WINDING UP
“If it were done, when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly.”--_Macbeth._
When you are paid by the day it is very unwise to work quickly. I
was very young in the public service in 1871, and that immortal, if
immoral, truth had not come home to me. Therefore I had worked almost
continuously for eight months, and at a speed that, if the Civil
Service had possessed a well organized trade union, would have ensured
a heavy penalty for “spoiling the place.”
About the second week in December, just at the time when all men
were watching with bated breath the drawing near of the dark shadow
at Sandringham, my task was done. I was grieved to leave the lovely
country; the host of friends, an exceeding great army that had sprung
up from the dry bones of Returns; and especially my chief and his
family. He must have found me an all but intolerable nuisance, for I
was very green, and very unofficial in disposition: but he had never
reproached me, or hindered my steps. I was a little sorry, too, to
leave the work in so crude a state. The plans were finished, but
the execution was hardly begun. There is a fine line, which one is
surprised to trace to the _Rejected Addresses_, because it ought to be
in Shakespeare:
“And deems nought done, while ought remains to do.”[10]
And that was my lamentable case.
Let me add, too, that I was grieved to lose my pay. There were no such
almug trees in the Inner Temple.
But I sent in my last batch of Reports, and my resignation. In those
times of official inexperience I supposed that I should receive a
polite reply, regretting, &c., and trusting, &c., and especially
commenting on the fact that I had finished my work so soon. When
Clive was “amazed at his own moderation,” it was, doubtless, a shock
to him to find that no one shared his amazement. The only reply
that I received was a formal acknowledgment of the receipt of my
communication. It was not their Lordships’ way to be effusive. More
than 30 years later, one of my staff, who was resigning after 35 years’
service, told me that he had not received even a postcard, unstamped,
On His Majesty’s Service, to thank him, and bid him farewell. It is
recorded of Lord Chancellor Thurlow that one summer afternoon on the
last day of term before the Long Vacation the Bar rose from their
seats, and bowed with expectancy when the Chancellor had risen. It was
usual that his Lordship should say something: but he was mute; and a
leader remarked, in an audible aside, “He might have d----d us, anyhow.”
Being unemployed I returned to the Bar. My practice had not suffered by
my absence: no solicitors had felt any inconvenience; and my briefless
brethren showed no displeasure at my return to compete with them. One
remarked that he thought he hadn’t seen me about lately; and I was
pleased to find that my eight months’ absence had attracted so much
attention.
There is no part of Anglesey so repulsive to the well-regulated mind
as is Fleet Street in the City of London. There is nothing in the work
of an Elementary School so dull as the proceedings in the Law Courts.
And on going the usual rounds to attend Sessions and Assizes I found
that the necessity of paying one’s own travelling expenses, instead of
charging them to the Treasury, was a distinct falling off.
This lasted till after Easter. About that time I got notice from the
Education Department that I should be required to attend at the Office
for the preparation and issue of notices under the Act of 1870, and
with some hesitation, for this was neither a permanent billet nor a
road to the Woolsack, I accepted the call.
The Department, having accumulated sufficient information about school
supply and deficiency, was now to send to every parish in England and
Wales a Statutory Notice containing their Lordships’ decision. It was
my duty to advise on the issue of these notices to my former district.
This occupied, with occasional intervals, about two months.
I have always since been glad that I had this opportunity of seeing
the inner working of the machinery, and in after years I found it of
great service. It brought me face to face with officials who signed
only initials to their minutes addressed to the outdoor staff, and were
disposed, if there was any dispute, to shelter themselves behind the
shield of “my Lords.” When one knew that “my Lords” was J. B., or B.
J., and that J. B. was only old Brown, and B. J. only young Benjamin
Jones, one felt less downtrodden than when one supposed J. B. and B. J.
to be possessed of the inner confidence of the Vice-President.
There were some other Inspectors of Returns summoned for similar
work. Several of these rose to more important positions in the public
service, but the only man that attained to distinction was one already
well known to me, the late Henry Traill, whose comments on his district
inspector, and on the Office generally, were our daily delight. We
assembled in a decayed mansion in Parliament Street, now entirely
destroyed. I suppose it stood in front of the new Foreign Office. Our
hours were those of the permanent staff: we began at 11 A.M.
with a margin of at least half an hour. About one P.M. there
was a generous interval for lunch. The man who stayed till Big Ben
struck five might have had a final half hour of quiet work. Of course
there was no night work. This was better than rushing about the country
in Welsh cars, catching the 8.30 A.M. train, and sitting up
after midnight to make up Reports.
For the most part our work was to transcribe our recommendations from
the Reports which we had sent in. When these were done, we conferred
with the Senior Examiner of each area, who had to sign each notice. It
was trivial work for those who had already gone thoroughly into the
details.
It must be understood that the examiners--whose existence as an
unexamined but nominated body of Civil Servants occasionally excites
the wrath of Radical M.P.’s--never examined children. _Nec examinati,
nec examinantes_, is their proud motto, and I think they would add
_sed sicut angeli in caelo_. But they examined our Reports and the
correspondence of the Office. There were similar officials in the
old India Office. James Mill was an examiner; but in the _National
Biography_ Charles Lamb and John Stuart Mill are styled “clerks,”
and probably they were of lower rank. Our examiners were appointed
by the Lord President, and in answer to those carping Radicals it
is alleged that high academical distinction already earned renders
further examination unnecessary. I think there were exceptions, but
certainly many were men of remarkable ability, and in some cases this
was combined with practical aptitude for affairs. If this latter
qualification were conspicuously wanting, I suppose some hint was
dropped that in another career there would be more scope for obvious
abilities, which, &c., &c. “The stage, or the army, or something very
superior in the licensed victualling way,” suggested Mr. Sampson Brass.
