waiting for that lead,
said: "But this is absurd! Let us have an identical council and one
clerk, and get ahead, instead of keeping up this silly pretence that one
town is two." Suppose someone of that 300,000 pounds' worth of gentlemen
at the Local Government Board set to work to replan our local government
areas generally on less comic lines. Suppose his official superiors
helped, instead of snubbing him....

I see nothing of the sort happening. I see everywhere wary, watchful
little men, thinking of themselves, thinking of their parish, thinking
close, holding tight....

I know that there is a whole web of excuses for all these complicated,
wasteful, and obstructive arrangements of our local government, these
arrangements that I have taken merely as a sample of the general human
way of getting affairs done. For it is affairs at large I am writing
about, as I warned the reader at the beginning. Directly one inquires
closely into any human muddle, one finds all sorts of reasonable rights
and objections and claims barring the way to any sweeping proposals. I
can quite imagine that Bocking has admirable reasons for refusing
coalescence with Braintree, except upon terms that Braintree could not
possibly consider. I can quite understand that there are many
inconveniences and arguable injustices that would be caused by a merger
of the two areas. I have no doubt it would mean serious loss to
So-and-so, and quite novel and unfair advantage to So-and-so. It would
take years to work the thing and get down to the footing of one water
supply and an ambidextrous dustman on the lines of perfect justice and
satisfactoriness all round.

But what I want to maintain is that these little immediate claims and
rights and vested interests and bits of justice and fairness are no
excuse at all for preventing things being done in the clear, clean,
large, quick way. They never constituted a decent excuse, and now they
excuse waste and delay and inconvenience less than ever. Let us first do
things in the sound way, and then, if we can, let us pet and compensate
any disappointed person who used to profit by their being done
roundabout instead of earning an honest living. We are beginning to
agree that reasonably any man may be asked to die for his country; what
we have to recognise is that any man's proprietorship, interest, claims
or rights may just as properly be called upon to die. Bocking and
Braintree and Mr. John Smith--Mr. John Smith,