THE REVOLUTION IN THE ENGLISH CIVIL SERVICE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 706, 27 August 1870, Page 4

THE REVOLUTION IN THE ENGLISH CIVIL SERVICE.

(From the Economist, June 11.) Mr Lowe has more than once said that having once admitted the principle of absolute equality between poor and rich, between men of one religion and those of another religion, into our electoral system, we should be obliged to apply it in every department of public life, and that the sooner we set ourselves to the work of applying it in good faith, the more smoothly our political institutions will run. Every year shows how true this is. The Endowed Schools Act of last year and the discussions on the Primary Education Bill for this year, have afforded remarkable illustrations of the rapid and marvellous progress towards social equality which the abolition of privilege in electoral matters has already caused. And in this new Order in Council we have full evidence how keenly alive the Government is to the exigencies of the situation. Tbe Order inserted in Tuesday's Gazette practically throws open the Civil Service — a few exceptional offices like the diplomatic offices alone excepted — to the competition of the whole youth of the nation on equal terms, — those terms, however, being of course such as to ensure high intellectual culture for the higher offices and adequate education for all. This is an immense stride in the direction of equality, and, as it seems to us, one almost without a drawback; for the Order has wisely excepted the case where the chief of a department shall determine that for the discharge of a particular duty he can obtain better practical evidence of fitness than any which an examination can furnish. It would be a monstrous thing, for instance, if for a particular duty — in the Mint suppose— the Treasury needed and could find a man who bad been engaged in one of our Colonial Mints, and were obliged to pass by him, because they had established a uniform rule that no man should be admitted into the Civil Service except by the door of a competitive examination. That would be sacrificing the end to the means. But this has been quite sufficiently provided for by enabling the Civil Service Commissioners to grant a certificate of fitness on any evidence which may be satisfactory to them of competence for the particular duties designated, even though no examination has been passed. Por the rest, we believe that the simplification which abolishes and throws the whole Service open, as the Indian Civil Service has long been thrown open, to everybody, who can reach a given standard of, attainment, will turn out be one in almost every way beneficial. •'.:.. , . . In the first place, it destroys all jealousy of the official caste, without dangerously weakening their influence and claims on a. nation fast becoming democratic. One of the gravest .dangers which & democracy has to avoid, as, we. see by the case of the United States, is the danger of. making .the administrative patronage the prize of either political party. Very likely the English people may have the sense to see that if that were once done in England, the decline of the national power would be rapid and certain. But there is. nothing like securing the respect of all parties for our bureaucratic organization, by submitting it to tests .entirely: independent of party,, and which, whether efficient or not, are at least entirely free from the taint of political motived We . all know how 'easily the habit of dismissing the mere apyour o^p^inent^jWould^creep m^ directly^rtjypirfjt i)ecame.jQ'^pw .and .captious. .\yeyir.e jfai? frpm'asseri;? ting that as the §tate becomes more and more democratic, party spirit will become more aad more Harrow and 'captious. But at feast tiie'Jhing is ( possible, andhaa happened in 'America. The natural tendency of the extinction of anything like a party opposed to the people," ia^to. diminish the chrism between ,tije opposing, party principles, and: to make up; jfbr everyc very minute differencea of theoretic politics by very violent differences on, the mode of putting your theoriesan force. There can benq,dqubt at ajl that, just aa Free Trade hasrb i e.cojcae, j wjt^ / -u8 now the axiom of both parties alike, so most oi the old differences between Whig and Tory will be settled by the disappear-

