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largest and the smallest sums.
Much further investigation remains to be done, but the final results,
when published, cannot fail to be of absorbing interest and of immediate
value to mankind. 32
THE LIFE CYCLE of the committee is so basic to our knowledge of current
affairs that it is surprising more attention has not been paid to the
science of comitology. The first and most elementary principle of this
science is that a committee is organic rather than mechanical in its nature:
it is not a structure but a plant. It takes root and grows, it flowers,
wilts, and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom
in their turn. Only those who bear this principle in mind can make real
headway in understanding the structure and history of modern government.
Committees, it is nowadays accepted, fall broadly into two categories,
those (a) from which the individual member has something to gain; and those
(b) to which the individual member merely has something to contribute.
Examples of the B group, however, are relatively unimportant for our
purpose; indeed some people doubt whether they are committees at all. It is
from the more robust A group that we can learn most readily the principles
which are common (with modifications) to all. Of the A group the most deeply
rooted and luxuriant committees are those which confer the most power and
prestige upon their members. 33 In most parts of the world these committees
are called "cabinets." This chapter is based on an extensive study of
national cabinets, over space and time.
When first examined under the microscope, the cabinet council usually
appears-- to comitologists, historians, and even to the people who appoint
cabinets-- to consist ideally of five. With that number the plant is viable,
allowing for two members to be absent or sick at any one time. Five members
are easy to collect and, when collected, can act with competence, secrecy,
and speed. Of these original members four may well be versed, respectively,
in finance, foreign policy, defense, and law. The fifth, who has failed to
master any of these subjects, usually becomes the chairman or prime
minister. 34
35 Whatever the apparent convenience might be of restricting the
membership to five, however, we discover by observation that the total
number soon rises to seven or nine. The usual excuse given for this
increase, which is almost invariable (exceptions being found, however, in
Luxembourg and Honduras), is the need for special knowledge on more than
four topics. In fact, however, there is another and more potent reason for
adding to the team. For in a cabinet of nine it will be found that policy is
made by three, information supplied by two, and financial warning uttered by
one. With the neutral chairman, that accounts for seven, the other two
appearing at first glance to be merely ornamental. This allocation of duties
was first noted in Britain in about 1639, but there can be no doubt that the
folly of including more than three able and talkative men in one committee
had been discovered long before then. We know little as yet about the
function of the two silent members but we have good reason to believe that a
cabinet, in this second stage of development, might be unworkable without
them.
There are cabinets in the world (those of Costa Rica, Ecuador, Northern
Ireland, Liberia, the Philippines, Uruguay, and Panama will at once be
called to mind) which have remained in this second stage-- that is, have
restricted their membership to nine. These remain, however, a small
minority. Elsewhere and in larger territories cabinets have generally been
subject to a law of growth. Other members come to be admitted, some with a
claim to special knowledge but more because of their nuisance value when
excluded. Their opposition can be silenced only by implicating them in every
decision that is made. As they 36 are brought in (and placated) one after
another, the total membership rises from ten toward twenty. In this third
stage of cabinets, there are already considerable drawbacks.
The most immediately obvious of these disadvantages is the difficulty
of assembling people at the same place, date, and time. One member is going
away on the 18th, whereas another does not return until the 21st. A third is
never free on Tuesdays, and a fourth never available before 5 P.M. But that
is only the beginning of the trouble, for, once most of them are collected,
there is a far greater chance of members proving to be elderly, tiresome,
inaudible, and deaf. Relatively few were chosen from any idea that they are
or could be or have ever been useful. A majority perhaps were brought in
merely to conciliate some outside group. Their tendency is therefore to
report what happens to the group they represent. All secrecy is lost and,
worst of all, members begin to prepare their speeches. They address the
meeting and tell their friends afterwards about what they imagine they have
said. But the more these merely representative members assert themselves,
the more loudly do other outside groups clamor for representation. Internal
parties form and seek to gain strength by further recruitment. The total of
twenty is reached and passed. And thereby, quite suddenly, the cabinet
enters the fourth and final stage of its history.
For at this point of cabinet development (between 20 and 22 members)
the whole committee suffers an abrupt organic or chemical change. The nature
of this change is easy to trace and comprehend. In the first place, the five
members who matter will have taken to meeting beforehand. With decisions
already reached, little remains for 37 the nominal executive to do. And, as
a consequence of this, all resistance to the committee's expansion comes to
an end. More members will not waste more time; for the whole meeting is, in
any case, a waste of time. So the pressure of outside groups is temporarily
satisfied by the admission of their representatives, and decades may elapse
before they realize how illusory their gain has been. With the doors wide
open, membership rises from 20 to 30, from 30 to 40. There may soon be an
instance of such a membership reaching the thousand mark. But this does not
matter. For the cabinet has already ceased to be a real cabinet, and has
been succeeded in its old functions by some other body.
Five times in English history the plant has moved through its life
cycle. It would admittedly be difficult to prove that the first incarnation
of the cabinet-- the English Council of the Crown, now called the House of
Lords-- ever had a membership as small as five. When we first hear of it,
indeed, its more intimate character had already been lost, with a hereditary
membership varying from 29 to 50. Its subsequent expansion, however, kept
pace with its loss of power. In round figures, it had 60 members in 1601,
140 in 1661, 220 in 1760, 400 in 1850, 650 in 1911, and 850 in 1952.
At what point in this progression did the inner committee appear in the
womb of the peerage? It appeared in about 1257, its members being called the
Lords of the King's Council and numbering less than 10. They numbered no
more than 11 in 1378, and as few still in 1410. Then, from the reign of
Henry V, they began to multiply. The 20 of 1433 had become the 41 of 1504,
the total reaching 172 before the council finally ceased to meet. 38
Within the King's Council there developed the cabinet's third
incarnation-- the Privy Council-- with an original membership of nine. It
rose to 20 in 1540, to 29 in 1547, and to 44 in 1558. The Privy Council as
it ceased to be effective increased proportionately in size. It had 47
members in 1679, 67 in 1723, 200 in 1902, and 300 in 1951.
Within the Privy Council there developed the junto or Cabinet Council,
which effectively superseded the former in about 1615. Numbering 8 when we
first hear of it, its members had come to number 12 by about 1700, and 20 by
1725. The Cabinet Council was then superseded in about 1740 by an inner
group, since called simply the Cabinet. Its development is best studied in
tabular form. This is shown in Table I.
TABLE I-- GROWTH OF THE ENGLISH CABINET
From 1939, it will be apparent, there has been a struggle to save this
institution; a struggle similar to the attempts made to save the Privy
Council during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The Cabinet appeared to be in
its decline in 1940, with an inner cabinet (of 5, 7, or 9 members) ready to
take its place. The issue, however, remains in doubt. It is just possible
that the British cabinet is still an important body.
Compared with the cabinet of Britain, the cabinet of the 39 United
States has shown an extraordinary resistance to political inflation. It had
the appropriate number of 5 members in 1789, still only 7 by 1840, 9 by
1901, 10 by 1913, 11 by 1945, and then-- against tradition-- had come down
to 10 again by 1953. Whether this attempt, begun in 1947, to restrict the
membership will succeed for long is doubtful. All experience would suggest
the inevitability of the previous trend. In the meanwhile, the United States
enjoys (with Guatemala and El Salvador) a reputation for
cabinet-exclusiveness, having actually fewer cabinet ministers than
Nicaragua or Paraguay.
TABLE II - SIZE OF CABINETS
How do other countries compare in this respect? The majority of
non-totalitarian countries have cabinets that number between 12 and 20
members. Taking the average 40 of over 60 countries, we find that it comes
to over 16; the most popular numbers are 15 (seven instances) and 9 (seven
again). Easily the queerest cabinet is that of New Zealand, one member of
which has to be announced as "Minister of Lands, Minister of Forests,
Minister of Maori Affairs, Minister in charge of Maori Trust Office and of
Scenery Preservation." The toastmaster at a New Zealand banquet must be
equally ready to crave silence for "The Minister of Health, Minister
Assistant to the Prime Minister, Minister in Charge of State Advances
Corporation, Census, and Statistics Department, Public Trust Office and
Publicity and Information." In other lands this oriental profusion is
fortunately rare.
A study of the British example would suggest that the point of
ineffectiveness in a cabinet is reached when the total membership exceeds 20
or perhaps 21. The Council of the Crown, the King's Council, the Privy
Council had each passed the 20 mark when their decline began. The present
British cabinet is just short of that number now, having recoiled from the
abyss. We might be tempted to conclude from this that cabinets-- or other
committees -- with a membership in excess of 21 are losing the reality of
power and that those with a larger membership have already lost it. No such
theory can be tenable, however, without statistical proof. Table II on the
preceding page attempts to furnish part of it.
