The Civil Service of Canada

THE CIVIL SERVICE OF CANADA W. L. GRANT T HE last fifty years have seen a great change in our conception of the state and its functions. According to Lord Melbourne the functions of the state in time of peace were" to keep order and to enforce the sanctity of contracts," and in spite of his ability to extemporize life-long convictions, and to exhibit startling inconsistencies , Mr. Gladstone had essentially the same policeman's conception. Their belief, in some ways a splendid belief, in the individual, their desire to free mankind from the shackles of an outworn feudalism, led the Victorians to hold this negative conception of the state, and to think that positive results would best be attained by the unchecked activity of vigorous individuals . How far away it all sounds! Russia has become Communist; Germany and Italy are totalitarian. Great Britain, "swearing she would n'er consent, consented," and while still in part individualist, has embarked on so vast a programme of social services, that she is to-day the best example of the social service state. Even in Canada, which has to some extent lagged behind, we do not always recognize how far we have gone. The believer in rugged individualism rises in the morning and turns on the electric light provided by a HydroElectric Commission established by a combination of the municipalities and the province. He washes in water provided by the municipali ty. His breakfast is cooked by the same hydro-provided electricity. He goes to his office in a municipally-operated street car. If he wishes to send home for the party that evening a bottle or two 428 THE CIVIL SERVICE OF CANADA of whisky or a dozen of beer, he purchases it from a Provincial Liquor Commission. Arriving at the office he finds a telegram sent by government wire, and numerous letters delivered by the government post-office. The wire may possibly compel him to look up the trains of the Canadian National Railway. And the end is not yet. It is sufficiently clear that the days of unchecked laisseziaire have gone. The handwriting is on the wall. Big business has all too quickly exhausted the soil of goodwill in which it grew up. Investigations in the United States and Canada have convinced most of us that unchecked big business means unchecked economic slavery. While it is unlikely that we shall fly to either Communism or Fascism as a refuge, at least the government must come in as a make-weight. If we wish to retain the vigour of individualism, we must at least have government activity to restrain and canalize it. There must be some form of planned economy, if possible one in which the virtues of individualism may flourish, but something very different from the unrestrained piracy of our gasoline and tobacco barons. In this process of changing a negative conception of the state to a positive one, the Civil Service has played a prominent part, and in Canada must play an increasing one. The losses occasioned to the Soviet government in Russia by the lack of an efficient Civil Service and the necessity of organizing one out of the thousands of halfbaked idealists who felt capable of putting Communist principles into practice, are astronomical. That Great Britain has been able to make such vast changes without a social cataclysm is due, not indeed wholly but in no small part, to the efficiency of the higher ranks of her Civil Service. As Mr. Laski, in his Democracy il1 Crisis, observes: THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY The great change in the technique of the modern state in the last half-century has been the improvement in the quality of its administration. The change, indeed, in the character of the men chosen to stalf the Civil Services of states like Great Britain, Germany, and France, to take only the outstanding examples, is remarkable. Most of the old and vicious system of patronage has gone; merit is the basis of admission to the service, and, granted the weaknesses of human nature, it may be said also to be easily the predominant motive in promotion,' In the main, also, the tradition of the...