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Parliamentary Control of Foreign Policy in Great Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Eugene Parker Chase
Eugene Parker Chase*
Affiliation:
Lafayette College
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Extract

Parliament has today perhaps less supervision over foreign policy than over any other field of governmental activity. Such has been the case for over a generation, and such is still the case in spite of the Labor party's efforts to democratize the control of foreign affairs. That such a situation should exist is particularly strange, since the generally accepted theory of the English constitution assumes that foreign affairs are under the strict control of Parliament. Indeed, the governmental practice of the last forty years has largely violated theories formulated somewhat earlier. How this situation originated, and what its significance is, can best be understood after some examination of the theory and practice of foreign policy control.

What may be called the classical theories of the English constitution are largely the product of the writings of Bagehot and J. S. Mill working on the imagination of the generation which Gladstone dominated, and given emphasis by the Liberals of the seventies. Somewhat unthinkingly, perhaps, these theories won acceptance by Liberals and Conservatives alike. Authoritative statements of the constitutional theory of the control of foreign policy will be found, for instance, in Anson's Law and Custom of the Constitution and Halsbury’s Laws of England. Both of these works express a Liberal conception of foreign policy control; yet both ate the works of Tories.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , November 1931 , pp. 861 - 880
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1931

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References

1 Anson published his first volume (Parliament) in 1886 and the second volume (The Crown) in 1892. The Laws of England was published in 1909.

2 Such are treaties in which taxation is imposed, grants from public funds made necessary, existing trade and navigation laws affected, or private rights of subjects interfered with in times of peace. But even in these cases the sanction of Parliament is necessary only for the purpose of making the treaty binding on subjects of the crown and enforceable by its officers. Treaties ceding important territory may well have the consent of Parliament. The discussion in Halsbury, , Laws of England, VI, 427–454Google Scholar, is an authoritative statement of the classical theory. Supplement No. 16 (1926), p. 418, gives some information on the handling of post-war treaties. Anson, , Law and Custom of the Constitution (3rd ed., London, 1908), Vol. II, Pt. II, Ch. 6Google Scholar, gives a brief summary of the classical theory. An interesting and weighty attack on the classical theory as it applies to treaties was made by Judge Athelney-Jones before the Grotius Society on July 16, 1918. See Judge [Llewellyn Archer] Athelney-Jones, , “The Treaty-Making Powers of the Crown,” Grotius Society Proceedings (London, 1919), IV, 95ff.Google Scholar

3 He was foreign secretary in 1830-34, 1835-41, and 1846-51, and prime minister in 1855-58 and 1859-65.

4 Morley, John, Life of Richard Cobden (London, 1881), II, 231Google Scholar.

5 Ashley, Evelyn, Life of … Viscount Palmerston: 1846-1885 (2nd ed., London, 1876), I, 281Google Scholar.

6 See Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy (New York, 1923), II, 325–340Google Scholar. The words quoted are at p. 327.

7 Greville's, Journal, Pt. II, Vol. I, p. 298Google Scholar, as quoted in Dictionary of National Biography under Palmerston. His subordinates liked him because he stood up for them, never shrinking from questions in the House of Commons. See SirRumbold, Horace, Recollections of a Diplomatist (London, 1902), I, 111Google Scholar. On the supervision of despatches in this period, see Taylor, Hannis, Origin and Growth of the English Constitution (Boston, 1898), II, 551 nGoogle Scholar.

8 His policy was attacked by Roebuck in 1850. Papers were laid before the House. Cf. Hertslet, Edward, Old Foreign Office (London, 1901), 72–73Google Scholar. There was a full-dress debate for four days. See Ashley, I, 211-227, and Morley, John, Life of William Ewart Gladstone (London, 1903), II, 366–371Google Scholar. In such other cases as the Orsini affair (1858) and the Schleswig-Holstein affair (1863-64), Palmerston's policy underwent close scrutiny.

9 Lang, Andrew, Life of Sir Stafford Northcote, First Earl of Iddesleigh (Edinburgh, 1890), I, 214–215Google Scholar.

10 Its editor, John Easthope, given a baronetcy in 1841, attended daily at the Foreign Office and received and printed articles written by Palmerston himself. SirMaxwell, Herbert, Life and Letters of … Fourth Earl of Clarendon (London, 1913), I, 213Google Scholar. For relations of Clarendon, Aberdeen, and others with the press, see Maxwell, I, 281; Cecil, Algernon, “The Foreign Office,” in Vol. III of the Cambridge History of British Foreign PolicyGoogle Scholar; Cook, Edward Sir, Delane of the Times (London, 1915)Google Scholar, passim.

11 At the time of the question of the Suez Canal shares in 1875, Sir Stafford Northcote remarked to the Prime Minister: “I know so little of the actual conduct of our foreign relations.” Lang, II, 85. Again, in 1878, Sir Stafford, then leader of the Commons, was kept in intentional ignorance of a development in foreign relations. Ibid., 109-110.

12 It can best be studied in Cecil, Lady Gwendolen, Life of Robert Marquis of Salisbury (London, 1921), Vol. IIGoogle Scholar.

