ORGANIC OBSTRUCTION OF PUBLIC BUSINESS.
IT has become a commonplace to observe, that whatever statesmen may enter office in the English Government, the results of their administration are tolerably sure to be almost as like the acts of their predecessors as this year's crop of peas will be like last year's; and that consequence is generally ascribed to the demoralizing in- fluence of routine office on the statesman. But those who are better informed as to the practical working of the official machinery are impressed with the conviction, that the frustration of hope in the best of statesmen arises from the obstruction which they meet in the bad organization of our public departments. Whatever the hand that moves it, the instrument is the same, and the product in public acts is always marked by the characteristics of the tool
It is at present an essential of our political system, that the heads of the Government introduced to office from Parliament are practically unacquainted with the conduct and details of the ser- vice: their business is to aim at distinct and broad public objects ; the method of arriving at those objects they must find in the per- manent instruments provided for them in office. It may happen sometimes that the Ministers have been in office before, and have thus acquired some knowledge of business details ; but, as we shall see, while they are not selected for such knowledge, the knowledge acquired is always of necessity imperfect. They go through no training to acquire it ; they do not rise through the office which they have to govern ; but they are born to the top of it or they rise by some other path of political service, or make large fortunes, and then from another elevated stage are shifted to the top of the official service. Before they can proceed to the ex- ecution of their duties, their ignorance needs information ; but in- stead of receiving it, they are in most instances obstructed, even to frustration of their policy or purpose, by the nature of the in- It is actually impossible that complete or trustworthy informa- tion can reach them through the instrument provided to supply it. Sound information is obstructed by the spirit of bureaucracy, by the apathy of the officials, and by their incompetency. The spirit of bureaucracy,—if critics will pardon us the use of a word detestable in its philology but singularly expressive,--consists in the instinct of self-preservation. Where once a number of gentlemen are col- lected into a public department, their livelihood, present and fu- ture, depends upon the maintenance of that department; and it follows, that in all cases save those of very high feeling indeed, the first desire generally animating that set of gentlemen must be the desire to prevent any contingency that might endanger the maintenance of the office. To them the work exists for the office, not the office for the work; and consequently they will convey no information to the person temporarily at the head of their depart- ment which can endanger its existence or its emoluments.
The apathy arises from many causes. The spirit of self-pre- servation animates the men in all grades with a jealousy of talent or zeal superior to their own ; and they will often check its mani- festation, unless it takes a shape falling in with their own plans. The nature of the organization tends to prevent any apportioning of promotion to merit. Promotion is slow in the public offices, and by the practice which we have already mentioned it is given to subservient regularity rather than to zeal or to fire of intellect. But besides want of zeal and lack of stimulus, the gentlemen in any public office have no power to collect or to give information : each man is fixed down in his place ; he can only get such inform- ation as comes to him through the channel below, or outside of him; and often he can only convey it through his superior. In many cases he can as little command true information as a sur- veyor kept to his own study could report upon the surface of a country. The discountenancing of all zeal, the absence of promo- tion stimulus, and the conscious want of power, are the causes of official apathy. The incompetency of official men does not lie in their own nature, or in their want of good intentions. Speaking of them as a class, you may say that they are much above the average of the general population. You could not go into the streets and at random match an average official man, either for abilities for training, or for good will ; mainly because, for the most part, they are drawn from a class of society which breeds gentlemen ; and they have, however imperfect it may be, some training, both hereditary and personal. But they are not selected for any fitness adapting them to the peculiar appointments which are given to them. It is rather a question of the amount of salary in the office and the amount of interest for themselves ; and what- ever their own faculties may be, they enter upon their duties without any previous training for those duties or any opportunity for training. After they are in office, their training extends only to that mechanical routine which continues unbroken.
Such is the instrumen practical information on t from the nature of the inst draw sufficient of unadultera as it is to draw water full and clear through a bad filter. The same obstructions vitiate the execution of the Ministerial wish ; so that, however strong the wish may be, however intelli- gent, the execution does not correspond with it. The organization of the instrument is so lax, and at the same time so bent to a par- ticular twist, that however powerful the thumb of the statesman at the top of it may be, however good a will he may throw into his own pressure, the result at the other end will be feeble and distorted. The difference in the strength or skill of the thumb at one end can make but little difference in the stamp of the die at the other ; the faults of the machine exceeding in their persistency or uniformity all diversities in the individual statesman at the top. Thus it happens that the most popular of statesmen falls into " tho ways of the office," and the acts which issue forth to the public in his name are almost undistinguished from those of his unpopular predecessor.
