Science and Administration 



are, besides, fixedly departmental ; and they main- 

 tain the rigid departmental boundaries, which are 

 as essential to order as they are often inimical 

 to progress. Their service to the State is incal- 

 culable ; but it is not to them that we must look 

 for a broad and fresh survey of national needs 

 from the independent point of view of the scien- 

 tific critic, or for the constructive guidance to 

 statesmanship which only the free play of the 

 best knowledge can give. 



The choice lies, in fact, between trusting for 

 this guidance to the voluntary and accidental 

 contributions of scientific workers, and making 

 some more systematic attempt to direct their 

 energies towards the problems of national life, 

 in organised efforts not confined within depart- 

 mental boundaries on the one hand, nor, on the 

 other, limited to mere routine varied by the in- 

 cursions of political activity. 



An instance of such an effort at organisation 

 lies to our hand in the Committee of Imperial 

 Defence, which plays an increasing part in rela- 

 tion to one of the great problems of our national 

 and Imperial life. 



This is a Committee which, without invading 

 the departmental provinces that belong to the 

 War Office and the Admiralty, devotes itself to 

 the whole problem to which the work of both 

 departments is ancillary. It surveys the situation, 

 not from the point of view of departmental routine 

 and administrative detail, but with a deliberate 

 purpose of discovering what the defensive needs 



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