§ * MR. RATHBONE (Carnarvonshire, Arfon)At a time when it is proposed to largely increase the expenditure of the country, it is necessary that we should examine seriously how far our system of administration is such as to secure that the enormous sums voted by Parliament are not wasted, but that the country has value received for its expenditure, whether military, naval, or domestic. I contend that a system which, in two changes of Ministry, one 1820 Liberal and one Conservative, placed only one Minister besides the Prime Minister in the position they previously occupied, gives no such security; that when first introduced into new Departments the Minister has to learn his work, and that our Departments are therefore during most of the time under the charge not of duly trained administrators, but of apprentices. It is government by apprentices not by statesmen, and, as I shall show, the results are most unsatisfactory and discreditable, and in the present state of European politics may any day prove fatally disastrous. Under present conditions of war, large armaments, improved engines of destruction, and rapid transit, we shall not be allowed time, as we were in the Crimean war, to amend our system and to correct its blunders. I have not brought forward this question from any love of abstract principles or desire of theoretical uniformity, but simply because, having for twenty years closely watched the practical results of our present strange system of constituting the Parliamentary Executive of this great Empire, I have become convinced that they are as pernicious as the system, or rather want of system, is absurd and indefensible. When we consider that an apprenticeship is required to-make a mason, or a carpenter, or a blacksmith, it seems to me strange to suppose that the duties of a statesman conducting the affairs of Ireland, of our Colonies, of India, of the Army or of the Navy, or of presiding over those departments which have the charge of the health and local government of our country, its poor and its education, may be taken up by anyone without previous knowledge or experience, nay, that the same man without any training for the posts, may be able to manage any number or variety of these departments in rapid succession with success and advantage to the country. It would, indeed, almost appear as if it were supposed that previous ignorance of the work of the department which a man was asked to conduct was the best qualification for success in it. The consequence, I venture to say, has been, and must be, that, with an amount of ability and devotion to the Public Service on the part of our statesmen on both sides of the House of which it is not easy to speak too highly, and 1821 freedom from that corruption that pervades the administration of autocratic Russia, and democratic America and France, the most serious blunders are constantly committed and repeated—blunders which would have been impossible if our ministers possessed any thorough knowledge of the history and experience of the departments over which they were called upon to preside. It is surprising, and only due to the admirable permanent officials which the country has the happiness to possess, that the blunders have not been even more numerous. My contention is, that ministers are changed about from one office of the State to another apparently without due regard to their previous qualifications or experience, and that the relative estimation in which these offices are held and treated is absurd in the extreme. For instance, the Secretary for War, of the Colonies, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, are considered to be officers of first-class importance, while the Chief Secretary for Ireland, or the President of the Local Government Board, or of Trade, or the Minister of Education, ministers on whom the health and welfare and the character of our people depend, are held to occupy offices of second-class in importance and emolument, not necessarily held by Cabinet Ministers; and if a man shows any ability in these Home Departments, so important to the interests of the United Kingdom, he is on the first opportunity removed as promotion to the external or to the spending and defensive offices of the State. I will give a few instances to show how wretchedly this system works; and I will take one from each side of the House. In both cases not a word can be said against the zeal, ability, and patriotism with which the men in question did their work. It was the system, and the system alone, which was to blame for the results, or want of results, which have ensued. I will take an instance from the Liberal side first, and from that department of the State in the work of which I have long felt especial interest, and know most about, I mean that of the Local Government Board. When the health of the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Edinburgh, broke down owing to his labours, in attempting to cleanse the then Augean stables 1822 of the Admiralty, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer was at the head of the Poor Law Board, and had shown such ability in that position, and such a determination to get to the bottom of things, that he had won the confidence of both sides of the House, and great expectations were formed of what he would be able to do in carrying out those reforms which he advocated, and which for 17 years we have since been annually told were to be the first objects of the exertions of the Ministry, whether Conservative or Liberal. It was only last year we made a serious beginning with these reforms, but most of the work then contemplated still remains to be done. On the other hand, my right hon. Friend, the Member