OBSTRUCTION OF PUBLIC BUSINESS. Lerma IV.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
London, 24th April 1848. Sex—In my first letter on this subject, I referred generally to the hindrance occasioned to the Government by the want of organization of every department of public authority, and by the want of intelligence on the part of the people as to the nature and uses of the different departments of Government, which led to un- reasonable demands on the one hand and to unreasonable denials of necessary means on the other; and I suggested, that by due organization, each department might furnish its contingent of inquiry, of legislation, and of administration, without the necessity of having special commissions, or special means of making new laws, or a new office for administering every new law. In my second letter, the subject was treated more fully in reference to the two Houses of Parliament and the Officers of the Crown in attendance upon Par- liament—the Clerk of the Parliament, the Clerk Assistant of the House of Lords, and the Clerk of the House of Commons; the distribution of business among Committees of the former, and the organization of the latter, being recom- mended. I also pointed out the necessity of enabling the Government to cope with improved arrangements by providing them with better, more regular, and established means of inquiry and of preparing the details of legislation; and I in- dicated the coarse of proceeding that might generally be adopted on matters of inquiry.
In my third letter, the mode of constituting and working the subordinate machinery for preparing the details of legislation was considered, principally in reference to Lord Stanley's measure; and it was stated that the remedy for the evils of which we are treating could be obtained without creating new offices but simply by giving effect to existing ones—calling upon all to assist in the work of legislation to the extent at least of famishing the needful information. It is proposed to confine the present letter to this last point., and to show one class of means by which the respective departments may be made available in aid of a General Board of Inquiry, so as at once to lighten the labour by dividing it among many, and so as to give the most effectual assistance to Ministers without waiting till the demand for information has become urgent; and at the same HIM to improve the efficiency of all the offices, with due regard to economy. Under the present state of things, there is an embarrassing abundance of ma- terials for legislation and administration- there is a multitude of officers ready and willing to do the work, but, being untrained and undisciplined, more apt to encumber the Minister with their help than to relieve him. The public intelli- gence, apprized of the existence of evils and the scope of remedies' becomes eager for practical measures; while the officials, caring about the current business of the day, are not able to avail themselves either of the state of public intelli- gence or of the information within their own reach. When the inquiry is to be made, the necessary aid is to be called into existence, to be constituted, trained, and pat in motion; the work is to be done at double the expense and with half the efficiency. The method is not only bad bat incomplete; and, after much labour, a mass of crudities is the first result; and the information is more calculated to suggest doubt and difficulty than to afford the eine to the solution of the problems to be solved, much less the foundation of practical legislation. Hence, officials, feeling compelled to reject the measures which their experience shows to be ill adapted for the purpose, and unprepared to substitute more fitting ones, earn un- justly the imputation of resisting improvements. These general propositions will find their illustration in some one instance or more within every one's experience. We all know how many Committees and Commissions have been appointed—how many reports, returns, accounts, volumes of statistics, and indexes, issue annually from the Parliamentary press. In short, there are few questions upon which further inquiry is necessary; but the inform- ation is an undigested heap, which overwhelms and distracts. The prosecution of further inquiry, without method or design, is calculated to increase the evil— to add to the information without increasing intelligence of the subject. Thus it is that, in spite of all that has been done, every Minister is lamentably deficient In informatwn available at his moment of need. The multiplicity, the practical worthlessness, and the disproportionate costliness of the Parliamentary blue books, has passed into a proverb. The industry of a few erects the fabric which is usually suffered to remain a record of misapplied or resultless exertion. This tendency to accumulate materials without practical effect is augmented by the want of depositors and depositaries for them. It becomes easier to do anew what cannot be readily found; and although everybody is aware of its existence, the easier task is encountered for the nonce, to yield hereafter its contribution to the mass of confusion.
The solution of this difficulty (as well as of others) is to be found, as was sug- gested in my first letter, in the general adoption of expedients already in partial in some of our offices, but it is believed in none of them in an efficient form. uSe
lateen, in the present instance, a Library and a Librarian. Many public offices are without libraries; some have libraries without librarians ; some have librarians whose skill is of the slenderest; and where there are libraries, and even librarians, the special value is lost in the accumulation of works having no special relation to the purposes of the office. The library often consists of a collection of the Statutes at large, of Parliamentary publications, of Hansard's parliamentary Debates, Elea of newspapers and gazettes, with a miscellaneous collection of works of various kinds. But the literature of the subject of the de- warnent, its history, its topography or its local application, its statistics, its law, arid the views, the theories, the complaints promulgated by the press, dud no ap- whited place. There is nothing deserving the name of a collection; and whatever there is is lost ia the undistinguished mass. Indeed, libraries are of very modem date--that of the Reuse of Commons even is comparatively but a few years old; and those of many public offices, such as they are, more recent atilL To make an official library available for practical purposes, it should be formed npon the following principles. It should consist almost exclusively of books, maps, and papers, relating to the subjects of the department. They should be athand, classed and ready for use. All the material that is likely to be required should be there, but unencumbered with works of an irrelevant nature. Instead of the Statutes at large, let the statutes relating to the affairs of the department be separated from the rest. Let the same rule be observed with Hansard's De- bates, with the Parliamentary Papers, with Law-books. Let the Library be a perfect impregnation of the subject. If it be necessary to have books of reference of a general kind, let them be placed aside. Let all works on the subject of the department be procured as they are published; and it would not be amiss to make a collection of old pamphlets and books of a former day which are necessary to il- lustrate the debates of Parliament, formal state papers, the statutes, and the de- cisions of the Courts.
