So far as office work is concerned, a Service officer may understand book routine and discipline, but when it comes to rock-bottom business this war has produced overwhelming proof that a Service officer is lost against an efficient business man. Speaking broadly, the former has no idea of the general value of things, or of the worldly side of the business world. How can it be expected of him? He is trained, specially trained, in his profession, which has naught to do with the struggle of the money-makers. He is not accustomed to rub shoulders with the man in the street, whilst there are thousands of minor details which he would probably ignore when brought to his notice, but which a business man would recognise as floating thistledown showing the direction of the wind. The business man knows that a knowledge of his fellow-man is the most valuable knowledge in the world. He is not saddled with fastidious, obsolete forms of etiquette, the waiting for the due observance of which has cost millions of pounds sterling and thousands of much more valuable lives. He is not tied down to the cut-and-dried book routine, probably unrevised for years, which it is an impossibility to keep thoroughly up-to-date.
He is not afraid of the wrath of his immediate superior officers, which, unless being an officer himself he could modify or smooth it over, might put on the shelf for ever all chance of his future success in life. He is not shackled with incompetents whom he dared not report or remove because they hold indirect influences which might be moved to his disadvantage. He is not hampered by the importunities of brother-officers who are pushed at him continually by place-seekers, or by feared or favoured ones. He is not handicapped by the jealous spite of machination of other departments, because an efficient business man will have none of this from anyone, whether above or below him. Should it arise, he eradicates it root and branch at first sight, which an ordinary Service officer is generally utterly powerless to do; nor dare he dream of its accomplishment.
It is the existence of this terrible canker-worm of jealousy, false pride, petty spite, or absurd etiquette, which in the past has gnawed into the very vitals of our glorious Services, sapping away much of their efficiency and undermining future unity, which always tends to turn victories into defeats or colossal disasters. It is devoutly to be hoped that this world-war will level up the masses and kill and for ever crush out of our midst this hydra-headed microbe, the greatest danger of which is that on the surface it is invisible.