I do not mean that the transaction of public
business has esoteric mysteries, only to be understood by the
initiated. Its principles are all intelligible to any person of good
sense, who has in his mind a true picture of the circumstances and
conditions to be dealt with: but to have this he must know those
circumstances and conditions; and the knowledge does not come by
intuition. There are many rules of the greatest importance in every
branch of public business (as there are in every private
occupation), of which a person fresh to the subject neither knows
the reason or even suspects the existence, because they are intended
to meet dangers or provide against inconveniences which never
entered into his thoughts. I have known public men, ministers, of more
than ordinary natural capacity, who on their first introduction to a
department of business new to them, have excited the mirth of their
inferiors by the air with which they announced as a truth hitherto set
at nought, and brought to light by themselves, something which was
probably the first thought of everybody who ever looked at the
subject, given up as soon as he had got on to a second. It is true
that a great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions,
as well as when to adhere to them. But it is a great mistake to
suppose that he will do this better for being ignorant of the
traditions.
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