The Press.
London, England, 1856-08-16 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

ministrative system should be organised, and
that a thoroughly professional spirit should
pervade the services. We fear that one of its
cold fits is now upon the British public, and
that "administrative Reform " is not likely to
be promoted, though It is more wanted now
than when Mr. Dis*AILI first directed the
attention of the country towards it. Tho
Ministry throws cold water on projects of
official improvement, sad thinks that tiding
over difficulties from session to session is
doing enough for the public welfare. Such is
not the case. Administrative Reform well
pursued, and intelligibly conducted, would
work more marvels than " heroes." Great
empires have always been sustained by their
INSTITUTIONS, and England must rely upon
them in the hour of difficulty. The shallow
Liberal, compromising and conventional,
looks to public " opinion" (regardless of its
caprices) as the source of power, but the
thoughtful and intelligent Conservative knows
well that countries can be governed success-
fully, in the long run, only by national insti-
tutions which incorporate the spirit and con-
centrate the intellect of the people. To in-
vigorate the Executive would be doing the
work of a band of " heroes," and a political
rather than a melodramatic standard should
be employed for measuring the wants of our
public services by sea and shore. NELSON'S
famous signal was singularly practical, be
cause it pointed to " every man" doing his
proper work, and not to the exploits of any one
champion, however great.

INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE
EXAMINATIONS.

WHEN first Mr. MACAULAY'S scheme for the
Indian Civil Service examinations was pro-
pounded, we were favorable to it only in one
sense. Inasmuch as it destroyed the nepo-
tism of the Directors, in as far as this service
was concerned, with all its concomitant evils,
we looked upon it as a vast improvement on
the former state of things. But at the same
time it was unnecessarily cumbersome ; the
cumber of marks apportioned to the different
branches of knowledge was badly propor-
tioned, and the having to submit to a second
ordeal before one's fate was decided was cal-
culated to keep competitors away. The sim-
plest arrangement undoubtedly would have
been to divide the appointments as prizes
among the principal educational establish-
ments in the three kingdoms, and leave them
to be contended for by the students in those
establishments in the usual way. The latter
cause of objection, however, has been now re-
moved; the first examination has been made
decisive, and the second one, after the lapse
of a twelvemonth, is no longer required. The
fate of the competitors is thus decided at once,
and a man can go up for examination without
detriment to his other prospects in case he
should not succeed. As regards the other ob-
jection, that regarding the apportionment of
the marks, there is little doubt that it will in
turn be obviated, and then there will be
nothing left of which to complain.
There are many, however, who object to the
system in toto, and would gladly see it abo-
lished if they could. These are chiefly the
Directors and their friends, who, of course,
would find it greatly to their advantage to re-
cover the monopoly of this patronage which
they held before. They are constantly pro-
claiming that the new plan will be a failure,
and no doubt they will do everything to make
it so that in them lies. To listen to these
people the Service will be inundated with per-
sons not possessing the habits and feelings of
gentlemen, or, at best, we are to have mere
bookworms, utterly unfitted for governing
men. But the true cause of the shoe pinch-
ing is, that we shall have no more incompe-
tent sons, and nephews, and nominees of
Directors ; for, of course, under the examina-
tion system there will be for them no chance.
As for the rest, we only wonder that any one
can venture to put forward such objections in
the face of well-known facts. For if any one
will glance his eye over the Indian calendar,
he will find nothing in it so remarkable as the

