Kitabı oku: «Here and There in London», sayfa 11
THE GOVERNMENT OFFICE
Is in the Strand – or in Westminster – and the contrast between its silence and stillness and the bustle of the streets is something wonderful. You feel as you enter as if you were in a charmed land. With Tennyson’s lotus-eaters you exclaim, “There is no joy but calm. Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?” Charles Lamb’s description of the South Sea House might have been penned for a Government Office. The place seems to belong not to the living present. The windows, double glazed, keep out the roar of the outside world. The chairs and tables, of massive mahogany, seem as if of the time of the ancients. The Turkey carpet has a smack of the primitive political Eden, ere man sinned, and Lord John Russell introduced his Reform Bill. This may be a railroad age, but it is not in a Government Office that that truth is recognised. The young men are generally reading the papers, or eating lunch; the seniors are doing the same, but in a more dignified manner. In an office where there are several, to find a couple at real hard work from ten till four is, I fear, a rarity.
According to Mr. Knight, when Henry VIII. had stripped Wolsey of Whitehall, and other possessions, he constructed there, for the amusement of his leisure, a tennis-court, a bowling-green, and a cock-pit. The tennis-court and the bowling-green have left no traces. The cockpit went through a variety of transmutations, till it settled down into a treasury. In the reign of Anne, the lord high treasurer Godolphin sat three or four times a week at the cock-pit, “to determine and settle matters relating to the public treasure and revenues.” This was the old building fronting the banqueting house, which Mr. Barry has recently metamorphosed into a magnificent wing of his uniform edifice. The old office of Godolphin, however, is but a small part of the modern treasury. The offices of the more important functionaries are in the large building behind, which fronts the esplanade in St. James’s Park. Several offices were destroyed in 1733, in order to erect the present building facing the parade, the expense of which was estimated at £9,000. The façade consists of a double basement of the Doric order, and a projection in the centre, on which are four Ionic pillars supporting an entablature and pediment.
Where the treasury of the kings of England had its abiding place – or, more properly, where its eidolon or Platonic idea lodged, before it took up its abode in the cock-pit – were hard to say. The exchequer, which in the reign of Edward I. was literally the king’s strong box, was, in his time, lodged in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. Sir Francis Palgrave says, that the earliest place of deposit for the royal treasures which can be traced is “that very ancient apartment, described as the ‘Treasure in the cloisters of the Abbey in Westminster, next the Chapter-house,’ and in which the pix is still contained. This building is a vaulted chamber, supported by a single pillar; and it must remain with the architectural antiquary to decide why a structure in the early Romanesque style, ranging with the massy semicircular arch in the south transept, acknowledged to be a portion of the structure raised by the Confessor, may not also have been erected in the reign of the last legitimate Anglo-Saxon king. In this treasury the regalia and crown jewels were deposited, as well as the records. The ancient double oak doors, strongly grated and barred with iron, and locked with three keys, yet remain.”
The theory of the British treasury was much the same during the nomad period of its existence that it has continued to be in its settled and citizen-like life. There was from the beginning a treasurer, whose office it was to devise schemes for raising money, to manage the royal property to the best advantage, and to strike out the most economical and efficient modes of expenditure. He had even then the control of all the officers employed in collecting the customs and royal revenues, the disposal of offices in the customs throughout the kingdom, the nomination of escheators in the counties, and the leasing of crown lands. Then, as a check upon the malversion of this officer, there was the exchequer, the great conservator of the revenues of the nation. “The exchequer,” said Mr. Ellis, clerk of the pells, when examined before the finance commissioners, “is at least coeval with the Norman Conquest, and has been from its earliest institution looked to as a check upon the lord high treasurer, and a protection for the king, as well as for the subject, in the custody, payment, and issue of the public money.”
