(Chapter III — Official Thought, Page 241)
A quantitative examination of the political force created by popular election shows the importance of the work of non-elected officials in any effective scheme of democracy.
What should be the relation between these officials and the elected representatives? On this point English opinion already shows a marked reaction from the intellectualist conception of representative government. We accept the fact that most state officials are appointed by a system uncontrolled either by individual members of parliament or by parliament as a whole, that they hold office during good behaviour, and that they are our main source of information as to some of the most difficult points on which we form political judgments. It is largely an accident that the same system has not been introduced into our local government.
But such a half-conscious acceptance of a partially independent Civil Service as an existing fact is not enough. We must set ourselves to realise clearly what we intend our officials to do, and to consider how far our present modes of appointment, and especially our present methods of organising official work, provide the most effective means for carrying out that intention.