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RECONSTRUCTION OF THE INtHAl* ARMY. The ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Administrative Reformers. " The Men Of T...
carefttUy'fcohcea & d ; tMe plan ' of the pteee fe a secret ; ftrid there 'Will fee innumerable sortie ' s to diVert the ' attaftk . But 'it is ap enterprise of great bith and moment , well worth a Mrd struggle , and Weir worthy of thdse ftard ^ flsted gentlemen who do business in great waters and make for us our iron roads . The'first difficulty will be found in the general ignorance of the subject . Few men know anything of the inner working of our Government offices . They know the character of the working by its results in the Crimea , but they cannot trace the particular sources of the evil . It would be easy to impute general corruption , but it would be unjust . There is not much gross corruption in the civil service . There ' are fewflaarrant ^
bilities of vihen . The ^ e ds ^ Sir- OHAELKfei'ffRE'VE ± . TA 3 sr , for instaaiee- ^ a man ' bf an earnest -and almost romantic 'turn of' mind- ^ a man " who has an ideal standard of morality , and is a first-rate'judge of human nature . He was great in India , where his moral worth ¦ made itself ' felt among the natives and among the comparatively demoralised Europeans , and-he would 'be a good commissa ^* geiteral-in < -fchief — -able to select subordin ates with a glance of the eye , and to find . out the biest instruments on the spot . But he is chained to a desk in the Treasury— -pottering over papers , and finding out whether the 31 . 6 s . 8 £ d . paid to Jones has been sanctioned by the estimates . There is a Mr . M / dxvant , an Irish engineer , a man who has made his own reputation . He was , up to the other day , a commissioner of
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ MHHa M ^ HMHHp ^^^^ M ^ H ^^^^ HBMIM ^^* 9 *™^*^^^^^^^ " . ^ .- . . ' . -... ¦ - . A .- * . . . ^ r .. ¦ .....- » ¦>¦ , . - : *• " . » -,- * ; -- »»« -V ** - ? arid . 210 manwlho hag spent his Itfe rat ^ sea-or -in tnecamp can be a good . tuler- ; of !« n ; o & ice , 1 except by : some extraordinary genius not common in these days . It is the Tnoi ; i £ ecessary today down this doctrine , as w & find , -the ' intense Mr . I / atabi > blunderingrintothe * «? p |> Qsite , error , by asking with atone ! of surprise , was Sir Thomas HasteSt & s tke ^ only aTjnlleiy - officer on the Ordnanee- Board ? : . In difficulties like these thejprojected . association will doubtless lose , mueh time . But let them ; point the moral of the . obstruction . Iiet them-denounce the official , reserve which makes a mystery of what should . be as clear as' noonSSay , and which , by eonceaJiag everything , facilitates everything bad , from wilful favouritism to innocent stupidity .
jobs . There are instances now and again where persons , utterly incompetent , have been forced into offices by political influence —young men , for example , thrust into an accountant ' s office without the least fitness or aptitude for the duties—or political adventurers and fashionable swindlers placed at the head of an office without any reference to sj : > ecial qualifications . But in nine cases out of ten such appointments do little harmand even that little can be neutralised if the clerks in the middle ranks be clever and energetic . In short , it is on this middle class of clerks that the efficiency of the service depends : and in its mismanagement we find the cause of the present break-down . It is recruited from raw lads sent in anyhow from among the nominees of Members of Parliament ; and at the top of the tree its career of promotion is stopped by the intrusion of men little better than Frank Villtehs . Conceive the position of a chief clerk haying twenty clerks under him , and interested in doirifr well the work of his office . His name
public works in Ireland ; but he differed with some Irish landlords , and , light or wrong , was forced to resign . He is- still in the prime of life , healthy and energetic . He would be exactly the man to aid an army in engineering -work , but he is cast adriftrat an expense tothe public of € 671 . a year pension . These are but a iewmild instances of the want of tact among the authorities . They will not call to then * aid good men from the other ranks of life , and they will not use the good men they already command . Iiet us be permitted to repeat , the inevitable stumbling-block to the progress of the new association will be want of knowledge . They will make a thousand blunders in the beginning , lii one phrase of their initiatory circular there is a sad confusion . They talk of " promotion for merit . " Some of the worst appointments ever made by the Government are appointments for " merit . " They give to some foolish old admiral an administrative post on account of his naval " merit ; " they reward some partisan with a commissionership on
is never known to the public ; he has no hope that any one outside the office will ever hear of his exertions ; and he knows that the political chief of the office is too adroit to speak in Parliament or elsewhere of the service of his subordinate . Thus discouraged from above , he finds at the other end of the service from time to time a fresh infusion of untrained young men , who have entered the office with the intention of having a " snug berth , " arid who never had a notion of work . ' The position is similar to that of a sergeant in the army retained at some doomed dep 6 talways drilling recruits , and never allowed to riso beyond a certain rank in the regiment . Were this middle class of the civil service allowed to recruit itself from the business world , were lit allowed to cull from r * the City , from the railway offices , from pro" fcssiorial life , good men , accustomed to hard work , and having the fresh spirit of new men , the service could be made thoroughly efficient . But if all'the merchants in the City went tomorrow to Xord Paimehston and said ,
