§ LORD BEAVERBROOK had given Notice of his intention to call the attention of His Majesty's Government to the demand for a War Cabinet reconstituted entirely of Ministers without Departmental duties; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Motion which is down in my name was first put down by my noble friend Viscount Elibank. Then the Motion was postponed. I asked his permission to raise the Motion in my name. I received that permission with advice not to raise the Motion, but none the less I received the permission and so I have put the Motion down. I have done so because of the importance of the subject, and because it seems to me that this present occasion offers a rightful opportunity to raise this question.
§ There is, of course, much confusion in the newspapers and also in public discussions concerning this matter of a War Cabinet, a War Cabinet with or without Departmental Ministers. There are many differing views in this House, and those differing views are to be found amongst men with experience, men who have experience of War Cabinets, who have sat in them and have worked under the conditions that now exist and also in the circumstances that prevailed when Mr. Lloyd George was Prime Minister. Members of this House have made many speeches in support of the proposal for a War Cabinet with Ministers freed from Departmental responsibilities. And, after all this experience and after all this opportunity for studying and meditating upon the situation, I make bold to offer my own advice to-day regarding the constitution of a War Cabinet. In tendering that advice I may say that it is based entirely on the fruits of experience. It is my view that Ministers who are members of the War Cabinet should be Departmental Ministers. Why do I come to that conclusion? Because a Minister 116 who is relieved of Departmental responsibility is deprived of authority and power. This leaves him at a disadvantage as compared with those of his colleagues in the Cabinet who have Departmental duties. The Minister without Departmental duties is at a disadvantage in the War Cabinet compared with Ministers who have Departmental duties.
§ It may be asked why Ministers in the War Cabinet should not be relieved of their Departmental duties and each of them given supervision over a group of Ministers. The answer is that such a system of supervision simply results in a division of responsibility between the supervising Minister and the titular Minister. The supervising War Cabinet Minister cannot control the Department nominally in his keeping; the titular Minister will always dominate it. If you propose to exercise real authority in relation to a Department, you must have your hand on the machine. It is impossible by means of supervision to keep control of the Department, or even to have adequate knowledge of the transactions of that Department. These limitations which apply to a War Cabinet Minister do not apply to the Prime Minister, who possesses a measure of authority which does not reside elsewhere. None but the Prime Minister can keep control of a Department of which he is not the head. I need not, I am sure, go into the reasons why the Prime Minister has authority and power far transcending those of any Cabinet Minister.
§ If there are Ministers outside the War Cabinet in charge of Departments connected with the war, inevitably these Ministers become more important than the Ministers in the War Cabinet who are deprived of Departmental responsibilities. These Ministers outside the War Cabinet will have more dealings with the Prime Minister than do members of the War Cabinet themselves, and this closer collaboration with the Prime Minister will invest Ministers outside the War Cabinet with a degree of authority and importance surpassing that of members of the War Cabinet. It is for that reason that the Service Ministers already have more importance than the War Cabinet Ministers who are without War Departments.
§ There is another issue involved in this controversy, and it is an issue which is 117 frequently referred to: Does the Prime Minister require from day to day and from hour to hour the guidance and direction of members of the War Cabinet in the conduct of the war? No, he does not. Such a situation would in fact be dangerous; it would mean the transference of executive functions from a single authority to a Committee. It would be completely contrary to the principles on which this war is waged if Cabinet Ministers were to sit in judgment on the hourly issues involved in carrying out the doctrine, the strategy and the tactics of the war. What would be the consequences if they did? We should have delays which would be damaging; we should have discussion of details which would be an impediment and not a benefit.
§ What then, it may be asked, do I conceive to be the functions of members of the War Cabinet in dealing with the conduct of the war? First of all, they must tender advice to the Prime Minister. Their advice must be based on a knowledge of plans and projects, upon a study of operations and upon reflection on the course of events. Secondly, they must give helpful assistance to the Prime Minister, subordinating all else in public conduct and Departmental administration to the advancement of the policies and the decisions of the Government. Thirdly, they must retain the confidence of Parliament—of this House and of the House of Commons—and hold that confidence not only as individual Ministers but for the whole Government and for the Prime Minister. No doubt the Prime Minister himself will command a degree of confidence in Parliament far outstripping that of any Cabinet Minister, but it is the duty of these Ministers to gain, to retain and to enhance the confidence of Parliament and of the public in the Government of which they are members. Fourthly, they must exercise watchful supervision over the conduct of the war. Fifthly, they must complain if there is any default or failure in judgment or duty on the part of the Prime Minister and, as a last resort, bring to an end a Government where the Prime Minister diverges from a sound conception of war policy and strategy.
§ It is sometimes said that Cabinet Ministers should exercise a harsher judgment and have a more critical influence upon events. Not so. That would merely result in having a War Cabinet 118 of dissensions instead of agreement, of discussions instead of action. We are fortunately placed; we have a war direction which has the quality of a Commander-in-Chief. That is our good fortune. Any other system of waging this war would leave us at a disadvantage, loading the dice against us. Nothing in this structure of Government interferes with free and unrestricted criticism in this House, in the House of Commons, in the newspapers and elsewhere. The safeguards against arbitrary, indefensible and autocratic conduct are quite sufficient for the circumstances which now confront us. With this very terse and brief statement of my reasons for recommending this House to give its support to the War Cabinet as at present constituted, I beg to move.
