To the reign of William III. we owe the beginning of our present system of Ministerial government; that is to say, the management of the affairs of State by a Council composed of members of the same political party and closely united in opinion. This body is called the Ministry, and its members Ministers of State. The statesman who is entrusted by the Sovereign to form a Ministry is known by various names, such as the Prime Min

ister, the Premier, and First Lord of the Treasury. Each member of the Ministry has the management of one or more departments of public business, as, for example, the Army, Navy, Home Affairs, &c. A certain number of the leading members form the Cabinet, in which all important public measures are privately discussed. Each Minister conducts

the business of his own department as he may think best, but all matters of importance, which may likely be the subject of discussion in Parliament, are considered by the whole Ministry, whose decision must be supported by each of its members.

The political character of the Ministry depends upon the balance of political parties in the House of Commons. As a rule, the party which forms the majority of that House furnishes the members of the Ministry. In reality, therefore, the Ministry is simply a committee of Parliament, appointed to manage the business of the country in accordance with the opinions of the majority of the nation as represented in the House of Commons. The nomination of the members of this committee belongs to the Sovereign, but the selection is always made from the prevailing party in Parliament. Such is the system of Ministerial government which took its rise under William III.

Previous to this important change in the system of government, the Sovereign selected whom he pleased to manage the different departments of State. The statesmen so employed were responsible not to Parliament but to the monarch, and

only for the duties of their respective offices. It was not necessary that they should hold the same opinions on public questions. Oftentimes it happened that the head of one department was in open opposition to the head of another. Out of these leading men the Sovereign might select a number to advise with him on important matters; as, for instance, Charles II. did with the Cabal. These chosen counsellors usually met in some retired room in the royal palace, or cabinet, as it came to be called in the time of the Stuarts, and thus the term Cabinet was used in after years as another name for the Ministry.

Such was the mode of government at the time of the Revolution. In accordance with this system, William III. chose for the chief offices of State the leading men of the Whig and Tory parties. The want of union among such statesmen is easy to understand, and it is also plain that public business under those circumstances must have been carried on with great difficulty. Parliament had no control over such public officers; but it could call them to account, by a public trial or impeachment, for any illegal acts, as it had done in the case of Lord Strafford and the Earl of Clarendon in previous reigns.

Parliament itself was also much weakened in power and usefulness, because, having no one party leader to follow, it wanted unity of purpose. It had, indeed, at the Revolution secured for itself the right of controlling taxation and the armed forces

of the nation, as mentioned in the preceding Lesson, thereby making itself the chief power in the State; but without Ministerial government it lacked the machinery for using for the public good the power which it possessed.

In the great struggle with France, about which we read in the Eighteenth Lesson, King William needed the unanimous support of Parliament; but as it had no voice in his plans, except in the matter of voting supplies of money, its action was often a hindrance to success. The members of the House of Commons were factious and fickle. Unable to find means for using the power they possessed, they had recourse to a criticising and grumbling spirit. They found fault with the slowness of the war of the Grand Alliance, complained of the unsatisfactory state of the nation, and blamed the Sovereign and his advisers for their ill success. The Government was often driven to despair by parliamentary factions; and unless some remedy had been found, the existence of Parliaments of this kind would have been a loss rather than a gain to any country.

A remedy was found in a suggestion made to the King to select all his Ministers of State from among the party that was strongest in the House of Commons. By so doing the Executive Government would consist of men bound together by sameness of opinions and a sense of responsibility to their party. Parliament, ceasing to be factious, would naturally divide itself into two parties,

namely, the supporters of the Ministry and the Opposition. Parliament and the Executive Government would thus be united in purpose, and the nation would be enabled to exert its whole strength in furthering the public good.

The King adopted this suggestion in the year 1695. The majority of the House of Commons then elected were Whigs, and from these were chosen statesmen to fill all the chief offices of State. Thus the first English Ministry was composed of Whigs.

The benefit of the system was soon seen in Parliament. Members, bound by loyalty to party, quietly followed their leaders, and public business was more quickly and better done. Many useful measures were made law, among which may be mentioned the Triennial Bill and the abolition of the Censorship of the Press.

The Triennial Bill limited the duration of Parliament to three years. It continued in force until the reign of George I., when the Septennial Bill became law. The abolition of the Censorship of Printing 'set the press free. This was a most important change. Previously no book or paper could be printed without the authority of Government. A Licensing Act for printing was in force, fixing the places where presses might be established, and even limiting the number of master printers. Violations of this act might bring upon authors and printers the punishments of fine and imprisonment, the pillory, flogging, mutilation, or hanging. Under such a restriction books were scarce and