where the realm of one ends and that of the other begins, and add to it a wide knowledge of large affairs, which no special man can have, and which is only gained by diversified action.  But this utility of leading minds used to generalise, and acting upon various materials, is entirely dependent upon their position.  They must not be at the bottom—­they must not even be half way up—­they must be at the top.  A merchant’s clerk would be a child at a bank counter; but the merchant himself could, very likely, give good, clear, and useful advice in a bank court.  The merchant’s clerk would be equally at sea in a railway office, but the merchant himself could give good advice, very likely, at a board of directors.  The summits (if I may so say) of the various kinds of business are, like the tops of mountains, much more alike than the parts below—­the bare principles are much the same; it is only the rich variegated details of the lower strata that so contrast with one another.  But it needs travelling to know that the summits are the same.  Those who live on one mountain believe that their mountain is wholly unlike all others.

The application of this principle to Parliamentary government is very plain; it shows at once that the intrusion from without upon an office of an exterior head of the office, is not an evil, but that, on the contrary, it is essential to the perfection of that office.  If it is left to itself, the office will become technical, self-absorbed, self-multiplying.  It will be likely to overlook the end in the means; it will fail from narrowness of mind; it will be eager in seeming to do; it will be idle in real doing.  An extrinsic chief is the fit corrector of such errors.  He can say to the permanent chief, skilled in the forms and pompous with the memories of his office, “Will you, Sir, explain to me how this regulation conduces to the end in view?  According to the natural view of things, the applicant should state the whole of his wishes to one clerk on one paper; you make him say it to five clerks on five papers.”  Or, again, “Does it not appear to you, Sir, that the reason of this formality is extinct?  When we were building wood ships, it was quite right to have such precautions against fire; but now that we are building iron ships,” etc., etc.  If a junior clerk asked these questions, he would be “pooh-poohed!” It is only the head of an office that can get them answered.  It is he, and he only, that brings the rubbish of office to the burning-glass of sense.

The immense importance of such a fresh mind is greatest in a country where business changes most.  A dead, inactive, agricultural country may be governed by an unalterable bureau for years and years, and no harm come of it.  If a wise man arranged the bureau rightly in the beginning, it may run rightly a long time.  But if the country be a progressive, eager, changing one, soon the bureau will either cramp improvement, or be destroyed itself.