The Press. — London, England, 1855-04-07 00:00:00

320 place, while in the adjoining district, a few miles off, there is scarcity amounting to famine. A system of habitual exchange is suggested; as also the classification of civil servants in such manner as to facilitate this arrangement. No means, however, are sug gested of accomplishing the classification hero described, the difficulty of which the writer appears somewhat to underrate. It is inti mated that the precedence of civil servants in the general service might be kept distinct from their departmental precedence, just as military officers have regimental rank, as dis tinguished from rank in the army. The second fault noted is that of irrespon sibility. No chief of a public office is practi cally answerable for its efficiency. He " reigns, " but does not govern." He directs the ad ministration of his department, but exorcises little superintendence over its working. Nor has he the requisite power to reward or punish. Special services, performed by juniors or subordinates, pass unnoticed; neglect of duty, unless more than usually gross, remains un censured. Between a mere reprimand, which is felt very differently by different persons, and a total dismissal from the service, in volving the delinquent in utter ruin, no im mediate penalty exists. Doubtless the autho rity to inflict such is vested in the superior officer ; but there are scarcely any precedents for its exercise, and few men will accept the ungracious task of creating such. The rewards recommended for adoption are :—(l) Mention in a minute by the head of a department, to be recorded in the office books, analogous to the system of noticing the military services of officers in despatches by a Commander-in- Chief, or divisional general. (2) Special recommendation to the Treasury for promo tion, or increase of salary ; such extraordinary promotion to be either to a higher rank in the same department, or to a higher branch of the service. The corresponding punishments proposed are—removal to an inferior department, or to inferior work in the same department—stop page of pay, entire, or partial—loss of official station, a minute of censure, to be duly re corded and preserved—lastly, removal from the service, with or without pension ; the latter punishment only to be inflicted in extreme cases, involving moral delinquency. As a check on the exercise of these powers, annual reports are suggested from each office to the Treasury, showing the amount of work done, the number of persons employed, of letters received and answered, the cost of working the department, the regulations in force, &c. it may be left for consideration whether these reports should be made public. Another, and perhaps more important amendment projected is the establishment of a civil court of appeal. Mr. GLADSTONE'S despotic doctrines on this subject, as set forth in the Kennedy case, will not soon be forgotten by those who heard them. On the other hand, it is unreasonable that the House of Commons should be required to listen to the trumpery grievance of every clerk who may think him self removed without just cause. But if abso lute authority can neither be suffered to exist unchecked, nor yet effectually checked by the parliamentary power, what remedy except a separate, an impartial, and an independent tribunal ? Responsibility, publicity, and the right to open trial, are thus the three points on which our author lays stress. He aims at amending the Civil Service in its working rather than in the selection of its component parts. He would leave the power of first appointments as at present, subject only to an examination test, which might exclude the inefficient. He would have these appointments made out for the Civil Service generally, thus facilitating subsequent interchange between the depart ments. If the competitive system is to be in troduced at all, he would modify it by allow ing the Minister to name more than one candidate—say three to each vacancy—among whom the best should be picked out by means of examination. But he lays less stress on these first appointments than on the subse quent distribution of promotion, believing that it is in the want of rewards for merit, rather than of men calculated to obtain these re wards, that the true defect of the service lies. THE PRESS. THE COUNCIL AND THE PUBLIC OF CALCUTTA. WE regret much to see by the late Indian papers that a serious difference has already sprung up between the Legislative Council and the public of Calcutta ; and the more so, because we think it is a difference which might have been very easily avoided had the Council, or those who guide it, felt inclined to show a little more courtesy to the people for whose benefit ostensibly their labours are in tended. The Legislative Council, in its pre sent shape, is new India; it was the creation of the act lately passed for the renewal of the government in the hands of the Directors, and it was intended to supply for a period the place of the representative system, for which India is confessedly at the present moment unprepared. To give such an institution a chance of success it was necessary that much care should be exhibited in the handling of it at the outset : a servile regard to the opinion of every section of the community was, of course, not required, but its proceedings should have been conducted on the states manlike plan of showing a due attention to the wishes, and feelings, and interests of those classes on whose intelligent support the government of all countries, no matter what the form of rule, must ultimately and mainly rest. It is not uncommon for people in England to suppose that there exists no such class in India; but no idea can be more erroneous. In point of wealth, civilisation, and the degree of mental cultivation necessary for the highest success in the affairs of life, there are few countries which possess such a class in a larger degree than Bengal and the capital of Western India. On the establishment of a Legislative Coun cil for India it was not unnatural in this class to hope that at least some three or four selec tions for the office of councillor should be made from among them ; yet when disap pointed in this they showed no