f the nineteenth century the number ran up
to thirteen or fourteen, and throughout the Gladstone-Disraeli period
it seldom fell below this level. The second Salisbury cabinet, at its
fall in 1892, numbered seventeen, and when, following the elections of
1900, the third Salisbury government was reconstructed, the cabinet
attained a membership of twenty.[90] The Balfour cabinet of 1905 (p. 066)
and the succeeding Campbell-Bannerman cabinet likewise numbered
twenty. The increase is attributable to several causes, especially the
pressure which comes from ambitious statesmen for admission to the
influential circle, the growing necessity of according representation
to varied elements and interests within the dominant party, the
multiplication of state activities which call for direction under new
and important departments, and the disposition to accord to every
considerable branch of the administrative system at least one
representative. The effect is to produce a certain unwieldiness, to
avoid which, it will be recalled, the cabinet was originally
instituted. Only through the domination of the cabinet by a few of its
most influential members can expeditiousness be preserved, and during
recent years there has been a tendency toward the differentiation of
an inner circle which shall bear to the whole cabinet a relation
somewhat analogous to that which the cabinet now bears to the
ministry. Development in this direction is viewed apprehensively by
many people who regard that the concentration of power in the hands of
an "inner cabinet" might well fail to be accompanied by a
corresponding concentration of recognized responsibility. During more
than a decade criticism of the inordinate size of the cabinet group
has been voiced freely upon numerous occasions and by many
observers.[91]

[Footnote 90: Lord Salisbury at this point retired
from the Foreign Office, which was assigned to Lord
Lansdowne, and assumed in conjunction with the
premiership the less exacting post of Lord Privy
Seal.]

[Footnote 91: Lowell, Government of England, I.,
59; Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, II.,
Pt. 1, 211.]

*69. Appointment of the Premier.*--When a new cabinet is to be made up
the first step is the designation of the prime minister. Legally the
choice rests with the crown, but cons