Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

return. Brother looked at brother with glances of various expression; but only a few here and there whispered to each other their thoughts. One fruit already had been borne from the seeds of discontent and discord which Prior Hugh had long been sowing so diligently-no man there now fully trusted his neighbour.

The prior set down the cup from which he had been drinking, and his face flushed purple as though the draught were choking him. He recovered himself, however, before the abbot reached the spot where he sat, and even succeeded in greeting his superior with a fairly assumed show of congratulation and deference.

"Welcome, my lord abbot-earlier than we had hoped, or we had surely not suffered you to take us thus unawares."

The abbot made him no reply. "Take this hence," said he to the lay brother who officiously placed a beaker of wine before him "it beseems us better to fast than to feast to-day, when the faith and honour of our house is trampled in the dust by those who should most maintain it! Brother Oswald !" he called to the third prior, who sat near, "you are the eldest of us in years, and I have to lay on you an office which I never thought to have had cause to exercise on the humblest of my children here -still less"-his voice broke as he went on, but he mastered himself, and his last words pierced the intense silence, distinct though not loud. "Take in charge Hugh, no longer prior of this house, but perjured to his monastic oath, and a traitor to his king!"

The prior had felt that he was detected, and was resolved to brave it out. As the aged monk, timid and hesitating, moved towards him to execute the superior's command, he drew back a step or two, and shouted aloud to the assembled monks.

"Listen, good brothers! we have borne with this lord abbot too long! He does well to make the most of his few days of power-he knows that already there is a warrant passed

for his deposing. The right noble Earl of Morton

[ocr errors]

"To prison with him straight, brother Andrew; call the servitors to aid if he resist-we will listen to no treason here!"

The sacrist was making his way up to support the hesitating and trembling official, when the prior's friends closed round him, and seemed inclined to offer at least a passive resistance to the abbot's authority. The prior stood with his back against the refectory wall, and still, loudly appealing against the abbot's proceeding, seemed determined to bid defiance to his would-be captors. Foliot was pressing forward, when the abbot stopped him.

"He is a son of the Church," he said, "false and unworthy as he iswe will not lay secular hands upon him, if it may be helped. On your obedience, my sons, I call upon you to remove this bold bad man from amongst us."

The prior's friends still made a close circle round him, and looks of defiance met the abbot on many faces within view. The better disposed of the monks, on the other hand, seemed cowed and irresolute, when a single powerful figure forced its way with quiet strength through the crowd, and, grappling the rebellious churchman, drew him from amongst his partisans as easily as if he had been a struggling child. It was the pilgrim monk, whose black vizard gave him almost the appearance of some professional executioner. The prior almost ceased to struggle as the fierce eyes gazed on him through the mask with unnatural brilliancy.

One bold word or act decides a wavering multitude for good or evil. The prior's allies, few in number, were disheartened at once; the officials found no lack of zealous assistants in securing their prisoner; and the majority of the brethren of Rivelsby were unanimous in their approval of the abbot's promptness and decision, as Prior Hugh, still threatening and protesting, was led off to the abbey dungeon.

THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

THERE was a great deal of talk, a few years ago, about Administrative Reform. Some public meetings were held; a society was formed; and satirical novelists took the matter in hand as something especially worthy of their regards. But, somehow or other, the clamour for Reform was soon either stilled or it subsided of itself. The cause of the failure may be readily suspected. The cry was too loud and undiscriminating to secure for it an audience among reasonable men. Exaggeration, the besetting fault of reformers, arrested what, under the auspices of moderate men, might really have been a serviceable movement. The administrative reformers condemned without inquiry, and clamoured for the destruction of what they did not understand. They failed, therefore, to influence public opinion, and actually retarded the progress which they desired to promote. The public service, which they attempted to cover with odium, under the force of a favourable reaction, rose in popular esteem. People said that, after all, the country was not badly governed, and that our administrative departments, though by no means perfect, were still the best in the world.

What truth there may be in this last assertion, we do not profess our selves to be sufficiently well acquainted with the administrative systems of other countries to be able to declare. Generally speaking, indeed, the subject is one regarding which the outside public have no very clear ideas. Every one is familiar with the words "under Government," "

," "public offices," and so on; there are few people, indeed, who have not among their acquaintance some gentleman representing the public service, and described as hold

ing

some appointment under Government." But we are not wont to proceed from the individual to the general conception of the public service, except at times, when the newspapers tell us that everything is going wrong at home or abroad, in

peace or in war, because the public service is "scandalously defective." These are exceptional periods-generally speaking, at wide intervals. At other times the wheels of Government quietly revolve; nobody hears anything about the public service; nobody remarks that the business of the country is done well or ill, or cares to inquire how it is done. But it is in these quiet times, when there is no public excitement; when no victim is demanded; when there is no fear of vehement exaggerations on the one side, or of indignant denials on the other, that the administrative system of the country may be inquired into with the best effect. In such times the truth may be fairly elicited by discussion, because it is the interest neither of Parties nor of Persons to distort it.