SATURDAY,

lalmost total absence of high-born names.
Even of the few such that are there, the holders,
in more than one instance, are known to be
illegitimate, and therefor, they count for
nothing in the present ease. The fact is, that
the majority of the Company'S servants are the
sons or relatives of Directors (many of whom
have been very humbly connected indeed), or
of second-rate City merchants, insolvent
bankers, stockbrokers, outfitters, members
of the City companies, solicitors to them, part-
ners in Indian agency-houses, and people of a
like stamp. Of course there are many others,
a few being of the highest birth, but the
majority are the above.
It would be very foreign to our feelings to
declaim against such an origin, embracing so
much of what is respectable in English middle
life. But when we see offensive comparisons
instituted between what the Seriice is, and
what under the new system it is likely to be,
we think it our duty to rebuke such presump-
tion by pointing out plainly how matters
stand. Having done so, it will be seen how
utterly absurd it is to suppose that a candidate
giving evidence of such an education as suc-
cess must imply, is likely to be at all worse
born or worse bred than a lad taken from any
of the various classes we have described.
Why, SHORE said that the Directors of his
time, about twenty years ago, used to pay with
appointments their tailors' and outfitters'
bills; and though this may be a libel, there is
no doubt that many Indian civilians and
officers are, and have been, the sons of tailors,
outfitters, saddlers, and other tradesmen of a
similar description in town. It does seem,
therefore, the height of impudence to sneer
at successful candidates from our colleges as
likely to be too low for a service which has
been hitherto filled by the Directors with
people so inconsiderable as these.
The remaining ground of fear that we
shall obtain mere bookworms is equally
opposed to well-known facts. The engineer
and artillery nominations, for instance, are
the result of a competitive examination
among the cadets, and a more manly set of
officers cannot anywhere be found. Men
better informed as a body, or bolder riders, or
more accomplished shots, are nowhere to be
seen. Then, too, Mr. CHARLES WYNN, when
President of the Indian Board, used to give
some of his appointments always as prizes to
public schools ; so did Sir RICHARD JENKINS;
and so does Sir HENRY WILCOCK, very greatly
to his honour, now. Of the winners of these we
have been personally acquainted with three,
. and they were all three men who attained
the highest possible distinction in their re-
spective careers. We have no doubt that
we should be able to say the same of the
majority of the others if only in a posi-
tion to trace them out. Indeed, so
generally in England is success in the
schools accompanied by a manly and healthy
development both of body and mind, that
there are few who have succeeded in them
who have not afterwards retained their pre-
eminence when thrown into public life. It is
not to be supposed that the candidates for
Indian appointments will prove exceptions to
the rule, and we anticipate, therefore, from the
new system of nomination the most beneficial
results. Unless, however, the Directors be
closely watched, they will take steps to strangle
it if possible at its birth ; their whole hope
being now turned to making it a failure, so as
to recover this golden patronage for them-
selves.

ENCROACHMENT OF LEGAL M.P.'S.
THE entertainment this week at West Grin.
stead of that venerable Conservative, Sir
CHARLES BURRELL, was an interesting event,
and calculated to set people thinking. It was
something to see a fine old English gentle.
man who remembers public life as long as our
Premier himself. Fifty years have elapsed
since Sir CHARLES BURRELL entered the House
of Commons. The worthy Baronet recollects
the days iu 1806, when Viscount PALMFRSTON,
on the Tory side, contested Cambridge Uni-
versity unsuccessfully; when the poll.stood—
Lord HENRY PETTY, 331; Lord ALTHOBPZ, 145;

AUGUST 16, 1856.

Lord PALMERSTON, 128. He recollects tha
Premier sitting for the University for twenty
years as a Tory, then turning Reformer; and,
after being rejected by Cambridge, finding his
way into Parliament for the rotten borough of
Bletchingley, nearly thirty years ago. He
recollects—but space fails us to describe the
extraordinary changes in the age, and in Lord
PALMERSTON, which Sir CHARLES BURRELL re-
members. Not the least amongst these
changes are the gradual alterations of the
composition of the House of Commons.
To the character of these latter changes our
attention has been particularly drawn this
week, by an able speech delivered on the
Kerry hustings by the seconder of the new
Comptroller of Her Majesty's Household. Mr.
JAMES O'Coi4sEtt (brother of the late agitator)
alluded to the circumstance of there being
eighty lawyers in the present Parliament !
The fact is remarkable, and the number is
certainly a most exaggerated representation of
the legal profession. What is more remark.
able is that many eminent barristers are not
in the House of Commons at all. Mr. ROLT, Mr.
EDWIN JAMES, Mr. BACON, Sergeant WILKINS,
Mr. KNOWLES (Attorney-General of the County
Palatine), and a host of other banisters, in
many respects superior to most of the long
robe" in the House of Commons, do not re-
present constituencies. The circumstance is
curious. Boroughs and towns seem to job
the legal representatives. Manufacturing
ftthers or brothers, who give large wages, and
who have " convenient " attorneys, contrive to
nominate their legal kinsfolk to the represen-
Wien. If this system, as CANNING said of
the old rotten boroughs, " worked well " for
genius and talent, we should not complain ;
but the fact is, that some of the most pro-
mising minds in England are left unnoticed
by constituencies under the present plan, and
jobbing barristers of third-rate pretensions
threaten to disparage the constitution of the
House of Commons.

