402 



NATURE 



[April i, 1922 



Servants (Wages and Employment). No. 268. 1913. 

 See para. 776.) 



Although, as the above extract from the Select 

 Committee's Report shows, it was tacitly admitted by 

 the officials who gave evidence that the need existed 

 for recruiting for the Post Office service men of wider 

 education than those already serving, nevertheless a 

 scheme, introduced in 1907, for recruiting twenty-five 

 per cent, of engineers by open competition has been 

 allowed to remain in abeyance from 191 1 until the 

 present time. Now that engineering vacancies are 

 again to be filled by open competition from among 

 candidates who have received an adequate education, 

 twenty per cent, only of the engineers required for the 

 telegraph and telephone services are apparently to be 

 recruited in this way, whilst the remaining eighty per 

 cent, of these positions are to be reserved for the sub- 

 ordinate grades serving in the Department, in order 

 to fill these as heretofore by internal promotion. 



In the matter of recruiting their engineering staff, 

 the attitude of the British Post Office has been widely 

 different from that of the telegraph and telephone 

 administrations in other parts of the world. In the 

 early days of telegraphy, when the speciaHsed technical 

 education needed by the telegraph engineer was not 

 provided in the then existing schools, the telegraph 

 administration itself, in many cases, arranged for 

 appropriate courses to be given under its own auspices, 

 as for example the courses at the East Indian Engin- 

 eering College, Cooper's Hill ; at the Ecole Superieure 

 des Telegraphes, Paris ; at the Istituto superiore, 

 Rome ; at the State Telegraph School, Stockholm ; at 

 the Versuchsamt, Berlin ; etc. Now that instruc- 

 tion of a suitable kind is available in the technical 

 high schools and universities abroad, foreign telegraph 

 and telephone administrations, in practically every 

 part of the world, recruit their engineers from amongst 

 men who hold a diploma in civil or mining engineering 

 as well as some recognised certificate in electrical 

 engineering, or a diploma in electrical engineering ; and, 

 in some cases, where suitable courses are provided at 

 universities, as in Belgium, Bavaria, Germany, etc., 

 candidates for the higher career on the technical side 

 are required to possess either a suitable degree or to 

 hold a recognised diploma of equivalent standard. 



Quite apart from the fact that the telegraph and 

 telephone services cannot be carried on satisfactorily 

 in this country by engineers possessing a lower standard 

 of qualifications than that demanded from men occupy- 

 ing siri^ilar positions in foreign countries, it is exceed- 

 ingly important on other grounds that the recruitment 

 of engineers for the Post Office engineering department 

 shall, now that a complete re-organisation of the De- 

 partment is recommended by a Select Committee, be 

 NO. 2735, VOL. 109] 



placed upon a sound basis. How important the other 

 grounds are will readily be apparent if the estimates pre- 

 sented to Parliament last year be scanned through, for 

 it will be found that the " establishment " of Post Office 

 engineers is in this document shown to be above 570. 



A further matter which, in view of the complicated 

 nature of the engineering work undertaken by the Post 

 Office and of the responsibilities of those in high posi- 

 tions, requires early attention is the status and method 

 of selection of the chief of the Post Office engineering 

 department and his immediate assistants. From every 

 point of view, it is imperative that the officials holding 

 these positions should be men of eminence in the 

 engineering profession. Strong reasons exist at the 

 present time for throwing open these appointments to 

 the engineering profession generally. The adoption of 

 such a course would present no difficulties, nor would 

 it be exceptional : the appointment of the head of a 

 department has at all times been recognised as being 

 one which may be filled by a candidate from outside 

 the Department. Many precedents exist in the Civil 

 Service for the bringing in of a person from the outside 

 to fill vacancies in high positions : for example, in the 

 Post Office itself, during the past twenty-five years, 

 four of the five men who have held the chief admin- 

 istrative position, that of secretary, and one of 

 the engineers-in-chief have been persons who began 

 their careers and spent many years outside the Depart- 

 ment. It cannot be questioned that the chief technical 

 adviser in an undertaking of the magnitude and com- 

 plexity of the Post Office telegraph and telephone 

 department requires to be a man of professional attain- 

 ments of as high an order as is the administrative chief 

 whose colleague he is to be. 



No difficulty need be experienced by the Postmaster 

 General in making a suitable selection of a technical 

 adviser from an open field of candidates, if he will but 

 call in the assistance of an ad hoc committee or 

 board to advise him as to the merits of the several 

 candidates ; such a committee or board might, for his 

 purposes, consist of the presidents of the Royal Society, 

 the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Institution 

 of Electrical Engineers. It has for some time been 

 widely felt that such a method of filling the chief 

 positions in government departments has become 

 generally necessary in order to meet the present-day 

 conditions. So far as the Post Office is concerned, in 

 view of the announcements which have appeared that 

 the present engineer-in-chief will be vacating his 

 position in May next, the matter has become pressing. 

 The adoption of the procedure indicated by the Post- 

 master General, when filling this vacancy, would meet 

 with very general approval and give considerable 

 satisfaction in the countrv. 



