The Sun.
London, England, 1855-05-25 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EyENING, MAY 25 isbs

tainly, but not in managing the ;Jain of the state. !of a measure by which 150,0001. a year, or
Me ilocrity should betake itself to those things in which
more
few besides itself will be imperilled by its deficiencies,— 'of voluntary taxation have been sacrificed.
to menhanical labour, or the mechanical superintendence The Bill, however, is to pass, and we would not
of labour, occupations as necessary as any others, and have drawn atteutidu to the second reading but
which no person of sense considers disparaging. There for the higher tone of Ministers in the Upper
will be, assuredly, ample space for the mediocrities, in
House. Much must be allovred for the venti-
employments which require only mediocrity, when all
who are beyond mediocrity have found the employment , lation measures undergo in their principles and
in which their talents can be of most use." bearings before they reach the House of Lords ;
In the preceding observations we have assumed still, with every allowance, the tone of that House
that the arrangements which the appointment of of late years will, generally speaking, suffer
Mr. EDWARD ROMILLY, a declared enemy to the nothing in comparison with that of the Commons.
principle of competitive examinations, proves to And, in this instance, few will be disposed to
be untrustworthy, are entirely truthful, and that deny that the views of Lord CANNING, expressed
the majority of the candidates are to be sub- in his speech on the question, are more in har-
jected to as real, though an inferior and pass mony with the intelligence of the age than those
examination. But let the following provision of of his colleagues in the Lower House.
the order in council be considered—" And it is
hereby ordered that, in case the chief of any de-
partment," meaning thereby any political chief,
e.g., not the permanent chief as a Mr. ROWLAND
HILL, but a Lord CLANRICARDE, chief of the
Post-office, or any one else for the time being,
" considers it desirable to appoint to any situation
for which there are no prescribed limits of age"—
that is to say, for the greater part of the field of
jobbing appointments—" a person of mature age,
having acquired special qualifications in other
pursuits, such person shall not, in virtue of this
order, be required to obtain any certificate of
competency from the said commissioners" (even of
the minimum of qualifications for pass appoint-
ments of the lowest grade), "in order to obtaining
such appointment ; but the chief of the depart-
ment shall cause the appointment of any person
not previously examined to be formally recorded
as having been made on account of special qualis
fications."
Who does not see that specialities of qualifica-
tions may be, and will be, made out for the most
worthless and profligate appointments. Thus a
record would be made out for Mr. LAWLEY, that
he was of mature age, " that he had acquired a
knowledge of human nature"—(in dealing on the
turf with blacklegs and gamblers)—" that he had
great experience in monetary transactions " (in
trafficking with stock-jobbers whilst he was a
private secretary of the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer), " and that he had, therefore, been chosen as
a chief clerk in the financial department." Expe-
rience in the turf and in betting, though
he had lost, were actually brazened out
in the House of Commons, as no bad qualification
for a Colonial Governorship.
This order in council affords an example of the
extreme importance at this time of the appoint-
ment of general and local committees on Adminis-
trative Reform, of conscientious men of business,
unconnected as much as possible with the leading
parties contending for mere patronage, who may
scrutinise and report on such proceedings to the
constituencies. By them it will be perceived that
the order examined is not a fair statesman-like
measure, but a rejection of the vital principle of
those whom CARLYLE designates as the most im-
portant class of reformers, the " esoteric men,"
who are Administrative Reformers ; that it is in
the guise of " a step in advance," a deliberate
adoption of the precise course contended for by
the " esoteric men," who are declared enemies of
the first principles of Administrative Reform ; and
that it is a low dodge and a screen to the worst
parts of the present system cf patronage. Men
of business will see that the pass examinations
proposed will be no better than the pass ex-
aminations already instituted, the nature and
results of which are well described by Mr. AN-
DERSON, the principal clerk for the financial busi-
ness at the Treasury :
, "The practice hitherto adopted has been to throw
upon the executive officer at thg head of each office the
odium of rejecting the nominee of the Treasury, or of
his immediate superior in office, and of justifying such
rejection by the results of an examination, the extent of
which is in a great measure left to his own discretion.
The consequences of this practice are precisely those
whiola might be expected. A disinclination to injure
the prospects of a young man on the threshed of his
career, and the desire to avoid the chance of a collision
with his patrons, generally secure to every candidate of
doubtful acquirements the most indulgent consideration
of his deficiencies ; and although he may be wanting in
those qualifications which would give an assurance of
his becoming in time fit for the higher duties of the de-
partment, his competency to perform the lowest quality
of duty in the office to which he has been nominated
will, iu most cases, secure him against rejection. . .
I will mention a circumstance within my own experience
which occurred in a large department of account, and
which strikingly illustrates the consequences of a defi-
cient examination. During the early period of my ser-
vice, the commissioner at the head of a large department
was desirous of introducing improvements in the mode
of keeping the accounts of his office—improvements as
urgently pre'sed upon his notice by the defective state
of the accounts themselves, as by the increased demands
of Parliament for information which his books could
imperfectly supply. Having had some experience
himself, before he was appointed to office, of the
system by which commercial men reduce to
order the large and varied operations of trade,
he determined upon applying the principles of that sys-
tem to the public accounts of his department ; but
although he had a large establishment of clerks almost
wholly employed in the business of accounts to select
from, he could not find one who was sufficiently conver-
sant with the scientific principles of accounts to carry
out his plans of improvement. If the system which he
proposed to introduce had been one of modern invention,
or only partially known, such a result might have been
accounted for, but it was one which for a long period
halbeen in almost universal practice in this and other
countries for all accounts of any magnitude, and which
must have been co-existent with commerce itself.. . .
It must not be supposed that the mischief of admitting
ill-qualified persons into departments of account is
limited to the inconvenience of a defective plan of ac-
count. The security which the system itself ought to
provide is supplied by creating departments of check, or
by other complicated contrivances, which being further
involved by legislation founded on them, render the pub-
lic accounts unintelligible to all but the few to
whom they have become familiar by long prac-
tice. A stricter examination of persons ad-
mitted to clerkships would, moreover, be produc-
tive of economy. Every person who has had ex-
perience in conducting a large office will admit that,
if all were really efficient, not only would the business
be better and more expeditiously done, but it would be
probably executed by two-thirds of the number of clerks
at present employed."—Blue Book, pp. 235, 236.
At the Gloucester meeting on Administrative
Reform, one of the best which has yet been held,
the Conservatives came forward cordially iu its
support. Their journal observes :
"Lord Derby showed clearly how restricted is the
limit for the selection of the members of an Administra-
tion ; certain offices must be filled by members of the
Lords, others again by those of the Commons, and these
out of a section of both houses ; while the avocations of
able men engaged in mercantile pursuits, and the indif-
ference of others to official drudgery, still narrow the
space, and leave the Premier in a perplexity when he is
looking out for men of ability and influence.
" This is a specimen of the difficulties surrounding
Administrative Reform ; but then, again, no one denies
that a strong, able Ministry would apply itself to re-
organise, to consolidate, to put in working order every
department of the State. Mr. Disraeli promised this
should be done ; he and his colleagues had investigated
the subject, and were ready for the task. Red tape,
routine, interminable letters, pert clerks, obstinate
officials, and independent 4 heads,' were all to be re-
duced into the moderate compass and working efficiency
of such vast establishments as Lindsay's, Peto's, and
Scott Russell's, where all books are simple, every man
up to and not above his work, all complicity avoided,
1 and order and regularity enforced."
On Mr. HBYWOOD'S motion, Mr. DISRAELI Will
have an opportunity of showing what he really
intended. If it really were to bring up the
management of the public business and revenue
up to the efficiency and economy the great object
of Administrative Reformers was intended, and
that will be the best shown by the recognition o.
the best of the tried and approved means.

