1847.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



340 



THE GOVERNMENT AND THE RAILWAYS. 



Not a month passes but we are urged to take notice of the unfair way 

 in which civil engineers are treated by the government, in the preference 

 given to military engineers i:i civil employments. W'e have professed 

 often enough our esteem and regard for our military brethren in their 

 military capacity ; but we cannot withhold our belief that they are not the 

 best fitted for civil office. Whether we go by theory or whether by facts, 

 we co.ne to the same end, — that as civil engineers the military have not 

 shone, neither are they likely to do so. 



We may be told that the Royal Engineers have the guarantee of a good 

 collegiate education — nay, further, that they are the picked men of a large 

 body of students, of whom the least endowed are left for the Royal Artil- 

 lery. This may seem a guarantee of qualifications, as against a profession, 

 that of the civil engineer, which is an open one and subject to no exami- 

 nation. It is tolerably certain that there are very many civil engineers far 

 below members of the Royal Engineers in knowledge ; — but here we come 

 to a slop, because we do not get the converse of this proposition. We 

 have no hesitation in saying— nay, in laying down a challenge, that the 

 body of civil engineers has exhibited a much greater degree of knowledge 

 and of talent than that of the Royal Engineers. A preliminary examina- 

 tion might keep out many men of inferior attainment ; but with the civil 

 engineers it would have this disadvantage, th.it it would keep out many 

 men of superior attainment. Being an open profession, civil engineering 

 is always receiving tlie accession of large numbers of men, whose general 

 proficiency and abilities make them valuable associates ; but who might 

 be either unable or unwilling to pass a schoolboy examination. These 

 recruits include many men of middle age, or of mature age, who have 

 already gained reputation in their previous career, and who bring it for 

 the enhaucement of their new profession. If others, either from sheer 

 impudence or from an over-estimate of their own qualifications, likewise 

 dub themselves civil engineers, it does not matter; for neither will profes- 

 sional men give them countenance, nor the public give them employment. 

 This is the real censorsliip of the engineering profession, and it is one much 

 better than a scholastic esamination, which at the best can be got through 

 by a short grinding, and the matter of which is, in all likelihood, forgotten 

 everafler. 



Subject civil engineers to a preliminary examination, as many in their 

 zes.1 have proposed, and what must be the consequence? We should lose 

 all those men who are most valuable, and on whom we most pride our- 

 selves. M'e shall first exclude those most practical men, who begin their 

 career as mechanics, and who so often rise to the highest distinction. The 

 workshop will at once be closed as a nursery for engineering. We shall 

 likewise lose those who being engaged in mining, in draining, in ship- 

 building, and in factories, have enlarged their sphere of operations by 

 enlarging their experience. We should lose all those men of active mind, 

 \Those inventive genijs is our great glory. We might, perhaps, keep 

 those who have begun as mathematicians ; but, in keeping one branch of 

 science, we should lose all others. We need not begin a list of those who, 

 if a system of examination had been adopted, would now be lost to the 

 profession: the acquaintance of every one will furnish him with a long list, 

 and; there would be more difficulty in deciding who would remain, than in 

 deciding who would be struck out. What the engineering profession 

 would be under such circumstances we leave the public to imagine; but 

 we believe it would be filtered of its knowledge, its talent, and its reputa- 

 tion. All this would be done needlessly, because the exclusion of those 

 who cannot or will not pass the scholastic examination, comes to this — it 

 eicludes persons not incompetent for the exercise of their profession, and 

 who in the pursuit of it acquire, if they have not already done so, all soch 

 scholastic knowledge as is uecessary for them, in the same way that they 

 acquire so much other knowledge, which can never be made the subject of 

 scholastic education or examination. 



On whatever point, except that of military engineering, on which the 

 Royal Engineers can challenge their brethren the civilians, the latter can 

 outmatch them. The mathematical sieve through which the Royal Engi- 

 neers have to pass, has not been very successful in making great mathema- 

 ticians or philosophers ; and if it came to a contest on this point, we can 

 supply the military with plenty of champions well able to contend with 

 them. Messrs. George Rennie, Eaton Hodgkinson, John Scolt Russell, 

 Robert Stephenson, Isambard Brunei, George Parker Bidder, Wyndham 

 Harding, and Joseph Samnda, are well able to compete as philosophers or 

 mathematicians ; and here we have only put down such names as most 

 readily occurred to us, without taking the trouble to choose the most 



proficient, or even to put down all those who are well deserving of being 

 named in such an enumeration. 



