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which the affairs of the State are managed regarded so absolutely as a vast machine. It is not a machine, but a body of thinking, striving men, with flesh and blood, feelings and appetences, and each with as strong an individual character as the one recognised "responsible" chief, whose personality is acknowledged by the Crown-a body of men who, doubtless, do well under the present depressing system, but who would do far better if it were not for the feeling that they are regarded only in the concrete as the machinery of the State.

It is not otherwise than a laudable ambition, that men should desire, in some shape or other, the notice of their sovereign; the instinct is one that ought not to be suppressed. But, under the existing system, we are afraid that it very soon is suppressed in the public departments, for want of the stimulus of encouragement. We are aware that some eminent civil servants of the Crown have received the civil order of the Bath, but the instances are so few, and these few, by reason of certain personal or party connections, so suspicious, that we can say little more of them than that the exception proves the rule. Again, how few are they whom royalty delights to honour, even with a passing glance of recognition! Read the lists of those honoured with invitations to balls and concerts at the Palace. The guests are numerous, and not very select; but among the many hundreds assembled on these occasions, how few of the permanent public servants of the Crown are to be found; and of those few it may in many instances be surmised that they do not owe their invitations solely to their public services. It may be said that an invitation to a ball is a poor object of ambition. Doubtless it is so in itself; and, moreover, a nuisance to have to respond to it by personal attendance. But regarded as a mark of respect either to his office or to himself, every public servant of the Crown may laudably appreciate the distinction. And we may be sure that a public functionary will not work less zealously for knowing, or for believ

ing, that when the head of the Government stamps her royal approbation upon his work (and this headship of the Government is no constitutional fiction), she has some notion of the hand, or the brain rather, that wrought it.

It has now, we think, been distinctly shown that, the real work of Government being done by the permanent civil servants of the Crown, it is a matter of the highest importance to the nation that these permanent civil servants should be men of first-rate administrative capacity; but that, under the existing system, the encouragement is so small that such men are with difficulty to be obtained; and if obtained, are, for want of the ordinary stimulants to exertion, seldom kept up to the full athletic standard of their personal efficiency. It is a great point that we should see clearly the nature of the evil; and if we have succeeded in doing that, we have not written in vain. But a few words may be said about the very obvious remedies which doubtless have suggested themselves to every reader who has followed us thus far in our investigation of the pathology of the disease. In the first place, no reform of the administrative system of the country can be complete, which does not recognise the necessity of emancipating the several administrative departments of the State from the absolute and arbitrary dictatorship of parliamentary chiefs, shifting and changing with every vicissitude of party. There may be some difficulty in this, but it is not impossible. Larger control over administrative details might be given to, and more direct responsibility vested in, the permanent head of a department. The necessity of every one responsible to Parliament-that is, to the country-having a seat and a voice in Parliament, is a conventional idea, but it is by no means a substantial fact. We have already shown that the tendency of the present system of ministerial responsibility is to obscure rather than to enlighten; because the real responsibility lies in one direction, the nominal responsibility in another. It would not be so if the permanent head of a

department were held directly responsible to the nation for the efficiency of the office over which he presides. He alone can secure that efficiency; and therefore, full power over all executive details and all executive officers should be vested in him. If matters go wrong, it should be his business to investigate and report upon the cause of the maladministration, and clearly to indicate the offending parties, so that every man, down to the lowest, may be responsible for the work that he does. The internal management of the department, indeed, should be entirely in the hands of the permanent chief. For among the many causes of defective administration, there is not one, perhaps, more fatal to the general efficiency of a department, than those frequent changes in the manner of doing official business, which are almost inseparable from the condition of an office subject to the individual caprices of a succession of parliamentary chiefs.

Increasing the power and the responsibility of the permanent chief of the office, and in a corresponding degree of the different minor depart mental chiefs, we would at the same time increase the scale of remuneration, so as to assimilate the rewards of efficient public employment more nearly to the prizes of private professional success. It is a bad state of things when a man has nothing further to look forward to; when in the prime of life, and in the full vigour of his intellect, he finds that he has reached the maximum of success, and that, do what he may, there is no professional advancement for him. But this is the condition of a large number of Government employes. They have reached to the highest position, and are in the enjoyment of the highest salary attainable in their department, short of those of the permanent chief of the office. They know that so long as they do their work respectably they will retain their appointments and draw their salaries; but the stimulus to extraordinary exertion being altogether wanting, it is not strange if they drowse away year after year, fine specimens of official mediocrity. It is admittedly advantageous to the public ser

