The Times is angry with Mr. Gladstone for saying that
a third Civil Service Commissionership was created by the pre- sent Government for Lord Hampton, and that the appointment was "as gross a job as has ever, in my opinion, been made known to Parliament." Lord Hampton and the Times declare with one voice that it was the third, and not the first, Civil Service Commissionership which was made by the present Govern- ment for the late secretary to the Civil Service Commission, Mr. Walrond. And literally, Lord Hampton and the Times are right. In spirit they are, of course, quite wrong. It was only because Lord Hampton—whose career bad not, in any degree, fitted him for the office of First Commissioner of the Civil Service Commission—was made the First Commissioner, that it became needful to make a third Commissionership for Mr. Walrond. Mr. Walrond is essential to the Commission ; but Lord Hampton is a luxury and a superfluity, whose place, when it falls vacant, will almost certainly not be filled up. It does not matter much, we think, when an incompetent man is appointed to a post in which he cannot do the duty efficiently, whether the post is made for him, or for somebody else who would otherwise be in his place.
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