One of the most important results of this intervention on behalf of individuals has been the establishment of the doctrine that once a man has landed in the employ of the State, he has “something very nearly approaching to a freehold of provision for life,” to employ the words of the Chairman of the Select Committee on the Civil Services Expenditure, 1873.250

Before that committee, Sir Wm. H. Stephenson, Chairman of the Inland Revenue Commissioners, said: “…if a man was reported to be hopelessly inefficient, I should dismiss him; but even then you must act with a great deal of forbearance. For the simple reason that you are amenable to many opinions beside your own. You cannot act absolutely upon your own judgment without being liable to be compelled to give your reasons for that judgment; and these reasons, though perfectly clear in your own mind, may not always be easy to give to the satisfaction of another man…. I am afraid we should have a very bad time of it out of doors if we exercised a little more freedom in dismissing incompetent clerks and promoting deserving ones; I judge very much by what I see; as it is, there is a great disposition, I think, to exclaim against anything like an act of tyranny, and the exercise of such freedom would be called tyranny…. I have no doubt that if a public department had the power of absolute dismissal, it would have a considerable effect in increasing efficiency; but what I say is, that you cannot give them that power in the same way that it is held by a man in private employment. You have too many critics; you have the public newspaper press; you have Members of the House of Commons who are personally interested in these people; and you would be surprised, I am sure, if you knew the numerous instances in which, for the smallest thing [inflictions of punishment], applications are made, pressing that this man is an excellent man, a good brother, a kind father, and all that kind of thing which influences men individually, but which cannot [does, but should not] influence the judgment of the heads of a public office.” Sir William H. Stephenson was asked: “Do you not think that it might be made a rule in your office, as in the Customs, that any interference through a Member of Parliament should lead to dismissal?” He replied: “Yes; but you must prove that a man knows it. You cannot dismiss a man if some injudicious friend takes up his case; and if a man has a friend, it is always an injudicious one under these circumstances.”251

Before this same committee of 1873, Mr. Stanfeld, M. P., Third Lord of the Treasury, who, in 1869 to 1871 had been Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said: “…the great difference between the public establishment and the private establishment is this: that practically speaking, in a public establishment, you have a large proportion of established clerks who can do no more than a moderate amount of service…. Because you have not the faculty which men in private business have, without any particular fault, of saying to a man: ‘On the whole, you do not suit me, and I mean to get somebody else.’ When you get a clerk on a public establishment, he remains on that establishment with very rare exceptions, and you have to make the best of your bargain; the result naturally is that, with the exception of men of ability and energy, you have not so much stimulus for their effort as you have in private employment, and you have not by any means the same power of dealing with them.…”252

In 1888, before the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the Civil Establishments, this question of the great difficulty of getting rid of incompetent or undesirable men, was threshed out at great length. Sir Charles DuCane, Chairman of the Commissioners of Customs, said: “But it is an invidious thing, I do not mean to say as regards myself, but invidious rather as regards the [political] head of a department [the Minister], to come and make complaints against men whom one cannot perhaps accuse of any overt act of negligence or carelessness, but who are merely rather below the level of ordinary efficiency…. I think it would be a most desirable thing that we should have the power of getting rid of incapable and inefficient men who have yet managed to keep themselves out of any positive scrape or offence, for which they would be charged before a Member of the Board of Commissioners of Customs.”253

To Sir S. A. Blackwood, Secretary to the Post Office since 1880, the Chairman of the Royal Commission put the question: “Do you think it is a real evil in the public service that there should not be the same power to remove inefficient men as exists outside the public service, of course I mean within certain limits, because the public service must be different from private service, but in your experience, have you found it to be a real evil in the way of efficiency as well as of wise economy to be obliged to keep men whom you would be glad to get rid of if you could have sent them away with something in their pocket, [i. e., a pension]?” The answer was: “Yes, it is a serious objection.” Sir S. A. Blackwood even asserted that the Act of 1887, giving the Treasury discretionary power to pension men unable to discharge efficiently the duties of their office,254 would not help much. “We should always be asking an officer to relinquish his full pay, and to retire upon a lesser pension than he would be entitled to if he served his full time, and there is always a disinclination on the part of heads of departments to do that.”255

