unknown to me, soliciting pecuniary assistance, informed me that, having
"sought relief from trouble in dissipation," he "committed an act which
sent him into Penal Servitude," and shortly after his release, "wrote a
book containing many suggestions for the reform of prison discipline," A
lady, widely known for the benevolent use which she makes of great
wealth, received a letter from an absolute stranger, setting forth that
he had been so unfortunate as to overdraw his account at his bankers,
and adding, "As I know that it will only cost you a scratch of the pen
to set this right, I make no apology for asking you to do so."
Among "odd men" might certainly be reckoned the late Archdeacon Denison,
and he displayed his oddness very characteristically when, having
quarrelled with the Committee of Council on Education, he refused to
have his parish schools inspected, and thus intimated his resolve to the
inspector:--
"My dear Bellairs,--I love you very much; but if you ever come here
again to inspect, I lock the door of the school, and tell the boys to
put you in the pond."
I am not sure whether the great Duke of Wellington can properly be
described as an "odd man," but beyond question he wrote odd letters. I
have already quoted from his reply to Mrs. Norton when she asked leave
to dedicate a song to him: "I have made it a rule to have nothing
dedicated to me, and have kept it in every instance, though I have been
Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and in other situations _much
exposed to authors_." The Duke replied to every letter that he received,
but his replies were not always acceptable to their recipients. When a
philanthropist begged him to present some petitions to the House of
Lords on behalf of the wretched chimney sweeps, the Duke wrote back:
"Mr. Stevens has _thought fit_ to leave some petitions at Apsley House.
They will be found with the porter." The Duke's correspondence with
"Miss J.," which was published by Mr. Fisher Unwin some ten years ago,
and is much less known than it deserves to be, contains some gems of
composition. Miss J. consulted the Duke about her duty when a
fellow-passenger in the stage-coach swore, and he wrote: "I don't
consider with you that it is necessary to enter into a disputation with
every wandering Blasphemer. Much must depend upon the circumstances."
And when the good lady mixed flirtation with piety, and irritability
with both, he wrote: "The Duke of Wellington presents His Compliments to
Miss J. She is quite mistaken. He has no Lock of Hair of Hers. He never
had one."[34] The Letter of Condolence is a branch of the art of
letter-writing which requires very delicate handling. This was evidently
felt by the Oxford Don who, writing to condole with a father on the
death of his undergraduate son, concluded his tribute of sympathy by
saying: "At the same time, I feel it my duty to tell you that your son
would not in any case have been allowed to return next term, as he had
failed to pass Responsions."
Curtness in letter-writing does not necessarily indicate oddity. It
often is the most judicious method of avoiding interminable
correspondence. When one of Bishop Thorold's clergy wrote to beg leave
of absence from his duties in order that he might make a long tour in
the East, he received for all reply: "Dear--,--Go to Jericho.--Yours,
A.W.R." At a moment when scarlet fever was ravaging Haileybury, and
suggestions for treatment were pouring in by every post, the Head Master
had a lithographed answer prepared, which ran: "Dear Sir,--I am obliged
by your opinions, and retain my own." An admirable answer was made by
another Head Master to a pompous matron, who wrote that, before she sent
her boy to his school, she must ask if he was very particular about the
social antecedents of his pupils: "Dear Madam, as long as your son
behaves himself and his fees are paid, no questions will be asked about
his social antecedents."
