English Civil Service Reform

Now that President Hayes has taken the first great step in the civil service reform by crushing out the New York custom-house combination, it will be instructive to consider the course by which other countries have reached the end we are aiming at. Of all European countries England is most like us: she has passed through the storm we are combating, and has now a reformed civil service. In 1854 she was in our present position, while now her civil service is such that politics have absolutely no influence in obtaining ordinary situations, since they are thrown open to competition; detur digniori is the motto by which the ablest man is successful, whatever may be his political views. Before 1855 the positions in the civil service were distributed in patronage by government, with that boldness which comes from the consciousness of right doing. Not only was patronage deemed proper and right, but many thought it impossible to run the government, without some such bribery as the control of the service permitted. Earl Granville, in 1854,said in the Lords, “Previous to the revolution it was deemed impossible to manage the House of Commons without a liberal exercise of the royal favor. In the time of Sir Robert Walpole not a secretary could be found who was not prepared to say that it was impossible for government to go on unless a certain number of bags of guineas were distributed among the representatives of the people. Since that period patronage has been employed as the agent of corruption; but some years have 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 has since shown that the true policy of a government was in appealing to the good sense and intelligence of the large classes of the community.”

England’s change from patronage was due, according to the statements of the

initiators in the work, to the revolution of 1848. Many a liberal measure found its starting-point in that tidal wave of revolution which spread from France over most of Europe. It struck England lightly, hut sufficiently hard to cause the government to look well to her foundations, — to strengthen and alter according to the demand of the times. Lord John Russell, ever ready for liberal measures and reform of abuses, was now premier, and his ministry began a thorough investigation into the civil service, the iucompeteney and corruption of which was now too apparent. For this purpose a royal commission was appointed, of which the principals were Sir Charles Trevelyan and Sir Stafford North cote, the present chancellor of the exchequer; and these two men have done the most to bring about the present state of the service. The investigation by the commission lasted five years, some of the departments being examined twice; and such was the detail of the examination, so large were the premises, and so ample the induction that the final report, which stated the incompetency of the service and the need of competitive examinations, well claimed to be the necessary logical conclusion of what had preceded. The report on the organization of the civil service was written by Sir Charles Trevelyan and Sir Stafford Northcote, to which were added the opinions of the most eminent civil servants of the crown and of others acquainted with the service, and a plan of examinations, by Rev. B. Jowett, of Oxford. The report was presented to Parliament in 1854, at which time there were sixty-four thousand civil servants. It was shown that large numbers of appointees were utterly unfit for their official duties. The report says: “ Admission into the civil service is indeed eagerly sought for, but it is for the unambitious, the indolent, or incapable that it is chiefly desired. The comparative lightness of the work, and the certainty of provision in case of retirement owing to bodily incapacity, furnish strong inducements to the friends and parents of sickly youths to obtain them employment in the service of the government. The extent to which the public are burdened, first with salaries of officials absent from ill health, and second with the pensions to those same, would hardly be credited by those who have not had opportunities of observing the operation of the system. There are, however, numerous honorable exceptions to these observations.” Mr. Chadwick wrote to the commissioners that he had been assured that, under a certain commission, out of eighty clerks who had been supplied by the patronage secretary not twelve were worth their salt for the performance of duties requiring only a sound common education. Many instances could be given of young men holding appointments, sons of respectable parents, who could not read or write. One person almost imbecile long held an appointment, although incapable of any work. It very often happened that a young man was sent to the head of the department without sufficient knowledge of his duties. The head knew that displeasure followed if he sent the young man to the higher authority, and therefore gave him a vacation in order to learn to write or spell. The majority of gentlemen giving opinions testified to the inefficiency of the service, but many gave opposite opinions. Sir G. C. Lewis thought the large majority of clerks were efficient. Sir T. F. Fremantle believed that “the clerks and officers of the civil departments generally are faithful, diligent, and competent. ” Mr. Waddington, of the home department, said that “ the exceptions to competency are few indeed.” But Mr. Adams, head clerk of the treasury, said that the head of a large department, being desirous of instituting improvements in keeping accounts, could not find one clerk sufficiently acquainted with the science of accounts to carry out his system.

