RESOLUTION.

HC Deb 05 June 1860 vol 158 cc2061-85

MR. BAILLIE COCHRANE

said, he rose to move a Resolution to the effect that the Civil Service Commissioners should publish, with their annual Reports, all the examination papers submitted to candidates, specifying the proportion in which the maximum of marks assigned to each branch of knowledge was divided among the questions contained in each paper. It was not his intention to trespass long on the attention of the House, but lie trusted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would prevent the necessity of his dividing the House on the Motion. Had the Civil Service Commissioners acted on the opinions to which they had given publicity in their first Report the present Motion would not have been necessary. In that Report they stated:— We conceive that it would be very convenient to those persons who may contemplate entering into the public service to be correctly informed as to the rules and qualifications which are prescribed by the various departments. The Report went on to say— We feel, also, that the powers intrusted to us are so novel as to render it our duty to take the first opportunity of giving a full account of the manner in which we have exercised them. Now, that view had not been carried out, and he could not help regretting that the Commissioners had not in their last Report given the whole of the examination papers, but had confined themselves to giving those only connected with India. The consequence was that an injustice was, in his opinion, done under the existing system to those young men who presented themselves before the Commissioners, and who were left in ignorance of the examination to which they were subjected. The House would remember the feelings that were expressed when the system was first instituted. Lord Monteagle stated in "another place" that its effect would be to transfer the whole of the power of the Crown to three irresponsible gentlemen perfectly unacquainted with the duties connected with the several departments which they were called upon to examine. Lord Brougham also—than whom, on such a subject, there could be no higher authority—declared that people must hold up their hands in astonishment at such a system. Now, it appeared to him that many of the disadvantages which were associated with it might be obviated if the Commissioners would only make their proceedings as public as possible, and in making that suggestion he did not wish it to be supposed that he intended to cast the slightest imputation upon the fairness with which those gentlemen performed their duties, but he thought the system ought to have been carried out in such a manner as to leave no ground for the expression of disapprobation. In dealing with the subject in the course of last Session he had called the attention of the House to the hardships connected with the case of the temporary clerks, and since then instance after instance had been brought under his notice in which gentlemen who had passed sixteen or seventeen years in the public service, and had during that time most faithfully and efficiently performed their duties, found themselves, at a period of life when it was too late to enter another profession, called upon to pass a competitive examination, in which they were but too often defeated by younger men who had been "crammed" for the ordeal, and were, as a consequence, left utterly destitute. He might quote many such cases from a document which he held in his hand, but he should only trouble the House with one or two. A particular gentleman had, for example, received an appointment as landing waiter to the Customs at Bridgtown, Barbadoes, with a salary of £200 a year; he was promoted in 1844, and again in 1845, when he became senior or first-class landing waiter. In 1853 he had been again promoted, and had subsequently been appointed to the situation of a temporary clerk in the Audit-office at Somerset-house, but his prospects had ultimately been destroyed owing to the fact that he failed to pass an examination under a system which had been instituted twelve years after he had entered the public service. Now, he should like to call the attention of the House to the able remarks of the Earl of Malmesbury in relation to the service of unpaid attachés. That noble Lord, in writing to the Commissioners, said:— The average service of unpaid attachés is of five years' duration before they are promoted and subjected to this second trial. At this period most of them have attained twenty-four or twenty-five years of age; and, if they are rejected, they are too old to enter any other profession. Within six months you have rejected four young men who were, in my belief, competent to carry out all the duties which are required of attachés; and two of these, I have no hesitation in saying, are remarkable for their general accomplishments, and especially for their knowledge of languages. The result has been that, for a service which was so much in favour in 1852 that I had then a list of thirty-one candidates for attachéships, I have now only two; and, unless the gentlemen whom you have rejected should be allowed to try again, I cannot fill the vacancies. He should next advert to the opinion ex- pressed by the Lords of the Admiralty themselves, which was printed by the Civil Service Commissioners:— My Lords are of opinion that the order in Council does not apply to Mr. A. B. Mr. A. B. entered the civil service in July, 1852, as a clerk in Malta Dockyard, where he served till November, 1855. He was then transferred to the Admiralty in London, where he served as a clerk from December, 1855, to October, 1857, and again from March, 1858, to the present time. As Mr. A. B. entered the civil service three years before the Order in Council was issued, the want of a certificate on his first entry cannot now be a disqualification, unless the order is retrospective. If the order be intended, as it obviously is, to guard the public against the admission to the civil service of unqualified persons, no certificate can be necessary or reasonably required in the case of a civil servant whose fitness has been amply and creditably proved. Now, he complained in the first place that the action of the Civil Service Commission in those cases was retrospective, and in the next place that the examinations were competitive. There was, he contended, no authority for taking such a course in regard to appointments to the Civil Service, except such as were furnished by China. There were, it was true, examinations carried on in Denmark for the Civil Service, and in Germany, but they were not competitive. In France, also, there were examinations, especially of the medical profession; but they were carried on in public; a jury was appointed to examine the answers; the answers were all given in public; they were read out in public. In fact, every possible publicity was given to them. Now, with respect to the examinations in China, Sir John Bo wring made a statement, which he should like to read to the House. It was as follows:— The war in 1841 was called the Opium War, and he believed it would never have taken place, if the Emperor had not sent down a very learned Chinese—Commissioner Lin—but a man of incontestable ignorance as to countries and nations, and who, above any one, was likely to involve China in a quarrel. He had risen from the ranks; for among the Chinese it was a rule that the humblest may rise to the highest station in the empire. It was all the result of competition. Their educational system invited the children of every village to send their most advanced scholars to one centre for examination, with a view to State appointments, and examiners were sent down from the capital charged with the mission of selecting the most competent. What he (Mr. Cochrane) asked was, that these examinations should be made public, and that the value of the questions, taking the maximum number of marks, should be put opposite to each question. He did not want to make invidious selections; but he would read to the House a few of the questions set to a young man seeking an appointment in the Admiralty. He would take paper No. 2, and read three questions seriatim. The first of them was as follows:— There are two mountains such that if 126 feet are added to four times the height of the lower one, the sum is half the difference between their heights; given, that the lower one is 441 feet high, find the height of the other. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Hear, hear!] The next was, What is the length of the longest day at a place where the sun rises on that day at 3h. 49m. 51s. and he should very much like to know whether the right hon. Gentleman who cried "hear" would be able to answer it off-hand. Then came another. How many entire days have elapsed since the opening of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park? Such questions as the following were also put to candidates for situations in the Admiralty and Somerset House:— Explain the terms 'latitude' and 'longitude.'" "Estimate roughly the latitude and longitude of Madrid, Naples, Pekin, New York, and St. Petersburg." "Name the Welsh counties bordering on the Bristol Channel; the two westernmost counties of Connaught; the two northernmost counties of the Scotch mainland; the counties crossed by a straight line from Lincoln to Shrewsbury." "What counties are drained by the Thames, Severn, Trent, and Ouse respectively? Name the chief ports of their respective estuaries." "Describe the position of the following headlands:—North Cape, Cape Clear, Cape Horn, the Naze, Cape St. Vincent, the Lizard, Cape Guardafui, Cape Cod, Cape St. Rocque. The following questions were also put:— Name (a) the counties which a collier would pass in sailing from the mouth of the Tyne to Gravesend. (b) The counties on the coast between Belfast and Dublin. (c) The counties of the Highland border of Scotland. Describe, as accurately as you can, the positions of Heligoland, Madagascar, Singapore, St. Thomas's Island, Juan Fernandez, the Moluccas, and Vancouver's Island. On what nations are they respectively dependent? Name the productions of those among them which are commercially important. Some of these questions were excessively difficult to answer; and if the Commissioners were justified in putting them they ought to affix the number of marks to show the value they attached to them. He did not see what objection could be made to the regulation he proposed. It would be only fair to the candidates, because it would enable them to see the value of the questions, and in what manner the maximum of marks was attained. It was very much to be regretted that this system of competitive examination had been introduced, and it was very doubtful whether the country would be benefited by it. It was sometimes said that the old system was aristocratic. The contrary was, however, the fact. It was under the old system that such men as Stephenson, Arkwright, and Hargreaves rose to eminence. If a system of examination had been in existence the country would have lost the services of many of its most eminent statesmen and gallant officers. He doubted whether the country would ever have attained its present eminence under such a system. The qualities most desirable in public men—zeal, diligence, public honour, and private integrity—were precisely those in which candidates could not be examined. The examination failed, indeed, in attaining a knowledge of all those qualities that made men eminent. In their first Report the Commissioners reflected on the ignorance of the civil servants; but he would assert that no country was better served in her civil departments than England. If, however, these examinations were still to be carried on, they ought to be conducted with the greatest publicity and fairness. The Government were bound, also, to be just to those who had served it faithfully, and who had entered the service before the servants of the Crown were exposed to this kind of inquisition. The hon. Member moved that for the future the Civil Service Commissioners shall publish, with their Annual Report, all the Examination Papers submitted to candidates, specifying the proportion in which the maximum of marks assigned to each branch of knowledge is divided among the questions contained in each paper.

