if their policies cross, without
calling them into council? For the policies of all Ministers cross, and
inter-cross, and should do so if there is to be a harmonious and healthy
administration, especially in questions and policies of finance.

Ultimately the temptation will always be present to these four internal
Ministers to get subservient persons nominated to the positions to be held
by the eight external Ministers. They themselves will have come to power
by a majority of the Chamber. Of that majority they will be the
acknowledged leaders; and it would be strange if they did not use that
majority to find eight external Ministers to their liking. But where this
happened (as happen it certainly would, in the ordinary human
probabilities of the situation) a very remarkable result would come to
pass, unlike anything in the history of representative government. This
is, that the Four would in practice dictate the Executive policy of the
Eight, but they would not be answerable to the Chamber for the
administrative conduct of those eight departments. They would require what
must be done, but they would not themselves be responsible for the manner
in which it was done, or whether it were done at all. For the Eight would
have been nominated for the life of the Chamber by a special Committee,
they would not be members of the Chamber, they would not be susceptible
to a vote of lack of confidence, but could only be removed when the
Committee which nominated them had found them guilty of some public
misconduct in their administration.

The first result of this amazing separation of executive and
administrative responsibility would be that the Chamber, looking from one
to the other in the attempt to fix the ultimate responsibility, would find
itself with only the vain shadow of control. For the Eight would in theory
be responsible to it, but in practice--certainly on all major matters of
policy--would be directed by the Four. Yet the Four could not be held
responsible for the doings of the Eight. And the second result would be
that the Eight would be little more than Civil Servants. Yet they would
not be Civil Servants. They would neither be Ministers nor Civil Servants,
having neither one kind of responsibility nor the other.

The baffling consequence would be that the Chamber would not only lose
control over the Eight, but, because of the same division between
executive and administrative responsibility, would lose control ov