for Halifax, was Secretary to the Treasury, and had been Secretary to the Admiralty, and had shown in the latter department very great ability. What was done? The present Chancellor of the Exchequer being first in turn for promotion was taken from the Department which he was beginning to understand, and where he had given great promises of reform, and placed at the head of the Navy, of which he knew nothing, and my right hon. Friend, the Member for Halifax, who had been a great success at the Admiralty, and had paid no special attention to the question of Local Government and expenditure, was placed at the head of the Local Government Board. The consequence was just what might have been expected. The reforms in Local Government have still to be carried out, and in the meantime the debts of the local authorities have risen from £41,000,000 to£147,234,000; and though much of the money has no doubt been well spent, it is notorious that considerable sums, especially in the smaller local districts, have been wasted, and we are still without a reasonably effective system of local government. On the other hand, in the Navy, the reforms commenced by my right hon. Friend the the Member for Edinburgh have never been followed up by further necessary improvements, and we have had recently very disagreeable disclosures necessitating the appointment of a Committee of inquiry. From all sides come complaints or admissions that, while the country has spent enormous sums on her Navy, it is not in a state which the 1823 country has a right to expect from her efforts and sacrifices. But how under such a system can we expect to escape what the First Lord of the Admiralty himself described as the scandal of recent disclosures of mismanagement? The First Lord said rightly that the responsibility of undertaking expenditure must be with the Government, but of course, the Government must rely to a large extent on their subordinate and permanent officers. No one has been dismissed for the recent scandals that have occurred, and it is said that you cannot dismiss these permanent men because you gave them more to do than they could possibly accomplish. Whose fault was that unreasonable expectation? And who ought to have set it right? Why, of course, the head of the Department. But you cannot reasonably blame him, as you never gave him time to become thoroughly acquainted with the work of the Department and with its officials. He cannot judge what his men can do, or the fitness of those under him to do certain work. The country has never grudged the necessary payment for a good Navy, but it does grudge the large sums which are admitted on all hands to be absolutely wasted, admittedly without giving us satisfactory results. If the present Chancellor of the Exchequer had been allowed in 1871 to carry out those reforms in local government which he had got his hands upon, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax, who already knew the details and ropes of the Admiralty, had been allowed to carry on and carry forward the reforms initiated by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, it is not unreasonable to suppose that we should not have been kept waiting 18 years afterwards for the necessary reforms in both those Departments. I do not want to depreciate the improvement which those statesmen effected in their respective Departments; indeed, in that which I understand best, my right hon. Friend the Member for Halifax laid the foundation for future reforms in the local government of the country, but it stands to reason that he would have been able to carry matters much further had he not been forced to commence by studying the details of what to him was an entirely new Department. But, alas for the country's interests, the present 1824 Chancellor of the Exchequer was in the Cabinet in order of promotion before the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax; and the management of our Navy was considered a Department of greater dignity with higher emolument than the Local Government Board. Therefore, in justice to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was placed in the department of which he was comparatively ignorant, and the right hon. Gentleman for Halifax was placed in a Department of which he was comparatively ignorant, because the Department on which the health and good government of the country depend is considered of secondary dignity, importance, and emolument to the Navy, Army, &c. I repeat, it was in personal justice to an individual that that transfer was made. But where was justice to the country in this transfer, and is not the system pernicious which places personal justice to the individual in conflict with justice to the interests of the nation? Well now, to take a case from the Conservative side. I had the honour of sitting for three years in the 1874 Parliament under the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bristol, on a Committee to enquire into the Local Government and taxation of towns in Ireland. We soon found that the question could not be considered without taking the question of the whole Local Government of Ireland into consideration, and the different areas and duties of Local Government were so confused and overlapping that it was impossible to consider the urban apart from the rural side of the question. We sat for three sessions, the then Chief Secretary for Irelan showing as chairman patience, impartiality, and a thorough devotion to the work, which won for him the esteem and confidence of both sides of the Committee. The evidence showed an unexpected amount of scope and capacity for Local Government in Ireland, and led to a report upon which, undoubtedly, the right