The Reconstruction of the Ministry
THE resignation.. of. Colonel Moore-Brabazon, immediately followed by a trenchant and extremely candid leading article in the Times upon the _personnel of the Ministry, has given rise to a general demand that the Prime Minister should reconstruct his Government in the near future. This appears to us _to- be- a highly desirable course of action. .. . .
One of the peculiarities of a democratic system is that all the members of a Government are necessarily selected, in the first _instance, in the course of a. few hours. It. is inconceivable, that every single individual, thus, chosen should prove to be the best man for the post-to which he is appointed. A first-class" Colonial Secretary may be nothing but a calamity at the Ministry of Labour,. and vice versa. Moreover, adequately to discharge his duties in the House of Commons a Minister requires special gifts, the .existence of which cannot always be descried, and the absence of. which, although disastrous from a political point of view, by no means. denotes lack of general intelligence. Further, the responsibilities and burdens in modern times are so heavy as to be almost incalculable ; and it is difficult to suppose that each individual minister is equally able to withstand the strain to which he is subjected.. And finally, it is .essential in the interests of the State that the political head of a department should possess and _retain in the highest degree the qualities of courage, . judgment and imagination. He finds himself surrounded by an amazingly competent staff of experts, armed at every point with a mass of detailed information ; ready to advise and to warn, to assist hint in giving practical shape to his ideas and in avoiding pitfalls. Hut without the ideas the whole machine ceases to function or is at least reduced to half-speed.
And the ideas must come from the Minister himself.
It is for him to initiate policy, and to propound schemes for examination by his experts. A tired and over- driven man can sometimes perform routine work, even of a delicate and complex character, for months on end without any sensible diminution of efficiency. But it is rare to find a tired man whose power of initiative has not been sapped. Ideas are easily crushed under the weight of anxiety, responsibility and disappointment. Too soon does the plant which but a short time before sprouted 'so valiantly wither and die ; and he who entered the portals of Whitehall filled with high hopes and burning ideals finds himself, weary and disillusioned, reduced to the position of an ineffective cog in the machine. For these and other reasons it has come to be recognized that frequent changes amongst our political chiefs are desirable in order that the maximum amount of ability, energy and .initiative may be maintained at the seat of Government. And in the past such changes have been made.
It may -be said that we arc asking a good deal of His Majesty's Ministers. Why not ? The House of TominonS,- we believe, adequately reflects the diYerse interests and the common genius of our country. It provides an excellent training-ground for those who are sent there by the people to govern them. It* should not be impossible to find twenty or thirty men, frOm amongst the representatives of the greatest nation in the world; who combine in some degree the qualities We have outlined.
The preSent Parliament has now run half its cours.e. And notit single dhangehes been made in the personnel of the Ministry that has not been -forced upon the -Prime Minister by events outside his control—usually the automatic termination of a .Colonial Governorship. -This is, we believe, unparalleled in our history. And we view the situation with considerable anxiety, because we are not convinced that every member of the Govern- ment is the. best man for his post, or that . Mr. Baldwin is making the best use of the means at his disposal. To put it quite frankly, too, the personnel of the Ministry is not one of marked distinction. For instance, it cannot compare in intellectual weight with that of .Mr. Asquith's Administrations. With the notable. exceptions of Lord Balfour, Lord Birkenhead, Lord -Cecil, and Mr. Churchill, no Minister- has hitherto given evidence of the possession of any of the rarer qualities of the mind.
Quite. apart from the intrinsic personal merits of the various members of the Government, and from their capacity on paper and in the council chamber, when they are judged on their public performances and utterances, it is clear that certain of them must fail to survive any test that can be applied; Take the conspicuous admin- istrative successes. It is obvious that no scheme of reorganization should disturb Mr. Neville Chamberlain's and Sir Kingsley Wood's admirable partnership at the Ministry of Health. They bid fair to leave a permanent mark upon the " social "_ conditions of the country, through their development of housing, of insurance, and of the system of local government. Nor is there any apparent reason why changes should be made at t he Foreign Office, at the Treasury, the India, the Home, or the Colonial Office, the Air Ministry, or the Ministry of Agriculture. Yet it would be a pity if Lord Linlithgow's special knowledge of the most important branch of the activities of the last-named department—the question of marketing—should not be placed at the disposal of the State after he has concluded his investigations in India.
It is impossible to carry this praise into other depart- ments. A great opportunity now presents itself to men of vision and of energy, and we would urge the Prime Minister to take his courage in both hands. He has no lack of material. Sir Alfred Mond, Lord Cecil, Major Walter Elliot, Mr. Ormsby-Gore, and Sir William Mitchell- Thomson—to name only a few—have given ample proof of exceptional capacity which ought to be used to the full. There are forty or fifty men on the Unionist back-benches who could worthily fill the position of an Under-Secretary.
The Prime Minister observed the other day that his was one of the loneliest jobs in the world. That is as it should be. He is the captain of the ship of State and he bears the supreme responsibility. Not the least important part of that responsibility is the appoint- ment of the best men to the highest offices in the land. It is an onerous responsibility and a most difficult and frequently unpleasant one to -discharge. But it cannot be shirked.
If the Prime Minister shrinks from applying the broom, let him reflect upon the thousands of good men who have been pitilessly " axed ",froM the public services to which they had devoted. their whole lives. Do politicians as a claSs deserve to be treated. with special leniency ? Surely not. The more important the post the more remorseless must be the scrutiny of its occupant.
It is the simple duty of the Prime Minister at s critical time in the history of this country to ensure that the best possible men should be in control of the public services. And it is a duty which we arc confident he Will fulfil.
Previous page
