TAIT'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. JANUARY, 1851. BUREAUCRACY AND MILITARY SYSTEMS OF FRANCE AND GERMANY.* In our two previous notices of this work, we con- government, and have more or less political liberty; fined our attention to the sub-division of landed but they have no more civil liberty, and no more property, and its operation on the economical, sense or feeling of it, than when they had no consocial, and political condition of the European stitutions at all. They live, act, and have their nations among which it prevails. We now pro- being under a system of interference in every ceed to investigate the second of those peculiar man's movements and doings, precisely as in features which distinguish the social structure of Austria, Prussia, and States without any constitucontinental countries from that of Great Britain, tions or political liberty. . . . The reality of civil and which we have called bureaucracy: Mr. liberty in the free use of time, industry, and Laing calls it functionarism, which is, perhaps, a capital, and in the free action of the individual, is better name. This is a difference which, even unknown to the continental man. It is amusing more than that connected with the partition of the to hear a German or a Frenchman discussing consoil, pervades the daily and domestic life of the stitutional forms of government, universal suffrage, nation, and modifies its whole aspect as presented the qualifications of representatives, the equal to the eye of the passing stranger. In England rights of citizens; and, when he has settled all the civil servants of the Government are few, un- these points to his satisfaction, in a theory which connected, and unobtrusive; on the Continent they proves very clearly that we enjoy no real liberty are innumerable, omnipresent, and constitute a in England, and do not understand its first prinseparate, organised, and powerful class. In Eng- ciples, to ask him to take a jaunt with you to Tours land they confine themselves to absolutely neces- or Marseilles, Cologne or Leipsic. Oh,' says he, sary functions; on the Continent they interfere in I must run to the bureau for our passports. I every transaction and event of life. In England, must get them signed by the proper authorities, as a general rule, a man is only reminded of their countersigned by other proper authorities, viséed existence by the annual visit of the tax-gatherer, by the proper authorities in every town we stop at unless, indeed, he has to appeal to the law, or has on our journey, in order to prevent trouble with rendered himself amenable to it; on the Continent the police; and I must get this done before the scarcely a day passes, scarcely an operation can be bureaux are shut for the day, or we shall have to concluded, without coming into contact or collision wait till to-morrow.' To be free and independent with one or other of their number. Many of the in the sense that the common man in England is duties performed by officials on the Continent are free and independent, seems not to be a want in here performed by elected parish or municipal the mind of the continental man, even of fortune functionaries, many are left to individual discre- and education. The English traveller in France tion, many more are not performed at all. With or Germany, who has gone himself to the Hotel de us a man's free-will is limited only by his neigh- Ville or the passport-office, to have his passport bour's free-will or his neighbour's rights; in viséed and signed, instead of leaving it to his valet France and Austria it can be exercised only sub- de place, and who has seen the crowd of tradesjeet to Government permission previously obtained. men, country dealers, travelling artisans, and peaRestriction is the exception here, it is the rule sants from the neighbouring villages, who have there. Throughout the Continent a citizen cannot been at the fair, standing for hours to have their engage in business, build a house, or take a journey, papers examined and signed, will return with a without leave; and leave is only obtained through pretty distinct idea of the difference between polian established routine of tedious and annoying tical and civil freedom, between the mind, spirit, formalities. "In France, Switzerland, Belgium, character, and social state of the English, and of the and the constitutional States of Germany," says Mr. continental people." Laing, "people call themselves free, because they enjoy more or less of the forms of representative In order to make the operation of this system of bureaucratic supervision and interference intelli Oservations on the Social and Political State of the European People in 1818 and 1819; being the second series of "The Notes of a Traveller." By Samuel Laing. London: Longmans. 1850. VOL. XVIIL-No. CCV. B gible to those among our readers who have never resided on the Continent, we will mention a few facts with regard to Austria, derived from personal knowledge. Under the old régime, if a man wished to build a house, he must first apply to the chief officer of the district, who required him to furnish exact plans of the intended edifice. All his neighbours were then called upon to say whether the proposed building, or any portion of it, would trench upon their rights, comfort, or convenience. If it would, the applicant was obliged to meet and neutralise their objections. The municipality were then summoned to examine whether they saw any objection to the erection. The plans were then submitted to the official engineer of the district, who was desired to report especially on the points of the solidity of the construction and the danger from fire. After all these preliminaries were satisfactorily gone through (during which time the entire building season sometimes slipped away, though there was seldom any needless or vexatious