This is still the broad outline of the treasury – of the finance department of the State of Great Britain. The enormous magnitude of the empire has caused the subordinate departments of customs, the mint, &c., to expand until they have attained an organisation, an individual importance, a history of their own. The different modes of transacting money-business, rendered necessary by its greater amount and more complicated nature, have altered the routine both of the treasury and the exchequer; the changed relations of king and parliament have subjected the treasury and exchequer to new control and superintendence. Still their mutual relations, and the part they play in the economy of the empire, remain essentially the same as in older times.
The lords commissioners of the treasury (for the office of lord high treasurer has for many years been put in commission) have their office at Whitehall, in the building whose history we have briefly traced. The exchequer, or more properly “the receipt of exchequer,” has its office at Whitehall Yard. But we must not descend to particulars. The only place in the wide world where change comes not – where the main object seems to be how not to do it – where antiquated routine has its stronghold – is a government office.
Those of our readers who have read – and who has not? – Captain Marryatt’s graphic descriptions of seafaring life, entitled “The King’s Own,” will remember the scene in which Captain Capperbar ingeniously manages to supply, from the ship’s stores, all his own and her ladyship’s domestic wants. The ship’s carpenters are engaged in framing chests of drawers, and building dining-tables. Fully aware of the mischievous effects of idleness, the captain’s lady finds employment for the ship’s painters in her attics. The armourers, instead of preparing the murderous weapons of war, are peacefully occupied in making rakes and hoes for the especial benefit of the junior members of the same devoted family. Does the fair spouse of the gallant captain need even a pole for the clothes-line, a boat-mast is immediately dedicated to that important service. Thus, the captain turns his devotion for his country to some account; and if his patriotism be a virtue, it is one that brings with it its own reward.
Granting, which we readily do, that the above scene is an exaggeration, still we believe it to be nearer the mark than the opposite representations, which would lead us to believe that all persons in the employ of Government are overworked and underpaid. Their places are sinecures; bread for life. Every merchant or employer of labour has the power of instant dismissal; but in Government offices this great check on idleness and stupidity is ignored. Officials are happy fellows. The ills of life do not affect them. Mills may stop, panics may take place, commerce may decline, ships may rot in deserted harbours; docks and warehouses, once teeming with busy life, may be silent as the grave – but their income knows no change, save when death causes a general promotion in their ranks. The agricultural mind may be weighed down with grief – it may find its idols but clay. There, where it must live, or bear no life, it may find all hollow, delusive, and false. The seasons may be unpropitious. The common ills farmers are heir to, such as potato disease, the fly at the turnips, the rot in the sheep, may be theirs in no common degree; nevertheless, the Clapham omnibus duly deposits at the Treasury in Downing-street Mr. Smith, who, with the exception of two hours for lunch, and another hour or so for miscellaneous conversation, and the perusal of the Times, will, from ten till four, magnanimously devote himself to his country’s good. At the hour of four, Mr. Smith is again on the omnibus, about to seek, in the bosom of his family, that relaxation which, did his country deny him, it would be ungrateful indeed. Mr. Smith is a family man; and, regardless of London temptations, he hastens to his mutton at five. On the contrary, the junior clerk, Mr. Adolphus Blaser, is a young man about town; and just as Mr. Smith retires to his night’s rest, our young roué, having recovered from the effects of a good dinner, is ready to commence the diversions, or, as they may be more fitly termed, the follies of a night. At a good old age Mr. Smith is gathered to his fathers, and a tombstone in Norwood Cemetery calls upon the public to admire those virtues, the loss of which has left such a blank in the Clapham annals of domestic life. One of Mr. Smith’s companions, a much-maligned individual, has just written to the Times, indignantly asking if it be nothing to attend every day at Somerset-house, in wet weather or fine? But, upon the whole, we think few men were more fortunate than our deceased friend. Like many of his schoolfellows, he did not make and lose a fortune; his hair did not become prematurely grey. There were storms, but they never reached him. He never missed his church: he had always a friend, and a bottle to give him; for your true Church and King man is generally reared on fine old port. His sons were placed in his office; and his daughters (good-looking, as most of the daughters of well-to-do, jolly old gentlemen, generally are) settle comfortably in life. And so endeth the chapter.
