Dark to Light

There is, I concede, no immediate crisis to respond to. People tend to think that brinks, thresholds, Rubicons, cliffs' edges and forks in the road are where historic decisions are called for and statesmen are proved. But doldrums, paralyses, slow-drifting currents, slow roads going nowhere - times when no decision seems urgent and a vaguely unsatisfactory situation can safely be allowed to drag on - can be greater tests of mettle than emergencies. The politician with the guts and brains to say "It can't go on like this" and convince Cabinets and mandarins who might have preferred a long, expensive drift - these are greater heroes than men who, cometh the hour, do what plainly has to be done.