On one point all were agreed: that numbers totally unfit for the service were placed there by patronage. Besides the evil of patronage, promotion was regulated entirely by time of service. The ordinary work of the clerk was mere routine, such as copying. Beginning at sixteen, he was often engaged on the same work at sixty. His pay was increased by regular increments; his promotion depended in no way on his merit; whether he worked hard or idled neither hastened nor hindered his advance. Ambition found no sphere for action when men saw the highest offices as a rule given to outsiders. The remedy proposed by the report for these evils was admission by open competition and promotion by merit. Open competition, besides checking political corruption and chicanery, would give the public the ablest servants. Promotion by merit would inspire energy and life by making each man’s advance depend on his own labors. The plan of examinations proposed by Mr. Jowett was almost exactly that now in operation; it was obtained only after a struggle of sixteen years.

Ten or twelve highly educated men were to act as a board of examiners, who should investigate the candidate’s intellectual, moral, and physical qualities, and without whose certificate no person could be appointed. After a probational trial of six months the candidate should receive the regular appointment. In 1854 there was no distinction in pay between common routine and work of the highest order, the mere copyist having the same pay as the framer of dispatches. The report proposed two classes of officers, with different work and pay: the duties of the first class to be the highest, with pay accordingly; while the duties and pay of the second class were to be correspondingly lower. When the report was presented, though many praised it most highly, as it deserved, it was greeted by the majority with astonishment and derision. Some of the ministry were loath to give up the power of patronage, and the whole body of ministerial parasites and influential place hunters, who saw that open competition would prevent the continuance of their hold on government situations, joined in the cry against the reform. It was called suicidal to the power of the ministry, and an innovation most dangerous, as the civil servants would become too independent. The Saturday Review, the National Review, and the Economist called the idea impracticable, but the Westminster Review and the Spectator worked well for the system, as did all liberals, independents and reformers. Lord Brougham said in the Lords, in 1855, that he had not seen a man who had not, on hearing the plan, held up his hands with astonishment. Let the school-master stay at home, he said, and not meddle with politics. Bur the arguments and facts were so greatly on the side of the report that its opponents retreated from their ground, confessed that an examination would he wise, and advocated a test examination for those nominated by the heads of departments, hoping thus to retain patronage. The reasons given for open competition were two: first, that it prevented patronage, and in consequence diminished political corruption; second, that it obtained the best civil servants. The first needed no proof, but as regards the second there was much difference of opinion. The qualities needed in a civil servant are honesty, intellectual and practical ability, health, and energy. Open competition of all other methods gives to government the broadest choice. Honesty and health can be found out as well by examiners as by heads of departments, and even better, since they would have more time to make inquiries, that being their occupation. Intellectual ability and knowledge can be best known by examination. A candidate’s recommendation given by friends, or his own statement, cannot be trusted, but no man can pass a hard, thorough examination without the ability to apply his knowledge. The examination can be and generally is made as near as possible to regular office work. The same qualities of judgment, quickness, and accuracy are brought, into play in examination and in the office. Abstracts of reports, financial accounts, and correspondence are required to be worked in the examination in given times. The

