it may flourish under an aristocracy; it is possible, though the evidence is still ambiguous, that it may flourish under a genuine democracy; but it can never fulfil its highest functions, can never have that national Gehalt of which Goethe spoke, in a country where the forms of society and of government have outlived their day, have no conviction and vitality behind them, and remain not as the growing framework of a living organism, but as lifeless impediments in the way of its healthy functions. This, or something approaching to it, is the case in modern Germany. It does not seem likely that a nation can be educated to the point to which the German people are educated, and that personages like the Colonel-nay, the Lieutenant-the Junker, and the bureaucrat will permanently remain in the position of moral and social authority which Prussian ideas assign to them. Some day the rigid structure must surely be loosened; the tides of intellectual life must sap and dissolve it; and it will be transformed by the social chemistry which is at work in every living and growing nation into forms more consonant with the needs and characteristics of the modern German spirit. We are witnessing a period of transition, of widespread disintegration and pitiless analysis. Let the reader take up any number of 'Simplicissimus' and he will find himself in presence of a force more profound and more destructive than all the Freiheitslieder of Arndt, of Freiligrath and of Herwegh. It is no longer a case of steel against steel, it is a case of essence against essence. How will the struggle end? Perhaps in a new and more glorious Germany than the world has yet seen; perhaps in a torpid and sterile nation in which nothing but a mighty convulsion can again prepare the soil for the seeds of poetry and thought.

T. W. ROLLESTON.

Art. 3.-THE ENCROACHING BUREAUCRACY.

1. Forty-second Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1912-1913. [Cd 6980], Session 1913.

2. Report of the Board of Education.

1913.

R. 6707, Session

3. Finance Accounts of the United Kingdom; No. 173, Session 1913.

THE trend of government in England of late years has been towards bureaucracy and centralisation, with a constant widening of the area of control and increasing interference with the functions of daily life. It is a reaction from the old doctrine of laissez-faire, and shows the usual tendency to go from one extreme to another. The 'let-alone' theory is out of fashion, and grandmotherly legislation and official administration have taken its place. A common fallacy is that the vague entity called the State is to undertake or regulate everything. All that the individual has to do is to obey. In a highly civilised community like England, public servants are essential, but their number has become disproportionate and excessive. A foolish and vulgar notion prevails that it is especially respectable to enter the public service. Thousands of lads and girls regard this as the goal of ambition, and scorn handicrafts, or trade, or commerce, or the professions.

The modern practice with most Government departments is to assume more and more of legislative as well as of administrative authority. They issue orders, frame regulations, and decide on important details which Parliament has not wits or time to settle. The appetite for control enlarges by what it feeds upon. The more grist supplied to the official mill, the more does it want to grind. Tons of letters, schedules, reports, and returns are poured into the Whitehall Offices every year, and an enormous flood of correspondence pours forth from them on an endless diversity of topics. Inspectors, examiners, auditors, and a long gradation of clerks are occupied, at vast cost for salaries, travelling, stationery and printing, in an endless round of supervision. It is not a mere rhetorical embellishment to say that the nation is in danger of being governed to death, and that a certificate

and authorisation will soon be required for the simplest act of personal, domestic, and business life. There are cohorts of inspectors of factories and schools, of shops and workrooms, of mines and railways, of bakehouses and slaughter-houses, of weights and measures, of adulteration of food, drink, and drugs, of workhouses and boarding-out, of fisheries and explosives, of infant life protection and vaccination, besides medical officers of health, sanitary inspectors, inspectors of nuisances, county and borough analysts, truant visitors and others.

Protests have been made from time to time in Parliament and the Press, against this alarming increase of bureaucracy. The word is of alien origin, and the condition it represents is not indigenous to English soil, but savours of France or Germany, or, still more, of Russia. The rate of increase has been accelerated in recent years by the creation of new offices and the assumption of fresh duties. This is a menace to constitutional rights and liberties. Serious inroads are being made upon local self-government by a system of centralised control, from which there is virtually no appeal. We are threatened with a scheme of ruling by chief clerks. It is not to be tolerated that the servants of the public, however efficient and well-meaning, shall be allowed to become its masters. All who are engaged in trade and industry, all who have served on County or Borough or Urban or Rural District Councils, or on Boards of Guardians, or on the defunct School Boards, know from unpleasant experience what it is to struggle under endless coils of red-tape woven by permanent officialism. We need less central authority in numerous matters of detail, on which local knowledge is competent to form a sound judgment. Granted that certain broad principles should be laid down by the central authority, their particular application should be left to each locality. Instead of this common-sense plan, everything must now be done after an inexorable official pattern. Traditions have been formed, and a system has been established, gradually and silently, whereby thousands of elected bodies throughout the country are reduced to a state of pupilage and subjection.

