CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN
A HISTOKY OF
AND THEIR
BEARING UPON AMERICAN POLITICS
BY DORMAN B. EATON
"7 think every one, according to the way Providence lias placed him
in, is bound to labor for the public good as far as he is able ' '
JOHN LOCKE
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS
FRANKLIN SQUARE
1880
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
E -JO&tf
12 HOHTH WASHINGTON SQL
NOTE.
IN submitting these pages to the public, it seems proper I should state
that the views they express concerning administration in Great Britain
are not based solely upon the authorities cited. During a sojourn of
more than a year in that country, I had given special attention to the
subject. The general studies then made have been recently verified by
special inquiries conducted in her principal Executive Departments;*
and it is but just to add that these later investigations were undertaken
pursuant to the request conveyed to me in the following communication :
DEPARTMENT OP STATE,
WASHINGTON, June 25, 1877.
Honorable DOBMAN B. EATON, Chairman Civil Service Commission:
SIR, The Act of March 3, 1871 (R. S., 1753), having, in terms, con-
ferred certain authority upon the President for the regulation of the Civil
Service, the proper exercise of which may make it desirable that he should
possess fuller information concerning the methods of such regulation in
countries where that service sustains relations most analogous to those of
the Civil Service of the United States, I have been requested by the Presi-
dent to say to you that he hopes you may find it practicable to inves-
tigate and make a report to him conceiving the action of the English
Government in relation to its Civil Service, and the effects of such action
since 1850.
But I must add that, there not appearing to be any appropriation available
for such purpose, you will not be authorized to incur any expense for which
the United States is to be held responsible.
I have the honor to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
W. M. EVARTS.
In bringing the substance of the report submitted to the President
before the public in this volume, I may be mistaken in the value of the
facts it presents as a contribution to the literature of reform ; but I cannot
be in my painful sense of the many defects in the execution of the work.
D. B. E.
* I am much indebted to various British officers and to several other gentlemen for their
polite and valuable assistance in aid of my inquiries ; and, without mentioning other
names, I desire to return my special thanks to Sir Charles Trevelyan, the venerable re-
former and statesman, and to Horace Maun, Esq., the efficient and accomplished Secretary
of the British Civil Service Commission.
INTRODUCTION
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
THE author of this book, Mr. Dorinan B. Eaton, is the chair-
man of the commission for devising rules and regulations for
the purpose of reforming the Civil Service, which was author-
ized by the Act of Congress approved by President Grant
March 4th, 1871. Soon after President Hayes entered upon
the duties of his office, he requested Mr. Eaton personally to
investigate the operation of the reformed system in England,
and to prepare a report upon the results of his observation.
Mr. Eaton accepted the invitation of the President, and de-
voted several months, with characteristic zeal and thorough-
ness, to an exhaustive inquiry upon the spot into the reasons,
methods, and results of the reform. His studies soon showed
him that the new system of appointment and the new tenure
of place in the Civil Service were but logical steps of progress
in the political development of England. The unreformed
Civil Service in Great Britain, as in the United States, was
founded upon the theory of feudal times, that public offices are
the property of the ruler. Upon this theory they were filled
for his benefit, and without regard to the fitness of the officer
or to the public welfare, and Mr. Eaton well calls the Forty-
fifth Article of Maama Charta the first Civil Service Rule.
IV INTRODUCTION.
By that article the king engaged not to "make any justices,
constables, sheriffs, or bailiffs but of such as know the law of
the realm." This was a declaration that administrative offices
should be filled by those who were competent, and not merely
by royal favor.
Pursuing his interesting researches from epoch to epoch, Mr.
Eaton's report has taken, naturally and fortunately, the form
of a history of the development of the Civil Service in Eng-
land, from the earliest day down to its present efficient and
excellent condition. It is a comprehensive manual of informa-
tion upon the subject, and there is no other work of the kind.
It answers the historical, theoretical, and practical questions
which are asked by every inquirer, the answers to which have
been hitherto very difficult to find. The work, indeed, is a
timely and valuable contribution to the literature of the re-
form, as well as an exceedingly interesting study in a neg-
lected branch of historical and political inquiry. The history
of the movement for reform in the United States does not fall
within the scope of Mr. Eaton's work, nor could he properly,
in this report, express at length his views of the results that
have been accomplished under the present administration. Yet
he treats fully of those principles of a sound service which are
common to both countries, and he presents a complete and well-
reasoned argument for their enforcement in the United States.
There are few points which any serious thinker upon the sub-
ject will find to have escaped Mr. Eaton's attention, while the
evidence of care in the preparation of the work is sure to com-
mand sympathy and confidence.
The reform movement which ended in the appointment of
the commission of which Mr. Eaton is chairman, was begun by
Mr. Thomas Allen Jenckes, a representative in Congress from
Rhode Island from 1863 until 1871. Ilis attention, and that
of many others, had been turned to the subject at the close
INTRODUCTION. V
of the war by the enormous increase of the number of places
within the patronage of the Government, and by the new and
extraordinary doctrines and practices in regard to their distri-
bution. These doctrines and practices threatened popular gov-
ernment itself. The "spoils" system introduced by President
Jackson, which is now stigmatized as the "American system,"
imperils not only the purity, economy, and efficiency of the ad-
ministration of the Government, but it destroys confidence in
the method of popular government by party. It creates a mer-
cenary political class, an oligarchy of stipendiaries, a bureau-
cracy of the worst kind, which controls parties with relentless
despotism, imposing upon them at the elections issues which
are prescribed not by the actual feeling and interest of the
country but solely by the necessities and profit of the oligar-
chy, while, to secure this advantage, party-spirit, the constant
and mortal peril of republics, is inflamed to the utmost. It is
a system which, by requiring complete servility to the will of
the oligarchy, both as the tenure of minor place and as the con-
O !/ * J.
dition of political promotion, destroys the individual political
independence which is the last defence of liberty. An elec-
tion thus becomes merely the registry of the decree of a cabal.
Government by the people, four-fifths of whom simply vote
for the ticket or the measures prepared by the oligarchy, sinks
practically into the empire of a corrupt ring. In a country
where every citizen ought to take an active part in practical
politics, this system disgusts with politics, and repels from them
good citizens who cannot compete with the professional politi-
cal class which gives all its time to a pursuit by which it prof-
its. The system necessarily excludes able men from public
life, and makes a great many of the conspicuous names in poli-
tics little illustrative of the real leadership of American abili-
ty, enterprise, and progress. The name of politician and office-
holder becomes a byword, and casts ridicule upon the very
VI INTRODUCTION.
name of reform. How complete was the subjugation of pub-
lic sentiment in this country within a few years, and how au-
dacious the effrontery of the spoils system, may be inferred
from, the deliberate argument of one of Tweed's political attor-
neys, that such " rings " are inevitable and indispensable in a
free country ; and from the contemptuous bitterness with which
a leader of the party opposed to Tweed echoed the same senti-
ment, by sneering that when Dr. Johnson described patriotism
as the last refuge of a scoundrel, he did not know the infinite
possibilities of the word reform. There is no more startling
sign of political demoralization than the craft which turns the
follies of reformers into blows at reform. This situation has
been plainly seen by the most intelligent observers of our poli-
tics. In the second volume of his Constitutional Ilistwy of
the United States, Yon Hoist quotes Senator Marcy's notorious
declaration that" the politicians of New York * * * see noth-
ing wrong in the rule that to the victor belong the spoils of
the enemy ;" and adds, " From that hour this maxim has re-
mained an inviolable principle of American politicians, and it
is owing only to the astonishing vitality of the people of the
United States, and to the altogether unsurpassed and unsur-
passable favor of their natural conditions, that the State has
not succumbed under the onerous burden of the curse."
Mr. Jenckes began the general discussion of the subject in
a report of the Joint Select Committee on Retrenchment, of
which he was chairman. It was presented to the House of
Representatives on the 25th of May, 1868, and, with its appen-
dix, contains a mass of information which shows how deep was
his interest and how careful his investigation. The question
of reform had been very fully considered in England for sev-
eral years when Mr. Jenckes began his inquiries, and lie en-
tered into correspondence with Sir Stafford II. Northcote and
Sir Charles E. Trevelyan, who wrote the masterly report upon
&D n ... v-vi'^.,
12 NORTH WASHINGTON SQ8.
INTRODUCTION. vii
the organization of the Permanent Civil Service in Great Brit-
ain, dated November 23d, 1853. This report, with the Blue
Book called "Papers relating to the Reorganization of the
Civil Service," had opened the whole question in England. The
Blue Book contained the elaborate opinions of leading Eng-
lishmen in every department of private and public life, and
presents completely the argument, the objections, and the refu-
tations. No objection has been suggested in this country which
is not satisfactorily answered in this Blue Book. The instruct-
ive reports and speeches of Mr. Jenckes, although treated in
Congress with little consideration, aroused great interest in the
public mind, and led to some discussion in the press. The law
of 1871, authorizing the inquiry under which President Grant
appointed the commission of which Mr. Eaton is now chair-
man, was the last public service of Mr. Jenckes ; but during
the short remainder of his life his interest in the question was
unabated. His valuable counsel was sought by the commission
in the early days of their labors, and it was most willingly
given.
The rules recommended to President Grant, and adopted by
him, were never effectively carried into practice at any point
of the service. The reasons for this failure were many, and it
is not necessary to consider them here. They all served, how-
ever, to show more clearly the extent and the power of the
evils of the system of patronage in the Civil Service, and the
necessity of reform. The subject having attracted public at-
tention, was cautiously mentioned in the platforms of all politi-
cal parties, but the allusions were evasive, and were evidently
intended only to propitiate a desire for reform which the party
managers did not believe to be strong or general enough to
compel its gratification. The subject, however, is one that nec-
essarily interests intelligent citizens, and, although derided by
politicians, it is not surprising that Mr. Hayes, in his letter ac-
Vlll INTRODUCTION.
cepting the nomination for the Presidency, spoke of reform in
the Civil Service as one of the questions so important as to
demand an expression of his convictions in regard to it. He
declared that the resolution upon the subject, in the platform
of the Convention that nominated him, was of "paramount
interest ;" and, after a vigorous expression of his views, he con-
cluded by saying, " The reform should be thorough, radical,
and complete. We should return to the principles and practice
of the founders of the Government, supplying by legislation,
when needed, that which was formerly the established cus-
tom. They neither expected nor desired from the public
officers any partisan service. They meant that public officers
should give their whole service to the Government and to the
people. They meant that the officer should be secure in his
tenure so long as his personal character remained untarnished
and the performance of his duties satisfactory. If elected, I
shall conduct the administration of the Government upon
these principles, and all constitutional powers vested in the
Executive will be employed to establish this reform."
Notwithstanding the strong declarations of the Republican
platform and of the candidate upon this subject, the managers
of both parties carefully gave the chief prominence during
the canvass of 1876 to other questions, and there was no gen-
eral popular discussion of reform. But in his inaugural ad-
dress President Hayes unequivocally reaffirmed the views of
liis letter of acceptance. He said, " I ask the attention of the
public to the paramount necessity of reform in the Civil Ser-
vice a reform not merely as to certain abuses and practices of
so-called official patronage which have come to have the sanc-
tion of usage in the several departments of our Government,
but a change in the system of appointment itself a reform
that shall be thorough, radical, and complete a return to the
principles and practices of the founders of the Government."
INTRODUCTION. IX
The President gave the most conspicuous proof of his sincer-
ity in selecting for the Secretaryship of the Interior Mr. Carl
Schurz, who is known as a faithful friend of reform.
During the administration of President Hayes, although its
conduct upon this subject has been inexplicably inconsistent,
and although no general and uniform system of determining
minor appointments has been adopted, yet very much more
reform has been accomplished than under any previous ad-
ministration. The abuse of Congressional dictation of nomi- ! .
nations has been in a great degree remedied. The usurpation
of executive power, called the courtesy of the Senate, by which
the Senator or Senators from a State control the confirmation
of all appointments in it, has been in a conspicuous instance
overthrown. The interference, in caucuses and conventions, of /
office-holders, with all their patronage to buy votes, has been ;
prohibited, and had the prohibition been vigorously enforced,
the results would have been very much more favorable to the '
rapid progress of reform. The robbery known as political as-
sessments, a tax levied by party committees upon office-holders
as the price of their places a tax which puts up the public
service at auction, and illustrates the degrading tenure of office
under a system of patronage has been strictly forbidden;
and so far as the President can defend the incumbents by the
frankest expression of his views, and of his determination that
they shall not suffer for refusing to be robbed, the abuse has
been corrected. There is no donbt that the evil has been very
much lessened, but there is no doubt, also, that there is still
connivance at the practice on the part of many superior of-
ficers, and the only really effective remedy lies in the appoint-
ment of superior officers who are sincerely resolved to stop it.
Reform thrives upon moral confidence, and nothing would de-
velop faith in it so fully as the knowledge that the offices of
great patronage were filled by men thoroughly persuaded of
X INTRODUCTION.
the necessity of reform, and courageous enough resolutely to
enforce it.
The great measure of reform, however, which has been ac-
complished under the administration of Mr. Hayes, is the sub-
stitution of what Mr. Eaton justly calls the merit system for
favoritism in appointment at the New York Custom-house and
Post-office, the two chief offices in these departments in the
country. The faithful enforcement at these offices of the rule
that minor appointments shall be made only upon the proved
merit of applicants, in a competitive examination, has shown
conclusively the practicability of the system. All applicants
have been submitted, without fear or favor, to equal tests, and
the selections for appointment have been made in the same
way from those who have proved their superiority. The char-
acter of the persons so appointed, and the value of their ser-
vices as compared with those appointed under the old system
of political and personal favoritism, are but additional proofs
of the excellence of the system. In both of these offices, how-
ever, the reform has been applied only to original appointments
in certain grades, and to certain promotions. The service in
both is full of those who were appointed under the old system
of favor and reward, and who naturally cherish its traditions.
This does not produce an atmosphere of reform, and it makes
abuse easier; but it is incontestable that the simplicity of the
method and the great value of the result have been demon-
strated at these two chief points. If practicable there, reform
is practicable everywhere.
These are results which are due wholly to the sincere con-
viction and purpose of the President, and, however imperfect
and incomplete, they are of great importance and significance.
It was in pursuance of his general purpose that he asked Mr.
Eaton, as chairman of the Civil Service Commission, personally
to conduct the inquiry of which this work is the fruit. Mr.
INTRODUCTION. XI
Eaton's report shows conclusively from the experience of Great
Britain how the radical vice of our system of appointment in
the Civil Service can be corrected. The modern party patron-
age system in England began in 1693, and continued until the
beginning of the reform in 1853. Instead of the " clean sweep,"
upon every party success, which is the disgrace of our repub-
lic, only certain high officers now go out in England when
their party is defeated. " We limit," says Mr. Gladstone, " to
a few scores of persons the removals and appointments on these
occasions, although our ministers seem to us not infrequently
to be more sharply severed from one another in principle
and tendency than are the successive Presidents of the Great
Union." The legitimate sphere of personal political ambition
in a free country is that of competition before the public for
posts of legislation and of political administration. But the
details of the Civil Service belong to a business, not to a politi-
cal administration, and the line between proper political and
non- political places is perfectly well defined. When King
James II. insisted that nobody should have an ale or beer li-
cense who did not favor his policy, he was only asserting the
modern principle that nobody shall be an inspector in the
Custom-house, or shall deliver letters at the Post-office, unless
he is a supporter of the dominant party. We denounce, as in-
tolerable tyranny, Cromwell's test of Presbyterian ism, and the
Test Acts of Charles II., which made religious profession of
another kind an essential qualification for holding minor office.
But they were no more tyrannical, or intolerable, or absurd
than our party tests. Sir Robert Wai pole's use of the Secret
Service money to buy votes in Parliament was no worse than
buying votes with patronage in a Convention. I have known
an officer of the customs who intended, as a delegate in a party
Convention, to vote against the candidate favored by the col-
lector, who was also a delegate. The collector, learning the
X 1 1 INTRODUCTION.
intention of his subordinate, gave him the choice of voting as
the collector wished, or losing his place. The subordinate had
a wife and family dependent upon him, and he yielded. This
was Sir Robert Walpole'fi method, but his bribery was manlier
than the collector's.
Reform of the system which necessarily produces such
abuses is no more an experiment than the reform of any
other evil. The system of civil appointment for the public
service by patronage and favoritism, like the Corporation and
Test Acts like all other forms of injustice and abuse when
it is challenged by advancing civilization and greater intelli-
gence, must show why it should not be abolished. The abuses
which it is said cannot be reformed are merely surviving
forms of old venality and wrong, which have been univer-
sally condemned as monstrous and intolerable, and whose
gradual disappearance marks the progress of society. The
readers of this book w r ill decide whether the abuses of the
worst days of English party politics abuses which the good
sense of England lias entirely removed are necessary either
for the maintenance of party government or for the promo-
tion of political morality in the United States.
CONTENTS.
I. Introductory 1
II. The Feudal Spoils System 12
III. Influence of Despotism on Administration 39
IV. Administration under the Tudors and until Cromwell 44
V. Cromwell's Administrative System 53
VI. Public Service under Charles II. and James II 60
VII. The New System of Administration under William III 69
VIII. Party Government from Anne to George III 82
IX. Administration under George III 102
X. The Reform Period after the Fall of Lord Bute 1 20
XI. The Improved Condition after the Fall of Lord North 128
XII. Administration under George IV 144
XIII. Partisan System waning and Examinations introduced 155
XIV. Final Contest between Patronage and Open Competition 169
XV. Open Competition introduced into British India 177
XVI. Government Inquiry and Report leading to the Introduction of the
New System in 1853 181
XVII. How the New System was received 195
XVIII. The First Order for a Civil Service Commission and Competitive
Examinations May, 1855 203
XIX. The first Five Years under the New System 208
XX. Parliamentary Investigation of the New System in 1860 216
XXI. Development of the New System from 1860 to 1870 223
XXII. The Order for Open Competition in 1870 228
XXIII. First Experience of Open Competition 234
XXIV. Parliamentary Inquiry into the Civil Service in 1873 238
XXV. The Executive Investigation of 1874 244
XXVI. The Results of the Merit System based on Open Competition in
British India 248
XXVII. The Practical Operation of the Merit System since 1875 259
XXVIII. Concerning Parts of the old Spoils System excluded by the Constitu-
tion of the United States 266
XXIX. Some Practical Tendencies and Relations of the Reformed Method. . 288
XXX. The Merit System in the Great Departments 297
XXXI. Social, Moral, and International Bearings of the New System 317
XXXII. A Summary, and the Significance of the Reform Movement 342
XXXIII. The Bearing of British Experience upon Civil Service Reform in the
United States 3G1
APPENDIX A 429
APPENDIX B 438
APPENDIX C. . 445
CIVIL SEEYIOE
IN
GREAT BRITAIN
INTRODUCTORY.
CHAPTEE I.
The character of our early politics. The sources of our Constitution. Ad-
ministrative abuses little anticipated. The forecast of Washington.
' The changes of a century. Present views as to reform in this country.
First study of administrative questions in Great Britain. Reasons why
we should consider British precedents. Attention to Civil Service Re-
form on the part of the principal nations. Our neglect of the subject.
Extent of reforms in the leading European States. The situation in Can-
ada. Causes of our neglect of administrative questions. Party despot-
ism. Different theories as to a reform policy. The value to us of British
experience. Some of the main questions to be considered, and their bear-
ing on our politics. No mere imitation of British precedents desirable.
Why we must go back in our inquiry to first principles and to the origin
of abuses. The great variety and extent of British administration. Ad-
ministration in India. Our evils all dealt with in the experience of Great
Britain. The policy on which the leading nations have acted in making
reforms. The exposure of abuses a patriotic duty.
AN English historian declares that " no nation ever started
on its career with a larger proportion of strong character or a
higher sense of moral conviction than the English colonies in
America. They almost entirely escaped the corruption that
so deeply tainted the government at home." '
It is universally admitted that our early leaders in politics
embodied, in a remarkable degree, the ability and the high
moral tone of their generation. There is, perhaps, no more
Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii., p. 2,
herein elsewhere cited as 1 or 2 Lecky.
1
2 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN".
striking proof of their statesmanship than the fact that, when
heated from recent battle-fields and filled with righteous in-
dignation at the injustice of the mother country, they yet
brought to the great work of forming a constitution judg-
ments so calm and unprejudiced that they were able to con-
sider her precedents in the same judicial spirit in which they
considered those of other nations. Men of narrower minds
might have rejected all the political wisdom of their race.
They might have given us a constitution as original and as
disastrous as the constitutions which fell to the lot of France.
"We can better appreciate the enlightened spirit which ani-
mated our early statesmen, if we consider the narrow preju-
dices which even now stand in the way of improved methods
which are denounced as of foreign origin.
The authors of our constitution accepted good material
wherever they found it ; but from no quarter did they gather
so much as from the experience of England. The theory of
executive power ; the great divisions of government into
three departments, with well-defined jurisdictions ; two houses
of legislation with the whole body of parliamentary law ; trial
by jury ; the habeas corpus ; the common law, with its vast
stores of wisdom, extending to all business and all personal re-
lations ; the long series of statutes so far as not repugnant to
the new system ; criminal definitions and procedure in all
their larger parts ; the theory of military as subordinate to civil
authority ; the political conception of domestic and individual
rights and duties all these they drew from the same paternal
source from which had flowed their blood, their language,
and their civilization.
With wise adjustments, they incorporated all these political
elements into their new system of government. That govern-
ment, however, was not to be a mere imitation, but an origi-
nal and true Republic. They, therefore, rejected royalty and
primogeniture, the entire feudal theory, all class distinctions,
and all mingling of religion with politics. In their place,
they proclaimed common rights, equality before the law, and
freedom of speech and of worship. The new government, for
the very reason that it discards and rises above mere selfish
interests, more than any that has existed in modern times,
BZ
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRir'Sy! MSH '*'GrOfl s<?,3
both appeals to and requires general intelligence and public
virtue. " In proportion as the structure of a government
gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion
should be enlightened." '
At its creation the greatest dangers, the absorbing questions
affecting the new government, concerned rights, liberty, and
independence. Corruption bred in the daily work of adminis-
tration, partisan tyranny and debasement growing out of con-
tentions for patronage, office, and power, were almost un-
known, and they were but feebly imagined, in the first genera-
tion. It was natural that no very definite provisions should be
made against such sources of danger. "Washington, apparent-
ly, looked upon parties as an evil, and perhaps thought they
might be avoided. The great power of removal from office
was left to mere inference, and it is, therefore, without ex-
pressed limitation or safeguard. But. that generation must
be counted wise and patriotic which provides a remedy for
the evils which it knows. Certainly, statesmen who nobly
performed the duties of their own trying times, are not to be
complained of because they did not take precautions against
abuses which were only to afflict the country in future genera-
tions. No nation had, at that time, protected itself against
the evils of cojTUj3t_j)atronage and favoritism in bestowing
office. In no nation but England was there even freedom
enough to enable great parties to exist.
A century has passed, and it has produced great changes
in the old country and in the new. In Great Britain, these
changes have struck deeper both into social life and into the
political system than with us. But in the United States they
have long since made administrative abuses a source of solici-
tude and humiliation. They are now recognized as a grave
problem in our public affairs. Recently, and for the first
time, these abuses have been brought into the foreground of
a presidential contest. The promise of their removal has been
made the subject of party pledges before the people. Civil
service reform has become an issue in national politics.
Administrative abuses are of a kind that will naturally grow
1 Washington's Farewell Address.
4: CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
as wealth accumulates, population becomes more dense, and
public affairs increase in volume and complexity. They raise
issues in their nature as permanent as the selfishness and par-
tisanship from which they are born, and the government
which they threaten. Few thoughtful persons are so blind as
not to see that a great reform is essential to avert a great
calamity. How to bring it about is the question. There is a
profound sense of need to purify public administration, to ar-
rest partisan tryanny, and to bestow office upon men of worth
and capacity. But the public mind gropes and hesitates and
doubts ; having no clear conception as to what is possible, and
no definite method upon which it inclines to act. A few
statesmen very early comprehended, and the popular mind
is now beginning to comprehend, that, though the form-
ing of a wise and just government is the greatest achievement
of a people, its honest and vigorous administration involves
perils and difficulties little anticipated in the youth of nations. 1
With astonishment, and a sort of despair, the people of t^ie
United States now find as every older nation has found
that the question of good methods, of honest ways, and of
faithful servants, in administration, must take its place among
the grave and the permanent problems of statesmanship.
There is nothing more remarkable in the experience of
Great Britain, during the past century, than the measures she
has taken to reform administrative abuses. "What we have
most neglected in politics, she has most studied the science
of administration. Chatham and Burke set the example of
giving that subject a foremost place in the politics of their
country ; and during the last fifty years it has commanded the
earnest attention of her greatest statesmen. She has brought
about changes which have elevated the moral tone of her
1 Washington's experience in war strongly convinced him of the need of
competent officers in the military service. The Academy at West Point has
been the result. Simple and easy as civil administration was in his day,
seven years in the executive chair caused him to advise even the extreme
measure of a national university, " a primary object of which should be the
education of our youth in the science of government." (Washington's Eighth
Annual Message.) In his sixth annual message, President Jefferson sug-
gested an amendment to the Constitution to enable " a national establish-
ment for education" to be created and endowed.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 5
official life reforms which really constitute an era in her his-
tory. They are as a silver edge upon the dark cloud which
hangs over British administration in former centuries. While
this great work has been going on in the mother country, we
have fallen away from the better methods of our early his-
tory. We have come upon a period when we mourn over the
absence of the political virtues recognized in the past when
not a few good citizens despair of again seeing that purity of
official life which prevailed during our first generations. The
more thoughtful are asking whether the abuses which have
been so rapidly developed are due to our neglects as citizens, or
are inevitable under republican institutions. The republican
theory is arraigned at the bar of public opinion on charges ap-
parently never imagined by its authors. Seeing how much
better and more quietly administration is carried on in Great
Britain than in the United States, some gloomy and some
aristocratic spirits are ready to despair of the republic. They
attribute the obvious superiority to causes original and in-
evitable in the institutions of their own country. If faith
in the republican system has not been impaired, respect for
official life has been seriously undermined. Obviously, fun-
damental principles, not less than grave interests, are involved.
Nothing would seem, therefore, to be more appropriate or
more in the spirit of the great work of our fathers than to in-
quire whether, in the later experience of Great Britain
which is only a prolongation of that from which they made
such large selections there may not be something adapted to
our system and worthy of our consideration. Are her reforms
based on principles of which only a monarchy can take advan-
tage, or are they equally available under republican institu-
tions ? Can we remove our abuses without changing the form
of our government ?
But, were there no suggestions from the highest precedents
in our history, it would seem to be but the statesmanship of
national interest at a time when the leading states of the
world have made it a national policy to bring into comparison
even the works of mechanical industry to make ourselves ac-
quainted with the measures through which the freest and most
enlightened of the great nations of Europo has elevated the
C CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
character of her public administration. No nation can afford
to be ill-informed as to the methods by which other nations
advance their strength and prosperity. More and more, in
later years, the leading governments have comprehended, and
have acted upon the theory, that their peace and prosperity
are greatly dependent, not merely on officers in very high
positions, but upon the fidelity and ability of those in the public
service down to the very lowest places. All the leading na-
tions, except the United States, have recently, and as a matter
of policy, made searching investigations not only into their
own administrative methods but into the methods of other gov-
ernments. These inquiries have extended to civil and military
administration alike ; and neither prejudice nor partisan inter-
ests have been allowed to stand in the way of improvements.
Prussia set the example, after her humiliation by Bonaparte
in 1815, and her position is the fruit of her policy. The pres-
ent Emperor of Russia acted in the same spirit when he en-
tered upon the reform policy which has done so much to raise
his country from the degradation it had reached under the
corrupt civil and military service of former reigns. Great
Britain had investigated the excellent methods of France and
Prussia, before 1854. In later years, Great Britain has steadily
acted upon the principle that her prosperity and safety depend
on the character of her administration, and that the surest way
to correct its abuses is to investigate and expose them. The
United States, on the contrary, have, until very lately, given
but little attention to the growing abuses of administration at
home ; and they have utterly neglected the methods through
which rival nations have brought about great reforms.
This neglect has been the result of no general indifference to
foreign matters on the part of the American people. They
have rather been conspicuous for the zeal and success with
which, in every quarter of the globe, they have sought informa-
tion concerning productions, business, and every process of
science and industry. They are far better informed concern-
ing all the ways of raising crops and all the breeds of cattle,
horses, sheep, and swine in Great Britain, than they are con-
cerning the means by which her official life has been raised
and her politics purified. Our statesmen are familiar enough
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. T
with the history of Magna Carta, the Habeas Corpus, the Bill
of Eights, the Act of Settlement, and all the great events
which preceded our revolution. But what study have they
given to the principles and the carefully matured methods of
administration upon which the greatest British statesmen of
this century have bent their minds ? The history and devel-
opment of literature, science and art, in every leading Euro-
pean State, have been carefully studied by American scholars,
and they are a part of the cherished instruction of our edu-
cated classes. But what attention has been bestowed upon
those profound and salutary systems of administration which
have, during the present century, transformed the politics of
Europe and made learning and character the handmaids and
strength of governments ?
" All the governments of Europe have, in our time, singu-
larly improved the science of administration they do more
things, and do every thing with more order, more celerity, and
at less expense. 1
"During the last three quarters of a century a complete
revolution has taken place in the civil service of the principle
European States. Rigorous and impartial tests of qualification
have been applied ; and, where formerly were incompetency,
routine, and peculation, are now efficiency and fidelity. The
prosperity of these States is owing, in a great degree, to the
character of their civil service ; for it has been instrumental
to the development of their resources and to public economy. " 2
These great changes this moral regeneration of official life
in the Old World have all the more significance for us be-
cause they have taken place during the period within which,
by common consent, we have fallen away from the higher
standards of our earlier politics. These reforms are not less
worthy our attention for the reason that nowhere have they
been more complete and more salutary than in Great Britain
(and in her colonies and dependencies), where laws and insti-
tutions most analogous to our own prevail.
The spirit of improvement has at last come from abroad
1 "Democracy in America." By De Tocquevillc, vol. ii. p. 378.
2 Mr. Andrews, late Minister to Sweden, to Mr. Fish, Foreign Relations
of the United States, 1876, p. 553.
8 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
upon our own borders. A Governor-General of Canada is able
to refer to the prospects of that country in language which
we can hardly read without interest, if without self-reproach.
"It is necessary that the civil service should be given a
status regulated by their acquirements, their personal qualifi-
cations, their capacity for rendering the country efficient ser-
vice ; and that neither their original appointments nor their
subsequent advancement should, in any way, have to depend
upon their political connections or opinions. If you will take
my advice, you will never allow the civil service to be degraded
into an instrument to subserve, the ends of any political party.
Happily both the great political parties in this coun-
try have given in their adherence to this principle.
And I have no doubt that the anxiety manifested by our
friends across the line to purge their own civil service of its
political complexion will confirm every true Canadian in the
convictions I have sought to impress upon you."
How are we to explain these contrasts, and this strange
neglect of what so gravely concerns our honor and our pros-
perity ? Has it been because, in our days of inexperience
and sparse population, we adopted the theory that public ad-
ministration was an inferior matter, hardly worthy the thoughts
of statesmen, which might be handed over to the management
of great parties ? Have we acted under that delusion so
long that it requires a greater effort than we have made to see
the subject in its true relations ? Whatever the cause, it is
plain we have allowed abuses to grow almost without a serious
effort to remove them. We have neither traced them to their
causes nor comprehended their perils. We have endured
them with a sort of fatalistic resignation equally suggestive of
indifference and despair. We have been supinely floating on
the partisan currents of our politics in whatever direction they
have flowed. The caprice of the majority has been accepted
as the rule of duty. That majority, until the present de-
cade, at least, has tended more and more to become despotic."
1 Farewell speech of Lord Dufferin, Governor-General of Canada, Novem-
ber, 1878.
2 " I had remarked during my stay in the United States, that a demo-
cratic state of society might offer singular tacilities for the establishment of
despotism." " Democracy in America," vol. ii. p. 389.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 9
Manly independence in politics has naturally decayed. Ab-
sorbed by the current questions of party contests, our great
officers and political leaders have, decade after decade, re-
mained inactive in the presence of injustice and corruption in
the daily affairs of administration such as have not, for nearly
half a century, existed in the government of any other leading
nation, except Russia. With many politicians, it has come to
be treated as unpatriotic to suggest that our methods of deal-
ing with offices and parties can be improved. To such an
extent has the prevalence of a partisan spoils system blinded
and perverted the public judgment that we need to go back
to the time of Walpole, or at least to the time of George III.,
to find precedents for the scorn and arrogance with which!
partisan managers and the dominant majority, in this country,
have insulted and defied the higher sentiments of the people.
The more sober and introspective mood which has lately
come over the public mind is highly favorable to a reform in
our administration, and we may reasonably expect that the in-
fluence of the reform sentiment will continue to gain strength.
But well defined and consistent views and common methods
of action on the part of those who support reform are es-
sential. Such views by no means exist. Some of its friends
expect to see a reform brought about by a grand popular
effort, which shall at once drive all unworthy men from office
and open a new era in our politics. Others look upon re-j
form as a work of enlightenment and purification, to be j
gradually carried forward, and mainly through methods of I
its own which, by their salutary effects, will win the support
needed to hasten its completion. While a third class believe ;
that no reform is possible which is not carried out through
party action alone, and by the ordinary processes of partisan
politics. We need to decide which of these theories is cor-
rect.
Civil service reform in its true scope includes not merely
practical methods in administration, under which worth and
capacity may gain what is their due, despite corrupt and par-
tisan influence, but it also embodies great principles which
concern the duties of office and the very foundations of par-
ties and government. An essential condition of its support is
10 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
a belief that our partisan activity is excessive, and that great
parties would be more salutary if they trusted more to prin-
ciples and to patriotism, and less to mere interest, patronage, and
spoils. But, on the other hand, there are many who believe
that all such base elements are essential to the vigor, if not
to the existence, of great parties. Ordinary human nature
man as he is and will be in this country they hold to be in-
capable of any thing more patriotic or disinterested. They
maintain that our partisan system of dealing with office and
administration is a natural and original growth under our in-
stitutions. They assert that every attempt to change it is a
sort of rebellion against the theory of the government and
the conditions of its success. They declare that the British
Government is so different in theory and structure, and that
the relations of parties under it are so diverse from party re-
lations in the United States, that all reasoning from one to
the other is unwarranted and misleading. From these views,
it follows that those who seek a reform in our civil service
and especially those who hope to aid the work by a study of
British precedents are commending principles which it is
dangerous to act upon. They are urging standards of duty
and methods of action at once chimerical and impracticable
the dreams of doctrinaires the ideals of amiable enthusiasts
knowing little of politics or of human nature. It is plain that
the merits of these conflicting views cannot be tested without
an inquiry into the history of civil corruption in Great Britain
and a consideration of the relations which parties there hold to
government and to society. It will certainly not be an un-
profitable inquiry, if we shall find that the abuses, (for which
our corrupt partisans apologize by declaring them to be origi-
nal and inseparable from party government in a republic,)
were in full vigor under despotic kings two centuries before
this continent was discovered, and four centuries before party
government existed. How can we better determine the com-
parative relations of parties in the two countries than by show-
ing their origin and growth in Great Britain, their attitude
toward the partisan spoils system which prevailed there for
generations, and the manner in which British parties have
been compelled to accept a reform by which that system
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 11
has been exterminated and their own salutary vigor has been
strengthened ?
AVhen we see something like despair over the evils produced
by Congressmen interfering with the appointing power, will it
not be useful to consider a grand procession of reform meas-
ures, in which the origin, the damaging effects, and the re-
moval of those very evils, are but links in the great chain of
events ? At a time when demagogues proclaim, and faint-
hearted, good men fear that it requires an official virtue far
beyond any we should expect in this world, to have appoint-
ments made on the basis of merit fairly disclosed by non-par-
tisan tests, will it not be profitable to present the history of
the accomplishment of precisely that reform by another gov-
ernment acting upon methods quite available to us ?
In tracing the history 1 of abuses and reforms in Great
Britain, we shall find ourselves considering no unimportant
part of those great influences which have shaped the progress
of her civilization. The purposes of this volume, fortunately,
do not require any profound treatment of the subject. But I
am persuaded that its adequate presentation would show that
important events, commonly represented as carried forward by
influences much more general and external, have really had their
foundation in the interests of officials and the prostitution of
the public service. For example, the attitude of Great
Britain toward this country during our revolutionary war can-
not be fully appreciated without a better understanding, than
is usually illustrated by historians, of the influence of a des-
potic and corrupt civil and military administration in that
country, by which that war was at least aggravated and pro-
longed. It is not easy to estimate the extent to which the
morality and the policy of a great nation is moulded by the
character and the interests of those who fill its offices, apply
its resources, and use its name and authority.
In considering the methods by which the most liberal and
commercial nation of the Old World has elevated the charac-
1 " To give a full history of civil service reform in England would require
a bulky volume." Pamphlet by E. F. Waters, 1878. This interesting pam-
phlet, which, unfortunately for me, is of very limited range, is the only writ-
ing I have been able to find especially devoted to the subject.
lla CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
ter of its official life, \ve need not have any purpose of inere__
imitation. The question for us, like the question for our
early statesmen, is whether, from that quarter, we may gather
any thing adapted to our needs, and in harmony with our po-
litical and social system. And it is because the subject is so
general that it will be necessary to consider it quite beyond its
direct bearings upon public administration. How does it stand
related to liberty, to equality, to popular education, to equal
rights and common justice ? Is the spirit which has reformed
the civil service of Great Britain a monarchical, aristocratic
spirit, or is it a republican, democratic, and liberal spirit ?
On reflection, it will excite no surprise that British experience
is presented as richer, riper, and more varied, as well as vastly
more extensive, than that of the United States. It is such, not
merely because England had gathered the administrative wis-
dom of many centuries before the American nation was born.
Eliot and Vane, Chatham and Burke, had so lived and spoken
that the greatest reformers may even yet gather inspiration and
wisdom from their examples. Statutes had been enacted, in
the interest of pure and vigorous administration, to the moral
level of which none of our own enactments have yet risen, and
without which our courts could not sustain their most salutary
rulings. We nmst also remember that Great Britain has ruled
over so many millions of people, over countries so diverse and
races so different, and that she has held such supremacy in
commerce in all quarters of the globe, that every kind of
official authority has been exercised upon a scale with which,
in many particulars, nothing analogous in our affairs is com-
parable. To rule British India alone, with its vast public
works, its great army of more than 250,000 men, its 200,000
policemen, its revenues of $250,000,000 a year, its population
of more than 190,000,000, of many races and creeds at once
difficult to govern and dangerous to neglect even for a single
year requires more officials, more responsibility, more efficient
methods of administration, and I may almost add more care
and capacity, than would have sufficed for good administration
in all our territories and Indian affairs during this generation.
When to India we add the Australian colonies Tasmania and
South Africa, Canada and Jamaica, Ceylon and the many
.
12 NORTH WASHINGTON g*
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 11 J
islands and stations under the British flag all round the globe
there is presented a variety of official life and opportunities
for corruption under a bad system, such as never before, in
ancient or modern times, taxed the administrative wisdom of
a nation.
As we have to deal with the claim that some of our princi-
pal evils are inevitable accompaniments of the blessings of
republican government, we shall need to trace them to their
true source in the feudal system. Therein we shall find the
origin of the spoils system ; and the partisan theory of official
irresponsibility in the use of the appointing power in full
practice. From thence, we shall trace the gradual develop-
ment of the idea of official responsibility up to and through a
partisan system of appointments and removals, beyond which
we have not yet advanced. 1 It is the need of refuting the
false theories referred to which makes a historical treatment
of the subject indispensable. The course of history and the
results of experience through centuries will be the argument
and the refutation. The world takes notice that never before
has any nation ruled with such success dependencies so broad
or profited by a commerce so extensive as now belong to
Great Britain. Is that success more due to the form of her
government or to the system of her administration ? AVe are
of the same Anglo-Saxon race as the British people. We have
a form of government to which we are devoted, and which
we do not intend to abandon. If we are compelled to believe
that, under our administrative system, we could not manage
the dependencies of Great Britain or even British India
1 Exceptions must be made of the civil service reform experiment success-
fully entered upon and needlessly abandoned under President Grant (see
Appendix C) ; and of the reform policy and measures of President Hayes,
the admirable spirit, and the effects of which limited in range as these
measures have thus far been are full of encouragement. The administra-
tion of the Department of the Interior and of the New York Post Office has
been made to approach closely to the British standards ; and the Custom
House, at New York City, is being raised out of the quagmire of partisan
politics. Political assessments, official interference with the freedom of
elections, and the despotic sway of partisan manipulators, have already re-
ceived a considerable check from the present administration, which shows
how easily a more comprehensive and systematic reform may be carried
forward.
11(? CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
alone for a single decade, are we prepared to assign as the
cause either the inherent weakness of our form of government
or our own incompetency as administrators ? If not, what is
the cause ?
With so much depending on the fidelity and wisdom of
officials, it is no matter of surprise that administrative ques-
tions have engaged the serious attention of British statesmen.
Public administration, in Great Britain, has, in fact, been re-
duced to something like a science. It has taken rank with
legislation ; having its fixed principles, its carefully nurtured
methods, its theory of parties, its well-considered tests of ca-
pacity and character, its limits of work, recreation, age, and
responsibility of which the British people take notice and
from which high officers dare not depart. It is all the more
worthy our attention, because it is the experience of a people
than whom none are more severely practical and utilitarian
of an empire whose institutions are most free and analogous to
our own. It will appear that, either in the home government
or in India, substantially all the abuses we have endured, and
all the specious arguments by which their contimiance has been
excused, were familiar to English statesmen long before we
began to talk about political corruption. Even our late at-
tempts at the limitation of these abuses are but the reproduc-
tions of modes of relief quite familiar in British experience.
If we believe that the great care given to public admin-
istration, in the older countries, is by reason of any thing
peculiar to monarchies, or is a mere attempt to reconcile them
to the more liberal ideas of modern times, I venture to think
that our mistake is very great. It is only a counterpart of
that we make in supposing that a real reform in the civil ser-
vice of a great nation can be brought about either in a sweep-
ing and sudden way, or by any partisan method, or without
a comprehensive and patriotic policy steadily pursued by the
government and intelligently supported by the people. We
shall, on the contrary, find reason to believe that the work of
administrative reform, in the older countries, has been guided
by a sagacious and comprehensive statesmanship, aiming at a
greater strength and a larger commerce a statesmanship by
no means untouched by national pride and ambition. It has
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 11(1
aimed to increase the power of the nation and the patriotism
of the people by bringing superior character and capacity into
official places of every grade.
I am not unmindful that there are people who will be
ready to denounce as unpatriotic any comparison unfavorable
to ourselves. But I can feel no patriotism to be higher than
that which arraigns our national vices only in the hope of ar-
resting them. u The most important lessons a nation can
learn from its own history are to be found in the exposure of
its own errors." 1 In the religious and moral sentiments,
broadly developed in the homes of our people, and in general
education more and more cherished among them, we may
surely find a basis as solid and a potency as great for high
national effort as ever existed in the citizenship of any coun-
try. But such capacity will be of little avail if a sort of
Turkish or Mexican conceit that our methods are perfect, and
a false patriotism fatal to self-inspection, shall keep us blind
to the peril of a decline in the moral tone of official life, while
making ns half unconscious of its disgrace. Kor will our
virtues much more avail if the voice of truth and patriotism
is to be silenced by the domineering spirit of the political ma-
jority and the partisan leaders. We need to see ourselves
distinctly as we appear in the light of administrative wisdom
reflected from the foremost nations of the Old World.
1 " A History of our Own Times," by McCarthy, vol. i., chap. 8.
CHAPTER II.
Origin and growth of the idea of official responsibility. Corrupt use of
public authority held no wrong long after such use of public money ad-
mitted to be indefensible. The spoils system originated in the feudal sys-
tem and is an outgrowth of despotism. All offices for sale, all officials venal,
all administration corrupt, in feudal times. Sale of offices tended to make
them hereditary and prevented frequent removals. Civil Service Rules
in Magna Carta. Our abuses shown to have monarchical precedents.
Reform measures and the " Good Parliament. " Rebellion against the
spoils system under Richard II., in 1378. Remarkable Civil Service
reform law of that reign. A second rebellion, of the same kind, in the
next century. Its results.
AT whatever period, short of going back to feudal times,
we investigate British administration with the purpose of em-
bracing in its later history all that is material to our own con-
dition, we find not a little to invite us still further into the
past, unless we are willing to overlook the old forms of modern
abuses.
But for that reason, it would suffice to state its condition
when our constitution was adopted, and from thence to trace
its progress to our time. Earlier than that date, however,
we shall find that there is much especially worthy our attention.
As we go back over its course, we are struck with the evi-
dence, everywhere presented, that the progress made in civil
administration, though having many irregularities and oscilla-
tions, has really been a sort of evolution from a narrower to a
broader wisdom, from ignorance to intelligence, from injustice
to justice, from a lower to a higher public morality, from the
lawlessness of official caprice to the sternness of official respons-
ibility in dealing not only with official duties in the strict
sense, but with public affairs altogether ; the ascent, though
much affected by the character of the king, generally keeping
pace with the rising public intelligence and liberty.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 13
It is not necessary to consider whether it has more frequently
happened that government has originated in democratic
equality and degenerated into despotism, or in despotism of
some sort, and been improved up to free institutions. For it is
familiar history, but not less instructive to keep in mind, that we
may readily go back upon the course of the British, or indeed of
any European government, to that period when power over
the civil service (I should rather say the king's service) was ar-
bitrary ; when neither character, nor capacity, nor economy, nor
justice, nor duty or responsibility of any sort, was recognized
by the ruler, if demanded by the subject, in connection with offi-
cial appointments or removals. K~ot only the appointing power,
but control in every way, on the part of the king or chieftain,
over his subordinates, was arbitrary, universal, and unchal-
lenged the merest perquisite and appendage of paramount
authority.
For a long period after there was regular government, it is
familiar knowledge that the three great departments legisla-
tive, executive, and judicial did not exist ; but the king, or
the king with his council, made up of his favorites, was
supreme over the whole field of government, and exercised
every kind of authority. Government of course had none
of the modern limitations in favor of religion or right,
humanity or conscience, liberty or justice. It was a long
period, also, after there were regular officers and departments,
in rudimental form, with duties quite analogous to those now
assigned them in all the greatest states of the world, before
there was any evidence that rulers or officers, having the power
of appointment or supervision for the execution of the laws,
recognized any obligation to regard merit, or to consult the
interests or comfort of the people. Such a sense of obligation
is of later origin and of very slow growth. Long after the
time when, to use public money for the private purposes of the
king or the great officers of state or of any powerful faction in
politics (for parties were a later development) was generally re-
garded as a crime, and was punished as such, there was no public
opinion and much less any law that condemned the use of
the appointing power, or of any kind of official influence, for
such reprehensible purposes. The theory of the notorious
2
14: CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
Judge Barnard, 1 that, when, he gained an office, he acquired
the right to use its patronage and influence to suit himself
and his friends, was the unchallenged creed of every king
and high officer (with the exception of here and there an
official far in advance of his age), from William the Norman
toWilliam Prince of Orange, except we shall find that Crom-
well rose to about the partisan level of General Jackson in
the use of the appointing power.
It needs no reasoning to make it plain that a long period
must have elapsed, after some enlightened spirits first
affirmed the true rule of official duty, before there was any
public opinion in its behalf, that materially checked the haughty
pleasure of the kings, lords, or great officers of an arbitrary
age.
The first instance I have met with of the coercive power of
such a public opinion, was early in the thirteenth century,
when the historian says " the opinion of the nation was strongly
expressed in favor of reform, and the king was compelled to
choose his subordinate ministers with some reference to their
capacity for business. ' ' 8
In view of the facts that, even in these enlightened times,
it is thought a crime for an officer to apply public money for
the use of himself or his party, but is very generally recognized
as no wrong to use his official influence (to say nothing of his
time needed in the public service, just as selfishly), for the
same purpose, we need not express much surprise that the
coarse and obtuse morality of a rude and uneducated people
passed no condemnation upon bribery or upon the open pur
chase and sale of office. They long remained too blunt and
reckless to take any notice that there is really the same duty
to use public authority that there is to use public property, only
for public purposes. Such arbitrary and corrupt ways of deal-
ing with office, in the ruder ages of British history, were
1 When Judge Barnard was asked on his trial to explain his system of ap-
pointment, this was his answer :
" Here, counsellor, this is my court ; I have won this office ; this
patronage is mine." George G. Barnard Impeachment, trial, vol. iii., p.
1641.
. "Stubbs' Constitutional History of England, vol. i., p. 355.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 15
nothing exceptional in the affairs of government ; for they
are but an example of the manner in which all its powers were
prostituted ; to extort the earnings and hold down in poverty
and ignorance the masses of the people ; to fill the treasuries,
to minister to the vices and luxuries, and to fight the battles,
of kings, lords, and bishops. The pleasure, ambition, and
power of the kings, nobles, and great officers were everything ;
justice and equality, duty and economy, the personal worth of
the citizen, and the effect of administration upon the people at
large, were nothing with those who controlled the nation ; ex-
cept in the rare instances when a long-outraged people would,
in wrath and despair, follow a Jack Cade or a Wat Tyler in
bloody assault upon their oppressors.
The reigns of the Plantagenets and the Tudors may be re-
garded as the palmy days of the despotic-spoils system of office ;
for everything in government and society was in the same spirit
that crushing spirit of feudal subordination and dependence
under which all the public offices and places, and nearly all
the land of the kingdom, not in the hands of the Crown, the
nobles, or the Church, were held subject to a solemn oath and
condition to king or lord " to be a liegeman for life . . . and
to keep loyalty to him . . . for life and death." Charters
and monopolies, in a fit of good-nature, were tossed by a king
to some borough, great officer or favorite that had pleased him ;
and, in a fit of anger or drunkenness, they were as arbitrarily
revoked. When a king could "confer two hundred manors
upon a brother," and reward every great baron and favorite
with rich estates at his will ; when every successful warrior
was given not only the spoils of his enemy, but lands and
houses arbitrarily taken from citizens at home ; when vast
spaces could be appropriated to forests and pleasure-grounds
by kings and dukes without consent if not without compensa-
tion ; when from amidst the armed followers who attended
their journeys, or from the lofty turrets of their castles and
palaces, so many of which have survived the spoils system, of
which they were the citadels, the great lords and ecclesiastics
could look down in haughty defiance upon a half -enslaved
common people then indeed there is no ground for surprise
that offices and places, salaries and sinecures, removals and
1C CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
promotions, were the mere perquisites and playthings of the
great and the highborn. But we may well wonder, not merely
that the system, but that the smallest example of it, should
have survived to these times.
It is an interesting fact that the absence of any controlling
sense of duty to bestow office, either with reference to the
merit of the officer or the interests of the people, tended to
make, and to a large extent did make, offices hereditary. It
was natural that ministers and noblemen, having offices for
sale, should seek to enhance the market price by strengthening
all the guarantees of permanence in tenure. There _being
no standard of right, except power and influence, for holding
an office, those in offices naturally and openly used their
authority to extend and transmit their tenure. A statute,
enacted in 1452, declares that no officer of the customs shall
have any " estate certain in his office ;" but, significantly
enough, it further provides that this prohibition shall not
' ' prejudice our sovereign lady the Queen, the Prince, or the
Duke of Buckingham," or several others named, who of
course might continue to demand and receive the full market
price for offices and places sold in perpetuity. Hence sprung
the spirit which supported a hereditary crown and nobility, as
well as some other hereditary offices which still survive, and
many that do not. In these facts, we may find the reason
why frequent removals from office, even in the worst times,
were not so serious abuses in England as they have been with
us. By its very magnitude, one great evil put some limits to
another.
The offices or dignities that early became hereditary and
long continued so were very numerous. Nor was this all ; for
the right to appoint to office and to sell the appointment openly
for money became also and long remained hereditary ; some-
times in great families and sometimes in the holder for the
time being of the offices themselves.
Mr. Stubbs 1 speaks of hereditary offices being numerous in
the thirteenth century. I believe some of these dignitaries
(besides the king and nobility), which I think we should call
officers, are yet hereditary.
1 Constitutional History, vol. i., p. 355.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 17
In 1552, in the reign of Edward YI., 1 a law was enacted pro-
hibiting the sale of offices, but it contained this curious ex-
ception, that it shall not apply to the Justices of the Court of
King's Bench or Common Pleas, or to the Justices of the
Assize ; and therefore those officials were expressly left at
liberty to exercise freely the hereditary right of making sale,
for their own profit, of offices and places in their own courts.
And the act further declares that the " prohibition shall not
extend to any sale or bargain, gift, promise, nomination, bond,
or covenant for office" to be made before March then next ;
a proviso equally remarkable as illustrating a well developed
machinery for contracting for offices and nominations to be
made binding by ''bonds and covenants," and as suggesting
that not a few votes were probably secured for the act by
leaving a free market for official corruption during nine
months after its passage ! And the illustration will be the
more adequate if I add that, so late as 1825,* an act was passed
for the purchase by the government, from the hereditary
owner, of two public offices, one in the Court of King's Bench,
and the other in the Common Pleas, and under this law an
appraisement of the money value of each office was actually
made, and the government paid the value fixed, and became
again the owner and possessor of its own functions which had
been merchandise in the market for centuries.
These are but specimens of very many instances of the
purchase of civil offices ; to say nothing here of the scandalous
and open purchase of offices or places in the army, and in the
State Church, a practice only arrested in the army in 1871,
but which continues in the State Church to the present time,
as I shall more fully explain.
It is hardly worth while even to take a glance back of the
Korman Conquest ; and from that date to Cromwell the atti-
tude of the government toward public offices and places was
much the same. If not bestowed in the mere wantonness of
irresponsible and unlimited power, for the gratification of
pride, ambition, and passion, or sold for money, they were
used to strengthen the power of the Crown, the nobles, the
1 G Edward VI., chap. 15. 6 George IV., chap. 89.
18 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
Church, or the court favorites, who held them as perquisites
or spoils. "Not offices and places merely, but salaries without
labor or responsibility ; charters, grants, and monopolies ;
sentences, pardons, exemption from taxation, and from
services by land and sea were each and all given, sold, with-
held, or exchanged, in the same venal and arbitrary spirit, and
| with like impunity. : The common, jpsqple were substantially
unrepresented when this old spoils system was matured, and a
great proportion of them were in a condition of ignorance and
dependence little above slavery ; and power was so concen-
trated in a ruling class that public opinion, even had it been
far more enlightened, could have put only slight check upon
the arbitrary use of official authority.
I give a few examples, by way of illustrating the original
spoils system as it was applied in practice in the twelfth, thir-
teenth, and fourteenth centuries.
" Among the great officers of the Household which appear from the
pipe-roll to have been saleable are those of Dapifer, Marshal and Chan-
cellor. The last mentioned officer, in A.D. 1130, owes 3006 13s. 4d.
for the great seal. The office of Treasurer was bought by Bishop
Nigel for his son, for 400. ... In Norfolk, Benjamin pays
4 5s. to be allowed to keep the pleas of the crown. . . . John
Marshall pays forty marks for a mastership in the King's Court.
Richard Fitz Alured pays fifteen marks that he may sit with
Ralph Bassctt on the King's pleas in Buckinghamshire. At the
same time the officers of the ancient courts are found purchasing relief
from their responsibilities . . . anxious, no doubt, to avoid
heavy fine . . . for neglect of duty."
These examples of that refinement of royal and official infa-
my, under which not only was the highest of human function
1 For example : " In 1245, Henry III. ordered all shops in London to be
closed for fifteen days for the benefit of fairs proclaimed by him at West-
minster. Henry the VI. having bought some alum for 4000, sold it for
8000, granting in the sale an exclusive privilege of dealing in alum for a
term of years. Henry the VI. conferred upon a Tuscan merchant the priv-
ilege of importing a quantity of merchandise and prohibited its importation
by any one else until he had sold it off. America was only suffered to be
colonized under the permission of trading monopolists. Princeton Review,
March, 1878.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 19
that of administering justice thus openly sold for money,
but by which also another price was taken in advance for
impurity in the merciless and corrupt abuse of this purchased
authority, lend a deeper significance to that celebrated clause
of the great charter, extorted from King John, which declares
that "no man shall be taken, or imprisoned, or outlawed, or
exiled, or anywise destroyed ; nor will we go upon him, nor
send upon him, but by the lawful judgment of his peers or by
the law of the land. To none will we sell, to none will we
deny or delay right or justice. ' ' To this charter, some of the
great principles of our constitutions are to be traced.
If in some appropriate form we had incorporated into them
the principle of the forty-fifth article, which makes the King
promise that " we will not make any justices, constables,
sheriffs, or bailiffs, but of such as know the law of the realm
and mean to truly observe it," is there any reason to doubt
that primary justice in this country would have been far better
administered ? This clause of Magna Carta may be justly said
to be the First Civil Service Rule the first authoritative pro-
vision for securing due qualifications for an office to be found
in English history ; and I have not noticed that the constitution
of any State of the Union has yet come up to its spirit. The
majority is hardly yet convinced that a justice needs to know
the law provided he is only zealous for the party. As a con-
sequence there are thousands of justices in this country, as
ignorant of law as they are efficient in politics, and tens of
thousands of the victims of their ignorance and their prejudices
help to swell the volume of public discouragement and discon-
tent by reason of our bad administration. It cannot be matter
of surprise that, in an age when the conception of such princi-
ples was possible only during the uprising of a high national
sentiment, they were neglected and scorned as soon as those in
rebellion had laid aside their arms. The old abuses were
renewed. " So intimate is the connection of judicature with
finance under the Xorman kings, that we scarcely need the
comments of the historian to guide to the conclusion that it
was mainly for the sake of the profit that justice was adminis-
tered at all. . . . The Treasurer, the Chancellor, the
Justiciar, pays a sum of money for his office, or even renders
20 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
an annual rent. This practice runs on to the thirteenth cen-
tury, when so many of the dignities became hereditary."
" A great court and council was held at Nottingham, attended
by ... archbishops, bishops, and earls. On the first
day the King removed the Sheriffs of Lincolnshire and York-
shire and put up the offices for sale. Yorkshire fell to Arch-
bishop Geoffrey, whose bid of an immediate payment of 3000
marks and 100 marks of increment was accepted in preference
to the lower bid of the Chancellor, who proposed 1500 marks
for Yorkshire, etc. . . . The sheriffs, as we learn from
the rolls, were nearly all displaced. " " He (the King) brought
together a great council at Pipewell, . . . where he gave
away the vacant bishoprics, appointed a new ministry, and
raised a large sum of money by the sale of charters of con-
firmation^^ " The Bishop of Durham had paid heavily for
his honors ; he had bought the justiciarship and the earldom
of Northumberland." "Beneath a thin veil of names and
fictions, the great ministerial officers, and the royal interfer-
ence l>y writ in private quarrels, were alike matters of pur-
chase." 1
A statute 2 of this period so forcibly illustrates its spirit and
is so ingenious a contrivance for giving impunity to all kinds
of official corruption and tyranny, that I cannot forbear quoting
from it.
" Whereas it is contained in the statute of the second year of our
lord the King that none be so hardy to invent, say, or tell any false
news, lies, or such other false things, of the prelates, Dukes, Earls,
Barons, and other nobles and great men of the realm ; and also of
the Chancellor, Clerk of the Privy Seal, Steward of the King's House,
Justice of the one bench or of the other, and other great officers of the
realm ; and he that doth shall be taken and imprisoned until he hath
found him of whom the speech shall be moved. ' '
The magistrates were the mere dependents of the higher
officers. Official records and doings were official secrets.
No man could prove a charge from that quarter. It was only
needed to treat what was disagreeable as being ' ' false, ' ' to
1 See Stubbs' Const. History, vol. i., pp. 317-502, 496, 497, 384, 387, and 355.
* 2 Richard II., chap. 11.
CIVIL SEEVICE IN GREAT BRITADT. 21
make this law a terror to every man who thought to expose
corruption. In condemning this device of tyranny, let us not
.forget how generally a rule prevails with us, within the public
service, as demoralizing as this statute was without the service.
So long as our subordinate officers can be dismissed without
cause and without explanation, they are no more likely, than
was a subject of Hichard II. , to expose official delinquency in
high quarters. Year after year it may continue with no ex-
posure from subordinates who are silenced by the fear of an
arbitrary dismissal.
While considering the condition of civil administration at
that interesting period when the English people, as the first
instance in modern history, arose in their might to arrest its
abuses, I wish to present some further facts which show the
identity of such abuses in ages and under forms of govern-
ment remotely separated. It is generally believed that such
frauds as often come to light in our large cities in connection
with the offices of coroners, sheriffs, justices, marshals, and
clerks of courts, are original with us, and that they are the
inevitable evils or drawbacks of universal suffrage and free
institutions ; and this belief unquestionably discourages efforts
for their prevention. Nothing can be more unwarranted than
such opinions. A statute enacted more than six centuries
ago, 1 having recited "that forasmuch as mean persons, and
indiscreet, now of late are commonly chosen to the office of
coroners, when it is requisite that honest persons should
occupy such offices," proceeds to enact " that no coroner shall
demand or take anything to do his office, upon pain of great
forfeiture to the king." Another clause of the same law
enacts " that no sheriff or other King's officer shall take any
reward to do his office, . . . and if he do he shall be
punished at the King's pleasure ;" and still another provides,
in substance, that no clerk shall take anything but his fees for
doing his duty, and if he does he shall pay twice as much as
he has taken and also lose his place for a year ; and still
another forbids any " marshall, or cryer, or other officer of
justice," taking money wrongfully, and declares "that there
1 In 1275, 3 Edward I., chap. 10.
22 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN".
is a greater number of them than there ought to he, whereby
the people are sore aggrieved, ' ' and forbids such abuses in the
future, which are to be followed by a forfeiture of the office
and " grievous punishment at the King's pleasure."
In recognizing these familiar offences of our day, flourishing
under a royal and feudal government, it is worthy of notice
that the punishment denounced especially the forfeiture of
office is more drastic and effective in its nature than we have
generally provided. The twenty-ninth chapter of the same
law reaches another abuse not less familiar to us. It provides
that ' ' if any pleader ... or other do any manner of
deceit or collusion in the King's Court, or beguile the court or
the party, ... he shall be imprisoned for a year and a
day ; and if the trespass require greater pum'sliment, it shall
be a-t the King's pleasure."
In 1344, a statute prohibits justices from taking gifts or
rewards ; but a later statute 1 breathes a less stern morality,
for it makes this exception, " unless it be meat or drink, and
that of small value. ' '
The practice of extorting extra fees or arbitrary payments on
the part of officers of the treasury, is not an abuse of republican
origin, but was well developed under royalty before this con-
tinent was discovered. A statute of 1455 3 recites that
" whereas officers in the King's Exchequer do take fees, .
and also do take gifts and rewards for the execution of their
offices ... by extortion, . . . " and then denounces
penalties. So also the vexatious wrongs practiced by baggage
searchers and other officers of customs are not original here,
but were well developed in the old country four centuries ago.
In a statute of about the same date as that last referred
1 12 Edward III.
a This easy kind of morality seems indigenous in despotic states. Speak-
ing of Russian administration, a late author says : " The officials, quite puz-
zled by the severe punishments as to how to mask their corrupt cupidity, at
last invented a curious trick. They placed in their houses a great number
of religious pictures. Those who desired to win the ear of the judge, or of
any other official, suspended their presents as a sort of religious homage !
An ukase was thereupon published, that only seven or eight roubles' worth
could be suspended to the pictures.
3 Henry VI., chap. 3.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 23
to, 1 it is recited that " whereas divers water-bailiffs, searchers,
comptrollers of the search, and others, their deputies and
servants, within the ports of this realm, . . . do, by color
of their office, wrongfully take, by constraint ... of
goods and merchandise, . . . and cause great charges
and impositions, . . . and by such wrongful impositions,
they do discourage said merchants and do great damage, .
contrary to law and conscience . . . " ; and the act then
goes on to provide a remedy. This law is well adapted to
arrest the old abuses in the !New York Custom House, which
so many think are quite original in that office.
" As early as 1377 we find interference with the freedom of
elections of members of Parliament by the executive officers
made a ground of serious complaint by the people. ' ' 2 Even
the great offence of false counts, certificates and returns
of votes by inspectors of election and returning officers (gen-
erally deemed to be emphatically republican offences, if not
incurable), were fully developed and ingeniously dealt with in
England near two centuries before even a town meeting had
been held on this continent. A law of Henry VI. contains an
elaborate provision on that subject. It recites that ' ' sheriffs
for lucre" have not made due " elections of knights" (members
of Parliament), and ' ( no return of knights lawfully chosen, ' '
but ' ' knights . . . haver been returned which were
never duly chosen ; and sometimes the sheriffs have not re-
turned the writs which they had to make elections ; but the
said writs have been embezzled ; and made no precept."
The congeries of frauds of omission and commission, referred
to in this statute, would seem to indicate a royal original for
all the devices of rascality, for which the politicians of Lou-
isiana and Florida are thought to have shown unrivalled powers
of invention.
" Under an absolute king, whose will is law, that which he
chooses to sell passes for justice ;" and there can be no doubt
that the long practice of making merchandise of public
authority had vitiated and benumbed the moral sense of the
English nation on the subject, so that reform had become
I., chap. 5.
8 Green's History of the English People, p. 250.
24 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
tenfold more difficult ; just as the moral sense of this nation
has, from like causes, become blunted to the immorality of
levying assessments and bestowing office for mere partisan pur-
poses. It was not, it is well to repeat, mere offices and places
that were bought and sold that great officers in Church and
State haughtily treated as their perquisites, which they might
hand over to the highest bidder or give to please a favorite or
conciliate an enemy but every possible exercise of official
authority, by every grade of officials, from the lowest to the
highest, was in the market as merchandise, at the time when
Civil Service Reform may be said to have commenced in Eng-
land. It was not merely such universal and long-continued
precedents of venality that were to be encountered by any
reform, but there was also a false and pernicious public opinion,
developed through centuries, to the effect that such abuses were
inevitable ; because neither in England nor in any part of the
world were there any examples to the contrary. In France,
for example, ' ' the purchase of office was legalized. A bureau
was opened for their sale. . . . The kings of France,
in order to raise money, made the judicial offices in Parlia-
ment saleable." ' In every European country, in a certain
stage of its civilization, offices have been bought and sold.
And besides all this ground of discouragement, there was
the great fact that those who sanctioned and practised such
corruption, and who gained money, authority, and influence
thereby, were the ruling, the high-born, the educated classes
the royal family and the nobles the bishops and the priests
the ministers and the generals great lawyers who had become
judges all persons in places of authority or social influence.
Then, as now and ever, from its very nature, the cause of
administrative reform was the cause of the common people
the cause of justice and equal rights among them, the cause of
personal merit against every one having special privileges and
perquisites against the whole official or partisan body. But the
great body of the people were utterly ignorant and were hardly
represented at all. The public press, and other great modern
agencies for awakening and combining a public protest, did
1 Young's Sketches of the French Bar.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 25
not exist. Freedom of speech did not exist ; the right of
petition was not recognized. In such a time, it might well
have been said that a reform of such abuses seemed impossible.
To attack them was, indeed, hardly less than a rebellion ; and
the question raised by a reformer was a constitutional question
of disturbing the balance of power in the state, by an elevation
of the masses.
' ' The nobility, and the knights and members of knightly families,
made up a warrior caste, who termed themselves gentle by birth, and
who looked down upon the great mass of the lay community as be-
ings of almost inferior nature. . . . The peasantry and the
little allodialists were ground down with servitude and forced to till
the soil as abject dependents of the barons."
In those times the spoils system was neither an anachronism
nor an importation, but a congenial growth in keeping with
general despotism, injustice, and violence. To assail that
system required not simply the little courage which suffices to
dissent from one's party platform, or the small patriotism need-
ed to forbear a nomination to a little office, but the forecast of
a statesman in advance of his times, the courage of a patriot
ready to defy a domineering class and a merciless king, or per-
haps the resignation of a martyr ready to go to prison if not
to the block. It is plain that to interfere with such a sys-
tem was nothing less than an assault upon the power of the
king. But in those times the king luled, in popular estima-
tion, by the favor of Heaven. His government was a divine
institution.
This added vastly to the awe it inspired and the power it
wielded. In the language of Mr. Lecky, ' ' It placed the sove-
reign entirely apart from the category of mere human institu-
tions ;" and (I may add) it therefore made a civil service
reformer a rebel against Divine Providence as well as a traitor
against the king. He is with us only a visionary and an enemy
of the party. This divine attribute, in those old times, was
thought to extend to the physical person of the king, and to give
him power over the ills of men a power the exercise of which
1 Creasy's History English Constitution, p. 82.
26 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
was for centuries used, with great political effect, in the cure of
diseases ; every instance of which was accepted as a fresh proof
of the king's right to rule and of the smile of Heaven upon
him. This perverse veneration even surviving the cruelty of
Mary and the treachery of Charles I. and James I. was ex-
tended to the contemptible voluptuary who succeeded Crom-
well. In a single year Charles II. touched for the king's evil
8500 times, and nearly 100,000 persons fell on their knees
before him for that healing touch during his reign. Nor was
it the humble and ignorant alone who were deluded ; for in
1687 the King touched more than TOO sick in the centre of
learned society at Oxford.
The delusion did not end with the seventeenth century. A
solemn service for touching by the Queen was printed in the
Common Prayer-book of the State Church during the reign of
Queen Anne. Her Privy Council issued a proclamation stating
where the Queen would perform the miracle. Dean Swift
made an application to her in 1711 to cure a sick boy. In a
single day, in 1712, two hundred persons were touched by her,
and among them was the celebrated Samuel Johnston, then a
scrofulous child. Even so late as 1838, a minister of the Shet-
land Islands asserts that no cure for scrofulous diseases was at
that time there believed to be so efficacious as the royal touch.
Nor could the democratic spirit of this land at once dissipate
the madness. Mr. Lecky says that " a petition has been
preserved in the records of the town of Portsmouth in New
Hampshire, asking the assembly of that province in 1687 to
grant assistance to one of the inhabitants who desired to make
the journey to England in order to obtain the benefit of the
royal touch. ' ' How brave and audacious must a reformer be
to challenge any use of a prerogative in the hands of mortals
thus favored by the powers above.
Returning again to the progress of the spoils system, we find
two great popular uprisings against it during the arbitrary
times we have been considering ; the one in the fourteenth
and the other in the fifteenth century ; the first three hundred
years before party government or even great parties existed in
England. These uprisings were really the first distinct
attempts to bring about civil service reform in England, though
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 27
the rebellion under King John had in part the same end in
view. And perhaps the violence and blood these rebellious
reforms involved were the unavoidable means of gaining a
hearing for civil abuses in those feudal ages.
It certainly cannot be said that, in the rebellion of 1377, in
which Wat Tyler was the military leader, he had the spirit or
acted the part of a civil service reformer. lie only appeared
when the popular protest had passed the limits of law and
order. But it is as certain that, in that rebellion, the people of /
England, for the first time, made the abuses of their civil
administration a great national issue and battle cry for reform,
as it is that the same issue became national with us, for the \
first time, in the last Presidential election. Nor was Jack
Cade any more such a reformer in his own person, in the
rebellion of the next century, in which he was the military
chieftain ; but the continuance of the spoils system, only a
little curtailed, and still leading to outrageous corruption and
oppression, was one of the greatest causes, if not the main
cause, which drove the people a second time to revolt. It is
worthy of notice that these two rebellions of our ancestors are
the only instances of their taking up arms on their own account
in the whole period from the Norman Conquest to Charles I.
There are facts connected with the earlier rebellion which
have a practical bearing upon civil service reform, even in
this enlightened age.
The open sale and prostitution of official power in manifold
forms ; the granting of monopolies ; the extortion of money for
the forbearance of injustice ; the exaction of illegal fees ; the
invasion of private right by official favorites, male and female ;
gross injustice in the courts ; oppressive taxes to maintain a
great army of sinecurists and supernumeraries in offices and
public places ; domineering and insulting conduct on the part
of high officials all these abuses, to which I have referred as
existing at an earlier date, had continued to grow and poison
and exasperate until they led to the outbreak early in the reign
of Richard II., in 1377. The very vices and luxuries which
such debasement of official power fostered, indirectly con-
tributed to raising the condition of those most oppressed. This
result was brought about by a process which in itself is one
28 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
of the best illustrations that can be given of the degradation of
all official and social influence. " The luxury of the time
and the pomp of chivalry . . . drained the purses of
knights and barons, and the sale of freedom to the serf .
afforded an easy and tempting mode of filling them. In this
process Edward III. himself led the way. Commissioners
were sent to the royal estates for the special purpose of manu-
missions. ' ' 1 The very lowest placeman at an office door, as
well as the highest near the King, were equally venal and
unscrupulous. Even the King, " with a jest took a bribe"
for the exercise of the pardoning power. 2
In the mean time the people had become bolder, as they had
gained in liberty and in the knowledge o f the cause of their
grievances. It was the generation of Wyckliffe, and great
ideas were beginning to stir the heart of England. In the
domain of politics, as of religion, we find at this era the be-
ginnings of those brave and true utterances which, in later
generations, shook the Church and the State to their founda-
tions. They are the first predecessors of the pamphlets of
Milton and of Burke.
Foreign wars, made more disastrous by incompetent officers,
had led to crushing taxation ; and a poll tax brought a vivid
sense of their cost to the people. If this obnoxious tax most
directly aroused the masses, which Wat Tyler led, we yet find
the real cause further back. " The poll tax interpreted to the
individual far more intelligently than any political propagan-
da the misdoings of the rulers. ' ' To add to the public exas-
peration, the royal and lordly officials interfered with the
freedom of elections in 1377 ; and this, Mr. Stubbs declares,
" is the first occasion on which any definite signs are traceable
of an attempt to influence an election for a political purpose. ' '
And in view of the bloody resistance to which it then con-
tributed, as compared with the tame submission with which
1 Green's History of the English People, p. 262.
8 "There was no check (Stubbs 1 History, vol. ii., p. 434) on dishonesty
and extortion among public servants, noF^njrdetermination to enforce the
constitutional law ; and some of the highest officers of the court, the closest
friends and associates of the King, were among the chief offenders. "
j 3 Stubbs' History, vol. ii., p. 452.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 29
we endure the same abuse, it is certainly a striking illustration
of the demoralizing effect of long familiarity with vice.
The haughty statesmen of the day did not mistake the real
cause of the threatened outbreak, and as they saw its angry
spirit and vast proportions, they took measures to avert it.
These measures failed. A Parliament was called (after the
war), which entered upon the detailed work of refonning the
administration ; and it accomplished so much that it has always
been known in history as the "Good Parliament." A hun-
dred and forty petitions for the redress of grievances (a most
unprecedented number in that age, when so few could write,
and when even to petition involved the perils of imprisonment)
were considered by that " Good Parliament." An examina-
tion of public accounts was demanded and granted. Some of
the results read like a modern report about Washington or
]^ew York City. Latimer, the King's Chamberlain, was
found " guilty of every sort of malversation. " Hi chard Lyons,
" the King's agent, had been a partner in some gigantic
financial frauds." The great offenders were impeached and
removed from office. Women as well as men were found
guilty. Among those banished for corruption (and for a
violation of an ordinance against women practising law) was
Alice Perrers ; but Alice got into her old place again years ,
later. A council was elected by Parliament to act as a check- j
onjpatronage. One of the petitions called for the reform in
theconduct of justices, another of marshals, another of
sheriffs, and another prays ' ' that officers convicted of default
or deceit may be permanently incapacitated from acting. ' '
In the hope of allaying popular indignation, at this period,
the aristocratic leaders in Parliament proposed a grand inquest
of abuses, which was ordered, through a high commission. 1
It was the first great inquiry ever ordered in England into the
abuses of public administration ; and few in that country have
been more sweeping and comprehensive. In this country none
so thorough has ever been provided for. Every grade of office
and every branch of administration and expenditure high and
low, civil and military, ecclesiastical and judicial, national and
1 12 Richard II., chap. 1.
30 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN".
municipal, domestic and foreign, including all forms of the
exercise of official functions were included. The concise
enumeration of abuses to be investigated fills over four pages
of this ancient statute. The act opens with a solemn recital of
the pervading abuses of administration, saying " that whereas
by the grievous complaints ... it appears that the rents
and revenues of the realm ... by insufficient counsel
and evil government of ... great officers and other per-
sons, be so wasted and destroyed, . . . and there is so
great and outrageous oppressions, . . . and the laws are
not executed, nor justice nor right done, to the people, . . .
and great mischief and damage has happened." Parts of
this recital are as flattering to the dear people as any modern
platform made to catch votes in a canvass, and it was as basely
disregarded by its authors. The work of the commission was
entered upon and some abuses were exposed by it, but its great
undertaking was never completed. The powerful nobles at
its head, like the venal, partisan managers of our day, never
intended to have their income, their authority, or their patron-
age much curtailed. The battle had gone in favor of the
king's legions, and against the undisciplined people. In
the language of the historian of the times, " What the poli-
ticians wanted was not so much reform of abuses as the pos-
session of power. ' ' What they did was the equivalent in our
day of a series of sonorous resolutions for economy and reform
adopted by a national convention and trampled upon by the
party that adopted them.
Here, therefore, in the first struggle for civil service reform,
we find the unscrupulous politicians the legitimate predeces-
sors of those of our time uniting with the great nobles under
an arbitrary prince, and intriguing and working together to
hold down the people under abuses in the civil administration
so great that they were ready to fly to arms for their redress.
While the question whether the people would take up arms
hung in fearful suspense, " the Parliament of 1377 resumed its
work of reform and boldly assumed the control of the expend-
iture by means of a standing committee of two burgesses of
London ; and that of 1378 demanded and obtained an account
of the mode in which the subsidies had been spent. ' ' ' Official
'
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
corniption lias so weakened the executive department and so
aroused the anger of the people, that Parliament having up
to this time but little if any patronage is able to stand
boldly forth for reform, with all the prestige of disinterested-
ness and popular indignation in its support. But it is worthy
of notice that it so exerted its new authority from the outset
as to secure substantial patronage at the expense of the
Executive. Various new officers were for the first time
appointed by its own vote. It exerted a controlling influence
over other appointments. And we shall find as we proceed
that, with the steady increase of the power in the legislature,
there was also a continued usurpation of executive func-
tions and a growing abuse of patronage by members of
Parliament, until that body finally became more corrupt
than even the Executive. As a consequence, Parliament at
last became the great obstacle encountered by the people
in that final contest for reform, which, in this generation,
has established the Merit System in Great Britain. At every
stage, corruption has prevailed, in either department, in the
proportion that it has had control of patronage or, in other
words, the management of a spoils system of office.
The' rebellion, I have said, had not been arrested. Partly
because the reforms came too late, partly because* they were
believed to be deceptive, and largely because when popular
indignation has been awakened it readily passes all bounds of
reason, the people took up arms, by hundreds of thousands,
demanding vengeance on official plunderers. It is not for
me to describe the bloody scenes that followed, nor even
to recount how a hundred thousand men from the country,
headed by Wat Tyler, marched on London, when its common
people opened its gates and Tyler and his followers did execu-
tion upon officers, whom they believed had grown rich on the
spoils of office ; nor even to narrate how, all over the land,
officials were stoned or slaughtered, licenses for extortion and
grants of monopoly were seized and destroyed, or, in some
quarters, how lawyers who had justified exactions and defended
corruption were savagely put to death. While taking merciless
1 Green's History of the English People, p. 263.
32 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
vengeance on the spoilsmen, liigli or low, who had ravaged the
State, they not less mercilessly flung to the flam.es the men
from their own ranks who were guilty of pillage. The soldiers
proved too strong for the undisciplined people, and peace was
soon restored. The spoils system, with its poison and its cor-
rupting methods, was left essentially unchanged ; though, for
a considerable period, its greater abuses were arrested.
It would take me too far from the main subject were I to
attempt to describe the many ways in which this terrific
demonstration of the might and wrath of the common people
contributed to the wholesome prestige of public opinion. It
put some limits to the intolerable insolence and insatiable
extortion of those in office. From that date, perhaps, the
officials began to be in some small measure a_^^c_s_ejrvice,
and hence in the same degree ceased to be a mere official
tyranny. The direct gain of political influence, however, was
rather on the part of the middle than of the lower class. What
the latter gained was personal freedom and not political rights,
which came later. From this date, there began in a small way
to be a public opinion demanding that offices be bestowed with
some_regard for merit an opinion which has grown stronger
and stronger until tEe final victory it has achieved during this
generation*
But there is one authentic expression of the reform spirit of
this period so unique and remarkable that it must not be over-
looked. I refer to the provisions of an act passed in 1388. '
Nothing uttered by Wyckliife was more original, more in
advance of the age, or evinced a deeper conception of the
evils of the times and of the conditions of their improvement.
It was no more to the taste of Richard II. or his court than
was the Great Charter to that of King John, or the Habeas
Corpus to that of Charles II., or the Declaration of Inde-
pendence to that of George III. ; but, like those memorable
acts, it utters the high and just demands of an indignant
people, when oppressive taxation and corrupt officials have
aroused them to a great effort of patriotism and self-preserva-
tion. I give the laiiguage of the statute :
'12 Richard II., chap. 2.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
" None shall obtain office by suit or for reward but upon desert.
" Item : (1) It is accorded that the Chancellor, Treasurer, Keeper of
the Privy Seal, Steward of the King's House, the King's Chamberlain,
Clerk of the Rolls, the Justices of the one Bench and of the other,
Barons of the Exchequer, and all others that shall be called to ordain,
name, or make justices of the peace, sheriffs, escheators, customers, l
comptrollers, or any other officer or minister of the King, shall be
firmly sworn.
" (2) That they shall not ordain, name, or make justices of the
peace, sheriffs, escheators, customers, comptrollers, nor other officers
of the King, for any gift or brokerage, favor or affection.*
' ' (3) Nor that none that pursueth by himself or by others, pri-
vately or openly, to be in any manner of office, shall be put in the
same office or any other.
" (4) But that they make all such officers and ministers of the
best and most lawful men, and sufficient to their estimation and
knowledge."
When we consider the spirit of the age, the fact that Parlia-
ment was in great measure the reflection of those who shared
the profits of the despotic spoils system that that system
was the bulwark of authority in the hands of the titled and
privileged classes, which were supreme in the government I
might say, when we consider that no State of this Union has
(so far as I am aware, except in a single instance 3 within
this decade) yet come even nearly up to the moral stand-
1 That is, Custom House officers.
"Even the celebrated rule of Jefferson which our public men have gener-
ally accepted as the supreme standard of ideal duty, falls far short of the re-
quirement of this statute of Richard II. in passing no censure either upon
professional office seeking, or upon bestowing office for "gift, favor, or
affection."
3 In 1877, the Legislature of New York, for the purpose of arresting the
gross extravagance and corruption that had long prevailed, under the parti-
san spoils system of managing its prisons, enacted the following section
(Laws 1877, chap. 24), in a law regulating the future government of the
prisons, in conformity with the amended State Constitution : 3. " Xo ap-
pointment shall be made, in any of the prisons of this State, on grounds of
political partisanship ; but honesty, capacity, and adaptation shiill constitute
the rule for appointments ; and any violation of this rule shall be sufficient
cause for removal from office of the superintendent."
Already under the new system, discipline has become much more cffi /^
cient, expenses have teen materially reduced, and earnings largely increased. '
\
34 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
ard of this statute, in dealing with public office we may
well be astonished at its provisions ; which doubtless are to be
accounted for only by considering how high public aspiration
will rise, when aroused by flagrant wrongs, and how great was
the dread of a repetition of the bloody scenes of the war then
just ended. It may be justly regarded as the second series of
civil service rules ever promulgated in England. It plainly
affirms the great and fundamental principles of all reform in
the public service viz., that the appointing power is not a per-
quisite and must not be exercised as matter of favor ; but is
a public trust, requiring those clothed w T ith it to withstand all
the pretensions of birth, wealth, and social prestige, and to
make all appointments out of regard for personal merit and
the public welfare. Such a view (while of course exactly
in the spirit of our institutions) was so utterly repugnant
to the feudal tyranny of the fourteenth century, that it
requires no ordinary effort of the imagination to conceive
a force or fear strong enough to extort its recognition
from a despotic king and a parliament of armed knights and
haughty lords and bishops, whose lofty castles looked down
upon every part of the land where their dependents humbly
toiled. This unique statute must forever shine out conspic-
uously upon the dark horizon of a rude and ignorant age.
And may we not well believe that it will be the ultimate
judgment that the principles it affirms were as well worthy of
adoption into our system, and that they are as essential to our
well-being as a nation, as the Habeas Corpus or the trial by
jury ; for these latter safeguards, perhaps, become less impor-
tant as civilization advances ; while the need of worth and ca-
pacity in office increases all the more with wealth and numbers
and the magnitude of public affairs ?
As might well have been expected of a law so much in ad-
vance of the age, when the grave danger was passed, and the
old system had had time to regather its strength, this beneficent
statute and those who defended it were disregarded or defied.
In a milder and more secret form, the spoils system became
again supreme, and continued wars, both foreign and domestic,
aided its growth. Indeed, so bold did the spoilsmen become
that they undertook to vindicate their favorite system by deny-
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 35
ing that it had been the cause of the war ; but Parliament
formally resolved to the contrary.
" It laid before the King a scheme for tlie reform of his Household
and administration, the abuses of which they declared to have been the
causes of the revolt, and earnestly prayed for a general pardon for the
severities committed in putting down the rebellion. ... A
commission for the reform of the Household, to begin with the person
of the King himself, was elected. ' '
I have said that the uprising under Tyler failed to secure
the political rights (though it advanced the personal freedom)
of the lower class ; but it did greatly strengthen the power of
the middle classes for the future work of reform. It is a strik-
ing fact that the lords of the spoils system, while forced to such
concessions to personal merit, did yet, in the true spirit of that 1
system, still exert their power mercilessly to keep down the
lower classes. The very Parliament by which that statute was '
enacted, for example, passed other acts, with the following
significant titles :
"CHAP. 3. No servant shall depart from one hundred to another
without a testimonial under the King's seal, on pain of being set in
the stocks.
" CHAP. 4. The several penalties for taking more wages than are
limited by statute.
" CHAP. 5. Whosoever serveth in husbandry until twelve years old
shall so continue.
' ' CHAP. 1 1 . The punishment of him who tells lies of the peers or
great officers of the realm.
" CHAP. 13. No manner of artificer or laborer who hath not lands
shall keep any dog or ferret, ... or net, for to take
any deer, hare ... or other gentleman's game, upon pain of
one year's imprisonment."
Another act of 1389 is entitled that, " Xo shoemaker shall be a
tanner, nor tanner a shoemaker."
Among the petitions of this period is one of great landed
lords, praying that " no bondman or bondwoman shall place
their children at school, as has been done, so as to advance
their children."
1 Stubbs' Constitutional History, vol. ii., p. 462.
36 CIVIL SERVICE IN' GREAT BRITAIN.
What I have stated concerning the origin and methods
of our inherited spoils system, in connection with this first
great effort of the English people to arrest it, enables me to
dismiss, with a few words, the subsequent rebellion against
it to which I have alluded. It occurred in 1450. "When it
had passed its peaceful stages of petition, protests and par-
liamentary efforts to bring about a redress of abuses, and
had culminated in a fearful uprising, especially of the middle
classes, and when the populace was ready to join in the
work of death, the soldier, Jack Cade, became its military
leader. He, like "Wat Tyler, led an armed multitude to
London, and again corrupt ministers were made victims of
the wrath of the people. The great popular demand was set
forth in a formal and well considered "complaint," framed
by the " Commons of Kent," where the people first flew
to arms. Its scope and the whole aim of the revolt are
clearly stated by the latest historian of the period in a single
sentence.
" With the exception of tlio demand for the repeal of the statute
of laborers, the programme of the Commons was now not social but
political. The complaint calls for administration and economical re-
form, for a change of ministry, a more careful expenditure of rev-
enues, . . . for the restoration of the freedom of elections, which
had been broken in upon by the interference both of the Crown and
the great landowners. ' ' 1
I have already recited a statute of this date, which illustrates
these election abuses ; and other laws passed about the same
date give a clear idea of the frightful oppression and corrup-
tion which finally forced the people a second time to take up
arms. An act of 1444 limits the term of sheriffs to a single
year, for the significant reason that, so demoralizing was
their official life, that a longer term tended " to the uphold-
ing of manslaughter, perjury, and great oppression of many
of the King's liege people." Another act 3 contains this
recital : " Considering the great perjury and oppression
1 Green's History of the English People, p. 295.
8 2 Henry VI., chap. 9.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 37
which be and have been in this realm by sheriffs, . . .
clerks, coroners, stewards, bailiffs, keepers of prisons, and
others officers," a recital which, in view of the fact that the
government, in all its brandies, was in the hands of the high-
born classes, and that Parliament was a body of placemen,
we may well believe, does but scanty justice to the shameful
official degradation which this old spoils system had a second
time produced. This second rebellion, like the first, arrested
the grosser abuses ; but the sources and the methods of the
old system itself were but little disturbed. They were not
long in reproducing in milder form the same old evils in the
administration.
Public opinion, however, acquired a greater power ; officials
were taught a wholesome lesson of caution and forbearance ;
and all the lower grades of society were raised in the same
degree that feudalism and despotism lost their strength and
their terrors. But however mitigated, the spoils system itself
survived. It was never really much broken in upon until the
time of Cromwell. In fact, it was not possible to remove that
system without removing much of the very framework of the
old British constitution, or without repudiating the great
theory of government upon which it reposed.
The insulted and pillaged merchants, artisans, and tenants
of those times could see clearly enough that royal purveyors
and revenue collectors, who bought their offices for a round
sum of money that sheriffs and bailiffs, who were the tools
if not the stewards of the great lords of the country, pledged
to make their own salary and fill their masters' treasury from
the profits of their offices that beadles and priors, who
brought home to the family fireside the arbitrary power and
exacting demands of the Church were generally men without
any sense of honor or justice to which they could appeal.
But never having been accustomed to question the great
power belonging to those officials, or much to consider
ultimate causes in politics they naturally thought that such
a civil service law as I have cited, requiring that only men
o " desert " should be appointed, and that professional
office-seekers should be disqualified, would of its own virtue
38 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
give adequate relief. They did not inquire what power there
was to enforce such a law.
I find no evidence that the authors of the reform statute of
Richard II. had any conception of the entire repugnance of
its principles to the theory and organization of the government
to which they had sworn allegiance. Much less did they
foresee that such principles could be carried into practice only
after centuries of conflict had changed the base of power in the
State a struggle for authority and monopoly on one side, and
liberty and justice on the other to be marked by blood and
martyrdom, by conflicts between Crown and Parliament, and
between Parliament and the people during all which liberty
was to increase and education to be extended ; until, w T hen
the people should finally win the battle, they would stand, if
nominally under the old monarchy of orders and privileges,
yet in reality with something near the political equality of a
republic, and with almost every right and protection which a
republican freeman could expect.
We ought not to judge very severely the failures of the men
of the fourteenth century. In our own times, we find many
who fail to see that the parts of the spoils system which w r e
have revived are in their very nature hostile to the whole
spirit of liberty, justice, and equality in which our government
is founded. They hardly take notice that the system is as
destructive to public morality and economy as it is injurioiis
to the great cause of education and to the salutary activity of
political parties. Nor are the numbers still small among us
who do not seem to comprehend much better than the subjects
of Richard II., that no such statute can be made effective,
except when re-enforced by a system of executive regulations
providing proper tests of fitness, upon compliance with which
persons of merit may secure the opportunity of appointment
independent of mere official or partisan favoritism.
CHAPTER HI.
INFLUENCE OF DESPOTISM ON ADMINISTRATION
An Aristocratic Monarchy hostile to the just claims of merit. It tends to ven-
ality in bestowing office. To require every little officer to defend the doings
of the President, Senators and party leaders a Republican imitation of a
feudal tyranny. The old spoils system more courageous and consistent
than the modern. How the sale of offices prevented assessments and
frequent removals.
ISToT the spirit of the government alone, but its very organ-
ization and modes of action, under the Plantagenets and Tu-
dors, tended to produce a spoils system of favoritism^ influence,
nepotism, and venalitv, which frowned on personal merit and
A _*L_Z. ,. JT
scorned the idea of official responsibility.
In an arbitrary monarchy, a primary necessity of its exist-
ence is absolute subordination and obedience to those in power ;
and hence official authority must be so exerted as to preserve
the monopoly and exalt the influence of the official class, to the
end that they may overawe the common people. All authority
comes from above from the King. The ruling force is fear.
Such a government, in its very theory and administration, says
to the people that office should be obtained without regard to
personal merit. The king, the source of all office, on that theory
acquires his great place. The hereditary lords, who make laws
and hold social and political precedence, gain and hold their
offices irrespective of personal merit. They and the councils
they form fill nearly every subordinate office in their discretion,
and they are intended to do this not in a way that will promote
merit or do justice, but in such way as will exalt the king,
preserve their own rank, and secure obedience in all ranks
below them. From giving an office at pleasure, on the con-
dition of servility from taking office by right of birth, how-
ever unworthy the heir to selling it for money, is only a step.
When once it is admitted that office is to be given, not to ben-
40 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
efit the people, or reward merit among them, but to pre-
serve a crown and nobility, to enforce gradation of rank, to
put down aspirations for freedom, the spoils system becomes
inevitable, or rather it is already in vigorous growth. If a
rough royalist may be made a sheriff because he w T ill coerce an
election, or enforce the payment of an arbitrary tax in the in-
terest of the Crown, then the office upon the same principle
may be sold to him for such a purpose. If the office belongs
to the king, duke or bishop to give to whom he will, in prin-
ciple it belongs to him to sell to whom he will. If he may fix-
the terms on which he will give it, he may fix the terms on
which he will sell it. To say that a man is entitled to an office
simply because he is a man of worth and capacity and not
otherwise, is in principle to say that he is entitled to be a
knight, a baron, a duke, or a king for the same reason
obviously a principle as utterly repugnant to the theory of all
arbitrary governments as it is essential to the prosperity of a
republic. Therefore the spoils system w r as the natural out-
growth of despotism and aristocracy. It is in its very nature
a royal and aristocratic and not a republican agency of govern-
ment.
"When Blackstone says that the king is the fountain of "jus-
tice, honor, office and privilege ;" that "it is impossible that
government can be maintained without a due subordination of
rank ;" that the king may make war and peace, that he may
create corporations, that he " has the prerogative of conferring
privileges upon private persons ;" when he declares that for
' ' the maintenance of his dignity and the exertion of his pre-
rogative," the king has three councils to advise with the
Parliament, the law courts, and his " privy council," named at
his pleasure, which last council, by way of eminence, is the
principal ; that " the person of the king is sacred even though
the measures pursued in his reign be completely tyrannical and
arbitrary" we have presented before us in these outlines a
form of government and a theory of executive power and
responsibility in which the individual character and capacity of
the officers and the welfare of the citizens are everywhere made
subordinate to the interests of the class in power and the policy
of the king and his great officers.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN". 41
In the very nature of such a government, the number of
officers, the salaries, the tenure of office must obviously be
secondary to such essential conditions of its existence. When,
therefore, our Declaration of Independence justly denounced
George III. because " he made judges dependent on his will
alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment
of their salaries," and because he created new offices and sent
over officers to harass our people, we really assailed the theory
of the government and complained of abuses which every gen-
eration of Englishmen before the expulsion of James II. had
suffered, and against which they had struggled with small
success. But, the strength and pernicious influence of this
royal and aristocratic spoils system will be greatly underrated,
if we do not bear in mind that the kin^ became the head of the
O
Church as well as of the State, and that the system extended
to social order and consideration which it regulated, and to
the Church which it dominated ; pursuing a policy in the
spheres of religion and society, quite as unjust and demoral-
izing as any that prevailed in politics.
It would perhaps require some apology for these few words
in support of propositions so nearly self-evident, were it not
that the difficulties in making any reform in our civil service,
and the faith of the people in its practicability, are unfavorably
affected by a loose theory, held by many persons, that such re-
forms are easier in a monarchy than under our form of govern-
ment. They regard the spoils system as so original and con-
genial in our institutions that they incline to tolerate it as
quite inevitable ; when, in fact, our spoils system is only a
faint reproduction, in an uncongenial age and government, of
vicious methods, of which the coarse and more corrupt originals
are to be found in the most despotic periods of British history.
It is in fact that part of medieval despotism, inherited by us,
which we have allowed to survive even slavery.
The theory that a president may require that every petty
executive officer shall hold his views of politics, and may com-
pel him to exert himself to promote exe3utive policy, is a
feeble reproduction of the theory and practice of the worst of
the Tudor ancf the Stuart princes, which were that everywhere
the officer must be a believer in the divine right and per-
42 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
fection of the king, and an active advocate and champion of
royal prerogative. The theory that a State Senator may
selfishly use his patronage, and that all his appointees must
assent to his faith and promise to use their official influence,
to promote his prestige and his re-election, are but tame and
puny imitations of that arrogant, old, feudal prerogative by
reason of which every noble was the local ruler of his vici-
nage and all political action and all social life were obedient
to his will, as a perpetual representative in a feudal Senate.
The theory that a party may prostitute its authority and pat-
ronage in order to gain offices and levy assessments, and must
do so to keep itself in power, is the cunning, cowardly, modern
form of the old despotism, under which the king, the nobles, the
knights, the squires, and the gentlemen being the party for-
ever dominant perpetuated their supremacy by using official
authority in every form of injustice for keeping the great body of
the people in subjection. The only parts of our system, I am
compelled to believe, which Henry VIII., or Elizabeth, or
James II. , or George III. , would like, would be those theories
of bestowing office under which personal merit may be over-
, looked in the pretended interest of keeping a party in power,
and of causing executive policy or partisan opinions to be ad-
vocated by the carrier of every mail-bag and the keeper of every
office-door. But more consistently they would also require that
every priest and beadle of the Church, and every general and
corporal of the army, as well as all the members of the legis-
lature, should exhibit the same evidence of true faith and alle-
giance.
In fact, one of the marked distinctions between the original
despotic-spoils system and the modern partisan-spoils system
is this : that the old system was bold, consistent, and out-
spoken not pretending to make selections for office out of
regard for personal merit or economy, or the general wel-
fare. It plainly asserted that those in power had a right and
duty to keep themselves in power and preserve their monopoly
in any way which their judgment should approve, and that the
people were bound to submit ; while the modern system, at all
times carrying the spirit of the original as far as it dares, falsely
pretends to be guided by personal worth and the public interest.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 43
If it shall be noticed that in the examples given in illustra-
tion of the original spoils system, it does not appear that the
modern abuse of frequent removals and of levying assessments
upon officers and placemen, or even the common forms of
bribery, are very prominent, the explanation is easy. In the
practice of the original system, the theory that the appointing
power and all official authority are mere perquisites was carried
to its legitimate results. Offices and places, royal prerogatives
of every grade, and great and little official favors, were, as we
have seen, openly sold, or were used as bribes and threats in
whatever way found most available. In order that the market
rate should be high, it was necessary that the purchaser should
be assured that he could retain the commodity bought, and that
it would not be made valueless by the further exercise of official
authority in levying taxes. A nobleman or minister could
sell an office or a monopoly for but a poor price, if any body
of ministers and lords, or even the king 3 could thereafter tax
that office or monopoly at pleasure, or remove the owner. In
other words, the greater corruption of open sale and barter of
offices in great measure excluded those peculiar and numr
ou=r.^_^____ _ f- _ iSSSBsil; ~'
abuses of removals and assessments. So strongly, indeed, did
this influence of general venality tend to permanence of tenure
in the subordinate offices, and to cause them to be farmed out
to non-resident agents, after the Turkish fashion, that non-
resident officers were forbidden in 1402. And in 1519 ' an act
was passed with this title : " Customers, 2 controllers, searchers,
etc., shall be removable at the pleasure of the king and shall
be resident upon their office."
For similar reasons bribery of electors or members of Parlia-
ment which, in later years, became one of the most serious
abuses in Great Britain was as yet but little known. Electors
felt small interest in officers sure to be servilely obedient to the
king and the nobles ; and members of Parliament were almost
without patronage and wielded only a small portion of the
legislative power which, in later centuries, growing to be
almost supreme, made the vote of a member and even of an
elector of value in the great market of politics.
1 1 Henry IV., chap. 13. a Custom -Ho use officers.
CHAPTER IY.
ADMINISTRATION ILSLDEK THE TUDORS AND UNTIL CROMWELL.
Venality under Henry VII. Boroughs created to control Parliament. Its
independence assailed. Elections interfered with. Dock-yard influence.
Spoils system extended to the Church and its effect. Leads to royal as-
sumptions of absolute power. James' interference with the judges* Great
corruption under James. Lord Coke and Lord Bacon. Parliament grows
bolder. The Petition of Right. Our party assessments repugnant to that
memorable statute.
HAA-ING, I trust, sufficiently explained the origin and spirit
of the spoils system, which we have so largely reproduced, it is
unnecessary, and it would be tedious, to follow the details of its
application, or even to note all the ways in which, from time to
time, its worst features were removed. While there were various
modifications sometimes toward what was worse, and some-
times toward what was better there was no essential change
of the system after the opening of the fifteenth century until
the time of Cromwell. In the reign of Henry VIII., the
crown itself was treated as a mere personal perquisite of him
who wore it, which he was authorized by statute to dispose of
by last will and testament, and Henry did so dispose of it.
The great and exciting religious questions and the frequent
wars by which the politics of the period were embroiled and
the higher thought of the nation was absorbed, were in every
way unfavorable to good administration. I need not recall
the political history of the reigns of Henry VIII. , Edward VI. ,
Mary, Elizabeth, or James I., as it is familiar knowledge that
they cover a period in which men seem to have been almost
willing to forego civil liberty and official morality, if they
could have plenty of angry contentions and bloody scenes over
church dogma and ecclesiastical forms. The leading minds
\vere given the great subjects of church reformation. There
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 45
can be little doubt that the long continuance of political cor-
ruption greatly debased official morality, and, as a natural con-
sequence, private morality ; and it is even a question whether,
on the whole, both the morals of politics and methods of gov-
ernment did not degenerate during this period.
A few illustrations of the abiding spirit of the old system,
which have an important bearing upoif later changes, are all the
notice I shall need to take of those times. So irresistible
was the spoils system, and so little fearless public opinion was
there under the first two Tudor princes (1485 to 1547), that
almost the only resistance made to the government was directed
against arbitrary taxes levied by the Crown. Speaking of the
first of them (Henry "VII.), Hallam says that " even the King's
clemency seems to have sprung from the sordid motive of sell-
ing pardons ; and it has been shown that he made a profit of
every office in his court, and received money for conferring
bishoprics." Early in the next reign, we begin to find the
strong manifestation of that pernicious appliance of the spoils
system, through which, frequently, in the succeeding centuries,
Parliament became little more than a body of servile placemen,
named by the king and the great nobles, to endorse their
policy and pay their henchmen and relatives in office. Refer-
ring to the reign of Henry VIII., Mr. Hallam says that " a
considerable part of the Commons appears to have consisted
of the King's Household officers."
In order to secure compliankmembers, as Parliament increas-
ed in importance, Edward YI. created twenty new boroughs,
Mary fourteen, and Elizabeth as many as sixty-two ; nor did the
government " scruple a direct and avowed interference with
elections." It was the habit of the Tudor kings to cause
letters to be sent to the electors stating ' ' our pleasure and
commandment," as to who should be elected to Parliament.
One of Mary's letters, written in 1554, " admonishes the elect-
ors to choose Catholics." Speaking of Elizabeth's reign, Mr.
Hallam says : " The ministry took much pains with elections.
. . . The House accordingly was filled with placemen,
civilians, and common lawyers grasping at preferment." Re-
1 Constitutional History, vol. i., p. 27.
4
46 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN".
f erring to about the same date, Mr. Froude Bays : " Either a
circular was addressed to the sheriffs of counties or mayors of
towns, simply naming the persons who were to be chosen, or
the electors were instructed to accept their directions from some
members of the privy council. In some instances the orders
of the Crown were direct to the candidate himself. " Here we
find the original of our modern interference with the freedom
of local elections by the national administration and the party
managers. And when Mr. Froude says that, ' ' in Portsmouth
and Southampton the government influence was naturally para-
mount, through the dockyards and establishments maintained
in them, ' ' I think we may naturally infer that the venal and
corrupt use of dockyard sinecurists and custom-house-patron-
age coercion for carrying elections are not of republican
origin, but are at least three and a quarter centuries old. The
early leaders of the spoils system did not, however, stop with
dictating as to who should go to parliaments ; but, with in-
flexible consistency, they endeavored to control, arbitrarily, the
tongues as well as elections of their members. Blackstone
tells us that " the glorious Queen Elizabeth made no scruple
to direct her parliaments to abstain from discoursing of mat-
ters of state." Mr. Ilallam says the Queen used to send
messages to Parliament ' ' to spend little time in motions and
make no long speeches. ' ' With us it is only the tyranny of
the party majority that suppresses debate on disagreeable sub-
jects. ' ' It became the common whisper that no one must
speak against licenses lest the Queen and council should be
angry." And at the close of the session, " the Lord Keeper
severely reprimanded those audacious, arrogant, and presump-
tuous members who had called her Majesty's grants and
prerogatives in question." The modern partisan managers
only send a few thousands of assessment collections to the
district of an independent member and defeat his re-election.
"We have not, to be sure, admitted that the practice of in-
terfering with the freedom of elections, in aid of the party, as
it is called, would justify a like interference with the freedom
of debate ; but is it quite certain that, under our more partisan
1 History, vol. v., p. 428.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. .47
^^) fa&^i^uAAstlu^^l<rtt^ **Wo fiftf^
application of tlie spoils system, tlie freedom of debate is not
as much hampered, or that it does not require as much courage
and as much imperil a re-election, to oppose the commands of
the party, as it did to oppose those of Henry VIII. or of Eliz-
abeth ? The same system which accorded to noblemen a sort
of monopoly of all offices not directly filled by the king or his
ministers, also gave them formal patents for " the privilege of
importing wine free of duty for the consumption of their house-
holds" patents which we know have hardly been needed by
the lords of our patronage system, to secure them a still more
extensive exemption from the payment of duties.
During this period, as in the earlier periods to which I have
referred, the spoils system was not kept within the sphere
of politics, but was boldly extended to that of religion as
well ; and with results equally demoralizing. " In the
country ' the patron of a benefice no longer made dis-
tinction between a clergyman and a layman. . . . He
presented his steward, his huntsman, or his gamekeeper.
