ly respect. Such a community has its sense "government by party" is a necessity of of the fitness of things unhinged; it has lost modern times; and we are prepared in the its main external symbol of what is good main, to accept the statement as true. A and regular. If the only church clock in a dualism, a division into at least two parties, parish keeps all sorts of hours, how shall perpetually at war with each other, and ge the parishioners set their watches? It is not nerating motion out of their conflicts-such every one that can make out the time of day seems to be the universal form of political by the sun. It is even a pity, where there progress in States at all free. It was so in are many clocks, that the most conspicuous ancient times; it is so now. Aristocracy should be the least accurate. and Democracy, the Populus and the Plebs, Guelphs and Ghibellines, Whigs and Tories, Big-endians and Little-endians-such divisions always were, and always will be. Any number of men thrown by chance together and called upon to manage certain common affairs, will in the end split themselves into. two parties with a line of demarcation between them. This is a fact in the natural history of the species. But it is to be regretted. The necessity of being or of seeming to be either a Whig or a Tory, is one of the misfortunes in the otherwise happy lot of being born a Briton. It is the right and the duty of every man to judge of events as they occur, and of measures as they are submitted to him; and he is a coward who fears to have an independent opinion. Solon made it a capital offence in a citizen to be neutral in any great public controversy. It will also so happen that certain men, from common intellectual tendencies and the like, will usually, without any prior intercourse, find themselves on the same side in their judgments of events, or in their votes on measures. This one may call legitimate Whiggism or Toryism. The names in such cases are but inductions from the facts. But when the order is reversed, when Whiggism and Toryism are made deductive, when previous judgments and previous votes are supposed to beget an obligation on future ones, when the very name of Whig or Tory be comes in itself a rule of thought or action, then one is inclined to regret that the names were ever invented. To have one's whole

Can any one pretend to say, that, in constructing itself on the principle of nepotism, or in permitting nepotism to assist in its construction more than necessarily must be, Government is fulfilling that educational duty, as regards the probable effect upon the intellectual and moral habits of the community, which ought collaterally to be studied in all its actions? We think not. For our part we regard Nepotism as one of those things, the existing amount of which, so far as society is concerned, may most freely and most safely be diminished. Affection for one's relatives, and a desire to push them on in the world, are natural; and such characteristics in a man may even be to his credit. We say nothing against that. We are not attacking nepotism in itself as between uncle and nephew; we are only attacking it as between uncle and nephew on the one hand and society on the other. It may be all right and natural for an uncle to push his nephew on; but it may be as right for society to be on its guard against young gentlemen who rest their claims on being the nephews of their uncles. It may also be for the good of nephews in general to have their faith in the power of nephewship abated. When one remembers how many young gentlemen one meets at evening parties whose sole hopes in life seem to rest in that "uncle in the Tayezzhury" whom they expect to "do something faw" them, one cannot but think so. One cannot but think that it would be a service to these young gentlemen themselves to have this reliance taken mental activity, one's outgoings and incomaway from them in sufficient time; and, considering their number, one would expect a perceptible increase of energy in society from such a disenchantment.

ings, "conditioned," as the philosophers say, by this antithesis between Whiggism' and Toryism; to have these two chairs, as it were, carried about with one wherever one But the bad effects of nepotism, as acting moves, and officiously set down on the in the government system, on the principles ground wherever one rests, and to be told and morals of the community are as nothing that one must sit in the one or the other of compared with the bad effects which result them, if one is to be a reputable character from the universal and ingrained habit of why, it is wretchedness and injury unpaconferring offices on grounds of political ralleled! You are on the top of a mountain, connexion. We have not words strong gazing down and around on the scene it enough to express all we feel on this subject. commands; you feel a tap on the shoulder, The use of patronage for political purposes you turn round, and there is society at your is, even in its purest forms, a species of cor- back with the everlasting two chairs, and the ruption. Do not let us be mistaken. We everlasting invitation to be seated in one of know well the assertion so often made, that them. You are in a picture gallery admir.

ing a picture; there is Society at your back | energy which would have saved their heads again with the same two chairs, and the from Solon's law; but Whigs or Tories question whether you will sit in the Tory they are not. They will not sit invariably chair or in the Whig chair while you look in the one, or invariably in the other, of the at the landscape. And so in everything two chairs; and if officious Society persists that you say or do. It is in vain that one in bringing the chairs round after them protests, and argues, and suggests the possi- wherever they go, it is well if they only bility of, in some cases, being neutral. shock common notions of consistency by sitting now on the one, now on the other, and now on both put together, and do not proceed to the extremity of breaking both chairs in a rage over Society's head.

