§ LORD MONTEAGLEIn making the Motion of which I have given notice respecting the alterations proposed in the Civil Service of the Empire, I must be allowed to offer a few remarks on the very exciting discussion which has just closed. My Lords, that debate, in two respects, connects itself with the argument I am now about to address to the House. The suspicion expressed by the First Lord of the Treasury, that there may have been a "scandalous betrayal of public trust" on the part of some individual, who at a former period formed part of the establishment of the Foreign Office, might, if established by evidence, appear inconsistent with the honour, ability, and trustworthiness, which I believe to be the characteristics of the Civil Service of Eng- 641 land; and some cautious men might, perhaps, think, that it would be more prudent, on my part, to postpone the present Motion, till this question of the Foreign Office shall be finally discussed and disposed of. But I am not of that opinion. The charge made by the First Lord of the Treasury is not stated as a matter of fact, but as one of grave suspicion. It is not proved, or attempted to be proved; nor is the name of the person suspected given to the House. But even were the circumstances wholly different, and the imputed offence proved to have been committed, though I should deeply deplore so lamentable, and so unprecedented an occurrence, I yet feel so perfect a reliance on the high and honourable characters of the thousands of excellent men engaged in the Civil Service of the Crown, that I should still deny that the merits of their case could in justice be affected by one single unfortunate exception. But I repeat it, nothing is before the House at present, beyond the suspicion expressed by the head of the Government. There is a second point of analogy between the case stated by the noble Earl (the Earl of Malmesbury), and that which I propose to discuss. He has strongly animadverted on the practice of placing in the hands of persons connected with the press, public documents intended for the use of Parliament; and doing this long before the documents themselves are in your Lordships' possession, or in that of the House of Commons. To this I object, as not only disrespectful to the Legislature, but also as being inexpedient and unjust, calculated to preoccupy the public mind, and to create a prejudice for or against any question, so as to impede its fair discussion. Of this the present case affords a striking example. The Report on the Civil Service, which renders my Motion necessary, was laid before your Lordships on the 24th of February. But, already, on the 9th of the same month, before it had been made known to any one of your Lordships, the very Report itself must have been placed by its framers, or by some person on their behalf, in the hands of newspaper editors, who described minutely all its main provisions and commented on all its recommendations. That these newspaper paragraphs are traceable to an official source is certain from internal evidence. Words are used in the newspaper paragraph, and facts are referred to, which could only have been de- 642 rived from the Report itself; and these are coupled with the most insulting expressions to the Civil Service, which is described as characterised by its "incapacity, its indifference, and its idleness; as owing its origin chiefly to private interest, or to political venality, and remarkable for neglected duties, and for a supercilious demeanour." It will be my duty to show to your Lordships, that the imputations contained in the official Report and in the newspaper paragraph are indefensible and unjust. Nor can any indulgence be claimed by either on the ground of haste, want of knowledge, or inadvertence. This inquiry was carried on by official men; it commenced in November, 1848, and the final Report bears date in January, 1854. Thus, more than five years have been given to the inquiry, and no excuse is left for mistake, and still less for misrepresentation. Your Lordships have now before you, a Report which claims the character of being final; and which bears the signatures of Sir Stafford Northcote and Sir Charles Trevelyan. I am happy, however, to perceive that, as yet, the Government are not committed to the adoption of this proposal. It is true, that in Her Majesty's Speech, at the opening of the Session, our attention was directed to the state of the Civil Service; but whilst, in the earlier sections of the Report, we find Orders in Council and Treasury Minutes, adopting certain recommendations of the Commissioners, no Government assent has been given, as yet, to the final Report. It is on that account that I feel it to be the more my urgent duty to call the attention of the House and of the Ministers to the subject. I shall be well repaid if I can avert the dangers consequent on a rash adoption of the plan proposed. Time for deliberation must be taken. No Government could venture to act upon the documents now laid before Parliament. The inquiry is incomplete, or worse than incomplete. Eleven public offices only are noticed in the papers before us; some of these are not the most important to the public service. But of the Foreign Office, the Home Office, the Admiralty, the War Office, the Pay Office, the Office of Woods, the Mint, the Horse Guards, and various other important departments, we know nothing. The Report is silent. I must be permitted to ask the Government whether the inquiries of the Commissioners have, or have not, extended to many of these last-named departments? If no such inquiries 643 have been made, it is premature to call upon Parliament to legislate upon incomplete evidence; but if, as I believe, there have been further inquiries on some of these departments, the result of which is withheld or suppressed, the objection against legislation is still more conclusive. In the first case your Lordships are invited to remodel the whole Civil Service upon incomplete evidence. In the second case, you are called upon to do so on evidence which must be considered to be not only incomplete, but partial and ex parte. Unless I am contradicted, upon official authority, I feel warranted in assuming the fact to be, that important departments have been examined, but that the result of such inquiry is not forthcoming. How is this to be justified? I invite a contradiction, if I am in error.
The Report before the House may be considered in two distinct points of view—the first, the statement of evil and abuse alleged by the Commissioners to exist; the second, the remedy proposed, upon the Commissioners' authority. I shall discuss these two questions separately.
