it is only a committee of the Privy Council reorganised with some
additional powers. The most remarkable thing about the act creating
it--apart from the erection of a sham board--is the extent of the
authority delegated to the executive. Instead of prescribing minutely
the organisation and functions of the department of education, the act
empowered the government, in its discretion, to set up such a
consultative committee as it saw fit, and to transfer to the board any
educational duties of the Charity Commissioners or the Board of
Agriculture that it thought best.[112:1] Both of these powers have been
exercised by Orders in Council of Aug. 7, 1900, and the Consultative
Committee has been made to consist of representatives selected by the
universities and by other bodies interested in education. But the
subject of public education will be treated in subsequent chapters, and
it is enough here to note that by means of elaborate regulations,
commonly known as the Education Code, the board prescribes the
instruction to be given in all schools aided by public money;[112:2]
that it inspects endowed or private secondary schools at their
request;[112:3] and that it has charge of the museums at South
Kensington and Bethnal Green, and of the Geological Museum and Survey.
[Sidenote: The Post Office.]
From the point of view of the national government the Post Office has
two functions. It is a great administrative department which conducts a
huge business, with a minister at its head; and it is a source of
income, its gross receipts forming about one seventh of the total
revenues of the United Kingdom, its disbursements only about one tenth
of the total expenditure. For that reason it is under a financial
control by the Treasury so strict as to leave very little chance for
independent action, and this renders the position of Postmaster General
far less important than it would otherwise be. The office has been
regarded as political since 1837; but until 1866 the holder could not
sit in the House of Commons, and since that time he has occasionally
been a peer, the Post Office in such a case being usually represented in
the Commons by the Financial Secretary of the Treasury. The duties of
the Postmaster General are minutely prescribed by statute, and while he
has power to make regulations for the management of the postal service,
it is not easy to make substantial changes or improvements without
affecting the receipts or the expenses, and when that is done he comes
at once under the control of the Treasury. The rates of postage, for
example, and the compensation for carrying the mails, when not fixed by
Act of Parliament, are subject to the approval of the Treasury; and so
are the purchase or sale of land, and any lease of the right to carry on
a telegraph or telephone business. The same approval is also required
for his regulations touching money-orders, post office savings-banks,
and the telegraph, although in these cases the revenue would not appear
to be necessarily involved. In short, as Sir William Anson puts
it,[113:1] "The Postmaster General is no more than the acting manager of
a great business, with little discretionary power except in the exercise
of the very considerable patronage of his office."[113:2]
The business of the department is certainly enormous, the number of
persons employed being little short of two hundred thousand. In addition
to the usual work of transmitting letters, books, parcels and
money-orders, the Post Office in England maintains savings-banks, with
deposits of about 150,000,000_l._; and it has been given exclusive
control of the telegraph by provisions which have been held to include
the telephone also. But while the administration of the telegraph has
been retained by the government in its own hands, the right to conduct
the telephone business was granted, by means of temporary licenses, to
private companies, and to some extent to local authorities also; and the
government has only recently decided to take over the management as soon
as the licenses expire.
FOOTNOTES:
[82:1] Such are the offices of the Lord Steward and the Lord
Chamberlain, the latter having in his charge also the censorship of
plays and theatrical performances.
[83:1] The name of the Board of Trade is now statutory (25-26 Vic., c.
69, Sec. 2; 52-53 Vic., c. 63, Sec. 12, cl. 8). Its composition,
however, is fixed not by statute but by Order in Council at the
beginning of each reign, save that an act of 1867 (30-31 Vic., c. 72)
abolished the office of Vice-President, and provided instead that one of
the secretaries to the board might sit in Parliament.
[83:2] For the organisation of the Board of Works, see 14-15 Vic., c.
42; 37-38 Vic., c. 84; for the Local Government Board, 34-35 Vic., c.
70; Board of Agriculture, 52-53 Vic., c. 30; Board of Education, 62-63
Vic., c. 33.
[83:3] In the case of the Board of Works he is styled First
Commissioner.
[84:1] The Council of India, described hereafter, has some of the
characteristics of a board.
[84:2] Hans., 4 Ser. LXVIII., 678-9; LXX., 338, 351; LXXIII., 632, 666.
[84:3] _Ibid._, LXXIII., 676.
[84:4] In the course of the debate Lord Norton declared (Hans., 4 Ser.
LXVIII., 676) that he had served on two different boards, and could
remember only one instance where a board had been called together or
consulted in any way.
[85:1] Hans., 4 Ser. LXX., 353. There may have been good reasons for not
creating a sixth secretary of state, and among them the fact that a
secretary of state receives a salary of 5000_l._, while the president of
the board receives 2000_l._ But, as Mr. Bryce pointed out (Hans., 4 Ser.
LXXIII., 632), a secretary might have been appointed who, like the
Secretary for Scotland, should not be a secretary of state. The salary
of the Secretary for Scotland is, in fact, 2000_l._
[86:1] Until a few years ago the departments were: (1) the Eastern
(Eastern Europe and Central Asia); (2) Western (Western Europe,
Northwest Africa and the Pacific Islands); (3) American and Asiatic
(which includes China, Japan and Siam); (4) Consular (including East and
West Africa); (5) Commercial; (6) The Chief Clerk's (which has charge of
financial business); (7) The Library (with the papers of the office);
(8) The Treaty Department. (Fourth Rep. of the Comn. on Civil
Establishments, Com. Papers, 1890, XXVII., 1.) Within a few years four
new departments have been created: an African, an African Protectorates,
a Far Eastern and a Parliamentary. (See the Foreign Office List.)
[87:1] Ch. viii. The permanent under-secretary at the head of the staff
holds, however, an important place.
[88:1] See Hammond, "The Adventures of a Paper in the Foreign Office."
Rep. of Sel. Com. on Trade, Com. Papers, 1864, VII., 279, Q. 1384.
[88:2] Colonial Office List, 1907, XIII.
[89:1] Three of the members may, however, be appointed for life, and any
other member may be reappointed for five years. Ilbert, "Government of
India," 112.
[89:2] _Ibid._, 152-55.
[91:1] Report of Comrs. on Admn. of Naval and Mil. Depts., Com. Papers,
1890, XIX., 1, pp. viii-ix.
[91:2] 2-3 Will. IV., c. 40, Sec. 1.
[91:3] Lord Charles Beresford was a Naval Lord and a member of the House
of Commons from 1886 to 1888.
[92:1] Rep. of Comrs. on Admn. of Naval and Mil. Depts., Com. Papers,
1890, XIX., 1, p. viii.
[92:2] _Ibid._, p. x.
[93:1] Return on the Distribution of Business between the Members of the
Admiralty Board, Com. Papers, 1890, XLIV., 605.
[93:2] Rep. of Comrs. on Admn. of Naval and Mil. Depts., Com. Papers,
1890, XIX., 1, p. ix.
[93:3] Todd, II., 767 _et seq._
[93:4] The military forces consist of the regular army (with the
reserves, that is, the men who have served their time but are liable to
be recalled in case of war); and of the militia, yeomanry and
volunteers. The militia are a little more like regular troops than the
volunteers. They are formally enlisted and their period of training is
longer. None of the auxiliary forces can be ordered out of the United
Kingdom; but while the volunteers are intended solely to support the
regular army in defending the country in case of invasion, the militia
have always offered their services in time of war, and have often been
used for garrison duty both at home and abroad, and even for field
service abroad. The yeomanry are a body of cavalry forming part of the
militia. A royal commission on the militia and volunteers reported in
1904 that both of these forces were unfit to take the field against a
regular army; that the period of training ought to be increased in each
case; and that a home defence army, capable of protecting the United
Kingdom in the absence of the greater part of the regular army could be
raised only by universal compulsory military service. (Com. Papers,
1904, XXX., 175, pp. 6, 9, 11, 15-16.) This last suggestion was received
with general disfavour.
[94:1] For the History of the War Office up to this time, see Clode,
"Military Forces of the Crown."
[95:1] Order in Council, June 4, 1870, Com. Papers, XLII., 683.
[95:2] Com. Papers, 1890, XIX., 1.
[95:3] By virtue of Orders in Council of Dec. 29, 1887, and Feb. 21,
1888. _Ibid._, App. viii.
[96:1] On account of a vote at the close of the same debate in which
this change was announced.
[96:2] Com. Papers, 1896, LI., 483.
[97:1] Rep. of Com. on War Office Organisation, Com. Papers, 1901, XL.,
179, p. 21; Rep. of Com. on the War in South Africa, Com. Papers, 1904,
XL., 1, pp. 138-42.
[98:1] Com. Papers, 1901, XXXIX., 243.
[98:2] _Ibid._, 1902, LVIII., 717.
[98:3] Hans., 4 Ser. XC., 327 _et seq._; XCI., 6 _et seq._
[98:4] 6 Anne, c. 7, Sec. 28. (In the Rev. Sts. it is c. 41, Sec. 27.)
[99:1] Rep. in Com. Papers, 1904, XL., 1, pp. 28, 30.
[99:2] _Ibid._, p. 89.
[99:3] _Ibid._, p. 87.
[99:4] _Ibid._, p. 94.
[99:5] _Ibid._, pp. 94-96.
[99:6] _Ibid._, pp. 94-95.
[99:7] _Ibid._, pp. 86-87.
[99:8] _Ibid._, pp. 93-94.
[100:1] Com. Papers, 1904, VIII., 101.
[100:2] _Cf._ Orders in Council of Aug. 10, 1904, Com. Papers, 1905,
XLVI., 291, 295, 299.
[100:3] Rep. of Com. on War in South Africa, Com. Papers, 1904, XL., 1,
pp. 52-56.
[101:1] Rep. of Com. on War Office Organisation, Com. Papers, 1901, XL.,
179, p. 2.
[101:2] Rep. of Com. on War in South Africa, Com. Papers, 1904, XL., 1,
pp. 52-56.
[102:1] The recent Committee on Military Education evidently approved of
that object. Com. Papers, 1902, X., 193, p. 24.
[102:2] The Committee on Military Education were impressed by the
widespread dissatisfaction with the education of army officers, and in
Sandhurst, especially, much was found to criticise. The education of the
junior officers after leaving the military academies was reported to be
in a most unsatisfactory state. They were said to be lamentably wanting
in military knowledge, and in the desire to study the science and master
the art of their profession; while the examinations for promotion
encouraged "the customs of idleness with a brief period of cram." Com.
Papers, 1902, X., 193. There may well be some exaggeration in the
criticism of the moment, due to a natural revulsion from the military
self-complacency that preceded the war.
[103:1] Rep. of Com. on Training and Examination of Junior Naval
Officers, Com. Papers, 1901, XLII., 621, p. 15.
[104:1] Memorandum, Com. Papers, 1902, LXI., 675. Since this was written
another change has been made dividing naval officers into a sea-faring
and fighting branch and an engineer branch.
[104:2] Com. Papers, 1890, XIX., 1, pp. vi-viii.
[105:1] Lord Charles Beresford, Hans., 4 Ser. CXII., 1146, 1147.
[105:2] Rep. of Com. on War in South Africa, Com. Papers, 1904, XL., 1,
pp. 135-36. Hans., 4 Ser. CXVIII., 291.
[106:1] The "City" of London is an oasis with its own police force.
[106:2] Glen on Public Health, 12 Ed., 443, 1169, 1341.
[107:1] Rep. Com. on Nat. Expend., Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, Q. 1425.
[107:2] 14-15 Vic., c. 42, Secs. 16, 17.
[109:1] In 1873 the settlement of railway controversies was transferred
to a judicial body, the Railway and Canal Commission.
[109:2] In the case of light railways the orders are made by the Light
Railway Commission and confirmed by the Board of Trade, the members of
the Commission being appointed by the President of the Board. 59-60
Vic., c. 48; 1 Edw. VII., c. 36.
[109:3] Rep. of Com. on Municipal Trading, Com. Papers, 1900, VII., 183.