hon. Gentleman would have been able to found a Bill at once liberal and safe for the Local Government of Ireland, which might if adopted then have done much to engage the attention of the active spirits in Ireland in Local Government, given them an opportunity of representing effectually their interests and opinions without tumult or disturbance, and 1825 would thus have gone very far, I believe, in training them for self-government and in preserving order. But Lord Carnarvon retired just then from the Colonial office; and the Chief Secretaryship for Ireland, which probably has been for many years the most important and difficult office in the ministry, was, as it constantly has been, treated as an office of secondary dignity and importance. The very fact of the right hon. Gentleman having shown great ability and devotion to the office marked him out for promotion, as it is considered, from the Government of Ireland to the Government of our distant Colonies. He was transferred therefore to the Colonial office as a matter of justice to him, and Mr. James Lowther was appointed to succeed him at the Irish office, and nothing came of the labours of that important Committee. But where, I ask again, was the justice to the interests of the nation in that transfer? Did it produce compensating benefits in the Colonies? It became my duty subsequently, in order to support an Amendment which I carried against the right hon. Gentleman, to read up thoroughly papers connected with our African policy and the initiation of the Zulu War. For that policy, as Colonial Secretary at the time it commenced, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, the right hon. Member for West Bristol was officially responsible. It was perfectly evident from his despatches that the right hon. Gentleman's instinct was that that War would be a mistake; but being new in his office, he contented himself with strongly and repeatedly cautioning Sir Bartle Frere; but, new and inexperienced in his office, he did not feel sufficient confidence in his own judgment to restrain Sir Bartle, and, after strong and repeated cautions, gave him a free hand. Sir Bartle Frere, no doubt, thought that the Government at home did not feel confidence in themselves, but, as he always did feel absolutely confident in his own views, he went to war. No one now believes in the wisdom of the Zulu War, and to it may be traced all the trouble which followed in South Africa and which continues to trouble us there now. I firmly believe that these troubles in South Africa, as well as those in Ireland, from both of which we are still Buffering, might have been averted by a 1826 consistent policy, had not the affairs of the two departments been in the hands of Ministers new to them. I refer any Member who wishes to convince himself of the truth of what I have stated to the Official Despatches of 1878–79 on South Africa. I will not detain the House by further instances, but I will appeal to any man who has watched the course of appointments and promotion on our Parliamentary Executive on both sides during the last 20 years, whether he could not point to instance after instance in which appointments to office or promotion have been fettered, and consequently injudicious, under the present system. Of course I know that it may be argued in reply to what I have said that it is very important to prevent the Public Departments of this country getting into a groove, and that a fresh hand coming into a Department from time to time introduces fresh life into it. But I may point out that the experience of late years shows that under a democratic constitution, such as we enjoy, changes of Government will be quite sufficiently frequent not only to ensure the infusion of fresh energy, but to make it very difficult to secure statesmen in the different Departments with sufficient Parliamentary experience and knowledge of the work of our public offices as Ministers of State. It would be, of course, absurd to contend that Ministers must be always confined to or have a vested interest in the Department in which they began official life. The talents developed by men in office, and the needs of the public service, will frequently require such changes, particularly in men of exceptional brilliancy, who may become Prime Ministers, but it should not be the rule to move men about from place to place without ever a chance of acquiring thorough knowledge of the work of the Departments and of the men under them who have to carry out the work, and whose work and promotion they have to apportion and direct. Surely such is not work to be entrusted to men inexperienced and ignorant—to mere apprentices in the department. I think it will astonish anyone who will take out as I have done, in the paper which I hold in my hand, the changes that have taken place in the occupants of the different offices when the same party is in power, to see how men have been moved about 1827 from office to office, hardly any of them having been allowed to retain the same office long enough to become thoroughly acquainted with and exercised in the duties they have to perform. The Conservatives quitted office in 1868, and returned in 1874. We find only five offices were filled by the same men in 1874 as in 1868, while 13 had new chiefs, and in 8 cases there had been more than one change of office during the same time. The Liberals left office in 1874 and returned in 1880. Only two Ministers, including the Premier, returned to their former offices, while 16 offices had new chiefs, and in no less than 16 cases had there been more than one change of office during these few years. The Conservatives left office in 1880, and returned in 1885. Here again, only two