"Nature abhors a Vacuum," said Crupp, supporting me.

"Bailey's trained officials," suggested Gane.

"Quacks with a certificate of approval from Altiora," said Thorns.

"I admit the horrors of the alternative. There'd be a massacre in

three years."

"One may go on trying possibilities for ever," I said. "One thing

emerges. Whatever accidents happen, our civilisation needs, and

almostconsciously needs, a culture of fine creativeminds, and all

the necessary tolerances, opennesses, considerations, that march

with that. For my own part, Ithink that is the Most Vital Thing.

Build your ship ofstate as you will; get your men as you will; I

concentrate on what is clearly the affair of my sort of man,-I want

to ensure the quality of the quarter deck."

"Hear,hear!" said Shoesmith, suddenly-his first remark for a long

time. "A first-rate figure," said Shoesmith, gripping it.

"Our danger is in missing that," I went on. "Muddle isn't ended by

transferring power from the muddle-headed few to the muddle-headed

many, and then cheating the many out of it again in the interests of

a bureaucracy of sham experts. But that seems thelimit of the

liberal imagination. There is noreal progress in a country, except

a rise in the level of its free intellectual activity. All other

progress is secondary and dependant. If you take on Bailey'sdreams

of efficient machinery and a sort of fanatical discipline with no

free-moving brains behind it,confused ugliness becomes rigid

ugliness,-that's all. Nodoubt things are moving from looseness to

discipline, and from irresponsible controls to organised controls-

and also and rather contrariwise everything is becoming as people

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