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The English Cabinet Secretariat
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
Extract
No one of the many changes in the English constitution during the World War is more interesting than the establishment of the cabinet secretariat. The device came into being under the stress of war-time conditions, as a result of the complexity of the problems to be dealt with, and of the need for centralizing the activities of the government. Its retention after many other features of the war administration have proved only transitory is an example of the permanence that war-time institutions sometimes acquire.
Before the war no minutes of cabinet meetings were kept. The only record of cabinet decisions was contained in the letter which the prime minister wrote with his own hand to the sovereign, reporting only those decisions which he thought should be brought to the sovereign's attention. A copy of each letter was kept for reference by the prime minister. Since it was considered bad form to take notes in cabinet meetings, individual members had to depend upon memory when proceeding to apply cabinet decisions in their own departments. Such procedure was unbusinesslike, and was one of the factors that rendered the cabinet system cumbrous and inefficient in the conduct of a great war. The War Cabinet needed an agency to prepare information for its consideration, to keep an accurate record of the many and vitally important decisions it made, and to transmit those decisions to the departments charged with ultimately carrying them into effect. Under such circumstances, the cabinet secretariat came into existence.
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References
1 Mr. Asquith, 155 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 228.
2 “Cabinet Etiquette” (ed.), Spectator, CXXXVII, p. 4 (July 3, 1926)Google Scholar. See also letters in the Times by Mr. Geoffrey Drage (June 26, 1922), Mr. G. E. Buckle, the biographer of Lord Beaconsfield (June 16, 1922), and Mr. Arthur Ponsonby, who was for a time Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's private secretary (July 3, 1922), discussing the point as to whether or not ministers were often left in doubt concerning cabinet decisions.
3 Mr. Lloyd George, 88 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 1343.
4 Mr. Asquith, 155 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 226–231.
5 Fairlie, John A., British War Administration (New York, 1919), pp. 44–46Google Scholar.
6 88 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 1343.
7 Times, February 14, 1917; War Cabinet: Report for the Year 1917 (Cmd. 9005, London, 1918), p. 3Google Scholar.
8 Ibid.
9 155 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 266. In his new treatise, The Mechanism of the Modern State (Oxford, 1927), II, p. 84Google Scholar, Sir John Marriott finds the origin of the cabinet secretariat in the secretariat of the Committee of Imperial Defense, without noting any intervening stages by which the service was introduced into the cabinet.
10 War Cabinet: Report for the Year 1917, p. 3.
11 War Cabinet: Report far the Year 1917, ibid.
12 War Cabinet: Report for the Year 1918 (Cmd. 325, London, 1919), p. 6Google Scholar.
13 112 H. C. Deb. 5 s., p. vii.
14 Times, October 30, 1919; also (November 13, 1919) 121 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 500.
15 Times, February 14, 1917; see also (July 4, 1922) 156 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 187.
16 Times, February 20, 1917.
17 91 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 602–222.
18 Times, June 19, 1917.
19 Estimates for Civil Services (Sessional Papers, 1923, vol. XVI), p. 24 noteGoogle Scholar.
20 121 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 500.
21 During the first period of its existence the secretariat received the endorsement of two important parliamentary committees. The Machinery of Government Committee, of which Viscount Haldane was chairman, appointed in July, 1917, and reporting in December, 1918, made the following recommendation: “We think there is one feature in the procedure of the War Cabinet which may well assume a permanent form, namely, the appointment of a secretary to the cabinet charged with the duty of collecting and putting into shape its agenda, of providing the information and material necessary for its deliberations, and of drawing up records of the results for communication to the departments concerned.” Ministry of Reconstruction: Report of the Machinery of Government Committee (Cmd. 9230, London, 1918), p. 6Google Scholar. The Committee on National Expenditure, better known as the Geddes Committee, from the name of its chairman, Sir Eric Geddes, reporting in 1922, referred to the cabinet secretariat as follows: “We recognize that the amount of work devolving upon this office is still very heavy, and the Treasury, who have carefully reviewed the whole staff from time to time, are satisfied that it is not in excess of what is required. In these circumstances we make no recommendations.” Third Interim Report of the Committee on National Expenditure (Cmd. 1589, London, 1922), p. 58Google Scholar. The following classification of the staff of the cabinet secretariat, contained in the Geddes report, is interesting as showing its composition when criticism arose: administrative, 11; clerical, 47; typists, 22; messengers, 20; charwomen, 14; total, 114.