The two chairs are still brought round wherever you go, and it is at your peril if you do not sit on one of them. The social necessity of being either a Whig or a Tory has, in fact, extended itself into a constant Now it is surely a pity to do anything to condition of all individual thought, and all increase, more than is absolutely necessary, individual activity. It follows one into art, the strength of this polarizing influence which literature, the pulpit, and even into the se- exists already in British society, dividing it, crecies of meditation and self-communion. like water under galvanic action, into two Have we not Whig and Tory novels, Whig masses of opposite inclination and spirit. and Tory dramas, Whig and Tory pictures? It is perhaps a law of human society at preNay, in such works, over and above the un- sent that such a polarizing influence must conscious reproduction through the imagin- exist, with all its baneful consequences. But ation, often in a most subtle manner, of the its intensity may be abated. What need, Whig and Tory prejudice that has been im- for example, of allowing Whiggism or Torybibed into the being from childhood, do we ism to rage in their mutual opposition benot often detect, what is far worse, a con-yond the field of the legislative? Would it scious restraint of the imagination by the not be enough if that natural division of sofear of seeming untrue to the Whiggism or ciety into parties which arises whenever soToryism that one has socially professed? ciety sets itself to the discussion of an event It is the same in our judgments of such or a measure, were allowed to take effect in works. We are looking at a picture; we the election of the representative body, ceaslike it; we hear that the painter is a Tory, ing, as far as possible, as soon as the elections and at once we like it less! A Tory critic, were over, and the opinions of the comon the other hand, cannot be fair to a Whig munity for the time being were fairly boxed poet; he will praise him too little because up in Parliament, there to take legislative he does not like his Whiggism, or too much shape? This would correspond very nearly for fear of being misled by that dislike! In with what we have called legitimate Whigfact there are few of us who can take a walk gism or Toryism that is, Whiggism or in a frosty night, and look up to the stars, or Toryism still ascertaining itself, still only sit in our rooms and look into our own inductive. Why carry the distinction beyond hearts, otherwise than as Whigs or Tories. this? and why intensify and vitiate WhigIt has become, as it were, a law of our uni- gism or Toryism by making the difference versal thinking that we shall view all things also deductive? In other words, having sein this wretched alternation of black and cured that the Parliament for the time being white. The men are few and far between shall represent the average proportions of that have saved their souls free from this Whiggism and Toryism then existing in the thraldom; and that, looking over the face of community, and having also done justice to nature, can take in, as nature offers and has the same distinction, so far as the ministerial proportioned them, all the coloured beauties or moveable joint linking the legislative to of the spectral beam, from red, through the executive is concerned, by providing that middle green and blue, to fading violet. the party in the ascendant in the legislative And yet, as a glance among our contempo: shall form that joint, why form the permararies will tell us, these are our best and nent body of the executive on the same pringreatest men. We will not name names; ciple? Why make political opinions a but we do not know one truly great man of ground for election to offices in the perthe present day of whom we can certainly manent civil service? The effect of such say that he is systematically either a Whig patronage on political grounds, is, as we have or a Tory. They have decided opinions, said, to intensify beyond its natural vigour decided tendencies; sometimes their mood, that polarizing influence in society which disif translated into action, would harmonize tributes us into Whigs and Tories, and so with some individual Whig or Tory move- unnaturally to increase what is already a bad ment; sometimes it is so translated into intellectual habit with each of us. It is putting action, and they vote and subscribe with an a premium upon one-sidedness. It is a con

