SITPERANN1JATION TO CIVIL SERVANTS.
THE Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Civil Service Superannuation seems to have been sway-ed. by the belief that it could obtain credit in proposing a reductien of payment, as if the public absolutely valued that kind of advantage what- ever may be the circumstances under which it is obtained. The interest of claimants on the Civil Service appears to have been thrown very much in the background, as being only in some de- gree pertinent to the question. The existing statute, passed in 1834, is no model of justice. It gives a much larger and more favourably-arranged form of pension to superannuated civil ser- vants appointed before 1829, without exacting any payment from them; while for the civil servants appointed. after that time there is a compulsory payment of five per cent towards the cost of su- perannuation generally, and a lower scale of allowance. Men in the first class obtain for periods of service ranging from ten to fifty years, from one-third of the salary to the whole ; while for periods of service from ten to forty-five years, men of the second class obtain from one-quarter of the salary to two-thirds. Thus, the men who pay to the fund out of which the pensions are granted receive on the average two-thirds of the amount given to those who pay nothing. Yet the change proposed by the Com- mittee is less just than this arrangement. It is less just than the change proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer when h,e introduced his bill, in February last. Sir George Lewis proposed to continue the deductions of five per cent, but to give a more liberal and equitable retiring allowance. He would have raised the scale, at ten years' service, from three- twelfths to sixteen-sixtieths, and would allow to the civil ser- vants a rise of allowance proportionate to every completed year of service, instead of taking jumps of seven years. This bill was referred to the Select Climmittee, which was ordered to investi- gate the whole question. A great mass of evidence was taken, which will in due time appear in the blue-book. It is rather re- markable, however, that Government proceeds with its bill, while the evidence which should justify its last form is not yet before the public.or the great body of Parliament. We are to take the report of the Committee ex cathedra., It is understood that the great body of evidence in Committee went all one way,— namely in proving the injustice and impolicy of maintaining the deductions, while showing the policy of keeping the public ser- vants in good working "heart" by liberal treatment. This is the expression said to have been used by Mr. Stephenson of the Trea- sury; a witness all the more important since he has long ex- perience in the service and he is not affected by the reduction. Sir Charles Trevelyan's evidence generally tended the same way. Mr. Bromley had. modified his former opinion to the same effect, and stated the grounds for his modification. Nevertheless, the Committee amended the bill so as to violate the spirit of this evi- dence, although to a certain extent conforming to the suggestion in the letter. It proposes to abolish the contribution, which undoubtedly operated very unjustly ; but with regard to the scale of allowance, instead of one-quarter from the commence-
ment as at present, or one-third from the commencement as pro- posed in the bill of February, the new version proposes to start with only ten-sixtieths or one-sixth.
Let us take an actual case which illustrates the position of all the civil servants appointe4. between 1829 and 18.56, comprising nearly two-thirds of the whole body. A civil servant, whose standmq is such as very well to illustrate the whole' has been in the service eighteen years. During that peeiod, he has paid, out of a moderate salary, more than three hundred pounds towards the superannuation fund. If he were compelled through sick- ness or infirmity to retire now, he would be able under the ex- isting law, to claim the allowance due for seventeen years' ser- vice; which cannot exceed 1431., and would probably be fixed at something less under an arbitrary rule applied in certain oases by the Treasury. By the Chancellor of the Exchequer's bill of February this gentleman's salary would be 172!.; under the bill amended in the Select Committee his salary would be 1294 This, however, scarcely presents the probable result. The new bill provides that salaries are to be " revised " ; which means, we presume, that they are to be reduced, on the ground that the five per cent deduction must be abolished. It is to be supposed that the new salary would measure the scale of the pension; and in that case the servant of seventeen years' standing would probably obtain 1201. a year. The great bulk of the civil servants receive lower salaries than those more ancient servants who pay nothing to the fund ; and it would be supposed that in this case they would. receive salaries as low as those new servants who are never to pay anything to the fund. There certainly appears to be no justice in this arrangement. A stricter rule of examination is proposed for bringing a higher class of men into the public ser- vice; but if at the same time Government diminiRlies the present salaries and blasts the ulterior prospects of the class, it is very unlikely that it will succeed in introducing better servants.
P.S.—At the eleventh hour, on going into Committee of the whole House, before any debate on the plan as it now stands, the bill was last night withdrawn by its author. In ordinary cases we should have withdrawn our remarks ; but the snake is not even scotched—it has only retired ; so that the project might still have a chance of reappearing next session, as "an old bill," affecting only a limited class, of little general interest, and there- fore the more easy to be manceuvred.throuei. a Parliamentary Rea- son. What a curious crossing of facts ! The bill comes out of Committee no longer in its original form—yet Sir Cornewall Lewis, author of the bill, was Chairman of the Committee. The project, as it now stands, is reported to come nearer the views of another member of the Committee, not usually accounted a person of influence, either in or out of office : the report and evidence of the Committee, which could alone substantiate the reasons for the scheme, are not even yet forthcoming.
Previous page
