No.  VI.  On changes of ministry.

There is one error as to the English Constitution which crops up periodically.  Circumstances which often, though irregularly, occur naturally suggests that error, and as surely as they happen it revives.  The relation of Parliament, and especially of the House of Commons, to the executive Government is the specific peculiarity of our Constitution, and an event which frequently happens much puzzles some people as to it.

That event is a change of Ministry.  All our administrators go out together.  The whole executive Government changes—­at least, all the heads of it change in a body, and at every such change some speculators are sure to exclaim that such a habit is foolish.  They say:  “No doubt Mr. Gladstone and Lord Russell may have been wrong about Reform; no doubt Mr. Gladstone may have been cross in the House of Commons; but why should either or both of these events change all the heads of all our practical departments?  What could be more absurd than what happened in 1858?  Lord Palmerston was for once in his life over-buoyant; he gave rude answers to stupid inquiries; he brought into the Cabinet a nobleman concerned in an ugly trial about a woman; he, or his Foreign Secretary, did not answer a French despatch by a despatch, but told our ambassador to reply orally.  And because of these trifles, or at any rate these isolated UNadministrative mistakes, all our administration had fresh heads.  The Poor Law Board had a new chief, the Home Department a new chief, the Public Works a new chief.  Surely this was absurd.”  Now, is this objection good or bad?  Speaking generally, is it wise so to change all our rulers?

The practice produces three great evils.  First, it brings in on a sudden new persons and untried persons to preside over our policy.  A little while ago Lord Cranborne [Footnote:  Now Lord Salisbury, who, when this was written, was Indian Secretary.—­Note to second edition.] had no more idea that he would now be Indian Secretary than that he would be a bill broker.  He had never given any attention to Indian affairs; he can get them up, because he is an able educated man who can get up anything.  But they are not “part and parcel” of his mind; not his subjects of familiar reflection, nor things of which he thinks by predilection, of which he cannot help thinking.  But because Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone did not please the House of Commons about Reform, there he is.  A perfectly inexperienced man, so far as Indian affairs go, rules all our Indian Empire.  And if all our heads of offices change together, so very frequently it must be.  If twenty offices are vacant at once, there are almost never twenty tried, competent, clever men ready to take them.  The difficulty of making up a Government is very much like the difficulty of putting together a Chinese puzzle:  the spaces do not suit what you have to put into them.  And the difficulty