Sometimes it was the Officers' Parliament; sometimes it was the Standing
Parliament, and was pronounced to be a greater nuisance than even a
standing army.

Two specifics for the distempers of the State were strongly recommended,
and divided the public favour. One was a law excluding placemen from
the House of Commons. The other was a law limiting the duration of
Parliaments to three years. In general the Tory reformers preferred
a Place Bill, and the Whig reformers a Triennial Bill; but not a few
zealous men of both parties were for trying both remedies.

Before Christmas a Place Bill was laid on the table of the Commons. That
bill has been vehemently praised by writers who never saw it, and who
merely guessed at what it contained. But no person who takes the trouble
to study the original parchment, which, embrowned with the dust of a
hundred and sixty years, reposes among the archives of the House of
Lords, will find much matter for eulogy.

About the manner in which such a bill should have been framed there
will, in our time, be little difference of opinion among enlightened
Englishmen. They will agree in thinking that it would be most pernicious
to open the House of Commons to all placemen, and not less pernicious to
close that House against all placemen. To draw with precision the
line between those who ought to be admitted and those who ought to be
excluded would be a task requiring much time, thought and knowledge of
details. But the general principles which ought to guide us are obvious.
The multitude of subordinate functionaries ought to be excluded. A
few functionaries who are at the head or near the head of the great
departments of the administration ought to be admitted.

The subordinate functionaries ought to be excluded, because their
admission would at once lower the character of Parliament and destroy
the efficiency of every public office. They are now excluded, and the
consequence is that the State possesses a valuable body of servants who
remain unchanged while cabinet after cabinet is formed and dissolved,
who instruct every successive minister in his duties, and with whom it
is the most sacred point of honour to give true information, sincere
advise, and strenuous assistance to their superior for the time being.
To the experience, the ability and the fidelity of this class of men is
to be attributed the ease and safety with which the direction of affairs
has been many times, within our own memory