the right as to the main question, a way was found of putting him in the wrong. Because Mr. Lumley, on a point of diplomatic usage, appealed to the French Ambassador (who knew everything about diplomatic usage) rather than to Lord Russell (who knew nothing of diplomatic usage), Mr. Lumley was recalled by Lord Russell from his post of Secretary to the Embassy at Constantinople. And yet Mr. Lumley is the only Secretary who has ever even partially held his own in a quarrel with his Chief, that Chief being subsequently recalled from his post for misconduct. In another instance a Secretary was dismissed the Service; in a third a Secretary lost his promotion to a good post and was banished, and so on. In every case a Secretary is judged beforehand; if he is entirely in the right, and the Chief a notorious trouble-maker, he is implored to keep quiet and all will be made right in time. If he is a sensible man he does keep quiet; if not, all the power of the Foreign Office is put forth to defend the Chief and to prove him in the right. They are at one and the same time counsel and judges, and the impious subordinate who has dared to call the Office's anointed a malicious slanderer, finds diplomacy too hot to hold him. As to an appeal to Parliament, it is the unforgivable offence.

Yet, we may again ask, what are some of Her Majesty's Ministers? Only the other day one of them quietly repudiated the lady who had been for about a

quarter of a century his wife, on account of some flaw in their marriage as between Catholic and Protestant, the husband having taken to someone else. If a Minister having his position altogether in his favour keeps steadily out of the way of the Foreign Office for years, how is a Secretary of State to ascertain his real mental condition if he shuts his ears to the testimony of his Secretaries and counts all such communications as high treason? Yet this is what is done, and such being the state of things, it surely calls for amendment.

As to Private Letters, we fear they must and will continue a part of our diplomatic system of information; but in the name of the most elementary fair play, let Private Letters, which are never seen by those they accuse, and which cannot be answered, no more be accepted at the Foreign Office as judicial sentences.

If a Minister has an accusation to make, let him make it officially and stand by the result of a fair inquiry.

XI.

THE PRIVATE SECRETARY.-MR. T. H. SANDERSON, C.B.

MR. THOMAS HENRY SANDERSON entered the Foreign. Office twenty-one years ago. He was attached to Lord Kimberley's mission to Denmark in 1863, and was Assistant-Protocolist at the Conference in London on Danish affairs in 1864. He has been successively Private Secretary to Mr. Layard when Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to Lord Derby during his two administrations of the Foreign Office, and has now been appointed in the same capacity to Lord Granville. He was Assistant-Protocolist at the Black Sea Conference, held in London in January 1871, and was assistant to Lord Tenterden as Her Majesty's Agent at Geneva for the Alabama and other claims in 1871-72.

As we have so recently shown what are the high duties, powers, and responsibilities of the Private Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, we need not go over the same ground afresh. It only remains for us to show to what manner of man they have been

this time confided. From the above sketch it might be guessed that, from the fact of his having been in turn selected for so honourable and confidential a post by statesmen of such various characters and politics as Sir H. Layard, Lord Derby, and Lord Granville, Mr. Sanderson must be a man of rare merit. And, indeed, he is so. From the first hour of entering the Foreign Office he made himself remarked by his steady application to his duties, and from this application during twenty-one years he has never for a moment swerved. In recent years, indeed, it might be said, without any offence to others, that Mr. Sanderson, with his great experience and enormous working powers, counted in any department as at least the equivalent of two average clerks.

Mr. Sanderson is almost without a fault. He is devoid of official superciliousness, being in this respect a marked contrast to his predecessor; kind-hearted, just, and considerate to a degree, no Secretary in China or South America need now fear that he is forgotten by the Private Secretary, or that when his fair amount of distant service is over he will fail to be rewarded by a suitable post in Europe. No Consul on the coast of Arabia or Africa need be alarmed lest his due claims should be overlooked.

Unfortunately, as we have already pointed out, the department over which Mr. Sanderson presides is greatly under-officered. The Private Secretary, instead of having,

as now, one Assistant, should have at least three. The result of the present arrangement is that Mr. Sanderson, having such a multiplicity of work on his hands, has scarcely a moment's time to give to anyone, and, consequently, as he has rather an abrupt manner, he is frequently misunderstood. His friends could indeed wish that, as he is not over-strong, he would work somewhat less. Many men-the late Mr. Thouvenel, for instance-have broken down at an early age from no complaint at all but sheer overwork. The premature and much-regretted death of Lord Tenterden is another example of this.