LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
LORD ROSE BERT AND THE UNIONISTS.
[To IDE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1
Sta,—In your reference in the Spectator of November 4th to my suggestion that Lord Rosebery might be Foreign Secre- tary in a future Unionist or "Centre" Administration, you say that the choice of the Unionist party for such a position would be Mr. Balfour. Mr. Balfour's name, of course, occurred to me, but both parties have long judged it necessary to exclude the Foreign Secretary from the House of Commons and to restrict the appointment to members of the House of Lords. This is due to the absorbing character of the work of the Department. It would be physically impossible for Mr. Balfour to combine the duties of Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons. I presume, therefore, you mean him to go to the House of Lords. But this would involve the transfer of the leadership of the Commons, when- ever the Unionist party was in office, to Mr. Chamberlain, an arrangement which would not, I believe, be accepted by the Coeservative wing of the party. Will you allow me in this col:meet ion to correct a reference to Mr. Gladstone's descrip- tion of Lord Rosebery as "the most irresponsible of men " ? I find on reference to my authority that the word used was not "irresponsible," but "incalculable." I do not • think, however, that I have done Lord Rosebery any injustice, because the meaning which Mr. Gladstone applied to the word "incalculable" was clearly the meaning I attached to the word "irresponsible."—! am, Sir, &c.,
London, S.W., November 7th. H. W. MASSINGEAX.
[Probably no man could lead the House and also be Foreign Secretary; but we do not in the least believe that the banishment of the Foreign Secretary from the Commons is a necessary arrangement. The duties of the Colonial Office are, we should imagine, quite as arduous as those of the Foreign Office, and yet no one thinks that office should be confintd to the Peers.—En. Spectator.]
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