[110:1] "English Const.," 1 Ed., 228-30.
[112:1] 62-63 Vic., c. 33, Secs. 1-4.
[112:2] This does not, of course, apply to special establishments, like
the naval and military schools, which are managed by other departments.
[112:3] Throughout this chapter statements relating to local government
must be understood not to apply to Scotland or Ireland; but in this case
Wales, with Monmouthshire, is also excluded because, by the Welsh
Intermediate Education Act of 1889, a special board chosen by the local
authorities inspects the secondary schools there.
[113:1] "Law and Custom of the Constitution," II., 184.
[113:2] It may be observed that for many years after 1868 the Postmaster
General was rarely in the cabinet, and hence he has not acquired the
authority possessed by a regular cabinet minister. He has, however, now
been in the cabinet continuously since 1892.
CHAPTER V
THE TREASURY
The most important of all the departments, and the one that exhibits in
the highest degree the merits of the English government, is the
Treasury. It is the central department of the administration, which
keeps in touch with all the others, and maintains a constant financial
control over them. But before considering how that is done it may be
well to explain the process by which money flows in and out of the
national purse. The part played by Parliament in the imposition of
taxes, and the authorisation of expenditure by means of appropriations,
will be described in chapter XIV, and we are concerned here only with
the machinery for collecting those taxes, and giving effect to the
appropriations.[115:1]
[Sidenote: The Consolidated Fund and the Bank of England.]
Until the Commonwealth, taxes were, as a rule, granted to the King, who
used the proceeds to carry on the government as he saw fit; but under
Charles II. Parliament began to appropriate parts of the revenue for
specific purposes, and after the revolution of 1688 this developed into
a comprehensive system, so that the whole revenue was appropriated, to
be used only for the objects, and in the sums, designated by
Parliament.[115:2] It was the custom, however, to appropriate for
specific objects the proceeds of particular taxes, a practice that made
the public accounts needlessly complex. In 1787 William Pitt, following
earlier partial experiments, simplified matters by creating a single
Consolidated Fund into which all revenues from every source were
turned, and from which all payments were made.[116:1] The Consolidated
Fund is deposited in the Bank of England and the Bank of Ireland, which
have a right to use it like any other deposit, and perform, in fact, for
the government much the same service that an ordinary bank does for a
merchant. This method of dealing with the national finances continued
substantially intact until a few years ago,[116:2] when it was
complicated by two innovations, one of which allows a department to use
incidental revenues, under the name of "appropriations in aid," to
defray expenses, and the other sets aside certain parts of the national
income to supplement local taxation, in each case without passing
through the Consolidated Fund.[116:3] The second of these exceptions is
due to the great increase of local expenditure, and the narrow range of
local taxation, which have caused a demand for national subventions, and
have resulted in setting apart for the purpose the proceeds of specific
sources of revenue. In this way the income from the local taxation
licenses, and a portion of the income from the death duties and the
duties on spirits and beer, are now collected by the central government
and paid directly into the Local Taxation Account.[116:4] But saving
these cases, all the national receipts are paid into, and all the
disbursements are made from, the Consolidated Fund.
[Sidenote: Method of Getting Money into the Consolidated Fund.]
[Sidenote: The Sources of Revenue.]
The financial procedure of the Treasury is now regulated by the
Exchequer and Audit Departments Act of 1866,[117:1] and the Public
Accounts and Charges Act of 1891.[117:2] By these acts the gross
revenue--after making the deductions already mentioned--is paid into the
"account of His Majesty's Exchequer," at the Banks of England and
Ireland, to be used as a single fund. The three chief collectors of
revenue are the Commissioners of Customs, the Commissioners of Inland
Revenue and the Post Office. With the growth of the principles of free
trade the customs duties became confined to coffee, chicory, cocoa,
dried fruit, tea, tobacco, wine, and a number of articles, such as
spirits, on which duties are laid to countervail the excise upon similar
articles produced at home. To these were added at the time of the South
African War an export duty on coal, and import duties on sugar and
grain, the last being again dropped in 1903, while the coal duty was
repealed in 1906. Under normal fiscal conditions in times of peace, the
customs duties yield about one fifth of the total revenue, the receipts
being mainly from tobacco, tea and spirits. The gross receipts from the
Post Office (including the telegraphs) form about one seventh of the
revenue, but this is really misleading, because three quarters of those
receipts are paid out again for the expenses of the department. All but
a very small fraction of the remaining receipts come through the
Commissioners of Inland Revenue, and their sources of income are of a
miscellaneous character. The largest item is the excise, mainly on beer
and spirits, which yields more than a quarter of the total national
revenue.[117:3] The next largest is the income tax, which varies very
much from time to time, and has produced during the last score of years
from one seventh to one quarter of the total revenue. Then there are the
death duties, a progressive tax on property passing at death, which
yield one tenth of the revenue. The ancient land-tax, and the
inhabited-house duty produce comparatively small sums; and, finally,
there are the stamp duties on all kinds of transactions, articles and
licenses which yield all together about one twelfth of the revenue. Some
of the license fees collected under the head of excise are so small as
to appear rather vexatious than productive, such as one guinea for the
display of armorial bearings not used upon a carriage, fifteen shillings
for a license to have a manservant, or keep a carriage with less than
four wheels, and fourpence a day for the privilege of occasionally
selling tobacco.[118:1]
[Sidenote: Permanent and Annual Taxes.]
Neither the expenditure nor the proceeds of taxes being absolutely
constant, it is necessary, in order to maintain a close balance between
them, to adjust the sources of revenue to some extent from year to year,
and this is done by means of a small number of variable charges. Most of
the taxes are imposed by permanent statutes, changed only at long
intervals, but the rates of assessment under the tea duty and the income
tax are fixed each year in the annual Finance Act; and since 1894
certain additional duties on beer and spirits have also been laid for a
year at a time.
[Sidenote: Accuracy of the Budget.]
It has been the aim of English statesmen to make the revenue and
expenditure of each year balance one another as closely as possible, and
their skill in doing so has been extraordinary. While the South African
War was raging such a result was naturally impossible, but during the
preceding twenty-five years the difference between receipts and
expenditures (including payments on account of the debt) was never more
than about four per cent, and in fifteen of those years it did not
exceed one and a half per cent. The taxes are, indeed, of such a
character that it is possible to forecast their proceeds with great
accuracy. The Chancellor of the Exchequer intends to make his
calculations so as to leave a margin of safety, and yet during the
period under consideration the difference between the estimated and
actual receipts was never more than about three and a half per
cent.[119:1]
Accurate fiscal administration is very much promoted by the rule that
any part of an appropriation unexpended at the end of the financial year
in which it is voted shall lapse, and cannot afterwards be used unless
it is granted afresh by Parliament.[119:2] The rule has been thought to
lead to wastefulness by provoking improvident haste in spending the
whole appropriation before March 31.[119:3] But such an evil is surely
far smaller than that of allowing the appropriations to run on, with the
result, well known in France, for example, that the annual accounts
cannot be finally made up, and the extent of the deficit determined,
until several years have passed.
Like all other excellent things devised by men, the English system of
finance is not without its drawbacks. If it promotes careful
administration, and rivets attention upon any increase in the budget, it
also makes the revenue inelastic in emergencies. A great deal has been
said in Parliament of late about broadening the basis of taxation, but
that is a very difficult thing to do suddenly, without dislocating the
commercial as well as the fiscal system; and while the existing taxes
are elastic up to a certain point, an attempt to raise them too much
would diminish rather than increase their productiveness.
[Sidenote: Method of Getting Money out of the Consolidated Fund.]
Just as there are two kinds of taxes, one permanent and the other
annual, so there are two classes of expenditure, one regulated by
standing laws, and the other by annual appropriations. All the ordinary
expenses of the government require parliamentary sanction every year,
both on the theory that the money collected from the nation ought not to
be spent without the consent of its representatives, and also in order
that Parliament may be able to oversee the administration and criticise
it in every session. But there are certain matters that ought to be kept
aloof from current politics, and ought not to be brought in question in
the heat of party conflict. The principal charges that have been
regarded in this light are the interest on the national debt, the Civil
List or personal provision for the King, annuities for the royal family,
certain pensions, and the salaries of the judges, of the Comptroller and
Auditor General, of the Speaker, and of a few officers of lesser
importance. These charges amount to nearly one quarter of the total
expenditures; and they are called Consolidated Fund charges, because by
statute they are paid directly out of the Consolidated Fund without the
need of any further action by Parliament. The other expenditures are for
what are known as the supply services, because the appropriations for
them are voted by the House of Commons in Committee of Supply.
The administrative procedure for getting money out of the Consolidated
Fund to pay the Consolidated Fund charges and the supply services is not
precisely the same. In the case of the supply services a royal order for
the amounts appropriated by Parliament is made under the King's sign
manual, countersigned by two of the Commissioners of the Treasury. The
Treasury then requires the Comptroller and Auditor General to grant
credits at the Banks of England and Ireland for those amounts, and if
satisfied that the authority from Parliament is complete, he makes an
order on the banks granting the credits. From time to time the Treasury
requests the banks to transfer to the various supply accounts, for
disbursement, sums of money not exceeding the credits so granted.[121:1]
The procedure in the case of Consolidated Fund charges differs from this
only in the fact that a royal order is not needed, and the Comptroller
and Auditor General, on the requisition of the Treasury, grants
quarterly credits for the amounts prescribed by statute.[121:2] By this
process a highly effective security is provided that no money shall be
spent without the authority of Parliament. The Consolidated Fund is
deposited in the banks of England and Ireland, which are liable if any
of it is withdrawn without an order from the Comptroller and Auditor
General, while that officer is given the same independence as the
judges. Like them he is appointed during good behaviour, with a salary
charged upon the Consolidated Fund. The security is not absolutely
perfect, for there are some moneys, such as the appropriations in aid,
that do not pass through the Consolidated Fund; and as no foresight can
be unfailing, the government is given a limited power to meet unforeseen
contingencies, and to cover expenses that have inevitably proved larger
than was anticipated.[121:3] But all matters of this kind are fully
reported to Parliament by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
[Sidenote: Audit of the Accounts.]
The Treasury lays before Parliament annually the Finance Accounts of the
preceding year, while the Comptroller and Auditor General submits at a
later date a separate report. Therein he examines the Consolidated Fund
charges, and makes for the supply services more elaborate statements,
called the Appropriation Accounts, in three volumes, relating to the
Army, the Navy and the civil service. The accounts are rendered to him
by the several departments, and after auditing them he transmits them to
the House of Commons with his comments.[121:4]
The money granted by Parliament is divided into votes, of which there
are in all about one hundred and forty.[122:1] In the estimates these
votes are subdivided into subheads and items; but the votes would appear
to be the only limitation expressly placed by Parliament upon
expenditure; for the Annual Appropriation Act provides that the sums
granted shall be deemed to be appropriated "for the services and
purposes expressed in Schedule (B) annexed" thereto, and that schedule
gives a list of the votes, but not of the subheads or items.
Nevertheless, the Comptroller and Auditor General is enjoined by the
Exchequer and Audit Departments Act of 1866 to ascertain whether the
money expended has been applied to the purpose or purposes for which
each grant was intended to provide,[122:2] and hence the reports that he
submits note the excess or saving with the reasons therefor, under each
subhead, and sometimes, as in the case of votes for the construction of
new buildings, under each item. He adds, also, his own comments wherever
it seems to him necessary to do so. All this is done, even where the
saving under one subhead more than counterbalances the excess under
another in the same vote. When that happens, however, no action by
Parliament is required; but if the total amount of a vote has been
overspent, the excess is entirely unauthorised, and must be covered by a
deficiency appropriation, which Parliament grants upon the reports of
the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee on Accounts of the
House of Commons. To the last rule there is one exception. In order to
facilitate the administration of the Army and Navy, the Annual
Appropriation Act declares that the Treasury may authorise expenditure,
not provided for, to be defrayed temporarily out of any surplus effected
upon other votes in each of those departments; and the Act goes on to
recite and sanction the transfers of surplus so authorised by the
Treasury in the last year for which the accounts are complete.[123:1]
This brings us to another important question, that of the financial
control of the Treasury over the other branches of the administration.
