Lord Hammond made a curious speech on Monday about the
alleged sale of the Anglo-Russian agreement to the Globe. He seemed to think the scandal was a final answer to the scheme of introducing competition into the Foreign Office. The right thing
to do was to have gentlemen in the office, and trust them im- plicitly, and not to trust men for whom there is no guarantee except the Civil-Service Commissioners' certificate. That may be a good argument, but it is oddly timed, just at the moment when the much-lauded system has broken down. The Foreign Office is full of gentlemen uncontaminated by examinations. Never- theless, a confidential document has been sold. Is not that rather a proof that gentlemen uncontaminated by examinations are ex- tremely inefficient ? Supposing that a regular Brahmin sold the paper, his sacred thread has not saved him from pollution. And supposing that an irregular clerk sold it, why did the Brah- min give it him to sell ? Either the sacred priesthood takes bribes, or it allows its proper offices to be performed by persons who are not priests, and on either supposition is not the perfect and pre- eminent caste which Lord Hammond, in his laboured eulogium, declared it to be.
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