LORD STRABOLGIMy Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Beaverbrook, has brought forward a Motion of very great interest, and I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I venture to make a few comments, not necessarily from the point of view of my noble friends on these Benches but from the point of view of what has been for many years the considered policy of the Labour Party. Ever since the Report of the Haldane Committee, with which your Lordships are very familiar, the members of my Party who have been in Cabinets, and who are in the Cabinet now, for that matter, have guided us on this question in the direction of advocating a small Cabinet, both in peace and in war, an Inner Cabinet consisting of Ministers devoid of great Departmental responsibilities. Lord Beaverbrook says that that is a bad system, and he gives very powerful arguments to show why it is a bad system. I venture to suggest that the picture which the noble Lord, Lord Beaverbrook, has drawn for us—which is, of course, a perfectly accurate one, for he is the last person, now freed from responsibilities, who has sat in the present War Cabinet—is most alarming, and, if I had not already made up my mind to say a few words about it, I should have sought an opportunity of drawing your Lordships' attention to this very dangerous situation which has been described to us to-day.
Let us see what it is. First of all, Lord Beaverbrook says that a Minister who has not a Department is out of touch; he has not the necessary power, and, when he comes to supervise, in accord- 119 ance with the Haldane plan, a group of Ministers, they are bound to be more powerful than he is. I hope I do not misrepresent my noble friend.
§ LORD BEAVERBROOKNo, that is right.
LORD STRABOLGIBut we have that system on the vitally important Home Front to-day. I understand—we have been told this publicly—that the Lord President of the Council, who is the only member without a portfolio in the War Cabinet, has general supervision over all the Ministries concerned with home affairs. He is the Super-Minister suggested in the Haldane Report. And he is the only one in the present War Cabinet. In the second place my noble friend says the Prime Minister must have the sole executive responsibility for the conduct of the war—what he calls the "hour-to-hour conduct of the war." I do not see how the Prime Minister can possibly undertake that sole responsibility; in practice it is, I think, utterly impossible. Not only is the Prime Minister drawn in on all sorts of important domestic questions, but he is at the present time leading the House of Commons, answering questions in Parliament, and giving decisions on Parliamentary questions. How can he be responsible for the hour-to-hour conduct of the war?
My noble friend Lord Denman some little time ago, in a speech in this House, advocated the separation of the offices of Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, and the argument he used was that it was impossible for one man to combine the two functions. And yet my noble friend Lord Beaverbrook says that the Prime Minister should carry the responsibility for the hour-to-hour conduct of the war, and he says we are fortunate in this country to have the conduct of the war by a Commander-in-Chief. It has been the fear of some of us that the eighteenth century office of Captain-General of the Forces has been revived and is held by the Prime Minister with all his other responsibilities. However great our admiration for the ability of the Prime Minister, it is impossible for the same man to carry out both these duties. If it was possible in the eighteenth century it is impossible in these times because of the growing complexity of war. If it has been more or less possible up to the present time, it will certainly 120 become impracticable in the near future as the tempo of the war increases and the theatres of war become more numerous and more important, as Lord Beaverbrook himself so ably and so boldly advocates.
My noble friend says that the members of the War Cabinet with all these other responsibilities have very important functions and he gave a list of them. May I refer to only two of them? They must tender advice to the Prime Minister after a careful study of the war situation, and they should exercise a watchful supervision of the conduct of the war. Any discussion of the present War Cabinet is a delicate matter. All these men are my personal friends, as they are of many of your Lordships, and they have my greatest respect. But take the case of the Minister of Labour. He has been responsible for the greatest mobilization of manpower and woman-power in the whole history of the world. He has done a far greater job than his opposite number in Germany, or the group of men who do it there, a far greater job than has yet been approached in the United States. He has been responsible for the orderly moblization of 20,000,000 souls into the war effort, or into work of national importance. If anybody ever had a whole-time job Ernest Bevin has had it. How can lie possibly follow the intricacies of the war, become seised of the position in the various theatres of war, and at the same time be able, in the words of my noble friend, to tender advice to the Prime Minister on this very matter? And how can Mr. Morrison, with his immense task, in spite of his great energy and abilities, keep a watchful supervision of the conduct of the war? So one can go through the list.
My noble friend will agree with me about the exacting nature of the duties of the Minister of Production. The Minister of Supply has also a most important work. The Foreign Minister has to be able to go away at any time to Moscow or Washington. I hope he will go next to Chungking—it is time he did. How can these men keep everything so closely in their minds and follow hour-to-hour events as to be able to keep a watchful supervision over the conduct of the war? Every one of these Ministers, with the exception of Sir John Anderson, holds a Portfolio. My right honourable friend Mr. Attlee has a parallel office, so to 121 speak, in that he has to be informed of the conduct of the war so as to keep the Dominion representatives here in touch with developments. In a way you can say that he has more time than the others, but nevertheless the office of Dominions Minister is an onerous one, and I do not see how he has the time to fulfil the two functions. Therefore unless you are content to be led by a forceful dictator, which is what I understand to be the ideal of Lord Beaverbrook—
§ LORD BEAVERBROOKNo.
