Incompetency

“ Our public offices were then too often asylums for incompetency and ill repute, recruited in great measure, from the failures and outcasts of creditable callings, those too weak, indolent, and vicious to hold their own in any worthy field of competition. ”

“ Experience has demonstrated the impracticability of assembling a numerous collection of people to frame laws, and their incompetency, when assembled, for judicious deliberation and prompt and unbiassed decision. ”

“ Honorable party service will certainly not be esteemed by me a disqualification for public office, but it will in no case be allowed to serve as a shield of official negligence, incompetency, or delinquency. It is entirely creditable to seek public office by proper methods and with proper motives, and all applicants will be treated with consideration ”

“ The quality or state of being incompetent; want of physical, intellectual, or moral ability; insufficiency; inadequacy; as, the incompetency of a child for hard labor, or of an idiot for intellectual efforts. "Some inherent incompetency." Gladstone.
2. (Law) Want of competency or legal fitness; incapacity; disqualification, as of a person to be heard as a witness, or to act as a juror, or of a judge to try a cause. ”

“ Our leaders, therefore, must be incompetent. Nor should the blame of this be charged to the people. Statecraft, like the prescribing of medicine or the practice of law, is a profession, and the unlearned in their ways is at the mercy of the quacks of all three. ”

“ If those in power have this fault, they will make the persons under them miserable by petty, constant blame; or they will make them indifferent to all blame. If this fault is in the governed, they will captiously object to all the ways and plans of their superiors, not knowing the difficulty of doing anything; they will expect miracles of attention, justice, and temper, which the rough-hewed ways of men do not admit of; and they will repine and tease the life out of those in authority. Sometimes both superiors and inferiors, governors and governed, have this fault. ”

“ It is a weakness of our order. I have always deplored that so large a percentage of it should devote itself to other vocations, Why, if the whole of our order devoted itself to public affairs, we could absorb them. ”

“ Even if insuperable obstacles and opposition prevent the consummation of our task, we shall hardly be excused; and if failure can be traced to our fault or neglect we may be sure the people will hold us to a swift and exacting accountability. ”

“ The people favours incompetence, not only because it is no judge of intellectual competence and because it looks on moral competence from a wrong point of view, but because it desires before everything, as indeed is very natural, that its representatives should resemble itself. ”

“ A man employed in a minor position on a newspaper is notified that he is to be discharged for incompetence. He replies that, so far from being discharged, he will be promoted at the end of a month, and will eventually be made editor of the paper. Undoubtedly this is a magnificent boast, but to make it good means a complete transformation in the character of this man's work—namely, from entire incompetence to competence of an unusual sort, all within a month's time. You are the man who has made this extraordinary boast. ”

“ They who have had opportunities [242] of establishing their authority over minds ductile and unresisting, they who have been the protectors of helplessness, and the instructors of ignorance, and who yet retain in their own hands the power of wealth, and the dignity of command, must defeat their influence by their own misconduct, and make use of all these advantages with very little skill, if they cannot secure to themselves an appearance of respect, and ward off open mockery, and declared contempt. ”

“ The government has given us things that we have not asked for, and that we could not ask for, because to ask—to ask, presupposes that it is in some way incompetent and consequently is not performing its functions. ”

“ It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. ”

“ It is easy to find fault, to remark what might have been done, and perhaps, after all, and under all the circumstances, those in charge of the conduct of affairs did the only thing that could be done at the time. ”

“ But something in all of us, and much in some of us, is recalcitrant through rebellion, indolence, incompetence, or ignorance. And it is only on these elements that the public power operates as power, through compulsion {201} or authoritative suggestion. ”

“ Such men are true counselors, not creatures like you, who make a living by a mere pretense of administrative competence, though quite ignorant of the ways of statecraft. Your evil conduct demonstrates an inherited lack of executive capacity. ”

“ Some do not [Pg 150] know any better, and may be made good by training, others lack native strength of character and are hopeless. Neither should be left in authority as they are.
Misconduct—Fault of Leader.—Where you find recurring cases of insubordination, or indifference to good work, you will generally find that the cause for it lies in the presence of a leader who is not good enough for his job. ”

“ I weeded out the incompetents, of whom there were many, and replaced them by big-hearted, loyal and energetic men, who had easy consciences when it came to dealing with the public affairs of either municipalities, counties or the State.
Of necessity, I had to use some who were vicious and dishonest, and who would betray me in a moment if their interests led that way. ”

“ To this objection I reply, first of all, that his incompetence, if he attempts the discussion but is really incompetent for it, will be abundantly visible; nobody will be taken in; he will have plenty of sharp observers and critics to save mankind from that danger. ”

“ We are not advised that even in the great excitement which has distressed you for some months past, any one has impeached our moral conduct, or charged us with unsoundness in doctrine, or corruption, or tyranny in the administration of discipline. ”

“ In such a case, to give a reference to any authority would probably be to expose to a criticism possibly incompetent, necessarily imperfectly informed, a discretion which it is essential should be freely and fearlessly exercised, and might tend to encourage in masters what at present probably only too often exists, a good-natured or indifferent tolerance of misconduct or incompetence. ”

“ It opens the door to all commis, whose necessary impudence sticks at nothing, who, once consulted, quickly find the weakness of their principals, and whose modesty suppresses and conceals even from themselves their own powers which are generally far superior. ”

“ There must be an aggregate of mischief. There must be marks of deliberation; there must be traces of design; there must be indications of malice; there must be tokens of ambition. There must be force in the body where they exist; there must be energy in the mind. When all these circumstances combine, or the important parts of them, the duty of the vicinity calls for the exercise of its competence: and the rules of prudence do not restrain, but demand it. ”