If attainments are to be known and shown by their exercise, an advocate 

 for the Royal Engineers would have little to show for them. The civil 

 engineers have been greater contributors to the cause of science, as much 

 as they have been greater contributors to professional literature. The 

 works on professional subjects by officers of the Royal Engineers, who 

 have the best means, are few ; and even the volume of " Transactions of 

 the Corps of Royal Engineers" is eked out by civil contributions. 



The examination is no guarantee of the superiority of the Royal Engi- 

 neers, for it is no guarantee against mediocrity in that body. If the prac- 

 tice of their profession be a claim of the Koyal Engineers as against civil 

 engineers, we ask what are their works? We know what civil engineers 

 have done; but neither the public nor ourselves know what the Royal 

 Engineers have done, unless it be the Rideau Canal, which cannot be 

 considered as the most flattering testimonial of success. We can show too 

 that their recent career in connexion with the Board of Trade has not been 

 such as to raise them in the eyes of the public. 



Before saying more on this latter point, we are tempted to enquire on 

 what grounds military engineers should be at all employed in a civil capa- 

 city. We know of no reason why civil engineers should not be so 

 employed. When the two bodies are considered in connexion, all impar- 

 tial persons will acknowledge that civil engineers are far superior in 

 knowledge, talent, and reputation, as much as in the works they have 

 executed. Indeed, nothing can be said in favour of the military engineers. 

 The government, however, have tried civil engineers, and have not found 

 them wanting. If our dockyards are examined, we shall vainly seek for 

 proofs of the capacity of the military engineers. The works and ma- 

 chinery, on the other hand, give ample proof of skill and ingenuity other 

 than military. Whether breakwater or block machine, whether steam 

 engine or lathe — whatever is best, whatever is cleverest, is by other hands 

 than those of the military. 



AVhen civil engineers are sent on missions of enquiry by the government, 

 we are sure they have not been behind their military brethren. No one, 

 we b'-lieve, will deny that Mr. James Walker, Mr. William Cubitt, and 

 Mr. Hodges have proved quite as good commissioners as Sir Charles 

 Pasley, Sir Frederick Smith, and Captain Coddington ; although the latter 

 have rarely acted out of harness, or without Mr. Airy, Professor Barlow, 

 Mr. Amsinck, or somebody else, being attached to them, to help them 

 through their work. 



Why a military engineer should be employed at all in a civil capacity 

 we cannot comprehend : the public never think of so employing them until 

 they have had a good civil training ; and we know of no reason why the 

 government should do so. We cannot believe that it is on the ground of 

 cheapness, for we do not consider the Royal Engineers as cheap — we 

 think they are a heavy drag on the country. At any rate, the government 

 does not always find civil engineers so dear, inasmuch as they are able 

 sometimes to employ them. When Royal Engineers are employed as 

 railway commissioners, or for other civil purposes, they are paid salaries, 

 but which do not represent the burthen on the nation. There is the cost of 

 their education, of their training as juniors, of their sick-pay, half-pay, 

 retiring pensions, and widows' pensions, besides the cost of colleges, 

 houses, barracks, and many other items of considerable expense, the mode 

 of charging which cannot be readily ascertained. Taken altogether, the 

 Royal Engineers are a very expensive body, while the outlay, instead of 

 going, as in the case of civil engineering, to reward talent, goes only to 

 foster mediocrity. Stephenson and Jack Noakes, Brunei and Tom Styles, 

 are put on a par under the system of military engineering; and the Royal 

 Engineers are more to be praised for such abilities as they have shows 

 under such an unfavourable regime, than blamed for their inferiority. 

 This, however, is only so far as it concerns themselves, for it does not 

 acquit the government of blame in employing them on occasions when 

 they can avail themselves of the superior services of civilians. We believe 

 no one out of a government office deludes himself with the belief that the 

 employment of General Pasley was any financial benefit to the country ; 

 it was only an encouragement of a system under which men of ability, or 

 of no ability, are brought up to be made Inspectors-General of Railways, 

 and then shelved off on half-pay, at length to be pensioned off. Whenever 

 Sir Charles Pasley or Sir Frederick Smith is paid one thousand a-year, it 

 must be always worth while to pay a competent civilian two thousand 

 a-year, for money would thereby be saved. 



At whatever class of works we look — railways, canals, harbours, docks, 

 or bridges ; at whatever class of machinery, we find all conslrucled by 



