ions, on
the other hand, do enjoy responsible self-government, but in an
incomplete form, because the most vital of all issues of policy are
outside their control. On questions of foreign policy, and the issues of
war and peace, the Parliaments of the Dominions, and the citizens they
represent, are, constitutionally speaking, as helpless as the most
ignorant native in the humblest dependency. Representative institutions
in themselves thus no more ensure real self-government than the setting
up of a works committee of employees in a factory would ensure that the
workmen ran the factory. The distinction between representation and
effective responsibility is so simple that it seems a platitude to
mention it. Yet it is constantly ignored, both in this country by those
who speak of Colonial self-government as though the Dominions really
enjoyed the same self-government as the people of these islands, and by
the parties in Germany whose programme it is, not to make Germany a
truly constitutional country, but to assimilate the retrograde Prussian
franchise to the broader representation of the Reichstag.

Wherein does the transition from representation to full responsibility
consist? It came about in England when Parliament, instead of merely
being consulted by the sovereign, felt itself strong enough to give
orders to the sovereign. The sovereign naturally resisted, as the Kaiser
and the Tsar will resist in their turn; but in this country the battle
was fought and won in the seventeenth century. Since that time, with a
few vacillations, Parliament has been the sovereign power. But once this
transfer of sovereignty has taken place, a new problem arises. A
Parliament of several hundred members, even though it meets regularly,
is not competent to transact the multitudinous and complex and highly
specialized business of a modern State. The original function of
Parliament was to advise, to discuss, and to criticize. It is not an
instrument fit for the work of execution and administration. Having
become sovereign, its first business must be to create out of its own
members an instrument which should carry out its own policy and be
responsible to itself for its actions. Hence arose the Cabinet. The
Cabinet is, as it were, a distillation of Parliament, just as Parliament
itself is a distillation of the country. It consists of members of
Parliament and it is in constant touch with Parliament; but its methods
are not the methods of Parl