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It may be added, that the situations in the Customs and Excise are in the gift of the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury. Of those in the Post Office, the ostensible patron is the Postmaster General.
Now, the point which I am desirous of pressing upon the Conference is, that if prizes are wanted to induce the working classes to improve the education of their children, here are 700 or 800 prizes available every year. Prizes, too, of some value; indeed, I should think of value ample enough to induce a parent to forego, for the chance of obtaining one, his boy's premature earnings, which, though trifling in themselves, are probably sufficient to outweigh in his estimation any other prizes which are likely to be offered.
And is it not some such preponderating inducement which is the main thing needed? For practically the course pursued by parents with respect to their children's education, will generally be determined by a rough, shrewd calculation of the balance of material advantages. If it is likely to pay to keep the children at school, they will be kept there; if it is likely to pay better to take them away, they will be taken away. The question, therefore, which I put is, whether the distribution every year of 700 prizes, each worth from £50 to £80 per annum, with further prospects, would not be likely to make education appear to very many parents a better speculation than ignorance; and, assuming this to be the case, the preliminary question is, whether these prizes can be established with advantage, or at least without hurt, to the Civil Service, which would have to provide them.
Now, in estimating the effect of the proposed change upon the efficiency of the Service, it is important to bear constantly in mind the fact that the comparison is not between the system of competition and a system of absolute perfection, but between competition and any other practicable system. This distinction has, it seems to me, been too much overlooked of disregarded by the opponents of competition. For instance, a compendious objection brought against the plan by an eminent antagonist, is,
