Problems of Training for the Public Service: (a) The Civil Service
| Published date | 01 July 1938 |
| Date | 01 July 1938 |
| Author | Henry N. Bunbury |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1938.tb02086.x |
Problems
of
Training
for
the
Public
Service
(a)
The
Civil Service
SIR
HENRY
N.
BUNBURY,
K.C.B.
Late
Conybtroller
and
Accountant-General
of
the
Post
Ofice
[Pafier
to
be
discussed
at
the
SumnzeY
Conference
of
the Institute
of
Public Administration, Bristol,
July,
19381
WANT in this paper to take up some aspects
of
the problem put
1
by Sir Josiah Stamp, our President, in his presidential address
last November.
For
present purposes let me first state the problem
in my own words.
We are living in an age in which
a
great enlargement in the scope
and
quality of government, in the widest sense, is taking place.
Government operates in many forms and through many
types
of
agency: the essence of them all is that they rest on the use
of
authority conferred for the particular purpose, and not
on
contract
between parties voluntarily entered into.
This enlargement applies both to the quantity and to the variety
of
governmental work. It is happening to a greater
or
less degree and
with greater or less rapidity in all countries. This development may
be
a
good thing or
a
bad thing. It may be leading inevitably to
some ultimate destination which would not commend itself to many
of
us.
Or it may be leading to
&he
evolution
of
some middle way
which will reconcile individual freedom with the needs
of
a highly
organised and technically advanced society; that middle way for
which all liberal minds are searching, though none have yet demon-
strably found.
But
however this may be, the situation with which
we are confronted
is
a
fact
of
which we have to take cognisance,
and
I
venture
to
suggest that those, daily becoming
fewer
in
number,
who believe that we can somehow and at some time get back to the
nineteenth century conceptions
of
Western Europe about the scope
of
government and freedom of enterprise, are indulging
a
vain
dream. When, indeed, was that dream ever wholly real or
long-
lasting
?
267
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