Criticism of the Civil Service is fundamentally concerned with the time factor. Secure in their position, time is never a matter of primary concern to these admirable public servants. The terrific speeding up of the tempo of modern life leaves them unmoved. The heavens may fall, but examination and control must go on. However efficient their technique, its pace is that of Victorian days. They look with pity on hustle as an evil thing. In view of the system it is almost inevitable that many ət these men, however modest and attractive as individuals, unconsciously regard themselves in an official capacity as superior beings. They have gone through severe discipline and training and are inclined to treat as lesser mortals those who lack their specialized experience. A sense of humour is not their outstanding quality. Criticism leaves them unmoved and is generally regarded as the vagary of an ill-informed publi. The best men transcend the system and make it work, But it has fatal results among the second-rate, who too often give the impression of making broad their phylacteries rather than getting on with their jobs. They work very hard but they work in their own way. Further, they have immense powers of resistance. The Maginot Line is more easily turned than a department from its established procedure.
Long before the war it was clear that, thanks to the rapid expansion of Government control over many branches of the national life, the departmental wheels were seriously clogged. Some observers suspected that the great volume of public business had outgrown a machine built up under simpler conditions. Complaints were common about intolerable delays. But the departments themselves apparently failed to recognize the new position. The old technique pursued its placid way.
It is, of course, the business of a competent Civil Service carefully to scrutinize proposals and to secure that a measure, good in itself, does not react like a boomerang on some other sphere of government, But already the impression gained ground that the scrutiny was carried to excessive and stultifying lengths. It was asked with growing impatience whether the first concern of a department was action or inquiry. In a word, had the machine broken down and was it lying like so much wreckage on the top of public business?
If this fear be justified, how do we stand today in respect of the swift and novel measures on the prompt execution of which the continued existence of this nation depends? What changes are necessary if the Civil Service is to be adequate for its task as a war machine?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.