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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton belongs to the group of Benthamite disciples who, in the generation after the publication of Mill's Essay on Government, initiated that programme of legislative and administrative reform which transformed the England of Eldonian Toryism into that of Gladstonian Liberalism. In half a dozen fields of first-class importance—education, law, factory legislation, colonial administration, the reform of the civil service—they applied the Benthamite principles with energy and enthusiasm. The two Mills in the India Office, Southwood Smith in the Poor Law Commission, Cornewall Lewis, whose book on political semantics has been too long neglected, at the War Office, Sir Henry Taylor at the Colonial Office, all combined the Radical application of disinterested intelligence to the art of government with a genius for administration which outraged both aristocratic sinecurist and Cobdenite business man. With a passion for statistics worthy of Dickens' Gradgrind, factory inspectors like Leonard Horner and medical officers like John Simon gathered the material which Marx later employed in his brilliant indictment of industrial capitalism. They married theory to practice; Austin elaborated from his naval experience a theory of sovereignty in which the ability to command became the essence of government, while the younger Mill discovered in the running of the East India Company principles of efficient public administration which the ancient universities were quite incapable of supplying. They obtained a new prestige for the public servant; the growth of the English civil service in the nineteenth century, indeed, is nothing much more than the gradual fulfilment in practice of the major ideas outlined in Bentham's fertile Constitutional Code.
1 England and the English, by Bulwer, Edward Lytton, Esq., M.P. (2 vols.; London, Richard Bentley, 1833).Google Scholar The references in this essay are to this first edition.
2 Ibid., I, 10.
3 Ibid., 12.
4 Ibid., 13.
5 Ibid., 67.
6 Ibid., 71. Thinking to Some Purpose, by the late ProfessorStebbing, L. Susan (London, Pelican Books, 1952 ed.)Google Scholar, and especially chapter I, is a delightful analysis by a professional logician of the thought processes of British statesmen which illuminates Lytton's argument.
7 Ibid., 22.
8 Ibid., 18.
9 Ibid., II, 10.
10 Ibid., I, 18.
11 House of Commons Debates, April 1, 1941; and Jan. 30, 1953.
12 Lytton, , England and the English, I, 36.Google Scholar
13 See, for one illustration of this remark, Stewart, Mary, Unpaid Public Service (London, The Fabian Society, 1950).Google Scholar
14 Lytton, , England and the English, II, 116.Google Scholar For a recent estimate see the Report of the Royal Commission on the Press (London, 1949, Cmd. 7700), passim.Google Scholar
15 The Earl of Lytton, The Life of Edward Bulwer, First Lord Lytton (2 vols., London, 1913), II, 516.Google Scholar
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17 Holyoake, George Jacob, Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life (London, 1902), I, 293–4.Google Scholar
18 Agreed Statement on Conclusion of Conference of Party Leaders, February–April, 1948 (London, 1948, Cmd. 7380).Google Scholar
19 House of Lords Debates, March 4, 1946.
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21 Report on the Recruitment of the Women's Services in H. M. Forces (London, 1940, Cmd. 5407).Google Scholar
22 Report on the Use of Skilled Man-Power in the Armed Services (London, 1943 Cmd 6339).Google Scholar
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24 Ibid., II, 179.
25 Ibid., I, 286.
26 Ibid., I, 257.
27 Halévy, Elie, A History of the English People in 1815 (London, Penguin Books edition, 1938), III, Religion and Culture, 174.Google Scholar
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29 Ministry of Education, University Awards: Report of the Working Party on University Awards (London, 1948).Google Scholar See also Ministry of Education, The Public Schools and the General Educational System: Report of the Committee on Public Schools (London, 1944).Google Scholar
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32 Ibid., I, 163.
33 Scientific Man-power: Report of the Barlow Committee (London, 1946, Cmd. 6824).Google Scholar See also Report of the Committee on the Provision for Social and Economic Research (London, 1946, Cmd. 6868)Google Scholar; and Nuffield College, The Problem Facing British Universities (Oxford University Press, 1948).Google Scholar
34 Lytton, , England and the English, I, 8.Google Scholar
35 Quoted in the Earl of Lytton, , Life of Edward Bulwer, I, 161.Google Scholar
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37 Feiling, Keith, The Life of Neville Chamberlain (London, 1946).Google Scholar