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NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. w« nntioe can...
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> — ' V / SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 1857.
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There is nothing so revolutionary, becau...
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THE END OF THE SUPERANNUATION CONTROVERS...
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THIS COxMEDY OJF ELECTIONS IN ERANCE.
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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Transcript
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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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
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Notices To Correspondents. W« Nntioe Can...
NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . w « nntioe can be takeu of anonymous correspondence . Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated hvthe name and address of the writer ; not necessarily for nublication . but as a pcuarantee of his good faith . OT « h ^ nnot undertake to return rejected communications . rwmunicatiohs should always be legibly written , and on 0 o ^ Se of the paper only . If long , it increases the difficulty of finding space for them . „ ,... Tt is imDOSsible to acknowledge the mass of letters we re-Veive Their insertion is often delayed , owing to a press of matter ; and when omitted , it is frequently from rea sons quite independent of the merits of the communica tion .
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> — ' V / Saturday, June 6, 1857.
> — ' V / SATURDAY , JUNE 6 , 1857 .
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^ tihltc Mitim a
There Is Nothing So Revolutionary, Becau...
There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the worldis by thevery law of its creation in eternal progress . —JJE . Akhoid .
The End Of The Superannuation Controvers...
THE END OF THE SUPERANNUATION CONTROVERSY . The report of the Royal Commissioners appointed to inquire into the pensions to civil servants , and the deductions from their salaries on account of those pensions , indicates the prospect of an end to an ugly question , which , more or less understood , has been
haunting newspaper columns for the last ten years . All the world are not civil servants , and the legitimate interest which , as citizens , we should take in the rights of the public offi-¦ cers , has been somewhat damped by the technical and rather confused way in which the claim of the civil service has been put forward by its own pleaders .
The Commissioners recommend several reforms . The deductions from salaries are to be abolished . At present all civil servants having more than 1001 . a year return five per cent . —so that a man with a salary ( nominal ) of 2001 . a year receives but 1901 . a year . ( Officers with salaries under 1001 . a year return only two-and-a-half per cent . ) These deductions were first imposed by a Treasury minute in 1829 , and were imposed
only on those who entered the service after that date . The abolition of the deductions is thus a distinct boon to the civil servantsan addition of 201 . a year , for instance , to the salary of every gentleman at present nominally receiving 400 / . a year . This reform has our hearty approval . It simplifies the whole question . It makes the real salary and the nominal salary correspond , and it enables us to enter fairly into the
question whether our civil servants are properly paid . The next question , however , that the Commissioners had to decide was whether the Crown should continue to pay pensions to superannuated servants . The minute of 1829—confirmed by the act of 1834—imposed the deduction expressly to relieve the Treasury from the burden of the pensions .
The deductions being abolished , is lb necessary , is it politic , for the Crown to charge itself with providing for the declining years of a worn-out official ? The Commissioners answer the question in the affirniativo : the pensions aro to be continued . They correctly state that public opinion in this country would not permit the Crown to loavo to starvation an official unable to work : and that
if officials were unprovided with pensions they would cling to their oilices long after they had ceased to be useful , and thus injure the public service to a greater extent than would bo made up to the Crown by the saving of the pensions . The third question to be decided ia the scale of the pensions .
The older class of servants ( those appointed before 1829 ) enjoy a rather liberal allowance . The man whose salary at retirement after ten years' service ( a less amount of service commands no pension ) was 3001 . a year receives 100 / . a year pension ; if the man were appointed since 1829 , he receives only 751 . a year . The Commissioners now recommend that the man appointed since 1829 should receive only 50 / . a year . Their idea in their new scale seems to be to hold out very little inducement to retirement at the earlier
stages of the civil servants career , and to increase the inducement as age advances , and probably lessens his official utility . ( The Commissioners suggest no alteration in the sciale of pensions payable to those appointed before 1829 ; so that in our future comparisons of their proposed scale with the present pensions we refer only to the pensions paid to the newer class of clerks . ) The officials who have served less than
twenty years have better pensions under the present scale than those suggested by the Commissioners , as shown in the above instance , or in that of the man of 3001 . a year retiring after eighteen years' service : under the present scale he receives 100 / . a year ; under the proposed scale he would receive but 907 . a year . After twenty years ' service the present pensions and the proposed pensions are the same , but after that period
the proposed pensions improve m comparison with the present scale . For instance , the present scale awards the retiring official of thirty years' service and 3001 . a year a pension of 125 / . ; the proposed scale awards him 150 / . a year . After forty years' service , the official of 300 / . a year obtains now 175 Z . a year ; under , the proposed scale he will obtain 200 / . a year . An important alteration is made affecting very aged officials . At present , the official who remains in office after forty
years' service finds his pension increasing according to his years' service . After his fortieth year of service his allowed pension is 35-60 ths of his salary , but if he drags on five years more his pension is" increased to 40-G 0 ths , thus giving him an inducement to prolong his official career . This is changed by the Commissioners . They award the official , after forty years' service , 40-60 ths of his salary as pension , but if he serve ten years more ( or even twenty years more , if that were possible ) , his pension is not increased . Thus old men have no
inducement to remain iu office beyond the proper age of official activity . Another alteration suggested by the Commissioners has the same object of offering inducements to old men to resign . At present no civil servant in good health can obtain a pension until he is sixty-fivo years old ; under the new system he will be entitled to his pension when sixty years old , and he must retire when sixty-five . ( W hat will Lord Palmeiiston and Lord Campbell say to this principle ?) The scale of the proposed pensions may be briefly indicated by the intimatiou that tlie pension is always equivalent to 1-GOth of the salary ( on retirement ) for each year of sorvico .
