If Mr. Baldwin really felt that he could wash his
hands of so harrowing a subject as the condition of the mines, he made a double mistake of judgment and of tactics. But we do not believe for a moment that that was the Prime Minister's .view. Such a view would be wholly alien to his character. It has become the practice of the Government, and a very wise practice it is, to trust as far as possible to the heads of departments to expound the intricacies of the difficult affairs they administer. When any dispute transcends the competence of a departmental head—when, we mean, the dispute affects the credit of the Cabinet as a whole—it is clearly necessary for the Prime Minister to express his views and perhaps temporarily to take complete charge. The custom of letting a Minister speak in the first instance of what his primary concern, however, is perfectly sound and logical. The problems of the departments are so intensely complicated to-day that a Prime Minister must be rather a summer-up and umpire than an expositor of details.
* *
