The Cordova daily times., 1922-12-14
THE PRIME MINISTER OF BRITAIN

LHe prime munster at all; acJudHy, He IS or
 may belt depends largely on the man the fruler of the empire. Since this significant
 office has loomed so large of late in the pub
 lie horizon, it is not amiss to review some
 thing of the history of an institution whose
 prestige is comparatively modern. , l The function of the prime minister may be
 mathematically expressed as variable since 1 the office originated non-constitution with
 Sir Robert Walpole's appointment in 1721 as
 first lord of the treasury and his gradual
 interpretation of functions of that post as
 that of chief executive of the realm. Prior to Walpoles regime in the treasury the lord of that dcparment was just that and little
 more, though it is true his authority had grad uallv grown through the centuries. But Wal poles power was largely the result of a fluke. | A combination of circumstances acces sion of the German Elector of Hanover as George I. his ignorance of the English Ian guage, his dependence on Walpoe, who hap pened to be the leader of the House of Com
 mons, and the latter's appointment as first
 lord of the treasury were the circumstances that created the non-constitutional office of i the prime minister a term which, by the way, | is even more recent than the office it de scrbcs In November, 1841 Lord Melbourne, whose political career was then behind him,
 wrote on that subject to his sovereign: ''Prime
 minister is term belonging to the last cen tury Lord Melbourne doubts it's being to be
 found in English parliamentary language pre-
 viously Sir Robert Walpole was always ae, cused of having introduced and arrogated to
 himself an office previously unknown to the law and constitution
 However, Walpole' $ arrogance was not with
 out logical basis. He was first lord of the
 treasury, an office that is theoretically the ! third highest lay position in the kingdom, for bv strict interpretation of the constitution the highest lay subject is the high steward and
 the next highest is the chancellor, practically extinct offices today whose functions have devolved on the third officer of the realm the | high treasurer. So much for constitutional in- tention. Money speaks, and the man who han dled the seals and keys of the treasury out paced his two superior confreres so that when Walpole was presented by his Hanoverian
 monarch with the white staff of the treasury lit became the most powerful office in the land and Walpole was opportunist enough to use | a weak foreign king to make it more power full It is curious that the office intended for the premiership, the high steward, should never had had satisfactory scope. Held chief Fly by ecclesiastics in the middle ages, its power, which was all but regal, was too great
 and was quickly curtailed by the inherent de
 mocracy of the British people. By the rise of parliament in the thirteenth century, the
 prime officer of state had ceased to exist. The chancellor. the second officer, tended through out the centuries to become more and more
 the first officer of the law and of it's highest court. l But though the term prime minister has be-
 come stereotyped by two centuries of usage its attributes are still almost as vague as
 when Walpole created the anomalius office.
 A premier of indifferent statesmanship,
 though such one is not likely to be appoint
 ed-and it is significant fact that practically
 all of the thirty five men who have held the
 post since Walpole have been individually
 strong g-could revert to the nominal post of
 president of the cabinet, though he would still
 have to be leader of the house of parliament in
 which he sat-another precedent established | by Walpole In practice the prime minister
 has come to be the leader of the government,
 of the house of legislation in which he sits,
 and of one of the political parties an onerous job. Small wonder that it calls for the most
 competent men in the government and that it's l conflicting claims are not conducive to lon gevity in any one administration.