The Conseils Generaux, which are provincial and municipal bodies, stand on a very different footing.  Here it may be safe to move forward in the path of reform with greater boldness and with less delay.  But whatever is done it will probably be found that real progress in the direction of self-government will depend more on the attitude of the French officials who are associated with the Councils than on any system which can be devised on paper.  It may be assumed that the French officials in Algeria present the usual characteristics of their class, that is to say, that they are courageous, intelligent, zealous, and thoroughly honest.  Also it may probably be assumed that they are somewhat inelastic, somewhat unduly wedded to bureaucratic ideas, and more especially that they are possessed with the very natural idea that the main end and object of their lives is to secure the efficiency of the administration.  Now if self-government is to be a success, they will have to modify to some extent their ideas as to the supreme necessity of efficiency.  That is to say, they will have to recognise that it is politically wiser to put up with an imperfect reform carried with native consent, rather than to insist on some more perfect measure executed in the teeth of strong—­albeit often unreasonable—­native opposition.  English experience has shown that this is a very hard lesson for officials to learn.  Nevertheless, the task of inculcating general principles of this nature is not altogether impossible.  It depends mainly on the impulse which is given from above.  To entrust the execution of a policy of reform in Algeria to a man of ultra-bureaucratic tendencies, who is hostile to reform of any kind, would, of course, be to court failure.  On the other hand, to select an extreme radical visionary, who will probably not recognise the difference between East and West, would be scarcely less disastrous.  What, in fact, is required is a man of somewhat exceptional qualities.  He must be strong—­that is to say, he must impress the natives with the conviction that, albeit an advocate of liberal ideas, he is firmly resolved to consent to nothing which is likely to be detrimental to the true interests of France.  He must also be sufficiently strong to keep his own officials in hand and to make them conform to his policy, whilst at the same time he must be sufficiently tactful to win their confidence and to prevent their being banded together against him.  The latter is a point of very special importance, for in a country like Algeria no government, however powerful, will be able to carry out a really beneficial programme of reform if the organised strength of the bureaucracy—­backed up, as would probably be the case, by the whole of the European unofficial community—­is thrown into bitter and irreconcilable opposition.  The task, it may be repeated, is a difficult one.  Nevertheless, amongst the many men of very high ability in the French service there must assuredly be some who would be able to undertake it with a fair chance of success.