LORD STRABOLGIWell, it is what is happening, as Lord Beaverbrook has informed your Lordships that in effect we have a Commander-in-Chief. I will come to the question of the checks on the Commander-in-Chief, because in a matter of this tremendous importance there must be checks. Apart from certain professional checks, in practice it must mean that unless Sir John Anderson can supervise the Home Front and watch the hour-to-hour conduct of the war, the Prime Minister himself is in effect dictator in this war. And that, I dare say, suits the country. The public trust and believe in him, and the public think that is a good thing. But I suggest that as Parliamentarians we should regard this situation with alarm. In a democracy you must have civilian-political control of the war, but if you have a one-man leadership in all matters pertaining to the actual conduct of operations that is a dangerous situation.
Let us see what has actually happened. We have been saved in this war by the blunders of our enemies. That happens in every war—I am not making any special criticism of the conduct of this war. Our blunders in this war stand out like peaks in the Grampian Mountains, but fortunately the blunders of the Germans stand out like the peaks of the Himalayas. There was the Malayan campaign and the sending of the "Prince of Wales" and the "Repulse" without air cover to the East; there was the Norwegian campaign, which led to the fall of the Chamberlain Government, and after it, when the new Government were in office, there was the unwarranted evacuation of Narvik, after we and our Allies had captured it in a most gallant and successful campaign; and, most important of all, a matter that has been referred to in your Lordships' House by Lord Hankey and others, there was our failure early enough to appreciate the 122 danger of the campaign against our shipping at sea. Those are a few of our blunders which stand up like the peaks of the Grampian Mountains. Fortunately there were several Himalayan blunders by our enemies, of which the greatest was the entry into the war itself, and the second was the attack on Russia. Another was the enemy's failure to go all-out in the offensive against us in 1940, though I still think it would not have succeeded, because I think the Navy would eventually have restored the situation. But it was a tremendous blunder not to attack us in full force after the French surrender. And—what madness!—there was the German declaration of war on the United States of America, which they need not have made at all, and which would have complicated the whole situation if it had not been made.
These are the Himalayan blunders of the enemy, these are examples of what happens under a dictatorship. We are still nominally a democracy, and we have not done anything so terribly stupid as that. Some of our blunders were avoidable nevertheless; and the war is getting to a stage when we are passing from defensive to offensive strategy. It therefore becomes more complicated, more difficult, and I repeat that to rely entirely on the judgment of one man, however eminent, is a danger to this country. It may be said, "Yes, but in practice it is the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff presided over by the Prime Minister who take the big decisions." I dare say that is very broadly true, but these are the professional heads of the Services. They have their own very important administrative duties to perform. While, of course, recognizing that they are very eminent, experienced, and, above all, honourable men, they are nevertheless at the disposal, so to speak, of the Minister of Defence. They can be dismissed, as some of them have been dismissed, by the Minister of Defence, no doubt on the responsibility of the War Cabinet. The Minister of Defence can go to the War Cabinet and recommend the removal of any or all of the Chiefs of Staff. Therefore these honourable, devoted men are, so to speak, at the disposal—I do not like to say at the mercy—of the Minister of Defence; they are his juniors.
Would your Lordships allow me also to draw attention to this fact? Leaving the position of the Chiefs of Staff with their 123 constitutional rights of check, especially in the case of the Admiralty, on the Minister of Defence, have your Lordships observed the curious composition of the War Cabinet in this way? There are three of my right honourable friends who represent the Labour Party in the War Cabinet. They are members of a political Party, one of the governing Parties in the State. There is Mr. Eden, the Foreign Secretary, a leading Conservative. Of the others, Sir John Anderson is a very distinguished civil servant, and Mr. Lyttelton, a distinguished man of commerce—not Party men, not so to speak, supported and succoured by a political Party. Therefore the only Conservative politician in the Cabinet, besides the Prime Minister, is the Foreign Secretary, who has a very difficult and exacting role to fill. That makes the position of the Prime Minister, who is not supported by colleagues who are strong Party men, or who are supported by their Party—I hope I am putting the matter without offence to anyone—all the more powerful and therefore all the more dangerous if, as I suggest, it is dangerous to have an all-powerful Prime Minister who is also Commander-in-Chief, also responsible, as my noble friend Lord Beaver-brook said, for the hour-to-hour conduct of the war.
Now I come to the whole argument Lord Elibank would have put forward and which I support. We now come to the whole reason for the original Motion, which was that there should be four or five Ministers in the War Cabinet without Portfolios, or with sinecure posts only, so that they can, in fact, do what Lord Beaverbrook says they ought to do—keep a continual watching brief on events in order to provide the necessary check and also, if anything happens to the Prime Minister, if he is abroad or falls sick, ensure that there are other people fully seised of current events and future plans. For these reasons I think Lord Elibank is right and that the arguments of my noble friend Lord Beaverbrook are faulty.