[Sidenote: Treasury Control over Other Departments.]
[Sidenote: Control over Estimates.]
There has been a great deal of discussion about Treasury control over
the receipt and expenditure of public money. In the case of the receipts
it is a simple matter, for the financial control over the Post Office
has already been described, and the other great revenue departments are,
as will shortly be explained, virtually subordinate to the Treasury. The
question of control over expenditure is far more complicated. Committees
of the House of Commons have, at different times, collected evidence on
the subject,[123:2] but the statements made have often been vague, and
tend to confuse the control of the Treasury over the estimates, with its
control over expenditure after the appropriations have been voted by
Parliament. The control over the estimates has been discussed in the
preceding chapter. It is only necessary here to repeat that such a
control is by no means absolute, because any important question of
expenditure becomes a question of policy to be decided, in case of
disagreement, by the Prime Minister or the cabinet; and to point out
that the departments supported by their political chiefs are usually too
strong for the Treasury to resist.[123:3]
[Sidenote: Control over Expenditure.]
It might be supposed that after the appropriations had been voted the
departments would be free in expending them, subject only to their
responsibility to Parliament; but this is not altogether true. In the
first place a statute sometimes requires that the expenses of a
department shall be sanctioned by the Treasury.[124:1] Then it is not
infrequently provided that the salaries shall be fixed by the Treasury,
or that alterations in the establishment shall require its consent.
Moreover, the salaries of certain grades of clerks are regulated by
Orders in Council,[124:2] which are changed only on the advice of the
Treasury. Apart, however, from statutes and Orders in Council there is a
general customary principle forbidding any increase in the civil
establishment of a department,--that is, any increase in the number or
salary of permanent officials,--without the approval of the Treasury;
and this although the appropriations would not be exceeded.[124:3]
[Sidenote: Transfer of a Surplus.]
Over certain departments the control is even more extensive, for not
only do the contracts made by the Post Office require its approval, but
contracts entered into by the Board of Works are also the subject of
discussion between the Treasury and the First Commissioner.[124:4] In
the case of the Army and Navy the fact that the Treasury can authorise a
transfer of the surplus under one vote to cover a deficiency under
another gives it a certain authority; and, indeed, its sanction is to
some extent sought even for transfers between subheads of the same vote.
This last is, of course, a matter of custom rather than of law, and
practice differs in the two services. The Admiralty, which always plays
the part of the good boy, comes very frequently to the Treasury for
permission to make transfers between subheads before it acts; while the
Army, save in exceptional cases, comes only at the end of the year for a
formal approval.[125:1] The exceptional cases are, however, numerous.
They sometimes extend even to separate items, and are regulated by a
code of rules made by the Treasury and the department.[125:2] Every
excess, for example, of a certain size in an item for a new building,
the payment of any excess to a contractor, the discharge of a loss, or
the insertion of a new item, require the sanction of the Treasury; and
in fact the Appropriation Accounts of the Army and Navy are followed by
many pages of correspondence on matters of this kind between the
Treasury and the department. In the case of the civil services, where
the Treasury has no authority to sanction transfers between votes, the
system is less elaborate and the correspondence is not printed in full.
Still there are frequent references in the accounts to Treasury letters
sanctioning expenditures under subheads or items, especially in relation
to such matters as salaries, the purchase of land, large excesses over
estimates for construction, the abandonment of claims, and unforeseen
expenditures.[125:3]
[Sidenote: Effect of Treasury Control.]
The control by the Treasury is sometimes vexatious in small
matters,[126:1] but it does not seriously hamper the administration, or
impair the efficiency of the service;[126:2] and while it can hardly
prevent an expenditure on which a department is seriously
determined,[126:3] the very need of consultation can hardly fail to act
as a restraint upon extravagance.[126:4]
In addition to its control over the application of the sums voted by
Parliament, and its authority to permit the use of appropriations for
purposes not contemplated in the estimates, the Treasury has a limited
power to open the national purse in case of necessity when no grant has
been made by Parliament. For this purpose it has three sources of supply
at its disposal: the Treasury Chest Fund, limited to 1,000,000_l._, may
be used to make temporary advances for carrying on the public service,
to be repaid out of sums afterwards appropriated; the Civil
Contingencies Fund, limited to 120,000_l._, is available on similar
terms for unforeseen contingencies and deficiencies; and, finally, any
incidental receipts, not granted by Parliament as appropriations in aid,
may be used as such under the authority of a Treasury minute to be laid
before the Houses.[126:5]
[Sidenote: The Organisation of the Treasury.]
In the remarks on the history of the Treasury Board, at the beginning of
the last chapter, it was pointed out that the board no longer meets.
The Treasury minutes are still drawn up in the name of "My Lords," but
this is merely the survival of a form, and all the members of the board,
except the Chancellor of the Exchequer, have ceased to take part in
directing the financial administration. The three junior lords have at
times some small departmental duties, but their real functions are to
act as assistants to the Parliamentary or Patronage Secretary, who is
the chief government whip in the House of Commons. All the four whips
receive salaries from the state on the theory that it is their duty to
keep a House, or in other words to insure the presence of a quorum,
while the supplies are being voted. But in fact they are officers, not
of the state, but of the party in power, and it is their business to see
that whenever a vote is taken in which the ministry is interested, their
partisans are present in greater force than those of the Opposition. The
relation of the First Lord to the Treasury is anomalous. He is usually
the Prime Minister, and as such is supposed to keep a general
supervision upon all branches of the administration, and to act as a
sort of umpire between the different ministers, and, therefore, between
the Treasury and the other departments. But whether he is Prime Minister
or not he has a real connection with the Treasury. The functions of that
office cover a much wider field than its name would imply, including
subjects of a most miscellaneous character; and while the finances are
entirely under the charge of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,--who is,
in fact, the Minister of Finance, with the Financial Secretary of the
Treasury as his parliamentary under-secretary,--the First Lord may be
said, speaking very roughly, to be at the head of the outlying
departments which are not concerned with financial affairs.
[Sidenote: The Subordinate Departments.]
The Treasury has been described as a superintending and controlling
office that has properly no administrative functions;[127:1] and this,
in a sense, is true, for even in money matters its duty as an organised
department is financial direction and control, not the actual
collection and disbursement of the revenue. It prepares the budget,
reviewing the estimates submitted to it, and devising the means of
defraying them; it supervises the collection of the revenue, and keeps
watch over the expenditure. In this work the political chiefs are
assisted by a body of clerks, headed by the permanent under-secretary,
whose office is generally regarded as the highest in the permanent civil
service. The offices that have direct charge of the collection of
revenue have separate organisations with distinct staffs of permanent
officials; but, except for the Post Office, they have no political
chiefs of their own, and are in fact subordinate branches of the
Treasury. The four great offices of this kind are the Post Office, which
has already been described; and the departments of Customs, of Inland
Revenue, and of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues, each of which is
managed by commissioners who are members of the permanent civil service,
and do not change with changes of ministry.[128:1]
The Treasury bears a similar relation to the departments that deal with
purely fiscal payments, the National Debt Office, the Public Works Loan
Board, and the Paymaster General's Office, through which almost all
disbursements are now made. For, although the Paymaster General is a
political officer, he has ceased to have any real connection with his
department, and it is administered under the direction of the
Treasury.[129:1]
[Sidenote: The Outlying Departments.]
Besides the departments subordinate to the Treasury, there are a number
of outlying departments more or less closely connected with it which
have already been referred to as having nothing to do with financial
affairs; and, indeed, one may say that in theory, at least, every branch
of the public service--except the Ecclesiastical and Charity
Commissions[129:2]--that does not have a political chief of its own, and
is not connected with some other department, is under the supervision of
the Treasury and represented in Parliament thereby. But while the
commissioners, or other heads of such offices, are as a rule appointed
on the recommendation of the First Lord, or of the Prime Minister, the
degree of control exercised over them by the Treasury varies a great
deal; and in some cases its responsibility, apart from regulating the
amount of expenditure, is somewhat illusory. Several institutions in
this position are intended to be entirely outside the range of party
controversy; and the boards of trustees of the British Museum, the
National Gallery, and the National Portrait Gallery habitually contain
members of Parliament who would never think of resigning their posts by
reason of a change of ministry. The principal outlying departments of
the Treasury directly connected with national administration, are: the
Civil Service Commission, which examines the candidates for the various
branches of the civil service; the Parliamentary Counsel's office, which
drafts all the bills introduced by the ministers; and the stationery
office, which does all the government printing.
Throughout a great part of the nineteenth century the influence of the
commercial classes was strong, the government was conducted on strict
business principles, and the Treasury as the representative of those
principles was the keystone of the administrative arch, or to change the
metaphor, the axle on which the machinery of the state revolved. For a
long time, indeed, there was a marked tendency to consider the office of
Chancellor of the Exchequer as the most important in the cabinet after
that of the Prime Minister, to regard the person who held it as heir
presumptive to the premiership, and to make him leader in the House of
Commons when his chief was a peer. But with the waning desire for
economy, and the growth of other interests, the Treasury has to some
extent lost its predominant position. A symptom of this may be seen in
the fact that during the last dozen years of Lord Salisbury's
administrations, the Commons were led, not by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, but by a First Lord of the Treasury appointed for the
purpose. The turning point came at the beginning of that period, when
Lord Randolph Churchill in 1886 quarrelled with his colleagues over the
estimates for the Army. The occurrence did not produce, but it did mark,
a change in the tone of public opinion; and although the Treasury will
no doubt maintain its control over the details of expenditure, one
cannot feel certain that its head will regain the powerful influence
upon general or financial policy exerted thirty years ago.
FOOTNOTES:
[115:1] An excellent description of the existing financial procedure may
be found in Sir Courtney Ilbert's "Legislative Methods and Forms,"
284-99.
[115:2] This did not apply to the hereditary revenues of the Crown
until, with the exception of the revenues belonging to the Duchies of
Lancaster and Cornwall, they were surrendered by George III., in return
for a fixed Civil List.
[116:1] 27 Geo. III., c. 13.
[116:2] The rule had not been absolutely without exceptions, for the
Mercantile Marine Fund, derived from port charges on vessels, was used
to defray part of the expenses of the Board of Trade without going
through the Consolidated Fund. _Cf._ 2d Rep. Com. on Civil Estab., Com.
Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs. 18211-26. In 1898 this process was
restricted to the maintenance of lighthouses, buoys and beacons. It may
be observed, also, that the Act of 1891 concerning "appropriations in
aid" (54-55 Vic., c. 24, Sec. 2) declares that it merely gives statutory
authority to an existing practice. Such appropriations are now regularly
granted by Parliament in aid of the votes for the services in which they
occur. The amount in aid of each vote is fixed, and listed in a separate
column in the schedule to the Appropriation Act, only the excess above
that amount being paid into the Consolidated Fund.
[116:3] Ilbert, "Legislative Methods and Forms," 294-95; Glen, "Law of
Public Health," 1343, 1344.
[116:4] This innovation has been vigorously criticised as tending to
confuse the national accounts. See a memorandum by Sir E. W. Hamilton,
Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, App. 12.
[117:1] 29-30 Vic., c. 39.
[117:2] 54-55 Vic., c. 24.
[117:3] The sums paid to the Local Taxation Account not being included.
[118:1] These license fees go into the Local Taxation Account, not into
the National Exchequer.
