rought back to its original
principles, and harmony was restored between the Crown and the
parliament, the cabinet became no longer a term of reproach, but a
position therein was regarded as the highest honour in the country,
and was associated with the efficient administration of public
affairs, since it meant a body of men responsible to parliament for
every act of government.[29] The old executive councils of Canada were
obnoxious to the people for the same reason that the councils of the
Stuarts, and even of George III, with the exception of the regime of
the two Pitts, became unpopular. Not only do we in Canada, in
accordance with our desire to perpetuate the names of English
institutions use the name "cabinet" which was applied to an
institution that gradually grew out of the old privy council of
England, but we have even incorporated in our fundamental law the
older name of "privy council," which itself sprang from the original
"permanent" or "continual" council of the Norman kings. Following
English precedent, the Canadian cabinet or ministry is formed out of
the privy councillors, chosen under the law by the governor-general,
and when they retire from office they still retain the purely honorary
distinction. In the United States the use of the term "cabinet" has
none of the significance it has with us, and if it can be compared at
all to any English institutions it might be to the old cabinets who
acknowledged responsibility to the king, and were only so many heads
of departments in the king's government. As a matter of fact the
comparison would be closer if we said that the administration
resembles the cabinets of the old French kings, or to quote Professor
Bryce, "the group of ministers who surround the Czar or the Sultan, or
who executed the bidding of a Roman emperor like Constantine or
Justinian." Such ministers like the old executive councils of Canada,
"are severally responsible to their master, and are severally called
in to counsel him, but they have not necessarily any relations with
one another, nor any duty or collective action." Not only is the
administration conducted on the principle of responsibility to the
president alone, in this respect the English king in old irresponsible
days, but the legislative department is itself constructed after the
English model as it existed a century ago, and a general system of
government is established, lacking in that unity and elasticity which
are essential to