IDEAL AND DETAIL
Lord Ponsonby's wish that "eminent personages" were not allowed to draw treaties, but that these could be left to "second division clerks, humble persons who really knew better how peace j could be preserved alter a war ..." calls up some echoes from the past, says the "Manchester Guardian." It brings to mind Lord Rosebary's wish that Ministers could be put on an old battleship and sent round the Empire while Civil Servants did the business, j or that suggestion of a Victorian private secretary that it would be far better for the world if Ministers would leave practical statesmanship to a Cabinet of private secretaries. Palmerston, for so many years Foreign Minister, when temporarily in charge of the Colonial Office, introduced himself by asking for maps and demanded to be shown where the British Empire "is not." The Foreign Secretary who knew most about maps was probably Lord Curzon, but was he the most successful holder of that office? And is it not pretty nearly true that, in the long run, it is the permanent official who does the detailed work and the "eminent personage" who conceives the idea, right or wrong?
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19370917.2.50
Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 68, 17 September 1937, Page 9
Word Count
195IDEAL AND DETAIL Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 68, 17 September 1937, Page 9
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