If this imaginary sketch be not true, it is not far from the truth. A Government situation is known to be a pleasant berth, and is jumped at as a man would jump at a freehold estate or a lump of Californian gold. A man who has any influence with the powers that be, or a younger son, instead of trying a trade or profession, will often seek a Government situation, trusting, with the income arising from it, he may live in town almost in idleness – at any rate in comparative luxury and ease. By the side of a Rothschild he may be poor, but really he is not so badly off, after all. The life of a Government employé is considered gentlemanly, easy, and not under-paid. Hence the doors of those who have places to dispose of are furiously besieged by an eager and avaricious mob. The higher offices are equally greedily seized, and equally as preposterously over-paid. During one of the recent examinations before the committee of the House of Commons, a quondam ambassador had the coolness to inform the committee that the reason why the American ambassadors managed to perform their duties for less money than the English ones was, that they lived so much more economically; as if economy were a crime, and a thing to be shunned by any of the numerous representatives of John Bull: and one celebrated ambassador does not see how diplomacy can be carried on at all unless the money of the nation be lavished on banquets, such as even Soyer might envy and admire.
This is the climax of absurdity; and the time has come for such absurdity to be treated with merited contempt. The axe must be laid at the root of the tree. A reduction of salaries commensurate with the increased cheapness of living, and with the difficulties the tax-payers have in meeting the tax-gatherers’ demands, must be made at once. It is childish to suppose that such a man as Mr. Bancroft was less respected at Paris than the Marquis of Normanby, or that Lord Cowley would less powerfully represent England were his salary of £10,000 cut down to £2,000. A thoughtful man can see, in the glitter and glare of gilded saloons, filled with flunkies and worshippers of the golden calf, nothing very creditable, or worthy of admiration. At the same time it must be remembered that, if the nation has efficient service, it is not grudging as regards expense.
PATERNOSTER ROW
The “swinish multitude,” as a term of reproach, in these days of ours is gradually becoming less and less in vogue. There were times when gentlemen were not ashamed to use it – when the people, degraded and oppressed, demoralised by the vices of their superiors, were scorned for the degradation which had been forced on them against their will. Not voluntarily did the people give up its inherent rights and its divine power. The struggle was long and severe before the man relinquished his birthright, and sank into a savage or a sot. The divine in man had to be expelled – the instinct in manhood had to be repressed – conscience had to be seared – fatal habits had to be engendered – ere this final consummation took place; and kings, with their brute force and men of war, and with their priests slavish enough blasphemously to affirm the voice of the king was the voice of God, found some trouble in effecting it. But they succeeded in time. They fancied that at last they had controlled what was as much beyond their control as the winds of heaven or the ocean’s stormy waves. They thought they had inscribed upon humanity at last the proud command: “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.” Nor even did the philosopher show himself above the delusion of the age. Gibbon, in closing his story of Rome’s decline and fall, pitied the future historian, for whom would exist no parallel passages similar to those which had lent such thrilling charm to his own eventful page. Adam Smith calmly predicted the perpetuity of society as it then was, utterly ignorant of the greatness and the glory yet to come. Yet hardly was the ink dry which recorded these sage predictions, when they were singularly falsified. Suddenly, without one word of warning, without one note of preparation, a change came as the lightning flash. There was a shaking amongst the dry bones – a hurrying to and fro of armed men in the imperial halls of Versailles. The curls that clustered on the fair brow of the daughter of the lion-hearted Maria Theresa in a night became grey. The blood of the heir of a hundred kings was spilt like water. The storm over, Europe witnessed a mighty change; old things had passed away, all things had become new: the slavery of the past was gone; the vain tradition of the elders was laughed to scorn: the political emancipation of the people as an idea was already won, and the people – no longer dumb, inarticulate, without intellectual life – conscious of its divine destiny, became what it is. The clouds of ignorance were dispelled; wisdom lifted up her voice in the street; knowledge tabernacled on earth. Hence even the spread of a literature for the people – suited to their wants and capacities – a literature they can buy, and read, and understand.
