We have not, of course, heard the last of the
Crichel Down affair. The Minister of Agriculture, Sir Thomas Dugdale, has still to face a debate in the House of Commons and to find a way to deal with the indignation which was inspired by his apparent lack of due contrition for a very bad lapse. But it is certainly not enough merely to wait for Sir Thomas to submit himself to further questioning and to discover whether he himself must pay a price for an injustice done by officials. Nor is it enough to go on repeating certain obvious phrases about the abuse of power by bureaucrats. It is necessary to probe further into Sir Andrew Clark's now famous report. and beyond that to the deepest root causes of lapses such as that which occurred in the Crichel Down case. It has been ¢hown that there was no bribery, corruption or personal dis- honesty. Nobody thought there was. It has been shown that there was undue secrecy, arbitrary action, disregard for the rights of individuals, and a certain amount of vindictiveness. The revelation that, quite apart from the main dispute over the disposal of land, an " unnecessary inquiry " was ordered into some of Commander Marten's building licences made one of the nastiest passages in the report, and one which has re- ceived a surprisingly small amount of attention, though Sir Carleton Allen, Q.C., has pointed it out. Yet it is difficult to believe that this kind of wickedness is widespread among civil servants, if only because it involves more initiative than civil servants are accustomed to show. Their trouble is more subtle It is rooted in a desire to get on with a job quietly and without too much public notice. And in that desire lie most of the virtues as well as the vices of civil servants. That is why it is very necessary to analyse the trouble with great care. That is why it cannot be cured unless all civil servants are them- selves as vigilant as the most active members of the public to avoid injustice—in short, until they are aligned with the accusers in the Crichel Down case and not only with the accused.
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