delay), the man was at liberty to proceed to action. But he was compelled to adhere strictly to his plan. If, either during the progress of the erection or at any subsequent period, he wished to alter the construction of a fire-place or the position of a chimney, the same formalities had to be repeated, and leave again asked and obtained. If he wished to establish a manufactory, the same process had to be gone through; and his business was carried on subject to the constant supervision of the customs or excise officers. In the case of a silk or cotton-factory, all goods sent off in any direction were leaded, and travelled with a certificate. It may well be conceived how vexatious and onerous all this would be, besides being a direct expense. In one establishment this operation alone cost the proprietors 1507. a year of direct outlay, paid to the Government officials for stamps, leading, &c.; very little of which found its way into the coffers of the State. Besides this, there is a constant inventory and taking of stock by the officials, which requires considerable labour and book-keeping on the part of the establishment, to make every such entry as is required. There are various other matters in which individual action is either interfered with or supervised. If you wish to add a kitchen, a bed-room, or a cow-shed to your house, you must again give notice and lodge plans. Your house is visited every six weeks to ascertain if there be any new risk from fire. The baptism and innoculation of children is watched over and insisted If you keep dogs, you must send them once a year to be examined, to see if they are in a healthy and safe condition. In short, everything proceeds upon the assumption that individuals are not to be trusted with the regulation of their own proceedings, or the superintendence of their own safety, but that they are, in fact, minors and wards of the State. It might be imagined that all this would have been swept away, or at least greatly modified, by the Revolution. But it is not so. Although the political condition of the empire has been changed to its foundations, and the courts of justice re-modelled, all these details and their old on. your mode of action remain; and the Germans may well despair of seeing them changed in our days. There is no doubt that much of this system is now kept up for the benefit of the officials rather than of the public, as we hinted in a former paper; and the difficulty of changing it will be proportionally great. A glance at the relative numbers of the public functionaries in England and on the Continent will give us an idea of the extent of the difference. In Prussia we have no means of ascertaining the truth. In Austria, with a population of thirty-six millions, they are stated at 120,000. In France, also with a population of thirty-six millions, they are variously given by different authorities, according as these take in only the regular and permanent paid officials, or add to these the unpaid, the occasionally paid, and the retired; but the lowest estimate exceeds 350,000. We believe the following will be nearly an exact list of the actual employés under each department, who are paid in some shape or other, leaving out the pensioners and the municipal authorities. It is taken from a recent report to the Legislative Assembly: Compare this enormous army of paid officials with the modest government provision in Great Britain, which has a population of thirty millions. In 1835 the whole civil service of the State was conducted by 23,578 persons; and since that period, we believe, the number has rather diminished than increased. But this is not the only difference, nor perhaps the most important. In this country the civil officers of Government form no distinct class: they are merely individual members of the higher or of the middle orders. They are no more a separate and organised body than are merchants, manufacturers, or authors. But on the Continent the public functionaries are a trained, disciplined, and compact band, as completely an army as the naval or military force-as regular a hierarchy, as distinguishable a class, as the clergy. They form, as Laing expresses it, the third element in the social system. They are subjected to a strict and established discipline, and are united by a strong esprit de corps. They stand apart from their fellow-citizens, and may generally be distinguished by their manners and their dress. "We should be rather surprised," observes Mr. Laing, "to hear our own beamptenstand, our collectors, controllers, assessors, tide-waiters, gaugers, considered as a high and influential class in our social body, or considered as a class at all, in any way distinct from the respectable middle class in which they are merged. In Germany it is different. . . . There the functionaries are under a semi-military discipline. In Bavaria, for example, the superior civil officer in every can place his inferior officer under arrest for neg-give useful advice, and that they will often avoid lect of duty or other offence against civil function- those multitudinous failures, those abortive expeary discipline. In Wurtemburg the functionary riments, and those monstrous and costly blunders, cannot marry without leave from his superior. through which a self-governing people struggle Voltaire somewhere says, that the art of govern- onward to sensible and wise results at last: but, in ment is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all they the first place, that invaluable national education possibly can for the benefit of the other third. which is carried on during the progress of these This is realised in Germany by the functionary efforts, and the elimination of these errors, is system. The functionaries are not there for the entirely lost under the bureaucratic system; and, benefit of the people, but the people for the benefit in the second place, the plans adopted not being of the functionaries. All this machinery of func-wrought out by the people, but being forced upon tionarism, with its numerous ranks and gradations them from without, will seldom either be well district, filled with a staff of clerks and adapted to their wants or have so strong a hold expectants in every department looking for employ- on their affections. The incapacity for self-government, appointments, or promotions, was intended to ment which bureaucracy has engendered ameng be a new support to the throne in the new social the continental nations was strongly shown in state of the Continent-a third class, in close con- 1848. They threw off their Sovereigns, they proLexion with the people by their various official claimed republics, or substituted other dynasties; daties of interference in all public and private but they had no ability to organise new instituaffairs, yet attached by their interests to the kingly tions, they could not emancipate themselves from power." the old army of civil functionaries, because they were unable to dispense with them; and thus, one by one, they gradually fell back under the old régime. Whereas in California, peopled by a sudden influx of emigrants, wild in their tempers, lawless in their habits, greedy for gold, thirsty for sudden opulence, without chiefs, without guidance, without control, the innate and ineffaceable genius of a race of men long accustomed to govern and to guide themselves has enabled them, with an almost miraculous rapidity, to educe order out of the chaos, and to establish something like a civilised and legal community, without the smallest assistance or interference on the part of the central authority. In England, were our complicated government of King, Lords, and Commons, swept away tomorrow, we could soon re-organise the ruling hierarchy, perhaps on a better footing than before; because every town, and almost every village, could afford us most of the materials, and much of the experience, required. But in 1848 and 1849 all the collective wisdom of the bureaucratic countries of Germany and France, with a clear field before them, were able to strike out little that was sensible, and nothing that was new. Mr. Laing conceives the bureaucratic system to have been a recent and artificial creation of the continental Sovereigns to meet the hiatus produced in social life by the absorption or extinction of the feudal aristocracy. But this is far from being the case. Though much extended of late, it is a product and a relic of the old despotic and paterLal Governments, when it was thought right, possible, and necessary for the central authority to direct and control the daily life and habitual ctions of its subjects. Bureaucracy is less the tagonism of the aristocratic than of the municipal and self-governing element in society. It is 1) new principle. The different ideas which lie at the root of the two systems may be thus stated: A certain amount of wisdom is required for the conduct of affairs, and the management of associated life. This requisite wisdom is supposed by functionarism to reside in the rulers, and by municipality to reside in the people. In England and America we assume that every man understands his own interest and can direct his own business better than any Government can do it for him. In France and Germany they assume that the people are unknowing and incompetent, and will mismanage both their own private affairs and all associated business unless supervised and directed by the superior knowledge and experience of a trained and educated class of rulers. The fundamental notion on which the superstructure of continental bureaucracy is built, is--not only that the Government is wiser than its subjects, but-that the wisdom of its subjects is inadequate to the ordinary cases of indi vidual or social action. We have said that a Government will generally manage each particular in national affairs better than the people, more judiciously, at less expense, and with fewer blunders and false steps. But this is by no means universally the case. There is much truth in the following remarks of Mr. Laing. "In France, Germany, and all over the Continent, whatever may be the form of government, the spirit of self-government is equally dormant among the people. It is the State that does everything; whether in form this State power be constitutional Now, it is evident that this assumption has an or autocratic. The State alone plans and executes alarming tendency to realise and justify itself. all works of general or local interest, by its own The incapacity which is presumed will sooner or functionaries, and independently of the judgment later be created. A people that is always regarded of those locally interested. Roads, canals, bridges, as in a state of pupillage, and kept in leading-quays, and public buildings, are consequently constrings, can never emerge into mature manhood. structed, not in a commensurate and due proporIt is undoubtedly true that trained functionaries tion in extent and expense to the want to be promay often be able to manage each individual de-vided for, but upon a disproportionate scale, and partment better than municipal or parochial with an excess of magnificence and expenditure amateurs could do. It is probable that they may ridiculously in contrast with the importance of the B 2 object, and the actual or possible wants of the the railways, it has leased to different companies, community or locality. . . . . This disproportion after the most elaborate and tedious investigations, between cost and the advantage to the public is the right of making them, and working them for a the great characteristic of public works in all term of years, after which they are to become States in which the people have no control or national property; and will then be a most provoice in the management of their own affairs. It lific source of revenue. In Belgium and Germany is the architectural style of despotism." they are, we believe, State undertakings, and have A comparison of British and continental road-been constructed at about one third their cost in making brings to light another weak point of the England. In Russia, when railways became the bureaucratic as contrasted with the municipal order of the day, the Czar acted with a degree of system. England is covered with good roads in sound sense which freer Governments would do its most remote as in its most populous and central well to imitate. He sent a commission of expedistricts. France has a few magnificent highways rienced engineers to visit France, Belgium, Engbranching out from her metropolis; but the cross land, and America, to examine the railway systems. roads in the less frequented districts are scanty of these respective countries, and report which of and infamously impassable. "It is curious," says them was best suited for adoption in Russia. They Mr. Laing, "to see what, in a century and a half, have reported in favour of the cheap and rough has been the difference of the results in the two system of the United States. So far we are fain to countries-the difference between the centralisation admit that the superiority of sense and wisdom has of the funds, management, and execution of all lain on the side of the continental nations. But roads, bridges, and public works in the hands of the result of the whole is, that the railway coma State department, employing officials of the munication of England has been commenced and highest skill and scientific attainments, men regu- perfected within twenty years, while that of the larly bred for the duties of this department, and Continent is still partial, scanty, incomplete, and the non-centralisation of this great and all-import- fragmentary; and while in America-the most ant national business, the leaving it to the public municipal and uncentralised of countries, it is as to plan, execute, and manage for themselves, through complete as in England, and has been as cheaply their own trustees and undertakers, and under their managed as in Belgium and Bavaria. own control, what in each county or locality was Another consequence of the bureaucratic system considered useful or necessary, without superin- is thus referred to by Mr. Laing: "The direct tendence or interference by any Government func-effects of functionarism have undoubtedly reduced tionary. The question of centralisation or non- the people of Germany to a state of pupillage; centralisation is here brought to the test of they are not accustomed to act for themselves. experience." In 1828, it was officially reported The indirect effects have deteriorated the characto the Government, that the highways in France extended to 25,752 miles; of which one half were in a state of good repair, and one half in a state of dilapidation; and that to complete and repair the main lines of communication, or royal roads, as they are termed, the sum of eight millions sterling would be required. In England, within an area of 58,335 square miles, we had (according to a Parliamentary paper of 1848) 22,382 miles of good turnpike roads, besides parish roads not turnpike; while France, with an area of 148,840 square miles, had only 10,716 miles of roads reported as good. "Under the English system of non-centralisation and non-interference, one square mile in England contains on an average a greater number of good roads than any ten in France or Germany, and with more traffic on ter, and retarded the industry and prosperity, of the German people as much as its direct working on the social body. The numbers of small functionaries provided for at the public expense, in the departments of the law, the finance, the Church, the educational affairs, the police, the passport establishment, and all the other branches of public business springing from the principle of the State's interference in all social and individual action, keep almost the whole youth of the country in a state of dependance upon favour for the appointment in some public office, instead of depending upon industry and exertion in the useful arts. Every second or third young man in the middle class is an expectant of office. . . . He is sent to study at a university, in order to be qualified for office. After the bread-studies, as they are called in Gerthem." many, are gone through, the young man hangs on, The history of railroads affords the most favour-often for many years, an idle expectant for office, able view of the foreign as contrasted with the English mode of procedure. In this country, the waste, extravagance, and want of consideration displayed in these constructions has been monstrous and disgraceful. Vast sums of money have been lavished in Parliamentary contest and litigation; lines have been made at twice the necessary cost; they have been made where none were needed; and two have been made where one would have sufficed. Altogether, it is probable that the same actual accommodation to the public might, under a wise system, have been attained at half the cost. In France, though the Government has not made and may possibly [this possibility, it is fair to state, is in time a certainty] get employment at last in a Government bureau, at a salary which can only help to maintain him along with the little allowance which his father can afford him. A great proportion of the small capitals gathered by tradesmen, shopkeepers, farmers, functionaries, and clergymen, and others in the middle station of life, is thus expended without being utilised. The same small capitals with us would be applied in extending the business in which they were acquired, or in placing the sons in some similar business. In Germany they are applied to supporting the |