OBSERVATIONS. (Hansard, 28 February 1876)

§ MR. MUNDELLA
, in moving that the Vote be reduced by a sum of £500, said, that the late Chief Commissioner, Sir Edward Ryan, who died at the age of 85 years, had been actively employed up to the last in the discharge of his duities, which, with the able assistance of Mr. Walrond, were most satisfactorily performed. It was now proposed to give Lord Hampton £2,000 a-year as Chief Commissioner; but it should be borne in mind that he would have an Assistant with £1,200 a-year, and that he was now a Peer of Parliament, and had other important duties devolving upon him, so that he could not give to the discharge of the duties of the office the whole of his time, as his Predecessor had done. He thought the Government ought to have appointed Mr. Walrond Chief Commissioner. The Vote now proposed was £4,400 instead of £2,700, making a loss to the country of £1,700 a-year. He regretted to say anything that would give annoyance to Lord Hampton, who was held in high esteem by all the Members of that House; but the noble Lord was now 77 years of age, and was taking an important office, the duties of which the Chancellor of the Exchequer said on a previous evening were very onerous. This appointment had been greatly criticized by the Civil servants, and had created the greatest possible dissatisfaction, because it set the precedent that after long and laborious years of work there was no promotion for tried and efficient public servants, and a Peer of Parliament was to be placed over their heads. They, in fact, looked upon the post as one actually created for Lord Hampton, and if Lord Hampton took 1100 this office he should take it at the salary which his Predecessor received. The hon. Member concluded by moving that the Vote be reduced by a sum of £500.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, he had been asked the other evening whether the business of the Department in question had increased as compared with last year. There was, he found, no marked difference; but the business had greatly increased of late years and was likely still to increase. He had always taken a great personal interest in it, and had been on the Committee that had led to its establishment. They were all doubtless aware of the hard battle the Civil Service Commissioners had had to fight to keep control over the appointments to the Civil Service, and he felt that while the mass of their work increased the delicacy and difficulty of the work increased also. Further than that, it would continue to increase, particularly if the views of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Edinburgh (Mr. Lyon Playfair) were carried out. What was the nature of that work? It was of a very peculiar character, and required the assistance of a man of peculiar qualifications. The duties were not merely the conducting of a certain number of examinations, but over and above that, he would have to exercise authority in dealing with all the Civil Service Departments as to questions which required the exercise of great tact, a good deal of firmness, and a good deal of authority. So far from Lord Hampton taking a new office in which he had to learn his business, it was exactly that part of the working of the Civil Service system in which his assistance would be invaluable. The noble Lord had administered three public Departments—that of Secretary for the Colonies, that of First Lord of the Admiralty, and that of Secretary for War. Besides that, he had acquired a large experience of public life, and great knowledge of the wants and necessities of the Civil Service, and their qualifications for the duties they had to perform. When the Civil Service Commission was created it was a tentative Department, 1101 and the Commissioners were, he believed, appointed without salary. It was afterwards found necessary to give the Commissioners a salary. "When Sir Edward Ryan was first appointed a Civil Service Commissioner, in 1861, the number of candidates nominated and appointed was 4,867, while last year the number had grown to 14,638. That represented an addition to the work which, it might be said, was principally done by the examiners. But there was one duty imposed upon the Commissioners of great delicacy—namely, the examination of characters, which took a great deal of time. He wished also to point out not only the increase in the number of candidates, but also the number of new examinations imposed upon the Civil Service Commissioners since 1861. They had now to examine the candidates for the Army, the Royal Military Academy, the Royal Marines, the Indian Civil Service, the Indian Civil Engineers, the Foreign Service, together with the candidates for employment as writers. The Commissioners had likewise to conduct an important and difficult correspondence with the various Departments as to the character of the examinations and the questions to be put to candidates. The exercise of their functions led them into discussions relating to the higher regions of Civil Service organization. He himself had seen, since he had been at the Treasury, some such correspondence, in which the Controller and Auditor General took part. The correspondence of the Commission had grown from 32,000 letters in 1861 to 147,000 letters in 1875, the work was, therefore, in every way seriously increasing. It had been asked why, on the death of Sir Edward Ryan, Mr. Walrond, the Secretary, had not been appointed Commissioner in his place. Now, he thought it would have been rather hard upon Dr. Dasent, who was doing his work exceedingly well, if Mr. Walrond had been put over his head. With regard either to Dr. Dasent or Mr. Walrond, neither of them—excellent and valuable public servants as they were—could have filled exactly the same position as Sir Edward Ryan or Lord Hampton, who had a general acquaintance with public officers. It was said that the Civil Service was sore at this appointment; but was it always the case, or was it even desirable that 1102 such officers should be given to the Civil Service? He would not take the appointment of Dr. Dasent himself, who was not taken from the Civil Service, but from outside that Service; but the House would remember the case of Lord Cottesloe, who, as Sir Thomas Fremantle, was taken from that House and appointed to the Customs, and the case of Sir William Dunbar, who was taken from Parliament and made Controller and Auditor General. That was a proper relation between the political and the permanent Civil Service. No one was more in favour of giving the Civil Service a larger share of those appointments than himself; but such an appointment as that of Lord Hampton was peculiarly advisable. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had advised the creation of this appointment without reference to any particular individual, in the firm belief that the organization of the Commission now carried out was best for the Civil Service. As to the salary of the Chief Commissioner, it was fixed on the theory that the office had acquired a greater position and status than of old, and that it was desirable it should be put on the same footing as the other Boards with which the Civil Service Commission came into communication.

§ MR. LYON PLAYFAIR
said, he would admit that it was desirable sometimes that the highest Staff appointments should be made outside the permanent Civil Service; but when they had a man in any Department who did his work with remarkable ability, it was not right to pass him over in favour of one outside the Department, because such appointments discouraged the Civil Service, which had far too few offices of a high class to tempt men of great ability to engage in it. Here they had a Commission which had done its work admirably well. It might be said that Dr. Dasent's health would not allow him to undertake the onerous duties of First Commissioner, but was that a reason why they should appoint a man of 76 years of age when there was already acting as Secretary to the Commission a man of exceptional ability (Mr. Walrond) who was peculiarly qualified to fill the office? He was therefore sorry at the precedent which had been set, though, like all who knew Lord Hampton, he appreciated his public character. For his age he was one of the youngest men he 1103 knew, and he was a man of great knowledge and ability; still, as it was a necessity that they should have in this office a man of full and vigorous life, he thought this appointment was one that could not be justified, and he was very sorry it had been made.

§ MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORT
said, that Dr. Dasent had borne the brunt of the office work for six years, and it would only have been a graceful act to advance his position on this occasion.

§ MR. LOWE
said, the First Commissioners, who had a task of great difficulty to accomplish, and who had shown great tact and judgment in the organization of the Department, received no salaries at all. Now, when the period of salaries had arrived, the increase of the quantity of work in the office was quoted as a proof that the Commissioners had a greater amount of work to do. The fact was exactly the contrary; the larger the amount of work done in the office the less was the work of the Commissioners. He had no hesitation in saying that the work might be perfectly well discharged by one Commissioner, though he thought it right that there should be two in case any troublesome or difficult question should arise. Coming to the appointment of Lord Hampton, he was sorry there was not a vacancy in one of those pensions of ex-Cabinet Ministers so that one might have fallen to his share. Who ever heard of putting a man without any special qualifications, at the age of 76, into an office of this kind? The whole of the salary ought to be negatived, and the work left to two Commissioners.