STATE WAGES.
AT the first blush, nothing looks better-intentioned or more prac- tical than the circular issued, at the suggestion of Mr. Grey of St. George's Hospital, from the War Department to the several Hospi- tals throughout the United Kingdom, asking the Governors of those establishments to help in forming a special civil medical staff to assist the medical staff of the Army at the seat of war. The Hos pitals are asked each to select half-a-dozen medical gentlemen, as physicians, surgeons, and assistants, with a proportion of medical pupils as dressers. They are asked to give to all these gentlemen' furloughs securing reinstatement on the return of the medical' officers from the seat of war ; and it follows that the vacancies will have to be filled temporarily by other gentlemen specially ap- pointed for the purpose. The Hospitals, therefore, are asked to furnish medical officers for the Army, and to make provision for the future of those officers, as the employment will only be tem- porary. In other words, the Hospitals are asked to perform the work of the State.
Now, why is this peculiar mode of proceeding necessary ? It appears, we think, in the rate of pay offered to the physicians and the surgeons,—namely, 21. 2s. a day for a full physician or surgeon and it. 58. for the rank of assistant. The work is only to be tem- porary ; and after a year or two of employment in an expensive Career, the physician or surgeon is only promised reinstatement. There are few physicians or surgeons of standing whose morn- ing business at home does not involve pocketing or booking a larger amount than that allowed by the Government, with the cer- tainty that every increase of income brings after it a further in- crease ; for perhaps there is no promotion more steady than that of the successful physician or surgeon in home practice. If the State wants professional assistance, there is no social law that can exempt it from the necessity of paying the proper market value for that assistance. If the employment offered by the State is ac- companied by a great risk, the charge of that risk should not fall upon the Hospitals, their subscribers or patients. If surgeons can- not be induced to go abroad because the employment is temporary, the deficiency should be made good in the form of compensation, either by a guarantee of employment, by the prospect of a pen- sion, or by a sufficient money payment. The Economist compares the bad administration of our public departments with the administration of our colossal mercantile firms, or railway companies, or great contractors, who will execute operations on any scale under ruinous penalties for non-perform- ance. Our contemporary traces the certainty of result attained by the commercial system, not only to a specific sense of duty and conscience, with a professional character At stake, but to "the having a tremendous and personal interest involved likewise-- having ruin on the one side and the fortune of a millionaire on the other." No man in this situation would employ an incompetent nephew or " connexion" for the penalty on failure would be too great; and all such firms acting under that tangible form of re- sponsibility will engage the professional assistance which they re- quire at its market price. More than one of the contributors to the blue-books on the reorganization of the Civil Service remark that the only inducement for bringing a superior class of men into the service would be a superior range of pay. It is possible, in- deed, where the State is able to give a fixed certainty of prospect, to economize the augmentation of expenditure by graduating the' pay—making it as low as you please at the portal, but allowing ts certain number of prizes to be attainable from stage to stage. The history of lotteries proves that two men would be more likely to enter into a career beginning at 401. a year if one of the two could attain to the salary of 1201., than if both had 801. from first to last. The grand thing, however, is to offer the sufficient money inducement; and where established professional attainments are
necessary as the qualifications, the proper grade of servants can- not be secured unless the official fee bears some resemblance to the ordinary professional fee. Railway companies have always em- ployed the engineers, the barristers, and even the medical men whom they require, at a sufficient remuneration. It is the same with insurance companies, whose business is so safe and regular. A fortiori, Government cannot escape from the rule.
It might be said, train the doctors, then, specially for the State : but to this remark there are two answers. First, in the present instance, we want the doctors ready-made; and secondly, it is to be doubted whether the State can train any profession half so well as the profession can train itself. The safe rule is just the reverse : it would be better if the civil servants were required to see more of practical life; better far than a scholastic examination for many of the departments would be an incentive held out to candidates for serving, during a year or more, in a countinghouse, a warehouse, a wharf, or an engineering factory, where practical business, active operations on a great scale, and the command of others, could be learned bodily. The most efficient servants of the State would probably be found in the pick of the servants of the great trades and professions ; but then, to secure those servants, or to train their equivalents, it would be necessary to offer the same induce- ments that are offered in the markets by the trades and professions.
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