T HE Times has done useful work in calling attention to
a movement on the part of Somerset House both against private Income Tax payers and against the public Exchequer. In the present Finance Bill there is a clause which would, if passed, have the effect of depriving the majority of Income Tax payers in the kingdom of the protection which they can now receive from the local Commissioners of income Tax, and reducing them to complete dependence upon the permanent officials ap- pointed by Somerset House. Further, this clause would involve the appointment of a large number of new officials, who would be a charge upon the public Exchequer. As regards the former point, it is satisfactory to see that the local Commissioners for Income Tax in the City of London are already up in arms, and it is to be hoped that their energetic protest will be supported by local Commissioners elsewhere. The matter is one which vitally affects the liberty of the subject. The whole tendency of recent legislation has been to increase the power of the central bureaucracy. Not only have local authorities by recent Acts of Parliament been increasingly subordinated to the central Departments, but, in addition, those central Departments have been increasingly freed from the control of the Law Courts. Mr. Lloyd George's Budget of 1909 was the worst offender in this respect. As the Finance Bill embodying that Budget was originally drafted, in no fewer than thirty-four cases provision was made for exempting Somerset House from the control of the Courts of Law. As the Bill was passing through Parliament many of these cases were cut out, but in the Act as passed a great many still remain. In subsequent Acts the same principle has been further extended, especially in the Acts dealing with national insurance. The explanation of this tendency is fairly simple. In practice Acts of Parliament are drafted by permanent officials, who are invariably anxious to increase their own authority. '['he Minister in charge of the Bill habitually accepts the view of his Departmental officials, and unless some political issue is raised, very few Members of the House of Commons take the trouble to bestir themselves merely for the sake of defending the liberties of the subject. The public has no chance at all unless it happens that there is some well-defined interest in rivalry to that of the Government Department con- cerned. In the present case the interest involved is the amour propre and, we may fairly add, the public spirit of the local Commissioners for Income Tax, and also the pecuniary interests of the staffs they employ.
Somerset House, however, is not content merely to try to reverse the policy maintained for over a century of local assessment for Income Tax. It is also, as other evidence shows, clearly inspired by a desire to cancel such economies as Mr. McKenna, has been able to effect by dismissing the temporary staff of the Land Valuation Department. The scandal of Mr.. Lloyd George's land valuation has so often been commented upon in thesi columns that there is no necessity to refer in detail to the matter again. It is sufficient to point out that the taxes, which never yielded one-tenth part of the estimates put forward, have now practically ceased to yield anything at all. Yet an enormous and expensive staff is still main- tained under the pretence of making a valuation for the sake of levying these taxes. Mr. McKenna had the courage to dismiss a few weeks ago a very large number of temporary employees. They at once set to work to agitate for new official jobs, and the authorities at Somerset House have lent themselves to this attempt to burden the public Exchequer with a number of new permanent salaries. In a circular, which has happily been made public by the Times, Somerset House invites the dismissed Land Valuation officials to apply for the new jobs which will be created if the clause in the Finance Bill above referred to passes into law. The circular also invites those members of the Land Valuation staff who are still retained because they have permanent appointments to make application for the new jobs which are to be created, and goes on to add that if any of these permanent officials are so appointed their places will at once be filled in the Land Valuation Depart- ment by some of the dismissed officials. The plot is sufficiently obvious. It has been " blown upon" apparently in the interest of other Income Tax officials, who see their dances of promotion vanishing if their Department is to be flooded by the Land Valuation officials. In this case, again, the public has the advantage of one set of officials fighting another.
Mr. McKenna's defence in the House of Commons only makes the matter worse. He argued that the clause was only intended to cover the case of weekly wage earners, now for the first time made Income Tax payer'', though it had been ingeniously so drafted as to cover everybody. He added that a new staff would be required to deal with the weekly wage earners, and they could best be dealt with from Somerset House. This statement explains the inward meaning of the refusal of the Government to adopt the common-sense plan of collecting Income Tax from weekly wage earners at the source through the employer. The bureaucracy is determined that no such invasion of its territory shall be permitted.
