permanent office to be ruled by a
permanent chief has been discussed only once in England: that case was
a peculiar and anomalous one, and the decision then taken was dubious.
A new India Office, when the East India Company was abolished, had to
be made. The late Mr. James Wilson, a consummate judge of
administrative affairs, then maintained that no council ought to be
appointed eo nomine, but that the true Council of a Cabinet Minister
was a certain number of highly paid, much occupied, responsible
secretaries, whom the Minister could consult either separately or
together, as, and when, he chose. Such secretaries, Mr. Wilson
maintained, must be able, for no Minister will sacrifice his own
convenience, and endanger his own reputation by appointing a fool to a
post so near himself, and where he can do much harm. A member of a
Board may easily be incompetent; if some other members and the chairmen
are able, the addition of one or two stupid men will not be felt; they
will receive their salaries and do nothing. But a permanent
under-secretary, charged with a real control over much important
business, must be able, or his superior will be blamed, and there will
be "a scrape in Parliament".

I cannot here discuss, nor am I competent to discuss, the best mode of
composing public offices, and of adjusting them to a Parliamentary
head. There ought to be on record skilled evidence on the subject
before a person without any specific experience can to any purpose
think about it. But I may observe that the plan which Mr. Wilson
suggested is that followed in the most successful part of our
administration, the "Ways and Means" part. When the Chancellor of the
Exchequer prepares a budget, he requires from the responsible heads of
the revenue department their estimates of the public revenue upon the
preliminary hypothesis that no change is made, but that last year's
taxes will continue; if, afterwards, he thinks of making an alteration,
he requires a report on that too. If he has to renew Exchequer bills,
or operate anyhow in the City, he takes the opinion, oral or written,
of the ablest and most responsible person at the National Debt Office,
and the ablest and most responsible at the Treasury. Mr. Gladstone, by
far the greatest Chancellor of the Exchequer of this generation, one of
the very greatest of any generation, has often gone out of his way to
express his obligation to these responsible skilled advisers. The more
a man knows