Clergy, even bishops who called themelves Gospellers would
hold three or four or more livings, doing service in none ; or
if, as a condescension, they appointed curates, they looked out
for starving monks who would do the duty for the lowest pay
men who would take service indifferently under God or the
devil, to keep life in their famished bodies. . . . The
cathedrals and churches of London became the chosen scenes
of riot and profanity. St. Paul's was the Stock Exchange of
the day, where the merchants of the city met for business and
the lounge where the young gallants gambled, fought and
killed each other. They rode their horses through the aisles
and stabled them among the monuments."
How naturally such a spoils system, prevailing through
so many centuries, and forever saying to kings and nobles,
" Your right it is to rule through officers and favorites
selected at your caprice, without regard to merit, economy, or
the general welfare," led on to the Star Chamber, to Charles
I. and James II., to Laud and to Jeffreys is too obvious for
comment. Nothing but the influence of such a system, in spirit
1 Froude's History, vol. v., p. 255-257.
48 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
asserting omnipotent and irresponsible power in the ruler,
makes it conceivable that even James I. could ever have used
those words of sublime audacity : " As it is atheism and blas-
phemy in a creature to dispute what the Deity may do, so it is
presumption and sedition in a subject to dispute what a king
may do in the height of his power. ' ' And I am persuaded
that the feeling so general even to this day, that it is a less
offence to use the appointing power _for a corrupt or selfish
I purpose than it is to use the public money for the same purpose,
has its source far back in those arbitrary centuries during which
all example, all law, all teaching, impressed upon our ancestors
the doctrine that the use of official authority was absolute and
irresponsible in him who possessed it, even if that possession
was not a divine favor too sacred and awful to be questioned
by ordinary mortals. We may find the root of this pernicious
distinction in the theory of King James himself, for even his
doctrine of the divine right of kings did not mean that he
might use the public money or the public stores at his pleasure
or corruptly, but that he might so use his "prerogative
royal" the power to appoint and remove officers and place-
men and herein he agreed exactly with partisan managers of
modern times. The King and Laud scrutinized the religious
opinions of office-seekers as carefully as they did their political
opinions ; and orthodoxy in the former, not less than in the
latter, was an indispensable condition of royal favor.
It was as much a part of this old spoils system l that every
officer should obey every direction of his superior, as it was
that an appointment might be made or sold at pleasure ; and
this they extended to military and judicial offices as well.
The unflinching champions of that system at this period re-
fused to see any distinction between claiming an arbitrary
I right to make a judge or a justice out of a compliant, incom-
petent favorite (with the intent that he should be obedient),
1 There was another old method of strengthening the opinion and policy
of the government, quite remarkable for its arbitrary forecast. " The rapid
increase of London [says Mr. Hallam] " continued to disquiet the court. It
was the stronghold of political and religious disaffection, hence the prohibi-
tions of erecting new houses, which had begun under Elizabeth, were con-
tinually repeated."
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 49
and the right to command him if disobedient ; or between a
political test for office and a religious test for office. And
although we may all the more for this reason admire the
heroic sense of justice which caused Lord Coke to refuse to
give judgment as King James ordered, we can hardly deny
that the king's commands were very much, if not more than
the refusal of Coke, in harmony with the constitution of that
day and with the practice under it. '
When James prohibited the judges from " wounding his
prerogative under pretext of the interest of private persons, ' '
and Coke was first suspended and then dismissed from his
office because he answered, ' ' that when the case should arise
he would do what should be fit for a judge to do," he was
naturally thought in official circles to be disobedient and
erratic a view of the matter not so strange when we reflect
that he assrted a principle of official independence which, in
our generation even, has cost many a manly officer his place
when he attempted to protect " the interest of private per-
sons" against the tyranny of partisan dictation. Sinecurists
and placemen sw T armecT7n all the offices, and extravagance and
inefficiency prevailed everywhere in Church and State, in the
army and the navy. The peace expenditures of James I.
exceeded the war expenditures of Elizabeth. According to
Mr. Hallam, the terrific powers of the Star Chamber (a natural
growth of the spoils system) were resorted to by James I. as
much " to eke out a scanty revenue by penalties and for-
feitures" as for any other purpose. Lord Bacon's official
corruption was punished, not so much because it was of a
kind uncommon as because it was that of the Lord Chancellor,
the keeper of the king's conscience, and the highest subject
of the realm. Mr. Hallam says that " shameless corruption
characterizes the reign of James beyond every other in our his-
tory. " Mr. Green 2 says, " Payment of bribes to him (the
Duke of Buckingham), or marriage witli his greedy relatives,
became the only road to political preferment. ' ' James not
1 Under the Tudors " the Judges in the application and exposition of the
criminal law were servile tools of the sovereign." Creasy on the English
Constitution.
8 History English People, p. 480.
50 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
only had offices sold and shared the proceeds with his favorite
ministers, but he sold his prerogative of making corporations
and granting monopolies ; getting, for example, a large sum
for a starch-making monopoly and 10,000 for a soap-making
charter. ~Nor was this the worst, for, more merciless than any
modern tyrant of patronage, he revoked this soap-charter and
exacted a large sum for a new one ; and out of ' ' political
resentment " he even extorted large fines from those who did
not come forward and receive knighthood at his hands.
These administrative abuses, and the extravagant claims of
prerogative to which they led on, were, as all the world
knows, in great part at least the causes which drove the people
to arms (for the third time in self-defence) during the next
reign. "While thus all official life, both lay and clerical, was
becoming more and more a festering source of corruption and
a vast agency of tyranny, the control of which tended to those
extravagant claims of prerogative made by Gardiner and Laud,
and Charles and James, there was on the other hand an increase
of wealth and intelligence and a growing courage among the
common people, whom the poison of the spoils system least
touched. Parliament became more active and aggressive. Its
members secured more influence over appointments ; and with
this tendency there came a greater desire for seats in that body.
In such a state of public morality as then existed, bribery
was an inevitable consequence. In the session of 1571, a fine
had been imposed for bribery in a parliamentary election.
This is the first instance on record of the punishment of that
offence in England ; an offence which for a long time grew
more frequent, and which in some form, for more than two
centuries, continued to be one of the greatest scandals of Eng-
lish politics.
Popular intelligence had become too great, and the virtues
of private life too robust, to longer tolerate supinely the huge
vices bred in official circles. The spirit of resistance was
aroused. The demand for reform first made itself greatly
felt in the election of 1614, which brought such men as John
Pym and John Eliot into Parliament. Puritanism, and the
great law called the " Petition of Right," were the well-known
expression of that reform spirit. x\nd as we read the princi-
CIVIL SERVICE EST GREAT BRITAIN. 51
pal demand of that celebrated law, " that no man hereafter
be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, or
tax, or such like charge, without common consent by act of
Parliament," and reflect upon the noble spirit by which it was
extorted, it is well to remember that, although that high de-
mand has long since been complied with in England, yet in this
republican country (to which even Cromwell and Hampden
sought to flee from the tyranny of Charles), tens of thousands
of public officers and employees national, state, and munici-
pal have long been compelled to annually make "gifts and
benevolences," under the name of political^ assessments, at the
peril of dismissal or with the hope of promotion a threat and
a bribe as great and as debasing as any that King Charles could
have inflicted upon the meanest in his civil service.
The story is too familiar to warrant any repetition here,
how the English people, when once aroused, carried on their
contest against the spoils system of James I. and Charles I. But
I cannot dismiss this period without a word of observation as to
the debasing effect upon the public conscience of familiarity
with flagrant public wrong. The readiness with which we
supinely endure such exactions upon the members of our civil
service and upon those who work for the public such legalized
pillaga of the people's money (for that partisan tyranny which
coerces^ the assessment also keeps up salaries and wages need-
lessly high in order that the assessment may be paid), at the
same moment that we abhor and prohibit monopolies and the
sale of offices is certainly a remarkable instance of that effect.
"We seem to think it a wholly different wrong to sell an office
or a franchise outright from that involved in handing it arbi-
trarily over to a servile dependent, on the condition that his
master may exact from him an annual rent, to be fixed at his
will, on the peril of ejection. The chances, I venture to
think, are that he who holds by purchase will cherish the more
wholesome and manly feeling of independence. That noble
man, Sir Samuel Romilley, found a more honorable independ-
ence in a seat in Parliament he purchased than a partisan sys-
tem would allow him to secure by an ordinary election. And
perhaps John Hampden himself would not think Charles I. a
greater tyrant, because he arbitrarily required a tax from all
52 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
of his subjects alike for tlie purposes of the public treasury
than he would consider that American President or Secretary
to be who should, as arbitrarily, require a tax from those
whom he has the power to dismiss, to be used, not in aid of the
public treasury, but for the baser purposes of keeping himself
and his friends in office, and his opponents out of office. But
it is plain enough that such a President might be a far greater
coward than the King ; since real courage is required to prac-
tice extortion upon a whole nation, while any vulgar tyrant
may enforce depredations upon a few thousand of his official
subordinates. The justification made by James and Laud for
levying the tax was in principle precisely that made by mod-
ern partisans in defence of party assessments, that it was
necessary to uphold their principles and to keep their party in
power.
CHAPTER Y.
CROMWELL'S ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM.
He rejected the worst abuses of the old system, but relied on patronage.
His situation similar to that of a party leader A sort of partisan system
introduced. He applied a joint test of religion and politics at the gates of
office. Made important reforms. The test applied to members of Parlia-
ment and army officers. A better system hardly possible in his day.
Marvel, Eliot, and Vane as reformers.
CROMWELL gave the first blow to the despotic spoils system
which was heavy enough to break in its framework. He was
no mere administrative reformer, but a mighty impersonation
of a new spirit in religion and politics, of better methods in
government and of grander conceptions of the duties and
responsibilities both of rulers and of citizens. It was principles
and ideas a well-defined creed in religion, and large views in
politics and not class interests or traditional favoritism, that
were to bear sway while he lived. There were neither party
platforms nor parties in the modern sense, but (excepting a
few gathered separately) there were two great, hostile bodies in
the state the one standing together for the divine right of
kings, for rank, privilege, and the old^s_poils_system generally,
and the other for Cromwell and the principles and spirit of the
great revolution of which he was the leader. Cromwell and
his fellow-oificers recognized themselves as representing at least
that portion of the people who believed as they did ; and
hence they regarded themselves as responsible to them for
economy and efficiency in the administration. This placed
them much in the attitude of party leaders ; having imposed
upon them the obligation of justifying their use of official
authority to so many of the people as constitute the ruling
majority. This sort of responsibility, directly to at least a
great portion of the people, rather than to a privileged and
54 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
official class alone, marks the great advance of party over
despotic government in the exercise of official power. Such
a power may be used as corruptly by a party as by a despot
(as I shall have occasion to point out), but not so despotically ;
and hence a partisan use of such authority seems to be naturally
an intermediate stage of progress between the arbitrary use of
that power by a despot and its use by officers who, regarding
their authority as a public trust, make appointments on the
basis of personal merit.
It is plain that Cromwell must have men of capacity in the
public service, or his rule would be short ; and neither his
temper nor the spirit of the times tended to make him any
more scrupulous about slaughtering the innocents and driving
out those who did not accept his creed in the public service
than he was of cutting down his enemies on the lield of battle.
It was a time of bloody antagonism and desperate measures.
He had no leisure for perfecting methods of administration,
and the violent sentiment of the times demanded retaliation
and proscription. He made some reforms of great import-
ance, with a wise regard to the interest of the people ; and,
in his own interest and that of his favorites and followers,
he applied the partisan system with a vigor and a logical
consistency from which its modern votaries would shrink.
Himself a member of Parliament, he was, perhaps, the first
to advocate the salutary doctrine that legislators ought not to
hold executive office or interfere with its proper duties, but he
fell from the great principles of his speech by remaining a
member while he held the most influential executive office in
the army. He struck from the pay rolls many drones and
sinecurists. He dealt heavy blows upon court favoritism and
extravagance generally. He infused vigor into every part of
the administration, and character and economy were more
regarded in his appointments than ever before. He gave
members of Parliament a voice in the appointment of minis
ters, and, for a time at least, he allowed them full legislative
authority ; but he also dispersed one Parliament at the point
of the sword, and he locked the members of another out of
their hall until they promised to approve his policy. He
made a creed and a policy of his religion and his politics
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 55
united ; and lie enforced it in selecting the members of his
regiment as well as the members of his civil service. He was
too manly and statesmanlike to allow predatory levies or
assessments by anybody upon his officials ; but he used
intrigue and coercion, if he escaped venality, in the exercise
of the appointing power. He caused rotten boroughs to be
swept away, and members to be sent from unrepresented
towns ; but he disfranchised Catholics and Royalists.
In his own way he gave the partisan system a most vigorous
trial. For Cromwell not only gave office and titles, confiscated
lands, and brijbes of other sorts to his favorites and to those he
wished to conciliate, but he added a religious to a political test
for office. And to induce others to think as he did, he placed
the creed of Congregationalism at the door of his conventions
and parliaments, as we place the creed of our party at the doors
of the post-offices and custom-houses. He not only nominated
those who were to be voted for as members of a Parliament,
but he also required them to get a certificate of orthodoxy
from his council before they were allowed to pass the doors
of the House. Being substantially in the position of a great
party leader, he did not see any reason why executive and
partisan coercion and tests of opinion might not be applied
to legislative officers, and to those in the army, as well as to
officials in the civil service proper. And can we deny the
logical consistency of his reasoning ? Those of opposing
faiths and factions were as prescriptive and as vigorously
demanded that political spoils should be made the reward of
victory as has ever been the case in the most violent partisan
contests of our times. Xo partisan manager ever used patron-
age more skilfully or more boldly than Cromwell. And he
evidently believed it would strengthen his hold upon power
and perpetuate his dynasty. Of one of his Parliaments it is
said that u It was calculated that of the members returned, one
half were bound to the government by ties of profit or place."
The system does not seem to have been any more effective than
in our day in securing model men for the customs service.
For example, one of his statutes recites that " Carmen, por-
1 Green's History of the English People, p. 576.
56 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
ters, watermen, and others employed on the quays, . . .
and also on the River Thames, are very ordinarily drunk, and
do also profane and blaspheme the holy name of God by curs-
ing and swearing." lie punished such offenders, however,
with a vigor that we have never reached ; for he gave his
customs officers the powers of justices of the peace, with
liberty to appoint deputies, each of whom, without special
warrant, might arrest any of these drunkards and blas-
phemers.
Neither Robert Walpole nor General Jackson could deny
that this first trial of the partisan system was in able hands.
But not even the mighty genius of Cromwell was able through
that system to secure for himself or his party any abiding
position or official gratitude. As he went on under it, his
power steadily declined. Upon his decease, his followers
melted away. Almost without a struggle, England resumed
allegiance to the heir to her throne, utterly base and unworthy
as he was. The greatest genius for government England ever
produced was not able, through the most skilful use of pa-
tronage, to leave gratitude enough behind him to save his
own bones from being dragged from the grave and exposed on
a gibbet to the jeers of the royalists. It is quite probable
that in the intolerant period in which he lived when un-
popular opinions took men to the block when men fought
about religious dogmas when even slavery stood unchallenged
by the popular judgment when the noblest man of his time
was executed for treason in violation of the pledge of a king
any less mercenary and partisan system than his would
have failed of support ; just as in such times it would have
been impossible to have manned fleets or filled up armies, or
to have led either successfully, without the hope and the en-
joyment of sacks, pillages, and spoils which were so long
believed to be equally justiable and inevitable in warfare and
from the terrible reality of which the designation of ' ' spoils
system," in politics, has been derived.
It cannot therefore be said that Cromwell really broke up
the spoils system as a whole, but only in part ; but his admin-
istration caused some salutary changes in public opinion upon
the subject, as well as in the modes of carrying on public
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 57
business. The number of those who thought and acted boldly
upon political questions was permanently increased, and the
old system lost much of its prestige, which it never regained.
It was made easier for Parliament to become a great power
at the expense of the Crown and the nobility. The Star
Chamber, the Court of High Commission, and the arbitrary
levy of taxes were at an end. In the minds of a great portion,
and that the more intelligent portion, of the middle classes, the
awe and majesty which had hedged about a king, and made a
manly scrutiny of his doings almost impossible, was to be no
more.
The great political contests in the times of Charles I. and of
Cromwell had turned upon the fundamental principle of civil
and religious liberty, and the time had not arrived when patriots
and statesmen could in quiet sit down to the study of the prob-
lem of honest and economical administration. But an age that
could produce Ilampden and Pym, Eliot and Marvel, Milton
and Vane, and could place them in Parliament or in high
offices of state, gives reason to expect that the solid virtues and
statesmanship nourished in the private life of the people will
in due time make themselves felt in the execution of the laws.
In the writings of Marvel, we find perhaps the first systematic
attack upon administrative abuses recorded in English history ;
sinecurists, placemen, and corrupt and subservient court fa-
vorites being so roughly handled by him that he was in dan-
ger of assassination. His acts were in the spirit of his words ;
and at a time when he was so poor as to need to borrow a
guinea, Charles II. tried in vain to bribe him with a 1000.
He is said to have been the last member of Parliament who
was paid for his services. But he served his constitutents with
wonderful ability and fidelity, sending them a daily account
of the proceedings of Parliament in letters which were
thought worthy of publication even after the elapsing of a
century. The abolition of all compensation to members was
admirably calculated and was probably designed to keep out
of Parliament poor men like Marvel, who were genuine
representatives of a free and pure sentiment steadily growing
among the people. Reformers were becoming troublesome in
that age.
58 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
In a noble speech of Sir John Eliot, made in the House of
Commons in support of the " Petition of Right " in 1628, he
used this courageous and prophetic language : " For the next,
the ignorance and corruption of our ministers, where can you
miss of instances. If you survey the court, if you survey the
country ; if the Church, if the city be examined ; if you
observe the bar, if the bench, if the ports, if the shipping, if
the land, if the seas all these will give you variety of proofs ;
and that, in such measure and proportion as shows the great-
ness of the disease to be such that, if there be not some speedy
appliance of remedy, our case is almost desperate. ' ' And he
demanded that a great inquisition " should be speedily made
into these alarming abuses. ' ' In that age a reformer had not (as
in England a century later, or now in this country) merely to
encounter small sarcasm or the coarse misrepresentation of
those whom he might scorn, but to withstand the despotic
power and the vindictive passions of those who could put his
liberty and life in peril, as Eliot well knew and soon experi-
enced. He must be such a man as Mr. Gladstone says he
found in Zachary Macauley, who " expected little comfort in
this world, and looked for his reward only beyond the grave."
The inquisition which Eliot demanded was not made ; and
his bold arraignment of the government caused this great
patriot and reformer, whom Hallam declares to be " the most
illustrious confessor in the cause of liberty whom the times pro-
duced," to be speedily thrown into the Tower by the King's
order, where his health giving way, after great suffering, he
died in 1632. These facts are very familiar history ; but it
is not so generally noticed, I think, how greatly the adminis-
trative corruption and incompetency which, if not removed
by " speedy appliance of remedy," Eliot declared would
make the condition of the kingdom ' ' desperate, ' ' had to do
with driving the people to arms and bringing Charles himself
to the block only seventeen years later.
It is, however, in the life and character of the noble Puri-
tan statesman, Sir Henry Vane whom Cromwell and Charles
both feared and in the fact that he was long a member of
Parliament and in various other high offices, that we may find
the best evidence of the great strength which the liberal and
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 59
reforming spirit in that age had attained. He had the dis-
interestedness, the courage, and the constructive capacity
essential to a great administrative reformer. He gave up to
the government the fees of his office as Treasurer of the
Navy, which amounted to 30,000 a year ; and, as chairman
of a committee, he reported a bill for parliamentary reform.
But he was too far in advance of his age to achieve the
important reforms he desired. It was on account of his great
liberality in religion and politics that in early life he was
opposed by Winthrop and was defeated as a candidate for
governor in the Puritan colony of Massachusetts. As a leader
of the Independents, he rendered great service in behalf of
New England ; and, befriending Roger "Williams after he fled
from official tyranny at Salem, it was the vast influence of
Yane's character that procured that liberal charter for the
Rhode Island colony, which was as much in advance of the
general spirit of the New World as it was of that of
the Old. The King feared his virtues. Parliament and the
great leaders were too base to save him ; and thirty years
after the death of Eliot, Yane was beheaded. So great in
those days was the peril of being a patriot and a reformer.
CHAPTER YI.
PUBLIC SERVICE UNDER CHARLES II. AND JAMES II.
Corruption gross and universal. Bribery of members of Parliament be-
comes systematic. Prostitution of the appointing power. Parliament
crowded with placemen. Officials make great fortunes. The King him-
self bribed. Religious tests for office. Administration as imbecile as it is
venal. Gerrymandering boroughs and packing Parliaments. Removals,
and revocation of licenses, on account of opinions. The spoils system ex-
tended to the army. Noble examples of courage and self-respect on the pait
of officers and candidates. Favoritism and corruption unsuccessful. The
judiciary invaded by the spoils system. How far that system contributed
to the fall of James II.
IT is not in the reign of an idler and a sensualist like Charles
II. , nor in that of a corrupt tyrant and bigot like James II. , that
we are to look for reform in public affairs. But these reigns
are full of admonition ; and they afford striking illustrations of
the extent to which administrative abuses are independent of
forms of government.
The surprise expressed by some historians that no conditions
in favor of good administration were exacted on the restoration
\ of Charles II. would perhaps be less if they had reflected that
I the privileged classes were opposed to such conditions, and
that a vast army, in great part old officers and placemen,
expected to become officials again, and to enjoy .the spoils of
' the old system revived. Cromwell had established no method
except the arbitrary exercise of his will and that of his offi-
cers for official selections. That method, in the hands of a
monarch like Charles II., in an age of reaction against Puri-
tanism as well as all morality and religion, was precisely what
the most corrupt and desperate villains in politics, and all the
dependents of the privileged classes, most desired. It in-
cluded all the essential conditions of a saturnalia of official cor-
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 6L
ruption, and therefore facilitated the loss of no small portion
of what had been gained for good government by the revolu-
tion. Quite as unscrupulously as at any other period, public
authority in the hands of the King, his favorites, and the priv-
ileged classes was now used in every grade of official life as a
prerogative for gain, a bribery fund, and a terror ; to the de-
basing demands of which every one seeking to enter the public
service must prostrate himself, and every one in it must con-
form. Ko man of high capacity could act the part of a patriot
or a reformer who had not the stalwart virtue that could with-
stand offers the most tempting and threats the most formid-
able. It was in this reign that the systematic buying of votes
in Parliament began, and the abuse spread with great rapidity.
We shall never realize how vast have been the reforms in
Great Britain, without looking into the profound depths of
the corruption and villainy which followed the Restoration.
On two points Charles was in earnest : (1) " he would not
have a company of fellows ' looking into his actions and exam-
ining his ministers and accounts ;" and (2) he would have titles
and estates for his mistresses, and would use the appointing
power freely to gratify his passions, please his court, reward
his favorites, punish his enemies caring as little as the most
mercenary partisan demagogue of later days for the cost of
the service or the rights, honor, or morals of the people.
" The public service was starved that courtiers might be pam-
pered." . . . " The personal favorites of the sovereign, his
ministers and the creatures of those ministers were gorged with public
money." . . . " The regular salary was, however, the smallest
part of the gains of an official man of that age. From the nobleman
who held the white staff and the great seal down to the humblest tide
waiter and ganger, what would now be called gross corruption was
practiced without disguise and without reproach. Titles, places, com-
missions, pardons were daily sold in market overt by the great dignita-
ries of the realm ; and every clerk in every department imitated, to
the best of his power, the evil example. Whitehall, when he dwelt
there, was a focus of political intrigue and fashionable gayety."
' He meant by " fellows" members of Parliament, and it must be borne in
mind that members of Parliament had not yet got so much patronage as to
be involved in the corruption of the tunes.
5
62 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
" Whoever could make himself agreeable to the prince or could
secure the good offices of the ministers, might hope to rise in the
world without rendering any service to the government, without even
being known by sight to any Minister of State. This courtier got a
frigate, and that a company ; the third the pardon of a rich offender;
a fourth a lease of Crown land on easy terms. ' '
' ' If the King notified his pleasure that a briefless favorite should
be made a judge or that a libertine favorite should be made a peer,
the gravest counsellors, after a little murmuring, submitted. ' '
" The immense gain of official men moved envy and indignation.
Here a gentleman was paid to do nothing. There many gentlemen
were paid to do what would be better done by one. " . . . " The
house swarmed with placemen of all kinds Lords of the Treasury,
Lords of the Admiralty, Commissioners of Customs, Commissioners
of Excise, Commissioners of Prizes, Tellers, Auditors, Receivers,
Paymasters, Officers of the Mint, Officers of the Household, Colonels
of Regiments, Captains of Men-of-war, Governors of Forts. ' '
Parliament made no serious attempt to reform in this
reign.
" There was great servility and no small amount of corruption
among its members. A minister of Charles II. declared that to pocket
the bribes, members flocked around him like so many jackdaws for
cheese." 2
The King and the court actually became pensionaries of great cor-
porations, and franchises and titles were bartered for money. Childs,
the Chairman of the India Company, bribed Charles II. with a pres-
ent of 10,000 guineas from its funds, and James II. with the same
amount.
" All who could help or hurt at court, ministers, mistresses, priests,
were kept in good humor by presents of shawls and silks, bird's-nests
and attar of roses, bulses of diamonds and bags of guineas.
James ordered his seal to be set to a new charter."
Imitating Cromwell, Parliament in this reign applied a theo-
logical as well as a political test to office. The Test Act re-
quired, in addition to the oath of allegiance and supremacy,
1 Macauley's History, vol. i. , p. 303 and 359.
8 Palgrave's Lectures on House of Commons, 1877.
3 History, vol. vi., p. 249.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 63
that every one in the civil and military employment of the
State should make a declaration against transubstantiation and
also partake of the sacrament according to the rites of the
Church of England. This theory of strengthening a creed in
religion may seem very absurd at first blush ; but are we cer-
tain that it cannot be defended upon every ground upon which
parties have, in our times, justified a test of political faith for
every petty office ? Not having practised the political art of
propagating religion in that way, we call it oppression and
have little faith in its success.
From Charles II. to James II. the short step is downward
from one corrupt administration that was graceful and cautious
to another that was brutal and reckless.
James II. cannot be said to have brought any new system
into the public service ; but he combined together the worst
elements of the despotic spoils system and the partisan spoils
system, to both of which he added a taint of his own character.
Far more arbitrary than Charles I., and quite as corrupt as
Charles II., he imitated Cromwell, without his respect for
merit, in the enforcement of a theological test in politics, and
made a sort of political party out of Catholic sympathizers.
He had no higher conception of the appointing power than to
make it the instrument of his vengeance, his vanity, his lust,
and his bigoted ambition. In the true spirit of the spoils sys-
tem, of which he was the head, he became a pensionary of the
King of France, pocketing the gold of that country as a con-
dition of betraying his own.
Jeffreys, his favorite judge, ordered hanging and judicially
levied blackmail as boldly as ever Barnard, under his view of
the spoils system, granted illegal injunctions, or any of his
associates plundered the public treasury. The Queen and the
King's favorites collected commissions on fines and forfeitures
imposed by the King as freely as ever the wife of a republican
secretary made a levy upon army posts, or the partisan leaders
in a republic ever levied percentages on salaries fixed by Con-
gress.
" The naval administration moved the contempt of men acquainted
with the dock-yards of France and Holland. "... In the navy
64: CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
alone James seems to have made some reforms. ' ' The military ad-
ministration was worse. The courtiers took bribes from the colonels,
the colonels cheated the soldiers ; the commissaries sent in long bills
for what they had never furnished. Keepers of arsenals sold the
stores and pocketed the price. From the time of the Restoration to
the time of the Revolution, neglect and fraud had been almost con-
stantly impairing the efficiency of every department of the govern-
ment. Honors and public trusts, peerages, baronetcies, regiments,
frigates, embassies, governments, commissionerships, leases of Crown
lands, contracts for clothing, for provisions, for ammunition, pardons
for murder, for robbery, for arson, were sold at Whitehall, scarcely
less openly than asparagus at Covent Garden, or herrings at Billings-
gate. Brokers had been incessantly plying for customers in the pur-
lieus of the court ; and of these brokers the most successful had been,
in the days of Charles, the harlots, and in the days of James, the
priests. From the palace, which was the chief seat of this pesti-
lence, the taint had diffused itself through every office and every rank
in every office, and had everywhere produced feebleness and disor-
ganization." 1
It is worthy of notice in what small measure the contempora-
ries of these events comprehended how perilous administrative
corruption is to a nation's peace and strength. At that time
little importance was attached to the modes of appointing
officers, the methods of doing the public business, or to charac-
ter in public places. It is only since administration has been
made a sort of science by English statesmen, that they have
looked back and got a clear view of the fearful perils and costs
in which official incapacity and dishonesty had involved the
nation.
There is nothing new in the partisan (and generally supposed
to be modern) theory of manipulating election districts, pack-
ing legislatures, or supporting the party right or wrong.
" Returning officers [says Macaulay] were appointed who would
avail themselves of the slightest pretences to declare the King's friends
duly elected. Every placeman, from the highest to the lowest, must
be made to understand, if he wished to retain his office, that he must
at this juncture support the Throne by his vote and interest. The
1 History, vol. iv., p. 61 and 62.
CIVIL SERVICE LIST GREAT BRITAIN". 65
high commission in the meanwhile would keep its eye upon the clergy.
The boroughs, which had just been remodelled to serve one turn, might
be modelled to serve another turn. By such means the King hoped to
obtain a majority in the House of Commons."
Here is Gerrymandering, complete, from the brain of a
royal bigot and despot, put in actual practice, three quarters
of a century before Elbridge Gerry or this republic was born ;
and it is but another instance of old abuses which so many
suppose to be original in a republic, and not a few palliate as
inevitable in our politics, if, indeed, they are not held to be a
very justifiable means of partisan success.
Under James II. also, the champions of the spoils and pat-
ronage system as vigorously denied the right of a member of
Parliament, a judge, a magistrate, a bishop, or even a colonel,
to hold political opinions different from those of his chief, as
the advocates of that system now dispute the right of a
ganger, a book-keeper, a collector, or a rural postmaster, to
such liberty of opinion. King James wanted a parliament to
suit himself ; and, like Cromwell, seeing no reason why
members of Parliament, as well as those holding office in the
executive departments, should not be required to be of his
way of thinking, he acted accordingly. The same author
says : " King James also determined to revise the Commis-
sions of Peace and Lieutenancy, and to keep in power and to
retain in public employment only such gentlemen as should be
disposed to support his policy. ' ' Here also Jackson has small
claims to originality, and was greatly outdone in his own line of
fame by James II. The King pursued a similar course in regard
to municipal corporations ; threatening the revocation of
charters if the support of his policy was not pledged. In case
of the attempted coercion of the Lieutenants, we find perhaps
the first plain utterance and, if not the first, certainly one of
the most striking examples of that manly, self-respecting
feeling in the official life of England, which, contrary to the
common belief, I fear that even the independent spirit of
republican officials does not always surpass. For the histo-
rian adds that " half the Lieutenants of England peremptorily
refused to stoop to the odious service which was required of
them." . . . " They were immediately dismissed. "
66 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN".
Similar attempts on magistrates and candidates for Parliament
met with a resistance equally honorable and equally success-
ful. " Arguments, promises, threats were tried in vain. . .
The candidates and magistrates of four counties unanimously
refused to fetter themselves by the pledge which the King de-
manded of them." In parts of the kingdom, where the King
had great hopes, out of sixty only seven made so much as a
qualified promise to support the royal policy. The candidates
for Parliament in 1687 framed and signed a paper, and sent it
to the King, which is so just and manly that legislators of the
present day, from whom mercenary caucuses or the great
chiefs of politics attempt to extort pledges, could hardly do
better than to adopt it, if indeed they have the courage.
These are the material parts : " As a member of the House of
Commons, should I have the honor of a seat there, I shall
think it my duty carefully to weigh such reasons as may be
adduced in debate for and against a bill, . . . and then
to vote according to my conscientious convictions."
' l As an elector, I shall give my support to candidates whose
notions of the duty of a representative agree with my own."
Perhaps clerks in the departments, when coerced as to his vote
by members of Congress, could not do better than refer their
persecutors to this dignified language of their political ances-
tors, addressed to King James II. For the progress made in
civil liberty since his reign is well illustrated in the fact that a
large portion of the members of Parliament then sustained
relations to the Crown quite as dependent as those our ordinary
clerks now sustain to members of Congress. The elections
went against the King and in favor of those who thus stood on
principle and duty, but had no patronage. A motion having
been made to inquire into the abuses in the elections, King
James answered it in the same way that General Jackson
answered those who opposed his election : " The members who
had voted against the court were dismissed from the public
service." Charles Fox quitted the pay office ; the Bishop of
London ceased to be Dean of the Royal Chapel, and so on down
the official list. In one particular the King proposed to carry
the theory of the spoils system and the doctrine of passive
obedience to those in authority further, perhaps, than any of
its advocates have proposed to carry it in our days, however
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 67
much they may have in secret practice followed King James'
precedent. He insisted that none but those who approved his
policy should have a license for selling wine, beer, or coffee ;
not seeing any good reason, I suppose, why the faithful con-
stable or magistrate, who might be called on to deal with an
offending coffee-stand or beer-cellar, should, any more than
the voter (who had got the favor of a license he had broken)
be placed under a pledge to support those who gave him his
privileges.
"Every battered old cavalier (says Macaulay) who, in re-
turn for blood and lands lost in the royal cause, had obtained
some small place under the Keeper of the Wardrobe or the
Master of the Harriers, was called up to choose between the
King and the Church. The Commissioners of Customs and
Excise were ordered to attend his Majesty at the Treasury.
There he demanded from them a promise to support his poli-
cy, and directed them to require a similar promise from all
their subordinates. One custom-house officer notified his sub-
mission to the royal will in a way which excited both merri-
ment and compassion. 'I have,' he said, 'fourteen reasons
for obeying his Majesty's command : a wife and thirteen
young children. ' '
That system was all the more terrible in the King's hands,
because it was carried to its logical results of allowing him to
remove, and he did remove, judges and justices at will, as he
did all other officers. " The packed judges of the Court of
King's Bench gave, as a matter of course, judgment in favor
of the Crown." ' Wielding this all-pervading power, he used
it everywhere, as an unscrupulous party majority might use it,
and his strong hand was felt in every local election. " Its
effect was to place in the hands of the Crown the nomination
of a large portion of the members of the House of Commons,
and also to give its adherents the power of domineering in all
the daily detail of local municipal politics. The court put in
force every artifice and used injustice and violence of the
gravest kind throughout England to manage the elections.
. . . An eminently servile House of Commons was the
result." 2 '
I Creasy on the English Const. , p. 308.
II Creasy on the English Const., pp. 308 and 310.
68 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
I hardly need say that all this use of patronage and spoils^
of threats and solicitation, alike failed to increase the power
of King James. The feeling of independence and the sense
of public duty, the patriotism and the manhood, among the
people from whom we sprung, were, under an arbitrary mon-
arch near two centuries ago, too great and fearless to submit
to such abuses. They saw that one of two results must soon
happen either that all the justice and liberty enjoyed by Eng-
lishmen must be lost in an intolerable despotism, or that the
prostitution of official authority must be arrested. The world
knows how England decided that issue what angry cries hur-
ried Jeffreys to the Tower how a nation, indignant, drove
its King from its soil and called a foreign prince to the throne.
James, his tyranny and his civil service system fell together,
never more to be tolerated in England.
It may be difficult to decide in what measure the direct
causes of these great events had their origin in any positive
usurpation on the part of Charles II. and James II., or in
what measure they may be traced back to the extravagance
and corruption, the annoyance, humiliation, and oppression,
the royal necessities and presumption, the pride of birth and
the tyranny of official station These were the natural out-
growth of that false and vicious system of public administra-
tion which, while repudiating all moral standards and all
official responsibility, had for centuries flouted and scorned
high character and capacity in the common life of the
nation. That system treated the bestowal of the highest
offices, and the management of what is grandest in the
executive affairs of a nation, as royal and aristocratic per-
quisites and monopolies to be dispensed as a favor or bar-
gained for money and influence. But without attempting
any estimate on the subject, no one can fail now to see, as
Marvel, Eliot and Vane and other great statesmen had fore-
seen, that it was necessary that this system should be arrested,
or liberty, intelligence, and public virtue, in England, would
be dwarfed forever.
CHAPTER VII.
THE NEW SYSTEM OF ADMINISTRATION UNDER WILLIAM III.
Low character and capacity of those he found in office. The Bill of
Rights. Executive officers excluded from Parliament. Tenure of judges
to be during good behavior. Third series of Civil Service Rules. Experi-
ment of opposing leaders for executive advisers and its failure. Factions
lead politics. Origin of British Cabinet. Party government originated in
1893. Its significance. Partisan system of office developed. Its meaning.
Power of Parliament increased. The British Cabinet compared with that
of the United States. Power of appointment and removal and conditions
of administration similar in the two countries. William as a reformer.
Bribery increases with the increased authority of Parliament. Relation of
party government to the partisan system of appointments.
THE vicious methods of selecting officers, and the corrup-
tions which had existed in adminstration, during the last two
reigns, naturally debased the character of those in official life.
When "William, Prince of Orange, came to the throne in
1688, the official life of England was at the lowest stage of
degradation it had ever reached. With rare exception, all
those in office and all those connected with the court or pol-
itics were seething sources of corruption. The very fact of a
man being a public officer or a politician brought a suspicion
upon his integrity and his manhood.
The same causes which had kept men of purity and capacity
from official places had also filled them to overflowing with
venal minions of the court, decayed stewards of lords and
bishops, and the servile henchmen of the privileged classes
generally. Self-respecting manhood had no chances, and sin-
ecurists drained the public treasury. William could never be
certain that any of those he found in office would be either faith-
ful or competent in an emergency. " The standard of honor
and virtue among our public men was, during his reign, at the
70 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
very lowest point. His predecessors had bequeathed to him a
court foul with all the vices of the Restoration, a court swarm-
ing with sycophants, who were ready, on the first turn of
fortune, to abandon him, as they had abandoned his uncle.
Here and there, lost in the ignoble crowd, was to be found a
man of true integrity and public spirit. ' ' '
It is at this time, and at such profound depths of official
degradation, that we may begin to trace the motions of those
purer currents that led slowly on to great improvements.
From the beginning, the movement for reform was republican
in its spirit a struggle in which the privileged classes con-
tended for their old monopoly, and the unprivileged classes for
equal chances to enter the service of their country.
" The politicians of the Upper House were deeply tainted with the
treachery and duplicity common to most English statesmen between
the Restoration and the American Revolution. Most of the bills for
preventing corrupt influence in the Commons . . . were crushed
by the influence of ministers in the House of Lords. The country
was long seriously burdened, and some of the professions were system-
atically degraded, in order to furnish lucrative posts for the younger
members of the aristocratic families ; and the representative character
of the Lower House was so utterly prevented by the multiplication of
nomination boroughs, in the hands of the peers, that a storm of in-
dignation was at last raised, which shook the very pillars of the con-
stitution." 2
In his own person, the King brought a purer moral tone as
well as habits of business to his high station. The English
people had gained wisdom since they called Charles II. to the
throne without guaranties for good administration. They
therefore, at the accession of William, imposed some con-
ditions upon the crown ; but the low state of morals in polit-
ical circles allowed these conditions to be far less stringent
than the public safety required. Still some of them have a
vital bearing upon our system. They clearly show the in-
creased power of the higher sentiments. It was a part of the
1 Macaulay's History, vol. iv., p. 60.
2 Lecky's England in the Nineteenth Century, vol. i., pp. 198 and 199.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 71
great results of this revolution to limit tlie power of the Crown
and to increase that of Parliament and of the higher public
opinion. In order to prevent the King and the army of civil
officers from everywhere controlling elections, as they had
formerly done, the Bill of Rights of 1688 declared that " elec-
tions of members of Parliament ought to be free." In the
same spirit it was provided, in the Act of Settlement of the
next year, ' ' that no person who has an office and place of
profit under the King, or receives a pension from the Crown,
shall be capable of serving as a member of the House of
Commons;"* and also, "that judges' commissions shall be
made quamdieu se l>ene gessarint, and their salaries ascertained
and established ; but upon the address of both Houses of
Parliament it may be lawful to remove them. ' ' And I may
anticipate a little by adding that in the first year of the reign
of George III. (1760)" it was enacted that the judges should
continue to hold their offices notwithstanding the demise of
the King, and that they should continue to enjoy their salaries
during their terms, which shall be ' ' during good behavior. ' '
Taken together, these provision? may be designated as
another (a third) series of "Civil Service Hules." They
broadly break into the old spoils system in various ways, but
more especially by raising the judiciary above executive
interference. The former rules (I have referred to) related
mainly to qualifications for appointment ; here, however, for
the first time, we find independence secured in the proper dis-
charge of duty while in office. These precedents (so far as
they relate to the judiciary) we have followed ; for they are
the well-known originals of our constitutional provisions that
judges "shall hold their offices during good behavior," and
shall not have their compensation diminished during their con-
tinuance in office. But the difference in the two countries has
been that, M'hiie in England the same tenure has been grad-
ually extended to nearly the whole civil service, we have, more
1 Such a law would of course have excluded members of the Cabinet
from membership of either House of Parliament, and thus have disastrously
changed the whole balance of the executive system of Great Britain.
4 Statutes George III., chap. 23.
72 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
especially in later years, confined it to judges alone. 1 This
provision of the Act of Settlement, however, was too much
for the disinterestedness of the members of the then existing
Parliament, but was not beyond that which they were willing
to demand of their successors ; and so they speedily changed
the provision to the effect that it should only apply to mem-
bers elected after 1705 ; but even that provision was modified.
In the mean time, however, an act passed in 1694, for a new
revenue board for stamp duties, provided that its members
should not have seats in Parliament ; and this, Mr. Hallam
says, is the first exclusion from membership of that body on
account of employment. A law of 1699 extended the exclu-
sion to various other excise officers. It will be perceived that
these are material limitations of the opportunities of official
tyranny under the old spoils system ; and it is a good illustra-
tion of the survival of parts of that system that we now often
see our State legislatures protecting themselves against execu-
tive officers, as the British Parliament did near two centuries
ago, by excluding them from membership.
But we have never yet, in our federal legislation at least,
acted upon the salutary precedent of the Bill of Rights, by
preventing such officers interfering with the freedom of elec-
tions. We have, on the contrary, so tamely surrendered our-
selves to official dictation, that a late mild attempt of the Pres-
ident to vindicate such freedom at elections was denounced by
partisan leaders as an interference with the just liberty of
officials as if the exertion of official authority over elections,
rather than freedom on the part of the private citizen in tak-
ing part in them, was the right to be protected.
During the first five years of William's reign his position
was peculiar. Strictly speaking, there were no parties, but
factions ; and yet the power of the King was not despotic.
Despotism was at an end, but neither parliamentary nor party
1 We have not, in the States, as is well known, generally maintained that
tenure even for judges, but have elected them for short terms. The tend-
ency now is toward a longer tenure ; New York, for example, has lately
changed her judicial tenure from eight to fourteen years. Our federal stat-
utes go the full length of the Bill of Rights in excluding executive officers
from the legislature.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 73
government had begun. 1 The condition was that of rival no-
blemeri and unscrupulous factions among the higher classes
contending for the favor of the King and the control of pa-
tronage. Parliament had become stronger and more ambitious
than ever before, but it had then secured but little patronage.
The King, seeking to harmonize contending factions, took
opposing elements into his council. Being a sovereign of
commanding ability and great experience in administration, he
seems to have thought that he could bend rival factions to his
policy ; or at least that he could make a strong administration
by pursuing a middle course. He gave the experiment a thor-
ough trial during five years. So far as royal authority had,
under the Stuarts, not been absolute, it had been shared by
the Privy Council, a large body, of which the kings had really
consulted only a small number, and those of course royal fa-
vorites. William seems to have become convinced, after five
years' experience, that neither any large body, nor any body
though not large, which contained antagonistic elements, could
successfully exercise executive power.
" It would cause infinite delay and embarrassment in governing the
kingdom." " Want of harmony caused want of vigor. " 2 "Some
of the most serious difficulties of his situation were caused by the
conduct of the ministers on whom he was forced to rely. There
was indeed no want of ability among his chief councillors, but one
half of their ability was employed in counteracting the other half.
"The two Secretaries of State were constantly laboring to
draw their masters in diametrically opposite directions. ' '
Such a state of things could not be long endured. Unity of
policy was found to be as essential as unity of action. In
short, the King's experiment of reconciliation and harmony
had failed utterly. A remedy for the difficulty was proposed
by Sunderland and approved by William, in 1693 ; which was
this : that a small number, since called the " Cabinet," or the
1 Hallam says that political factions were so violent in the early part of
William's reign, that they were " regardless of all the decencies of political
lying."
8 Creasy on the English Constitution, p. 332.
8 Macaulay's History, vol. iv., pp. 63-70 ; and vol. vii., pp. 216-256.
74 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
" Cabinet Council," should be selected from the party in ma-
jority in Parliament, under whose advice the King should carry
on the government, leaving to the ancient Privy Council only
a small portion of its original authority. The Cabinet soon
discontinued the practice it first adopted of consulting the
Privy Council at all. The members of the Cabinet were called
"Cabinet Ministers." Yet this "Cabinet," which keeps no
records, yet controls the highest affairs of a vast empire, which
is the original upon which our Cabinet is modelled and the
embodiment of what all the world has come to designate as
parliamentary government, is not, nor are its members, named
in any law or known to the English Constitution. l
This important change in the method of exercising execu-
tive authority marks or perhaps, I might say, was in itself
the origin of political parties in the modern sense, and of
party government in England, and, indeed, in the world.
This change, so pregnant of vast consequences in every way,
enormously increased the power of Parliament over the civil
service ; since from its majority the members of the Cabinet
were to be taken, and upon their failure to receive the support
of that majority they were, according to the new theory, to
resign. It tended greatly to secure harmony and vigor in the
administration, which at all times (apparently at least) repre-
sented the majority of the nation. It hardly need be added
that it also developed two great parties, each of which strug-
gled for that majority which would give the victor the control
not only of all legislation, but of all administration. There
being no separate States to share the power and dignity of
government, the central party majority was really made (in a
more absolute sense than has ever been the fact in this country)
supreme throughout the domain of politics. Such vast power,
as well as all patronage (which Parliament could grasp), and
the direction of every officer (save the judges), the enactment
of all laws and the interpretation of the constitution itself,
constituted the grand objects for which party warfare was
1 By making the Lord Chancellor a member of the Cabinet, and not giv-
ing to the V ice-Chancellors a tenure during good behavior, the English
equity system was left far more dependent than is our own upon political
favor.
& net WASH,NGTM. s <!-
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 75
thereafter to be waged. This great change was what naturally
and speedily led to the development in England of the partisan
system of appointment to office. Under this system the sharing
of the opinions of the party in power and the unhesitating sup-
port of the policy of its administration, are conditions para-
mount to personal merit, of receiving or retaining each and
every office, however humble ; and the prescriptive use of
patronage in that sense is one of the great agencies relied on
for party strength. In a strict sense, this system was new in
English politics, though Cromwell and some of the kings had ;
ruled in its spirit. Never elsewhere has that system offered
so splendid and so tempting a prize to party victory. And
never elsewhere had the government of a country held its
power by a tenure so precarious ; for on no day could a prime
minister be sure that to-morrow he and his cabinet would not
fall. 1
I have thought it important to recall those events, because
at this date commences the long trial, in Great Britain, of the
efficiency of a partisan system of administration of the same
kind, in general theory and practice, as that known by the
same designation in our politics. It went into effect (as far as
the situation would allow) in 1693, and was continued, though
somewhat modified in detail, without fundamental change, for
one hundred and sixty years, or until 1853, when the first ele-
ments of the Merit System were formally introduced. While
there have been dissimilar conditions in the two countries,
effecting to some extent the bearing of the experience of the one
upon the other, I think it will appear that there is hardly a
phase of administration in the United States upon which that
of Great Britain, under the partisan system, will not be found
to throw a valuable light. For some years after 1693, the
power of the great nobles and families unquestionably caused
the administration to be as much aristocratic as partisan ; but
there was a steady growth of parliamentary influence, aiid
hence of the influence of the great parties, at the expense of the
Crown and privileged classes. As the power of Parliament and
1 There have been in fact, I believe, three cabinets in the same month in
England, though the average duration of each has been about three and a
half years.
76 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
of popular opinion increased, the House of Commons more and
more encroached upon the old prerogatives of the executive,
and, in similar measure, of course upon its patronage. Mem-
bers seeking patronage naturally conditioned their support of
aspirants for seats in the Cabinet upon pledges of such patron-
age ; and here we have the origin of members of the legislature
dictating local appointments. Much in the same ratio that
members of Parliament grasped patronage, parliamentary elec-
tions became corrupt and the votes of members became venal.
As a consequence, bribery of voters and of members so in-
creased that we shall soon find the greater corruption in the
administration standing, for the first time in English history,
in connection with Parliament rather than with the executive.
Before proceeding to the practical effects of the partisan sys-
tem, it will be useful to consider how close is the similarity in
the two countries between the methods of exercising executive
authority. Between an hereditary king and nobility on one
side, and an elective president and senators on the other, the
difference of course is vast ; but practically authority over
administration in Great Britain is now neither with the Crown
nor the Lords, but, as here, is with the Cabinet and the heads
of departments. I have said that our Cabinet is modelled upon
this original Cabinet of 1693. The imitation is one of both
substance and form. We borrowed the English name. Like
the Cabinet of England, our own keeps no records. Ours,
like hers, is unknown to the constitution and the laws. The
authority of either is nowhere defined nor is the action of either
anywhere legally subject to review. In each country alike, the
Cabinet, in a large way, has the care of its great affairs in peace
and war ; the one with a king, the other with a president, in
whose name everything is done ; and in the president is united
nearly all the powers of the king, with perhaps all those of
the prime minister. The modal difference is this : that in
England the king names a prime minister from the party
majority of members elected by the people to Parliament, and
the member so named selects the other members of the Cab-
inet from the same party majority, subject to the assent of
the king, which he is almost certain to give ; while, with us,
the president (himself elected by the party majority) selects
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 77
the members of his Cabinet from that same majority, sub-
ject to the assent of the Senate, which it is almost certain to
give. The one grand difference in the two governments,
touching the civil service, is the power of the United States
Senate in the matter of confirmation, to which no executive
authority possessed by Parliament corresponds ; but, as a sort
of offset, the president freely uses the veto power, which for
more than a century no British sovereign has used, and which
may therefore be regarded as obsolete. 1
Both methods alike bring into the control of the administra-
tion men who stand for the principles and policy of the party
majority of the nation, and it is their duty to interpret those prin-
ciples and to carry that policy into action. "With us the same
policy may be pursued for four years, unless arrested by sup-
ply bills, even though the party majority has changed. But,
in England, a change of the popular majority will be at once
followed by a change of the Cabinet, unless Parliament is
prorogued, and a new election ordered. In England the per-
manence of the Crown and the House of Lords, and in the
United States the fixed term of the President and the con-
servative influence of the Senate, put some check upon the
sudden and dangerous oscillations in policy which the too rapid
changes in the popular majority might otherwise produce.
The constitutions of both countries give the appointing
power, and by implication the power of promotion, removal,
and control of subordinates, to the executive (which in Great
Britain, for nearly all administrative purposes, means to the
Cabinet and departments), but in neither constitution has it
been defined how that power should be exercised, nor are
there any adequate safeguards against its use for selfish or par-
tisan ends. "Whether it be a trust for the public benefit or
an official perquisite, each constitution leaves to inference. :
Hence it may be said, with equal truth of both govern-
ments, that in principle those who administer them may give
1 There is this further difference in practice, that in Great Britain the sove-
reign does not preside at or attend Cabinet meetings, while with us the
President always presides. Originally the practice was the same in Great
Britain, but is said to have been discontinued because George I. could not
speak the English language.
6
78 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
' ' to the party in power those places where harmony and vigor
of administration require its policy to be represented, ' ' and
that both alike " permit all others to be filled by persons
selected with sole reference to the efficiency of the public
service and the right of all citizens to share in the honor
of rendering faithful service to their country." Neither gov-
ernment, more than the other, seems to require that all sub-
ordinate officials should be active politicians or hold the same
political opinions as the high officers who control its policy.
The divisions into departments State and Foreign Affairs,
the Treasury, AVar, Naval Affairs, Public Justice, the Post
Office Department, with subdivisions into bureaus and offices
having various grades of official and clerical duty are, with
formal difference, in the main the same in the two countries,
except that this great difference grows out of the very nature
of the two governments viz. , that ours most encourages
supreme regard for personal merit and accords the least im-
portance to wealth, birth, and official and social prestige.
With these elements of similarity in mind, we may consider
the great trial of the partisan system and its results in Great
Britain.
A few more words will suffice as to the reign of William.
The greatest statesman of his age and the ablest man that
had sat on the English throne in modern times, he was the
first of her kings who had any sense of the vital importance
of good administration ; an importance all the greater in the
fearful stress of arms and of civil discontent in which so much
of his reign was involved. Finding so few officials worthy of
confidence, he became a practical reformer himself ; taking
time, in the midst of the most exacting duties, to make inves-
tigations into the depaitments ; for example, going in person
day after day to the Navy Department and to the Treasury,
and overhauling records and accounts which disclosed the most
flagrant incompetency, neglect, and corruption. He removed
many sinecurists, enforced economy in various ways, and
brought able men into the public service. He was his own
Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and reformed that branch of
the service. He vetoed several bills, and (except in a single
instance) he was the last English sovereign who has thought it
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 79
prudent to use that high authority. He did not allow members
of Parliament to acquire much control over patronage, but he
used it in the hope of strengthening the Whig party. Still in
his reign there began to be a strong indication of patronage
falling into the hands of members. His influence was in favor
of retaining efficient officers as long as they were honest, and
this much strengthened the example of the permanent tenure
of judges. But he resorted to pensions, sinecures, and venal
patronage to influence Parliament. Though in advance of
his age, he did not wholly keep clear of its corruptions. His
high example, however, in favoring some reforms and in giving
reformers exemption from the courtly annoyance and the lordly
scorn and sarcasm, to say nothing of the injustice and perse-
cution, they had before encountered, so emboldened the re-
form spirit that even Parliament itself was driven by public
opinion, for the first time since Cromwell's death, into mak-
ing a real investigation into the abuses of the public service.
Mr. Macaulay says, " The House fully determined to make a
real reform, and in truth nothing could have averted such a
reform except the folly and violence of the reformers." The
common fault of underrating the power of those organized
about abuses of long standing, and of believing the attempt
should be made to remove all evils by one drastic operation,
was fatal for the time. The House even had the rashness and
folly to vote that no person employed in the civil service
(save the Speaker, judges and ambassadors) should receive
more than five hundred pounds a year. All the higher
officials combined for self-defence, and the cause of reform
was arrested by causes that may be traced back to the incompe-
tency and impetuosity of its own friends.
While the partisan system in its early stages tended greatly to
increase the influence of members of Parliament and of pub-
lic opinion, and hence in many ways was productive of good,
it early showed its inability to much raise the moral standard
of official life. Even before the close of William's reign it
greatly increased the practice of bribery. " Burnet assures us
that, at the election of 1701, when William was still on the
throne, a most scandalous practice was brought in of buying
votes, with so little decency that the electors engaged them-
80 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN".
selves by subscription to choose a blank person before they
were trusted with the name of the candidate. " . . . In
a pamphlet (published by Defoe) in 1701, he tells us that
there was a regular set of stock-jobbers in the city who made a
business to buy and sell seats in Parliament, that the market
price was 1000 guineas, and that Parliament was in a fair way
of coming under the management of a few individuals." '
The stronger and most corrupt interest in these elections was
the new influence over appointments which members of
Parliament had unfortunately acquired with their enlarged
legislative authority.
In considering the effects of party government, and the par-
tisan system for appointments and removals, now on trial, it is
important to have clear views of their relations to each other.
It by no means follows that party government must enforce a
partisan system in carrying on the administration. Patriotic
motives may prevail and personal worth may be prized higher
than party zeal. It is unquestionably essential to such gov-
ernment that a few of the higher executive officers at the
head of affairs, who are to carry into effect the policy, both
domestic and foreign, of the dominant party, should share the
opinions of that party and have faith in its policy. Such
higher officers guide all executive affairs, give instructions to
all below them, and enforce official obedience everywhere. 2
The political opinions of the vast body of subordinate officials,
including the whole clerical force, in a properly regulated
civil service, are not material to the success of such policy ;
nor would such subordinates be active politicians if not com-
1 Lecky's English History in the Eighteenth Century, vol. i., p. 397.
* In British administration there are from thirty-four to fifty of these
higher officers, who are regarded as political, and who go out when their
party suffers defeat. They include, of course, all the members of the Cab-
inet, and certain of the heads of departments. Various of the departments
the Treasury, Admiralty, War, Customs, Inland Revenue, for example
have Boards at their head, a part of the members of which (except of the
two latter) are regarded as political. But there are permanent members of
these Boards who are specially charged with the care of the administrative
work. Foreign ministers are not generally displaced by a new administra-
tion, but may be, if important questions of policy are involved ; though
transfers are more frequent than removals.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 81
pelled to be in order to prevent their own removal. It is
quite open to a party in power, therefore, either to enforce a
prescriptive, partisan system in the civil service, or to select
those to till the subordinate places with paramount reference
to personal merit, and to leave them undisturbed so long as
their duties are well performed. Whether party government
will insist on having a partisan civil service will, of course, de-
pend on the relative strength of its moral and patriotic elements
as compared with its corrupt and prescriptive elements. In
Great Britain the latter elements were for a long time con-
trolling, and they can hardly be said to have been subordinated
by the other until 1853, when, as I have said, the Merit System,
in a qualified form, was introduced, without any change in the
essential features of party government.
CHAPTEE VIII.
PARTY GOVERNMENT FROM ANNE TO GEORGE HI.
Attempted union of opposing elements in her Cabinet. Advantages of par-
ty government. Parliament takes power from the Crown. Uses patron-
age corruptly. Officers in postal services prohibited from interfering with
elections. Gross injustice in contested election cases. Turning out officers
to make places a high Tory device. Increase of bribery. Office-holders
excluded from Parliament. The partisan system degrades official life and
becomes a spoils system. Religious tests for office and their consequence.
Partisan censorship of the press. Bales of boroughs. Parliament grows
more corrupt. Robert Walpole, his theory, and gross corruption of his rule.
Public despair. Duke of Newcastle. Growth of higher public opinion
outside official life. John Wesley. William Pitt. Drunkenness and
gambling, crime and violence, have increased. Fearful condition of pris-
ons.
COMING to the throne in 1702, Queen Anne brought to it
no personal qualities likely to affect the administration, except
purity of character and decided Tory sympathies. Looking at
the party conflict from the Tory side, as William had from the
Whig side, she also sought peace and a good execution of the
laws through an administration of which the leaders of both
parties were members. ' ' Her ideal was a government in which
neither Whig nor Tories possessed a complete ascendency. ' ' :
Until near the end of her reign she persevered with such a
Cabinet ; but, like King William's experiment of the same
kind, it was essentially a failure, and she finally yielded to
the advice of the stronger party. This part of the policy of
the two sovereigns lias, I believe, never been tried by any of
their successors. Referring to the contemplated adoption of
the same policy in the next reign, Mr. Hallam 2 says : " But
the mischief of a disunited, hybrid ministry had been
1 1 Lccky, p. 46. 2 Constitutional History, vol. ii. , p. 759.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 83
sufficiently manifest in the two last reigns ; nor could George,
a stranger to his people and their constitution, have under-
taken without ruin that most difficult task of balancing parties
and persons, to which the great mipd of William had proved
unequal." When this theory of balancing party influence in
the Cabinet was at an end, party government had its first great
opportunity.
Party government as such (that is, as distinct from a parti-
san and corrupt system of administration) was an immense
advance in political justice and civilization. In spirit, it
declared the majority of the people, instead of the King, the
privileged classes and court favorites, to be the ruling power.
It affirmed that great political principles, and not royal and
aristocratic pleasure and interests, were the true standards of
public duty. It widened the circle of those who enjoyed the
monopoly of office, transferring it from the King, the nobles,
and their favorites, to the King, the dominant party (or at
least the managers of that party), and their favorites. It thus
tended strongly to a larger liberty and equality, at the same
time that it stimulated public thought and gave to personal
worth and capacity larger opportunity of influence. It tended
also to inspire a higher conception of the dignity and power of
government, as having all its action conformable to great polit-
ical principles ; and it aroused a loftier feeling of self-respect
in the citizen, since through his party he could make his
influence felt, and was himself recognized as a part of the
nation. Party government, in its larger spirit, had also this
salutary effect upon the administration that it tended to make
it harmonious, public and national. In earlier times each min-
ister, head of department or great office was independently
appointed, governed, and removed by the King ; each acted
as an independent chieftain within his own autocratic sphere
of duty ; and the administration therein was as diverse as it was
secret, capricious, and arbitrary. The subordinate officers or
agents were mere hirelings of the heads of departments.
When party government was established, the Cabinet became
in theory one body standing for a policy, and administering
the national affairs as a whole. It is also one of the good
results of the partisan system itself (as compared with the
84 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
despotic system), to be set off against its manifest evils,
that it introduced third persons the dominant party and its
leaders whom it recognized as having a right to be heard in
the disposal of office. In earlier times the giver and receiver
were the only parties to the contract. The introduction of
this third party tended to greater publicity, since in a measure
it opened the secrets of patronage and of the spoils system to
public criticism. If it only conceded a right to share office
to those of the dominant party, and not to the people at large,
it was at least a great and essential step toward recognizing the
just claims of merit.
The appointing power and the control of administration passed
as largely from the Crown to Parliament, in the reign of
Queen Anne, as it did in this country from the President to
Congress in the twenty years following the close of General
Jackson's second term. It was something like a revolution,
which threatened the counterpoise of legislative and executive
power, under each government. The newly acquired appoint-
ing power was more and more, under Queen Anne, used by
the dominant party for corrupt and merely partisan purposes ;
foreboding a reproduction of the spoils system in another form.
Party government was thus put to a severe test in its very
outset. It became more and more clear, as its trial went on,
that there was no virtue in it adequate for the reform of the
great abuses which it had inherited ; and, on the other hand,
the new order of things soon developed serious evils of its own.
Parliament having ceased to be subservient to the Crown,
turned around and made its appointees subservient to itself.
Indeed, it soon became itself tyrannical.
It was early perceived that the only hope of reform was
in a coercive influence, from a higher public opinion, to be
developed outside official circles. The time was favorable
for the formation of that opinion ; as never before had there
been such eminent men who gave their talents to political
literature ; for example, Swift, Bolingbroke, Atterbury, and
Prior on the side of the Tories ; Addison, Steele, and Defoe
on the side of the Whigs. The Tatler, the Spectator, the
Guardian, and the Englishman, and many less celebrated
journals, show the tendency toward popular discussion. To a
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 85
better public opinion thus aroused, we may attribute legislation
(during some years later) that helped to arrest those new evils.
The independent, reforming sentiment to which these times
gave an ineffective utterance acquired a vast power when pro-
claimed by Burke and Chatham in the next generation. A law
enacted early in the reign of Queen Anne ' is an example of the
demand of this public opinion. Referring to the various post-
office officials, it declares that if any of them " shall by word,
message, or writing, or in any manner whatsoever, endeavor to
persuade any elector to give or dissuade any elector from giv-
ing his vote for the choice of any person ... to serve in
Parliament," he shall be liable to a fine of $500, and on con-
viction " shall become disabled and incapable of ever bearing
or executing any office" under the Crown. That law is still
in force, and is printed in the standing instructions before the
eyes of every postmaster in the United Kingdom. To its
salutary influence we may doubtless attribute the exemption
from partisanship and in no small measure the unrivalled effi-
ciency of the British postal service ; while the absence of such
a law in our service has allowed so many of our postmasters
to be politicians and their offices to be electioneering agencies.
The proof that patronage newly acquired by members of
Parliament, and used in a partisan spirit, was rather a source
of corruption than of purification, is decisive. The appetite
for patronage was as insatiable as it was demoralizing on the
part of members of Parliament. Ilallam 2 says of this period :
" Xo check was put on the number or quality of placemen in
the lower House. New offices were continually created and
at unreasonable salaries. Those who desired to see a regard
to virtue and liberty in the Parliament of England could not
be insensible to the enormous mischief of their influence ;"
nor, I fear, can we be insensible to the fact that, to this day,
similar causes continue "to produce similar effects in our own
legislatures.
Mr. Leeky s says that the old corruption, within Parlia-
ment, " increased rather than diminished after the revolu-
tion." In 1694, for example, Sir John Trevor, the Speaker
1 9 Anne, ch. 10, 44. * Const. History, vol. ii., p. 733.
* England in Eighteenth Century, vol. i., p. 396.
86 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
(a cousin and warm friend of the infamous Jeffreys), was con-
victed of receiving a bribe of 1000 guineas from the City of
London for his services in carrying a bill through the House of
Commons. 1
Mr. Hallam 2 shows how early there was a dishonest use of
power in contested election cases; " there was the grossest
partiality . . . and contrary determinations for the sole
purpose of serving rival factions, " by reason of which a statute 3
was passed by the House to check its own corruption, which
renders the last determination of the House of Commons con-
clusive as to the right involved. The modern prescriptive
policy of turning out all the lower officers to make room for
friendly partisans was adopted by the very generation that
originated party government. That policy began with the
high born Tories. Bolingbroke, their great leader, says Hal-
lam, exposes " their intention to fill the employments of the
Kingdom, down to the meanest, with Tories ;" at the same
time declaring the Tory belief to be that such a use of patron-
age and the great property of the Tories would keep them
in power during the whole of the reign of Queen Anne. But
greatly to the surprise of the Tory leader, what happened was
that the Whigs, though without control of patronage, actually
got control of the administration before the end of her reign.
Bribery became so bold that, after outside public opinion
had forced Parliament to enact laws against it (between 1703
and 1708), they seem to have been disregarded even by those
who enacted them. Mr. Lecky 4 (citing Defoe) says :
' ' Never was treating, bribery, buying of voices ... so open
and barefaced. . . . In 1716 we find bitter complaints in Par-
liament of the rapidly-increasing expenses of election, . . . and
a great number of persons have no other livelihood than being em-
ployed in bribing corporations."
1 As Speaker, Sir John was forced to the ignominious duty of putting the
vote in the House that adjudged his own infamy ; hut he did it with a sub-
lime effrontery perhaps without example in a legislative body, until William
M. Tweed rose in the Senate of his State to vindicate the purity of partisan
rule in the city of New York. Trevor's corruption and expulsion did not
prevent him continuing to hold the office of Master of the Rolls for twenty-
two years thereafter ! 2 Vol. ii., p. G40.
3 2 George II., chap. 2. * Vol. i., pp. 397 and 398.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
In a short passage, Mr. Lecky, 1 places in very clear light
not only the fact that the new partisan system was powerless to
elevate the public service, but the further fact that the party
majority, in Parliament, had no disposition to reform the gross
abuses in that body :
" The question in home politics, however, which created most in-
terest in the nation, was of a different kind, and it was one which for
very obvious reasons Parliament desired as much as possible to avoid.
It was the extreme corruption of Parliament itself, its subserviency
to the influence of the executive, and the danger of its becoming in
time rather the oppressor than the representative of the people. This
danger had been steadily growing since the Revolution, and it had
reached such a point that there were many who imagined that they
had certainly gained little by exchanging an arbitrary King for a cor-
rupt and often tyrannical Parliament. ' '
Though members of Parliament exercised without scruple
their new patronage, 2 they had spirit enough to enact laws for
limiting the influence of the executive in their own body. By
one act 3 all persons holding pensions from the Crown were
rendered incapable of sitting in the House ; and by another 4
this prohibition was extended to those who held them for a
term of years but a bill of the House requiring an oath by
each member that he was not pensioned, was defeated in the
House of Lords ; a further fact showing that the greater cor-
ruption was in the old ruling class.
But the inherent incapacity of party government to raise
the moral tone of official life, except as coerced by an indepen-
dent public sentiment, is shown in the steady growth of cor-
rupt favoritism, until its most profound depths were reached
under the administrations of Walpole, Pelham, and Newcastle,
during the reigns of George I. and George II. Xor shall we
find that justice and liberty, except as protected by that senti-
1 England in Eighteenth Century, vol. i. , p. 470.
4 " Patronage," in British politics, seems to include not merely the legal
right to appoint, but controlling influence in respect to an appointment.
When a member of Parliament could influence an appointment effectively,
he was said to have the patronage of that appointment.
' G Anne, chap. 7. 4 1 George I., chap. 56.
88 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
ment, were much more cared for by an arbitrary party major-
ity than they had been by an arbitrary King and nobility. 1
Following the worst examples of the reigns of James and
Charles, the party majority, led by men of no religious prin-
ciples, enforced a religious test in Queen Anne's reign, not
only for all officers under the national government, but for
officers in corporations ; and this (in the language of Mr.
Lecky, and also, I may add, in the language of modern par-
tisans) ' ' on the ground that it was necessary for the party in-
terests." These tests required the reception of the eucharist,
according to the rites of the Church of England ; and so shame-
lessly was one of the most solemn sacraments of Christianity
trailed in the mire of official corruption, and so repugnant was
the spectacle to the better sentiment outside of partisan poli-
tics, that ' ' it became the general custom for the minister, before
celebrating the communion, to desire the legal communicants
to separate themselves from those who were come there purely
for the sake of devotion. 2
In the ninth year of the reign of William III., a law was
enacted for political effect which required that any Catholic
priest who should perform a marriage between a Catholic and
a Protestant should be hung ; there were other laws in the
same spirit ; and in 1729, in the reign of George II. , a Fran-
ciscan friar died in Hurst Castle, in the seventy -fourth year of
his age, and the thirtieth of his imprisonment, under one of
these savages laws. When, in 1701, the party majority had,
in pursuit of its factious policy, delayed the public supplies
(just as we have seen them delayed in our time), and a respect-
ful and constitutional petition from the people was presented,
1 Party government, in these earliest years of its trial, adopted one per-
nicious practice which we have seen despotic partisans continue in this gen-
eration. " The mode adopted by the Commons of tacking, as it was called,
the provisions for this purpose to a money bill, so as to render it impossible
for the Lords even to modify them without depriving the King of his supply,
tended to subvert the constitution and annihilate the rights of a coequal
House of Parliament." Hallam's Constitutional History, vol. ii., p. 703.
2 In one of the states of Germany this prescriptive practice is said to have
been, in its application to licenses, carried so far that the courtesans were
required to partake of the Communion as a qualification for opening a
bawdy house.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 89
justly reflecting on such conduct, the House voted the petition-
ers seditious, had them arrested, and held them in prison for
two months.
Members of Parliament claimed that the proceedings of
their own body (in the same spirit that arbitrary kings had
claimed that the causes and records of their appointments and
removals) were a part of their own secrets, as to which it was
an impertinence for the people to seek any information. If
the right of nominating to office was an official perquisite, with
which the people had nothing to do, why was not knowledge
of the doings of the Commons also an official privilege ? It is
well known that it was only after a long and dangerous struggle
(during which Parliament sent many a reporter to prison), ter-
minating in the reign of George III. , that the right of printing
debates in Parliament was won by the English people.
It was not until 1836 four years after the passage of the
great reform bill that the votes in Parliament were published
by its own authority. The party majority also carried on a
censorship of the public press, on the theory that its control
was as rightful and as essential as was the partisan use of the
appointing power, in order to maintain the dominant party in
position and to keep down its adversaries. And, on this
theory, Steele and others were expelled, Defoe was prosecuted,
and Tutchin and several besides were whipped by the hang-
man, by order of the House of Commons ; and several writers
were compelled to apologize on their knees at the bar of the
House all for the offence of having written in opposition to
the party majority of the hour. 2s or was any check put to
this tyranny until Parliament was prorogued by reason of a
crisis produced by its order in committing to Kewgate four
officers of the Court of King's Bench engaged in carrying out
judgments of that court for maintaining the rights and liberties
of the people.
The injustice and corruption in the matter of contested elec-
tions, which Hallam mentions as existing in the reign of Wil-
liam, grew to be far worse under the two first Georges. Mr.
Lecky ' says : " They threatened to subvert the whole theory
J Vol. i., pp. 477 to 479.
90 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
of representation ; the evil liad already become
apparent in the latter days of William, but some regard for
appearance seems then to have been observed ; soon,
however, all shame was cast aside. In the Tory Parliament, in
1702, the controverted elections, in the words of Burnett, were
adjudged in favor of the Tories with such barefaced partiality
that it showed that the party was resolved on everything that
might serve their ends. When the Whigs triumphed in 1705,
they exhibited the same spirit. In the Parliament which met
in 1728 there were nearly seventy election petitions to be tried,
and Lord Harvey has- left an account of how the House dis-
charged its functions. ' I believe, ' he says, ' the manifest in-
justice and glaring violation of all truth in the decisions of this
Parliament surpass even the most flagrant and infamous in-
stances of injustice of any of their predecessors.
People grew ashamed of pretending to talk of right and wrong,
and laughed at that for which they ought to have blushed, and
declared that in elections they never considered the cause,
but the men, nor even voted according to justice and right,
but from solicitation and favor.' ;
This reference to "solicitation and favor " as a rule for a
decision that ought to have been impartial and non-partisan,
shows how readily the corrupt standard of bestowing office by
favor perverts all political action ; that rule being in this case
carried even into the sphere of judicial procedure. The cele-
brated Speaker Onslow says the rule ' ' that the right is in
the friend, and not in the cause, is almost avowed, and he is
laughed at by the leaders of parties who scruples upon it ;
and yet we should not bear this a month in any other judica-
ture of the Kingdom." Here we see that an independent
tenure, so lately conferred, had already developed a higher
standard of duty in the courts.
The utter demoralization, on the part of those engaged in
political functions, which these facts disclose, and the tone of
despair and desperation (not unknown in our time) with which
all. honorable standards of political conduct were referred to, is
also strikingly illustrated in Mr. Macanlay's essay on Lord
Chatham, where he says :
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 91
" These men wished to transfer the disposal of employments and
the command of the army from the Crown to the Parliament, and*
this on the very ground that the Parliament had long been a grossly
corrupt body. The security against malpractice was to be that the
members, instead of having a portion of the public plunder doled out
to them by a minister, were to help themselves."
There have been several bills presented in our Congress
within the last ten years which have proposed the equally rev-
olutionary measures of substantially giving to members of
Congress all the patronage which they have not already appro-
priated. And some of their advocates, for want of a better
reason, have justified themselves in the same way as the men
referred to by Macaulay. The baneful results of the new
spoils system, in the control of the dominant party, were not,
however, more conspicuous within Parliament than they were
in the election of its members.
Mr. Lecky, quoting the writers of these times, says :
' ' Boroughs are rated at the Royal Exchange like stocks and tallies ;
the price of a vote is as well known as of an acre of land, and it is no
secret who are the moneyed men, and consequently the best custom-
ers."
The Lord Chancellor (Macclesfield) during Walpole's ad-
ministration was impeached for official corruption in selling
masterships in his own court. Robert Walpole, an able man,
but utterly unscrupulous, who had himself been in the Tower
for official corruption, naturally became the great impersona-
tion of the partisan spoils system of this age. For the larger
part of the time from 1708 to 1742 he was Prime Minister
or in the Cabinet. It was as much a part of his theory and
that of his coadjutors that it is necessary for a party, in order
to keep itself in power, to break open the letters of its oppo-
nents in the post-office, as it is of partisan leaders to-day that
they must fill all offices with their minions ; and therefore he
freely ransacked his opponents' letters for their secrets, and
even literary authors, like Pope, were victims of his pillage.
According to Mr. Macaulay, he established a regular practice of
giving places on condition that a part of the salary or perqui-
sites should be paid over to some third person, and this prac-
t'2 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
tice seems to have continued long after his day. This is the
nearest approach in British administration to our abuse of
levying party assessments, and is really the same in principle
and its equivalent in mischief. 1
"He governed," says Mr. Lecky, 2 "by means of an as-
sembly, which was saturated with corruption, and he fully
acquiesced in its conditions and resisted every attempt to im-
prove it. lie appears to have cordially accepted the maxim
that government must be carried on by corruption or by force,
and he deliberately made the former the basis of his rule. He
bribed George II. by obtaining for him a civil list exceeding by
more than 100,000 a year that of his father. He bribed the
Queen by securing for her a jointure of 100,000 a year. . .
He employed the vast patronage of the Crown, uniformly and
steadily, with the single view of securing his political position,
and there can be no doubt that a large proportion of the im-
mense expenditure of the secret service money, during his
administration, was devoted to the direct purchase of members
of Parliament. The government, ... by the votes of
its numerous excise or revenue officers, by direct purchase, or
by bestowing places or peerages on the proprietors, exercised
an absolute authority over many seats ; and its means of in-
fluencing the assembled Parliament were so great that it is
difficult to understand how, in the corrupt moral atmosphere
that was prevalent, it was possible to resist it. Great sums of
secret service money were usually expended in direct bribery,
and places and pensions were multiplied to such an extent that
it is on record that, out of 550 members, there were in the first
Parliament of George I. no less than 271, and in the first
Parliament of George II. no less than 257, holding offices,
pensions, or sinecures." "Almost every man of weight in
the House of Commons," says Mr. Macaulay in his essay on
Walpole, "was officially connected with the government."
Macaulay says that in 1742 the Solicitor and Secretary of the
Treasury received 1,147,211 of secret service money, and
1 I have before explained the reasons why the identical abuse seems never
to have prevailed in England, and it is, perhaps, the only one in our service
without a complete and generally a more extreme English precedent.
2 Vol. i., pp. 395, 471, and 472.
CIVIL SERVICE IN" GREAT BRITAIN". 93
avoided giving any account of it, Walpole's agent evading the
answering of questions as to the use of the money, on the
ground that his answers would tend to criminate himself.
Walpole and his party were true to the spirit of the spoils
system to the last. In the course of his ministry he had
bestowed upon his sons permanent offices, chiefly sinecures,
amounting in all to about 15,000 a year, and had obtained
the title of Baron for his eldest son, and the Orders of the
Bath and of the Garter for himself. He also procured for
himself the title of the Earl of Orford and a pension of 4000
a year, and for his illegitimate daughter the rank and prece-
dence of an earl's daughter. In view of such vast agencies of
power and influence, concentrated in the hands of an able
leader of a ruling party, having an overwhelming majority
in Parliament and in all official circles, it would seem almost
impossible that a minister like Walpole could ever be over-
thrown. But such was not a true view of the situation ; and,
while his unrivalled sagacity was wholly unimpaired and the
devotion of his party was without abatement, he was hurled
from office in 1742 by the irresistible power of public opinion.
He did not make a fortune in public life. But he had no
faith that there could be any disinterestedness in public affairs,
and he distrusted all appeal to patriotism or duty. His only
reliance was self-interest and adroit management. His
shrewdness and good judgment in estimating the strength of
all the more selfish forces of politics were proverbial and were
probably never surpassed by any party leader. But, like
most of the partisans of later days who have acted on his sys-
tem, he was by nature incapable of measuring the force, or
even of appreciating the spirit, of that more unselfish, patriotic
public opinion outside official and partisan circles, born and
cherished in the common life of every enlightened people ;
and which, when mere party managers least expect it, may
come mightily forth, sweeping all their plans and favorites
before its irresistible advance. "Walpole and his confederates
did not comprehend that, during the period in which their
corrupt use of official authority had been degrading the moral
tone of official life, and of all men and women ' within the in-
1 In this early stage of the spoils system, bright intriguing women acted
7
94: CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
fluence of politics, there had been developing in the virtuous
houses of England a high-toned and patriotic demand for
purer methods in politics, which the elder Pitt was soon to
lead to victory and glory. Nor did Walpole any more com-
prehend that, in this same period, a stern and fervent spirit
of religious revival was growing strong and active, by reason
of the apathy and formalism of the State Church, which,
under the lead of "Wesley and Whitefield, was soon to shake
the whole ecclesiastical system at the same time it would elevate
the moral tone of the nation. Walpole, therefore, with the
fatuity of a blind man rather than with the sagacity of a
statesman, tried to suppress William Pitt (the future Lord
Chatham) by depriving him of his commission in the army.
He met those who protested against abuses, and who com-
plained of his contempt for moral duty, " in a strain of coarse
and cynical banter, . . . and sneeringly called them
patriots, 1 saints, Spartans, and boys." But the sentiment he
had scorned, and the power he could not comprehend, were
what laid him low.
"Above all," says Mr. Lecky, "there was the public
opinion of England, which was doubly scandalized by the ex-
tent to which parliamentary corruption had arisen, and by the
cynicism with which it was avowed, and on this point, though
on this alone, Walpole never respected it. Like many men
of low morals and of coarse and prosaic natures, he was
altogether incapable of appreciating, as an element of political
calculation, the force which moral sentiment exercises upon
mankind ; and this incapacity was one of the great causes of
his fall."
Had the saturnalia of corruption, of which he was the chief,
occurred a century or two earlier, there might have been an
a vicious part. The Duchess of Kendall, the Countess of Platen, the
Duchess of Yarmouth, and Mrs. Howard made and unmade officials, and
were generally quite as successful in partisan politics as Mrs. Jencks, or any
female office-broker of our day. Even the mother of Lord Chatham tried
the virtue of a bribe of a thousand guineas to procure a position for her
brother.
1 " A patriot, sir. Why, patriots spring up like mushrooms. I could
raise fifty of them within four-and-twenty hours. I have raised many of
them in one night." Walpole's Speech in reply to Sandys.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 95
opportunity for another Wat Tyler or Jack Cade ; for " the
cry of the people for his blood was fierce and general, and
politicians of most parties had pledged themselves to impeach
him. ' ' But the English people were now seeking reform by
peaceable methods.
Yet at this crisis again we find that the public understand-
ing of the real causes of corrupt administration was no deeper
than this : they were believed to have been brought about by
a corrupt minister, or they were the result of combinations of
bad men in official places. It was not yet generally per-
ceived that there could be no permanent relief until the parti-
san spoils system itself was uprooted, and a different system
put in its place. Indeed, the time had not arrived when public
investigations had disclosed to the people the secrets of adminis-
tration. Hence the same historian tells us that " to the mass
of the nation the fall of Walpole was the signal for the wildest
rejoicing. It was believed that the reign of corruption had
at last ended ; . . . that all pensioners would be excluded
from Parliament ; that the number of placemen would be
strictly limited," 2 just as in our day the people have so gen-
erally believed that corruption is to end with the fall of each
official villain, which that system has produced as regularly as
any seed produces its kind. The partisan spoils system itself
was hardly challenged, and it survived Walpole unchanged in
its modes of action, and only modified in practice.
It would not shed much additional light on the subject to
enter into any detail concerning the ministry of Pelham or of
the Duke of Newcastle, which carry us down to 1TCO, when
George III. came to the throne. But in the mean time
o
William Pitt, representing the purer and more non-partisan
sentiment, had become, just at the end of the reign of George
II., one of his ministers. His influence, in a general way,
raised the moral tone of the administration, but he was com-
pelled to leave the disposition of patronage almost wholly to
the Duke of Newcastle. And under Newcastle, as under
Pelham for the most part, Parliament was managed, officers
and places were disposed of, sinecure salaries were paid,
honors and titles were granted, on the basis of favoritism, bar-
1 Lecky, vol. i., p. 431. * Ibid., p. 428.
96 CIVIL SERVICE IN GEEAT BRITAIN.
gains, and influence, to strengthen the ruling party and fill
the pockets and gratify the ambition of its favorites.
How the system had been gradually extended, so as to estab-
lish a general tyranny and arrest the advance of every person
who did not accept the creed of the dominant party and con-
form to the discipline of its leaders, is well illustrated in the
case of the great commentator, Sir "William Blackstone. He
was recommended by Mr. Murray (afterwards Lord Mans-
field) to the Duke of Newcastle for the Professorship of Civil
Law at Oxford. The Duke said to him :
' ' ' Sir, I can rely upon your friend Mr. Murray as to your giving
law lectures in a style beneficial to the students ; and I dare say I
may safely rely on you, whenever anything in the political hemi-
sphere is agitated in the university, that you will exert yourself in our
behalf. ' ' Your grace may be assured that I will discharge my duty
in giving the law lectures to the best of my poor ability,' was the
response. ' Ay,' replied his grace, ' and your duty in the other
branch, too ? ' Blackstone coolly bowed : and a few days after Dr.
Jenner was appointed professor." 1
At the conclusion of the reign of (reorge II. party govern-
ment had been on trial for more than sixty years ; and, at
least after the death of William in 1702, it had not been
greatly influenced by the Crown. Ministers especially under
the two Georges had with little interruption controlled all
officers and patronage, and had exercised every kind of authori-
ty at will. If, during nearly the whole period, the dominant
party had been dragged down by the spoils system, the union
with corruption was voluntary, and the party in power was at
all times free to select its officers with supreme reference to
personal merit.
It undoubtedly cannot be justly said that all abuses that
existed are to be attributed to the spoils system itself ; since
some of them may have been the inevitable consequences of
the moral tone of the age. The decisive question on that
point is whether party government, in union with the sys-
tem adopted, kept the public service on the moral plane of pub-
lic opinion, or whether the service fell below that plane. And
1 Memoir of Sir William Blackstone.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 97
it is clear that the latter was the case, and that corruption
flowed over from every office and place in politics into the
great plane of private life. The causes of Walpole's fall, the
exultation of non-partisan people upon it, the spirit that Pitt
brought into office, the fact that when he came into public life
poor he refused the old perquisites of the paymaster's office,
also prove this fact. " For the corruption about him he had
nothing but disdain ; . . . his real strength was not in
Parliament, but in the people at large. His significant title
of the Great Commoner marks a political revolution."
" During his struggle with Newcastle, the greater towns
backed him with gifts of their freedom and addresses of confi-
dence." '
" History owes to him this attestation, that at a time when every-
thing short of direct embezzlement of the public money was consid-
ered as quite fair in public men, lie showed the most scrupulous disin-
terestedness ; that at a time when it seemed generally taken for
granted that government could be upheld only by the basest and
most immoral acts, be appealed to the better and nobler parts of hu-
man nature. ' ' a
And he not only did this, in the same noble spirit that he
justified the heroic patriotism of our fathers, but, overawing
not only dukes and bishops, but all the confederated hosts
of partisans and corruptionists, he advanced higher than
any man but Cromwell had done the character and martial
glory of his country, at the same time that, in the name of
honor, duty, and justice, he acquired a respect, affection, and
power, wherever the English language was spoken, such as no
other English statesman has ever commanded. And now
when only infamy covers the memory of "Walpole, Pelham,
Newcastle, Bolingbroke, and the whole corrupt and parti-
san generation, who sneered at public virtue and religion, and
scoffed at the possibility of honest ways in government the
name of Chatham is a part of the glory of his country, and
every American recalls it with pride and gratitude.
Mr. Lecky* quotes contemporary authority, which speaks
1 Green's History, p. 718. * Macaulay's Essay on Lord Chatham, p. 11.
* History, vol. i., p. 509.
98 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
of "the administration of justice as generally pure" (from
which the partisan spoils system, as we have seen, had been for
some years excluded), but beyond that he points out " the ever
widening circle of corruption which had now spread from the
Parliament to the constituencies, and tainted all the approaches
of political life. ' '
After referring to the fact that, at an earlier period in the
century, worthy scholars had been aided by government, he
says 1 that " in the reign of the first two Georges all this
changed. The government, if it helped any authors, helped
only those who would employ their talents in the lowest forms
of party libel. ' '
In respect to religion the tendency of the partisan system
was equally downward, until it was arrested by the accession
of Pitt to the Cabinet in 1757. " There has seldom been a
time in which the religious tone was lower than in the age of
the first two Georges. 2 On the death of the Queen (Anne),
church patronage, like all other patronage, degenerated into a
mere matter of party or personal interest. It was distributed,
for the most part, among members or adherents of the great
families, subject to the condition that the candidates were
moderate in their views and were not inclined to any descrip-
tion of reform. ' '
In 1745, "good judges spoke with great despondency of
the decline of public spirit, as if the energy of the people had
been fatally impaired. ' '
It is, then, abundantly clear that party government, when
upholding the partisan system of appointment, had failed
as signally as any despotic or aristocratic administration ever
tolerated in England had failed, to raise or even prevent
the degradation of the moral tone of politics. But the im-
portant question remains, "What was the effect upon the actual
execution of the laws ? The answer is very clear. The minor
officials and the standard of duty were such as the system
would naturally produce. They were degraded. Owing to the
1 History, vol. i., p. 505.
2 It is said that not more than five members of the House of Commons
were at this period regular attendants upon any place of worship.
3 Lecky's History, vol. i., pp. 505, 506.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 99
party in power courting the support of the liquor interest, and
to the subserviency of venal officials to that interest, intoxica-
tion and drunken brawls fearfully increased in the time from
Anne to George III. " In 1749 more than 4000 persons were
convicted of selling spirituous liquors without a license, and
the number of private ginshops within the bills of mortality
was estimated at more than 17,000. At the same time, crime
and immorality of every description vjere rapidly increasing.
The City of London urgently petitioned for new measures of
restriction. ... In 1750 and 1751 more than 11,000,000
of gallons of spirits were annually consumed, and the increase of
population, especially in London, appears to have been percep-
tibly checked. . . . There is not only no safety of living
in the town but scarcely any in the country now, robbery and
murder are grown so frequent. . . . The watchmen and
constables, utterly inefficient, are as a rule to be found more
frequently in the beer shops than in the streets, and were often
themselves a serious danger to the community. . . . One
is forced to travel, wrote Horace "Walpole, even at noon, as if
one were going to battle. . . . The weakness of the
law was also shown in the great number of serious riots which
took place in every part of the Kingdom. . . . Outrages
connected with smuggling were in many parts of the Kingdom
singularly daring and ferocious, and they were often counte-
nanced by a large amount of popular sympathy."
This was the generation of the famous burglar, John Shep-
herd, of the famous thief, Jonathan Wild, and of the famous
highwayman, Dick Turpin all of whom were hung in the
period between 1724 and 1739. Fielding says of the justices at
this time that they were " never indifferent in a cause, but
when they could get nothing on either side. " Smollett, speak-
ing of 1740, declares that thieves and robbers were now become
" more desperate and savage than they had ever appeared since
mankind was civilized." An address to the King from the
May or and Aldermen of London, in 17-44, complains that " per-
sons armed with bludgeons and pistols . . . now infest
the streets and places ... at such times as were hereto-
fore deemed hours of safety. ' ' '
1 Lecky's History, vol. i., pp. 518-590.
100 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
The prisons were loosely and inhumanly managed. The
wardenship of the Fleet Prison, bought for 5000 in the time
of Lord Clarendon, was publicly sold for the same sum in 1728.
In 1730 the judge and several members of the Bar lost their
lives from jail fever caught while trying prisoners in London ;
and in 1750 the disease raged to such an extent in Newgate
Prison that the Lord Mayor of London, an alderman and many
of inferior rank were its victims while an assize was being
held. In 1759, Dr. Johnson computed the number of impris-
oned debtors at not less than 20,000, and asserted that one in
four died every year from the treatment they underwent.
Often the criminals staggered to the gallows, and some of the
most noted were exhibited for money by the turnkeys before
their execution. Dr. Dodd, a clergyman convicted of forgery,
was exhibited for two hours for a shilling a head. All the
high officials, even Addison, took shares in public lotteries,
which were not suppressed in England until 1823.
Demoralization extended even to the stage (as it did in New
York City in the time of Barnard and Tweed), and " the English
stage," says Mr. Lecky, " was far inferior to that of France
in decorum, modesty, and morality." MissPelham, daughter
of the Prime Minister under George I. , was one of the most
notorious gamblers of her time, and in the palmy days of the
partisan spoils system under "Walpole gambling in England
reached its climax. An illustration of the higher moral senti-
ment, outside the sources of corruption, may be found in the
fact that, at this period, there were many active societies " for
the reformation of manners" (or rather morals) ; and theirj
members became a sort of voluntary police. In 1735 their
aggregate prosecutions in London and Westminster alone had
reached the enormous number of 99,380.
No one at all acquainted with the influence of the liquor in-
terest over official appointments under onr spoils system no
one who knows the extent to which gambling and lottery
ticket selling are encouraged and protected by the associations
and the corrupting influences which grow out of a venal and
partisan bestowal of office no one, especially, who has wit-
nessed prison life degradation in some parts of New York, or
in any prison given over to corrupt partisan control, whether
tt MMTH WASHINGTON Itfft,
CIVIL SERVICE 1ST GREAT BRITAIN. 101
in village or country in this generation will fail to see tlie
significance of the facts 1 have cited, as illustrations of the char-
acter and effects of early partisan administration in England.
I have thought it all the more desirable to bring out pretty
fully the character and methods of such administration in its
early stages, especially because they bring us close upon the
time of our Revolution ; and altogether they show the system
inherited by George III., who used all its vicious resources
(against the influence of Chatham, Rockingham, and Burke,
and all the true friends of administrative reform) to reduce our
fathers to political slavery. In view of such abuses, it seems all
the more strange that so few safeguards were provided against
them in our constitution and early Federal laws ; an omission
only to be accounted for, I venture to think, by the fact that
in this country they were hardly known at our Revolution, and
that, even in England, they had in but small measure become
a part of general information.
CHAPTER IX.
ADMINISTRATION UNDER GEORGE III.
Its condition and public opinion in 1760. His theory of governing. Tries
to break up party government and to govern through ' ' The King's friends. ' '
Meddlesome and arbitrary. Lord Bute. Favoritism and venality.' Bri-
bery. The King urges on war against America. Corrupt lotteries to
pay its expenses. King interferes with Parliament. Guilty of bribery.
Religious tests. Great obstacles in way of reform. Spoils system in the
State, Church and the Army. Boroug'i abuses in England, in Scotland,
in Ireland. Municipal corruption and intolerance. Power of impress-
ment used politically. Dominant party opens letters and employs
spies. Debates state secrets. Liberty of the press not allowed. General
warrants issued by ministers. Spoils system extended to America. First
reform administration.
Sucn was the condition of administration and the temper
of the public mind in 1Y60 when George 111. came to the
throne.
Corruption, extravagance, inefficiency everywhere in the
domain of politics, except where the influence of William Pitt
and his followers was felt. A high-toned, rapidly growing
public opinion abroad among the people the strength of
Pitt and Burke in politics, and of Wesley and Whitefield in
religion indignant at the pervading abuses, crying aloud for
reform, but ill instructed as to their deeper causes, and without
experience in the ways of their removal. Party government,
having been on trial for sixty-seven years, was in full vigor.
As an agency for expressing the opinions and interests of a
nation, for embodying them in national policy, and for carry-
ing that policy into effect, there was no great protest against
it ; and it may be added there has not been any such pro-
test to the present time. The party method of governing,
which originated under William III. , stands, in its essential
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 103
features, unchanged and unchallenged by the British nation
to this hour.
The sentiment which was to separate that method, first,
from the partisan spoils system of appointment, and, next,
from the partisan system itself, was, when George III. came
to the throne, only a great unorganized mass of public
opinion, not knowing either its own power or how to attack
the corruption which it was its high mission to overthrow.
That traditionary loyalty which was universal, and that ser-
vile spirit of obedience which was general, forgetting the
past, hopefully and blindly trusted the future to the pleasure
of a fresh young king even at the moment that he adopted
the spoils system, as being altogether as much a part of his
heritage as the crown itself ; just as at our elections we have
trusted that reform was certain as successive presidents have
made a fresh application of the same old spoils system.
Great changes took place in public administration during
the sixty years George III. was on the throne. For about
twenty years after his accession he had, for the most part,
his own way. At the close of that period the reform spirit
had become too bold and strong for the King. An ascending
plane of administration was then entered upon, which has ever
since been held. During the first period, he pushed the spoils
system generally to extremes of tyranny and corruption almost
as great as it had ever reached ; and, in some particulars, he
was the worst administrative tyrant (except James II.) ever on
the English throne. Narrow, proud, obstinate, and relentless,
yet highly patriotic and sincere, he was a sort of Andrew Jack-
son, crowned. He was unfaithful to party government itself ;
not that, like "William and Anne, he tried to amalgamate par-
ties or to rule by compromise councils ; for his aim was to
build up a party of his own, called " The King's Friends,"
based on patronage and prerogative, and to subordinate every-
thing in the government to his own arbitrary will. And, for
a time, he had apparently great success. But, in fact, this
specious success contributed to that bold sentiment among
the people, demanding liberty and reform, which, within
twenty years, gave the death-blow to the worst parts of the
spoils system itself, arrested the arbitrary power of the Crown,
104 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
reinstated party government in its true position, and so humil-
iated the King that he ordered his royal yacht to be made
ready for his retirement to Hanover.
There never has been in times of peace a more desperate
struggle between official coercion and mercenary influence on
the one side, and a few noble men, standing for public hon-
or and duty, and leading the higher sentiments of a nation,
on the other, than the earlier period of this reign presented.
It is especially interesting as showing how a king may apply a
spoils system to break down the very parties which had ma-
tured it for their own selfish purposes.
" The King desired to undertake, personally, the chief administra-
tion of public affairs, to direct the policy of his ministers, and him-
self to distribute the patronage of the Crown. He was ambitious not
only to reign but to govern. ... It was the King's object, not
merely to supplant one party and establish another in its place, but to
create a new party, faithful to himself, regarding his personal wishes,
carrying out his policy, and dependent on his will. This party was soon
distinguished as ' The King's Men ' or ' The King's Friends.' " 1
1 ' Day by day George himself scrutinized the voting list of the two
houses, and distributed rewards and punishments as members voted
according to his will or not. Promotion in the civil service, prefer-
ment in the church, or rank in the army was reserved for the ' King's
friends. ' Pensions and court places were used to influence debates.
Bribery was employed on a scale never known before. Under Bute's
ministry, an office was opened at the Treasury for the bribery of mem-
bers, and twenty-five thousand pounds are said to have been spent in
a single day.
. . . ' ' Not only did he direct the minister in all important matters
of foreign and domestic policy, but he instructed him as to the man-
agement of debates in Parliament, suggested what motions should be
made or opposed and how measures should be carried. He reserved
for himself all the patronage, he arranged the whole cast of the ad-
ministration, settled the relative plan and pretensions of Ministers of
State, law officers, and members of the household, nominated and
promoted the English and Scotch judges, appointed and translated
bishops and deans, and dispensed other preferments in the Church.
He disposed of military governments, regiments, and commissions,
1 May's Constitutional Hfttory of England, vol. i., pp. 23, 24, and 60.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 105
and himself ordered the marching of troops. He gave and refused
titles, honors, and pensions. All this immense patronage was steadily
used for the creation and maintenance of a party in both Houses of
Parliament attached to the King himself, and its weight was seen
in the dependence to which the new ministry was reduced." 1
Macaulay, in his essay upon Lord Chatham, after stating
that all ranks from the highest to the lowest were to be taught
that the King would be obeyed, and that lords-lieutenants of
several counties were dismissed, adds (in language as applica-
ble in spirit to this generation and in this country as to the
royal despot whom our fathers fought) :
" But as nothing was too high for tke revenge of the court, so' also
was nothing too low. A prosecution, such as had never been known
before and has never been known since, raged in every public de-
partment. Great numbers of humble and laborious clerks were de-
prived of their bread, not because they had taken an active part
against the ministry, but merely because they owed their situations to
the recommendation of some nobleman or gentleman who was against
the peace. The proscription extended to tide-waiters, to gangers, to
door-keepers. One poor man, to whom a pension had been given
for his gallantly in a fight with smugglers, was deprived of it because
he had been befriended by the Duke of Grafton. An aged widow,
who, on account of her husband's services in the navy, had many
years before been made housekeeper in a public office, was dismissed
from her situation because it was imagined that he was distantly con-
nected by marriage with the Cavendish family. The public clamor,
as may well be supposed, grew daily louder and louder."
The corrupt intrigues and the fierce contentions about col-
lectorships and postmasterships, and all places in the customs
and the excise service, were not carried on by bodies corre-
sponding to our primary organizations, for the mass of the
people were not allowed to vote ; nor did members of the two
houses of Parliament bestow so much of their time and thought,
as have our Senators and Representatives, in planning and
scheming in connection with such offices ; for members of Par-
liament had not then secured that complete control over pat-
1 Green's History of the English People, pp. 732 and 737.
106 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
ronage which they were able to usuq:) during the next genera-
tion ; but these straggles were carried on between borough-
mongers and the agents of great officers and nobles, or between
ministers, bishops, royal favorites, and the nobility in per-
son. There is nothing new, however, in our constant and
unseemly contentions about petty offices and small local pat-
ronage except the station in life and the official designation of
those who most engage in them.
Everywhere the freedom of elections was invaded and the
whole power of the Crown and of the ministry was used to in-
timidate, bribe, or cajole the voters.
" In a letter to Lord North, in 1772, the King says : 'I expect
every nerve to be strained to carry the bill. ... I have a right
to expect a hearty support from every man in my service, and I shall
remember defaulters.'' And in a letter a few days after he says:
' I wish a list could be prepared of those that went away and of those
that deserted to the minority (on the division in the committee).
That would be a rule for my conduct in the drawing-room to-morrow. ' '
Here we see that it was not merely royal and official power,
but social opportunity and ostracism as well, that were to be
coercively used. It is not easy to say whether James II. or
President Jackson would have most admired this theory of
George III., but both of them would have felt at home with
him. It is certain that President Jackson has by no means
such claims to originality as are generally conceded to him.
Such a policy naturally called for an unscrupulous man like
Lord Bute ' to lead in its execution. He was a facile agent in
using money, offices, sinecures, increased salaries and pensions,
titles and every form of intimidation, flattery and bribery in
support of the government. The following letter illustrates
the relation between ministers and their supporters in Parlia-
ment in those times :
1 He rested under a charge of betraying his country for money in a treaty,
and of illicit intercourse with the widow of the Prince of Wales. His ideas
of literature and of office were quite in keeping, for he expended $50,000 of
his dishonest fortune in a great work on botany, but had the plates de-
stroyed when twelve copies were struck off, in order that the work might
be exclusive.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 107
Nov. 26, 1763.
Honored Sir : I am very much obliged to you for that freedom of
converse you this morning indulged me in, which I prize more than
the lucrative advantage I then received. To show the sincerity of my
words (pardon, sir, the perhaps over-niceness of my disposition), I
return, enclosed, the bill for 300 you favored me with, as good
manners would not permit my refusal of it when tendered by you.
Your most obliged and obedient servant,
SAVE & SELE.
But all these venal influences, so long effective in British
administration, and all the power of the Crown united with
them, were now unable to keep Lord Bute in power for more
than ten months. He had not preserved the proper secrecy,
and the honest public opinion of a nation of which the letters
of Junius and the unprecedented boldness of the public press
were an utterance began at this time to be more than ever
before a power in the State. Mr. May ' says, ' ' The govern-
ment was soon at issue with the press. Lord Bute was the first
to illustrate its power. Overwhelmed by a storm of obloquy
and ridicule, he bowed down before it and fled. .
Vainly did his own hired writers endeavor to shelter him.
Vainly did the King uphold his favorite. ' ' This was the first
great triumph of the higher sentiment at this period. And it
powerfully contributed to the civil service reform policy
which, as we shall see, was a few years later inaugurated.
But the King and his favorites adhered to the spoils system
as long as possible. Vast sums of money were raised for the
public use by lotteries as well as by loans. Officials made large
sums dishonestly, in 1763, out of these loans. In 1767, there
were huge stock-jobbing transactions, in which as many as sixty
members of Parliament, including the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer himself, were involved. In 1769, it appeared that
20,000 lottery tickets, on the raising of a public loan, had been
disposed of to members of Parliament, which sold at a pre-
mium of 2 each. A motion in that virtuous "body, in the
same year, to prohibit members receiving more than twenty
tickets each (and backed by charges that as many as fifty mem-
1 Constitutional History, vol. ii., p. 110.
.*** *
108 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
bers had subscribed for as many as five hundred tickets each)
was voted down. But what may perhaps enable us to more
fully appreciate the influence and resources of the spoils sys-
tem at that time is the fact; that, in 1781, Lord North, in
order to raise 12,000,000 with which to carry on the war
against this country, resorted to a sale of lottery tickets, and
so disposed of a great part to members ' of Parliament as to
make them corruptly interested in the success of the loan.
Lord Rockingham declared the loan was made " for the pur-
pose of corrupting Parliament to support a wicked, impolitic,
and ruinous war. ' ' The King persisted in the more corrupt
parts of the spoils system, even after an indignant public
opinion had begun to overawe his minions. As late as March,
1781, he used this language in a letter to Lord North : " Mr.
Robinson sent me the list of the speakers last evening, and
of the very good majority. I have this morning sent him
6000 to be placed to the same purpose as the sum transmitted
on the 21st of August. ' ' The King was as lavish of titles of
nobility as he was of money ; and Mr. May says there were
three hundred and eighty-eight conferred during his reign.
But the facts now presented by no means convey an adequate
conception of the strength, the oppression, or the manifold
resources of the British spoils system of a century ago, and
therefore fall far short of presenting the hostile influences which
later reforms have had to overcome. Some further illustra-
tions will be useful. They will show how much more diffi-
cult reform was in England than it would be with us.
1. The King, having all executive power, and the House
of Lords, with half the legislative power, united with a vast
preponderating social and moneyed influence, have their
foundation in a political theory and custom utterly hostile to
the just claims of personal merit and common right before
the law. Indeed they represent in large measure only birth-
right, favoritisms, property, and privilege or, in a word,
feudalism. Every nobleman (and I might add every bishop)
had a strong personal interest to say nothing of the safety
of his class in maintaining the old system under which, for
1 Seven members subscribed 70,000 each, others 50,000, and one
100,000.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
centuries, the sons, the decayed stewards, and the favorites of
his ancestors had monopolized the offices and places, both in
Church and State. Whoever advocated a reform that based
selections for the public service on personal worth was com-
pelled to challenge the privileges of the nobility.
2. The administrative system, in an old country, carries
with it the immense influence of usage, which is indeed a
vital part of the English constitution itself. It was a part of
that ancient usage in fact, it was and is now a part of the
system of government itself to bestow titles, orders, and
decorations always conferring social rank and often political
power as a mere matter of favor ; and with the common
understanding that they imposed an obligation of grateful
allegiance and friendly service ; a practice, in spirit and influ-
ence, utterly hostile to the paramount claims of personal
merit and common right, to which all true civil service
reform must respond.
3. The partisan system, in the time of George III., was as
paramount in the State Church as in politics. According to
its methods, bishops, deans, and vicars secured their places.
