The demand for Foreign Office reform is older than you
might realise. Here, in language which you might not normally associate with a Victorian era is Carlyle's comment on the Foreign Office in Latter Day Pamphlets, published in 1850: Everyone may remark what a hope animates the eyes of any circle, when it is reported, or even confidentially asserted, that Sir Robert Peel has in his mind privately resolved to go, one day, into that stable of King Augeas which appals human hearts, so rich is it, high-piled with the droppings of two hundred years ; and, Hercules-like, to load a thousand night-wagons with it, and swash and shovel it, and never leave it, till the antique pavement and real basis of the matter show itself clean again! To clean out the Pedantries, unveracities, indolent somnolent impotencies, and accumulated dung-mountains there, is the beginning of all practical good whatsoever. . . . Political reform, if this be not reformed, is naught and a mere mockery.
Previous page
