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 striking than their difference of
