chiefly in the higher, or what are generally termed the minis terial offices. Great and not unnatural disgust is experienced on the formation of each successive administration, at perceiv ing that the same men, or men of the same families and connections, are almost always re-appointed. The Queen never seems to travel out of the old and scanty list of candidates for high appointments. If Lord Derby is sent for, he proposes one set: if Lord John Russell is entrusted with the construction of a government, he proposes another. The process-which the former nobleman described as either "the enlisting of raw recruits," or "the infusion of new blood," according as you wish to give it a good name or a bad one-is always carried to a most limited and timid extent. Just now, especially, there has been a more than usually earnest and general demand for "new men"-men unconnected with the great families, men of more business faculties, men of more popular sympathies. Let us consider, however, for a moment what are the difficulties with which a minister has to contend in making his selection of colleagues and subordinates, even assuming him to be every whit as desirous as the country to "travel out of the record" and introduce fresh wheels into the old machine.

In the first place, this selection must be made out of the members of one or other House of Parliament. As to the wisdom of this limitation we entertain a strong opinion, which most thoughtful men are now beginning to share. But the limitation, however undesirable, exists; it is part of our constitutional wont; it is defended by most politicians; and hitherto the nation at large has shown no disposition to listen to arguments in favour of its abandonment.

Secondly. The selection must be made from among those senators who hold the same general views of policy as the minister of the day, and usually, also, the same opinion on one or two of the more prominent and special topics of the conjuncture. This necessity excludes at once all who sit at the other side of the House all members of the regular and irregular opposition-and of course reduces the eligible list by at least one half.

Thirdly. It is still further reduced by throwing out the aged, whose time for work is past, or who never dreamed of office till it was too late to qualify. These men, though some of the most valuable senators, are wholly out of the question when official eligibility is concerned. We must next eliminate the unqualified and incapable, the vain and unreliable, the vulgar and low-bred,-men who mentally or morally are utterly unfit for office. Of these, unfortunately, there are too many in the House of Commons, and it is the fault of the constituencies

that it is so. Next come those who, though men of respectable
capacity and moderate education, are not of the calibre of which
ministers are made, and whom no one would dream of appoint-
ing; and the mere agitators, the needy, noisy, and unprincipled,
whose claims are entertained by nobody but their own dupes
and associates; and who, though comparatively few just now, are
not always an insignificant portion of the representatives of the
sister island. A much larger number of the ineligible, or rather
the inaccessible, consist of men of business or professional men,
who are engrossed by the various occupations of life, and who
can spare their nights but not their days to the public service.
It is towards this class that the public appetency at present
points. It is thought that men engaged and trained in great com-
mercial or associated undertakings, would probably display the
governing and administrative faculties so much desiderated. But
how few of these could be persuaded to enter the public service
as ministers! How could we make it worth their while to aban-
don a regular, permanent, and lucrative vocation for a tempo-
rary and comparatively ill-paid position?* Successful lawyers,
merchants, or railway directors, carry their abilities to a better
market. They cannot be tempted by the poor rewards which

"I believe it is a well-known fact that my Lord Palmerston offered a Privy Councillor's office to Mr. Laing, the member for the Wick burghs, and, as Mr. Laing happens to be a gentleman whom I well know, I will give your lordships a short sketch of what his life has been. That gentleman took high honours at Cambridge; he went into the law; he then accepted a clerkship in the Board of Trade; after a short time he left the Board of Trade in order to try his chance in his profession, and that he was not long in making his way is evident from the fact that in that year he received in professional gains exactly ten times the amount he received under the civil service of the crown. He saved one company from almost a state of bankruptcy and restored it to a flourishing condition, and he is now at the head of perhaps the most remarkable enterprise ever known. I quite agree that is exactly the man to assist you in organizing offices which want organization; but, when he was asked, he gave exactly the same answer as was given by one of a firm of eminent merchants to the noble earl (Lord Derby), that he had consulted with those with whom he was connected in business, and at present it was impossible to accept political office. I have in my head at this moment a list of mercantile men, contractors, civil engineers, and other -men with whom I would as soon transact business as with any one; and } cannot conscientiously say with certainty that any one of them would be foolish enough to give up their professional career and mercantile business for the temporary occupation of political office. I do not mention this circumstance because I think no person may be made available to the public service. I do not agree with the noble earl as to the paucity of men in the House of Commons of a character to strengthen very much any government to which they may adhere. But I wish to correct a misapprehension that it is not simply the want of the offer which prevents men-the most eminent and distinguished in private business from ever being available to the public service."-Speech of Lord Granville's, May 14, 1855.

alone we offer the moderate, uncertain, and hourly jeopardized emolument-the loss of personal liberty-the fettered instead of the free power of action-the suspicious vigilance, the incessant warfare, the thankless servitude. Finally, you must make abstraction-before your list of candidates is reduced to its practical elements-of that numerous class in Parliament who are men of wealth and ease, whom ambition does not goad, whom office cannot dazzle, whose social position is too comfortable and too considered to be hazarded for the possibility of failure; and who have too selfish or too magnanimous a sagacity, too true and keen an appreciation of the real value of political distinctions-how shadowy the power, how substantial the sacrifice to be caught by the glittering bauble or deluded into the turbulent arena.