[119:1] It is noteworthy that from 1858 to 1895 the amount of money
raised by taxation for national purposes was never less than 2_l._ 4_s._
5_d._ and never more than 2_l._ 9_s._ 11_d._ per head of population. Of
late years it has shown a steady tendency to increase. In 1899, the year
before the war, it was 2_l._ 13_s._ 6_d._; and in 1902 it was 3_l._
8_s._ 8_d._, the expenditure being 4_l._ 13_s._ 11_d._ Between 1857 and
1900 the national debt was reduced by gradual payments from
837,144,597_l._ to 628,978,783_l._ In 1902 it had increased in
consequence of the South African War to 747,911,107_l._
[119:2] For the history of this rule see Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England,"
II., 44-46.
[119:3] Rep. of the Com. on War Office Organisation, Com. Papers, 1901,
XL., 179, p. 6. But see 3d Rep. Com. Pub. Accounts, Com. Papers, 1901,
V., 47, p. iv.
[121:1] 29-30 Vic., c. 39, Secs. 13, 15.
[121:2] _Ibid._, Sec. 13.
[121:3] For the provision made for such cases, see page 126, _infra_.
[121:4] The Finance Accounts give only the issues to the departments
from the Exchequer, not the actual expenditures. These last are
contained only in the Appropriation Accounts of the Auditor General.
Except for certain departments, like the Navy, where Sir James Graham
began the practice of submitting them as early as 1832, the actual
expenditures were not submitted as a whole to Parliament until the Act
of 1866. Memorandum by Lord Welby, Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, App. 13.
Hatschek, _Englisches Staatsrecht_, I., 495-502, gives an interesting
description of the influence of French methods upon the English system
of keeping public accounts, including the introduction of double-entry
bookkeeping.
[122:1] Fifteen or sixteen relate to the Navy; as many more to the Army;
something over one hundred to the various branches of the civil service,
grouped into seven classes; and five to the revenue departments.
[122:2] 29-30 Vic., c. 39, Sec. 27, and see Todd, II., 53-67.
[123:1] For the history of this matter, see Todd, II., 31-42.
[123:2] See, for a history of the question, Todd, II., 27-43, 543-45,
and for recent collections of evidence the 2d and 3d Reps. of Com. on
Civil Serv. Exp., Com. Papers, 1873, VII., 391, 415; 2d Rep. of Com. on
Civil Estabs., Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1; Rep. of Com. on War Office
Organisation, Com. Papers, 1901, XL., 179; Reps. of Com. on Nat.
Expenditure, Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15; 1903, VII., 483.
[123:3] Rep. of Com. on Civil Estab., Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1,
Evid. of Sir R. E. Welby, Perm. Sec. of Treas., Qs. 10704-9, 10713,
10721-26, 10766.
[124:1] This was true, for example, of the Act creating the Board of
Agriculture (52-53, Vic., c. 30, Sec. 5).
[124:2] For clerks of the second division by Order in Council, March 21,
1890, Secs. 3-6, Com. Papers, 1890, LVIII., 167. Positions of higher
grade are regulated "by the heads of the departments to which they
belong, subject to approval by the Commissioners of the Treasury;" Order
in Council, Feb. 12, 1876, Sec. 3, Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, p. 571;
but no vacancies in these positions can be filled or new appointments
made until the Treasury is satisfied that the number of officers in the
department with salaries higher than those of the second division will
not be excessive; Order in Council, Nov. 29, 1898, Sec. 4, following
Order of Feb. 12, 1876, Sec. 4. The evidence before the Committees of
1873 and 1888 was, however, conclusive on the impotence of the Treasury
in forcing reductions, whatever its actual power might be in preventing
an increase of establishment.
[124:3] _Cf._ 3d Rep. Com. on Civil Serv. Exp., Com. Papers, 1873, VII.,
415, Qs. 474, 4902-03; 2d Rep., Com. on Civil Estabs., Com. Papers,
1888, XXVII., 1, pp. xi, xii, and Qs. 10957, 14090-91, 14918-20, 18088;
Rep. Com. on Nat. Exp., Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, Q. 1429.
[124:4] Rep. Com. on Nat. Exp., Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, Q. 1425.
[125:1] Rep. of Com. on War Office Org., Com. Papers, 1901, XL., 179,
Qs. 3038-41. An excess on the subheads for food and forage, for example,
would be met as a matter of course by a saving on fuel or rents.
_Ibid._, p. 425.
[125:2] Memoranda on Treasury control by F. T. Marzials, Accountant
General of the Army, _Ibid._, pp. 424-26; and by Robert Chalmers, Rep.
Com. on Nat. Exp., Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, App. 3.
[125:3] The control of the Treasury over expenditure connected with the
courts is less than it is in the case of other branches of the civil
service; but the salaries of the clerks are fixed as a rule by an
understanding between the judges and the Treasury. 2d Rep. Com. on Civil
Serv. Exp., Com. Papers, 1873, VII., 391, pp. vi-viii.
[126:1] Rep. Com. on Civil Estabs., Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs.
18076, 18088, 19150, 19165, 19171-75, 19178-82. As Lord Farrer, formerly
permanent under-secretary of the Board of Trade, expressed it, "We can
cheat them in big things; they may bully us in little things." _Ibid._,
Q. 20,021.
[126:2] Rep. of Com. on War Office Org., Com. Papers, 1901, XL., 179, p.
8; Rep. of Com. on War in South Africa, Com. Papers, 1904, XL., 1, p.
143.
[126:3] _Cf._ Sir R. E. Welby, Rep. Com. on Civil Estabs., Com. Papers,
1888, XXVII., 1, Qs. 20382-83.
[126:4] The real sanction of the control of the Treasury lies in the
support it is almost certain to receive from the Committee on Accounts
of the House of Commons. In 1901, for example, in a case where the War
Office, without exceeding its total vote, but before seeking the
approval of the Treasury, paid to a contractor an addition of 1000_l._
upon a contract for which no item appeared in the votes of the year, the
Committee of Accounts remarked, "Your Committee deprecate in the
strongest manner any diversion of Parliamentary funds without Treasury
sanction." 3d Rep. Com. of Pub. Accounts, Com. Papers, 1901, V., 13, pp.
iv-v.
[126:5] Public Accounts and Charges Act, 54-55 Vic., c. 24, Sec. 2 (3).
[127:1] Todd, II., 545.
[128:1] The organisation of all these offices, and their relation to the
Treasury, has been described at great length in Gneist, _Das Englische
Verwaltungsrecht_, 3 Auf., Buch III., Kap. 4.
The office of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues collects the revenue from
the Crown lands, except those belonging to the Duchies of Lancaster and
Cornwall, the revenues from these last never having been surrendered to
the nation, and being still enjoyed by the King and the Prince of Wales
respectively. It collects also some other bits of hereditary revenue;
but the total amount of its receipts is small, and the commissioners are
only two in number. The Customs Establishment, which collects all duties
on imports and exports, is managed by a chairman, a deputy chairman and
one other commissioner; and, finally, the Inland Revenue Office, which
collects the excises, and all the other national taxes, is a huge
concern, and has at its head a chairman, deputy chairman and two other
commissioners. This department was formed by uniting the boards of
Excise, of Taxes and of Stamps; and it has been suggested that the
departments of Customs and of Inland Revenue should be combined, but
that has been thought inadvisable. (_Cf._ 3d Rep. Com. on Civil Estabs.,
Com. Papers, 1889, XXI., 1.)
[129:1] The Chancellor of the Exchequer is also _ex officio_ Master of
the Mint.
[129:2] The Ecclesiastical Commission manages the episcopal estates and
other church property, using the revenues to pay the income of the
bishops, and to promote the work of the Established Church in poor and
populous places. It is not connected with any department of the
government, and in fact is rather an institution belonging to the Church
than a branch of the public service. The commissioners include all the
bishops, several cabinet ministers, and a number of other laymen, of
whom a couple sit in Parliament.
The Charity Commission, a body possessing semi-judicial powers in the
regulation of charitable trusts, occupies a position more like that of
an administrative department. Of the four commissioners one is unpaid,
and represents the body in Parliament.
These two commissions are, therefore, in the anomalous position of
having been deliberately provided with spokesmen in Parliament, who are
not responsible ministers of the Crown. The British Museum, the National
Gallery, and the National Portrait Gallery are in this respect in the
same situation.
CHAPTER VI
MISCELLANEOUS OFFICES
[Sidenote: The Government and the Administration of Law.]
There is in England no single officer corresponding to the minister of
justice, or attorney general, in other countries, some of the duties
performed by them elsewhere being divided in England among a number of
authorities, while others are not performed at all. The principal
officers who fill this important gap are the Lord Chancellor, the Law
Officers of the Crown, and the Director of Public Prosecutions.
[Sidenote: The Lord Chancellor.]
The greatest political dignitary in the British government, the one
endowed by law with the most exalted and most diverse functions, the
only great officer of state who has retained his ancient rights, the man
who defies the doctrine of the separation of powers more than any other
personage on earth, is the Lord Chancellor. Apart from his duties as a
judge, as the presiding officer of the House of Lords, and as a member
of the cabinet, all of which have been or will be described in other
places, he has many powers of a miscellaneous character connected for
the most part with the administration of the law.[131:1] He is, for
example, at the head of the Crown Office in Chancery. This, as the place
where the Great Seal is affixed, is legally and formally, although not
politically, important. The Commissioners in Lunacy, also, report to
him. The regulations relating to public prosecutions require his
approval, and the control of the Land Registry Office devolves mainly
upon him. Almost all the judicial patronage, moreover, is in his hands,
for he is consulted about the highest posts, the selection of the puisne
judges of the High Court is made on his recommendation, and he appoints
and removes the county court judges and justices of the peace.[132:1]
Although the Lord Chancellor is a party leader, and is at once an active
member of the legislative, the executive and the judicial branches of
the government, the evils that might be supposed to result from such a
combination of powers in the same hands do not in fact appear. He might,
indeed, when sitting in the Judicial Committee, or in the House of
Lords, be called upon to construe a statute which he had a share in
enacting, but this does no great harm. The really serious matter is a
confusion of the executive and judicial powers, the sitting in judgment
by a political officer upon a question on which he has acted, or which
may affect his future action, in an administrative capacity. But since
the Chancellor never holds court alone at the present day, such a
question could come before him only in the Court of Appeal, the House of
Lords, or the Judicial Committee, where he sits with other judges, who
have no connection with the ministry. Moreover, the Chancellor, although
the legal member of the cabinet, is not its sole, nor indeed its
official, legal adviser; and the government would never think of acting
upon any doubtful point of law without obtaining the opinion of the Law
Officers of the Crown. These gentlemen hold no judicial position; and
curiously enough, while a part of the ministry, are never in the
cabinet.
[Sidenote: The Law Officers of the Crown.]
The principal Law Officers of the Crown are the Attorney General, and
the Solicitor General, who is his colleague and substitute.[133:1]
Their opinion on questions of law may be asked by the government, and by
any department, although many of the departments are provided with
permanent legal counsel of their own whose advice is sufficient for all
ordinary matters. The Attorney and Solicitor General conduct personally
a few prosecutions of unusual importance, file criminal informations,
and appear in cases where the rights of the Crown are involved, or where
their intervention is necessary to protect charitable endowments. They
defend in Parliament the legality of the government's action, and
explain incomprehensible legal points in its measures. While they are no
longer permitted to engage in private practice, their salaries and fees
are so large[133:2] that these posts are among the great political
prizes for lawyers who have made their mark in the warfare of the House
of Commons,[133:3] prizes the greater because, in addition to the direct
emoluments, they confer a presumptive claim to the very highest places
on the bench that may become vacant while the party is in power.
[Sidenote: Public Prosecutions in England.]
