404, 405) speaks out in plainer lan

guage.

As very much of the strength of the reporters' argument hangs on the presumed acknowledged incompetence of Government clerks, it would appear to be expedient that this question should be fully and fairly settled before we proceed further. Are the public offices crowded with the unambitious, the indolent, the incapable; with sickly youths who are continually obliged to be absent on the score of ill health; and men who are so placed because they are unable elsewhere to earn their bread? Is the work of the Government ill done; and if so, is it through the fault of the clerks, or the fault of the system under which the clerks are trained to work? A third question also presents itself. Are the clerks paid on a scale sufficiently high to insure those valuable services which the Government now requires?

Those who have watched the civil service for some years cannot but be aware that at any rate a strong prejudice has grown up against Government clerks. Whether they be idle or not, a large portion of the public have been taught to think that they are so. That ill-fated necessary of official life -red tape is alluded to whenever the Treasury, or War Office, or Somerset House are spoken of; and by many, including, we believe, a majority of those influential gentlemen who write for the public press, the very souls of the denizens of Downing-street are thought to be entangled in meshes of this useful article. We never, however, could yet learn what was meant by the charge brought against official characters by these inauspicious words. Red tape, we should say, denotes order, precision of position among numerous papers, and careful arrangements. Latterly, also, another equally grave charge has been brought forward. Papers are too systematically docketed! The minds of public servants are given up to indexes and pigeon-holes; and clerks creep through their work in routine, instead of dashing out for themselves an original course, in which genius can be displayed and trammels overcome!

Just at present it almost exceeds our courage to run counter to so popular a prejudice as that by which oflicial routine has been made odious. We do not, in this article, wish either to de

fend or accuse the management of the existing war; but it does appear to us that this prejudice, which has been so greatly strengthened by our calamities in the Crimea, is being fostered by the press, until all government will gradually become impracticable. It has long been the birthright of a Britain to grumble at every detail of public life, though he is ready enough at selfpraise, when he takes a general view of the institutions of his country. Our statesmen are never either active or wise; our generals are usually the most incompetent that can be selected ; our bishops are actuated solely by love of money; and our lawyers are so enveloped in chicanery as to be incapable of viewing any point by the light of common sense. Nevertheless, our country stands high among the nations our soldiers do win their fair share of battles-our Church does do its duty by religion, at least as well as those of other realms and property and life are comparatively safe.

We believe that it is this national propensity to grumbling which has traduced the character of the civil service, and disgraced it with the odious red-tape brand of infamy. That the civil service does require amendment, may probably be admitted; but men in the position of the reporters, who have been called upon by the Government which they serve to propose such methods of amendment as the service does require, should have been peculiarly careful to keep themselves free from prejudice against the service, as from prejudice in its favour. This we think they have not done.

Peculiar weight is attached to the charge of general sickness brought against the different officers. Young men of feeble health, say the reporters, are continually appointed, and are, of course, continually absent: so promi nently has this been put forward, that Sir C. Trevelyan, in a kind of supplementary report, drawn up in answer to Mr. Arbuthnot's remarks in defence of the civil service, has justified, by reference to a particular department, his accusations on this head. The Public Record Establishment is the unfortunate office so disagreeably signalised; and as Sir Charles, with all his opportunities of reference, has pitched upon this, we may fairly look upon it as the weakest of the weak; as the last resource of the halt, the lame, and the

blind; as the very hospital of public offices; as one in which a robust constitution would feel itself to be truly like a fish out of water. Let us see what has been the amount of such absence, during five years, in this atrabilious, consumptive, rheumatic, feverstricken department-in this ghastly depôt for the preservation of dusty documents. There are in it twenty-one junior clerks, who have in five years been absent 1,799 days—i.e,, 360 days in each year. We shall give a near approach to the actual state of the matter, if we say that, on an average, each man was absent one day in three weeks. The absence is not quite so much; but we will say that it is one day in three weeks, or seventeen days in the year for each man. Now, it is to be observed that some one unfortunate had, in 1848, a very bad illness, and was absent 222 days, taking a lion's share of this indulgence; also, in 1849, one-we imagine the same gentleman got possession of 156 days, this probably being the period of convalescence after the illness of 222 days in the previous year. Thus one bout of illness reduces the total for the other twenty gentlemen to 1,421 days in the five years, or about fourteen days a-year each. We also find that in this lazar-house of invalids six clerks had no ill health in 1848, seven had none in 1849, eight had none in 1850, and that in 1851 and 1852 seven men were exempt in each.

