Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: derived from the crown may not be estimated more highly, or admitted more universally than they were at that time, the objections to the monarchy have almost entirely disappeared, and there is no republican sentiment left to-day either in Parliament or the country. Nature of the Cabinet The conventions of the constitution have limited and adjusted the exercise of all legal powers by the regular organs of the state in such a way as to vest the main authority of the central government — the driving and the steering force — in the hands of a body entirely unknown to the law. The members of the cabinet are almost always the holders of public offices created by law; but their possession of those offices by no means determines their activity as members of the cabinet. They have, indeed, two functions. Individually, as officials, they do the executive work of the state and administer its departments; collectively they direct the general policy of the government. The essential function of the cabinet is to coordinate and guide the political action of the different branches of the government, and thus create a consistent policy. Bagehot called it a hyphen that joins, a buckle that fastens, the executive and legislative together; and in another place he speaks of it as a committee of Parliament chosen to rule the nation. More strictly, it is a committee of the party that has a majority in the House of Commons. The minority is not represented upon it; and in this it differs from every other parliamentary committee. The distinction is so obvious to us to-day, we are so accustomed to government by party wherever popular institutions prevail, that we are apt to forget the importance of the fact. revenues from the Duchy of Lancaster, and also the revenues from the Duchy of Cornwall w...