The Junior Lords of the Treasury who act as Whips were also new to office, whilst Mr. Marjoribanks, though he had gone through a Parliament as Junior Whip, for the first time found in his hands the direction of one of the most important posts in a Ministry based upon a Parliamentary majority. The remarkable and unvaried success of the Liberal Whips--the team comprising Mr. Thomas Ellis, Mr. Causton, and Mr. McArthur--was recognised in these pages very early in the Session, and has since become a truism of political comment.
Mr. Seale-Hayne is another Minister new to the work who realizes for his chief the comfort of a department that has no annals. The office of Paymaster-General is not quite what it was in the days of Charles James Fox. A certain mystery broods over its functions and its ramifications. Mr. Seale-Hayne is, personally, of so retiring a disposition that he is apt to efface both his office and himself. But the fact remains that affairs in the office of the Paymaster-General have not cost Mr. Seale-Hayne's illustrious chief a single hour's rest. No Irish member, shut off by the Home Rule compact from foraging in familiar fields, has been tempted to put to the Paymaster-General an embarrassing question relating to the affairs of his office. Mr. Hanbury has left him undisturbed, and Cap'en Tommy Bowles has given him a clear berth. Whom Mr. Seale-Hayne pays, or where he gets the money from to meet his engagements, are mysteries locked in the bosom of the Master. It suffices for the country to know that Mr. Seale-Hayne is an ideal Paymaster-General.
Whilst all the new Ministers have been successes, the Home Secretary, by reason of the importance of his office and force of character, has done supremely well. This must be peculiarly grateful to Mr. Gladstone, since the member for Fife was his own especial find. That when a Liberal Ministry was formed some office would be allotted to Mr. Asquith was a conclusion commonly come to by those familiar with his career in the last Parliament. But I will undertake to say that his appointment at a single bound to the Home Secretaryship, with a seat in the Cabinet, was a surprise to everyone, not excepting Mr. Asquith, who is accustomed to form a very just estimation of his own capacity. The Solicitor-Generalship appeared to most people who gave thought to the subject the natural start on his official career of a young lawyer who had shown the aptitude for Parliamentary life displayed by Mr. Asquith. Mr. Gladstone knew better, and his prescience has been abundantly confirmed.