There are two ways to interpret this spectacular Cabinet shuffle: as an ethical house- cleaning or as a leadership table setting. They converge in the appointment of Mr.

Manley, as Minister of Everything, High Potentate to Everywhere, the Lord of the Rings.

The title of Deputy Prime Minister is no mere honorific for once: Indeed, he will be the de facto Prime Minister much of the time, given the many extended stays abroad the current office-holder has planned. He remains the chair of the security committee; in addition, he will chair both the economic and social policy committees. As the newly minted Minister of Infrastructure and Crown Corporations, he will take over broad swaths of several other ministries, including Industry and Public Works. As the point man on continental security issues, he keeps one foot in Foreign Affairs (Bill Graham, rescued from the backbench at last, becomes Minister of Foreign Affairs Except the United States).

On top of which, Mr. Manley is now the political minister for Ontario, India of the Liberal empire. And therein lie the seeds of an intriguing personal dilemma. His elevation as Mr. Chretien's chief operating officer is clearly intended as the finishing touch on a wholesale ethical makeover for the government. Internal polls must be telling the Liberals what is evident to most observers: that a pall of sleaze has settled around the government; that worse, the public is beginning to connect the misbehaviour of various ministers with the Prime Minister's own ethical challenges. So out go Alfonso Gagliano, Maria Minna, Hedy Fry and -- in a different way -- Brian Tobin. And in comes Mr. Clean himself, John Manley.

Yet in handing Mr. Manley the keys to the government, Jean Chretien has also given him access to the slushier reaches of Liberaldom. Spending on infrastructure is, as we know, filled with opportunities for political debauchery. Crown corporations have traditionally been used to reward Liberal supporters, whether by appointments to the board of directors or the letting of untendered contracts -- or by the provision of loans to bankrupt hoteliers. And as the "Regional Minister" (only in Canada, or only in Liberal Canada, is such a nakedly political post dressed up with such an official-sounding title) he will have a say in just about every appointment the government makes in the province of Ontario. It will be expected of him that he should put this power to the purposes hallowed by ancient custom: i.e., stacking the joint with Grits.

So Mr. Manley has a choice. He can use his new responsibilities to really clean house: fire the timeservers now clogging up the Crown corporation boards, of which the Auditor-General has lately complained, and replace them with qualified people; cut the phone lines between ministers and the presidents of these agencies; open all government contracts to competitive bidding, and government appointments to merit-based selection; close the infrastructure pork barrel, and nail the lid tight.

But if he does, if he does more than simply let his good name rub off on that of the government, he risks disappointing a good many people in the party -- including, I rather suspect, the man who appointed him. It isn't only those most directly affected by this sudden outburst of high-mindedness, embittered by their failure to obtain the jobs or contracts they might have hoped to get, who might be disinclined to support him for leader. A more general sense would seep in among the party at large: Nice fellow, competent enough, but not really Leadership Material, is he? Doesn't want it badly enough. Lacks the killer instinct. After all, politics, it's not a kid's game, know-what-I- mean?

Meanwhile, Mr. Manley's rivals will be circling: Paul Martin, assuming Mr. Chretien steps down in the next year or so -- the Prime Minister has craftily left the issue up in the air, neither assuring Mr. Martin of his inevitable succession nor provoking him into something desperate -- and Allan Rock, newly invigorated by Mr. Tobin's departure and by his appointment to Industry: the first, allowing him to consolidate support on the left of the party, and the second, a hard economics post where he can dispel his image as a Sixties lefty, opening the way to the centre.

Mr. Manley, in short, has been given great power, viewed strictly in administrative terms.

But whether that translates into political power depends on how he uses it. It is as if Mr.

Chretien were testing him, tempting him even: Ol' debbil Tit-Jean, laying the apple down, just to see if he picks it up.