Sir Edward Hamilton, Assistant Secretary to the Treasury since 1894, said that the Treasury could depend less than formerly upon the support of the House of Commons, and that often-times the tendency of the debates in the House was to weaken the hands of the Treasury.[427] Sir Edward Hamilton had entered the Treasury in 1870; had served as Private Secretary to Mr. Lowe, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1872-73; and as Private Secretary to Mr. Gladstone, First Lord of the Treasury, in 1880 to 1885. He had been made successively Principal Clerk of the Finance Division in 1885; Assistant Financial Secretary in 1892; and Assistant Secretary in 1894. In 1902 he was made Permanent Financial Secretary.
Mr. Austen Chamberlain, a member of the Select Committee, asked Mr. R. Chalmers,[428] a Principal Clerk at the Treasury: “Is it within your experience as an official of the Treasury that Ministers of other Departments not infrequently represent, as the reason for allowing expenditure, the strong pressure that has been put upon them in the House of Commons?” “Yes; I have seen repeated instances of that.” “And their inability to resist that pressure for another year?” “Yes.”[429]
Sir John Eldon Gorst, M. P., a man of large experience of the Public Service, said he had no doubt that in all offices there were officers who had ceased to have anything to do; and that was particularly true of the Education Department, where there was much reading of newspapers, and much literary composition. He had “even heard of rooms where Ping Pong was played, there being nothing else to do at the moment.” Sir John Eldon Gorst continued: “The Treasury has power to make an inquiry into every Office, it could institute an inquiry to see whether the office was or was not economically managed, but so far as I know that power never has been exercised. It would be very difficult indeed for the Parliamentary Head of a Department to call in the Treasury for such an investigation. It would make the Parliamentary head extremely unpopular. The only person who, in my opinion, as things are, can really influence the expenses of an office, is the Civil Service head…. But although the Civil Service head of the office has a very great motive to make his office efficient, because his own credit and his own future depend on the efficiency of his office, he has comparatively little motive for economy. Parliament certainly does not thank him; I do not know whether the Treasury thanks him very much; certainly his colleagues do not thank him; … and the natural disposition of a man to let well enough alone renders him reluctant to take upon himself the extremely ungrateful task of making his office, not only an efficient one, but also an economical one. I think anybody who has any experience of mercantile offices, such as a great insurance office, or anything of that kind, would be struck directly with the different atmosphere which prevails in a mercantile office and a Government office…. I have no hesitation in saying that any large insurance company, or any large commercial office of any kind, is worked far more efficiently and far more economically than the best of the Departments of His Majesty’s Government.”[430]
Sir John Eldon Gorst’s statement that he knew of no instance of the Treasury exercising its power of instituting an inquiry conducted by Treasury officers, into the administration of a Department of State, recalls to mind some testimony given by Sir R. E. Welby, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, before the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments, 1888. Mr. Cleghorn, a Member of that Commission, asked Sir R. E. Welby: “Is there anybody at the Treasury, for instance, who could say to the Board of Trade, or any other particular Department: ‘You have too many clerks, you must reduce them by ten?’ Is there anybody at the Treasury with sufficient power and knowledge of the work to be in a position to say that, and to take the responsibility of it?” Sir R. E. Welby replied: “No.” Thereupon Mr. R. W. Hanbury, another Member of the Commission, asked: “There is not?” Once more the answer was: “No.”[431]
Again, in 1876, before the Select Committee on Post Office Telegraph Departments, Mr. Julian Goldsmid, a Member of the Committee, asked Mr. S. A. Blackwood, Financial Secretary to the Post Office: “You would not like, perhaps, to give the reasons for that enormous overmanning which existed in some of the [telegraph] offices [in 1873 to 1875]?” Mr. Blackwood replied: “I am not acquainted with the reasons myself.”[432]
Sir Ralph H. Knox, in the course of his testimony, had quoted Mr. Bagehot’s statement: “If you want to raise a certain cheer in the House of Commons, make a general panegyric on economy; if you want to invite a sure defeat, propose a particular saving.” He had continued: “I should like to add, ‘If you want to lose popularity, oppose the proposals for increase.’ There ought to be some Members in the House of Commons who would undertake that line.”
Gladstone’s Tribute to Hume
This wish of Sir Ralph H. Knox recalls to mind the tribute paid, in 1873, by Mr. Gladstone, to the memory of Joseph Hume, the first as well as the last Member of the House of Commons to acquire a knowledge of the expenditures of the Government which was sufficient to enable the possessor to criticize with intelligence the details of the expenditures of the Government. Said Mr. Gladstone: “…and in like manner, I believe that Mr. Hume has earned for himself an honorable and a prominent place in the history of this country—not by endeavoring to pledge Parliament to abstract resolutions or general declarations on the subject of economy, but by an indefatigable and unwearied devotion, by the labor of a life, to obtain complete mastery of all the details of public expenditure, and by tracking, and I would almost say hunting, the Minister in every Department through all these details with a knowledge equal or superior to his own. In this manner, I do not scruple to say, Mr. Hume did more, not merely to reduce the public expenditure as a matter of figures, but to introduce principles of economy into the management of the administration of public money, than all the men who have lived in our time put together. This is the kind of labor, which, above all things, we want. I do not know whether my honorable and learned friend [Mr. Vernon Harcourt], considering his distinguished career in his profession, is free to devote himself to the public service in the same way as Mr. Hume did. If, however, he is free to do so, I would say to him: ‘By all means apply yourself to this vocation. You will find it extremely disagreeable. You will find that during your lifetime very little distinction is to be gained in it, but in the impartiality of history and of posterity you will be judged very severely in the scales of absolute justice as regards the merits of public men, and you will then obtain your reward.’”[433]
The British public, needless to say, still is waiting for the man, or men, who shall take upon themselves the invidious but honorable task of stemming the tide to extravagant expenditure, which, in Great Britain, as elsewhere, is the besetting sin of popular government. The British people still are waiting, though, since 1870, they have vastly increased the functions of the Government by nationalizing a great branch of industry, and therefore are more than ever in need of persons who shall emulate the late Joseph Hume.