Viceregal office

“ Grattan was quickly followed by an offer of the Viceroy to bestow upon him the Viceregal palace in the Phoenix Park, as “a suitable residence for one who had conferred the greatest services on his country, and as the highest proof the Government could give of their value of such services.” A proposal of such unbounded generosity was sure to dim the lustre of the popular enthusiasm, and at the same time cast a shadow of ministerial protection over the patriot himself, who, in the event of acceptance, would have been the recipient of royal, and not of national, bounty. ”

“ Before his time history had taught the vital lesson that the viceroy who did his best to please all parties earned the hatred of all, and the men who ignored the pressing problems of the day, and turned his term of office into a social orgy, was acclaimed by the unthinking multitudes. ”

“ That Lord Aberdeen and Lady Aberdeen have been successful nobody will deny, and Ireland will lose two good friends when their term of office comes to an end.
The introduction of Mr. Asquith's Home Rule Bill makes the Irish viceroy's position more delicate than ever. Its success means the end of the official ascendancy, and bureaucracies always fight desperately until the first shot is fired. When Liberalism has achieved its ambition, the Irish bureaucracy will cease to hold the power that makes or mars every viceroyalty. ”

“ He remained at Calcutta as private secretary to Lord Napier and Ettrick, governor of Madras, who temporarily assumed the office of viceroy, but left on the arrival of Lord Northbrook, the new viceroy, in May 1872, when the five secretaries to the government of India, home, foreign, public works, finance, and commerce, presented him with a silver vase accompanied by a warmly appreciative letter. ”

“ Late on Sunday night this process was reversed for the return journey at seven on Monday morning. The Viceroy had a completely fitted-up office in his smart little white-and-gold yacht, and was able to get through a great deal of work on his voyage down the Hooghly before breakfast on Monday mornings. A conscientious Viceroy of India is one of the hardest-worked men in the world, for he frequently has ten hours of office work in the day, irrespective of his other duties.
An enormous banyan tree stands on the lawn at Barrackpore. ”

“ The vice-regal salary is one hundred thousand dollars, with allowances, but most viceroys spend a great deal more. There are in such a poor country, where people have no sort of qualms about asking, innumerable claims upon their purses.
The office of viceroy of Ireland is one which prime ministers find it no easy task to fill. Just that kind of person is wanted for the office who has no wish to hold it. A great peer with half a million of dollars' income doesn't care about accepting troublesome and occasionally anxious duties, from which he, at all events, has nothing to gain. ”

“ The great people, such as the members of Council, the judges of the High Court, the members of the Board of Revenue, and the secretaries of the Government, with the several military chiefs and heads of departments, who have the private entrée to Government House, are first presented to the Viceroy, and pay the penalty for their precedence by having to stand during the whole levee on either side of the Viceregal throne. ”

“ Even those who know nothing of India may therefore readily grasp what a difficult thing it is to know the actual share each Viceroy has taken in the measures proposed and carried out during his time. Each Viceroy is of course actually responsible, though his part of the transactions of the Government of India is sometimes confined to a careful perusal of the papers and an affirmatory nod or two at the Council table. That Viceroys work hard and conscientiously there is little doubt, but cannot take real interest in, or have a thorough knowledge of, half the big questions they have to deal with. ”

“ When it was generally known that the viceroy's mistress was the real power behind the viceregal throne, Halifax found his levées deserted, and perhaps he was not sorry. He never disguised his admiration for the enterprising Mary Ann, and if her position was something unconventional, there can be no doubt of the fact that she held the unique record of being the only woman who has directed and controlled the policy of a Viceroy of Ireland. ”

“ On 18 April 1359 he was made viceroy of Ireland as lord justice, and after a short absence in England, during which the office was held by Maurice FitzThomas, earl of Kildare, he was again appointed on 15 March 1360. When Lionel, duke of Clarence, was sent to Ireland as viceroy in 1361 in order to take more energetic measures for its reduction, he was appointed one of the three chief officers of his army at the pay of 4s. ”

“ John Morley; but the Lord-Lieutenant of the Government sat in gloomy solitude in Dublin, cognisant no doubt of the fact that for the first time since 1172 Dublin Castle and Viceregal Lodge invitations were being declined or ignored by a society which in the ordinary course of events would sacrifice {307} anything rather than the entrée to the miniature court of the viceroy. No help could come from Ireland, where the masses watched the efforts to plant a Parliament in College Green with a sullenness of demeanour that indicated their lack of enthusiasm. ”

“ The moving of horses and carriages, servants, and arranging for everything to be in readiness to meet the viceregal party at all the places where they are going to stay, the officials to be informed at each; levees, drawing-rooms, and receptions to be arranged. The native princes who wish to meet His Excellency have to be communicated with. Attached to these meetings [128] there is endless work, as each Rajah has a certain code of etiquettes, a proper number of guns fired as salutes according to their rank. Some have to be fetched in state to meet the Viceroy ”

“ Availing themselves of the divisions which, from the nature of man, always prevail in communities entirely free, they have sought and found out auxiliaries in other quarters of the Union, by associating the passions of parties and the ambition of individuals with their own purposes to establish and maintain throughout the confederated nation the slaveholders' policy. The office of Vice-President—a station of high dignity, but of little other than contingent power—has been usually, by their indulgence, conceded to a citizen of the other section ”

“ This enables every Unionist to charge the viceroy with pandering to the prejudices of the disloyal majority, and thereby degrading the dignity of his office by condoning insults to the king whom he represents. From time to time Nationalist politicians have declined to drink the king's health, or have marched out of a hall or room at the sound of the first bars of 'God save the King.' Instances readily occur to all acquainted with Ireland. Unionists naturally make the most of this, and the Lord-Lieutenant finds himself criticized by all, the fiercest being those who ought to support him. ”