I. I should be wanting in all frankness if I did not at the outset deny the accuracy of the statement of supposed abuse which the Commissioners have laid before your Lordships. I must here remark, that their statement is unsustained by any evidence, and rests exclusively upon the assertions of the Commissioners themselves. We are not favoured with the testimony of one single practical witness; no documents are referred to; yet the Commissioners seem to admit the necessity of evidence, for they have appended to their Report, as supporting their views, a letter from the Rev. Mr. Jowitt, Fellow and tutor of Balliol, Oxford. Far be it from me to question the high authority of this most respectable and learned gentleman; but I may be permitted to doubt whether his knowledge of the Civil Service of the empire be such as to give any conclusive weight to his opinions on the present occasion. The Civil Service of the country, we are informed, consists of 16,000 persons. I doubt whether the Tutor of Balliol can know much either of their conduct or of their duties. I admit, however, that the number is grossly exaggerated, unless it is made to include a large class of inferior officers, who can scarcely be considered to form part of what is generally understood as the Civil Service. For gaugers, lockers, weighers, tidewaiters, and messengers, little 644 more can be required, on their appointment, than good character, reading, writing, and a knowledge of the mysteries of the rule of three, and of vulgar and decimal fractions. The Civil Service, with which it is my object to deal, comprises, if not so large a body as 16,000, yet a very considerable number of gentlemen charged with most important public functions. These functions cannot be more fairly stated than by the Commissioners themselves. The words are as follows:—
The Government of the country could not be carried on without the aid of an efficient body of permanent officers, occupying a position subordinate to that of the Ministers, yet possessing sufficient independence, character, ability, and experience, to be able to advise, assist, and, to some extent, influence those who are set over them.I consider this to be a fair description of the Civil Service of England. Your Lordships will attend to the words I have read. The duties described are far from being exclusively mechanical or executive. Our civil servants are called upon not only to obey, but to advise and to influence the Ministers, under whom they serve. Their experience cannot but produce practical consequences upon a political body, which, though superior in authority, is in its nature fluctuating and transitory.I shall next invite your attention to the description given by the Commissioners of the class of men selected for these responsible duties, and the mode in which it is somewhat rashly affirmed that these duties are performed. To avoid the possibility of mistake or of misstatement, I beg leave to read the very words of the Commissioners:—
It would be natural to expect that so important a profession would attract the ablest and most ambitious of the youth, and that those of superior qualifications would rapidly rise to distinction. Such is by no means the case. It is for the unambitious, the indolent, and the incapable, that the Civil Service is chiefly desired. Those whose abilities do not warrant an expectation that they will succeed in open professions, in competition with their contemporaries, and those whom indolence of temperament or physical infirmities unfit for active exertion, are placed in the civil service, where they may obtain an honourable livelihood with little labour and no risk. The comparative lightness of the work, and the certainty of provision in case of retirement, owing to bodily incapacity, furnish strong inducements to parents and friends of sickly youths to obtain employment in the service of the Government. The extent to which the public are consequently burthened would hardly be credited.It is true that the Commissioners guard themselves against the supposition that 645 this censure is universally applied, but their mode of drawing an exception only aggravates the bitterness of their unfavourable judgment. They proceed as follows:—It is not our intention to suggest that all public servants entered with such views, but, as regards a large portion of them, these motives, more or less, influenced those who acted for them in the choice of a profession, and there are probably very few who have chosen this line of life with a view of raising themselves to public eminence. The result is, the public service suffers in internal efficiency and public estimation. It is thus we hear of official delays, official evasions of difficulty, and official indisposition to provement.I now ask whether a more severe imputation could possibly have been made, not only against the class of civil servants, but against the whole social condition of this country. I call upon those noble Lords who now hold, or have held at any previous time, high and responsible office, to say whether the words I have read convey a faithful and just description of the civil service, or whether, on the contrary, they do not involve in one sweeping accusation all successive Governments, the heads of the highest departments, who are supposed to abuse their patronage, the civil servants themselves, who are represented as incapable of discharging their duties, and even the parents of those civil servants, who speculate on their infirmities. Is it true that these gentlemen are principally the unambitious, the indolent, and the incapable? Are they chiefly men whose abilities do not warrant an expectation of success in competition with their contemporaries? Are they placed in the civil service from their indolence of temperament or their physical debility? Is the livelihood they earn one of comparative lightness of work? and is their governing motive the probability of an early retired allowance? I deny each of these allegations. It is now more than a quarter of a century since I first entered official life. I have passed through many of the important offices of the State, and, as a witness, I most solemnly assure your Lordships that I have seen nothing among the gentlemen filling the executive offices in the public service which in any respect justifies these sweeping denunciations. Let us consider this imputation, which, if true, would imply the lowest and most sordid conduct. Is it to be credited that it is young men in infirm health who accept office for the sake of obtaining an early allowance, and who thus contemptibly en- 646 deavour to make a profit of their incapacities and infirmities? Not only is this assertion utterly unfounded, but it could not, by possibility, be true. The completion of ten years' service is the preliminary condition, without which no retired allowance can be granted, and which is then granted only after a ten years' contribution to the superannuation fund. During my official life I have known very many public servants, but have not yet found one coming under the description of the Commissioners. But I have met with cases of a very opposite kind, and I have seen men of this stigmatised class perishing by incises from their energetic devotion to the public service. I have witnessed, for example, the case of a gentleman, now no more (the hon. Colonel James Stuart), a near relative of a Member of your Lordships' House (the Earl of Galloway). After a distinguished military career in the Peninsula, Colonel Stuart was selected by the Duke of Wellington to fill, in succession, civil offices of high responsibility and great labour. He served in the Stamp Office, in the Customs, and, finally, as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. It was in the latter department that I had the fullest opportunity of witnessing his able and most conscientious exertions. Enfeebled in health, his strength decaying daily, he never neglected a duty, or performed a duty with carelessness. He sunk under the weight of his official labours, and he fell as truly in the service of his country as if he had perished on the field of Waterloo. Again let me take the case of my valued friend Sir Alexander Spearman. His brilliant abilities and unexampled energy were devoted to the laborious duties in which he succeeded Colonel Stuart. Promoted by a Government with whom he had no political connection, selected for his personal merits only, his constitution gave way. His life was despaired of; he was only saved by the combination of great professional skill and his own courage and patience. He obtained his retired allowance and a well-merited honorary distinction; his case was brought specially under the notice of the House of Commons, and his services were universally acknowledged. But was this all? By no means. Sir Alexander Spearman had well earned his retirement; but did he, on restoration to health, seek inactively to enjoy the income so honourably earned? On the contrary, he felt what was due to his country. When restored to 647 health, he returned to that country's service, and is once more, I rejoice to think, a useful and energetic public servant, and this too (be it observed) without any augmentation of his former emoluments. Your Lordships will permit me to give you another honourable instance of the same public spirit. The late Mr. Richmond had risen from the executive departments of the Customs to the office of Commissioner. He had accomplished the period which entitled him to a retirement on full pay; his services, as well as his age, would have warranted him in claiming an honourable retreat. So far, however, from doing so, he continued strenuously to fulfil his laborious and responsible duties, and he may thus be considered to have given to England many years of gratuitous service. I might continue these examples—the same in kind—if not of the same surpassing excellence, but I feel that I have said enough to prove that indolence, incapacity, and self-interest are not the characteristics of the civil servants of the Crown.Bearing these examples in mind, I must again appeal to those who are, as well as those who have been, in office, to reply to the general impeachment of a class of persons whose merits they must have learned by experience how to appreciate. The position of the civil servants is in many points peculiar. In the more ostensible departments of the State, in Parliamentary life, in the Army, Navy, or at the bar, the voice of public fame, and an universal recognition of services, attend and reward superior endowments. It is otherwise in the more secluded walks of the Civil Service. The members of that body may toil, they may succeed; but, poorly requited, their worth is frequently unknown, their services are too often unacknowledged. A French writer has said, "It is the brazen wheel which turns the golden hand." I object to this epigrammatic description, so far as the apportionment of the metals—an apportionment which I have sometimes seen reversed; but, however that may be, the world is apt to forget the efficient machinery, in looking only at the dial plate. The injustice of the system goes further than mere forgetfulness. The world is not only, in such cases, frequently insensible, but it is too often unjust likewise. In years which are passed away, I myself have heard despatches quoted with admiration, described as unrivalled State papers, the whole merit of which was ascribed to the Minister whose name they bore, whilst at the same time the civil 648 servant, whose hand had traced every sentence, was left without public honour and estimation, and yet, at the same moment, was, by a capricious public, held responsible and attacked as the author of every unpopular scheme of policy which proceeded from his department. I allude more especially to the case of that eminent man, Sir James Stephen. His example affords in itself an abundant refutation of the statement of the Commissioners that lightness of work is one of the attractions of the Civil Service, and want of capacity its qualification. To those who, like myself, have had the opportunity of witnessing the unflinching labour, as well as the high abilities, of the distinguished man I have just named, the supposition of lightness of labour in public life is as ludicrous as the supposed incapacity of public officers.