13 See Gwendolen Cecil, II, 138-139, and the remarks of James Bryce on March 19, 1886. 303 Hansard's Debates, 3s., 1420-21.

14 By a majority of 143. The Lords approved without a division. Monypenny, W. F. and Buckle, G. E., Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (London, 1910–1920), VI, 358Google Scholar.

15 Morley, , Gladstone, II, 552 and 560Google Scholar. Again in 1895 he wrote a pamphlet on the Armenian massacres. Morley, III, 521-523.

16 This bringing of foreign policies into public discussion was extremely distasteful to the small group which had previously had exclusive knowledge of them. In 1877, when Gladstone moved a series of resolutions on Turkey, he lacked “a single approver in the upper official circle.” Gathorne-Hardy, Alfred E., Gathorne Hardy, First Earl of Cranbrook (London, 1910), I, 367Google Scholar.

17 In later years, a committee of the House was often urged as the solution.

18 The debate is in 303 Hansard's Debates, 3s., 1386-1423.

19 For examples, see Gwendolen Cecil, op. cit., II, 157, 163, 187-98, 217, 275-77.

20 The words quoted are those of Lady Gwendolen Cecil, op. cit., II, 380-81.

21 Lord Rosebery first formulated the desire for an agreed policy. He expressed himself thus in 1895: “If there is one thing in my life I should like to live after me it is that, when I first went to the Foreign Office as secretary for foreign affairs, I argued for and maintained the principle of continuity in foreign administration.” Kennedy, A. L., Old Diplomacy and New, 1876-1922 (London, 1922), p. 65Google Scholar.

22 The cession of Heligoland is an illustration. After the matter had become the subject of public interest, a series of questions were asked in the House of Commons, to none of which was the government willing to give informatory answers. After the Anglo-German agreement had been concluded, a bill was introduced to sanction it, and then for the first time the government discussed the matter. See Hansard's Delates, 3s., index to Vols. 346 and 347.

23 See the discussion in 89 Parl. Deb., 4s., 322-325. The innovation was maintained for several years.

24 In his Autobiography (Garden City, 1929), pp. 231–33Google Scholar, Lord Haldane explains why members of the cabinet conducted the affairs of their departments as they liked, without consultation.

25 Low, Sidney, “The Foreign Office Autocracy,” Fortnightly Review, Vol. 97 (January 1, 1912), pp. 3 and 5Google Scholar.

26 Compare Swanwick, H. M., Builders of Peace; Being Ten Years' History of the Union of Democratic Control (London, 1924), 41Google Scholar. The debate occurred in November and December, 1911, after the Moroccan negotiations.

27 32 H. C. Debates, 5s., 107. The whole debate is at pp. 43-166 and 2543-2662.

28 Ibid., p. 43.

29 P. 80.

30 Later these three Liberals became members of Labor governments.

31 P. 118.

32 P. 2590.

33 P. 2617. The only tangible result of this debate was an investigation as to parliamentary control of foreign policy in other countries. The investigation, made by the English government through its diplomatic representatives, showed that real parliamentary control of foreign policy existed in Europe only in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Norway. Parliamentary Papers, Cd 6102 of 1912-13. There is a continuation, Cmd 2282 of 1924-25.

34 Barthélemy, Joseph, Démocratie et Politique Éstrangère (Paris, 1917), 133Google Scholar. Even Gilbert Murray doubted in 1916 that the results would have been better had the English foreign secretaries since the Boer War always been obliged to ask themselves if Parliament would approve what they thought of doing. See his “Democratic Control of Foreign Policy,” Contemporary Review, Vol. 109 (February, 1916), 180–192Google Scholar.

35 See the war cabinet Report for 1917 (Cd 9005 of 1918), 1-4. Kennedy, op. cit., 279, says that both Balfour and Curzon “acquiesced in the virtual relegation of the Foreign Office to a subsidiary department of the premiership.”

36 The debate is in 104 H.C. Deb., 5s., 841-901. The suggestion of a foreign affairs committee has been recurrent both inside and outside Parliament. See the debate of 1886 above. Low, op. cit., says that he suggested such a committee some years ago. Young, George, Diplomacy Old and New (New York, 1921), Ch. IIGoogle Scholar, argues lengthily for it. Ponsonby, Arthur, in his Fabian pamphlet Democracy and the Control of Foreign Affairs (London, 1912)Google Scholar, thinks that a non-party committee would not work. Committees on foreign affairs have recently been instituted in the Belgian Chamber of Deputies and the Norwegian Parliament. Cf. Parliamentary Papers, Cmd 2282 of 1924-25.

37 Swanwick, op. cit., Ch. I.

38 Swanwick, op. cit., 32.

39 It was a period, says Toynbee, when “the conduct of British Empire foreign relations ceased to be centralized in Whitehall,” and “when the arrangements for the conduct of them were changing and growing very rapidly.” The Conduct of British Empire Foreign Relations since the Peace Settlement (Oxford, 1928), p. viGoogle Scholar.

