Speaking in 1884 about the Reform Bill then pending, Sir Stafford Northcote predicted that an extension of the franchise would increase the power of the permanent officials;[191:1] and many people think that the prophecy has been fulfilled. But this would seem to be one of the cases where an impression is due not so much to a real change of conditions, as to the fact that a state of things already existing has become recognised. The power of the civil service has undoubtedly grown very much within the last hundred years; owing partly to the fact that the ministers, instead of being primarily administrators, have become legislators, engrossed by the work of Parliament and by general politics; partly to the much shorter periods for which they hold office. During the one hundred and two years from 1721 to 1823 there were nineteen chancellors of the exchequer; of whom five held office for more than ten years apiece, the aggregate length of their services being seventy-eight years. In the eighty-two years from 1823 to 1905, twenty-three men held the office, one of them for thirteen years, another for nine, and no one else for more than about six years. The effect of such a shortening of the minister's tenure of office upon the position of his permanent subordinates is self-evident. But the present conditions of political life have now existed with little change for a generation; and, in the opinion of men well qualified to form a judgment, the power of the permanent officials, while varying from time to time with the personnel of the ministry, has not of late years shown any general tendency to increase. [Sidenote: Self-Effacement of the Civil Servants.]