The story is a sordid one, but unfortunately it is by no means exceptional. Although there are many men in the Civil Service who honourably servo the public to the best of their ability, putting their duty before all other con- siderations, the general tone of the Service is not that it exists for the benefit of the nation, but that the nation exists to provide jobs for public officials. A peculiarly striking story illustrating this spirit has recently become a matter of political gossip. If the story can be disproved we shall be only too delighted, and we publish it for the sake of giving an opportunity to the British Museum authorities to disprove it. The story is that the Public Retrench- ment Committee, over which the Chancellor of the Exchequer presides, suggested by way of a small war economy that the Reading Room at the British Museum ohould be closed at 6 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. The Museum authorities replied that, from the point of view of the use- fulness of the Reading Room, there would be no objection to that course, because very few readers remained after 6 p.m., but they did not see their way to carrying out the suggestion because to do so would involve the loss of over- time payments to the Museum attendants now employed on overtime work between six and seven. In other words, the Reading Room of the British Museum, main- tained out of national funds, is to be kept open, with the light blazing, at an appreciable annual expense, solely
for the sake of paying extra money to a certain number of
subordinate officials. Common-sense suggests that if these officials are at present underpaid their salaries should be increased, but to maintain an admittedly useless service for the sake of payment to private individuals is, in plain language, neither more nor less than robbery of the public. A similar case which more directly affects the House of Commons is not a matter of gossip but of public statement. The Retrenchment Committee in their pub- lished Report recommended certain economies in Parlia- mentary reports, and in particular pointed out that " a very large sum is spent annually on verbatim shorthand notes of deputations and evidence before Committees and Commissions." They added that, in their judgment, " this expenditure is often incurred more as a matter of habit than of real necessity,"and suggested that a short summary of the evidence would generally suffice, and that verbatim notes should not be taken except with the sanction of higher authority. It appears that the shorthand writers employed by the House of Commons at once proceeded to agitate in the proper quarters, with the result that a. resolution was moved on behalf of the Prime Minister referring the con- sideration of the subject to another Committee, evidently with a view of making some arrangement for continuing payment to these persons, although a Committee presided over by the Chancellor of the Exchequer had reported that their work was not required.
When such things as these are done on direct Minis- terial authority, it is difficult to see what hope there is of securing any public economy whatever which conflicts with the vested interests of the permanent bureaucracy, or indeed of any person who has succeeded in obtaining a foothold of any kind in the public service. An analogous case is furnished by some of the women now employed in munition works. After many months' experience the managers of munition works have come to the conclusion that Sunday work is a wasteful institution. One day's rest in seven is not more than sufficient to enable human beings to recuperate their strength. It has therefore been proposed at certain munition works to abolish Sunday labour. The proposal was instantly met with a threat of a strike, the reason being that Sunday labour is paid for at double rates, and the women employed refused to forgo this double payment.
Thus we find ourselves landed in a vicious circle from which there is apparently no escape. In private business every effort is made to got a desired result with the least expenditure possible. Government business is approached from exactly the opposite point of view. The desire of the average Government official is not to got the result but to get the salary, and as Government work is almost invariably done at an easier stroke than private work, there is always a crowd outside the ringed fence of Government employment clamouring to get in. This crowd appeals to politicians who wish to buy votes, and prefer to buy them with public money, thus saving their own pockets and saving the risk of a prosecution for corrupt practices. It is one of the curious paradoxes of our electoral law that a candidate who offers to give half-a-crown or half-a- sovereign for a vote commits a criminal offence, whereas if he promises to make a considerable number of voters a permanent burden upon the public Exchequer be commits no offence at all. Thus the interests of the politicians and the interests of the permanent bureaucracy work together for the persistent fleecing of the public.
VIGILANS.
Previous page
