110 Mr. H. Wickham Steed [May 4, 



true statesmen, but the great influence they wield is vitiated by their 

 lack of publicly ascertainable responsibility. It is this lack of direct 

 responsibility, that is to say, of risk, that constitutes the danger of 

 officialdom. In some democratic communities a remedy has been 

 sought in the system of " recall," that is to say, in the appointment 

 and dismissal of officials l)y popular vote. This system is undeniaVjly 

 vicious. It tends towards instability and administrative anarchy. 

 But the other extreme of entrusting an ever-increasing volume of 

 pubhc power to an ever-increasing body of practically intangible 

 officials is scarcely less dangerous. 



The essence of the bureaucratic or official spirit is indeed dislike 

 of responsibility outside the, generally narrow, limits of the official's 

 special functions ; and the exercise of absolute authority within those 

 limits. Subservience towards superiors, out of a spirit of discipline or 

 for the purpose of self-advancement, is apt to be accompanied by 

 arrogance towards inferiors and towards the public. By degrees, 

 officials tend to lose the notion of liberty. They have little them- 

 selves and can hardly be expected to be careful of the liberties of 

 others. They are parts of a machine ; and, in a machine, moral 

 courage and individual initiative are apt to be disturbing factors. 

 They are the victims of a system of division of labour which, while 

 -excellent and indeed indispensable in mechanical production, tends 

 to make automata of human beings who cannot thrive and develop, 

 morally or mentally, without a constant sense of individual risk and 

 responsibility. 



Like all rigid organizations, departments of State with their 

 limitations of responsibility for those whom they employ, tend to 

 generate a caste spirit which often replaces the sense of the larger 

 duties of citizens. Often, too, acute rivalry grows up between the 

 ■officials of different departments, who come to regard the object of 

 securing advantages for their own departments as more important 

 than the supreme object of ensuring public welfare. Their functions 

 render them imperfect citizens and, to that extent, detract from 

 their fitness as members of the body politic. During the war we 

 have seen a vast and rapid increase of officialdom. The extension 

 of State control over industry, railways, mines, shipping, canals, 

 to say nothing of the introduction of compulsory military service 

 and the whole work of national registration and national mobiliza- 

 tion, implies an innnense increase in the army of officials. It can- 

 not Ije supposed that the new departments and sub-departments of 

 State will disappear Avith the advent of peace and that things will 

 revert automatically to the status quo ante helium. These new 

 organizations will tend to become permanent, to regard themselves 

 as ends in themselves, to acquire a corporate consciousness, and to 

 defend by every means in their power what will have become vested 

 bureaucratic interests. The very numbers of the men and women 

 they employ will make of them potential electoral clienteles whose 



