EXAMINATIONS FOR TILE PUBLIC SERVICE. Up to the year 1855, all the junior appointments in the several branches of the civil service were made upon a system which was practically one of simple and unchecked nomination. Examinations nomi nally existed in a few of the departments, but they had degenerated into an unmeaning form. As a result, inefficient or objectionable persons were not unfrequently admitted to the service; and about 1853, much doubt existing as to the efficiency of the public offices, the treasury appointed a commission to report upon the best method of making first appointments to them. The commission advised the adoption for this purpose of competitive examinations, and in 1855 a move was made in the direction pointed out in their report. In May of that year, an order in council appointed civil service commissioners, whose duty it was to be to examine into and certify the qualifications of persons nominated to junior situations in the civil service. Before granting their certifi cate the commissioners were to ascertain that, in respect of age, health, character, knowledge, and ability, the person proposed to be appointed satisfied the conditions prescribed for the department to which lie had been nominated—such conditions being previously fixed for each department, with the assistance of the commissioners, accord ing to the discretion of its chiefs. The power given to the commissioners by the order in council was therefore only that of rejecting persons nominated for appointments when found to be unqualified, according to standards laid clown for the commissioners. But a limited system of competition was for sonic departments at once introduced— several persons being nominated to compete for a vacant place, and the commissioners by examination selecting the best qualified. The rule applicable to junior appointments in the civil service remained as stated above till 1870. Up to that time, by far the greater number of appointments were made after a qualifying or test examination of persons nominated. In the smaller class of cases in which limited competition was admitted, the qualifying or test examination which preceded the competition usually proved fatal to a large proportion of the nominees; and the number of competitors for each place was too small to give the system of competition a real trial. Competition, however, had from 1855 been employed for the selection of members of the civil ser vice of India. It has also been introduced in the case of first appointments to both the Indian and the imperial medical services, .to the scientific branches of the army, and to the public works department of India. It was inevitable that it should either be car ried further or abandoned altogether, and public opinion was in favor of carrying it further. A committee of the house of commons made a report in favor of competi tion in 1859; and subsequently a resolution to the same effect was carried in the house of commons. Session after session, the general adoption of competition was urged upon the government by men of influence and position in parliament. Accordingly,
in June, 1870, Mr. Lowe being then chancellor of the exchequer, an order in council was issued which made success in an open competition the chief portal to the home civil service.
The new order made certificates of qualification necessary for all such persons as might "be proposed 40 be appointed, either permanently or temporarily, to any situa tion or employment in any department of the civil service," excepting only such as might be formally excepted in a manner hereafter described. Rules as to the age, health, character, and knowledge and capacity of persons appointed were still to be settled for each department; but under this order they were to be settled by the civil service commissioners and the chief authorities of each department acting together on equal terms, subject to the approval of the treasury. All appointments to situations included in a schedule appended to the order were to be made by means of competitive examinations, and this schedule embraced nearly all the principal public .departments. A second schedule contained a list of appointments to which the order was not to extend; and provision was made for adding situations to, and for withdraw ing them from, either of the schedules. It was also Provided that examination must be dispensed with where the qualifications requisite for a situation were professional or otherwise peculiar, and not ordinarily to he acquired in the civil service, or where the chief of the department to which it belonged, and the treasury, agreed in thinking it for the public interest that examination should be omitted; the commissioners in such cases to grant their certificate upon other evidence of fitness, and upon evidence of qualification in respect of age, health, and character. The second schedule excepted from the operation of the order—that is, placed entirely above the control of the com missioners—all situations to which the holder is appointed directly by the crown; all situations included in any order made by the treasury under section 4 of the superan• nuation act of 1b59 (which provides for the superannuation of persons introduced under exceptional circumstances into the civil service); and all situations which are filled in the customary course of promotion by persons previously serving in the same depart ment. Additions have since been made to it of situations to which, on account of the temporary nature of the employment, or of the qualifications required, examination was not deemed to be applicable. Some additions have also been made to the former schedule. Under the teaching of experience, too, many situations of the humbler sort have been withdrawn from it—e.g., those of boatmen and waterrnen in the customs, of office-keepers, messengers, porters, in all public offices, of warders and matrons in pris ons, of excise preventive men in the inland revenue; and for these a test examination only is now employed.