: account of his political " merit ; scientific " merit" finds its reward in some berth or other ( no matter where , so that the salary be respectable ); and even personal " merit" is duly rewarded . This is but the old dance to a new tune—the old dance which made Sir Christopher Hatton a Lord Chancellor . It is so easy to administer business , it is so easy to rule clerks , direct complex operations , insure official order , promptitude , and care , that any man can do it . Therefore reward your fine old admirals by giving them easy chairs at the Admiralty ; please your party by promoting your faithful friends into the Income-tax Commission ; get your ministerial paper to give a puff for } r our appointment of scientific men to business posts—and do something pleasant for aristocratic defaulters . The worst administrators of official business in this country ( and that is indeed a " lowest deep" that has no " lower" ) have been naval and military men . The man who is brave and ready in the camp and in the field is often fussy and feeble when surrounded by official details . It is a
"'Wo give you our beat clerks , " hia lordship ( after tho usual pleasantries ) would Bay , " Mr . Clifford , make out appointments for these . gentlemen aa junior clerks at J ) 0 / . a year each . " It ia in thin want of elasticity , in this damning want of adaptation to circumstances , that the weak part of tho service liea . While this war has caused stir and change in exory other department of national exertion , tho civil aervico liea in the midst ; , of English life 11 dead branch . Its course of promotion iw atill tho aaine ; its hours of work aro Ktill the same ; it at ill haunts long useless corridors leading to queer and dark rooms—sometimes very largo , sometimes very small , and tho only sign of lifo ia tho punctuality of luncheon . Ono of the worst features , perhaps , in tho whole service , ia tho utter disregard shown % tho political chiefs for tho peculiar
enpngreat mistake to suppose that a practical knowledge of tho matter governed is necessary or useful for its official administration . Tho best First Lords of tho Admiralty for years have boon civilians , and tho worst heads of tho Ordnance and other boards have been military men . The one department of the war service which among all tho others has been pre-eminent , and is still pre-eminent for mismanagement , is tho Horse Guards , simply because Lord Hardinge ia no more " fit" to rule an office than ho ia to calculate tho longitude . Wo might multiply particulars , but tho inference ia obvious . Wo want not " merit , " but " fitness . " No naval or military men should bo at tho " head" of any office . In offices * connected with their profession their proper post ia that of inspector and adviser ; but civil service ia a craft of its own ,
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Reconstruction Of The Inthal* Army. The ...
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE INtHAl * ARMY . The force of public opinion has at length extorted from the British Oligarchy a tardy act of justice towards the officers of the Indian Army . Henceforth precedence is to be regulated , on either side of the Cape , by the date of commission , and thus one cause of the mutual jealousy that prevails between the two services has been very properly removed . But we cannot accept this measure as final and complete . We fear that it will prove a honeyed sop to still the clamours of the Press , and that it is intended by this slig ht concession to waive the weightier demands that are being urged by the officers of the Native Army . According to the letter of the Memorandum , the chief command of armies in India may be held by generals in the Company ' s service , and it will frequently happen that they shall be entitled to take ; precedence of those in the Koyal Army . It is impossible , indeed , that it should be otherwise , unless the in sexi / i ^
Jbiorse truaras persist uxug um _ u .-ridden and septuagenarian warriors to fill the most important appointments . And it would be credulous to suppose that such valuable patronage will be lightly relinquished . At present , India furnishes a comfortable provision for effete old generals , and for members of the aristocracy militant , who are too poor or too incompetent to be paraded before the eyes of Europe . But if the new Memorandum be literally fulfilled , this convenient system must be consigned to Limbo , for it will be no longer practicable on earth . It will not suffice to have " served in the Peninsula" to obtain the command of an Indian army . A Company ' s general mav now hope to attain the highest aim of his ambition , and to lead into the field the men whom he has trained to victory . But if his military talents and experience are of a character to render good service to his country , why should the sphere of their usefulness be confined to the East ? Why should they not be made available in any quarter of the globe where such attributes may be needed ? In the critical position of muuj "
attairs tnat now prevails , mere uru . «» - tinguished officers of . the Company ' s service who might most profitably have been employed iu tho Crimea . Such men as Sir Hugh Wheelek , Colonel Hodgson , Brigadier Mayne , and others whom it would be tedious to enumerate , might well have been entrusted with divisional commands ; and many ot their juniors have justly merited an opportunity ot signalising themselves on a more glorious field than can bo furnished in tho distant regions of India . But this reciprocity of service docs not appear to bo contemplated by tho new regulation , nor perhaps would it be practicable without introducing the privilege of exchanging into either branch of the . National Army . And there ia one great benelit to bo derived from tho system of exchange , in the . fact that adventurous and truly mar-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 5, 1855, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05051855/page/15/
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