But this Ministry was fated not to be formed. Both Lord Grey and Lord Palmerston, two leading members of the Whig Party, wanted the Foreign Office, and neither would recognize a superior claim in the other. Macaulay, from whose very lips the cup of office was thus rudely dashed, bore the disappointment philosophically. On the day after he had sent the letter, from which I have quoted, he wrote another to his sister, saying: “All is over. Late at night, just as I was undressing, a knock was given at the door of my chambers. A messenger had come from Lord John with a short note. The quarrel between Lord Grey and Lord Palmerston had made it impossible to form a Ministry. I went to bed and slept sound.” When we come to consider the interesting business of making a Government, the first question that arises is—What is the chief test of a man’s capacity for office? Under our Constitution, with its free and unfettered Parliament, of which the Ministers must be Members, a deliberative assembly where everything is made the subject of talk, talk, talk, and provided with a Reporters’ Gallery for the dissemination of its debates through the Press, it is inevitable that a man’s fitness for a post in the Administration should be decided mainly by his gift of speech. It must often prove a false standard of judgment in regard to genuine ability and character. Glibness of tongue, or even oratory, is certainly not an essential qualification for the administrative duties of government. Still, the fact remains that the ready talker with but little practical experience of affairs has a better chance of office than the man of trained business capacity who is tongue-tied. Perhaps debaters are really more useful to a Government than business men in an arena of conflict like the House of Commons. There are some excellent anecdotes pointing to such a conclusion. Disraeli, forming an Administration, offered the Board of Trade to a man who wanted instead the Local Government Board, as he was better acquainted with the municipal affairs of the country than its commerce. “It doesn’t matter,” said Disraeli; “I suppose you know as much about trade as Blank, the First Lord of the Admiralty, knows about ships.” John Bright once said he asked Richard Lalor Sheil, an eloquent speaker, but unconnected with commerce, how it happened that he was appointed to the Board of Trade. “I think,” replied Sheil, “the only reason is I was found to know less of trade than any other man in the House of Commons.” Bright himself was made President of the Board of Trade in 1869. It used to be said in the Department that, so unfitted was he for administration, he did not know even how to tie up official papers with red tape.