service to party? Is special knowledge demanded of the controller of a
Board of Trade or a Board of Agriculture? Do we not all know that the
vast majority of Ministers are controlled by the permanent officials of
their department. Failing great Ministers, the operations of a
department may be vitalized by control over its policy exercised, not by
a general assembly like Parliament, but by a board elected from the
class or industry the department ostensibly was created to serve. An
agricultural department controlled by a council or board composed solely
of those making their livelihood out of agriculture and elected solely
by their own class, would, we may be certain, be practical in its
methods. It would receive perpetual stimulus from those engaged in
making their living by the industry. Parliaments or senates should
confine themselves to matters of general interest, leaving particular or
special interests to those who understand them, to the specialists, and
only intervene when national interests are involved by a clashing of
particular interests. Our State institutions will never fulfill their
functions efficiently until they are subject in respect of policy not to
general control, but the control of the class they were created to
serve.

That ideal can only be realized fully when all industries are organized.
But we should work towards it. Parliament may act as a kind of guardian
of the unorganized, but, once an industry is organized, once it has come
of age, it must resent domination by bodies without the special
knowledge of which it has the monopoly within itself. It should not
tolerate domination by the unexpert outsider, whatever may be his repute
in other spheres. It is only when industries are organized that the
democratic system of election can justify itself by results in
administration. When a county, let us say, chooses a member of
Parliament to represent every interest, only too often it chooses a man