The British constitution is twelve men in a box, and the very spirit of that arrangement is distrust of the expert.

Moreover, there is wisdom in the Eastern legend which says that in making genius the fairies left out one essential gift--the knowledge of when to stop.
Whether Lord Leverhulme would have made a better statesman than, let us say, Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman or Mr.Bonar Law it is surely certain, I think, that a true statesman would have made every conceivable use of his unusual mind.

This, as I look at things, is the ideal method of government.

I do not believe in the business man as statesman.

I believe in the trained, cultured, and incorruptible gentleman as statesman, and the business man as his adviser.
But until our politics are of a higher order we can hardly expect the best minds in the nation to feel any attraction to a political career.
More and more the professional politician, the narrow man, the man of the loud voice and the one idea, the man who has few instincts of honesty in his mind and no movement of high and disinterested patriotism in his soul, will press himself upon the attention of democracy and by intimidating his leaders and brow-beating his opponents force his way onward to office.
The consideration of this grave peril to the moral character of our public life brings me to my brief conclusion.
CONCLUSION.