The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-25 00:00:00

power seeking to become a dominant power in the State.
(Hear.) He hoped it would over remain so, and admitting
the truth of what he had just stated, he thought these ob-
jections completely fell to the ground. He could tell them
further that so long as the House of Commons existed un-
der its present form—an 4 he hoped it would always so ex-
ist—there need be no fear that the civil service could by
any possibility become so strong as to interfere with the
free opinion of the country. (Hear, hear.) Make the civil
service as strong as you like, it can only be made to contri-
bute by that strength to the best service of the State.
Cout Montalembert himself, one of the greatest thinkers
and most eloquent men France ever produced, denounced
the increase of public establishments, it was true, and it
was an excellent excuse for any Chancellor of the Exche-
quer who might wish it to use as an argument upon the
deficiencies of the civil service of the country, but Mon-
talembert deprecated it as likely to create a host of hun-
gry expectants after place, and • whom you could not
satisfy ; but the reply to that was, that it was the sys-
tem by its anomalies that created the expectants. Throw
open your system to competitive examination, and these
hungry place seekers would disappear, to make way for
better men. With an open system they could not call
the man a hungry man—a man who had sold himself for
a bribe as a civil servant, who came forward to place his •
qualifications in competion with others to serve his country.
Surely that man was not to hungry man who came and
asked that capacity should be made the qualification to
render service to the State. Such a man bade them try
him for his fitness before they employed him. If such a
system was adopted, it would do more for good education
than any possible endowment could do. They would then
have an education of the people at not one quarter what it
would otherwise cost. His right hon. friend (the Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer) bad quoted the Dean of Hereford to
prove that the system which had been established was the
best, but if he had only gone two pages further, he would
have found that the Dean of Hereford concludes by allud-
ing to what had been done, taking the accompanying.cir-
camstances into account ; but his book went a great deal
further than that, and called loudly for a better system; and
said that the phblic service was much in want of men of
ability in its various departments. His right hon. friend
had placed the whole stress of the argument upon the im-
portant security of having grave responsibility resting upon
the heads of departments in the appointments which were
made. Now he could say this that he should like strictly to
analyse the mind of his right hon. friend in order to see, of
what chemical elements it was composed, so that he might
see the exact kind of responsibility which his right hon.
friend would consider sufficient, and that could be acted on
with respect to heads of departments. (Laughter.) Take the
case of the appointment of Lord Chancellor, and that they
were to go up fore xamination as to fitness in order to fix
responsibility. Why, he might venture to say that, emi-
nent as those noble lords were, yet if they had to come up
for examination according to the mode in use, one-third
of them would be rejected ; and again, if those noble and
learned lords were to be made responsible for the appoint-
ment of subordinate officers, what would be their condi-
tion night after night in that and the other house of Par-
liament to be brought forward upon their responsibility
should anything have gone wrong. He remembered some
years ago a saying of Mr. Wakley's, that although Mini-
sters were responsible they never responded. He could
tell them that to try and fix responsibility in this way was
paltry, and beneath their dignity as members of that house.
It. could understand it if in the case of tide-waiters and
custom-house officers, such as happened 15 years ago, when
fraud was carried on to a large extent, that those who
knew of or connived at the fraud should be made respon-
sible, butthe cases which had been put forward for this pur-
pose were delusions, and had been made stalking-horses of,
and could not be so arranged as to afford the public any
greater security than at present. The heads of departments
were responsible to their own consciences, and he thought
that the best kind of responsibility that could be esta-
blished. His right hon. friend had told them that if they
had open competitive examinations, that a deal of dissatis-
faction would arise between the villages and great towns,
because the villages would have to come up for examina-
tion. Surely, the son of a middle.class man or tradesman
could not expect that a commission should issue in order to
examine him under the paternal roof, and upon the homely
hearth. He surely could not desire the commissioners to
go down and catechise him before his father and mother's
oyes. Then, if this was not expected, there could be no
cause of complaint of the nature that had been named. He
begged the house to observe the scope of the motion of his
noble friend, for he thought that the right honourable
baronet had somewhat mistaken it. It was not
that every office should be open to competition, but it was
simply praying her Majesty to make trial of the system,
and that if she deemed it right to do so, that that !Deese
would support her. That showed that it was intended to
proceed step by step, and to make the civil service gradu-
ally perfect itself. What had been done was most satia-
factory as far as it went, and the address only called upon
the house to ask that it might go a little further. Tkat
part of the system had been tried last year with the con-
sent of the Crown, and all that the house had to do was
to vote the money for its maintenance, and the present
motion would simply ask for a further extension of that
system by permission of the Crown, and he sincerely hoped
that the house would support the motion, as the object it
contemplated was so beneficial to the country at large.
Mr. C. LIJSHINGTON was not one of those who in
the smallest degree objected to the system of competitive
examination, for be supported the measure last session:*
He quite admitted that there had been sad deficiencies
to complain of ; he was for 11 years in the civil service,
and he saw a report drawn up by a member of his own
family (Sir Strafford Nortbcote), the member for Dud-
ley, and he felt bound to say that the defects were very
much exaggerated, nor could he at all agree with the re-
medies proposed by that commission. He sinterely hoped
that the motion would be at once negatived.
Lord GODERICH rose and asked if it was the wish of
the house, as there seemed some little objection to the re-
gularity of the motion, he should withdraw it, and re-in-
troduce into-morrow in an altered form, more in conso'.
nance with the rules of the house? •
The SPEAKER put the question, which being agreed to,
Mr. EWART generally supported the motion, and re-
ferred to the' system having been adopted by the gteat
railways and public companies as a confirmation of the va-
lue of the principle, and if the Government set them the
example that they would hail it with pleasure, as calcu-
lated to be of the greatest possible advantages to the whole
public service of the country. (Hear.) He hoped the
house would support the noble lord 'in his motion, for it 4
was well deserving of the confidence of the house. (Hear.)
