ork.
But I ask you to look at the names of the men who have been,
placed in charge of the great spending departments of the country.
The study, the idea that has governed the formation of the present
administration has been to place able and upright men in charge of
the public purse--men of administrative experience, men of proved
ability, men, lastly, holding their seats in the House of Commons,
and, therefore, immediately responsible to the representatives of
the people. It would not become me to promise what we can do; but
this I can tell you, that my friends connected with the various
departments most concerned in the public expenditure have, even
before the early moment at which I speak, directed their very
first attention to this subject, and that I, for one, shall be as
deeply disappointed as you can be, if in the estimates which it
will be our duty to present in February you do not already
perceive some results of their opening labours.

One of Mr. Gladstone's first letters to a colleague was addressed to Mr.
Lowe, containing such hints and instructions upon treasury administration
as a veteran pilot might give about lights, buoys, channels, currents, to
a new captain. "No man wants so much sympathy," he said, "as the
chancellor of the exchequer, no man gets so little. Nor is there any
position so lamentable for him as to be defeated in proposing some new
charge on the public conceived or adopted by himself. He is like an
ancient soldier wounded in the back. Whereas even defeat in resisting the
raids of the House of Commons on the public purse is honourable, and
always turns out well in the end." He sent Mr. Lowe a list of the subjects
that he had tried in parliament without success, and of those that he had
in his head but was not able to take in hand. They make a fine example of
an active and reforming mind.(243) "What commonly happened, in cases of
this kind, in my time, was as follows: The opposition waited for a
development of discontent and resistance among some small fraction of
liberal members. When this was compact in itself, or was at all stimulated
by constituencies, they sent out habitually strong party whips, and either
beat me, or forced me to withdraw in order to avoid beating, or exposing
our men to local disadvantage. This game, I hope, will not be quite so
easy now."

(M122) The first two of Mr. Lowe's budgets were on the lines thus