mental consultations which take place before even a sample issue is decided are no doubt a preservative against hasty and ill-considered action, but they also have a tendency to weaken the feeling of personal responsibility. Moreover, the leading-strings which keep the average human being on the right path are a terrible hindrance to the efforts of the earnest reformer; the machine ends by absorbing the human elements that ought to work it, and operates in the direction of discouraging individuality and initiative. It would, therefore, be wholly unsuitable to the needs of a new country.
The Egyptian Administration is a plant of too recent growth to have contracted the defects which characterize bureaucracies of long standing. It has developed under the care of a few master-spirits, who have strongly impressed their individuality upon their work. The survival of the fittest is the brutal rule of Egyptian official life, and, indeed, as regards the English in the Egyptian service, such a rule was an absolute necessity. Their number being very limited, and the power of those in high position very considerable, whether for good or evil, it was essential to give very short shrift to those who were not efficient.
It may be objected that a system which requires specially-qualified men to work it stands self-condemned. Demand has, however, a tendency to create supply, and the present case has been no exception. Not only are young men of talent attracted to a service in which seniority plays second fiddle to merit, but the responsible nature of the work with which, from the first, they are entrusted, forms the character and develops the intelligence of those who can survive th6 test. They acquire experience while still young and active in mind and body, and are consequently less susceptible to what may be called the 'sleeping sickness' characteristic of bureaucracies in general. It follows that in the questions of importance that are dealt with by the higher officials routine and red-tape play a