Some time back the Times attempted to persuade us that our cheap shilling volumes were doing us a world of harm. It was grievously shocked to find that the people bought and read them, instead of its healthy and stimulating columns. It thought we were really getting into a very undesirable state. The Times told us as proof, that we have now translations of French trashy novels. We admit we have; but is that anything new? Have we not always had a large class of readers of trashy novels, French or otherwise? and even here have we not proof of progress? Have not those very trashy novels lost the indecency which was their characteristic at any earlier time? If we remember aright, Sir Walter Scott states that a lady told him, in looking over some of the novels which were fashionable in her youth she was utterly shocked at the grossness which pervaded them, and that in that respect a most decided improvement had taken place; and is this nothing? is this not a sign of good? Nor is this the only sign; our sterling writers – the classics of our land – are all published in a cheap form, so as to suit the pockets of the people. The literature of the rail even is not so very bad after all. Much of it is light and superficial, undoubtedly; nor is this to be wondered at: the traveller must have something light, or he cannot read at all. The book that requires thought is not for the rail, but the quiet study. Your grave scholars, your most painful divines, now and then put by the dictionary or the commentary, and read, it may be, the Times. In both the same law operates. There are occasions when reading for relaxation is a necessity: that necessity the railway literature of the day supplies. But why should the Times grow doleful when it records the fact? – or rather the half-fact – for the whole truth is more cheering. The whole truth is, that light reading spreads side by side with reading of real merit – that the popular scientific discourse, or history, circulates equally with the novel – not often so trashy after all – for a cheap book must be a good book or it will not pay; and that the more readers of light literature you have, the wider is the circle of readers of better books. A cheap copy of Burns’ Poem’s might be sold at a profit; we fear a cheap copy of poems by the critic in the Times would produce a very different result. To write for the people, a man must write well. The trashy novel, published in three volumes, with a limited sale will pay; it would not published in a cheap form. Only a large sale will remunerate; and a large sale is only the result of some kind of merit.
For proof of this we refer to Paternoster Row. What the press is doing we can best learn there. It is not a place of great pretensions externally, but it has a history, and its fame reaches to the uttermost ends of the earth. Paternoster Row is a short, dark, narrow street, running parallel with Newgate Street and St. Paul’s Church Yard. Originally it was chiefly patronised by mercers, silkmen, and lacemen. In the reign of Queen Anne the booksellers moved here from Little Britain, and here, in spite of a few successful cases of transplantation to the Strand, or Piccadilly, or Albemarle Street, or Great Marlborough Street, do they chiefly remain. Here was the printing office of Henry Samson Woodfall, the printer of the Public Advertiser, in which appeared the celebrated letters of Junius. Some of the firms are very old. The Rivingtons came here in 1710; the Longmans have been here a century and a quarter; Simpkins and Marshall are dead and gone, but their enormous business is still carried on under the old title, and on a magazine day I believe their sales may amount to three thousand pounds. How great is the business carried on here is obvious, when we remember that the Messrs. Longmans’ own sale of books has amounted to five millions in one year, and that the annual distribution of books and tracts by the Religious Tract Society, in 1853, was nearly twenty-six millions. When Mr. Routledge could pay Sir Bulwer Lytton £2,000 a year for liberty to publish an eighteen-penny edition of his novels – when the same publisher could offer Mr. Barnum £1,200 for his lectures – when for one edition alone, the illustrated, of Mr. Tennyson’s poems, their publisher, the late Mr. Moxon, could pay £2,000 to the poet – when one firm alone could subscribe for 4,000 copies of Dr. Livingstone’s Researches in Africa – when the paper duty for last year amounted to no less a sum than £1,130,683, it is clear that there must be no little business going on in Paternoster Row. I have before me the London catalogue of periodicals and newspapers for the year 1859, and I find that the monthlies are 353, the quarterlies 64, the newspapers and weekly publications are more than 200. The British catalogue of books published during the