Practical men of business will say that this is all unnecessary for the business of the day; but the statesman will hold different language. It is all very well to adhere to current practice to discharge promptly the matters which press for execution; but the legislator and the administrator must take a higher and wider range of view: they must be informed even of the notions which have existence in the press, for in a notion just started may be discerned the germ of a theory that will prevail; and they may End in the history of the past an explanation of the present; their motto should be ".Respice, circumspice, aspice, et prospice"; and though they must needs act in accordance with the principles and feelings that prevail in their time, it should be with such reference to the probabilities and even the possibilities of the future, that their present measure may not encounter overthrow by the force of an unexpected check. Above all, while they should use their subordinates as instruments, they should not be hindered by them; and that this may not be so, it is necessary that their subordinates should in some degree be imbued with or at least should appreciate the spirit by which the statesman should be governed.
For this reason; among others, the formation of a library is important in refer- ence to the humbler official agencies. The selection of the proper matter for the business of the office is an excellent discipline to the librarian; who should not only catalogue the contents of his library, but to a greater or less extent index them. The habit of meeting calls for information on every occasion would give him a ready intelligence which would distinguish him from a mere bookworm.
If the librarians and statists of the different departments were to be collected in a similar manner to that suggested for the Law Advisers, with a library and other resources in common, they might avoid travelling over common ground, and by their mutual advice and assistance render not only the general results but their processes more complete and more economical.
The general library might consistof general collections, such as the Statutes at large, the Parliamentary Debates, general indexes and catalogues—in short, of the materials out of which the special collections are made, bearing to the special collections the same relation as the journal bears to the ledger in account-keeping. The arrangement of the general library would probably be historical; bringing to- gether all matters which occurred about the same time. It is obvious, that by such combined arrangements the stateof the subject and its relation to other-mat- ters would usually be indicated telly, and point the way to future inquiry. The task of collecting would not only accomplish this result, but train a body of in- quirers and practical legislators; while for the ordinary execution and adminis- tration of affairs this information and this skill would have many uses and many good effects, which it is unnecessary to particularize more minutely than by stating that they would be the opposite of those effects which are to be deprecated in the present system.
In the limited space that you can afford me, Jam compelled to state general results—it is impossible to specify details; but I should add some remarks upon important objects of this the Information Department of the Public Service, which has been EO grievously neglected till of late years. Maps are of very recent use in some of the principal offices; and some of the inferior offices are wholly without them. From the want of mai s indicating localities, the strangest mistakes are made in legislation. New districts are made for new laws without adequate cause, and even without reference to the districts which exist for other purposes. This gives rise to conflict of jurisdiction, and to the omission of places from the operation of the law. Statistics' too, from not being based on the distribution of matters in given districts, become a medley of inapplicable numbers instead of intelligible state- ment, and, it is to be feared, instruments of one-sided exaggerations. If sys- tematically collected, they would be less expensive, less troublesome, and more trustworthy than returns usually are. The press teems with instances of the failure or supposed failure of our laws, and with illustrations of their actual working. It would be of inestimable value to collect these as they occur. The same remark applies to cases which occur in the Courts. The systematic collection of such matters would obviate the necessity of getting up evidence, and supply much more trustworthy material for legislation. Let the newspapers Mach are bought for official use be turned to this account, and let such materials be from time to time reduced into a summary report for the service of the princi- pal officers of Government.
But, apart from or rather in aid of the purposes of inquiry, of legislation, and of administration, the libraries of public departments might be made serviceable forpublic instruction. It is of little use for the.Hovernment to have information which the public have not: the measures founded upon it will appear to be beyond or short of the occasion, and be regarded, on that account, as objectionable. On the other hand, it is of dangerous consequence that the public should be affected by facts and by views of which the Government are practically not cognizant, from not having those facts and those views present to their minds: it is of im- Pntance, therefore, that they should be systematically informed of such facts and Timm; but, inasmuch as the Government, pressed upon by the affairs of the day, cannot attend to such matters piecemeal, they should be collected,—which, apart from considerations of convenience, is the better form of having them brought to the mind for purposes of general legislation and general administration. On these accounts, it appears to be desirable that the libraries of the public de-
Mstinent is. Public writers would be enabled to find ampler material not only in ts should, under suitable regulations, be open to the public, as the British an authentic but in a ready form, and be rescued from what the Standard some Years ago described as "the wicked want of a topic "—engendering smart writing and reckless declamation, at the expense of more sedate and sober unatment,
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