6 AUGUST 1881, Page 3

Mr. Courtney, the Under-Secretary of the Home Office, is to

be the new Under-Secretary for Colonial Affairs, and so to have charge of the Department in the House of Commons,—a con- siderable rise in status, which we have no doubt he will justify ; and Lord Rosebery will succeed Mr. Courtney as Under- Secretary of the Home Office, and the representative of that Department in the House of Lords. This is an ad- mirable appointment. Lord Rosebery is much too able a man to be long excluded from the Liberal Cabinet, and it has been very rare for such an apprenticeship to the highest adminis- trative duties, as the tenure of a subordinate office involves, to be dispensed with. As for Mr. Courtney, no one has ever doubted his great ability and lucidity, but he must beware of the spirit of officialism, to which, so far as we can judge, he has recently taken only too kindly. The severest censors of such officialism in Opposition, not unfrequently take to it, as a duck takes to water, when they get a chance.