12 THE BRITISH APPROACH TO POLITICS

Inefficient local Government changed from a nuisance to a
deadly peril, and one aspect of the history of the ipth century
is an effort of Government to keep pace with scientific and
economic changes. A Board of Public Health would have been
useful in the tyth century—it might have prevented the Great
Plague; by the middle of the I9th century it was not merely
useful but essential. When Government does not change rapidly
enough, society is strained and tormented with "problems";
the slum problem of to-day is the penalty for not creating a
public department to deal with housing as soon as it was needed.
If the neglect is long continued, the society perishes, and, after
a time of disorder, something new may take its place, as happened
in France at the end of the i8th century, and in Russia in the
2Oth. War has for long been thought evil, but the invention of
aeroplanes, tanks and gases turns what was a bad habit into a
mortal disease; the problem of arranging the world's politics so
as to prevent war becomes infinitely more pressing.

A Government cannot therefore be approved solely on the
ground that it keeps order; it must alsb be asked whether there
are any arrangements to permit change. For change will come;
if it comes unpermitted it causes the violent overthrow of Govern-
ment. The confusion that follows may be long, expensive and
ruinous to happiness; and it may end simply in the passing of
power to the most unscrupulous. Change can come peaceably if
criticism of the Government is allowed, and if there are oppor-
tunities, for all who are sufficiently talented, to take part in the
Government. The Roman Empire in the first century B.C. nearly
destroyed itself by trying to limit the governing class to a group
of wealthy families. The English people pride themselves on
their capacity for peaceful change, conveniently forgetting the
more disturbed periods of their history. There is, however, a
good deal of force in their claim, and this is due to the fact that'
their governing class* showed more willingness to admit new
men to its ranks than did the old aristocracies of France and
Russia.