These considerations point to the necessity of a searching enquiry into the modern system of government

by means of so-called Boards-a convenient euphemism for unseen and nameless administrators by whom the machinery is worked. The Cabinet Minister who is the titular head of each of these Boards must depend to a large extent upon his subordinates. He is transient, but they are permanent. He is liable at any moment to be displaced or transferred by a shifting of places in the Cabinet, or by an adverse vote. His parliamentary, Court and social duties absorb much of his time. He may have a definite line of policy, but there are office traditions which cannot be disregarded. A timid Minister will hesitate before provoking hostility or entering upon a revolution. However dominant his will, and however great his capacity for work, he knows there are limits and restrictions. Mr John Burns stated in the House of Commons on June 12, 1913, in reply to strictures upon his administration, that he got his own way when he was right, and his subordinates got their way when they were right. Who decided the point, did not appear. In such cases there is probably a tacit adjustment by way of working compromise; but the officials have the advantage of being in possession. No censure or reflection on persons is here intended. As a whole, the Civil Service is an admirable and a competent body, deserving the eulogium once pronounced by Mr Gladstone. Our criticism is directed against a huge scheme embodying a potent but hidden force that dominates the country.

The almost universal scope of this centralisation, and the extent and variety of its assumed functions, may be shown by a recital of some of the numerous subjects now controlled. Concerning such of them as relate to public health or safety, to good order, to the adequate protection of life and property, or to other matters of absolute and obvious utility, no exception can be taken; but the range is far wider. Manufactures and commerce, trade and industry, agriculture and machinery, patents and trade marks, mercantile shipping, lighthouses, and harbours, have come under the eyes of the modern Argus. Sanitation and water-supply, gas and electric lighting, telegraphs and telephones, meteorology and explosives, the relief of the poor and the care of the mentally defective, are regulated by numerous Acts of Parliament, as interpreted by official commentaries and

glossaries. Shop hours and holidays, the period of work and the scale of wages, labour disputes and demands, modes and rates of travel, the carriage of goods and mutual liability, are prescribed and regulated. Education, science and art, stage plays, theatres and music halls, are brought, in varying ways and degrees, within the purview of the Government. Roads, canals, tolls, and bridges, open spaces and allotments, the pollution of rivers and the construction of light railways, the confirmation of County Council orders and the approval or rejection of bye-laws, the protection of wild birds, and the prevention of cruelty to children, with many other miscellaneous matters, are subjected to rules to which unquestioning obedience must be rendered.

A little volume by Mr Bernard Houghton, entitled 'Bureaucratic Government: a Study of Indian Polity,' traces the transition from autocracy to bureaucracy in our vast Oriental dominions. The position taken by the author, a retired member of the Indian Civil Service, is that, although the ancient personal touch between the ruler and the ruled has vanished, yet, if efficiency be the crown and the glory of government, the modern system of Indian rule is, without question, efficient. But he makes the pertinent enquiry whether a bureaucracy such as governs India is likely to discern the signs and dangers of altered conditions, which are still changing, so as to set its house in order and govern on more popular and generous lines. His answer, as he admits with regret, is an emphatic negative :

'If experience in history teaches clearly any one lesson, it is that a bureaucracy will in no circumstances reform itself. If it is to be reformed at all, it must be by powers outside it and antagonistic to it.... And if against reform in general, how much more against reforms which must abrogate official prerogatives, undermine their authority, and transfer powers hitherto wielded by officials alone to the hands of the common people. A bureaucracy will never consent to such a profanation' (p. 177).

The concluding chapter in Mr Houghton's book, entitled, 'Towards Democracy,' deserves careful perusal. It casts a vivid sidelight upon the main theme of the present article.