WHERE ENGLAND’S FATE IS SEALED.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 29 May 1901, Page 4

WHERE ENGLAND’S FATE IS SEALED.

The British Cabinet is the most important secret society in the world, and no meeting is ever bold that can compare for gravity of possible issue with a Cabinet Council.

Tbe room in Downing street where the Cabinet meets is large, and furnished with the severity of a city counting-house. At one time Cabinets were held in the dining room of tlie Prime Minister s official residence; but the accommodation was ridiculously inadequate. Some of the Ministers had actually to squat on the floor ; at any rate that is the story told. The members having assembled, the sound-proof doors are closed, and under no circumstances arc they-reopened, except at the bidding of the Prime Minister. Occasionally a messenger is seen to leave the House

Carrying a Despatch Box, every document in which bears the inscription, “Most secret; for the use of the Cabinet.” Immediately after the close of the Cabinet the Premier sends by special messenger to the King a full account of its deliberations. And this is the only record of the Cabinet that is kept.

The taking of minutes or other memoranda would be highly dangerous. _ There is always a possibility of them getting into undesirable hands. Seldom, indeed, does a whisper reach beyond the double doors of the Cabinet room.

Only once within half a century has a Cabinet Minister deliberately broken his solemn oath of secrecy. It is a romance of the days of the Corn Laws. A beautiful and fascinating lady cajoled a Minister into telling her what decision Sir Robert Peel and his colleagues had arrived at, and then.

Sold the Information to the “Times.” The misguided Minister tendered his resignation, but it was not accepted. Perhaps the Cabinet’s record in preserving a great secret was furnished by the resignation of Mr Gladstone. For three months the secret was kept intact. One day the veteran statesman appeared at Downing street. He who had attended more Cabinets than any other man of his time, and had in four successive Ministries presided over the deliberations of his colleagues. had come to bid them farewell. Ho knew it, and they knew it; but the outside .world was ignorant of the fact, and were kept in ignorance, in fact, from December to March. The scene when the last farewells were said in the Council Chamber was a most pathetic one. One of the Minister’s present on that historic occasion narrowly escaped some time previously inadvertably revealing a Cabinet secret of supreme importance. He went to his club to write a letter, and left on the table the secret draft copy of the Homo Eule Bill, printed for the use of the Cabinet only. Shortly after his departure a fellow member of the club had occasion to use the same table, and found the document lying on it. This gentleman was himself the private secretary to a Cabinet Minister. He realised in a flash the consternation that would be caused if the contents of the document got abroad, and enclosing the paper in an envelope, and carefully sealing it, he called a cab, and drove at once to Downing street. One can well imagine with what relief the Minister received the missing document.