Now, we will appeal with confidence to any medical gentleman who has been in charge of large bodies of men, whether the amount of illness here indicated is extreme. It must be borne in mind that this case is brought forward as an extreme case; as one positively to justify, by a simple reference to it, the opinion expressed by the reporters of the sickly habits of Government clerks; as one sufficient of itself to stop Mr. Arbuthnot's mouth. If the public have nothing more to complain of on the score of ill health than this, we think they may be well satisfied; and we also think that Sir Charles Trevelyan and Sir Stafford Northcote should have paused before they exposed any office to public notice in so unenviable a manner on such trifling grounds.

It is a matter of notoriety, that men who can be absent from their work on account of ill health, without detri

ment to their income, will be so absent oftener than men who do not enjoy the same privilege. This is no more, or rather no worse, than must always be expected from human nature. If Sir Charles Trevelyan is able to fill his desks with troops of angels, he may avoid this evil: nothing short of such a troop will, we think, satisfy all the exigencies of the civil service as set forth by him.

Having so far gone into the question of health, let us make some inquiry as to the want of ambition and want of energy complained of. That there is an absence of, at any rate, gratified ambition, we may assume from the fact that the civil service has offered no such gratification to its members. We may also assume that ambition will not exist as a distinguishing trait in any profession in which this last infirmity finds nothing that it can feed on. We wonder indeed that ambition can be considered desirable in civil servants by a man so exigeant as Sir Charles Trevelyan. Ambition is generally not docile, nor obedient: vaulting ambition cannot be expected to confine its youthful years to the art of copying fastly, and its maturer powers to writing letters for other people to sign. Ambition, we should say, had better, under existing circum. stances, keep itself out of Government offices. It might be troublesome, we think, to joint lords and under-secretaries, who are desirous of using, with but slender acknowledgment, the talents of those below them. Ambition might desire to sign its own name; might claim as its own peculiar property some colonial constitution; might loudly blazen forth the ignorance of some novice of a commissioner, or declare itself superior to some newly-appointed chairman, utterly unconscious of the nature of the duties required of him. We think this allusion to ambition is unfortunate on the part of Sir Charles Trevelyan.

As

The rational gratification of ambition in the civil service would be the possession of the rewards which it has to give. We will not speak of Cabinet Ministers or their colleagues, who go in and out with the Government. our Constitution is at present arranged, these situations must be held by men of wealth, and are not therefore within the grasp of officers who have to depend on the civil service as a profes

sion. Let us, however, look to the grade of places next in order that which consists of under-secretaries, permanent secretaries, chairmen, commissioners, and such like- and see how many of these are filled by men who have entered the public service as junior clerks. The book before us offers to us a list of such gentlemen. How many of these named in the table of contents, as having been called on for their opinion, have won their way to their present rank by serving through the different grades of their offices? We do not know the history of all these gentlemen; but we believe there is one.

We believe that Mr. Bromley,

who, as Accountant to the Navy, probably receives £1,000 a-year-and whose paper in this volume is, perhaps, practically the soundest essay given to us on the real requirements of the service we believe that he alone of all the number entered the service as a junior clerk.

Let us look through the names. Colonel Larcom was an officer in the engineers; Sir James Stephen was a barrister; Mr. Power's first appoint ment was, we believe, that of assistantcommissioner; Sir Cornewall Lewis began as a commissioner; Mr. Chadwick has, as he tells us, been all his life employed in high places: if he be employed again, we hope it will be in some situation in which he may not have to use his talents as an author. Sir Thomas Redington came into office through parliament; Mr. Griffith was selected on account of special qualifications, but never served as a clerk; Mr. Hill invented penny postagestamps, and so brought himself into place; Mr. Cole is a child of the Exhibition; nay, we believe we may say he was the parent of it. Mr. Romilly, we presume, was a barrister-the Romillys always are. Of Mr. Wood's early days we know nothing; but believe that he was born a chairman. Mr. Merivale certainly was a barrister he tells us as much; the world knew of him, however, as a scholar and an author, and it is much to be regretted that he should have buried himself among the colonies. The Right Hon. Sir Thomas Freemantle was a politician; so, we presume, was Mr. Addington: at any rate he was never a clerk. Mr. Hawes was a politician; Dr. Playfair a philosopher; Mr. Waddington, at any rate, is a very witty

gentleman; and Sir A. F. Spearman was Assistant-Secretary to the Treasury before we were out of our cradles.