Though the cases which I have stated cannot in fairness be taken as exponents of the 16,000 officers referred to in the Report, they serve as examples to show the spirit which exists in our Civil Service, and the men it has produced; I consider that service an honour to the country to which it belongs, and deserving of the favour and confidence of the Crown under which it acts. I respectfully warn your Lordships that you cannot permit the Civil Service to be disorganised without risking the disorganisation of the country itself. I state this unreservedly, and challenge all contradiction. I consider the Report to be a violent attack on meritorious persons, who are held up as undeserving of public confidence and respect. So erroneous and inaccurate a statement cannot surely form a sufficient basis to justify a change of system; still less can it justify the Government in adopting the extraordinary changes recommended by the Commissioners. Their recommendation is founded upon a mistrust of all the statesmen who are at present, or who have been, in the service of the Crown. If this were just, surely the reform ought not to be confined to the clerks, but should extend to the higher, from the more subordinate, officers of the State. If the heads of departments were so unworthy of trust as to be careless in discriminating between the meritorious and the unworthy, between the efficient and the incapable, Parliament would certainly be bound to enforce a reform; but the House would do well to consider whether, even on that supposition, the change suggested would be effectual. 649 What was that change? It was no less than the institution of a Central Board of Examiners, of whom your Lordships are told nothing, excepting that its President is to be of Privy Councillor's rank. My first objection is, that this Minos, Æacus, and Rhadamanthus tribunal, would practically become irresponsible; in accepting or in rejecting, they must necessarily exercise an unrestrained discretion, for which it would be nearly impossible to call them to account. Now, I contend further, that this mere examination, even though accompanied by written certificates of character, age, and health, however it might afford some means of ascertaining the amount of a candidate's acquirements at a given time, would not constitute any real test of that candidate's capacity for the public service, of his industry, obedience to discipline, discretion, or moral character. Yet these are the qualifications indispensably required in our public departments. If I am told that this objection is inconsistent with the legislation of last year, respecting admissions to the East Indian service, and is inconsistent with the principle which I then avowed, my answer is immediate, and, as it seems to me, conclusive. The examination of candidates for Haileybury was only proposed as a matriculation for entrance into a college. Before the candidate for a writership could obtain a civil appointment, a severe course of study, continued for two or three years, was required as his necessary qualification. This distinguishes the two cases. In an examination like that now proposed I have no doubt that students, "ingeniously examined," might frequently succeed, in preference to competitors infinitely their superiors. It might be very possible that the Duke of Wellington and Lord Melbourne should have found candidates, who, on mere examination, were apparently as well qualified for the office of Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, as my friend Sir Alexander Spearman, or the lamented Colonel Stuart; but I much doubt whether equally efficient public servants could have been obtained otherwise than by personal knowledge and moral discrimination. I should feel it rash to trust to the result of a formal examination in filling up any office which might be within my gift. Even if it could be said, that the heads of departments were not to be morally trusted in the selection of their own clerks, it should be remembered that they must ever be the persons prima- 650 rily interested in securing the best instruments for performing their own duties. In this particular case their interest is identified with that of the public. In a conversation I lately had with Mr. Panizzi of the British Museum, that gentleman, who possesses great experience and is a high authority on such a subject, assured me that, if in the choice of his assistants, vacancies were filled up according to the results of a mere examination, though he might obtain men who had answered the greatest number of difficult questions, and had perhaps displayed the deepest erudition, yet they would not be found the most competent for the duties of the library. I am far from meaning to deny that, under certain conditions, examinations may be useful. It is against the proposed system that I protest. It is proposed to apply this test not only to first appointments, but to promotions on vacancies. This renders the proposal still more objectionable; for how could a clerk's claim for promotion be decided on except by those who had experience of his conduct whilst in office. The step proposed is one of the most important which your Lordships have ever been called upon to sanction. It is in fact a transfer of the whole patronage of the Crown to three irresponsible gentlemen, who can practically know but little of the peculiar business and duties of many of the public departments. I should be ashamed of myself indeed, were I to undervalue an enlarged course of study; but I confess I am somewhat alarmed when I find classical literature, mathematics, and their practical application to natural science, political economy, law, moral philosophy, modern languages, modern history, and international law included in these examinations. Some whimsical results might possibly ensue. I shall illustrate this by a reference to one subject only. It may, perhaps, be suspected that the examinations on political economy might bear a certain analogy to the opinions of successive Governments. Supposing young clerks to be admitted into the Board of Trade under the auspices of Protectionist Ministers, if any such, indeed, are now to be found, what able papers would be produced before the examiners in defence of sliding scales, discriminating duties, and the old colonial system. On the contrary, if free trade is to remain in the ascendant, would not the examination papers inevitably furnish an equally able defence of the doctrines of freedom of exchange and of the 651 most unfettered commercial intercourse between nations? Would it be possible under such a system to preserve anything like a steady continuity in the public service.
Can the Government furnish any precedent for the system which their Commissioners recommended? I believe that the only country in Europe which has adopted a similar plan is Prussia. I should like to know from Her Majesty's Government whether they can produce any report from the British Minister at Berlin, or from our consular agents at Memel, to prove that the system has been successful. What if we should be told, on the contrary, that it had led to an intolerable bureaucracy, inconsistent with the public interests and counteracting the ends for which it was instituted?