man with most energy, cœteris paribus, will work hardest, longest, and best in his preparation. Where others tire he will press on with vigor, and the same is true in the examination; energy gives him an advantage. A long examination is a hard strain, perhaps no harder work exists; and that man who is successful over numerous competitors must generally have energy, and that, too, in ample supply. It may be said you cannot be sure that the successful competitive candidate will be steady and reliable. How can the head of a department know any more certainly than the examiners? The question is not as to whether competitive examination is a perfect system, but whether it is the best possible system. If a person is steady and reliable in his own interest, he is more liable to be the same for government than would a person of opposite qualities. The summary is that the examiners can learn more about the qualifications of candidates than can the ruling power in the patronage system, while those qualities which the examiners cannot fully discover, except on long acquaintance, the ruling power cannot. In America every able young man. however poor he may be, can obtain an education; hence all who have not education (and these are they who are kept out of the civil service by the competitive system) are not able men. One objection raised against the system, and which all the opponents of the reform continually put forward, was that in examination cramming and not ability succeeds. The commission answered this by stating liow little superficial cramming assisted the candidate. The papers were made very hard, and when the candidate showed only a smattering of knowledge in any branch, he received no credit for it. This was an absolute discouragement to cramming. But when by cramming was meant the power thoroughly to master a subject in a short time, this the commissioners maintained was an indication of ability, and ability useful in a civil servant. As regards test examinations the commissioners claimed that their standard would always tend to be lowered on account of the kindness of examiners, experience having always shown this to be be the case. Again, test examinations would not remove patronage. In Parliament the first victory for open competition was due to Lord Macaulay. In 1853 he spoke upon the question of free competition for the India offices. “ It is said that the proficiency of a young man in those pursuits which constitute a liberal education positively raises a presumption that in after-life he will be overpassed by those he overcame in his early contests. It seems to me there never was a fact better proved by an immense amount of evidence, by an experience most unvaried, than this: that men who distinguish themselves in their youth above their contemporaries in academic competition almost always keep to the end of their lives the start they have gained in the early part of their career. Our history is full of instances which prove this fact. Look at the church, the Parliament, and the bar. Look to Parliament from the days of Montague and Saint John to those of Canning and Peel. You need not stop here, but come down to the time of Lord Derby and my right honorable friend the chancellor of the exchequer (Gladstone). Has it not always been that the men who were first in the competition of the schools were first in the competition of life ? Look to India. The ablest man who ever governed India was Warren Hastings; and was he not first in rank at Westminster? The ablest civil servant I ever knew in India was Sir Charles Metcalf; and was he not of the first standing at Eton? Have not the most eminent of our judges distinguished themselves in their academic career ? ” After mentioning a long list of eminent men who had been eminent scholars he added, “Can we suppose it was by mere accident all these obtained their high positions? ” This won the day for competition, especially as the orator, by his long stay in India, had extraordinary means of judging the probable usefulness of the system.

After the presentation of the report in 1854, Lord Aberdeen, then premier,

prepared a bill which substantially included the recommendations of the report; but the trouble with Russia prevented any action on the bill, which was laid on the table. However, on May 21, 1855, under Lord Palmerston’s ministry, the order was given in council which appointed the Civil Service Commission, with Sir Edward Ryan as the head, and gave to the commission power to examine candidates for the civil service. The commission had control only of such offices as were permitted by the different secretaries, while the latter or the heads of departments could say whether they wished test, limited competitive, or open competitive examinations. The commissioners were decidedly in favor of open competition; they wished the age of entrance to be from nineteen to twenty-five. While the examinations were to vary according to the duties of the offices, for the highest positions they desired the examination to include history, jurisprudence, political economy, modern languages, political and physical geography. But to the successful completion of this plan there were many obstacles, as the heads of departments did not always agree with them. In most offices the head of the department nominated three candidates to compete for each vacancy. In other departments a test examination, agreed upon by the commissioners and the head, was held for nominated candidates. The commissioners were upheld by public sentiment, which was intensely partisan for open competition; and this public sentiment acted on principal secretaries, forcing such as were disinclined to place their departments, as regards the disposition of offices, in the commissioners’ hands. The commission from time to time reported its work, which steadily progressed. In 1855—56, 1089 candidates were examined. The number continually increased as the success of examinations brought new departments under the new régime, until in 1865 it reached 4200, the average for the ten years being 3200. The per cent. of rejections was tbirty-three, of whom nine tenths were rejected for deficiencies in writing, spelling, or arithmetic. One per cent. were rejected on the score of health, and one half of one per cent. for not satisfying in respect to age. The examiners were the best scholars from Oxford and Cambridge. The danger of cramming was stated to have been much overrated. No trouble was found in managing large examinations, while appointments were all made within six weeks from the commencement of the examinations. For a moderate recompense an ample supply of intelligent and efficient persons were willing to enter the service, coming generally from the professional and middle classes, while age and an interval since leaving school seemed to have no preventive effect. In the Indian offices especially a great change was seen. Formerly, the worthless sons of influential peers often obtained appointments; important posts were bestowed on men of less than ordinary ability, the high salaries in these offices and the great opportunity that was furnished for perquisites making them great desiderata for place hunters, while the happiness of the millions in India often fared badly in the hands of these officers. But under the system of open competition the ablest young men in the kingdom obtained appointments. Over nine tenths of the successful candidates were graduates of universities, Oxford sending the largest number. But up to 1870, though the commission constantly increased its number of appointments, it did not secure open competition as the ruling principle. The cause is found in the status of the ministry and the House of Commons. Two principles were at work: conservatism and the dread that the common people would control the offices; and the desire of the ministry to retain patronage. All desired an examination, but many, and probably a majority, of both houses desired a test examination for those nominated by the heads, or at the most limited competition, the head nominating two or three men to try for each office. By this means the nominations would be practically in the hands of the ministry, and the aristocracy might still control the offices. Some ultra-conservatives thought open competition a dangerous innovation, — the poorest possible means of obtaining efficient civil servants. These classes all wanted examinations, but patronage as well. When the report was first brought up in Parliament, Lord Monteagle attacked it with asperity. His argument was that open competition was a Chinese system; and as China was not an enlightened country, the system was therefore poor. But he forgot to say that in the opinion of travelers best acquainted with China much of her educational advancement is due to this very system.

