The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-07-13
GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES WHO WORK BUT TWO HOURS D.

ed for partly by sheer idling, and partly
by needless work Needless work is re-
sponsibie for most. At the recent com
mission for reform of the Prussian ad-
ninistration 1t was shown that in the local
presideneies of "Bezirk departments an
ordinary petition sometimes passes
through sixteen different hands before it
is dealt with. Correspondence and re-
porting is carried on in what is called
"KanzleistiP'-that is ''chancellory style,''
of which wonderful examples are given
in a book published by Under-S Secretary
of State Rothe. Letters which might be
compressed into 30 words run to 200 Prof
Engel. in his last work, says that were it
mot for the eephantine system of writ
ing officials might be reduced in every
department of the empire.
The mass of postoffice, telephone and
telegraph officials have nothing to do
That is why in Germany you see fif-
teen impatient members of the public
strung out in queue before a closed
pigeon-hole, while an official with os-
tentatious leisureliness makes entirely
needless calculations to find out the cost
of a fifteen-word telegram at ten pfen-
nigs word
More than anything else Germany's
model social legislation makes for the in
crease of officaldom. The reason is be-
cause at near sight the legislation is
not so model as 1t seems to foreigners
1t works cumbrously. Originally the i'm
perial government proclaimed that it
would leave the local management of all
the various sick, invalid, accident and
other funds to the people themselves in
terested, that is, to the employers and
the employed. This was to be good po-
litical training and to make the work
Ing classes interested in the proper work.
ing of the new laws. These expectations
were foled. Abuse after abuse developed
in the working, most of the local manag-
ing bodies made serious, mistakes, and
finally the state had to interfere, and to
employ hosts of new officials and arbi-
traitors who would supervise the incom-
petent local managers, and judge in the
thousands of disputes which arise as a
result of bad will and incapacity. The
government believed that a few Off
Gals would do in reality they had to
multiply the original number. When the
Central Insurance bureau was plannel.
1t was assumed that four judicial as
SCISSORS would be enough. 1t turned out
that so were wanted. In another de-
partment where IL supervising officials
were to do all the work. it needed after
few years 250. The increase of litigious-
ness. red tape, and the consequent null
tipication of bureaucrats is no news to
Germans. 1t was lately drastically ex-
posed by one of the highest officials in
the Imperial Insurance office:
Some persons believe that the Con-
tinental governments pursue a conscious
policy in increasing and Strengthening
the bureaucracy as opposed to the ordi-
nary population. The argument is ''the
more officials. the more adherents there
Will be to the state, and the less ad-
herents to politics of an anti-state kind"
Two Austrians of the nineteenth century.
Metternich and Beust, openly proclaimed
this notion. In Russia the nationalist
County Bobrinsky reproached Count
Witte for Intentionally increasing the
number OF state employees, solely In order
to multiply the numoer of persons who
are under the governments thumb.
Count Bobrinsky severely criticised the
"hordes of bureaucrats." Whites meas
ures when Minister of Finance give color
to this accusation. In one year he in
creased the number of state officials by
$1,000. In 1895 he took up the question of
the sale of spirits, and started the reform
bv which the state became sole retail
seller of vodka all over the empire. AS
result Russia's government employs H.
coo fresh officials and workmen who are
entirely under it's thumb. anu can be dis
missed If they show any signs of political
independence. When Witte lost his post
in 1903 he was pondering fresh schemes
including drug. tea and tobacco monop-
olies. The execution Of these would have