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Originally published in 1969, this book discusses specific issues in the rise of a constitutional bureaucracy' as a counter-part to constitutional monarchy. These issues, including patronage, ministerial power and responsibility and the grey-eminence' myth are set against the relationship among legislation and administration, Treasury control and the relevance of public administration to our conception of public accountability and representative bureaucracy.'

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Plates -- Preface / Parris, Henry -- Conventions and Abbreviations Used in the Text -- 1. The Need for Government Action -- 2. The Early Years of the Railway Department, 1840-1844 -- 3. The Railway Board and Its Aftermath, 1844-1846 -- 4. The Commissioners of Railways, 1846-1851 -- 5. The Railway Department, 1851-1867 -- 6. Relations with the Companies -- 7. Railways in the Theory of Government -- Epilogue: 1868-1914 -- Appendix A. Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Board of Trade, 1840-1867 -- Appendix B. The Commissioners of Railways -- Appendix C. Higher Civil Servants with Responsibility for Regulation of Railways 1840-1867 -- Bibliography -- Index

There is a standing temptation, at least in Britain and the United States, to equate 'opposition' with 'alternative government'. Politics is seen as something like cricket, one team batting, another fielding. When the last batsman is out, the other side is ready immediately to take its place. This preoccupation tends to prevent English students of politics from recognizing the many forms that opposition may take in countries where the game of politics is played according to different rules. Consequently, they often fail to understand other political systems. One such system exists no farther away than the other side of the English Channel. Only fitfully and intermittently has France ever possessed an alternative government, ready to take over smoothly from the one in power. Changes of government have usually been either reshuffles within coalitions—plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose—or complete changes of regime. When the regimes become more authoritarian opposition manifests itself in other ways. This article seeks to show that in the first seven years of the Fifth Republic the Conseil d'État has played an opposition role. Such a possibility becomes more credible against the background of history.