[To THE EDITOR OP TUE "SPECTATOR."] Silt,—Mr. Arnold White in
the Spectator of February 17th objects to your "sweeping condemnation" of his letter in the Daily Chronicle of February 5th on the ground that "departments or sections of the civil and military service monopolised by the privileged classes" were alone referred to. He admits that the Foreign Office and one section of the War Office staff were in his mind, and he refers to them as close boroughs limited to "tiny privileged classes." On more than one occasion it has fallen to me to question cavillers who seem to put on blinkers for the purpose of making irre- sponsible misstatements. They will not consult the records within easy reach; they refuse to cast even a glance to the right or to the left of them, but forge straight ahead at some fancied grievance until they give themselves away by stumbling into the inevitable impasse. And thus Mr. Arnold White anent the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service. In contradistinction with our Home Civil Service and other Government appointments, he would have us be- lieve that scions of the aristocracy are, by means of "official deceptions," tenderly conveyed to Downing Street through a mist of "evil odour" raised by "serious men of business." Let me say at once that your correspondent shows in his letter complete ignorance not only of the very severe nature of a Foreign Office competition, but of the conditions under which it is regulated. Without regard to political party, nominations have for years past been freely granted by the Foreign Secretary for the time being to candidates properly recommended and supported, and fully three-fourths of the nominees were untitled. I will not venture to overwhelm your columns or Mr. White with a mass of unanswerable detail, but will ask for space to take him up on the actual state of things at the date of his preliminary attack in the Daily Chronicle. No less than tut nominees were on the point of fighting a hard battle for a solitary vacancy in the Foreign Office. One of these competitors is the son of an Opposition Peer ; another is the brother of a young Scotch Peer ; the remaining eight are drawn from various grades ot commoners. And yet your correspondent has the temerity to assert : "The effect of restricting these appointments to a tiny privileged class is clearly shown to be unhealthy " ! Curiously enough, the crowning fallacy of Mr. White's con- tentions is reached the nearer we approach his ostensible ideal,—the unprivileged classes. And here again we will take the last example of the unprivileged versus the quasi-privileged class. Every slimmer there is held an open competitive exami- nation to fill vacancies in the Home and Indian Civil Services and the Colonies; the candidates are examined en bloc, and the successful ones have a right of selection in the order of merit. If your correspondent will glance at the details of this last public competition, and will take my word as to the number summoned to the Foreign Office examination that closed yesterday, he will discover that the unfortunate privileged class is overweighted numerically to the extent of 50 per cent. Naturally numbers vary from year to year according to circumstances ; indeed I can quote an instance of no remote date when there were as many vacancies as there were unprivileged candidates ; but I limit myself to a single illustration, and select, as the most equitable, what was actually taking place, while Mr. Arnold White was denouncing official corruption. If only he could live a while behind the scenes he would be compelled to admit that the barriers to all civil employment that confront the "privi- leged" class against which his spleen has revolted, are about as insuperable as those gigantic kopjes that mock us from the Tugela to Ladysmith.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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