“ The viceroyalty of Lord Harcourt, which lasted from October, 1772, to the last days of 1776, was distinguished for its social magnificence. The Lord-Lieutenant was no politician, and he left that part of his work to Lord de Blaquerie, his chief secretary. He set the fashion for costly entertainments until to be economical was to confess oneself a social failure. Dozens of families of note, in their wild efforts to imitate the example of the viceroy, beggared themselves, spending in a few years the income of a whole generation. ”

“ Lord Spencer, his first viceroy, experienced all the fury of rebellious Nationalism, and during his second viceroyalty had the unfortunate distinction of being the governor of a country where no man's life was safe, and where murder and outrage were as common as sand. ”

“ He was dethroned and put to death by an exasperated people, in 1824, at which time the federal constitution, modelled after that of the United States, was adopted, and Victoria elevated to the presidency. Aside from the revolt of General Bravo, the vice-president, which was soon quelled, his term of office was comparatively tranquil and peaceful; yet, in several instances, the
DON ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA. property of American citizens was illegally wrested from them by the corrupt agents of the government. ”

“ The viceroy, however, has to face the music, and as the embodiment of kingly rule in Ireland he has to remain a Liberal and a Home Ruler despite the knowledge that Nationalists feel bound to hold aloof from the king's representative until self-government is granted. ”

“ After being relieved from office as viceroy, Vizarron remained in charge of the primacy until the day of his death, [10] and was succeeded in 1749 by archbishop Dr Manuel Joseph Rubio y Salinas, who presided over the affairs of the church no less ably than had his predecessor. [11] He died, after a successful administration of sixteen years, at the age of sixty-two.
The thirty-ninth viceroy, Pedro de Castro y Figueroa Salazar, duque de la Conquista y marqués de Gracia Real, took charge of the government of New Spain August 17, 1740. ”

“ The Vicar, for the time being, must always be a Governor and with one other he had the sole power of summoning the rest to a meeting. Collectively they could appoint the Headmaster and Usher, make elections to their own body, when any other than the Vicar died or left the neighbourhood, and make statutes and ordinances for the government of the School with the advice of the Bishop of the Diocese. If the Vicar should infringe the said statutes they could for the time being elect another of the inhabitants into his place. ”

“ Every Member of the House who takes an interest in India, knows that by heart. Now, the noble Marquess says that his anxiety is that nothing shall be done to impair the efficiency of the Viceroy's Council. I share that anxiety with all my heart. I hope the noble Marquess will do me the justice to remember that in these plans I have gone beyond the Government of India, in resolving that a permanent official majority shall remain in the Viceroy's Council. ”

“ The history of Vicars' Colleges at Wells and elsewhere should be written in full. No one could do it so well as my friend Mr. Dimock, once himself a Priest Vicar of the collegiate church of Southwell. [167] One point to be worked out with special care would be the steps and causes by which the office came to be held by laymen. The change in this respect was fully recognized by the charter of Elizabeth, which [Pg 141] confirmed the rights and estates of the Vicars, and regulated, without absolutely fixing, the numbers of the two classes of Vicars, clerical and lay. ”

“ Tory ascendancy
The triumph of the Conservative and Liberal-Unionist coalition cleared the political atmosphere. Once more the rival parties in Ireland were on their old footing; the Castle and the Lodge would be exclusively Unionist, and the other side was saved the embarrassment of having a friend in power. Lord Salisbury, in looking round for a suitable viceroy, found in his intimate friend and colleague, Lord Cadogan, the ideal viceroy. ”

“ I verily believe that if he met the Viceroy himself”—Lady Haigh spoke with bated breath—“out for a walk, he would enter into conversation quite coolly and offer him a cigar, just as if he was a man of his own standing. If the Viceroy was a nice sensible sort of man and took it all as it was meant, it would be all right, but if he was angry and tried to snub him, Charlie would be very much hurt, perhaps indignant, and would probably let him know it. You can imagine how a man of this sort comes into collision with some of our stiff-and-starched officials. ”

“ All matters shall be decided by plurality of votes. If the votes happen to be equal, the viceroy or governor, or in their absence the first member of council, shall have two. Article 12. The prince royal or his eldest son can be viceroy; but this can only occur when they have attained the majority of the king. In the case of a governor, either a Norwegian or a Swede may be nominated. The viceroy shall remain in the kingdom, and shall not be allowed to reside in a foreign one beyond three months each year. When the king shall be present, the viceroy's functions shall cease. ”

“ On February 24, 1898, the Commissioner of the General Land Office, in reply to a letter from the surveyor general under date of February 21, 1898, in which he had asked authority to employ two additional draftsmen and four transcribing clerks, to be paid from the funds reported as available, said: 'No authority can be given you to employ the additional force desired, except as provided under the civil service rules. ”

“ Moreover, the machinery of administration grows every year more ponderous and complicated, and the Viceroy, unless he is endowed with an almost superhuman power and quickness of work, is apt to find himself entangled in the meshes of never-ending routine. ”

“ As all who understand how actual parties really stand will see, the onslaught of Mr. Seymour Keay's paper, above briefly noticed, is no attack upon the present Viceroy, but an attack upon a system which the present Viceroy is steadily but tentatively resisting, in pursuance of the decisions of Crown, Cabinet, and Commons at home—no complaint against Lord Ripon's Government, but against the evils which he is so manfully struggling to subdue. To prove that this is the case, in a subsequent paper will be noticed some of the leading measures of Lord Ripon's policy. ”