mishandled or destroyed, some even on the plea that they will now fetch a good price as waste paper. A vast mass of departmental records is being dealt with by officials who are ignorant of the elements of archive-economy as it is practised, even in war-time, on the Continent. An approved and uniform system of dealing with the national archives would therefore be helpful to officials as well as to historical students. Such a system has been boldly sketched by the Royal Commission, and from its ample details we may gather that the following points are those to which most importance should be attached :

1. The extension and improvement of repositories of records, both metropolitan and provincial.

2. The reorganisation of the existing administration of the records and the appointment of trained archivists.

3. Further facilities of public access to be provided, especially to the later records.

4. The substitution of summary lists for lengthy calendars or full texts, until the arrangement of the records is completed.

5. The disposal of official documents otherwise than in accordance with the Public Record Office Acts to be prohibited. 6. Official documents now in private hands to be made accessible to students, so far as possible.

It may be inferred from the evidence taken during recent enquiries that much difference of opinion exists as to the best means of carrying out these proposals. In the first place, the provision of suitable repositories is a matter of some difficulty. Experts tell us that in every country it has been found cheaper to erect a permanent repository than to take over and adapt unsuitable buildings; but this estimate is not always accepted by economists. Doubtless a heavy expenditure will have been incurred for housing official papers during the war in London alone. There are also many military and naval records in district commands or outposts, and civil records in the branch offices of Government departments, besides the ordinary judicial records in the provinces. It has been suggested that common repositories should be provided in the county towns at the joint

Le Nouveau Local des Archives de l'État à Anvers,' by M. J. Vannerus, in Revue des Archives, etc., de Belgique' (1908).

expense of the Crown and of the local authorities. Such repositories would enable suitable provision to be made for the long-neglected public records outside London, including the large accessions received during the war. They would also supply better accommodation than now exists, in most parts, for the muniments of ecclesiastical and municipal corporations, together with those of various institutions and even of private owners.

Possibly the establishment of trained archivists is of more importance, at first, than new repositories, for a skilled custodian would quickly transform the present environment of the records. Before the existing repositories can be improved, there must be an ample supply of competent archivists. This is much to be desired, for, as the greatest living authority on archive administration has observed, an archivist ignorant of his profession is in a false position towards the public.'*

Given adequate repositories and expert custodians, the next two items in our list of desiderata would be easily dealt with. It may be noted, however, that the question of expense is the chief difficulty in carrying out any official reorganisation. Even after the war, public expenditure will have to be curtailed in all directions; but there may be exceptions to such rules, as Mr Fisher has reminded us, and the better equipment of the State archives should be one of them. Moreover, the Record Commission has suggested that a reorganisation of our archives would probably reduce the present expenditure; and such a result would doubtless commend itself to the Treasury. The partial statistics collected by the Commission show that the total cost of our archives before the war was a very large one, and it must now have greatly increased; but, if the money were well spent, it would more than suffice for keeping all official documents in decent order, as well as for making them readily accessible by the preparation of descriptive lists. This may appear to be a sanguine estimate of the cost of an efficient archive service, but it is fully warranted by the budgets of other countries, which include every requirement for skilful custody and description.

* First Report of Public Records Commissioners (Appendix), Part ii, p. 136 (Evidence of M. Paul Meyer).

The real cause of the relatively higher cost of our own archives, as well as of the bad value that the State gets for its outlay, is twofold. In the first place we employ three highly paid and untrained clerks to do the work that could be better done by one trained archivist with skilled assistance.* Everywhere the employment of inexpert officials for this purpose has proved a costly failure. Over and over again the authorities have taken steps to put the records into proper order and to compile an intelligible list. The work is begun, but it is either left unfinished or it is quite unintelligent. Presently the junior clerk, who has been detailed for this work, is promoted or needed elsewhere. The work stands still while confusion and dust accumulate. At last the uncompleted list is lost or set aside, and a new one is put in hand.