Sydney Smith's reply, when Lord Houghton, then young "Dicky Milnes,"
wrote him an angry letter about some supposed unfriendliness, was a
model of mature and genial wisdom: "Dear Milnes,--Never lose your good
temper, which is one of your best qualities." When the then Dean of
Hereford wrote a solemn letter to Lord John Russell, announcing that he
and his colleagues would refuse to elect Dr. Hampden to the See, Lord
John replied: "Sir,--I have had the honour to receive your letter of the
22nd inst., in which you intimate to me your intention of violating the
law." Some years ago Lady----, who is well known as an ardent worker in
the interests of the Roman Church, wrote to the Duke of----, a sturdy
Protestant, that she was greatly interested in a Roman Catholic Charity,
and, knowing the Duke's wide benevolence, had ventured to put down his
name for £100. The Duke wrote back: "Dear Lady----,--It is a curious
coincidence that, just before I got your letter, I had put down your
name for a like sum to the English Mission for converting Irish
Catholics; so no money need pass between us." But perhaps the supreme
honours of curt correspondence belong to Mr. Bright. Let one instance
suffice. Having been calumniated by a Tory orator at Barrow, Mr. Bright
wrote as follows about his traducer: "He may not know that he is
ignorant, but he cannot be ignorant that he lies. And after such a
speech the meeting thanked him--I presume because they enjoyed what he
had given them. I think the speaker was named Smith. He is a discredit
to _the numerous family of that name._"
FOOTNOTES:
[34] Sir Herbert Maxwell, in his _Life of Wellington_, vouches for the
genuineness of the Duke's letters to "Miss J." She was Miss A.M.
Jenkins.
XXXIII.
OFFICIALDOM.
The announcements relating to the first Cabinet of the winter set me
thinking whether my readers might be interested in seeing what I have
"collected" as to the daily life and labours of her Majesty's Ministers.
I decided that I would try the experiment, and, acting on the principle
which I have professed before--that when once one has deliberately
chosen certain words to express one's meaning one cannot, as a rule,
alter them with advantage--I shall borrow from some former writings of
my own.
The Cabinet is the Board of Directors of the British Empire. All its
members are theoretically equal; but, as at other Boards, the effective
power really resides in three or four. At the present moment[35]
Manchester is represented by one of these potent few. Saturday is the
usual day for the meeting of the Cabinet, though it may be convened at
any moment as special occasion arises. Describing the potato-disease
which led to the repeal of the Corn Laws, Lord Beaconsfield wrote: "This
mysterious but universal sickness of a single root changed the history
of the world. 'There is no gambling like politics,' said Lord
Roehampton, as he glanced at the _Times_: 'four Cabinets in one week!
The Government must be more sick than the potatoes!'"
Twelve is the usual hour for the meeting of the Cabinet, and the
business is generally over by two. At the Cabinets held during November
the legislative programme for next session is settled, and the
preparation of each measure is assigned to a sub-committee of Ministers
specially conversant with the subject-matter. Lord Salisbury holds his
Cabinets at the Foreign Office; but the old place of meeting was the
official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury at 10 Downing
Street, in a pillared room looking over the Horse Guards Parade, and
hung with portraits of departed First Lords.
In theory, of course, the proceedings of the Cabinet are absolutely
secret. The Privy Councillor's oath prohibits all disclosures. No record
is kept of the business done. The door is guarded by vigilant attendants
against possible eavesdroppers. The dispatch-boxes which constantly
circulate between Cabinet Ministers, carrying confidential matters, are
carefully locked with special keys, said to date from the administration
of Mr. Pitt; and the possession of these keys constitutes admission into
what Lord Beaconsfield called "the circles of high initiation." Yet in
reality more leaks out than is supposed. In the Cabinet of 1880-5 the
leakage to the press was systematic and continuous. Even Mr. Gladstone,
the stiffest of sticklers for official reticence, held that a Cabinet
Minister might impart his secrets to his wife and his Private Secretary.
The wives of official men are not always as trustworthy as Mrs. Bucket
in _Bleak House_, and some of the Private Secretaries in the Government
of 1880 were little more than boys. Two members of that Cabinet were
notorious for their free communications to the press, and it was often
remarked that the _Birmingham Daily Post_ was peculiarly well informed.
A noble Lord who held a high office, and who, though the most pompous,
was not the wisest of mankind, was habitually a victim to a certain
journalist of known enterprise, who used to waylay him outside Downing
Street and accost him with jaunty confidence: "Well, Lord----, so you
have settled on so-and-so after all?" The noble lord, astonished that
the Cabinet's decision was already public property, would reply, "As you
know so much, there can be no harm in telling the rest"; and the
journalist, grinning like a dog, ran off to print the precious morsel in
a special edition of the _Millbank Gazette_. Mr. Justin McCarthy could,
I believe, tell a curious story of a highly important piece of foreign
intelligence communicated by a Minister to the _Daily News_; of a
resulting question in the House of Commons; and of the same Minister's
emphatic declaration that no effort should be wanting to trace this
violator of official confidence and bring him to condign punishment.
