An Axe in the Civil Service:
Recollection of Author of M. Bergeret Prow Paris, Oct. 17.
After having proclaimed that was impossible to grant the civil servants' claiua to a minimum salary of Frs. 600 a month without imperil ing the national finances, the Gov: rmment has turned round" and announced that it can be done after all, The scale is to range from Frs. 6,000 to Frs, 40,000 a year, but those who have free quarters must expect to have proportionate reduetions made from their salaries, This result was reached after a conference lasting nine hours, under the presidency of M. Herriot in Person, and the examination of all necessary seales and statistics, Cold-blooded people might say that HI. Herriot would have done better to begin by ascertaining these Possibilities and consulting this offcial information before he committed himself but that is not M, Herriot's way. He has none of M. Poincaré's lawyer-like precision. Lis lias imagination, and he appeals to the imagination' of his countrymen, 'A Premier who begins by. saying that 20,000 civil servants must be issed so as to save money, ied to dis to grant to it, can hardly be classed as a statesman of the old school. At the same time, he is very human, and personal popularity is a very great asset to a French politician. "He will soon come round to the view that the civil service can only be reformed from within, and that the persons best qualified to draw up a reform scheme are the civil servants them selves. Last 5 reposed to abolish not 20,000 but 50,000 posts. Later he talked about 1 reduction of 15,000, and in the and there were no reductions at all.
Some years ago a slight weodingout was effected, but temporary clerks were promptly engaged to do the work of the eliminated permanent officials, and the result was to xe" system does not work in France. How can one be ruth-Tess in what a French writer has s0 aptly called the "républ camarades"? As soon as you int mate to M. Durand, an official with, Tet us say, a salary of Frs. 12,000 fa year, that his work could quite well be done by someone else, and that the nation cannot afford to pay two salaries instead of one, you transform M. Durand into a political adversary who may do you goodness Knows what kind of harm. He may mobilize a masonic lodge against you, or persuade the deputy for his Constituency to put awkward quesical life there perfectly unassailable position, and even if such a person existed, he would never be able to command sufficient support for aUisolutely whole-hearted reforms. The only ways to reduce the unwieldy civil service est mates is to let the staff themselves work out a scheme of reorganization designed to modernize the present administrative methods which date from the time of Louis Philippe.
Durand himself can do nothing if own comrades say that his job} is superfluous
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.