The Press.
London, England, 1856-04-12 00:00:00

338

three questions first named—law amendment
—army reform—civil service reorganisation.
It is of this last movement that we design
briefly to treat. Its history has been in some
respects singular. No agitation lilts helped it
forward; for Mr. Moasxtr and his friends
could only retard, trot advance, say cause
which they took in kawa. It come &et before
the public supported by no emitsent name ex.,
cept that of Mr 0114,1)5T0NE, iaosv linpgpto
laxity, doubtless. neutralised his *tatty. Its
chief author, Sir C. TREVELYAN, though widely
known, and as an administrator respected, was,
and is, regarded by the public as a clever
pedant, energetic but visionary, and far too
fond of system to deal with the complicated
confusion of human affairs. We are not en-
dorsing this opinion ; we merely state its
prevalence as a fact. Add to all, that the
leading journal took up the scheme of civil
service competition, when first launched, with
an injudicious and exaggerating zeal ; while
the other organs of opinion, one and all, de-
nounced it as bureaucratic, pedantic, Prussian,

Chinese, hostile to freedom, incompatible with
Parliamentary government, and democratic in
its social tendency. To the storm of invec-
tive with which the project was assailed its
defenders made no reply, or next to none.
They acted more wisely: they waited. The
public, ashamed of the panic into which it
had been led, began to reconsider its hasty
judgment; and in this month of April, 1856
not much more than two years since the words,
" competition for civil service appointments "
were first heard in public—a clear majority of
thinking men accept the principle put forth in
'54, differing only as to the method, the date,
and perhaps the extent of its application.
This principle, already in the course of last
year affirmed by Parliament, Lord GODERICH
again brings before the House of Commons on
Friday. The cause needed—perhaps it will
find—both an abler advocate and a more com-
prehensive treatment. Lord GODERICH dwells
exclusively on two points—one, the substitu-
tion of competition for patronage as regards
primary appointments; the other, promotion
by " merit,' i.e., by the choice of an official
chief, instead of, as at present, by seniority.
He has overlooked objections which may be
taken at the outset to both his propositions.
As the Civil Service is constituted, the ablest
youth who enters it, even in its highest de-
partments, must pass years in the mechanical
drudgery of copying despatches, for the most
part unimportant—a kind of work which
levels all talents, renders enthusiasm impossi-
ble, and is even endured with least im-
patience, and therefore best dune, by those
whom natural dulness unfits for more re-
sponsible duties. For this absurd practice
the defence usually pleaded is the necessity of
secrecy, and the danger of its being violated if
copyists of a lower grade were employed. But
what becomes of the plan when it is remem-
bered that the most confidential Cabinet
circulars are trusted without hesitation to
official printers—men of respectability, indeed,
but taken from the class of ordinary artisans ?
The clerk and the copyist must become distinct
persons ; mechanical labour must be separated
from intellectual. Until this is done, un-
limited competition, however sound in princi-
ple, can only serve to overload the public
offices with wasted ability, and zeal that can
find no vent.
Nor is Lord GODERICH more fortunate in
his demand for promotion by merit, standing
alone as it does. Has it ever occurred to him
to consider the relative position of two men,
sitting in the same room, working at the same
business, passing their lives together, one of
whom shall have been promoted over the head
of the other? Will they be friends? Will
they make good each other's shortcomings,
share each other's labours in a fraternal spirit ?
Or if the reverse be the case, how will business
be carried on, in the absence of that unanimity
which ought to prevail among colleagues ?
Lord GODERICH does not see, what the House
of Commons will see, that if promotion is to
take place otherwise than according to the
rule of seniority (with some rare exceptions
such as now exist), it must take place from
office to office, not within the walls of one
department. In a word, Lord GoDERICH'S
scheme is incomplete, his two propositions

li