THE POSTBAG OF A MINISTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13134, 24 March 1906, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE POSTBAG OF A MINISTER.

" The post brings every member of the Cabio net into contact with all the fools of the United Kingdom. As Nature never wastes e liny thing, a fool has often his beneficent 3 uses. Sydney Smith once suggested that each Minister should be provided with a " l'oolonuiitjer." " I mean," he explained, " the acquaintance and society of three or four regular British fools as a test of public opinion. Every Cabinet Minister should judge of all his measures by his foolometer, as a navigator crowds or shortens sail by . the barometer in his cabin.'' S BinVJLDEKMENT. The correspondence of a Minister gives r him, of course, hints of the drift of public ] opinion with regard to some measure for |. which he is responsible. But it is no exaggeration to say that he receives more bewil- ' derment than guidance from his postbag. > The permanent officials of the various de--3 purtments in Whitehall do their best to - lighten the labours of their chiefs. When t the correspondence of the Minister has been . opened and read by his secretaries the bulk of it is bundled away and destroyed, though ! j an acknowledgment of each letter, however | trivial or foolish, is sent to the writer. . Still, there remain a large number of let-

[ ters requiring the personal attention of the . head of the Department. To each of these a piece of coloured paper is affixed denoting . its degree of importance. If red, the matter will wait; it yellow, it should be dealt ' with as soon as possible; if green, it is most urgent. Letters marked " Private and confidential" are, of course, unopened by the officials. They are left to be dealt with solely by the Minister. But so worthless do most of these letters prove to be that they might have been Hung unopened into the wastepapcr basket. The contents of a Minister's postbag do not lack variety, at any rate. Here is a letter threatening personal violence. Here is another with recipes for overcoming disease. or prolonging life. Lord Salisbury was informed through the post in 1887 that he and Mr. W. H. (Smith, First Lord of the Treasury were marked for assassination. The Prime Minister sent the missive to his colleague with the following humorous note: — "My Dear Smith, —The enclosed may interest" you. In point of superficies, I fear I'm the bigger mark of the two." On the other hand, during the indisposition of Mr. Balfour when Prime Minister, no fewer than a hundred cures for his complaint were left at 10, Downing-stieet. MAD ii (JG'G BSTJONS. About 40,000 schemes for paying off the National Debt have been received, at the Treasury during the past 40 years. The Budget is prepared every year by at least 20 amateur financiers, and sent cut-and-dry to the happy Chancellor of the Exchequer. The chief of the Treasury is thus saved from the most difficult task of his arduous office. All he has to do is to select oue Budget, haphazard, from the heap, and deliver it as his own to a House of Commons spellbound by his genius as a financier. The Foreign Secretary is being constantly warned of secret coalitions between Continental Powers to destroy the prestige of England. In each case there is a patriotic offer on the part of the writer to betake himself to Berlin or St. Petersburg to worm out these machinations for the modest sum of £5000. But these people who are so eager to transfer to their own shoulders some of the heaviest responsibilities of our statesmen do not always confine themselves to writing to Ministers; they call in their hundreds at the various departments. AN EXPLOSIVE BALLOON'. The man with a genius for inventing extraordinary mechanical contrivances tor all sorts of purposes ,is an especially familiar figure in the corridors and lobbies of Whitehall and Westminster. One of these cranks found his way into tlie private room of the Secretary of State for War, to explain a new contrivance for the destruction of hostile armies. "It is the most powerful explosive the world ever saw," said the inventor. " 1 propose to send up a balloon loaded with this explosive, setting, the fuse so that it should go oil' the moment the balloon floated over the enemy." "That is all very good," said the .Minister; "but suppose that a current of air should carry your explosive balloon over our army.'' " 1 tell you what it is, my good sir," cried the inventor, our army would have to cut and run like the very dickens !" Perhaps it was these experiences that inspired Lord Roseberry's saying: There are two supreme political pleasures in life. One is ideal, the other real. The ideal is when a man receives the seals of office from the hands of his Sovereign; the real, when he hands them back." j