But I must in candour admit that there is another precedent, and that a precedent coming from a great, if not a flourishing empire. The wise men came from the East, and it may be thought by the Commissioners that wisdom comes from the same point of the compass. The only precedent which exactly applies is that of the empire of China. On this authority the Commissioners may rely, and I will not deprive them of its authority. I do not, however, feel very certain that the present internal condition of the flowery empire is such as to justify us in placing an unlimited reliance on the triumphs of its internal administration. I doubt whether the ministerial mandarins have shown themselves to be very pure or very efficient, although they earn their red and blue buttons and their peacock's feather by an unlimited competition. I doubt whether their system of government has encreased the wealth, secured the prosperity of the empire, or advanced the intellectual progress and happiness of its people. In default of official evidence on this subject, I beg to call your Lordships' attention to one of the latest, and, I believe, one of the most authentic descriptions given of the system of examinations for official appointments as now practised in the celestial empire, being the only part of the world in which the recommendations of Sir C. Trevelyan and Sir Stafford Northcote have been consistently adopted. The author whom I am about to quote is Mr. Medhurst, a gentleman employed for some years under the London Missionary Society. This author states that—
One half of the male population are able to read, and this prevalence of learning is ascribable 652 to the general examinations, none being admitted to office but those who have passed the ordeal; the degrees granted are four:—1st, those of cultivated talent; 2nd, elevated persons; 3rd, advanced scholars; 4th, the forest of pencils, or National Institute. The first of these is conferred in a country town; the second, in the provincial cities; the third, in the capital; and the fourth, in the Emperor's palace.Such is the literary hierarchy of China; and Mr. Medhurst proceeds to describe its effects:—In each of the 1,518 districts 1,000 persons try their skill; two per cent of the male adults take part in these examinations, in the course of which essays, odes, &c., are called for, and the successful obtain what is called a name in the village. They are then examined before the Chancellor for their first degree, being searched on entering the town-hall, to prevent the carrying in of books or papers. Themes are again given out in prose or poetry, the Chancellor selecting the best. On obtaining the first degree, the graduate is exempted from corporal punishment, and can only be in future chastised by the Chancellor himself.I know not whether the Commissioners propose to reserve analogous functions for my noble Friend on the woolsack. The exemption from vulgar punishment, and the prudence which substitutes the Chinese Court of Chancery as the greatest of all inflictions, is applied to the first degree of students, for the successful graduates are not as yet admitted to official honours. For the second degree there are examinations held every three years, at which there are generally 10,000 candidates for the rank of "elevated men;" such is the anxiety felt in mounting what is called another step of the "cloudy ladder." This title would appear to be well given to the Chinese system of examination:—The 'literary arena' is now provided with several thousand small cells, into which the competitors are introduced guarded by soldiers, to prevent collusion or communication.In many respects, it will be seen that this plan resembles that of Sir C. Trevelyan in its itinerant examiners, and in its rural and provincial examinations; for the British Privy Councillor and his colleagues are intended to have a staff of sub-examiners visiting the country, as well as the town. The tests of merit are likewise still of a literary character. Mr. Medhurst continues:—Themes in prose, and poetical effusions are again required; and twelve elevated men are chosen out of 10,000 competitors. Splendid apparel is provided for them; to-day they are dwelling in an humble cottage, to-morrow in palaces, riding in sedans, or on horseback.Sir C. Trevelyan's rewards are more prac- 653 tical—the successful candidates are placed in Whitehall or Downing Street:—For the third degree, 10,000 candidates enter the lists; on attaining which they become eligible to office, and are generally appointed.Is it very possible to realise the introduction of such a system in England? Can we easily fancy 10,000 persons presenting themselves before Sir C. Trevelyan and his colleague for examination at Birmingham, or at Liverpool? Mr. Medhurst next proceeds to describe the attainment of the fourth degree:—The 300 advanced scholars enter the court of the Forest of Pencils; they compose essays on given themes; they are considered the cream of the country, and are generally appointed to the highest offices. The chief excellence of the essays consists in the number of quotations, and the further they go back for recondite and unusual expressions the better. The candidates are deprived of every scrap of writing, and are expected to carry their library, to use their own phrase, in their stomachs.I now pray your Lordships' attention to the results of this elaborate Chinese system. Though Mr. Medhurst praises it, he admits that, to a certain extent at least, it is a delusion. I should suspect that it merited the coarse title of an official humbug, which I may be permitted to apply to the Chinese system—not extending it beyond that limit, from the respect which is due to the authority of the British Commissioners. Mr. Medhurst's words are as follows:—The disadvantage of the system is the contracted range of their literature; a pertinacious attachment to the ancients, without fostering genius or invention; Nature, with all her stores, continues unexplored; the results of the inductive philosophy are neglected and unattended to; the human mind is fettered, and no advancement is made in science.Such are the effects of a system which comes recommended to us as the greatest incentive to an improved education. Further evils are, however, superadded; we have seen that solitary confinement in separate cells, and the interposition of the military and the police, are resorted to, in order to check fraud. All this carefulness, Mr. Medhurst informs us, is insufficient and unsuccessful. "Another disadvantage is," he observes,That, notwithstanding the laws, and vigilance of the magistrates, ways and means are discovered frequently of bribing the police, and of inducing some candidates, more desirous of present advantage than of future fame, to compose essays for their companions.I have dwelt upon this Chinese precedent, 654 because it is the only one in point; but I apologise to your Lordships for the length to which it has led me.In conclusion, I must ask, is there any one among your Lordships who has had experience in the public service, who is disposed to acquiesce in the wide-spread stigma cast by this Report on the civil servants of the Crown—those men on whose exertion and knowledge you have relied in times past—those on whom you must be obliged to rely to-morrow? Will the First Lord of the Treasury below me, or will my noble Friend opposite (the Earl of Derby), assert, that this Report gives a just description of our public servants? Or can any Member, either of this or of the other House of Parliament, deny that this Report is a perversion and exaggeration of facts? I appeal more particularly to the noble Earl at the head of the Government, because he has been placed as chief of the Colonial and the Foreign Offices, and now of the Treasury. I appeal to the noble Lords opposite, and more especially to such as have had large experience in public departments, to decide whether the statements in the Report are accurate or the reverse. I call upon them as my witnesses, and feel certain what must be their reply. Do not, then, let this Report go forth uncontradicted; not merely because it is an attack upon the gentlemen of the Civil Service of England, but because it is an attack, also, upon the social state of our country with which that Civil Service is connected, and of which, to a certain extent, it may be considered as the representative. It should be remembered, that these charges have not been brought forward on the sudden, or in the heat of debate; they are the result of an official inquiry of four years, they are made by gentlemen sitting calmly in their armchairs, and being themselves members of the service which they thus publicly denounce. My conviction is, that the statements in this Report are unjust, and that, even if just in some few exceptional cases, these are wholly insufficient to serve as a basis for our legislation. I rely upon the justice and impartiality of the public; I rely upon the regard for the public interests which distinguishes Members both of this and the other House of Parliament, to protect the Civil Service against undeserved imputations. I rely upon the same causes as a security, if called upon to legislate, against any legislating upon evidence taken ex parte, partly laid before us and partly withheld. So to legislate would 655 neither be expedient, fair, nor just; it would be still more unfortunate when your Lordships remember that I have already proved to you that this charge, involving, as it does, the character of so many deserving men, has been communicated to the public, in an aggravated form, through the medium of a public journal, on the 9th of February, whilst the Report itself was not presented to your Lordships till the 24th. During this interval, an endeavour has been made to prejudice the public mind; during this interval, the persons aggrieved had no power of making any reply. I do not pretend to speak on their behalf. I have had no communications with them which could authorise me to do so, but I speak on behalf of the public, who have reaped the benefit of their services; I speak on behalf of truth and justice, and my strongest motive is, a conviction of the gratitude due from your Lordships and from England to the class of civil servants whom the Report on the table has so cruelly and so wantonly attacked.