It has been observed that the Law Officers of the Crown conduct in
person only a few criminal cases of unusual importance. In other
countries the prosecution of offenders is the affair of the state, and
is conducted in all the courts great and small by public officers. This
is true in Scotland also, where the matter is in the hands of a body of
officers, known as procurators fiscal, with the Lord Advocate at their
head; and even in Ireland a similar system has developed informally by
the employment of crown counsel acting under the control of the Attorney
General for that kingdom. But in England criminal prosecutions in the
vast majority of cases are still, in theory at least, conducted by
private persons.[134:1] Any one, whether a person injured or not, may
prosecute the offender.[134:2] As a rule the examining magistrate, after
committing the accused for trial, binds some one over to
prosecute--either the complainant, the person injured, a policeman, the
magistrate's own clerk, or a solicitor employed for the purpose. The
case is usually conducted by the solicitor to the local magistrate, but
the person bound over may employ his own counsel to take charge of it.
The costs of the trial are, however, at the present day, allowed by the
court, and paid out of the national treasury, under regulations made by
the Home Secretary.
[Sidenote: The Director of Public Prosecutions.]
It has always been the habit for the Attorney General to conduct great
state trials, cases, for example, of high treason; and it gradually came
to be the practice for the legal officers attached to the different
departments to prosecute in certain other cases, such as offences
against the coinage. But about the middle of the last century there
arose a demand for a general system of state prosecutions under the
charge of a ministry of justice.[134:3] This movement culminated, or
evaporated, in the Acts of 1879 and 1884,[134:4] whereby the Solicitor
to the Treasury, who is the permanent legal adviser of that department,
and is also charged with a number of other duties of a legal nature, has
been made the Director of Public Prosecutions. The regulations governing
his actions in this capacity are made by the Attorney General with the
approval of the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary. They provide in
substance[134:5] that he shall prosecute in all capital cases, in
offences against the coinage, cases of fraudulent bankruptcy, cases
where he is directed to do so by the Attorney General or the Home
Secretary, and cases where such action appears to him necessary in the
public interest. He may employ counsel to conduct both the cases that he
brings, and any other criminal proceedings before the high courts where
no counsel has been retained; and he may also assist a private
prosecutor by authorising special expenses for evidence or counsel. It
is his duty to give advice to the clerks of justices of the peace, and
to police officers; and, finally, he is in all these matters subject to
the control of the Attorney General.
The Director of Public Prosecutions makes to Parliament an annual report
of his doings, enlivened by narratives of the most interesting cases.
But in spite of his activity the vast bulk of the prosecutions are
conducted as of old under private direction; for out of the many
thousands of criminal cases tried every year, only from three hundred
and fifty to five hundred are in his charge, and the number shows no
marked tendency to increase.
Enough has been said to justify the statement that no single officer
exercises any considerable part of the functions of a minister of
justice. Such duties are not only divided among a number of persons, but
scattered in small fragments among different departments. An
illustration of this is furnished by the Return of Public Prosecutions,
which is submitted to Parliament by the Home Secretary, and bears his
signature on the first page; while the return itself is signed by the
Director of Public Prosecutions, and dated from the Treasury. Gneist, in
his work on the English administrative system, portrays the Lord
Chancellor as the minister of justice for civil, and the Home Secretary
for criminal, matters,[135:1] but such a generalisation is overstrained
and misleading, and it is safer to assert that when the English bring
confusion into any administrative department they usually succeed in
confounding utterly all general principles, and making all general
statements inaccurate.
[Sidenote: The Church.]
If there is no minister of justice in England, still less is there a
minister of religion such as is commonly found in countries that possess
established churches. The government of the Church of England will be
treated in another chapter, and it is only necessary here to point out
that although a strictly national institution, often deeply involved in
political controversy, the Church is in many ways singularly free from
the control of the executive government. It is, no doubt, regulated by
laws that cannot be altered without the authority of Parliament. Its
organisation, its ritual, and its articles of faith can be changed only
by statute. But in administrative affairs its dependence upon the state
is very much less. The King is, indeed, its supreme head; he virtually
appoints the bishops and other high dignitaries, and his assent is
necessary to the exercise of their limited powers by the Convocations of
the two provinces.[136:1] Beyond this, however, the Crown does not
interfere in the government of the Church, or the discipline of its
members, which are left under the charge of its own officers.
Proceedings against a clergyman for doctrinal errors or violation of the
ritual can be taken only with the consent of the bishop, the government
having no part in it; and although the Crown appoints a portion of the
members of the Ecclesiastical Commission, which manages much of the
Church property, the bishops form a large majority of the body, and the
commission itself is not subordinate to any minister of state. The only
control, therefore, exercised by the cabinet upon the administration of
the Church is to be found in the restraint upon Convocation, and in the
fact that the responsibility for the selection of high ecclesiastics
rests with the Prime Minister, who, curiously enough, is not
necessarily, and in the last two cabinets actually has not been, a
member of the Church of England. The Prime Minister also nominates the
incumbents of a number of large livings, while the Lord Chancellor
presents to several hundred others that happen to lie in the gift of
the Crown.[137:1] Except for these things no minister is responsible for
the conduct of the Church or of its members.
The connection between Church and State in England is thus a peculiar
one. In some ways the relation is very close, but it is rather
legislative and judicial than administrative. The Church is minutely
regulated by state laws, the judge of its principal tribunal must be
confirmed by the Crown, and appeals lie to a secular court;[137:2] but
it lives upon its own revenues without any grant from Parliament, and
although its highest officers are appointed by the state, and sit in the
upper House of Parliament, yet once appointed, they, like all the rest
of the clergy, are practically free from the supervision and control of
the executive government.
[Sidenote: Scotland.]
These are all the public offices in the English government that it is
necessary to mention. A description of the peculiar institutions of
Scotland and Ireland is not within the scope of this book, except so far
as they affect the central government. Until twenty years ago the
connection of the government with matters relating exclusively to
Scotland was maintained chiefly through the Home Office, but the Lord
Advocate was virtually the parliamentary under-secretary for Scotch
business, and took entire charge of it, unless his chief was a
Scotchman, and cared to assert himself. In 1885 a Secretary for Scotland
was created, one might perhaps say revived, and to him were intrusted
for that kingdom duties corresponding to those discharged in England by
the Home Office, the Local Government Board and the Board of Education.
In fact he may be said to be the general representative for Scotch
purposes of all the various civil departments of state; and in
particular he is at the head of the Scotch Local Government Board and
the Scotch Education Department. He is not one of the secretaries of
state and receives a much smaller salary than they do, but he is a
member of the ministry, usually, though not invariably, with a seat in
the cabinet, and he is always a member of one or the other House of
Parliament.
The contrast between the relations of England to Scotland and to Ireland
is striking. By the Act of Union of 1707 England and Scotland became one
state, with a common Parliament and a common executive government, but
political differences have not been obliterated. The Act of Union
preserved the ecclesiastical and legal institutions of Scotland; and at
the present day she has her own established church, which is
Presbyterian; her own system of education, which is quite different from
the English; and her own system of law, based upon the Civil not the
Common Law, and adorned by a nomenclature so disfigured as to pass for
her own. With such differences as these it has been not uncommon for
Parliament, even where the same legislative principles were to be
applied on both sides of the Tweed, to enact them in separate statutes,
each adapted to the institutions of the country in which it is to
operate. Socially, also, the fusion has not been complete. Every
Scotchman is an Englishman, but an Englishman is not a Scotchman. The
Scotch regard themselves as an elect race who are entitled to all the
rights of Englishmen and to their own privileges besides. All English
offices ought to be open to them, but Scotch posts are the natural
heritage of the Scots. They take part freely in the debates on
legislation affecting England alone, but in their opinion acts confined
to Scotland ought to be, and in fact they are in the main, governed by
the opinion of the Scotch members. Such a condition is due partly to the
fact that Scotch institutions and ideas are sufficiently distinct from
those of England to require separate treatment, and not different enough
to excite repugnance. It is due in part also to the fact that the
Scotch are both a homogeneous and a practical people, so that all
classes can unite in common opinions about religion, politics and social
justice. The result is that Scotland is governed by Scotchmen in
accordance with Scotch ideas, while Ireland has been governed by
Englishmen, and until recently, in accordance with English ideas.
[Sidenote: Ireland.]
The Act of Union with Ireland in 1801 abolished the Irish Parliament,
and vested the whole legislative power for the United Kingdom in the
joint Parliament at Westminster; but the executive government for
Ireland was left at Dublin. It is conducted in the name of the Lord
Lieutenant as the representative of the Crown.[139:1] The work is
nominally done by him in his Privy Council, subject to such instructions
as may be sent to him by the English government through the Home
Secretary. In practice, however, matters have worked out very
differently, for the administration of Ireland has been far too
important to rest under the wing of the Home Office. The Lord Lieutenant
is always a great nobleman, and he is expected to keep up a vice-regal
state, sometimes at an expense exceeding his enormous salary of
20,000_l._ a year; but he is not ordinarily the real head of the Irish
Office. Since 1868 he has been a member of the cabinet less than eleven
years, whereas his Chief Secretary has been in the cabinet during the
whole of that period, except from 1882 to 1885, and for three other
intervals that were very brief. Moreover, the Chief Secretary is always
a member of the House of Commons, where he must defend the
administration of Ireland against the attacks of the Irish members, and
often of the English Opposition also. Thus it has come about that the
Chief Secretary habitually plays the part of minister for Ireland, and
is practically the ruler of the country. He is at the head of the Irish
Local Government Board, Congested Districts Board and Department of
Agriculture and Technical Instruction, and in general he is held
responsible for all administration of a political character, except in
the case of the revenue and the Irish Board of Works, which are under
the direct control of the Treasury.[140:1] He possesses, indeed, not
only the authority vested in a number of ministers in England, but also
powers not conferred upon them at all. During the greater part of the
time since the Union in 1801, Ireland has been subject to a long series
of coercion acts, temporary in duration, but renewed at short intervals
under different names.[140:2] The provisions have varied, but the object
has always been to arm the Irish government with extraordinary and
arbitrary powers for the suppression of disorder. Moreover, the police
of Ireland, instead of being, as in England and Scotland, under the
control of the local authorities, is under the direct orders of Dublin
Castle. This force, the Royal Irish Constabulary, contains over twelve
thousand men, a number twice as large in proportion to the population as
that of the police in Great Britain.
[Sidenote: Causes of Misgovernment.]
The administration of Ireland has been the conspicuous failure of the
English government. Its history for a century has been a long tale of
expedients, palliations and concessions, which have never availed to
secure either permanent good order or the contentment and loyalty of the
inhabitants. Each step has been taken, not of foresight, but under
pressure. The repressive measures have been avowedly temporary, devised
to meet an emergency, not part of a permanent policy; while concessions,
which if granted earlier might have had more effect, have only come when
attention to the matter has been compelled by signs of widespread and
grievous discontent. Catholic emancipation was virtually won by the
Clare election; disestablishment of the Anglican Church was hastened by
the Fenian movement; the Home Rule Bill followed the growth of the Irish
parliamentary party, culminating in Parnell's hold upon the balance of
power in the House of Commons; and the land laws have resulted from
agrarian agitation. It has been said that the same thing is true of
English reforms, that Parliament seldom gives redress until a wrong has
been brought forcibly to its notice, and this is no doubt a natural if
not an inevitable result of the parliamentary form of government. It is
a part of the general tendency to treat symptoms rather than causes, to
which we shall have occasion to refer again. But while Parliament, now
that all classes are represented there, is certain to be made aware of
an English grievance long before it has become intolerable, it is by no
means so keenly sensitive to an Irish one. The fact is that Irish
problems lie beyond the experience of the English member and his
constituents. Being unable to distinguish readily a real grievance from
an unreasonable demand, he does not heed it until he is obliged to; and
the cabinet, with its hands already full, is not inclined to burn its
fingers with matters in which the House is not deeply or generally
interested. All this is merely one of many illustrations of the truth
that parliamentary government can work well only so far as the nation
itself is fairly homogeneous in its political aspirations.
[Sidenote: Difficulty of the Problem.]
