The Press. — London, England, 1855-07-14 00:00:00

JULY 14, 1855. V torccbings in Varlianunt. ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. Mr. V. Scuum on Tuesday moved the following - . resolution That a humble address be presented to her Majesty, thanking her Majesty for her moat gracious order iu council of the 21st day of May last, by which certain persons were directed to ex amine into and certify the qualifications of all young men pro posed to be appointed to junior situations In any department of the civil service, and praying that her Majesty will be graciously pleased to direct the examination to be an open one, and held in public, and that the examiners do have regard to superior quail- Aoations and merit. The object of his resolution was, he said, simply an extension of the recent order in council. His two main objects were, first, to establish the system of competition for all appointments to Government offices; and, secondly, that such competition should be public. In support of the first, he dwelt at some length on the mischiefs and difficulties arising out of the seeking for appointments through parliamentary interference—the waste of time to the cand►date, and the created between the Government and the recommending member. He instanced cases from his own experience, and quoted the authorities of persons of experience who had urged the absolute necessity for getting rid of this vexatious system. Viscount GODZRICH seconded the motion, observing that as matters stood the orders in council were posi- tively mischievous, as relieving those who made ap pointments from a certain degree of responsibility without providing any adequate check upon those appointments. He defended the plan proposed against its objectors, saying that examination would be a security to some extent for the moral fitness of the candidates ; and that the two objections—that the remedy was too small for the evil, and that it would endanger our institutions—mutually destroyed one another. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, in a long and discursive speech, contended that the order iu council was a sufficient step in the right direction to induce the house to give it a further trial, and pause before it recommended a revocation of that order, and proceeded upon new and untried principles with out further experience. He argued that, if the sys tem of competitive examination were adopted for the junior branches of the service, they might apply it to grades of all kinds, till they reached the judges of the superior courts themselves. He could not find any precedent for such a system, referring to the old Italian republics, and more especially to the United States, where the appointment of public ser vants was made, upon principle, a matter of political and party patronage. No private companies adopted the system of competition in their appointments. He then defended in detail the working of the exami nation adopted in consequence of the order in coun cil, objected to the terms of the motion as vague and unsatisfactory, and met it by moving the previous question. Mr. Wimerssox had not joined the Administrative Reform Association, not thinking that such reform should have beeen founded on our Crimean disasters, and believing that it could only be carried out by the Government itself. He yet trusted that the Govern ment would in the end abolish the system of patronage. Mr. LINDSAY took the opportunity to defend in detail his own statements on previous occasions, and the exactitude of his conduct in commercial matters which had been attacked. His speech, a very long one, was entirely made up of technical matters a s z o the fitting up of certain ships and getting them ready fur sea. • --- Sir C. WOOD replied with a series of assertions equally technical, establishing his former allega tions, and contending that they had been exaggerated and misstated in the attempt to disprove them. Sir J. NORTHCOTE did not see why the order in council should be made an argument against the motion, which was only intended to extend them. He cited the newspaper " douceur " advertisements as proofs of the abuse of the patronage system, and instanced the French examinations, lately extended to appointments in the marine departments, as a precedent for our own country. He denied that the examination system would destroy the responsibility of appointments; it would only shift it to the examiners. There wziuld be the test of proba tion, in addition to that of examination. He denied that the system would injure our political or social relations, and pointed to the Crimean disasters as proving that the evil lay, not with the heads of de partments, but with the inferior branches. Sir F. BARING, from his own experience, declared that the sweeping charges brought against official clerks were unjust. The present system offered opportunities of providing for the relatives of those who had died in the public service, an advantage which would be utterly lost by its abolition. The proposed system would fill the offices with over educated men, rendering their management ex tremely difficult. On his own recommendation the THE PRESS. examination system had to some extent been tried by Lord Melbourne, and had worked so ill that it was given up. That system would be more exclu- sive than the present, requiring an expensive education. The evils of the present system were the advancement by seniority and the difficulty of removing inefficient officers, neither of which was obviated by that proposed. Mr. GLADSTONE said that the proposed resolution was required as a proof that the house was in earnest when it adopted that of Sir B. Lytton. Re plying to the objections to it, he ridiculed precedents derived from the Romans, and denied that those taken from the Americans were applicable. Private companies did not resort to competition, because the pressure of private interest was in itself a sufficient guarantee. As to the actual state of the civil service, the higher o ffi ces were well, and in some cases admirably, filled; but, on account of the utter deadness of the lower branches of the system, they had to go outside of the civil service to find these superior officers. He would not make the civil ser vice a monopoly, still he thought that the higher branches of the service, as a general rule, should be chosen from the lower, which could not Ks done as things stood at present. All this caused a series of mischiefs, which pervaded the whole service. The great principle was, the public had a right to the best man for its money, and that was not obtained under the actual system. He proceeded to comment at length on the moral evil of the pressure exercised upon members of Parliament by constituents seeking appointments, and of patronage in general, and read the preface to the " Guide to Official Appointments," amidst much amusement, to the house. He dis posed of the argument as to the granting of public offices to the relatives of public servants, by declar ing himself jealous of hereditary appointments, and of giving places to bad officers from charitable motives. It had been urged that the proposed sys tem would lead to disappointments. As it was, can didates for office often wasted their lives in disap pointment; and he thought that freedom of demand and supply would be the best regulator in the num ber of applicants, and would considerably reduce the number of disappointments. He denied that com petition would give over-educated men ; but a line would be drawn so that the examination might give the right sort of men for their respective duties. The discontent now existing in the civil service was a serious evil; the same could be said of no other class in the country, because in all others there was a clear stage and no favour. Taking the mass of public employments, they were paid on a scale above that of private employments; but it was the distri bution which was at the root of all the discontent. As to the question of removability and promotion by seniority, he could not trust to the first for securing good officers ; for the second, contrivance of every kind had been attempted to supersede it without success, the reason being that the basis of the sp.