LORD DENMANMy Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Strabolgi that Lord Beaverbrook has initiated a debate of great importance this afternoon. As Lord Beaverbrook has himself recently been a member of the War Cabinet, he speaks with great authority, with greater authority than the majority of members 124 of this House. Before I address myself to the Motion he has brought forward, I should like first of all to congratulate the Government on having found such a stalwart champion in the person of Lord Beaverbrook. It is true that when the noble Lord sets his lance at rest the Government are not quite sure in which direction he is going to tilt, but on this occasion, at all events, he has come to their rescue in no uncertain manner, and I am quite sure they will be duly grateful to him.
The noble Lord has argued very forcibly in favour of a War Cabinet composed of Departmental Ministers. He has expressed such unbounded admiration for the present system that I am not sure he has not a little overstated his case. I would remind your Lordships that there are a good many members of this House who take a different view. I should like to quote what was said in a recent debate by the noble Marquess, Lord Londonderry. It was the debate on the question of air transport, and Lord Londonderry, defining what he meant by a War Cabinet, said this:
We wanted to see a small body of men, who should be untrammelled by the burdens of office, carrying all those responsibilities .Then he went on to say with reference to the war:Our position improved, and we owe a deep debt of gratitude to the Prime Minister for his remarkable efforts and for all he has done.There I entirely agree. The noble Marquess went on to say:But I have never altered my opinion that the position would have improved still more if we had had a War Cabinet. I am certain that, in relation to many matters in this country, the way would have been much easier, and much would have been done in probably a better way, if we had had individuals untrammelled by office to whom were allocated these great questions.Similar views have been expressed at different times by Lord Hankey, Lord Swinton, and other members of this House. I should like for a moment to go back and refer to the system that obtained in the last war, when Mr. Lloyd George was. Prime Minister in 1916–18. As your Lordships remember, that Cabinet was composed mostly of Ministers without Portfolio, and prominent members of it were Mr. Arthur Balfour, as he then was, Lord Milner, and General Smuts. I am told that Mr. Lloyd George 125 used frequently to delegate authority for specific purposes to these members of his Government. For example, there were frequently, in the last war as in this, conflicts between Government Departments, and I understand that both Lord Milner and General Smuts were entrusted frequently with the task of adjudicating between them.The matter was then referred to the War Cabinet, but in no case, I understand, was a decision of a Minister of the War Cabinet ever reversed or altered, and thus a great load of work was taken off the shoulders of the Prime Minister at that time. Whatever you may say of the system adopted by Mr. Lloyd George, it had this one great merit that it did enable us to win the war.
LORD DENMANI am not saying we are, but we did win the last one and we won it in four years' time, and if anyone thinks we are going to win this one in four years I believe he is living in a fool's paradise. I do not propose to compare the members of Mr. Lloyd George's Government with members of the War Cabinet at the present time. There were very able men, as we must all agree, in Mr. Lloyd George's Government and there are very able men in the War Cabinet to-day.
I will take for the purpose of my argument the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Eden. In passing, may I say that I am sure we are all glad to hear of Mr. Eden's safe return after a highly successful Mission in the United States of America? On the question of the Foreign Secretary I would say this. I rather share the views just expressed by my noble friend Lord Strabolgi that the War Cabinet should if Possible contain several members without Portfolio, but I think the Foreign Secretary should certainly be a member of the War Cabinet, and for this reason. Foreign policy must be considered in connexion with almost every aspect of the war. As well as being Foreign Secretary Mr. Eden is, as we know, Leader of the House of Commons, which is a very responsible position, and so he would hardly have as much time as he would like for studying war problems. I think the same thing applies to another very 126 able member of the War Cabinet, Mr. Morrison, who has two great Departments, the Home Office and Ministry of Home Security. And, as was said by Lord Strabolgi, there is Mr. Bevin, Minister of Labour, who has an enormous task. I do not see how any one of these Ministers can have much time to devote to studying problems of strategy and tactics.
I do not speak with certainty but I imagine what happens to-day is this. Meetings of the War Cabinet are held, frequently late in the afternoon or in the evening, and some of the members attend the Cabinet Meeting after having done a full day's work in their Department or in the House of Commons. This procedure goes on week after week and month after month, and I really do not see how men can give of their best under those conditions. Nor do I see how they can fulfil the qualification for a War Cabinet Minister which has just been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Beaver-brook. If I heard him rightly, he said the Minister should be able to tender advice to the Prime Minister based on knowledge of policies and projects and on the study of operations aid reflection upon the course of events, and further that he should exercise a watchful supervision over the conduct of the war. How can men burdened with Departmental work and responsibilities do all that and at the same time carry out the duties that were mentioned by Lord Beaverbrook? It really seems to me to be almost impossible.
Then the noble Lord went on to express his fears that dissension might arise in the War Cabinet or there might be too much discussion. I always thought that Cabinets existed for the purpose of discussion, but apparently the noble Lord is very fearful of too much discussion I think from that one may gather that the kind of man that Lord Beaverbrook would like, if he had the selection of members of the War Cabinet, is the kind of man we sometimes meet when we are playing bridge. It is a very unassuming and unselfish type of man who will prefer, rather than play a hand himself, to be "dummy" and, as your Lordships know, "dummy" may do nothing except call attention to a revoke. It seems to me that is, in Lord Beaverbrook's view, the ideal type of man for the War Cabinet to-day.