Sir Reginald E. Welby, who had entered the Treasury service in 1856, and had been made Permanent Secretary in 1885, said there was full power to dismiss idle or incompetent persons without granting pensions or allowances of any sort. Thereupon, Mr. F. Mitford, one of the Members of the Royal Commission, asked: “Is not really the sole difficulty that public departments have to contend with in exercising that full power, the fact that Parliament is behind them, and a Member of Parliament always asks questions [in the House] and brings interest [pressure] to bear upon the head of the department, which practically annuls that power? The difficulty lies not with the public officer, but practically with the difficulties that are thrown in his way outside his department by individual Members of Parliament?” The Permanent Secretary of the Treasury answered: “There is always before the heads of departments the fact that pressure may be brought to bear by Members of Parliament, and it requires, therefore, that a case must be very strong, that it must be a very good case before you would dismiss. Probably you would be much more long-suffering in a Government department, than you would be in a private establishment.” Sir Reginald Welby just previously had said: “I have known men dismissed from the Treasury…. Perhaps I had better say, I have heard of men being dismissed from the Treasury for simple idleness, but it was before my time.” Thereupon the Chairman had queried: “It is the fact, speaking generally, is it not, that mere idleness and mere incompetence, without very gross negligence of duty or gross misbehavior, does not bring about dismissal from the service, either in the Treasury or anywhere else that you are aware of?” The reply was: “I would rather put it in this way: I think that Government offices are very long-suffering in that matter. If the man was reported as distinctly very idle and not doing his work he would be warned, and I think if it was repeated after that (I am speaking of any fairly managed Government department), he would be dismissed. But I think that a Government department is, for one reason or another, more long-suffering than a private establishment would be…. While I am admitting the possibility of there being bad officers, I should like to add that both in the Upper and Lower Division Clerks, we have got, on the whole, a very satisfactory set of men under the present regulations of the Treasury, and that they do their work well. I am happy to say that very few cases of complaint come before me.”

Mr. Lawson, a member of the Royal Commission, asked Sir Reginald Welby: “But you would hardly plead the interference of Members of Parliament as a justification for not getting rid of an unworthy servant, would you?” Sir Reginald Welby replied: “It is not a good reason, but as a matter of fact it is powerful. The House of Commons are our masters.”256

Sir T. H. Farrer, who had been Permanent Secretary of the Board of Trade from 1867 to 1886, and had been a Member of the so-called Playfair Commission, of 1876, on the Civil Service, was asked by Mr. R. W. Hanbury, a Member of the Royal Commission of 1888, whether the failure to dismiss incompetent men could not be attributed to “soft heartedness” on the part of heads of departments? Sir T. H. Farrer replied: “Yes, that is another aspect of the case, and it is no doubt theoretically perfectly true; but I think it overlooks what is the real difficulty of getting rid of useless men. There is a certain difficulty in the soft heartedness of heads of departments and of Ministers. But there is a very much greater difficulty in the pressure which is put upon them by Members of the House of Commons. That is the real difficulty; the real difficulty of the public service is getting rid of bad men; and the real difficulty of getting rid of bad men is that no Minister will face the pressure which is put upon him from outside…. I have had much personal experience of the matter; I have been plagued all my life at the Board of Trade with inefficient men that I wanted to get rid of, but have been unable to do so…. Parliamentary pressure is the main difficulty…. Members are economical in general [protestations]; but in particular cases they think more of their constituents than of the public service. No doubt with a little thinking I could recall a very great number of instances, but two or three occur to me.”

