86 



NATURE 



[April 3, 1919 



industry yet recognised that they are in business 

 primarily to serve their fellow-men, and not for 

 private profit. They have looked upon the 

 Government Departments with distrust, avoided 

 their co-operation for fear of their control, and 

 thought of them as circumlocution offices bound, 

 and anxious to bind, by red tape. 



It can scarcely be denied that hitherto many 

 Government Departments have not been so much 

 concerned with pointing out the line of progress 

 and making it the line of least resistance as with 

 hedging it about with restrictions. The functions 

 assigned to the different Departments of State 

 have, in many cases, been so multifarious that 

 it has been impossible for the permanent heads 

 of these offices to know their job, or explain it 

 to the Minister who is responsible for it to Parlia- 

 ment. So it happens from time to time that 

 Ministers are made to display, across the floor 

 of the House of Commons, an abyss of ignorance 

 that would be comic were it not so fraught with 

 dire consequences. Departments, being aware of 

 this risk, have been afraid of exposing their igno- 

 rance. Deficient in knowledge, they have sought 

 to evade rather than to remove difficulties. Thus 

 has come to pass the hand-to-mouth existence of 

 some Government Departments. They have 

 aimed at sending a deputation away smiling, or 

 at avoiding a question in the House, rather than 

 at mastering their business and convincing the 

 public of the wisdom of their policy. Moreover, 

 their duties being too big, they have often simpli- 

 fied their problems by reducing them to writing, 

 and have afterwards ignored the more compli- 

 cated reality. They have been content to ad- 

 minister printed regulations, and almost to forget 

 the thing itself. So it has even happened that 

 a permanent Civil Servant, desirous of spending 

 a few weeks away from Whitehall in intimate 

 personal contact with the real thing, has been 

 told by a superior oflficer that he was not con- 

 cerned with the thing itself, but with the papers 

 about the thing ! 



The impossibility of expert knowledge of so 

 many different matters as some Departments have 

 had to administer has tended to put expert scien- 

 tific knowledge — and not of physical science alone 

 — at a discount throughout the Civil Service. Not 

 wanting knowledge, they have sought for 

 ability, and have attracted many of the ablest 

 students of Oxford and Cambridge into their 

 service. Since the nature of the case has pre- 

 vented these able young men from becoming 

 expert, and so has, in a large measure, wasted 

 their abilities, the increasing drain upon the uni- 

 versities' output of first-rate men was, just before 

 the war, becoming a menace to the country. On 

 the other hand, the very able men who formed 

 the highest ranks of the Civil Service were ready 

 to administer anything, ready to move (like 

 Cabinet Ministers) from education to Admiralty, 

 or- from the Board of Trade to the India Office. 

 Men of like ability have achieved magnificent 

 success in India and the Colonies. But in White- 

 hall it would be possible to combine expert know- 

 NO. 2579, VOL. 103] 



ledge with abiUty, and so vastly to increase the 

 efficiency of the machinery of Government. 



To eftect the necessary change. Lord Haldane's 

 Committee proposes that the business of the vari- 

 ous Departments of Government shall be dis- 

 tributed so far as possible according to the class 

 of service with which they are concerned. 



In accordance with this principle, the Govern- 

 ment is to guide, and not merely to regulate, the 

 progress of the community. To this end it is to 

 have more, instead of very much less, relevant 

 knowledge available than any individual or group 

 of individuals. This knowledge is to be provided 

 by a Department of (i) Research and Information^ 

 which will continuously acquire knowledge and 

 prosecute research in order to furnish a proper 

 basis for authority. The information required by 

 the Royal Commissions of the future will be ready 

 to their hand, instead of, as at present, having 

 to be reassembled by each new Commission that 

 may be appointed. Moreover, each other Depart- 

 ment of State is, the Committee recommends, to 

 have its own special department of inquiries to 

 keep in touch with the central Research Depart- 

 ment, and to supply to the heads of its own office 

 and to the public the kind of information which 

 Joan and Peter's guardian, in Mr. Wells's 

 recent volume, sought in vain at Whitehall, 

 Again, the heads of each Department are advised 

 to set aside certain regular times for looking 

 ahead and framing a policy of progress that might 

 well be recommended to many heads of extra- 

 Government concerns. 



In order that citizens may be efficient workers 

 for the common purpose (and that means, for the 

 most part, efficient ministers to the needs of their 

 fellows), they need education ; healthy conditions 

 of life (which -mean adequate town planning, 

 housing, medical service, health insurance, and 

 the like) ; food, clothing, and other consumable 

 goods (which mean adequate production, distribu- 

 tion, and transport) ; suitable regulation of condi- 

 tions under wihich they work in the service of 

 their fellows ; and protection from the interference 

 of hostile persons at home and abroad. With the 

 provision of these further services the Committee 

 proposes that the following Departments shall be 

 respectively concerned : — (2) Education ; (3). 

 Health; (4) Production; (5) Employment; (6) 

 Justice; (7) National Defence; (8) Foreign and 

 External Affairs. 



Since the Minister of Production cannot super- 

 vise privately controlled industry and commerce, 

 and also direct competing services which the 

 Government is providing on its own account, 

 there must also be a Department of (9) Supplies 

 to fulfil this latter function. And, finally, since 

 the State must cut its coat according to its cloth, 

 there must be a Department of (10) Finance. 



The reorganisation of the Civil Service so as to 

 form the ten Departments named in the Com- 

 mittee's report would bring the leaders of national 

 life outside Government circles — the statesmen of 

 industry and commerce — into closer touch with 

 the Government to the advantage of both; just 



