place of nominating a candidate to go before the
examiners, the examination should be open without
nomination. It was true there would be no personal
recommendation, but the responsibility would be only
removed from the patron to the examiners, and there
would be probation afterwards. He replied to other
objections suggested by the chancellor of the exchequer,
who did not seem to be aware, he said, that there was a
precedent for the plan proposed in France, where a
system was in operation with reference to certain
professions. He likewise met another class of objections,
drawn from our political and social position.—Sir F.
BARING hoped that it would not be understood that
those who did not approve this proposal were hostile to
any improvement of the public service; but he did not
concur in the sweeping censure cast upon that service.
With regard to patronage, he did not believe the public
mind would agree with those who sought to abolish it
altogether, and to postpone all claims of public servants
to open competition. The persons wanted for clerks in
a public office were not first-class men from the Universities;
he should prefer supernumerary clerks to men
chosen by competition, who were over-educated for
their office. He suggested various difficulties in the
way of appointing by competition, being pretty sure, he
said, the result would be that the richer classes would
get the best appointments under that system. His firm
impression was that the fault of the present system
consisted in the unfortunate arrangement by which promotion
went by seniority, and unfit men could not be
removed.—Mr. GLADSTONE said the question was not
so much whether any particular expression in the
motion was open to fair exception, but on the issue
raised by the chancellor of the exchequer, who
contended that the time was unsuitable for pronouncing
such an opinion, before time had been given to see how
the order in council worked. But, after the resolution
of Sir B. Lytton,—which was recommended by a speech
full of meaning, advocating free admission to the public
service,—he thought it was eminently the time to show
the country what the house meant by that resolution.
He reviewed the condition of the civil service under the
existing system, pointing out its evils, which tended to
equalise the good, middling, and bad. The public had
a right to be served by the best men it could get for the
price it offered. He contended that the present system
not only did not give the best men, but that it created a
vast mass of collateral evils connected with the dispensation
of patronage, which kept a large class of men in
a state of expectancy, wasting their lives in solicitation.
He combated the arguments against competition
employed by Sir F. Baring, who had regarded a clerk, he
said, as a constant quantity, whereas the quality of
clerks differed in different departments. Discontent
pervaded the whole mass of the civil service, owing to
the standard of remuneration, which did not distinguish
between good and bad. Promotion by seniority, he
agreed, was an evil, and the whole question of admission
he considered to be a secondary one, except by its
connexion with promotion. The root of the evil lay in
the system of nomination; the cure was to be found in
the adoption of another system which made merit the
passport to admission, and in nineteen cases out of
twenty examination would be a security for moral as
well as intellectual character.—Mr. TITE spoke in
support of the motion.—Lord PALMERSTON said all parties
were agreed on the propriety of filling the civil departments
of the government with capable men. The only
difference was as to the mode of effecting that object. He
defended the character of the civil servants as a class,
and he hoped the house would content itself for the
present with the principle of examination that had been
established; where the chief of a department had two
or three candidates for an office, a competition between
them might with advantage be established, but beyond
that he would not for the present go.—Mr. Scully replied.
—After which the house divided, when the previous
question was carried by a majority of 140 to 125.

On Wednesday, July 11, the motion for going into
committee on the Church Rates Abolition Bill was
opposed by Mr. FOLLETT, who contended that the
measure constituted a first step towards the destruction
of the established church in this country. He moved
that the committal of the bill be postponed for three
months.—The ATTORNEY-GENERAL remarked upon
the public agitation, and injury to the church itself,
which the present uncertain state of the church-rate
question occasioned. It was time that the controversy
should subside, and he saw no means of allaying disputes
on the subject, except by sanctioning the abolition of
rates. In a legal point of view he recommended that
step, as the existing law recognised an obligation which
it gave no means of enforcing, and thus presented an
anomaly at once baneful and ridiculous.—Lord J.
MANNERS opposed the bill, which was defended by Sir W.
Somerville and Mr. E. Ball.—Mr. R. PHILLIMORE
supported the amendment, believing that the measure gave
unfair and exclusive advantages to the dissenters.—Mr.
C. FORSTER expressed his conviction that the only way
to terminate the long-pending dispute was by a total
and immediate repeal of the church-rate impost, as
effected by the bill before the house.—Mr. Wigram, Mr.
Vernon, and Mr. Gurney having spoken against the
measure, Mr. BENTINCK observed that no cabinet
minister was present, and moved the adjournment of
the debate, which, after some discussion and a division,
was at length agreed to.

On Thursday, July 12, Lord PALMERSTON laid on the
table the Papers containing the Close of the Vienna
Negotiations. He took this opportunity of stating that
he would resist Mr. Disraeli's motion, that Sir E. Bulwer
Lytton's motion of censure on Lord John Russell should
be brought forward to-morrow, on the ground that the
papers he had just laid on the table, and which were
material to the case, could not be in the hands of
members till to-morrow. After to-morrow, he had no objection
that Sir E. B. Lytton should bring forward his
motion on any day that it suited him.—Lord J. RUSSELL
took the opportunity of stating, in reply to a question
from Mr. Disraeli, put on a previous day, that he made
his statement of Friday last because he believed there
was nothing he stated which the house might not have
learned from other sources. He had since, however,
laid the question before her Majesty, and had obtained
her sanction to the course he had pursued. He wished
also to correct a misrepresentation of what he said on
Friday last. It was certainly true that when he returned
from Vienna he was of opinion that the propositions of
Count Buol might secure an honourable peace. But it
did not follow that he thought the same propositions
would be equally efficacious now. On the contrary, he
was of opinion that this country had no choice but
vigorously to prosecute the war.—Mr. DISRAELI did not
see that this explanation altered the position of the noble
lord. The charge against him was, that returning home
from Vienna a friend of peace—which his colleagues did
not share in—he still remained a member of the cabinet,
and led the house to believe that he was an advocate
for a vigorous prosecution of the war. He denied that
the noble lord had any right to disclose the Queen's
counsels without the Queen's consent, and certainly
there were no means of knowing what passed in the
cabinet, unless the noble lord had told them. With
regard to the question now before them, he charged
Lord Palmerston with having altered the day of supply,
which was originally fixed for Friday, in order to get
rid of this question, and even now the noble lord did
not hold out a promise of Monday. The noble lord
talked of papers—he did not believe that any papers to
be produced could affect the judgment of the house, but
if the noble lord would promise to give them Monday,
he would not insist on Friday.—Lord PALMERSTON said,
Mr. Disraeli made much ado about nothing. He had
not fixed supply for Friday, and if he had he would
have altered it when the hon. baronet gave his notice,
because he did not think it right that the question should
be discussed without the papers, though he could
perfectly well understand the right hon. gentleman's tactics
in wishing the house to decide the question before they
had the means of understanding it. He repeated now
what he stated before, that he had no objection to the
debate taking place any day after the papers were in the
hands of the house, and he would readily, therefore, fix
supply for Monday. He defended Lord John Russell
for the statement he made on Friday without the Queen's
consent, which he said was done every day.—Sir E. B.