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    carefttUy'feohce&fed ; tKe plan of the ptece is a secret ; ftrid there 'Will be innumerable sortie ' s to diVert the ' attafck . But 'it is ap enterprise of great bith and moment , well worth a Mrd struggle , and Well worthy of thdse liard ^ flsted gentlemen who do business in great waters and make for us our iron roads . The'first difficulty will be found in the general ignorance of the subject . Few men know anything of the inner working of our

    Government offices . They know the character of the working by its results in the Crimea , but they cannot trace the particular sources of the evil . It would be easy to impute general corruption , but it would be unjust . There is not much gross corruption in the civil service . There ' are few flagrant jobs . There are instances now and again where persons , utterly incompetent , have been forced into offices by political influence —young men , for example , thrust into an accountant ' s office without the least fitness

    or aptitude for the duties—or political adventurers and fashionable swindlers placed at the head of an office without any reference to sj ) ecial qualifications . But in nine cases out of ten such appointments do little harmand even that little can be neutralised if the clerks in the middle ranks be clever and energetic . In short , it is on this middle

    class of clerks that the efficiency of the service depends : and in its mismanagement we find the cause of the present break-down . It is recruited from raw lads sent in anyhow from among the nominees of Members of Parliament ; and at the top of the tree its career of promotion is stopped by the intrusion of men little better than Frank Villters .

    Conceive the position of a chief clerk having twenty clerks under him , and interested in doing well the work of his office . His name is never known to the public ; he has no hope that any one outside the office will ever hear of his exertions ; and he knows that the political chief of the office is too adroit to speak in Parliament or elsewhere of the service of his subordinate . Thus discouraged from above , he finds at the other end of the service from time to time a fresh infusion of untrained young men , who have entered the office with the intention of having a " snug

    berth , " arid who never had a notion of work . The position is similar to that of a sergeant in the army retained at some doomed dep 6 talways drilling recruits , and never allowed to riso beyond a certain rank in the regiment . Were this middle class of the civil service allowed to recruit itself from the business world , were 'it allowed to cull from the City , from the railway offices , from professional life , good men , accustomed to hard work , and having the fresh spirit , of new men , the service could be made thoroughly efficient . But if all'the merchants in the City went

    tomorrow to Lord Palmekston and said , "'Wo give you our best clerks , " his lordship ( after tho usual pleasantries ) would Bay , " Mr . Clifford , make out appointmonts for these . gentlemen as junior clerks at S ) 0 / . a year each . " It is in thiss want of elasticity , in this damning want of adaptation to circumstances , that the weak part of the service lies . While this war has cauaed stir and change in

    cvory other department ot national exertion , the civil servico lies in tho midst ; , of English life a . dead branch . Its course of promotion in still the tmmc ; its hours of work aro Ktill the same ; it still haunts long useless corridors loading to queer and dark rooms—soinofciinoH very large , sometimes very small , and the only sign of lifo is tho punctuality of luncheon .

    One of the worst features , porhaps , in the whole service , is ¦ tho utter disregard shown % tho political chiefs for tho peculiar

    capabilities ^ of vttien . Thefce aarSw OHAEM * -ffRE'VE ± . TA 3 sr , for instanee- ^ a man ' bf an earnest -and altriost romantic 'turn of mind- ^ a mean " who has ° an ideal standard of morality , and is a first-rate * judge of human nature . He was great in India , where his moral worth ¦ made itself ' felt among the natives and among the comparatively demoralised Europeans , and he would 'be a good comnnssa ^* gemeral-in < -chief — -able to select subordin ates with a glance of the eye , and to find-out the biest instruments on the spot . But he is chained to a desk in the Treasury- ^ pottering over papers , and

    finding out whether the 31 . 6 s . 8 ^ d . paid to Jones has been sanctioned by the estimates . There is a Mr . ' M . ttl . vasy , an Irish engineer , a man who has made his own reputation . He was , up to the other day , a commissioner of public works in Ireland ; but he differed Tvith some Irish landlords , and , right or wrong , was forced to resign . He is-still in the prime of life , healthy and energetic . He would be exactly the man to aid an army in engineering -work , bat he is cast adriftrat an expense to"the public of € 67 I : a year pension . These are but ? a few * mild' instances of the want of

    tact among the authorities . They will not call to then * aid good men from the other ranks of life , and they will not use the good men they already command . L / et us be permitted to repeat , the inevitable stumbling-block to the progress of the new association will be want of knowledge . They will make a thousand blunders in the beginning , lii one phrase of their initiatory circular

    there is a sad confusion . They talk of " promotion for merit . " Some of the worst appointments ever made by the Government are appointments for " merit . " They give to some foolish old admiral an administrative post on account of his naval " merit ; " they reward some partisan with a commissionership on account of his political " merit ; " scientific " merit" finds its reward in some berth or

