From the Companion to the Almanac for 1847.)

It is remarkable that there should not exist in the

Mr

languageany completeaccount of the different publie offices, the heads of which compose the executive government of the country. Even the information upon the subject that is to be found scattered over many books is extremely imperfect and unsatisfac- tory. A very meritorious attempt, however, has just been made to lay the foundation of an accurate and comprehensive account of the government offices in a volume compiled by Mr F. S. Thomas, of the Record Office, entitled "Notes of Materials for the History of Public Departments, which has been privately printed within the last few months. Thomas has here collected and arranged in chrono- logical order, both from m printed books and manu- script records, a great number of curious noticea respecting the Treasury (including the Exchequor), the offices of the Secretaries of late, the Signet Office. The State Paper Office, the Board of Trade, the Wood and Foresta, and the Public Record Of fies. Most of the facts in the present article will be drawn from Mr Tooroasa piges but shall confine ourselves, to what are commonly called the offices of government, passing over for the present that portion of the volume which relates to the State Paper and Record Offices."

First however, it will be desirable that we should Ray a few words respecting the true nature and origin of what we are in the habit of calling the Ministers and the Cabinet Mr fallam, in his Constitutional flistory (Chap. xv.), gives the fol- Laring account According to the original cons tilation of our monarchy, the king had his Privy: Council, composell of the great officers of state, and of such others as he should summon to it, bound by an oath of fidelity and secrecy, by whom all

all matters of weight, whether as in domestic or exterior policy, were debated, for the most part in its presence, and determined, subordinately of course to his pleasure, by the vote of the major part. It could not happen but bat some counsellors more eminent than the rest should form juntos or cabals, for more close or privats management, or be selected as more con. bdential advicers of their sovereign, and the very name of a Cabinet Council, as distinguished from the large body, may be found as far back as the zeign of Charles I But the resolutions of the Crown, whether as to foreign alhances or the issu- ing of proclamations and orders at home, or any other over act of government, were not finally taked without the deliberation and assent of that body nhom the law recognized as its sworn and notorious counsellors This was first broken in upon after the Restoration, and especially after the fall of Clarendon, a strenuous asserter of the right and dignity of the Privy Council.The King,' as he complains (Life, 3.9), bad in his nature so littis reverence and esteem for antiquily, and did in trath so much contemn old orders, forms, and institutions, that the subjection of novelty rather advanced then obstructed any proposition. He wanted to be ab solute on the French plan, for which both he and his brother, as the same historian tells us, had a great predilection rather than obtain a power little less arbitrary, so far at least as private rights were concerned, on the system of his three predecessors. The delays and the decencies of a regular council, the continual besitation of lawyers, were not suited to his temper, his talents, or his designa. —And it must indeed be admitted than the Privy Council, even as it was then constituted, was too numerous for the practical administration of supreme power Thus by degrees it became usual for the ministry or Cabinet to obtain the King's final approbation of their measures before they were laid, for a merely formal ratification, before the Council,... During the rej

of Wham,

Tham, this distinction of the Cabinet from the Privy Council, and the exclusion of the letter from all business of States, became more fully established

Probably the earliest notice that we have of the actual oxtetence of & Cabinet in England is in the Second Book of Clarendon's History of the Rebel lion, where, in describing the rate ofthings at the time when the Great Council of Feers

bled at York by Cupries after telling us that the bulk affairs lay principally upon Archbishop of Canterbury Strafford, and the 100 being joined to them as the i for ornenient, the

