The Government of England (Vol. I)

by A. Lawrence Lowell

The power, but happily not the corruption, of the permanent officials in the Colonial Office can be traced still more clearly at a much later time. In 1839 Lord Durham, in his famous "Report on the Affairs of British North America," complains that owing to the repeated changes in the political chiefs of the Colonial Office, the real management of the colonies fell into the hands of "the permanent but utterly irresponsible members of the office"; and he quotes from a report made in the preceding year by a select committee of the Assembly of Upper Canada, to show that this was felt by the colonists themselves as a grievance.[177:1] The group of English colonial reformers, with whom Lord Durham was associated, held the same opinion. Gibbon Wakefield tells us, in his "View of the Art of Colonization" that "The great bulk, accordingly, of the labours of the office are performed, as the greater portion of its legislative and executive authority is necessarily wielded, by the permanent under-secretary and the superior clerks."[177:2] Wakefield and his school disapproved of the colonial policy of the day, and disliked cordially the permanent officials and their methods. "Our colonial system of government," Wakefield adds, "is the bureaucratic, spoiled by being grafted on to free institutions."[178:1] He had a special aversion for Sir James Stephen—long the legal adviser, and afterwards permanent under-secretary, to the Colonial Office—whom he regarded as the archetype, if not the founder, of the class of officials that had become the real arbiters of the destinies of the colonial empire.[178:2]

Mr. Mothercountry.

Wakefield quotes from Charles Buller's "Responsible Government for Colonies" (a work published in 1840, but at that time already out of print), an extract entitled "Mr. Mothercountry, of the Colonial Office."[178:3] Parliament, Buller declares, takes no interest in the colonies, and exercises no efficient control over the administration and legislation affecting them; and hence the supremacy of England really resides in the Colonial Office. But the Secretary of State holds a shifting position. Perplexed by the vast variety of questions presented to him, he is obliged at the outset to rely on one or other of the permanent officials, and the official who thus directs the action of the British government Buller calls "Mr. Mothercountry." He is familiar with every detail of his business, and handles with unfaltering hand the piles of papers at which his superiors quail. He knows the policy which previous actions render necessary; but he never appears to dictate. A new Secretary of State intends to be independent, but something turns up that obliges him to consult Mr. Mothercountry. He is pleased with the ready and unobtrusive advice which takes a great deal of trouble off his hands. If things go well, his confidence in Mr. Mothercountry rises. If badly, that official alone can get him out of the colonial or parliamentary scrape; and the more independent he is the more scrapes he falls into. Buller goes on to point out the faults of Mr. Mothercountry; his love of routine, his tendency to follow precedent, his dislike of innovation, and his dread of being criticised.

Memoirs of Colonial Officials.

Any one, with even a slight knowledge of government offices in England, will recognise that the portrait of Mr. Mothercountry and his influence is hardly overdrawn, in cases where the political chief either holds his place for a short time, or is not a man of commanding ability. The impression of the critics of colonial administration is, indeed, strikingly reënforced in this respect by memoirs of the permanent officials themselves; although some allowance must, no doubt, be made for a natural overestimate of their own importance.[179:1] Sir Henry Taylor confided to the world in his autobiography a number of remarks that throw light on the internal working of the Colonial Office in the second quarter of the century. While never its permanent under-secretary, he was for a great many years a highly influential person there, as may be seen from the fact that early in his career he drew up, on his own judgment, a despatch recalling a governor, which the secretary signed.[179:2] Taylor tells us that Lords Goderich and Howick, who became the political chiefs of the Colonial Office in 1831, were "not more in pupilage than it is necessary and natural that men should be who are new to their work."[179:3] He says that when Lord Stanley was appointed Secretary of State, in 1833, he asked no advice from his subordinates, and a measure he prepared was blown into the air by the House of Commons; whereupon he had recourse to Mr. Stephen,[179:4] "who for so many years might better have been called the Colonial Department itself than the 'Counsel to the Colonial Department.'"[179:5] A little later he repeats this last statement, saying that while Lord Glenelg was Secretary "Stephen virtually ruled the Colonial Empire."[179:6] Taylor's own influence was shown when complaints were made of his administration of the West Indies. The House of Commons appointed a committee of inquiry, and the report of that committee, with the exception of the last few sentences, was entirely drawn up by Taylor himself.[180:1]

Sir Frederick Rogers (afterwards Lord Blachford), who was permanent under-secretary from 1860 to 1871, has left in his letters suggestive comments upon most of his political chiefs. The Duke of Newcastle, he says, is "very ready to accept your conclusions, very clear in his own directions, and extremely careful (which I respect very highly) never to throw back on a subordinate any shadow of responsibility for advice that he has once accepted."[180:2] "Cardwell," he remarks, "is happily absent, though not so much as I could wish";[180:3] and, finally, he writes that he likes Lord Granville, who "is very pleasant and friendly, and I think will not meddle beyond what is required to keep us clear of political slips."[180:4] Some people outside of the office evidently thought that the secretaries of state had not meddled overmuch, for George Higginbottom, afterwards Chief Justice of Victoria, once remarked in the Assembly, "It might be said with perfect truth that the million and a half of Englishmen who inhabit these colonies, and who during the last fifteen years have believed they possessed self-government, have been really governed during the whole of that time by a person named Rogers";[180:5] and in the same vein Rees, in his "Life and Times of Sir George Grey," refers to Sir Robert Herbert (permanent under-secretary from 1871 to 1892) as the man who "controls the destinies of the Colonial Office."[180:6]

Influence of Permanent Officials in Other Departments.

With the growing interest in the empire, there has come a change; but until a very recent period the fact that British statesmen knew little of the subject, and did not care much more, no doubt made the power of the permanent officials peculiarly great in the Colonial Office.

Their influence, however, upon the policy of the government in the other departments, if less absolute, has nevertheless been very large. This impression one obtains both from published documents, and from private conversations, although the former alone can be cited as evidence. As far back as 1845 we find the Lord Lieutenant speaking of the permanent under-secretary as "the main-spring of your government in Ireland."[181:1] But more important than scattered statements of this kind is the information derived from the testimony taken by parliamentary committees of inquiry. One cannot read, for example, the evidence collected in 1900 by the Committee on Municipal Trading[181:2] without being convinced that not only the efficiency, but also in large measure the current policy, of the Board of Trade depended upon the permanent official at its head, and this is true of every branch of the administration.[181:3] Sir Lyon Playfair gave the reason for it when he said: "The secretary being a very busy man is very apt to take the advice of the clerk who has been looking over all the details and the correspondence before it comes to him."[182:1] A superior, indeed, lacking the time to become thoroughly familiar with the facts, must be to a great extent in the hands of a trusted subordinate who has them all at his fingers' ends. It is the common case of the layman and his confidential expert; and it must be observed in this connection that with exacting parliamentary and other duties, the cabinet ministers cannot devote all their time to the work of their departments.