§
Moved—
That there be laid before this House, Copy of instructions given to the Commissioners who have reported on the state of the Civil Service, and of the evidence taken before them.
§ EARL GRANVILLEsaid that it was easy for him to give an answer to the Motion of the noble Lord who had just resumed his seat, because there was no objection on the part of the Government to lay on the table of the House a copy of the instructions given to the Commissioners, which were very short; but with regard to the second part of the noble Lord's Motion, relating to the evidence given before the Commission, he had to inform their Lordships that none of it had been taken down in shorthand—it was not deemed expedient to do so; and this was the course usually taken in inquiries of this nature. He recollected that on the first Commission of Inquiry into a public office on which he (Earl Granville) sat, he had the valuable assistance of Sir Alexander Spearman, who suggested that it was not desirable to have a shorthand writer in the room while the members of an office were being examined, because public officers would have considerable reluctance to express their opinions fully with respect to their department when every word was taken down before their eyes. With respect to the speech of the noble Lord on the present occasion, it had placed him (Earl Granville) 656 in a singular predicament. Anybody unacquainted with the circumstances, who had entered the House during its delivery, and had heard the noble Lord's opening complaint of want of information with respect to the Government plan—though it must have struck their Lordships that he afterwards gave a tolerably minute account of it—would have been warranted in supposing that he (Earl Granville) had called upon their Lordships to assent to the second, if not to the third, reading of some Bill. Instead of that, all that had been done was to submit to the House, by Her Majesty's commands, and in fulfilment of a promise in Her Majesty's most gracious Speech from the Throne, a certain Report which had been made upon the state of the public offices in general, together with other Reports upon particular offices. At this stage of the proceedings, at that hour of the evening, and with the small attendance of Peers then present, it would certainly be much more agreeable to him (Earl Granville) to leave the noble Lord's speech entirely unanswered; but, looking to the time and pains that the noble Lord had obviously expended in the preparation of his statement, and the eloquence, not unmingled with sarcasm, with which he had enforced his views, he (Earl Granville) thought it would be hardly fair were he not to say something on behalf of those who had certainly in contemplation a plan somewhat of the kind which he had described. On the other hand, it was evident that it would be impossible for him to enter into details. He was debarred from stating where the noble Lord was right and where he was wrong in his anticipations as to the character of the measure, or where Her Majesty's Government agreed and where they disagreed with the Report; nor could he enter into details and comments without anticipating those explanations which could only be properly given when the measure should be laid before Parliament for consideration. The noble Lord had passed an eloquent eulogium upon the Civil Service of the country, and he (Earl Granville) was sure that he did not expect him to answer that by heaping wholesale attack upon them. At the same time, he was far from saying that the Commissioners, who really had gone carefully into all these different offices, had, in a wanton manner, preferred charges against the Civil Service of the country. What he believed was this—that, from the mode in which the appointments were made, both 657 gentlemen and persons of a lower class found their way into the service, and that the latter owed their preferments not to any exertions or merit of their own. With respect, too, to the other class, it might be said, without disrespect to the service, that, of the class of gentlemen, under the present system, the best persons in a family did not seek to go into the public service. He did not intend to say that the service did not eventually turn out excellent officers; but he asked whether, if a father with three or four sons were offered a Government clerkship for one of them, he would put the most able and industrious into the place, or whether he would not put in the one who was least likely to succeed in open competition in the world? One of the great defects of the present system was that there were in every office a certain number of men who did very little, while another portion, who were the "willing horses," took the whole work on themselves. He knew this was the case with Sir S. Northcote himself, who, by the excess of work that he took upon himself in a public office, almost brought himself to the brink of the grave. This state of things was productive of practical injustice; for while the man who contented himself with attending during office hours, and took little of the intellectual labour, was perhaps overpaid, the hard-working and intellectual man was paid too little for the services which he rendered, for which, indeed, he received a remuneration less than he would get if he went into a private merchant's office, certainly into the office of a public company. He could not rate his own personal experience as anything, but still he could not help remarking one fact, which he would illustrate by reference to a particular office. The Board of Trade, where he was for a little time, was, he believed, one of the offices which had most secured the goodwill of the public; and it was the fact that nearly all the gentlemen in that office who had become famous in the country, from Mr. Deacon Hume downwards, had been gentlemen not brought up in the Civil Service. Now, be must say, that there was evidently something quite wrong in this. He quite agreed with what was said by a noble and learned Lord (Lord Brougham) on a former night, that it was the head of an office who should be responsible for the clerks employed under him. But this was not the case now. The noble Lord (Lord Monteagle), having been Chancellor of the Exchequer, ought 658 to be aware of this. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had nothing to do with the selection of the clerks in his office, though he had the sole management of them; and the noble Marquess who sat near him (the Marquess of Clanricarde), who had been Postmaster General, knew that the Postmaster General, though in the same position, had nothing to do with the appointment of a large portion of the clerks under his direction. The establishment of a system of previous examination would not necessarily denude the heads of office from responsibility. It would be the duty of the Government Board to examine into, and sift the qualifications, character, &c., of the candidates for admission; and afterwards the responsibility should rest on the chiefs of offices, of promoting deserving individuals from office to office. He thought it was most essential that responsibility should lie, to the greatest possible degree, on the head of the office. He thought, too, that it would be quite wrong that the chief of an office should not have the power of looking elsewhere than to those admitted by competition when the public necessities required it. By these means the heads of offices would have a larger field from which to make selections for special offices than they possessed at present. The objections urged against the Civil Service generally could hardly be said to apply to the Foreign Office. During the time he held the post of Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, some years ago, he had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the singular ability, devotion, and industry of the clerks employed in that department; and