Passing over a period of 28 years, that is, from the year 1876 to the year 1904, we find Mr. E. Trenam, Controller London Central Telegraph Office, testifying that because of danger that in the immediate future there would be a lack of telegraph clerks who had a knowledge of the technics of telegraphy, Mr. W. H. Preece, Engineer-in-Chief, had caused a special increase in pay—$26 a year—to be offered to men who should acquire such knowledge. The witness added that “unfortunately many of the men who have [acquired] this knowledge are comparative juniors, and we are compelled to put them to work which those receiving higher pay are incompetent to perform. It will take some years to adjust the anomaly … [that is, before the incompetent men receiving higher pay shall have been pensioned or shall have died]”.[277]
Promotion by Seniority, not Jobbery, the Public Service’s weak Point
Before the Royal Commission of 1888, appointed to inquire into the Civil Establishments, Sir Thomas H. Farrer, who had been a Member of the Playfair Royal Commission of 1876, and had been Permanent Secretary of the Board of Trade from 1867 to 1886, said: “I should like to say that in the discussion which led [in 1872] to the adoption of Mr. Lowe’s [Chancellor of the Exchequer] scheme[278] [for the reform of the civil service] a mistake was often made, and is still made, in supposing that the great evil of the service is jobbery. That is not the case, and I say so with great confidence, having regard to what has been done by Ministers whom I have served of both parties. The real evil of the service is promotion by routine, and not jobbing in the selection for superior places.[279] But make your regulations what you will, the sine qua non, to make any regulations work well, is that the men at the head of the different offices shall have discretion, honesty, and courage, and shall not be afraid to put up the good men and to keep the inferior men in their place. I am quite confident from my own experience that it can be done, but I am certain that it can be done only if the men at the head of the offices will take a good deal of trouble about it.” Lord Lingen, a Member of the Royal Commission, and a former Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, interpolated: “A good deal of trouble and a good deal of disagreeable interference.” Mr. Farrer continued: “It requires tact, because of course you must not put a man up for mere merit. You cannot take a lad of 19 and put him over a man of 30 without a very strong reason; but taking the different sub-heads of the department into counsel; by a little give and take; by care, discretion, and confidence in the perfect honesty with which the thing is done, I believe it can be perfectly well managed…. The key of the whole thing is to put the proper men at the top of the offices.”
Lord Lingen and Mr. Farrer then went on to state that with every change of the Government of the day, some civil servants who had been passed over, or had some other grievance, made the attempt to have their cases reopened.[280]
Sir Charles DuCane, Chairman of the Commissioners of Customs, said: “We promote strictly by merit; we never allow seniority to weigh with us.”[281]
Sir Algernon E. West, Chairman of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, said that he promoted by merit within the limits allowed him by the Treasury ruling that no clerk could pass out of the second class into the first class without 10 years’ service in the second class. Subsequent testimony established the fact that the Treasury had made that ruling in order to prevent the second class clerks from bringing pressure on Members of Parliament with the view to securing automatic promotion from the second class into the first.[282] Just before making the foregoing statement, Sir Algernon West had said: “If you take the whole Civil Service, I think you will find a general concord of opinion that the man receiving from $2,500 to $3,000 a year is the weakest part of the Civil Service. I am not speaking of a young man who is in process of going higher, but of an elderly man who has risen to that kind of high salary, and has no prospect of getting anything more…. An ordinary middle aged man, who has got to $2,500 or $3,000 or $3,500, generally is far too highly paid.” Mr. R. W. Hanbury, a Member of the Royal Commission, queried: “How would he get such a position?” The answer came: “By natural progression,” i. e. promotion by routine.[283]
Sir Lyon Playfair, a man of vast experience in the administration of the British Civil Service, said: “Promotions by merit hardly take place in most offices, I think; at all events, there are very few instances brought before us.”[284]
Promotion by Seniority the Great Evil
The Royal Commission itself reported: “We think that promotion by seniority is the great evil of the Service, and that it is indispensable to proceed throughout every branch of it strictly on the principle of promotion by merit, that is to say, by selecting always the fittest man, instead of considering claims in order of seniority, and rejecting only the unfit. It is no doubt true that objections on the score of favoritism may arise in the application of such a rule in public departments, and the intervention of Members of Parliament also presents an obvious difficulty, but we think that such constant vigilance, tact, and resolution as may fairly be expected on the part of heads of branches and of offices, will meet these objections, and we believe that the certain advantages of promotion by merit to the most deserving men, and therefore to the public service, are so great as to be sure, in the long run, to command public support.”