a Cabinet Minister was a certain number of highly paid, much occupied, responsible secretaries, whom the Minister could consult either separately or together, as, and when, he chose.  Such secretaries, Mr. Wilson maintained, must be able, for no Minister will sacrifice his own convenience, and endanger his own reputation by appointing a fool to a post so near himself, and where he can do much harm.  A member of a Board may easily be incompetent; if some other members and the chairmen are able, the addition of one or two stupid men will not be felt; they will receive their salaries and do nothing.  But a permanent under-secretary, charged with a real control over much important business, must be able, or his superior will be blamed, and there will be “a scrape in Parliament”.

I cannot here discuss, nor am I competent to discuss, the best mode of composing public offices, and of adjusting them to a Parliamentary head.  There ought to be on record skilled evidence on the subject before a person without any specific experience can to any purpose think about it.  But I may observe that the plan which Mr. Wilson suggested is that followed in the most successful part of our administration, the “Ways and Means” part.  When the Chancellor of the Exchequer prepares a budget, he requires from the responsible heads of the revenue department their estimates of the public revenue upon the preliminary hypothesis that no change is made, but that last year’s taxes will continue; if, afterwards, he thinks of making an alteration, he requires a report on that too.  If he has to renew Exchequer bills, or operate anyhow in the City, he takes the opinion, oral or written, of the ablest and most responsible person at the National Debt Office, and the ablest and most responsible at the Treasury.  Mr. Gladstone, by far the greatest Chancellor of the Exchequer of this generation, one of the very greatest of any generation, has often gone out of his way to express his obligation to these responsible skilled advisers.  The more a man knows himself, the more habituated he is to action in general, the more sure he is to take and to value responsible counsel emanating from ability and suggested by experience.  That this principle brings good fruit is certain.  We have, by unequivocal admission, the best budget in the world.  Why should not the rest of our administration be as good if we did but apply the same method to it?

I leave this to stand as it was originally written since it does not profess to rest on my own knowledge, and only offers a suggestion on good authority.  Recent experience seems, however, to show that in all great administrative departments there ought to be some one permanent responsible head through whom the changing Parliamentary chief always acts, from whom he learns everything, and to whom he communicates everything.  The daily work of the Exchequer is a trifle compared with that of the Admiralty or the Home Office, and therefore a single principal head is not there so necessary.  But the preponderance of evidence at present is that in all offices of very great work some one such head is essential.