The Government of England Part 14

[140:2] The last of them, the Crimes Act of 1887, is a permanent statute, but its provisions come into force only on a proclamation by the Lord Lieutenant, which is revocable at any time.

[141:1] Com. Papers, 1839, XVII., 1, p. 8.

[142:1] The fact that improvements have been generally made by the landlord in England, and by the tenant in Ireland, has much to do with this feeling.

[143:1] The case for the landlords has been very strongly stated by Mr.

Lecky in his "Democracy and Liberty," I., 167-212.

[144:1] 3 Edw. VII., c. 37. The Act of 1903 was hailed with joy, but the Irish members soon complained of its administration, and on July 20, 1905, they moved successfully to reduce by 100 the appropriation for the Land Commission as an expression of dissatisfaction. Hans., Ser.

CXLIX., 1409-86.

CHAPTER VII

THE PERMANENT CIVIL SERVICE

[Sidenote: Sharp Distinction between Political and Non-Political Officials.]

The history of the permanent civil service would be one of the most instructive chapters in the long story of English const.i.tutional development, but unfortunately it has never been written. The nation has been saved from a bureaucracy, such as prevails over the greater part of Europe, on the one hand, and from the American spoils system on the other, by the sharp distinction between political and non-political officials. The former are trained in Parliament, not in administrative routine. They direct the general policy of the government, or at least they have the power to direct it, are entirely responsible for it, and go out of office with the cabinet; while the non-political officials remain at their posts without regard to party changes, are thoroughly familiar with the whole field of administration, and carry out in detail the policy adopted by the ministry of the day. The distinction has arisen gradually with the growth of the parliamentary system.

[Sidenote: Exclusion of Non-Political Officials from Parliament.]

A dread of the power of the King to control Parliament, by a distribution of offices and pensions among its members, gave rise to a provision, in the Act of Settlement of 1700, that after the accession of the House of Hanover no person holding an office or place of profit under the Crown should be capable of sitting in the House of Commons.[145:1] But before this act took effect the disadvantages of excluding entirely from the House the great officers of state was perceived. The provision was, therefore, modified so as to shut out absolutely only the holders of new offices created after Oct. 25, 1705, and of certain specified posts already existing. Members of the House of Commons appointed to other offices were to lose their seats, but be capable of reelection.[146:1] As there were many old offices the number of placemen in Parliament continued large, and no sharp line was drawn at once between the great officers of state and their subordinates. But two processes went on which in time rendered the distinction effective.

When a new office of a political nature was created it became the habit to make a special statutory provision permitting the holder to sit in the House of Commons; and, on the other hand, place bills were pa.s.sed from time to time excluding from Parliament whole cla.s.ses of officials of a lower grade. These acts apply, for example, to all the clerks in many of the government departments,[146:2] and together with the provision excluding the holders of all new offices created since 1705, they cover a large part of all the officials under the rank of minister.[146:3] The distinction between the offices which are and those which are not compatible with a seat in the House of Commons, is made complete by the regulations of the service itself. These cannot render void an election to the House which is not invalid by statute. They cannot make the holding of office a disqualification for Parliament, but they can make a seat in Parliament a reason for the loss of office. They can and do provide that if any civil servant intends to be a candidate he must resign his office when he first issues his address to the electors.[146:4]

If it were not for three or four ministers, such as the Irish Law Officers, who are expected to get themselves elected to Parliament if they can, but whose tenure of their positions does not depend upon their doing so, one might say that the public service is divided into political officers who must sit in Parliament, and non-political officers who must not.

[Sidenote: Permanent Officials take no Active Part in Politics.]

[Sidenote: But are not Disfranchised]

In a popular government, based upon party, the exclusion of the subordinate civil servants from the legislature is an essential condition both of their abstaining from active politics and of their permanence of tenure. But it does not by itself necessarily involve either of those results. This is clear from the example of the United States, where office-holders of all grades are excluded from Congress by the provisions of the Const.i.tution, but by no means refrain from party warfare. The keeping out of politics, however, and the permanence of tenure must, in the long run, go together; for it is manifest that office can be held regardless of party changes only in case the holders do not take an active part in bringing those changes to pa.s.s; and if, on the other hand, they are doomed to lose their places on a defeat at the polls of the party in power, they will certainly do their utmost to avert such a defeat. In England the abstinence and the permanence have been attained, and it is noteworthy that they are both secured by the force of opinion hardening into tradition, and not by the sanction of law.[147:1] At one time, indeed, large cla.s.ses of public servants were deprived of the parliamentary franchise. An Act of 1782, for example,[147:2] withdrew the right to vote from officers employed in collecting excises, customs and other duties, and from postmasters; but these disqualifications were removed in 1868.[147:3] The police, also, were, by a series of acts, deprived of the franchise in the const.i.tuencies where they held office. Except as regards Ireland, however, these statutes were, in their turn, repealed in 1887;[148:1]

and the only disqualifications now attaching to public officials relate to such positions as those of returning officers at elections.[148:2]