Considering the paramount importance of the subject, we have often wondered how it has happened that the administrative systems and agencies, whereby the affairs of the country are ordered, have been hitherto so little discussed. Either there must be a prevailing sense in the public mind that these systems and agencies work so well on the whole that we may be content to take their efficiency for granted; or there is a very general ignorance in the said public mind as to the manner in which the country is governed. Perhaps both causes are operative. But, whatever may be the reason, it is undeniable that there are thousands of well-educated Englishmen who would esteem it a disgrace not to be able to give a satisfactory account of the Areopagus of the Athenians, or the Ephori of the Lacedæmonians, and who yet could not tell you what are the constitution and the functions of the Board of Trade or the Home Office. It is not until a man finds that he has a number of sons to provide for, and believes that he has a little Government interest, that he begins to inquire into these things; and then his inquiries are commonly limited to the money

The Public Service.

value of the appointments to be ob-
tained.

For all such inquirers there can-
not be a better book than that re-
cently compiled by Mr Parkinson of
the Inland Revenue Office.* It has a
Shakesperiau motto on the title-page
"Our Offices, and what we have to
do." But the book itself hardly
bears out this promise. It signifies
rather what such a book ought to be
than what it is. Doubtless, the first
thing of which a man, in search of
employment either for himself or his
son, bethinks himself, is the amount
of pay attached to a situation. On
this head the information supplied
by Mr Parkinson is ample. But can-
didates for public employment want
to know what they have to give, as
well as what they have to receive ;
or, in the Shakesperian language
quoted above, "what they have to
do;" and we cannot say that the
gentleman of the Inland Revenue
Office is as communicative on these
points as we could wish. A good
book on the Civil Service, therefore,
is still a desideratum; and we hope
that some day we may get it.

We

What we purpose to say on the subject is of a general rather than of a special or detailed character. desire to keep the subject before the public, at a time when it may be fairly and temperately discussed, and to offer some suggestions for the elevation and improvement of the Government Service, when the admission of existing defects is not rendered almost impossible by the vehement exculpatory tone generated we might almost say necessitated by the sweeping charges and wholesale condemnations to which the entire Civil Service of the country is subjected in periods of great public excitement. It is the rule and practice of some advocates, political and forensic, never to make an admission. There may be wisdom in this, in cases of individual dispute, when there is a sharp death-struggle as it were, and every advantage must

87

be taken of, none given to, the enemy. But true Conservative policy consists in the art of making timely concesthus averting revolutions by moderate sions under no immediate pressure, reforms.

It is to be borne in mind, in limine, Political and Administrative. The that government is of two kinds one includes such weighty_matters the conduct of our relations with as the making of war and peace; foreign states; the reform of the constitution; the system of taxation, &c.; matters greatly affecting the interests of the country, to be dependent upon the views of and supposed other is the current executive busithe dominant party of the hour. The ness of the nation, which flows on whatever may be the vicissitudes of with very little apparent change, party. The first is shaped entirely. by the will of a small body of fluctuating ministers, who owe their position to a parliamentary majority; the latter is done by a staff of permanent officials, who are not affected by the fluctuations of party. The supreme in all matters of administraparliamentary minister is, however, tion as well as of policy. He may direct the business of the department, over which he presides, in the most late the smallest points of procedure. trifling matters of detail, and reguHere, indeed, he is the veriest autocrat. In matters of policy he may be restrained and overruled by other executive business of his office he is members of the Cabinet; but in the absolute, alike over measures and complete. His decisions may be of men. No autocracy can be more the most arbitrary and eccentric character, but there is no appeal against them. He may interfere in the most vexatious manner, but there are no interference. Men who have been all means of preventing or avoiding his their lives at the work may be told how to fold a sheet of paper, or to tie a piece of red tape, by a parliamentary statesman, who has been

*" Under Government:" An Official Key to the Civil Service of the Crown, and
Guide for Candidates seeking Appointments. By J. C. PARKINSON, Accountant, and
Comptroller-General's Department, Inland Revenue, Somerset House.
Daldy, London.

Bell &

pitchforked into office by a happy speech and a casual majority, but who has no more departmental or official knowledge than the coachman who drives him to Whitehall.

Such being the case, a grave question arises, and one which it is not altogether undesirable to discuss, although we shall not attempt to pursue it to a conclusion. The question is, Whether, in the regulation of the administrative machinery of the country, undue importance is not attached to parliamentary position? When a new Government is to be fashioned, no one asks who is the best man to fill a certain post!-but who is the best member of Parliament, on the winning side of the House, to fill that post? It is assumed that the heads of all the great departments of the State must occupy seats either in the upper or the lower legislative chamber. Such has been the custom of the country for two hundred years. "From the time of Charles II. down to our own days," says Macaulay, in his off-hand, unhesitating way, parliamentary talent has stood in the place of all other acquirements. It has covered ignorance, weakness, rashness, the most fatal maladministration. This is the talent which has made judges without law, and diplomatists without French; which has sent to the Admiralty men who did not know the stern of a ship from her bowsprit, and to the India Board men who did not know the difference between a rupee and a pagoda; which made a Foreign Secretary of Mr Pitt, who, as George II. said, had never opened Vattel; and which was very near making a Chancellor of the Exchequer of Mr Sheridan, who could not work a sum in long division."

