WHERE THE GOVERNMENT MEETS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 99, 22 October 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHERE THE GOVERNMENT MEETS.

The most historic of all the apartments which No. 10 Downing Street contains is the Cabinet Room, situated on the ground floor. It is fitted with double doors and double windows. There are five windows, three of which look out into the garden of No. 10. The entire floor is covered with a thick carpet j while the many bookcases attached to the walls contain innumerable works of reference, and volumes of Parliamentary reports, familiarly known as Blue Books. In the centre of the Council Room is a large table, covered with green baize, and ail the eminent men who have assisted to build up the British Empire have sat and written there at one time or another. The room had very little attraction for the "Grand Old Man," and when he was Prime Minister he had it turned into an office for his secretaries, holding his councils in a room upstairs. Lord Beaconsfield. on the other hand, considered trie apartment the most comfortable in the house, and he had moved into it, for his own personal use, the chair in which the great Pitt used to sit. There have been rare occasions when the world has been prematurely informed of the sayings and doings of the nation's counsellors in the Cabinet Room. Ministers have been known to lose their pocket-books on their way between No. 10 and the House of Commons. Nowadays, no member present at a Cabinet meeting makes any notes of the important bus'ness transacted; but in the past. Ministers were in the habit of taking notes, and these notes, falling, in some way or other, into the hands of journalists, resulted in secrets being divulged prematurely in the Press. Nelson and Wellington met but once in their lives, and they encountered each other, quite by chance, in the hall of No. 10. Bes : de the quaint old fireplace they entered into conversation. The Duke made so great an impression on Nelson that the latter asked a servant who was the man with the striking nose. , "General Sir Arthur Wellesley, my lord," replied the servant, surprised at the great sailor's ignorance. "Ah!" said Nelson. "I thought he was no common man." It is not generally known that each Cabinet Minister in office is supplied with a key which fits a particular lis-patch-box, which, when not actually in use, is in the hands of the Primo Minister. When any important documents reach the Premier, after perusing them, the places them in the dis-patch-box. and a highly-trusted messenger takes the box round to each member of the Cabinet in succession. Each member opens the box with ha key, reads the documents, rep ic«s them in the box, relocks it, and returns it to the messenger, who trots oft* vrth it to another Minister. Tn this way, important documents are prevented from falling into the hands of MP. s who are not members of the Cabinet, and other parsons who may be termed rank outsiders.