While it is true that outsiders sometimes become possessed by these
dodges of official secrets, it is not less true that Cabinet Ministers
are often curiously in the dark about great and even startling events. A
political lady once said to me, "Do you in your party think much of my
neighbour, Mr. ----?" As in duty bound, I replied, "Oh yes, a great
deal." She rejoined, "I shouldn't have thought it, for when the boys are
shouting any startling news in the special editions, I see him run out
without his hat to buy an evening paper. That doesn't look well for a
Cabinet Minister." On the fatal 6th of May 1882 I dined in company with
Mr. Bright. He stayed late, but never heard a word of the murders which
had taken place that evening in the Phoenix Park; went off quietly to
bed, and read them as news in the next morning's _Observer_.
But, after all, attendance at the Cabinet, though a most important, is
only an occasional, event in the life of one of her Majesty's Ministers.
Let us consider the ordinary routine of his day's work during the
session of Parliament. The truly virtuous Minister, we may presume,
struggles down to the dining room to read prayers and to breakfast in
the bosom of his family between 9 and 10 A.M. But the self-indulgent
bachelor declines to be called, and sleeps his sleep out. Mr. Arthur
Balfour invariably breakfasts at 12; and more politicians than would
admit it consume their tea and toast in bed. Mercifully, the dreadful
habit of giving breakfast-parties, though sanctioned by the memories of
Holland and Macaulay and Rogers and Houghton, virtually died out with
the disappearance of Mr. Gladstone.
"Men who breakfast out are generally Liberals," says Lady St. Julians in
_Sybil_. "Have not you observed that?"
"I wonder why?"
"It shows a restless, revolutionary mind," said Lady Firebrace, "that
can settle to nothing, but must be running after gossip the moment they
are awake."
"Yes," said Lady St. Julians, "I think those men who breakfast out, or
who give breakfasts, are generally dangerous characters; at least I
would not trust them."
And Lady St. Julians's doctrine, though half a century old, applies with
perfect exactness to those enemies of the human race who endeavour to
keep alive or to resuscitate this desperate tradition. Juvenal described
the untimely fate of the man who went into his bath with an undigested
peacock in his system. Scarcely pleasanter are the sensations of the
Minister or the M.P. who goes from a breakfast-party, full of buttered
muffins and broiled salmon, to the sedentary desk-work of his office or
the fusty wrangles of a Grand Committee.
Breakfast over, the Minister's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of
exercise. If he is a man of active habits and strenuous tastes, he may
take a gentle breather up Highgate Hill, like Mr. Gladstone, or play
tennis, like Sir Edward Grey. Lord Spencer when in office might be seen
any morning cantering up St. James's Street on a hack, or pounding round
Hyde Park in high naval debate with Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth. Lord
Rosebery drives himself in a cab; Mr. Asquith is driven; both
occasionally survey the riding world over the railings of Rotten Row;
and even Lord Salisbury may be found prowling about the Green Park, to
which his house in Arlington Street has a private access. Mr. Balfour,
as we all know, is a devotee of the cycle, and his example is catching;
but Mr. Chamberlain holds fast to the soothing belief that, when a man
has walked upstairs to bed, he has made as much demand on his physical
energies as is good for him, and that exercise was invented by the
doctors in order to bring grist to their mill.