The second cause of excessive expenditure is to be found in the style of our record publications, which are far more expensive than the summary inventories' produced abroad, though perhaps of greater value to busy students. Unfortunately the cost of calendars or texts prepared by salaried record officers is prohibitive; while the progress of the work is slow and the later period of our history is left untouched. The Records Commission has strongly recommended the substitution of descriptive lists on an improved plan, for the inferiority of such lists as those of the War Office and Admiralty records was pointed out to them by expert witnesses.† After all, the first thing to be done,' as the Parliamentary Committee of 1836 wisely observed, is to let the public know what records exist and where they are to be found': moreover, the money saved in this way would go far to equip a large number of serviceable archives.

The two remaining desiderata stand on a somewhat different footing. The disposal of public records is regulated by statute and appears to be carried out with minute precautions under the existing statutory rules. The Records Commission found, however, that these precautions have not always been observed, and that irreparable losses have been sustained in consequence. The

* The employment of women for this purpose in certain foreign archives is noticed and commended by the Royal Commission.

+ First Report of Public Records Commission, Minutes of Evidence, Q.Q., 2514, 4799.

question here seems to be whether the Government realises that it is possible for public departments to ignore or evade the Act. The Act is only permissive, though permission to destroy records may imply that otherwise they are inviolable. In the next Records Act the law should be defined in such plain terms that even the custodians of military or naval archives will no longer be able to plead that the King's Regulations enable them to condemn old records as useless stores.*

The right of the Crown to reclaim public records that have been at some time or other inadvertently appropriated has never been expressed in the form of a statute. Such powers exist in other countries, and they were actually included in the first Records Act as originally drafted. The section was, however, dropped in view of the opposition of interested parties; and British students have looked on helplessly while records that would fill many a gap in the archives are advertised and eagerly bought by American or German agents. It is needless to suppose that trusty and well-beloved servants of the Crown carried off papers of State from any other motive than the more convenient dispatch of public business; but the unforeseen result is none the less disastrous. Here again the real cause of the evil has been the want of trained archivists in the past. It would have been their duty to supply busy Ministers with the documents required for reference, and they would have accounted for all official papers with less trouble than has been bestowed on many circumlocutory codes. As matters stand, two simple remedies might be applied. One is exemption from taxation in respect of private collections of historical manuscripts so long as they remain on British soil, intact, and accessible to students. The other is the right of preemption by the Crown at a reasonable price; for British institutions can no longer be relied upon to compete with American commissions, and after the war the competition will increase.

It can scarcely be expected that the administrative reforms referred to in this article will be carried out

Second Report, p. 70.

† First Report of Public Records Commission (Appendix), Part ii, p. 3. The Commission, however, has made no recommendation on this point.

without giving some offence to the official interests concerned; but the criticisms of the Records Commission may be regarded as applying to the official system rather than to the public departments individually. The reports of the Commission furnish copious instances of the reluctance of officials to admit the existence of defects which were only revealed by the persistent investigations of the Commissioners. At the same time the Government departments showed that they possessed much resourcefulness in dealing with their current papers; and, as such, the archives of the war are no doubt skilfully handled. The experience of the last fifty years, however, clearly shows that, as soon as records cease to be useful as official precedents, they are in imminent danger of destruction. The reason is plain enough; they are not regarded as historical documents, and in any case the clerks in charge of them are scarcely qualified to select those which should be permanently preserved for historical reference.

From another point of view the departments have not shown much consideration for the requirements of students, nor have they contributed anything towards the elucidation of their own records. On the other hand, the Record Office, like the British Museum, is an institution which is popular with readers who appreciate courteous and scholarly assistance in their researches. For students at a distance the sumptuous calendars of mediæval and later State Papers are a source of gratitude that looks for further favours. On general grounds, however, the Records Commission is of opinion that the Record Office, as at present constituted, is scarcely equal to dealing with the arrears of work that have accumulated during the last two reigns. It has, therefore, recommended that the nominal keepership of the Master of the Rolls should be replaced by a board of record commissioners. Since that report was issued, another Royal Commission has called attention to defects in the clerical administration of the Law Courts, which was also responsible for the unsatisfactory state of the later judicial records inspected by the Records Commission. It would thus seem that the nominal supervision of the national archives by a great and hard-worked judge, on the sole ground of an official tradition dating back to the reign of Edward III, is no longer justified by necessity or expediency.