England enfranchised her officials at the very time when she was enlarging the suffrage and the number of office-holders. In some other countries the political danger of a large cla.s.s of government employees has been keenly felt. This has been particularly true of the new democracies in Australia with their armies of public servants on the state railroads; and, indeed, the pressure constantly brought to bear in the legislature in favour of this cla.s.s caused Victoria in 1903 to readjust her election laws.[148:3] The employees of the government have not been disfranchised altogether, but they have been deprived of the right to vote in the regular const.i.tuencies, and have been allotted one representative in the legislative council and two in the a.s.sembly to be elected entirely by their own cla.s.s. They have, therefore, their spokesmen in the legislature, but they are no longer able to influence the other members as of old.

[Sidenote: Effect of Giving them Votes.]

In England these dangers are by no means unknown; but they have not taken the form of work done by civil servants for purely party ends.

From that evil the country has been almost wholly free; for although all office-holders, not directly connected with the conduct of elections, have now a legal right to vote, and are quite at liberty to do so, it is a well-settled principle that those who are non-political--that is, all who are not ministers--must not be active in party politics. They must not, for example, work in a party organisation, serve on the committee of a candidate for Parliament, canva.s.s in his interest, or make speeches on general politics. All this is so thoroughly recognised that one rarely hears complaints of irregular conduct, or even of actions of a doubtful propriety. In this connection it is worthy of note that the revenue officers were disfranchised in 1782 at their own request. At that time the government controlled through them seventy seats in the House of Commons, and Lord North sent them notice that it would go hard with them if they did not support his party. His opponents sent them a similar warning, and the result was that in self-protection they sent up a strong pet.i.tion asking for exclusion from the franchise.[149:1] The bill to reenfranchise them was carried in 1868 against the wishes of the government of the day.[149:2] But on that occasion, and in 1874, when the acts imposing penalties upon their taking an active part at elections were repealed, it was perfectly well understood that they would not be permitted to go into party politics, and that the government was ent.i.tled to make regulations on the subject.[149:3] Those regulations are still in force,[149:4] and it is only by maintaining them that the civil servants can continue to enjoy both permanence of tenure and the right to vote.

[Sidenote: Attempts to Improve their Position.]

[Sidenote: The Dockyards.]

The danger arising from the votes of public servants has been felt in a different way. While the government employees have kept clear of party politics, they have in some cases used their electoral rights to bring pressure to bear upon members of Parliament in favour of increasing their own pay and improving the conditions of their work. This has been peculiarly true of the dockyards. The members of the half dozen boroughs where the state maintains great shops for the construction and repair of warships are always urging the interests of the workmen; and they do it with so little regard to the national finances, or to the question whether they are elected as supporters or opponents of the ministry, that they have become a byword in Parliament under the name of "dockyard-members."[149:5]

[Sidenote: Other Officials.]

Unfortunately the difficulty has not been confined to the dockyards. At the time when the revenue and post-office employees were enfranchised, Disraeli dreaded their use of the franchise for the purpose of raising their salaries;[150:1] and Gladstone said he was not afraid of government influence, or of an influence in favour of one political party or another, but of cla.s.s influence, "which in his opinion was the great reproach of the Reformed Parliament."[150:2] These fears have not proved groundless. As early as 1875 it was recognised that the salaries paid by the government were above the market rate;[150:3] and ever since the officials in the revenue and postal departments obtained the right to vote, pressure on behalf of their interests has been brought to bear by them upon members of Parliament, and by the latter upon the government. Complaints of this have been constant.[150:4] It has been a source of criticism that members should have attended meetings of civil servants held to demand an increase of pay,[150:5] and that they should receive whips urging their attendance at the House when questions of this sort are to come up.[150:6] Owing to the concentration of government employees in London the pressure upon the metropolitan members is particularly severe.

[Sidenote: Recent Efforts of Postal Officials for More Pay.]

