Treasury?

_Pooh-Bah_. Of course, as First Lord of the Treasury, I could
propose a special vote that would cover all expenses if it were not
that, as leader of the Opposition, it would be my duty to resist
it, tooth and nail. Or, as Paymaster-General, I could so cook the
accounts that, as Lord High Auditor, I should never discover the
fraud. But then, as Archbishop of Jitipu, it would be my duty to
denounce my dishonesty, and give myself into my own custody as
Commissioner of Police."

Under such arrangements as these the inevitable happens. The Chief
Secretary accepts his rôle. He is, no doubt, consoled to discover that
in one sphere, namely in that of patronage, his supremacy is effective.
He discovers further that he can hamstring certain obnoxious Acts, as Mr
Walter Long hamstrung the Land Act, by the issue of Regulations. The
rest of his official career depends on his politics. If a Tory, he
learns that the Irish Civil Service is a whispering gallery along which
his lightest word is carried to approving ears, and loyally acted upon.
Further "Ulster" expects law and order to be vindicated by the
occasional proclamation of Nationalist meetings, and batoning of
Nationalist skulls. And he absolutely must say from time to time in
public that the Irish Question in essence is not political but economic.
This is the whole duty of a Tory Chief Secretary. A Liberal Chief
Secretary functions on somewhat different lines. Administration presents
itself to him as a colossal heap of recalcitrant, wet sand out of which
he has to fashion a statue of fair-play. Having, with great labour, left
his personal impress on two or three handfuls, the weary Titan abandons
his impossible task. He falls back in good order on the House of
Commons, where his party majority enables him to pass an Irish Bill from