“Not very many years ago there was a clerk of whom perpetual complaints were made to me. He was in a hard-worked department, and the heads of it told me repeatedly: ‘We can do nothing with him.’ At last we got it arranged that he should go [with a large pension, on the theory that his office was abolished, because no longer required]. My back was turned—I was away on a holiday—and when I came back, I found that Parliamentary pressure, by which I mean applications from Members, had been put on, and in spite of us all, the man was back in the place to the detriment of our credit. Let me mention another case. I was engaged upon a reorganization of the department under one of the strongest men [Ministers] I have ever served. What the President of the Board of Trade said to me, in effect was: ‘We must have new blood; we are getting crowded up with effete men; I will back you in anything you do, only you must undertake not to get me into a difficulty in the House of Commons. I cannot afford it; the Government cannot afford time for it; they cannot afford strength to fight battles of that kind.’ We set to work about the reorganization with our hands tied, and we were obliged to say to these men: ‘Well, if you stay here, we will make it very uncomfortable for you; we will put you in the very worst places in the office,’ The Treasury offered good terms of retirement [pensions], and in that way, after a good deal of fighting, we got rid of most of them…. We had to give them very high terms [that is, very liberal pensions]. I may mention a case which happened even since then. I refer to the official Receivers in Bankruptcy. They were men who were appointed only a few years ago, under the most stringent conditions imposed by the Treasury and the Board of Trade, and without the slightest reference to personal considerations or to politics. They were told that they were appointed on trial, that they might be removed at any moment if the Board of Trade desired it for the good of the service. Fortunately, most of them have turned out extremely well. One, perhaps more, turned out bad, but one certainly turned out very bad. Perpetual complaints were made to me by the head of that department that he could do nothing with this man, and that the business was being badly conducted. After a good deal of trouble, after I left, it was determined to remove this man. The Members of Parliament for the county, as I am told, came and put pressure upon the President of the Board of Trade [the Minister], till he was obliged to say: ‘I cannot remove him; he must stay.’”

To the foregoing testimony from the Permanent Secretary of the Board of Trade, the Chairman of the Royal Commission replied: “I gather from what you say, that, supposing it was possible, under this new system of pensions and allowances, to give a man who was sent away from the service the money which he had himself contributed toward his ultimate pension, either with or without the addition of a Government grant, you do not think that would get over the difficulty in getting rid of incompetent men?” Sir T. H. Farrer replied: “No, I do not think it would, unless the House of Commons passes a self-denying ordinance, and refuses to interfere with the Ministers in the management of their departments.”257

Later in the examination, Lord Lingen, who had been Permanent Secretary of the Treasury from 1869 to 1885, said to Sir T. H. Farrer: “You have given a good deal of evidence as to the difficulties which the relation of the public departments to Parliament creates. I think we might hold there is nothing in private service analogous to what you may call the triennial change of Government, that [when] everybody who has been passed over [not promoted], who thinks he has any grievance, considers that he has a fresh chance on a change of Ministry?” The Secretary of the Board of Trade replied: “Yes, I remember distinctly one particular case in which on every change of Government a fresh appeal was made to the new Ministers on behalf of men who had been retired for good reasons.” Lord Lingen continued: “It revived questions which had been supposed to be settled?” “Yes, it does, not infrequently.”

On August 1, 1890, in the House of Commons, the Postmaster General, Mr. Raikes, in speaking of a Post Office employee who had been disciplined, said: “The case is one to which I have given a great deal of personal attention; indeed, I may say that in cases of dismissal or punishment I have always endeavored to satisfy myself thoroughly as to the facts, and to mitigate, if I can, the effect of the regulations of the Department.” On that same day the Postmaster General stated—in reply to Mr. Conybeare,258 who was intervening on behalf of one Cornwell, dismissed from the postal service—that Cornwell had been dismissed for the second time. After the first dismissal, the Postmaster General himself had reinstated Cornwell. The second dismissal had been necessary “in the interest of the Service at large, but especially in that of the other men employed on the same duty, his case should be dealt with in an exemplary manner.”259

