Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/165

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perpetrated by Government departments during the war, but it is enough for our present purpose to observe that the war's experience has certainly increased the doubt that one feels concerning the efficiency of Government control of industry.

It is a perpetual puzzle to those who know from what a brilliant class of young men the Government officials were recruited, and have seen the untiring zeal with which they do their work, to account for the unsatisfactory results which were produced by them both before and after the war. Take a recent example arising out of the introduction of rabies into England. If there was one thing which our officials might have been expected to tackle with all the effectiveness of which they were capable, it was the protection of the citizens from the horrible death with which the outbreak of rabies menaced them. How the Board of Agriculture dealt with it is shown in the following extracts from a letter signed, "An old Soldier in Wales," published in the Times of July 1, 1919:—

"On Monday last I was bitten by a stray cur on the main road here, both its condition and behaviour being such as to arouse the gravest suspicion in any one who has, like myself, seen