In short, the fundamental principles upon which government departments are organised are right for the regulative functions which they primarily exist to perform.  But they are altogether wrong for creative and productive work, which demands the utmost elasticity, adaptability, and freedom for experiment.  And it is just because the ordinary machinery of government has been used on a large scale for this kind of work that the outcry against bureaucracy has recently been so vehement.  It is not possible to imagine a worse method of conducting a great productive enterprise than to put it under the control of an evanescent minister selected on political grounds, and supported by a body of men whose work is carried on in accordance with the traditions of the Civil Service.

If we are to avoid a breakdown of our whole system, we must abstain from placing productive enterprises under the control of the ordinary machinery of government—­Parliament, responsible political ministers, and civil service staffs.  But it does not follow that no productive concern ought ever to be brought under public ownership and withdrawn from the sphere of private enterprise.  As we shall later note, such concerns can, if it be necessary, be organised in a way which would avoid these dangers.

THE CABINET

We turn next to the other element in the working machine of government, the Cabinet, or policy-directing body, which is the very pivot of our whole system.  Two main functions fall to the Cabinet.  In the first place, it has to ensure an effective co-ordination between the various departments of government; in the second place, it is responsible for the initiation and guidance of national policy in every sphere, subject to the watchful but friendly control of Parliament.

Long experience has shown that there are several conditions which must be fulfilled if a Cabinet is to perform these functions satisfactorily.  In the first place, its members must, among them, be able to speak for every department of government; failing this, the function of co-ordination cannot be effectively performed.  This principle was discarded in the later stages of the war, when a small War Cabinet was instituted, from which most of the ministers were excluded.  The result was confusion and overlapping, and the attempt to remedy these evils by the creation of a staff of liaison officers under the control of the Prime Minister had very imperfect success, and in some respects only added to the confusion.  In the second place, the Cabinet must be coherent and homogeneous, and its members must share the same ideals of national policy.  National business cannot be efficiently transacted if the members of the Cabinet are under the necessity of constantly arguing about, and making compromises upon, first principles.  That is the justification for drawing the members of a Cabinet from the leaders of a single party, who think alike and understand one another’s minds.  Whenever this condition has been absent, confusion, vacillation and contradiction have always marked the conduct of public affairs, and disastrous results have followed.