Should we be justified in drawing a line in that table under the name
of France (21 cabinet members) with an explanatory note to say that the
cabinet is not the real power in countries shown below that line? Some
comitologists would accept that conclusion without further 41 research.
Others emphasize the need for careful investigation, more especially around
the borderline of 21. But that the coefficient of inefficiency must lie
between 19 and 22 is now very generally agreed.
What tentative explanation can we offer for this hypothesis? Here we
must distinguish sharply between fact and theory, between the symptom and
the disease. About the most obvious symptom there is little disagreement. It
is known that with over 20 members present a meeting begins to change
character. Conversations develop separately at either end of the table. To
make himself heard, the member has therefore to rise. Once on his feet, he
cannot help making a speech, if only from force of habit. "Mr. Chairman," he
will begin, "I think I may assert without fear of contradiction-- and I am
speaking now from twenty-five (I might almost say twenty-seven) years of
experience-- that we must view this matter in the gravest light. A heavy
responsibility rests upon us, sir, and I for one..." Amid all this drivel
the useful men present, if there are any, exchange little notes that read,
"Lunch with me tomorrow-- we'll fix it then."
What else can they do? The voice drones on interminably. The orator
might just as well be talking in his sleep. The committee of which he is the
most useless member has ceased to matter. It is finished. It is hopeless. It
is dead.
So much is certain. But the root cause of the trouble goes deeper and
has still, in part, to be explored. Too many vital factors are unknown. What
is the shape and size of the table? What is the average age of those
present? At what hour does the committee meet? In a book for the 42
non-specialist it would be absurd to repeat the calculations by which the
first and tentative coefficient of inefficiency has been reached. It should
be enough to state that prolonged research at the Institute of Comitology
has given rise to a formula which is now widely (although not universally)
accepted by the experts in this field. It should perhaps be explained that
the investigators assumed a temperate climate, leather-padded chairs and a
high level of sobriety. On this basis, the formula is as follows:
x=(mo(a-d))/(y+p b1/2)
Where m = the average number of members actually present; o = the number of
members influenced by outside pressure groups; a = the average age of the
members; d = the distance in centimeters between the two members who are
seated farthest from each other; y = the number of years since the cabinet
or committee was first formed; p = the patience of the chairman, as measured
on the Peabody scale; b = the average blood pressure of the three oldest
members, taken shortly before the time of meeting. Then x = the number of
members effectively present at the moment when the efficient working of the
cabinet or other committee has become manifestly impossible. This is the
coefficient of inefficiency and it is found to lie between 19.9 and 22.4.
(The decimals represent partial attendance; those absent for a part of the
meeting.)
It would be unsound to conclude, from a cursory inspection of this
equation that the science of comitology is in an advanced state of
development. Comitologists and subcomitologists would make no such claim, if
only from 43 fear of unemployment. They emphasize, rather, that their
studies have barely begun and that they are on the brink of astounding
progress. Making every allowance for self-interest-- which means discounting
90 per cent of what they say-- we can safely assume that much work remains
to do.
We should eventually be able, for example, to learn the formula by
which the optimum number of committee members may be determined. Somewhere
between the number of 3 (when a quorum is impossible to collect) and
approximately 21 (when the whole organism begins to perish), there lies the
golden number. The interesting theory has been propounded that this number
must be 8. Why? Because it is the only number which all existing states (See
Table II above) have agreed to avoid. Attractive as this theory may seem at
first sight, it is open to one serious objection. Eight was the number
preferred by King Charles I for his Committee of State. And look what
happened to him! 44
A PROBLEM constantly before the modern administration, whether in
government or business, is that of personnel selection. The inexorable
working of Parkinson's Law ensures that appointments have constantly to be
made and the question is always how to choose the right candidate from all
who present themselves. In ascertaining the principles upon which the choice
should be made, we may properly consider, under separate heads, the methods
used in the past and the methods used at the present day.
Past methods, not entirely disused, fall into two main categories, the
British and the Chinese. Both deserve careful consideration, if only for the
reason that they were obviously more successful than any method now
considered fashionable. The British method (old pattern) depended upon an
interview in which the candidate had to establish his identity. He would be
confronted by elderly gentlemen seated round a mahogany table who would
presently ask him his name. Let us suppose that the candidate replied, "John
Seymour." One of the gentlemen would then say, "Any relation of the Duke of
Somerset?" To this the candidate would say, quite possibly, "No, sir." Then
another 45 gentleman would say, "Perhaps you are related, in that case, to
the Bishop of Watminster?" If he said "No, sir" again, a third would ask in
despair, "To whom then are you related?" In the event of the candidate's
saying, "Well, my father is a fishmonger in Cheapside," the interview was
virtually over. The members of the Board would exchange significant glances,
one would press a bell and another tell the footman, "Throw this person
out." One name could be crossed off the list without further discussion.
Supposing the next candidate was Henry Molyneux and a nephew of the Earl of
Sefton, his chances remained fair up to the moment when George Howard
arrived and proved to be a grandson of the Duke of Norfolk. The Board
encountered no serious difficulty until they had to compare the claims of
the third son of a baronet with the second but illegitimate son of a
viscount. Even then they could refer to a Book of Precedence. So their
choice was made and often with the best results.
The Admiralty version of this British method (old pattern) was
different only in its more restricted scope. The Board of Admirals were
unimpressed by titled relatives as such. What they sought to establish was a
service connection. The ideal candidate would reply to the second question,
"Yes, Admiral Parker is my uncle. My father is Captain Foley, my grandfather
Commodore Foley. My mother's father was Admiral Hardy. Commander Hardy is my
uncle. My eldest brother is a Lieutenant in the Royal Marines, my next
brother is a cadet at Dartmouth and my younger brother wears a sailor suit."
"Ah!" the senior Admiral would say. "And what made you think of joining the
Navy?" The answer to this question, however, would 46 47 scarcely matter,
the clerk present having already noted the candidate as acceptable. Given a
choice between two candidates, both equally acceptable by birth, a member of
the Board would ask suddenly, "What was the number of the taxi you came in?"
The candidate who said "I came by bus" was then thrown out. The candidate
who said, truthfully, "I don't know," was rejected, and the candidate who
said "Number 2351" (lying) was promptly admitted to the service as a boy
with initiative. This method often produced excellent results.
The British method (new pattern) was evolved in the late nineteenth
century as something more suitable for a democratic country. The Selection
Committee would ask briskly, "What school were you at?" and would be told
Harrow, Haileybury, or, Rugby, as the case might be. "What games do you
play?" would be the next and invariable question. A promising candidate
would reply, "I have played tennis for England, cricket for Yorkshire, rugby
for the Harlequins, and fives for Winchester." The next question would then
be "Do you play polo?"-- just to prevent the candidate's thinking too highly
of himself. Even without playing polo, however, he was evidently worth
serious consideration. Little time, by contrast, was wasted on the man who
admitted to having been educated at Wiggleworth. "Where?" the chairman would
ask in astonishment, and "Where's that?" after the name had been repeated.
"Oh, in Lancashire!" he would say at last. Just for a matter of form, some
member might ask, "What games do you play?" But the reply "Table tennis for
Wigan, cycling for Blackpool, and snooker for Wiggleworth" would finally
delete his name from the list. There might even 48 be some muttered comment
upon people who deliberately wasted the committee's time. Here again was a
method which produced good results.
The Chinese method (old pattern) was at one time so extensively copied
by other nations that few people realize its Chinese origin. This is the
method of Competitive Written Examination. In China under the Ming Dynasty
the more promising students used to sit for the provincial examination, held
every third year. It lasted three sessions of three days each. During the
first session the candidate wrote three essays and composed a poem of eight
couplets. During the second session he wrote five essays on a classical
theme. During the third, he wrote five essays on the art of government. The
successful candidates (perhaps two per cent) then sat for their final
examination at the imperial capital. It lasted only one session, the
candidate writing one essay on a current political problem. Of those who
were successful the majority were admitted to the civil service, the man
with the highest marks being destined for the highest office. The system
worked fairly well.
The Chinese system was studied by Europeans between 1815 and 1830 and
adopted by the English East India Company in 1832. The effectiveness of this
method was investigated by a committee in 1854, with Macaulay as chairman.
