This conception of the use of a Parliamentary head shows how wrong is the obvious notion which regards him as the principal administrator of his office.  The late Sir George Lewis used to be fond of explaining this subject.  He had every means of knowing.  He was bred in the permanent civil service.  He was a very successful Chancellor of the Exchequer, a very successful Home Secretary, and he died Minister for War.  He used to say, “It is not the business of a Cabinet Minister to work his department.  His business is to see that it is properly worked.  If he does much, he is probably doing harm.  The permanent staff of the office can do what he chooses to do much better, or if they cannot, they ought to be removed.  He is only a bird of passage, and cannot compete with those who are in the office all their lives round.”  Sir George Lewis was a perfect Parliamentary head of an office, so far as that head is to be a keen critic and rational corrector of it.

But Sir George Lewis was not perfect; he was not even an average good head in another respect.  The use of a fresh mind applied to the official mind is not only a corrective use, it is also an animating use.  A public department is very apt to be dead to what is wanting for a great occasion till the occasion is past.  The vague public mind will appreciate some signal duty before the precise, occupied administration perceives it The Duke of Newcastle was of this use at least in the Crimean War.  He roused up his department, though when roused it could not act.  A perfect Parliamentary Minister would be one who should add the animating capacity of the Duke of Newcastle to the accumulated sense, the detective instinct, and the laissez faire habit of Sir George Lewis.

As soon as we take the true view of Parliamentary office we shall perceive that, fairly, frequent change in the official is an advantage, not a mistake.  If his function is to bring a representative of outside sense and outside animation in contact with the inside world, he ought often to be changed.  No man is a perfect representative of outside sense.  “There is some one,” says the true French saying, “who is more able than Talleyrand, more able than Napoleon.  Cest tout le monde.”  That many-sided sense finds no microcosm in any single individual.  Still less are the critical function and the animating function of a Parliamentary Minister likely to be perfectly exercised by one and the same man.  Impelling power and restraining wisdom are as opposite as any two things, and are rarely found together.  And even if the natural mind of the Parliamentary Minister was perfect, long contact with the office would destroy his use.  Inevitably he would accept the ways of office, think its thoughts, live its life.  The “dyer’s hand would be subdued to what it works in”.  If the function of a Parliamentary Minister is to be an outsider to his office, we must not choose one who, by habit, thought, and life, is acclimatised to its ways.