He had himself feared that his lack of sight might keep him from holding office, and was not surprised that it debarred him from being in the Cabinet, but his friends were keenly disappointed. It was generally held at the time that his blindness was the cause of his exclusion, but it is noteworthy that Gladstone himself is not reported to have said so. A contemporary newspaper wrote: ‘No one asked why Mr. Fawcett was a member of the Government, but many inquired why he was not in the Cabinet. We have reason to believe that if Mr. Fawcett had been definitely apprised that his blindness was considered an insuperable barrier in the way of his admission to the Cabinet, he would have resigned office. He would not have consented to have been permanently debarred from the free discussion in Parliament of the questions in which he was intensely interested, and to which he brought a greater capacity of judgment than three-fourths of the members of any Cabinet England has ever seen. The opinions he could not express in council, he would have resumed the right of expressing in Parliamentary debate. It is a matter of regret that a barrier of weak prejudice should have excluded a man who had overcome so many real, and seemingly insuperable, barriers.’ It was argued that a member of the Cabinet has to see many confidential papers, and that there would be difficulty in admitting some one who, in order to read them, would have to use other eyes than his own. This explanation seems hardly sufficient. Six months later, Lord Hartington offered Fawcett a seat on the Indian Council, where confidential documents would also have to be scrutinised. The English Cabinet, even in its methods of procedure, is so secret, that it is impossible to dogmatise on the subject. But for that very reason, it seems the more plausible that difficulties such as those due to Fawcett’s blindness could have been met and overcome. Fawcett’s exclusion from the Cabinet may as much have been due to his uncompromising individuality as to his physical infirmity. It is to be remembered that Cabinet forming is difficult work, and a Prime Minister has to think of the claims and capacities of many candidates, and of how they will pull together. Furthermore, the principle that a man should serve in a subordinate office first, before being asked to join the Cabinet, was a favourite one with Gladstone. [Illustration: FAWCETT’s SIGNATURE AND SEAL AS POSTMASTER GENERAL OF ENGLAND The impression of the seal was taken from the actual seal used by Fawcett; but, at the time of King Edward’s accession, when the expression “Her Majesty’s” became incorrect, the word “his” was cut on the seal in substitution to the word “her”] The reader must draw his own conclusions as to these high matters of State. The only reference Fawcett is known to have made is in the letter to his father already quoted.