Fourthly. But even these erasures and limitations, sweeping as they are, are far from being the only ones. The House of Commons contains several men of eminence, ability, and ambition, who yet are seldom available for ministerial careers. They are men who have entered Parliament, perhaps in middle life, without either the political training or the preliminary educa tion which are required for the successful handling of official functions; who have been chosen by their fellow-citizens for their proved sagacity, their success in business, or perhaps their energetic advocacy of some great popular doctrine; and who have made themselves a position in Parliament by their peculiar ability, or by their special opinions. Such are Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden. Such perhaps is, or may be, Mr. Layard. The position of these men is peculiar and somewhat anomalous. They have a substantive and high political rank. They are leaders. They are eminent and they are not young. A minister could not offer the two first of them, at least, any office that did not involve a seat in the cabinet, because this would bind them to the advocacy and practice of measures in the decision of which they had no voice: the proposal would be scarcely respectful, and its acceptance would be perilous and undignified. You could not expect men of their eminence and years to commence an apprenticeship to statesmanship as under-secretaries, especially coupled, as such position almost invariably is, with the understanding that they are generally to be silent unless called upon-that is, to abstain from the exercise of the very gift to which they owe their elevation. Yet, on the other hand, we instinctively feel that they have made it difficult, if not impossible, to admit them on equal terms into any cabinet. Their violence and superficiality, on several occasions, have shut the door of office in their own faces. With natural abilities of the very first order, with capacity and diligence and business habits

that would make them invaluable administrators, they are too committed to extreme and extravagant views; their minds are too unenlarged and unchastened by a profound and liberal culture; their notions of foreign policy, especially, have been too wild and shallow; they have often shown too much of the demagogue and too little of the statesman; and (we speak with all possible respect and regret) their tone and language are too habitually rough and overbearing, to make them feasible constituents of any cabinet in which they were not supreme and predominant; and assuredly the country is not yet prepared to be altogether governed upon their principles, and by men of their manners and calibre.

Fifthly. When all these disqualifications have been listened to, and the body to which the minister of the day is restricted in his choice of colleagues has been decimated accordingly, it will be found that the list of eligible candidates remaining is by no means large. But it has still to undergo one further reduction: those members of the House of Commons only can be chosen whose seats are secure. The inconvenience of this fetter is felt on every ministerial crisis; and those only who have "assisted" at the concoction of a new administration can know how often this necessity of re-election prevents "the right men" from being appointed to "the right places."

Now, surely the above limitations on ministerial choicewhich (except the first and the last) may be regarded as unavoidable-might have been deemed ample without any aggravation; but they are additionally and needlessly enhanced by two further restrictions, for which the nation only can be held answerable.

As the constitution now stands, a minister can choose only out of the materials submitted to him by the country. According as these are rich and abundant will, probably, his selection be satisfactory or meagre. Now it cannot be denied that the great Reform Bill, while effecting many needed and salutary changes, cut off one fertile source of supply. By destroying the close boroughs it grubbed up a valuable and prolific nursery of future statesmen. We are far from wishing to undo that clause of a just and popular enactment; but it is not the less true that it created a deficiency which hitherto nothing has been done to make good. The close boroughs introduced into Parliament a number of young men of consummate training and eminent ability, who entered the public arena with the design of making politics their study, and practical statesmanship the business of their lives. They were very generally selected by the patrons of those boroughs as having already displayed energy and talent which pro

mised to be of signal service to their party. They were usually hampered by no pledges to this or that special opinion formed at an age when their knowledge was as yet scanty, and their judgment immature. They devoted themselves to a sort of apprenticeship, in the course of which they acquired that mastery over parliamentary tactics, and that thorough comprehension of the science of government, the relations of various states, and the grand principles of history, which is an indispensable preparation for the duties of official life. In a word, they were men duly educated for the profession which they had chosen-educated not by the pedantic discipline of the closet, but by the actual strife and toil of the great gymnasium. To such men the old avenue to Parliament is closed, and no new and equally available one has been opened. The popular or semi-popular constituencies which succeeded the rotten boroughs prefer a different class of candidates-exacter representatives, perhaps, but by no means fitter ministers-better organs, it may be, but far worse administrators, and far less trained and finished statesmen. Constituencies naturally and generally look for known men-men of proved ability and avowed and rigidly fixed opinions-instead of youths still obscure, but of sure promise and of embryo greatness. The smaller towns are usually carried by candidates of family or local influence, of great wealth, of electioneering skill, or of established celebrity. The larger and more numerous constituencies commonly elect either some eminent fellow-townsman, probably therefore too old, too busy, and too rich for office, or some "tribune of the people," some man of bold front and extreme opinions, too vain to learn and too obstinate to mend, yet far too shallow and violent to be eligible for place till he had learned long and mended much. It is notorious that nearly all the statesmen of the last generation, and most of the present, commenced their career as members for patronage boroughs. Many of this class now never enter Parliament at all. The least wealthy and well-connected of them seek openings through the press or at the bar; the others, if they become senators at all, attain that honour at a later period, after much labour, and under many fetters; and many of them, before they can attain the privilege of a seat in the House of Commons, must have committed themselves to language, conduct, and doctrines which almost disqualify them for a seat in the Cabinet.

Again. It was, perhaps, quite natural that the middle classes, which comprise so much of the energy and education, and contribute in so preponderating a degree to the wealth and eminence of the land, should rebel against the notion of