40 For instance, the celebrated telegram signed by over 370 M.P.'s demanding that he fulfill his election pledges on reparations. Steed, Henry Wickham, Through Thirty Years, 1892-1922: A Personal Narrative (London, 1924), II, 320–321Google Scholar.

41 See Halsbury, supplement no. 16 (1926) on treaties since the war. “Every treaty since 1919 has been ratified by Parliament,” says Swanwick, in Encyclopœdia of the Labour Movement, ed. Lees-Smith, H. B. (London, 1928), I, 291Google Scholar, rather inaccurately.

42 “The new diplomacy consists in giving to the papers certain conclusions. So far as Parliament is concerned, it is a reassertion of the old autocracy,” said Earl Midleton, a former Conservative under-secretary for foreign affairs, on February 7, 1922. See 49 House of Lords Debates, 5s., 40.

43 The fall of the government of Lloyd George was occasioned by the Chanak difficulty, a matter for which Lord Curzon was in no way responsible. The incendiary declaration which caused the government's sudden unpopularity was the work of only four or five men (particularly Lloyd George and Winston Churchill). The cabinet was not consulted, and the foreign secretary learned of it from the newspapers. Foreign Affairs (London), IV, 117 (December, 1922)Google Scholar. An excellent analysis of the Chanak (or Chanāq) incident will be found in Toynbee, op. cit., 46-52.

44 In the election of 1922, E. D. Morel defeated Winston Churchill as candidate for Parliament in Dundee. Morel was one of the most notorious of the “pacifists.”

45 159 H.C. Deb. 272. See Foreign Affairs (London), IV, 118 (December, 1922)Google Scholar.

46 Foreign Affairs, V, 23–24Google Scholar.

47 Swanwick, op. cit., 166-67.

48 April 24, 1924. 181 H.C. Deb., 5s., 2003.

49 Ibid., 2003-4. This declaration of the government, a marked innovation, did not go far enough completely to satisfy all the reformers. See Foreign Affairs, V, 249 (June, 1924)Google Scholar.

50 The business of the “Red” letter which caused the fall of the government was essentially a domestic question. It did suggest, however, to many observers one difficulty in the way of a more democratic conduct of foreign affairs: the probable preference of the permanent staff of the Foreign Office for old aims and methods.

51 179 H.C. Deb., 5s., 565, December 15, 1924.

52 Ibid., 712.

53 The Labor party's motion attacking the government was lost 132 to 363. Ibid., 759.

54 Sir Austen received almost sole credit in England for the success of “Locarno,” and took equally the responsibility for the significance, whatever it was, of the confidential relations he entered into with Briand, foreign minister of France, and Mussolini, dictator of Italy.

55 It is probable that nothing which could be called a secret treaty was made. Well-informed Englishmen were sure, in 1927, however, that a definite understanding existed between the governments of England and Italy. It is hardly necessary to call attention to Article 18 of the Covenant of the League of Nations providing for the registration of “treaties and engagements.” England has presumably lived up to this article. Its one effect on the internal development of English foreign policy would be to limit the binding force of “understandings,” “conversations,” etc., to the statesmen who make them. It would not prevent an understanding, practically as binding as any treaty, between the Italian government and any given British government.

56 On this whole question, see Keith, Arthur Berriedale, Responsible Government in the Dominions (2nd ed. revised to 1927, London, 1928)Google Scholar, Part V, Ch. V. The situation was clarified in the “Balfour Report” of the Committee on Inter-Imperial Relations of the Imperial Conference of 1926.

The Chanak incident of 1922 was the turning point in dominion autonomy in foreign relations. Two dominions which were asked by the English government to send troops to act against Turkey did not agree to do so, and the refusal of the Canadian government was marked by expressions of definite disapproval of a situation in which a few Englishmen could involve in war dominions which had not previously known anything about it. It is noteworthy that the English government several times clearly and emphatically indicated to the Canadian government that it did not want the correspondence in the matter laid before Parliament. Toynbee, 46-52.

57 Foreign Affairs, VI, 223 (April, 1925)Google Scholar.

58 181 H.C. Deb., 5s., 1430.

59 P. 1438.

60 P. 1454.

61 Twice late in 1928 (November 13 and December 20) the suggestion of a committee on foreign affairs was again made, by Mr. L'Estrange Malone. On the second occasion, Sir Austen Chamberlain expressed his objections. 222 H.C. Deb., 5s., 795-96, and Vol. 223, pp. 3412-24.

62 Sir John, of course, evaded the issue which the Labor party was raising, that objects and mechanism are often indistinguishable.

63 The debate is in 181 H.C. Deb., 5s., 1430-78.

64 The adjectives “binding” and “ultimate” appear to be an essential part of the statement. The debate is 208 H.C. Deb., 5s., 1762-1890. Only two days after this speech by Sir Austen, a question in the House of Commons elicited the fact that a treaty with the Hedjaz had been signed, and the promise that it would be “published after ratification.” Ibid., 2120.

65 July 17, 1929. 230 H.C. Deb., 5s., 408.

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