mense dead weight of influence against economy owing
to the fact that so many persons are interested in keeping up and
increasing expenditure. As was said in the debate above referred to, "It
looks as if London were becoming a huge bureaucratic town where everyone
will be working in some Government department or other." One might say
everyone of all ages, remembering a remark made by someone entering a
building near Whitehall, and seeing the crowd of girls and boys in the
corridor, "I thought I was coming to a Government office, but it seems
to be a creche."

For efficiency as well as for economy a thorough revision of the
executive departments of the Government is necessary. There is no doubt
that the present system has grown up at haphazard. It would be difficult
for anyone to form a clear idea of the duties assigned to or powers
conferred on the various departments, to say who in each department has
authority to do certain acts, or is responsible for seeing that they are
done properly.

To get the best account of the executive departments in England as they
existed before the War we must go to America. Professor A.L. Lowell's
book may be taken as the standard work on that subject. The chapters on
the Executive Departments, the Treasury, and the Civil Service give a
clear and interesting account of the administrative arrangements of the
British Government. He shows how new departments have grown up from time
to time to meet some new want as it arose, but their powers are often
ill defined. Various Boards were created, but in some cases it became an
established practice that the Board should not meet, or a Committee of
Council was set up and the work carried on under the supposed direction
of "my Lords." It was a mere fiction. There has been no clear and
consistent scheme for distributing the work of Government between the
various departments on any intelligible principles.

All are spending money, some of them enormous sums. Staffs are growing
inordinately, much of the work is duplicated, much consists in
communications with other departments which would be unnecessary if the
work of each were better defined.

It should be clear in each department who has authority to decide any
particular question, to incur expenditure, to enter into binding
agreements. The executive government of the country is in a chaotic
state, relieved to some extent by the good sense and good feeling of the
members of the great army of offi