MR. BENTINCK

seconded the Motion.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

I must confess, Sir, that in common with my colleagues, upon examining the Motion which my hon. Friend has just brought before the House, I considered it open to very grave objection. But I am bound to say that if there had been any doubt at all as to whether the tone of the Motion was capable of a favourable interpretation, I think the speech my hon. Friend has just delivered would at once have settled the matter to the conviction of every one except those who entertain the opinions which he has so frankly avowed. I cannot consider, and I trust the House will not consider, the Motion apart from the speech, because the granting of the Motion would unquestionably be construed with reference to the speech—a speech the animus of which cannot for a moment be mistaken. My hon. Friend docs not for a moment attempt to conceal his views. He gathers together such scraps of authority as he can find—and scraps, indeed, they truly are—to show that, in his opinion the whole idea of examining candidates for the Civil Service is mischievous and absurd. He complains that that the examination is retrospective. What docs he mean by retrospective? Does he mean that those who were in the Civil Service at the time the system was introduced are required to submit to an examination as the condition of their retaining their offices? That would be a retrospective examination. But my hon. Friend means no such thing. He means only that entering the Civil Service in one department does not of itself secure the right of emigrating from department to department, however incompetent a man may be for the business of that other department, without being subjected to the test of an examination. That was the case put by my hon. Friend. He gave the instance of a gentleman appointed landing waiter in the Customs—I think he said in Barbadoes—who wished to transfer himself to a situation in the Audit Office here—a situation which no man can accept without examination; and then my hon. Friend declared it a gross and monstrous hardship, and can hardly find words to give vent to the strength of his feelings, because the gentleman was not allowed to carry himself from being a landing waiter in Barbadoes to an office in the Audit Department of Somerset House, without being subjected to examination. That is what he calls a retrospective system, and what he considers to be the height of absurdity and injustice. I think it is impossible to exaggerate the mischief which would be done by the adoption of such sentiments as those. I am very much indebted to my hon. Friend for having made no secret of his views. He adopts apparently, the extravagant sentiment which he ascribes to Lord Monteagle—I hope untruly—that this system hands over the whole patronage of the Crown to three irresponsible gentlemen. In point of fact, the question he wants to bring to an issue, and the question which I submit he ought to have put fairly and openly to issue, is, whether the present system should be maintained or should be abolished. The question before us is not the comparatively narrow and paltry matter which the Motion on the face of it expresses. The whole reasoning and arguments of my hon. Friend, so far as they have any end in view, tend towards the abolition and extirpation of the system of examination for the Civil Service. My hon. Friend, who is so much alive to the hardship of examining a landing waiter from Barbadoes before he is allowed to enter the Audit Department in Somerset House, is not at all alive to the evils of another class, which this system was intended to meet, and which I maintain it has done much to extirpate, or, at least to qualify. He does not take into his consideration the vast and huge jobbing power continually at work in the country, and at work not unfrequently through the medium of Members of the House of Commons. Because, although it would be absurd to suppose that any hon. Gentleman who ever had a seat in Parliament, could, by possibility, under any circumstances, lend himself knowingly to the perpetration of a job—yet even Members of Parliament of great eminence—even Members of Parliament possibly who now take a great interest in this question—may unwittingly, wrought upon by designing men from without, be made the instruments of perpetrating jobs against the public. Now, this system of examination was instituted in a spirit of hostility to such a system of jobbing, and with the view of obtaining the best men the public could obtain to discharge the duties of the public offices. My hon. Friend said the public was admirably served under the old system. I rejoice to say that, quite independently of any examination, in many offices the public are admirably served, and that there are many gentlemen who entered into the public service not since the system of examination was established, but long before it, who would be an honour to the Civil Service of this or any other country. But I take leave to join issue with my hon. Friend if he says and thinks that in all departments of the Civil Service the public has been admirably served; or even if he thinks that before this system was instituted all reasonable precautions were taken to secure that the public service was performed in the best manner possible. I do not know what his experience of the Civil Service is which has enabled and authorized him to deliver so confident an opinion on the character of the civil servants, universally, in all the departments of the country. But I do not hesitate to say that there have been many offices in the Civil Service which, so far from being admirably filled, have been miserably filled; and which never could have been thus miserably filled under the system which was established a few years ago, and which my hon. Friend now seeks to abolish. The Motion of my hon. Friend itself is of so narrow a kind that one feels himself degraded in descending from, the discussion of the broad principles which he laid down in so uncompromising a manner, to criticise the particular terms of it. But the Motion is one which appears to me decidedly exceptionable. My hon. Friend says, it is exceedingly desirable to give full and fair notice to those who are to be examined under this abominable system, of the nature of the examination which they are to undergo. Now, Sir, there lies a most important fallacy in that doctrine when it is wrongly understood. It is most important—it is required by justice—to explain to those who are about to be examined the general nature of the examinations. But it is not merely not important—it is mischievous—it is fatal to the efficiency of the examinations to explain to the candidates too precisely the nature of the examination they are to undergo. I think my hon. Friend, with such bowels of compassion for the hardship inflicted upon young gentlemen shut up with pen, ink, and paper, and their own brains and nothing else to help them, ought to have moved that the questions be always published, not after, but before the examinations. By that means even the landing-waiter from Barbadoes would be able to make his way into the Audit-office, notwithstanding that oppressive examination which before proved