The result was that the system of competitive examination was introduced
into the British Civil Service in 1855. An essential feature of the Chinese
examinations had been their literary character. The test was in a knowledge
of the classics, in an ability to write elegantly (both prose and verse) and
in the stamina necessary to complete the course. All these features were
faithfully incorporated in 49 the Trevelyan-Northcote Report, and thereafter
in the system it did so much to create. It was assumed that classical
learning and literary ability would fit any candidate for any administrative
post. It was assumed (no doubt rightly) that a scientific education would
fit a candidate for nothing-- except, possibly, science. It was known,
finally, that it is virtually impossible to find an order of merit among
people who have been examined in different subjects. Since it is
impracticable to decide whether one man is better in geology than another
man in physics, it is at least convenient to be able to rule them both out
as useless. When all candidates alike have to write Greek or Latin verse, it
is relatively easy to decide which verse is the best. Men thus selected on
their classical performance were then sent forth to govern India. Those with
lower marks were retained to govern England. Those with still lower marks
were rejected altogether or sent to the colonies. While it would be totally
wrong to describe this system as a failure, no one could claim for it the
success that had attended the systems hitherto in use. There was no
guarantee, to begin with, that the man with the highest marks might not turn
out to be off his head; as was sometimes found to be the case. Then again
the writing of Greek verse might prove to be the sole accomplishment that
some candidates had or would ever have. On occasion, a successful applicant
may even have been impersonated at the examination by someone else,
subsequently proving unable to write Greek verse when the occasion arose.
Selection by competitive examination was never therefore more than a
moderate success.
Whatever the faults, however, of the competitive written examination,
it certainly produced better results than any 50 method that has been
attempted since. Modern methods center upon the intelligence test and the
psychological interview. The defect in the intelligence test is that high
marks are gained by those who subsequently prove to be practically
illiterate. So much time has been spent in studying the art of being tested
that the candidate has rarely had time for anything else. The psychological
interview has developed today into what is known as ordeal by house party.
The candidates spend a pleasant weekend under expert observation. As one of
them trips over the doormat and says "Bother!" examiners lurking in the
background whip out their notebooks and jot down, "Poor physical
coordination" and "Lacks self-control." There is no need to describe this
method in detail, but its results are all about us and are obviously
deplorable. The persons who satisfy this type of examiner are usually of a
cautious and suspicious temperament, pedantic and smug, saying little and
doing nothing. It is quite common, when appointments are made by this
method, for one man to be chosen from five hundred applicants, only to be
sacked a few weeks later as useless even beyond the standards of his
department. Of the various methods of selection so far tried, the latest is
unquestionably the worst.
What method should be used in the future? A clue to a possible line of
investigation is to be found in one little-publicized aspect of contemporary
selective technique. So rarely does the occasion arise for appointing a
Chinese translator to the Foreign Office or State Department that the method
used is little known. The post is advertised and the applications go, let us
suppose, to a committee of five. Three are civil servants and two are
Chinese scholars 51 of great eminence. Heaped on the table before this
committee are 483 forms of application, with testimonials attached. All the
applicants are Chinese and all without exception have a first degree from
Peking or Amoy and a Doctorate of Philosophy from Cornell or Johns Hopkins.
The majority of the candidates have at one time held ministerial office in
Formosa. Some have attached their photographs. Others have (perhaps wisely)
refrained from doing so. The chairman turns to the leading Chinese expert
and says, "Perhaps Dr. Wu can tell us which of these candidates should be
put on the short list." Dr. Wu smiles enigmatically and points to the heap.
"None of them any good," he says briefly. "But how-- I mean, why not?" asks
the chairman, surprised. "Because no good scholar would ever apply. He would
fear to lose face if he were not chosen." "So what do we do now?" asks the
chairman. "I think," says Dr. Wu, "we might persuade Dr. Lim to take this
post. What do you think. Dr. Lee?" "Yes, I think he might," says Lee, "but
we couldn't approach him ourselves of course. We could ask Dr. Tan whether
he thinks Dr. Lim would be interested." "I don't know Dr. Tan," says Wu,
"but I know his friend Dr. Wong." By then the chairman is too muddled to
know who is to be approached by whom. But the great thing is that all the
applications are thrown into the waste-paper basket, only one candidate
being considered, and he a man who did not apply.
We do not advise the universal adoption of the modern Chinese method
but we draw from it the useful conclusion that the failure of other methods
is mainly due to there being too many candidates. There are, admittedly,
some initial steps by which the total may be reduced. The 52 formula "Reject
everyone over 50 or under 20 plus everyone called Murphy" is now universally
used, and its application will somewhat reduce the list. The names remaining
will still, however, be too numerous. To choose between three hundred
people, all well qualified and highly recommended, is not really possible.
We are driven therefore to conclude that the mistake lies in the original
advertisement. It has attracted too many applications. The disadvantage of
this is so little realized that people devise advertisements in terms which
will inevitably attract thousands. A post of responsibility is announced as
vacant, the previous occupant being now in the Senate or the House of Lords.
The salary is large, the pension generous, the duties nominal, the
privileges immense, the perquisites valuable, free residence provided with
official car and unlimited facilities for travel. Candidates should apply,
promptly but carefully, enclosing copies (not originals) of not more than
three recent testimonials. What is the result? A deluge of applications,
many from lunatics and as many again from retired army majors with a gift
(as they always claim) for handling men. There is nothing to do except burn
the lot and start thinking all over again. It would have saved time and
trouble to do some thinking in the first place.
Only a little thought is needed to convince us that the perfect
advertisement would attract only one reply and that from the right man. Let
us begin with an extreme example.
Wanted-- Acrobat capable of crossing a slack wire 200 feet above raging
furnace. Twice nightly, three times on Saturday. 53 Salary offered
&sterling;25 (or $70 U.S.) per week. No pension and no compensation in the
event of injury. Apply in person at Wildcat Circus between the hours of 9
A.M. and 10 A.M.
The wording of this may not be perfect but the aim should be so to
balance the inducement in salary against the possible risks involved that
only a single applicant will appear. It is needless to ask for details of
qualifications and experience. No one unskilled on the slack wire would find
the offer attractive. It is needless to insist that candidates should be
physically fit, sober, and free from fits of dizziness. They know that. It
is just as needless to stipulate that those nervous of heights need not
apply. They won't. The skill of the advertiser consists in adjusting the
salary to the danger. An offer of &sterling;1000 (or $3000 U.S.) per week
might produce a dozen applicants. An offer of &sterling;15 (or $35 U.S.)
might produce none. Somewhere between those two figures lies the exact sum
to specify, the minimum figure to attract anyone actually capable of doing
the job. If there is more than one applicant, the figure has been placed a
trifle too high.
Let us now take, for comparison, a less extreme example.
Wanted-- An archaeologist with high academic qualifications willing to spend
fifteen years in excavating the Inca tombs at Helsdump on the Alligator
River. Knighthood or equivalent honor guaranteed. Pension payable but never
yet claimed. Salary of &sterling;2000 (or $6000 U.S.) per year. Apply in
triplicate to the Director of the Grubbenburrow Institute, Sickdale, Ill.,
U.S.A.
Here the advantages and drawbacks are neatly balanced. There is no need
to insist that candidates must be patient, 54 tough, intrepid, and single.
The terms of the advertisement have eliminated all who are not. It is
unnecessary to require that candidates must be mad on excavating tombs. Mad
is just what they will certainly be. Having thus reduced the possible
applicants to a maximum of about three, the terms of the advertisement place
the salary just too low to attract two of them and the promised honor just
high enough to interest the third. We may suppose that, in this case, the
offer of a K.C.M.G. would have produced two applications, the offer of an
O.B.E., none. The result is a single candidate. He is off his head but that
does not matter. He is the man we want.
It may be thought that the world offers comparatively few opportunities
to appoint slack-wire acrobats and tomb excavators, and that the problem is
more often to find candidates for less exotic appointments. This is true,
but the same principles can be applied. Their application demands, however--
as is evident-- a greater degree of skill. Let us suppose that the post to
be filled is that of Prime Minister. The modern tendency is to trust in
various methods of election, with results that are almost invariably
disastrous. Were we to turn, instead, to the fairy stories we learned in
childhood, we should realize that at the period to which these stories
relate far more satisfactory methods were in use. When the king had to
choose a man to marry his eldest or only daughter and so inherit the
kingdom, he normally planned some obstacle course from which only the right
candidate would emerge with credit; and from which indeed (in many
instances) only the right candidate would emerge at all. For imposing such a
test the kings of that rather vaguely defined period were well provided with
55 both personnel and equipment. Their establishment included magicians,
demons, fairies, vampires, werewolves, giants, and dwarfs. Their territories
were supplied with magic mountains, rivers of fire, hidden treasures, and
enchanted forests. It might be urged that modern governments are in this
respect less fortunate. This, however, is by no means certain. An
administrator able to command the services of psychologists, psychiatrists,
alienists, statisticians, and efficiency experts is not perhaps in a worse
(or better) position than one relying upon hideous crones and fairy
godmothers. An administration equipped with movie cameras, television
apparatus, radio networks, and X-ray machines would not appear to be in a
worse (or better) position than one employing magic wands, crystal balls,
wishing wells, and cloaks of invisibility. Their means of assessment would
seem, at any rate, to be strictly comparable. All that is required is to
translate the technique of the fairy story into a form applicable to the
modern world. In this, as we shall see, there is no essential difficulty.
