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

LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 25, 1855.

Whatever "ambiguity" there may be in the terms
of the motion brought forward by the Right Hon.
Gentleman the Member for Bucks, there has been
none in the language in which he has advocated
its adoption, nor in the results which must follow
from its adoption by the House of Commons. It
is, as we yesterday stated, expressive at the same
time of want of confidence in the Ministry and
of censure for their evasive and truckling con-
duct. It then looks to the past and future, and
raises the issue on which the representatives of
the people must decide fairly and decisively. Ha
asks the House, "to say in distinct lan-
guage that the time for negotiation has
passed." He asks it to support his motion,
because one of its main objects is "to put
an end to the fatal union" (the nature and effect
whereof he so graphically depicted) " between
diplomacy and aggressive war." In this there is
no " ambiguity." All is straightforward and
above-board, and no independent or unprejudiced
person—no man resolved to carry on the War
vigorously and energetically until a just, an
honourable, and probably a permanent " peace"
be conquered from Russia—can possibly hesitate
as to the course to be pursued. It is no mere
party question. It may incidentally determine
the fate of the ministry, but as the Right Hon.
Gentleman prcved, beyond the possibility of doubt
or misconception, that has followed ex necessitate.
It could not be avoided unless the representative
branch of the Legislature were contented wholly
to abdicate the functions which it had so long
suffered to rem: in in abeyance, and to convert into
certainties " the dark suspicions" that have become
so prevalent as to the conduct and intentions of
her MAJESTY'S Government. Honourable Gentle-
men must now make up their minds one way or the
other. There is no middle course. They can-
not evade the responsibility forced upon them.
There is no alternative but to say " Aye" or
"No" to put " an end to the diplomatic shuffling
and Ministerial trifling," or to give everything
into the hands of Ministers, and enable
them to perfect such arrangements as they
think proper, founded on the Russian proposi-
tions, or the restoration of the status quo. What
have justly been characterised as " miserable
amendments " do not afford a loophole for escape.
They are practically put forward in favour of the
Government, and arrayed in such vestments as to
suit every taste—from that of the member of the
Peace Society to the most unflinching asserter of
the national honour. But it is not a time for
hair splitting or quibbling on words. We might
cordially concur in the amendment of the Hon.
Gentleman the Member for Kidderminster if it
had been brought forward as an original mo-
tic"a"--1 its palpable and obvious meaning
had not been to defeat a resolution which would
produce the results so ardently desired by the '
country,
turn the to
in carrynff doubtful votes, which might
favour.o of an English policy, but
which, in consecpu.mthereof, would be recorded
in the same list With those of
the Members for
Manchester, the Peelites, andthe other advocates
The
for a disgraceful and temporary
" dodge" is doubtless very ingenious.
peace.
what our transatlantic brethren term
no' r
o shouldd
tarnattion
gtee'ramic.u!. i
to i
smart ;" but it cannotsucceed,
Honourable Gentlemen be suffered
in the " ostrich fancy" that because they
close their own eyes to the consequences, their con_
stituents will likewise be hoodwinked or deceived.
Never did Mr. DISRAELI produce sounder or
more conclusive arguments than last night. Never
wad his eloquence more inspiring—his diction
more brilliant. He shook off, for the time being,
the trammels of party, the oligarchical influences
by
which is fettered and restrained, and :was
indeed " the ma people;" boldly and in-
dignantly aiti,-weL. G.t.
:the
ll
g the it'.
ckling-and cottempti-

. 34. 4

ble policy so long pursued, and which has led to
so many injurious consequences —so lavish
an expenditure of blood and treasure. So
far as the nation was concerned there was no
necessity for apologising for bringing on the
motion. His excuses should have been alto-
gether of a different description—for suffering
himself to be at all influencedbymiadt be
dread of
the " vulgar imputations" which might
upon his motives. By unprejudiced and right-
minded citizens out of the House, and not en-
gaged in the strife of party, looking to men rather
than measures, he will never be blamed for
bringing on his motion, and thus boldly
grappling with the difficulty, but he may be cen-
sured for so long postponing an obvious duty—
for yielding even a tacit assent to " the abnegation
of its functions " by the assembly of which he is
a leading member.