fatal to his advancement. But, Sir, that kind of particular information without bounds and without limits, which my hon. Friend seeks to secure is not a desirable thing. It would tend to destroy the efficiency of examination, the honesty of examination, and instead of encouraging these young men to seek information to put them up to cultivating and furnishing rightly their minds for all the tricks and stratagems which may be applied, and sometimes are successfully applied with fatal effect, for the purpose of vitiating this process of examination and evading those tests which it is the object of the examination to secure, My hon. Friend with great magnanimity said that he was not at all disposed to commit an act of injustice towards the examiners; he would by no means quote particular questions which might be misunderstood; and, having laid down the general principle, he immediately proceeded to quote a string of particular questions which appeared to him very ridiculous. [MR. B. COCHRANE: They all followed each other.] I implied as much when I said a string of particular questions. It was not easy to find a word which would more clearly express that they followed each other. I would venture to say this, however, that there never was a good examination paper set which would not give occasion to a titter if it were read out in a mixed assembly before gentlemen who are not met for the purpose of undergoing examination, but upon matters quite different from scholastic examination. Having listened to those questions, I do not hesitate to say that they appear to me to be extremely reasonable and proper, and very well calculated to test general knowledge and capacity of the candidates, and do credit to the judgment of those by whom they were framed. I do not wish to be interpreted too strictly as to every individual instance; but, having heard the list of questions read by the hon. Member, I un-hesitatingly give that opinion as to their general tenor. My hon. Friend says that the value in number of marks ought to be attached to each of those questions. It really seems as if my hon. Friend was determined to do everything to weaken and enfeeble a system which he found himself unable to destroy. Lest there should not be already inducement enough, as there unfortunately is, to avoid the pressure of examination by getting up particular points, my hon. Friend wants to have artificial aids given to candidates in selecting the questions fur which they are to prepare themselves, and by answering which they will obtain the greatest number of marks. In the first place such a proposal requires a degree of detail which it would be absurd and ridiculous to ask the examiners to enter into, and in the second place it would be a thing of no manner of use whatever, except to encourage these young men to cram for particular questions. The real question is whether the examiners have given to those who were to be examined that sort of general information as to the character of the examination which is fair and just. And what have they done in their third Report? For once they did publish the whole mass of the examination papers that they had set for the year. For once they did that, in order that there might be laid out before the candidates fair means and opportunities of becoming acquainted with the general scope of the examination. But to pursue the same course year after year, and to publish the whole of their examination papers would, in the first place, load their Reports and the shelves of the libraries of this House with a vast quantity of the most worthless and useless matter. One of the most important branches of this examination, for instance, is arithmetic, and what could be more ridiculous than to call upon the examiners by the special interference of the House, to give in detail every sum or problem in arithmetic which was put before every person who came forward to be examined for the Civil Service of this country? Such a measure would be most mischievous as regards the amount of needless expense to which it would put the country, and still more mischievous from the tendency it would have to encourage trick and stratagem in the young men, instead of leading them to trust to the fair and manly process of a sound and well-conducted education. I think the Motion, framed as it is, lays down principles which are very exceptionable; but if the opinion of the hon. Gentleman and the general opinion of the House really are that the examiners have not done enough to make the candidates acquainted with the general character of the examination, the mere expression of that opinion moderately and deliberately made by those who had looked into the Reports and really considered the questions, when conveyed to the examiners themselves would, I have no doubt, have great weight with them. But I should like to know whether there is in this House any one man who has considered carefully the whole of the papers published in different years by the examiners, and having considered them has made up his mind that they are not sufficient to give fair information to the persons to be examined. Has any man in the House done that—has my hon. Friend himself read them all? I should like my hon. Friend to answer that. He was very ready to speak just now when he had something to say, but he is not so willing to speak now. But if he had, and if he considered that sufficient information was not given, it would be a matter well worth the attention of the examiners, and which I am sure they would take into consideration. But that would be no cause for the interference of the House by a Motion, which, to say nothing of the speech by which it was supported, is in the nature of a censure and a discouragement. The doctrine I would press upon the House is this, that the gentlemen who discharge the duties of examiners ought not to be discouraged but encouraged in their difficult task. What time, again, has my hon. Friend chosen for his Motion? He tries to force us to interfere in this system at the very moment that we have recently appointed a Committee to examine it—when the Committee, as I understand, has nearly concluded its labours and is preparing its Report, but at a time when we are entirely ignorant of the nature of its Report. Thus, in the first place, we appoint a Committee to examine the subject, and then, at the instance of my hon. Friend, we proceed to prejudge a most important matter. Nothing could be, I would almost say, more irrational on the part of the House, and less in conformity with its usual mode of proceeding, than to have selected a body of men in whom we have confidence to look into the whole matter and report to us their opinion as to the nature of the system, and just at the moment when, within a few weeks, or days, we may expect the result of those inquiries, we should, on the speech of my hon. Friend, proceed to anticipate them, and, possibly, to cross and contradict what they would recommend by the adoption of this Motion. Sir, for these reasons, and, if time were not valuable, for many other reasons which could be given, I trust the House will not agree to the Motion of the hon. Gentleman, if it is not to late to express a hope that he himself will not press the Motion.