The first step in the process is to decide on the qualities a Prime Minister
ought to have. These need not be the same in all circumstances, but they
need to be listed and agreed upon. Let us suppose that the qualities deemed
essential are (i) Energy, (2) Courage, (3) Patriotism, (4) Experience, (5)
Popularity, and (6) Eloquence. Now, it will be observed that all these are
general-qualities which all possible applicants would believe themselves to
possess. The field could readily, of course, be narrowed by stipulating (4)
Experience of lion-taming, or (6) Eloquence in Mandarin. But that is not the
way in which we want to narrow the field. We do not want to stipulate a
quality in a 56 special form; rather, each quality in an exceptional degree.
In other words, the successful candidate must be the most energetic,
courageous, patriotic, experienced, popular, and eloquent man in the
country. Only one man can answer to that description and his is the only
application we want. The terms of the appointment must thus be phrased so as
to exclude everyone else. We should therefore word the advertisement in some
such way as follows:
Wanted-- Prime Minister of Ruritania. Hours of work: 4 A.M. to 11.59 P.M.
Candidates must be prepared to fight three rounds with the current
heavyweight champion (regulation gloves to be worn). Candidates will die for
their country, by painless means, on reaching the age of retirement (65).
They will have to pass an examination in parliamentary procedure and will be
liquidated should they fail to obtain 95% marks. They will also be
liquidated if they fail to gain 75% votes in a popularity poll held under
the Gallup Rules. They will finally be invited to try their eloquence on a
Baptist Congress, the object being to induce those present to rock and roll.
Those who fail will be liquidated. All candidates should present themselves
at the Sporting Club (side entrance) at 11.15 A.M. on the morning of
September 19. Gloves will be provided, but they should bring their own
rubber-soled shoes, singlet, and shorts.
Observe that this advertisement saves all trouble about application
forms, testimonials, photographs, references, and short lists. If the
advertisement has been correctly worded, there will be only one applicant,
and he can take office immediately-- well, almost immediately. But what if
there is no applicant? That is proof that the advertisement 57 needs
rewording. We have evidently asked for something more than exists. So the
same advertisement (which is, after all, quite economical in space) can be
inserted again with some slight adjustment. The pass mark in the examination
can be reduced to 85 per cent with 65 per cent of the votes required in the
popularity poll, and only two rounds against the heavyweight. Conditions can
be successively relaxed, indeed, until an applicant appears.
Suppose, however, that two or even three candidates present themselves.
We shall know that we have been insufficiently scientific. It may be that
the pass mark in the examination has been too abruptly lowered-- it should
have been 87 per cent, perhaps, with 66 per cent in the popularity poll.
Whatever the cause, the damage has been done. Two, or possibly three,
candidates are in the waiting room. We have a choice to make and cannot
waste all the morning on it. One policy would be to start the ordeal and
eliminate the candidates who emerge with least credit. There is,
nevertheless, a quicker way. Let us assume that all three candidates have
all the qualities already defined as essential. The only thing we need do is
add one further quality and apply the simplest test of all. To do this, we
ask the nearest young lady (receptionist or stenographer, as the case may
be), "Which would you prefer?" She will promptly point out one of the
candidates and so finish the matter. It has been objected that this
procedure is the same thing as tossing a coin or otherwise letting chance
decide. There is, in fact, no element of chance. It is merely the
last-minute insistence on one other quality, one not so far taken into
account: the quality of sex appeal. 58
EVERY STUDENT of human institutions is familiar with the standard test
by which the importance of the individual may be assessed. The number of
doors to be passed, the number of his personal assistants, the number of his
telephone receivers-- these three figures, taken with the depth of his
carpet in centimeters, have given us a simple formula that is reliable for
most parts of the world. It is less widely known that the same sort of
measurement is applicable, but in reverse, to the institution itself.
Take, for example, a publishing organization. Publishers have a strong
tendency, as we know, to live in a state of chaotic squalor. The visitor who
applies at the obvious entrance is led outside and around the block, down an
alley and up three flights of stairs. A research establishment is similarly
housed, as a rule, on the ground floor of what was once a private house, a
crazy wooden corridor leading thence to a corrugated iron hut in what was
once the garden. Are we not all familiar, moreover, with the layout of an
international airport? As we emerge from the aircraft, we see (over to our
right or left) a lofty structure wrapped in scaffolding. Then the air
hostess leads us into 59 a hut with an asbestos roof. Nor do we suppose for
a moment that it will ever be otherwise. By the time the permanent building
is complete the airfield will have been moved to another site.
The institutions already mentioned-- lively and productive as they may
be-- flourish in such shabby and makeshift surroundings that we might turn
with relief to an institution clothed from the outset with convenience and
dignity. The outer door, in bronze and glass, is placed centrally in a
symmetrical facade. Polished shoes glide quietly over shining rubber to the
glittering and silent elevator. The overpoweringly cultured receptionist
will murmer with carmine lips into an ice-blue receiver. She will wave you
into a chromium armchair, consoling you with a dazzling smile for any slight
but inevitable delay. Looking up from a glossy magazine, you will observe
how the wide corridors radiate toward departments A, B, and C. From behind
closed doors will come the subdued noise of an ordered activity. A minute
later and you are ankle deep in the director's carpet, plodding sturdily
toward his distant, tidy desk. Hypnotized by the chief's unwavering stare,
cowed by the Matisse hung upon his wall, you will feel that you have found
real efficiency at last.
In point of fact you will have discovered nothing of the kind. It is
now known that a perfection of planned layout is achieved only by
institutions on the point of collapse. This apparently paradoxical
conclusion is based upon a wealth of archaeological and historical research,
with the more esoteric details of which we need not concern ourselves. In
general principle, however, the method pursued has been to select and date
the buildings which appear 60 to have been perfectly designed for their
purpose. A study and comparison of these has tended to prove that perfection
of planning is a symptom of decay. During a period of exciting discovery or
progress there is no time to plan the perfect headquarters. The time for
that comes later, when all the important work has been done. Perfection, we
know, is finality; and finality is death.
Thus, to the casual tourist, awestruck in front of St. Peter's, Rome,
the Basilica and the Vatican must seem the ideal setting for the Papal
Monarchy at the very height of its prestige and power. Here, he reflects,
must Innocent III have thundered his anathema. Here must Gregory VII have
laid down the law. But a glance at the guidebook will convince the traveler
that the really powerful Popes reigned long before the present dome was
raised, and reigned not infrequently somewhere else. More than that, the
later Popes lost half their authority while the work was still in progress.
Julius II, whose decision it was to build, and Leo X, who approved Raphael's
design, were dead long before the buildings assumed their present shape.
Bramante's palace was still building until 1565, the great church not
consecrated until 1626, nor the piazza colonnades finished until 1667. The
great days of the Papacy were over before the perfect setting was even
planned. They were almost forgotten by the date of its completion.
That this sequence of events is in no way exceptional can be proved
with ease. Just such a sequence can be found in the history of the League of
Nations. Great hopes centered on the League from its inception in 1920 until
about 1930. By 1933, at the latest, the experiment was seen to have failed.
Its physical embodiment, however, the Palace 61 62 of the Nations, was not
opened until 1937. It was a structure no doubt justly admired. Deep thought
had gone into the design of secretariat and council chambers, committee
rooms and cafeteria. Everything was there which ingenuity could devise--
except, indeed, the League itself. By the year when its Palace was formally
opened the League had practically ceased to exist.
It might be urged that the Palace of Versailles is an instance of
something quite opposite; the architectural embodiment of Louis XIV's
Much further investigation remains to be done, but the final results,
when published, cannot fail to be of absorbing interest and of immediate
value to mankind. 32
THE LIFE CYCLE of the committee is so basic to our knowledge of current
affairs that it is surprising more attention has not been paid to the
science of comitology. The first and most elementary principle of this
science is that a committee is organic rather than mechanical in its nature:
it is not a structure but a plant. It takes root and grows, it flowers,
wilts, and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom
in their turn. Only those who bear this principle in mind can make real
headway in understanding the structure and history of modern government.
Committees, it is nowadays accepted, fall broadly into two categories,
those (a) from which the individual member has something to gain; and those
(b) to which the individual member merely has something to contribute.