stant stimulus to prejudice, and to the intru- | rhetoric to this very question of the improve-· sion of political feelings where they have no ment of the British Government. Young right to be. How unsightly, for instance, that Chalmers, in the old Tory days when we daily spectacle of a candidate for a profes- were fighting against Buonaparte, and likely sorship of Logic, or Latin, or Astronomy, to be beaten by him, accompanied his pulpit resting his hopes not on his merits in relation fulminations against that foreign colossus, to the post, but on the accident of his party and his appeals to the patriotism of Fifeshire being out or in! And what masses of the to be up and doing against him, with one Whiggism and Toryism now existing in so- unvarying tribute of admiration to the ruler ciety and choking it up, would turn out if of France on this very ground that, unlike analysed, to be nothing else than the mixed our British rulers, he knew merit when he result of a hankering after office, and a con- saw it, sought it out, and called it to his viction, inherited or acquired, that its good councils. Nor, since those days, have there things were to be attained most readily in been wanting men to keep this same notion the one route or in the other! What a alive among us? Need we name in this blessing to society to feel all this spurious connexion Mr. Carlyle, so much of whose Whiggism and Toryism dissolved out of it, fervid writing from first to last has been a so that only what was genuine should re- commentary on this very text, who has so main! In all this, we say nothing of positive recently expounded it in his two "Downing and wilful dishonesty, of the exchange of sides Street" pamphlets with most emphatic referin order to gain more, or of the bribery ence to the existing constitution of our which induces to such conduct. This is government; and whose phrases of "King, corruption in the popular sense, but in Kenning, Able-man," and the like, expressly a higher sense it is all corruption. Ob- embodying this doctrine, yet ring and thunserve, too, how this corruption works der in our ears. It is one proof among round in a vicious circle, so as again to others of the immense practical influence exreach the legislative. Patronage is ad- erted by this writer, in spite of all the comministered by the Treasury and by the plaints made against him on account of the ministry generally, with a direct view to unpractical character of his speculations, that keek up and increase "the party;" by a judi- the very movement for a reform in the civil cious use of patronage a Tory ministry or service, which the Blue Book before us a Whig ministry touches up the flagging typifies, and which is now engaging all offiToryism or Whiggism of dubious constitu- cial minds, may be traced directly in large encies against a coming election; and thus measure to him. He and others have it is a spurious and not a real Whiggism or already almost fatigued us with their Toryism that ruminates current questions, theoretical expositions of that principle and, having ruminated them, chooses the which it is now proposed to apply in national representatives. And so on for ever practice-the principle of the right, of circulates, the odious movement. One sees the fit. It is in this principle, variously the evil in excess in such cases as that of expressed, that all are convinced beforehand France under Louis Philippe, where nearly all the electors were officials, and therefore at the beck of government; but there are varieties of political patronage in the United States of America which illustrate the evil in still more glaring colours.

that the remedy for what is wrong must lie. Nor is the conviction purely an exercise of faith. Already it has been found that precisely there and to that extent in which the principle of appointment by merit has been acted on in the present system of the civil service have the results been good. Sir And now for the question of the Remedy. James Stephen distinctly says, in the reAs to what that should be, there is, so far, an markable passage we have quoted from him, instinctive agreement. Let Merit be the sole that the members of what he calls the "first title to office! Let the principle of appoint-class" of the civil servants he had known ment by merit, already to a certain extent during his whole official experience that in use in the civil service, be applied rigidly small class which consisted of men so suand systematically throughout the whole of perior that he cannot yet think of them it! Such is the remedy which all recom- without admiration and respect mend. It is a very old principle. Socrates" nearly all men who had been sought out propounded it; the Roman Senate believed and appointed on account of their well-ascerit; Charlemagne and Cromwell acted on it; tained fitness for the public service." the universal voice of the populace, in its similar effect, and even more striking, is the healthy moments in all ages, has clamoured following passage in the official report of for it. Burke, in last century, invoked the Sir C. Trevelyan and Sir Stafford Northprinciple, and applied it with his splendid cote