127 There is only one other point I would venture to make and it is this. The allocation of work in Ministerial circles certainly seems rather uneven. I will instance the case of Cairo where the Government have three representatives to-day. There are two Ministers of State, Mr. Casey and Lord Moyne, and the British Ambassador, Lord Lampson. Especially now that the tide of war has receded some 1,500 miles away from Egypt, it is rather difficult to see how these two Ministers of State can find sufficient work or have not some leisure at their disposal.
Coming back to London, let us take the case of the Prime Minister. What do you find here? Besides having to attend to the multifarious duties of that office, he is also Minister of Defence; he is also Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee; he is also Chairman of the U-boat Committee; and lately we hear from one of his colleagues that he has been devoting a good deal of time to the study of new and secret weapons and new inventions. Then, so far as I can make out from Lord Beaverbrook's speech, no one but the Prime Minister can settle disputes between Government Departments. If that is so, the Prime Minister must be a very hard-worked man indeed. I do not see how any man, how even a superman, can get through such work thoroughly and satisfactorily. The noble Lord, Lord Beaverbrook, spoke of delays that might ensue under a system of War Cabinet such as existed in Mr. Lloyd George's time. But what about delays that have ensued and are going on at the present time? No one would dare to say anything of this kind in the House of Commons, which is so completely dominated by the Prime Minister, but wherever one meets Service men or business men or manufacturers one hears mention of these delays and bottle-necks. These things are going on all the time.
Therefore I do suggest that the Prime Minister should delegate some of his authority, because he really is overburdened with work at the present time. It has been suggested by noble Lords in this House, by Lord Hankey and by my noble friend Lord Mottistone, that the Prime Minister should cease to be Minister of Defence and content himself with the more general control of the operations of the war. The Prime Minister has said cate- 128 gorically that he refuses to do anything of the kind, so it is no good pressing that further; but I do think something might be done to lift the enormous burden of responsibility and work which at the present time rests on his shoulders, both for his own sake and for the good of the State. It seems to me that the only way this can be done is by introducing Ministers without Portfolio into the War Cabinet, and he can delegate to them responsibility and duties for specific purposes, as was done in the time of Mr. Lloyd George.
I do not of course suggest that anything of this kind should be done immediately or done hurriedly, because it seems to me that an alteration of the existing arrangement would be inopportune at the present time; but I am quite sure that as the war goes on some change of this kind will have to be effected for this reason—that it will be necessary more and more to have conferences and gatherings in the different Capitals of the different nations that are waging the war—Washington, Moscow, Chungking—and for this purpose it will be necessary to have men who are members of the Government, who know what is in the mind of the Prime Minister and who are in touch with affairs. In short, men who are Ministers of the War Cabinet without Portfolio. Sooner or later I think some change of the kind will have to be made and for my part I hope it will be done without undue delay.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNEMy Lords, we have certainly to-day had a somewhat unusual debate. We have had, as your Lordships know, during the last two years a number of discussions on the subject of the structure of the War Cabinet and all up to now have followed what might almost be called a standardized pattern. Always some noble Lord has introduced his Motion in a speech in which, after elaborately refraining from attacking the Prime Minister, and indeed paying most flowery tributes to him and proclaiming him as the saviour of our country, he has proceeded to explain how inefficiently he is organizing the war and how much better the war would in fact be conducted if the Prime Minister would take the mover's advice in this matter. Then, after some discussion in which several other noble Lords have expressed their views, the debate has concluded with a reply on behalf of the Government.
129 I think of that type of speech the remarks that were made this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, were a typical example. He started, as I understood him, by saying that all the Ministers were extremely good men, very good friends of his, that he liked them immensely and respected them enormously. He went on to say how well the war was going: and then suddenly, for no specific reason that I could see, he wanted the whole structure of Government changed. It is true he put down our successes to the blunders of the enemy. He gave no credit at all to those responsible for our affairs who, after all, include all the leaders of his own Party, and I was driven—as I have been driven before with regard to the noble Lord, and I think your Lordships also must be driven—to the conclusion that he finds it impossible to think his country or the Government can ever be right, and that if things do go well there must be some obscure reason outside which explains it. I am bound to say that I found the noble Lord's speech, if he will forgive me for saying so, extremely regrettable. I do not believe for one moment that it reflects the views of the leaders of the Party for wham he said he was speaking. But as I have said, the noble Lord was perhaps more orthodox than some others in that he gave us an example of the type of speech to which we are accustomed on this subject.
The noble Lord, Lord Beaverbrook, on the other hand, with characteristic originality evolved an entirely new method of approach to this question. He does not agree with the criticisms made against the present War Cabinet and he put down a Motion to say so. In effect what he decided to do was to have the Government speech first and to make it himself, and I am extremely grateful to him. He has created an admirable precedent and I hope it is one which will be widely followed. Apart from anything else it should tend to shorten debates in your Lordships' House. The noble Lord is of course particularly well fitted to deal with this question because I think he is the only member of your Lordships' House who has himself been a member of the War Cabinet of the present Prime Minister. He knows what he is talking about. He has seen the machinery about which there has been so much discussion from the inside; and in his speech he made to my mind so powerful a justification of it that 130 I am in the happy position that there remains very little that I need say except to express very warm agreement with the main conclusion he reached. I say this although I would not perhaps go quite so far as the noble Lord in the direction of affirming the sole responsibility of the Prime Minister. With this sole exception I most whole-heartedly agree with his conclusion.