Examples of the B group, however, are relatively unimportant for our
purpose; indeed some people doubt whether they are committees at all. It is
from the more robust A group that we can learn most readily the principles
which are common (with modifications) to all. Of the A group the most deeply
rooted and luxuriant committees are those which confer the most power and
prestige upon their members. 33 In most parts of the world these committees
are called "cabinets." This chapter is based on an extensive study of
national cabinets, over space and time.
When first examined under the microscope, the cabinet council usually
appears-- to comitologists, historians, and even to the people who appoint
cabinets-- to consist ideally of five. With that number the plant is viable,
allowing for two members to be absent or sick at any one time. Five members
are easy to collect and, when collected, can act with competence, secrecy,
and speed. Of these original members four may well be versed, respectively,
in finance, foreign policy, defense, and law. The fifth, who has failed to
master any of these subjects, usually becomes the chairman or prime
minister. 34
35 Whatever the apparent convenience might be of restricting the
membership to five, however, we discover by observation that the total
number soon rises to seven or nine. The usual excuse given for this
increase, which is almost invariable (exceptions being found, however, in
Luxembourg and Honduras), is the need for special knowledge on more than
four topics. In fact, however, there is another and more potent reason for
adding to the team. For in a cabinet of nine it will be found that policy is
made by three, information supplied by two, and financial warning uttered by
one. With the neutral chairman, that accounts for seven, the other two
appearing at first glance to be merely ornamental. This allocation of duties
was first noted in Britain in about 1639, but there can be no doubt that the
folly of including more than three able and talkative men in one committee
had been discovered long before then. We know little as yet about the
function of the two silent members but we have good reason to believe that a
cabinet, in this second stage of development, might be unworkable without
them.
There are cabinets in the world (those of Costa Rica, Ecuador, Northern
Ireland, Liberia, the Philippines, Uruguay, and Panama will at once be
called to mind) which have remained in this second stage-- that is, have
restricted their membership to nine. These remain, however, a small
minority. Elsewhere and in larger territories cabinets have generally been
subject to a law of growth. Other members come to be admitted, some with a
claim to special knowledge but more because of their nuisance value when
excluded. Their opposition can be silenced only by implicating them in every
decision that is made. As they 36 are brought in (and placated) one after
another, the total membership rises from ten toward twenty. In this third
stage of cabinets, there are already considerable drawbacks.
The most immediately obvious of these disadvantages is the difficulty
of assembling people at the same place, date, and time. One member is going
away on the 18th, whereas another does not return until the 21st. A third is
never free on Tuesdays, and a fourth never available before 5 P.M. But that
is only the beginning of the trouble, for, once most of them are collected,
there is a far greater chance of members proving to be elderly, tiresome,
inaudible, and deaf. Relatively few were chosen from any idea that they are
or could be or have ever been useful. A majority perhaps were brought in
merely to conciliate some outside group. Their tendency is therefore to
report what happens to the group they represent. All secrecy is lost and,
worst of all, members begin to prepare their speeches. They address the
meeting and tell their friends afterwards about what they imagine they have
said. But the more these merely representative members assert themselves,
the more loudly do other outside groups clamor for representation. Internal
parties form and seek to gain strength by further recruitment. The total of
twenty is reached and passed. And thereby, quite suddenly, the cabinet
enters the fourth and final stage of its history.
For at this point of cabinet development (between 20 and 22 members)
the whole committee suffers an abrupt organic or chemical change. The nature
of this change is easy to trace and comprehend. In the first place, the five
members who matter will have taken to meeting beforehand. With decisions
already reached, little remains for 37 the nominal executive to do. And, as
a consequence of this, all resistance to the committee's expansion comes to
an end. More members will not waste more time; for the whole meeting is, in
any case, a waste of time. So the pressure of outside groups is temporarily
satisfied by the admission of their representatives, and decades may elapse
before they realize how illusory their gain has been. With the doors wide
open, membership rises from 20 to 30, from 30 to 40. There may soon be an
instance of such a membership reaching the thousand mark. But this does not
matter. For the cabinet has already ceased to be a real cabinet, and has
been succeeded in its old functions by some other body.
Five times in English history the plant has moved through its life
cycle. It would admittedly be difficult to prove that the first incarnation
of the cabinet-- the English Council of the Crown, now called the House of
Lords-- ever had a membership as small as five. When we first hear of it,
indeed, its more intimate character had already been lost, with a hereditary
membership varying from 29 to 50. Its subsequent expansion, however, kept
pace with its loss of power. In round figures, it had 60 members in 1601,
140 in 1661, 220 in 1760, 400 in 1850, 650 in 1911, and 850 in 1952.
At what point in this progression did the inner committee appear in the
womb of the peerage? It appeared in about 1257, its members being called the
Lords of the King's Council and numbering less than 10. They numbered no
more than 11 in 1378, and as few still in 1410. Then, from the reign of
Henry V, they began to multiply. The 20 of 1433 had become the 41 of 1504,
the total reaching 172 before the council finally ceased to meet. 38
Within the King's Council there developed the cabinet's third
incarnation-- the Privy Council-- with an original membership of nine. It
rose to 20 in 1540, to 29 in 1547, and to 44 in 1558. The Privy Council as
it ceased to be effective increased proportionately in size. It had 47
members in 1679, 67 in 1723, 200 in 1902, and 300 in 1951.
Within the Privy Council there developed the junto or Cabinet Council,
which effectively superseded the former in about 1615. Numbering 8 when we
first hear of it, its members had come to number 12 by about 1700, and 20 by
1725. The Cabinet Council was then superseded in about 1740 by an inner
group, since called simply the Cabinet. Its development is best studied in
tabular form. This is shown in Table I.
TABLE I-- GROWTH OF THE ENGLISH CABINET
| 1740 | 5 | 1885 | 16 | 1945 | 16 |
| 1784 | 7 | 1900 | 20 | 1945 | 20 |
| 1801 | 12 | 1915 | 22 | 1949 | 17 |
| 1841 | 14 | 1935 | 22 | 1954 | 18 |
| 1939 | 23 |
From 1939, it will be apparent, there has been a struggle to save this
institution; a struggle similar to the attempts made to save the Privy
Council during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The Cabinet appeared to be in
its decline in 1940, with an inner cabinet (of 5, 7, or 9 members) ready to
take its place. The issue, however, remains in doubt. It is just possible
that the British cabinet is still an important body.
Compared with the cabinet of Britain, the cabinet of the 39 United
States has shown an extraordinary resistance to political inflation. It had
the appropriate number of 5 members in 1789, still only 7 by 1840, 9 by
1901, 10 by 1913, 11 by 1945, and then-- against tradition-- had come down
to 10 again by 1953. Whether this attempt, begun in 1947, to restrict the
membership will succeed for long is doubtful. All experience would suggest
the inevitability of the previous trend. In the meanwhile, the United States
enjoys (with Guatemala and El Salvador) a reputation for
cabinet-exclusiveness, having actually fewer cabinet ministers than
Nicaragua or Paraguay.
TABLE II - SIZE OF CABINETS
| No. of Members | |
6 | Honduras, Luxembourg |
| 7 | Haiti, Iceland, Switzerland |
| 9 | Costa Rica, Ecuador, N. Ireland, Liberia, Panama, Philippines, Uruguay |
| 10 | Guatemala, El Salvador, United States |
| 11 | Brazil, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Paraguay |
| 12 | Bolivia, Chile, Peru |
| 13 | Colombia, Dominican R., Norway, Thailand |
| 14 | Denmark, India, S. Africa, Sweden |
| 15 | Austria, Belgium, Finland, Iran, New Zealand, Portugal, Venezuela |
16 | Iraq, Netherlands, Turkey |
| 17 | Eire, Israel, Spain |
| 18 | Egypt, Gt. Britain, Mexico |
| 19 | W. Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Italy |
| 20 | Australia, Formosa, Japan |
21 | Argentina, Burma, Canada, France |
| 22 | China |
| 24 | E. Germany |
| 26 | Bulgaria |
| 27 | Cuba |
| 29 | Rumania |
| 32 | Czechoslovakia |
| 35 | Yugoslavia |
| 38 | USSR |
How do other countries compare in this respect? The majority of
non-totalitarian countries have cabinets that number between 12 and 20
members. Taking the average 40 of over 60 countries, we find that it comes
to over 16; the most popular numbers are 15 (seven instances) and 9 (seven
again). Easily the queerest cabinet is that of New Zealand, one member of
which has to be announced as "Minister of Lands, Minister of Forests,
Minister of Maori Affairs, Minister in charge of Maori Trust Office and of
Scenery Preservation." The toastmaster at a New Zealand banquet must be
equally ready to crave silence for "The Minister of Health, Minister
Assistant to the Prime Minister, Minister in Charge of State Advances
Corporation, Census, and Statistics Department, Public Trust Office and
Publicity and Information." In other lands this oriental profusion is
fortunately rare.
