7 JULY 1917, Page 19

BURKE ON BUSINESS MEN AND GOVERNMENT, [To ens EDITOR or

me "Sescriroa."3

Sui,—With reference to your remarks concerning business men's capacity for the work of government, I thought you might be interested in the enclosed lines of Burka (if you have not them already beside you) which Professor Dicey quotes in his book, The Statesmanship of Wordsworth:—

"It may be truly said that men too much conversant in office are rarely minds of remarkable enlargement. Their habits of office are apt to give them a turn to think the substance of business not to be much more important than the forms in which it is conducted. These forms are adopted to ordinary occasions; and therefore persons who are nurtured in office do admirably well, as long as things go on in their common order; but when the high-roads are broken up, and the waters out, when a new and troubled scene is.opened, and the file affords no precedent, then it is that a greater knowledge of mankind, and a far more extensive comprehension of things is requisite than ever office gave, or than office can ever give."