The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-09-18 00:00:00

Jje Stondribge abetter.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1886.
THE NATION'S SERVANI'S7-

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL, as might have
been expected from a man remarkable in so
many ways, does not intend to let his tenure
of the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer
be altogether of the ordinary hum-drum
character. As the Minister more than all
others responsible for the 'ise and thrifty
expenditure of the nation's money, he is
naturally anxious, while maintaining effici-
ency-, to reduce, if possible, the cost of his
great establishment. To secure a surplus
and make concessions, more or less showy,
to the taxpayers, Chancellors of the Ex-
chequer have exercised their wits in many
ways, and often enough manifested much
ingenuity and ability, but it is a long time
since the salary lists of the servants of the
State have been overhauled and re-considered,
and the tools and plant with which they
work submitted to the sharp eye of the
understanding economist. There are many
;things in the way of the thoroughgoing ex-
amination into the multitudinous considera-
tions involved in this matter, and those who
undertake it require confidence, boldness,
and determined ability. We could wish
that instead of obtaining a Royal Commis-
sion of Inquiry—well fitted for the work
though the Commissioners undoubtedly are
—the Chancellor of the Exchequer had him-
self set about, with the assistance of his
fellow Ministers, reforming the public ser-
vice, for it presents a fine field for an im-
proving hand, though Lord Randolph
Churchill, in the Treasury Minute defining
the Commission, has been careful to state
that its appointment implies no distrust of
the present body of excellent servants of the
Crown. Individually, the members of cleri-
cal establishments of the varier's offices of
State may, as a whole, be doing their work
honestly and well; but through maladmin-
istration and bad generalship there may
still be a considerable waste of labour and
unnecessary wear and tear of appliances.
Hours of work, as compared with those in
highly-reputable private business houses,
may be shorter than the clerks could claim
with fairness. Salaries, viewed from a
similar standpoint, may in some instances
be higher than the outside market would
rule them. Superannuation allowances,
by old custom, may not improbably have
become burdensome and unfair to the em-
ployers, the great public. The cost of the
staff generally may, indeed, be too larcre,
when fairly examined, and there may r'be
room for a great deal of judicious reorgan-
isation both as reeards regulation and ad-
ministration of the departments. In Gov-
ernment offices there is an absence of the
great guiding rule of profit and loss, which
assists the trader to test and regulate the
expenditure on his establishment, and en-
ables him to keep things on a sound finan-
cial basis. There is thus great 'danger of
things tending in the direction of over-ex-
penditure, the staff having comfortable as-
surance that the country can afford to pay
more than is honestly due, and moreover,
that the great composite master neither
knows at all intellibly what his many ser-
vants are doing or what wages they are
worth. There is no incentive to economy
in the Departmental offices other than
principle, and business men do not deem it
advisable now-a-days to trust to expected
principle without efficient control. Advant-
age may be taken of the fact that Chancel-
lors of the Exchequer and Ministerial heads
of Departments have often but brief occu-
pation of authority and so cannot gain a
good grasp of and keep a tight hand on the
expenditure of their establishments. It is
one of the evils of pa ty- Government that
tnere is no continuous and experienced
supervision of the sort, no assurance of the
permanent presence of a competent mana-
ger at the head of every branch of the
nation's business—one who, without in-
justice to the servants of the State, would
always be vigilantly striving to keep down
expenses. Party Government makes even a
searching examination into the matter dif-
ficult. The Minister responsible scarcely
gets started in his scrutiny before a turn in
the political tide carries him out of office,
and the permanent officials are again left
alone, until some new Minister of an in-
dustrious sort begins the examination once
more de novo, only to be in his turn cut
short in his would-be reform work by some
disastrous division. The Royal Commission
that has been appointed under Sir Matthew
White Ridley will have the advantage of
possessing a life not subject to fatal attacks
of party-disease, and so will have the pros-
pect of ultimately completing its examina-
tion, though that must of necessity be a
work of time. We would prefer to have
seen Government, whether Lord Salisbury
or a Liberal Premier were at the head of
affairs, moving boldly to action step by step
in the matter,
.and reforming abuses or cut-
ting down unnecessary outlay without
waiting for the report of a Royal Commis-
sion. The Library of the House is full of
facts on which to work, though there has
been no set inquiry since 1848 However,
the Commission has been chosen, and is
constituted of noblemen and gentlemen ad-
mirably well-fitted to probe the matter
skilfully to the bottom, and to take intelli-
gent observations thereon, ;thereby securing
a good and reliable groundwork on which
to erect a structure of reform. To such an
organised inquiry there is not likely to be
anything like the official resistance which
would impede a personal investigation by a
Minister who could not be sure of remaining
even a month in power. And if obstacles
were covertly placed in the way they would
not have much chance of success against the
keen eyes of the experts who are on the
Commission, notable ammo- whom is that
arch economist., Mr. Ryland's, the latter-day
Hume. After what has been said of late
concerning the Ordnance scandals, one re-
grets that the Commission has not a wider
scope, but that it excludes the Foreign Of-
fice and the Diplomatic and Consular
Services from the scrutiny. It is to be
hoped that all these in turn will be
thoroughly everhanlede the judicial system,
the ecclesiastical establishments, the Ord-
nance departments, and, indeed, every ser-
vant of the nation, ought to be brought
under an impartial review, which should
examine whether each and all are doing
service to the Stete which cannot wisely be
dispensed with, whether they are doine it
we 1, and whether they
,are receiving more
for the function than is airly due. There
is no suspicion imi_died in such an inquiry,
but the man of bre,inuss !will allow that it
is indispensable if the estaelishments are to
be kept clear of abuse. Out of the ordeal
all good servants would come more surely
seated in their appointments, while wastrels
cumberers, and su, erfluitie s would quit their
posts for the common good. The sound
business principle is the only one to apply
safely to the National Establishments. We
must have servants at a cost sufficient., but
not more than sufficient, to ensure efficiency.
Corruption's very shadow must be banished,
all sinecures abolished, defined salaries given
and specificeelly taken, commissions from
contractors and those interested with them
sternly dia.:ountenanced, and everythine.
square and above board between the servant,
high or low in station, and the national
master, . The poor Gastonia officer should