resentment, but only expressed a trust that all publicity might be given to the proceedings of a body in whose deliberations they were so vitally in terested. In the expression of this wish all the rest of the community joined, and it was understood that the point was one which the Council itself would yield. The Council after wards, however, proved so exclusive and so stringent in the rules promulgated by it for admission to be present at its deliberations, as to render the privilege inaccessible or nugatory ; and, in consequence, none but the Council themselves and its officers and the officials having business with it now attend. That the result will be most injurious to the Government and to the Legislative Council itself it is not difficult to foresee ; for the first element of success for such a body is, that it should have public feeling and opinion with it, while its present course will array the public and the whole newspaper press in irreconcile able hostility against it. Its best measures will thus be received with suspicion, instead of accepted with thankfulness, and in every case in which it makes an error it will be sub jected to a criticism so unsparing as very soon to destroy all respect for it in the public mind. The fact is, that the day is past when such attempts to obviate what are thought the in conveniences of publicity could even in India have any permanent chance of success. There, as here, it is now felt that candour and open ness in all public proceedings afford the surest evidence of a desire to do right; and there, as here, concealment has but one ten dency, and that to increase tenfold the ulti mate difficulties of those who resort to its use. With some persons, however, all teach ing is fruitless ; they are so wedded to ancient forms and abuses that reforms con ceived in even the most Conservative spirit are opposed by them, simply because they involve a change ; and in no public body is this feeling more perceptible than among the East India direction and their servants in the East, many of whom are not wanting either in the power to see the defects of their govern ment, or in an anxiety to remove them, though their good intentions prove almost always utterly fruitless, because they have not the SATURDAY, courage to enforce the adoption of them on their colleagues, and compel that attention to the social questions springing up in India which day by day they more and more require. In England we speak of Parliament's short comings if even a single session passes with out some large measure of improvement in a social system which has long since arrived at a degree of high perfection ; while in India, with everything to do as it were de novo, we stand idly doing nothing; or, what is worse, engaging in petty squabbles with the natives about their style of dress, and the terms of their admission to the Legislative Council room, as if to show them that at heart we are as perfect despots, and that, war apart, we are as arrant triflers, as the most contemptible of the native princes whom we have de. throned. THE NEW LAW OF BILLS OF EXCHANGE. THE continentalising, so to speak, of the laws of England requires more attention that it seems of late to have commanded. Scarcely an alteration has been made of late years in our code without exhibiting a further approach to that despotism in small matters which always characterises the legislation of the Whigs. The whole system of the county courts, and the luckless bankruptcy statutes, are evidences sufficient of this, and might have acted as a warning against any attempt to push the practice farther. A bill has, how ever, been read a second time in the Commons, and agreed to be referred, with another, to a select committee, which tends to enable the holder of a bill of exchange to dispense with all the ordinary tribunals, and by the aid of a new jurisdiction to obtain an undue, and in most cases a fraudulent, preference over all other creditors whatsoever. Should this bill or anything approaching it become law, not the slightest provision will have been made for the possibility of the acceptor of any bill of exchange being disappointed in the receipt of his profits from lands, houses, or business. The acceptance will operate ns a judgment, and all other creditors must allow the pro perty of the debtor to be swept away by the holder of the bill of exchange. The bill is rather freely denounced in certain quarters as " a job," awl certainly there is nothing in the appointments following upon the creation of patronage under new acts from the same source to negative such a supposition. How ever this may be, we cannot but agree with Sir FREDERIC THESIOER that while we have a law in England by which in some eight days judgment may be obtained on a bill of ex change, it is scarcely necessary to import the law of Scotland, and create a new tribunal, for the purpose of giving the holder of such bill the advantage of oppressing his debtor to his inevitable destruction, and defrauding all other creditors of their dividend of his estate, or, what may much more reasonably be ex pected from distressed persons, enabling such holder to collude with a particular debtor, and sweep away all his goods to the defeat and loss of all other claimants. With the details of the bill it is to be hoped that the committee will render it unnecessary to deal. At the present moment all persons granting bills of sale and mortgages have their names distributed over all parts of the country by means of registration, and so-called socie ties for the protection of trade ; yet, after all this publicity adopted so as to give additional value to the securities referred to, a bill of exchange given by the same debtor condi tioned for payment at a shorter date, may enable the holder to prevent all remedy, either to the mortgagee or vendee, or any other having claim on the estate. We have adverted to this proposed act because its real effect may be very easily mis• taken, and the consequences to all who may receive bills as a security, or give them as a convenience, in however certain a hope of meeting the responsibility, are of so serious a nature as to demand strict attention to this last of the recent wanton attempts at legis lation.