| Show BRITISH OFFICIAL LIFE ithe the old joke about leris clerks and trafalgar 0 square fountains BUT ALL THAT IS CHANGED NOW I 1 positions lon within tho the cich service rules and apollona Po llona or of seniority the bont boitt carl car I 1 in for abuses of the ser tice patronage Pt ronnee 14 I 1 still strong best families preferred I 1 ti I 1 LONDON dec 4 1890 1800 why are clerks in government office i like tho the fountains in trafalgar square vlas as a 1 conundrum much affected by city men some twenty years ago the answer was because they play from ten until tour four whether tills this satire accurately eur cura tely represented tho the workaday work a day life ol of the ordinary civil servant in those days I 1 am not in a position tode to determine but built if it iteld did there Is A striking contrast contrass between his big official labors and those of his sic successor cessor of tile the present day it Is recorded that charles lamb on being brought to book ou on one occasion by the chief of his office tor for arriving late replied that ho he would make up tor for it by going away early thir was a sumptuously simple booda of balancing the account and it ft satisfactory to tho the principal was highly creditable to the ahn ingenuity of the iho subordinate those were tho the glorious old days of patronage and prerogative when each political party packed as many of its into tire the public offic offices as such offices could conveniently bold and when tho lie vote vole on account of civil service passel parsed through the house of commons without belne being subjected to a linear scrutiny as Is tire tho fashion in these degenerate and democratic times the only entrance to the great ma nalty of public appointments now Is through the rato gato of open competition there are still a few offices where patronage pat has successfully resided assault and where the scions arid and friends of the aristocratic and privileged cl classes alses emulate the playfulness of the fountains above referred to among these are the treasury the foreign and colonial offices I 1 and tho the clerical departments of the houses of parliament tho the initial in flat salaries in these thesa offices 1 Is as high as eiloo a year an amount which it takes upwards of twenty years to attain in the rank and hie file of the ordinary civil ser le it Is a popular ir fallacy that groat great britain pats pas her servants liberally it if not lavishly on the contrary except in the ho few instances just quoted she doles dole 9 out their ponds with the most penurious regard to economy TWO DIVISIONS OF CIVIL fEH VICE the civil service of this country Is into two branches called ively the big herand lower division I 1 ahe he latter lator is the ibo working section so cLlon the former the superintending superintend super intending ling arid and controlling the entrance to each 14 1 through the ore thorny and con josted di avenue of open om petition men who ardire to tho the higher division will find success at al helst impossible except they carry into bo be fight the advantage of a university ir r public school edu education CaLlon tho the curri Is so wide and tire tho papers so difficult that an ordinary common school training Is utterly inadequate to the cho lotta of success suc ceso among the sub joela set are language langu ago literature and altory of greece rome kome franco taly mathematics pure and mixed mural science history of england including that of tire laws and oon lon of cours courso o the whole bill Is not I 1 ory but to insure success rl a fair proportion of the items must bo be taken jp ap As asa a matter of tact fact the iho highter high tir li lial vilon lon examination has proved a nN ersule failure it was projected in iho he hope of attracting university and I 1 public school men but these literary flug sluggers gers havo have turned up their noso at he prize money an initial salary of louo a year tear rising by funereally slow tagel to a maximum of Is hardly calculated to fetch tho the undergraduates if f oxford aud and cambridge even though they hey have no expectations of the passing sweetness with which a legacy li Is in n smart men can mako make more than oils ills as tutors or coach cot ches ns and will not therefore risk tho the opprobrium attaching to defeat lit in a civil service examination again the professions of law med medicine icille etc offer a more lucrative than thata th the 0 very highest of public I 1 in ill the government clerical t there here Is little for the of ability seniority being in the great real majority of 0 cases tho the acquirement which secured promotion the roost most stupid man gets on oil as rapidly as the most intellectual twenty years service Is moro more potent in gaining a higher salary alary than the most intimate acquaint ince with every elegy from froin alpha to druege so go that when miren a competition enters a government office lie he loes joes not baso base his chances of advance nent ment so 80 much on the striking and brillant briliant bant stupidity of ills his colleagues colleague risen HS on the number of grizzled aud and I 1 heads that bond over tho desks that surround him practical RESULTS ita ahn candidates forthe lower or second dIvIsi division of llin lie service are in the ahn main drawn OrY fr from tit Lin the lower loor giddin class of society an and d clude masons mesons of artisans of small she shopkeepers