ofessional politicians all round the
Circumlocution Office. It is true that every new premier and every
new government, coming in because they had upheld a certain thing as
necessary to be done, were no sooner come in than they applied their
utmost faculties to discovering How not to do it. It is true that from
the moment when a general election was over, every returned man who had
been raving on hustings because it hadn't been done, and who had been
asking the friends of the honourable gentleman in the opposite interest
on pain of impeachment to tell him why it hadn't been done, and who had
been asserting that it must be done, and who had been pledging himself
that it should be done, began to devise, How it was not to be done. It
is true that the debates of both Houses of Parliament the whole session
through, uniformly tended to the protracted deliberation, How not to
do it. It is true that the royal speech at the opening of such session
virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have a considerable
stroke of work to do, and you will please to retire to your respective
chambers, and discuss, How not to do it. It is true that the royal
speech, at the close of such session, virtually said, My lords and
gentlemen, you have through several laborious months been considering
with great loyalty and patriotism, How not to do it, and you have found
out; and with the blessing of Providence upon the harvest (natural, not
political), I now dismiss you. All this is true, but the Circumlocution
Office went beyond it.

Because the Circumlocution Office went on mechanically, every day,
keeping this wonderful, all-sufficient wheel of statesmanship, How not
to do it, in motion. Because the Circumlocution Office was down upon any
ill-advised public servant who was going to do it, or who appeared to be
by any surprising accident in remote danger of doing it, with a minute,
and a memorandum, and a letter of instructions that extinguished him. It
was this spirit of national efficiency in the Circumlocution Office
that had gradually led to its having something to do with everything.
Mechanicians, natural philosophers, soldiers, sailors, petitioners,
memorialists, people with grievances, people who wanted to prevent
grievances, people who wanted to redress grievances, jobbing people,
jobbed people, people who couldn't get rewarded for merit, and people
who couldn't get punished for demerit, were all indiscriminately tucked
up under the fools