he dealt with with as much !deference and
no more strictness than the most exalted
official; all should be measured from the
standpoint of fitness, efficiency, integrity,
and attention to duty. If the Commission
s.?.cure an advancement in economy in the
cost of and in purity and working excellence
among the nation's servants it will have
done well, and the thanks of the country
will be duo to Lord Randolph Churchill.

COMMENTS ON CURRENT TOPICS.

THE hop-picking has cleared out the
castral wards of all the London workhouses,
as is its annual wont. Scores of thousands
of the poor of the metropolis and the
southerly towns are, as we write, busy at
the bins in the gardens, stripping off the
graceful pendant blossoms from the vines,
and earning the withal, if they will, to
render the coming winter comfortable. But
sadly too many of the worst sort of the
pickers expend all their takings upon beer,
and walk back wih sore feet and aching
heads to their accustomed haunts in the
town slums none the better for their month's
work in the Kent or Surrey sunshine. Some
of the roughest of the pickers do not wait
until the close of the work to show their
true character, but display their brutality'
on the outward journey, as did those who
nearly killed a poor Chatham and Dover
porter at the Elephant and Castle a few
days back, when he endeavoured to secure
some regard for the property of his em-
ployers. These Deptford and Whitechapel
roughs and loungers from the East-end of
the old town of Brighton, are dreaded by
the country publicans. They spend hours
in their houses—if they do not spend many
coppers banging about and displaying
their characteristic offensiveness, and then
get quarrelsome and have to be ejected after
all. London is rid of them in September
and early October, but they plague the lives
out of the honest country folk of the hop
country. How is it that the baser sort of
the inhabitants huddle so often together in
the squalid streets of the easterly ends of
our towns and cities, as at Brighton, and
London, and elsewhere? "Birds of a
feather flock together," bat hy does. the
dirty-speeched and ragged rough so love to
look to the eastward ?

AFTEit a long talk about a colonial penny
post, we are now brought into sight of an
express letter delivery, which would be a
great convenience in all big towns where
there is much business doing. In London
or Liverpool, say, or Birmingham, Bristol,
Manchester, or Glasgow, or, indeed, any
great commercial centre, it would be a boon
to have a service which would ensure, at a
small added cost, immediate delivery of cor-
respondence. It is very annoying if one
posts a letter from a big iron works in an
outlying Leeds or Sheffield district for some-
body else's office in the middle of the town
to find it not delivered till business hours
are over, and the same applies to communi-
cation between Manchester mills and the
centre of the city, and will fit all industrial.
centres. There is the telephone, it is true;
but you can't conveniently telephone long
letters with samples enclosed. The express
delivery obtains in America and elsewhere,
and works well. We are glad that the new
Postmaster General. looks thereon with a
favourable eye.