“ The worst form of incompetence is perhaps that which allows a man to be competent without realising it, and, in criminal cases at least, this seems to be the normal attitude of the majority of our magistrates. ”

“ To charge this gentleman with the dismission of any of his colleagues, can, after the strongest aggravations, rise no higher than to an accusation of having advised his majesty to dismiss him, and even that, my lords, stands, at present, unsupported by evidence; nor could it, however uncontestably proved, discover either wickedness or weakness, or show any other authority than every man would exercise, if he were able to attain it. ”

“ The second duty of functionaries of any degree, is exactitude and assiduity. The most brilliant qualities, and the largest and amplest mind for public affairs, will render but inefficient service—at any rate, a service very inferior to what could be expected of them, if these qualities are counterbalanced and paralyzed by negligence, laziness, disorder, inexactness. ”

“ A general confusion in the government must, of course, increase the extent of my power, and, therefore, it was our grand object to excite distrust in the K—g against his subjects, in the ministers against their subalterns, and in the counsellors against their own colleagues. No power could save the man who shewed me the least shadow of neglect or contempt. ”

“ If, however, we do not undertake the task, the world will always think us incompetent. We have certainly the competence, O king! Why should you, therefore, regard us as incompetent? Those that have become Munis desirous of achieving tranquillity of souls, obtain yellow robes with ease. ”

“ The vices of the administration must be chiefly ascribed to the weakness of the King and to the levity and violence of the favourite. But it is impossible to acquit the Lord Keeper of all share in the guilt. ”

“ Suppose your office falls into the hands of a man who will not act with the wisdom and dignity you have shown,--who will perhaps injure the interests and authority of your association,--would you not reproach yourself for having been to blame for this injury by resigning the 'holy cause' into unworthy hands? ”

“ It goes further, and charges that commanding authority dwarfs growth and weakens ability, and is, therefore, largely responsible for the general inability to distinguish between right and wrong, and for the unsettled and weak convictions as to good and evil ”

“ Whatsoever faults of management are properly attributable to them—and there are many—are easily traceable to that system itself, which, from its very nature, has always been, and must continue to be, inflexible. ”

“ The great practical defect of institutions like ours, is the circumstance that “what is everybody's business, is nobody's business;” a neglect that gives to the activity of the rogue a very dangerous ascendency over the more dilatory correctives of the honest man. ”

“ Those impetuous spirits that break so easily through the bars of impossibility, will scarcely suffer their career to be stopped by any other restraint; and it may be reasonably feared, that arguments from justice, or law, or policy, will have little force upon these daring minds, who in the transports of their newly acquired victory, trample impossibility under their feet, and imagine that to those who have vanquished the ministry, every thing is practicable. ”

“ If you chalk out a line of conduct for them, or commission them to execute a certain task, they are sure to conjure up some insignificant objection or fanciful impediment in the way, and are withheld from striking an effectual blow by mere feebleness of character. ”

“ The contempt which is felt for efficiency destroys it little by little, and efficiency, accepting the situation, outruns the contempt that is felt for it. The end will be that we shall all be only too much of one opinion. ”

“ If those mistakes were rectified by some superior authority, the people would be apt to run into the same mistakes again. If the people are left to correct the mistakes themselves, they will more surely progress in wisdom as well as in the sense of responsibility. ”

“ Your Lordship may however judge of the surprize and disappointment I felt when I arrived at the following sentence in the same judgment, "All the cases decide that mere imbecility will not do; that an inability to manage a man's affairs will not do, unless that inability and that incapacity to manage his affairs AMOUNT to evidence that he is of unsound mind, and he must be found to be so." ”

“ Their long train of dependents: the needy and obsequious followers of every minister. All who suck in, thro' its remotest or minutest channels, the foul stream of corruption—These are all ranged on one side. They are making ready for battle. ”

“ He must with all his skill, and all his might, keep to the middle course, shunning that presumptuous confidence which scorns all authority, and boldly constitutes itself sole judge and legislator; but equally rescuing his mind from the thraldom which prostrates his reason, and paralyzes all the faculties of his judgment in a matter of indefeasible and awful responsibility. ”

“ He no longer curses fate, but the dulness of statesmen and powerful responsible people who have neither the heart, nor courage, nor capacity, to change the state of mismanagement that gives us these things. ”

“ A fool, who has publicly to explain great affairs, who has publicly to answer detective questions, who has publicly to argue against able and quick opponents, must soon be shown to be a fool. The very nature of Parliamentary government answers for the discovery of substantial incompetence. ”

“ When we act in a similar manner, and take upon us to specify with precision the changes we should like to see in our condition, and the methods by which these changes might best be accomplished, we commonly manifest our own incompetence. ”

“ Not regardless of consequences, we must yet meet consequences; seeing the hazards which surround the discharge of public duty, it must yet be discharged. For myself, Sir, I shun no responsibility justly devolving on me, here or elsewhere, in attempting to maintain the cause. ”

“ The number of offenders, the low average of enlightenment, the ill-working of {188} administrative machinery, and above all, the difficulty of obtaining officials of adequate intelligence, good feeling, and self-control, are obstacles which must long stand in the way of a system so complex as that which morality dictates. ”

“ Another thing, too, has great weight with me, that if, in this manner, the faults of individuals are laid to the charge of their office, all authority will collapse, and the people will be without ruler, law, or order. ”