he could hardly express, in terms sufficiently strong, his gratitude to those filling the more important posts for the assistance he later derived from them. It must be recollected, however, that the Foreign Office was peculiar in its business and constitution. The mere copying in that office was labour of an intellectual character. Generally speaking, some of the ablest men in the State were appointed Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs, and much of the efficiency of that department was owing to the exertions of Mr. Canning and Lord Palmerston. He could not help, in connection with that subject, noticing a slight inconsistency between the conduct and the arguments of his noble Friend (Lord Monteagle). When he was at the Foreign Office, he inquired which of the junior clerks had most distinguished himself, and proved his fitness for a higher rank, and a son 659 of his noble Friend was pointed out to him in reply. Now, the course which the noble Lord had taken with respect to his own son was an indirect testimony in favour of the system of previous examination. When the noble Lord was offered a clerkship for his son, instead of putting him in the office directly, he asked permission for him to remain at Cambridge some time longer, in order that he might finish his studies and go through the necessary examinations with the view of better fitting him for the discharge of his duties in the Foreign Office. He thought, however, that this was scarcely consistent with the conduct of his noble Friend, in trying to throw discredit on a scheme for the establishment of a public examination as a test for merit in Government appointments, before it was fairly hatched and given to the public view. He could not help thinking, too, that his noble Friend was now acting a little inconsistently with the vote which he gave last year for throwing open the Indian Civil Service to examination. His noble Friend's authority was, no doubt, very great; but had he (Earl Granville) not been able to find a single authority in his favour amongst the permanent civil servants of the Crown he should not feel disheartened on that account, when he recollected how long the most eminent lawyers, with but few exceptions, had opposed all improvements in legal education. If the whole Civil Service disapproved the proposed change, it would not be conclusive against its expediency. The reverse, however, was the fact. Sir James Stephen, one of the most eminent of the civil servants of the Crown, was an ardent supporter of the Government scheme. Mr. John Wood, the Chairman of the Board of Excise, was another. This gentleman was no light authority; he passed part of his life in a mercantile house; he then became one of the most respected Members of the House of Commons, and was now one of the most able civil servants of the Crown. Not only had Mr. Wood stated his opinion in favour of the Government scheme as a means of securing efficiency, but he said that, looking at the matter in a moral point of view, the advantages of taking away patronage were incalculable. Mr. John Mill, of the India House, who was not only a great philosophical writer, but one of the most able administrators of the day, cordially approved of the introduction of examinations and competition. He (Earl Granville) was alarmed the other day by being told that Mr. Anderson, one of the greatest 660 organisers and improvers of departments, was opposed to it. He sent a message asking what was the fact; and Mr. Anderson's reply was, that until he saw the Government surrender its patronage he would not believe that it would do so, but that if competition and examinations were possible, of which he was not a judge, he thought they would confer the greatest advantage on the Civil Service. On the question of examinations he would not trouble the House at any length. Mr. Jewett, of Balliol College, Oxford, had given very decided evidence as to the possibility of conducting the examinations of a great number of men in a perfectly fair way; and the examiners of the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London, together with the inspectors of national schools, all agreed that there was little difficulty in conducting examinations with perfect fairness and success, although, of course, the manner in which it was to be done was a matter which required to be carefully considered. He could not help feeling, too, that he was now speaking sentiments entirely in accordance with those of a gentleman sitting near him, to whom he could not more particularly allude without being guilty of a breach of order, but a gentleman whom their Lordships must all admire for his admirable pronunciation of Norman French, for his courtesy in that House, and for his valuable public services (Mr. Shaw Lefevre, the clerk assistant). There was no doubt of his perfect competence to form an opinion on this subject, and, though the forms of the House forbade him to testify it by saying "hear" or "no," he (Earl Granville) had no doubt that it was in complete accordance with what he was then stating. Sir Thomas Freemantle, the Chairman of the Board of Customs, had also no doubt that examination, if it could be carried out, would add greatly to the efficiency of the public service. His opinion, however, was not entirely in accordance with that of himself (Earl Granville), for he thought—and the idea was not unnatural in a gentleman who had filled the office of patronage secretary—that, if the Government scheme were carried out, there would be a difficulty in managing the House of Commons. He (Earl Granville) was not indeed sanguine as to get the concurrence of "patronage secretaries;" he even doubted that of his noble Friend near him (Lord Stanley of Alderley), notwithstanding the purifying he had undergone at the Board of Trade. Now, for his part he believed that this ap- 661 prehension was entirely groundless. What did history teach upon the point? Previous to the Revolution it was deemed impossible to manage the House of Commons without a liberal exercise of the Royal favour. In the time of Sir Robert Walpole not a Secretary of the Treasury could have been found who was not prepared to say that it was impossible for the Government to go on unless a certain number of bags of guineas were distributed among the representatives of the people. Since that period patronage had been employed as the agent of corruption; but some years had now elapsed since Lord Althorp declared in the House of Commons that the time for a system of Government by patronage was gone by; and every eminent statesman had since shown, by his words and deeds, that the true policy for a Government was to appeal to the good sense and intelligence of the large classes of the community, and not to the self-interest of individuals or of small classes. The culminating argument of the noble Lord was, that examinations took place in China, and that, therefore, we were not to take a similar course. He could not see much force in this, though it might, no doubt, be a weak argument in favour of the Government plan, to say this system has gone on for a long course of years in China—it is an institution greatly venerated by the Chinese—it had given a great stimulus to education there, and, as my noble Friend himself acknowledged, the feeling in favour of it is so strong that one of the arguments used by the rebels is that the Government has tampered with this system of examinations. When, too, he was told that there was corruption in China, was he to be told that it was due to this institution, and not to the tone of the morals of that country, where there was, unfortunately, a very different form of religion and state of morals to what prevailed in this country? Another course taken by the noble Lord was, to frighten them by threatening them with the introduction of what was called "a bureaucracy." Now a bureaucracy, in many continental