great store of ability that is to be found in our Government offices—this goes without saying, seeing that the intellectual flower of our University youths used to go year by year into the Civil Service—and also to the devotion with which, at least during the war, they overworked themselves into pulp. In the matter of ability and hard work our officials are unsurpassed if not unrivalled. And yet, owing to some fault in the system, even before the war, the net result of their efforts was the subject of much criticism. And it is putting it mildly to say that the experience of Government management and control during the war does not at all encourage one to expect that any Government which it would now be possible to call into existence could deal with the tremendous task of organizing the nation's economic activities with any approach to success.
This experience must not tempt us to be too certain about future possibilities. We may be able to create some day a bureaucracy which shall be efficient, intelligent and economical in the best sense of the word. It is not much more than a century since Adam Smith in comparing the possibilities of joint-stock enterprise with private activity, decided that joint-stock