If we take seventy members of the Whig
and purely. aristocratic connection from the
Parliamentary Liberals, we shall find that the
rest of the Liberal representation is divided
between pushing barristers and manufacturers
of middle age. Independent gentlemen,
whether Conservatives or Liberals, are un-
fairly weighted in the race against manufac-
turers, with their large wages' bills, and
barristers with their organised legal connec-
tions. Is such a system " popular " or just?
Is it not a coarse and crude monopoly of
representative honours ? If the batches of
barristers, so poured into Parliament, were
likely to be Thesigers, or Kellys, or Cock-
burns, or Napiers, or Whitesides, objection
would not be made to it; but, in point of fact,
the Parliamentary lawyers are in many respects
inferior to lay gentlemen as practical legis-
lators. They are wordy and disputatious, but
they are deficient in large social knowledge,
and they are not of that independent turn
which is much to be desired in our repre-
sentatives.

The Conservative gentry suffer severely
from this state of things. Lerd DERBY, with
his keen sagacity, alluded some time ago in
the House of Peers to the extraordinary facili-
ties which barristers have of getting into
Parliament. They are " pushing " persons;
they travel circuit, and obtain a factitious
personal notoriety. They are thrust into the
House of Commons, in many instances,
merely to play the parts of political attorneys
Conservative country gentlemen, with three
or four thousand a year. are pitted unfairly
against such professional competitors, with
their hard-browed assurance, their practised
volubility, and their organised clacqueurs. Take
the case of a country gentleman, with three
thousand a year, and with talents for public
life. He wishes to be in the House of Com-
mons, and his friends believe that he would
serve the public cause with effect. He can-
not stand for the shire, as the expenses inci-
dent to such an onerous position would be
beyond his means. Several of the seats in his
locality may already be well filled by members
of his own party, and if he try, what is face-
tiously called an " open" constituency, he
finds that Lawyer Silvertongue has a " plat-

THE PRESS.

form," and that metallic influences of various
sorts are used to support the " rising young
" barrister."

Let us look at the facts plainly. Can it be
denied that there are several Conservative
gentlemen in England who are most unfairly
pushed aside from tho representation by ad-
venturing barristers ? The fact is indis-
putable, and deserves to be remedied. One-
eighth of the House of Commons is composed
of lawyers ! Such a state of things threatens
the independence of the Bench, and the
purity of executives. For England the Bench
has, for the most part, been qs yet kept free
from politics. The puisne judges are chosen
fairly from the Bar, and the last appointments
—Mr. Justice WILLER and Mr. Baron BRAM-
WELL—never sat in the House of Commons at
all. But in Scotland eight out of the twelve
judges have been members of the House of
Commons, and polities exercise an unfair
influence in that country upon legal pro-
motions.

Too many lawyers in the House of Commons
detract from the independence and dignity of
that assembly, and also threaten to undermine
the Bar. The real gentry, Conservative and
Liberal, suffer from this legal monopoly of
Parliamentary honours, and the free talents of
the country at large are unfairly treated.
There are numbers of intelligent persons who
would make better representatives than the
third •rate barristers, who are " birds of
passage" in the House of Commons, preparing
for a flight to colonial situations.