ENGLAND'S "SPINAL COLUMN"

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 142, 18 June 1938, Page 3 (Supplement)

ENGLAND'S "SPINAL COLUMN"

—By Cyrano

The ideal condition for the permanent civil servant is that in which he rules I the country and the politician takes ! the blame. —"The Comments of Bagshot." IF you want a good example of the civil servant who holds a key position for years and is not known to the public, consider Sir Maurice Hankey, who has just retired from the three posts of secretary of the Imperial Defence Committee, the Cabinet and the Privy Council. One of these, one would think, would be important and interesting enough, but Sir Maurice Hankey held all three. He entered the Secretariat of the Imperial Defence Committee as long ago as 1908, and he was secretary of the Cabinet from 1919 onwards. Just think of the secrets lie holds under his hat! What a book he could write! Yet his name is unknown to most English people, and I do not remember to have seen any article describing his career, his character, or his tastes. Like the rest of his class he did not advertise. One lias formed the impression—exactly how I don't know—that he was efficient, but what manner of man he is there has l>een nothing to show. "Publicity for Power" Sir Maurice Hankey belongs to a class that John Guntlier, in his "Inside Europe," describes a*. "the incorruptible spinal column of England," and Mr. Harold Laski as "men who have exchanged publicity for power." "The characters who really rule England," says Guntlier, "avoid the limelight, flourish in the shadows, and their power is immense." Behind these shadows, behind the Hankeys, Vansittarts and Fishers (the references are to the Foreign Office and the Treasury) are other shadows "continually in course of training to take over their masters' jobs alter retirement. No man is indispensable. The mechanism is self-perpetua-ting." Once a Marine Sir Maurice Hankey, however, did not enter the civil service through the ordinary channels. He came in from the marines at the age of 31. He was born in Australia, apparently of English parents, and educated at Rugby, but when he left Australia is not stated. This is irritating, for how is one to tell the degree to which he is an Australian ? What, by the way, constitutes an Australian or a New Zealander? Is Sir Hugh Walpole a New Zealander by virtue of having been born in Auckland, though he left it at the age of four or five? Sir Maurice Hankey went into the

marines, thereby missing what is considered to be indispensable to the civil servant of the highest grade to-day— a university training. The marines are a very famous corps.—"Per Mare Per Terrain"— E slwps In an 'ammiek instead of a cot an' 'e drills with the deck on a slew. An' 'e sweats like a Jolly—'Er Majesty's Jolly—-soldier ana sailor too! For tl<ere isn't a job on top o' the earth the beggar don't know nor do—You can leave 'im at night on a bald man's 'ead, to paddle 'is own canoe— E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolouse— soldier and sailor too. But I don't think I am doing them an injustice when I say that theirs is hardly the service to attract an ambitious man. The prospects of high advancement are very limited. The marine officer cannot look forward to commanding either an army or a fleet. However, Maurice Hankey was clearly an exceptional young man. He was soon doing staff work, and, as I have said, he was not much over 30 when he was taken into the very heart of the Empire s service. There he has been ever since. Who picked him I don't know, but I should 6ay he got hie jobs purelv on hie merits. It may have been favouritism of a kind, but there is a good deal to be said for favouritism if it is enlightened. | The Permanent Head It ie often said that a country is governed by its civil service, and there is a good deal of truth in it, especially when it is a civil service organised on a permanent basis. Ministers come and go; civil servants remain. The permanent head of a Department is in a position similar to that of a Sovereign; he cannot veto, but he can advise, and with years he acquires a knowledge and experience that make his advice valuable and weighty. In his description of the position of a wise Sovereign who has ruled long. Bagelot says "in his famous book on the Constitution: The King would indeed have the advantage which a permanent undersecretary has over his superior, the I arliamentar.v secretary—that of having shared the proceedings of the previous Parliamentary secretaries. These proceedings were part of his own life occupied the best of his thoughts gave him perhaps anxiety, perhaps pleasure ".ere commenced in spite of his dissuasion, or were sanctioned bv his approval. The Parliamentary secretary vaguely remembers that somethin" was done in the time of some of his predecessors, when he very likely did not know the ieast or care the'least about that sort of public business. He has to begin by learning painfully and imperfectly what the permanent secretary knows L>y clear and instant memory. Maurice Hankey worked a* a Depart mental head for years under three sovereigns and many Ministers. It is not difficult to imagine the volume of experience that he must have acquired and the increasing value placed upon his judgment. It is worth while looking at the recruiting of the English civil servant, and especially the "administrative" class that stands at the top of the system,

the class from which the permanent heads are drawn. The civil service, as a career for the talents, was started bv Gladstone in 18<0, one of the many important domestic reforms introduced by a statesman who, to numbers of people, recalls only Majuba, Ireland and the Sudan. Mr. Harold Laski, the brilliant English publicist of the Left—will some nervous and conservative New Zealand ers note that Mr. Laski's Left leaningl do not prevent him from being employed by the (Jovernment as an examiner for the highest division of the service?— Mr. Laski has been explaining to Americans, some of whom are striving to remove more of their own service from the spoils system, how the British civil service ie organised in groups. The two lowest groups comprise the bulk of the service, 450,000 in number. They have full or part secondary school training. In the second, or "executive" class there are 4000. These have had a longer time at school. "The pride and glory" of the civil service is the fourth or "administrative" group—a 1000. These men are pickcd from the best scholars at the universities, mostly Oxford and Cambridge, I believe, by competitive examination, and that examination is not confined to books. Candidates are interviewed, and character and bearing, as well as brains, are assessed. Salaries in this class range up to £3000 a year, but it is not salary alone that attracts to this division of the civil service so many ambitious young Englishmen, the intellectual equals of any group in the country. The high social prestige that these posts carry counts for something. But what I think counts for most is the career itself, the prospect of doing work that is worth while in the public interest, and doing it under concrMiial conditions. To many men, of course, this is not sufficient; they want more money than the civil service can offer, more opportunity to use their abilities in their own way, more publicity. The civil servant is content to take the cash and let the credit go. Class Distinctions The system of selecting these highgrade men has been criticised on the ground that it unduly favours the old school tie. Not only do most of the candidates wear that tie, but so do most of the examiners. An eminent English journalist said the other day that = the trouble about the present Government was that Ministers could not visualise people who did not dress for dinner, and the administrative division of the civil service must suffer to some extent from this disability. It has been recruited for the most part from a limited class whose lives run on very well oiled wheels. But times change. English class distinctions are not so strong as they wera. Every year more youths from "county" as distinct from "public" schools are pressing to enter what once were sacred preserves of the governing clashes. And Mr. Laski himself, who is not likely to be prejudiced in favour of the old school tie. ascribes to the ability, intelligence and energy of this group of carefully and competitively chosen men, many of England's greatest social reforms. Exceptionally able, honest, non-political, and self-effacing, they arc a very remarkable body of men. these permanent governors of England.