§ SIR THOMAS CHAMBERSasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the system of trading as carried on by servants of the Crown, under the designation of Civil Service Co-operative Associations, is not opposed to the rules of the Service; whether heads of departments are not in some instances salaried officers of the Co-operative Association; whether the servants of the Crown are not prohibited from engaging in trade or mercantile pursuits; and, whether the Government are willing that an inquiry should be instituted into the whole question of civil servants of the Crown and their connection with the Co-operative Trading Societies?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, in reply, said, he must make a distinction between Civil Servants of the Crown combining together for the purpose of obtaining goods intended for their own use cheaper and other forms of co-operation. As to the former, he saw no objection whatsoever to such a mode of proceeding, nor did he believe he had the power to interfere with it in any way. The Question, however, suggested that there was another system of 954 trading carried on by the Civil Servants which did not content itself simply with providing for the wants of the members, but sought, by means of co-operation, to make a considerable profit by buying goods and selling them at an increased rate to persons who were not in the Service. He was not aware that there was any rule of the Civil Service which was thereby infringed; but he, at the same time, felt bound to say, as he had said to a deputation some time ago, that if it lay in his power he should be glad to stop such a system. There was a Treasury Minute of the 27th of March, 1849, which bore upon the question, and which was to the following effect:—That as the public were entitled to the whole of the time of its Civil Servants, and as the officers held situations which required daily attendance, they should not be allowed to accept situations as directors of companies requiring their attendance elsewhere during office hours. The Minute went on to say, that their Lordships did not require officers already engaged in such concerns to abandon them at once, unless it should appear that their public duties would be thereby infringed upon, but that they would in future strictly restrain any officers from entering on such duties. That was the only record on the subject which he could find, and he was not, therefore, able to say that there was any rule of the service which would enable the Government to restrain Civil Servants from engaging in the operations to which the hon. and learned Gentleman appeared to take objection. In answer to the second Question, his reply must be that he had no means of obtaining information with respect to it. The Civil Servants, he might add, were absolutely prohibited from engaging in mercantile pursuits, if those pursuits took up any portion of the time which they owed the public. He had no doubt, further, that if a Civil Service Officer engaged in pursuits which would take away his time from the duties which he owed to the Crown, and thus those duties were not properly discharged, the Government would feel bound to call on him to elect between the two vocations. With regard to the last part of the Question, he had to say that he was not willing to enter into any inquiry, for the facts were patent enough, and must come under one or other of the two heads he had mentioned,