46 THE "WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, some such wise, opportune measures as those III recommended by the Director-General ; and the responsibility of public men thus became so dis- persed, that just blame, if descending at all, fell in gentle and harmless spray. A delinquent more guilty than any has been found, as we saw, in the State — in that State which had deadened the impact of an able director's will by making him a servant where it ought to have made him the master, by diffusing amongst many the power that should have been concentrated in his hands ; and, finally, l)y hold- ing him out to Whitehall, in the expressive lan- guage of ' salary ' columns, as a public servant, hired cheaply to do an everyday kind of work — a public servant not empowered or encouraged to exert a wide sway in even the routine course of business, still less to become the disturber — the bold, headstrong, ruthless disturber — of forms, habits, customs, regulations, that England beyond measure needs when she passes from stagnant peace to court the troubles of war. their work- Upou the whole, it may be said that the come'toT machinery of our war administration never came, buuiivoived as many people imagined, to anything like a powen° ' dead-lock,' but its action — much wanting in smoothness — made grievous waste of that force which is beyond measure needed in war — the force of a strong human will.