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were

To &

with the

"We have before us the testimony of an eminent | in mid-career, instead of meeting it by public officer, who was for many years connect- going on, and putting forth fresh strength ed with one of the chief departments of the state. of generalisation to subdue the greater He writes thus:- During my long acquaintance mass of the opposing matter. For our office, I remember four, and only four instances of young men being introduced into part, in this case, we would rather seize it, on the ground of well ascertained fitness. I do the hint of that other analogy which the not venture to mention names, but I confidently church and the army present, and aver affirm, that the superiority of those four gentlemen boldly, with Mr. Chadwick, that for all purto all the rest, was such, as to extort the acknow- poses, direct and indirect, it would be a gain ledgment of it from their rivals, and to win the on the present system to make public offices high applause of each successive secretary of saleable for hard cash, and to dispose of all state."Report appended to Blue Book, pp. 14, the vacant judgeships, secretaryships, and clerkships, to the highest bidders, even though the fund thus accruing, instead of being saved for public purposes, were annually cast into the sea.

15.

Why not apply universally a principle thus approved by the instinctive sense of all -preached by the most powerful and honest thinkers, that now live, or that have livedThe vague principle of merit, it will be and which to the full extent to which it has observed, has already, in the language of the been tried, has been found to work well? preceding paragraph, taken a somewhat more Curiously enough, the only dissent of im- precise shape that of the principle of Fitportance that we have seen from the princi- ness. "Well ascertained fitness," is the ple of such a change, (there are many who phrase most affected in the Report; synonyquestion its practicability,) is in the case of mous with which, and even better in some Sir James Stephen. We confess that it as- respects, is. Bentham's phrase, "official apttonishes us. Sir James says, that, as 'nepo- itude." The distinction between Fitness tism and regard for political connexion exist and Merit is not a merely verbal matter. It throughout society, as they act in the church, clears away much misapprehension and conin the law, and in other professions, as fusion. Those who advocate the appointagencies for pushing men on, he does not ment of men to office solely on the ground see why they should not exist and act in the of merit, do not mean that offices shall be civil service. He says, that as the church, made the reward of merit in general and of the army, and so on, are not constituted on any kind. Such a system would in itself be the principle of merit, he does not see why but a new form of corruption. And unforthe civil service should be so constituted. tunately, in our transition from the old sysHe suggests that as mediocrity and dulness tem to a better, there seems too great a tenexist, and are less able to take care of them- dency to rest in this mongrel kind of recogselves than strength and brilliancy, even they nition of merit. The notion among official have their rights-a principle in which we patrons, and among the public at large, might agree with him, if he did not suggest seems to be, that it is the right and proper also that their rights are to clerkships in the concession to the new spirit, to look out for civil service! Such argument from such a rising, or for risen, or for venerable men of man takes away our breath. Had he meant, science, or men of letters, or at least, for the by citing the analogous cases of the church sons of such, and when places fall vacant, to and the army, satirically to insinuate the thrust them into them. On such occasions propriety of extending the proposed applica- there are rejoicings in all the papers, and the tion of the principle of merit to a wider patron is applauded for his graceful tribute field than the civil service, that would have to science and learning. But the practice is been intelligible! But to cite the excesses an unsound one. The civil service is not a of patronage in the English Church as a rea- congeries of honorary pensions for past meson for not seeking too eagerly to abate the rits, nor a refuge for the distinguished destisimilar excesses in the Civil Service, argues tute. In a country like ours, where the a mode of thinking, which, with all respect pensions and rewards for literary and scienfor a man so eminent, we can characterize tific merit are so scanty, the tendency is to only as a treason to philosophy and logic make it such; but the tendency is wrong. for the sake of a semblance of worldly It may happen, indeed, that sometimes the moderation. We have too much of this claims of general merit and of special aptimoderation the moderation of that type tude for a vacant post are found in the same of mind, which, having to grapple with person; and then gracefully enough the recomplex facts, and to carry out principles ward for the one may be given in the form through a resisting medium of practi- of a position in which to shew the other. It cal difficulties, avoids the danger by stop- would have been a graceful act of the governping short and arresting the principles ment, for example, to have conferred the

