THE REAL FORCE IN POLITICS.

Hokitika Guardian, 27 September 1929, Page 7

THE REAL FORCE IN POLITICS.

“It is the Permanent Civil Service that is the real conservative force in our politics” writes Mr F. Kingsley Griffiths, M.P., in the “Contemporary Review.” “I am not imputing any party bias to these excellent officials, out in all enduring institutions from churches to trade unions there is an omcial point of view, and nowhere is this so powerful a ( s in the working of the British Constitution'. The permanent meets the temporary with no conscious resistance, but with the far more subtle force of preconceived ideas as to mo correct order of things and the limits of useful action which are rooted in experience and cannot lightly be dismissed as prejudice. The permanent has seen so many new brooms arrive with the determination to make a clean sweep, and depart after a little perfunctory dusting. Like Browning's Ogniben lie lias known three-and-twentv leaders of revolts, and iu the newcomer he envisages already the twenty-fourth. Up to a point this is a valuable feature in our politics. It preserves that holy-of-holios the continuity of policy. But beyond that point it means stagnation.”