In March, 1896, the Chairman of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Post Office Establishments, asked Mr. Lewin Hill, Assistant Secretary General Post Office: “Do you think there is any other particular class of employment which is comparable with that of the postmen?” Mr. Hill replied: “I thought of railway servants, whose work in many ways resembles the work of our employees. If they have not the same permanence as our people have, they have continuous employment so long as they are efficient, but our people have continuous employment whether they are efficient or not.”260 Several months later, Mr. Hill testified as follows before this same Committee: “Our inquiries have proved that the telegraph staff at Liverpool is excessive, and it has been decided, on vacancies [occurring], to abolish the ten appointments.”261 The meaning of this statement is, that if a mistake is made, and too many men are appointed to a certain office; or, if the business of an office falls off, the Government cannot correct the redundancy of employees by dismissing, or by transferring to some other office, the redundant employees. It must wait until promotion, retirement on account of old age, or death shall remove the redundant employees. Before this same committee, Mr. J. C. Badcock, Controller London Postal Service, testified that in theory there were no first class letter sorters in the foreign newspaper department of the London Post Office, since there had been, since 1886, no work that called for first class newspaper sorters. But as a matter of fact there were thirty-seven “redundant first class sorters, who, upon resignation, or pensioning, or death, would be replaced by second class sorters.”262

In 1902, Sir Edgar Vincent,263 a Member of the Select Committee on National Expenditure, 1902, asked Lord Welby, who had been Permanent Secretary to the Treasury from 1885 to 1894: “It is, I presume, extremely difficult for the Minister at the head of a Department to dismiss, or place on the retired list incompetent officers?” Lord Welby replied: “It is very difficult. Of course there are different degrees of incompetency. It is not so difficult in the case of a notoriously incompetent officer, but there are many people, as the honorable Member is aware, against whom nothing whatever can be said, who are still the very reverse of competent.” Sir Edgar Vincent continued: “Can you suggest any means of substituting for a Minister whom it is almost impossible to expect to perform the duty, some authority who should revise Establishments and exclude the bad bargains?” Lord Welby, of course, replied that the remedy suggested would be inconsistent with the principles of parliamentary government,264 in that it would substitute for the Minister, who holds office at the pleasure of the House of Commons, some permanent officer or officers appointed by the Ministry.

Oftentimes the difficulty experienced in dismissing unsatisfactory public servants, extends even to persons appointed on probation.

In April, 1875, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the course of the Financial Statement, said: “We now appoint young men upon probation, and the understanding of that probationary employment is that if the person is found after six months or a year to be unfit, he is told that he must look elsewhere. This is a very invidious duty for the head of an office to perform, and it is very often not performed.”265

In 1888, Mr. Harvey, a Member of the Royal Commission on the Civil Establishments, said: “The tendency in a Government office is for the man to regard his probationary period as practically a ‘nominis umbra’ [the mere shadow of a name], nothing else.”266

The Chairman of the Royal Commission of 1888 asked Sir Reginald Welby, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury: “Is there anything like a real probation in any one of the divisions of the clerks at the Treasury, so that you can find out [whether they are likely to prove competent]?” “Yes, I think so. The principal clerk of the division to which the probationer is attached makes a report at the end of six months; and I have known a principal clerk to make a doubtful report. In that case, if I remember rightly, the term of probation was extended.”267

The boys employed by the Post Office Department for the delivery of telegrams, are, in a way, on continuous probation. If they serve satisfactorily, they are, at the age of 16, taken in training for the position of postmen. In 1897, Mr. Lewin Hill, Assistant Secretary General Post Office, said: “…in London, in the past, the weeding out of messenger boys at 16 years has not been carried out so far, I think, owing to the paternal feelings of the Department. Every effort seems to have been made to keep in the service anybody who could possibly scrape through. But the country postmasters were, as a rule, careful to weed out unsatisfactory lads.” He continued: “…We could have got better postmen [in London], if we had had a free hand.”268