After the formation of the commission in 1855, competition advanced quite slowly, but still surely. Every year more offices were placed under its working, but the ministry in power, Lord Palmerston’s, was eminently conservative. The premier favored a test examination, and the ministry grudgingly gave new departments to competition. Ninetynine out of one hundred of the clubs were against the reform, and the main reliance for the system was found in the middle classes. They had tasted open competition in a few offices; they had not been obliged to beseech ministers for nominations for their sons, but each felt that his son had as fair a chance for success as the son of the highest lord, and if a place were obtained, it was done justly, by honest endeavor, not by cringing or party work. Every paterfamilias in the middle classes felt the privilege a dear one,—was anxious for its enlargement, and jealous of every restriction upon it. Relying on these backers the leaders of the movement resolved to force the ministry into promises in its favor. Limited competition had increased patronage. Formerly, when appointment s were in the hands of the ministers, only one means of patronage existed for each office; but under limited competition the ministers gave three nominations for each office, and these nominations they scattered broadcast throughout Parliament, the members distributing them to their constituents. Any ministry would be loath to give up such a privilege. The leaders of this force measure were Viscount Goderich, Sir Stafford Northcote, and Gladstone. One conspicuous argument in the debate, put forward by the opponents of the measure, was that if competition were the law the service would become too strong for the government. But this argument was characterized by Gladstone as womanish, weak, and unworthy of England. “The stronger the civil service,” he urged, “the better it will perform its duties. The greatest security is in the fullest examination of fitness.” The strength of the measure, however, was less in its able supporters in the house than in the middle classes outside. As soon as it became known that a motion in favor of open competition was coming up, shoals of letters in its favor came to the members from their constituents, from clergymen, from merchants, from retired military officers; and as the vote had been made open, the members dared not vote against the measure. The leaders were astonished at their majority; and the chancellor of the exchequer, Sir G. C. Lewis, was forced to promise that competition should be gradually extended, as experience had shown it to be the best system. Such was the popular feeling that hardly a meeting was held at a mechanics’ institute at which the hope was not expressed that the principle of open competition would be universally applied for admission to the civil service. But Lord Palmerston’s ministry acted with its usual exceeding moderation, and the system was extended very slowly. Formerly, the cry was that the service was inefficient; now the advocates of the old system spoke of the excessively high standard of admission. This able young man had been kept out of the service; the clerks were treated harshly and were a brow-beaten race. Mr. Baillie Cochrance made frequent attacks on the commission, and tried to ridicule its examinations by reading the hardest questions to be found in the papers for the higher technical appointments; but he was overwhelmed by Gladstone, who laid bare his deceptions and overthrew his arguments.