" The piety of a churchman brought him no preferment, unless his
political orthodoxy was well attested. All who aspired to be preben-
daries, deans, and bishops sought Tory patrons and professed the
Tory creed." 1
Advowsons," presentations to livings, and clerkships in the
Church were as unscrupulously conferred by favor as were
the meanest civil offices, and they were as openly advertised
and sold as calves and cabbages. The Sacrament of that
Church was a legal test at the gates of nearly every office,
national, municipal, and corporate.
" The incapacity of dissenters extended not only to government
employments but to the direction of the Bank of England, the East
India Company, and other chartered companies. The City of Lon-
don had perverted the corporation act into an instrument of extortion
by electing dissenters to the office of sheriff, and exacting fines when
1 2 May's History, 48.
* And they are openly sold at this day, as I shall more fully point out.
8
110 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
they refused to qualify. ' ' (That is by taking the Sacrament after the
manner of the Church of England.) No less than 15,000 had thus
been levied. 1
The creed of that Church was practically a condition of
entrance to the great universities and professions. Its bishops
had seats in the House of Lords ; and throughout the nation
its monopoly of official station, its vast wealth and social
prestige, its friends everywhere controlling the local magis-
tracy, and in manifold ways influencing the private life of the
people, made it a vast power opposed to reform in the civil
service. Its sympathies were therefore strongly with the
King and the nobility ; and the King and his ministers had
no more scruples about using Church patronage 2 than about
using political patronage.
4. That system also extended to the army and navy. I
shall have occasion to point out that the English regular
army remained under a sort of spoils system commissions
being openly bought and sold as well as secured by influence
and favor long after we had made provision, at the national
cost, for high personal qualifications for office in our regular
army. By orders of the King, worthy military officers like
General Conway and Colonel Barre (who sympathized with
this country) were, on account of votes in Parliament, de-
prived of 'their commands. Political proscription extended to
all grades of office in the army.
Having fortunately (yet with far less consistency than the
original English system) taken our army offices out of parti-
san politics, but leaving our civil officials embroiled in them,
we look with surprise at the old English practice ; while, on
the other hand, modern Englishmen, who, (until within this
decade saw offices in their army bought and sold,) finding
their civil offices now conferred upon merit, look upon our
favoritism and partisanship in civil administration with aston-
ishment and disgust. Mr. May quotes Mr. Grenville, while
1 2 May, pp. 315-324.
2 The king, after keeping the Bishopric of Osnaburgh open for near three
years, contrary to the custom which allows but six months, bestowed it
upon his son, a new-born child, before it was christened. The revenue was
about 25,000 a year. Walpole's Memoirs of George III., vol. i., p. 320.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. Ill
minister to George III., to the effect that " he never would
admit the distinction between civil and military appoint-
ments." The King maintained that position until Mr. Pitt
became minister, when he was forced, by public opinion, to
forbear enforcing political proscription against army officers ;
and the practice has never since prevailed. '
5. The elections and the methods of appointment in the
boroughs, (from which members of Parliament were sent,)
were even more corrupt and exclusive than any other part of
the administration. The outrageous monopoly of the fran-
chise, in a few hands, defeating the fair expression of the
better public sentiment at the elections, made the franchise
venal beyond all example in history. Parliament was prac-
tically controlled by a few great families. Out of a population
of about 8,000,000 there were scarcely 160,000 legal voters.
I can give space for only slight illustration of borough politics.
In the boroughs of Buckingham and Bewdley the right of
election was confined to thirteen persons ; at Bath to thirty-
five ; at Salisbury to fifty-six ; at Gatton to seven ; at Tavi-
stock to ten ; at St. Michael to seven. It would seem that
ninety members of Parliament were returned by forty-six
places, with less than fifty electors each ; thirty-seven members
by nineteen places, having less than one hundred electors
each ; while Leeds, Birmingham, and Manchester had no rep-
resentation whatsoever. Eleven members owed their places
to the Duke of Norfolk, nine to Lord Lonsdale, eleven to
Lord Darlington ; several lords had six members each ; and
members were actually holding their seats in the Commons
under claim of hereditary right.
" Boroughs had been publicly advertised for sale in the
newspapers ; and there was a set of attorneys who rode the
country and negotiated seats in the most indecent manner. ' '
The borough of Sudbury "publicly advertised itself for
1 Our laws of 1862 and 1866 (12 stat. p. 596 and 14 stat. p. 92) afford a
curious commentary upon official tenure in the army and navy. The first
gave free scope for the practice of the very abuses of which Geo. III. was
guilty, and the second brought us back to the rule which that king was
compelled to submit to.
a Walpole's Memoirs, George III., vol. i., p. 157.
112 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
sale. ' ' In the borough of New Shoreham, the majority of
electors^ calling itself the " Christian Club," under the guise
of charity, were in the habit of selling the borough to the high-
est bidder and dividing the spoils among its members. The
prices generally paid are nt>t given, but Mr. May says there
are instances of a person spending 70,000 in contesting a
borough. The practice of buying and selling boroughs gave
a new word to the language and a new calling in life ' ' bor-
ough-mongers' ' " borough-mongering. ' ' Boroughs were not
only sold, but they were rented for annual sums when the
member was unable to buy. Some of the noblest men of the
times, like Sir Samuel Romilly, were compelled to buy a bor-
ough as the only means of getting into Parliament with any
independence.
In 1762, an act was passed imposing, for the first time,
pecuniary penalties on the offense of bribery. But it was far
from being adequate for its purpose. The mayor and ten of
the aldermen of Oxford were imprisoned in 1768 for receiving
bribes for the borough vote. But Mr. May says that " while
in Newgate they completed a bargain which they had already
commenced, and sold the representation of this city to the
Duke of Marlborough, . . . and the town clerk carried
off the books of the corporation which contained the evidence
of the bargain ; and the business was laughed at and for-
gotten."
The state of things in the boroughs and local districts of
Scotland, was no better. There property, revenues, franchises,
and patronage were vested in small self -elected bodies. The
public property and revenues were corruptly alienated and de-
spoiled sold to nobles and other favored persons at inadequate
prices. Incompetent men and even boys were appointed to
offices of trust. At Forfar an idiot for twenty years filled
the place of town clerk. ' ' Lucrative offices were sold by the
councils. Judicature was exercised without fitness or respon-
sibility." '
In Ireland, if possible, it was worse. While the corrupt
proscription of the dominant party and the Sacrament of the
State Church were in the name of the majority supreme in
1 2 May's History, 470, 471.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 113
the politics of England, in Ireland a despotism not less corrupt
and far more galling was enforced in the interest of a small
minority of the population. A sectarian creed excluded from
the franchise five sixths of the Irish people. In her Parliament
not a single representative of this vast Catholic majority was
allowed a seat. Peerages were given almost exclusively to
large borough-owners, and it would seem that fifty-three peers
controlled the election of one hundred and twenty-three mem-
bers of the Commons. '
" Two thirds of the House of Commons, on whom the government
generally relied, were attached to its interests, by offices, pensions, or
promises of preferments. . . . Places and pensions, the price of
Parliamentary sendees, were publicly bought and sold in the market.
Every judge, every magistrate, every officer civil, military, and cor-
porate was a Churchman. No Catholic could practice law or serve
on a jury. . . . Protestant Nonconformists, scarcely inferior in
numbers to Churchmen, fared no better than Catholics, . . . be-
ing excluded from every civil office, from the army and from corpora-
tions." 8
The King was himself a participant in borough corruption.
In one of his letters to Lord North, in 1779, he says : "If the
Duke of Northumberland requires some gold bills for the
election, it would be wrong not to satisfy him. ' ' Besides this
kind of corruption at the polls, there were other forms of elec-
tion abuses with which we are familiar. The use of the minor
government officers, clerks, and placemen as a band of polit-
ical regulars, bound to support their superiors, right or wrong,
was in full operation. Speaking of such officers and serv-
ants, Mr. May * uses language which this generation of Ameri-
cans can understand : "It was quite understood to be part of
their duty to vote for any candidate who hoisted the colors of
the minister of the day. Wherever they were most needed by
the government their number was the greatest. The smaller
boroughs were secured by purchase or overwhelming local in-
terests ; but the cities and ports had some pretension to inde-
pendence. Here, however, troops of petty officers of customs
1 2 Lecky, 247. 8 2 May's History, pp. 479-482.
* 1 History, 277, 278.
114: CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
and excise were driven to the polls, and, supported by venal
freemen, overpowered the independent electors."
It hardly need be added that the dominant party of that day
was as exacting in local appointments as it has ever been in our
own times. Referring to city appointments, Mr. May says :
' ' None but jealous adherents of the government could hope
for the least share of the patronage of the Crown." ' And
with still another phase of municipal abuses then prevalent we
are equally familiar, except that we are a little shy about the
political use of religion, or what passes for it.
" Generally of one political party, the borough electors
exluded men of different opinions, whether in politics or
religion. . . . Neglecting their proper functions the
superintendence of the police, the management of the jails, the
paving and lighting of the streets, and the supply of water
they thought only of the personal interests attached to office.
They grasped all patronage, lay and ecclesiastical, for their
relatives, friends and political partisans, and wasted the cor-
poration funds in greasy feasts and vulgar ribaldry. Many
were absolutely insolvent. Charities were despoiled. . . .
Jobbery and corruption in every form were practised. . . .
Even the administration of justice was tainted by suspicion of
political partiality. Borough magistrates were at once incom-
petent and exclusively of one party. . . . But the worst
abuse of these corrupt bodies was that which too long secured
them impunity. They were the strongholds of parliamentary
interests and corruption. ' ' 2
6. But the spoils system of that age had yet other powers of
seduction and terror unknown in our day. The same arbitrary
authority which, in order to strengthen the government or the
party, might give places or make removals anywhere in the
army, the navy, the Church, and the civil administral ion at its
pleasure, might also, in the plenitude of its authority, impress
soldiers for the regiments and sailors for the ships "nay, we
even find soldiers employed to assist the press gangs ; villages
invested by a regular force ; sentries standing with fixed bayo-
nets ; and churches surrounded during divine service, to seize
1 History, vol. ii., p. 48. a 2 May's History, 464-466.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 115
seamen for the fleets." ' And this formidable power was ef-
fectively used to influence elections and overawe the spirit of
independence and reform.
It was a part of the same system that government could no
more get along without paid spies everywhere than it could
get along without servile henchmen at every government
desk. " Throughout that period," says Mr. May, "society
was everywhere infested with espionage." In 1764, " we see
spies following Wilkes, dogging his steps like shadows, and
reporting every movement of himself and his friends to the
Secretaries of State."
In the same spirit, the high officials of George III. claimed
the right, for the protection of the party in power, to break
open and read the letters of their opponents, while in the mails
or public oftices ; and they did so without shame or hesitation.
They thought no administration safe without the exercise of
this power. And perhaps no abuse of public authority did so
much to arrest independent utterance and embarrass that
organization and co-operation essential to crush so fearful a
tyranny. Mr. Pitt complains that even his correspondence with
his family was constantly ransacked in the post office. Nothing
written by a political opponent of the government was safe from
the pillage of the post office official and government spies.
And while the Parliamentary majority claimed such powers, it
refused to allow its own proceedings to be reported. It prose-
cuted or imprisoned those who attempted to furnish the people
with adequate reports.
7. The partisan tyrants of these times also sought to make
the public press, then threatening to become a dangerous ene-
my of the spoils system, either its servant or its victim. The
law of libel of that day under which any servile justice of
the peace (holding office by appointment made by a member
of the Cabinet) could arrest any person charged on oath with
a seditious libel, and according to which juries were not judges
of the fact of libel greatly favored such results.
Besides all this, Secretaries of State as the law was inter-
preted might issue general warrants to search for authors,
printers, and publishers and their papers throughout the King-
1 2 May's History, pp. 231, 262.
116 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
dom. This power, unscrupulously exercised, was sufficient to
overawe any ordinary reformer, and it caused the imprisonment
and financial ruin of not a few. Even John Wilkes had his
house ransacked, and was brought a prisoner before the minis-
ters on such a warrant. Years later, so fearless a writer as
William Cobbett was driven from England to this country by
the mere fear of its exercise.
It needs no argument to prove how naturally the spirit of
such a system, and the exercise at will of a power so vast and
irresponsible, developed in the King and his ministers an exag-
gerated idea of prerogative and official authority. It com-
pletely blinded them to the state of public opinion, at the same
time that it gave them the means of carrying forward what-
ever arbitrary undertaking they might decide to enter upon.
" What a king and ministry habitually do, soon comes to be
regarded as involving their rights and their honor. ' '
If in the application of such a system all merit and all jus-
tice among the people might be disregarded ; if municipal cor-
porations might be converted into partisan entrenchments ; if
money coming from taxation and from the endowments of
charity at home could be used in the interest of the party
and the ministry upon what theory could little colonial set-
tlements along the borders of the ocean and the forests of a
remote continent expect any higher consideration for their
property or their rights ? Indeed, the very extravagance and
the insatiable demand for offices and places w T hich such a sys-
tem developed only made those colonies the more certain to
become its victims. They could be outraged and pillaged
without offending any Parliamentary voter, except such rare
men as Burke and Chatham, who felt indignant when in any
quarter of the world a British subject was wronged.
In this view the familiar fact that George III. personally
insisted on taxing, coercing, and fighting the American colo-
nies, (when he might have known that the higher, if not the
larger, public opinion of England condemned that policy,) is
no evidence of malice in the King or his ministers, but only
shows the consequences to which the spoils system of admin-
istration, with its false standard of official "right and honor,"
had carried them.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 117
" The King continued, personally, to direct the measures
of the ministers, more particularly in the disputes with the
American colonies, which, in his opinion, involved the rights
and honors of his crown. . . . The persecution of
"Wilkes, the straining of Parliamentary privilege, and the
coercion of America were the disastrous fruits of the court
policy." " The colonies offered a wide field of employment
for the friends, connections, and political partisans of the
home government. The offices in England available for secur-
ing Parliamentary support fell short of the demand, and ap-
pointments were accordingly multiplied abroad. . . . In-
fants in the cradle were endowed with colonial appointments
to be executed through life by convenient deputies." 2
Mr. May quotes a letter of a British general, written in
1758, which says : "As for civil officers appointed for
America, most of the places in the gift of the Crown have
been filled with broken-down members of Parliament, of bad
if any principles ; valets de chambre, electioneering scoundrels,
and even livery servants. In one word, America has been
for many years made the hospital of England.^ Measures
of oppression against the colonies were so ingeniously contrived
as to take away their liberties at the same time that they made
more places to be filled under this voracious spoils system :
for example, in 1774 3 the Elective Council of Massachussetts
was made appointable by the Crown, and the selection of
judges, magistrates, and sheriffs was also added to the royal
patronage.
It is a not less interesting fact to us that, if this country was
the place of the most unprovoked and unscrupulous applica-
tion of the spoils system, it also affords about the last illustra-
tion of its extreme enforcement. 4 The failure of the King's
policy against us dealt the King, his party, and the spoils sys-
tem a blow from which they never fully recovered.
Lord North's administration fell in 1782, four months after
1 1 May's History, pp. 43, 49. ! 2 May, 529.
'14 George III., chap. 45.
4 From Horace Walpole's Memoirs it appears to have required about
$6,700,000 in 1788 to satisfy promises made under that system to American
traitors, mildly called Royalists.
118 CIVIL SEEVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
the fall of Yorktown. It was succeeded by that of Lord
Rockingham, the first ministry distinctly pledged to admin-
istrative reform, or faithful to its duties, which England had
ever seen. The leading friends of reform were the leading
friends of America : Buckingham, who had declared the war
"wicked, impolitic, and ruinous;" Burke and Chatham,
whose noble defence of our cause all the world knows ; Con-
way, Barre, and others less distinguished.
If the horrors of the French Revolution, late in the reign
of George III., arrested for a time the cause of reform, we
shall, with that exception, find that it made a steady advance
after our independence was recognized. Such, then, was the
theory of the appointing power the system of administration
the moral tone of party politics in England during the
generation of Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and all the
founders of our system, and even within the lifetime of per-
sons now living. It seems not improbable that but for the
corrupt and prescriptive system of administration which pre-
vailed, our Revolutionary War might have been a far less pro-
tracted and costly struggle.
Our fathers framed a system repugnant to that of England
in some of the principles of equality and justice upon which it
rests, yet substantially identical in the arrangements, methods,
and official character required for good administration. Birth-
right, privileges, class distinctions, religion, Church Establish-
ments, property, and every element of feudalism they discard-
ed, as foundations of government or qualifications for ofiicial
service. By the strongest of all conceivable implications,
they declared competency for office to be character and capa-
city. Yet, in face of such an experience in the mother coun-
try, they directly said, or provided for, almost nothing on a
subject so vital, beyond declaring that the President should
be a native ; that judges should have a fixed tenure and salary
(provisions copied from English statutes) ; and that Senators
and Representatives in Congress should be of a certain age.
The States generally fell short of even such meagre pro-
visions. The nation and the States alike left the great and dan-
gerous power of removal to the merest implication. This is
not to be mentioned against them as a reproach ; for their
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 119
thoughts were absorbed in the vital questions of personal liberty
and national independence. The subject of good public ad-
ministration, as one of the vital and permanent conditions of
national peace, morality, and prosperity, was only a mooted
question even among the older nations which had centuries of
misrule before their eyes. Indeed, it could hardly be said to be
before their eyes, for the procedure and the corruption in the
great offices, like the debates in Parliament, had been treated
as party or official secrets. There was but little in print,
and perhaps nothing on this side of the Atlantic, from which
they could be learned. It cost the greatest efforts and long
litigation to bring to light abuses in the departments and the
municipalities, and the veil of secrecy is not yet torn from some
parts of the administration of the City of London. '
The subject of administration had hardly been considered at
all on this side of the ocean. And in sparsely settled colonies,
without great cities or great fortunes, or any experience in
large public affairs, it is not strange that no provision ' should
be made for the character, capacity, or discipline of that great
army of officers, and those vast and complex affairs which
were only to exist in a future generation. Keed we doubt
that adequate safeguards would have been provided in the
constitution, had its framers foreseen the abuses of the last
forty years ?
1 At this time (Jan. 16, 1870) a proceeding is being taken before the
courts, in the City of New York, in order to get at the facts of habitual ex-
tortion and other .corruption in the municipal offices, which are charged,
and generally believed, to be, in character, quite analogous to those pre-
vailing in English cities a century ago.
CHAPTEK X.
THE REFORM PERIOD AFTER THE FALL OF LORD BUTE.
Parliament first limits the King's civil list. Rockingham Ministry in
1765. Its reforming policy. Public opinion growing bold and exacting.
Junius Letters. Burke's reform bill. Wilkes. The King caricatured.
The public press. Lord Chatham and William Pitt as reformers.
Later progress of reform sentiment. Monster meetings and petitions.
Reform societies. Relation of American independence to administrative
reform. Test acts. Rights of Catholics to hold office. Of Jews. Gene-
ral results of partisan and religious tests for office.
ON the accession of George III., Parliament had, for the
first time, assumed control over the personal expenditures (the
" civil list") of the Crown ; but that servile body allowed the
law to remain a dead letter. In less than nine years the king
had exceeded the allowance by more than 500,000. The cli-
max of the last phase of the spoils system in English politics
was reached under Lord Bute ;' and with his fall the era of
practical reform opened. The public opinion demanding it
had become bold and threatening. The theory of making a
party of mere office-holders and favorites was at an end, and
that of ruling through party leaders was restored.
In 1765, the king was forced to accept, as Prime Minister,
the Marquis of Itockingham, the leader of the opposition,
whom he had just dismissed from his lieutenancy, and, as a
1 The Union with Ireland, effected in 1799, was, in a pecuniary sense, one
of the most corrupt of all the official transactions of that generation. Gov-
ernment bought out the borough interests, openly treatingpatronage as prop-
erty. The patrons of boroughs received 7500 for each seat. The total
compensation for boroughs amounted to 1,260,000. It appears that the
original estimates of expenses were as follows : Boroughs, 756,000 ;
county interests, 224,000 ; barristers, 200,000 ; purchases of seats, 75,-
000 ; Dublin, 200,000. Besides all which, there were peerages conferred,
places multiplied, and pensions increased. Lord Cornwallis, the Lord Lieu-
tenant, most bitterly complained of the " dirty business," and " longed to
kick those whom his public duty obliged him to court."
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 121
Secretary of State, General Conway, whom he had just de-
prived of his regiment. It was a condition, made by this ad-
ministration, that military officers should not be disturbed for
political reasons. It also compelled the king to disclaim the
old practice ' of influencing members of Parliament by bribes,
patronage or prerogative. These were" two great victories,
poorly as the king kept his promise. The king 2 was intensely
hostile to the independent reforming spirit of his new cabi-
net ; and, aided by divisions among the Whigs, was before
long able to overthrow it. For ten more years, there was
little apparent progress, but a public opinion was growing,
more enlightened, more exacting and more audacious than had
ever been known. For the first time, the character and the
practical methods of the administration became a great issue
before the people. The public was angry over abuses.
The first of the letters of Junius appeared in January, 1769,
and that to the king, the boldest and most defiant ever written
by a subject, before the end of the year. So audacious did the
popular protest against the royal spoils system become, that
Mr. R"ast, in our day, has not dealt more boldly with high
officials. One caricature sold upon the streets represented a
high official wheeling the king on a barrow with his crown,
with the legend " what a man buys he may sell ;" and, in
another, the king was exhibited on his knees, with his mouth
open, into which Warren Hastings was pitching diamonds.
In the law courts, Wilkes recovered 4000 against the Secre-
tary of State, who had caused his house to be ransacked under
a general search warrant. It would require far too much
space to trace, historically, the many reform measures by
which abuses existing in the early part of this reign have been
removed or reduced. A brief outline must therefore suffice.
The days for sneering at reform and for scorning the higher
sentiment of the nation pretty much expired with Walpole
and his generation. But the details of public abuses had not
1 The celebrated Lord Mansfield defended the king.
2 The king treated reformers as rebels against the laws, just as modern
partisan tyrants treat them as rebels against the party ; and, in a proc-
lamation, he warned the people " against rebellious insurrection" to resist or
reform the laws.
122 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
even yet become much known to the people. They had no
definite theories about the best way of reforming the exercise
of the appointing power. They knew that fearful abuses
existed, and they had three distinct convictions on the sub-
ject : that the corruption and favoritism in the administration
were serious matters ; that their rulers ought to give their atten-
tion to them ; and that they might be reformed. The greatest
and most practical statesmen of the age held the same views.
From that day to this, administrative measures in England
have been recognized as among the most vital questions in
her affairs ; and 'the reputation of nearly every eminent
statesman since the time of Lord North has largely rested
upon his efforts in connection with administrative reform.
Administration has been converted into a sort of science,
which all the leading statesmen have studied. The bold and
brilliant speeches and writings of Mr. Burke called attention
to the details of official abuses. The struggle for reform was
opened in Parliament by Lord Chatham in 1766, the same year
in which he spoke against the Stamp act, and openly " rejoiced
that America had resisted." Seeing the angry mood of the
nation, he declared that " before the end of the century, Par-
liament will reform itself from within, or be reformed, with
a vengeance, from withou t. ' '
The press, by reason of Parliament, being too corrupt to
represent the higher sentiment, had suddenly become a
political power ; and, repeating the thoughts of the great
statesmen, and giving voice to the popular indignation, it
awed both the Parliament and the king. In 1780, "nu-
merous public meetings were held, associations formed,
and petitions presented, in favor of economical reforms,
complaining of the undue influence of the Crown, and of
the patronage and corruption by which it was maintained. ' ' l
It was this aroused feeling among the people which encouraged
Mr. Burke " to bring forward his celebrated reform bill, the
1 1 May's History, p. 54.
2 Lord Talbot, about the same time, had tried to carry through a bill for
reducing the officers, sinecurists and various expenses ia the king's house-
hold ; but Mr. Burke said he failed, " because the king's turnspit was a
member of Parliament."
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 123
next year, which was supported in a speech by the younger
Pitt. It provided both for a reduction of officers and a
diminution of expenses in many .ways.
"I bent the whole force of my mind (Mr. Burke says) to the
reduction of that corrupt influence which is, in itself, the perennial
spring of all prodigality and of all disorder ; which loads us with
. . . debt, takes vigor from our army, wisdom from our council
and authority and credit from the more venerable parts of our con-
stitution."
Mr. Pitt (the younger) brought forward a reform bill of
his own, in 1783, and twice pressed it upon Parliament.
When coming to office himself in the same year, he was (in
his own person) true to his principles ; for though so poor
that he had an income of only 300 a year, he declined the
sinecure perquisites, amounting to 3000 a year, which the old
spoils system tendered him. 1
About the same time the Duke of Richmond also brought
in a reform bill, and the people began, for the first time at
this period, to petition on a large scale for the removal of
abuses ; earnestly calling for " parliamentary and economical
reform." One of these petitions from Yorkshire was signed
by eight thousand freeholders, and one from "Westminster by
five thousand electors. It required some boldness, under the
law of libel of those days, to sign an outspoken petition.
Instead of fearing to promote any reform, lest the party
majority should be offended (as has so generally and so unfor-
tunately been the case with our party managers), 2 the great
party leaders of that day (1780) formed a society " to instruct
the people in their political rights and to forward the cause of
1 But William Pitt, as Prime Minister, made a partisan, though, strictly
speaking, not a corrupt, use of titles, decorations and patronage, to an ex-
tent that has not been equalled by any of his successors.
* English writers of the most liberal views, and who are ready to do jus-
tice to our public virtues, cannot forbear noticing this habitual cowering to
the party majority. Speaking of English public opinion, in this decade,
Mr. May says (2 History, p. 215): "Opinion free in the press, free in
every form of public discussion has become not less free in society. It is
never coerced into silence or conformity, as in, America, by the tyrannous force
of a majority."
124 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
parliamentary reform. ' ' Among its early members were the
Duke of Richmond, Mr. Fox, Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Sheridan.
" Political societies and clubs took part in the creation of
public opinion, and . . . proved that Parliament would soon
have to reckon with the sentiments of the people at large. " l
But it was the fall of Lord North in 1782, and the coming in
of the Marquis of Buckingham, a second time, as Prime Min-
ister (under whom Burke held office), which dealt the heaviest
blow the spoils system had ever received ; a blow from which
it has never recovered. "It must be added, to the lasting
honor of Lord Rockingham, that his administration was the
first which during a long course of years Lad the courage and
the virtue to refrain from bribing members of Parliament.
. . None of his friends had asked or obtained any pen-
sion or any sinecure, either in possession or in reversion. " 2 It
was then that the proud king felt so humiliated, that lie or-
dered his yacht ready with a view of leaving the country.
Parliament was overawed by the stern tone of public opinion.
Mr. May thinks that bribery of its members, with money,
"did not long survive the ministry of Lord North," and
Mr. Green says it then ceased altogether. The new adminis-
tration declared, as part of its policy, " independence to
America, abolition of offices, the exclusion of contractors
from Parliament, and the disfranchisement of revenue offi-
cers ;" and this policy was carried out. " Many useless offices
were abolished, restraints were imposed on the issue of secret-
service money, the pension list was diminished, and guaran-
tees were provided for a more effectual supervision of the
royal expenditures." 3 And thus was our independence a twin
birth with administrative reform in the mother country.
The effect of such measures and of such a public senti-
ment upon Parliament had been great. In the time of
George II. , there had been two hundred and fifty-seven place-
men in that body, exclusive of army and navy officers, but at
this time they had fallen to less than ninety. That venal but
tyrannical body which, as late as 1771, had issued a proc-
1 Green's History, p. 738.
* Macaulay's " Essay on Lord Chatham," pp. 172 and 178.
1 May's History, vol. i., pp. 61 and 199.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 125
lamation forbidding the publication of its debates had
brought printers to its bar, on their knees had sent the Lord
Mayor of London to the Tower was now compliant in the
presence of that indignant sentiment of the nation which
fiercely demanded publicity and reform. " The public ex-
penses were reduced and commission after commission was
appointed to introduce economy into every department of the
public service . . . Credit was restored. The smuggling
trade was greatly reduced." '
The demand for reform continued to spread more and
more widely among the people. And, had it not been for the
reaction caused by the excesses of the French Revolution,
results attained only in this decade might, perhaps, have been
reached a half a century ago. As early as 1795, political
meetings were held at which 150,000 persons are said to have
been present, and at which universal suffrage and parliamen-
tary reform were demanded. In 1797, a reform of the bor-
ough system was urged in Parliament by Lord Gray, but it
was not carried until 1832, when he was Prime Minister.
The corporation and test acts making the Sacrament of
the Church of England a qualification 2 for office lingered oh
the statute books until 1828, and Lord Eldon opposed the
repeal to the last. Because the partisan tyranny of our day
has only had the courage to deprive those in the public service
of reasonable liberty of speech, we must not forget that, in
these earlier times, the same tyranny was extended both to
the public press and to the assemblies of the people. It was
the theory and for a long period the fact that there was
little more liberty to criticise the acts of government on the
part of those beyond the public service, than on the part of
those within it. It was against what remained of this official
oppression, that the fierce and trenchant invective of Junius,
the boldness and adroitness of Wilkes, the patriotic eloquence
of Erskine, and the majestic justice of Camden were so effective.
They seriously crippled an overshadowing despotism ; which,
however, was not wholly renuved until the present century.
1 Green's History, pp. 756 and 757.
4 " To make the symbols of atoning grace,
An office key and pick-lock to a place."
9
^v ,.-- :, .
126 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
For, when neither courts nor juries would longer sustain
it, and high officials dared not act under restrictive stat-
utes still in force (which they were too partisan to have re-
pealed), the old spirit, just as hostile to popular intelligence as
to popular action, found utterance in the form of taxation.
And it was not until 1853 and 1855 that the advertisement
duty and the newspaper stamp were taken away. The duty
on paper did not fall until six years later.
It was not until 1829 that belief in the Catholic creed
ceased to disqualify a man, generally, for office. In that year,
Sir Robert Peel carried a reform bill, which removed that
test, opening Parliament and all political and judicial offices,
national and municipal, to the Catholics, except that of Re-
gent, Lord Chancellor, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. But
that precious piece of property, the patronage of the State
Church, was sacredly reserved. Here again the venerable
Lord Eldon led the opposition, but he was compelled in that
year to see Catholic peers take seats which had been vacant for
generations. The Jews were now the only persons, unable by
reason of their opinions, to hold office, civil, military or cor-
porate. An effort to emancipate them failed in 1830. In 1845
they were allowed to hold corporate offices ; and finally, in
1860, a roundabout way was provided for Jews to come into
the House of Commons. Only in so late times did England
remove the official test of opinion and grant such limited meas-
ure of justice and liberty ; while we proclaimed them, without
limitation, at our national birth. Yet it is one of the anom-
alies of national development that, in this decade, opinions are,
practically, a pervading test for subordinate office with us,
\vhile in England not opinion, but personal merit alone, is that
test. IS'ever have efforts been made on a scale so large,
in forms so varied, or with a perseverance so great, to keep
administrations in power by patronage, to enforce opinions by
official influence, or to strengthen creeds by a monopoly of
office. In these records, we see their futility and their fate.
For what but these have been the results ? Administrations
struck down, by the popular verdict against the very favorit-
ism and corruption on which, they leaned ; Ireland, to-day,
more overwhelmingly Catholic .than ever ; the Jews more
* *TH WASHINGTON SQ,
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 127
than ever numerous, respected and prosperous ; Dissenters
grown to be more than half of the people of England ; the old
official system detested and abandoned, and the memory of its
champions held in execration ; the government of England it-
self, under the forms of a monarchy, closely approximated to a
republic, toward which it is slowly drifting.
CHAPTEE XI.
THE IMPROVED CONDITION AFTER THE FALL OF LORD NORTH.
The Partisan system in last part of reign of George III. Members of Parlia-
ment secure patronage. The higher public opinion asserts itself. Vari-
ous reforms. Clerks no longer mere department employes. Freedom
of elections protected. Those in the public service disfranchised. Office
brokerage prohibited. Legislation against it stringent and comprehen-
sive. Drastic bribery laws. British legislation compared with American.
Severe laws against official abuses in India. Superannuation allowances
and their effect.
WE have seen that the fall of Lord North and the inde-
pendence of America mark the period when the power of the
higher public opinion began to be felt in the departments and
feared by the executive and by Parliament. With some in-
terruption by George III. , party government prevailed during
the residue of his reign. Pecuniary corruption and aristo-
cratic supremacy were steadily decreasing, and patronage was
dispensed with a more and more strict regard to partisan in-
terests. The mental derangement of the king and the grow-
ing political activity and enlightenment of the times facili-
tated the transfer of power and patronage from the executive ;
and Parliament was able to appropriate what the executive
lost. " Members of Parliament eagerly sought the patronage of
the Crown. ' ' The party leaders in that body promised patron-
age to their friends in the House, as well as out, in return
for support. And when these leaders were called into the cabinet,
(as one party or the other became dominant), they performed
their part of the bargain, and the elections in boroughs and muni-
cipalities felt the consequences. In that age, the basis of a call to
the cabinet was party influence in Parliament and in the bor
oughs, and such influence was generally measured by the num-
1 1 May's History, p. 18.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. l!>9
her of pensions and titles promised to fellow members and
constituents. It is plain that this practical working of party
government tended to make the administration intensely parti-
san and to concentrate all patronage in the hands of members
of Parliament. That tendency continued almost unchecked
during the residue of this reign. The people, generally, did
not at that time see that the great contest in which, after a
struggle for centuries, they had destroyed monopoly and
tyranny in the civil service on the part of the king and his
ministers, was about to be succeeded by a contest, hardly less
formidable, with the same monopoly, which was then being
usurped by members of Parliament. In the public eye, Par-
liament, rather than the executive, was the popular body and
stood for liberty and justice ; and therefore its silent and
steady usurpation was less noticed. We shall find that this
new parliamentary monopoly of the appointing power gained
strength for about half a century, when it had become an
oppressive and demoralizing tyranny, against which the higher
prfblic opinion then began to make open war. It is in this pe-
riod between 1800 and 1853 that the administrative situation in
Great Britain was, in its general features, most analogous to
what our own has been during the last fifty years, except that
there a steady improvement was taking place. There the plane
of advance was slowly rising (but not so rapidly as public intel-
ligence and virtue), while with us it was slowly falling. To
make the nearest accordance, the order of time must be reversed
ill one country. Among the greater obstacles to reform, in
both countries was a monopoly of patronage in the hands of
members of the legislature. In Great Britain, as with us,
the contest was really between the people, standing for free-
dom and equality, as to sharing public service and emoluments,
on the one side, and the members of the legislature with some
high officials, claiming and enjoying a monopoly of both, on
the other side ; while the executive, sometimes favoring one
side and sometimes the other, failed to gain much popular sup-
port, because so rarely rising to a standard above that of the
monopolists of whose encroachments it justly complained. I
can give but a brief outline of the reforms made in this
period.
130 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
1. It would seem that, in the first half of the reign of
George III., or perhaps earlier, a practice had grown up in
certain of the larger offices, without the aid of any act of Par-
liament, of providing, (mainly by collections from the salaries
of those in the public service,) a fund out of which those who
might be disabled in the discharge of duty, or who might re-
tire after long service, should receive an allowance for their
support. This voluntary action appears to have been the basis
of that pervading system of superannuation allowances in the
English service, to which I shall more fully refer.
2. /Subordinates in departments elevated in rank. Until
1810, ' those employed in any department appear to have been
little more than private clerks or employes of the head of that
department. They were not, in law, recognized as public
officials at all. They were paid out of a fund made up of the
fees collected in the department or office ; and the balance of
the fund, like the appointing power itself , was treated as a part of
the perquisites of the minister or head of the office. It was a
part of the old spoils system which had prevailed, under
which offices and places in the civil service were official
property to be sold. This statute seems to indicate that the
balance of the fund above expenses is to be paid into the
public treasury, and it requires that any deficiency of the
fund to pay salaries should be made up from the treasury,
thus making those employed in the departments public ser-
vants. It regulated pensions and allowances and required
annual statements of those employed and of their com-
pensation to be laid before Parliament. This statute, with
an act of 1816, a and some later amendments, made all those
engaged in the established service public officials with fixed
salaries. Their dignity and self-respect were thereby much
increased, and the tyranny and profit of high officers were in
the same degree diminished.
3. Official interference with freedom of elections. The cor-
ruption and partisan activity in the civil service, (caused by the
whole body of inferior officers, except officers in the postal ser-
vice, whom we have seen a statute of Anne had prohibited tak-
1 Statute of 50 George III., chap. 117. a 56 George III., ch. 46.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 131
ing any part in elections, being in confederacy with members
of Parliament and other high officials, by whom they were in
great measure appointed), and the coercion of elections which
was a natural consequence, were too great to be longer en-
dured. All milder remedies having failed, the disenfranchise-
ment of these in minor offices seemed to be the only effective
remedy. An act passed in 1782 l is entitled " An act for bet-
ter securing the freedom of elections, ... by disabling
certain officers from giving their votes," etc. It provides
that " no commissioner, collector, supervisor, gauger, or other
officer or person, whatsoever, concerned or employed in the
charging, collecting, levying, or managing the duties of excise,
. or concerned or employed in the charging, collect-
ing, levying, or managing the customs, ... or any of
the duties on stamped . . . parchment and paper,
or of the duties on salt, . . . windows or houses, nor any
postmaster, postmaster-general, or his deputy or deputies, nor
any person employed under him or them, . . . shall vote
for members of Parliament. . . . " The number of per-
sons thus disfranchised, and the great check put upon official
dictation, at elections, may be inferred from the fact that one
of the four schedules of duties attached to a customs revenue
law, of 1809, defining the articles to be taxed, 2 fills one hun-
dred and twenty-five closely printed pages of the act, making
the bewildering number of more than two thousand separate
classes of customs duties to be collected. All officers required
for such a vast service are of course in addition to those in the
inland revenue and post office service, which were also dis-
franchised. Such was the result in England, before the adop-
tion of our constitution, of the indignation of her people
aroused by the same abuse against which we now more and more
protest, under the name of interference with local elections, by
custom-house and other officials. And thus members of Par-
liament, having neither the disinterestedness nor the patriotism
required to refrain from making use of the unworthy subordi-
nates, whose appointment they had procured, for the purpose
of coercing their own election, and not being able to withstand
1 22 George III., chap. 41. * 49 George III., chap. 93.
132 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
a non -partisan public opinion which demanded the removal of
that abuse, instead of attempting to justify it, as has too often
been the case in our day, boldly disfranchised the whole body
of subordinates in the executive department. They greatly
limit the abuse on the side of the minor officials, while cun-
ningly preserving their usurped patronage and retaining the
full measure of the evil on their own side. Whether the rem-
edy was the best practicable or not, it shows a stern determina-
tion to have an end of a great public evil ; and the act is fur-
ther worthy of notice as being, perhaps, the first (since the cel-
ebrated statute of Richard II.) which aims directly at raising
the character of the civil service. And I may add that both
the great parties in England found it necessary to maintain this
restriction until July, 1868, when the salutary effects of intro-
ducing the merit system (that is, examinations and competi-
tions) made it safe to restore the franchise to all those officers. 2
In that year it was restored ; and public officers, clerks, and
employes in Great Britain can now, as freely as any other per-
sons, vote at all elections. Having come into the public ser-
vice on their own merits, and holding their places by no tenure
of servility to any high official or domineering party leader,
they, like other citizens, vote or decline to vote, with entire
freedom, of which no one complains.
4. Sale and brokerage of offices. But even when deprived
of the right of voting, those in the public service might in-
trigue and bargain for promotions and for increase of salaries.
Those not in the public service might promise votes and elec-
tioneering work for appointments in the gift of members of
Parliament. An act of 1809 1 is entitled " An act for the
further prevention of the sale and brokerage of offices."
It re-enacts the prohibitions of the law of Edward VI.
(already referred to), and such prohibitions are extended
to nearly all officers. How thoroughly it deals with the
subject may be inferred from the following provisions : Any
one is made guilty of a misdemeanor who shall give or assist
to give any money or thing of value, ... or prom-
49 George III., chap. 120, and chap. 218, 3.
9 31 and 32 Viet., chap. 73, and ace 37 and 88 Viet., chap. 22.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 133
ise to give any, . . . "for any office, commission, place,
or employment," or ... "for any appointment or
nomination or resignation thereof, or for the consent or con-
sents or voice or voices of any person or persons to any such
appointment, nomination, or resignation. . . ." And
the same punishment is incurred by "any person who shall
receive, have, or take any money, reward, directly or indi-
rectly, for any promise, . . . assurance ; or ly any way,
means or device, contract . . . for any interest, solicita-
tion, petition, request, recommendation, negotiation,
under pretence of . . . or in or about or anywise touch-
ing, concerning, or relating to any nomination, appointment,
deputation, or resignation of any such office, commission,
place, or employment." The keeping of any office, place,
or agency for procuring or selling offices, employments, or
places, " or for negotiating in any manner whatever any bus-
iness relating to vacancies, or in or to the sale or purchase of
any appointments, nominations, or deputation to, resig-
nation, transfer or exchange of any offices, places, or employ-
ments, in or under any public department," ... is also
made a misdemeanor. The purchase and sale of commissions
in the army upon the conditions and at regular rates fixed by
authority are excepted. It hardly need be mentioned that such
a searching law is equally remarkable as illustrating the grave
and varied abuses to which a bad system inevitably leads, and
as declaring the stern, practical demand of the English people
that these abuses shall come to an end. How much further
this act goes than any of the laws \ve have, in making criminal
not only barter and trade concerning salaries and officers, but
all negotiations relating to vacancies, exchanges, nominations,
resignations, removals, and transfers in short, every form of
corrupt use of the power of appointment and confirmation,
and every pernicious kind of solicitation and bargaining
hardly need be pointed out.
But it should be particularly noticed that, it is not merely
the giving, promising, or accepting of money or a valuable
consideration, which is made penal, but the " making or taking
of any promise or agreement whatever" of a corrupt nature as
a consideration ; and that not for office or place merely, but
134 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
for any " appointment, nomination, resignation, voice, or con-
sent to any appointment, nomination, or resignation, or for
any " negotiation concerning an office or appointment ;" and
' ' every such person, and also every person who shall wilfully
and knowingly aid such person, shall be deemed guilty of a
misdemeanor. " It would seem that such a statute would reach
every form of corrupt bargaining and promising, in connection
with nominations and confirmations, whether or not any money
or thing of value was promised ; and therefore presents a sig-
nificant instance of the more exacting demands of English leg-
islation aimed at securing official fidelity.
Indeed, on several of the important points covered by this
law, I believe our laws are silent. And it is, to say the least,
very doubtful whether our courts would feel authorized to fol-
low the English decisions. Perhaps this statute is compre-
hensive enough to make penal the habitual bartering and trad-
ing which takes place in regard to nominations, appointments,
and elections between public officers, party managers, and pat-
ronage brokers in our municipalities, and sometimes in our leg-
islatures, if not in higher quarters. It places the exacting de-
mands of the times in which it was enacted in curious contrast
with the loose morality which had before prevailed ; for it de-
clares that, if any one has an office, which he took " on an
agreement to pay a charge or part of the profits to a former
holder," he is still left liable to make such payments / and it
further recites that ' 5 whereas ... it has always been
customary in the appointment of the masters and six clerks
and . . . the examiners of the Court of Chancery of
Ireland to allow the having or receiving of money or other val-
uable consideration for such appointments f and though it
is a practice fit to be discontinued, etc., " yet it is reasonable
that the persons . . . who now hold the said offices
should be permitted to dispose of them in the same manner y"
and it permits them so to do. If we wonder at such indul-
gence, we cannot wonder less at the rapid rise in public senti-
ment, as shown in the general provisions of the law.
5. Bribery. An act of 1809 ' shows how the English Gov-
1 49 George III., chap. 118.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 135
eminent struck at the partisan spoils system through her laws
against bribery. It is declared to be " An act to secure inde-
pendence in Parliament and prevent the attaining of seats by
corrupt practices," and is a part of the laws against bribery.
One of its recitals is worthy of special notice. The Bill of
Rights had declared that " the election of members of Parlia-
ment ought to be free." Now this act, after reciting that
money . . . and ' ' offices, places, and employment are
promised and given to secure elections," declares that not only
are such gifts but " such promises are contrary to the freedom
of elections."
It was a great step in the reform of the civil service to lay
down the rule of law that a promise of an office, place, or em-
ployment, or of official influence in securing either under the
government, in consideration of votes and work for candidates,
was as real and dangerous an invasion of the freedom of
elections and as fit a cause of punishment as to promise money
or anything of direct pecuniary value for doing the same
thing. But this statute carries the principle even further in
the same direction. For, after declaring in the first section that
it is a penal offence to " promise any sum of money, gift, or
thing of value" as a consideration for procuring or endeavoring
to procure the return of any person to Parliament, it declares
in the next section that if " any person shall by himself or other
person give or procure to be given, or promise to give or pro-
cure to be given, any office, place, or employment, to any per-
son or persons whatsoever, upon any express contract or agree-
ment that such person . . . shall by himself, or by any
other person or persons, . . . their solicitation, request,
or command, procure or endeavor to procure the return of any
person to Parliament," . . . the candidate knowing and
consenting to such agreement, is " declared to be disabled and
incapacitated to serve in Parliament /" and the person prom-
ised the said office, place, or employment is declared incapable
of holding the same, and is made liable to pay a fine of 500.
And in addition, ' ' any person holding any office under the Crown
who shall give any office, place, or employment under a contract
for procuring or endeavoring to procure the return of a per-
son to Parliament," is made liable by the same section to a tine
136 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
of 1000. The bearing of this provision upon such habitual ar-
rangements as are made in connection with our elections, for giv
ing offices and places as a consideration for votes, resignations,
and influence, must be apparent. Is there any way of avoiding
the admission that in this statute, English political legislation
had thus early reached a level ours has not yet attained ? If
I am not laboring under some misapprehension, the pas-
sage of such a law by Congress would not only produce a
great sensation in the lower circles of our politics, but would
be a great and salutary reform in our official life. And have
we any right to be surprised at the higher' moral tone and
greater efficiency now claimed for the British civil service,
when, for more than half a century, it has been guarded and
protected by such salutary statutes ?
A law of 1827 ' is in the same spirit. That is also a law to
prevent corrupt practices in elections, and for diminishing
election expenses. It provides that " If any person shall,
either during any election of members of Parliament or within
six calendar months before or fourteen days after
be employed as counsel, agent, or attorney, . . . or in
any other capacity for the purposes of such election, and shall
. . accept from any such candidate, or from any person
whatsoever, for, in consideration of, or with reference to such
employment, any sum of money, retaining fee, office, place,
or employment, or any promise or security for any such
money, . . . office, place, or employment, . .
such person shall be deemed incapable of voting at such
election." These laws were consolidated and extended by
a law of 1854, 2 which declares that "every person who
shall directly or indirectly . . . give or procure, or
agree to give or procure, . . . or endeavor to procure
any office, place, or employment to or for any voter, or to or
for any person in behalf of any voter, or to or for any other
person, ... in order to induce him to vote or refrain
from voting,' 1 '' . . . is guilty of bribery. " Every person
who shall, in consequence of any such promises, ... en-
deavor to procure any such . . . return or vote, . ,
1 7 and 8 George IV., chap. 37. a 17 and 18 Viet., chap. 102.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIX. 137
is also guilty of bribery." It is further provided that every
voter who shall, before or during the election, . . . agree
or contract for any money, etc. , "or any office, place ; or em-
ployment for himself or any other person for voting, agreeing
to vote, or refraining from voting at any election" is also
guilty of bribery. This act also places salutary restrictions of
various kinds upon election abuses too numerous to be detailed
here. They show that far more consideration has been given
to the subject in all its bearings than it has ever commanded
in this country. Some of the prohibitions were doubtless
made more necessary for the reason that the ballot was not in
use ; but most of them are hardly less efficacious since it has
been introduced. The more important of them relate to mak-
ing merchandise of the appointing power independently of elec-
tions. Among other important precautions of the act are those
providing for a public " auditor of election expenses," before
whom all such expenses must be publicly stated and proved,
and without whose approval of them they are neither binding,
nor is it lawful for the candidate to pay them. I think there
can be no doubt but these provisions as to expenses have been
most salutary in England, arid could be adopted here with good
effect in checking the secret and corrupt use of money and
other bribes to effect elections.
There are strong reasons for thinking that these British
statutes have contributed largely to the formation of that
salutary public opinion in Great Britain sure to attract the
attention of a candid foreigner which now condemns the
use of authority over the public service for promoting the in-
terests of ambition and partisanship, almost as strongly as it does
the direct use of public money for the same purpose. That
opinion and these statutes plainly regard the honest exercise of
the power of appointment, promotion, removal, and employ-
ment in the public service as being a duty as absolute as that
of accounting for the taxes or guarding the treasury.
It is worthy of serious reflection that our Federal statutes,
on the subject of bribery, though sometimes framed in language
which suggests a knowledge of the English precedents, have
stopped short of prohibiting the corrupt use or the promise of
the use of influence or official authority to procure offices, places,
138 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN".
or employments in the public service as a consideration for votes
or support. And, so far as I have been able to learn, our State
statutes on these subjects go little further than the Federal
statutes or are silent.
The United States Revised Statutes, 8 5449, relating to
/ (J 7 O
bribing judges ; 5450 and 5500, relating to bribing mem-
bers of Congress ; 5501, relating to other officers generally,
are meagre and narrow compared with the British statutes ;
only prohibiting the use of " money or any promise, contract,
etc. , for payment of money, or for the delivery or conveyance
of anything of value." Were these words " delivery or con-
veyance" put in connection with " thing of value," to make
it certain that the statute should extend to nothing but a bribe
in material property of some kind ?
And such important provisions as those contained in
1781 to 1784, inclusive, seem to be framed in the same re-
strictive spirit ; almost suggesting that, while it is a grave
offence to receive a sum of money for prostituting a public
function, it is no offence at all to promise or give an office or a
promotion for doing the same thing. Indeed, the British
crime of " office brokerage" that is, the making of merchan-
dise of the use of official authority and influence, in the guise
of promising offices and places the criminality of which has
long been a salutary force for civil service reform in Great
Britain appears to be unknown in our Federal legislation. I
know of no fact more significant of the demoralizing effects of
the partisan spoils system in our politics than these defects in
our laws ; unless it be that public opinion, which so generally
fails to perceive that a public officer has no more right to use
the authority than he has the money, with which the people have
entrusted him, to advance private or partisan interests at their
expense.
A thoughtful writer has declared it to be important " that
the national institutions should place all things that are con-
nected with themselves before the mind of the citizen, in the
light in which it is for his good that he should regard them. ' '
Is there not reason to fear that these false teachings of the laws
laws which in their very phraseology reflect the domineering
>
1 Mill on Representation, p. 173.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 139
supremacy of the partisan theory of politics are in a large
measure responsible for the idea so generally accepted, that
there is no right to inquire into the abuse of official discretion,
provided it falls short of actual peculation that its use, in the
selfish interests of a party, is almost if not quite commendable,
if not a sheer necessity ? The simple facts are that we now
tolerate the corrupt iise the virtual bargain and sale of
power and influence connected with office, precisely as I have
shown that the English so long tolerated the bargaining and
sale of the offices themselves.
The extent of the differences I have pointed out, between the
English and American statutes, as to using public functions
and offices for selfish and partisan purposes, is emphasized by
the decisions of our courts. Though popular elections of
judges for short terms have brought our judiciary (in most of
the States) sadly under the influence of party politics, the
judges have stiil tried to go beyond the language of our stat-
utes in arresting official corruption ; and their reliance has been
the English statutes and decisions. Thus, where one public
officer paid money to another for a resignation in his favor,
the courts of Rhode Island could find no law of the State or of
Congress forbidding the abuse, but held the transaction illegal
under English precedents. 1 The same in substance was the
fact when the United States Supreme Court declared void a
promise to pay a percentage to one who lobbied a claim
through Congress. 2 So when, in New York, one of t\vo can-
didates for an inspectorship agreed to withdraw, to support the
other and to share fees, the agreement was held void, not
because the meagre New York bribery law or any American
law was against it, but because English statutes and precedents
were against it. 3 It was decided by Lord Thurlow that a suit
on an agreement to pay for recommending one to an office
should be enjoined. 4
6. India Civil Service. The world knows the fearful abuses
that once pervaded it. A law of 1784 5 affords a further illus-
1 Eddy r. Capron, 4 Rhode Island Rep., 394.
Trist t>. Child, 21 Wallace, chap. 450.
3 Gray P. Hook, 4 Comstock R., 449.
4 Harrington v. Chatel, 1 Bro. cases, 124 ; Grcame r. Wrotichton, 1 Eng.
L. and E. Rep. " 24 George III., chap. 25.
140 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
tration of the painstaking manner in which English statesmen
at this period attempted to bring purity and vigor into that
branch of administration. No law upon our statute book will
bear any comparison with this for the thoroughness of its deal-
ing with the principal elements essential to a good civil ser-
vice remote from central supervision. I have no space for de-
tails. Promotions by favor and patronage, having resulted
in disgraceful corruption, inefficiency, and injustice, a trial
was ordered of a system of promotion mainly based on
seniority, and to prevent abuses, it is declared that the India
authorities shall keep and transmit a report to the direc-
tors which shall contain ' ' a full and perfect entry to be made
upon their minutes, specifying all the circumstances of the
case, and their reasons and inducements at large," whenever
in making promotions, they shall depart from the general rules
laid down in the law.
And I may say that similar rules had prevailed in some
of the home offices of England, in regard to promotions, and
that such records have been the efficient means of taking pro-
motions to a considerable extent out of party politics and per-
sonal favoritism. But seniority had its own evils. Another
section of this law is perhaps more stringent and comprehen-
sive than any we now have against public officers receiving pay-
ments or bribes ; and the same remark may be extended to the
following provision from the 50th section : ' ' The making or en-
tering into, by any officer, "of any corrupt contract for the giving
up or obtaining or in any manner touching or concerning the
trust and duty of any office or employment under the said
company in the East Indies, . . . shall be deemed and
taken to be a misdemeanor."
But the 55th section of this act is the most remarkable, and is
certainly a very unique and probably effective remedy. Its re-
enactment by Congress would give a shock to our territorial
officials, and it would be so well adapted to the cases of some
of our Indian agents that I give the material part of it in a
1 55. And for the better preventing or more easily punishing the mis-
conduct of the servants in the . . . affairs of ... India, be it fur-
ther enacted, That every person now being, or who shall hereafter be, in
the service ... in India, shall, within the space of two calendar
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 141
note. ' Xot only is the complete inventory in that section re-
quired to be made under oath, but, at any time within three
years, it may be shown to be false by any one and in that
case, or in case of any misrepresentation in it, or in the public
examinations under oath concerning its contents, to which the
maker may be subjected, he is not only made guilty of per-
jury, but he also forfeits his entire fortune. By such laws, the
English people illustrated their resolve to have brought to an
end that robbery and corruption in India with which the elo-
quence of Burke has made the world familiar. It was by such
laws, giving authority and permanency to the higher moods of
the people, that great encouragement and strength were impart-
ed, three-quarters of a century ago, to that reforming spirit, in
which were laid the deep foundations of those methods in the
civil service which have so much raised its standard in the
present generation over that of the past. Without citing such
laws, I have feared I shall be thought guilty of exaggeration
when I come to state how high that standard now is.
7. Superannuation allowances. The next class of the leg-
islation of this period, to which I shall refer, aims at making
months after his returning to Great Britain, deliver in upon oath, before
the Lord Chief Baron of his Majesty's Court of Exchequer in England, or
any two of the other barons of the said court for the tini3 being respectively
(which oath the said Lord Chief Baron, and other Larws, are hereby
respectively authorized to administer), duplicates of an exact particular or
inventory of all and singular the lands, tenements, hereditaments, goods,
chattels, debts, moneys, securities for money, and other real and personal
estate and property whatsoever, as well in Europe as in Asia, or elsewhere,
which such person was seized or possessed of or entitled unto, at the time
of his arrival in Great Britain, in his own right, or which anj r person or
persons yas or were seized or possessed of in trust for him, or to or for his
use or benefit, at the time of his said arrival in Great Britain, or at any time
after ; specifying what part thereof was not acquired, or purchased by
property acquired, in consequence of his residence in the East Indies ; and
if any of the real or personal estate or property of any such person shall
have been conveyed, alienated, transferred, or otherwise disposed of, after
his said arrival in Great Britain, then such person shall also, in and by
said particular or inventory, set forth an accurate description and specifica-
tion of all such parts of his said real or personal estate and property as
shall have been so conveyed, transferred, or disposed of, and how and in
what manner, and to whom, and at what time, and for what price consid-
eration, the same shall have been so conveyed, alienated, transferred, or
disposed of respectively.
10
142 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
the public service more attractive through, provisions for dis-
ability and declining years ; whereby also it was believed that,
at least equal capacity and more fidelity might be obtained, at
a smaller expense to the public treasury. A law of 1809 '
provides for superannuation allowances to persons in the excise
service. It clearly defines the policy on which it proceeds in
this preamble: "Whereas no provision is made by law for
persons employed in the revenue of excise to the great discour-
agement of such officers and other persons, and to the 'manifest
injury of the revenue" and it then authorizes certain pay-
ments out of the public revenue to those disabled by age or
infirmity after ten years' service ; the allowance being propor-
tional to salary. Allowances are also to be made to those who
shall meet with accidents in the discharge of official duty. A
law of 1810 3 shows a fact already suggested, that the voluntary
contributions of those in certain branches of the service had
provided a sort of retiring allowance from a fund in the nature
of an insurance fund. This law provides, for the first time,
that statements shall be annually laid before Parliament of all
persons in the public service, giving their salaries, pensions,
and allowances, and of all increase and diminution of either ;
the act being the equivalent and precedent of our statements
annually laid before Congress. The act also established a sys-
tem of superannuation allowances. The next year, 8 the old
system was abolished in the customs service, and the payment
of the allowances, so far as the old fund was inadequate, was
regularly charged upon the public treasury. The new system
having been found to contribute to efficiency as well as econ-
omy, after long trial, has never been very materially changed,
though modified from time to time. The final revision of
these laws was made in 1859. 4 Under this act, it is the rule
that, if there has been no more than ten years' service, there
can be no allowance. The retiring allowance, after ten years
and before eleven years of service, is at the rate of ten-sixtieths
of the current salary being paid at that time. At eleven years
of service, the allowance is at the rate of eleven-sixtieths of the
salary, and so on, increasing at the rate of one-sixtieth for every
1 49 George III., chap. 98. * 50 George III., chap. 117.
3 51 George III., chap. 55. 4 22 Viet., chap. 26.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 143
year of service, after ten years, until forty years of service, after
which there is no increase. It is also a part of this method
for securing faithful and efficient officers that most of the
salaries are regularly graded, so that there are regular ad-
ditions, dependent upon length and efficiency of service.
There are also carefully guarded provisions for the granting of
discretionary allowances up to a fixed limit, in cases of excep-
tional merit, severe bodily injury, disability in the service,
abolition of offices, and also in cases of special service of great
value to the public ; the same being, in principle, analogous to
pensions in military life. On the other hand, a deduction may
be made from such allowances against any person when " his
defaults or demerits in relation to the public service . .
appear to justify such diminution. ' ' The act f urrtier provides
that thereafter no person (save a few especially excepted) shall
be deemed to be in the civil service, in such a sense as to en-
title him to any superannuation or retiring allowance, " unless
he has been admitted to the civil service with a certificate from
the Civil Service Commissioners /" or, in other words, he must
have got into the service, not by favor or influence, but through
a public examination and open competition with his fellows
who sought the same place.
I have departed from chronological order, for the purpose of
bringing together all I have to say upon this important subject.
It seems to be demonstrated, by the experience of England
during three-quarters of a century, under such a method (which
we have adopted, by applying it in a very limited way to the
judges of the Supreme Court, and in spirit in our army and
navy pension system), 1 that the provision it makes for old age
and misfortunes, besides promoting a better feeling in the ser-
vice towards the State, and making effective discipline easier,
actually enables the State to purchase the services of its offi-
cers at a less cost to the public treasury. The allowances for
special merit and the deductions for bad conduct are based on
records kept in the departments, and they are considered to
have a salutary influence, (analogous to promotions, prize
money, and brevet rank in the naval and military service,) in
stimulating honorable exertions in the public interest.
1 It has lately been applied to the police force of New York City.
CHAPTEE XII.
ADMINISTRATION UNDER GEOEGE IV.
The better public opinion a growing power in politics. Condition of the
public service from 1820 to 1830. Partisan system supreme, but pecu-
niary corruption has nearly ceased in appointments. Bribery of members
of Parliament at an end, but not of electors. Few removals for political
reasons. Members of Parliament cling to patronage. Inefficiency and
supernumeraries in the service. Members foist incompetent favorites
upon the public Treasury. Theory of promotion. The Treasury and its
authority. The existing abuses explained. Great Reform Bill of 1832.
Failed to breakup the partisan system. The "Patronage Secretary"
of the Treasury and his functions.
GEORGE IV. came to the throne in 1820. In the laws to
which I have referred, it abundantly appears that the higher
public opinion had already achieved considerable victories over
official tyranny and all the corrupt elements of politics. Of
that tyranny Mr. May says : ' ' Henceforward we shall find its
supremacy gradually declining and yielding to the advancing
power and intelligence of the people. . . . From this
time public opinion became a power which ministers were un-
able to subdue, and to which statesmen of all parties learned
more and more to defer. . . . From the accession of
George IY. it gathered strength until it was able, as we shall
see, to dominate over ministers and Parliaments." The
establishment of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowl-
edge in 1826, and of the Society for the Promotion of Christian
Knowledge soon after, mark the spirit of the period. Since
that time, the utmost latitude of criticism and invective has
been permitted. Prosecutions for libel, like the censorship of
the press, fell out of the system of government. The time of
George IY. (1820 to 1830) has a peculiar interest, because,
1 History, vol. ii., pp. 201-213.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN". 14:5
during that period, the element of " spoils" (in its true defini-
tion) in the partisan system of appointment almost wholly disap-
peared from English administration, while, by a strange con-
trast, the way was, at that time, opened for the spoils and pro-
scriptive elements to come more readily into our politics. For
the act of 1820, limiting the term of numerous officers to four
years, tended to make the election of the President decisive of
their tenure, and hence to involve all those officials in that
contest, as in a struggle for life. The administrative system of
the two centuries then passed each other, one on an ascending
and the other on a descending plane. It will be useful to note
the character of British, administration at that period.
1. Bribery of members of Parliament was past ; though
bribery of electors continued a very serious evil until after the
great Reform Bill of 1832 ; and it was considerable until the
introduction of the ballot in 1871, since which the situation in
that regard has been, I think, much the same as our own.
2. Party government becoming more absolute as the power
of the Crown and nobility declined, a proscriptive application
of the partisan system, everywhere setting up political opinions
as a test, prevailed in making all appointments and promo-
tions.
3. Patronage that is, the right of selections for official
places below heads of departments was substantially in the
hands of members of Parliament ; and it was freely used for
the purpose of gaining influence for themselves and making
places for their favorites.
4. Grave abuses, inevitable from a partisan system in the
control of members of legislature, existed. It caused a vicious
activity and rewarded demoralizing intrigues in Parliamentary
and even in municipal elections. The election involved the
awarding of patronage ; and hence other issues than those of
principle and the merits of the candidate were often controlling.
The practice was also fatal to economy and disastrous to the
character and efficiency of the public service. Legislation was
often controlled by patronage, and the departments were crowd-
ed with incompetents and supernumeraries.
5. It had, by the force of public opinion, without any law
on the subject, come to be the rule, almost universally acted
146 CIVIL SEEVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
upon, that those in the civil service below cabinet ministers and
a few political assistants (less than fifty in all, besides foreign
ministers and certain consuls) should not be removed except
for causes other than political opinions. To the number thus
liable to be removed for political reasons, postmasters must be
added ; though they were not removed witli the frequency of
such removals in our service. There was no practice of re-
moving one subordinate merely to make place for another.
These facts are of some importance as bearing upon the extent
of the implied power of removal declared by the Senate, in
1T89, to belong to our Executive ; the question being whether
in principle it is a power of removal for cause, or upon caprice
merely.
6. As those in the subordinate civil service were no longer
allowed to vote, they were little inclined to activity in party
politics. Not being liable to arbitrary removal, they were not
forced to fight at every election in self-defence.
7. ISTo abuse corresponding to what we call " political assess-
ments" existed; and I have pointed out the reasons why it
never existed in the English service. It was, in more corrupt
times, merged in the greater evil of selling offices, the pur-
chaser insisting on getting a title free of annual taxation. Be-
sides, for a long time after members of Parliament had become
the dominant power in politics, all those in the service below
heads of bureaus, being regarded as the servants of high
officers, were paid from fees, the balance of which belonged to
the head of the office. This system did not allow party assess-
ments. Perhaps the great officers contributed to election ex-
penses from the balance of the fee fund.
8. No examinations of any sort stood between the appointing
power on the one side, and the favorites urged upon it by mem-
bers of Parliament and party leaders on the other side. As a
rule, those exercising that power were forced to accept whoever
was most strongly backed.
9. There was not at this time, nor has there been since, any
legislative authority in England, participating in executive
functions, which is the equivalent of the power of confirmation
in our Senate. Still, in other ways, the party majority in the
legislature was made perhaps almost as influential as with us.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 14:7
The members of the Cabinet were members of the Parliamen-
tary majority. What was called The Treasury had (subject to
the influence of members of Parliament) something like a con-
trol over the greater number of the appointments and promo-
tions. There was a permanent Secretary of the Treasury ; and
in addition there were the following (political) officers who
went out with each administration viz. , the- first Lord of the
Treasury (generally the Prime Minister), the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and several junior lords, which together consti-
tute " The Treasury."
Such, in substance, appears to have been the condition of
the English civil service in the period from 1820 to 1830 ;
the relative power of the Crown, the Cabinet, The Treasury,
and the members of Parliament over appointments and pro-
motions being very inadequately defined, and by far the
greater evil being patronage in the control of members of
Parliament. The system of administration, in short, was at
this date the partisan system, in its most characteristic and ex-
treme form, but without the spoils element in the mercenary
or more corrupt sense.
The evidence illustrating the abuses of patronage in the
hands of members of Parliament, to which I might refer, is
so great in variety and volume that I have no space to do jus-
tice to it. It is to be found throughout the many thousands
of pages of evidence and reports which have been printed, as
the results of the numerous investigations into the working
of the civil service. I submit a few illustrations. Mr. Lowe,
Chancellor of the Exchequer under Mr. Gladstone, said, on
his examination before a committee in 1873 (referring to the
partisan system after the introduction of the merit system) :
that " Under the former system, I suppose there was never such
a thing known as a man being appointed to a clerkship in a
public office because he was supposed to befit for the place."
Mr. Baxter, the Financial Secretary of the Treasury, describes
that system in his examination : " Question 4672. Is much
pressure brought upon the Treasury with respect to public
establishments outside ? Answer. The most unpleasant part,
as I find it, of the duty of the Financial Secretary of the
1 Report Parliamentary Committee, 1873, p. 231.
148 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
Treasury is to resist the constant pressure brought day by day,
and almost hour by hour, l>y members of Parliament in order
to increase expenditure by increasing the pay of the classes,
and granting larger compensations to individuals or to
classes / . . . and that pressure, which is little known to
the public, as I said before, is the most unpleasant part of my
duties, and it occupies a very great deal of time which prob-
ably might be better spent. Question 4682. You spoke of
the constant parliamentary pressure. . . . Do you allude
to proceedings in Parliament as well as private communica-
tions, or only to the latter ? Answer. I did. . . . But
of course my answers might be extended to those motions in
the House which are resisted without effect by the govern-
ment, and which entail great expenditure upon the country. ' ' l
In another report, the head of a large office makes this state-
ment :
" I have made out a return of 55 persons . . . who were
nominated by the Treasury between 1836 and 1854. . . . Seve-
ral of them were incompetent from their ages. ... I found
some perfectly unqualified. ... I also found persons there of
very bad character ; one person in that list had been imprisoned by
the sentence of the court as a fraudulent debtor. . . . Then
with regard to health, there was one man whom I was forced to keep
in a room by himself, as he was in such a state of health that he could
not associate with the other clerks. . . . There was a case in
our offices (Board of Audit), in which a gentleman was appointed
who really could neither read nor write, he was almost an idiot, and
there was the greatest possible difficulty in getting him out of the
office." 2
The report of the committee last referred to declares that,
" where the spirit of patronage rules, the appointments are
given, to a great extent, as a reward for political services,
without the least reference to the ability, knowledge, or fitness
of the persons appointed. ' ' a
In 1855 a large volume 4 was printed by the British Govern-
1 Parliamentary Report of 1873, p. 248.
2 Parliamentary Report on Civil Service, 1810, p. 176 and p. x.
8 Report on Civil Service, I860, p. 287.
4 That volume will be hereafter cited as Civil Service Papers.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 140
ment, made up of valuable papers, containing the opinions of
many persons of great experience in administration upon its
previous condition, and setting forth the causes of existing
abuses. The following extracts are from that volume : *
" I have known many instances of individuals boldly stating they
were not put into the service by their patrons to work. . . . The . . .
majority of the members of the Colonial Department in my time
possessed only in a low degree, and some of them in a degree almost
incredible, either the talents or the habits of men of business, or the
industry, the zeal, or the knowledge required for the effective perfor-
mance of their appropriate functions. . . . The existing defect of the
civil service is, in my opinion, its want of that high moral tone
which is so essential in conducting the common affairs of life. . . .
The most feeble sons in families which have been so fortunate as to
obtain an appointment, yes, and others too, either mentally or physi-
cally incapacitated, enter the service. The more able and ambitious
sons seek the open professions. . . . The fault of the present system
lies principally in the fact that almost every branch of the Permanent
Civil Service is connected more or less with politics throughxthe heads
of the respective departments . . . and that the selection of officers
generally proceeds on political grounds, and for political purposes. . .
The needless and very inconvenient increase of the numbers borne on
the clerical list the frequent transfer of many of their appropriate
duties to ill-educated and ill-paid supernumeraries and the not infre-
quent occurrence of mistakes and oversights are so serious as occasion-
ally to imperil interests of high national importance. . . . Every
person who has had experience in conducting a large office will admit,
that if all were really efficient ... it could be probably executed
by two-thirds of tJie number of clerks at present employed. Let any one
who has had experience reflect on the operation of patronage on
Elections, Parliament, and the Government. Over each it exercises an
evil influence. In the Elections, it interferes with the honest exercise of
the franchise ; in Parliament it encourages subservience to the adminis-
tration ; it impedes the free action of a Government desirous of pursuing
an honest or an economical course, and it occasions the employment
of persons without regard to their peculiar fitness. It is a more per-
nicious system than the mere giving of money to Electors or mem-
bers of Parliament to secure their votes. It is bribery in its worst
form. . . Notwithstanding the constant interference of the House
1 Pages 52, 53, 54, 73, 80, 81, 74-236, 302, 271, 272.
150 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
of Commons in matters relating to the civil service, the reform of the
civil service remains just where it was. Their single panacea for all
the evils they supposed to exist in it is, was, and ever will be,
retrenchment, the abolition and consolidation of offices, and the dim-
inution of salaries. The mode of making the service efficient seems
never to have entered their minds ; and the real reform of the civil
service is still left for the civil service itself to accomplish. ' '
The point made by the last writer was that members of
Parliament, wishing to preserve their patronage and to use it
in their own interest to reward their favorites and supporters
would never consent to any tests of character and capacity that
would limit their own arbitrary authority by keeping out the
unworthy. This was the greatest obstacle in the later stages
of reform in Great Britain. The disinterestedness required
for a surrender of that patronage was too great for Par-
liamentary patriotism. No candid person, I think, can read
these statements of the condition of the British civil service in
the last generation without being impressed with its great
similarity to that of our own in this generation. And that the
causes which produced both were substantially the same per-
haps hardly admits of a doubt. Great as had been the re-
forms already achieved, it is not strange that when public at-
tention became concentrated upon this new phase of abuses,
the demand for their removal was expressed with great vigor.
Neither parties nor members of Parliament, however, at that
time, showed any inclination to surrender their patronage.
The statesmen of that day may have thought that a reform
of the Parliamentary representation itself would be the best
means of mitigating if not of removing such abuses. How-
ever the fact may have been, they bent themselves upon
that reform. How long and stormy the struggle that secured
a great victory for liberal government in the reform law of
1832, is well known. I have already referred to the monstrous
injustice and corruption at which it was aimed. Lord John
Russell took the lead in the struggle in which it was carried.
It was the greatest and most desperate civil contest in modern
history. On one side of the issue hung the rights of the
people to be better represented and protected, and on the
other the waning supremacy of the aristocracy and the cor-
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 151
rupt borough system. All England was for several years in a
ferment of agitation. It required the most formidable dis-
play of the police and military to keep the peace, and even
that failed. Monster meetings, fired with anger and indigna-
tion, were held in all the great cities. One at Birmingham,
in 1831, was attended by 150,000 people, and it voted " to
refuse to pay taxes as Hampden had refused to pay ship
money," if reform was not granted ; and it petitioned Par-
liament to withhold supplies. Great bodies of people paraded
the streets of the larger cities in an angry mood, and assaulted
distinguished noblemen. During two days, the city of Bristol
was in the hands of a riotous mob. Custom houses, excise
offices, and bishops' palaces were carried by storm. The ex-
tinction of the peerage was threatened, and the throne itself
was in danger. In 1831, the second reading of the bill was
carried in the Commons by a majority of one, in a vote of
608, the largest number that ever voted in Parliament.
Another year of fearful agitation followed. There were mon-
ster meeting assuming attitudes of intimidation, and filling the
air with threats of violence. It was not until the danger of a
general collision between the government and the people was
imminent, and the perils of the nation could be read in smok-
ing harvests and burning castles and mansions, that the bill was
passed. The close monopolies at elections were set aside, and
a 10 household franchise was established. Fifty-six boroughs,
having less than 2000 inhabitants, and returning one hundred
and eleven members, were swept away. The disfranchisement
extended to one hundred and forty -three members. Twenty-
two large towns and districts were allowed two members each,
and twenty more one each. These changes secured a fairer re-
presentation of the better public opinion, and greatly limited
but by no means prevented bribery. 1 A large body of intelli-
gent and worthy persons of small means were, for the first
time, enabled to vote. Royalty and aristocracy lost a great
deal of power which that class of voters gained. The cause
1 Soon after, the laws against bribery were made more effective by allow-
ing general proof of bribery to precede the proof of agency of the members'
supposed bribing agent ; and still later by a law authorizing the personal
examination of sitting members and candidates. (4 and 5 Viet., chap. 57 ;
14 and 15 Viet., chap. 99.)
152 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
of good administration was thus strongly reinforced. But it
soon appeared that even this vast extension of suffrage had
left the cause of reform too weak to take nominations from
members of Parliament, or to install merit in the place of
favoritism at the gates of the public service. The partisan
system was too strongly entrenched, and its managers too skil-
ful, to be captured in that way. They resisted to the utmost.
With more votes to win and more vigorous political criticism
to withstand, the partisan managers of the reformed Parliament
only saw the greater need of using every fragment of patron-
age to perpetuate their monopoly. Though the higher leader-
ships and better public sentiment which prevailed, after 1832,
were able (in 1833) to abolish slavery in the British Colonies ;
to terminate the monopoly in the East India trade ; to reform
the poor laws and the tithe laws ; to provide an admirable
municipal system in the two years next following ; to inau-
gurate popular education in 1834, and greatly extend it in
1839 ; to overthrow the corn laws monopoly in 1846 after a
contest only less desperate than that which earned the Reform
Bill ; and to improve the administration in many ways which
I need not mention in detail yet moral forces equal to such
high achievements were altogether too weak to take a young
man of merit and put him into the public service without the
formal consent of some member of Parliament, or of the
official heads of the party in power ; a consent which was
almost sure to turn upon personal or partisan reasons.
It was not till long after 1832 that the inherent mischief of
the partisan system became manifest to the great body of
thinking people. When that result was attained, the final
struggle with patronage in the hands of members of Parlia-
ment began on a larger scale. It seems to have been, even
then, foreseen by the best informed that it could not be re-
moved by any partisan agency. They began to see the need
of some method by which fitness for the public service could
be tested otherwise than by the fiat of a member of Parlia-
ment or the vote of the Cabinet or the Treasury. What
that method should be was one of the great problems of
the future. No government had then solved it. That there
must be tests of fitness independent of any political action, or
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 153
mere official influence, became more and more plain to think-
ing men.
The leaders of the great parties soon began to see that a
public opinion in favor of such tests was being rapidly de-
veloped, which seriously threatened their power, unless the
party system itself could be made more acceptable to the
people. Parliament (after a fashion with which we are
familiar) held long debates and ordered frequent investigations
into the details of the public service, but always passing by the
great evil for which its members were responsible. They
could see and were ready to attack any abuse except their own
prostitution of patronage. Talk of economy was as long,
loud, and frequent as it has been in our Congress. The party
in power commended itself to the people from time to time by
exposing the extravagance of its opponents, by having the
salaries of officers cut down, by lopping off a few of the
many supernumeraries, by removing some of the many com-
plications. And above all, there was #n abundance of fine
promises made. But no member gave up his patronage no
way was opened by which a person of merit could get into an
office or a place except by the favor of the party or the conde-
scension of a member. The partisan blockade of every port
of entry to the public service, which made it tenfold easier for
a decayed butler or an incompetent cousin of a member or a
minister, than for the promising son of a poor widow, to
pass the barrier, was, after the Reform Bill as before, rigidly
maintained. Fealty to the party and work in its ranks sub-
serviency to members and to ministers and electioneering on
their behalf these were the virtues before which the ways to
office and the doors of the Treasury were opened. Year by
year, the public discontent with the whole system increased.
Certain parts of it had already been found so degrading and
intolerable that an ingenious mitigation had been contrived.
In Walpole's time, a Parliamentary bribery agent had been
employed, with plenary authority to make contracts with
members and to comply with their terms in the distribution
of the corruption fund. After this analogy, there had been
provided, -for the present exigency, a broken general in pat-
ronage called " The Patronage Secretary of the Treasury,"
154: CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
whose duty it was to stand between members and partisan
managers appealing for places for their favorites, on the one
side, and the heads of offices who needed to have these places
filled with competent persons, on the other side. This Sec-
retary measured the force of threats and took the weight of
influence ; he computed the political value of a member's sup-
port and deducted from it the official appraisement of patron-
age before awarded to him. It is said that actual accounts,
Dr. and Cr. were kept with members by this Patronage
Secretary. Degrading as such an arrangement was, it was
far better than to have members of Parliament going from
department to department and from office to office, now sug-
gesting favors and then assaults in Parliament here using
threats and there persuasion in aid of his purpose of foisting
a dependent or an electioneering agent upon the public treas-
ury. This comptroller-general of patronage continued in full
sway until competitive examinations, upon the introduction of
the merit system, had made an end of patronage. He still
feebly survives, but only as the withered skeleton of the great
political potentate which he once was in whose presence
members took off their hats and their dependents fell to their
knees.
CHAPTER XIII.
PARTISAN SYSTEM WANING AND EXAMINATIONS INTRODUCED.
The patronage monopoly challenged. Peel as a reformer. Statesmen see
that the partisan system is failing. Promotions for merit introduced in
1820. Examinations between 1834 and 1841. Their beneficial effect.
Imitated in the United States in 1853. Examinations opposed in Great
Britain because democratic. The merit system defined. Various kinds
of examinations explained. 'Pass," "Limited Competition," and
" Open Competition The principle and tendency of the latter.
THE demand for administrative reform lias now become con-
centrated against the great monopoly of designating all persons
for the civil service, which is held potentially by members of
Parliament. How to break up that monopoly and to open the
public service to merit without influence, has become a great
question. The people do not challenge party government it-
self, but thoughtful men are concerned at its prostitution.
They concede that the party majority should elect all legisla-
tors and enact all laws ; that it should make up the Cabinet and
select all those higher officers who shall stand for and carry
into effect the policy, both foreign and domestic, which the
majority of the people have approved at the polls. But the
rest the sixty thousand or more subordinates who are bound
to obey the instructions of those superiors and whose politics,
to say the least, are not so important as their capacity and their
character these they insist should be selected with reference
to personal merit and not partisan convictions. What should
be the test and how applied ? This, after the Reform Bill,
became a much mooted question.
I have said that, since the time of Mr. Pitt, the fame of
nearly every leading English statesman has in large measure
rested upon his reform policy. We now find new illustrations
of this fact. That of Lord John Russell stands on the Reform
156 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
Bill of 1832. Sir Robert Peel was, perhaps, the most prac-
tical statesman England had produced, and as little as any
nattered by the seductions which an aristocracy can offer ; for
he refused a peerage and the highest Order of distinction the
Queen could tender him. In 1816, he brought about a great
reform by the passage of the Irish Constabulary Act ; in 1822,
he carried a measure for reforming the criminal laws ; and a few
years later he caused the Metropolitan Police law for London to
be enacted, with its stringent provisions for excluding politics.
" To check the introduction of patronage into the Metropolitan
Police force, Sir Robert Peel provided that no one should be admit-
ted as qualified for the office of inspector or superintendent who had
not been trained by actual service in each subordinate rank. ' ' l
To these measures of administrative reform, he brought the
whole force of his character. It is after these models that the
police system of New York city, and all the best police laws
we have, are framed. These police laws were the first laws (since
the act of Richard II.) that, in principle, made personal quali-
fication in an officer paramount to political opinions or the favor
of some great lord or politician. Despite the pressure of mem-
bers of Parliament, who demanded every scrap of patronage,
those administering the government had, at an earlier date,
been forced by sheer necessity to resort to other than political
methods for securing adequate ability. Lord Liverpool set the
example in 1820, and his example was followed by Mr. Canning.
" Before that time, all the higher appointments in the customs
service, the collectors and comptrollers of the outposts, were
filled by members (of Parliament) from the posts,
and from certain boroughs which regularly returned govern-
ment members. . . . There was a commission of inquiry
into the customs service which reported in that year and made
a strong presentation of the abuses that existed.
Upon the recommendation of this commission, Lord Liverpool
sacrificed all that patronage, and laid down the principle that
all superior officers in the customs should be supplied by pro-
motion from the inferior ranks. . . . Lord Grey, in 1830 . . .
gave up all exercise of patronage, in matters relating to pro-
1 Civil Service Papers, p. 149.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 157
motion, and it has so continued ever since." ' To comprehend
the statesmanship and disinterestedness and the moral tone in
party leaders required for such a change, we must imagine an
American Secretary of the Treasury as abandoning all idea of ad-
vancing partisan interests by selecting political managers for the
collectorships or the other high places in the customs service, and
as filling its offices (with the consent of those leaders) by the
promotion of the most worthy subordinates in that service. If
the relief from lamentable controversy and demoralizing in-
trigue, which such a change would produce, are indescribable,
we can at least in that way get a better idea of the reform thus
made in England nearly sixty years ago.
During the Melbourne administration, between 1831 and
1841, a demand for examinations, as a condition for admission
to the service, came from two very different quarters. One
was the higher officials, who declared that they could not do the
public work with such poor servants as the partisan system
supplied." The other was the more independent, thoughtful
portion of the people, who held it to be as unjust as it was de-
moralizing for members of Parliament and other officers to
monopolize the privilege of saying who might enter the public
service. Lord Melbourne then yielded so far as to allow pass
examinations to be instituted in some of the larger offices ; and
he was inclined to favor competitive examinations, but it was
thought to be too great an innovation to attempt at once.
These examinations several of them being competitive in-
troduced by public officers in self- defence many years previous
to 1853, had before that time produced striking results. In
the Poor Law Commission, for example, they had brought
about a reform that arrested public attention. Under the
Committee on Education, they had caused the selection of
1 Report on Civil Service, etc., 1860, p. 69.
a " It used to be by no means uncommon to have a fine, fashionably
dressed young man introduced as the junior clerk. On trial he turns out tit
for nothing. The head of the department knows from old experience that
a representation of this fact to higher quarters would merely draw down ill
will upon himself. . . . Besides there is the imbecile, who is below
work. . . . The public offices have been a resource for many an idle,
dissipated youth, with whom other occupations have been tried in vain."
(Civil Service Papers, p. 181.)
11
158 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
teachers so much superior "that higher salaries were bidden
for them for private service, . . . and they were taken
away to a seriously inconvenient extent." In the General
Board for Public Works, both superior servants and greater
economy had been the result of examinations in so marked a
degree that " the local authorities of twenty-five cities and
towns . . . have practically abandoned the principle of
patronage by requesting the General Board to name an
engineer for . . . taking responsible superintendence.
In all sixty-nine towns have . . . abandoned the principle
of appointment by patronage. . . . The result has been
improved local administration, local party agitation has been
checked, . . . fewer persons are put on the lists to carry
appointments or contracts, and the attendance of persons of
higher qualifications on the local boards ; and business has
been better transacted. " 1 If I had space for the facts, it could
be shown. that the reform in municipal administration in Great
Britain has hardly been less than in its national affairs ; and
that the same methods of improving the character of the official
force and of advancing economy have been found equally ap-
plicable in both.
Such were the first distinct encroachments made by the
Executive upon the partisan system by a partial introduction of
the merit system through examinations. These examinations
were steadily extended from office to office down to the radical
change made in 1853. It is worthy of notice that these ex-
aminations the theory of placing personal merit above politics
in selections for office originated not in Parliament not by
that body -showing any willingness to surrender patronage
which it had usurped but in the executive department, where
the evils were most felt and the responsibility for good admin-
istration rested. The aim and tendency of the examinations
were not to aggrandize the Executive, but rather to limit its
discretion, by opening the public service in some measure
to the whole people. \Ve shall find that, in all stages of the
later reforms, the Executive has held this position, and that
the people, and not the Crown, have gained influence and
1 Civil Service Papers, pp. 142-150.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 159
opportunity. Parliament did not aid, but was compelled by
the people to acquiesce, in this reform.
The higher public opinion had been making rapid progress, 1
and it now overawed Parliament and gave direction to State
policy. The leading statesmen were too clear-sighted not to
see that the time had come when a great party, which should
attempt to confront such an opinion, and to rule through pat-
ronage, must go to the wall. A strictly partisan system of
administration was no longer practicable. Both parties seem
to have reached this condition about the same time. Mel-
bourne, Peel, Russell, Aberdeen, Palrnerston, and Derby, the
leaders of both parties who certainly were neither theorists
nor doctrinaires and whose administrations together cover the
whole period from 1834 to 1868 acted upon this view of the
situation. They clearly considered the partisan system as
doomed, from the moment it should be found practicable to
substitute a better system, and that any party was also doomed
that should refuse to make a practical test of examinations as
a basis for a better system. This was not because there was
little party spirit ; on the contrary, party spirit was as vigorous
and exacting as it ever has been in this country. For example.
Sir Robert Peel (between 1836 and 1841) refused to form a
ministry because Queen Victoria would not dismiss certain
ladies of her household who had Whig connections. This
state of public opinion naturally prevented the question of
civil-service reform ever being made a direct issue between the
great parties in England ; but caused it, as naturally, to be
made for a long time an issue in each party between its more
unselfish, patriotic elements on one side, and its more partisan
and corrupt elements on the other side. " The question of
reforming the administration did not so much divide the two
parties as it did each party within itself, according to the moral
level of its members." Each party claimed as we have
seen opposing parties claim, and with no more sincerity to be
- ' In 1821, such men as Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Huskisson, and Lord Pal-
merston ridiculed Mr. Joseph Hume for firmly supporting reform ; but
thirty years later Mr. Hume was still in Parliament, and was regarded " with
unfeigned and cordial respect by leading members of all sorts of politics."
(Miss Martineau's Biographical Sketches, p. 305.)
a Civil Service Report, 1860.
160 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
the special friend of reform, and appealed to the people for
support on that basis. There can be nothing original in this
country in that line of policy. The state of public opinion in
England at that time, upon the subject of admissions to the
public service, was similar to what is with us now, though
somewhat more advanced. Neither party dared defy the re-
form sentiment, and both, while courting it, were too ready to
depart from its principles. From the time that the beneficial
results of examinations had become known to the people, it
was seen to be impossible ever to suppress them, unless upon
the substitution of examinations of a better kind. Before
1853, at which time they had been in practice for about twenty
years, they had done much to improve the public service,
though they were very defective, and had been applied in only
a part of the offices.
These examinations attracted attention in this country, and
they led to the enactment of the law of 1853, ' which divided
our clerks in the Treasury, "War, Navy, Interior, and Post
Office departments into four classes, and provided that " no
clerk shall be appointed . . . until after he has been ex-
amined and found qualified by a board to consist of three ex-
aminers." In 1855, 2 similar provisions were extended to the
State .Department. 3
The great difference in the action of the two countries, at
that time so nearly in harmony, has been that we fell away
from the policy on which the laws of 1853 and 1855 are based,
while England has continued to advance steadily in the same
direction, and thereby has more and more elevated her civil
service. But the continuing encroachment upon the partisan
system which such examinations threatened were not to be
allowed without a struggle. It was clearly seen that they
were democratic in tendency, and that they challenged, not
merely the partisan monopoly of the members of the House, but
the vested interests and the prestige of the aristocracy as well.
1 Ch. 97, 3. a Laws 1855, chap. 175, 4.
3 In sonie sort of fashion, pass examinations have been since made under
these laws, except during the time the civil service rules were enforced
pursuant to the statute of 3d March, 1871 (now Revised Statutes, 1753),
under which President Grant, through the Civil Service Commission, pro-
vided for uniform competitive examinations.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 161
Pointing out the tendency of the new method, one writer says
it will increase " until at last the aristocracy will be altogether
dissociated from the permanent civil service of the country."
. Another says, " The encouragement given to educa-
tion would no doubt be great, . . . but it will be all in
favor of the lower classes of society and not of the higher. ? '
Another says, ... " The principal objection which I have
heard ... is, that appointments now conferred on young
men of aristocratic connexion will fall into the hands of per-
sons in a much lower grade in society."
The strength of a custom of a hundred and fifty years, in a
conservative old country like England, in favor of any system,
thus united with the interests of the privileged classes in its
preservation, were indeed a formidable power. Those who
stood for patronage and those who stood for class distinctions
naturally joined hands to break down these examinations, and
to change the public judgment which sustained them. Their
sarcasms, their ridicule, and their cunning policy (of which I
shall give examples), as they stand recorded, leave little chance
for doing or saying anything original by those who oppose re-
form in this country. The friends of reform met those attacks
not only by argument, but by demanding open competi-
tive examinations, common for all the departments and free
to all the people, and the merit system* of appointments and
promotions. They also insisted that it was an injustice, a
usuqjation, and a source of manifold evils for members
of Parliament and other high officers to hold a monopoly of
patronage, so that none could go into the public service
without their consent. Before proceeding further, it will be
1 Civil Service Papers, pp. 44 and 289.
9 By the merit system I mean that theory of government (and the proper
method of examinations and promotions through which it is applied, and
the proper regulations for attaining economy and efficiency) which treats
personal qualificat ons, rather than the political opinions or the partisan
services of applicants for office, as the true and paramount basis for appoint-
ments ; which regards office, including the appointing power, as a public
trust and not as an official perquisite or a partisan agency for propagating
political opinions or keeping a party in power. From the despotic system,
under the Norman kings, through various spoils systems under arbitrary
kings through a sort of partisan system under Cromwell through fearful
corruption under James and Charles through a sort of aristocratic spoils
162 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
useful to give some particulars concerning these examinations,
as they will not only render more clear what is to follow, but
have a direct bearing upon difficulties in our civil service.
Kinds of examinations. There are three distinct kinds of
examinations : the pass examination, the limited competitive
examination, and the open competitive examination. The two
last are in England usually designated as " limited competi-
tion" and "open competition." These examinations are
very different in principle, and in their adequacy to bring about
the best results. I shall not now enter upon the question of
their utility. It was never any part of the theory upon which
either is based, that it should extend to judges, to any legisla-
tive, or other officer elected by the people, or to any member
of the Cabinet, or to foreign ministers (as such), or to any
high officer of the executive department (in England there
being not exceeding fifty excluded officers, besides those
elected) who can properly be regarded as the representative
of the principles or policy of the party in power. Officers
who are properly regarded as political must, of course, be
selected in reference to their political opinions and ideas of
policy, and it is they who are clothed with authority, to compel
the subordinate members of the civil service (from collectors and
postmasters to doorkeepers, to whom the examinations apply)
to obey all proper instructions. They thus carry out the great
.policy, foreign and domestic, which the popular majority
has approved. Obedience to them and to the laws is the duty
of all their subordinates. It is because these subordinates
have no more legal right or ability to carry into practice their
political opinions, than they have to carry out their personal
theories (contrary to the instructions of their superiors), that
such opinions should not control in their selection.
Examination may be made through examiners named and
acting separately in each department office ; or there may be one
system under William and Anne through a partisan spoils system under
George I. and II. and a part of the reign of George III. through the par-
tisan system in its best estate in later years we have traced the unsteady
but generally ascending progress of British administration ; and, in 1870,
we shall find it to have reached a level at which office is treated as a trust
and personal merit is the recognized criterion for selection for office. That
was the inauguration of the merit system.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 1G3
examining board for all departments. Uniformity of require-
ment for admission to the service could hardly be brought about
by independent examiners. The mutual jealousy of departments
and examiners, and disparity in practice, would be sure to be
damaging to such a method. It is otherwise inherently weak.
No examiner would represent the power or policy of the
Executive, but only that of a particular secretary or the head
of a bureau. And further ; each examiner, so separately ap-
pointed, being exposed to the whole pressure of all those who
wish to force unworthy persons upon the service, and not being
directly supported by the Executive, has no such power of
resistance as is possessed by a central board of examiners, di-
rectly appointed by the Executive, which acts uniformly in his
name in every department and office. 1
It hardly need be added that partisans and patronage-holders
favored these isolated examinations and learned how to make
their influence most effective with detached examiners. It
was natural too for secretaries to favor great party leaders by
making their special examinations vary to suit them. It has
been found, after great experience in England, that it was
highly important that all examinations of whatever kind should
be conducted by one central examining board backed by the
whole power of the government. Xor is any other method
one of common justice to all those in the public service.
1. The pass examination is one under which each person
allowed to present himself is separately examined as to whether
he comes up to some prescribed standards. lie is put in com-
parison with nobody. No one need be or is usually pres-
ent with him except the examiner, and very likely the patron
by whom he has been presented. In the case of a nominee
of a member of Parliament who wishes to get in with inade-
quate qualification, it is easy to see that it would not be one
of the members only, but many having similar interests, who
would join to push him past the examiner. If the nominee
was the favorite of a minister, a bishop, or a great nobleman,
or a partisan clique, and not utterly a knave or a dunce, the
1 " I agree with you in thinking that the examination cannot be con-
ducted in an efficient manner throughout the service if it is left to each de.
partment to examine the candidates." (Civil Service Papers, p. 132.)
164: CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
pressure would be still more nearly irresistible. If the qual-
ifications presented came nearly up to the prescribed standard,
it is easy to see how solicitation and threats would cause their
acceptance by an isolated examiner, perhaps in peril of his
place. The standard once thus depressed, the next effort
would be to go in at a still lower level ; and hence a tendency
to constant depression. Still, with all its inherent tendency
to feebleness, even this method of examination raised the civil
service of England. Mr. Mill said that, at their worst, pass
examinations only kept dunces out, but as many dunces were
presented, even that effect was no small blessing. It was im-
possible to preserve the standard. " It became so much a
matter of form that we used to have an examination paper
which was generally known about the office. When a young
man came into the office, he had to pass the examination by a
superior clerk, who perhaps was the friend of his father or
his uncle. There was a feeling that it was not right to reject.
It was a leaping-bar-test, and if the clerk did not come up to the
bar, it was somewhat lowered." ' " These unknown men of
talent witness daily their inferiors advancing before them, who
may have been put into the service through interest, and who
probably passed what is termed an examination, but such as a
charity boy would smile at. " 2 Another defect of pass ex-
aminations was that they allowed the party managers and the
holders of patronage to designate all the persons to be ex-
amined ; so that it was no check upon the parliamentary and.
partisan monopoly of nomination, but only a limitation upon
the incapacity which they could foist upon the public service.
It gave the people, outside official favoritism, no opportunities.
It is plain, therefore, that the most inefficient and objectionable
of all methods of examinations, and hence those most accept-
able to spoilsmen, are pass examinations, conducted by separate
examiners, named by and acting for each department or office
separately. And only such examinations were made in this
country before 1872, and, with very limited exceptions, only
such were made in England before 1854. They showed the
same defects with us that they did in Great Britain.
1 Report Civil Service, etc., I860, p. 221.
2 Civil Service Papers, p. 53.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 165
2. Limited competitive examinations are those in which a
certain number of selected persons are examined in competi-
tion with each other, with a view to give appointments only to
those who show the highest qualifications. The selections for
examinations were of course made by those having patronage or
controlling influence. This kind of examination was therefore
entirely consistent with the claim made by members of Parlia-
ment to designate those outside of whom the executive depart-
ment should not go in making its appointments. It was also
no less compatible with the partisan theory that none but
those who adopt the party creed shall go into the public ser-
vice. It allows the partisan toll gate to stand, where all who
enter must accept the creed and swear allegiance. But going
through that gate does not bring one into the service, but
only into competition with all the others who have passed it.
Nevertheless, it was found to be a great improvement upon
mere pass examinations ; for, unless the competition was, by
reason of the vicious and exclusive mode of selections for it,
confined (as, in fact, it occasionally was) to a dead level of
dunces and imbeciles, superannuated coachmen, valets, and
stewards, sickly sons and shiftless cousins, the competition would
infallibly throw down the good-for-nothings, and give the ap-
pointments to those who were most competent.
3. Open competitive examinations are founded on broad prin-
ciples of justice, liberty, and equality. The meaning attached
to their being " open" is, that every citizen is permitted upon
the same conditions to join in the competition, and that the
right of no one to be examined is dependent either on any
official or any party. Each is to come publicly and fairly to
the examination with the others who present themselves ; and
those who show the highest measure of the qualifications which
the government requires in its service, as laid down in fixed
regulations, will win the chances of going into that service.
All that fall below a fixed standard are excluded by their in-
competency thus demonstrated. In their very nature, com-
petitive examinations affirm these principles : (1) That every
citizen whether high-born or low-born, whether with great
influence or wealth or without any influence or wealth stands
on an equality before the laws and in the right to enjoy an
166 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
open and manly contest with his fellows for the honor of enter-
ing the service of his country ; (2) That the government needs
in its service, and seeks most to honor and reward, those who
represent capacity and worth, and not those w r ho represent
partisan or official influence, political opinions, or intrigue ;
(3) That the right and propriety of members of Parliament or
any other high officers taking to themselves the monopoly and
the profit of opening and shutting, at their pleasure, the gates
of the public service to all those who do not accept their poli-
tics and pay court and swear fealty to them is utterly denied
and intended to be made impossible in practice ; and (4) That
the affairs of the nation being the greatest of all human affairs,
and its interest to have the people educated and of good char-
acter being a paramount interest, therefore a just test of rela-
tive character, attainments, and capacity is enforced in the
common cause of good morals, good government, and general
education. It is clear that open, competitive examinations
must be everywhere destructive of a monopoly of the right of
saying who may be examined. The poorest and humblest
may apply without the consent of any officer or any politician.
No member of Parliament, or other official, when they apply,
could look over his constituents and say, " This relative of
mine, these old worn-out servants of mine, those who elec-
tioneered for me at the last election, those who will promise
to work for me at the next election or for my schemes of
profit and those alone may be examined. You are not
among them. ' ' The introduction of open competition is the
death sentence of the last phase of official feudalism.
All members of Parliament, who cared more for patronage
than for good government, were as hostile to open competition
as that is fatal to their patronage. It was of course opposed
by corrupt party managers. It is one of the salutary condi-
tions of open competition that it has that publicity under
which fraud or favoritism is hardly possible. Every one w T ho
competes is interested in the marks and in the character of
every other who competes. He looks to see that others are
not marked more liberally than himself. He makes inquiries
whether his fellow-competitors are persons of good character.
The competitions arrest public interest and curiosity, and are
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 167
reported in the public press. The young man or woman, with
a vulnerable reputation, must be very bold indeed, who would
dare offer himself or herself in such a contest. Any one below
may strike a person of frail repute from the list above, and
thus advance his own chances by exposing the bad character of
his competitors. The value of the places to be won are in the
nature of prices to the worthy for their worth, and they are
hardly less prices offered for the exposure of the bad character
of any scoundrel who may have the impudence to join in the
competition. Such competition tends continually to raise its
own standard ; for in every contest the best are preferred, no
matter how high it rises. The victor wins by a test which
commands his own self-respect as it does the respect of his
competitors, of the community which watches the contest, and
of the government which gives the prize to merit.
" The simple nomination system gives to the candidate ex-
pectations on which he relies, ... so that if he is neg-
lected on the pass examination, he is discredited and disap-
pointed. The disappointment is shared by his friends and
his patron, and leads to dissatisfaction with the examining
authorities and with the system generally ; whilst under the
system of open competition, each candidate is well aware that
he has only a chance of success, and that if he fails the failure
may be ascribed to the merits of others and not to defects on
his own part." '
The method of reaching the public service through open
competition would seem to be republican in spirit, because
based on common justice and absolute equality before the laws.
The child of a chimney sweep or the orphan from a ragged
school, if worthy, may, under this method in the most aristo-
cratic nation of the world without the consent of any officer
or politician whatever go and win a place in the service of
his country over the favorite of a cabinet or the son of a duke.
The examination papers of each, with their marks and grad-
ings of relative merit in the competition, are preserved ; and
years hence, as well as at the moment, the justice of the de-
cision can be verified. The same Civil Service Commission
applies the same rules of competition and the same tests of
1 Report on Civil Service, 1870, p. 300.
168 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN".
merit in every department and in the several localities where
examinations are held. Thus the government, everywhere the
same in its system, and everywhere through a process un-
touched by any suspicions that influence and favoritism have
prevailed, gains the most worthy and the most capable of those
who wish to enter its service. I have not intended in this
outline to state everything that is material to be known about
open competition ; but only to set forth its principle and so
much of the method as is essential to an understanding of the
final struggle in which it won the victory over Parliamentary
patronage and official favoritism. If I have implied an opin-
ion of its merits, before presenting the evidence, I can only
say now that such evidence will not be wanting.
Probation. But it should be added that it has been at all
times a part of the competitive system that those who won in
competition should serve at least six months on moderate pay,
under probation, during which their ability and fidelity in
business affairs could be tested before they receive any actual
appointment. Probation had also been, in form, applied
under pass and limited examinations, though when influence
pushed a man into and through the examination, it generally
pushed him beyond probation as well. But it was easy to
apply the probative test effectually against the competitor
who came alone and had no influence to back him. The fact
that it will be applied generally keeps away those young men
who know, or whose friends know, they have no practical
qualities for business.
CHAPTER XIY.
FINAL CONTEST BETWEEN PATRONAGE AND OPEN COMPETITION.
The principles involved. Arguments for and against Parliamentary patron-
age. Is a partisan system essential to party government ? The evils that
result from nominations in the hands of members of Parliament.
THE decisive part of the contest between patronage and
open competition was between 1845 and 1855, though the
victors did not take possession of the whole field until
1870. No two systems could be more antagonistic in princi-
ple than one based on open competition and one based on
patronage, favoritism, and spoils. The difference was one
which involved the nature of office, the duties of public serv-
ants, the theory of party government, the authority and func-
tions of Parliament, the common ^rights^ of the people to hold
office, and the relative claims of character and capacity as
compared with those of partisanship and subservience upon
the respect and honors of a great nation. Are offices public
trusts for the common good, or are they partisan outposts for
the special benefit of those who can capture them ? "Were
officers in the subordinate service to be first of all electioneer-
ing agents and obedient representatives of high officials, or
were they to be the common servants and guardians of the
community ? Should parties seek their strength in sound
principles and a wise policy, carried into effect in a pure, vig-
orous, and economical administration, or should they seek it in
the adroit use of patronage and the skilful manipulation of
elections ? Ought members of Parliament to confine them-
selves to a courageous and thorough scrutiny of the acts of the
Executive, and to preserve that independence of patronage
which would enable them to do so, or was it better that they
should grasp and use all the patronage possible, each being in
170 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
the line of his duty alike, while searching through the offices
for as much as he can gather, and while using it to suit his
official caprice or to discharge his election pledges ? Did or
did not an election to Parliament, as matter of law or of prin-
ciple, confer the right to a fractional part of all the ap-
pointments in Great Britain, as personal perquisite, or partisan
spoils ? Were her people for ever to allow all chances of en-
tering the public service to depend upon the will of a member
of Parliament and a few high officials, or, in the name of com-
xj mon justice and equality, should it be demanded that free and
open access to office should be opened to the most_worthy ?
Should education and character be encouraged by conferring
office upon merit, or should partisan tyranny and political in-
trigue be encouraged by bestowing it as the reward of influ-
ence and servility ? These were the issues involved in the
struggle. There was nothing in the form or the history of
the government to make such a struggle less severe than it
would be with us ; but quite the contrary. Members of Par-
liament loved executive power and knew how to use specious
arguments to defend its usurpation. There was no purer era
of public administration in the country, before that authority
was usurped, to which reference could be made as a reason for
its surrender. If it must be conceded that the power of selec-
tion, in the hands of members, was a clear usurpation of ex-
ecutive authority, it could not be denied that it was acquired
at the time when Parliament began to stand more bravely for
liberty and common rights.
During the one hundred and fifty years in which that pat-
\| ronage had increased, and party government in England had
acquired its solid frame, it could not be denied that liberty,
education and political power had vastly increased among the,
people. In no country is usage so formidable or so generally
accepted as evidence of right as in England. By far the
greater part of the aristocratic influence of the country was
against an innovation so democratic in spirit and so hostile to that
regard for wealth and conservativism which are the strength
of an aristocracy. All available arguments were used for and
against Parliamentary patronage, and a slight outline of them
may be useful :
*
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 171
1. To the argument that England had prospered under
favoritism, it was replied that she had also prospered while
sharing the slave trade, neglecting to educate her people, and
denying them the right to vote ; but that since she had eman-
cipated her slaves, widened her suffrage, and founded a better
system of education, she had prospered all the more. As the
body of her people had become more intelligent, and class
divisions and aristocratic privileges had decayed, the protest
against official patronage and favoritism had gained strength.