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editorship of the Gazette, when it was vacant | office, to ascertain that the man has the apthe other day, on Mr. Charles Knight. In propriate qualifications for it. This may be the case of offices which are sinecures, too, done by direct inquiries about him among it may be proper to appoint men on account those who know him, by requiring him to of general merit; though it would be better produce certificates, or by subjecting him to to cease to call them offices at all, and to such an examination as shall prove him caview them as pensions. It may also happen pable of the post. Applied in practice, withthat general merit, or merit in one walk, in- out any farther change in the present system, dicates a likelihood that a man will prove it would simply amount to a more stringent fit for a particular post; and this may be a and thorough carrying out of the present reason for giving it to him. A man distin- plan of initial examinations and of probation guished in literature, for example, may prove adopted in some offices. It would leave the a good examiner, or a good secretary. In nominations, as before, to be made by the some cases there may be reason for think- patrons on the grounds of nepotism, political ing he will shew excellence as a man of bu- connexion, and what not; it would only siness equal to that which he has shewn in cause all the persons. so appointed to pass literature; and in such cases his appoint- into office through a porch so constructed as ment may be proper. But it is proper not to throw back the incapables. Now this in so far as the man's past merit is in itself would, certainly, be in itself a great reform; deserving of public reward, but in so far as and, supposing nepotism and political pait is evidence of fitness for the post given him. tronage to remain dominant, there is no In this principle of accepting literary and one that would not be glad to see their other merit as evidence of aptness for office sway so checked and tempered by a power there would probably be an ample justifica- of veto. tion for a much larger admission of literary The majority of those who advocate a reand scientific men into public offices than has form in the civil service, however, go farther. hitherto been practised. On this principle They prefer that form of the principle of alone Pitt was justified in making Burns an Fitness which may be embodied in the exciseman: but on this principle also he phrase "Detur digniori,"-"Let it be given would have been justified if he had made him to the more worthy," or, better still, in the something much higher. After all, there- phrase "Detur dignissimo,"-"Let it be fore, the literary class need not fear the dis- given to the most worthy that can be found." tinction between general merit and official This, it will be seen, implies more than aptitude. Yet the distinction is of import- the other. It implies a raising of the standance. A man is not made Poet Laureate ard of fitness up to the highest possible for his skill in engineering; neither ought mark; it implies a search for candidates, a he to be made a supervisor for having comparison of their claims, and a choice of written farces, nor Registrar-General for a the one whose claims are greatest. work on metaphysics, nor a chief accountant principle only prescribes the appointment of for eminent military services. In short, the a good man; the other, the appointment of true principle on which to select for office is the best man that can be got. The notion that of fitness, and general merit ought to of competition is here introduced, and with enter into the reckoning only as constituting it the notion of a much wider, extension of evidence of fitness, or as a strong motive to that social range from which candidates are appoint where fitness is already known. Of to be selected. In the one case government, two men thought equally fit to be postmen, as it were, sits at home, and only manipu government should certainly dignify with lates those candidates whom nepotism and the Queen's uniform the one who is the bet-political interest sends in to it; in the other, ter scholar, even should it not seem clear, as government casts a vigilant eye over as it generally would, that his scholarship would tell on the rate and accuracy of his morning delivery.

The one

large an area of the population as it can, and either giving a preference to the nominees of nepotism and party interest or not, as it thinks proper, picks out the best men it can anywhere see.

But the principle of Fitness itself is susceptible of various interpretations. One form of the principle of Fitness is that which "Either giving a preference to the nomisome, in their discussions of this question, nees of nepotism and party interest or not, have embodied in the words "Detur digno:" as it thinks proper!" These are words to "Let it be given to a worthy man." This be noted. They indicate a still farther and form of the principle, as distinct from that final difference on which those who agree which we are about to state, may be called with each other even up to the point of the the negative form. It simply implies that Detur dignissimo principle, split and part pains shall be taken, in appointing to any company. Let us take Mr. Greg as the