Haldane, should be the shaping of policy, the final determination of which, however, is to be referred to Parliament. This would involve the control of the executive in accordance with the policies prescribed by Parliament and the continuous co-ordination and delimitation in the activities of the various departments of government. The report also stated that a small Cabinet was advisable, that its meetings should be held frequently, that information and material necessary to expedite the forming of decisions should be supplied in convenient form, that the ministers affected by the decisions should be personally consulted, and that a systematic method should be employed to secure the carrying out of the decisions of the Cabinet by the department concerned. As suggested by the Haldane report, the business of the executive departments may be divided into the following ten groups: Finance, national defense, external affairs, research and information, production, employment, supplies, education, health, and justice.

The division of governmental functions recommended by the Special Committee on Machinery of Government in Canada is also of interest. In its deliberations the committee made use of the Murray Report on the Organization of the Public Service of Canada and reports of the United Kingdom relative to the same purpose. The executive functions of government were classified and divided by the committee into four groups—namely, basic, services to the public as a nation or as individuals, external affairs, and auxiliary services. Included in the basic functions are those pertaining to defense, justice, and finances. The second class is subdivided into fiduciary, regulative, and productive services. The first of these functions are those wherein the government acts as guardian for the nation of its public domain; the second, or regulative, are those which define, supervise, and restrict the powers conferred in corporations or the freedom of the individual or associations in the interest of the public; the third, or productive services, embrace those relative to the social well

being and the economic efficiency of the people, such as health, immigration, labor, trade and commerce, agriculture, communication, and agencies of transportation. The third main division of executive functions includes the external affairs and those involved in the relations with other nations, while the auxiliary services tend to enhance the effectiveness of the other functions and cover such matters as legal advice, research and information, manufacturing, construction of public works, records, archives, and statistics. The object of such classification is to reduce the number of Ministers to ten and to require of those which remain technical knowledge and training. As to the composition of the Cabinet, it was suggested by the committee that there should be a Prime Minister who would be president of the council and Minister of external affairs, a Secretary of State, Ministers of Justice, Finance, Interior, Defense, Communication and Transportation, Production and Distribution, Labor and Public Works. Responsibility, it is suggested, should rest with individual Ministers for their administrative acts, while more responsibility should rest with individual members, especially in regard to making appropriations. Both the Haldane committee and the Canadian committee place emphasis on collecting and digesting information as one of the chief functions of the government. Through the proposed changes it seems possible that the control by Parliament may become real rather than formal, as it is at present, that the Cabinet would have more time for mature deliberation and supervision of the executive functions, and that full and accurate information could be secured by those responsible for executive or legislative action.

The presidential system of the United States, with its accompanying features of separation of powers and checks and balances, which became the prototype for the governments of the states and cities of the United States, after more than a century of almost unqualified acceptance is now being criticized in the light of modern administrative

developments, and at least some modification of the present system is felt desirable. In state, and particularly in municipal governments, changes are already in progress. A mayor type of city government, wherein the mayor corresponding to the president, is being replaced by a commission-manager form of charter modeled more nearly after business organization with an elected commission serving as a board of directors and a manager appointed by the commission placed directly in charge of the entire city administration. In the states, committees and commissions are making recommendations in the direction of placing greater duties and responsibilities upon the Governor, and at the same time establishing closer relations between the Governor and his Cabinet and the legislative bodies. A proposal for a modified parliamentary system has been offered and given serious consideration in several states. In the Federal government the lack of organic connection between the legislative and executive departments has led to numerous investigations, with suggested changes, and to concrete proposals for the adoption of some of the features of the parliamentary system. The view which has been held by some of the ablest statesmen is well expressed by James A. Garfield:

I have long believed that the official relations between the Executive and Congress should be more open and direct. They are now conducted by correspondence with the presiding officers of the two Houses, by consultation with committees, or by private interviews with individual members. This frequently leads to misunderstandings, and may lead to corrupt combinations. It would be far better for both departments if the members of the Cabinet were permitted to sit in Congress and participate in the debates on measures relating to their several departments, but, of course, without a vote. This would tend to secure the ablest men for the chief executive offices, it would bring the policy of the administration into the fullest publicity by giving both parties ample opportunity for criticism and defense.1

As representatives of the President, the Cabinet members, through their proposed positions in Congress, could serve

1 Quoted in P. S. Reinsch, Readings on American Federal Government, p. 48.

as better counselors and spokesmen for the executive than is now the case. Members of Congress, likewise, would have an opportunity to obtain more accurate information on pending legislation and to avoid mistaken action and, in some cases, serious blunders, which have been known to occur in the past through lack of information on the part of the legislators.1

1 Prepare a plan for closer connection and co-operation between the legislative and executive departments of (a) the Federal government, (b) state governments.

SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS

A. LAWRENCE LOWELL, The Government of England, especially Chaps. II, III, XVII, XVIII, and XXIII (The Macmillan Company, 1910).

A brief account of the working of the English Cabinet system. W. F. WILLOUGHBY, The Government of Modern States, Chaps. V and XIV (The Century Company, 1919) give a suggestive comparison between parliamentary and presidential systems.

Consult: EVERETT KIMBALL, The National Government of the United States, especially Chaps. VII and IX (Ginn & Co., 1920), and

JESSE MACY and JOHN W. GANNAWAY, Comparative Free Government, Chaps. VI-VIII (The Macmillan Company, 1915), for the powers of the President and the relations between the President and the Cabinet.

CHAPTER IV

PROBLEMS OF LEGISLATIVE ORGANIZATION AND

LEGISLATIVE METHODS

There is hardly any kind of intellectual work which so much needs to be done not only by experienced and exercised minds, but by minds trained to the task through long and laborious study, as the business of making laws. This is a sufficient reason, were there no other, why they can never be well made but by a committee of very few persons. A reason no less conclusive is, that every provision of a law requires to be framed with the most accurate and long-sighted perception of its effect on all the other provisions; and the law, when made, should be capable of fitting into a consistent whole with the previously existing laws. It is impossible that these conditions should be in any degree fulfilled when laws are voted clause by clause in a miscellaneous assembly. John Stuart Mill, Representative Government, chap. v, p. 109.

THE representative assembly, its organization and functions, and its place in popular government are among the greatest problems of politics. As a device to render popular participation in government feasible, the representative assembly has become almost universal in modern govern

Only small communities such as a few of the cantons of Switzerland seem to find it practicable to take care of public functions without the introduction of the representative idea. Despite long experience with representative government, legislative bodies have failed to fulfill the high hopes of the advocates of popular representation. The growth of a lack of confidence in legislative assemblies and the limitation of their functions are among the apparent tendencies of modern times. Elihu Root, in the closing address to the New York Constitutional Convention of 1915, said: