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which case the Civil Service Commissioners might issue their certificate as a matter of course.

A practice has been introduced during the two last years of permitting officers in the inferior departments to compete, on certain occasions and under specified limitations, for superior or more eligible appointments in the Civil Service of the Crown, and there are indications that the practice is likely to be confirmed and extended. Thus in 1856 five, and in 1857 three, Customs' clerks were admitted to compete with a number of others from various departments for supplementary clerkships in the Treasury, and of these eight candidates three were successful. Again, on the occurrence of three vacancies in our Secretary's office in London, they were thrown open to the competition of all the clerks in our employment. Thirty-seven candidates presented themselves, and after a very close contest three were selected from the number. Finally, by your Lordships' sanction, two out of every five vacancies among the landing-waiters are offered for the most competent candidates; and for these tide-surveyors, superintending lockers, and principal coast officers are admitted to compete. In the course of the last two years, fourteen appointments of this class have been thus thrown open to the most deserving; seventy-five candidates presented themselves, and eleven out of the number were deemed eligible, and received their nominations accordingly.

Now, while we gratefully recognize the liberality of your Lordships in thus enabling us to offer prizes to stimulate the zeal and energies of meritorious officers in the various branches of our department, yet we cannot disguise from ourselves that the system, if carried too far, would not be without its attendant dangers and counterbalancing disadvantages. It has a direct tendency to drain away the best men from all the secondary divisions and departments, and is liable to produce restlessness and discontent, by inducing the able and ambitious to look for their reward, not to promotion in their own division of the service, but to removal from it to another for which he is probably not so well qualified. In all offices good men are required, and the removal by competitive allurements elsewhere of those who have become eminently serviceable by long service or special ability cannot fail both

to impoverish the office from which they are withdrawn and greatly to embarrass and disgust those departmental chiefs who are responsible for its smooth and efficient working. For example, tide-surveyors are officers whose position is very important, and whose functions are by no means easy. They have to supervise and control a body of subordinates who are employed on arduous and trying duty, and they must possess experience, energy, activity, and resolution; and it will be obvious to your Lordships that mischief may not improbably ensue to the efficiency of the service if officers of this description, as soon as they have been fully trained and fitted for their responsible and peculiar duties, are tempted away by the offer, or unsettled in mind by the prospect, of succeeding to a landing waitership, in place of fixing their ambition on the hope of one day becoming Inspectors of the river, or InspectorGencral of the Water Guard.

officers.

In conclusion, we beg to call your Lordships' atten- Health of the tion to the report of Dr. M'William, our Medical Customs' Inspector, which we insert in the Appendix. It appears from this document that the average health of the inferior officers of the Waterside and Water-guard departments (over whom alone his inspection extends) is very satisfactory, especially when considered in reference to the facts that the tidewaiters and boatmen are habitually exposed to the severest weather, and that many bad lives have been at various times transferred from the coast-guard service to the lower branches of the waterside department. The number daily on the sick list is in the Landing department only 1.43 per cent., and in the Water-guard department 2.80 per cent.

The mortality, as compared with other services and sections of the population with whom any thing like a fair parallel can be obtained is as follows:

Foot Guards in London, (men in the prime of life)

Male Population in London (between the ages of 25 and 65, the range of the Customs' service)

Per 1,000

20.5

20.0

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Infantry of the line in the United Kingdom,
(between 20 and 40 years of age)
Male Population of England (between 25 and
65 years of age)

Waterside department of Customs, 1857

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Per 1,000

17.5

16.0

15.0*

Waterside department, between 1847 and 1856 11.9 Water-guard department during above period, exclusive of two cholera years

Water guard, 1857

Royal navy, on home station (between 16 and 45 years of age)

Custom House, 29th March 1858.

We have the honour to be,

My Lords,

11.5

·

7.0

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10.6

Your Lordships' obedient Servants,

THO. F. FREMANTLE.

S. E. SPRING RICE.

F. GOULBURN.

EDW. SAURIN.

GRENVILLE C. L. BERKELEY.

W. R. GREG.

This proportion is swollen by the lapse of four bad lives. introduced from the Coast Guard.

APPENDICES.

APPENDIX (A.)

AN ACCOUNT showing the Amount of the Imports into and the Exports from the United Kingdom, stated in Official Value, and also in Real Value so far as the latter is recorded, in each Year from 1847 to 1857 inclusive.

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The Amounts exhibited for 1857 are subject to correction on the final adjustment of the Accounts for that year.

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Office of the Inspector General of Imports and Exports, Custom House, London, 28th January 1858.

JOHN A. MESSENGER.

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