In this connexion I would in passing say a word to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi. Who are those who have responsibility for events in war-time? He said, as I understood, that we were in this country at present under the war dictatorship of the Prime Minister. I think that was his term. But what about Mr. Stalin, and what about President Roosevelt and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek?
LORD STRABOLGII accept many of the responsibilities put upon me, but I am not responsible for all that happens in China, Russia or America.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNEThe noble Lord may not be responsible, but he has constantly praised their records and the successes they have achieved. The truth is that there is bound to be a considerable degree of centralization in war-time. That does not mean that there need be a dictatorship and I do not think we have one. But you must have a measure of centralization.
Personally, I never have been able to understand what is the reason for this agitation for a Cabinet composed entirely of Ministers without Portfolio. It seems to me, if I may say so, to rest upon the fundamental misconception that the conduct of the war can be divorced from the conduct of those Departments which are collectively responsible for the war effort. We have had to-day a beautiful picture painted by the noble Lord, Lord Denman, of five or six great men living in a sort of Nirvana-like calm away from the distractions of Departmental duties, meditating daily on how to win the war. I suggest to your Lordships that reality is very different from that, and that the conduct of the war and the conduct of the great Departments of State in war-time are in fact exactly the same thing. Ministers are the main cogs of the war machine and it is the interlocking of those cogs that makes the machine work efficiently. If that con- 131 ception is correct, and I should have thought it was undeniable, the War Cabinet must indeed be composed of men of character and resolution who are calculated and qualified to come to rapid decisions. But it should equally include the heads of the essential Departments plus, I would agree with Lord Strabolgi, one or two Ministers without Portfolio to complete the co-ordination of policy with those other Departments which are not directly represented in the Cabinet and could not be so represented without making the whole machine unwieldy.
I suggest that the United Kingdom War Cabinet which we are to-day discussing is exactly of that type. It not only comprises men—perhaps I shall be accused of complacency, but I hope not—who have collective capacity to inspire confidence in the country—men who in their own personalities are leaders—but equally men who, in their Departmental capacity, cover the main spheres of the war effort. First we have the Prime Minister, who is also Minister of Defence. As I understand his position, apart from presiding over the Cabinet and taking final responsibility for decisions of the Government, his main function in wartime is to give particular attention to the military aspects of the war, to supervise the broad strategy of the war, and to concern himself with the co-ordination of the activities of the Navy, the Army and the Air Force and, in a larger, wider sphere, with the co-ordination of the British Forces with the Forces of our Allies. Lord Strabolgi said that such functions as those would be impossible for mortal man to perform. The answer is that they are being performed, that they have been performed now for two years, and that the war is not going so badly as the noble Lord appears to think.
LORD STRABOLGII did not say it was going badly. I said that we were now going from the defensive to the offensive. That is obvious. I was only stating facts.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNEWhat the noble Lord did not succeed in showing was that the system is working badly and ought to be altered. That is the case which he has to make. To continue with what I was saying: in addition to the Prime Minister there is, secondly the Foreign Secretary, who is responsible for 132 our relations with other nations, both Allied and neutral. Thirdly, there is the Dominions Secretary, who is responsible for our relations with the Dominions, and for ensuring that harmonious collaboration between the various sections of the British Commonwealth on which the power of the British Empire in world affairs depends. Fourthly, there is the Minister of Home Security, who is concerned with all questions of Civil Defence. Fifthly, there is the the Minister of Production, who is responsible for the co-ordination of the Supply Departments, and the provision for the Armed Forces of the weapons of war. Sixthly, there is the Minister of Labour, who deals with the allocation of manpower between military and civil needs. There remains one Minister without Portfolio, the Lord President of the Council, who, as your Lordships know, is concerned mainly with those aspects of the home situation with which it is not possible for the Prime Minister—bearing, as he does, all his other responsibilities—to deal. That is the present team and those are their main functions. I think it will be agreed that they cover the main aspects of the war effort.
Supposing you took away from these Ministers their Departments and made them Ministers without Portfolio, working in a vacuum, as it were, what advantage would, in fact, be gained? You might, indeed, as I think Lord Denman suggested, allot to them certain spheres of interest, but would they really be more competent to deal with those matters than as responsible Departmental Ministers? On the contrary, I should think that it would always be necessary for them to go to Departmental Ministers to get the information required to enable them to advise the War Cabinet. That position, as Lord Beaverbrook, I think, said, would inevitably, in the end, impair their authority. Moreover, to have two eminent Ministers constantly dealing with the same subject, that is to say, the Departmental Minister and the member of the War Cabinet, would lead to inevitable duplication of functions. This duplication of functions would be likely to lead—human nature being what it is—to differences of views. There might well, for example, be differences between the member of the War Cabinet who was, let us say, concerned with Foreign Affairs and the Departmental Chief, the Foreign Secre- 133 tary. For you seldom find two Ministers who hold exactly the same view on any particular question. As a result, two Ministers would be likely to give slightly differing advice to the Cabinet. This would, I suggest, only introduce a new element of friction which is absent to-day and which would be likely to be detrimental to the smooth working of the governmental machine.