But if the parliamentary system has proved an instrument ill-fitted for
ruling Ireland, it is also true that the problem has been one of extreme
difficulty. English statesmen might have repeated what Lord Durham said
of Canada in his famous report: "I expected to find a contest between a
government and a people. I found two nations warring in the bosom of a
single state."[141:1] For centuries Ireland has remained a conquered
land without a thorough fusion of the victors and the vanquished; the
native stock has been subjected without being assimilated, and the
difference of race has been intensified by a difference of creed. The
Celt still looks upon his Saxon landlord, and upon the Orangemen in
Ulster, as aliens, and upon the constabulary as the garrison of a
foreign power. This has not only made the management of Ireland an
exceedingly hard thing for an English government to carry on, but it
also stands in the way of any other solution of the problem. To allow
the Irish to govern themselves means putting the under dog on top and
the upper dog underneath. The difficulty has been further increased by a
deep-seated divergence in the conceptions of law and justice. Unlike
Scotland, Ireland has the English system of jurisprudence. Her courts
are modelled on those at Westminster, and administer the English Common
Law, while most of the statutes affecting civil rights are the same.
But, as men have often pointed out, there are in times of agitation two
laws, and two governments, in the country; on one side the English law,
administered by the English government through its officials, and on the
other a hostile system resting upon very different principles, and
applied by an extra-legal political organisation, but in fact more
vigorously enforced than the first, and often more in harmony with the
popular sense of justice.
[Sidenote: The Land Question.]
The divergence between the legal conceptions of the English and Irish is
most marked in the case of land. According to the ideas of Englishmen,
and of Irish landlords, the land belongs to the owner, and apart from
special statutory provisions, the tenant has only a contractual right of
possession, during the continuance, and subject to the terms, of his
contract. But the tenants feel that, subject to somewhat indefinite
duties towards the landlord in the way of rent, they have rights in the
land, of which their forbears were robbed, and which they have reclaimed
from the waste.[142:1] Such a difference is fundamental, and cannot be
adjusted to the satisfaction of both parties. People speak of the hunger
of the Irish for land, as if that were the cause of the difficulty, but
the Irishman has no general land-hunger. When he has emigrated to
America, instead of going, like the Swede, to the great open prairies
where any industrious man can easily own a farm, he has settled, like
the landless Hebrew, in the great cities. What the Irish want is Irish
land, and to this they think they have a right.
Various remedies for solving the relation of landlord and tenant have
been tried. First came the Act of 1860, which based that relation
strictly upon contract, though restraining to some extent its
enforcement by summary eviction. Ten years later the Act of 1870
proceeded upon quite a different principle, for it extended the Ulster
tenant-right over the whole country, giving to the tenant a salable
property in his holding. It granted, even to a tenant from year to year,
a claim against his landlord for disturbance; and it conferred a right
to compensation for past as well as future improvements. But these
provisions did not set the questions at rest. Later followed in 1881 the
judicial reduction of rents,--the fixing by public authority of fair
rents as they were called. But here trouble arose on both sides. If the
landlord's views were right, and the land belonged absolutely to him, it
was clearly unjust to deprive him of its market value in rent, and he
was entitled to feel that the government was giving away his property to
smooth its own political difficulties.[143:1] On the other hand, the
fair rents did not end the matter for the tenant. The English, deeply
impressed with the sanctity of contract, meant the new rents to be paid
as rents are paid in England; but the Irishman, living in what might
almost be called a world of status, and brought up under a system of
rack rent, had far less respect for contract, and regarded rents as
things to be paid approximately rather than exactly. The result was more
friction, and a further judicial reduction in 1887. Finally, after a
series of land-purchase acts designed to promote peasant proprietorship,
but too limited in scope to affect general social conditions, had been
tried, a number of landlords and some of the Irish leaders held a
conference in 1902, and virtually agreed that as both parties claimed
rights in the land, the government should pay the landlord for it and
transfer it to the tenant, an arrangement the more easy because by that
time the landlords' interest had fallen greatly in value. The government
undertook to carry out the plan by the Land Purchase Act of 1903, making
not indeed an immediate gift, but a loan of its credit, and charging the
tenant a low rent which is expected eventually to repay the advance, and
leave him the owner of the land.[144:1] Since that time the purchase and
distribution of estates, under the act, has been going on, but the
process naturally takes time, and as might be expected, it has been far
more rapid in the prosperous than in the poor parts of the country. One
may hope that by this means the land question will in time be solved,
but he must have a blind faith who believes that with it the Irish
question will disappear.
A crude outline of the land legislation has been given simply to show
the enormous difficulty of governing a country where the legal
conceptions of rulers and ruled are irreconcilable, and yet that is
precisely the kind of obstacle that arises at every step in the Irish
problem.
FOOTNOTES:
[131:1] He has some powers that have no relation to the law, such as the
appointment to a large number of Crown livings; and in this connection
it may be noted that the offices of Lord Chancellor of Great Britain and
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland are the only ones that cannot be held by
Roman Catholics. The subject is not free from doubt. See Anson, II.,
158, and the debate in 1891, Hans., 3 Ser. CCCXLIX., 1733 _et seq._ On
that occasion the House of Commons refused to remove any disability that
might exist.
[132:1] The list of justices of the peace for each county is in practice
drawn up by the Lord Lieutenant, except in Lancashire, where it is made
by the Chancellor of the Duchy, and that list is almost always adopted
by the Lord Chancellor. No little controversy has, however, arisen of
late over this subject.
[133:1] There are also a Lord Advocate and a Solicitor General for
Scotland, and an Attorney General and a Solicitor General for Ireland.
[133:2] The salary of the Attorney General is 7000_l._; that of the
Solicitor General 6000_l._; and the fees in each case amount to about
1000_l._ more.
[133:3] The Solicitor General for Scotland, and the Attorney and
Solicitor General for Ireland, although political officers who change
with the ministry, are not always in Parliament.
[134:1] See the excellent chapter on prosecution in Maitland's "Justice
and Police."
[134:2] The prosecution is, however, in the name of the King, and the
Attorney General can put a stop to it by _nolle prosequi_ if he
considers it vexatious.
[134:3] In an article in the _Fortnightly Review_ for March, 1873,
entitled, "The Organisation of a Legal Department of Government," Mr.
Bryce showed the need, and sketched the outline, for such a ministry.
[134:4] 42-43 Vic., c. 22; 47-48 Vic., c. 58.
[134:5] Com. Papers, 1886, LIII., 321.
[135:1] _Englische Verwaltungsrecht_, II., 1022-26.
[136:1] Without action by Parliament these extend only to the making of
canons binding on the clergy.
[137:1] All Crown livings with less than 20_l._ of yearly revenue are in
the gift of the Lord Chancellor, Hans., 3 Ser. CLXIX., 1919, and so are
many livings of considerable size. Hans., 3 Ser. CLXX., 131. The
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster nominates to Crown livings
belonging to the Duchy, and the Home Secretary to those in the Channel
Islands and the Isle of Man. Hans., 3 Ser. CCCXLIX., 1745-46.
[137:2] The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
[139:1] The provisions of the Test Act still apply to this office, so
that the Lord Lieutenant must necessarily be of a faith different from
that of the large majority of the people he is appointed to rule.
[140:1] Public non-technical education is directed by the Commissioners
of Irish National Education, and the Board of Intermediate Education.
These boards are not political, but the members, who must be partly
Protestant and partly Roman Catholic, are appointed by the Lord
Lieutenant, and the Chief Secretary has a certain measure of control
over them.
[140:2] The last of them, the Crimes Act of 1887, is a permanent
statute, but its provisions come into force only on a proclamation by
the Lord Lieutenant, which is revocable at any time.
[141:1] Com. Papers, 1839, XVII., 1, p. 8.
[142:1] The fact that improvements have been generally made by the
landlord in England, and by the tenant in Ireland, has much to do with
this feeling.
[143:1] The case for the landlords has been very strongly stated by Mr.
Lecky in his "Democracy and Liberty," I., 167-212.
[144:1] 3 Edw. VII., c. 37. The Act of 1903 was hailed with joy, but the
Irish members soon complained of its administration, and on July 20,
1905, they moved successfully to reduce by 100_l._ the appropriation for
the Land Commission as an expression of dissatisfaction. Hans., Ser.
CXLIX., 1409-86.
CHAPTER VII
THE PERMANENT CIVIL SERVICE
[Sidenote: Sharp Distinction between Political and Non-Political
Officials.]
The history of the permanent civil service would be one of the most
instructive chapters in the long story of English constitutional
development, but unfortunately it has never been written. The nation has
been saved from a bureaucracy, such as prevails over the greater part of
Europe, on the one hand, and from the American spoils system on the
other, by the sharp distinction between political and non-political
officials. The former are trained in Parliament, not in administrative
routine. They direct the general policy of the government, or at least
they have the power to direct it, are entirely responsible for it, and
go out of office with the cabinet; while the non-political officials
remain at their posts without regard to party changes, are thoroughly
familiar with the whole field of administration, and carry out in detail
the policy adopted by the ministry of the day. The distinction has
arisen gradually with the growth of the parliamentary system.
[Sidenote: Exclusion of Non-Political Officials from Parliament.]
A dread of the power of the King to control Parliament, by a
distribution of offices and pensions among its members, gave rise to a
provision, in the Act of Settlement of 1700, that after the accession of
the House of Hanover no person holding an office or place of profit
under the Crown should be capable of sitting in the House of
Commons.[145:1] But before this act took effect the disadvantages of
excluding entirely from the House the great officers of state was
perceived. The provision was, therefore, modified so as to shut out
absolutely only the holders of new offices created after Oct. 25, 1705,
and of certain specified posts already existing. Members of the House of
Commons appointed to other offices were to lose their seats, but be
capable of reelection.[146:1] As there were many old offices the number
of placemen in Parliament continued large, and no sharp line was drawn
at once between the great officers of state and their subordinates. But
two processes went on which in time rendered the distinction effective.
When a new office of a political nature was created it became the habit
to make a special statutory provision permitting the holder to sit in
the House of Commons; and, on the other hand, place bills were passed
from time to time excluding from Parliament whole classes of officials
of a lower grade. These acts apply, for example, to all the clerks in
many of the government departments,[146:2] and together with the
provision excluding the holders of all new offices created since 1705,
they cover a large part of all the officials under the rank of
minister.[146:3] The distinction between the offices which are and those
which are not compatible with a seat in the House of Commons, is made
complete by the regulations of the service itself. These cannot render
void an election to the House which is not invalid by statute. They
cannot make the holding of office a disqualification for Parliament, but
they can make a seat in Parliament a reason for the loss of office. They
can and do provide that if any civil servant intends to be a candidate
he must resign his office when he first issues his address to the
electors.[146:4]
If it were not for three or four ministers, such as the Irish Law
Officers, who are expected to get themselves elected to Parliament if
they can, but whose tenure of their positions does not depend upon their
doing so, one might say that the public service is divided into
political officers who must sit in Parliament, and non-political
officers who must not.
[Sidenote: Permanent Officials take no Active Part in Politics.]
