that the French Service is inadequate. But then France is not a country where high salaries are paid to officials. No judge there gets more than £800 a year; ours get £5,000. A French Cabinet Minister gets £1,200; ours get from £2,000 to £10,000.

The Royal Commission on Civil Establishments suggested that economy, without in any way sacrificing efficiency, might be made by amalgamating the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Establishments. I need not recapitulate the details of the proposed amalgamation, but I may state that the result of

the scheme, though it would have increased the salaries of the junior diplomatists, would have effected economies through a reduction both in the number of these junior diplomatists and of the clerks in the Foreign Office. The system was based upon complete interchange and readier means of employing men wherever pressure of work required it, at home or abroad. It was also expected that it would give steadier promotion and afford a better opportunity of employing men according to their proved capacity wherever their services might be most useful. Other economies were also comprised in the scheme. Nevertheless, though the Commission reported almost unanimously upon the subject---there being only one dissentient-the scheme has not been put in force, except that an arrangement exists whereby Foreign Office clerk; and Diplomatic secretaries may be interchanged on occasion.

THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE.

The Diplomatic Service itself is also worth looking at, apart from the question of its amalgamation with the Foreign Office. Ast in other branches of the public service, England manages to be at the head of the

the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments, he stated it as his opinion that in the case of France, if the Diplomatic and Consular Votes, cost of buildings, and the Foreign Office Vote, were added in each case, the result would be a slight excess in expenditure on the

part of France. Nevertheless, one cannot get away from the fact that our Diplomatic establishments somehow manage to be higher than those of any other country; and when we come to examine details, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the expenses are higher than they ought to be.

The Royal Commission on Civil Establishments was by no means untender or hypercritical in dealing with the Diplomatic Service, but in its Fourth Report it was obliged to remark that "it would certainly appear from the figures that the expensesfor instance, at Paris--might be reduced "; and it recommended a revision of salaries and reduction of staff throughout Service.

the

Much heed does not appear to have been paid to these recommendations. When the Commission reported, the Ambassador at Paris was getting £9,000 a year; he gets it still. The Secretary of the Embassy got £1,000 a year, with £200 rent allowance; he gets them still. The staff of Secretaries and third Secretaries has been reduced by a few hundreds, and the Commercial Attaché, whose predecessor received £1,300 a year and £200 rent, in 1890, is now reduced to £500 without rent. But the salary list does not exhaust the expenses, which are all

round upon an elaborate scale. As, however, they are spread about in different Votes, it is impossible to say exactly what they

amount to.

Now, are these Paris expenses, for example, necessary? Sir Charles Dilke is an authority upon the Diplomatic Service, and particularly upon the Paris branch, and he told the Royal Commission that we did not need to keep so large a staff at Paris, and that with regard to the high Ambassadorial salary, the apology for which is the need for much entertaining, he declared that "French society was so broken up by political divisions that. practically an Ambassador at Paris may do more harm than good by entertaining there." And this criticism applies with even more force to-day. Sir Charles Dilke also expressed his belief that in the circumstances it did not matter whether good relations were kept up between the two

I

Ministers and Legations at petty German Courts ? Berlin is quite sufficient. doubt if there is really any more justification. for representation at the Courts of the different German States than there would be for representation in particular States of the United States of America. Yet Bavaria has Minister Resident, with £1,500 a year and £200 rent; Darmstadt a Secretary of Legation, with £500 a year and £200 rent; Saxony a Minister Resident, with £950 a year and £200 rent. True, the number of these German Legations has been reduced; but why keep up these three?

It is not quite apparent why such large sums for outfit should be allowed to the gentlemen in the Diplomatic Service. When an Ambassador is appointed to France, he is allowed £4,000 for outfit. In the case of promotion, £2,800 is allowed, and in the case

countries through the French representation here or our representation at Paris, and that a popular French Ambassador here would do more good than could an English Ambassador at Paris. With regard to Embassies in general, Sir Charles Dilke was of opinion that the entertaining is excessive, as there is no object in entertaining British subjects, and there are no means of securing that the right people of the country to which the Ambassador is accredited are entertained. "In most countries now, Society has little influence upon politics, and an Ambassador and Ambassadress are naturally tempted to entertain people whom they meet and whom they like, rather than to entertain the people who have political power." Yet the system thus criticised by Sir Charles Dilke twelve years ago still remains.

Then, not only do we spend too much upon our Embassies, but we have too many Embassies. What on earth is the object of

of transfer, £2,000. The Secretary of Embassy gets £400, £280, and £200 respectively. True, this is the highest rate paid, though the transfer of one's domestic establishment from London to Paris would, one would think, involve a less outlay than a transfer to Constantinople. An Ambassador to Turkey gets £2,000 outfit money on first appointment, and proportionally afterwards.