SIR FREDERIC SMITH

said, that having been for a number of years engaged as a public examiner for the East India Company at the Royal Military Indian College, Addiscombe, he could corroborate the justice of the observations which the right hon. Gentleman had just made, with one exception. To publish annually the examination papers of any institution would undoubtedly have the effect of acquainting the Masters of cramming schools with the system of examination, so that can- didates would come up, not well grounded in any one of the sciences or brandies of knowledge in which they were to be examined, but with a few particular points specially got up for the occasion. He saw no harm, however, in putting on the examination paper of the day the number of marks assigned to each question. That would enable the candidate who could not, as few ever did, answer the whole of the questions within the limited time which was allowed, to select those which would give him the greatest number of marks. These competitive examinations, he was satisfied, tended greatly to improve the civil and military services. No doubt, it was impossible to ascertain all the qualities of a public servant, in either branch, but these examinations afforded a satisfactory test of his information and powers of usefulness. If one could not test the courage or endurance of a young soldier, one could at least discover the calibre of his mind and the general extent of his education. With regard to the publication of the examination papers, he believed that if those of Addiscombe for the last twenty-five years alone were produced and laid upon the floor of the House, they would form a heap five feet in height. It would be well perhaps that the Civil Service Commissioners should occasionally give a sample of their questions, but to publish the whole of them would be perfectly monstrous. If a young man saw that by answering a question in geography he could obtain forty marks, and that by answering a question in algebra he could obtain sixty marks, he would address himself to the question which he was most able to answer.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

They give the value of the answers in the different branches.