[Sidenote: But are not Disfranchised]
In a popular government, based upon party, the exclusion of the
subordinate civil servants from the legislature is an essential
condition both of their abstaining from active politics and of their
permanence of tenure. But it does not by itself necessarily involve
either of those results. This is clear from the example of the United
States, where office-holders of all grades are excluded from Congress by
the provisions of the Constitution, but by no means refrain from party
warfare. The keeping out of politics, however, and the permanence of
tenure must, in the long run, go together; for it is manifest that
office can be held regardless of party changes only in case the holders
do not take an active part in bringing those changes to pass; and if, on
the other hand, they are doomed to lose their places on a defeat at the
polls of the party in power, they will certainly do their utmost to
avert such a defeat. In England the abstinence and the permanence have
been attained, and it is noteworthy that they are both secured by the
force of opinion hardening into tradition, and not by the sanction of
law.[147:1] At one time, indeed, large classes of public servants were
deprived of the parliamentary franchise. An Act of 1782, for
example,[147:2] withdrew the right to vote from officers employed in
collecting excises, customs and other duties, and from postmasters; but
these disqualifications were removed in 1868.[147:3] The police, also,
were, by a series of acts, deprived of the franchise in the
constituencies where they held office. Except as regards Ireland,
however, these statutes were, in their turn, repealed in 1887;[148:1]
and the only disqualifications now attaching to public officials relate
to such positions as those of returning officers at elections.[148:2]
England enfranchised her officials at the very time when she was
enlarging the suffrage and the number of office-holders. In some other
countries the political danger of a large class of government employees
has been keenly felt. This has been particularly true of the new
democracies in Australia with their armies of public servants on the
state railroads; and, indeed, the pressure constantly brought to bear in
the legislature in favour of this class caused Victoria in 1903 to
readjust her election laws.[148:3] The employees of the government have
not been disfranchised altogether, but they have been deprived of the
right to vote in the regular constituencies, and have been allotted one
representative in the legislative council and two in the assembly to be
elected entirely by their own class. They have, therefore, their
spokesmen in the legislature, but they are no longer able to influence
the other members as of old.
[Sidenote: Effect of Giving them Votes.]
In England these dangers are by no means unknown; but they have not
taken the form of work done by civil servants for purely party ends.
From that evil the country has been almost wholly free; for although all
office-holders, not directly connected with the conduct of elections,
have now a legal right to vote, and are quite at liberty to do so, it is
a well-settled principle that those who are non-political--that is, all
who are not ministers--must not be active in party politics. They must
not, for example, work in a party organisation, serve on the committee
of a candidate for Parliament, canvass in his interest, or make speeches
on general politics. All this is so thoroughly recognised that one
rarely hears complaints of irregular conduct, or even of actions of a
doubtful propriety. In this connection it is worthy of note that the
revenue officers were disfranchised in 1782 at their own request. At
that time the government controlled through them seventy seats in the
House of Commons, and Lord North sent them notice that it would go hard
with them if they did not support his party. His opponents sent them a
similar warning, and the result was that in self-protection they sent up
a strong petition asking for exclusion from the franchise.[149:1] The
bill to reenfranchise them was carried in 1868 against the wishes of the
government of the day.[149:2] But on that occasion, and in 1874, when
the acts imposing penalties upon their taking an active part at
elections were repealed, it was perfectly well understood that they
would not be permitted to go into party politics, and that the
government was entitled to make regulations on the subject.[149:3] Those
regulations are still in force,[149:4] and it is only by maintaining
them that the civil servants can continue to enjoy both permanence of
tenure and the right to vote.
[Sidenote: Attempts to Improve their Position.]
[Sidenote: The Dockyards.]
The danger arising from the votes of public servants has been felt in a
different way. While the government employees have kept clear of party
politics, they have in some cases used their electoral rights to bring
pressure to bear upon members of Parliament in favour of increasing
their own pay and improving the conditions of their work. This has been
peculiarly true of the dockyards. The members of the half dozen boroughs
where the state maintains great shops for the construction and repair of
warships are always urging the interests of the workmen; and they do it
with so little regard to the national finances, or to the question
whether they are elected as supporters or opponents of the ministry,
that they have become a byword in Parliament under the name of
"dockyard-members."[149:5]
[Sidenote: Other Officials.]
Unfortunately the difficulty has not been confined to the dockyards. At
the time when the revenue and post-office employees were enfranchised,
Disraeli dreaded their use of the franchise for the purpose of raising
their salaries;[150:1] and Gladstone said he was not afraid of
government influence, or of an influence in favour of one political
party or another, but of class influence, "which in his opinion was the
great reproach of the Reformed Parliament."[150:2] These fears have not
proved groundless. As early as 1875 it was recognised that the salaries
paid by the government were above the market rate;[150:3] and ever since
the officials in the revenue and postal departments obtained the right
to vote, pressure on behalf of their interests has been brought to bear
by them upon members of Parliament, and by the latter upon the
government. Complaints of this have been constant.[150:4] It has been a
source of criticism that members should have attended meetings of civil
servants held to demand an increase of pay,[150:5] and that they should
receive whips urging their attendance at the House when questions of
this sort are to come up.[150:6] Owing to the concentration of
government employees in London the pressure upon the metropolitan
members is particularly severe.
[Sidenote: Recent Efforts of Postal Officials for More Pay.]
For nearly a score of years a continuous effort has been made in
Parliament to secure the appointment of a committee to inquire into the
pay of postal and telegraph employees, and into grievances which are
said to exist in the service. The government has in part yielded, in
part resisted; but in trying to prevent pressure upon members of
Parliament, it took at one time a step that furnished a fresh cause of
complaint. The story of this movement illustrates forcibly the dangers
of the situation. In 1892 the Postmaster General, Sir James Fergusson,
called the attention of the House of Commons to a circular addressed by
an association of telegraph clerks to candidates at the general
election, asking whether if elected they would vote for a committee to
inquire into the working of the service.[151:1] He then sent to the
clerks an official warning that it is improper for government employees
to try to extract promises from candidates with reference to their pay
or duties.[151:2] Nevertheless two of the clerks, Clery and Cheesman,
who had been chairman and secretary of the meeting which had voted to
issue the circular, signed a statement that the notice by the Postmaster
General "does not affect the policy of the Association." Immediately
after the election these two men were dismissed.[151:3] That became a
grievance in itself, and year after year attempts were made in
Parliament to have them reinstated. Shortly after they had been
dismissed Mr. Gladstone came into office; and he made a vague statement
to the effect that the government intended to place no restraint upon
the civil servants beyond the rule forbidding them to take an active
part in political contests.[151:4] But it would seem that Fergusson's
warning circular was not cancelled,[151:5] and certainly Clery and
Cheesman were not taken back.
[Sidenote: Demand for a Parliamentary Committee.]
[Sidenote: Pressure Brought to Bear.]
The motions for a parliamentary committee to inquire into the conditions
of the service were kept up; and in 1895 the government gave way so far
as to appoint a commission, composed mainly of officials drawn from
various departments, which reported in 1897 recommending some increases
of pay both in the postal and in the telegraph service. These were at
once adopted, and in fact further concessions were made shortly
afterward, but still the agitation did not cease. The employees would be
satisfied with nothing but a parliamentary committee, no doubt for the
same reason that led the government to refuse it, namely the pressure to
which members of Parliament were subject,[152:1] and the additional
force that pressure would have if brought to a focus upon the persons
selected to serve on a committee.[152:2] Year after year grievances on
one side, and on the other charges of almost intolerable pressure were
repeated. In 1898 the interest centred in a motion to the effect that
public servants in the Post Office were deprived of their political
rights. A long debate took place in which the whole history of the
subject was reviewed,[152:3] and Hanbury, the Financial Secretary of the
Treasury, exclaimed, "We have done away with personal and individual
bribery, but there is a still worse form of bribery, and that is when a
man asks a candidate to buy his vote out of the public purse."[152:4] In
1903 Mr. Austen Chamberlain stated that members had come to him, not
from one side of the House alone, to seek from him, in his position as
Postmaster General, protection in the discharge of their public duties
against the pressure sought to be put upon them by the employees of the
Post Office.[152:5] He consented, however, to appoint a commission of
business men to advise him about the wages of employees; but again there
was a protest against any committee of inquiry not composed of members
of Parliament.[152:6] The report of the commission was followed in 1904
by a debate of the usual character.[152:7] Finally in 1906 the new
Liberal ministry yielded, and a select committee was appointed.[152:8]
There are now employed in the postal and telegraph services about two
hundred thousand persons, who have votes enough, when organised, to be
an important factor at elections in many constituencies, and to turn the
scale in some of them. If their influence is exerted only to raise wages
in a service recruited by competitive examination,[153:1] the evil is
not of the first magnitude; but it is not difficult to perceive that
such a power might be used in directions highly detrimental to the
state. There is no reason to expect the pressure to grow less, and
mutterings are sometimes heard about the necessity of taking the
franchise away from government employees. That would be the only
effective remedy, and the time may not be far distant when it will have
to be considered seriously.
As we shall have occasion to see hereafter, the pressure in behalf of
individuals is comparatively small, and it is characteristic of modern
English parliamentary government that political influence should be used
to promote class rather than personal interests.
[Sidenote: Permanence of Tenure of Officials.]
Permanence of tenure in the English civil service, like the abstinence
from partly politics, is secured by custom, not by law, for the
officials with whom we are concerned here are appointed during pleasure,
and can legally be dismissed at any time for any cause. Now, although
the removal, for partisan motives, of officials who would be classed
to-day as permanent and non-political, has not been altogether unknown
in England, yet it was never a general practice. The reason that the
spoils system--that is, the wholesale discharge of officials on a change
of party--obtained no foothold is not to be found in any peculiarly
exalted sense, inherent in the British character, that every public
office is a sacred trust. That conception is of comparatively modern
origin; for in the eighteenth century the abuse of patronage, and even
the grosser forms of political corruption, were shamelessly practised.
It is rather to be sought in quite a different sentiment, the sentiment
that a man has a vested interest in the office that he holds. This
feeling is constantly giving rise, both in public and private affairs,
to a demand for the compensation of persons displaced or injured by a
change of methods which seems strange to a foreigner.[154:1] The claim
by publicans for compensation when their licenses are not renewed, a
claim recognised by the Act of 1904, is based upon the same sentiment
and causes the traveller to inquire how any one can, as the result of a
license ostensibly temporary, have a vested right to help other people
to get drunk.
The habit of discharging officials on party grounds never having become
established, it was not unnatural that with the growth of the
parliamentary system the line between the changing political chiefs and
their permanent subordinates should be more and more clearly marked, and
this process has gone on until at the present day the dismissal of the
latter on political grounds is practically unheard of, either in
national or local administration.
[Sidenote: Former Party Patronage.]
While the discharge of public servants on political grounds never became
a settled custom in England, such vacancies as occurred in the natural
course of events were freely used in former times to confer favours on
political and personal friends, or to reward party services. Such a
practice was regarded as obvious, and it continued unchecked until after
the first Reform Act. It was particularly bad in Ireland, where Peel,
who was Chief Secretary from 1812 to 1818, took great credit to himself
for breaking up the habit of treating the Irish patronage as the
perquisite of the leading families, and for dispensing it on public
grounds, that is, using it to secure political support for the party in
power.[155:1] That the patronage was used for the same purpose in
England at that period may be seen in the reports and evidence laid
before Parliament in 1855, 1860 and 1873 after a different system had
begun to take its place.[155:2] It was no doubt an effective means of
procuring political service, and Lord John Russell speaks of the Tories
in 1819 as apparently invincible from long possession of government
patronage, spreading over the Church, the Law, the Army, the Navy, and
the colonies.[155:3] The support most needed by the ministry was that of
members of the House of Commons, and they received in return places for
constituents who had been, or might become, influential at elections.
Thus it came about that the greater part of the appointments, especially
to local offices, were made through the members of Parliament.[155:4]
The system hampered the efficiency of administration, and harassed the
ministers. Writing in 1829, the Duke of Wellington used words that might
have been applied to other countries at a later time,--"The whole system
of the patronage of the government," he wrote, "is in my opinion
erroneous. Certain members claim a right to dispose of everything that
falls vacant within the town or county which they represent; and this is
so much a matter of right that they now claim the patronage whether they
support upon every occasion, or now and then, or when not required, or
entirely oppose; and in fact the only question about local patronage is
whether it shall be given to the disposal of one gentleman or
another."[156:1]
[Sidenote: The Introduction of Examinations.]