The fittest survivors rose by degrees to be Assistant Secretaries, and
until recently one of this select body was chosen to be Secretary when
a vacancy occurred.
The examiners were of two orders, senior and junior, and between
the juniors and the younger inspectors intermittent war smouldered
and raged. The indoor man was shocked at the irregular habits of
the outdoor man; the outdoor man was disgusted by the pedantry and
ignorance of details shown by the indoor official. But no blood was
shed, and on both sides advancing years brought toleration. Of late
years a much better tone has prevailed throughout the Office. The
machinery had been oiled.
There was another class of officials, in some respects the most
meritorious: these were the clerks. They were appointed in the ordinary
way of the Civil Service, and rose to great eminence in their class. I
imagine they worked with reasonable diligence during office hours, and
if they spent some part of the time on the Civil Service Co-operative
Store, and similar toys, that is better than writing poetry on office
paper in office hours; which was the crime laid at the doors of the
examiners. During the thirty-five years of my correspondence with the
Office I think I saw only three of these excellent men, but I knew by
name and high repute many more. Their mission in life was to keep the
examiners in the straight path, and at times they treated both them and
the younger inspectors much as a caddie treats a beginner at the game
of golf; or, to put it more respectfully, as an old sergeant treats a
newly-joined subaltern. Their merit was accuracy and trustworthiness;
their foible was pedantry. In a treatise blending the Politics with the
Ethics, Aristotle would have said that the virtue of a Civil Servant’s
life was Orderly Method; its Defect is Muddle; and its Excess is Red
Tape. As a rule the higher branches of the service lean to the Defect,
and the lower to the Excess. The critic of Ministerial and official
disasters would do well to bear this in mind when he is seeking a
victim to denounce.
Among the three clerks whom I met, there was one who gave me some
remarkable information. It was in my early days, and I had recently
met an angry Welshman on the church side, who complained that his
party did not get fair-play. There was a certain Welshman, whom we
may call Jones, highly placed in the Red Tape and Sealing Wax Office,
discovered by Anthony Trollope. Jones was strong on the chapel side,
and according to my complainant, when there was any special controversy
about schools raging at the Education Department, Jones got access
to the correspondence, and put his party in possession of the case
for the other side. I had declared that the story was absurd: Jones
had no access to the portfolios of another Office; also it would be
dishonourable, and it would be a breach of etiquette, and so on.
Now, finding that the clerk whose room I was visiting had a pile of
portfolios on his table, it suddenly occurred to me to ask: “Suppose
Mr. Jones of the Red Tape Office sent to you for one of these files,
would you let him have it?”
“Certainly; they have a right to see our files, and we have a right to
see theirs.”
I made no further enquiry, and I did not communicate the result to my
Welsh acquaintance. He might have replied that there was what logicians
call “an undistributed middle” in the story; but that if it is found
(1) that A. B. is improperly using private information; and (2) that
A. B. has access to documents containing that information, one may
reasonably assume (3) that A. B. went to the private documents for his
private information.
With the aid of all these officials, and in spite of many obstacles
offered by an army of lesser servants, called “writers” and “boys,” who
hid, or lost, documents of vital importance with the easy unconcern of
a slavey in lodgings, we made rapid progress. Once, when I complained
that the progress was not sufficiently rapid, I was taught a valuable
lesson: “you must remember that in a Government office it doesn’t do to
make mistakes: it is better to go slow than to go wrong.”
Difficult cases arose at times, and these were referred to the higher
officers; on one or two occasions the direction of the Vice-President
was taken, and general rules were made. But, as a rule, it was
straightforward filling up of forms; Form A, if the parish supply was
complete; Form B, if there was a deficiency; and so on. When the cases
were settled, a notice was sent to the local officials, and publication
in local newspapers and on church doors was required.
By the terms of the Act objection might be made within a month after
the publication of the notice, and, as popular feeling had run high
during our enquiries, I looked forward to a general rising in North
Wales. But in due course I received an informal communication from
Whitehall: the month was up, and from all that “infected area” not an
objection had been received. I replied that this must not be taken
as evidence of acquiescence: it was July; the people were getting in
their hay and plundering the early tourist; when they were at liberty,
they would fight. “Pooh, pooh,” said the Office, “they have lost their
chance.”
A little disappointed, as a schoolboy might be, that there was to be
no fight, I went to Switzerland; returning in September, I found _one
letter_ awaiting me. It alleged that my proposal to unite the parish
of Llanon with the parish of Llanof was the most monstrous outrage on
common sense within the experience of the writer. Secondly, the writer
would be glad to know why I had not kept my appointment to meet him and
a neighbour on August 20. It gave me some satisfaction to reply that
the meeting to which he referred was fixed for August, 1871, and that,
as we were now in 1872, he and his neighbour were a year late.
No explanation was tendered by the complainant. I suspected that the
local Mrs. Mailsetter had intercepted the 1871 invitations, probably at
the instigation of some local politician, and had warmed them up a year
later.
Was Llanon wedded to Llanof? “Jeanie’s mairit weel eneuch,” said the
Scottish matron; “to be sure she canna abide her mon, but there’s aye
a something.” The subsequent proceedings interested me no more. Except
for occasional requests for information, I had no further concern with
the district, and though I have paid very many visits to the beautiful
country in these thirty-five years, it has always been as a tourist.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] A kindly critic points out that the line is merely an exact
translation from Lucan’s _Pharsalia_, II. 657--
“Nil actum credens, quum quid superesset agendum.”