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

the purpose of testing their qualifications ; in every case
the candidate has been subjected to such an examination,
and in some cases there has been a complication amongst
several persons nominated for one vacancy by the head of
& department. According to the latest information, the
number of persons nominated who had been examined, up
to 21st April last, was, in London, 874 ; iu the provinces,
09 • total, 1,423. Of this number certificates were granted
to 868, and refused to 463 candidates. The house must,
therefore, see that the examination is a real and an efficient
ape,and serves to winnow and separate from the mass a
on iderable number of incompetent candidates. The house,
owever, should observe that this separation of fit and un-
fit candidates does not date exclusively from the appoint-
ment of the Civil Service Commission • and they are not
to assume that these 463 rejected candidates would have
been admitted if the Civil Service Commissioners had not
been appointed. Before the appointment of that commis-
'ion, there were, in the great majority of departments, ex-
aminations of which the object was to test the qualifica-
tions of the candidates. Therefore it may be assumed,
even if the Civil Service Commissioners had not been in
in existence, that a considerable number of unfit candi-
dates would have been rejected. Nevertheless, the sys-
tem has been made uniform, has been applied in all cases,
and has been conducted in a more satisfactory manner
than before. My noble friend has referred to the sub-
ject of education in connection with the civil service
examinations. He has stated that the working of the
system is viewed with interest by the friends of popular
education, and that it is the duty of the Government,
if they are unable by other means to promote the spread of
education, to use this method for giving an impulse to it,
and that great expectations are entertained by those who
wish to diffuse education among the people from the system
of open competition. The Dean of Hereford (Dr. Dawes),
who is generally known as one of the most enlightened
friends of education, and who is actively engaged in its
promotion, has published an edition of the report of the
Civil Service Commissioners—a cheap report, for general
circulation—and he has prefixed to it some remarks of his
own on the subject. And what I wish to point out to the
attention of the house is, that these remarks of a digni-
tary of the Church eminently favourable to education ap-
ply not to the system of open competition, but to the
system of competition as it has been worked.
Therefore, there is every reason for allowing the system
farther trial before cutting it short by the intro-
duction of a perfectly new system. The system. which
my noble friend seeks to introduce is that of open
competition. He wishes to allow any person, without re-
commendation, to come forward and constitute himself a
candidate for office in the civil service. Now, the present i
system does not exclude the principle of open competition.
On the contrary, it admits it, subject to certain conditions.
If the house refers to the report of the commissioners,
pages 15 and 16, they will see an account of the number of
examinations which have been already conducted on the
principle of competition. They were 15 in number, and
the situations competed for were 51. The number of can-
didates was 247, and 175 were examined. Since this re-
port was printed, I understand from the commissioners
themselves that several other examinations on the princi-
ple of competition have taken place, and that others are
&heat to take place. Therefore the house will see that the
present system is consistent with the principle of competi-
tion to a certain extent,! but it imposes a limit which is
necessary for the protection and security of the public ser-
vice. The mole of appointment which my noble friend
seeks to introduce would relieve the members of the Go-
vernment frem all responsibility in the appointments, and
would throw it as far as there can be responsibility on the
Civil Service Commissioners themselves. Their choice
would be determined by literary merit, and when they re •
ported to the heads of departments the persons who had
the greatest number of marks, the heads of departments
would have nothing to do but to take the first on the list
presented to them. The principle which my noble friend
seeks to introduce would therefore get rid of that impor-
tant security which now exists, and which attaches to the
heads of departments as regards appointments. The Civil
Service Commissioners themselves remark in their report
that, although it was not in their province to discuss the
expediency of adopting the principle of open competition,
they must remark that those who had succeeded in obtain-
ing appointments under the competitive system possessed
higher qualifications than those who were appointed by
simple nomination ; and they expected it would have a
beneficial effect on those young persons who were looking
for employment in the civil service. I entirely concur iu
that remark. Igo with my nobie friend to a considerable
distance, but I separate from him when he proposes to give
up the security of the personal responsibility of the heads
of departments for every candidate. It appears to me that
that responsibility is a most important security to the
house and the public, awl is a security which ought not
to be dispensed with. There is also another consideration
which must not be overlooked. If there be an examina-
tion merely to test the qualification of a single individual,
it can be held in any part of the country, in Scotland or in
Ireland; but if you appoint to offices by open competitive
examination, all candidates must necessarily be' brought
together to be simultaneously examined on the same spot,
in order to judge who is bast amongst them, and that spot
must be London. Under this system, therefore, a great
advantage would be given to dersous living in or near the
metropolis, because persons living in remote parts of the
country, in Ssotland or Ireland, would have to incur some
considerable expenses in lending their children to be exa-
mined in London. The hon, member for Devonshire used
a. very singular argument in comparing the advantage of
open competition with limited competition, when he said
that the system of open competition was the natural one,
and that of limited competition the artificial one. By
making that antithesis, he desired to recommend the one
and condemn the other ; but in dealing with questions of
institutions and laws, I do not know how it is possible to
avoid that epithet which he uses in a disparaging sense.
