It is a crime against the public safety not to uproot incapacity wherever it is discovered, or to allow an incompetent diplomatist to remain one moment longer than necessary in a place where competency is sorely needed. Faults in domestic policy are often more easily remedied than mistakes in foreign policy. There are many factors in foreign affairs which lie beyond the control of the ministers of any given state, and all foreign action requires greater circumspection, greater knowledge, and far greater sagacity than is demanded in home affairs. Therefore the government cannot exercise too great a care in its choice of men to serve abroad. In making such a choice the Foreign Minister must set his face like a flint against all family influence and private pressure, for nepotism is the damnation of diplomacy. He is in some sense the guarantor to his Majesty of those whom he presents as diplomatists. Their good success will do him honour, their failure will fall with redoubled force upon his head, and may require herculean efforts by him in order to repair the damage it has caused. Hence it is of the first interest, both for the Foreign Minister himself and for the well-being of the state, to see that the high public offices of diplomacy are not filled by the intrigues and personal cabals which reign at every court, and which often place in the King’s hands unworthy instruments of his policy. [Sidenote: _The Diplomatist prepares Himself for a Foreign Mission._] Now when a diplomatist has been appointed to a foreign post his first care should be to ask for the despatches of his predecessor in order that he may inform himself exactly of the state of affairs with which he will have to deal. He will thus be able to pick up the thread and to make use both of the knowledge and of the different personal relationships which have gathered round the embassy during his predecessor’s term of office. And as all public affairs are like a great network, one linked with another, it is of the first importance that a diplomatist proceeding to a foreign post should be a complete master of recent history both in regard to his own state and in regard to the relations which exist between the country of his new service and all neighbouring countries. Therefore, when the newly appointed diplomatist has read with care the despatches of his predecessor, he should make notes upon them, endeavouring to foresee the difficulties which he will meet both in such trivial matters as a novel ceremonial, or in the more weighty business of state, so that he may be able to discuss them with his own Foreign Minister, and thus receive what enlightenment he can. [Sidenote: _He must study his own Foreign Office._]