To put the matter in another way, the Unionists would
be perfectly willing to keep the present Government in office on almost any ground except the Budget. To ask Unionist Members who are pledged deeply against the Budget to save it from destruction is an exceedingly awkward business, and yet the Government only need Unionist help against the Irish on this one point. But though the situation is so difficult, we do not despair of Mr. Balfour being able to find some method under which he can honourably co-operate in the prime duty of statesmen,—the duty of seeing that the King's government is carried on. His qualities, intellectual and moral, are fortunately well suited for the task before him. Mr. Balfour is a statesman of whom it can be said without laying oneself open in the slightest degree to a charge of con- ventional compliment that he is not eager for office. We can truly say, no doubt, that the great majority of our statesmen care little or nothing for the loaves and fishes of office, but most of them like, and not unnaturally, the exercise of power. Mr. Balfour is, we believe, free from this temptation. His fingers are not itching to hold the reins.
