A Liberal Chief Secretary functions on somewhat different lines.

Administration presents itself to him as a colossal heap of recalcitrant, wet sand out of which he has to fashion a statue of fair-play.

Having, with great labour, left his personal impress on two or three handfuls, the weary Titan abandons his impossible task.

He falls back in good order on the House of Commons, where his party majority enables him to pass an Irish Bill from time to time.

His spare time he divides between commending Dublin Castle to the seven devils that made it, and praying for the advent of Home Rule.
In either case the sovereignty of Ireland relapses into the hands of the permanent officials, that camarilla of Olympians.