We turn next to the other element in the working machine of government, the Cabinet, or policy-directing body, which is the very pivot of our whole system. Two main functions fall to the Cabinet. In the first place, it has to ensure an effective co-ordination between the various departments of government; in the second place, it is responsible for the initiation and guidance of national policy in every sphere, subject to the watchful but friendly control of Parliament. Long experience has shown that there are several conditions which must be fulfilled if a Cabinet is to perform these functions satisfactorily. In the first place, its members must, among them, be able to speak for every department of government; failing this, the function of co-ordination cannot be effectively performed. This principle was discarded in the later stages of the war, when a small War Cabinet was instituted, from which most of the ministers were excluded. The result was confusion and overlapping, and the attempt to remedy these evils by the creation of a staff of _liaison_ officers under the control of the Prime Minister had very imperfect success, and in some respects only added to the confusion. In the second place, the Cabinet must be coherent and homogeneous, and its members must share the same ideals of national policy. National business cannot be efficiently transacted if the members of the Cabinet are under the necessity of constantly arguing about, and making compromises upon, first principles. That is the justification for drawing the members of a Cabinet from the leaders of a single party, who think alike and understand one another's minds. Whenever this condition has been absent, confusion, vacillation and contradiction have always marked the conduct of public affairs, and disastrous results have followed.