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vice that men of mature years, full experience, and proved capacity, should be induced to take office, not as a crude experiment (as in early youth), but for the sake of turning certain ascertained special qualifications to account for the benefit of the State. An Act of Parliament, passed last session, especially provides for such cases, so far as the superannuation rules are concerned. A man entering the public service, on account of special qualifications, late in life—or, as the Act phrases it, on account of professional or other peculiar qualifications not ordinarily to be acquired in the public service," exceeding that at which public service ordinarily begins"-may now be allowed to count any number of years, not exceeding twenty, in addition to his actual period of service, in calculating the amount of his claims to the superannuation allowance. This is, doubtless, a very salutary provision so far as it goes. But, unless a man goes in for a gross job, he does not think much of superannuation allowances when he enters the public service. It is more to the point for him to know that, after a certain number of years of good service, he may obtain an increase of his effective salary. We hold, therefore, that in the higher as in the lower grades of the Civil Service there should be an increasing scale of official salaries; the increase not being demandable as a right, but obtainable as the reward of testified efficiency.

We come now to the subject of honorary distinctions, the attainment of which is in all cases a stimulus to exertion. Stating the nature of the complaint, we have necessarily indicated the character of the remedy; but still a few words more may be said. What the Civil Service requires is a more clearly defined social position, and a more open recognition of good service. We do not very clearly see why there should not be a classification of civil, as of military and naval officers-why the permanent civil servants of the Crown should not be distributed in different ranks, each rank giving certain social precedence. Good service, in such case, might entitle a man to promotion from one rank to another; and in special

cases, the Order of the Bath might be conferred, and with good advantage, more frequently than at present. It is worthy of consideration whether an outgoing Minister might not, on leaving office, be called upon to record a minute expressive of the estimate he has formed of the value of the assistance rendered to him by the principal officers of his depart ment. Why should not the Civil Service have their gazettes, from time to time, like their military and naval brethren?

If the public require, as they unquestionably do, the best servants in the world, they ought to be the best masters in the world. But it is very questionable whether they take proper steps to obtain the best servants. They have a vague impression that they are not well served, and every now and then there is an unmeaning cry against one of the public departments, or against some unfortunate statesman who happens accidentally to be at its head. And then there is a demand for "the right men in the right places;" but no one suggests that the way to get the right men is to hold out sufficient inducements for them to enter the public service, and sufficient encouragement

for them to work zealously and energetically when they are in it. But a profession, in which neither wealth nor honour is to be obtained, is hardly one that can command the best available capacity in the market. The command, however, of this capacity is at the bottom of all cheap, as of all good government. The prizes of the public service should be the highest drawn by the intelligence of the nation. An incapable public servant may cost the country more in a year than it would require to command the services of scores of capable men for a quarter of a century.

Financial reform does not consist in reducing public salaries, any more than administrative reform consists in depreciating public men. If we want our work done cheaply and well, we must elevate the public service. At present it appears to us to be unwisely and unjustly depressed. The real working members of the great Government firm are not in their proper position; and until they are, although the work may be, as we believe it is, done well, the Administration of the country cannot attain to that point of vigorous efficiency which might be reached under a better system.

RAMBLES AT RANDOM IN THE SOUTHERN STATES.

COULD those whose scientific discoveries have rendered them the greatest benefactors to humanity, have foreseen, in all their varied effects, the results of their inventions, and perceived exactly the extent of that influence which they were destined to exercise over the fortunes of posterity, the satisfaction of having carried their exertions to a successful issue would have doubtless been enhanced tenfold. In what light, under these circumstances, the prophetic eye of honest James Watt would have regarded the flood of light literature with which the world is now deluged may be a matter of speculation, but he would have little difficulty in perceiving in it one of. the results of his great discovery, since the performance of journeys in railways and steamers conduces largely not only to the reading but the writing of books. If you doubt this, and want a practical evidence of its truth, cross the Atlantic, travel three thousand miles by railway, devour in the cars piles of "sensation novels" at 25 cents each, by eminent American authors, and on your return write "The Englishman in America," being an account of your own sensations in that land of liberty, and you will find, just as your original work appears, that half-a-dozen other Englishmen are advertised as doing precisely the same thing. Still don't be dismayed; if ever there was a country that would bear writing about, it is America. In the first place, you can always take up the cudgels on one side or the other in any of the great social problems which are being resolved there, and which are deeply interesting to the world at large. Its institutions offer a wide field for speculation and criticism. Scarcely any two travellers agree in their general impressions; the consequence is, that they wax warm in support of the cause they espouse, and that always amuses the world at large, far more than descriptions of Alpine scenery, or European capitals, or Italian picture-galleries. If, then, you do not aspire to be a Barth, a Livingstone, or a Bur