place, being 1

two Decretalt

Windebant d

Wiligence

In speaking of the earliest mention of a Cabinet Council as being to be found in the time of Charles, 1., Mr Hallam must be understood to mean as part of the system of government in England. It has been sometimes stated that the Cabinet Council was so called from having been usually held in that reign But in the cabinet or closet of Queen Henrietta. in truth, whatever may have been the case with the thing, the name was familiar enough in England long before this date. To prove this we need only refer to a passage in one of Bacon's Essays, the 20th, entitled "Of Counsel," first published in 1612, where he observes that, to avoid certain inconve niences, "the doctrine of Italy, and practice of France, in some Kings' times, bath introduced Cabinet Councils; a remedy worse than the disease." As for the thing, it was no doubt derived directly hy us from France, where the supreme government of the kingdom had long been conducted by what was called the Coureil du Cabinet or counsel of the King's closet. The word Cabinet, from the Italian Gabinete, indicates whence France had borrowed the institution. In France, as came also to be the

case in this country, the Cabinet Council, although in reality only a portion of the Privy Council, or Council of Siate, stood out in such marked pre- eminence, that it was very often designated simply the Council.

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power; but now, again, that we have a Whig mi- of them were eurprised at their coming is in the Cabinet no longer. So at the close of the reasons which brought them thither, nistry, the Dake, though still at the Horse Guards, after they had acquainted the Boar late government of Sir Robert Peel, the Paymester Shrewsbury returned them thanks for the rendi. of the Forces was not a member of the Cabinet inues to give the Cornell theresatulan = in thet the present government, Mr Macaulay, the holder of that office, is. The matter is commonly arranged

critical junctors Then they took their acts" A privy councillor, wo may remark, is charged claims of the individual rather than of the offes if he have a right to atleed meetings of the Concl and settled according to what are accounted to be the from his office at the royal discretional, eren On some are occasions persons have sai m the Cabinet while holding omces which have perer

without being summoned, its exercicis practi been considered as of a ministerial character. Ons

cable of the members of the Whig Cabinet of 1806-7 was Lord Ellenborough, the Chief Justice of the Court of the King's Bench. At other tienes some mem- bers of the Cabinet have held no office of any kind. The late Lord Sidmnath sat in the Cabinet for two years before 1824, when he retired from public life, without any office, having resigned the Secretary. ship of the Home Department, after holding it for sat for some time without any office in the Grey ten years, in 1822 The present Earl of Carlisle cabinet.

One or two of the offices, indeed, the oc Cabinet, are little more than nominal-such for cupante of which are generally members of the

instance, as the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster. The exiltence of such officers is at tended with the convenience of enabling an indivi- dual to be made available in the Government whom his age or other circumstances may preclude from being burthened with the duties of any particular department. From all this it will be perceived that the Cabinet does not consist of sag fixed number of persons. The numbers commonly range from eleven or twelve to fifteen or sixteen. The Ct. binet Council says Roger North, in his Life of his brother, the Lord Keeper Guilford, speaking of the timer of Charles II., consisted of those few great officers and courtiers whom the King relied upon for the interior dispatch of his affairs And, as offices of the law, out of clerkships, spawn wher offices, so this Council was derived from the Pavy Council, which originally was the same thing, and derived out of the Magnum Concilium, by that name mentioned in the rolls of parliament; and the same out of parliament, authorised by King Henry VIL, was known by the place where it sai, namely, the Star Chamber. Assamblies, at first reasonably constituted of a dus number and temper for dispatch of affairs committed to them, by improvident In. crease came to be formal and troublesome, the certain consequence of mulikude, and thereby new institution becomes necessary; whereupon it is found easier and safer to substitute than to dissolve. Thus the Cabinet Council, which at first was but in the nature of a private conversation, came to be a formal Council, and bad the direction of the

Government, foreign and domestic. The Spaniards have penalist Councils, called Juntos, assigned to each great branch of the royal power, which pre- vents such sub-emergent Councils as these B 1! both in England, as we have seen, and also in France, the Cabinet Council actually originated in the very gate of things here described as sub- sisting in Spain; it was at first only of these juntos or committees, into which the Council was divided And in feed it may he still considered as properly that section or committee of the Privy Counci which is intrusted with the exercise of the executive authority of the crown The Judicial Committee, commonly called the Court of Privy Council, is another such section, exercising the functions be longing to the Council as a court of justice; the Board of Trade, to be afterwards noticed, is a third. appointed to superintendent the commercial and manufacturing interests of the country.

