may fully share
in every important discussion and decision, it is essential that the
Cabinet should be small. Sir Robert Peel, in whose ministry of 1841-6
the system probably reached perfection, laid it down that nine was the
maximum number for efficiency, because not more than about nine men can
sit round a table in full view of one another, all taking a real share
in every discussion. When the membership of a Cabinet largely exceeds
this figure, it is inevitable that the sense of joint and several
responsibility for every decision should be greatly weakened.

MODERN CHANGES IN THE CABINET

I do not think any one will deny that the Cabinet has in a large degree
lost these four features which we have laid down as requisite for full
efficiency. The process has been going on for a long time, but during
the last six years it has been accelerated so greatly that the Cabinet
of to-day is almost unrecognisably different from what it was fifty
years ago. To begin with, it has grown enormously in size, owing to the
increase in the number of departments of government. This growth has
markedly diminished the sense of responsibility for national policy as a
whole felt by the individual members, and the wholesome practice of
resignation has gone out of fashion. It has led to frequent failures in
the co-ordination of the various departments, which are often seen
working at cross purposes. It has brought about a new formality in the
proceedings of the Cabinet, in the establishment of a Cabinet
Secretariat.

The lack of an efficient joint Cabinet control has encouraged a very
marked and unhealthy increase in the personal authority of the Prime
Minister and of the clique of more intimate colleagues by whom he is
surrounded; and this is strengthened by the working of the new
Secretariat. All these unhealthy features have been intensified by the
combination of the two strongest parties in Parliament to form a
coalition; for this has deprived the Cabinet of homogeneity and made it
the scene not of the definition of a policy guided by clear principles,
but rather the scene of incessant argument, bargaining, and compromise
on fundamentals. Finally, the responsibility of the Cabinet to
Parliament has been gravely weakened; it acts as the master of
Parliament, not as its agent, and its efficiency suffers from the fact
that its members are able to take their responsibility to Parliament
very lightly.

All these defects in the working o