The argument usually introduced in favour of a War Cabinet composed of Ministers without Portfolios is that that was the pattern adopted by Mr. Lloyd George and that under him we won the last war.
§ VISCOUNT SAMUELMy Lords, I wonder if the noble Viscount will allow me to interrupt him for a moment? His argument was of very great interest to me, but, if I may submit, it was not quite complete, because with regard to the presence of Departmental Ministers in the War Cabinet as against supervising Ministers, he has had to say that three groups of Departmental Ministers are not there—including the Ministers representing the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, as representing the Services. There is only the Minister of Defence there. Several heads of Departments dealing with supply are not in the War Cabinet. Only the Minister of Production is there. Further, several heads of Departments dealing with home affairs are not there. The Lord President of the Council merely deals with these matters in a supervisory capacity. I do not wish to argue the point, but I am anxious to be convinced by the noble Viscount's argument if it is a sound one. But it would seem to be incomplete in this particular respect.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNEI agree that it would be much better in some ways if these Ministers, to whom the noble Viscount has alluded, could be members of the Cabinet, as in peace-time. The reason that we cannot have them in the Cabinet in war-time is that the Cabinet would be se large as to be unwieldy. I thought it was generally agreed that in order to meet war requirements the number of members must be reduced to a very small one. With regard to my noble friend's point about Service Ministers, I would point out that as the Minister of Defence is Chairman of the Defence Committee on which the Service Ministers sit, he can truly represent them in the War Cabinet. 134 I do not suggest that it is a perfect arrangement, and my noble friend probably does not think so either, but it is the best that can be made in the circumstances. The same thing applies to the case of the Minister of Production. If you were to bring in the President of the Board of Trade and Ministers from the other Departments concerned with supply were to be included, the Cabinet would become unwieldy. What we have to do is to strike as adequate a balance as we can between the various considerations.
The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, was right in saying that there are in effect three Ministers without Portfolio in the Cabinet at the present time. Even so, you have the Foreign Secretary, the Minister of Labour, the Minister of Home Security and the Dominions Secretary who are direct Departmental Ministers, and the others are the nearest to it that can be got. I do not suggest to the noble Viscount that all Departments are represented in the War Cabinet. Obviously they are not, but as many as possible are. With regard to all those which are not represented an organization is devised with a view to getting as near to that ideal as possible.
If I may go back to what I was saying, the argument usually introduced in favour of a War Cabinet composed of Ministers without Portfolio, is that that was the pattern adopted by Mr. Lloyd George and that under him we won the last war. That argument was put forward by my noble friend Lord Denman. No doubt this is a consideration which must be taken into account. But I suggest to the noble Lord that it is not conclusive, and on this point I cannot do better than recall to the House some words spoken by the Prime Minister himself in another place in February, 1942. He said, speaking of this very question of the structure of the War Cabinet:
It is now the fashion to speak of the Lloyd George War Cabinet as if it gave universal satisfaction and conducted the war with unerring judgment and unbroken success. On the contrary, complaints were loud and clamant. Immense disasters, such as the slaughter of Passchendaele, the disaster at Caporetto in 1917, the destruction of the Fifth Army after 21st March, 1918—all these and others befell that rightly famous Administration. It made numerous serious mistakes. No one was more surprised than its members when the end of the war came suddenly in 1918, and there have even been criticisms about the character of the peace which was signed and 135 celebrated in 1919. Therefore we, in this difficult period, have other things to do besides that of living up slavishly to the standards and methods of the past, instructive and on the whole encouraging as they unquestionably are.Those are the words of the Prime Minister, and they put the matter very much better than I could in anything I might say to your Lordships.I would not try to suggest, either to the noble Lord, Lord Denman, or to the House, that the present War Cabinet is perfect. This is a very imperfect world. But is it impossible that we have devised, in the light of past experience, a better method than that which obtained in the last war? The noble Lord, Lord Denman, said that the last war was won in four years, and that he did not see much chance of this war being won in four years. But he did not recall to your Lordships that in this war we are up against a very much tougher proposition than we were last time. He did not point out to your Lordships that this time we are fighting not only Germany but Italy and Japan as well. He did not draw the attention of the House to the U-boat campaign, which in this war is infinitely more ferocious than it was even in the last conflict; nor to the fact that we have been bombed in this war on a scale which in the last war was not even contemplated. And yet there is every indication at the present time that we are winning through to victory.