In 1857 the opposition made in Parliament to the system of pensions, led to the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the operation of the Superannuation Act, 1834. That Committee stated as follows the argument “from the public point of view” in favor of pensions. “Though it is strictly the duty of heads of departments to remove from the public service all those who have become unfit to discharge their duties, yet experience shows that this duty cannot be enforced. It is felt to be hard—and even unjust—and inefficient men are, therefore, retained in the Service to the detriment of efficiency. They, therefore, were unhesitatingly of opinion that the public interest would be best consulted by maintaining a system of superannuation allowances.”269

In accordance with the foregoing recommendation Parliament, in 1859, enacted that the Treasury might give “abolition terms” to persons whose offices should be abolished in consequence of the “reorganization” of their department, or branch of service. Under that Act, inefficient persons who are “reorganized out of the service” are given “pro rata” pensions, plus an allowance for “abolition of their office.” For example, a man aged 50, with 30 years of service, who would become entitled to a pension at the age of 60, will be retired at 50 years, with a pro rata pension on the basis of 30 years’ service, plus an allowance of 7 or 10 years’ service for abolition of his office.270

In 1873, before the Select Committee on Civil Services Expenditure, Sir William H. Stephenson, Chairman of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, illustrated the working of this system with the statement that in 1873-74, the salaries paid in the Inland Revenue Department would aggregate $4,808,580. An additional $683,160 would be required for pensions; and a further $234,175 would be required on account of the abolition terms given to men who had been reorganized out of the Inland Revenue Department. Thus the “non-effective,” or non-revenue producing, charges of the department were equivalent to 19 per cent. of the effective, or revenue producing, charges.271

In 1888 the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the Civil Establishments reported that the burden on the State for pensions was equivalent to 12 per cent. to 15 per cent. of the working salaries, and that the payment of the abolition terms raised the percentage in question to 20 per cent. of the working salaries. Sir Reginald E. Welby, Secretary to the Treasury, stated before the Commission, that even the past liberal expenditure on account of pro rata pensions with abolition terms, had not enabled the State to get rid of “inefficient and incapable men.” The Chairman of the Royal Commission spoke of the abolition terms as amounting “almost to a scandal.” Sir R. E. Welby and Lord Lingen, a former Secretary to the Treasury, contrasted the State’s system of pensions with the system of the London and North Western Railway. The Railway’s pension system was maintained out of a fund raised by a 2.5 per cent. reduction from the salaries of the employees, and a 2.5 per cent. contribution from the treasury of the railway.

Sir R. E. Welby, Secretary to the Treasury, and other witnesses, spoke of the abolition terms often acting as a premium on inefficiency. Mr. Robert Giffen, the eminent statistician and political economist, who also was an officer of the Board of Trade, said: “When a man is reorganized out of the service, as a rule he gets so many years’ service added [to his actual service], that is to say, at 50 years, if he has served 30 years, he may have 7 or 10 years’ service added, and thus get two-thirds of his salary as a pension; and he begins to get his pension at once, instead of waiting until he is 60 years of age. A man who thus gets a pension at 50 years, really gets more than double what he would get if he waited until 60 years of age. The present value of $100 a year, beginning at once at the age of 50 years, is a good deal more than double the present value of $100 a year to be paid to a man when he reaches 60 years. The difference in favor of the man who is reorganized out of the service, as against the man who remains until he is 60 years of age, is simply overwhelming to my mind.”

Sir Algernon E. West, Chairman of the Inland Revenue Commissioners, illustrated the working of the practice of getting rid of inefficient men by reorganizing an office, by citing the following instance of “successful” reorganization. Sir Algernon West had retired 39 upper division clerks, permanently reducing the number of the staff by 39. He had thus effected a saving in salaries of $70,000 a year. But he had incurred an annual expenditure of $44,160 on account of pensions, and an annual expenditure of $10,000 on account of abolition terms. Therefore his net saving was not $70,000 but only $15,840. Yet Sir Algernon West denominated his reorganization successful.

