y part of the truth. He has been working with
these other men as an accepted master.

It is not so in politics. There a man of power cannot pick and choose
his colleagues. He must work with fools as well as men of ability. And
never can he work as a master. Always at the Cabinet table he will find
a cabal of deadheads opposed to the exercise of his authority, and in
the department over which he is set to rule a bunch of traditional
Barnacles, without one spark of imagination between them, who will fight
his new ideas at every turn.

The essence of politics and government is mediocrity. The good sense of
the House of Commons is a conspiracy to resist genius and to enthrone
the average man. A department of the State is well governed only when
its chief Civil Servant, by the grace of God, chances to be a man of
statesmanlike capacity.

Like Lord Rhondda, Lord Leverhulme was approached by the Government
during the numerous crises of the war to render service to the State.
His experience in this respect confirmed his judgment that our system of
government is a chaos which would hardly be tolerated in a business
establishment of the second class. I will give an incident.

It was a matter of grave urgency to the Government that margarine should
be manufactured in this country. A Cabinet Minister begged Lord
Leverhulme, on the score of patriotism, to set up such a factory. Lord
Leverhulme expressed his willingness to take up the project, but said
that he must go to the public for a certain sum of money to carry it
out. The Cabinet Minister made no demur to this very natural proposal,
but suggested that it might be well if Lord Leverhulme would call at the
Treasury and inform them of his purpose.

Accordingly the great industrialist, able as was no other man in this
particular to serve his country's need, called humbly at the Treasury
for permission to ask the public for capital. He was received by an
official who refused point-blank to listen to such a proposition. Lord
Leverhulme mentioned again the name of the Cabinet Minister who had
requested him to embark on this venture. This was nothing to the
official. He had nothing to do with other departments. His business was
to see that the public's money came to the Treasury; he was certainly
not going to countenance the raising of money for an industrial purpose.

You could no more have got into this gentleman's head than you could
have got into the head of a rabbit the ide