"According to Monsieur Rabourdin, one hundred clerks with
a salary of twelve thousand francs would do better and quicker work than
a thousand clerks at twelve hundred."

Clergeot. "Perhaps he is right."

The Minister. "But what is to be done? The machine is built in that way.
Must we take it to pieces and remake it? No one would have the courage
to attempt that in face of the Chamber, and the foolish outcries of the
Opposition, and the fierce denunciations of the press. It follows
that there will happen, one of these days, some damaging 'solution of
continuity' between the government and the administration."

A deputy. "In what way?"

The Minister. "In many ways. A minister will want to serve the public
good, and will not be allowed to do so. You will create interminable
delays between things and their results. You may perhaps render the
theft of a penny actually impossible, but you cannot prevent the buying
and selling of influence, the collusions of self-interest. The day will
come when nothing will be conceded without secret stipulations, which
may never see the light. Moreover, the clerks, one and all, from the
least to the greatest, are acquiring opinions of their own; they will
soon be no longer the hands of a brain, the scribes of governmental
thought; the Opposition even now tends towards giving them a right to
judge the government and to talk and vote against it."

Baudoyer [in a low voice, but meaning to be heard]. "Monseigneur is
really fine."

Des Lupeaulx. "Of course bureaucracy has its defects. I myself think it
slow and insolent; it hampers ministerial action, stifles projects, and
arrests progress. But, after all, French administration is amazingly
useful."

Baudoyer. "Certainly!"

Des Lupeaulx. "If only to maintain the paper and stamp industries!
Suppose it is rather fussy and provoking, like all good
housekeepers,--it can at any moment render an account of its
disbursements. Where is the merchant who would not gladly give five
per cent of his entire capital if he could insure himself against
/leakage/?"

The Deputy [a manufacturer]. "The manufacturing interests of all nations
would joyfully unite against that evil genius of theirs called leakage."

Des Lupeaulx. "After all, though statistics are the childish foible of
modern statesmen, who think that figures are estimates, we must cipher
to estimate. Figures are, moreover, the convincing argument of societies
based on self-interest and mo