Nevertheless there have been men of ambition in the civil service, and doubtless are so still; but it is by extraprofessional exertions that they have had to distinguish themselves. Charles Lamb, Henry Taylor, and Crofton Croker, made names for themselves; but no opportunity was given them of doing so in the departments to which they were attached. The civil service is a stepmother, and has no right to expect affectionate, heart-given offices from her children. We trust we may hear no more of the want of ambition on the part of the clerks, till we also hear of the rewards for which ambition is to struggle.

Now as to the want of industry on the part of Government clerks. This is a more difficult charge to answer, partly because we do not feel satisfied that there may not be some truth in it, and partly because it is very difficult to arrive at the real truth in such a matter. Of this, however, we may rest assured, that if Government clerks be idle, Government heads of offices are to blame for it. Young men from seventeen to twenty-three will be idle, if they be allowed to be idle. The majority at Oxford and Cambridge are idle; the majority of medical students are idle; the majority of legal students are idle-that is, they do very much less than their older friends would have them do. These young men can be blamed by none but their friends, as they are not paid to work; but the fact of receiving pay will not alter the nature of the youth: and until a better system of departmental discipline be adopted, we are inclined to think that junior clerks will be idle, though they had passed with never so much credit before Mr. Jowett and his tribunal.

We believe that till of late the system of discipline, if we may call it a system, has been such as expressly to foster idleness in our public offices. Make the best you can of bad tools, has been the motto oftenest in use; that is, if a tool should turn out on hands to be useless, it was to be borne with, and not discarded. Who cannot see that under such a rule tools would turn out to be bad, even the very tools that would have been good enough, if it had been well known in

the service that a thoroughly bad tool would not be endured? Long-suffering, extreme clemency, a desire to avoid the annoyance consequent on the fracas which a dismissed clerk can sometimes produce, dread of want of support, and positive goodnature, have created that idleness of which the reporters are so ashamed; and with all submission to their more experienced judgment, we cannot but think that this idleness may be cured without a board of examiners- cannot be cured by a board of examiners.

We remember a case in which the head of an office, a strict disciplinarian for an official man, called a junior clerk to him, and exhibiting a page of a letter-book, in which the youngster had copied, or pretended to copy, certain letters on the preceding day, assured him, that bad as the page appeared, he would not dismiss him, if he, the clerk himself, could read any one line of his own writing. This the lad could not do, and so was dismissed. In fact, the book had been scrawled over with a pen, and no words had been written. But what can one think of the previous discipline of an office in which matters had come to such a pass? This clerk did not commence his course of official bad conduct by such outrageous absurdity as this. Let us consider the amount of ill conduct which would have been endured; the very slight approach to official usefulness which would have passed muster. If he could have read one line of his own handwriting he might have remained! It is expected that we shall ascend immediately, at one spring, from such a state as this to a perfect knowledge of arithmetic and English composition, an intimate acquaintance with abstract sciences, a few foreign languages, political economy, and international law !

In sober earnest, we grieve to see such Utopian theories broached by men, to whom may be conceded the power of making practical experiments in them.

Having granted that there are idle young men in the civil service, and having, as we think, accounted for it, let us inquire how best such idleness may be prevented, and also let us see what are practically the necessary attainments which should be required in a Government office clerk, and how their possession should be ensured.

The reporters and Mr. Jowett clearly want to have the article, namely, a good Government clerk, ready-made to their hand, so that they may have no trouble with him after his appointment. He is to walk up to his desk on his first morning, armed at all points for every description of official fight, prepared to settle difficult points of international law in French or German, or to work out correctly any abstruse calculation required by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; to draw out a new constitution in elegant English, or if needs be (though what the need can be we do not know), to quote as much Latin and Greek as Mr. Waddington of the Home Office. He is, moreover, to be of excellent moral character, a member of some Christian community, certified as to age, sound of wind and limb, ambitious as regards the civil service, but humble and docile as to his own feelings, serious and sedate, though under twenty, punctual in attendance, and not too much given to heavy lunches at two o'clock.

