Mr. Philippe Takla at the American University Alumni Club

The Social Affairs Committee of the Young Women's Christian Association issued invitations for noon on Wednesday, January 12, to its monthly gathering at the American University Alumni Club. The gathering takes the form of a luncheon during which one of Lebanon's men of opinion speaks. The subject of the latest talk was "Some Problems of Administration in Lebanon," treated by Mr. Philippe Takla, formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs, of National Education, of Finance, of Posts and Telegraphs, and of Economy. The lecturer was introduced by Mrs. Leila Sawaya, vice-president of the University Women Graduates' Club, and the lecture was rendered into English by Mrs. Wadad Cortas, secretary of the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts.

Mr. Takla made a successful tour of his subject, showing how it falls to the public administration to preserve security, dispense justice, carry out public works, safeguard morals, rear the rising generation, fight poverty, ignorance, and disease, organize the individual's life within the framework of the nation, watch over that organization, and supervise its proper execution. As for what the administration has actually achieved in all these fields... that is another study!...

The fundamental factor that thrusts Lebanon into a critical predicament and a general administrative crisis is — in Mr. Takla's view — the absence of confidence between the authority and the people. This people looks upon its rulers as hirelings living at its expense without giving anything in return. It disobeys their orders, criticizes them woundingly, and creates a complex of despair and defeatism toward the state. Love and concord are missing between the rulers and the people in Lebanon!

Moreover, the evil of cheap local politics has seeped through the apparatus of the state's departments, resting upon two corrupt foundations: sectarianism and electoral interest.

After a close analysis of the factors and causes that have led, or may lead, to the collapse of the authority's prestige, the lecturer concluded by saying that leadership in Lebanon is missing for want of administrative education, and no remedy will avail before work is done to root out the disease.