Now such instructions may be as judicious and astute as can be imagined, but their use will lie in the wise interpretation by the diplomatist himself; and, as I have pointed out, the really able negotiator will always know how best to execute his master’s commands so that the instructions received from him may be drawn up on information which is both up-to-date and adequate. Thus it is that while the final responsibility for all success or failure in diplomacy would seem to rest upon the King and his ministers at home, it is none the less true that since these ministers can only act upon information from abroad, the influence which an enlightened diplomatist can exercise upon the actions and designs of the home government is very large. Incapable men acting abroad will make nothing even of the most brilliant instructions; capable men by the accuracy and sagacity of their reports and suggestions can do much to improve even the most mediocre instructions, and therefore the responsibility for diplomatic action is in reality shared in about equal degree between the home government and its servants abroad. The home government cannot know when the opportunity for appropriate action will arise, and therefore the reports on foreign situations which are transmitted in despatches from diplomats abroad ought to be so designed as to present as far as possible an intelligent description of events. [Sidenote: _Value of the Trained Mind._] What an astonishing diversity and inequality there is in the conduct of men. No one, not even a minister of state, would think of building a house without the assistance of the best architect and the best workmen whom he could find; but it is the commonest occurrence to find that those who are charged with the transaction of very important state business, upon which the weal or woe of the whole realm depends, never think of entrusting it to trained minds, but give it to the first comer, whether he be a cunning architect or a mere hewer of stone. Therefore ministers and other persons in authority are culpable in a high degree if they do not secure for the foreign service of the state the most capable and sagacious men. For the errors in diplomacy sometimes bring more calamitous results than mistakes in other walks of life, and unless the negotiator can intelligently discern the coming event, he may plunge himself, his master, and his native land in irretrievable disaster. [Sidenote: _Incompetence the Parent of Disaster._]