The British State Telegraphs: A Study of the Problem of a Large Body of Civil Servants in a DemocracyMeyer, Hugo Richard
History
The British State Telegraphs: A Study of the Problem of a Large Body of Civil Servants in a Democracy
Meyer, Hugo Richard
Government ownership; Telegraph -- Great Britain
civil servants have been permitted to establish to a greater or a
lesser degree a whole host of demands that are inconsistent with the
economical conduct of business. Among them may be mentioned the demand
that the standard of efficiency may not be raised without reimbursement
to those who take the trouble to come up to the new standard; that
if a man enters the service when the proportion of higher officers
to the rank and file is 1 to 10, he has "an implied contract" with
the Government that that proportion shall not be altered to his
disadvantage though it may be altered to his advantage.
Public opinion has compelled the great Political Parties to drop
Party politics with regard to the State employees, and to give them
security of tenure of office. But it permits the State employees to
engage in Party politics towards Members of Parliament. The civil
service unions watch the speeches and votes of Members of the House of
Commons, and send speakers and campaign workers into the districts of
offending Members. In the election campaigns they ask candidates to
pledge themselves to support in Parliament civil servants' demands.
Their political activities have led Mr. Hanbury, Financial Secretary
to the Treasury in 1895 to 1900, to say: "We must recognize the fact
that in this House of Commons, public servants have a Court of Appeal
such as exists with regard to no private employee whatever. It is a
Court of Appeal which exists not only with regard to the grievances of
classes, and even of individuals, but it is a Court of Appeal which
applies even to the wages and duties of classes and individuals, and
its functions in that respect are only limited by the common sense
of Members, who should exercise caution in bringing forward cases of
individuals, because, if political influence is brought to bear in
favor of one individual, the chances are that injury is done to some
other individual.... We have done away with personal and individual
bribery, but there is still a worse form of bribery, and that is when
a man asks a candidate [for Parliament] to buy his vote out of the
public purse." The tactics employed by civil servants have led the
late Postmaster General, Lord Stanley, to apply the terms "blackmail"
and "blood-sucking." The conduct of the House of Commons under civil
service pressure has led Mr. A. J. Balfour, the late Premier, to
express grave anxiety concerning the future of Great Britain's civil
service. It has led Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Representative of the
Postmaster General, to say that Members of both Parties had come to
him seeking protection from the demands made upon them by the civil
servants. On another occasion it has led Mr. Chamberlain to say: "In a
great administration like this there must be decentralization, and how
difficult it is to decentralize, either in the Post Office or in the
Army, when working under constant examination by question and answer in
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