For nearly a score of years a continuous effort has been made in Parliament to secure the appointment of a committee to inquire into the pay of postal and telegraph employees, and into grievances which are said to exist in the service. The government has in part yielded, in part resisted; but in trying to prevent pressure upon members of Parliament, it took at one time a step that furnished a fresh cause of complaint. The story of this movement ill.u.s.trates forcibly the dangers of the situation. In 1892 the Postmaster General, Sir James Fergusson, called the attention of the House of Commons to a circular addressed by an a.s.sociation of telegraph clerks to candidates at the general election, asking whether if elected they would vote for a committee to inquire into the working of the service.[151:1] He then sent to the clerks an official warning that it is improper for government employees to try to extract promises from candidates with reference to their pay or duties.[151:2] Nevertheless two of the clerks, Clery and Cheesman, who had been chairman and secretary of the meeting which had voted to issue the circular, signed a statement that the notice by the Postmaster General "does not affect the policy of the a.s.sociation." Immediately after the election these two men were dismissed.[151:3] That became a grievance in itself, and year after year attempts were made in Parliament to have them reinstated. Shortly after they had been dismissed Mr. Gladstone came into office; and he made a vague statement to the effect that the government intended to place no restraint upon the civil servants beyond the rule forbidding them to take an active part in political contests.[151:4] But it would seem that Fergusson's warning circular was not cancelled,[151:5] and certainly Clery and Cheesman were not taken back.

[Sidenote: Demand for a Parliamentary Committee.]

[Sidenote: Pressure Brought to Bear.]

The motions for a parliamentary committee to inquire into the conditions of the service were kept up; and in 1895 the government gave way so far as to appoint a commission, composed mainly of officials drawn from various departments, which reported in 1897 recommending some increases of pay both in the postal and in the telegraph service. These were at once adopted, and in fact further concessions were made shortly afterward, but still the agitation did not cease. The employees would be satisfied with nothing but a parliamentary committee, no doubt for the same reason that led the government to refuse it, namely the pressure to which members of Parliament were subject,[152:1] and the additional force that pressure would have if brought to a focus upon the persons selected to serve on a committee.[152:2] Year after year grievances on one side, and on the other charges of almost intolerable pressure were repeated. In 1898 the interest centred in a motion to the effect that public servants in the Post Office were deprived of their political rights. A long debate took place in which the whole history of the subject was reviewed,[152:3] and Hanbury, the Financial Secretary of the Treasury, exclaimed, "We have done away with personal and individual bribery, but there is a still worse form of bribery, and that is when a man asks a candidate to buy his vote out of the public purse."[152:4] In 1903 Mr. Austen Chamberlain stated that members had come to him, not from one side of the House alone, to seek from him, in his position as Postmaster General, protection in the discharge of their public duties against the pressure sought to be put upon them by the employees of the Post Office.[152:5] He consented, however, to appoint a commission of business men to advise him about the wages of employees; but again there was a protest against any committee of inquiry not composed of members of Parliament.[152:6] The report of the commission was followed in 1904 by a debate of the usual character.[152:7] Finally in 1906 the new Liberal ministry yielded, and a select committee was appointed.[152:8]

There are now employed in the postal and telegraph services about two hundred thousand persons, who have votes enough, when organised, to be an important factor at elections in many const.i.tuencies, and to turn the scale in some of them. If their influence is exerted only to raise wages in a service recruited by compet.i.tive examination,[153:1] the evil is not of the first magnitude; but it is not difficult to perceive that such a power might be used in directions highly detrimental to the state. There is no reason to expect the pressure to grow less, and mutterings are sometimes heard about the necessity of taking the franchise away from government employees. That would be the only effective remedy, and the time may not be far distant when it will have to be considered seriously.

As we shall have occasion to see hereafter, the pressure in behalf of individuals is comparatively small, and it is characteristic of modern English parliamentary government that political influence should be used to promote cla.s.s rather than personal interests.

[Sidenote: Permanence of Tenure of Officials.]

Permanence of tenure in the English civil service, like the abstinence from partly politics, is secured by custom, not by law, for the officials with whom we are concerned here are appointed during pleasure, and can legally be dismissed at any time for any cause. Now, although the removal, for partisan motives, of officials who would be cla.s.sed to-day as permanent and non-political, has not been altogether unknown in England, yet it was never a general practice. The reason that the spoils system--that is, the wholesale discharge of officials on a change of party--obtained no foothold is not to be found in any peculiarly exalted sense, inherent in the British character, that every public office is a sacred trust. That conception is of comparatively modern origin; for in the eighteenth century the abuse of patronage, and even the grosser forms of political corruption, were shamelessly practised.