THE poor Greek gipsies, whom London
and Liverpool would have none of, and
whom Hull cast aside also, have now been
refused an entrance into Hamburg. From
German shores they return Humberwards,
and now the Corporation of the Third Port
will not permit them to step on land again.
What is to become of the crowd of swarthy
wanderers? They are like a pauper whose
parish no one can determine, being con-
stantly tossed pitilessly from place to place.
What have the Greek Consuls to say con-
cerning the hapless migrants? They had
almost £lOO among them when in London,
but we fear it has dwindled, down since
then.

A BOUNTEOUSLY plentiful year is not an
unmixed good, to the grower, at any rate.
Just as in a moderate and unequal hop or
corn harvest the man who has a much
better crop than his neighbours makes a far
greater profit than during a season in which
everyone's yield is superabundant, so it is
with the fruit growers. Currants, cherries,
raspberries, and gooseberries have all been
so thick in the market as to be scarcely re-
munerative this summer, and now plums
are so plentiful that it does not pay to send
them up to the customer. Tons of fine
plums may be seen hanging on the trees in
an over-ripe state in some parts of the fruit-
growing neighbours of the home counties,.
a prey to the birds, who greatly enjoy their
unusual feast. But the circumstance is far
from cheering to the fruit armer.

THE new army rifle is being merrily made
despite all the protests of so many who
understand its qualities and its defects.
Nine out of ten who have tried it condemn
it emphatically. And yet fifty thousand of
the new arms are completE.d, and the manu-
facture is being pressed forward with all
possible rapidity. We are having just now
a reconstruction of the Special Committee
on Small Arms. They will be able to con-
demn tile work of their foregoers with a
good grace, a la the examiners into the
bursting of a big gun lately. They may,
not improbably, find something has been
done blunderingly, and an immense cost in-
curred for worse than nothing, and ponder-
ously deliver themselves of a wisely techni-
cal coudemnation of the new rifle. A few
more scandals of this sort and we shall need
no Colonel Hopes to spur us on in demand-
ing an inquiry into the competency and
probity of the officials of the Admiralty and
the Horse Guards. The British taxpayer
will growlingly submit to much, but when
he turns it is difficult indeed to restrain his
wrath.

IT is no use casting oil upon the troubled
waters, it seems from some recent experi-
ments, in connection with lifeboat work
but out away from the shore in the open the
agency of the liquid lubricant is serviceable
in preventing long rolling ocean waves from
breaking in-board. An instance of this is
given in the case of the North German Lloyd
steamer Werra, which, disabled, was recently
being towed into an American port by the
Venetian. The waves broke over the bows
of the damaged Werra, when the captain of
the aiding vessel towed a couple of large oil-
bags behind his own boat, from which time
not a drop of water washed on the rearward
craft—a circumstance which the crew of the
Werra could not at all andel and, until
daylight broke and showed them the floating
oil.

THROAT IRRITATION AND Couon.—Soreness and dry-
ness, tickling and irritation, indt.cing c ,ugh and affect-
ing the voice, For these symptoms use Epps's Glycer-
ine Jujubes. In contact with the glands at the
moment they are excited by the act of sucking the
Glycerine in these agreeable confections becomes
actively healing. Sold only in boxes, 7d, tins As lid,
labehed "JAMES EPPS ct CO , Homoeopathic Chemists,
London." Dr George Moore in his work on —Nose
and liroat biseases," sa -s : •.
Ibe Glycerine Jujubes
pi epal, d by James pps and Co. are of undoubted
service as a curative or pal iarive agent," while Gr,
Gordon o tires. ,er.ior A hyscian to the .`,.iunrcipal
Throat ::nd Ear Infirmary, writes : •*fter an extenued
trial i have found your Glycerine Jujubes of consider-
ab;e berieti:.in .la.ust.all to,ins of throat disease.
lippa's Medicines may be had at , high Street
Stourbridge.