ENDS AND MEANS
will confine myself here to quoting'a relevant passage from
the admirable essay contributed by Professor David
Mitrany to the Yale Review in 1934. Speaking of the need
for comprehensive planning, Professor Mitrany writes that
'this does not necessarily mean more centralized govern-
ment and bureaucratic administration/ Public control is
just as likely to mean decentralization—as, for instance, the
taking over from a nation-wide private corporation of
activities and services which could be performed with
better results by local authorities. Planning, in fact, if it
is intelligent, should allow for a great variety of organiza-
tion, and should adapt the structure and working of its
parts to the requirements of each case.
(A striking change of view on this point is evident in the
paradox that the growing demand for state action comes
together with-a growing distrust of the state's efficiency.
Hence, even among Socialists, as may be seen from the
more recent Fabian tracts, the old idea of the nationaliza-
tion of an industry under a government department, respon-
sible to Parliament for both policy and management, has
generally been replaced by schemes which even under
public ownership provide for autonomous functional
managements/ After describing the constitution of such
mixed concerns as the Central Electricity Board (set up. in
England by a Conservative government), the British Broad-
casting Corporation and die London Transport Board,
Professor Mitrany concludes that it is only *by some such
means that the influence both of politics and of money can
be eliminated. Radicals and Conservatives now agree on
the need for placing the management of such public under-
takings upon a purely functional basis, which reduces the
role of Parliament or of any other representative body to a
distant, occasional and indirect determination of general
policy.*
Above these semi-autonomous 'functional managers'
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