acts were subject to the supervision of any outside body" (The Age, Melbourne, 21st April, 1914). In other words, the Labour Premier stood by the orthodox doctrine of Cabinet Government-that the Ministry holds office in virtue of confidence in its integrity and capacity; that this requires that it shall exercise its own judgment in matters of administrative policy; that its responsibility to the legislative body consists in the determination of the tenure of Ministerial office by the withdrawal of confidence, and that specific instructions in particular matters are in substance a withdrawal of confidence. Mr. Holman's declaration was accompanied by a significant exercise of authority. The caucus had shortly before resolved that one of the Honorary Ministers should not be appointed to any office. He was now appointed Minister of Public Health.

On the other hand, the Premier's opponents in his Own party boldly attacked his appeal to precedent and theory. They alleged that the election of Ministers by the caucus involved an abandonment of the older relations and made an appeal to tradition meaningless-a Labour Ministry could make no higher claim to authority than as servants of the party, delegates who must conform to such instructions as they might receive. And in 1916, the Ministry in a very specific way recognised the caucus as the source of their authority, by tendering to it their resignations. The supremacy of the caucus over Ministers, the dissolution of the solidarity of the Cabinet, and the disappearance of the authority of the Prime Minister (for it is claimed for the Labour movement that "it represents a phase of evolution infinitely in advance of the days when the workers had to be led "), as consequences of the new system, were more explicitly affirmed in November, 1916. At the time, the Commonwealth Cabinet was on the point of breaking up on the issue of compulsory enrolment for service abroad in the European war. As a result of a public difference between the Prime

Minister (Mr. Hughes) and the Minister of Home Affairs on a matter of administration, a statement was issued in the name of the latter, which no doubt represented the views of other dissentient colleagues as well as his own. This statement affirmed that "Caucus should officially notify His Excellency the Governor-General of the Labour Party's method of selecting Ministers by exhaustive ballot, which destroys the ancient idea that the Prime Minister selected them.

The vital difference between the position of Ministers under Liberal and under Labour rule is the method of appointment. Liberal Ministers, being selected by the favour of the Prime Minister, can only hold office during his pleasure, and must resign should they disagree with the policy or methods of their leader. Labour Ministers, on the other hand, are selected by a vote of the whole party, and derive their authority from that source; consequently only that authority which elects possesses the power of withdrawal. The personal authority of the Prime Minister does not necessarily determine the attitude of other Ministers, for the Prime Minister is himself amenable to the same authority and has no personal prerogatives, apart from his position as elected leader of the party."(The Argus, Melbourne, 14th November, 1916.) And after the purge of the party by the expulsion of the Conscriptionist leaders, which immediately followed, one of the demands of the majority was that, if they were called to office, their Ministry should hold frequent caucus meetings.

The tendency to base Parliamentary action on the acceptance of determinations arrived at in secret councils outside instead of on open deliberation in Parliament, is not peculiar to the Labour Party or to Australia. It is one of the factors contributing to the decline in the reputation of Parliamentary institutions. In certain developments it would break up the community of the Chamber, and substitute party delegations or estates, deliberating separately, and sitting together

merely to cast their block votes. It would substitute majority rule for government by consent.

The pledge has been described.

The pledge and the caucus in the Australian Labour Party were originally the means whereby a small section made up for its lack of numbers by its solidarity, and it was perpetuated by the foundation of the party on industrial unionism and the conception of political action as a phase in the general battle, partly political and partly industrial, for class rights or interest. Before the enemy there was no room for discussion-action required union and discipline. The system, as a common principle of political action, is one whose drawbacks increase as a party comes to have the responsibility for government. Obviously, a system which demands that the party shall cast a block vote determined by the majority, has cast out much of the moderating and persuasive virtue imputed by political writers to party: there is no longer the inducement to compromise and middle courses for fear of detaching the votes of moderate men. This is acclaimed as a merit, and a means of saving the party from the debilitating influences of Parliamentary life, with its love for caution and compromise. Parliament may be, and has been, by a narrow majority obtained in caucus, committed to important decisions contrary to the known opinion of a large majority of the House. The system tempts the formation of a caucus within the caucus, of which there were from time to time rumours. Moreover, in the case of the Commonwealth Parliament, there was the further constitutional objection that as the caucus included Labour Senators as well as Labour members of the House of Representatives, the body which might determine the action of either House consisted of a number of persons not members of that Chamber at all.

The pledge and the caucus prevented the party from gaining the active support of some sympathisers; they caused some defections; and they divided political opponents into those who assailed

these means and those who would have sought unity for their own party in the methods employed by Labour. But many men of capacity and integrity found themselves able to accept both. For many years the system was successful. It worked, it gave office and power.

But alongside the rivalry of Cabinet and Parliamentary caucus was the conference; and from 1913 onwards the conference, at any rate in New South Wales, claimed complete control over Cabinet and caucus. In addition to framing the platform of the party, conference had always been in the habit of discussing and coming to resolutions on various matters. It now claimed authority for these resolutions as directions to Ministers and members of Parliament. Conference resolved, in 1913, that nominations to the Legislative Council should be submitted for approval to the State Executive, a body formed as a permanent committee of conference. The claim to supremacy rapidly developed, until, by 1916, conference set itself up as the dictator of Parliamentary legislation, and as the censor of the administration of Ministers, and of the whole political action or inaction of Labour members of Parliament. These were bidden to recognise that they were but the servants of the conference, and responsible to it.

This was the position when the party, throughout the Commonwealth, split on the Conscription Referendum; and the expulsion of Mr. Hughes and Mr. Holman from the party was followed by some interesting expositions of the system as it had been and as it had become. The principle on which the Labour Party had been established, it was said, was the co-operation of the Labour members of Parliament, through the pledge and the caucus, for the attainment of a platform which had been adopted by a conference prior to the Parliamentary elections, and which was, therefore, known to and accepted by the electors who voted for a Labour candidate. The system left a Labour Ministry and the Parliamentary representatives of the party to determine

the steps to be taken to carry out the platform; subject to their ultimate responsibility to their constituents, they were free and independent. Conference could, of course, alter the platform, but such alterations became operative only on the consideration of nominations for the next election —if at that time a man felt that he could no longer pledge himself to the platform, he must stand aside. This system, it was said, was compatible with representative and responsible government. The system was changed not in detail only but in principle, when conference claimed to bind the members of a Parliament in being by its resolutions. This was, first of all, to bind the representative of the people by the decisions of a body which would represent only a small proportion of the electors, In the second place, it deprived the pledge of all its value as a guarantee to the elector, since every pledge would be subject to the new claim of the conference to bind and to loose. Such a system was inconsistent with representative or responsible government, and was fundamentally undemocratic.1

The student of politics must determine which view was right-that the developments of 1913-16 were a deviation in principle from the fundamentals of Labour organisation, or that the pledge and the caucus, once admitted as the Labour Party had admitted them, were in themselves such a withdrawal of trust and confidence from the Minister and representative, such an acceptance of “machine politics," as to make inevitable the development of that condition of political servitude against which Mr. Hughes and Mr. Holman rebelled.

The Labour Party, as constituted since the split, is likely to tighten still further the control exercised over Ministers and members of Parliament,

1 Mr. Hughes, in The Argus, Melbourne 15th November, 1916; Mr. Holman, in the Sydney Morning Herald, 8th November, 1916; and an article in the Australian Worker of 14th May, 1914, entitled, "Who Rules-Caucus or Cabinet?" by John Lynch.