It is rather to be sought in quite a different sentiment, the sentiment that a man has a vested interest in the office that he holds. This feeling is constantly giving rise, both in public and private affairs, to a demand for the compensation of persons displaced or injured by a change of methods which seems strange to a foreigner.[154:1] The claim by publicans for compensation when their licenses are not renewed, a claim recognised by the Act of 1904, is based upon the same sentiment and causes the traveller to inquire how any one can, as the result of a license ostensibly temporary, have a vested right to help other people to get drunk.

The habit of discharging officials on party grounds never having become established, it was not unnatural that with the growth of the parliamentary system the line between the changing political chiefs and their permanent subordinates should be more and more clearly marked, and this process has gone on until at the present day the dismissal of the latter on political grounds is practically unheard of, either in national or local administration.

[Sidenote: Former Party Patronage.]

While the discharge of public servants on political grounds never became a settled custom in England, such vacancies as occurred in the natural course of events were freely used in former times to confer favours on political and personal friends, or to reward party services. Such a practice was regarded as obvious, and it continued unchecked until after the first Reform Act. It was particularly bad in Ireland, where Peel, who was Chief Secretary from 1812 to 1818, took great credit to himself for breaking up the habit of treating the Irish patronage as the perquisite of the leading families, and for dispensing it on public grounds, that is, using it to secure political support for the party in power.[155:1] That the patronage was used for the same purpose in England at that period may be seen in the reports and evidence laid before Parliament in 1855, 1860 and 1873 after a different system had begun to take its place.[155:2] It was no doubt an effective means of procuring political service, and Lord John Russell speaks of the Tories in 1819 as apparently invincible from long possession of government patronage, spreading over the Church, the Law, the Army, the Navy, and the colonies.[155:3] The support most needed by the ministry was that of members of the House of Commons, and they received in return places for const.i.tuents who had been, or might become, influential at elections.

Thus it came about that the greater part of the appointments, especially to local offices, were made through the members of Parliament.[155:4]

The system hampered the efficiency of administration, and hara.s.sed the ministers. Writing in 1829, the Duke of Wellington used words that might have been applied to other countries at a later time,--"The whole system of the patronage of the government," he wrote, "is in my opinion erroneous. Certain members claim a right to dispose of everything that falls vacant within the town or county which they represent; and this is so much a matter of right that they now claim the patronage whether they support upon every occasion, or now and then, or when not required, or entirely oppose; and in fact the only question about local patronage is whether it shall be given to the disposal of one gentleman or another."[156:1]

[Sidenote: The Introduction of Examinations.]

At last a revulsion of feeling took place. Between 1834 and 1841 pa.s.s examinations, which discarded utterly incompetent candidates, were established in some of the departments, and in several cases even compet.i.tive examinations were introduced. But the great impulse toward a new method of appointment dates from 1853, and it came from two different quarters. In that year the charter of the East India Company was renewed, and Parliament was not disposed to continue the privilege hitherto enjoyed by the directors of making appointments to Haileybury--the preparatory school for the civil service in India. A commission, with Macaulay at its head, reported in the following year that appointments to the Indian service ought to be made on the basis of an open compet.i.tive examination of a scholastic character. The plan was at once adopted, Haileybury was abandoned, and with some changes in detail, the system of examination recommended by the commission has been in operation ever since.[156:2]

[Sidenote: Open Compet.i.tion.]

In 1853, also, Sir Stafford Northcote and Sir Charles Trevelyan, who were selected by Mr. Gladstone to inquire into the condition of the civil service in England, reported in favour of a system of appointment by open compet.i.tive examination. The new method met with far more opposition at home than in India, and made its way much more slowly.