His keen and searching exposure of the Minis-
terial policy, his unsparing dissection of the Vi-
ennese humbug, was perfectly conclusive. It
could not be refuted. Even a plausible answer
could not be put forward. The ex-Plenipoten-
tiary—the man who took so prominent a part in
stimulating the warlike ardour of the people
—who, after using as " prave ords " as
ancient Pistol, was still willing to swallow
the Muscovite leek, who exhibited an uncalled-
for subservience to Russia in his admis-
sions, and adopted the practice of Ministers
at St. Petersburg by using one description of lan-
guage for his own people, and another of very
different tenour and effect for Europe, was scari-
fied by the vigorous assailant. The attack in-
duced Lord J. RUSSELL to speak, and made Minis,
ters abandon the course which they seem dis-
posed to follow for themselves as well as for the
nation—viz., to let their honour and safety rest
in the hands of auxiliaries rather than defend
them by their own personal exertions. Lord J.
RUSSELL, being compelled to rise, made one re-
markable admission, which fully confirms what
we have so long asserted, and which clearly
proves the absurdity of further delay. The
Noble Lord declared that he did " not expect
that Austria is prepared, in the present state of
the question, to take an immediate part in the
War against Russia with us." Why, then, fur-
ther procrastinate ? All this time' we have been
"waiting for Austria "—have been cajoled by
fond, but illusory, hopes that she would fulfil her
promises and act an honest and straightforward
part. These expectations are, however, frus-
trated. That point is established on the highest
authority. What, then, are we now " waiting"
for? What can be the utility of further negotiation?
The admission should prove decisive, as to the
motion, with every man who is not prepared to
sacrifice his country for the sake of party—to
destroy the prestige of the United Kingdom, and
seriously injure her vast interests for the sake
of obtaining some of the crumbs of patronage
that fall from the Ministerial table. Let these
things be pondered well by every man who wishes
to retain a character for independence before
he absents himself from the division, or walks
into the lobby in support of Ministers. Another
important revelation has been made. Mr.
GLADSTONE now stands forward as the avowed
' supporter of the Peace-at-any-price policy, and the
rumours which have been circulated as to the
alliance between the Peelites and the Peace Society
are painfully confirmed. Let, then, every man be
at his post this night, when the fate of the country
for good or evil must be finally determined .

The Administrative Reform Associations will be
glad to observe that upon the case of the rejec-
tion at Woolwich of the scholars of tried merit
from Trinity College, Dublin, and admitted the
substitution of patronage appointments, Mr. JAMES
HEYwooD has given notice of a motion for an
address recommending that the appointments there
shall in future be adjudicated to merit as tested
by public competitive examinations. The Order
in Council, and the appointment of Mr. EDWARD
ROMILLY, the declared advocate of aristocratical
selections, should also be brought under the notice ,
of the House, although the case of the rejections
at Woolwich will, by taking a division, serve the
objects of the local associations in distinguishing
the real friends of appointments or promotions for
merit.

The Order in Council, it is to be observed,
goes out of the way to declare that the Examining
Board "shall not make any alteration in the no-
mination or appointment of candidates by those
who are or may be charged with the duty of no..
mination or appointment." That is to say, the
patronage nominations are retained to Messrs.
HAYTER and WILSON, and to all those political
chiefs of the class who, according to the testimony
of Mr. JAMES STEPHEN himself, "to gratify
their " political, domestic, or private feelings,
have brought the service into its present con-
dition of a clear majority of dangerously unfit
appointments.

But yet it may be said the candidates will now
be submitted to an examination, directed by an in-
dependent board. This independency in the sense
of impartiality we have shown to be impeachable.
Assume them, however, to be impartial ; grant
that the examiners are, what they will not be,
under existing arrangements, qualified to examine
as to the chief specialities of the several depart-
ments. The best examinations, without competi-
tion, can only be what are called "pass examina-
tions," and it is proved upon the experience of
specially qualified examiners, whose general inde-
pendence, probity, and impartiality are undoubted,
namely, in the examinations for medical degrees,
that these pass examinations are grossly defective.
So much is this so, that from whatsoever places
diplomas have been obtained upon the ordinary
examinations without competition and publicity,
the army and navy medical authorities re-examine
the candidates. These re-examinations—not in
themselves competitive—are must exceptionably
lax, yet the rejection of from one-third to one-
half of the candidates is by no means uufre-
quent. Notwithstanding the diplomas of M.D.
obtained by " pass examinations," it is shown
that medical men take care to re-examine
candidates for appointments to dispensaries.
In France competitive examinations (or the con-
cours) alone aro depended upon. An article on
the Army Medical Arrangements in the last num-
ber of the Medieo-Chirurgical Review, gives the
prevalent professional impression on the necessity
of introducing the contours in the medical insti-
tutions of this country ; and to this, after the cer-
tain failure of the worthless plan now proposed,
the civil services must come. No doubt pass
examinations will serve to prevent such scan-
dalous appointments as those described by Mr.
CHADWICK and others—such as of people incapable
of numbering or of writing, and utterly worth-
less. But Sir JAMES STEPHEN, ' who well knows
the difference between pass examinations and
competitive examinations, or examinations for
honours at Cambridge, saw at once in Sir CHAS.
TREVELYAN'S plan for competitive examination,
that it would be destructive to the incumbency of
those mediocrities in the public service for which
he sets up his profligate plea.