Mr. TITE thought the Government had redeemed the
promise given by them when the subject was previously
before the house, and that examination would for the
future be the rule in appointments. It was agreed on all
hands that examination should take place, and the only
question was, should there be competition, and believing
that a system of competition was the best, he should sup-
port the motion of the noble lord.
Mr. J. G. PHILLIMORE opposed the motion. He
thought there ought to be an examination so far as to pre-
vent persons totally unfit from being appointed to public
situations, but it would be the most idle of all pedantries
to suppoee that any competition would point out the per-
son most fit for public offices.
Mr. PHILLIPS could not concur in the motion of the
noble lord.

Lard EBRINGTON considered the present system of
place•hunting most demoralising as contrasted with the
improved system
_which the Government had so fairly
adopted. (Hear, hear.) He defied any one acquainted with
the working of the Government to maintain that the pre-
seut system of patronage afforded any effective security for
the character and moral qualification of the successful can-
didates for public offices.
Lord R. CECIL objected to a change in the system
which was already working successfully in excluding all
who were unfit for public offices. He excited the laughter
of the house by reading specimens of the questions put to
candidates on such occasions, such as calling on a clerk
competing for 901. a-year to explain the difference between
the laws of England and Scotland. He protested against
the system proposed, of prostituting the public service, by
making it a premium for proficiency in education.
Mr. RICH protested against the noble lord stigmatising
the method of encouraging education as prostitution. He
could conceive no fairer mode of disposing of public ap-
pointments. He supported the motion of the noble lord,
as tending greatly to improve the public service.
Mr. L A.BO M.:HERE said that as his attention had been
lately called to the subject, ho was anxious to trouble the
house with a few remarks. He had, in common with the
heads of other departments, given replies to certain ques-
tions that had been addressed to them by the commission-
ers as to supplying vacancies, and he trusted that in doing
so he had given them without prejudice. After the best
consideration ho had been able to give to the means of
filling up vacancies in the Colonial-office, he had come to
the conclusion that it was to the advantage of the service
his selecting on his own responsibility a limited number
of candidates (having first satisfied himself that they were
young men of gentlemanly habits, to which he attached as
much importance as he did to other qualities), and then
asking the commissioners to examine them, and select one
whom they considered to be best qualified to fill the va-
cancy in his office. He had now seven candidates for a
vacancy in the Colonial-office, that would be filled up in a
few days, and he believed he had adopted better means
for obtaining an efficient officer than if he had thrown it
open to competition by advertisement in the public papers.
It had been remarked by hon. gentlemen that the respon-
sibility of heads of departments in these appointments
went for nothing, and he was now grieved to find that the
right hon. gentleman the member for the University of Ox-
ford, by the nod of his head, assented to that proposition,
because he felt satisfied there had never been a gentleman
connected with heads of departments that did not feel him-
self.responsible for the efficiency of those whom he had
appointed. With regard to the vacancy he had filled up,
the impression certainly was that none but a competent
person would be appointed, and he had had no application
from any public or private friend whatever. The candi-
dates to whom hehad referred had been recommended from
Christ Church School, the Charter-house School, Queen's
College, and two from Ireland, their attainments, moral
habits, and gentlemanly feeling having been testified to
by those who had watched over their education, and who
naturally took a warm interest in their future success
in life. Two he (Hr. Labouchere) had put on the list
flOikiself, one was the son of a gentleman who had served
the country well in the Colonial department for a series of
years, whose ambition was that his son should follow his
steps in that public department, but he had no wish that
he should be appointed other than on the system laid down,
and which he (Mr. Labouchere) had named, the gentleman
remarking that if his son could not compete with others
he ought not to get it. (Hoar.) The other was the eon of,
a gentleman whose life was shortened by a residence in
one of the colonies whilst in the service of his country.
That gentleman had a son, who was a very deserving young
man,
he
,and already engaged in one of the public offices,
where
_he had given satisfaction, and whose relations desired
might be put in the list of competitors. (Hear.)
The motion of the noble lord was, no doubt, very mode-
rate in its tone and appearance, but in that moderate tone
yeitdateioa should ho tried. twaaso i
expressedo a wish, if adopted by the
the
n ds
andaoeurs appearancea tphpa
apprehended
e nthe ptroiwe. H
power
oftehe (Mhera.dLe aobf °u
de-
partments to try the system of the noble lord at this
mo-
ment, and as the wheel of fortune rapidly,
turned round so rapidly,
and the succession of public men, one to another, was also
so rapid, that he should not be surprised that at some not
very distant day there would be many found desirous of
trying it in their respective departments. (Hear, and
laughter.) This motion, if it expressed anything, express.
eel a preference for this system of examination ; and he
hoped the house would pause before it committed itself to
such an expression of opinion. It would not do for the
house to deal fast and loose with this question ; and, un
less the house made up its mind that this system should
be gradually and universally adopted in the service, is
ought not to agree to an address to the Crown in the terms:
proposed by the noble lord. He (Mr. Lahouchere) was
inclined to believe that in the higher departments of the'
Government, the Colonial, Foreign, Scc., departments,
that competitive examination of a limited number of
candidates was the best system that could be adopted,
but that it was not so in those departments where a lower
qualification was required. He hoped the house
would not agree to the motion, but Lffirm a system
which had not bow% knight fay into play, not hay.