THE CIVIL SERVICE AND RECRUITING. • [To THE EDITOR OF
THE " SPECTATOR: "l Brns—In your issue of the 23rd inst. there is a letter signed by a " Taxpayer " in which the following words appear : "The time has unfortunately long since passed for most offices when the work can be reduced so as to avoid the employment of substitutes for men who join the colours." This statement must not pass unchallenged. A few days ago I signed more than fifty Statements of Account relating to ex- penditure in connexion with various schools in a county where " higher education" is given. These forms are annually asked for by the Board of Education, and give in detail the expenditure incurred in every such school. Besides these returns to the Board of Education, it has been the duty of myself and my colleagues since the war broke out to forward to the Local Government Board, the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Home Office, the Public Works Loan Board, the Roads Board, twenty-two other returns all more or less containing an enormous amount of detail. The details it is necessary to keep in our offices in order to compile these returns cause a great deal of labour, but their subsequent checking, analysing, and turning into Government Blue Books by the various Government Departments must be enormous. On p. 3 of the Summary of the Annual Local Taxation Returns, Year 1911-12, Part VIT., it is stated that the total number of separate authorities who had financial transactions during the year was 25,453, these separate authorities being County Councils, Councils of Municipal Boroughs, Urban and Rural Districts, Boards of Guardians, Pariah Councils, and other local authorities who were authorized to levy rates within the meaning of the Local Taxation Returns Acts. It is stated in a footnote that any authority making more than one return is only counted once, so the number of returns received by the Government Departments must be many thousands more. Is " Taxpayer" serious when he says this work cannot be reduced P He cannot be. When economy is demanded on all hands, when the King himself makes a personal appeal to the country for recruits, every thinking man must admit that the time has arrived when sweeping administrative changes should be brought about. Personally, I think that the relationships between local authorities and Government Departments should be at once revised, and that much of the work now done, both in the offices of the local authorities and in the Government Departments, should during the war be dropped. This can be brought about instantly by giving to local authorities " plenary " power to conduct their own work in their own way. I trust some , one. will call Lord Derby's
attention to this suggestion. Let the Government give from the Imperial Exchequer to local authorities the grants in aid of rates they gave last year, and if local authorities cannot be trusted to be economical, then restrict their expenditure to the rate they are now raising. In times like these drastic steps are necessary, and he who continues the clownish cry of "Business as usual" should be brushed aside.—I am, Sir,
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