I ask the hon. gentleman if he is prepared to say that the
judges of the land are to be appointed by open competi-
tion, or whether this system which he calls an artificial
system is to bo condemned universally? I ask him
whether he is prepared to extend the principle of open
competition to the whole of the civil service. I am sure
be is not prepared to go that length, and therefore his ar-
gument necessarily falls to the ground. The hon. gentle-
man referred to the work of Count Montalembert, on the
future destiny of England—a work which deservedly at.
tracted a great deal of attention in this country. But
Count Montalembert adverted directly to the question of
" administrative reform," and he expressed the strongest
disapprobation of that system, which he regarded with the
utmost alarm—an alarm which ho expressed in the most
nervous and energetic language. I know from a commu-
nication with another French statesman, whose name, if
I were to mention it, would command the respect of the
house, that the fears entertained by Count Montalembert
are shared by many of the ablest of continental statesmen,
who think they see in the plan of open competition all the
disadvantages of the system of continental bureaucracy,
which is the dread and horror of all liberal politicians on
the continent. He says
The slow but undeniable advance of administrative con-
tirdisation has increased the number of offices to give away.
The demand for places is, and always will he, greater than the
supply ; but both the demand and the supply have increased.
This is the greatest danger to which England is exposed. The
evil is far from being as great as in the nations of the conti-
nent, but England is already on the fatal declivity ; it is time
for her statesmen to perceive that the universal and immode-
rate desire of public offices is the worst of social maladies. It
diffuses over the entire body of the nation a venal and servile
humour, which is quite compatible, even among those who
are best paid, with a spirit of faction and anarchy. It creates
a crowd of hungry applicants, ready to go all lengths in order
to satisfy their appetite, and capable of any baseness as soon
as they are satiated. A nation of place-hunters is the last of
nations, There is no ignominy to which it may not be made
to submit."
I do not entirely agree in the strong expressions Count Mon-
talernbert uses. It must be recollected they proceed from a
Frenchman, who has witnessed in his own country all the
evil effects of administrative centralisation, and who know
the mischievous results which that powerful machinery
in the hands of a central government is able to exercise
in crushing the liberties of a nation. We must make
allowance therefore for the strong feeling of a writer be-
longing to the French parliamentary party. But to a cer-
tain extent I do share the feeling of Count Montalembert, is
thinking that it is not desirable to hold out ostentatiously
to the public the idea of public prizes, as prizes for their
competition without anyrestriction, or leaving any choice td
the executive government. If this system of open compe-
tition were applied to the civil service of the Crown, it
must be extended to all other appointments. We most in-
clude within the scheme notonly the clerks of the civil ser-
vice, but all those numerous officers who are appointed by
the county magistrates, be town councils, by boards of
guardians, by the different municipalities and authoritieS
of the, three countries, must be placed under similar eita
cumstances. I defy any one to draw a well-grounded dis-
tinction between those two classes, and I ask why competi-
tion should be applied to one class and not to the other.
The plan which my noble friend proposes is not only now
and unprecedented in this country, but unexampled as re-
spects every other country, and as respects commercial and
mercantile departments. We do not find that railway com-
panies or other great commercial bodies in this or any other
country ever resort to the mode of universal competition
for the purpose of selecting candidates. It must be evi•
-
dent to the house that before such a plan of appointment
can be introduced, a bill must be brought in, and pass all
the regular stages, both in this and the other house of Par-
liament. I fully admit that it is difficult for an individual
member of Parliament to bring in a bill on such a subject,
and Ido not blame my noble friend for not doing so. I
merely wish to remark, that if the plan is to be introduced
it ought to be done by the authority of Parliament, and
not by an address to the Crown, which may be carried by
a chance number of members present on a Thursday.
I have now stated to the house the views I have been able
to form on the subject, and I ask the house, before they
vote in favour of the address, to consider whether the
Order in Council of last session is not, as the Dean of Here-
ford describes it, a most important step towards the im-
provement of the civil service—whether it has not been
carried into effect with vigour and efficiency, and in a fair
and independent spirit—whether it would be wise, before
it has existed one year, to interfere with its operation by
the hasty introduction of anew plan, and whether it would
not be better to remain contented with the limited
appli-
cation of competition already in existence, and whiclase
far as the views of her Majesty's present Government are
Octehuerrefo andre
concerned, will be extended as new vacancies
made applicable to ether departments. I trust,
the house will allow the existing system to be continued'
at all events for another year, till we are able to have a
fuller experience of its operation, and will not agree to the
address of my noble friend, which would put a sudden ter-
mination to this experiment. Therefore I beg leave to
move the previous question.
Mr. GLA.DSTONE tendered his thanks both to the noble
ord who, had introduced the question, and to the right
hon. gentleman who had opposed it. He thanked his noble
friend for the prudent way in which he had brought the
question forward, and his right hon. friend for not having
founded hie opposition to it on the ground of principle,
but on the ground of time. He likewise thanked his right
hon. friend for his admission of the principle that the
question should be discussed solely on the grounds of what
wise best for the efficiency of the public servicia "He be-
lieved that if the question could be strictly 'themes. lid on
these grounds, there would not be the same difficulty in
proceeding with it which t here was when it was considered
as a matter of patronage, and, as such, necessary to the
working of the Government. Ho should not be surprised
at Count Moutalerabert, or any other French or Russian,
adopting measures calculated to benefit them, no mat-
ter what stood in the way of their adoption. (Hear,
hear.) Ho might be told that such a measure would
tend to make the civil service too strong in this
country ; but his answer was that the persons who had
the management of that service were appointed by that
house—and he should be sorry to see the day when it would
be otherwise—therefore the house could always act with
perfect freedom in that erespect. Again, it had been said
that (even this power would melee by its possession the
House of Commons too stroug for the country ; but hon.
gentlemen who argued:la that manuer must Let forget the
vieguarde which have been provided to regulate 4327