156/John Stuart Mill
right, even in his own concerns, still less in those of the public, when he
makes habitual use of no knowledge but his own, or that of some single
adviser. There is no necessary incompatibility between this principle
and the other. It is easy to give the effective power, and the full respon-
sibility, to one, providing him when necessary with advisers, each of
whom is responsible only for the opinion he gives.
In general, the head of a department of the executive government is
a mere politician. He may be a good politician, and a man of merit; and
unless this is usually the case, the government is bad. But his general
capacity, and the knowledge he ought to possess of the general interests
of the country, will not, unless by occasional accident, be accompanied
by adequate, and what may be called professional, knowledge of the
department over which he is called to preside. Professional advisers
must therefore be provided for him. Wherever mere experience and at-
tainments are sufficient wherever the qualities required in a professional
adviser may possibly be united in a single well-selected individual (as in
the case, for example, of a law officer), one such person for general
purposes, and a staff of clerks to supply knowledge of details, meet the
demands of the case. But, more frequently, it is not sufficient that the
minister should consult some one competent person, and, when himself
not conversant with the subject, act implicitly on that person’s advice. It
is often necessary that he should, not only occasionally but habitually,
listen to a variety of opinions, and inform his judgment by the discus-
sions among a body of advisers. This, for example, is emphatically nec-
essary in military and naval affairs. The military and naval ministers,
therefore, and probably several others, should be provided with a Coun-
cil, composed, at least in those two departments, of able and experi-
enced professional men. As a means of obtaining the best men for the
purpose under every change of administration, they ought to be perma-
nent: by which I mean, that they ought not, like the Lords of the Admi-
ralty, to be expected to resign with the ministry by whom they were
appointed: but it is a good rule that all who hold high appointments to
which they have risen by selection, and not by the ordinary course of
promotion, should retain their office only for a fixed term, unless reap-
pointed; as is now the rule with Staff appointments in the British army.
This rule renders appointments somewhat less likely to be jobbed, not
being a provision for life, and the same time affords a means, without
affront to any one, of getting rid of those who are least worth keeping,
and bringing in highly qualified persons of younger standing, for whom