Now this is vastly more than the Government can get for £90 or £100, or for £900 or £1,000 a-year. They intend to take no trouble in preparing this wonderfully-complete animal; he is to come to their examinations with all his perfections accumulated on his head; instructed up to this marvellous pitch at his own cost, and by his own means. Mr. Jowett may break his heart over his 4,800 long papers, and his 400 hours of vivâ vocè, before he will find one such miracle, and if he found him, he would not answer the required purpose.

The education of a Government clerk, as regards that knowledge which is desirable in his office, must, to a great degree, be effected after his appointment; but we do not at all mean to say that previous education should not be required. On the contrary, we strongly recommend that it should be insisted on, and be provided for. It is chiefly in our anxiety to see this provision made that we differ from the reporters. They expect to find the clerks ready prepared with every branch of knowledge which may possibly turn out to be of use. We would recommend that they be previously taught those special branches of knowledge which certainly will be of use.

One of the objects constantly in

sisted on by the reporters is, that of abolishing the present evils of patronage; and were it not that in this, as in all other matters, they are carried away by a thirst of Utopian purity, we should agree with them. Patronage, as it exists at present, is a great evil. It has often, even in quite recent years, been entrusted to hands terribly unclean. We do not accuse either Whig or Tory, nor wish to call particular notice to any peculiar case; but it cannot, we believe, be denied by any one conversant with such matters, that it has been found impossible, under the existing system of patronage, to prevent abuses of a most iniquitous description. It may also be assumed, that men of high rank and some talents, whose claims to office it is difficult to resist, insist on these claims chiefly on account of the patronage with which office invests them. Of such men it will be well to be rid. The spirit of the age now looks eagerly for statesmen of a different class, whose ap. proach to power will be more easy when this temptation is removed.

But because we would abolish the present system of patronage, we do not think that ministers and their subordinates should be entirely relieved from the responsibility of nominating to the public service. The object apparently is, to divest such responsibility, as far as possible, of any peculiar benefit to the person exercising it; so to limit the power of appointing to the public offices as to make it the duty of the minister to select, but not his privilege to give away; to render the system of recruiting the civil service as unlike as possible to the manner in which church livings are often filled. It will be probably found impossible to hit on any plan which will altogether insure this object; but it may, we think, be so far done as to destroy the bane of patronage; and so done as entirely to remove the evil which it is the present object to remove-namely, the introduction of bad clerks into the public service.

We have now to inquire whether the clerks are paid on a scale sufficiently high to insure those valuable services which the Government requires. On this subject, as on all others connected with the civil service, it appears almost impossible to arrive at correct data. The reporters make no allusion - at all to the scales of pay, but satisfy

themselves with presuming throughout that, as regards the desirableness of the civil service, the ambitious, the educated, and the talented would undoubtedly rush into it, if they were only allowed to do so. Downingstreet is an elysium to the taste of Sir Charles Trevelyan his one idea of Paradise must be a sightly row of public offices, and the Treasury his seventh heaven. "It is natural to expect," says he, "that so important a profes sion should attract the ablest and most ambitious;" "that the greatest emulation would prevail among those who entered it:" but he does not say why it should be so.

This silence on the part of Sir Charles as to the quid pro quo to be given to the civil service would be remedied by the statement made in Sir James Stephen's well-argued paper, if we could take his information as authentic; but we think it would be found, on reference to the absolute facts of the office in which he himself so long officiated, that he has understated the incomes of the clerks. In this we in no way impugn any assertion made by Sir James. He does not say what the salaries of clerks have been, but what they probably would be. He bases his statement on a calculation and not on facts. Whatever may have been the error which has crept into his calculations, we think that the experience of past years in the Colonial Office will not bear him out. He speaks of the offices of the different secretaries of state, which are considered to be the best of the public offices, and says that the average income of a clerk would not exceed £250 per annum, for the first twenty-seven years of his official life; that he would then rise only to £550; and that in ten years from that he would receive £1000 per

annum.

It is the first part of this statement which strikes one as being so very unattractive. In the majority of Government offices clerks do not rise to £1000 per annum, after any length of service; and therefore it must be presumed that the pay in them during the early years of a clerk's life will be still less than that stated by Sir James Stephen. And yet how can it be less? An average income of £250 per annum for the best twenty-seven years of a man's life! Well may Sir James say, if this be true," Why expect to