Macnaghten's House debate:Whether there is no one who is indispensable

[Nicholas]

March 17th 1917
The opener Mr [M] Davies, in a speech which compelled the full attention of all present spoke as follows:
Mister President and gentlemen, if I am to understand that by no one is meant no one individual, and that 'indispensable' is used in the strict sense of the word, then I am certainly of the sentiment that no one is indispensable.  There are doubtless classes of men who know their work to perfection, but it is never, I believe, the case that these men cannot abe replaced by others almost equally skilled.  Let us suppose that the head office-boy of a London firm goes to his Maker: he may be immediately replaced, even though he has made use of the knowledge of thirty years' judicious judgment of men, by the adjacent office - boy, who has done the same for twenty-nine.   But to turn from the class to the individual. Shakespeare, you may object, was indispensable.  Not so, for Shakespeare was  a luxury, and so not indispensable, although much needed.  Very likely no one could have replaced Naploeon, but we sh'd have been every bit as well off in the world had Madama Buonaparte chanced to let slip her infant man of destiny upon the kitchen stairs.
And may I be permitted to close with a brief discourse upon the subject of house masters  [H. Macnaghten was present]  who in my opine w'ld be entirely dispensable in a utopian Eton, where they w'd but idly and pleasurably watch our youth conducting the name and fame of the house as well as anyone c'd wish.
And now, with the president's leave. I well sit down.