In the course of this reorganization, Sir Algernon West had increased the hours of work from 6 hours to 7 hours. The reorganization, also, had necessitated certain promotions. Sir Algernon had made it a condition of promotion, that the man promoted should consent to work 7 hours a day. Men not promoted he gave $150 a year “as a personal allowance in consideration of the extra hour they were called to serve.” One man, aged 34 years, declined to work more than 6 hours on any terms, saying that the Government had made a contract with him for six hours’ work a day. In order to get rid of this man, Sir Algernon West gave him a pension on the basis of 10 years’ service. Legally, of course, the man had no claim to any pension or abolition allowance whatever, for he was in reality dismissed for refusing to perform the duties demanded of him.272

CHAPTER XV
The House of Commons, Under Pressure from the Civil Service Unions, Curtails the Executive’s Power to Promote Employees According to Merit

In the matter of promotion, also, the civil servants’ unions compel the Members of Parliament to intervene, on behalf of individual employees, in the details of the administration of the several Departments of State. The organized civil service is not content that every man should have an equal chance of promotion, so far as his industry and capacity shall qualify him for advancement; it evinces a marked tendency to demand equal promotion in fact, that is, the elimination of the effects of the natural inequality among men. The House of Commons, in yielding in this matter to the pressure from the organized civil service, is tending to reduce the public service to a dull level of mediocrity, which action at one and the same time impairs the efficiency of the public service and makes the service of the State unattractive to able and ambitious men.

In this matter of promotion, the permanent heads of the Departments are hampered also by the unbusinesslike attitude toward the conduct of the public business that characterizes large sections of the newspaper press as well the great mass of the voters. That unbusinesslike frame of mind, in turn, is the outgrowth of that untrained sympathy which makes every one tend to sympathize with the individual, whenever the interest of the individual clashes with that of the State. To illustrate, in 1873, before the Select Committee on Civil Services Expenditure, Sir William H. Stephenson, Chairman of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, stated that in his Department promotion was mainly by seniority in the two lowest classes, to some extent by seniority in the third class, but beyond that entirely by merit. But he hastened to add: “Indeed, if I may judge by the complaints that I have heard out of doors, occasionally in the newspaper press, and elsewhere, the system of promotion by merit is supposed to be carried to rather an excessive extent in the Inland Revenue.”273

In 1876, before the Select Committee on Post Office, Mr. Hobson, Postmaster at Glasgow, stated that he could not promote his telegraph operators according to their dexterity, he was obliged to promote according to seniority. Mr. Gower, a member of the Select Committee queried: “Therefore, there is no encouragement whatever to superior dexterity?” Mr. Hobson replied: “I should not recommend a clerk for promotion … if I were satisfied that he was not doing all he could to improve himself … and was only an indifferent operator. I should mention that in submitting the report, and recommend him to be passed over.” Mr. Gower continued: “But suppose he took every sort of pains to improve himself, but did not improve?” The answer came: “I would then recommend him to go forward [i. e. for promotion].” Mr. Gower then asked: “Have you any power to exchange a clerk who is a slow operator for another quicker operator in a district where it would not signify?” The Postmaster at Glasgow replied: “None whatever.”274 The reader will recall that there are numerous telegraph stations in Glasgow.