That the case is so is hardly to be questioned. There is rarely a change of Government which does not witness the introduction to the highest situations in the State, of members of the two Houses of Parliament who require to be instructed by the permanent officials of their department in the very A B C of their business. Able men they doubtless are-ac complished parliamentary speakers with a good general knowledge of passing events and the principles and

practice of modern statesmanship; but men whom no one in the world would select from among their contemporaries as the fittest men to fill certain places, by reason of their especial knowledge of the business to be done. Everybody knows the reason of this apparent anomaly, and is ready with an answer or an explanation. It is necessary that there should be a minister responsible to Parliament. for each department of the Stateresponsible in the lesser and in the larger sense; responsible in the matter of responding to questions put to him in Parliament, and responsible to the country, through its representatives, for the proper conduct of the business intrusted to him. Now, it is very certain that no one out of Parliament can respond to questions put in it. The necessity, therefore, of every department having a parliamentary mouthpiece may be admitted. As it is, however, the condition is but imperfectly fulfilled. Every department ought to be represented in both Houses, under a system which provides that its chief, whether he be Secretary or President, should sit in one House or the other, and that there should be also a parliamentary Under Secretary of State or Vice-President; but as in ministerial arrangements personal convenience is more thought of than public convenience, it often happens that the Secretary of State and the UnderSecretary of State sit in the same House. So far, therefore, as parlia mentary catechisation is concerned, the present system is defective. It is ludicrous to perceive sometimes the shifts to which the Government are put, when notice of a question is given in one of the Houses (it commonly happens in the House of Lords) relating to a department which happens to be unrepresented in that branch of the Legislature. Some ready speaker is put up, with a string of notes provided from the department, to answer the untoward inquiry, but he generally finds himself, before he has proceeded far, so hopelessly bewildered that he is compelled at last to evade, rather than to respond to, the question, and to substitute platitudes for facts. For the performance of work of this kind

Lord Granville has been for some time past a tower of strength to the Whig Cabinet. He possesses, in a high degree of perfection, the art of saying plausible nothings in a pleasant way, and he has too much tact and cleverness to make any great mistakes. But if the principle of parliamentary representation of departments is one of any cogency, this vicarious service ought not to be necessitated by arrangements made, in many instances, only for the personal gratification of members of the Cabinet who have family connections or pupils to be pushed forward, and naturally desire from among such to select their seconds-in-command.

And as to the larger responsibility, we acknowledge readily enough the constitutional principle that the head of every department of the State is responsible to the nation for the honourable and the efficient performance of the duties nominally intrusted to him. But, after all, to what does this responsibility amount? It is said that for any grievous wrong-doing a minister may be impeached. Impeachment is a word often to be heard in the mouths of a certain class of politicians, but it is only a word. It is a word, too, that does no harm to the statesman to whom it is applied-or where would Lord Palmerston be? We have a suspicion, indeed, that veteran politicians know that, in any real difficulty, a cry of impeachment is serviceable to them. It excites sympathy, and is commonly followed by a favourable reaction. When one's enemies overdo the thing, one generally escapes scot-free. The principle and practice of impeachment are clearly not to be encouraged by men who have held office, or are ever likely to hold it. The idea of the thing is commonly scouted, therefore, as something altogether preposterous and outrageous; and the accused, amidst the hubbub which the demand creates, escapes altogether, because his punishment has been fixed, in the first instance, on too high a scale.

But even admitting the existence of this responsibility as something more than a name, we do not see that it in any way implies the neces

sity of the parliamentary chiefship of which we are speaking. Parliamentary impeachment does not demand a parliamentary victim. The most memorable impeachment in the annals of our country is that of a man who had never sate in Parliament. Indeed, if this principle of responsibility is worth anything, it is worth more in connection with the idea of a permanent than of a parliamentary or fluctuating chief of a department. A permanent official chief would be really answerable for the deficiencies of his department; those deficiencies would be fairly attributable to his own incapacity. But it is felt that a 'parliamentary minister, who has often barely time to master the business of his department before an adverse parliamentary vote displaces him altogether, is hardly to be accounted answerable for defects which he did not create, and which he has not had opportunities of remedying. If in any emergencies-and it is only in emergencies that we hear anything of such things-it is found that the business of the State cannot be effectively done by the particular department whose function it is to do it, the outcry against the responsible minister is commonly stilled by the assertion that the evils complained of are not attributable to him; that they date back so many months, perhaps so many years; that they are, in fact, attributable to his predecessor; that he was doing his best to remedy them, &c. &c. In this way responsibility is commonly obscured. Everything has gone wrong; but it is nobody's fault, or the fault of so many people that it is impossible to fix the precise share of blame chargeable to each offender. The permanent subordinates, of whom no one probably ever hears anything beyond the walls of their office, may or may not be to blame; but as they receive none of the praise when everything goes right, they cannot fairly be censured when everything goes wrong. Besides, they justly plead that they have no power. can we help it?" they say. "If we had our own way, we would do very differently. But we have no independent authority. We wished to

"How

« ElőzőTovább »