Foreseeing obstacles in the House of Commons, Lord Palmerston's government determined to proceed, not by legislation, but by executive order, resorting to Parliament only for the necessary appropriation. An Order in Council was accordingly made on May 21, 1855,[156:3] creating a body of three Civil Service Commissioners,[156:4] who were to examine all candidates for the junior positions in the various departments of the civil service. The reform was not at the outset very radical, for political nomination was not abolished, and the examinations--not necessarily compet.i.tive--were to be arranged in accordance with the desires of the heads of the different departments. The change could progress, therefore, only so fast as the ministers in charge of the various state offices might be convinced of its value; but from this time the new method gained favour steadily with high administrative officials, with Parliament and with the public. In 1859[157:1] it was enacted that (except for appointments made directly by the Crown, and posts where professional or other peculiar qualifications were required) no person thereafter appointed should, for the purpose of superannuation pensions, be deemed to have served in the permanent civil service of the state unless admitted with a certificate from the Civil Service Commissioners. In 1860 a parliamentary committee reported that limited compet.i.tion ought to supersede mere pa.s.s examinations, and that open compet.i.tion, which does away entirely with the privilege of nomination, was better than either.[157:2] The committee, however, did not think the time ripe for taking this last step, and the general principle of open compet.i.tion was not established until June 4, 1870. An Order in Council of that date,[157:3] which is still the basis of the system of examinations, provides that (except for offices to which the holder is appointed directly by the Crown, situations filled by promotion, and positions requiring professional or other peculiar qualifications, where the examinations may be wholly or partly dispensed with) no person shall be employed in any department of the civil service until he has been tested by the Civil Service Commissioners, and reported by them qualified to be admitted on probation.[157:4] It provides further that the appointments named in Schedule A, annexed to the Order, must be made by open compet.i.tive examination; and this list has been extended from time to time until it covers the greater part of the positions where the work does not require peculiar qualifications, or is not of a confidential nature, or of a distinctly inferior or manual character like that of attendants, messengers, workmen, etc.[158:1]

[Sidenote: A Test of Capacity rather than Fitness.]

Since the general introduction of open compet.i.tion, by the Order in Council of 1870, two tendencies have been at work which are not unconnected. The first is towards simplification, by grouping positions that have similar duties into large cla.s.ses, with a single compet.i.tion for each cla.s.s, and thus diminishing the number of examinations for separate positions.[158:2] The second is the tendency so to examine the candidates as to test their general ability and attainments, and hence their capacity to become useful in the positions a.s.signed to them, rather than the technical knowledge they possess.[159:1] This distinction marks an important difference between the system of civil service examinations as it exists in the United States, and the form which the system has a.s.sumed in England. For in the United States the object is almost entirely to discover the immediate fitness of the candidates for the work they are expected to do; in England the object in most cases is to measure what their ability to do the work will be after they have learned it. The difference arises partly from the fact that in America the examinations were superimposed upon a custom of rotation in office and spoils, while in England permanence of tenure was already the rule; and partly from the fact that the system is applied in America mainly to positions requiring routine or clerical work, whereas in England it affects also positions involving, directly or prospectively, a much greater amount of discretion and responsibility.

Now, it is clear that if men are to be selected young for a lifelong career, especially if that career involves responsible administrative work, any acquaintance with the details of the duties to be performed, and any present fitness for the position, are of far less consequence than a thorough education, keen intelligence and capacity for development. Proceeding upon this a.s.sumption, Macaulay's commission on the Indian Civil Service laid down two principles: first, that young men admitted to that service ought to have the best general education England could give; and, second, that ambitious men should not be led to spend time in special study which would be useless if they were not successful in the compet.i.tion. The commission urged, therefore, that the examinations should be closely fitted to the studies pursued in the English universities. This plan was adopted, and although at one time the age of admission, and with it the standard, was lowered, they were afterwards restored; and the same principle is now also applied to the higher grades in the home service. For the lower positions in that service, where the work is of a clerical nature, and hence less discretion and responsibility are involved, it was formerly the habit to make the examinations more of a test of immediate preparation for the duties of the office; but this, as we shall see, has recently been replaced by a system based upon Macaulay's ideas, though applied, of course, to an inferior scale of education.

[Sidenote: The Different Grades in the Civil Service.]

The permanent officials of a typical department comprise a permanent under-secretary at the head, and one or more a.s.sistant under-secretaries and chiefs of branches. These offices are treated as not subject to examination under the Order of 1870, either because they are filled by promotion, or on the ground that the positions require peculiar qualifications.[160:1] As a matter of fact such posts are by no means always filled by promotion, and persons are sometimes selected for them who are outside of the service altogether. Next in rank come the princ.i.p.al clerks; but they are recruited entirely by promotion from the first-cla.s.s clerks, who are, therefore, the highest grade of officials entering the service by compet.i.tive examination. Below them are the men now properly called clerks of the second division, although the t.i.tle of this cla.s.s of civil servants has been changed so often that one finds strange variations of nomenclature in the different departments. Below these again come the a.s.sistant clerks (abstractor cla.s.s), and finally the boy clerks.