In what I have called the "working machine" of government there are two
distinct elements. First, there is the large, permanent, professional
staff, the Civil Service; secondly, there is the policy-directing body,
the Cabinet. Both of these are the objects of a great deal of
contemporary criticism. On the one hand, we are told that we are
suffering from "bureaucracy," which means that the permanent officials
have too much independent and uncontrolled, or imperfectly controlled,
authority. On the other hand, we are told that we are suffering from
Cabinet dictatorship, or, alternatively, that the Cabinet system is
breaking down and being replaced by the autocracy of the Prime Minister.
There is a good deal of _prima facie_ justification for all these
complaints.


THE GROWTH OF THE CIVIL SERVICE

First, as to bureaucracy. It is manifest that there has been an immense
increase in the number, the functions, and the power of public
officials. This is not merely due to the war. It has been going on for a
long time--ever since, in fact, we began the deliberate process of
national reconstruction in the years following 1832. In itself this
increase has not been a bad thing; on the contrary, it has been the only
possible means of carrying into effect the great series of reforms which
marked the nineteenth century. And may I here underline the fact that we
Liberals, in particular, have no right to criticise the process, since
we have been mainly responsible for it, at any rate in all its early
stages. When our predecessors set up the first Factory Inspectors in
1833, and so rendered possible the creation of a whole code of factory
laws; when they created the first rudimentary Education Office in 1839,
and so set to work the men who have really moulded our national system