The headship of different departments of government is entrusted to persons who may not be familiar even with the rudiments of administration "A youth must pass,"as quoted earlier,"an examination in Arithmetic before he can hold a second class clerkship in the Treasury;but a Chancellor of the Exchequer may be a middle-aged man of the world who has forgotten what little he ever learnt about figures at Eton or Oxford,and is innocently anxious to know the meaning of those little first dots when confronted with Treasury accounts worked out in decimals.