Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: after you are once married, you do much of that, any one of you. Milverton. To go back to the question of government, —that is a question which has always had profound interest for me. That saying of the Duke of Wellington, " How is the king's government to be carried on ? " is perpetually in my mind. Now, if you want to know what 'are the difficulties of government, I will, to the best of my ability, inform you; and I do really believe I have some experience in this matter: so, too, has Sir Arthur : and I will abide by his corrections in what I am saying. I think, to put the matter briefly and frankly, that there is not sufficient intellect brought to bear upon the affairs of government. From my earliest years I was very much struck with that admirable work of Henry Taylor's, the " Statesman; " and I have always found that practical con- versancy—to use one of his favourite words—with government has led me to think more and more highly of his views. The truth is, the public offices in this kingdom are undermanned as regards " Indoors Statesmen," as he calls them. Reform has gone too far in the way of retrenchment. Ellesmere. Oh ! oh ! Milverton. Yes, it has; in the way of retrenchment, as regards providing intelligent officers for the public service. Ministers are worked to death by their double functions —parliamentary and official. Law officers, and all the other lawyers connected with Government, are also terribly overworked. The permanent officials of the highest class, upon whom Government for the most part depend, are likewise greatly overworked by the mere routine of their offices; which work, I must confess, has not been diminished by the increased power of reading and writing, to which Ellesmere (I thought he was a Liberal) has so great an obje...