CIVIL SERVICE. The civil service of a State is, properly speaking, the entire body of public officials charged with the duty of conduct ing its civil administration. As commonly em ployed, however, the term does not include mem bers of the military and naval establishments, nor members of the legislative branch of the Government; nor, generally, other elective °di cers. Indeed, in the popular connotation of the phrase, the direct representatives of the sover eignty, whether elective or appointive, are not usually included. Thus, neither the appointed members of the British Cabinet nor the elected President of the United States would usually be described as civil servants; while there is no doubt that the Viceroy of India and the Civil Governor of the Philippine Islands, as well as the members of the President's Cabinet, cone under that designation. (In the other hand, it is not usual to include within the description of the civil service mere laborers, though the method of their employment, their terms of office, and, sometimes, the nature of their duties, render it difficult to distinguish them from their co-em ployes of the State, who arc undeniably within the common acceptation of the term.
The civil service of a modern civilized State is a very complex affair. consisting of a multitude of officers and civil servants of various grades, performing a great variety of highly differ entiated functions, and grouped in various ad ministrative departments. Some of the more im portant of these are modern additions to the functions of the State, while others are of great antiquity. Thus. the °dicers of the royal house hold in England. many of the officers of the courts of justice in Great Britain and the United States, can trace their Mikes bad; to the very beginnings of English history, while such great administrative departments as the Post-office. the British Board of Trade, the United States Department of .1gr ic ult ore and Interstate Com merce Commission are of recent origin. It is to the modern additions. especially to the institu tion of a postal service, that we owe the enor mous increase in the number of public servants in the latter half of the nineteenth century. To this should be added, however, as contributing causes, the large increase in the number and size of cities in recent times, with the growing neces sity for police protection, together with the as sumption, by municipalities and by the State, of a variety of services and functions that were previously lett to private enterprise; such as the cleaning of streets, the removal of waste, and the furnishing of a water-supply in cities, and, in some countries, the building and management of telegraph-lines, railways, and eanals, and of irrigation-works on a large scale, by the general Government.
The British civil service now numbers about S0,000 officials of all grades. At the head stand the officers of the Royal Household, under several departments; then come the officers of the House of Lords and the House of Commons; then a vast number of offices or departments, of which the following are the more important: Treasury, home olliee. foreign office, colonial office, India office, war office. admiralty. hoard of trade, post offiee, customs, inland revenue (including stamps, taxes. and excise), exchequer and audit office, office of woods and forests, office of works and buildings, Duchy of Lancaster, public-record of fice, local government board.. education depart ment, civil-service commission, registrar-general's office, stationery office, ecclesiastical commission, charity commission, pat ent-offiee, emigration office. Trinity House. herald's college, law and equity courts, ecclesiastical and admiralty courts, prisons department. British Aluseum, science and art department, diplomatic and con sular corps. Several departments peculiar to Scotland and Ireland form distinct lists, not in cluded in the above. The heads of most of the departments are political officers. changing with the Others, such as the head of the exchequer and audit department, or the commis sioners of customs and of inland revenue, are permanent officials. Excluding the judicial offices, and a few departments where special knowledge is required, the civil service is open to the public generally, the principle of open competition being in as regards most of the departments. See GREAT BRIT:us, paragraph on Goren/ meat.