ver, on
so complex a subject, and one so foreign to common experience, he will
not give a judgment. And if the honourable member would be satisfied
with having the matter inquired into by a committee of that House, he
will be prepared to accede to the suggestion."

Possibly the outlying department, distrusting the Ministry, crams a
friend. But it is happy indeed if it chances on a judicious friend. The
persons most ready to take up that sort of business are benevolent
amateurs, very well intentioned, very grave, very respectable, but also
rather dull. Their words are good, but about the joints their arguments
are weak. They speak very well, but while they are speaking, the
decorum is so great that everybody goes away. Such a man is no match
for a couple of House of Commons gladiators. They pull what he says to
shreds. They show or say that he is wrong about his facts. Then he
rises in a fuss and must explain: but in his hurry he mistakes, and
cannot find the right paper, and becomes first hot, then confused, next
inaudible, and so sits down. Probably he leaves the House with the
notion that the defence of the department has broken down, and so the
Times announces to all the world as soon as it awakes.

Some thinkers have naturally suggested that the heads of departments
should as such have the right of speech in the House. But the system
when it has been tried has not answered. M. Guizot tells us from his
own experience that such a system is not effectual. A great popular
assembly has a corporate character; it has its own privileges,
prejudices, and notions. And one of these notions is that its own
members--the persons it sees every day--whose qualities it knows, whose
minds it can test, are those whom it can most trust. A clerk speaking
from without would be an unfamiliar object. He would be an outsider. He
would speak under suspicion; he would speak without dignity. Very often
he would speak as a victim. All the bores of the House would be upon
him. He would be put upon examination. He would have to answer
interrogatories. He would be put through the figures and
cross-questioned in detail. The whole effect of what he said would be
lost in quaestiunculae and hidden in a controversial detritus.

Again, such a person would rarely speak with great ability. He would
speak as a scribe. His habits must have been formed in the quiet of an
office: he is used to red tape, placidity, and the respect of
subordinates. Such a pe