Britain is an essentially conservative nation, in thought if not always in politics. But do not let us become merely laudatores temporis acti, and, above all, in a natural desire to obtain the adoption of those views which we ourselves favour, do not let us run the risk of hampering the Prime Minister, with his immense responsibilities. It is a common ground of agreement that my right honourable friend has conducted the affairs of this country during the most critical period of our history to the admiration of the world. Do not let us, by any action of ours, add to his well nigh intolerable burden. The noble Lord, Lord Denman, said that his only desire was to lighten the heavy burden which rests on the Prime Minister, and I am sure that that is so; but I suggest to him that he is not likely to achieve that object by attempting to force on my right 136 honourable friend a Cabinet structure which he himself has said that he greatly dislikes. Mr. Lloyd George may have preferred one system; my right honourable friend the present Prime Minister may prefer another. Let us trust one as we trusted the other and allow him, in his own way and his own words, "to finish the job."
§ VISCOUNT BENNETTMy Lords, I should like to make a very few observations, because I have listened to these debates from time to time with very great interest. I cannot but think that constitutionally they are entirely improper, as I appreciate and have been taught the Constitution of this island and of the self-governing Dominions. A gentleman in the House of Commons is called upon to form an Administration. His Sovereign entrusts him with that responsibility. He must then choose his Cabinet, and, as our Constitution has heretofore been administered, he has the right to select his colleagues, subject only to the approval of his Sovereign. There have been cases, of course, in which the Sovereign has declined to accept a given person as a Minister.
There is, however, another question which arises at once—namely, what is the duty of the Prime Minister once he has created his Cabinet? I am assuming that it has been created, and that his nominees have met with the approval of the Sovereign. It is surely then the duty of the Prime Minister to devise the methods for the conduct of government which suit him, and, until such time as by an adverse vote in the House of Commons his Government is destroyed, he must—and here I adopt entirely the language of the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House—be permitted to devise his own ways and means of dealing with the situation. I conceive that to be the constitutional position, and every time we raise opposition in this House or in the other House to the way in which the Prime Minister conducts his Government we are in effect proposing a vote of want of confidence in the Prime Minister. It means that or nothing, because he must be permitted to carry on his Government as in his judgment he thinks best, subject to one check—the possibility of his own colleagues resigning. That has happened before and may happen at any time, and, if a sufficient number of them resign, then 137 he must follow suit and resign too, as has been the case at least twice in the history of this country, and not in the very distant past.
When we propose to tell the Prime Minister how he shall organize and conduct his Government, we entirely overlook, in my judgment, the constitutional principles with regard to the powers entrusted to the Prime Minister and the responsibilities imposed upon him. It may be that we in the Dominions have had an erroneous impression, but the view which we have always held in Australia, in Canada and in South Africa, has been that the Prime Minister is responsible for the conduct of the Government and that, if he does not conduct it to the satisfaction of the members of the House of Commons, where he must always command a majority, he must resign; and if his conduct is not satisfactory to his colleagues, they resign. The noble Lord, Lord Denman, suggested that we desired to relieve the Prime Minister of some of the burdens of office.
§ VISCOUNT BENNETTI stand corrected, but the idea is exactly the same. If we claim the right to tell the Prime Minister that he should not do what he does do, then we are asking him to leave his office, for he must be the judge of what he will do, subject always to the assistance of his colleagues. He has the advice of his colleagues; the principle of Cabinet solidarity prevails, and the Cabinet is a Committee of the House of Commons and the House of Lords in a National Government of all Parties. In times of normal Party Government, it is a Committee of the Party. That is what the Cabinet is. They must govern with a sense of solidarity. What is this War Cabinet? It is a Committee of the ordinary Cabinet; that is all. It is a Committee of members of the Privy Council who are members of the Cabinet, and nothing more. That is the reason why the answer given to the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, was entirely complete. It would not be possible to have them all, because then there would be no War Cabinet. But we have a Committee of the Cabinet which constitutes the War Cabinet, just as the Cabinet itself is a 138 Committee of the dominant Party under Party Government, and of the House of Commons and the House of Lords in a National Government.
That is the general view which I think is indicated in the authorities, and my reason for raising this is that perhaps the noble and learned Lord Chancellor, with his great legal knowledge, may be able to verify my view with regard to it. On more than one occasion I have looked it up, and it does seem to me that, whenever this House debates a Motion telling the Prime Minister how he ought to conduct his Government—not the war, but his Government—that is in terms a vote of want of confidence in the Prime Minister. That can only be expressed, as I say, by his colleagues leaving him and his leaving his office, and not by our undertaking to tell him how he shall discharge the onerous and responsible duties of his great office.
I only mention this because I have been vastly interested in listening to the debates here from time to time. The defining by either House of Parliament of the functions of a Prime Minister and of the method in which he conducts his Government seems to me to be entirely out of accord with the general attitude which the country has taken with respect to a National Government. That is the way it strikes me at any rate. I apologize for intervening to make these observations, but I do feel very much concerned about the general effect of continuing critically to examine the conduct of the Prime Minister and the conduct of Government, when constitutionally, as I understand it, his responsibility is to those who keep him there by their votes in the Commons—not the Lords, because he must command a majority in the House of Commons. I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Denman, that if he will again read Mr. Lloyd George's books he will have no difficulty in ascertaining that the peaceful happy condition to which he referred did not exist in fact, according to Mr. Lloyd George, who had most to do with it.
§ LORD BEAVERBROOKI beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
§ Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
§ House adjourned.