SIR FREDERIC SMITH

said, that was true, but they did not give the marks for each particular question, and that made a vast difference. Young men who came up for examination were always nervous, and the knowledge of the number of marks to be given for each question would give them some confidence.

MR. BENTINCK

said, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not touched one of the objections which had been raised by his hon. Friend. Indeed, his speech on this subject was as remarkable as many others they had heard from him in that House; and if the right hon. Gentleman had not particularly addressed himself to the hon. Member for Honiton, he should not have known that the right hon. Gentleman was speaking to the Motion before the House. The right hon. Gentleman complained of the animus which was to be discovered in his hon. Friend's speech, but as the House had often listened to many eloquent speeches without being able to discover, after paying the greatest attention to them, what was the animus, he thought that was rather complimentary than otherwise to his hon. Friend. The right hon. Gentleman said that the great object of these examinations was to prevent the possibility of jobbing. If that were so, he thought they might be applied to the Treasury Bench with great advantage to the public service. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say, that prior to the establishment of this system many offices were miserably filled. There was an additional argument why the system should be applied to the Treasury Bench, because it would not be difficult to point out offices which had been miserably and ruinously filled; whereas, with a competitive examination, the holders of them might not, possibly, have been placed in a position where they had done no good to the public service. The right hon. Gentleman asserted that the effect of the system was to establish the general knowledge of the person under examination. That was exactly what his hon. Friend complained of,—that the object was not to establish the fitness of the applicant for the office which he sought to hold, but his general knowledge upon subjects which had no reference to the duties which he would have to perform. The right hon. Gentleman objected also to overloading the shelves of the library, and no doubt the right hon. Gentleman would care little if all records and figures were erased from the memory of the House, as well as excluded from the library. The right hon. Gentleman went on to complain that his hon. Friend had treated the House to a few scraps, as he called them, from the examination papers. In consideration of the time of the House, his hon. Friend abstained from quoting numberless instances of the absurdity of the questions; but, as the right hon. Gentleman seemed to think the scraps of his hon. Friend insufficient, he would try, by the addition of a few more scraps, to make a dish sufficiently largo to satisfy the appetite of the right hon. Gentleman. Some questions were so remarkably absurd that it was hardly possible to believe that they could have been drawn up by men of intelligence and education. He would quote from questions submitted to young gentlemen who wished to enter the army.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

The Civil Service Commissioners do not examine for the army.

MR. BENTINCK

said, he would quote these questions, to show what was the system of competitive examination; and, having demonstrated the absurdity of the questions given to young men who were examined for commissions in the army, he would prove that the Civil Service questions were still more absurd. This was the minor case, he would come to the major directly. All these examinations were based on the same system. One question was:— Make a sketch of a cliff, quarry, or railway cutting; mark the lines of bedding, and the joints by which courses of rock are divided. If any hon. Member wished to give up politics and join a marching regiment he would be expected to know— What physical peculiarities and what kind of organic remains especially characterize deposits formed in shallow water, and between tide marks? These were the questions put to men who were to do duty as soldiers:— What are the principal data for determining the geological age of a stratified rock? What peculiarity of structure distinguishes the fossil fishes of the older rocks, and in what strata do the Cycloid and Ctenoid fishes make their appearance? He would read to the House the opinion of a learned critic upon the proceedings of the gentleman whose case was before them:— A general knowledge of history and geography is required of unpaid attachés. The history from 1798 until the period at which the 4th volume of Russell's Modern Europe terminates. Our province is to examine how far the Commissioners have confined themselves to this scheme, and in order to do so we will make use of the papers of their published Report (No. 3), and some questions which have been omitted in them. It appeared that some of the questions were so remarkable that they were erased by the Commissioners themselves before they were published. The commentator proceeded:— In some we shall take the liberty of pointing out the absurdity, in others the almost impossibility, of answering thorn correctly:— No. 11 of Paper III., page 237.—'What are the colonial possessions of Spain and Portugal? Describe the constitution of any one of them.' It would not be difficult to say how the Spanish and Portuguese colonies are governed, but what 'constitution,' in the accepted sense of the term, has been granted it would be difficult to say. No. 4, No. 6.—'Point out any permanent traces of Napoleon's conquests still existing on the map of Europe. To this was appended another question:— Is the present Emperor his legal representative? The commentator remarked:— This portion has been very wisely omitted in the public Report; its want of sense needs no comment. Another question was:— Who were the following persons—Kutusoff, Haller, Euler, Kant, Lessing, Kotzebue, Darwin, De Saussure, &c.? Not one of them were names of English notoriety. [Sir GEORGE LEWIS: Not Darwin?] He must apologize for having omitted to notice Mr. Darwin's name, but he begged to say that he was not under examination:— In an examination which lasts four hours, in one of the questions the person examined is told to 'Discuss the most important political questions which have agitated Ireland in the last thirty years.'