Whichever of these examples our Minister prefers to follow, his exercise
or his lounge must be over by 12 o'clock. The Grand Committees meet at
that hour; on Wednesday the House meets then; and if he is not required
by departmental business to attend either the Committee or the House, he
will probably be at his office by midday. The exterior aspect of the
Government Offices in Whitehall is sufficiently well known, and any
peculiarities which it may present are referable to the fact that the
execution of an Italian design was entrusted by the wisdom of Parliament
to a Gothic architect. Inside, their leading characteristics are the
abundance and steepness of the stairs, the total absence of light, and
an atmosphere densely charged with Irish stew. Why the servants of the
British Government should live exclusively on this delicacy, and why its
odours should prevail with equal pungency "from morn to noon, from noon
to dewy eve," are matters of speculation too recondite for popular
handling.
The Minister's own room is probably on the first floor--perhaps looking
into Whitehall, perhaps into the Foreign Office Square, perhaps on to
the Horse Guards Parade. It is a large room with immense windows, and a
fireplace ingeniously contrived to send all its heat up the chimney. If
the office is one of the older ones, the room probably contains some
good pieces of furniture derived, from a less penurious age than ours--a
bureau or bookcase of mahogany dark with years, showing in its staid
ornamentation traces of Chippendale or Sheraton; a big clock in a
handsome case; and an interesting portrait of some historic statesman
who presided over the department two centuries ago. But in the more
modern offices all is barren. Since the late Mr. Ayrton was First
Commissioner of Works a squalid cheapness has reigned supreme. Deal and
paint are everywhere; doors that won't shut, bells that won't ring, and
curtains that won't meet. In two articles alone there is
prodigality--books and stationery. Hansard's Debates, the Statutes at
Large, treatises illustrating the work of the office, and books of
reference innumerable, are there; and the stationery shows a delightful
variety of shape, size, and texture, adapted to every conceivable
exigency of official correspondence.
It is indeed in the item of stationery, and in that alone, that the
grand old constitutional system of perquisites survives. Morbidly
conscientious Ministers sometimes keep a supply of their private
letter-paper on their office-table and use it for their private
correspondence; but the more frankly human sort write all their letters
on official paper. On whatever paper written, Ministers' letters go free
from the office and the House of Commons; and certain artful
correspondents outside, knowing that a letter to a public office need
not be stamped, write to the Minister at his official address and save
their penny. In days gone by each Secretary of State received on his
appointment a silver inkstand, which he could hand down as a keepsake to
his children. Mr. Gladstone, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer,
abolished this little perquisite, and the only token of office which an
outgoing Minister can now take with him is his dispatch-box. The wife of
a minister who had long occupied an official residence, on being evicted
from office said with a pensive sigh, "I hope I am not avaricious, but
I must say, when one was hanging up pictures, it was very pleasant to
have the Board of Works carpenter and a bag of the largest nails for
nothing."
The late Sir William Gregory used to narrate how when a child he was
taken by his grandfather, who was Under-Secretary for Ireland, to see
the Chief Secretary, Lord Melbourne, in his official room. The
good-natured old Whig asked the boy if there was anything in the room
that he would like; and he chose a large stick of sealing-wax, "That's
right," said Lord Melbourne, pressing a bundle of pens into his hand:
"begin life early. All these things belong to the public, and your
business must always be to get out of the public as much as you can."
There spoke the true spirit of our great governing families.
And now our Minister, seated at his official table, touches his
pneumatic bell. His Private Secretary appears with a pile of papers, and
the day's work begins. That work, of course, differs enormously in
amount, nature, importance, and interest with different offices. To the
outside world probably one office is much the same as another, but the
difference in the esoteric view is wide indeed. When the Revised Version
of the New Testament came out, an accomplished gentleman who had once
been Mr. Gladstone's Private Secretary, and had been appointed by him to
an important post in the permanent Civil Service, said: "Mr. Gladstone,
I have been looking at the Revised Version, and I think it distinctly
inferior to the old one."
"Indeed," said Mr. Gladstone, with all his theological ardour roused at
once: "I am very much interested to hear you say so. Pray give me an
instance."
"Well," replied the Permanent Official, "look at the first verse of the
second chapter of St. Luke. That verse used to run, 'There went out a
decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.' Well, I
always thought that a splendid idea--a tax levied on the whole world by
a single Act--a grand stroke worthy of a great empire and an imperial
treasury. But in the Revised Version I find, 'There went out a decree
that all the world should be enrolled'--a mere counting! a census! the
sort of thing the Local Government Board could do! Will any one tell me
that the new version is as good as the old one in this passage?"