In April, 1877, the Postmaster General, Lord John Manners, replied to the Report of the Select Committee of 1876, in a letter to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury. He concluded the letter with the statement: “In conclusion, I beg leave to say that it is, I think, hardly worth while to attempt to contradict the mistakes as to promotion into which the postmaster of Glasgow was accidentally betrayed in giving his evidence before the Committee of last Session, and to which no reference is made in their Report.”275

Before the same Committee, Mr. Edward Graves, Divisional Engineer, recommended that the head of the Post Office establish the rule, “that, other things being equal as to seniority and general business capacity, preference for promotion shall always be given to the telegraph clerk who has shown himself possessed of technical knowledge, and who is desirous of obtaining technical information.”276

Passing over a period of 28 years, that is, from the year 1876 to the year 1904, we find Mr. E. Trenam, Controller London Central Telegraph Office, testifying that because of danger that in the immediate future there would be a lack of telegraph clerks who had a knowledge of the technics of telegraphy, Mr. W. H. Preece, Engineer-in-Chief, had caused a special increase in pay—$26 a year—to be offered to men who should acquire such knowledge. The witness added that “unfortunately many of the men who have [acquired] this knowledge are comparative juniors, and we are compelled to put them to work which those receiving higher pay are incompetent to perform. It will take some years to adjust the anomaly … [that is, before the incompetent men receiving higher pay shall have been pensioned or shall have died]”.277

Before the Royal Commission of 1888, appointed to inquire into the Civil Establishments, Sir Thomas H. Farrer, who had been a Member of the Playfair Royal Commission of 1876, and had been Permanent Secretary of the Board of Trade from 1867 to 1886, said: “I should like to say that in the discussion which led [in 1872] to the adoption of Mr. Lowe’s [Chancellor of the Exchequer] scheme278 [for the reform of the civil service] a mistake was often made, and is still made, in supposing that the great evil of the service is jobbery. That is not the case, and I say so with great confidence, having regard to what has been done by Ministers whom I have served of both parties. The real evil of the service is promotion by routine, and not jobbing in the selection for superior places.279 But make your regulations what you will, the sine qua non, to make any regulations work well, is that the men at the head of the different offices shall have discretion, honesty, and courage, and shall not be afraid to put up the good men and to keep the inferior men in their place. I am quite confident from my own experience that it can be done, but I am certain that it can be done only if the men at the head of the offices will take a good deal of trouble about it.” Lord Lingen, a Member of the Royal Commission, and a former Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, interpolated: “A good deal of trouble and a good deal of disagreeable interference.” Mr. Farrer continued: “It requires tact, because of course you must not put a man up for mere merit. You cannot take a lad of 19 and put him over a man of 30 without a very strong reason; but taking the different sub-heads of the department into counsel; by a little give and take; by care, discretion, and confidence in the perfect honesty with which the thing is done, I believe it can be perfectly well managed…. The key of the whole thing is to put the proper men at the top of the offices.”

Lord Lingen and Mr. Farrer then went on to state that with every change of the Government of the day, some civil servants who had been passed over, or had some other grievance, made the attempt to have their cases reopened.280

Sir Charles DuCane, Chairman of the Commissioners of Customs, said: “We promote strictly by merit; we never allow seniority to weigh with us.”281

Sir Algernon E. West, Chairman of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, said that he promoted by merit within the limits allowed him by the Treasury ruling that no clerk could pass out of the second class into the first class without 10 years’ service in the second class. Subsequent testimony established the fact that the Treasury had made that ruling in order to prevent the second class clerks from bringing pressure on Members of Parliament with the view to securing automatic promotion from the second class into the first.282 Just before making the foregoing statement, Sir Algernon West had said: “If you take the whole Civil Service, I think you will find a general concord of opinion that the man receiving from $2,500 to $3,000 a year is the weakest part of the Civil Service. I am not speaking of a young man who is in process of going higher, but of an elderly man who has risen to that kind of high salary, and has no prospect of getting anything more…. An ordinary middle aged man, who has got to $2,500 or $3,000 or $3,500, generally is far too highly paid.” Mr. R. W. Hanbury, a Member of the Royal Commission, queried: “How would he get such a position?” The answer came: “By natural progression,” i. e. promotion by routine.283

Sir Lyon Playfair, a man of vast experience in the administration of the British Civil Service, said: “Promotions by merit hardly take place in most offices, I think; at all events, there are very few instances brought before us.”284