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

Are those the words?

MR. BENTINCK

said, he was reading from a paper which professed to give a correct copy of questions which had elicited these comments from a high authority called to examine into the system of Civil Service examinations, and if there were any error it was only a clerical error, which he should be happy to correct. The person examined was to discuss the most important political questions which had agitated Ireland for the last thirty years. A debate in the House would be nothing to the extent of the answer. Another requirement was to— 'Mention the enactments they have led to, and the most eminent men who have taken a prominent part in connection with them.' This is one of eleven questions, and not that which would require the briefest answer. 'Mention, in order, the most memorable battles of the Peninsular war, and describe one of them minutely.' The commentator asked:— Has the examiner ever read a minute description of a great battle? He had better turn to Jomini and Napier before he ventures on such dangerous ground. There were a number of other questions with which he would not trouble the House. He believed that the Civil Service Commissioners wore the persons to whom was intrusted the duty of arranging the description of examination for each particular department. He thought that an error, and that the examinations should be denned by the heads of those departments. But the worst feature was the utter want of confidence in the system which possessed the minds of the people of this country, and so long as the Commissioners were allowed to act without any kind of check or responsibility nothing would remove from the public mind the impression that, whatever amount of jobbery there might have been under the old system, it was much greater since the institution of the Civil Service Examinations. Not very long ago a person in humble circumstances came to him to obtain some sort of berth for his son, under the mistaken impression that as he was a Member of the House there could be no difficulty about it. He told the man that he could not help him, that everything now was under the Civil Service Commissioners, that he must qualify his son to pass an examination for the department in which he wished him to be placed, and that then he would do his best to get a nomination for him, and the rest would remain with his son. The applicant scratched his head, and after a moment's hesitation replied, "You see, Sir, that's all very well what you say, I've inquired all about all them examinations, and this is how it is—them as competes, when they's competed, if they ar'n't no friends they gets nothing." That really was the impression on the minds of persons in that class of life as to the way in which the system was worked. So far from the country believing that they had done away with jobbery, the general feeling was that a most offensive and most atrocious system of jobbery had been inaugurated. The chief point, however, to which he desired to direct attention was the irresponsibility which it seemed to attach to the proceedings of the Civil Service examiners. Irresponsible power was a privilege that even Her Majesty's Government would not venture to claim; but then Civil Service examiners not only claimed complete and entire irresponsibility, but it had been established as their right by a vote lately passed by the House itself, when upon a previous occasion he had brought the subject before them. Now, he maintained that so long as this was the case, so long would the system suffer; because whoever might be the men, and whatever might be their character, their position, and their intentions, so long as they controlled the entire patronage of the country, and were deprived of any responsibility to any individual or body in the realm, so long would there exist the feeling of dissatisfaction he had described, and so long would there be a recurrence of such Motions as that then under discussion. It was mainly on the ground of his objection to their having the disposal of the whole patronage of the kingdom, without any responsibility, that he rested his support of this Motion.