This story aptly illustrates the sentiments with which the more powerful
and more ancient departments regard those later births of time, the
Board of Trade, the Local Government Board, the Board of Agriculture,
and even the Scotch Office--though this last is redeemed from utter
contempt by the irritable patriotism of our Scottish fellow-citizens,
and by the beautiful house in which it is lodged. For a Minister who
loves an arbitrary and single-handed authority the India Office is the
most attractive of all. The Secretary of State for India, is (except in
financial matters, where he is controlled by his Council) a pure despot.
He has the Viceroy at the end of a telegraph-wire, and the Queen's three
hundred millions of Indian subjects under his thumb. His salary is not
voted by the House of Commons; very few M.P.'s care a rap about India;
and he is practically free from Parliamentary control. The Foreign
Office, of course, is full of interest, and its social traditions have
always been of the most dignified sort--from the days when Mr.
Ranville-Ranville used to frequent Mrs. Perkins's Balls to the existing
reign of Sir Thomas Sanderson and Mr. Eric Barrington.
The Treasury has its finger in every departmental pie except the Indian
one, for no Minister and no department can carry out reforms or even
discharge its ordinary routine without public money, and of public money
the Treasury is the vigilant and inflexible guardian. "I am directed to
acquaint you that My Lords do not see their way to comply with your
suggestion, inasmuch as to do so would be to _open a serious door_."
This delightful formula, with its dread suggestion of a flippant door
and all the mischief to which it might lead, is daily employed to check
the ardour of Ministers who are seeking to advance the benefit of the
race (including their own popularity among their constituents) by a
judicious expenditure of public money. But whatever be the scope and
function of the office, and whatever the nature of the work done there,
the mode of doing it is pretty much the same. Whether the matter in
question originates inside the office by some direction or inquiry of
the chief, or comes by letter from outside, it is referred to the
particular department of the office which is concerned with it. A clerk
makes a careful minute, giving the facts of the case and the practice of
the office as bearing on it. The paper is then sent to any other
department or person in the office that can possibly have any concern
with it. It is minuted by each, and it gradually passes up, by more or
fewer official gradations, to the Under-Secretary of State, who reads,
or is supposed to read, all that has been written on the paper in its
earlier stages, balances the perhaps conflicting views of different
annotators, and, if the matter is too important for his own decision,
sums up in a minute of recommendation to the chief. The ultimate
decision, however, is probably less affected by the Under-Secretary's
minute than by the oral advice of a much more important personage, the
Permanent Head of the office.
It would be beyond my present scope to discuss the composition and
powers of the permanent Civil Service, whose chiefs have been, at least
since the days of Bagehot, recognized as the real rulers of this
country. For absolute knowledge of their business, for self-denying
devotion to duty, for ability, patience, courtesy, and readiness to help
the fleeting Political Official, the permanent chiefs of the Civil
Service are worthy of the highest praise. That they are
conservative[36] to the core is only to say that they are human. On
being appointed to permanent office the extremist theorists, like the
bees in the famous epigram, "cease to hum" their revolutionary airs, and
settle down into the profound conviction that things are well as they
are. All the more remarkable is the entire equanimity with which the
Permanent Official accepts the unpalatable decision of a chief who is
strong enough to override him, and the absolute loyalty with which he
will carry out a policy which he cordially disapproves.
Much of a Minister's comfort and success depends upon his Private
Secretary. Some Ministers import for this function a young gentleman of
fashion whom they know at home--a picturesque butterfly who flits gaily
through the dusty air of the office, making, by the splendour of his
raiment, sunshine in its shady places, and daintily passing on the work
to unrecognized and unrewarded clerks. But the better practice is to
appoint as Private Secretary one of the permanent staff of the office.
He supplies his chief with official information, hunts up necessary
references, writes his letters, and interviews his bores.