What else do these complaints of what is called "the
system" mean? When you complain that the Government patronage is bartered
for political support, that the dunces of a family are selected for the
public service, and selected expressly because they could not get on in
an open profession; that as their places are a sort of property, they are
promoted only by seniority, and never dismissed for any, except for some
moral, delinquency; that therefore the seniors in all your departments
are old men, whose original dulness has been cherished by a life without
the stimulus of hope or fear, you describe a vessel which seems to have
become too crazy to endure anything but the calmest sea and the most
favourable winds. You have tried its sea-worthiness in one department,
your military organisation, and you find that it literally falls to
pieces. You are incapable of managing a line of operations extending only
seven miles from its base. The next storm may attack your Colonial
Administration. Will that stand any better? Altogether your machinery
seems throughout out of gear. If you set to work actively and fearlessly,
without reference to private interests, or to private expectations, or to
private feelings, to repair, remove and replace, you may escape our
misfortunes; but I see no proofs that you are sufficiently bold, or
indeed that you are sufficiently alarmed.
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