Nay, for improvement itself he :is dependent upon the instru- ment to be improved. He can obtain no clear information about the department except from itself; he can only execute his purpose through itself. While it is the custom of statesmen slavishly to fol- low established practice, the reform of any department must be to a great extent self-reform ; and then it will partake of the weak- ness and twist of the whole system. If a reform from without, of a more thorough kind, be forced upon it, the spirit of self-preser- vation will still inspire the immortal instinct of the department gradually to assimilate that excrescence to its general texture, and at no very long date the reformed part of the office will be as ' bad as all the rest.
Every one acquainted with official life will recognize the truth of this description, necessarily general as it is ; and the belief that any appreciable improvement in the conduct of public business must be preceded by a reconstruction of the public departments is a conviction not at all new, but gradually expanding, and at the same time becoming more defined. The idea, indeed, received a more definite shape in the letters on "Obstruction of Public Busi- ness" which appeared in our own journal five years ago ; but since that time it has grown in dimensions, in symmetry, and strength. The necessity has been felt by every successive statesman of strong purpose who has newly entered office. Every such man must have conceived -vague but forcible suspicions that he could neither get out of his department the information that was necessary, nor ex- ecute through it his own intent. It never so much enlightens as it mystifies him; and his own actions are affected by a night- mare paralysis which makes them unrecognized even by him- self. If his suspicions are confirmed, it is from without ; for those below who could tell him what is going on under his very feet can only convey their report to him circuit- ously. He may suspect, bat he can scarcely know, that the ac- complished, useful, and ever-ready permanent officer, clerk, secre- tary, or whatever he may be called, who has everything at his finger-ends, and can in the twinkling of a quill turn an original idea into its official counterfeit, is a "false medium," which lends its own colour and refraction to everything that passes through it. But subordinate officials will recognize the men who can intercept the practical suggestions of any too intelligent subordinate ; who can find that a man too earnest about the work to be done, rather than the office, is " crotchety " and " impracticable " ; who can adroitly put a troublesome genius in the wrong, and perchance withdraw the veil of false colouring just at the unhappy moment when the too able servant is really suffering disappointment and chagrin to make an ass of him.* Enough said for one day : the nature of any practical improve- ment in the official machinery., and the relation of public men to public departments, must stand for discussion separately. Let us only say here, that if it is a bad workman who complains of his tools, there are tools which defy the bravest hand of skill.
has to obtain and we perceive opeless for him to gh such a channel
• While the general subject is before us, a correspondent complains of a special instance of interception in a public office, where the able statesman who presides might have been expected to sweep up all rubbish as clean as a new broom. Let us premise, that, in spite of this description, both of superior ailed subeorbInciztes,:mirtkiswriasot pthecliforComloValoOrffioncee tol;atthweecameeesan.anr gee
bill, amounting to a good many thousand pounds, was of course sent in. It was never disputed as a whole, though some exceptions, which an arbiter
might have settled, were made; but as the claim has remained unsettled, and even unadvanced, for eighteen months, the exceptions assume the aspect of mere dilatory pleas. After long delays, and many applications, a change of Ministry, and the entrance of a new head of the department, sug- gested hopes to the tradesmen that attention might be turned upon this un- disputed claim. Special means were taken to bring the subject under the notice of the new Minister—not for favour, but for justice and businesslike treatment. Attention to that extent was promised ; and the little bill was again produced. Months, however, have since elapsed, and the newly- furnished representation remains unanswered and unacknowledged. There is not the slightest reason to doubt the sincerity of the Minister, or his de- sire to see the work of his department properly executed, or his honest in- tention to pay just demands; but, as usual, he proves not to be master of his own office, and the disappointed claimant of justice discovers that the new statesman, when in office, becomes as obstructive as the rest.
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