men returned to their previous offices, while 16 offices had new chiefs, and in 4 cases there had been more than one change of office in the period. The Liberals left office in 1885, and returned the very next year; yet, after that short interval, only three returned to their old offices, and 15 had new chiefs. The Conservatives left office and returned to it in the same year, 1886, but only six of them returned to their previous offices, while in one year 12 out of 18 offices were placed under new chiefs. Is it possible to conceive that the affairs of even an ordinary business—let alone the vast and complicated concerns of this great Empire—could be successfully managed with so little of that thoroughness of training or completeness of knowledge as can alone be possessed by men who serve some time, instead of being thus rapidly moved from one office to another, apparently hardly ever placed again in the same office, hardly ever having any chance of understanding their work thoroughly? Is it to be wondered at that our legislation is the constant theme of contemptuous comment by our Judges, or that the country is constantly exposed to dangers and difficulties which nothing but the tenacity, energy, and spirit of her people have succeeded in fighting her through, not under the wise guidance of, but in spite of the superficial, hasty, incomplete legislation and administration of, the Government of this country. It may seem somewhat presumptuous in one who has not been a Minister, and who, 1828 not having entered Parliament till he was 50, has never considered himself fit to be a Minister, to venture to criticize the formation of the Executive, and the conditions under which they are expected to work; but it is, according to the old proverb, the lookers-on who often see more of the play than the actors themselves, and those who have felt how very superficial and imperfect our present system is, are naturally led to study the cause of those defects. I do not wish to detain the House, or I could give other instances of the strange way in which Ministers are by both parties placed in the offices of which they have least experience, thus throwing away all the advantages of their knowledge and training previously acquired. Informer days, when men came very young into the House and were put young into under-Secretaryships, there might be an advantage in giving men of exceptional ability and genius the experience of several Departments; but now that the affairs of the country have become vast and complicated, and when, unfortunately, few men are taken into the Executive sufficiently young to give time to serve an apprenticeship to one Executive office after another, the practical result, I do not hesitate to say, is a most superficial and inefficient way of carrying on the business of the country and of its dependencies. The opinions I have expressed are not confined to men like myself, who have never held, or sought to hold, office. I have discussed the subject frequently with men on both the front Benches, and I have rarely found any who have defended the present system of moving men about so rapidly and putting the round peg into the square hole and the square peg into the round hole. On the contrary, I have found those men who are most anxious to serve their country and to do their work thoroughly, complain bitterly of the injury to the country and to their chances of serving it with credit to themselves, owing to their having been moved so rapidly, even where it was nominally promotion, and just when they were beginning to feel that they were learning the work of their department and saw their opportunity of doing good work in it. Many Members of this House will remember the satirical reply of Mr. Disraeli (who could not 1829 resist a good hit at even his own acts), when remonstrated with by a man who understood Local Government, but knew nothing of trade, and whom he offered to make President of the Board of Trade. "Well, I suppose you know as much about trade as the First Lord does about ships." By the Resolution I am about to move I maintain that it is desirable at any rate to remove difficulties arising out of personal claims for promotion, from the path of the Minister who has to decide who is to be placed at the head of any vacant department. With this object I contend that all the great departments of State except those held by the Lord Chancellor and Prime Minister, should, as regards salary and dignity, be put on an equal footing, and that we should remove the most absurd anomaly of all, that of treating such offices as that of the Education Department, the President of the Local Government Board, upon whom depend the internal good government of England, or that of the Chief Secretary of Ireland, upon whose devoted head most of the important departments of Irish Administration are concentrated, as secondary departments of the State, only to be held by men till they have tried their 'prentice hand upon them, and shown sufficient ability to be transferred to some more dignified and higher-paid office, and their places supplied by some raw hand who has to practise upon them as the corpus vile of the Constitution. I do not, for a moment, suggest or believe that it is the difference in the pecuniary value of the different offices that produces the evil I complain of. I have no doubt that our Statesmen would prefer an office of higher dignity and importance at a sacrifice of pecuniary emolument. But the difference of salary is held to denote a difference of dignity and importance in the several offices; and it is that difference of dignity and importance that causes the supposed necessity for what is considered due promotion from one to the other. I will just sum up the present position of the twelve most important State Departments as they have been handed down from time immemorial, without material change. There are five Secretaries of State, a First Lord of the Treasury, and a Chancellor of the Exchequer, each receiving £5,000 a year; the First Lord of the 1830 Admiralty, £4,500.