LORD STANLEY

My hon. Friend (Mr. Bentinck) objects to the system, of competitive examinations on the ground that the Commissioners are entirely irresponsible; but I think that the very fact of our being now engaged in a debate on the manner in which these examinations are conducted is a sufficient proof that the Commissioners are responsible to this House and the public, to whom, through the medium of this House, they make their annual Report. My hon. Friend says, too, that though there might have been jobbery under the old system, you have a greater amount now than before, and that the popular impression is that those who have no friends are always unfortunate in these examinations. There certainly may be some points on which the advantages of the system recently established may reasonably be disputed, but there is one, I think, on which no one has ever questioned the advantage which it possesses, and that is that to the extent to which competition prevails it treats the candidates entirely irrespective of friends in or out of this House. Whether you have got a system or not by which merit is fully tested is one question; but so far as it is tested under the present system it is by his merits alone that a man stands or falls. An expression has been quoted in this debate as having been used in "another place" about the patronage of the Crown and the Government having been transferred to an irresponsible body; but it is the greatest mistake to talk about patronage, in the ordinary sense, being transferred to the Civil Service Commissioners. You might just as well say that a Judge who sits to try a cause in which the right to an estate is involved has the patronage of that estate. Undoubtedly it rests with the Judge to decide to whom the estate belongs, and so it rests with the Commissioners, or their examiners, to decide who are entitled to certain appointments. When you speak of patronage you mean an appointment which is conferred according to the will and pleasure of the person conferring it; but in the case of the examination before the Commissioners there is no question of their will and pleasure in the matter—they are simply called on to say which candidate is thought to be most fitted to fill a certain appointment according to definite regulations previously laid down, from which they cannot depart. My hon. Friend will also be happy to hear that there are no grounds for his complaint that the subjects of examination are fixed by the Commissioners, and not by the heads of departments, who, as he truly says, are the persons principally interested. What takes place is this—the heads of departments state the branches of knowledge in which they require the candidates for their departments to be instructed—that is arranged in correspondence between the Commissioners and the heads of departments, and all the Commissioners have to do, when the scheme of examination has been drawn up, is to set the papers in those branches of knowledge, and to decide which of the candidates who come before them have given the most satisfactory answers. We have heard a good deal to-night on a subject which has often been brought before the House—the supposed unnecessary strictness of the examinations, and the strange out-of-the-way questions which are put. I do not think it is dealing very fairly with the examination-papers to look through perhaps 100 questions—fix upon one which may be considered strange or out-of-the-way, and hold it up as a sample of the whole. Such a mode of proceeding involves this fallacy among others, that it assumes that a candidate is necessarily expected to answer every question. That is not the case. When you are examining men who have not been brought up at the same school, college, or university, but who are brought together from all parts of the country, you must necessarily make as much allowance as the nature of the subject will admit for the diversities of training which will exist among persons brought up in different institutions. The object is, not merely to ascertain whether each man possesses the requisite minimum of knowledge, but, if he possesses more than the usual amount of knowledge on a particular subject, to give him a chance of displaying it. So far from candidates being required to answer all the questions put to them, the fact is that an enormous majority—speaking offhand, I think as many as four-fifths of the whole of those who have failed—have failed not in any abstruse branch of knowledge, but in the simplest and most elementary matters, namely, arithmetic and spelling. If it is a fact, then, that of these 500, say, who have failed, 400 failed because they were unable to satisfy the examiners of their capacity to spell correctly and do simple arithmetic, I ask, was the rejection of those persons an advantage or a disadvantage to the Civil Service? That is a question, I think, to which no Member of this House who looks at the subject dispassionately can hesitate as to the answer which he should give. I hope the House will not consent to interfere with the system by sanctioning the Motion as it now stands. Whatever may be the opinion of hon. Members as to the narrow question now before us, I hope they will not accept this Motion, because a Committee of the House, of which I am a member, is now sitting upon the whole question of the Civil Service examinations. We have concluded taking our evidence, and the Report will before long be considered and laid before the House. We have taken a good deal of evidence as to the way in which the examinations are conducted. We have examined the Commissioners, the persons who have conducted the examinations, and many of the permanent heads of departments, and the result will be to throw some light on the subject of which the House is not now in possession. The House, therefore, I think, will do better to wait for the evidence before discussing the matter further. It is one of the disadvantages of the case that I and those who are associated with me are bound by the rules of order not to refer to the evidence which has been laid before us, and which has not yet been produced to the House. Only this I must say, that whereas I formerly believed, I now know, that whatever incidental inconveniences and disadvantages may have attended the working of the new system, those inconveniences and those disadvantages are light as compared with the total absence of check on the admission of unqualified persons under the system which existed before it was established. That is my firm conviction, and I believe it to be the conviction of all those who know the facts. I cannot of course refer to proofs which are not before the House, and that is, in my mind, one of the strongest reasons why we should not give our consent to the Motion which we are now asked to adopt.

MR. BOWYER

said, that while concurring in the objection which had been made on the part of the Government to the Motion; he thought the subjects for examination and the questions put were in many instances very injudicious. The true test of the utility of a system must be its adaptation to the end proposed, which in the present case was to obtain the most efficient public servants, and he did not think the system would stand that test. On referring to the subjects of examination in different departments he found that candidates for the post of unpaid Attaché, though examined in writing from dictation, making précis, in geography, modern history, French, and translation from some other foreign language, were not examined in international law, which was obviously the first thing to which the attention of an Attaché should be directed. A writer in Ceylon, on the contrary, was examined in the elements of constitutional and international law; what use the latter could be to him he was at a loss to know, and he certainly did not believe there was much constitutional law in Ceylon. Sub-inspectors of factories in this country were required to undergo an examination in geography, English history, in Latin or some other language, and likewise in the elements of political economy. The business of an inspector of factories was to examine into the state of the people, and to see whether certain Acts of Parliament had been complied with. For this purpose he should be a shrewd, active man, but it was utterly impossible that Latin, English history, or much less the elements of political economy could be of any use to him. A man who would make a very good inspector of factories might fail through his ignorance of Latin, while a man much less qualified for the particular business, through his acquaintance with the required language, might succeed in getting the situation. By importing into the examination paper matter foreign to the duties of the office which was to be competed for, they were but enabling men, who were not qualified to discharge the duties of the post, to obtain it by a show of other qualifications. He believed that the requirements on entering our diplomatic service were meagre and unsatisfactory as compared with the preliminary education enforced in other countries.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS

Before the question is put, I am anxious to call attention to a point adverted to by the hon. Member for Norfolk (Mr. Bentinck), and repeated by the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Bowyer), as to which there seems to be a misapprehension. They complain that the examination is not adapted to the special duties of the office for which the applicant is a candidate. Now, in general, there is no attempt made to effect any such special adaptation. When a person is a candidate for a clerkship in a Government Office, all that is attempted is to ascertain if he has had a liberal education; and if he is examined for any department, there is not in general any adaptation of the questions to that department—the object is simply to ascertain-that he has had a sufficient education to qualify him for discharging the duties of a public officer in that branch of the service. In military examinations there may be some attempt to examine with reference to more special knowledge—such as the nature of military duties; but that is not generally the case in the Civil Service. The questions which have been read to the House by the hon. Member for Norfolk seem to me, I confess, very proper questions on the subject of geology, assuming always that a candidate is to be examined in geology. I cannot doubt that if any one were to extract from the Cambridge Calendar, or from any authorized collection, questions proposed upon any particular branch of science, and were to read them to the House of Commons in the way in which these questions have been read, a laugh might be excited on account of the minuteness that is necessary in questions of the kind. I must take the liberty of remarking that the object of examinations of that sort is to propose questions not so easy that all candidates can answer them, and not so difficult that no candidates can answer them. Unless the medium is hit between too great facility and too great difficulty, there is no discriminating between the merits of one candidate and another. No doubt there is considerable judgment required in attaining that precise degree of difficulty, but there is no reason to doubt that the examiners employed by the Civil Service Commissioners are skilful, and competent to discharge the duties which they undertake. I cannot conceive any more unfair test than to read questions in such a mixed assembly as the House of Commons, whose attention has not been specially called to the particular subjects on which it is proposed that candidates shall be examined. Before the House proceeds to a Vote, I am desirous of calling attention to the words of this Motion. The Motion is, that for the future the Civil Service Commissioners shall publish, with their annual Report, all the examination papers submitted to candidates. The Civil Service Commissioners act under an Order of Council. That is the only authoritative document under which their powers arise, and by it they are not required to make any annual Report. It rests entirely within their discretion whether or not, or at what period, they shall report to the Crown. In the exercise of their discretion they have annually made a Report, which has been submitted to Her Majesty. Therefore, I apprehend it is not competent for the House of Commons to pass a Resolution that for the future the Civil Service Commissioners shall publish their annual Reports. They publish nothing. The Crown lays the Report they present on the table of the House. Parliament then orders it to be printed, and, if it thinks fit, to be published. But to lay down that the Commissioners shall annually publish Reports is an entire departure from the ordinary rules of the House. Therefore, I trust, not only on the merits which have been spoken to by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and by the noble Lord opposite, but on the point of form, the House will refuse to assent to this Motion.

LORD ROBERT CECIL

said, he wished to protest against the doctrine that the House ought to wait for the Report of the Committee before taking any action itself. The Committee might be useful as far as taking evidence was concerned; but the moment he saw their names he knew quite well what their Report would be. He was himself a Member of the Committee. He knew that his hon. Friend would vote against him, and that he should vote against his hon. Friend. The decision, therefore, was known already, and therefore it seemed an absolute farce to wait for the Report before coming to a decision. The right hon. Gentleman the Homo Secretary said the object of the examination was to discover whether the candidate had had a liberal education. But in what point of view could such knowledge as the difference between 'cycloid' and 'ctenoid' be useful? The right hon. Gentleman said the examiners did not lay much stress on particular questions; that might be true, but how was the House to know it? How did the House know the examiners were not bigoted and pedantic, as learned men often were; and being so, that they did not lay great stress on such questions? They had no right to commit all the patronage of the Crown to a secret and irresponsible body. He did not wish the House to review individual cases, but to keep the system under which the examiners acted constantly under their eyes. But no discussion could be raised on it in the House unless they were allowed to see the questions put; without them the House had no means of judging, or bringing any cases under review. If the examiners drove the examination too high, and required more of candidates than the pay of their future employments justified, the result would be the Government would only get those men of talent who were morally worthless. If the Government pay were high, it might secure men of good qualities, intellectually and morally also. But the Government pay was low, and the result would be it would only get a great number of estimable, but mediocre persons, and a few of those clever men who, on account of some moral defect, could not get on in any other profession. This would be very injurious to the public service. Let the House, therefore, see the questions, know the value the examiners put on each, and keep a system which he believed to be full of peril under review.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

said, he should not have risen if it had not been for the observations of his noble Friend and Colleague (Lord R. Cecil). His noble Friend said he knew perfectly well what the Report of the Committee would be. He (Sir S. Northcote) was very glad to hear it, because his noble Friend, though a Member of the Committee, had attended it only once. He himself had been present at every meeting, and he had only seen his noble Friend there once. It was only reasonable to ask the House to wait, not for the Report, but for the evidence. The inquiry was full and searching; many questions were put by gentlemen holding different views; and the evidence brought out in full relief many points that had been discussed in ignorance of the facts. If the noble Lord had attended the Committee, he would have known that the Civil Service Commissioners offered to lay before it the papers in the case on which it was said information had been refused to the House, if the Committee chose to look into it.

LORD ROBERT CECIL

said he wished to explain. He should have been extremely glad to have attended on the Committee, but—

MR. SPEAKER

reminded the noble Lord that, having spoken once, he could not address the House again.

LORD ROBERT CECIL

explained that he merely wished to inform the House why he had not attended the Committee.

MR. SPEAKER

The noble Lord is out of order.

MR. COLLINS

said, his noble Friend merely wished to explain that, being a Member of the Berwick Election Committee and of the Committee on the Metropolitan Gas Bill, he found it impossible to attend the Committee on the Civil Service examinations.

MR. BAILLIE COCHRANE,

after stating that he had not brought forward all the facts in his possession to save the time of the House, but that he knew of numberless cases of injustice, consented to withdraw his Motion.

An hon. MEMBER objected to its being-withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question, That for the future the Civil Service Commissioners shall publish, with their Annual Report, all the Examination Papers submitted to candidates; specifying the proportion in which the maximum of marks assigned to each branch of knowledge is divided among the questions contained in each paper.

Put and negatived.