"But why, in the choice of clerks, are learning and
ability, and whatever else they imply, to have this in.
variable precedence g In the dull details of public office,
there are many which the learned and able A will not
accomplish a whit better than the ill-informed and corn
mon-place B—nor perhaps so well. Surely, mediocrity
and even dullness—the lot of the vast majority—have
some claims, which are as well entitled to regard as are
those of learning and ability. It is not without some
reason that, in all other pursuits in life, patronage
exercised in the spirit of nepotism is made the shelter
of the weak and otherwise helpless." _ .

To these appeals,
which are sounded in chorus
from the Home-office, from the Board of Trade,
and from all the olderofficeass,sutrhaencperetsleinatt
the
ar-
rangement is a satisfactory
reign of dullness and mediocrity shall not be dis-
turbed. The answer to them by MriJoliNl\l
MILL
will now be for the consideration of the Adminis-
trative Reform Associations.
" I
have
f th t the object
eansstiihrae pedre,ceadsirnegluoibrsinergvai;ooionpsr,o"ol‘,lr. Ma ill says, " I
proposed is in itself desirable ; that it would be a public
benefit
of the public service, or all that part of it the
duties if
coMposed of the whic are of an intellectual character, were
most intelligent and instructed persons
mwahiontacionuladeboen4zacdtoectrid to,it. If there be any who
not made only for personff °f aabndilsitay,
that the tthheatwmarelcidiois.
crity also ought to have a share in it, I answer, cer.

tainly, but not in managing the affairs of the state.
Mediocrity should betake itself to those things in which
few besides itself will be imperilled by its deficiencies,—
to mechanical labour, or the mechanical superintendence
of labour, occupations as necessary as any others, and
which no person of sense considers disparaging. There
will be, assuredly, ample space for the mediocrities, in
employments which require only mediocrity, when all
who are beyond mediocrity have found the employment
in which their talents can be of most use."

In the preceding observations we have assumed
that the arrangements which the appointment of
Mr. EDWARD RoMIbLY, a declared enemy to the
principle of competitive examinations, proves to
be untrustworthy, are entirely truthful, and that
the majority of the candidates are to be sub-
jected to a real, though an inferior and pass
examination. But let the following provision of
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,
c: 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 lo west 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 qualii
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 he appoint-
ment on general and local committees on Adminis-

trative Refoim 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 of 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 :
" Th• practice hitherto adopted has been to throw
upon the executive officer at the 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
whish might be expected. A disinclination to injure
the prospects of a young man on the threshold 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, in 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 pressed 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
poposed 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
has]been 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 in its
support. Their journal observes :
"Lord Derby showed clearly how restricted is the li
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 heads,' were all to be re-
duced into the moderate compass and working efficiency
of such vast establishments as Lindsay's, Pete's, and
Scott Russell's, where all books are simple, every man
up to and not above his work, all complicity avoided,
and order and regularity enforced."
On Mr. lislywoon'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 of
the best of the tried and approved means.

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 express an en-
tire concurrence 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 says)lotbiDgLotother
taxation,': .it lifficUlitti realise the wisdom

of a measure by which 150,0001. a year, or
more, of voluntary taxation have been sacrificed.
The Bill, however, is to pass, and we would not
have drawn attention to the second reading but
for the higher tone of Ministers in the Upper
House. Much must be allowed for the venti-
lation measures undergo in their principles and
bearings before they reach the 11(43e of Lords ;
still, with every allowance, the tone of that House
of late years will, generally speaking, suffer
nothing in comparison with that of the Commons.
AnU, in this instance, few will be disposed to
deny that the views of Lord CANNING, expressed
in his speech on the question, are more in har-
mony with the intelligence of the age than those
of his colleagues in the Lower House.