it might be very harmful to the country. We might even lose our independence,
If this happened how could the Ministry of Education go on working?
The administration in the country was much more important at this time
and the Ministry of Interior had to be responsible for this much more than
any other ministries because all the provinces were in the control of the
Ministry of Interior.
As we have already suggested, the Ministry of Interior served as
the incubator of a series of new departments, each of which, after having
gained strength within Interior, was transferred to another ministry
of more specialized function.
In addition to this role, the Ministry of Interior, through its control
over territorial administration, provided the matrix within which virtually
all the other services were embedded. Siffin writes that the Ministry
'was the supporting trunk of domestic government" He points
out that the regional, provincial, and district officers were responsible
for "everything" within their area of jurisdictions. "Functional specialists
in agriculture, health, education, and other fields," he continues,
"were attached to and administratively subordinate to these generalist
officials." Although they were selected and paid by their ministries,
these specialists had to go through the territorial administrators to communicate
with their own headquarters. Thus, the new 'territorial basis
of organization, coupled with an impressive growth in the scope of
specialized governmental functions, produced a complex pattern of
domestic governmental organization" which had become fully formed
by 1915 when Prince Damrong retired. If Chulalongkorn had been
the architect it was Damrong who was the master builder. The structure
which was built between 1892 and 1915 has been a lasting one,
for the system of government which one finds in Thailand today is, in
its basic features, the same.