tment.

[Footnote 102: The English Constitution (new ed.),
79.]

In effect, the cabinet comprises a parliamentary committee chosen, as
Bagehot bluntly puts it, to rule the nation. If a cabinet group does
not represent the ideas and purposes of Parliament as a whole, it at
least represents those of the majority of the preponderating chamber;
and that is ample to give it, during the space of its tenure of
office, a thoroughgoing command of the situation. The basal fact of
the political system is the control of party, and within the party the
power that governs is the cabinet. "The machinery," says Lowell, "is
one of wheels within wheels; the outside ring consisting of the (p. 075)
party that has a majority in the House of Commons; the next ring being
the ministry, which contains the men who are most active within that
party; and the smallest of all being the cabinet, containing the real
leaders or chiefs. By this means is secured that unity of party action
which depends upon placing the directing power in the hands of a body
small enough to agree, and influential enough to control."[103]

[Footnote 103: Government of England, I., 56. The
best discussion of the organization, functions, and
relationships of the cabinet is contained in
Lowell, _op. cit._, I., Chaps. 2-3, 17-18, 22-23.
Other good general accounts are Low, Governance of
England, Chaps. 2-4, 8-9; Moran, English
Government, Chaps. 4-9; Macy, English Constitution,
Chap. 6; Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution,
II., Pt. 1, Chap. 2; and Maitland, Constitutional
History of England, 387-430. A detailed and still
valuable survey is in Todd, Parliamentary
Government, Parts 3-4. A brilliant study is
Bagehot, English Constitution, especially Chaps. 1,
6-9. The growth of the cabinet is well described in
Blauvelt, The Development of Cabinet Government in
England; and a monograph of value is P. le Vasseur,
Le cabinet britannique sous la reine Victoria
(Paris, 1902). For an extended bibliography see
Select List of Books on the Cabinets of England and
Ame