CIVIL SERVICE IN ENGLAND.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 762, 8 October 1886, Page 9

CIVIL SERVICE IN ENGLAND.

Workings op the British Reform System —HisTORY op its Development.

The thirteeth report of Her Majesty’s Civil Service Commissioners contains matter of spefcial interest. It gives a. retrospective sketch of the progress made by the competitive system during the thirty years which have now passed since the Board of Commissioners wa3 established. Prior to the order in Council of May, 1885; there was no general plan of examinations for admission to public offices. The pattronage system prevailed everywhere, slightly modified in some departments by the application of tests of competency to candidates for clerkships. ■ But in some of the most important public offices the nominees were admitted without examination and without test of any kind. The early work of the Civil Service Commission wa3 concerned almost entirely with the examination ef the candidatesnominated singly to single posts. There was no rule as yet providing for competition open or limited. In this matter the practice came before the rule. As early as 1856 we find 134 persons nominated to compete for forty-three-situations, but the thing was done on no plan, and the result "WEvs tliciti after tlie elimination of candidates below the minimum pass standard, there remained in some cases not more than one candidate for one post. So things went on till 1861, when a more regular system of limited competition was established for clerkships in the gift of the Treasury, and this again was superseded in 1870 by a plan of open competition. But this plan has not even yet come into universal force. There are still various appointments in the gift of the heads of departments for which the limited system continues, but the bulk of the Civil Service appointments open competition has become the rule. The example thus set has been followed in several of the colonies, and there has been talk of the introduction of the open system into the United States of America, but it does not appear that in this last case anything has been actually done. We should have been glad if the Commissioners had been as communicative in their published report as they have been in their more private dealings with the authorities of the United States. They give us facts and’figures in proof of the vast extension which the system of open competition has received in this country, and of the favor with which it is regarded, as shown by the numbers of the candidates who have presented themselves under it. But whether in any other way it has come up to the expectations formed about it, and whether it has worked well or badly on the whole, we are not told. The Commissioners, it may be, think the case too clear for argument, and are content accordingly with giving a simple record of progress. But, interesting as this is, we should have welcomed an addition to it in the shape of a commentary on the bare text. We can hardly suppose that the changes which the Commissioners chronicle have been so entirely for the better that there is absolutely nothing to be said on the other side. There must be a balance of advantages and disadvantages, in whichever direct Ton the scale ,may incline when it has been struck. We all remember the flourish of trumpets with which the new system was introduced, and the confident promises which were made about it. The reign of favoritism was to be at. an end, and from that day forward merit was to be the sole claim for admission to office under the State. It is certain that in one way the results of the change have come up to the hopes formed about them. A great many persons have received appointments under the new system who would have sought in vain for them under the old. Men with qo- interest at their command, and with no marketable commodity except brains and character, have gained places in the Civil Service by .open competition, which they could not have gained otherwise. The range from which candidates are drawn is thus widened, to the advantage of the competing public, but not so certainly to the advantage of the public service. The new system has been found faulty iu some respects. It has brought into existence a correspondingly new order of men, who nave stepped into the place of the old dispensers of patronage, and with whose help brain and character can seldom venture to dispense. The professional crammer has arisen, and he claims with some reason that he holds the keys of admission to the public service, and that those who seek te enter it must enter by his door or not at all. The crammer and the examiner are thus the counterparts of one another, sworn foes, it is true, but each with an assigned share in the system which they jointly work. The office of the examiner is to test the merit of the candidates who come before him, and to place them in an order corresponding to it. The office of the crammer is to enable his pupils to hoodwink the examiner, and to give proof of merit in excess of reality, or even wholly apart from it. The degree in which the crammer can do thi3 marks his rank in the order to which he belongs. The

highest place is taken by the man who can send up pupils capable of answering any questions which may be asked, bub not burdened with any information which they will not be called upon to produce. When the day of examination is- over, the mental burden can be at once further reduced, and the pupil can safely revert to the state of mind which he enjoyed before he came under his instructor’s hand. In such a system as this there can be no prospect of uniform and certain success.. The examiner will sometimes discover the trick tried upon him, and will value the cram at the nothing which it is really worth. More frequently he will be imposed upon, and will see signs of merit in the correctly worded answers, which are his sole means of arriving at an estimate. The objections to such a system are many and grave, but the system continues in spite of them. The defence offered by the cramriier is that the ability to take in cram is proof, as far as it goes, of real mental capacity, and that the best man wins. But when we find that between June, 1870, and December, 1885 j there were 108,400 competitors for Civil Service appointments, and oniy 14,717 appointments to be shared among them, we can scarcely avoid considering the hard case of unsuccessful candidates, and the results to them which the new system has brought. They have .been tempted away from other professions ; they have often prepared themselves industriously, and at no small cost, for a profession from which they find themselves shut out, and they have absolutely no set-off but the temporary possession of a mass of useless knowledge driven into them to meet the demands of the examiners, and of no service even for this. If the new system has placed some men in good positions., which they could not have reached without it, it must be debited on the other side of the account with the much larger numbers which it has encouraged only to disappoint. The wrecks unhappily are out of all proportion to the safe arrivals, and this they must continue to be while the present system remains in force. Whether the new clerks are superior to the old is a further question. * The commissioners give no answer. The Heads of Departments give no certain answer. 1 As far as their practice goes, it suggests an answer in the negative. They, prefer for the most part to keep in their own hands snch appointments as they are still suffered to retain. The reason may sometimes be that they wish to be able to do something for their friends, but we shall hardly be wrong in assuming that in choosing their own subordinates they follow the course which they find, on the whole, to be attanded with the. best results, and to give them the best men, and the most deserving of their trust. The Commissioners’ report thus leaves us uninformed on some points of chief importance. We are concerned to know not only that the system of open competition has been gaining ground of late years, but how far it has made good the ground it has gained. It has been tried now long enough and widely enough to supply data for a comparison with the system which it has superseded. It has filled the service with capable men, but has it brought in the best men, or better men than before 1 We learn only that it has tapped new sources of • supply, but we do not learn what the value of them has proved to be. —London Times, July 9;