A study of the British example would suggest that the point of
ineffectiveness in a cabinet is reached when the total membership exceeds 20
or perhaps 21. The Council of the Crown, the King's Council, the Privy
Council had each passed the 20 mark when their decline began. The present
British cabinet is just short of that number now, having recoiled from the
abyss. We might be tempted to conclude from this that cabinets-- or other
committees -- with a membership in excess of 21 are losing the reality of
power and that those with a larger membership have already lost it. No such
theory can be tenable, however, without statistical proof. Table II on the
preceding page attempts to furnish part of it.
Should we be justified in drawing a line in that table under the name
of France (21 cabinet members) with an explanatory note to say that the
cabinet is not the real power in countries shown below that line? Some
comitologists would accept that conclusion without further 41 research.
Others emphasize the need for careful investigation, more especially around
the borderline of 21. But that the coefficient of inefficiency must lie
between 19 and 22 is now very generally agreed.
What tentative explanation can we offer for this hypothesis? Here we
must distinguish sharply between fact and theory, between the symptom and
the disease. About the most obvious symptom there is little disagreement. It
is known that with over 20 members present a meeting begins to change
character. Conversations develop separately at either end of the table. To
make himself heard, the member has therefore to rise. Once on his feet, he
cannot help making a speech, if only from force of habit. "Mr. Chairman," he
will begin, "I think I may assert without fear of contradiction-- and I am
speaking now from twenty-five (I might almost say twenty-seven) years of
experience-- that we must view this matter in the gravest light. A heavy
responsibility rests upon us, sir, and I for one..." Amid all this drivel
the useful men present, if there are any, exchange little notes that read,
"Lunch with me tomorrow-- we'll fix it then."
What else can they do? The voice drones on interminably. The orator
might just as well be talking in his sleep. The committee of which he is the
most useless member has ceased to matter. It is finished. It is hopeless. It
is dead.
So much is certain. But the root cause of the trouble goes deeper and
has still, in part, to be explored. Too many vital factors are unknown. What
is the shape and size of the table? What is the average age of those
present? At what hour does the committee meet? In a book for the 42
non-specialist it would be absurd to repeat the calculations by which the
first and tentative coefficient of inefficiency has been reached. It should
be enough to state that prolonged research at the Institute of Comitology
has given rise to a formula which is now widely (although not universally)
accepted by the experts in this field. It should perhaps be explained that
the investigators assumed a temperate climate, leather-padded chairs and a
high level of sobriety. On this basis, the formula is as follows:
x=(mo(a-d))/(y+p b1/2)
Where m = the average number of members actually present; o = the number of
members influenced by outside pressure groups; a = the average age of the
members; d = the distance in centimeters between the two members who are
seated farthest from each other; y = the number of years since the cabinet
or committee was first formed; p = the patience of the chairman, as measured
on the Peabody scale; b = the average blood pressure of the three oldest
members, taken shortly before the time of meeting. Then x = the number of
members effectively present at the moment when the efficient working of the
cabinet or other committee has become manifestly impossible. This is the
coefficient of inefficiency and it is found to lie between 19.9 and 22.4.
(The decimals represent partial attendance; those absent for a part of the
meeting.)
It would be unsound to conclude, from a cursory inspection of this
equation that the science of comitology is in an advanced state of
development. Comitologists and subcomitologists would make no such claim, if
only from 43 fear of unemployment. They emphasize, rather, that their
studies have barely begun and that they are on the brink of astounding
progress. Making every allowance for self-interest-- which means discounting
90 per cent of what they say-- we can safely assume that much work remains
to do.
We should eventually be able, for example, to learn the formula by
which the optimum number of committee members may be determined. Somewhere
between the number of 3 (when a quorum is impossible to collect) and
approximately 21 (when the whole organism begins to perish), there lies the
golden number. The interesting theory has been propounded that this number
must be 8. Why? Because it is the only number which all existing states (See
Table II above) have agreed to avoid. Attractive as this theory may seem at
first sight, it is open to one serious objection. Eight was the number
preferred by King Charles I for his Committee of State. And look what
happened to him! 44
A PROBLEM constantly before the modern administration, whether in
government or business, is that of personnel selection. The inexorable
working of Parkinson's Law ensures that appointments have constantly to be
made and the question is always how to choose the right candidate from all
who present themselves. In ascertaining the principles upon which the choice
should be made, we may properly consider, under separate heads, the methods
used in the past and the methods used at the present day.
Past methods, not entirely disused, fall into two main categories, the
British and the Chinese. Both deserve careful consideration, if only for the
reason that they were obviously more successful than any method now
considered fashionable. The British method (old pattern) depended upon an
interview in which the candidate had to establish his identity. He would be
confronted by elderly gentlemen seated round a mahogany table who would
presently ask him his name. Let us suppose that the candidate replied, "John
Seymour." One of the gentlemen would then say, "Any relation of the Duke of
Somerset?" To this the candidate would say, quite possibly, "No, sir." Then
another 45 gentleman would say, "Perhaps you are related, in that case, to
the Bishop of Watminster?" If he said "No, sir" again, a third would ask in
despair, "To whom then are you related?" In the event of the candidate's
saying, "Well, my father is a fishmonger in Cheapside," the interview was
virtually over. The members of the Board would exchange significant glances,
one would press a bell and another tell the footman, "Throw this person
out." One name could be crossed off the list without further discussion.
Supposing the next candidate was Henry Molyneux and a nephew of the Earl of
Sefton, his chances remained fair up to the moment when George Howard
arrived and proved to be a grandson of the Duke of Norfolk. The Board
encountered no serious difficulty until they had to compare the claims of
the third son of a baronet with the second but illegitimate son of a
viscount. Even then they could refer to a Book of Precedence. So their
choice was made and often with the best results.
The Admiralty version of this British method (old pattern) was
different only in its more restricted scope. The Board of Admirals were
unimpressed by titled relatives as such. What they sought to establish was a
service connection. The ideal candidate would reply to the second question,
"Yes, Admiral Parker is my uncle. My father is Captain Foley, my grandfather
Commodore Foley. My mother's father was Admiral Hardy. Commander Hardy is my
uncle. My eldest brother is a Lieutenant in the Royal Marines, my next
brother is a cadet at Dartmouth and my younger brother wears a sailor suit."
"Ah!" the senior Admiral would say. "And what made you think of joining the
Navy?" The answer to this question, however, would 46 47 scarcely matter,
the clerk present having already noted the candidate as acceptable. Given a
choice between two candidates, both equally acceptable by birth, a member of
the Board would ask suddenly, "What was the number of the taxi you came in?"
The candidate who said "I came by bus" was then thrown out. The candidate
who said, truthfully, "I don't know," was rejected, and the candidate who
said "Number 2351" (lying) was promptly admitted to the service as a boy
with initiative. This method often produced excellent results.
The British method (new pattern) was evolved in the late nineteenth
century as something more suitable for a democratic country. The Selection
Committee would ask briskly, "What school were you at?" and would be told
Harrow, Haileybury, or, Rugby, as the case might be. "What games do you
play?" would be the next and invariable question. A promising candidate
would reply, "I have played tennis for England, cricket for Yorkshire, rugby
for the Harlequins, and fives for Winchester." The next question would then
be "Do you play polo?"-- just to prevent the candidate's thinking too highly
of himself. Even without playing polo, however, he was evidently worth
serious consideration. Little time, by contrast, was wasted on the man who
admitted to having been educated at Wiggleworth. "Where?" the chairman would
ask in astonishment, and "Where's that?" after the name had been repeated.
"Oh, in Lancashire!" he would say at last. Just for a matter of form, some
member might ask, "What games do you play?" But the reply "Table tennis for
Wigan, cycling for Blackpool, and snooker for Wiggleworth" would finally
delete his name from the list. There might even 48 be some muttered comment
upon people who deliberately wasted the committee's time. Here again was a
method which produced good results.
The Chinese method (old pattern) was at one time so extensively copied
by other nations that few people realize its Chinese origin. This is the
method of Competitive Written Examination. In China under the Ming Dynasty
the more promising students used to sit for the provincial examination, held
every third year. It lasted three sessions of three days each. During the
first session the candidate wrote three essays and composed a poem of eight
couplets. During the second session he wrote five essays on a classical
theme. During the third, he wrote five essays on the art of government. The
successful candidates (perhaps two per cent) then sat for their final
examination at the imperial capital. It lasted only one session, the
candidate writing one essay on a current political problem. Of those who
were successful the majority were admitted to the civil service, the man
with the highest marks being destined for the highest office. The system
worked fairly well.
