The Treasury has three Secretaries: the Financial Secretary, the Parliamentary, or Patronage Secretary, and the Permanent Secretary. The Financial Secretary, after the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is the political head and conductor of the Treasury. He is one of the hardest worked officers of the Government. His duties were well described, recently, by Mr. Austen Chamberlain, in the course of a brief sketch of his official career. Said Mr. Chamberlain: "From the Admiralty he was transferred to the position of Financial Secretary to the Treasury, where, as his chief explained to him, he was in the position of an old poacher promoted to be gamekeeper, and his first duty was to unlearn the habits of five years and save money where previously it had been his pleasure to spend it." The Parliamentary, or Patronage Secretary is the principal Government Whip. "He is a very useful and important functionary. His services are indispensable to the Leader of the House of Commons in the control of the House and the management of public business." "It devolves upon him, under the direction of the Leader of the House, 'to facilitate, by mutual understanding, the conduct of public business,' and 'the management of the House of Commons, a position which requires consummate knowledge of human nature, the most amiable flexibility, and complete self-control.'" As "Whipper-in," the Parliamentary Secretary is generally assisted by two of the Junior Lords of the Treasury, who are, at the same time, Government Whips. "Those useful functionaries are expected to gather the greatest number of their own party into every division [of the House of Commons], and by persuasion, promises, explanation, and every available expedient, to bring their men from all quarters to the aid of the Government upon any emergency. It is also their business to conciliate the discontented and doubtful among the ministerial supporters, and to keep every one, as far as possible, in good humor." "An estimate of the importance of the duties which would naturally devolve upon these functionaries--from the increasing interference of the House of Commons in matters of detail, and the necessity for the continual supervision of some Member of the Government conversant with every description of parliamentary business, in order to make sure that the business is done in conformity to the views entertained by the House--induced Sir Charles Wood,[420] to declare, in 1850, that the reduction of the number of Junior Lords from four to three was a very doubtful advantage."