[Sir G. TREVELYAN: And a house.]—The Chief Secretary for Ireland, £4,425. [Sir G. TREVELYAN: He has a house also.] And the Presidents of the Board of Trade, of the Local Government Board, and Education—who do not have houses—each with salaries of £2,000 a year. It cannot be for a moment contended that, in this commercial country, with its dense population, vast and complicated interests and problems, the Ministers who are to direct the Boards of Trade, of Local Government, and of Education are of less importance than the Secretaries of the Colonies, &c., or that the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland, who is at once Home Secretary, President of the Local Board, and chief of a number of important offices all rolled into one, requires a less able man at the head of it, or is of less importance than the office of Home. Secretary or Secretary of the Admiralty or the Navy; and, again, no one will contend that for England the management of the Navy is a less difficult or less important department than the management of the Army. To equalize all, leaving present total cost the same, would reduce them to an average of £4,160 a year, while to level up and give each £5,000 a year would add only £10,000 to the payment of those who are responsible for the economical and efficient expenditure of about £60,000,000 a year. We ought to do one or other, to make it more easy than it is now to place in each Department the best man for it, and to keep him there so long as he is the best man for it, and no longer. The payment of the heads of our great Departments has been hitherto liberal, but not excessive, as compared with the payment for work requiring similar ability elsewhere. The manager of a great railroad and of other large establishments gets about the same salary permanently that the Minister at the head of the Navy gets temporarily; but it should be borne in mind that in autocratic Russia and in democratic France and America, you have men growing rich in office and by office, notoriously, from corruption and connection with the Stock Exchange, and any one who knows the frightful waste of public money and mismanagement and disaster which have in those countries arisen from their system will be most anxious to avoid anything of 1831 the same nature here. As a man of business, if the business were my own, I can only say that I should consider undue parsimony in these matters as waste and not true economy. I wish to repeat that I do not pretend to find fault with the Prime Ministers of great ability, Conservative as well an Liberal, who have during the last 20 years presided over the Government of this country. The blame attaches to the system which they have inherited, and which has interfered with the free exercise of their discretion and judgment, to an extent of which they and other men brought up under this system are perhaps themselves hardly aware. Of course it is not desirable that the House of Commons should interfere with the discretion of the Prime Minister in the appointments of the several departments, but what we can do, and ought to do, is to remove from his path personal difficulties in the way of his selecting for a particular appointment the best man. We may facilitate this by putting all the higher Executive Offices of the State, except of course those of the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor, on the same level as to standing and emolument. But there is another evil and a growing one in the condition under which the duties of Ministerial Offices are now discharged. I need only say a single word, for everyone admits the evil, but almost everyone submits to it. I mean the great and growing evil of expecting that Ministers are not only to attend to the increasingly heavy duties which are placed upon them as the Executive of this country, but also to undertake out-of-doors an immense and increasing amount of public speaking, absolutely incompatible with the proper discharge of their departmental and Parliamentary work. The talents and genius of our first-class statesmen are a national treasure, and too valuable to be wasted by this absurd practice. When Ministers and Members of Parliament made only one speech a year to their constituents, they put all they had to say about their department or about politics carefully into it. The speeches were worth reading, and were read, and were the source of most of the political education of the country; but who can read, does read, or would be profited by reading, all the voluminous and superfiical talk and violent abuse that have taken the 1832 place of these valuable political speeches? Of course, every place likes to have a great man come and talk to it; but this, their amusement, is at the expense of the political education of the country, which is becoming as superficial and impoverished as the administration of the country is becoming enfeebled by this severe drain on the power of our statesmen. It is not a question that this House can legislate upon; we cannot give a Minister or a Member of Parliament a month's imprisonment, even as a first-class misdemeanant, for neglecting his duties to go on the stump; but we can protest—and I think it is a duty to protest—against a practice which demoralises and weakens the efficiency of the administrative and legislative powers of the Executive and Parliament.