ance of the latter form of creed, till at last party disputes will very much resolve themselves into disputes on administrative procedure. Directly thathappena we shall be likely to hear of controversies like that which followed the last change of Government as to the appointment of the permanent Under-Secretary for Irish affairs. The Liberals thought he had been appointed by Mr Disraeli's Government at the last moment on purpose to embarrass the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church, and asked for his removal. The Tories vehemently denied this, and bitterly attacked the unscrupulous proposal to make such an appointment a question of political strife. Of course if the Tories had been criticising an appointment made by the Liberals at the last moment, the arguments on both sides would have been reversed. But we use the incident solely as an illustration how inevitably, as the larger controversies are settled, we shall see a tendency to squabble bitterly on the mere personal question of subordinate appointments. And we cannot see any permanent safeguard against this except in a system which should take the greater part of the Civil Service appointments out of the hands of party, and yet secure for the appointees a rank and credit of their own, which could not be traced either to social or political advantages. Had the American Civil Servants been so appointed the whole country would have resisted the attempt of any President to treat them as the mere servants of a party chief. And so the States would have been saved from that terrible calamity, the solution of official continuity which comes with every change in the balance of parties, and the still worse calamity which results from it the utter depreciation of political morality, and the wholesale attempts to earn office by political partizanship. If this Order in Council gives to the Permanent Civil Service at once intellectual distinction and a popular origin — for when all privilege is abolished, and any man of whatever birth up to a particular standard of intellectual culture has, a chance of success, no one can call its origin other than popular-— it will create a lasting barrieragainMamr political abuse of j ■Hw^^^^fflulce^iineiri3uoorain!^e^ better men would in all' probability be obtained by the responsible but arbitrary exercise of their own judgment tHan Jn any other, way whatever. But then,/ unfortunately, these two " ifa " are only equivalent to saying--" if impossibilities happened," — and impossibilities, as we all know don't happen. The heads of departments are not by any means uniformly able men 1 and men of Butj if they r^ere uniformly men of the/most extraordinary judgment, we know that they would not and could not resist Jjtie private influences which could be brought. to bear._ In nine .cases!, out of ten. the chief of;. a department thiuks tnat it does not very much matter whether hehas a: man of r a. shade more or a shade Jesa capacity under him It matters to him .much : more to gratify hia. intimate friends,., and to taste the pleasure f .of • conferring favours and earning thanks. We need impute' to ,him none but the, most benevolent moliv^s.;'. ■^y i^gß.\t^^f|^e / 'di'ft^i;^nce to the departmtnt ..inl energy will be almost infinitesimal,* and be does! not rem^mb.grih^- when you add tog^tbe^.'a^ inclenniV^nijr&ber. of almost iniftniteaimal additions of; energy, you may-gefe-^ very- sensible difference in '' the efficiency or 5 the Civil Service as a ' whole.;,, In a^word, literally the only ' way /to prevent tho .chief; of a depart- ! trvent f£6rri jobbing ' his patronage — it • ; may be from the most disinterested of all motives — is to take* the patronage [ Irom him, a,B regards the choice of new I men, altogether. Of couree there ia uo such necessity as to tbe promotion

of tried men. There ia always a great feeling oi esprit de corps in every wellgoverned department, and the chief knows he cannot promote the inefficient and neglect the efficient mcD under him without destroying the whole tone of tho department. But with regard to the choice of new men there ia no such limitation on hie power ; and all experience shows that even the very best chiefs will nominate, for private reasons and not public reasons, if they have the power to nominate at all. Now, little as success in a competitive examination may show, it does show, we submit, more of probable efficiency for work than any social influence exercised in a candidate's favour. This is not saying much for it, but it is saying quite enough. If you get a mode of selection which in the long run will secure you a greater number of good servants from whom to choose than you would have got by leaving the nominations to the pressure of social influences, there is nothing further to be urged for the nomination system. Moreover tbe new Order in Council does not leave the matter wholly even to this test. It imposes a six months' trial in the duties of the office, after which the chief of the department is to certify, if he can, the candidates' practical efficiency before it confers the office at all. "We trust this probation will at least to some extent be real, and not too nominal. We are perfectly aware indeed that after men have devoted a long period to preparation, and have actually succeeded in their examination, and have then given six months more to learn the practical duties of the office, it will not be possible to be too fastidious at so late a stage of the proceedings,— to throw them back upon the world for a mere shade of inferiority to other Civil Servants in the same phase of their trial. But unless ;the six months' probation is to be real in this sense, that all who show themselves definitely unpunctual and careless in practical lite are really to be rejected as unfit in spite of any intellectual attainments however high, we may be filling the offices with discontented men entirely unsuited to their work. The six months' probation is an exceedingly good qualification of the purely intellectual test, and with it we need not fear but that the new Civil Servants will soon become a ;far more workmanlike set than we have ever yet had in the same offices. It is not a small matter that the Government have achieved in establishing the Civil , Service on a thoroughly .popular basis, and yet on one which 'will secure the members of it consideration at the hands_ of the nation, respect from their own superiors, and ■a high average of practical as well as intellectual ability.

