1902); Periodical Publications—Annales des mines de Belgique (Brussels,
quarterly); Australian Mining Standard (Melbourne, Sydney
and Brisbane, weekly); Engineering and Mining Journal (New York,
weekly); Glückauf (Essen, weekly); Mines and Quarries; General
Report and Statistics (London, annually); with details from official
reports of colonial and foreign mining departments; Mines and
Minerals (monthly, Scranton, Pennsylvania); The Mineral Industry
(New York, annually); Transactions of the American Institute of Mining
Engineers (New York); The Mining and Scientific Press (weekly,
San Francisco); Transactions of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy
(London); Transactions of the Institution of Mining Engineers (Newcastle-on-Tyne).
(H. S. M.)
MINION, a favourite, pet or spoiled person. The word is
adapted from the Fr. mignon (Ital. mignone), of which the
origin is doubtful. Connexions with the O.H. Ger. minna,
love, and with a Celtic root min-, meaning small, have
been suggested. “Minion” is chiefly applied in a derogatory
sense to the “creatures” of a royal court, and thus has been
used of the favourites of Edward II. and James I. of England,
and of Henry III. of France. In the sense pretty, delicate,
dainty, the French form mignon or mignonne is often used in
English. During the 17th century “minion” was the name
of a type of cannon with a small bore. In typography, it is
still used for the type which comes between “nonpareil”
and “brevier.”
MINISTER (Lat. minister, servant), an official title both civil and ecclesiastical. The word minister as originally used in
the Latin Church was a translation of the Greek διάκονος, deacon;
thus Lactantius speaks of presbyteri et ministri, priests and
deacons (De mort. persecutorum, No. 15), and in this sense it is
still technically used; thus canon vi., Sess. xxiii. of the council
of Trent speaks of the hierarchy as consisting “ex episcopis,
presbyteris et ministris.” But the equivocal character of the
Word soon led to the blurring of any strictly technical sense it
once possessed. Bishops signed themselves minister in the
spirit of humility, priests were “servants of the altar” (ministri
altaris), while sometimes the phrase ministri ecclesiae was used
to denote the clergy in minor orders (see Lex Bajwar. tit. 8,
quoted in Du Cange). A similar equivocal character attaches
to the word minister as used in the Anglican formularies:
“Oftentimes it is made to express the person officiating in
general, whether priest or deacon; at other times it denoteth the
priest alone, as contradistinguished from the deacon” (Burn’s
Eccl. Law, ed. Phillimore, iii. 44). Thus the 33rd canon of 1603
orders that “no bishop shall make any person a deacon and
minister both together upon one day.” Generally, however, it
may be said that in the use of the Church of England “minister”
means no more than executor officii, a sense in which it was
used long before the Reformation. As the most colourless of all
official ecclesiastical titles, it is easy to see how the word minister
has come to be applied to the clergy of Protestant denominations.
The phrase “minister of religion” is wide enough to embrace
any evangelical office, and has about it more of the savour of
humility than “pastor.”
The civil title of minister originates in the same exact sense of servant, i.e. servants of the royal household (ministri aulae regis). This origin is still clearly traceable in the titles of some ministers in Great Britain, e.g. chancellor of the exchequer, first lord of the treasury, and in the official style of “his majesty’s servants” applied to all. Practically, however, the word minister has in modern states come to be applied to the heads of the great administrative departments who as such are members of the government. On the continent there are, besides, “ministers without portfolio,” i.e. ministers who, without being in charge of any special department, are members of the government. In general it is distinctive of constitutional states that any public act of the sovereign must bear the countersignature of the minister responsible for the department concerned. (See the articles Ministry and Cabinet. For the history and meanings of the word “minister” in diplomacy, see Diplomacy.) (W. A. P.)
MINISTRY, the office of a minister (q.v.), in all its meanings, political and religious, or the body of persons holding such an
office and performing its duties; more particularly the body of
persons who, in theory the servants at the head of the state, act
as the responsible executive over the whole sphere of government,
as in the United Kingdom. On the continent of Europe, on the
other hand, the word “ministry” is most usually applied to the
responsible head of a particular department together with his
subordinates, including the permanent officials or staff. In
England, ever since the introduction of monarchical institutions
the sovereign has always been surrounded by a select body of
confidential advisers to assist the crown in the government of
the country. At no period could a king of England act, according
to law, without advice in the public concerns of the kingdom;
the institutions of the crown of England and the institution
of the privy council are coeval. At the Norman Conquest the
king’s council, or as it is now called, the privy council, was
composed of certain members of the aristocracy and great
officers of state, specially summoned by the crown, with whom
the sovereign usually advised in matters of state and government.
In the earlier stages of English constitutional history the king’s
councillors, as confidential servants of the monarch, were present
at every meeting of parliament in order to advise upon matters
judicial in the House of Lords; but in the reign of Richard II.
the privy council dissolved its judicial connexion with the peers
and assumed an independent jurisdiction of its own. It was in
the reign of Henry VI. that the king’s council first assumed the
name of privy council, and it was also during the minority of
this sovereign that a select council gradually emerged from the
larger body of the privy council, which ultimately became the
modern cabinet. Since the Revolution of 1688, and the development
of parliamentary government, the privy council has
dwindled into comparative insignificance. The power once
swayed by the privy council is now exercised by that unrecognized
select committee of the council known as the cabinet (q.v.).
The practice of consulting a few confidential advisers instead
of the whole privy council had been resorted to by English
monarchs from a very early period; but the first mention of the
term cabinet council in contradistinction to privy council
occurs in the reign of Charles I., when the burden of state affairs
was entrusted to the committee of state which Clarendon says
was enviously called the “cabinet council.” At first government
by cabinet was as unpopular as it was irregular. Until the formation
of the first parliamentary ministry by William III. the
ministers of the king occupied no recognized position in the House
of Commons; it was indeed a moot point whether they were
entitled to sit at all in the lower chamber, and they were seldom
of one mind in the administration of matters of importance.
Before the Revolution of 1688 there were ministers, but no
ministry in the modern sense of the word; colleague schemed
against colleague in the council chamber, and it was no uncommon
thing to see ministers opposing one another in parliament
upon measures that in modern times would be supported by a
united cabinet. As the change from government by prerogative
to government by parliament, consequent upon the Revolution
of 1688, developed, and the House of Commons became more
and more the centre and force of the state, the advantage of
having ministers in the legislature to explain and defend the
measures and policy of the executive government began. to be
appreciated. The public authority of the crown being only
exercised through the medium of ministers, it became absolutely
necessary that the advisers of the sovereign, who were responsible
for every public act of the Crown as well as for the general
policy they had been called upon to administer, should have
seats in both Houses of Parliament. Still nearly a century had
to elapse before political unanimity in the cabinet was recognized
as a political maxim. From the first parliamentary ministry of
William III. until the rise of the second Pitt, divisions in the cabinet
were constantly occurring, and a prime minister had more
to fear from the intrigues of his own colleagues than from the
tactics of the opposition. In 1812 an attempt was made to form
a ministry consisting of men of opposite political principles, who
were invited to accept office, not avowedly as a coalition government,
but with an offer to the Whig leaders that their friends
should be allowed a majority of one in the cabinet. This offer
