In April, 1902, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and representative in the House of Commons of the Postmaster General, the Marquis of Londonderry, said: “In a great administration like this there must be decentralization, and how difficult it is to decentralize, either in the Post Office or in the Army, when working under constant examination by question and answer in this House, no honorable Member who has not had experience of official life can easily realize. But there must be decentralization, because every little petty matter cannot be dealt with by the Postmaster General or the Permanent Secretary to the Post Office. Their attention should be reserved in the main for large questions, and I think it is deplorable, absolutely deplorable, that so much of their time should be occupied, as under the present circumstances it necessarily is occupied, with matters of very small detail, because these matters of detail are asked by honorable Members, and because we do not feel an honorable Member will accept an answer from anyone but the highest authority. I think a third of the time—I am putting it at a low estimate—of the highest officials in the Post Office is occupied in answering questions raised by Members of this House, and in providing me with information in order that I may be in a position to answer the inquiries addressed to me” concerning matters which, “in any private business, would be dealt with by the officer on the spot, without appeal or consideration unless grievous cause were shown.”[358]
In March, 1903, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Postmaster General, read the following Post Office Rule: “A postmaster is to address to his surveyor, and a subordinate officer is to address to the postmaster (who will forward it to his surveyor), any application from himself having reference to his duties or pay, or any communications he may desire to make relating to official matters; and if the applicant is dissatisfied with the result he may appeal direct to the Postmaster General. But it is strictly forbidden to make any such application or other communication through the public, or to procure one to be made by Members of Parliament, or others; and should an irregular application be received, the officer on whose behalf it is made will be subject to censure or punishment proportionate to the extent of his participation in the violation of the rule.” Mr. Chamberlain added: “But it has been my practice [as well as that of Mr. Chamberlain’s predecessors] to treat the rule as applying only to applications so made in the first instance, and I have raised no objection to an officer who had appealed to me, and was dissatisfied with my decision, applying subsequently to a Member of Parliament.”[359]
The Post Office is not the only British Department of State which is obliged to consider with care how far it may go counter to individual interests in enforcing rules and standards adopted for the preservation of the public interest.
Before the Select Committee on National Expenditure, 1902, Sir John Eldon Gorst, M. P., and Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education, 1895 to 1902, said: “What I want to impress upon the Committee is that Parliament has never an influence which goes for economy of any kind in the expenditure of public money on education [about $40,000,000 a year]. Then I hope I have now shown the Committee that the only security the public has that what it spends will be efficiently spent is the system of inspection. Earlier in my evidence I also pointed out the two systems which are in vogue for inspection, namely the South Kensington system and the Whitehall system. The Whitehall system, which deals with the larger amount of public money, is extremely inefficient. The Elementary Education Inspectors have before their eyes the fear, first of all, of the managers of the schools which they visit. The managers of the schools are often important School Boards like the School Board of London, which is not a body to be trifled with, which has very great influence, both in Parliament and in the Education Department, and which the Inspectors are very much afraid of offending. But it is not only powerful School Boards, but any managers [of schools] can take the matter up. If an Inspector goes into a school and sees [reports] that the children are dirty, or that the school is dirty, or that the teacher is inefficient, the manager is up in arms at once, and writes a letter to the Board of Education, and comes up and sees the Secretary, and protests against the Inspector for having dared to make an unfavorable report of his or her school. Besides that, the Inspectors have before their eyes the fear of the National Union of Teachers. Almost every teacher now is a member of the National Union of Teachers, and if an Inspector is supposed to be severe, a teacher complains at once to the National Union, and the case is taken up, possibly even in Parliament, by some of the officials of the National Union of Teachers in Parliament, and it is made very uncomfortable for the Inspector. Then, lastly, they [i. e., the Inspectors] have the office—that is not, say, their own Chief Inspector, but the officials of the office, who do not like an Inspector who makes trouble. The great art of an Inspector is to get on well with the managers [of schools] and teachers, and to make no trouble at all. I have known cases of adverse reports which were not liked at the office being sent back to the Inspector to alter,” not by the Chief Inspector, or Senior Inspector of the District, but by some other person in the office.[360]
Sir John Eldon Gorst was Solicitor-General in 1885-86, Under Secretary for India in 1886 to 1891, Financial Secretary to the Treasury in 1891-92, Deputy Chairman of Committees of the House of Commons in 1888 to 1891, and Vice-President of Council on Education in 1885 to 1902. He was a Member of the House of Commons in 1866 to 1868, and has been a member continuously since 1875. Since 1892 he has sat as representative of the University of Cambridge.
Sir John Eldon Gorst was by no means unwilling to take his share of blame for the mismanagement in the various Departments of State arising out of the intervention of the House of Commons—under pressure from the constituencies, or organized groups in the constituencies—in the administrative details of the Departments of State. He said: “I have been as great a sinner as anyone in the days when I represented Chatham,[361] before I was a Member of the Government; I was perpetually urging the Secretary of the Admiralty for the time being to increase the expenditures at the dockyards”[362] [in the interest of the laborers in the dockyards and of the merchants and manufacturers who have raw materials to sell to the dockyards].
FOOTNOTES:
[329] Second Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the Civil Establishments, 1888; Sir S. A. Blackwood, Secretary to the Post Office since 1880; q. 17,821 to 17,827.
[330] Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, February 25, 1903, p. 803.