THE ROTTENNESS OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE.
APROPOS to the disclosures in the meat-stores at Gosport, the Times says' "We demand that a scrutiny which has proved so un- expectedly fruitful shall not stop at this point, but be extended, while there is yet time for amendment, to every branch of our establishments." The demand is elicited by a semi-official apology for the state of the stores, put forth by the Observer; an apology which gives a worse colour to the case than it had before. The apologist seems to rest content with the fact that the Admiralty had very good motives and intentions; he pleads that the fraud in the nature of the meat packed was not great in proportion, and in- sinuates that the remainder "may have become unserviceable from other causes." Now there is no question of degree in such a mat- ter : it is well known that meats can be preserved for five, ten, twenty, or even twenty-five years, with all but absolute certainty; and a wholesale corruption within a year proves such wholesale negligence as amounts to the grossest dereliction of duty. But we are not left to infer the disregard of duty, since the introduction of
improper parts into the meat stored proves intentional and deli- berate violation of duty.
The official persons who connive at the offence must be nearly as culpable. In the present case, we learn that the very same frauds were detected in 1848-9—committed, of course, in the contract of 1847—the same frauds in the supplies of the same con- tractor : and yet, in 1852, we have a semi-official apology for the offence ! On those complaints of 1848-9, we are told, "measures were taken to supply a remedy "—of the kind, we presume, called "measures from time to time suited to the occasion." The meat was " occasionally. bad" before those measures were taken, it has now become so bad that the good is an exception ; and yet the con- tracts were enlarged. They were " cheaper" : is that an excuse ? No, for they were not cheaper. If I seek to buy sound butcher's- meat at a certain price, I do not get that any cheaper because for a less price I can get garbage and knacker's-meat. In winking at such a practice, in not sweeping it away and rendering it abso- lutely impossible, on the first detection, the Admiralty rendered it- self an accomplice in supplying to our seamen, under the name of food, loathsome poison. The complicity was an act of treason to humanity—of treason to the state ; since it not only violated the public duty of a public department, it not only risked the health and lives of British subjects, it not only betrayed the safety of those whom the official Board was especially appointed to protect, but it endangered the safety of a great national force.
Of course we do not accuse the official Board of intending any such results, still less of sharing in the proceeds of the fraud ; we only accuse it of a criminal indifference. The official gentlemen probably were glad enough to take a cheap contract and "keep down the Estimates"; the stench of the garbage was not under their gentlemanly noses, neither were the sailors so near to their polite hearts as the respectable commercial gentleman before them. The papers were all correct, no doubt ; and but for this "unfortu- nate affair" at Gosport all might have gone smoothly, quietly, and conveniently. The corruption of the day is not that of peculation, but it is the corruption of conscience, which displays itself in in- difference except to self-interest or individual credit. That corruption is undermining the efficiency of the public ser- vice in all our "establishments.' We have seen the disclosures going on for years in the Customs department : habitual frauds were committed by underlings, impossible to have continued if the superiors had attended to their duties; • and then, to compensate that gross neglect, the department suddenly runs amuck among British merchants, making a random assault in hopes of detecting some presumed fraud that may put all parties in the wrong, and disarm accusal by recrimination. Meanwhile, how had the public revenue fared ? Who cares P
In the supply of arms to the soldiery there is the same callous disregard of the state interest, the same slight of the substance of the thing to be done, the same contentedness with a routine per- formance of the outward evolutions. Francis of Naples was justly denounced as a traitor for supplying with bad arms and worthless ammunition the patriotic forces whom he sent against the Aus- trian invaders—he desiring the destruction of his countrymen our officials have no such traitorous intenti—they simply "don't care," so long as they go through the routine of office in the usual way; but, according to military men, the next war is likely to disclose the terrible fact that our soldiers will be as ill furnished in face of the enemy as the Neapolitans were in face of the Aus- trians.
We remember the Exchequer Bill frauds ; we have seen the Chancellor of the Exchequer refuse to discourage adulterations in trade; we have seen the surprise of colonists at not having emi- grants sent out in return for the emigration-money sent to the Colonial Office ; we have seen a strange shuffling of "missing despatches."
The official apology in the Observer implies that such things can be and be extenuated—that our naval force can be poisoner], and that something may be said in favour of the officials who per- mitted it, nay, of the "contractor" who had been suffered to con- tract the habit. The apology, we say, is corroborative testimony to the thorough corruption of the public service; and if any virtue be left in the representatives of the nation, they will look to the state of all our establishments while it may yet be time.
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