countries, extended to a supervision of almost the whole of the daily life of every individual. To give an instance, He remembered himself wishing to bathe in a river on the Continent; but, before he was permitted to do so, he was obliged to perform certain aquatic exercises in the presence of a functionary in uniform, to obtain whose consent he had to go a considerable distance. That might be all very well in 662 certain continental States; but he did think that to threaten with such a bureaucracy a country where there was a free press, the right of public meetings, and powerful Houses of Parliament, was about one of the wildest chimeras that ever arose in the human mind. He hoped the House would not think that he had gone into a full explanation, either of the course which the Government proposed to adopt, or of their reasons for adopting it. All that he had in view was to prevent its going forth to the world that the Government were not able to make any reply to the observations of the noble Lord, or to say anything in favour of admitting candidates by examination to public offices, leaving them afterwards to be promoted by seniority, subject to the exercise of the discretion of the chief of the office. This scheme had not been brought forward with any selfish feelings on the part of the Government, but entirely with a view to do justice to some of the best members of the Civil Service. It certainly carried with it this advantage, that while it removed not the stigma, but the slight suspicion which at present attached to the Government and to the Parliament, it gave a most powerful stimulus to education in all classes of the community.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, that he was not about to follow the example of his noble Friend opposite (Lord Monteagle), by entering at any length into the subject, because he really was not yet aware of what the plan of the Government was, and also because he had some sort of impression in his own mind that they were not likely to hear much more of it. They had heard it defended in a fashion, with great ingenuity and candour, by the noble Earl who had just sat down; but with this exception he had not been fortunate enough to meet with a single individual in either House of Parliament, out of office, who did not hold up his hands at the bare mention of the plan, instead of treating it with respect, as a serious proposition. He should, therefore, in the present stage of the matter, refrain from entering into any discussion upon what might be gathered from the Report as likely to form the basis of the project when it should have assumed shape, and have been brought before either House. He would, however, again refer to an objection he had taken on a previous evening with respect to the question of responsibility. He would assume that the plan embraced no more than this—that there was to be a Board consisting of 663 three Privy Councillors with assistants, or one of a more extensive description composed of learned and skilful persons, who should examine the candidates presenting themselves; that out of these a list of the persons eligible for the Civil Service should be selected, and that they were the only persons from whom the clerks of the different departments were to be chosen. His noble Friend (Earl Granville) said that there was nothing to prevent a man of great merit being appointed, even although he was not amongst the list recommended by the examiners. Still that would be an exception, the rule being the reverse. Then being once begun, he understood that the clerks were to rise by seniority. [Earl GRANVILLE: No, no.] He certainly understood so from the noble Earl's speech. This, however, showed the inconvenience of discussing a plan which had not yet been laid before them—he hoped it never would be. But what he had described was, he understood, to be, speaking generally, the form which this plan would take if it was ever endowed with shape. That this proposal would, in a great degree, vest the patronage of offices in the Board of Examiners was evident. He could not, however, suppose that the responsibility of the heads of the different departments, though it must be lessened thereby, would be wholly taken away. It was not probable that because a Board of Examiners had the power to enable persons to attain the first step on the ladder, therefore their subsequent promotion would not impose responsibility on the chiefs of departments. But look at what the consequences of such a power on the part of the Board would be. Almost every clerk and other functionary in a department would necessarily be holding office with a certificate of his having passed the examination of the Board; he would have the judgment of that Board, a great and authoritative body, in his favour; he would have their judgment testifying to his merits, his competency, and his character; in short, he would have a general judgment in his favour of a Board constituted of men who were scholars and learned in the various branches of literature and of science, and presided over by some great functionary. Now, he should like to know what comfort a chief of a department would have—a Secretary of State, for instance, or the next to him, the Under Secretary—when the clerks who were under them were persons each of whom had 664 had a judgment pronounced by the very important body who constituted this tribunal in his favour? He apprehended that, if responsibility in the chief of an office was of great importance; and if capacity in a subordinate was of great importance, there was another thing of equal importance in all departments, and that was discipline. What discipline could there possibly be in any department when all who were subject to that discipline were furnished with a decision in their favour after a full examination by this very important body—this tribunal of professors, and schoolmasters, and scientific men? A person might be late in coming down to his office in the morning; he might go out of town on a Friday instead of on a Saturday; probably he might not come to town at the proper hour on Monday; there might be a thousand other little slips in the course of a week which are the objects of reproof and censure, and which the head of a department, and those immediately under him, as an Under Secretary, are constantly called upon to exercise their discretion upon; but if they found fault with a person who was in possession of the certificate, the answer might be, "Oh, I am not to be spoken to in this way; have not I a certificate of merit—have not I a decision—(probably a unanimous decision)—of this great tribunal pronounced upon my capacity—am I a person to be addressed in this way?" His noble Friend had spoken of the variety of persons he had consulted; and he (Lord Brougham) had also consulted persons who had been in office, and who had given him their opinions and their impressions as to what the consequences of such a plan must be when brought into practical operation; and the first thing they said was, "God forbid I should be in office with clerks under me every one of whom could produce a judgment on his merit in reply to any remonstrances that might be made against his official conduct." He only mentioned that as a sample of the kind of objections he had heard. His own opinion went along with the noble Earl (Earl Granville) in some respects, but in other respects he differed from him. It was his wish that the schoolmaster should be kept to his own proper functions; and, although he had at some former time and somewhere else expressed his high gratification that "the schoolmaster was abroad"—a phrase that had become somewhat popular—yet he was afraid he should now, if plans like this for 665 making the schoolmaster depart from his proper province, and encroach upon provinces with which he had nothing to do, were to be adopted, feel inclined to wish that the schoolmaster might go home again.
