[B] See France, by J. E. C. Bodley, 1899, pp. 334, 335. Under Scrutin de liste "the department is the electoral unit, each having its complement of deputies allotted to it in proportion to its population, and each elector having as many votes as there are seats ascribed to his department, without, however, the power to cumulate." Scrutin d'arrondissement is election by single-member constituencies. The arrondissement is the electoral unit.
[C] This is a question put to a minister by a deputy. "The effect ... is somewhat similar to a motion to adjourn the house in the English Parliament." Bodley, p. 445.
[CHAPTER VI.]
THE INCOMPETENCE OF GOVERNMENT.
This is not all. The law of incompetence spreads still further, either by some process of logical necessity or by a sort of contagion. It has often been made the subject of merriment, for, like all tragedy, when we regard it with good humour the matter has its comic side, that it is very rare for any high office to be given to a man who is competent for the post. Generally the Minister of Education is a lawyer; the Minister of Commerce, an author; the War Minister, a doctor; the Minister for the Navy, a journalist. Beaumarchais' epigram "The post required a mathematician—it was given to a dancing master!" strikes the keynote much more of a democracy than of an absolute monarchy.
The matter is so generally recognised that it has a sort of retroactive effect upon the historical ideas of the masses. Three Frenchmen out of every four are convinced that Carnot was a civilian, and the statement has often appeared in print. Why? because it is inconceivable that under a democracy the War Minister could possibly be a soldier, or, that the members of the Convention could possibly have given the War Office to a soldier. This appeared too paradoxical to be true.
At first sight this extraordinary method of making incompetent men into ministers seems merely a joke, merely the subtle and entertaining vagaries of the goddess Incompetence. Partly it is so but not entirely. The man whose business it is to appoint ministers has to divide the choicest plums of office among the various groups of the majority which supports him. As all of these groups do not contain specialists, the highest offices are disposed of on political grounds, and not on grounds of professional aptitude. I have shown what the result is; the only ministerial appointment which is made in a rational manner is that which the President of the Council reserves for himself, and even in this case in order to conciliate some important political personage he very often gives it up and takes some post for which he is not so well suited.
See what follows: each department is directed by an incompetent man, who, if he be conscientious, sets himself to learn the work in which he ought to be a fully trained expert, or, if he be not conscientious, and be pressed for time, as he always is, he directs his department according to his general political theories and not according to practical common sense—a double distillation of incompetence.
We know the kind of speech a new Minister of Agriculture makes to his staff. He harangues them on the principles of the revolution of 1789.