You may dismiss but you must not
“Not very many years ago there was a clerk of whom perpetual complaints were made to me. He was in a hard-worked department, and the heads of it told me repeatedly: ‘We can do nothing with him.’ At last we got it arranged that he should go [with a large pension, on the theory that his office was abolished, because no longer required]. My back was turned—I was away on a holiday—and when I came back, I found that Parliamentary pressure, by which I mean applications from Members, had been put on, and in spite of us all, the man was back in the place to the detriment of our credit. Let me mention another case. I was engaged upon a reorganization of the department under one of the strongest men [Ministers] I have ever served. What the President of the Board of Trade said to me, in effect was: ‘We must have new blood; we are getting crowded up with effete men; I will back you in anything you do, only you must undertake not to get me into a difficulty in the House of Commons. I cannot afford it; the Government cannot afford time for it; they cannot afford strength to fight battles of that kind.’ We set to work about the reorganization with our hands tied, and we were obliged to say to these men: ‘Well, if you stay here, we will make it very uncomfortable for you; we will put you in the very worst places in the office,’ The Treasury offered good terms of retirement [pensions], and in that way, after a good deal of fighting, we got rid of most of them…. We had to give them very high terms [that is, very liberal pensions]. I may mention a case which happened even since then. I refer to the official Receivers in Bankruptcy. They were men who were appointed only a few years ago, under the most stringent conditions imposed by the Treasury and the Board of Trade, and without the slightest reference to personal considerations or to politics. They were told that they were appointed on trial, that they might be removed at any moment if the Board of Trade desired it for the good of the service. Fortunately, most of them have turned out extremely well. One, perhaps more, turned out bad, but one certainly turned out very bad. Perpetual complaints were made to me by the head of that department that he could do nothing with this man, and that the business was being badly conducted. After a good deal of trouble, after I left, it was determined to remove this man. The Members of Parliament for the county, as I am told, came and put pressure upon the President of the Board of Trade [the Minister], till he was obliged to say: ‘I cannot remove him; he must stay.’”
Pension System no Remedy
To the foregoing testimony from the Permanent Secretary of the Board of Trade, the Chairman of the Royal Commission replied: “I gather from what you say, that, supposing it was possible, under this new system of pensions and allowances, to give a man who was sent away from the service the money which he had himself contributed toward his ultimate pension, either with or without the addition of a Government grant, you do not think that would get over the difficulty in getting rid of incompetent men?” Sir T. H. Farrer replied: “No, I do not think it would, unless the House of Commons passes a self-denying ordinance, and refuses to interfere with the Ministers in the management of their departments.”[257]
Later in the examination, Lord Lingen, who had been Permanent Secretary of the Treasury from 1869 to 1885, said to Sir T. H. Farrer: “You have given a good deal of evidence as to the difficulties which the relation of the public departments to Parliament creates. I think we might hold there is nothing in private service analogous to what you may call the triennial change of Government, that [when] everybody who has been passed over [not promoted], who thinks he has any grievance, considers that he has a fresh chance on a change of Ministry?” The Secretary of the Board of Trade replied: “Yes, I remember distinctly one particular case in which on every change of Government a fresh appeal was made to the new Ministers on behalf of men who had been retired for good reasons.” Lord Lingen continued: “It revived questions which had been supposed to be settled?” “Yes, it does, not infrequently.”
On August 1, 1890, in the House of Commons, the Postmaster General, Mr. Raikes, in speaking of a Post Office employee who had been disciplined, said: “The case is one to which I have given a great deal of personal attention; indeed, I may say that in cases of dismissal or punishment I have always endeavored to satisfy myself thoroughly as to the facts, and to mitigate, if I can, the effect of the regulations of the Department.” On that same day the Postmaster General stated—in reply to Mr. Conybeare,[258] who was intervening on behalf of one Cornwell, dismissed from the postal service—that Cornwell had been dismissed for the second time. After the first dismissal, the Postmaster General himself had reinstated Cornwell. The second dismissal had been necessary “in the interest of the Service at large, but especially in that of the other men employed on the same duty, his case should be dealt with in an exemplary manner.”[259]
In March, 1896, the Chairman of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Post Office Establishments, asked Mr. Lewin Hill, Assistant Secretary General Post Office: “Do you think there is any other particular class of employment which is comparable with that of the postmen?” Mr. Hill replied: “I thought of railway servants, whose work in many ways resembles the work of our employees. If they have not the same permanence as our people have, they have continuous employment so long as they are efficient, but our people have continuous employment whether they are efficient or not.”[260] Several months later, Mr. Hill testified as follows before this same Committee: “Our inquiries have proved that the telegraph staff at Liverpool is excessive, and it has been decided, on vacancies [occurring], to abolish the ten appointments.”[261] The meaning of this statement is, that if a mistake is made, and too many men are appointed to a certain office; or, if the business of an office falls off, the Government cannot correct the redundancy of employees by dismissing, or by transferring to some other office, the redundant employees. It must wait until promotion, retirement on account of old age, or death shall remove the redundant employees. Before this same committee, Mr. J. C. Badcock, Controller London Postal Service, testified that in theory there were no first class letter sorters in the foreign newspaper department of the London Post Office, since there had been, since 1886, no work that called for first class newspaper sorters. But as a matter of fact there were thirty-seven “redundant first class sorters, who, upon resignation, or pensioning, or death, would be replaced by second class sorters.”[262]
In 1902, Sir Edgar Vincent,[263] a Member of the Select Committee on National Expenditure, 1902, asked Lord Welby, who had been Permanent Secretary to the Treasury from 1885 to 1894: “It is, I presume, extremely difficult for the Minister at the head of a Department to dismiss, or place on the retired list incompetent officers?” Lord Welby replied: “It is very difficult. Of course there are different degrees of incompetency. It is not so difficult in the case of a notoriously incompetent officer, but there are many people, as the honorable Member is aware, against whom nothing whatever can be said, who are still the very reverse of competent.” Sir Edgar Vincent continued: “Can you suggest any means of substituting for a Minister whom it is almost impossible to expect to perform the duty, some authority who should revise Establishments and exclude the bad bargains?” Lord Welby, of course, replied that the remedy suggested would be inconsistent with the principles of parliamentary government,[264] in that it would substitute for the Minister, who holds office at the pleasure of the House of Commons, some permanent officer or officers appointed by the Ministry.
Difficult to dismiss Probationers