In the case of Embassies, the allowance at first appointment is in no case less than £2,000 for the Ambassador and £200 for the Secretary of the Embassy. In the case of First-Class Missions, such as Belgium and Greece, a lower scale prevails, but here again it rises to £2,000 in the case of the more distant Missions. And so in the case of Second-Class Missions, where the outfit scale varies between £150 for the Minister Resident at the Saxon Court, to £1,100 for the Ministers to Mexico and the Argentine. The outfit allowance, it may be stated, is supposed

to be for the purpose of enabling the official to set up house in his new place of residence, and to pay his travelling expenses thither; but I think it will be agreed that, seeing that the official goes to a house the receptionrooms of which are already furnished by the Government, the outfit allowance does not err upon the side of stinginess. It will also be agreed that the method of computing the allowance leaves something to be desired; for it is computed, not according to the expenses incurred, but proportionately to the salary which the Minister is to receive in his new post. It is calculated at the rate of one-third of his salary on appointment.

A word will also be in season regarding Diplomatic pensions. These are a thing apart from the pensions of the Civil Service, and the reader who has followed what I have written about Civil Service pensions will be surprised to learn that the Civil Service scale has not been thought good enough in the Diplomatic Service. To show what these pensions are like, let me transcribe Section 6 of the Diplomatic Salaries, esc., Act of

1869.

"The Treasury, on the recommendation of the Secretary of State, may grant pensions. during life to persons in Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service not exceeding the salary which the pensioner may be receiving at the time that his active employment ceases, and not exceeding the following amounts, namely:

“(1). £1,700 per annum for a first-class pension.

(2). £1,300 per annum for a
second-class pension.
(3). £900 per annum for a
third-class pension.
(4). £700 per annum for a
fourth-class pension.”

Mission. With regard to fourth-class pensions, which are earned by second and third Secretaries, they are now computed by calculating the amount of pension for each year that has elapsed since the date of the man's first commission at one-thirtieth part of the last salary of which he was in receipt at the time of the pension being granted. This is double the rate granted in the Civil Service, and is continued in spite of the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments, that the computation should be by sixtieths, and not by thirtieths. But

In explanation of the above, it may be said that a first-class pension is given to an Ambassador who has served in that capacity for three years; a second-class pension to an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary on a First-Class Mission who has served five years; a third-class pension is given to the same official on a Second-Class

the whole scale and system are scandalously high.

IN CONCLUSION.

I might continue. But there must be a limit to this recital, even though it be difficult to fix a limit to the infinite variety of bureaucratic waste. I might, for instance,

discuss the need for amalgamating the Customs and Inland Revenue, as well as the Foreign and Diplomatic Services; for the fusion of the Inland Revenue and Customs Departments would not issue alone in a great reduction of administrative expenditure; the abolition of the duplicate examination and the constant reference of small points to the two Boards, and of the divergence in the revenue regulations of the two Boards, would bring much saving of worry and delay and expense to the trading community.

I might bring to your notice the growing deficits in the Telegraph Department, comparing the year 1871 (when the expenditure was 57.75 per cent. of the receipts) with the year 1901 (when the estimated percentage was 110.21), and then proceed to discuss the question whether, if by internal reform and economy the Telegraph Department cannot make both ends meet, it is right that telegraph charges should be so low that the general community has to help pay for the telegrams which a part of the community sends.

Or, to turn from the waste of public money to the cognate subject of the public waste of private money, I might dwell upon the enormous and unnecessary expenditure involved in Private Bill legislation, instancing

such facts as that during the seven years 1892-1898, railway and other companies and local authorities had to spend four and a half millions upon the promotion of their Bills. and their opposition to other Bills. Or, again, the waste of private money involved in bankruptcy and official liquidators' expenses might also be insisted upon in connection with the wasteful system of our bureaucracy.

But we may stay the recital; for we have seen already how vast are the sums of money which are muddled away in the Government service. Whether it be in the coping with an emergency in the spending departments, or the contract system as pursued in normal times, or whether it be in the organisation and method of payment of the Departments themselves, the same conclusion shows itself plainly and startlingly our money is — wasted.

Economise as rigidly as we may, the expenditure of this country is bound to be vast and bound to grow. Arrived now,

as we are, at a period when expenditure is advancing by greater strides than ever before, while the profits from industry, owing to severe and augmenting competition, are dwindling, the present is an especially appropriate time for overhauling our entire system of national expenditure.

RODERICK GILL.

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