Mr. Childers on Tuesday, in a thoughtful speech, called atten-
tion to the growing costliness of our Civil Establishments. '.1:he departments are always increasing the number of officers, clerks, and other agents, and salaries and pensions are always rising, till last year we spent more than 12,000,0001., and the wages of the Civil Service exceeded by two millions the united wages for officers and men of both Army and Navy together. The analogy is not quite perfect, as the country does not suppose that it pays officers in the Army, but it is a striking one nevertheless. The civil expenditure keeps creeping up because no one is jealous of it. Mr. Childers' remedy is for the House to support the Treasury more strongly in repressing applications, and for the Treasury itself to restrict the application of competition. The departments get men much better than they want, have to pay for students when charity-school children would do. They should, as occasion serves, reduce the numbers, but increase both the work and the pay of each member of the service,—the soundest of all systems of retrenchment. Pay few men well, and work them to the uttermost,—that is the remedy for waste.
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