All the proposals of the Commissioners ) tend to improve the position of tho civil servants . It ia possible that they may cause an increased charge on tho public revenue , but it is more than probable that they will cause an increased and economical efficiency iu the public service .
This Coxmedy Ojf Elections In Erance.
THIS COxMEDY OJF ELECTIONS IN ERANCE . Tujs Trench Elections havo now become almost the topic of tho day , and aro discussed with more or leas clearness and good faith on both sides of tho Ohnunel . As they are to take place on the 21 st of June—with ft second
day allowed to whip in refractory or idle voters—in little more than a fortnight the results will be in our possession . We confess that we wait with easy patience for- the new list of representatives , and shall be much surprised if it differ in any material degree from the list of candidates put forward by the Government . The interest of the contest —if contest there is to be—will centre in the defeats , not in the victories . If some few adverse elections take place , it is not they that will give a character to the political ceremony . What we are really concerned to know is , whether or not the Opposition , necessarily still in a minority , has sufficiently recovered from the overwhelming blow it received in 1851 to be able , despite the trammels in which it must move , to attempt anything like combined action .
M . BiiiiAULT has issued a Circular on the elections to the Prefects , without any hope of deceiving anybody . He uses the old hackneyed professions of loyalty and fairness in a glib , off-hand manner , which shows that he regards them as of no more importance than the preliminary flourishes of an Oriental letter , which begins by wishing all manner of prosperity to the recipient , and ends by quietly requesting him to allow himself to be strangled . " The Emperor calls to the ballot nine millions of electors , and demands from them all a free and loyal vote . " No doubt the electors are called , and no doubt their bulletins -will be found in the ballot-urns . But
we happen to know that in Paris a selection has been made , that at any rate several persons in one arrondissemeut known to have formerly professed Republican principles have been omitted in the i * egisters ; and that although one of them by making a protest succeeded in having the omission repaired , the report lie gave of the ominous looks and discourteous manner in which he was received at the Mairie wa 3 sufficient to deter others from taking a similar step .
The Circular makes mighty professions of the impartiality of the Government , and tl ^ facility it gives to the distribution of lists of candidates and voting papers . But the creditgiven to these professions is illustrated by the fact that no real lists have as yet been distributed ; and that the Liberals are still discussing whether it will be prudent , even by cautiously keeping within the law , to commit themselves to overt opposition . Why does the Government insist so particularly on candidates and electors coming to them and
signing a declaration which is equivalent to a confession that they are hostile to theEmpire ? If the contest were between a Ministry and an Opposition thero might be no great hardship in this ; but we must remember that it is the . French Government , the Emperor himself almost personally , who comes forward and says : " Here are two hundred and sixty-seven names which 1 propose to you , and it is your duty to come peaceably at my voice to give for six more years to them the mission to second me faithfully in my constant efforts for the glory and prosperity of France , "
These words , it is true , are used by M , Billault , not by Louis Napoleon j but every one discards the subaltern from his thoughts , and looks only to the chief . In the face of such an appeal , made by a military government , it requires marvellous civil courage to stand forth and propose candidates who may havo a different opinion of what is conducive ! to the glory and prosperity of France , from tho liveried gentlemen who have been disbanded , and are all eager to come back agtu ' u , without a single exception , to their seats and their allowances . It ihubt be observed that M . Biw . aui / t carefully points out that tho Elections must not be used na * an opportunity fora seditious
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 6, 1857, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_06061857/page/13/
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