laid in a report by
Northcote and Sir Charles Trevelyan (November 1853), prepared for Mr.
Gladstone at his request, recommending two propositions, so familiarised
to us to-day as to seem like primordial elements of the British
constitution. One was, that access to the public service should be
through the door of a competitive examination; the other, that for
conducting these examinations a central board should be constituted. The
effect of such a change has been enormous not only on the efficiency of
the service, but on the education of the country, and by a thousand
indirect influences, raising and strengthening the social feeling for
the immortal maxim that the career should be open to the talents. The
lazy doctrine that men are much of a muchness gave way to a higher
respect for merit and to more effectual standards of competency.

OLD SYSTEM AND NEW

The reform was not achieved without a battle. The whole case was argued
by Mr. Gladstone in a letter to Lord John Russell of incomparable
trenchancy and force, one of the best specimens of the writer at his
best, and only not worth reproducing here, because the case has long
been finished.[328] Lord John (Jan. 20) wrote to him curtly in reply, 'I
hope no change will be made, and I certainly must protest against it.'
In reply to even a second assault, he remained quite unconvinced. At
present, he said, the Queen appointed the ministers, and the ministers
the subordinates; in future the board of examiners would be in the place
of the Queen. Our institutions would be as nearly republican as
possible, and the new spirit of the public offices would not be loyalty
but republicanism! As one of Lord John's kindred spirits declared, 'The
more the civil service is recruited from the lower classes, the less
will it be sought after by the higher, until at last the aristocracy
will be altogether dissociated from the permanent civil service of the
country.' How could the country go on with a democratic civil service by
the side of an aristocratic legislature?[329] This was just the spirit
that Mr. Gladstone loathed. To Graham he wrote (Jan. 3, 1854), 'I do not
want any pledges as to details; what I seek is your countenance and
favour in an endeavour to introduce to the cabinet a proposal that we
should give our sanction to the principle that in every case where a
satisfactory test of a defined and palpable nature can be furnished, the
public service shall b