22 “The Cabinet Secretariat,” Nineteenth Century and After, XCI, pp. 913–923 (June, 1922)Google Scholar. The suggestion that the cabinet secretariat might go the way of the secretaries of state is interesting, but can hardly be taken seriously. At any rate, it has since been shown that the secretaries of state were from the first something more than “recorders and transmitters,” as Sir Henry Craik thought. See Evans, Florence M. Grier, The Principal Secretary of State (Manchester, 1923)Google Scholar.
23 Spectator, CXXVIII, p. 708 (June 10, 1922)Google Scholar.
24 June 13, 1922.
25 Sir Donald Maclean (Liberal), 155 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 213; Sir Henry Craik (Coalition Unionist), ibid., 243; Mr. Lloyd George, ibid., 263.
26 Sir Donald Maclean; Lieut.-Col. Guinness (Coalition Unionist), ibid., 251–254; Sir John Marriott (Coalition Unionist), ibid., 255–263.
27 Sir Donald Maclean, Lieut.-Col. Guiness.
28 Sir Donald Maclean; Lord Eustace Percy (Unionist), ibid., 232–239; Sir John Marriott.
29 Mr. Asquith, ibid., 226–231.
30 Mr. Isaac Foot (Liberal), ibid., 239–241; Mr. Adamson (Labor), ibid., 255–256.
31 Sir Henry Craik, ibid., 241–245.
32 Lord Robert Cecil (Unionist), ibid., 245–251.
33 Sir Henry Craik, Sir John Marriott.
34 Sir Austen Chamberlain, ibid., 224.
35 Mr. Lloyd George, ibid., 271–272.
36 Ibid., 267–271.
37 Sir Austen Chamberlain, ibid., 224.
38 See Mousley, Edwin, “The Cabinet Secretariat and Empire Government,” Fortnightly Review, CXIX, pp. 523–526 (March, 1923)Google Scholar. It is recognized that the cabinet secretariat performed a real service in effecting continuity in Empire government, and it seemed to the writer that the curtailment of the functions of the secretariat by Mr. Law in the latter part of 1922 would have an undesirable effect on relations with the Dominions.
39 See note 21 above.
40 Mr. Lloyd George, 155 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 263–76.
41 Ibid., 219.
42 Ibid., 276.
43 Ibid., 275. The division is analyzed in the Liberal Magazine (XXX, p. 470, July, 1922Google Scholar) as follows:
44 155 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 287.
45 June 14, 1922.
46 June 16, 1922. Quoted in Sait, and Barrows, , British Politics in Transition (Yonkers-on-Hudson, 1925), p. 48Google Scholar.
47 CXXVIII, p. 740 (June 17, 1922).
48 XXX, pp. 418–420 (June, 1922).
49 Saturday Review, CXXXIII, p. 624 (June 17, 1922)Google Scholar; London Nation, XXXVII, p. 397 (June 17, 1922)Google Scholar.
50 Times, June 23, 1922.
51 Ibid., June 26, 1922.
52 Ibid., July 3, 1922; Sept. 26, 1922; Oct. 5, 1922.
53 Times, Oct. 12, 1922 (letter).
54 English Political Institutions (3rd ed., Oxford, 1925), p. xxvGoogle Scholar, and The Mechanism of the Modern State (Oxford, 1927), II, p. 85Google Scholar. See also a letter in the Times, October 7, 1922.
55 War Cabinet: Report for the Year 1917, p. 3.
56 Ibid., for 1918, p. 6.
57 Mr. Baldwin, 164 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 5.
58 Ibid.; see also a letter by Mr. Arthur Ponsonby, Times, July 3, 1922.
59 Sir Maurice Hankey was given a grant of £25,000 in 1919 for his war services as secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defense and the War Cabinet. For Mr. Lloyd George's tribute, see 119 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 419. In 1921 his salary was increased from £2,000 to £3,000. For tributes to his services at that time, see 138 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 1903 seq.
60 Times, November 3, 1922.
61 164 H. C. Deb. 5 s. 5.
62 Civil Service Estimates (Sessional Papers, 1923, vol. XVI), p. 24Google Scholar; ibid., 1924, vol. XVI, p. 18; ibid., 1924–25, vol. XIX, p. 24.