ccasions. Yesterday gave occasion of much
inconvenience on account of the entertainment at Windsor, but all
the members of the government who could be expected to attend
voted in the division, except yourself. I can say from my own
recollection that as far as regards political officers, the
sovereign always permits the claim of the House of Commons to
prevail.

Changes among subordinate members of the government came early. Of one of
these ministers Mr. Gladstone writes to Lord Granville (August 18, 1869):
"He has great talent, and is a most pertinacious worker, with a good deal
of experience and widely dispersed knowledge of public affairs. But he
seems to be somewhat angular, and better adapted for doing business within
a defined province of his own, than in common stock or partnership with
others." Unfortunately the somewhat angular man shared his work with a
chief who had intellectual angularities of his own, not very smoothly
concealed. As it happened, there was another minister of secondary rank
who did not come up to the expected mark. "Though he has great talents,
remarkable power of speech, and some special qualifications for his
department, he has not succeeded in it with the House of Commons, and does
not seem very thoroughly to understand pecuniary responsibility and the
management of estimates, and there is no doubt whatever that in his
department the present House of Commons will be vigilant and exacting,
while the rapid growth of its expenditures certainly shows that it should
be filled by some one capable of exercising control." Not thoroughly "to
understand pecuniary responsibility" was counted a deadly sin in those
halcyon days. So the transgressor accepted a diplomatic mission, and this
made room to plant his angular colleague in what seemed a "province of his
own." But few provinces are definite enough to be independent of the
treasury, and the quarrels between this minister and the chancellor of the
exchequer became something of a scandal and a weakness to the government.
One of the fiercest battles of the time (1872) broke out in respect of Kew
Gardens between the minister with a definite province of his own and a
distinguished member of "a scientific fraternity, which, valuable as it
is, has been unduly pampered of late from a variety of causes into a
somewhat overweening idea of its own importance." The premier's pacifying
resources were taxed by this tremendous feud to t