The Chinese system was studied by Europeans between 1815 and 1830 and
adopted by the English East India Company in 1832. The effectiveness of this
method was investigated by a committee in 1854, with Macaulay as chairman.
The result was that the system of competitive examination was introduced
into the British Civil Service in 1855. An essential feature of the Chinese
examinations had been their literary character. The test was in a knowledge
of the classics, in an ability to write elegantly (both prose and verse) and
in the stamina necessary to complete the course. All these features were
faithfully incorporated in 49 the Trevelyan-Northcote Report, and thereafter
in the system it did so much to create. It was assumed that classical
learning and literary ability would fit any candidate for any administrative
post. It was assumed (no doubt rightly) that a scientific education would
fit a candidate for nothing-- except, possibly, science. It was known,
finally, that it is virtually impossible to find an order of merit among
people who have been examined in different subjects. Since it is
impracticable to decide whether one man is better in geology than another
man in physics, it is at least convenient to be able to rule them both out
as useless. When all candidates alike have to write Greek or Latin verse, it
is relatively easy to decide which verse is the best. Men thus selected on
their classical performance were then sent forth to govern India. Those with
lower marks were retained to govern England. Those with still lower marks
were rejected altogether or sent to the colonies. While it would be totally
wrong to describe this system as a failure, no one could claim for it the
success that had attended the systems hitherto in use. There was no
guarantee, to begin with, that the man with the highest marks might not turn
out to be off his head; as was sometimes found to be the case. Then again
the writing of Greek verse might prove to be the sole accomplishment that
some candidates had or would ever have. On occasion, a successful applicant
may even have been impersonated at the examination by someone else,
subsequently proving unable to write Greek verse when the occasion arose.
Selection by competitive examination was never therefore more than a
moderate success.
Whatever the faults, however, of the competitive written examination,
it certainly produced better results than any 50 method that has been
attempted since. Modern methods center upon the intelligence test and the
psychological interview. The defect in the intelligence test is that high
marks are gained by those who subsequently prove to be practically
illiterate. So much time has been spent in studying the art of being tested
that the candidate has rarely had time for anything else. The psychological
interview has developed today into what is known as ordeal by house party.
The candidates spend a pleasant weekend under expert observation. As one of
them trips over the doormat and says "Bother!" examiners lurking in the
background whip out their notebooks and jot down, "Poor physical
coordination" and "Lacks self-control." There is no need to describe this
method in detail, but its results are all about us and are obviously
deplorable. The persons who satisfy this type of examiner are usually of a
cautious and suspicious temperament, pedantic and smug, saying little and
doing nothing. It is quite common, when appointments are made by this
method, for one man to be chosen from five hundred applicants, only to be
sacked a few weeks later as useless even beyond the standards of his
department. Of the various methods of selection so far tried, the latest is
unquestionably the worst.
What method should be used in the future? A clue to a possible line of
investigation is to be found in one little-publicized aspect of contemporary
selective technique. So rarely does the occasion arise for appointing a
Chinese translator to the Foreign Office or State Department that the method
used is little known. The post is advertised and the applications go, let us
suppose, to a committee of five. Three are civil servants and two are
Chinese scholars 51 of great eminence. Heaped on the table before this
committee are 483 forms of application, with testimonials attached. All the
applicants are Chinese and all without exception have a first degree from
Peking or Amoy and a Doctorate of Philosophy from Cornell or Johns Hopkins.
The majority of the candidates have at one time held ministerial office in
Formosa. Some have attached their photographs. Others have (perhaps wisely)
refrained from doing so. The chairman turns to the leading Chinese expert
and says, "Perhaps Dr. Wu can tell us which of these candidates should be
put on the short list." Dr. Wu smiles enigmatically and points to the heap.
"None of them any good," he says briefly. "But how-- I mean, why not?" asks
the chairman, surprised. "Because no good scholar would ever apply. He would
fear to lose face if he were not chosen." "So what do we do now?" asks the
chairman. "I think," says Dr. Wu, "we might persuade Dr. Lim to take this
post. What do you think. Dr. Lee?" "Yes, I think he might," says Lee, "but
we couldn't approach him ourselves of course. We could ask Dr. Tan whether
he thinks Dr. Lim would be interested." "I don't know Dr. Tan," says Wu,
"but I know his friend Dr. Wong." By then the chairman is too muddled to
know who is to be approached by whom. But the great thing is that all the
applications are thrown into the waste-paper basket, only one candidate
being considered, and he a man who did not apply.
We do not advise the universal adoption of the modern Chinese method
but we draw from it the useful conclusion that the failure of other methods
is mainly due to there being too many candidates. There are, admittedly,
some initial steps by which the total may be reduced. The 52 formula "Reject
everyone over 50 or under 20 plus everyone called Murphy" is now universally
used, and its application will somewhat reduce the list. The names remaining
will still, however, be too numerous. To choose between three hundred
people, all well qualified and highly recommended, is not really possible.
We are driven therefore to conclude that the mistake lies in the original
advertisement. It has attracted too many applications. The disadvantage of
this is so little realized that people devise advertisements in terms which
will inevitably attract thousands. A post of responsibility is announced as
vacant, the previous occupant being now in the Senate or the House of Lords.
The salary is large, the pension generous, the duties nominal, the
privileges immense, the perquisites valuable, free residence provided with
official car and unlimited facilities for travel. Candidates should apply,
promptly but carefully, enclosing copies (not originals) of not more than
three recent testimonials. What is the result? A deluge of applications,
many from lunatics and as many again from retired army majors with a gift
(as they always claim) for handling men. There is nothing to do except burn
the lot and start thinking all over again. It would have saved time and
trouble to do some thinking in the first place.
Only a little thought is needed to convince us that the perfect
advertisement would attract only one reply and that from the right man. Let
us begin with an extreme example.
Wanted-- Acrobat capable of crossing a slack wire 200 feet above raging
furnace. Twice nightly, three times on Saturday. 53 Salary offered
&sterling;25 (or $70 U.S.) per week. No pension and no compensation in the
event of injury. Apply in person at Wildcat Circus between the hours of 9
A.M. and 10 A.M.
The wording of this may not be perfect but the aim should be so to
balance the inducement in salary against the possible risks involved that
only a single applicant will appear. It is needless to ask for details of
qualifications and experience. No one unskilled on the slack wire would find
the offer attractive. It is needless to insist that candidates should be
physically fit, sober, and free from fits of dizziness. They know that. It
is just as needless to stipulate that those nervous of heights need not
apply. They won't. The skill of the advertiser consists in adjusting the
salary to the danger. An offer of &sterling;1000 (or $3000 U.S.) per week
might produce a dozen applicants. An offer of &sterling;15 (or $35 U.S.)
might produce none. Somewhere between those two figures lies the exact sum
to specify, the minimum figure to attract anyone actually capable of doing
the job. If there is more than one applicant, the figure has been placed a
trifle too high.
Let us now take, for comparison, a less extreme example.
Wanted-- An archaeologist with high academic qualifications willing to spend
fifteen years in excavating the Inca tombs at Helsdump on the Alligator
River. Knighthood or equivalent honor guaranteed. Pension payable but never
yet claimed. Salary of &sterling;2000 (or $6000 U.S.) per year. Apply in
triplicate to the Director of the Grubbenburrow Institute, Sickdale, Ill.,
U.S.A.
Here the advantages and drawbacks are neatly balanced. There is no need
to insist that candidates must be patient, 54 tough, intrepid, and single.
The terms of the advertisement have eliminated all who are not. It is
unnecessary to require that candidates must be mad on excavating tombs. Mad
is just what they will certainly be. Having thus reduced the possible
applicants to a maximum of about three, the terms of the advertisement place
the salary just too low to attract two of them and the promised honor just
high enough to interest the third. We may suppose that, in this case, the
offer of a K.C.M.G. would have produced two applications, the offer of an
O.B.E., none. The result is a single candidate. He is off his head but that
does not matter. He is the man we want.