§ THE EARL OF HARROWBYsaid, that he knew very little of the plan which was contemplated, except that it was intended to interpose some check upon the patronage of public offices, by creating some test in the shape of an examination with regard to the qualifications of the party to be appointed to that office. In what way that test was to be applied, by whom the examination was to be conducted, and how the offices were to be distributed after the examination, nothing was yet known further than what might be gathered from the Report on the table, which might or might not be an indication of the Government measure; and he wished to guard their Lordships and the public against running away with the idea that the plan, as suggested by the Commissioners, was that which the Government intended in all its parts to adopt. He could not help observing, however, that there appeared to be much less difficulty experienced by some noble Lords in imposing restrictions upon the Directors of the East India Company in the exercise of their patronage in regard to the government of India, affecting the wellbeing of 100,000,000 of people, than in adopting any similar restrictions in the administration of patronage at home. He could not but think that there was some little injustice, and some little inconsistency, in such conduct. Without, however, presuming to know more of the intentions of Government than what had been revealed by the noble Earl (Earl Granville), he would confine himself to saying that he believed the plan, so far as it had been indicated, was based upon a noble and generous principle, and that he did not think his noble and learned Friend, who had contributed so largely towards sending the schoolmaster abroad, should, after having seen the proofs of his labours, wish to call him back again to his home. As to the qualifications to be required on the part of the candidates for office, he did not conceive them to be that of great talent, or of high scientific attainments; but rather the moral qualities of steadiness of conduct and an application to business, as well as a power of acquiring practical knowledge. To ascertain the possession of these qualities, and, indeed, to en- 666 courage young men to attain them, a previous examination appeared to him to be by no means inappropriate. Such a plan would tend to check the influence of corruption in the exercise of patronage, and would give an enormous stimulus to young men in acquiring knowledge. What was it the Government were now doing? They were training schoolmasters for the purpose of qualifying them to impart a more intellectual kind of instruction than had hitherto been given to the people; and what was the complaint? It was, that the people would not remain at school sufficiently long to avail themselves of the education which the Government had provided for them. It seemed to him that the plan now contemplated would have the effect of inducing the people to obtain all the advantages that the educational institutions of the country could afford them, and if that should be the result, he confessed he should hail the plan with the greatest delight. He did not feel competent to pronounce upon the Government scheme before it was laid before them; but as it necessarily involved a large and generous sacrifice of patronage for the sake of the public good, he hoped their Lordships would not hastily decide against it.
THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEsaid, he hoped their Lordships would not be induced to vote either for or against the plan or the Report that was then before them in reference to any opinion they might have expressed last year on the proposition for instituting a previous examination of persons to be appointed to the government of the Natives of India. He entirely protested against the analogy instituted by the noble Earl. The noble Earl had not spoken with his usual accuracy when he said that those who readily voted to curtail the patronage of the East India Directors resisted a similar proposition when it was applied to patronage at home. So far from that being the fact, they did actually the reverse; for, instead of limiting the patronage of the Directors to a particular class, they extended it to the whole population of India. The Company's service was thrown open to 100,000,000 of Natives, and thereby the patronage of the Directors, although curtailed in one sense, was greatly extended in another. But there really was no analogy whatever between the two cases. He agreed with the noble and learned Lord (Lord Brougham) that there was no doubt somebody would obtain very considerable patronage under this plan, 667 whatever it might be. The plan, however, was not yet before them; but the Report of the Commissioners was, and he begged to remind their Lordships that his noble Friend (Lord Monteagle) spoke upon the Report. That Report being before the House and before the country, and having had the honour of being connected with two very important offices under the Crown, the Foreign Office and the Post Office, he felt bound to hear his testimony to the injustice done by that Report to the civil servants of the country. A more able, a more efficient, or a more honourable body of men than those who were in the Foreign Office never were in any office in any country in the world; and he defied any system to produce a better set of men. He believed that the Foreign Office was still in as efficient a state as ever it was. The Post Office was an immense department, having an enormous amount of patronage; and, no doubt, it would be extremely desirable that a strict examination as to the qualifications of the candidates for that office should be established, so far as it was practicable. But so far from the candidates for Post-Office appointments being, as had been said, the maimed and crippled members of a family, if he were to believe the persons who recommended them, and the parents and relations who testified that they were competent for office, then he would say that there was no sort of qualification, physical or intellectual, which they did not possess. Perhaps there was as much exaggeration on the one side as on the other. Persons applying for appointments in the better classes of the Civil Service were expected to bring with them business habits, and the feelings and manners of gentlemen, and his conviction was, that the Civil Service of the country was filled by men of a class whom it was a wonder to find devoting their lives to so comparatively unprofitable a pursuit. The country had no right to expect men having the manners, habits, and education of gentlemen—men of business—to devote their whole lives to the service of the public, and then after, it might be, upwards of fifty years of labour (he recollected one gentleman who had served fifty-two years) rewarding them with a miserable life pension, barely sufficient for a gentleman to live upon, without affording him any means of making a provision for his family. In conclusion, he begged to protest against what was stated in the Commissioners' Report in respect to the Civil Service of the country.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, the noble Marquess had protested against there being any analogy between the case of the East India Directors and the case now under discussion; and he rose to enter his protest against that protest of the noble Marquess. He thought the two cases were exactly analogous. It was true that in one sense it might be said that the patronage of the East India Directors had been extended, because they were allowed to choose from a far larger field than before; but there was interposed, before the patronage of the Directors could be exercised, the obstacle of a literary examination. He could not conceive that those who contended last year that a literary examination would tend to improve the Civil Service in India, could now deny that a similar measure would improve the Civil Service in England. It had been said during the debate that such a measure as that suggested would prove not only inconvenient, but highly detrimental. His noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) took it for granted that the plan of Government was the plan of the Commissioners, which it was not; and then he contended that, because this examination would produce a higher class of men in point of education, all discipline over them by their superiors would be lost; but the plan of the Commissioners, if adopted by the Government, would have an effect exactly the reverse of that. It would improve the discipline of the clerks, because their promotion, instead of being then dependent upon seniority, would be dependent upon regularity and upon their success in their avocations. He knew it was a plan, the Government viewed it as a plan, and they all knew that it was a plan that would be received with very great reluctance by powerful parties—by those who had been, or those who hoped to be, connected with public office and with the exercise of patronage—the natural bias of their minds was against the plan; but against the reluctance of official people he believed it would force its way on its own merits, and, either under the auspices of this Government or of some future Government, some such plan would be adopted.
§ LORD MONTEAGLEthought that they were called upon to act on an ex parte case, and that they should have the whole of the subject submitted to them before they were called upon to legislate on it. If the whole was to be legislated upon, they were bound to have an explanation 669 with respect to the whole. His noble Friend had said that the promotions would still be under the control of the superiors; but the Report contemplated further examinations with respect to further steps of promotion in the offices. Again, he would say that if they were called upon to legislate upon the subject, they must, in justice to the public service, have some Report on the offices that were not included in this Report.
§ EARL GRANVILLEthought he had guarded himself from saying either one thing or the other—either that the plan that the Government intended to submit was identically the same as that of the Commissioners, or whether it differed from that plan, and in what respect. With respect to the question as to whether certain offices had been examined into or not, he must say that it would be a matter of convenience that notice of such a question should be given, in order that inquiry might be made in the department, and means thus afforded of obtaining the information that was sought for. Speaking perhaps not accurately, he was not sure himself whether all the evidence was not before the House; but he was certain that his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be most anxious that every information in his power should be laid before their Lordships.
§ On Question, agreed to.
§ House adjourned till to-morrow.