THE CIVIL SERVICE 73

attracts competent men to the State's service; it enables them to
do their work without trying to curry favour with a particular
Minister; it puts them above corruption. The legal liability to
dismissal can be used as an emergency weapon against a Civil
Servant who flagrantly neglected his duty or abused his trust:
very rarely indeed has it been used.

A non-party permanent Civil Service, made up of people
chosen for their ability, is thought of to-day as a necessity for
good Government. This has not always been so. In the i8th
century a large proportion of Civil Service posts were filled, by
Ministers, with their relatives, dependants and friends. Public
work was often placed in incompetent hands; and the Govern-
ment of the day could always rely on its employees to vote for
it at elections. A change of Government might be followed by
a complete re-staffing of the Civil Service. Sir George Trevelyan
describes a specially flagrant instance of this, after the Parlia-
mentary victory of the Government which concluded the peace
in 1762, ending the Seven Years* War. "The fight was over
and the butchery began. Everyone who belonged to the beaten
party was sacrificed without mercy, with all his kindred and
dependants; and those public officers who were unlucky enough
to have no political connections fared as ill as the civil popula-
tion of a district which is the seat of war between contending
armies. Clerks, messengers, excisemen, coastguardsmen and
pensioners were ruined by shoals because they had no vote for
a Member of Parliament, or because they had supported a
Member who opposed the Peace".

In 1829 Sir Robert Peel, as Home Secretary, faced the serious
problem of the policing of London. He created a new body of
public servants, the Metropolitan Police, The population was
growing; there was much misery and crime; if the new force
did not do its work the capital would be in chaos. "We should
deserve to be crucified" wrote Sir Robert to a friend "if we
made a job of this". So arose an example of a public service
recruited for ability and not by jobbery. As the work of Govern-