NOTES 125 



India, natives and Europeans, than anything ever done by the whole legion of 

 viceroys, judges, members of council, commissioners, and so on. Yet these last 

 people are bounteously fed by the State, while the true benefactor may, for all the 

 State cares, go to the workhouse. The reason is that State-affairs are managed, 

 not by men who have really done things, but by grammar-fed clerks and " exami- 

 nation-wallahs," who, in consequence of their defective education, are not capable 

 of understanding the difference between great work and little work. I have never 

 disguised my own opinion, based upon exceptional opportunities for judging, that 

 British administration is frequently or generally bad. Its badness is due funda- 

 mentally to the fact that it commonly fills the highest offices with men who have 

 never done anything, while it excludes the men who have. We have only a little 

 time left for a root-and-branch reform in the matter. 



Much has been written during the quarter upon this all-important subject 

 of Reconstruction after the war — let us call it revolution. Lord Sydenham's 

 address to the British Science Guild {Nature, May 3) is, I think, the best contri- 

 bution to the discussion which we have yet had. But I would add this to it, that 

 we must as a nation find a means for stimulating the highest work possible — that 

 is, work in science, art, invention, exploration, thought, etc., which is generally 

 profitable to the world but not to the workers. There is only one way to do this, 

 and that is to assure the prospective worker that if he succeeds he and his family 

 will receive adequate recompense from his countrymen for the time which he 

 might have spent in a manner more fruitful for himself. I would suggest, in short, 

 a national pension scheme for great work in lieu of the existing Civil List Pensions 

 and the present wastage of funds in the form of subsidies for projects which never 

 come to anything. But of this I have no space to write more at the moment. 



The Representation of the People Bill now going through Parliament will 

 probably amount to a revolution, and a welcome one. I can only say (on going to 

 press) that I for one sincerely trust that the clauses for Proportional Representation 

 will not be lost, because in fact they constitute the whole gist of the measure, and 

 will enable men of deeds of all types largely to replace the caucus-politicians who 

 have so misruled us in the past. By the present system of election to Parliament 

 almost every man of capacity is excluded from that assembly unless he becomes, 

 what few men of capacity can do, a partisan. 



It is stated that Lord Rhondda, the President of the Local Government Board, 

 proposes to construct a Ministry of Health — which has been advocated for half 

 a century by sanitarians. The war will indeed have stimulated John Bull if it 

 succeeds in making him pay attention to his back premises. We hope that the 

 Bill will include much more stringent measures against sanitarily defective 

 municipalities, and that means will be found for forcing India and the Colonies 

 along similar lines. In my opinion disciplinary measures should be used to deal 

 with municipalities the death-rates of which exceed a given figure, and which at 

 present are allowed to lose their people with impunity. 



The Royal Society has recently had under consideration the question of 

 enlarging the statute under which it sometimes elects as Fellows men of eminence 

 in affairs, such as Privy Councillors, who have assisted the general cause of 

 science. If the Society is to be looked upon merely as a private scientific club it 

 may, of course, do as it pleases in such matters ; but if we are to consider it as the 

 national academy of science, such points become of prime importance. Personally 

 I do not think it is proper for any society to make elections with any ulterior 

 motives of the kind mentioned. A suspicion of seeking for subterranean influence 

 is not ennobling to an individual — and certainly not to a great society. Many 



