fession, the very training which makes them most useful public servants. They have learned something of the practice of the profession, which probably develops most effectively intellectual capacity; they have tested themselves in the competition of outside work; and, if an entrance into the higher branches of the Civil Service were considered as a legitimate aim towards which such training might tend, we believe that many men would be attracted who might hope eventually to gain a fair legal practice for themselves, but who would readily exchange these distant and uncertain hopes for the security and fair competence, which the higher posts of the service would offer. Such men, chosen usually by competitive examination, but also occasionally on grounds of recognized merit, and for actual work done, would form a nursery for the higher and more responsible offices. Once appointed, they would immediately enter upon their probation in higher work. At every stage in their career they would have opportunities of showing their readiness and capacity for meeting emergencies, and for dealing with the more difficult work of the office in its earlier stages. They would be required to show the mental aptitude, which their literary or legal training had given them, by mastering the system upon which the routine and clerical work of the office was conducted; and such aptitude is proved by nothing better than by the power of grasping the principles of such work, without becoming too submissive to its routine methods. At the same time, they would be employed in digesting and arranging the details that cluster round every difficult question, and in presenting these in the most clear and logical form for the consideration of their superior officers. From the first they would be impressed with the sense of responsibility, which prevents a man from considering himself only as one part of a complicated and automatic machine. They would be the members of a small and carefully selected class; and, as such, their promotion would not be unduly delayed. Much of the ultimate value of an officer depends upon his being quickly thrown upon his own resources, and many able men are made useless because responsibility is delayed so long that, when it comes, it finds them timid and uninventive from habit. For this class of men the Commission recommend an initial salary of 2001. a year; and, if promotion is to be sufficiently rapid, we are disposed to think that this is quite sufficient. In the lowest grade of this select class the salary may rise to 5007.; but, before this maximum had been reached by stages of 201. a year, the officer should either have been found unfit for his work, or should have risen to the higher

grades

grades of 8007. or 1000l. a year, with the prospect, for a very few, of rising to the highest posts.

A class so recruited will undoubtedly command a very large proportion of men who would succeed in the open professions. It might be well to increase the inducements, as might be done at very little cost, by adding a small number of prizes to the service, more valuable than any now open to it, and more nearly on a level with those which prove so attractive elsewhere. For the proper discharge of the highest and most delicate duties of the public service, it is difficult to say why talents of the exceptional kind which find a field for themselves in the other learned professions should not occasionally be required. It is not likely that these will be available if 20007. a year is the high-water mark of Government pay. The creation of a few such prizes, however, is a matter of small financial importance, and the general question of organization can be considered quite apart from it. As we understand them, the main proposals of the Commission resolve themselves into the practical abolition of a separate intermediate Division; the arrangement of the Lower Division on a sliding scale, with very moderate salaries for those who could not prove their fitness for special work, and a prospect of fair competence for those who were capable of exercising supervision; while the really responsible posts would be held by a comparatively small number, selected with care from amongst the most promising young men of their day, trained from the first for the duties that are to fall upon them, and with prospects of rapid promotion, as a result of special capacity, to posts of which the remuneration would enable them to maintain a fair social status amongst the best professional classes.

On the whole, we agree with these recommendations. The success of any re-organization must largely depend upon the balance maintained between the different offices; and the evidence taken by the Commission affords abundant proof of the harm done, and the discontent caused, by the present unsatisfactory control in the hands of the Treasury. In place of this, the Commission propose a special tribunal composed of representatives of different offices. Agreeing with them as to the urgent necessity for some change, we hesitate to accept this proposal, and would prefer a controlling body with powers more directly delegated by Parliament. But, in general, their proposals seem to us adapted to the requirements of public business, and based upon the sound commercial principles, which must inevitably prevail in any organization which is to satisfy the public mind, on grounds of economy and efficiency.

The

The success of the scheme will rest mainly on the character of the higher class. The older class of Civil Servants, of sound education, fair capacity, considerable leisure, and salaries not large but sufficiently generous, will undoubtedly pass away; and with them perhaps much of the typical character of the service. Their place will be taken largely by a clerical staff, organized on the principles which prevail in private commercial establishments. But the real guidance of the whole system will be in the hands of a few men, of alert intelligence, with every motive to energy, looking only to their own efforts for advancement, and keenly alive to the importance of grasping the principles of administration, as a means of securing influence and reward for themselves. We do not conceal from ourselves the dangers that are involved in the change. We have no wish, indeed, to anticipate that the integrity, the high honour, the conscientious and unbiassed service, which have hitherto been the pride and distinction of English public servants, will disappear from their traditions. But it would be wilful blindness to overlook the fact, that the conditions of that service will be revolutionized. The ever-increasing intricacy of public work, the vastly extending range of State interference, must inevitably add to the power entrusted to the permanent Civil Service. Its ranks will, in increasing proportion, be filled by men who will have every motive of ambition and love of influence to strengthen their hold. Many of the unwritten traditions of the service must undoubtedly be shaken; and the bond between the political and permanent head of a department, which is now almost invariably, with whatever change of ministry, one based on loyal, cordial, and selfforgetful service on the one side, and of complete confidence and ready recognition on the other, may be severely strained. How thoroughly good the relations now are, it is scarcely necessary to say. An Englishman, we are convinced, might now with truth appropriate the words of a recent French writer, speaking of a large class of the Civil Servants of his country, who have proved a rock of strength amidst her recent troubles:

'Je suis convaincu que nous avons, dans notre administration, une foule d'hommes probes, laborieux, éclairés, supérieurs même, à qui il n'a manqué qu'une occasion pour briller au premier rang. N'avonsnous pas vu, tout dernièrement, un ministère, ne sachant à quel homme politique confier le ministère des affaires étrangères, y élever un directeur dont le nom n'avait jamais fait aucun bruit au dehors? On plaisanta d'abord de ce choix, qui paraissait n'avoir rien de très reluisant. A l'usure, on s'aperçut bientôt que M. Flourens était au courant de toutes les questions, qu'il avait le sens très-droit, beau

coup

coup de tact et de décision. C'était lui sans doute qui, avant d'être en nom ministre des affaires étrangères, l'avait été sous le couvert de nombre d'hommes politiques plus en dehors, plus brillants, qui ne s'en étaient pas vantés.'

Promotion such as fell to M. Flourens is scarcely possible to our political habits, and would probably not be within the range of the ambition of our permanent officials, although we may recall the fact, that the present Secretary of State for the Colonies served for some time under his own permanent Under-secretary. But, without such public proof, probably most of those who have filled our political offices would be ready to acknowledge the high value of the assistance that the permanent officials have quietly rendered, with a loyalty and self-abnegation not less than that which the French writer extols. We fervently hope that these qualities may endure in the future. But it is idle to forget the force of circumstances which may make for change, and the results to which they may not impossibly lead. We can conceive no more suicidal error, and no graver public calamity, than the adoption of any political bias by our Civil Servants. No attack, however ungenerous, no grudging recognition of merit, no violence of political extremists should, for one moment, tempt them to introduce any flavour of partizanship into their public work. Such grievous dereliction of duty could only have one result. Successive changes of government must, in such a case, inevitably lead to a change in the permanent service; the canker, which is eating into the soundness of American political life, and which has baffled the resolution and resources of one administration after another, must seize upon our own administrative conditions; the cry of the spoils for the victors' must surely arise; and the very smallest of its dire results will be the break in the career of thousands of men, who will suffer for the indiscreet and noisy fervour of a few. We trust that such a result is far distant; but we cannot hide from ourselves the fact, that a Civil Service, recruited largely from those prone to self-assertion, and apt to arrogate to themselves a public position, may render it more likely to befall. And there is another temptation to which our Civil Service will be exposed, and against which it behoves them to be on their guard. Loyalty to responsible Ministers may be exchanged for subservience to political representatives. Hobbies that are pushed by influential members may find a ready ear, and a powerful assistance, from the permanent official. Relations between the permanent service and the popular representatives may become unduly close, while those betwe same service and the representatives of the Crown may

more weak. Let no ardent advocate of parliamentary control fancy that such unconstitutional interference with executive authority will promote popular theories of Government, or do aught else than maim the integrity of public life; let no selfseeking Civil Servant believe that reliance upon such disloyal association will promote the interests of his class, or do aught else than undermine public confidence.

We would fain hope that both these dangers that of political partizanship, and that of postponing the loyalty due to responsible Ministers to the favour which may be acquired amongst parliamentary representatives-may be successfully resisted. But circumstances are undoubtedly tending to break down traditions, to alter the demands made by the public on their servants, to increase the powers entrusted to permanent officials, to change the character of the men, to diminish their loyalty to successive Ministries, to intensify their motives of personal ambition, perhaps to weaken their personal obligation to the State. The responsibility resting upon those public men who have lately shown themselves prone to drag the personality of Civil Servants into the arena of debate, and to make their action the subject of rancorous criticism, and a weapon of party warfare, can scarcely be exaggerated. Nothing is more fitted to tempt the permanent officials to offend against a rule than to find it broken as regards themselves. We trust they may continue to resist that temptation.

But we cannot prevent the change that is taking place by refusing to recognize it, and we are ready, therefore, to accept boldly, and even to welcome, any re-organization which may base the Civil Service upon sound commercial principles.

'The Civil Service at present was in the position of an establishment that had changed its master. The old public had been superseded by a new public. The new master was more particular in many ways, and he entreated Civil Servants to adapt themselves to the ways of the new master. They should not think that the new master was somewhat fussy, and on their part they should not be too touchy and too sensitive. They should not treat the desire for reform which was abroad as a hostile attack on their privileges, and as if it ought to be resented with extreme sensitiveness. The permanent Civil Servants should be a kind of anchor on which the public might depend, and they should not allow any misgivings to arise between them and their new master. Satisfy him that there was among them the same desire for reform as he had, but let the great Civil Service be a steadying and loyal force in the nation.'

ART.