SALARIES IN THE CIVIL SERVICE.
THE direct remedy for the prevailing apathy of the subordinates in the Civil Service is to vest in the heads of departments more power of reward and punishment. Under the present system there is nominally an authority in Boards and Commissioners to recommend the suspension or dismissal of clerks, but these ex- treme measures are seldom taken ; few men have the energy to be just when the master to be served is the impersonal State, and when justice involves harshness to individuals. To compensate for this natural lenity on the part of Civil Servants in high places the Government should make ready to their hands a system of re- ward and punishment made easy to the mildest men—a system which should to a great extent be self-working. This system will be found, we believe, in a new regulation of salaries.
The salaries of Civil Servants are regulated at present by set rules ; to certain posts certain salaries are attached, or so many years of service earn in progression a certain increasing salary. Instead of this system we should propose that the salary should be strictly personal, and increased, not as at present, accord- ing to seniority or routine promotion, but in accordance with distinct minutes of the Board issued as occasions presented them- selves. The terms of the aforesaid minutes, and the time of their issues, should be influenced of course by the considerations of years of service, and by the accession of new responsibility to the individual clerk, but also by the personal merits of the clerk— merits now disregarded in the increase following seniority and routine advancement. Let us take an individual ease to illus- trate the two systems—the present and the proposed. At present a clerk enters his office at 901. a year, with an increase of 101. a year to 1601. a year; when he has been ten years a junior clerk (the last three stationary at 1601. a year) he has advanced to be the senior of the junior class, and a vacancy occurring in the senior class he is advanced to 2001. a year, rising by 101. a year to 3501. Before he has reached the maximum of that class a vacancy occurs among the chief clerks, and he steps into that position by right of seniority. Now here we have a clerk working for fifteen years in an office receiving rewards in the most routine matter-of-course way, having no communication with his supe- riors, never knowing their opinion of his work, never thanking them for an increase of emolument which naturally seems to him part of his original right, and which has no visible relation to his manner of doing his work. This system is a " cold shade "—cool enough to chill the energy of any man. Under the proposed sys- tem the new clerk would be appointed to an income of 901. a year. After say two or three years of probation he would be eligible to a permanent clerkship, and on his appointment his salary would be fixed at a certain non-increasing yearly sum, say, 1101., 1201., or 1301. a year, according to the Commissioners' esti- mate of his value. Thus, during the probationary years the clerk would have every inducement to earn the good-will of his supe- riors by diligence and cheerful willingness : work and their sense of his conduct would be marked by the amount of salary which the Commissioners would allot to him on his appointment to the staff of the office. After remaining at 1301. a year for say three or four years more, the clerk, having distinguished himself by patient diligence and steady correctness of work or by an extra exertion in some official crisis, would find his salary again in- creased by a special minute published to the office and in the Gazette, naming his services and their reward. In this way his official career would run its course : the Board having always in its power to reward his diligence, his ability, his personal zeal. After ten or twelve years' good service he would in consideration of those ten years' good work receive another increase, or when he was placed in a new responsible situation as Chief Clerk, Book- keeper, &o., he would soon find his name in another minute which, " considering his new duties," would again increase his salary. But the guiding principles of the new system should be, that the salary should be personal, conjointly influenced by se- niority, official position, and personal ability, but not rigidly guided by any routine rules applioate to either of the three. It would also be strictly non-progressive, so that no minute of the Com- missioners could encumber the coming years with mortgages, and thus take out of the hands of the authorities the power of future rewards. It is, we suppose, unnecessary to point out that this system of increase of salary, dependent on special minutes, in- volves a most efficacious and easily administered system of punishment. The clerk not advanced in salary would be effectually reminded that the Commissioners thought his pre- sent salary quite enough for his rather mediocre abilities or moderate zeal.
One of the first objections of the upholders of the nresent system will be, that the proposed plan would give too much power to the heads of departments. We shall not stop to point out at any length that this jealousy of authority is the cause of much of the inertia of the Service, or that it is highly absurd to give high place and large salary to men you cannot trust with the supervision and rewards of your clerks. We simply have to point out that nomi- nally much more extended powers are now given to departmental chiefs—they can dismiss clerks or degrade them, or promote them out of their turn. This power is controlled in many cases by the Treasury, and is not very freely used because the over-severity of the punishments make men shrink from inflicting them. But the rewards and punishments involved in personal augmentations of salaries would be also under Treasury control, and the usual mo- tives of economy would suggest a sharp look-out on the minutes recommending such augmentations. The Treasury would not be slow to detect favouritism when Boards, or Commissioners, or Secretaries of State would be obliged to state " the reason why " they recommended a particular advance of salary.
A second objection will be, that the very men in authority who would have this new power have now more weighty means of ap- proval and punishment. But these means are too weighty not alone as deterring chiefs from using them, but in fact too weighty for the offences punished. Take the ease of a clerk who for some neglect of duty is " passed over." The man who passes over him is always before him ; always between him and the higher ranks of the office, always reminding him of the degradation. But were this clerk " punished" by being unadvaneed in salary—left to his 1001. a year while his colleague obtained 1301. by special minute, he could, though mortified at first, still hope that in a year or two he could earn a similar advancement, that one day he would " have a minute of his own," and in the future official race outrun perhaps the man rewarded before him. Thus, the sti- mulus of a possible future reward would be always before every clerk—always obtainable by proper exertion, and no clerk need ever despair. A striking illustration of the truth of this sketch of the different effects of the two systems lies in the fact that in many Government offices the most zealous and efficient men are the " temporary clerks " whose salaries are regulated by special minute, and who have no " rights" or "privileges" to dull their desire to please their superiors.
In view of that " Unity of the Service," which in a previous article we discussed at some length, the proposed reform has an- other interest. It would facilitate transfers of clerks where such transfers would be useful, and would, in other cases, make transfers unnecessary by enabling Government to reward clerks without giving them new situations. At present you cannot transfer a clerk because you cannot well fit him into the new office, where the salaries and rate of increase and positions are different. But once make the salaries personal and the transfer is easy, for no clerk in the new office is injured by the advent of the new comer.
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