THE DEPUTY-MASTERSHIP OF THE MINT.
[TO THE EDITOR. OF THE " SPECTAT011.1
SIR, —Will you allow me a small space to observe on the remarks which you have made on the question between Mr. Disraeli and the Civil Service as to the late appointment at the Mint ? You say that the writer of a certain paper in the St. Pouts Magazine had argued that the gentleman next in seniority had a right to the Deputy-Mastership by reason of that seniority. I think I did not so argue. I pleaded that as Mr. Musbet, the gentleman in question, was by acknowledgment fit, he should have had the place ; and that, at any rate, the appointment of the private secretary of an outgoing Prime Minister, over the head of a man recommended as fit, was so suspicious as to make time Civil Service generally feel that justice was not done to it.
Mr. Disraeli never ventured to assert that Mr. Mushet was unfit for the place. He did say that he had been given to understand that "new blood" was needed at the Mint. Such an allegation would refer rather to the Master of the Mint, who himself had recommended Mr. Mushet for the place, than to any gentleman filling or proposed to fill a subordinate situation. Mr. Mushet had been recommended as competent by both the present and late Master, and came forward on the strength of that sort of support, which alone can be efficacious to secure the Civil Service from jobbery. We want zeal in the Civil Service, and industry. Can zeal and industry be expected from a body of men the prospects of all of whom have been dashed by the appointment over their heads of a private secretary from the Treasury ? And where is this to end ? The appointment was not to the Mastership of the Mint. How many places, at such an office as that of the Mint, are to be appropriated to the purposes of patronage ? If Mr. Mushet was unfit, was there no one fit below Mr. Mushet in that office? Could not the new blood be supplied at the bottom, instead of at the top, seeing that supply of new Treasury blood at the top of an office must of necessity destroy the vitality of the blood below ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
THE WRITER OF THE ARTICLE ON DISRAELI AND THE MINT."
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