Organisation of the Permanent Civil Service.
19
Report.
of the individuals; but that promotion from class to class is the reward of merit, or rather that it is regulated by a consideration of the public interests, and that those only are to be transferred from one class to a higher who have shown themselves capable of rendering valuable services in it. This salutary principle is, however, in practice often overlooked, and promotion from class to class, as well as the annual rise within the class, is more commonly regulated by seniority than by merit. The evil consequences of this are too obvious to require lengthened comment: it is, perhaps, more important to point out some of the difficulties which lie in the way of amendment.
Objections entertained against promotion by merit.
If the opinions of the gentlemen engaged in the Civil Service could be taken on the subject of promotion, it would probably be found that a very large majority of them would object strongly to what is called promotion by merit. The reason they would assign would be, that promotion by (so called) merit would usually become promotion by favouritism. The effect of the system of departmental patronage has been to inspire the clerks in each office with a feeling of jealousy towards any one who is supposed to enjoy the especial favour of the chief of the department, or, still more, of the principal permanent officer in it. Constituted as our official system now is, men feel, and not unreasonably, that the recognition of their merits, even within their own departments, is extremely uncertain, and that there is no appeal to any public tribunal if injustice is done them there. Even in an open profession a consciousness of unrecognized merit will sometimes weigh a man down, though he has always the hope that the justice which is denied him in one quarter will be done to him in another. In an office, if a clerk fails to please his immediate superior, he is probably condemned to obscurity for his whole life. The Parliamentary chief who presides over the department for a few years, and who is overwhelmed with business, can, as a general rule, know nothing of the merits of individual clerks in the lower ranks of the office, except through the permanent officers at its head. Now, setting aside cases of actual favouritism, there must be many instances in which the chief permanent officers fail to perceive, and properly to bring into notice, the valuable qualities of those beneath them. A man may be timid and hesitating in manner, and on that account may be passed over as dull, in favour of some one by no means his superior in real