A STEADYING INFLUENCE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 18 September 1929, Page 4

A STEADYING INFLUENCE

■"lt is tho permanent civil service that is the real conservative forco in our politics," writes Mr F. Kingsloy Grifliths, M.P., in the "Contemporary Bcview." "I am not imputing any party bias to these excellent officials, "but in all enduring institutions from churches to trade unions there is an official point of view, and nowhero is this so powerful as in tho working of tho British Tho permanent meets the temporary with no conscious resistance, but with far more subtle forco of preconceived ideas as to the correct order of things and the limits of useful action which aro rooted ill experience and cannot lightly bo dismissed as prejudice. Tho permanent has seen, to many new brooms arrive with tho determination to make a clean sweep, and depart after a, little perfunctory dusting. Like Browning's Ogniben be lias known tlirce-aud-twcnty leaders of revolts, and in tho newcomer ho envisages already the twenty-fourth. Up to a point this is a valuable feature in our politics. It preserves that holy-of-holics tho continuity of policy. But beyond that point it means stagnation."