§ MR. HOWORTH (Salford, S.)I rise with great pleasure to second the Resolution which has been moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvonshire (Mr. Rathbone), and I do so with more pleasure, because he has carefully, as he always does, avoided any party or political controversy, and has divested the question of everything except those matters which are interesting to us all. It seems to me that any one who reads carefully the history of the changes of Ministry in this country since the great French war can come to no other conclusion than that my hon. Friend has made out his case most completely against a system which inevitably leaves the choice of men to fill great posts to be made, not on account of the aptitude or special knowledge of the persons selected, but simply because there has been arranged a heirarchy of offices which renders it necessary to give a man a particular amount of prestige when he is asked to join a government. Under such a condition of things you cannot avoid, and you inevitably have in many cases, the appointment of men who are neither fitted by their antecedents, or by special gifts, to fill the posts to which they are appointed. Now it seems to me that it requires a peculiarly elastic Parliamentary conscience to justify the putting, in this way, of the round men into square holes. There is no doubt that a round man may be put into a square hole and that he is put into one very frequently, but it can only be done, to use the 1833 words of a worthy neighbour of mine, on the condition that he is a very soft man. A man of ordinary spirit and knowledge would refuse to be bound by the conditions of such a choice, which in reality must be intolerable and irksome to him beyond measure. Moreover, it seems to me that the remedy suggested is one that is easy in form and perfectly applicable in practice, and that it has other advantages besides those referred to by my hon. Friend. I cannot help thinking that one of the great evils in this country at the present moment is that the permanent officials have necessarily imposed upon them a greater weight than they ought to have in shaping the policy of the country. Of course, that is necessary under a system by which men are appointed to posts with regard to which they have no direct or special knowledge. It is obvious that in such cases they must depend upon the permanent officials. It is inconvenient and not Democratic in the best sense of the word, that Ministers in many instances should for a long period after their appointment be under the necessity of shaping their views not in accordance with the opinion they may have formed themselves after a study of the subject, but rather upon the conventional views which are held by the permanent officials. If we can emancipate Ministers from this influence, it seems to me that we should have a much more speedy response than we often have now to the demands which are made for economy and those other virtues which I am afraid are spoken about in this House a good deal more than they are put in practice. Then again, it appears to me that, in choosing a Cabinet, the Prime Minister very often has to make a selection of men upon principles which are not altogether desirable. Men are put into the Cabinet very frequently because they have filled posts of considerable prestige in connection with former Governments, and not because they are specially followed to discharge the particular duties of a Cabinet Minister, which are not merely administrative, but duties that require a good councillor and a man of broad views in shaping a general policy. Because a man is an able administrator, and fit to control a great Department in which expenditure takes place, it does not follow that he is 1834 better than or even as good as some other Member of the Government who is called upon to fill a post of smaller prestige.These are some of the reasons why, it appears to me, that it would be a great gain if we could destroy the artificial heirarchy of offices, and put all men, more or less, on the same footing and the same level, so that in appointing a man his distinct acquirements and aptitude for the work he has to do should be the first consideration, while the very last consideration should be his prestige and the necessity of appointing a man to a particular post because he might feel slighted if he were passed over. For these reasons I consider that my hon. Friend has made out his case, and very completely, and I have great pleasure in seconding his Motion.
§
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words, "it is desirable that the Offices held by Members of the Cabinet (except those of Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor) should, as far as possible, be made equal in position and salary, so that, in making or changing appointments, no consideration of position or salary may interfere with or influence the selection of the Minister."—(Mr. Rathbone,)
—instead thereof.
§ * THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,) StrandI should have been glad if some hon. or right hon. Gentleman opposite had thought it right to rise in support of the Motion of my hon. Friend. I think it would have been, upon the whole, more satisfactory if those who are the natural successors of right hon. Gentlemen who sit on that bench had expressed an opinion upon the subject. I do not desire in the slightest degree to underrate the importance of the Question, which has been raised by my hon. Friend in a speech which was moderate and fair and not directed against any party in this House. On the contrary it was simply an endeavour to review the practice of Governments in years past with the hope of suggesting some improvement in the system which has prevailed. But I must remind my hon. Friend who moved the Resolution that if we go to the very bottom of his complaint it would be found that it is directed against the Parliamentary system of government which prevails in this country rather than against the 1835 differences in salaries which exist between posts filled by Members of the Government and certain other posts. The hon. Member complains of the fact that in the formation of Governments men are not appointed to posts which they have filled in previous Governments, but to other offices. That is true, no doubt, to a very considerable extent, but I am not certain that the country has sustained very grievous loss because a man of proved ability in one post has been advanced to another where his abilities would prove of value to the country. I think that the country would lose rather than gain from the enforcement of the doctrine which the hon. Gentleman desires to lay down. The greatest duties they have to perform are those which belong to the head of a great Department. The practice at present is the result of the system under which the Government of this country is carried on, and unless the House or the country is prepared to substitute another system for it which will be quite independent of Parliament, it occurs to me that there would be the greatest possible difficuly in arriving at the accomplishment of the object which the hon. Gentleman desires. In ordinary occupations it is necessary for men to pass through a stage of apprenticeship, and similarly Ministers require training. There are numerous instances of men who have served in subordinate positions, and there shown abilities that have led to their subsequent promotion to higher places. It is desirable in considering this question to exclude all personal questions and to merely consider how the country could best be served. Under the present system, which gives the House of Commons power to dismiss any Government, the services of the most competent men on either side of the House are available. The hon. Gentleman desires to obtain men to fill the positions of head of each Department who are specially fitted. That is, no doubt, desirable, but it must not be forgotten that it is desirable that Ministers should have experience outside the Department over which they preside. It would be a very great misfortune if a Member of the Government was the only man who had any knowledge of the duties and business of his own particular Department, and if his judgement and opinion were not to be called 1836 in question by his colleagues. It is very desirable that the other Members of a Cabinet should be able to control and check any one Minister. The hon. Gentleman has referred to the question of salary, but this does not really affect the matter. A Minister who receives a lower salary does not necessarily occupy a lower position. There are frequent cases in which Ministers have, owing to their services being required in another Department, resigned one office and accepted another at a lower salary. This has been the case more than once in regard to the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, and the same thing had recently occurred in the case of the present President of the Board of Trade—an able and accomplished Statesman. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Howorth) asks for absolute equality of salary, but there is no such equality in the responsibilities and duties of the respective offices. The work of some Departments is so onerous that any remuneration within reason would not be excessive, while there are other Departments which do not make by any means the same demands upon the health and strength of the Ministers at their head. The hon. Gentleman has referred to the permanent officials, who, he says, frequently under the present system, shape the policy of the normal head of the Department, and he referred to the getting of round men into round, and square men into square holes. I hope when he is called upon to form a Government, he will find the absolutely round men in the round holes. Sir, I trust that the House will not accept the motion of my hon. Friend, though I admit that the moderation and good feeling with which he brought it forward. I should be glad, indeed if we could have in our Ministers as heads of departments, that special knowledge which would enable them at once to take command and control, but we must make a very considerable change before anything of that kind can be done. All I can say is, in reference to the permanent officials, that no country is better served by its permanent officials than is ours, no matter what Party is in office. They lay the facts before us in the most correct and straightforward way, and then it rests with the Head of the Department to shape the policy on the full and complete information which he has got. 1837 Unless we had greater permanence and continuity of policy in our system, I admit I do not see how the suggestion of the hon. Gentleman is to be carried out; and I do not suppose the hon. Gentleman would suggest a vital alteration of our Constitution. I do not believe that the change in remuneration even would have any material effect. I believe that the men who are appointed to these offices are appointed as a rule on the ground of their fitness. It is the interest of the Prime Minister to constitute the best Government he can have, and he selects his ministers from experience of the qualifications of those appointed, and so the object of securing the best administration to carry on the business of the country, and to that task the present inequality of salaries proves our hindrance.
§ MR. RATHBONEI have no object in putting the House to the trouble of a division. I have brought the matter forward and I know that it can only be dealt with by the Government. I beg to withdraw the Amendment.
§ The withdrawal being objected to,
§ The Question was put and agreed to
§ Main Question again proposed.