of which his department is the exponent. He attends minutely to the work of his office. As to his political conscience, if we are to judge of it by his utterance in the House of Lords, immediately after the Marvin incident, we fear he does not stand out as a bright example to his subordinates or his fellow countrymen.

What is to be said of a Minister who could get up and deliberately state before his peers that an all but perfectly accurate summary of a secret agreement was wholly unworthy of their lordships' confidence"

66

"?

For the rest, Lord and Lady Salisbury fulfil the social part of their official duties with more splendid, constant, and discriminating hospitality than any of their prede

cessors.

IV.

THE PERMANENT UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE

LORD HAMMOND.

THE Foreign Office system, as at present constituted, dates from the year 1814; its birth and that of the Holy Alliance were simultaneous. Its motto, as we have said, is "Secrecy." Each Foreign Office clerk is a deacon or priest of this order, the great High Priest of which was for many years Mr., now Lord, Hammond, whose spirit still presides in Downing Street. Lord Hammond may be said to have been almost born in the blotting-paper, so early in life was he-owing to his father before him having been Under-Secretary of State -inducted into the mysteries of the faith of which he was destined in mature years to become so illustrious an ornament. He entered the office in 1823, and remained the genius of the place for some fifty years. There is no doubt as to Lord Hammond's original capacity. By his talent, his force of character, his persevering, unceasing industry, he was sure to rise to prominence

in whatsoever line of life he might adopt. He became an M.A. of University College, Oxford; graduated in Honours; and was elected to a Fellowship. But as the sapling may be bent to any shape, so may the human intellect be trained to work in any groove; and Mr. Hammond in course of time came to devote all the talents he possessed towards the advancement of the system he found established in Downing Street. Many disciples sat year after year at his feet and paid him the sincere homage of imitation, but not one of them possessed his powers or strength of will; he stands unapproached, the Hercules of clerks. During the twenty years in which he held the office of Under-Secretary of State several Ministers in succession were at the head of the Foreign Office-Lords Clarendon, Malmesbury, Russell, Derby, and Granville; but none of these so much as attempted to dispute the paramount power of Mr. Hammond within the walls of " the Office," and over those who owned its authority. Mr. Hammond's system of government may be said to have been patriarchial. He is a most kind-hearted man, and utterly without reproach in all the relations of private life. He had his own rough and ready ideas of justice, which, however, were very largely tempered by favouritism. He has, for

instance, been known to keep one of his pets as long as thirteen years at a time at the much-coveted post of Paris, whilst other attachés had to take their turn of service about the world. In later years, he, not

feeling the advance of time to interfere with his own working powers, his ruling principle was to promote men exclusively by seniority. Thus when the post of Minister to Persia was vacant some years since-a post requiring its occupant to possess full bodily activity— he unearthed somewhere on the Pacific an old gentleman who had been in Persia some twenty years before, and had him conveyed to Teheran. But Mr. Hammond's strong points, or weak, as they may seem from different points of view, were defending the integrity of "the Office," and keeping everything within it under the solemn pall of secrecy. Of these traits in his character endless illustrations might be given-one or two must suffice. One of our representatives in the East was some years ago enabled to perform valuable service to the India Office. That department expressed their regret to the Foreign Office that as he did not come within the provisions of the Star of India they could not assign the Companionship of that Order to him, and trusted therefore the Foreign Office would give him the C.B. instead. Mr. Hammond could not lose the opportunity of reading a lesson to the Secretary of State for India on his presumption in making a suggestion to "the Office"-and so our representative remains without either decoration to this day.

Another incident shows yet more clearly the uppermost idea in the then directing Foreign Office mindnamely, that England was made for the Office, rather

than the Office for England. The incident in question would be incredible if it were not true.

A distinguished officer of the Scinde Horse, who was about to proceed on British service to Turkey, happened to have a brother who was assistant librarian at the Foreign Office. He naturally wished to learn everything he could respecting the scene of his future operations, and with this object went to ask his relative to show him certain plans. This his brother could do, but when it came to his asking him for the reports which accompanied these plans, the Foreign Office conscience became uneasy-" he must ask Hammond's permission." It might be thought that as the sole conceivable object of the reports in question must have been to impart information to those acting in the interests of England, there could have been no possible harm in giving a perusal of them to a British officer proceeding on Her Majesty's service abroad; but "Hammond" thought otherwise. The assistant librarian was soundly rated for his presumption, whilst, of course, his brother did not see the reports.

Lord Hammond wielded immense influence in Downing Street and far beyond it. It was the highly unconstitutional practice-until Mr. Labouchere put a stop to it for the Treasury to pay over yearly to the Foreign Office a lump sum of about £200,000 for the purpose of carrying on the diplomatic service; and of this enormous revenue Mr. Hammond was the absolute