In creating a modern-style bureaucratic machine, the absolute monarchs
had built more strongly than they could have imagined, for they
built something too powerful for them to control, a system which rvould
shoulder them out of the rvay and go on under its own impetus. Not
anticipating their own fate, they had not cteated (nor could they, indeed,
had they tried) an insti_tution4base for controlli4g a bgreauglcy ll
which was d-e_qfned.to become stro-gger than the monarchy whidr crell
ated it. The great obstacle to Frrther modernization of the Siamese
polity lay not in the construction of its bureaucracn which c,ould surely,
if adequately directed, give efiective and e6cient service. That faw, ,
rather, lay in the la& of a guiding force outside the bureaucracy capa- //
bj9 of :eqlgits ggals and fi"p"S$ agents under efiective *r,tool. ^