2 AUGUST 1873, Page 5

THE IDEAL WHIP.

lilt. GLADSTONE must feel as if the grasshopper were a AI burden. What with the state of the House of Commons, and the position of the Ministry, and the squabbles among some of his colleagues, and the state of his own health, he must have been just at his wits' end when he lost his Whip. No doubt he has still able assistants well experienced in the work, but an inherited Whip must be something like an in- herited private secretary, or an inherited wife,—the element of choice is wanting, and choice is almost all-in-all. The public, we imagine, regard the Patronage Secretary of the Treasury as a kind of servant-of-all-work to the Cabinet ; but he is in fact the Premier's own man, his deputy, or say rather first aide-de-camp, not so much in his Ministerial capacity as in his capacity as leader of the House,—just now by far the most difficult of his two grand functions. If only Parliament would go away, life might be endurable for even Mr. Gladstone after his great loss. The Whip must be in the closest relations with his chief at all hours of the day, yet be incessantly employed on duties which carry them far apart. A good Whip ought to know every man in the House of Commons, know him in the deepest sense, the sense of understanding what he wants, what he is driving at, what his influence actually is, where his angle of cleavage from his party may usually be found. He must know, too, something of his political history, of his rela- tion to his constituents, and if possible of his relation to society. He must be able to persuade men so different that they need a Jesuit apiece to take care of them to act to- gether, and must be able to inform them on subjects which tax the whole Cabinet sometimes to explain. If a Member is wanted to vote, and does not understand what is doing, he must be told something, if only the lobby he is expected to be in. If a doubtful Member wants to stay away, Mr. Glyn must tell him why he ought to vote. If a doubtful Cave is determined to rebel, Mr. Glyn must explain to his chief what that secession will cost, and what concession would remove the danger. He must hear every rumour, know more or less every man's movements, be always ready to deny canards, always stand between his chief and sur- prises, answer all sorts of absurdities, do it all with an immove- able temper, and above all, do it with a self-effacement, a submis- sion to the views of the Chief, which must sometimes be a harder trial than the work, hard as that is; for all this and much more has to be done in time, that is, at full speed between 4 p.m. and 2 a.m., for six months in the year. A collier does not work the Whip's hours, and the builders have struck for four hours less. Within the House probably this is not, to an experienced Whip belonging to the right class—that is, the class which is aristocratic but untitled—very severe labour, though the severity of the consequences following on any blunder must make all such work more difficult. A Government may be ruined or made ridiculous by a mere miscalculation. Still the work in the House becomes habitual, and there are many helpers. The Principal of a great school has much the same kind of thing to do, and does it—though he is helped, no doubt, by his absolutism—and though the old facilities for bribing are gone, still the Patronage Secretary has much to give away, and his good word may on any chance morn- ing be of serious importance. His smile has therefore its force. But the Whip has an immensity of business to do out of the House ; to study and, if possible, influence elections everywhere, to correspond with all manner of men whose single common quality is self-importance, to keep himself abreast of current opinion, and above all, to keep up, if he can, some approach to discipline among candidates for seats, who nowadays rush at them as if they could win by their own numbers. To do all these things effectively requires, in its way, more administrative ability than most seats in the Cabinet, and it all has to be done as the alter ego of another man, almost in secrecy, and with the deepest caution and reserve. To do it at all requires a special man, to do it well a man who, under other circumstances, might sue- curd as Papal Legate in a mutinous province. No Ambassador, except occasionally one at Constantinople, has so much to do in delicate personal diplomacy ; and no man, except perhaps a Military Auditor-General or a juryman in the Tichborne case, has so much to try his temper. No Whip who was not a politician, and a keen one, could work at all, and yet no Whip who cared more for measures than to keep in the governing men of his predilection could remain in office for a month. He would be too exasperated in Committee. There is no unusual pay to attract candidates (£2,000 a year), no special chance of political promotion, and unless the House should take to making Mr. Brand's case a precedent, no great prize to which the Whip can look forward with content.

And yet there will always be men, usually competent men, well born and well bred, of easy lives and pleasant places, ready to be Whips, to sacrifice sleep, ease, reputation, power, social enjoyment, everything, to the pleasure of being the shadow of a man with whom they may by possibility only half agree. The place is one of immense though somewhat secluded power, and there are men to whom hidden power is the most cherished object of ambition. The Jesuits have never failed to find a General, and Mr. Disraeli makes his pet hero Sidonia, either in " Coningsby" or " Tancred," burst into enthusiasm as he thinks of the secret sway which he and Mr. Newdegate hold to apper- tain to that position. The Whip, if his chief likes him, is Deputy Premier. He has the attraction which we have heard a courtier describe as the one attraction of Courts, the power of hearing of everything before other men, and of everything stripped of usual and concealing phrase. He knows, while others are but guessing. He has great patronage, though it cannot be used in the old way ; great influence in elections, great weight even with Cabinets. Power is sweet, and so is knowledge, and he acquires gradually a knowledge which is unrivalled in the department he cares about,—the personnel of the men who govern the British Empire. Indeed, he must gradually come to know England in a way in which it is rarely known, to know the his- tory and the power of every influential man in it, and could, if he had the time and the will, keep a diary which historians would consult with breathless interest. He knows, or nearly knows—for the full knowledge is seldom acquired by one man—the secret political history of England, as rare and fascinating a subject of study as it is possible to suggest, and feels, it may be truly, it may be falsely, that he has repeatedly modified that history. He has an opportunity of studying men, and men worth study, such as is given to very few. If he is a cynic, like Sir W. Hayter, who used, it is said, to enjoymaking a man reveal his real nature, he has the amplest field for the indulgence of his silent or sweet-voiced scorn ; and if only a student of men, like Mr. Brand, can add perpetually little kitcats to his secret portfolio of minds. The intense activity de- manded of him becomes an excitement such as success in a ball-room is to some women, while his taste for intrigue may be gratified as fully as that of a Roman Cardinal. We

suspect a Whip likes to win as well as an owner of racers, feels as the numbers run close like Lord George Bentinck or Mr. Chaplin, and finds as much pleasure in a successful Session as a great author in a successful book. Think of saving a Ministry by bagging ten men, all playing, or in their slippers, or making love ! Besides, hidden behind a cloud, as he necessarily is, he does make his mark in men's memories, and Mr. Brand will in history not be noted half as much in the memoirs of his day as Speaker of the House of Commons or as twenty-third Baron Deere, as "Mr. Brand, our clever new Whip." Those memoirs make history much more than the columns of the Times. A man competent to the function must be very sure of his own political capacity, very certain that he can govern men, very secure that he has that scarcest of all qualities, political originality, who, having the opportunity,. declines to be a Whip.