- tem was favour. Let the man come in by merit, and he might be promoted by merit. He answered the objection to the proposed system as new-faugled by instancing the many undoubted reforms of which the same might have been said. He believed that examination would be a fair test of the moral character of young men, and it would besides in such cases be safe to trust to testimonials. He concluded by expressing bis satisfaction at the progress which the question was evidently making. Mr. TITS, though an Administrative Reformer, re commended Mr. Scully to withdraw his motion. Lord PALMERSTON said that the real question—that of providing competent persons to fill public offices — had been somewhat forgotten in that of relieving members of Parliament from importunate corre spondents. He argued that the evils both of promotion by seniority and of disappointment would be greatly increased by the adoption of open competition. However the system of examination might be carried out, it should be modified by placing the ultimate power of selection in the hands of the chief of the department. Again, the principle of appointing men bred to the civil service to the higher offices must be modified by a power of selection from without, if men suitable for the situations were always to be appointed to them. In opposing the motion, he said em phatically that the Government was anxious to ob tain the best men for the public service, and urged the trial of the system of the orders in council for another year. Mr. V. SCULLY, in reply, amused the house by reading several letters from his constituents, accom panied by good humoured comments. The previous question was carried by 140 to 125. CENSURE ON THE MINISTERS. An amendment is to be proposed to Mr. Roebuck's motion for a vote of censure, by Colonel Shafto Adair, to the following effect: — That this House is of opinion that the counsels which deter mined the expedition to the Crimes were consistent with a bold and sagacious policy, just to our allies, and commensurate with the objects 14 the war; and, further, that a perseverance in a similar policy can ulone afford the hope of insuring an or and permanent peace. THE AUSTRIAN PROPOSAL. Sir E. B. Lmow, on Tuesday, gave notice of the following resolution : That in the opinion of the house, the conduct of the Llo% ern meat with reference to the reeeut \limns negotiations had been such as to shake the eouildeuee of the country in the present Ministry. Mr. DISRAELI followed this up by giving notice of motion to afford precedence to this proposition on Friday (last night) before the orders of the day. On Thursday Lord PALMERSTON laid the papers relating to the proposal on the table, and observed that, as they had to be printed and place , ' in the hands of members, Sir B. Lytton's motion had better be de ferred till next week. Lord JOHN RUSSELL then rose to answer Mr. Disraeli's question on a former night, and said that be had received her Majesty's sanction for the course he had taken, adding that what he had stated was no more than every one could have inferred. lle proceeded to justify his holding office on the ground that, though ten months ago the Austrian proposi tions might have been made a basis for peace, after what had occurred nothing remained but to prose cute the war with vigour. On this Mr. DISRAELI remarked that it was a fact which no one doubted, and was not the question. The question really was, whether when the noble lord, after admitting in a matured statement that he was favorable to terms of peace, which were rejected by his colleagues, had not felt bound to consider whe ther his duty did not bind him to retire from the Government; likewise, whether his language hn. mediately after his return was not calculated to mis lead the house as to his real opinions ? Referring again to the revelations of Lord John, he said that they referred to interior discussions in the Cabinet, and he had yet to learn that he was authorised to make them without the royal sanction. lie then complained that the Premier had altered the arrange ments for Friday, solely to prevent Sir B. Lytton's motion from proceeding on that day. This Lord PALUERSTON denied, saying that it was necessary that the papers should be first duly con sidered. He would give every facility to the motion on any day next week. He defended the propriety of the statements of Lord J. Russell, observing that business could not proceed if Cabinet Ministers were not allowed to state the general decision on the questions brought before them. He proposed that Sir B. Lytton might take Monday to do what he pleased with, for the purposes of his motion. Sir E. B. Lin-ros accepted that day, saying that he should bring forward his resolution as a substau• tial motion. Sir J. WALSH remarked that in Count linol's cir cular, the truth of which was admitted by the noble lord, it was stated that he had identified himself with the Austrian proposal, which he had promised to recommend to his Cabinet. lle now represented himself as simply acquiescing out of courtesy to Austria. He then appealed to Mr. Roebuck tu post pone his motion, which stood fur Tuesday, if the debate on Monday was adjourned, to which Mr. Roubucii intimated his assent. THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE. The Marquis of CLANRICARDE, on Tuesday, moving for returns, replied with some warmth to the accusa tions which had been brought against the members of this service. As a proof of the experienced men now engaged in it, lie observed that out of twenty eight first-class missions eighteen were tilled by men who had been in the public service since IS2Pi. At the outbreak of the present contest the diplomatists engaged had rendered good service, and our highest posts were admirably filled. The Earl of CLARENDON bore testimony to the manner in which the Foreign-office agents performed their duties, saying that, whether they acted on the instructions given to them or in thu absence of in structions, they fulfilled the expectations and require ments of the country. The war had imposed new duties on our consols, who had met them most satisfactorily. Replying to the charges brought against the service as aristocratic, he asked if a man, because well born, became unfit for his duties the moment he received a miserable stipend of 2001. a year, and instanced the services of Lords Cowley and Stratford. Earl GRANVILLE denied that appointments in the diplomatic service were conferred from favoritism or family connections. They were given on the prin ciple of putting the right man in the right place. The Earl of MALYESBURY observed that Mr. Layard, who had been marked out for a post by Lord Derl,y solely on account of his abilities, ought to be the last man to complain that the right inen were overlooked, and trusted that. inch appointments would never be made independent of the foreign service. The Earl of HARDWIcxE said that whatever might be the case in the civil service, promotion in the navy was made altogether from favormem. 657