2. To the argument that the old-fashioned patronage sys-
tem was necessary to the stability and good effects of parties,
it was replied that they had never been more vital, vigorous, or
honest than in that period during which examinations had been
encroaching upon patronage. On an average, under the parti-
san spoils system, a party had not been able to keep an admin-
istration in power more than three and one half years ; and in
1834-5, it failed to keep Sir Robert Peel in power even one
year. For every person or faction that was conciliated by an
appointment, there were many offended who had sought the
same appointment. It was very likely that changes of admin-
istration would be less frequent if there were no appointments
whatever to be made. If appointments, on the other hand,
were increased a hundredfold, was it not clear that party
struggles would be more bitter and politics far more corrupt ?
Patronage and spoils were as disastrous to the moral tone and
discipline of a party as the right of sack and pillage had been
to armies and fleets. The theory that a party can be kept to-
gether only by the hope and reality of spoils, is in fact but the
survivorship, in a milder form, of the once universal theory
that an army could only be raised and kept in efficiency by
the prospects of pillage. " When the measures were first
proposed for the abolition of patronage, . . . the old
political officers treated it with the like incredulity that the
old Mahratta chieftains treated the notion of European armies
in India being moved or maintained in the field without
regular plunder." ' This theory is wholly false alike, in war
and peace, in politics and in military service. The more
largely a party relies upon patronage and spoils, and the less
1 Civil Service Papers, p. 144.
172 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
it appeals to the public, on the basis of principle and good
administration, the more certain that party is to suffer de-
feat. The simple fact that year by year the popular protest
against favoritism and the demand for open competition
had increased, despite all the efforts of party leaders to arrest
it, was conclusive of the intrinsic weakness and failure of the
partisan system. As the result of his broad survey of British
politics, Mr. Hallain declares, " There is no real cause to
apprehend that a virtuous and enlightened government would
find difficulty in resting upon the reputation justly due to it."
3. It was asserted that members of Parliament lived among
the people, knew the local needs of the public service, and
many persons well qualified to supply them. Members, like
other officers, were patriotic, and were to be trusted to look to
the general welfare. To a certain extent, this argument was
admitted to be well founded. The best evidence, however, of
the controlling aim of members in holding on to patronage,
was the use they had made of it and the effects of their action
upon the administration. That use was being year by year
more and more emphatically condemned by the people. It
was notorious that dependents and electioneering agents of
members abounded in the public service. Salaries and super-
numeraries were not reduced, merely because such legislation
would be damaging to the favorites of members. Persons not
connected with the executive department were not good
judges of its needs, or of those most fit to serve it. Members
of Parliament were so dependent upon votes at elections as
to be in the worst possible situation for forming an impartial
judgment. If it was worthy, competent persons that mem-
bers knew in their localities, and whom they wished to get
into the public service, why do such persons fear the test of
open competition ? However disinterested the motives of
many members, the system of patronage subjected them to
dangerous temptations, and was far too seductive for the patriot-
ism of not a few. They knew best and thought best of those who
worked most for them in their political contests. They could
not, without the greatest self-denial, refuse to promise nomi-
nations to their henchmen. The scandalous suggestion at-
1 Const. Hist., vol. ii., p. 782.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 173
taclied to the very name of patronage, and the avowed pur-
pose of so many of the noblest men in Parliament to be rid of
its exacting and humiliating demands, left no room for doubt
on these points. It is as indefensible in principle for members
to select executive officers as it would be for the Executive to
select subjects upon which Parliament should legislate, or
names for the committees it should appoint. What would be
said if the Executive should claim a right to nominate the offi-
cers of either House of Parliament ?
The duty of a member of Parliament is, in its very nature,
such as to require him to have a constant and supreme regard
to the effects of the old laws, and to the need of new laws, in
their relation to the common welfare of the people. And this
duty is inconsistent with his use of an appointing power (with-
out executive responsibility) through which he becomes inter-
ested in keeping certain persons in office, in bringing other
persons into office. 1 Under the present state of things, bills
are supported or opposed in reference to their probable effect
upon the patronage of members. 4
It is inconsistent with that independence, dignity, and dis-
interestedness which the people require in a legislator, as well
as a bad use of valuable time and talents, for a member of
Parliament to act as an office or patronage broker, and to go
about from department to department and office to office,
begging or bullying, to-day this, and to-morrow that officer,
in order to make a place for perhaps a needy dependent, or
perhaps an unscrupulous and unrewarded supporter at an
election.
" Considering the pressure that is put on the treasury by
men having powerful Parliamentary interest, and that which
is put on the heads of departments, both by Parliamentary in-
terest and by the claims of private friendship (and the object
1 As to the vicious effects of Parliamentary patronage, see cl.ap. xii.
" How interest in office may influence the conduct of a legislator and may
ca.se even a great and pure man to make, perhaps unconsciously, a dam-
aging record against himself, is shown in the letters of Macaulay while a
member of Parliament. " There were points in the bill of which I did not
approve, and I only refrained from stating these points because an office of
my own was at stake." (Life and Letters of Macaulay, by Trevelyan, voL
L, p. 165.)
12
374 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
\ of the persons possessing this influence is generally to palm
off on the public service such of their sons or nephews as are
' fit for nothing else), it is impossible to estimate too highly the
importance of a preliminary examination, conducted by an
independent and competent Board of Examiners. ' ' '
The fact that a member has such a power tempts him to
promise places for votes, subjects him to suspicions, and
brings upon him solicitations in a thousand ways as pernicious
as they are troublesome. They degrade the morals of official
life, at the same time that they dissuade the best men from
standing for Parliament. Members of Parliament were worn
out with the annoyance patronage gave them. 2 The possession
of patronage by members introduces a corrupt element, and
especially the damaging belief that there must be corruption,
in elections, because the ability of a member to control places
under the government causes the more active and unscrupulous
managers of local politics to give their support to the candidate
who will promise most places and is likely to work most per-
sistently to obtain them. Thereby the chances of the most
partisan and unscrupulous candidate are increased, and the
better sort are disgusted and discouraged.
5. Patronage in members also tends to bring the public ser-
vice into disrepute, and to convert public officers into active
politicians. For no officer can have great self-respect, or much
respect for his fellows, when he gets his office, and they theirs,
through official favor, if not through demoralizing subservi-
ency ; nor are the public likely to have a better opinion
of the public service than its members have of themselves. A
mistaken duty of gratitude is held to require that one who is
receiving a salary obtained for him by a member of Parlia-
ment should serve that member whenever the opportunity
presents. Thus a great portion of the public service is
brought into subserviency to members of Parliament.
6. And looking beyond any particulars that can be speci-
fied, it is plainly discreditable to a great and free country, and
unbecoming the exalted position of those who make its laws
1 Civil Service Papers, p. 132.
2 " As I know from experience that it would relieve members of Parlia-
ment and official men from a most disagreeable portion of their labors."
(Civil Service Papers, p. 231.)
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 175
and interpret its constitution, that they should desire to pos-
sess an authority to barter and bargain in nominations, or should
be willing to use their official influence to enforce a partisan
test upon the conscience and manhood of the nation. A mem-
ber of Parliament should scorn a system which thus inevitably
degrades his high office, subjects him to suspicion, and de-
moralizes the politics of his country. The final decision on
these issues was early foreshadowed. For some years before
1853, it seems to have been tacitly conceded by the leaders of
both parties that Parliamentary patronage, if not the whole
partisan system, must be very soon abandoned. The great
question was, "What should be put in its place ? It was not
regarded as a mere question of administrative details or as
having its greater interest in its probable effects upon a general
election, but as a vital issue of principle and national policy,
of which the influence would be felt to the very foundation of
government and of social order. The eminent men consulted
by the administration whether hostile or friendly to a com-
petitive system equally recognized its grave importance, and its
sure encouragement of education and of liberty. " Why add
yet another to the many recent sacrifices of the royal preroga-
tive ? ... I ... call your attention to the almost
incalculable magnitude of the political changes which the pro-
posed abdication of all the patronage of the Crown in the pub-
lic offices must invoke. . . . The proposal to select can-
didates for the civil service of government by a competitive
examination appears to me to be one of those great public im-
provements, the adoption of which would form an era in his-
tory. ... It still seems to me that the ultimate result of
open competition will be a democratic civil service, side by side
with an aristocratic legislature. Open competition must neces-
sarily be in favor of the more numerous class. The natural
ability of that more numerous class i.e., of the lower or less
rich class is not inferior to those of the higher or richer
class." l
Such were the divergent views expressed. Neither party
dared defend the old system any longer, or maintain that noth-
ing better was possible. Lords Derby and Aberdeen, the min-
1 Civil Service Papers, pp. 79, 80, 62, and 288.
176 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
isters and party leaders of the period, were not theorists, but
practical statesmen of great experience. Both appear to have
reached the conclusion that a reform must be undertaken. It
fell to Lord Aberdeen's administration to begin it. But be-
fore considering the measures for introducing open competition
into the civil service at home, it will be useful to refer to what
was done, in the same direction and about the same time, to
improve the administration of British India.
CHAPTER XY.
OPEN COMPETITION INTRODUCED INTO BRITISH INDIA.
Patronage a failure there. Pass examinations and a college course found
inadequate. The public service in a threatening condition. Open com-
petition provided for in 1853. Report of Mr. Macaulay and Lord Ash-
burton. Nature of the competition.
ATTENTION lias already been called to several statutes of the
reign of George III., which showed that, thus early, careful
study had been made into the conditions of good administra-
tion for India, and that official corruption was even then more
stringently dealt with than it has yet been in analogous cases
in this country. It would be easy, but it can hardly be useful,
to refer to later statutes, framed in the same spirit, under
which several experiments were made, in the hope of increas-
ing the purity and vigor of the civil service of India. It is
enough to say that patronage, in the hands of the Board of
Directors having control of its administration, was found to
be as intolerable as such patronage was at home in the hands
of members of Parliament. For this reason, it had been pro-
vided, long before 1853, that those designed for the civil ser-
vice of India should not only be subjected to a pass exami-
nation, but should, before entering the service, be subjected
to a course of special instruction at Haileybury College,
a sort of civil West Point. This college was abolished in
1854:, but equivalent instruction was elsewhere provided for.
The directors had the patronage of nomination for such in-
struction, much as our members of Congress have (or rather
take) the patronage of nomination for our military school.
If it seems strange that a severe course of study, for two years
in such a college, was not sufficient to weed out the incompe-
tents which patronage forced into it, we must bear in mind
178 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
that the same influence which sent them there was used to
keep them there, and that it has required a high standard of
proficiency and the sternness of military discipline, which force
out a very great portion of those who enter, to prevent in-
competent favorites from graduating at "West Point. The
ablest administrators England could supply had been sent to
India for the purpose of raising its civil administration to a
condition compatible with the public safety. Every prom-
ising method, consistent with such patronage, or short of a rad-
ical change of system, had been tried. The evils which the
India administration disclosed grew not so much out of mere
partisan zeal and recklessness as out of the general demorali-
zation sure to result from every system which allows an ap-
pointing power, without executive responsibility, as a mere
appendage to a public office, or permits that power to be ex-
ercised with no enforced regard to the worth and capacity of
those nominated. Both the Derby and the Aberdeen admin-
istrations, in 1852 and 1853, took notice that the civil service
was in a condition of peril to British India ; and, without dis-
tinction of party, it was agreed that radical reforms must be
promptly made. There was corruption, there was inefficiency,
there was disgraceful ignorance, there was a humiliating fail-
ure in the government to command the respect of the more
intelligent portion of the people of India, and there was a
still more alarming failure to overawe the unruly classes. It
was as bad in the army as in the civil offices. " In the years
1851 to 1854, both inclusive, 437 gentlemen were examined
for direct commissions in the Indian army ; of this number 132
failed in English, and 234 in arithmetic. The return requires
no comment." 1 There was, in short, a hotbed of abuses
prolific of those influences which caused the fearful outbreak
of 1857. It was too late, when reform was decided upon, to
prevent the outbreak, but not too late to save British suprem-
acy in India.
A change of system was entered upon in 1853. The 36th
and 37th clauses of the India act of that year provided " that
all powers, rights, and privileges of the court of directors of
the said India Company to nominate or appoint persons to be
1 Civil Service Papers, pp. 876, 377.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN*. 179
admitted as students . . . shall cease ; and that, subject
to sucli regulations as might be made, any person, being a nat-
ural l)orn subject of her Majesty, who might be desirous of
presenting himself, should be admitted to be examined as a
candidate."
Thus, it will be seen, Indian patronage received its death-
blow, and the same blow opened the door of study for the
civil service of India to every British citizen ; allowing him
to come and prove himself, if he could, to be the better man
to serve his country, without having to ask the consent of any
director, minister, member of Parliament, caucus, or party
manager whatever. It was the clearing of the way for the
introduction of the merit system, pure and simple, into civil
administration in the home government. It was the first ex-
ample of the kind the first time that a nation had declared
in its statutes that its officers should not have either a pa-
tronage, a privilege, a profit, or a monopoly, in the autho-
rity of saying, irrespective of merit, 2 which of its citizens shall
be allowed to present his claims for a place in its service. It
was the intent of the statute that open competition should
take the place made vacant by the death of patronage. Mr.
Macaulay, as is well known, had held office in India ; and
he and Lord Ashburton were the leading men on the com-
mittee which the administration selected to draw up the regu-
lations to which the statute referred. Their report was made
in 1854, and provided for open competition, in which the best
qualified would win the right of admission to the proper col-
lege, where two years of special study would complete their
preparation for entering the civil service of India. The report
was approved, and thereupon the merit system, based on open
competition, was for the first time put into actual practice on
a large scale. It was a bold and radical experiment full of
peril ; and it may be said to have been, like our government,
founded almost upon theory alone, since it was the first of its
kind ever adopted by a nation. The rules for the competition
provided for extended to such subjects as were deemed im-
portant to be understood by those engaged in the Indian ser-
1 Report on India Civil Service, London, 1870, p. 13.
a Except the law of Richard II.
180 CIVIL SERVICE IN GEEAT BRITAIN.
vice. In order to determine the relative standing of each com-
petitor, lie was to be marked in each subject, and the average
of his aggregate marks, in all the subjects, would determine
how he stood as compared with the others in the competition.
There is no doubt that aristocratic influence was used to
set up a standard most favorable to the classes from which
that influence came ; but the authors declare in their report
that they have adopted a standard which is not calculated to fa-
vor any class, school, or other institution of learning. When we
consider the vast population and revenue of India, and how
vitally the honor and credit of Great Britain are involved in
her fate, we can more readily comprehend the magnitude of
this experiment and the gravity of the abuses that must have
forced a proud and practical nation to enter upon it. For to
it were committed, not the hopes of a party merely, but the
safety of an empire. At the proper time, the results of this
unique experiment will be presented.
CHAPTER XYI.
GOVERNMENT INQUIRY AND REPORT LEADING TO THE INTRODUC-
TION OF THE NEW SYSTEM IN 1853.
General condition of the service in 1853. How it compared with that of the
United States. Should reform be instituted by statute or by executive
action ? Sir Stafford Northcote and Sir Charles Trevelyau directed to
make a report. Their report. They recommend open competition.
Declared to be founded in justice and favorable to the education of the
people. How report received at first. Parliament hostile. Government
decided not to ask special legislation.
IN 1853, the British Government had reached a final decision
that the partisan system of appointments could not be longer
tolerated. Substantial control ( of nominations by members
of Parliament, however guarded by restrictions and improved
by mere pass examinations, had continued to be demoralizing
in its effect upon elections, vicious in its influence upon legisla-
tion, and fatal to economy and efficiency in the departments.
The higher public opinion demanded the extension of those
better modes of examination for admission to the public ser-
vice, which, in their limited use, had been so manifestly ben-
eficial. Those responsible for good administration had a deep
sense of the need of relief from that pervading solicitation and
intrigue which everywhere stood in the way of the fit dis-
charge of their official duties. It is plain, from what has
already been said, that the abuses from which relief was to be
sought were by no means of that gross and alarming kind which
had existed in earlier times. The laws and the policy, to which
I have referred, had greatly advanced the work of reform.
But public opinion, in the same spirit, had made not less ad-
vance ; and it now insisted on a standard of efficiency and
purity in official life which only the most advanced re-
formers had, half a century before, thought to be practi-
cable in public affairs. Both the importance which govern-
182 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
ment accorded to administrative methods and the sound prin-
ciples embodied in the statutes, I have cited had, doubt-
less, contributed to elevate the public standard of official duty.
A brief outline will enable us to compare that standard and the
character of administration in Great Britain in 1853 with our
own at this time.
1. Neither political assessments nor any other form of ex-
tortion, by the higher officers from the lower, or by partisan
leaders from any grade of officials or government employes,
existed.
2. Officers were not removed for the purpose of making
places for others ; and, so long as official duty was properly
performed, no one was proscribed by reason of his political
opinions.
3. In the great departments of customs and internal revenue
(and in a large way, as a general rule, in other departments also),
the higher places were filled by promotions from the lower ;
and therefore such contests as we have over these higher places
were unknown.
4. As a general rule, to which the exceptions were rare,
those in office held their places during efficiency and good be-
havior (always excepting the members of the Cabinet and the
few high political officers to which I have before referred),
and therefore nothing analogous to the fear of removal and
the vicious, partisan activity of officials in connection with
elections (which that fear produces under our system) was
known in Great Britain.
5. The law of Queen Anne (already cited), which prohibits
post office officials trying to influence elections, and the laws
of George III. , which prevented them and nearly all others in
the civil service from voting, were still in force, and they
effectually protected the freedom of elections from invasion
by executive officers. But they were not adequate to prevent
members of Parliament and other high officers from giving
places to those who had worked for them in the canvass. The
grosser forms of bargaining, however, these laws had sup-
pressed.
6. Members of Parliament monopolized patronage, but they
must recommend their favorites through the Patronage Sec-
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN". 183
retary of the Treasury ; and to that officer the heads of de-
partments and offices must apply for clerks. " The names
are sent by the Secretary of the Treasury, who, in selecting
them, is mainly influenced by political considerations. They
are persons of whom he can scarcely ever have any personal
knowledge, and who are recommended to him by the political
supporters of the government." The Secretary parcelled
out places and salaries with as much exactness as a prize master
ever apportioned the proceeds of a capture. Secret bargain-
ing and intrigue was greatly limited by this open way of mak-
ing merchandise of public functions. The reduction of favor- I
itism and nepotism to a system was also a most salutary check '
upon the old habits of members of Parliament going whining :
and palavering, or bullying and blustering (according to their
temper, or that of the official whose ante-room they besieged),
from department to department, and from office to office, seek-
ing places for their favorites.
7. There were pass examinations quite as effective (to say
the least) as any we have applied, between nominations and
admissions ; and, very generally, a six-months probation fol-
lowed before an actual appointment was made. In addition,
competitive examinations were being enforced (in mere self-
protection) by the heads of some of the offices ; and,
altogether, these safeguards were no inconsiderable check upon
the selfishness and wantonness of official favoritism.
8. Wliat might be called a spoils system (in the more cor-
rupt sense of the term) had ceased to exist. Personal corrup-
tion in office had, for a considerable period, been of very rare oc-
currence. The public service, as a whole, was regarded as need-
lessly costly and inefficient ; but public opinion did not dis-
trust official honesty, however much it might suspect political
partiality and prejudice. In public, as in private life, there
were of course criminals, but on moral grounds the public ser-
vice, as a whole, was respectable.
9. A strictly partisan system of appointments (and to some
extent of promotions) prevailed. The right of nomination
was treated as an official perquisite. Political opinions were
recognized as paramount qualifications for office. Govern-
1 Letter Sir George Cornwall Lewes, July 20th, 1854, Civil Service Papers,
p. 108.
181 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
ment stood before the people as a grand agency (or, in the
language of our politics, as " a machine") that might be used
to keep in the offices those who at any time held them, and to
perpetuate the rule of the dominant party. The system
afforded the means of rewarding those intriguers and manip-
ulators who supply the corrupt elements of elections, and beset
and seduce every officer having patronage. The gates of the
public service, being opened by influence rather than by
merit, those within naturally held a low place in public esteem,
and generally deserved nothing more. In all the elections,
which were as vigorously contested as they are in our politics,
the corrupting elements of patronage and partisan coercion
'-were present and exhaled an atmosphere of suspicion over
! ^every issue of principle and of character. If the facts that
'there were no removals and but few promotions, except for
' cause, made this vicious element far weaker than in our poli-
tics, it was yet an ever-active source of debasement and dis-
trust. In short, the bestowal of office w r as made upon the
theory of official and partisan favoritism, rather than upon
that of duty, justice, or the public interests, as the supreme
ends of government. So long as that theory prevailed, gov-
ernment and those who served it could never hold their just
place in the honor and respect of the people.
10. Stated in general terms, the great and primary source
of the evils in the British civil service, in 1853, w r as executive
patronage in the hands of members of Parliament, and the
obstruction it naturally caused in the way of bringing in and
promoting merit and of carrying on the administration
economically and efficiently. Questions upon the enactment
of laws were continually complicated by questions of Parlia-
mentary patronage. Members were indisposed to cut down
salaries, or reduce numbers, or abolish offices, or repeal laws,
when their own favorites might be those prejudiced by the
change. The men it was for their interest to foist upon the
service were not unfrequently persons very unfit to discharge
its duties. 1 There were many more persons whom members
wished to oblige than there were vacant places in the Treasury.
Such were the evils which the British Government set
1 See ante, p. 147 to 149.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 185
about removing in 1853. How they compare with those in
our service is too obvious for remark. In one particular that
of patronage in the hands of members of the legislature the
analogy is very close, though in consequence of our short
terms for so many officers and of our making promotions and
removals for political reasons, that evil in our service is vastly
greater. Should it be suggested that, if our service were in
the condition of that of Great Britain in 1853, there would be
slight fault found with it, the fact would be only further
evidence of an exacting public opinion there, which is due to
the greater attention which statesmen have for a long time
given to the subject of good administration.
Ingenious attempts had been made, especially since 1832, to
remove the evils of the partisan system, and, to make it satis-
factory to the higher public opinion. In several ways, the
abuses of the system had been curtailed. The more it was re-
stricted, the purer and more vigorous party government had
become. The results of all experience pointed to yet more
salutary effects, as sure to result from an utter severance of
party government itself from a mere partisan system of ap-
pointments. The last twenty years had been, beyond any in
English history, distinguished by liberal measures ; and the time
was fortunate in enlightened statesmen Grey, Aberdeen,
Peel, Russell, Cobden, Granville, Derby, Palmerston, Bright,
Gladstone among them whose names recall the great tri-
umphs of justice, liberty, education, humanity, and national
vigor with which they will stand forever associated. Fortu-
nately, these men had no faith in a partisan system, nor was
there one of them, whichever side he took in politics, who was
willing to apologize for that system, or failed to see that it was
hostile alike to the true life of a party and to the highest inter-
ests of a nation. It was at this period that those enlightened
health laws were enacted, and that vigorous sanitary adminis-
tration began, which have been an inestimable blessing to the
British people and especially to the poor and which are also
the basis of our best laws and regulations for the protection of
the public health.
The administration, with Lord Aberdeen at its head, prompt-
ly decided to undertake a radical and systematic reform.
186 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
There was no little doubt as to the best plan to pursue. It
was at first proposed to begin by offering a bill in Parliament,
it being thought that nothing short of joint action by the leg-
islative and the executive would either be at once effective, or
binding upon succeeding administrations. But unanswerable
objections arose. It was least promising of success. Mem-
bers of Parliament were much more likely to acquiesce in
reforms proposed by the executive than to initiate them by
statute. They were not well informed as to existing methods
or real needs in the executive department, and could never
devise a good system, even if such an undertaking did not
too directly concern both their future patronage and their
favorites in office.
It would be shirking responsibility, and would raise sus-
picions of want of faith, for the executive not to take the
initiative in a reform within its own sphere of duty. None
so well as those in the executive department knew the abuses
or the true remedy. Upon none did the duty so clearly rest
to remove them. Nowhere else was there so much existing
authority unused for that purpose. With what consistency
could the executive call upon Parliament to reform adminis-
tration, so long as executive authority remained unexercised,
which, if not wholly adequate, was yet sufficient to accom-
plish much in that direction ? Any lack of courage any want
of faith in the higher sentiments of the people any attempt
to shift responsibility, any resort to the tactics of its opponents,
on the part of the Executive, it was perceived, must be fatal
to such a reform.
" It has been too much the habit of the House of Commons to
interfere in matters for which not they but the executive are respon-
sible. It is the duty of the executive to provide for the efficient and
harmonious working of the civil service, and they cannot transfer
that duty to any other body far less competent to the task than
themselves, without infringing a great and important constitutional
principle, already too often infringed, to the great detriment of the
public service." 1
A new method must be very cautiously, if not gradually,
1 Civil Service Papers, pp. 271, 272.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 187
introduced, and it would be fatal to give a new and experi-
mental system the rigidity of law at the outset. A statute may
safely declare a principle of action, but not the details of that
action. There must be tentative measures gradually adopted
by the executive to the public needs.
" I may as well say that there was a considerable amount of vacil-
lation and of tentative action, proceedings being afterwards recalled
and alterations made in the conduct of the Treasury, according as we
got fresh light and information ; there were different rules
in almost every department . . . we took a step in that year
which we saw fit to retract the next year." 1
Why should the administration be encumbered by reg-
ulations, theoretically devised, which might soon be found
impracticable, but wliich could only be changed by the
joint act of the executive and the legislature ? Whether
regard be had to the usurpation of executive power by
members of Parliament, or to the plain duty of the ex-
ecutive, independent of that encroachment, it was felt to be
too clear for dispute that the most natural and the most effec-
tive opening of a reform policy would be for the executive to
set an example of the discharge of official duty, in the spirit of
the reform proposed, and to follow it up by the fearless ex-
ercise of all executive authority in that direction. Such an
example would, in the public mind, silence all suspicion of
lack of courage or lack of sincerity ; and, in Parliament, it
would make the executive invulnerable, at the same time that
it would turn public criticism upon members and other
officers who should continue to justify abuses in order that
they might enjoy patronage. Consistency, disinterestedness,
fidelity to the principles on wliich the reform was to be based,
at whatever cost, were felt to be indispensable to its success.
Strong opposition was to be expected, but it must be boldly
met on the basis of the reform policy alone.
But there were other reasons not less decisive. The greater
effort was to make it certain, first, that the executive should
be at liberty to select the best persons, as the constitution
contemplated ; and, next, that its authority should be faith-
1 Evidence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Report of Parliamentary
Commission, 1873, p. 227.
188 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
fully exercised. Tho main reform sought is in the use of the
executive power of appointment. If Parliament would sur-
render its usurpations and not again interfere, all that was
needed was that the executive should perform a plain duty
within its constitutional power. The authority of selecting
officers covers the whole subject of their character, qualifica-
tions, age, promotions and removals ; and that of executing
the laws embraces all matters pertaining to the regulation and
discipline of public servants. If left free to do so, and sup-
plied with the necessary funds, the executive could bring
about such reform. Why then should the executive begin the
work of reform in its own department with a request that Par-
liament should further transcend its sphere ? "I am firmly
persuaded that if governments were more courageous in ef-
fecting reforms tending to the benefit of the community, we
should hear fewer complaints of the difficulties arising out of
the conflict of party interests." "After a few quiverings
in the balance, the scale would sink down on the side of those
whose wisdom and energy were steadily toward the promotion
of the common weal. " 1 Why assume that members of Parlia-
ment are as well acquainted with business in the departments
as the experienced officers at their head ? Why might not
the executive as properly take part in making the business
rules of the House of Commons as the House interfere with
the business ru'les of the departments ? It could not of course '
be denied that Parliament had a large and undefined legisla-
tive authority, that in many ways reached within tho depart-
ments ; and it unquestionably extended to salaries and to all
matters involving expenditures. But, at most, Parliament
should be only called upon to approve regulations for the gov-
ernment of executive officers, and that approval was implied
in voting an appropriation. The course that members of
Parliament would pursue was predicted with remarkable fore-
sight, and the prediction has been almost as applicable to what
we have seen in this country, as to what took place in the Brit-
ish Parliament ; though, when once the members of that body
had committed themselves to the reform before the nation,
they did not arrest it by withholding money to pay its cost.
1 Civil Service Papers, pp. 31, 33.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 189
" I think th3 members of the House of Commons would in
general support this scheme. Many of them would gladly be relieved
from the importunities to which they are now exposed. Many more
would advocate the new arrangement from a sincere conviction of its
advantages. Of those who were inclined to oppose it, some would
dissemble their aversion, through unwillingness to come forward at
all as the champions of a system which they knew to be corrupt ; and
other would be unable to offer more than a feeble resistance, being
obliged to rest their arguments upon grounds different from those on
which their views were really founded. They would raise objec-
tions on small points of detail, or would assert in a sweeping way
that the plan was complicated, expensive, impracticable, and so
forth." 1
Such views prevailed, and the original plan was changed.
It was decided that, in the outset, no application should be
made to Parliament. The reform should be undertaken by
the English Executive (that is, the Queen, and ministers, or
administration) for the time being. The first step decided
upon was an inquiry into the exact condition of the public
service. Sir Stafford Korthcote (the present Chancellor of
the Exchequer) and Sir Charles Trevelyan were appointed in
1853 to make such inquiry and a report, They submitted their
report in November of the same year.
I have no space to do justice to this abLe document, but a
few sentences will indicate its spirit and some of the abuses of
patronage for which it proposed a remedy.
" Admission into the civil service is indeed eagerly sought after,
but it is for the unambitious and the indolent or incapable that it is
chiefly desired. Those whose abilities do not warrant the expecta-
tion that they will succeed in the open professions, where they must
encounter the competition of their cotemporaries, and those whose
indolence of temperament or physical infirmities unfit them for
active exertions, are placed in the civil service. . . . Parents and
friends of sickly youths endeavor to attain for them employment in
the service of the government. . . . The character of the indi-
viduals influences the mass, and it is thus that we often hear com-
plaints of official delays, official evasions of difficulty, and official in-
disposition to improvement."
1 Civil Service Papers, pp. 21, 22.
13
190 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
A system of competitive examinations is recommended
which will test personal fitness for the public service.
" In the examinations which we have recommended, we con-
sider that the right of competing should be open to all persons
of a given age, ' ' subject to satisfactory proof of good health
and good moral character.
These examinations " cannot be conducted in an effective
and consistent manner throughout the service while it is left
to each department to determine the nature of the examina-
tion and to examine the candidates. ' '
The report was accompanied with a scheme for carrying the
examinations into effect, from which I quote the following
passages, as seeming to show that, from the very outset, the re-
form was neither royal nor aristocratic, but was advocated in
the interest of common justice and population education :
" Such a measure will exercise the happiest influence in the
education of the lower classes throughout England, acting by
the surest of all motives the desire a man has of bettering
himself in life. . . . They will have attained their situa-
tions in an independent manner through their own merits.
The sense of this conduct cannot but induce self-respect and
diffuse a wholesome respect among the lower no less than the
higher classes of official men. . . . The effect of it in
giving a stimulus to the education of the lower classes can
hardly he overestimated. ' ' ' Such was the spirit of the re-
port. This was the theory of the merit system, then first ap-
proved by an English administration for the home government.
I hardly need repeat that the examinations referred to as ex-
isting were (with small exception) mere pass examinations, and
that the new examinations proposed were open, competitive
examinations, being such as I have before explained. The
examinations were to be general, so as to reach those qualifica-
tions which every person in the public service ought to
possess, and also special to the extent requisite in the various
parts and grades of the service, to ascertain the peculiar qual-
ifications there needed.
A central board of examiners, with common duties, in all
the departments and offices, is recommended as essential to
1 Civil Service Papers, Appendix, pp. 4-31.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 191
uniformity and independence in enforcing the rules of admis-
sion and probation. Such a body, for conducting them, would,
we may readily see, impart the greatest vigor, uniformity, and
justice to open competition. The proposal that merit should
be the basis of promotion was of course quite hostile to the
spirit of royalty and conservatism. It is worthy of notice that
the report does not advise that any officers should be dismissed
because they came in under the old system and were imbued
with its spirit. If they should not act in good faith under
the new system, they could be dismissed^forjcause. English
statesmen have always regarded the government itself, and not
its subordinates, as responsible for low qualifications and ex-
cessive numbers in the public service ; and poor clerks have
never, as with us, been suddenly and ruthlessly dismissed into
the streets without notice or other employment. The report
proceeds upon the theory that a complete removal of all abuses
at once is impossible. But if merit, and not favoritism, should
hereafter secure places in the public service, its whole spirit
would be, at once, changed and its reasonable independence of
politics would be in a short period established. Promotion
from the places to the higher would inspire and reward honor-
able ambition, and in a few years the whole service would be-
come as distinguished for administrative capacity as it had been
for incapacity and servility. We shall see to what extent these
hopes have been realized.
But the great feature of the report, which made it really a
proposal for the introduction of a new system, was its advo-
cacy of open competition. Except the experiment just put
on trial in India, no nation had adopted that system. It was
as theoretical as it was radical. While it seemed sound in
principle, and had worked well in a small way, when it had
been tried in isolated places in England and France, no one
could be certain what might be its general consequences.
Caution, candor, and a fair field were needed for its trial. It
was of course particularly exposed to ridicule and misrepre-
sentation.
It soon appeared that such a trial was too much to expect.
Speculators in patronage, partisan leaders, high officers having
some fragments of the appointing power, and, especially, all
192 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
the scheming members of Parliament who had appropriated
the bulk of that power, at once took alarm and combined for
common attack and self-defence. They saw that their usurpa-
tion was threatened, not so much by the executive regaining
what they had pillaged as by the people having the public
service so freely opened to them that the most meritorious
could enter it without their consent without any other pass-
port than superior merit. Such freedom and justice would
be fatal to all official monopoly and all Parliamentary dictation.
If the cabman's son John and the farmer's boy Peter, and the
orphan at the head of his class in the public schools, could
boldly go before the Civil Service Commission, in open com-
j petition, and prove themselves to be better qualified to enter
; the public service than the bisliops's blockhead boy, the
squire's or the earl's favorite, the member's electioneering
! clerk or decayed butler, or the party manager's most serviceable
henchman, then, indeed, it would be pretty plain that a new
system had come in and that patronage and favoritism must
go out. This was too much for official and average Parlia-
mentary patriotism, too much for conservative old England
too dangerous for any country without a precedent to bring
about all at once. A chorus of ridicule, indignation, lamenta-
tion, and wrath arose from all the official and partisan places
of politics. The government saw that a further struggle was
at hand. It appeared more clear than ever that Parliament
was not a very hopeful place in which to trust the tender
years of such a reform. Its true friends were the intelligent
classes outside official life.
In England, as with us, the most active opponents of the
reform were those who had promised places and those who
hoped soon to gain them through official favoritism and parti-
san coercion. The appeal, therefore, it was seen, must be made
to the people themselves. They that is, such of them as are
neither in office nor seeking it were the true and almost the
only disinterested friends of the new system. With this view,
the executive caused the report to be spread broadcast among
the people, and also requested the written opinions of a large
number of persons of worth and distinction both in and out of
office. The report was sent to Parliament, but no action upon
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 193
it was requested. The situation will be recognized as resem-
bling our own when, under General Grant's administration, a
similar report was prepared ; but the final executive action in
the two countries was widely different.
The responses made in 185-4 are printed in an interesting
volume, to which I have already referred as " Civil Service
Papers." The hostility manifested in Parliamentary and
partisan circles soon appeared to be very formidable. But
there were not wanting able, disinterested members who were
ready to support the reform with patriotic zeal. At the
other end of the scale of membership, there were partisan in-
triguers and noisy demagogues horrified at such an attack
upon Parliamentary perquisites which had been enjoyed for
more than a hundred years, and without which, they declared,
no party could live, if indeed the constitution could survive.
They were as ready to defend their monopoly as they were to
defend their dcg kennels, their inherited acres, or their seats
at the horse races. Between these extremes were many good-
ish members, some of whom would faintly support reform in
order to get rid of the annoyance and the dirty work imposed
by patronage, and others of whom had just faith and princi-
ple enough to vote on what they might think would be the
winning side. The result of an early appeal to Parliament
would therefore be very doubtful, to say the least ; nor was
the first response of the people (perhaps to be made before
they had fully comprehended the issue) by any means certain.
"When we consider that an English administration has no other
tenure than the support of a majority in Parliament, so that an
adverse majority, for a single day, might compel the resigna-
tion of a ministry, we can appreciate that such an appeal to
the people required faith and courage of a high order. ' Those
high qualifications were not wanting in the ministry in power.
The government, faithful to its pledges and its sense of duty,
resolved to persist in the reform at all hazards. The only
1 " Those early supporters of it might be counted upon the fingers, and if
the matter had been put to the vote in London society or the clubs, or even
in Parliament itself by secret voting, it would have been rejected by an over-
whelming majority." Letter, Sir Charles Trevelyan to the Author. See
Appendix.
194 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
alternatives were success or repudiation and disgrace. It de-
cided to notify its purpose to Parliament, but not to ask any
assistance at that time. Accordingly, tlie Queen's Speech, on
the opening of Parliament, in 1854, contained the following
language :
' ' The establishment required for the conduct of the civil
service, and the arrangements bearing upon its conditions,
have recently been under review ; and I shall direct a plan to
be laid before you which will have for its object to improve
the system of admission, and thereby to increase the efficiency
of the service." '
No such plan, however, was laid before Parliament at the
time first contemplated. That body showed itself too selfish,
unpatriotic, and hostile. But before considering the next step
taken by the administration, I ought to notice the response
made to the report by those of whom the government re-
quested opinions.
J See Report on Civil Service Appointments, I860, p. v.
CHAPTER XVII.
HOW THE NEW SYSTEM WAS RECEIVED.
Politicians and many officers oppose. Xon-partisans generally approve.
Great disparity of views. It is Chinese. It is sound and salutary. It is
Utopian. It is wise and just. It shoots above human virtue. It responds
to public morality and intelligence. It is ridiculous. It is statesmanlike.
It is the dream of doctrinaires. It has the marks of practical states-
manship. The present service is the best the world ever saw. The pres-
ent service is disgracefully incompetent and costly. The new system
endangers the aristocracy The spoils system defended. Ridicule. The
new plan a bureaucracy. It is the opposite of a bureaucracy.
THE volume of replies to which I have referred ' discusses
the report of 1853 from every point of view. The prejudices
of aged officers wedded to routine, the natural hostility and
jealousy of partisan managers, the indignation and anger of a
certain class of members of Parliament,* the zeal of great re-
formers like John Stuart Mill, the honorable ambition of
young men wishing to rise by merit and scorning the degrad-
ing ways of subserviency, the alarm of old croakers and pessi-
mists, and the sober thought of good citizens in many callings
each and all found expression. There was no small differ-
ence of opinion as to what would come of an experiment so
novel and so radical. The journals and reviews of England
resounded with the tierce debate. I might fill pages with in-
teresting illustrations. Sarcasm, ridicule, denunciation, gloomy
prognostications of evil, high faith in the better sentiments, the
1 Civil Service Papers published in 1855.
' The public press did not spare the selfish and partisan members of
Parliament. " Had not a long course of elective corruption blinded the
constituencies to its true import, and given members an instinctive antipathy
to any method for curtailing the means of corruption, such a measure
would have been hailed with applause." Times, August 11, 1854, Civil
Service Papers, p. 250.
196 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
cunning sophisms of demagogues, and the calm reasoning of
statesmen, were heard by turns. Those whose patronage and
whose mercenary prospects of rising were threatened were
especially exasperated, and insisted that their rights were
being invaded. No bellicose woman at Billingsgate ever de-
fended her herring-stand with greater iierceness, or greater
apparent faith in the righteousness of her cause, than some of
the monopolists of patronage brought to the support of their
claim that justice, good policy, and the stability of the Eng-
lish constitution itself required that they should each keep
a toll-gate to the public service ever open to favor and shut
to merit. So complete was the discussion that subsequent
originality has not been possible ; and those who now employ
stale sarcasm and ridicule, better uttered at that time, must be
pardoned. Some denounced it as a Chinese system, because
the Chinese were said to have originated examinations ; not
remembering that the same reasoning would deprive English-
men of gunpowder, the compass, and the art of printing.
Some sneered at the new system as "a perfect novelty, never
hitherto enforced in any commonwealth except that of
Utopia ;" 1 not of course bearing in mind that free speech,
which they so much enjoyed, was also original in that re-
nowned commonwealth. One high officer, a Ilight Honorable,
a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, and a Secre-
tary of a great department, commends his objections by using
the familiar argument (sound enough when fairly applied)
that rulers must not attempt what is not practicable in their
day and generation. He says : " The law-giver may keep
ahead of public opinion, but he cannot shoot out of sight of
the moral standard of his age and country. The world we
live in is not, I think, half moralized enough for the accept-
ance of a scheme of such stern morality as this." He was re-
minded that public officers are very liable to mistake official
opinion for the public opinion, and hence often shoot far be-
low the moral tone of the people. He showed before he got
through that it was fears about prerogative and not about
morality that really troubled him. "Why add another," he
1 Civil Service Papers, p. 77.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 197
exclaims, " to the many recent sacrifices of the royal prerog-
ative ?" '
Just as with us, there were those who thought the old sys-
tem a piece of perfection. "I reply that I do not consider
that system capable of improvement, but think it better than
any other that has been suggested, or that I am able to sug-
gest." 2
Even distinguished officers (a Eight Honorable Secretary of
State and the Secretary of the National Council for Education)
had the hardihood to defend the worst features of the old par-
tisan spoils system itself, in language that would have brought
a blush of shame even to the face of the author of the declara-
tion that " to the victor belongs the spoils."
" The principal ministers of the Crown (he said) are themselves
so ill remunerated, that those high trusts are practically confined to
persons born to ;:mple fortunes. . . . But the range of choice
will become still more narrow, . . . if the remuneration of these
great offices be further reduced, by depriving the holders of them of
all their most valuable patronage. . . . Considering the long
habituation of the people to political contests, in which the
share of office, not merely for its emoluments, but also for the sake
of influencing administration, reckons among the legitimate prizes of
war, . . . and that rank and wealth . . . hold the keys
of many things, ... I should hesitate long before I advised
such a revolution of the civil service."
The argument, so familiar with us, that the corruption we
have is an inevitable evil that comes " with the best civil ser-
vice the world has ever seen," is by no means original here,
but is a stale falsehood born of English fatalism and con-
ceit. 4 " Jobbing is a part, though an ugly part, of the price
which a free people pay for their constitutional liberty. So
long as there are Parliamentary constitutents, they will ask
favors of members of Parliament, and members of Parliament
of ministers. ." *
Civil Sen-ice Papers, pp. 78, 79. * Ibid., p. S93.
Ibid., pp. 104 and 105. * Ibid., p. CT3.
Ibid.
198 CIVIL SERVICE IJST GREAT BRITAIN.
Polite sarcasm was ingeniously applied by high officials in
language of which this is a specimen :
" I should be extremely happy if any scheme occurred to me by
which pure, simple, unadulterated merit, without the slightest mix-
ture of other ingredients, could be made the sole criterion of advance-
ment. If such a discovery should ever be made, it would probably be
founded upon some new view of human nature, and would certainly
not be confined in its operation to the civil service, but would extend
its benign influence over all services, trades and professions." 1
Some arguments are noticeable as not having been yet re-
produced in our discussions ; for example, in one, it is urged
that if patronage is taken from members of Parliament, they
will utterly neglect the civil service, whereby it will go to de-
cay ; and, in another, that the real sufferers by existing abuses
are, not the public service or the people, but " the members
of Parliament and heads of departments, . . . who need
sheltering from the irresistible attacks of their constituents and
supporters, with which they often unwillingly and from neces-
sity comply. ' ' a
The specious and familiar, old argument the argument that
no part of an abuse should be remedied unless the whole can
be removed at once that no thief should be punished unless
all gamblers are sent to prison at the same time was put with
much adroitness, with a view of arousing the fears and hostility
of the Established Church and of the owners of its patronage.
Why should patronage and favoritism, in bestowing offices, be
stopped (the writer asks), unless the sale of livings (that is, the
sale of the right to be a minister in the State Church) shall also
be forbidden? " If the government will absolutely proclaim
the abstract principle that nepotism is not to be endured, what
will they say of nepotism in the Church ? There it is not an
accident, but a system. It is an abuse, not furtively perpet-
uated, but ostentatiously avowed." 3
By some the new system was opposed on the ground that
the standard of examinations would be fixed so high that none
I Civil Service Papers, p. 394.
II Ibid., p. 357. Civil Service Report, 1860, p. 224.
8 Civil Service Papers, p. 78.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 199
but learned pedants and college-bred aristocrats could gain ad-
mission ; and, by others, it was opposed for exactly the oppo-
site, that it would be fixed so low that gentlemen would be
overslaughed by a band of conceited, impracticable school-
masters and book- worms, together with crowds of bright, vul-
gar fellows from the lower classes ; so that the high flavor of
honor and gentility, if not the moral tone of the service, would
be lost. ' ' Another objection to your system of competing
examinations is to be found in the stimulus that would be
given by it to over-education. There can be little doubt that
great numbers of youths who are now content to seek to earn
their subsistence in the lower ranks . . . would be at-
tracted by the more captivating prospect of these government
offices." l In reply, Mr. Mill and others commended the new
system because it gave the poor and the humble an equal
chance upon their merits, and they declared that if the sons of
the rich and the high-born could not, on that basis, hold their
own, the quicker they were driven from the public service the
better. There were also attacks upon the new system on the
ground that it would so largely draw young persons of ability
and attainments into the public service, that private business,
the pulpit, and the bar would suffer for want of them. To
which it was replied that no affairs were so great and impor-
tant as those of the nation, and that they demanded the ser-
vice of the best of her children, in which their example and
their influence would be most beneficent in all the ranges of
private life. At the worst, it would be easy to lower the stand-
ard, if the nation should ever be found to be too ably and
worthily served. It was claimed by some that the new sys-
tem would tend to a bureaucracy, and thus become dangerous
to liberty. The reply was that no system was so repugnant
and fatal to a bureaucracy as that proposed. It opened the
public service to every one upon equal terms, and those who
came in entered it under the least possible commitment or
obligations that would compromise their independence. The
essential conditions of a bureaucracy, in a public service, were,
first, that those in office should command the gate of that ser-
vice, thus selecting those who should enter it ; and second,
1 Civil Service Papers, pp. 133 and 134.
200 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
that the higher officers should domineer over the lower.
These were the very conditions of the old system which the
new was intended and was especially adapted to remove.
How could a bureaucracy arise under a system where all the
old officers in the service united could not prevent a young
man of worth from coming in, and under which they must
promote him for merit, and could turn him out only for cause,
to be publicly stated ?
The old argument, that parties could not prosper without at
least as much patronage as they then enjoyed, was renewed.
But, as it had been made by the party managers and overruled
by the English people, at every stage of the progress of re-
form, and parties had continued to prosper all the more, it did
not seem to have so much weight in England as it has with
us ; for the present generation of Americans has seen partisan
patronage and coercion steadily increase, whereas the present
generation of Englishmen has seen them as steadily fall away.
Another objection, which has been also urged with us, was
that a general examining board would be too expensive, and
that its duties would be found impracticable in their discharge.
To which it was replied that experience f would be the best
answer ; though there had been enough already to make it
probable that the objections were without weight ; that the
intrigues, the consumption of the time of officers by rival ap-
plicants for office, the interruptions of public business by
members of Parliament soliciting places, and the excessive
numbers and salaries foisted upon the treasury, which, were
the inevitable results of the old system, were ten times more
costly than any examining board could be. Still another ob-
jection, lately made familiar to us, was that the examining
board would itself succeed to the patronage which its old pos-
sessors would lose, and thereby a sort of Patronage Star
Chamber would be created ; in answer to which it was ex-
plained that the board would not have the least authority over
or participation in appointments, its duty being confined to
making up a record from data, always open to inspection and
review, and upon the face of which any unfairness would at
all times be patent.
But the attack upon the new system most confidently urged
was this : that, while an examination might test mere mem-
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BWtt WASHING TO
ory, brightness and quickness of parts, it could not test moral
character, soundness of discretion, executive ability, or
capacity to command. This was the consideration which
caused not a few good citizens to hesitate, and which partisans
urged with much force and effect. It could be urged in much
fewer words than it could be answered, and it looked plausible
at the first statement. ~No nation had then tried examinations
on a large scale. Still, there had been considerable miscel-
laneous experience in England, and some in France, and that
was fully set forth. The argument from experience, to which
I shall call attention, is now, at the end of nearly a quarter of
a century of actual trial, so full and decisive that it will hardly
be useful to refer to what then existed or to dwell upon theory
or probability. It was pointed out that a public competition is
almost sure to expose and exclude bad characters. Examina-
tions were not to be merely literary, but were to cover the
practical duties of officers. They were not claimed to be
infallible ; but it was believed that a public competition, be-
tween attainments and capacity, for such duties was far prefer-
able to a private competition of influence, solicitation, favor,
and coercion, which generally prevailed under the old system.
Besides, the six-month probation would further test executive
ability.
The reform was distinctly presented to the people as one in
the interest of popular education, and of the common, equal
rights of the people of every class and condition to share in
the public service ; and it was as distinctly opposed, because
it was regarded as hostile to privilege and favorable to repub-
lican or democratic ideas. " A public opinion favorable to
the elementary schools would spring up in the humbler classes
of society, from this public recognition and sanction of it, as
the means of qualifying men for responsible stations in life.
. . In the first place, we may expect to see it operate
widely and deeply in the education of the country. Parents,
even down to those of the lowest class, will be more solicitous
than they are to secure the benefits of instruction for their
children, when they see its direct bearing upon their prospects
of advancement in life."
1 Civil Service Papw, pp. 24, 41, and 42.
202 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
To this language of its friends its enemies replied in this
strain :
"I am free to confess that I can see no reason why the Crown
should be depriveJ. of the grace and influence which belongs to the
nominations. . . . One obvious effect of the competition which
is proposed by you would be to fill the offices with the picked, clever,
young men of the lower ranks of society, to whom such offices would
be a great object of ambition, which they would not in general be to
men of the higher ranks. ' ' 1
And yet, it would not be just to say that the aristocracy were
all on one side and the common people (as they are called)
all on the other. To the credit of English statesmen of the
most aristocratic birth and associations, it should be said that
several of them have set examples of the surrender of pat-
ronage and of the support of measures clearly in the interest
of common justice and humble life, which it would be an
honor to high officers in a republic to imitate. Lord Derby,
Lord Russell, and Lord Palmerston, for example, supported
the reform, as prime ministers, at the head of their respective
parties, though assured by their subordinates (and I think by
their own experience compelled to believe) that the inevitable
consequence would be an advance of the influence and educa-
tion of the people at large, by reason of which the privileged
classes would suffer a loss of power in public affairs. The line
between those who supported and those who opposed the re-
form was not a party line, nor was it the boundary between
the privileged and the unprivileged classes ; but it was a strata
in the moral tone of all parties and all ranks, below which
were the men whose faith was in management and the selfish
forces of politics, and, above which, were those who trusted
the higher sentiments and the nobler impulses of the people.
On the one side was all that survived in sympathy with "VVal-
pole and Newcastle, on the other, all that had grown in the
spirit of Chatham and of Burke.
1 Civil Service Papers, pp. 133 and 330.
CHAPTEE XVIII.
THE FIRST ORDER FOR A CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION AND COM-
PETITIVE EXAMINATIONS, MAY, 1855.
Lord Palmerston decides to go to Parliament only for an appropriation.
Executive order appointing a Civil Service Commission. Applicants for
office to be examined by the commission. Only limited competition at
first introduced. Part of their patronage retained by members of Parlia-
ment. No removals made. Moderate changes thought most prudent.
Vote of Commons in 1855 adverse to new system. The administration
stands firm, and relies on the people.
ABOUT the time that English public opinion had pronounced
its first judgment upon the official report, and before any final
action had been taken upon it, the Aberdeen administration
went out. The cause the disastrous management of the
Crimean war was independent of the new system, except in so
far as the lack of official capacity, both in the military and
civil administration, for which the old system was responsible,
contributed to that result. Lord Palmerston came into
power early in 1855, than whom, this most practical of nations
never produced a more hard-headed, practical statesman, nor
one who had a poorer opinion of mere theorists, sentimental-
ists, and doctrinaires. Upon his administration fell the duty
of deciding the fate of the new system advocated in the report.
Fortunately, he was no more inclined to shirk a plain duty
than he was to follow an empty theory. He had had long
experience in administration, and knew intimately the hope-
less incompetency of the partisan system. He too held that
the executive should discharge its own duty before going to
Parliament. He had faith in his party, and believed it would
gain more by removing grave abuses than by any partisan use
of patronage. It was beyond question, however, that a
majority of those most active in either party, and probably a
204: CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
majority of members of Parliament, were opposed to the re-
form. But lie knew its strength with the people. Making
no direct appeal to Parliament, and trusting to the higher
public opinion, Lord Palmerston's administration advised that,
an order should be made by the Queen in Council for carrying
the reform into effect ; and such an order was made on the
21st of May, 1855.
It recites that "it is expedient to make provision for test-
ing, according to fixed rules, the qualifications of the young
men who may from time to time be proposed to be appointed
to the junior situations," ... in the civil service. There
were no women in the service at that time, and no provision
was made for them. It also appoints three General Commis-
sioners, with power to select assistants, under whom the ex-
aminations for all the departments are provided to be made.
It directs that an estimate for their remuneration be laid before
Parliament ; for it was believed that even members of Parlia-
ment would not refuse to allow a trial of the experiment, hos-
tile as the majority was believed to be. The order requires
that all young men proposed to be appointed to junior situ-
ations shall, before they shall be admitted to probation, be
examined under the commissioners and receive a certificate of
qualification from them ; but there is a carefully guarded excep-
tion allowing persons of mature age to be admitted to certain
places where special qualifications may be required. Appoint-
ments are not to be made until after a six months' probation,
which probation must have given satisfactory evidence of
fitness. There are also proper directions for determining age,
good character, and freedom from disqualifying physical
defects.
Thus far the order was as broad as the report ; but the need
of going to Parliament for an appropriation, the doubts of so
many thoughtful men over so radical a novelty, the fierce
opposition in official and partisan circles, and the angry mood
of the public mind over the" Crimean war, seem to have
caused the administration to think it most prudent to modify
the recommendation of the report upon the three following
points, until some experience should be acquired : (1) the rules
were to be accommodated in each department to the views of
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 205
its head ; (2) the power of nominating and appointing, as then
existing (but subject to examinations), was not to be taken
away by the rules ; (3) the examinations were not expressly
required to be competitive ; but it seems to have been under-
stood they would be competitive, and in fact competitive ex-
aminations were held by the Board of Commissioners from the
beginning of its duties.
This first order, therefore, did not really provide for uni-
form rules throughout the departments, but we shall find it
hurried on and really produced that result. It did not in terms
take away Parliamentary and official patronage, but, by sub-
mitting its favorites to competitive examination, under one
central board, it gave patronage its death-blow. It was really
limited and not open competition that was at first introduced,
and mainly a competition, perhaps, between those of the same
party. It was much as if all the nominations made by mem-
bers of Congress for West Point, or for civil offices, were sub-
jected to competition, and only a fit number of those marked
highest, regardless of residence, were allowed to enter or have
places. No one, I presume, will doubt that such a competi-
tion would greatly raise the average capacity and character of
the students and clerks. The English service was therefore
not really opened to the people, or made free to merit, but
the old monopoly of office-holders and members of Parliament
was made more odious by being made more conspicuous. As
competition and the other tests would head off favorite dunces
and rascals, the holders of patronage at once began to regard
their perquisites as of much less importance. It was therefore
a substantial triumph for the new system, which was very soon
put in practice. If members of Parliament still nominally sat
in authority at the gates of the public service, it was only to
make their selfishness more conspicuous, by showing them-
selves ready to contend for the shadow of a monopoly, after
its substance had been lost, to maintain the forms of usurpa-
tion, after the fruits had been wrested from their hands.
Before proceeding to the effects of the new system, it will
be useful to consider for a moment its theory and scope. The
aim of the practical statesmen who promoted it was to take
the whole body of the civil service of Great Britain out of
14
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN".
official favoritism and partisan control, and to raise official, life
to a higher plane. They knew there were many officers in
the service, for a long time trained under the old system, who
were opposed to the new, and who would not fail to disparage
and obstruct it. But they left every such case to be treated
upon its own merits, irrespective of the changes adopted.
No removals were made, by reason of the introduction of the
new system. The members of Lord Palmerston's cabinet and
the unofficial friends of reform foresaw that the change they
proposed would be only slowly brought about by the new
method they established. Their long experience had convinced
them that all expectations of suddenly changing the character
and tone of the sixty or more thousand persons who make
up the civil service of Great Britain a character and tone
which were the growth of generations are utterly chimerical.
They felt that even the attempt, to accomplish at one sweep
the full reform that was desired, would recoil upon them with
disastrous effect. Their reliance was upon the introduction
of superior elements into the service and almost wholly into
itsjowerjrrade from which promotions would be made on
the basis of merit ; and thus, in a few years, higher character
and a better spirit would permeate and in no long time would
control the entire service. Neither the ministry nor the Eng-
lish people fell into the error of regarding that reform as
trifling which, though not at once very much affecting the
higher offices, really controlled the doors of patronage and
favoritism, and determined who, a few years hence, would fill
nearly every high office except that of cabinet ministers.
They seem to have comprehended that the adoption, even in
a limited sphere, of a principle by which partisan tyranny was
condemned, was in itself no inconsiderable victory, which
would not fail to lead on to far greater triumphs in the same
direction. I have found nothing in the progress of this re-
form which has seemed to me a better evidence of a sound
public opinion on the subject than this popular judgment.
"Wise methods steadily and faithfully applied, which educate
public opinion at the same time that they close the fountains
of mischief, and not sweeping, revolutionary proceedings,
which assume that the moral tone of a nation's politics can be
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 207
changed by an assault or an exhortation, were, in the opinion
of the British public, the essential conditions of all adminis-
trative reform.
The evidence is decisive that the reform would have been
defeated had the original plan of going to Parliament in the
first instance been adhered to. For, after it had been strength-
ened by all the power of the administration, it failed of a
majority when first brought before that body. Members saw
that it was in principle fatal to patronage. The order in Coun-
cil of May, 1855, came before Parliament in July of that year,
and it was approved by only 125 votes to 140 which condemned
it. It will be notied that a very large majority of members did
not vote. How many of those who dodged the issue really
detested the mean work which patronage imposed upon them,
yet wanted the courage to vote, I have no means of knowing.
The administration neither informed Parliament beforehand
that it would surrender to an adverse vote, nor abandoned its
duty or its pledges when that vote was announced. The
struggle had been recognized as one in which the people, con-
tending for common rights and pure government, were on one
side, and selfish officials, endeavoring to maintain a corrupt
monopoly of patronage, and all the partisan manipulators were
on the other side. The ministers had set an example of sub-
mitting their patronage to the test of competition, and that ex-
ample members of Parliament had refused to follow. It was for
the people to decide between them. To the people therefore
the appeal was made, whether they would approve the selfish-
ness and the monopoly of their representatives or the patriot-
ism and disinterestedness of the administration.
CHAPTEK XIX.
THE FIRST FIVE YEARS UNDER THE NEW SYSTEM.
The system gains strength. Subjects as to which examinations were made.
Many incompetent persons applied. Examinations extended to Ireland
and Scotland. Competition shown to be practicable and popular. Better
men secured than by pass examinations. The Commons, in 1856, change
their vote, and approve the commission and open competition. In 1857,
the House, by vote, calls for an extension of competition. It is steadily
extended from office to office. Examinations favorable to practical capac-
ity and to the public schools. In 1859, Parliament refuses the benefit of
the superannuation allowances to those not examined before the Civil Ser-
vice Commission.
THE members of the Civil Service Commission promptly
entered upon the discharge of their duties. The administra-
tion was faithful to the spirit of the order in Council, and ex-
hibited the self-denial and firmness which were essential to
success in the great work. The commissioners' first report
was made, March 4th, 1856, covering only a period of about
nine months. Though not expressly required by the order, a
great portion of the examinations were competitive from the
outset. The first examination was held in June, 1855.
Thirteen competitive examinations are mentioned in the first
report. This able document broadly circulated very much
strengthened that favoring public opinion which the frequent
discussions of the action of the commission in the public press
had tended to develop. The principal subjects of examination
were writing, arithmetic, geography, composition, history,
and book-keeping ; but some of the examinations included one
or more languages ; to which were added such practical sub-
jects as the clerk most needed to understand in entering a par-
ticular office. A just system of marking and grading was
adopted, according to which the relative standing of those ex-
amined, as between themselves, was so made up that both the
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 209
degree of excellence in each subject and the relative practical
importance of that subject, were embraced as factors. Those
who stood the highest in qualifications got the appointments.
It has struck me that the standard for admission was at first
fixed needlessly high, probably on some grounds of expediency
having reference to English opinion at that time ; and it is
very certain that it would exclude not a few of those who
enter our service. But it gave high capacity and character to
English official life ; and nothing is easier than to lower the
standard to any extent desirable. Indeed, it has been some- r~~
what lowered in later years. In the outset the old aristocratic
element was powerful, and it could not be wholly disregarded.
The commission seems to have discharged its duties with
ability and firmness. The rules were extended to only a por-
tion of the offices at the beginning. But in the few months
covered by the first report, 1078 persons were examined, of
whom almost one third that is, 309 were regarded as not
competent. The 309 would seem to have been the class of
blockheads and incompetents of partisan henchmen and
superannuated butlers of which the report of 1853 had given
an account as swarming in the service. Of course, not a few
members of Parliament had such favorites thrown back upon
their hands and were angry. But the people were glad to see
them spurned from the public service, and praised the com-
mission. Great pressure was brought upon the board, by mem-
bers and high officers, to allow favorite dunces to pass, but in
vain. An important incident tested the character of the
board the first year. Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister,
had the mortification of being informed that one of his own
nominees had failed in the examination. lie sent to the
board for the papers, which would show why his favorite had
been rejected ; and he was probably never more astonished than
when told they could not be sent from the office, but were
open to his inspection there, as they were to the inspection of
all other persons. He graciously yielded to his own system,
and allowed the papers to remain and his nominee to go about
other business. This event was a sort of proclamation that
personal fitness would avail more for getting into the public
service than all the power of a Prime Minister. This first
210 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
report declared that the duties of the board were in their
nature judicial, and that a recognition of its independence
was essential to justice. And I may add that, from that
day to this, the Civil Service Commission, created in 1855,
has gone on in the discharge of its ever increasing duties,
with a justice that has hardly been challenged, and with a
good faith that has never been questioned. The order con-
templated that examinations should be extended from office
to office, and even beyond London, as experience and con-
venience might suggest. The first report shows examinations
held in Ireland and in Scotland ; and that Lord Clarendon, the
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, had required that, both
his clerks and all persons entering the diplomatic service as
attaches or consuls, should be examined by the commission.
Perhaps the most striking illustration of the extent to which
these examinations, from the beginning, arrested incompe-
tency, is found in the fact that, at a single examination, held
in November, 1855, for clerkships in the Council for Educa-
tion, and confined to ' ' subjects deemed of indispensable neces-
sity" 21 of the 31 candidates examined were rejected as dis-
qualified.
If the people did not, in those first examinations, find all
their sons at liberty, without official endorsement, to compete
for a place in the public service, they did, for the first time,
see such of them as members and ministers might choose to
favor, compelled to submit to manly competitions between
themselves, in which those of the best character and the highest
capacity won the prizes. They did, from the first, see the na-
tion thus openly declare its preference for young men of merit
rather than for beggars for places and sycophants in politics ;
they did see education honored and its victory, in honorable
competition, send official favorites and fawners to the wall.
This was a great advance in the right direction ; and neither
the people nor the monopolists failed to see that the success of
this limited form of contest would inevitably bring in free,
open, competition at no distant day.
The first experience of competitive examinations dissipated
the old objections that it would be found impracticable to con-
duct them, and that they would fail to arrest bright rascals.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 211
In such, an open contest, it was found that the public and the
competitors alike took notice of the character and history as
well as of the capacity of those competing. Young men of
tarnished reputations dared not present themselves for a public
ordeal of that kind, in which every one engaged searched the
record of those who contended against him.
Even ridicule was soon turned against those who had laughed
and sneered at examinations. The ten who had won the
prizes, in the case last referred to, were cheered by the people
and praised by the press, while the twenty-one incompetents
were ridiculed, and with them the patronage system they rep-
resented ; for it thus appeared that the system would, but for
the examinations, have foisted two imbeciles upon the service
for each competent person it produced. It was declared that
if competition was made free to all, far better men would offer
themselves, who would be greatly superior to the favorites
recommended by members of Parliament. These favorites,
like some of our students recommended to West Point, were
not seldom found to be poor material for public officers ; and
their competition was compared to a Derby horse-race at which
none but "sprained and sickly colts, ringboned, old racers,
and heavy, wheezy coach-horses should be allowed to run."
The reformers had their time to laugh when highly-recom-
mended noodles walked out crestfallen from the examinations.
The effects upon the public mind of these examinations, and
of the discussions they called forth, were at once considerable.
It was seen that patronage and favoritism were the losers by
competition, and that what they lost was gained by good char-
acter and capacity. Still, pass examinations, by the commis- !
sioners, were not wholly discontinued ; but they were far more
efficient than pass examinations by mere department boards.
Members of Parliament soon appreciated the change which had
thus come over public opinion, and comprehended that their old
monopoly was no longer defensible. On the 24th of April,
1856, Parliament resolved, by a vote of 108 to 87 (from which
it would appear that dodgers were still very numerous), that
" the House has observed, with great satisfaction, the zeal and
prudence with which the Commission has proceeded in apply-
ing a remedy to evils of a serious character, the previous ex-
212 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
istence of which has now been placed beyond dispute 1 and
also the degree of progress that has been made, with the sanc-
tion of various departments of the State, toward the establish-
ment of a system of competition among the candidates for ad-
mission to the civil service, . . . and makes known to
her Majesty that, if she shall think fit further to extend them
and to make trial in the service of the method of open compe-
tition as a condition of entrance, this House will cheerfully
provide for any charges which the adoption of that system
may entail. ' '
This certainly was a great victory for the new system ; and
it was won by the executive and the people. A right of nom-
ination had become of little value as a perquisite, the moment
that even limited competition was placed between the favorites
and the offices. Recommendation no longer gave an office,
but only a chance to compete for one. The great majority
that failed to vote, however, shows that not all the defeated
monopolists were willing to meet their fate in a patriotic and
manly spirit. Still, the British Parliament, as a whole, must
be given the credit of having promptly accepted the public
judgment, and of having tendered the executive its promise
to sustain a trial of open competition, which, if successful,
would take from each member from all officials of the empire
from party managers every particle of that coveted patron-
age which had belonged to them and their predecessors for a
hundred and fifty years. This is the highest elevation of self-
denial and patriotic statesmanship that legislative action on
the subject, in any country, has ever reached. And it can
never flatter our pride to compare this record with that of our
Congress, when, without a debate or a division, it refused to
vote a dollar to carry on a similar reform to which an American
Executive and a great party were equally committed. Thus,
within three years from the time the merit systein was pre-
1 The evidence which had " placed such evils beyond dispute " was the
exposure and rejection, on the examinations, of incompetent nominees which
before had been pushed into the service. The public had begun to take
notice of abuses which before had escaped censure, and members of Par-
liament could no longer deny an evil they had before considered it infidelity
to the party and scandalous to even suggest.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 213
sented, in an official report, which was, at first, received by
hostile parties and an indignant Parliament, it had won both
the people and the legislature.
I must pass rapidly over the next four years, in which the
reform rapidly gained strength ; so rapidly indeed that, in
1857, the House resolved, unanimously, " that the experience
gained since the issuing of the order in Council of May 21st,
1855, is in favor of the adoption of the principle of competi-
tion as a condition of entrance to the civil service, and that the
application of that principle ought to be extended, in conform-
ity with the resolution of the House agreed to on the 24th of
April, 1856."
The facts were that members of Parliament and officials gen-
erally experienced a great relief in being even partially pro-
tected from solicitation. Troublesome office-seekers could be
sent to competition, where the poorer sort were sure to be laid
out. When legislation and party action began to turn on
principle and not on patronage, official duty was found to be
as much less wearisome as it was more honorable. The
moment favoritism ceased to be powerful, it became contempt-
ible. Each year, to this time, the Civil Service Commission has
laid its methods and proceedings fully before the public in an
annual report. The second report showed that competition
had been steadily extended, and with results equally satisfac-
tory. The number of noodles and ignoramuses sent by mem-
bers for examination were less than the first year ; but some
appeared who declared Germany to be on the Caspian Sea, the
Isle of Wight to be a part of Scotland, who had never heard
anything about the Alps, Mount Sinai, Athens, the Red Sea,
or the St. Lawrence ; nor could some of them tell where tea,
tobacco, or cotton came from. Such examples of ignorance of
course more and more turned the laugh upon the opponents of
the new system. From the report of 1857, it appears that 509
persons had been examined as letter-carriers before 1850 ; a
method which Postmaster James of Xew York city lias lately
found greatly conducive to the rare efficiency of his administra-
tion. During the year, 34 competitive examinations were held.
Of all those examined over 38 per cent were rejected, and 1906 ^
certificates of competency- were granted. The third report
214: CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
shows that the Directors of the East India Company had applied
to the commission to examine the clerks for the home service
of that company, and I shall soon have occasion to show how
the system had been extended to its foreign service. The cor-
poration of London, in the same year, took measures in the
same direction. Examinations were about the same time insti-
tuted in Malta and were provided for in Canada. This report
shows that 5682 persons in all had been examined. The ratio
of rejections had fallen to about 28 per cent, apparently for
the reason that dunces had come to understand that it was of
no use to compete. The post office authorities, which had
always been most hostile to the new system, this year notified
their assent to competition. In this report, the general bearings
and results of the competitions, which had turned in part upon
literary attainments and in part upon practical capacity, are
fully discussed ; and it is shown that attainments and business
ability are so closely allied in young men, that on the basis of
76 competitions, it appears that out of 115 candidates the
result would have been different as to nine only, had the ex-
aminations been limited to subjects wholly practical. The
stimulating and salutary effects of these public competitions
of the spirit that brought them into existence speedily made
themselves felt in places beyond the public service, proper ;
and early produced striking results. For example, there is a
central society a sort of semi-official body known as the
Society of Arts, which has contributed largely to the improve-
ment of scientific and artistic education. As early as 1856, I
find this society conducting competitive 1 examinations, in "a
large number of institutions of different kinds, . . . people's
-colleges, evening schools, and all sorts of bodies." From its
centre in London, the examinations of the Society, in 1858,
had extended to 36 places, and in 1859 to 63 places, in Eng-
land, Ireland, and Scotland, everywhere superseding favorit-
ism and solicitation, and giving new vigor to that growth of
1 As illustrating the liberal spirit in which British noblemen have dealt
with patronage (to which I have already referred), I may mention that
Lord Granville declined the patronage of these appointments belonging to
his office, and gave them to competition "to make them available for the
purpose of encouraging education." Report of I860 on Civil Service Ap-
pointments, p. 286. May we hope that Republican officers will do as much ?
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 215
education of every kind which has been so remarkable in
Great Britain during the last twenty years. 1
The report for 1858 further illustrates the fact that the ex-
aminations gave results far more favorable to the common
people (to use an English phrase) and to the public schools than
to the aristocracy or to higher scholarship, and that the want
of practical knowledge, and not the want of mere book learn-
ing, determined the rejections ; though of course whatever
stimulated learning in its lower planes strengthened it in all its
higher grades. For example, certificates were granted to 958
of the persons nominated ; and in 292 cases they were re-
fused. Kow, of these 292 rejections, 286 were made by rea-
son of incapacity in such elementary subjects as arithmetic and
spelling, and only six for incompetency in higher attainments.
A careful inquiry into the education and the occupation of
the parents of 391 of those who passed by competition, showed
that but 12 were sons of lawyers, that but 27 were sons of gentle-
men, and that but 22 were sons of ministers of the Established
Church ; while 29 were sons of public officers, 1-i were sons of
private clerks, and 174 were sons of tradesmen, artificers,
farmers, and manufacturers. Of the 391, only eight were
college graduates, while 335 were educated in the different
grades of British schools. Here we have the predictions, made
by the friends of the new system, that it would promote
school education, fully verified. Such facts show us why this
reform has commended itself so much more to the great body
of the worthy English people, not high in the social scale, than
it has to the aristocracy, and why it has so greatly advanced
popular education. In 1859, the new system came again be-
fore Parliament, in connection with a revision of_the superan-
nuation acts ; and so firmly had it and the Civil Service Com-
mission been established in public favor, that it was enacted
(22 Victoria, ch. 26) that (with some slight exceptions) " no
person appointed after its date shall, for its purposes, be con-
sidered as serving in the permanent civil service of the State
unless admitted with a certificate from the Civil Service Com-
missioners ;" and, without being in that service, no one could
share in the superannuation allowances.
1 Report of 1860 on Civil Service Appointments, p. 283.
CHAPTEE XX.
PARLIAMENTARY INVESTIGATION OF THE NEW SYSTEM IN 1860.
Able men on the committee. Lord Derby and John Bright among them.
Over 4500 questions answered. "Numbers in the British service. Heads of
departments. Causes of rejections stated. Appointments in the Postal
Service. Some officers hostile. Aims of the committee. Approve the
Civil Service Commission. Advise a steady advance towards open com-
petition. Pass examinations should be discontinued. Preliminary exam-
ination to weed out inferior persons nomiuated.
AT tliis date, the new system had been on trial only five
years. It should be borne in mind that the greater part of
those competitions had been limited that is, confined to per-
sons selected by members of Parliament and other officers.
Though Parliament had, as we have seen, expressed its readi-
ness to make appropriations for the trial of open competition,
the government had, with that caution which has marked the
whole progress of administrative reform, preferred to have
fuller evidence of the effects of what they had already done.
Some had complained that the standard of admission was too
high, some that it was too low. Conservatives had expressed
fears that the new system endangered the constitution ; and
partisans had got angry over the loss of patronage and spoils.
In 1860, therefore, a Parliamentary committee of fifteen was
appointed ' ' to inquire into the present mode of nominating
and examining candidates for junior appointments in the civil
service, with a view of ascertaining whether greater facility
may not be afforded for the admission of properly qualified
persons."
It is worth noticing, as an illustration of the high importance
which the English Parliament and nation have long attached
to the character of those who enter even its junior civil service,
that this inquiry was not treated as matter of clerical detail,
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 217
nor intrusted to inferior members, but was placed in charge of
some of the foremost statesmen of both parties ; and the
thorough investigation made is beyond comparison with any
similar inquiry ever conducted by our Congress. The six first
names on the committee are the following :
Sir Stafford Northcote (now Chancellor of the Exchequer).
John Bright, ) both . n Mr Gladstone s Cabinet. 1
Kobert Lowe, ) j
Monckton Mimes.
Lord Stanley (now Lord Derby).
Mr. Roebuck.
Lord Stanley was made chairman. The interest felt in the
subject is shown by the facts that he did not fail to preside at
a single one of the numerous meetings, and that, though five
was a quorum, there was not a meeting at which less than
eight were present. I call attention to such details, not as
being important in themselves, but to contrast them with the
neglect and indifference, with which, in this country, a subject
vital to its safety has generally been treated by legislators. It
would require far more space than I can give to do justice to
the elaborate report of this committee, presented in July,
1860. More than 4500 comprehensive questions are answered.
There are exhaustive explanations in the appendix on special
points. Those in every grade of the service, from heads of
departments to. messengers and copyists, were fully examined.
The action of Parliament that led to the inquiry, as well as
the opening proceedings of the committee, showed that there
was no thought of taking any back steps, but only of per-
fecting and extending the new system, and of removing col-
lateral abuses that interfered with its good effects. The com-
mittee give the whole number officially employed in the civil
service of Great Britain in 1860 (not however including
those serving in the colonies or in India, as I understand
it), as 58,504
To those are to be added artisans and laborers 29,613
Persons not wholly employed, women, etc 14,941
In all 103,058 '
1 I think this includes none of the postmasters, but there is an indefinite-
ness of language on the subject. Report, 1860, p. viii., and 247 and 062.
218 CIVIL SEE VICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
There were, of those designated as heads of departments, in
all 190. Of these 190 only from thirty -four to fifty are classed
as " political " that is, as being the officers (exclusive of
some of the foreign ministers) who go out and come in with
an administration. Beyond those, a change of administration
in England does not change its civil service. 1
The committee say that, since the creation of the Civil Ser-
vice Commission, and, before the end of 1859, there had been
10,860 nominations to which the order of 1854 applied ; of which
2479 had been rejected ; and that "it is worthy of notice
that of these latter all except 106 were rejected as deficient in
arithmetic or spelling, a fact which your committee thinks
ought to be borne in mind when complaints are made of the
needlessly high educational requirements imposed on candi-
dates for the civil service. . . . The examiners emphatic-
ally deny that candidates have ever been rejected, as is fre-
quently rumored, for failing to answer questions of a recondite
or difficult character. ... It does not appear that an ex-
amination paper has ever come unfairly into the hands of a
candidate or his tutor. . . . "
It would seem from this report that about 500 new admis-
sions are anually made into the 58,504 which make up the reg-
ular official civil service ; but these 500 vacancies are exclusive
of those in the post office service. That department remained
longer under political influence than any other. Yet even
its average yearly appointments, for five years previous to
1859, was 111 clerks, 14 mail guards, and 535 sorters, letter
carriers, and laborers. But in regard to the lower grade of
postmasters, it would seem that there was still a considerable
response to political influence in making appointments, but there
were no removals without cause. The average appointments for
Report, 1860, pp. 047 and 362.
It may be stated as explaining the large number of 190 heads of de-
partments, that several offices are called departments, that would not be so
called with us. The inland and customs revenue, for example, is each
under a separate department, each being in charge of several commissioners
or heads, all in a limited way subordinate to the Treasury. So there are
several Lords or Heads of the Admiralty and of the Treasury. But of these
heads, I repeat, only about 34 to 50 are political, or go out with a change of
administration.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN". 219
five years of postmasters, sub-postmasters, and letter receivers
had been 1264 annually.
The report brings out, in a striking way, the well-known
fact that heads of bureaus and officers who have served under
the patronage-favorite system are generally opposed to selec-
tion or promotion according to merit. They are also opposed
to competition, for it not only takes away their arbitrary
authority, but it may bring in or promote men brighter than
themselves. Such officers had generally deprecated if not
openly opposed reform ; but the report shows that a majority of
them had outgrown their prejudices. By some of these officers,
opposition was unquestionably made for disinterested reasons. j
Mr. Helps and Mr. Trollope were distinguished for their hos-
tility to the new system, and they stand almost alone among
men of distinction who have conscientiously opposed it. The
opposition of Mr. Trollope was so conspicuous that it is re-
ferred to in the report ; and, as his peculiar views have been
frequently quoted in this country, I give a question and answer
from his examination before the committe, which will show
the evil the new system was in his view bringing upon the
country :
" Are you of the opinion that there is a serious evil to be appre-
hended in getting men who are, too good for their situation ? I think
so." 1
1 Mr. Trollope's view seems to have been that it was possible to get men
who were above their business, an evil perhaps ; but he did not say that this
would be an effect of the new system, if found to exist at all, which could
be easily prevented by lowering the examination. His fears, however,
have not been realized. The views of Mr. Arthur Helps have also been
often quoted in this country. Mr. Helps was the secretary of the
Queen's privy council (one of the most aristocratic of the institutions
that survive from early times), and Mr. Helps and such members of
Parliament as Mr. Neate the representative, of State Church doctrines
and aristocratic philosophy, for the University of Oxford condemn,
competitive examinations " as bringing a lower class of society into the
civil service." Mr. Helps, in his " Thoughts on Government," page 6,
says, " I rather partake of the opinion of George III. (not altogether an
unprejudiced observer) that the British Constitution is the best that has
yet been devised by man." At page 82, we are told, " The conferring of
honors is a most important function of government ;" and at page 84 we
220 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
Having disposed of the objections, the report, in the lan-
guage next quoted, states the ends sought by the wide range of
the investigation the committee had made :
1. "To provide, by a proper system of examination, for
the supply of the public service with a thoroughly efficient
class of men."
2. "To encourage industry and foster merit by teaching all
public servants to look forward to promotion according to their
deserts, and to expect the highest prizes in the service if they
can qualify themselves for them."
3. " To mitigate the evils which result from the fragmen-
tary character of the service, and to introduce into it some
elements of unity, by placing the first appointments upon a
uniform footing, opening the way. to the promotion of public
officers to staff appointments in other departments than their
own, and introducing into the lower ranks a body of men (the
supplementary clerks) whose services may be made available
at any time in any office whatever. ' '
Such was the undertaking which, in 1860, the eminent,
practical statesmen of both the great parties seemed to have
thought to be more worthy of their attention than the manip-
ulation of elections or the parcelling of patronage plain as it
is that only about a generation had passed since their prede-
cessors were accustomed to give to these latter subjects the
paramount importance with which we are so painfully familiar.
And, I cannot forbear the remark that, so far as I recol-
lect, such subjects have not yet commanded the attention of
our leading statesmen, and that until they do there is great
reason to fear that the abuses of our civil administration will
continue to be a subject of grave solicitude. I must pass
over all the evidence relating to salaries, promotions, hours
are informed that the wisdom of a maxim of Napoleon, that " Religion
and honors were the two things by which mankind may be governed,"
is so clear that it " will not be disputed by those who have had converse
with their fellow-men." The value placed upon the eccentric judgment of
this worthy and accomplished atfthor may be inferred from the fact that the
statesmen of the Privy Council, of which he was secretary, introduced
competition for the selection of its clerks, in 1837, and that this method is
still enforced in that office.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 221
of service, classification, grading, discipline, superannuation,
seniority, removals_ior_cause, health, proper age for entering
and leaving the service ; not because they are not full of in-
terest and instruction, but because we shall never deal wisely
with such matters, if even attention can be gained for them,
until we have applied some salutary first principles to our ser-
vice. In the present state of public opinion, they would only
encumber the higher interests of the subject. I will therefore
close my references to the report, with the leading conclusions
of the committee.
1. Though the pass examinations, conducted by the Civil
Service Commission, are far more effective than pass examina-
tions, as before conducted in separate offices, they are yet
greatly inferior to limited competition.
2. Limited competition would be much improved if more
persons competed, and more should therefore be nominated
for each competition. If they are to continue, there must also
be preliminary examinations of those nominated by members
to compete, so that there shall not, in the future, be compe-
titions between mere dunces, blockheads, and ignoramuses.
3. The committee (whose report is unanimous) are convinced
that open competition free alike to every British subject,
and an end, utterly, of the monopoly of patronage, now re-
duced to mere selections for examination are what the public
interest and the better public opinion demand, and that these
results must very soon be reached. In not advising open com-
petition at once, as the only entrance to the public service, they
are influenced by prudential reasons. They fear a recoil of
public opinion, if too great changes are made hastily. In the
interest of open competition itself, they advise a cautious ad-
vance towards its complete introduction.
4. While such further experience is being acquired, the
committee recommend that pass examinations be wholly su-
perseded, that no place in the public service be filled save
through a competition of five or at least three nominated per-
sons, except that open competitions, wherever it be practicable,
should be introduced after the plan of those which had lately
been shown to be satisfactory in the East Indian service. The
15
222 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
salutary system of probation, according to which no one was
to be appointed until after a trial of six months, was, I hardly
need say, retained. Such were the conclusions reached in
1860. If it was a bold experiment to introduce the new sys-
tem, it was certainly applied with prudence and watched with
care.
CHAPTEE XXI.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW SYSTEM FROM 1860 TO 1870.
Government acts on report of 1860. Examinations to weed out those unfit to
compete. Competition extended to various offices. Two out of five nom-
inated shown to be unfit even to compete. Competition for the service of
India. Those educated in the public schools win in competition. Have
been 66,519 persons examined. The new system becomes rapidly popular
with the people. Every one claimed to have an equal right to compete.
The official monopoly of nomination must be broken up.
IF the Parliamentary report of 1860 did not advance the
merit system so rapidly as its more radical friends desired, it
seems to have convinced its enemies that there was small
chance of arresting it. It had taken a strong hold of the pub-
lic mind. Its opponents were shown to be, with few excep-
tions, officers, partisans, and aristocrats, with the addition of a
few excellent persons with peculiar views. Lord Palmerston's
administration approved the report of the committee of 1860,
and ordered its recommendations to be carried into effect. I
must pass rapidly over the period of ten years of steady growth
in the reform sentiment of waning patronage and victorious
competition which brought in the great changes of 18 TO ; -
making only slightest references to the annual reports of the
Civil Service Commission, by which the public mind was
being educated.
The report of 1861 shows that The Treasury, the great
centre of patronage, promptly acted upon the suggestion of
the Parliamentary committee of 1860 viz., that those nom-
inated for competition should first undergo a preliminary test
examination, in order to avoid the scandal of a competition
between inferior persons alone. The need of such precaution
was expressly shown by the facts that, during 1860, there were
66 nominated candidates examined for the admiralty service,
224 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
out of which only 24 were competent, and that on a compe-
tition for clerks in the customs service, at Hull, not a compe-
tent person was found among the nominated champions sent
there to compete.
The report says that " the desire is natural to provide for
faithful and long tried servants, which has often led to the ap-
pointment of persons advanced in life" in plainer phrase, it is
natural for members of Parliament and other officers having
the right of nomination to make the public service a hospital
for the superannuated. Such facts more and more aroused
the -people to a sense of the imposition which members of
Parliament and other high officials had long practiced upon
the public service, under the pretense of selecting good officers
from among their acquaintances. This same report shows
that, hostile as the post-office department had been to the new
system, even Mr. Trollope was ready for a competition for
letter-carriers, based mainly on physical qualifications, which
was also favored by the Postmaster- General, the Duke of
Argyle. Competition is also shown to have been applied with
success to apprentices in the dockyards and for the position of
naval engineers, and also to the selection of young men to be
sent to China and Japan to master the languages of those
countries. The report for 1862 shows that competitions for
engineer, dockyard and admiralty factory boys were successful,
and that open competition was being extended elsewhere.
The report for 1865 shows that of 364 persons nominated
for competition, and subjected to a preliminary examination
before being allowed to compete, 160, or in a ratio greater
than two out of every five, were rejected as unworthy even to
compete. ~No one can fail to see how natural it is that a sys-
tem which arrests so many incompetent, official favorites should
have bitter enemies, especially in official circles. This report
also explains the successful progress of competition for the
civil service of India, to which I shall soon call attention,
showing that the natives of that country were winning official
places in the contests.
It is shown, by the report for 1866, that 196 out of 411, and
in 1867 that 244 out of 540, officially nominated for compe-
tition, were thrown out by the preliminary examination, as too
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN". 225
stupid or ignorant to have a chance on a competitive trial, to
say nothing of those who were superannuated. Those thus
rejected doubtless corresponded to the troublesome fellows
Whom our members of Congress are said to sometimes send
with an approving letter to a secretary, which letter is met by
another declaring them to be blockheads or nuisances. There
had, however, been some improvement in the class nominated ;
for, in 1859, out of 1107 nominated to fill 258 situations, only
397 were found qualified, and 710 were utterly rejected as
incompetents. ' It is also shown that of the whole number of
marks gained in competition, in 1866, "eighty-two per cent
were due to subjects included in the ordinary curriculum
(studies) of a public school y" and as further showing in what
small ratio merely literary (or not directly practical) knowl-
edge excludes those rejected, I may add that the report for
1867 shows that of 818 rejections in that year (from the 3038
examined) 805 were made by reason of deficiency in knowl-
edge of " subjects connected with the practical work of the
oflice," or of ignorance in the matters of " reading, spelling,
arithmetic, and handwriting," and that only 13 were rejected
by reason of a want of higher knowledge !
From the report for 1868, it appears that the whole number
nominated for examination under the commission, during the
thirteen years of its existence, had been (unless a few may
have been twice nominated) 59,658. Some of them seem
not to have had the courage to appear, for only 46,528 had
been actually examined. Of these 9461 had been rejected ; of
whom 480 were rejected for being physically disqualified, and
616 by reason of unsatisfactory character.*
This report also shows that competition had been extended
to the public service at Ceylon and Mauritius, to the Irish
constabulary force, to dockyard artificers, and to the public
inspectors of schools throughout Great Britain.
The report for 1869 shows that the whole number of candi-
dates for examinations whose names appeared on the books in
1 Report on Civil Service, 1860.
2 But (as I understand) the two last classes of rejections are independ-
ent of those who were rejected for the same causes for want of proper cer-
tificates before any examination took place.
226 CIVIL SERVICE IX GKEAT BRITAIN.
the office of the commission that office having become the
great centre of information relating to official life had reached
66,519. In addition to those who had failed to appear, 10,558
had been rejected as disqualified for various causes ; and, in-
cluded in this number, were 2283 who had been preliminarily
rejected, as not even fit to be allowed to go into competi-
tions. These figures mark the extent of the prostitution of
Parliamentary nominations. If by reason of so numerous re-
jections, many enemies of the new system were made among
officials, party leaders and their dependents, yet, on the
other hand, its keeping of incompetency out of the public ser-
vice, and the honor it conferred on education and good char-
acter, had gained for it fiftyfold more friends among the
people at large. The report for 1869 shows that during the
fourteen years of examinations under the Commission, 8169
persons had been rejected as deficient in mental ability and
literary attainments. How few of these failures were due to
anything but stupidity or disgraceful ignorance may be inferred
from this extract : "If the subjects of examination be divided
into two classes, one including reading, spelling, handwriting,
arithmetic, and (in the case of each department),, the subjects
connected with the practical work of that office ; the other
comprising those which are prescribed as tests of general in-
telligence and cultivation ; the number of rejections caused
by failures in the latter class of subjects has been only 271, as
against T899 cases of failure in the former class." In face of
such facts, it was, of course, impossible longer to pretend that
ornamental attainments won the day or that essential and prac-
tical knowledge were not decisive. The old Parliamentary
monopoly of nominations had become not only untenable, but
ridiculous. The change in public opinion, since 1850, had
been as great as that which had taken place, in this country on
the slave question, between 1840 and 1860. The popular sup-
port of the merit system had become so overwhelming indeed
so nearly universal that opposition by any one cast something
like suspicion upon his motives. The thought even of mak-
ing it a party or Parliamentary issue had ceased to exist. The
cause of civil service reform had become identified with that
of common justice, popular education, and official integrity ;
CIVIL SERVICE 1ST GREAT BRITAIN. 227
all of which it had greatly strengthened. The people of Eng-
land had finally decided that it was a public disgrace and a
gross injustice to allow a monopoly of selections for appoint-
ment in the public service, on the part of members of Parlia-
ment or any other officials, to longer continue. They de-
manded, as the right of every citizen, that he should be at
liberty, without any official interference or consent, to present
himself, in conformity to just regulations, for examination by
the Civil Service Commission, for a place in the public ser-
vice. " I think that all persons have, primd facie, an equal
right to be candidates, if they are fit ; and if you do not con-
cede that right and make it accessible, you do injustice, first,
to the public service, and then to her Majesty's subjects gen-
erally who are excluded.'' ' Here is a principle of democratic
equality and common justice maintained in a monarchy, but
yet unrecognized in this republic. We shall next see how this
principle was reduced to practice in 1870.
J Report on Civil Service, 1860, p. 286.
CHAPTEK XXII.
THE OEDEE FOE OPEN COMPETITION IN 1870.
Right of nomination lost its value. Officers not willing to defend their mo-
nopoly of nominations. Order for open competition. Its provisions.
Probation retained. Exceptions to open competition. Nature of the op-
position made. General principle of the new method provided for.
THE demand for the suppression of the official monopoly of
patronage had become too strong for the administration to
withstand, had it been so disposed. Even the more partisan
members of Parliament had ceased to care much for a right to
nominate ; because the inevitable result had been that a great
portion of those whom they most wished should secure places
were thrown out in disgrace by the preliminary examination,
and not a few of the residue had been distanced in the com-
petition. To enable their proteges to succeed, they must
nominate the most worthy young men, but that necessity de-
prived their perquisite of most of its value in their eyes ; since
it would neither aid an election nor make a place for an old
servant. None but the most brazen-faced and unscrupulous
were willing to appear longer as sponsors of the prostitution
of the executive power they had usurped, now that the people
comprehended that it was prized by its possessors in the exact
ratio that it was costly and demoralizing to the public service.
A monopoly which had prevailed for more than a hundred and
fifty years was almost without a claimant or a defender.
On the 4th of July, 1870, the administration, through an
executive order in Council, and without any action by Parlia-
ment, gave effect to the wishes of the people by abolishing
official patronage and favoritism (and limited competition as
an incident), and substituting open competition in their place. 1
1 " Our object was to introduce competition. I think that everything we
did, so far as I know, was rigidly subordinated to that. " Testimony of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Report of Committee, 1873, p. 226.
CIVIL SEKVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 229
The order declares " that the qualifications of all such per-
sons as may be proposed to be appointed, either permanently
or temporarily, to any station or employment, in any de-
partment in the civil service, shall, before they are employed,
be tested by or under the directions of said Commissioners ;
and no person shall be employed in any department of the
civil service until he shall have been reported by the said Com-
missioners to be qualified to be admitted on probation to such
situation or employment. ' '
" All appointments which it maybe necessary to make after
the 31st of August next (1870), . . . shall be ^made by
reasons of competitive examinations according to regulations,
. . . open to all persons (of requisite age, health, char-
acter, and other qualifications prescribed in the said regula-
tions), who may be desirous of attending the same." 1
These provisions do not extend to mere day laborers or to
wholly unskilled labor, but they do extend to skilled laborers in
continuous public employment. And there are exceptions of
three classes of official persons (very few in all), whom I shall
more particularly describe. The order then provides that the
Civil Service Commissioners, the Commissioners of the Treas-
ury, and the chiefs of the departments shall frame proper
rules or regulations for putting open competition into prac-
tice. The regulations or rules provided methods of ascertain-
ing the age, character, and physical health as well as the 41
attainments and practical capacity for the public business of
those who offer themselves for competition. The appoint-
ments were to be given to those shown by the competition to
have the highest qualifications for the service ; and it will be
noticed that it is not mere ornamental or literary attainments
which are to be made the subject of the examinations, ' ' but
knowledge and ability to enter on the discharge of his official
duties." And to secure a still higher guaranty of practical,
executive capacity, the long-tried rule of probation was re-
tained and made more stringent. No actual appointment was
to be made except at the end of a six-months' trial of official
1 Subject to the payment of small fees which were intended to cover the
expenses of the examinations, but they have been made so light as to pay
only about one third of such expense.
230
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
work, during which time ' ' a formal record of the particulars
of the result of such probation ' ' (of course covering deport-
ment as well as capacity) was to be kept, " and the chief of
the department " (as used here nearly the equivalent of a chief
of bureau with us) must sign and declare satisfactory this
record, and send it to the Civil Service Commission for pres-
ervation.
So far from such provisions being an inadequate test of
practical capacity, as some mistaken people have supposed,
they have been found to be highly effective. They have been
objected to as being much too severe, since young men might
lose their places by reason of an unsatisfactory probation.
The answer was that applicants, or their friends, must, at
their own peril, form a correct judgment of their ability for
practical work. '
Before considering the practical effects of the great changes
which this order introduced, we may well reflect a moment
1 A few words of explanation may make the exceptions to competition
more intelligible. There are three classes of them. The first embraces the
34 to 50 political officers who go out with an administration, and to which I
have before made reference.
There are some provisions as to the second class in this order of 1870 ;
and the clauses of the Superannuation act before referred to are to nearly
the same effect. The two provisions together cover cases (always very few
in number) where persons of maturer years may be needed in the public ser-
vice, who shall possess professional or peculiar attainments of a high order
not acquired in the usual course of public instruction or of experience in
the service. In such cases, the Lords of the Treasury, together with the
head of department where such an appointment is needed, may make a
selection, and thereupon there is to be a special examination and certificate
of qualification by the Civil Service Commissioners, upon which, the same
being satisfactory, the appointment may be made, but not before.
The third class of exceptions from open competition covers promotions.
They are, in the main, based on merit, either tested by limited competition
among those within the departments, or otherwise tested, as I shall have
^ occasion to explain. In some offices meritorious seniority is given weight.
It will be seen, therefore, that the entire exceptions to open competition,
as the rule for admissions under the order of 1870, can hardly exceed one
per cent of the whole number in the public service. The lower grades of
post-offices, however, are not included in that order.
But in order to guard against any unforeseen embarrassments from a
^change so sweeping, provision was made for taking particular officers out
of competition as public exigency might require.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN". 231
upon its nature and the convictions which enforced its adop-
tion. "We should take notice that the order not merely arrested
all interference by the members of the legislature with ex-
ecutive appointments, but it also involved, and in substance
proclaimed, a surender, by the members of the Cabinet and
by every other high officer (with the small exceptions just
pointed out), of all opportunity to make any selfish or partisan
use of the appointing power. Recognizing the inherent duty
of always using that power so as to secure the persons best
qualified to serve the people, the order declared that the open
competition provided for was the most reliable means of ascer-
taining such persons ; and that, upon their being ascertained,
the duty of appointment was imperative. The usurped au-
thority thus reclaimed from the members of the legislature
was not an increase of executive power in any arbitrary sense,
or even in any sense whatever ; for the freedom of open com-
petition was at the same time extended to the whole body of
the British people ; and hence it was not the Executive, but
the people themselves common justice, general liberty, per-
sonal character and capacity which had really won the victory
and made the gain. If the executive had, in one sense, a
larger discretion than before, it was only a discretion to dis-
charge a public duty, by recognizing and rewarding merit, as
tested by fair public standards which all right-minded men
approved. It was no discretion to grant favors or to encroach
on liberty. The order was, in short, a grand triumph of pa-
triotism, character, education, and capacity over selfishness,
official favoritism, partisan intrigue, and whatever else had
been corrupt, immoral, or unjust in the action of parties or the
bestowal of office. It marked the highest elevation of justice
and official self-denial that governmental action, in any coun-
try, had ever reached ; for though examinations and com-
petitions had been used in a qualified form in France, Ger- .
many, Sweden, and several other European countries, they
were not wholly without official dictation nor were they free
to all citizens alike. Open competition, thus established in
Great Britain, said, in substance, to every British subject :
The administration confers no favors by appointments, the
great parties aro not allowed to coerce you, the high officers
232 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
are forbidden to use the appointing power capriciously ; and,
subject to the just regulations prescribed, each of you is at
liberty to compete for, and, if you are the most worthy, you
will win a place in the public service of your country, there to
remain as long as you serve her honorably and efficiently and
her interests require you. The able and experienced statesmen
who, after the partisan system had been tried for more than
five generations, thus brought in the merit system in its com-
pletest form, with no protest from either party, must, I
think, be regarded as condemning, more emphatically by
their action than they could by any language, the entire
theory of securing power for parties, stability for adminis-
trations, or economy, purity, or safety for nations, by a
partisan use of the appointing power. They did not con-
demn party government in its true form, or when acting
by just methods ; but only its prostitution to the purposes
of a partisan system of appointments. Thus, the British peo-
ple with whom party government originated, and by whom
it has been given the most absolute sway have, after a long
and earnest discussion of the subject such as has taken place
in no other nation demanded and applauded that great change
and, by their acts, have expressed their profound convic-
tion that all that is salutary in political parties will survive
the loss of all that is corrupt or venal, and their determination
that, thereafter, those in power shall seek support, not through
intrigue and manipulation, or through influence secured by
the prostitution of the appointing power, but upon their
record of good administration. In approving this order, they
practically said to the Crown, to the administration, and to
the great parties : Hereafter, as before, the party majorities
may carry all elections, name all members of the Cabinet, make
all laws, and guide all national action, whether domestic or
foreign. In those high spheres, the principles of parties,
the worth and ability of their leaders, the wisdom of their
policy must gain public favor or fail in the attempt. With
such prizes to win, elections can never lose their wholesome
interest, nor citizens be indifferent to their results. The ex-
aminations will cause the most worthy to be selected as sub-
ordinates to carry into effect the instruction of their superiors.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 233
But we neither wish, nor will we allow, any action by parties,
or anything to be done by postmasters, collectors, or other sub-
ordinate officers, or any processes of electing members of Par-
liament, which depend upon making merchandise of the ap-
pointing power or upon treating public places as perquisites or
spoils. After the partisan system in its long trial under its
favorite forms had failed, we allowed party managers and pub-
lic officials to decide, during the period from 1855 to 1870,
who ' should be examined for admission to the public service.
The records show that inferior and unworthy persons were gen-
erally nominated. Members of Parliament did not nominate
the most worthy among their acquaintances, but they used
their monopoly in a selfish and partisan spirit. We now there-
fore suppress the monopoly. We order the trial whether
parties cannot make their issues upon sound principles and
good works ; whether better men will not apply for admis-
sion to the public service, now that official and partisan tyranny
has been dislodged at its gates ; whether the moral tone of
politics will not rise, now that patronage and favoritism have
been expelled from the departments.
CHAPTER XXIII.
FIRST EXPERIENCE OF OPEN COMPETITION. '
Competitions extended to the military schools. Competition in India. An
aristocratic division into classes. Numbers competing. Extended to vari-
ous offices, civil, military, and naval. Better men secured by open com-
petition. Obstructions by officers.
THE report of the Civil Service Commission for 1S70 shows
that the whole number of those who had been before the com-
mission during the period of limited competition had been
71,971 ; a number considerably greater than the whole body
of those in the British Civil Service, who are properly des-
ignated as officers or clerks. ' It also shows that examinations
for admissions to the Military College at Sandhurst, for the
Military Academy at Woolwich, and for direct commissions in
the army, were thereafter to be conducted under the Civil Ser-
vice Commission ; and that one open competition had just been
held for such admission. It is an interesting fact that, though
we instituted examinations for admissions to our naval and
military schools before such examinations were introduced
in England, the English Government, encouraged by the suc-
cess of their tests of merit for civil appointment, has rapidly
made her selection of cadets for the army and navy far more
independent than ours, both of official favoritism and of parti-
san dictation. I need not enter into the details concerning the
new rules, the general principles of which I have already ex-
plained. I may say, however, that they not only provide for
examinations in elementary subjects (essential for all or nearly
all candidates to understand), but for examinations extending to
that special information and skill necessary in particular officers
or kinds of service ; or, in other words, they range, in their prac-
1 Exclusive of postmasters.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
tical bearing, from reading, writing, and the elementary j
arithmetic, to knowledge of materials and skill and attai
adequate for applying the patent, customs, and inland revenue
laws, so that fraud may be detected and the money due to the
government may be more efficiently collected. I might quote
pages, if it was worth while, in answer to the popular and
superficial criticism so often made, to the effect that exami-
nations and probation cannot test the attainments or capacity
needed for the real work of the offices. But if the fact that
the most practical nation in the world the nation having the
most complex and difficult civil administration that has ever
existed has, as the result of varied and long continued trial,
demonstrated to its satisfaction that such theoretical criticism
is unfounded, shall not be regarded as decisive, surely a more
extended discussion of the subject would be useless.
In the report for 1872, the first results of open competition
on a grand scale are set forth at length. 1 So democratic or
republican an innovation as that of opening the whole civil
service to the free competition of all classes, very naturally,
not a little alarmed the more aristocratic officials ; and they
were strong enough in 18 TO to enforce a division of the new
clerks into two classes, known as Class I. and Class II., the
attainments and work of the former to be of a higher order.
If this division was not in the liberal spirit of the order of
1870, it was quite in the spirit of the division of the legal
profession into barristers and attorneys, and of the legislature
into Lords and Commons. We shall find that this aristocratic
distinction has been disapproved and substantially abolished by
that same just and liberal sentiment which demanded open
competition, though not before it had produced both jeal-
ousies and expensive complications. The belief was so gen-
eral that open competition would introduce a better class of
1 This report, very inexpressive in form, with the examination papers
and correspondence appended (covering both the domestic and Indian
service), fills more than 800 large pages ; and the annual reports that follow
are not much less voluminous ; the whole action of the Civil Service Com-
mission being set forth at length, in order to give the utmost publicity to
proceedings peculiarly liable to be prejudiced by charges of unfairness, if
any part of them should be involved in mystery or confusion.
236 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
public servants, and thereby enable a reduction to be made
of the number, and hence of expense in the service, that
preparation for that result was made in the outset ; and it
was fully realized. The report for 1872 shows that since
open competition, under the order of 1870, had commenced,
2684 persons had competed for 355 places (exclusive of
those in the Post Office Department), and those 355 places
had been assigned to the most meritorious. Besides these
competitions, there was open competition for selecting boys
to fill the junior clerkships in the Post Office Department, for
newspaper sorters and for telegraph messengers ; 1095 such
situations having been filled between July, 1870, and June,
1872, by the most worthy as indicated by competition between
10,065 persons. Postmaster James, of the .New York City
Post Office, now keeps his "sorters" up to their rare con-
dition of efficiency by the same kind of examinations. Nor
do these include all ; for there were also the competitors for
the admiralty and military service, and for the Irish con-
stabulary, raising the total candidates to 14,123. And even
this immense number is exclusive of the examinations for the
entire public service of British India. In these competitions,
we have the means of making the first practical comparison,
on a large scale, between those who presented themselves for
examination, directly and freely from the people, and those
who had been sent in by the nomination-monopolists ; and the
language of the report on this vital point is as follows : " But
it is more important to observe that the standard of pro-
ficiency exhibited by the successful competitors, and even by
many of the unsuccessful, has been very satisfactory, and far
in advance of that which we found it possible to enforce under
the previous system of nomination. Nor can we refrain from
expressing a confident hope that, while an important branch
of the service will thus gain by the appointment of officers of
superior intelligence, a further and wider benefit will result to
the public generally from the stimulus which these large com-
petitions for valuable privileges must impart to elementary
education in each of the numerous districts in which they are
held." They were held from time to time in various parts
of England, Ireland, and Scotland ; and weekly in London.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 237
Instructive examples ure next given of the successful use of
open competition for the selection of persons required to
possess technical, scientific, and even mechanical proficiency,
but 1 cannot spare space for them. J The report further shows
that such competition had been applied for the selection of
clerks in the House of Lords ; and also by Earl Granville, the
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, for the selection of student in-
terpreters in the consular service. 2
The eighteenth report of the commission brings the new
system down to January 1st, 187-t. It shows that under vari-
ous pretences causing delay in applying open competition,
and through the facilities afforded by the complication of
offices in an old country and the natural desire of officials to
retain unlimited authority, 3 a considerable number of places
had still been filled through nominations and limited compe-
tition. Yet open competition had rapidly advanced. It had
been for the first time extended to appointments to cavalry and
infantry regiments, and to applicants for places in the commis-
sary department of the army. Besides those examined for the
military service, and for service in British India, it appears
that 23,261 had come before the commission since the order
of 1870.
1 See Report 1872, pp. X. and XI.
8 It would seem that great influence had been used to take certain places
out of competition under the order ; and a moderate number had, for appar-
ently good reasons, been excepted.
3 My theory is, that all persons in authority are the natural enemies of
competition, and that if they have an opportunity of evading it, they "will
use it. Investigation, 1874, vol. i., p. 125, Evidence of Mr. Lowe.
16
CHAPTEE XXIY.
PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY INTO THE CIVIL SERVICE IN 1873.
A thorough investigation ordered. Economy the object. Patronage being
at an end, members are ready to reduce numbers and salaries. Spirit and
scope of the inquiry. Sinecures brought to light. How open competition
tends to economy. Officers allowed to vote. No official fraud or corrup-
tion found. Open competition approved.
THE investigation of 1873 is mainly instructive for reasons
peculiar to itself. The committee consisted of seventeen mem-
bers of the House of Commons ; and its membership shows
that the importance of the subject had not fallen in the
estimation of that body. Sir Stafford Northcote, the pres-
ent Chancellor of the Exchequer, was chairman ; Mr. Child-
ers (of Mr. Gladstone's cabinet), Mr. Smith (now of Mr. Dis-
raeli's cabinet), Mr. McLaren (a brother-in-law of John
Bright), and Mr. Yernon Harcourt were upon the committee.
The report, in three volumes, was, if possible, even more
thorough and searching than those already referred to. I
should think it safe to say that, if all the investigations
made by us since the formation of our government, with a
view to economy in our civil administration, were united
into one, such united reports would fail to bring together
so complete and important a mass of facts and explanations.
The third volume of the report alone would fill nearly a
thousand pages of our documentary size ; and it contains
answers to more than five thousand questions, besides many
subordinate reports and special statements. Every class of
officials and employes, from the Lord Chancellor and the
head of the Treasury down to messengers and post boys,
were examined, and nothing was allowed to screen scandalous
secrets. The special I may say the only object of this
investigation was to "inquire whether any and what reduc-
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 239
tions can be effected in the expenditures for the civil ser-
vice." The prior investigations had been directed to the
best means of selecting and promoting officers, to the dis-
cipline, duties, and methods best adapted to secure honest
and efficient administration. This had for its object retrench-
ment and economy, in harmony with the new system. Noth-
ing is more significant, in connection with this inquiry, than
the facts that it could be ordered with such breadth and car-
ried forward with such completeness and severity. "When
members could see that retrenchment might abolish places
they wished to fill, send back to them their poor dependents,
or cut down the salaries of the partisan henchmen to whom
they owed a debt of gratitude to say nothing of the scandals
of which such results might provoke a disclosure how could
they be expected to have courage for economy ? But limited
competition, from 1855 to 1870, having excluded most of
the unworthy, and open competition, since 1870, having closed
the doors of patronage and favoritism, members of Parliament
had no longer the same interest to resist retrenchment. The
investigation of 1873 was, therefore, a natural outcome of the
new system of selections. I cannot take the space required
to do justice to this great inquest of economy ; and I fear
we are not likely to appreciate its value until we shall have
taken patronage away from our officials and freely opened
our public service to the personal worth of the nation.
Some general explanations must suffice. The inquiry was not
confined to questions about the lowest salaries that would
secure clerks and the fewest clerks that could be made to do
the work at the period of the reports. It extended to the
whole subject of organization, official authority, subordination,
discipline, hours of labor, mechanical appliances, holy days,
health and sickness, ventilation of offices, pride in the service,
honesty efficiency in making collections, satisfaction in per-
forming public duty, promotions, increase of pay with length
of service, retiring allowances, proper age for coming into and
going out of the public service in all the aspects in which
these matters bear upon economy and efficiency of administra-
tion in its long range. I say, in its long range ; for while a
purpose of promoting direct economy is everywhere apparent,
240
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
it is not less apparent that it was regarded as one of the surest
means of inducing young men of worth to enter and remain in
the service, at a low salary, that they should feel that their
compensation and tenure were not utterly precarious, and
that their official relations would not be needlessly degrading
or disagreeable. The authors of the report evidently believe
that if the surroundings of a man, in the minor civil service,
are not inconsistent with a' manly self-respect, and if he- is not
liable, every hour, to be dismissed upon the spite of an official
or the greedy claim of a party manager, he is not only more
likely to be honest and efficient, but certain to be willing to ac-
cept a lower salary. The purpose of making the public service
honorable and manly, and hence attractive and economical,
everywhere finds expression. I am 'strongly impressed with
the fact, so often shown in these reports, that, in this aristo-
cratic, old country, those in the public service are treated with
more consideration and justice than are those in our public ser-
vice. Their freedom of opinion is as much greater as their
tenure of office is more secure. Under the partisan system,
they had been disfranchised by the statutes of George III. , as
the only means of securing freedom of elections ; but the merit
system had made it practicable to remove that disability, and
since 1868 * they had been as free to vote as any other citizen ;
and, having a tenure during good conduct and capacity, they
were no longer driven into election contests to make sure of
their own places. Arid here I will, repeat a fact, emphasized in
the inquiry of 1873 that where excessive numbers have been
employed, it is treated as the fault of the government or of
its higher officers, for which the nation is responsible ; and the
supernumeraries are not arbitrarily dismissed, but are given
the first vacancies for which they are qualified. Our practice
in that regard would be looked upon as cruel in England.
Even when an office is abolished, some provision as a general
rule is made for him who filled it. And I hardly need add
that, as a natural consequence, British officials, in the lower
grade such as doorkeepers and boatmen not less than the
highest, cherish, as I am compelled to believe, much kinder
Act 81 and 32 Viet. ch. 78, as amended, in 1874, by 37 and 38 Viet. ch. 22.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 241
and more respectful feelings than are found among our officials
towards their superiors and towards the public service gen-
erally. Nor can I doubt that such provisions, by awakening
gratitude and a sense of duty, advance economy and fidelity
alike. But I have departed too much from my general plan,
which is to reserve the practical results of the new system for
the last topic. Before dismissing this inquiry of 1873, I will
refer to a few illustrative facts which this new courage for re-
trenchment brought to light. They show what sums members of
Parliament had been willing to vote, if only their favorites were
retained in the public service. There was an old office desig-
nated as " Patentee of Bankrupts," which had many years ago
ceased to have more than the merest nominal existence ; yet the
persons holding or pensioned for it, and doing nothing what-
ever, appear to have received altogether nearly $2,500,000,
and there was being expended, on account of it, the sum of
$60,000 a year of the public money.
Clerks of assize were shown to be drawing salaries at the rate
of $2500 annually, and yet not serving the public more than
twenty-five days in the year. There were cases brought to
light of the same person holding several offices, and very sus-
picious examples of nepotism and extravagance on the part
of high officials. The Treasury had been compelled, during
the last year, to rebuke the Master of the Kolls by letter for
giving clerkships to his son and his^ nephew, and it was done
in strong and plain terms. Even the Lord Chancellor had to
make an explanation in writing ; his secretary having been
receiving a salary of $6000 a year, and the clerk of the secre-
tary a salary of $2000 a year ! The committee were also very
free in their raillery and scrutiny in regard to purse bearers,
porters of the great seal, court-keepers, ceremonial ushers and
other needless or overpaid officials, which the vicious patronage
system had allowed to survive from the royal times of old.
The overhauling of patronage, in the hands of judges of the
higher courts, was as severe as it was needful. It was shown
that certain registrars, being part of the old patronage of the
Chief Justices of the King's Bench and Common Pleas, had
no duties whatever, the whole work being done by deputy
registrars ; yet it would appear that the registrars for the
242 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
county of Middlesex alone had been collecting fees at the rate
of from $10,000 to $15,000 a year. But the bankrupt court
was the great headquarters of sinecurists. The annual cost of
the court was shown to be $710,000 ; of which $280,000 was
being paid for the services of officers no longer performing
any duty whatever !
I can spare no more space for such examples. But the fol-
lowing, from the evidence of the permanent Secretary of the
Treasury, is worthy of quotation : " Under competition, you
have no patronage, and there is therefore no motive to increase
establishments beyond the strength which is required for the
work which they have to do ; on the contrary, there is a very
strong motive in the departments themselves to keep the es-
tablishment down, so as to have the credit of economical esti-
mates." Of which I may add this practical illustration from
the same report viz., that, in 1853 (before competition was in-
troduced), the customs service cost $5,250,000, in 1868 it cost
only $4,950,000, and in 1872 only $4-,600,000. There is one
more important consideration connected with this report to
which I must refer. The thorough and fearless scrutiny of
the committee extended over several months and into every
office, without respect of station, high or low a scrutiny that
brought the head of the Treasury and the Lord Chancellor to
their bar, not less than the humblest clerks and doorkeepers
a scrutiny which invited and received the complaints of
every discharged or discontented official who chose to appear
or to write and yet such a scrutiny did not, so far as I can
discover, disclose a single instance of peculation or fraud, nor
was there any evidence or charge that illicit gains or corruption
(except in the survival of the abuses of the old system as illus-
trated in the examples I have given) anywhere existed or
were by anybody believed to exist in the public service. And
I am unable to find any other explanation of a condition of
things so striking, except selections and promotions based on
merit, a tenure not disturbed for political reasons, retiring
allowances, and the various methods to which I have adverted
for promoting self-respect and respect for the government on
1 Third Report 1873. Answer 3176.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
the part of those in its service. It is only when we contem-
plate the full significance of such freedom from even the sus-
picion of corruption or dishonesty, and compare it with the per-
vading venality and malversation which had prevailed jn earlier
generations, that we are able to comprehend the scope and the
blessing of administrative reform in Great Britain. "We then
feel the force of the reasons which have called her greatest
statesmen to the work and made it the pride and the safety of
her people.
CHAPTER XXY.
THE EXECUTIVE INVESTIGATION OF 1874:.
Relates to department details. Better organization. No change in the prin-
ciples of the new system. Restrictions removed. Aristocratic division
into two classes disapproved. Open competition approved and ex-
tended.
THE reasons which gave Parliament the courage and inde-
pendence needed to probe abuses in 1873 had a similar effect
upon executive officers. Most of those who had secured places
by their favor had received promotion before 1874, and such
officers had no personal interest in screening those who had
obtained places by open competition. ~No one, I think, can
peruse the series of stern and searching examinations into the
English Civil Service, made between 1860 and 1874, without
feeling that a new and fearless spirit in harmony with the
higher sentiment of the nation has come over official life.
The inquiries made by the commission of 1874, unlike those
before considered, were not ordered by Parliament, but by the
executive. The commission consisted of nine persons (two
being members of Parliament), of whom the Right Honorable
Lyon Playfair (Postmaster-General in Mr. Gladstone's last cab-
inet) was chairman. The main aims of the investigation seemed
to have been to review the method of selecting civil servants,
especially in reference to its operation within the departments ;
to grade the service so as to make compensation and labor more
equable ; to provide a method of transfer of officers from one
office to another, and to arrange for doing the lower grade of
public work through less expensive clerks. The inquiry
ranged over almost the whole field of civil service, and three
elaborate reports were made. Even a summary of the topics
and recommendations would carry me far beyond reasonable
limits. It affords a still more striking illustration than any I
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 245
have referred to of the extent to which the British Government
has sought to secure efficiency and economy in the public ser-
vice by introducing just and scientific methods.
It was not proposed to interfere with the principle of open
competition or with any of the essential features of the merit
system / and in fact they were not only strengthened and ex-
tended, but were relieved of the encumbering debris of the old
system as well as of some needless restrictions. Nor, in the
immense mass of testimony taken in 1874 and 1875, any more
than in that taken in 1873, can I find anything tending to
show personal corruption on the part of any officer, or any
feeling that such corruption existed in the public service.
There is no lack of complaint about inadequate salaries, too
hard work, too exacting regulations, slow promotion, and unfair
distribution of labor and of honors ; but everywhere faith in offi-
cial integrity and pride in being connected with the public ser-
vice. From the numerous topics that will be likely to command
our attention, wherever we shall make a thorough study of the
condition of good civil administration, I select but two as
especially calling for notice here. The public opinion that
broke through patronage and favoritism had been too radical
and exacting, in its hour of victory, to impose wise condi-
tions upon its great demand that all places should be won by
merit tested in open competition. It was consequently insisted
that he who should stand highest in the competition should
have the first vacancy, if indeed the competition was not di-
rectly for a single vacancy. And such had been substantially
the practice ; a practice that gave but the smallest discretion
to the appointing power, and hence afforded less opportunity
than was desirable for giving to those having a high average,
yet varying qualifications, the particular places for which they,
were best fitted. This was an inconvenient restriction need-
lessly imposed, and was not involved in the principle of com-
petition. In some cases it too much curtailed a salutary official
liberty of choice. Through the commission of 1874, this un-
due restriction was removed ; and provision was made that the
appointments (always as heretofore to be made to the lowest
grade) should be made from among several of those highest in
the competition ; the liberty of choice, as to the several officers,
246 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
always being large enough to allow the most appropriate talent
and attainments being chosen for the particular place to be
filled, but not so large as to give room for official favoritism.
It is plain that the fit range of choice, in this regard, may well
be greater for some places than for others, according to the
peculiarity of capacity needed, and that the subject is one for
detailed provision in the rules. The other leading subject
dealt with by the committee was that of the aristocratic di-
vision of those in the public service into two classes. The
principle of free, open competition is repugnant to that distinc-
tion. The division was also as objectionable by reason of its
effect upon economy, convenience, and good feeling, in the
public service, as it was on the score of justice ani principle.
Those of the first class had higher salaries, performed higher
work, and they claimed social precedence ; though they might
be morally and intellectually inferior to those of the second
class. Jealousy and antagonism, and a sense of injustice on
the part of the lower class, were the natural results. Haughty,
aristocratic officials favored Class 1., and used their influence
to crowd the service with that class, and to depress Class II. ,
whereby needless expense for salaries was incurred. It was
made .very difficult to get from the lower class to the higher.
When humble young men of worth had won their way to the
service, they found, to their disgust, that they Vere admitted
to hardly half of it, and that the lower half, on which a higher
grade looked down frowningly. They were in the relation of
English attorneys to barristers, of Commons to Lords. In
accordance with the scheme of the report of 1874, the line of
demarcation between the two classes has been substantially
opened to merit, and the division itee2f_must_soon, I think,
cease to exist. But the idea of classes is too deep in the Eng-
lish mind to allow its speedy suppression in official circles,
and it will doubtless survive its application to practice.
There is another view of this series of investigations, from
1853 to 1876, well worthy of notice ; as it indicates a continued
growth of the reforming sentiment. With departments of
government as with individuals, it is far easier to criticise
others than to institute self -reform. An officer who thoroughly
inquires into and exposes the defects allowed by himself has
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 24:7
taken one of the most difficult steps in public duty. The in-
quiry of 1853 was, in substance, an inquiry by the ,executive
into usurpations and shortcomings of members of Parliament ;
taking care to say only the least about the real object. The
intermediate investigations were made by Parliament into
executive administration ; while those ordered in 1874 were
made by the executive into the detailed abuses in its own ad-
ministration. And by this time the independent sentiment of
the country had become so strong that I find no evidence that
the leaders of either party ventured to interpose any objections
to the most complete exposure of abuses, or to the large re-
duction of expenses effected. Indeed, the time seemed to be
past when either party could hope to gain as much through
the influence of its friends in subordinate stations as through a
reputation for favoring an honest and economical execution of
the laws.
CHAPTER XXYI.
THE RESULTS OF THE MERIT SYSTEM BASED ON OPEN COMPE-
TITION IN BRITISH INDIA.
Official opinions between 1853 and 1875. Law of 1860 requiring examina-
tions before Civil Service Commission. Full investigation ordered in 1875.
The investigation made. The new system approved. Better men ob-
tained. Better administration. Great difficulties overcome. Open com-
petition free to all British subjects, now the door of entrance to the Indian
service.
IT lias already been shown that, after many experiments,
with a view to render favoritism and patronage tolerable in
India, it had been found necessary to abolish both in 1853 and
to substitute the Merit System founded on open competition.
The changes being novel, were of course regarded as wholly
tentative, and they were carefully watched by both the friends
and enemies of the new system. The first official inquiry as to
its effects was made in 1863, with these results officially pro-
mulgated : " It is enough to observe that the general results
of the inquiry were in favor of the system, so far as it had
been then developed ; and that this favorable judgment was
adopted and confirmed, somewhat later, by the Government
of India, in a dispatch dated May 5th, 1866.". . . The
results of the inquiry instituted by the Government of India
were thus summarized by the Govern or- General, Lord Law-
rence, one of the ablest administrators ever at the head of
Indian affairs, in a dispatch dated May 5th, 1866 : ' ' We would
observe that, as the civil servants who were at first appointed
under the system of competitive examinations have not as yet
been ten years in India, and as consequently the great majority
of the servants so appointed are still holding very subordinate
positions in the service, it would, in our opinion, be prema-
ture to pronounce, conclusively, whether or not the civil ser-
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN". 219
vice has, on the whole, been improved by the present system.
We are inclined, however, to believe that it has, and it may
at least, we think, be confidently affirmed that the present sys-
tem is effective to exclude great inefficiency, which undoubt-
edly was not excluded under the old system ; and also that the
young men who enter the service under the present system
are, as a rule, more highly educated than those who found
admittance under the former system. ' ' As these reports only
relate to the practical effects of the new system in India,
nothing is said in them of the check it put to the intrigue,
and favoritism in connection with nominations which it ar-
rested, in England. I need not enter into details on that sub-
ject ; for it is enough to say that the advantages of the new
system were so early appreciated in England that in 1859-60
it was provided by statute " ' ' that no candidate shall be ad-
mitted to the service in India . . . without a certificate from
the Civil Service Commissioners of examination by them."
. . . These examinations were competitive. It is declared
in the before cited, Parliamentary Report made in I860, 3
that the competitive examinations for the India service are
entirely open and free. 'No one nominates those to be exam-
ined, but they propose themselves. The chairman of the Civil
Service Commission uses this language : " The Minister for
India has no knowledge .with regard to these candidates until
we return to him the list of those who have passed us, nor
does he in any way interfere in regard to that competition." 4
The new system, therefore, completely excluded all patronage,
favoritism, threats, and solicitation; success in competition alone
giving a chance for a place in the service. He who wished to test
his merits by competition could do so without asking permission
from anybody. And this was not only true of all British sub-
jects proper, but of the natives of India as well, of whatever
race, caste, or religion they might be. All are allowed to com-
pete alike. Among the 754 who first won places by competi-
1 Report of Commission of Inquiry of 1874, as to selections, etc. , for
Civil Sen-ice of India, pp. 12, 19, and 20.
8 21st and 22d Viet., chap. 106, 32.
* Report of 1860, p. 328.
4 Ibid., p. 328.
250 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
tion, there were natives of France, Canada, Brazil, and of the
United States. How little the contest favored mere college
O
learning was shown by the fact that of the forty who won the
highest places, in the competition of 1874, thirty had gained
their education in the public schools. And in practice
open competition was made as republican and democratic as
it is in theory. It has been one of the significant results that-
intelligent and docile Hindoos and Parse.es have, to a great ex-
tent, crowded the stolid and domineering Moslems out of the
public service of India. Thus the experiment was continued
on trial until 1875, when it was thought that, as more than
twenty years had elapsed since it was commenced, it was time
for a thorough investigation of its general effects. It had en-
countered opposition not only from officers who had long been
accustomed to the old system, but also from those who have a
great love of unlimited, official authority. I have cited Mr.
Robert Lowe's testimony that such officials always oppose com-
petition. It was also opposed by a few very cautious and con-
scientious persons, who feared the results of a change so
radical and unexampled. In 1875, the Secretary for India
ordered a thorough investigation of the Indian Civil Service.
Lord Northbrook (the late Yiceroy) and Lord Napier were
among the eight eminent persons by whom it was conducted.
Their report was unanimous in its favor, and, with the evidence
taken, is contained in ParliamentaryjBlue Book, issued in 1876,
from which I shall quote. The Yiceroy begins his opinion by
declaring that ' ' there are few subjects, connected with the
Government of India, of more importance than the manner in
which candidates for the civil service should be selected and
the selected candidates should be trained for service in India."
In 1855, Lord Ellenborough declared, as President of the
India Board, " that the prosperity and peace of India depend
upon the characters of those who govern." This Blue Book
contains the elaborate opinions of one hundred and one of the
most experienced administrators in India, ranging from the dis-
tinguished Sir II. Maine down to those most worthy to be con-
sulted in the lowest class of the service ; and those from officers
of position are marked by an ability and elevation of tone
which goes far to enable one to understand how it is possible
fc WORTH WASHiNu,..
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN". 2ol
for so few, of a foreign race, to hold the millions of India in
peaceful subjection and to carry on such vast public works
with so much vigor and so little corruption. I should have to
go beyond all reasonable limits, if I should attempt more than
to state the conclusions reached upon the few decisive points
of the great experiment. All that relates to such questions as
the proper age for entering and leaving public service, to the
best subjects and methods of education, to retiring allowances,
to transfers and promotions in the service, to the best measure
of official discretion, to the peculiar duties of judges, fiscal
officers and governors, to the best plan of dealing with ques-
tions of caste, nationality, and others of similar kind, I must
therefore pass over without further notice, much as the study of
such details has improved the Indian service, and sadly as we
have neglected such matters. What then was the judgment
passed upon the merit system as a whole ? Was the method
of selection by open competition and of promotion with refer-
ence to merit, which were the decisive issues, approved or
condemned ? The report of the Commission of 1875 gives a
clear and decisive answer to these questions. The Commission-
ers not only had before them those one hundred and one elabo-
rate written opinions coming from every division and grade of
the service presidents, governors, judges, fiscal officers, en-
gineers, school and college officers, from Bangal, Madras,
Bombay, and every part of India, as well as from Assam,
Berar, and Ceylon, but they inspected records, conferred
with leading officers, and examined into the practical work-
ing of the administration. Their final and unanimous re-
port, made in September, 1875, uses this language : " We
desire to call your lordship's particular attention to the ability
and good sense of the replies which we have received, and
which form the enclosures of this despatch. . . . With regard
to the general result of free competition for the Indian Civil
Service, we consider that the experience which has been
gained since the Government of India expressed their opinion,
in despatch No 25 (public), of the 5th of May, 1866 that the
result was satisfactory amply confirms the favorable judg-
ment then expressed. In our opinion the civil service is filled by
officers of merit and ability, and we are confident that they will
252 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
be found fully competent to discharge the duties which they
have to perform, and to supply statesmen and administrators
of high distinction in the different branches of the administra-
tion. . . ." l In an official communication subsequently made
to the Secretary for India, the Viceroy says : " As regards the
maintenance of free competition, I do not perceive that it has
been challenged by any high authority, and I do not think it
necssary to discuss the subject. . . . " "
And as an illustration of the spirit in which open compe-
tition had been adopted, and as some evidence of the justness of
the opinion I have expressed, that it is liberal and republican
rather than royal or aristocratic in tendency, I may quote this
further passage from the Viceroy's instructions :
" In the first place, I should regret that any man should be de-
barred from entrance to the Indian Civil Service who possessed such
energy and ability as to enable him in a humble position of life to
succeed at the competitive examination. Such a man it would be to
the advantage of India that he should form one of the Civil Ser-
vice. . .." s
It is certainly significant of the great changes wrought in
public opinion, that the head of the Government in India,
the Viceroy of the most aristocratic monarchy in the world,
should thus especially commend that effect of the new system
which so favors the opportunities of humble life ; 4 nor does
it take from this significance when Lord Salisbury, the head
of Indian affairs in England, and among the most aristocratic
of British noblemen, approves both the communication and
the report. The explanation of course is that British states-
men have long since found that common justice and the ex-
clusion of partisan tests, in selecting civil servants, are essential
for securing those most useful, and they have had patriotism
and independence enough to act upon their convictions of duty,
even in a foreign province. These declarations appear not
to have been mere professions, for in the final order, made in
1 Report, p. 53. * Ibid., p. 224. s Ibid., p. 230.
4 In the same spirit the late changes in the army have abolished the old
custom of enlisting only high-caste Hindoos, and those of the Imcest caste
are rather preferred.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 253
1876, for the permanent establishment of open competition, as
the sole means of entry to the Indian Civil Service, it is pro-
vided that during the two years of special study, which are// -
to follow success in the competition, the sum of $750 a yearij/i
is to be paid to each successful competitor, thereby enabling
the children of the poor to go on with their preparation for the
public service. '
Lord Salisbury gave his opinion in his final instructions to
the Viceroy and Council of India, in this language : 3
" With respect to the principle of competition itself, the evidence
you have collected sufficiently shows that it cannot be disturbed
without injury to the public service. The expressions of opinion
which I have received from competent judges in England led me to
the same conclusion. Of its success, as a mode of selecting persons
fit to serve in the Indian Civil Service, there seems to be no reason-
able doubt."
Not only was the Commission of Inquiry unanimous, and
those responsible for administration convinced that the merit
system based on open competition was the best ever tried, but
its avowed enemies become converted. A member of the
Government of India, who had been hostile to competition,
uses this language in his official opinion :
" It is needless to state views in regard to the competitive system,
as compared with that of nomination, because it is clear, in the
present state of public feeling, it is out of all probability that compe-
tition could be abandoned ; and, moreover, / confess, after careful
perusal of these papers, I arrive at the conclusion that, on the whole,
it has been more sucessful than I for one ever expected it to be. . . . "
The conclusion of the whole matter was that in 1876, open
competition, in which those of every race, religion, caste,
color, or party could freely participate, on the same terms,
became the established and sole means of entering the Civil
Service of India. To this there is, of course, the exception of
the Viceroy, and of any other officers who may be sent to guide
the general policy of the Indian Government. Original ad-
mission is to the lower grade of the service, and the higher
1 Lord Salisbury's Order, Report, p. 323.
2 Report, p. 333. Ibid., p. 3ia
17
254 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
places (save the very few exceptions just noted) are filled by
promotions based on merit and experience in the subordinate
service. Special study for two years after selection by com-
petition, and before entering upon practical duties, is made
necessary by reason of the considerable knowledge of local
laws, languages, and institutions which are indispensable in
the public service of India. The same rule, in that respect,
had existed when selections were made under the old system.
The world knows full well what oppression and extortion
marked the early years of British rule in India. The original
system was one of pillage and spoils. I have now given the
merest outline of the failure of the partisan system (which
succeeded the spoils system) and of the method of patronage
in the hands of members of the Indian Board, supplemented
by a college course, which stand between the old order of
things and the new. We have reached the point where it is
demonstrated, by the most ample experience, that the pros-
perity and safety of England and India alike require that places
in the public service of the latter shall depend neither upon
the favor of any party, any cabinet, any great officer, any
board of control, nor upon anything other than the personal
merit of the applicant, tested by a standard, public, uniform,
and just. If I could afford the space, I might call attention
to particular facts showing that competition had given not
merely more bright men of learning, but men with physical
systems as strong, with characters quite as high, with practical,
administrative capacity not less, to say the least, than had
come into the service under any other system. But no evi-
dence I could present would perhaps be BO satisfactory or con-
clusive as the official opinions already quoted.
Another aspect of the subject, however, may well arrest our
attention for a moment. History, perhaps, affords no example
so remarkable as that of British India of the efficiency and
power of able and upright officers and good methods in admin-
istration to lead on a people in order and prosperity and to
hold them in subjection while raising their civilization. ' The
1 "No thoughtful person can read what General Upton says of the firm
but beneficent rule of England in India, without earnestly wishing to see
that rule extended over all of Southern Asia. " International Review, July,
1878, p. 57.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 255
civil servants of Great Britain in India are but a little band
of a few thousands, scattered over a vast empire, holding in
obedience nearly one hundred and ninety millions of people
of different races, castes, and religions. These races are not
wanting in ability or learning, and they are proud, bigoted,
and warlike. They have many languages, and laws and cus-
toms older and more numerous and complicated than any
other people. Nowhere is the peril or the responsibility of
government greater. All the officers are remote from the seat
of ultimate responsibility, and many of them are widely sepa-
rated from each other ; so that discretion, firmness, practical
resources, and high administrative ability are more than any-
where else indispensable and invaluable. It had been thought
by many that even if competition would secure bright men and
perhaps good theorists, it would fail to secure practical men,
sagacious administrators, competent to command and to lead.
It is worthy of notice, therefore, that its first great trial and
success seems to demonstrate the incorrectness of that view.
It is not any longer ability to lead an army and a body of civil
tyrants, in enforcing measures of oppression and exaction, that
is needed in India, but ability to collect and expend a revenue
as large as that of any but a few of the greatest nations of the
world ; ability to take supervision of the construction and
management of railways, roads, public drainage, irrigation,
hospitals, and other works of internal improvement of great
magnitude ; ability to sustain a judicial administration demand-
ing more learning, patience, and high sense of justice than any
that ever existed in any other country. Nor should it be for-
gotten that whatever places the merit system has thus opened
to worth and capacity have been taken from the perquisites
and the spoils of office and politics. Where, before, governors,
judges, directors, members of Parliament, heads of offices or
great noblemen or party leaders, could, at their arbitrary will,
say to one, you can enter, and to another, you cannot enter,
the public service of India, they must now accept some one
from among the most meritorious in the competition, even if
he be the child of a Hindoo of the lowest caste, or the orphan
of a British sailor. "We may well believe, I think, that haughty
Indian officers long accustomed to patronage and arbitrary
256 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
power, that the leaders of politics and the great aristocratic
families, who, for more than a century, had found the Indian
service a convenient field for rewarding their relations and de-
pendents, did not submit to such sacrifices as the new system
called for, until the defence of the old was no longer possible
and the safety of the empire was seen to be in peril. The
first advocates of the new system were, in the eyes of such
officials, not only theorists but meddlers. No five Senators or
Territorial Governors, with us, have ever, altogether, had a
patronage at all comparable with that formerly enjoyed by the
Queen's chief officer in Madras, Bengal, or other great pres-
idency, to say nothing of that of the Yiceroy himself. There
is one of the many of dependent princes even who has a yearly
revenue of $3,300,000. The official service and the public
affairs of all our territories united are but small compared with
those of a single presidency in India. In any view, the late
changes there must be regarded as a remarkable and noble
triumph of justice and patriotism over all that was selfish,
venal, and partisan in official life. Like our late constitutional
amendments, they established equality, justice, and liberty, ir-
respective of race, color, religion, or nativity. They gave to
the humblest Hindoo and Parsee the same right, that they al-
lowed to the favorite of the greatest family or of the strongest
party, to enter the public service, both civil and military l
upon the basis of their character and capacity as men, what-
ever views of politics or religion they might hold a right not
practically enjoyed in this generation in this boasted land of
freedom. The contrast of the mild and fair spirit of this
system, with the rapacity and injustice which marked the pol-
icy of Olive and Hastings, presents a significant illustration
of the vast political changes of a century. If we are to look
beyond patriotism for any part of the general support the
reform has received in the high official circles of India, we
might, perhaps, find it in the exemption it has brought from
the wearisome solicitation of office seekers, from the vexatious
adjustments of the rival claims of patronage, from unjust
1 Native officers of low caste have often been promoted, who were yet
forced, when off duty, to give precedence to common soldiers of the Brah-
min class.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 257
charges of partiality, from the enmity of a hundred persons dis-
appointed for every one gratified with an office to all which
the records bear evidence.
"When we consider the many thousands of miles of railroads
under government charge, the extensive public works for
irrigation, for drainage, for land and water transportation, for
sanitary improvement, 1 and for varied forms of utility or
benevolence, on the security of which Englishmen have be-
come the holders of bonds in the amount of more than $900,-
000,000 ; when we take into account the educational system
with its peculiar difficulties and the delicate and responsible re-
lations of government to many religions ; when we consider the
chances innumerable for fraud and peculation (if our army
and Indian affairs are the units of comparison) that must
exist in the equipment and supply, and in connection with
hundreds of stations and posts, of an army of more than 250,-
000 men distributed over a vast country of 190,000,000 of
people ; as we calculate the opportunities of cheating and mal-
versation (if tested by our experience) among the great army
of officials required to collect and disburse an annual revenue
(in great part internal) of $250,000,000, in a remote country
and among an alien and notoriously cunning and deceptive
race ; and when we find that both the most careful researches of
British commissions and the common understanding of man-
kind agree in considering this stupendous administration not
merely unsurpassed in justice and purity among all instances of
foreign domination, but in itself in a high degree economical
and honest, and generally just a (even as compared with the do-
mestic administration of the leading States), we must, at least,
1 The once filthy and pestilential city of Bombay, with all its nat-
ural disadvantages of people and situation, has, through good sanitary con-
trol, come to have a death-rate lower than that of Baltimore, Richmond,
or New Orleans.
2 That there is frequent injustice and sometimes corruption and oppres-
sion among those innumerable small officials, especially among the lowest
classes of justices, mostly native, and whose sphere of duty is beyond
the possibility of direct supervision by the better class of officers, can-
not, I think, be doubted. Only education and Christianity can remove
such evils. There are over 190,000,000 of. natives directly under British
rule, to which over 48,000,000, living in feudatory States, with an army of
nearly 800,039 men, are to be added. India has only 121,147 persons of
258 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
I think, reach the conclusion that a great deal depends on the
mode of appointment and discipline of those in the public ser-
vice, and that Great Britain has not bestowed so much care
upon the affairs of India without abundant reward. Xor can
we feel surprise at the just pride of British statesmen, in the
presence of so noble an example of successful administration,
or dispute them when they assert that " in the history of the
world, no other State has shown how to govern territories so
extended and remote, and races of men so diverse ; giving to
her own kindred colonies the widest liberty, and ruling with
enlightened equity dependencies unqualified for freedom." '
I am glad to be able to cite the opinions of a competent
and impartial observer ; 2 and he has found that the merit
system, enforced in the military service, has been as salutary
as in the civil service. "In no country," he says, "is the
subordination of the military to the civil authority more
clearly defined. . . . All the officers we met at Delhi
and elsewhere, in India, showed a capacity and confidence
above their rank. . . . The results attained in India are
worthy our closest study. . . . J$o stranger free, from
national prejudice can visit . . . India without rejoicing
that England controls the destiny of 200,000,000 of people ;
neither can he observe the great institutions which she has
founded for their moral and physical amelioration, without
hoping that, in the interests of humanity, she may continue
her sway until she has made them worthy to become a free
and enlightened nation."
non- Asiatic origin ; of which only 75,734 (besides 63,000 British soldiers)
are of British origin ; while there arc 190,000 native policemen alone in
the public service, besides a native army also consisting of about 190,000
men. Westminster Review, January, 1879.
1 May's History, p. 546.
3 General Upton, of the United States Army, lately sent by the Govern-
ment to make observations from the military, as I have made them from the
civil side of administration. Armies of Asia and of Europe, 1879, p. 51, 67,
81 and 87.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE PRACTICAL OPERATION OF THE MERIT SYSTEM SESCE 1875.
Great numbers who compete. The new system in the British colonies.
Promotions. The census. Comparison of old and new systems. Fur-
ther extensions of the new system. Probation made more efficient.
Publicity of appointments and promotions. The new system becomes
more popular and salutary. The Civil Service Commission likely to be
permanent.
are now to consider the operations of the new system,
in that more perfect form into which the various investigations
and improvements we have traced have finally brought it.
The report for 1875 shows that the whole number of per-
sons who had been before the commission since its creation (in
1855) had been 142,423, of which 70,452 (and among them were
1622 for the military service) presented themselves within the
four and a half years of open competition since July, 1870.
In other words, during the fifteen years of limited competition,
the official monopolists who selected the candidates only allowed
an average of about 5000 persons a year to come forward for
examination ; ' but under open competition more than 15,000
each year had freely presented themselves before the commis-
sion ; from which it would seem to follow that members of Par-
liament and other officials must have deprived about 10,000 per-
sons every year of their equal right to have their claims tested
for a place in the public service. And there is the most decisive
evidence that the 5000, which the official monopolists ticketed
for examination, were by no means the more worthy portion of
the 15,000 who wished to be examined. These excluded 10,000
1 During several years, immediately preceding 1870, the number of per-
sons presenting themselves for examination had exceeded 5000 annually ;
for open competition was to some extent allowed, the partisan system was
rapidly decaying, and the official blockade was less rigid.
260 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
were generally, I think we may believe, either too humble to
command influence or too manly and independent to ask
favors. It is this official tyranny of exclusion which still ex-
ists in this country, but which, 1 am persuaded, could not be
resumed in Great Britain without the utter overthrow of the
party proposing it, if it could be without serious agitation. 1
This report also traces the progress, I have before noticed,
which is being made in the British colonies and dependencies
for taking their public service out of party politics and giving
public honors to persons of merit. In August, 1874, examina-
tions for admission to the civil ssrvice were introduced by
the legislature of South Australia. They had been introduced
into New Zealand in 1866 ; and the reports for 1873 and 1874
seem to show that such examinations had already been made
more efficient and had been raised to a higher standard than
ever has been the case in our own service, save in a limited
sphere and for a short time under President Grant. Reference
has before been made to reforms in the Canadian civil service. 2
From all which, we are, I think, at liberty to infer that the
time is not remote when, if we do not very soon improve our
system, the most partisan and the most illiterate civil service in
any part of the world where the English language is spoken
1 will be that of the United States. That part of the Anglo-
Saxon race under republican government will then stand alone
in its open toleration of the official coercion, intrigue, and cor-
rupt bargaining in public honors and places which had their
origin in the most despotic experience of the mother coun-
try. Of all those speaking our language, republicans alone
would proclaim that partisan and official influence should be
paramount in public affairs over all considerations of personal
worth and capacity ; a distinction, perhaps, not less likely to
arrest the world's attention than the conspicuous position we
so long occupied as a slave-holding republic.
The report of 1876 records the death of Sir Edward Ryan^
who had presided over the Civil Service Commission during
the whole twenty years of its existence. During the year
: See the letters of John Bright and Sir Charles Trevelyan in the Appen-
dix, and also ch. 80.
a See last paragraph, chap. I.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 261
(1875), 15,342 persons had appeared for examination ; and
some idea of the activity of the commission and of the public
interest felt in its work may be gathered from the fact that
the number of letters received and written during the year
had been 147,350. This report contains an order for certain
adaptations to be made in conformity with the recommenda-
tions already mentioned as resulting from the executi v T e inquiry
of 1874. Among other things, it provides for boy clerks, who
are to secure their places through open competition. It fur-
ther increases the authority of the Civil Service Commission,
by providing that no promotions shall be made from a lower to
a higher division in the service without a special certificate of
qualification from that body ; and it is further ordered that all
appointments, promotions, and transfers from one office to
another shall be notified to the commissioners for record in
their office, and that they shall be, by them, published in the
London Gazette. By such means, the publicity so much needed
to prevent suspicion_will be secured, and the office of the com-
mission will contain a sort of official record of every person in
the public service a great convenience in making promotions
for merit as well as a powerful stimulant of good conduct.
This report also shows that, for some unexplained reason, tlie
General Registrar's office (which has charge of taking the
census) had not, in 1871, been brought under the provisions
for open competition ; although the official nominees for clerks
(or census agents) were directed to go through a sort of pass
examination before the Civil Service Commission.
The evidence taken on this subject in 1874 facilitates a sig-
nificant comparison of the new system with the old. The
head of the office gives a sad account of the motley imbeciles
put upon him by members of Parliament for taking the census
(they seem fully as bad, I think, as any similarly imposed upon
Mr. Walker for taking our census) ; for example, ' ' two were
suffering from such offensive complaints that others could not
associate with them, and I was forced to put them into sepa-
rate rooms, . . . they were a heterogeneous mass from 14
to 60 years of age . . . who had tried many occupations
and failed in all." When the Registrar was ordered to take
the census in 1871, he says he supposed he was to be allowed
262 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN".
to have better clerks, obtained through open competition,
under the order of 1870, but he was deprived of them. " The
Lords of the Treasury decided against me, . . . and their
Lordships took to themselves the patronage, . . ." and di-
vided it among members. " Their Lordships acting on the old
system, and following the recommendation of influential adher-
ents, nominated no fewer than 261 census clerks." He found
that inquiry into their character and history ' ' was productive of
pain and confusion," and he gave it up. But he forced this
miscellaneous herd of official favorites into a pass examination,
before the commission, which rejected fifty-seven per cent of
them, and with the residue the Registrar succeeded in taking
the census of 1871, and wonders that he could do it. He
says : ' ' Nothing could be worse than the system of nomination
of clerks by the Treasury ; their Lordships know
only their names, and that they were recommended by influ-
ential peers or member? of Parliament, supporters of the gov-
ernment of the day, . , . no inquiry being made as to
their character and qualifications." This is only one of the
many examples (which together w r ould cover nearly the whole
field of administration) that might be presented, as showing
how closely analogous if I may not say how exactly alike
have been the abuses of official power and the opposition to re-
form in England and in this country. On certain points
connected with the aristocratic element in the social life of
England, and with the administrative subdivisions, there is a
material difference ; but beyond those matters, the analogy is
so close that you may read for hours in the British documents
almost without a reflection that you are not going over abuses
in the service of the United States. Had open competition
been applied to the census clerks, those wishing to compete
would have quietly joined in a public and manly contest, in
the several places where the examinations would have been
held, and the most competent would have been speedily ascer-
tained and selected without the least political significance.
But, by the method pursued, great noblemen and members of
Parliament, political bodies and aspiring demagogues, the
1 Report Investigation, 1874, vol. i., p. D88, etc.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 263
Lords of the Treasury and the leaders of parties, were drawn
into a demoralizing and ignominious scramble for patronage,
reaching to hundreds of cities and villages, and affecting no one
can tell how many elections, which finally resulted in 261 nom-
inees so disgracefully incompetent that, in mere self-defence,
the census officer was forced to subject the motley throng to a
non-partisan examination before the Civil Service Com-
mission, which excluded 57 out of each 100 as utterly incom-
petent. And it may well be doubted if ten per cent of them
would have been left if he could have put them into open com-
petition with such young men as would, if permitted, have
voluntarily presented themselves for examination. This illus-
tration is not the less interesting because the taking of a census
is before us, in which our general rule is quite sure to work
like this British exception.
In 1877, there were 14,362 persons before the commission,
of which 1723 were for the military service, and 472 for India.
Besides those rejected as too young or because of insufficient
health or bad character, there were 3840 denied certificates as
unqualified for the public work. It will be seen that the ratio of
incompetents is far less, and hence the capacity of those apply-
ing is much higher, than when officials designated those to be
examined. Examinations had already been so extended in the
home, military service as to regulate admissions to the Royal
Military College, the Royal Military Academy, the Royal
Marine Artillery, and the Royal Marine Light Infantry.
Promotion in the military is made to turn mainly upon attain-
ments tested by examination. These several military institu-
tions, I believe (owing to the fact that there is no military ser-
vice in Great Britain corresponding to that of the States of our
U nion), are more than the equivalent, in our army and navy
system, of the schools of West Point and Annapolis. When
we consider how short has been the period since admission to
those English military schools was as much dependent, as ad-
mission either to the school at West Point or at Annapolis now
is, upon political influence or official favor, and especially
when we recall the fact that up to 1871 commissions and pro-
motions in the British, military service were matters of open
sale and purchase, we can better appreciate the strength of
264 CIVIL SERVICE IIST GREAT BRITAIX.
conviction, in favor of the new system, which has so rapidly
extended it in all directions. 1 Only the English State Church
has withstood its advance. Her official places are still made
merchandise or bestowed by official favor.
It is provided (concerning new appointments) that ' ' no clerk
shall remain more than one year in any department, unless, at
the end of that time, the head of the department shall certify
in writing to the Civil Service Commissioners that the clerk is
accepted by the department. If he is not accepted, the de-
partment shall report to said commissioners the reasons for not
accepting him. ' ' On this rule probation now stands. Promo-
tions from lower to higher divisions 2 of the service are not to
be made without a certificate from the Civil Service Commis-
sion, nor until after ten years of service. All appointments,
promotions, and transfers are to be recorded by the commission
and published in the London Gazette. This is a part of the
procedure through which the records of the commission are
made to contain a brief history of every one in the public
service, and the secrecy that facilitates corruption and injus-
tice are thus avoided. The public is treated as having a right
to be informed as to what is being done in the public service
and of the reasons for it. The same rule, it will be seen, that
throws out an inefficient clerk after a year's trial also puts a
1 The executive (adopting some of the suggestions of the report of the
last Parliamentary Commission already considered), by an order in Council,
made in FebruarVj^lOTG, provided for the selection, through open compe-
tition, of a less expensive class of men and boy clerks in the public service,
the members of which are made liable to do work in any office, and to go
from department to department, as convenience may require. By reason
of this provision, there will no longer be a need that every department and
office shall have a force equal to the greatest demand that may be made
upon it ; but this movable, clerical force of all work can be shifted from
places where there is relatively least to be done, to places wlure there is
most. Men with such experience must soon become far more valuable in
their sphere of duty than mere routine clerks, who often know little about
administration beyond that small part that takes place at their own desks.
This supplementary order rather increases the stringency of the new system,
and with the further orders of June and December, 1876, appears to extend
it and to enlarge the authority of the Civil Service Commission.
2 Division is not synonymous with our word grade or class. There may
be grades in a division.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 265
check upon arbitrary rejections, by requiring the written rea-
sons for non-approval to be presarved of record. Prior to
August, 1877, the whole number who had sought to enter
the public service through examinations had readied the vast
aggregate of 172,127. Coming from, perhaps, as many
homes, and from nearly every district, borough, village, and
hamlet of the kingdom, where the fate of those examined has
arrested attention, it is easy to see how naturally the public
examinations have stimulated study, how broadly and usefully
they have advertised the fact that character and attainments,
and not influence or partisan activity, are honored by the
government.
It is worthy of notice that not a charge of favoritism, of in-
tentional injustice, or (^interference in party politics, has ever
been brought against the commission, nor has an instance of
actual injustice, as the accepted result of an examination, been
substantiated. The commission has steadily advanced in pub-
lic estimation ; and now, in the twenty-fifth year of its grow-
ing work, with duties more extended than ever before, and
unchallenged by any party or by any class of the people, it
stands entrenched in public confidence, with guarantees of
enduring usefulness hardly inferior to those which support the
strongest agency of British government.
CHAPTER XXYIII.
CONCERNING PAETS OF THE OLD SPOILS SYSTEM EXCLUDED BY
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
What is so excluded. Mr. Helps's theory of governing by religion and
honors. How titles and knighthood have been conferred. For what they
are now conferred. The great " Orders" and their influence. Enormous
abuses in former times in granting pensions. How they are now granted.
Relations of religion to politics. Powers of the crown over church
appointments. Corruption in the official life of the church. Use of the
appointing power by archbishops. Right to be a minister a matter of
merchandise centuries ago and to this day. Advowsons and presentations
still openly advertised as for sale. How far old checks on abuse of patron-
age worthy our adoption. Patronage and proscription have failed to sus-
tain the English Church. They are now its opprobrium and its weak-
ness. Patronage in the Church of Scotland has dismembered it, and given
birth to "the Free Church of Scotland." How Englishmen and Ameri-
cans regard each other's abuses. Purchase in the British military system.
Its abolition. Examinations for admission to the British military schools.
Favoritism abolished in the British army during the time it has grown
in the army of the United States. Illustrations from the laws applicable
to the schools at Annapolis and West Point.
THE repugnancy of a spoils system of office to the Govern-
ment of the United States is illustrated by the fact that some
of the most pernicious and characteristic elements of the orig-
inal system are made impossible by the constitution itself.
The granting of titles of nobility, the requirement of religious
tests, and laws respecting an establishment of religion, therein
prohibited, were not only great bulwarks of that system, but
they have shown themselves to be prolific sources of injustice
and corruption, endowed with a vitality so tenacious that they
have outlived almost every other part of the ancient abuses ;
and, at this moment, a demoralizing method of church patron-
age and favoritism, in the spirit of mediaeval times, stands out
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 267
conspicuously alongside tlie ruins of the old system in the
domain of politics.
When Mr. Arthur Helps, whose attacks on competitive
examinations the apologists of a republican spoils system are so
much in the habit of quoting, in his " Thoughts on Govern-
ment," 1 approved the maxim of Buonaparte, which declares
that ' ' religion and honors are the two things by which man-
kind may be governed," and declared " that the British Con-
stitution is the best that has yet been devised by man," he
knew very well what he meant ; for, from his central place as
the Secretary of the Privy Council, he had during many years
looked down through the ranks of social life and all the grades
of state-church officials, and knew how they were moved ; but
he had no more sympathy with the Constitution of the United
States than he had with the partisan manipulations and in-
trigue of those who so absurdly invoke and misconceive his
words and the system he approved.
In a general way, the exercise of the powers of the govern-
ment in matters of religion, and of those of the crown in confer-
ring rank, pensions, and social distinction, in a prescriptive
and corrupt spirit, have been already pointed out ; but some
further explanations may both illustrate the great difficulties
of overcoming the British spoils system and place in a clearer
light the true character and tendencies of our own.
It is familiar knowledge that the power of conferring
titles, orders, knighthoods, and social distinction in many
ways, has been in past centuries an important source of
strength on the part of the crown, and in later years on the
part both of the crown and the ministry. The exercise of
such a power concerns elements of hope and ambition, active
and powerful under every form of government, but especially
so in an old monarchy, where standards set up by itself have
acquired something like the respect accorded to the dictates of
natural justice. A true history of its exercise would be found
to run parallel with that of the use of the appointing power,
to which it has, in corrupt times, been little more than an
adjunct in creating and dividing the spoils of politics. When
1 Published in 1872.
268 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
James IT. or Charles II. or Walpole used offices and places
as merchandise and bribes, they gave titles and decora-
tions to vile women and corrupt men. In the reign of
Queen Anne twelve peers were created at one time in order
to secure a court majority. William Pitt caused peerages to
be freely created one hundred and forty being created during
his administration and he used them to reward his political
followers. The passage of the great Heform bill of 1832 hung
in doubt until the administration turned the scale by a threat
to create a large number of peers who would vote for it.
The scramble for peerages appears to have been as fierce and
troublesome as the scramble for office has ever been in a
republic. Mr. May says that every minister is obliged to re-
sist the solicitation of not less than ten earnest claimants for
jgvery peerage which he can bestow, and that recently a minister
found that in a single year upwards of thirty of his supporters
were ambitious of a peerage, as an acknowledgment of their
friendship toward himself and of their devotion to his party.
As a natural result, aided by the increase of population and
wealth, the House of Lords, which at the accession of George
III. consisted of one hundred and seventy-four members, had
by 1860 increased to four hundred and sixty members. George
III. abused the power of creating knights and baronets, as he
did all his other powers, for political and personal purposes.
During his reign four hundred and ninety-four baronetcies
were created ; and he responded to congratulations on his
escaping assassination by conferring so many knighthoods that
the degradation of that order was long recognized, even if
it has ever regained its old distinction. If, in these times,
many men, with real claims to social eminence, in a republican
spirit decline royal aid to that end, it is yet true, I think, that
rank and social distinctions thus conferred by the crown are a
powerful influence for royalty. In 1860 there were eight
hundred and sixty baronets, as against about five hundred on
the accession of George III. Without attempting to trace the
history of the power of conferring titles, it must suffice to say
that it survives in great though in waning vigor ; a royal and
aristocratic agency in government still holding its place in the
liberal currents of British politics by which it is being slowly
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 2G9
abraded. 1 The same causes which have compelled the use of
the appointing power in the common interests of the people
have enforced the exercise of nearly all kindred authority in the
same spirit ; and at this time titles and decorations are rarely
conferred in a mere partisan spirit, nor does any suspicion of
corruption appear to attach to their bestowal.
While the true republican theory in regard to this agency of
government seems to be gaining strength, no one can look
over the list of those honored by the favor of the crown,
or listen to the prevailing views of Englishmen on the subject,
without being deeply impressed with a sense of the vast in-
fluence thus exerted, and of the utter incompatibility in prin-
ciple of this medieval prerogative with the new methods in
British politics. The variety and prestige of the great orders
"Knights of the Garter," "Knights of the Thistle,"
"Knights of the Order of St. Patrick," " Knights of the
Bath," with its many classes; "Order of St. Michael and
St. George," "Order of the Star of India," with their
numerous and distinguished membership, extending to foreign
statesmen and princes and drawing within their seductive
influence so many men of the highest capacity and station at
home present another forcible illustration of the adverse in-
terests and the traditional privileges by which the reform of
the civil service has been confronted and delayed in Great
Britain.
Perhaps no part of this old authority of the crown is now
exercised in closer analogy to the partisan use of the appoint-
ing power than that of conferring knighthood and baronetcies.
" In acknowledgment of the zeal displayed by the city of
London, on the occasion of the thanksgiving, a Baronetcy is to
be conferred on the Lord Mayor ; and Sheriffs Truscott and
Bennett will obtain the honor of Knighthood," a is a journal-
" It is of the nature of the curious influence of rank to work much more
on men singly than on men collectively ;" it is an influence which most men
at least, most Englishmen feel very much, but of which most English-
men are somewhat ashamed. Each man is a little afraid (hat " his sneaking
kindness for a lord," as Mr. Gladstone put it, be found out. Bagehot on
The English Constitution, pp. 24 and 25.
* London Daily Telegraph, March 1, 1872.
18
270 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
istic illustration of the use of this power, of which frequent
examples are to be met with in the leading newspapers ; and
yet, while non-partisan zeal for the Queen may be thus rewarded
by royal favor, no administration, I think, would venture to
advise its exercise on mere partisan grounds ; and it is but just
to say that it is generally exercised for the purpose of reward-
ing exceptional capacity or devotion in the interest of science,
literature, or philanthropy. Let the citizens of a republic, if
they will, condemn the tame compliance with official wishes
which such notices may be thought to prove, and find in the
reward of mere zeal for royalty an unworthy use of executive
power, but let them at the same time remember the pervading
subserviency, of minor officials among themselves, to officers
having the appointing power, and the fact that they have seen
not individuals only, but conventions and legislatures obse-
quious before, not the head of an ancient line of princes, but
the temporary officers of their own creation. If it is bad in a
monarchy to give social precedence to those who are zealous
for the crown and the nobility, for which the constitution pro-
vides, is it better in a republic to give offices and salaries as
rewards for zeal for parties for which the constitution does not
provide ?
Closely connected with the governmental agency just con-
sidered is another affording a similar illustration and equally
repugnant to our system that of pensions granted by the
crown (formerly) or the administration in (the practice of)
recent years. This authority, once as vast as it was pernicious,
has in later times been reduced to small if not to harmless
proportions. It is important that this power of pensioning
should be apprehended as distinct from the authority of grant-
ing superannuating or retiring allowances in the public service,
which I have already explained. 1 Those allowances are really
a part of the compensation of the officer- of the conditions on
w r hich he entered the public service and are not, therefore,
given on any theory of a gratuity or of favor. Looked at
from the side of the government, they are regarded as present-
ing an ingenious and just method of securing a good quality of
1 See ante, pp. 141-144.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 271
service at the most reasonable rates ; and from the side of the
officer, as an inducement to greater economy, at the opening
of official life, in order to secure, by reason of what he then
forbears to receive, a certain provision for his declining years.
The pension proper (in civil life) is a different matter alto-
gether ; being the bribe of the crown or administration for
political effect, or its favor bestowed upon some person deemed
fit for its charity or deserving of its honor, and often irre-
spective of such person being or having been in the public
service. The history of giving pensions, like that of confer-
ring offices and titles,' may be easily traced back to the dark
ages of corruption, and if possible the authority to grant
them has been used more disgracefully and craftily than any
other power of the government. I cannot spare the space
needed to give anything like a history of this branch of execu-
tive authority, but a brief notice of it may be useful. It is
well known that vast sums were squandered as pensions upon
royal and court favorites male and female in the times of
the Stuarts. In the earlier years of the House of Hanover,
the extravagance was hardly less, if the moral tone was a little
improved; and in later days, amounts not much smaller, though
not technically called pensions, have been used in a respectable
way to support the households of the members of the royal
family. Now " the crown," says Mr. May, 1 " repudiates the
indirect influences exercised in former reigns, and is free from
imputations of corruption." That the crown is neither cor-
rupt nor thought to be capable of corruption is, I believe,
beyond question ; but in view of its broad bestowal of titles,
and of the lavish votes of money to keep up the prestige and
influence of the several members of the royal family, I fail to
see how it can be said that " indirect influence" is repudiated.
It had been the practice and the conceded right of the crown,
before the reign of Queen Anne, to charge pensions and an-
nuities in perpetuity upon its hereditary revenues ; but on her
accession, the right of making such charges was limited to the
lifetime of the reigning king, but this restriction did not
extend to Scotch or Irish revenues, nor did it cover all other
1 Const. Hist. , vol. i. , p. 203.
272 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
revenues within the power of the crown. " From the period
of the revolution, places and pensions have been regarded as
the price of political dependence," and in 1705, persons enjoy-
ing a pension during the pleasure of the crown were by law
excluded from Parliament. 1 Even after the accession of
George III., when a fixed civil list was provided, there was
authority to charge pensions upon that list. Vast sums as
pensions and annuities were charged upon it or other property,
by that prince and his successors ; and corruption and servility,
as a consequence, were serious evils. Mr. Burke made a great
effort for the reduction of the pension list to $3,000,000 ; and
under the Rockingham administration it was provided that
until it should be reduced to $-i,500,000, no pension above
$1500 a year should be granted, and that the aggregate pen-
sions granted in one year should not exceed $3000. It was
further provided that pensions should be given only "as a
royal bounty to persons in distress or as a reward for desert. ' '
Put, notwithstanding these great reforms, large amounts of
revenue from Ireland and Scotland were available, and were
used for the purposes of political corruption and royal coer-
cion. The Irish pension list of George III. was in 1793
$620,000, when important restrictions were imposed. In
Scotland the free use of pensions by the crown w r as tolerated
until 1810, when the pension list had reached $195,000.
There was an available pension fund apparently in the discre-
tion of the crown for political purposes until 1830, when all
the pension lists were consolidated. And on the accession of
Queen Victoria to the throne, in 1837, the right of the crown
to grant pensions was limited to $6000 a year, and they can
only be granted in that amount " to such persons as have just
claims on the royal beneficence, or who, by their personal
services to the crown, by their performance of duties to the
public, or by their useful discoveries in science and attain-
ments in literature and the arts, have merited the gracious
consideration of their sovereign and the gratitude of their
country." * It will thus be seen that this vast power of cor-
1 1 May Const. Hist., p. 294. 4 Anne, chap. viii.
" 1 Viet., chap. ii.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 273
mption, under the form of pensions, has departed with the
prostitution of the appointing power, and that the reasons for
the use of $6000 a year in pensions are if the principle of
granting pensions at all is conceded of a kind as fit to be
approved by a republic as by a monarchy ; except in so far
as the right of pensioning on political grounds may be covered
by the phrase " personal services to the crown ;" and we may
accept the declaration of Mr. May that " the names of those
who receive the royal bounty are generally such as to com-
mand respect and sympathy."
But of all the authority conferred by the British Constitu-
tion, in excess of what is allowed under the Constitution of
the United States, that which has been the most grossly per-
verted for the purposes of coercion and injustice in adminis-
tration is the authority over religion and a state church. It
would require a volume to set forth the disastrous conse-
quences which have flowed from the forced relation between
religion and politics, as disclosed in British history. " In
the sixteenth century the history of the church is the history
of England. In the seventeenth century the relations of the
church to the state and society contributed, with political
causes, to convulse the kingdom with civil wars and revolu-
tions." Having already given adequate illustration of the
great fact that authority in ecclesiastical affairs has been as
unscrupulously prostituted as authority in civil affairs, there
are only a few important considerations to be added in this con-
nection. The British king, as the supreme head on earth of
the Church of England, has been held to have not only the
right to convene, prorogue, and regulate all ecclesiastical syn-
ods and conventions, but also the right of nomination to
all vacant bishoprics ; and through that supreme power he
has had a similar facility, for interference, intimidation, and
control in regard to all subordinate nominations and all official
action in the lower spheres of ecclesiastical life, to that pos-
sessed by a President of the United States, or by Senators and
Governors in their own States, to meddle, without constitu-
tional warrant, with every subordinate nomination down to that
1 1 Const. Hist., p. 214. 2 May's Constitutional History, p. 291.
274: CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
of doorkeeper in a warehouse or a clerk in a convention ; and
I hardly need add, that this royal prerogative was formerly
used to its full measure. When we consider the superstitious
awe inspired by the head of the church, added to the pervad-
ing fear of the head of the state, in earlier ages, we can more
readily comprehend how crushing was the weight .of a despotic,
spoils system which was supreme alike in the sphere of relig-
ion and in the sphere of politics. It should also be borne in
mind that several of these church officers had authority affect-
ing property and persons in their secular relations united with
their spiritual and ecclesiastical powers, and that, for the sup-
port of the state church and the use of its officials, the tithes
of all lands and stock were set apart. Offices and places of
every grade from that of the archbishop to that of the
beadle and the churchwarden were given as bribes or sold
for money just as openly and as unscrupulously as were offices
and places in the state. Those miscellaneous kinds of venality
and corruption for which our statutes have no aggregate
name, but which in English statutes are designated as " office
brokerage" were early developed in connection with the offices
and patronage of the church. More than three centuries ago, it
had become an established custom, for example, that an arch-
bishop, upon consecrating a bishop, might name a favorite of
his own to be called a clerk or chaplain, who was " to be pro-
vided for' ' l by the bishop ; just as republican officers, who now
have the power of appointment or confirmation, require those
toward whom they discharge a public duty " to provide for "
some of their dependants ; but, more openly and boldly, the old,
church spoils system allowed this venal imposition to be con-
firmed, by deed in due form of law, running to the arch-
bishop, his executors and assigns. With such an example on
the part of the archbishop, we may well believe that the
bishops, the deans, the archdeacons, the deacons, and
every church official having any right of nomination or con-
firmation, had their favorites "to be provided for. " This
right to be provided for was treated as a fit subject of trade
1 This phrase, generally supposed to have been first used to mark a peculiar
form of cormption in our politics, is to be found applied in the modern sense,
in Blackstone's Com., vol. i. ch. ii., to high church officials.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 275
and barter, arid was known and protected in law under the
name of the archbishop's " option." ' In times which toler-
ated such dealings with the sacred offices of the church, it was
natural that the rights of selection of rectors, parsons, curates
and vicars that is, the right to live in the parsonage house
and to officiate as a minister of a parish should become venal,
mere matters of bargain, barter, and sale ; and under the
names of " advowsons" and "presentations" they early be-
came as much articles of merchandise, and as such were as
openly a subject of negotiation and trade, and were as fully
recognized by law, as land titles or cattle. Ownership of
these rights of naming the next minister could be held by the
crown, by individuals, by corporations, or even by military
orders. It is no part of my purpose to here describe the scan-
dals, dilapidation of church edifices, corruption in the care of
church property, decay of spiritual life, or contempt for relig-
ious and sacred things, which flowed from such abuses. 2 This
right of property in advowsons and presentations was as care-
fully protected by the law and the courts, and is by British law-
writers made the subject of as elaborate description, as any other
kind of property whatever ; Blackstone, saying that ' ' an advow-
son" (which he declares to be " synonymous with patronage, "
that is, it expresses the same relation to an office 3 of the church
that "patronage" does to an office in the state) will more
completely illustrate a particular kind of property than any
example he can give. When church patronage had thus come
1 I am not aware that any analogous right has ever been recognized under
American law, much as we have acted on the same theory in politics. In
morality and legal theory it is most suggestive of a stock-jobber's " put."
3 See, on these points, ante, p. 47.
8 Despite this high authority, I must think there is considerable difference
between patronage as applied to the choice of a minister and patronage as
applied to civil offices generally ; yet they have these most important ele-
ments in common : they make merchandise of places of trust, and they re-
fuse to allow worth and capacity to determine the selections for office. But,
beyond the special kind of church patronage here referred to, patronage,
essentially the same as that which prevailed in politics, also extended to the
selection and promotion of church officials ; and perhaps that form of it,
known as nepotism, was even worse in the church than in the state. The
making of his infant son Bishop of Osnaburgh, by George III., is an ex-
ample.
276 CIVIL SEKVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN".
to be valuable property, the monastic orders (among others)
" begged and bought " as many advowsons as possible ; and
having in that way got control of the income of a vast num-
ber of benefices or parishes said to have been one third of
thos'e in England they devoted it to their own establishments,
to the great prejudice of the poor and of religion among the
people. But on the breaking up of these orders under Henry
YIII. their advowsons were seized by the Crown, and were
afterwards in large part given as favors or bribes in the
ordinary course of the corrupt administration of the times ;
thus making the circuit of venality, from one private owner,
through both ecclesiastical and civil officers, to another pri-
vate owner. ' ' Lay patronage placed the greater part of the
benefices at the disposal of the Crown, the barons, and the
land-owners ;" * and hence we see a whole hemisphere of pat-
ronage, beyond any ever known in this country, in the con-
trol of the privileged classes and their friends "the party
forever in power under a despotic government. This owner-
ship of patronage, both on the part of the crown and of indi-
viduals, seems to have continued, doubtless with great changes,
until the present time. The same causes which thus largely
tended to make the sacred domain of the church a great arena
for bargaining and pecuniary greed ; which developed a
system of corruption which in many ways greatly increased the
difficulty of reform in civil affairs ; which caused those who
officiated in Christian pulpits to be looked upon and to be re-
ferred to in the laws, not so much as being unworldly guides
and teachers in spiritual matters, but as purchasers and holders
of " livings" for their own enjoyment also caused holders of
church offices to be treated as having a pecuniary right to their
offices ; " So that even parish clerks and sextons are also re-
garded, by the common law, as persons who have freeholds in
their offices. ' ' "
The holder of an advowson in theory had no absolute right
to have his man called " a clerk " made a minister, rector,
pastor, or vicar, any more than a member of Parliament or
of Congress, in the use of his patronage has, in theory, a
1 2 May's Const. Hist., p. 297. 2 Blackstone's Com., vol. i. ch. ii.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 277
right to have his man made a collector, bookkeeper, weigher,
or inspector ; but ancient bishops found resistance to be as
difficult as secretaries and heads of offices have ever found it
to be in later times. I have already explained the device of a
"Patronage Secretary of the Treasury," and his duty of
weighing and apportioning patronage as an indispensable re-
straint upon parliamentary importunity ; and, for similar
reasons, perhaps, barriers were set up between the pushing
holders of patronage and the bishop, some of which would
be very embarrassing if applied to our patronage holders in
politics; for the bishop might reject a clerk if "an alien,"
in "want of learning," or when "under age"; but there
were other conditions which modern partisans would not object
to, for the bishop could not reject the clerk "for haunting
taverns or playing unlawful games." His vice must be malum
in se, or the clerk was held good enough for a minister. And
may it not be true that the regularity, justice, and publicity
which such provisions secured that the open recognition of the
rights of patronage and of the real influences which controlled
appointments, however venal are preferable to the secret in-
trigue, corruption, and uncertainty which disguise the iniquity
of the transaction itself in our politics, without exposing either
the obsequiousness of the official, or the unpatriotic importunity
of the patronage-monger ? If we are to endure much longer
the evils of a civil, patronage system, borrowed from Great
Britain, why should we not also borrow the methods by
which she mitigated its evils, and, like her, openly avow our
venality and boldly practise in the light a corruption which,
perhaps, to be arrested needs only to be seen ? Until we can
prevent legislators and party leaders foisting their unworthy
dependants and henchmen upon the executive departments,
why not have "a patronage secretary" and patronage itself
apportioned and entered of record on the books of the Treasury
like salaries, and the reasons for which a secretary may reject
a nominee as distinctly stated as were the reasons for which a
bishop might reject a clerk ? "We should then know, at least
as between those who urged and those who accepted a bad
nomination, where the responsibility rests, and how to direct
the public censure.
278 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
If under any circumstances it be possible for a church any
more than for a party to maintain its prestige and author-
ity by favoritism and proscription, it would seem it should
have been the case of the Church of England the church
of the king, the nobility, the rich and high-born classes thus
privileged and fortified in her vast patronage and her all-per-
vading ministrations. And she had yet other and not less
powerful means of domination. For the Corporation Act
of 1661 shut the gates of office against the Protestant non-
conformists, and the Test Act, 1663, made the papists incom-
petent to hold any official position, high or low, national or
municipal, civil or ecclesiastical ; and these laws, under which
both the creed and the sacrament of the state church were
made conditions of holding office even though her highest
dignitaries admitted a fear that they " had led, in too many
instances, to the profanation of the most sacred offices of
religion' ' remained unrepealed for more than one hundred
and fifty years until 1828. It is hardly worth while to stop
to inquire which, in point of justice, is the most indefeasible,
or which in practice is most disastrous : this old despotic
system, under which, by permanent provision of law, mere opin-
ions about religion were made grounds of exclusion from all
offices ; or the modern, partisan system, which, going beyond
law, and without the courage to declare mere opinions a
ground of exclusion, yet accomplishes an equal amount of pro-
scription by giving each party in turn the opportunity to ex-
pel and exclude its adversaries from office, for mere opinions
about politics. But it may perhaps be useful for us to reflect
upon the facts that, besides all the strength which a state
church or a state church party could gain from all this
patronage and proscription in its behalf, there was the still
further advantage of having its creed taught in all the great
institutions of learning, where it excluded those professing
any other faith ; ' of its having a monopoly of entrance at the
1 It was not until 1871 that all religious tests -were abolished for admis-
sion to offices and degrees in the Universities. The nonconformists had to
pay rates for the benefit of the state church until 1868 ; and though some-
thing like justice is thus secured to the living, the dead are still made the
subjects of state church restrictions before they can be laid for their final
rest in the cemeteries.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 279
gates of the great professions ; of its being proclaimed in the
courts of law, in the halls of legislation, at the head of regi-
ments, in the cabins of ships, in every office and in every place
of honor, from the smallest fort or consulate to the palace and
the throne ; but with what results ? Catholicism, toward which
the state church itself has an ominous leaning, is growing
more formidable in Great Britain. Among the dissenters are
to be counted, probably, one half of the people and of the
piety of England. Patronage and favoritism upheld, doubt-
less, by their connection with the creed and the sacraments, in
the sphere of religion after they have been crushed in the do-
main of politics are at once the opprobrium of the Church of
England ' and the weakest point in her battlement, through
which her enemies are making their most dangerous assaults ;
while on this continent the old, state church faith, transplanted
without its patronage and venality, has grown with an earnest-
ness of spirit and a material prosperity which are the best of
all refutations of the theory that a party based on religion,
any more than a party based on politics, can prosper on the
prostitution of its offices or the degradation of its principles.
1 Speaking of these abuses, the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol says :
"In regard to the sale of benefices, and especially of next presentations, it
must be admitted -we are in the greatest possible difficulty. . . ." Nine-
teenth Century, March, 1877, p. 58.
The dissenters of course stop with no such moderate language. "A more
mournful and painful book (" Purchase in the Church, etc.") can scarcely be
imagined. ... It is impossible to question the accuracy of these instances,
the aggregate of which 1400 is one tenth of the entire livings of the Church
in the market for sale or barter at the same time. . . . The living of Tra-
haverock, in Cornwall, worth 180 a year, is advertised for sale. The ad-
vertisement states " there is no cure of souls to perform, and no residence is re-
quired." British Quarterly Review, Oct. 8, 1878.
The following are advertisements (similar to those to be found in any of
the journals) cut from the London Times in September, 1870 :
" Advowson for Sale (a Rectory), situate close to a good town in an eastern
county. Situation most healthy and pleasant. Good society. Income is
about 250 a year, and there is a prospect of a very early possession, excel-
lent vicarage house, grounds, etc. Address, J. B., 51 Hollywood Road, West
Brompton."
"140 Preferments for Sale. Tlie Church Preferment Register, for Se'p-
tember (32 pages), contains all details of advowsons, presentations, Episco-
pal chapels, for sale by private treaty," etc., etc.
280 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
Advertisements and transactions of the kind mentioned in
the note last referred to, which with us would undoubt-
edly be deemed in the last degree scandalous, have so long
been common in Great Britain, that they attract little more
attention there than the habitual bestowal of offices for mere
partisan services, in disregard of personal iitness, attracts in
the United States. Indeed, it is not easy to say which is the
more astonished an American when he first learns that a
young clerk, the merest stranger from the other end of the
empire, may, against the common wishes of the parish, buy
his way into a pulpit of the English state church, or the
Englishman when for the first time he learns that a mere
politician, an inexperienced stranger from the hills, may be
pushed by a clique of partisans into a collectorship over the
heads of all those in the custom house, who alone are quali-
fied for the office. If the British example of venality and
injustice seem more disgraceful because in the sphere of sacred
things, we must bear in mind that, before the clerk can enter
his pulpit, he must have been approved by a bishop ; while
no moral standard can be applied to the politician partisan
services and prospects of services, by whatever means, being
the grounds of his claim. And it would be unjust not to men-
tion that the bishop's standard of acceptance has been raised
higher and higher, that mercenary influence has been limited
in various w T ays, so that, aided by the better public opinion
which banished patronage from politics, and sustained, in later
years, by a higher sentiment within the church itself, 1 a great
part of the evils are now prevented which originally attended
the church patronage system. But the system, with its in-
herent tendency toward venality and corruption, survives ; and,
much as its abuses have been mitigated, it has been a great
obstruction to the reform of the civil service, of which the
enemies of that reform have not scrupled to avail themselves. 2
This system of purchase and sale of places in the Church of
I " While loyalty to the crown has survived all the advances of democ-
racy, the church has awakened from a long period of inaction, and by her
zeal and good works have recovered much of her former influence." May'*
Democracy in Europe, vol. ii. p. 501.
II Sec, for example, ante, p. 198.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 2S1
" lay patronage," as it is called by the Scotch has not been
confined to the Church of England, but has demoralized and
embroiled both the Episcopal and the Presbyterian churches in
Scotland as well. John Knox opposed it from the beginning,
but not successfully. It led even to scandalous acts of vio-
lence. But patronage was recognized by statute, and its spirit
and example for centuries contributed to the venality, favor-
itism, and corruption of all official life in Scotland. Growing
more obnoxious as the moral tone and independence of the
nation rose, and largely drawing into the controversy about
patronage the broader question of state interference in affairs
of religion, it became in the first quarter of this century a
cause of contentions in the Presbyterian Church so serious
as to lead at last to its dismemberment. The party which
resisted lay patronage, and claimed the right of the congrega-
tion to deckle what minister it would have, led by Dr. Chal-
mers, finally, in 1834, secured a majority in General Assem-
bly ; a result followed by long-continued litigation about
the rights of patrons, in which both the Scotch and the
English courts affirmed a right of private property in church
patronage in Scotland (analogous to that existing in the English
Church), which no congregation was allowed to defeat by
rejecting the minister who had been tendered them by the
patronage-owner. This was too much for the honesty and
manhood of a great portion of the members of the (state)
Church of Scotland, and they formally seceded and withdrew
in 1843, Dr. Chalmers being still a leader. "The secession
embraced more than a third of the clergy of the Church of
Scotland, and afterwards received considerable accessions of
strength. . . . Their once crowded churches were surrendered
to others, while they went forth to preach on the hillsides, in
tents, barns, and stables. But they relied, with just con-
fidence, upon the sympathies and liberality of their flocks,
and in a few years the spires of their free kirks were to be
seen in most of the parishes of Scotland." ' In eighteen years,
more than $26,000,000 were contributed for the purposes of
the new organization, and the devotion and earnestness of its
1 2 May's Const. Hist., p. 443.
282 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
members have not been less than its material prosperity ; re-
sults which the vigorous growth of the same faith in the
United States, without State aid, patronage, or proscription,
must have led all thoughtful minds to anticipate. Here, there-
fore, in a rebellion against the ecclesiastical part of the old
spoils system, we have the origin of ' ' The Free Church of
Scotland," as well as an illustration of the cost and the diffi-
culties of removing some portions of that system which the
principles of the Constitution practically made impossible in
the United States. The fate of so much of that despotic, old
system as still lingers in the more worldly divisions of the
Scotch Church and in the Church of England whether any
thing less than disfranchisement can make an end of that sys-
tem in Great Britain whether it be destined to survive the
longest among the state church Tories of the Old World in the
domain of religion, or among the republican freemen of the
New World in the domain of politics these must remain in-
teresting questions of the future. Certainly, few things are
more anomalous, in the public affairs of the English-speaking
people, than the facts that the champions, of the mediaeval and
despotic spirit on one side of the Atlantic should be defending
whatever there remains of the old system of patronage, favor-
itism, and proscription in the avowed interests of royalty and
a state church ; at the same time that the self-proclaimed
champions of republican institutions, on the other side of the
Atlantic, are defending whatever of the same old system there
survives, in the pretended interest of democracy, liberty, and
justice. Nor is this contrast less significant when considered as
illustrating the extent to which provision may be made against
evils of the same kind, in one direction, while, with some-
thing like unconsciousness, the people allow them to flourish
in full view in another direction ; for the people of Great
Britain went on removing abuses in the civil administration
without their sense of the enormity of such abuses in the
affairs of the state church being very much increased ; and the
people of the United States, on the other hand, look upon the
provisions of the Constitution, which have protected them from
these latter abuses, without much reflecting that its authors
could never have imagined that like abuses would grow in the
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 283
civil administration. Standing in the presence of church
patronage, which, if allowed, would speedily sink any religious
organization in the United States, Englishmen are filled with
horror at our political abuses, and grow loyal and patriotic
over the virtues of the civil administration of their country ;
while, standing amidst civil abuses that have been impossible,
for nearly half a century in Great Britain, Americans are
amazed that the offices of religion should there be in the mar-
ket as merchandise, and that men should be able to buy their
places as ministers in the temples of divine worship.
There is another branch of public service in Great Britain
which, though not literally within the scope of this chapter,
or perhaps of the present work, yet affords striking illustra-
tions of the spirit of the new system and of the obstacles it has
overcome ; nor is it without importance as showing the decay
of patronage and favoritism in Great Britain during the period
in which they have been growing in the United States. We
have seen that under the despotic kings there was no distinc-
tion between civil and military officers as to the conditions of
their appointment, government, or removal ; that James IT.
as unhesitatingly turned out colonels and generals as he did
collectors or heads of bureaus, for mere political or household
reasons ; that "Walpole denied all grounds of distinction be-
tween civil and military officers as to removal ; that George
III. deprived General Con way, Colonel Barre, and other mili-
tary officers of their commands for favoring the patriotic cause
in America, and that it was with great difficulty that the king
was induced to promise that military men should in the future
be treated as beyond removal for mere political reasons. But
while the king forebore any extreme application of his pre-
scriptive theory to military affairs, appointments in the army
and navy became a part of the patronage monopoly of mem-
bers of Parliament. There had also been growing up a system
under which the war offices of the nation, just like the minis-
terial places in the Church, were the subjects of open barter
and of bargain and sale for money. This system spread until
under the name of "purchase" it appears to have embraced
almost the whole military (and no small part of the naval) ser-
vice of the Empire. Army purchase, like Church patronage,
284 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
was recognized and protected by law ; and when it was finally
brought to an end (since the order for open competition in
1870), it was on the basis of an allowance or compensation in
money for all commissions then held by purchase. While
there was much in the spirit and exigencies of military life
and in the high demands of national sentiment that put some
check upon the grosser abuses to which so demoralizing a system
tended, it is easy to see that it could hardly fail to bring many
unworthy persons into military office, to be a serious obstacle
to the introduction of the merit system into civil service, or to
add greatly to all that was venal and suspicious in official life.
No examinations were provided and no effective standard of
qualifications applied as against the purchaser of the office.
Everywhere there was only a gross competition of money and
influence, in which personal worth had little favor and no aid in
the methods of government. It was this military system
which we had before us when our Constitution was formed :
but we also had before us the experience of the revolutionary
war. Our statesmen had seen what caused them to feel the
necessity of having military officers adequately instructed for
the practical duties of their calling. It was this conviction
which resulted in the establishment of the Military Academy
at "West Point in 1802, and in fixing a literary qualification
for admission to it in 1812. In foresight and in patriotic disin-
terestedness, the American Congress was then far in advance of
the British Parliament. The law creating this school provided
for no patronage in nominating cadets on the part of mem-
bers of Congress, for they were to be selected by the Presi-
dent ; and its whole spirit was hostile to making merchandise
of military commissions. England had then no such school,
and her military system was, during the first quarter of the
century, on a low moral plane as compared with that of the
United States. But a change was soon to appear in both
countries, which has resulted in contrasts full of significance.
It was not long before military instruction was provided for in
Great Britain, and the claims of personal merit began to rise
over Parliamentary patronage and the opportunities of wealth.
The greater abuses of the purchase system were one after
another remedied. Rigid examinations were provided for
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 285
admission to the military schools ; and at last Parliamentary
patronage has been compelled to yield to open competition as
the key that opens the gates of those institutions from whose
graduates generally the army officers are selected. I need not
here recount any of the facts to which I have already referred
(or shall refer), showing that, in India and in the home ser-
vice, members of Parliament have lost their patronage of nom-
inating cadets for either the naval or the military schools, and
that a fair public contest 9f merit open competition before
the Civil Service Commission wins the cadetships and gives
a better class of candidates for the regular army and navy. It
would seem that the same method guards the official places in
what we should call the militia service. Parliamentary pat-
ronage and purchase in the war service of the nation have
thus died and been buried together. In the United States,
however, the tendency has been in the other direction. The
partisan spirit that created the spoils system was equally favor-
able to the disastrous growth of Congressional patronage. The
first step toward Congressional control over cadet appoint-
ments was made in 1843, when it was provided that one cadet
should be taken from each Congressional district. In viola-
tion of the provisions of the law which vested the nomination
of cadets in the President, members of Congress took their
selection to themselves, and they have since maintained that
usurpation, though the statutes still provide that ' ' they shall
be appointed by the President. ' '
In the law providing for cadet appointments in the Kaval
School, enacted in 1862, 3 we find the claims of this growing
Congressional patronage system more significantly expressed.
The " number allowed at the Academy shall be two for every
member" (of Congress), says the statute, and the President
shall select two from the District of Columbia and ten at
large, and "the President shall also be allowed three yearly
appointments of midshipmen ... to be selected from boys
enlisted in the Xavy. The Revised Statutes of 1875 3 require
the Secretary of the Xavy to notify the member of any vacancy
1 See Revised Statutes U. S., 1315. * Laws 1862, chap. 183, 11.
3 1514.
19
286 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
in his district, and declare that ' ' the nomination shall be made
on the recommendation of the member," and permits the
President to appoint one cadet from the District of Columbia
and ten at large.
Here we see the advance of a system of legislative patronage
unknown to our politics in the beginning of the century, and
which was abandoned in Great Britain after long experience of
its disastrous consequences ; and a new spirit with a new claim
has grown into such domineering tones and assumptions, that
the small portion of the constitutional authority left to the
President the selection of eleven out of near four hundred
cadets is mentioned as being what is ' ' allowed ' ' to him, and
the nomination by members is spoken of as if it were a per-
quisite and right as legitimate and as absolute as any claim of
Parliamentary or State Church patronage ever set up by a
member of Parliament in the most corrupt and prescriptive
periods of British history. These and other encroachments of
the Legislature upon the Executive have attracted the attention
of thoughtful, foreign writers., "A legislative chamber is
greedy and covetous ; it acquires as much, it concedes as
little as possible ; . . . the law-making faculty, the most
comprehensive of the imperial faculties, is its instrument ;
it will take the Administration if it can take it. Tried by
their own aims, the founders of the United States Constitu-
tion were wise in excluding the Ministers from Congress." 1
In the facts recited, we see, not merely how law-makers can
' ' take ' ' patronage, in flagrant violation of the fundamental
principle of the government, which requires that the legisla-
tive and executive functions shall be kept distinct, but we
also see regulations for apportionment, division, and enjoy-
ment laid down as formally and with as little disguise as in
any rules of a prize court for sharing the spoils of war, or in
any customs of Newcastle's or Walpole's "Patronage Secre-
tary of the Treasury " for sharing the spoils of peace.
It is interesting to note that here, as in Great Britain before
1 Bagehot's " English Constitution," pp. 92 and 93. It is Mr. Bagehot's
view that Secretaries coming into Congress would increase the power of that
body over the Executive ; and he feels the necessity of not increasing that
peril, much as, in the abstract, he favors their presence.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 287
the new system became general, public opinion tends more and
more to compel members to hand their cadetships over to open
competition; and here as there it seems clear that such compe-
tition secures a superior class of students ; l but it would carry
me too far from my subject to present the proofs on these
points, and they would but add another to the many exam-
ples of our repeating continually, for good or for evil, the ex-
perience of the older country.
1 Twenty-two years ago, upon the first experiment of competition for the
selection of military cadets, we find Mr. Mill (Representative Government,
p. 110, edition 1857) saying : "I am credibly informed that in the military
academy at Woolwich the competition-cadets are as superior to those ad-
mitted on the old system of nominations in these respects (bodily activity) as
in all others." And the report of the U. S. Civil Service Commission, made
in April, 1874, uses this language on the same subject : "So unsatisfactory
had been all olher methods of nomination that the official circulars from the
Secretary of War, under which this courtesy is regularly extended, recog-
nizing the precedents of disinterested members of Congress, now contain a
notice that 'competitive examinations,' etc., have been introduced, 'with
results satisfactory,' as the basis of these nominations ; and in the Naval
School, also, the advantages of competitive examinations, induced by the ex-
ample of such examinations under the civil service rules, have still further
supplanted the old methods. The facts, which we find confirmed by the
highest authority, are stated by the editor of a Washington journal as follows :
" ' The position of cadet -engineer being open to any youth of proper age
and proficiency, the Secretary of the Navy received last summer a very
large number of applications, and in order to secure the most efficient he
made the examination competitive. The wisdom of this course has fully
proved itself in the second class of cadet-engineers, now at the Academy,
which has been declared both mentally and physically superior to any that pre-
ceded it.' "The Chronicle, February 14, 1874.
CHAPTER XXIX.
SOME PRACTICAL TENDENCIES AND RELATIONS OF THE REFORMED
METHOD.
Popular education advanced with administrative reform. The public
schools. Examinations for women. Interest in politics unabated. The
franchise extended. Crime decreased: Sanitary administration. Salaries
and economical results. Relation of the new system to tenure of office, to
official fidelity, and to efficiency.
THE history of the growth of the reform sentiment and of
the new methods to which it has given birth has to a large ex-
tent explained their practical effect. That they have been a
victory of public virtue and intelligence over corruption and
incompetency, of common justice over special privileges and
feudal customs, of equal rights and opportunities over official
favoritism and partisan tyranny, and especially of the great
cause of elementary education over the exclusiveness and the
selfish hostility of the aristocratic classes, are results almost
too plain for further comment. In one aspect, the reform in
its later stages may be looked upon as an illustration of a
great movement in the public conscience and thought, which
marks an epoch in British history ; finding kindred expression
in laws, of rare beneficence and wisdom, for the protection of
the poor and humble in mines, shops, and factories ; for the
suppression of vice and crime ; for the security of life, health,
and virtue ; for the acquisition of land, education, and com-
mon rights ; for the extension of suffrage, and the purity and
responsibility of public life in various ways. In another as-
pect, it presents itself as a remarkable concentration of public
intelligence and scrutiny upon a method for elevating the
standard of official duty and capacity, above what might be ex-
pected from the general condition of the people ; and, where-
by political contests, no longer mere scrambles for office,
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 289
are made to turn upon great principles and good administra-
tion ; so that the very processes of governing are made foun-
tains of strength to the conservative forces of society. The
early reformers naturally expected that popular instruction
would be stimulated by their work, and this opinion was, we
find, soon shared by practical statesmen at the head of the
government. " I hope we shall give a great stimulus to
primary education by holding out this large number of re-
wards . . . for those who excel in competition. "' That
hope was not disappointed. I have space for only the most
meagre illustration of the marvellous strides 2 which have been
made during the past few years in common-school education,
so long shamefully neglected by the ruling class in Great
Britain. It was in the same year (18 TO) when open competi-
tion was introduced, that school boards, sustained by local
rates (which had been long resisted by the State Church and
the privileged classes), were for the first time provided for in
all the districts of the country.
Competent observers think the new school system to be in
some respects unsurpassed, and no well informed person will
deny that parts of its administration deserve our serious study. *
The vigor with which popular education has advanced, since
1870, makes its own suggestion as to its being aided by some
new and powerful cause not so much, perhaps, by com-
petition for the public service as the ultimate force, as
by the new spirit which demanded both competition and
schools and which now stands behind and stimulates edu-
cation. The election for the London School Board in the
autumn of 1870 is said to have aroused more interest than
1 Evidence of the Chancellor of Exchequer, Parl. Rep. 1873, p. 231,
Vol. 3.
" " In your elementary schools you are in advance of us. . . . Ten years
ago we were a long way behind, but we are improving rapidly, and if you
intend to keep before us, you will have to work hard. " Impressions of Amer-
ica, by Hep. R. W. Dak, 1878, p. 163.
3 Several able women have been elected members of the London School
Roard, and their services have been found invaluable a kind of member-
ship not so compatible with our partisan system. The new system of
cumulative voting for school officers excludes the absolute domination of
either party in school management.
290 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
any municipal election ever held in the metropolis. Be-
tween 1870 and 1875, that Board alone completed 53 school
houses, at a cost of nearly $3,500,000 ; and in 1875 it had 80
others in the course of construction, on which more than
$2,800,000 had been expended. Attendance in the schools is
compulsory. In 1874, there were 77,985 official notices served
to attend ; 4681 persons were convicted for neglect in that
regard, and 41,697 parents were required to appear and show
cause why their children were absent from school. A part of
the expenses of destitute children attending school are paid
from the public funds, so that their poverty may not prevent
their education. 1 The popular support of education advanced
so rapidly that, in 1876, compulsory attendance was made
general by act of Parliament. It appears 2 that the rapid
spread of elementary instruction among the people continues un-
abated. In England, the attendance upon the public schools
has increased sixty per cent in five years, and in Scotland forty-
two per cent in three years. In the city of Birmingham, it in-
creased one hundred and thirty-eight per cent between 1871 and
1876. The success of the higher institutions of learning, in
testing capacity by examinations, would seem to have originally
suggested the practicability of such tests for the public service.
There can be no doubt, however, but the debt has been many
times repaid by the greater honor and profit which the action
of the government has conferred upon learning in every grade.
What elevates and widens the base of course raises and
strengthens the whole pyramid of knowledge. It has not
therefore been in the lower range of learning alone that exam-
inations for the public service have given new vitality to pop-
ular education. The example helped to stimulate the higher
schools and even the universities to a more active life. Much
higher qualifications have also been required, within the last few
years, than formerly, for admission to the bar or to practice as
an attorney or solicitor. The right to practice as a doctor
or surgeon, or to carry on the business of an apothecary or
medical chemist, has, in the same period, been condition-
ed on higher attainments. In 1865, Oxford and Cambridge
1 Firth's Municipal London, p. 442-457.
"Report U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1878, p. CLXIV.-CLXIX.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 291
(which had before conducted local examinations for young
men engaged in literary and scientific studies) extended them
to young women, not with a view of admitting them as stu-
dents, but of stimulating and rewarding home studies by public
encouragement. Other institutions have followed these exam-
ples. In 1865, only 126 young women were candidates, but
in 1875 examinations were held at fifty-six different places,
and there were 1552 female candidates ' examined. The grow-
ing spirit of justice and liberty, within the same period, has
opened the public museums, libraries, and galleries freely to
the people, and made the Kensington Museum the centre of a
vast system of instruction in the practical arts now being given
in numerous places throughout the British Islands.
It is a matter of common observation that the taking of the
corrupt elements and the venal prizes out of party contests in
Great Britain has in no sense weakened the wholesome public
interest in elections. Parties have never stood more firmly by
their principles or maintained more vigorous contests at the
polls than since these contests have ceased to control nomina-
tions, appointments, promotions, or removals. Indeed, it has
been during the same period, in which that service has been
gradually raised above corruption and partisanship, that the
English people have most vigorously and successfully con-
tended for an enlarged suffrage and for the ballot. The same re-
forming spirit which abolished compulsory church rates in 1868,
disestablished the Irish Church in 1869, opened the public
service freely to merit in 1870, swept away religious tests for
admissions to offices and degrees in the universities, and sup-
pressed the sale of army commissions in 1871, finally, in the
last-named year, secured to the people the invaluable privilege
of voting by ballot. So far from there being indifference to
elections, the right of voting is now held and exercised by a
larger proportion of the people of Great Britain than at any
other period of her history.
It is a point of interest to know what effect the new methods
for selecting executive officers have had upon the amount of
1 Harvard University, among our own institutions, five years ago offered
American women the benefit of such examinations upon the English prin-
ciple, and they are being continued with increasing success.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GKEAT BRITAIN.
crime and the administration of justice ; but I cannot spare
space for more than the briefest illustration. The fact has
been that crime and criminal arrests have been steadily de-
creasing in Great Britain, as corruption has disappeared from
her politics. London is, perhaps, a fair example of the whole
country ; and there a recent English writer asserts :/ "It is
satisfactory to notice that crime in the metropolis is on the de-
crease, not merely proportionally, but actually ;" but it is not
satisfactory to us to be compelled also to notice that the num-
ber of crimes and criminal arrests in London are less in each
year than they are in the city of New York, which has only
about one-third the population of London. 2
It would require too much space to give the facts necessary
to illustrate in any general way the efiiciency with which the
laws are now executed in Great Britain. It must suffice to
make a simple reference to sanitary administration, which, as
much as any other, measures the ability and fidelity of
officials. New York city has a health administration of unsur-
passed efficiency in this country (considering the partisan
abuses which cripple it and which demoralize the whole city
government on which it depends) ; but the more favorable
political conditions of London have, in later years, enabled its
health officers despite its slums of fearful vice and ignorance
which have come down from generations that knew neither
cleanliness nor schools to reduce its ratio of disease and death
below that of the city of New York ; and, by reason of able
health officers, the death rate of Bombay that ancient haunt
and breeding-place of plagues, leprosies, and choleras with
its population of 650,000 of all races and religions under the
sun seems to have been reduced below that of Baltimore,
Richmond, New Orleans, and other American cities. Per-
haps the greatest sanitary reforms ever yet undertaken in the
world are those which have been carried forward in Glasgow
1 Firth's Municipal London, 1876, p. 431.
2 The number of arrests in London in 1869 was 72,951. In 1870 it was
71,269, and has since decreased. In 1870 the number arrested in New York
city was 75,692. In 1871 it was 84,514, and in 1875 it was 84,399. I have
not the exact figures to make the comparison since, but the ratio has not
materially varied.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 293
and Edinburgh within the last twelve years. The artisans'
and laborers' dwellings improvement acts of 1875 are being
carried into effect with an official ability and fidelity worthy
the spirit they embody ; and the tenement house law (and all
the other most efficient sanitary) statutes of New York city
are in large part based on British precedents. 1
It would require a whole chapter to do justice to the
economical results of the new system. It is by no means
easy to make due allowance for the different rates of wages in
the two countries so as to show with exactness the relative
cost of the merit and partisan systems. Besides, as the Brit-
ish officers have a graded salary, which increases with years
of service, and is followed (after ten years of service) by a re-
tiring allowance, the relative cost is not shown by a mere
comparison of salaries. ~No argument, however, is needed to
prove that, as the respectability and honor of the public service
is raised, it becomes more attractive. Men will work for less
compensation, when their tenure is secure during good be-
havior and their position commands public respect. It has
already been shown that, by reason of securing a better class
of officers, a much smaller number has been found adequate.
Facts might be cited, could I give space for them, which
would show a great saving in the cost of administration. 4 It
must suffice, as illustrations, to state that the government
clerks clerks corresponding to those to whom we pay $900 a
year, begin on a salary of from $400 to $450 a year, and that
the police of London are paid salaries that are not much
1 38 and 39 Viet. , chaps. 36 and 49. These are most comprehensive stat
utes, and in their elaborate provisions for securing sanitary protection to the
homes of the poor, they go far beyond anything attempted in this country.
And another act of the same year (38 and 39 Viet. , chap. 55), which fills 152
pages of the statute being a general public health law in the variety, benev-
olence, and breadth of its provisions, probably transcends the united body of
all our State and Congressional legislation on sanitary subjects. So wise
and just provisions, in the special interest of the humble and the feeble,
would not seem to be most fit to be monopolized by a monarchy ; and
at a time when our legislators, State and national, are so anxiously debating
sanitary subjects, in aspects that have long since entered into British admin-
istration, I venture to depart a little from my subject to draw attention to
these matters of supreme importance.
* For some illustrations, see Chap. XII. , pp. 147-150.
294: CIVIL- SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
more than one half those paid policemen in the city of New
York.
The method of coming into the service upon the basis of
merit has not necessarily anything to do with the tenure of
office, though its spirit is of course utterly hostile to removals
except for good cause, and for such removals the British sys-
tem gives ample authority. The moment that open compe-
tition is made the door of entrance to the service, there is
little pressure to put men out in order to get others in. It is
far too uncertain who will win the place made vacant, to make
the attack attractive to office-brokers or place-hunters. So
long as every executive officer having the right of nomination
is exposed to the menace of congressional influence, and all the
gates of the public service stand wide open to the siege of
partisan organizations, it will, I am persuaded, hardly be
possible to establish any wise tenure of office ; but as soon as
an effective test of merit can be placed at these gates, the vast
army of interested politicians now so obstructive will no longer
be able to foist their favorites upon the Treasury, and they will
therefore no longer take the trouble to oppose a just and
economical official tenure. It will be only after corrupt and
partisan ways of getting into public places have been closed,
that we shall be able to consider the subject disinterestedly and
calmly, and thus be in a fair condition to decide for how long
a time, or until what age, in the several branches of the ser-
vice, it is for the public interest to retain an official. There
does not seem, in view of British experience, to be any great
promise of usefulness in giving much attention to that subject
at present ; though if we could return to our original system,
by repealing the laws which limit the term of collectors, post-
masters, surveyors, and various other subordinates, to four
years, we should get rid of many demoralizing contests, and
should soon gain that experience that would enable us to decide
upon some tenure more inviting to worthy persons, and hence
more economical for the government upon some tenure that
would not bring on a new contest for existence, by the time
an officer has gained experience enough to know his duties.
No one can go over the British investigations on the sub-
ject, or come in contact with British officials, without being
CIVIL SEEVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 295
impressed with the need and the importance of some fixed
rules as to the age most fit and advantageous for entering and
leaving the public service and hence, as to the proper tenure
of a subordinate, executive officer. The question is one which
equally concerns public economy and official morality. So
long as the absurd theory of " rotation in office" a change
for the sake of a change a theory that could not bring about
the justice to which it appeals, even if official tenure was for
only a single day or the partisan theory of appointment and
removals move the majority, it is in vain to expect any prac-
tical result from inquiring what a proper regard for efficiency,
economy, or official fidelity demand. I have no space to ade-
quately present the reasoning on the subject to be found in
British documents, and yet I am not willing to dismiss them in
silence. What can be plainer than this that when an officer or
clerk has no assurance that great capacity or industry in his place
will either prevent his removal, ensure his promotion, or even
protect him from assessments, he is deprived of the strongest
motives to usefulness, and is naturally filled with a sense of the
injustice of his government ? To be most efficient he needs to
study the duties of his position ; but why should he labor be-
yond the needs of to-day, when to-morrow he may be sent
home in disgrace, without cause and without trial, or be
humiliated by seeing an official or partisan favorite, every
way inferior to himself, put over his head ? lie has not even
the motives to good conduct which the government of all the
more enlightened States throw around the inmates of their
prisons, who are allowed by good conduct to reduce their term
of confinement. This precariousness the constant sense of
uncertainty and peril which it produces is, I am persuaded,
in two ways the cause of great pecuniary expense to the gov-
ernment ; first, by compelling it to pay liigher salaries, as an
inducement to competent persons to enter so uninviting a ser-
vice, and next, by compelling it to employ a greater number
of officials, because those it has are without the higher in-
ducements to exertion, and are distracted by efforts to protect
themselves against dismissals, and to secure promotions by
influence. It hardly need be added that such utter uncer-
tainty of tenure the general conviction it produces that when
296 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
a place in the service is forfeited nothing stable or reliable is
lost tend to weaken the inducements to honesty and fidelity.
"When a public officer or clerk feels that, if he be faithful, he
can hold his place, with an increasing salary, so long as he is
competent, and that if he is especially efficient, he will be
promoted, it is almost too plain for observation that he is
bound to honesty and fidelity by ties far stronger than the man
can feel who has before him nothing but a dreary, dead level
of uncertainty a hold of his place utterly frail and precarious
liable on any day to be broken by an order which arrests his
income, and if it does not suggest his incompetency or
infidelity for that very reason must proclaim the arbitrary
injustice of his country. No one, I think, can become ac-
quainted with the very different feelings cherished by those in
the civil service, toward the government, under these con-
trasted systems, without a strong conviction that the pride of
place and the sense of justice and gratitude which the one de-
velops and the other destroys, are subjects well worthy the
attention of statesmen ; and I shall take occasion to more ade-
quately present the significant fact that, in Great Britain, those
in the subordinate service hold their places and serve the gov-
ernment with pride, always certain that a knowledge of their
employment by the government will advance rather than pre-
judice their standing in public estimation.
It should be mentioned that, under British laws, no limit
but incompetency and hence no tenure expressed in terms of
years applies to those in the civil service ; but the superan-
nuation laws cease to make additional allowances after forty
years ' of service ; and perhaps the great question for us, on
this subject, is not that of fixing any tenure of office, but that
of deciding upon some age or period of service before which an
officer may feel safe if worthy, and after which, if his capacity
is impaired, he may feel it is wise to retire lest he be requested
to do so.
1 See ante, pp. 143-3.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE MERIT SYSTEM IN THE GREAT DEPARTMENTS.
Internal revenue administration. Examinations. Promotions. Disci-
pline. Exclusion of politics. Removals. Extent of delinquency. Cus-
toms service. Examinations. Removals. Neither patronage nor poli-
tics. Stringent regulations. Extent of delinquency. Method of appoint-
ments and promotions compared with that of United States. The Treas-
ury. - Open competition for clerks. Promotions. Statement of Mr.
Gladstone. Post Office Department. Classes of postmasters. How
clerks are examined and appointed. Appointment of postmasters.
Open competition in large offices. Severe rules of discipline. No elec-
tioneering in offices or interference with elections. Mr. Mundella's state-
ment. State Department and Consular and Diplomatic Service. How far
politics excluded. Examinations for clerks and consuls. Regulations.
Members of Parliament without patronage. Clerks of the two Houses of
Parliament. Not removed for political reasons. Members relieved from
solicitation.
The Inland Revenue Department is in charge of a board
of five commissioners, appointed by the Crown, and they con-
tinue in office during good behavior. More than two thirds of
the income of the British Government comes from its inland
revenue. The amount thus collected in 1876 was $225,730,-
180. The number of officials in the service was 7093, be-
sides employes. Of the revenue collected, more than $75,-
000,000 comes from spirits, and more than $38,000,000 from
malt. In addition to what is covered by our internal revenue
collections, the system of land taxation, of income taxes, of
house duties, and of game and dog licenses, are administered
by this board. It hardly need be said that in the number of
agents, in the magnitude and complexity of the business trans-
acted, and in the opportunities of cheating which a lax disci-
pline would afford, British internal revenue administration
greatly transcends that of the United States. The taxation
it controls, in variety and difficulty, approximates what would
298 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
be the condition with us if State taxation were added to the
internal revenue administration of the Federal Government.
By reason of the stability of its tenure, the long experience it
secures, and its independence of elections and politics, the
board is able to pursue a firm and consistent policy and to en-
force a rigid discipline. 1
With very slight exceptions, all entrance to the service is
to the lowest grade, and by the way of open competition, be-
fore the Civil Service Board. Corrupt or partisan influence
and official favoritism are thus effectually excluded. The ex-
ceptions referred to are in the lowest grade of the service,
being mere messengers in some of the local offices, as to which
the right of nomination seems to have survived. But even
these nominated messengers are examined under the board.
And from messengers and porters up to the heads of bureaus,
no one can be removed, except for cause, and no one is re-
moved without being given a proper hearing or opportunity
for explanation in his own defense. Appointments for po-
litical reasons are, I hardly need add, excluded by competition.
The board has the right of promotion and authority for dis-
cipline without interference from any other quarter, but can-
not increase salaries or expenses. Promotions are for merit.
In certain parts of the service, they are based on examinations,
and in other parts on official records kept in the offices, and,
almost without exception, all the higher places are filled from
those below. Personal records of the conduct of all officers are
kept by the board. The right of discipline, in its application,
ranges from a mere caution to a dismissal, and includes the
right to reduce both rank and pay. It would seem plain that
there can be little or no opportunity for politics in this branch
of the service. Neither the dominant party nor those control-
ling local elections are allowed chances for patronage or co-
ercion anywhere in the vast network of official places through
which, in all parts of the empire, such enormous internal rev-
enues are collected. Year after year, through elections follow -
1 For example, each clerk has to sign, eveiy morning and evening, his
name in a book which shows the hour and minute of his arrival and depart-
ure, and this record must be daily signed by a supervising officer. Fines
are rigidlj r imposed for tardiness.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. i>99
ing elections, during one administration and then into the
next, without change of method or members, the work of the
department advances steadily upon business principles ; not a
clerk with a fear of losing, not a politician with a chance of
gaining, an office by any result in the field of politics. The
best information I could get as to the character l of the admin-
istration is to this effect : It is universally believed to be
efficient and without corruption or political bias. 1 could hear
of no reports that revenues were not properly collected or
accounted for. There is no public rumor or belief (so far as I
have been able to learn) that in any way corresponds to the
current views in this country in regard to whiskey frauds and
official delinquency in connection with internal revenue admin-
istration. Such seems to be the conclusion of an American
gentleman, than whom, probably, no one is better informed
on the subject; "Great Britain," he says, "has for many
years had an iniernal, income tax which, . . . with her trained
officials, is assessed and collected with as much of accuracy as
any such tax probably can be. " a I have high authority 3 for
stating that " peculation amounts to nothing. . . . I do not
think there is an average of three cases a year. . . . The
revenue seldom loses anything from such cases." Referring
to collecting officers, it is said, " I think there have not been
more than half a dozen defaults in twenty-four years . . . in
no case has the revenue lost anything. The estimated losses
by .fraud and default for the year 18TT-8 amount to 400
out of a collection of 46,000,000 . . . amongst the collectors
of land tax and inhabited house duty . . . five defaults have
occurred since 1874." It would require far more space than
I can spare to set forth the carefully matured methods of
supervision and precaution by which such fidelity has been
secured. !N"ext after the exclusion of politics and favoritism,
in the selections of those who enter the service, the stability,
vigor, and sense of responsibility, which a permanent Board
is able to impart, are the most important elements.
1 In the appendix will be found several letters bearing upon this point.
a David A. Wells, in International Recifw, April, 1878.
3 Letter from one of the Internal Revenue Commissioners to the author
Nov. 17, 1877.
300 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
The Customs Service. The foreign (or customs) duties
of Great Britain in 18Y6 amounted to $96,446,000, and
hence fall below our own in a ratio approximating that in
which her inland duties exceed ours. The whole number of
established clerks in the customs service in 1S76 was 4626,
but these do not include messengers, porters, or mere em-
ployes. This branch of her fiscal affairs is administered by
a board of four commissioners, the members of which are
appointed by the Crown, and they continue in office during
good behavior. There has been such a board for over a hun-
dred years. To them and their subordinates, what I have just
said (in connection with internal revenue administration) as to
the exclusion of politics and favoritism, and as to authority
and discipline, also applies. As illustrating the discipline
and system that prevails, I may mention that the board makes
an annual report, which not only sets forth every fact neces-
sary to disclose the character of the administration, in the
ordinary sense, but states, in apt medical phrase, the several
diseases which have caused sickness, and for how long a time,
and to how many persons, among those in the customs service,
at the larger ports. 1
The hours of duty of the indoor branch of the service are
from ten to four, and of the outdoor branch from nine to
four. Every ordinary clerk has, each day, to sign a record
when he reaches and again when he leaves his office, which
fixes his daily service even to the minute. The head of .the
office must put his initials daily at the foot of the page. Fines
are regularly imposed for tardiness or absence, and no salary
can be paid when any fine is in arrears. These signed " ap-
pearance sheets" are laid before the board weekly, and if fines
often occur, other consequences beside their payment follow.
There is a system of supervision of official conduct by officers
having that duty (and the same in other departments), which
is analogous to the duty imposed on roundsmen in a police
force, and the instructions declare that "the board rely on
their zeal and discretion in taking every necessary means for
ascertaining, not merely the official conduct and character,
1 The names are not given.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 301
but tho habits and pursuits of every individual under their
control. ' ' Full records are kept in every office of the official
conduct of those who serve there ; and it is on such evidence,
on the official opinions of the leading officers formally taken, and
and on appropriate examinations, and not on politics or influ-
ence, that promotions are based. It would seem plain there
can be but small opportunity for neglecting public business
in order to attend to politics, and I have thought such details
not unimportant, in view of the notorious laxity which has
prevailed in so many of our custom houses.
There are one hundred and forty ports of entry in the United
Kingdom, and they are all under the jurisdiction of the same
board. Like the Inland Revenue Board, it has a full au-
thority of appointment, promotion, and removal as well as of
discipline. I hardly need to point out that a permanent Board,
having charge of all the custom houses, has great facilities for
securing uniformity of administration and for bringing the
expenses of each into comparison with the others, in a way
which largely contributes to responsibility and economy ; but
I have no space for details. If I should merely say that this
authority is really independent of both general and local poli-
tics that a custom house is no more a party or a political
agency in Great Britain than a college is with us, and that a
collector is no more a political manager than is one of our col-
lege presidents I fear I should hardly be believed in thus
declaring the simple truth. I must, therefore, give some fur-
ther facts. The clerks, at all these ports, and in all the offices,
are appointed according to well-known rules, from among
those who were first in the competitive examinations before the
Civil Service Commission. Xo influence can secure a clerk-
ship, 1 and no officer or politician can decide who shall com-
pete for one. The clerks are, therefore, neither politicians
by trade nor insolvents for want of ability to trade, but
young men whose character and capacity have stood a severe
1 There are a few messengers, boatmen, and porters below the grade of
clerks, who, through a curious survivorship of a fragment of the old system,
are yet nominated by the Treasury for only a pass examination. But that
examination is exacting, and when once in service, they are only removed i
for cause after an opportunity of explanation.
20
302 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
public test, and whose pkces have been gained by their
own merits. They must serve jit_Jeast six months on
probation, and then if approved they are appointed ; and
they can only be removed for cause, and after a hear-_
ing before the board. They may be fined or reduced in rank
for bad conduct. Such public servants as housekeepers, door-
keepers, watchmen, etc., have in addition to place on file
evidence both of character and of ' ' the course of life they
have led." The rules are of many years' standing which re-
quire such officers as searchers, landing waiters, and gangers
"to go under a course of instruction three months without
pay. ' ' The higher places, including collectorships, are filled
by promotions, which are based on merit ; and full and care-
ful records are kept in order that a just judgment may be
formed. The board annually inspects the administration
at each port, and a careful record of the cost and char-
acter of the administration of each is made. In the
outdoor service, where the board has less personal acquaint-
ance with the officers, ^one half of the promotions are
secured by competition among the clerks. The office of col-
lector at Liverpool, London, or other large ports is only
filled by a person who has been collector at some port where
he has supervised every branch of port service. Our practice
of placing inexperienced men at the head of even a small port
is as utterly unknown as is the practice of considering party
politics in making such appointments. Nothing can be in
wider contrast than our toleration of miscellaneous influence
for effecting appointments and promotions and the British sys-
tem which excludes them.
" It has long been the practice in the Customs to require the chief
officers of each branch to make a report in writing to the Board of
Commissioners as to the character and qualifications of the officers
coming forward for promotion, and to name the persons whom they
consider most competent and deserving. It is usual in tlie more
important cases to summon the surveyors general and inspectors
general to the board room, and take their opinions separately on the
subject. And, as a further security against improper selections, the
board is required to transmit a formal report to the Lords of the
Treasury, stating all the circumstances, and requesting their Lordships'
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 303
confirmation of the appointment. . . The circumstances of all pro-
motions stand recorded in the official books, and may be referred
to in the event of any complaint or inquiry being made into the
matter." 1
Regulations long in force contain these provisions :
" In any case in which an officer would be entitled to promotion
on his own merits, application made in his favor . . . affords
grounds for suspicion that the selection of the officer has been influ-
enced in some degree by private considerations . . . and private
applications from officers themselves, or from others, on their behalf,
addressed to individual members of the board, are interdicted ; and
the same will not only have the effect of retarding the promotion of
the parties, but subject them to the board's severe displeasure. The
board . . . will consider any private application for promotion
to have emanated from the party in whose behalf the same shall be
made . . . unless he shall satisfy the board that he had no
knowledge thereof, directly or indirectly. Beyond recording your
vote, if you shall be so entitled, you are not in any way to interfere
in the elections for members of Parliament."
These facts must be sufficient to show how radically different
are the systems prevailing in the customs service of the two
countries. Promotions constantly tendered on such conditions
would seem to be a powerful stimulant to good conduct, and
such, I am convinced, is the fact. They^ also cause those in
the service to give earnest attention to the relative merits of
each other and to the manner in which the members of the
board apply the principle of advancement to which they are
thus publicly pledged. A few facts bearing upon the disci-
pline, honesty, and efficiency of this branch of the service will
be found interesting. There has been an average number of
fifteen a year, during the past five years, dismissed from the
service for bad conduct. 2 During those five years there has
1 Civil Service Papers, p. 337, printed in 1855.
"The Board being independent of party politics, the rules as to dismissals
are rigid, and are, I think, fearlessly applied. As an illustration of the precau-
tions against abuses and perhaps of their infrequency as well, I may men-
tion that the standing instructions require that even an " anonymous com-
plaint" shall be publicly investigated on public notice, the complainant
being called on in such notice to appear ; but if he does not appear, " a sec-
ond notice is to be published," and the charge investigated, pursuant thereto.
304 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
been only a single case of defalcation in the customs service
proper, and that was for only 3 5s. But, even in this case,
a jury failed to find the officer guilty, though the board dis-
missed him. " There have been eleven cases in five years of
pilfering small quantities of goods. The government, how-
ever, finally lost nothing. During those years, there were
also two cases of defalcation in collection of money belonging
to the corporation of Trinity House, but which is collected
by the Customs Department," the amount being 4225 6s.
5d. , a part of which was lost. '
It is not for me to attempt to describe the different effects upon
public business, public morality, and political affairs a differ-
ence almost indescribable, and not easy to imagine even be-
tween such a customs system, based on personal character and
capacity, and independent of partisan politics and corrupt influ-
ence, and a system under which coercions and favor make and
unmake officers, and every custom house on the borders is the
centre of a feverish, costly and useless partisan activity, if of
nothing more pernicious. What can be more widely con-
trasted or more significant than the different methods pur-
sued, in the two countries, for the common object of selecting
that mere business officer called a collector of a port ? In the
one, he is quietly taken by the administrative board, through
a well-known process, based on merit, and without political
significance, from some lower place of duty where his public
record of efficiency and economy has brought his capacity to
the notice of his superiors. Once in office, he remains, like a
judge, during good behavior. In the other, the selection
raises an exciting contest of partisan strategy and influence,
certainly in the district, and very likely in the State, if not in
Congress and the whole nation ; with intrigues and embroil-
ments which bring all the vicious machinery of political man-
agement into action, convert every custom house clerk into a
factionist compelled to fight for his salary and his place,
absorb the activity of every grade of officials from doorkeepers
and porters to Senators and Cabinet Secretaries, disgust the
merchants and all the best citizens with the very name of
1 Letter Secretary Customs Board to the author, Dec. 11, 18T7.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 305
politics and office ; and all with the result, perhaps, of a col-
lector utterly unacquainted with his duties, but bound fast in
demoralizing pledges to remove a third of his best subordi-
nates in order to meet the promises which are likely to compel
him to be an active partisan leader, but a poor collector of a
port, during the four years or less which may intervene before
another battle of the same kind must be fought. By one
method, the selection is so made that it stimulates and honors
capacity and integrity in every grade of the service ; by the
other, such qualifications are spurned, and the nation is made
to declare its preference for political intrigue and manage-
ment to practically say to every clerk, No matter how devoted
and capable you may be, you have no chance of becoming a
collector no chance of escaping dependence upon a politician
put over you unless you become a politician yourself.
In general terms, I ought to say that public confidence in
the customs service in Great Britain in its honesty, its free-
dom from political partiality, its economy and efficiency
appears to be very nearly if not quite universal. l
The Treasury. The two great revenue divisions already
described include the bulk of the administration in the Brit-
ish Treasury Department. And this fact illustrates a very im-
portant difference between the revenue system of Great Brit-
ain and that of the United States. There, as with us, the
Treasury is, to a certain extent, a political office ; and those
at its head are expected to carry out the financial policy of the
dominant party. This duty requires a right of giving general
instructions to those legally at the head of the revenue depart-
ments, to the extent that such policy is involved ; but it is not
concerned with the discipline or the political opinions of sub-
ordinates, or with the miscellaneous details of the public work,
which needs to be the same whatever party is in power. And
on this theory, the two great Kevenue Boards I have described,
the heads of which remain unaffected by political changes in
the cabinet or in Parliament, have charge of all the offices,
officials, and the work connected with revenue collection, sub-
ject only to such instructions and to certain rights of appeal
1 Here again I refer to the letters in the appendix.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
in connection with the higher grades of promotions and a few
other issues of paramount importance. The Treasury does
not interfere with revenue officers or affairs directly, but only
by general instructions communicated through the proper rev-
enue boards. It is apparent that such an arrangement must
largely contribute to make revenue administration independent
of both local and general politics. The British system as-
sumes that it does not follow, because the head of the Treasury
is a statesman, competent to guide a national policy, that he
is at once endued with the local and personal information
needed to pass upon innumerable appeals for office and multi-
farious claims for promotion ; or that he has suddenly mas-
tered the manifold questions of skill, science, routine, and
method which it is the labor of an ordinary official life to
understand ; nor, on the other hand, does that system suggest
that it is wise to have the head of the Treasury daily besieged
by office-seekers and schemers pushing for advantage under a
vast body of complicated laws and regulations, with which he
is perhaps little familiar, and which questions of national in-
terest give him no time to study.
I have before stated that the head of the Treasury itself
is a board, which now has seven members, of which the
First Lord (or member) is Prime Minister, and the Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer is also a member, and he is generally
the leader of the ruling party in the House of Commons.
These seven members are political officers, and go out with
each administration. But there is also a permanent Sec-
retary of the Treasury who has charge of the administrative
work, and is unaffected by political changes. The clerks in
the Treasury gain their places by open, competitive examina-
tions before the Civil Service Commission. They enter at the
lowest grade ; and the higher places (except membership of
the board) are filled by promotion from below. Neither
partisan politics nor official favoritism can secure appointments
in the Treasury Department of Great Britain. And, therefore,
when Mr. Gladstone said ' that, "as to the clerkships in my
office the office of the Treasury every one of you has just as
1 In his speech to the electors of Greenwich in 1871.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 307
much power over their disposal as I have. ... In order that
the public service might be, indeed, the public service ; in
order that we might not have among the civil officers of the
State that which we had complained of in the army, namely,
that the service was not the property of the nation, but of
the officers, we have now been enabled to remove the barriers
of nomination, patronage, jobbery, favoritism, in whatever
form ; and every man belonging to the people of England, if
he so please to fit his children for competing for places in the j
public service, may do it entirely irrespective of the question,
what is his condition in life. . . ." when Mr. Gladstone
proclaimed this noble triumph of common justice and common
honesty over all that had been aristocratic, venal, and partisan
in British administration, I am convinced he not only said
what was literally true of himself, but what, in principle, was
true of every member of the Cabinet and of Parliament.
The Postal Service. It is not necessary, after what I have
said of the revenue service, to enter much into detail as to the
application of the merit system to the postal service. Its rep-
utation is familiar to all well-informed Americans. Though
legally under the control of the Postmaster-General, (who is
a member of the Cabinet, and hence a political officer,) the
postal service is practically managed by a permanent, non-
political secretary. All subordinate officers serve during
good behavior, and they can be removed only for cause. The
reason for any removal of a clerk must be stated in the rec-
ords. With reference to the appointment of postmasters and
the clerical force, the department may be considered as in four
divisions :
1. There are the very small offices in which an aggregate
sum is paid for carrying on each office, and not much scrutiny
is extended to the clerical force, if indeed there is any, pro-
vided the business is well cared for.
2. In offices larger than the last named, but with an income
not above 120 in England and 100 in Ireland and Scotland,
the clerks are nominated by the postmasters and are examined
upon a uniform method by the Civil Service Commission. 1
J I find myself unable to state that such examinations extend to all offices
of this grade, but I believe such to be the fact.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
The clerks being few in so small offices, each may be well
known to the postmaster, and the form of competition is
hardly necessary, and has not been applied. The postmas-
ters, in this class of offices, are selected by the Treasury, but
are only to be removed for cause.
3. In offices where the income is larger than the amount
last named, the postmasters are selected from the entire ser-
vice as a recognition of their efficiency. They are 'appointed
by the Postmaster-General, and are removable only for cause.
How effectually these appointments are severed from legisla-
tive dictation, is illustrated by the fact that the official notices
of the vacancy declare that applications through ' ' members of
Parliament are calculated to defeat rather than promote the
object in view," and no candidate is allowed to apply save
through his superior officer. 1 The clerks are examined as last
mentioned.
4. In the great offices of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin,
the clerks all secure their places by open, competitive exami-
nations before the Civil Service Commission.
Removals are nowhere made for political reasons, but only
for causes connected with their efficiency or character. The
Postmaster of Liverpool has held his place since 1841, and the
Q Postmaster of London his place since 1834. Careful exami-
nations are held for sorters, earners, distributors, and telegraph
operators, etc. , in the postal service.
It would require too much detail to make any adequate
comparison between British and American postal administra-
tion. But by way of illustration, I may mention that in the
city of Kew York the long experience and rare executive abil-
ity of the postmaster, 2 aided by a clerical force improved (so
far as our system would permit) by examinations and competi-
tions like those thus practised in Great Britain, have brought
the postal service to a degree of efficiency I think never
before reached in this country ; yet, as compared with that of
London, it stands as follows : London, 12 daily deliveries in a
portion of the city, 11 in other portions, and 6 in the sub-
urban districts ; New York, 7 daily deliveries in a portion of
the city, 5 in other portions, and 3 in the rest of the city ; and
1 3 Report Com. Iiiq. 1873, App. F, p. 78. a Thomas L. James, Esq.
WASHINGTON ty*
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. \ 309
the superior efficiency of the British service is, I think^
hardly more marked in London than in the other cities and in
the villages and rural districts. 1
It is well known that the money order system prevailed in
the postal service of Great Britain for a considerable time be-
fore we applied it. The telegraph system and the issuing of
revenue licenses are now a part of her postal service, and there
are also attached to it between 5000 and 6000 post-office savings
banks, which cause a complexity and responsibility in the postal
administration unknown in the United States. Over 25,000
separate deposits of money have been made in the postal banks
in a single day, and open accounts are kept with more than
1,700,000 depositors. Postal savings banks (which have
been adopted in France and Belgium, on a large scale) are
regarded as a great aid to economy and saving on the part of
the poor ; but the duties they impose, and the sending of
more than 2^,000,000 of telegraph messages and the issuing
of nearly a million of revenue licenses each year, I hardly
need say, call for rare capacity and discipline in the officers of
the postal service, and for an amount of experience and trained
skill to which our partisan system of appointments and remov-
als is fatal. I may say, generally, that the discipline is as
strict in the Post- Office Department in every particular as in
the others to which I have referred. For example, " An offi-
cer who borrows money of his subordinate or lends money to
his superior is liable to dismissal ;" and it is also a cause for
dismissal " for any letter-carrier or rural messenger to borrow
money from any person residing on his walks. ' ' In many of
the larger offices, the clerks are organized and trained as fire
brigades ; and general efficiency and discipline have been in-
creased by the supervision of medical officers in the postal
service, who report on the cause and kind of sickness, and take
care that absences for alleged ill health are not too easily ob-
tained. But it is more important to mention that every post-
1 Mr. James' competitive tests have, perhaps, raised the ability of his
force nearly or quite to that of the same number in London, but the higher
public stand xrd of administration in that city would not be satisfied with
what it is possible to do with a force of sorters and carriers so inadequate as
that allowed in New York. Mr. James is about extending open competition
to the selection of all the clerks in his office.
310 CIVIL SEEVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
/ master and deputy, and " every person employed by or under
him or them," are. prohibited l from exerting their influence
either for or against any particular candidates" (except they
may vote themselves), and from by " word, message, or writ-
ing, or .in any manner whatever, endeavoring to persuade any
elector to give or dissuade any elector from giving his vote.
Canvassing within a post office is not permitted,"
and postmasters are instructed, when permission to canvas is
requested, " to refuse it absolutely."
It is, I presume, quite .impossible to imagine the astonish-
ment with which an officer in charge of a British post-office
would receive a proposition from a partisan assessment collec-
tor to go among his clerks and make a levy of political black-
mail. There are no politics in a British post office, no parti-
san contentions over its officials, no political management
within its walls, no reliance by any party on the vote of its
clerks, or on exactions from their salaries. In the light of such
facts, we can see the significance of the words of Mr. Mun-
della, 3 when he said : "I stand before you the representative
of the largest constituency in England, and yet have not the
power to control the appointment of the lowest excise offi-
cer ;" for what he states is not only true as to excise offices,
but as to all other offices in whatever department ; and the
broad fact he meant to illustrate was not that technically he
could not appoint, but that, as a member of Parliament, he
had no opportunity to control, and that the public opinion and
administrative methods of his country would not permit him
to control any official appointment in her service.
Department of State and Consular and Diplomatic Service.
There is no other part of the public service so difficult to
bring under rigid rules, none in which so peculiar information
is required, none wherein partisan and personal favoritism is
more disgraceful and disastrous. It would, however, require
too much space to enter fully into the particulars ; but I can,
in a general way, state the methods through which the Gov-
I This part of the regulation is based on the statute Anne, chap. 10, 44,
already referred to.
II Instructions to Head Postmasters, 1873, pp. 24, 31, and 32.
1 Speech in New York city.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 311
eminent of Great Britain has pretty effectually taken these
branches of administration out of patronage and politics. The
mere exigencies of her supremacy and safety in so many
quarters of the globe where she rules, together with the
demonstrated conditions of success in that vast foreign com-
merce which is vital to her prosperity as a nation, have long
since impressed upon her statesmen, merchants, and manufac-
turers a deep sense of the paramount importance of honesty
and capacity in her consular and diplomatic service. 1 This con-
viction alone has become a powerful influence (far stronger, I
must think, than any existing in this country) in restraint of
solicitation and political pressure brought to bear on the for-
eign service. The conviction is not less general and decided
that essential efficiency in either branch cannot be attained
without much experience in the service. With such support
from public opinion, official duty is not so difficult, and de-
mands for removals are more easily resisted.
While there is a right of exception, not often applied in
practice, it is the rule and course of administration that the ,
higher places are filled from the lower 2 (perhaps with consider-
able reference to seniority of service, but) mainly with a view
of rewarding and securing merit. This is beyond question a
great stimulus to fidelity and learning in the line of duty.
Competition lias been resorted to in making selections for pro-
motions. The clerical places in the Foreign Office (corre-
sponding to that of our Secretary of State) are filled from the
best qualified on a list of persons sent by the Secretary to com-
pete together in an examination before the Civil Service Com-
missioners. It is quite easy for the Secretary to have personal
information concerning each of the small body of clerks in his
office, and the- fact that state secrets are so open to them is
1 We may note its strength, in the fact that the present, Conservative ad-
ministration has just appointed Lord Dufferin(a Liberal, and lately Governor-
General of Canada) to be Ambassador at St. Petersburg.
3 Perhaps there is sometimes too much regard for seniority, which may
have been allowed to exclude larger ability from the more important posts ;
but the Secretary is always at liberty to take the best. This is a deep and
many-sided question, I will not assume to express any opinion about, and
is not to be decided by instances, but by the general effect upon the whole
service.
312 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
hardly consistent with allowing any person not known to him
to come into that branch of the service by competition or
otherwise than on his personal information. Persons seeking
clerical places under the foreign legations, or elsewhere in the
diplomatic service, are examined in the same way, and their
examinations appear to be thorough and exacting. 1
The rules require attaches to serve in the Foreign Office six
months before going on foreign duty, and they are under pro-
bation for two years. Applicants for consular appointments
must also be examined before the Civil Service Commission ;
but the nature of the service hardly allows competition. 2
The spirit of the rules for the examination of those who
apply for consulates may be inferred from the following :
They must be able to speak French as well as English ; ' ; and
they must have a sufficient knowledge of the current lan-
guage, so far as commerce is concerned, of the port at which
they are appointed to reside, to enable them to communi-
cate directly with the authorities ;" or, in other words,
,they are not allowed to depart in a condition of ignorance that
leaves them utterly unable even to communicate understand-
ingly in regard to duties which are sent to perform. They
must " also have a sufficient knowledge of the British mercan-
tile and commercial law to enable them to deal with questions
arising between British shipowners, shipmasters, and seamen. ' '
It does not seem to be thought wise to send persons destitute
of all knowledge of the legal principles, or of the intricate
commercial codes they are to administer, to be the protectors
of the commerce and subjects of a great nation in a foreign
country. And, in addition, where it is not impracticable,
those going for the first time to a foreign consulate are re-
quired to attend three months at the Foreign Office, in order
that they may become more competent for their duties.
It does not fall within my plan to consider the great differ-
ence in the consular systems of the two countries in regard to
1 The examinations would seem to show that the knowledge required of
the history of the United States even is greater than has, sometimes at least,
been found to suffice for getting into our own service.
a In cases where the appointees are abroad or the exigency of the service
requires it, examinations may be deferred, or even dispensed with. "Where
foreign merchants are made consuls the rules of examination do not apply.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 313
fees and the payment of expenses. The English system
makes the character and capacity of its official representatives,
the great interests of its commerce, the certain protection of
its citizens, and the preservation of the national prestige and
honor, paramount objects. All the world knows the character
and capacity of the British Consular Service. And, I hardly
need add, in view of the explanations given, that political pres-
sure and personal solicitation for appointments, in the foreign
service of Great Britain, appear to be as much less than they
are in our own as the standards of her qualifications for such
service are higher than those we enforce.
Parliament. After the explanations already made, it is
hardly necessary to say that members of Parliament have,
practically, ceased to possess patronage. They must, in their
election contests, make their appeal for support on the princi-
ples of their party and their own worth as men. Officers,
places, or promotions in the public service can no more be
bartered for votes or peddled for influence. Parliamentary
patronage that prolific and degrading element, for a hundred
and fifty years one of the great curses of British politics is
substantially no more, and no one mourns its loss or denies
its corruption.
The same influences which have raised executive appoint-
ments above the corruption of Parliamentary traffic have, in
the same spirit, made themselves felt within the doors of the
two Houses. We might easily go back to the time when the
appointment of the subordinate officers and clerks of Parlia-
ment was attended with personal contests as desperate, with
management as lamentable, with a subordination of worth and
experience to partisan interests and ambition as much to be
deplored, as any which have ever been witnessed in our legis-
lative bodies. Only a faint remnant of such abuses has sur-
vived the later reforms in Great Britain. As a rule, these
clerks and officers of Parliament go on from session to session
in the orderly and satisfactory discharge of their functions,
which are in no proper sense political. They are required to
pass an examination before the Civil Service Commission,
which is sufficiently stringent to secure an order of capacity
quite beyond what a mere partisan struggle is competent to
314: CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
supply, to say nothing of the saving of time, temper, and
dignity. 1
In the House of Lords, an officer (the Clerk of Parliaments)
with a tenure, which in practice continues during good beha-
vior, selects the persons to be examined for clerkships, and in
the House of Commons the selection is made by the Libra-
rian, who holds his place by the same tenure. These clerk-
ships, I am assured by high authority, are looked upon by
members as without political significance, and the discharge of
their duties is not regarded as affected by partisan considera-
tions. The dignity of legislative functions is no longer de-
graded either by petty wrangles about readers, engrossers, and
messengers, or by general contests in the interest of local
patronage, rival factions, or ambitious leaders.
I have already so fully called attention to the demoralizing
influences which an interest, on the part of the members of
the legislature, in appointments, promotions, removals, and
salaries in executive departments, has been found to exert
upon their independence and their disposition toward reforms,
that nothing need be added in this connection. 2 If any
changes from the old system could be greater, in the relations
of members of Parliament, than those which I have already
pointed out, it would be their present, happy exemption from
the harassing and exasperating importunities of office-seekers
and demagogues, by which their predecessors had been tor-
mented during more than a century and a half. I ought to
add, as a part of the reform brought about in Parliament,
that contested election cases have been practically removed
from the forum of the party majority to the decision of the
judicial tribunals, which would seem to have caused great
relief to Parliament and great gains to justice.
It must not be understood, because my illustrations extend
no further, that the new method is confined to the great depart-
1 I may mention, by way of illustration, that the present Clerk of the
House of Commons is Sir Thomas Erskine May, the accomplished author of
the " Constitutional History of England," so often quoted in these pages ;
and also of " Democracy in Europe," with which he evidently has liberal
sympathies.
9 Questions upon the enactment of laws were continually complicated by
questions of Parliamentary patronage. Report on Civil Service, 1860.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 315
ments. On the contrary, it is in force in nearly all the execu-
tive offices. Legislative officers are the representatives of polit-
ical opinions and private interests, of whose qualifications the
people judge for themselves ; and, from the very nature of
their duties, such officers must be guided by views of politics
and theories of policy. To their selection, therefore, the
popular judgment must put the only conditions. The judges
are so few in number that it is quite practicable that every
appointment should be made upon the personal knowledge of
the executive ; and public observation, in every case of their
selection, is too great and discriminating to allow that secrecy
which elsewhere, under the old system, so facilitated the vic-
tory of favoritism and partisanship. It has been no more
needful than it is practicable, therefore, to extend the new
methods, in the legislative and judicial departments, beyond
their clerical force.
I need not enter into details, which would be tedious, con-
cerning the selections and promotions in the many subordi-
nate offices. But it should be borne in mind that national
offices and affairs are by no means as restricted in Great
Britain as in the United States. They include nearly all those
parts of civil administration which with us fall to the several
States, and a great deal which with us falls to municipalities.
The officers of some of the prisons, of the national asylums, of
the Board of Public Works (carrying on a large part of the
municipal work in London), of the Poor Law administration,
of a great part of the sanitary administration (being all that car-
ried on by the nation), of the British Museum, of the Ken-
sington Museum, of the national galleries, of the University
of London, of the Charity Commission, of the Education
Office, of the Public Record Office, of <iie Emigration
Office, of the Stationery Office, of the Board of Trade, and of
the Lighthouse and of the Life-Saving Stations, are among
those appointed, promoted, and removed under the national
civil service regulations, and on the basis of examinations and
competitions. '
It is to be noticed, however, that neither these rules nor any
1 There are a very few of these officers to whom competition, for special
reasons, does not apply.
316 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
modern reforms have in any respect centralized administration
or made it national ; but, the principles of the reform having
been found salutary in the great departments, have, for that
reason, been extended to the places mentioned, which were
before a part of the national jurisdiction. I must also add
that (although it seems a contradiction in terms to include
officers of the army and navy as a part of the " civil service")
when those in the civil service are spoken of as descriptive
of the extent of the application of examinations and compe-
tition, they must be understood as extending to admissions to
the military and naval schools (which stand at the gates of office
in the army and navy), and also as extending, with, 1 think,
some exceptions, to the officers of that part of the military
force which most nearly corresponds to our militia. From
these explanations, it must be apparent how w r ide and varied,
in Great Britain and India, is the field of official life, political
activity, and personal ambition and jealousy, which is now
dominated by the reform methods. They extend to all but a
very few of the highest places for the exercise of the appoint-
ing power of the Crown. They are supreme through almost
the whole vast range of what was, for generations, the patron-
age of the Treasury and of members of Parliament ; a patron-
age which was as much greater than that of our heads of
departments and members of Congress, as their authority
would be greater if the entire legislative and executive power
of the States was made a part of the Federal jurisdiction.
The merit system, therefore, with its tests of character and
capacity, and its claims of justice and principle against favor-
itism and partisanship, has achieved a victory over patronage
as seductive and universal has suppressed opportunities of
intrigue and c<|fruption as varied and numerous has over-
thrown a tyranny of partisan and official influence as pervading
and powerful, as would be involved in this country in a strug-
gle which should draw to itself every selfish and partisan
element all the offices and gains all the intrigue and influ-
ence all the hopes and fears of a Presidential campaign, of
Senatorial contests, and of elections for governors, united into
one grand issue dependent upon a single national vote at the
polls.
CHAPTER XXXI.
SOCIAL, MORAL, AND INTERNATIONAL BEARINGS OF THE
NEW SYSTEM.
Women brought into the public service. The social position of the Civil
Service raised. Service of the public regarded as evidence of fitness for
private service. Examinations and competitions applied by banks, cor-
porations, and business houses. How the public opinion of ^government is
affected by good administration. The character of the persons brought
into office by the old system, and by the new. What the people see
honored and rewarded in the practical working of the new system.
Its moral and educational influence. Effect on patriotism, national
prestige and prosperity. Relations of revolutionary tendencies, from
1830 to 1848, to Civil Service reform. Influence of the United States then
at its maximum. British statesmen seeking to strengthen monarchy and
exclude republicanism by good administration. Their success. The Euro-
pean view of our system. Tendency to republicanism has declined.
Character of republicanism in France. The Holy Alliance and the posi-
tion of the United States in 1815. Civil Service reform in Sweden. In
Prussia. Americans humiliated in Europe. Monarchists declare our
partisan system inherent in republicanism. Our system really favorable
to rewarding merit.
I. THERE are other effects of the new system, or at least of the
influences sustaining it, which ought not to be overlooked.
They are social and moral as well as political, and some of
them are in a sense international.
The principle that appointments should be made on the
basis of character and capacity as tested by examinations, was
utterly inconsistent with the further exclusion of women
from the public service merely by reason of their sex. And,
as a consequence in a country where women had been de-
pressed by legal restrictions and by a popular sentiment, 1 far
1 This spirit found expression as late as 1873, in a regulation of the Re-
turned Letter Office, which forbade women being entrusted to open any let-
ters with valuables. They were to be opened and the valuables taken out by
male clerks, on the presumption, apparently, that women are not by naturg
21
318 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
more unjust than have ever prevailed in the United States,
the new system gave them, on principle, that opportunity
to take part in the public work which has been in great
measure allowed them here, rather on the score of gallantry,
or by reason of calamities in the war from which they had
suffered. The number of women employed in public posi-
tions in Great Britain is steadily increasing. They may now
be seen in the exclusive charge of offices in the postal and
telegraph service, which they have won by open competition
and manage with success ; and these new opportunities of
usefulness must, I think, be counted as among the principal
causes which have helped on the great improvement in the
education and in the intellectual and benevolent activity of
women (especially of the middle classes) in Great Britain dur-
ing the last few years. 1 The marked executive ability, the
as honest as men. And the head of the office expresses great surprise that
the experiment of employing women had been " a perfect success" which
' ' completely surpassed my expectation. ' ' But the women have steadily
won their way, vindicating their honesty and showing there is no need of
matrons. So great was the distrust and hostility on the first employment of
women, that the men were " jealous" of the innovation, and it was thought
necessary to employ " a matron" to take special charge of the female clerks.
Report C. S. Inq. Com., 1873-5, Vol. I., p. 146.
1 In view of the great and manifest advantages to women of having a
means of access to such kinds of public employment as are appropriate for
them, far removed from the dirty highway of partisan politics, and in all par-
ticulars compatible with their modesty and self-respect, it seems almost in-
credible that any sane women, however eccentric, should be found justify-
ing the spoils system on principle, after men, who by reason of some knowl-
edge of politics are more discreet, have prudently abandoned all attempts at
such justification. But it is a curious fact that an abnormal class of women
seem to have been the last to practise the abuses of a system which they
may as consistently, perhaps, be the last to defend. History has preserved
the name of Miss Alice Ferrers as among the foremost in political corrup-
tion in the thirteenth century, and she seems to have been as bold and suc-
cessful as Mrs. Jenks. The shameful part acted in court politics by a class
of women under the Stuart princes is familiar history. "Walpole," says
Mr. Bagehot, " declared he would pay no attention to the Queen's daugh-
ters" (those "girls," as he called them), " but would rely exclusively on
Madame de Walmoden, the King's mistress." The Duchess of Kendall
under George I., Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Gary under George III., the Marchio-
ness of Conyngham under George IV., appear to have been among the last to
practise the forms of political corruption for which they were notorious.
Mr. Bagehot quotes a writer under George IV. as saying, " The King is in
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN'. 319
the fidelity and decorum illustrated in the official conduct of
women, not merely in the local offices and central depart-
ments, but in the London School Board and in many posi-
tions of high responsibility, have done much to change an
unjust public opinion and to utilize, for the benefit of society,
the capacity and moral worth of the female sex, which that opin-
ion had before so largely excluded from opportunities of use-
fulness. The memorable work of Florence Nightingale in the
Crimea was as much a duty of public administration as of
Christianity as much in the interest of economy as of hu-
manity and, in the schools, in the poor law boards, in the-
prisons, in the public asylums and hospitals, in sanitary admin-
istration, and in many other ways, the beneficent results of
the new opportunities opened to women have been felt.
While, for reasons sufficiently indicated, we may well fear
that the honor and dignity of office in the abstract, and the
respect in which the people hold their public servants, have
been falling during the last forty years in the United States,
it would seem to have been quite otherwise in Great Britain. '
We have seen that it has been little more than a century since
our favor, and, what is more to the purpose, the Marchioness of Conyngham
is so too. " But such instances, 1 am persuaded, only show the extravagances
of exceptional characters wheu out of their sphere, and are in wide contrast
with the almost universal feeling and recognized interest of the sex on the
subject of civil service reform. I cannot think that the many gifted and
well-instructed women who, to the great advantage of society and of them-
selves, are more and more turning their attention to the moral and social prob-
lems of the day, will long omit to bring their powerful influence to bear in
behalf of a system which stimulates and rewards virtue and education on
the part of their children, and opens to women a respectable and honor-
able way of reaching the public service ; while it repudiates those coarse and
corrupt methods in politics from which so many worthy women suffer, and
which every true woman abhors. But even exceptional and unfortunate
women ought to welcome the new system, which has opened to them a new
way of hope and consolation. For, of the first trial of examinations and
competitions for school teachers, it is said "that the females have been so
far advanced in mental power and influence as to have been lost to the ser-
vice by matrimonial engagements obtained with exceeding rapidity. To
avoid these losses, plainer candidates were selected for training, but they
too have attained preferences as wives to a perplexing extent." Civil Ser-
vice Papers, p. 139.
1 For facts bearing on these points, see Appendices A and B.
320 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
the subordinates in her civil service were without legal recog-
nition the mere hirelings of superior officers and, until a
very recent period, they appear to have had comparatively little
social consideration or self-respect. And how could it be other-
wise, when the consciousness of servility and dependence, and
the scandalous repute of patronage and favoritism, through
which places in the public service were gained, were at once a
humiliation and a taint ? But as soon as those places became
the rewards of personal merit, so that an official position was,
in itself, evidence of good reputation and good capacity of
, attainments that had not been surpassed in an open compe-
tition of a character that could not be impeached by a rival
in a public contest it was natural that the estimation of the
civil service should rise with its real worth. There was no
longer any reason why its members should not take rank
with the officers of the army and navy in sharing the social
honors of the people. And such appears to be now the fact
in Great Britain. 1 With a manly pride, an officer in that
service, whether at home or abroad, sends his card, with
the words, " Of Tier Majesty's Civil Service," upon its face,
with a certainty that, everywhere among his own countrymen,
and in every quarter of the globe where the reputation of that
service is known, it will be at once accepted as a certificate of
character and an aid to social attention. The same thins:,
O '
and for like reasons, may be said of our officers of the
army and navy ; and I know of no single fact that so strik-
ingly and so painfully marks that silent but severe, popular
judgment, according to which the methods of gaining the
official places of peace and industry consign those who fill them
to an inferior rank in the scale of social life. How long
would officers of our army or navy hold their social prestige
or retain their claims upon public confidence, if they reached
their positions through methods as partisan and as regardless
of capacity and attainments as those which have secured most
of the places in our civil service ? To give to the civil officers
of the nation, of corresponding grade, a social rank equal to
that of officers in the army or the navy a rank which, if
1 See, on these points, the letter of Sir Charles Trevelyan, in Appendix A.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 321
selected by means considered equally pure and honorable,
they would surely take involves the whole problem of civil
service reform ; and in the discrimination now made we may
see both the proof and the measure of the public estimate of
corruption in our politics.
In 1854, an English officer of great experience used this
language : " I am assured that the fact of previous service in the
government offices has, in reality, operated as a powerful objec-
tion to candidates for employment in commercial houses. . . .
It would be practicable to re verse the present general condition
of the civil service, and to make the fact of service in a public
office a recommendation not only for any social standing, . . .
but for efficiency." ' And after six years' experience of com-
petition, another officer made this prediction : "I have no
doubt that private persons will find it for their interest by and
by to institute competitions of this kind in order that they may
get the best clerks ; indeed, very large numbers of public and
private persons, merchants, bankers, directors of railroads, and
managers of public companies, have signed a declaration ap-
proving of the scheme of examination. . . ," a
These anticipations have already been fully realized.
Not only has the government been much troubled by reason
of private persons and corporations endeavoring to get
away the superior men and women which the new system
has brought into the public service, but the Civil Service
Commission has been compelled to refuse the applications
of persons who for private ends have sought the honor and
advantage of an examination before it. Nor is this all ; for
large corporations, whose employes are too numerous for in-
telligent, personal selection, have adopted the methods of ex-
amination and competition, which the success of the govern-
ment has commended to their attention.
For example, the great London printing house of Spottis-
woode instituted examinations 3 for its clerks as early as 1854.
The Bank of England has not only established a system of ex-
aminations for clerkships, but it has found its advantage in a
'- Civil Service Papers, 1854, p. 138.
s Report on Civil Service Appointment, 1839, p. 288.
1 Civil Service Papers, p. 14.
322 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
gradual increase of salary and in a superannuation allowance
on retirement, according to fixed regulations, in close analogy
to those which prevail in the public service. The Railway
Clearing House, employing nearly fifteen hundred clerks, has
examinations for their admission (so rigid that sometimes
fourteen out of fifteen applicants have been rejected at a sin-
gle trial) and a system of competition for promotion to the higher
grades ; and to these it has added a superannuation fund and
a savings bank, in aid of both economy and efficiency in its
clerical force. The London and Westminster Bank, employ-
ing about four hundred and fifty clerks, has adopted competi-
tion for admission to its employment ; and, abandoning favorit-
ism, it has also established a regular system of promotion
for merit ; and, like many other great establishments, it has
found its profit in graded salaries and retiring allowances. l
II. The silent effect of administration, everywhere carried
on before the eyes of the people, by officers who have secured
their positions by reason of personal worth, tested by open
and honorable means, is, I am persuaded, both great and
salutary. Into whatever offices you may enter, whether
they be those of the light-house or life-saving stations along
the shores, of the custom-house service in the commercial
cities, of the postal or inland revenue administration anywhere
in the interior, of the vast departments of London or of India
you do not find servile officers and clerks who have gained
their places either by the influence of members of Parliament
or by the importunity of great politicians, but men of self-
reliance, who have succeeded, through public competitions, in
which they established the highest capacity and character.
And for these reasons they are no man's men no party's
agents no officer's dependents but self-respecting, competent
public servants, standing on their, own worth, taking an honest
pride in their record, and commanding the respect of their fel-
lows and of the community. It is only necessary to compare the
social and political elements thus brought into the public service,
with those which find representation there under a system of
spoils and favoritism, in order to get a clear view of the
1 See First Rep. of Civil Service Inq. Com., 1875, pp. 179 to 181, 204
and 205, and 230 to 232.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 323
very different effects which the two methods exert upon
political action and public morality. Even under that vicious
system, there are unquestionably many worthy persons appoint-
ed, and they are, of course, indispensable ; but how great a por-
tion of all to be met, in passing through public offices, filled
under that system, have reached their places for reasons or by
means that would not bear publicity ? Here are those whose pres-
ence marks the corrupt victory of a local faction or the vicious
influence of unscrupulous party managers ; there are the men
whose appointments prevented an exposure by a great officer or
hushed the just complaints about a local office ; at these desks are
the men who did immoral work in the last election, and at those
the men who are expected to do such work in the next election ;
this man's fraud gave one member his seat, and the appoint-
ment of that incompetent clerk secured from another mem-
ber his vote ; in this bureau is the bankrupt cousin of a
governor, and in that the unworthy dependent of a sec-
retary. The natural influences from such examples in the
great departments pervade every part of the country, and
are felt in every political meeting and at every family fireside,
moulding the common opinion of politics, tainting the air in
official places, lowering the popular estimate of public life,
degrading government in the eyes of the people. The old
spoils system, which Great Britain has destroyed, said to young
men seeking office : " Politics is a game of intrigue and
influence ; court the great politicians who can force your
nomination ; be submissive to corrupt officials and excuse
their sins ; attack no popular abuse which may deprive you of
influence." The new system says to him: " Official life is
a place of duty and responsibility ; preserve a character so
pure that no rival can 'attack it if you compete with him ;
make yourself so well informed that you cannot be defeated
in the examinations ; stand manfully for principles and fear not
to expose abuses ; condemn all intrigue and manipulation for
deceiving or coercing the people. ' '
I am convinced that the salutary effect of the new system
has been felt not only in every part of the empire, but in
every grade of life. Mr. !May declares that the authority of the
crown, formerly wielded haughtily as a power, is now " held
324 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
in trust as it were for the benefit of the people. " Every place
which the son of a farmer or sailor has been able to win
.
through competition, has been lost both to the arbitrary dis-
cretion of the crown and to the class interest of the no-
bility ; and it has not the less been taken from the vicious
capital of the demagogues and the pawnbrokers of politics
from the prizes to be won by manipulation, intrigue, and cor-
ruption. " I am not indifferent" (says a distinguished leader
of the British Parliament) " to the consideration that these
offices have become the patrimony of the poorer part of the
middle class, or even perhaps of the working class. " ' "I
consider that public office is a solemn trust, and that one of
the most important conditions is to choose the best possible
men for the different places. ' ' a
Such is the spirit of the new power in British politics,
and the tendency of the reform, which the people support
with a genuine enthusiasm. The consequences have been not
merely that royal and aristocratic authority, as well as in-
trigue and venal influence, have been limited ; that educa-
tion has been encouraged ; that common justice has been pro-
moted ; that partisan tyranny has been arrested ; that cor-
\ rupt elements have been taken out of elections ; 3 but govern-
ment itself has been presented to the people as having a purer
character and nobler ends as based on principles and recog-
nizing duties, and not merely as a merciless and selfish power
always yielding to the greater influence, however vicious, and
forever ready to turn to advantage the services' of agents,
however corrupt. The people are enabled to see the govern-
ment everywhere seeking and honoring the best capacity and
character among them, everywhere repudiating servility and
manipulation, everywhere defeating * partisan intrigue and
official prostitution, everywhere affirming that fidelity to prin-
ciples and to public interests is an obligation paramount to all
the selfish claims of individuals and of parties. They take
notice that skilful methods have been elaborated, and that they
are carefully applied, for the purpose of separating the worthy
1 Evicl. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Parlia. Report, 1873-4, p. 231.
- Report Investigation Committee, 1874-5, Vol. II., p. 103.
3 See Letters of John Bright and Sir Charles Trevelyan, Appendix A.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 325
from the unworthy, among the thousands who press for places
under the government. They find that if their sons or their
daughters would gain public places, what is most essential is not
that they should be servile to great officials, or great lords, or
great partisan managers, but that their pri7ate lives should be so
unspotted that they cannot be assailed by rivals, and that their
attainments should be so respectable that they cannot be
thrown out in competition. They see in the great army of
sixty thousand civil servants, not a body of men and women,
the greater portion of whom high officials and political cliques
have pushed into their places for ends of their own, and
whose stay there depends more on their servility than on their
merits, but they see a body, each member of which secured
his place through personal qualities which are as honorable
to their possessor as they are useful to the nation. They
take notice that the new system which, by making elections
turn on principles and not on patronage, invites worthy men
not seeking office to take part in politics has, at the same
time, removed the larger part of these elements which most
attract the vicious and the corrupt, and most disgust the pure
and the patriotic. In short, they see the vast machinery of
government itself the most potent of all human influences
for raising or lowering the character and prosperity of a na-
tion no longer, as formerly, a prolific source of fraud and
immorality no longer in alliance with the most venal ele-
ments of politics ; but a mighty force in the interest of edu-
cation, justice, and public virtue a discriminating power
that embodies and appeals to the higher intelligence and the
nobler sentiments of the nation. Such an influence and ex-
ample, when continued for a considerable period in Great
Britain, will, 1 am persuaded, disclose beneficent conse-
quences of which the whole civilized world will take yet more
emphatic notice. The rapid growth of her prestige and com-
merce, and the great capacity for government displayed by
her within recent years in so many parts of the world, are,
I am compelled to believe, closely connected with the charac-
ter of her consular l and diplomatic service, and are by no
1 For a comparison between American and British consular service, see
Appendices A and B.
326 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
means independent of the worth and capacity that pervade
every part, and not in the least degree the higher part, of her
domestic administration. Ability and experience in the lower
official grades invite and can be controlled only by ability and
experience in the higher grades. The public service, instead
of being longer a source of corruption, which flows out upon
private life, has become a sphere of manly and conservative
virtues which are a strength to the State and an inspiration
to patriotism. And, how else can we explain the anomaly
that, through all these later years, in which views and methods,
thus wholly democratic and republican in their tendency,
have been rapidly growing before the eyes of the British
people, the old spirit of loyalty to the crown fervent devo-
tion to the constitution an honest and pervading belief that
no system of administration is so pure, so efficient, or so abid-
ing as the British system and a sturdy purpose to maintain
and defend them all have survived with a vigor and a uni-
versality unsurpassed in the national sentiment of modern
times ? How else, but upon the merits of her administrative
methods, and the capacity and integrity of her officials, of all
grades, in her many dependencies, and under such diverse
conditions, can we explain the unrivalled growth of the power
and influence of Great Britain ? And can any one doubt, if
the old system of George III. or any system of partisan spoils
and official favoritism had been continued, that British patriot-
ism and loyalty would have decayed, that India would have
been lost, that the Constitution would have fallen into uni-
versal weakness and decay, or that despotism would have
triumphed over liberty and law ?
III. It is worthy of notice that the broader effects of the
reform, which, transcending all mere questions of economy and
internal method, have deepened the fountains of patriotism
and made monarchy itself dearer to the British people, were
not wholly unanticipated at the opening of the great work in
1853 ; nor was that work began merely to remove adminis-
trative abuses ; but it was expected to strengthen the very bul-
warks of the government and to aid in averting the grave
perils which, between 1830 and 1848, had threatened the
thrones of all the leading nations of Europe. Sir Charles
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 327
Trevelyan (who with the present Chancellor of the Exchequer 1
first set forth the merit system in their celebrated report of
1853) puts the sense of peril very clearly when he says, " the
revoluntionary period of 1848 gave us a shake and created a
disposition to put our house in order^ and one of the conse-
quences was a remarkable series of investigations into public
offices which lasted for five years, culminating in the .
report. ' ' Speaking for a different class of society, at about
the same date, Matthew Arnold says : " The growing power
in Europe is democracy. . . . Our society is destined to be-
come much more democratic. . . . The time has arrived when
it is becoming impossible for the aristocracy of England to
conduct and wield the English nation any longer."
Before 1848, the constitutional system of the United States
and its administration had probably reached the maximum of
their effect in Europe in favor of republican institutions. Until
near that date, our administration had generally been worthy
of our principles ; and the savage partisanship and official
corruption with which we were then first becoming familiar
and which marked the extent of our fall from that high
standard which European statesmen had recognized in our
public affairs were little known in Europe ; so that our polit-
ical system had no drawbacks, and stood commended in for-
eign countries by the great attractions of equality, liberty, and
justice upon which it rests. That influence was then pervad-
ing and considerable in every enlightened community on the
continent ; and in the profession of republican principles at the
great centers of thought, and in revolution or in tendencies to
revolution in many quarters, was to be seen the measure of its
peril to feudal institutions and arbitrary government. If the
"shake" which such fears of disturbance gave in England
was less violent, it was not less significant, than on the conti-
nent. Between 1840 and 1848 many monster meetings were
held in Great Britain, by which the public peace was threat-
ened and serious anxiety was caused. Responding to anned
revolution on the continent for popular rights in 1848, the
1 Sir Stafford Northcote. * Civil Service Inq., 1873., Vol. II., p. 100.
3 Mixed Essays, pp. 7, 14 aud 27.
c
328 CIVIL SEKVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
" Chartists" organizations and other republican sympathizers,
with their demand of "universal suffrage, the ballot and
annual parliaments," alarmed all England by their lawless
and revolutionary action. A petition, said to bear the signa-
tures of five millions of people, was backed by such a host,
resolved to attend its presentation to Parliament, that 170,000
special constables, to aid an army with artillery, were sworn
in for keeping the peace of London. It was under such a
state of affairs that British statesmen, sustained by the better
public sentiment, carried forward five years of investigations
into the methods of government, with a view of " putting
their house in order." A peril was upon the nation, and
thoughtful men felt its gravity. " On what action may we
rely to prevent the English people from becoming American-
ized ? . . . I answer on the action of the state. ' . . . They
could not radically change the British constitution. But
they could make reforms that would ensure pure, eco-
nomical, and efficient administration. They could suggest
to the crown, and they could compel the members of Par-
liament, to surrender their power of making partisan and
selfish nominations. They could by honest and equitable
methods open the public service to the whole body of the
people, so that the most deserving should get the offices.
They could, perhaps, thus, under the forms of a monarchy,
secure to the people nearly all the practical blessings which a
real republic could promise. In this way they could, per-
chance, be more republican than the great republic itself ;
and through such means present monarchy to the people as
enforcing the highest possible standard of official duty as
having more regard for equality, liberty of opinion, and re-
spectability of private character, than a republic had ever ex-
hibited. What, therefore, was, in form, only a salutary
method of administration, was in intention, and in broad effect,
a conservative force in government a barrier against republic-
anism by actually conferring blessings which republics had
given only in theory an antidote against revolutions by put-
ting in practice the equality and justice which revolutions
1 Bagehot's English Constitution, p. 23.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 320
demanded. " The salutary reforms of this active period
averted revolution. 1
It is interesting to note how soon after 1848 the sad effects
of our then recently developed, partisan system were present-
ed before Europe. In a volume published by the British
Government in 1855 (which quotes continental authority for
its statements), the very worst abuses of British administration
are said to have " the prominent features of the general as well
as local administration of the United States. These features
are : absence of any special qualifications for any administra-
tive service unless it be that of subserviency ... re-
movability . . . upon every change of party, . . .
an increasing distaste to public office, and the consequent ex-
clusion from it of the most accomplished persons in society ;
the lowering of the efficiency and the respectability of public
administration ; the retardation of its progress relatively to the
general progress of society ; and a tendency to increasing cor-
ruption concurrently with increased party feeling. " "The
whole issue is based on a single election on the choice of a
president. . . . The managers of the contest have the greatest
possible facility for using what I may call patronage bribery,
. . . and the efficiency of promised offices as a means of cor-
ruption, is augmented, because the victor can give what he
likes to whom he likes." 3
Such is the character of our administrative methods as they
have been understood by the reading people of Europe for a
quarter of a century. While Great Britain (accompanied by
all the leading European States, as I shall more fully explain)
has been carrying forward administrative reform, in a truly
republican spirit, and we have fallen from the better prece-
dents of our history down upon the partisan spoils system of
her less civilized times, can it be any matter of surprise that
this country that republican institutions as we represent
them among the nations have lost a great part of their in-
fluence as an example ? Is it strange that republicanism has, on
the other side of the water, become, to a sad degree, iden-
1 Democracy in Europe, by May, vol. ii. p. 495.
9 Civil Service Papers, p. 150-2.
3 Bagehot's English Constitution, 1873, p. 264.
330 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN".
tified with extreme partisanship, a low standard of official
capacity and integrity, perpetual agitation about petty offices,
and management and manipulation, where statesmanship is
essential V It is Mr. May's judgment that there is far less
republicanism and democracy in England (and such, I believe,
is the general opinion among the best informed) than there
was thirty-five years ago. 2 " Freedom and good government,
a generous policy, and the devotion of rulers to the welfare of
the people have been met with general confidence, loyalty,
and contentment. . . . The constitution . . . has'
gained on democracy. ' ' The United States is judged as a
nation not so much by the noble principles of its constitution
as by the measure of purity, economy, and capacity to be
found in its official life, and by the style of men who fill those
high places where experienced statesmen and unselfish patriots
are needed.
' ' Outside of Switzerland or France 4 there can hardly be
1 See Appendix B for considerations bearing on these points.
2 The advance of democracy referred to relates rather to its tendency to
attack the monarchical form of government, than to the spirit and principles
of democracy itself ; for they have advanced continually, and in no way
more strikingly, than in the reformed methods in the civil service, which
have been explained in this volume.
8 2 May's Const. Hist., p. 576.
4 The great republican principles of equality, liberty and justice have not,
of course, lost their attraction ; and in establishing them, France has not
.adopted our partisan system, but retains the admirable administrative meth-
ods which, based on examinations and not allowing arbitrary removals, have
aided her in so many fearful crises. In the profound changes lately brought
about, but few removals have been made, and those only in cases where
vital principles were involved less in all, probably, than the number
we should make upon a change in the party majority, upon the election
of a mayor in a city of 50,000 people. Had the republican leaders of France
understood that a change to a republic would involve the substitution of our
partisan-spoils system for her merit system, I venture to think France would
not have become even in form a republic. And it is not without signifi-
cance that the relation of her cabinet to parties, to Parliament, and to the
civil service, is more analogous to that of Great Britain than to that of the
United States. Indeed, English writers seem to claim the new French
regime as a reflection of the British system : " The Premier, as we should
call him," is nominated and removed by the vote of the National Assembly ;
the experiment of government in France, the position of M. Thiers, is " sin-
gularly illustrative of the English Constitution." (Bagehot's English Con-
stitution, p. 45.) The example of France, in becoming a republic, is all
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 331
said to be, in any country of Europe, a strong popular move-
ment towards a republic, . . . and, unhappily, the
United States have utterly lost, in Europe, that influence for
republican institutions which was so potent in the first half of
the century." ' And while partisan and corrupt administration
has so damaged us abroad, are we sure it has been less destruc-
tive of patriotism and confidence at home ? 2 What, but the
too frequent elections and the corrupt administration which a
partisan system produces and requires, has raised the ominous
question " Whether popular suffrage is a failure ?" What, if
not the perpetual struggle for patronage and the absorption of
the valuable time of Congress and of legislatures required by
the great affairs of the States and the nation in demoralizing
wrangles over clerkships, postmasterships, collectorships, and
the many petty offices, has done so much to impair the just and
ancient prestige of our legislative bodies ? What is it, forever
before our eyes as most humiliating and disastrous in our
public life, but those bargains, intrigues, prostitutions and
frauds in connection with getting office and holding office,
which we have seen that a merit system is able to correct ?
Is it because liberty and equality are less prized by the people
as their intelligence rises because the great principles of our
constitution are distrusted the more they are known that
republicanism as we practise it has lost ground in Europe ?
Or is it by reason of a bad system of administration, which,
in perfect harmony with those principles, we are at liberty
to reform ?
IV. In 1815, when the leading sovereigns of Europe, in
the more instructive and encouraging, because she has become such
through a conviction of the beneficence of republican principles, and
not through the seductions of a partisan-spoils system of office ; and,
perhaps, it is a part of her mission to teach the United States, from
which those principles were borrowed, how they may be applied in prac-
tical affairs, without being soiled and enfeebled by the corruptions of that
base system which France has spurned. For some facts bearing on the
Merit System, as enforced in France, especially in her consular service, see
Appendix B.
1 Prin&ton Review, May, 1878, p. 737.
3 For facts bearing on these points, see Appendix B, and John Bright's
letter in Appendix A.
332 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIX.
the "Holy Alliance," declared themselves " delegated by
Providence to govern," and that they "looked upon them-
selves, with regard to their subjects and their armies, as
fathers of a family, ' ' Great Britain which alone declined to
join was the only leading monarchy in which the people had
an effective voice in the government ; and of the secondary
class of monarchies, Sweden in which for more than a cen-
tury ability to read and write had been a condition of the fall
privileges of citizenship was the only one in which there was
a constitutional government, giving a representation of popu-
lar interests. Since that date, the old theory of a divine right
to rule absolutism and clerical domination the supremacy of
class interests and the monopoly of official places by those of
noble birth have yielded to the claim of equal rights, and to
the paramount need of capacity and moral worth in the ser-
vice of the government ; but in this advance of justice and
liberty, Great Britain and, in some degree, Sweden have
maintained their old precedence. And it is interesting to
find that in Sweden the reform of the civil service though
not sufficiently excluding opportunities of bureaucratic
and aristocratic influence, perhaps has been attended by
results closely analogous to those of which we have taken
notice in Great Britain. I have already alluded to the fact
that the principal continental states, including Sweden, have
greatly reformed their civil service in later years, 1 but some
further facts more especially relating to Sweden (and Norway
being under the same king) will not be without interest. 2
That government, many years ago, provided for the examina-
tion of candidates for office. The standard of attainment,
which (like that first fixed in the British service) somewhat
reflects the influence of an aristocratic class, appears to be
higher than in Great Britain, and may perhaps be fairly
objected to as tending to give a needless monopoly to highly
educated persons. As the democratic spirit shall gain
strength, the standard will doubtless be lowered, in the
1 See ante p. 10.
3 The facts are to be found in a letter of Mr. Andrews, our Minister to
Sweden, dated October 11, 1876, and in " Foreign Relations United States,
1876," p. 553-563.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN'. 333
interest of humble life, so as to include only the qualifications
essential to the public service. The king has patriotically sur-
rendered his arbitrary right of appointment, for the sake of
obtaining the worthiest men for the service of the state. And,
without interference from the members of the legislature, he
uses the appointing power for selecting the best from among
those examined. The severe tests of character and capac-
ity for admissions gives the service a social rank which makes
it attractive and honorable. The tenure of ofiice is much the
same as in Great Britain, and there is an analogous system
providing for an increase of pay based on length of service and
for retiring allowances. And Mr. Andrews says : " There is
no doubt but the high respectability and rank of the civil
service in Sweden tend much to induce people to enter it."
He thinks this has been sometimes allowed to draw in super-
numeraries ; and it, of course, causes places to be accepted at
a lower grade of salary than would attract young men into a
disreputable service. " For a member of the legislative
branch of the government, as such, to recommned or urge the
appointment of persons in the civil service would be consid-
ered intrusive, and would have no weight, certainly, in ex-
cluding a more 'meritorious officer. Anything like patronage
does not obtain. . . . While the subordinates have the free
enjoyment of their political convictions and can express their
opinions and vote against the government, it is never their
practice to seek to propagate the political views of the gov-
ernment among the people. . . . Such attempt, whether for
or against the government, would probably excite the same
feeling that would be excited in our country if an officer of
the regular army or of the navy should undertake to play the
party politician. It is, therefore, considered, here, rather of
slight importance to the government whether civil service men
are included among its political supporters or not." And
here, therefore, as in Great Britain, we are shown that, if the
government will not compel its officers to fight, in every cam-
paign, for their places, they will not interfere with the free-
dom of elections or waste their time on partisan politics. The
abuses we suffer in those regards are the legitimate outcome of
our partisan and demoralizing methods. Coming to the effects
22
33-i CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN".
of this system upon the moral tone of official life and the
safety of the public moneys, Mr. Andrews shows that defalca-
tions are extremely rare ; " only about four cases of defalca-
tion a year on an average ;" and that the government almost
never lose any money. "It is very seldom that a subordinate
officer is ... even charged with lesser misdemeanors, notwith-
standing the Rigsdag appoints and pays its own special Attor-
ney-General (under the constitution) to see that persons in the
public service fulfil their duties, and to accuse them before
the courts of justice if they fail to do so." It hardly need be
pointed out how widely different is the attitude of the mem-
bers of the Swedish, from that of the members of the American
Congress toward efficiency and integrity in official life. In
the one case, their power and influence are used to push per-
sonal and partisan favorites into the public service, and to keep
them there ; in the other, no such selfish and demoralizing
use of authority stands in the way of justice to the public
interests ; but, on the contrary, a special officer of the legislature
has a duty to prosecute in its behalf every unfaithful servant ;
and there is neither any party nor patron pledged or spe-
cially interested to screen the guilty. With such a system,
we see how natural it is that defaults should so rarely occur,
and are prepared for the stern dealing with official delin-
quents of which Mr. Andrews gives examples. One of the
latest is that of a whole board of directors of a charity institu-
tion at Stockholm " all prominent citizens" sentenced to
pay thirty thousand crowns, the amount lost " for lack of
proper watchfulness" in the custody of a key ; each of two
directors having, "without wrong intention," left his key
with the same third officer, during an absence from the city,
who by the use of the three keys was able to embezzle that
amount of money.
It would take me too far from my subject to separately
point out how, in all the more enlightened European states,
since 1815, and more especially during the last generation, the
old claims of royalty and aristocracy, of church and class inter-
ests, of favoritism and patronage, the social prestige of cen-
turies, and the old theory of government itself, have yielded
to the paramount need of high character and capacity in the
public service, and to the just and equal right of each citizen,
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN". 335
according to his fitness, and irrespective of his birth or party
affiliations, to tender his claim upon that service and have its
merits impartially considered. And it is worthy of notice
that on the continent, as in Great Britain, improvements in
the civil service have everywhere been attended with a great
advance in popular education, and in legislation for the pro-
tection of humble life ; so that several of the more enlightened
monarchies now enforce a more general attendance and pro-
vide for and secure a more thorough instruction in the public
schools than has yet been attained in the United States. The
statistics are too familiar to be repeated ; but the concrete
significance of the main fact cannot be too much insisted on
the great fact that the leading monarchies have, in this gen-
eration, made the common education of the people, ir. the
interest of patriotism, justice, and general prosperity, more
beneficent and universal than it has ever yet been in any
republic except Switzerland.
Y. I can refer to only a single other example of improved
civil administration on the continent that of Prussia. Ref-
erence has been made to the civil service system of France, as
embodying the better methods ; but the capacity of her mili -
tary officers in later years had not been properly attended to.
The opinion has been general that the superior capacity of
the military officers of their enemy caused the defeat of Austria
and France in the late wars with Prussia ; but careful ob-
servers also tell us that " Prussia, whose soil and physical
resources are third rate in quality as compared with those of
the United States, while in magnitude they bear but slight
comparison with ours, owes it very much to the high order of
efficiency which has been introduced into her civil service,
that she has risen to be one of the first powers in the world."
Another competent observer says, " Our civil service should
be above temptation and beyond suspicion. Prussia has such
a service. The pay is, indeed, not large ; but it is graduated
on the economical habits of the people. The service is hon-
orable, and brings certain social consideration ; it admits of
promotion as the reward of merit, and it ensures a pension for
the decline of life." 2
1 " Foreign Relations of the United States, 1876," p. 553.
8 " The United States as a Nation," by Rev. J. P. Thompson, 1877. p. 261.
336 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
In a government in which so strong elements of aristocracy
and royalty survive as in Prussia, we are not surprised to ob-
serve that a phase of bureaucracy and a tendency to favor high,
literary attainments find expression in the examinations and
perhaps in the selections for the civil service ; but despite this
lingering of the old spirit, which may yet do some injustice
tojhumble life, the service is lifted high above the corruptions
and intrigues of partisan politics, and men of capacity and
moral worth everywhere stand in the official places of the
nation, and were the leaders in the great events which have
given Germany the first place on the continent.
If considered in the light of the past, the example of Prussia,
as an illustration of the effects of educating the people and of
bringing the most meritorious of them rather than mere
partisans and schemers into official leadership, is all the more
significant. The United States were conspicuous among the
nations, not only for the general intelligence of their citizens, but
for a pure and able civil service, and for a common-school system
in the interest of all their children, when, in 1815, Prussia, far
behind in the education of her people with a great part of
them in a condition hardly above serfdom was a blind and arro-
gant champion of the ' ' Holy Alliance, ' ' of the divine right of
kings and despotic administration, with as little regard for the
education as for the equal rights of her subjects. But the
sober reflections caused by her humiliation by Kapoleon de-
veloped in the minds of her rulers a new political philosophy ;
and her king, or the great statesman Stein, who spoke
through the king, avowed his purpose to " rehabilitate the
nation by devoting the most earnest attention to the education
of the masses of my people." That work was promptly
undertaken and has been firmly pursued ; and the great
results are well known : perhaps the best educated people in
the world a foremost place in science, art, and letters the
military leadership of the continent a civil administration
of unsurpassed purity and ability. 1 Stein, like William III.
1 It is not my purpose to commend the Prussian Government as a model
of justice or wisdom, and in various particulars it exhibits not a little of the
old spirit. But it has been the beneficent methods referred to which have
produced so great results, despite all drawbacks that have existed.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 337
(of England), was the first, under the government he had in
charge, to appreciate the vital importance of good methods in
administration ; and each of them gave the subject a promi-
nence which in later years it has never lost. The German states-
man secured the gratitude, and, in large measure, the great-
ness, of his country by three great measures of administrative
reform the reorganization of the army, improved municipal
government, and the " constitution of the Supreme adminis-
trative departments" and by his emancipation of the serfs.
It has been by such means by surrendering the monopoly of
office, which had been supposed to be essential to the exist-
ence of a crown and a privileged class by educating the com-
mon people, which had been claimed to be the peculiar virtue
of a republic by freely bringing into the official places of the
nation capacity and moral worth wherever found among the
people by legislating kindly for their protection that royal
and aristocratic governments have in large measure averted
the hostility that threatened them, and, at the end of two
generations of great advance in liberty and justice, find them-
selves, perhaps, stronger in the confidence and patriotism of
their subjects than they were in the beginning. In 1833 we
find Mr. Macaulay saying, " I see nothing before us but a
frantic conflict between extreme opinions, ... a tremendous
crash of the funds, the church, the peerage, and the throne.
It is enough to make the most strenuous royalist lean a little
to republicanism to think that the whole question between
safety and general destruction may probably . . . depend on
a single man, whom the accident of his birth has placed in a
situation to which certainly his own virtues or abilities would
never have raised him ;" and he even predicted that the
House of Peers Would soon have to give place to an elective
chamber. 1 I think it may be safely said that no Englishman of
Macaulay's character at this time leans even " a little toward
republicanism ;" but, on the contrary, there are Americans
who, disgusted by the magnitude and frequency of our admin-
istrative abuses, and not comprehending that they are only a
neglected excrescence upon the abiding virtues of republican
1 " Life and Letters of Macaulay," chaps, v. and viii.
338 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
institutions, incline to lean a little to monarchy. Of that
class of thoughtless or unpatristic sympathizers with the
showy and exclusive features of aristocratic governments, I
have nothing to say ; but not a few sensible and patriotic
republicans some from their experience at home, others from
their observations and discussions abroad have had, if not
their faith and patriotism, at least their pride, not a little
disturbed. 1
Having detected the point at which republicans may be put
to a disadvantage, the active supporters of monarchy have been
so successful in giving prominence to the evils of our civil
service as to attract the attention of our foreign ministers,
who have brought the fact to the notice of the President. 2
Prudent monarchists no longer deny the justice and beauty of
republican principles, theoretically considered. But when a
government is established, they say that all the good that can
be got out of it is to be found in the effects of its administra-
tion. Administration is the only thing practical or of current
interest. All else is theory and sentiment. What is the
advantage, they ask, of proclaiming universal liberty and
equality in the constitution, if a monarchy really provides the
best education for the children, the best and cheapest courts of
justice for the parents, the best poor-law and sanitary admin-
J The humiliation which patriotic Americans have suffered abroad, by
reason of administrative abuses at home (which I can all the better appreci-
ate from having spent three of the last eight years in Europe), is well
illustrated in a volume already cited, " The United States as a Nation,"
Preface, p. vii.) : " When I announced a course of lectures" (in 1876, at
the time of the Whiskey Ring and District of Columbia frauds), . . .
" to be given in the hearing of Europeans, some of my countrymen were of
the opinion that, in the painful aspect of public affairs at home, it were
better that Americans should do nothing to call attention to their country,
already the subject of so much adverse criticism." I ought to add that Dr.
Thompson did not follow their advice, but that he stood manfully and patri :
otically in vindication of the sound principles of his government ; and he
would seem to believe, as I believe, that when our people come to adequately
understand the causes of the abuses wbich exist, they will be found to pos-
sess the wisdom and virtue needed for their removal.
9 " Believing most sincerely that the United States have much to gain in
prosperity at home and in reputation abroad by a reform of their civil service,
and as the subject now occupies much attention tfiere," etc. " Foreign Rela-
tions U. S.,' 1876, "p. 553.
Cl
WASHINGTON
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 339
istration for the sick and the destitute. "What, they inquire,
is the advantage of a republican senator who corruptly worked
his way to an election through a partisan caucus, over an aris-
tocratic lord who reached his seat through the birthright of
an ancient family, especially, if in the first case the government
permits the promises made to be discharged by the prostitu-
tion of offices, and in the last, no such prostitution is allowed ?
If a monarchy, having educated the children, then opens alike
all the offices and places, high and low, domestic and foreign,
freely to public and manly competition by any and every citi-
zen, so that character and capacity have an unobstructed way
to reach the positions where they can be most useful and hon-
orable to the nation what more, the monarchist demands, can
a republic offer what more can a republican patriot ask ? l
But the enemies of our institutions do not stop with these
questions. They challenge a comparison between our govern-
ment and theirs. " The practical choice of first-rate nations is
between the presidential government and the parliamentary,
. . . and nothing, therefore, can be more important than to
compare the two, and to decide upon the testimony of experi-
ence, and by facts, which of them is the better. ' ' a They point
to the debasing, partisan intrigues through which so many
1 Of course, there are the exceptions of the king or emperor and of the
hereditary members of the legislature. And I may add that I am not com-
paring the general merits of the two kinds of government, but only account-
ing for the state of European opinion, and for the loss in later years of re-
publican prestige and of influence on the part of th United States. If it were
any part of my purpose to make such comparison, or to set forth the unjust
and depressing effects of an hereditary class upon humble life, many other
facts would of course need be slated. I am not unmindful that I may be
denounced as unpatriotic in bringing forward facts, not creditable to iny
own country ; but it is enough for me, that these facts ought to be under-
stood by the American people, and that they cannot, without dishonor,
follow those pseudo-patriots, who, like Turks and Mexicans, having substi-
tuted conceit for patriotism and vanity for virtue, remain blind, and reck-
less of the world about them, while claiming for their countrymen all wis-
dom and perfection, at the very moment that other nations are gaining in
the race of civilization and liberty. The facts presented, I have hoped, may
help to recall the true friends of the republic to their duty and to encourage
the work of reform which shall make our administration worthy of our
principles.
* Bagehot's English Constitution, pp. 6G and C7.
340 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
unworthy persons gain office ; to the many removals made for
political reason, which are fatal to the stability and experience
essential in the public service ; to the constant and acri-
monious contests about places, which exert a demoralizing
influence upon elections ; to the frequent condemnations of
our whole partisan system, and the exposure of its scandals, to
be found in our literature, in the debates in Congress, in
the resolutions of national conventions ; and with these in
hand, and in presence of the fact that the evils, which the
better public opinion so fully condemns, yet go on unchanged
from decade to decade they argue that the people are bet-
ter than their government, and that the continued existence of
the evils is proof of the inherent imbecility and peril of
republican government, and that they should be accepted as
a good cause for a return to monarchical institutions. They
declare, as a fact, that better administration in Europe than in
America has arrested the progress of republicanism, and main-
tained the prestige of royalty. " All evidence, therefore, con-
tradicts the assertion that loyalty has declined in England. It
is well known that republican speculations have occasionally
been ventured upon, but they have found no favor with any
considerable class of society ; they have not been addressed to
a single constituency ; they have not even been whispered in
Parliament ; and they are repelled by the general sentiment' '
of the country. 1
These facts and arguments have not been reproduced, I
hardly need say, because they are agreeable to me or because
I am indifferent to the patriotic feelings of the reader, which
they may tend to disturb. But republican institutions their
honor, their prospects, their hope and glory in the world are
under our patronage, as the leading republican State ; and it
is not only our duty to make them most beneficent at home,
but to take care that they be not needlessly distrusted or
placed at a disadvantage abroad. To these ends, we need to
look the facts, however disagreeable, fully in the face, and we
must not allow any misapprehension or false pride to bias our
judgment. For the very reason that a republic rests, less than
1 Democracy in Europe, by May, vol. ii. p. 501.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
any other form of government, npon birthright, selfish inter-
ests, or class distinctions for the very reason of its disinterest-
edness, which proclaims liberty, equality, and justice for all alike
it needs, more than any other kind of government, to exclude
every form of monopoly and proscription in bestowing office,
and to strengthen and adorn itself, by bringing into its ser-
vice the highest worth and capacity to be found among its
citizens. A failure to bring about such results is both infidel-
ity to the principles of a republic and a peril to its safety ;
while, on the contrary, their accomplishment by a monarchy
is really to rise above its essential principles to elevate the
masses at the expense of the nobility and the crown ; a conse-
quence which we have seen the enemies of reform advance
as good reasons for opposing the merit system. 1 I am pro-
foundly convinced that a republic, being without hereditary
officers, without a privileged class, without a state church,
without feudal traditions, without any form of authorized
restraint upon equality, liberty, and common justice, is, of all
forms of government, in principle and opportunity, the most
favorable for bringing its best citizenship into its places of
public duty, and that our failure, in that regard, is largely to
be explained by the fact that no sense of peril until within a
few years has prevented our being blinded by our marvellous
growth and prosperity, or disturbed our neglect of growing
abuses in the administration ; so that the subject, not in any
other way much pressed upon public attention, has never yet
taken its appropriate place in the reflections of the citizen or
the action of the government. When, at no remote day, such
shall be the case, it need not, I think, be doubted that the
honor and the safety of the people will alike be seen to demand,
or that their unmistakable voice will require that, in the
advancing stages of civilization, the official places in the
republic shall be filled, and its honor, dignity, and rights
shall be upheld, at home and abroad, by men in experience,
education, and moral worth, not inferior to those who may hold
corresponding places in the foremost monarchy in the world.
1 See ante, pp. 196-197, and 202.
CHAPTER XXXII.
A SUMMARY AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EEFOKM MOVEMENT.
The original spoils system. The first appearance of partisan methods.
The origin of parties. The beginning of the partisan system.
Source of parliamentary patronage. A partisan spoils system devel-
oped. Checks upon that system by legislation and public opinion. The
system of George III. Reforms after the American Revolution. A
higher and bolder public opinion. When examination first introduced.
Limited competition. Fear of revolution. Civil Service commission
created in 1853. Only limited competition required. Unpopularity and
decay of parliamentary patronage. The leaders of both parties find the
partisan system a failure. Open competition in India. Open competi-
tion made general in 1870. The significance of Civil Service reform. It is
not a mere method or process. It involves great principles, and the
morality and the stability of government. TL>3 general results reached
in Great Britain.
THE decisive influences, and the more important measures,
in civil administration during the long course of history which
we have followed, can now be presented within narrow limits.
I. In the feudal times, upon which we first entered, gov-
ernment represented neither the wishes nor interests of the
people, nor were its objects the protection of common rights
or the promotion of common justice. A hereditary king,
the source of all office, the nobility, forever in office, and their
subordinates, true to the feudal spirit, recognized neither equal-
ity nor liberty nor responsibility, but claimed a divine right to
rule and insisted on an absolute duty of the people to obey.
The modern rule of duty, that laws should be framed and ex-
ecuted in the common interests and on the basis of the equal
rights of the people, and the theory that the power to appoint
and remove public officers is one of trust and strict responsi-
bility, to be exercised only for the general welfare, were not
recognized, and they were repugnant alike to the theory
of the government and the spirit of the age. Power was the
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 343
only limit of official action, and fear the only reliance of the
government. The mass of the people were in gross ignorance,
and many of them were in- slavery. The authority to make
laws and to appoint and remove officers, like the power to con-
fer titles, to give pensions, to grant pardons, to extort taxes, to
enforce service in the army, to excuse compliance with statutes
and judgments, were alike used to advance the interests of the
king, the officers, and the privileged classes, who made up the
one party forever in power. In no other sense was there any
party ; nor had the people the necessary intelligence or liberty
to form a party, in the modern sense, until centuries later.
A spoils system of office was wrought into the very struc-
ture of government and society. Nearly all kinds of official
abuses known in modern times from the open sale of offices
by the head of a nation down to petty pillage by a baggage-
searcher at the docks, from bribery on the highest seats of
justice to extortion by constables and robbery by collectors
were developed in all their manifold forms. They were not
confined to politics, but extended to the church, to the army, and
to the conditions of privilege and precedence in social life. If
the salaries of petty officers were not pillaged by great officials
under the pretence of party assessments, it was because there
was no party but the members of the privileged class, some of
whom had sold the offices and got a larger price by reason of
their being delivered free of taxation ; if there was no invasion
of the appointing power by members of Parliament, and al-
most no bribery at their election, it was because that body had
but little power and its members were as dependent upon the
king and the great lords as clerks now are upon members of
Congress. We need only to read the history of these times,
to expose the unpatriotic slanders by which modern partisans
and demagogues have sought their own justification, in repre-
senting that the abuses they practise are the peculiar and in-
evitable drawbacks of republican institutions. Our spoils sys-
tem is only that portion of these old, royal abuses which we
have foisted upon our republican institutions.
II. A despotic spoils system was an essential part of the power
of the crown and of the bulwarks of the nobility and the church ;
and there was neither the sense of duty, the justice, the
344: CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
liberty, nor the intelligence, that made even its fit discussion
possible ; nor could there be until centuries of a rising civil-
ization had not only raised the -conscience, the education,
and the freedom of the people, but modified the very structure
of government and society. If, as in the age of "Wyckliffe,
a great uprising of the manhood and the moral sense of
the nation gave birth to a civil-service reform statute, as
much in advance of the age as any thing he said or did, it
was yet true that, in religion and politics alike, such glimpses
of better things were but lights on the dark way of progress,
and that real reform was far in the future. As it had been
under the Plantagenets, so, substantially, it continued under
the Tudors and the Stuarts, until the time of Cromwell. There
was no public opinion sufficiently enlightened to grasp the
idea that there is no more right to use the appointing power
than there is to use the public money for selfish and corrupt
purposes if indeed there could be said to be any that com-
prehended the idea of official responsibility to the people in any
sense. It would have required a bold man, ready to peril his
life, to assert such principles before the king. To question the
selfish use of the appointing power which now only subjects a
reformer to the ostracism of a party, was then treason against a
king, if not rebellion against the divine order in the state.
Until near the time of Cromwell, the idea of true political
reform as a right or a duty, in the sense of modem times,
hardly existed in England. There had, indeed, begun to be a
public opinion that, in a general way, claimed rights and re-
sponsibility in connection with government, and there was
some co-operation to secure them ; but public thought rested
on principles without reaching the definite conception of
methods in administration results only to be reached in the
next century. Parliament still remained too feeble to usurp
any part of the appointing power, and the clerks in the de-
partments were not public servants at all, but were the mere
hirelings of the great officers at their head.
III. In the time of Cromwell, there were combinations in
the nature of parties, and that which supported him had a
well-defined policy, and principles as much religious as po-
litical which in many ways raised the administration above
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN". 345
the selfish interests of persons and classes. He recognized a
sort of responsibility to his party for the use of the appointing
power, and in that regard made the first great advance toward
administering the government in the interest of common jus-
tice. At this period, we find the character of the administra-
tion beginning to attract the attention of statesmen ; and
Marvel, Eliot, and Yane may be regarded as the first of the
illustrious patriots who began to comprehend the great work
of administrative reform ; and the republican, Algernon Sid-
ney, declared the new doctrine, ' ' that magistrates are set up
for the good of the nation, not nations for the honor or glory
of magistrates."
IY. Cromwell had done nothing toward the establishment
of a better method than mere official favor for making
selections for the public service, if indeed the times were
not too violent and ignorant for a reform based on character
and justice. Under Charles II., therefore, the old spoils
system was restored with the crown ; and in the form of pen-
sions, titles, and bribes he increased all the former elements of
corruption in ways which his profligacy and recklessness sug-
gested. The appointing power was as much an article of
merchandise as the crops on the royal estates. Parliamentary
corruption increased with the power of Parliament, and nearly
every officer was open to bribes, from the king, who set the
example to the keeper of the dog-kennels, who followed it.
Under James II. it was not better, but worse. Religious as
much as political opinions continued to be tests for office in
the army and in civil life, as well as in the church. Districts
were gerrymandered, Parliament was packed with placemen,
members followed the precedent of the king in accepting
bribes and in bribing others. Proscription extended to the
judiciary, and Jeffreys expressed the savage spirit it breathed.
Officers were removed by reason of their opinions, as ruthlessly
as they have ever been by any republican president, governor,
or mayor in later times. Official life became a source of cor-
ruption, which poisoned and debased every thing in connection
with government, and helped to arouse tl^e wrath of the people,
which drove James from the country. But outside of official
life, and despite the demoralizing influence of politics, a better
346 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
public opinion, a larger and bolder sense of right and duty, were
growing among the people, and taking more and more notice
of public administration.
V. William III. was the first English king who brought a
reforming spirit to the throne, and the first who appreciated
the importance of good administration ; and he soon dis-
covered that without reforms he could not carry forward
his great enterprises, if indeed he could retain the throne.
He did little for better methods, but much for a better
spirit, and more efficiency and responsibility. He became
his own Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and day after day
he personally investigated abuses in the other departments.
Laws were passed for the protection of the freedom of elec-
tions, judges were made secure in their offices during good
behavior, placemen were excluded from seats in Parliament.
But a desperate spirit of faction prevailed. The nation was
unaccustomed to the responsibilities of freedom and without
experience in the management of parties. The power of
Parliament had greatly increased, but with more power had
come more bribery and more factious activity. The king
created a select cabinet of advisers, the beginning of the
present British Cabinet, and the model on which that of
the United States is closely framed. The members were
all taken from the dominant party in Parliament, and
they were to go out (unless the Parliament should be pro-
rogued) whenever, on any important measure, they should
fail of carrying a majority in that body. This system gave
to the Parliamentary majority the great prize of guiding the
administration and of controlling all appointments ; and very
soon and very naturally drew its members and their constitu-
ents into two great parties. Here was the origin of parties
and of party government, as understpod in British history.
The majority could before make all laws ; but now, through
the cabinet, it could also control all national policy, name all
officers, direct all subordinate officials in the line of their
duty. It was the greatest prize ever offered to the victors in
a party contest. Party government, thus introduced under
William III., has continued, with no fundamental change, to
this day. It made no provision as to the mode of the appoint-
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 347
ment or removal of subordinate officials ; and it was quite
consistent with its theory that their selection should be based
on their personal qualifications, irrespective of poh'tical opin-
ions. In that particular, the condition was the same as it is
under the Constitution of the United States. So great a regard
for character and so non-partisan a spirit were, however, too
much for the political virtue and general intelligence of the
times of William III. Despite the failure of party gov-
ernment to rise above a partisan, spoils system, and its con-
tinued inability to make reforms that kept administration up
to the level of the rising plane of public intelligence and mo-
rality, its introduction was in itself no small improvement.
To a great extent, it took administration out of the secret in-
trigues of the court, and opened it to the members of a party
or at least to its leaders. If it did not give the offices to the peo-
ple, it in principle gave them to such of the people as belonged
to the ruling party though in practice it only gave them to
official favorites and partisan manipulators. The leaders of
the dominant party insisted on proscription, and made opinions
the test of nominations. Members of Parliament demanded
patronage, and very soon began their long-continued encroach-
ment on the appointing power of the executive. They de-
manded places as a condition of helping fellow-members to
seats in the cabinet ; and here was one great source of their
control of appointments. There were not at this time (nor has
there since been, except for very brief periods) any general
practice of removals without cause ; but the dominant party
continued to grasp larger and larger patronage, and more and
more, it came under the control of members of Parliament.
And party politics strongly tended to venality. Here we
have the introduction of the partisan system of appointments
of the practice of parties looking to their patronage, rather
than to their principles and their good administration, for the
sources of their strength among the people. This usurpation
of the appointing power by members of Parliament and the
introduction of a partisan system of appointments, at the very
beginning of party government, made indispensable that long
contest, in which members were finally compelled to surrender
their spoils.
348 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
VI. From Anne to George III. was the period of the first
great trial of party government. It did not fail, nor has it
since failed, within its true sphere. But having descended
to partisan methods, it proved that by such methods public
administration cannot be raised, or the just demands of an
intelligent nation be satisfied. The partisan system of ap-
pointments and promotions aggravated the evils of Parlia-
mentary patronage, made administration costly and feeble,
spread corruption from the department to cities, boroughs,
and elections, while it disgusted the better class of citizens,
alarmed statesmen, and exasperated and debased all politi-
cal contests. At the same time that every thing within the
domain of administration and politics was becoming more
and more demoralized, until the lowest depths of corruption
were reached under "Walpole, Newcastle, and Pelham while
statesmanship tended to sink into the mere management and
manipulation of parties and elections, and those at the head of
public affairs became the leaders of a servile class seeking
places, pensions, and titles a higher and bolder public
opinion was being developed outside political circles, which
demanded more purity and patriotism in politics, and more
zeal and spirituality in religion an opinion which found no-
ble utterance by Chatham and Burke in Parliament and by
Wesley and Whitefield in the pulpit. Political writers became
more bold, and the reforming spirit found a more enlightened
and vigorous expression. Still reformers were ridiculed as
doctrinaires and sentimentalists, were denounced as canting
hypocrites, seeking office, were branded as enemies of the
party who threatened its safety. Nevertheless the reforming
spirit steadily gained strength, and more and more the inherent
evils of Parliamentary patronage and the partisan system
were demonstrated. Even in Queen Anne's time, the inter-
ference of officials with the freedom of elections became intol-
erable ; and in that ninth year of her reign those in the postal
service were by statute prohibited using their influence to affect
the vote of any elector. This statute is, I think, the first of
that series of enactments which enforce a more just and whole-
some restraint than we have yet imposed on official interfer-
ence with the freedom of elections.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 349
Still members of Parliament insisted on their patronage and
used it basely. Inexorable partisan tests in the departments
were reinforced by proscriptive appointments and promo-
tions in the church, by corrupt pensions, by titles that re-
warded venality, by promotions that insulted merit, by a cor-
rupt borough-system, and by fearful bribery at the elections.
The abuse of partisan removals was not as great as it has been
with us, though the Tories attempted to introduce universal
proscription.
VII. George III. added new elements of debasement to
the evils of the partisan system which he inherited. He arbi-
trarily interfered with the details of administration and rivalled
members of Farliament in bribery and coercion. His policy,
especially, during the administration of Lord Bute,' was as
proscriptive as that of our most partisan Presidents, and
immeasurably more corrupt. Pensions, titles, decorations,
court favors, social influence, espionage, open bribes at elec-
tions, bribes of members, threats, were used to carry the
projects of the king and to punish his enemies. Members of
Parliament, high officials and party leaders, generally, were lit-
tle above the morality of the court. The king tried to rule
through a party based on patronage, official influence, and cor-
ruption ; and he failed as sadly as any party has ever failed in
the use of the same means. Lord Bute ignominiously surren-
dered on the failure of that system. The higher sentiments
and the nobler minds of the nation exhibited a growing power.
But the war with America to the support of which the king
brought all the corrupt resources of the spoils system, and
which that system unquestionably protracted silenced for a
time the voice of reform. At the conclusion of the war, an
administration distinctly pledged to reform came, for the first
time in English history, into the possession of the govern-
ment. '
Independence for America, administrative reform, freedom
of elections, exclusion of placemen from Parliament these
were its pledges, to vvhich it was faithful. The triumph of the
spirit of Burke and Chatham victory for those who had stood
The first Rockingham Ministry was certainly friendly to reform.
23
350 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
for America and for reform gave significance to the change
of ministry. If there was delay and occasional reaction, the
higher sentiments, whose victory these events record, never
again surrendered to patronage or partisanship. We very
soon come upon the time when British legislation, in a long
series of statutes against bribery and office brokerage, passed
during the reign of George III. and since perfected, was made
far more effective against the prostitution of the appointing
power and the abuse of official authority generally, than our
laws have ever been. If there was not enough public virtue
or wisdom to remove the causes which induced subordinate
officials to interfere with elections, there was at least a patriotic
public opinion bold enough, in the last half of the reign of
George III. to crush out that evil by disfranchising those
officers ; a disability that continued until 1868, when the merit
system had removed the cause of the great evil at which dis-
franchisement had been aimed. And before his reign came
to an end, the system of superannuation allowances, ever since
enforce'd, had been well developed, and there were several
other laws intended to advance the self-respect and social po-
sition of those in the public service.
These statutes, by making official prostitution more peril-
ous, by holding up a higher standard of public duty before
the people, by encouraging the criticism of the better public
opinion, have largely contributed to the purification of politi-
cal life and to the upbuilding of that more exacting popular
demand which has imposed a wholesome sense of responsibility
upon British officers of every grade and in every part of the
empire.
VIII. Before 1820, when George IV. became king, the
better public sentiment had nearly driven corruption out of the
partisan system, while the system remained ; but its inherent
viciousness had only become the more conspicuous in the
light of a higher civilization. Bribery of members of Parlia-
ment was at an end, and removals for mere political reasons
were very rarely made. But members of Parliament were by
their patronage disarmed for some of the higher duties of
legislation ; they forced incompetent favorites into the ser-
vice ; the departments were crowded with supernumeraries ;
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 351
elections were debased, and the whole atmosphere of politics
was poisoned by the evils of patronage and favoritism. These
evils had become known to the more intelligent part of the
people, and there was a far more discriminating condemnation
of parliamentary interference with appointments than ever
before ; but for a time the great reform measure of 1832
absorbed public attention.
As early as 1834, however, pass examinations for admission
to the service were begun in a small way, and before 1850
they had been greatly extended. In 1854 they were adopted
in the United States. But in their very nature, they were
inadequate, and more efficient examinations were called for.
Patronage in all its forms, by reason of the good effects of
examinations, encountered more and more powerful oppo-
sition. Statesmen clearly perceived, that a partisan system
is as unnecessary to the vigorous life of a party as it is
disastrous to the higher interest of a nation. Under the
influence of such convictions, patronage and proscription
were put under more effective limitations, and examinations
were extended and made more efficient by limited competi-
tion in some of the offices. The great party leaders on both
sides comprehended that neither parliamentary patronage
nor the partisan system itself could long survive. Even as
early as 1820, the patronage of promotion in the customs ser-
vice had been surrendered by the head of the treasury in favor
of promotions for merit ; and the results not a little aided
the cause of reform by increasing the efficiency of that branch
of the service. To the other influences, which led to the
radical movement of 1853, must be added the fact that pass
examinations inherently defective as they are everywhere,
in a perceptible measure, both limited the abuses of parlia-
mentary patronage and brought better men into the public
service. It was no longer possible for politicians to prevent
the question of better administrative methods coming into
the foreground as a great measure of executive policy ; and
it became distinctly such before 1853. It was not, in form,
ever a party issue ; for, in its nature, it divided not party
from party, but what was higher from what was lower in each
party ; and not even the more partisan managers of either party
352 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
thought it safe any more than they have in the United
States in later years to avow hostility to the duty or prin-
ciple of reform, however much they might sneer and secretly
oppose.
IX. This brings us to the radical reform measures of 1853.
In large part by reason of the statutes I have referred to,
the general character of official life had so risen, between 1780
and 1853, that, at the latter date, it was, I think, decidedly less
partisan and less venal in Great Britain than in the United
States ; though patronage in the hands of members of Parlia-
ment the main source of the abuses in the civil service was
still as arbitrary and pernicious as it has at any time been in
the hands of members of Congress. The moral planes of
official life in the two countries the one ascending and the
other descending had crossed each other in the period be-
tween those dates. The nearest correspondence between the
use of the appointing power by an English king and an Amer-
ican president was the practice in the earlier part of the reign
of George III. and that which began under President Jackson ;
though George III. added to merciless partisanship, pecuniary
bribery, an offence of which President Jackson was never
guilty.
If the character of administration had, in a degree, risen
with the intelligence and moral tone of society since party
government began, it had neither risen as rapidly as the
demand for reform, nor reached the efficiency and purity
which the statesmen of both parties felt that the exigency of
the empire demanded. They saw that the waning partisan
system was capable of nothing better than what it had given,
that the reform sentiment was steadily gaining strength, that
parliamentary patronage must from its very nature be fruitful
of evil continually, and was incapable of defense on any sound
principles. 1 And they felt that the revolutionary tendencies in
England and throughout Europe, since 1830, and especially
since 1848, were a warning not only against any elements of
feebleness, but against every abuse that might impair the
1 "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." Speech of Earl Granville in House of Lords, 1854.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 353
patriotism of the people. Though we have high authority for
saying that on a secret vote a reform policy would have been
suppressed by overwhelming numbers, the great party leaders
dared not longer oppose it on principle. ' ' If the clubs had
been polled, there would have been ninety-nine out of a
hundred against us."
The strength of the minority was not in numbers, but in the
influence of high character and capacity, and of deep, moral
earnestness a force in public affairs which politicians are very
apt to underestimate. It was then, as it had been long before,
and has continually since been, a part of the conviction of all
English statesmen that the good administration of the laws
is a matter of serious concern, to which they ought to give
their best efforts. " Every eminent statesman has since a shown
that the true policy of a government was in appealing to
the good sense and intelligence of the large classes of the
community." Such was the condition, in 1853, when the
government ordered Sir Charles Trevelyan and Sir Staf-
ford Northcote to make their celebrated investigation and
report. It was not a movement by members of Parliament
toward the surrender of their usurped patronage, nor did that
body, at first, co-operate beyond voting money to pay ex-
penses ; but it was an exercise of the long-dormant authority
of the executive, in its own sphere of duty, to see that the
laws are faithfully executed sustained by the better public
opinion. Members of Parliament, with few exceptions each
grasping firmly his little parcel persistently claimed as a right
that portion of the appointing power which they had originally
gained as a usurpation ; nor can they ever be credited with
surrendering it until a frowning public opinion enforced that
duty. 8
X. The investigation made by those gentlemen showed that
pass examinations had been useful ; that limited competition
between those nominated by members of Parliament and the
Treasury though applied only within very narrow limits
1 Evid. Sir Charles Trevelyan, C. S. Inquiry, 1873, vol. ii., p. 102.
9 The date referred to is 1854, and this language is from Earl Granville's
speech cited in the last note.
* See Appendix A, Letter Sir Charles Trevelyan.
35i CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
had been still more useful. It also developed good reasons for
believing that open competition, under which any one apply-
ing could be examined without permission of any official,
would be far more salutary ; and it hardly need be added that
it would exclude the evil of parliamentary patronage. Open
competition was therefore recommended ; and also a general
Civil Service Commission for supervising and giving harmony
to examinations throughout all the departments and offices.
Open competition was the application of a new and higher
standard in official life ; for, it was a proclamation that worth
and capacity have higher claims upon office than official favor
or partisan services. Partisans and official monopolists were
naturally enough alarmed, and became hostile. Denunciation,
sarcasm, ridicule, gross exaggerations of the probable expenses
and of the difficulties in enforcing the new system, bold pro-
phecies of its futility, and of its pretended centralizing tend-
encies, were urged with a skill and persistency which were not
surpassed when a similar measure of reform was initiated in
the United States. But Lord Palmerston remarkable alike
for courage and practical experience and his cabinet sup-
ported the report and had the commission promptly appointed.
It was thought prudent, while allowing open competition, to
only require limited competition, as a first experiment which
did not prevent a monopoly of nominations by members of
Parliament lest a too sudden change from the long-prevail-
ing system should arouse a dangerous opposition. Open com-
petition was about the same time applied to the administration
of British India, under the immediate supervision of Mr. Ma-
caulay. The practical effect, in both countries, was to exclude
the worst nominees, to give places to the best men nomi-
nated, to improve the moral tone and the capacity of the pub-
lic service, to speedily make parliamentary patronage ridicu-
lous and odious, by publicly exposing and rejecting the class
of incompetent favorites and disreputable henchmen which
members had been, for more than a century, in the habit of
foisting upon the public treasury in the interest of their purses
and their elections. It was soon plainly seen that open compe-
tition, which would alike promote common justice and general
education, was all that was needed to exterminate vicious
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 355
patronage, to destroy the old official monopoly, and to give
to the intelligence and manhood of the nation free access to
present their paramount claims upon places under the gov-
ernment. Public opinion rapidly grew stronger for the
reform. Parliament, which in 1855 had condemned the
new merit system (as our Congress condemned it under
President Grant), had in 1856 grown wiser, and by a small
majority commended it ; and, rising with public opinion, it
unanimously, in 1857, not only approved what had been done,
but suggested that open competition be established as the sole
test for entering the public service. Patronage so rapidly lost
its attractions and its respectability, and the Civil Service
Commission so early demonstrated its usefulness, that in 1859 |
Parliament refused all retiring allowances to those who should !
get into the service without an examination before the com-
mission. The machinery of the new system had worked so
easily, its expenses were so small', and the certainty of obtaining
the best men by examinations was so overwhelmingly demon-
strated, that criticism was silenced and the enemies of reform
were confounded. The charge of centralization was seen to
be absurd ; for the unconstitutional share of the appointing
power (before centralized in members of Parliament) did not,
practically, revert to the executive, but was in practice dis-
tributed to the persons, of character and capacity among the
people, who should win their way into the public service by
an open competition, which left the executive nothing like
the arbitrary caprice of appointment which had belonged to
every English king from the origin of the monarchy. The
reform, therefore, was as democratic and republican in its
operation, as it was moral and educational in its origin and
influence. The same method which broke up that centraliza-
tion of power in the hands of the members of the legislature
which impaired the counterpoise of the Constitution, also
enlarged the liberties of the people by giving to personal worth
an open way to office.
The victory of the merit system was thus complete, and the
disposition to oppose or argue was over, in five years from the
time it was first officially proposed. The nation was proud of
guarantees for a better official life ; the cause of education and
356 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
common justice was advanced ; members of Parliament were
glad to be relieved of the degrading and exasperating solicita-
tion for office ; elections began to turn more on character and
capacity, and not so much on hopes of patronage and salaries ;
parties were found to be not less vigorous and wholesome
when the main issues were those of policy and principles
without embroilment with questions about all sorts of offices
and places. The time had come when hopes of personal gain,
adroit management, and official manipulation were seen to be
forces in politics far inferior to honest and open appeals to the
judgment, honor, and patriotism of the people. Those seek-
ing office turned for support from the place-brokers and
partisan speculators of politics, whose business was broken up,
to the independent and honest citizenship of the country,
whose influence was increased.
X. In the presence of such effects, it was only natural that
the series of thorough investigations, already explained,
should be made into all the old abuses of the departments
that open competition, free to every British subject, with no
possibility of limitation or obstruction by any member or any
executive officer, should be introduced in 1870, and since con-
tinued with a satisfaction that has never diminished ; that
popular education should receive a marked impetus ; that
the general efficiency of the administration and the character
and social standing of those who execute the laws should
be elevated with the standard for admission to the public
service. Open competition, which had, much longer and
in a more extensive way, been on trial in India, had given
results not less salutary ; and these examples caused the new
system to be extended to the army and navy, to the jurisdic-
tions of the royal governors, to Australia, Tasmania, and, to
some extent, to Canada ; so that, in every quarter of the world
where the English language is spoken (except in the United
States) the wholesome influence of the new system was early
felt, and the foundation was laid for a public service based on
personal worth and capacity. Thus, we see an ancient govern-
ment, of imperial proportions, with all its dependencies a
monarchy in form and historical development which has been
generally supposed to iind its strength in royal and official
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 357
favoritism and in selfish and class interests, going forward with
a reform, in principle founded on equal rights and common
opportunity for sharing its honors and salaries a reform which
in practice (with a few exceptions) takes from parties all
chances of trading in public franchises, surrenders the gracious
privileges of the crown to a stern rule of justice, deprives every
officer of the power of granting favors, and holds officials to a
responsibility more democratic and republican in spirit, and
to a moral standard of duty more severely exacting and sternly
in the common interests of the people, than any ever yet
been enforced in a republic.
The whole advance the result of the efforts of patriots
and statesmen for good administration during six centuries
is expressed in this simple fact : In the beginning, a man
was in the public service because a corrupt and arbitrary
king wished him there ; at the end, he was in that service
because a fair test of his worth gave him the place, as the best
man to fill it.
But consider what an immense advance in justice and lib-
erty, in the standard cf official duty and the rights of simple
manhood, this change illustrates ! In the beginning, and for
centuries, all offices, salaries, and places, all authority exerted
in ways innumerable in every grade of official influence, all the
prestige, profits, and spoils of carrying on the vast affairs of
government from the hamlet to the throne, were the perqui-
sites, the privileges, the monopoly, or the spoils of kings, no-
bles, or bishops and their favorites ; into a participation of which
no man as a man, or because the ablest and best of men,
could come, except upon conditions almost certain to be a
compromise of manhood or a prostitution of public interests.
But at the end the great principle has become established,
that the personal character and capacity which fit a man for
public duty are in themselves the highest claim upon office ;
and to ascertain, select, and appoint the men thus fitted for the
public service are affirmed to be duties paramount to all royal
policy, to all aristocratic interests, to all state church ambi-
tion, to all partisan exigencies ; and thus, high exalted over
every other reason of preference and every other interest,
stand the simple claims of personal worth, and the interest and
358 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN".
right of the people to leave them regarded in making selec-
tions for office. It is plain, then, that the reform of the civil
service in Great Britain has not been, and that nowhere
should it be looked upon as being a mere device in procedure,
a mere method in public business, or a mere collection of
rules in the departments : but that it involves all this besides
a test and expression of the justice and moral tone of a
nation's politics ; a decision between the relative claims of
worth and manhood, as weighed against official favoritism,
and selfish interests, upon public confidence and respect ; a
theory of the true sphere of parties and of their best means of
gaining the support of a free and intelligent people ; a princi-
ple of duty and responsibility in official life ; the character
of political leadership whether it should be by statesmen
making their appeal upon principles and good administration,
or by manipulators relying on patronage and management ;
the question whether it be better to encourage selfish and par-
tisan activity by selecting officers on the bid of cliques and
caucuses, or to encourage education and manliness by selecting
them through examinations and competitions ; the relations of
the legislature to the executive departments, and therefore
the construction of the constitution and the counterpoise and
stability of government itself. It was because civil service
reform or, what is the same thing, administrative reform, as
embracing the essential conditions of good administration
was apprehended in this higher spirit and broader range as
being a great and permanent question of principle and duty as
presenting a perpetual issue between the higher and lower ele-
ments in politics, that, more than a century ago, it began to
receive, and has ever since received, the attention of the fore-
most of British statesmen. The first germs of it are in the
declaration of Algernon Sidney, that magistrates are created
for the benefit of the state, and not the state for magistrates.
Eliot and Yane comprehended it in that spirit when they
staked their lives upon a reform policy. It was understood,
in that spirit, by Lord Chatham when he refused the spoils of
office, and declared of a Parliament steeped in patronage
and corruption that if it was not speedily reformed from
within, it would be reformed with a vengeance from with-
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 359
out ; by "William Pitt when lie brought in reform bills and,
while living on a narrow income, renounced the great sine-
cure salary which the partisan system tendered him ; by Ed-
mund Burke, when he " bent the whole force of his mind "
upon those great measures- of reform with which his name will
be forever associated ; by Lord Grey and Sir Robert Peel
when, giving their best efforts to reform in various ways ; by
Lord Liverpool, '\vhen, a generation ago, he surrendered the
patronage of promotion in favor of merit in the Customs ser-
vice ; by Lord Palmerston, when as Prime Minister he con-
fronted the selfishness of members of Parliament who opposed
the great reform of 1853 ; by Lord Granville when, as we
have seen, he declined the patronage of various appointments
" in order to make them available for the purpose of encourag-
ing education ;" by Mr. Gladstone, in the steady and vigorous
support he has given to administrative reform during his
whole official life ; by John Bright * and Lord Derby, when,
representing the opposite parties, they devoted so much labor
to the great civil-service investigations to which I have re-
ferred ; by the eminent statesmen examined on those investiga-
tions, whose convictions find expression in such words as these :
* all persons have an equal right to be candidates if they are
fit," 2 " this is the critical part of our national institutions,
namely, the selection of candidates for the public service ; "
by the honest, intelligent people generally, of every class, by
ministers representing all parties, and, finally, even by mem-
bers of Parliament themselves, who have co-operated in ad-
vancing the new system at home, in India, and every depend-
ency of the British Empire. And can we believe it to have been
understood in any narrower sense by the leading nations of
Europe, which, in the common interest of good administration
and national safety, have one after another destroyed the
official, patronage system, and the class monopoly of offices,
upon which monarchies were originally based, and opened
them, with but few exceptions, to the intelligence and worth
of the people irrespective of their birth or their political opin-
ions ?
1 Sec Letter of Mr. Bright in Appendix A. * See ante, p. 227.
3 Report Com., 1873. vol. i., p. 133.
360 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
What is the lesson, of such a history and of such results, for
the United States ? How far are such reforms compatible
with our constitution and social life ? What, if any thing,
may we wisely do to improve our administration, in the light
of such an experience ? Are not these questions vital enough
for the reflections of an intelligent people, large enough for
the action of statesmen in a great republic 2
CHAPTEE XXXIII.
THE BEARING OF BRITISH EXPERIENCE UPON CIVIL SERVICE
REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES.
Caution in accepting foreign experience. The theory of the framers of our
constitution on the subject. A summary of the principles and conclusions
reached in British administration. The question of a long term of office
and its relations to the merit system. Who are certain to oppose the new
system. Reasons for more confidence in its support. The world's ex-
perience on its side. Who are the theorists and the doctrinaires f
Who the statesmen ? Examinations and competitions supported by an
irresistible public opinion in Great Britain. Lord Beaconsfield rebuked by
it. Various principles and methods of the new system considered in refer-
ence to our institutions. The right to claim and the duty to bestow
office. The xtent to which patronage has been surrendered by the
Crown, by noblemen, and officials in Great Britain. Have our officers
equal patriotism ? Our subordinate officials made feudal dependents.
Whether patronage is essential to the utility and prosperity of parties.
Do republics awaken less patriotism than monarchies ? Parties would
gain more than they would lose by abandoning the spoils system. Prac-
tical effects of adopting the merit system. It would destroy a vicious
monopoly over office-getting. Effects on the Presidential elections.
Promotes self-reliance, good character, and education. How members of
Congress would be affected. Effects on custom-houses and other local
offices. Consequences of bringing persons of worth and capacity into sub-
ordinate positions. Promotions for merit. The merit system would
give new dignity to office and government. Means by which the reform
may be advanced. How far and what kinds of legislation useful or prac-
ticable. Political assessments. The reform a question for the people,
and its need in State and municipal offices as well as in Federal offices.
Whether we have the public virtue to carry it forward and are as unsel-
fish and patriotic as the people of Great Britain. Competition a general
law of progress. The permanent nature of the reform issue.
THE undertaking to point out the bearing of the reform
measures of Great Britain upon administrative questions in
the United States has, the author trusts, been in large part per-
formed as the work has proceeded ; and perhaps few sugges-
362 CIVIL SERVICE IN GKEAT BRITAIN.
tions can now be made which have not already occurred to the
reader.
The mere fact that any given principles or methods of politi-
cal action have been found salutary in one country, is by no
means a sufficient reason for introducing them into another ;
nor is it often that corresponding relations among officers, or
between the officials and the people, will be found practicable
in any two countries. But the probability that they may
be naturally increases with all that is in common in race,
language and religion, in laws, institutions, and civilization.
And, therefore, notwithstanding the people of Great Britain
have so much more than any other people in common with
ourselves, the mere success of her reform measures within her
own borders has not been accepted as a reason why we should
find them equally salutary ; and hence their influence has
been considered in its bearings upon liberty, common justice,
general education, public morality, and the complicated and
essential relations of great parties in a free State. In the
opening chapter, attention was called to the extent to which our
fathers incorporated into their new structure the principles of
the British constitution. It is worthy of our notice that
the question now presented is not so much a question about
adopting processes and methods as it is about approving cer-
tain great principles which embody a theory of political mo-
rality, of official obligation, of equal rights and common jus-
tice in government. It was the principle, rather than the
mere methods, of the division of government into three great
departments, of the independence of the judiciary, of free,
parliamentary debate, of representative institutions, of trial
by jury, of the habeas corpus, of the common law, of
personal rights, of the subordination of the military to the
civil power, which we adopted in our original constitution.
The question now before us is, whether the nation which has
maintained, as faithfully as we have, all these great foundations
of liberty, still equally fundamental in the two countries, may
not now be able to tender us other principles worthy of our
adoption, which she has developed in perfecting the vast and
complicated operations in her civil affairs during the period
in which absorbed by the interests of new States and terri-
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 363
tories and by the many matters peculiar to a young nation
we have given little thought to the practical working of gov-
ernment ? Our fathers did not borrow so much from the
mother country because the two peoples had kindred blood,
spoke the same language and gathered inspiration from the
same literature, but because England, being at that time the
freest and most enlightened of the old nations, and her higher
precedents having been forged in the furnace fires of lib-
erty and sanctioned by its saints and martyrs, were best adapt-
ed to our needs and most naturally commanded the confidence
of our early statesmen. Xow, as then, the two great English-
speaking nations maintain their original precedence in free-
dom and justice. For what great nation, besides Great Britain
and the United States, even yet allows a true freedom of de-
bate and of the press makes the military really subordi-
nate to the civil power affords a safe asylum for the victims
of despotism or secures an efficient protection to every citizen
without the aid cf bayonets or the menace of policemen bear-
ing deadly weapons ? Still, after all such general reflections
have had there true weight, there remain the direct ques-
tions : Has the new system been adequately tested ? Is it
adapted to our constitutions and social life ? Is it republican
in spirit and consistent with the practical administration of
government under our institutions ? Have we the public in-
telligence and virtue which warrant the attempt to carry for-
ward such a reform ?
Some of these questions, I must think, have been sufficiently
answered, if indeed it were possible to hesitate as to the
answer to be given ; and the others can be more intelligently
considered if we have distinctly before our minds the princi-
ples and conclusions which have become accepted in the later
experience of Great Britain. They may be briefly stated as
follows :
1. Public office creates a relation of trust and duty of a
kind which requires all authority and influence partaining to it
to be exercised with the same absolute conformity to moral
standards, to the spirit of the constitution and the laws, and
to the common interests of the people, which may be insisted
upon in the use of public money or any other common prop-
364 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN".
erty of the people ; and, therefore, whatever difficulty may
attend the practical application of the rule of duty, it is iden-
tically the same whether it be applied to property or to official
discretion. There can in principle be no official discretion to
disregard common interests or to grant official favors to per-
sons or to parties.
2. So far as any right is involved, in filling offices, it is the
right of the people to have the worthiest citizens in the public
service for the general welfare ; and the privilege of sharing
the honors and profits of holding office appertains equally to
every citizen, in proportion to his measure of character and
capacity which qualify him for such service. 1
4. The ability, attainments, and character requisite for the
fit discharge of official duties of any kind, in other words, the
personal merits of the candidate are in themselves the highest
claim upon an office. 3
5. Party government and the salutary activity of parties are
not superseded, but they are made purer and more efficient,
by the merit system of office, 3 which brings larger capacity
and higher character to their support.
6. Government by parties is enfeebled and debased by
reliance upon a partisan system of appointments and rc-
1 I do not here refer to cases of offices conferred, or other rewards
given as compensation for patriotic efforts or sacrifices, by the act of the
people, who, in voting, are a law unto themselves ; or to elections by the
people ; but to the exercise of power by an officer, whether in respect to
the nomination, confirmation, or removal of some other officer, or otherwise
in his discretion. Patronage and favoritism, in connection with the exercise
of official power, are therefore in their very nature abuses repugnant to the
nature of the official trust actual violations of the duty which the officer
owes to the people just as reprehensible as it would be to use official au-
thority to deprive a citizen of his equal right to send his children to the
public schools, or to prevent his vote being cast for the candidate he prefers
wrongs upon every ground upon which it would be wrong to give a part
of the public money or of the public lands to a person not having a good
claim to it.
* Subject of course to the limitations mentioned in the last note ; and
therefore to ascertain such merits and to decide upon competing claims
arising thereunder are important parts of the duties of a government, and
are equally essential for doing justice and for obtaining good officers.
* For the meaning of the phrases, the "partisan system" and the " merit
system," as here used, see ante pages, 77 to 81 and 161, note.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 3G5
movals ; and, for its most vigorous life and salutary influ-
ence, it is only needful for the party majority to select, as the
representative of its views and the executors of its policy, the
few high officers with whom rests the power to direct the na-
tional affairs, and to instruct and keep in the line of their duty
the whole body of their subordinates 1 through whose adminis-
trative work that policy is to be carried into effect.
7. Patronage in the hands of members of the legislature,
which originated in a usurpation of executive functions, in-
creases the expenses of administration, is degrading and de-
moralizing to those who possess it, is disastrous to legislation,
tends to impair the counterpoise and stability of the govern-
ment ; and it cannot withstand the criticism of an intelligent
people when they fairly comprehend its character and con-
sequences. 2
8. Examinations (in connection with investigations of char-
acter) may be so conducted as to ascertain, with far greater cer-
tainty than by any other means, .the persons who are the most
fit for the public service ; and the worthiest thus disclosed may
be selected for the public service by a just and non-partisan
method, which the most enlightened public opinion will
heartily approve.
9. Open competition presents at once the most just and prac-
ticable means of supplying fit persons for appointment. It is
proved to have given the best public servants ; it makes an
end of patronage ; and, besides being based on equal rights
and common justice, it has been found to be the surest safe-
guard against both partisan coercion and official favoritism.
10. Such methods, which leave to parties and party govern-
ment their true functions in unimpaired vigor, tend to reduce
manipulation, intrigue, and every form of corruption in poli-
1 Where the line between the two classes of officers should be drawn
in the United States between those political officers who command all the
others and who should go out with each administration, and those adminis-
trative officers whose duty it is to obey their superiors it is not my purpose
to attempt to point out. The first class, in Great Britain, we have seen,
includes only from 34 to 50 officials. "We cannot draw the line in the
United States until after we have adopted the principle by which it is to be
guided. See ante, pp. 80 to 83 and 161.
* See chap. 14.
366 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
tics to their smallest proportions. They also reward learning,
give more importance to character and principles and make
political life more attractive to all worthy citizens.
11. Regarded as a whole, the new system has raised the
ambition and advanced both the self-respect and the popular
estimation of those in the public service, while it has encour-
aged general education, arrested demoralizing solicitation for
office, and promoted economy, efficiency, and fidelity in public
affairs. J
12. A system is entirely practicable under which official sal-
aries shall increase during the more active years of life, and
through which a retiring allowance is retained to be paid upon
the officer leaving the public service ; and such a system ap-
pears to contribute to economy and fidelity in administration.
13. Open competition is as fatal to all the conditions of a
beaurocracy, as it is to patronage, nepotism and every form of
favoritism, in the public service.
14. The merit system, by raising the character and capacity
of the subordinate service, and by accustoming the people to
consider personal worth and sound principles, rather than sel-
fish interest and adroit management, as the controlling elements
of success iri politics, has also invigorated national patriotism,
raised the standard of statesmanship, and caused political
leaders to look more to the better sentiments and the higher
intelligence for support.
II. Such are the principles and conclusions which have ob-
tained almost universal acceptance in British administration
and .perhaps, I may add, in the administration of every nation
of the old world, to the extent that its government has been lib-
eral enough to tolerate them. Objections are most likely to arise
against whatever like graded salaries and retiring or super-
annuation allowances may be thought to favor a long tenure
of office. It is certainly desirable to have clear views upon
these points. They have before come under our notice in
some of their aspects ; and I must leave the less important
questions of the effects of graded salaries and retiring allow -
1 See Letter Sir Charles Trevelyan, Appemlix A ; and in Appendix C
will be found the results of a short trial, within narrow limits, of the merit
system in the United States.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 3GT
ances to tlie observations already submitted. 1 But the bearing
of the merit system upon the tenure of office perhaps re-
quires some further notice. That system and the partisan-
spoils system, considered in relation to their influence within
the service, might be treated under three separate heads :
(1) what relates to bringing persons into the public service,
(2) what relates to their government and duty while there ;
(3) what relates to the determination of service. It would be
seen that the question of duration of tenure would fall wholly
under the last head. But, under the partisan-spoils system,
the question of removals stands in close relations with the
question of appointments ; for by far the greater number of
removals arc urged, not because there is a good reason for put-
ting the officer out, but because there is a purpose to put
some other person in his place. All serious abuse from re-
movals without good cause will disappear the moment it be-
comes necessary to fill the vacancy by open competition. In
deciding, therefore, how long an officer should be allowed to re-
main in his place or, in other words, for what reason he
should be removed we must look beyond the effects upon
himself or upon the office he fills, to the general influence upon
the whole question of proscription and of partisan intermed-
dling in administration. But as all these collateral influences
make in favor of an extended term of office, which would di-
minish the number of opportunities for corrupt appointments,
we may dismiss them, and confine our attention to the more
direct relations between tenure of office and the new system.
It needs but a moment of reflection to make it plain that
neither the qualifications demanded for entering an office, nor
the influences or conditions that control the nomination or
confirmation, have, intrinsically anything to do with the time
during which the office is to be held. Nor need the authorized
causes of removal have any intrinsic relation to the length of
tenure, unless the fact of having been in office a designated
number of years or up to a certain age be made in itself a
ground of removal. Every other part of the merit system
could be put in practice, and no small share of its salutary
influences might be secured, though the present tenure of
1 See ante pp. 141 to 143 and pp. 291 to 297.
363 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
office should be left unchanged ; however repugnant to the
spirit of that system removals without good cause may be. The
most rigid competitions may be set up at the door of every office
in the republic, civil, military, and naval years of careful study
may be exacted to lit applicants for their special duties and yet
the tenure of office be left utterly indefinite and precarious,
if such we think to be the part of statesmanship or justice.
Like officers in the old Italian republics, our civil servants
may be allowed a tenure of only one, three, or six months,
and, like the Athenian generals, our military and naval officers
may be allowed to command for only a single day, if we think
that the part of wisdom. IV hat does the public interest
require in that regard ? is the decisive question. Neither
nominations nor competitions have changed the tenure of office
in Great Britain or in India. It must be clear, I think, that
the question of the proper tenure of office may be treated sep-
arately and upon its own merits, though the spirit and sug-
gestion of the new system are utterly hostile to removals for
political reasons. And if the principle should be accepted that
the best qualified person has the strongest claims to office, and
that no incompetent person should be appointed, no matter
what the influence in his favor, there is little ground for
doubt that experienced and worthy officers will be retained as
long as they shall properly discharge their duties and the pub-
He shall have need of their services.
There is really no question presented, as to having a perma-
nent body of officers, but only the questions as to each class of
officers or more accurately, as to each officer : What tenure
does the public interest require ? How long a tenure should
the laws and the administrative rules therefore encourage ?
Should officers be exposed to arbitrary and capricious removals ?
These are the only questions. With these questions, Great
Britain has dealt by laying down certain general principles,
but not by actually fixing any tenure of office, in the civil ser-
vice. Much less has she made the fact of having been in
office a certain number of years in itself a cause for removal or
for resignation. If we think that having been in the service
one year or ten years is a good cause for going out if we
feel that we have too much trained skill and experience
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 369
in our administration we can place those reasons among the
grounds of removal " for cause. " It is not my purpose to
consider the general question of the proper tenure of office in
the civil service. We have only to go back to our early
laws and usages to find a system far more in harmony, than
the spoils system, with our constitution and the general wel-
fare. The tenure of these properly constituting the civil
service at least as the constitution was understood in the
earlier and less partisan period of our history was, in theory
and practice, like the tenure of our judiciary, the same as
the British Civil Service tenure, as I have defined it. The
laws limiting the official terms of collectors, naval officers,
post-masters, or other subordinates, to four years or other
fixed periods, are, like the practice of making removals to
satisfy the greed of parties and the clamors of favorites
and henchmen, the fruits of the proscriptive spirit which
began to be so powerful and reckless in the last generation.
They were opposed by our greatest statesmen, and they re-
spond to partisan greed rather than to public interests. What
we need in this regard is not what is new, but a return to
the rule and the practice of the fathers of the constitution.
These laws, I venture to think, and the question of the most
salutary tenure of office in all its forms, national, state, and
municipal as to which the discordant and fluctuating official
terms indicate a lamentable absence of a matured public opin-
ion will not long hence be recognized as worthy the most
serious consideration because they concern the morality of poli-
tics and the economy and integrity of official life.
It is not, of course, to be expected that methods of adminis-
tration which tend to diminish the spoils of party managers
and the arbitrary patronage of officials, in the same ratio that
they increase the just opportunities for office of every man
and woman of worth and capacity, will in this country, any
more than they did in Great Britain, escape the persistent and
unscrupulous hostility of those whose occupation and profits
they threaten. With many of this latter class, reason is of lit-
tle avail, and they may be left to repeat the sneers and the
sarcasms, the falsehoods and the fallacies, long so familiar,
but for a quarter of a century abandoned as stale and una-
370 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
vailing, in British polities. We have doubtless a class of ex-
treme partisans ready to listen and to laugh at their reiteration ;
ignorant enough, perhaps, even to believe they have rea-
son and experience on their side ; prejudiced enough to reject
whatever is denounced as of foreign origin. It will only be
another example of the repetition of English history, if we shall
find aspiring party -leaders and a certain stamp of officials be-
coming more and more widely separated from the most un-
selfish and patriotic portion of the people, and more and more
making their appeal to a highly organized body of servile fol-
lowers, who substitute manipulation for statesmanship and
convert politics into a trade. So long as faith in patronage
retains its influence, and the spoils of victory attract and re-
ward the politicians, why, in the light of reason any more
than in the light of, history, should we be surprised at those
later and ominous phases of our politics, wherein we see par-
tisan contests losing none of their fierceness, when all real
differences of avowed principles have ceased to exist, and both
parties, in theory, joining in reprobation of the identical abuses
which both alike practise ? It is further worthy of notice that
the increasing divergence and repugnance, in recent years, be-
tween the independent voters and the partisan politicians, are
quite as much due to the more vigorous reforming spirit of
the former as to any growing servility and intrigue of the
latter. Here, as was the case in Great Britain, that diver-
gence and repugnance must go on increasing until the reform
ing elements shall obtain the mastery, unless, indeed, we are
to fall under the hopeless bondage of the spoils system.
III. But has not the time arrived when the friends of reform
are justified in using a more decided and confident language
when they ought to make prominent the great fact that the system
of administration which they commend is as well founded in ex-
perience as it is in sound and just principles ? The merit system
now presents itself, not merely as a fine theory or as a high,
ideal conception of purity and justice in politics, but as an em-
bodiment of principles and methods matured during a century,
in which the foremost statesmen have bent their minds upon
good administration as never before as a system of practical
arrangements and safeguards which at every stage of develop-
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 371
ment have gone on from victory to victory, under the eyes of
the most practical of administrators, in the most practical and
utilitarian of nations as conclusions and results reached not
on the British Islands alone, but in colonies and provinces
variously governed, and in all quarters of the globe (except in
the United States), where the English language is spoken
as principles and methods tested and confirmed, so far as
the form of government has been liberal enough for such con-
firmation, by the administrative experience of all the nations
which lead the world in commerce, arms, and industry, in educa-
tion, morality, and religion. Nor can the better or even the
longer part of the experience of the United States be cited
against it. Our first generations sustained administrative
methods quite in the spirit of these later reforms. And
for every candid person who really approves our partisan-spoils
system of later years, there are scores of worthier men (hav-
ing views of a remedy, perhaps rather obscure) with whom
that system is an abhorrence and a despair. Outside of the
American Union, that spoils system has not the support of a
single State above the moral level of Mexico, Turkey, and
the factious Spanish- American republics which our backsliding
example has helped to demoralize. It is not, therefore, the
friends of the merit system not the reformers who are theo-
rists, and who insist on measures not yet justified by good re-
sults in practice. It is rather the partisans, the party leaders
claiming to be statesmen all those who insist on applying the
partisan spoils theory, after all the higher public opinion of
their own country and the judgment of all enlightened man-
kind beyond their own country have condemned it who are
the theorists. It is they who have got a favorite method un-
known to our fathers, novel in our history of managing par-
ties and of getting into and holding office, which they enforce
with the passion of enthuiasists and the recklessness of theorists.
In another sense, indeed, they are not theorists, but plant
their feet on ancient usage, inviting us to go back on the
road of civilization and again put in force the methods of
James II., of Walpole, Newcastle, and George III. ; claim-
ing, as they did, that an administration cannot be kept in
power without proscription, that patronage is a fit perquisite
372 IVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
of members of legislature, that offices and places are the just
and essential spoils of party victory. If he be not a theorist or
an enthusiast, how shall we describe the man who calls upon
us to shut our eyes, both to the degradation of our spoils sys-
tem and to the beneficent experience of all the rest of the
world under the merit system, to allow our officers to appro-
priate the perquisites and employ language of feudal lords of
the middle ages, to deny ourselves the right and opportunity
of gaining office by reason of our own merits, or otherwise
than upon the consent of patronage monopolists and partisan
manipulators? "What is a doctrinaire but one "who rigidly
applies to political or practical concerns the absolute principles
of his own system," without due regard to past experience
and practical consequences ? And who are such doctrinaires ?
The men who urge the partisan spoils system upon the people
of the United States, without being able to show that there,
or in any quarter of the world, it has produced any good results,
or the men who urge the merit system, because they find it in
practice in every other enlightened nation, and are able to show
that, in every instance where, in any degree, it lias superseded
the spoils system, it has in that degree checked abuses and
raised political life to a higher plane ? And who is the states-
man, the man who scorns the higher sentiments, who defies
the broader experience, who bends his energies upon manip-
ulating his party, who puts his faith in the selfish instincts, in
patronage and in spoils, who lives on the adulation of servile
politicians and forfeits the respect of nobler minds ; or the
man who has faith in the virtue and intelligence of the peo-
ple, who considers the great questions of his country in the
light of its permanent interests, who recognizes moral forces
and obligations in politics, who, rising above narrow preju-
dices and selfish interests, gives due weight, in all his judg-
ments, to the experience and wisdom of the great nations who
share in the leadership of human affairs '{ 1
The merit system comes before us not only sanctioned by
this long, this diversified, this almost universal experience, but
1 " A belief in the perfection of their own systems could only exist among
a people who knew nothing of any other systems." A History of Our
Own Times, 1879, by McCarthy, vol. i., chap. 8.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN". 373
supported by a matured and enlightened public opinion,
which seems to secure for it the same elements of permanency
which are the safeguards of our dearest constitutional pro-
visions. A pervading sense of its justice and the intelligent
conviction of the British people that it is essential to their
well-being entrench it in the popular judgment. There can
be no doubt that they have deliberately accepted these three
principles as axioms in their politics : (1) that the true and
highest claims upon office are the character and capacity that
best qualify a person to discharge its duties ; (2) that common
justice requires the application of a fair public test for ascer-
taining these qualifications ; and (3) that he who thus presents
the highest evidence of fitness has morally, and should have
legally, a right to receive the office. They ceased to reason
upon these maxims years ago. The public conviction has become
so decided and outspoken that no law seemed necessary to in-
sure obedience to them, and none has ever been enacted 1
which requires it, or even examinations and competitions for
the civil service ; these latter resting, so far as any coercive
element is concerned, on the orders in Council, the demands of
public opinion, and the conditions of retiring allowances.
From the very outset, proceedings under the new system
have been regarded by British statesmen as an agency of higher
education in public affairs. It has been treated as but an act
of justice to the people that they should be kept informed of the
manner in which the appointing power is exercised. " The
examinations should not only be rightly conducted, but they
should be shown to the whole country to be rightly conducted ;
and every amount of publicity should be given to them."
" I think it would be very advantageous that every thing in the
matter of appointment and promotion or transfers should be
known to the public." That publicity has been attained ;
and clear and ample reports and the records of the Civil
Service Commission leave no use of the appointing power,
1 Except for British India.
" 2 Report Committee 18T3 and '4, pp. 103 and 100. Evidence Sir Charles
Trevelyan.
3 Report 1873 and '4, vol. i. p. 133. Evidence Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN".
and no reasons upon which it has proceeded, concealed
from the knowledge or the criticism of the people. Those
exercises of official authority are treated as no more party
or official secrets than the use made of the seats in the
public schools or of the moneys in the national treas-
ury. This opening of the public mind to a knowledge of
the morals and the logic of administration, while overawing
official favoritism within the departments, has educated the
people up to a higher sense of their rights and their duties.
And may we not well ask ourselves whether this salutary
publicity this new educational and purifying influence in
politics is possible only where the executive wears a crown,
where the senate is hereditary, where privileged classes and a
state church are tolerated ? In a republic, must all such affairs
be shrouded in mystery, in order that they may the more easily
be made subservient to partisan interests ? Must they be
planned in secrecy, and be carried into effect with defiance, as
a part of the irresponsible discretion and privileges of republi-
can officials ? However that may be, I repeat that this pub-
licity in Great Britain has developed a public opinion so dis-
criminating and stern that examinations and competitions
stand unchallenged and impregnable within the rampants of its
high sanction alone. No minister or party would now dare
affront that opinion. Indeed, a party might almost as safely
discriminate on political grounds in levying taxes, or a minis-
try in collecting them, awarding contracts, or allowing suffrage,
as to make nominations or removals in the civil service for
partisan reasons or in violation of reform principles or methods.
There have been striking examples of the power of that
opinion to bring ministers and cabinets to obedience, in which
members of Parliament, once so hostile, appear to have made
haste to speak for the new and popular system. When, for
example, a few years since, Mr. Layard was thought to have
been appointed Minister to Spain in violation of the civil ser-
vice system, the cabinet was speedily forced to vindicate the
regularity of its action before Parliament. In the late pro-
motion of a Mr. Pigott to a very subordinate place, Lord
Beaconsfield was believed to have departed from the spirit of the
civil service rules. So vigorous was the protest, so fierce
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITALST. 375
was the assault of the press, so many of liis own party re-
fused to sustain him, that his administration suffered its first
defeat. A vote of censure was carried against him upon the
question raised, in a House in which his party had a majority
of from sixty to a hundred totes. So intense was the feeling
that " the House of Commons was deserted, and the members
flocked to hear what their former colleague could say in the
House of Lords." It was only by a frank and elaborate speech,
in self vindication, showing that the charge was unwarranted,
that the prime minister saved himself from the necessity of
resignation. A well-informed American, long resident in
England, referring to this event, says that " the point for us is
that civil service reform is so much a reality in this country that
one of the strongest governments that England has ever seen
suffered a defeat in the house, because it was supposed, in a
single instance, to have 'overriden the settled principle which
now controls appointments to office the principle that fitness
for office, and not need of office nor party service, shall be con-
sidered in the nomination of public servants." 1 In these facts
we may not only see how soon, by proper means of education, a
debauched public opinion may be elevated into a conservative
moral power, but we may be reminded that, in our own country
also, the time has been when offices could not be used as par-
tisan spoils, without an equal shock to the public sense of duty
and justice. For " when the Democratic party came into
power with Mr. Jefferson, the removals were few so few that
single cases excited a sense of wrong through a whole State." a
tl Then, the dismissal of a few inconsiderable officers, on party
grounds as was supposed, was followed by a general burst of
indignation ; but now the dismissal of thousands, when it is
openly avowed that the public offices are the spoils of the
victors, produces scarcely a sensation." 3 These facts show us
that the moral tone of politics, to which the British people
have risen, is only that of our last generation, from which we
have fallen.
The evidence of the permanency of the new system ap-
peal's to be not less decisive than that of its popularity. Sir
1 Letter of Mr. Smallcy, New York Tribune, August 4, 1877.
* Woolsey's Political Science, vol. ii., p. 561.
3 Speech J. C. Calhoun in U. S. Senate in 183o.
S76 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
Charles Trevelyan, 1 now enjoying public respect in liis retire-
ment, and who, I believe, is justly thought to have exhibited
more practical statesmanship than the whole body of parlia-
mentary monopolists and partisan manipulators who sneered at
and obstructed the new system in its earlier stages says,
" You cannot lay too much stress upon the fact that the mak-
ing of public appointments by open competition has been ac-
cepted by all our political parties, and there is no sign of any
movement against it from any quarter." 2 In the fact of his
holding the high positions of head of the British Treasury
and leader of the Conservatives in the House of Commons,
(where he faithfully carries into effect his own reform methods),
Sir Stafford Northcote illustrates not less the abiding nature of
O
the reform toward which he has so much contributed than he
does the feeling of the people toward its authors. The decla-
ration of John Bright, who may speak for the Liberals, to the
effect that ' ' it would be impossible to go back to the old
system,'-' 3 has already been quoted. But there are assur-
ances of the stability of the reform methods far beyond
what can be shown by examples or on the authority of
great names. They are to be found in the sentiment, now
pervading every class of respectable society, that patronage-
mongering by members of Parliament is ignominious and
disgraceful ; that bartering in nominations and prostituting the
appointing power for selfish or partisan purposes is a repre-
hensible breach of official trust ; that it is not less an act of jus-
tice than of wisdom to give the offices to those shown in a fair
contest to be best qualified to hold them. While parties havei
ceased to look to patronage or spoils as sources of strength,
and no man or woman of respectability can be found to defend
the old system, all the young men and women who have so
much as a common-school education all honest persons of
the rising generation who have the capacity and attainments
which justify a hope of reaching even the lowest appoint-
ments recognizing no party issue in the subject, stand to-
1 Already mentioned as having, with Sir Stafford Northcotc, first pre-
sented the merit system in a formal report in 1854.
2 See his second letter in Appendix A.
3 See his letter in Appendix A.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 377
gether for a system which has conferred new honors upon
learning and a higher dignity upon simple manhood. They
now comprehend that every office, which has been bestowed as
patronage or spoils, was so much pillaged from the just inher-
itance of good citizens and so much capital added to the cor-
ruption fund of partisan politics. These facts are not without
an important bearing upon our affairs. Those worthy citi-
zens who have so little faith in public virtue and intelligence
that they fear a reform can never gain strength enough to with-
stand its natural enemies, unless it be first made a part of the
constitution itself who excuse themselves and their party for
not beginning it from a fear that the other party coming
into power would overthrow it 1 may perhaps find encourage-
ment in such results, and be able to see that justice and wis-
dom are not without power even in politics. They may be-
gin to comprehend that the great principles involved in ad-
ministrative reform, when fairly presented, take a strong hold
of the public mind (without the support of laws or. of con-
stitutions), because they have inherent powers of vitality
which appeal alike to the general sense of justice and to
every individual's conception of his own personal rights.
Efficiently, therefore, as a party might support these principles,
the conditions of their success are in no small degree inde-
pendent of the action of parties or the sympathy of legislators.
Indeed, that is one of the most significant and encouraging
1 What measure is there at issue between the parties against the adoption
of which such a reason would [not with equal force apply? Each party is
ready to reverse any measures of its adversary if the public will sustain it
in doing so. But here again the experience of Gr^nt Britain is instructive ;
and in the triumph of the merit system there, over both parties, "we find evi-
dence that such want of faith in the intelligence and virtue of the people is
without warrant ; unless indeed wo believe that those qualities are higher
in Great Britain than in the United States. In the light of that experience,
is there much reason to doubt that when, in 1874 members of Congress
betrayed the reform policy to which they and the party in power were com-
mitted if the President had stood firmly for it, and had withstood the
patronage-mongers and partisans who beset him as stubbornly as he with-
stood his enemies on the battle-field, he would have prevented its temporary
abandonment; and might, by adhering to its principles, have averted a great
loss of support by the dominant party, and have established additional
claims to the gratitude of his country ?
378 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
lessons of British experience which shows the power of these
principles, when once in the mind of the intelligent and inde-
pendent voters, to arrest the arrogance of politicians and to bring
members of Parliament to their duty. " Large as were the
numbers who profited by the former system, . . . those
left out . . . were still larger and included some of the
best classes of our population ; . professional persons of
every kind, lawyers, ministers of religion of every persuasion,
schoolmasters, farmers, shopkeepers, etc., . . . who
rapidly took the idea of the new institution . . . as a val-
uable privilege. . . . Whatever may have been the indi-
vidual sentiments of members of the House of Commons, they
received such pressing letters from their constituents as obliged
them to vote straight. ' ' 1 Patronage became odious from the
moment it was exposed, and fell mortally wounded by its first
defeat.
IV. If, from these considerations relating to the stability and
trustworthiness of the new system, we turn to the principles
and methods upon which it proceeds, interesting questions at
once present themselves as to their adaptation to our social con-
dition and form of government. It would be little less than
an insult to the intelligence of the reader to gravely argue that
a policy, which would bring into places of public trust the
moral character and the intelligence needed for the proper dis-
charge of their duties, is at least as appropriate and needful in
a republic as in a monarchy. Is a monarchy w r ith a state
church creed at the door of every office, with an hereditary
executive which is the source of all office, with its Upper
House of Parliament whose members take their seats as an
inheritance, with birthright and property as the basis of politi-
cal and social privileges, with its vast and imposing system of
ranks, honors, and decorations the natural friend and sup-
porter of such a policy ? And is a republic which proclaims
justice, personal equality, and common rights as its cardinal
principles, which, discarding property and birthright, makes
virtue, liberty, and intelligence its chief reliance a sort of
natural enemy which should look upon that policy with dis-
1 Letter Sir Charles Trevelyan, Appendix A.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 379
trust, if not with dread ? If any among ourselves are so par-
tisan or so prejudiced as not to be able to see that every step
which monarchies have taken in the way of that policy is re-
pugnant to the main principles of their original form of govern-
ment, while it is, on the other hand, in complete harmony with
our institutions, English statesmen at least are not so blind.
They comprehend the fitness of the merit system for the refor-
mation of our abuses. ' ' I have long been struck by the singular
suitableness of our new but well-tried institution, of making
public appointments by open competition, for the correction of
some of the worst results of the United States political sys-
tem. " * We have already seen that the merit system, as estab-
lished in Great Britain, has been built upon the fundamental
principles of common right, individual worth, and universal
justice. " All persons have an equal right to be candidates if
they are fit ; ... we consider the right of competing
should be open to all persons of a given age ; ... if you
do not concede that right, and make it accessible, you do in-
justice, first to the public service and then to Her Majesty's
subjects generally," a is the language of the British statesmen
who devised and put that system in practice, and the view
of the people who sustain it. Are these principles are
such ideas of right and justice safe and appropriate to be
carried into practice in a monarchy, but repugnant and danger-
ous in a republic ? After they have achieved a victory in the
mother country over so many centuries of oflicial despotism and
aristocratic monopoly while they are now being applied in
every quarter of the globe where English-speaking people are
under a royal flag is it fit and natural that they should be
distrusted and denied that, in the true feudal spirit, patronage
and spoils should still be allowed as the perquisites of officials
in the leading republic of the world ? The standard of official
duty, in the light of which these ideas of justice and right
are to be carried into effect, is, according to these statesmen,
this : " Public office is a solemn trust, and one of its most im-
portant conditions is to choose the best possible men for the
different places." Shall we look upon this as an obligation of
1 Letter Sir Charles Trcvclyan, Appendix A.
a See ante, pp. 190 and 227.
380 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
official life fit to be observed in a monarchy, but which officers
in a republic should be at liberty to disregard as inconsistent
with the constitution of their country or too high for the
spirit of its politics and the morals of its administration. 1
Looking to the ultimate aims of the new system, we find
them not to rest in mere economy or efficiency or in anything
within the circles of administration, but to comprehend the pros-
perity and the elevation of the people at large. " I am not
indifferent to the consideration that offices have become the
patrimony of the poorer part of the middle class, or even, per-
haps, of the working class," says a British statesman at the
head of his party in Parliament. 3 " I should regret that any
man should be debarred . . . who possessed energy and
ability enough to enable him, in a Jiumble position of life, to
succeed at the competitive examinations," says the Viceroy of
India, 3 while commending the new system in that dominion.
Are these national aims and sympathies appropriate to be en-
couraged in the theories and the very processes of royal ad-
ministration, but such as a republic may wisely discard for the
greater blessings of favoritism, patronage, and spoils for a
system which thrusts back or crushes every poor and humble
applicant for an office or a place under the government, how-
ever high his character or ample his capacity, unless he prom-
ises servility, has voters at his back or influence at his bidding ?
We have seen members of the British Cabinet refusing
O
patronage *in order that the places which they would be en-
abled to hand over to competition might become the prizes of
popular education. Eminent statesmen have sustained the new
system the more heartily because it was seen to be favorable to
the general instruction of the people, " to which it has given
a marvellous stimulus." 4 It would be an affront to the
reader's intelligence to ask the question whether the encour-
1 Whatever answer politicians may give, the Supreme Court of the United
States has declared that " the theory of our government is that all public
stations are trusts, and that those clothed with them are to be animated in.
the discharge of their duties solely by considerations of right, justice, and
the public good." Trist v. Child, 21 Wallace R. 450.
9 Ante, p. 324. 3 Ante, p. 252.
4 See pp. 190, 201, 214, note, and see Sir Charles Trerelyan's letter, Ap
pcndix A.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 381
agement of popular education is in the spirit of republican
institutions. But may we not well pause and consider in
presence of the fact that Great Britain is gaining upon us, and
that several monarchies have already surpassed us, in the
education of the people, and of the further fact that the
ratio of well-educated persons in official life has been growing
less in the United States under our partisan spoils system
whether we can longer afford to hand over the offices, as the
prizes of partisan contests and the perquisites of officials?
And especially can we do this at a time when foreign States,
giving new vigor to the means by which they have distanced
us in the race, are, through superior officers and a growing com-
merce, more and more placing us at a disadvantage, and en-
hancing the distinction and the dignity of the kind of govern-
ment which they represent, in every quarter of the globe ?
To execute that "solemn trust" of official life, to select
the best men for public places in the light of the highest tests
of fitness, to secure humble citizenship its equal right to office
according to its capacity, to thus make the orderly processes
of administration in themselves a daily example before the
eyes of the people of the justice and integrity of the govern-
ment and a powerful force in aid of education and morality,
it was first necessary that the king should surrender, or at
least forbear, the exercise of that haughty and absolute pre-
rogative of selecting officers at his pleasure which every Eng-
lish sovereign had wielded from the foundation of the mon-
archy ; that dukes, and noblemen of every class, should waive
that vast influence over minor appointments which for ages
had been in great part the patrimony of their children and
the strength and prestige of their order in the State ; that
members of Parliament should surrender a patronage, won
in contests not wholly foreign to the progress of liberty, which
for more than a century had been held as the unchallenged per-
quisite of their predecessors. And now that all this has been
done that the old feudal and class barriers have been
broken down, so that simple manhood and womanhood, un-
obstructed by monopolists, stand with all the liberty and
equality of their just and natural relations before the law in
the mother country and in all her provinces now that her
25
382 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
politics have risen practically to the principles upon which
our fathers framed our constitution is it for us, upon a new
construction of that instrument and a degrading theory foisted
into our administration, to take the lead in presenting republi-
canism before the world as the only kind of government, ac-
cepted by a leading nation, whose administration is held
together by spoils, and whose officers require patronage as a
condition of serving their country ? I am unable to find any
reason, in the sentiment of our people or the nature of our
government, why the members of the American Congress, any
more than the members of the British Parliament, need pat-
ronage and spoils, or can justify the use of them, to bring
about their elections, to inspire their patriotism, or to reward
their fidelity. But if it be too much to hope that, congress-
men will ever lead in a reform, the fundamental conditions
of which are that they surrender the patronage they have
usurped and no longer violate the Constitution by leaving
their own sphere to invade the Executive may we not at
least believe that they will not again refuse appropriations ?
May we not expect that, not less patriotic than members of
the British Parliament, they will give a free field, and vote
the necessary moneys for that systematic reform in administra-
tion which seems in this country to be, as plainly as in Great
Britain, within the province of the Executive to inaugurate ?
Another of the great and* salutary principles of the new
system, which, if in any way dependent upon the form of
government, would seem to be peculiarly congenial to the
more liberal institutions, is that which it applies to promo-
tions in. the public service. It requires that they shall not
be regardless of capacity and well tested fidelity. They must
not depend on partisan services, or the ambition of high
officials, or the interests of patronage monopolists or of poli-
ticians of any sort. When, in the great report of 1860, a
distinguished parliamentary committee (of which such men
as the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, Robert Lowe,
John Bright, Lord Houghton, and Lord Derby were mem-
bers) declared it to be one of the great purposes of their
appointment " to encourage industry and foster merit by
teaching all public servants to look forward to promotion ac-
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. . 383
cording to their desert, and to expect the highest prizes in
the service if they can qualify themselves for them," 1 they
touched upon a subject of profound importance, which vitally
affects fidelity, efficiency, and economy in the public service.
I have no space for pointing out the salutary effects which
such a rule faithfully executed in our service would be
sure to produce. What industry, and consequently what
economy, would it not encourage ? What worthy ambition
would it not inspire and crown with honor ? What imbecility
and indolence would it not rebuke ? What injustice and
favoritism, in superiors, would it not arrest ? What new life
and aspiration would it not breathe into the dreary, servile at-
mosphere which pervades offices and departments, precisely in
the ratio that merit is without recognized claims to a re-
ward, that the reasons for advancement are shrouded in mys-
tery, that official favoritism and partisan interests are be-
lieved to determine the position and consequently the
salaries of every officer in the service. More than fifty years
have elapsed since the head of the British Treasury set
the example, 3 still followed, of surrendering patronage in
the interest of merit, in the matter of promotions, in that
vast department. It has been a little longer, perhaps, since
an American Secretary of the Treasury for the first time
violated the rights of merit, in the interest of patronage
and spoils, in his great office. It is a part of the issue
for the people to decide, whether we are to continue
the downward, or resume the upward road, in the future ?
Whether those holding official places under a republic are to
have their manhood respected and their merits rewarded as
justly and surely as they would be under every enlightened
monarchy in the world, or are to be exposed every moment to
the perils of caprice and the humiliations of unregulated and
irresponsible authority ? Whether every hour they are to be lia-
able to be taxed without limit, and removed without hearing and
without cause ? Whether, in short, those in our public service
are to enjoy the rights due to merit and the liberty of speech due
to freemen, or their relations are to have more of the character
1 See ante, p. 220. See p. 156.
384: CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
which belonged to feudal dependents centuries ago than of
that which befits the representatives of the justice and intelli-
gence of the foremost republic of the globe ? I cannot think
that any principle or interest of our government stands in the
way of promotions being so regulated that, in our service, as in
the British service and in that of all the leading States, they
shall be the encouragement and the reward of the highest vir-
tues of official life. 1
There is but one other great principle involved in the re-
form methods to which reference need be made. It is that
which declares the patronage and spoils, which a partisan sys-
tem places at the disposal of parties, are not essential to their
greatest usefulness, but rather tend to degrade and enfeeble
them. It should be no matter of surprise if, in a generation
reared under that system and little accustomed to consider
the attitude and influence of great parties when acting
independently of spoils, there should be found not a few
candid persons who hesitate over that principle, and do not
see their way to its adoption. An adequate presentation
of the subject would require a whole chapter, and it is not
within the scope of this work to comment upon our own
party history. Let it be borne in mind that the merit sys-
tem does not interfere with the freedom of choice on party
ground in any popular election ; that it leaves unimpaired
the power of the party majority to control the enactment
of all laws ; that the officers its majorities have elected will
have the right of instruction and control according to
law, and for the purpose of executing its policy of the
great body of civil servants by whom the laws are carried
into effect. The system thus gives to parties the broadest
field of discretion and responsibility. It enables the will of
the people to be carried into effect everywhere from the high-
est centres of political action from the Cabinet and Con-
1 If it be said that quite as many of those in our public service violate
official propriety and diginity, by excessive partisan speech and action, as
by servility and hypocrisy, the answer is that both forms of abuse, are the
result of the same enslaving system, producing opposite effects upon differ,
ent natures. A tenure dependent upou merit would equally remedy both
forms of the evil.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN". 385
gress, through every grade of office and every form of juris-
diction to the humblest public servant and the remotest terri-
tory. Whatever parties can now do to uphold and carry
into effect a sound national policy, to develop and express
the sentiments of the people upon any question of politics,
to invite or honorably reward patriotic service in the interest
of good government, to secure true and honest suffrage, to elect
worthy men to office, to rebuke treachery or to reform abuses
all these things they can do as freely and far more certainly
under the merit system of administration. But the prostitu-
tion of the functions and honors of the State for partisan ends,
bribery by the promise of offices, the huckstering of em-
ployment on the public works for votes, feudal tyranny and
pillage in the form of arbitrary taxation of official salaries,
despotic patronage in the hands of legislators, all the forms
of partisan interference with the internal affairs of depart-
ments by which discipline is impaired, economy made impo-
sible, promotions are degraded into favoritism, and unworthy
henchmen are foisted upon the public treasury these abuses,
one and all that system, faithfully enforced, would in great
measure bring to an end. The good effects of this theory
of parties and of such principles in the execution of the laws,
not only within the departments, but upon the people and
upon parties themselves, have been demonstrated in Great
Britain by an amount of evidence which has there placed the
subject beyond discussion. The question is, whether there is
any reason why similar effects would not flow from the same
principles applied to our politics ? In other words, is it not
practicable for great parties in a republic to express the will
of the people in regard to public affairs and to serve the na-
tion, as justly and efficiently as in a monarchy, without any
more reliance upon corruption, patronage, and spoils ? The
same history which has shown us that rulers and parties, in
an old monarchy, long ago devised and put in practice, in
forms more aggravated than we have ever allowed, the varied
kinds of proscriptions, frauds, and prostitution known in our
politics, and others yet more flagitious which lias shown us
how parties and the partisan system began and the uses to
which every variety of spoils and patronage may be put has
386 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
also shown the inherent inability of these devices of corruption
to sustain a party or to meet the requirements of the higher
sentiment in a free State. It has further shown us how such
abuses fell before the rising intelligence of an enlightened
people. Upon a broad, historical review of the course of
British affairs, Hallam declares that * ' government may saf el v
rely on the reputation justly due to it ;" and from the
deepest experience of practical politics, Lord Granville de-
clared in Parliament, in 1854, " that the time for a system of
government by patronage was gone by, ' ' lie also laid down
the rule ' ' that the true policy of a government was in appeal-
ing to the good sense and intelligence of the large classes of
the community. ' ' ' The appeal here meant was an appeal to
the people to come forward and show themselves qualified for
office without resorting to partisan coercions to compel its
bestowal. Is not this appeal based on a faith and a policy
upon which a republic as consistently and safely as a mon-
archy may act ? Were not these the theories of our early
statesmen, and are they not in the spirit of our constitution
and our social life ? "When, in royal old England, feudalism
and patronage and privilege have been laid so low, by the
people's demand of common justice at the gates of office, that
no man without the prescribed qualifications can pass those
gates, though having in his veins the blood of all the How-
ards and at his back the influence of the whole bench of
bishops and all the coronets that glitter on the heads of noble-
men, is that the time for this young nation of republican
freemen to make a privileged class of its politicians, and feu-
dal lords of its officials and partisan leaders, without whose
consent, no man, however meritorious, can enter the public
service of his country ? Are we not as competent to make a
reform, in the spirit of our institutions and according to the
better precedents of our history, as the English people were
"The recent utterances of leading statesmen and thinkers in England
regarding the submission of questions of fundamental policy to a fairly
educated people, as compared with the submissions of such questions
simply to the most highly educated classes, are very striking." Address of
Hon. Andrew D. White on Education and Political Science. February,
1879.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 387
to make the same reform, which took away privileges as old
as civilization in Great Britain and undermined theories and
classes which every former generation had cherished ? Con-
sider further what is involved in the assumption that it is
easier under a monarchy than under a republic more 'in
harmony with the political relations of the subjects of a
king for a party to forbear the use of proscription and
corruption in carrying forward its policy. These may be
accepted as the principal reasons why men act together in
parties : 1. Patriotic devotion to the form of government
or to the general welfare, which the party is believed to
promote. 2. Interest in the success of a particular measure
or policy. 3. Personal ambition for office or power. 4. Sub-
serviency to the dominant public opinion. 5. Love of con-
tention, excitement, and mere pride of victory. .6. Selfish
expectation of direct personal gains. It is plain that it
is only the latter and lower class of motives for acting
with a party which would be weakened by the diminution
of the bribes which it can hold out and the spoils which it
can distribute. If it be true, therefore, that the application
of the principle we are considering would impair the support
given to parties in a republic more than it would in a mon-
archy, it must be because the corrupt elements are relatively
stronger and the patriotic elements relatively weaker in the
former than in the latter. Royalty, class distinction, aristo-
cratic privileges must, consequently, be greater inspirations to
patriotism and self-sacrifice than liberty, equality, common
rights, or any thing upon which republican institutions are
founded. If w.e hold such views, we may, with some con-
sistency, fear that our parties will fall to pieces, and that
citizens of a republic will refuse to serve their country,
unless party managers are at liberty to pillage the officials in
order to supply their treasuries, and to practice proscription
and make merchandise of office in order to reward their hench-
men. But, in that event, let us cease our grandiloquent talk
about " the oppressed and downtrodden masses in the effete
monarchies of the Old "World," and about the people's glo-
rious love of freedom and equality on our happy shores. Let
us frankly admit that monarchy is the government most loved
388 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
and best served by the people the government which alone
develops a truly self-sacrificing patriotism while a republic
can command the services of its citizens only to the extent
that they are bribed and paid by offices and spoils. If such
views are well founded, let us also be prepared for the gradual
decadence of republican. States. For, what is more certain, in
the great international rivalry of governments and institutions,
than that those will triumph which most attract to their sup-
port the virtues and higher sentiments of the people. It can
only be in a world surrendered to chance, or under a civiliza-
tion hastening to decay, that a political system which makes
its appeal to the baser motives of men can win the foremost
places in the competition of nations.
I have no space for more than an allusion to the fact that,
if the taking of the bribery and corruption fund out of party
politics should result in the more venal and rowdyish voters
keeping away from the polls if a class of mercenary manipu-
lators should not be so much busied in caucusses and conven-
tions British experience shows us that worthier citizens, which
a corrupt system repels, will more than fill any places left
vacant. It also shows us that such citizens, for which a con-
test of principles has attractions, will give more virtue and
ability to political leadership than can ever be secured under
the system we tolerate.
V. Dismissing the questions of principle involved in the
new system, we come to the practical effects which would be
likely to attend its adoption. It not being within the scope of
this work to set forth the abuses in our administration, no at-
. tempt will be made to do more than indicate, in broad outline,
the changes the new system would bring about. They have
been largely suggested already, and most of them are so plainly
deducible from the explanations made concerning the British
departments, 1 that not much need be added. Civil service
reform, though in its indirect effects a powerful aid to. educa-
tion, has for its more direct object the utilization, more effec-
tively for the public good, of the virtue and intelligence
already existing. But, with whatever success this may be
/
1 See especially Chap. 30.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 389
done, we may well believe that need will always exist in
our politics for giving the utmost efficiency to all influences
which directly mould character for higher ends. If faith in
the better sentiments is an element in all true statesmanship,
anticipations of any sudden or absolute purification of politics
are evidences of weakness and inexperience. Great reforms
are the slow growth of years.
The most important change which the merit system would at
once bring about would be the breaking up of a perva.ding and
pernicious monopoly, now held by party managers, by jobbers
in politics, and by office-holders possessing (or usurping) the ap-
pointing power, which everywhere obtrudes itself between the
people and all nominations for office and all public employment.
This monopoly everywhere, in the departments and offices of
the cities, of the States, and of the nation alike, imposes condi-
tions in the interests of personal gain or partisan supremacy
and largely irrespective of personal worth upon nearly every
applicant for a public position. All the ways to offices and
places, under the partisan spoils system, are through the
narrow gates held by this vast monopoly, at which there is a
degrading, secret, and corrupt competition of influence, to
which these gates are opened. The surrender of indepen-
dence and of liberty to serve the people faithfully are the
toll. Free, public examinations, directed to subjects of essen-
tial knowledge for the public work, and open competitions of
merit, to which no officer, party, or monopolist could prescribe
the conditions of entry, would break up both this monopoly and
the great trade in patronage and spoils. They would allow
citizens a real freedom and equality in presenting their claims
for office. They would deprive intrigue and partisan influence
of their controlling power in politics. Better still, they would
exhibit the methods of exercising the appointing power before
the minds of the people in an aspect of justice and purity
which would command their confidence and respect. Is o longer
affiliated with intrigue, manipulation, and mere influence,
that power would stand in alliance with industry, education
and personal worth. It would be exercised without conceal-
ment. It would appear to the people as based on principle, as
intended to reward capacity and character, as making ability to
390 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
discharge the duties of an office an essential condition of secur-
ing it. Where now there is secrecy, intrigue, uncertainty, and
consequently suspicion, distrust and ignorance, pervading and
darkening all the approaches and purlieus of office, and a dis-
orderly contention, in large measure only between the venal and
unscrupulous forces of politics, there would be openness of pro-
cedure and complete publicity of method. In place of the
secret contests of influence, there would be a public competi-
tion and a rivalry in presenting in the highest degree those
qualifications needed in official places character that could not
be impeached attainments that are in themselves evidence of
virtuous industry. The final decision of the appointing offi-
cers which under the spoils system is based, so generally, on
the secret preponderance of menace and persuasion in the
interest of a motley throng of applicants would, under the
new system, be required to be made as between only a few of
the more worthy persons to whom competition had reduced
the many applicants. And that decision would necessarily
have to stand upon public records, in writing, concerning the
character and capacity of each successful competitor, which
would remain as abiding evidence of the justice or injustice
of the final selection. 1
As a natural consequence of arresting partisan control of
nominations and of subordinate administration generally, the
main causes would cease to exist which now hold together so
many active and mercenary cliques and ' ' rings ' ' in our poli-
tics. Without the power and the profit of such nominations
and control, and without the ability to collect party assess-
ments any longer, their business and means of support would
come to an end together. They do not exist by reason of any
patriotic interest in public affairs, nor do they contribute to
any healthy activity or to the public enlightenment. It is
these combinations, managed by men of low moral tone and
mercenary aims, and their domineering influence upon elec-
tions which have driven worthy men from the polls and
1 For example, the record of eacli of the hundreds of thousands of appli-
cants who have been examined under the British Civil Service Commission,
has been preserved ; and the justice of every appointment made from among
them could be verified to-day as well as at the date of the examination.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 391
brought politics into disgrace. When they are broken up, we
shall have left only that legitimate popular action which
directly concerns officers elected by the people and the princi-
ples by which the great parties may be divided.
In presidential elections, the introduction of the merit sys-
tem would bring about changes too manifold and profound for
description here. These elections would become true national
contests, in which little beyond the personal worth of candi-
dates and the principles and the policies of the rival parties
would be involved. The filling of a very few high places
would depend on the result ; but the innumerable side issues of
self-seeking and partisanship could no longer be made to trail
the whole canvass in corruption. Those within the departments
and offices would have the full liberty of citizens to express
their opinions and to vote. They would not be forced, by
fears of arbitrary removal, to prostitute their authority, or
waste time needed in the public service, upon the servile
work of partisan politics. They would no longer be com-
pelled to invade the freedom of elections as a condition
of holding their own places. Among the people at large,
every question of principle, the devotion inspired by patriot-
ism, the earnestness prompted by a cause believed to be
righteous, whatever zeal comes from a true party spirit,
and every honest interest that can be involved in political con-
tests, would have a fair and open field. Such motives of
action would be all the more effective in giving vigor to speech
and drawing honest voters to the polls, because innumerable
issues of corruption would have disappeared. They would be
all the more powerful for good, because the expectations and
intrigues of a million of claimants for a hundred thousand
offices and places would not be involved, and the people
would feel that the great question to be settled was not which
party should capture the offices, but what policy should guide
the nation.
The same causes which, by giving official places to merit,
would deprive officers and party leaders of their irresponsible
control of selections and appointments, would also make polit-
ical leadership and official life less attractive to self-seeking
and corrupt men. Those causes would also make public affairs
392 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
far more attractive to all patriotic and high-minded citizens.
It has been one of the most lamentable tendencies of our spoils
system to hand over political leadership and office to a class of
persons quite inferior to the men who held such positions in
the earlier years of the government. As a natural result, we
have seen a class of politicians become powerful in high
places, who have not taken (and who by nature are not
qualified to take) any large part in the social and educational
life of the people. Politics have tended more and more to
become a trade, or separate occupation. High character and
capacity have become disassociated from public life in the
popular mind. We see small bands of trained partisans, who,
while servile to officials, yet domineer over the great parties.
British experience warrants the belief that rigid tests of merit,
enforced against every applicant for office, will aid powerfully
in restoring the old sympathy and union between the politics
and the ability and worth of the nation. How can we expect
political morality to improve under a system which makes the
higher officers the most interested in preserving existing
abuses at the same time that it surrenders to them ample
power for continuing these abuses at their pleasure ?
It requires some effort of the imagination to get a clear idea
of the manifold effects in detail of the profound influences
upon the relations of citizens to parties and to office of the
stimulus to education and to independent, manly thought,
speech, and action which such an exchange of systems would
cause. Where now we see all thought, all hope, all influence,
all effort, concentrated upon partisan cliques, upon jobbers in
influence, upon official and unofficial patronage-mongers, upon
what good-natured citizens may be unduly persuaded to rec-
ommend in aid of an unworthy office-seeker, henchman, or
dependent we should see exertions to educate one's self up
to the standards needed for official duty, concern to keep one's
character above danger of attack at a public competition, en-
couragement to independence in politics, study of whatever
would contribute to the acquirement of a just distinction for
ability and efficiency in the discharge of official duty, upon
which all promotion would depend. With the greater ability
and higher character which such improved methods would
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 393
bring into the public service, its self-respect and its public es-
timation could not fail to be enhanced. ' Our politics would
t tend to rise from the degradation in which vicious and corrupt
methods have involved them, and to take the position befit-
ting a science which deals with the greatest affairs of a nation
and the profoundest human interest of a people.
Some brief explanations will give definiteness to these gen-
eral statements and to the practical methods of the new
system. The secretaries, the foreign ministers, the judges,
and some other high officers will, it may be assumed, always
be appointed without examination or competition. In deal-
ing with this limited number of conspicuous places, it
would be practicable for the President to become well in-
formed of the qualifications of the candidates, and for the
people to take notice of his action in each case. And therefore
examinations would be no more necessary than they would be
appropriate for such selections. At the other end of the
official scale, there would be the small postmasters, numer-
ous isolated officials, and the clerks in various small offices, as
to which there would probably be no examinations, or only
those of a general character, conducted in a less formal man-
ner and without competition. 11 Between these extremes, there
would be the great body of the subordinate officers, from^O^-
000 to 60,000, perhaps, in all, to whom examinations and (gen-
erally) competition would extend. It is the persons who fill
these offices who would be brought within the range of ap-
propriate tests of qualification and rules of procedure. It is
in connection with efforts to obtain these offices that the
greater part of the deception, the official and partisan intrigue,
the fraud and corruption of our politics take place. The hopes
and the profits of success are sufficient to keep in a state of
feverish and mercenary activity innumerable bodies of politi-
cians who render no real service to the people, and who, but
1 See Letter of Sir Charles Trevelyan on this point, Appendix A.
2 It is very plain that the need of competition in any office or department
depends, in large measure, upon the number of clerks being too great for
the head of the office to know the merits of each applicant for appointment
and promotion, and upon the amount of partisan and other corrupt pres-
sure applied for foisting unworthy persons into its official places.
394: CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
for chances of corrupt gain, would never take any active part
in public affairs.
A general Civil Service Board would supervise the examina-
tions, to be conducted in convenient parts of the Union upon a
uniform plan. Those competitors found worthy would be
certified to local officers and to the great departments at
Washington, so as at all times to enable selections to be made
for appointments with due reference both to the just claims
of every section and to the needs of every office. 1 From the
persons thus shown to be qualified, the President and the
heads of departments at "Washington, as well as officers having
the right of nomination in local offices, would readily make their
selections without interference from politicians, without agita-
tion of the community, and without disturbance of the business
of congress or of legislatures. The whole duty and responsibility
would in practice, as they do in the theory of the constitution,
rest with the executive department to which they relate. That
department would therefore be relieved of the demoralizing
necessity of surrendering to, or of deciding between, any
of the rival claims of factions or of favorites ; and it would no
longer be besieged by an army of importunate office-seekers,
backed by high officials and influential politicians of every
sort. The executive would be, for the first time in this gener-
ation, at liberty to give the attention needed for the proper
working of the departments. It would also be possible to
separate executive affairs from those legislative questions with
which congressional patronage has so disastrously embroiled
them.
Examinations and competitions would not only supply wor-
thy persons from whom appointments could at all times be
readily and safely made, but would be a part of a system which
would exclude appointments from persons not thus shown to
be competent. It would therefore have as salutary an effect
upon the legislative department as upon the executive. Those
candidates for Congress who might be capable of such a pros-
1 The practicability of this method was being tested with success, when
Congress deserted the reform policy under President Grant ; and it has been
found satisfactory, after a trial of more than twenty-five years, in Great
Britain.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN".
titution, having no longer power to give places in custom-
houses or other public offices, could no more pledge and barter
them with effect for votes, speeches, or influence, in aid of
their elections. They would have to go before the people on
the policy of their party and their own worth as men. Many
great fountains of corruption would thus be closed. The most
unscrupulous candidates would no longer be able to gain ad-
vantages over the best, in the ratio of the numbers they bribed
or deceived by corrupt promises of offices and places. Nor
would the effects be less salutary after members of congress
had reached Washington. For there, also, they would be
without power to barter in patronage, and without opportu-
nity for fawning or threatening successfully in the depart-
ments, in aid of their supporters or themselves. But they
would be left free, in the dignity of their high stations, and
able, in a manly and independent manner, to discharge their
only function the high function of making laws for a great
nation. They might find time for acting upon the thousands
of bills that year after year remain upon their tables, and for
dealing thoughtfully with the great interests of the nation
which are now neglected. No longer liable to be charged,
however unjustly, with prostituting duty to patronage, they
would be exalted in the respect and confidence of the people
and of each other.
It ought, however, to be clearly perceived that it does not
follow (because the members of the legislature are to give up
their usurped patronage and lose their corrupt influence), that
the executive would be aggrandized under the new system. Such
would not be the fact. Good citizens would be the only gain-
ers. The executive would be rather limited in its arbitrary
discretion curtailed in opportunities to act selfishly. For it
would be required to appoint only from the most worthy
among the people, as shown by the examinations. It would,
therefore, be only justice and the sanctions of official fidelity,
which would be made stronger, and only a selfish and capricious
favoritism which would be made weaker. Justice would ad-
vance upon official discretion to do wrong and limit its range.
The President, not less than members of Congress and other
high officials, would be compelled to surrender his secret and
396 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
unpatriotic favoritism. The new system is decentralizing.
It is democratic and discriminating to the last degree. It not.
only says to every official, it is your duty to appoint the fittest
man, but, in a measure, it compels him to do so. It not only
takes away the opportunity of selecting the unworthy, but it
enables the people, by their own acts, to determine the condi-
tions of a proper choice from among those most competent.
In other words, the examinations, by showing who are the most
worthy, put limits to the arbitrary discretion of nominating
the unworthy. To that extent, the people themselves would
aid the executive in doing its duty.
British statesmen speak of the position 'of members of
Parliament under the old system as "a double bondage
from which they were at once liberated when the junior
appointments were opened to competition ;'" and there
is abundant evidence that such a relief would not be less
welcome to all high-toned members of Congress than it was
to all high-toned members of Parliament. 2 It is but justice
to believe that most members of Congress, who consent to per-
form the ignominious and demoralizing work of office brokers
and patronage-mongers, do so only because, not having
studied the methods by which the legislators of other great
nations have risen above such servility, they have accepted an
inherited usage as a public necessity. They would, undoubt-
1 See Appendix A, Letter Sir Charles Trevelyan.
4 In a debate in the House, in 1869, a Representative declared that " it is no
more a part of a Representative's duty to seek and dispose of executive offi-
ces than to solicit pardons for traitors or condemned criminals.
If, as a matter of personal or political favor, he goes to the State Depart-
ment to beg a consulate, or perhaps something higher, . . . he is made
to feel . . . that he surrenders his independence when he accepts the
gift ;" and in a debate in 1870, another member used this language : " I ap-
peal to the members of the House, if it is not one of the greatest curses of
the position of a member of Congress that there are continual demands made
on his time and patience by persons whom it is utterly impossible for him
to satisfy, who demand that he shall secure office for them. The enemies
we make are dissappointed office-seekers almost exclusively." Report U. S.
Civil Service Commission, April, 1874, pp. 17 and 18. Still, the people will,
doubtless, be more impressed with the injustice of burdens thus cruelly put
upon members of Congress, if they shall more generally manifest their
courage and patriotism by speaking out plainly against them, and by vigor-
ous efforts to throw them off.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 397
edly, welcome a reform wliicli would as much enlarge their
own freedom as it would their ability to serve the people with
advantage. And if there shall be members deaf to the calls of
duty and patriotism, they have only to act on the lessons of
partisan selfishness. In 1871, Vice-President Wilson declared
in the Senate (having reference to the patronage of represen-
tatives), that ' ' looking over the country this year, and 1 have
taken some little pains to learn the facts, I believe that a large
majority of the districts lost to the administration party in the
House of Representatives, were lost on account of bad appoint-
ments made in the districts, and by the disappointment of men
who w r ere turned out of office or wanted to get into office. ' ' 1
We may also see in these facts how such changes would con-
tribute not less to keeping the great departments within their
constitutional spheres of duty and therefore to the counterpoise
and stability of the government itself than they would to
the dignity and manhood of official life and to the chances
of men of a scrupulous sense of honor at the elections.
I have no space to explain if it be not too clear for explana-
tion that the same methods and principles are as appli-
cable to governors and members of the legislature, and
to mayors and aldermen of cities, in the exercise of the
appointing power, as they are to the President and to mem-
bers of Congress. It needs but little reflection to comprehend
what a mass of corruption and intrigue would be suppressed,
and what superior officers, State and municipal, might be
secured, by enforcing examinations for fitness and by selecting,
for the subordinate officials of the States and the cities, only
those who should win in competition. And what encourage-
ment would not be given to fidelity and efficiency by providing
that all but the very highest positions should be filled by pro-
motions from the lower places ? The first city that shall put in
practice rigid and honest examinations and competitions of
character and qualifications for admission to its clerkships,
and require the higher places (below that of mayor and
perhaps two or three other officers) to be filled by competitive
promotions from among the -subordinates, will make an era in
1 Report U. S. Civil Service Commission, April, 1874, p. 74.
26
398 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
city affairs. It will be equally salutary in reducing expenses,
in suppressing a demoralizing and partisan intermeddling,
and in giving respectability and efficiency to municipal admin-
istration. "Who can estimate the advantage of suppressing the
useless and pernicious partisan machinery now operated in our
municipalities, for the purpose of controlling local nomina-
tions and officials in the interest of patronage and spoils ? And
can it be doubted that open competition would cause that sup-
pression ? That municipal government in Great Britain is
more efficient and less affected by official corruption than in
the United States, is well known. We have only to refer to
facts already cited to learn the salutary effect of such methods
of reform in her cities. 1
In the light of these explanations, it is hardly necessary to
point out how naturally and inevitably the administration of
our custom-houses and post-offices would rise above servility to
partisan interests, upon the enforcement of a merit system
of office. The bands of manipulators, who so generally domi-
nate them, would lose their control of nominations, removals,
and promotions, and with it the power to levy party assessment.
Their occupation and their income would be gone. Appoint-
ments, promotions, and removals would cease to be mere ap-
pendages to popular elections, and would go on as a part of an
orderly procedure, managed within the offices and not in the
partisan caucuses or cliques. Neither senators nor represen-
tatives, neither governors nor other State officers, would be
disturbed by the ordinary administrative duties, or be able to
meddle effectively with their due performance. Unless the
experience of all other nations should be belied, better admin-
istration and economy would soon give the new system a strong
hold upon the confidence of the people. 2 I am convinced
there is no need that the places in our revenue or postal
administration should be the prizes of partisan politics, or
that the public buildings should be the fortresses of the
dominant party. For a whole generation, there has been
little more politics in a British custom-house, or in the cus-
1 Sec ante, pp. 157 and 158.
2 See Letter Sir Charles Trevelyan. Appendix A.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 399
torn-houses of any leading nation in Europe, than in courts
or colleges. And it is very plain that no political principles
and no conditions appropriate for the interference of parties
are involved in the ministerial business of collecting the reve-
nues according to law and the instructions of the Secretary.
The duty and the discretion are the same, to whatever party
the collector belongs. He has, in the view of the constitution,
and should have in fact, no control over the policy of the ad-
ministration. It is only our partisan spoils system, the like of
which has not been tolerated by any other great nation for a
century, which has prostituted the revenue and postal services
and made them the sources of scandals which are the shame and
the peril of our people at home and their opprobrium in for-
eign countries. It is that system which, in a single year, has
brought more partisan and mercenary intrigue, more incom-
petency, more extravagance, scandal, and corruption into the
New York Custom House alone, than have existed, in a whole
decade, in both the Customs and Inland Revenue Services
of Great Britain united.
Another evil from which the adoption of the merit system
would indirectly, but not less surely, bring great relief, is that
of too numerpus_elections and too short terms on the part of
elected officers, especially of an inferior grade. Nothing has
more significantly illustrated the growth and predominance of
partisan theories and habits in this country, during this gener-
ation, than the many officers originally appointable which are
now elective. It was natural that the people should think
their direct choice would secure better officers than the spoils
system of appointment. It was natural that when political
management became a sort of trade, of which offices, places,
and promotions were the capital stock, and the elections
supplied the profits, there should arise a class of politicians
directly interested in increasing the number of those elections.
Laws and constitutions were changed in the interest of fre-
quent elections until most of the , judicial and administrative
places in the States and municipalities, and not a few mere
clerkships, were not only made elective, but the terms were
made so short that adequate experience was impossible. It
has even been seriously proposed to throw the choice of the
400 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIX.
many thousands of postmasters into the turmoil of elections
which now burden and disgust the people. The many evils
which have been the consequences of these measures, I need not
stop to point out. The confusion, the vast expense, the corrupt
partisan activity, the inability to judge of the merits of candi-
dates, the refusals to vote, the disgust and despair (especially
in cities) which have been thus caused are well known. No
nation not tolerating a partisan spoils system has been thus tor-
mented or has thus departed from all sound principles. It
cannot, I think, be doubted that the people would never have
made such radical changes, had it not been for the prostitution
of the appointing pow'er. 1 Nor need we doubt that the proper
measures of relief would speedily follow the elevation of that
power. It was not more elections which the people wanted,
but more certainty that worthy men would be made officers.
So rash and expensive a proceeding bringing into play the
whole machinery of caucus nominations as that of calling
upon a community to ballot for town, village, and city post-
masters, w T ould probably never be proposed to any people not
made desperate by a corrupt and partisan system of appoint-
ments.
One other effect of the merit system is too important not
to be noticed the indirect effect of bringing able and self-re-
liant young men and women, who have stood highest in com-
petitions, into the departments and local offices. They would
soon create an atmosphere of intelligence, thoughtfulness,
and independence, which, in itself, would make it very difficult
to treat such offices as the asylums, or the citadels of partisan
politics. They would come in on their own merits, and would
owe fealty and incline to be servile to no one. They would
be more ready to expose abuses, and more inclined to assert and
defend the rights and manhood of those who serve the public,
than the dependent appointees of patronage monopolists ever
1 Allusion has already been made to the fact tffat the people are becoming
^i tired of these short terms of office. New York has lately extended the
term of her governor to three years, that of some of her police justices to
eight years, and that of her judges from eight to fourteen years. Several
States have not only extended the tenure of various officers, but have made
the sessions of their legislatures biennial.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 401
can be. The people would rejoice to see their government be-
friending education and honoring worth and capacity in the
selection of its agents. Their pride and patriotism would be all
the greater, when in every official place they beheld a man or a
woman whose very presence proclaimed, not the success of
official or partisan influence in secret ways, but the victory of
personal merit, won by its own strength in open and manly
contest with all who chose to compete. Office would rise in
public respect ; and government itself would have a higher
dignity in the eyes of those who saw it spurning servility,
while seeking the service of the ablest and worthiest among
its citizens. With better and abler men in the subordinate
places, mere politicians mere strangers to its business, of any
sort would have a hard time indeed, when foisted over such
subordinates to the head of a great office. They would be
contemptible even in their own estimation. The bare fact
that there were many able men in the lower grades would
make it certain that the higher places would soon be filled
from the lower. No people can withhold their respect from a
body of men who have gained their places by demonstrating
their superior fitness to perform the duties which such places
impose. Every successful competitor would begin to share
that respect the moment he won a place by his own merits.
If no self-seeking patron could claim a right to disturb his ca-
reer, the friendly sympathy of the circle or the village where
his honors were won would attend his progress. Feebly de-
veloped as the public feeling now is on such points, I venture
to think that an officer would call down upon himself no
slight criticism who, after a competition under civil service
rules, should reject the victor, in order to give an office to a
favorite dunce at the foot of the list, or to an office-seeking
partisan so ignorant that he dared not enter the contest.
YI. We can hardly take leave of our subject without some
reflections as to the best policy to be pursued by the friends
of reform, and the lines along which they can act most
effectively.
1. The demand for better administration and the spirit
that supports reform are extending, and have been rapidly
gaining strength. But how the spoils system may be most
402 CIVIL SEEVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
effectually attacked, and what should be substituted in its
place are points by no means clear in the public mind.
Many of the friends of reform are only in the stage of dis-
gust, denunciation, and general discontent with our adminis-
tration. They have not those definite views needed for devising
or even for giving effective support to better methods. While
there are bad methods that must be done away with, the main
work is constructive the framing and putting into practice of
a new system which will open a free field to merit a system
strong enough to withstand the assaults of the old monopolist
and the constant pressure of hostile interests. We need clear
views and a wise and generally accepted theory of action, as a
prerequisite to the thorough performance of that work. The
natural enemies of reform whether they be the baser spirits
in parties acting in the party name, or selfish individuals, each
seeking his own gain stand together. They will make
a common attack and defence. They have on their side the
familiar usages, and the distrust of non-partisan methods,
which have grown up during more than a generation of parti-
san supremacy. Many worthy people will, probably, even
against the weight of reason, for a time allow their influence
to go with these enemies at least they will adhere to the
partisan theory from mere w T ant of knowledge of better
methods, and consequently from lack of faith in their suffi-
ciency. These facts show the need of a dissemination of
clearer views concerning the merit system and the improve-
ments it would bring about. That system is not yet clearly in
the public mind. To understand it is the first, if not the only
argument needed to make a supporter. To bring its just
principles and its simple, practical methods distinctly before the
intelligent classes, is therefore a patriotic and paramount duty.
Perhaps nothing would contribute more to this end than its
application, before the eyes of the paople, in any public office
national, State, or municipal. The examples of the New
York City Post Office and of the Department of the Interior
have been educating the people on the subject. But we need
a didactic literature which shall show what can be done to im-
prove administration, and how to do it. A literature of com-
plaint and denunciation will not suffice. It is only barren and
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 403
disintegrating. The people are in a mood to listen to those who
will properly present the issue between the two systems the
question whether the merit system or the partisan spoils sys-
tem is the better, the most in harmony with our institutions,
the safest with which to trust the fate of this great country.
The subject has a direct bearing upon every man of property,
upon every pupil in the schools, upon every man and woman
in office or who seek office, upon every parent whose children
hope for public employment, upon the action of parties and
the prospective gains of partisans, as well as upon all the more
unselfish interests which find their support in the higher senti-
ments of the nation.
We cannot expect to change the moral tone or the political
theories of a generation at once. The new system, therefore,
must be gradually introduced and allowed to aid its own prog-
ress through its good effects, and its educational influence,
as was the case in Great Britain. Its enemies will contest not
only the theory and principles of reform, but will resist its
application to every department, every city, every office, every
nomination and promotion. Hence, its friends must regard
every separate contest as having some importance and as worthy
their attention. There is no greater delusion than the theory
held by some worthy but inexperienced and sanguine reform-
ers who, scorning deliberate and educational processes, ex-
pect the removal of all our abuses to be brought about, sud-
denly, in a grand reform campaign, which shall drive all bad men
from office and inaugurate an era of purity and patriotism. A
great and salutary victory of reform principles at the polls
may doubtless be expected very soon. The great parties
should be forced to take well-defined positions upon the re-
form issue. But the bases of a permanent reform are to be
sought only in public enlightenment, and in those practical
methods of administration, which, by steadily vindicating their
own utility and disproving the need of partisan officials, will
educate the people up to a higher standard of official life and a
clearer conception of their own rights and duties. ' Our spoils
system is the natural result of the combined and perennial forces
1 Sec on this point, ante, p. 205 to 207.
4:04: <nv'iL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
of individual selfishness and partisan zeal, left free to work their
ends in political life. And however stayed for a time by
spasmodic efforts, they can be permanently arrested only by
salutary methods in daily administration, which the public
intelligence can accept as founded in natural justice and as
conducive to the general welfare. The friends of reform must
not despise the day of small things. It must be seen that the
issue, the opportunity, and the duty are at their own doors.
They are, in a degree, involved in every local appointment or
promotion, as well as in the great departments at Washington
and in the presidential elections. The man, who signs an
undeserved recommendation, or goes before a mayor or an
alderman, to get his relatives or his dependents into office,
through favoritism, is in spirit as much an enemy of good
administration as the great manipulator who brings the whole
power of his party to bear in the interest of partisan appoint-
ments, or the high official who prostitutes his authority by the
use of patronage for his own ends. Faithful citizens all over
the country, in every narrow as well as every broad sphere,
must stand up for the right and interest of the people to have
worthy men and women in office. It is not enough to make a
loud complaint because the President and Congress do not
bring a great reform complete to our doors. We need a defi-
nite, resolute, public opinion that will cause both the President
and Congress to do their duty whenever they neglect it, and
not merely miscellaneous protests and indefinite indignation.
A cause, which is that of the patriotic and disinterested classes
against all partisan monopolists and schemers against all cor-
rupt officials and all jobbers in politics against all the im-
moral interests of society, necessarily demands effort, self-
sacrifice, and public enlightenment. A free people, in the
long range, have as good administration as they deserve. If
we fold our hands while other nations advance, we must suffer
the loss and the disgrace. Whatever can be done to bring
home to the people a more vivid sense of the true dignity and
duty of office, and to make them comprehend how taxes are
made higher, how immorality and crime are increased, how
the country is dishonored and law and politics are brought
into contempt, by incompetent and corrupt officials, are among
SDWABD COGPSB,
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRlMW
the most efficient means of advancing the cause of civil ser-
vice reform. Here, I think, is a field but little cultivated.
And are not the people in the towns, villages, cities, and coun-
ties prepared to listen with interest to a candid and courage-
ous statement of the facts on these points which affect their
local affairs ? Wherever there is a corrupt officer, wherever
public money is lost or administration is inefficient, by reason
of official incompetency or partisan dictation, there is a need
for civil service reform, and a place where good citizens have
a duty.
2. But public opinion, as already developed, demands that
more vigorous and extended reform measures be carried for-
ward, especially by the national government. There is, however,
a question whether their more direct support should be sought
in a law of Congress or in the action of the executive under
existing laws. A similar question arose in Great Britain, and,
in considering it, the reasons have been given 1 which clearly
show that the duty of initiating and guiding a reform policy
belongs to the executive. These reasons suggest that, inas-
much as the first effect would be to deprive members of
their patronage, Congress is little likely to take the lead in
devising regulations for a reform ; but they further show
how that adverse interest and the hostility it produces
may be overcome. 2 These reasons also present grave ob-
jections to encouraging legislative interference with ex-
ecutive functions. They show how very inconvenient, if
not disastrous, it would be, were rigid provisions laid
down by statute for conducting the detailed work of
administration in the tentative stages of reform. So far
as the executive might be without adequate authority under
the Constitution, the co-operation of Congress would, of
course, Be essential. But that lack of authority has been, in
the main, supplied by the act of March 3d, 1871 (now Re-
vised Statutes, 1753), which is as follows : " The President
is authorized to prescribe such regulations for the admission
of persons into the Civil Service of the United States as may
best promote efficiency, and ascertain the fitness of each can-
1 See ante, pp. 185 to 189, and also pp. 211 and 212.
9 See ante, pp. 211 to 213.
406 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
didate, in respect to age, health, character, knowledge, and
ability, for the branch of the service he seeks to enter ; and
for this purpose he may employ suitable persons to conduct
such inquiries and may prescribe their duties ; and establish
regulations for the conduct of persons who may receive ap-
pointments in the Civil Service."
It will be perceived that this is a very comprehensive en-
actment, covering three important points : (1) Regulations
fixing the conditions of admission to the service ; (2) The em-
ployment of suitable persons to conduct the examinations ; and
(3) Regulations for the conduct of those in the service. 1
The authority given by this law is ample to enable the ex-
ecutive to do much, directly, in behalf of good administration; 2
and also to go forward with the work of reform on a large
scale, whenever Congress can be induced to vote a moderate
appropriation of, say, $25,000 each year. That amount is
needed to meet the necessary expenses attending examinations
in various quarters of the Union and to provide for the proper
supervision of the new system as a whole. Upon these points,
it is important that the full force of public opinion should be
brought to bear.
It is desirable to so amend this statute as to provide that the
chief examiners (who should constitute a civil service commis-
sion) shall hold their places by a tenure similar to that of
judges. Their duties would seem to be essentially judicial in
their nature. It is important that their appointment and ten-
ure .should be as far removed as possible from any peril or sus-
picion of partisan influence. 3 !No argument is needed to make it
plain that the examinations and the regulations, as well as
their interpretation and enforcement, should proceed upon a
1 It would be more satisfactory perhaps if the law had provided that
those who have charge of the examinations should have a general duty of
supervising the execution of the regulations ; but the regulations themselves
and the inherent authority of the executive may be made to cover that duty,
and thus the necessary vigor and uniformity may be given to the whole
system.
2 The executive order of June 22d, 1877, against federal officers taking
part in the management of local politics is only an example of what may
be done under this authority without the co-operation of Congress.
3 See ante, p. 235.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 407
uniform principle and method in all the departments and
in every quarter of the Union. Diverse and independent
rules and Boards of Examiners in each separate department or
great office, applying one standard in one department or in
one local office, and a very different one in another allowing
regulations to be enforced now as understood hy one board
and then as understood by some other board would only lead
to confusion, feebleness, and injustice. 1 The result would be
suspicion and hostility, highly prejudicial to the public inter-
ests, and perhaps, for the time, fatal to the new system.
3. There is another class of legislation, practicable both on
the part of Congress and of the State legislatures, which
might be made to reinforce the cause of reform. The instruc-
tive British precedents have been already pointed out, 2 and
they cannot be too carefully studied. It cannot, I think,
be doubted that, to clearly lay down the rules of official
duty in the exercise of the appointing power, to give them
the prestige of law, and to enable their violation to be made
the basis of investigation and punishment, would as greatly
strengthen the reform sentiment in this country as it did
in England. The alleged violation of the New York Statute of
1877, referred to in the last note, has already been made the
subject of a legislative investigation. Upon what theory, which
does not also embrace the exercise of the appointing power,
can partiality, favoritism, or any form of corruption in a judge
or a collector be made a ground for inquiry and punishment ?
Is it less a crime against morality or public safety to wilfully
bestow the office of collector, judge, or commissioner upon a
person known to be unfit who may do injustice and cause
loss in a hundred instances than it is to give a single corrupt
decision or appropriate a few dollars of the public money, for
which we promptly send officers to prison ? Can there be any
good cause why the reasons upon which public officers act in
making appointments should not be investigated whenever
1 Harmony of action could be secured by providing that one member of
the general Board of Examiners should act as a member of the several local
Boards for Examinations.
3 Chap, xi., pp. 85, 130 to 143. and p. 33, note 3.
408 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
there is prima facie evidence that they have used their au-
thority for indefensible purposes ? '
Has a collector, a postmaster, or a mayor any more right, with
the intention of serving his party or his friends, to foist upon
the public treasury sinecurists, or clerks known to be incompe-
tent to earn their salaries (when efficient persons are applicants),
whereby the Government suffers a loss of money, than he has
to use as much of the public money for personal or par-
tisan purposes ? In morals or in reason, how much worse is
it for a member of Congress to secretly sell a nomination to the
military or naval academy or to a civil department, than it is to
gain the votes and the commendation of many families and
cliques, on the deceptive promise of the same nomination,
which after the election he gives to a cousin or a favorite ?
Yet, for one class of these offences, the wrong-doer is subject
to criminal indictment, while for the other the law leaves him
untouched. A half developed public opinion hesitates and
doubts, and perhaps hints a judgment by calling him a poli-
tician. 2 But still we fail to see either our own inconsistency
1 There is a late New York statute providing for summary investigations
which is in principle perhaps a precedent, even in this country, for such an
inquiry. See Laws of New York, 1873, p. 514, Chap. 335, Sec. 109.
2 If it be asked whether the suggestion be that every exercise of the ap-
pointing power should be liable to be inquired into perhaps by a hostile
member of an opposing party the answer is, that whenever there may be
adequate proof of a corrupt or otherwise indefensible use of that power, it is
as fit a subject of investigation and punishment as would be a case of the cor-
rupt or indefensible use of public property appearing upon like proof. There
would be no more danger of too frequent or unreasonable investigations of
one kind than of the other. It is only because we have been accustomed to
allow the appointing power to be exercised in a feudal and partisan spirit, and
to look upon it as an irresponsible power, that it seems strange to us to have
it brought within the same rules of duty and responsibility which we enforce
in cases analogous. In the same inconsiderate manner, it may, very likely,
be said that it would be hardly possible to decide whether the officer made
an appointment either for a personal or a partisan purpose, or only for an
honest public purpose. But the least reflection will ehow that question to
be far less difficult than those which are presented in every criminal and
most civil cases, viz. : whether there be " premeditated malice," " felonious
purpose," "disregard of human life," " an intent to appropriate to one's
own use," " gross negligence," " ability to distinguish right and wrong ;"
questions which, though much more metaphysical and much further remov-
ed from the outward sphere of facts, arc every day made decisive, not
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 409
or the force of those British precedents to which our partisan
theories have so nearly blinded us.
Need it be doubted that here, as in Great Britain, the brand-
ing of a prostitution of the appointing power as a criminal
offence would not only greatly limit the abuse itself, but
would arouse a strong public opinion against it ? Duelling,
gambling, and lottery selling soon become infamous under the
condemnation of the statutes.
The theory, that the reasons for an appointment are the
secrets of the officers or the party leaders, is only a part of
the system which treats the appointments themselves as the
perquisites of the officer, and the gains to be made of them as
the spoils of his party. It is not enough that we denounce
this system and pass resolutions condemning it. We must do
as the English did a century ago make official action, in its
spirit, criminal in the view of the statutes and the courts.
4. In close connection with the British statutes restraining
the corrupt use of the appointing power, are the laws forbid-
ding public officers interfering with the freedom of elections
and the political equality of the people in private life. The
most characteristic of them is the statute of Anne, 1 to which
special reference has already been made. The salutary effects
of laws like this cannot be questioned. They are not less
effective in keeping officers to the discharge of their duties
than they are in protecting the people against official coer-
cion and in preventing pernicious combinations, between
public servants and partisan managers, for the purposes
of political intrigue and dishonest gains. I cannot doubt
that a comprehensive law, in the spirit of that last referred
to, which should cover the whole field of official life,
would be of great public utility. It must be regarded
as one of the greatest anomalies of our politics (especial-
ly in view of the fact that Great Britain has not only
enforced that statute, but from the same cause for several
generations utterly disfranchised her subordinate officials) that
we have had no pervading public opinion which has fixed
simply of a continuance of public favor, but cf property, character, and
life itself.
1 See ante, p. 85 and 309 to 310.
410 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
any well-defined limits to the use of official authority for
political or even for partisan ends. Nothing more strik-
ingly illustrates the demoralizing influence of a partisan-spoil-
system, administered by the omnipotent party majority, in
degrading the sense of individual rights and official responsi-
bility, than the fact that, in this republic, we tolerate an official
intermeddling with the political freedom of the citizen, which
has been unknown in the mother country for three genera-
tions, and which is only surpassed by the more despotic of
the continental governments.
5. Another much needed law is one which shall be ade-
quate to suppress the demoralizing and despotic practice of
levying political assessment upon the subordinates in the civil
service. Had we not grown up in familiarity with this abuse,
elsewhere unknown among the enlightened* nations, we should
probably look with something like contempt upon a govern-
ment without the ability, the sense of justice or of its own
dignity, required to protect the salaries of its faithful servants
from public pillage under orders of confiscation from the camps
of politics. I have no space for setting forth the manifold
evils which flow from this abuse. How can we expect zeal in
the public service, or a high sense of honor, or a manly in-
dependence of thought or action, on the part of a body of
men and women every moment exposed to unlimited extor-
tion at the hands of those whose favor gave them their places
and whose frown threatens their removal ? We have no
reason to expect a clerk to be honest to whom the nation
is not just. Until we are ready to protect an officer in what he
has earned and to give him a tenure fairly reliable, we have
no right to complain if he takes time for his own defence and
makes leagues with robbers to whose mercy we leave him.
How can we hope to reduce the excessive and mercenary
activity in our politics within reasonable limits, so long as we
permit the partisan treasuries to be filled by freely intercepting
the public money between the pay offices of the people and
the pockets of the officials ? How can we expect to reduce
salaries to reasonable amounts, so long as their excessive rates
not only increase the chances of gain, on the part of every
corrupt politician and every partisan clique, but are in them-
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 411
selves a sort of justification of the levies by which the ex-
penses of the great parties are paid ?
It has been explained how it happened that this kind of ex-
tortion is almost the only abuse in our politics which did not,
at an early day, exist in a more aggravated form in the mother
country. 1 But it has also been shown that more than two and
a half centuries ago there were legal prohibitions in Great
Britain incompatible with introduction of that abuse." Pub-
lic ofiicers, like other citizens, should of course be allowed to
freely make contributions in aid of their own views of politics
or religion. But all solicitation, whether by agents or by cir-
culars, in any department or office, should be prevented by
law. Every officer should be forbidden to take any part in
reference to such collections. Every person in the public
service whether officer or workman should be made to
clearly comprehend that he is under no more constraint to part
with the fruits of his toil for political purposes, and is in no
more danger of losing his place if he refuses to do so, than any
laborer upon a farm or any clerk in a private workshop. Such
legal protection is essential to true liberty, manhood, or justice
in public life. These views are gaining strength, even beyond
the more non-partisan 3 circles. But they will never be vindi-
cated in practice until the people give strong expression to their
will on the subject. The principle of such a law is covered
by existing statutes. One act prohibits officers, clerks and
employes soliciting contributions for gifts, or making gifts to
their official superiors, and such superiors are forbidden to re-
ceive gifts from their subordinates. 4 These provisions, how-
ever, are utterly inadequate in scope to put much restraint
upon the great evil which they recognize. Relating only
to officers in a line of subordination, they leave unchecked
both the despotic use of the appointing power and the
prescriptive influence of parties, by which payments are
exacted under threats of removal and bribes of promo-
1 See ante, p. 43. * See ante, p. 43, 50 to 52, and 310.
" No official or officeholder should be subject to political or partisan
assessments, , . . and plain laws should punish all attempts . . .
to enforce such assessments . . . or to abridge absolute freedom in
political action." Resolutions of Republican Convention of New York,
of September, 1877. 4 U. S. Revised Statutes, 1784.
412 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
tion. 1 Another statute 2 affirms the same principle somewhat
more broadly, by prohibiting all executive officers and employes
of the United States from requesting, giving to, or receiving
from any other officer or employe of the government, any
money, property, or other thing of value 3 for political purposes ;
but with the exception that the prohibition shall not apply to
officers ' ' appointed by the President with the advice and con-
sent of the Senate /" If that lamentable and significant excep-
tion came from the Senate itself, it would make the difference
between its disinterestedness and that of the House of Lords
still more conspicuous. It would certainly go far to confirm
the popular belief that patronage and partisan interests are no-
where so strongly entrenched and so unblushingly defended as
in the highest legislative body of the nation. In any event,
the import and suggestion of this exception are of painful sig-
nificance. The officers confirmed by the Senate are of the
higher class, of whom many have an authority of nomination
or a right to recommend promotions and removals. Their
power and influence overawe the tens of thousands of officers
who fill the grades below. Upon what principle of justice or
policy can official tyranny and partisan coercion be prohibited,
as between officers of nearly equal grade, and yet be allowed
(if not by plain suggestion invited) on the part of those high
officials whose caprice can be enforced and whose bad example
is most demoralizing ? This statute is also sadly defective in
affording clerks and employees no protection against partisan
tax-gatherers who are not in the public service. An officer,
simply because he has been confirmed by the Senate, is at lib-
erty, under this statute, to use his influence for the removal of
any poor, worthy clerk, if he refuses to pay the contributions
which such tax-gatherers may choose to demand. 4 In the
1 They do not even seem to have prevented a member of the Cabinet
being himself the head of a political bureau of extortion.
4 U. 8. Laws, 1876, chap. 287, 6.
3 Is an office " a thing of value " within the meaning of this law ? Why
not use the comprehensive prohibitions of British statutes, if the true intent
be to stop bribery by promises of office and promotion ?
A bill is now pending (46th Cong., 1st Session, H. R. 226) which pro-
hibits, in very general terms, the demanding or paying of money for politi-
cal purposes, by officers, clerks, or employees of the government. The
prohibitions extend to superior officers permitting the collection of such
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 413
whole range of British and American legislation, during the
last quarter of a century, I am aware of no contrast so strik-
ing, or to an American so painful, as that afforded by these
statutes when compared with the action of the British Parlia-
ment in sustaining open competition over twenty years ago. 1
Is it too much to hope that this exception, in the interest of
servility and proscription, will not long be allowed to dishonor
the national laws ? If but a single senator would present it
in its true light before the people, he would arouse a senti-
ment which would make its early repeal inevitable.
6. On one other point there is a necessity of appealing to
Congress. It is in regard to the laws, already referred to, lim-
iting the tenure of collectors, postmasters, naval officers, and
various other officials to four years. We have seen that these
statutes came in with the causes of the spoils system, which
they greatly strengthen ; if indeed they may not be said to
have paved the way for that system. They ought to be re-
pealed. They suggest that such officers should come in and
go out with each administration, and they cause many changes
just when officers have been long enough in their places to
become efficient. They cause uncertainty and perpetual agi-
tation in ail the lower circles of official life. They are utterly
destructive of that experience, consistency, and steadiness of
policy without which no good administration is possible. So
short a term dissuades the worthier men from taking these
o
offices. It forces those who hold them into constant efforts
of a pernicious kind to strengthen their influence in aid of a
reappointment. These short terms also add greatly to the
disastrous effects which the present method of senatorial con-
firmations exerts upon the public service, and to the facil-
ity with which partisan manipulators can make their demoral-
izing influence felt within the departments. The mischievous
tendency of these short terms of office, unknown under our
original system, which the law of 1820 introduced, was so
manifest even without trial, as to arouse the gravest fears of
the great statesmen of that day. 4 In the humiliating abuses
which we suffer, in connection with so frequent appointments
moneys, and, on certain conditions, to government contractors. The bill
embodies very salutary principles.
1 See ante, p. 213. * Webster, Benton and Calhoun, especially.
27
414: CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
and confirmations, we may see the fulfilment of their gloomy
predictions/ which I regret want of space docs not permit me
to cite.
These may perhaps be accepted as the more important,
practical issues to be made, and upon which public opinion
may with advantage be concentrated. But there is another
serious obstacle to a thorough reform, upon which British ex-
perience sheds no light. I mean the manner in which the
Senate exercises the power of confirmation. To discuss that
subject is quite beyond the scope of this work. It is well
known this power is not used, as the Constitution contem-
plated it would be, merely as a check upon bad nominations
by the executive. It has been so magnified as in great
measure to supersede executive authority, and to confer upon
the Senators from each State (or the Senator of the dominant
party) a sort of feudal lordship over nominations for officers
who are to serve within the State. The interference of the
Senate, with executive functions, has not been limited to the
matter of appointments. Since 1867, it has even been carried
to the extent of assuming to restrain and regulate the discharge
of the executive duty of removal for cause. This has been
done by making the consent of the Senate essential to the
removal, during his term of office, of an officer confirmed by
that body. In this way the influence of the Senate has been
greatly increased and the constitutional functions of the execu-
tive have been in a corresponding degree impaired. 2 The de-
moralizing influence of this system upon legislation, upon State
politics, upon discipline, economy, and fidelity in the depart-
ments, and upon the dignity and usefulness of the Senate itself,
is notorious and hardly disputed. 3 The very counterpoise of the
1 Speaking of the proscription to which the Law of 1820 so greatly con-
tributed, Mr. Webster used this language in a speech delivered in Worces-
ter, in 1832 : " Mr. President, so far as I know, there is no civilized coun-
try on earth in which, on a change of rulers, there is such an inquisition
for spoils as we have witnessed in this free republic. When, Sir, did any
British minister, Whig or Tory, ever make such an inquest ? When did he
ever take away the daily bread of weighers and gaugers and measurers ?
Sir, a British Minister who should do this, and should afterwards show his
head in the British House of Commons, would be received by a universal
hiss." 2 U. S. Rev. Stat., 1767 to 1771.
3 It was declared in debate in the Senate, in December, 1889, that " nomi-
nally, appointments are so made [in the constitutional mode], but in reality
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 415
government has been disturbed by an invasion of the executive
from the legislative department. This is no place for considering
a remedy. But it is plain that whatever shall tend to weaken the
spoils system in other quarters, whatever shall tend to fill the de-
partments with young men and women of worth and capacity,
whatever shall tend to restore to the executive its true and
constitutional functions in other particulars, whatever shall
bring the aggression and monopoly of the Senate more promi-
nently before the people, will also tend to make such usurpa-
tion obnoxious and intolerable. It is only an aroused public
sentiment that can open the way for bringing the exercise of
the power of confirmation into harmony with the interests and
rights of the people. That power extends to but a moderate
portion of the officers. The Senate could not long resist a
powerfully expressed, public censure, concentrated upon the
narrow field of its monopoly. And it is only just to expect
that Senators of the United States will be ready to yield to
changes that may be shown to be essential for the public wel-
fare. l They will not venture to defend an usurpation through
which they have taken to themselves feudal prerogatives.
They will never try to justify a monopoly of the appointing
power which the public opinion of Great Britain more than
a generation since took from members of the House of
Lords. They now act upon precedents, the inherent evils of
which long practice lias deprived of half their hatefulness. If
it be too much (and I do not think it is too much) to expect
that the Senators of a republic will be found to have the pat-
they are dictated and controlled, in a vast majority of cases, by an influence
unknown to the Constitution or laws. Every Senator, and every Represen-
tative in the other House, knows that appointments in most cases are dic-
tated by them ;" and in a debate in the House in 1870, that " under the pres-
ent custom in the Senate, it is almost impossible for a united House-delega-
tion to get a good man confirmed if the Senators from the State prefer a bad
one : in other words. Senators secure the rejection of those that the Presi-
dent has constitutionally nominated, not because they are not ft for the place
in question, but because they do not themselves recommend them." Report
U. S. Civil Service Commission, April, 1874, p. 18.
1 In his message of December 5th, 1870, President Grant says : There is
no duty which so much embarrasses the executive and heads of departments
as that of appointments, nor is there any such arduous and thankless labor
imposed on Senators and Representatives as that of finding places for con-
stituents."
4:16 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIX.
riotism needed to follow the examples of British noblemen
of Chatham, Liverpool, and Granville many years ago in vol-
untarily surrendering patronage, surely it is not too much to
expect that (like the majority of the members of both houses
of the British Parliament in the last decade), the members of
the Senate will make a virtue of necessity, by yielding grace-
full}' to a frowning public opinion, without driving the people
to a constitutional amendment for the suppression of official
feudalism under the most democratic government of the
world. Politics certainly exhibit many inconsistencies ; but
thoughtful Senators are not likely to believe, because for a
time they have been allowed through usurpation to become
feudal lords of patronage, that the people will very long toler-
ate so anomalous and degrading a despotism. 1
Y. In a late case before the Supreme Court of the United
States, in which that tribunal made a salutary application of
British law to some of our abuses, it is declared that " no peo-
ple can have a higher public interest, except the preservation
of their liberties, than integrity in the administration of their
government in all its branches. ' ' If this volume proves that
vital truth not to have been so fully comprehended by the
American people as by the people of some other countries,
there has certainly been much to excuse their failure ; and the
future promises a better appreciation. The American consti-
tutional system was by far the most original and the grandest
political achievement ever yet made by one generation.
Our early administration was placed. upon a basis of jus-
tice and purity far in advance of any which elsewhere ex-
isted. It was but natural that the brilliant success of the great
experiment should dazzle the public mind. It led the way
to a general conviction that a government founded in sound
principles held within itself preserving virtues so efficient that
it might be safely handed over to such voluntary combina-
tions among the people as should be pleased to take an interest
in carrying it on. The many questions incident to the creation
1 "The democratic nations which have introduced freedom into their po-
litical constitutions, at the very time that they were augmenting the despotism
of their administrative constitutions have been led into strange paradoxes."
Democracy in America, by De Tocqueville, vol. 2, p. 393.
2 Trist r. Child, 21 Wallace R., 450.
CIVIL SERVICE IK GREAT BRITAIN. 417
of a new government, to the developing industries of a new
continent, and to their relation to foreign States, absorbed
public attention. Exciting and novel theories, which natu-
rally developed the most intense political activity, in connec-
tion with the interpretation and enforcement of the new con-
stitution and laws, strongly tended to withdraw thought from
administrative methods and from all the internal relations of
the government. No state of facts, among a people in the
condition of our fathers, could be more favorable to the steady
growth of intensely partisan and vicious methods in adminis-
tration or more effectually tend to blind the people to their bad
effects. A few sagacious statesmen comprehended the nature
and magnitude of the evil from the outset. But before any con-
siderable portion of the people understood the situation, the
spoils system was not only developed but entrenched. In the
meantime, we had gone so far and were so shaken on the
stormy seas which carried us into the great civil conflict,
that little thoughtful attention could be secured for any ques-
tions relating to the more internal operations of the govern-
ment. It hardly need be pointed out that the period which
immediately followed the civil war was in every way unfavor-
able to introspection, candid deliberation, or reform of any
kind. But, in the later years, a change has been coming over
the public mind. " The era of buoyant youth is coming to a
close ; ripe and sober manhood is to take its place." 1 Fourth-
of-July orations are no longer given to political boasting.
There is a feeling of soberness for giving some thought
to the fact that it is not enough to have a government
based on just principles. It must be administered by pure
and able men, or the people cannot prosper. Attention
rests more than ever before upon the facts that, though
the original questions which divided parties have nearly
disappeared, though tiie supreme, national peril which appalled
a whole generation has been taken out of our politics, though
principles less than ever before divide the great parties, yet
party struggles are not less intense. The vicious and exces-
sive activity of partisans has rather increased than dimin-
ished. The people are more than ever before taking notice
1 Preface, Von Hoist's Const. History United States, p. i.
418 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
that the party issues tend to gather about the means of getting
into power and the possession and division of patronage,
offices, and spoils. They begin to see that the questions which
are permanently absorbing and important are administrative
questions. They are as never before alive to the facts how
seriously these questions concern economy and taxation, the
efficiency with which the laws arc executed, the safety of life
and property, the morals of politics, the purity and freedom of
elections in short, the prosperity and safety not only of the
nation as a whole, but of every State, county, city, town, and
citizen which it contains. They are alarmed at the many
cases of official infidelity. They begin to comprehend that to
get good men into office is one of the paramount needs of all
government one of the supreme conditions of all prosperity.
This riper and sounder temper of the national mind has, in the
last decade, several times forced partisan organization to de-
nounce the spoils system, and to make pledges of administrative
reform ; but w r ith what sincerity, in some cases, need not be
here considered. And it has finally, for the first time in our
history, made the question of such reform a distinct and leading
issue in a national canvass. The experience of Great Britain
shows us that when that question has been once raised in the
forum of politics, it is sure to more and more arrest public
attention. The reform elements, there, rapidly gained strength
until their final triumph. Is there any reason to doubt that
our experience will be the same ?
The question whether the partisan-spoils system or the merit
system shall prevail in our politics is really the question
whether the self-respecting, intelligent manhood and woman-
hood of the whole nation may compete for the honor of hold-
ing official places, or a profession of dominant opinions and
servility to the partisan majority of the hour shall fix the class
and the boundary beyond which no selection shall be made
Avhether the caucus, the ' ' rings, ' ' and the secret arts of the
politicians, or the studious and industrious homes and work-
shops, the schools, the seminaries and the colleges, shall mould
the character which is to serve and guide the nation ? Is it
possible that a method of selection based on equal opportunities
and common rights for all can be overborne, in a great re-
public, by a system of proscription and privilege of feudal
CIVIL SEEVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 419
and official favoritism ? Are the United States to perma-
nently stand before the world as the only great nation which
foregoes the best methods of bringing into its high service the
worthiest of its citizens as the only nation which allows its
officials to be plundered by its parties, and its parties to make
merchandise of its offices ?
Free public competition in the selection of nominees for the
public service is the most essential feature of the merit sys-
i/
tern. It is at once the most democratic and the most just and
salutary agency of good government which has been developed
in the political experience of modern times. It is, in fact, no
mere method in administration or politics. It embodies a
great principle of jutice and progress, which finds illustration
alike in the rivalry of nations, in the competition of races, in
the providential order of the universe itself. Wherever there
is life and growth, there is a competition, in which the de-
velopment and the survival of the fittest are the conditions of
superiority and progress, if not of continued existence. For
the improvement of every species and every breed, the best of
the kind must be selected and cared for ; nor does the rule
fail when we come to the growth of communities, and the
prosperity of nations. To secure the best men for officers and
leaders is, next to the creation of government itself, the most
difficult problem of statesmanship the greatest achievement
which political wisdom can make. The conditions of prosper-
ity with every people are involved in the extent to which they
bring their purest and wisest minds into positions of honor and
control. 1 Donation however strong, no race however vigorous,
could long preserve its relative prestige and prosperity in the
world, if it should disregard these conditions. The need, in
1 I am not unmindful that the officers directly selected through com-
petition cannot be said lo be " leaders," and are not at once given control.
But I repeat that, as soon as non-partisan, self-reliant men of worth and
capacity shall have filled the lower grades, the higher places (except a few
of the very highest) will certainly be filled by promotions from those be-
low ; and upon that being the case, not only will it be seen to be incon-
gruous and really impracticable to put into those controlling positions mere
politicians or inferior men of any kind, but the theories and the morals of
politics will be so improved that incompetent, self-seeking men will no more
be accepted as leaders in civil administration than they now are in arms or
in education.
420 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
every nation, of being served by its ablest and best men in the
great contests of arms and diplomacy, and even in the higher
places in its internal affairs, was not, of course, left for modern
times to discover. It was, however, left to these times to com-
prehend, or if not to comprehend, at least to act upon, the
theory that it is of essential importance to have all the subordi-
nate (as well as the higher) official places, both at home and
abroad, filled with persons of sufficient ability and character.
