The Times publishes a long description by M. Koscheleff of
the present state of the Russian Civil Service. It is, he alleges, arbitrary, idle, selfish, and even in the highest ranks, corrupt. Its members seek nothing but their own advancement, they dis- regard all laws which control their own will, and they are specially hostile to all municipal authority. They do not take small bribes, as they did, owing to better pay ; but they take large bribes from Companies, and use their information to gamble on the Stock Exchange. They hate subordinates of principle, and in the higher ranks completely seclude themselves from the people. These charges seem a little vague and bitter, and some of them might be brought against the Prussian bureaucracy, the most efficient in the world. What foreigners want to know is whether the Russian Civil Service can be bribed to neglect orders—a very different thing from being bribed to assist in obtaining con- cessions—and whether it is or is not trusted by the people ? Is Russia honeycombed with corruption, as its literary class say, or is it only in the hands of a civil service which it is unable to pay fairly ?
Previous page
