MR. JENNINGS'S MOTION. Service. Reorganisation is often imperatively required in
the public service, both on grounds of efficiency and economy. It can, however, only be accomplished. under existing cir- cumstances by such acts as those complained of by Mr. Jennings,—the pensioning of men at twenty-seven or thirty- eight, and the distribution of bonuses in compensation for the loss of all prospect of promotion.
How, it may be asked, are we to get over this difficulty, and how are the opposing statements made and conditions laid down respectively in the attack on and defence of the action of the Executive to be reconciled ? As far as we can see, only by a reform of the pension system on some such lines as we indicated a few weeks ago. It is the present pension system—the conferring of a rigid right to the expectation of a pension—which forbids all thorough reform in our departments, except at the cost of financial sacrifices such as render the re- form economically worthless. Were the clerk when he entered Government service told that he should receive such-and-such a salary, but that a certain per-centage should be compulsorily deducted every year and used in the purchase of a deferred annuity ; and were he further warned. that if the office to which he should at any time be appointed were to be abolished., he would receive no compensation, but merely be entitled, if he left the public service, to draw the pension due to the deductions from his salary ; or, if he did not wish to leave the public service, that he should be temporarily placed on a half-pay list, from which he should be summoned to active work as soon as he was again wanted,—no such difficulties as now exist would stand in the way of reform. The scheme sounds at first as if it would work harshly, but, in fact, it would not be so, for the reduction in numbers of the staff in a public office is rare, and if it takes place, is pretty sure to be followed by a proportionate increase else- where. Another change, however, would be necessary to supplement and complete the proposed reform. At the present moment, when a young man enters the Civil Service in the Higher Division, he gets into one par- ticular office and becomes, say, a clerk in the Admiralty or the Board of Trade, where he is thenceforth practically admitted to possess a vested interest in the highest of the permanent places above him, subject only to his living long enough to obtain one of them. Thus, though nominally perhaps he only takes his office as one at £150 or £200 a year, rising by yearly steps of £20 till it reaches £700, he really takes it with certain well-defined and. acknowledged expectations of promotion, and these expectations have to be taken into account if the official is to be induced to give up his office and retire. Could not, however, this system be altered without injustice in such a way as the following ? After a young man had passed a competitive examina- tion, say, as a Higher-Division clerk, he might be admitted not into any one office, but into the Civil Service generally, and might then be sent to the particular depart- ment requiring him. Once in this office or branch of an office, he should remain there as now, unless and until some extraordinary and special circumstances caused the abolition or reduction of the office or branch of an office to which he had been attached. The terms on which he should enter the public service might well be those of receiving a certain fixed income, rising as now by annual increments, but depending also on promotion. Attached to the tenure of his office, there might also be the conditions stated above that the clerk should earn his own pension by deductions made compulsorily from his salary, and that he might be placed on half-pay during such period as the good of the public service might require, by the order of a Secretary of State or other head of a public office.
Of course, it will be urged against a scheme of this kind that the public service would suffer because only an inferior class of men would offer themselves to do the work of the State on such terms. We doubt the danger. The desire to enter the Civil Service at the present moment is very strong, and we should be very much surprised if the infinitesimal risk that any individual clerk would run of ever being put on the half-pay list would in the very least affect his anxiety to serve the State. In the Navy, the risk of having to remain on half-pay is a very real and a very serious one, and yet it does not seem in the least to affect men's choice of the sea as a profession for their sons. Besides, in the Civil Service there should be no difficulty, if an office had been ',educed, in finding work almost at once for the displaced clerks. After all, the higher branches of book-keeping, the preparation of reports and. Parliamentary papers, and the drafting of minutes, any much alike, whether the actual subjects are naval or military,. or belong to the Board of Trade or the Home Office. If an official who has been trained in one department is worth employing at all, he would surely be able in the course of a very few months to pick up the routine of the new office to which he was transferred, provided that a specialist in_ accounts were not set to drafting despatches, or a clerk accustomed to drawing up official minutes to do complicated book-keeping. No doubt any such changes as we have- sketched would be resisted to the uttermost from inside the offices, for even among the most enlightened of our officials, the sense that each office is a corporation, with rights and sensibilities of its own which must always be - respected, is very strong. Yet, unless some plan can be- found which will enable a Minister to reorganise a depart- ment with more ease, economy, and efficiency than be cam. at present, it will be impossible to get a really satisfactory reform of civil and military and naval administration_ Lord George Hamilton spoke with heartfelt disgust of what he termed the "hateful" duty of reorganisation. No. doubt, under the present system, the task must indeed be- an unpleasant one. It ought not, however, to be necessary for the head of one of the greatest branches of the public- service to speak thus of changes which are necessary to- proper administration. Instead of being a task to be- spoken of in such terms as those used by the First Lord, it ought to be as easy to reorganise a depart- ment in the Admiralty as it is to put a ship in. commission, or to order her to be laid up. We do. not for a moment pretend to have suggested the best- possible method of reform ; but, at any rate, we feel convinced that until the present system is made mom. flexible and more capable of expansion, it will be impossible to remedy the evils of which Mr. Jennings quoted so many- striking examples in his speech.
We cannot leave the consideration of the present sub- ject without noticing a minor point which arose in the debate,—the question whether naval officers should not in. many cases be employed at the Admiralty instead of civilians. As far as we can see, Admiral Field's plea is a very fair one. Soldiers are certainly employed at the War- Office with success ; why, then, cannot sailors be made- equally useful at Whitehall ? We agree, too, with Admiral Field that the First Lord should have a Post-Captain as private secretary. No Secretary of State for War is ever_ we fancy, without a soldier as private secretary ; why should-' the First Lord be in less need of technical assistance ?
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