The leading nations have treated this question of official com-
petency as so vital as to require not only persistent national
efforts to that end, but the surrender of the privileges of
royalty and class, the theories of birthright and aristocracy,
upon which all the older governments had been founded.
The practice of sending mere favorites or influential par-
tisans after the fashion of the old colonial period even to
the humblest offices in colonies or foreign ports, has ceased
on the part of every European nation. That vicious old
practice survives only in the unnatural form in which it has
been grafted upon our institutions. Not only have the older
governments placed better men in office, but they have
brought them under sterner rules of discipline and duty.
They "hold their subordinate officers under stricter control,
and invent new methods for guiding them more closely, and
for inspecting them with less trouble. " . . . " They do every-
thing with more order, more celerity, and at less expense." 1
It is only in the light of such considerations that we can
take in the full significance of the efforts and methods
through which, in later years, the older nations have
invigorated and armed themselves for the grand international
competition of races and States for the commerce and domi-
nation of the world. Some of the practical effects of this new
policy have been pointed out, and I cannot enlarge upon
them. It is for us to consider whether we can maintain our
prestige and the honor of republican institutions by contin-
uing to draw our official force only from the hotbeds of par-
tisan influence, and only by the selfish and secret methods
of patronage and favoritism ; while every other leading nation
plants itself upon common justice and invites, by its competi-
tions, and rewards by selections for its service, the highest
1 " Democracy in America," by Do Tocquevillc, vol. ii., pp. 378, 379.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 421
capacity and character in its citizenship. The facilities of
modern communications are so great that the competitions of
nations living on different continents are almost as direct and
rapid, in all the inland towns and along every shore of the
ocean, as they were in earlier times between rival villages
of the same district. Who can doubt that the question of
better ministers, consuls, and commercial agents has become
as decisive of the industries as it certainly has of the prestige
and the honor of rival nations ? l
But however great the need of reform, our attempts must
be proportioned to the virtue and intelligence which we have for
their support. To attempt too much may be for a time as
unfortunate as to attempt too little. The moral tone of the
American people, as compared with that of the British people,
and their relative patriotism, intelligence, and readiness to
make efforts for the general welfare, are not only intrin-
sically very interesting, but they have a direct bearing upon
the applicability of British precedents in the United States.
I have no space for their discussion. While it is unques-
tionable that public opinion demands higher qualifications
for office and has secured greater purity of administration
in Great Britain than in this country, I am by no means con-
vinced that the moral standard or intelligence, averaged over
the whole field of life, is higher there than here. The expla-
nation of this apparent contradiction seems to be this : More
attention to the subject of administration and the enforce-
ment of better methods for a series of years, in Great Britain,
have made public opinion more exacting and critical and raised
all official life to a relatively higher plane. Whereas in this
country, the neglect of administration by our Statesmen, and
the use of corrupting methods by the partisan class which
has controlled the government, have caused the charac-
ter of official life to fall below the general average of
morality in other matters. In other words, in Great Brit-
ain the public service and official life generally are so pure
as to be more in danger from without than from any
source of corruption within themselves ; while with us cor-
ruption is most developed in official circles and tends to flow
out from politics and official life upon private life. That the
1 See Appendix B.
422 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
partisan and office-holding class is generally the more de-
moralized and distrusted class of our people, of corresponding
intelligence, will, I think, hardly be questioned. That the
facts are quite otherwise in Great Britain could be made very
clear, but I can do no more than allude to a few facts bearing
on the subject.
The purchase of commissions in the British army, as it
prevailed until 1871, spoke as significantly from one plane
of life as the buying and selling of Church "livings" still
speak from another plane of life. ' It has been shown that
fewer crimes are committed in Great Britain than in this
country. But the fact of a lower rate of criminality among
a people may perhaps be equally explainable on the theory
of less disposition to break the laws or of more certainty
and a prompter justice in the imposition of punishment.
Now, nothing in British administration is more admirable than
the purity, dignity, and ability to be found in her courts of jus-
tice of every grade ; and her most thoughtful writers have
borne testimony to the law-abiding spirit of the American
people. ' ' Even in America, the most law-loving of countries, "
. . . there is " a regard for law, such as no great people have
yet evinced, and infinitely surpassing ours." 2 And what
higher evidence can there be of the relative moral tone of two
peoples than their comparative disposition to obey the laws
which their own representatives have made ? It would seem,
therefore, that good administration has reduced criminality to
a ratio below that of the United States, even among a people
more inclined than Americans to set the laws at defiance.
These conclusions, and more especially the inference that good
methods of administration in Great Britain have raised the
morality of public life above that of private life, may, how-
ever, be directly supported by British writers. ' ' As we have
seen, it (private corruption) has worn its slimy way from the
Butler to the Broker class. Almost every man who has
patronage has also his price. . . . Shall we now at-
tempt by legislative enactment to stamp it out and brand the
briber and bribed with infamy, or shall we wait yet longer, until
physicians, the bar, our Judges, our civil servants at home, in
1 See ante, p 278 to 281.
2 Bagehot on the English Constitution, pp. 52 and 289.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 423
India, and the Colonies, government inspectors of mines and
factories, our very ministers of State, are tampered with f "
I cannot think it would occur to an American writer to thus
represent the stream of corruption, in his own country, as
having its springs in the regions of private business, and as
flowing thence to taint pervading virtues in official life and
poison a pure domain in politics. He would regard the
stream as flowing the other way. If in these facts we may
find consoling evidence of the elevating influence of our insti-
tutions and social life, in their aggregate effect, ought we to
be the less rebuked by the consideration that, with at least
equally good material out of which to construct a pure and
vigorous administration, and with far less obstacles to be
overcome, our neglect has been so great that we have
fallen far short of the achievements of the older country ?
The comparison will not have its true significance, if we
fail to remember that, by going back about the space of a sin-
gle human life, we come upon a condition the very reverse in
the administrative affairs of the two countries upon a time
when, in this country, respected and capable men filled all the
public places, and distrust of officers was little known upon a
time when, in Great Britain, there was official corruption and
a prostitution of authority such as our demagogues now hardly
venture even to suggest against their partisan opponents.
To the other considerations which give importance to ad-
ministrative abuses this must be added : that they are the
most permanent known to politics. Having their ultimate
source in the selfishness of human nature, they grow wherever
ambition, the love of gain, or partisan zeal are not effectively
restrained. Favored by the imperfections of all human gov-
ernments and incidents of their daily operation, they are, in
their causes, as abiding as government itself. It is in the
struggles for office, and the opportunities for gain in the exer-
cise of official power, that selfishness, deception, and partisan
zeal have their everlasting contest with virtue, patriotism, and
duty. It is in that contest that statesmen and demagogues,
patriots and intriguers, the good citizen and the venal office
seeker, all the high and all the low influences of political life,
meet face to face, and by the balance of power, for good
1 Westminster Revieic, article on Illicit Commissions, July, 1877.
421 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
or for evil, give character to politics and determine the
morality of nations. The questions raised by that contest,
and the methods by which politicians seek their solution,
are much the same and are equally vital under every form
of representative government. From generation to gen-
eration, from century to century, partisans and self-seek-
ing and corrupt men of all sorts employ much the same
means to make office-getting and administration serve their
ends. If we go back over the administration of a century,
in any enlightened State, we find the abuses with which
statesmen and patriots have struggled, if a little different
in form, yet in substance much the same. AVhether a pres-
ident or a king be at the head of the government, whether
the higher branch of the legislature be elective or hereditary,
make little difference in the administrative abuses or in their
perilous tendency. Our civil service abuses, as I have already
explained, are in substance but a repetition of those of the
other enlightened nations. As a people, we have cherished no
more complete and disastrous delusion than that which has led
us to think that the just principles of our constitution and
social life have relieved us from dangers growing out of
corrupt administration. Human nature has not been changed
by republican institutions. Good government does not come
from neglect, from conceit, or from party zeal, even in a re-
public.
If, from the inveterate permanency and peril of administra-
tive abuses, we turn to the other great questions of politics, we
see that every generation, every decade, almost every year,
has had its peculiar policy, its temporary interests, its absorb-
ing issues, domestic or foreign. The highway of progress is
marked by the ever changing procession of subjects each
thought to be paramount in its day. Even from our short his-
tory, a long list of forgotten questions, each most absorbing
for a time, could be gathered. But at all times and every-
where, the questions How to bring honest and capable men
into office, high and low ? How to secure economy and
fidelity in administration ? How to prevent official authority
from being prostituted to partisan and selfish ends ? have
been subjects of serious and increasing difficulty. Whether
considered in that light or not, they have really been problems
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 42 J
tlian which none have at once so constantly and so vitally
concerned the prosperity and the morality of the nation.
"What other questions, among all those which have arisen in
our politics, have so steadily grown in importance '( What
question to-day presents issues more difficult of solution, or
which are the source of more anxiety to patriotic and
thoughtful citizens, than this ? How can we so administer the
government that its daily operations shall not develop infidelity
and corruption, fatal alike to all the virtues of official and pri-
vate life ?
However the past may be excused, we can hardly find in
the future a justification for a continued neglect of the sci-
ence of administration which, as we have seen, the states-
men of every other enlightened nation have made one of the
the paramount studies of politics. For surely it is not the in-
crease of wealth, the growth of great cities, or the advance of
population that will purify the fountains of virtue or make
the problems of government easier. When, perhaps in the
lifetime of persons now living, the residents of Washington
holding places in the public service shall exceed her present
population ; when the country shall contain three hundred
millions of people, of which the names of half a million
shall be upon the national pay-rolls ; when the commerce and
population of San Francisco shall far exceed the present pop-
ulation and commerce of New York ; when the national
revenues shall be tenfold their present amount, and consuls
and commercial agents shall discharge their duties in Central
Africa and in cities upon the upper waters of the Amazon
can we expect, if our neglect shall continue, that the perils
of a spoils system of office will be less, or that the difficulties
of its removal will be diminished ?
But it is not merely such natural increase and expansion
which will continue to make that science more profound and
its neglect more disastrous. It is in the order of a growing
civilization that the functions of official life must become
more and more various, delicate, and difficult. " The
authority of government has not only spread throughout the
sphere of all existing powers, . . . but it goes further
and invades the domain heretofore reserved to private inde-
pendence. A multitude of actions, which were fonnerly be-
426 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
yond tlie control of public administration, have been sub-
jected to that control in our time, and the number of them is
constantly increasing. " ' A larger and still larger number of
officers are required, and their neglect and incompetency more
and more tend to become evils of serious magnitude. The
railroad, the steamship, and the telegraph ; the system of
national banks and the new departments of agriculture, edu-
cation, and public health ; the life-saving and the Marine Hos-
pital service ; the money order system, and the light-house, the
internal revenue and the postal administration, greatly extended
are but illustrations of the growth of administrative func-
tions created or enlarged during the present generation. In
the cities 2 and in the States, this growth has hardly been less
than under the Federal Government ; nor has it been less in
other countries than in our own. 3 Year by year, the prosperity
and morality of every enlightened people become, in a still
greater degree, dependent upon the character and capacity of
those who fill their places of public trust. In no country is
this more true than in the United States, where the very
structure of the government frequently produces a complica-
tion of official duties, by reason of the division of authority
over great subjects between the nation and the States. 4
With so great evils upon us from the neglect of administra-
tion in the past, and still greater evils thus threatening us if that
neglect shall continue in the future, it would hardly seem pos-
sible that the subject should long fail to take its proper place
in the serious reflections cf American statesmen. How, in-
deed, can a man be called a statesman who is not well versed
in the world's wisdom as to the best means of carrying for-
1 " Democracy in America," vol. 2, p. 370.
y Popular education and sanitary laws vastly extended ; parks, gas-works,
and water-works ; the more complete supervision of prisons, of charity
and workshops in the interests of health and safety, are familiar examples.
3 " I assert that there is no country in Europe in which the public admin-
istration has not become . . . more inquisitive and minute ; . . it
regulates more undertakings and gains a firmer footing every day about,
above, and around all persons, to assist, to advise, and, to coerce them.
" Democracy in America," vol. 2, p. 377.
4 At this moment, the embarrassments connected with the subjects of the
public health and elections present significant examples. In no country is
there so great a need of a superior class of officers to deal with these subjects.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 427
ward with steadiness and fidelity the vast administration of
his country, upon which the happiness and prosperity of its
people so greatly depend ? For self-seeking politicians for
men with whom statesmanship means the manipulation of
parties for any citizen without faith in public virtue and the
courage needed to stand for duty and the general welfare
against the ignorance and the blind majority of the hour, the
subject can have few attractions. But those thoughtful citizens
whose hearts are warmed by a true love of their country,
who are humiliated as they see that country failing to rise to
its true dignity before the world, who comprehend that,
under better methods, worth and ability of a higher order
could be made to elevate politics and official life will be
drawn to the subject by all the strength of interest, patriotic
duty, and national pride. They feel that the United States
stand before the world as the original and the noblest embodi-
ment of the republican ideal in government. As the oldest
and the most powerful republican nation as the example to
which young republics turn for wisdom and experience the
character of public administration in the United States does
not concern merely the growing millions of her own people,
but the republican cause and the fate of free institutions in
every quarter of the globe now and for ages to come.
!Need we fear that this generation of Americans will supply
patriots who will worthily lead in the reform of the civil ser-
vice of their country ? Are not great masses of the people
ready to turn away from the politicians and to follow such
leaders ? Can it be doubted that, if the true methods of
reform were once brought clearly before the American people,
they would give those methods a support as vigorous and
enlightened as that extended to them by the people of Great
Britain ? Surely we are not to be permanently known as
" the people who boast most over their form of government,
and groan most over the abuses of their administration." 1 .
We are not degenerate sons without the patriotism or the
courage of our fathers. This generation, which has made the
greatest sacrifices for liberty and justice recorded in human
annals, must surely have the moral elevation needed for the
removal of any abuses that can be developed in administering
1 The Saturday Review.
423 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
the government whose righteousness , and honor it has greatly
exalted. We are justly proud of the stability of a govern-
ment, which has been less changed in the past century, and
bids fair to be less changed in the next century, than any gov-
ernment in Europe. Its safety now depends upon the virtue
and wisdom of its daily administration. "While nearly every
European country is agitated by hopes and fears, threatening
the very framework of the State, no expectation of a change
of structure colors our estimate of the future. Our fate must
turn upon our capacity to administer institutions which we do
not wish to abandon, and which we cannot expect, by any
radical change, to improve. We are for those reasons all the
more free, and we have resting upon us a duty all the more
serious, to speedily solve our great problem that of making
our administration worthy of our constitution and our social
life. If the present generation is too poorly instructed in the
true methods of government to act upon the higher experi-
ence of the leading European States, then it is the duty of all
who teach in whatever grade, from the school to the univer-
sity to take care that the next generation be wiser in the
knowledge of what so deeply concerns the character and sta-
bility of the nation to make it appear that republics are not
hostile to statesmanship, to education, or to official virtue. No
other knowledge will compensate for ignorance as to the best
means of securing capacity and fidelity in public administra-
tion. Xo amount of scholarship will cover the disgrace to
republican institutions of allowing the world to believe that
republics must fall below monarchies in bringing high character
and ability into places of public trust. In no other way can
the prestige and influence of such institutions be so much ad-
vanced in the world as by the United States making it mani-
fest to the nations that a great republic seeks and secures, quite
as surely as the most enlightened monarchy, tjie full measure
of official worth and ability which good administration re-
quires. To attain such results is, 1 repeat, the great problem
of American politics the paramount duty of American
patriots. And I trust I may be pardoned for adding that
the hope of contributing, in some small measure, to their accom-
plishment, has given me the courage to submit this volume to
the public judgment.
APPENDIX A.
OPINIONS CONCERNING THE BRITISH CIVIL SERVICE.
I. LETTEK, SIR CHARLES TREVELYAN.
Open competition adapted to United States. Few supported reform
at first. How it gained in Parliament. Members relieved from
importunity. Better men secured under new system. Corrup-
tion arrested. Efficiency of service increased. Promotion for
merit brought about. Popular estimate and self-respect of the
service advanced. Education promoted. The new system per-
manent.
II. LETTER, JOHN BRIGHT.
New system approved. Return to ol 1 system impossible. Corrup-
tion prevented. Reform in the United States desired by its
friends abroad.
III. LETTER, UNITED STATES CONSUL AT LIVERPOOL.
IV. LETTER, UNITED STATES CONSUL-GENERAL.
V. LETTER, MR. MORAN, FORMERLY SECRETARY LEGATION, LONDON.
VI. LETTER, MR. HOPPIN, NOW SECRETARY LEGATION, LONDON.
VII. LETTER, EDWARDS PIERREPONT, MINISTER TO GREAT BRITAIN.
VIII. LETTER, J. S. MORGAN, Esq., OF LONDON.
LETTER, HON. HUGH MCCULLOCH, OF LONDON.
I HAVE not wished that any important conclusion reached in
this volume should, to any needless extent, rest upon my own
opinion alone, and some of the points involved are of such
a nature that the opinions of competent observers are, per-
haps, the highest authority that can be offered. Both these
considerations have induced me to present in this form the
views of several gentlemen some of them Englishmen and
some of them Americans some representing official life in
various grades and some of them only distinguished in private
life ; but each of them has had exceptional opportunities of
forming correct conclusions, and their views will probably be
thought entitled to weight. The portion of any letter which
28
430 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
has been here omitted is immaterial to the purpose of this
Appendix, and neither in such portion nor in any other letter
received, but not here referred to, were any views expressed
contrary to those herein set forth. I give at length the letter
of Sir Charles Trevelyan (formerly " The Permanent Secre-
tary of the Treasury, ' ' and one of the two persons selected by
the British Government in 1853 to report upon the best
method of reform), because of its great historical interest.
I. Letter from Sir Charles Trevelyan :
BRAEMORE, August 20, 1877.
DEAR SIR : Your letter of the 14th has reached me at this remote
place, and I much regret that I cannot at present personally confer
with you, for I have long been struck by the singular suitableness of
our new but well-tried institution of making public appointments by
open competition, for the correction of some of the worst results of
the United States political system, and would gladly help to place
you in possession of the mature fruit of our experience. . . .
Considering the practical nature of the English character, which
abhors theoretical innovations based upon a priori reasoning, and
reluctantly accepts even those changes which have been proved by
experience to be desirable, a remarkable proof of the success of
the system is to be found in the fact that all real opposition to it has
long since died away, and, step by step, it has been extended to
almost every branch of the service in its most advanced and only
efficient form of perfectly open competition.
It may be useful to the President to know one feature of its early
history : the change was made by persons conversant with public
affairs from a practical perception of its necessity, but these early
supporters of it miyht be counted upon the fingers, and if the matter
had been put to the vote in London society, or the clubs, or even in
Parliament itself by secret votiny, the new system would have been
rejected by an overwhelming majority. Nevertheless, whenever
adverse motions were made in the House of Commons we always had
a majority in favor of the plan. This at first caused us some sur-
prise ; but on investigation the case turned out to be thus : Large as
the number of persons who profited by the former system of patron-
age were, those who were left out in the cold were still larger, and
these included some of the best classes of our population busy pro-
fessional persons of every kind, lawyers, ministers of religion of every
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 431
persuasion, schoolmasters, farmers, shopkeepers, etc. These rapidly
took in the idea of the new institution, and they gladly accepted it
as a valuable additional privilege. We were especially interested and
amused at the sudden popularity which the system acquired in Ire-
land, where " the competition," as they called it, was regarded as a
very preferable alternative to the old jobbery. You will now under-
stand that, whatever may have been the individual sentiments of
members of the House of Commons, they received such pressing
letters from their constituents as obliged them to vote straight.
But all the best members soon felt that, by the abolition of
patronage, they had been relieved from a degrading yoke. While it
was customary to place situations in the revenue and other depart-
ments at their disposal for distribution among their constituents, they
were obliged, in self-defence, to dance attendance on the Patronage
Secretary of the Treasury, besides having to carry on a large and
annoying correspondence with their constituents. From this double
bondage they were at once liberated when the junior appointments
were opened to competition ; and as all members were placed on the
same footing, they were under no disadvantage in their elections in
consequence of the change.
The most searching and vital improvement arising from the aboli-
tion of patronage is that it has purified the constituencies and in-
creased the independence and public feeling of members of Parlia-
ment. %ery borough and county, except a few of the largest, had
its local manager on either side a banker, brewer, or solicitor who
purchased the vote and support of the leading men by a judicious
application of the loaves and fishes. The corruption so engendered
was more constant and general than the bribery carried on by means
of money, and it was also more influential, in the degree in which a
provision for life for a son or some other person in whom a voter was
interested was more valuable than the customary five-pound note.
Both constituents and members now have to look, not to what they
can get, but to what it is their duty to do. At any rate, they must
now seek to promote their interests in some larger and more public
way than by obtaining appointments for themselves or their friends.
As regards the effect of the change upon the efficiency of the
administrative service, the ordinary practice was to place the fool of
the family in the civil, and the wild, idle, unmanageable youth in the
military, service, for the plain reason that while this was a provision
for life for them, they were not so fit as their brothers to compete
with others in the open professions. The promotion within the civil
432 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
service was, for the most part, conducted on the same principle of
patronage, and in the military service on a mixed principle of pur-
chase and patronage. The civil service also was held in low estima-
tion by the public, who regarded it as a corpus vile for political job-
bers ; and this reacted in an injurious manner upon the esprit de
corps of- the civil servants. Now both civil and military officers are
appointed on the ground of superior ability and attainment, with an
indirect guarantee for good moral qualities (inasmuch as superior
cultivation and attainments is to be acquired only by industry, self-
denial, and a preference of the future for the present), besides direct
evidence to moral character from the persons best able to testify to
it. As the persons appointed have no party connections, and are
generally unknown to the political chiefs, there is now nothing to
prevent their being promoted according to qualification and merit,
wh:ch is the key to administrative efficiency. Lastly, the reproach
of a corrupt origin has been removed from the civil service, 'and the
members of it have been elevated in the estimation of themselves and
others.
The same change which has increased the efficiency of the civil and
military services has given a marvellous stimulus to education. For-
merly boys intended for any branch of the public service had no
motive to exert themselves, because, however idle they might be,
they were certain to get an appointment. Now, from their earliest
years, boys know that their future depends upon themselves, and a
new spirit of activity has supervened. The opening of the civil and
military services, in its influence upon national education, is equiva-
lent to a hundred thousand scholarships and exhibitions of the most
valuable kind because, unlike such rewards in general, they are for
life offered for the encouragement of youthful learning and good
conduct in every class of the community.
All this luis led to a great improvement in the efficiency of the
administrative service. That such is the case is proved by the
general acceptance of the new national institution, so that no sane
person has any idea of abrogating it and reviving the former state of
things, but, on the contrary, there is a constant movement towards
extending it in its entirety to the few remaining branches of the
service to which it has not yet been fully applied. . . .
You ask as to the effect of the change upon " official morality."
Official corruption was not one of the faults of the old system. 1
1 The " old system," as here referred to, is not the " old system" as the
phrase is generally used in this volume, where it refers to the state of things
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 433
Trust worthiness mainly depends upon a secure tenure of office, and
that has long been abundantly provided for. The rule that the first
appearance of official delinquency should be thoroughly investigated
and adequately dealt with, has been and still is fully enforced. The
plan now acted upon is to have fewer of the higher class of civil
servants, and to pay them better from the first, getting the copying,
care of papers, and other less intellectual work done by a cheaper
and more ordinarily educated class, which has a tendency both to I
promote economy and to encourage fidelity and exertion on the part/
of the most trusted servants by making their appointments more
valuable to them. . . .
Believe me, very truly yours, CH. TREVELYAN.
D. B. EATON, E>q., etc., etc.
In a subsequent letter to the author Sir Charles Trevelyan
says :
" You cannot lay too much stress upon the fact that the making of
public appointments by open competition has been accepted by all
our political parties, and that there is no sign of any movement
against it from any quarter."
II. Letter from John Bright :
LONDON, April 29, 1874.
DEAR SIR : I am sorry I have be^n so long in replying to your
letter, and now I do not feel that I can say much that will be of use
to you.
The opening of our civil service has met with general approval, and
after the experience of some years it would be impossible to go back
to the old system. The present plan is one which is felt to be more
just to all classes, and it is calculated to supply more capable men for
the various departments of the public service.
You are doubtless aware that appointments with us are to a large
extent of a permanent character. No changes in persons employed
in government offices, in the customs, -excise, post-office, and tele-
graph departments, take place -on a change of government, and thus
we avoid a vast source of disturbance and corruption which would be
opened if the contrary plan were- adopted.
prior to 1800 or 1820. Sir Charles Trcvelyan means by the old system only
that which immediately preceded 1853, which -was in large part removed
at that time, and which was abolished in 1870.
434 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
In these days, when so much is done by governments, and so many
persons are employed by them, it seems absolutely necessary to take
precautions against the selection of incompetent men, and against the
corruption which under the purest administration is always a menac-
ing evil.
Your proposed reform is a great undertaking. I hope the good
sense of your people will enable you to complete it. All the friends
of your country in other nations will congratulate you in your success.
I have directed to be forwarded to you some of our Parliamentary
publications, that you may know the latest facts connected with what
is doing here in the matter of our civil service.
I am, with great respect, yours very sincerely,
JOHN BRIGHT.
D. B. EATON, Esq., etc., etc.
III. Mr. Faircliild, then United States Consul at Liverpool,
wrote the author, under date of October 8th, 1877, as follows :
"I do not hesitate to say that the civil service of this country is held
in very high estimation by the people here. . . . There is a pervad-
ing feeling of confidence in and satisfaction with the civil service as a
whole, and I am decidedly of the opinion that such confidence and
satisfaction are well founded. . . . Not that it is considered by all
as an entirely perfect system and incapable of improvement, but that
it is held to be so perfect in its workings and results as to give great
satisfaction to the people. During my residence here I do not now
remember to have heard of but three cases where men in the service
have been found guilty of financial dishonesty. . . . The service
being non-partisan, they were treated just exactly the same as any
other criminal would have been, . . . and the crimes of the individ-
uals were not charged to either of the great political parties. . . ."
IV. General Badeau, the United States Consul-General in
Great Britain, under date of November 1st, 1877, \vrote the
author as follows :
"... That the general opinion in England and I believe the facts
carry out such belief is that the inland revenue service, the customs
service, and post-office department are efficient, and that every con-
fidence is placed in Ihc administration of those services ; and in very
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 435
few instances is that confidence ever abused. If an abuse of the con-
fidence of the Government has sometimes occurred, it has been and is
among the inferior officers of the postal departments, such as letter-
carriers and sorters ; but in the very large number of these offices the
percentage of crime is very small. I know of no scandals in these
departments that are spoken of at all, and I am decidedly of opinion
that one of the greatest causes of the absence of scandals and of the
honesty of officials is the fact that after a short series of years each
officer becomes entitled to a pension which continues for life and
increases in proportion to the number of years of service and the
efficiency of the officer. ..."
Y. Mr. Moran, now United States Minister at Lislxm, but
for many years the Secretary of Legation in Great Britain, uses
th^s language, in a letter to the author dated January 26th,
1878: "I fully share your views of the efficiency of the
revenue and postal services of Great Britain arid their freedom
from corruption. These views of mine are based upon the
observation of years. The causes are not far to seek. Men
are selected for these services because of their fitness, are fairly
jgaid^are onl^removable for cause, and can always look for-
ward to a pension when incapacitated by labor or old age. 1
Both services are thoroughly efficient, and there have been no
great scandals attached to either service in my time. Delin-
quencies occasionally occur among the post-office officials of
minor grades, but these are invariably punished. On the
whole, the civil service of Great Britain is, in iny opinion, the
best in the world, and worthy of imitation."
VI. Mr. Hoppin, who succeeded Mr. Moran as Secretary of
Legation in Great Britain, says, in a letter to the author, that
" During the whole period of my stay here I do not remem-
ber to have seen in the papers any charge of peculation or
improprieties of any sort against any permanent official. I
presume the more closely I should inquire, the more unani-
mous I should find the sentiment in favor of the rules of the
civil service as they exist here at present."
1 The pensions here referred to are the superannuation allowances already
explained, which are little more than another name for a part of the salary
reserved for declining years.
436 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
VIT. Letter from Edwards Plerrepont :
LEGATION OF THK UNITED STATES, )
LONDON, October 14, 1877. J
MY DEAR SIR Yours of September 18th is received. You
rightly state that you understood me to say that I had very often
asked men of different grades of life in England their views about
the honesty of the administration of their imperial and their muni-
cipal governments, and that I invariably found that they believed, or
professed to believe, in the purity of such administration.
Since my interview with you last summer, I have had increased
opportunities to make further and more minute inquiries upon this
subject, of which I have carefully availed myself, both in England
and Scotland ; and I have never found a person who did not profess
to believe in the strict honesty of the administration in all depart-
ments, so far as relates to the expenditure of money. What the
facts may he I have no means of knowing, but the belief, or ex-
pressed belief, among all classes is universal, that serious corruption
does not exist either in the imperial or municipal administration, and
I have no reason to question the correctness of this general opinion.
I am, very truly yours, EDWARDS PIERREPONT. '
Hon. D. B. EATON.
YIII. The two following letters present the subject from
the standpoint of private citizens of the United States, who
also liave had rare opportunities of forming a correct judgment :
NEW YORK, November 7, 1877.
DEAR SIR : I have received" your favor of the 19th, asking me
whether, in my opinion, it was the general belief of the English
people, if not their almost universal conviction, that the civil-service
administration of England, at least in the customs service, in the
inland revenue service, and the post-office department, is efficient,
and, as a rule, free from corruption.
To this inquiry I do not hesitate to give an. affirmative answer.
Not that there is no scandal and no abuse. These evils, no doubt,
exist in every country to a greater or less extent ; but that there is in
England, generally speaking, a pervading fidelity and efficiency, with
a corresponding feeling of confidence and satisfaction on the part
of the people generally, there can, I think r .bc no question ; and, so
far as my observation extends, that confidence is, as a rule, well
1 At that time Mr. Pierrepont was United States Minister.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 437
deserved. If I were to particularize any service it would be that of
the post-office, for the working of that branch comes more nearly
under my observation ; and I do not hesitate to say that it is man-
aged with singular efficiency and regard for public convenience, and,
so far as I have known, with that freedom from public scandal which
is proverbial in the English service.
Yours faithfully, J. S. MORGAN.'
D. B. EATON, Esq.
NEW YORK, Octooer 2o, 1877.
DEAR SIR : In reply to your letter of the 19th ult. addressed to
me in London, I do not hesitate to say that the opinion I have
formed of the administration of the civil service of Great Britain is
a very favorable one. I consider it vastly superior in all important
respects to that of the United States. It could hardly fail to be so,
inasmuch as, while in that country the party in power may, and doubt-
less does, in getting offices give a preference 2 to its friends, no removals
are made on political grounds. With a change of ministry changes
take place in a few high offices, but minor offices in all departments
of the government are held by their incumbents as long as the duties
thereof are properly performed. On what grounds public offices in
the United States are filled and vacated is understood by all who
have paid any attention to the administration of our civil service.
I have spent the most of the time since November, 1870, in London,
and I do not think that I have ever heard charges of corruption or
complaints of inefficiency against the service in Great Britain. There
is undoubtedly, in some departments, too much of routine and of
adherence to ancient modes of transacting business ; but I am quite
sure that the general administration of the civil services in Great
Britain is approved by the intelligent and fair-minded men of both
parties, Liberals and Conservatives.
Very truly yours, II. McCuLLOCH. 3
D. B. EATON, Esq.
1 The well-known American banker, formerly member of the house of
George .Peabody & Co., and now the 'head of the banking house of J. S.
Morgan^ Co!', of London.
4 This preference, of course, can only take place within those very narrow
limits whfcfe;Open;compeUtion has not wholly excluded favoritism prob-
ably not extending to five per cent of the clerkships, and only in a qualified
form even to those.
s Late United States Secretary of the Treasury, but for some years past
the head of the London banking house of McCuIloch & Co.
APPENDIX B.
SOME CONFIRMATION OF VIEWS EXPRESSED.
American opinions of British administration. Mr. Hewitt on consular
systems. American and British consuls in China. Our territorial govern-
ments contrasted with the British. Examples of the infidelity of both the
great parties to reform. How patriotism and public spirit are impaired.
PERHAPS the views most likely to be challenged of any ex-
pressed in this volume are those to the following effect :
(1) That the superiority of British administration is so
manifest as to be readily seen and admitted by competent and
candid observers.
(2) That our partisan spoils system, no longer a mere de-
fect in administration, has really undermined patriotism at
home and arrested the growth of republicanism abroad.
(3) That civil service reform is not merely a mode of pro-
cedure and an economy, but has become a vital question of
principle and public morality, involving the counterpoise and
in no small degree the stability of the government itself.
Upon the first point, perhaps, any thing beyondwhich is con-
tained in Appendix A. is superfluous. A whole chapter might
easily be filled with citations in support of the second and
third propositions.
From the mass of evidence, I cite a few opinions from per-
sons representing all parties, which seem to go quite beyond
any statements in this volume.
I. ' ' The thorough reform of our civil service would sweep
away nearly the whole brood of evils which have so dishonored
the government at home and abroad within the last genera-
tion ; and our party leaders, and not the masses, have made
that service a disgusting system of political prostitution. "
International Review, Jan., 1879.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 439
II. " In the British service, candidates (for consulships)
must be examined for admission, and in all cases must under-
stand French and the language of the country to which they
are assigned for duty. . . Promotions are made for merit and
length of service. . . They are never removed for political
causes ; nor is it ever intimated, on a change of administration,
that they are expected to make room for hungry politicians.
They devote themselves for life to the promotion of British
trade and commerce. They seek out new avenues for enter-
prise. . . If time permitted, I could furnish volumes of evi-
dence of the zeal and energy of these missionaries in the cause
of British trade. Their reports and the reports of the attaches
of the. British legations are models of patient labor and treas-
uries of valuable commercial knowledge. . . I need not waste
any time in describing how our consuls are appointed, and,
with some creditable exceptions, what manner of men they
are apt to be. Appointed as a rule for subordinate and often
discreditable political services, they usually have no qualifica-
tions for the position. They have no permanence of tenure,
and hence are often removed just as they have acquired the
experience to be useful. The result is that it may almost be
affirmed that our consular system as now organized and admin-
istered, with its code, offers an impediment rather than an
aid to commerce.'''' 1
Mr. Hewitt also sketches a plan for reform almost iden-
tical with the consular system of Great Britain, France, and
Germany that system which France, in becoming a republic,
shows no disposition to abandon. Of the French system Mr.
Hewitt says :
" A most elaborate scheme of examination is laid down for ad-
mission to the permanent consular and diplomatic service. . . "
" They must understand two modern languages besides their
own." " The examinations include . . international law, di-
plomatic history, statistics, political economy, geography, and
the languages." "Promotion is made from the lower grades
of the entire foreign service." This system he declares has
been found so efficient that it has remained unchanged for
nearly half a century.
1 Speech Hon. A. S. Hewitt, H. Rep., llth March, 1878.
440 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIX.
III. Speaking of the dissatisfaction of American merchants
in China with our consular system, a writer who is personally
familiar with the facts says : "They contrast, for instance,
that of Great Britain, which makes the service so honorable
and attractive that entrance thereto is eagerly sought by an
excellent class of specially fitted men. . . This system they
contrast with one which makes it possible to send a man to per-
form commercial, judicial, and almost diplomatic functions
among an ancient, formal, oriental people, because he has been
an efficient ' worker ' in the primaries of Oshkosh or Yuba
Dam. . . Yet our system does not save us money ; for satis-
factory establishments at the leading ports, where alone they
are needed, would cost less than the present aggregate. . . Our
consular system is something 'to make the very gods of
solemnity laugh. ' '
Surely it is not a matter for argument or doubt, whether the
contrast of our political, ill-instructed, shifting consuls, with
the experienced and highly-educated officials of the leading
monarchical states, in all the commercial ports of the world
whether their relative influence upon national commerce,
reputation, and honor are or not favorable to our trade, to re-
publican institutions, or to American patriotism ? Or, looking
to the contrasts presented in the State Departments at home
the one system tendering high standards of capacity and attain-
ments, the other balancing the pressure of factions and the in-
terests of partisan politics is the suggestion and the influence
any more favorable to American pride or patriotism ? If
our foreign relations whether the part pertaining to com-
merce or the part pertaining to the other great subjects of
national jealousy and ambition upon either of the continents
presented anything like the complications and difficulties with
which the British Foreign Office has to deal, our Secretary of
Sta{;e would, I venture to think, find it absolutely impossible
to:giye the amount of time and thought now wasted upon the
miserable negotiations, bargainings, and balancings that attend
the selections and appointments of a great portion of the con-
suls and not a few of the lower, grade of diplomatic repre-
1 International Review, April, 1879, pp. 357-359.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN". 441
sentatives. lie is compelled to listen to importunity, to
weigh partisan influence, and to calculate and provide for po-
litical consequences every year in connection with the candi-
dacy of hundreds of persons for these places, nearly every one
of whom would be excluded by the non-partisan tests which
are applied by Great Britain, and by every other great and
enlightened nation of the world tests of capacity and fitness
which are as essential to advance the commerce as they are to
maintain the honor of the country and the prestige of repub-
lican institutions.
IV. It would carry me too far and it is quite superfluous
to cite authority as to administration at our own doors ; but,
by way of bringing into comparison the British and American
systems, as applied to dependencies or territories, as to which
the facts are perhaps not so familiar to the reader, I cite the
following statement from a late article written by the Chief-
Justice of the Territory of Montana, 1 who certainly must be
familiar with our Territorial system ; and, as a high judicial
official, he may be assumed to be candid :
" Good men are often removed without cause or prov-
ocation, to make room for others whose claims are thought
to be superior by reason of their services to the party
in power, or whose importunity becomes unendurable. . .
A swarm of office-seekers besiege the ' White House,' sup-
ported by a thousand and one pretended claims and in-
fluences ; charges arc made against the distant officer, and
he is removed without notice or warning ; the result is that
Federal officials are constantly arriving in the Territories and
departing from them, until the terms ' pilgrim ' and ' car-
pet-bagger,' by which names they are generally known and
designated among the people, become natural and appropriate.
. . An officer, by the purity of his life and official conduct, be-
comes popular with the people. The embryo Senators and
members of Congress see danger in the distance. Their rival
must be humbled, and the word of one man upon an ex-parte
hearing can cause his removal and degradation. This feeling
is the parent of many an unjust charge and accusation, where-
by the Territories may be kept in a constant broil."
1 International Review, March, 1879, p. 003.
442 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIX.
It is hardly necessary to say that abuses of this character, from
the very nature of the British system, cannot happen anywhere
in the vast chain of her dependencies, from imperial India down
to the smallest island under her flag. And how long do we
think her rule could be maintained how many years could we
hold India, the Dominion of Canada, the great Australian col-
onies, Tasmania, or even such second-class dependencies as
Jamaica, New Zealand, Cape Colony, or Ceylon under such a
system as we tolerate ? Even the smallest of these secondary
dependencies has a population greater, I believe, than the
entire white population of all the Territories of the United
States combined. 1
Y. As bearing upon the last of the three points, I cite from
a report lately submitted to Congress by a committee, 2 repre-
senting one of the great parties, which has just been making
extensive investigations :
1 ' At the end of each four years the entire Federal patronage
(amounting to one hundred and ten thousand offices) is col-
lected in one lot, and the people divide themselves into two
parties, struggling in name to choose a President, but in fact
to control this enormous patronage, which the President, when
elected, is compelled to distribute to his party because he was
elected to so distribute it. The temptation to fraud, to usur-
pation, and to corruption, thus created, is beyond calculation.
A prize so great, an influence so powerful, thus centralized
and put up at short periods, would jeopard the peace and
safety of any nation. . . No nation can withstand a strife
among its own people, so general, so intense, and so demoral-
izing. No contrivance so effectual to embarrass government,
to disturb the public peace, to destroy political honesty, and
to endanger the common security, was ever before invented. ' '
And yet, since that report was adopted, a deliberate removal
has been made by that party of officers of the national Senate
for political reasons alone one of the most extreme, inde-
fensible, and unprecedented acts of partisan proscription to be
1 Their population is about as follows : Ceylon, 2,500,000; Jamaica,
506,000 ; Cape Colony, 700,000 ; New Zealand, 800,000.
2 Report made by Mr. Potter from the Committee on Alleged Frauds in
the late Presidential Election, p. G4, March 3, 1879.
CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN. 443
found in the whole history of the government. 1 In presence
of such declarations and such acts, does patriotism, and faith in
official life, remain unimpaired ?
ver against these acts of one party, impartial history must
set acts of the other party hardly less discreditable and disas-
trous. *
Acting upon a reform policy recommended in 1870 by a
President of its choice, that party in the most formal manner
pledged itself to reform the civil service, and holding up
that pledge before the people, it carried a national election.
The work of reform was entered upon, but while it was going
forward, with the good effects set forth in Appendix C., it
was suppressed by the party which had started it through a
refusal to vote money to carry it forward, although an appro-
priation was requested by a special message of the President,
April 18th, 1ST4. Such examples might well be discouraging
if the reform sentiment had not, after eveiy betrayal, risen
yet more powerful to rebuke the folly of those who insulted
it, and to thrust aside those who attempted to trample upon it.
If I have cited these instances of infidelity to pledges and
professions, in support of views before expressed, they are not
less instructive as showing that here, as has been the fact in
England, there is more hope of reform from the Executive than
from Congress, and perhaps from the joint influence of the
best men of both parties than from either party acting alone.
In Appendix A. we can learn how little an Englishman
finds to place the administration of his country in a repulsive
or humiliating attitude before his eyes. But how different is
it with us ! What I have cited is but here and there a line
from the vast volume of indignation, complaint, lamentation,
and disgust, in connection with our administrative methods,
1 If only the claim of the principal officer removed were involved, I should
think that the extreme partisan work in which ha so unbecomingly engaged
fully justified his removal.
2 Having no party ends to save by this volume, and believing that civil
service reform is a great cause and interest of the people, which they must
carry forward against what is most selfish, corrupt, and partisan in offi-
cial life and in each of the great parties, it is no part of my purpose to screen
either party, or to point out which party has rendered most service to that
cause, or from which it has most to hope in the future.
444 CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
which comes from every quarter of the Union, from every
grade of life, from every sphere of political action. The vil-
lages, the cities, the army posts, the special agencies, the cus-
tom-houses, the mayors, the governors, the consulates, the
revenue officers, the president in short, public affairs of
every nature and officers of every class are involved in dis-
trust and are degraded in popular estimation, by reason of the
opportunities afforded by a partisan -spoils system of office and
the use that is made, or is believed to be made, of these op-
portunities. In the formal papers of the President, in the
resolutions of conventions, State and National, in debates in
the Senate and the House, in reports of committees and of
subordinate officers, in our periodical literature, in the speeches
and sermons of our thoughtful men, in the press and in com-
mon speech of the people, in forms and at times innumerable,
we see our administrative system, for such reasons, denounced,
and the character, and motives of those who administer it ar-
raigned and brought under suspicion. This goes cm from
month to month, from year to year, from administration to
administration. Can any one undertake to estimate how much
it has done to impair confidence in our institutions, to cast
suspicion over all official life, to disgust the people with the
very name of politics, to drive good men from the polls, to
bring republicanism into disrepute both at home and abroad ?
And it is because these abuses are known, bringing joy to our
enemies and sorrow to our friends in other countries, that we
find John Bright using this language in 18T4, at the very
moment the then dominant was strangling its oicn reform:
"Your proposed reform is a great undertaking. I hope the
good sense of your people will enable you to complete it.
All the friends of your country in other nations will congratu-
late you on your success." Thus far, only the politicians
and not the people have dealt with the reform. When the
people shall have it fairly before them, need we doubt that
Mr. Bright's hopes will be realized ?
1 See his letter of April, 1874, in Appendix A.
APPENDIX C.
CIVIL SERVICE REFORM TJXDER PRESIDENT GRANT.
The practical results of that experiment. The good effects of the merit sys-
tem established. Its defeat caused by patronage monopolists in Congress.
Analogous to the first experience in Great Britain.
IT is a matter of general information, that under President
Grant a trial, beginning January 1st, 1872, was made of the
merit system in a limited way ; the regulations, competitions
and examinations being closely analogous to those so long in
practice in Great Britain. 1 hardly need recall the well-
known facts that, by reason of the imperfect support given
the reform,' of open hostility in various official quarters, and
of the damaging examples of official infidelity on the part of
some of those connected with the Administration, the new
system was placed at a great disadvantage ; but it is important
not to forget that, despite all these drawbacks, its good effects
clearly appeared, and that they are established by authority so
high and direct as not to be open to question. From the re-
port of the Civil Service Commission, submitted to President
Grant in April, 18T4, 1 it appears that, upon the basis of their
own experience and of the reports of their subordinates, the
heads of departments the members of the Cabinet ap-
proved the language of the report, which stated the following
as the results of the trial of the new system that is, of the
rules then in force :
(1) " They have, on an average, where examinations apply,
given persons of superior capacity and character to the ser-
vice of the government, and have tended to exclude unworthy
applicants.
(2) " They have developed more energy in the discharge
1 Report, p. 42.
29
446 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIN.
of duty, and more ambition to acquire information connected
with official functions, on the part of those in the service.
(3) " They have diminished the unreasonable solicitation
and pressure which numerous applicants and their friends,
competing for appointments, have before brought to bear
upon the departments in the direction of favoritism.
(4) " They have, especially where competition applies,
relieved the heads of departments and of bureaus, to a large
extent, of the necessity of devoting, to persons soliciting places
for themselves or for others, time which was needed for official
duties.
(5) " They have made it more practicable to dismiss from
the service those who came in under the civil service examin-
ations, when not found worthy, than it was, or is, to dismiss
the like unworthy persons who had been introduced into the
service through favor or dictation.
(6) " They have diminished the intrigue and pressure, be-
fore too frequent, for causing the removal of worthy persons
for the mere purpose of bringing other, perhaps inferior, per-
sons into the service."
And the Commissioners, at the close of the report, make
these statements as to the practical working of the new
methods :
1. " The practicability of fairly conducting examinations
as to the qualities to be tested, and of fairly rating the re-
sults of competition, and of preserving reliable evidence of
the same, has been established.
2. "It has been demonstrated that competitive examina-
tions for entrance to the public service will, besides diminish-
ing evil influences in our politics generally, bring a better
class of persons into that service and insure more efficiency in
administration.
3. " In regard to promotions, it has been shown that the
method of competition may be so united with the exercise of
the proper authority of heads of offices or bureaus as to pre-
vent the favoritism and discouragements too frequent under
the old method of making promotions, and secure more fidel-
ity and intelligence in the service.
CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 447
6. " To carry on the reform for another year, there is
needed an appropriation of $25,000. ..."
There is no need, nor can the space be spared, to present here
even an outline of the decisive evidence by -which the utility
of the new system was demonstrated in that report. It is
enough to say that on the 18th April, 1874, President Grant
sent the report to Congress with a special message in which
he says :
" Herewith I transmit the report of the Civil Service Com-
mission. If sustained by Congress, I have no doubt the rules
can, after experience gained, be so improved and enforced as
to still more materially benefit the public service and relieve
the Executive, members of Congress, and the heads of depart-
ments from influences prejudicial to good administration. The
rules, as they have hitherto been enforced, have resulted bene-
ficially, as is shown by the opinions of the members of the
Cabinet and their subordinates in the Departments, and in
that opinion 1 concur"
The message concluded by asking for the same appro-
priation for the next year that had been made for the pre-
vious year. President Grant repeated these views in his
annual message of December 7th, 1874, in which he again
appealed to Congress for an appropriation. Not even such
unquestioned evidence, reinforced by the request of the
President, could avail in that Congress. Its members lacked
faith in the higher sentiments of the people as much as they
desired patronage in their own hands. Party managers clam-
ored for spoils. There was a lamentable absence of foresight
and statesmanship. The pledges of the past and the promise
of the future were sacrificed by a refusal to make the least ap-
propriation, and by treating with contempt an experiment for
which the party and administrative power were responsible.
For a time this refusal in a large measure suppressed the re-
form methods. 1 That it did not arrest the reform sentiment,
is very clearly shown by the fact that it was an element which
1 1 say for a time and in large measure, because, though the rules appear to
have been formally suspended in some departments, they have hardly any-
where lost their influence, and various public officers have since shown so
much respect tor the public interests notably Secretary Schurz and Postmas-
448 CIVIL SERVICE IX GREAT BRITAIX.
exerted a greater influence in the next Presidential election
than it had ever exerted upon any previous national canvass.
"With the members of that Congress directly, but not
solely, must rest the responsibility of deserting and arresting
a reform to which they were pledged, and of losing, without
the least gain, a powerful hold upon the confidence of the na-
tion. In noticing this lamentable triumph of personal and
partisan selfishness over statesmanship and public faith, we
cannot fail to recall the fact that, at near the same time after
the first introduction of the merit system into Great Britain,
Parliament condemned it by an adverse vote, but its members
never (like the members of this Congress ') refused an appro-
priation requested by the Executive to carry it on.
From these facts, we can see that the merit system is just as
practicable, and that it bids fair to be as salutary, in this coun-
try, as it has been found to be in Great Britain and the other
leading nations ; and that its strongest enemies are patronage
monopolists in Congress. It is, perhaps, vain to expect that
these monopolists or that partisan managers will voluntarily
surrender their spoils, or in any way begin a reform ; but is
it unreasonable to expect that the people will not much longer
tolerate abuses the removal of which is thus proved to be
entirely practicable, and which it only needs a firm and clear
expression of their wishes to bring about ?
ter James of New York that they have again put them in force, with the
sanction of President Hayes ; and within the last few days they have been, in
the same spirit, applied in the Custom-House and in the Naval Office at the
City of New York.
1 It was stated in the public journals at the time, that fifty-one of them,
soon after the 4th of March, urged their personal claims for office upon the
President, to say nothing of claims innumerable made on behalf of their
favorites and henchmen.
INDEX.
Aberdeen, Lord, as a reformer
175, 185
Abuses, not original with us
lie, 21, 23
not well guarded against in
Constitution of the United
States 2, 3
first, general inquiry into. ... 29
early reforms of, in Great
Britain 4, 5, G
under feudal system, Clis. II.
and III., 11 to 43
under Charles II., and James
II GO-G8
under Walpole 91-101
under George III 102-118
under George IV 145
how neglected in United
States 8,9
of patronage by members of
Parliament, 147-149 (sec Pat-
ronage).
as they existed in 1&53. . .183-189
brought out by investigation
of I860 216-222
of power of nomination. .224,
225, 231-233, 236
examples of, in 1873 241, 242
but corruption not found
212,245
in the State Church 267-282
compared with those of the
United States 352
chargeable against both our
parties 442-441
See Patronage, Spoils System,
Bribery, Parliament, Offices,
Officers, Church.
Administration, its importance
PAGE
slow of being understood
53, 68, 78, 118, 119
Administration, now a science
in Great Britain. . .4, 7, 11 c, 123
effect of, a change of, upon
officers 217, 218, note.
See Merit System, Removals,
Officers,
permanent nature of questions
as to 4, 11, 424, 425
danger of neglecting . .4, 426, 427
in France 330, 439
grows more difficult and com-
plicated 426, 427
how benefited by new system
"...7,432
state of British in 1820. .145-147
state of British in 1853. .181-185
neglected in the United States
and studied in older coun-
tries. . . .6, 7, 8, 9, 118, 149,
175, 416, 417, 418, 422
and bttter there 420
British and American systems
compared 77, 78, 128,
129, 133-139, 150, 278, 280,
303, 304
American opinions of British
282,434-444
its character in 1853 182
See Chap. XXX., Merit Sys-
tem, Spoils System. Parti-
san System, Party Govern-
ment, Abuses, Patronage,
Parliament, Customs Ser-
vice, Postal Service, Bribe-
ry, Offices, Officers, Sales,
Competition, and Examina-
tions.
Administrative reform. See
450
INDEX.
Reform and Merit Sys-
tem.
Advowsons, sale of (see Re-
ligion and Church). ... 109,
275, 279
Allowances, See Superannua-
tion.
Annapolis. See Naval Offices.
America, early the victim of
the- partisan spoils system
116-118
reform and her independence,
a twin birth 124
Anne, Queen, her reign 82-88
touching by for sickness 26
law of, forbidding officers in-
terfering with elections . 85,
309, 310
Appointing power, treated as a
mere perquisite 39-43
origin of the theory of its ir-
responsibility 47, 48
slow developement of sound
views concerning 64
gained by members of Parlia-
ment 84
the questions presented as
to 11
abuses of, prohibited by law
in Great Britain 132-139
abuse of, in the Church. .274-277
abuse of, in United States
407-409
none in members of Parlia-
ment 306, 307, 310,313
responsibility in use of. ..231,
232, 408, 409
See Patronage, Removals,
Spoils System, Senate, Par-
liament, Officers, Competi-
tion.
Appointments. See Officers and
Appointing Power.
Appropriations. See Supplies.
Aristocracy, reform early seen
to be hostile to 160, 161,
175, 180, 201, 202, 235, 246
Assessments, why none in early
times in Great Britain 43
practically excluded by Peti-
tion of Right 51
none under Cromwell 5
nearest approximation to.. 91,
92, 146
the injustice of.. . .50, 51, 411-413
political, in United States. 410-412
relation of Senate to 412
Army offices, venal 48
proscription in, under James
II 63, 64,67
under George III.. . .104, 110,
111, 121
purchase of offices in 283-285
ours follows English prece-
dent Ill, note.
favoritism in our army .... 284-287
Australia. See Competition and
Examinations.
B
Bacon, his corruption 49
Badeau, General, his opinion.. 434
Bank of England conducts ex-
aminations 321
Ballot, when secured 291
Baronets and Titles (see Titles).
268-270
Beaconsfield, Lord, overawed by
reform sentiment 374-375
Bill of Rights. See Rights.
Blackstone, Sir William 40, 96
the theory ot government he
describes 40
Bolingbroke, Lord, originated
partisan removals. . . .84, 86, 97
Boy clerks 264, note.
See Civil Service.
Borough corruption. 45, 91, 111,
113, 114
Boroughs created for political
purposes 45
Bribery under James 1 49
under Charles II 5, 7
INDEX.
451
Bribery under James II 64, 67
under Queen Aime 86
under Geo. Ill 106-115, 120
limited by public opinion 121
when it began in elections. . 50
increased with power of Par-
liament 76, 79, 80
under Walpole 91, 92
in borough elections Ill, etc.
See Boroughs.
prohibited by stringent stat-
utes 132-139, 151, note.
its decline 124
our laws against, less strin-
gent than the British. ..137-139
of members,but not of electors,
; . . ceased under George IV. .. 145
See Patronage, Offices, and
Spoils System.
Bombay, how its health has
been improved 292
Brokerage of Office, see Office
and Office Brokerage 132-139
Bright, John 217
letter from 433
his opinions 376, 433, 434
Bureaucracy, bearing of merit
system, as to. 199, 200, 214, 215
excluded by competition 366
Burke as a reformer 4, 101,
118, 122, 272
Bute, Lord 106, 107
Cade, Jack 27, 36
Cadets, selection of, in United
States 284, 285
See Army, Military School?,
Purchase, Competition, Ex-
aminations.
Cabinet Council, or " The Cabi-
net," origin of 74
original of our Cabinet 76
how elevated by party gov-
ernment 83, 84
Composition of 73
Canada, reform in 8, 11 a
Caricature in times of George
III 121
Catholics, disabilities of. 88, 112,
113, 126
See Church, Sacrament, and
Tests.
Character, as tested by compe-
tition. See Competition,
an essential qualification for
office in U. S . .2, 118
Ceylon, examinations extended
to 225
Charles II. and his system 60-69
Charters sold and used as spoils
18,20
See Spoils System and Abuses.
Chatham. See Pitt.
Chinese, the reform declared to
be 196
Church, the, early abuses in. 41-
47,48
See Church.
opposed to reform 110
patronage in 274-279
its creed a test for office. . 109,
277, 291
influence in universities. .110, 125
as a political influence. . .267-282
See Tests, Religion and Sac-
raments.
Cities, old corruption in. 21, 112-114
merit system applicable to
157, 158, 397
Civil service, what it embraces
in Great Britain. ..143, 315,
316, 358-360
what members of regard-
ed as political. See Offi-
cers.
publicity as to doings in 264
See Publicity.
members of, kindly treated.
See Officers.
boy clerks in 264
its reform an executive duty
186-189,405, 406
See Executive.
45:3
INDEX.
Civil service, numbers in Brit-
ish 217,218
British and American com-
pared. See Administra-
tion,
importance attached to, in
Great Britain 216, 217
numbers admitted to, each
, year 218
formerly two classes in.. 235, 246
how those in first, elevated in
condition 130, 320-324
when those in, disfranchised. 131
when franchise restored 131
Bee Abuses, Officers, Adminis-
tration, Merit System.
Civil service commission, origin
of, in Great Britain. 203, 204, 208
in United States. 405, 406, 446-448
report of, in United States. . . 447
how duty of, discharged
209, 215, 265
speedily become popular.. 209, 431
judicial character of 210, 265
general reputation of . . . .210, 265
praised by Parliament. . ..211, 215
annual reports of 213, 235
authority of, extended. . .229, 261
examinations for India 249
refuses private examinations. 321
general duties of. 264, 265, 394
full records kept by.. 264, 265, 390
its proper sphere in United
States 393
Civil service rules, clauses of
Magua Garta, the first 19
statute of Richard II. the
next rules 33, 34
the third series 71
the formal rules of 1855.. .204-206
in the United States 445-448
President Grant's view of . . . 447
Civil service reform. See Re-
form, Merit System, Civil
Service Commission, Civil
Service, Officers, Promotion,
Appointments, Parliament,
Treasury, Postal Service,
Examinations, and Customs
Service.
Civil list, first parliamentary in-
terference with 120
under House of Brunswick.. . 272
that of Queen Victoria 272, 273
Classes. See Civil Service.
Clerks, early extortions of, how
punished 21
Commerce, as affected by the
reform 325, 420, 421, 439-441
Commission. See Civil Service
Commission.
Competition, various kinds of,
explained 165-167
contest for establishing it. 169-1 78
limited, ordered in 1855
204-206, 210
found practicable at once. . . . 210
fatal to patronage 242
first five years of 208-216
blockheads thrown out by
209, 210
elementary and practical edu-
cation encouraged by. . 214,
215, 218, 225, 226, 229, 230
open, recommended by in-
quiry of 1860 221
examples of its utility. . .224, 225
why preliminary examina-
tions required for , . . . 224
order for open, in 1870. . . 228-
233, 419, 420
principle of open, stated.. 231,
232, 233
regulations as to 229
for clerks in House of Lords.. 236
for Clerks of Privy Council
219,220
those in authority its natural
enemies 237, note.
as affected by inquiry of 1874
245
as a test of character 166,
167, 264, 265
in Australia and New Zealand. 260
INDEX.
453
Competition for military service. 263
See Army and Examinations,
how it stimulates education
204, 205
See Education.
first condemned and then
approved by. Parliament
207,211,213
results of, in India 248, 258
number who have joined in
261,205
in subordinate offices. .. .315, 316
its general effects. . .324-326,
354, 356-358, 365, 416
required by great corpora-
tions 321, 322
to what it may be extend-
ed 393
the justice and importance
of 165-168, 418, 419
always opposed by officials
237, note.
in revenue service 298-301
in the Treasury 303
in postal service 308-310
in State Department 311-312
results of trial of, in United
States 446-448
See X. Y. Post-office, James,
Mr., and Examinations.
Coke, Lord 49
Collectors, how appointed. .302,
303, 304
of London 302
objectionable tenure of, in
U. S 413-415
See Customs Service.
Constitution, sources of Ameri-
can 2,118
did not anticipate abuses 2, 3
Commons, clerks of House of,
how appointed 314
See Parliament.
Congress, Laws o^, relating to
Civil Service.'. 138. 405
what action of useful
185-180, 211, 212, 405-414
Congressmen, how affected by
the merit system 377,
378, 394-397
Confirmation, British Parlia-
ment no authority for 77
closest analogy to Senatorial
power of 42, 146, 147
abuses of power of, in the
United States 42, 413-416
See Senate and Offices.
Consuls 237, 312, 421, 439
in China 440
See State Department, Cus-
toms Service.
Coroners, corruptions of, in
early times 21, 37
Corporations required to sup-
port king's policy , 65
charters sold for money. . . .49, 50
they examine their clerks. 321, 322
Corporation test acts 125
See Church, Religion and
Tests.
Corruption, the result of patron-
age 31
when greatest in House of
Lords 70
disappeared before 1873. .242, 245
See Abuses, Parliament, Bri-
bery, and Spoils System.
Crime, under the spoils system.. 99
under the merit system. .291,
292, 422, 423
Cromwell's administration. . . .54-59
Custom-House Officers, how re-
moved by James II 67
character of British 301
compared with American. 303, 304
See Customs Service.
Customs Service under Crom-
well 55
under Geo. Ill 105, 106, 113
how taken out of politics. 156,
300-305, 398, 399
English and American com-
pared 300-305, 383
in Xew York 448, note
454
INDEX.
Customs service under partisan
system 223, 224
effect of reform upon 389-399
See Revenue, Collectors, Ex-
aminations, Competitions.
D
Defalcation. See Peculation,
Corruption, Sweden Cus-
toms Service, Revenue.
Democracy. See Republicanism.
Derby as a ref orm<* . . . 1 75, 202, 217
Dissenters excluded from office
109, 113
See Tests and Church.
Dismissals. See Removals.
Disfranchisement. See Civil Ser-
vice, Officers, Elections.
Doctrinaires, early reformers de-
nounced as being 10, 196-198
who really are 203, 371, 372
Dockyard influence 46
apprentices now examined. . . 224
Drunkenness under partisan
system 99
DufFerin, Lord 8, 311, note.
E
Economy, bearing of New
system upon 147, 148,
149, 158, 238, 239, 240, 242, 293
Education encouraged and ad-
vanced by merit system
161, 190, 196, 201, 202, 214,
215, 218, 225, 226, 229,
236, 264, 265, 289-291,
335, 336, 373-376, 432
of women. See Women, Ex-
aminations and Competition.
Effects, general, of the intro-
duction of the merit system
289-340,318-341
See Merit System.
Efficiency of British Service
303-305, 298, 299, 308, 402
PAGE
Efficiency. See Tenure, Merit
System, and Promotion.
Eldon, Lord, hostile to reform
125, 126
Elections, first attacks upon
freedom of 23, 28, 45, 46
freedom of, demanded by
Cade's rebellion 36
corruption of, contested. 86, 89, 90
freedom invaded by James II.
64, 67
and by Geo. Ill 106
bill of rights declares their
freedom 71, 72
corruption in boroughs Ill
See Boroughs.
false counts and certificates
23,64,67
coerced by press-gangs 114
districts manipulated and
gerrymandered 64, 65
Elections, how freedom of,
secured.... 85, 130, 131, 309, 310
not now disturbed by revenue
officers 298
nor by postmasters 85, 309, 310
voting at, denied officers.. 131, 132
privilege of voting restored
under merit system 131, 132
same result as to voting in
Sweden. See Sweden.
British and American senti-
ment and laws as to free-
dom of, compared.. 136, 137-139
late protection of. in United
States 11 c, note.
effect of merit system upon
391,409,410
Elective officers, cause of their
increase in United States
399, 400
Eliot, Sir John, as a reformer.
50,58
Examinations, fisst introduced
146, 157, 158, 351, 446
their early effect 158
imitated in United States. 160, 164
INDEX.
455
Examinations aroused great op-
position 160, 161
various kinds pass, limited
and open competition ex-
plained 162-167
denounced as cbimerical 196
of women. See Women.
elementary and practical sub-
jects of .. .208, 214, 215, 218,
225, 226
of letter-carriers and sorters
213, 224,236, 308
pass, not wholly superseded
in 1855 211
early extended to Ireland,
Scotland and Malta 210, 214
numbers rejected on 213
favor schools. . .214, 215, 218,
225, 226, 236
See Education,
great numbers examined. 21 8,
226, 265
recommendations as to, in
1860 221
in Australia and New Zea-
land 260
introduced for Ceylon and
Mauritius 225
not claimed to be infallible. . 201
those introduced in 1855. .204, 205
subjects of 208
marking and grading of at-
tainments 208, 209
stimulated education. See Ed-
ucation.
for private purposes refused.. 321
to what places to be extend-
ed !.. 339
on the part of great corpora-
tions 321,322
need of being uniform 406
for India 177-180, 249-254
preliminary, introduced. ...174
223, 224
for military schools 234, 263
better men secured by 263
See Competition.
Executive, authority and duty
to make reforms.. ..186-189,
203, 394, 405, 406, 446, 447
not aggrandized by merit sys-
tem. .158, 230, 231, 395, 396, 405
Expense, urged against reform
in Great Britain 200
Extortion, examples of... 22, 28, note.
See Spoils System.
Favoritism first limited by
Cromwell 54
in the army 283-287
made disgraceful by public
sentiment.211, 213, 226, 261, 263
See Patronage.
Fees. See Extortion.
Feudal administration. See Ch.
II. and Chap. III. pp. 12
and 39.
Feudal system, origin of spoils
system in. Chap. III. p. 39.
Fox, as a reformer 124
France, offices salable in 24
her administrative system.339, 439
Freedom, early sale of, to serfs.. 28
See Elections.
G
Gambling, under old spoils sys-
tem ICO
Gaugers, formerly arbitrarily
removed 105
now specially instructed 302
Geo. III., his system 102, 349
George IV., administration un-
der. Chap. XII., pp. 144-
154.
Gerrymandering, origin of. .... 65
Gladstone, W. E., his declara-
tion as to patronage. ...303, 304
as a reformer 359
Good behavior made the tenure
of judges 71, 72
See Tenure and Removals.
456
INDEX.
PAGE
Good Parliament 29
Grant, Ex-Pres., reform under
445-448
commends the civil service
rules 447
Great Britain. See Civil Ser-
vice, Commerce, Republi-
canism, Patriotism, Merit
System, Offices, Examina-
tions, Parliament, Competi-
tion.
Granville, Lord, as a reformer
214, note, 352, 353, 859
Grey, Lord, surrenders patron-
age. ..> 153
H
Hampden 51
Heads of departments... . . .218, note.
See Officers.
Helps, Arthur, his theory. . .219, 267
Hereditary, offices tended to be-
come 10,17,43
See Offices.
Hewitt, Hon. A. S., liis views. . 439
Honors. See Titles.
Honesty. See Abuses, Pecula-
tion, and Corruption.
Hoppin, Mr., his opinion 435
Holy alliance 332
Hume, Joseph, as a reformer
159, note.
India, laws to elevate her civil
service 139-141
specimen of their remarkable
stringency 141-143
magnitude of her administra-
tion 10,254-257
examinations for. 177-1 80, 249-254
competitions for service in. 177-180
and its results 248-258,292
Influence not relied on. .271, 301, 303
See Promotions, Competition,
Merit System, Appointing
Power and Patronage.
Inquiry, the first commission of,
into abuses 29
See Investigations.
International effects of merit
system, 317, etc.
Internal Revenue administra-
tion 296-300
See Revenue.
Investigations, the first made. .. 29
demanded by Eliot 58
those made about 1848 326, 327
several within few years last
past 181, 214, 216, 238, 244
their thoroughness 238
they show growth of reform
sentiment 243
Ireland, corruption in :112, 113
bribes on union with 120
sale of offices in 134
religion made an official test
in.. ,. 113
James I., his system 47,50
II., his system CO-69
James, Th. L., his action as
postmaster... 236, 308, 309,
447, 448
Jackson, Ex-Pres., his theory
like Cromwell's 55, 56
his theory really that of feu-
dal lords .'..41,42
Jeffreys 47-63, 68
Jews, their disability 126
Judiciary, British, character of
292, 422
Judges formerly bought their
offices 18
allowed to sell clerkships. ... 17
arbitrary removals of 67
tenure during good behavior.. 71
Junius 121
Justice, feudal administration
of 19,20,48,49
INDEX.
457
Justice, Low improved in later
years 292,422
how promoted by reform
379, 380,395
Juptices. taking gifts by 22
required to know the law. ... 19
K
King, liis power in feudal times.. 25
liealing the sick by, a political
power 25, 26
Knighthood as a political influ-
ence. . . .267-270
Lawyers, deceptions by, early
punished 22
Laws, what new ones desirable
to promote reform.. 186-189,
211, 212, 405-414
English more comprehensive
and stringent than Ameri-
can 132-141
Lay patronage. See Patronage.
Letters opened by partisan offi-
cials 115
of various persons, appendix
429, etc.
carriers of. See Postal Ser-
vice, London, New York,
and Examinations.
Licenses, brought under spoils
system 67
Limited competition. Sf.e Com-
petition and Examinations.
Liverpool, collector of 302
Lords, several, surrender their
patronage 156, 414
London, postal service in 308
School-Board 3J9
crime in, formerly and now
98, 100, 289, 290, 292
Lords, House of, mcst corrupt,
inlG88.. 70
Lords, House of, clerks selected
by competition 237-314
several, surrender patronage
and engage in reform. See
Liverpool, Qranville, Pitt,
Kockingham, Grey, Derby,
Richmond, Aberdeen, and
Palmerston.
Lotteries, part of spoils system
100, 107
Lower classes favored by re-
form 161, 190, 214, 215, 218
See Poor and Education.
M
Macclesfield, Lord 91
Magna Carta, significance of
clauses of 19
contains earliest Civil Service
Rules 19
Mann, Horace. See Prelimi-
nary note. '
Markings, of qualification, 208, 209
See Examinations.
Marshalls, corruption of 21
Marvel as a reformer 57
McCulloch, letter of 437
Members. See Patronage, Con-
gress, and Parliament.
Merit begins to be better test
than opinions 33, 126, 147
See Merit System, Promo-
tion, Examinations, Compe-
tition.
Merit System, meaning of 161
as applied by statute of Rich-
ard II 33, 34
enabled officers to be re- en-
franchised 131, 132
the first introduction of some
elements of 150-158
founded in justice.. .226, 227,
363, 372, 373, 379, S80
investigation for its introduc-
tion in 1853. . ..181-194
458
INDEX.
Merit System, a triumph over
aristocratic as well as base
elements 174-176
opposition made to 192, 220
Low received, on its first in-
troduction 193-203
form it took in 1855 204-206
first five years' experience of
208-215
why it became popular. ..209,
210, 211, 215
first condemned and then sup-
ported by Parliament.. 207,
211, 213
favorable to popular educa-
tion and justice 190-194,
196, 201, 202, 214, 215, 218,
225, 226, 227, 322, 324, 432
two classes of officers at first
235, 246
results of, in India 248-258
its practical operation since
1875 259-265, 324, 432
in New Zealand and Australia 260
its effects in the great depart-
ments 296-316
its economical effects 147,
148, 149
See Economy.
its application to minor offices
315, 316
social, moral, and internation-
al effects of 317, etc.
brought in better class of
men 322-324
its final triumph 355-358
effect on parties.. 364, 365, 366, 432
opposition to be expected. .236, 370
experience in its favor 370-373
See Sweden, Prussia, and
France.
is firmly established 374-378
ail opposition has ceased in
Great Britain 430
adapted to our institutions.378, 379
its probable effect in United
States 385,388-401
Merit System, how and to what
to be applied in United
States 393-395
effect on promotions. ..400, 401, 432
See Education, Schools, and
Promotions.
permanence of 374, 375
opinions of Trevelyan and
Bright 430-433
general effects of, as already
applied in U. S. Appendix A.
429-437, 445-448
partial application of, in New
York 33, note.
under President Grant. . . 445-448
Mill, J. S. , hia views 199, 287
Military offices, venal 48
See Spoils System, Removals,
Army.
schools. See Sandhurst,
Woolwich, Examinations,
Army.
Money Orders. Sue Postal Ser-
vice.
Monarchy made stronger by
reform 328, 332, 337
See Republicanism.
Monopolies sold 18, 49, 50
Monopoly of patronage by mem-
bers of Parliament 155
See Patronage and Parliament,
of nominations, how defeated
by competition 165, 166
See Competition.
Moral sense impaired by corrup-
tion in early times 23
in time of Walpole. .85, 93, 97, 99
effects of merit system upon
317, etc.. 357, 359
Morality, public, in Great Brit-
ain as compared with United
States. . .357-359, 375, 422, 423
in politics impaired in the
United States . 375-377, 413,
414, note.
See Peculation, Corruption,
Abuses, Spoils System.
INDEX.
459
Moran, Mr., his views 435
Morgan, J. S., letter from 436
Muudella, Mr., Lis statement.. . 310
N
Naval officers 263, 285, 287, note.
engineers examined 224
Nepotism, examples of 93,
110, note, 275, note.
Newcastle, the Duke of . ..87, 95, 97
New York Custom-House 448
tee Custom Service.
New York Postal Service. . .308, 309
See James.
North, Lord 108, 117, 122
New Zealand. See Competitions
and Examinations
Nominations, bad ones made by
members of Parliament. 224-
227, 231-233, 261, 262
monopoly of, defeated by com-
petition 165, 166, 228
right to make became val ue-
less 228
See Appointing Power, Parlia-
ment, and Competition.
New System, meaning Merit
System, which see.
Northcote, Sir Stafford, his re-
port of 1853 181, 217, 238
Officers, the subordinate, meni-
als in feudal times 83
first exclusion from Parlia-
ment 72
interesting statute of Richard
II. as to 33
proscription on account of
opinions under Georpe III.
105,113, 114
disfranchised 130, 131
reinfranchised in 1868 131
excessive numbers 146-149
-Sec Placemen.
PAGE
Officers begin to be paid sala-
ries 130
are recognized by law 130
tenure of, and its effects.. 294-
296, 367, 369
what officers are political and
liable to go out with a par-
ty .80, note, 81, 145-146, 147,
155, 218, 303, 306, 365, 393, 394
their pride and self-respect in
Great Britain. 240, 241, 294-296
their social influence improved
by the reform. 146, 240, 319-324
two classes of, at first 235, 246
importance of their character
419-4H
increase of elective, in U. S.,
under spoils system 399, 400
numbers of, in the public ser-
vice
their salaries. See Salaries
and Economy.
now better treated in Great
Britain than in United
States.. 142, 143 240, 294-
296, 383, 384
opinions as tests for, yield to
merit 126
See Tests, Army, Appointing
Power, Removals, Exami-
nations, Competition, Merit
System.
Offices, a feudal perquisite. .13,
14-17, 39-43
early made merchandise 15
sale of. See Sale.
tend to become hereditary
16,17,43
why not arbitrary removals
from, in feudal times 16, 48
bought back by government. . .17
rented 19, 20
sale and brokerage of, prohib-
ited 132
sale of recommendations, con-
firmations, or appointments
for, prohibited by law. .132-136
460
INDEX.
Offices, dignity of, advanced by
the reform. . . .320, 322, 401, 402
are trusts 324, 379, 381
proper conception of 363,
364, 379, 381
the right of, or the basis of
claim to hold.. 357-359, 363,
364, 372, 373, 379, 380
tenure of. . .366-369, 413, 432, 433
See Tenure,
chances of the poor to gain
improved 190, 192, 324,
379, 380
See Poor,
too many elective, and why
399, 400
responsibility of 357-359, 408
right of removal from, given
by statute 43
See Removals, Officers, Tests,
Appointing Power.Confirm-
ations, Merit System, Sale,
Competition.
Office Brokerage 132-139
See Office.
Official records formerly secrets 20
now their publicity a right
264, 373, 375,390
life at lowest stage in 1688. . 69
life has risen in later years.
See Moral Sense, Public Opin-
ion, and Officers.
Opinion. See Public Opinion.
Open competition. See Compe-
tition.
Orders 269
See Titles.
Order in council for competition
in 1855 204
in 1870... ..228-233
Palmerston, Lord, sustained re-
form policy. ..... .202, 203, 223
had to yield to his commis-
sion. .' . 209
Pardons sold and used as
spoils 18,28,45, 61
Parliament without patronage
in early times 31
and then engages in reforms.. 30
first appoints officers 31, 50
placemen early in 45
See Placemen.
boroughs created to make
members 45
members formerly as depen-
dent as clerks now are. .45,
46, 61, 66, 67
noble protest 66
in time of Charles II 62
in time of James II 66-68
applies theological tests 62
how its power over civil ser-
vice and patronage in-
creased 74, 75, 79, 80,
128, 129, 145, 347
placemen excluded from.. . .71, 72
failed to arrest corruption. ... 87
proceedings of, kept secret
89, 115
grasps authority and patron-
age 50, 84, 90, 114-120
placemen increase in. 104, 113, 124
See Placemen.
its members protected corrup-
tion in boroughs 114
became in itself a source of
corruption 87, 96, 97, 98
Parliament humbled by the
higher public opinion, ..124, 125
effect of losing patronage. . . . 431
pensioners excluded 71
how members abused their
patronage 85, 147-149
See Patronage.
its monopoly of patronage be-
coming obnoxious 155
how members opposed compe-
tition 166
contest of members for pat-
ronage against competition
. .169-176
INDEX.
461
Parliament, reasons why patrcn-
age is injurious to members
and to the nation 169-176
patronage of members in 18-13
182-184
members hostile to merit sys-
tem, and the reason for
it 190-193, 224, 353
condemned the new system in
1855 207
approved new system in 1856
and 1857 211, 212,213
and in 1859 215
investigation by, in 1860. .216-222
bad nominations made by
members of 224-227,
231, 233, 201
no part in introducing the
merit system in 1870. . .203,
204, 228
nominations by members con-
demned and taken away
231-233,298-313
how its officers and clerks are
now appointed 313-316
members now no patronage
298-313
Parliamentary government, or-
igin and meaning of. .74, 80, 83
See Party Government.
Pass-Examinations 157, 138, 183
See Examinations.
Parties, origin of 74, 346
See Party Government, Par-
tisan System, Patronage.
an advance in government
and liberty 83, 84 i
something like under Crom-
well 53,56
attempt to govern without
73, 82, 104
their relation to reform. . .207,
211-213, 215, 441-444
See Party Government.
Party government, meaning of. 74, 80
not the same as the partisan
system 74, 75, 83
30
Party government, its origin
71-74, 346
its good features 74, 83, 84
failed to elevate politics. .87, 347
analogy to, under Cromwell
53,56
its oppressive measures 89
attempts to dispense with.
82,104
early years of its trial. 93, 98-101
in Wai pole's time 92
its condition when George III.
began his reign 102
became less corrupt but
more prescriptive under
George IV 145
the bearing of open compe-
tition and the merit sys-
tem upon 231, 232
its true sphere 231, 232
Party government has gained
by new system. . .291, 364, 3C5
patronage thought to be es-
sential to 192, 193
patronage found not essential
to. . .'..33, 169-176, 232, 384-386
See Patronage.
Partisan system in spirit first
applied by Cromwell 53, 50
its origin and meaning. . .75,
347, 348
its merits 83, 84
its early effects 79-81
in full force in Parliament
128,129
failed to raise administra-
tion 87, 352
of removals began with Bo-
lingbroke 86
degrades religion and moral-
ity 98-101
is a perversion of party gov-
ernment 74, 75, 83
employed spies and press-
gangs 113, 114
how it grew out of party
government 74, 75, 128
462
INDEX.
Partisan system, not much cor-
ruption in, after George IV. 145
its evils becoming under-
stood 152-154
being undermined by pub-
lic opinion 153
desperate efforts to save it
151-154
begins to give way and to
be deserted 155, 158, 159
generally prevailed in 1853. . . 183
vain attempts to make it ac-
ceptable 185
how superseded in 1870 by
open competition 231, 232
ceased to prevail. . . .246, 247,
358-388
some benefits from 347
final results of, injurious... 364, 365
Patriotism, as affected by abuses
and reforms 325-
331, 338, 340, 343
See Republicanism.
Patronage, meaning of, 87, note,
and 275, note.
when Parliament bad little. .. 31
under William III 79
origin of theory that parties
prosper by 42, 84, 86, 97
origin of the senatorial theory
by senators 42
early tended to corruption. ... 85
as used by Cromwell 55, 56
used to keep party in power... 85
becomes more partisan under
George III 128
secresy of 153
when and how secured by
members of Parliament. .31,
74, 75, 79, 80, 128, 129, 145,
233, 347
how abused by members of
Parliament 85, 114, 147-150
held tenaciously against a
frowning public opinion. 152-154
increased by party government 74
"Patronage Secretary". . .153, 183
Patronage, accounts kept of. ... 154
surrendered by eminent states-
men 156, 157,202, 380, 383
See Lords.
abandoned in cities 158
its great contest with compe-
tition 169-176
its condition in 1853 182, 184
destroyed by competition. .228,
242, 259-265, 313
in the State Church 275-283
See Church.
as applied in the army. . . .283-287
its growth in the United
States 284-287
in the American army 284-287
how excluded from the de-
partments in Great Britain
296-316
its failure as a power. 228, 352,
353, 364
indefensible on principle
364, 365
See Right.
injurious to members of legis-
lature 364, 397, 431
members ashamed of it.. .228, 431
not essential to parties, and its
decay 384-388, 397
none now possessed by mem-
bers 231-233, 298-313
members glad to be rid of
228,431
abolition of, beneficial 431, 432
injurious to a party.. .384-388,
396, 397
ended by order of 1870 228
See Parliament, Spoils Sys-
tem, Merit System.
Peculation, present extent of
299,303,304
See Sweden.
Peel, Sir Robert, as a reformer
126, 156
Pelham 95
Pensions, used to bribe 113
as a political influence. . ..270-273
INDEX.
463
Pensioners excluded from Par-
liament 71
See Placemen and Parliament.
Perquisites, office and the ap-
pointing power treated as
13, 16, 17, 44
See Sale, Patronage, Spoils
System.
Pierrepont, Hon. Edwards, his
views and letters 436
Petition of right, its demand ... 50
Pitts, the, as reformers. . . .4, 94,
95, 97, 101, 102, 122, 123
letters of, opened 115, 122
Pigott, case of 374
Placemen early in Parliament.. 45
under Cromwell k 55
under Charles 62
under Walpole 92
under Geo. Ill 124
excluded from Parliament. .71, 72
See Parliament.
Plantagenets, their reign 15, 39
Playfair, Sir Lyon 244
Poor, the, gainers by the merit
system... 16 1, 167, 190, 192,
214, 215, 334, 334, 335, 379, 380
See Education, Merit System,
Examinations, Competition.
Politics, extent of, in public ser-
vice 289,299, 300, 301,
305-308, 310, 311
See Competition, Customs Ser-
vice, Postal Service, Exam-
inations, Promotions, and
Merit System.
Political officers, who are, and
meaning of 218, note.
See Officers.
Political Assessments. Sse As-
sessments.
Postal service, when used for
partisan purposes 115
those in, forbidden to engage
in elections 85, 310
its present condition 307-
310, 398
PAGE
Postal service, postmasters
306,307, 398
competition in 308, 310
no politics in 309, 310
that of London and New
York compared 308, 402
letter-carriers and sorters ex-
amined 213, 224, 236, 308
those in, the last protected
from arbitrary removals
146,218
money order system and sav-
ings banks 3C9
See James.
Postmasters. See Postal Ser-
vice.
Potter, Hon. C. N., his report. . 442
Practical qualifications secured.
See Competition and Ex-
aminations.
Preliminary examinations. See
Examinations.
Presentations, sale of. 275, 279
See Religion and Church.
President. See Executive.
Press, the, censure and coercion
of 89, 115,116
becomes a great power 107,
116, 122, 195, note.
becomes free 144
Press-gangs used as a politi-
cal force 114
Prisons, conditions under spoils
system 100
Privy Council, its ancient power 73
largely superseded by the
Cabinet 74
order of, in 1855 and 1870
203,228
competition for appointing its
clerks 219, 220
Probation, meaning of 168, 183
part of merit system 229,
230, 264
in its latest form 264
Promotions, surrender of pat-
ronage as to. See Patron-
INDEX.
age, Granville, and Liver-
pool.
Promotions, general practice as
to, under merit system
26i, 2J8, 801, 806, 882, 883,
400, 401, 432, 439, 446
to fill collectorahips 302, 303
effects of promotion for merit
303, 320, 322, 382, 383, 432,
439, 446
careful regulations to secure
justice and reward merit
220,264, 302, 303
Proscription by James II 65-68
noble protest against 65, 66
general, started by high
Tories 86
by reason of opinions 113, 114
See Removals, Tests, Religion,
Spoils System, Army.
Prosecution of authority. See
Sale, Offices, Perquisites,
Spoils System, Patronage,
Tests.
Public opinion, none in early
times 14,32,45
when it first showed itself
14, 32, 37
its increasing power 84, 85
overthrows an administration 107
under George III., overawed
him 103, 121-125
overthrows Parliament. . .124, 125
threatens the partisan system 153
becomes a controlling power
143, 152-154, 159, 160,
226, 246, 355
rapid changes in 331, 374, 375
now supports the merit sys-
tem 321, 374, 375, 377
comparative moral standard
of, in Great Britain and
United States 373-375,
421, 424
overawes the Disraeli minis-
try 374,375
how partisan system has low-
PAGE
ered our standard in politics
374-377, 413, 414, note.
Publicity required as to appoint-
ments, etc., 264, 373-375,
389, 390, note.
See Civil Service.
Public service. See Civil Ser-
vice, Postal Service, Rev-
enue Service, Army Ad-
ministration.
Prussia, her reforms and reform
policy 6,335-337
Purchase, in the State Church.
See Church and Religion,
in the Army and Church
283-285
See Army, Church and Pat-
ronage.
Pym represents the reform sen-
timent 50
Q.
Quarrels, private, settled for
money 20
Queen Anne. See Anne.
R.
Rebellion, to bring about re-
form 26, 27,31, 35,36
Recommendation for office. See
Offices and Sale,
merit system excludes them.
See Merit System, Patronage,
Examinations.
Reform, aim of 205, 206
first great effort for 30
demanded by Cade's and Ty-
ler's rebellions 35, 36
the cause of the common peo-
ple 24,25, 35
spirit and aim of.. 11 c, 14, 16,
50, 266, 358-360
condition when it began in
England 24
its first great representatives. 50
INDEX.
465
Reform under Cromwell 54
defeated by rashness 79
reasons for confidence in.. .370-3 74
extent to which it lias been
carried 315, 310
See Merit System and Civil
Service.
in India. See India,
its friends the friends of
America 118
victory over George III., 121,
and over Parliament 125
See Parliament.
patronage the great obstacle
to 128,129
See Patronage.
bill of 1832, and the effort it
cost 150,152, 2G8
why more difficult in Great
Britain than in U. S 23,
24-27, 31-41, 57-59, 114-
119, 101, 193, 340, 341,
378, 381
demand for, concentrated
against the monopoly of
members of Parliament... 155
a question for the people... 30,
37, 38, 151, 165, 160, 169,
207, 231, 315, 316, 358-360, 431
not so much a party as a moral
question 159, 160, 202,
203, 441-444
its scope and meaning 315,
316, 358-360
limits aristocratic monopoly
190, 196, 200, 201
See Education.
denounced as Utopian and
Chinese 196
order for in 1855 204
radical measures to be avoided
at first 205, 206, 370, 374
effects of, set forth 289-340
has elevated government.322-
326, 358-360
conclusion reached as to, in
Great Britain 363-367
Reform, how far it already ex-
tended. See Merit System
and Civil Service,
how much to be attempted at
first 421
few friends of, at first 193, 430
relation of parties to 159,
160, 441-444
under President Grant 445-448
opposed as too expensive. . . . 200
executive authority and duty
to make 186-189, 394
405, 406, 446, 447
See Executive,
our ignorance and neglect of,
in other countries 4, 6
very great, made in Europe. 6, 7
Sea France, Prussia, and Swe-
den,
how to be carried on. .10, lie, 203
in Canada 8
scope and spirit of civil ser-
vice 9, 359, 360,
378-388
See Merit System, Republi-
canism, Competition, Offi-
ces, Civil Service Commis-
sion.
Reformers, their perils in early
times. . .24-27, 57-59, 121, note.
See Vane, Eliot, Marvel,
William III., Pitt, Burke,
Rockingham, Russell, Gran-
ville, Hume, Peel, Bright,
Derby, Gladstone, Trevel-
yan, Palmerston.
Religion early brought under
spoils system 41, 47, 273
later and present relations of
273-2S3
governing by aid of 220,
267, 273-283
as a political power 267,
273-283
made a test by Cromwell. ... 55
and by later rulers 62, 88,
109, 111, 112, 113, 125, 278
466
INDEX.
Religion degraded by the parti-
san system 98, 109
in the universities 278,291
See Test, Sacrament, Church.
Removals, right of, under the
British Constitution 77
not guarded in American sys-
tem 118
early causes that prevented
arbitrary ...1G, 19, 20, 43
given by statute, in feudal
times 43
partisan, began with Boling-
broke 86
arbitrary, under the Stuarts
105,113
arbitrary, ceased by time
George IV 148
none made on introducing
merit system 206
only made for cause 80,
308, 309
See Officers,
relation of, to tenure of office
366, 367
See Tenure,
abuse of, in our Territories. . 441
abuses of power of. 414, 415
effect of, on official fidelity
295, 296, 304, 307, 308, 375
See Tenure, Spoils Sys-
tem, Merit System, Parti-
san System, Appointing
Power.
Rent paid for offices 19, 20
Report on civil service in
1853-4 181
See Investigations and Civil
Service Commission.
Republicanism, decline of its
influence in Europe.327-331,
337, 338-341
the argument against it. .. 338-340
Responsibility, official slow
growth of feeling of. ..12-17, 39
Retiring allowances. See Super-
annuation.
Revenue, internal administra-
tion 296-300, 305, 306
customs administration.. ..300-305
See Customs Service.
Revolution averted by reform
327-331
Revolutionary war, affected by
spoils system 116, 117,
118, 124, 349, 352
Richard II., remarkable civil
service statute of 33
Richmond, Duke of, as a reform-
er 123, 124
Ridicule and sarcasm used
against reform. . . .121, 122,
192, 196-202, 210, 211, 213
turned in favor of new sys-
teni..209,210, 211, 213, 226,
227, 261
Right to hold office a common
and equal right.. 226, 227,
357-359, 363, 372, 373,
379,880
See Office and Merit Sys-
tem.
the petition of. 50, 51
Bill of 71,72
Rockingham, Lord, as a re-
former, his reform policy
118, 120, 124
Romilly, purchased seat in Par-
liament 51
Rules. See Civil Service Rules.
S
Sacrament of Lord's Supper a
test for office.. ..63, 88, 125,
126, 273-276
See Tests, Church, Religion.
Sale of offices in France 24
becomes general in England
16, 17, 18,134
in Ireland, under Qeo. Ill 113
of, prohibited 17, 132
of recommendations, etc., pro-
hibited. . ..132-136
INDEX.
467
Bale of charters 20
of boroughs 91
of offices, excluded political
assessments 16, 43
of places in the State Church
279-283
carious limitations of 17, 134
how much worse than our sys-
tem 51
See Officers and Spoils Sys-
tem.
Salaries, when fees gave place
to 130, 141-143, 293, 294
Sandhurst Military School 234
See Army and Examinations.
Sanitary administration 292, 293
Sarcasm. See Ridicule.
Savings Bank. See Postal Ser-
vice.
Schools. See Education.
Searchers, former extortion by . 23
but now instructed 302
Schurz, Carl, his official action
447,448
Scotland, corruption in 112
church abuses in 281-283
Free Church of 282
Secret service money 92, 93
Seniority 311
See Superannuation and Tenure.
Serfs buy their freedom 28
Settlement, act of 71
Sinecurists in early times 27-29
under Charles II 62
swarmed in 1688 69
example of their late survival
241,242
Senate, its relation to appoint-
ments 412-416
See Confirmation and Bribery.
Senators, the theory of partisan,
that of feudal lords 41, 42
Sheriffs, corruptions of, in early
times 21,36
false returns by 23
required to know law 19
Sidney, Algernon 345
Social effects of the merit sys-
tem 317, etc.
See Merit System.
Sorters. See Postal Service.
Spies, to aid partisans 115
Spoils system, originated in feu-
dalism. 12, 21,25, 37, 39,341-344
causes two rebellions 26, 35, 36
not destroyed by rebellions.. 32, 34
people oppressed by 33-36
in the church.. 41, 47, 48, 110,
125, 267-282
See Church.
in the army. .48, 64, 101, 110,
111, 283-285
See Army.
extended to licenses 67
See Corporations.
first limited by Cromwell... .53-56
as applied by George III 104
as applied by Charles II. ..... 61
as applied by James II 63-68
its various corrupt resources
108-116
tended to tyranny toward Am-
erica 116,118
yielded to a strictly partisan
system under Geo IV.. ..145, 183
come into our politics about
the game date. . . .144, 145, ICO
its struggle to retain patron-
age 169-176
how justified by British par-
tisans 197
when it ceased in Great Brit-
ain 183
driven out of British India
248-259
how far excluded by Consti-
tution of United States.. 266-287
how effectually excluded from
the British departments .245,
296-810
some surviving fragments
291, note.
effect on our independence
...116, 117,118, 124, 349
468
INDEX.
Spoils system riot essential to
party government 384
See Party Government.
effects of its removal 383-401
how far now tolerated in
United States 440, 441, 443
ancient compared with, mod-
ern. 41-45
Star chamber 47, 49, 57
State department, merit system
in 310-313
competition in 311, 312
theory as to consuls 311, 312
theory as to ministers 311
ours compared with British
.. .10, 254-258, 310-313, 438-441
Statesmen, our early 1,2
who are 372
condemn patronage.. .155, 156,
159, 216, 217, 220
the leading have been reform,
ers. See Vane, Eliot, Mar
vel, Burke, Pitt, Grey, Gran-
ville, Liverpool, Peel, Rus-
sell, Derby, Palinerston,
Gladstone, Bright.
Stock jobbing under George III.
107, 108
Superannuation allowances, ori-
gin of 130
laws and regulations in re-
gard to 141, 142,215
See Pensions.
Summary of whole course of
the history, p. 342, Chap.
XXXII.
Supernumeraries 149
See Patronage, Sinecurists,
Placemen.
Supplies to carry on government
refused by partisans 88, 89
Stein as a reformer 236
Sweden, reform in 332-334
System. See Spoils System,
Partisan System, Merit Sys-
tem, Feudal System.
PAGE
Tacking. See Supplies.
Talbot, Lord, as reformer. .122, note.
Tasmania, reform in 356
Tenure of office, tendency to in-
crease 71, 72, 400, 413, 414
nature of British 294-296,
367-369
need of its being more definite
in United States. ..294-296, 340
in the army Ill
See Army, Office, Good Behav-
ior, and Removal.
Term. See Tenure.
Theorists. See Doctrinaire.
Test acts 55, 61, 62, 88, 109,
125, 126, 278
in universities 278, note, 291
their repeal 125, 126
See Corporation, Office, Reli-
gion, Church, Jews, Catho-
lics, Sacrament.
Titles openly sold 61
See Sale.
as a political influence... .108,
267-270
Treasury, the, meaning of 147
Patronage, Secretary of. .153, 183
the, its relation to the revenue
305, 306
permanent Secretary of 306
political offices in 306
competition in 303
Trevelyan, Sir Charles, his re-
port of 1853 189
letters from 430-433
his views established 376
See Preliminary Note.
Trevor, Sir John, his corruption
85, 86, note.
Trust, office treated as 231-
233, 324-326, 379
Tudors, their reign 15, 39
Tyler, Wat 27, 28, 34
Tyranny, official, declines from
time of George IV 144
United States. See Republican-
IXDEX.
469
ism, Administration, Cus-
toms Service, New York,
Spoils System.
University, a national 4
Utopian argument against re-
form 196
Upton, General, views of admin-
istration in India 254, 258
Vane as a reformer 58
Voting. See Officers, and Ballot.
Veto power no longer used 77, 78
W
Walpole and Lis administra-
tion 91-97
See Spoils System.
Warrants, general, used for par-
tisan coercion 115, 116
Washington, Lis forecast 3, 4
Webster, his views 414, note.
Wesley 94
West Point 4, note, 205, 263, 284
Wilkes 115, 116, 125
William III. as a leforiner. .70,
78,346
bis system 69-81
Wilson, VicePrest., condemns
patronage 397
Women, early in politics and
practising la w .... 29, 93, 94, 100
Low benefited by tlie reform
298, note, 291, 317-319, note.
WoolwicL military scLool 2S4
See Army and Examinations.
Wyckliffe 28, 32
ERRATA.
Page 11, line 5 from bottom, for "is," read "are."
" 42, line 2 from top, omit " State."
" 237, Note 3 should be marked as a quotation.
" 305, line 15 from bottom, for "system," read " administration."
Stereotyped by S. W. Greeu'e Sou.
WORKS TREATING ON
ENGLISH HISTORY.
Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, N, Y,
PT" HARPEB & BEOTHERB will send any of the following works by mail, pontage prepaid,
to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price.
2^ HARPER'S NEW AND ENLARGED CATALOGUE, with COMPLETE ANALYTICAL INDEX, sent
by mail, on receipt of nine cents.
MACAULAY'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. The History of England from the Access-ion
of James II. By Lord MAOAULAY. 5 vols., Svo, Cloth, $10 00; Sheep, $12 50- Half
Calf, $21 25. 12mo, Cloth, $4 00; Sheep, $6 00: Half Calf, *12 75. New Edition from
new Electrotype Plates, Svo, Clotb, Gilt, Tops, Five Volumes iu a box, $10 00 per set.
Sold only iu sets.
MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. [32mo, Paper.]
JOHN MILTON. LOUD BVBON. 25
cents.
JOHN HAMPDEN. LOUD BURLEIQH. 25
cents.
THE EARL op CHATHAM. 25 cents.
Wir.HAM PITT. 25 cents.
SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. 25 cents.
FREDERIC TUB GRKAT. 25 cents.
LORD CLIVE. 25 cents.
WARREN HASTINGS. 25 cents.
THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OP ADDISON.
25 cents.
SIB WILMAM TRMPLE. 25 cents.
MAOHIAVELLI. UOUAOB WALPOLE. 25
ceuts.
GOLDSMITH. BUNYAN. MADAME D'AR-
BLAY. 25 ceuts.
LOUD BACON. 25 cents.
HISTORY. II AI.I.AM'S CONSTITUTIONAL
HISTORY. 25 cents.
Iu Cloth, 40 ceuts per volume.
MACAULAY'S LIFE AND LETTERS. The Life and Letters of Lord Macanlay. By his
Nephew, G. OTTO TREVELYAN, M.P. With Portrait on Steel. Complete in 2 vols. Svo,
Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Tops, $5 00 ; Sheep, $6 00 ; Half Morocco, $9 50 ; Tree Calf,
$15 00. Popular Edition, 1 vol., 12mo, Cloth, $1 75.
HUME'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. History of England, from the Invasion of Julins Cae-
sar to the Abdication of James II., 1688. By DAVID HU.MK. 6 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $4 SO;
Sheep, $7 20 ; Half Calf, $15 30. New Edition from new Electrotype Plates, Svo, Cloth,
Gilt Tops, 6 volumes, $12 00.
GREEN'S HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. History of the English People. By
JOHN RICH AUD GREEN, M. A. 4 vols. With Maps. Svo, Cloth, $2 50 per vol. (3 vols. ready.)
GREEN'S SHORT HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. A Short History of the Eng-
lish, People. By JOHN RICIIABD GBEEN, M.A. With Tables aud Colored Maps. Svo,
Cloth, $1 52.
ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. History of Europe. FIRST SKRIFB: from the Com-
mencement of the French Revolution, in 178ft, to the Restoration of the Bonrbo.is, in
1S15. In addition to the Notes on Chapter LXXVL, which correct the errors of the
original work concerning the United States, a copious Analytical Index has beea ap-
pended to this American Edition. SECOND SERIES: from the Fall of Napoleon, in 1S15,
to the Accession of Louis Napoleon, in 1S52. By SIB AROHIUALD ALISON. 8 vols., Svo,
Cloth, $10 00 ; Sheep, $20 00 ; Half Morocco, $34 00.
BELL'S LIFE OF CANNING. Life of the Rt. Hon. George Canning. By R. BELL. 12mo,
Cloth, $1 00.
BROUGHAM'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. The Life and Times of Henry, Lord Brougham.
Written by Himself. 3 vols., 12mo, Cloth, in box, $6 00.
BULWER'S ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH. England and the English. By Earl Lrr-
TON. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.
CARLYLE'S OLIVER CROMWELL. Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, inclndinjr
the Supplement to the First Edition. With Elucidations. By THOMAS CARLYLE. 2
vols., 12mo, Cloth, $3 50 ; Sheep, $4 30 ; Half Calf, $7 00.
CARLYLE'S PAST AND PRESENT. Past and Present, Chartism, and Sartor Resartns.
By TUOMAS CARLYLE. 12mo, Cloth, $1 75 ; Sheep, $2 15 ; Half Calf, $3 50.
COBDEN'S BIOGRAPHY. Richard Cobden, the Apostle of Free Trade: his Political Ca-
reer and Public Services. A Biography. By JOUN M'GII.CURIST. Illustrated. 16mo,
Cloth, $1 50.
CUSHING'S TREATY OF WASHINGTON. The Treaty of Washinsrton ; its Negotiation,
Execution, and the Discnssious relating thereto. By CALEB CCBIHNG. Crown Svo,
Cloth, $2 00.
Works Treating on English History.
FORSTER'S DEAN SWIFT. The Early Life of Jonathan Swift. 1GG7-1711. By JOHN
FOESTEB. With Portrait and Fac-similes. Svo, Cloth, $2 50.
FORSTER'S BRITISH STATESMEN. The Statesmen of the Commonwealth of England :
with a Treatise 011 the Popular Progress in English History. By JOUN FOBSTEB. Ed-
ited by Rev. J. O. CHOULES. Portraits. Svo, Cloth, $2 25 ; Sheep, $2 75 ; Half Calf, $4 50.
FOX BOURNE'S LIFE OF LOCKE. The Life of John Locke. By H. R. Fox EOCENE.
In Two Volumes. Svo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Tops, $5 00.
GOLDWIN SMITH'S THREE ENGLISH STATESMEN. Three English Statesmen : Pym,
Cromwell, and Pitt. A Course of Lectures oil the Political History of England. By
GOLDWIN SMITH. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.
HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES. View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages. By
HENEY HALLAM, LL.D., F.R.A.S. Svo, Cloth, $2 00 ; Sheep, $2 50.
THE STUDENT'S MIDDLE AGES, incorporating in the Text the Anthor's Latest Re-
searches, with Additions from Recent Writers, and Adapted to the Use of Students.
Edited by WILLIAM SMITH, D.C.L., LL.D. 12mo, Cloth, $1 46.
HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. The Constitutional History of England, from
the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of George II. By HENUY HALLAM, LL.D.,
F.R.A.S. Svo, Cloth, $2 00 ; Sheep, $2 50.
THE STUDENT'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND, incorporating the Au-
thor's Latest Additions and Corrections, and Adapted to the Use of Students. Edited
by WILLIAM SMITII, D.C.L., LL.D. 12mo, Cloth, $1 46.
KAY'S SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE ENGLISH. The Social Condition and Education
of the People in England. By JOSKPII KAY, M. A., Trinity College, Cambridge, Barris-
ter-at-Law, and late Travelling Bachelor of the University of Cambridge. 12mo, Cloth,
$150.
KEIGHTLEY'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. The History of England, from the Earliest
Period to 1S39. By THOMAS KEIGUTLEY. With Notes, &c., by the American Editor.
5 vols., ISmo, Cloth, $3 75.
KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN'S CROMWELL. Life, Times, and Character of Oliver Crom-
well. By E. H. KNATOUBULL-HUGESSEN, M.P. 32mo, Paper, 20 cents.
MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. A History of England to the Seventeenth
Century. By Sir JAMES MACKINTOSH. 3 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $3 00.
M'CARTHY'S HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES. A History of Onr Own Times. From
the Accession of Queen Victoria to the Berlin Congress. By JUSTIN M'CAETUY. Vols.
I. and II. in one number. 4to, Paper, 20 cents.
PERRY'S HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. A History of the English
Church, from the Accession of Henry VIII. to the Silencing of Convocation in the
Eighteenth Century. By G. G. PEBRY, M.A., Canon of Lincoln and Rector of Wad-
dington. With an Appendix, containing a Sketch of the History of the Protestant Epis-
copal Church in the United States of America. By J. A. SPENOEB, S.T.D. Crown Svo,
Cloth, $2 50.
PHILLIPS'S CURRAN. Ctirran and his Contemporaries. By CHAELES PHILLIPS. 12mo,
Cloth, $1 50.
RUSSELL'S MODERN EUROPE. History of Modern Europe : with a View of the Prog-
ress of Society from the Rise of Modern Kingdoms to the Peace of Paris in 1763. By
W. RUSSKI.L. With a Continuance of the History by WILLIAM JONES. 3 vols., Svo,
Cloth, $6 00 ; Sheep, $7 50 ; Half Calf, $12 75.
RUSSELL'S OLIVER CROMWELL. Life of Oliver Cromwell. By M. RUSSELL, LL.D.
2 vols., ISmo, Cloth, $1 50.
STRICKLAND'S QUEENS OF ENGLAND. Lives of the Queens of England, from the
Norman Conquest. By AGNKS STRICKLAND. Abridged by the Author. Revised and
Edited by CAKOLINE G. PAUKEE. 12mo, Cloth, $1 46.
STRICKLAND'S QUEENS OF SCOTLAND. Lives of the Queens of Scotland and Eng-
lish Princesses connected with the Regal Succession of Great liriiain. By AGNES
STEIOKLAND. Complete in 8 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $12 00 ; Half Calf, $26 00.
THACKERAY'S FOUR GEORGES. The Four Georges: Sketches of Manners, Morals,
Court and Town Life. By W. M. THAOKEUAY. 32mo, Paper, 25 cents ; Cloth, 40 cents.
THACKERAY'S LECTURES. Containing the English Humorists, and the Four Georges.
By W. M. TUAOKEKAY. Complete in One Volume. 12mo, Cloth, $1 25.
THE STUDENT'S HUME. A History of England, from the Earliest Times to the Revo-
lution in 168S. By DAVID HCME. Abridged. Incorporating the Corrections and Re-
searches of Recetit Historians, and coiuinuing down to the Year 1S5S. Illustrated.
12mo, Cloth, $1 46.
University of California
SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388
Return this material to the library
from which it was borrowed.
02
'84
JN425 E2 I860
Eaton, Dorman
-1899.
Civil service
Britain ;
Bridgman, \S22
in Great
'A 001 029 149