It may be thought that the world offers comparatively few opportunities
to appoint slack-wire acrobats and tomb excavators, and that the problem is
more often to find candidates for less exotic appointments. This is true,
but the same principles can be applied. Their application demands, however--
as is evident-- a greater degree of skill. Let us suppose that the post to
be filled is that of Prime Minister. The modern tendency is to trust in
various methods of election, with results that are almost invariably
disastrous. Were we to turn, instead, to the fairy stories we learned in
childhood, we should realize that at the period to which these stories
relate far more satisfactory methods were in use. When the king had to
choose a man to marry his eldest or only daughter and so inherit the
kingdom, he normally planned some obstacle course from which only the right
candidate would emerge with credit; and from which indeed (in many
instances) only the right candidate would emerge at all. For imposing such a
test the kings of that rather vaguely defined period were well provided with
55 both personnel and equipment. Their establishment included magicians,
demons, fairies, vampires, werewolves, giants, and dwarfs. Their territories
were supplied with magic mountains, rivers of fire, hidden treasures, and
enchanted forests. It might be urged that modern governments are in this
respect less fortunate. This, however, is by no means certain. An
administrator able to command the services of psychologists, psychiatrists,
alienists, statisticians, and efficiency experts is not perhaps in a worse
(or better) position than one relying upon hideous crones and fairy
godmothers. An administration equipped with movie cameras, television
apparatus, radio networks, and X-ray machines would not appear to be in a
worse (or better) position than one employing magic wands, crystal balls,
wishing wells, and cloaks of invisibility. Their means of assessment would
seem, at any rate, to be strictly comparable. All that is required is to
translate the technique of the fairy story into a form applicable to the
modern world. In this, as we shall see, there is no essential difficulty.
The first step in the process is to decide on the qualities a Prime Minister
ought to have. These need not be the same in all circumstances, but they
need to be listed and agreed upon. Let us suppose that the qualities deemed
essential are (i) Energy, (2) Courage, (3) Patriotism, (4) Experience, (5)
Popularity, and (6) Eloquence. Now, it will be observed that all these are
general-qualities which all possible applicants would believe themselves to
possess. The field could readily, of course, be narrowed by stipulating (4)
Experience of lion-taming, or (6) Eloquence in Mandarin. But that is not the
way in which we want to narrow the field. We do not want to stipulate a
quality in a 56 special form; rather, each quality in an exceptional degree.
In other words, the successful candidate must be the most energetic,
courageous, patriotic, experienced, popular, and eloquent man in the
country. Only one man can answer to that description and his is the only
application we want. The terms of the appointment must thus be phrased so as
to exclude everyone else. We should therefore word the advertisement in some
such way as follows:
Wanted-- Prime Minister of Ruritania. Hours of work: 4 A.M. to 11.59 P.M.
Candidates must be prepared to fight three rounds with the current
heavyweight champion (regulation gloves to be worn). Candidates will die for
their country, by painless means, on reaching the age of retirement (65).
They will have to pass an examination in parliamentary procedure and will be
liquidated should they fail to obtain 95% marks. They will also be
liquidated if they fail to gain 75% votes in a popularity poll held under
the Gallup Rules. They will finally be invited to try their eloquence on a
Baptist Congress, the object being to induce those present to rock and roll.
Those who fail will be liquidated. All candidates should present themselves
at the Sporting Club (side entrance) at 11.15 A.M. on the morning of
September 19. Gloves will be provided, but they should bring their own
rubber-soled shoes, singlet, and shorts.
Observe that this advertisement saves all trouble about application
forms, testimonials, photographs, references, and short lists. If the
advertisement has been correctly worded, there will be only one applicant,
and he can take office immediately-- well, almost immediately. But what if
there is no applicant? That is proof that the advertisement 57 needs
rewording. We have evidently asked for something more than exists. So the
same advertisement (which is, after all, quite economical in space) can be
inserted again with some slight adjustment. The pass mark in the examination
can be reduced to 85 per cent with 65 per cent of the votes required in the
popularity poll, and only two rounds against the heavyweight. Conditions can
be successively relaxed, indeed, until an applicant appears.
Suppose, however, that two or even three candidates present themselves.
We shall know that we have been insufficiently scientific. It may be that
the pass mark in the examination has been too abruptly lowered-- it should
have been 87 per cent, perhaps, with 66 per cent in the popularity poll.
Whatever the cause, the damage has been done. Two, or possibly three,
candidates are in the waiting room. We have a choice to make and cannot
waste all the morning on it. One policy would be to start the ordeal and
eliminate the candidates who emerge with least credit. There is,
nevertheless, a quicker way. Let us assume that all three candidates have
all the qualities already defined as essential. The only thing we need do is
add one further quality and apply the simplest test of all. To do this, we
ask the nearest young lady (receptionist or stenographer, as the case may
be), "Which would you prefer?" She will promptly point out one of the
candidates and so finish the matter. It has been objected that this
procedure is the same thing as tossing a coin or otherwise letting chance
decide. There is, in fact, no element of chance. It is merely the
last-minute insistence on one other quality, one not so far taken into
account: the quality of sex appeal. 58
EVERY STUDENT of human institutions is familiar with the standard test
by which the importance of the individual may be assessed. The number of
doors to be passed, the number of his personal assistants, the number of his
telephone receivers-- these three figures, taken with the depth of his
carpet in centimeters, have given us a simple formula that is reliable for
most parts of the world. It is less widely known that the same sort of
measurement is applicable, but in reverse, to the institution itself.
Take, for example, a publishing organization. Publishers have a strong
tendency, as we know, to live in a state of chaotic squalor. The visitor who
applies at the obvious entrance is led outside and around the block, down an
alley and up three flights of stairs. A research establishment is similarly
housed, as a rule, on the ground floor of what was once a private house, a
crazy wooden corridor leading thence to a corrugated iron hut in what was
once the garden. Are we not all familiar, moreover, with the layout of an
international airport? As we emerge from the aircraft, we see (over to our
right or left) a lofty structure wrapped in scaffolding. Then the air
hostess leads us into 59 a hut with an asbestos roof. Nor do we suppose for
a moment that it will ever be otherwise. By the time the permanent building
is complete the airfield will have been moved to another site.
The institutions already mentioned-- lively and productive as they may
be-- flourish in such shabby and makeshift surroundings that we might turn
with relief to an institution clothed from the outset with convenience and
dignity. The outer door, in bronze and glass, is placed centrally in a
symmetrical facade. Polished shoes glide quietly over shining rubber to the
glittering and silent elevator. The overpoweringly cultured receptionist
will murmer with carmine lips into an ice-blue receiver. She will wave you
into a chromium armchair, consoling you with a dazzling smile for any slight
but inevitable delay. Looking up from a glossy magazine, you will observe
how the wide corridors radiate toward departments A, B, and C. From behind
closed doors will come the subdued noise of an ordered activity. A minute
later and you are ankle deep in the director's carpet, plodding sturdily
toward his distant, tidy desk. Hypnotized by the chief's unwavering stare,
cowed by the Matisse hung upon his wall, you will feel that you have found
real efficiency at last.
In point of fact you will have discovered nothing of the kind. It is
now known that a perfection of planned layout is achieved only by
institutions on the point of collapse. This apparently paradoxical
conclusion is based upon a wealth of archaeological and historical research,
with the more esoteric details of which we need not concern ourselves. In
general principle, however, the method pursued has been to select and date
the buildings which appear 60 to have been perfectly designed for their
purpose. A study and comparison of these has tended to prove that perfection
of planning is a symptom of decay. During a period of exciting discovery or
progress there is no time to plan the perfect headquarters. The time for
that comes later, when all the important work has been done. Perfection, we
know, is finality; and finality is death.
Thus, to the casual tourist, awestruck in front of St. Peter's, Rome,
the Basilica and the Vatican must seem the ideal setting for the Papal
Monarchy at the very height of its prestige and power. Here, he reflects,
must Innocent III have thundered his anathema. Here must Gregory VII have
laid down the law. But a glance at the guidebook will convince the traveler
that the really powerful Popes reigned long before the present dome was
raised, and reigned not infrequently somewhere else. More than that, the
later Popes lost half their authority while the work was still in progress.
Julius II, whose decision it was to build, and Leo X, who approved Raphael's
design, were dead long before the buildings assumed their present shape.
Bramante's palace was still building until 1565, the great church not
consecrated until 1626, nor the piazza colonnades finished until 1667. The
great days of the Papacy were over before the perfect setting was even
planned. They were almost forgotten by the date of its completion.
That this sequence of events is in no way exceptional can be proved
with ease. Just such a sequence can be found in the history of the League of
Nations. Great hopes centered on the League from its inception in 1920 until
about 1930. By 1933, at the latest, the experiment was seen to have failed.
Its physical embodiment, however, the Palace 61 62 of the Nations, was not
opened until 1937. It was a structure no doubt justly admired. Deep thought
had gone into the design of secretariat and council chambers, committee
rooms and cafeteria. Everything was there which ingenuity could devise--
except, indeed, the League itself. By the year when its Palace was formally
opened the League had practically ceased to exist.
It might be urged that the Palace of Versailles is an instance of
something quite opposite; the architectural embodiment of Louis XIV's