to responsible management and to efface themselves.  He was a man of five-and-forty.  Incidentally he mentioned that he had never taken anything for his private life out of the great business he had built up but a salary, “a good salary,” and that now he was gong to grant himself a pension.  “I shan’t interfere any more.  I shall come right away and live in Europe for a year so as not to be tempted to interfere.  The boys have got to run it some day, and they had better get their experience while they’re young and capable of learning by it.  I did.”

I like N’s ideas.  “Practically,” I said, “you’ve been a public official.  You’ve treated your business like a public service.”

That was his idea.

“Would you mind if it was a public service?”

He reflected, and some disagreeable memory darkened his face.  “Under the politicians?” he said.

I took the train of thought N had set going abroad with me next day.  I had the good luck to meet men who were interesting industrially.  Captain Pirelli, my guide in Italy, has a name familiar to every motorist; his name goes wherever cars go, spelt with a big long capital P. Lieutenant de Tessin’s name will recall one of the most interesting experiments in profit-sharing to the student of social science.  I tried over N’s problem on both of them.  I found in both their minds just the same attitude as he takes up towards his business.  They think any businesses that are worthy of respect, the sorts of businesses that interest them, are public functions.  Money-lenders and speculators, merchants and gambling gentlefolk may think in terms of profit; capable business directors certainly do nothing of the sort.

I met a British officer in France who is also a landowner.  I got him to talk about his administrative work upon his property.  He was very keen upon new methods.  He said he tried to do his duty by his land.

“How much land?” I asked.

“Just over nine thousand acres,” he said.

“But you could manage forty or fifty thousand with little more trouble.”

“If I had it.  In some ways it would be easier.”

“What a waste!” I said.  “Of course you ought not to own these acres; what you ought to be is the agricultural controller of just as big an estate of the public lands as you could manage—­with a suitable salary.”

He reflected upon that idea.  He said he did not get much of a salary out of his land as it was, and made a regrettable allusion to Mr. Lloyd George.  “When a man tries to do his duty by his land,” he said...