LORD KILBRACKEN' [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—" I
was fortunate enough to find in the chief of the Permanent officers of the department Sir Arthur Godley, irhose experience, judgement, character and address have
made him one of the most eminent members of the Civil Service who, as one of them well Said, prefer power to fame." So wrote Lord Morley of his assumption, in December, 1905, of the office of Secretary of State for India. Sir Arthur Godley, at the time Of which these words were written, had already held his high appointment for over twenty-two years, and was to hold it for some four years more before
his final retirement in 1909. He created. something like a " record " (he would have disliked the phrase) among per-
manent heads of departments. Few, if any, can have served for so long a period. During all those years his name was Seldom before the public, and it would be scarcely an exag- geration to say that, whether as Sir- Arthur "Godley or as Lord Kilbracken, he meant nothing to that elusive abstraction, the "man in the street." His was the tradition of an earlier day • when Permanent officials still constituted a "silent service," and when the curiosity of the popular Press did not penetrate beyond the Parliamentary chieftains to the nameless advisers who stood behind them. Nevertheless, few men can have exercised a more widespread influence or Wielded, within limits, a more effective power. - He -served Under no fewer than seven Secretaries of State, and- was in Close and confidential relations with six successive Viceroys Of India. All these high dignitaries, widely as they might differ in politics or personality, were at one in the implicit trust which they placed in the Permanent Under-Secretary.
Sir Arthur's advice was never obtruded ; but it was always ready when required, and was never of a nature that could lightly be disregarded. He was a master of the art of cor- respondence, and there must be hundreds of his letters, scattered over many quarters of the globe, that have been gratefully preserved by their recipients. He used to say that he never had any difficulty in writing a letter provided
he knew. what he had to say and the person to whom he was writing. Certainly no one could convey a compliment more
gracefully or administer a rebuke with less offence. It is interesting to record that, in his official days at any rate, he wrote all his letters in his own hand : he came of a pre- stenographic epoch.
Personally, Lord Kilbracken was among the most lovable of men. The great tragedy of his life was the death of his younger son, at a very early age, in the year 1896. From this blow, as some of his best friends believed, he never wholly recovered. He seemed as the years went by to care less and less for general society, and was never so happy as when he could escape from London (as he did regularly every week- end) to. his Hampshire home. In those surroundings he was at his best and his most attractive.
It is permissible to regret that Lord Kilbracken did not write more during his retirement. Few men could 'write better. His small volume of personal reminiscences (printed privately in 1916, but not published until last year) was full of interest, but forms a slender record of so long and distinguished a career. Whether he would have succeeded with the Life of Gladstone, if he had undertaken that stupendous task when it was offered to him, must remain a matter for speculation. He himself thought not ; and he was an excellent judge of his own powers.—! am, Sir, &c.,
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