hequer" was thought to be responsible in the
matter, but only by those who did not know. According to our system the
Chancellor of the Exchequer is the enemy of the Exchequer; a whole
series of enactments try to protect it from him. Until a few months ago
there was a very lucrative sinecure called the "Comptrollership of the
Exchequer," designed to guard the Exchequer against its Chancellor; and
the last holder, Lord Monteagle, used to say he was the pivot of the
English Constitution. I have not room to explain what he meant, and it
is not needful; what is to the purpose is that, by an inherited series
of historical complexities, a defaulting clerk in an office of no
litigation was not under natural authority, the Finance Minister, but
under a far-away judge who had never heard of him.

The whole office of the Lord Chancellor is a heap of anomalies. He is a
judge, and it is contrary to obvious principle that any part of
administration should be entrusted to a judge; it is of very grave
moment that the administration of justice should be kept clear of any
sinister temptations. Yet the Lord Chancellor, our chief judge, sits in
the Cabinet, and makes party speeches in the Lords. Lord Lyndhurst was
a principal Tory politician, and yet he presided in the O'Connell case.
Lord Westbury was in chronic wrangle with the bishops, but he gave
judgment upon "Essays and Reviews". In truth, the Lord Chancellor
became a Cabinet Minister, because, being near the person of the
sovereign, he was high in court precedence, and not upon a political
theory wrong or right.

A friend once told me that an intelligent Italian asked him about the
principal English officers, and that he was very puzzled to explain
their duties, and especially to explain the relation of their duties to
their titles. I do not remember all the cases, but I can recollect that
the Italian could not comprehend why the First "Lord of the Treasury"
had as a rule nothing to do with the Treasury, or why the "Woods and
Forests" looked after the sewerage of towns. This conversation was
years before the cattle plague, but I should like to have heard the
reasons why the Privy Council Office had charge of that malady. Of
course one could give an historical reason, but I mean an
administrative reason a reason which would show, not how it came to
have the duty, but why in future it should keep it.

But the unsystematic and casual arrangement of our public offices is
not more str