The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-04 00:00:00

REFORM. IN. TDB (AVER LAMENT

OFFICES.

It seems strange enough that-in this free country,
famous chiefly for skill in politics and for success in
planting its race and institutions throughout the globe,
the service of Government should enter so little int
men's thoughts when, at the outset of life, they lock
about them for a career. How seldom do parents cr
friends in their advice to the schoolboy hold out to him
the honours and promotionstof a public department ar-
an incentive to exertion ! For the great multitude of
the active and energetic there is business in its many
forms, the prospect of wining a competenee ur amassing
wealth in the walks of private life, without any further
interference with national affairs than is involved in sit-
ting on a jury or administering primary justice as a town
magistrate. Then there are professions, more or less
well paid, for the ambitious who will take their chance.
Considering that the bar, as a body, probably spends
more than it earns—that the church, without some pri-
vate fortune or positive assurance of preferment, holds
out but a hard lot—that in medicine the extensive prat
tire, with its rewards and fame, is a rare prize, it is
wonderful with what an unfailing stream the educated
middle class swell the old legitimate professions. For
these the public school, the tutor, the university
give their instruction ; through hope of success in
these men of genius, education, and energy are con-
tent to pass the flower of their youth in severe
toil and still more weary waiting—with NN hat results cf
disappointment and bitterness is too well known. Yet,
whether the Englishman looks to business or profes-
sional life, lie still thinks only of a private weer. It
is not, as in some foreign countries, where a nen must
form part of the machine of State or be cottent with
inferiority. Here people by millions are contnt to be
among the governed, leaving public affairs to be ad-
ministered by whoever may gain 'access to them and
seize on those crumbs, of patronage which it not al-
lowed to every one to react;..
Such has been the state of things 'in England, and
such it is even now; but already there are symptoms of
a great change. People begin to reca4nise both their
rights and duties.' In the first place the professions are
overstocked, and there is a yearly increasing class of
men issuing from our improved places of education, who
are by culture and tone of mind averse from the pursuit
of trade. The public service of the present day, re-
quiring no mean powers of mind, and presenting, if not
the prospect of wealth, yet the certainty of a mainten-
ance, the assurance of an honourable and perhaps a hi;h
position, together with the chance of great influence for
doing good and the gratification of a praiseworthy am-
bition, becomes more and more "a great fact" to the
community at large ; and not only are a more highly en-
dowed body of men anxious for admission into official
life, but the public, which cares only for the proper
administration of its affairs, is disposed to second
their aspirations, The nation at large feel that they
have stood too long apart from the proceedings of the
official world. The inhabitants of a country like ours
cannot safely look upon themselves merely as individuals
thrown together by chance, and only concerned each
man with his own pursuit of wealth or pleasure. They
cannot be content with merely demanding security of
life and property and the repeal of restrictive laws,
leaving a limited class to carry on the business of State,
and to preserve its power at the price of occasional con-
eessions and the use of a conventional language of libe-
rality. The country must be governed not only for, but
by the public ; and that not merely at certain crises, by
outbreaks of national feeling, having the character a'most
of an insurrection, but constantly, regularly, and in de-
tail. A great step towards such a result is the opening
of the Government offices and the chances of a public
career to men recommended only by superior capacity
and diligence. Whether we look on the change as
affording fit employment to meritorious individuals or
as insuring for the State a better discharge of necessary
duties, we can hardly doubt the benefits it will confer.
One part of the reform may now be considered as
achieved ; the victory is half won ; the service is, or will
be, completely opened, and we doubt not that in a
year or two the event will exercise much influence
on the habits and education of the country. It
remains to perfect what has been begun ; the internal
organisation of the departments must be modified in ac-
cordance with the spirit of the new system. Attentive
inspection of conduct, conscientious promotion of desert,
selection of the best men for important places without
regard to age or connexions, are among the duties of
the statesmen who will superintend the various depart-
ments. In no branch of the service will a deficiency in
these duties fail to be hurtful ; but we may cite the Co-
lonial-office as a department where there is the wildest
field for a bold reformer. Hitherto it cannot be doubted
that the distribution of the highest patronage has been
distinguished neither by patriotism nor judgment. The
frequent changes in the office of Colonial Secretary,
coupled with many of the appointments made, would
almost seem to intimate that each Minister was only
anxious to embarrass his successor by giving him the
most narrdw and impracticable men in the Country to
deal with. Lately the necessity of conciliating inde-
pendent colonists has led to the substitution of better
men in certain places ; Canada, Jamaica, and lastly
Victoria, have had good Governors, and now, we be-
lieve, Sir ff. Barkly is to be succeeded in Jamaica by
Governor Darling, of Newfoundland, a gentleman
who has acquitted himself ably at several posts, and
who commenced his career in the colony he is now
to govern. But still it cannot be said that the
vast machine of colonial Government has been worked on
any sound and intelligent principle. The separation be-
tween the Administration at home and the staffs of the
varieas colonies seems to us to be prolific of the same
evils as the analogous practice at the Foreign-office.
Men who have worked in North America, the West
Indies, and Australia, are never brought to London to
assist the Secretary of State with their practical know-
ledge, while the officials at home seldom receive advance-
ment to posts abroad which, from the insight they have
gained in the administration of the colonial system as a
whole, they could fill with a better directed energy and
a larger breadth of view. In fact, the local and what we
may call the Imperial administration have always been
considered as two distinct careers, though it is evident
that if we are to retain the idea of the British empire as
unity the relation of the colonies to the mother country
and to each other must be the highest and most neces-
sary study of those who would administer the affairs
of those dependencies. We cannot wonder that a race of
men placed at a distance from the governing country,
with no political responsibilities, and engaged chiefly
on the material concerns of life, should often look at
things with a narrow and somewhat selfish view.
Though Canadians, and Australians, and Cape Colo-
nists are, we believe, soundly loyal, though they respect
and love the mother country, as we have bad good
proof in the late war, though they fully appreciate the
generous and self-denying policy of England, at least in
the present generation, it is no matter of surprise that
they should sometimes forget their correlative duties.
and look only to the advantage of themselves and their
own territory. The part, then, of the British Governor
and his subordinates, the sole reason why they should
be Englishmen, and not natives of the colony, is that
they should intelligently and effectively correct these
aberrations, and impress on the colonists how far they
should subordinate their own impulses to a patriotic and
large-minded Imperial policy. To do this fittingly what
education is so necessary as that of the Colonial-office
at home, where a wan becomes acquainted with the
various characters and wants of many communities, and
is able to show those whose waywardness is only the
result of their want of information how the rights they
demand may be wrongs to their countrymen in some
other part of the globe, or inconsistent with the well-
being of tho mother country, which has created and
which defends their society Yet, how often hitherto
has a General or a Post-Captain been sent out, who
hardly knows a British colony when he sees its name,
much less the relations of the various dependencies to
the mother country and the policy which it has been the
desire of the most eminent statesmen to uphold !
Surely one of the men who has helped to adminis-
ter from London the affairs of some .50 of these
wmmunities must have learnt something which will
make him more capable than a military or political
partisan who knows nothing of colonial or any other
government ? And surely when a governor or local
secretary has been in a colony for years be must have
something to tell the department at home which is
worth listening to, and might be fairly purchased by
an appointment on the central staff? Now that we are
really getting superior men in the public service, and
testing them by severe examination and training, it is
as well to turn them to account • for neither they nor
the public will long suffer that they should have no
better fortune than to labour in obscurity for the glory
of their official chiefs.—Times.