A CRITIQUE OF THE CHANGE 303
to welcome proposals on the part of ministers making drastic reduction in the funds allotted to the reserved subjects. Their attitude towards the ministers will be largely governed by the amount of economy they will be able to effect in the reserved subjects for the benefit of the transferred subjects. Thus in the absence of any very large chances of increase of revenue the two halves of the Executive, the Governor in Council backed by the distribution and certification power and the Governor in Ministry backed by the general Budget powers of a popular Legislature, will compete in the matter of developing their subjects by forcing economy on each other. The Legislature being unwilling to tax, the Governor in Council being in a position to resist retrenchment and the Governor in Ministry anxious to expand, the chances of an early equilibrium in Provincial finance are very small.
It is, therefore, evident that if there is no sound finance in the Provinces it is because dyarchy is not a good form of government. Now, why is dyarchy not a good form of government ? The answer to this question is very simple. Dyarchy is a bad form of government because it is opposed to the principle of collective responsibility. An administrative machine must work smoothly and harmoniously. But in order that it may do so it must recognize the principle of impartibility of governmental work and a collective responsibility of the administrators in the execution thereof. That the work of government is by its nature impartible may not seem to accord with facts : for, in practice the functions of government can be and commonly are partitioned, as they are between local bodies and between departments. Nevertheless it is true that a common thread runs through them all: that no function of government acts in vacuo ; that each reacts on some other function, and that the various functions cannot act at all to produce orderly progress unless there is some force to harmonize them. Otherwise a policy enunciated in one department may fail to fructify for want of helpful action on behalf of other departments. That harmonizing force can only be found in the principle of collective responsibility. This is so because under it, as Hearn points out: [1]
“Each minister acts in his own department as the recognized agent of his colleagues in that particular
1 The Government of England, p. 204