LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
[In view of the paper shortage it is essential that letters on these pages should be brief. We are anxious not to reduce the number of letters, but unless they are shorter they must be fewer. Writers are urged to study the art of compression.—Ed., "The Spectator."[
CRUELTY OR BLUNDERS?
SIR,—The Spectator's revelations in regard to the treatment of certain aliens make depressing reading, but it does not seem to occur to anybody to seek the cause of such administrative blunders, much less to suggest anything to remove it.
I do not know, Sir, whether you will feel disposed to risk sharing a cell with me in Wormwood Scrubs by publishing this letter, but in case you accept my assurances that my personal habits are clean and that I do not snore at night, I venture to state that these things are only .possible where there is a weak administrative personnel. It is notorious that the public services are full of square pegs in round holes in the shape of men in what one might term semi-key positions of the k500 to Li,000 a year category, who have neither the experience nor the ability to undertake the tasks imposed upon them. It is to this failure to appoint the right men in the right places that nearly all these shortcomings in the public services are due, and many practical, experi- enced business men who take small jobs in Government enterprises from patriotic motives are appalled at what they see.
Now there are many thousands of men earning between £500 and ki,000 a year in private enterprises who are entirely unknown to the public, but who have a wide experience of just the kind of administra- tive work which is wanted by the State and who have acquired their positions, and, what is more important, held them, purely by their own intelligence, capacity and resourcefulness. Such men would be invaluable in the service of the State, where they would soon put an end to the present state of affairs.
Most of them are to be found in the index of the Central Register, but unfortunately they are doomed to internment in that mausoleum for the duration of the war. Theoretically, a Government Department wanting men applies to the Central Register, who put forward men who they think would be suitable for the posts vacant. But prac- tically the Government appoint their own nominees by telling them to register in the Central Register and then asking the latter to please send them Mr. John Smith or Mr. Paul Jones. But there is yet another reason why capable men on the Central Register do not get employed, and that is because nobody in the Central Register knows anything whatever about the men on the books. I do not know any of these officials, but it is fairly safe to presume that they are not men with experience of the administration of successful commercial employ- ment agencies. In a live commercial agency no candidate for employment is put on the books without being personally inter- viewed and very closely cross-examined by a principal as to his experience and abilities, so that when they put forward a man for employment they have a very sound idea of their own that he is a suitable candidate. A commercial agency which put forward the wrong sort of man for their clients' vacancies would very soon have to go out of business.
If the administrative services behind the fighting forces are to be made really too per cent. efficient go-ahead concerns, two things are necessary. Firstly, the Central Register must be banded over to men with a wide experience of successful business employment agencies with an intimation that they will be held personally responsible for any obvious misfit or nit-wit they put forward for a job. Secondly, the present position must be met by setting up a Department to deal with complaints against any Government Office, the said Department to be staffed with experienced business men with absolute authority to clean up any shortcomings disclosed by their investigations of com- plaints, whether as regards personnel or system, and with instructions to go about their work with complete ruthlessness.
The above suggestions are no doubt revolutionary and lack precedent, but beyond all question they would produce badly needed and long
overdue results.—Yours faithfully, C. H. ROBINSON. 2 Gledhow Gardens, S.W. 5.
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