It is worthy of note that the French Cabinet Coun. cil was originally that portion or subdivision of the Privy Council which was occupied with foreign affairs; it was the Conseil des affaires Etrangères And so it was among ourselves. In the early part of the reign of Charles II, the whole Privy Council was divided into three or four committees; the first and chief of which was the Committee for Foreign Affairs; and that particular committee, in which, all the most important transactions of the State were usually debated and considered before being submitted to a general meeting of the Council, was apecially known as the Cabinet or the Cabal Thus Clarendon, in the Continuation of bis Life (p. 27), tells us that after the Restoration "the In the Act of Settlement of the Crown upon the Treasurer (Southampton), Marquis of Ormond, the House of Etnover, passed in 1700 (the 12 and 18 'General (Monk), with the two Secretaries of Stats, Wm. 11. c. 2) it was enacted that from and after wers of that secret committee, with the Chancellor the time such settlement should take effect, ell (Clarendon himself), which under the notion of matters and things relating to the well governing Foreign Affairs, were appointed by the King to of the kingdom, which were properly cognizable in consult all his affairs before they came to a public the Privy Council by the law and the customs of debate. So, speaking of a certain statement of ac the realm, should be transacted there, and ali reso counts in the year 1689, Pepys tells us (iv. 243)lutions taken thereupon signed by such of the Privy that it had passed the King and his Cabal (the Committee for Foreign Affairs, as they are called. It is sometimes supposed that the term Cabal was first taken from the five chief councillors, Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, not Lauderdale, who managed affairs from about 1670 to 1673, and the initial letters of whose names makes up the word. But that was merely an accidental coinci- dence the term Cabal derived, through the medium of the French Cabale, from the Chibalo, or secret doctrine of the Jews, was used in England to de. signate the small body of persons having in their hands the supreme direction of the affairs of State even before the Restoration. It probably carried. with it at first something of an offensive sense; but that meaning would seem to have been wearing away when it was revived and hxed by the unI PO pularity of the ministry of 1670 The word, we believe, has never since been applied arcent to convey an imputation of objectionable as well as secret combination, and it has in later times been more commonly used to designate any self-consti tuted knot of factious intriguers than a ministry or Cabinet

We are accustomed to consider the Cabinet, or Cabinet Council, as being formed or constituted by the assemblage of the persons, or certain of them, ↑ who hold the offices of the Ministry—as if it were his appointment as minister that made no individual a member of the Cabinet, but the orig nader standing was probably different. In France, at least it was the nomination of an individual brathe King as a member of the Cabinet, or Council of Foreign Affairs, that made bun i muniaine d'éal or minister of state,

1640)

State ally, a member of the Cabinet

the Among ourselves

thereas envy office olista16, DOW

of which the

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in-

Council as should advise and consent to the same. This regulation was intended to check the practice of not only originating but foally deciding affairs of state in a Cabinet or other small body selected from the Council, which had been made extremely unp pular by the excess to which it had been carried by Williain, who in some of the most important transactions of his reign, had taken only one or two of his ministers into his confidence; but the clause was repealed in 1705 (by the # Ann. e. 8,) before it had ever come into operation. In regard to the practice that bas since subsisted, Mr Haliem writes: The plans of govemment are discussed and determined in a Cabinet Council, forming deed part of the larger body, bat unknown to the law by any distinct charter or special appoint. ment I concaire, though I hare not the magus of tracing the matter clearly, that this change has prodigiously augmented the direct authority of the Secretares of State, especially as to the interior department who communicate the King's pleasure, instance to rebordinate officer Bod magistrated in cases chich, de wat least to the time of Charles I., world have been determined in Council. But proclamations orders still ema- Date, as ibe Jaw requires, from the Privy Council and on some are occasions, even of ats vere waiter of domestic podCE IN their adrbe 11 is genera that bo Councillor i to in moned that, and Council has become, ta

