THE NEW BRITISH MINISTRY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 212, 1 June 1908, Page 8

THE NEW BRITISH MINISTRY.

i YOUTHFUL AND VIGOROUS. . A marked feature ■of the * new Ministry (writes Mr. H. W. Lucy-in his weekly letter from London) is the predominance of comparative youth. Tho Premier himself is only 56—a mere chicken compared, with illustrious predecessors of recent date.' Tho only members who have passed the age of three score years and ten" are shelved in the House of Lords. Mr. Morley being 70 and Sir Henry . Fowler 78, have gone to, join Lord Ripon, who has reached the age of full four score. Next to these are Lord Carrington (65), and the Lord Chancellor■ (62). "Too old: at sixty" is with one exception th9'rule of members of the Ministry still in the Commons. |The exception is Mr. Buchanan. But ho escapes because he does not look his age (62), . and preserves , a retiring attitude. Mr. Birrell is getting, on, being 58.. The average age of Cabinet Ministers is the midforties, the very prime of physical arid infcl- \ lectual life. The -Foreign. Secretary is 46. 31 r. Lloyd-George, Mr. M'Kenna, and Lonlu Harcourt are 45. The new Minister for Edu-. cation ; is. 38, whilst Winston Churchill, tha ' youngest Cabinet Minister, ,though not tho least influential, is 34. _ This is a' strong team to drive.' Mr. Asquith is supported by conviction .on both sides that he will prove equal to the undertaking. / In spite of the jealous care with .which the secret of changes in the Ministry was: pre-,' served, not one came as a surprise to news- -' paper readors. The best preserved was the appointment of Mr. M'Kenna to the Ad- • miralty. That secret e was the possession of very few,- and 1 when publicly hinted at the Press generally shied at it. The desperate endeavour to .keep everything dark till the ' list of appointments is officially communicated to the Press is based upon Royal * susceptibility. The constitutional fiction ia ■' that the ' Sovereign selects arid .nominates Ministers of the' Crown, and that till'' the Sovereign will is officially announced no one , knows- anything about it. - His Majesty, ra 1 everyone knows, -shortly after his accession, tightened tho grip';on gossip/. During the' ' later years of Queen Victoria, it became' a ■' recognised custom that the principal points of the Speech from- the Throne should, on tho night before the opening of Parliament, be communicated to ; the editors of the '• London papers; But under pain 'and pe'uiiity ="•' of the scaffold on Tower Hill;'■they were'riot permitted to assume direct knowledge of the facts. They communicated them to the public under the thin disguise of probabilities. "It'is probable," it was'written in leading ' articles, or "we may assume" that such and such bills will be introduced. Prior to ;' opening his first Parliament, King Edward decreed the fall of the curtain on this farce. As lie would himself read - the .Speech from ' the Throne'in the House of Lords, "ho thought ' it proper tliat the public-should receive tho, first intimation of its contents from'.his ailgust lips. On'tho morning of the opening of tho now session, tho public still have n pretty shrewd idea, of the Ministerial programme. But they are not assisted by. mys- ' tic references in leading articles.'