THE "SPOILS SYSTEM" IN IRELAND.
EVERY Irishman wants a post, and when he has got it, he wants his son appointed deputy." That was the solitary conclusion with which a shrewd English poli- tician returned from Dublin. Less cynical, but to precisely the same effect, are the words of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, who lately declared that it would be the duty of an Irish Government to provide a large number of salaried places, in order that the poor but well-educated classes in Ireland should not be forced to earn a subsistence by manual labour. Yet another piece of evidence in regard to the desire for Government "billets "—the ruling passion of the Celtic race—is to be seen in the deter- mination of the Nationalists to allow no reform of the Castle. Whenever there has been any proposal to cut down sinecures, to abolish the Lord-Lieutenant and his absurd Court, to remedy the monstrous over-man- ning of the Irish Bench, or to reorganise other branches of the Administration, Ireland—outside Ulster, where men, as in England and Scotland, look to their own exertions for a living—has risen like one man to protest against such injustice. Come what may, Ireland shall not be robbed of a single place. That is the universal feeling of the South,—a feeling, we are bound to admit, indulged in by Loyalists as well as Home-rulers. It has hardly yet been realised by the British public how amply this ruling passion has been recogniseny the Home- rule Bill, and what wide scope has been given to the proposi- tion that immediately flows from it. The corollary of the proposition," Plenty of places," is,—" And all of them for our friends." The Irish Nationalists want to do more than provide for a multitude of educated persons who have no intention of stooping to the degradation of manual toil. They want also to put their own people into those places. This desire is distinctly recognised by the Home-rule Bill. Not only does it give the Irish Parliament unlimited Powers in the way of creating an indefinite number of Government posts, but it provides a cheap and expeditious machinery for clearing out the present Irish officials and replacing them by Nationalists. It inaugurates, in a word, a statutory "spoils system." The Irish in America estab- lished the "spoils system" by voluntary. arrangement. We are going to open the way to it by an Act of the Imperial Parliament. Up till now, it has been our boast that we have had a permanent Civil Service throughout the United Kingdom. When once a man had got into the Civil Service, he had a right to regard his position as permanent, provided he did his work efficiently and was not guilty of any un- becoming conduct. Theoretically, the officials may have held their posts "at pleasure." Practically, they were permanent, and no man who obeyed the rules of his office was ever turned out of the Service without full compensa- tion. The result of this was that a change of Ministry made no change in the personnel of the permanent Civil Service, and that the officials ceased to be partisans and became true servants of the public. It is unnecessary, however, to dwell upon any more of the advantages of the system, or to point out that it is to this arrangement that we owe, more per- haps than to any other circumstance, the incorruptibility of our officials. That Mr. Gladstone and. his colleagues are blind to the advantages of a permanent Civil Service it is impossible to believe. How tremendous, then, must have been the pressure put on them to consent to an arrangement under which the Irish Parliament will have Power, at any time, to call upon Civil servants to retire without showing cause, and will be enabled to enforce such retirement upon terms grossly unfair to the Civil servant who desires to continue to earn his living, but whose post is wanted by a Nationalist ! If the evil were to stop at the displacement of the existing Loyalist officials, and could be confined to a single operation of the spoils system, something might be said for it by Home- rulers. They might argue that it is impossible to expect the Irish Parliament to govern Ireland with a hostile Civil Service, and that therefore, if we are going to have Home- rule at all, we Jilust give them the power to put in enough of their own people to secure a loyal carrying-out of their policy. But is it likely that, if the spoils system is once recognised by an Act of Parliament, it will stop there P Assuredly not. Let us suppose that the first Irish Ministry is a Clerical and Anti-Parnellite Ministry, and fills up the offices from which the present officials have been ejected with Anti-Parnellites. .After a certain, time their opponents (the Parnellites) are pretty sure to get office, and then who can possibly doubt that we shall see a fresh application of the Fifth Schedule of the Home-rule Bill, and another example of the spoils system in action ? Look at it how one may, the Bill is a positive incitement to the Irish to do what they are by instinct exceedingly prone to do,—that is, to adopt the maxim : "To the victors the spoils." When once men have seen Civil servants dismissed wholesale because they are on the wrong side, nothing can prevent the plan being imitated. Imagine the most virtuous Parnellite Premier conceivable installed in office. It is impossible to believe that even he could resist the pressure put upon him to give his own friends a turn.
We have above dealt with the wider consequences of the Fifth Schedule of the Home-rule Bill,—the schedule under which provision is made for the retirement, compulsory or otherwise, of Irish Civil servants. It must not be forgotten, however, that apart from these wider issues, the scheme in the Schedule is exceedingly unfair to the Irish Civil servants,—or, as they ought really to be called, those members of the permanent Civil Service of the United Kingdom who happen to hold posts situated in Ireland. Persons whom a geographical accident places at the mercy of an Irish Legislature are to be accorded treatment which would never be proposed had they elected when they joined the Civil Service to take English or Scotch offices. The effects of the Bill on the Irish Civil Service have been summarised as follows. It is proposed :— "To award to officers retiring or retired, pensions varying according to service from one-sixth to two-thirds of the pay of which they might be in receipt at the end of the transition period.
To award to Civil servants who have abandoned practice at different professions, in consideration of the permanency of Government employment, pensions calculated at the same rate as the rest of the service.
To empower the Irish Government at any time to call upon Civil servants to retire without showing cause. To enable officers to commute their pensions in accordance with the provisions of the Pensions Commutation Act. To empower the Treasury to reduce or withhold the pensions provided by the Bill. To make the salaries of Civil servants retained dependent upon the votes of the Irish Legislative Body."
We shall not attempt to criticise in detail these arrange- ments for compensation on retirement, but we may point out the obvious uefairness of transferring the Irish Civil Service from such good paymasters as the Imperial Parlia- ment to the Irish Treasury. The salaries of the Irish Civil servants will in future be paid by the Irish Parlia- ment. But these might not be voted at all, or they might be voted only in part, or they might be delayed in pay- ment, or they might be made the subject of special taxation. The Irish Civil servants having entered into a contract to serve the Imperial Government, it would surely be no more than fair that existing salaries should be protected by an Imperial guarantee. If Home-rule is to be granted, there is only one fair and honourable way of treating the Irish Civil servants. It should be enacted,—(1) that no person should be retired except on the terms usual in England; (2) that retiring pensions and existing salaries should be guaranteed by the Imperial Treasury. If we are going to set up a statutory spoils system, let us at least refuse to commit a breach of faith with the existing Civil servants, or to plunder them of what is theirs in right and equity.
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