LATEST NEWS.

RENEWAL OF THE VIENNA
CONFERENCES.

VIENNA, FRIDAY MORNING.

A Conference will be held to-morrow, without
the Russian PleniPotentaries ; and another on
Monday, at which those Plenipotentiaries will
probably b 3 present. _ _ .

BERLIN, MAY 24.

The Gazette Prussienne says that the new con-
ditions proposed through the mediation of Austria
are :

A special treaty determining the number of
ships, Russian and Turkish, that shall be per-
mitted to navigate the Black Sea.
France and England to have the right to main-
tain two ships of war each in the Bosphorus.

The Porte to communicate to the Allied Powers
any treaty concluded with Russia.

BERLIN, THURSDAY.

Advices from St. Petersburg to the 19th state
that all the fortified harbours in the Bay of Finland
have been declared in a state of siege.
Seven prizes taken by the English arrived at
Elsinore on the 22c1.

Official information has,/ reached the British
Consul at Elsinore that the Russian Government
had given orders to sink all their men-of-war at
Cronstadt, except eight sail of the line.

The second reading of the Newspaper Stamp
Bill last evening in the Lords will hardly excite
more interest in the country than it did in that
House. Besides the noble mover, the only Peer
who spoke on the occasion was Lord MONTEAGLE,
who opposed the measure, without, however,
going to a division. The fact is, it was felt the
bill was " booked" to pass, its chief opponents
having tacitly accepted 'it in its amended state
rather than experience any longer the injurious
uncertainty and suspense which the ill-advised
procedure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer had
so largely occasioned.
It is hardly necessary for us to expressan en-
tire concurrelice in the views of Lord MONTEAGLE
as to the impolicy of the measure in a financial
point of view. It is sufficiently notorious that
there was no urgent call for its adoption ; and
this admitted, the heavy increase of taxation
during the year disposes of the question of policy.
Most of those who are paying an increased amount
for their coffee and sugar, to say nothing of other
taxation, will find it difficult to realise the wisdom