year 1851, including new editions, reprints, and pamphlets, has 48 pages, each page containing a list of about 190 works, thus giving us for that year alone 9,120 publications, not magazines or newspapers. Most of the books and journals and magazines thus published find their way into the provinces by means of Paternoster Row. On a publishing day the scene is curious and suggestive; the shops of the large wholesale houses are full, and customers are ranged on one side of the counter in ranks three or four deep, while on the other are the assistants toiling like so many slaves; but all the week, especially in the middle, Paternoster Row is very eager and active. Each wholesale house has collectors, who go to the respective publishers for the books ordered. You may meet them at all hours between Paternoster Row and the West. Each collector has a long bag on his back filled with books he has been buying, and a book in his hand which contains entries of what he requires. Some houses make a charge of five per cent. for collecting; those who do not do so give their country clients but a month’s credit. The profits of the London houses are not large; they get 13 copies of a work for 12, or 26 charged as 25, and then sell them to the trade at their cost price, 25 per cent. off publishing price. If they are the publishers as well they have the extra profit of ten per cent. for publishing. If a book sells to any extent, the publishers and the trade do well, much better than the poor author, whose obligations to the trade are not great. Let me add that the publishers may do an author a little benefit when they subscribe his book. This is done in the following manner: the publisher, when he has a new book, sends it round to the trade, stating the publishing price, and the terms at which he will supply it to the trade. A paper is sent round with it for subscriptions; the large houses, if the book be likely to sell well, subscribe for, in some cases, 2,000 or 3,000 or 4,000 copies, and thus a good sale is secured at first. The advantage of the subscription is, that the trade have a quarter’s credit, whereas in their usual transactions they pay cash. This is almost the only speculative part of the business of the houses that do not publish on their own account. It is clear that occasionally they may encumber themselves with a book which does not sell, and for which there is no demand, but this is very rarely the case. The gentleman who buys for the house is generally wide awake, and will not order a single copy more than he thinks he can sell with advantage, and at once.
Let not my readers go away with the idea that the great bookselling firms, proud of their traditions, plant themselves down in Paternoster Row waiting for customers to come. Their business is no exception to the general rule, which requires excessive pushing to keep pace with the competition of rivals. They have travellers in all quarters of the country – they publish catalogues and their terms, which are everywhere disseminated among the trade – and an author may be sure that it is not the fault of the booksellers that he is compelled to sell his crowning work, rich in graphic colouring, in interesting detail, in noble thought, in manly eloquence (I quote the author’s private opinion), to Mr. Tegg or the trunk maker. As I have mentioned Mr. Tegg, let me add, that it is the province of that gentleman to relieve authors and publishers of works which an apathetic public do not appreciate and will not buy. If Mr. Tegg is so fortunate as to purchase the sheets (which he afterwards binds up in a cheap form) at his own price, and sells them at the author’s, he ought by this time to be as rich as the Rothschilds or the Marquis of Westminster. What he does with his bargains, I cannot tell. I see them awhile in glaring colours, regardless of the suns of summer or winter snows, adorning the cheap book-stalls of Holborn, or Fleet Street, or the Strand, charming the eye of the juvenile population of the metropolis, and offering them the advantages of a circulating library without the inconvenience. I occasionally meet them in railway carriages, chiefly (I do not write it disrespectfully) third class. I have met with them in considerable numbers in our seaport towns, and then I miss them and search for them in vain. Where are they? I believe I am not far wrong in conjecturing that they are gone where there are
“Larger constellations burning,
Mellow moons, and happy skies;”
that they stimulate the intellect or soothe the leisure of muscular gold-diggers at Ballarat; that pastoral New Zealanders read them with delight; that they adorn the drawing-rooms of distant Timbuctoo. Let me say a word for the authors of these works. Are they not true philanthropists? Not one book in a hundred pays, yet in what countless succession do they appear!