• A New Idea.— -A curious story is related 'by the Baltimore Sun. The prohibitory liquor •law of the State of Michigan does not regard I liquor as " property,'-' and a woman whose hnsband was addicted to drinking brought an 'action' against a publican, with whom her husbind had a. "score '? for the recovery of the money spent by him, "on the ground ithat it had been paid to the liquor vendor 'without consideratibih?' The Sun sayathe woman was successful in her cause, .and recovered all the money which her husband had spent in the liquor saloon during the last six years. ...... Pbeachbrs and Pleaching — The Rev; Newman Hall communicates !to the New-York Independent l; an incident which recently ocJuri'eJin orie of fche out-door meetings which: he;' has been, holding;; A free thinker who | happened to be present rose and said hVedme to hear about' temperance, but in ; his opini >n the man who invented gas had done more to enligliten the world than' all the parsons. Quite a disturbance ensued, but a friend of Mr Hall at once begged for a fair hearing even for ■ the objector ; and then being himself called up' he said : •' Mr Chairman, — I'm for free thought and free Speech ; and yonder gentleman has a right to speak and think for himself as much as I have. (Loud cheers from the friends of the objector.) That gentleman says he considers the man who invented gas did more to enlighten the world than all tbe parsons. Well, if that is his opinion, he has a right to hold it and maintain it. But, whatever our different opinions, there is a time coming to us all which we call death, when most men are somewhat .serious, and like to get advice and comfort respecting the world they are going to. Now, when this season comes to our friend, I would recommend him to send for the gas-man." An immense sensation with a tumult of applause followed this sally, which, as Mr Hall says, was better than a sermon, and not likely to be forgotten. He ndds that the impudent boys of the neighbourhood jwhere this occurred still, when at n safe distance, shout to the man round the corners of the street, " Send for tbe gasfitter."

Taking Time bi the Forelock.— A New Orleans policeman, before light, the other morning, came upon a stranger pacing before the Station-house, and on enquiry found that he had been doing the same all night, waiting for a lady. " She's a good while in coming, ain't she ?" 9nid the officer. " Yes, but the poor thing aiu'fc to blame; they've got her locked up there," pointing to the stationhouse, " and as soon as she gets out we're going to get married. She's got a lottery ticket, and I found out last night that it had drawn a pile. She's no idea of it, you know." An Exciting Adventure. — On Wednesday, July 20, Dr Schomburgk (the Director of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens), with his foreman and two men named Tyre and Leonard, formed an expedition to the hills in the neighbourhood of Mount Barker, for the purpose of obtaining grass-trees, and other native productions. When about a quarter of a mile past Fordham's (says the Register), they descended from the right hand side of the road in order to get some of the trees growing in the creek. The Doctor and his foreman were in front, and the two men about 50 yards behind, not in a direct line. When the two former had gone a considerable distance, Tyre slipped on a stone, and, losing his balance, commenced rolling down the hill towards a precipice about 25 feet deep perpendicularly overhanging the creek. Seeing his companion's danger, Leonard who is a very powerful man, with great courage and promptitude, attempted to stop him, but was knocked down, and they then both rolled on at a terrific pace. At about twelve or Bixteen feet from the precipice Leonari grasped a shrub, thus arresting the progress of himself and Tyre, and saving them from imminent death. Dr Schomburgk estimated that Tyre rolled about 150 feet, and the rate which. he passed over the ground was very great, his body making bounds of thrca and four fe?t at a time. Fortunately no bonea were broken, but the unfortunate man's face and hands were badly scratched, and he was not in a fit condition to be moved for several hours, after which time he was conveyed to town. Leonard was unhurt, and the Doctor avers that he never saw such narrow escapes from death in his life.