Yet it has no connection with the Privy Council, except
that every one, on first becoming a member of the Cabinet, is, if not
belonging to it already, sworn a member of that body. There are other
sections of the Privy Council, forming regular Committees for Education
and for Trade. But the Cabinet has not even this degree of formal
sanction, to sustain its existence. It lives and acts simply by
understanding, without a single line of written law or constitution to
determine its relations to the Monarch, or to the Parliament, or to the
nation; or the relations of its members to one another, or to their
head. It sits in the closest secrecy. There is no record of its
proceedings, nor is there any one to hear them, except upon the very
rare occasions when some important functionary, for the most part
military or legal, is introduced, _pro hac vice_, for the purpose of
giving to it necessary information.
Every one of its members acts in no less than three capacities: as
administrator of a department of State; as member of a legislative
chamber; and as a confidential adviser of the Crown.
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