ton, and have not imagination enough for a "sensation novel," let me recommend your visiting the Southern States of America, and espousing enthusiastically the cause of the slave proprietors, like the Hon. Miss Murray, garnishing with facetious woodcuts, like her namesake, the Hon. Henry. Or if you have talent enough, take up the opposite side; but it is more hacknied, and therefore difficult to be original, unless, indeed, you happen to have heard at Brooklyn one of the Rev. Mr Beccher's political sermons, and taken shorthand notes of it:-such a one, for instance, as he preached upon the Sunday following the last presidential election, when he taunted Mr Preston Brooks with cowardice for not daring to cross the frontier and fight a duel with a chivalrous partisan of Mr Sumner's who challenged him. The particular passage in which this announcement was made, would, of course, not have so strikingly original an effect in a book as it had from the pulpit, but some of his expressions would be telling anywhere. Slavery is only one of many questions of interest in America, and no man of ordinary intelligence or observation will find any lack of material, or much difficulty in handling it differently from his neighbours. Moreover, in so progressive a country there is always something to describe which is altogether new. Towns rising into importance on the borders of civilisation, young emporia of a newly-developed trade; experiments in cultivation, discoveries of minerals, extension of railways, opening of canals, and the formation of new territories, with all the disorders incidental to infancy and childhood: insubordinate youngsters, they early become much troubled with internal commotions, and are perpetually, with much clamour, striving for the privileges of manhood, while still in short-clothes. All this there is to write about, and indeed all this is yearly written about, but still the public of England are in a very gross state of ignorance upon the subject. They seem to owe their knowledge

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of Georgia to Mr Arrowsmith, and of Alabama to Lucy Neal, it is generally so very vague. In talking of the respective capitals of these States the other day-viz., Augusta and Montgomery-I was asked whether she (Augusta Montgomery) was pretty! Under these circumstances, as long as there is anybody who will read, let all of us who have been in the United States keep on writing about them let those who understand the mysteries of a presidential election discourse learnedly upon caucus meetings and Pollywog conventions, and explain how it was that Pennsylvania turned the scale in Buchanan's favour, and discuss, in '56, Seward's chances next time; though it is to be said, in justice to the Times' Correspondent, that a better account was given of that election than of any previous one, and it is the fault of the public themselves if they are not posted up" on the subject. Those who have emigrated to the States should certainly give us the benefit of their experiences, other wise the world will believe, not that Mr Beste proved himself utterly unfitted to be a settler on the Wabash, but that the Wabash is a river utterly unfitted for settlement. An interesting book might also be written upon the various phases of theological opinion in the United States. In a country where such creeds as Mormonism and Spiritualism exist, there is evidently a wide scope for freedom of thought on subjects which, in our own country, are generally left to the contemplation of those who are paid to think about them for us. The influence of this liberty, and the extent of its present development, has scarcely been sufficiently noticed by travellers, or its effects upon coming generations considered. For my own part, I shall refrain at present from entering into any such abstruse considerations; and availing myself of those excuses which I have endeavoured to make for my fellow-scribblers on the same subject, I will jot down a few random recol lections of my random ramblings to one or two nooks and corners a little out of their beaten track.

There is a pleasant land, for instance, which I never remember to have read about, not far from the sea-shore of

a celebrated Southern State, watered by the Wacamaw, Great Peedee, and Winiyaw, noble rivers, whose names were new to me, but upon whose waters steamers actively ply, bearing to the ocean the rich produce of their shores. A land it is of johnny-cakes and waffles, hoe-cakes and hominy, very agreeable to look back upon. A belt of pine-barrens, fifty miles broad, intervenes between it and the nearest railway-a most dreary tract to traverse, along deep sandy roads, through an interminable forest of pines, where the only variety is that some are notched for turpentine, and some are not. Turpentine oozes everywhere; even the trees that are not gashed seem to be weeping tears of turpentine for their unhappy comrades, whose gaping wounds are all mortal. The whole of this district is uninhabited, except by a few miserable specimens of white humanity, whose occupation is collecting turpentine, who are said to possess an unnatural craving for a clay diet, and who are popularly known as "crackers," but whose gaunt aspect and haggard vacant countenances induce one to suppose that they might with greater truth be called "cracked." A little farther north this region sinks into the Peedee and Great Dismal Swamps,

"Where Will-o'-the-wisps and glow-worms shine In bulrush and in brake,

Where waving mosses shroud the pinc, And the cedar grows, and the poisonous

vine

Is spotted like the snake;

Where hardly a human foot would pass,
Or a human heart would dare ;

but over which now the cars rattle with shrill whistle, and the trestle on which they run, high above the tops of the highest trees, trembles beneath them; and as you look out of the window there is nothing between your eye and the morass but the pointed summits of the waving pines. It is at this point that the tourists of our own country listen intently for the bay of blood-hounds, and crane eagerly from the window, expecting to see some equivalent of Dred dashing madly through the fen, and after him the field in full cry. Or if it be at night, they look for "the fire of the midnight camp,"

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