[361] 1875 to 1885.
[362] Report from the Select Committee on National Expenditure, 1902; q. 2,502.
CHAPTER XVII
The Spirit of the Civil Service
The doctrine of an “implied contract” between the State and each civil servant, to the effect that the State may make no change in the manner of administering its great trading departments without compensating every civil servant however remotely or indirectly affected. The hours of work may not be increased without compensating every one affected. Administrative “mistakes” may not be corrected without compensating the past beneficiaries of such mistakes. Violation of the order that promotion must not be mechanical, or by seniority alone, may not be corrected without compensating those civil servants who would have been benefitted by the continued violation of the aforesaid order. The State may not demand increased efficiency of its servants without compensating every one affected. Persons filling positions for which there is no further need, must be compensated. Each civil servant has a “vested right” to the maintenance of such rate of promotion as obtains when he enters the service, irrespective of the volume of business or of any diminution in the number of higher posts consequent upon administrative reforms. The telegraph clerks demand that their chances of promotion be made as good as those of the postal clerks proper, but they refuse to avail themselves of the opportunity to pass over to the postal side proper of the service, on the ground that the postal duties proper are more irksome than the telegraph duties. Members of Parliament support recalcitrant telegraph clerks whom the Government is attempting to force to learn to perform postal duties, in order that it may reap advantage from having combined the postal service and the telegraph service in 1870. Special allowances may not be discontinued; and vacations may not be shortened, without safeguarding all “vested interests.” Further illustrations of the hopelessly unbusinesslike spirit of the rank and file of the public servants.
Upon a preceding page has been mentioned the contention of the civil servants that there is an implied contract between the State and the Civil Service that the conditions of employment obtaining at any moment shall not be changed to the disadvantage of the civil servants, except upon payment of compensation to all persons disadvantageously affected; and that unless such compensation is paid, any change in the conditions and terms of employment must be limited to future entrants upon the service of the State, or to persons who shall accept promotion on the express condition of becoming subject to the altered terms of employment.
Implied Contract for Six Hour Day
Before the Select Committee on Civil Services Expenditure, 1873, Mr. W. E. Baxter, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said: “I am not an advocate for long hours; and in the mercantile business with which I am connected, I have years ago reduced the hours both of the clerks and of the workmen, but I am inclined to think the six hours given to their work by the Government officials [that is, Upper and Lower Division clerks], rather too short a period, and that it might with advantage be somewhat lengthened. At the same time we must always keep in mind that the effect of lengthening the hours would be to cause an immediate demand for an increase of pay. However I have a very strong impression that in most of the Government offices there are too many clerks, and that there might be considerable economy in a reduction of numbers and an increase of hours.”