Note (return) — Chapter III

Directly we begin this process one fact becomes obvious. There is no reason why the same system should not be applied to the appointment of the officials of the local as to those of the central government. It is an amazing instance of the intellectual inertia of the English people that we have never seriously considered this point. In America the term Civil Service is applied equally to both groups of offices, and 'Civil Service principles' are understood to cover State and Municipal as well as Federal appointments. The separation of the two systems in our minds may, indeed, be largely due to the mere accident that from historical reasons we call them by different names. As it is, the local authorities are (with the exception that certain qualifications are required for teachers and medical officers) left free to do as they will in making appointments. Perhaps half a dozen Metropolitan and provincial local bodies have adopted timid and limited schemes of open competition. But in all other cases the local civil servants, who are already probably as numerous as those of the central government,[93] are appointed under conditions which, if the Government chose to create a Commission of Inquiry, would probably be found to have reproduced many of the evils that existed in the patronage of the central government before 1855.