    other ( no matter where , so that the salary be respectable ); and even personal " merit" is duly rewarded . This is but the old dance to a new tune—the old dance which made Sir Christopher Hatton a Lord Chancellor . It is so easy to administer business , it is so easy to rule clerks , direct complex operations , insure official order , promptitude , and care ,

    that any man can do it . Therefore reward your fine old admirals by giving them easy chairs at the Admiralty ; please your party by promoting your faithful friends into the Income-tax Commission ; get your ministerial paper to give a puff for your appointment of scientific men to business posts—and do something pleasant for aristocratic defaulters . The worst administrators of

    official business in this country ( and that is indeed a " lowest deep" that has no " lower" ) have been naval and military men . The man who is brave and ready in the camp and in the field is often fussy and feeble when surrounded by official details . It is a great mistake to suppose that a practical knowledge of tho matter governed is

    necessary or useful for its official administration . Tho best First Lords of the Admiralty for years have been civilians , and tho worst heads of tho Ordnance and other boards have been military men . The one department of the war service which among all tho others has been pre-eminent , and is still pre-eminent for mismanagement , is tho Horse Guards , simply because Lord Hardinge is no more " fit" to

    rule an office than ho is to calculate tho longitudo . Wo might multiply particulars , but tho inference is obvious . Wo want not " merit , " but "fitness . " No uaval or military men should bo at tho " head" of any office . In offices , connected with their profession thrir proper post is that of inspector and adviser ; but civil service is a craft of its own ,

    ¦ arid . no man < w < ho hag spent hw life at ^ sea-or intlie . camp can be a good . iratei ^ of ! « n ; officse , except by : some extraordinaty genius not comDumin these days . It is the TnoneTgeeessary today down this doctrine , : as we find . the intense Mr . Layabb blundering-into the * opposite , error , by asking with a-tone f of ^ surprise , was Sir Thomas HASTiSrehs tiie < onlyrorjraleiy officer on the Ordnanee- Board ? : . In difficulties like these the jprojected . association will doubtless lose iinueh time . But

    let them ; point the moral of the obstruction . Let them-denounce the official , reserve which makes a mystery of what should be as clear as' noonday , and which , by concealing everything , facilitates everything bad , from wilful favouritism to innocent stupidity .

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    RECONSTRUCTION OF THE INtHAl * ARMY . The force of public opinion has at length extorted from the British Oligarchy a tardy act of justice towards the officers of the'Indian Army . Henceforth precedence is to be regulated , on either side of the Cape , by the date of commission , and thus one cause of the mutual jealousy that prevails between the two services has been very properly removed . But we cannot accept this measure as final

    and complete . ¥ e fear that it will prove a honeyed sop to still the clamours of the Press , and that it is intended by this slig ht concession to waive the weightier demands that are being urged by the officers of the Native Army . According to the letter of the Memorandum , the chief command of armies in India may be held by generals in the Company ' s service , and it will frequently happen that they shall be entitled to take ; precedence of those in the Koyal Army . It is impossible , indeed , that it should De otherwise , unless the

    Horse Guards persist in sending out bedridden and septuagenarian warriors to fill the most important appointments . And it would be credulous to suppose that such valuable patronage will be lightly relinquished . At present , India furnishes a comfortable provision for effete old generals , and for members of the aristocracy militant , who are too poor or too incompetent to be paraded before the eyes of Europe . But if the new Memorandum be literally fulfilled , this convenient system must be consigned to Limbo , for it will be no longer nracticable on earth . It will not suffice to

    have " served in the Peninsula" to obtain the command of an Indian army . A Company ' s general mav now hope to attain the highest aim of his ambition , and to lead into the field the men whom he has trained to victory . But if his military talents and experience are of a character to render good service to his country , why should the sphere of their usefulness be confined to the East ? Why

    should they not be made available in any quarter of the globe where such attributes may be needed ? Iu the critical position of affairs that now prevails , there aro many distinguished officers of . the Company ' s service who might most profitably have been employed in tho Crimea . Such men as Sir Hugh

    Wheeler , Colonel Hodgson , Brigadier Mayne , and others whom it would be tedious to enumerate , might well have been entrusted with divisional commands ; and many of their juniors haVo justly merited an opportunity oi signalising themselves on a more glorioua field than can bo furnished in tho distant regions of India . But this reciprocity of _

    servico docs not appear to bo contemplated by tho new regulation , nor perhaps would it be practicable without introducing the privilege of exchanging into either branch of the National Army . And there is one great benefit to bo derived from tho system of exchange , in the . fact that adventurous and truly mar-

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    SW ^ B / MtiMfS . ] THE 4 IHEIABEB ; . ' 4 $ &

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 5, 1855, page 423, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2089/page/15/