In 1861 a committee composed of Lord

Stanley, Mr. Lowe, Sir Stafford Northcote, and Mr. Bright, after making a thorough investigation into the service, reported in favor of open competitions. The report said that the accusation that men who were great students, but with poor health and physique, were often appointed was broken down by inquiry, great care being taken in investigating the health of the candidates; that while competition was the only cure for patronage, and the best of all means for entrance into the service, it was advisable to act with moderation, that a reaction in public feeling might not arise. From this time the system had a sure footing, and with Gladstone as chancellor of the exchequer it was sure to advance. It was much helped by the numerous statements of heads of departments as to the improvements in the service since the introduction of examinations. It had been predicted that successful competitors would turn out mere bookworms, unfit for the practical duties of office, especially in the India offices, where activity was an important desideratum and the entrance examinations were of the highest order; but the Times correspondent in Calcutta, in 1869, analyzes the position of the first competitive wallahs, and finds that the first eleven chosen (the twelfth having died) had worked themselves in less than twelve years into the most important and well-paid offices, with salaries from sixteen hundred to thirty-three hundred pounds per annum. All were above the average, and several were men of the very highest promise, while younger competitive wallahs had risen even more rapidly. The result showed the admirable physique no less than the intellectual ability of those who, it was confidently predicted, would turn out sickly bookworms. In 1870, under Gladstone’s ministry, came the great triumph by which competition was made the rule. By an order in council, all the principal offices were thrown open to the fittest. The struggle was over and the victory won. The reform had been purely English, slow and obtained only after a bitter fight with conservatism. In 1875 a committee thoroughly investigated the civil service, with Rt. Hon. Lyon Playfair as chairman. The opinion of heads of departments, of clerks, of any supposed to understand the service, being taken, the majority favored open competition, though a large number in the service were appointed under the old system or under test examinations. Some few clerks, however, maintained that gentlemen alone ought to be in the service, and as open competition allowed non-gentlemen to enter, open competition was an injury. The committee gave a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of open competition, the principal disadvantage being that the clerks, feeling they had won their oflices, were too independent, and Combined for the purpose of pressing their claims on the government. It speaks well for a body of civil officers when they are called independent; the fault in the old régime was that they were dependent. A second disadvantage was that “ the wants of different offices vary, and one examination, — several cannot be held, — will not give a good test for all offices.” Yet Sir Charles Trevelyan said in that same year for the Civil Service Commission that all obstacles to the success of the system were removed. The commission had before stated that no trouble was found in the large examinations.

Nearly every civil office in England is to-day open to him who can show he is best fitted for it. Staff appointments are made by selection from the best in the several departments, promotion also existing within the service without examination. The examinations vary from the most difficult to the most simple, those for the letter carriers consisting of reading, writing, simple addition, and a physical examination. It is somewhat strange to an American to find position in the civil service a mark of honor among Englishmen. The reason is that in England a man earns his position; in America he begs it or is a political parasite. In England the pay for civil clerks in the higher positions is as high as that received for the same work in banks and insurance offices, while for the lower clerkships the pay is higher than is received in private situations, especially when are considered the surety of pay, the shortness of hours of work, and the certainty of a pension on good behavior. The hours for clerks are from ten to four or from eleven to five. After ten years’ service the clerk has the right to a pension. The sum allowed is one sixtieth of his last salary for each year of service up to forty years. Thus to a person entering at twenty, serving until fifty, and then retiring on account of ill health, if at that time his salary is six hundred pounds annually, his pension will be three hundred. The senior clerks are allowed six weeks’ vacation, the other established clerks having one month, and draughtsmen two weeks. The pay is relatively higher than in the United States, which may account for the high order of examinations, those in the higher departments being harder and more searching than are required in any American college upon the same subjects. It is not expected that the United States can at once arrive at England’s perfection in competition, but this is possible in time; and it cannot be said, with the facts which are before us, that the system is impracticable.

George Willard Brown.