called in, and there the expert exercises influence, not through his articles, but because, elsewhere, he has made good his claims to be heard. Canadian problems owed nothing of their solution to the British press. Another factor, irresponsible and indirect, yet closer to the scene of political action than the press, was assumed in those years to have a great {234} influence on events--the permanent element in the Colonial Office, and more especially the permanent under-secretary, James Stephen. Charles Buller's pamphlet on _Responsible Government for the Colonies_ formulates the charge against the permanent men in a famous satiric passage. Buller had been speaking of the incessant change of ministers in the Colonial Office--ten secretaries of state in little more than so many years. "Perplexed with the vast variety of subjects presented to him--alike appalled by the important and unimportant matters forced on his attention--every Secretary of State is obliged at the outset to rely on the aid of some better informed member of his office. His Parliamentary Under-Secretary is generally as new to the business as himself: and even if they had not been brought in together, the tenure of office by the Under-Secretary having on the average been quite as short as that of the Secretary of State, he has never during the period of his official career obtained sufficient information to make him independent of the aid on which he must have been thrown at the outset. Thus we find both these marked and responsible functionaries dependent on the advice and guidance of another; and that other person must of course be one of the permanent {235} members of the office.... That mother-country which has been narrowed from the British Isles into the Parliament, from the Parliament into the executive government, from the executive government into the Colonial Office, is not to be sought in the apartments of the Secretary of State, or his Parliamentary Under-Secretary. Where you are to look for it, it is impossible to say. In some back-room--whether in the attic, or in what storey we know not--you will find all the mother-country which really exercises supremacy, and really maintains connexion with the vast and widely-scattered colonies of Britain."[5]