Sir James Stephen and the Anonymity of the Civil Servant
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1958.tb01329.x |
| Date | 01 March 1958 |
| Published date | 01 March 1958 |
| Author | EDWARD HUGHES |
Sir
James Stephen
and
the Anonymity
of
the
Civil
Servant
By PROFESSOR
EDWARD
HUGHES
HE
following letters in the
Grey
Papers
now at Durham furnish an
T
interesting commentary
on
the doctrine of ministerial responsibility and
the anonymity
of
the civil servant. James Stephen served for twenty years
as counsel to the Colonial Office before he was appointed Assistant Under-
secretary in 1834 and Permanent Under-secretary two years 1ater.l The
retarded development
of
the twin doctrines, here disclosed, is to be attributed
in part to the lack of clear distinction still obtaining between the political
and the civil servants of the
Crown.
(It will be observed that the latter
term is never used in the present correspondence.) But
it
is also due to
the peculiar heritage and position of Stephen himself. As early as 1817
the West India interest had singled him out for attack.
His
father, the elder
James Stephen, was an ardent abolitionist whose speech at the annual meeting
of the African Institution advocating a registry for Negroes was subsequently
printed.2
It
was a case of the sins
of
the fathers.
In
1833
the younger Stephen
was obviously much touched by Lord Howick’s politically immature
suggestion that Stephen’s name should be publicly associated with his own
in connection with the Act abolishing colonial slavery? and though Stephen’s
reply was firm, the reasons he adduced-that he himself filled
“
no
substantive
or independent station
.
.
.
and was exempt from all public responsibility
”
-are yet noteworthy. Twelve years later the vendetta against him had
extended to New Zealand colonisation.
On
this occasion, Lord Stanley,
the Colonial Secretary, clearly enunciated the doctrine of ministerial respon-
sibility and the
“
obligation
of
silence
”
resting
on
civil
servant^.^
“
No
man attempts to shelter his lightning conductor,’’ Stephen sadly opined.
The subsequent correspondence, particularly the letter to Gladstone, reiterated
the doctrine as to who the lightning
[James Stephen to Lord Howick]
conductor should be.
Colonial Office,
Downing
Street.
17th
May,
1833.
My dear Lord,
Taylors delivered to me yesterday a message from your Lordship to the
effect that you were about to publish your speech of Tuesday last with an
‘Bell and Morrell,
Brizish
Colonial
Policy
(1928),
page
xx,
describe Stephen
“
as the
real founder of Colonial Office methods and traditions”.
aThere is a copy
of
this
in
the Routh collection at Durham. See especially pages 34-49
for a vindication
of
the younger Stephen from the calumnies of
Mr.
Marryatt.
%ee Lord Howick’s
Memorandum
in
Bell and Morrell,
op.
cit.,
page 383. Howick was
Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in
his
father’s [Earl Grey’s] Administration.
4Bell and Morrell missed this important correspondence
in
the Grey Papers at Howick-
Cf.
W.
P.
Morrell,
Cclonial Policy
of
Peel and
Russell,
pages
103-31.
6Henry Taylor, Under-Secretary of the Colonial Office. For his close association with
Srephen see Bell and Morrell, page 383n.
passim.
29
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