At last a revulsion of feeling took place. Between 1834 and 1841 pass
examinations, which discarded utterly incompetent candidates, were
established in some of the departments, and in several cases even
competitive examinations were introduced. But the great impulse toward a
new method of appointment dates from 1853, and it came from two
different quarters. In that year the charter of the East India Company
was renewed, and Parliament was not disposed to continue the privilege
hitherto enjoyed by the directors of making appointments to
Haileybury--the preparatory school for the civil service in India. A
commission, with Macaulay at its head, reported in the following year
that appointments to the Indian service ought to be made on the basis of
an open competitive examination of a scholastic character. The plan was
at once adopted, Haileybury was abandoned, and with some changes in
detail, the system of examination recommended by the commission has been
in operation ever since.[156:2]
[Sidenote: Open Competition.]
In 1853, also, Sir Stafford Northcote and Sir Charles Trevelyan, who
were selected by Mr. Gladstone to inquire into the condition of the
civil service in England, reported in favour of a system of appointment
by open competitive examination. The new method met with far more
opposition at home than in India, and made its way much more slowly.
Foreseeing obstacles in the House of Commons, Lord Palmerston's
government determined to proceed, not by legislation, but by executive
order, resorting to Parliament only for the necessary appropriation. An
Order in Council was accordingly made on May 21, 1855,[156:3] creating a
body of three Civil Service Commissioners,[156:4] who were to examine
all candidates for the junior positions in the various departments of
the civil service. The reform was not at the outset very radical, for
political nomination was not abolished, and the examinations--not
necessarily competitive--were to be arranged in accordance with the
desires of the heads of the different departments. The change could
progress, therefore, only so fast as the ministers in charge of the
various state offices might be convinced of its value; but from this
time the new method gained favour steadily with high administrative
officials, with Parliament and with the public. In 1859[157:1] it was
enacted that (except for appointments made directly by the Crown, and
posts where professional or other peculiar qualifications were required)
no person thereafter appointed should, for the purpose of superannuation
pensions, be deemed to have served in the permanent civil service of the
state unless admitted with a certificate from the Civil Service
Commissioners. In 1860 a parliamentary committee reported that limited
competition ought to supersede mere pass examinations, and that open
competition, which does away entirely with the privilege of nomination,
was better than either.[157:2] The committee, however, did not think the
time ripe for taking this last step, and the general principle of open
competition was not established until June 4, 1870. An Order in Council
of that date,[157:3] which is still the basis of the system of
examinations, provides that (except for offices to which the holder is
appointed directly by the Crown, situations filled by promotion, and
positions requiring professional or other peculiar qualifications, where
the examinations may be wholly or partly dispensed with) no person shall
be employed in any department of the civil service until he has been
tested by the Civil Service Commissioners, and reported by them
qualified to be admitted on probation.[157:4] It provides further that
the appointments named in Schedule A, annexed to the Order, must be
made by open competitive examination; and this list has been extended
from time to time until it covers the greater part of the positions
where the work does not require peculiar qualifications, or is not of a
confidential nature, or of a distinctly inferior or manual character
like that of attendants, messengers, workmen, etc.[158:1]
[Sidenote: A Test of Capacity rather than Fitness.]
Since the general introduction of open competition, by the Order in
Council of 1870, two tendencies have been at work which are not
unconnected. The first is towards simplification, by grouping positions
that have similar duties into large classes, with a single competition
for each class, and thus diminishing the number of examinations for
separate positions.[158:2] The second is the tendency so to examine the
candidates as to test their general ability and attainments, and hence
their capacity to become useful in the positions assigned to them,
rather than the technical knowledge they possess.[159:1] This
distinction marks an important difference between the system of civil
service examinations as it exists in the United States, and the form
which the system has assumed in England. For in the United States the
object is almost entirely to discover the immediate fitness of the
candidates for the work they are expected to do; in England the object
in most cases is to measure what their ability to do the work will be
after they have learned it. The difference arises partly from the fact
that in America the examinations were superimposed upon a custom of
rotation in office and spoils, while in England permanence of tenure was
already the rule; and partly from the fact that the system is applied in
America mainly to positions requiring routine or clerical work, whereas
in England it affects also positions involving, directly or
prospectively, a much greater amount of discretion and responsibility.
Now, it is clear that if men are to be selected young for a lifelong
career, especially if that career involves responsible administrative
work, any acquaintance with the details of the duties to be performed,
and any present fitness for the position, are of far less consequence
than a thorough education, keen intelligence and capacity for
development. Proceeding upon this assumption, Macaulay's commission on
the Indian Civil Service laid down two principles: first, that young men
admitted to that service ought to have the best general education
England could give; and, second, that ambitious men should not be led to
spend time in special study which would be useless if they were not
successful in the competition. The commission urged, therefore, that the
examinations should be closely fitted to the studies pursued in the
English universities. This plan was adopted, and although at one time
the age of admission, and with it the standard, was lowered, they were
afterwards restored; and the same principle is now also applied to the
higher grades in the home service. For the lower positions in that
service, where the work is of a clerical nature, and hence less
discretion and responsibility are involved, it was formerly the habit to
make the examinations more of a test of immediate preparation for the
duties of the office; but this, as we shall see, has recently been
replaced by a system based upon Macaulay's ideas, though applied, of
course, to an inferior scale of education.
[Sidenote: The Different Grades in the Civil Service.]
The permanent officials of a typical department comprise a permanent
under-secretary at the head, and one or more assistant under-secretaries
and chiefs of branches. These offices are treated as not subject to
examination under the Order of 1870, either because they are filled by
promotion, or on the ground that the positions require peculiar
qualifications.[160:1] As a matter of fact such posts are by no means
always filled by promotion, and persons are sometimes selected for them
who are outside of the service altogether. Next in rank come the
principal clerks; but they are recruited entirely by promotion from the
first-class clerks, who are, therefore, the highest grade of officials
entering the service by competitive examination. Below them are the men
now properly called clerks of the second division, although the title of
this class of civil servants has been changed so often that one finds
strange variations of nomenclature in the different departments. Below
these again come the assistant clerks (abstractor class), and finally
the boy clerks.
[Sidenote: Their Origin.]
The sharp separation of the clerks into classes, with distinct
examinations for each class, did not arise at once. The first
examinations under the original order of 1855 were required only for a
"junior situation in any department," and they were not the same in the
different departments. They were elementary affairs,[161:1] evidently
designed to sift out incompetence rather than to test superiority; for
it must be observed that in only a very small proportion of these
examinations was there even a limited competition.[161:2] When, however,
the Order of 1870 extended the admission examinations to all positions
in the service, not specially excepted or filled by promotion, and set
up the principle of open competition, it became necessary to distinguish
between the higher posts, involving discretionary powers and requiring a
liberal education, and the lower ones where the duties are of a clerical
kind; to distinguish, in other words, between the administrator and the
clerk. Such a distinction was made by the commissioners in their
earliest regulations under the Order of 1870,[161:3] the two classes
being recruited separately by examinations of different character, the
first of which was adapted to university graduates, and the second to
young men from commercial life. At the outset the line was drawn
somewhat at haphazard without sufficient attention to the real nature of
the work to be done, and it was readjusted several times before it
assumed its present form.[161:4]
[Sidenote: Exceptional Positions.]
Aside from the regular grades of clerks recruited by open competition,
there are various kinds of inspectors, clerks and other special
officials, appointed after open competition, limited competition, pass
examination or no examination at all. In fact the departments are full
of anomalies, some of them the necessary result of peculiar conditions
of service, and others due apparently to no very rational cause. The
reader will, no doubt, be sufficiently wearied by a description of the
more common methods of examination, without going into the
eccentricities of the system. It may be convenient to consider first the
open competitions, and then the appointments that are made in other
ways.
[Sidenote: The First-class Clerkships.]
The highest posts in the permanent civil service to which admission is
obtained by competitive examination are known as the first-class
clerkships. In 1895 the examinations for these positions and for the
Indian Civil Service were consolidated, and in the following year those
for the Eastern Cadets[162:1] were added; so that a single annual
competition is now the gateway to all three careers, the successful
candidates being allowed, in the order of their rank at the
examination, to choose the service they will enter. In spite of the
smaller pay the first men on the list have usually selected the home
service, because the life is more agreeable; and so far as the vacancies
make it possible they are assigned to the particular department they
prefer.
[Sidenote: The Entrance Examinations.]
Although these positions are called clerkships, the work is not of a
clerical, but of an administrative, and in the upper grades of a highly
responsible, character. The aim of the commissioners is, therefore, to
recruit young men of thorough general education for an important and
lifelong administrative career. With this object the candidates are
required to be between twenty-two and twenty-four years of age, and the
examination, which has no direct connection with their subsequent
duties, is closely fitted to the courses of study in the universities.
As a matter of fact the papers in mathematics and natural science are
based upon the requirements for honour degrees at Cambridge, the papers
in classical and other subjects upon those at Oxford; and thus it
happens that by far the larger part of the successful candidates come
from one or other of these two great universities.[163:1] The range of
subjects is naturally large, and a candidate is allowed to offer as many
as he pleases, but by an ingenious system of marking a thorough
knowledge of a few subjects is made to yield a higher aggregate of marks
than a superficial acquaintance with a larger number.[163:2] The
examination papers are set, and the books are read, by well-known
scholars, instructors at the universities and others, who are selected
for the purpose. That the papers are severe any one may convince
himself by looking at them. Moreover the number of candidates, which is
two or three times as large as the vacancies in all three services
together, insures a rigorous competition; and the result is that the
candidates who win the appointments are men of education and
intellectual power. They belong to the type that forms the kernel of the
professions; and many of them enter the civil service simply because
they have not the means to enable them to wait long enough to achieve
success in a professional career. They form an excellent corps of
administrators, although the time has not come to express an opinion on
the question whether they will prove the best material from which to
draw the permanent under-secretaries and the other staff officers at the
head of the different services. As yet few of them have attained
positions of this grade, but it must be remembered that they have only
recently begun to reach an age when they could be expected to do so.
[Sidenote: Their Social Effect.]
When the government was considering the introduction of competitive
examinations, in 1854, fears were expressed that such a system would
result in driving the aristocracy out of the civil service, and
replacing it by a lower social class.[164:1] Mr. Gladstone himself did
not share that belief. On the contrary, he thought the plan would give
to the highly educated class a stronger hold than ever upon the higher
positions in the service.[164:2] In this he proved a better prophet than
his critics. By far the greater part of the successful competitors for
the Class I clerkships now come, as we have seen, from Oxford and
Cambridge; and the men educated at those universities are still drawn
chiefly from the upper classes, from the aristocracy, the gentry, the
sons of clergymen, of lawyers, of doctors, and of rich merchants who
have made, or who hope to make, their way into the higher strata of
society. Men of more humble extraction go, as a rule, to the provincial
colleges. The Civil Service Commissioners have given in some of their
annual reports the occupations of the fathers of the successful
candidates at the chief open competitions; and while in the case of the
joint examination for the Class I clerkships and the Indian Civil
Service the list includes no peers, and does include some tradesmen, yet
on the whole it consists of persons belonging to the upper and the upper
middle class. Thus it has come about that competitive examinations,
instead of having a levelling tendency, by throwing the service open to
a crowd of quick-witted youths without breeding, has helped to
strengthen the hold of the upper classes upon the government, by
reserving most of the important posts for men trained in the old
aristocratic seats of learning. In this connection it may be observed
that the highest positions in the civil service are often held by men of
noble blood, and it has sometimes happened that the permanent
under-secretary has been a man of higher social position than his
political chief. Sir Robert Herbert and Sir Courtenay Boyle, for
example, who were recently the permanent heads of the Colonial Office
and the Board of Trade, were scions of ancient families in England and
Ireland; and the latter had at one time as his political chief Mr.
Mundella, who had begun life as a printer's devil.[165:1]
[Sidenote: The Second Division Clerkships.]
Ranking below the Class I clerkships, there is a large body of persons
whose work is mainly clerical. These are known as the second division
clerks, and they are recruited by open competition. The standard of
education required by the examination is naturally much less high than
in the case of the first-class clerks, and the candidates are
consequently younger, the competition being now limited to youths
between seventeen and twenty years of age.[165:2]
[Sidenote: Nature of Examinations.]