Mr. Childers has accepted the Duchy of Lancaster, vacant through
the appointment of Lord Dufferin to the Governor- Generalship of the Dominion, and the refusal of Mr. Bright, ia the present state of his health, to take office. Mr. Childers ob- tains, of course, a seat in the Cabinet, where his administrative power will be of even greater use in devising reforms than in presiding directly over any one department. His one defect as an administrator is a desire to do work with too few hands, to concentrate responsibility and power to such a degree, that if the chief breaks down, the department breaks down with him. In Eng- land that is a defect on the right side, for we fritter away respon- sibility too much, but it needs just the check it will receive when he has to reorganise a department not under his direct control. In council Mr. Childers will be invaluable, for he really knows what the average Englishman wants, and will not be carried away, as one or two members of this Cabinet are, by counsels of perfection. He wants to improve the crops, not to grow corn in orchard- houses.
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