p keeper e arid of prior floor professional fess ional men the initial salary rising by annual increments of 25 to lo 10 0 on anti and thence by SO to a maximum of no 1750 it therefore theredo e takes a man mail upward of thirty thirty years mervien to attain this atno amount tint arid and sup supposing poRing him to be for fortunate enough to gain admission at lie minimum age abo which Is lived fixed at seventeen lio lie will be in tire penumbral penumbra zone of the sixties before ho he enters upon its ment nor will lie he bo be allowed to luxuriate on its unabridged figures for long tor for there Is a rule role in the iho ivil civil service that none of its of officers firer C shall remain longer than forty y years ars in active ment when tho the tour four decades cades have run their coil course jrsn ho be will bo be called upon to retire in vain will lie ho protest esil he be Is not conscious of any pronounced signs of decay or that he ha eon perform his duties at a well rig as the most robust of his jun junion iori such pleadings N w III 11 II not as ai a rule avail him ono one jot the regulation which his hai been framed m with ith the dual object of keeping up a good flow of promotion arid and of ensuring an ac active live arid and vigorous staff Is strictly adhered hered to except in lie ho case ot of able departmental part mental montal chiefs whose retirement would could bo be a palpable loss loo to tho the cou country try nut not that favoritism does not lit in many manor instances determine m who he shall go find and who A ito shall stay special reasons tor for retaining the services of the nephews and the cousins and the of influential persons person readily suggest thAin themselves Relves to the be keen and appreciative intellects of the lords of the treasury ability Is a very admirable quality and one that Is bound to succeed in the long run but when cerp red BY BT PATRONAGE its success Is more readily and more pronouncedly assured although pit cn trance to tho the british civil service Is 14 as I 1 haie before st slated atell determined by open competitive examination wherein the abilities of each candidate are estimated cited recording according to the literary knowledge which ho displays the subsequent advancement not infrequently depends upon the pressure brought broucht to bear on heads of departments by the friends of the aspirant to pre preferment forment given two government clerks of exactly similar shullar education and business capabilities the one who can borrow this the ear car of a cabinet minister or treasury lord will suddenly be discovered to possess abilities which A aich it may safely bo be assorted asserted would have never been unearthed except for the fortuitous combination bin atlon of propitious circumstances which led up to tile the hall door of such a powerful personage although patron age aae in offices recruited through the oven open competitive system myslem Is nominally as dead as julius cougar lit in reality it Is a living acting force which every dill ch 11 servant he doos not possess influential friends has to reckon with when figuring out his bis chances of promotion indeed it could not well ell bo be otherwise considering that it Is barely twenty years since it held undisputed sway tho 1110 british isles and dictated dic the appointment of every government em from a tidewater to a secretary of state like the lite broken rose round whose shattered fragments fragment hang tho the scout scent of the flowers which it recently contained the air of tho the open competition odices it 14 notwithstanding the official still redolent with the odor of patronage instances occur everyday every day and in every department where men with scarcely sufficient brains to hat bait L a hill fish hook bool aro are INTO PO POSITIONS for which they are notoriously and scan penn callously dilou dallou sly unfitted I 1 will exclude from froin the lack ot of brain portion of the indict lipitt llio ahn private secreta secretaries rips to cabinet ministers minister who ito on achan a change goof of government are permanently provided for by being made commissioners of excise custo customs inq public etc but I 1 cannot exclude them from the charge of it unfitness unit ness and incapability even mr mir gladstone I 1 la clAtone who in successfully applied bis bia ax to the treo tree of public patronage by throwing open the civil service to the ability and energy of the whole country 1 Is not proof against agin ft tit the temptation of providing for liki his secretaries fit at the expense of tho the permanent servants of tile the crown ills ilia action in this direction fikso is so sumptuously inconsistent as to evoke front from many a rovern ment clerk the title of grand old humbug instead of the lite moro more popular ona of grand old yuan but I 1 ut patronage like prejudice dies hard and von even the most inott liberal and fair minded public nion met cannot altogether resist its allurements allure ments or despise its agari tes john bright used to say that there them Is something very sacred about patronage and that there are families in this country n lili long lines of ancestry who look upon it ft as a holy thing not to bo be touched by the profane hands of belle believing ving with hosen hinson I 1 aglow that it a 11 something like a th when all the tb fint amt families ramil lii get et ai alt tile tm twill oell J nu INGO |
