Page:The Practice of Diplomacy - Callières - Whyte - 1919.djvu/23

 to the future health of the Diplomatic Service; and, though there is reason to believe that they are now ripe for execution, their adoption will depend upon the pressure of public opinion. It is therefore important that the partisans of reform should spare no effort to keep them in the public view, especially at the present time when the daily spectacle of great events is apt to distract attention from them.

There is, however, another and more radical reform without which these six proposals would have but little influence on the personnel of the Foreign Office itself. The Foreign Office must be amalgamated with the Diplomatic Service, so that, whether at home or abroad, the diplomatist becomes a member of one undivided service. The principle of interchangeability primarily affects the office at home, and would often carry the civil servant in Whitehall whither he would not. At present an official in the Foreign Office need never go abroad unless he likes, while the diplomatist can never take up work at home unless he can persuade a friend in the Foreign Office to exchange with him. Thus the system works on the principle of 'jam every other day' for the diplomatist. The result xvii