Over forty years ago with great elegance and scholarship Professor Notestein gave his famous Raleigh lecture on ‘The Winning of the Initiative by the House of Commons’: in this he developed the thesis that amongst the reasons for the great yet inconspicuous change ‘between the time of Elizabeth and that of the Long Parliament in the relation of the Council to the Commons’ was thatAlmost without observation, Privy Councillors ceased to guide the Commons. And, quite as much unobserved, with no document or charter to serve as a milestone, there came into power in the Commons a group of leaders, who had no official connexion with the Government, who had no common tie, except those of the opinions and feelings that bound English country gentlemen together. These men without purpose or intent but to do the next thing that came to hand, created a new leadership. With the establishment of that leadership the Commons gained the real initiative in legislation.
M U C H has been written on the pattern of European alliances which provided the framework for diplomatic manoeuvre in the years immediately preceding the First World War. 1 Great Britain's attitude during the recurrent international crises of that era has been the subject of both criticism and conjecture. The period before the signing of a treaty of alliance with Japan in 1902 has received concentrated attention chiefly from the point of view of a search for signs of a reversal or transformation in the policy of the cabinet or Foreign Office towards diplomatic engagements within Europe or beyond. 2 In recent years, the opening of both public and private archives of the relevant dates has facilitated this search and permitted a considerable modification of earlier views. 3 While there may be divergence of opinion amongst historians as to the meaning of that overworked phrase 'splendid isolation' in relation to Britain's diplomatic position during the last years of the nineteenth and first years of the twentieth century, 4 comparatively little interest has been shown in the relationship between the War Office and Foreign Office and in the way in which that might reflect general lines of policy. Previous to the setting up of the Committee of Imperial Defence, 5 such contact, other than at Cabinet level, could only be by formal communication concerning the military and naval preparations which must be made for certain eventualities. One such communication, provoked by Swedish military activity, 6 produced a significant memorandum on the part of the Intelligence Division at the War Office, which was subjected to comment not only 1 It is impossible to cite all the relevant works. The following give a fair picture of the range available: L.
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