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Wenead hardly say that the cabinet and mmistry now a days consist always of r of one particular party. This, however, so africtly the case former. Svedala alan date as towards the close of the revin Gerl!. it sometimes happened that the servants of the Crown. were divided into factions, and might be seen in night, pablicly opposing one another ape the the House of Lorde and Comvong, night after highest points of the policy of the day, and the most unreserved language. If we go back will farther, in the reign of Willem III, we find hu principle of the arch, er that of a beleace to be ere and cabinets desperately constructed doop the maintained by the antsposted two opposing perties Instead of somatises & Whig end some- limes a Tory ministry, as is the medsen system. King William used to take so many Whigs nad so meny Tories, and set them to wrangle with or But maavre one another in the same cabinet. Bat the most remarkable scheme of this kind eze that adopted by Charins 11 18 1073, on the advice of Sir William Temple, when a new Pitry Com. Cabin, was formed, coasation of thirty indivi el, with the powers of what we should now call a dusts, fifteen of them the chief officers of the Come and household, and other filter selected fem among the leading members so both sides of the Hnoses of Lords and ComSONS. In a reclama

stated that he had resalted to far aside the mer ne tion announcing it's noble arrangement, his majesty might have hitherto made of gay single ministry, or private advices, or formiga cammille år the ze. neral directive of his affairs," and hereafter to govern his kingiam by the cessant Mrice of the new Council, Mogether with the frequent use of his great Council of Parliament, which be like to be the trge ancient constitution of this state and government." The scheme, however, estirely failed

Che word mast be added on the pace of the Penier or Prime Minister. This is an office us little known to our legal constitution an de the Ca.. Vine: Council; and the term is perisaps of still later introduction of establishment sacag of It is French (Premics Mistrtrey ́as well as the form Cablar. 4. princiosi maister, it is true, who bas sametimes been sole minister, has exted in every period of the history of the monarchy Legally And constitutionally, beweser, nu Privy Councillor has es euch any pre eminence over soother, mor when they meet in Coance dog the role of the one who may hold the bigbest office coum for more than that of the one bolding the lowes, or no office at all. The Prime Minister is merely the member of the Cabinal posseeing the Chiel confidence of the Crowner whom he sovereign has chnees to intrast with the principal direction of ofhire. But this is a matter of anderstanding, and nothing more; there is to express sppoint. ment of aby marker of the ministry as Pame Minister. And the diftinction is attached to the person and not to any particular office.

J: DER hear most usual in modere rimes that the Prime Minister should hold the office of First Lord of the Treasury, sometimes aloe, sometimes con- jolsed with that of Chancellor of the Exchequer ; bat he may be the holder of any other nice, or of no office at all. Lord Chacham was Prime Mi. mister for some time, white bokding the offs of keeper of the Privy Sesl We have now become quith reconciled to both the thing and the nimS (it is always in such cases the name that scares people the longest); bat little more than a century Ago we Bad Sir Robers Walpole resenting the title of Prime Minister at an imputation. Ia a speech in reply to a motion for his rassural, on the 13th February, 1741, after he had been nearly twenty years at the head of affairs, be it reported to here sit Haring Srst conferred topa me # Alad of mock dignity, and styled me the Prices Muster, they (the supporters of the molion) carry on the fiction which has once heated their imaginations, and impute to me an unpardonable abuse of that chimerical authority which only they have thought it necessary to bestow” It was more conc formerly thank is now to designate the Prime Minister simply the Afinister.

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TEARATION OF DIPLOMATIC HOSTILITIES

In our last publication we noticed the implacable girt with which hospitalices were carried on at the house of Mr Guizot, and the embassy. reconciliatina bas, hor

recent sought to not at all diamosed, like Dewail the termination of

sw repruachfully after

localy then in the Court the Bal