TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE SCENE OF WEDNESDAY.
THIS will never do. It is not the Liberal party, or the Tory party, or any party, which is injured by such a scene as that which occurred in the House of Commons on Wednes- day ; it is Government itself, and more especially Government through Parliament, which is rendered almost impossible. The Government asked, through the Department of Public Works, for a vote of £8,500, to extend the Thames Embankment beyond the Houses of Parliament, and the First Commissioner of Works absolutely refused, in the face of the House, to be responsible for the demand. He had, he said, sent in his estimate to the Treasury, with a Note declining to say anything about buildings, but while the estimate had been enlarged, his Note had been cancelled. No further communication had been made to him, but the plan, as he heard unofficially, had been largely increased, and build- ings had been ordered of which he knew nothing except through the channels accessible to anybody. He objected en- tirely to come down to the House with little votes which involved much larger future expenditure ; indeed he had defeated Lord Palmerston in the height of his power on that very point, and would not do it, as inconsistent with all his former public professions. If the Treasury had the right to override him in that manner, then the Treasury became an executive department of Public Works, and as there could not be two executive depart- ments of Works, the First Commissioner could have no responsibility. What was he responsible for ? Works he had not ordered. This astounding speech, which in fact implied that Mr. Ayrton thought Mr. Lowe's conduct so bad that he would not obey him, or be responsible for anything in which he had interfered—and which should therefore have been pre- ceded by his own resignation—was not answered by Mr. Lowe, who was sitting, eye-witnesses declare, in silent sulk ; but it called up Mr. Gladstone, who with the utmost decisiveness threw over Mr. Ayrton. He agreed with him apparently in disliking Mr. Lowe's extended plan, thinking that London should pay for her own improvements, bnt told him plainly that he misunderstood Ministerial Responsibility ; that a Minister, even when invested with statutory powers, must necessarily be subordinate to the entire Government. That is true even of a Secretary of State, and how much more
so of a Minister outside the Cabinet I " Every member of the Government may adopt a measure which is not that which his own mind would have dictated, but this does not exempt him from Parliamentary responsibility, which remains whole and entire ; and Parliament has a right to exact from him a per- fect responsibility for everything which is done in his depart- ment." Mr. Ayrton had his view of this special work, and Mr. Lowe had his, and Government, on the whole, accepted Mr. Lowe's, which thenceforward Mr. Ayrton had only to carry out or to take himself away.
How Mr. Disraeli would have enjoyed himself if he had only been present to increase the tumult by a few vitriolic sentences. He was, however, unhappily for readers of the debates, absent ; but Mr. Ward Hunt did his best to replace him, told the House that Mr. Lowe and Mr. Ayrton were not on speaking terms, asked whether the breadth of a whole street was not enough to enable two departments to allow public business to be carried on, and in fact made the " incompatibility " of the two offices as patent as he knew how, while he described the regular practice in most succinct words. " What is the practice of the Treasury ? It is that the subordinate departments send in their estimates to the Treasury, which exercises its control in cutting them down. But when any serious alteration is made by the Treasury, communications are held between the Treasury and the head of the department, the Treasury having the ulti- mate decision, and it is after those communications that the estimates are finally prepared and laid before Parlia- ment." Then Mr. Cowper - Temple, who has been First Commissioner, stood up and wanted to know why, if the estimate were Mr. Ayrton's, he had declined all responsibility for it? or if it were not, why he had not declined to produce it, and left that duty to the Secretary of the Trea- sury? At present the House had a pecuniary demand before it, and nobody would admit that he was personally responsible either for the request or for the method of ex- penditure. Mr. Cowper-Temple was doing "candid friend," no doubt, but he told the truth, and the whole scene amounted 1 to this, that the Treasury is jangling with the Departments, till, as in the Zanzibar Contract case and the Post-Office Scandal case, the public service suffers, and all manner of private antipathies, and contempts, and disagreements are- brought before the world, which always exaggerates them, till it is half-inclined to believe there is no Government at all.
Mr. Ayrton of course we are accustomed to, but not in this attitude, his pose being usually one of contempt towards subordinates. He sent in his estimate, and because it was not approved, instead of conferring with the Chancellor of the- Exchequer and making a new arrangement, or appealing to the Cabinet, or resigning, he throws up his arms in the- House of Commons, and mutters, like an angry boy under his, master's rebuke, " 'Tisn't fair, and I won't play." It was, scarcely unfair of Mr. Cowper-Temple to assert that, after neg- lecting his duty, he came crying to the House for sympathy in his wrongs. Then Mr. Lowe, instead of opening a communi- cation with the Commissioner of Works, by sending for him, for example, makes his own arrangements without com- municating with him, sends the estimate to Parliament under Mr. Ayrton's name, and leaves the Premier, with his tact and address, to get everybody out of the scrape as he can,. and to administer a public lecture to his colleague, not only on his knowledge of constitutional law, but on his temper. "I consider that my right hon. friend near me (Mr. Ayrton) is subject not to the control of a particular department, other- wise than is laid down by the statute, but that he is subject to the control of the Government as a whole, and to no other control whatever. However, a question arises which all members of all Governments have to put to themselves in the inner forum of conscience from time to time. If they are mem of sense, as they sometimes are, they are occasionally obliged to forego their individual opinions on particular questions for the sake of avoiding greater evils." This is washing dirty linen in public with a vengeance, and must and will destroy much of the public confidence in the administration of public business. Mr. Ayrton's temper matters little to anybody except his depart- ment, but the Treasury touches every branch of the Administra- tion, and if Mr. Lowe really cannot communicate with subordi- nate departments because he does not like those who engineer them, there is an end of all government whatever. England is thrown back on Spanish precedents. Political life becomes a pettish squabble for power and independence and authority, instead of the careful management of a great machine. If such scenes were to happen often, it would in the end come to this,—that we should have to strengthen the hands of the Premier over the political officials whom he selects, till he would be virtually President in Council in the Continental way, instead of the most important member of a Cabinet of colleagues. Not that Mr. Gladstone is not right. His idea of Ministerial Responsibility is the only one by which Parlia- mentary government can be worked, but considering that Mr. Ayrton had stated his intention of rebelling—that is, of reject- ing his responsibility—on Monday, the lecture might have beets delivered before, with closed doors, and with a peroration.
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